Brokeback Luggage...bested by a sock!

Okay, no, before you ask, I haven't been having sex with my suitcase. Whilst my bags and I are good close friends and often go into the mountains at the weekend, I've never had a night-time fumble with any of them.

On the contrary, today I fucking hate my all my luggage. To paraphrase the great Popeye,

'I can't stands (it) no more!!"

As I've made it abundantly clear, the whole 'moving into the new flat' event is something that I'm rather looking forward to. I've spent so much of the last four years moving about, that I've never had a chance to put down any roots. Although I've loved the slightly nomadic life I've led, it has been a bit hard to have any longterm relationships as there's always been a very finite amount of time that I'd been around. Now, I'll be living in London for at least five years, and have a chance to settle down an little bit. Call it some inkling of maturity, but a slightly slower pace will be welcome.

What I don't like, hate actually, and find frankly horrifying, is the process of packing. To paraphrase the great Perry Cox, I megaloathe it. First of all, clothes folding is tedious, and somehow I've failed to learn the male knack of packing light. No matter how cleverly I plan and scheme, or how deviously I try to fold and compress, I nearly always overpack.

This time was no exception.

My suitcase and rucksack weigh more than I do, and yep, right in the middle of packing, my back went. Not in the comical 'oh crumbs, I seem to have nonced my back' but rather in the 'oh crumbs, I think I'm dying' way.

How it happened: The room (which until my arrival at S&D's house had belonged to my little cousin, Mollie) resembled Dresden after the bombing, and I had to collect all the socks and clothes on the floor. I was just out of the shower, in a fetching 70's-avocado-esque towel and staring round the room at the work to be done.

My itunes on random, Venus in Furs was blaring and I set about nakedly picking up my socks. I bent over to fetch a particularly comfortable stocking and with a (shamelessly feminine) gasp of pain, the Lumbar God stabbed me in the back. Lou Reed singing about sado-masochism and me paralysed on the bed, forced to sit bolt upright, it was terrifying and hilarious in equal measures. There I was; beer-bellied, pale and still more-or-less in the buck, gasping with pain and trying my hardest not to laugh. A wall-length mirror gave me a nice view of my own suffering and it was very hard not to point and snigger at the skinny, pale victim: half-scarecrow, half-jellyfish who grimaced back at me.

It got almost hysterical. Several songs passed by and I literally had no idea what I was gonna do. I couldn't even shift my weight or raise my arms enough so that when I slipped off the edge of the bed and landed on the floor, seemingly in slow motion, it was with an almost obscene thud.


Okay, so finally I got up, managed to find some Western Medicine and manned up to the extent that I could get dressed, finish packing, shave (!!) and carry my stuff out to the car. I'm staying in my Nan's again, close to the train station, and I'm getting the 7.30 train in the morning.

So now, as I sit here, a cocoon of pillows around my lower back, I'm still excited about the move, but I'm less than eager to have to deal with the Tube and buses tomorrow with my eight tonnes of junk. I'll be offline for a few days (unless the flat has wireless which it blatantly won't) and will take a few photos when I get settled.

Until then, adieu, I'll post soon.
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