The Nazi Playfulness

I almost don't want to tell you the headline of today, because I think it's actually bullshit.

OK...got home from a couple of days away two nights ago, weighed in the evening, and the Nazi Scales had me as:
17st 7.25.

Woke up the following morning, and weighed again. Apparently, I'd put on a pound overnight.
Woke up this morning - admittedly after not a particularly good day yesterday, culminating in a glorious home made chinese chicken and rice concoction from d - and the Nazis had me at:
17st 9.75.

I went downstairs, did some work, had a bit of a wretched mull, went back up and weighed again, to find they'd relented...but only to the tune of half a pound - 17st 9.25...

So...who the Hell knows? Pick a weight...any weight...

As for me, I'm bored of deafness (going back to the docs again tomorrow morning), and word-blind, coming off the back of a technical edit. Two more begin tomorrow, plus a bunch of journal papers to edit, a magazine deadline and a choral concert which I can't participate in due to the aforementioned (and aforementioned till everyone's sick to death of hearing about it) deafness. Will go and take pictures though, in my role as Press Officer for the Dowlais Male Choir (yes, the famous one). Perversely enough, the concert - it's a St David's Day thing...Cymru am byth and all that sentimental malarkey...is being held at my old school. Gonna be at least moderately surreal to be back there, it has to be said.

Hmm...wonder if they still have the annual riot...

Will let you know tomorrow night, assuming I get out with my life...

The Sign Language Explosion

What is it, for you, that proves you're home?
There are plenty of things for me. My own front door, with its demented turny-key combination. My own staircase with the Pile of Stuff No-One Quite Has Space For Anywhere Else. My own bathroom, with my own bathrrom books. But for me, I'm not properly home until I've heard d's laugh.

Last night was a case in point. Got home late afternoon, did some work in my office, took a long, luxurious bath until d came home from a late shift. We shared the bones of our days spent away, then she turned to go downstairs to put some pizzas on to cook.
"Oh yeah," I said as she was leaving. "You'll appreciate this."
"What?" she said, smiling, but with a single raised eyebrow.
"I've been away two and a half days, right? And during that time I've done more than my fair share of travelling. Every train and every tube I've been on, I've noticed a weird phenomenon. People on the right of me, gesticulating wildly."
"Oh," she said, not yet understanding.
"And on every single occasion, I've thought 'Oh cool...some deaf people using sign language on the Tube...'"
"Aha," she said, still not getting it.
"Yeah, it was like a veritable sign language explosion," I said.

"Course," I added, "didn't occur to me till I noticed it on the train coming home from Cardiff this afternoon as well. Funny how this explosion of sign language always happened on the right of me."
"Oh my God!" cried d, getting it at last.
"Yyyyeah. Notsomuch a sign language explosion as one deaf dickhead on the right hand side," I explained.
"You...daft..." She rushed forward to kiss my ginger-scented bath-foamed head. Then she cracked, and the laugh grew like one of those seeds you see in time-lapse nature shows, reaching up a stem and bursting out to flower in the sunlight.
And as she went in search of pizza, I grinned and dipped my Moby Dick body under the foam. I was home.

On a slightly more serious note of course, this is getting silly now. I no longer have vertigo, and I no longer have seasickness...so I no longer have the two main symptoms of Labyrinthitis...
But I'm still, clearly, profoundly bloody deaf in the right lughole.
Sigh...
Going back to the doctors on Friday...

The Ipswich Hatred

Ipswich, I’ve concluded, really hates me.

When I arrived in London a couple of days ago, I had to get a train out to Ipswich to where Wendy lives.

I’d checked the times and prices online, but I couldn’t see any Ipswich trains on the board at Liverpool Street.

“I’ll go talk to a human being,” I thought.

Big mistake. Human beings suck…That is all. He told me that there wasn’t a train to Ipswich that night.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s a Sunday,” he explained.

“What?” I asked.

“Works on the line, innit?” he asked, as if this explained everything. As it turned out, it did. It explained why he would charge me three times the price I’d seen online to travel half of the distance in any kind of comfort on a train, then decamp to the bus that time forgot, for a couple of hours of wandering around pitch-black B-roads, terrified to move in case the moderately aggressive pink-haired collection of piercings at my side took offence at my very existence and decided to sharpen up her cannibalistic appetite.

