It’s been an interesting few weeks; big stretching weeks of dilemmas, minor disasters, and flirtations with decisiveness. My life seems to be at a crossroads: I am sat cross-legged inactive in the middle, letting the dust of a quarter life crisis sting my eyes and the grubs of gravel numb my skin. I need momentum; something to wake me and get rid of this crippling inertia.
What I have done and failed to write about:-
I have stood up for a charity shop’s pricing and nearly been attacked by an alcoholic busker for the trouble (he insisted that a £150 banjo was in fact £1.50).
I purchased a brass eagle that I thought was haunted until I realised it was only five years old and did not have, however glorious, the integrity for such dark voodoo.
I danced to the biggest pop star in Syrian history.
I went to Alton Towers and rode the Nemesis three times; ate a locally made Cider lolly in the blaze of a Bank Holiday; and got ravaged by hayfever.
I got rained on and more honestly shat upon by all that the thoroughly shitty city of Southampton fails to offer; and suffered varying strengths of addiction to gin and tonic, The Wire, and vinyl.
I went to Wales and enjoyed it.
Generally, basically, I have just managed to stay afloat in the insubstantial haze of my existence. I’m waiting for something tangible, plausible and damn right neck-snappingly vigorous to shake me out of my life-coma. Yesterday, they told me I was going to lose my job – it’s a start.
Then there is the issue of my right hand. In the past week my right hand has gone from being a good right hand, a piano-fingered, creative-looking hand (bony and veiny to the casual observer) to the hand of a £100 a day crack fiend.
What happened to my hand:
I decided to cook a large roast chicken after getting home from work one night. I had eaten nothing all day except for a cheese sandwich, a packet of hula hoops, and an apple (this is my lunch everyday, barely enough to sustain a primary school child for several minutes of off ground tig let alone a full-grown man for the nine to five slog.) Three hours into the cooking process and weak from hunger, I flung my lifeless anaemic arm in the direction of the roasting tray only to slap it against the top of the oven. There was a loud hiss and a foul smell as the skin on the top of my hand shrivelled and bunched up like the neck of an octogenarian. Several layers of flesh had fizzled into non-existence on the glowing element of the oven. Then it began to hurt. It hasn’t stopped hurting yet over a week later. People stare at my burn when they pass me. It is a glistening scab with a pink aura – it deserves to be stared at.
I am taking an important call at work. I am distracted by the voice in my head screaming “when is a call at work ever an important call”. I am also trying to pin a caricature sketched by my colleague that depicts me as that weird kangaroo creature that Rolf Harris used to draw himself as. As I attempt to push the drawing pin in to my notice board, the pin hits something hard and flips round. Inevitably I plunge my thumb into the drawing pin until its vicious spike is entirely embedded in my flesh. It hurts like buggery. I am still apparently on the phone to a client. I look down at my hand and realise that I still apparently have a very sharp piece of metal deep in my thumb. What happens in the next thirty second is not entirely clear, but some how I finish the phone call, pull out the drawing pin and bleed over my desk. The pain is pretty bad. And like the burn, it doesn’t stop there. The tiny puncture wound turns itself into a red pin prick on my thumb over night that when touched sends a wave of pain throughout my personage like wildfire.
This very morning, in the thick fog of pre-work grog and half way out of the door, I was rummaging in my bag to check that I had my keys. For some reason, whilst I carried out the search, I left my right hand in the door. The heavy-set chunk of spring-loaded pseudo-wood that is my door inevitably came slamming shut across my fingers damn near popping the tops off them.
I now type like a builder, shake hands like a serial killer and look like Rolf Harris.