Hermitude and a face transplant

I think it's fair to say that I'm feeling somewhat grumpy at the moment. Plagued with the ague (ok, a Cold),  a cross painted on the door and awaiting a kiss from the Angel of Death, I find myself in 3 day old pajamas stinking the joint up.  I've comfort eaten so much confectionery I'm surprised I haven't got diabetes.  Healthy stuff which might actually make me feel better holds no hope of consumption and slowly rots in the kitchen.  FUCK YOU BUTTERNUT SQUASH; I'd rather get Scurvy!   I've lain in my own crumb laden filth for days now, a smear of melted chocolate on the bed sheet looking suspiciously like I've shat myself in the night looks at me accusingly.  Hell, the outline of my body can clearly be seen on the under-sheet in what can only be described as 'Turin Shrouding' of the bedclothes.  In short, I am disgusting and, by over-sharing this information, have no hope of being seen as beautiful and mysterious to any potential beau.  I will die alone, rotted into the bed, covered in flies with my face partially eaten away by Derek the bald freak dog and Dr X the cat.  

....Feeling sorry for myself and further afflicted with 'over-dramatising-itis'.

So, other than my life-threatening Cold and lack of goodness, what else ails me? Well, my car is fucked to the tune of about 500 quid and the house has an underground burst water pipe which is going to cost a fortune to repair once they've pulled up the paved driveway and dug holes all over the place (waves fist at the Heavens).  I've decided that Hermitude is definitely the way to go.  I can't take much more of this being a 'real' person, I need to live in a cave in the woods.  I would say a hut in the woods but the sodding Council would STILL make me pay Council Tax for my shitty branch/mud/turd hut which means I'd still need to do something to earn money thus negating the whole 'being a hermit' plan.  I could advertise myself as a Wise Woman and allow people to come and ask my advice/take away potions of healing but then the sodding Inland Revenue bastards would want a chunk and I'd have to complete paperwork and submit income and expenditure forms.  Oh, and as we are now in litigious times, some arsehole would no doubt sue me for not curing their dog/causing a tiny rash on their elbow or something which means blokes would come and stamp on my turd hut when they realise I have no possessions to repossess. 

...ok, yeah so they used to burn people in the past so being sued shouldn't be something I should complain about.  I'm still going to; I'm on a roll.

So there is the cave option.  Again, there are financial implications there - fuck this being at one with nature,  I would need to get someone in to kill EVERY sodding insect in the vicinity. Not bees though. I listened to something on the radio about some bloke who washed the feet of some bees to fuck with the other bees who clearly knew which flowers had already been visited by smelling the stinky bee footprints of their colleagues.  That amused me and bees are important.  I think I could tolerate some ants and Ladybirds too. 

So yeah.  Apart from that I am back at the gym with my original Gym Buddy.  We enjoyed it and felt very proud of ourselves for the first two weeks but I know that personally I weep internal tears of anguish when I enter the building now.  The gym instructor woman was being helpful last Wednesday and advised us to do sit ups on the mat in the middle of the gym.  Fuck that!  Gym Buddy said she couldn't because her enormous tits would get in the way and I helpfully added that extreme flatulence would be an issue during any public sitting up activities   Gym Buddy and I had already discussed our need to clench throughout our work out.  

It wasn't ladylike to share that either was it?

Of course, being at a gym with time to think whilst peddling away my mind went it's usual way and I started to worry about lying on my back in the middle of the gym with my legs bent doing sit ups.  What if I DID accidentally fart the most enormous fart I've ever farted in front of everyone?  My unhelpful inner voice wasn't content with making me come over a bit dizzy at that thought.  It went on to imagine a sudden splat of diarrhoea appearing at my crotch.  Fuck me, that would be expensive.  I'd have to give up going to the gym, change my name, leave the country and set up somewhere else.  You can bet your bottom dollar there is no Extreme Humiliation Relocation Scheme which could be accessed either; those witnesses of serious violent crime get all the breaks. 

