Staring into the abyss.

So for about the last month or two, I've been suffering from every major disease you can think of.

Ever since I started feeling a weird wee pain in my guts, the feeling of dread has been growing. I finally worked up the courage to go to the doctors a few weeks back, and was sent for an ultrasound of my gall bladder and liver. Convinced I had exploding guts syndrome, as opposed to the exploding head syndrome I had last year, I hunkered down and waited for my appointment.

See, I've always liked a drink. We all go mental when we're younger, and I was no different really. I used to stagger about with the best of them, but nothing over the top and only ever on the weekends. Then I got divorced. I held it together ok, mostly thanks to my mates, but, well..... 2 bottles of vodka a weekend for a guy my size is quite bad. I cut it down a lot after a while, but I still like a good drink. Thinking back, I've shifted a lot of drink in my life, and it gets you thinking...... to put it flatly, have I fucked my insides up?

So I'm worried. I'm a hypochondriac. I was worried about that too til I found out it wasn't terminal. I mean, though, I have a weird little dull ache that comes and goes right where my liver is...... surely that's not good :o I'd stop drinking altogether but my brain keeps saying "Go for it, you're fucking dead anyway." Which is nice. The doctor told me it could be gallstones, which reassured me, then said "Hopefully we won't have to remove your gall bladder" which pressed the big red button with "do not push" on it in my brain once again.

So today was the day. Here is how it went.

The alarm went off. I switched it off. Then it started going off again. I spent a good minute switching the radio alarm by my bed on and off til I realised it was the one on my phone. I switched it off and got ready to get up. Then I started rebuilding that run down old house in the woods I had found with all the other survivors of the nuclear holocaust, and my brain shouted "WAKE UP YOU'VE FELL ASLEEP AGAIN!" It was now 35 minutes before my appointment and I was well and truly late.

Somehow, I got there in time despite being trapped behind the slowest lorry in the universe. I pick my way to the radiology dept. and wait my turn. For a while. I eventually get taken to the barium room..... and now I reckon I'm getting a barium meal. I ask. The woman says yes, I'm to get a barium. I shit my pants. It turns out I'm not getting a barium, I'm getting an ultrasound as previously thought. So I wait.

For some reason, I dunno maybe God decided to have a last poke at me before the bad news comes, it would appear that I was to be given an ultrasound examination by the winner of Miss World 2010. Jane. Aaaah Jane. If it turns out I'm on the way out, I'm coming back to that radiology dept. with a ring and proposing. Absolutely lovely. I felt like a slug being massaged by an angel :P So I pops the old gut out and lie back, trying to look as cool as possible with my pants hiked a clear 4 inches above the waistband of my jeans and my one-pack glistening in the harsh hospital lights. She approaches, a tube of jelly in her hands. I push that thought out of my mind. And that one. It's hard not to think sexy thoughts in Jane's company. Then I remember the difficulty I had combing my hair into a reasonable style and realise how fucking awful I look after taking a whole 3 minutes getting ready this morning. Then I think how it wouldn't really have mattered if I'd had 3 days and Gok fucking Wan to help me, Jane is so far out of my league I'm lucky I can still see her. Suddenly, I'm not thinking sexy thoughts any more.

*Cold jelly on the ribs!*

She presses the wee doofer into my guts. The machine pings. She says "Big breath in for me please" and as I do so, some bloody alarm goes off in the hall outside. For a fraction of a second, I think I might have set off some sort of emergency "We need to get this guy to the ICU STAT!" type alarm, and try my hardest not to shit my pants. No men in environment suits descend on the room, however, so I relax. We continue with the deep breaths. "And hold it there................"

Four. Five. Six. Seven.

"....................."

Going a bit blue now.

"........................................"

Has she forgot to tell me to breathe out?

"..................................................."

She must have. Maybe it's like a test. Maybe they want to see if I'll just go ahead and breathe on my own?

".........................................."

Fuck this, I'm going to bre...

"and breathe normally now."

