#the trauma cleaner

[derangedrhythms]

Of course she comes alive in this house of death.

Sarah Krasnostein, from 'The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster'

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein

goodreads

Husband, father, drag queen, sex worker, wife. Sarah Krasnostein's The Trauma Cleaner is a love letter to an extraordinary ordinary life. In Sandra Pankhurst she discovered a woman capable of taking a lifetime of hostility and transphobic abuse and using it to care for some of society's most in-need people. Sandra Pankhurst founded her trauma cleaning business to help people whose emotional scars are written on their houses. From the forgotten flat of a drug addict to the infested home of a hoarder, Sandra enters properties and lives at the same time. But few of the people she looks after know anything of the complexity of Sandra's own life. Raised in an uncaring home, Sandra's miraculous gift for warmth and humour in the face of unspeakable personal tragedy mark her out as a one-off.

Mod opinion: I haven't heard of this one before, but it sounds interesting.

[onebluebookworm]

Ranking Books I Read in 2023: Top 5

5. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

This book is incredibly intimidating, but I'm begging you - if you want a unique horror experience that will change you forever, read this. It's phenomenal. Even Johnny's portions, which I got incredibly fed up with for a while, actually managed to do a 180 and be effective and scary. Seriously, horror fans, if you've been putting it off, read it this year.

4. Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror - W. Scott Poole

As previously stated, there are few scholars on the genre of horror who are better than W. Scott Poole. And this is one of his best, focusing on an important period in history that I honestly don't think gets talked about all that much. It's a very interesting piece that not only talks about horror fiction, but art, poetry, and even music created by people who were affected by the war and its aftermath. It's an amazingly informative read.

3. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay, and Disaster - Sarah Krasnostein

What I thought was going to be a leering look into the lives of people who clean hording situation for a living turned out to be one of the most emotional and moving books I read all year. This really gets at the heart of not only the people who get into those situations, but the lives of the people who help them, through the life story of one very extraordinary person who lived an amazing life.

2. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

If Cotillion had fluff fun and hijinks after a rather stuffy opening, Sophy absolutely hits the floor running and does stop. Sophy rivals some of my favorite Jane Austen heroines in just how fun, smart, and likable she is. This is a great de-stress read, and I recommend it to any Heyer fan, regency romance fan, or just someone who needs something to make them smile

And 1. Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession With the Hideous and the Haunting - W. Scott Poole

This Poole book takes the ideas of Dark Carnivals and distills them to the much more precise idea of the American history of horror. A lot less heavy-handed than Dark Carnivals, but also incredibly well-researched and perfectly willing to skewer American attitudes regarding that hideous and haunting stuff we can't get enough of. W. Scott Poole's best, in my opinion.

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - December 29th - Freebie

my last book club read for 2023 is The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein which sounds pretty interesting 👀 we don't meet again until after the new year so I haven't read it yet but it should be an interesting start for 2024

[proceduralbob]

But the opposite of trauma is not the absence of trauma. The opposite of trauma is order, proportion; it is everything in its place. It is one long green couch in a sunlit corner, looking like it was built for the space and waiting for you. It is an act of wilful seeing, a conscious choice about perspective.

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster, Sarah Krasnostein

[sc0oby]

“She is excellent at patting this pain down, blending it into the landscape the way she contours her foundation.”

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

[leechlovely]

Nest

I feel awful for whoever is unfortunate enough to have to clean up after a particularly messy vampire.

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

"Sick of doing shit and not getting paid for it / Sick of being told you just gotta wait for it / What am I waiting for?"

(The hair I drew him with is from @witcherscreenshotsdump 's mod)

[princehendir]

How did the post breakdown situation of Adrian living with Fenris (iirc) start? who’s. Idea was that. deeply traumatized roomies I’m dying to know more (if you’re comfy w it) -mabari-enthusiast

So the first thing you need to know is that Adrian moving out of the Estate was a very sudden thing and not really like, planned. He stormed out of the house while him & Leandra were arguing (again) (it was bad this time) (Adrian felt like he Had To Get Out Of Here Immediately or else he was going to snap for real) and then realized he was not emotionally capable of going back so he just... didn't.

