Category: Personal

What is on my Dance Card?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Most of the preparations have gone ahead. I had an argument with a loo seat yesterday. I was trying to fit a replacement one and I could not get the old fitting to budge. Erring on the side of caution I did not force it. It is a bit of a botch but it will have to do. The nurse had said that I should not do DIY in case I get a cut and thereby raise the preoperative risk of infection.

Tomorrow I am due an operation with general anaesthetic.

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Which means this time tomorrow I am scheduled to have had my replacement hip fitted. I might be back in my room. This schematic looks benign, the one below less so.

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I suspect that I will have a lot of bruising and maybe my leg will be a little blue…it does not look dainty or genteel. I will be wearing sexy stockings and be on the heparin injections.

The hospital bed has arrived and is installed downstairs here in the office and physio appointments are in the diary.

I probably won’t be adding to the blog for a while and will have to make old-school paper notes of any dreams.

I don’t know how well I am going to respond to the general anaesthetic. Ten years ago I had post-operative recall of watching the surgery from above. This was either an out of body experience or a dream. I have done even more meditation since then including things which you will not find discussed anywhere. I am sure that I will be physically unconscious, I am  not sure what my consciousness as a whole will do. In principle and assuming nothing goes wrong the surgery should take less time than the laparoscopic colectomy for the T3 tumour I had in 2015. I am less likely to wander off as it were.

I am going to be relying on people, those at the hospital and the wife here at home. The estimate is that it will take a couple for weeks for me to be able to get into a normal car. I will be on the compound during this time. I will be on crutches.

In the near future it is the hospital tomorrow and here thereafter. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can go for a hobble up at the seaside. I should be back at the stove cooking by then…

So not a lot on the dance card…

For the Avoidance of Doubt

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It is possible that people can overinterpret things and see meanings which are not there. They may imagine personal messages which do not exist.  

This blog is discursive {at best} and exploratory. It is often quasi-stream of consciousness. It is not intended as any form of guidance or teaching. There are ramblings etc.

I have a lot of time on my hands…

If you are imagining that I am in some way providing you a steer, a lead or any such thing then you had better consult a psychology professional or better still call the mothership. Maybe it is time that you were beamed back on board?

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I am a retired person living on below the fulltime EU minimum wage and my time is allocated to gardening, DIY, cooking and watching TV. On occasion we go for a walk up on the coast. That is the physical plane reality. I rarely meditate these days because I no longer need to.

I am hopefully due a hip replacement operation soon and that is as far as my ambitions go. It is not very complicated.

If you are imagining anything more grandiose you might not be well grounded.

I am not seeking anything…I will struggle with more than any fleeting contact with people “off compound”. I am unlikely to leave the department before end of summer next year.

That is all…

Pyjamas and Preparation

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The places where one is most likely to bang into someone by accident are nodal points, points with high average footfall. These include hospitals, airports, train stations and supermarkets inter alia. I have in the past met people “by accident” at such places. When we went back to the UK recently I knew that there was an increased chance of bumping into to someone I once was acquainted with at Gatwick airport. To meet them in rural Britanny is unlikely. My “circle” extended briefly into the “circle” of others. No such meeting occurred. Fate did not see fit to organise an encounter. Of course in spy novels and films “chance” meetings can be engineered. Were I to bump into someone from my past locally, I would err on the idea of engineered rather than chance. The only people we meet in the local supermarket are the wife’s hairdresser and the geezer we bought the house off. These are spatially likely given our normal trajectories.

Living like we do our normal circle extends 20 km in radius with extensions to 50km for occasional hospital and coastal visits. The chances of me crossing circles is zero outside these ranges.

At the last hospital visit the nurse said that I am not allowed to be “balls out” and must therefore buy some pyjama bottoms at least. I bought some at the M&S outlet in Gloucester Quays. I have some stumpy short fat bloke track suit bottoms on order and a new pair of Crocs in the post. They were not doing a pre-diabetic special offer on the joggers. My hospital wardrobe is taken care of. I can wear my “Trust me I am a Doctor” T-shirt, my psilocybin zwitterion and “breaking bad” ones too. As a rule of thumb hospital temperatures are adjusted to encourage the growth and spread of penicillin resistant bacteria and  upper respiratory tract viruses. I need to get my flu and covid vaccinations done next week. Hospitals are always too hot.

Will they shave my chest again to put cardiac monitors on during the operation? Yeah probably… more itching.

