Forty-two? "That's it. That's all there is."

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have (apart from his Factor VIII, HIV drugs & Interferon/Ribavirin cocktail that is). Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush (free of blood mind), face flannel (same here), soap (sans pubes), tin of biscuits (dark chocolate Digestives), flask (made by Nasa), compass (prefrably one that has North on it), map (free of snail stowaways), ball of string (Larger than a rolled up bogey & smaller than Jupiter), gnat spray (scent free), wet weather gear (it will be raining!), space suit (holes repaired) etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.


'You know, I've always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe'.

But that hasn't stopped me from walking to my fridge (it's cold in there) just now and fetching my 42nd Interferon injection from the right hand side fruit & vegetable drawer at the bottom. No fruit or veg have ever been in there I might add (ok! Maybe a grape or two). Just a well needed & appreciated conveyor belt of Factor VIII, Ritonavir HIV capsules and a steady supply of my 'Interfering Interferon Virus Slaying Maniacs".
Although the time right now is 23:44 here in London, when I eventually post this it will be tomorrow when I have found a suitable photo to go with it from my vast library of snaps. But I can assure you that I have just done my 42nd jab and like all the rest (I am now sounding like a broken record) went in like all the others before it. I completely & utterly expect to feel the same as I always do in the next 7 days. Is there anything in that little syringe or have I been injecting little tiny amounts of water into my soft skin? Because it feels like it.
I remember on the odd occasion during an injection of Factor VIII into my vein and sometimes.....just sometimes the needle would go straight through the vein and all of a sudden there would be a big lump where the needle went in, a small amount of Factor VIII just sitting there in my flesh not having anywhere to go! And the F*****g pain too!!! OUCH!!! Sting with a capital S!!! Just 2ml or maybe as much as 5ml at the most depending how fast or slow I was pushing the stuff in would be bulging out at me to STOP PUSHING!! The bulge would go down eventually, but I just didn't need that sort of thing happening!
I was in pain probably at the time and it would have definitley effected the way I treated myself. Fortunately these occurances are few and far between. Although just the other day I did it with this new Factor VIII and I noticed this big lump develop and I couldn't feel anything! So maybe my Factor VII is just water too;) They say water is good for you;)

So, that is that, and that means just the 6 injections left.

'Not Life, not the Universe and not Everything'

Just a post is all.

Jason





(C) JPT 2006