A memory of pain

A memory. 

Both at once familiar, and distant.

I have recalled it and spoken of it many times, but not for a long time.

Always before, I gave the details, matter of fact.

But suddenly, this time I vividly recall the shock, the pain.

And I feel myself wanting to cry.

The crippling sciatica of 2 years ago was not my first experience of extreme agony and fear.

11 years old.

Sitting at the dinner table, waiting, I see my sister has a straw for her drink.

I have to have one.

I jump off my chair to run into the kitchen, just as my mother comes through carrying a tray with a pot of freshly boiled tea.

It crashes over my stomach.

I scream.

Panic.

My father rushes me upstairs and starts filling the bath with cold water.

He tells me to lie in it, on my front.

I'm lying on the couch.

My father has given me a pain killer.

The last of a handful that he has kept for years, from some previous illness or condition.

I think it was morphine based.

I think these things are impossible to get hold of because they don't prescribe them any more.

I'm told I'm brave.

My skin is black with large blisters.

Someone says it looks like a moon base.

The doctor puts a dressing on it.

I have some kind of elasticated net vest to hold it in place.

I'm told that if it had been any worse, if my father hadn't acted quickly, then they would have had to take me to hospital in Swansea, which was a long way away.

It's the beginning of the summer holidays.

Trips to the beach have me keeping a shirt on, covered up.

I'm not allowed to go swimming.

For many years my skin has a slight discolouration and scars, but eventually they disappear.

I don't know why I suddenly remembered this so clearly that I momentarily felt the shock and pain.

Nor why I feel the tears now, when I have never felt emotional about it before.

Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street

Amazing sax riff!!!

Boring bit

Boring bit

Boring bit

Oh, wait, it's coming...

Amazing sax riff!!!

Boring bit

Boring bit

Boring bit

Oh, wait, it's coming...

Incredible guitar solo!!!

Amazing sax riff!!!

In 1978, was anyone else try and record off the radio onto their cassette player just the sax and guitar bits, or was it just me?

I'm not a royalist, but...

With the death of Her Maj, I have seen so many of my social media connections somehow feeling the need to comment about her in a favourable way, even though they would normally count themselves as republicans, or anti-monarchy, or anti-hierarchy, or anti-being-ruled-over-by-a-stinkingly-rich-elite.

But now, they say, whatever our feelings about such things, we must put them aside because the nation is in mourning and an old woman has died and her family will be grieving and it is so disrespectful to say otherwise.

But then, why say anything at all?

Fair enough if you don't want to offend, but why join in with the posh-washing?

If one of the Kardashians (or insert any other wealthy celebrity family of choice) died, would it be fitting for me to come out and publicly say that although I disagree with the whole notion of the celebrity worship culture that is almost epitomised by the Kardashians, this is a terrible time for a family who have lost a loved one?

And if so, why am I not publicly expressing my support for the families of the 178,000 other people who die every day across the world?

In the end, the only thing I wrote on Facebook was *cough* virtue-signalling *cough* but didn't hit enter.

I sat staring at it for a full 2 minutes before concluding that all I would be doing is upsetting a few people for a few seconds for my own self satisfaction, and what's the point in that? 

Each person's righteous outburst on FB is toxic to someone else.

So I deleted it before I could change my mind, and it was never posted.

Instead I wrote about the whole thing here on this blog post as a way of getting it off my chest, secure in the knowledge that it's unlikely to be seen by more than 2 or 3 people at most.

Actually, I did also type, "love the monarch, hate the monarchy", on the page of someone who has been known to write "love the sinner, hate the sin" about homosexuality. But I don't think they understood...

WTF, Kim?

"You know," he said, "when you used to tell me about these photo shoot ideas of yours, I would nod and smile, but inside I couldn't imagine they would look any good. But over the years, every time you've produced something great so I've stopped being overly concerned about it."

"So what you're saying," I said, "is when I enthusiastically tell you about the latest shoot I'm planning to do, like this one I've just told you about, your first thought is 'What the fuck, Kim?' which is then followed by, 'Oh, it'll probably be OK because he's got a track record now.'?"

"Er, yes, kind of..." he said, noticing my eyes had narrowed somewhat, "but it's a compliment!"

It had honestly never occurred to me that someone might think this way. Whenever I get an idea, I'm so stoked about it, I assume everyone else will be too - not that they are thinking I'm completely off my trolley but against all the odds somehow seem to make it work.

I'm still not completely convinced this is a compliment...

You can't handle the truth...

It's been too long since we last spoke, but I can feel myself getting upset with my brother when I phone him and realise he is hugely downplaying the problems in his life and is only really telling me what he thinks I want to hear.

It's been too long since we last spoke, but I can feel myself getting upset with my sister when I phone her and not only does she not downplay all the problems in her life, she fills in many of the missing details in my brother's life.

And I realise I'd rather she'd only told me what I wanted to hear...

Time and Energy

And then the programme crashed, just as I was putting the finishing touches to a project that I'd been working on for 3 hours, but because of the CFS had effectively taken me 2 days of scraping together bits here and bits there.

I didn't have the time or energy to do it again.

Other things had far more priority and I probably shouldn't have been wasting my precious resources on it anyway.

It wasn't an important thing, just a bit of trivial fun.

But still I wept.

I'm not OK about not feeling OK

Stop telling me that it's OK not to feel OK!

The whole thing about not feeling OK is that I'm not OK with it!

I get what you're trying to say is that under the current circumstances it's perfectly natural to not feel OK, and there's no need to add extra guilt, or beat myself up about not being OK.

But I'm still not OK with not being OK!

Not being OK feels like a crock of shit, and I don't like it – it's not OK!

I want to stop feeling I'm not OK.

And you telling me it's OK not to feel OK isn't making me feel any better.

It might be making YOU feel better to tell me it's OK not to feel OK, because it helps distract you from not feeling OK.

But it's only making me feel even more useless that I can't be OK with not feeling OK.

I just want to stop feeling not OK.

My Journey to a Parallel Universe

A true story...

When I was in my mid to late 20s, I drove a Lada.

Not the most fashionable of cars - in fact it was about as fashionable as my mullet - but it got us from A to B, most of the time.

Mine was light brown in colour.

I always knew it was light brown, so when I went to Halfords to buy some paint to cover up some of the scratches and dents, I bought the light brown Lada paint.

Then when I got home and went to apply the paint, my Lada was inexplicably cream, and had always been cream coloured.



The only explanation I have ever been able to come up with is, in that moment I slipped into a parallel universe where everything was the same except the colour of my Lada.

I sometimes wonder how the life of the Kim from the parallel universe I swapped places with, who bought cream paint at Halfords and suddenly found his Lada was brown, has turned out...

Lost and Found

I found things I'd forgotten I'd lost 

Shape up

If you're not in a social circle or a love triangle, then you must be square, man.