Rambings

I've just gotten back from taking Indigo for his late-night walk. Or rather, he's taken me - we march down to the grass, have a cursory sniff of the first few trees, and that's that, thank you very much, quick-time back to the house. The final training attempt of the night is undertaken; "Sit."
Just give me the biscuit.
"Sit."
fine, I'll go stand on my bed. Stuff biscuits.
"Sit."
What do you want? Why are you pushing at me like that, give me the freaking biscuit already.
"Sit."
No.
"Oh, alright, have the sodding biscuit."

I'm in a peculiar sort of limbo, not sure whether I'm starting next week or not, whether I'm supposed to be attending meetings or getting myself a job. I walk the dog, make earrings, talk to the bunny, walk the dog... all to the background of radio four and the rumble of the tube. I shop, returning to find Indigo lying where I left him standing nearly an hour before. I feel cruel for leaving him but I know he's not the sort of dog who will lie quietly outside sainsburys. I buy food for him, forgetting my own groceries in an attempt to tempt a palate that I suspect is only fussy because he's seeing how far I'll go to see that he eats. Oxo is rejected in favour of bisto, biscuits over weetabix despite the assurances of the rescue that most greyhounds like cereal for breakfast. Babybel are taken and delicately dropped on the floor, biscuits are taken and then crunched in his bed, leaving a trail of crumbs over the floor of my bedroom. The hoover is eyed with suspicion. Mozarella is consumed with gusto, cheddar is preferred, and carrots are really only acceptable after a few hours soaking in lukewarm gravy.

I wonder what I'll do this time next week - how early will I have to get up to ensure he gets a good walk before I leave for lectures? I have to buy a bike pump so I can cycle to camden instead of squeezing myself onto an already over-full and under-ventilated bendy bus for a tedious journey spent clasping a clammy yellow pole and trying not to hit anyone with my bag while desperately avoiding everyone else's eyes in the peculiar manner of the english on public transport. I will cycle through the park instead, even though I haven't cycled in years, don't own a bag suitable for carrying on a bike - I will have to get a rucksack or something - and I'm not even sure of the way.

I can't believe it's this close. Part of me doesn't want to go back, wants to live a life of not doing very much at all, but part of me is bored, needing something to stimulate the dusty spaces of my brain with the tedium of pH balance and protein synthesis. Even though I know what's coming, have the notes and fool myself into thinking I actually already know most of it. I'm not longer sure I do, though. I'm not sure I ever did.

Part of me wants to pick up and leave - take my dog and my bunny and pack my clothes into a suitcase and just go. Except I don't know where. I don't even know why; I've spent the last year longing for somewhere permanent-feeling, four walls I can call my own and yet the moment I'm withing them I want something more. Perhaps it isn't the need to leave, more the longing for an unidentifiable something - someone - that might complete this space. Until someone enters my four walls, and I am reminded how much I value this sancuary from the world.

To the people who are scared of dogs...

Ok, my dog. I know it's not thier fault - they have a phobia. I know he's not exactly a little fluffy toy, he is big, he does like to walk around with his mouth hanging open, but he is fucking terrified by 99.9% of people. There is a goddamned reason why he's walking against the wall and against me, because he's fucking stronger than I am and he freaked out yesterday and almost pushed me in front of a car because of some kid in a pram shouting at him. And he is scared of people so I don't make him walk next to them. Your kid screaming and hiding behind you and you stopping dead in the middle of the pavement is not helping you, her, me, or my dog. Especially when there are three men walking directly behind you who won't fucking get out of the way for some girl and her odd-looking dog. Forcing me and him to walk in the middle of the pavement next to your idiot daughter while she screams at him is not a good fucking idea, if you'd kept walking where you had been he would never have jumped like that and I would have been between him and her.

Peter Bunny

I'm sitting here, listening to Tori Amos and Pete is lying underneath my desk, leaning up against a box, flopped so that his hindquarters disappear into the shadows. Every now and again, his ears twitch and his head nods, and he wakes up a little, but then the next moment his nose sinks down onto his dewlap and he tilts towards the box again.

I wish I had a camera to hand, but it's on my desk and I don't want to disturb him, he looks so peaceful and relaxed.