I eventually stumbled into Ipswich station as Wendy’s wife Maria was going to bed. I followed her lead, frankly.

Last night was special though.

It started off so promisingly. There was a train and everything.

All the way, no less. Thing is, because I’d had to get my head together after not getting a job I really wanted and could do, I’d shifted the time of my arrival back, and told Wendy, in a somewhat bravura moment, I admit, “Don’t bother getting the car out, I’ll get a cab from the station, no big…”

Can you spot the point at which Fate started fucking with me?

Actually, you’re wrong. The moment at which Fate started fucking with me was at Manningtree – the station before Ipswich – where my phone gave up the ghost of its battery power, and blinked out of consciousness. I’d been smart though – I’d written the address on yesterday’s train ticket.

“Here you go, mate,” I said to the cabbie, giving him the full address. He drove me…somewhere.

It’s important to realise here that Wendy’s flat is in a court, and every other time I’ve been there, it’s been in her car, driving to what I now realise was the back, and in through the courtyard. The cabbie dropped me on a terraced street.

“This isn’t right…” I muttered.

“Three pounds sixty mate,” he said. I paid the man, and he let me out. I walked up and down the street for a while, looking for the address. It didn’t seem to be anywhere – I couldn’t see the courtyard. I walked up and down adjacent streets, in my interview boots, getting blisters. Finally, I collared a random pedestrian. “Can you help me find this place?” I asked. “I’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere!”

He got out his smartphone, tried to find it on a map, ultimately failed, and then said “I’m going to my car. If you like, I’ll drop you back at the cab rank.” Great…where my troubles really began. But rather than wander round bits of suburban Ipswich, I took him up on his offer, and he became my cast iron Hero of the Day. Dropped me at a cab rank, and I explained my predicament to the cabbie. He programmed his satnav.

“Yeah, says it exists, anyway,” he said, and I hopped in. By this point it was about 9.30, with Maria scheduled to go to bed at 10. He drove. He drove me right back to where the other cabbie had dropped me.

“Three pounds sixty please mate,” he said.

“But this is wrong…” I pleaded. “Got a card so I can call you when I discover this is wrong? Oh gods, no, don’t worry, my phone doesn’t work…”

“It’s right over there mate,” he said, pointing at a large suburban house.

“But it isn’t,” I wailed. “You get to her flat by going into a courtyard…”

“It’s there mate, look what it says.”

I looked. Wendy’s flat is apartment 3 in a block. Now in my own partial defence, the sign was written as “Flat 1357”, and “Flat 2468”.

Ahem…

I went up to the door and pressed a buzzer for Flat 3.

“Halllooo!” cried Wendy from the level of the basement. “Made it alright, then?”

I gave her a bitter, wincing smile…And went to bed.

25th February - The Starbucks Failure

I don’t know what it is, but since coming away to London yesterday, Starbucks does not appear to have been my friend. Liverpool Street Starbucks – the one that began what I think it’s fair to call a habitual obsession when d explained to me that you could have the coffee as you wanted it, if you were actually prepared to use their godawful, ghastly terminology (Really? A small coffee is Tall? Sort it out, Starbucks, you’re a disgrace to the linguistically logical world!), was having none of it. Big notice on the counter: “Fuuuuuuuuuuck Youuuuu!”

Well, fine, maybe not quite that, but it might as well have been. “We’re not set up to accept Starbucks cards. Or the app payments,” it actually declared. Which I maintain, for us hip, hot happening dudes is the equivalent of a hearty “Fuuuuuuuuuuck Youuuuu!”

Of course, I didn’t arrive at Liverpool Street, I arrived at Paddington. In a winter sweater and an overcoat and a hat. Somehow, the idea of grabbing a piping hot cup of coffee to boot just didn’t appeal.

So the first one I had was this morning, prior to going for a job interview.  I was halfway up the road with the cup of rather nice pointlessness (or a venti skinny de-caff latte, as those of you who’ve followed my ranting for a while will have remembered…saddos!) belched. I have no idea how it did that – I didn’t squeeze it, and physics would rather suggest I would have had to have done. Suddenly, there was what can only be described as an ejaculation of hot coffee, all the way down my pristine white interview shirt.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!” I yelled, quietly. No really, it’s entirely possible to yell quietly: it’s all in the timbre. Try it, go on…

I dashed into the office, which by that point was thankfully near, and basically doused myself in cold water. Gotta love a wet shirt contest, haven’t you? Weirdly though, it seemed to do the trick, and when I didn’t get the job, I at least had the satisfaction of knowing it was my own fundamental incapability, rather than my coffee-stained shirt, that was responsible.