We need to look at placing the second mattress on our bed. To get a loo seat raising contraption and perhaps a litter picker for dropped things. We have a prescription for a hospital bed which will sit here downstairs in the office. We will have the local nurses visit; they are already practically a part of the family. I’ll get a yellow sharps box for my pre-filled heparin syringes post hoc. I was OK injecting myself last time. We have got laxatives to counter the morphine induced arse-corks. I need to check the plumbing to the cess pit. I have 15m of plumber’s rods. This may be done next week.

The initial guess from the nurse is that I will go in on a Friday for the slice dice and drill. Assuming I can stand day one, I will probably be sent home Sunday. The physio thinks I will be housebound for two weeks. After that I may be able to get into a car. In France the pharmacies are shut Sundays so we need to make sure that I have a good opiate stash.

I am due a coronary CT-angiogram next week. Because of the holy Trinity of fat, fags and booze there is a mild concern. This may or may not turn up something, it could be that last obvious showstopper.

This morning I was pleased to wake up without some weird London based stress bunny dream. It seems so far away, another world. I am 95% sure now that I won’t go ahead with the idea of trying to apply for a quantum telepathy patent whilst I am incapacitated. It would only make the dramatics worse.

I don’t know why I keep getting these dreams. I personally think I am at peace with all that palaver and have been for years. Maybe I am kidding myself. Maybe the dreaming is just showing the unresolved issues of others.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

If I had a pretty head I would try not to worry it.

Only a few weeks to go and the pepper mill in my right hip might be replaced with something less frictional and painful. I may even be able to put my own socks on…

It is probably best to have no expectations. The only thing for sure is that it will in some way be different and I will have wound closures and bruising. A physio is due to visit soon after the butchery.

Three weeks from today…I could be on my way to the block…

How We View Things – Jeans or Robes?

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Although there is advice to never judge a book by its cover that is exactly what most people do. They place stock in appearance. They also pay a lot of attention to the ubiquitous omniscience of “they”. After all “they” are the font of all wisdom.

I know that it is the simplest thing for me to don my £1000 leather jacket, put on a freshly ironed grandad shirt, my black leather shoes and put my Ray Ban “Matrix” sunglasses on top of my head. I can walk into a store or building around here and will be treated differently. Instantly they will imagine I am not “from around here”. I know that I can walk with confidence up to reception at a posh hotel and be treated well. My mother used to joke that I was “to the manor born” in the sense that I was not in awe of posh settings. I have confidence. We could suggest that comes courtesy of Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines paying my school fees at a mid-range English preparatory school in Gloucestershire.

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How we treat others depends on many things. If we have a sense of entitlement and imagine ourselves grand we might treat others like plebs. From our Olympian view others are beneath us. We may disrespect others and treat them poorly feeling justified in doing so. We may deign to offer an audience to the serf or underling. We may imagine ourselves the purveyor of knowledge to the ignorant or superstitious.

There is a joke here in that I was aiming to incarnate in Bhutan, I saw the dragon of Cardiff and found my mother’s womb there. Hence I wear jeans and not monk’s robes. I know beyond any doubt that if I met people with whom I have had a passing acquaintance whilst dressed in robes, without warning, it would be for them a non sequitur, and perhaps a complete mind fuck. They would not be sure as how to react or behave. They certainly would not offer me a scarf for me to offer them in turn, blessings therewith.

If I wore robes people would instinctively behave differently towards me. A book covered in Levis’ 501s reads differently.

I’ll wager that people may struggle to understand how I view things. In the previous post I mentioned that gossiping about someone is a form of bullying. If we gossip among ourselves we do not imagine it bullying. If we see it in a soap opera on TV we clearly see bullying. Why is East Enders different from our “normal” reality?

Although some may guess that they understand how I think and where I am coming from, I’ll postulate they are mistaken. Unless they have done two decades of meditation, read and understood a thousand science journal articles, read hundreds of patents and extensively researched the occult and Buddhist literature they are unlikely to have a similar intellectual background or mind.

But people can judge me and “understand” me from what I choose to put up in a hobby-blog. You might judge this book from the internet cover you are currently perusing. You may imagine that I am something like I was a couple of decades ago. The sense of humour might be similar but that is about it.

To reiterate.

I have never appointed a spokesperson or port-parole. Anyone claiming to speak on my behalf, know my mind or what I want; is a liar and a charlatan. Such a person is also a bull shit artist and very untrustworthy. If they are claiming any form of current acquaintance that is extremely unlikely given that I live a hermit-like life.

If we make shit up about people that is evil and a form of bullying. It can be slanderous and libellous. If my reputation is damaged by made up shit it prevents me earning a living or helping sentient beings.

