Eye Eye Captain

Oh, another mad week has befallen upon me, with twists and turns a plenty. I'm sitting here with my garlic bread and fish fingers (balanced diet) reflecting on what is a very weird juncture in my life. The no man's land between cancer and reality. Not quite well enough to be a person, not quite ill enough to be a patient. Garble.

The big news is that I didn't get the flat I wanted to buy (you know, the perfect one in my wonderful mill with the dog poo and broken windows, sexy) which I have very conflicting emotions about. It was particularly sad because I discovered that it's near on impossible to get mortgages on any of the flats in this building, not because of my own financial situation but because they're pretty much built out of cardboard and are a special build or something like that. Cash only folks. So I am sad that I can't have my dream flat or probably ever live in my dream building (surprisingly I don't have £80,000 in cash lying about the place). But happy that as you think about it, perhaps it is sensible. A mortgage would push me to the financial limit and my health is obviously still quite precarious, if I did get poorly again I'd be pretty much screwed as I could never get any of that income protection insurancey stuff... I'd end up a crazy homeless lady with a shopping trolley and fifteen cats. Maybe more. I like cats.

It's all that age old question of me, my life, and my illness. I can't spend my whole life thinking "I'd better be careful because it's very likely that my illness will come back" and being hideously cautious and not doing all the normal things people do (like buying eighty grand dog toilets and having children to give them inappropriate names, COME HERE LANCELOT) but at the same time I can't spend my life being all namby pamby and not committing to anything because I might defeat all the odds and live to 100.But anyway, I can worry about these things more if another delicious property comes up that I can actually get a mortgage on. It has to be in glorious Stockport though, I love it here so much. I just went to collect a parcel from the Royal Mail depot and it was raining and I was jumping in all the puddles under the viaduct and singing that song by some hispter band (RHCP?) about being under the bridge (even though I was under a viaduct but they're pretty much the same) and so many factories and so much graffiti and so much fun bla bla bla. My brain is very mushy, peas peas potatoes.

My trip to the opticians was basically good news. I need to have very weak glasses (I asked for the most Jessica Fletcheresque pair that they had but apparently they went out of fashion in about 1992) and I chose myself some bangin' ones from the Boots own brand range which was slightly exciting. There will be photos, don't worry. They did all their various tests and apart from being a bit shit at the eye pressure one (I'm a jumpy person with eyes like plates, it was never going to turn out well) all appeared good (my eye pressure was at the very low end of normal though. What is it with me and low pressure? Low blood pressure, low eye pressure. WHY IS MY BODY SO CHILLED OUT I HAVE LEUKAEMIA FOR FUCK'S SAKE). Very good in fact, to the degree that when I showed my (very nice) new optician the pictures of what my optic nerves used to look like she could barely believe they were the same eyes. They've got better that we could ever have imagined :D I CAN SEEEEEE. The blind girl doth view. Lord, I can barely remember when I was having all those blind fits. It's all so long ago now. There's the tiniest bit of scarring which I'll be able to show you when I get the pictures (they have to burn them onto a disk) but otherwise my oculars are as healthy as a lettuce leaf. Happy happy. Smilez.

I'm also definitely talking at this year's Find You Sense Of Tumour conference. That's right, they're giving me a thirty minute slot in front of a couple of hundred impressionable young cancery people... Ahahahahahahaha. I have to talk about surviving cancer and moving onto the REAL WORLD which I am obviously so good at because I have a flat and a job and an extensive collection of scarves. I think they think I'll be really inspirational but in reality I think I'll just be bemusing. It'll all be filmed so you can have a chuckle too. At me waving my arms around, wheeee, life after cancer is so fun, you get to pay council tax and break up fights in the supermarket!!! PARTY.

It was all the little things this week too. I saw a chav's penis (he was waving it around). A man on the train told me he wasn't carrying any valuables. Another man on the train told me I always look stunning (there's a little commuter crew on my train to work, the same faces day in, day out) which made my evening. I bought a chicken mayo with no mayo. I bought an amazing jumper covered in numbers and wore it to work and one of my colleagues shouted "that's Numberwang" at me. Cute and weird little things. The ones that puzzle you and cheer you up. Which is nice because they've all distracted me from the madness that is my place of work. And I mean madness. Badgers. Fucking badgers.

I should be off. I'm currently wearing only a bikini and the weather has turned a little chilly here in Stockport, I'd best go and find a cardigan or a sheep or something, turning a bit nesh in my old age. Gah (just to clarify: I don't usually wear swimwear around the house, I just ordered a new one off the internets and the bottoms are a bit too small for my voluptuous derriere so I'm trying to stretch it by wearing it permanently. I might even go for a bath in it. That's a bit weird. Almost don't care if it means this damn thing will fit me. I refuse to believe I need an XL size, I'm a 10 on top and 14 on bottom, I AM NOT AN XL WORLD). Oh, don't I cut an attractive image, me, fat rolls hanging over a bondagey black bikini with a slice of ASDA own brand garlic bread in my hand. I didn't even have fat rolls until I bought this bikini. Waaa. I need to go to sleep.

Oh holiday, I can't wait for you. In just 11 days I shall be in Belgrade looking at old things and staring at bridges. I like bridges. And cranes. And viaducts.

I like the world.

Constanleyknife the Great :) xXxXx