And on the night he stormed out he happened to bump into Fenris, who was on his way back home from a job. They made some extremely awkward "hi, how are you" conversation (Adrian was visibly distressed and hiding it very poorly) (also they weren't really friends at this point they just sort of knew each other. And Fenris hadn't seen him since before he left for the Deep Roads & still had siblings so it's. Y'know.), which becomes "where are you off to this time of night?" -> Adrian realizes he hasn't thought about it -> "are you okay?" -> I've been better -> "it's not really my business, Hawke, but I think it's a really bad idea for you to be walking around aimlessly, clearly upset, unarmed, in the middle of the night" -> yeah I agree -> "maybe you should go home?" -> Can't -> "okay well that's none of my business. Do you want to come in for a little bit so you can collect yourself?" -> yeah but it won't be for very long I promise. I don't want to put you out. 20 minutes, tops.

Adrian immediately fell asleep on his couch and slept for 10 hours straight. And then after he finally woke up he tried to apologize by cleaning up a little before getting really worried that Fenris would take him doing that as an (*cough* admittedly deserved) criticism of his living space and then freaked himself out and left. It was a deeply mortifying experience for him, but for Fenris it was just kind of a weird thing that happened.

Adrian spent the next couple of weeks like, couch surfing basically. Mostly alternating between crashing at Varric's place and the clinic, but also a couple of night's at Elegant's and a few individual nights on Fenris' couch again, on purpose and prearranged this time because now that Adrian's spending all this time at the Hanged Man they bump into each other a lot more often and Adrian keeps paying for his drinks because he's still embarrassed and wants to apologize. Fenris does think this is weird but he also isn't going to stop him.

Anyways. They kind of hang out now.

Eventually Adrian is like "okay, I can't keep living like this." And he is tentatively working things out with Leandra at this point but also knows that things will just start to deteriorate again if he goes back to living with her rn, so moving back to the Estate is not an option. He feels weird taking advantage of Varric's hospitality any more than he already has (and Varric would never let him pay rent so he would feel bad about it the whole time), Anders isn't an option because again, he would feel bad & weird about it, also they would kill each other. Elegant would absolutely let him rent one of her spare rooms but she lives in kind of an odd out-of-the-way part of Hightown so ye olde commute would suck + there's some other personal baggage in there, so it's not really ideal but he also doesn't know very many people and the other rental opportunities in Hightown are generally kind of, sketch, so it might be his only option.

"Yeah Red, that's rough. Too bad we don't know anyone who lives in a huge mansion all alone, conveniently close to your mother, who you already get along with, and could definitely benefit from a consistent couple of silvers every month but won't take charity. That would just solve all your problems at once." <- quote from Varric Tethras

He has to say that like three times before Adrian completely independently comes up with the idea to ask Fenris if he can rent one of his rooms. An arrangement that Fenris was already primed to be receptive to because Isabela said to him something along the lines of "yeah honestly what would probably improve your situation the most would be a consistent passive income of some sort. It's too bad we don't know any functionally homeless new money guys who come with the added bonus of being someone who cleans when they are upset and is in the middle of a breakdown of some sort so is therefore cleaning all of the time (you live in a hovel btw)"

"The living room is looking nice lately" <- quote from Fenris

(I can neither confirm nor deny whether Varric & Isabela were in cahoots on this. They may or may not have coordinated offscreen. Impossible to say)

So that's how that happened, basically.

[gothmods]

But also if someone really is going to decide to do absolutely nothing with their life despite being thrown a rope on multiple ocassions i would still rather they do that nothing in a clean and safe home. If someone is going to neglect their own physical and emotional wellbeing i would still rather they recieve the same standard of care as someone who doesnt.

Because i dont know if we can ~save~ everyone so to speak. As in i dont know if we can fix all those wrongs in a persons life that have lead to that point. Preventing them from happening to begin with feels less daunting than confronting the baggage thats mounted up over years. A chunk of that is at the end of the day down to them.

But i still want everyone to have a level of dignity in life yknow?

[floofanflurr]

A scene that takes place after chapter 11 of Heart on the Table. Please mind the trigger warning in the tags. Papyrus... is not having a good time. This is not necessary to read in order to read Heart on the Table.