If I couldn't afford any of that I'd have to go with the whole name change via the internet and a cheap foreign face transplant.  I dunno, do places like Bulgaria or Romania do stuff like that for about 30 quid?  I imagine the whole thing stapled on over my existing face and  the edges hanging down between the rough stapling direct into my skull.  I'd return to the gym, holding up part of my face (which wouldn't be a good skin match.  Heck, it'd probably be a hairy Bulgarian man's face) whilst dramatically asking people who this Sketty is that they talk about and denying, despite still using my old gym membership card, that it was I who shat myself in front of everyone at the gym.

....I need to rest. I'm talking shit again

IT LIVES

Yes, it's been a while hasn't it?  A bloody long while but heck, here I am back like a bad penny.  What is a bad penny any way?  Don't answer that, I just Googled it and apparently it's a counterfeit penny that you need to try to dump on someone else sharpish.  There you go, bet that nobber Pepys was never as informative as this!  Then again, he'd have been on the ball and given an accurate historical account of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.  I can't be arsed - we've got telly now; Future People - watch that!

So, where have I been? Well, I sort of went totally mental and had a break down complete with medical intervention.  Yay me - I guess we all have to lose our minds at some time.  Fortunately I've now swapped the Prozac for this:

-  Derek

 Yeah, Derek.  I am currently in the process of re-launching the ol' stalled due to madness comedy career with this bald freak as my partner. Here's the plan; I'm learning ventriloquism so we can argue and he can voice a re-jigged version of my inner arsehole posts from over here.  I figure your pets see the stuff you wouldn't want anyone to know and if I can get him to wear a foil hat with an antenna we'll be cooking on gas!  This plan is almost as good as my worm farm one.  Yeah, that was the plan to have a Sketty's Eco-Worm Emporium bucket of worms in EVERY household.  Problem was, when my own worms arrived I very nearly shit myself - they weren't the passive lovely brownish calm English worms I was used to - they were ANGRY looking red things from Australia.  Fuck me, I almost had nightmares, and so ended my dream of becoming a millionaire worm farmer...

So, I'm guessing you nosy bunch of buggers want to know what caused the ol' breakdown.  Well, I'll try to tell you in such a way so as not to sound too much like a drag.  In fact, let me quickly post another picture of Derek to make you laugh first:

...Well, I went back home at Christmas knowing my Mother was feeling a bit tired and crappy so it would be a quiet affair.  She was dead within a month.  Shocking enough in itself but we'd been to Niagara and New York visiting rellies in October and she'd been fine.  Cancer.  So that left me with no parents, no siblings, no bloke or kids of my own.  It's a sobering moment to realise you are, in essence, totally alone in the world.  Hang on, before this gets too maudlin let's have a Derek break...

Greedy thieving little bleeder

So, here we are - a diary of comedic musings and I've just killed the mood.  Ok, I am happy to share the funny side of the death of my Mother with you.  I tried to do this before now but at last I am ready and I hope people can appreciate that whilst death is tragic for those left behind, in all darkness there is humour to be found.  My top 3 moments of misery laughter, in reverse order:

3.  When I was finally told that the end was near myself and 3 of my cousins held an overnight vigil.  We'd been told there were probably only hours left so we sat alert around the medical bed which was downstairs in the living room.  We were waiting for the end to come and so spent hours reminiscing about funny family shit to pass the time. As the night drew on and we all got more and more tired the talk ran out until we were all just sitting in the semi darkness in silence.  It was tense, detecting every change in her breathing and holding her hand.  Suddenly the silence was punctuated by the sound of THE most enormous fart I've ever heard.  There was a gasp of horror as the other 3 people in the room looked from my Mother to the only guy in the room who was looking sheepish. 

"Oh my God, RAY!"

"Erm, I don't even know what happened, it just sort of came from nowhere.  I almost feel I was possessed"

"Possessed by a fart?"

"Well yeah, perhaps Grandad's spirit is here and took over my body....."

Not only was that THE single worst excuse for a fart that I have ever heard, if true, it is one possession they never experienced on Most Haunted.  After the solemn atmosphere had been broken,  one by one the remaining Watchers felt able to let off gigantic farts of their own.  We prayed that my Mother was in a sleeping state and could neither hear nor smell the room in which she lay.  It was terrible, our eyes were stinging, our nasal passages were burnt and we had been laughing at each and every arse trumpet that came out.  It was like a scene from Blazing Saddles.  Farts are so funny, even during tragically sad times. My Mother would have loved being heralded to the next life by a host of heavenly farts.....

