Not at all sure why yesterday turned into a Zero Day. Stuff happened - it really did. I found my blood testing kit, so blood yesterday was 5.8. It was also my first day being Xenical-free, about which I could have said really quite a lot. Oh and then it was National Cleavage Day, which of course would have been a gift for Man-Breast Boy...
What happened, I think, was an example of how, if you're open to it, or looking for it, or even practically begging for it, distraction from the important stuff can blot out your day. Or your week. Or, come to that, even your life.
Waking up at 4AM this morning, the excitement of the oncoming car kinda flipped me over and over and over again, thinking about the fact that I'd budgeted for it on paper, without thinking of those occasionally important things like...oh, I dunno, fuel, for one, and renewing things like the MoT in September, and buying insurance in year 2, and year 3 and year 4, while stretched to the limit for the simple joy of having something with wheels in the garage.
After falling back to sleep of a sort, I woke up cramping, and ran to the bathroom for a true Xenical-explosion. Still working just freakin' dandy after a day without taking any of them in, clearly.
"You having second thoughts?" said d, when I finally emerged, grey and shaky, from the bathroom.
"Erm..." I said.
"It's OK if you are," she said, inviting me to speak.
"Yyyyeah," I agreed. Turned out she'd been having the same sort of thoughts.
We made our way to Aquacise, talking as we went. Then we were in the mercifully warm water, irredeemably pratting about, and talking.
By the time we'd done our Aquacising, we had decided to leave the car in the showroom, and use the money to reduce our debt threshold.
"This," I said, "is practical parenting for our inner children. They saw something pretty, and went wild for it. But sometimes, what these inner little brats we've raised need is a good spanking and the word 'No'".
"Yeah," said d.
There was one of those movie pauses that occasionally passes between a couple.
"Really?!" I asked, a little incredulous.
"Maybe," said d. "I mean....yeah, maybe...."
"Wow," I said, blinking blankly. "We really are growing up, aren't we?"
She looked at me.
"Some of us have been here for a while, baby," she said kindly. "But I know what you mean..."
BUT...
See, the thing is, d and I have many things in common, not the least of which is an over-active anthropomorphic gland. Our fridge in London was called Sven. I swear in just a little while, the Garage will have a name too. If I tell you that when we first got together, my mother got d a gift of a teddy bear called Cariad, dressed in a Welsh T-shirt, and she took it back to the States with her, that's probably just regulation 'Falling In Love' goo, right?
If, on the other hand, I tell you that shortly after d moved over to London, we saw a tiny little bear looking abandoned at the register in a grocery store, and brought it home "so that Cariad can have a teddy bear of his own," I think we start to stray into "A Bit Mental" territory.
When he little bear 'announced' to us that his name was Bearly, and he was more the 'trouble-seeking younger brother' type than a teddy for a teddy, we may well be talking about men in white coats. And I wish I could tell you that was the maddest of it, but it sooooo isn't.
The car, we'd already decided, was called Ed.
I have no idea why. He just was.
"Aww..." said d over breakfast. "I can just see him, last night...he was preening, telling all the other cars he'd found a family to love him. He's expecting us back there any time now to pick him up and take him driving again. And he's so little, all the big BMWs and Volvos will bully him when we don't turn up. They'll think he was just making it up..."
I realise of course that to people with real problems, or children, this will come across as phenomenally stupid bullshit, but I have to tell you, it hit me right in the stomach.
"He'll be devastated," I nodded. "He'll be going 'They will come. They will...' all afternoon. And then when night falls and it gets cold and the other cars are laughing, he'll be crying. He won't understand why we didn't come. He'll feel so betrayed..."
"And then tonight, from where we live, when we go to bed, we'll jusssst about be able to hear him, crying at the Moon..."
If this is any measure of our madness, we'd already made plans to buy him a big blanket to 'sleep' under every night, in the Garage.
"Oh God, what have we done?" said d.
"He's never gonna trust humans again," I went on.
"Yeah...there's gonna be a little crank in his gear changes, he's gonna be like 'Yeah, you say you wanna go up, but I know what People are like. Say they love you, make you believe them, then leave you looking like a FOOL!..."
"We're not buying a car just to stop him being bullied!" she protested. "I'll go and kick his tyres before we do that, just to prove he's just a car!"
I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Oh God, forget I said that," she said. "I just felt a pang in my heart..."
We hurried home, and I distributed the car money - some to pay off some bills of d's, come to pay off a credit card bill, some for savings. This put the question out of reach - we no longer had the money to bring Ed home.
Still hurts to think of him there, I have to be honest. Did I mention, we're demented?
Still did nothing in the way of exercise today, except for the Aquacise and an hour in the gym...and had toast and pizza and a hot dog and shedloads of trail mix today. Tuesday's gonna be mad.
Listen!
Did you hear that??
The sound of a Smart car, crying at the Moon...
Acting like a Grown-Up SUCKS!
Saturday 31 March 2012
Friday 30 March 2012
Zero Day
I can honestly say I've done, if posible, less than ever to progress my Disappearing today.
Which is not to say I've done nothing. It's been a frenetic day, ending with the purchase of a car.
Yep, we did it.
But in terms of Disappearing - practically nada. Tiny bit of walking this morning, and buggerall else. On top of which, I had toast for breakfast....and toast for lunch...annnnnd, just to ring the changes, pizza for dinner. Altogether a shedload of carbs, and zero of any consequence in the way of Disappearing.
If I can explain something though, it should be that today it hasn't mattered. Not at all. Something about the palaver of borrowing a shitload of money, and and then preparing to give it all away, and take a little car home with us, has been so all-consuming, exciting, and generally fun, that it's felt like a kind of Summer - a time of endless possibility and absolutely no need to think about Disappearing.
Indeed, looked at objectively, it's been that kind of week. Next week - notsojoyful. Monday, London. Tuesday, weigh-in, car pick-up and clinical trial meeting with dad and my brother. Wednesday, eyeballs with Ma. Thursday, dad has a lung function test, and then...bugger me, it's Easter.
In among all this of course, there's Disappearing. Back to the swim-and-gym double-act tomorrow, with insurance-buying, car-paper-signing, bank transferring and general high-level check-me-oAut-I'm-so-important Stuff. Sunday...who knows?
Which is not to say I've done nothing. It's been a frenetic day, ending with the purchase of a car.
Yep, we did it.
But in terms of Disappearing - practically nada. Tiny bit of walking this morning, and buggerall else. On top of which, I had toast for breakfast....and toast for lunch...annnnnd, just to ring the changes, pizza for dinner. Altogether a shedload of carbs, and zero of any consequence in the way of Disappearing.
If I can explain something though, it should be that today it hasn't mattered. Not at all. Something about the palaver of borrowing a shitload of money, and and then preparing to give it all away, and take a little car home with us, has been so all-consuming, exciting, and generally fun, that it's felt like a kind of Summer - a time of endless possibility and absolutely no need to think about Disappearing.
Indeed, looked at objectively, it's been that kind of week. Next week - notsojoyful. Monday, London. Tuesday, weigh-in, car pick-up and clinical trial meeting with dad and my brother. Wednesday, eyeballs with Ma. Thursday, dad has a lung function test, and then...bugger me, it's Easter.
In among all this of course, there's Disappearing. Back to the swim-and-gym double-act tomorrow, with insurance-buying, car-paper-signing, bank transferring and general high-level check-me-oAut-I'm-so-important Stuff. Sunday...who knows?
Thursday 29 March 2012
The Smart Move?
Strange-ass day, all told. If nothing else, I think today could be seen as an example of evolution in action.
Get this: for seven years, d and I lived in London, and for at least six of those, neither of us missed having a car. d missed it badly when she first arrived in the UK, but with the unutterable madness of drivers in London, coupled with an inability to park, the likelihood of theft or damage, and the extra charges on top that came with the idea of owning a car in the city, she pretty soon decided that figuring out the bus network was her best option, and pretty much never looked back.
We've been in Merthyr three months. Something like a week ago, we acquired a garage.
I'm not entirely sure why - mainly, if I'm honest, I think it was Ma settling scores - there used to be a garage linked to this flat, but because Ma filled it with things that were conspicuously Not-Car, the Council frowned and wagged its finger and took it away from her. So when a notice was seen stuck to the door of our block last week that read "There's a garage going begging - How bad do you want it, Bitches?", Ma went into battle and secured it for us.
So, for the last few days, we've been the proud tenants of a lot of empty space behind a garage door.
"Wonder if we could both fit into a Smart car..." mused d apparently idly three nights ago.
For those who don't know, a Smart car is pretty much to the automobile industry what a sawn-off shotgun is to firearms. It's small, and yet not entirely laughable, being Mercedes-engineered. It's what they call a City Car, meaning you can park it even in cities, get reasonable fuel economy, and can probably, in an emergency, be stopped by a big man with a shovel. In essence, it's little more than a vaguely metal tracksuit on wheels.
It's also been a standing joke as long as we've been together - Smart cars are adorable and cute and gutsy, and we've always liked them, but we've always joked that if you put the two of us in into one of them, a) you couldn't close the door, and b) it wouldn't be able to go anywhere, because, bless 'em, they're ever so cute, but muscle cars, they are not.
I chuckled when d said it this time. I shrugged.
"Let's find out," she said. The Springtime sunshine was warm, and anything was possible, so
"OK," I said.
We wandered to a local used car dealership. As if by magic (or perhaps having seen it was what had inspired d in the first place), the first car we came across was a beautiful little shiny black Smart car. We opened it, got in and discovered it was semi-automatic (important, as d only drives automatics), and from the instant we got in it, we didn't particularly want to get out of it.
I spoke to the bank today. And then we went back. We're test driving it tomorrow, because, as it turns out, several stone down, Hell yeah, we both fit in a Smart car.
That's what I mean by evolution in action, really - the change in the environment drove change in our 'selves' that will see us explore new territory and new opportunities. Note to self...don't drive everyfreakin'where. Must...still...walk. Just...MUST!
Get this: for seven years, d and I lived in London, and for at least six of those, neither of us missed having a car. d missed it badly when she first arrived in the UK, but with the unutterable madness of drivers in London, coupled with an inability to park, the likelihood of theft or damage, and the extra charges on top that came with the idea of owning a car in the city, she pretty soon decided that figuring out the bus network was her best option, and pretty much never looked back.
We've been in Merthyr three months. Something like a week ago, we acquired a garage.
