oh, i know....

i had about an hour's sleep last night. which is neither bragging nor an exagerration. the sore throat, which i have now seen the company doctor about twice, has got worse and is now playing 'what am i?' with me.
am i a sore throat?
am i a toothache?
am i an earache?
am i some kind of glanular thing?
quite frankly i'm too tired and miserable to play so am plumping for a tantalisingly grim mix of the four.
i am finally seeing my own doctor at 4pm TOMORROW afternoon. death not being imminent that was the earliest they could squeeze me in!
so, i'm feeling fairly wretched, as you may have sensed.
what is not helping is the 'illness oneupmanship tournament' i seem to have started by actually admitting i feel rough. (my sister will tell you i am rarely ill and give into being poorly with even less frequency.)
here is a random selection of responses to my saying i'm not well when asked about the state of my health:
'oh, i feel awful too. i've got a really bad headache.'
'i was like that all last week, i'm still not ok, really hot and tired.'
'i know, i've got such a sore throat i can hardly swallow.'
i just want to weep, or bite someone's head off.
don't tell me… you feel suicidal and have never had such bad PMT

I'll be brief

It snowed yesterday. In London. In winter! Can you imagine. My friend Veronica was so amazed at the site when she woke up and saw her balcony covered in white that she apparently exclaimed 'shit on a stick', which is a whole new blog, but sweet. For my part I muttered 'oh wow'. Surprisingly the Northern Line was unaffected. It was a treat crunching through virgin snow to get to the Tube. Of course by hometime it had turned into brown sludge but, while it lasted, it was magical.

fag break

When I was really young (5 or 6) I remember being most impressed at my mother's ability to speak and smile at the same time. I thought the difference between kids and adults were that adults could multitask (though of course the concept was still a twinkle in someone's future blue sky thinking) while children could not. I decided that one day, I too would be able to hold a conversation while smiling simultaneously. Of course I realise now that chances are Mum was actually grimacing, or at the very least putting on a brave face and talking through it. Which of course, we're all very good at now that we're all very grown up.
I also used to think that if you cut off your arm, or finger or other appendage, rather than blood and gore, you'd spout tobacco - that we were in fact made up pretty much like cigarettes. Obviously the result of growing up in a hard-core smoker's house. My earliest memories are of being woken up to the sound of a lighter being flicked and the flint-lit shadow of my mum being thrown onto her bedroom wall (until the age of 10 I went and got into my mum and dad's bed – slap bang between them). I also remember always having to sit at the back of the cinema so mum could smoke.
My lovely mum also tabbed her way through both of her pregnancies. And it never did us any harm.

breakfast of champions

Newsflash. I didn't go to the gym this morning.
I did, however, get up at my normal time – 6am – and so had the chance to catch up on breakfast TV. my inner child loved it – so nice to be talked to about grown-up things like gambling addiction and diets but in words that any pre-teen can understand, and in a tone fit for reading fairy stories (and now for a piece about animal abuse, which really is terrible). is that what they mean by the nanny state? no wonder we are so depressed as a nation if that is what we get by way of morning intellectual stimulation.
i then got the tube. what a difference a couple of hours makes to the class and quantity of traveller. it was heaving with people who'd left their manners/consideration for others/common sense at home. if you've ever wondered what an elephant would look like trying to squeeze itself into a phone box (some joke, surely), take a look at the people on the northern line trying to fit onto already packed train carriages. weird.
then of course there's the hair and beauty sessions you get treated to once you've managed to crush all your internal organs together so you can fit in the 3sq inches allowed to you by your fellow travellers. while i think it's admirable that people can actually apply eyeshadow, mascara and (most impressive of all) eyeliner while they are basically sitting in a metallic canister on wheels being dragged along thin rails by someone who may or may not be awake/alive/qualified to drive, surely there's a time and a place for putting your face on and the Charing X branch may not be it?
I wonder what would happen if I got out an electric shaver and started giving myself a quick once-over. Maybe tomorrow I'll try and give myself a pedicure while travelling from Kentish Town to Charing X – well, you've got to use your downtime wisely.

