Truths of Old

Happiness?

"after (the ex), have u been happy?"

Happiness, like grief, is such a subjective thing.

Have I been happy? I think I've been happier. I learnt to laugh again, and I learnt to appreciate my liberty, and my own company more.

In between I've had the usual share of frustrations, almost attractions, disappointments, and peroids of anger and upset.

I've laughed a lot, but I haven't really been laughing for real ... from that elusive place deep inside me where true happiness emanates from.

That's something I've been missing ever since K.

*****
Grief

Ask any medical student in the UK what "grief" is, and chances are their eyes will glaze over as they intone the mantra "Kubler-Ross, on Grief and Bereavement, chapter 1..."

Or, if they're like me, they'll just smile foolishly and say something about missing those lectures on a sunny summer afternoon in favour of a nice pint of Stella...

Anyway, Kubler-Ross was a psychiatrist (yes, she's dead now, and long may the world mourn her in the ways she saw fit) who defined grief, in terms of stages. They aren't chronological phases, one doesn't necessarily follow the other... but to her mind at least, it gave her a framework with which to identify grief, and recognise "normal" grieving (which, although not chronological, had to necessarily culminate in acceptance. How weird is that?)

The stages Kubler-Ross identified were:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

To everyone who knows me in real life, and to everyone who doesn't, I pray that you may have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful year ahead.

I watched a large group of people revel last night. There was dancing, drinking, and mediocre singing.

I couldn't, though. Somehow.

I looked out the window, and thought for a long while...

And then I came home, and chatted online, and felt sad for someone else's sadness.

*****

In the meanwhile, I have repaired this link.

Okay, so this morning I'm minding my own business pottering around at home recovering from my appendicectomy, and throwing up profusely (something to do with banana milk. Don't ask) when this shocking pink mazda RX8 with blinding-purple headlamps, oversize spoiler (with feathers stuck on for some reason) and momo steering wheel roars into my driveway.

I can't help but notice the translucent hello kitty stickers stuck big big across the windshield.

And then this... ultra-hot, mucho-sexy five-foot-seven girl (with large headlamps herself) unfolds out the car, slinks up to me, and slaps me.

Turns out it's celeste, LMD's... ah, business associate cum fren. She is very upset with my last post, and demands a withdrawer, whatever that is.

I tell her that I much prefer strategic insertions to withdrawals, but she doesn't laugh.

And then, to add injury to injury, she tells me that if I do not crarify, she is going to tell her boyfren to zhng my face.

So okay, okay, here is my heartfelt apology to any offended parties.

When I referenced sadness in my last entry, I was just associating the word "sadness" with her post, because, well, she was writing about sadness.

That's all I meant.

I didn't mean in any way to insinuate that LMD is materialistic and money grubbing, and hung up on the 5 Cs, 1L and 1 P. I just link one word for one meaning, wor.

If I had intended to, I would have made it look like this :

"I think it's because the government needs its sheep to be slightly kancheong, very jealous, and very very materialistic."

Right, anot? :)

I have a new head minion!

Unlike his minions, however, mine doesn't do sexy lesbian kisses or sexy lesbian dances.

However, she does do dinners at nice places, and windows. (It was in the contract)

All for minimal pay, long hours overtime, and no health benefits whatsoever.

:)

*****
There's a form of sadness that's pretty pervasive in Singapore. It's not quite depression, with its associated anhedonia... just a gentler, subtler absence of true happiness.

I think it stems from something integral to our culture. It's an insiduous sickness inculcated into all of us since childhood, that a few of us (especially those who have lived abroad) - when we become aware of it - begin to struggle with.

I'm not sure I can pin it down to any one thing, but I suspect it has to do with repression, and a lack of... freedom.

It's not overt - it isn't as if all of us need, or even desire absolute political freedom, or the freedom to, say, dance on bartops, ahaha. It's more subliminal.

I think a reporter named Laurel Teo touched on this, once, during the depths of the nation's economic crisis (which miraculously ended the day BG Lee ascended to his hereditary throne, ahaha, I jest of course. BG Lee earned his right to his hereditary throne through blood sweat and good genes, ok?) when she suggested that the goalposts had shifted with the onset of widespread unemployment, and that perhaps it was time to relinquish, at least in part, the great Singapore dream of the five Cs - cash, car, credit card, condominium, and country club, and settle for just being happy with what we already have.

