Restart

Having claimed that I could not get Blogger to work on my old computer, I did what I always do, poke at everything, until I look up and say,
"Oh, thats better."
So here we are. No new computer, one failed attempt, and a packed  month. Different people came through and stayed with us,which was fantastic The year then took a body swerve, culminating in an election thats sets us up for a very interesting 4 years.
Right, lets check if this still works.

Reboot.

I killed my computer months ago, drowned it on the table in front of me. I watched it try to keep on going, then the screen faded, and it became a dead brick. Bugger I thought, looking at the empty pint glass of water , which lay looking slightly abashed.

 "Again you moron?" it seemed to say. 

I decided not to buy a new computer. I stuck to what I thought. Today I picked up a refurbished Macbook pro. Its not brand new, but it does exactly what I want, and my tunes came in magically from where they've been hiding for the last few months. I can now record the songs I've been writing for the past few months. As ever, pretty tunes, apocalypse lyrics. 

All I have to do is keep this puppy from the lethal swim from a tumbling glass, and I think we will be fine...hmm.....

Bloody minded.

People have told me for years that I'm bloody minded. 

"When you decide to do something, it's best to get out of your way." 

I always thought this was bollocks, but it turns out they were right. This morning when I got up it was raining.

"It'll probably back off," I told myself. An hour later it was still coming down. This was the moment when I had every reason to say,"ah well, no walking this morning." 

This is not what I did. I decided to avoid my usual urban start, and head straight to the park. It was very different, in that I usually enter the park after 2 miles. 

My solution was to walk around finding new routes, until I was happy that I had covered the distance I was aiming for. Ideally I want to start the day with 4 miles. I nearly got it today, but the sky opened up, so I wandered home. 

What?!!! What happened to eating biscuits and swearing at the news? Turns out that I can do both. All I can say is that I honestly did not see this coming, but I'm very happy that it's here.

Day starts

Today is starting as all of my days have started for the past month. I wake up by 5am and put on some coffee , of which I will drink a cup and a half. I'll eat a banana and a granola bar, and drink some water. I then get myself ready and walk out of my front door as the day breaks, it's best if I wait until light is beginning to come up. I've gone out earlier, and realised that the hour between the end of night and the beginning of the new day is interesting, but best avoided, 

I then go out on the road and try and  walk until I've hit two miles. I then go into the park and try to get upto 4 miles. Then I come home looking like I've been in a bath. Drink some more coffee, have a shower, day starts. I've tried the other way, drink coffee, eat biscuits, swear at the news, and sulk my way into the day, This new way is more difficult, but it makes the rest of the day a lot more fun,

What is that?

Outside of my infusion day, I've been starting every day by walking at least two and a half miles, I walked a mile over the day when I had the infusion. Today I noticed something I wasn't expecting. I think I'm feeling a little bit healthier. I thought I was supposed to feel entirely shitty, all the time. Hmm.... What shall I do with that?

Test.

I knew when I decided to wake up and go walking every morning that there would come a day where I thought "Fuck this!" That morning was this morning. I hoofed out of the door at 545 in order to beat the earth burning. I hadn't calculated the humidity, which was brutal. I hadn't fully accounted for how urban a walk I was taking, and got to meet a nice bloke, who did his spiel, and then tried to hit me up for some cash. I wasn't carrying any, so he wandered off. I saw the nice police cyclist again, who now wished me a cheery good morning, and took me off of his potential early morning criminal list. It was going great.

Then I hit mile 2 and I felt every step of it until I got home. This is the point where you can say "fuck that!" However, this time I have decided that I'll go with it. 2 and a half miles in killer humidity, I  came home looking like id been in the bath. So today is indeed  a fuck it day. I've decided fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway.

Dawn parade

This morning I woke up really early. I figured that I better get a walk in before the earth burns. I went out of my front door, it was  still dark. My plan to go straight to the park adjusted. In my mind there are people currently leaving that park who been around all night. Bullshit! I thought and wandered down the road under the lights.
I got to the back of Schiller park and thought,
"Sod it, I'll go through anyway!"
This was going great until I saw a figure standing under a tree in the distance. Dawn was beginning to break, but it was still a little spooky. The figures head was staring down, he wasn't moving at all.
"Bollocks!" I thought and walked on. I looked again, still no movement. I was getting closer. He flinched, and waved his hand. Pokemon Go......
I wandered on, sat on a bench, said good morning to the nice police cyclist, who wasn't really sure what I was doing there, and then came home.
The day is now starting to heat up, and tomorrow is going to be worse. Early morning urban walking again, maybe he'll catch the Pokemon this time.

