The Reluctant Adult

or the rediscovered teen ager, whichever you prefer. Either way, the last thing I feel at the moment is like being sensible, mature and responsible. I've had enough of all that.

Night out with Sister - fantastic; very good Vietnamese in Hackney, excellent conversation but like I blogged before, meeting up isn't all fun, fun, fun. The various personal dramas that are underfolding in both our lives were duly relayed, but with the added dose of black humour you can chuck in when you are with friends and it was lucky that the restaurant was empty so that nobody had to ask for the removal of the two banshee from the corner. Taking a long hard look at my sister was shock. We look more like each now, mainly because we are both somewhat stressed but if this is what I look like to people, then I need to do something about it.

The reorg at work would make Fawlty Towers & The Office look like a serious docu-drama. Never have I felt like such a number and not a person before. Yes I still have a job but if the "so long and thanks for all the fish" email had been entitled "Touch Luck Scum - you're on your own" it would have been more honest. I take little comfort from the fact that it's been a similarly bad experience for many others, all that means is that there are a lot of people who basically, couldn't be given a flying fuck about. Bye-bye avuncular company, hello evil step father desperate for control. It's all arse.

And relax.

Had a nagging text from a friend chiding me for not following up on plans to meet her. Great, more guilt, obviously needed some of that. Compromise agreed upon in that she's going to meet up in Town with me, as opposed to the preferred option of me spending a long and tranquil weekend in the West Country. I obviously can't even get the life balance bit right at the weekends anymore. Oh roll on October.

Update: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/whalevision go here!

Boing Boing

The Rubber Rollercoaster indeed - every high higher, every low lower and in between you ping between them.

The Ups: Got a whole new batch of cds from ebay today (this being the summertime splurge from last weekend when I seemed to have the music midas touch and won everything) so am having a rip-fest this evening.

The Downs: Just when am I going to actually listen to them all!

The Ups: Am going out with my fantastically witty and fun sister tomorrow. Due to same family stuff over the last few months, we've got really close and ended up finding out that we are very similar in a host of ways - I already knew we sounded the same, laughed pretty much the same but we've both got the same magpie tendency for darting after things, both seem to have the ability to make others laugh even when we are feeling like scum ourselves. And we both have the self confidence of a slug at times. But she is great.

The Downs: The reason I'm going out with her is that we're are both going through a tough time (for vastly different reasons) at the moment and we have had enough! So although it's going to fun seeing her, because we are both slightly at the froot-loop edge of reality at the moment, there is a lot of poignacy to why we spend time together. I wish that I could take some of her hurt away, she has enough stress stocked up to easily replace it.

The Ups: Got stuff done at work, loads of it, stuff that needed doing as part of the reports frenzy that is part of my job, gave me that content feeling of control.

The Downs: Arghhhh! The uncertainty at work is crippling. I am someone that naturally wants to help others, support my colleagues, be strong for them and provide clarity etc etc. Well fat chance of that at the moment. I'm lurching from feeling totally despondent due to the inability to plan anything since I haven't a clue what's going to happen to euphoric as I think of all the opportunities this is going to offer. The vile reality is somewhere in the middle - there will be a whole load of work coming our way and it will be more of the same.

More Downs: This is now contributing to insomnia meaning that not only am I truly manic, I'm shagged as well. Please don't suggest I need a break - holidays are a sore subject.

Thank You For The Music

Went to a brilliant workshop today - Formal Abba Singing (no, I don't mean it was long frocks & DJs) courtesy of Beginners Please run by the vocally awesomey inspiring Ann Barrett. By formal I mean singing to a music score with allocated vocal range parts (yay for once I've been labeled as a soprano - now that is a girlie achievement - I don't get many of those) and singing in harmony. As opposed to my usual method of singing which is to give it plenty of welly and hope the notes catch.