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Boring – Not Again…

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As we were driving up to the supermarket I remarked to the wife that it is boring getting the same type of dream over and over. The themes of being gossiped about, checked up on, snooped upon and the jungle drums banging out long into the jungle night, recur.

The theme of people trying to be clever and cunning seems never to stop. Baldrick is perennially reaching for his famed planning turnip. The endless secret squirrel speculation and so-called “information gathering” keeps cropping up.

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Inspector Clouseau has a new case to work on at the Louvre so why are they still interested in me?

It is pretty simple.

“If you want to know, ask me!”

Asking the monkeys will not help. Try using a Clouseau voice…

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I know that there is a theory that if you put enough monkeys together with typewriters you will eventually get the works of Shakespeare. But that seems a rather indirect route.

I am not in any way flattered by the notion of people gossiping about me. I consider that to be bullying and very rude. I am not interested in political machinations. If a whole bunch of people are collectively doing things behind my back I am not only crippled but outnumbered. That is bullying nasty behaviour. It has an unpleasant stench and is pretty much evil. It is a bit sad and un-impeccable.

Same shit different day…

Name Dropping – Power by Association

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The two cormorants and one heron are, as is usual these days, stood around the pond. Mr & Mrs cormorant seem now settled and it is Heron the larger today. I can get within 10 metres of  the male cormorant before he can be arsed to take any evasive action. We might say that we have integrated with the French wildlife. We could put our feathered friends down on our citizenship application. There cannot be many fish left in the pond!! These are wild birds.

The prefecture has opened up the process of renewal of right to stay for those admitted under the Brexit fiasco / deal / bullet in the foot. The chances are we are OK. But there is a small significant risk that we will be refused and booted out. I have no names to drop, am not affiliated with any society or institution. I have nobody to vouch for me or act a guarantor. I am in no way special and thereby subject to the normal rules for normal people. Our fate lies securely in the hands of the French administrative system. We will provide them the kilograms of paper work they seek. Mild OCD can sometimes be helpful.

A few years back ~ 2017 I was attending an Institute of Physics { IoP } Entrepreneurship event. A geezer from a Southampton uni. fibre optic laser spin out was there talking, as were other tech transfer people from uni. and institute. They were talking about the start-up funding valley of death. My affiliation was down as “freelance”, the usual euphemism for unemployed. I did mention in passing the ancient history of the laser spin-out I was involved in in order to secure an invitation.

{Strangely the event in no way made use of me.}

It was one of those prolonged slow death by finger buffet events. As is my custom my event name tag was pretty much in my trouser pocket. I mentioned to a bloke that I had been at Imperial and he then proceeded to name drop my name, to me. He claimed to have met me and implied that I was even some kind of loose pal or associate. I had no recollection. I encouraged him to provide more information and was told that I was something of a controversial figure with the CEO and investors. I was not gifted the subtle aroma of roses. It became apparent that the CEO had claimed that he had done and invented many of the things which he had not. This geezer was claiming some kind of power by association with me, to me, without knowing who I was. I resisted the temptation to really drop him in the shit and made my excuses for another irresistible prawn in crispy breadcrumbs. I had always thought that the CEO was a bell end and this was more anecdotal proof.

There is a certain type of person who cannot resist the temptation to name drop and claim power by association. In martial arts circles it is to some master or great thousand year old lineage. The association is almost invariably exaggerated. Some of these are impossible given the unidirectional flow of time and age at death. But hey, what is a mere detail? Why let it get in the way of a good story or narrative?

People once used to drop the name Epstein to claim power by association, Prince Andrew is now out of favour and the pile on ramps up. People who claimed power by association to him now drop him like a lead balloon. People can’t wait to pile on like a bunch of piranhas. Those that fed on his name now feed on his disgrace. Human beings are great, are they not?

With the reliability of a politician’s promise I could name drop whoever I want. Probably the most famous person I ever met was George Best. I once pissed next to him at a urinal in the Dover Street Wine Bar when we were both under the influence. I saw him several times there in the wee small hours after pub closing time.

If I listen to what one of the voices in my head told me then I was a very close disciple of Siddhartha Gautama. Which means that I can claim to have met him and maybe hung out. I doubt that such a thing merits either kudos or power by association. There is no way of checking with a dead and cremated person from 2500 years ago. The vast majority of people would not believe me. Therefore there is no power associated with such a thing.

More people may have believed the geezer who claimed that he knew me. My stock now is low. So it would be a bit of a waste of breath to make such a claim of association.

