MindReader got a free
Wii today, which he has brought round to my house, because he is charming. We -
MindReader,
MadFather and I - are playing
Wii Golf, and in the midst of somewhat of a relapse (ALWAYS when I blog about getting better) it is almost as good as the real thing.
MadFather is taking his shot.
MindReader, who is standing at the foot of my 'bed' takes a sip of his tea and then his eyes go rather wide. Laughing, he lifts up a foot and shows me his socks which are covered in the sticky debris from my greeting card making fiasco.
Something in his
not when we live together expression makes me snort with laughter and my drink goes down the wrong way. He smiles at me as he reached for the
Wii Remote Control to take his shot.
I cough and cough and splutter as I clear my airway. And then I get the hiccups. I must admit I have rather shriek-
ey hiccups which make me laugh and I roll around in my bed of pillows as
MadFather and
MindReader play Serious Golf, trying to stifle them.
I take another sip just as I hiccup and the WHOLE PROCESS starts again.
MindReader turns around, his eyes all crinkly. "Some decorum on the golf course,
Billygean?"
Labels: illness, MindReader
I walk into the kitchen before bed to take the nightly round of drugs (contraceptive pill,
echinacea, zinc and vitamin c!) and catch a glimpse of a client's file
MindReader has left here.
I cannot resist taking a peek.
I open it and realise it is boring law - business and tax.
MindReader's very swirly writing covers the hundreds of pages. I open it at random.
A scrawled, handwritten draft contract catches my eye. The last clause on winding up, I really hope
MindReader redrafted before doing anything with it.
If you don't pay up this time we will regretfully wind you up, he has written. And then, in the margin,
RAR! Labels: MindReader
"You know what she said though?" I say to
MindReader, ranting from my pillows.
"What?" he says, looking slightly alarmed.
"She said,
I'm so envious of you watching TV whilst we all revise."
"Bloody hell,"
MindReader says, knowing what I would have given to have sat these exams. "Ignore her."
"
Hmm."
I scan my friends on
facebook. One of them has announced she is going to London to watch musicals and shop.
My voice catches in my throat. I have been patient. I really have. I have not cried much during May at all. But the reality is, 28 more days have passed; the leaves are painfully green on the trees and, although I can go out and touch them which I could not do 28 days ago, I am still NOWHERE NEAR normal. I observe how my body has gone from being able to sit up for twenty seconds, to twenty minutes, but only if I lie down for the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day, and I wonder how this will become 8 hours, 10 hours, a whole day out. Will it take more multiples of 28 days?
I was an academic, someone with a scientific background, and then a lawyer. I cannot help thinking like this.
I breathe a few times. I thought, 28 days ago, how would I know I was better, if I couldn't manage to sit up to test the water? People reassured me I would know. And within 28 days I was on walks, high grass licking my bare legs, making drinks and dragging the dustbins down our drive.
I breathe deeply. You have made progress, I think. This was ALL you wanted one month ago.
"You alright?"
MindReader says.
And to my credit, I do not cry. And the bitterness passes.
Labels: illness, MindReader
I wake up. It is 9.30am.
I have had the house to myself for a few days, which was going rather well. Watching absolute trash on the TV, eating when I wanted (now I am no longer too sick to put something in the oven!), writing my novel in peace and quiet.
I probably knew when I went in an oily bath at midnight to relax myself that I wasn't going to sleep well. Why IS it when I have the house to myself at night I become an 8 year old? I know vampires aren't going to attack me, really I do, but that doesn't stop me covering my neck irrationally with the duvet.
Watched Gossip Girl and then read
Kazuo Ishiguro until 2am. This is quite normal; even with chronic tiredness I am still a
night owl. Slept until quarter to three, woke up having had a dream
MindReader died. This is not uncommon for the past few months either; I attributed it to a fever but the fever is long gone and the rather frightening dreams remain (suggestions welcome!). Then I woke up pretty much on the hour until five when I actually read for another hour.
