Oh hai. I’m feeling wan and pasty at the moment. Brain functionality is at a minimum. How do I know this? Because two minutes ago I had a good long stare at ‘bear’ in the post title.
Did I spell that right? I asked myself. Bear, bare…bear? Bear. Yes.
Two minutes before that my heart did that twisty-wringing jump it does when I have a sudden panic.
Where’s Keira? I’m supposed to be somewhere, aren’t I? To pick her up? Preschool? No, she’s at primary school now. HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN? Plus, I have hours, silly. Get a hold of yourself.
Et cetera.
My internal dialogue changes when I’m sick. I’m less prone to heavy self-recriminations and put downs. It’s a kind of subconscious reverse psychology that works and – I admit – I’m quite grateful for. For example, when well, my super-ego whispers, “Don’t eat that biscuit. You don’t need it.” That’s when my ego kicks in and says, on behalf of Id, “Screw you. I’ll have two.” When I’m sick there’s a falling into line instead: “Oh, you’re probably right. I wasn’t all that hungry anyway.”
I’m happier to let things slide, too. It’s occurred to me that about 75% of the meals I spontaneously planned for this week while I was at the supermarket involve crumbing of the main protein. Yes, this may be how the world (or at least our dietary variety) ends – coated in panko. Oh well. And you know your blog has become your stand-in memory when you’re standing in a bookshop, shopping for Christmas presents, desperately trying to remember a title and knowing you ought to because you’ve mentioned it in the past. Alas, whipping your iphone out to do a search is of little use because it seems the plugin for mobile users has somehow stopped working properly and you can’t even access your blog. So you stand there, limply waving your iphone around, saying something terribly vague like, “I know it has a dragon in it.” And then the sales assistant gives you the ‘oh, we’ve got a non-reader here. Alerte!’ look and I feeling like yelling, “Hey! You really don’t want to throw down with me today.”
[I still haven’t remembered the book’s name!]
[So that’s what I’m going to go do now. Go a huntin’]
[And have a nanna nap.]