I'm not a good singer - possibly too many cigs, booze and stress mean I'd be more likely to win an Alison Moyet soundalike contest than give Madonna a run for her money but I have enthusiasm. The reason I wanted to do all this is that I am very aware that I spend a good percentage of my life having to present a certain image, always be in control and my brain feels as though it is going to fry. In short I can never switch off or just concentrate on one thing at a time. It's always answer this, decide that, analyse this, respond, respond respond but to a myriad of unrelated things. There is never any time for planning or thinking things through, well having to sing in harmony sorts all that out. You have to breathe properly, have to know when to come in, what's going to happen in a few bars time, concentrate on your part and not the alto next to you and totally concentrate on the music. I haven't felt so relaxed, calm, fulfilled and happy for ages. I didn't care if I got it slightly wrong, or sang loudly or looked stupid - because we all probably did. But I felt a sense of real achievement at the end of it and am starting to realise that I can do slightly out of the ordinary things and I'm not the boring, no interests, bland and meaningless person I've been told I am. So hooray for Gothiron!

It was great, I've now managed to appreciate the complexities of Mama Mia, Super Trouper (that is a bugger to sing, hats off to the girls on that one), Money, Money, Money and a without score version of Fernando. Having to actually study the lyrics as well the music meant that, a bit like when you reread a book you had to dissect for A Levels, you are suddenly made aware of the deeper meanings of things. Next time you hear a track on the radio - listen & hear.

The venue was Steeple in Essex (near Maldon) so fairly rural and most of the singers (ladies all bar the two very brave gents who provided super bass) were fairly local (and "fritefly naice" ladies) so apparently I was quite a novelty and at least ten looked as though I'd made their day by them being able to meet a real live Dagenham person "how fantastic you've come all this way & you found Ann via the internet". But everyone was welcoming and it only occurred to me at the very end that I was the only person who had been a singleton. I think I would have been far more inhibited if I'd been with people I'd know. Anonymity is great for the confidence!

I haven't had so much fun in ages and really enjoyed the whole day. There is an event in aid of WaterAid to be held at the Museum of Power in October - and I'll get to sing in the Turbine Hall - how awesome will that be!

A £22 well spent in my book and the lunch was fantastic as the local ladies had put on a Smorgsbord style lunch with a 70s feel - OK, it included a pineapple n cheese spikey hedgehog. Kitsch enough for me!

How to make the "coolest" thing on the planet...uncool

Absolutely cracks me up this one - anything that dents the "coolest gadget on the planet" image of the herd-pod is fine by me.

Check out Fake Sheep - Vegan Knitting website for more pictures and also take time to read Moira's blurb. I had never thought about the subject of knitting and the environment before; nor the idea that commercially produced wool still can involve animal cruelty in how the "source" (that's sheep to thee & me) may be kept.

So what started off as the opportunity to sarky about ipods has turned into a bit of thought provoker. Nice to know that I can still know how to be a human being.

+ I quite like the gloves...

Try again. Fail again. Fail better

Is the wording on the card I have on my board at work - and is a good reminder to me that you can't improve if you are perfect to begin with. Cheers Samuel Beckett.

Had one of these ebay splurges at the weekend, obviously with the good weather, the people who usually snipe me at the last minute were out sunning themselves. I think I've managed to snaffle about £40 worth of cds - some wonderfully bizarre ones but I am going to have to do the emergency dash to the post tray at work to save my blushes over "yet another parcel for you" - usually I end up being sniped on 8 out 10 bids, it must have been my lucky day.

Thoroughly enjoying the David Byrne "Grown Backwards" cd. Glass, Concrete & Stone would certainly feature on the "ways to finish a relationship" playlist if you wanted an alternative to "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" - although I'm convinced that there is a niche market out there for themed podcasts. Beats the dead roses bouquets for finishing a relationship. So looking at the current selection on the not-a-herdpod ("Be Creative") playlist entitled "Feel Nothing" - what could I potentially offer as a kiss-off podcast...

• 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
• All I Want To Know (Magnetic Fields)
• Cure for Pain - Morphine (for the line - "someday there'll be a cure for pain - and I'll throw my drugs awaaaaaay"
• Cry - Godley & Creme (blimey I can remember being wowed when that video was screen in the cimema
• You, Who Do You Hate - Mansun
• A Little Time (The Beautiful South)
• I've got something to say - Reef
• Bye Bye Badman - Stone Roses
• I'm not in Love - 10cc
• She's Too Good For Me - Warren Zevon

"I'd wait here for a thousand years if she'd come back to me
I have everything she wants but nothing that she needs
I want her to be happy - I want her to be free
I want her to be everything she couldn't be with me"