Thoughts

I want...
to wake up next to someone
to be picked up
and not fall over backwards
to be giddy drunk on red wine
and talking silly
because I want to make you laugh
and because I'm drunk.

I want my dog
And to be able to name him.
I want someone to cook for
Because cooking is more fun when someone else eats it too
I want my Eddings books back
As my shelves are lacking in my favourite books
And I haven't read them in over a year
Is it possible to have withdrawal symptoms from not reading your favourite author?

I want my bunny back
To hear her flop over the stairs
Tell her off for jumping on my bed
Or the back of the sofa.
To lie nose-to-nose on the floor
Talking while she licks my head
Tell her she's everything to me, the thing that keeps me sane
And that my hair is not edible
Stroke her ears again.

I want toe-curlingly good sex
The sort that makes me laugh because I ache
And cry because I'm deliriously exhausted
And afterwards, I want to fall asleep
In a tangle of limbs and hands and bodies
And steal the duvet
Or wake up because he has.

I want breakfast in bed.
Or even just a good cup of tea.

I want to pass this year
Without a hitch
Or a breakdown
And yet not let go of my friends now I can't sit next to them anymore
I want to stay awake in lectures
Or at least not snore my way through proteins
I want to understand
See the point of it all
And get the answers first time instead of the eighth and not be laughed at for not understanding

I want the willpower to actually read all the pages I'm supposed to
Instead of falling asleep on the sofa
Clutching Heyer instead of Alberts.

I want a day without a headache
Without stress
Without wondering if the damn prozac makes a difference
Or wondering if I'd flip without it
Or if I'm going slightly mad.

I want someone who'll accept
That I'm depressed
It's a part of who I am
I want to accept that myself.
But I want someone who won't care.
Or will.
And who'll let me cry for no reason other than a sad song
Without trying to cheer me up.

I don't know what I want.

On Being Ill

My head is pounding. Pounding, throbbing, bursting, pounding. Little men have squashed cotton wool in place of the menisici between my brain and skull and it’s too tight. The granny trolley being wheeled down the street outside might as well be gunfire, it seems so loud. My teeth seem to rattle in my mouth and the vice around my skull tightens another notch and I can hear the blood pounding through my veins and arteries.

My throat tightens. A wave of nausea rises up my oesophagus and stops before it reaches my throat, and my empty stomach contracts and relaxes. I take a deep breath. The next wave comes, so quick as to be a spasm, wrenching me forward and despite this I know I will not be sick. I try to breathe, too shallow and my breathing rate increases. I heave again over the still-empty bowl on my knees. Suck air into my lungs. Heave and suck, heave, heave, suck, heave, suck desperately as spots begin to appear before my eyes. Finally, I vomit, and can breathe a little easier before the next wave comes.

I’ve been vomiting for what seems like a lifetime. There is nothing to vomit. There was nothing to begin with, now I am vomiting bile. It burns my throat, already raw, burns my oesophagous, exhausted from constant movement. The pain in my stomach is worse, breathing is obscured by pain and I can barely think. I am hyperventilating, aware of this but unable to stop myself, unable to talk, to vocalise the pain that twists my intestines and knots my body.

Morphine flows into my vein through the needle in my arm. It stings, everything stings. The light. Movement. The texture of the hospital gown and the gentle touch of the nurse. Morphine acts quickly. I am aware of another drug, to stop the nausea, but dimly. I pass my glasses to my mother, who hovers anxiously. I cannot see and I drift in and out of awareness now I no longer have pain to pin me to consciousness.

I am being hooked up to a drip. The nurse tells me its saline and I nod, not really understanding. I drift back to sleep. My head twinges, ever so slightly, and though to remind me that it is only the drugs between me and the pain. I’m awake. The drip is two-thirds empty and my head is starting to hurt.

The drip is gone. I am wobbly, spaceially aware but unable to do anything about it as I reel slightly. I am home. More painkillers and more tablets to stop the nausea. I sleep, curled in bed and glad of the pillows and the duvet. I wake regularly, and in the early hours I take more pills.

The pain. It’s back. Pounding pain as the vice around my skull is tightened. Knots in my stomach tighten and undo despite the painkillers and it is all I can do to lie there, hoping not to go to hospital.