Child Free Zone!

If it wasn't bad enough having to stay home to prevent infecting Dorset with chicken pox, the atmosphere in this place is more tense than a North London derby.

It's Friday afternoon and I'd literally give anything to be at work. I know that probably sounds like a lie, but it's not. I really like my job and the people I work with, and I'd much rather be at my office desk than my home desk.

I barely slept because of the pain that this shingles virus is causing me, and so far today it's been on and off - one minute nothing, the next minute excruciating. Plus, the rash on my back has doubled, and the one on my chest looks to be spreading too. If that means it's getting worse rather than better, I will bawl.

Aside from all that, my soon-to-be-ex flatmate got home at about half ten this morning, just as I was emerging from my room. She's obviously got the day off and wasn't on bargaining on me being around too. Well, tough shit. It's probably all the recent stress that she's caused me that's made me so ill in the first place! Maybe I should send her a thank you card when she leaves.

I've tried to get on with things around the place as best I can (the usual domesticities), acting like I would on any other day at home, ignoring the fact that I now appear to have a sulking teenager hiding in my spare room.

This avoidance behaviour is making things worse and making me feel uncomfortable in my own home. She's done it a few times before - once when I came home from work one lunch time and she and her boyfriend hid from me, pretending they weren't here (utterly insane - his wallet and keys were on my dining room table for fucks' sake, and his shoes in the middle of the room), and then when I asked her if she could possibly contribute to the horrific electricity bill she'd managed to crank up by running her own central heating system in her room, which incidentally was a pointblank no.

I've found it fairly amusing and a little (ok a lot) childish up until now, but now it's starting to really fuck me off. I find it pathetic, and actually quite rude. She's twenty two, not twelve.

Anyway, she's leaving at the end of the month so I haven't much longer to put up with it.

If I've learnt anything from this experience it's to up the minimum age requirement on my tenancy ad.

It also reinforces my decision to never, ever have children.

The Ascent.

After the demise came the ascent.

It almost sounds biblical, only this version is fact.

I previously talked of my experience witnessing the gradual disappearance of an unblemished soul.

Following on from this, I’ve witnessed the cultivation of what can only be described as personified torment.

Reincarnated as some kind of tortured soul, unrecognisable even to those closest to her. So distant and alien from her original self that she’d ignore her if she passed her in the street.

An existence so doubting, so suspecting, so insecure; an existence so troubled and so full of inner vexation and loathing that her only perceived path to remedy was a heavy cocktail of brutal chemicals, strong enough to wipe her off the surface of the Earth. For the second time.

Only, it didn’t. She must be diamond fabricated; such is her inability to self-destruct.

If you catapult Innocence into Dante’s Inferno with no warning, no protection and no hope of emerging unscathed or emerging at all, whatever might manage to claw its escape will be as alien to innocence as forgiveness is to Satan.

It sure as Hell won’t crawl its way out the way it was dragged in.

To use the phrase “To Hell and back” may be figurative to most, but for some, it’s a memory.

Whatever surfaced after the period of drowning and disappearance is obscure. From one day to the next the portrayal oscillates from stable and serene to enraged and savage.

There’s no consistency anymore.

She’s a myriad.

The Demise.

I knew this girl once.

I remember her well. Full of faith, free from a single scar of life experience and brimming with expectation.

This was a girl who trusted readily. A girl who naturally accepted people on initial appearance. A girl who didn’t doubt, question nor fear. A girl who saw only the good in everyone, loyal to the core and unfailing in her ability and compulsion to give.

Affectionate, kind and warm – a romantic idealist. Living in a dream world, but with her eyes wide open. Everything was fun! Never sombre. Never sedate. Never too serious.

My last vivid memory of this innocent, untarnished and unspoilt image dates back to about thirteen years ago. We were seventeen. She used to laugh. I mean really laugh. I remember the sound like it was yesterday. It echoes in every silent room - so free, so natural, without any inhibition, without single hesitation – the most instinctive and spontaneous resonance, delicate and radiant, yet tenacious and distinct.

She loved people. She was selfless in her relationships with others. Reliable and honest. If she had it, she would share it, and if it couldn’t be shared, she would give it in its entirety.

I can visualise her now! Running, excitable, animated, energetic. Carelessly flicking her hair, oblivious to and unfamiliar with the outside world and all that was poison; too preoccupied with her own little bubble; harmless, innocuous and gentle.

She died.

I don’t even know the exact date. We gradually lost contact. The signs of her drifting were so infinitesimal that I was utterly blind to it until it was too late.