I'm The Slime

"The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment"

For the first time in ages, I can genuinely say that this weekend has been pretty neat. No I haven't won the lottery, haven't had a life changing Road to Damascus type moment but simply have had a stress-free enjoyable weekend doing those sort of normal things that everyone does but for me have recently been a trial of Herculean efforts. Even the joy that is Asda on a Saturday was OK - probably because the rest of the work had fled to the coast living the urbanites who remained with more space - yay! But it was truly the simple things that worked well this weekend:

Finished the new P J Tracy thriller "Live Bait" - a brill follow up to "Want To Play?" and the perfect read for when you want to remained sprawled in one position for a couple of hours. Another reason for remaining in the same position was that Creative Zen FM Radio was slightly temperamental and once I had established that the ideal receiving position was if I was lying in same kind of yoga-eques "Anubis - the Jackal God" pose so I reckon I've toned the abdominals at the same time.

Idle question - just how many types of vile bacterial scum do you reckon a slug carried on it? Reason for asking is that the joy that was assuming the Anubis Pose in the garden meant that Zen was on the grass, as was vile, oozing scum with antlers - that then slimed over Zen in a very controlled manner. Yuck! Ideas for Slug themed Playlists welcomed. I guess "I'm The Slime" by Frank Zappa would have to be tops

Went to see the new Batman - Batman Begins (after about 20 minutes I was wishing for Batman Ends...- but even that picked up eventually) and before I give in to the "everything is fine with the world, I want to make an exception - a special hell be reserved for gits who take mobile calls during films that aren't of the relative-dying variety and for 12 year old boys who get hysterically excited at the sight of a pair of breasts during a trailer - for gods sake, haven't they found porn yet to still get wowed by 12a Cert tits..... But the film was good - go see.

Being Father's Day - I duly shuffled over to see The Old Man who had just returned back from his all time favourite location, no, not the pub but The Tip. Now I remember reading the Sir Trevor McDonald used to relish visits to the Dump as it gave him solitude and respite - maybe that's the same for my dad but that doesn't explain why both me & my sister still enjoy the prospect of going to the Tip (once we've done the recylcing thing of course!) - maybe because The Tip was the only place that we went with Dad alone as an outing. From memory, Mum didn't often to the Tip thing, and I don't think my brother did. Maybe this is some kind of weird dad-daughter bonding thing. And maybe that's why Stig of the Dump was such a cool book for us both.

Picked up an email from the "Kill Yourself or Get Over It" Mate as a result of mailing her to highlight this weirdness (see earlier blog) and she was now destined to spend the entire weekend getting her other half to find the cd it was on. Sorry Pete if you were planning a quiet one.

My other half is just about to set out on an evening out and he's meeting up with his mates in a goth pub in Camden - yep, hottest day of the day and he will be in close proximity to an entire black clad community radiating heat. Still he'll look very droll in the pseudo goth shirt from Cyberdog.

Getting A Grip

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again"

Now why couldn't I have described it like that rather than ranting on like a loop....

Was listening to another Pete Ashton podcast which included a track that although I had never actually heard before, I totally knew it as someone I used to work with used to regularly quote one of the lines from it as an expression of irritation with people endlessly binting on about things. (I have a feeling I might have heard it most for a pretty good reason...) The line is "Kill yourself or get over it" and I thought I was harsh with my favourite retort being "Cope!". But now I've actually heard the track, I respect that ability to have found such an apposite view on things.

I've now remember more stuff about my mate that I'd parked away in the little visited "odd things I've done" section of my brain and it's amazing how invigouratingly vibrant they were. It was with them that I achieved a long held ambition to go into a bookies and place a bet - well there wasn't much else to do doing the lunch break on an Access course in Brum. I can even remember the horse "Hammer & Sickle" and it came in third. Shame I hadn't worked out how to do the "each way thing". ...

Now I'm convinced that putting a bet on in a grubby bookies in Brum will never feature in one of those "100 Things to Do before you die" but it's something I always wanted to do for no real reason other than it seemed pretty bizarre to be such an ordinary thing that seemed hard to do. My Mum was seriously impressed when I told her (I mean was at least 30 at the time!) as she'd always wanted to do the same! Wow - brownie points.

