(And tune in to my debut on The Pulse Hospital Radio via the interweb.)
Since last week’s news, I have felt unable to engage with the world. The normal me would desire and even enjoy a discussion on how and why this great political history was made (or actually not made), and what circumstances lead to He Who Cannot Be Named winning the White House. But all I can do is mentally adopt a foetal position and imagine what life would be like if I adopted a puppy. A cute beigy-brown, yipping puppy. I am by no means a dog person. I’m not even a pet person. But I can see it now. I’m sitting on my sofa in my candle lit, hyyged-up living room, stroking this new beigy-brown puppy that loves me. He/ she/ it (what’s the correct pronoun for an imaginary dog?) is contentedly sitting on my lap, exuding love and warmth, its velvet fur rising and falling rhythmically with every gentle puppy-breath. Ahhhh…
(Wait, do puppies actually sit on your lap? Or is that just
cats? I can’t have a cat. Mr Angelina is allergic. Yes, even to imaginary cats.
Probably.)
I’m watching cute puppies and cats on facebook. And laughing
babies. It gives me comfort and is an antidote to all the other stuff I’m reading.
I can’t help reading it and now I’ve been on Twitter I realise how much I wasn’t
seeing. Twitter goes much faster than The Guardian or my friends on Facebook or
Newsnight or Have I Got News For You or The Last Leg or Trevor Noah or Last
Week Tonight. I haven’t been able to watch The Daily Show or the last episode
of Last Week Tonight since That Fateful Day. I will have to psyche myself up to
do so soon as my Sky box is getting really full again. I’m going to have to
delete some of those unwatched French films I recorded in 2007. And maybe the
Oprah episode where she interviews JK Rowling but I pressed a button on that
one to stop it from ever being deleted because I thought if I kept it and watched it
a few more times it would make me write a novel and I can’t remember how to
undo it. Anyway, also on Twitter are memes and jokes that I see repeated four
days later on facebook (so I can’t “like” them as they are now old) and on the popular
topical news shows (so I can’t laugh again plus I now know they are as original
as poor Melania’s speech).
On Twitter I found out about this secret facebook group/
page called Pantsuit Nation where HRC supporters hang out and offer words of
encouragement and now, post-apocalyptic consolation. It is invitation only but
my friend from the US added me so now the posts appear on my feed. Reading these
posts makes me cry because people are posting awful stories about going to work
and being faced with people rubbing their noses in the election results. On
Twitter I’m following this @shaunking who is documenting all the post-Voldemort
(damn, I said it) hate-trocities. [Ugh -I just made that up and hate myself for
it- but frankly it was only a matter of time before someone did- if they haven’t
already] that are happening around the U.S. in schools and on the street. I follow
links to articles and news stories and personal testimony till late into the
night and fall asleep, drunk on injustice and dread.
I can’t really do anything about anything. Impotence in the
face of a darkening world can be wildly frustrating and even a cause for shame.
But to counter this, I have undergone secret training in a studio in the roof
of Watford General Hospital. Tomorrow, Thursday 17th November, I
will climb the steps to the seventh floor and enter the dodgy area that looks
like the boiler room setting of an 80s action thriller where the love interest is
strapped with duct tape to some sort of large industrial pipe. I will step over
the section of wall beneath the door and try to avoid the likely comedic outcome
of getting my foot stuck in the bucket which has been placed to catch the leak
from the roof. (It is very glamorous.) And at 10 o’clock, I will make a broadcast
of cheerful/ borderline-hysterical levity to the patients of Watford General. I’m
not making any jokes about that. It is a terribly serious endeavour. My
training has qualified me to press Very Important Buttons. Which is more than can
be said for He Who Cannot Be Named.
Please send me your requests for songs you would like to
hear/ subjects you want to talk about/ contact me if you want to come on the
show and chat about something interesting.
CONTACT ME ON MY
FACEBOOK PAGE
CONTACT ME ON TWITTER
@Appleina
WHEN TO LISTEN:
GMT 10:00am – 12:00pm every Thursday. (Until I make a fantastic
error and am asked not to return.)
HOW TO LISTEN:
From a bed in Watford General: tune in via the Patientline
screen suspended from the wall behind your bed.
From a bed in your home: If you have a smartphone, you can tune
in via the Tune-in App, selecting “The Pulse Hospital Radio”.
On the worldwide interweb anywhere: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Pulse-Hospital-Radio-s108577/
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