witty_name | Recent Entries

A rogue prince escapes after being caught in league with another kingdom to invade and conquer a third. His escape angers the jinn who find him so disruptive to their world-story that they take him back to their realm to execute him after a mock trial. A jinnee huntsman, who is failing to find an even more disruptive princess, saves the prince so as to learn more about his prey.

The prince and princess are from the same kingdom and, because the jinn have taken them from separate realities, they are in a way the same person. The prince plans multiple escapes from the jinn even though he is daunted by their ability to disempower humanoid magic. He's willing to use the princess as a means of freeing himself from the jinn, and when he finds her he follows her and escapes. Enraged, the jinn swear death upon them both.

The princess sneaks into the jinn realm to assassinate their leaders. She was taken by the jinn as a child, escaped, and has long planned her revenge. The prince stops her so as to please the leaders and earn his own freedom. They battle and, by means of jinn power that the princess has stolen, the prince and princess fall out of the jinn realm and into a reality that is ending. Having stolen the jinn power from her, the prince bargains for his life and the princess agrees to work with him. The power is in need of a power-source and they seek one together. The prince, however, cannot be trusted and he breaks the power in a drunken debacle. Still, the princess and the prince work together to escape the ending reality.

All hope seems lost until, by uniting with an intimate intense sympathy, they attract the attention of the jinn who arrive and kidnap them again. Separated in the jinn realm, the prince is tortured and interrogated by the huntsman. The princess is visited by a rogue jinnee who has learned that she was also kidnapped by the jinn and now wants revenge. The prince and princess are taken before the jinn leaders for execution, but the rogue jinnee helps them escape. The princess kills one leader and finds them to be an illusion. The prince vows to help the princess find the real leaders, but he is killed by a jinnee judge. The princess takes the judge hostage.

The prince finds more versions of himself from separate realities in the afterlife where they have learned to avoid being consumed by God's avenging angel. The prince plans his return to the jinn realm and his reunion with the princess. The princess learns all she can about the real jinn leaders from the judge and then joins the prince in the afterlife, as she believes that the real leaders are hiding there. The prince and princess convince the other versions of themselves, along with the huntsman who was betrayed by the judge, to help them enchant the avenging angel and be taken to God (the real jinn leader).

They succeed and God tells them that he wanted to be found by them and that he's willing to make them Gods of the jinn if they spare his life. If they kill him, he vows that all the separate realities will destroy each other and in the end he will rise again to the same position. The prince wants to be a God and fears the destruction of realities. The princess wants her revenge and does not trust the God as he has already lied to them. The prince and princess battle, the princess deceives the prince with a kiss before using the jinn power to send him back into one of the realities, and the princess slays God. The prince regrets his loss of the princess and the possible destruction of the realities. He wants to help the jinn prepare, but they do not remember him as he has arrived in a different jinn reality than the one in which he had been originally taken captive.

So, there was one jinn reality and multiple humanoid realities. Now, both are multiple. Will only the humanoid realities be penetrated by other realities in the destruction, or will the jinn realities also penetrate each other? How does erasing a humanoid's memory and replacing it with a jinnee's life make someone a jinnee? Will the God's jinn power still function now that the God is dead?

Great! I know who I am, what I need to do, I have the knowledge and the tools, let's walk this path!

(KAPOOFBAH!)

Whoa, sun in my eyes. Wait, where am I? What have I been doing? How much time has past? (groan)

Ok, let's start again. I know who I am, what I need to do, I have the knowledge and the tools, let's walk this path!

(KAPOOFBAH!)

Whoa, sun in my eyes. Wait, where am I? What have I been doing? How much time has past? (groan)

Ok, let's start again...

I love Australia's love of sport. People of all ages stay fit and social by enjoying a variety of ball games. Part exercise, part culture, playing footy is very Australian.

As a mother of young children, I do not understand the expectation for parents to pay a considerable amount of money and drive across the city every weekend for six months (every year) so that the kids can have a kick. If an older child shows dedication and talent then formal training is justified. But for the younger ones, all they need is helpful family members and a grassed area. Community, not commodity.