Going back to Wendy’s place in Ipswich tonight brought me back to Liverpool Street and The Sign. Took everything in me not to flick them a sign of my own as I went past.

Tomorrow, dammit, there’s a Starbucks or two with my name on them, before I go home.

The Hollywood Bastardy

Woke up this morning from a dream, just in time to hear my right ear pop, and crackle, and clear.

It was wonderful! I could hear! I could hear evvverything. My excitement soared up from the base of my stomach, rushed up my spine, hit me in the brain and -

I woke up. Still deaf in that ear.

Goddamnsonofabitch'n'bastard...

The cheapest Hollywood cliche of "It was just a dream"...here in Wales, with every expense spared.
Still not dizzy this morning, which of course is something to be thankful for, and still not queasy....just deaf. Seems to me more than enough time for this wretched thing to sod right off...no?

On the other hand of course - I'm no longer dizzy or queasy. There's an argument there that says "Right...so get back on your bike, ya lazy git!"

And I probably would, except I'm leaving in a couple of hours for London, then Ipswich. Staying with Wendy and Maria for a couple of night, to get a job intrview under my belt. Have made a solemn promise to d (and, it has to be said, a pinky-paw promise to The Cuddle), that once this is over, I won't need to go away again for...at least a week.

By which point, please gods, I'll be exercising properly again, and no longer deaf!

The Scrambled Egg Deficiency

d and I rose today as 'two rogues with but a single thought' - the need for more scrambled egg in our immediate future.

We went to one local cafe that never usually opens before 10.30. Having slept in, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to patronise them.

"Scrambled egg on toast please," I beamed at them, sitting down.
"And I'll have scrambled eggs and ham," said d, double-beaming.

"Sorry," said the waitress, who clearly wasn't. "Don' do scramble. Do fried. Tha' alright is it?"
"Ah," we said. "Not really. Got a scrambled egg...thing...going on. You don't do any scrambling?"
"Noooo," said the girl, disinterestedly. "Don' do scramble. On'y fried, innit?"
We discussed it breifly, then left. Stopped in at another cafe on the way up the town. Popped our heads in. d popped her head right back out again double-quick. I sniffed. Ah. The nauseating reek of old grease was thick enough to stain your clothes. Our quest went on...
"What about here?" I asked, spotting a place we'd never actually seen open before.
"Sure, let's give it a go," said d. We went in. An old lady with one of those shopping trolleys on wheels was trying to get out, and clearly hadn't heard of the concept of sideways as a way of making progress. We backed off to let her out. I peered in. The place had four or five tables in tight formation, and all of them were already overfilled with hot Welsh bodies, gearing up for a morning's shopping and gossip and general disapproval of the world.
"Biddysville," I reported. "Let's press on..."
We finally walked up tot he top of the town, to a "Weatherspoons" pub. They didn't have scrambled eggs on their menu, but d spoke to them sweetly in her beautiful, ingratiatingly polite American accent ("I don't have an accent!" "Yes dear...") and they agreed to scramble for us.

When it came, the scrambling was thankfully proficient. The fact that it came on two pieces of white, limp, soggy bread, rather than anything that had seen the right side of a toaster, was by that point a mere bagatelle of irritation.

I looked at my watch when we were done.
"Is it me, or do you feel like we've done a day's work just finding breakfast?" I asked.
"Yeah..." said d. "Let's go home before we have to start thinking about finding lunch in this town..."

The rest of the day has been spent largely just enjoying each other's company - and a couple of seasons of Survivor (yeah, sue me, we're a pair tribe-based 'reality' junkies).

On the aural front, those following the condition of my lugholes with avid interest...should probably get a bit ore of a life, but will be happy to know that I'm not anything like as dizzy today as I've been in recent weeks. Hopefully this means something good is happening, and I may be able to hear, and exercise, and get back to Disappearing, soon...

The Reappearing Aria

Today has been generally wonderful – in fact, it’s been spectacularly good to be in my own four walls again, with my own rooms, my own smells, my own ass-print on my own couch.

