I was away, and then I was back... and ill

So, the wife and I went to Italy for a wee summer holiday, 31 August to 12 September. Spent most of the time on the beach but also took a trip within a trip for a return visit to wonderful Venice. The whole experience, as you might expect, was lovely: cycling to and from the beach each day, splashing around in the sea, eating wonderful seafood and pizza and pasta dishes...

Before going, I'd been having a little gyp with a tooth that had recently been filled by my dentist, so in the last couple of days of my hol, I phoned and made an appointment.

We got back on the 12th, and my appointment was for the 16th.

On the 14th, while stretching to see the clock from my position in bed, I put my neck out so booked an appointment with the osteopath for the 15th: I wanted to get it sorted before being asked to open wide the following day.

The train ride to London for the dentist gave me the fear, cos I was right opposite this old dude who just kept coughing, almost for the whole hour of the journey. I just knew I would catch whatever the fuck it was that he was sharing.

And sure enough, two days later I started to get a sore throat. And that developed into a full head cold. I was lucky enough to feel fine within myself but was snotty and sniffy and sneezy nonetheless.

The cold did what colds do and kept me reaching for the Anadin Extra and the Kleenex. And then, on what would be my last day of sneezes, an almighty one wrenched my lower back. I literally could not stand upright without nasty pain. Another booking with the osteopath...

This brings us up to 22 September, and a couple of appointments with him seemed to be doing the job for my lower back.

And that's when I started to get some cystitis-like sensations: initially stinging/burning, accompanied by a feeling that I needed to pee more often than I normally would. I thought little of it and just hoped it would pass...

Until the point that I woke with severe discomfort in my mid-back on Friday 2 October. It felt different from my lower-back pain, but I assumed it must somehow be connected, so I lay down with a hot-water bottle for a few hours and it seemed to clear up.

The next day, I awoke to the same pain, only worse. I was literally in tears, though I'm not sure if it was really the pain or just the being absolutely fed up with being incapacitated in some way for about three weeks solid. I called my osteo, and he said he was surprised that it had shifted if I hadn't been doing anything strenuous. He asked if there was any chance I was having any other problems. I mentioned the cystitis stuff.

"I think that might be a kidney infection," he said, "without sounding like I want to pass the buck." So I spent the next hour or so trying to speak to a medical professional and eventually got an appointment for the same day. The doctor/nurse (who knows) who dealt with me said there was definitely an infection, based on my sample. By now -- as is always the case -- I was not only feeling better but was also not displaying any of my previous symptoms!

Anyway, today I got the actual test results back. "All clear," I was told. "Huh?" I replied. "How come I was told I had an infection, and yet the exact same sample says all clear?"

"Probably the drugs are clearing it up."
"But I started taking them after I gave the sample."

I don't even know what else to say. But it seems I am finally back to health. Now I need a holiday. And so, of course, does the missus, who has been doing almost everything around the house for this whole time.

Sheeeeeeet!

Captain Birdseye
Anthony Minghella
Arthur C Clarke.

It reminds me of that week when Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd died. Weird when shit happens all in a bunch.

Been real busy with work lately. It's all good. But it wasn't supposed to be a busy time, so I had made other plans: work meetings, periodontist, and a tattoo appointment. Still keeping them all, which of course makes for being even more busy.

At least we've got the long weekend to get on top of work while everyone else is busy stuffing their faces with chocolate eggs.

I bought a diary

I rarely use a diary. I mean, an appointments type of diary, not like a journal/blog type of diary. I bought one last year and never used it. But this year is already looking to be busy, and I'm already getting confused about what's happening when. And that's before starting to schedule in work.

I've mentioned before that there are a couple of things on the horizon: my new nephew's christening; my mother-in-law's birthday trip (the wife and I are taking her away); about ten tattoo sessions (I have booked three 3-hour slots already); hopefully at least a couple of weekend breaks and a proper-length holiday... Y'see, it all starts to mount up.

And now I'm also having to pencil in some periodontist time. Not content with all the dentist trips at the end of last year, it seems that I now have to do a bunch this year, too. So that's something else to schedule in.

So I bought a diary. I've filled in some of the dates I already know, and I guess I'll add in others as I go along. I don't make resolutions of the new year type, but maybe this is something I will try to stick to.

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But for now there's only one thing to occupy my mind:
it's Red's birthday today!!!
So we are trying to burn through our workload ASAP and then take the rest of the day off. Then tonight I'm taking her out to dinner at the poshest restaurant in the area. It's Michelin-starred and we've been there before, so we know it's great.