Sea change

I've been back from England for a couple of days. I landed three weeks ago, and then bounced around, until we flew back on Sunday. We flew not knowing if our flight would be pulled when we got to Newark, every weather report hinted that it would. Other people had already rebooked their flights for the following day, so that if we got stuck, we couldn't get out of Newark for at least 2 days. It does make flying in a lot more exciting.

We got delayed a bit, ordered food using the iPad thingy they now have set up, like Blade Runner, but a lot more shit, and expensive enough to bring a tear to your eye. Apparently the chicken sandwich is made of gold.

Fantastic time at my mum and dads houses. Don't drink Bombadier....don't ask. Amazing wedding of two of my best friends, Becky and Reid. You don't see a day of such pure joy that often, I feel privileged to have been there.

The sea change is that I decided to wake up early and walk everyday. Today I was out really early as this day and those following this week, are going to fry.

I spent years believing that the MS meant that I couldn't really walk. Turns out that I was wrong. 2 miles a day, not bad.

Re-repair.

My happiness with finding all my old tunes on my old computer became somewhat dulled when it fell on its arse and refused to come out to play. I spent the next couple of weeks lamenting the loss of all those tunes I had found again, and moved over to streaming Radio 6. However, last night something struck me. I cannot quite remember exactly what tmy inspiration was, but whatever I did, means that I'm now sitting happily typing very badly, listening to all my old tunes, on the newly resurrected Itune sound bank. Am I a computer genius? Am I fuck. Cool tunes though....

Kill or Cure.

There are often reports that MS can be cured. Usually once I check into them, they turn out to be bollocks, pitched by a snake oil salesman, or by a deluded well-meaning sort, who,
" Really has got a hold of this beast!" Bless.
This is why I don't ever get my hopes up. However, the clinic trial in Canada does look very interesting. All the reports I've read about it say the same thing. If it works its amazing, if not, it can kill you. Its an ultra aggressive course of chemo therapy, where your immune system is destroyed, and then replaced with one built from your blood which hasn't yet been affected with MS. One person has died doing it. The infusion regime I do once a month has killed a lot more people than that. The fact that they admit just how dangerous it is, makes me think that this really might work.
Its like a greasy spoon thats been shut down a few times. So what if they got caught out, you know that it will taste great, and you can't fault them for effort. Does this mean that I'm now taking the top bacon sandwich approach to health? Well, I've tried everything else.

Shopping.

Beth and I decided to do our food shopping n the worst afternoon of the week. We entered he Friday fuck-fest, full of people hoping against hope that this time it would be a much better party than the last. No crying. no sirens, no permanent wreckage.This afternoon is often followed by buggered brunch sunday, where a table of the surviving friends try to peace together exactly where it all went so wrong. The tipping point usually has a name, which will be sneered into dust over over-priced eggs.
But, today I found a jar of dry roasted peanuts. The firat one I ate took me back to a New Years Eve in the 70's. Kev and I were at my Nan and Grandad's house, playing a game called Knightmare on our 48k ZX Spectrum! We drank cokes.  ate peanuts and cheese, it was great. I think our friend Stuart Bradley's sister was banysitting.  She was really cool, and we played records, you know, on a record player! Top memory, cost me a peanut.
So, if your party kicks off,go home and eat something you haven't had for ages, Little Debbie maybe? Cheaper than frowning, hung over a slowly decaying  Sunday platter, that you can'r remember ordering in the fist place....

The joy of books.

Our new library is now open on Parsons Ave. Its around the corner from our house. I joined it yesterday. I hadn't been in a library for far too long. There is something about being surrounded by books that I adore. I could look through them for as long as I wanted, then choose something that caught my eye, but that I knew nothing about, and then sit in a comfortable chair and read for a while to see if I liked it. I really did.

The book is by an author I'd never heard of, Antonya Nelson, her short story collection Funny Once. I was halfway through the first story when I knew that I'd been taking her book home. I get to keep it until the end of June. Her writing is excellent, I don't think i'm going to need that long.

The library is a modern take on the old staple, there is a lot of space, a lot of computers, and you check out the books using barcodes on terminals near the main desk. The library was full of people. A lot of kids doing projects the library had set up, adults frowning in concentration at computers, doing work they were trying to get their heads around. And, there were people just sitting around reading. Perfect.

MS stopped me from reading properly for years. Optic neuritis blurred everything into a mangled mess. This began to sort itself out a few years ago. While my eyesight holds up, I will be visiting this little slice of heaven a lot.

i think that I said it before, my kindle is great, but it's not close to the experience of reading a physical book. This was something that I couldn't do for a long time, see mangled mess comment above. 

