Pickled and down

I have a feeling Bessy has convinced the world we are all doomed since it was she who first indicated by means of a swipe at the jar of pickled onions that the only way was down. Margaret says the world is just as it was before - plus a couple of rotations - and that thinking a jar is falling is a view of a yet to be perceived reality and that there are many other views that might equally be valid. She did notice the smell of vinegar and the mess on the floor, however.

Not sure what else happened today owing to my having forgotten it all.

Relinquishing perplexed and underloved dilemmas

For some time I have been having a feeling that there was something I should have been if I hadn't been a dentist. I mentioned this to Margaret over breakfast - she hovering 3 inches and me 2 - and she responded by smothering me in homemade apple and blackberry jam and asking if that was it. I'm not sure it was.

Bessy had spent the night dipping her tongue in a bowl of smelly water and lapping it as though it were something very pleasant. I suggested to Margaret that the hound was in a state of utter and undisguised self-perplexification as there was only ever likely to be one outcome. Margaret said that Bessy's confusion would be as profound as ever and serve to further our own search for reason. I didn't tell Margaret, but the one outcome I had in mind was a little less dignified - or useful.

Felix was holding a cup of tea with his feet. He'd been to see a couple of old sailing friends and they decided amongst themselves that if they were ever to overcome their personal inhibitions regarding social dialogue, they should drink their tea thus. After observing Felix with his cup for some moments I asked if he wanted a hand to get it to his lips. He asked if I'd ever - ever - demanded of myself anything other than those things one can achieve with little effort. I was somewhat affronted - probably because I hadn't - and left in haste.

George was flat on the floor of the waiting room with an instruction manual for a complex measuring machine balanced on his left ear. I wondered aloud if the machine were of some use in measuring opportunities available for relinquishing responsibility in a roundabout way. George flicked his head and the book lifted into the air then landed on his right ear. Page 2, said George, and the conversation ended.

Cookie was in conversation with our first patient about the formation of unsolved dilemmas faced by underloved people when attempting to hide in pages of books bound in beautiful ways. I asked if one such dilemma - no doubt discussed before my arrival - might revolve around the question of whether such an activity would have any effect on their perception of self when they next visited the dentist and, therefore, whether they should do it or not. Cookie said this was probably not a suitable question as there was unlikely to be any rain in the surgery. She may have said something quite profound, I don't know.

However, this brings me back to the point at the start: there are things one probably ought to be that one isn't and that challenging cups of tea hidden in beautiful books balanced delicately but precisely will serve some purpose in aiding an understanding of the issue. If such an issue is of any interest in the first place.

Squashing buried propositions into black spots

I've no idea why, but just now the windows all turned upside down and inside out and Bessy ended up wearing black spots. Margaret squashed herself into the radio last night so she could join the panelists in a quiz and hasn't been back since. Felix met some friends this morning on a trip back to 1342 and buried some unforgotten thoughts in their company. George told me he had once been a performer of untenable propositions and was awarded a Grand Prix for his efforts. Cookie placed a cherry in each eye socket and told our first patient she would be back for the closing ceremony.

I don't know what she was on about but it seemed to fit with the general conclusion I had today that some things are just impossible to work out. I guess that's OK if one is happy to leave it at that.

Sounds of unfathomable unsuitablility

There were sounds generally resembling those of a disorganised spider walking on plates of upturned tripe. Then I opened my eyes and realised Bessy was practising, once again, for the spider walking on plates of spaghetti competition, with associated acoustic accompaniment. She needs more practice, clearly. Margaret was washing the inside of a tin soldier who'd once been fashioned as a Napoleon soldier but who now resembled a pacifist holding a sword in a state of confusion. Days are like this, I guess.

I discovered Felix in a state of some excitement having discovered there were ways to communicate unfathomable truths to uncomprehending people. I was rather alarmed, thinking there might be truths I preferred to be unfathomable that might one day be comprehensible to me. I didn't say anything but attempted through my body language to suggest this was an avenue not worth pursuing. Felix's body language told me he had fathomed my unfathomable bits...I left soon after for work.

