My other best friend or my new arch nemesis? I’m still undecided.

Monday

It was 00:00:25 when I padded my way towards the bedroom. Master, I knew, would be asleep first, so he became my priority target.

I acted inconspicuously as I entered the bedroom, said that I was “looking for something”. Well I was — the sweet taste of victory. 

I went for Master’s lower leg, a readily available target. I used only a light pinch and punch — it’s supposed to be fun, no need to be mean. 

“Pinch, punch, first of the month!” I declared. I was triumphant. 

“Ah you… I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you!” he says. I grin. 

“You’ll have to try again now in all say…. 2026?” I tease. 

“New Year’s Day” I say, “knowing you, you’ll be far too pissed to remember.”

“I’ll get you” he says. 

“We’ll see. Right! One down, time for target number two. Goodnight!”

“Don’t be up too late” he calls after me. 

“I will be.”

I picked up my phone to (digitally) get Valkyries, but Valkyries had already messaged me. 

Huh? A video. Now what’s he sending me?

It was a pinch-punch video, landed on my phone at 00:02. 

While I had been busy getting Master, Valkyries had snuck up and got me. 

I’d have fallen to my knees if I didn’t realise in that moment that he’d likely have enjoyed the thought. 

I’m not mad, not in the least. I’m amused. Proud, even.

In Valkyries, finally, I have someone else who can match me at my pace — someone who makes me think as much as I will make him think. Suppose that we do this for each other? It’s a part of why we work so well. 

But if Valkyries thought he could rest on his laurels, he was in for a surprise of his own. 

Monday morning I watched the little van navigate down Valkyrie’s road, parking up outside his address (thankyou Mr Amazon driver, I now know exactly where to look to repay Valkyries’ espionage efforts 😉 ). Anxiety set in: the delivery seemed to be taking a while. 

Uh oh, have I caused a problem? Did I put the wrong address? 

A notification came up: delivered. Whew!

A few minutes later, Valkyries messaged me. He said that I should be spanked over the arm of the sofa for the “trickery” that I just pulled off, and thanked for the advent calendar too. I giggle. 

You’re very welcome, Sir. 

I now get why you asked if I was going to be at my desk today too, he says. . 

I sent him a Michael Jackson “Smooth Criminal” gif, with text that read “you’ve been hit by a smooth criminal”. He agreed; he really had. 

In me there’s a blend of happiness and sadness: happiness that Master, Valkyries and Huxley all have advent calendars now, but a sense of sadness that mine is nothing but twenty-four bags of dust and dog hair once again. It wasn’t that I expected to be remembered, I just hated that I’d been forgotten yet again. 

Valkyries himself did say that he felt it “wasn’t his place” to be buying me an advent calendar, and that’s totally understandable. Really it’s not mine to be buying one for him either, but I couldn’t just sit by and see my good friend be sad. So, I did something about it. 

But with Master, there really is no excuse. 

Every year, Master gets in such a faff about the fact that he hasn’t bought anything for mine, then he winds up panic buying big items — like full-size chocolate bars — in bulk. It winds up expensive and stressful for him, and it really needn’t be. 

So I wondered if simply doing away with the advent calendars after this year would take away all of the stress? It’d mean less stress for me too: I’d also not need to find twenty-four little gifts (for him). 

Master doesn’t want to; says it’s “just this year”. I pull up my Facebook timeline to show him how this happens every year. I’m still not winning my case. 

So my plan next year is to simply not mention the advent calendars at all; to act as though I’d simply forgotten them. It’s sneaky, sure, but it spares us both the stress. 

But I do plan to make one for me instead. You see, so that I didn’t feel completely forgotten, I made myself one on a whim, full of little treats for me. The goal is simple: in a month of the year where I suffer most — because being a Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferer, I do suffer — it is a little daily gift of self-love for myself. It’s not about overindulgence; it’s about reminding myself in the coldest, bleakest, most stressful month of the year that yes, I still matter. Me has got me, even when me sometimes struggles to remember who “me” is! 

So my plan is to buy two or three things per month, totalling twenty-four by the start of December. Then December come, I’ll have twenty-four little bags of self-love. 

Monday evening I got rid of our old pop-up gazebo. With the shed going in the new year, one of my background focuses has been on what can be stored where: storage we have, versus storage we need to buy. I gathered that our Christmas tree can be stored in one of the existing store-it-outs, and the Christmas decorations in a crate or two next to it. Before we could do that though, the old gazebo had to go — we hardly used it anyway. 

So I advertised it for free to collect, and within forty-eight hours, two lovely ladies came and took it away. 

On their way out of our garden though, one of them dropped one of the leg weights. Who should be there to save the day but Mr C?

He helps them carry the gazebo and leg weights to their car, gives them a departing thumbs up, then comes back to me. He stands in pouring rain in a high visibility jacket, talking to me. 

Mr C tells me some story about hanging doors for a client or something, really expensive doors with glass panels and how tricky that makes them. I don’t question whether glass-panelled doors are a nightmare to hang, but I do question whether he did it all himself. 

Tuesday 

Valkyries calls me out for ending my last Week In Review on a cliffhanger. I giggle, tease him about tease and denial, and about him enjoying it. Sir tells me not to raise his blood pressure. I giggle more. 

But it’s so fun Sir. 

Our conversation turns to dogs, anxious pets, and then anxiety, and Sir and I learn that we are both anxious passengers. It’s a hard conversation in a way for me but not because Sir makes it hard — it’s hard because my travel anxiety makes me feel so damn weak. 

