Booze blues

For the past eighteen months or so, I have begun to be overcome by the sneaking suspicion that I drink too much alcohol.

I wouldn't call myself an alcoholic, not just because the term terrifies me with its severity, but also because it's not affecting me to an extent that seems to warrant it.  I can happily go through a day at work without a drink and on some evenings, when I am otherwise occupied, I might not even think about it.  I never drink on mornings - except once, but that was because I'd spent a night being refused sex in the Most Terrifying House in England, which was home to a Whomping Willow and was almost certainly rented by Slenderman, and I was then forced to have a single glass of Shiraz to steady my nerves.

But I do drink most weeknights and it occasionally leaves me feeling a little more than grotty when I get up for work the next morning.  On weekends I go a bit more hardcore, and while it's somehow acceptable on weekends I do inevitably feel like a heap of decaying shit for the better part of the following day, until I perk up in the evening and the whole sorry thing begins again.  As of now, it's nearly eight pm and I'm only on the second G&T of the evening, which isn't so bad, but I am alone and I'm not really enjoying it.  It's not an issue that is significantly affecting the quality of my life, such as it is, but on many of these long, lonely nights I don't even particularly want to drink, and I regret it even while I do it.  But nevertheless, here we are again, with glass in hand and growing sense of sorrow.  Essentially, I do want to stop, but am so far epically failing to do so.

I once brought this up with an ex-doctor-friend of mine.  Ex-friend that is, not ex-doctor, because we slept together one night and it was an incredibly disappointing experience for all parties and next morning it was so excruciatingly awkward that it was easier to never speak again.  I blame the fact that it was unsatisfying and sad.  But I brought the issue up one day, under that unconvincing guise of 'my friend wants to know this...' and my sub-par lover likened it to self-harm.  As in, drinking oneself to oblivion has similarities to cutting oneself.  I can't agree definitively with this comparison simply because I can't speak for the mindset behind self-harm.  I have only done it once and, like Marmite or The Mighty Boosh, it was not for me.  But the alignment doesn't strike me as inaccurate.

I am well-aware that I use alcohol as a coping mechanism.  I know that sometimes I drink because I'm bored, or lonely, or I know that in a few hours time I'm going to have to do something that's going to make me inconsolably anxious and I want to relax.  And it's all very well knowing this, but it's of little use when I so consistently fail to find a viable alternative.  I did wonder if it might be something worth bringing up at the doctor's next week, but it is only the first appointment and I don't want to overwhelm poor Watson with my tales of woe.

Watson: So what's the problem?

Cecil: I have anxiety.  And depression.  I think I might have a borderline alcohol problem.  Also skin cancer.

Watson: I see.

Cecil: I'd like you to check for all the cancers, actually.

Watson: (sighs) We have told you before, Mr Cavender.  One problem at a time.

Cecil: For every cancer?  I'll be coming back for years.

Watson: I'm sure you will, yes.

But the appointment is not imminent and I've no idea if I'll even have the courage to mention it.  My medical record is ridiculous enough without potential alcoholic being added to the tome, and I fear they'll think I'm imagining it like every other case of Incoming Death I've arrived with.

So by the time of finishing this I'm on my fourth G&T and frankly, I don't think anything's going to change before the fifth.

I didn't see him, but then I suppose if I had, I wouldn't be here.

Happy National Stress Awareness Day

Just in case you had forgotten to be stressed.

If you haven't noticed, stressed is 'desserts' backwards.  So to undo the stress you should probably go and eat something with chocolate and ice cream.

I personally don't really like chocolate or ice cream, which is probably why I suffer from such crippling episodes of stress.

Happy National Stress Awareness Day.

Here is a stock image of someone who is stressed.

Skin cancer

For the past couple of weeks I've had this ungodly itch just below my right shoulder blade, and it doesn't appear to be going away.  I can, therefore, only assume that it must be skin cancer.

I spent a good half hour staring into the mirror with my head craned over my shoulder and twisting every which way in order to get a look at my back.  Despite having stripped to my undies though, the cancer was made no more visible and I was disappointingly unable to locate it by eye.  While there is a mole on the left side of my back, it has been there since time immemorial and the fact that my mother still charmingly though inaccurately refers to it as a beauty spot tells me it is unlikely to be malignant.  But the right side nevertheless remains irritated, and the thought of what horror must be developing beneath the surface is a source of great consternation, and is beginning to keep me awake nights.

The lack of rash perplexes me.  In fact the only time it is ever marked is when I have been scraping at it during the day, an act which is beginning to cause the students at work to liken me to a cat, as it is often enacted against the back of a chair.  I have tried to subdue it by slathering myself in E45 cream, which quells it temporarily, but alas fails to rid me of it for good.

Blessedly, it does not appear to have spread anywhere yet.  I intend to bring it up at my forthcoming doctor's appointment though.  I know that they only like to deal with one problem at a time, but as I already feel like a drain on NHS resources I am absolutely fucking buggered if I'm booking in again.  It makes far more economic sense.

