Flagging

For some incalculable reason, I seem to have regressed into a shell of my former self. No longer buoyant and keen to exercise, I now delay going to the gym as a dentistphobe might delay going to the dentist. Just as I have, in fact, for the last three years - but that's another story. And despite several inspiring topics dangling in front of me like a Magic Tree on the rearview mirror of my life, I have been singularly reticent to write my blog.

I could have written about the man in the gym last week who was roaring with such ferocity as he weight lifted that I eventually stopped laughing and started feeling quite threatened by the brute force of his testosterone-fuelled idiocy. This is the kind of man who needs to be told, quietly and firmly, that he is a moron.

And I definitely wanted to write about the nationwide press coverage today that the results of anti-depressant medication are so similar to those of a placebo as to render the drugs' continuing production unjustifiable. The study's advisors are suggesting that use of SSRIs is limited to all but the most severe cases of depression - partly to cut down on the negative side effects often caused by these drugs and partly to reduce the huge cost of supplying all these to the 16 million Brits who take them every day. Now, I am one of the 16 million. I could be on a placebo - I don't really care. All I know is, a few months ago, I started taking a pill in the mornings and now I feel better. If you stop giving medication (or something purporting to be medication) to people like me, I think that would be a bad thing. That said, I do understand the problem. I saw a documentary about the effective treatment of Parkinson's with a placebo of saline solution not so long ago. Clearly the placebo effect is very real - but it works, and somehow we have to take something that we believe to be medication to get these positive results. Really I think the health service should just give us all water and sugar pills for all our conditions - as long as we never found out, we'd probably all be a lot healthier and happier as a result.

Yeah, so I wanted to write about those things. And I have to go to the gym. But.... meh... I really don't want to. I don't understand how I can have been so enthusiastic about exercise so recently and now feel like even standing to put a letter in the post tray is too much effort. Maybe it's the sheer weight of flat-moving stress that is exhausting me physically. In my defence, I have had a lot on my plate, painting the flat for over 20 hours this weekend, rushing to Brixton to pay for things after work and making big decisions with gay abandon. Then this morning I not only found out that I have a gas leak in the flat but that my boiler is dripping sporadically and covered in limescale. This will be expensive. But what can you do? The show must go on... Thankfully tonight I will find respite in our company wine club's Spring tasting evening which includes 'hot finger food'. Wine and carbohydrate-laden snackage... I feel better already.