A bunch of words.
Some of which I've never seen before. All of which were in a letter from the doctor I saw last week.
"indeed fell down" (not a word, I know, but roundly dramatic)
"swimmy"
"entirely unremarkable" (kind of damning, no?)
"channelopathies" (WTF?)
"metabolic consequence"
"syncopal phenomena"
and . . .de . . .de . . .daaaaaaaa
"cataplexy"
Exhausting, isn't it?
And now they want to do
this
Nature/nuture/nourish/neurosis
Why do I keep thinking about you today? Why do I conjure web addresses where I know your name, your words will be? Why do you describe her as sybaritic? Why did I seek it out? Your name +wife in the innocently blinking window. I searched your childs name. Maybe there would be a picture. Your eyes or hers.
I know I’m obsessing today. These last few days. I know I am . Over all sorts of ridiculous things. Things I wouldn’t think twice about if I was well. So I guess I’m not well.
I always seem to turn to thoughts of you when I’m like this. Not always. That’s an illusion. Only the last 7 years. I want to blame you for starting a big tranche of it. But I know it was there all along, just wearing different hats. You have it too. That’s why it was so.
So.
Overwhelming.
Destructive.
Poisonous.
Enrapturing
Blinding.
Real.
Unreal.
Wrenching.
Paralysing.
Liberating.
Deadening.
A sentence on my soul.
Edited later to add that i read the comment from Very Nice Man. I thought "oh yes. The 'pull your socks up' cure for depression. that always works. what a tosser!" I thought who did he think he was, not commenting on my blog for ages and then pitching up just in time to say something so fatuous. I even thought "bloody Christians," and rolled my eyes.
I'm sorry Very Nice Man. You were telling me to get out of the house. You were telling me to fight back. The same thing I would say to someone else. Thankyou for caring enough to say something practical rather than something indulgent, even when I didn't want to listen.
I went to your blog and looked at the glorious outdoor pictures. And even though it's pouring with rain, I grabbed the dog and headed out.
I'm sorry. And thank you.
Tilt test?
Sounds a bit like
cow tipping to me.
A Revelation and a NiggleYou may not know this, but that pink syrup we use to make strawberry milkshakes? is remarkably effective at turning a yellow dog pink. really. you can hose it down in the garden as many times as you like, but you'll still have a pink dog.
Moving to the nigglesome. So I have this neurology appointment tomorrow. and not just any old consultant, it turns out. the one who wrote the book. a bunch of books in fact. the ones that doctors use to learn about neurology. My neighbour, a high regarded consultant in a different field of medicine, couldn't hide her admiration of him. He's "very posh," apparently. With "a very large brain. enormous brain." great. but i was pleaseder when she added, "and he's lovely." because the last neurologist i saw, at a famous london hospital, was an arse.
So this appointment is 3.20 tomorrow (friday) pm. At no stage since getting this appointment has the man of the house offered to come with me.
He usually finishes at 4 on a friday, and it's pretty near his office, so its not as if it would massively have interfered with his day.
A very good friend of mine, someone whose opinion or reassurance i regularly seek, asked why I hadn't asked him to come. I don't want to have to ask him. "you're both as bad as each other," she chided. How?
Even
Maj, my most special, said of the appointment this morning "and you're still not including him?"
I would always offer to go to hospital with someone I knew. not just for support but for company, since you always end up waiting forever. I've sat in a corridor for a neighbour getting a mammogram, a friend getting a smear, held coats for another mum with a toddler at a hearing test and an old room mate having a pregnancy terminated.
Why are two of the people I respect most making out like i'm actively excluding S ?
Should I really have to invite him to support me?
Meme a liciousTagged by
Blue Poppy of my borrowed view
Seven random facts coming up
1. I have under £20 (40USD) in my account. I wish the people who put me at this new desk would get a move on and pay me.
2. I have never learned to drive.
3. When i was 9/10/11 every night in bed i could scrape my teeth with a toothpick. collect the little balls of accumulated yellow/white stuff and stick them to the inside lip of my bedside light at equidistant intervals. by the time the whole circle was full, the first ones would have dried up and dropped off.
