Defining Fruit Cake and Other Discoveries.

Somebody told me this week that I’d been a lot of help to her in her struggles. It came as something of a shock because I’m such an isolated individual that I can’t believe I could ever be any use to anybody. Heaven knows I find it hard enough seeing my own way through life, let alone helping somebody else. I thought I was just hanging onto her because she’s young, good looking, intelligent, sensitive, highly aware, brilliantly analytical, Chinese, and my choice to be the mother of my children in my next life when I intend to found an imperial dynasty based on humanitarian values for a change. (Heaven can wait until I’ve made it into the history books and become a conspiracy theory.)

Seems there might be more to me than I thought, but can I believe it?

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On a more prosaic note, you might remember the cherry pie I ate which turned out to be apple. Having learned from my mistake, tonight I had a cherry one and it didn’t taste of apple. It didn’t taste of cherry either. It didn’t taste of anything but sugar. Tomorrow I’ll try a piece of fruit cake and hope there’s some fruit in it.

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Somebody else of whom I’m very fond and who I hold in uncommonly high regard implied that I might have a mental illness (though unintentionally, I think.) I asked:

Do I walk backwards up the stairs squeaking and gibbering for three days either side of the full moon?

Do I eat cow dung enthusiastically without caring whether anybody is watching or not?

Do I run naked down the lane crying ‘I’ve just slept with Emily Bronte and this is me lunch break’? (Fans of Spike Milligan might recognise the paraphrase.)

This was as much about self-assessment as it was an attempt at being humorously rhetorical, and since the answer to all is ‘no’ I reckon I’m as sane as anybody else. (And I didn’t see nuthin’ because I don’t want to go to an asylum. Fans of Daphne du Maurier might recognise the paraphrase.)