Week moving past at a blur. Couple of days down in Bromley wearing the suit again. Too much wear can provoke raggedness and am starting to think that maybe the right thing is to fit some of those natty leather patches to the knees and elbows, old-time professor style. Perhaps not, but shame to see the creases fall out and the legs dragging on the floor. Maybe I should go for turnups, which triggers sudden memory of doing that once on one of those horrendous non-uniform days back at school where everyone spends the day looking at each other, scoping the development of the young ladies (it was ok back then, Sun readers, we were under-age too) and mocking the socially-excluded kids for their C&A clothes and dunlop/hi-tec trainers. Anyway, I wore turnups and got ripped for it. Cue a year of recurring jokes on the subject.
Which maybe teaches me that I don’t know much about fashion. Then again, it probably mainly teaches me that kids are cruel, dysfunctional little bastards that are happy to see someone else getting laughed at – happy to join in – anything to avoid it being them…..
But this is a tangent I’m not ready to explore yet and what I was trying to say was that my suit waist line is too big, which makes me think I’ve lost weight, but that doesn’t sound right. Think that two years ago I may have purchased it in the mindset of a baggy jeans wearer. Clearly not the way to buy a suit. Word to the wise: showing your pants in business meetings doesn’t do you any favours.
And what else? Three days into my voyage into sobriety and so far so good. My nicotine patch is chafing, and I am drifting from elation, through to anxiety by way of extreme paranoia, back to elation again via rage. Found myself wanting to burst into song walking through the park this morning which is either a good portent of the prospect of a clean mind or an early sign of delayed psychosis. Also having some absolutely amazing dreams (once again a tangent to be explored later). Apparently if you chew the nicotine gum while wearing the patches you can get palpitations. I’ve been trying, but so far no joy.
So to leave you with a thought: If you were a non-smoker and wore the patches for a couple of months, could you then alleviate yourself of your addiction to them by taking up smoking. “Just start with 5 a day and hopefully within a few weeks you can work up to 10, then 20 and if you’re lucky even 40. Just remember, with willpower, you too can become a professional smoker. Try to avoid situations where you will find yourself with other non-smokers…” I think the boys in marketing are missing a trick on this one, but then again I may well be sickeningly wrong.