There's actually a bit more to the Great Singaporean Dream.

Love (L), Marriage (M), or at least posessing a partner (followed by baby) are amogst the unspoken quasi-"status symbols" we get hung up on a lot. (eg : This is my husband.. oh are you still single? Or : ____(generic daughter's name) ah, why aren't you marred yet? (daughter's friends name) is already married, have children already you know! When are you going to give us grandchildren?!? etc)

Worse still, there's an immense (and again, unspoken) pressure to satisfy the C/L/M requirements ludicrously quickly - before youth begins to slip away at.. 24? 25?

To make-up for the gaping, letterless voids in our lives, we find surrogate happy-makers. Blading, computer gaming, clubbing, drinking... and it's good while we do it, sure. But when we wake up tomorrow, we're still C-less, L-less or M-less.

And therein lies the problem - we're all so hung up on "material" (here I include L and M since they're often more prizes and status symbols than acts of sincerity) wants and desires that we can't see the wood for the trees. Being happy isn't about having things to touch, or people to command or be commanded by.

Being happy is about being happy.

It's all in our heads.

All of us are different - it takes different things to make us happy. To subscribe to a universal template of "perfection" is ludicrous unless one truly believes that the powers that be have created the ideal, homogenous society.

So we're all (well most of us) dark haired and slit eyed in this country.

Big deal. Some of us find happiness in film-making, some in photography, others in... err wantonly trimming hapless eyebrows, still others in attempting to kill their friends during extreme sport. I find happiness living by the sword (it's been a while now) and in a cup of chai (preferably a vat).

It's all good. If you really, really want to be happy... then you probably won't. You just gotta slide into it... a bit like looking at a 3D stereogram, methinks. It just happens. And it comes from inside your head.

You have to be happy with what you have, already. Take a chapter from the ozzies. And if you can't, take a chapter from the Brits - go out and get pissed. Laugh.

Why, then did then Patriach, PM Goh Chok Tong in his inaugral national day rally speech admonish irresponsible elements of society for daring suggest we pause for a moment to smell the roses? And why do so many of us hanker for the serenity and beauty of Australia, nevermind that it is supposed to be full of racist bigots who openly hate yellow people, as opposed to racist bigots who secretly hate indian, malay and "others" people? (ah yes, still waters run deep even in sunny singaland.)

And why then, did the poor reporters who had tried to do nothing more than think and dream about another Singaland wind up in the presidential palace being rapped sharply on the knuckles by our ubermensch (over dinner).

I think it's because the government needs its sheep to be slightly kancheong, very jealous, and very very materialistic.

We've heard the catchphrase a million times. We have no natural resources - all we have are our people.

And guess what? That's what we do, as a nation. To stay ahead... we mine our people.

We mine the happiness of our people, to be precise.

There's a reason why people in this counry get so upset over not finding their perfect partner, their car, their condo etc quickly enough (ie, by 24). Don't get me wrong - this train of thought exists the world over - but it somehow feels especially prominent here in Singapore. And the reason isn't Them, the ubiquitous men in white. It's us, with our secret jealousies and our hidden envy of our neighbours and friends, who already seem to have that first or second C (or M, see above) that we're still searching for.

Perhaps it is in the government's interests that the people stay competitive and materialistic, so that the country will stay "ahead". Or perhaps that's just a misguided ideal... who can truly say.

But the truth is... we're doing it to ourselves.

We're pushing ourselves into cranky, bitter depression.

And until the day we grow out of it... we will never truly be a mature, or gracious people.

Bad

In my list of "bads" last post, I forgot to mention the most heinous sin of all...

Whilst being mauled by LMDs Terror, I fought valiantly to fend him off, taking both his paws in mine and leading him a litle jig.

Pain flared in old wound, and I straightened just a tad involuntarily...

... lifting poor Terror off his hind feet and flipping him over onto his back.

