Two

In my experience, there are two kinds of back being fucked: the kind where spasms come from the tiniest gesture and you are floored for days of microwaved wheat cushions and anti-inflammatories, the kind where a chiropractor in San Francisco - in the nineties - wanted to adjust your hip and you wouldn't let him, you said you just wanted the massage and heat treatment and he went in the huff. And then there is the kind where you get a sciatica-type ailment after saving your wee nephew a few years ago from stoating his head on the path - when you grabbed  him you felt something tear in your back, you could not move. Over the year, your knee and ankle and hip went numb/weak and you had nauseating electricity-like pain that nothing would shift, you had months of physio and an MRI, they found nothing untoward, apart from 'normal' wear and tear, and it is only time that truly eases it (like so many things). But every so often it flares up, like when you potter for a mere half an hour in the garden, it feels like a key is winding up and tightening your hip.  Sometimes, you get both kinds at the same time. You do the cobra 'til you can't stand it any more, you take prescription codeine, you have so many hot baths that you think you might dissolve. I woke up today, my left knee is weak, my ankle feels bored into. But that is one thing about having ME, you are so used to all the fun of the fair, it just becomes something else to shove under the carpet.

The Hare with Amber Eyes

Finally finished The Hare with  Amber Eyes, only took 14 months - even by my standards of stopping and starting, that's a long time. I liked Iggie and Elizabeth best (the writer's great-uncle and grandmother), and the image of Anna - the loyal family servant - slipping the netsuke into her apron to keep them safe in late 1930s' Vienna is just gorgeous. Loved his frequent shifts - within a paragraph - from past to present tense to make then seem now. I had a tear in my eye on last page, in spite of my disjointed reading. A fine book indeed.

Turning into Auntie Appa

This week's Horizon investigated how we respond to exercise, it was interesting, even to someone who responds abnormally to exercise. They've discovered that genes dictate whether we will, in fact, benefit or not from certain kinds of exercise - some people are non-responders (I think 20% of population). The presenter, Michael Mosley, was pretty peeved to find he was a non-responder after 4 weeks of HIT - high intensity training - just 3 minutes a week of 20-second-pedalling-like-a-madman sessions on a stationary bike (unknown to Michael, the scientist had already predicted from a blood test that he wouldn't respond). I, on the other hand, would be delighted if a blood test revealed that I would not benefit significantly from this kind of exercise - then I wouldn't have to worry that I can't do it (much less intense exercise makes me feel like I've been run over by a steamroller, it's called PENE - post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion - in case any *silly psychiatrists - check out 13:10 event - are reading. Horizon also featured the presenter having a wonderful Scottish breakfast in The University Cafe in Glasgow, I've spent many a time in there. He had to walk vigorously for 90 minutes the night before to mitigate the effects of the fat from the sausage and black pudding.

I'm  lucky I've been thin my whole life (my Scottish genes, I think) -  never gave a damn about calories  -  and though I did eat healthily, I never went near scales, it never occurred to me. Sadly, as mid-late forties approach you start to put on weight - especially women - and it worries me a little that I can't exercise apart from gentle walking/stretching, so maybe I'll be fucked by fifty. Even pottering in the garden leaves me dizzy with shins that feel like they've been caned - worse the next day, of course -  and these poppies probably won't ever even bloom, they are such a palaver, but so beautiful, even the packet makes me happy. I've mentioned before that I'm nicknamed Appa - the scary auntie in Pakistan we met in the seventies - because I can be a wee bit bossy; she was bulky too, so maybe I'll end up in more ways than one like Auntie Appa. At my most ill, I was definitely too thin, but for most of the last thirty years, I've loved being thin and I actually can't imagine not being thin(nish), it wouldn't be me, but I might have no choice. Or have to stop eating Kettle Chips.

I always enjoy hearing from readers of The State of Me. Usually, it's people who are ill themselves, sometimes parents. Yesterday, I heard from a woman whose close friend from childhood had become ill as an adult. She said she was certainly 'a believer', and the novel had helped her understand more how her friend felt, which was lovely to hear. Sometimes, I think it's only those who knew us pre-illness who can truly comprehend what hell this illness has wreaked; this makes it all the more inexplicable - and unforgivable - when family members don't believe.

* and I don't mean all psychiatrists are silly, just the silly CBT/GET/false belief ones.

Tea for two

My mother recently made fun of my fine range of organic teabags - she's a Scottish Blend/Typhoo woman - and remarked that I must have my tea delivered by an elephant every day. This jasmine green is my current favourite, not at all bitter (some green teas are). And, last week, a friend brought me some of this Pekoe China Green, which is just exquisite, though I must get a decent strainer, I'm using a flour sieve.

Giving away CDs that you don't listen to any more

I gave a lot of CDs to charity last week, they were gathering dust, I never listen to them, but I got a pang, thinking of the different loves and friends that once had all this music in the background. Still can't listen to Portishead without feeling hollow (not that I feel hollow now, just the memory of hollow is in the very vinyl - or whatever CDs are made of - of Dummy). Of course, I've hung on to Leonard Cohen and Frank Zappa and Aztec Camera and Bjork and Pulp and Violent Femmes and Mazzy Star etc, etc, etc (REM was tricky, they're just so whiny, I think I donated a couple but kept one).  I also had a vivid memory of one of my brothers' friends, in late 80s, demonstrating the indestructibility of a Morrissey CD by pouring beer on it. He was the first of any of us to own a CD. It was this song.

And discovered a gem I'd forgotten I had, Preisner: Requiem for my friend. This piece I particularly love.

And absolutely shocked (ashamed) to find I had Dido's Here with Me -   dear Jesus, what was I thinking?

A sabbatical from my sabbatical

Taking a wee sabbatical from my sabbatical from ME blogging, I just have to link to this Ulster TV interview with Dr William Weir and Dr Derek Enlander: 4:59 mins in Dr Weir refers to 'irrefutable evidence of immunological dysfunction' in ME and at 5:48 Dr Enlander speaks of the urgent need for a multi-disciplinarian approach: 'Psychiatric ailment in this disease is *secondary* to primary physical disease. This is a physical disease'. We all know this, these fine doctors know this - many fine doctors know this - but there are unfortunately silly billies (substitute another word for billies if you wish) who *still* don't get it. Tut tut!

Silly billies

Delighted for Caroline Smailes that her new ebook 99 Reasons Why is creating such a buzz. Having Karachi roots, I was especially chuffed to see her in The Daily Times in Pakistan. In 99 Reasons Why, Caroline plays with  the possibilities of endings and you the reader can choose which one you would like. However, being playful and imaginative - surely, the job of a writer - has its downside, she is apparently threatening the future of literature, and, according to one reviewer in the DT, doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. The DT also brought us silly billy media doctor Max Pemberton last year talking nonsense about my illness, and at the weekend we learned that Richard Dawkins has a penchant for slaves. Yes, you couldn't make it up, so it's great we have such high quality journalists to do it for us.