If we visit the history of AFL (the footy I know and love), it was families walking to the oval for a relaxing afternoon away from work. The men would play, the kids would imitate them. Maybe some locals brought cool drink and snacks to sell. Simple, low cost, and no pressure to do anything other than to have fun.

Let's reclaim this, improve this.

Yes, the grassed areas require maintenance and respect. Also, consistent referees and working equipment (balls, goal posts, team-colour jerseys) require the extra effort of some dedicated families. But I am not convinced that these obvious responsibilities mandate large up-front fees, parents chauffeuring their children well outside their own neighborhoods, and a big-four bank taking the credit for teaching our kids the game.

Sports for kids, not consumers.

(This post was inspired by my son's insistence that all of his friends were signing up for footy after a salesman was invited into his school to lay the hard sell on a group of seven year olds.)

Please share your comments below, and thank you for reading.

When my second child repositioned himself quite sideways in gestation Week 23, I felt like a funhouse mirror looks.

One assumes that precious baby will quickly complete the turn and head for the exit per normal, but, no. When four weeks' time finally brought something more comfortable I rejoiced without asking.

Our private midwife knew to ask, and Maria’s wisened hands felt baby’s head now at my ribcage. One very successful natural birth already under my belt, this breech position worried me not. But Maria’s College of Midwives forbade breech home-births, and so jeopardised my plans.

How to turn a baby? Stretch, relax, hang upside down. Failing that, find a morose obstetrician to retch the little bugger into place. Ouch. And, unsuccessful, as I felt my stubborn inmate engage his tiny rump into the birth canal soon after the second attempt.

So we requested a trial of labor. The Law here allows natural breech births but the hospitals hate them - Dr Morose asked us to go away as the hospital didn't want the bad press if something went wrong.

But I was the perfect candidate for a natural breech birth as I had: already birthed naturally with success; a frank breech-positioned baby (bottom down, toes at the nose); and a confident team of myself and the same midwife from my first child. So the public hospital could not deny my trial of labor (which means ‘to have a go naturally before resorting to a cesarian section’).

Still wanting my home-birth, I lay alone in bed, imagining the extraordinary sensations of 02:30 at Week 38 to be the baby turning. Yet I was open to whatever was happening - all expectation and judgement had ceased as greater forces took command. (Also, an orgasmic bowel movement had left me in a state of happy delirium.)

04:00 had me wishing company so I shifted into the bedroom where daddy and soon-to-be big brother lay sleeping. But their tiniest movements rattled me to my core, so daddy got up and brother shifted to the far edge and slept on until after first-stage labor.

But was I in labor? I neither knew nor needed to know as I had unconsciously relinquished all assumptions.

Intensity increased, so I rolled back and forth. Needing to vocalize, a "MOO" came out and I accepted this without question. MOO-ing grew louder, longer, operatic.

Then I needed to move, so circuited between toilet, change table, and bed.

(Comic Relief: every time I neared the toilet I felt, "NO! I DO NOT WANT TO SIT ON THE TOILET!" But I continued, sat, and then felt, "I AM SO GLAD I AM SITTING ON THE TOILET!" This repeated at least three times and the relief of laughing at myself was good medicine.)

Daddy rang the midwife who asked me seemingly ridiculous questions, such as, "Are you having contractions?" and "What do you think is happening?" Talking was not what the baby or I needed, but I am polite and managed to murmur a few, "I don't know"s. Maria asked me to feel my own abdomen, which was excruciating under gentle pressure, and said that something may be happening and she would casually make her way over in about 45 minutes.

So evil. Time was not a thing until she said 45 minutes and then my anticipation of her arrival was the first stressful moment in Whatever-This-Was.

She arrived and in her wisdom did nothing but silently observe me at first. She now knew that this was quickly-progressing labor and baby would come soon. She asked the same ridiculous questions (bless her, but baby and I had this all sorted without any intellectual thought!).

You must know, at this point in the story, that my midwife Maria is most excellent. From here, we were on the same page and her questions were asked bare moments after I'd silently reckoned the exact same thing. At around 06:00 I wondered if I was dilating (when the cervix opens, to 10 centimetres, so the baby can exit). I completed the thought and immediately she asked if I wanted her to check.

