the perils of shuffle

My introduction to the world of blogs and blogging came in the "halcyon" days of the mid 90s. I can't remember the first ones I read but my main interest was the world of the MP3 Blog - how curiously dated that sounds now!

Songs from sites like Bubblegum Machine and Spoilt Victorian Child are still in my collection - either the original files or because (as was often the case) I bought the music in a Real Format.

These sites had something of a sharing, curatorial ethos - similar to the old Compilation Tapes I would force into the hands of friends and potential / actual girlfriends. The blogs seemed to be more generous and personal than simply banging a complete album into a zip file for anyone to download (although it has to be said that those sites have their place too *hem hem*).

Anyway, I persuaded the other members of my band to do one called Domino Rally - as a group of fairly young men with very few responsibilities we had a healthily competitive attitude to finding and sharing new music. And - my logic went - it would enable us to promote our band as people with interesting opinions and taste.

We started the blog in 2005 - our last album of new music was released in 2004 and we played our last gig in 2006. So that worked..? But the blog carried on for a while, even if it was eventually only me posting on it

For reasons too long to go into here, I deleted every single post and comment in 2009.

And for reasons unknown to myself, I've been spending a fair amount of time uploading the posts again...

As part of that, I'm creating a Spotify playlist for most of the songs and it has been really nice to listen to them again and recall a time when music was still the main focus of my life.

This is a song which I heard for the first time in an age (my original scintilating prose is here):


Now I know full well that I was tired and emotional (a plateful of MS Fatigue with seconds) when I heard it. And I also know that any song can be made to mean ANYTHING to ANYONE at ANY POINT in time, depending on what you read into it. But the lyrics really stopped me in my seat the other day:

Oh, just want to push somebody
Your body won't let you
Just want to move somebody
Body won't let you
You want to feel somebody
Body won't let you
Who, who, who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
When your body's in trouble

I guess I was having a physically frustrating day!

On a similar musical tip, I was shuffling away quite merrily at home when this song came on.



A beautiful song. The album this comes from was released around the same time as my diagnosis and this song in particular was in HEAVY ROTATION on BBC 6 Music. While I was being cheerily stoical about my diagnosis, my soon-to-be wife was trying to process it all for herself.

I know that she found this song comforting and not-a-little cathartic at the time. It still makes me sad now, but it has a soothing, almost uplifting feel to it. Like looking out to sea and feeling that your problems don't really mean all that much in the great scheme of things. I think it helped Mrs D come to a feeling of acceptance.

I remember we went to see Richard Hawley at Nottingham's sweatiest venue the Rescue Rooms shortly after - it was nice to hear a man with such sophisticated, honeyed tones greet the audience with "F*ck me, there's a lot of you!"

whining about walking AGAIN

My recent post about parking got some interesting feedback on Twitter from the MS Trust and MS Society. Also the guy above who - and I may be being a tad oversensitive - seemed to be accusing me of some kind of sense of entitlement.

Yes, it might be my choice but I sometimes don't have a choice about how I travel to work - sometimes if I want to get to work on time and do a good job when I'm there, driving is the only option (and one which I really don't want to use).

*Harrumph*

The following week I managed the walk on Monday and Tuesday - I have no idea when the last time was that I managed to walk two days on the trot.

But by Wednesday I was really feeling it. The week previously a colleague had mentioned that I could probably park in an alley-way at work, so I decided to try that.

With one thing and another, my colleague had neglected to tell me that this wasn't going to be an option every day. So I found myself having to find a different space a couple of hours into my working day.

I went 'round the corner and noticed a sign like this - something about the wording struck me as a bit odd, so I returned to work and got on the City Council's website. Where I found the following -

In Derby, Blue Badge holders have
Free and unlimited parking in: 

• areas covered by on-street charging and limited waiting 
• areas covered by residents-only parking schemes

So basically - as long as I see one of those signs, I can park all day for free, without having to move my car every three hours. I called the Council and they explained to me that this was the case.

Yay... I guess...

Except since last week, I haven't walked in once.

