Well thanks everyone for being so patient as I’ve coped with the increasing weirdness in my life. And a big thanks to Girl-Fren for filling in when I couldn’t be here. (She’s not lying… she does have great legs.)

I’ve been on a safari of sorts, gathering information of use to my bitter friends, as it is my life’s quest to bring all shades of usefulness and enlightenment everywhere I go.

As I didn’t take video of the event (not allowed, oddly), I’ll have to walk you through it. Imagine, if you will, a bus station. Not a truly awful bus station, but a moderately awful bus station. (I would have said airport, but the people in airports are often busy and important, and that really won’t do for this illustration.) Now imagine that the other persons in the bus station are all either sick or injured. Carry forward with the thought that you, also, are either sick or injured. (Getting uncomfortable yet?) Now for the final image… you get to sleep with a randomly chosen 5 of these people (in an “unconscious in the same room” sense, not in a red-hot-monkey-sex sense) for an indeterminate period of time. The rest of them are housed down the hall.

Welcome to an NHS hospital.

The only thing more depressing than this thought, I would think, is working in said hospital, because then even on the occasions you get to go home, you always know you’re coming back the next day. Much, I imagine, like being a prison officer doing his 25 to life.

Now, I’ve undergone this undercover undertaking for the express purpose of bringing back an account to the rest of the world. I should write a travel guide full of tidbits like what to take with you (disenfectant spray and snacks), what to order from the daily menu (nothing with meat… trust me), and what to wear (seems to be anything goes… fuzzy slippers are the current trend, along with worn terry robes and a vacant expression).

I will say that while it sounds pretty horrid, the worst part is being sick, obviously. Otherwise I think it would be a feast of humanity (so to speak… I wouldn’t recommend actually eating said roommates, as we don’t know what’s wrong with all of them) with which there really is no comparision. Sure you can people-watch in an airport, but until you’ve actually had a sleepover with someone, you don’t know them at all.

I should also report that it’s reaffirmed the fact that I really do like people. I know, I know… I’m supposed to be all bitter, and sometimes I can be, but how can you not like people after meeting dear Mrs. Boyd, who tickled the bottom of my foot with her cane as she walked by, having only spoken a couple of words in passing before that. And Anne, a 60 year old with an exploding spleen (at least that’s what I gathered through eavesdropping on her doctors) who, after a girl in her 20’s was introduced, and then forcibly removed from our room whispered, “My goodness that was dreadful, wasn’t it? I would imagine it was drugs-taking.” Then she flicked some dust off her bathrobe.

Mrs Ames seemed relatively nonplussed about the whole thing. When the doctor said “The nurse says you’re a bit confused about where you are,” she replied, “Well isn’t that impertinent!” I thought so too. Of all the nerve.

One woman spent the entire time knitting. I’m not sure she even realised she was in a hospital, as she looked exactly as I imagine she would have at home. Except at home she probably has a cat that chases her yarn as her needles clack clack clack away.

Another inmate woke me in the night to give me instructions on what to tell people if someone came looking for her. Which was sorta sweet, considering that no one had come looking for her in all the time we shared a room.

Hope is a beautiful thing, and the capacity for it is why I love people.

Look for a follow-up documentary called “Naps on a Train” to be airing on the BBC in March.

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I’m probably the only one in the world that can get tickled walking around Tesco. As you leave, the certain doors have signs on them saying “This door is alarmed.” I’d like to have a t-shirt with a picture of that sign, but changed to say “This human is alarmed.” But then I’m easily amused, and it really wouldn’t matter to me if no one else thought it was funny.

So I realise recently that I’ve been getting alarmed about all the wrong things. Not that it’s something I do all that often. I’m a fairly laid back kind of girl. The other day the veins in my knuckles turned black (in a rather rapid and sci-fi sorta way) and then my fingernails turn purple, and the palms of my hands go blue and then, being slightly alarmed, I go show hubby, who decides to call the hospital (where I’d just had surgery). Meanwhile, WHUMP, I’m unconscious. Drama drama fun fun.

So what do they say? Oh, that’s what happens when you’re going to pass out. If it gets worse (Umm, like how?) then call your General Practicioner. Okay, sure. To be fair, I was two days past a general anaesthetic, which makes one prone to faint and also makes one particularly gullible.

I went ahead and made an appointment with my GP and told her about the Star Trek hands, and she frowned the way she does, but didn’t comment much beyond that except to say, “Hmm, bad circulation.”

And then… and this is the whole point here….

“I’m alarmed at how much weight you’ve lost since I last saw you.”

“Alarmed?” says I, “I’m fricken overjoyed!” Okay, I didn’t really say that, but I thought it. I make a habit of never smarting off to people who control my health, my food, or my money.

I’ve been struggling with my health for a little while, and I make a huge point of not whinging and just getting on with things. Because, in fact, no one else cares, and I really don’t like sympathy. So we’re all better off this way. But at this I draw the line. The ONE good thing that’s come out of this ordeal, (me dropping 25 pounds) and it alarms her. #-o

I’m starting to suspect I’ve spent my entire life getting alarmed at all the wrong things. Like, the fact that the UK has had 5 men held hostage in Iraq for 6 months, and we’re JUST NOW hearing about it, because the hostage-takers released a video. The Foreign Office is condemning the kidnappers for this, but I want to send them a thank you note (the video thing, not the kidnapping, duh). Because our own government doesn’t seem to want to tell us what’s going on. Am I the only one that thinks this? I must be, because the news agencies didn’t bother to bring it up.

