Trying to find new ways to conquer boredom is for me, much the same as thinking about what to have for tea or which channel to watch programmes about animals on. A constant battle; made no easier by the large swathes of time in which I have to fight it. As I’m sure you know, my job requires little or no responsibility outside of the hours of 8am to 5pm, so it’s easy to fall into the old trap of TV then bed, so I’m going to have to pull my finger out and take up a hobby. There’s reading, obviously, but that’s a standard tactic in this war, and seeing as I’m currently consuming novels in much the same way that Pete Docherty hoovers up every white powder he comes across, it’s not much of a challenge to be honest. There was a brief period about a month ago when Stu insisted on getting himself Xbox Live where I was allowed loose on the headset during various Halo 3 tournaments (se also large gap between blog entries), but the combination of myself and various American teenagers resulted in something akin to badger baiting. Take one defenceless yet feisty creature, place it in its natural habitat, allow it to forage about a bit, and then introduce an angry old bitch and see who wins. Oh yeah, I might not be able to actually work the controller due to my constantly flailing girl-hands, but with Stu doing the motor skills, I can certainly talk a good game. I just have to be careful not to confuse people too frequently with my asides of “Gillian! Gillian! David looks like she needs a piss!”, obviously.

No, that’s not good enough.

I might have been a little hasty last time when I said that I was certainly not dead, for not a day later my head filled with vile secretions and I ended up in my bed for almost seven days. Viral Sinusitis, which is impressively new for me and marks a definite diversification from my regular Tonsilitis and / or “feeling a bit shit”. This fucker is definitely an Illness with a capital I. I’m still not right now, and averaging 2400mg Ibuprofen a day, which I’m sure cannot be good. I can also taste/smell nothing but burnt tyres, and, not entirely unpleasantly for three minutes on Thursday, Parma Violets. That almost seemed like something pleasant, but I was soon back in burnt tyre land, poking about at a ginger pudding and asking for a taste commentary from The Mam as I went. (“It’s very sweet, with a hint of heat: Can you not even get that? Poor thing. Nom nom nom.”) I have also developed one of those irritating nasal voices which tend to indicate high intelligence – low social skills, and have therefore achieved what I always threatened to do. Without the high intelligence. And seriously, I’m not even going to try to describe some of the shit coming out of my face. The best was the other night when I blew my nose and performed the standard quick check (oh please, stop pretending that you don’t do it too) to find something a lot like my actual brain staring back at me in a lake of blood. I have, of course, saved that one for posterity.

God, even my sense of humour is warped. It must be the pressure on my brain.

Anyway, that’s what’s prompted the sudden urgent need for hobbies. If I had any, I could have put my poorly time to some use other than complaining and watching This Morning. I always liked the idea of being ill in bed and quilting or something – I think this might be a result of reading Little Women as a child – before laying back on my crisp white pillows with a sigh. Instead, I’ve been hurling my copy of The Fortean Times across the room and collapsing onto my sweaty pillow in my Aunty Clare’s old zip-up nightie. Mind you, this nightie is both blood red and floor length, so at the first sign of my strength returning I was leaping out from behind doors at Gillian and Stu going “NOBODY EVER EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION”, so fun was certainly to be had at moments. Each hilarious gag did tend to leave me clutching my forehead for about half an hour, but I feel that on balance it was worth it. Oh, and on Tuesday when The Mam came to take me home because I was starting to see things, The Dad opened the door with “Get in my bed now: the dog’s left it nice and warm” which about sums things up chez parents. I love them, and the dogs who had indeed made things all toasty for me.

I’m feeling much better now, but it’s definitely the last time I ever publicly declare that I’m not dead. You never know what might happen: I’ll let people work it out for themselves in future. And judging by my appearance and demeanour at work these days that may prove to be no mean feat.

 

I’m going to have to go. David’s got a hold of Aunty Hilda’s Christmas Present and she’s looking suspiciously inclined to lick it into next week. I hope I’m not the only person in the world with a cat that licks plastic bags in a somewhat sexy fashion. It would only serve to cement what I already know if I was: that everything in my life is some sort of joke.

