Saturday 9 June 2007

Bon Voyage!

Bon voyage! I am off to a corner of the Costa for some white fish & rosé wine & a cheerful book about a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. Lover says I better not do his head in "rabbitng" on the beach as he wants to lie there, motionless, like a forgotten turd in a motel toilet and let the sun lolly its cancerous tongue all over him. But I find sun and sand and the usual aquatic accompaniments boring after about half an hour, so will probably melt his brain big-style. Yeah!

Yesterday I braved a journey into Belfast's Primark, which is always ransacked by chavs (I know in my bones, right now, there's a tech-savvy person out there inventing a Chav-nav satellite system, some funky hand-held PDA device that shoppers can use to direct them away from the looped earring masses). I have to say there's a peculiar essence at work here, where 'mums' compete with their daughters until they both end up shaking chrome clothes racks and storming off in pouty huffs towards the door where other mothers who've just had the same experience are chain-smoking. There were a good few 'mother & daughter' duos, dressed identical, tight jeans, yuck yellow tops, shite belts & silver pumps... and the daughters were goading, saying things like, "ach, d'ye think this will suit me Ma? Ye know, with me good figure an' all?" And the mum in this case glanced down at her own body, grabbed the manky sun-dress off her daughter and said, "I think I could get into that...". This is the type of grotesque parental immaturity that fills me with dread and would make me Nilfisk a child from my fanny rather than emotionally abuse them all the way to adulthood.

The 'sundress syndrome' is usually only attributed to women who have their kids too young, before they're grown up themselves. Where do they get off? Anyway, I fear I will only be able to limp my way to the beach & back to the apartment as the hip is now TOTALLY frogged... degeneration has been as swift as a US army plane landing at Shannon without the media noticing, and I can only imagine I will be flat on my back sponging up the morphine soon. The pain is now so chronic, that even sitting down hurts like hell. Sigh. After an anger fit last week re: health & lack of wealth, I'm in post-denial mode now, realising that the entire process has to be taken on the chin again in order for the best possible long-term outcome. I am frogging myself about the next hip replacement operation & the long recovery afterwards where you smell of piss for weeks on end because you're told not to have a shower, and really, rubbing your nethers with a face cloth, achieve little. I've been there.

I registered with a doctor yesterday (after a year, tut tut) and he's sending off a referral letter to some orthopaedic people in Belfast who are great at bone stuff having fixed up lots of bullet recipients during the Paisley-Adams years. He was surprisingly thorough, wanting to know all kinds of gruesome things like smear tests and boob tests and blood tests and can you put your wee wee in this bottle for me and how much do you smoke and what is your diet like, etc. The NHS is changing. In the late 1980s GPs throughout Britain prescribed Sudafed for all ailments whether it was an infected toenail or life-threatening TB picked up in Stratford Tube Station. But aside from all that malarkey, this Tuesday will be another flight from Malaga to Madrid for the conference.

I will boot along late, as usual (this time it's flight times, not me being inept) and when all the hi-tech stuff is done, I'll race to the sauna and steam myself until all my sins explode and the Baby Jesus thinks I'm pleasant again. I fell out with my divine father frog when he insisted I be the recipient of genital warts from my first 'ever' boyfriend on Valentine's Day, 1989, and since then I haven't really taken the bearded git seriously. But obviously, like everyone else, I'll turn back religious when I'm old, just in case there's any truth in it.

I've worked out that the life cycle in general works like this: innocent & fairly harmless till about age 10 or 11, then a scheming, hormonal shithead up to about 19, then relatively amiable for a few short years when laden with curiosity & a will to learn, there's not that much room for being a bollix until the self obsession era from about age 24 to 33. Then other people suddenly become noticeable again from age 34 to 42 especially if you're looking for a life partner or are desperate to get up the duff. From 43 to 55, a ruthless mudderfrogger who will cut off at least a few family members, fire a few minions, walk over a few people's graves, ponder why you hadn't this power years ago in your 20s, then from 56 to 66, there's a period of intense philosophical debate within yourself, probably change partners or kill one off or do another University course, start lecturing to younger family members now that you're so wise and have had at least two cancer scares, superseded by the 67 to 77 stage, where you fall over a lot and talk about how much technology is hindering you, the shallowness of young people, how obnoxious middle age is, etc., and about this time, you'll let God in. Any age after that is really just getting the last word in constantly, saying "I remember" a lot, even when you don't, fear of maggots and thoughts about other planets. Well, after that, doesn't bear thinking about. Anyway, I'm off on a brief hol. Cyber-see you all when I return.

No comments: