Thursday 05 September 2002

So um, yeah. I've been off-line and generally hiatusing from the wonderful world of the web for just about two whole months - probably the longest time ever since I first logged on mumblemumble years ago. Funny, actually, because I was "out" at exactly the same time last year, but for different reasons.

This time, well, really boring and tedious, so not much to tell. Basically, things health-related plunged into the general direction of completely appalling, horrifying, and to put it mildly, totally up-shit-creek-in-a-barbed-wire-canoe-without-a-paddle.

We (that's the Royal We, of course, but Sam suffered by proxy - also lack of sleep and concern) experienced pain levels of epic proportions, requiring the use of my entire arsenal of pharmaceuticals contained in my bedside drawer (which would otherwise be the envy of any dealer, crackwhore pimp and gangbanger in town), none of which, in the event, actually goddamn worked.

I had two months of that, before every muscle in my body finally stopped spasming and spazzing out and pretending to be Ian Drury on a raging night. Fun, eh?

So yeah, that's where I've been.

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In between all that, in the first week of August or so, I "celebrated" three important milestones. My first anniversary of arriving in and taking up residence in Belfast (1 August), Sam's and my six-month wedding anniversary (2 August) and my 33rd birthday (8 August). All celebrations, candlelit dinners and rampant sex sessions were put on indefinite hold due to the whole wailing in pain, throwing up and being whacked out on morphine thing.

We have made up for it since, mind you.

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I did have a great birthday, for all that; lots of lovely calls and emails and warm fuzzies from the Southern Hemisphere contingent, lots of lovely loot (see below for full list - my wish list at amazon.co.uk certainly came in handy - just exactly what I wanted) from aforementioned contingent and my darling boy, plus lots of birthday kisses and hugs and snuggles from aforementioned darling boy, mmm.

My in-laws (and I will attempt to report the following without any bitterness or comment or opinion at all) totally ignored my birthday. Yes, they knew about it. I did not receive a "happy birthday", let alone a card, or heaven forbid, a gift. They live two houses down. Now, I do not wish to over-analyse certain phenomena, but is such an action (or rather, lack thereof) not perhaps sending a very clear message?

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Other than all that, everything is grand. Sam is in great form, working very very hard at work, poor boy, Jessie is still a nutcase. But an exceptionally cute and affectionate nutcase. No word STILL on the visa so the general situation in re: to that (being in limbo/broke/depressed/lonely/pissed off continues. Don't you just love incompetent fuckwits of bureaucracies?

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I really am going to try to update more often, honest, but I finally (d'oh) figured out why I was having so much difficulty writing entries - I wanted to make them meaningful and entertaining, and figuring out snappy headlines was driving me nuts.. Now I'm just going to settle for rambling, garbling, and coffee-chat, and maybe there'll be a meaningful comment or entry in there somewhere.

We'll see how that works. Of course, I could just be one hell of a lazy-arsed bitch. No, that was not a request for confirmation.

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Whoops, nearly forgot - birthday list

From Mum and Dad; new shoes (kick-ass black suede bowling shoe/sneaker type things) and a dark strawberry red pashmina

From Henry and Louise and Charles: Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog; Ursula le Guin, The Earthsea Quartet, The Other Wind; Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential; Pete McCarthy, McCarthy’s Bar; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Jonathon Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn; Jane Urquhart, The Stone Carvers

From Sooz: Roald Dahl, The Witches; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; Peter Hoeg, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow

and from Sam: Terry Pratchett, Guards Guards!, Moving Pictures, Nanny Oggs Cookbook; J G Ballard, Empire of the Sun; Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy; Haruki Murakami, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Tim Winton, Dirt Music; Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow; Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer (Audio-book, read by the author), Truly Madly Deeply (DVD), Ash, Free All Angels (CD)

Have I got me some amazingly gorgeous and generous family and friends or what?

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