Pools Of Sorrow

Sometimes a powerful wave of sad-flavoured loneliness engulfs my being and leaves me washed up on the bedraggled sands of an isolated cove. Metaphor, obviously, but the sadness, loneliness and being engulfed part is true. It comes out of the blue, as it did earlier, often when I’ve been having a relatively good time.

Most of the time I cope with being me, singular, pretty well. It’s probably easier to deal with my health shit alone in some ways although if I fall down dead on the floor there isn’t anyone to find me, not even a cat to start eating me once they’ve realised I’m unable to open any more tins of food for them. And I am adept at entertaining myself.

Fulfilling myself, enriching myself by bringing external ideas, feelings and soul – well no, I can’t do those things alone which, given I would like fulfilment and enrichment which isn’t entirely self-mediated, means sad-flavoured loneliness will always thrust me back onto that metaphorical beach at times.

Sad-flavoured loneliness is a twat.

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Dragon George

Chicken George eventually upgraded…

Let’s celebrate St. George’s day by also not being British, possibly not existing and definitely not fighting any dragons because they definitely don’t exist. Although I guess the perfect person to fight a non-existent dragon is a fictitious saint because if their not-actually-there sword fails to cut off the illusory serpent’s head then supplications to God will probably finish the job off.

I fought a cauliflower once: it was vicious and nearly bested me but eventually I smothered it with cheese sauce and ate the hell out of it. Perhaps St. George should have tried a similar tactic with the dragon – you could get a lot of burgers out of one of them once you’ve cut through their hoary old hide. People eat crocodile burgers in that Australia they got down on the other side of the planet so I’m sure we can persuade folks to eat dragon burger too. (This might be the point where a 70s ‘comedian’ inserts a mother-in-law ‘joke’)

But enough of fictional figures, the Easter Bunny was especially kind to me this year and brought me food, love, joy and great company and conversation. I like it when the Bunny knows I’ve been just about as good as I am capable of being all year and decides to be nice to me anyway.

Why don’t the shops sell chocolate dragons and St. George’s Cross buns for England Day? Because it’s Shakespeare’s birthday, you dunce, and it would be disrespectful. Is this a dragon I see before me? No, autocorrect has been fucking with your manuscript, Will.

The Tale Of Sir Ouchalot

Naughty sun, being all warm and bright and Springy, making me feel like I’m wasting the day if I lie in bed with my ouchy body so I get up, make with the body washing and put myself in town. Oh oh, ouchy body still very ouchy and now I don’t have my bed with me to turn to for sympathy and understanding.

This may be a day of fail. Yet I have put myself in town so not total fail. Not epic fail, which is when Lancelot and Guinevere accidentally forget not to shag one another and betray Arthur. Not garbage pail, which rhymes but is americanist and I live in English so it doesn’t apply. Not anything else fail as I can’t be bothered to think anything else fail up.

This is how I distract myself from ouchy. It isn’t always successful and at times I even annoy myself but what’s a disabled to do when they hate their infirmities but like being alive enough to want to carry on with living? He or she mutters weird shit to himself or herself in his or her blog and hopes the nutcase police don’t read the blog and lock him or her up for being a fruitcake.

MarvellousSuperSmashingGreat

Elvis the whippet, too sexy to be shown below the waistline.

Good. Adjectival meaning, well, good. But in a sort of muted, apologetic, questioning way. As in ‘so that’s…good…isn’t it?’

“Yes, your house did burn to the ground but you weren’t inside it and you didn’t burn too so that’s good, isn’t it?” Well duh.

“I know your wife was secretly giving you oestrogen and now you’re a woman but you look amazing in all of her clothes so that’s good…isn’t it?” Maybe.

“Look, I know Pilate is allowing the Pharisees to nail you to a cross until you die but you will be born again in a few days time and become the figurehead of an entire religion so that’s…good…sort of.” Shut up, Dad, I’m not speaking to you.

Still, good continues to mostly mean good, unlike bad which also began to mean good in the late 1980s. And neither of them are as treacherous as the word nice which is now little more than a snobbish put down.

“Oh your wallpaper is…nice.” By which you mean you think it so tawdry and common that it might as well be covered with patterns of whippets wearing flat caps, smoking roll-ups and terrorising the eye with their surrealistically pink erections.

Have a Nice Friday, everyone.

No Adjective Thursday

Seven o’clock this morning consciousness sidled up to me and whispered something in my ear. Nothing profound, nothing saucy, just one word. More of a sound, really. “Ow!” it said, for yesterday had been a physio day and consciousness didn’t like it one bit.

Three and a half hours later I have managed to give my body a little more sleep, to have a standing up bath where all the water falls down on you then vanishes down the plug hole, shaved the bit of my face that grows hair where I don’t always want to have hair, killed six vicars and dragged consciousness into town for a huge cup of caffeine type liquid. Thus I already win at Thursday.

This evening I will have a meal with twelve of my closest friends, one of whom will betray me and another of whom will deny me before the cock crows three times. No wait, that’s Jesus, not me. This evening I will probably read a book, eat leftover bolognese and tell consciousness I might let it spend the whole of Friday in bed. Now that really would be a Good Friday.

Oh, and I was completely lying about the vicars.

Dr. No Parking

Thousands of screaming blades of grass give off such a nostalgic aroma as they’re cut. Not nostalgic to them, I’m sure, because they’re too busy being traumatised by motorised death, but nostalgic to me because I’ve never been traumatised by motorised death as I am neither a blade of grass nor a Bond villain.

I don’t think I’d be a very good Bond villain anyway, even though it’s an equal opportunities post for those with disabilities – Dr No’s missing hand, Blofeld’s missing face piece, that terrible hormonal spurt that left Jaws with a mouthful of teeth and the body of a giant. My disabilities are simply not horrific enough for me to want to take on the world necessitating the intervention of a fictional British spy. I just tell people to fuck off. That’s not villainy, it’s grumpiness.

Anyway, nostalgia, it’s not what it used to be. Nowadays you can only be nostalgic for ten minutes ago when the latest iPhone came out. History isn’t bunk but unless you’ve backed it up to your hard drive it ceases to exist, like when a solipsist runs out to the car to fetch his wallet when it’s his round only to discover the pub no longer exists once he’s left it. Cheap round, eh?

I stole that joke from Bill Bailey.

Paris Je T’aime

It’s sad to see the photos and footage of Notre Dame in flames. While it’s not my favourite Parisian centre of worship – that would be le Sacré Coeur – it is an amazing testament to nearly nine hundred years of faith, community and no little controversy. I’m sure it can be rebuilt but something will have been lost to the ravages of fire, even if ultimately it is only the aura of authenticity that is lost.

I last stood in front of Notre Dame three summers ago under azure skies and amid hundreds and hundreds of other tourists all similarly gaping up at an edifice whose height and majesty can catch you unawares no matter how many times you’ve seen it. There are many reasons why the basilica in Montmartre has my heart but Notre Dame is perhaps the very soul of Paris, so much so that people will be grieving as they choke on the acrid fumes such fires spread over a city for days, weeks after the blaze has been put out.

Perhaps the rebuilding of the cathedral can provide a focus for a city that has seen its share of tragedy and division over recent years, become a symbol of a reunified people who remember the founding principles of the republic? Or perhaps French media is as ruined and base as the British tabloid media is and will sow further seeds of division with unnecessarily aggressive inquiries into who might be to blame for the fire? 

Where on earth can the average Parisian now find sanctuary from such blame culture?