everything and nothing
Time for an update.
I have appendicitis! It's exciting. I got ill a couple of weeks ago (stomach pains, nausea, dizziness, fever) and didn't really do anything about it; at first I thought it was something I'd eaten, then I thought it was a bug of some kind. It passed but the stomach pains remained! Bastards. So eventually I went to the doctor and he issued me, post haste, to hospital, where I ended up staying for nearly four days last week, hooked up to an IV drip feeding me antibiotics. JESUS, HOSPITAL IS BORING. Nicky, Angela and Dave came to visit me, though, which was lovely, and it was quite nice feeling like a little community with the other sick dudes on my ward. I still have a bruise on my arm from the cannula. I'm on pills now, and in a few weeks I'm having an appendectomy. Laparosocopy! Exciting. I've taken this week off work to recover, but I think I might go back in on Monday if I'm feeling OK.
It did make me realise that it's not a bad thing to admit you're unwell; ten days or so ago, my stomach pains were so bad that I was regularly waking up several times in the night because of pain. I just wasn't sleeping and I was having pains during the day as well, and yet I was still going to work. I didn't want to make a big deal about it because everyone hates it when colleagues moan about their health, don't they? We have some real whingers at work. And I didn't know it was my appendix, I thought it was just some bug that would pass, which was another reason for me to keep quiet about it. I did make one attempt, though; I tried talking to Charlotte about it one morning.
"How are you, Alan?
"Oh... OK, I guess. I slept really badly, actually..."
"Oh God yeah me too. I've been having all these blah blah blah..."
So that was the end of that. I think she was the wrong person to speak to. Ha. It's funny, a couple of people think she "likes me"... but I can't see it.
Other than that, things are good. I've set up a writing group with this girl I know called Jess, there's six or seven of us in it, we meet every fortnight and critique each others' work. It's slightly terrifying but, I think, very useful. My own writing is... nascent. I'm getting there. It'll be a long and slow process but things will progress.I'm working on "a novel", which is notable only in that it adds me to the interminable list of people who think they are better at writing than they are. But! Creativity is important and is the best expression and reification of what some people call a "soul", so it makes me happy.
There have been fun things happening: I went to watch my friend Catie dancing in the city centre, and to see Anne-Marie's husband David reading his poetry as part of the Off The Shelf cultural festival (I also went to the Matters 11 book launch, courtesy of Jess, which compiles fiction and poetry from up-and-coming local writers). I also went to a zombie hallowe'en party! Dan threw it at his house, complete with static on the post-apocalyptic TV and a projector showing news reports of the impending zombie destruction. I went as Bill Murray from the movie Zombieland, complete with a makeshift proton pack made from a vacuum cleaner hose, and latex and fake blood on my face. Here I am:
Soon I'll make a post about the Occupy #occupylsx movement. In brief: I support what they're doing and I think we all should. But it's not an unqualified support. The important thing is that the protestors not be bullied by the media and the smug government into becoming another political party, issuing their shadow Budgets and coming up with "concrete proposals" and so on. The whole point is that they are outside that system; as soon as they become co-opted into being just another tentacle, they're fucked.
I have appendicitis! It's exciting. I got ill a couple of weeks ago (stomach pains, nausea, dizziness, fever) and didn't really do anything about it; at first I thought it was something I'd eaten, then I thought it was a bug of some kind. It passed but the stomach pains remained! Bastards. So eventually I went to the doctor and he issued me, post haste, to hospital, where I ended up staying for nearly four days last week, hooked up to an IV drip feeding me antibiotics. JESUS, HOSPITAL IS BORING. Nicky, Angela and Dave came to visit me, though, which was lovely, and it was quite nice feeling like a little community with the other sick dudes on my ward. I still have a bruise on my arm from the cannula. I'm on pills now, and in a few weeks I'm having an appendectomy. Laparosocopy! Exciting. I've taken this week off work to recover, but I think I might go back in on Monday if I'm feeling OK.
It did make me realise that it's not a bad thing to admit you're unwell; ten days or so ago, my stomach pains were so bad that I was regularly waking up several times in the night because of pain. I just wasn't sleeping and I was having pains during the day as well, and yet I was still going to work. I didn't want to make a big deal about it because everyone hates it when colleagues moan about their health, don't they? We have some real whingers at work. And I didn't know it was my appendix, I thought it was just some bug that would pass, which was another reason for me to keep quiet about it. I did make one attempt, though; I tried talking to Charlotte about it one morning.
"How are you, Alan?
"Oh... OK, I guess. I slept really badly, actually..."
"Oh God yeah me too. I've been having all these blah blah blah..."
So that was the end of that. I think she was the wrong person to speak to. Ha. It's funny, a couple of people think she "likes me"... but I can't see it.
Other than that, things are good. I've set up a writing group with this girl I know called Jess, there's six or seven of us in it, we meet every fortnight and critique each others' work. It's slightly terrifying but, I think, very useful. My own writing is... nascent. I'm getting there. It'll be a long and slow process but things will progress.I'm working on "a novel", which is notable only in that it adds me to the interminable list of people who think they are better at writing than they are. But! Creativity is important and is the best expression and reification of what some people call a "soul", so it makes me happy.
There have been fun things happening: I went to watch my friend Catie dancing in the city centre, and to see Anne-Marie's husband David reading his poetry as part of the Off The Shelf cultural festival (I also went to the Matters 11 book launch, courtesy of Jess, which compiles fiction and poetry from up-and-coming local writers). I also went to a zombie hallowe'en party! Dan threw it at his house, complete with static on the post-apocalyptic TV and a projector showing news reports of the impending zombie destruction. I went as Bill Murray from the movie Zombieland, complete with a makeshift proton pack made from a vacuum cleaner hose, and latex and fake blood on my face. Here I am:
Soon I'll make a post about the Occupy #occupylsx movement. In brief: I support what they're doing and I think we all should. But it's not an unqualified support. The important thing is that the protestors not be bullied by the media and the smug government into becoming another political party, issuing their shadow Budgets and coming up with "concrete proposals" and so on. The whole point is that they are outside that system; as soon as they become co-opted into being just another tentacle, they're fucked.