Did you notice I wasn't around? And did you miss me?

I'm back! I guess you all didn't really care one way or another, but I've been somewhat distracted for a while so haven't posted - honestly - nothing moved me enough to write about it. I was thoroughly bored with JZ, Bob M and Thabo and my life slowed down to the point where the most exciting event was when they acid-washed the tiles in my office and recoated them after that with a foul-smelling goop with a stink that burned the skin off the inside of my throat, my nose and my mouth and the tiling men told me I couldn't use my office for the rest of the day - yay enforced half-day - I went shopping...well what did you think I would do with spare time? Then tararara I got the flu! Not ordinary flu, but astounding body racking, lung infecting, sinus-blocking, ear-wrenching, stomach-aching two weeks off work with delirious fevers flu. I couldn't blog because my poor old computer at home has died. It went blip, blap, blink, glurrgh, flash and breathed it's last. I did read all your blogs however, on my amazing Nokia E51 cellphone, but resisted commenting because it's major work for the thumbs trying to comment on a blog using a cellphone.
So, all I have done in the last two weeks is watch daytime tv - well actually daytime tv is so putrid most of the time and DSTV floods you with repeat after repeat so I actually just slept on the couch in front of the tv. And I read Spud by John van der Ruit - stunning!!! By the way I realised that boys (and by extension men) are bizarre.
And ate sweets and biscuits till the maternal one visited and confiscated them - the cheek of it - she took away my sweeties and gave me a lecture about sugar and flour and caffeine (I drank about 6 gallons of tea). She may have been right - my pants feel a trifle tight around the middle this morning.
Oh yes and I watched daily episodes of a fabulous programme on Animal Planet called Monkey Business. I guess that this was probably a repeat of the series (knowing DSTV) but for me it was a first and really worth it.
Wow am I boring or what?
I was going to tell you stuff about myself that you don't know but I guess that can wait for another day. Well.....maybe a teaser or two to tantalise you....?
I am commitment-phobic and the thought of being in a relationship with anyone fills me with fear and trembling - maybe it's those two failed marriages?
I have skin that is as white as snow and soft as velvet and look like a blonde snow white in winter and then when I get two minutes of sun in summer I go brown as a berry within days. It really pisses of most of the people I know.
I am a shoe addict. I absolutely love shoes and have dozens of pairs each in their own see-through plastic box with little sachets of that stuff that shlurps up damp that they put in pill bottles. I have so many pairs of shoes that I am thinking of having a special shoe cupboard built as they take up the bottom half of my built-in cupboard and have an entire wall alongside the cupboard for the overflow. I actually don't know how many pairs I have, and have many that I have only worn once or twice.
I make jewellery by the ton - especially large noisy bracelets and chunky necklaces and can't sneak up on anyone because of the jingling. I make loads of jewellery to sell, but then can't part with it so have to make double so I can have my own copy of the piece I'm selling. I make jewellery for colleagues and friends - especially for weddings etc and get performance anxiety before I make every piece.
I was abused as a child (physically not sexually so don't start fretting about my sex life) by my nanny and had a fear of oats porridge for most of my life - maybe one day I'll explain that one.
I have a brother I adore and a sister who I don't adore. She bit me when I was a newborn baby and she's been doing similar one way or another ever since.
I am the world's biggest chatterbox and generally there is lots of laughter around my conversations although I have been accused of being very wise - my daughter sends friends with problems to talk to me - I have that child so well brain-washed she thinks her mom is smart. Cool hey? But talk the hind leg of a donkey I will - except when I'm around a certain Italian man I have known since I was in high school - around him I am reduced to a burbling, mumbling idiot who keeps saying stuff like "so how are you?" "you are looking well" over and over again. Sad, sad fool ...... well in my defence the man is HOT and Italian and kind of connected if you know what I mean.
That's enough for now. More when I have the time and the inspiration - I hope you are all still going to read my rubbish and that the absence hasn't been just what you were waiting for.
Oh yes, I imagine I am a fantastic singer and belt out jazz and ballads at the top of my lungs when the feeling takes me - not always when I'm alone in the bathroom either. It scares the doodie out of the folks in the cars next to me at the traffic lights I reckon.

I am so tired of being tired and I am so NOT a yuppie

I have chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome. How do I know this? Because I was diagnosed by a whole bunch of beard-rubbing medical professionals, including the chief medical officer of the Old Mutual, a whole slew of blood tests and the like, way back in 1999. I was told by all these good men (and one excellent woman) that I was pretty much stuck with this state of affairs and that I'd never be truly well again and as for work - forget it - retire and enjoy starvation while I'm young enough to appreciate it!
Thankfully, there are a few really good medical practitioners in Cape Town who don't have this defeatist attitude and after two long years I was well enough to work again and although I admit that my AA+ personality-type is now more like a C- and I tire easily I can work a 10 to 12 hour day with the best of them.
Now I know that "frankly my dear we don't give a damn" is what you are all thinking and I'm with you on that, but here's what is pissing me off:
The damn disease has recurred (apparently it'll do that if you get too smug about the whole thing) and although I've got it under control (with the wonderful, albeit expensive help of Dr G who is a GP and homeopath) I do some days tend to look and feel a little on deadish side.
OK bear with me now I am getting to the point - slowly - remember I have CFIDS - what really has ticked me off this morning - and in fact ticks me off most days - is how the general public views this horrible, life-ruining, fun-sapping, drink-restricting, food-limiting scourge!
"oh you have yuppie flu" they explain to me, with what appears to be scorn, and then kind of brush me off with a look that says if only you'd be less of a clothes-horse and have ugly hair and wear cheap perfume and stop buying all those shoes, you would recover your health (which is only mildly compromised anyway fool - it's just the flu!). Well, here are a few facts:
NO I am not a yuppie, never have been, don't even like BMW's! I buy my jeans at Woolworths and shop at factory shops.
And for the last time you @#%*$ it is NOT the flu. I have Cytomegalovirus, Epstein Barr Syndrome, Toxoplasmosis and a few other nasty little devils. My liver just ain't what it used to be (and as a wine lover I can promise you this in itself is Hell).
Today I read a post on a very funny blog - the writer said her housemate suggested that because she is always sleepy she probably has CFS - her response was along the lines of "I ain't that cool or that deluded dude".
Well, just for the record - most of us CFIDS sufferers are always exhausted but sleep not only doesn't help, we are almost all insomniacs. To whit, last night I fell asleep on the couch for an hour (we don't concentrate too well so TV will do that to us) woke up and couldn't sleep again till 4.00 am when I managed 2 hours - then I had to get up for work. That just isn't cool and it doesn't help that I am running a low-grade fever, have a headache, upset stomach, sore throat and feel like what I scrape into the poop scoop every other day when I clean up behind my garden after my dogs (ok my mom comes to visit most days and does it before I get home from work - what can I say some mothers are truly angels!) but here I am, behind my desk, lipstick in place, hair all a-gleam (love my new haircut hairdresser angel) and dressed in my best non-designer Woolworths/monsieur price/factory shop best and looking forward to the wine auction I'm attending tonight.
So, next time some poor soul tells you they have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or worse, Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (that means every bug you bring to work - we catch it - you carry on unscathed) don't brush them off with an attitude that says "your lifestyle, your problem" go fetch them some herbal tea and show a little sympathy - they will love you forever and help out next time you are not coping with YOUR workload.