The Blue Ear

If you are a regular reader of my drivel then you will be aware that I surround myself not with sycophants (which would be great) but with hypochondriacs.  If only I could find a bunch of sycophants of my own I wouldn't have to lumber myself with the bunch of arseholes lovingly known as 'my friends (and bits of family)'.  Yep, these people believe themselves to have every life threatening disease on the market (is there a disease market?).  My mother is the best; she's convinced she has both Progeria (congenital disorder which makes you age rapidly) AND Prader-Willi (disorder which causes obesity).  I argue that she's just a greedy old git. 

So, 'Mental Health' work colleague (MHWC) and I were discussing the latest life threatening disease she is facing.  MHWC is still convinced that she has some sort of arm cancer which had in fact been better a few days ago but was now hurting again.  I think we both have a major fear of cancer (there's been loads in my family.  Dunno her excuse) but to be fair, she has started running again recently and so I asked whether it was possible the pain was related to this but no, it's clearly cancer just in the lower part of one arm.  I told her about a weird pain I'd experienced in one of my ears (oh yeah, I consider myself amongst the bunch of arseholes I mentioned earlier) and we, for a moment, had the same thought; who gets pain in one ear?!!!!

Ear cancer!

I reflected miserably that with my luck I'd have to have my ear amputated and would then have to have a cheap NHS replacement which wouldn't match my skin tone.  In fact, if it was an NHS ear it would probably be a cheap blue molded rubbery thing.  My head fell to my chest in misery as I thought about the box of blue ears that the doctor would bring out.  In my mind I saw him holding various specimens to the side of my head and stepping back in order to see how they each looked.  Hell, I just knew they wouldn't have my size and I'd have to have a large 'man' ear until they could track down a replacement.  I later discussed these fears with my pal Bison who told me the blue ear would probably come with a rubber band which would snap around my head to keep it in place.  He then fell silent as if in contemplation before venturing that it would almost be worth having his own ear amputated just so he could have a giant blue ear of his own. 

Y'know, I bet they only have left ears in that box and I'll need a right ear.  I'll have to wear the thing upside down until they find me a lady ear won't I?  Sometimes it's just shit being me...

Oooh ooh, something else to tell you - I was walking down the street yesterday when a bloke stopped to tell me I was beautiful!  Clearly he was either a lunatic or 'played a mean pin ball' if you get my drift.  I tried to carry on walking but he sort of held my arm a bit and asked to look at my eyes properly (!)  I was so appalled I didn't have time to engage my appalled face (think of the great white hunter type with the shrunken head at the end of 'Beetlejuice')

Sket's appalled face



He then told me how much he loved my curly hair.  Clearly my internal 'fuck off' vibe machine was malfunctioning and therefore I was left to deal with the situation myself.  Shiit.

I just sort of let out a ridiculous high pitched laugh, paused and then lamely told him that I once got a gerbil trapped in my hair.

Faaaaaaack.

Still he wasn't put off and shared a story with me about how one of his fish got caught up in some weeds he'd put in the tank.  WHY WAS I HAVING THIS CONVERSATION?  I tried again to escape but he asked my name (like a prat I told him!!!!!), he took my hand, kissed it and I ran away shouting over my shoulder that he was very charming!

I'm never going to have sex again am I? 

The glutton

My Tidiness Nazi housemate informed me she'd been to the chiropractor and had to rest so it was going to be a 'make your own' night tonight with regard to dinner. 

Disaster!! 

I am famed for my inability to cook even the simplest thing.  I think that it's mainly because I can't be arsed to cook and then when I'm hungry I want something immediately and therefore end up with a dinner that is on fire but frozen in the middle.  I will now post a number of pictures of culinary disasters I've had to endure:

 I present: VEGGIE BURGER!

 A lovely OMELETTE!

 A little seasoning to my Domino's pizza!

 MmmMMMMmm, MINI PIZZAS!

Well done Linda McCartney, here is one of your VEGGIE PIES!

So yeah, you can probably guess why I was somewhat nervous about it being a 'make your own' night.  I decided to go with my signature dish; ice cream.  I then decided to have a different flavour ice cream for dessert.  I was happy.  Heck, if this regime goes on much longer then I might end up with Ricketts but hell, I'll be happy.  As happy as a Tap Dancer (who would be unable to stop a pig in an alley).  The only downside to my happiness was the judgemental look on the face of the Nazi.  The good news is that she couldn't stand it any longer and I scored some spaghetti bolognaise out of her disgust! 