But there was an element of musical madness in there, which I think it’s probably important to mention.

When you’re away from home, the temptation is to treat it like being on a holiday, and as an excuse to go a bit wild and crazy. Not having given in to that, with the perversity of nature you will by now have come to expect from me, I have a tendency to regard coming home like being on a holiday, and as an excuse to go a bit wild and crazy. I know, I know…basically I’m just looking for any damned excuse to go a bit wild and crazy.

I was in my familiar local Tesco store this morning, and felt things calling to me. Temptations. Mundane, pathetic, almost so untempting as to be ridiculous, but singing to my blood like virgins to vampires.

Of course the chocolate bars were there, giving a rich, warm, bass note to the Reappearing Aria. The gimmick-yoghurts full of chocolate and corn flakes and biscuit-bits were there, sawing like cellos across the craving of my nerve-endings.

Biscuit-Bits! Ach…the biscuit-aisle oompahed to me like a frog chorus of oats and wheat and caramel centres and double chocolate coating…beckoning me on like cannonfire…only to have the melody of need taken over on a merged note by the shivering-cold ice-cream aisle, which turned suddenly from ice-maiden percussion and piccolos to slamming saxophone and hipsway lust, beckoning me into their melted cores…

Did I ever mention it’s probably hell to go to the supermarket with me?

Normally of course, I am the master of my own musical destiny, iPod firmly plugged in and ready at a moment’s notice to distract myself from the music of the aisles with music of my own choosing. But now, with this wretched ear infection, I can’t plug in my own soundtrack any more.

So I had to create my own. I had to sing.

Not, as you might have been expecting, given my usual behaviour when out on walks, out loud, but just loud enough in my head to shut the Aria up, or shut it out. Seems to work – picked up the Paracetamols I’d gone in for and got the hell out again.

(shrugs). It’s really not easy being the Disappearing Man sometimes, you know. Demented, undoubtedly, but really not easy…

The Labelling Brouhaha

There was a story in the news a couple of days ago, claiming that the mandatory labelling on all prepared or processed food in the UK, which tells you its calorific value and so helps us, as a nation of Tubby McLardarses to convince ourselves we’re trying to Disappear, was…well, not to put too wobble-bottomed a point on it…bullshit.

You’d think, being the semi-obsessive that I am, this would have flipped me right out. And maybe it would have if I’d had more time. Time, though, is something in short supply at the moment – with apologies to Graeme, who’s been something of a casualty of this time-crunch (will soon do as we discussed, honest!)

So when tonight, having schlepped to rather more boaty climes yesterday, I finally made my way back to Cardiff Central train station, and found myself a bit peckish, it was with relatively gay abandon that I popped into Marks & Spencer to see what I could eat without undoing the value of this new “keeping faith with myself” gig I’ve got going on since…all of yesterday. A mouthful of fruit and nuts – that’ll be 500 calories, thanks very much (a thought that will rather sober my occasional random dips into the nutbox at home). A handful of grapes? Grapes, for god’s sake! 375 calories, no waiting!

Which means when I came across a little pot of fruit yoghurt…

…well…anyone in the UK knows it wasn’t just yoghurt, it was organic eldean strawberry and Scottish raspberry yoghurt, because after all, it’s not just marketing wank, it’s M&S marketing wank…

…I was amazed to see it cost just 120 calories.

“I’ll have two!” I thought in a wild frenzy of strawberrylicious, velvet-smooth, take me to bed or lose me forever yoghurt abandonment. I did. I had two. I ate them by the “General Refuse bin on the Cardiff Central concourse, then dropped the empty pots and went on my merry frozen way, full of the smug glow of self-satisfaction.

Then – and only then – I remembered the story about the labelling.

“Ahh, crap, it’s probably all a diet con,” I muttered to myself. “I’ve probably just eaten a pound and a half of raw lard, decorated with a blended garland of berries. Probably weigh about 23 stone in the morning now…”

Then I shrugged. That was nonsense. In fact of course it was M&S nonsense. Premium nonsense. But then, since the horsemeat scandal over here, who the hell knows what’s in what? Could have just consumed lark hearts in a pigs-nipple bouillabaisse for all any of us really know.

