Bolas De Colores

Right. I'm back. Again. I should have known that would happen. A week or so after the 'flu fucked off, my immune system kicked seven bells of shit out of me. Not the full-on fucking evil of a few years ago, but enough unpleasantness to require some serious fucking painkiller/trank administration. Now I've never really hidden my fondness for temporarily rewiring my brain, but tramadol and temazepam is not a recommended combination. Not if you want to hang onto yr grip on reality anyway. I spent a week or so in a deeply weird state, bordering on hypnopompic* at times, and it wasn't nice**, not really able to think coherently, thoughts (such as they were) sliding out of my grasp like eels, the weird disassociated feeling that my conscious mind was just about alert enough to watch, but too fucking knackered to do anything, content to let the reptilian part of my brain take over unless absolutely fucking necessary. Not nice people, not nice at all. But I am properly better (and conscious) now, just in time for the appalling levels of gluttony and debauchery the next week or so will hopefully bring forth. And now I'm going to roll a fucking huge reefer and listen to Coloured Balls*** very, very loud. More shit later...

*I specifically mean hypnopompic here too, not hypnogogic. No matter what anyone says, they're qualiatively not the same. For as long as I can remember, I've experienced really long periods of both on many, many occasions, and nothing on earth, with the possible exception of DMT, can compare with the sheer fucking weirdness I've experienced getting stuck between being asleep and waking up. Getting stuck going the other way is nowhere near as strange.

**Ok, it was occasionally enjoyably mongy, but most of the time it was fucking unpleasant. Not as unpleasant as the pain and a complete inability to sleep tho.

***Early 70s proto-punk, proto-metal hard psych Aussie lunatics featuring Lobby Lloyde, one of the meanest fucking guitarists you've never heard, and a man who, like me, has a penchant for ring-modulating his guitar into oblivion. Not all their stuff is good, but when they got it right (the early shit), they got it so fucking right. Check out G.O.D. from Summer Jam with it's fucking magnificent Hawkwind vs Stooges riff and you'll get the rough idea. Oh wait, here it is:

La Resaca

In lieu of being capable of saying anything even vaguely coherent or sensible, due to a severe lack of sleep over the previous few days, I advise you to follow this link and immerse yrself in the wild and wooly sounds of this years Tinderbox Festival, which can be found here.

¡Enfermera, Traer El Espéculo!

I remember what I was going to ask. How the fucking hell did I end up with an excruciatingly painful dented coccyx, not to mention a whole host of mysterious, randomly located cuts and bruises last week? I don't remember getting involved in a game of violent Twister, I haven't injured myself at work, and I didn't get so pissed, even last Tuesday which was fairly messy for want of a better word*, that I had any memory gaps (I always know if I've drunkenly forgotten, if that makes sense, there's a horrible hungover hole in my brain which was completely absent), or sense of lost time**. So how in the name of all that is fucking unholy did these injuries occur? Particularly the coccyx. That fucking still smarts now (ooh DFs, excuse me for a sec...), and it felt like I was growing a fucking tail last Wednesday morning. Still, shit happens. Any ideas? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

And no, there were no handy bits of cardboard to surf on or anything like that. I know I can't help myself after a few, but that always results in the same injury if I go arse over tit, namely a lumpy bruise on my left elbow that's a dead ringer for a cartoon bump on the head, and I didn't suffer that specific indignity. It wasn't a Thors rehearsal night. So how and why does this weird shit happen? How did the disco damage occur? Because this is definitely a case of DD...

On other, more sensible matters, TIME were fucking great at Oto last week, and I will post a proper review when I'm more... compos mentis. Because they were very good indeed, and I'd like to do justice to their music with my words as opposed to just blatting wine & opiated idiocy all over this post. I know it's a fine line sometimes, but even so...

*One of those nights which starts with the seemingly innocuous words "fancy a quick pint after work?" and ends several hours later in quadruple*** rum-soaked carnage.

**All alien abduction scenarios involving so-called lost time can be traced back to a single cause. A one-toothed banjo playing motherfucker who got so fucking arseholed on corn whiskey they forgot Thursday happened, and needed a really, really fucking serious excuse...