Just a warning. A lot of my chapters tend to end on a slightly more hopeful note. This... just kinda hurts. Though, we will get comfort in story eventually!

Red-tinted water swirled down the shower drain beneath Papyrus.

The blood, it—

It was still covering his hands. Deep in the joints between his phalanges and metacarpals. Mechanically, Papyrus reached for the brush that he used to clean hard-to-reach places.

The bathroom smelled like cleaner, strong enough to make Papyrus dizzy. He’d scrubbed it. Kneeled on those tile floors and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. He’d done the same to the sink. Scrubbed and washed and cleaned until he couldn’t see red anymore, until the cleaner stung his bones from how strong he’d been using it. 

But he could still smell Frisk’s blood.

He poured more soap than he would normally use on his brush, the scent of cinnamon strong in the air. And then he scrubbed at his hands, trying to reach the little flecks of dried blood that stiffened his movements. It itched. It wasn’t bright red anymore. No. It had darkened into a much deeper shade of red.

Papyrus didn’t like it. He hated it.

It wouldn’t! Come! OFF!

He scrubbed harder, but it didn’t help. All he could see was red, all over his bones now. Bright and stringing between his phalanges and metacarpals underneath the thick layer of soap. 

The relatively soft bristles of his brush weren’t WORKING!

He didn’t smell the cinnamon of his soap anymore. All he smelled was rust, thick and sickly sweet in the humidity of the scorching water pouring over him. He needed it gone. It wasn’t going. Frisk’s blood was covering him.

His gaze caught sight the scrub brush he’d used to clean the floor, made of a much sturdier plastic with coarse bristles that would scrub away anything. (That would scratch his bones, the material much too harsh. Using it was something Sans would do. Papyrus didn’t care.)

He lunged forward and almost slipped on the wet tile as he scrabbled for the brush. And then he brought it back to the shower with him and scrubbed.

He scrubbed and scrubbed. The brush was leaving faint marks along his bones, light scratches that stung with the disinfectant that was still on the brush from earlier.

It. Wasn’t. Working!

Red still covered his bones. He could still smell it. It was all he could smell; all he could see. He scratched so hard his hands were tense and aching. His movements were frantic as he ran the bristles over his joints and bones.

Soap wasn’t working. He needed—he needed to get clean.

He threw open the shower once more to grab the container of cleaner resting on the floor nearby. And then he poured it over the brush and scrubbed again.

(This was going to dry out his bones. Make them harsh and brittle. Papyrus a week ago would have been horrified. Papyrus didn’t care.)

He scrubbed. He got more faint scratches on his bones. They burned. The chemicals were drying out his bones. But Frisk’s blood was still COVERING HIM!

He clattered to the basin of the shower, his bones rattling as tears poured out of his sockets. His shoulders shook and he couldn’t see anything other than a smear of red through his blurred vision as he hiccuped and sobbed and scrubbed.

And then the tight grip he had on the brush slipped and it clattered down next to the drain. 

Papyrus reached for it. And stilled.

And then he didn’t pick it up again as he buried his face in his hands and shook. (His hands that didn’t actually have blood on them anymore. But they would always have blood on them. Even if he couldn’t see it.)

The water running down the drain was clear.

The blood was gone. It had probably been gone for a while.

Papyrus sat there, tears mingling with the water as it poured over him for a few more minutes. And then he clambered to his feet.

The air smelled like cleaner. …He smelled like cleaner. Sans would be worried. More worried than he already was. Papyrus’s breakdown probably hadn’t helped in that case.

So Papyrus reached for his body wash again. He poured the soap into his hand, watching as it seeped through his bones, and then brought his hands together to lather it. He didn’t grab a washcloth or his brush. Instead he ran his hands over his dried-out, achy, and still kind of burning, bones, covering them with a thick layer of bodywash, and then rinsing it off.

He repeated this. Again. And again. And he ignored the way he felt kind of brittle, with only some of that being due to the harsh cleaners he’d poured on his bones. He did this until the smell of cleaner on him was so faint that you couldn’t smell it over the strong scent of cinnamon.

He stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel. And then he reached around the sink and pulled out one of his tubs of lotion and brought it back to his room with him.

He sat down on his bed and stared blankly ahead for several more minutes. And then the dry, aching, feeling of his bones reminded him of the way he ruined his meticulously followed care routine. He reached for the tub of lotion that was designed to work with bones, and put it on in a thick layer. The faint scratches on his bones were more obvious to him now that he was out of the water. When the dry, chalky, sensation was somewhat soothed with the lotion, he stood up.

He walked over to his closet, and stared at his battle body for a long second. His armor. His costume. So that he could feel like a hero; like someone who helped others. Someone important that people cared about.

…Some hero he was. 

All he’d done was hurt Frisk. Hurt his little sibling.

And he certainly hadn’t saved them.

Papyrus didn’t grab his battle body. Instead, he grabbed his purple dinosaur sweater that was soft and comfortable, that Sans had gotten for him, and some shorts. He wrapped his scarf around his neck and pulled on his gloves, ignoring blood he could still see flashes of on his bones. 

He turned towards the door to go let Sans know he could shower.

[onebluebookworm]

June 2023 Book Club Picks

Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden History of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples - Rodger Streitmatter: One of the most popular (and irritating) things LGBT people hear from scared reactionaries is "This is a recent trend that kids learn about on tiktok! There are no LGBT people in history." Rodger Streitmatter sets out to prove that assertion wrong by showcasing fifteen same-sex couples that were, for all intents and purposes, close enough to be considered married, from grandfather of American poetry Walt Whitman to glamorous actress Greta Garbo to social reformist Jane Addams.

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein: Husband, father, drag queen, sex worker, wife - Sandra Pankhurst was all of these things over the course of her life. By the time Sarah Krasnostein met her, Sandra had made a business out of handling trauma. In the filthy homes of hoarders and the lonely flats of overdose deaths, Sandra sashays in with a kind word and an understanding air to help people clean up when life becomes overwhelming. As Krasnostein explores Sandra's life leading up to the founding of her business, we learn what Sandra had to go through to become the Trauma Cleaner.

Afterlife: Steven, Sonny, and Del are "widows" - all three met in the hospital when their lovers died within a week of each other from AIDS complications. Through potluck dinners and emotional phone calls, they've tried to help each other pick up the pieces and move on, but things are quickly changing, and not entirely for the better. Del has turned to political activism to distract himself from his anger and pain. Sonny indulges in shallow hook-ups and new-age spirituality to find something to numb himself. And Steven is running himself ragged to take care of everyone but himself. When another friend falls ill, all three must make decisions that may effect the course of their entire lives and the future of their friendship.

I'm Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya: Vivek Shraya has reason to be afraid. The world of the masculine has never been much to her but cruel and aggressive, forcing her to perform at masculinity to get out of her childhood alive. Even as an adult, that fear haunts her, forcing her to make compromises to steel herself against heartbreak, threats, and her own mental health.

Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills: Claudia didn't mean to eavesdrop on the breakup of power couple Paige and Iris. All she wanted to do was use the bathroom. But now Claudia is on the wrong side of prickly Iris's temper, and will do anything to make amends. Unfortunately for Claudia, that means being thrown into a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream against her will. But all that changes when she meets the goofiest, most charming boy she's ever known and she starts to legitimately bond with Iris.

[heatobrienswife]

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[beskad]

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[seabie]

this just came back to me. in 2022 my gynecologist wrote my first referal for a hysterectomy. she picked a hospital she herself had worked at before and knew they have an endometriosis specialist team. despite her best intentions, that very hospital refused the hysterectomy and did endometriosis excision surgery instead.

the day after the surgery when i was packing my bags ready to go home one of the doctors came in and told me "i hope it gets better some day. so you will only need an ibuprofen once a day. i need that sometimes too."

the absolute GALL. The NERVE. to tell me "i hope it gets better" after she refused to do the surgery i came in for. after she refused to help me. to "HOPE" it magically "gets better" as if there was nothing she couldve done to influence that outcome. incredible

[toyourliking]

have some new books on the shelf 😌