Shame the weather is so damn schifo today, y'know. It's really made the missus think back to the wonderfully sunny days we had this time last year in the delightful Seville. I'm thinking we should go there for her birthday every year...

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On the subject of dentists, these are currently my favourite lyrics.

Take these teeth
All they do is fucking cause me grief
They ain't working for me
I can't even think.
When the lights go on
I grip this chair
I don't feel so strong
Anything could happen, it could all go wrong.
All those wasted nights
All the times when I lost the fights
Are right before my fucking eyes in print.
The figure on this fucking page
Has wiped the smile right off my face:
Eight hundred pounds is a lot to pay when you're skint.

Take these teeth
Just for a second I need some fucking relief
They're keeping me awake and I can't sleep.
Can you drain the blood?
I've swallowed so much I think I want to throw up.

Can't you see that I've had enough?
Can you drain the blood from my fucking mouth?

"I Promise This Won't Hurt", Gallows

I’ll just start typing and see what happens

Gosh, it's been, like, four days since my last post. That's a long time in Asterisk-land.

Spent Friday working in the morning, then off to the dentist in the afternoon. The gum next to where I had my root canal has been giving me serious problems. All red and inflamed and throbby. It took me about 90 minutes to get there and 90 minutes to get back, a three-hour round trip for about a six-minute consultation in which I was told it would probably be best for me to see a gum specialist. I was pissed off. I mean, she's right and all, but in future I wonder whether I oughtta just email her a pic of my mouth and say "Whaddup?", y'know?

Anyway, gum specialist guy's schedule and mine don't match up until January. I've been on antibiotics since Friday night, and that's helped a lot. No inflammation now, nor throbbing; just redness remains. So fingers crossed we can get through Christmas and New Year.

The Saturday and Sunday were spent pretty much working flat out.

Then today, Red and I were due to pick up two shelves from an antiques place that they were having made for us by a restorer they use. We'd bought this lovely glass-fronted bookcase from them a few months ago, but we needed more shelves cos we're using it for CDs.

More than two months it has taken this restorer to make the new shelves. In the meantime he also had one of our originals as reference for dimensions, so we were even shorter on space.

We get them home, and neither one of the shelves fits. Both too long. What kind of knobhead, with a perfect reference to hand, makes shelves too fucking long for their purpose. And after keeping us waiting almost ten weeks! And we've paid for them now (£40), so they better fucking sort it out, or I will be an even less happy bunny than I already am.

I'm also spending some time looking for reference material for my backpiece. It's proving trickier than I'd imagined. The main sticking point, if any of you widely read guys and gals out there wish to take up the challenge, is I'm looking for a winged fish that we believe is a dolphin as used in heraldry and European (and possibly Japanese) fountains. It's almost mythological looking, even. So, if you happen to have a great reference book or heraldic symbols or mythological beasts or medieval interpretations of sea creatures, maybe you can help a brother out...

A man walks into a dentist’s surgery...

Sound like the beginning of a joke? Well, it's no laughing matter.

But before that, the wife and I went for some lunch. As you might know, I like a decent burger now and then. And when I'm in central London, I like to indulge my palate with a visit to Hamburger Union. There are several branches, but yesterday we went to the one on Tottenham Court Road. But once we placed our order and took our seats, we remembered that the last time we went there we ended up feeling a little sad.

You see, right above the table that we have taken on both visits there is a print on the wall. A quick glance reveals that it's a picture of Noah's Ark, braving huge crashing waves. However, and grab a Kleenex now, on closer inspection you can see that the ark, which is full to capacity, has had to tow a smaller boat behind it, and upon this secondary vessel stands a pair of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are also wearing inflatable rubber rings around their long necks.

I mean, how sad is that?

Well, after the yummy burger I could delay the inevitable no longer. First the hygienist. Apart from the fact that I have T-shirts older than the woman who was let loose inside my mouth with sharp and dangerous tools, this part of the visit went okay-ish. Nothing I didn't already know.

The dentist proper was a different story. Man, how I hate those initial anaesthetizing jabs. The needle is about 3ft long and she sticks it in, pulls it halfway back out then pushes it back in at an adjusted angle. And after that one she does the same with another needle. Like, ow.

Then she got me all prepped, with the green rubber sheet with a hole in it to isolate the tooth that is to be worked on. Once the area seemed numb enough, on with the drilling. To be honest, I don't have a major problem with this part of the process. So long as I'm suitably anaesthetized, it's all good. For me, it's the fact that I have to lie there with my mouth fairly wide open for an hour. That's hard work.

