On old age and misery

Today I looked in the mirror and saw a long black hair in my nose. I know that nose hair has an important role to play but I thought it was something that was only visible in old men? Am I turning into an old man? Something happens once you pass the age of 35: wrinkles and creases settle in for the long haul, hair starts to go grey and appears in new and unusual places and body parts start forging a closer relationship with the ground; it’s as though they’re beginning a process which culminates with them reaching ground level and ultimately going 6-feet under.

Freud is doing amazingly well at the moment. I inject 150ml of fluid under his skin every second day and he handles it all with grace. He’s a good patient. Zeki was a bad patient. That was his undoing. As long as Freud is happy to have his condition treated, then we will continue to treat it. I would be just like Zeki: a bad patient, baring my teeth and snarling at unsuspecting health professionals, then sinking my teeth into their skin. I hope my good health continues for my own sake and for the sake of all health-care workers the world over.

I hate positive thinking. What’s so wrong with being miserable every once in a while? Sometimes life just sucks and it’s nice to be able to say so. There’s something real and human about feeling emotions and expressing them and something equally unreal and phony about forced positivity. As a famous chess player – Nimzovich – once said, “One cannot always be happy”.