 

Laters.

xx

I am definitely not dead.

I'm even adding to my corporeal being by the day because there is now a bloody chip-shop two doors down. This, I feel, is a violation of my human rights, and I shall be writing to my MP demanding it's immediate closure. Having consumed most of the menu over the last few weeks (it was my duty to the good people of Bensham), I can state that we do not need another chip-shop, and should it continue to trade, I will be forced to boycott it through my strong moral obligation to the area. That, and the fact that I will no longer be able to make it to the premises without the aid of a tungsten walker.

Actually, it's a terrible burden, getting up on a Saturday and hanging your washing out in a delicious oily fug; simultaneously salivating and wretching until it all gets too much and you have to submit to the vast allure of the chip-shop battered sausage. Never had jowl and assorted cereal been so beautifully combined as it was on the day the chip-shop battered sausage was invented. Who was the first to discover that gelatinous treat, I wonder? They should be rewarded with vast riches. And then pissed on. On the down side, when The Mam dropped me off at the door the other day, they were shutting up shop, and on seeing me, the owner smiled and did a "you want?" face whilst re-opening the shutter. I now send Spare Housemate Stu each and every time the sausage mist gathers. They will forget me one day... although considering the last time I was in there I slipped on the welcome mat (oh wise fate, I hear your warning yet I can heed it not - the sausage sirens have me...) and had to grab the counter for support. It was from this prone and some-what dangling position that I made my order.

The best thing about the chip-shop is the clientele. Bensham, being by nature a mix of the depressed proliteriat and the I-did-an-arts-degree-now-I-work-for-the-government-and-can't-afford-a-house generation, has always a vast cornucopia of amusing characters to throw into the the mix. Why only the other night I saw a wonderful example of Bensham child-rearing; a real anthropological treat. Witness the haggard, drawn woman of indeterminate age (too old to be mother, for she was in fairness, over 20; and so hereby referred to in typical Bensham patois as Nanna), and her charge: a small snotty specimen with a number two cut and a 1998 season Newcastle strip. The child's name, as far as I could pick up, was Cain. (Is it some sort of joke that all the future prisoners and assorted scrotes of the modern council estate are named after the first murderer? Do the parents know this?) I was not completely innocent in this Shameless-style scene, because I was wearing my pyjamas with a parka on top. Fuck it, I was only going two doors down.

Nanna says to Cain: "Here man, what do yeh want, man? Burger?"

Cain: "Naaaaaw, man, divvent WANT a burger, ah want a marga-reeta."

Nanna:"Ah made ye a fuckin marga-reeta before, ye said ye didn't like it!!!"

Cain: "AH DIVVENT LIKE THEM FROZEN ONES, MAN!!!!"

Nanna: (To chip-shop lady, who has been staring out of the window vacantly, as chip-shop ladies are wont to do) He's bein a right fuckin shite the neet, like. Forst it was burger, then marga-reeta then fuckin nuggets - Ah've been through most of me freeza an' he won't fuckin eat nowt.

At this point Cain smiles the smile that in prompts me to inadvertantly twitch my arm in an almost-slap. Oh God, I could do it so quickly, they might never know what happened... Nanna's probably stoned and chip-shop girl has gone into the back to retrieve one of those illuminous orange pops from the fridge for the child which will probably lead to far worse things if consumed.

I order my fish and chips, and have a bad moment when Nanna, having told Cain to "SHUT THE FUCK UP WILLYA?!" after he launches into another inarticulate discourse on why frozen pizza is not the same as chip-shop pizza, gives me a kids, eh? look. I feel like shaking her until she sees that spending four quid on a pizza for him every time he whinges is not parenting, it's capitulation, but I get my food and flee back to my Flight of the Conchords box set and David's warm, if utterly cntankerous face.

It's only when I get home that I realise that I've just been to the chip-shop in my pyjamas on a Tuesday night because I can't be bothered to make an omlette, and decide that whilst it's interesting to consider such events, I cannot in any way judge.

 

But at least I'm definitely, certainly not dead.

 

Laters.

xx