The post hits the floor with a padded thud I recognise as a book delivery. Good – I’m relieved to have an excuse to leave my desk. Writing isn’t going well this morning: a low, buzzy pressure behind my eyes, my head trying to snap backwards off my spine, blood pooling in my legs, everything in my body screaming that I should not be upright.
I was 25 when I first got the sense that my head might not be securely attached to my body. I got home from teaching my undergraduate students one day, sat down, turned my head to one side, and screamed: an indescribable, apoplectic pain shot through the base of my skull. It left me flat on my back, unable to move or hold my head up for four or five days. What I thought was a freak episode soon became regular, recurring three or four times a year, usually if I had been sitting for extended periods or walking with a laptop in my bag. I learned to normalise it. In October last year I travelled from Glasgow to Berlin, Madrid and London to promote my book Lovebug, an essay on infection and intimacy. When I got home it happened again, except this time, after a week or so on the floor, it did not get better.
