The sudden death of 'the King of Pop' at fifty has been for me yet another unwelcome intimation of mortality. This, plus the recent passing of an old friend and my own confrontation with the (happily unfounded) possibility of illness, has had the unpleasant effect of bringing me up short to look at the briefness of life in an uncomfortable, clear-eyed way. And I don't like it much. I am well aware that I am growing ever older - I'm showing the signs of age that we all do: loss of skin tone, grey hairs, excess weight, age spots (sounds lovely, doesn't it?). But more uncomfortably, I've become pathetically obsessed that every little ache or pain or cough is an ominous portent of Something A Lot More Serious, and that really, really bugs the hell out of me, that little old granny of twittering caution and alarm. I've always been what you might call 'insouciant' (some might say cavalier) about my health and illness in general, not giving much thought to what I've taken into my body. And now it all seems to be coming back to haunt me, all unwilling, in the dead of the night - hypochondria - big style. I lie there awake and uncomfortable and fret. Dawn arrives, and I haven't been back to sleep, so I start the day irritable and lethargic. I'm restless but unmotivated, bored with the quotidien but incapable of showing initiative. Mal de siecle and it's only 2009! Pass Les Fleurs du Mal, I've come over all Baudelaire!
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