6310 miles full circle

Strange weekend. It's been said that I lack apathy and that is a fabulously good thing, but I'd pretty much whittled my way down to two options last week, and lacking that protective inertia it was all looking a bit grim :-

1. End my life.
2. Fly to America on someone else's Mastercard to ruin theirs.

I'm selfish, ever noticed?

I mostly had a lovely time, lived a little dream for a little while and stuck my feet into that crystal snow with you. Met some lovely people, really lovely. Somewhere was a dinner party in soft candle-light. We were all laughing like there was a gas leak (of the non-carbon monoxide variety). There's always the down's in between though, the shaking and the tears. There are some pretty pictures for those that like to see pretty pictures, I'll add them if they aren't placed elsewhere.

On the flight home they were playing Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto. I love that song, reminds of another body I kicked into the gutter. Hey Alasdair, I'm sorry, you wasted so much on me.

Planes, they make me think of Jose. I always say hello. I could have at least sent you something back in the post couldn't I? It probably wouldn't have fixed everything for you, but it wouldn't have taken much. Maybe it would have been something to keep going for.

As I stared at an old couple clinging to each other in their sleep, I wished this wasn't happening. I wished that that house you're in was ours, and it was always like it's been for a couple of days, but it just doesn't seem to be falling that way. I got scared that the old could would wake up, so put my head down, but no sleep was ever going to come.

I hadn't really thought about coming back, but here I am, back, here, doing the same as before. The phone rings out again.

'...I can't talk right now.'

'I know.'

'Let people help you.'

'Yeh.'

I've been awake for nearly 36 hours now and I can no longer talk, or walk, in straight lines. So I will have a shower, and learn about personality disorders and hope for the best.

Pivotal

Awoken from sleep
of a peaceful quiet world
by Jokisen tea;
with only four cups of it
one can't sleep even at night.

Uh oh.

There are 2 ominous things in this world -

1. Flies
2. French people talking in the library

Have you ever...?

So, Psychiatry, that's a load of fun. Today, I spoke to a nice young girl, bit Schizophrenic, but lovely glassy eyes. Stared right into me. 'Have you ever thought that life wasn't worth living?' I ask. 'Have you ever thought life wasn't worth living?' says she. Hmm the chance for honesty, but I've noticed that psychiatrists seem to keep their personalities in their pockets, so I guess I'm supposed to do the same. 'Well, I think, I mean, perhaps everyone thinks about those things sometimes, have you?' says me. 'I think about those things just like everyone, sometimes.' says she. She stares at me a little longer, we both know we are lying, and that blue man in the corner is laughing.

Medvedevmedvedevmedevil

Is it me, or is the new Russian president just a little bit camp? (I do wonder where someone is Putin it.)

Sorry. Honestly, I couldn't help it.







Also today -
Naomi ringing about the charity Gold Party - "The DJ has cancelled"
Five minutes later, from an unknown number - "Do you have anyone DJing at your event on thursday?"

Seriously, is someone watching?

Reasons to be cheerful

There are so many, the guilt will break my bones, I'm sure of it.

There have been grey moments of late, blindingly happy ones too, but certainly some grey. Yesterday I was in the rather perculiar situation of being watched by twenty people and asked the question 'Am I going to die?' by a man pretending to have terminal cancer.

The answer, of course, is yes. The silence that follows drags me to the floor, I'm squirming around though I know no-one can see that. Soon the actor is thanking me for answering his questions and I'm heading back, sweaty, to my chair in the crowd. This is so bloody hard. One of the faces around i have an affinity for, their presence makes me more and less nervous simultaneously.

So I go back to a computer screen, sure that I will do all the many things that I've decided need doing. Instead I watch All About Lily Chou-Chou , great film but I've lost reality completely now, walking back from the hospital at midnight through the council houses. There are a few empty cans around, for some reason i don't pick them up. I'm sure at another moment I would have. They'll be gone tomorrow anyway, although I don't know where or why, rubbish just doesn't seem to accumulate. Perhaps that's why people leave it around. I hate that.

Another conversation on the phone. Sometimes I hear the talking and I wish it wasn't me, wish I wasn't ruining things, but it just goes on and on regardless.

Beauty

If I can't be you can I at least kiss you.

It's been a while

Sorry time has passed without anything having been said. I did, however, notice that someone is playing tetras really really slowly in the background here. Other than it's more obvious relation to four, tetra are also fish. Ok so it might not be so interesting but i enjoyed it.

Motor neurone disease

If you're still reading after the title you have my utmost respect. Not many people want to think about motor neurone disease, on account of it representing the opitome of one of our fundamental fears, uncontrolled deterioration so that we have no function left and are completely aware without any control over our life.

I met a woman this week with motor neurone disease. 60 or so, with fluffy grey/brown hair. She laughed quite a lot, I'm told that was emotional lability due to suprabulbar palsy. She was a lovely lady, not at all frustrated about having to talk to a bunch of attractive/healthy/going-to-fix-the-world/can-do-anything-they-want-to medical students, and having to do it using a hand-held keyboard. I wanted to do something to fix it so badly. I wish I was better at this, certainly as good as the reputation would suggest, but more than that. One of the other's said they couldn't do neurology because it is too depressing. What's the point? Really, what are you in it for?

Oh, and I truly believed Stephen Hawkins was American, silly computer programmers.


