Monday again

It's been a challenging few days in terms of pain. Lots of horrendous stomach ache which is probably gall-bladder and/or pancreas related. Crazy. If it weren't for the bloody cancer, I'd have had the gall-bladder out at Christmas and not had to go through all of this crap! It seems to have it's own little time schedule too, this pain. It starts around 4 ish usually (though sometimes as early as 2pm) and lasts right through till 10 ish. There doesn't seem to be any connections with when I eat/take painkillers/etc., so I can't avoid it either. I'm just hoping it'll sort itself out again soon.

Not a lot gets done when you're doubled over in agony, but I did manage to get around the supermarket yesterday to buy ingredient for another ratatouille. Afterwards I went up to my cousin's house for a family get together, as my cousin L is over from Vancouver Island visiting. It's been lovely to see her - she's like a sister as I saw her and her siblings just about everyday until we emigrated to the UK. Unfortunately, by the time I got there the pain had started and soon kicked in with a vengeance. I ended up driving home, swearing rhythmically to ease the worst of it. Luckily, hubby to the rescue - cooked a fab ratatouille while I helpfully rocked back and forth with a hot wheat-pack!

I did make a few writerly decisions over the weekend:

- Have decided that whatever happens the PhD is something I want to do. I just need to know how elastic the deadlines can be given my health. For example, can I be excused for not making it to any research meetings? I miss studying! Can you believe that? (I never really stopped studying though, just switched to equestrian reading and research!)

- Am going to start submitting work again this week. Mslexia dropped through the door and inspired me again. If there's one single activity that has helped me get through it's been writing about it. Most cathartic.

Facebook has been quite interesting these past few week as well. A strange little place I still can't get my head around. I never know what to do with all those invitations, for example. I don't want to be a vampire, or poke people en-mass! I started having a green patch but it quickly became the bane of my life (even more annoying than cancer!) - either the deer were eating all the plants, or the rabbit were digging holes and needed feeding, or I had to go to the 'shop;' and buy things like rakes, shovels, and animal feed! Even when you start clicking 'ignore' you'll find yourself spending hours a day clicking ignore to endless invitations. Still, it is nice to be thought of!

It's also a bit stalkerish - the way you can see what everyone's been doing, follow their comments and conversations, see who they've been super-poking and throwing sheep at. My husband is currently racing motorbikes - although you never get to the bikes actually race, you just click and the next screen tells you who won! Now figure that one out! The chat facility is odd too. I log in and it says 10 people, but when I click to see who they are the number becomes a 1! I've only managed to speak to one person on it so far! Am I slightly paranoid in thinking people log off because I've logged in?!!! MSN is much more my cup of tea!

What is is good for, is finding people you've lost touch with. I'm one of those people who has no problem phoning someone after 20 years and saying, 'Hello! Remember me?' I've moved around so much, and had the privilege to meet so many fantastic people, that there's still loads of people I'd like to catch up with. Of course it's embarrassing sometimes (I was strange, unconfident, unaccomplished, unmade back then) but it's also been good to discover that despite being all fucked up, I was still a good person, and people haven't minded me calling them out the blue. Over the past few weeks, I've had lovely long telephone conversations, filled with warmth and happiness, shared memories of the past and plenty of laughter. So facebook does have it's uses besides helping writers (and everyone else) to procrastinate just a few minutes longer. Well, I have 6 new notifications and it'd be rude not to at least take a peek at them!!!