There was a dull thud, and Terror lay dazed for a fraction of a second, staring up at me in doggy disbelief...

before rolling over and stomping off in a huff.

*****
Sad

to be continued

First, the Good

*****
No Time

I've been taking it easy these past few days. I'm on MC after my little misadventure with an acute appendicitis. (self-diagnosed based primarily on history, and secondarily but perhaps more importantly on pain - read excruciating agony - ... then confirmed on histology)

This is the first time I've ever taken medical leave since starting work as a doctor, barring an afternoon many moons ago when I was but a fledgeling medical house officer, after a particularly severe attack of what looked suspiciously like rice-water stool. On that occasion, the boss - a large, blustery, crotchety old Scotsman who was actually quite the softie behind the facade - took one look at me clutching the walls for support and proclaimed that it weren't right that my skin tone be fairer than his and sent me packing.

Several years later I'm sitting in a surgeon's office - not mine - across from a golden oldie (and a gifted one at that) watching in bemusement as he fills in that little white piece of paper I'm now so well acquainted with... but have never had the pleasure of actually receiving.

Day One was spent lying around at home for a bit before the fortunate realisation struck that lying in a park somewhere sunny would be infinitely more pleasurable.

So I find myself sitting propped-up against a lamp-post (lying down proves too painful) near Orchard MRT station (you know? that park nobody ever goes to?) watching a father teach his seven year-old daughter how to fly a remote-controlled polystyrene glider. I've never actually seen one before, but its basically a many-generationed descendant of those two-piece polystyrene rubberband wind-em-ups with the plastic propellar-counterweight on the tip that doubled as weapons of mass destruction - does anyone remember those? God, I feel old.

The gliders of today are hand-propelled floor-kissers, but with enough luck, skill and finesse one might theoretically be able to catch an updraft and float one's plane high in the sky almost indefinitely.

I watch the father and daughter duo beaming wide-eyed and open-mouthed with pleasure as their little polystyrene sliver of freedom finally floats lazily up into the sky, and can't help but smile to myself.

It's wonderfully liberating and exhilarating to behold their unfettered, conjoined happiness. Rays of golden sunlight slant down through the skyscrapers and treetops to explode at all angles off their auburn hair...

Simply being here with my back to the lamp-post watching them is inspiring - a magical movie-moment unfolding deep within the heart of urban mundanity. How precious.

I make a metal note to blog about this later, then message Xena about the scene and muse that it seems strange to me Singaporeans don't do this more often.

The answer is typically Xena-esque - terse, to the point, and absolutely correct : "No Time."

We - no, I say now You Singaporeans never have the time. (That's right, I'm forsaking my Singaporean-ness : I was born and bred here, but in truth I was born behind the walls of my parental stronghold, and raised in a rather eccentric manner. I still run into little Singaporeanisms which befuddle me on a daily basis. And then into typical Singaporean incredulity - har, you don't know, but you black hair and black eyes, born here right...?? I shan't go into detail - but I guess the truth is at heart, I can't lay claim to being much more than myself - and much less a nationality. So much for patriotism. sigh.)

But as I savour this father and daughter enjoying each other - watching them create mutual, happy memories that will linger with them for years to come, I realise that nothing is further from the truth. We do have time, if only we make it - and one day - should I ever marry, and should I ever have a daughter.. or a son... I shall rush home from work, scoop up my daughter from in front of the TV, retrieve that paper glider and remote control off the couch, and hurtle out to the park to play in the sun, just the two of us dancing to a tune of laughter and joy.

Thirty minutes later, the 'plane, under dad's expert hands, glides smoothly to berth on top of the tallest tree.

There's a pause. before daughter starts moaning. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!"

Dad grins, sheepishly, and scratches at his head for a while, circling the tree.

The dynamic duo gradually becomes dejected, before departing.

Dad smiles at me as they slump by. "That's the fourth plane now..."

Daughter : "You always do that!!"

*****
Alohomora

I'm pleased to discover that picking locks is very much like riding a bicycle.

You can forget how to do it. But after several tries, starting with a few false "successful" test runs and several initially unjustified moments of absolute certainty that it's all come back and I'm the master later... followed by many fruitless attempts - the fingers finally remember how to - consistently - pick that lock, and within an hour i've whittled my time on a 5 pin "china" lock down to 9 seconds.