She just faded away. What was once a vivid energy, full of colour and soul, steadily reduced and weakened until it literally just… vanished.

I’ve questioned her disappearance incessantly. I’ve questioned when it happened. I’ve questioned why it happened. I’ve questioned how it happened. How does such a spirited and tireless life force just… evaporate… into nothing? How does it suddenly cease to exist?

There’s so much I want to ask. Did she know what was happening? What was she thinking at the time? Why didn’t she ask for help? Why did she allow it to happen to her? Surely anything progressive is detectable. You know things are changing. You know things aren’t right. You have time to prevent it. You have time to do something. Surely.

Why didn’t she do something? Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t anyone know?

Maybe they did know. Maybe they just didn’t want to tell me. Maybe they did tell me. Maybe I wasn’t listening. Or just not hearing. Did I know, yet do nothing to help? Did I let this happen to her? Am I responsible? Am I to blame?

I miss her.

Overwhelmed by life, and now a ghost.

Soulless.

It's an effort to care.

I'm flat-lining through. A low, dull, continual monotone. No harmony. No variation in pitch. Just colourless and lifeless.

There's no switch. There's no dial. Just this relentless, unending, unyielding force. On and on, and on, and on...

My face is paralysed. Just an object of flesh, void of character, void of emotion, void of interest or concern.

My shoulders are slumped, my body devoid of strength, all energy abandoned, all essence departed. Just a mass of chemical elements, a collection of bones, an accumulation of silent vital organs and rivers of frozen blood.

Nothing's moving. Nothing's happening. I can detect life, but it's too far in the distance, and I haven't the stamina nor the will to reach it.

I've resigned myself to lying in the tide. From a slow, ever diminishing blink, my eyes are now closed, I can't see a thing. My ears are submerged by the cloudy waves, my hearing is muffled, my head is gradually engulfed, I can't hear a thing. All I can feel is the ebb and flow of the vortex, pulling me down. I haven't the energy to fight my way out, nor the conviction.

I simply haven't the strength to care.

Pay Up!

I take it back. Shingles isn't a doddle at all.

Since writing my last blog around seven hours ago, I've come to the conclusion that things are not actually ok, and that I'm not cool about it all.

Immediately after discovering my stupid diagnosis, I received a text from my flatmate to tell me she's moving out in a month because she can't afford the rent.

Firstly: bullshit.

Secondly: a text?!.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't half expecting it after recent events. The background is that she managed to double my latest quarterly electricity bill by secretly running an electric heater in her bedroom - something that's in breach of her signed tenancy agreement and, in my opinion, sly as fuck. After she rudely and aggressively refused to contribute towards it in any way whatsoever, I decided that it'd be easier all round to keep the peace and pay the lot myself. After all, who needs the stress? It's only a bill, right?

Well since all that happened (less than two weeks ago), she's avoided me at all costs, even to the extend of hiding silently in her bedroom, pretending not to be home (I know this because I adamantly knocked on her door to test my suspicions and she answered, looking mortified!), which would have been a major achievement as I have a two-bedroomed apartment, over one floor, and you know when someone else is home or not! Utterly immature, but a clear admittance of guilt for behaving like an unreasonable, advantage-taking cunt.

The reality is, she's a child. She's barely twenty two, has zero understanding of anything in life other than bad reality television and her nineteen year old metro-sexual-to-the-scarily-extreme boyfriend. Her attitude has barely developed beyond the playground, and she's in serious need of lessons in social skills. It's my own fault for expecting any different.

The point to all this is that as soon as I received the news (text?!), it rocketed my stress levels into danger territory. My blood pressure went through the roof, my heart rate quadrupled, I started shaking, I felt sick. Apparently I'm supposed to avoid stress, unless I want this shit to turn nasty.

I can't help it though. It's an unheaval in itself having to start over with a stranger moving in, but it's the way in which it's happened that's really riled me. As far as I'm concerned it's like this: "I ran up a massive bill for you by taking advantage and hoping you wouldn't find out, but you have, and even though you've not asked me for a penny towards it, I'm now going to do a runner because I've been found out and I'm not grown up enough to rise above it and behave like an adult and just deal with it".

Is it purely coincidental that since then I've been experiencing constant waves of pain throughout my upper body? That each time I move I get a stabbing sensation through my left shoulder and chest?

Apparently you're more susceptible to shingles when run down or stressed. Well in that case, I have her to thank for the onset and the demise.

I'm not only knocking the cost of the electricity bill off her deposit, but she can stump for my fucking medication, not to mention any loss of earnings that may occur if it gets any worse.

