Saturday, November 30, 2013

Songs of the day



The Kooks "Naive"


Gotye "Somebody that I used to know"

Friday, November 29, 2013

"What did you expect?"

I love this post at Skepchick.

The whole point is, to expect and insist on more. Not to accept the status quo, but to ask why not better?

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Fuzzball



I cried for hours until I worked up a massive headache, cried until sleep won out, then lucky me, woke with insomnia at 3am to cry more. My eyelids are puffy like a boxer's after a losing fight, and I feel sick and sad and I still have more tears.

He is gone, no more will he be waiting for me on the fence post, for a stroke and then to bound ahead of me, leading me down the path to home.

I loved that cat, loved him more than I should.

The thing about loving your pets is that you can lavish affection on them, and it's not complicated - it's straightforward and reciprocal as far as they are able. They're not playing games, or afraid to show their feelings, or trying to humour or trick you. No subterfuge, no malice.

In Curzie's eyes, I think I was an idiot human, but I was his idiot human.

And now he is dead, and he will bring me joy no longer.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Hmm

It isn't really a good sign when you wake up feeling a bit ill and you feel happy and hopeful that you might be becoming sick enough to stay home from work.

 

 Off-topic: the song in my head this morning. Fratellis "Whistle for the choir".

Monday, November 25, 2013

The chill

I am still with a chill of heart
I want to shrivel
withdraw into the warmth of numbness
into the calm of absence.

Don't bring me back to you
where I need to think and move and care.

I want to eat, to crunch, to taste,
to feel that comforting filling
soft, sweetness and texture
But I mustn't. And I don't.

I wish I could sink inside
somewhere out of sight.
Here I am with voices
and motion all around
and it shreds me thin.

I sit dulled and static
I long for sleep and silence,
the dissolve of self.

I will be better when
I force myself up
and get started
I know I will. I always am.

So go on then.
So GO ON then.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Helpful net

Sometimes I wonder why people bring their problems to the internet and think they are foolish for doing so. But actually I have found it useful myself.

For quite a while, a male colleague had been gradually pushing my personal boundaries by touching me and saying flirty things. None of it was hugely awful but it was getting worse and it was distressing me daily. Telling my partner was a good way to vent but didn't motivate me to confront the problem.

It was only when I moaned online to friends that I came to the point of addressing the situation, because I didn't want to be the person who complains but does nothing. I got validation and advice, and I knew I had to act on it. I took my courage in my hands and told him to stop. And he has. No more unwanted surprise neck-rubs.

Sigh. If only I had realised it was that simple to stop him.

Not that he should have been doing those things in the first place.

Write!

This is the first post I have ever written using my mobile. Am I a luddite, I wonder?

I want to write more. It is something I find rewarding. Also I told some friends about it in a moment of honesty and so I have reawakened my interest in it.

I re-read almost the whole blog, all seven years of it over the past couple of days and I feel that happy about it. It has some really interesting (to me) memory promptings and it is very much mine. My audience has always been primarily me.

(I hate my phone's interface. I had to come back to edit this on my laptop.)

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Grit

I come from a line of strong women. Domineering women. Admirable women. Flinty women.

My gran was one such. She was formidable, a typical Yorkshire horsewoman, hard as nails and stonily judgemental. (She had some flaws too!)

She combined this outspoken harshness with an oddly passive-aggressive treatment of us, her family, and an aching sweetness rarely glimpsed. My mum is like her sometimes - but deathly afraid of that side of her character.

Me too. Me too. That fear at least helps control it.

But what she had was grit. She was the kind of woman who would break her ribs hunting, but finish the day out nonetheless. I'm not getting into the ethics of fox-hunting, but believe me, she would have, and would never concede an inch on that (or anything).

Horses were her passion: she bred them and rode all her life. When she was 70 and could no longer ride, we bought her an exercise cart and she learnt to drive (she had driven cart-horses in her youth, but this was show-driving). Foolishly we had expected her just to potter with the pony, but she was soon competing locally.

She taught her daughters and grand-children to ride and to have grit.

I was taught that you never ever let go of the reins if you fall from your horse, no matter what. The only time I can remember her being truly proud of me was after I was dragged halfway up a gritted road, my pony having shied at a plastic bag. I should have been paying more attention obviously, but by god, I had grit. Literally. Embedded from knee to thigh.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Mike's stone-walling

So he should open up and talk to someone.

(A sign of a local builder)