***They were supposed to be doubles, the barman was pissed too, and couldn't find the spirit measures, so he poured them by eye, and erred on the somewhat, shall we say, generous side. Blue Cheer and Mudhoney were blaring out of the jukebox. Said jukebox is free. Guess the pub...

Aventuras En Farmacéuticos Uno

I've just looked in the mirror, and my pupils are the size of fucking microdots (the real things, not the lovely old gelatin acid tabs, they're way bigger). Probably because of the two DFs I necked a couple of hours ago. Well, fuck it, my feet hurt like motherfuckers today*, like someone has driven electrified railway spikes through the soles of my feet, which is a little fucking inconvenient, to say the least. It doesn't happen for as long, or as often now, mainly because of the genius physiotherapy department at Lewisham Hospital, but it still hits me occasionally. The fucker is that painkillers aren't really that effective (they do take the edge off and put a dumb expression on my face tho), well, unless it's tramadol, and that shit is a. fucking weird, and b. gave me fucking evil withdrawal symptoms for over a week when I stopped taking it a few months after leaving hospital because my fucking GP** didn't fucking tell me how to come off the shit without actually going completely fucking cold turkey, and I was too fucking twisted to even consider that the SSRI and SNRI actions that are just two of tramadol's revolting bonus features would make stopping the shit even harder and more unpleasant than yr average opioid, and that fucker never thought to mention those tiny details.

Sorry, the reason I'm ranting about the tramadol withdrawal even though it happened ages ago, is that I've only just recently discovered this is what was actually going on, and it's pissed me off royally. Well, as pissed off as you can be in a dihydrocodeine haze, but fuck it, I really feel like ranting. Because when you've got a fucking patient who's been on the maximum fucking dose of fucking weird opioids for several months, maybe it might have been a fucking good idea to tell them that they need to cut down gradually, and that if they don't they will suffer the combination of opioid withdrawal and the added joy of the wonderfully named atypical symptoms (which, suffice to say, are shit), especially as said fucking patient is recovering from an already massively fucking horrible autoimmune freakdown. Because you really fucking need a serotonin crash (and all the fucking rest) in that situation, I mean recovering from Guillian-Barre is such a fucking garden of delights in the first place what with all the fucking fun of learning to walk again and wondering when you'll ever be able to fucking eat or talk or kiss properly, or actually be able to touch or be touched and actually feel it again, or even just play the fucking guitar, and all the fucking rest***. Bastard. Fucking irresponsible bastard.

I needed that. Like I said, I know it was a while ago, but it does explain a few things about how I was feeling then, my horribly fucked up state of mind at that point, and I'm also finally able to think, and write about that time without going fucking batshit, and I feel I need to now that I can. All I knew then was that I was in a bad fucking way, and got sicker, and even less able to cope around then. But now I know why. It was an awful time, and not just for me, in fact I suspect, ok, I know it was a damn fucking sight worse for those around me§, because I was an unpleasant cunt at the time (and believe me, I'm under no illusions about what a bastard I'm occasionally capable of being when I'm really riled under much less extreme circumstances than the above), but knowing why is important to (and for) me, not because it excuses anything I did or said or whatever, but because I finally have some rational understanding of some of the why, and have put enough distance between then and now to finally be able to look at the whole situation from a somewhat more objective viewpoint.

Sorry if I'm rambling, or if you feel like my therapist. All I can say is thanks for the comfy couch.

*Nerve damage, Guillian-Barre etc. etc.

**Not the one who actually diagnosed me, she was fucking brilliant. 

***I could go on, for hours, but I'll spare you that. For now, anyway.

§This is neither apology or confession. The people who deserved apologies and explanations have all had them and have generally been pretty damn wonderful about it, and the idea that confession is good for the soul, well, the soul doesn't fucking exist, and there's nothing to actually confess to. Catharsis is what this is, pure and simple, because although I've talked it out with the people concerned, there are still things I need to straighten out in my own head about that time, and writing it down as opposed to talking about it just seems to work better for me.