ButtFungus

Am I really gonna write about this?

Hmm

Yeah so. We are humans. We are bags of infected meat banging up against each other. We can’t pretend to be perfect and anyone who has a friend who does pretend to be perfect can refer to this blog where I try to remind you that we are deeply flawed.

I’m usually very careful in public loos. I put paper on the seat. But I’m sometimes in a hurry. Sometimes in the past I have let time pressure cause me to be less careful. I can tell you now, don’t do that. I can think of two times in the last fortnight that I’ve been in such a hurry I’ve barely looked, outside of the very basic wipe. Turns out you can never be rushed where motorway service stations are concerned.

“Hi, is this the phone clinic?”

“Yes. How can I help?”

“So I’ve got something that I think is fungal, right on the bit of my arse that touches the loo seat. It looks like a verruca. But it’s on my bum. I got someone to take a photo. I can send it if you want? It’s about the size of a two pee piece.”

I send it. He calls me back. “You are bang on. I think it’s fungus too. Get something like Daktacort. If it’s still there in like ten days then get back to us, but unless you’ve been bitten by a tick lately then it’s probably what you think it is.”

Yay… But boo. I am disease ridden. Last possible tic bite is July so it’s somebody’s horribly bumfungus. I’ll have to be really mindful using public loos, in the way that whichever asshole had this before me wasn’t. It looks like a verruca. It itches. I am not at all happy about this turn of events. I’m very conscious about where my fingers go now. Applying cream, into my eyes for contact lenses, through my hair…

It’s interesting to think about disease spread nowadays. I’ve been back in London and considering what we’ve been through and the step into flu season now, I’m honestly not sure if I find it refreshing or weird that nobody gives a fuck about personal space again. Maybe we will always be a bit more aware – I remember getting flu after being too polite to move when someone streaming sat down beside me on the Victoria Line. Now I might move. We all think a bit more about disease, and just like they always have in some countries, we have people masking up if they are experiencing symptoms.

Still though, most people don’t give a fuck. I’m hearing reasonable people parrot incomprehensible science-negative rubbish about what they think is going on. Buried in it is always loads of excuses why we needn’t take personal responsibility. Loads of stuff shifting the battleground from what’s actually happening to something that’s made up by one of the dumb stoned hacker guys from 8-chan.

I’m an actor. I work in a cosmetic industry. My brand is important as it determines my job prospects. The things and the ways I consider to be important in terms of communication they aren’t universal. I am perfectly happy to tell you I am currently mister arsefungus. But who knows, there might be someone in silicon valley looking for the new face of their brand. Maybe this will be the thing that takes me out of the running. Hey ho.

I pride myself on being … this. On going to the place we aren’t supposed to. But… I’m worried because I NEED to be working more in my industry now, to justify the years. I write this shit nightly. I’ll never be the shiny liar… But can I get the work I need when Epsom Garbage from The Daily Fear can do a basic Google search and find me telling you all that I gave a strange large round itchy fungusring in my ass? “Employed actor Al Barclay once had cooties. Eeew”

I’ve got cooties. Hug me anyway.