She checked me… and then she lied to me. "Um, maybe about 8 centimetres, maybe. So, no hurry, but if we're going to hospital we should go now." I didn't want to go, I had everything I needed to birth at home, but I'd promised her to breech-birth at hospital, so off we went.

***

The 20-metre walk to her car took ten minutes as I had many contractions to stop for, and once there sitting down was not an option. I held myself up on hands and knees over the towels lining her back seat, leaning on the backrest. Car motion caused me stress and I feared my body closing up, so I chanted "OPEN, OPEN!" (to my midwife's silent dismay as I was 9 centimetres and she didn't fancy helping me birth on the side of the road).

I had transitioned in the car (I realized later, from first to second stage labor). The hospital wheelchair I was offered in the driveway could not be used in the common manner, as my baby's bottom was sitting on his exit, so I kneeled and held the drip-bag pole.

***

The gentlemen who designed the new hospital had placed the Maternity elevator just passed the food court, so everyone gets a view of the panting, intense women on their way to one of life’s most private and sacred events.

Luckily, I did not care as, my consciousness was about two meters above my body viewing everything through a mist - pure observation, lacking judgement or any emotion aside from serene certainty. I could also see inside my body in black and white (hey, it’s dark in there), with a moonlight-like glow to whatever needed my awareness.

06:54, wheeled into Room 9, I was left alone to climb off the wheelchair and walk around the elevated hospital bed, where I then raised my arms, leaned forward over the bed, and broke the waters. Bang! I didn't KNOW what to do - I simply did what needed to be done, without thought or question, and smiling like the pretty lady in the birth video I’d seen the week before. Standing birth position, leaned forward over the bed, turning my head gently from side to side, breathing and smiling.

Since my first natural birth, I had come to hate Hollywood's stereotypical birthing woman - hysterical, helpless, screaming at people. So I now politely called out, "Excuse me, the water's broken." My eyes closed, I viewed the scene from above and within, the sound of shoes entering the room.

Baby birthed a tiny, slippery bottom and I held it in my hand.

Contractions, quickly, still painlessly. Out fell the legs, then the hips and torso. The exiting shoulders caused a tiny internal tear that I could see in moonlight but knew was not a problem.

Now comes the moment of truth.

A breech birth means that the head exits last, and as the uterus is empty it has nothing to contract onto, so the mother must push out the head unaided. I knew this and was preparing for it as the second midwife, who had arrived and jumped over the bed just moments before, reached inside me to tilt baby's chin downward to protect against extending the neck. I said, "Can I push the head out?" and the midwives unisoned, "PUSH THE HEAD OUT!"

You have to get the head out quickly. So I took a breath and pushed. But the breath wasn't big enough, and the push wasn't strong enough, and I felt fear for the first time since the journey began. So I pushed just that tiny bit more. 07:11.

Out came baby’s head, caught by Maria as I was already holding the bottom and back. Like my first son, his skin was the color of grey clay and he still slept. I stepped back and he was lifted up as they came with the scissors. I asked for delayed cord cutting, but now the hospital staff were taking over and my natural birth was cut short. (But there was but a drop of blood that came out the cord, so the little man got what was his.)

I took a quick look around and saw that 1) I had barely bled either, 2) I was naked but for a pair of fuzzy red and white striped socks, and 3) my baby was face-up on the Neonatal Resuscitation table - awake and screaming loudly.

Two neonatal paediatricians and a neonatal nurse were trying to resuscitate a breathing baby. This is standard hospital procedure for a breech birth, but baby was very upset, bright lights in his eyes, and using his brand new little hands to beat away the oxygen mask they forced over his face.

I may have been disturbed by this, but the comical bouncing of his freed-from-breech legs, up and down again and again, boing boing boing, warmed my heart.

I stood above him, stroking his little head and letting him know it would be ok.

I am an older mother with about 12 years on the two male paediatricians who stole glances at the standing, calm, naked, and somewhat tattooed woman now in their personal space. Natural births were not their forte, and I may have been one of the only happy and healthy mothers they had ever seen.

My request to pick up my baby was denied, so Maria came over and asked with her stern gaze and the hospital staff had to admit that they could stop trying to resuscitate a screaming baby. I picked him up, he quieted immediately, and I hoisted us upon the bed for a cuddle.