Today was the first day I managed to do all my many necessary (?) checks and stops:

• have I had a wee?
• have I taken my Solifenacin Succinate, to prevent needing another wee?
• have I got my Orthotic Stocking and walking stick?
• one last wee?
• have I had a poo? 
• now wash your hands!
• is your bag ready? (many thanks for the sandwiches, Mrs D)
• what about one last try at that wee, JUST IN CASE?

Which basically meant that I got to work at around 9.15 today - not a massive problem and people do understand.

But the walk in this morning was SO ridiculously hard - I really struggled with lifting my foot and by the time I got here I was utterly banjaxed.

So today's lessons:

1. If you have a Disabled Person's Parking Card, make sure you understand the ways in which it can be used - when I think about all the time I've spent driving home at lunchtime when I could have stayed in one place all day...
2. Don't underestimate the benefit of a decent night's sleep - ours has been interrupted pretty much every night this last week (not the lovebirds, other stuff)
3. If you try to get more active (the old "Use It Or Lose It" argument), for God's sake keep it up - I really feel that I've allowed myself to retreat a couple of steps, just by having an easier option. 

And if you promote a post in order to get a reaction from people, you've got to be prepared for whatever that reaction might be.

Either that or stop putting things online!

social mobility, where art thou?

So the ongoing saga of 'Steve Getting to Work' has taken a new turn recently.

I've continued to walk in occasionally but sometimes it's just not going to happen (we all have those days) so I'll take my car and park across the road for my designated 3 (and a bit...) hours.Then I'll nip out for lunch, come back and park for the afternoon.

This can be particularly useful on days when I have meetings around the city - it's bad enough going to meetings without worrying about being a stumbling, sweaty mess (or worse) when I get there.

The sign at the top of this post appeared in all Derby city council-run car parks at the start of March. I've known this was coming for a while, from about the time that I had to pay for my three-year Blue Disabled Persons Parking badge - £10 for free parking is a pretty good deal.

But no more.

I called the number which trumpeted 'discounted season tickets' - and it isn't even a season ticket.

It's a (free) card which you can flash at the ticket machine which gets you 20% off your parking.

(Annoyingly to get this, you need to take your current Blue Badge to a different car park, which has never offered free parking for disabled drivers - or you could display your Blue Badge and park in the disabled bay across the road - but then you need to take in your Blue Badge to get the discount card... )

Okay here comes the Maths:

• A regular 12-month season ticket for my chosen car park is £830.
• The all-day parking charge is set to rise to £7.10 - with my 20% discount, this would mean a daily cost of £5.68
• Daily charge times five-days a week for 48 weeks(ish) makes a rough annual cost of £1,363.20

So obviously a regular season ticket is a good deal.

But why advertise discounted season tickets when they don't exist?

I've always had a problem with people who view Accessible Car Parking schemes as some kind of perk which we are lucky to enjoy (some visitors may remember this from a closed-group on LinkedIn a while back).

As I wrote on the MultipleSclerosis.net blog earlier this year;

I think of [Accessible Parking] more as a LEVELLING OF THE PLAYING FIELD.

For example, if somebody without a health condition like MS wants to go shopping, and they live close to the city centre (as I do), they have a couple of transport options – they can drive or walk in. If I tried to walk to the shops, I’d be exhausted before I’d even begun to start complaining about having to go shopping.

My Blue Badge is still a total life-saver and I can still park on the street at various places around Derby - but walking in to work is going to have to be the favoured option while we're still living in the city.

Has anyone reading this had a similar situation where they are?

as we go up, we go down

So my MS MOT was as exhausting as always. Who knew sitting in a hospital all day could be so tiring!

We got there in enough time to grab a coffee before we made our way to the waiting room to do some GRADE A WAITING.

For some reason they always have a TV tuned to a programme which features somebody you'll never meet buying (or selling) a house (or an antique) that you will never visit (or see). If you're really unlucky it's a mawkishly sensationalist programme about somebody you'll never meet having some kind of 999 Emergency.

The neurologist was obviously running behind because the nurse asked me if I wanted to see the physio straight away. I didn't have anything in particular that I needed to say to her but it beat the heck out of sitting in the waiting room.