So 9:30 was pretty disastrous - The Glands need at least 9 hours' sleep or they cause havoc. I switched off my lamp (told you I was 8) and poked my head over my windowsill.
The
BinMen.
5 grown men in reflective bibs standing in the middle of the road in the torrential rain, sorting out the glass from the paper. How were they doing it? By PICKING the glasses up and DROPPING THEM from approximately 2 metres until they smashed into the truck.
I sat up a little straighter, the room already swimming, and glared at them.
And then one of them glared back. And before I knew what was happened, all 5 of them were pointing.
It was at this moment that I realised one of my boobs was on show.
Labels: embarrassing, illness
The message window pops up on my screen.
"Hi," K says. K is a girl I lived with in my first and second years of uni.
"Wow," I say, "long time no speak."
"Is it?" she says, and I see what's happening immediately.
"Been reading my blog?" I type, smirking.
"Always!" she says.
I pause. It is slightly surreal for someone to know everything you've done in the past three months while you have no idea what they've done.
"Just waiting for the engagement announcement," she types.
I almost spit my coffee out.
"?!" I type.
"I just know."
"Elaborate."
"You just seem happy. Trust me it'll be soon. Life crises are as good as time in a relationship."
"I see," I type. "I'll tell MindReader."
Labels: MindReader
"That was AWFUL," MadFather says, walking in the door and shaking rain drops off his head.
"What happened?" I say from my bed on the sofa.
"I sat in traffic for HOURS," he says, "and then I got there LATE so the security people chased me around the supermarket asking when I was going to leave."
"Oh no," I say, my heart twinging as it does every time MadFather turns on the sympathy.
"And then I couldn't get the things on your list, I couldn't find any nectarines so I thought to myself, 'I know -'"
"Do you think like that?" I say.
"Like what?"
"Like, 'I know, I'll do this.'"
"Well - yes," MadFather says, looking hurt. "Why?"
"Because this way my readers will know it's not
my dialogue that's shitty."
Labels: blogging, Dad
Since I am no longer sporting black circles around my eyes and looking zombified, I have decided to upload some more recent photos to add to the cheer that, although I can do not very much more, I no longer look dead.
And also some bad photos.
See; new year's eve:
March (possibly the worst picture of me ever seen):
April's DARK CIRCLES.
And now onto happier photos!!
Beginning of May:
Last week:
Yesterday with MindReader:
Today:
My belly tan
Labels: illness, MindReader
DoctorSister has made me a mound of pillows at the OTHER end of the sofa. This is so I do not expend any energy - you know, SITTING, because my body is not okay with that - whilst we are playing Pictionary.
She throws the dice.
"DoctorSister," I say, "hold on. I need some analysing doing."
She gives that nice gritting teeth Doctor smile and says, "sure."
"Well," I say. "I'm as sick as on my birthday, aren't I!"
My Birthday is a sort of benchmark - when I was too sick to serve myself Chinese food from off the table one metre away from me and when my dark circles under my eyes made me look rather like a bat.
"No," she says simply. "You were getting worse then. Now you're getting better."
"And," says MindReader from the floor (for I now share a sofa with my pillows), "you've not been lying down
all day."
"Plus," DoctorSister says, with the most important point, "you've got a
great tan."
Labels: illness, MindReader
"What can I do for you?"
PurpleEyes, my Doctor, says.
I do not want to talk about my condition. I hear enough horror stories on a near daily basis. "I just need you to give me a med4 form and sign it," I say quickly.
"Okay," she says. "You look a lot better."
I wonder briefly why the fact that I gave myself third degree burns in the garden that have smoothed out to brown skin and freckles makes people think I am any less sick. "Thanks," I say.
She signs the form, and looks up again at me, her lilac eyes almost mesmerising. "Well that didn't take 10 minutes," she says, far too casually.
"You see," she says, "my husband wants to secure a loan against some assets of ours..."
