Shockin New Year

i am sitting in the living room of our new flat. actually, this is where i have camped out in the middle of the boxes, the luggage, the bags and bits n pieces thrown around the whole house.

i think my body has finally succumbed to the momentous series of events the past week. let me see...same time last week we were hosting a sunday merienda for friends and anticipating the house move. two days later, we lost a few thousand pounds to some feckin thief who smartly routed our estate agent's email to my inbox after altering the original message with his bank account number. when i first heard it, all the blood rushed out of my head and back and back out again and back....i think it was the psychological equivalent of being bludgeoned with a sledge hammer.

after a thirty minute mini-breakdown (which given the circumstances i was allowed), we quickly had to force ourselves back to sanity to call the police, the banks, the police, the estate agent, the police, my flatmate, the police and everyone else involved and everyone else who could get the money back. i was more interested in hunting down the thief and personally bludgeoning him/her to death with a sledge hammer and i don't mean that in a psychological way.

it is an interesting experience going to the police station. and re-counting the series of events over and over to almost every party. i remember the first conversation i had with the metropolitan police line:

ME: Hello? Is this the police? I urgently need to report an email hacking that has resulted in our bank account being defrauded (in a voice trying hard to be calm but obviously shell shocked)
POLICE: Right....so do you need an ambulance, fire or crime police?
ME: Huh? I need to get in touch with the internet crimes department
POLICE: Right so the choices are: ambulance, fire or crime police
ME: Its internet crime - does the crime police deal with that?
POLICE: Ok let me put you through the crime police now.

and cue elevator MUZAK.....

PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME THIS WAS MEANT TO HAPPEN AND THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS. FUCK YOU.

two days after the crime, i went back to work in that freezing shop. the heaters weren't turned on as usual and as our counter is right beside the main door, it was freezer-o-rama every single second that some customer walked in. two days of this and my nose was leaking, my whole body was aching, my head was throbbing and i started to run a fever. it was so bad i started sneezing in front of customers and i had my pockets stuffed with tissue and i was running to the loo every five minutes to blow my nose. this is not helpful when you are in a fragrance hall. it will however speed up your evolution into a penguin.

finally, next day, moving day. i had to drop my friend makiko at the tube on the picadilly line to heathrow in the morning. we cried and hugged each other when i saw her off at the platform. all this drama and her 12 days in london with us seemed a haze!!! and i hadn't seen her in a year.

back to the house in a jiffy. last minute packing, supervising the cleaning lady, coordinating with the moving man, checking that everything was clean and everything was moved out - with a 39 degree fever in -1 degree london weather.

by the time we got to the house, i pulled out my duvet, brushed my teeth, fell on the sofa with a thud, started a full fledged total body shiver eventually drifting off into a feverish sleep filled with the nightmarish dreams that you get when your temperature is soaring off the charts. tossed and turned on the couch the whole night alternately drenched in sweat then every muscle shivering next.

i don't even know what time i fell on the couch. when i woke up, it was 11am. my head was throbbing and it felt like twice its usual size (and i have a big head). every muscle was screaming. my throat had swollen to three times its size. my nose was so clogged and so were my ears. somewhere i heard grover speaking to my flatmate and i realized it was just me talking.

orange juice tastes like a rusty metal sheet. coffee with tons of sugar tastes like water. rice is an agony to chew.

BUT I AM IN OUR NEW FLAT FINALLY AND I DON'T GIVE A DAMN. i've gone through worse and i know i will survive this virus, the thief, the london winter, the unpacking. i'm too tough, too funny, too smart, too stubborn and overall just damned too fabulous to succumb to all this shit. besides, there is still mr twitter man waiting to be ensnared.

the medication is slowly working - i have to take it every four hours. i am writing this in a very pleasant cough syrup and flu medication induced state of relaxation. i love cough syrup. loved it as a kid and love it still as an adult. if only i had reason to take it everyday. cough syrup, flu meds - all are wonderful inventions. bloody wonderful...inventions...yeah baby.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR.