Go away, I'm sick

Hi everyone. I feel disgusting.

I hate being sick. I become a Very Small Person and lie around meekly flapping my arms and trying not to be too much of an inconvenience. I had to be driven home at 4am, and was told off for saying, "If it's OK could you just pull over at the next convenient place please?" rather than "STOP THE CAR I'M GOING TO BE SICK," which is apparently what you say. Is not my fault I was brought up to be polite. Did not vomit in the car, either. Whole thing was very embarrassing, especially as I had started the evening intending to be gorgeous and charming, but must have looked like a drunk, hanging out of passenger door at 4am and - actually I don't think I'll finish that 'word picture'.

So anyway it turns out that when I was sick on Thursday it wasn't a one-off thing, I have some kind of a stomach bug which means I spend all day deciding which end of me to point at the toilet. IT'S SO GREAT. I hate everything and I am going back to bed now.

Will tell you all about the wedding later when need to vomit is less urgent. I was pretty socially awkward but there were ponies.

Dad's Birthday! Also, I was sick.

I was sick yesterday - having vomited staunchly throughout the morning, gave up at 11am and went home from work. Spend the afternoon sleeping and barfing (not at the same time) until eventually I fell into a feverish sleep at about 7.30, and would probably have slept all night BUT it was Fireworks Night and, while I didn't go to the fireworks on account of all the barfin', my sister and mother did. Leaving me at home with the dog. Who is large, and hairy, and terrified of fireworks.

HOLY SHIT WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE

At about 8.30 the fireworks started, and so did Charlie - he stood in the hallway barking, then scooted backwards down the hall, still barking, into my room, onto my bed, and made himself the smallest dog possible. That was ok, but then he spent the next two hours barking, whining, jumping, wagging his tail, and backing his big dog butt into my face. Every so often he'd get brave and run out into the hall again, only to reappear seconds later, shaking and barking and wagging and whining and jumping. Man, I love having a dog.

In other news, today is my father's birthday! He is OLD. I can't remember how old (68? 69? 143?) and when I asked him he said, "As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth." (What he actually said was, "As old as my teeth and a little bit older than my hair," but he meant the first one. As I said, he is old, you know how old people are.)

Anyway, Happy Birthday Dad! I am celebrating your birthday by not wearing shoes at work. I knew you'd approve.

Tomorrow I am going to a wedding. Why on earth would people choose to roar out their love to all and sundry by making their friends sit on hard benches and be quiet for an hour? Weddings confuse me. Also, why are children allowed, and what do you mean I have to behave appropriately and not drink to excess? What do you mean this day is about the happy couple, not about me? Weddings are bollocks. I shall let you know how it goes.

The Morgue

Morning all! Visit to the funeral home was interesting, but not as fun as it could have been as a) there were no bodies on the premises, so the funeral directors didn't get bombed on Jagermeister and start waltzing around with stiffs as I had been hoping they would; and b) I ate far too much at lunchtime and had terrible wind. Have you ever farted in a morgue? I have.

(On that note, I remember the first time a relative of mine, who shall remain unidentified, had an attack of wind. "Ally," she said, "there's something wrong with me." "What sort of something?" "I feel really sick, and like someone's twisting my insides. But every so often I fart, and then I feel better." She was really quite concerned. "Um," I said, "did you eat anything weird today?" "I ate a whole bag of licorice." "You have wind." "No I don't! It's much more serious than that." "No...no, it's wind.")

We arrived at the funeral home in the middle of some hideously dull speeches, but when those were done we grabbed some wine (free!) and went on a tour of the building. Too many white lilies. They had the hearses out, which gave everyone an opportunity to ask stupid questions ("That one's big, is it for two people?") and make comments about shagging in hearses. I bet that at some stage, every one of those hearses has been occupied by people doing the naughty.

We went from there into a warehouse full of coffins, where presumably your shade can lurk about and nudge your grieving relatives away from the crappy eco-friendly models (unvarnished box with rope handles, looks like the sort of thing you'd pop a penniless surfer in) and towards the proper big fuck-off coffins (sorry, caskets - undertakers are now funeral directors, and coffins are now caskets) made out of dark wood with huge silver handles on the sides. I expressed my deep desire to have a whacking great coffin, and everyone thought I was a) morbid and b) extravagant ("It's just going to rot in the ground anyway.") "But it's about the drama of the funeral," I said, which did not help.

Then we went and looked in the morgue - was just like the ones on CSI, but smaller and without the little body safes in the wall. Instead of those there was a great big walk-in freezer, not unlike the ones you see in restaurant kitchens. It had "NAME" written on the door in permanent marker, although someone had obviously tried to wipe this off prior to our arrival. I wanted to look in the freezer, but was quietly reminded that I was representing the business, etc. Same went for asking questions about the technical details of the embalming process. Sigh.

So we ate some little pies and had a glass of wine and went home.

New Christian Friends

I am friends with some Christians! Those of you who know me will be squirting coffee out your nose/ shaking your head in disappointment as my usual response to religious folk is to say, "Oh, you believe in that? That's nice. Would you like to invest in a Nigerian bank?"

But, in my defense, I didn't know! They're smokin' drinkin' swearin' Stealth Christians , who are pretty fun and who have not yet tried to convert me. (I have to say this, because at least one of them - of whom I am very fond - reads this blog.)


Kate said, "They'll try to convert you."
Me: "No they won't, they're not that sort of Christian."
Kate: "They all are! You'll be like, "You know what I need? A beer!" and they'll go, "No...you need Jesus." Once one of [her ex] David's friends invited us to a BBQ. We were driving there, then they turned off and pulled into a parking lot, and then we went into this hall, and David and I were like, "Oooh, food! Wait...this is a church."

Another friend had a similar story, about the time her partner and her were invited to a BBQ at a community hall or similar (it always seems to be BBQs) which took a horrible turn.

"We got there, and the BBQ was outside, so we ate and drank and chatted, then eventually everyone moved inside. I thought, "Oh, we're moving inside." Then a couple of people got out guitars and I thought, "Oh, a sing-a-long!" Then they started singing [name of a worship song which I have forgotten]. Then they all sat in a circle and talked about God, and this awful girl gave a testimony, and the whole thing was for our benefit, and we were ages away from the doors, so we couldn't just sneak out.

Her name was Fiona, and she was an etymologist, and she was skinny with awful huge glasses and greasy hair and terrible acne. Like a bug with pizza face. And she talked about how she came to Jesus, because she had allergies, and she closed her eyes and prayed to God to stop her sinuses being sore, and halt her runny nose. And then she said, "I felt the finger of God-" here she placed her finger on her upper lip -"stem the flow.""

At this point my friend stood up and declared that she had just remembered a prior appointment.


Tonight after work I am going to a function to celebrate the refurbishment of a funeral home (they are work clients). I shall let you know how this goes. I am probably going to drink too much and make inappropriate comments about necrophilia.