Further doings after red wine and codeine

The literature on not fucking sleeping advises me to write down whatever is in my head instead of lying in bed and thinking. So here is the unabridged contents of my head at 2am. I am quite sure that it will be very boring.

Motor skills greatly inhibited. Walking sideways easier than forward yet sleep still further away than if not yet invented. Have double checked bathroom and seems that either I did take the tablets or they vanished. The swallowing of them seems more likely, this theory greatly enhanced by smeared gormless drugged look on face when I looked in the mirror. Let it be known that valerian is for losers and never did anyone any good, not even the poor copywriter paid a pittance to write the boring and vague claims on the side of the jar. That is why I have embarked on my bold experiment.

Spencer advised me not to drink wine and take codeine as a remedy for sleeplessness, that and to take a bus or a taxi home so that he didn't find me three hours later dead on a road somewhere. Spencer is usually right about things but not this time, oh no. I walked home to aid the wearying process. I drank the wine. I swallowed the codeine but see Spencer I am not dead. Nowhere near it.

Heartbeat possibly irregular. More likely that my counting skills have become irregular. What I wouldn't give for Creamboy's stethoscope about now, just to hear the strange pulse that animates my body. Nothing is happening on the internet. Reading now impossible due to slight bleariness of vision. The cat is nowhere to be seen, suspect sleeping under low piece of furniture like the dirty hairy sausage thief that she is.

If Sherlock Holmes were here I would wrestle the morphine from his strangely strong hands and take it myself. If Sherlock were here he would not be able to identify my profession due to the invention of computers although it is true that my fingers are generally ink stained from my habit of writing with ink and nib. I do this by candlelight because of the nature of my desk. It is old, so old that there are three generations worth of stationery locked safe in its ornate drawers. If Sherlock were here I would kiss him just to see what he would do. I suspect he would jump backwards and declare "Madam! Come to your senses" or some such tripe.

If I was Sherlock I would kiss Watson. Clearly there is no other person meant for the detestable Mr Holmes, he does not seem to desire the company of a lady. I suspect it is the gentlemen he prefers. If I was Watson I would run away with Lestrade and open a bed and breakfast near Cornwall. Lestrade would mange the B&B and I would claim a lofty room overlooking the ocean and sit at my desk and write. If I was Lestrade I would declare my undying love for the other police detective, whatever his name is. We would run away to Paris and eat tiny beautiful cakes together every morning for breakfast.

I will now examine the gentle art of writing about saucepans. I have just spilled my cigarette filters all over the floor. Taking this as an indication that the drugs are working. Why is the word 'internet' considered a proper noun? Why? Chair is not a proper noun nor is car or father, unless referring specifically to one's own father as a name. What in the hell is going on? Who decides what is and what is not a proper noun? And just how did Simon know my full name. Sure I have sat with him on more than one occasion but never had I had call to myself anything other than my first name and why did he shout my whole name in farewell as I walked out of the pub this early evening? Something odd is afoot. I will ask Spencer. He will know.

I will invent tobacco that is good for you. Smoking must in some way be good for you. I am sure of this. My hair is tangled and standing upright in ridiculous giant curls. There is no point to that thought. The Spatula is intolerable if she has been drinking beer. This fact should be in the encyclopedia. Grizelda's bedroom is extremely untidy, this also should be in an encyclopedia. Why oh why does Gemma live in Melbourne. Sure The Hive is grand and her friends excellent but it so far away. I can't walk there for coffee. Too far.

This line this line. It used to be the palest green. Why am I not delirious with drugs and alcohol? I have done my best. What is going on? Oh lord my brain has become impervious to mind altering substances. How can this be? I generally drink pink lemonade not alcoholic drinks. My drug taking days ended some years ago with the last flush of my stupid youth. It is not as though I could have worked up an immunity.

I keep thinking of the tall and strong man who pushed my right shoulder into the cold brick wall and smeared tenderly at my red lipstick with his broad rough thumb. His face was a question mark. My answer was no but now I'm not sure why. There is nothing better than a rugged man. with the exception of a nice cup of tea and little sit down followed by adding words to my manuscript. That is better than a rugged man. That is better than all things ever invented.

Why can't some people write? Sure they have mastered the alphabet but even this boring and stupid blog post is better than their rancid inaqequate scrawlings. Writing should be the first purpose of everyone. Then everything would be grand all over the world. Perhaps I should go on a murder spree? I will start with the writers of bad fan fiction then move on to bad fantasy authors, stupid old hacks who wouldn't know news if it latched on to their testicles and then ordinary members of the general public. If the drugs were working this might seem like a good idea but I can still tell that it is a bad idea to be going on murder sprees.

There was this guy called Tom Roberts who trained horses. He once mounted a horse that would not go forwards, to demonstrate how to overcome this obstacle he sat on the horse and gave a lecture to his students for some two hours. During this time the horse became anxious to move forwards but Captain Roberts would not permit it. By the time he was finished lecturing his work on the horse was done. He asked the students to observe, calmly signalled to the horse to move forwards in a walk, then trot and canter. The horse obliged most willingly. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

My riding students used to object when I prevented them from using anything other than an ordinary snaffle bit such as an eggbutt snaffle which is kind and soft on the horses mouth. Some students used to always want a pelham bit and did not appreciate when I pointed out that a pelham whilst customary for polo was a sign of inadequate riding skills for schooling and flatwork. Of course I used a double bridle for advanced work, generally only after good lateral work was established such as shoulder-in and renvers, a nice counter-canter and so forth. There are no horses in Newtown.

I miss the horse. I dream regularly of his final collapsing moments each time waking myself with heaving sobs. It has now been almost a decade since the horse. I thought that time would help but it appears not. This might be my one irreversible tragedy.

2:28 am. Nothing of consequence in head. Usual background hum of sentences for manuscript, ideas for articles but nothing else. No great stress or new tragedy. No pining for an absent lover, no regreat over recent misdeeds, no nothing of interest at all. No music, no poetry, no urgent desires. This has been a grand waste of time.

Come to think of it something strange did occur last night. I put my glass of water down on a road case in front of the sound desk. When I next picked it up to take a sip the water tasted like beer. That is very odd.

Comments

Anonymous said…
are you still awake?
i am
call if needed
spencer
Valerian does NOTHING, and sleeping pills leave you wretched the next day. Neither are as bad as the 'somnia, which thankgod I haven't had much to do with lately, but there was a fortnight a couple of years ago when I was close to going mad with it. Be gentle with yerself. Do soothing healthful things, and paddle about slowly.
Gemnastics said…
You have until asap to decide to move into The Hive, and until the 15th of April to get here. 2 bedrooms (just like my place, but upstairs), $200 per week, in the most awesome spot in St Kilda. Seriously. If you want to live here I can make it happen.
Gemnastics said…
Also, if everyone were a brilliant writer, brilliant writing would become ordinary, and nobody would be paid. Be thankful there are many whose abilities are limited to 'things wot you can spel wif letters'.