Mirror, Mirror...

Went to bed last night at 3AM. Woke up about 6 to go and pee. Rolled out of bed and instinctively dragged in my stomach and puffed out my chest...because I was passing the full-length mirror on the outside of our wardrobe.

I stopped with one foot in the air.
"What the Hell was that?!" I demanded inside my head.

Yes, I was pulling in my stomach...for a mirror.
"Moron..." I muttered.

Couldn't go back to sleep after that - did exactly what I promised I wouldn't do - stayed awake fretting about the Indian meal we had last night. Even got back into bed, pulled in the stomach again and did a comparison of how bulgy it looked in the mirror...

I know what you're asking...Yes, a comparison: this is not the first time that I've lain there, examining the bulge and the curve where they shouldn't be, so yes, somewhere in the dark side of my brain I have an indexed database of curve patterns, plateaus, bulges and flab-rolls of my stomach through time. And yes, of course, it's a sickness. It's one of many sicknesses that make up the state of a man who needs to be the Disappearing Man, and isn't sure he is any more.

When I fiinally gave up trying not to think and got up, my blood was, as could have been predicted after a night of late-night cream and fruit sauces and coconut breads, the highest it's been in over a year - 7.8. The main highlight of the day was dinner with the folks. We walked into my folks' house and it was like walking into 1956. Or into a British National Party rally - there was bunting over the cooker, and flags in the fruitbowl. There was a union flag on the tablecloth. On the paper cups and plates. On the glasses. On the serviettes. And on the CD compilation of strident brass and choral music and Vera Lynn that (as my contribution to the feast) I'd provided.

We ate good food, we laughed, we ignored the terrifying power of superstition and coughing and we raised glasses of wine or juice to the Queen. The non-Royalist sense is the only one in which I could be described as a Republican, but on one day in several decades, I can raise a glass to the not-that-bad job Elizabeth has done. So we did. What we also did was eat dessert. And yes, I enjoyed every mouthful of it. And yes, tonight, dammit, I'm taking a sleeping pill because a) I don't have to go to London tomorrow, and b) I don't want to be ambushed by the man in the mirror at stupid o'clock in the morning. And yes, I broke a nail today, scrabbling and failing to quite grasp the swimming pool bank labelled 'Discipline'.

The day is ending with eggy bread and Desperate Housewives, and with me feeling like I want to freeze existence in this moment, for all sorts of reasons. If we could only stay here, in this moment, with people and food and fun and laughter and only this and only now and no more mirrors and databases and endless vanity and math...

Sigh...that'd be pretty sweet.

But it won't, of course. It can't.

But we'll deal with that when the clock dares tick. And that's not tonight.