George, I am pleased to say, was wearing his best dress and make up. He looked normal for once, which reassured me. I didn't engage in anything that might turn out to be complicated for once.

Cookie had spent the night dreaming of circumstances in which she was an unsuitable player in a game of lively inactivity. She decided today that our first patient would participate too, so we all sat motionless and thought things we might not have thought otherwise. It was great to be so alive and yet inactive.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to Bessy again: the plate will always contain tripe because life with pasta is simply unfathomable.

Floating souls filled with rolling nanotubes

Margaret woke to tell me there were people in this world who thought that dungbeetles rolled dung. In my hazy half-awake state I said I was one of those people. That's when she told me that people ought to stop categorising beings - human or non - by what they do. She had renamed the species optimistic-creatures-of-general-good-tolerance-in-a-divided-world. I suggested that this was as bad as rolling dung. She pulled the duvet off me and told me she was ready for a cup of tea.

Bessy had spent the entire night looking at a picture of the molecular configuration of a nanotube. I believe she has designs on being the first dog to pass through one - but I don't pry.

Felix tells me the Big Bang was no great party (he was there) and that all the universe as it wasn't known then got way out of hand and that's why he ended up on his bench looking at the English Channel. Not that he's got a wrong word to say about spontaneous combustions and the like - but he might have been projected onto another spinning rock. I guess the grass is always...

George had great news this morning: his mother bought a place in Torquay when he was a child and forgot to tell him. He arranged for some of his friends and himself to make their way there whilst maintaining their souls in helium-filled balloons hovering undecidedly at a distance of some metres above the ground. I asked if this wasn't a perilous task given that at his age one was less certain of a soul returning. I don't think he liked that because he scowled and said my balloon would not float on account of my heavy burden of sin. It's times like that when I think there has to be a reason why I employed George.

Cookie was on an about-turned parasol with our first patient of the day - Flot of the Shells (she renamed herself) - somewhere inside the pattern of the sun printed on the canvas. I asked if there was anyway for me to remove the wisdom tooth she'd come in to have removed without disturbing the configuration. Cookie said that was a silly question as there was no such thing. I was about to ask 'what' when I realised that Flot was never really a patient at all and just a hypothetical manifestation of Cookie's imagination that happened to walk in through the door one day and shake my hand.

Which, I suppose, is where Margaret was coming from when I woke this morning: there are ways of defining someone - and other ways. And there are places we arrive and places we never visited. And there are probably ways of thinking about the places we never went - and other ways of thinking about them. And there are very little things that matter alot - and very big things that don't matter at all. It's all about definitions and opinions and where one's soul is floating.

Syrup dripping from ears

There are sad days and big days and yellow days and dream days and there are just days...like today. That's what Margaret told me this morning as she sat with her feet in a bowl of syrup. On days like today you just have to keep yourself out of trouble and soak up sweet things. Bessy was having none of it and had hung her left ear from the balcony as a sign of protest.

What is one supposed to make of these things?

Rubbing melons into purple faces

Melons have a habit of rolling into or over Bessy's tail. She's begun to take a philosophical angle on them and appears to be rather interested in the phenomenon she describes as pick-up-on-the-purple-man-and-rub-it-in-the-face school of thought. At least, that's what I interpreted from the bark and the tail wag and the look that accompanies lopsided ears, when I woke this Sunday morning. Margaret said the dog needed letting out and that last night's desert had nothing to do with philosophy. She's black and white like that is Margaret, from time to time.

Felix tells me there are three ways to break into prison disguised as a melon. However, for reasons of national security, he won't tell me what they are.

Being a Sunday, though I am thinking of the pleasant haven I call work, I am not there so cannot report on the goings on of George and Cookie. George did mention he was planning a weekend of tumultuous nakedness in abstract places, and Cookie that there was no such thing as a weekend since she had lost them in a bet (which had something to do with moles and souls - not sure - you'd have to ask next time you pop in).

So there I am. The end of a weekend that may well have been pawned to pay for salvation, and the discovery that the person rescuing me might have had two other disguises with which to climb in. If that doesn't tempt you to rub your face purple, I don't know what will.