I roll my eyes. "Fixed or floating charge?" I say.
Labels: illness, law
According to the Department for Work and Pensions, I have proven I am sick.
Which is good.
Apparently, I have not made enough national insurance contributions to be entitled to ANY money now, even though I am broke and too sick to work. Silly me; I got sick too soon in my life. Remind me next time to pay a year's worth of lawyer's contributions and THEN get sick.
This system really disturbs me. I have been ill since January and only now do I have an answer. And it's a no. What if I lived alone? What if I had a mortgage? It does not bear thinking about.
One more reason to vote liberal democrats.
Huff.
Labels: grumbles, illness
I tear open the letter from Jay Jay frantically, my eyes scanning the words on the page.
"Diagnosis:" it reads, "post viral fatigue."
Well, we knew that I think, scanning the rest of his words.
"I have assured the patient and her father that fatigue and exhaustion following a viral infection is common although frustrating and," I gasp, "I fully expect the patient to make a full recovery in the coming months."
Tears of relief prick my eyes as I tie my shoe laces. I lock the back door behind me for the first time in months.
The sunshine warms my skin and the slight breeze dries my newly washed hair.
It takes 200 metres for me to begin feeling the pin pricks of dizzyness, exhaustion, symptoms so tiny that only someone who knows her body very well could detect them. As I turn towards home my phone rings.
"Hi," MadFather says.
"Hi," I say excitedly. "I'm NOT IN THE HOUSE."
"You what?" he says.
"I was feeling better so I'm on a - very short - walk," I say.
His pause is so long I check whether he's hung up.
"If I'm not knackered from doing this tomorrow I could do it every day," I say. "I would no longer be housebound."
"This," MadFather says finally, "is the beginning of the end."
Let's hope so.
Labels: Dad, illness
"I am watching the abortion bill," I say on the phone to MindReader.
"Oh right?" he says. "Exciting."
And he probably means it, because he did a politics degree and can stay awake during The West Wing.
"I don't really understand it, though," I say.
"No?"
"Who is the nose? And the eyes?"
MindReader's laughter is so loud I have to move the phone from my ear.
"I believe that's the
ayes in favour and the
no's against," he says, before adding, "fucking hell..."
Labels: blonde moments, MindReader
It is MindReader's birthday today.
Whilst I am only 23 he is a Very Old 26.
Birthday wishes all round people, please. If only because he puts up with my analysis of my glandular fever graph I have created on excel!
Labels: asking the internet, illness, MindReader
“Hi there, it’s Selfridges Swatch department here,” says the voice on my mobile. Finally, I think. My watch broke weeks ago and I was wondering if the watch had stayed in the rusty old drawer they’d put it in when MindReader dropped it off.
“Hi,” I say. “How’s my watch?”
“Have you got your order number?”
I roll my eyes. “My boyfriend – er – lost it,” I say. It is quite difficult dating someone similar to I am.
He puts me on hold. I drum my fingers. Apparently the order number is quite important.
“Found it,” the man says, coming back on the line. “It’s actually – as is common with skin watches – not repairable.”
“Oh,” I say.
“The good news is we can offer you a new watch from here or order a new version of your watch?”
“I’d like my watch,” I say very quickly. We are very attached to each other. “Except,” I say, “I had loads of links taken out in Milan,” a smirk, “where I bought it, would you be able to do that?”
“Suppose so,” he says.
“Except – I can’t come and be measured.”
“Why?”
I am taken aback. “I am – not very well,” I say.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I pause.
“Problem – ongoing problem… chronic…” I say, letting my voice trail off.
“Right,” he says. “It’s fine anyway, I’ve got your old measurement right here.”
He pauses.
“How small are your wrists?”
Labels: grumbles, illness, MindReader
I have given you 12 hours' sleep last night. Multivitamins. So much fresh fruit and veg that I am now pooping MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK, iron tablets so said poops are black, and only one cup of coffee per day despite the withdrawal headaches.