Still reeling from the natural birth, the staff stayed for awhile to observe and I was happy to have them. All that mattered was me and the baby - Dr Morose could have shown up and I would have greeted him warmly.

All was now calm and quiet.

***

Postscript: There was one un-natural thing, as baby's placenta wasn't coming out and after two hours I felt quite unwell, so the midwife administered a shot of hormone to knock it out of me. The shot was painful, but effective.

Natural birth, especially when breech or multiple, is not for everyone. A mother should have the information, resources, and support she needs to make an informed choice for herself.

Considering how sensitive I was to the slightest movement or my own gentle touch, and my inability to answer even simple questions, a more standard hospital birth full of strangers moving and touching and demanding answers to difficult questions would have been an absolute nightmare for me. But some women are happy with the system and use it time and again, and unfortunately not everyone can afford a private midwife.

Obstetrics and maternity are still new fields of medicine and the experiences of women need a much larger place in the decisions made by hospital administration and staff.

The media’s portrayal of human birth is often vulgar, misleading, and degrading to what in many cases can be a calm and sacred experience for mothers and family. People who are disturbed or mislead by those images should abandon the media service that provided them with a note of dismissal to the management.

I hope that this story, Casper's birth story, will inform those who read it so that more mothers are supported in their birth choices.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

When Thor told Loki that, "You have no idea. Been quite the revelation since we last spoke.", what did he mean?
Thor and Loki in the elevator on Sakaar

Their last conversation had been in the prisoner's quarters and Thor was not in a talking mood. But then he had time to think up in Hulk's penthouse and he would have realised that:

A. Loki had allowed him back onto Asgard. Scourge was under orders to annouce Thor's arrival, but not to ignore his request for the Bifrost or to kill him. Loki wanted Thor to be able to return.

B. Loki could have killed Odin, but instead only banished him (and a relatively comfortable banishment at that, compared to what Hella had).

C. Loki was a peaceful (if laissez faire) ruler of Asgard as he pretended to be Odin. He could have warred, plundered, slandered Thor, made dangerous and damaging mischief. But instead he relaxed and gloried in the luxury of palace life, aggrandised himself, and left the Realms to do their own self-governance (perhaps for some future purpose...).

A+B+C= Loki is not evil. Self-centered and devious, but not evil. He wanted to be a king, ideally "the rightful king of Asgard", and ruling was his priority.

Thor knew that Loki would always try to take the crown for himself, and by trapping him on Sakaar with the obedience disk he could count on Loki to return to Asgard and "save the day" as a back-up plan if he, Valkyrie and Hulk could not depose Hella themselves.

Thor learned that Loki was loyal to Asgard, would do anything to frame himself as the rightful king, and that retrieving the Tesseract was a very strong motivator...

Loki in the treasure vault in Ragnarok movie

Loki in the treasure vault in Ragnarok movie

Some people's skin just can't take industrial-strength products.

(Me.)

Like most women in my culture I shaved my underarms and applied antiperspirant or deodorant. My skin irritates easily so I had tried all the hippie-shop alternatives (still irritating) and suffered along.

Then one morning nine years ago I looked at the skin under my arms and it looked like a dead, bloated fish.

Done.

I stopped shaving or using antiperspirant and deodorant. The first two days nothing happened. Then the wickedest. smell. ever. came out, along with an odd yellow substance. I kept washing with a mild soap and after about five days the purge was done and normal perspiration began.

My priority was healing the skin, so I didn't use product or shave for about a month while I studied the causes of underarm odor. Sweat itself has little odor when coming from a healthy body. It's the bacteria that live on the underarm hair that produce the more noticeable odor as they go through their life cycle.

I had to remove the hair to control the bacteria, so I learned to wax my own underarms by attending a beauty therapist who showed me how to do it. If possible, waxing (you or someone else) is the best way to control underarm odor because the bacteria cannot colonise effectively.

Then I became a mommy and time for self-care narrowed to a window just large enough for brushing teeth.
Nine years later I have found the best way to manage underarm odor to be the following:

1) Wash daily with a handmade soap and warm water.

2) If you shave, use a fresh razor by changing the blades often. I have a re-usable handle and disposable blades. This will minimise skin irritation and get as much of the hair as possible.

