Yes, I know. Somehow I can't be arsed to blog but I can be arsed to write long comments on the Guardian's Comment Is Free all the livelong day. I can be found there under "violetforthemoment" or on Twitter under "violet_towers". Should anyone still care. Or you can help me find my blogging mojo again by suggesting subjects for me to apply myself to.
Int. Violet Towers, about midday. VIOLET is looking at pictures of Russian Blue kittens on the internet and making soft keening noises. MR VIOLET enters by the front door (offstage right), carrying an orange plastic shopping bag.
MR VIOLET: (triumphantly) They gave me a new bag-for-life. Look.
VIOLET: (looks) Well done. They weren't funny about it or anything?
MR VIOLET: No.
VIOLET: I note from the lack of mewling coming from that bag that you didn't stop at the kitten shop as I requested.
MR VIOLET: For the last time, There. Is. No. Kitten. Shop. Look, some people are born with kittens, some people have kittens thrust upon them (VIOLET looks hopeful), but some people have to get off their arses and find their own kittens.
VIOLET: Hmph.
MR VIOLET: But look, I got some of that silly bread you like. (produces a crusty rye loaf with seeds) And some Gaylord Washing-Up Liquid.
VIOLET: ...Gaylord Washing-Up Liquid??
MR VIOLET produces a bottle of pale purple Sainsbury's 'active naturals' washing-up liquid with lavender and orange essential oils.
VIOLET: Oh, I see. It is a bit, isn't it?
MR VIOLET: I like the word 'gaylord'. There's something hilariously of the playground about it. This was cheaper than Morning Fresh though. Oh, and you know my Cthulhu shampoo?
VIOLET: Yes.
MR VIOLET: They do Cthulhu bubble bath now as well. I nearly got some.
VIOLET: (confused) Really?
MR VIOLET: Yes, but then I came to my senses. I can probably use the Gaylord Washing-Up Liquid anyway.
VIOLET: Ur, you smell of proper coffee, go away.
MR VIOLET: Sorry, I know how you dislike awakeness.
MR VIOLET goes upstairs and recommences checking thousands of footnotes.
We are terrible, terrible, strange people. It is just a hilariously stupid word though. Has me in fits every time. I'm sure we only ever use it ironically. And never, ever in other company just in case.
UPDATE: On closer inspection, the Cthulhu bubble bath looks a bit more like Yog-Sothoth bubble bath. "... only a congeries of iridescent globes ..."
UPDATE on Monday: Someone has got here by googling 'Cthulhu shampoo', a search for which I am the first link. Awesome.
Why is it that whenever I blow my nose - which I am doing a lot this week, oh joy - a load of watery gunk comes out of the inner corner of my left eye? I have tried googling variations on this and haven't come up with much. I am therefore stumped, and can't help but feel this is a sign of a sad decline in our society. Surely we used to be able to find random things out before google and Wikipedia? Myself and Mr Violet often have long and rambling conversations in bed on weekend mornings,* usually speculating about the origins, development and physical capabilities** of various animals, and when we've exhausted our knowledge/bulshitting abilities we say "ooh, yeah, I wonder about that, how could we find that out?" Then one of us goes "Well, we can google it." The other one goes, "Well yeah." There's a brief silence and a general feeling that something has been lost.
I clearly need more books. But then, that is my solution to most things as I have great faith in the wisdom one can derive from them. To quote Richey Manic (expressing his disdain for travel as a method of broadening the mind), "if I want to know about somewhere, I'll buy the book. I don't know if that makes me a moron."
*After we've finshed having hours of athletic and exotic sex, of course, hemhem. WE'RE STILL YOUNG.....really....
**Oh alright, who would win in a fight between them and a crocodile. Considering water and land battlegrounds separately, as is only fair.
Yeah, you can't crush my spirit, I PAY for my interwebz now! Woo... er, hoo?
As I am renting and have no desire to provide the convenience of an installed landline to my idiot landlords, or to sign a contract with BT or indeed anyone else, I have acquired a USB deeley to get wireless interwebs, on a pay as you go basis. There's a mobile phone sim card in the deeley and you buy 'credit' in daily, weekly or monthly chunks - I'm on O2 and it's £15 a month with a download limit of 3GB. It was a toss-up between O2 and 3, but O2 won because their deeley was £30 cheaper*, and not discernibly worse.