The trick, for me at least, is in the shaping of the pick, and of what I call the turning tool, or torque instrument. I can't really put it into words, and everytime I go back to picking locks after a prolonged period away it takes quite a while for the latent memories to reawaken and guide my hands into slowly shaping the tools into their appropriate forms.

It's a little odd to me that everytime I begin it feels like a new experience, yet by the end of it I've created exactly the same shaped tools - the torque instrument becomes a strange, spiralling corkscrew, and the pick a disappointingly simple hockey-stick with a slight slant on the end. If my digital camera wasn't locked up in the parents stronghold-bedroom I'd take a picture and post it here for posterity, to remind myself next time what shape to employ and save myself two hours of frustrating trial-and-error.

(Notes to self : ) the pick has to be inserted before the turning tool, and the "scrubbing" motion is up, and out.

Followers of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will recall a character named Min, a bright-eyed short-haired thief with a penchant for daggers and lockpicks.

I learnt how to pick locks in my teenagehood from a girl named Min. She was indeed bright eyed, and short-haired, although she much appeared to prefer the scalpel and skateboard, and in later years the foil to the dagger. She could also bake a mean chocolate brownie, and my parents loved her to death. Those were good days, and I still have the handcuffs left over with which to remember her by. Ah, wait.. that didn't quite come out the way I intended...

*****
Then, the Bad

*****
Ate mum's cooking for dinner again today. Ugh.

*****
Still walking like John Wayne after taking a bullet to the right flank. Pain...

What about painkillers?
Pah. I don't believe in taking medications...

*****
Still haven't written my piece about Tomorrow's gift of Blog-book to the late La-Idler's parents, the hoo-ha that surrounds it, and what strikes me as odd about the whole issue. Perhaps I never will...

*****
Wondering at the warped humour of the Higher Powers.

If you were the omniscient, omnipotent, Celestial Gamer and Writer of Scripts - would you fashion a pawn with a nearly nonexistent Attraction-ratio (here we're talking attraction with a capital A, and nearly nonexistent with a capital Nearly), then engineer sparse but intense encounters with Irresistable objects of Attraction - then reveal, invariably an unbreakable bond to other pawns somewhere out there, and an inconvenient normal location on the other side of the gaming board, ie unattainable in every imaginable way? What next, guarded by elemental defenders with flaming swords??

You would? Because it'd give you a laugh? Fiery swords and lightning staves and all?

Cruel. Very cruel.

*****
Lastly, the Ugly

*****
Anonymous Judge

... drafted my eye. Sputter. I wouldn't know a draft if I drank one....

You say it best...

... when you say nothing at all.

"And suddenly i understand why it is so ... futile. pick-up lines, phone calls, smses, the offer of dates.
i have searched unconsciously for the elusive click. the instant flare of recognition, the feeling that we knew each other before we ever met. the knowledge of a soul from a million miles away, before time began. the shock of union once again, the thrill of re-discovery. a dance of two souls in sync with each other, keeping perfect time.
that is what i have been searching for."

(from : her.stolen-glances.org)

Twice now, and a half.

I miss winter - shivering as the wind would claw insistently through the spaces between the buttons of my overcoat with icy fingers. Hands and ears burning as I would lower my neck and clutch at my coat, legs hitting the ground in that peculiar loping stride that londonites perfect, so different to the aimless idle amble that the natives here employ.

Walking at speed - nearly running - through the ever evolving maze of Kings Cross Underground under renovation, apologies, taking the stairs out towards ground level two, three at a time, bursting into the fine mist and nearly sprinting towards the waiting warmth of my flat.

I miss choosing a direction on a whim, completely at random, and just walking, for hours on end - often alone, sometimes with Alice, always in absolute silence. Always with troubles on my heart.. but somehow, it helped. It helped to see this city so alive, so quirky, so refreshing, so sad, so hurt, so happy, so... so much to see. So hard to hold on to my trivial sadnesses. So easy to become... lost in it.

