With Love from Your Fallopian Tube: Corina Thorose - original writing from The Blurb

I’m sitting in the silent study area of the library. So much reading to do and not enough hours to do it in. I have my highlighter in one hand and my text book pinned beneath my other as if to stop it from escaping when the truth is, all I really want to do is fling it out the window.

The tinny sounds of muffled music leaking from my neighbours earphones make me grind my teeth. He is sitting across from me, on the other side of the divider. I glare at the wooden board, hoping he is receiving the bee stings I am sending him with my brain. He doesn’t turn his music down. Why would he? The sign only says silent study area.

And then a phone ringing. Not just ringing, but one of those horrendous ‘real’ tones, and what has the jackarse chosen? Some hideous offensive rap, naturally. ‘All these bitches and all these hoes…’ How profound. But no more than you’d expect from someone who leaves their phone in a library, in a silent study area. Why is it that no matter how many times they tell you to switch your phone off, there is always some butt who leaves it on? In a movie, in class, on a plane, in life…

Not only that, but the moron actually answers it. Not troubling to keep his voice down, he is laughing and chatting to whoever is on the other end. People around me are shifting restlessly and I want to kill this arse cleave for disturbing everyone. He shows no sign of remorse, on the contrary he is giving directions to his equally obnoxious friend as to where he is located in the library, no doubt so they can both cause a ruckus and disrupt those who are actually at university to learn.

I can never bring myself to be one of those hardarses who hisses ‘Shhh!’ at people, so I try to concentrate, but within minutes the sound of the girl over the aisle picking her nose too loudly is bothering me so I declare it a lost cause and stand up, grabbing all my books and leaving in a huff. I treat the offenders to the dirtiest look I can muster and storm off, but I am infuriated when no one even notices.

As I march out to of the library and across campus I am treated to one of the more annoying things in life. Two of those cheerleader type girls who despite their miniscule size, manage to spread out across the entire path and then walk really, really slowly so as to cause major delays in traffic flowing both ways. I clear my throat loudly and give a pointed sigh, but they just amble on, on their Sunday frigging drive, not worried about anyone else. Oh, they know I’m here. But they’re not about to alter their stroll for me or anybody else. I’m beginning to get a headache from grinding my teeth so much, so I say a loud ‘Excuse me,’ and walk right through the centre of them.

In the car it is no different. I try to mellow out the foul temper I am in by listening to Baz Lurhman’s ‘Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen’, a piece I absolutely adore, but it occurs to me now that I would love it that much more if I could ever forgive Baz for doing such a potentially inspirational piece in such a FLAT, RELENTLESS MONOTONE.

Honestly, do these people know how to drive? Ordinarily I am not one to tailgate, but my mood is off the charts today. I jam as hard as I can on my breaks to make a point to the learner who is creeping along in the right lane at about forty kilometres an hour even though we are in a seventy zone. I try to tell myself to be patient, we were all learners once and I certainly didn’t like it when people would give me a hard time. But I justify my actions by deciding that I don’t want to hassle the driver, I want to hassle who ever is supervising the driver, for letting her crawl along in the right hand lane while passing snails are outstripping us.

‘Oh, why are we braking?’ I snarl out loud as she goes still slower. If she does that one more time, I am going to get out and walk and I’ll still get there before she does. I finally weave past her, only to catch every red light in creation and then to get stuck behind a bus who pulls out despite the fact that I’m sailing along at top speed and have to jam on my breaks again, only to get passed by the same learner anyway as I wait for this idiot to pick up speed.

I stop at the supermarket to buy some deodorant, but hit another wall of intense stupidity there. I wonder who it is, up there in the big supermarket head office, who decides to change everything around every few weeks and why on God’s green Earth they decide to do it? I walk up and down the bathroom aisle for almost fifteen minutes, imagining the vein in my head beating a big purple bruise against my brain. I can find men’s deodorant no problem, but where the hell is the women’s? Logic dictates that they should be right next to each other. But ours is not a logical society. They are nowhere to be found and I search and search until I can feel myself welling up out of sheer frustration. I’m unwilling to cry in the middle of Safeway, so I decide, bugger it, and just grab a Lynx off the shelf. I’ll smell like a man for a while. I know there is something else I need, but can’t recall what it is. Obviously I won’t remember until I’ve already paid and left the store. And sure as god made little green apples, I’m halfway down the street before I remember that I’m out of soap too.