People pay a lot of attention to names and reputations. A referee from a top Johnny university is deemed good. People rarely check if things are made up. They believe reputation until such time as the tarnish arrives and the pile on starts. Previous association then becomes a big negative. Plague sets in and any association even by extended barge pole denied.

People are fickle and the herd-made reputation is both time varying and impermanent.

The great Gods of “they” are punitive and vengeful. They also lack self-awareness and honesty.

It is all a bit shabby really…

Today’s Best Guess

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Our trip to the UK did not give a definite binary answer. We have the notion that a return to the UK is not a definite no, nor was it a resounding yes. It was a damp squib. We do need to downsize to a smaller house and garden. This is possible in France assuming we don’t get kicked out. It is less financially possible in the UK, though I might earn some pin money doing “A” level science tutoring there. We are probably not welcome elsewhere in the world given that we may struggle with meeting immigration criteria because we are not loaded and will be a burden to the health system. Our use as post-mortem fertilizer is limited.

On the cards is one and probably two hip replacement operations which takes us through to mid 2026. We do not know how well I will respond and the Damocles sword of the wife’s myeloma remains pendant. We are vey unlikely to leave the department before next summer. Which times the house move for autumn ’26.

Irrespective of what happens in the alternate reality of dreams and the machinations of Rubio and Hegseth et al., life here is unlikely to alter much. There does not seem much for me to do and my residual fate looks very minimal. I foresee paint brush and secateur. That is about the scope. We live adjacent to the world and our interaction with it is small and without infliction.

People can struggle with the difference between is and should. They can have idealised ideas about how things are supposed to be. It can be a bit of a mind fuck for them when reality differs.

My days of reaching out and inflicting myself of the world are largely past. I do not see the world as something I have to solve. People will do whatever it is they do. There are lots of important people doing things they deem important. Watching “University Challenge” with men dressed as women makes me glad that I do not have to tread in that minefield. I am in more ways than one of a different age. A visit to the Orange telecoms shop reminds me that I am a fossilised alien living among lunatics.

Of course there could always be a curve ball or a googly. The best guess is a fizzle out relatively free of drama…

That is how things look today…

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy…

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Upcoming I have a choice which is not really a choice. It pertains to sahasrāra, “thousand-petalled” chakra.

I am due some surgery which might be as long as two hours. During which time I will have {hopefully} substantial anaesthesia and probably some induced paralysis. I may be intubated. The last time I had titanium put into my hip to repair my broken femoral neck I was sedated but largely conscious. I had fentanyl direct into my spine. I asked to watch but they refused. Someone had to hold up a “curtain” whilst they drilled away so I could not watch. I can remember the whole-skeleton vibrations. This is not a Beach Boys song.

“Drill music, also known as drill rap or simply drill, is a subgenre of hip-hop music that originated in Chicago in the early 2010s. It is sonically similar to the rap subgenre and lyrically similar to the gangsta rap subgenre.”

I have had previous shorter less profound anaesthesia. The last time when I was deeply “under” for six hours I subsequently had recollection of looking down at the operating theatre from above watching them doing a/my laparoscopic colectomy. There was weirdness after the operation and I reckon something untoward happened. This was either a dream or an out of body experience.

I have already met the triage consultant anaesthetist. She seemed OK with me going ahead in principle. This conversation was in French. I did not broach the subject.

I have done extensive Tibetan death practice which prepares the withdrawal of consciousness, the Antahkarana and Sutratma are loosened and stretched prior to removal of anchorage at death. The crown chakra is opened so as to facilitate a quick and seamless exit.

Whenever I have tried to broach the subject of meditation with anaesthetists before it has largely been ignored and the subject changed. They may have perhaps been imagining this reassuring. It was not. I am not going into this kind of thing afraid. I was not shitting my pants and anxiously blathering.

I was aware of the risks during profound and prolonged anaesthesia last time. But the person responsible was unwilling to engage. I will again be in a situation where the medical professional who may know plenty knows nothing about Tibetan death practice. During unconsciousness the “personality” part of my make-up will not have any control. That awareness will sleep. The risks of physical plane death are enhanced over the normal bio-mechanical, at least to my mind.

Even should I try to explain this in either French of English, I suspect that I will not be taken seriously.

So, do I refresh the practice in case I need to go?

Or will refresher practice facilitate and even encourage withdrawal?

Do I try to broach the subject?

I have no control of this situation if I want to be operated on. I am not in charge.