Was tasty though, and I got to at least indulge in the illusion of self-righteousness for a bit. 

Been reasonably good otherwise today – bran flakes and scrambled egg from the breakfast buffet – defying the practically physical laws of hotel buffets, especially ones you’re not personally paying for. Slab of veggie lasagne and mash for lunch (I like my five a day wrapped in pasta. Whaaaaat?) and a couple of coffees at Southampton station to ward of the increasingly fuck-you growly cold. Enough to keep the metabolism ticking over, without driving it to apoplexy on a day when basically my entire activity-spectrum involved: sitting.

And so, please gods, to home soon, and a new day of insane multi-directional busyness come in all probability the literal dawn.

The Logical Inversion

I’ll share a little secret with you. I determined last night that today, I was gonna buy each of the new “Limited Edition” Kit-Kats, and eat them on the way to Southampton. And a bag of Mini-Eggs, dammit.

The idea had fixed itself in my head that I was gonna be stuck putting on weight like a blimp while this ear infection gave me vertigo and seasickness that prevented me from walking any great distance without feeling queasy, or staying upright on any piece of equipment worth the name. Figured I must be back to about 18 stone, having had a week of this already, so fuck it! I might as well enjoy some sensations from being that weight, right?!

Got on the scales this morning, for an unofficial weigh-in. They said 17st 7. There are two factors to take into account here. Firstly, I never do an official weigh-in before my morning “constitutional” – or bathroom visit. And secondly in recent weeks, most of the official weigh-ins (though notably not the last one) have been conducted after doing some hard exercise…which experience tells me knocks a pound and a half off the reading. This morning’s reading was before any constitutional, and beyond the reach of any exercise. 

So…damn. I’ve actually lost weight this week. I mentioned this to d, who, bless her, is a raging ball of snot and flu right now.

“Well, d’uh,” she said, sniffing heavily. “I’b sick. I habben’t been cooki’g. Tryi’g to kill you ebbery night…”

Pshwar, stuff and nonsense, I wanted to tell her. Then I started thinking about it, and while I don’t hold her responsible in any way, there’s a certain logic to it – we’ve both been feeling so wretched that we haven’t generally felt like an evening meal this last week. Hmm…

The thing is, here’s where the logic flips – if I’d BEEN 18 stone, I would have gone ahead and had a chocolatefest this morning. But since things were actually moving in my favour, I decided not to. Chance to make some actual progress here, I thought. As Shakespeare’s Richard III says – “Since I am crept in favour with myself, I shall maintain it, to some little cost…”. As accurately cynical buggers have been saying for a century, you gotta have money to make money. So in this game, it appears you gotta have progress to make progress. Nevertheless the oddness of the logical inversion struck me as worthy or reporting: when things go to hell, and when we most need to redouble our efforts, it’s when we’re most inclined to shoot things right along the fast track to oblivion. When we get the tiniest crumb of encouragement, it’s all hands to the pumps and haloes all round.

Today was generally pretty good. Had a Starbucks at Cardiff, then didn’t feel the need to eat or drink anything else all day, as I knew I was meeting Sian in Portsmouth for dinner. Had a Chinese buffet, and a good one too, and with reasonable guiltlessness, had three smallish plates of assorted food. Didn’t go overboard, particularly, but didn’t stint myself either, figuring my system needed something in it to feed on. As I write this, we ate something like six hours ago, so hopefully, it should be through my system by the morning, and were there a scales in this hotel, I’d weigh-in just out of curiosity, though of course it wouldn’t be official because they wouldn’t be my scales.

Texted Sian on the way back to Southampton, saying it was good to see her, and she was starting to look more like herself again than she’s done for a while.

“Thanks,” she said. “Good to see you too. Can tell you’re starting to Disappear again…”

Dammit…

Really wanted those Kit-Kats and Mini-Eggs!