I'm not entirely sure why - mainly, if I'm honest, I think it was Ma settling scores - there used to be a garage linked to this flat, but because Ma filled it with things that were conspicuously Not-Car, the Council frowned and wagged its finger and took it away from her. So when a notice was seen stuck to the door of our block last week that read "There's a garage going begging - How bad do you want it, Bitches?", Ma went into battle and secured it for us.
So, for the last few days, we've been the proud tenants of a lot of empty space behind a garage door.
"Wonder if we could both fit into a Smart car..." mused d apparently idly three nights ago.
For those who don't know, a Smart car is pretty much to the automobile industry what a sawn-off shotgun is to firearms. It's small, and yet not entirely laughable, being Mercedes-engineered. It's what they call a City Car, meaning you can park it even in cities, get reasonable fuel economy, and can probably, in an emergency, be stopped by a big man with a shovel. In essence, it's little more than a vaguely metal tracksuit on wheels.
It's also been a standing joke as long as we've been together - Smart cars are adorable and cute and gutsy, and we've always liked them, but we've always joked that if you put the two of us in into one of them, a) you couldn't close the door, and b) it wouldn't be able to go anywhere, because, bless 'em, they're ever so cute, but muscle cars, they are not.
I chuckled when d said it this time. I shrugged.
"Let's find out," she said. The Springtime sunshine was warm, and anything was possible, so
"OK," I said.
We wandered to a local used car dealership. As if by magic (or perhaps having seen it was what had inspired d in the first place), the first car we came across was a beautiful little shiny black Smart car. We opened it, got in and discovered it was semi-automatic (important, as d only drives automatics), and from the instant we got in it, we didn't particularly want to get out of it.
I spoke to the bank today. And then we went back. We're test driving it tomorrow, because, as it turns out, several stone down, Hell yeah, we both fit in a Smart car.
That's what I mean by evolution in action, really - the change in the environment drove change in our 'selves' that will see us explore new territory and new opportunities. Note to self...don't drive everyfreakin'where. Must...still...walk. Just...MUST!
Wednesday 28 March 2012
Fuck You, Aristotle (and the wagon you rode in on!)
There are two ways of thinking about what I did last night.
The first is to say that, if I'm on a weightloss wagon, I calmly pulled on the reins, got down to the floor, unhooked a keg of gasoline, sprinkled it liberally around the place, lit the cart on fire, then walked up and punched the horse in the face, just Because.
The second is to invoke Aristotle.
So, Aristotle - for the newbies - said that the path to self-control did not consist in doing what I've been doing since I started this experiment (avoiding all temptation, and thus achieving good results). Aristotle - who I've long suspected was one of those sneering gits you find at dinner parties, telling the life story of the cheese - has it that to achieve true self-mastery, what you have to do is periodically, as the occasion or desire demands it, indulge your temptations, and enjoy them to what he describes as 'the appropriate degree', and then climb back on your wagon of self-denial and self-mastery as though nothing had happened.
This has never been a mindset with which I've had any truck. When I've wanted something, I've wanted lots and lots and lots of it, inhaled without thought, without reason, without even explicit enjoyment, until the urge to have it was temporarily 'sated'. This, I think, it the nature of addiction - moderation has no interest, and indeed you feel it in your bones and your belly that moderation is for pussies, for those who are only half-alive, for bankers. Moderation is not the way of Real Men or Real Women, you feel, and if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing right off the edge of the fucking cliff, and then doing some more till you're suspended, cartoon-like, in mid-air and then plunge irrevocably to your doom.
This was my mode of day-to-day living for the first forty years of my life - which perhaps explains why, at 30, I didn't expect to actually see forty years of life.
Not surprisingly, Aristotle's challenge pissed me off from the moment I read it, back in October last year.
It pissed me off that Mr Historic Philosopher could sit there, thousands of years dead and go "Hmm...very well done and all that, but it's not a real achievement till you can dip your toe in and go on..."
Prick.
Anyhow, last night, we were scheduled to have pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, but d came home with a craving for fish and chips (fries, for the Americans).
"Right," I said. "Let's do it..."
And so we did - we went to a local fish and chip shop, picked up cod and chips, and came home. And yes, I ate them eagerly, hungrily, savouring the grease and the salt and the vinegar and the more-grease.
There was a moment, afterwards, when things could have tipped over into man-breast beating and woe is me, but the sunshine was still hot and the Spring was still bright and I thought "Fuck it!" I'm not going to panic about this thing. Not now, not Tuesday. I'm going to climb back on my non-burned wagon, and I'm going to ride on. I'm going to do this, if and when I feel like it, in moderation.
The result of which is that, today, I've had precisely nothing in the way of pangs or yearnings. No day-after longings to repeat the experience or go on a grease bender. No moments of "It's all broken now, pass me the triple chocolate sundae!"
Just a sense of pleasure in the doing of it, and a sense of equal and opposite pleasure in the not-today-needing-to-do-it-again. And, of course, the inestimable satisfaction of giving the one-fingered salute to a long-dead smug philosopher.
Whether this means I've achieved a measure of self-mastery, I don't know. By his rationale, I would probably qualify, but I'm just going to see how this thing goes. Tomorrow, I'm back to early morning walks, biking and the like. Let's see where this week takes me.
The first is to say that, if I'm on a weightloss wagon, I calmly pulled on the reins, got down to the floor, unhooked a keg of gasoline, sprinkled it liberally around the place, lit the cart on fire, then walked up and punched the horse in the face, just Because.
The second is to invoke Aristotle.
So, Aristotle - for the newbies - said that the path to self-control did not consist in doing what I've been doing since I started this experiment (avoiding all temptation, and thus achieving good results). Aristotle - who I've long suspected was one of those sneering gits you find at dinner parties, telling the life story of the cheese - has it that to achieve true self-mastery, what you have to do is periodically, as the occasion or desire demands it, indulge your temptations, and enjoy them to what he describes as 'the appropriate degree', and then climb back on your wagon of self-denial and self-mastery as though nothing had happened.
This has never been a mindset with which I've had any truck. When I've wanted something, I've wanted lots and lots and lots of it, inhaled without thought, without reason, without even explicit enjoyment, until the urge to have it was temporarily 'sated'. This, I think, it the nature of addiction - moderation has no interest, and indeed you feel it in your bones and your belly that moderation is for pussies, for those who are only half-alive, for bankers. Moderation is not the way of Real Men or Real Women, you feel, and if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing right off the edge of the fucking cliff, and then doing some more till you're suspended, cartoon-like, in mid-air and then plunge irrevocably to your doom.
This was my mode of day-to-day living for the first forty years of my life - which perhaps explains why, at 30, I didn't expect to actually see forty years of life.
Not surprisingly, Aristotle's challenge pissed me off from the moment I read it, back in October last year.
It pissed me off that Mr Historic Philosopher could sit there, thousands of years dead and go "Hmm...very well done and all that, but it's not a real achievement till you can dip your toe in and go on..."
Prick.
Anyhow, last night, we were scheduled to have pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, but d came home with a craving for fish and chips (fries, for the Americans).
"Right," I said. "Let's do it..."
And so we did - we went to a local fish and chip shop, picked up cod and chips, and came home. And yes, I ate them eagerly, hungrily, savouring the grease and the salt and the vinegar and the more-grease.
There was a moment, afterwards, when things could have tipped over into man-breast beating and woe is me, but the sunshine was still hot and the Spring was still bright and I thought "Fuck it!" I'm not going to panic about this thing. Not now, not Tuesday. I'm going to climb back on my non-burned wagon, and I'm going to ride on. I'm going to do this, if and when I feel like it, in moderation.
The result of which is that, today, I've had precisely nothing in the way of pangs or yearnings. No day-after longings to repeat the experience or go on a grease bender. No moments of "It's all broken now, pass me the triple chocolate sundae!"
Just a sense of pleasure in the doing of it, and a sense of equal and opposite pleasure in the not-today-needing-to-do-it-again. And, of course, the inestimable satisfaction of giving the one-fingered salute to a long-dead smug philosopher.
Whether this means I've achieved a measure of self-mastery, I don't know. By his rationale, I would probably qualify, but I'm just going to see how this thing goes. Tomorrow, I'm back to early morning walks, biking and the like. Let's see where this week takes me.
Tuesday 27 March 2012
Border Patrol
Sigh...
Feels like I'm a border patrolman at the minute - today's weigh-in result was:
15 stone 0.25.
This means I'm officially back in the world of having lost 5.5 stone, and also that I've lost four pounds this week. Four solid pounds that is - when I came back from London on Friday, my Saturday morning unofficial weigh-in showed 14 stone 11, so that's three pounds of false reading or regained weight over the weekend. I should still feel positive about this week though - have almost entirely obliterated theups and downs of March, but rather than that, I feel like March simply hasn't happened at all - I've made no progress during four hard, weird weeks.In fact, being really picky, I'm still back three-quarters of a pound from where I was coming into this month.
Seems like the 15 stone border is, to put it mildly, a right evil sonofabitch to crack.I've barely dabbled in the realms of 14 stonehood, and then been repelled, dabbled again, and been repelled....
Sigh.
On the positive side, a four pound loss is a four pound loss, even if in real terms it's only a re-loss. Need to push on now in the next seven days. Want ot be looking at my next border - 14 stone 7, or my six stone barrier.
Just did a quick BMI check, and apparently, round about the 13 stone 7 mark, I cross another big barrier, from obesity to simply overweightness. At the moment that seems like a somewhat distant dream, whereas when I get to 14 stone 7, it will feel comparitively attaiable, as though the weight of history is on my side. Mind you, by then, I'll have lost six stone and be looking at the next big milestone just one stone away, so the weight of history will be on my side. Till then, on we go, playing hopscotch with the 15 stone border. And we're off to the bike...
Feels like I'm a border patrolman at the minute - today's weigh-in result was:
15 stone 0.25.
This means I'm officially back in the world of having lost 5.5 stone, and also that I've lost four pounds this week. Four solid pounds that is - when I came back from London on Friday, my Saturday morning unofficial weigh-in showed 14 stone 11, so that's three pounds of false reading or regained weight over the weekend. I should still feel positive about this week though - have almost entirely obliterated theups and downs of March, but rather than that, I feel like March simply hasn't happened at all - I've made no progress during four hard, weird weeks.In fact, being really picky, I'm still back three-quarters of a pound from where I was coming into this month.