So, drill and file and dig and file and drill ad infinitum. All the fun of the fair, it was. And drill and file and dig and file and drill some more. And we're done. Then the not-great news. She wasn't able to finish it, but that had been half-expected anyway. The worse news? Because one of the canals goes off at a funny angle, she can't get all the way down it. Options: live with it and see how it goes; or go to a specialist who SHOULD be able to get to it.

Now, the specialist will charge around £800 ($1,600) for this treatment. And given that I'm already paying the best part of £500 ($1,000) for the work my dentist is doing on it, I'm sure as hell not going to pay yet more for someone else to maybe not be able to finish it. To be honest, I wish I'd had all the facts at the outset, though I appreciate she may not have known how tough the canal would have been to get down. It's a curved one, apparently. But armed with all this info and a list of costings, I might have simply decided to remove the offending article. "If thy [tooth] offends thee, pluck it out" kind of thing.

Oh well.

So I go back for the second phase of the job on Monday the 19th. Looking forward to reliving the whole thing again, obviously.

Well, that's all for today. Over and out, amigos.

Dentistry... and a large ass

Won't be around much tomorrow. Off to the dentist. Phase 1 of a root canal treatment. Great.

Still, I have posted some new movie reviews in recent days. Feel free to check 'em out if you haven't already. Also, I joined the Large Association of Movie Blogs (or LAMB for short). You can find it here at largeassmovieblogs. So far it's quite a small ass, but it has big ass-pirations. Is that enough ass talk? Butt I like it!

Have fun without me. He he, like that's possible, right?

Running around like a blue-arsed fly

That's a particularly fun turn of phrase, don't you think? Anyways...

You know that song "These Boots Are Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra? Whoever wrote that had never spent a couple of hours pounding the streets of London in a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. And I don't care how much you love David Tennant as the Doctor, there is no way any being, not even a Time Lord, can spend his entire life wearing them, not with all the running and galaxy hopping and Earth saving he has to do.

But wait, this morning I had a pretty damn good idea. I removed the padded inner soles from my trainers (or sneakers or tennis shoes, if you prefer) and put them inside my Chucks (or Cons or All Stars, if you prefer), and hey fucking presto I suddenly have some footwear fit for wearing on my feet.

Cos today I had to pound the tiled floors of the mall to grab some T-shirts and stuff, so I didn't want to make my feet even more blistered than they were yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday, the dental hygienist was very gentle. Never has a dental hygienist been so gentle with my mouth. I think it's because she's more accustomed to working with special-needs children. And you know, my eyes didn't water once either, so (although I certainly won't admit that I ever cry in the dentist's chair) I'm beginning to wonder if the pain of the hygienist somehow makes my eyes water (not cry, though).

She said... Well, what didn't she say? She is quite the talker. But she said I was doing well and to keep up the good work. I love when the dentist or hygienist tells me that. Over the past six or seven years I have spent a lot of money on my teeth -- more than I've spent on tattooing in 17 years -- and although I still don't treat them as well as I should (who does?), I wouldn't want to go back to those dark days of poor upkeep and infrequent check-ups.

For those who don't know what The X Factor is, it's an American Idol type of show in which there are three mentors, each of whom has a bunch of artists: one has 16- to 24-year olds; one, over-25s; and the last, groups. After all the usual audition rounds and eliminations that these shows go through, the viewers at home get to vote off one artist each week until only one remains. So, it's a singing contest, rather than a Britain's Got Talent type thing.

I'm slowly getting out from under my hectic workload. It's fun watching as the number of projects reduces, ready for a slightly less manic summer. But before long, as is the freelance way, we'll soon be worrying that we have no work. I vow not to do that until August, though.

Updates

So, my brother is on to the next round of X Factor auditions, to be held on 11 July. At this one I think he will come face to face with Simon Cowell. Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

Meanwhile, the missus and I are heading off to the dentist today. I hate going to the dentist. I'm not an anti-dentite, but I know I don't floss as often as I should, and I'll get told off. Also, when I'm lying on my back, that big, fuck-off light above my head is so bright that it makes my eyes water. I'm not crying, I swear. It's just too damn bright!

We took a look at the new house in the hood. To be fair, it's not as hideous as I was expecting. But they've only put one up so far. The other arrives on Saturday. Two new houses in the space of five days. So, this is the modern world that I've learned about.