The Replacement Arm

Oh God, I've been lost in thought over something fucking ridiculous again.

It started about 6 (ish) weeks ago when a random arm pain turned from being a minor irritation to actually entering my conscious as something which I felt should have gone away long ago.  This pain, which was throughout my left arm and onto a bit of my chest, became known as  my 'heart attack arm'.  I complained about it bitterly without taking any positive action.

Well, recently the sharper pains have subsided to simply leave a constant dull ache unless I move my arm in a certain way.  The sane part of my brain tells me it's just a strain or something, the insane part of my brain tells me that the only possible answer is cancer. 

Arm cancer to be precise.

Of course I know you can't have localised cancer of 'just' the left arm so I haven't been thinking about it too much.

THEN, this morning I had a 3:30am visit from the Tidiness Nazi who wished to inform me that she'd been woken up by my car alarm going off.  The car was parked along the main road and it was pissing down with rain.  In short, I went out to the car and, well I can't be bothered to go into the entire story but the incident ended with me in a massive temper pushing the car on my own and trying to get enough speed so I could jump into it and jump start it into life.

..which I did.

I returned to bed at around 4am, soaking wet and pissed off but couldn't sleep.  It's those 4am moments when you start to *think* that's the real killer.  My hypochondria knows no bounds when it's 4am and I've got a random pain which should have gone away weeks ago. 

I shared my catastrophising with a work colleague who understands the joy of hypochondria.

Me (miserably):  So, I reckon I've got some form of arm cancer or an arm rottening disease but the pain is right up high past my shoulder!  They'll have to remove so much of me that I might not be able to wear a prosthetic arm 'cause there won't be anything to fit it on to.  AND as I'm so broke at the moment, if I DID get a false arm it's likely to be a cheap comedy pre-moulded rubber one that just hangs there.  It'll be an NHS one so it's likely to be an institutional kind  of blue colour and it'll be just that bit too long.....

Colleague: You'll just have to stick a twig in the hole then.

Me (perking up): Like a snowman?

Well that was it.  I was lost in thought about my snowman arm just jutting straight out of my body with 3 little stick fingers at the end.  I forgot about my impending doom and allowed myself to laugh heartily at the vision.  I told my colleague I'd have to find a watch with a very small strap to put on my little jutty-out arm.  I thought about going out in public and how people would be too polite to say anything to my face.  That's something which always makes me laugh - the politeness of the British in the face of something fucking ridiculous.  I'm still giggling like a moron at the picture in my head which, fortunately, has replaced the dark thoughts of this morning when I was doom-laden with images of me trying to write with my other hand and wondering whether I'd be allowed to keep my detached arm so I could get it cremated and put the ashes in with my Mother.  That'd be something - the cremains of my mother, her cat and my arm in one container. 

I even wondered whether she'd get my arm in the afterlife before I got there to join it.  That'd piss you off wouldn't it - having to care for a detached arm in the hereafter.

Still, you could look down and enjoy your daughter's new replacement snowman arm!

In the event of my death...

I'll admit that at times I've been a bit of a hypochondriac though I usually keep the thoughts of my horrible impending death to myself.  These thoughts only come after some sort of unusual and persistent new symptom.  A new ache or twinge somewhere unexpected? Cancer.  If it's not cancer then it's obviously Necrotizing fasciitis and my insides are turning to mush. 

I've had a weird point of pain in my throat for days now.  It feels like a mouth ulcer but down my throat.  Can you get throat ulcer?  Probably not so it's clearly cancer.

....or necrotizing fasciitis and my throat is turning to mush.

Another consideration is that due to my shit digestion and my near constant burning acid reflux my insides are being eroded away.  I sat miserably wondering whether, the tumour, mush or acid burn would result in me having to have surgery which would leave me with a  gigantic gaping hole in my throat to which I'd have to put a microphone to speak.  No one would understand me and all my friends ('ALL', she says) would shy away from me 'cause they would no longer understand a bleedin' word I said.  Hell, I know they'd feel guilty but truth is, they would be repulsed by my metallic, nonsensical way of speaking.  I'd sound like a train station announcer ALL THE TIME.  I'd have to give up work as the public would be terrified of me and my giant neck hole and I'd never do stand up again as the audience would be both repulsed and clueless as to what was going on.  On reflection, I'd probably do really well on those BBC or Channel 4 'right on' comedy shows. I could be one of the 'box ticker' comedians.  Not funny but inclusive.  

Faaaaaack.

I spoke to my pal Bison tonight.  We've been 'abusive pals' for years now.  If either of us said anything nice to the other I think our friendship would implode.  I asked him whether, due to my probable impending death, he'd come to my funeral.

BISON:  [impolite pause] Erm......well, it depends on where you're having it really.

Me: You utter bastard.  We've been friends for years and you won't even commit to coming to my funeral?  You only live at the other end of the country!

BISON: Well, you have to get a ferry.....do you know how much the ferries are?  They're wicked expensive aren't they.....then again, there's excellent fossil hunting in your neck of the woods.  I could make a holiday out of it and kill two birds with one stone.  

Me: [silence]........make a holiday out of my funeral?

BISON: [on a roll] Hell, those fossils aren't going to find themselves; do you think the Tidiness Nazi would let me stay over for a bit?

Me: Yeah, it would be in my room though.  THE ROOM I'LL HAVE INEVITABLY DIED IN.  You can sleep in my bed next to the stain of me that I left behind.  There'll probably even be an imprint of my smiling face in make-up on the pillow so you can feel close to me in death.

BISON: .......yeah, I'd probably bring a sleeping bag.

Me: [incredulous] You have really thought this through haven't you?  Actually, while you're there, I'm leaving you all my crap that no one else would want.  You'll be able to lie there and take stock of all of your new and shit belongings.  Together with my collection of contact lenses, you even get my 'interesting pants' collection which has the added bonus of not just being a pile of interesting underpants, they'll also have been next to my vadge!

BISON: WA-HEY!  Can I try on your bras too?

Me: [starting to believe he wasn't taking this very seriously] You could turn up to my funeral wearing my clothes if you really want

BISON: I'll just tell everyone it's what you would have wanted.....  

So you see, I can't even get any sympathy from dear friends in the face of real potential, maybe serious disease.  Probably.  I'm glad now that he's getting some of my most crap possessions.  In case my possibly imagined terminal illness turns out to be real (hey, I'll be right one day!), here is a list of items I want recorded that I SPECIFICALLY want Bison to have:

1) The metal wind-up chicken
2) The platypus finger puppet
3) The 2 cat statues and crystal ball on a metal stand which were splattered with red wax after a candle in a glass jar exploded all over them.
4) My hippy rug which bore the brunt of the white paint which I spilled all down me and my belongings whilst trying to get the lid off carefully.
5)  The terrifying bald head which is at my flat and which is currently wearing a pink wig and swimming goggles.
6)  I know you want it but you can't have Dave the skeleton, currently zipped into a suitcase and in the loft space of my flat which I am secretly hoping will fuck with any police investigators looking into my disappearance should I disappear. Dave has been reserved for my former colleague Amy's small child who has no clue he's getting it.  
7) A small statue of a duck which has just hatched from it's egg but is mysteriously wearing a Traffic Warden's uniform.
8) The metal picture of the Beatles with googly eyes stuck over their actual eyes.
9) The godawful plate you gave me depicting 2 kittens and a puppy playing with a tremendously out of proportion shoe
10) The lollypop you gave me of Freud's head.  It is still in the plastic wrapper so it looks like he's died from some sort of auto-erotic asphyxiation.

On a final note.  After being told he was not a good friend, Bison tried to redeem himself by helpfully suggesting that as I am in BUPA (private health care), if there really WAS something wrong with me then I wouldn't get butchered and end up with a gaping hole in my throat.  I'd end up with a nice metallic voice thing similar to Stephen Hawking.  When I'd said I didn't want to sound like Stephen Hawking he said that, like a modern day sat-nav, they'd be able to get someone like Ozzy Osborne to voice me.

.....cheers pal.

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.

The Rules of Prostitution

I'm going to apologise for this blog entry in advance.  I've done some quality over-thinking in a sort of 'out of the box' kind of way and it has lead me into a bizarre and inappropriate direction.

Again, sorry.....

Basically I am absolutely stony broke at the moment.  Depressingly broke in fact.  I had somewhat of a tantrum this morning as I left the house, and yelled up to my Tidiness Nazi of a house mate that I may just have to become a prostitute.

I've said it in grumpy jest before but today, in a full on grumpy mood and driving to work, I started to over think the implications of the major life shift I'd so casually bandied about in conversation.   How does one just become a prostitute any way?  I reflected that I could just hang around the docks, only the local ferry workers will have only been at sea for half an hour.  I'm guessing that this wouldn't therefore make any of them desperate enough to want to pay the likes of me.

...and how much would one charge any way?

I am a Stand Up so am hardly naive but I really don't know how much prostitutes charge and whether they have a going rate which adjusts to being down South.  I mean, I'd expect to charge one thing for a bit of a fiddle and something completely different for something more, erm..... 'involved' but y'know, you've gotta be competitive within the market.

How would one carry out market research into the working operations of one's competition?  I mean, I couldn't just go up to random blokes in the street and do a survey. I guess it would be even worse if I approached random women to ask if they were or had ever been a prostitute.  I was talking to my 'mental health twin' work colleague about it and was strangely comforted when she said she had considered and worried about the same issues (we're so alike it's frightening, it really is....)

...actually, I have to say - my mental health twin work colleague horrified me recently by getting cured!  There I was enjoying a bit of  hypochondria expecting her to join in with stories of lying awake in the wee hours just waiting for death due to some random and bizarre head twinge or something but she didn't!  She'd had CBT and had been taught to stop 'CATASTROPHISING' everything!  How rude - the biggest part of my existence is made up of over thinking pretty much everything to one of two final ends - my death or eventual ruin.  I am comfortable with these fears and actually once had a jolt when I realised I had nothing in my life to worry about.

...fortunately this only lasted for about 12 seconds before I remembered something.

So, back to becoming prostitutes.  Mental Health Work Colleague (MHWC) said that she thought she'd be able to do something with the 'Yummy Mummy' type market.  Being short, strange and a bit shit I reflected miserably that I'd have to try to appeal to a more specialised market.  My former Gym Buddy work colleague (of the headless, 3 legged cat skeleton) said that I could advertise that I was new to the game and therefore 'clean'.

Erm, cheers....

I then added that as I hadn't been able to pull for bloody ages I could advertise the non-bucketness of my 'love tunnel'.  The three of us nodded in agreement that this was a definite plus point when working out my potential prostitute tariff/advertising campaign.

With a face twisted with disgust I quietly asked MHWC whether we'd be expected to (cough) give oral sex to strangers.  Leaning forward she contemplated the prospect

MHWC:  ...well, if it was clean looking I might.

Me:  Would we be allowed to spray it or wipe it over with anti-bac hand gel or anything?

MHWC:  That'd sting it wouldn't it?

Me: Well you're the one with the boyfriend - can't you road test it with some and report back the results?

MHWC (uncertain): Erm......dunno really, I'm not sure he'd like it.

Me: Would we be expected to......y'know...

MHWC: What?

Me: Y'know!

MHWC (oblivious): No, what?

Me (whispering and with a traumatised expression): SWALLOW?


MHWC: I guess so, if that's what he wants.  I suppose you charge extra for that

Me: Sounds like we need to design some sort of comprehensive menu or something.  Is that what they do?  I really don't get it.  I mean, it's difficult isn't it?  If some old ropey slag does all that for 10 quid, is anyone going to pay for my prime, sort of unwanted, practically healed up 'lady garden' facility?  I keep it pretty neat but saying that, I did nick it shaving a few nights ago so it might look a bit damaged and scabby in parts...

MHWC:  The only problem is, you'd have to talk to people and take your clothes off and we all know that those are two things you hate doing.

Me (lost in thought): Yeah, 'cause remember that time I had my own aromatherapy business that I closed down?  That was because I didn't like people enough to touch them.  I really don't like people that much and if my punter wanted to chat or touch me in any way I'd probably go a bit strange and get that appalled look on my face, a bit like the shrunken headed hunter in Beetlejuice.  Me screaming, smacking his nob and running off would no doubt ruin his prossie experience and would prevent me from getting some extra dosh to see me through my current financially embarrassed state wouldn't it?

Former Gym Buddy:  I guess you could just do some more gigs and make some cutbacks.

Me: .....

Sigh, how much do prossies charge any way?  I'm still wondering.  It seemed such a good idea when I was in a bad mood this morning.  Hell, I even had my business logo planned.  Of course, a big part of me suspects the punters just jump on and have a good bang.  I don't think they'd appreciate me discussing my menu no matter how nicely set and printed it was.  I guess they'd appreciate the feedback form even less.