When I finally get home, I am storming up the stairs, in the most feral frigging mood ever. All I want to do is take a shower and climb into my jammies and go to bed. But as I stalk up the stairs, my sister, Empress of Yon Bathroom, is walking around in her towel and she employs her I’m-being-nice-to-you-so-do-me-a-favour voice. ‘I’m in the middle of waxing,’ she tells me sweetly, ‘so please don’t use the bathroom yet.’

Great. Completely awesome. It will be hours before I get to take my shower. I don't answer her but slam my bedroom door and hurl my books onto my bed. My life for someone to take this out on right now…

So I make myself a cup of tea, even though I have to refill the kettle. God, all I do with my life is refill this effing kettle. I could be a professional kettle filler. Don’t people know you’re supposed to put water in for the next person when you’re done? It's just proper kettle etiquette.

For the love of arse, I am the clumsiest oaf on the face of the earth. As I attempt to set my cup of tea down on my dressing table, my pocket gets hooked on the draw handle and I knock all my potions and bottles off onto the floor. I employ my choicest swear words and as I turn to try and pick them up, I trip over my hair dryer chord and spill tea all over myself, my bed and the carpet.

In a vain attempt to cheer myself up, I put Toy Story on. It almost works too, until Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out the window, and I am completely stricken. Oh my God, somebody tell me why I am crying! This isn’t even sad, and here I am weeping like a five year old girl because the cartoon character fell out of a window, which I know for a fact he survived and then went on to live a full and complete life!

And dear Lord, how much time does one need in the bathroom? She’s still in there, preening herself for who only knows what. The waxing is complete, but the water hasn’t stopped running despite the fact that we are in a drought, and after the water stops there will be the blow-drying and the moisturizing and the exfoliating and I just want to take a shower…

The next day I get an attack of the fat and uglies. How I hate this. I am bloated beyond belief. I do my jeans up and stare in dismay at the muffin top they give me. Oh, how I long for the days when I was between a size eight and ten. What a beautiful time in my life. Now I'm in these horrid pants that are massive anyway, and still don’t fit, and my t-shirt looks terrible and I've got these big chunky wrestlers’ arms and about a million chins. I’m tearing up again and can’t stand to look in the mirror. ‘Well, why don’t you lay off the Big Macs then, you fat motherfucker!’ I wail at my reflection. Oh, wonderful, my skin has broken out. I am in my twenties, I shouldn’t suffer from this anymore, but I have a spot the size of Saturn’s obese mother in law on my nose and no amount of makeup will cover it. And my hair is flat and greasy. And I just shaved my pits, so why is there a five o’clock shadow on them? And oh, man, using men’s deodorant on freshly shaven pits is not a good idea. Lynx obviously never expected men to shave there, because its not sting free. Holy crap, my pits are on fire.

My boyfriend tries to perk me up by taking me to the beach. Its one of the last hot days of the year, so we celebrate this by driving for two hours down to Anglesea to enjoy the beach down there where there are fewer people. Only when we get there, there is no one at all around, because of course, it’s freezing frigging cold. The sky is cloudy and the air is chill and I reluctantly strip down to my bikini because no way did I come this far not to swim, but I swear to God, I see him shudder when he takes in my wobbly stomach. When I confront him about it, he swears I look good, and no, my bum doesn’t look big in this, but I know he’s lying so I ignore him and trundle along to ‘our spot.’

When we get there it’s even worse than I feared. The tide is out, so all the sand has been washed away to reveal the vicious rocks below and we slice our feet open trying to cross them. And there is seaweed all over the beach. It looks filthy! I look around me in utter misery, then yell, ‘This is crap!’ at the top of my lungs. I fling myself face down in the sand and cry. Of course, if anyone else had seen a tantrum like that, they would have tried to find out what was the matter, but oh no, I have the most insensitive boyfriend in the world, and he walks on and leaves me to it. Ten minutes later he shows no sign of coming back, so I spitefully get up and follow him over to where he is sitting. He’s got a wary look on his face and he doesn’t say a word, probably out of fear, and so he should be scared! I’m ready to break limbs at this point.

