I wrote this as a protest against the fashion in medical circles of making everything either a disease or the precurser to a disease.I have not included mental health here but I think it’s used there as well.If you are happy you are pre-mad or pre-neurotic.If calm you are pre-panicking or pre-stressed.
If beautiful you are pre-aged
I went to the doctor.He said I’d pre-flu..
I said “My dear doctor what shall I do?”
Next time I went, he said “It’s pre- shock.”
And then I had pre measles,pre mumps and pre-pox
I ran to the doctor,he said ” You’re pre-well”
I said “Are you sure it’s not just a pre-quel?”
Next time I turned up,he’d gone out for a walk
It’s hard for a doctor who wants to pre-talk.
I went to the optician, who said I’m pre-blind
I thanked him for being so intensely unkind.
I went back to the doctor,and these words I said
“I’m pre -blind, pre-deaf,pre-ill and pre-dead!
I think it’s not so surprising amongst Christians because Jesus came to save sinners and so more sinners go to Church…They need salvation but it must take time!That’s why we have Confession/Or maybe people who go to Church are from lower social classes and so are short of cash?I always found rich people avoid tax and so on regardless of religion.
Maybe “trying “to be good is counterproductive!
I’m not sure about Jews….I knew a lot at work and they were all more than honest.Also they seem more intelligent…. after all they invented the alphabet writing,story telling,ethics,morals,poetry…..God!Why should they steal?
It seems from today’s paper that A & E is overused because younger people want treatment immediately so they are unwilling to wait for their GP to open and never realise the pharmacist can treat simple conditions and are easier to talk to Do not go to A & E with the following complaints especially at night
Your false nails won’t come off
You broke a finger nail
You have a cold.
Your hair roller has got stuck in your bushy hair.
You have run out of elastoplast or aspirins.
You feel bored.
You like that tea they sell in robotic machines.
Your toe nails are dirty and you lost the nail brush.
You have no stamps and you need to post a letter
You want a pregnancy test.
You have no condoms at home.
You have lost your nail file or comb.
Your cat is ill and the vet is shut
You like eying up nurse.. remember a lot are now men,anyway… so ladies…No!
You had a row with your wife and are trying to frighten her by pretending to have chest pains.
Stan was polishing the windows again with his big microfibre cloth.The computer was on.As soon as he finished the sitting room windows he planned to look at a google document he was co-writing with hislfriend Annie, on the failings of the British Empire..She only lived next door but they both liked sharing new techniques of various kinds.
He sat down in front of his computer and looked at his email.
There was one from Annie.
“Hi Stan
I didn’t really want to keep some of those remarks you wrote at the bottom of our document when we were both online,so I have deleted them. We should have gone into chat mode.They were not related to the topic we were discussing so I know you won’t be mind.And if you ask again we can chat either online or in person about sex and people’s lives
With my love,dearest one ,Annie
Stan felt furiously angry and cross. How could she know if he minded or not?
He went dark red as if his head was bursting.What was so dreadful about his remarks?He had only asked Annie if her dead husband George might have been bisexual.Stan had once seen him kissing another man in the bushes in the park.Annie didn’t seem bothered last night.She never gave the impression to me she didn’t like it.Maybe she’s not quick enough to react
Anyway she should not have deleted it completely without asking me first.
He sat down on his old Habitat chair [recently mended free on the NHS by Dave the paramedic,] and he sent her an email saying he was furious with her for attacking his freedom of speech.It was unethical.It .He must assert himself.He would show her!
So he was not going to work with her on any more documents ever again nor chat on IM or Google Chat. Of course he still loved her but his anger was too strong for him to ignore.
When Annie got the email she was completely stunned like a cow ready to be e.She apologized to Stan immediately but he refused to accept it ever even though she begged piteously for forgiveness.
Why did he want to know if George was bisexual, she wondered.Was he saying it to try to turn himself on or me? Or is he just interested in all different kinds of sex and human behavior generally ,like most people are ?But it was not concerned with the document which was about ill treatment of prisoners in India under the British Empire and relating it to other acts of outrage by the British Government elsewhere.
I wanted to talk about us,not poor dead George.Whatever George’s sex life,he’s dead now.So l we should leave him in peace.
Meantime.Stan was thinking about how women were always interfering in his life,correcting him and improving his grammar.Making him cups of tea when he wanted brandy and some HP sauce with his lamb chops not salad
He liked talking about bisexuality.It made him feel a sense of wonder at the differing habits and desires of humans.Why couldn’t she just go along with it or at least say something then rather than deleting his words secretly when he was off-line?Though maybe mentioning George was insensitive even though George was dead.
He was a man .He was not going to let a woman ride over him like a steam roller. Annie must learn her place in the scheme of things.
Where is that,asked his beautiful tom cat Emile.