Now, acting on recent advice and despite MindReader SNORTING as I ordered it, you shall be taking blue-green algae and are going for a food intolerance test.
Now will you please get well!
Billygean
Labels: illness, MindReader
"One of my biggest hang ups - and one MindReader really doesn't get," I say, "is when people watch me."
"Watch you?" Anna says, the face mask cracking across her nose.
"Like - when you're meeting people in a pub and they can see you and you can't see them," I say.
"Ooh yes," Laura says, "I
hate that."
"Or," I say, "when you are meeting someone and you're walking towards each other at like 100 metres apart, I don't know where to look..."
"I know!" Anna says. "You smile at them once -
then where do you look?"
"I usually play with my phone," I say.
"And then walk past them?" Laura says and I smile.
"There's this room at work," Anna says, as Memoirs of a Geisha plays on in the background, "that I know people can see me crossing. It's like, circular -"
"Ah," I say. "Is it symmetrical?" And it is at this precise point that I realise I have no idea what I'm asking.
"Is it symmetrical?" Anna says.
"Um," I say.
"Well - it's a circle?!"
"I don't really know what I meant by that," I say, blushing. "Ignore me!"
"You
don't socialise much, do you?"
Labels: Housemates, illness
Well. It was raining this afternoon so I spent from 4 - 5pm on
sporcle. Sporcle is an amazing website if you're ill. And, well, if you have quite a good memory.
By 5pm I had memorised all 53 African countries which I am fairly proud of considering I knew 3 African countries when I started.
I feel almost like a lawyer again...
Labels: illness
"Here you are," MindReader says, handing me the giant
Lush bag.
"Ooh thank you," I say SITTING UP.
"I have to say, it was ridiculous," he says, as I pull out a creamy candy bath melt and sniff it delightedly.
"Hmm?"
"The price," he says, and I feel a blush creeping over my cheeks. Somehow, when we live together (that is, September or whenever my glands get their act together, whichever is the later) I think we may argue about money.
"I mean, a bottle of Radox is a quid and lasts ten baths," he says, ruffling my hair with a smile.
"
Radox," I say, abhorred, "is rubbish."
I sniff a coconut-scented shampoo bar. "The
worst thing about being ill," I say, which is a sentence I say a lot, "is that you can't have secrets, since everyone has to do stuff for you."
"Perhaps," MindReader says, touching my nose, "you shouldn't have to keep your bath products a secret?"
Labels: illness, MindReader
"He only thinks he'll win because he's attractive," I say to MindReader. We are watching
Come Dine With Me. I am lying across him on the sofa. "Because he thinks all women are girly floozies who will fancy him."
MindReader clears his throat, and I think faintly back to swooning over him after a glass of wine too many on practically every date we've ever been on.
"Okay," I say. "
I may be a floozy but there are plenty of feminists out there spreading the word."
His arms are across my leg and one hand fiddles with my sock.
"That's nice," he says, gesturing to the 3D butterfly sticking out of my sock.
I blush.
"Very girly," he says.
Labels: MindReader
"Okay I've bought it all," MindReader says to me. He has been to Lush for me, and although it doesn't make up for the fact that I can't go crossing roads in the sunshine and catching trains and smelling how the shop smells, it does mean I can have rather nice baths.
"Thanks," I say. "How was the law today?" For this is what I do.
"Fine," he says, "litigation for fatal accidents, fun."
"Ah," I say. "Is it cheaper to kill, then?"
He pauses for a moment and I hear the door of the shop swing shut. "It depends," he says. "It's cheaper to kill if they're single and don't have dependents."
"Ah."
"I wonder what people walking past me think of me?"
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Hello," I say into the phone. "How was the law today?"
"Boring," MindReader says. "Two youths stole a mobile phone." I can almost hear him rolling his eyes. "Allegedly. How are you feeling?"