4. I once modelled in a 'downmarket' lingerie catalogue. The christmas special.
5. We got a new staircarpet in january. I have yet to vacuum it. all the corners are full of cat hair.
6. I love musicals. rogers and hammerstein, kander and ebb, even ALW et al. when i was a teen i could recite the entirety of every show in the West End.
7. I love love love sudoko puzles. espeically the "fiendish" category. I have a book by the toilet in the bathroom. another by the downstairs loo and one in my handbag.
And here's another picture of Rose, trying to be like
this dog of recent Schmutzie fame
If there's anyone in the universe who hasn't been tagged for this yet, a) i'd be very surprised, and b) tag!
Thoughts for food.between thinking this thing and coming upstairs to write this thing, my thoughts about it have developed a bit. a minute ago, i thought the thought i'd had had been random. one of those things that just pops in there. in fact, i think it may have something to do with two things. firstly, the thought occurred while I was have a couple of spoonfuls of heavenly vanilla organic yoghurt, and i'm being very cautious at the moment with what i eat in case i trigger one of the rather extreme and mysterious reactions i've been having (and the reason i'm seeing a neurologist later this week). Second i've been wondering to what extent i should voluntarily inform or the extent to which i will be quizzed, about my mental health status/history at the appointment. Tallying up the number of anxiety attacks i've had in recent months, for example, and comparing it to any kind of 'norm.'
Putting thoughts of anxiety and thoughts of food together likely precipitated in my mind the scene from my early teens which popped up, technicolour and surround sound, across the lid of a yogurt pot while standing in the fridge doorway.
there were three worlds. one inhabited by my father and his wife. two nice cars. nice apartment in nice part of city. nice holidays. nice food. nice clothes. nice friends. another where my mother lived. Grey. desolate. The damp, lonely smell of homes long empty. Niceties, and those who aspired to them, despised.
the third. mine. full of fantasies of future and past episodes so vivid I often had difficulty deciphering between them when border breaching inquiry tapped impatiently on the glass.
The thing i just remembered was real and unremarkable. I was very excited. The first time I had chinese food. with my dad and his wife and my little brother in a fancy restaurant in the city. smoother than smooth white linen napkins. I don't remember having eaten anywhere so impressive before. We weren't used to it. The smiling staff, the wonderful smells. pages and pages of leatherbound choice on weighty paper. my brother was completely intimidated. couldn't speak. kept looking at me desperately for direction. i wanted to ask what everything was, but i dare not. feigned reading and rereading the menu. quietly asked my father a couple of things. the air chilled with his impatience. She and he ordered. we were paralysed. i started to slowly repeat items that they had ordered. His eyes rolled. Breath huffed. I mispronounced. He looked away. Disappointment: a dish served hot and seething over silent courses.
Still Life with Fish
Sadly I had no way to include the third cat - perched on my left shoulder while the phone was in my right hand.
Pingu didn't stand a chance
Rose's penguin itch - scratched. But this was nothing compared to the fate to befall an old trainer. Shaken to death like something out of a shark documentary.
P, living in fear of what the mighty trail of puppy destruction might do to her toys, has done some remodelling
It reminds of of something from the first
Frank McCourt book (which was excellent, not like the tired, drawn out, wrung out subsequent ones) where the downstairs of their house gets flooded, so they move upstairs "to Italy." Upstairs here she has a pile of Sylvanian family animals - badgers, foxes and moles - she's never shown any interest in having dolls in her dolls house.
D'you know what does NOT make me giddy?What is the veritable height of ungiddiness? What degiddies me to the bone?
Coming home from work at 10.30 pm and opening the door to an almighty stink of animal mess of various and indiscernible kinds. And finding the man of the house (no, really!) sitting amid the stinky cocktail playing on the laptop.