Christ. Never mind if I'm ill, am I going to survive this ultrasound? I hear a noise like a rumbling tummy. I guess Jane aint had her breakfast this morning. Bollocks, nope, it was me, my guts are rumbling like a maniac. Not a flicker on her face though, such a professional. I think I might be in love. Jesus she's firm with that doofer. In fact, that's actually quite sore. Ayah.

"Big deep breath"

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This goes on for about 15 minutes, with me in various poses. My left hand side is also checked, which sets off the brain into action again "Why is she doing that? She must have found something!" She then goes and gets the Doctor to check her images.

The doctor didn't know how to work the machine. This is slightly disconcerting. However, Jane (who I have now already fathered two imaginary future children with and who's name doesn't really suit having my surname after it, I have determined) steps in and shows her the ropes. "What's he in for?" says the doc. "Query gallstones" "Oh yep, he has one".

I'm fucking SURE! SURE AS I SIT HERE TYPING! She said "Oh yep, he has one." They had a look through, then the doc had a go at me with the doofer herself. Apparently, they couldn't find my pancreas. Great. Wonder where that little fucker has got to now. Anyway, they didn't bite their hands or look unduly shocked, but after Jane (aaaah Jane. Jane Jane Jane :) ) told me to go to my GP in 10 days for the results, the doc added "Everything looks normal, though. Now, I know Doctors. When my Mum was ill they skirted round the houses for days rather than say "there's nothing we can do", but usually they don't say things look OK unless they are. There's a difference between not unduly worrying the patient and outright lying, in other words, so I feel a bit more reassured, and as I'm BLOODY POSITIVE AS SURE AS EGGS IS EGGS the Doc said "oh yep he has one", I reckon it's a gallstone. I just always thought a gallstone would be sorer than this. Ach, I must just be a double hard bastard. As I suspected.

So there we are. It was too late for any meaningful time at college, especially as I had to take my dads car because I slept in and had to bring it home first, so I got myself a subway, a nice new fineliner pen for sketching, put on a hairdresser's appointment and a dentists a appointment and came home to tell the internet about my adventure.

I know it's premature, but after months of thinking I'm probably dead, I think there might be a 1% chance I'll see Christmas! The down side is I won't marry Jane, she won't want me unless she'll be inheriting my millions quickly, but it's all swings and roundabouts.

My liver, if it is normal as the doc said, is a fucking tank.

Voting.

Alas, the once proud bebo is on the way out, like a little floating jobby caught in the swirling water after you've pulled the plug. To be honest, I'll only faintly miss it as I migrated my drunken midnight ramblings to facebook long ago. The chat thing is better and I'm addicted to Farmville. Yes, I know. I'm shit.

The only problem with this, though, is Facebook lacks any kind of Blogging facility. Can you imagine? Staggering home early on Sunday morning with nothing but status updates to vent your overflowing brain with? It's horrific, especially for the people on my friends list who awake on a Sunday to find their updates page filled with me swearing (creatively, I might add, but swearing none-the-less). I often find myself scared to go back on the internet ever again when I wake up.

Ah. Aaaaaah I hear you say. You have a blog, but! You do! You're writing in it right now, you'll probably be saying, you sharp little tack you. Yes, I would reply, trying not to sound too patronizing (that's when people treat you like you're stupid....... pfffffft I love that joke) but I have a grand total of zero followers on blogger. Yep, that's right! None! I don't come here enough to have amassed any. So whoever it was who said that about me having a blog, I must have imagined you. Still, needs must, because something has been on my mind. I hear there is to be a general election. And for the first time in recorded history, I could not give a dog's fart who wins it.

My reasons, dear imaginary reader, are many. And, uncharacteristically for a quiet soul like myself, I shall let you in on some of them.

Here we are.

