Tension

I think my neck is trying to kill me.

For three of the past four days, I have woken in the early hours with a headache that emanates from my neck, rises through the back of my head and over the crown, descending into my forehead, where it comes to rest behind my right eye.  And there it stays for hours, impervious to any pain killer that I can throw at it. These things render me incapacitated with pain and sickness.  They make me utterly miserable.

Today’s was partly my own fault, but I’d like to place most of the blame on the tanker driver who exploded his load of propane on the M56 yesterday afternoon.  Having spent a couple of days relaxing in north Wales, we were in the car on the way back from a day of beautiful sunshine on the beach when the traffic report came on: M56 closed for several hours due to some twat exploding.  My stress levels started rising immediatley; I’d wanted to be home for no later than 8pm so I could pick up Otto from Mum and Dad’s, let him and Rocky have a few handbags before settling down to an early night.  As it was, I didn’t see the point in setting off on the two and half hour journey because the diversion routes would be so congested that it just wouldn’t be worth it with a stressy Tina and equally stressy Rocky.

Serena kept me calm on my journey, she knew the motorway was closed and planned an alternative route through Cheshire, where we were joined by many others following the same diversion.  The time ticked on, the light faded and the burning in my neck grew.  By the time I deposited Otto in my dining room, it was gone 11pm and I hadn’t had my pill.  

It’s still early days in my adventure with Sertraline, but I’ve found that they make me quite drowsy, so I’ve been taking them in the evenings.  It’s quite nice, the way I drift off to sleep for a few hours before waking at about 4am and I’ve not suffered any of the other potential side effects warned about in the patient information leaflet.  Last night’s lesson, however, was do not take just before bedtime because today, in addition to my customary, vomit-inducing headache, I just couldn’t wake up.  The stress and duration of my journey, the diplomatic intervention between Messers Hissy Claws and Gummy Snarling, the late night and chemically-induced neurotransmitter overload was just too much for me.

Poor, wrecked me.

The thing that I’ve found about these headaches is that, if I lie in a position that’s most uncomfortable for every other part of my body, i.e. flat on my back with no pillow, they don’t hurt as much. It’s just that the lack of sleep and back ache makes you feel and look like the undead.

I think the answer might be a neck massage, with prolonged, firm pressure applied to the anterior aspect.  I can imagine all the stress and tension escaping from everywhere, permanently.  Once the medication takes full effect, though, and with a little extra help, these days will be a long and distant memory.
Mac n cheese

In other news, I had a Marks and Spencer macaroni cheese for my dinner this evening and it was delicious. It was a remnant from recent trips to the hospital where I was visiting my dad as he was being treated for pneumonia.  With the introduction of Marks and Spencer Simply Food outlets to most hospitals, being sick or visiting the sick has never had so many upsides.  

Cinderotto

The little cat goes back home to his beloved daddy tomorrow.  He adores his dad, his dad adores him; it’s a beautiful thing.  

Otto has missed his dad this past fortnight, I can tell.  I can tell by the way he wakes me at dawn by pummelling my face with his paws and purring loudly, his nose touching mine.  He does this to his dad and his dad lets him get away with it, he gets a “fuck off Otto!” from me.  He’s a floppy, silky pyjama case of a cat and I too adore him, but my love of him is a fraction less than my love of sleep these days and, as much as having him flop over me is delightful, I do actually have to get out of bed at some point and drag my arse into work at a reasonable hour.

I think I’ve been a good hostess to the little feller while he’s been here.  Of course, he’s not been allowed to leave the house, but he’s had a nice clean litter tray every day, lots of cuddles, four meals a day… three if you count what goes into the dog because… well, here’s the thing, I have to put his food on my desk in the little study so that the little dog can’t get to it.  The odour, of course, filters into my bedroom.  God, it stinks to high heaven.  I do wish he could eat it a) without throwing it all over my desk and b) in one sitting.  While it’s hanging around, Rocky gets ever so jealous, so he’s been having the odd pouch of Felix too, just to prevent him from exploding with envy.  

Otto came with his own food parcel: a box of Felix pouches and about ten trays of extra special “gourmet” Sheba.  Like a wicked step mother, I’ve been feeding the Sheba to the dog to keep him quiet and the cat has been left with stuff that smells like poo.  

Wax

I don’t hide the fact that I use wax strips to remove my moustache hair.  Despite reassurances from well-meaning blind people (or utter cocks who are lying to me), it can be quite substantial moustache hair, especially if caught in the cruel light of the mirror in the lift at work.  Or caught in heavy machinery.  

