Jesus came to tea the other day.

I always wanted to write that line.

John told me that he runs a business in town. I look at him, sitting on our Bale, long brown hair, sorrowful face, beard (no stigmata that I can see) and I ask John if at board meetings he sits on the right hand side of the table.

Also at tea were two people on day 7 of a 10 day fast. This was a good thing because I got to eat both their shares of the strawberry cheesecake. As I forked that cheesey goodness into my mouth I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would forgo eating for even 1 hour, let alone 240.  I mean hello? When there’s cheesecake that good in the world? When frozen margaritas can be delivered to your door in less than twenty minutes?

I was told that there are people in this world who apparently have not eaten for 7 years. All they do is get up, meditate and smell flowers. And this is enough to sustain them. Financially they are sustained by doing speaker gigs at festivals and telling the world about how they live on water and air. I smell something wet and amphibious.

I reckon they sneak to macdonalds at night and stuff themselves on quarterpounders but hey that’s just the cynic in me talking. It’s speaking a lot lately, like it’s the other side of my split personality and its getting stronger and will soon take me over entirely.

Then we went to a party. We met someone who can plot your human destiny. Or was it Human DNA? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m getting him confused with a character in one of my books. Anyway he definitely said something along the lines of interpreting our human purpose by looking at quantum physics, our horoscopes and the I Ching. I know he said this because not even I could make that shit up.

When I quizzed him further about WTF he was talking about he told me he could let me know if my life’s purpose was, for example, to be selfish or angry.

‘And then what?’ I asked. ‘Is that so you can work on it and improve your um, DNA? I ask, you know, become a light being?’

And he said to me,  ‘No. It’s so you can stop pretending to be something you’re not and start living your authentic self.’

He said the word authentic. We all know how I feel about that. Authentic is the most ironic word in the universe. It’s only used by frauds.

‘You can be selfish. That’s fine. Because that’s who you are,’ he says.

I think at this point I had to push my jaw shut. But then I suddenly thought, maybe I should find out what my purpose is in life. What my human DNA is. And then I thought, no I’ll save the money and take a wild stab in the dark that my purpose, my DNA, is to be a cynical bitch. But at least if what this guy says is true– that’s alright.  I quite like this idea. No need to try and improve myself / kid myself I’m anything other.

When we leave, our friend says to John and I, ‘You two are like the perfect party couple. It’s very entertaining – John goes and makes friends with everyone in the room and is really nice and then you,’ he points at me –

‘Tear them apart with my cynical bitch routine,’ I finish.

‘Yeah!’ he says.

But someone’s gotta do it. And at least now I’ve established it’s my purpose.

There’s a part half way through where I’m pouring sweat, literally pouring, as if my body has sprung several leaks, and I realize that I can’t move my shoulder or neck anymore.

I decide to take a break.

I pant my way to the water cooler. It’s ecstatic dance. Everyone by the water cooler is full of ecstasy.

‘It’s amazing isn’t it?’ I get asked by some euphoria fuelled girl.

Yes, I say, and for once I’m not having to stick my tongue so far into my cheek it looks like I’m chewing a billiard ball.

Because it actually is. It’s the best dance night I’ve ever been to.  It’s way better than one I went to the other week where I mistakenly thought I’d signed up for two hours of lose yourself in the music dance like no one is watching in a corner by myself fun but instead it turned out to be two hours of holding hands with thirty other adults, skipping around the room, stroking strangers’ faces and sending them the love of the universe.

So not my thing. But apparently a lot of other people’s thing because no one else was muttering what the fuck under their breath or looking horrified or wiping their hands down their shorts or casting around desperately for the exits or mentally preparing their blog lines. They were all sending the love. And stroking the faces.

But tonight I am high without being high and I’m loving it. There’s no holding hands or swaying or sending love to the universe. Although there are two people sitting on the floor in a lotus pose smiling ecstatically like buddhas who’ve smoked one too many. (I later find out that they were ‘making miracles happen’. didn’t fix my neck though did they).

I clutch my neck and realize it really, really hurts. Earlier I pulled a muscle in my neck whilst taking a shower. Which makes it sound like I was up to something in the shower. I wasn’t. Anyway, then I decided I needed to dance. So I sank two nurofen and two margaritas and now I’m paralysed.

But this is ecstatic dance. And it’s ecstatic dance in Ubud no less. I only have to wait oooh, thirty seconds before someone comes and starts healing me with a hands on Reiki session right there by the water cooler.

All better – well not all better but I find that once I start dancing again – like a loon – like there is no pole in the world that could take the heat – I am cured. Miraculously.

Then I go home, pass out, wake up and start crying. Because pain has replaced ecstasy.

I go to the chemist that is not Boots. Unable to turn my neck, driving becomes even more reckless, I just have to trust in Ganesha to keep those bike drivers safe. I order something over the counter for muscle pain. Take it. Half an hour later I tell John I don’t feel so well and go and lie down. What follows is a tamer version of a Peyote fuelled nightmare. I trip. I am unconscious but conscious. I am being hit on the head by Alula repeatedly but I am not able to do a thing but drool.

After a few hours I prize my dead eyes open with toothpicks and tap the name of the drug into my computer. I am told I have just taken the strongest opiate on the market other than perhaps heroin. Also the most addictive.

Indonesia, where you can be shot for smoking weed, happily administers opiate based drugs (with no warnings about not driving and no suggestions to not take if pregnant or on other drugs) to people with a little bit of neck pain.

But my neck is better now.

Which is good because this Friday I intend to dance again.