Firstly, the idea that my vote counts as much (or little) as someone who likes N-Dubz is just wholly unacceptable. I mean, I'm all for equality when it comes to almost anything, sex, race, religion, I don't care! We should all play nice and share our toys, but I cannot be doing with twats. For fuck's sake, one of them looks like someone has put a bobble-hat on Pob from Pob's Playtime. It beggars belief that someone could make their way home from HMV (presumably after stabbing the bus driver) and put up a massive poster of them on their wall, then nip out and decide who runs the country for the next four years. In short, you should have your IQ (and possibly musical tastes) vetted before being allowed to vote. I realise not all N-Dubz fans are twats (God that tasted bitter) or stupid, but I'm merely using the most twattish band I know for illustrational purposes.

Second. I went to put petrol in my car the other day. I am now looking to consolidate my debts into one easily affordable monthly payment. The tax on booze has just increased. Meanwhile, we pay for all the MP's petrol, booze, orgies, fondue parties, mistress's houses and whatever else they can get their greedy, fat little claws on. Whoever we vote in, it won't change. I genuinely believe that, now. Anyone calling me apathetic is...... well, right, but can I be blamed?

Also, on the subject of petrol prices. We're running out of oil (apparently) so the price goes up. The world is sweltering in a haze of greenhouse gasses thicker than a guiness fart at 4 in the morning. Now, and I swear this is true, I saw last year, on one of my late nights, a TV programme from 2004-5 about gadgets (maybe it was the gadget show). They had a fully working hydrogen fuel powered car. Fully working, went over 100mph, no emissions, had it's own home-station for creating hydrogen fuel from water. This was 5 years ago at least, and they confidently predicted we'd all be driving them in 5-10 years time. What have we now? Hybrids. That need petrol. Apparently water powered cars are in development, but the fuel costs so much to make it will cost just as much as petrol. BULLSHIT. I saw it on the bloody telly! They had one, and there was a wee baldy guy with big ears driving it! But if we all had water powered cars, who would lose out? Mmm hmm. Another wee nail in the coffin of my giving a fuck about anything there. We could save the planet and take one step closer to a star-trek like utopia, but what stops us? Greedy little rich cunts clinging on to their monopolies. Sorry for sounding like a conspiracy nut, but I swear to God I saw it with my own eyes (well, on the telly, like). (Don't get me started on the shits that petition against wind farms because "it spoils the view, whinge fucking whinge, how would a 300 feet thick curtain of fire in the atmosphere brighten your day you short-sighted jism-stain? I might have embellished global warming a bit there, but poetic license.)

I haven't blogged for ages, I'm getting into it again :D

Thirdly, if none of the big parties are going to make it legal to stab someone who refuses to shut up/stop texting in the cinema then I'm going home and I'm taking my ball with me.

Fourthly, I'm far too busy playing Final Fantasy XIII to move out of my room on polling day. At least I have a chance of seeing that through to a successful conclusion.

Fifth....erm.... ly, the war. I've put a lot of thought into "the war" over the past nine or so years. The way I view the world really is this. There are bad people and there are good people. Most people are neither fully one way or the other, but basically, if you're a dick then it's your own fault if no-one likes you, even if you do occasionally crack a funny joke between bouts of arseholishness. (coincidentally, there are very few people who I genuinely don't like, if you can believe that. There are some though.) Translated to global sized policy, if you look at "the war on terror" that ITN keeps banging on about, it seemed like a good idea for us (the goodies) to bomb the shite out of them (the baddies). Having scratched the surface though, and realising that "us" might in fact include quite a lot of the baddies, and "them" probably includes a fair old whack of innocent goodies, who now think we're ALL baddies and want us to die in a big fire, and things become less black and white. What to do though? Pull out our troops, leave the countries in a shambles for the proper hardcore baddy-types to come in and take over? Or keep spitting brave young troops and money into the fire. Well, both seem like a bad idea to me, but theres no third option is there? Nukes? No. I didn't say that, shh, moving on. Confused? I fucking am! I used to care about this stuff, but it's such a royal clusterfuck that now I don't even care, we're going to be buggered right up the chuff either way. I'll play Killzone 2, I know who the fucking baddies are in that.

