Y'know, there is an actual proper reason for all those warnings to not download dodgyness from the internet. Not that I believe photos of people who happen to be naked are dodgy or anything, I'm no hypocrite. Which is how I've ended up with a virus on my laptop, an experienced downloader of dodgy photos would never have been so daft!
It started yesterday. Blame twitter. It gets blamed for all sorts, so why not the virus on my laptop? A friend tweeted me to alert me to a conversation on Ian Collins late night talk radio show which had featured a guest with problematic hypermobile joints. Now, I'd never heard of TalkSport, let alone Ian Collins or his guest Peta Todd so I was eager to find out more. Unfortunately there's no listen again feature on TalkSport so my friend explained that the glamour model Peta Todd had been talking about the problems her hypermobility has been causing her of late, most recently she dislocated her hip running the marathon. I was intrigued and went searching for photos of Peta Todd to see for myself how bendy she is.
Which explains how I managed to download a virus. A proper pain in the arse, still haven't got rid properly after 24 hours, and many scans with AVG, Spybot, Ad-aware and most recently Avast kind of virus. If, as it kept informing me, it was logging my keystrokes, then dear virus, go fuck yourself. Meant only in the politest of ways of course. I am a lady. Just one who's a bit inexperienced in searching for nekkid photos of other ladies. Oh, and while I'm at it, I've got no money. Don't bother nicking my identity....though, if you do, you can take the being spazzed up part as well. Hey, it's not just politicians who can be harsh on us benefit scroungers. I can too. No spazzness no benefits. That'd really make you rue the day you decided to steal someone's identity.
Anyway, back to Peta Todd. She's seriously gorgeous, but then you'd expect that for a bendy woman, we are after all conspiring to breed a new bendy super race. She's also intelligent, well informed and very involved with Help for Heroes; in fact she's enough to send a straight woman sapphic. She's gone straight to the top of my Beautiful Bendys list, even with the virus. Just look at her and tell me you wouldn't forgive her that yourself? It's ok, I made sure not to link to the virus photo. I'm considerate like that.
My joints must've come out in sympathy with Peta's because in addition to virus fighting I've been fighting my lack of proprioception all day. I was congratulating myself on doing really, really well for managing to open a jar of coffee when I somehow managed to throw half of that coffee all over the kitchen floor. Where it joined the water and sugar I'd already spilled there in a sticky mess. I know better than to attempt floor washing in such a state so settled for sweeping up the mess. Twice. I dropped the first effort all over the floor.
I'm fairly sure it's not the coffee attracting in the local cat population. I blame twitter for that too. All those tweeters raving about how good Culpepper catnip was meant I treated BendyCat to one of their catnip mice. Twitter was as usual right. Cats l o v e those toys. Every single bloody cat in the neighbourhood loves that mouse. Except for BendyCat. She won't go near it now an endless stream of drug seeking kittehs have waltzed through her catflap and indulged themselves in a narcotic drooling frenzy. To add insult to injury, BendyCat is old and cripped up cat style so she can't even chase the nipnicking moggies away.
Taking disability benefits with one hand and the piss with the other.
The image has now been removed from the front page of the Labour website, but not before we managed to get screen grabs* When this image appeared last night many tweets were sent expressing dismay to prominent Labour tweeters such as Labour List, the Downing Street twitter account and John Prescott. Obviously enough to make the Labour party realise the image of William Hague as a disabled faker wasn't their finest hour. Particularly after their recent attacks on vital disability benefits.
The image may have been removed, but it certainly hasn't been replaced with an apology.
*Thanks very much to @louisebolotin, @Marjorie73 and @therealsim_o for their technical expertise
Despite spending the past three years railing at the inadequacies of the welfare state, now that we're in the run up to an election when it really matters I got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Just a big blank of swirling brain fog everytime I see a politician rambling on about welfare reform. Admittedly it's a less destructive cloud than the volcanic one, but only on a global scale. Inside my brain all flights are still grounded.
I blame the Oxycontin withdrawal for this particularly virulent bout, but the brain fogged state is recognisable to anyone with disabilities or chronic illness. Actually, sod that, as that is reasonable and Oxycontin withdrawal is not. I blame it for everything. Even the volcano. That's just because the withdrawal process is a bit like a volcano. All spurting fury mixed with teasing glimpses of blue sky.
Fair enough, I expected the pooping and puking, the sweats and the shivers; I've seen Trainspotting. I even thought there might be some mood swings. I'm a girl, years of practice with hormones have prepared me for that. I expected it would be painful, but then I'm used to that. What I did not under any circumstances expect is that it would fuck with my sex drive so effectively.
I'm sure there's a shiny scientific reason as to why opiate withdrawal affects sexual desire and function but sexual frustration means I'm too grumpy to google it. I saw the odd mention of it when I was searching for information about Oxycontin withdrawal, but as 99.9% of searches for information about opiate withdrawal are about addiction, usually helpfully provided by private clinics offering rehab services, it was hard to find any really useful information about the physical and psychological effects of withdrawal.
So this is the bit you really need to know. Oxycontin withdrawal is an evil orgasm thief. Yes, that's right, withdrawal steals your orgasms. But just to fuck you up good and proper it whacks up your sex drive. Who knew there'd be such wonderful fringe benefits to crippledom.
It seems to start with a period of frantic, desperate wanking as the only way to deal with the ridiculous sex drive which arrives to taunt you a small dosage drop into the withdrawal process. The wanking is specific as trust me, no-one wants to shag a pooping puking mess, which is what you'll be at that stage of the process. Fortunately at that point you will see an happy ending to all that wanking. Be sure to be damn grateful as later on all you'll get are sore fingers and numb bits.
After the frantic wanking stage expect your sex drive to become dormant for a period of time, probably dependent on how quickly you're withdrawing. The other effects won't be that kind and will continue to plague you like the demonic little bastards they really are. Then, just when you think it couldn't get any worse your sex drive reappears with a vengeance, but no matter what you try orgasms are off the menu.
I'm now down to 10mg of Oxycontin tds, from a starting point of 40mg tds. When I tried to withdraw rapidly I had to stop at this point. This time round I'm not stopping but it is noticeably more difficult than the previous few dosage reductions have been. I'm still eating gluten as I discovered it's a wonderful method of counteracting the poop/puke cycle, and in the absence of orgasms a girl needs all the donuts she can get.
My GP never did get around to contacting me to ask me to review the accessible facilities at the new practice, Sandstone Medical Centre. It's a bit of a shame as the practice is a brand new conversion in an older building and should have been a shiny example of accessibility bling. Instead it is, and no offence to my lovely GP's, a great example of how to spend lots of money on making a building comply to the legal regulations without actually providing proper, working access.
And finally...there's not even a mirror for my lipgloss!
*This may have been corrected since I took these photos