2.  Just before things got too bad my Mother spent a lot of time sleeping on the sofa in the living room.  I'd lay sprawled on the floor lost in my own misery watching TV.  One night the comedy channel I'd been watching ended and I couldn't be bothered to reach that extra few inches to grab the TV remote control to find something else to watch.  To my horror an 'Info-mercial' started and I was trapped and forced to watch it!  Here's the thought process of a grieving person watching an info-mercial:

"Fucking Zumba........Zumba can fuck right off..........?........hmmmm they're dancing like they're in Dirty Dancing......fucking Zumb-that's quite cool actually........she used to be FAT?.......wow, look at her......it tightens your core muscles and pulls in your stomach?......AND it lifts your tits?......doing work out DVDs at home is sad....then again, what else do I have to do all day?....Awwww, look at my poor Mom sleeping.....Y'know, I could do this stuff 'cause she sleeps pretty much all day....(lost in reverie at visions of myself moving like the staff kids in Dirty Dancing when Baby first sees them....hell, I'm so thin!  I'm smiling!  I'm HOT).......what, if I buy it tonight I get loads of extra things?......weights.......A BHANGRA dance work out?........."

That simple offer ended the reverie for me.  My Mother had become much more intolerant of many things - especially racial as she got older.  I  was struck by a vision of  her waking from the peace of the sleep her poor body had provided only to find her daughter enthusiastically bhangra dancing in the house - doing the whole arm and hand movement stuff!  She'd have thought she had died and gone to her own personal hell or was having some sort of morphine induced nightmare!  I still laugh at the thought of me - so white and without rhythm - dancing with real enthusiasm and a big smile all dressed up in brightly coloured clothes from the Punjab whilst my mother watched on in horror.

...I was bloody good too (in my own mind)

1.  Ok, this is the ultimate nightmare death of a loved one scenario but you know something?  I can laugh now.  We're going back to the vigil group.  The nights were made up of the 4 cousins and the days had other family members coming and going.  Despite having been given just hours to live my darling Mother lasted a few days.  This toe curling nightmare happened at her death.  Oh God, WHO would be a family member or pet of mine...... 

The core group had their places and as the tiredness grew we all, at certain times dropped off to sleep but tried to ensure that someone was always awake should the end come.  There were bars on the bed and I fell asleep with my face on the bar and woke up looking like I'd been in some sort of industrial accident at one point.  This wasn't the nightmare, just something I remembered.  My cousin Lisa had bought a sun lounger in from the garden shed to lie/sit on at one side of the medical bed.  We'd also got dining chairs and other bits of stuff to sit on.  No one could really get comfortable but we didn't care.  Day had come and the core 4 refused to leave.  Of course I was one of them and so I was going nowhere but the other 3 had invested so much time and emotion into staying up with Mom that no one wanted to go anywhere in case the time came.  That said, we all got up and stretched our legs etc. when other people turned up.  It was about mid-day and a few people were there.  I came back into the room and noticed that my Mom's eyes were opening very slightly.  Letting out a gasp I  loudly told everyone that I thought she was waking up.  Everyone in the house came running over to the bed but the second I'd called out I realised that her eyes were opening a little because her muscles were relaxing as death took her.  I ran straight to the side of the bed and leapt onto the sun lounger. 

...only, I landed knee first with my full weight at the edge right where the spring is attached to the frame.  The spring shot away from the frame and I was catapulted head first into the face of my dying mother.  As this happened I screamed

"FUCKING HELL!!!!"  

Yeah, I shouted 'FUCKING HELL' right into the face of my Mother as she was gasping her last.  I then burst into tears, held her hand and wept loudly (and comically) "I'm so sorry I shouted fucking hell at you Mom, I didn't mean it".  It was like something out of a bad comedy.  She then died, the peaceful atmosphere everyone had striven to create with pleasantly scented oil burners and the comforting music of Andrea Bocelli in the background being drowned out by an idiot Brummie with a voice like a fog horn screaming profanities in the poor woman's face just as she left this mortal plane.  Nothing like moving on to the next life in peace is there?