the difference between us and them

I have just been reading the blog of a Scottish friend who has decamped to the States. in her latest post, my mate praises the US service culture and US doctors. having had her car broken into and her car radio stolen she was delighted to discover that not only did the local deputy sheriff himself turn up to file a report but the autoglass person came out within 4 hours to fix the window. the radio manufacturer then informed her that she was entitled to a replacement because her radio was new.
after that she went to the doctor, who sympathetically listened to her talking about her woes (lump in the nose) and then prescribed antibiotics for her condition.
i couldn't help but compare Maryanne's experience over there with mine over here this week. to cut a long and extremely boring story short – ordered dollars on monday to be delivered to my local bank on tuesday. went to bank wednesday morning to collect. the branch closed for refurbishment. call bank and tell them. am informed that the delivery is on its way to that branch today. so, a day late and going to a closed bank. ask them to redeliver to a different branch. they call me and tell me the dollars are at new bank for me to collect. go there at lunchtime today and guess what? no dollar! ring currency company who assure me they've been delivered to the original bank. the one that i assure them (again) is closed for refurbishment. 'YES, VERY SURE, I JUST WALKED PAST ON MY WAY TO THE OTHER BANK' . am promised they will be there on Monday. we will see.
sore throat. glands up. neck really stiff etc. went to doctor. 'it's probably viral. take paracetamol. if you're coughing up green stuff in a week come back.' says doctor. he didn't even look down my throat! am now up to my eyeballs in soluble aspirin and cold and flu hot drinks.
remind me to tell you about how I'm worried that I'm going to turn into one of those old people who feels compelled to say outloud everything they think in their head.

see, i told you i was ill!

today's entry was inspired by a friend in the States (www.alifelessdamp.blogspot.com, who, I might add, only started her blog because of me) who is suffering from LNS (aka Lump in Nose Syndrome).
so, quite a heavy weekend (see new year's resolutions). get to work yesterday (pissing down on a boring Monday as Paul Weller would have it, see yesterday's post), and then around 4pm start to develop a weird pain in my neck. but only on the left side. not constant, only when i move. but really tender to touch. then my throat gets really sore and i start feeling a bit giddy/dizzy. it gets worse - to the point where i cancel my evening plans and go home to bed. still bad this morning. so. is it glandular or is it muscular? can only one gland come up on your neck? thankfully alifelessdamp informs me that cancerous lumps don't come up that quickly and i also did my own research which bore this out. though it is amazing how many self-diagnosers, hypochondriacs, Munchausen sydrome sufferers you can find in cyberspace. and even closer to home. i was relieved to discover that don't have glandular fever - a friend who self-diagnosed similar over xmas assures me that my symptoms aren't severe enough. his sore throat/dizziness was put down to 'just a virus' which he is now all but recovered from.
if i make it through the night i'll be back for more soon.

smell the coffee

standing in the queue at the coffee shop this morning it occured to me that i can no longer say 'i'm not the marrying kind' when someone confuses me for a heterosexual (it has been known to happen, honestly). because of course, us gays can now tie the knot. then i found myself wondering whether i'd get married if someone asked me (someone, of course, being a totally hypothetical/imaginary thing). these thoughts were sparked by the guy in front of me, who was wearing the most hideous wedding ring i've ever seen. it was on his wedding finger, so i'm assuming it was something lovingly shoved on there by a blushing bride. it was shiny gold, really FAT with swirly engraving. anyway, i'm sure he loves it and i'm sure somewhere, someone loves him. which is nice.
then i found myself sipping my coffee thinking about Paula Walford, who i used to go to school with. i remember going round to her house and going into her bedroom and being amazed that it was absolutely enormous. then she showed me her parents' bedroom. they were in the BOX ROOM! basically she'd insisted that she needed personal space much more than they ever would and they'd agreed to let her have their bedroom. CRAZY! you can now buy shoes that have satellite tracking in them so that you can keep an eye on your child's whereabouts should he or she have lost his/her bearings/mobile phone/marbles. which is nice, if you have children.
then i came into work.
it's Monday. and boring to boot.

this year

i'm going to find a cure for cancer and do my utmost to facilitate world peace. i also intend to do a mile in under 3 and a half minutes and learn to juggle 34 balls at the same time. i'm a bit over plate spinning now i can keep 56 of them revolving at once so i will focus my abilities with poles on trying to beat the world javelin record. or perhaps learning that crazy poledancing move where the 'lady' hangs upside down from the top of the pole, gripping on with her ankles (normally while wearing killer heels - i'll probably keep my slippers on)
if i don't do all the above, i will at least try:
to have more lay ins - i'm getting quite bored of 6am on a sunday hangover or no hangover?
to be less critical of myself - why does our inner moaner never get a sore throat or lose their voice like the rest of us?
have more sex (at least this year i can include the word more in that sentence, unlike in other years)
drink less (that old chestnut)
eat more fruit and veg (can't believe my life has come to this)
spend more time in the here and now, just being, not obsessively doing.
i will let you know how i get on.
my first contact with another human being this year was with a friend's 4 year old who came down waving a fairy wand over my bed. bless!