December 2: and lo, even your slightest pleasures shall be taken away from you.

I am no longer allowed to read in bed. This is one of the few pleasures that remain to me but I am unable to perform it in a way that is not detrimental to my overall health. This is equally true for the settee. I’m  not allowed on there either.  In bed my technique was to stretch out and prop my neck against the pillows whilst shining a reading lamp onto the page. This, of course, is neck-wrong! How do other people read in bed? I am unable to sit on my bottom  and read like a normal primate; the torso collapses; my arms  dangle ; my bum shifts on the swamp of the matress. What I really need is some contraption like the one that Hannibal Lector got put in after he ate that man’s tongue for supper, an elaborate mechanical harness with my back shuttered in and a trap for the neck. I’d be hoisted up like Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster. I could read by the flash of the electrical storm.

peoplearerubbish.com

One thought on “December 2: and lo, even your slightest pleasures shall be taken away from you.

  1. I completely share your distress, Paul. The neck-friendly way of reading in bed is supposed to be to lie on your side with a pillow supporting your neck, so that your spine is straight. But invariably I end up nodding off. To do the Boris Karloff version, I find I need at least 2-3 pillows. The best place in the end is my Georgian chaise longue (sounds grand, but it isn’t really). Unlike the more decadent Victorian and Edwardian ones, it has an upright end and allows me to sit up straight and yet feel comfortable. Bliss.
    Alison

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