A friend of mine's sister was in bed with this for six weeks - I hope she leaves me with an invoicing address.

Ironic really - it'd have been cheaper for her to stay put!

Solitary Confinement.

I should be at work right now but instead I'm killing time at home, waiting until it's safe for me to go back.

That definitely sounds more exciting than it is.

The situation simply is that I have shingles and I'm highly contagious. I'm to avoid pregnant women, babies and small children, anyone who hasn't had chicken pox, and anyone who has a low immune system.

Well, giving me a reason to go out of my way to avoid babies and small children is like granting me a gift, but it's slightly harder to avoid people if you don't know whether or not they've had chicken pox, nor have the indepth knowledge of the state of their general health, and harder still to avoid pregnant women when you work with one! Hence being quarantined for a few hours.

Last night my back started to itch, but I shrugged it off as nothing but an irritation. This morning, however, I woke up after a night of pain and discomfort, with a burning rash on the left side of my chest and the left side of my back feeling like someone had thrown lighter fluid at me followed by a lit match.

After being urged by my colleagues and boss to get down to the doctors' sharpish, it transpires that I'm a walking mass of viral contagion.

Fortunately, the pregnant lady that I work with is not only part time, but has also booked tomorrow off as holiday, so from 2:30pm today I'm ok to return to the office until Tuesday of next week, when she returns. I assume by then that I'm cured and no longer a social pariah?

I've been slightly assured by my doctor that this thing shouldn't get any worse as we seem to have caught it early, but I'm already starting to experience sharp jabs of pain through my torso. I can handle a bit of physical discomfort, but if I start passing out or have to endure yet another Goddamn fever, I'll most certainly have something to say about it - or perhaps not, as it's likely that I'll be in bed suffering all on my own if that were to be the case.

I refuse to think negatively though - the main thing is that I'm well enough to work, I've got the anti-virals I need, a huge supply of hard-core painkillers (woo hoo) and, if I'm not mistaken, there's nothing on my meds leaflet warning me to avoid alcohol!

All things considered, this shingles lark is a doddle!

I Hasten To Add...

... I don't fight.

I've never had what I would call a proper physical fight with anyone.

Well, not unless you count the fights I had with my insanely strong little sister as we were growing up. Or, incidentally, during my last long-term relationship - a guy I lived with about four years ago. He got one hell of a back-hander that made his face bleed, but the cunt deserved it for hurling our entire dining room furniture at me and throwing me head first down our wooden spiral staircase.

Ce la vie.

But as far as violence goes, I do not condone it, nor agree with it, nor take part in it.

I realise that after my last blog that sounds like a massive lie.

I kicked off horrifically last weekend at a random guy and had to be dragged out of the bar by my jacket sleeve. I also flipped an entire table of drinks up at another guy in the very same bar for laughing at Aaron Ramsey's career-risking injury not so long ago. Anything else? Yes, actually.

It's still not a lie though. I fully admit that I hold hella rage inside of me and that after ridiculous amounts of alcohol coupled with a disturbed state of mind, I can behave in an unbearable and unacceptable manner. But that's not really me. And it's infrequent - at least these days it is.

Last weekend I saw the girlfriend of the guy whose brother I had a "thing" with last summer - I can only call it a "thing" because it wasn't a relationship, but I was in love with him, and he said he was in love with me (he obviously wasn't), so at the time it was as intense as it could have been without it being what it could have been. If that doesn't make sense, I don't care. That's how I'm explaining it.

Anyway, I saw her for the first time since it all went badly wrong (August last year) and rather than blaming me for the various consequences of our "thing", as I'd expected her to, she was on my side. We talked about it, and she evoked in me such deep anguish at the disappointment and hurt that I obviously still feel, that I broke down to my sister.

My sister assures me that I cried in the Ladies', not in full view of the bar (thank fuck), but that's where it all went wrong and the evening took a black run ski plummet.

Until then I was happy. Yes, I'd got through two massive home-poured vodkas (so think at least eight pub measures), two bottles of red wine and a few sambuca shots, but I can take my drink and if I'm in a good frame of mind, all is well.

All is not well when I've had the same amount when feeling either heartbroken, angry, or some other negative translation. That's when it all goes wrong and alcohol turns me into a monster.

Last week's behaviour is infrequent because now that I recognise my tendancies, I rarely go out when I'm feeling that way. It's a preventative measure, because I know more than most that you can't cure what you've already said or done.

I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of emotion last weekend, but now that I know I haven't yet dealt with it, I'd better stay put.

At least if I'm at home, the only person I can hurt is myself, and I've proved a million times over that I always bounce back from my own attacks.