Ah well…onward to glory, I suppose…

The Six Week Strop

Went back to the doctors this morning.
"Whaddaya want from me?" he asked.
"I'm deaf in one ear," I explained.
"Yeah," he said. "You and about nine others this week," he said.
"Sucks to be us," I acknowledged. "Can it maybe suck...less?"
"Nnnnnnope," he said.
"The other doctor said it should be cured in three or four days," I explained.
He burst out laughing.
"Well, that was stunningly optimistic, now wasn't it?" he said, wiping a tear out of his eye.
"Was it?"
"It was," he assured me.
"Bugger," I said. he shrugged.
"I'm walking like a drunk, man!" I whined.
"Yeah, s'called vertigo, and seasickness," he explained.
"So...how optimistic was it, exactly?"
He shrugged again.
"Most people with Labyrinthitis get cured within about six weeks," he estimated.
"Six WEEKS???!!!" I yelled, nearly falling out of my chair with something entirely unrelated to vertigo.
"Are you freakin' kiddin' me??!!" I demanded.
"Nnnnope," he said again, in a deeply irritating manner.
"All I can give you is different pills to cope with the nausea. That and bed-rest should do the trick."
"Bed-rest?"
He shrugged again. "If you can."
"I realllly can't," I said, thinking about the trip to Southampton for two days tomorrow.
"See ya then," he said.

So that's it. Six potential weeks of this crap, getting fatter and heavier all the while. Are we havin' fun yet??

Oh yeah, not for nothing - vertigo and seasickness...did I mention I have to take a couple of ferry rides tomorrow? That'll be interesting. Stick with me, nausea pills, it's gonna be quite a day.

The Pharmaceutical Disappointment

Well, so much for that.
Have learned today, thanks to my pal Karen Pulley, that the pills I've been given, and have been taking, for this ear infection, are simple anti-emetics. In other words, they're designed to stop me throwing up because of the dizziness. Which, in all fairness, they've done admirably. But I could pop them like candy (mmmm....cannnndy...) and they wouldn't ever, in themselves, give me back my hearing in the right ear. Checked it again today: not a damn thing - iPhone turned to maximum, headphones held near the right ear - nooooooothing.

Nothing except the whining, which continues unabated.
As indeed does the ass-sitting. I've been out and about a bit today though, walking my drunken-seeming way around the town here and there. But generally, there's an irony in having taken pills to stop me from throwing up, when most of all what I'm doing at the moment is sitting down and taking in.

By a rather spectacular bolt of good fortune of course, I will be in Southampton on Thursday, and so will be unable to do an official weigh-in this week. Gee...tragedy.
Meanwhile, I have an additional appointment with the doctor tomorrow, so see if I can be made to hear again pretty damn quick. I did one conference with one ear...doing a second in this state will absolutely suck.

The Whiney Toddler Reaction

OK...
Freakin'...
WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

Sigh. Three to four days, said the doc. Three to four days of taking the pills, and this Labyrinthitis thing would sod the hell off.
Three days, no change. Still semi-deaf, still walking like a drunk, still cyclically queasy. Grr.

I know, I know, Four days is the charm, right? It's just that the longer I sit here doing nothing, but eating reasonable, normal meals, the more I can feel them turning to globules of fat on my belly and man-breasts.

Woke myself up in the middle of the night with a craving. At one point yesterday, d bought herself a couple of chocolate coated choux buns with cream. At 3.30 this morning, practically had myself a teenaged incident thinking about one of those bad boys! That's when you know there's something deeply, deeply messed up in your psyche, trust me!

Mind you, my whining as been rather overtaken by events. I mentioned yesterday that d had been struck upside the head with a whacking great cudgel of lurgi. It's been getting worse ever since. She mentioned, semi-casually through a squeak last night that several people in her office had come down with pneumonia in recent weeks. This, casually, from the woman with rice-paper lungs...Sigh...

Packed her off to bed now with chills and two hot water bottles. I tried to do a choir practice this evening...

That was fun! Came away halfway through for fear of opening my mouth and embarrassing myself even more than usual...
And so to tomorrow, with doctors first thing for d, and several shedloads of things to do. And please gods, if my lugholes return to normal service, some Disappearing to boot!

The Leper Colonisation

Unff...
So, the situation's this. Still half-deaf, wobbly, queasy and not moving my ass off the couch. d on the other hand was fine when she woke up this morning. Then midday chimed, and just like Scrooge's ghosts turning up promptly at the stroke of the clock, it was as though d got a package of lurgi. As I write this, she's a bundle of sniffing, coughing misery on the other couch.

My pal Rebecca's recovering from an UberLurgi too. Everyone in d's office has been coughing and spluttering all week. Ma, likewise, is in the midst of a lurgi right now.