Me: My god, what's that disgusting smell?
Him: Hmm? yeah. dunno.
So I go upstairs to get changed out of my work clothes to prepare for a mopping operation, and he feels snubbed by my lack of response to his homecoming advances. Clearly the heady mix of pheromones in the immediate atmosphere don't trigger the same animal responses in me.
Then he disappears while I mop the floor of three largeish rooms. Wrangling three curious cats and a mop transfixed pup as I went.
Then reappears to say goodnight to the dog.
Wear your appreciation on your sleeve!
Hmmmm. New keyboards. Love the non sticky keystrokes, the delicate pitter patter of far away rain on canvass and the opportunity to accumulate my own collection of crumbs and viral infestations instead of inheriting the scum of yesteryear.
I may even have indiscretely applauded as the IT guy strode purposefully toward my triangulation of desks. Fearless, unashamed in the perplexed stares of the oh so serious grads that surround me.
They’re always so earnest, these ambitious young things. I feel it’s my responsibility to give them permission to be ridiculous. And to encourage them to appreciate the little details of life – like a cheap HP keyboard, or a new box of easygrip pens in the stationery cupboard.
They have jumped through such competitive hoops to get here. A prestigious brand with precious few placements. That I'm sure the pressure of performing somehow squishes out of them the qualities that first distinguished them to the selection panel.
When I gleefully announced that henceforward today I would write monumentally interesting things for our clients, only one of them joined in the spirit of the thing. A bit sad really. But then I wonder if I was the same at that age, plunged in among very senior people at a highly respected international news brand, almost not believing I was there. After 17 years, perhaps I have somehow earned the right to not take myself too seriously.
What. Ever.
What little things, things that may go unnoticed by those around you. make you get your giddy on?
Update, as requested.So, for as long as I can remember I've had a strange reaction to very processed and/or sugary foods.
You know the pick and mix sections at the cinema? full of fizzy, sour, sugar dusted this, that and the other, brightly coloured translucent cherry sweets and the like ? you know the potent smell? It makes me tired. It makes my vision go blurry. The smell.
And i'm a woman with a sweet tooth.
Store bought cakes and 'kids' cereals (or even adult 'kid' cereals - honey nut cornflakes or whatever) have the same effect. I rarely eat dessert out except in a fancy restaurant. dessert type stuff or cakes I make at home are always made from scratch and have only raw sugar and generally a third of the amount suggested by the recipe.
When I was a student and discovered very cheap sweet cider in little bottle, i used to sort of pass out. I could hear everything going on around me, but I couldn't move or speak or open my eyes. And I wasn't eating very well. For a few years friends became so accustomed to the phenomenon that they would just step over me and carry on talking.
I rarely get a dramatic reaction since I grew up a bit and took better care of myself. I avoid processed foods as far as possible. try to stick to brown rice rather than white. that sort of thing.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the supermarket with P. As we passed the bakery section, a lady with a tray of samples came towards us. One was seedy granary type bread (brown and crumbly) and one was sticky toffee pudding loaf cake (brown and crumbly). I popped the wrong one in my mouth. Even as I swallowed my vision started to blur around the edges. My head began to hurt. I couldn't think. couldn't decide which way to continue down the isle. My speech got slurry. Took about 20 minutes for it to pass and left me feeling exhausted.
On saturday morning I got myself a bowl of shredded wheat. the cereal that prides itself on having only one ingredient - shredded wheat. Except this was the miniature kind with a couple of raisins in the middle of the pillow bit. Two ingredients.
After three pieces I had to stop. and crumple to the floor. and black out. and sleep until the middle of the afternoon.
I've tried to eat very little since then because everything gives me a headache.
Went to the doctor this afternoon. I go back next wednesday for some blood tests. and she's referred me to a neurologist at the hospital. first available appointment is in 64 days.
Tra la la la la.
People who should have stayed in bed – Mr Marti Pellow
Not an auspicious end to an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable jazz festival.
