Wednesday, 30th March, 2005

Somebody Once Said...

...that the Internet was like a great big encyclopedia, but with more pictures of cats — and so I must apologise for concentrating a little too much about my kittens these past couple of days. I've just brought George back from the vet, and I'll find out tomorrow whether or not he's got a thyroid problem.

I did though, get some special soft food for him, and he's lapping it up downstairs right now — so that's a relief.

So yeah, I feel today is a good day for a story...

How To Lose Weight Drastically

Stereotypically, I gather that us UK residents traditionally have crappy teeth, and I must confess to being no exception. I used to have great teeth when I was a kid, but through adolescence I kinda slacked off keeping them good, and failed to properly wear a brace. 'cmon — I was 14, the other kids teased me.

So I'm left, these days with a crop of mis-shapen protrudences coming out of my gob — which is why you never see my teeth when I smile.

Anyway, think back to December 2000 — I was in Belfast with my then-girlfriend. I distinctly remember walking past the City Hall and feeling a bit of a twinge at the back of my mouth. I'm no stranger to tooth-ache, so I grabbed some pain-killers and hoped that would be the end of it.

Not so.

Over the next few days, the pain grew to a dull ache at the back of my mouth, and I was knocking back painkillers like there was no tomorrow.

As I said, we were in Belfast, but we headed back over to England for New Years Eve. As an aside, I disctinctly remember some eejet forcing me to stay on the outside lane of the M6 over Shap, where there was a foot of snow.

Nearly lost it.

It wasn't, as I recall, a particularly good New Years Eve — the pair of us sat on her parents farm feeling sorry for ourselves. I had toothache, she was vomiting buckets. It was worse, believe it or not, than the year before: "Let's go to Dublin for the millenium! It'll be great" — no-one told us that Dublin had deciced not to do anything to celebrate because they didn't want the city turned into a huge party ... but that's another story.

The next day, mouth throbbing despite constantly rinsing with peroxide (apparently an antiseptic mouthwash), I got back into the car and drove north to Lancaster. I can't quite remember why I did that — I think I had to get back for work or something.

And the way up I was in pain, but it was manageable.

The next day though, I woke up in agony. I could feel that my neck was swollen, and the pain was intense. I lay on the sofa for a few hours quietly weeping to myself, until I couldn't take it any more and texted a friend "Help me"

Bless her, she came round straight awawy and dragged me to Casualty, and then sat there for four hours with me while I waited to be seen. To be honest, they couldn't really do much for me — just gave me some aspirin and sent me home. Trouble was, that the swelling in my neck had spread to my throat, which meant that I couldn't swallow. Every time I tried to drink, I couldn't get the water into my tummy and it kept getting into my lungs.

Not good

You're probably wondering right now, why I didn't go straight to my dentist as soon as I felt the pain. Well, as I'm sure any UK resident will verify for me, getting a dentist isn't very easy here these days. Our NHS is a fantastic thing, but the lack of dentists means that you have to go private — and even then it's hard to find one with spaces on their list. My friend spent a couple of hours ringing round all the dentists in the area — and eventually found one in Arnside, about 20 miles up the coast.

By the time I managed to get an appointment and go, my neck had swelled up beyond belief. I was rather hideously deformed — and refused to go out of the house. This was about a week after the trip to Casualty, and I hadn't eaten a thing — I hadn't been able to.

In fact, drinking water was still a problem — I would hold my mouth open underneath the cold tap, hoping that some of the water would either go down the right way, or I'd be able to magically take some in through some kind of osmosis through my gums. During that week, as well as not eating, I didn't sleep much. I layed my duvet out on the living room floor, and tried to sleep there. But the pain was just too much. The only way I could get any reliefe was to hold a hot water bottle next to my neck, then alternate it between visits to the cold water tap.

I was not in a good way.

All that not-eating was having a bit of a detrimental affect on my health, funnily enough. I went down to seven and a half stone — now, I know I'm not exactly a chunky girl, I'm usually about nine and a half, but I was seriously skinny then. My face went completely gaunt — apart, that is, from the massive lump on my neck.

The day before I went to the dentist though, things came ahem to a head.

I was reaching the point where I just couldn't take the pain any more. The pressure in my mouth was unbearable.

I remember going upstairs to the bathroom, holding my head under the tap for a bit, then lying down on the bathroom floor, exhausted, and on the verge of tears.

Then I heard a sound.

"squiiiiiit"

I looked down at the floor, and I could see a trail of white fluid seeping away from my head. And then I tasted it...

I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite so foul in all my life. It was like something had died in my mouth — a putrid, sweet sticky taste, mixed in with a generous helping of salt. I lay there for a while, not really knowing what to do, trying to work out what was going on — and then it hit me.

The abcess had burst. Burst through my gum and was draining itself into my mouth.

Thus began two weeks of a gradual trickle of puss from my mouth. It started off white, but soon went yellow. Admitedly, once the drain started, the pressure went away a bit — but dear God it was grim. I would wake up in the mornings, with a towel under my head, caked in crusty yellow crap.

