Sorry, sorry!

Yes, I know, I'm a terrible person. I have no computer at home, so the only chance I have to get on the internet for personal purposes is during my lunch hour at work. Unfortunately I consider eating to be far more important than writing, so you'll just have to do without my words of wisdom for the forseeable future. Alternatively, if you miss said wise words that much, you could buy me a laptop. No? Well then you've only yourself to blame.

Things that make me smile No. 79

It's not even 10 AM yet, and the air over my head is filled with discussion of copywritten indices, spread betting, footsies (yes, I know), and any number of other incomprehensible phrases. I need to stop being friends with geeks if I wish to maintain my sense of intellectual snobbery.

Things that make me smile no.78

I'm at a dinner party, and am being an extraordinarily bad guest, making the most of my host's laptop since there isn't a functional one in my house right now. I really must buy one of those.

Anyway, P has been taking advantage of a different aspect of H's hospitality by whipping out a tape measure to assess the proportions of her cat prior to building a model feline out of balsa wood. Said cat seems utterly unaffected by the process. If anything she appears to enjoy the attention.

Things that make me smile no.77

It's mildly entertaining to hurriedly throw on a random selection of clothing while running late in the morning, and then realise when you get to work that you look less 'cute and original' and more 'middle-aged Tory boy playing a game of golf'. Fore!

P.S. Note that I could have been negative about this fashion malfunction. Instead I am choosing to believe that it is amusing, not embarassing.

Correction

Apologies to anyone who was adversely affected by yesterday's post. A couple of concerned phone calls alerted me to the fact that I should not engage in such rants without adding a disclaimer, so here it is:

• I do not have many problems which would be classified as problems by people who have real problems.
• Those I do have are entirely of my own making.
• I will be fine.

Normal service will resume shortly - hopefully

I try to keep this blog lighthearted, as I'm sure most of my readers would rather hear about origami roadkill than the state of my brain. Sometimes, however, that means that a week goes by without me posting, as now, because there seems to be very little to be lighthearted about. The fact is that I'm having one of those times where it starts to feel like my life is crumbling around me, and I've lost all semblance of control over it. What with trying to sell the house, my long-term insomnia and far too many other issues which I am either unwilling or unable to discuss in this forum, the pressure of going about my day to day business is building uncontrollably. Any one of the things I'm currently dealing with would be manageable on their own, but I sincerely doubt my ability to cope with them all at once.

Added to this, of course, is the overwhelming feeling of guilt I get every time I open a newspaper or turn on the television. How dare I be broken by what my friend Spike calls 'First-world problems', when natural disasters and national unrest dominate the news. I bet half the population of Japan would think themselves damn lucky right now to have a house to sell or a bed to lie awake in. With any luck my sense of perspective will re-assert itself soon, and I can go back to babbling about things that don't matter to anyone. In the meantime, I'm reinforcing the daily 'things that make me smile' posts in order to stomp on my negative mind-set. Watch this space for the most desperate grasping at positivity ever seen in this world or any other......

Things that make me smile no.76

This morning, on the way to work, I saw a squashed hedgehog on the road. Sitting next to it was an equally mangled origami frog. My mind instantly started concocting a story where hedgepig and paper frog set out together on an exciting, if surreal, adventure, only to be met with tragedy and disaster. Grimmest children's book ever?

Bravo!

There was a family of tourists on the tube today, all sat in a row. The row of seats opposite them was full of their bags. For some reason, every occupant of the extremely crowded carriage (myself included) decided to be enormously British and stand there, tutting and seething, but saying absolutely nothing to them about their rudeness. Then a delightful old man worked his way into the middle of the crowd, started depositing the bags on the floor, and waving one of his fellow travellers into each seat as he emptied it. When the father of the rude family objected, he turned to him and pointed out, with the utmost dignity, that he considered his fellow human beings to be more deserving of rest than a suitcase, that it was a pity the man didn't agree, but perhaps he would learn some manners when he grew up. It was a thing of beauty. I nearly gave him a round of applause.

Because I'm obedient like that

Sunday morning, and a baby is feeding me cheerios, while I sit on the sofa. Then she hands me something which is clearly not a cheerio....

Me: What's this?
Baby: Waisin.
Me: Oh, ok. Wait, where did it come from? Did you pick it up off the floor?
Baby: No.
Me: Are you sure?
Baby: Ess
Me: Are you sure it's not a dirty raisin?
Baby: Juss eat it!

So I did.

Fear is the mind killer

It occurs to me sometimes that I'm scared of an awful lot of things. Spiders are perfectly reasonable things to be afraid of; nasty, crawly things. The dark, as I have explained, is also an arguably rational fear. To a lesser extent I'm also bothered by injections, crowds and anything in the clown/doll/dummy range. None of these give me much difficulty on a day to day basis though. There are things, however, which cause me more trouble. For instance, I have a problem with paperwork - personal paperwork, I should say, as it doesn't seem to affect me at work - But opening my mail freaks me out, especially if it looks official, and filling in a form is enough to give me a panic attack. I'm dreading the census already! I also have a consuming fear of getting things wrong, to the point where I often have to force myself to do things that put me in a position to make mistakes. As these things include such everyday basics as Having a Job, Trying Anything New and Talking To People, it's fortunate that I generally succeed at this.

Alongside this list of, I imagine not uncommon, fears, is one rather odd one. Since I was little, many of my nightmares have in some way incorporated a certain kind of rock. It has a very specific dusty, faintly gritty texture, which I'm occasionally reminded of by the sound of things like scuffing shoes on pavement, and it's so dense and heavy that a piece of it, held in the hand, will tear though your palm like a lead weight through thinly stretched dough. Sometimes my dreams see me buried alive in a casket made of this stone, or scrabbling to move scraps of it or, on one memorable occasion, with a ring of it around my ankle, which held me underwater as I drowned. Sharing this was meant to be mildly humorous but, reading it back, I'm aware that it sounds more than a bit mental. Does anyone else find themselves nonsensically haunted by banal inanimate objects, or is it just me?

Shown up

F and I just got absurdly girly and twitchy about a large spider in the house. I eventually relocated it outside, but not without a certain amount of fuss. As I washed the spider feeling off my hands afterwards (even though I didn't touch it, this was very necessary), one of the babies kept up a soothing commentary.........iss okay, iss only spider, iss okay, iss only spider.........I suspect I was just out-grown-upped by a two year old.