Like I say, WHO'D be a relative, friend or pet of mine eh?  No wonder I went mental.

Bye Mom, I miss the fuck out of you......

BTW: There have been many things which have amused me over the past 7 months of which I'd wanted to write only I felt I had to explain my absence first and I didn't have the strength to do it.  Now I've got all this off my chest I can resume normal business.  Hope I haven't depressed the shit out of you.

Over thinking

I've had a lot of opportunity to over think again lately.  I did get lost in thought about how wonderful it would be if I were really supple, bendy and able to form a handstand on my desk from which I'd be able to move my legs in interesting ways such as the splits, twists or scissors.  I shared this with 'Mental Health' work colleague (we share the same neuroses) who absolutely went with it and reflected how wonderful it would be if we were both doing something similar when the MD came down and into the room.  From this I felt some circus skills training would be beneficial to us both, especially as we then decided we needed unicycles.  How wonderful would it be to spend your day on a unicycle wobbling precariously about with bits of paper for people or just turning up and visiting folk.  I had visions of people calling up and asking for 'the one on the unicycle'.  In my mind I was happy, not as happy as when I had visions of me tap dancing at top speed but happy nonetheless.  Perhaps that's the key to happiness - being a tap dancing unicyclist. 

...I'd like to do back flips too but I did a simple forward roll on Friday and then had to suffer the pain of a suspected broken neck for the rest of the day.

Another thought I had was during a really tense 'RE-STRUCTURE' meeting in which we would all find out our potential redundancy fate and I'd have to decide whether to just go for it, trust in myself and just make a career out of my comedy with no wage to fall back on, was how awful it would be if I punctuated the tense silence by letting off an enormous blanket-ripper fart which echoed around the room.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't have a fart in me but during moments like this I have the same thought.  The Fart Scenario thought.

The Fart Scenario thought comes to me in every meeting in which people are silent and concentrating on something.  How would the people react if someone farted really REALLY loudly.  I suspect a couple of people would stifle giggles but most would be professional and would act as if nothing had happened.  That tickles me.  I then wonder if the people who ignored the sound would be so professional if the fart was so stenchful (is that even a word?), let's go for pungent, no ODIFEROUS, that's a good word, that no one could possibly ignore it any more.  I imagine the horrendous choking stench that fills the room and just hangs there.  Yup, that's what I think about during tense meetings.

Plaything of The Fates (again)

Y'know those times we all dread? The times we (well, not me 'cause I'm a laydeeee - cough) allow an unguarded fart to fall from our arses. They always seem to rip out in a satisfying manner only for you to realise you aren't alone! That recently happened to a rellie of mine (you know who you are!) I had a similar but 'un-guilty' experience which is, in fact, just as bad.

Right, I was at the gym and had worked hard so was a bit on the sweaty side. Being a fucking short-arse I had to get on my tippie-toes to get on the exercise bike (even though I'd lowered the saddle to dwarf height) and well, I sort of dragged my arse across the seat and, to my mortification, it made a squeaky sort of loud fart sound! It wasn't a fart but by fuck it sure sounded like one and there were people there - REAL people who I don't know. No one moved (other than to continue exercising) or looked my way but my reaction was as if I really had let out a gigantic fart and no matter how much I squidged around on the seat I couldn't reproduce that sound in order to prove my innocence. I looked at myself in the giant mirror and could see the fart-guilt written all over my face. I wondered how people would react if I jumped down from the bike, stood at the front and explained to everyone that I wasn't guilty of a fart crime but then people might not have heard me after all and then they might believe I WAS guilty of the fart. What a dilemma. I just continued pedaling in the sure knowledge that every time those people came to the gym and saw me they'd associate me with farts and there's nothing I could do about it.