In other news, 'Mental Health' work colleague and I had a candid discussion about stuff.  She's got a painful patch on her arm which is clearly arm cancer (only it seemed to be better today) and I shared the story about the time I was startled in the early hours by the unexpected sight of my own vagina reflected in the mirror when I was bending forward.  That sight, at an angle I would never have expected to have viewed it from, has haunted me ever since and I've been obsessed I'm horribly deformed 'down there'.  As previously shared, I've now been unable to pull a bloke for a number of years, possibly due to the fact I accidentally exude 'fuck off' vibes from every pore whenever someone talks to me, so have been unable to gauge the level of horror on the face of any potential sexual partners.  I sort of described it to her in it's full 'angry looking' detail and she nodded sagely and told me it was perfectly normal!  Phew!  She then reflected that perhaps we should get a bunch of girls together for a nibbles and vadge party so we can all sort of have a quick look to make sure we're all the same.  I think that 'Mental Health' work colleague now suspects that if ours are the same and mine might be wrong then perhaps HERS is wrong too! 

It's hard being alive innit?

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.

Sex Slavery

So, I'm off to the London Comedy Writer's Festival for the weekend tomorrow.  For some reason, my mother has it in her head that because I'll be alone I'm going to get kidnapped off the street and sold into sex slavery.  Blimey.  I couldn't even pull a rotten tooth out of the abscessed jaw of a long dead Jackal so I doubt any prospective pimp would eye me up and think I'd be worth the investment of time, criminality, and financial return.  Well, not unless it was for some sort of specialist market I guess.

I was discussing this with my cousin and she agreed that neither of us was up to the ol' enforced prostitution thing.  I ruefully reflected on the hurt I would feel when my imagined punter walked into the room I was being held in and (in my head) I saw him recoil in horror at the sight of my naked body and tatty looking growler.  My cousin likened her own muff  to a barnacle covered figurehead from the prow of a ship.  Y'know, all seaweedy and frightening. We both sort of sat in silence on either end of the phone at this point, nodding to ourselves in understanding and unity.  It's a bloody shame for us.  I became lost in thought and heard the argument with the kidnapper/pimp who would be refusing to give a refund to the horrified punter who would in turn be saying that he wasn't paying good money to have a go on THAT old box and in the end my abductor would kindly tell me he was going to take me back to where he found me as I wasn't earning my keep and he was making a hefty loss on me.  Serves the evil bastard right for picking a victim after an afternoon snorting Charlie if you ask me.  He won't make THAT mistake again!

So yeah, I've probably over-shared.  Collectively, my cousin and I would like to stress that our clunges (?) Clungi (?) Clunga (?), our LADY GARDENS are well tended, fragrant and lovely and if anyone wants to have sex with either of us they would NEVER recoil in horror, no siree (cough) and our inability to pull is down to us being so perfect we seem unobtainable to men.  Erm, it's not because we're repulsive Harpies who've gone weird over time.  Ok, so my cousin did recently punch a baked potato which caused her to lose a fair amount of skin off her hand but y'know, these things happen!  I accidentally burned all the skin off one of my breasts by boiling my pants in a large bowl which I'd placed on a wobbly surface so these things can happen all so easily.  Oh,  and it's not because we exude 'fuck off' vibes whenever we meet people either.  OK, so I kinda DO give off 'fuck off' vibes accidentally quite often but not all the time.  Hell, I should probably stop here.  I'm going to London tomorrow and my Mother thinks I'm going to be preyed on by weirdos.  We'll leave it at that.  I'm not the weirdo.

Tales of the dead

So, my dog died.  He was great actually, he loved being dressed up to look ridiculous to the point I had to spend many an afternoon photo shopping his erection out of the photos I was to post on-line.  Hang on, I'll post a photo of him:

Batdog - Scouser disguise

He was old and sick and whilst it broke the hearts of the Tidiness Nazi and I we had to send him on his way in the end.  Shit.  So, yesterday we took him to the beach to scatter his ashes in the sea.  It was supposed to be a beautiful moment but during this tender moment the tide lapped up around my legs and I ended up with a tide mark of sea water and dog cremains all around the bottoms of my jeans.  That was a precious moment for my memory bank. It put me in mind of when the entire family went to a lovely hill with my Grandfather's ashes, had one of those tender family moments where everyone has a laugh reminiscing about funny stuff the deceased has done, and then scattered him to the wind.

....which promptly changed direction and blew him back into everyone's eyes.  Terrible, it really was (she said, stifling a laugh).