I miss extravagent dinners at the Fat Duck, or Gordon Ramseys, dressed to the nines in the company of a dear friend with that delicious laugh, to whom I could always confide without fear of idiotic, self-centred misinterpretations, and without fear of misproprietry, even despite the (copius amounts of often free) alcohol... Playing Lords and Ladies for just one night...

I miss the myriad colours of autumn, golds and browns, yellows and faded greens forming a ragtag chrous line between the jail-uniform grey of the roads and buildings, and the faded pastel blue of a tired, consumptive london sky.

I miss walking down the Thames, and sitting, on occasion, by it to eat, to think, or just to breathe. Standing in the middle of the bridges, holding on to the pillars or lamps and just... breathing. Listening. Closing my eyes...

I miss walking through the parks :

- in summer, when I would thread my way through the swans sitting in the grass, or join them sometimes, arms akimbo, staring up to the sky, feeling the coolness of the ground seep into my overheated, overworked soul

- in autumn, when sunset would last for hours, streaming low across the horizon into my eyes, turning everything - lakes, people, trees, dogs - into moving masterpieces, oil pastels in sillhouette.

- in winter, amidst the skeletal trees, sometimes in the snow, watching my breath congeal before me; stopping before the still unfrozen lakes and watching the geese trawl miserably across its barren surface for food.

*****

Watching the female lead, and then the male - repeatedly lying supine, with her arms akimbo on the grey slate of a frozen beijing river last night, under a lifeless grey sky, eyes open and staring upwards towards the heavens without any real hope...

.. It came back to me.

Everything.

I am dying here in this tropical utopian paradise, one day at a time.

And I will not notice it, till I am very nearly dead.

When, perhaps - it will be too late.

Sometimes there are ways of knowing what to say, and what not to say in advance. Sometimes our choices are clear and the tricky bit is deciding which choice to choose; multiple fates hang in the balance, culled to singularity by the destinies we select on our fleeting, narcissitic whims and fancies.

Yet sometimes all we have is a sense of being a puppet in the story, or perhaps game, of some higher being, and there is only one particular path to walk; one set of keys to a single door. One permissable answer to every question...

Moments are allowed to slip away, silences are mandatorily respected. It is almost a form of cinematic convention.

Mistakes are made, consciously.

Words are left unspoken, with difficulty.

Eyes meet, and are held, then glance away in slow motion; a moment is a celestial masterwork forged from nothing, flaring to painful, blinding brilliance for a brief instant - acknowledged, beheld... and then cast callously aside to to the floor, left unwatched and uncherished to fade to dull, pitted, unhoned normality with the cold passage of forgotten todays.

We toy with almost-fates in our infant minds, and then they are taken away from us, leaving us to wonder if the destiny that remains behind was even ever ours to choose.

Our subconscious minds rise up, palms pummeling desperately against the stained glass of our weary eyes - why can't you hear us - we are you? Don't!

But sometimes....

... we have only a script, which we are obliged to follow.

*****
A lifetime ago :

the asker was different.
the question was different.
the answerer was different.

The script was the same.

The answer was a white lie, to be uncovered years later.

*****
Several nights ago :

the asker was lost
the question was different
the answerer held his silence for a moment, straining to ignore the voices behind his eyes.

The script was the same.

The answer, a white lie.

I watched perhaps love tonight.

It was... well directed. And well performed.

It wasn't so much a story, as a mishmash of mini-stories. They weren't woven together to form an immaculate whole. It almost felt like watching several short films, all playing simultaneously. It was a photo gallery of poignant moments that only a select few who had lived the stories would empathise with.

Everyone else will probably hate it. ("Catch no balls")

It isn't often that a movie moves me.It was a very visual, yet metaphorical movie. And it was oh, so sad.

I'll admit it. I cried.

Three times.

As my german friend likes to say,

"Damned thing."

*****
At one point, it transpires that the male lead has recorded a line of thought every year on his walkman, staying on in the hovel that he'd shared with the female lead while they were still lovers. Ten sentences, for ten years.

It goes from utter heartbreak, to being in denial (I think i'm over you, life isn't so bad, and I can smile again) to anger (I hate you, I hate you!) to bewilderment bordering on cynical humour (Are you dead? Why aren't you coming back?)