I guess I will just have to take the risk…

Hmnn…

Back From Blighty – Shell Shocked

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That was the first time we have been in England for nearly seven years!

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at Gatwick was just how fat / overweight people were. It was also multi-ethnic and very hectic. I now feel positively slim despite being technically obese.

Stress-bunny city Arizona, well West Sussex.

Everything seems very expensive and crammed together sardine-style. Because they were not speaking French I became unwitting party to various conversations in English. I cannot zone out so easily.

Why do young women attach comedy paintbrush plastic eyelashes? Seems a common trend…

M25 on a Sunday afternoon in the rain, remains a fun and exciting day out. Four lanes of unadulterated joy…

Waitrose own brand tin tomatoes are still very good. Best in the class…

The proliferation of available ready meals has proliferated. These are much better than the poor offering here.

Waitrose, Pizza Express, Caffe Nero = good.

The variety and quality of restaurant food in the UK remains high. I had the best vegan burger I have had in well over a decade at Gloucester quays, as did the wife.  Top notch…

The number density of ambulatory ‘phone zombies is higher.

Software sending endless reminders and requests for feedback in stupid forms is a big downside. This plague is worse.

I am pretty sure that I had some AI shite sent to me, either that or a truly moronic human being does not understand the King’s English…

As a big plus I have invented a new game which is “make AI sound moronic and get it to reply literally to metaphor.”

“We hope that what you saw in the Palantir regarding the Balrog of Balham met all your expectations and that you will reserve your next hobbit hole with us. You now have a genius rating and can get a 13.573 % customer discount on your next adventure to Mordor! Please leave us a customer review my good sire.”

The dreaming suggests that I remain broadly unwelcome in some circles.

I am knackered. All those people. All that stress-bunny dashing about.

We have not come back with a definite no, never.

Nor have we come back all yippee when can we pack?

I am very certain that some of my political views will not sit well with the rising right wing tide. This shadow grows and spreads across Middle earth. Mordor rises. The ring wraiths will soon be about…

People near Cirencester were generally chatty and welcoming…

It was weird being in Gatwick again, something I knew better in a previous incarnation…

It is very unlikely that I will be back in the UK before next summer…the operation is due soon and that is the main thing on the dance card for the foreseeable future…

A bit shell shocked…

The quiet is nice…

Gandalf the stray cat has made a big fuss of us and she is sitting here just to my left tarting for some more food…her winter coat has started to thicken…

Exhausted and Sighing

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Not long back from our fun filled and action packed day at the hospital. I am exhausted and sighing. If I had known we were going to have group presentations on diet and physiotherapy exercise I would have been less keen. I’ll speculate that I was not the target demographic.

All of the group were older than me and less apparently crippled.

Given I used to do courses on presentation skills…

It is difficult enough to be talked at in French. It is harder to listen when you are not overly interested. What struck me most was just how passive everyone was. No banter, no piss taking, no humour, no fun. I was  tempted but refrained. When I did the naughty boy speeding course the facilitator worked out that I was game for a laugh and did not mind having the piss taken, we made it more fun for everyone.

One of things we have learned here is if there is a single penny coin of the train tracks of the system it can derail the whole caboodle and that takes years to get going again.

There are a couple of appointments which are due for me, which I might not need. If I cancel these it frees them up for someone else. This would be good citizen thinking. This however could throw a spanner in the workings of the system juggernaut. I’ll take an opinion from the GP tomorrow.

An after lunch monotone in a foreign language ….difficult to keep attentive..

When we went I had two questions in mind.

  1. Do I need to take the pre-op iron tablets given a high ferritin level?
  2. Can we get a prescription for a medical bed for downstairs given a spiral staircase?

The answer to the first was no and the answer to the second was yes. This was as predicted.

I have learned two new things. One about using a second mattress and the other about a rubbish picker.

I have had my high resolution pre-op X-ray and the anaesthetist gave a verbal go ahead for general anaesthetic. From what they said I could be out in 48 hours or less.

From my perspective this did not need to take six hours. But systems are systems.

The take home message I got was that the French are very concerned as to when they are going to get to eat after the operation. It was mentioned several times.  It had not even occurred to me.

For me morphine is a pretty good appetite suppressor. So I doubt I’ll fancy a kebab or lamb vindaloo. I am not fussed about a Madeliene and a coffee.

The other take home for a “hermit” is that it is very tiring being around people for any length of time. Which suggests that limiting my exposure to others remains a good idea. That way I don’t upset people and piss them off. I don’t get tired from picking up their vibes. It sounds like a win-win.

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