We drive back in near silence and I flick through the pages of the Cosmo I bought at the servo. I hate every one of these skinny models, I wish they’d all fall on their heads and die so that the world will be rid of skinny, pretty, stupid girls! I much on Cheezels, hoping to make myself feel better, but I just feel fatter and uglier. No Cosmo model would ever eat Cheezels. It’s at this point my boyfriend chooses to put on ‘Baby Got Back’ and I turn to him and snarl, ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me?’

He is very still, as if he is approaching a sleeping bear and is trying to figure out the best and most tactful way to poke it in the eye. ‘You seem a little bit…upset today,’ he ventures nervously.

‘I might stop off at the shop in a minute. Is there anything you want me to…pick up for you?’ He puts is so delicately, but it’s that knowing look on his face that drives me over the edge. This is some sort of irrational attack on women, I know it! The injustice of being female rages inside of me. Forgive me for being a woman! I’m so terribly sorry my swelling and leaking and smearing and bleeding is inconvenient to you. I suppose the male equivalent of what we go through would be like trying to have sex with a golf club jammed right up your urethra, can you understand that? And how dare he suggest that my feelings are some sort of unreasonable hormonal demand?

‘Just what are you implying?’ I snap. But he’s lost his nerve, and lets it go. I am furious; outraged at the insinuation that I am anything other that genuinely disappointed that we didn’t get to spend a loving and happy day together! It is this moment that the realization crashes over me with absolute certainty: I’m fat, ugly and nobody likes me.

When I wake up the next day I am in pain. My stomach is swollen and cramping up. I feel slightly nauseous and my breasts ache. The grumpy mood is still settled over me like a fitfully slumbering dragon. I still don’t make the connection as to what is wrong with me until I stomp into the bathroom and realise my period has arrived.