So basically, it's time to paint a big red cross on the air all around this town right about now. Might as well just condemn the whole blithering lot of us. Time to stay indoors, huddle together for warmth, and see whether we can make it through till Monday.

The Theseus Diagnosis

Labyrinthitis.

That's what's turned off my gyroscope, apparently. It's an inflammation that leads to water collected in your ear and bringing on all the delightful side-effects I've been bitching about since Tuesday.
Now have pills to pop and infections to defeat and eventually, bikes and rowing machines and other assorted things to get back on.

Today though has still been pretty much woozy and queasy and of course, half-bloomin' deaf.

"Oi!" I said to Sally-Anne after escaping from the doctors. "Got Labyrinthitis. Your bloomin' couch put a Minotaur in my lughole."
"A what-now in your hoohah?" she said.
"A giant man-bull in my Eustachian tubes," I elaborated.
"Yeah...T, man, I'm calling Amnesty, cos that's one tortured mo'fo of a metaphor..."
"What?" I asked, feigning double deafness.

I'm not allowed to drink alcohol, drive or operate heavy machinery.
Damn...there goes my weekend...!

What all this actually means of course is that far from my original plans of just getting on with the exercising, I'm pretty much bound to sit precisely here on my arse until the ear pops and the Labyrinth collapses.
Wonder if it would help if I fed a ball of string into my ear...

No? Really not going with the Minotaur thing, are ya? Sigh...fine...I thought it was funny...

The Waking Recalculation

OK, so yesterday I said I could probably go back to exercising on machines, bikes etc. Anyone else remember that?

There's a flaw in that theory. Just getting out of bed today made my head swim, and standing still was like standing on the deck of a ship in a force 10 gale.

Woke at 3.30AM, again, and stumbled downstairs to work. By 9.30 I was in a maelstrom sitting down, so crashed out for a couple of hours. Have been in and out of this state all day, meaning the very best thing I've been able to do is sit absolutely wretchedly still.

Doctors tomorrow, and I'll be glad of it.

The weigh-in was disappointing but understandable - 17 stone 8.

Going away now to feel pathetically sorry for myself. Meh...

The Deafening Silence

Well, that was weird.

Woke up yesterday (12^th) completely deaf in my right ear.

Tried out exactly how deaf by putting my iPod headphone into the ear…

Nada. Nothing. Zilcho.

“Weird,” I said…sounding hollow.

“Dude, seriously, we need to get in the cab,” said Sally-Anne.

“Unff…” I said. And the day got started.

The hearing didn’t come back. And as the day progressed…things got weirder. Every time I got up from my seat, I wobbled and nearly fell over. Every time I went to put my computer on charge, involving bending down, I nearly fell over. And every time I walked anywhere, I had to continually correct my path, as I would be veering to the left with every step.

When the conference was over, I pretty much wanted to go home and die. I was queasy, disorientated, I could only hear through one ear and the same ear was hurting to boot.

“Yo, T Bag!” said Sally-Anne, in whose flat I was staying. “Gonna hit the hotel with some of these dudes for some drinks. Wanna come?”

I looked at her, with “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” in my eyes.

“Nah,” I said, admitting defeat. “Gimme keys.”

She did. I stumbled out, with my famed sense of direction, into the town. When I got off the first train heading home, I had a weird dizzy turn trying to get off the train, and nearly collapsed into a snarly London commuter. The second train was easier, and I made a determined effort to plant my landing. Looked stupid of course, but I’ll take looking stupid over falling down any day. I hadn’t eaten all day, conference buffets being tremendously, almost heroically dreadful. The queasiness was growing exponentially, so I figured the best thing to do was put something in my stomach. I popped into a restaurant.

“Oh we can seat you upstairs,” said the Aussie waitress.

Upstairs, I thought. Greeeat.

By this point, I was looking like a drunk, veering from side to side with almost every step. Going upstairs was like something from a psychedelic cartoon. I ordered a burger and fries.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked, feeling a need to pee.
“Downstairs, sir.”
“Sonofabitch,” I said casually, under my breath. Going downstairs was like being drunk in a psychedelic cartoon. Then I had to go back up to eat. Didn’t feel particularly alive doing that.
Stumbled into a cab and got the last bit of the journey over with.

Can I just say – speed bumps suck.

