the Daily Grind: November 2003 Archives
Information has been received that 2 bombs have been planted in Cambridge, which are to be detonated at 2pm. One in the City, and the other within the University. Will anyone who may see a suspicious package, leave the area and contact either the Police or University Security Control Centre immediately.
The pleasures of working near sponsors of primate laboratories; the above is a recently issued security warning, and we've been given leave to quit the premises if it is our wish to do so.
My fleeting moment as the boy wizard came, last night, as I sat at my desk; a burning sensation in my elbow from, of all places, the fading impression of one of my most dramatically acquired scars. We've all experienced that unusual effect where a pain, or itch, can be felt concurrently at two different places on the body - at least, I assume it's common - a simple function of the structure of our nervous systems.
Part two arose somewhere in the middle of my head, producing an intense wave of nausea, something I've rarely experienced proper, and quite so consuming that I had to stop what I was doing and lie down for a long while. Now there was a first; it's obviously the beginning of the end, though I doubt that this will involve the dark Lord coming for me; that would make for an interesting change of routine. Alas, certain, fundamental rules continue to be obeyed by the world around.
As it passed, quickly enough, it left me staring at the ceiling and thinking about all the little marks that I've picked up along the way, and where they came from; 1980s, chin, childhood accident, boy meets barbed wire; 1986, right thumb, dog bite, leave road kill well alone; 2000, right elbow and both knees, hit by a truck, god bless Chicago; 1982, right hip, tuberculosis vaccine, I will get you one day, evil Singaporean; 1998, left index, snake bite, not venomous, but so much blood; 1992, right arm, chickenpox, a relaxing Christmas; 2001, ruptured appendix, somewhere below my underwear line, thank you for two years of misery and misdiagnosis, NHS. Who needs a journal?
I did not miss the imperative
What I had in mind was a terrible cliff, sharp, razor rimmed rocks piled at its base. If there was any sign of my injury making manifest, I would throw myself from its edge; I've seen my own friends close to tears in the past, not through pain of injury, but because a recurring grievance can further remove you from the activities that you enjoy the most. Sure, there's always R & R, but some ailments are too stubborn to shake without drastic action.
Well, the cliff can stay, but only because those rocks look great in the fuzzy light of the morning; I haven't taken a good picture in weeks, and my legs feel great.
Vanessa Mae was in town this evening, to talk at the Union, and since I was at a loose end, I decided to go along; pleasantly surprised.
I can clearly remember when she made her popular debut in the mid-nineties with her album, The Violin Player, soon going on to steal the show at Zurich's Out in the Green, where her twenty minute ovation kept Rod Stewart off the stage for a full half-hour, or the live broadcast from Sopot where - billed alongside Annie Lennox - her explosive performance drove the crowds crazy, and pushed the prime-time news clear of its slot.
She was never a particular favourite of mine, but her obvious passion and skill certainly made her a pleasure to watch. In person, she remains utterly engaging; very modest, though not self-deprecative, animated, not at all cagey, rather funny at that. And since she answered my silly questions with patience and saccharine sweetness, she is in my good books. If any of you ever become famous, remember to humour the small-folk; it makes us feel good.
She slips through the door, "I'll be back in a few minutes", she says, smiling on her way out and dimming the lights. I take a moment to look around the darkened room; candles flicker along the skirting board, also here and there on the shelves, and in the corner, a compact, ultra-modern hi-fi glows a gentle neon blue through fissures in its chrome casing, the slow beats of Enigma - the mood music - setting the tone.
I drop my robe onto a chair, and stand, dressed only in my boxer briefs, alongside the raised bed. The room is very warm, but cool air is washing down onto my skin from somewhere above me; in seconds, the plane of my chest rises with goose-pimples, the concomitant tingle sending a shiver down my spine, making it even worse; I muse that my nipples would punctuate a fairly thick jumper, right about now, and run my fingertips over my skin as I have always done when roused this way.
I love getting goose-pimples on my chest; it reminds me of my earlier youth, when we'd make occasional trips to a golf-club in the Malaysian highlands. There, my sister and I would splash around in the pool, whizz down the water-slide, do whatever it is that we were supposed to do as kids, all the while trying to stay in the water for as long as possible; heck, the air was freezing, hovering somewhere around twenty degrees centigrade (I told you I hated the cold), falling even lower when the clouds came in like a heavy, rolling fog, which they always did by mid-afternoon. And there, trying to keep the cold fabric of my trunks away from my skin, I would break out in goose-pimples. All over. And nowhere was it more impressive than across the flats of my pectorals, which I would smear with the palms of my hands until they went away.
I lie down on my back and close my eyes. A few moments on, and she re-enters the room; I hear her moving about behind my head, and then her hands are on me. Hot, hot hands, with a strong grip made fluid by scented oil, the smell of which I can't place, but certainly feel a reaction to; as she drives her hands deep into my musculature, I literally fly down that steep slope between anxiety and total relaxation.
This is, if the hands of lovers can be discounted, my first proper massage, and hot damn. In times long past, I may have presented a couple of minor symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder - a usual early-teen afflication - but have felt, for the greater part of a decade, entirely comfortable with my body. This doesn't stop me from feeling a little reluctant to get my kit off in front of people, perhaps a matter of my own perception of what is modest, but though I was quite aware of this today, it was little more than a niggle.
And so she asks me to roll over. Eyes closed, I start to imagine the inevitable - the hands pressed against my shoulder blades are as strong as any gorgeous man's - and just as quickly become aware of the potential embarassment that this might lead to. I take it down a notch, and really start to enjoy. Her hands run up the centre of my back and, suddenly, reflex sees me purring as deep and throaty a rumble as I can muster; above me, I hear an exhalation of mild amusement; as many times as she's done this, I'm sure that the reaction she gets must be fairly universal; it's all a question of when.