Anyway (:@), after waxing my moustache last night, I had a spare strip left over.  Tempting as it was to try it on the dog, I refrained and, in that moment as i held it over the bin, ready to discard it, I had an epiphany… try it on your chiiiiiiiiin… try it on your CHIIIIIIN!  So I did, and it was great.

You see, I can’t see close up enough anymore to tell whether I have out of control beard growth.  People are often too scared to mention these things (or liars), and I can’t pluck blind, so this was a revelation.  I’m so happy!

At the hospital

I had a hospital appointment today to see the neuro-endocrine people following my recent surgery.  I actually thought the appointment had been made in error because I only attended the same clinic in July.  Soooo, I entered the full-to-bursting waiting room with less than positive expectations for the experience that awaited me. I was appalled by one particular site that greeted me as I took my seat: female; overweight; shorts; tattoos; crew cut; bleached hair; talking rubbish at the TV.  But you have to accept that there are lots of different people in the world and that it’s not for long that we have to be in proximity of those we’d never be caught dead associating with.

The TV was on, set to BBC because that’s the safest way to ensure that none of the people in the waiting room are also appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show.  It was a programme about antisocial behaviour, as usual.  After I’d had my blood pressure taken, I returned to the waiting room and, to my horror, the only seat available was next to Madame Tattoo.  I sat down and admired her… ink… on her knee caps… while sending out calls for help via text.  

Looking up, I saw the noticeboard that informed me my doctor’s clinic was running an hour late.  Thank fuck I’d charged my phone.

I sat and waited, watching the site visits to my blog go up and up following a recent post about a potty-mouthed, but adorable,  Dane

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Unbelievable.

Time ticked on, and the waiting room emptied.  The TV was on a timer and turned itself off.  Mercy!  

I was getting a bit restless, needed a pee, was starving hungry, was anticipating a negative experience with the doctor.  Humph. [Insert unsmiley face emoji here]  And then I was called into to see the consultant… some other guy I’d never seen before… here we go, I rolled my eyes (internally of course, I didn’t want to seem impolite).

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  He explained everything to me, all the different types of hyperparathyroidism, how and why they can occur and then he said: “With you, it’s clear that you’ve been deficient in vitamin D for a number of years.  When you had a test early on in 2013, you had a negligible amount.  Over a period of time, this will affect the feedback mechanism and cause your parathyroid to produce more and more PTH to compensate, and this is probably what happened with you.  We’ll take a blood test and either give you a massive dose of vitamin D, like you’ve had before, or just put you on a maintenance dose for life.”

I was like, what? Really?  Is this anything to do with my Pepsi Max addiction?  

So that’s it.  It should all be sorted.  What I really wanted him to prescribe was a new life in the Mediterranean, but what with NHS cutbacks, they’re no longer offering this particular treatment.  I’ll have to stick with my vitamin supplements and oily fish.

Twitterer service

I have a bit of history when it comes to documenting my dealings with customer services departments of various companies.  My confrontations with GE Capital Bank and Tesco are legendary (in my head), as are my bizarre complaints about the lack of availability of Pepsi in Rome and granulated sugar-coated doughnuts at Greggs.

Before the days of social media, dealings with companies had to be via e-mail, or over the telephone.  I’m not very good on the telephone.  I’m certain there’s something wrong in my head whereby I completely lose track of what I’m saying when I’m talking to people.  Stress takes over, my synapses misfire and I go into a confused meltdown, during which I could well be reciting the lyrics to Dance this mess around instead of formulating a logical argument and presenting my position in such a way that I get what I want.

“I ain’t no Linberger!”

I find it a lot easier to write things things down.

Making complaints, or raising concerns, about products or services has become so much easier in the age of Twitter, but I bet this presents a nightmare the customer services teams of any company with an internet presence, unless it’s Whirpool, because they just don’t give a crap what people think of their shit products and terrible customer service.

The thing about Twitter is that, whereas a telephone conversation or e-mail exchange is privy solely to the parties concerned, a person’s comment or complaint about a company on Twitter shows that company’s performance up to a global audience.  This means that the companies must have people scanning their twitter feed 24/7 in order that they can respond to a comment in a timely fashion… for all the world to see.

It’s fucking BRILLIANT!

Until that is, you get something like this happening:

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Which was then followed by this:

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Which was fine, great in fact.  Then THIS happened:

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This is their equivalent of saying, “Ok bitch, we’re looking into your query, just keep your fucking mouth shut until we get back to you or we’re sending the lads round to set fire to your hair.”

