Monday 18th November 2024
I’m still around, still alive. Been a funny year this one, not one of my best to be honest. I’ve had a few crises of a personal nature, like you get sometimes. Talking therapy helped, when I finally allowed it to.
On the bigger stage, I hate everything that’s going on in the world at the moment. There’s so much toxic negativity out there, along with a vicious puritanical self-righteousness that seeks someone to demonise. The medieval witch-hunt is back in vogue, with burning replaced by odious cancel culture. The pitchfork brandishing mob use social media platforms as their town square. Anyone with a public profile, however small, is a potential ‘hero’ one moment and a ‘villain’ the next. It amounts to a case of: if you don’t think exactly like I do, or if you’re not exactly what I want you to be, I’ll destroy you. It’s scary.
While the men folk agree the world is less than perfect just now, they also pointed out that it never has been perfect, and that my problem is I seek out negative things to focus on. True. And of course we nearly all have the world at our fingertips now, with mobiles, etc. And that was a problem for me. It got to the point where my constant doom-scrolling was exacerbating my low mood and inducing anxiety. I felt overwhelmed.
Shane stepped in. His solution was to take away tech that allowed access to the wider world, including my phone, replacing it with a relic phone - a basic Nokia that can make and receive calls and texts. Sending a text was sheer purgatory. It was quicker to hop on a bus and go see the person. It was hard at first, but it also helped, a lot. I got on with life instead, and my mood improved. Obvs, I’m tooled up again now but with limits. I’d recommend locking your smartphone in a drawer every now and again and giving your mind a break from the worldwide sewer.
Anyway, enough gloom, here’s something that might make you laugh, a little incident.
The men folk got a bit cross with me last Friday night, or more accurately in the early hours of Saturday morning. Well, Dick was a bit cross. Shane, on the other hand, was very cross, fuming in fact. Hell hath no fury like a Dominant aroused from sleep in the early hours of the morning by a screaming, hysterical houseboy who was convinced he was dying.
I’m a bit embarrassed about it, to be honest. It’ll be another thing to go on the vast list of things that still get the piss taken out of me by our nearest and dearest. Things like crashing Shane’s car, haunted conkers, ginger (let’s not even go there) being arrested, the list goes on and on.
Anyway, getting back to the incident in question. I’d come to, disturbed by some weird dream I was having about water trickling down my neck. The sensation was still there when I woke up, and I automatically touched my hand to my neck. It wasn’t merely a sensation. I sat up and felt some more. There was definitely something wet. I probed further, and whatever it was appeared to be leaking from my eardrum.
Grabbing my phone from the bedside table, I used the torch to examine the sticky fluid on my fingers, thinking it might be wax or something. It was blood, bright red blood. Bleeding from the eardrum is serious stuff. My immediate thought was I’d had some kind of monumental fizzy brain episode and death was imminent.
Cue mindless panic.
I leapt out of bed, bellowing distress. The men folk simultaneously sprang awake and sat up, with Shane demanding to know what the hell was going on.
Genuinely terrified, I waved my bloody fingers at them, screeching: “look, blood, blood pouring from my ear, something’s happened in my head, a haemorrhage.”
Leaping out of bed, Dick switched on the main light. God love him, he had eyes the size of dinner plates with shock. Shane turned his attention to me. Calm kind sympathy ensued - NOT.
Clapping his hand to my arse, he barked. “Stop that racket right now. Stand still and let me have a look.” Clasping my head between his hands, he roughly tilted it to one side, and, after a cursory examination, announced his findings. “There’s a spot near the top of your ear, you can barely see it, you must have rubbed it in your sleep, and it’s bled down into your ear.”
“Honestly, Gil,” said Dick, crossly, “what a fuss over nothing.”
“Sorry,” I touched a trembling hand to my lug, “I thought I was dying.”
“You will be if you wake me up like that again. You’ll kill us all with your fucking hysteria.” Shane gave me a little push. “Go clean yourself up, and then get back into bed before I smack your silly arse. It’s a wonder the neighbours haven’t called the police, hearing you carry on like that.”
