the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER

She didn’t know as she struggled into the, once-to-be-worn, dress that the tugging on her scalp was not caused by the tightly pulled hair and flowers on her head. She thought it was just “pain for beauty” and the anxiety having called people together to witness a ceremony. Subtly pulling, first at her hair, then at her scalp, cutting a small entry point (similar in kind to the small entry point of her vagina. They were all related to the day/event.) through her skull and accessing her neurons was the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER.

You don’t believe her?

She had already felt the strange, draining sensation as she had been organising the aforementioned “event” but after …..she knew.

There was ‘slack’ to be taken up.

She already paid her power and gas bills. But now she had to organise the investment home loan, the legal aspects of buying a house, mortgage repayments, insurances – including medical insurance because, of course, he wasn’t – groceries, cleaning, ironing, teach him how to cook or give him a reliable recipe book.

She was beginning to feel the strain and the drain on her brain. This having a live-in partner was like having a vacuum cleaner attached to her brain. He started using her brain power and it was like a cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER. When they bought a car, and she bargained the sales person down, it was sport. But when it came to house, loans and life he was sucking her brain dry.

Not her body. Not her sexuality. Not her creativity. It was her he drained.

She tried to instruct him, so he could share the thought-processes needed to progress their life together. But then she became ‘principal doer’ … and instructor, too. So she tried to lead him along. It was hard work and sometimes led to sheer physical exhaustion, where she would just feel that the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER had sucked her energy levels dry.

It also made her less creative because she had less energy. Doing the “life stuff” as in “Women Do” http://womenandthought.blogspot.com/2006/12/women-do-now-im-trying-really-hard-not.html, took a lot of energy. Yet, she seemed able to produce more energy and started this blog www.womenandthought.blogspot.com

Life continues and she clings to her feminism. Therefore, when he forgot three things in a row, it was like “three-strikes and you’re out”.

They talked it through and he committed to try to live more “in the moment” and remain connected to the real world.


If this sounds like your world, there is a way ahead. All relationships are continuous negotiations and you can say, “no, we need to share the load”.

Domestic Versus Global

Have you noticed how, in domestic arenas such as families, housing, bill paying, clothes buying and other financial matters, women are the ‘movers and shakers’.
Women usually choose and organise house purchases and manage complex and tense negotiations.

That’s why I didn’t post last week. I was working on organising a house purchase with my partner.

Yet you move to the global arena and you see men running the countries, economies and policies. Surely this begs the question of where they get their experience from. Of course these men have degrees and have had experiences in business and world trade as professionals. However, these ‘professionals’ usually have partners or significant others or female personal assistants who undertake the day to day activities of life – such as paying bills and collecting the dry cleaning.

There are an infinite ways of approaching this topic but I would rather pose a question. How can men, who are not in the habit of running their domestic finances, fulfil the responsibilities of running global economies and politics?

This is why we should seriously question the ability of a Texan landholder to rule America and bring peace to a war-torn Iraq.