the real world

Creaking into a sort of movement, with "real" things to do. I'm breaking myself back in after an unbelievable month of being sick.

Tasks for the day:

go to the GP for a sick note
put money on Oyster card first, so I can get there (everything's expired! And typical - didn't I end up in hospital just over a week into a one-month, £105 travelcard, which was then completely wasted?)
ring up about my remote that still doesn't work, even though they sent a new one - is this because I bought a new TV? Why doesn't the remote work??
ring up about my Council Tax that doesn't seem to include the 25% rebate, which is the only discernable advantage to living alone? (sorry to those of you who prefer it - I really would love some company, and having someone else cook sometimes, and maybe even do some of the things on this list)
ring landlords about various repairs
ring bank to pay first month's council tax and increase the standing order for the rent to whatever it has inevitably gone up to, now it's April (maybe TS Eliot was onto something there); try to do this without actually finding out balance of account, lest I have a relapse
send British Gas a meter reading
send my new energy suppliers, whose name I forget because they were bought out after I signed up with them and before they started delivering my energy (so why don't I have any energy, is the next question)
Hmm. I think I will try to do half these things today and half tomorrow. I can feel a light sweat on my upper lip just thinking about it all. Maybe even spread it over three days, the council tax thing looks like a whole day to me.

And has it struck you how none of those are even real things? And I've called this post the real world. Alas.

Since my return to Baroque Mansions nothing has happened. I arrived off the train and went collapso, and thus have remained for two days. A friend had an Easter party which was lovely, and I had fun and didn't eat the food,* and it was just like not being ill at all! Then I came home and fell asleep on the sofa at 9.30pm. Woke up four whole hours later to some godawful sub-OC California-young-person drama on the TV.

I'm not very "literary" at the moment, either. Apologies. I'm empty of ideas. I haven't read a newspaper. I haven't read more than about 10 pages of Proust. All the characters seem a little irritating. I haven't read anything, except the new Poetry Review which was waiting for me. (They've never taken anything of mine. On the whole I haven't done very well on the English Poetry Scene - whatever that is - which doesn't surprise me in one way, because I look around at the poetry that's being published and it is nothing like mine in tone or sensibility, and I'm not saying I think that's a bad thing! This business of Not-Being-English is something you can't escape from, even when you think it isn't the issue at hand: I feel I'm always doing or saying something I sort of hadn't of ought to, & then people say it's because I'm American. Even though I'm also a flop in America. They think I'm too English.)

The place is slowly getting tidier as I unpack and do some laundry. Last night I watched The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on telly, in a mindless way, while my gall bladder did a little dance behind my ribs. I hadn't eaten any fat.** But this twingeing thing, while it is still happening, is happening less than it was two weeks ago. And I'm glad to say the nausea passed off somewhere in St Ives, possibly around the first bowl of mussels.***

Argh! And I'm writing this and letting my tea (half skimmed, half semi)**** go cold!

Excelsior!

* leg of lamb, spinach pastry, roasted onions, rich chocolate cake; it's okay though, the vegetables included a heavenly, and filling, baked squash
** here's what I ate. It was a melange of sweet potato, borlotti beans, tinned tuna, chili slices, baby tomatoes cut in half, and fresh basil, with balsamic vinegar.
*** you are so lucky. You could have had a blogger who didn't whinge on about all her symptoms and aches and pains and ailments.
**** okay, I'll stop.