Got into Sally-Anne’s flat, and stumbled up her staircase to the bathroom. I could feel the spasms coming even as I climbed the staircase.

Just managed to get to the toilet before I was throwing up the few mouthfuls I’d eaten of the burger.

That was vomit session one.

Let me say…there were six sessions. Six completely separate sets of spasms. After the fourth session, I brushed my teeth. And then threw up again – nothing but bile and toothpaste. I got into my onesie and went to my couch. D called. “Might wanna put your phone on charge honey,” she advised.

“That means getting off the couch,” I told her.

“C’mon honey…”

I got up, plugged in the phone…and had to run up the stairs.

So…that was fun.

“Just think what your weigh-in will be like,” said d.

Thing is, today, I still can’t hear in that ear, still have pressure and whining in the place of sound, but have no real dizziness or queasiness. Have eaten steadily today…Which means the weigh in will reflect solid eating, not purgy puking…

Sigh…Talk about not being able to catch a break…

On the other hand, am now at home. Home gooood. Going to see the doc on Friday about this ear thing. Hopefully, that’ll sort me out. Of course, haven’t been to the gym over the last three days. Not sure yet if I can exercise – or should exercise, with this thing. Probably OK, unless I fall off the rowing machine!

The Idiot Point - 12th February 2013

Keen readers of this blog will note that there was no entry on the 12^th February. Were I a man with more delusions, I’d claim that my adoring fans were done out of my witty musings for a day, but let’s not get silly about the thing.

This is what I would have written for the 12^th.

The thing about my pal Sally-Anne is that any night on which she and I are together includes a point.

A point at which you just know the evening’s about to tip over the brow of the roller coaster, and go spec-TAC-ularly downhill. I think of this as The Idiot Point.

Loooooooong term readers will remember Croatia. The very first time I missed posting an entry of this blog by local midnight…her fault.

Last night (11^th) , we weren’t going to have an Idiot Point. We had a conference the next day, at which I would be required to Write Stuff, and she would be required Not To Kill Snotty Delegates. You need a clear head for both of those.

“Still,” she said, “we’ll get one bottle of wine, and just have a chilled-out, chatty night. It’ll be cool.”

It was cool.

It was cool for about an hour.

“We’re out o’ wine, Tone,” she said.

“’We’ll just have a chilled-out, chatty night. It’ll be cool…’” I reminded her.

“There are places online that deliver wine to your door,” she said.

“Get on with it then,” I said.

This was not the Idiot Point.

She found a drink delivery service. Clearly, as she pointed out, it was for dipsomaniacs and crackheads.

“Doesn’t open till 10,” she pouted. It was 9pm.

“Hmm…”

“Or there’s an off license about ten minutes up the road.”

I got my coat.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t an off licence. It was a chemist. She found a bottle of white wine.

“There you go, just one more,” she said.

“Just one more,” I agreed.

“Oooooooh, look – Fizzy!”

That, my friends – That was The Idiot Point.

“Fizzy!” I agreed. She picked up the fizzy wine to go with the white.

“Y’know, you can’t just drink wine all night…”

“Y’know, you really can,” I said. She ‘didn’t hear me’ and bought a bottle of bourbon.

“Y’know something else?” I asked. “Tomorrow, we’re gonna look back at this point…this point right here, and say ‘This is where the night went mental’. This, right here, is the Idiot Point.”

“Shurrup Tone, let’s get home…” she said.

So we did. The fizzy was fun. The white was…I forget…

The bourbon…who the Hell knows…

Went to bed originally at about 10.30. Well, bed and couch for her and I respectively.

By 3AM, I was awake again, with a brain full of booze and thoughts.

“Coffee,” I said to myself, having brought my own coffee, and sweeteners, and milk. I put the kettle on.

“Yo, T!” she called from up in her bedroom.

“What?”

“I think this is the Idiot Point. Gotta be up and out by 7.30 dude! Get your arse on the couch and get to sleep…”

See, I think I had the real Idiot Point, she thinks hers was better. On the other hand, I think every night with her in it HAS an Idiot Point. The following morning, when we both looked and felt like Death barely warmed up, she was telling people that every time she has an evening with me, we go screaming through the Idiot Point. Clearly, the two of us together are a bad combination.

Southampton. One night. Next week…(shudders). Can you get liver insurance these days?