Actually, that reminds me of another dead story involving the dog.  A few years ago the Nazi and I took him for a walk in the local park.  A bit further down the path and to the side there was a solemn group of people standing around a bush.  As we got near they sort of dispersed and walked towards us looking all sad and we realised they had scattered someones ashes around it.  The dog only went up and pissed all over the lot didn't he?  The horror of trying to shout quietly at a pissing dog so as not to alert the crying mourners was a nightmare of biblical proportions (she exagerated).  Looking back at the people, my eyes on stalks, hoping against hope that no one would look back was terrible.  On the way back later a little Yorkshire Terrier was pissing all over them too.  There's a lesson for us all, DON'T scatter your relatives ashes around a bush in a public park.

Here's another pic of the dog.  He's wearing Halloween teeth in this shot and this seems to be everyone's favourite pic of him.:

Halloween Teeth

Oh god, I've remembered yet ANOTHER dead thing to tell you about now!  A while back I learned that my Grandmother's ashes are in my mother's airing cupboard and have been there for bloody YEARS. 

My Grandmother

The family can't seem to find a convenient time or place to scatter them. More recently my Uncle Clive's ashes joined her.  Seems we have another aunt's ashes somewhere in the family too so I'm guessing that is my legacy.  A cupboard of dead relatives.  Niiiice.

Poo and dilemmas

In the spirit of remembering all the stuff I was supposed to diarise but forgot, I'd like to go back a couple of weeks to my Mother's sickness.  Yeah, I know; I've said it before and I'll say it again, as far as being as good a diarist as Sammy Pepys I'm pretty shit.  Should I mention Gaddaffi?  Is that even how you spell Gadaffi?  Hang on, let me Google him......Bollocks - it's GadDafi.  Double D.  Actually, before we go on - have you seen his bleedin' face? Shiit man.  Who's he trying to attract? Y'know, some women go for the powerful despot type and well, powerful despots aren't known for their handsome-ness (is that even a word?) and I guess that if that's the type you go for a few wrinkles aren't going to upset you too much.  Hang on again, when I just Googled him I saw a link to something about his cosmetic surgery.....  Oh laugh, look at this quote..."The Brazilian doctor said he recommended a facelift to Gaddafi, 68, but he refused as he wanted something that would be less noticeable".

So, back to my Mother's illness.  She lives about 4 hours away from me so I'd been monitoring her complaints of having massive shivers and violent shits hoping she had a bit of an upset stomach and would throw it off.  I was getting mixed messages from the family; they all said she was ok but the woman across the road (a nurse) kept calling to say she was at deaths door and no one seemed to care!  Basically, I felt like the worst daughter on the face of the planet so I managed to get some emergency time off work and I headed up there.  She was in a bad way but I did notice she put on an extra croaky/victim voice whenever anyone called or came over.  Hell, we all do it - phoning in sick from work (can't sound too healthy!) or just wanting a bit of sympathy so I figured I'd give her that one.  There are just 2 more things I want to mention about those few days away.

First (and will I ever lose the image burned into my brain?), at one point, my Mother called me upstairs to look at the colour and consistency of her shit.  WHY OH WHY?  I had a split second to decide on what level of good daughterliness I was going for and whether my future inheritance was worth looking at the bowel movements of the woman who brought me into the world.  Damn, yes.  Yes the future inheritance was worth it and I duly stood looking silently down the bowl at the black, brackish water.  What was I expected to say?  It looked like a it should have twigs and the Lindow Man sticking out of it.  I sort of raised my eyebrows, 'ooh'-ed a bit, let out a big sigh and said 'Yeah' weakly.  Weirdly she seemed to accept that and flushed the blackness away.

Ooh, hang on - there was another poo situation.  The nurse from across the road bought a special blue topped container thing especially for shit samples so I could take it to the doctor for testing.  As a loving daughter I agreed and the next day slipped the thing in my bag.  Unfortunately, turns out my Mother had done it the night before and it wasn't fresh enough so the poo was rejected!  I only had to carry the thing around with me all day!  Y'think that's bad?  I kept forgetting to chuck it away - it had a label with my mother's name and date of birth on it so I couldn't really dump THE DUMP anywhere! Had the bugger with me for about 3 days before I finally just put it in with my Mother's household rubbish.  I felt bad as it was a bio hazard.  There was a part of me that wished I could keep it so's I could dramatically throw it in the face of an attacker.  Of course, I doubt any attacker would stand and wait whilst I rummaged through my handbag looking for a container of stale shit. 