So is it time that I did the list thing on the grounds that if you write it down you are more likely to achieve it "I want to be fabulously witty and attractive" - nope, didn't work.

So thanks to a track that in theory should be one to guarantee immediate despondency, I'm as high as a kite because I've been able to remember a really good friend and the fun of them. So that's where all the good people have gone - to happy memory area. Cool.

I don't rent space to anyone in my head

This one isn't going to be a bundle of laughs. I've had the odd bouts of depression most of my adult life - the longest was about three years and is what is currently troubling me. I'm starting to feel the same way now as I did then and frankly, it's making me scared. I don't want to go back onto tablets as I resent the fact that I have to be "chemically controlled". I struggle enough with the pill! I'm feeling constantly aggressive emotionally but then get hit by a really bad low. It feels like I already am chemically enhanced. How do you deal with this - I feeling as those I'm trying to hang onto my life and be in control when all I'm doing is failing to get a firm grip and fraying the line a bit more.

I feel that people must think I'm drunk as the mood swings make me dizzy, and sometimes I'm so euphoric that I scare myself - mainly because I can very clearly visualise the slump and crash that is going to follow. Not some much an eagle soaring, more the turkey falling over the edge. I just can't get my head to be still for long - it's as though I have searing flashes of total tranquility and calm when I am in control, can make rational decisions and most importantly of all, not be crying - but then these are balanced by total patheticness attacks when I feel as though I could end it right there and just walk away from my life. What is this - the start of some exciting slump into depression (hooray that will just about finish off the puzzle) or just my body trying to be contacted by my brain to say "you need a rest - do it" or am I just losing my marbles?

Answers on a fag-packet please, in fact, just sling the fags over.

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow

Another raging spell of insomina....at some point soon I think I'm going to apply to work night shift and actually benefit from the fact that I'm awake when most people aren't!

I feel exceptionally guilty since I know that I'm now going to be in a vile mood for work, will conjure up a magic no-contact zone around me for friends and will seek refuge in coffee to keep me awake. Which it will. Tonight. And of course, my other half will be getting a restless night as well since however quiet you try to be when you are the only one up, you still somehow manage to sound like you are undertaking the percussion section of the local orchestra.

So why can't I sleep? Pointless worry about work and family - pointless in so much as the things I am concerned about (reorganisation, letting colleagues down, missing deadlines, new tasks etc etc) are things which I have no control over and logically I should just let them go and concentrate on things that are in my own remit. Which is the nub of the matter - just at the moment I feel as though I have very little control over what is happening - I'm stressed out so haven't the energy left (after worrying) to voice my concerns rationally (I'm feeling as though I have permanent PMT & a hangover), my head feels as though it's going to explode and I would just like a few hours back to myself - hence the insomina. I am very aware that my personal life is being affected, although the agreement I seem to have come to there is that as long as I try and act like a rational, caring, considerate person to my other half for at least 12 hours over the weekend, I don't feel so bad about basically being absent both emotionally and physically during the week. I realise by writing this that its a poor deal for him but its an improvement. The guilt sponge isn't particulary choosey about what it mops up, but there is only a finite absorption capacity before more space is created.

So that's why I keep on welling up - its excess guilt oozing out, I never realised that was the function of tears.

Oh roll on 5.30am, that's when I can legitimately leave the house for work without feeling like a total basket case. So what's new on the web to listen to for the next 45mins......

Any recommendations for basically coping - let me know!

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better"

Another great day that proved sometimes, just getting on with stuff rather than binting on about really helps.

Had one of those conversations that you'd usually expect to only occur after large quantities of alcohol but not in this case. The subject of the conversation was "will people still seek knowledge and crave learning or will eventually society become so apathetic that the art of questioning, seeking and more importantly sharing knowledge become obsolete?" My view was that the more apathetic one strand of society becomes (think Rise of The Idiots - Nathan Barley) the stronger the opposing strand becomes, since it is harder to be an individual when the herd is massive and you develop stronger views. A sort of super-breed of non-conformists but does this mean that society ceases at the price of individuality (told you it was one of those conversations that usually follows the one about "what's your favourite childhood sweet\cartoon\late night film). I guess what I'm saying is that there must be hope against the endless spoonfeeding of sanitised media, neo-censored thought and general inability to reason. The decline of active and empassioned politics (not so much vanilla-leadership as totally synthetic be-what-ever-you-want-me-to-be leadership), the easy application of stereotyping (yobs, hoodies, chavs etc) makes for lazy journalism - why bother using the richness of the written word to actually try to desctibe something when a insta-quote stereotype works so well. When we are all labelled, we are all controlled - although who controls the labels?

