day to day stuff

I see dead people. Or at least people standing next to death. In the last 3 months I’ve been in hospital on 3 occasions. The first, an extremely pleasant experience that involved looking at amazing images of our unborn child. No dead people that time. The second however a far more traumatic experience involving an extremely painful hand incident. This time the place was utterly full of dead people. Dead people and whispering devils and malignant spirits. Evil was most definitely in the hospital that evening. I was so glad to get out of there I gibbered at the taxi driver like a child. Finally, a week after the initial hand injury, and I have to admit with a head full of clonazepam, to keep the demons at bay, I returned. This was yesterday. I did see the demons again but I held them at bay. Yes funny isn’t it. I do not think people understand this thing. These things I see and hear. The drug I take at night is not making these demons go away. They are on the buses and in the bus queues and in the shop windows. They generate a great deal of fear and interest in me in equal amounts. I know it is some chemical imbalance in my brain that causes me to see, to smell and hear these things, and yet HOW! How do tiny amounts of ‘chemical’ in the brain make these things happen. These things real. Yes hearing voices of things and of people I know are not there is something I seem to deal with almost without thinking about it but seeing devils in bus queues in Tooting, well often times that’s quite hard to stomach. And FOR FUCKS SAKE you doctors with your 20 minutes of chit-chat and a little green bit of paper of drugs do not work. You have NO insight. I only ever met one that didn’t seem jaded to the point of being like a wilted uncared for grey house plant gathering dust in the corner of a drab stale smoke stinking small time insurance firm….
And so good doctors I have no faith in you. Yesterday I arrived at the fracture clinic and there was no record of any appointment having been made for me. I was not on their system. My hospital number did not exist. I was a ghost in their ‘at breaking point’ machine. The red mist that had caused the sodding problem in the first place was all around the edges. The other people in the waiting room seemed in on it and were rubbing there clawed filthy hands with glee. I was told just to wait so I sat down with the trusty ipod shield as protection. I was listening to the evil works of an artist called angerfist, fighting darkness with darkness. Now the guy, well I say guy, he was a very young boy, squint up your eyes and he could have been 12, told me he’d look into this little problem and I ‘might get seen by someone today’ but to wait 15 minutes. CUNT. I patiently waited 22 minutes, I know as I timed it on my ipod. And returned to the desk. Ooh yes sorry someone might see you in the next half hour, you will have to wait be it will not be long. I asked if I had time to go get a drink, the little boy said this would be fine. I didn’t get a drink, I went though the corridors filled with whispering devils out for a cigarette. I smoke too much, and there is no place worse to smoke as cigarette than outside a hospital. A woman in a wheel chair with some kind of bandage on her head approached me and asked if I had a spare cigarette. ‘no’ I said and she seemed to mumble some kind of archaic spell under her breath. Was this an ill omen. Was I to be waiting here all day?
I returned to the now nearly empty waiting room, the spoon benders and the clusters of demons had vanished like whisps of sulphur smoke and for some reason I had begun to get a strangely good feeling. Within five minutes of my return I was seen! Seen by two very kind faced doctors who both had obviously read my supposedly none-existent notes and had the decency to treat me as a human being.
“your hand is broken but it is healing very well. You need to use it. It will hurt, it will hurt for months. BUT if you use it all the time”(at this point they showed me some exercises I have been doing since leaving the hospital!)”it will heal without complication. Do not play cricket.”(bummer!!) “but it will heal itself” and with this I was done. No need for physio as I think that I reassured then I could now go off and heal myself. I felt a weight lift! WHOOOOOOPPPPPEEEEEEEEE I am not crippled, I am not in a cast, and I am writing this with two hands. The devils and stench had also lifted, I felt rushes of adrenaline and joy. I treated my self to a cold refreshing pint of 1664 in a pub Oooh what a pub! Filled to bursting with the dregs but the truly good. I was sorely tempted to have more than one pint but did not. I had had bad luck that I have not yet mentioned. The getting on of the wrong bus took me to the wrong Tooting (not for the first time!) and so I’d had to get a tube.

NOTE: I suddenly have a love of the tube, where previously I would have avoided those tunnels I have become an overnight convert, any excuse and I’m down there like a flash!

I had also lost ten pounds. I have become an expert at losing things. I lose pouches of rolling tobacco at least once a week and I have also lost my bank card, a mobile phone, an oyster card …the list goes on. This ten pounds I had lost today was to buy electricity (we are on a meter) ooouuuucccchhhh my fucking hand hurts, but they said it would.

I got up at 5:15 am and wrote this, it’s now 7:37 and it is getting light outside. I know today will be a good day, an adventure of meeting new people, who, like my self have mental problems, but are not some state organised group. Nope, these guys are from a chat forum I’ve used for a year or so which is especially for people with mental health problems. I may, if I am lucky be getting a bunch of original cramps vinyl which is extremely exiting. WOW!
NOTE:I have old long established friends who for what ever reason seem to think these problems I suffer are something to be dealt with like a cold or a broken arm. I love these friends but find their lack of understanding rather stupid. Bright people can often be more stupid about certain areas than stupid people, if you see what I mean. I actually believe my little meek and rather silly cat has in some way more insight and understanding.


Now finally a note on the figure painting. I will attempt to draw before I paint the little monsters and dwarves I have been working on. It is an utter fuck to be unable to use my hand properly and well but no doubt over the coming weeks I will be howling out my frustrations, however I will persevere. I think I need a good and long electrical extension lead to light these figure as best I can, so that the ones I have painted can be photographed, not on a plain white background, but on the scenery I have been building for them. I also have a car model to work on, however I may well look into the whole ‘air-brush’ thing for that…. I’ve always fancied an air-brush.