8.5 weeks of the post-gallbladder lifestyle, & I admit I don't feel so good. Apart from the preternatural tiredness, there is the unspecific malaise that has lead me, finally, to take the advice of someone who has done this trip before.

Most notably, I was advised to start taking Swedish Bitters.

Bitters tastes like nothing that should ever be swallowed. It's made, I've ascertained, from the ink of old pens found in abandoned school yards, boiled down and then mixed with diluted arsenic 'for flavour'. It leaves a sensation in the mouth as if you've swallowed a medium sized table top, pushing its way into the cells of your cheeks and sending you momentarily synesthetic.

It is terrible, rotten stuff, and should never be touched. UNLESS you have a liver that's struggling to keep up with its new responsibilities. Because actually it does remove the spatial grittines of a sluggish digestive system -- which is both good news and bad.

Of possibly more interest, the homeless guy by the Anglican church was there again this week, in my old stomping ground. Still as a statue, a green checked blanket on his knees, hands clasped in conciliation and resting in his lap. I visited my old workplace this week, after hours, and found a shell of a place. I thought I'd feel ... something. For the good times & the not-so-great. But my old desk, though evidently occupied, looked empty. And the desk I had before that one was dank, stuck through with the rubbish of a job someone hated (they must've, to have made such a mess, filled the spot with grimy bits of paper and personal accoutrement). It looked ... done. The whole place was done. And old and empty and new.

Sometimes, it's actually better if you go back. To find a place that has -- to your relief -- left you behind.