Other than that, I had a couple of food related accidents. We ordered a lovely pizza and I was attempting to add a little salt (which some people find weird). The salt was still in the container it came in and had become a little damp. All I did was smack the thing a bit hard but the lid came off and the entire pot of salt landed on my frickin' dinner! I did try to brush it off and carry on eating but it was so horrible I could feel a salt related Stroke coming on so had to throw it away. Sigh. The next day I put a plastic pot of pumpkin soup in my bag and rushed off to work. Fuck (I'm rather sweary again aren't I?) knows how I did it but the plastic container split and I ended up with a bag full of mushed pumpkin. It looked as if I'd vomited into the thing. I have done that before (only it was purple from over-drinking pernod and black. Jesus Christ, what had I been thinking?) I wonder if I can post photos to this thing...

I wonder if Samuel Pepys ever diarised his own humiliations or discussed farting. I'll tell you something else that arsehole Pepys never did - took photos of dirty toilets! Did they have cameras in those days? Well, ok then, did that arsehole Pepys ever sketch a dirty toilet and then paint it in oils? Did they have toilets in those days? I'm probably getting confused with Black Adder and the woman who preferred to 'crap out of the window'. Blimey, do you think Pepys crapped out of a window? Nah, he'd have a poe. Any way, I am slowly collecting pictures of dreadfully unloved toilets. You may wonder why. So do I.

PS. I don't know why Pepys suddenly became an arsehole in this diary. He was probably a totally ok bloke (despite being rich and powerful).

Dead woman's case thing pt. 4 San Diego

Evenin' all. Had a nice long lie in today, blew off going to the gym (heck, I'll go tomorrow) in order to lie in bed watching re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and to be appalled that the hairy dog which I had earlier discovered had eased me against the wall and taken over most of my bed (complete with her head on my pillow)was now licking her arse next to my face. Pet ownership really is a misery. Nothing else noteworthy happened today so I'll get straight into the next part of my travel journal.

Monday 20th September 2010 - San Diego: Spent most of last night puking [this is a lovely start to my journal isn't it? You'll soon discover the full extent of my shitty digestion] and being wide awake. My chest feels like it's had a good kicking. I coughed and coughed all night from the reflux I get but felt surprisingly chipper today. Everyone else on the tour is actually very pleasant [take note of this sentence and laugh heartily as my opinion rapidly changes].

Had to be on the bus for 8am - what a godforsaken hour to be setting out when on holiday! Actually, it turned out to be ok and we were taken on a tour of San Diego. Beautiful architecture and interesting. Very Mexican and at the harbour really military. Had photo stops at a giant statue of a sailor kissing a nurse which was inspired by the famous photo taken of V.J. Day and put on the cover of Time magazine. Also loved the Bob Hope entertaining the troops memorial (with sound). As a stand up I felt a lot of warmth for this memorial and could only dream of having such an appreciative audience (oh, and talent no doubt). We also stopped somewhere else but I couldn't see the point of that one, it was just a grassy area near the bay. Mom and I took the piss out of the abundance of joggers running, no, NOT running; staggering along at less than crawling speed and with pained expressions on their stupid faces. I've run in the past - I was forced to by my friend Nigel who was immune to my crying and pretending to be dead whenever he came around, and I can confirm that even in that state I wasn't as ridiculous looking as the joggers I saw during that stop! Mom and I have already got a nickname for an actually very pleasant woman on the trip who's genuinely got no ankles - Cankles. Her husband is Mr Cankles (for calves/ankles). We're wicked bleeders we really are.

Stopped and had some cake and fed all the little sparrows (I bloody love little cheeky sparrows). They must have found the cake a little dry as they all flew to a nearby fountain and drank heartily before coming back for more cake. Gawd bless 'em. At the end of the tour we were given an hour and a half to look around Old San Diego which was really Mexican and, I thought brilliant but Mom didn't care much for any of it so we didn't spend much time in the shops which were full of stuff for the Day of the Dead festival. I figured housemate Steph (the goth) would love some of the stuff but then realised it was a bit too bulky to carry PLUS it was potentially just ebay fodder I'll hang on and see if I can find any thing Steam Punk for her. I know I'm worrying my mother with my inability to eat without puking and I don't want it to be an issue as I know I get good days and bad days. I was able to get a cheese salad for lunch (at a place called O'Hungry's) and kept it all down (thank fuck for that). Felt better once I'd eaten.