We had a quick chat about my intermittent adventures with walking and swimming and the benefits thereof, before she had a quick look at the stick which she had given me last time. She thought it looked a bit worn and rickety so she toddled off to get me a new one. Very nice!

Then it all started to go a bit wrong.

The main thing I get from these sessions is a talk with one of the neurologists - to talk about treatments, future developments, and to check that the drugs I'm on are the right ones.

But the door we entered was marked Registrar. Now, this is probably a very high pressured position, requiring a dizzying amount of training, education and commitment. I'm not belittling it and I certainly couldn't do the job.

However, this particular guy took TWO mobile phone calls in the five minutes I was with him - at one point he sent a text message while I was answering one of his (borderline incoherent) questions.

Me and Mrs. D just goggled at each other. During the 2nd phone call, she walked out to find a nurse in order to make sure we could talk to someone else as soon as possible.

When he got off the phone (2nd call) I asked him to turn it off but there was no point as he was rapidly winding up our chat.

The NHS is a wonderful (if woefully under-resourced) thing. And the team was obviously under-staffed on that particular day.

But this is the ONLY chance I get to talk to a member of the team from one year to the next.

Obviously I can call the (fantastic) MS Nurse team anytime, but often then I'll be in the middle of a suspected relapse. Advances in research and / or the latest medical interventions are not at the top of my chit-chat list.

We eventually had a really good talk with the head neurologist. In summary:

• Rebif is still one of the first-line treatments they prescribe and as I'm tolerating it well (and because it has been two years since my last relapse with no new symptoms of note), there's no real need to monkey about with my treatments. Most of the newer treatments are designed for people with much more advanced symptoms.
• If my Disco Legs continue to plague me, I could stand to increase the Gabapentin dosage (I currently only take 300mg a night).
• We had a good chat about Vitamin supplements (basic advice: FILL YR BOOTS WITH VITAMIN D)
• Also my most recent blood tests (if there are no family members reading this, I'm a little bit anemic - if I'm related to you, EVERYTHING IS FINE)

So nothing new. But it was nice to hear it from the top.

If we'd have left after seeing the Registrar, we'd be thinking what was the point?

life in miniature

Example Doll's House Walking Stick

My daughter's current obsessions are:

• Mr Men books (particularly Messrs Grumble and Forgetful)
• On-going Kermit obsession (YAY!)
• Doll’s houses

Particularly my wife's old doll's house, which they are spending a lot of time fixing up (with Granny). The amount which you can spend on Doll's house bric-a-brac is frankly astonishing. But the best place to get new stuff is our local Sue Ryder shop – so that’s something good.

One of her last purchases was a family and some bits and bobs of furniture, which included a hat stand with umbrella and walking stick.

Evie spent a fair amount of time at the weekend trying to get the 'Daddy' of the family (surprisingly effeminate, actually) to hold the stick.

That was a bit of a lump-in-the-throat moment, but on reflection I think it's pretty cool. She's very matter-of-fact about getting my stick for me before we walk anywhere, and I think she has a healthy awareness of the NORMALCY of DIFFERENCE, if you follow me.

Her favourite TV show is the brilliant Something Special, which is a lovely show for kids with learning difficulties. They also sign a lot using Makaton on the show, something we find ourselves doing too!

(NB Justin is worryingly ubiquitous as far as kids TV is concerned but Something Special buys him a lot of grace)

She's also matter-of-fact about the fantastic presenter Cerrie Burnell – I still can't believe that some parents complained about her when she started presenting, rather than using her to educate their kids that not everyone is the same.

Gah – people.

I had my annual appraisal at work last week. We never discuss my health in anything but the most rambling and discursive manner – so when I got the notes back, I took offence to the section which said Steve "had a good year physically and although feels tired at times manages this well".

I know, he means well. But it really has nothing to do with my work over the last 12 months. I asked him if he gets tired.

He removed the offending line from my notes.

As an aside, Evie also accepts that Daddy's legs sometimes "get tired". But she’s not yet three years old.