I’m not sure but it’s not above me.It’s either the same or lower.
Can’t you forgive her.She may be in another dimension,another space altogether,another universe of discourse?[He’d been reading his Wittgenstein again]
Certainly not .No way.Stan answered,
But you love her,you said many times in here.I heard you
All the more reason to maintain some boundaries. Love is not the be all and end all of life for a man!
Next she’ll be cutting bits off me with her dressmaking shears,he cried in outrage and horror!
She’ll castrate me.She’ll turn me into a woman.
She won’t,she’s just a daft postmenopausal woman,said Emile.She wouldn’t ever harm you.she’s very gentle.you know that,don’t you?
She has invaded me,she has crossed my boundary.
Some people would be glad,mewed the cat.He was always hoping a lady cat would come by. and cross his boundaries or more correctly.he would be allowed cross hers.
Meanwhile Annie was sitting sobbing feverishly in her bedroom.She really enjoyed co-writing documents and news sheets with Stan.Now he won’t do it any more, she whispered . He was really mad with her.He must be feeling upset and aggravated beyond all human endurance.She had assumed too much and now she was paying the price as she lay on her purple duvet cover with two boxes of Kleenex for men.Even finding the Kleenex required for all her sobbing was too much for her.
She cried and sobbed loudly for a while.Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot. She was so very sad she had unwittingly distressed dear Stan.Life is so tough she thought reluctantly.I wish I were somewhere else……maybe in Heaven with George and his bisexual lovers beside all playing harps or mouth organs and whatever else the could find up there.
Still,there were those new neighbours who had just moved in across the road.Two brothers,both very handsome.I wonder if they like writing on the computer,she thought.That cheered her up a bit,though she was very fond of Stan.In fact she loved him greatly and had kissed him many times though she had never actually gone to bed with him ;never known him in the biblical sense.Was that the problem?Too late now either way,she muttered quietly to her goldfish Wayne who agreed with her analysis of the situation .
So in her mind she was moving from loving and adoring Stan to being loving towards yet puzzled by him.Was he afraid of being dominated by a woman?What would he be like as a lover?
But why try to talk about bisexuality?Could he not have thought of something else?Like female orgasms or kissing better?
There was a new book by Betty Dodson teaching frozen women how to have orgasms.Would he have enjoyed discussing female anatomy and pleasuring her naked female body and all the rest.
Well,she would never know now.That was certain.Thank God I’ve found out what he’s like before things went any further.He might be a little too dominating.Though a certain amount is necessary for the consummation of love.She was so upset her thoughts began to turn towards women.
Would it be better all round to love a woman instead?Especially as I could show her how to have an orgasm having being studying this book for some weeks?Though she may already know,I guess.Still,a change is as good as a rest, so the proverb says.
How do I find a woman who’s into other woman, as it were, she thought.Can I find one on the internet?Will there be a club we can go to? How exciting!
So Annie grew more optimistic.A woman wouldn’t mind a few words deleted from a chat either.So a feeling of mild joy came over her and her sobbing died down.
Stan was sitting in his kitchen feeling superior and dominant.Except Annie had not come for coffee so it was hard being dominant all by himself.He began to feel depressed and morose.Should he change his mind?Would he lose his window of opportunity?
Why is life so trying.Why are women so manipulative, why do they all turn out fakes and bitches,he asked Emile.Why won’t they love me as I am?
It’s partly one’s own character,Emile replied.
Hearing this Stan lost his temper and threw the kettle of boiling water at Emile.Luckily it missed but Emile stalked out and went off to the shed leaving Stan more alone than ever.
How hard life is Stan shouted. I feel like topping myself. I”ll jump off the roof. of the civic center.I’m going to ring the f*****g Samaritans.
Just then his wife Mary walked in.What’s up Stan?
Nothing dear.I just dropped a brick on my toe
Why have you got a brick in here,in the lounge?
I was playing with it.
With a brick?
Well,it has a certain cold masculinity,he replied assertively
Cold masculinity?. Shall I make some drinks? Mary asked tenderly
Yes,please,dear,very kind
Oh,look there’s Annie walking past arm in arm with a woman.
I knew George was bisexual but now I see she is also or maybe she’s turned quite gay!Were they both gay?
Well,it’s not our business,said Mary quietly.
Aha,thought Stan.That’s what you think.If only you could see inside my mind!Inside his mind though ,he was wondering if Annie would ever see him again.But I will not forgive her,I won’t.I won’t!
What he might have said more truthfully was “Can’t”
For indeed,it is hard to forgive people for trampling into one’s sacred space even if it is an accident or misjudgment not a deliberate attempt to dominate.but …….
Life is sweet and yet very hard too for all of us but forgiveness helps
There was a letter in Writing magazine,
As it happens it ‘s an issue I’ve already seen.
