(no subject)
I write things in my head and then I don't write them down and then they get lost. It is a bad habit, but I know where it derives from: if you write something down you make it real, and also if you write something down other people will ridicule it! Clearly. I don't know when this habit emerged but I'm guessing "from continually being surrounded by people who do nothing but ridicule things", and I want my old ability to assume some kind of positive response to my writing back, KTHANX.
(Things in this instance I mean poetry. But I am loath to write any now because so much is continually read into it. I feel somewhat under a microscope, and would like to be granted the ability to actually have thoughts out loud without feeling like they're going to lead to something terrible, immediately).
In happier news, after I accidentally KILLED OLIVER SACKS BY READING HIS BOOK (that's how these things work, yah?) I have moved on to the chapter about ecstatic seizures, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc., and I am seeing a significant parallel between my experiences and ecstatic seizures. I identified before some that have taken place in the past, which had a very obvious photo trigger (to do with the movement of lamp light through leaves on trees in the wind) when I was in my early twenties, which I guess could be passed off as LSD flashbacks perhaps given that they took place within 2-3 years of taking LSD (although you know, having taken actual LSD only the once I'm surprised it would work that well or that long, and I don't think psilocybin - which I've also never taken very much of because it makes me Hella Sick - has those kind of after effects?). But reading now I'm struck by how more recent experiences also fit the pattern of ecstatic seizures, but because I've always felt like I was reaching those points through reasoned thought even though the accompanying EXPERIENCE was, hahah, epiphanic and ecstatic, I've failed to identify them correctly. I don't know. I want to be more cautious of universal revelation sensations. Not least because of the aforementioned CONTINUAL AURA OF RIDICULE.
Had some blindingly awful dreams again, but towards the end of each they are characterised by success, or a feeling of imminent escape. Also at least two of them have been about a young girl in her teens - in the first, Winona Ryder, in the second someone who looked like Charlotte Riley but younger - escaping from an overbearing parental bully figured (in the first, Immortan Joe, on a train full of zombies; in the second, a powerful business man who began by having everyone on side but by the end of the dream the young girl - who had been working at a gorilla sanctuary in a beautiful Renaissance ballgown of aubergine-coloured velvet - had succeeded in convincing people to protect and shelter her).
Discussing book with a) Emma and b) Doug, in circular and multi-threaded conversations that return back to the original topic when ready, and which are the kind of conversation you can really only have if you're spending all day talking to the same person and they're actually interested in what you're saying... has indeed helped to if not cement plot things then at least get me in the right frame of mind for attacking the again. It feels a bit more real and a bit more alive. Useful. I would like to not be so sensitive to ridicule and disinterest but that's, I guess, something that still needs to be worked on.
We don't seem to be having the Indian Summer promised, unlike the rest of the country (or, reflecting Emma/Dara O'Briein's view, the Other Country - England, Not London), and have barrelled straight on into autumn without any kind of last hurrah. I'm disappointed, but also get to wear more jumpers and look windswept and Interesting, so it may balance out? I'm concerned that I'm going to cop shit for even thinking of myself as Less Unattractive INSIDE MY OWN HEAD, which is troubling. A lot of Thought Policing problems I picked up at school are resurfacing of late. I know why, I just... am not able to talk about why. HAHAHAHA. BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE IT WORSE.
Oh yeah: Went out yesterday with Doug to find hidjis fabric to make his wrestling robes for the Mountain Goats gig (we're cool). Successfully acquired ("What colour is that? Is that purple or blue." / "Blue." / "Okay I want blue." / "You need a contrast as well." / "What will go with blue?" / "Doug..." / "I mean, what won't clash?" ... He is so fucking heterosexual he is ACTUALLY COLOURBLIND).
Finished off our perambulations by diving impulsively into a cafe called Director's Cut which offered "steaks, shakes, cakes"; their burger was disappointing but cheap (Burgers: I don't think I like them any more), their fries GENEROUS TO THE POINT OF TERRIFYING, their shakes: great. We read the first two Rivers of London comics, in a booth, over milkshakes, like tiny teenage boys. For reference: I am 32 and Doug is 37 and has a beard you can hide a goat in. The waitress came over and went "oh man, COMICS, what comic is that?!!!?!?!?" so we enthusiastically explained the concept and she went "I HAVEN'T HEARD OF THIS BUT NOW I WANT TO". BOOM.
Continued up to The Nag's Head, which is gross. I mean, it's picturesque on a picturesque road. This was at the end of the street:
Fuckin' pictureskew, man.
Sat in the beer garden arguing about sci fi and which books are not good and how we had definitely considered we were going to do more with our lives than Literally Have No Time To Read Books and share the horrible experience of having read Tom Clancy novels in a state of desperation for More Books. Drank more Old Mout Kiwi & Lime in a white jumper while blond and cold, trying to be UNFATHOMABLY SWEDISH and succeeding only in being, eventually, too cold for shit.
Had to walk about a mile from the bus station to find a bus stop that wasn't inexplicably closed, which ate up the time between the bus I missed and the bus I wanted to catch nicely and also helped me hit my steps for the day. Boom. (Casual Googling reviews that I am at 22.4% body fat as measured on a ladybody, making me Exactly Ideal for a ladybody; check against the same measurements for a male body puts me at 16.3% or again, exactly ideal for my age and height). The BFC result is comforting considering that according to the BMI which is MADE OF HORSESHIT I am verging on being overweight again. Eat my entire ass, BMI.