Yes there’s a revenue aspect which undoubtedly this event satisfied. And yes the first two rows of seemingly bussed in fan club; women in their thirties and forties who really ought to have grown up, were cock-a-hoop. As Mr Pellow continuously assured us he had. It was some strategy, banging on endlessly about how he’s matured as an ‘artist.’ How after twenty years of singing and learning his craft, he now has the maturity and experience to handle the greats. That he’s a big international star. Kander and Ebbing his way from the West End to Broadway to Japan.. Handle with care, young Marti, for even invoking the dear departed of the Pellow clan, was not enough to hoodwink a jazz festival audience. Yes, we know you had a gig at “New” Ronnies. But here you have dared to share a platform with Charles Lloyd, with Bennie Maupin and Clarke Tracey, with Imelda May and Madeleine Peyroux. You do not have the imagination. You do not have the mettle.
That was a public service announcement.
Rose meets The Park
Park big. Yellow puppy needs two leggy puppy for protection.
Two leggy puppy abandons nervy dog for animal free play zone.
Tired two leggy puppy seeks out four leggy, non puppy, non bouncy littermates for co-snoozing
Why has it taken 34 years for someone to point me at this?"Symptoms of Hypoglycemia can be mild, moderate or severe and may consist of any of the following:
- Sweating
- Shaking between meals
- Crankiness
- Weakness
- Anxiety
- Irritability
- Confusion
- Inability to concentrate
- Nervousness
- Tingling
- Pounding/racing heart
- Speech difficulties
- Fuzzy head
- Mood swings
- Feeling faint
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Melancholy
- Depression
- Obsessive/compulsive behavior
- Slurred speech
- Poor coordination
- Glassy eyes
- Headaches
- Migraines
Severe symptoms, which require immediate medical attention would include
- Unresponsiveness
- Highly agitated
- Unconsciousness
- Convulsions"
There's only one point on this list that I can't check.
I had something of an epiphany this morning. My vision is actually too blurred right now to type much. But I'll be back later.
yeah, it's been a while.i'm not going to write one of those posts about neglecting the blog and not visiting your blogs and promising to get around to it. I just started a new job, i have a new puppy (which, unlike a baby of the same age, is not in the same spot you put her down in when you come back from the bathroom and has managed to chew through [insert item name] which was in a closed drawer drawer/on top of wardrobe/on the friggin moon) I was away at a wedding last weekend and this week is jazz festival in this stuck up provincial town and my inlaws are here.
Jeez.
Woman! thou shalt NOT load thy daughter in law's dishwasher!! Art thou listening????
Thou shalt NOT have a couple of glasses of wine and describe a perfectly neat, curvy woman (who has just entertained us with her luscious singing for 90 minutes) as "gross" thus once again exposing your revulsion for anyone who weighs more than a bag of carrot sticks.
Thou shalt not tell me that I MAY NOT allow MY dog to sit on MY sofa.
and my ipod has that Do Not Remove screen jammed on its silly face.
and its still only thursday.
Good night my hunnies x
Seven random facts coming up
Sadly I had no way to include the third cat - perched on my left shoulder while the phone was in my right hand.
Rose's penguin itch - scratched. But this was nothing compared to the fate to befall an old trainer. Shaken to death like something out of a shark documentary.
P, living in fear of what the mighty trail of puppy destruction might do to her toys, has done some remodelling
It reminds of of something from the first Frank McCourt book (which was excellent, not like the tired, drawn out, wrung out subsequent ones) where the downstairs of their house gets flooded, so they move upstairs "to Italy." Upstairs here she has a pile of Sylvanian family animals - badgers, foxes and moles - she's never shown any interest in having dolls in her dolls house.
We beg you to let Madeleine come home. We need our Madeleine 
Park big. Yellow puppy needs two leggy puppy for protection.
Two leggy puppy abandons nervy dog for animal free play zone.
Tired two leggy puppy seeks out four leggy, non puppy, non bouncy littermates for co-snoozing
