by Today is 22/2/22. It reminds me of my job in Wellington, where we had a scheduled coffee meeting at 11:11 on 11/11/11. Then my new boss came the following week, and soon after that my job careened off a cliff.
I’ve had a terrible last few days. On Friday night at around 11 I suddenly had pain in my stomach and spent the whole night going back and forth to the loo. I think I had food poisoning from some leftover chicken I’d probably left in the fridge too long and later made a soup out of. I continued feeling terrible the next day, and cancelled the only lesson I had that day. No worries though, it’ll surely soon be over. On Sunday morning I woke up feeling just about normal. Great. Just rest, drink gallons of water and some electrolyte powder, and I’ll be fine. I joined two poker tournaments because why not, and two hours later when I was still involved in one of them, I was in agony. I had to lie on my tummy, and looking at the screen made me feel even more ill. I soldiered on, and bizarrely won the most excruciating tournament I hope ever to play. Although the pain eventually subsided I felt that something was eating away at my stomach and I had low energy. And I’ve been depressed. Being ill makes me feel very very alone. Yesterday I got through a painful 90-minute lesson with the twins. Please just let this be over. I also had a new student – a Bucharest-based woman of 34 who looks much younger – and we had our first proper lesson last night.
I’ve been looking forward to bedtime and dreading having to get up in the morning. In between lessons I’ve been reading – something about the internet has made me want to avoid it, although I did read about the cross-country skier whose penis froze and thought, I suppose things could be worse. My biggest fear has been of falling into a deep depression, like I suffered in 2001, when suddenly getting off the couch became an effort. Yesterday my phone rang three times and I didn’t answer. This morning I noticed I’d lost weight. I called my parents and we had a long chat, and that definitely perked me up. I’ll try and have a proper lunch now, then get through my lessons, and with a bit of luck I can be back to some sort of normality, whatever that means.
I’d meant to write about all the flats I looked at last week, including one on the tenth floor, but that dropped way down my list of priorities.
