Surly Reviews: I Am Legend*

I Am Bollocks, more like. What an unmitigated, pseudo-parable pile of big dog's cock.

That is all.

* Will Smith. Will, Will, Will. Will I never learn? He is turning out so much shit that I am beginning to suspect him of being a stooge of the McGregor/Dorff axis of evil, purveyors of cinematic crapfests since time immemorial.

Here I am!

I am alive!!

Yeah yeah, I know, enough with the drama already.

So I had my surgery and I came round in the recovery room and tried to scratch my nose but the oxygen mask was in the way. Um, oxygen mask? Yup. The surgery turned out to be a little more intense than anyone had anticipated, so they had to put me under a bit deeper, which meant that I needed a little more help to wake up again. Still, up I woke.

And snuck a look under the covers and saw a great big enormous padded bandage from mid-thigh to shin on my left leg. Okay so far. Except....ow! That hurts! The nice nurse lady asked if I was in any pain. Yes, was the emphatic reply. So she had a half-whispered conversation with the anaesthetist. Who had explained to me before surgery that he would give me extra pain relief and a local into the knee joint before bringing me round. Brows were furrowed. The nurse mentioned codeine. More frowns. A decision was made.

Ladies and gentleman, I am here to tell you that morphine rocks*. It tastes a little bit like a strong gin and tonic, and brings on the most fabulous la-la-la floaty feeling. Delicious.

Upshot being (like you care) that I had a microfracture procedure on my left leg. Basically, the bone lining between femur and patella had worn away and bone was rubbing on bone, explaining the sicky graunching noise the knee made when I walked down steps**. So the rest of the rough lining was removed and lots of little tiny holes have been drilled into the knee end of my thigh bone in an effort to stimulate scar tissue to cover the exposed bone. I am signed off work for two weeks, and am partial weight-bearing on crutches for four to six weeks. I have been sternly informed that this may not help my symptoms and further surgery may be needed.

Now, the Munchausen's part of me is naturally pleased. Look at me! Proper broken! But then I remember that I have to think through every physical manoeuvre before I attempt it, and that I struggle to put my own underwear on, and that crutches are not nearly so much fun as I thought they were when I was nine and Oona Landridge broke her leg and let everyone have a go on her crutches at break time. Also, that I am getting married in fifteen weeks and have bought the most amazing pair of Fuck-Me shoes to wear and they have four and a half inch heels and dammit I want to wear them!!

So. anyway. That's where we're up to. I will naturally bore you more at every possible opportunity. Meanwhile, the cat continues to claw at my bandage and glare at me as I have disrupted her daily routine of dragging her ringpiece along the kitchen worktops while we are out of the house.

Flowers, gifts and large bottles of Bushmills in the the comments box please.

* Disclaimer: Drugs are bad, mmkay?

** You're welcome.

Nurse, the screens!

I have my knee arthroscopy tomorrow.

In order to paint a picture of my current state of mind, there follows the transcript of an email I sent to the Other Half this afternoon:

From: Surly Girl
Sent: 22 April 2008 14:18
To: Other Half

this afternoon's irrational fear:

that i won't wake up from the anaesthetic tomorrow and i haven't made a will so you don't have any custody of Small Person and the Ex takes her and she grows up all pikey and feral and works in Budgens on the fag kiosk for the rest of her life.

xxx

There, you see. I am not altogether confident about the chances of my waking up from a general anaesthetic tomorrow afternoon. This is irrational for many reasons.

I have had four general anasthaetics so far in my life. Two of them were for wisdom tooth extraction at the dentists, back before it was illegal to knock people out at the dentists (this legislation was introduced some years ago after some government bean-counter realised that people who had a general at the dentists were quite likely to die, owing to there not being an anasthetist or anything - they more sort of drugged you, pulled your teeth out and sat around with hopeful looks on their faces, silently willing you to wake up).* I have also had my adenoids removed (aged nine, left me with a pathological fear of giving urine samples that persists to this day) and, somewhat bizarrely, had an enormous verucca removed from my foot (aged seven - I don't even want to think about how big that motherfucker had to be in order to warrant a full-on operation).

So I am no stranger to pre-meds, to counting backwards, to coming to round in the recovery room with an inexplicably aching body. Only now, you see, my irrational fear extends to what might happen while a person is under the anasthetic to cause that sort of aching, exactly. I mean, for surgeons, it must be like slipping a librarian a roofy in the local nightclub. I am convinced that within half an hour of coming round, the internet will be awash with pictures of me in all sorts of unnatural positions, presided over by a succession of grinning middle-aged men in operating theatre wellies and golf club ties. Brrr.

Please, make it be alright. Only I've just started reading this really good book, you see, and I need to see how it comes out.**

See you on the other side.

* I know. This is a long, irritating sentence and could I please shut the fuck up with the "general anaesthetic" repetition already. Acknowledged.

** Yes, of course I would be more bothered about never seeing my daughter or partner again. I'm just showing off, innit?

Me me me.

Right.

Let's sort this out, shall we? I know you're there. I can see my stats. I can see you. So why the bloody hell don't you comment any more? Is it me? Have I changed?