Seems like the 15 stone border is, to put it mildly, a right evil sonofabitch to crack.I've barely dabbled in the realms of 14 stonehood, and then been repelled, dabbled again, and been repelled....
Sigh.
On the positive side, a four pound loss is a four pound loss, even if in real terms it's only a re-loss. Need to push on now in the next seven days. Want ot be looking at my next border - 14 stone 7, or my six stone barrier.
Just did a quick BMI check, and apparently, round about the 13 stone 7 mark, I cross another big barrier, from obesity to simply overweightness. At the moment that seems like a somewhat distant dream, whereas when I get to 14 stone 7, it will feel comparitively attaiable, as though the weight of history is on my side. Mind you, by then, I'll have lost six stone and be looking at the next big milestone just one stone away, so the weight of history will be on my side. Till then, on we go, playing hopscotch with the 15 stone border. And we're off to the bike...
Monday 26 March 2012
A Drug Problem
Walked this morning, and dropped down into the town for a 9AM tete-a-bald-pate with my doctor.
Wasn't supposed to be my doctor, was supposed to be the diabetic nuse, but hey, who knew - they let nurses have holidays now. In the Springtime and everything. Irresponsible, I call it. See - this is what happens when you nationalise your healthcare system, people, take note. Nurses...common-or-garden diabetic nurses...can just take off and have a life, right when you need them.
Sigh...I'm not bitter, honestly.
So anyway, had to go see the doc instead. As I mentioned last night, I'm nearly out of Xenical, the combination safety-net and aversion therapy pills that have resulted in more than one hugely embarrasing 'crapping myself' incident during this year.
New doctor this morning. Middle-aged, Welsh, male, and with the kind of vaguely mystical air that makes you wonder if he's gonna rub you down with mistletoe and make you dance naked round a laburnum tree at midnight.
"Mmm..." he said, folding his long druid's fingers together.
"Hmm..." he said again, as if testing just how much it pissed off his patient. I let it pass, so he looked up at me slyly.
"See," he said, "we don't go much for these so-called 'fatbuster' pills..."
"I'm doing other things," I told him. "Eating right, exercising, all that."
"Hmm..." he said. He drew in a long breath. "Welllll, as long as you're not treating it like a wonder-drug, I suppose..."
"I've called it many things," I conceded, "but a wonder-drug, it is not."
"Hmm..." he said, one last time. He sniffed. "Alright, I'll give you three monthsworth, and then we'll see..."
"I've been taking it for a year with no problem," I said, feeling a need to defend my lack-of-pathetic...ness about pill-popping.
"Mmm...we'll see," he said, waving me out of his office.
I went to the nearby pharmacy.
"Hmm," said the teenager behind the counter. "Can't get this." She handed me back the prescription without ceremony.
"Oh," I said. "Really?"
"No," she said. "Problem at the manufacturers. I'd go back to your doctor and ask for an alternative if I was you. Or try another pharmacist."
I chose option B. I went to three other pharmacists...and in each of them I got the same response and the same advice.
So - I have just two days of Xenical left at this point, and possibly we'll then be going it alone again, for at least a while. Buckle up folks, it's about to get real.
Wasn't supposed to be my doctor, was supposed to be the diabetic nuse, but hey, who knew - they let nurses have holidays now. In the Springtime and everything. Irresponsible, I call it. See - this is what happens when you nationalise your healthcare system, people, take note. Nurses...common-or-garden diabetic nurses...can just take off and have a life, right when you need them.
Sigh...I'm not bitter, honestly.
So anyway, had to go see the doc instead. As I mentioned last night, I'm nearly out of Xenical, the combination safety-net and aversion therapy pills that have resulted in more than one hugely embarrasing 'crapping myself' incident during this year.
New doctor this morning. Middle-aged, Welsh, male, and with the kind of vaguely mystical air that makes you wonder if he's gonna rub you down with mistletoe and make you dance naked round a laburnum tree at midnight.
"Mmm..." he said, folding his long druid's fingers together.
"Hmm..." he said again, as if testing just how much it pissed off his patient. I let it pass, so he looked up at me slyly.
"See," he said, "we don't go much for these so-called 'fatbuster' pills..."
"I'm doing other things," I told him. "Eating right, exercising, all that."
"Hmm..." he said. He drew in a long breath. "Welllll, as long as you're not treating it like a wonder-drug, I suppose..."
"I've called it many things," I conceded, "but a wonder-drug, it is not."
"Hmm..." he said, one last time. He sniffed. "Alright, I'll give you three monthsworth, and then we'll see..."
"I've been taking it for a year with no problem," I said, feeling a need to defend my lack-of-pathetic...ness about pill-popping.
"Mmm...we'll see," he said, waving me out of his office.
I went to the nearby pharmacy.
"Hmm," said the teenager behind the counter. "Can't get this." She handed me back the prescription without ceremony.
"Oh," I said. "Really?"
"No," she said. "Problem at the manufacturers. I'd go back to your doctor and ask for an alternative if I was you. Or try another pharmacist."
I chose option B. I went to three other pharmacists...and in each of them I got the same response and the same advice.
So - I have just two days of Xenical left at this point, and possibly we'll then be going it alone again, for at least a while. Buckle up folks, it's about to get real.
Sunday 25 March 2012
Springing Forward
Pretty good day, all in all - Got up, took d up for what was due to be her last car boot sale, only to discover they'd given her pitch away to some pushy Valleys harridan in any case: very tacky behaviour. Left there, never to go back. The big walk that Ma and I had planned was a little skewiff in any case, as Dad had decided he didn't want to get up today....at all. So we went up to the folks' place, and walked around the park for a while.
Came home, changed the bed...Spring is in the air and all that...went biking, all that good happy stuff.
Essentially, this weekend has been about life and sunshine and fun and activity and just embracing the world in all its glory...
Except for my Dad, who, by the looks of things, gets blood on a Wednesday, and by the following Sunday is not only out of blood, but out of energy and out of bonhomie. This is not exactly what would be recognised by many people as a "quality of life" but there's positive news on the horizon - Dad has an appointment with the doctor in charge of a clinical trial on April 3rd. Here's hoping he can get some life and sunshine and activity and world-embracing himself.
Tomorrow - still, no UberCommute till Wednesday. So no pre-Tuesday Starbucks fix, and whatever Tuesday tells me is genuine. I'm optimistic, given the week I've had, but as usual, it's all up in the air until the Nazi Scales pronounce judgment.
Still - hoping to walk in the morning before walk, and have a 9AM doctor's appointment - my first re-order of Xenical here in Merthyr. Time to spring forward into a new sense of positivity and optimism and bloody-minded hard work.
Came home, changed the bed...Spring is in the air and all that...went biking, all that good happy stuff.
Essentially, this weekend has been about life and sunshine and fun and activity and just embracing the world in all its glory...
Except for my Dad, who, by the looks of things, gets blood on a Wednesday, and by the following Sunday is not only out of blood, but out of energy and out of bonhomie. This is not exactly what would be recognised by many people as a "quality of life" but there's positive news on the horizon - Dad has an appointment with the doctor in charge of a clinical trial on April 3rd. Here's hoping he can get some life and sunshine and activity and world-embracing himself.
Tomorrow - still, no UberCommute till Wednesday. So no pre-Tuesday Starbucks fix, and whatever Tuesday tells me is genuine. I'm optimistic, given the week I've had, but as usual, it's all up in the air until the Nazi Scales pronounce judgment.
Still - hoping to walk in the morning before walk, and have a 9AM doctor's appointment - my first re-order of Xenical here in Merthyr. Time to spring forward into a new sense of positivity and optimism and bloody-minded hard work.
Saturday 24 March 2012
The Merthyr Spirit
Had a truly great day today. The Spring sunshine felt like Summer, and d woke me for Aquarobics at an unfeasible hour. Ponced about for a bit in the pool, went and had a light breakfast at McDonalds - yes, McDonalds, shoot me now or get over yourselves! - and then went back for a gym session. Decided since the day was so nice, and I've been away from home for three days, to basically bum around Merthyr for a bit - did some shopping, had a couple of relaxed and chatty coffees. We were on our way home when d left my side instinctively. Took me a moment to see what she was doing.
There was an old lady, sitting on a stone bench, bleeding quite significantly from her nose.
Ahhh, there are some sights that just do your spirit good, you know?
No, of course that's not what I mean. What I mean is that the owner of a high-falutin' market stall had come down from his showman's world, complete with a natty top hat, and was making sure this old dear stayed conscious, stayed smiling, and gave him information that was necessary. He'd enlisted a couple of passers-by already, and they had, without hesitation, gone to a local cafe, where the staff had already called for an ambulance. We stopped to see if there was anything else that could be done.
Turns out this lady was 91, and had put her new open-toed shoes on on this bright Spring day...and gone over in them, smashing her nose on the ground. Looked a bit nasty, and was prone to bleeding. We wondered if there was anyone who could go with her in the ambulance once it arrived, or anyone we could contact. Phones were proffered. The lady knew her daughter's address, but couldn't, for the moment, remember her phone number - which is fair enough. You try being 91 and remembering your daughter's number off by heart after headbutting the Earth, go on, I dare ya! We've more than established recently I can hardly remember my own name in perfectly normal, non-plannet-nutting circumstances, and I'm just 40!
d, as is her Girl Scouting nature in such circumstances, started organising the response.
"Honey, take the groceries home, put the meat in the fridge, bring cash and my phone. I'll go with this lady in the ambulance. If we can get the address of her daughter written down, you take a cab to her place, let her know what's what, and if necessary, follow on with her in the cab."
Sounded like a plan to me, so I legged it. Refrigerated a big chunk of pork, grabbed the phone, fought with our savings bank for a handful of ten-pound notes, had a moderate argument with the girl-child next door, just because, and headed back. Got...because this is me...just a little lost on the way back, but found where I needed to be eventually; as d mentionedwhen I arrived, this was because I followed the visual clues available - "Bright yellow ambulance, bigger'n God..." Handed over the phone, d got into the ambulance, telling me that apparently, the lady's 71 year old daughter had now been contacted, so I could go on home...Which I did.
Had no sooner reached the flat the second time when d texted to say that Ma had now returned from an old school reunion in Cardiff, and asked if I could check on her.
"Wanna walk up there?" she texted.