The last thing is sort of a confession and it's terrible.  On the first night I arrived my Mother could do little more than sleep.  I went to the veranda and got some food for myself out of the freezer.  Next night I went back and all the ice cubes had melted.  Huh? I made sure I closed the freezer door properly but the next night all the meat felt soft.  SHIIIIT.  I'm vegetarian so I wasn't eating it but hell, was I now going to have to tell a very sick woman I'd cost her hundreds of ££s worth of spoiled meat?  I couldn't do it.  I closed the door again and hoped it would all re-freeze.  Then the guilt set in.  The woman was already shitting herself to death.  Was I on the verge of keeping quiet and allowing her delicate bodily eco-system to ingest a load of spoiled food?  FUCK, I could kill her.  Could I kill her this way?  Oh god - do I get bawled at by a sick woman I've come over to care for (I'm perhaps a shittier carer than I am diarist) or poison the poor cow to death?  I suspect I'm an evil genius.  I told her I was concerned the stuff in her freezer wasn't very frozen and wondered whether it had given her food poisoning.  She threw it all away so I think I got away with it. 

I'm so ashamed

Suitcase Fun

I've been a bit quiet of late haven't I? Oh well, I guess no one really cares and I've had very little to say any way.  I recently got lost in deep thought after seeing a notice for Tap dancing classes on the wall in the kitchen back at the office.  I had a sudden vision of me in the shitty church hall Tap dancing at high speed with an enormous smile on my face.  Tap dancers always have enormous smiles don't they?  People often perceive them as gigantic wankers but hell, they're bloody happy and in my head I was really pleased with myself and having an absolute Tap dancing ball!  I discussed this with my pal Bison and his Tap dancing happiness theory was that Tap dancing originated in 'the olden days' when people knew no better and this was quality entertainment.  I reflected then that if  playing with a hoop and a stick back then was akin to having an X-Box, then Tap dancing must be like having a Wii.  Of course we realised we were talking utter shit but it seemed like a serious historical conversation at the time.  Not the type of historical conversation someone like say, David Mitchell might have, but a historical conversation nonetheless.

Ooh, I forgot - I can do a bit of Samuel Pepys-ing: proper news here;  Elizabeth Taylor kicked the bucket today.  Shit, that reminded me.  As perhaps the crappiest of diarists, I didn't log the huge Earthquake and Tsunami situation which has fucked Japan did I? Rather in-eloquently (is that even a word?) I can say it was REALLY bad shit.  Actually, really REALLY bad shit.  If anyone in the future is reading this (who am I kidding?) there are much better accounts of what happened pretty much ANYWHERE else you'd care to look.  Sigh, I'm so bloody rubbish.

Any hoo, I called this entry 'Suitcase Fun' and here we come to another of my reveries.  Yesterday I had to attend an all day training session on Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults so I had great scope to get lost in thought.  At one point the trainer used the example of a guy who'd ended up allowing bad people (bad is probably a bit of a weak description actually) to live in his flat but they murdered him and put his body in a suitcase! After the initial feelings of 'bloody hell, poor bugger!' I started thinking about the haunted suitcase I took away with me last year.  It was deep and I wondered if I would fit into it (whilst alive).

I was totally gone. I knew I wouldn't be able to zip it up myself so would have to enlist the assistance of housemate and famed Tidiness Nazi Steph to help.  I guessed she would but then would have to have a laugh to herself by walking away and leaving me!  Hell, I could feel the claustrophobia and hear my weakening voice as I tried to bawl at her in a commanding way to demand that she unzip me.  Later on I shared my fears that she would one day soon zip me into an enormous suitcase and would then just leave me in it for hours as I slowly suffocated.  Hell, who knows if suitcases allow air in?  I would guess not and that's why so many dead people end up in them.  Do they leak bodily fluids or allow the stink out?  NO, I don't think they do and that is why it would be bad for me to be completely zipped up in one.  We came to an agreement that should I, at some time in the near future, ask her to assist me in being sealed up in the haunted suitcase, she leaves gap enough for me to breathe through.  I am pleased to announce that this agreement has been reached.

I was then lost in thought again.  I could see the suitcase in front of the tv with just one of my eyes peering out of the gap.  I actually took comfort in this vision.  It sounds lovely. 

...apart from the fact the sodding haunted suitcase would never stand up on it's own.  I'd be mightily pissed off if it fell over and I was unable to see anything.  Is it wrong to fancy Sportacus from Lazy Town?