It moves her enough to move close to, and hold him as the tape continues to ramble on.

*****
In real life, would she - or any of you - have responded in kind?

I didn't think so.

*****
Everytime the male lead with the big eyebrows lay on his back, arms akimbo on the ice... or... somehow metaphorically falling through the ice, into the water of a swimming pool years later, sinking slowly to the floor of the pool, with a tiny trickle of bubbles streaming upwards from his nose and mouth...

... I remembered.

zhi yao wei ni huo yi tian
jiu shi wo xin yuan
zhi yao wei ni huo yi tian
jiu shi wo xin yuan

bie zai rang wo xin shang gan
ming zhi ge bu duan
wei shen me rang ci hen mian mian

you duo shao ai de huai nian
cang zai wo xin kan
ru guo yao wang le ni
qian nan wang nan

- Huang Sheng Yi

*****
(Loose Translation)

Just to live a single day for you
is my heart's desire
Just to live a single day for you
is my heart's desire

don't let my heart be hurt again,
(I) know it cannot be broken cleanly,
why allow this regret to linger on

however much reminiscence of love
hides in the depths of my heart
For me to forget you
would take a thousand upon ten thousand difficulties

I was halfway through a piece about the passage of La Idler, and the... mess that's come of it, when I found that my heart wasn't really in it.

I'll save it for another day when I feel more inspired.

Right now I'd like to write a piece dedicated to my best friend.

Thanks for calling up the other day when you heard the news. Despite the baby, and the distance.

Thank youfor being my truest friend.

I've made many friends over the last year - and they're good, and nice people.

But somehow, when my time of need arises, there has always only been one friend whom I am truly willing to really confide in - and who is always somehow willing to hear me out - no matter how much I may seem to repeat myself.

Not just the words - but my thoughts, memories, and emotions - and even those gleaned from re-examination of old issues and flogging dead horses...

things that become moot, and tiresome to others...

.. you have somehow always had the patience to hear me out.

It's not that I can't talk to my other friends.

But perhaps I do not wish to saddle them, or irritate them with issues that they will - I sense - instinctively shy away from, or tire of.

I don't know how you put up with listening to me repeat myself incessantly.

But thank you.

In retrospect, it happened extraordinarily quickly.

One moment he was wincing in pain as he lay in his own bed, palpating his lower right abdomen...

... and the next he was lying supine, staring up at the synthetic white glare of the operating theatre lights.

"This is too surreal", he thought as the oxygen mask made its slow but unhesitating descent towards his face.

Didn't I just watch this in a short-film segment a few days ago?

This is too weird, he said.

Why? A disembodied female voice asked.

I'm just not used to being on this side of the camera.

A kindly, bespectacled face came slowly into view from beneath the algae-green horizon-rim of the oxygen mask. I'd be lying if I likened it to Venus arising majestically from the depths of the deep blue sea...

"Do you drink?" She bubbled, a trifle too happily.

"Err. A little (he lied)... why?"

"Some people say it feels like vodka, some like champagne!!"

Ah. the good old getting high experience... perhaps I'll finally know what it feels like, to become a happy-drunk.

His vision went blurry, so he closed his eyes. The world stopped spinning, and then...

Nothing much happened.

I don't feel... happy. Or even high.

Ah well, he sighed to himself. Typical... I was supposed to be in OT today anyhow...

Fade.

.... He woke up. bemused. That was quick, he thought, glancing at the ever-present OT clock. (There's always a clock in OT, somewhere on the wall. It's used variously to let the surgeon know how long he's been operating, how long a tourniquet has been applied, or whether last chance for lunch-break is going to expire soon.)

Perhaps it's been an hour, and I just feel like it's fast, because the last thing I remember is going under... or perhaps...

Focus: Thirty minutes.

Wow.

That was fast, he said. Hmm, my vision's still blurry.

Ah, that would be the anticholinergic effects, the bubbly champagne anaesthetist chirped.

Ah. Of course.

Tired.

Fade to black.

*****
Gummy eyes opening, just a chink.

Light test. Pass.

Sound test.