3) There are two deodorants that I have found that both control smell and are non-irritating. And I have tried many, many, many. Both are Australian (where I live), but one has websites in many countries.

The first, and best, is a handmade paste I purchase from the herbalist up the road. The other, still very good, is made by a commercial natural product company. Because this dreamwidth account is not for selling products I'm not naming them here, but if you email me at jarviecATgmailDOTcom I will reply with the names and contact info.

I cannot recommend an anti-perspirant as someone would need to pay me good money to intentionally prevent my body from removing waste products exiting near major lymphatic nodes.

Thank you for reading and please share your experiences.

PS. I would rather be in a room full of clean people who smell like people than a room full of product-covered people who smell like a chemical factory. It's ok to smell like a human!

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

To begin, I had the worst acne you have ever seen. I can say that without knowing anything about you because it was really that bad.

At times the acne went from my chest up my neck, across my face into my ears and nose, onto my scalp and then down my neck and upper back. Giant, painfull purple welts.

Most times the acne was more of the whitehead and tender red bump variety with at least a dozen eruptions at any time. Started age 12 and continued daily until my early 30's.

In my early 30's I had a good job and decided to do a round of spa facials and skin care products. I had tried many products before this (department store, pharmacy, doctor's advice, hippie stuff). Nothing had helped and many made it worse. The spa promised that their products and treatment would clear up my acne.

I did everything as directed: facials on time, products used daily, and completed the entire course. The result was obvious and two fold.

1) I had just as much acne as I did before, and
2) The spa treatments and products had thinned the skin on my face.

The thinning was most pronounced on my nose, cheekbones, and brown line. My skin was thin as paper. The texture was smoother, but the overall effect was not healthy and gave me a sallow and sunken look.

Done. I have not had a spa treatment or used any commercial face cleanser or moisturiser in eight years. The skin on my face grew back after a few months, thank goodness, and is healthy again.

So how did I clear my acne? A combination of A. home made and very basic cleansers + B. removing excess bacteria from my sleeping environment + C. eliminating inflammatory foods from my diet.

A. The skin on your face regenerates quickly and is perfectly capable, for most people, of hydrating and moisturising itself. If you do not wear face-covering product then the only thing you need to clean with is water and a soft washcloth. Use cold water (the best temperature) if you have no product on your face. Use warm water (never hot) if you need to remove light sunscreen. Always wipe clean in a downward motion, like smoothing the feathers on a bird.

Make up or heavy sunscreen? Mix 2 parts olive oil to 1 part castor oil, gently apply a small amount to your face and then gently wipe away downwards with a warm wet washer. I sometimes rinse the washer and wipe a second time.

That's it. Healthy skin does not need a moisturiser. There will be a transition period, similar to if you go off shampoo, where your face learns to balance its own oils for about a month. Then you have normal skin - not "oily" or "dry" or "combination".

B. Is about bacteria awareness. Change your pillowcase twice a week if you suffer from constant acne and this will remove an unseen irritant. Launder your blankets and other bedding more often and use a light or fragrance-free product in your wash (irritant awareness).

C. Yes, I know that there are scientific studies that say food does not cause acne. I have over a decade of empirical evidence to the contrary. Right now I have three pimples that I got for my birthday because I ate chocolate and refined sugar for a week. For me, length and combinations are the dose that make the poison. If I eat one bit of good-quality chocolate every few months no acne will apear. But if I keep eating it, or eat the cheap stuff, the acne will start in earnest. Combining chocolate with other sugary foods makes it worse, and adding alcohol (another inflammatory) will make the acne erupt everywhere. If you can learn how your diet affects your acne, you can control both.

FAQ

Q. What if my skin is still dry after a month?
A. Then you have an irritant to manage. Look for cold winds, chemical burn from a sunscreen (yes, even "face" sunscreens), dehydration caused by low water consumption, make up, the products you wash your hair or bedding with. If you're washing your face with water only, try the oil wash while managing irritants.

Q. What if my skin is still oily after a month?
A. Wash it more often, but stay gentle. If you're using the oil wash, do a water-only wash before bed or in the morning before you apply your make up or heavy sunscreen.