The responsibility of free thinking societies is to ensure that change can happen, that the past is remembered and the future planned rather than controlled and we never forget that the degree of freedom we experience isn't typical for most of the worlds population. Democracy, however much maligned the government, is better than the alternatives. The fact that I can express my views (even if no one ever reads them other than me) means I have a level of autonomy and empowerment that some will never even dream off since you can't dream of what you have no knowledge of.

The thirst for knowledge should never be slackened - you should feel more parched with every new idea.

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable"

That fantastic event I went to? Well, the pics were made available today and like many people, I tend to avoid ever having photos taken, so it was a shock to come face to face with yourself unexpected. Put this way, if I was an actress, I'd be described as having a "face with character" Or maybe if I'm honest (and to use a friends favourite expression) "a hag with a face like a bag of smashed crabs!" Blimey when did I get so old! So thanks Oscar W for the quote..

The current grouchy spell contains and I think I've identified the cause. Guilt. Currently work is a bit uncertain (reorg looms), I can't stand not being able to have some element of control over my life and spending half my time thinking that I'm about to have to try and start over again workwise isn't helping. Luckily enough, there are a few personal stresses going on as well so when I'm not worrying about trying to find a work identity, I can worry about not knowing my home identity. The mystery of the grey hairs is suddenly clear.

Thinking about music, in particular the whole "do sad songs make you sad" thing. I had the joyous experience of suddenly welling up whilst coming home - anyone else been reduced to blubbing by "Music Box" - The Cooper Temple Clause?

I guess when you are feeling like a guilt sponge hearing the lines :

" I've had a plague of late, A niggle of doubt, Yeah I've had questions of conscience of what this is about"

seems to hit the spot hard.

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell

Is how Sundays make me feel....So thanks to Aldous Huxley & the good folks at Elibron Quotations for pointing it out to me.

So what's caused me to turned into the grouchy gothiron again? It's Sunday, Bloody, Sunday (to song drop - if I wasn't feeling in such a mood I'd be able to a "soundtrack to my emotions - Nick Hornby type of thing" to put it into perspective). It's not the thought of work tomorrow that brings me down - I think it is actually the case of "work tomorrow" being what gets me through the weekend, it's just the whole perception of just what couples should be doing that gets to me. When I see the duets of complementary coupleness parading around, I'm torn between pitying them for not having an identity that doesn't depend on the other person and then taking that hard look at my life in which independence is worn like a badge of pride and sharing emotions is toxic. Even the simple "loved up in aisles" (yep, Sunday is food shopping) type conversations seems to get to me (I told you I was having a bad day) seeing as it's all "what shall we have for our dinner, dear" I'm a veggie, he's the closest thing to a carnivore I know so bang goes that option for "oneness". The closest I get to "shared dinner" is if I pick the ham of the Hawaiian pizza and have the left overs.

Oh well, I enjoy being different so can't really crave normality can I?

Have spent a wonderfully solo afternoon listening to yet another eclectic mix of music courtest of another brill "podcast" from Pete Ashton. No, I'm not a paid blogger for him but I just think this bloke has got "it" and is great so click over to his site and have a listen. I don't think you will find many broadcasts that combine Warren Zevron, Camera Obscura & Hank Williams...Plus he found The Sinister Ducks...

And one fantastic highlight from last week, one of our suppliers had an event at the "Gherkin" building in London and I was invited to my first ever "event money can't buy" type thing. The panoramic views of London were breathtaking and for a few hours I felt as thought someone had giftwrapped my city for me and I was really part of something that I understood. Possibly no-one I was speaking to would have understand the ramblings of the mad woman in "untrendy" brown if they had spoken to me much later in the evening but I had the best time ever!

So why in a week as good as that do I still have Sunday-itis!