Waxing lyrical about silence

Saturday, October 8, 2005

You know that phrase, ‘burning the candle at both ends’? Well it doesn’t make sense, does it. Candles have to be the right way up, because everyone knows that fire defies gravity and doesn’t like being upside down. And even if it did, there’d be hot wax everywhere, which would just be messy and foolish. See? Fire knows best.

So anyway. Where am I going with this? Oh yes. I haven’t been burning the candle at both ends. But. I have developed a one-to-many (and indeed, one too many) relationship with alcohol, which was disabled my ability to refuse a second (or eleventh) drink. It’s all been about excesses in good company, rah rah film previews (ok, so there was only one, but I want to boast, despite the awfulness of the film), getting limbs caught in night bus doors (classy), random swedish ladies called Freda (who called me a Welsh rabbit), innocent smoothies as a substitute for proper nourishment… and… well… my body has responded accordingly.

I have an ulcer. No, not a stomach ulcer, it’s not got THAT bad yet. It is a mouth ulcer. No ordinary mouth ulcer, it’s a BIG ulcer, protuding from one side at the back of my tongue (making it look like a mitten for people with half-sized thumbs). It is stopping me from eating, drinking, swallowing and now talking. No more socialising for me this weekend, then. HSBC says no. Body says no. Simon says… well, nothing, because it hurts too much.

Humph.

Silver lining: until today I hadn’t gargled the Neighbours theme tune since I was about 7, when my sister and I used to try and do it without spitting all over the floor. Awesome.