Sure, why not? It was becoming the vibe of the day. I walked up to Ma and Dad - he was feeling brighter when I left, but by now, the blood transfusion he had on Wednesday is pretty much all but spent. Ma meanwhile saidshe'd drive me to pick up d from the hospital, so we did.
On the way, Ma regales us with the story of her purse.
Apparently, yesterday, she'd lost her purse at the local Aldi store. It had cash in it, though no credit cards. She'd gone back this morning, to find someone had handed it in, cash intact, without leaving their name and with the expectation of no reward.
Now, it would be easy to do the trite thing I've already done once or twice, which is to say "See, that's small town living for you - wouldn't get that in the big city..." I think that probably does big cities a disservice though. All I'll say is that for a town it has been spectacularly easy to bad-mouth over the decade, Merthyr couldn't have given me a better welcome home after a few, fairly incident-packed, days away, than a day like today - beautiful weather, simple closeness, and human beings being good to each other without expecting anything in return. That really does your belief in human beings a power of good.
Oh, today's interview of d was conducted by a gym employee, who while showing her how to use a piece of equipment that seemed to require a higher engineering degree to operate, caught the accent, and said:
"Where'ewfrom'en?..."
This, I've always known about Merthyr folk - they are, without doubt, Nature's journalists. Nosey, inquisitive, your-business-is-my-business people, who find nothing intrusive in asking direct questions about pretty much any aspect of your life that interests them. Turns out I've always been too busy resenting this intrusively questioning aspect of their nature to appreciate the upsides to your business being their business. Such as returning a purse intact, or making sure an old lady was cared for after a tumble in the street.
When you have a day like today, it makes you understand why Socialism - as distinct from Communism, whatever d says! - started here. The busybody instinct, used for good, can be a powerful estorative to the weary, cynical bastard.
Speaking of which, I'm now a weary cynical bastard...and so to bed! Big long walk ahead tomorrow, and hopefully some biking. It's good to be back into some sort of routine.
There was an old lady, sitting on a stone bench, bleeding quite significantly from her nose.
Ahhh, there are some sights that just do your spirit good, you know?
No, of course that's not what I mean. What I mean is that the owner of a high-falutin' market stall had come down from his showman's world, complete with a natty top hat, and was making sure this old dear stayed conscious, stayed smiling, and gave him information that was necessary. He'd enlisted a couple of passers-by already, and they had, without hesitation, gone to a local cafe, where the staff had already called for an ambulance. We stopped to see if there was anything else that could be done.
Turns out this lady was 91, and had put her new open-toed shoes on on this bright Spring day...and gone over in them, smashing her nose on the ground. Looked a bit nasty, and was prone to bleeding. We wondered if there was anyone who could go with her in the ambulance once it arrived, or anyone we could contact. Phones were proffered. The lady knew her daughter's address, but couldn't, for the moment, remember her phone number - which is fair enough. You try being 91 and remembering your daughter's number off by heart after headbutting the Earth, go on, I dare ya! We've more than established recently I can hardly remember my own name in perfectly normal, non-plannet-nutting circumstances, and I'm just 40!
d, as is her Girl Scouting nature in such circumstances, started organising the response.
"Honey, take the groceries home, put the meat in the fridge, bring cash and my phone. I'll go with this lady in the ambulance. If we can get the address of her daughter written down, you take a cab to her place, let her know what's what, and if necessary, follow on with her in the cab."
Sounded like a plan to me, so I legged it. Refrigerated a big chunk of pork, grabbed the phone, fought with our savings bank for a handful of ten-pound notes, had a moderate argument with the girl-child next door, just because, and headed back. Got...because this is me...just a little lost on the way back, but found where I needed to be eventually; as d mentionedwhen I arrived, this was because I followed the visual clues available - "Bright yellow ambulance, bigger'n God..." Handed over the phone, d got into the ambulance, telling me that apparently, the lady's 71 year old daughter had now been contacted, so I could go on home...Which I did.
Had no sooner reached the flat the second time when d texted to say that Ma had now returned from an old school reunion in Cardiff, and asked if I could check on her.
"Wanna walk up there?" she texted.
Sure, why not? It was becoming the vibe of the day. I walked up to Ma and Dad - he was feeling brighter when I left, but by now, the blood transfusion he had on Wednesday is pretty much all but spent. Ma meanwhile saidshe'd drive me to pick up d from the hospital, so we did.
On the way, Ma regales us with the story of her purse.
Apparently, yesterday, she'd lost her purse at the local Aldi store. It had cash in it, though no credit cards. She'd gone back this morning, to find someone had handed it in, cash intact, without leaving their name and with the expectation of no reward.
Now, it would be easy to do the trite thing I've already done once or twice, which is to say "See, that's small town living for you - wouldn't get that in the big city..." I think that probably does big cities a disservice though. All I'll say is that for a town it has been spectacularly easy to bad-mouth over the decade, Merthyr couldn't have given me a better welcome home after a few, fairly incident-packed, days away, than a day like today - beautiful weather, simple closeness, and human beings being good to each other without expecting anything in return. That really does your belief in human beings a power of good.
Oh, today's interview of d was conducted by a gym employee, who while showing her how to use a piece of equipment that seemed to require a higher engineering degree to operate, caught the accent, and said:
"Where'ewfrom'en?..."
This, I've always known about Merthyr folk - they are, without doubt, Nature's journalists. Nosey, inquisitive, your-business-is-my-business people, who find nothing intrusive in asking direct questions about pretty much any aspect of your life that interests them. Turns out I've always been too busy resenting this intrusively questioning aspect of their nature to appreciate the upsides to your business being their business. Such as returning a purse intact, or making sure an old lady was cared for after a tumble in the street.
When you have a day like today, it makes you understand why Socialism - as distinct from Communism, whatever d says! - started here. The busybody instinct, used for good, can be a powerful estorative to the weary, cynical bastard.
Speaking of which, I'm now a weary cynical bastard...and so to bed! Big long walk ahead tomorrow, and hopefully some biking. It's good to be back into some sort of routine.
Friday 23 March 2012
Handing Over The Neon Sign
If you read yesterday’s entry, you’ll know it was one of Those Days – those days when Weird Stuff just randomly happens to me.
Well, I’m here to tell ya – it didn’t stop with weird questions and shibilant Asian guys. At the end of the day’s work, I was schlepping home from Greenwich to Ipswich. Got on the Tube at Cutty Sark, pushing through a ratlike crowd of tourists that had decided they’d had quite enough of watching an old sailing ship being restored. Got myself a seat on the Docklands Light Railway back to Bank. I was listening to the final chapters of Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman on the iPod (heartily recommend this in any format you can get your hands on, by the way – funny, thought-provoking and-- )
“Scuse me Sir,” said a lanky, granite-faced train guard, looking down at me as though I’d been left there by an incontinent wombat. “Can you step out here please?”
“What?” I said, pausing Caitlin in the middle of a profound dialectic on why Katie “Jordan” Price is the Anti-Christ of Feminism – I’m not sure we didn’t already know that, but still –
“Now, please...” he sighed.
I stepped over the bloke who’d taken the aisle seat next to me, apologising as I accidentally dangled my ear-buds in his cup of tea...
Note to self – clean ear-buds more often.
Once I got out into the door space of the carriage, the lanky guard seemed to unfold his backbone, and grow another mean, sharp foot of height. If I tilted the brim of my cowboy hat, I could have pretended he didn’t have a head.
I seriously considered it.
“Do you have a habit I should know about sir?” he asked.
Ahem. There’s not a man on the planet who won’t look shifty if asked that question by a stranger in a tabard. Come to that, there’s probably not a woman who won’t, either.
“Erm...” I said, thinking about it.
“No?” I tried.
He raised both eyebrows at me – like me, he was one of those comedically-hampered individuals who can’t physically raise one eyebrow. We have to raise both, and end up looking either ineffably curious about everything in front of us, or like we’ve just scored some seriously pleasing Class-A drugs. Or possibly, in certain circumstances, like we’ve just sat on an unexpected pineapple.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yyyyyyyes?” I said, exploring my answering options.
“Not a habit of being...forgetful at all?”
I looked at him, raising both eyebrows imploringly. Dude, seriously – gonna need a point here before one of us dies, I tried to convey. It’s not an easy message to convey with an eyebrow-wiggle.
“Forgot to touch in, didn’t you sir?”
I should explain – this is not as perverse as it sounds. At some Tube stations now, there are standing monoliths that look a bit like radiators with attitude. Rather than slow everyone down by making you all go through turnstiles or proper gates, you’re supposed to touch your Oyster card (a pre-paid travelcard, for the non-Brits), on the panel of these e-guards at every station at which you either join or leave the Tube system, so you can be electronically charged for the journey.
“Ah...” I said, trying to remember where the e-guard had been. All I could remember was lots and lots of people.
I wanted to say “Dude, gimme a break, my dad’s not well, I’ve got Man-Flu, I’m trying to get back to Ipswich and I’ve just sat through three hours of historical presentations, including one by a shibilant Asian dude...seriously, you’d have laughed when he said “city”...”
What actually came out of my mouth was:
“I...I...I don’t live here any more. I’m Welsh...”
He raised both his eyebrows even further at me. They were threatening to become a second hairline.
“Where’d you get on?” he demanded. This confused me even further. I wanted to say “Look dude, you knew I’d forgotten to touch in before I did, presumably you know where I did it!”
What actually came out of my mouth was:
“...”
Where the Hell had I got on?
“Ship!” I said. “Y’know...” I made long, banana-shaped gestures with my hands, trying to describe the keel of the ship being repaired at...at...y’know, that place! It occurred to me as I stood there gesticulating at the man whose eyebrows clearly didn’t get around very much that this was unlikely to support my case that I didn’t forget things.
“Y’know?” I said, trying to push my brain into a corner where it would have to remember. “The big ship-repair place. With the anchor and...and...stuff...”
“Cutty Sark, sir?” he said, as if carrying Jupiter on his shoulder.
“YES!!!” I yelled.
Don't yell. Not ever....
“Thhhhhankyou....Yes, Cutty Sark...that place...that’s the one, yes...”
“Automatic penalty,” he sniffed. “Forty pounds...”
He made me give him my name and address. Ever tried to spell Welsh place names to a granite-faced Cockney train guard who really doesn’t like you?
Don’t. Just lie. Lie, lie, lie again – say you’re from Bath. I would have, except the Oyster Card is linked to an online account, which meant the system already knew who I was. Which at that point was more than I did.