"Crap," I say.
"What kind of crap?" He says, yawning.
"Just dizzy, I hadn't really done much but I went to find a jumper to wear out to reflexology and just got so dizzy."
"Oh dear," he says, and he yawns again.
"Am I boring you?" I say.
"No no," he says, "I've got phone yawns."
I laugh. "How did you get those?"
"Don't know," he says. "There's no explanation and no cure."
"Oh really?"
"Yep," he says. "I worry I might have them for ten years."
"Probably best not to worry about -" I catch myself. "I see," I say.
"Good!"
Labels: illness, MindReader
Oh, hello period!
I forgot what a pain you are.
But you are, on balance, less stressful than a baby!
I would very much like my period to come now.
I know I said I rather wanted a baby which is TRUE but I think now would be spectacularly bad timing. Indeed, body, you cannot even carry yourself around the house let alone another body.
So yes. Period. now, please. If nothing else but to explain my foul mood.
Regards
Billy
"Everything happens for a reason," LondonFriend says on the phone. "You'll look back on this very differently soon."
Sometimes I wonder if it has happened because of something I've done.
Because of all the pain I caused Mike, by meeting the love of my life whilst I was still walking home to our house and telling Mike all about my day, omitting details of how MindReader's ice blue eyes caught me off guard, piercing me until I felt there were shattered pieces of my obvious heart all over the campus lawn.
Or was it because of my youth, surrounded by weed at festivals, mud between my toes, sitting on the shoulders of some stranger, beer dripping in my hair? Or, at university, early mornings spent in dingy clubs, drinking dirty vodka and hailing taxis, barefoot?
Or was it because of my luck? My ability to memorise an entire page of writing in 2 minutes, or the way my skin goes golden brown in the summer? Or was it because of the happiness I found with MindReader, that has to be levelled by an unhappiness that's as intense?
Or was it because I wasn't sympathetic enough, when I saw people in wheelchairs, or for all the people I didn't see, who were in hospitals, housebound?
"I think," I say slowly, "that crap happens to everybody for absolutely no reason."
"Maybe that was the lesson you were supposed to learn."
Labels: illness, MindReader
"Well," MindReader says, only sighing slightly as he pauses the film
again. "The Russian people can't know the Americans are funding Afghanistan, so it's got to be covert."
HomeFriend went on a Buddhist yoga retreat a few weeks ago and one thing the yoga teacher said struck a chord with her -
right now, in this moment, you have all you need.
I gaze around the room. The patio doors are thrown open, the scents of summer - blossom and cut-grass and barbecue - seeping in and settling on our brown skin. I am nestled in the crook of MindReader's shoulder. There is coffee, and dark chocolate.
"... It happened in Cuba, too. The Russians apparently funded Fidel Castro to get Cuba as an ally." He pauses. "Are you listening?"
Labels: MindReader
I am in the bath.
MindReader and I have been on the phone for 64 minutes. Because this is what we do.
"Seriously," I say. "I am nervous though."
BestFriend and Boyfriend have HIRED A CAR and are coming up tomorrow for the day all the way from LONDON. Honestly if you want a constant stream of visitors, have your body stop working.
"Why?" he says.
I think for a moment, my bright pink toenails popping bubbles in the bath. "Because although I've spoken to them a lot, they haven't
seen me ill," I say. "So the last time they saw me I was having curry with them and going to bars in
Hammersmith. Now - I don't want them to be - shocked."
"I don't think you should worry about that,"
MindReader says. This is possible the sentence he says most often.
"It's normal, isn't it?" I say, "to worry about that."
I can practically
hear him scrunching his nose up. "Not really," he says.
I huff. "If I were a - a
burns victim," I say irrationally, since I look exactly the same, "I would worry about people seeing me for the first time."
"You are!"
"What?"
"... Sunburn!"