My phone is really pissing me off. Been getting loads of Twitter updates and Steph's attempt to stop them failed and now I'm getting phone updates from all 94 people I follow. It's a fucking misery and because I'm abroad it's costing me a fortune! I know it's pissing my mother off. Note to self: Dump Twitter when I get home.

After this tour we were sent on a harbour tour. Sat on top deck and it was really rather pleasant until the boat turned around and sailed into the wind. Bloody Brass Monkey's (for non-UK people that means it was cold enough for 'balls' to drop off). Mom was disappointed that we saw just one....oh I can't think what it's called now - bird with a big beak that hangs down and fills with fish. I've got 'Gannet' or 'Heron' stuck in my head but it's neither of them. Perhaps I'll remember before I finish. We did get to see a bunch of fat seals basking on a platform. That was cool. We hung on in the wind freezing our tits off until the boat turned again but it was still bloody cold so we decided to go below decks. Found a diamond ring on the floor but gave it to the foreign woman with bad teeth and poorly applied lipstick who had been sitting there. She didn't thank me, miserable freak-faced cow. [I'M GOING TO EDIT OUT THE NEXT PART OF THE JOURNAL AS IT MAKES ME LOOK REALLY BAD. MWHAHAHAHAHA!]

Back on shore we were given a couple of hours to explore Seaport Village which was really cute and interesting but there was nothing really to buy. There was a pet shop full of dog costumes (if only Batdog wasn't so old and the Kraken not so mad I've have got the shark costume or the ear of corn one), a Pirate shop run by a bloke dressed as a Pirate (is there much call for Pirate stuff on a daily basis?), a Christmas shop which aims to remain open ALL year and another that just sells wind chimes. All lovely shops but how do they survive? I can't imagine the wind chime shop would get much repeat business as, let's face it, once you've got something dinging in your garden you don't really need something dinging at a slightly different pitch a yard away.

...or is it just me? Have I no imagination or magnificence to my soul?

Did buy a giant chunk of fudge for us both - I had Rocky Road and Mom had Maple and Walnut. Came to nearly $14!!!! Fuck, had I inadvertently walked back into the Pirate shop or even the Daylight Robbery shop? Robbing bastards. Did have the most perfect ice cream in the world though. Cop this for perfection:

Ben & Jerry's (I've got your attention already haven't I?) IMAGINE WHIRLED PEACE in a choc and nut waffle cone. I died and went to heaven until I started to feel sick 'cause it was too big and rich. Like a proper girl though I carried on eating the bugger. Then a really tatty, death's door type pigeon started to hang around. I gave him a bit of cone and where there had previously been NO wildlife for miles, a bunch of other pigeons came down so we just left. My betting is they keep 'Brian' looking sickly and send him out to look pathetic around the tourists. The legend (amongst pigeons) that is 'Brian the Bait' !

Oh yeah, we found Kettner Boulevard. Probably named after yet another sodding rich and unknown to my bit of the family relative. The Fates really do like to yank my chain about how my portion of the ancestry pool did shitly for themselves and therefore left no legacy for me to live off and become arrogant about. I'd LOVE to be rich and arrogant. People say that I wouldn't be the person I am today had I not experienced the shit I've experienced but I say 'who gives a shit?' Who WANTS to be me with my personality. I have to edit down my journal posts so as to hide the fact I'm really rather horrible and judgemental. I might be nice and rich if only my ancestors had got off their arses and worked a bit harder at saving Kings or inventing stuff. Lazy bunch of dead bastards....

Mom gave a homeless guy $5 but he was so out of it he didn't even look up. I think she felt bad for him 'cause I'd pointed out that he'd got a packet of Uncle Ben's dry rice in his shopping cart. Where the bleedin' hell is he going to cook that? He also had a pot of mustard.

For dinner I had linguine in a creamy pesto sauce and was able to keep it down (yay for my digestion!). Heard my mom fart in the night and discovered it was a gentle little whisper of fart. Started to form a theory that when at rest and the 'ring-piece' has no real tension to it, farts are unable to 'rip' themselves out and into the world. Would like to research this but wouldn't know where to start and I don't know who would be interested in the findings.

PELICAN!

It was a Pelican. It's now 5am and I'm wide awake. Can still hear fucking Twitter messages coming through.