Right, so first off the site is a bit screwed up because it’s about to undergo a major facelift. It’s going to be re-designed and re-launched for two reasons: 1) because I’ve stopped being a waffling asshole and decided to return to blogging and 2) the major A Lot that I’ve been dealing with (again, it’s not bad, it’s just A Lot) is now finishing, so I can actually spend time on point 1.

My Reynaud’s has gotten substantially worse, to the point now where I have to wear gloves regularly when I go out and about. Apart from being in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, where we all freeze, I look most peculiar as I am decked in my black gloves that D sent me, and which amazingly are the one pair of gloves that keeps the circulation going.

You can find me wearing black nylon gloves.

In July.

While wearing shorts.

I had to resort to gloves being on my person at all times as recently my hands went completely numb in the grocery store (in the non-refrigerated section no less) and I had to resort to asking people to help me grab items from the shelf and put into my trolley. I can tell you that people stare you up and down and, not seeing anything obvious, declare you to either be a complete lunatic or to be pretty goddamn lazy. Actions needed to be taken.

I am tempted to work the look, actually. You know, add a long black veil which I dramatically wear pulled down over my face. Maybe add some stripe-y socks and battered Reeboks. If I’m going to be weird there’s no point in wearing a pair of fading blue shorts and a Jack Wills T-shirt, oh no. I should work it.

There are all kinds of options to being someone who wears gloves in July. I could slide my way around the grocery store, caressing jars of chutney and whispering madly “No fingerprints, leave no fingerprints!” I could ask people to call me OJ and to admire my new black gloves while staring at them with something resembling a female version of menace. I could adopt a French accent and proclaim myself Marie-Therese Cousteau, here on a test run of my new diving gloves. Or – my favourite option – pretend to be agoraphobic and activate a panic attack should anyone so much as looks at me.

I can rock the panic attack.

Reynaud’s affects me if I get cold, if I get nervous, or – lately – just about any old time that is socially or logistically inconvenient. Freak me out and you’ll see my digits turn completely white – it’s no longer just the fingertips that lose feeling and bloodflow, it’s the complete length of my fingers. My toes do it, too, with the added inconvenience of being distinctly breakable cocktail sausage – like objects. I have a feeling that haunted houses are out of scope for me moving forward. Arguments, public speaking, and flash emotions also see my hands go white. If anyone needs me, I’ll be spending my life in a beige bowl that has the emotional challenges portrayed in a Dick and Jane book.

Now I walk the dog wearing gloves. I take them with me when I go grocery shopping. They are on or nearby at all times and I’m after getting more of those gloves D sent as carrying my puffy pink Cindy Lou Who mittens – while skirting the edge of mildly charming in December – rates as being madcap in July. I wear my black gloves with my business suits. I wear them with my shorts and T-shirts. I wear them with my boob tubes, towelling shorts and roller derby roller skates*. I am ready to maintain blood flow to the fingers and even more eager to be warm. This must be why we are all – two parents, four kids – off to Greece for a week. If I can’t get warm there I’m going to invest in bringing giant muffs back, not least because it secures an immature giggle at the name.

-S.

*No, not really.