Lastly, for now, whether it's true or not, I cannot be arsed listening to how seemingly important political arguments are reduced to pathetic childish whingeing every single day on the news. We shouldn't dumb stuff down for stupid people...... stupid people don't care! They're all off playing their x-boxes or burning out cars. What next? I'll tell you what's next. Wayne Rooney for bloody Prime Minister, that's what's next. Christ on a bike.

In short (well, after the long version) the whole thing is just a pointless waste of effort I could better employ setting a fire in a field or shooting a cat with an air gun, both of which would probably have more effect on the country than my vote will.

I'm going to draw my own box and vote for Stephen Fry. I really, really am. Probably.

A trip into the bowels of hell.

There is nothing finer in life.

You're out. You're pissed. You're caught short.

Full of trepidation, you approach the cludgy. Will someone have shat on the seat? Will someone have exploded in a cloud of shitty particles all over the place? Will you be unable to breathe because someone has released what appears to be zyklon B from their bum-pipe? Will there be a drunk man in the toilet who wants desperately to speak to you? He's going to get angry...... you know in your heart he's going to get angry.

But no! The toilets are pristine! They smell faintly of lemon and there's not a soul in there. You notice a faint residue of fat in the trough...... somene really REALLY unhealthy has been here recently, so unhealthy that they are actually pissing fat. Yes, fat. Bits of yellow, horrible fat are coming out their bob-end. But this matters not! You are, for the next few minutes, lord of the bogs!

No stage fright for you tonight, matey! No accidentally catching sight of the guy next to you and realising he's some sort of genetic monster...... but at least you only need to wash your hands when you leave and not your helmet . No, not tonight...... tonight, you are the sultan of spray, the emperor of excretion, the ultimate urinator! So long as you remember not to draw in the steam on the windows, nothing can go wrong..... that steam is the steam of death. That is the steam of a thousand bladders.

You're pissing in the urinals tonight, chief! No shameful hidden relief in the sanctuary of the cubicles..... tonight you shall befoul the water table in the openness of the urinals.

It's like the most amazing firework display you've ever seen. You're looping and swirling, pirouetting and swooshing. At one point, you manage to cross the streams all on your own. The satisfying rumble in the trough convinces you that you must have a mighty member. Like a thousand wildebeeste bearing down on the toilets it carries throughout the empty room, and yet you are unafraid.

You're even managing to scrape some of the ingrained fat off the urinal with your mighty stream. This is genius. Perhaps just draw a small cock and balls in the steam? No! No..... the steam is not for human fingers.

And then you see it.

You look down to admire the dying embers of your mighty confluence when you noitice you are standing in a river of missed tinkle. Someone has been in here and just went on the floor. All at once in your minds eye you see the soles of your shoes touching the carpets in your own house, and the boke attempts to escape. You feel queasy. You do up two of your three buttons on the way to the sink, but you stumble and accidentally open the cubicle door a touch. And there it is. Your eye is drawn to it like a moth to the flame. There, in the toilet, lays the beast.

Like a mighty saltwater crocodile rearing to the neck of a passing thirsty antelope, someone's jobby sticks halfway out the water. It seems to mock the heavens, reaching upwards like some kind of hellish tree trunk. Whoever left this here must have been taken home in an ambulance. The man must have a weekend job as the clyde tunnel.

And the smell. The smell.

Suddenly the sink isn't only a place to wash your hands. Most of your dinner is digested enough to fit down the plug though, so that's something. At least that's something.

It's ok. It's ok. It didn't get you. You stayed far enough away from the cubicle that it couldnt rear out and drag you in. Make sure you're ok....... yes. You may be a bit red from all the boaking, but you don't know, because no man's toilet in existence has a mirror in it. We know this, it's just the way it is. Right...... back out to the bar. Back to the sanctuary and security of the bar. WAIT! Have you pissed on your legs?

50% of the time, you have.

I know why women go to the toilet in groups.

Hmmmmmm.