Got a note from the admin at GC that they've passed on my enquiry to the endocrinologist's secretary so hopefully I should hear from her soon. Now. SETTLE. Work on the book plot/outline. Edit. Go see Legend. And put the other shit at the back of my mind for some future, mythical time when I'm prepared to deal with it.
(Things in this instance I mean poetry. But I am loath to write any now because so much is continually read into it. I feel somewhat under a microscope, and would like to be granted the ability to actually have thoughts out loud without feeling like they're going to lead to something terrible, immediately).
In happier news, after I accidentally KILLED OLIVER SACKS BY READING HIS BOOK (that's how these things work, yah?) I have moved on to the chapter about ecstatic seizures, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc., and I am seeing a significant parallel between my experiences and ecstatic seizures. I identified before some that have taken place in the past, which had a very obvious photo trigger (to do with the movement of lamp light through leaves on trees in the wind) when I was in my early twenties, which I guess could be passed off as LSD flashbacks perhaps given that they took place within 2-3 years of taking LSD (although you know, having taken actual LSD only the once I'm surprised it would work that well or that long, and I don't think psilocybin - which I've also never taken very much of because it makes me Hella Sick - has those kind of after effects?). But reading now I'm struck by how more recent experiences also fit the pattern of ecstatic seizures, but because I've always felt like I was reaching those points through reasoned thought even though the accompanying EXPERIENCE was, hahah, epiphanic and ecstatic, I've failed to identify them correctly. I don't know. I want to be more cautious of universal revelation sensations. Not least because of the aforementioned CONTINUAL AURA OF RIDICULE.
Had some blindingly awful dreams again, but towards the end of each they are characterised by success, or a feeling of imminent escape. Also at least two of them have been about a young girl in her teens - in the first, Winona Ryder, in the second someone who looked like Charlotte Riley but younger - escaping from an overbearing parental bully figured (in the first, Immortan Joe, on a train full of zombies; in the second, a powerful business man who began by having everyone on side but by the end of the dream the young girl - who had been working at a gorilla sanctuary in a beautiful Renaissance ballgown of aubergine-coloured velvet - had succeeded in convincing people to protect and shelter her).
Discussing book with a) Emma and b) Doug, in circular and multi-threaded conversations that return back to the original topic when ready, and which are the kind of conversation you can really only have if you're spending all day talking to the same person and they're actually interested in what you're saying... has indeed helped to if not cement plot things then at least get me in the right frame of mind for attacking the again. It feels a bit more real and a bit more alive. Useful. I would like to not be so sensitive to ridicule and disinterest but that's, I guess, something that still needs to be worked on.
We don't seem to be having the Indian Summer promised, unlike the rest of the country (or, reflecting Emma/Dara O'Briein's view, the Other Country - England, Not London), and have barrelled straight on into autumn without any kind of last hurrah. I'm disappointed, but also get to wear more jumpers and look windswept and Interesting, so it may balance out? I'm concerned that I'm going to cop shit for even thinking of myself as Less Unattractive INSIDE MY OWN HEAD, which is troubling. A lot of Thought Policing problems I picked up at school are resurfacing of late. I know why, I just... am not able to talk about why. HAHAHAHA. BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE IT WORSE.
Oh yeah: Went out yesterday with Doug to find hidjis fabric to make his wrestling robes for the Mountain Goats gig (we're cool). Successfully acquired ("What colour is that? Is that purple or blue." / "Blue." / "Okay I want blue." / "You need a contrast as well." / "What will go with blue?" / "Doug..." / "I mean, what won't clash?" ... He is so fucking heterosexual he is ACTUALLY COLOURBLIND).
Finished off our perambulations by diving impulsively into a cafe called Director's Cut which offered "steaks, shakes, cakes"; their burger was disappointing but cheap (Burgers: I don't think I like them any more), their fries GENEROUS TO THE POINT OF TERRIFYING, their shakes: great. We read the first two Rivers of London comics, in a booth, over milkshakes, like tiny teenage boys. For reference: I am 32 and Doug is 37 and has a beard you can hide a goat in. The waitress came over and went "oh man, COMICS, what comic is that?!!!?!?!?" so we enthusiastically explained the concept and she went "I HAVEN'T HEARD OF THIS BUT NOW I WANT TO". BOOM.
Continued up to The Nag's Head, which is gross. I mean, it's picturesque on a picturesque road. This was at the end of the street:
Fuckin' pictureskew, man.
Sat in the beer garden arguing about sci fi and which books are not good and how we had definitely considered we were going to do more with our lives than Literally Have No Time To Read Books and share the horrible experience of having read Tom Clancy novels in a state of desperation for More Books. Drank more Old Mout Kiwi & Lime in a white jumper while blond and cold, trying to be UNFATHOMABLY SWEDISH and succeeding only in being, eventually, too cold for shit.
Had to walk about a mile from the bus station to find a bus stop that wasn't inexplicably closed, which ate up the time between the bus I missed and the bus I wanted to catch nicely and also helped me hit my steps for the day. Boom. (Casual Googling reviews that I am at 22.4% body fat as measured on a ladybody, making me Exactly Ideal for a ladybody; check against the same measurements for a male body puts me at 16.3% or again, exactly ideal for my age and height). The BFC result is comforting considering that according to the BMI which is MADE OF HORSESHIT I am verging on being overweight again. Eat my entire ass, BMI.
Got a note from the admin at GC that they've passed on my enquiry to the endocrinologist's secretary so hopefully I should hear from her soon. Now. SETTLE. Work on the book plot/outline. Edit. Go see Legend. And put the other shit at the back of my mind for some future, mythical time when I'm prepared to deal with it.