Blue Velvet

Since the events with the door and the frame off, I've felt weird.  As if the whole prettiness of Gent was an illusion that dissolved and something like Dennis Hopper appeared instead.  As if the whole prettiness was an illusion that I dissolved with the very darkness of me.  Other weird things: there have been two rapes in Citadel Park recently and the description in the news sounded exactly like someone I had met.  Well, more than met.  So I contacted the police and have heard nothing more, but feel very unsettled.  Then the other day, I'm standing in the rain waiting for the tram outside Gent station and this good-looking youngish man starts what seems like a pick-up but is really odd.  Random questions, random stories.  I think he was on drugs.   Once on the tram I turned and looked out the window, hoping that someone younger would get on to divert him.  I feel exposed, in all sorts of ways.  I want to go back to when Gent was Disneyland and I had yet to discover it.  I don't want to find out it is some place inhabited by Dennis Hopper.

The other night I woke in my locked bedroom and something was looking down on me from above, like a Triffid, or Alien.  It probably took only two seconds before my conscious brain realised there was nothing there, but my heart took a good five minutes to calm down, and I slightly fear sleep now.

Yesterday, I went to my sinus specialist because for the last three weeks I have not been able to breathe through my nose and there are greeny brown lumps.  And, of course, no senses of smell and taste.  Another infection, so the third lot of antibiotics this year; possibly more than in the whole of the previous ten years.  He asked what I thought, and what I thought was something needs to be done.  They do tend to move quickly here - I'm being operated on this coming Monday.

I had a form my GP had to complete and so I went to him tonight, thinking it would be a quick thing.  Before I know it, I'm completely topless with electrodes attached, from ankle to prodigious chest, and this trainee doctor and my GP are talking over me.  "Try to relax" says my GP.  My snorted "HA!" made him laugh.  My pulse was also about 14 beats higher than usual - not good.  I had rushed to the appointment and found myself unexpectedly half-dressed on a table between two men.  I did feel sorry for the child doctor, he had probably never seen anything like it.

So, one more thing before the op, an x-ray early tomorrow morning.  I get the feeling my boss thinks I'm doing all this to be awkward but it has to be done.  Afterwards I will be like those old Tunes adverts once they'd sucked a Tunes sweetie.