“Right,” I said when he’d torn off the fine slip and shoved it at me. “So they’ll send the fine out to me, will they?”
He sneered.
“No sir, it’s up to you to pay it. You’ve got 21 days or it goes up to eighty pounds.”
He sneered.
“No sir, it’s up to you to pay it. You’ve got 21 days or it goes up to eighty pounds.”
“Then...” I gulped. “Then...why did you make me give you my name and address?"
“If you don’t pay, they’ll sue you,” he said, sneering. He might not have been able to do the sarcastic solo eyebrow-raise, but he did a world class sneer. In my brief experience, he got a lot of practice in.
Then he bogged off. I looked back to my seat. Some bastard had nicked it while I was having a mental meltdown.
“I’m a Welshman,” I muttered. “Get me out of here...”
I didn’t end up getting to Liverpool Street until gone 7 o’clock. Pushed through the properly-signposted barrier (just sayin’), and was schlepping along Platform 10 to get to my assigned carriage on the Ipswich train.
Suddenly, another man took my case out of my hand, and walked on ahead of me. I blinked.
“What...What?”
“That looks heavy,” he said with a smile.
“Err....yeah,” I said. “Can I have it back please?”
He stared at me. Doubt seemed to cloud his face.
“Is it you?” he asked.
There is, I discovered, no right way to answer this question unless you know the person who’s asking it.
“I have absolutely no idea anymore,” I told him honestly. “It’s been one of those days...”
“Oh it’s not!” he realised suddenly. “It’s not you!”
“If you say so,” I agreed. “Erm...can I have the case?”
“Oh God yeah – sorry, that must have been weird!”
“Depends,” I said. “It’s really been one of those days...”
“You’ve got a doppelganger,” he explained.
I blinked at him, and we both stopped walking, halfway down Platform 10.
“Really?” I asked him, incredulous. For those who need a reminder, I was wearing the pin-striped Master Suit, my big cowboy hat, and had been carrying a pilot’s flight bag at the time, looking pretty much like Wild Bill Accountant. I also had a slightly growing-out beard, a robust thicket of 40-something-bloke nose-hair, oblong glasses and a slightly rabbit-in-the-headlights expression, having clearly regressed into a Welsh comfort-zone in the last three months.
“Yeah!” he exclaimed. “He even wears the same hat as you...”
We began walking side by side again.
“Wow, that is weird, even today,” I acknowledged. “Case?”
He handed me back my pilot case full of laptop and other assorted electronica.
“He’s called Ian Grady,” he said, over-extending the encounter somewhat, I felt. He stared at me again.
“You’re really not him? Not having me on?”
“I’m so not,” I assured him.
“Weird,” he said again.
“Weird,” he said again.
“Yeah,” I agreed again. This was getting awkward. I had a feeling if I said nothing, he’d invite me out for a pint any second now.
“Well,” I said. “Erm...thanks for the case.”
“No problem,” he said, still staring at me, shaking his head in wonder that there could be two Ian Gradys in the world.
“Erm...I said, reaching the door of my carriage. “OK, well, if you see Ian....” I shrugged. “Tell him I said hey!”
“I will, I will...” he said, waving as he carried on down the platform.
As I settled into my seat, I shut my eyes briefly. I wondered whether I could, if events had happened slightly differently, have passed my fine off onto Ian Grady, whoever he was. Probably would have given it a go, if I’m honest.
Be grateful for small mercies, I told myself. Could have been worse. He could have told you you were a dead ringer for Ian Brady, that would have completely sucked.
Ian Brady, for those who don’t know – which again means the non-Brits – was a notorious child-murderer in the 60s...I’m not even sure he’s still alive, and if he is, he’ll be dying in prison. Having him as a doppelganger would have sucked Satan’s ass. After all, if I’m gonna double for a serial killer, it would probably be John Wayne Gacy...maybe Arthur Shawcross at a push...
By comparison, today has been jussssst peachy. Simple, straightforward. No fines, no mental strangers on the street, so shibilant Asian guys, no doppelgangers inspiring people to nick my stuff.
As I write this, I’m on a train up the Valley, coming home to a place that now makes much more sense to me than my old city does. Here, I feel like my neon sign saying “Approach me now, mad fucks!” has an off-switch. Or at the very least, that I can pass it over to d, who has yet to engage in a conversation with anyone – I mean anyone: Tesco checkout girls, haberdashers, curry house waiters, customers at her job, anyone – that doesn’t go something like this:
d: says anything.
d: says anything.
Stranger: Where’ewfrom’en?
d: I was born in Toronto, Canada and grew up in New York State, little town called Westfield, just south of Buffalo, south of Niagara Falls.
Stranger: Wha’yewdoin’yearthen?
d: My husband’s a Merthyr boy, I came over here to marry him.
[Optional extra if I happen to be with her]
Stranger: (looks Tony up and down incredulously, as if to say “Seriously? You came here...to marry this? But you’re American! You come from the land of George Clooney. Surely you could have done better than this?!) Lovely...Awww, Wha’s New York like ’en?
d: I don’t know, I’ve never been there.
Stranger: (frowns suspiciously)
d: New York City is about a 12 hour drive from where I grew up.
Stranger: Really?? (gives d a look as if to say “Not got much ambition, have you?” – despite the fact that most of them have never been further than Bristol)
d: Yeah.
Stranger: (refusing to be put off) Looks lovely on the telly, fair play...
d: Hmm...Can I have my change please?
So far, my wife’s novelty status is still stunning the locals in this town, and she’s waiting for the day she becomes a recognised fixture in the town centre – they’ll call her “The Nice American” probably, knowing d. Personally, right now, I’m just waiting for home, and bed, and remembering what I do for a living when I’m not doing Ian Grady impressions.
Back to the gym and swim tomorrow, and a good long walk on Sunday, Dad’s health permitting – which, I’m given to understand, it is. Positive stuff happening in the Valleys, you see...
(Scurries under a train seat till it stops moving and I can go home...)
Thursday 22 March 2012
Greenwich Meany Time
Got to Greenwich for day one of our conference on time, and without getting lost even once.
I know!
Still, my ability to force otherwise-normal people to ask bizarre questions came to the fore when I got there. I was standing at a road crossing, when a couple came to join me – a black youngish woman with a headscarf and kickass boots, and a tall bald white bloke.
“Scuse me?” said the woman out of nowhere. I unplugged my iPod.
“Eh?”
“Are you a doctor or a lawyer?” she asked – for all the world as though those were the only options available to me. It should probably be explained that I was wearing the Master Suit, my big cowboy-style hat, and carrying a pilot’s flight bag at the time, looking pretty much like Wild Bill Accountant.
“Err...neither,” I said. “I’m a journalist.”
Fair enough, right?
The guy peered at me closer.
“Here or in Ireland?” he asked.
No, really.
“Err...here,” I said. “That’s kinda why I’m...y’know...here.”
“Oh,” he said, as if this hadn’t occurred to him. “Hmm. Not News of the World, I hope!”
“Ahahahaha...” I laughed falsely. The traditional response of moderate religious believers faced with their more extreme cousins came instantly to mind – “Oh, they’re not proper journalists” – but i bit it back because I wouldn’t accept it as valid from them. Also, my pal Alistair - who has undoubtedly been under surveillance at several points by the creepy excuses for journalistic endeavour employed by the Murdoch empire mentioned to me via Twitter this morning that, as a firend of his back in the late 90s, I may very well have come at least briefly under the scope of their investigations myself...So in the end I just said “Nonono...” and moved the Hell on.
Later in the day, I ended up listening to an Asian guy give a presentation on 19th Century Liverpool. It was a little unfortunate that he pronounced his “s” sounds as “sh” sounds, so every time he referred to “the city”, you could hear the room cringe...Or turn around, wondering who’d let Sean Connery into the building.
In other news, the BBC is today reporting a study that claims “fat fucks in older life have crappier brains” – I’m paraphrasing, of course – read the report here.
The idea is something that my mother has occasionally thrown out there as an oversimplification. “Lose weight,” she says, “and you won’t be so stupid...”
The new study claims that those who have higher BMIs and bigger waistlines over the age of 60 have lower mental agility. But apparently, lifestyle changes can help you get your mental agility back...
Ya-huh...
Have to say, this whole “slim yourself smarter” schtick didn’t impress me when Ma tried to convince me I had “fat on the brain”, and it didn’t impress anyone else with any notable improvement in my intellectual skills as I started losing the weight, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see (or indeed “weight and see”) whether I turn into a superfast mental Olympian as the weight goes down from here...
Anyone holding their breath?
We're Gonna Need A Smaller Belt
Gotta hand it to Life - just when you think you're down, it'll give you a little peck on the cheek.
Had to wear my Master suit for the first time in a while today, travelling to London for a two day conference that starts tomorrow.
The top half of it now fits perfectly, which I'm glad enough about to have done a kind of weird Welsh Happy Dance when it revealed itself to me late last night. I figured if the top half fit, the trousers would be fine...
Oh sure, you're all clever now...
The trousers, when I put them on this morning, were a beautifully graphic representation of where exactly the extra two stone I've lost since I got the Master Suit in September last year has been lost from. They were clown-panty. I grabbed the belt I've been wearing ever since I could wear belts without an extra set of holes drilled into them. Now it was on its last, tightest hole and still it wouldn't keep the clown-pants up. I ended up buying a brand new belt at Paddington station. I toyed with a simple large, wrapping it round myself more times than was strictly decent, but opted for an XL in the end - one size at a timmmmme, sweet Jesus...
I no longer wear XXL belts with extra holes in. I'm now a simple XL belt guy. Mini-whoop in celebration of me.
Spent the night with my pal Wendy and her fiancee Ria, in their place in Ipswich. Tomorrow, conference schmonference, gotta get my ass a -movin'...
At which point I find it's nearly 1AM, so time for me to get...if not my ass movin', then my lungs a-snorin'...
Had to wear my Master suit for the first time in a while today, travelling to London for a two day conference that starts tomorrow.
The top half of it now fits perfectly, which I'm glad enough about to have done a kind of weird Welsh Happy Dance when it revealed itself to me late last night. I figured if the top half fit, the trousers would be fine...
Oh sure, you're all clever now...
