Stumbling in Flats

There’s nothing much happening in our little cottage since I’ve been convalescing from my third course of Alemtuzumab, so I’ve mostly been Thinking, which is always a risky undertaking.

Uppermost in my mind is, well, my Mind. In other words, my Goldfish Brain.

This is best explained by my risible attempt at New & Experimental writing at Uni:

I had to ‘write a sketch  in which the gender of the narrator and/or characters is obscured or manipulated in some way’.

Really.

So I did what any pretentious peep with literary leanings would do and wrote a sketch using only titles from the top 50 bestseller list from a popular bookstore – sample line: ”It was always Personal, always about Us. Where My Heart Used to Beat, there is only Lamentation”. Counter-culture or what? And I even called it ‘Water & Stone’. Yup, I am that tragic.

Anyway, I polished it, posted it on our forum and promptly forgot about it. Which probably wasn’t a bad thing.

This got me Thinking. MS has taken a giant eraser and smudged out a whole part of my brain. At first this was pretty frightening, as you can imagine. Words failed me, jokes died, anecdotes withered in the middle and post-it notes bloomed all over the house.

Looking on the bright side however, I decided to write a list of all that was positive about this, and here it is, taken from my scribbles:

• Supermarket home delivery is a joy, every single week. I completely forget what I’ve ordered, so when I unpack the bags I stare in wonder at the gluten-free pasta and think, ‘wow, I needed this! How fabulous’. Digging through the bags is exciting and just like Christmas. Especially when they pop in a free sample – ‘yay, a small pot of spinach-flavoured yoghurt, just what I wanted’.
• I am the Best Ever Friend. I’m the friend who can not only keep secrets, but also promptly forgets them. Result.
• Every day is a whole new experience. I wake up refreshed, having forgotten the traumas of yesterday. If I’m reminded, I’ll deal with it. If not, I enjoy my coffee.
• I can’t argue any more. This may sound like a bad thing, but believe me, it’s an unexpected bonus. People will attempt to bring me into long-standing grievances/arguments/slights and I’m like, ‘oh, really? And when did that happen?’ They will then start talking really slowly in a very loud voice to me and try to explain. I forget.
• I’m never bored; I gaze at my pile of books by my bed (just the books I want to read, how amazing), I admire my friend’s notes from Uni (was I actually at that lecture? Wonderful, let’s read the notes and enjoy it all over again). Hey, someone’s put more loo-roll in the bathroom and it definitely wasn’t The Teenager. How thoughtful.
• Last but not least, I forget how much chocolate I have eaten.

Mind you, I’ll have to rein in this Goldfish Brain as I start back at work in a couple of days.

Apparently I’ve met with The Boss for coffee several times over the last week for a catch up and debriefing. If you remember what we talked about, could you send me some notes?