Driving was a nightmare — my mouth would fill up with this stuff, so I had a bucket on my lap in the car with me to spit it out into, and a bottle of mouthwash to try and take away the taste.

THe dentist said it was the worst abcess she had ever seen — and there was nothing they could do to it until it had drained. She gave me some maximum strength antibiotics, and told me to come back a week later.

I tried to go to work one day. The big problem was that my boss happened to be away on holiday that week, and there was only me left to hold the fort. I couldn't do a thing — I just climbed underneath one of the desks and begged the secretary to ring up all of our clients and tell them we'd be shut for a week.

By the time the swelling had gone down enough for them to take the tooth out (it was a wisdom tooth by the way — I should have mentioned that earlier) I'd not eaten anything more than a few cans of that hideous Complan stuff, but I'd been able to drink water again.

The dentist said he might have to cut the tooth in two to get it out — but it turns out that he didn't. In fact, the thing came out really easily. When he showed it to me, I was amazed — it was tiny. He said that what seems to have happened is that it died before it developed a proper root, and had gradually rotted away from the bottom up — which is why I'd got the abcess.

Anyway, from that day on I've been going to the dentist regularly. In fact, I think I'm due there this week to have the last of my wisdom teeth out.

I figure that if one good thing came out of the whole experience, it was that I now have a good enough story to tell my children (if I ever have any) to convince them to see a dentist regularly.

Changing the subject

Can I just end on a more uplifting note? Just as I was typing that, I heard the postman shove things through my letterbox. I got two bits of mail today — one was a letter from Apple inviting me to their annual general meeting (hey Steve, a plane ticket would have been nice — or perhaps a lift in your jet?), and the other was the result of a bit of a splurge on Amazon the other day. Baraka and Naqoyqatsi.

I will bore Kathie to tears later on if I get the chance

Well, to be honest, Powaqqatsi didn't impress me much — and I think it was due to not having Ron Fricke as director of photography. There was a sense, in Koyaanisqatsi, that Godfrey Reggio was trying to be a bit 'worthy' and meaningful, and that sense was amplified in Powaqqatsi.

I've only seen the trailer for Naqoyqatsi so far — but from what I remember, I was left with the thought "Dear God, never let that man get his hands on a computer again."

I'll watch it this afternoon and let you know.

Baraka though, I did see once before (and mistook it for Powaqqatsi funnily enough) one night when Channel Four were doing a night's programming dedicated to acid. I think it was followed by 5 hours of fractals

But Baraka is directed by Fricke — and to my mind it's him who made Koyaaniqatsi what it was. Not Reggio.

We'll see though, if it's as good as I remember

Two Things of Note

(1) I was just in the Customer "Service" office of the Post Office (if you've ever been there to pick up a parcel, you'll know why I put that in quotes), and I spotted on one of the posters that THe Royal Mail has trademarked the colour red. Granted, a specific colour red (like Yves Klein Blue I suppose), but all the posters on the board had different hues of red. Were they just hedging their bets?

(2) While walking through town, I bumped into Selina Morse. I was just walking along, head in my own little world, when I suddenly saw an arm waving in front of my face. I've met Selina a few times, but I think that was the first time we bumpbed into each other by chance.

Anyway, I was thinking afterwards, as I was walking up the raod, that the meeting of two trannies in boy-mode is a bit weird — two ordinary looking guys chatting on first appearance, but if you knew each of their secret lives then it's a whole different story.

And I was wondering if it was a bit like when Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent bump into each other in Starbucks. Or am I trying to stretch a metaphor just a little too far there?

(3) (Sorry, three things of note) George is not the only poorly cat. Kath and I just took Murphy in because he's got a bladder problem. They've got him in overnight

I was thinking that I should just move to the vets and live there perhaps.

OMG, you're right! I had in the back of my head that I'd noticed it somewhere before. Sorry hon — A bizarre case of subliminal memory perhaps?

Oh Dear

Naqoyqatsi is ahem the biggest waste of 90 minutes that I've ever sat through. Its over-laden imagery, cliche-riddled themes, stock-footage and over-processed garbage is a poor offering from the man who brought us Koyaanisqatsi.

All the way thtough, I was wincing at the sheer banality of it.

It was a big-budget game of Spot the After Effects Filter.

Crap. Utter crap.

The soundtrack though, is stunning. Yo-Yo Ma's cello positively sings its way through Philip Glass's score.

At some point, I must write a better review of it — and go through all the cliches one-by-one, but only after I've watched the NYU Panel Discussion that's also on the DVD. I want to know what Reggio was trying to achieve. Whatever it was, he failed.

D'ya know what's the most gutting/ironic thing about it? There's nothing in the whole film that I haven't done 10 years ago in some early experimental undergraduate work. With no budget.

Alli, don't waste your money hon.

Hmm. That, if you don't mind me saying so, looks like my first ever bit of comment-spam

I'll let Kathie explain how Murphy is — if she gets a chance this morning what with being a busy chicken and all that. George is still looking really thin, but I should find out later what's up and whether or not he's got to have surgery.

Ha! No really, not responsible. I know for a fact I'm not the only trannie called Graham