Amusingly, the doctor's name is Doctor Watson.  She is a pleasant woman, though seemed wholly unimpressed at my attempt at whimsy upon our last meeting.  Unable to answer my Case of the Palpitating Heart, I thought it would be funny to tell her that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  She remained stony-faced, but did at least restrain herself from hitting me in the mouth, which I have been tempted to do on more than one occasion when people ask me how my diamond empire is holding up.  And my surname isn't even Rhodes.

Cecil Rhodes.  Not me.  More's the pity.

Don't let me avoid the doctor

I don't know what the fuck I did to myself over the weekend but I can hardly fucking walk now.  I got out of bed this morning and my calves are just crippled, like the muscles have entirely seized up and think it appropriate to have me totter about like a scarecrow.  It almost had me toppling to my doom down another set of stairs today, but thank Heavens my fall was cushioned by a gigantic man who called me 'an Absolute Fucking Peanut' before kindly dragging me back to my feet.

In other news, I had a whiskey and dry ginger this afternoon and summoned up the courage to call the doctor and book an appointment.  And it isn't for any type of cancer or imminent stroke this time - it's actually to talk about the whole anxiety and depression thing, and about where to go from here.  We were meant to do it a little while ago but somehow I kept finding reasons to avoid it...

But I am going to go this time.  I have inscribed it upon my calendar and therefore I must go because the calendar is law.  Also I've written it in an uncommonly thick black pen that reminds me of a board marker but has a nib so gargantuanly huge it has left absolutely no space for me to write anything else in there.  So I can't change plans now, because it won't go on the calendar and I'll forget.

Don't let me make up a reason not to go.

I was searching for a picture of a giant pen, but this came up so I kept it.

Nosebleed

I sneezed.  Now there is a nosebleed.  Why is there a nosebleed?

I think I'm dying out of my right nostril.

I can't sleep.

I am panicking.

I have work in less than five hours.

Damn my sneeze.

Searched for a nosebleed picture, regretted it, here is the Krampus instead.

After Heaven

I had planned not to get absolutely wankered on Halloween because I wanted to be in a fit state for travelling the following day.  So I thought I would just get a little arseholed, enough to placate the aggressive ministrations of well-intentioned friends who only want to make sure I'm having a nice time but believe that must involve getting appallingly rat-arsed.  Unfortunately I am a man easily swayed, especially when it comes to alcohol, and after the first bottle of wine was soaked into my bloodstream I was halfway to fucked and thought I might as well carry on.  Things continued to degenerate in the club, where the drinks became a sinister mixture of vodka and beer, the fancy dress became cumbersome or missing, someone stuck a finger in my mouth and told me it was covered in drugs, and then I fell down a staircase and now my shin is the colour of blackberry fool.  But of course we all know who the real fool is here.  We departed the area at about 5am, and then proceeded to make a slurred fuss in McDonald's when we were tragically informed that there were no cheese bites.  Next thing it was 3pm this afternoon and I was waking up in a pitch black basement as a shivering, painted wreck.

This was my friend's basement that acts as a dual laundry and guest room.  I had not been kidnapped.

Unfortunately I then had to make the tortuous journey from London to Reading on an exceedingly busy train.  I couldn't possibly have survived standing all the half-hour journey back, even if my shin hadn't looked like a page torn from the bloodstained leaves of a demonic tome.  So I had to sit on my bag next to the door.  This was a bearable way to pass the journey, but when I stood up again I was struck by a sudden and hellish truth.  I had developed pins and needles in my right leg.  Not just regular, foot-based pins and needles though, no.  These had travelled from the toes, up the entire length of the leg, and were now actually in the process of invading my genitals.  I had, in essence, pins and needles of the penis.  When I get this in my feet I normally waggle them around a bit and it's all well and good, but I was on a busy train so I couldn't just whip out the old chap and start waving it round the carriage.  So instead I tried to inject a little more energy into my walking, which I thought might jiggle things around a little down there and lessen the feeling.  This worked, but did also make it look like I was skipping, and when a grown man is skipping alone down the platform of Reading station, solemn-faced, parents to tend to move their children to the side.

That aside, the weekend was all very pleasant.  I do like Halloween, but I thank the God of Liver that it's only once a year.

Anastacia played at Heaven.  She is still looking fine at 47.

Halloween

Last year I went as a French maid.  I probably would've recycled the costume and worn it again this year, only I foolishly left it at my ex's house and I don't think it's really cricket to turn up at the door enquiring after one's maid outfit.

So I have managed to cobble something together, and while it isn't perfect it is at least a fuck sight better than the year I went as a paedophile and had to walk around all night with my shirt poking out of my undone flies.  Strangely enough, that is not one of the Halloweens I recall with pleasure.

Apparently Heaven has introduced a breathalyser.  That is Heaven, the club in London, and not the religious ideal of an afterlife, though perhaps that heaven should also introduce a breathalyser to keep out the riffraff.  But for now, it remains the club.

If there's anything that just shits on Halloween, it's a breathalyser at the doorway.

Happy Halloween.

I have always wanted to go as a plague doctor, but the costume so far eludes me.