I’m alarmed at the fact that my son was not given any books at school, but instead seems to be expected to look everything up on the internet for himself. But the Minister for Education keeps talking about how much money they’re spending on schools and how much better things are getting. So apparantly I have nothing to worry about.   Alarm misfire #2.

And yes, I confess, I was alarmed at the Star Trek hands. But no, according to medical science (and the woman behind the big desk) it’s the fact that I’m 30% less tubby that I should be worried about.  ???

I wish someone would just give me a manual to go with this alarm system, so it wouldn’t keep firing off at all the wrong things.  But as a side note:  screw that… 30% less tubby! Woohoo!

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I dunno what it is about blank books, all nicely bound with pretty covers in cloth or leather or sometimes cork or fancy paper.  And I dunno what it is about people who use words that make other people buy us these blank books.  I guess they figure we need someplace to keep them.

I probably own at least half a dozen of these things, all of which, I’ve recently discovered, have the first ten pages filled in, usually with something annoyingly boring and un-wordless-book-worthy, such as dreams.  It’s somewhat interesting to read a dream that was so horrible, so beautiful, so damned meaningful at one time that I felt the need to write it down.  But it’s also like reading a recipe with ingredients I’ve never heard of.  You’re sure if someone bothered to write down a recipe, it’s something good, but if you don’t know what a chizzywhoot is, you really aren’t sure what it’s going to taste like.

I was looking for a blank book recently, because I had an idea for things to write in one that wasn’t actually lame.  Since all of my blank books had the first ten pages taken, my efforts were temporarily stymied, and this case of the heebies that Englebert Ichabod, the reknowned heebie surgeon, operated on last week has thus far kept me indoors.  I’ll figure something out, no fear!

But the point is I was looking for a blank book, and I happened upon one for which the first ten pages were devoted to 1996.  Good grief.  Well I can now confirm, it’s true…. if you run into your past self, it does cause a rift in the space time continuum.  I also ran into the term <bg> which was funny, because that alone dated the document from BSA (Before the Smiley Age) although it’s much funnier than I actually wrote <bg> in a freaking journal.  I guess I thought future me would need to know I had been grinning.

I’ve never been very good at journal upkeep.  On the news recently they did a human interest story (as opposed to what?  caterpillar interest?) on this guy that had spent something like 40 years cataloging his life in 15 minute increments, writing down everything he did from peeing to dreaming, to um, writing in his journal.  According to his wife, he got up often in the middle of the night to write in his journal, which now holds the world record as the most tedious document ever or some such as that.   My hubby saw this story and couldn’t believe someone would do such a thing.  No, no, I replied…I’ve read blogs like that.

In the past I’ve always had trouble with the idea of throwing blank books away.  I don’t like throwing any books away, actually, unless I consider the writing so bad that it would be a bad-karma-inducing event to allow another human being to endure it.  But blank books even more so, I suppose because they imply so much potential.  But after meeting 1996 me, I think I have a date with the shredder.  Some things just don’t need to be remembered.

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First, I want you to know that I’m as romantic as the next girl while bearing in mind I also have a practical streak; I can appreciate doing the right thing for the wrong reason. When a couple-dozen of America’s young women are willing to compete ON TV for cash prizes, 15-minutes-of-Fame, and a marriage proposal from a total stranger, well, I get choked up. It’s the American Way! 

[Note: having burned my bra in the day and learned to be proud of who I AM, such as it is, as opposed to piggy-backing my worth based on my hubby's accomplishments, I've long since developed a sour taste for those whose human development isn't as it might be with a little effort.]

What I’m saying is, does it surprise you that a beauty queen wannabe, a Cheerleader–ferchristsake–for a pro-football team, would join the ranks of those competing for the glass slipper….er….ring and proposal from The Bachelor.

The Bachelor is an original one hour prime-time reality television series that gives one man and 25 women the unique opportunity to find true love in a most exciting and adventurous way. The Bachelor will get to know the 25 women in a series of fun, exciting and exotic dates that will elicit real and raw emotions. Along the way he must follow a gradual process of elimination, as his…

Now, for the happily ever after part.  You’re gonna love this.  Mary Delgado, winner of The Bachelor proposal in 2004, was arrested two days after Thanksgiving for punching out the man she lives with, whom she describes as her fiance (after living with him for three years.)  The reason for the assault wasn’t given, nor her fiance’s name–however, it WAS NOT The Bachelor who proposed to her in ‘04.  She was released from the pokey a short while later.  Ah, romance.

I don’t know about you, but I like my fairy tales with happier endings–after all, the original Cinderella was a mistreated, hard-working stepchild for whom all ended well. Even if you prefer Liberation Literature, it’s plainly not nice to punch a guy’s lights out, spend time in the slammer for it, then expect to ride away in a mouse-drawn pumpkin.  But that’s just me; I could be wrong.

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