The trousers, when I put them on this morning, were a beautifully graphic representation of where exactly the extra two stone I've lost since I got the Master Suit in September last year has been lost from. They were clown-panty. I grabbed the belt I've been wearing ever since I could wear belts without an extra set of holes drilled into them. Now it was on its last, tightest hole and still it wouldn't keep the clown-pants up. I ended up buying a brand new belt at Paddington station. I toyed with a simple large, wrapping it round myself more times than was strictly decent, but opted for an XL in the end - one size at a timmmmme, sweet Jesus...
I no longer wear XXL belts with extra holes in. I'm now a simple XL belt guy. Mini-whoop in celebration of me.
Spent the night with my pal Wendy and her fiancee Ria, in their place in Ipswich. Tomorrow, conference schmonference, gotta get my ass a -movin'...
At which point I find it's nearly 1AM, so time for me to get...if not my ass movin', then my lungs a-snorin'...
Tuesday 20 March 2012
That Roadkill Feeling
Meh...(sniff).
Bottom line, today's weigh-in sucked about as much, or actually more, than I'd anticipated:
15 stone 4.25.
That means in the space of the last week I've put on two hard-won weeksworth of weight. A whole four pounds. I'm back to 5.25 stones of weightloss.
Anyone I say this to at the moment kinda looks at me weirdly, as if I'm losing the plot. And of course to some extent I am.
Back up the hospital this morning, with Ma, for more eyeball-wrangling. Looks like the laser treatment did its job pretty well - pressures are down - but something is still not right, so she has a follow-up a week tomorrow to see whether she needs proper, slice and crochet eye-surgery, rather than high-tech laser tomfoolery. The very thought of which makes me nauseated...
Meanwhile yesterday, Dad's visit was...Interesting, in a thoroughly Chinese fashion.
The consultant told us that we had to appreciate certain things. We sat there, pursing our lips, determining that we'd decide how appreciative we'd be once he told us what the things were, thankyouverymuch...
Dad has the following:
Chronic Lymphotic Leukaemia
Dysfunctional bone marrow
Chronic Anaemia
A touch of Asbestosis
Insulin-Dependent Diabetes, resulting from a Whipples Procedure which removed a good chunk of his innards.
A touch of pleurisy remaining.
And an enlarged spleen.
Now, let's see. What we had to appreciate, said the consultant, was that this is a thoroughly grim combination, because each element closes off treatment options for the other elements. Let's play Dad Battleships for a second...
Normally, to combat the CLL, the best option would be chemotherapy.
Enter dysfunctional bone marrow to knock that idea on the head - dysfunctional bone marrow, I should add, just because I'm hopelessly bitter about the whole thing, resulting from a medical error in a previous round of treatment for what was then not CLL, but Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They gave him two full chemo treatments in the space and time of one, essentially reducing his bone marrow to a consistency that would excite the likes of Heston Blumenthal. So now, the bone marrow is not strong enough, as it stands, to withstand chemo. Next!
Let's have another try at the CLL, shall we? How about drug treatments?
Welllll that's a nice idea except he's now had every currently available drug but one. And the one that remains is threatened by a combination of the CLL itself (how that works is too complicated for this blog), the Asbestosis and the Pleurisy - these three bastards block off this drug because they vastly raise the possibility of chest infections in a chest already stuck with enlarged lymph nodes, asbestos and pleural inflammation. Next!
How about a clinical trial? Yes, possible. Except, a) you've got to have a high-enough platelet-count in your blood to stand a reasonable chance of dabbling with as-yet-unregulated treatments, and b) you have to be, for instance, steroid-free...
If you combine CLL, dysfunctional bone marrow and chronic anaemia, guess what? It's gonna decimate your platelet-count. Guess what the next available treatment is for CLL?
Steroids, that's what.
So, you choose - treat the CLL here and now, or risk forgoing the treatement and get on a clinical trial...
Are we having fun yet?
Should I also mention that taking steroids will send your diabetes spiralling out of control, possibly give you gout, and leave you wide open to the likes of thrush?
Anyway - to cut a long story short, what we had to understand, said the consultant, was that we were trying to balance five or six different illnesses or conditions, each of which pretty much hates at least four of the other, and wants to unbalance them. In the end, we all agreed to get Dad on a steroid treatment for now, to reduce the size of the lymph nodes, then give him a resting period, and try and get him on a clinical trial after that...
That was yesterday. Well, that and a magazine, and work on my new business (we have a website now - details when I've tweaked it some), and trying to write a novel, and enter some writing competitions, and oh yeah, trying to Disappear...
So people are right when they tell me "Don't sweat it, you'll pull it back around when life is less frankly mental." No really, they are. But still, to get on a scales and see the numbers start to backslide, not just a little, but a lot.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here feeling like I've been run over by a van on a Wild West backroad. Feels like being Wily Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon, where the van runs over him, and then he gets up, and the van reverses back over him, and then goes forward and backward about eight more times, just for the comedy of the scene.
Yes, yes, I know, it's just Man-Flu. But it's also like Man-Flu that's phoned around and picked up all its Man-Flu mates to kick the bejeesus out of some poor schmuck it found lying on the side of the road.
And tomorrow I go to London and Ipswich for the rest of the week. Gonna be cool to see my pal Wendy and get finally introduced to her fiancee Ria. But on the other hand, I'm feeling like crap, Re-Appearing at a rate of knots, and going away at a time when 98% of me thinks I should stay home...On the other hand (it's a Beeblebrox deal), with any luck, three days of being away from home will break me out of a stupid habit into which I've fallen this last week or so - having fairly hefty bread-based meals at lunchtime. On the fourth and probably final hand, it also means the opportunities for exercise will be significantly reduced.
Oh and on one final hand - I'm in London for three days...come to me Starbucks, my frothy latte darling...
Bottom line, today's weigh-in sucked about as much, or actually more, than I'd anticipated:
15 stone 4.25.
That means in the space of the last week I've put on two hard-won weeksworth of weight. A whole four pounds. I'm back to 5.25 stones of weightloss.
Anyone I say this to at the moment kinda looks at me weirdly, as if I'm losing the plot. And of course to some extent I am.
Back up the hospital this morning, with Ma, for more eyeball-wrangling. Looks like the laser treatment did its job pretty well - pressures are down - but something is still not right, so she has a follow-up a week tomorrow to see whether she needs proper, slice and crochet eye-surgery, rather than high-tech laser tomfoolery. The very thought of which makes me nauseated...
Meanwhile yesterday, Dad's visit was...Interesting, in a thoroughly Chinese fashion.
The consultant told us that we had to appreciate certain things. We sat there, pursing our lips, determining that we'd decide how appreciative we'd be once he told us what the things were, thankyouverymuch...
Dad has the following:
Chronic Lymphotic Leukaemia
Dysfunctional bone marrow
Chronic Anaemia
A touch of Asbestosis
Insulin-Dependent Diabetes, resulting from a Whipples Procedure which removed a good chunk of his innards.
A touch of pleurisy remaining.
And an enlarged spleen.
Now, let's see. What we had to appreciate, said the consultant, was that this is a thoroughly grim combination, because each element closes off treatment options for the other elements. Let's play Dad Battleships for a second...
Normally, to combat the CLL, the best option would be chemotherapy.
Enter dysfunctional bone marrow to knock that idea on the head - dysfunctional bone marrow, I should add, just because I'm hopelessly bitter about the whole thing, resulting from a medical error in a previous round of treatment for what was then not CLL, but Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They gave him two full chemo treatments in the space and time of one, essentially reducing his bone marrow to a consistency that would excite the likes of Heston Blumenthal. So now, the bone marrow is not strong enough, as it stands, to withstand chemo. Next!
Let's have another try at the CLL, shall we? How about drug treatments?
Welllll that's a nice idea except he's now had every currently available drug but one. And the one that remains is threatened by a combination of the CLL itself (how that works is too complicated for this blog), the Asbestosis and the Pleurisy - these three bastards block off this drug because they vastly raise the possibility of chest infections in a chest already stuck with enlarged lymph nodes, asbestos and pleural inflammation. Next!
How about a clinical trial? Yes, possible. Except, a) you've got to have a high-enough platelet-count in your blood to stand a reasonable chance of dabbling with as-yet-unregulated treatments, and b) you have to be, for instance, steroid-free...
If you combine CLL, dysfunctional bone marrow and chronic anaemia, guess what? It's gonna decimate your platelet-count. Guess what the next available treatment is for CLL?
Steroids, that's what.
So, you choose - treat the CLL here and now, or risk forgoing the treatement and get on a clinical trial...
Are we having fun yet?
Should I also mention that taking steroids will send your diabetes spiralling out of control, possibly give you gout, and leave you wide open to the likes of thrush?
Anyway - to cut a long story short, what we had to understand, said the consultant, was that we were trying to balance five or six different illnesses or conditions, each of which pretty much hates at least four of the other, and wants to unbalance them. In the end, we all agreed to get Dad on a steroid treatment for now, to reduce the size of the lymph nodes, then give him a resting period, and try and get him on a clinical trial after that...
That was yesterday. Well, that and a magazine, and work on my new business (we have a website now - details when I've tweaked it some), and trying to write a novel, and enter some writing competitions, and oh yeah, trying to Disappear...
So people are right when they tell me "Don't sweat it, you'll pull it back around when life is less frankly mental." No really, they are. But still, to get on a scales and see the numbers start to backslide, not just a little, but a lot.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here feeling like I've been run over by a van on a Wild West backroad. Feels like being Wily Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon, where the van runs over him, and then he gets up, and the van reverses back over him, and then goes forward and backward about eight more times, just for the comedy of the scene.
Yes, yes, I know, it's just Man-Flu. But it's also like Man-Flu that's phoned around and picked up all its Man-Flu mates to kick the bejeesus out of some poor schmuck it found lying on the side of the road.
And tomorrow I go to London and Ipswich for the rest of the week. Gonna be cool to see my pal Wendy and get finally introduced to her fiancee Ria. But on the other hand, I'm feeling like crap, Re-Appearing at a rate of knots, and going away at a time when 98% of me thinks I should stay home...On the other hand (it's a Beeblebrox deal), with any luck, three days of being away from home will break me out of a stupid habit into which I've fallen this last week or so - having fairly hefty bread-based meals at lunchtime. On the fourth and probably final hand, it also means the opportunities for exercise will be significantly reduced.
Oh and on one final hand - I'm in London for three days...come to me Starbucks, my frothy latte darling...