His eyes opened. It wasn't exactly darkness, more sort of..... brown-ness. It soon became apparent he wasn't in his own bed, but on a couch of some sort. Instinct kicks in..... "Is my arse sore?" It wasn't. OK. That's a very good thing. Now..... where am I, what time is it, what day is it....... and who's been biting my neck?

Yes. I got pissed again and woke up at 4 on a couch. I have repressed most of last night because of the trauma. I remember some things though..... dirty white jeans, too much beer, unattainable pringles and biting. Question me no farther. I may begin crying. Or wanking. Probably both.

I have to point out, however, that I am a fucking paragon of virtue! It isn't something that's valued at all these days and it fucks me at every corner, but I appear to be what they used to call "a nice person" in the old days (these days it's more commonly known as a fucking idiot.) Protector of the innocent. Pfffft. Yep, one of those twats. Need to get that sorted. It's talked me out of more shags than I've had, well, shags, and almost got me my head kicked in more than once as well. I'm more concerned about the shags.

My fucking neck hurts.

At least it's not my arse. At least it's not my arse. She did strike me as a strap-on kind of person now I come to think of it.

YES! Random music is being kind to me I am still drunk. It's a quarter past 5. I'm gonna regret this later....... unless..... WAIT! MORE DRINK! That's just crazy enough to work. Shit. I only have tennents.

Shit. I'm starting to shake.

BEFORE I FORGET! I might have mentioned, I have a Zoosk account which is basically a redneck called cletus. I think I might have had the idea that it was some sort of social experiment or something but anyway...... He's had the odd wink, but yesterday he got his first hit..... an actual dyed-in-the-wool stunner Maybe that shit they all talk about sense of humour isn't all shit after all. (It is shit. I know it is. "funny gets the fanny" my arse! I make them cry laughing then they fuck off with my mates. Every damn time.) Updtaes incoming. He's a smooth one, Cletus. Silver tongued devil, he is..... just like his hero, Hank Williams.

Big dog and badly timed imaginings.

So I'm walkin home from my pals house. It's the back of one, it's dark. I've been reading a lot about this "Michigan Dogman" thing..... google it, it's scary stuff, big werewolf thing that's been sighted for hundreds of years around michigan. Anyway, I turn into my street, and there's this bush in a garden that starts blowing in the breeze. For some reason, I imagine the michigan dogman rearing up out of the bush and grinning at me. A shiver runs down my back...... imagine how scared you'd be if that happened, thinks I. Then there's a sound across the road, a sort of shuffle..... a scrape of claws on pavement. Now I've been a tubby little fucker for a year or so, but the old reactions are still operating at full steam (I seem to have been blessed with ninja reactions for some reason. I don't get many opportunities to show them off apart from catching the odd packet of flying super noodles without looking at them, but I do.) so I was round and facing the fucker before it was fully off the ground.

It was at least seven feet tall. It's eyes glowed red and fire spewed from it's frothing maw as it sprang to it's feet. At least, in my mind it did, in reality a pretty large black dog had just been disturbed from...... doing whatever the fuck it was doing laying in the middle of the street, by me wandering along. It jumped up and began barking and snarling as it ran straight at me.

I'd like to say I immediately dropped into a combat stance and prepared to grapple with the beast. I'd like to say I remembered the worst thing to do is run. I'd like to say these things. In reality, I let out a weak "Oh fuck" and gripped the fence as this thing ran at me and my brain tried to figure out what kind it was..... is it gonna eat me or just a bit of me. By this point, I had realised it wasn't a 7 foot werewolf, but was still a pretty hefty old dog. Fortunately, it took my rooted-to-the-spot-and-shitting-myself stance as a come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you're-hard-enough one, and shat out of going for my throat..... a mistake on it's part I think, as my jugular, though protected by at least three chins, is considerably closer to the ground than most. It stopped, looked at me then ran off round the corner, barking..... I assume to make sure I didn't follow it. It needn't have bothered.