We ended the day by going to the House of BBQ and Blues, a food truck on Parsons, If you get the chance, go to the library. If you're as lucky as I am, you'll get to end your day with fantastic BBQ.

Post soundtracked by Radio 6.

Food Folly.

I think i was inspired by the Play post of this morning. Beth and I went to an excellent Vietnamese restaurant on Bethel Road. I decided to push it a little. I don't know if you've ever had shredded pork skin. My advice? If you know whats coming. and that  you are not going to sit there looking at a perfectly good dish, whilst it slowly dawns on you  that shredded pork skin is a little to on the nose  a description for you to handle what is coming? Have at it. I tried, but the description defeated me. My fault entirely. Still, nothing ventured....No. I should have known better. Sod it, I did know better, and I ordered it anyway.
Great dessert....

Play.....

LBC radio is currently running a program on how kids are being molly coddled, and not being trained about some of  the risks of out and about. The show's premis is based on how many times we should have been killed when we were kids.
 I had a bit of a think. My number of narrowly avoided deaths is quite high. Do I think these were valuable lessons? Well, sort of. I still make potentially fatal mistakes every now and again, but I do spot them coming a lot quicker. I wouldn't try and build a treehouse out of rotten wood from the garden again. I still have the scar on my left wrist as a salutary reminder. Is that the worst thing I ever did? No, not even close.
Did I get knocked down by a double decker bus? Yes. Was it my fault? Yes.  Did I nearly fall in a lake in the pitch black at midnight last weekend? Yes. Was that my fault? Hell yes! Come to think of it, I'm not a great safety mascot, though I am the poster child for the.
"Have fun, you never know!"crowd.
Is that a soubriquet I wanted? No. But, would I change anything? I could do without the MS. but other than that? I don't think so. I am a terrible example, but I do know this, be comfortable with yourself, let no one tell you who you are, throw away the rotten wood in the garden, and you will be fine. Don't bounce it up with a Double decker bus either, I still have no idea how I walked away from that one.....

Day two in computer past

This computer is not that old. The keyboard is much better, I can actually read the screen, and my tunes sound much better than when they were being produced by my laptop. The laptop's half hearted pitch through its abysmal speakers always came through as a sneer.
"Buy some decent speakers to plug into me you cheap fuck! Bargain basement computer fool, just my luck."
"Yeah, well it turns out you cant sing or swim for shit!"
No response, as my narky laptop is now an expensive aluminium ornament.
The internet is working slow but ok, the email is like a distressed old lady lost in a supermarket, being guided by a kid whose first day is not working out as well as he had hoped.
What I seem to have is an excellent word processor with top tunes, and intermittent communication with a future world its creator did not foresee. Not as easy, but way more productive.

Reconstruction

I leant my mate Patsy my desktop computer a long time ago.
"What do I need that for? I have my lovely mini laptops."
 The laptops are now all dead, all drowned, by accident, by me. Patsy delivered my old clunky desktop back to me last night. Its fucking great! Its a little slow, but it does exactly what I ask it to do. It also has a massive Itunes library, that I had forgotten about No streaming, just a ton of cds that I love, and had ripped to the hard drive over the years. Much like a beautifully designed book that wins out over a kindle, though I love my kindle. This old school hard drive was always full of that I wanted, and has been waiting patiently all this time, knowing that I would be coming back eventually....Old school technology for the win. Ah.....

Abbey x

Beth is down in Illinois, so I'm on my own in the house. I was dreading this, as the house is far too quiet since Abbey's death. Abbey's passing was totally unexpected, we thought she had hurt her back, and that we were going to the vet to get some dog aspirin. Then we found out that she was a lot sicker than she looked, one of the last images of her that I remember was her padding happily into the vets.

Everything  turned awful very quickly, and she passed away with Beth and I holding her as she died, We didn't have to put her down, she was just done. She was an amazing pooch, loving, with her own way of doing things. she was the reason that I was up every morning, at the time she felt her breakfast should be served. One of the horrors of MS is how much time that you have to spend alone, as the world moves on without you. Abbey made every day easier for me, no matter how difficult ieverything was. Thank you  so much Abbey, you rest now, good girl x

Not waving...

I'm now typing away using a keyboard that is connected to my iPad mini. This works out just fine, which is just as well, considering that I drowned my computer using a pint of water propelled by a twitchy wrist a couple of weeks ago. This should be a message to us all, 

"I don't care how much work you've done, how pretty it is, how happy you are with your lovely screen and how pleased as punch you are that you can keep all of your stuff in one place. You are a glass of water from doom!"

