dog

I have given a name to my pain and call it "dog." It is just as faithful, just as obtrusive and shameless, just as entertaining, just as clever as any other dog - and I can scold it and vent my bad mood on it, as others do with their dogs, servants, and wives. 

Friedrich Nietzsche in The Gay Science, 1887

Watcher In The Woods

“If we didn't have strong feelings, how could we love or fight? When our flesh is cut, we bleed. When our heart is broken, we cry. There's nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of what you have to do. You can't crumble when others are counting on you.”

Robert Liparulo

the last resort

"Although the outcome that we had hoped for did not materialise, I realized the dangers attendant upon such an operation, and I am satisfied that you did all within your power in a difficult situation. While no one could fortell the extent of the mental improvement had she lived, I think that it is providential that she should be taken as she was rather than, without the chance of an operation, that she should continue year afer year to suffer the mental agony which for so long had been her lot."

from Jack D. Pressman, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine (1998)

Gobbolino, the witch's cat

I have just adopted a 5-week-old kitten. He's black with a bit of a white belly and four white paws. He is tiny and adorable.

He was found by a friend of a friend, who posted a photo of him on Twitter. As soon as I saw him, I was reminded of this song I used to sing as a little girl in music class. Loki is not quite Gobbolino: he does have bright blue eyes and is black, but, he has three more white paws and as much as I'd like to, I don't have magic.

The song is based on a story about a witch's cat who does not like his humble beginnings, and leaves his sister Sootica to embark on a life of adventure. He comes unstuck though, and eventually returns to the farm that he first left and becomes a kitchen cat, as he started. His black coat has faded to an "unrecognisable tabby" which is another similarity, because Loki is actually a black tabby, not "black all over".


Gobbolino, the witch’s cat

One fine night in a witch’s cavern,
Two kittens rolled on to the floor;
One, called Sootica, was black all over,
The other, Gobbolino, had one white paw.

Who’ll give a home to a kitten?
Who’ll give a home to a cat?
Gobbolino you may call me;
I want just a fire and a mat.

One white paw and a sheen of tabby,
Two lovely eyes not green but blue,
None of the witches would take this kitten …
And neither did his mother know what to do.

Then one day, when the sun was shining,
Gobbolino found he was all alone.
The witch had gone a deserted him forever,
So Gobbolino washed himself, then he left home.


the lyrics end here but I think that's a fault of the website I found them on... does anyone know the rest?

Joseph Brearley 1909-1977 by Harold Pinter

Dear Joe, I’d like to walk with you
From Clapton Pond to Stamford Hill
And on,
Through Manor House to Finsbury Park,
And back,
On the dead 653 trolleybus,
To Clapton Pond,
And walk across the shadows on to Hackney Downs,
And stop by the old bandstand,
You tall in moonlight,
And the quick shadow in which it persists.

You’re gone. I’m at your side,
Walking with you from Clapton Pond to Finsbury Park,
And on, and on.

1977, Teacher of English

Prophet and Loss

As it kicked in,

The stray psilocybin

In the Boeuf Bourgignon,

He said,

"I’ve an urge,

Next market day,

To kick it all over.

I don’t know why,

I just feel

It’s the root

Of all our unease."

Then stripped to the waist

He tore up the street

Screaming,

"England is dying,"

'Til they took him away.

Paul Maddocks (1969 - 2007)

on the med

i've created a Tumblr for the photos of the medication i'm taking, it's here if you want to see all the #25aday photos together, just click on the photo below.

the title is actually a bit of a misnomer now, because as of this week i'm no longer taking two ibuprofen tablets and two paracetamol four times a day (which, if you can do simple multiplication, is of course, the bulk of the 25 tablets i've been taking).

i'm unconvinced that paracetamol and ibuprofen have ever given me much pain relief. i do mean to look into the genetic differences that cause people to be non-responders to these two different types of painkiller (ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID). i sprained my ankle two weeks ago and it's still painful to walk on, so it will be interesting to see if it feels any different today, having been off this combination for more than 24 hours.

i've also run out of codeine tablets, and fortunately, my back is a lot better so i'm not too worried about that.

the one thing that has made a big difference to my back problem is a brilliant physiotherapist who understands and treats the problem not as an acute injury or complaint, but as a whole body problem triggered by the way i move, sit and stand. Hannah Maxey at Complete Physio agrees that it's very likely that due to repeated problems with the hamstrings i injured when i was thirteen, i'm not bending my knees enough and moving in such a way that puts strain on the small, weak muscles in my back and buttocks - such as the piriformis - rather than the strong gluteus. hence the horrible sciatic nerve pinching that's been going on - this nerve runs straight along (or sometimes through) the piriformis, so if that muscle is inflammed, it irritates the nerve, which causes this horrible electrical burning sensation down my left leg.

it's not 100% better, i still get a lot of back soreness and i'm still taking pregabalin twice a day to reduce the nerve, or neuropathic, pain. but i'm getting there and finally on the mend.