We got talking about my triggers, about the things that set me off and the ones that don’t. I told Sir that doing 30MPH on a normal city road, I’m usually completely fine, but motorways make me feel trapped, and “slow” areas make me feel stressed because I know I can probably walk faster. I also told Sir that my Dad used to be my regular driver and with him I was completely cool, but now Mum drives and she’s an anxious driver, my anxiety seems to feed off of hers. 

I cursed being an empath — well it’s not always useful! 

Sir said that “anxious drivers breed anxious passengers”. I was curious about his theory; asked him why he thought that. 

Sir said he knows that: he — like me — is an anxious passenger, yet he — also like me — is cool and composed behind the wheel. Makes sense. 

In a weird way, just having a driver who understands can do a lot for an anxious passenger. Anxiety often stems from a feeling of loss of control, and just being with someone who understands that can make it much more manageable. 

Tuesday evening Master and I turned our attention to dinner on Christmas eve, and nibbles after: we normally a “movie and snacks” night on Christmas Eve. 

As luck would have it, Christmas this year falls on a Kinky Fuckery Thursday. Naturally, Master and I can’t help but be idiots about it. 

“Can I cum down your chimney?” he asks. 

“Only if I can be your filthy little ho, ho, ho” I grin. Master laughs out loud. 

Wednesday

Wednesday early hours of, Sir and I are discussing our school days and being good people. I told Sir that I’ve never had a detention, been arrested or been to prison, though I was once suspended for defending my little brother. I got three days off school and £10 pocket money for that. 

Sir tricked me by saying “no simpatico”. I thought he was about to tell me he had a criminal record. 

I knew he was too good to be true. 

It turns out, no, but Sir is a “repeat detentioner”, So I think I’ll need to take some time to reevaluate my choices with that new information in mind 😉 

Later Tuesday morning, I’m still confused about my “travel thing”. I’ve never really been able to define my “travel thing” to other people — least of all the DWP — except that it comes and goes so suddenly and unexpectedly and causes huge personality changes (and lots of anxiety) when it does. I can have a perfectly civil conversation whilst travelling, feel a physiological change in myself, say something like “God! Fuck! No! I’m gonna go”, try to get myself down into the footwell (my visceral reaction always seems to be to try and apply the brakes myself)… and seconds later I’ve got my composure back and I’m carrying on with the conversation as though nothing happened!

I call it “going funny”,.except it’s not funny for anyone and could even be quite dangerous at times.

So I asked Shadow to help me define it, and Shadow said that it sounded like sensory processing difficulties affecting the vestibular system. We dug a little deeper, and it’s not uncommon in people with cerebellar ataxia. People like me.

Finally, I have an explanation for why I find travel so hard.  

It is hard for me to write about Wednesday afternoon, so please excuse that this will likely be rather convoluted. 

Wednesday lunchtime there’s a knock on the door. I go to answer: Mr C again. He claims that our doorbell camera is triggering doorbell notifications on his phone.

“That’s not possible,” I say, “they’re completely different brands on completely different networks.” 

He insists anyway, goes to press his doorbell, his phone chimes. Expected. 

“Can I try yours?” he asks, I agree. 

He rings our doorbell, nothing happens on his phone but our smart speaker chimes and Huxley goes mental. Also expected. 

“There you go, look” he says, he twiddles with his phone for a second then shows me a close-up photo of a woman’s large, clearly-enhanced breasts. Definitely not the doorbell notification that he claims to receive.

“See?” he asks, I feel repulsed. Not because a woman’s body is anything to be repulsed by, but because he is so flagrantly trying to use her photo to manipulate me. 

Unfortunately for him I’m totally indifferent. I say nothing about it, but he knows that I’ve seen it, and he knows that I’m thinking about it. 

I tell him that I have to get back to work.

When I look outside five minutes later, Mr C is leaning against his workshop, smoking. He notices me, but he looks like he’s seen a ghost — he does not look like a secure or happy man. 

Suffice to say that much of Wednesday was unproductive, I simply couldn’t shake the “gross” feeling that Mr C had inflicted upon me. I did, however, have another lovely catch-up with my brother-in- submission, V. Just as I said to him, I hadn’t forgotten about him, I’ve simply been caught up with emergency Christmas dinner planning!

Mum is feeling understandably anxious about next week now, even in spite of my repeated assurances that medicine has come a long way and minimally invasive surgery is “safer” (in quotations because no surgery is 100% safe) than open surgery. My brother apparently hasn’t adapted to her car yet either, so I’ve asked if they can survive the six weeks that she can’t drive with deliveries and taxis instead. 

We got through the Covid lockdowns, Mum. We CAN do this. 

She’s invited us to her house for dinner on Sunday because she has, she says, “a case of the collywobbles”. 

Wednesday evening I cuddled down with Master Levi, who is himself anxious upon hearing what our beloved neighbour has put me through. Master is protective of me, and I have to tell him that Shadow suggested he doesn’t have firm words with him just yet. Even if Master wants to send the guy’s teeth to meet his brain, Shadow said Mr C would likely play victim if he did confront him. So, I suggested we install a security camera in the hallway instead. That way, I can record all of my interactions with Mr C on camera, not just the snippets the doorbell camera picks up.

But Master, too, had no reason to relax.

“Huh?” he says, picking up the Amazon package on the side. I watch him with interest.

“Did you order this?” he asks.

“It’s got your name on it, ain’t nothing to do with me” I fib.

“That’s not what I asked” he says. My blasted smirk gives me away.

Master opens the package, takes out the Christmas-tree-patterned navy tie and note and reads the note aloud,

“If you’re goind to wear it like a bandana, at least you’ll look festive while doing so! With love, the Boss”. He laughs out loud.

“Thankyou, I will!” he says.

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Stay safe & have fun,

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