Paper can be dried out.....

Pep.

I've had MS for 26 years, 28 if I take it back to the warning shots across the bow, whilst I was LSE. This is a long arse time, more than half my life. I cant remember not being sick.

However, I do remember having a lot of fun, while the nightmare unfolded. I got to do a lot if things I always wanted to do, and do them as well as I could. I had to stop doing them as the nightmare progressed, and once I'd stopped sulking, and MS sulks are epic, I always found myself looking around for something else to try.

Currently, I get to do a radio play, something That I always wanted to do, and I still get to do impro, which I have loved doing for years.

Having wondered how on earth I am still here for the last few years, I have concluded that I'm not going anywhere for a while.

What am I saying? We all look into abyss sometimes, some of us spend our life-dancing on the edge. Nothing is impossible, just really tricky, and it can be brutally unfair.  My advice? Keep dancing, there is fun in there somewhere.

Black Swan

The  past few weeks have been as odd as I was expecting. One of the certainties of MS, is how far off track I get thrown when the weather gets in a snit, and can't decide how she wants to be.

"Do I look good raining? Is that best cold , or confusingly warm?"

Now, reverse that, make everything warm and raining, now warm and clear, hang on, let's be cold for a day. Bugger. 

The coaster rolls on. 

Fooled

Beth has gone home for the weekend. As always happens when I have the house to myself, the first few days are a little relaxed when it comes to optimum tidy.
"I'll sort this all out by Monday night. Hoover, bleach, sparkly, got it."
I get a message this morning.
"I'm an hour out. I'll see you soon!"
Shit!
I phone Beth immediately. She knew I was going to do that, and spun it out for a few minutes, until letting me off with a delighted "April Fools!"
Bugger. I am that easy to read.

Settling.

Its Friday. I had this months infusion on Wednesday. As happens every month, my blood takes a few days to absorb the drug I've had thrown into it. I'm still a little hazy, but things have relaxed quite a bit.
I know its still odd as I found myself listening to Wild Brain, a quiz from 1997 on Radio 4 Extra, and really pulling for Mr Sanders. He had an iffy second round, but I thought he'd pulled it back in the buzzer round. One answer out, nice try Mr Sanders.
There is a part of me that isn't convinced that I actually heard that, why would you put on a wild life quiz from 1997? I have this image in my mind of Mr Sanders sat crouching in front of his radio muttering and wincing to himself.
"I knew that. I knew that!" Don't revisit the loss Mr Sanders, move on my friend.
As I said, the blood takes a while to settle. ….

Reality Check

Last night, as I do any Thursday I can, I went to the impro drop in at Gressos. I always enjoy going, it is an accepting, safe room to work in, which is less common than you would think. I knew I was a little ropey (ill for my American friends) going in.
I got more into what we were doing as we went along, and finished out on a good pitch at the host of party quirks. Its a game where you to guess what other people are, and I always end up trying to figure out American historical figures that everyone knows i don't have a clue about. I love playing the game, as i know that I'm going to fuck it up.
At the end of the game I knew I'd pushed a little too far, and I felt my legs beginning to die a little. This was more helpful than you would think as I was beginning to think about getting back into performing live. The truth is that the drug I infuse means that I can walk, which I like, and that my MS is backed off to a certain extent. Last night was a small reminder of the cost I used to pay performing.
It doesn't mean that the Thursdays are done, I really like them. It was a useful heads up.

Cobble

I've spent time this morning trying to convince my AT and T Uverse to behave itself. I've checked the cables, rebooted it, and generally tried to cajole the miscreant back to life. No luck. The screen works for a little while, every now and again. Then, she goes back to sulking. Cow.

Internet? Spotty ate  best. Patched together using a personal hotspot off of my iPhone. But, I do have radio, books and guitars to play. So, sulk all you like, I was planning on bouncing you out anyway. Though, TV this evening, with proper Internet would be nice....

All the news that's fit…?

I download an English newspaper to my Kindle pretty much everyday. I've been downloading the Independent during the week,  The Times, and The New York times on a Sunday. This week I was out and picked up a physical copy of The New York Times, which is excellent. I thought, I'll try a copy of the Sunday Telegraph, see how the annoyed right wingers are doing. Oh….
One of their Sunday articles, the hair down there,  was about hollywood regret, how women who had had their pubic hair permanently lasered away, were attempting to get it back. Really. Apparently its very difficult and painful to bald it out to start, and really painful to get the roots back. I wasn't expecting that. I wonder... What will todays Telegraph will have?
It will have a story about a  porn boss who fell in love with his Dominatrix, and got ripped off by her. He keeps going to court for money and losing, I'm not sure if he's secretly really enjoying the shame. There is a town, Stockton-on-Tees that has had the bust of the wrong John Walker on display since1977. Maybe I've been misreading the Telegraph all these years. This is top entertainment!
Hang on, the house of Lords wants 80,000 pounds from the government, or they will end the 1,000 year old practice of printing Britain's laws on vellum. Phew! Balance restored.