-

HOUSE news – ours will be on the market by the end of this week. There has been much STUFF happening with the neighbours but I'm aware that I don’t want to endlessly bang on about it all the time. I might try to do a compendium of recent activity. Or I might wait until we move. Who knows?

Tomorrow is my annual MS MOT with the neuro team and MS Nurses at the Queen's Medical Centre – should be fun (and/or physically / mentally draining).

fun times in babylon

Father John Misty - "Fun Times in Babylon"

The Father John Misty album has been on heavy rotation round my way since I bought for my brother a couple of Christmases ago - what can I say, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Anyway, a thought popped into my head this morning - "Whatever happened to Chris?" 

A little context may be required.

At my school, I wasn't one of the cool kids and I wasn't one of the weirdos. I was more in the middle with friends on both sides - probably the safest way to be.

I was into odd music played by bands with strange names and I liked films and enjoyed reading. Plus I was actually in a band at the time - I played my first gig at a pub in Nottingham (The News House - it looks much nicer nowadays) when I was 14.

Growing up in a staunchly working class post-industrial town, that kind of thing really doesn't impress anybody (it was all about your precocious bum-fluff moustache and your provisional driving licence at my school).

Eventually of course, my ship came in when I got to college. It was here that I basically invented the persona which I carry to this day - The Me That Makes Me Me, as it were.

Basically, this was the archetypal Revenge Of The Nerd. And now I was cool I was going to be snarky and clever and cutting and endlessly sarcastic. Sounds awful but it was actually great fun. Plus I even kissed a girl during this period.

I ended up doing three years at college, eventually getting five A-levels - at the time, no-one tells you just how useless these bits of paper will be in the real world.

Anyway on one of my final year courses I met Chris. He seemed really young (I guess he was) and he was into laughably shit music. At the time I was renowned for my compilation tapes which I used to slave over endlessly - so for some reason I took Chris under my wing (not at all patronising, eh?) in order to show him that THAT was shit but THIS was the good stuff.

(If it's any consolation, I'm embarrassed to write all this down)

We hung out a lot - he even persuaded me to see Pavement's first-ever UK gig, which for some unknown reason was in Derby in 1992. So I wasn't all that cool after all, was I?

Anyway we drifted apart as people do. And in May of 2012, Chris sent me an email out of the blue - he'd been chatting to someone about obscure bands (Beat Happening, Codeine, Galaxie 500) and as my tapes had introduced him to them, I'd popped into his mind so he wanted to reach out. He was living in London but was frequently back in 'the hood' (as we never call it) if I wanted to hook up.

I responded:

what a blast from the past!

great to hear from you - i tried to listen to some Codeine when they announced the reunion dates, jesus they're depressing - it's no wonder i had no luck with the ladies! i was just a big gob with strong opinions about music, not changed much since then.

anyway, you dragged me along to see Pavement's first ever UK gig at the Wherehouse - i think that makes us quits.

life is good, the only dark cloud has been my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis about 7yrs ago - doing ok on the whole with it but it's always there - getting old sucks yeah?

... followed by some innocuous guff about being married and the family. I've just read the whole email through and it's fairly light and frothy (apart from the MS bomb, obviously). I think the day I sent the message was one of the first days I was back at work following Relapse 2012, so my health was very much in my mind.

So I clicked send and expected him to get back in touch.

And then nothing.

I'm friends with his younger brother on Facebook (he worked in a cool record shop in town) and last year we had an exchange about some gigs we were going to see*, so I nudged him about his brother - still nothing.

I don't really know why he popped into my head this morning - we weren't that close so it's not as if I'm devastated by his lack of contact. And my MS was quite the turd to drop in our conversational punchbowl.

But it got me thinking about the ways in which different friends have reacted to my illness - and this is not going to turn into one of those YOU DROPPED ME WHEN YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT MY CHRONIC ILLNESS SO NOW I HATE YOU AND I'M BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU-type posts.

I'm really lucky - the worst that happens is one of my friends pointedly asks me "[pause] so... how are you doing?". It's not that unusual, but he asks it in the middle of a conversation, even after asking how I am at the start, so I know what he's really asking about. Yeah, I know - sucks for me.