Also, this man poked me, who are you? you cant do that!

why

Why are cholinergic neurones lost preferentially in Alzheimer's?

Squash it away

Just the next street along


Pam was busy today. Bugger. Never mind. I can do this, I CAN DO THIS. Toddle back to the hospital, give a presentation on depression and dementia. I CAN DO THIS. Go talk to a person who's liver seems to be failing. IT WILL BE FINE. Squash, my first lesson. First girl there (other than me) so we stand awhile wondering whether or not the other is there for the same reason. Each decides that the other is looking in the same way and therefore is likely to be. She says hello. Hello. Are you here for squash? Yes, are you? Yes. Are you a student? Yes, are you? No, I work for the University. Oh what do you do? I work for STAR, they organised sports and halls (a strange combination but ok). Are you in halls? No, I used to be 3 years back now. Where did you live. Ashburne hall, I liked it a lot. Oh did you know Michelle? Erm, no. Oh I think she was the warden then, her husband is the warden now in Richmond Park, so we all had to move. Oh. Did you know Brian? No. STOP IT, I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, GO AWAY. So it goes and I'm soon standing on my own smacking a ball against a wall. Think I'm ok at squash, aside from the serving.

The thing is I'm keeping it at now, I'm forgetting all that and quite frankly I want all those things to become cold shadows in the hope that they will eventually slowly fade to nothing. It's my way of making things work, because it isn't at the moment really.

I can only make it this far

Shame that I can only get to this point in the week before needing to talk to someone. I have spent every effort trying to get this fly out of my room without killing it; he seems intent on tormenting me.

Looking-glass

Today it appears not much made sense. When you speed through a slick neurological examination, deciding on your shiny new diagnosis, only to be told that the patient is hysterical and has nothing at all wrong with her. Well then.

Finish with the day to get home tobe told that you were being led somewhere you had no idea you were going at all, let alone somewhere you wanted to go.

Most of the time things swing along nicely, in the belief that the eyes are catching everything that is going on around them, when of the surrounding reality what proportion is actually being received?

How can it feel so different in here than the way it must be looking on the outside.

Oh and I found this, it is disturbing but quite pretty.

Vrum

Getting back to my car, after a morning of sitting in the office of a GP somewhere between delusional and disallusioned, I found that someone had lovingly carved a star into the side of my car. Lucky because the poor little minule had been uglied by her recent run in with the fridge, closely followed by the bus.

After that I was late for the next place where no-one would notice whether I was there or not, but instead of setting off immediately, as I would normally, I sat in my car a while, ate my sandwhiches and fumed gently.

The conclusion I came to; there is no justice. There is no specific right or wrong. It's wrong to destroy what is someone else's. It's wrong for us, as a whole, to fail imbed that knowledge into each member of society. It's wrong that I've got a fancy car having not (yet) done a hard days work in my life. You can pick your morality like brightly coloured sweets, and then you can be happy with the sweetness of your choice. You will always be right and you will always be someone else's wrong. If you believe in god you are right, well done. If you think it's bollocks, you're right as well. Even if you think that the important thing is not deciding, you're still right. Just make your choice be happy. I suppose the people we like are the ones who are willing to consider someone else's position on what right is.

Oh yeh, and I love you Rae Spoon!

Someone's poem

Ho-hum. Drum. Eerie feeling, early morning.
Off to wake. You've left me. Quietly. Soundlessly.
Asleep.

Applying someone else's rules

1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 ... 11111
But I don't understand why 11 becomes 100.

Curious

Someone said something to me today that made me think.

"I don't want anyone to have the ability to upset you"

Funny you should say that, I would consider it completely necessary. If someone has the ability to make you truly happy don't they, by definition, also have the ability to upset you, simply by withdrawing whatever it was that gave you joy. That's the trust isn't it? It's saying I know you can beat me at Chess, but I'll still play, and if you asked me I would even let you win, but I know you won't ask, and I'd prefer to lose anyway if that's what is required.

If you never lay yourself truly open, you can never really be reassured. Of course it's a gamble, but anything worth anything always is.

I don't, incidently, think this is what love is remotely.

words

nolens volens

Session 2 - Waaaa??

Ah lovely Pam, I think you are as nutty as me, but then again that makes the whole process a little easier.

Pam: So it sound like this third eye of yours can say some pretty cruel things.
Me: *looks a little bewildered*
Pam: I think you need to work on that inward looking eye
Me: *thinks - do I have a squint?*

In the early hours

I used to know someone and we used to talk at 4am. At the time I thought that I was the only person in the world (apart from you on the other end) who talked at 4am. Of course I was seventeen and thought that I had sufficient gravitational pull such that the rest of the universe was orbiting me (and I was 'studying' physics, sheesh). Since then I have realised that somehow 4am is actually a time when people who are disorientated and in love talk. Why is that?

I also know that since I paused knowing you I have never been rung by anyone emotional or upset in the early hours of the morning.

Not that I expect you to call (either of you), and that is possibly because you are not emotional or upset (of which I would hope you were not upset but suspect it not to be true every 4am), or some other option along the lines of 'you don't think I'm the right person to call'.

For that I matter I don't suppose I call either. Perhaps I am not upset. Perhaps I'm too afraid to call. Perhaps it would be selfish and I shouldn't.