It’s late, I’m in bed, and my body’s been exceptionally wriggly for more than nine hours. I’m exhausted and need to sleep, but despite several rounds of emergency medication I’m still just as wriggly.

But I’ve just seen a tweet on my phone that’s made me want to pause the battle to sleep and write something instead.

My vocal tics can be quite suggestible, and they’ve really risen to the challenge:

Toes: “Slinkys poked into feet of fresh tarmac”
Legs: “Oxford Street in the days before Christmas”
Hips: “A raspberry jelly shaped like a rabbit”
Spine: “A Rubik’s Cube chewed by an over excited spaniel”
Torso: “Cornflower on speaker in the last hours of carnival”
Tits: “The soul of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sewn into the tyres of a hot rod.”
Arms: “Escalators embroidered with staples”
Hands: “that do dishes are as soft as your taste buds after fifty-eight sherbet dips”
Neck: “A set of neon marker pens and a Bunsen Burner”
Head: “A standing stone sitting next to a stream.”

I’m not sure that this is quite what the researcher would have expected but it feels like a pretty accurate description of my body in the last few hours.

I’m very glad to have ended my day not fighting my body but describing it. But now it’s definitely time to get this surreal landscape to sleep.