Labels: illness, MindReader
I have stripped off on the Very Cold Bed. I am in a white bra (standard) and blue French knickers, which, in hindsight, is a bit jazzed up. But I am not matching so perhaps it looks accidental.
"Well,"
JayJay says. "That's quite some sunburn you have there."
I nod. I usually go olive brown. Perhaps not having been outside since February has something to do with my neon glow.
He does lots of strange things, like pulling down my eyelids, banging a rubbing thingy on my knee and scraping a key along the sole of my foot. I wonder briefly if he is a real Doctor.
"Well," he says. "You're very healthy, looking at your blood tests and your physique."
I roll my eyes. Obviously I am making this tiredness
crap up then.
"Get dressed," he says briskly, drawing the curtains.
I put my skirt back on (yes! skirt!) and beautiful
turquoise vest top. And one sock. I twirl around and around. Where is other sock?
I put my boots on minus a sock and sit patiently whilst he tells me Horror Stories.
I realise in the car that my sock - in the removal of my skirt - had TRAVELLED UP MY BODY and was NESTLED IN MY PANTS.
It looked kind of like I had a penis.
Which leads me to question his expertise all over again.
OldTutor's eyes are a calming blue-green.
"They diagnosed me today," I say, "with chronic fatigue syndrome. Also known as M.E."
He puts the tips of his fingers together and surveys me over them for a long time.
Then he stares into the distance.
"It is clear that, for now at least," he says, adjusting his enormous glasses, "God wants you to be a writer."
Labels: illness
HORRIBLE doctor with hair that stuck up more than mine has diagnosed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
He also came up with such gems like "Just write off the rest of 2008" and "DO try to stay positive about the things that you can do."
Like. Lying Down. And More Lying Down.
I am telling you guys when I myself am still reeling from the diagnosis because so many of my readers have written to me telling me they love the honesty my illness has brought to this blog.
1. What underwear should I wear? Are these yellow and black ones too sexy? How about all the formerly white ones MadFather dyed blue?
2. I know I have lymph nodes in my neck, armpits, groin and RECTUM. Does this mean you are going to examine my bum?
3. What should I do with my bikini line? I have been experimenting in that area and I don't really want you to see the results, to be honest.
4. Are you planning on using the word "sinister" in my appointment? I.e. Sunny smile, let's just check it's nothing sinister, which means - it
might be.
5. Are you planning on saying M.E. / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because if you are I will LEAVE.
Oh Blog Readers. The denial of 4 months' illness is coming to a head in the office of a man named Jay Jay.
Also, they're taking blood. Expect anger from my platelets.
"Well I hope you had fun," I say sarcastically to MindReader.
"Mmm," he says. "I love being questioned about whether you have heatstroke. Which you don't."
"See you tomorrow," I say, my very sunburnt face in his neck.
"Shall we go?" I say to MadFather. We are off to reflexology. Because it is Working.
The car drives up a hill, the lights of the city shimmering pinpricks below. The sun is setting; low in the sky casting blood-red rays over the roads.
I see someone in a car behind us, bright blond hair, sunglasses, one arm effortlessly resting on the steering wheel. I stare at him.
Until he waves, and I realise it is MindReader. "He's so pretty," I say, although I admit I may be biased by the fact that we spent the afternoon half dressed in the garden together.
"Get over it you lovesick person," MadFather says. "I am very jealous."
Labels: Dad, illness, MindReader
It is weird to go into hibernation.
I take MindReader's hand and pull him onto the drive as MadFather makes breakfast.
"When did it get this warm?" I say. The temperature outside is warmer than in.
"Not that long ago," he says.
I squint at the blossom petals falling all over the lawn, at the blooming leaves on the trees, breathe in the scent of evergreen trees, of playing tennis in my street, of sports days and sun tan lotion.
"This time last year," I say, turning to MindReader with a smile, "we were..."
He smiles back, "Mmm," he says.
It is surreal to lose half a year of your life (and counting), I muse as I lie on the sunbed, long after MindReader had driven home.