I mean, I know most people only come here these days to look at pictures of Sarah Beeny's tits. But, give me a hand here.

Am I talking to an empty room?

[/narcissism]

Edit: I have just read this back and realise that I come off a bit Carrie Bradshaw. I am sincerely sorry. Please, do excuse me. Only I'm off to shoot myself in the head.

Overheard in (my) Office...

So anyway, we were talking (well, I was) about the cows and how at some point they’ll evolve big wide flat feet so they can breach the cattle grids and what will we all do then, and everyone said I was mental and I said well, when you’re connected to a milking machine at five in the morning and there’s a Friesian with its hoof on the switch, don’t come crying to me.

Nobody believes me about the cows but I know they are evil and are plotting to take over the world. They don’t fool me with the whole standing-around-in-fields-looking-a-bit-dim routine. Oh no. I’m smarter than that. You won’t catch me wandering through a field in a brightly coloured cagoule, blithely unaware of the cows at the end of the field all plotting and planning and waiting for the moment when, as one, they will stampede down the field and kill me with their tightly-executed kick/trample manoeuvre.

Um. Anyway. That’s not what I wanted to tell you.

What I wanted to tell you was about the extremely Dante/Randall-esque exchange that took place between my (pregnant) colleague and I, shortly after the above conversation.

Her: I don’t trust horses. I don’t trust their mouths.

Me: You don’t trust their mouths? What’s wrong with their mouths?

Her: I don’t like the teeth. Or the gums. And I don’t like the erratic lip thing.

Me: You find horses’ lips erotic? That’s wrong. Pervert.

Her: No. I said erratic. I Don’t find horses sexy. Not like you, you horsefucker.

Me: Seriously? I’m a girl. How am I going to fuck a horse?



I’m going to miss that girl when she goes on maternity leave. Even if she does find horses attractive.

The pervert.

Desperately Seeking..

..with the emphasis on "desperate".

One of the finest things about the Times of a weekend is the Encounters page.

It's a richly-jewelled wonderland of confused, hopeful egomaniacs* and I love it. Really, proper love it. All of human life is here, and the examples below are just from Men Seeking Women. Women Seeking Men is pretty much of a muchness - full of "bubbly" (annoying), "curvy" (fat), "fun-loving" (drunk) divorcees seeking "possible LTR" (I will peer through your letterbox at three in the morning until you become afraid enough to take out a restraining order against me. I will then attempt suicide and say that, although my first three husbands are entirely to blame, you certainly played a big part in my devastation and subsequent breakdown).

Anyway.

Enjoy.

- Youthful, slim gentleman, submissive, seeks very assertive, mature lady for relationship.

There's a lot of these about. See also:

- Do you have a powerful and assertive personality? Extremely fit male, 60s, with an unconventional lifestyle, seeking never-ordinary woman with a dominant attitude.

Okaaay. Now, The first guy is clearly looking for a nice lady to treat him the way Nanny used to in the big house, back between the wars. Fair do's. But the second one? To me, it smacks (no pun intended) of the sort of man who wants a full-on wrestling match every time the naughties creep up on him. No dinner and flowers on this agenda, thank you. No. It's crash mats on the living room floor and three counts or a full submission to decide the winner. Every time.

Which is all well and good, but in the personals page of the Times? Really? Aren't there a few more, um, specialist publications out there that might perhaps yield better results? Or are all those bubbly, curvy, fun-loving divorcees thinking to themselves well, it's not really my thing. But a date's a date, and it's only Heartbeat on tomorrow night. I might give him a ring. He might be nice.

Good luck, ladies.

From the guys who know what they want to a man who is clearly hoping things at least go his way slightly:

Virile, optimistic guy..

Stop right there, Mr Erectile Dysfunction. Don't be putting "optimistic" in the same sentence as "virile". Really. We all know what you mean, and it makes us feel slightly sad for you.

There are, of course, a great number of Mature, Attractive, Solvent, Athletic, Charming, Trustworthy, Gentle, Honest, Genuine, Good-Looking, Caring, Affluent, Fun-Loving and Athletic men advertising their various USPs. Taken at face value, it's like David Hasslehoff, Donald Trump and George Clooney collided at high speed and rained down sparkling lady-magnet fallout all over the page. I don't buy it though. Not really.

However, one advertisement really stood out for me. I mean, if I were single I'd be all over this one like a curvy, fun-loving rash. Ladies, strap yourselves in. I give you:

Doctor/Philosopher, 70s, retired, non-religious, WLTM analytical, scholarly lady, 59+, together to find the truth about health, psychology, longevity, relaxation, culture and ethics.

No pressure then, girls. If you're the intellectual image of Stephen Hawking in a dress, why not give him a call? It's either a future spent in knife-edged debate, sparring over the very fabric of humankind, or he wants to spend his evenings telling your stiff, rouged corpse why you'll never be as nice as Mummy was.

The decision is yours.

* Yes, thank you. It's lovely to be altogether perfect and mock people I have never met and have no idea about. Now, move along please.