Monday 19 March 2012
The Bad Place
"You full?" said d.
"Yep," I said. There was a bowlful of pasta in my stomach.
"Want something sweeeeeet!" said d. This wasn't a question, sadly. This was a lament.
"You've got Welsh Cakes," I mentioned.
"Nooo!"
"OK..."
Turns out my girl was having a very particular craving. For her own lemon drizzle cake, of which she made some on the weekend, and for which she now had a Jones on.
"Want cake!" she said.
I thought about it.
"I want KitKats," I said. "Lots and lots of KitKats. Orange ones, white ones, special-wanky-edition ones...ooooooh dark chocolate ones. Mmm....peanut butter ones could be fun. Basically, just wanna get wicked in a KitKat orgy...with maybe a Picnic on the side for when things get dull..."
d was looking at me. She blinked.
"I've gone to the Bad Place again, haven't I?"
"Just a bit, yeah," she agreed. "You spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, don't you?"
I grinned.
"Bloody amateurs," I muttered.
d went to make cake.
Postscript:
d came back, bearing cake. She read this entry.
"Yyyyyeah...I may be an amateur honey, but look - I have cake. You go whip up a KitKat and get back to me, Bad Place Boy..."
Sonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitch...Where's the freakin' yoghurt?
"Yep," I said. There was a bowlful of pasta in my stomach.
"Want something sweeeeeet!" said d. This wasn't a question, sadly. This was a lament.
"You've got Welsh Cakes," I mentioned.
"Nooo!"
"OK..."
Turns out my girl was having a very particular craving. For her own lemon drizzle cake, of which she made some on the weekend, and for which she now had a Jones on.
"Want cake!" she said.
I thought about it.
"I want KitKats," I said. "Lots and lots of KitKats. Orange ones, white ones, special-wanky-edition ones...ooooooh dark chocolate ones. Mmm....peanut butter ones could be fun. Basically, just wanna get wicked in a KitKat orgy...with maybe a Picnic on the side for when things get dull..."
d was looking at me. She blinked.
"I've gone to the Bad Place again, haven't I?"
"Just a bit, yeah," she agreed. "You spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, don't you?"
I grinned.
"Bloody amateurs," I muttered.
d went to make cake.
Postscript:
d came back, bearing cake. She read this entry.
"Yyyyyeah...I may be an amateur honey, but look - I have cake. You go whip up a KitKat and get back to me, Bad Place Boy..."
Sonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitchsonofabitch...Where's the freakin' yoghurt?
Sunday 18 March 2012
Ick
I was writing to a pal of mine earlier today (having recently re-adopted the business of actually writing, long-hand), and was reminded of a goal I had for March. I was planning to get to 14 stone 7 by the end of March.
Sooooo clearly not gonna happen.
If anything, I feel like I'm falling back. And now I'm lurgied. Started as a throat grouch, now it's a head grouch. So buggered if I'm getting on the bike. Want to curl up and be traditionally man-flu'd, except of course I don't want anyone to think I'm the kind of guy who succumbs to man-flu, so I'm not gonna. Nehh...
Urgggh...
Neuurgh, even...
Of course, whinging about man-flu becomes even more ridiculous when you realise I've spent half the day with my dad. Now, he can curl up and be man-flu'd. Not looking so good today - positively white, knackered, coughing, and all the blood he's had pumped into him has long been used. Thankfully, we'll get him back in front of the consultant tomorrow, to figure out what the Hell we do next. Worst conceivable week in a long time for me to be swanning off to London and Ipswich half way through, but has to be done.
Almost tempted to skip a week of weigh-ins and just come next week. Sigh...
You know I'm not gonna do that, but that's how I feel tonight. Man-flu talking. Nobody listen. Altogether now - fingers in lugholes, annnnnd...
"Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaa!!!"
Sooooo clearly not gonna happen.
If anything, I feel like I'm falling back. And now I'm lurgied. Started as a throat grouch, now it's a head grouch. So buggered if I'm getting on the bike. Want to curl up and be traditionally man-flu'd, except of course I don't want anyone to think I'm the kind of guy who succumbs to man-flu, so I'm not gonna. Nehh...
Urgggh...
Neuurgh, even...
Of course, whinging about man-flu becomes even more ridiculous when you realise I've spent half the day with my dad. Now, he can curl up and be man-flu'd. Not looking so good today - positively white, knackered, coughing, and all the blood he's had pumped into him has long been used. Thankfully, we'll get him back in front of the consultant tomorrow, to figure out what the Hell we do next. Worst conceivable week in a long time for me to be swanning off to London and Ipswich half way through, but has to be done.
Almost tempted to skip a week of weigh-ins and just come next week. Sigh...
You know I'm not gonna do that, but that's how I feel tonight. Man-flu talking. Nobody listen. Altogether now - fingers in lugholes, annnnnd...
"Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaa!!!"
Saturday 17 March 2012
Grand Slammin'
Good day to be Welsh, today. In case you've managed to avoid the demented harmonies emanating from pretty much the whole country, the Welsh rugby team kicked some hard-won French arse (it's like British arse, but with an accent over the a) today, to take not only the "Six Nations" championship, but something we call the Grand Slam - winning every single game they played in the tournament.
What's more, this is the third time they've done it in the space of seven years, putting them in a league that Welsh rugby hasn't seen since its previous glory days in the 1970s.
For reasons I've always been at a loss to explain, things like this are phenomenally important to the Welsh.
Traditionally, or stereotypically at least, we care about:
Cheese,
Singing
Sheep (to a positively lustful degree if you listen to the English)
Coal (as our economy depended on it...Well, it and steel)
Socialism (first Socialist MP in Britain was elected for my home town, Merthyr Tydfil)...
...and rugby.
Now, I've always been a cheese-fan, and as you know by now, I'm more than happy to sing, in public, in private, at the slightest provocation and indeed at none. Socialism has always been a logical idea ot me not because I grew up in such a famously Socialist environment, but because my folks, while living in this famously Socialist environment, were leading figures in the local Tory party (Translation function: Tory=Republican, for my American friends), and I rebelled against the ideas they espoused. Given the Socialistic outlook of most of the rest of the town, it was hardly a Grand Rebellion, but still...
Sheep, I've rarely given a toss about (so to speak), coal...works well if you're freezing to death, but is generally more work than the worth of it, and rugby...meh.
To me, the allure of rugby was killed stone dead at an early age by actually having to play it. At my school, it consisted mainly of poorly choreographed carnage, in the pissing-down rain and the bollock-freezing mud, played with people who would happily, joyfully...even casually cause you life-threatening and permanent injury given half a chance, and who, when you jammed your bodies together in a scrum, you couldn't help but notice, smelled impossibly strongly of body odour and the kind of grease that had long become a character trait.
So you'll have to forgive me when I tell you that I've never particularly cared about rugby, or the whole nationalistic schtick that comes with it here in Wales. There are specific songs, there are costumes, there's the whole sense of noisy superiority that goes with the game, in which Wales appears to take itself altogether too seriously for my liking, and which has made it impossible for me to get behind.
Since I've been back home though...
It began with d, actually. d, who of course is used to American Football - a lot of impossibly hefty men running around and often through each other, with an oval ball - became more than a little captivated by the game early in this Six Nations season. "There's such an elegance to it. Elegance and brutality, but still..."
I looked at the screen.
"Really?" I asked. "Which of them strikes you as more elegant, dear, the guy bleeding freely from his forehead, or the one spitting out his own teeth?"
But the more I watched with her, the more the nationalistic lure of the game sank its claws into me. When Ma, one Saturday, asked if I was going to watch The Game, it was weird - there was a sort of unspoken acceptance that this was A Man Thing, and that (and this is not something I often feel, or feel the lack of) I clearly now qualified to enjoy this sort of thing. So yeah, I sat and watched The Game.
Since then I've caught all but one of the matches in the season, and d and I sat and watched the finale today...
Well, I say we watched it. Actually, I watched it; d, for all the 'elegance' of the game, fell asleep, which is fair enough.
Now, I should confess - it would probably strike many of my friends in Wales as even more spectacularly nauseating than my disregard for Most Things Welsh, if, now I've returned, I suddenly became a scarf-wearing, cuddly-dragon-waving, rugby-song-singing Taff. But this year has seen a lot of changes in me, and enjoyment of rugby (at least as a spectator) would appear to be another addition to the increasingly long list of my hypocrisies. So good on you, Welshfolk of the team.
Buggerall Welsh about my day apart from that. Pizza for lunch (we had a voucher), followed by spaghetti and meatballs this evening. This wasn't some sort of subconscious tribute to Italy's only success in the tournament by the way...it was a perfectly conscious tribute to the fact that Italian food is bloody glorious. Did a little desultory pedalling on the bike inbetween meals in a faintly pathetic attempt to mitigate the overall Italianate theme of the day, but I know I'm fooling nobody today, not even my arteries.
Still, could have been worse - I could have been celebrating an Italian rugby triumph by eating all Welsh food; all cockles and seaweed and mutton, oh my...
In BizarroWorld, maybe!
What's more, this is the third time they've done it in the space of seven years, putting them in a league that Welsh rugby hasn't seen since its previous glory days in the 1970s.
For reasons I've always been at a loss to explain, things like this are phenomenally important to the Welsh.
Traditionally, or stereotypically at least, we care about:
Cheese,
Singing
Sheep (to a positively lustful degree if you listen to the English)
Coal (as our economy depended on it...Well, it and steel)
Socialism (first Socialist MP in Britain was elected for my home town, Merthyr Tydfil)...
...and rugby.
Now, I've always been a cheese-fan, and as you know by now, I'm more than happy to sing, in public, in private, at the slightest provocation and indeed at none. Socialism has always been a logical idea ot me not because I grew up in such a famously Socialist environment, but because my folks, while living in this famously Socialist environment, were leading figures in the local Tory party (Translation function: Tory=Republican, for my American friends), and I rebelled against the ideas they espoused. Given the Socialistic outlook of most of the rest of the town, it was hardly a Grand Rebellion, but still...
Sheep, I've rarely given a toss about (so to speak), coal...works well if you're freezing to death, but is generally more work than the worth of it, and rugby...meh.
To me, the allure of rugby was killed stone dead at an early age by actually having to play it. At my school, it consisted mainly of poorly choreographed carnage, in the pissing-down rain and the bollock-freezing mud, played with people who would happily, joyfully...even casually cause you life-threatening and permanent injury given half a chance, and who, when you jammed your bodies together in a scrum, you couldn't help but notice, smelled impossibly strongly of body odour and the kind of grease that had long become a character trait.