With Love from Your Fallopian Tube Author: Corina Thorose
I’m sitting in the silent study area of the library. So much reading to do and not enough hours to do it in. I have my highlighter in one hand and my text book pinned beneath my other as if to stop it from escaping when the truth is, all I really want to do is fling it out the window. The tinny sounds of muffled music leaking from my neighbours earphones make me grind my teeth. He is sitting across from me, on the other side of the divider. I glare at the wooden board, hoping he is receiving the bee stings I am sending him with my brain. He doesn’t turn his music down. Why would he? The sign only says silent study area. And then a phone ringing. Not just ringing, but one of those horrendous ‘real’ tones, and what has the jackarse chosen? Some hideous offensive rap, naturally. ‘All these bitches and all these hoes…’ How profound. But no more than you’d expect from someone who leaves their phone in a library, in a silent study area. Why is it that no matter how many times they tell you to switch your phone off, there is always some butt who leaves it on? In a movie, in class, on a plane, in life… Not only that, but the moron actually answers it. Not troubling to keep his voice down, he is laughing and chatting to whoever is on the other end. People around me are shifting restlessly and I want to kill this arse cleave for disturbing everyone. He shows no sign of remorse, on the contrary he is giving directions to his equally obnoxious friend as to where he is located in the library, no doubt so they can both cause a ruckus and disrupt those who are actually at university to learn. I can never bring myself to be one of those hardarses who hisses ‘Shhh!’ at people, so I try to concentrate, but within minutes the sound of the girl over the aisle picking her nose too loudly is bothering me so I declare it a lost cause and stand up, grabbing all my books and leaving in a huff. I treat the offenders to the dirtiest look I can muster and storm off, but I am infuriated when no one even notices. As I march out to of the library and across campus I am treated to one of the more annoying things in life. Two of those cheerleader type girls who despite their miniscule size, manage to spread out across the entire path and then walk really, really slowly so as to cause major delays in traffic flowing both ways. I clear my throat loudly and give a pointed sigh, but they just amble on, on their Sunday frigging drive, not worried about anyone else. Oh, they know I’m here. But they’re not about to alter their stroll for me or anybody else. I’m beginning to get a headache from grinding my teeth so much, so I say a loud ‘Excuse me,’ and walk right through the centre of them. In the car it is no different. I try to mellow out the foul temper I am in by listening to Baz Lurhman’s ‘Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen’, a piece I absolutely adore, but it occurs to me now that I would love it that much more if I could ever forgive Baz for doing such a potentially inspirational piece in such a FLAT, RELENTLESS MONOTONE. Honestly, do these people know how to drive? Ordinarily I am not one to tailgate, but my mood is off the charts today. I jam as hard as I can on my breaks to make a point to the learner who is creeping along in the right lane at about forty kilometres an hour even though we are in a seventy zone. I try to tell myself to be patient, we were all learners once and I certainly didn’t like it when people would give me a hard time. But I justify my actions by deciding that I don’t want to hassle the driver, I want to hassle who ever is supervising the driver, for letting her crawl along in the right hand lane while passing snails are outstripping us. ‘Oh, why are we braking?’ I snarl out loud as she goes still slower. If she does that one more time, I am going to get out and walk and I’ll still get there before she does. I finally weave past her, only to catch every red light in creation and then to get stuck behind a bus who pulls out despite the fact that I’m sailing along at top speed and have to jam on my breaks again, only to get passed by the same learner anyway as I wait for this idiot to pick up speed. I stop at the supermarket to buy some deodorant, but hit another wall of intense stupidity there. I wonder who it is, up there in the big supermarket head office, who decides to change everything around every few weeks and why on God’s green Earth they decide to do it? I walk up and down the bathroom aisle for almost fifteen minutes, imagining the vein in my head beating a big purple bruise against my brain. I can find men’s deodorant no problem, but where the hell is the women’s? Logic dictates that they should be right next to each other. But ours is not a logical society. They are nowhere to be found and I search and search until I can feel myself welling up out of sheer frustration. I’m unwilling to cry in the middle of Safeway, so I decide, bugger it, and just grab a Lynx off the shelf. I’ll smell like a man for a while. I know there is something else I need, but can’t recall what it is. Obviously I won’t remember until I’ve already paid and left the store. And sure as god made little green apples, I’m halfway down the street before I remember that I’m out of soap too. When I finally get home, I am storming up the stairs, in the most feral frigging mood ever. All I want to do is take a shower and climb into my jammies and go to bed. But as I stalk up the stairs, my sister, Empress of Yon Bathroom, is walking around in her towel and she employs her I’m-being-nice-to-you-so-do-me-a-favour voice. ‘I’m in the middle of waxing,’ she tells me sweetly, ‘so please don’t use the bathroom yet.’ Great. Completely awesome. It will be hours before I get to take my shower. I don't answer her but slam my bedroom door and hurl my books onto my bed. My life for someone to take this out on right now… So I make myself a cup of tea, even though I have to refill the kettle. God, all I do with my life is refill this effing kettle. I could be a professional kettle filler. Don’t people know you’re supposed to put water in for the next person when you’re done? It's just proper kettle etiquette. For the love of arse, I am the clumsiest oaf on the face of the earth. As I attempt to set my cup of tea down on my dressing table, my pocket gets hooked on the draw handle and I knock all my potions and bottles off onto the floor. I employ my choicest swear words and as I turn to try and pick them up, I trip over my hair dryer chord and spill tea all over myself, my bed and the carpet. In a vain attempt to cheer myself up, I put Toy Story on. It almost works too, until Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out the window, and I am completely stricken. Oh my God, somebody tell me why I am crying! This isn’t even sad, and here I am weeping like a five year old girl because the cartoon character fell out of a window, which I know for a fact he survived and then went on to live a full and complete life! And dear Lord, how much time does one need in the bathroom? She’s still in there, preening herself for who only knows what. The waxing is complete, but the water hasn’t stopped running despite the fact that we are in a drought, and after the water stops there will be the blow-drying and the moisturizing and the exfoliating and I just want to take a shower… The next day I get an attack of the fat and uglies. How I hate this. I am bloated beyond belief. I do my jeans up and stare in dismay at the muffin top they give me. Oh, how I long for the days when I was between a size eight and ten. What a beautiful time in my life. Now I'm in these horrid pants that are massive anyway, and still don’t fit, and my t-shirt looks terrible and I've got these big chunky wrestlers’ arms and about a million chins. I’m tearing up again and can’t stand to look in the mirror. ‘Well, why don’t you lay off the Big Macs then, you fat motherfucker!’ I wail at my reflection. Oh, wonderful, my skin has broken out. I am in my twenties, I shouldn’t suffer from this anymore, but I have a spot the size of Saturn’s obese mother in law on my nose and no amount of makeup will cover it. And my hair is flat and greasy. And I just shaved my pits, so why is there a five o’clock shadow on them? And oh, man, using men’s deodorant on freshly shaven pits is not a good idea. Lynx obviously never expected men to shave there, because its not sting free. Holy crap, my pits are on fire. My boyfriend tries to perk me up by taking me to the beach. Its one of the last hot days of the year, so we celebrate this by driving for two hours down to Anglesea to enjoy the beach down there where there are fewer people. Only when we get there, there is no one at all around, because of course, it’s freezing frigging cold. The sky is cloudy and the air is chill and I reluctantly strip down to my bikini because no way did I come this far not to swim, but I swear to God, I see him shudder when he takes in my wobbly stomach. When I confront him about it, he swears I look good, and no, my bum doesn’t look big in this, but I know he’s lying so I ignore him and trundle along to ‘our spot.’ When we get there it’s even worse than I feared. The tide is out, so all the sand has been washed away to reveal the vicious rocks below and we slice our feet open trying to cross them. And there is seaweed all over the beach. It looks filthy! I look around me in utter misery, then yell, ‘This is crap!’ at the top of my lungs. I fling myself face down in the sand and cry. Of course, if anyone else had seen a tantrum like that, they would have tried to find out what was the matter, but oh no, I have the most insensitive boyfriend in the world, and he walks on and leaves me to it. Ten minutes later he shows no sign of coming back, so I spitefully get up and follow him over to where he is sitting. He’s got a wary look on his face and he doesn’t say a word, probably out of fear, and so he should be scared! I’m ready to break limbs at this point. We drive back in near silence and I flick through the pages of the Cosmo I bought at the servo. I hate every one of these skinny models, I wish they’d all fall on their heads and die so that the world will be rid of skinny, pretty, stupid girls! I much on Cheezels, hoping to make myself feel better, but I just feel fatter and uglier. No Cosmo model would ever eat Cheezels. It’s at this point my boyfriend chooses to put on ‘Baby Got Back’ and I turn to him and snarl, ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me?’ He is very still, as if he is approaching a sleeping bear and is trying to figure out the best and most tactful way to poke it in the eye. ‘You seem a little bit…upset today,’ he ventures nervously. I sit there in stony silence. What’s his point? ‘I might stop off at the shop in a minute. Is there anything you want me to…pick up for you?’ He puts is so delicately, but it’s that knowing look on his face that drives me over the edge. This is some sort of irrational attack on women, I know it! The injustice of being female rages inside of me. Forgive me for being a woman! I’m so terribly sorry my swelling and leaking and smearing and bleeding is inconvenient to you. I suppose the male equivalent of what we go through would be like trying to have sex with a golf club jammed right up your urethra, can you understand that? And how dare he suggest that my feelings are some sort of unreasonable hormonal demand? ‘Just what are you implying?’ I snap. But he’s lost his nerve, and lets it go. I am furious; outraged at the insinuation that I am anything other that genuinely disappointed that we didn’t get to spend a loving and happy day together! It is this moment that the realization crashes over me with absolute certainty: I’m fat, ugly and nobody likes me. When I wake up the next day I am in pain. My stomach is swollen and cramping up. I feel slightly nauseous and my breasts ache. The grumpy mood is still settled over me like a fitfully slumbering dragon. I still don’t make the connection as to what is wrong with me until I stomp into the bathroom and realise my period has arrived. Huh. So that’s what it is. 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