Q. Will the water or oil wash reverse the signs of ageing?
A. Nothing reverses the signs of ageing. NOTHING. You can prevent the signs of ageing by wearing sunscreen, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, drinking plenty of clean water, and not wearing make up as the removal pulls on your face and tests its elasticity. Commercial products that claim to reverse the signs of ageing are actually thinning your skin to reduce lines, but this weakens the skin tissue and the long-term effects of these products are unknown.

Q. WIll this work for teenagers?
A. Depends. Because your hormones are shifting into reproduction mode your skin (and other body parts) will be more sensetive to stimulation. If you can keep your face calm and protected then this care regime should help, if not completely cure, your acne.

Combine this face care regimine with the hair care regimine in my first post and you can save yourself quite a bit of money every year.

Thank you for reading! Please let me know how you go and if you have any questions.

A. Because I stopped using shampoo and conditioner.

I had tried them all. The $2 bottle, the $20 bottle, the hippie-flower-organic, the salon-grade, the medicated. When dandruff lasts for almost a decade, you try all of them, and I did.

Nothing helped, most made it worse, and all of them dried and thinned my hair. Every wash would bring clumps into the drain catch.

So I hit the search engine for a way to make my own hair care products and found a blog post by a woman who had stopped using shampoo entirely with excellent results. I did what she did and yes, it works. If you want to try it, here it is (with extra tips for success from me):

No Poo Hair Care:
1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda (aka bi-carb, baking soda)
2 cups warm water
non-glass container for mixing
*Dissolve bicarb in water, tip it on very wet scalp and hair, work in for one minute, rinse thoroughly.

then,

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (use only a couple of drops for children)
2 cups cool water (the colder the better)
(same) non-glass container for mixing
*Dilute vinegar in water, tip it on just cleaned scalp and hair, rinse immediately and throughly in cool water.

afterwards,

If your hair is dry or tangled when brushing, add a very small amount of food-grade oil to affected areas and brush through. Style as usual. (I use coconut oil.)

If your scalp is dry or irritated (eg. vinegar dilution feels too strong), then your washing temperature is too hot, your hair needs more brushing with a gentler brush, or your head has a sunburn or chemical burn. Aloe Vera juice applications can help while you fix those other factors.

Q. Will your hair have the same kind of clean feel as before?
A. No, this is a different kind of clean.

Shampoo strips everything from your scalp and hair, and conditioner then coats the damaged surfaces.

Bi-carb sticks to debris and odours which then get washed away together. I do not know what the vinegar does, but please pay attention the first time you use it because the effect is dramatically softening without any of the heaviness of conditioning products.

There is an adjustment period of about a month wherein your scalp will re-learn how much body-oil it needs to secrete into the environment atop your head. BE PATIENT, KEEP AT IT. Get a good hairbrush (good, not expensive) and gently brush your hair many, many times a day. I am eight years poo-free and have had very healthy hair from six months after I started.

Q. Will this cost more than shampoo and conditioner?
A. No, it will cost much less. Also, other issues you have been spending money on may improve. My very bad acne improved dramatically after I stopped using shampoo and conditioner (along with other things I stopped using and eating).

Q. Can I pre-mix the bi-carb and vinegar into separate containers and keep them ready in the shower?
A. Yes, other people have, but I have always mixed them up fresh.

Q. Do I need to wash my hair everyday?
A. That depends. If you get your hair dirty or smelly every day (eg. you work in a seafood shop), then yes, wash it everyday. If not, I suggest washing it three times a week for best results and more often if your scalp is irritated.

Q. Can I dye my hair at home?
A. Yes, and I have successfully. Do not use the shampoo or conditioner products in the colouring box, just rinse well with water and then go back to the usual bi-carb & vinegar routine.

Q. If I go to the hair salon they will be using shampoo and conditioner as part of my service. Is this a problem?
A. Yes. I tried this once with a very mild shampoo only. The result was a mildly irritated scalp, and the haircut did not "sit" right. The shape of the haircut depended on my hair being stripped of all natural oils and so it lost it's shape. I can usually find a salon that will just water-spray my hair and then trim or shape it as needed.

Every time someone ends their dependence on a commercial product, especially one that needs industrial strength infrastructure and chemical compounds or comes in a disposable container, they have improved their own quality of life. Please let me know if you try this or have any questions.