So you'll have to forgive me when I tell you that I've never particularly cared about rugby, or the whole nationalistic schtick that comes with it here in Wales. There are specific songs, there are costumes, there's the whole sense of noisy superiority that goes with the game, in which Wales appears to take itself altogether too seriously for my liking, and which has made it impossible for me to get behind.
Since I've been back home though...
It began with d, actually. d, who of course is used to American Football - a lot of impossibly hefty men running around and often through each other, with an oval ball - became more than a little captivated by the game early in this Six Nations season. "There's such an elegance to it. Elegance and brutality, but still..."
I looked at the screen.
"Really?" I asked. "Which of them strikes you as more elegant, dear, the guy bleeding freely from his forehead, or the one spitting out his own teeth?"
But the more I watched with her, the more the nationalistic lure of the game sank its claws into me. When Ma, one Saturday, asked if I was going to watch The Game, it was weird - there was a sort of unspoken acceptance that this was A Man Thing, and that (and this is not something I often feel, or feel the lack of) I clearly now qualified to enjoy this sort of thing. So yeah, I sat and watched The Game.
Since then I've caught all but one of the matches in the season, and d and I sat and watched the finale today...
Well, I say we watched it. Actually, I watched it; d, for all the 'elegance' of the game, fell asleep, which is fair enough.
Now, I should confess - it would probably strike many of my friends in Wales as even more spectacularly nauseating than my disregard for Most Things Welsh, if, now I've returned, I suddenly became a scarf-wearing, cuddly-dragon-waving, rugby-song-singing Taff. But this year has seen a lot of changes in me, and enjoyment of rugby (at least as a spectator) would appear to be another addition to the increasingly long list of my hypocrisies. So good on you, Welshfolk of the team.
Buggerall Welsh about my day apart from that. Pizza for lunch (we had a voucher), followed by spaghetti and meatballs this evening. This wasn't some sort of subconscious tribute to Italy's only success in the tournament by the way...it was a perfectly conscious tribute to the fact that Italian food is bloody glorious. Did a little desultory pedalling on the bike inbetween meals in a faintly pathetic attempt to mitigate the overall Italianate theme of the day, but I know I'm fooling nobody today, not even my arteries.
Still, could have been worse - I could have been celebrating an Italian rugby triumph by eating all Welsh food; all cockles and seaweed and mutton, oh my...
In BizarroWorld, maybe!
Friday 16 March 2012
Google Is Your Friend
Well...fine!
I handed last night's entry to d to read while I went up to the bathroom.
When I came down, she had a website showing.
"Google is your friend, my little troglodyte," she murmured, showing it to me.
"Sonofabitch, I love this species," I said, reading. Sure enough, someone actually has developed a waterproof mp3 player, for use while swimming. Come next month's payday, one of these puppies has my name on it!
As if that wasn't enough, it was trumped by bedtime my my pal Mae, who pretty much re-iterated the 'Google is your friend' line and introduced me to a waterproof mp3 player from Speedo, no less (to match my swim shorts and goggles.
So this will be the Disappearing Man, Disappearing back to the pool next month.
Today has been a day of plans gone awry - meant to walk before work this morning, but didn't. Meant to walk this lunchtime, but, as it happened, didn't. Meant to bike towards the end of the working day, but in the end, didn't. And by now - notsomuch - it's Friday night, dammit, gonna spend some classic couch, movie, popcorn time with my girl, just Being.
No London this Monday either, so Tuesday will probably be bad, but I'm still hoping to pull it back a little. London (and Ipswich) from Wednesday to Friday this week though, so that'll be different.
For now though, time to get Comfy...
I handed last night's entry to d to read while I went up to the bathroom.
When I came down, she had a website showing.
"Google is your friend, my little troglodyte," she murmured, showing it to me.
"Sonofabitch, I love this species," I said, reading. Sure enough, someone actually has developed a waterproof mp3 player, for use while swimming. Come next month's payday, one of these puppies has my name on it!
As if that wasn't enough, it was trumped by bedtime my my pal Mae, who pretty much re-iterated the 'Google is your friend' line and introduced me to a waterproof mp3 player from Speedo, no less (to match my swim shorts and goggles.
So this will be the Disappearing Man, Disappearing back to the pool next month.
Today has been a day of plans gone awry - meant to walk before work this morning, but didn't. Meant to walk this lunchtime, but, as it happened, didn't. Meant to bike towards the end of the working day, but in the end, didn't. And by now - notsomuch - it's Friday night, dammit, gonna spend some classic couch, movie, popcorn time with my girl, just Being.
No London this Monday either, so Tuesday will probably be bad, but I'm still hoping to pull it back a little. London (and Ipswich) from Wednesday to Friday this week though, so that'll be different.
For now though, time to get Comfy...
Thursday 15 March 2012
Changing Human Destiny On A Wednesday
Blisters. Woohoo.
Oddly enough, different blisters from the running to the kind I get when walking.
(Shrug)
You wanted to know that, right?
Anyhow, broke out the Compeed blister plasters and gave the walking a break this morning.
This is not a blister-blog though. This is an idea I had last night, while running to the tunes of Thin Lizzy in my head.
I kind of figured out why swimming, by comparison, was boring to me during the month or so I did it in the early morning. It's because I'm boring...
What I mean is this: in the modern world, we plug ourselves in and soundtrack almost everything - train journeys, plane journeys, car journeys, walks, runs, pretty-much-just-sitting-on-our-arses-scratching-ourselves....everything. Silence is so unusual these days, I swear, if we weren't actively unconscious, we'd drive ourselves mad just trying to sleep through the night. Indeed - when I'm not laying next to d, I'm a prime case of this: I cannot sleep in silence, because the cavernous, quiet emptiness of my own brain is so damn boooooring.
I'll happily walk for miles and hours, pushed on by voices that crush the silence of my self underfoot. I'll cycle till I can barely move if MeatLoaf's yelling in my lugholes. When you swim - there's nothing.
Nothing but your own thoughts. And in terms of exercise, if you're not distracted, the main thought going through your brain is: Mmm...tedium and pain...let's keep going with this, shall we?
And yes, I do realise that this is a whiny, self-serving, very 21st century rant, and that people have been keeping fit and active since the dawn of time without isolating themselves from the rest of the world an dpouring music directly into their aural canals, but a) sod it, the 21st century is where I live, and I was a teenager in the age of the Walkman. I'm gonna be that shallow, and b) Ppppphbbbhbhbhbhbhbbhbhbhbbhbhbhhhhhaaaahhhh!!! - which is as close as I can get this evening to writing a raspberry.
What I'd need to make swimming an endlessly attractive option would, by extension, be a waterproof iPod.
If someone were to make such a thing (and I have no idea of course that they haven't), I confidently (and with no regard for tiresome factuality) predict that the training shoe market would collapse overnight, and running tracks would be abandoned or converted to swimming pools.
There's even an evolutionary opportunity here. After all, since we crawled out of the oceans, what has the dry land ever done for us? I mean, obviously, apart from the opposable thumb, tool use, an imaginatinon, language, science, art, philosophy, literature, the steam engine and the trouser press...what has the dry land ever done for us?
But imagine if we could go back to the oceans, and yet carry our music with us...I mean, yeah, sure, the whole breathing thing would be a drag at first, but surely that's the kind of challenge that really pushes evolution's buttons - if it wasn't, we never would have climbed out of the oceans in the first place...
Sigh...Never mind the poncy, fancy, did-we-really-need-it new iPad, Apple-fucks - give us the waterproof iPod and change human destiny...
Oddly enough, different blisters from the running to the kind I get when walking.
(Shrug)
You wanted to know that, right?
Anyhow, broke out the Compeed blister plasters and gave the walking a break this morning.
This is not a blister-blog though. This is an idea I had last night, while running to the tunes of Thin Lizzy in my head.
I kind of figured out why swimming, by comparison, was boring to me during the month or so I did it in the early morning. It's because I'm boring...
What I mean is this: in the modern world, we plug ourselves in and soundtrack almost everything - train journeys, plane journeys, car journeys, walks, runs, pretty-much-just-sitting-on-our-arses-scratching-ourselves....everything. Silence is so unusual these days, I swear, if we weren't actively unconscious, we'd drive ourselves mad just trying to sleep through the night. Indeed - when I'm not laying next to d, I'm a prime case of this: I cannot sleep in silence, because the cavernous, quiet emptiness of my own brain is so damn boooooring.
I'll happily walk for miles and hours, pushed on by voices that crush the silence of my self underfoot. I'll cycle till I can barely move if MeatLoaf's yelling in my lugholes. When you swim - there's nothing.
Nothing but your own thoughts. And in terms of exercise, if you're not distracted, the main thought going through your brain is: Mmm...tedium and pain...let's keep going with this, shall we?
And yes, I do realise that this is a whiny, self-serving, very 21st century rant, and that people have been keeping fit and active since the dawn of time without isolating themselves from the rest of the world an dpouring music directly into their aural canals, but a) sod it, the 21st century is where I live, and I was a teenager in the age of the Walkman. I'm gonna be that shallow, and b) Ppppphbbbhbhbhbhbhbbhbhbhbbhbhbhhhhhaaaahhhh!!! - which is as close as I can get this evening to writing a raspberry.
What I'd need to make swimming an endlessly attractive option would, by extension, be a waterproof iPod.
If someone were to make such a thing (and I have no idea of course that they haven't), I confidently (and with no regard for tiresome factuality) predict that the training shoe market would collapse overnight, and running tracks would be abandoned or converted to swimming pools.
There's even an evolutionary opportunity here. After all, since we crawled out of the oceans, what has the dry land ever done for us? I mean, obviously, apart from the opposable thumb, tool use, an imaginatinon, language, science, art, philosophy, literature, the steam engine and the trouser press...what has the dry land ever done for us?
But imagine if we could go back to the oceans, and yet carry our music with us...I mean, yeah, sure, the whole breathing thing would be a drag at first, but surely that's the kind of challenge that really pushes evolution's buttons - if it wasn't, we never would have climbed out of the oceans in the first place...
Sigh...Never mind the poncy, fancy, did-we-really-need-it new iPad, Apple-fucks - give us the waterproof iPod and change human destiny...
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