Friday.

Come to think of it that weeks end thingy was a little premature, as I'm only really recovering today. Recovering on a lovely where the fuck is the sun day, which promised  snow apocalypse across the news this morning, followed by not a lot, as Columbus is not being hit that badly. As the flu flew, at whatever pace it liked, I got to do a load of tricky stuff, which January always brings.
 I got some super extra fun stuff as as I noticed my credit card being enjoyed by some tosser who likes Walmart. All done, so I now get to enjoy the grey sky, that sits like a relative who never wanted to come to your party anyway, but will stay for a nice long while, so that times not completely wasted.

Weeks End.

Having spent most of the last week loaded on NyQuil fighting against a flu that doesn't realize that the party is over and its time to go, I think its finally beginning to put its coat on. Its still looking around, listening to the tunes that I ran past it, but it finally seems to have copped to the fact that it is no longer welcome. I had the Flu shot. for the first time ever! Nothing. I know some would say, 

"Imagine how much worse it would have been with out it?"

I don't think that could have been any more trippy to be honest, short of an actual Dragon turning up. Haze now lifting, real world slowly coming back into view. Its still Winter? Bollocks.

Flued...

Wednesday, I had my first infusion of the year. It was fine and everything went well. Then Thursday turned up.
I was hit with an appalling cough,sleep riven eyes, a nose raining snot into the abyss, and a face that felt like someone had been punching it for quite a while. Since I had just had my infusion, I ran through the check-list for Tysabri drug armageddon in my head. I figured out I wasn't looking at total doom, just nasty flu. Goody.
Its now Saturday, and NyQuil and myself have been taking a good punt at kicking this flu out. I did get a flu shot, but this version was apparently hiding around the corner.
 I can recommend River on Netflix.

Great Weekend Bad Monday

I woke up this morning to the news that David Bowie had died. I'm currently listening to 2 hour show done by Bowie on Radio 2. The first thing that I heard on the show was an introduction by  John Peel. So, thats two people that I really like, that have passed, who are now talking to me across the radio, which itself now lives in a worldwide cyber cache, that I can pick at as I like. The internet at its best,  is a never ending high art and ideas pick and mix, though it is important to remember that a glut of information does not automatically indicate deep or indeed any understanding on any topic. It does mean you can make yourself into a fact regurgitaing party guest that everyone is happy to see leave.
Chicago was fantastic, even the moment where I didn't see the three stairs which dipped steeply in front of me. I cleared them and crashed to the floor.  I then crawled across the floor so that I could pull myself up on a chair, just ahead of the arrival of the worried hotel staff. As always I 'd like to thank my MS Yoga class for training me to fall like a stuntman. All I need now is an instant bruise fix.

Brrr….

Up early 18F. Lovely. The water main hasn't burst, so i get to have some coffee. Lovelier.  N. Korean H Bomb claim? Bollocks. New English voice of Isis? Used to sell bouncy castles. Next up? Clowns!! Trump racist with pace. New year gun deaths? Sure. Republicans licking the NRA's arse? Legion. More coffee? Very necessary.

Coldfulness.

I'm at me house, its fucking freezing! I'm listening to Radio 5, with RubyWax talking about Mindfulness. Maybe the cold has tripped me out a bit. I've heard about Mindfulness quite a bit, if you do Yoga, it comes up. Basically it means focus, and don't worry about everything,  all of the time. You can read it as religio, snake oil, black arts. Its very useful, though I would personally recommend listening to some music, and chilling the fuck out.
Going on the weather, I'd also recommend moving to somewhere warm. I've thought it through, I don't need seasons. Shorts weather all the time would be fine, I'll watch snow on the telly...

New year

A very happy new year to all. We had a fantastic New Year's Eve with Leslie, Ian, Max and Ed, playing games, and the eating great food which they bought with the hem. Total hoot, and a lot more fun than going out trying to run the gamut of the amateur drinkers. It'll be a great new year! Does not need to be covered in vomit and crying. 

Today? I'd say indoors, as its 25F outside....weather report :fucking freezing! its not as bad as its going to get, time to whack out the comedy polar clothes from the back of the closet and Eskimo it up.