polo neck

one of the things that gets to me is when people i come across at work assume that i have no knowledge of bad things. i am a lawyer and opposing lawyers often try to make me feel guilty because their client has been a victim of violence. these lawyers try to say that this in some way excuses what their client is dishing out to other people. i cannot say that i know more than they think because it would not be professional. in my mind it is not professional to try to guilt trip your opponent either but i can't do anything about it so i just have to keep my mouth shut.

this picture is of me in a polo neck. i have always liked polo necks. when i was young it was because of a character in a tv show called emma peel who drove an e-type jag and wore a polo neck. now it is because i have a double chin. when i was a young woman it was because it hid the bruises.

one problem that hangs over you if you were hit as a child is that it seems normal. when you start to meet men you find that the ones you are attracted to are those who are exciting. exciting often equals violent. so you get hit some more. my second long relationship was with an artist. he was pretty dramatic and clever and volatile. our neuroses interlocked in a way that at the time i thought meant he really understood me. now i know that what this meant was that he really understood how to hurt me, both emotionally and physically.

the other night my friend pretended to strangle me when i said something annoying. she wasn't to know but it was one of those rubber-band moments, when you shoot back to another place in your life. that place was when the artist tried to strangle me. he also hit me in the throat. maybe he wanted me to shut up and stop me shouting at him. it nearly worked. i had to speak at a conference the next day. this was in june or july, in really hot weather. i had a swollen, bruised throat so i had to wear a polo neck. i was sweating like a pig. i was so embarassed.

i later found out that one of the other speakers, who was a well known barrister and writer, had an equally violent partner. i wish i had known. we could have laughed about it in that way people do when there is nothing you can say.