The same thing happened with the impossible-to-leave LinkedIn last week.

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But of course, the reason they followed me was because of this:

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Yep, so I could direct message them with some personal information so they could only credit me with £3 worth of Nectar Points!

All sorted and I didn’t even have to take the dodgy tomatoes back to Salford.  They wouldn’t have made it anyway.  It was like something out of one of those old Sinbad films from the 1970s and 80s where the many-headed mythological monster is vanquished by the hero and decays, jerkily, before our very eyes. Or the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz… “Melting… I’m meltiiiing!”

Despite the happy and very swift conclusion to our exchange this evening, they’re still following me. I’m expecting a punishment beating next time I go to Salford.  Nothing new there then.

But it must be great being on the Twitter desk of a company’s customer service team.  Imagine some of the bizarre tweets that people send. In fact, as I was paying for my goods this afternoon, I was insulted by the volume of the woman on the self checkout.  It was ludicrously loud.  I felt like I was being shouted at and was on the verge of tweeting @sainsburys to ask why the default volume isn’t set lower and why they need to go that loud anywayforfuck’ssake.  Anticipating the “why didn’t you just turn the volume down?” response, I decided to leave it.  Until the next time.  Why though?  Why are they so fucking loud?  Could you imagine if the till assistants shouted at you at that volume?

High anxiety

Anyway, since it is approaching my bedtime, I should try to relax and be calm.  The Anxiety levels in the house are at an all time high at the moment.  The little dog is insanely jealous of the little cat.  Well, he’s insanely jealous of the little cat’s food, which smells like poo.  Poo that has to sit on the desk in my back bedroom because it’s the only place that the dog can’t get to it and the cat can eat in peace.  The cat eats like a spas and throws his food all over the place.  My beautiful computer and its accessories are covered in Felix splashes.  I woke this morning to find that he’d nudged his bowl from the desk and spilled the faeces-like contents all over my desk chair.

Then there’s the litter tray, which because of lack of space elsewhere in the house, is in the bathroom.  He throws litter all over the place when he’s done his toilets and I’m forever stepping out of the shower and getting Catsan between my toes.

The responsibility that goes with looking after this cat cannot be underestimated.  If anything at all happens to him, I might as run off to Iraq and join the nearest Islamic State boys wearing nothing but a rainbow flag and a smile.  He means THAT much to my dad.

In the meantime, I’m sure my family is having a lovely time in the sunshine in Italy.  So that’s all good.

Beep beep boop

There are certain things that happen when you’re using technology that makes you go ooh, look at that.  On certain occasions, Google’s search page picture of the day can make the news.  Not today though, it’s just boring old Google search. These are things that add absolutely no functionality to the application or device that you’re using, but they make the user interface a little nicer, usually while you’re waiting for something to happen.

People who use WordPress online will be familiar with this:

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It pops up for a few seconds while a new post is launching.  You have NO IDEA how quick I had to be with my CMD+SHIFT+4 selection to get that screen grab.  Quickasaflash, that’s me.

Things have come a long way since the early egg timers of Windows, whichever it was I started out on – the one that was out around 1989? Windows 3.0?

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That might be from a Mac, but I remember the absolute thrill of Windows 95 and the arrival of: ANIMATED HOURGLASS

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Not only was it colour, it spun around and the grains of sand moved in the icon.  So many man hours must have gone into the creation of this single element of the whole desktop experience.  And you could customise the whole thing.

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It never ceased to amaze me that people didn’t invest that two minutes of their time to do this and to make their desktop beautiful (as much as Windows 95 would allow).  Oh. My. Fucking. God. [I never spoke like that back then] What was wrong with these people that they didn’t change from the default background?  And why didn’t they alter the screen resolution so everything wasn’t so fucking MASSIVE? These were really options that suddenly came available to us and people just ignored it.

Can’t

Use

New

Technology

Still

These days, our devices and desktops still have ways of telling us that they’re fannying around, unable to cope with, oh, I don’t know, being just as slow as they ever were when you really need them to do something right away.  We get aero themed timers, or other flash things that spin around to calm us, to placate us, to reassure is that our software really is trying and not to throw our smartphone or PC out of a first floor window.

Screen Shot 2014-08-08 at 20.57.55 Awww, the spinny thing in different contrast make it all better.  No shouty hypnosis.

images-1 Aero thing whizzy round, take my mind off killings.

