Cure

I posted a link to my last blog entry on Twitter and immediately regretted it.

Not because I'd used the phrase "immediately regretted" a couple of times and felt bad for splitting infinitives, but because I think the whole thing came across as whiny and melodramatic. I tried to diffuse the patheticy (and, yes, that should be a word) in the post itself, but I don't think it worked.

The link was retweeted and lots of people read it. I'm very grateful for that, but would have preferred them to read something where I'm funnier and have a sense of proportion. Not the right sense of proportion, but an awareness of it as a concept.

Why couldn't I have had 87 hits on that hilarious post where I talked about... I don't know... cranky melons or whatever the usual bullshit is that I do here?

That was an interesting sentence.

You see, dear reader (and using the singular there is accurate in every sense), you and I know that I'm occasionally whiny and pretentious, but am at least semi-aware of those qualities. You've had years of irreverence and neurosis to contextualise a slight falling-out with Twitter as just another bump on the petty road that is my life.

But a lot of those 87 people will have read what I wrote and either a) thought I was a bit of a dick, or b) thought I was a poor eloquent wretch in the throws of depression.

Only a) is correct.

I can't help but think that anyone writing a blog post about their disillusionment with Twitter automatically makes them someone I don't want to hang around with. But I have to hang around with myself. It's one of the rules of corporeality. Complaining to my usual readership (and I love you both) is fine, but projecting my concerns to a wider audience seems like yelling "I'M A COMPLEX AND DELICATE FLOWER" into a bullhorn.

I do appreciate people retweeting and complimenting me on the post, I just wish I'd included a few more spoonfuls of caveats, so that it was obvious to strangers that I'm fine, I'm rational, I'm generally not as florid, and that I'd rather get a laugh than a pat on the shoulder.

Oh well. At least a few people will have read that dolphin thing.

Caveat spoonful:
1) I don't really regret linking to the blog post
2) I know writing this makes me seem like I'm taking it even MORE seriously
3) I AM a complex and delicate flower
4) I've never written anything about cranky melons
5) I'm eating bran flakes, which taste exactly like caveats

***

They should sell pornography in pharmacies.

Or if not pornography, just something else to look at. Like a magic eye picture.

I was waiting for a prescription recently, and there was nothing interesting to look at. I didn't want to leave the shop, so I just wandered round. Your eyes have to rest somewhere. I'd have preferred some kind of iris hammock, but they didn't sell them there.

I was wandering around from shelf to shelf, desperately searching for anything remotely interesting. There are certain areas that I, as a large bearded man in a long leather coat, can't hang around without arousing suspicion. I can't spend too long by the tampons or any other absorbent crotch accessory.

I can't really look at the make-up. (I've no objection to wearing make-up, but some of these pharmacists can be quite regressive in their views on masculinity). There are a whole variety of embarrassing medications that I can't spend too much time near. I don't want people to think I'm constipated, or covered in weeping sores, or covered in infectious rashes, or am a baby with a cough.

So I have to keep moving, like a bored shark. There are only about four shelves in there, and I cover them all several times.

The most interesting section is the toothbrushes. I don't need a toothbrush, but at least they're inoffensive and come in a variety of shapes and colours. Modern toothbrushes are like Transformers: full of accessories and rotating blades and little nodules that help you clean your teeth, your tongue, your lips, and even a needle you inject into your brain to remove the very concept of plaque.

But this particular pharmacy was not well stocked in the toothbrush department. And I didn't want people to think I was spending too long there, so I had to move on.

You can usually find something to look at in the section that sells hair-straighteners, clippers and electric toothbrushes. I think 90% of electric toothbrushes are sold to bored people waiting for prescriptions, ground-down by lack of mental stimuli. But in this pharmacy, they only had one electric toothbrush. You can only read packaging so many times before you forget how English works.

By the time my name was called (after about six minutes), I was limp with tedium. They recommended some pills that would solve the problem, but I declined.

That's why, in the future, they should start selling pornography. It's just something interesting to look at. You'd get fewer complaints about long waiting times.

Also, the pharmacy is a sterile environment, which would make the porn seem less seedy. They could sell it in sealed packaging like plasters, to make sure there's no risk of infection. Some might say that's even more embarrassing than constipation medication. But everyone would be looking at it. Let she who is without porn cast the first stone.

Or the magic eye thing. I suppose that makes more sense.

Or a pinball machine.

Pornography is probably quite a long way down the list of viable options. But I'm just brainstorming here. My suggestions will not be binding to L. Rowland & Co (Retail) Ltd.

"Not with that attitude."