In the bathroom, I examined myself in the mirror. I looked gruesome, with blood caking my ear and streaking my neck. Getting a damp flannel, I cleaned it all away. Shane was right. There was a spot, well, more a tiny nick on the helix. I must have scratched at it in my sleep and opened it up. I’d spent the afternoon in the garden dead wooding and trimming back shrubbery and roses and must have notched my lug on a sharp bit without noticing at the time. After damaging my eye on a thorn a good while back, I tend to wear protective glasses when trimming shrubbery. Clearly, I need to consider wearing earmuffs as well.
Feeling more than a tad foolish, I returned to the bedroom and climbed back into bed. Aggrieved by Shane’s crankiness, I opted to get in beside Dick. Snuggling against him, I shut my eyes, hoping to reclaim sleep, only, I suddenly realised his body was juddering. I felt awful, thinking it was residual shock from having been awoken so rudely, and then I realised it wasn’t shock trembling. He was trying to suppress laughter. I was inclined to be huffy at first, but then the absurdity of what had happened hit home and set me off. I clung to him, pressing my face into his chest to try and muffle the sound.
Shane, alas, wasn’t amused. He abruptly sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp, and in no uncertain terms let us know just how unamused he was. He evicted us from the bed of cohabitation, banished us to sleep in the single room where we could indulge our childishness without disturbing him. And we did. Curled up together, we snorted and giggled like ten-year-olds on a sleepover.
As a consequence, we slept late the next morning and Shane was up before us. I walked into the kitchen, where he was sat drinking coffee, to be greeted with a dry, “I see you survived the night then.”
Well, that was me off again. I creased over, laughing. Shane, mellowed by sleep and caffeine, joined in. Grabbing me around the waist, he pulled me onto his lap and tickled me, saying I was a daft bugger, and I’d be the bloody death of him.
There’s some truth in the saying that laughter is the best medicine. A good belly laugh really does wonders for mood. We went on to have a wonderful weekend, especially yesterday when we went for a long bike ride in the countryside. It was great to be out in the fresh air, just enjoying the landscape.
In other news, it’s cold and frosty today, but bright at least. Snow has been forecast, but we’ll see whether it materialises. I won’t mind, but the men folk will, seeing as they have to drive in it.
I’ll finish by saying thanks to those who dropped emails recently, always appreciated. Ciao for now then, peeps.
I’m still around, still alive. Been a funny year this one, not one of my best to be honest. I’ve had a few crises of a personal nature, like you get sometimes. Talking therapy helped, when I finally allowed it to.
On the bigger stage, I hate everything that’s going on in the world at the moment. There’s so much toxic negativity out there, along with a vicious puritanical self-righteousness that seeks someone to demonise. The medieval witch-hunt is back in vogue, with burning replaced by odious cancel culture. The pitchfork brandishing mob use social media platforms as their town square. Anyone with a public profile, however small, is a potential ‘hero’ one moment and a ‘villain’ the next. It amounts to a case of: if you don’t think exactly like I do, or if you’re not exactly what I want you to be, I’ll destroy you. It’s scary.
While the men folk agree the world is less than perfect just now, they also pointed out that it never has been perfect, and that my problem is I seek out negative things to focus on. True. And of course we nearly all have the world at our fingertips now, with mobiles, etc. And that was a problem for me. It got to the point where my constant doom-scrolling was exacerbating my low mood and inducing anxiety. I felt overwhelmed.
Shane stepped in. His solution was to take away tech that allowed access to the wider world, including my phone, replacing it with a relic phone - a basic Nokia that can make and receive calls and texts. Sending a text was sheer purgatory. It was quicker to hop on a bus and go see the person. It was hard at first, but it also helped, a lot. I got on with life instead, and my mood improved. Obvs, I’m tooled up again now but with limits. I’d recommend locking your smartphone in a drawer every now and again and giving your mind a break from the worldwide sewer.
Anyway, enough gloom, here’s something that might make you laugh, a little incident.
The men folk got a bit cross with me last Friday night, or more accurately in the early hours of Saturday morning. Well, Dick was a bit cross. Shane, on the other hand, was very cross, fuming in fact. Hell hath no fury like a Dominant aroused from sleep in the early hours of the morning by a screaming, hysterical houseboy who was convinced he was dying.
I’m a bit embarrassed about it, to be honest. It’ll be another thing to go on the vast list of things that still get the piss taken out of me by our nearest and dearest. Things like crashing Shane’s car, haunted conkers, ginger (let’s not even go there) being arrested, the list goes on and on.
Anyway, getting back to the incident in question. I’d come to, disturbed by some weird dream I was having about water trickling down my neck. The sensation was still there when I woke up, and I automatically touched my hand to my neck. It wasn’t merely a sensation. I sat up and felt some more. There was definitely something wet. I probed further, and whatever it was appeared to be leaking from my eardrum.
Grabbing my phone from the bedside table, I used the torch to examine the sticky fluid on my fingers, thinking it might be wax or something. It was blood, bright red blood. Bleeding from the eardrum is serious stuff. My immediate thought was I’d had some kind of monumental fizzy brain episode and death was imminent.
Cue mindless panic.
I leapt out of bed, bellowing distress. The men folk simultaneously sprang awake and sat up, with Shane demanding to know what the hell was going on.
Genuinely terrified, I waved my bloody fingers at them, screeching: “look, blood, blood pouring from my ear, something’s happened in my head, a haemorrhage.”
Leaping out of bed, Dick switched on the main light. God love him, he had eyes the size of dinner plates with shock. Shane turned his attention to me. Calm kind sympathy ensued - NOT.
Clapping his hand to my arse, he barked. “Stop that racket right now. Stand still and let me have a look.” Clasping my head between his hands, he roughly tilted it to one side, and, after a cursory examination, announced his findings. “There’s a spot near the top of your ear, you can barely see it, you must have rubbed it in your sleep, and it’s bled down into your ear.”
“Honestly, Gil,” said Dick, crossly, “what a fuss over nothing.”
“Sorry,” I touched a trembling hand to my lug, “I thought I was dying.”
“You will be if you wake me up like that again. You’ll kill us all with your fucking hysteria.” Shane gave me a little push. “Go clean yourself up, and then get back into bed before I smack your silly arse. It’s a wonder the neighbours haven’t called the police, hearing you carry on like that.”
In the bathroom, I examined myself in the mirror. I looked gruesome, with blood caking my ear and streaking my neck. Getting a damp flannel, I cleaned it all away. Shane was right. There was a spot, well, more a tiny nick on the helix. I must have scratched at it in my sleep and opened it up. I’d spent the afternoon in the garden dead wooding and trimming back shrubbery and roses and must have notched my lug on a sharp bit without noticing at the time. After damaging my eye on a thorn a good while back, I tend to wear protective glasses when trimming shrubbery. Clearly, I need to consider wearing earmuffs as well.
Feeling more than a tad foolish, I returned to the bedroom and climbed back into bed. Aggrieved by Shane’s crankiness, I opted to get in beside Dick. Snuggling against him, I shut my eyes, hoping to reclaim sleep, only, I suddenly realised his body was juddering. I felt awful, thinking it was residual shock from having been awoken so rudely, and then I realised it wasn’t shock trembling. He was trying to suppress laughter. I was inclined to be huffy at first, but then the absurdity of what had happened hit home and set me off. I clung to him, pressing my face into his chest to try and muffle the sound.
Shane, alas, wasn’t amused. He abruptly sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp, and in no uncertain terms let us know just how unamused he was. He evicted us from the bed of cohabitation, banished us to sleep in the single room where we could indulge our childishness without disturbing him. And we did. Curled up together, we snorted and giggled like ten-year-olds on a sleepover.
As a consequence, we slept late the next morning and Shane was up before us. I walked into the kitchen, where he was sat drinking coffee, to be greeted with a dry, “I see you survived the night then.”
Well, that was me off again. I creased over, laughing. Shane, mellowed by sleep and caffeine, joined in. Grabbing me around the waist, he pulled me onto his lap and tickled me, saying I was a daft bugger, and I’d be the bloody death of him.
There’s some truth in the saying that laughter is the best medicine. A good belly laugh really does wonders for mood. We went on to have a wonderful weekend, especially yesterday when we went for a long bike ride in the countryside. It was great to be out in the fresh air, just enjoying the landscape.
In other news, it’s cold and frosty today, but bright at least. Snow has been forecast, but we’ll see whether it materialises. I won’t mind, but the men folk will, seeing as they have to drive in it.
I’ll finish by saying thanks to those who dropped emails recently, always appreciated. Ciao for now then, peeps.