Even though I am pretty much no better, lying on the sunbed reading a book is what I would be doing if I wasn't sick. Watching TV show after TV show and - even - writing a novel, is not.
I open my eyes to the bright blue sky, watch a robin hop along our stone wall.
Bliss, even if just for a day.
I look at my watch. 5:40.
I have missed a TV show.
This feels wonderful.
Labels: illness, MindReader
"I'm going to BAKE,' I say to MindReader as soon as he arrives.
"Bake?" he says, silently surveying my mound of pillows that I have been propped up on for 11 weeks, my tray that slides over the sofa so I can make cards and matchstick cathedrals lying down.
"Yes," I say. A while ago,
superfi made white chocolate and raspberry blondies. She is a Good Cook and very in control (and also! pregnant so I am envious of her on several levels thanks to my newfound slightly broody state), so I suspected it would be a disaster. It was.
"I can measure out my ingredients on the table lying down, mix lying down and then you can put them in the oven!"
"Okay," he says, rolling up his sleeves. That's the thing about MindReader, he never
minds, even if he'd rather be doing anything else. Me? I always mind.
He places eggs, flour, sugar and baking powder on my table. He disappears out of the room.
I survey my table and pull it towards me. It hits my knee. WITHOUT THINKING I decide to adjust the height. Needless to say, half of the table drops down about a foot and THE FLOUR AND THE SUGAR AND THE BAKING SODA GO EVERYWHERE.
They did though - after MindReader cried with laughter and hoovered up the sugar - turn out quite nice.
I was not too weak to do the whisking, moreover I got bored:
And yes, that is The Hills on my television.
Labels: MindReader
HomeFriend is here.
"How do you do it?" I say.
"We're just... happy. And then the kids left home and it just went back to how it was before we had them."
"How so?"
"Laughing a lot, silly holidays, spending too much money," she says, and I sigh.
"How long has it been?"
"25 years," she says, and there's that telltale blush of somebody still in love.
"How did you know it would work?" I say. "Because every time I think about it I wonder how you
know. Even if you think he's perfect how do you know he'll be able to deal with death, with babies and depression?"
"I didn't," she says simply. "And the weirdest thing is, it's not a
big event, a marriage. It's just day after day after day." She pauses. "It's just another bowl of Cornflakes."
I grab a pen and paper.
"What...?" she says.
"I knew you'd give me a quote for my novel today," I say. "How perfect,
another bowl of cornflakes."
I gasp and shrink closer to MindReader.
"What's wrong?" he says.
"Is that a spider?" I say, looking at the black blob by the door.
"Don't think so," he says, squinting.
I move cautiously closer. "Oh no!" I coo. "A little woodlouse is stuck on his back."
For some reason we are plagued by woodlice at this time of year.
"Ah, rescue it," MindReader says, one eye on the football.
I creepy forward on my hands and knees, my ass most probably in the air.
My hand reaches the woodlouse, gently rolling it onto its front. And then -
A spider (at LEAST the size of a 10 pence coin) runs across the carpet RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HAND. MindReader has not been unfortunate enough to see me with very many spiders.
I shriek and jump back four feet. MindReader immediately envelops me in his arms whilst I march on the spot, avoiding the spider obviously.
"It KNEW," I say. "They KNOW they're dealing with arachnophobes and that's who they attack!"
"What?"
"It PLANTED the woodlouse. It was a scapegoat in its evil plan to attack me!"
His face is a picture.
Labels: MindReader
"I can't remember why I made you sit on the other sofa," I say to MindReader, musing on whatever it was that made me grumpy last night.
"I think you were -" MindReader puffs his cheeks out, a universal signal for when I am feeling sick.
"Oh," I say, laughing. "I think we need a word for when I'm moaning about feeling sick and never being sick."
"Um," MindReader says, a smile winging across his features "overreacting?"
Labels: MindReader
