Swine flu & ME/CFS

Through many years of ME I feel I am one of those who would not react well to vaccinations, so I have never had the flu shot - or any vaccinations, not since childhood, I just wouldn't risk them - but I am a little worried about swine flu. Still, perhaps that is media scare-mongering more than anything else. There is a useful guide here from ME Association.

Pyjama rage

I spent a good twenty minutes looking for my pyjama bottoms last night, cursing their whereabouts, only to realise I was already wearing them. I'd put them on under my skirt earlier cos I was cold.

A convenient myth?

In an article on her alcoholic father, and the horrors that children of alcoholic parent(s) face behind closed doors, writer Isabel Ashdown says: It's convenient to think of these families as hailing from the "Asbo classes", but that's just a convenient myth. So often, these families look just like us. Hmm. I have an acute understanding of the alcoholic, charming in public, a monster in private, but I find it hard to believe that anyone buys into such a myth or believes such a myth still exists.

Donkeys pretending to be zebras

If you are a donkey in Gaza and you are wondering what to do for Hallowe'en, you can always dress up as a zebra. This is so sad to read, but the surrealness prevents you from weeping, and the children seem entertained. The painters have done a great job.

Link between ME and retrovirus XMRV

Nice to see some actual science in the mainstream media re. ME, though the description of ME - long-term tiredness and aching limbs - is hardly accurate. It is often much more disabling than this. But, hurrah for the Whittemore Petersen Institute! And of course Wessely is in already with his poisonous oar. Go away, you tiresome little man, no one is listening. Just heartening to see scientists engaged in serious ME biomedical research getting to front page.

*It made the New York Times too.

Bad thoughts

I was thinking bad thoughts about someone and dropped my tuna on toast - beautifully sprinkled with paprika - on the carpet, fish-side down. This made me think even worse thoughts. Then I thought maybe this is my punishment for bad thoughts. So I will not think any more bad thoughts.

If a dream > 2 sentences I don't read it

Other people's dreams are dull, in real life and in fiction. I wish writers would confine their characters' dreams to one sentence or two. I skip over them if they are any longer.