Saturday, August 09, 2003
Perhaps I should change the name of this blog. To something with the word 'soul' or 'life' in the title. Then I could be indistinguishable from the millions of other adolescents that infest Blogger bitching and moaning about the pathetic imagined slights and minor misdemeanors that make up their shabby and unnoteworthly lives. Like me.
I have no known long-term medical conditions. I live in a decent flat and have enough money that, if I lost my job tomorrow, I could support myself for a couple of months while trying to find a new one. I'm part of the white middle-class.
In fact, the only thing wrong with my life at the moment is that I'm awake at half-past-three in the morning of the Saturday of Brighton Pride. I'm awake because I haven't been able to get to sleep since eleven o'clock last night. I needed a good night's sleep because I would have to make a forty minute slog across town on the underground, then an hour/hour and a half train ride to Brighton, then there would be a march of a couple of miles, then an afternoon in a park.
Only, I can't do any of that now. The insomnia means I have a cold, as if the sneezing, sore throat and cough weren't enough of a clue, which means a couple of hours of travel in situations where the air-conditioning is minimal to non-existant, when there could be delays due to the effect of the hot weather on the tracks, is out of the question. Even if I made it to Brighton, would I be in any shape to march and enjoy myself? I felt very tired yesterday (Friday) afternoon at work, it could happen again at Pride.
Only yesterday evening I was on the phone with someone, making plans for what we'd do. Later this morning I'm going to have to phone and cancel. 24 degrees centigrade was what the weather report said was going to be the temperature in Brighton, much more bareable than the 35 degrees predicted for London. At least not living in the centre of the city I'm spared the worst of the smog and pollution but with the air so still it's little comfort. Why did this cold have to come on now? It's probably from the week before last, when we had a cold week and I didn't cover up properly, by why it's waited ten days before developing just seems like the act of a cruel deity with a twisted sense of humour.
Obviously I'll need to work on the new title for the blog, something to show that even Ethiopian famine victims and Iraqi torture sufferers don't have it as bad as me, inconvenienced for a couple of days. But when I'm done I know I'll be like all the other Bloggers out there.
I have no known long-term medical conditions. I live in a decent flat and have enough money that, if I lost my job tomorrow, I could support myself for a couple of months while trying to find a new one. I'm part of the white middle-class.
In fact, the only thing wrong with my life at the moment is that I'm awake at half-past-three in the morning of the Saturday of Brighton Pride. I'm awake because I haven't been able to get to sleep since eleven o'clock last night. I needed a good night's sleep because I would have to make a forty minute slog across town on the underground, then an hour/hour and a half train ride to Brighton, then there would be a march of a couple of miles, then an afternoon in a park.
Only, I can't do any of that now. The insomnia means I have a cold, as if the sneezing, sore throat and cough weren't enough of a clue, which means a couple of hours of travel in situations where the air-conditioning is minimal to non-existant, when there could be delays due to the effect of the hot weather on the tracks, is out of the question. Even if I made it to Brighton, would I be in any shape to march and enjoy myself? I felt very tired yesterday (Friday) afternoon at work, it could happen again at Pride.
Only yesterday evening I was on the phone with someone, making plans for what we'd do. Later this morning I'm going to have to phone and cancel. 24 degrees centigrade was what the weather report said was going to be the temperature in Brighton, much more bareable than the 35 degrees predicted for London. At least not living in the centre of the city I'm spared the worst of the smog and pollution but with the air so still it's little comfort. Why did this cold have to come on now? It's probably from the week before last, when we had a cold week and I didn't cover up properly, by why it's waited ten days before developing just seems like the act of a cruel deity with a twisted sense of humour.
Obviously I'll need to work on the new title for the blog, something to show that even Ethiopian famine victims and Iraqi torture sufferers don't have it as bad as me, inconvenienced for a couple of days. But when I'm done I know I'll be like all the other Bloggers out there.