At best, when I'm deep in relapse another friend will make a point of checking in almost every day, bringing books / DVD boxsets / music or just dropping by to shoot the shit - all are greatly appreciated.

My point is, I've been incredibly lucky. And it can't be easy for the friends who I've shared time with to adjust to the changes in me - however small I think they might be, I am now fundamentally a different person because of them.

Yes, some people have drifted, but I read something by Oliver Burkeman a while back which said that we shouldn't feel bad about friendships tailing off. Maybe they have a shelf-life - it's ok for that section of your life but not this one. And that's totally natural.

If you're reading this Chris, I hope you're doing ok.

--

(* Me - Shellac. Him - the reformed Pixies, whose original line-up I saw in Nottingham in 1989. See? I'm still a massive nob about music! I'm lucky to have ANY friends!)

privacy settings

I had an interesting conversation with my brother over the festive season, which has been on my mind ever since. But the reason for me finally getting this published was a thoughtful, kind-of related post on SwissLet's blog.

I blog here under the name stevedomino - this is an overhang from my days as a member of Derby's burgeoning still-born "indie" "music" "scene" and my old band Johnny Domino - since then it has been my user name of choice.

(Incidentally, my previous band was called - for reasons too arcane to go into here - The Millers, so for that period I was sometimes legitimately referred to as stevemiller - the days were long, dark and seemingly endless round these parts...)

Anyway, you don't have to be Nancy Drew to find out my actual full real-life name - even if you don't listen to revealing radio interviews (where I also reveal the name of my employer), a quick glance at my Twitter profile will provide the key to my not-so secret identity...

WARNING: this man may crack under questioning

Plus the linked posts which I write for MultipleSclerosis.net are all under my own name.

I have tried to be careful about protecting the identities of people in my life (mostly... when I remember...), particularly my wife. But I know that in the past I have given away such tidbits as this just through being a bit clumsy.

The first MS blog I read which didn't make me want to GOUGE MY OWN EYES OUT was Jackie Zimmerman's MSunderstood (no longer online, unfortunately) - here was a writer who didn't take anything lying down and wasn't ashamed to talk about the (often humiliating) symptoms her conditions threw at her - plus she continues to be a constant force for good in the universe.

The fact that Jackie (and her colleague Dana) used to write in their own names led me to do the same when I started a blog as a way to sift through thoughts in my head which were mostly to do with my health.

Plus I don't know anyone my age (or even in the same basic age-ly ball park) with MS in the Real World.

The idea that the blog would find an audience - however small - was genuinely the last thing on my mind - if it was otherwise, I'd have chosen a blog title without a MILD SWEAR in it.

Somewhere along the way, I became convinced that this was a form of activism - a way of presenting a different face of living with MS than the one which is traditionally in the media.

As such, my logic went, why do it in anything other than my own name? I'm certainly not ashamed of having MS, nor am I particularly shy about "coming out" in person.

Now I know that there are many MS bloggers - certainly more popular and entertaining than I - who write behind user names and avatars, which is entirely their prerogative.

And I don't judge in any way, nor do I assign my own potential paranoias or shames to them. God knows, I know that I'm my own unique mess.

Anyway, over Christmas I was talking to my brother and he said that he'd read something on this blog, and that he thought it was weird that I would put it out there in the public domain for strangers to read. Why didn't I just talk to people?

(He also totally doesn't get Twitter)

And for some unknown reason, the fact that he'd been reading the blog royally weirded me out and I didn't really know why.

Was it just because he's someone that I know intimately in real life?

It's not as if this blog is a no-holds-barred literal representation of every crappy symptom and/or humiliation, because (a) that would be dull and depressing, and (b) there are some things which I'm uncomfortable being "out there".

So, it turns out that in some ways, blogging under my own name / image actually prevents me from being as honest as I could be about my MS.

(Weirdly, this was not the conclusion I expected to come to when I started writing this post!)

Anyway, my brother said that he didn't want to appear on this blog. So apologies, dear brother...

... although I did say at the time that I would use the conversation we were having in a future post.