Bouncing iMac desktop icons

One thing that Mac users, and I am one, and yes I’m also a fucking hypocrite, in fact, my anti-Apple rants are so numerous that I can’t even link to them, but there are examples herehereherehere and here.  Anyway… one thing that Mac users encounter, along with a file system that you can’t customise, beautiful design, the loveliest clicky keyboard, super mouse and all round “ooh, you got a Mac” factor, is… the bouncing desktop icons in the dock.

This is what my dock looks like.

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It needs tidying up.  It’s the thing on the desktop that gives you immediate access to all the applications that you use most frequently.  It’s not a bad concept.  Whoever at Apple was in charge of this, whoever it was who decided that it would be a good idea for dock items to bounce when an app needed your attention, that person needs to die… on fire.

Why even do that? When you start your computer, you generally want to get going pretty quickly, you want to concentrate on doing what you need to do.  You do not want to be distracted by the fucking Spotify icon bouncing because, fuck knows why, it just does, every bloody time!  It’s just the way things are designed, if an app needs your attention, it bounces.

There’s a sound effect that goes with it too.

The person who designed this is Animated Hourglass’s doppelgänger.  Some evil little fucktard who just has to take desktop aesthetics that little bit too far.  Skeuomorphism is dead… nearly dead, but this shit lives on.  It’s almost as bad as these fuckers:

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Now confined to the dustbin of time, they will haunt office workers’ nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Geek chique

I saw a man walking down the street the other day.  He looked fairly ordinary.  He was wearing normal clothes: jeans, shoes, t-shirt.  On the front of the t-shirt, in white lettering, was the word “Geek”.

Would a geek wear such a thing?  Would a geek even be out in broad daylight? Wouldn’t they be indoors, doing indoors things with technology? Or on an internet forum or something?

Over the past five years or so, it’s become quite trendy to be a bit geeky.  Girls wear big glasses… I wear big glasses. I say it’s trendy to be a bit geeky, it’s trendy to look geeky.  If any normal person came across a high-up-the-aspergers scale, into gaming and comics, background in science and technology, obsessive-compulsive real geek, they still might make fun of them, or find them odd, or find it difficult to make conversation with them.  But conversely, who with any ounce of intelligence want to try to drag out some tedious conversation about shit new music and whatever else real people talk about these days.  Hashtag GBBO.

Otto

Otto is staying with me for a fortnight.  Rocky is extremely jealous.  He can’t stand anything or anybody else getting my attention.

The little cat has had enough of being sniffed and is currently hiding at the bottom of my walk-in wardrobe, lying on top of my shoes.  Some things never change, but at least he’s kicked his ketamine habit.

Otto's lost mind

Sideways glances

I spent most of today at my parents’ house. It was quite pleasant; the usual stresses of their bickering numbed by chronic sleepiness and a general feeling of “I’m feeling ok today” that’s missing for long periods. There was no real reason for me being there, I just fancied hanging out with them, doing nothing but enjoying the growing cantankerousness (if that’s a word) of their advancing years, fighting the losing battle of reason versus parents. Plus, I couldn’t be bothered cooking and the lamb stew my mum was planning on preparing appealed to me.

The little dog was with me. He likes the attention his adopted grandparents give him, but not quite as much as the pizza, pudding and biscuits they treat him with. The fee of a spectacular high-five performance on his part is little price to pay for junk food and cuddles.

My parents, the family, have always been cat people. Cats have been part of our lives since I was a young child. Only one feline family member remains today: Otto the one-eyed pyjama case. He’s very shy. I’d never realised this when I lived at home, but since moving out, I noticed how he’d run and hide when an unfamiliar voice came into the house. Needless to say, when Rocky announces his presence at the back door with much howling and barking, Otto scarpers.

And so this was the pattern for our visits there for the past five years… until recently. A few months ago, Otto developed a “stuff you, you insane bag of fur” attitude, resulting in him hanging around, in pyjama case mode on Mum’s knee, whenever I call round there. And Rocky is terrified of him, to the point that the little dog has developed owl-like head movements so he can keep track of the cat whenever he’s there.

So that’s good.

Tomorrow I’m back in the office. It’s a nice enough job that pays OK, but I’d much rather just hang out and absorb the insanity and comfort of my parents and animals. Tomorrow, I shall allow myself to be wound up by people queue jumping in the traffic jam to work, the mental assault by e-mail, and idiots using the lift to travel just one floor – all the time thinking about my Friday evening meal and the impending visit of the lovely April…