Ambient hospital noises, generic nurses in background. Pass.

Bugger, it wasn't a dream.

Sore-throat test...

... hey it actually doesn't hurt! Remarkable. Must remember to thank Mrs Champagne sometime for a remarkably smooth intubation.

Deep breath.

Wound test.
i) somatic.

? No pain.

ii) tactile?

pain. mild.

iii) visual?

White light, everywhere. Pupillary ciliary muscles kick in. Contrast rematerializes.

Wound test, visual - miniscule. No yawing cavern... no massive three cm scar. Just a tiny dressing, and situated dead-centre, a minute spot of red blood, almost as if artistically painted onto it.

I guess this is what private medicine is all about.

*****
48 hours later...

... still Nill By Mouth. And ravenous enough to eat a cow. Live.

... still running intravenous morphine. Pain score of 0/10 - for the last 40 hours. (Several happy moments spent repeatedly pressing the Purge button when the nurses weren't looking... ok just kidding. More like when needed to walk to toilet.)

Sigh.

I guess this is what private medicine is all about.

Just great.

Central colicky abdominal pain localising to right lower quadrant overnight, loose stool, low grade fever, nausea, tenderness RLQ with some guarding...

Provisional diagnosis : ? appendicitis.

.. I meant to write about this last night in more detail.

But right now a single line will have to suffice.

If anything untoward happens to me, please, for the love of God don't print out this blog and give it to my parents.

Please.

What do you think of R? he asked

The question was innocuous enough - no preamble speech - no introduction of bias. It was important to exclude prejudice from the equation.

There is something wrong with his eyes, she answered.,

"They cannot be trusted."

He drew a breath in, keeping his eyes on the road, then glanced askance at her.

... so you can do it too.

He breathed again : "We have a lot in common, you and I."

"Yes." - spoken almost too quietly to be heard.

She smiled.

Forget Me Not

Forget me not, I ask of you
Wherever your life takes you to
And if we never meet again
Think of me every now and then

We had just one day to recall
Now all I want is something more
Than just a fading memory
Left wondering what could have been.

Isn't it a shame, that when timing's all wrong
You're doing what you never meant to,
There's always something that prevents you.
Well I believe in fate, it had to happen this way
But it always leaves me wondering whether...
In another life we'd be together.
We should feel lucky we can say... we've always got yesterday

And as I leave it all behind
You're still emblazoned in my mind
And for that very special day
Nobody loved me in that way

Forget me not, I ask of you
Wherever your life takes you to
And if we never meet again
Think of me every now and then
- Forget me not, Lucie Silvas

*****
Goodbye, Sondra.
God bless, Sondra's family, and boyfriend.

Phase 3 - complete.

Still lacking : flat front work trousers. But casual wear greatly expanded and wallet greatly depleted...

Trial run : successful.

As I passed, I noticed her eyes rolling in their sockets as she surreptitiously tracked my passing, her head turning just a fraction of an inch as the extremes of her vision were reached.

She wasn't alone...

laugh. Definitely a pass, but will have to wait for King of Fairies stamp of approval - or perhaps Queen of Angels?

*****

Chocolate Mortinis and free-flow filet mignon steak sandwiches.

Perfection in a glass, and a napkin.

*****

Which body part do you look at, first? She asked for the third time, leaning forwards towards him with her elbows on her knees, her large eyes probing his for perhaps the first time he had ever met her.

She was persistent, he had to give her points for that.

He looked back into her eyes and confessed.

"Her eyes."

Roars of derision... too PC! Too boring.

"And then, next?"

Hmm. Never really thought about that. What would I look at, consciously, next?

What is the measure of a woman?

Her face?

Her shoulder to hip ratio?

Her skin?

Her breasts? Legs?

I think... the next part I would look at would be her soul, and her sense of humour.

He lied : "Her shoulder to hip ratio."

*****

Just before she stepped out of the door, she paused and said : You're nice. Thank you.

He bit the words back, and smiled, and said : "Thank you, no problem."

You're nice too...

and you have beautiful eyes.

He watched her walking towards the lift, and wistfully wondered... what if...? for just an instant, before turning the car around and returning to sanity