When I got home and took out my keys, I realised I was shaking like a vibrator on a washing machine. Big bastard dug.

So anyway. There's another interesting happening in the life of me. Which, it seems, no-one will read. Tch. Ah well. Passed some time while pkr updates......

Winky trauma! What.... the.....?

Nobody told me about that. That freaked me the fuck right out that did.

Anybody who's been paying attention to my rambling either on here (and judgin by the page views, that's not much) or in real life will know I got tired of being the fattest gnome in Scotland after TITP and decided to lose a stone. Well, last week I stepped up my effort a bit after having my BMI and body fat measured.... my BMI was fine, I was spot on. But my body fat %? Well..... it wasn't good. Leave it at that. It can't be right that I'm the right weight for my height but my fat content qualifies me as (overweight) by american standards (the first website I looked up said I was obese! OBESE! Now I know I like a pizza, but that's a bit much. By the american athletic association standards I'm 1.5% into the overweight range. Which is better, at least.) So I decided that cutting out half of the shit I eat isn't enough, I'm actually gonna have to exercise. So, for a week now (apart from yesterday and sunday, when I was incapacitated with a mystery illness..... sore head, feeling sick, whatever could have caused it I do not know) I've been hitting the old bike hard (pffft, steady.....) and doing half an hour a day. Started off getting just over 8 miles done in that time, but tonight I managed over 9.

Now. I'm not one to shy away from embarrassing things. Whatever it might be that happens to me, I am unable to keep embarrassing things to myself. And this is no different. So there I was, fresh off the old exersize bike having tanked 9.13 miles out in half an hour, sweating like Harold Shipman at a Darby and Joan dance, when I wander over and sit on my PC chair to switch off the tunes before I jump in the shower. And I noticed an..... odd feeling.

I thought the old pork swordsman had become caught between my shorts and my leg. A quick glance down and nope, there's no helmet visible, so I reasoned he must be caught in the waistband. No. So I had a quick shufty down the old shorts.

THE BLOODY THING WAS SHRIVELLED UP LIKE A RAISIN!

Now, at the best of times it's hardly going to block out the neighbours sunlight, but for a second I thought my single barrelled pump-action porrige gun had fallen off!

Fear not, ladies. It's back to it's collossal norm now *cough* but if that's what it takes to get fit, I think I'll stick to 8 miles a day. Next time it might not come back out!

I can only assume my body needed the blood elsewhere.

Anyway. What? Me? Embarrassed? Noooooo not for years! Oh, if you're wondering, it's working. Half a stone gone in 3 weeks. (It's the other stones I'm worried about) Another 3 and I should once again be lean and sleek like some kind of sexy panther.

I know, you can't polish a turd. But you can try.

Never. Never never NEVER write a blog drunk. This comes from someone who wites a lot of blogs. And someone who is pissed more than Oliver Reed on a week night. Just take it from an old campaigner. Never write a blog pissed. It's inevitable (God that took all my concentration) that you'll spell something wrong. And you might become OOGACHAKA OOGA OOGA OOGACHAKA OOGA OOGA OOGAChaka DISTRACTED BY THE MUSIC THAT'S PLAYING IN YOUR HEADPHONES. OOPS caps lock. Also, you might accidentally say things you dont mean to say. About cunts. Cunts you want to cunt in the fuck. Or folk you want to poke in the pokey hole. Or stuff. Stuff you want to stuff in the..... erm..... stuff. Basically, drunken blogs are a bad idea. It's 18 days til half my life was ruined, by the way. Not that I'm keeping watch. That would be weird. And no-one can accuse me of being weird. Wait.......... Wait a fucking tic. I AM weird. I don't like Leona Lewis, because she's a generic hairbrush-singer. I don't have a fucking sticky up haircut. I won't shag the first thing that looks at me....... whenever that might be. I happen to think that House MD might not be that clever, actually. I have an IQ that I am proud enough of to embarrass myself by mentioning. Some day, and that day might never come........ oh fuck off and watch the simple life.