One,asked if it is true that poetry with rhymes
Is not the fashion in our times.
The academics scoff at sonnets,
She’d tried for a prize but she ain’t won it.
So now she’s trying to overcome it.
Sitting with a bowl in which to vomit
Her distaste for free and formless verse
Which has allusions, often terse.
To Greek sun gods and Latin lovers
Around whose heads an owl often hovers;
She wants to write
something which a professor
of creative writing or even
more acceptable
a professor of English literature and post modernism
would praise and recommend her
so that she’d make a lot of dough
and be able to convert her garden shed
into a real room with a light and a desk
She’d need a heater too,maybe a vest.
I mean like those we wore at school,
made by Chilprufe as a rule
Though I am unsure if chilprufe still exist
and anyway her lover prefers satin and silk
Underneath the flowered quilt.
Still she could change if she had blinds and curtains
on the shed windows.
and if she never let her lover into the shed…
Because there’s no room in there for a bed
And there are mice,though some are dead
Because they had the pest controllers in..
They even disinfect the bin.
Anyway,what I believe is,she wants to do whatever is the
most financially rewarding, fame making, glamorous kind of writing
I’d say give up poetry and go in for Advertising.
Because the Muse never comes to those who long
to be more famous than their song..
Or if she does there is a price…
Sylvia Plath has paid it twice
Stan put on his hat and went down the spring green garden where a blackbird trilled.The sunlight was very strong,almost glaring in intensity.That’s an interesting word,more commonly used to describe the angry expression on the face of an adult who believed he is a position of power,he thought.
It pains most people to be glared at, he reminded himself.
Stan’s wife Mary had a habit of humming or even singing as she went about her day at work or home.Usually sshe didn’t realise!
He recalled the day she came home from her Art Class to amuse him with a tale of a very wealthy and dominating lady who had suddenly glared at Maru and shrieked,
Is there something wrong with you?
Mary said,
Yes, there is actually. but I don’t usually talk about it except with the doctors.
Why not ? shrieked the woman nastily in her dominatrix style
Well,I thought it might upset folk to hear I am terminally ill but in your case I’ll make an exception.
Well,I don’t give a f*ck, you are annoying, me was the reply that she received.
Even if you are dying right now that is no excuse for humming in the class.
Well,said the teacher,I always thought you were a very superior person,Nancy,but now I hear you insulting my newest pupil in public I believe I was mistaken.
Oh,Mary had told Stan, it seems that humming” Neasden” in the class, albeit unconsciously. is far worse than to be seriously ill.
There is no sense of proportion now…surely anyone can see there is no comparison though I prefer hearing the Trout Quintet,myself,he had told her
Fortunately Mary’s illness had been completely cured by a new drug and she was able to continue her Art and riding her bicycle.Nancy was too proud to apologise but after hearing Mary was going to recover completely she had offered her a quarter of a broken chocolate biscuit at coffee time.
You are too thin, she admonished Mary,but I have come to like your humming and am even thinking of trying it myself.How do you do it?
I can’t say,Mary answered,it just happens.
I see,said Nancy.Perhaps I’ll go to a singing teacher.
I hope she does instead of coming here,Mary thought as she still glares at me wherever I sit.She’s a bit like those pictures of Saints whose eyes seem to be on you and follow you wherever you sit in the room in a judgmental way.
Stan’s mind was wandering as he gazed over his fence.He remembered when he first met Mary when her bicycle had been stolen from outside a Public Library and he had helped her to look for it.In fact it was he who had stolen it in order to have an excuse to speak to her.How singularly blue her eyes were when she smiled graciously at any man nearby.As her conscious mind was on a branch of mathematics it left her unconscious free to seek what it desired free of all constraints thus causing mayhem until June when term ended and only the ancient postgraduates were left in the deserted city free to play with non-linear diffferential equations all day blong
Who fancied his skill as a joker.
He teased all his patients
both the young and the ancient…
And his cat was labelled,Please stroke her.
It should have read,Please do stroke me…
I’d like to sit up on your knee…
But I can’t tell the doc
As it’s ten o’clock
So it’s time for my next cup of tea.
My psyche is split into four
And in each part I love and adore
Alfred the cat
And his woollen mat..
I wish sincerely I had got twenty more..
How many posts can any blogger write
Before they go raving mad?
How many posts can a blogger invent
Before they get far too sad?
The answer my friends
We’re all round the bend.
The answer’s we’re all round the bend
How many rhymes can a poet invent
Before they progress to free verse?’
How many rhymes can a poet invent
When the rhymes are getting worse and worse?
The answer is plain,
It’s a million quatrains
The answer’s a trillion thought trains
Eclectic’s a very fine word
How my heart sings 