However, it is frequently laughably shit - I cant get a decent signal in most of my house, and generally have to sit on a corner of my sofa with the deeley wedged about 3 feet up the adjacent CD rack - even then there's sometimes only a GPRS connection available, which tends to have bother with stuff like pictures, and, er, words and stuff. On some occasions I get a good 20 minutes of reasonable connection then it dies off for no reason. It's vexing, and I am probably going to take it back and demand a refund after I've used as much of the 3GB as possible. My Cheezburger habit and purchase of audiobooks and sourcebooks for Lovecraft roleplaying games in PDF format should take care of that in reasonably short order. Either that or loan it to my brother when I visit the homestead next week and he can download shitloads of porn. And never tell me about it or leave any evidence.**
So yeah, I have not used this hiatus to get any funnier or more insightful as a writer. Or to meet Slash.***
I worry that blogging and commenting on stuff like CiF articles**** may not be entirely good for me. Teh interwebs is a place where it is easy to get convinced that one's rabid, poorly-punctuated splutterings are interesting, relevant and even that they constitute a reasoned and well-thought out argument or worldview if one isn't careful. Some folks tend to get carried away with the excitement of seeing their screenname in black and white under a Monbiot article or something. As may be apparent from a quick browse of the archive, I can get a bit shrill and shouty about stuff that pisses me off and I don't think I should be entirely encouraged in that respect. I lack skills in debating and argument construction and whatnot, which I largely blame on years of never having to try at school and going into shock and disengaging almost entirely when things started to be a bit difficult, then the vodka began to impede the learning process. Though I do like to think I managed to soundly smite some tosser on CiF who was pontificating mindlessly about public sector workers all being overpaid, lazy idiots who don't care if children die as long as they get their 'fat pension', but that was a bit of a fish/barrel situation.
I have been in a somewhat pensive mood in the past couple of months and am trying to get 'back to basics' about life, the universe and everything, and question stuff I may be complacent about. So far this involves reading Russell's history of western philosophy and going 'fuck, I totally misunderstood THAT guy when I read half one of his books at sixth form and twatted on about him down the pub for hours like I was some sort of genius!' I'm trying to get some, y'know, maturity going on. Maybe a well-thought-out opinion or two. As I alluded to in an earlier post, I am generally feeling a bit like a grown-up lately, more comfortable in my skin and my self in general. It's kinda nice but unnerving, and produces a whole new raft of opportunities for uncertainty and self-flagellation I'm sure.
I am also wondering why I want/feel the need to blog, other than general attention seeking. Will try thinking about it instead. After I've watched that Nature's Great Events thing about salmon. Eeep! There's baby bears! In the snow!
UPDATE: ZOMG! now there is wittle wolfs! I dies of cute.
*And not because Sean Bean sounds dreamy in the adverts, despite Mr Violet insisting on living in a past time when I watched far too much Sharpe and inadvertently sighed theatrically whenever he did something heroic or looked grubby, which was approximately every 6 minutes.
**Who wants to know what floats your little brother's boat, seriously? Ew.
***Whee! I met Slash!
**** CiF is so not a blog, morons. I know that's an old complaint but I've been away and wanted to pitch in, OK?
I dreamed about ice-skating with Steve McManaman last night, while Barry Manilow played piano at the bar (the ice rink was where a dancefloor would be in those clubs you see on old gangster movies, with people dressed up all fancy at little tables all around). I wonder what it means.
So, what's been so bloody important over the past 6 months that I have declined to provide you with an update on my irrational hatred of things every few days? Hard to say. I did stick with blogging for a remarkable length of time without drifting off when something shiny distracted me, but the shiny thing is somewhat inevitable when I get into most things. I can be pretty flaky. Well, that's what I was thinking anyway. But I rather surprised myself by thinking of some examples of sustained commitments and interests and activities that I have actually kept up lately,* or returned to after a youthful fling. I shan't bore you/embarrass myself with the full list, but the main example I'm thinking of is my job and associated concerns.
I've been working for Probation in one capacity or another for about six years now, and recently I got my dream move within the organisation after really going for it in the interview - I actually used the phrase "false modesty is nobody's friend" before launching into a speech about why I'm perfect for the job. And I fucking got it. I can't really say too much about it without giving away my secret identity, but I get to do the bit of the job I am best at and enjoy most, as well as having a much larger degree of autonomy and the ability to organise my own schedule for the most part. I also get to work in a beautiful building, and in order to get there in the mornings I have to walk through a lovely leafy path, past a lake full of swans and Canada Geese, and trees full of friendly crows. I feed the crows cheese on my way back at the end of the day, and it does wonders for me blood pressure I'm sure. Earlier this week I was in the office at 7:15am,** which is an unprecedented occurrence of extreme significance. It means I like my job. Woo! It was originally posited as a 3-month trial as the position was new - that was 4 months ago, so I must be doing something right. Woo again!
So, yeah. I think I might be sort of like a proper grown up. Another sure sign of this is that I have finally ended my sort-of-evasion of the sodding council tax, without a Court appearance or anything. When we moved in to Violet Towers I was temping and barely making rent so I wasn't too keen on ringing up and asking someone to send me a massive bill I couldn't pay every month. Then I was a student for two years, but when I finished and started working it honestly didn't occur to me for a while. The council occasionally sent us a letter, addressed to two people I know for a fact have not lived here for at least 12 years, saying 'nothing to pay, house wholly occupied by students' and like a fool I didn't do anything to challenge the idiots on their mistaken assumption. I gradually started to get the guilts pretty bad though - and to get scared of getting nicked somehow and losing my job, which was a slightly more pressing concern. So myself and Mr Violet (full time student the whole time we've been here, the bastard) agonised over a couple of weeks, which is quite bad of me considering what my job is, and I decided to confess. I sent a letter to the council, enclosing our student certificates, giving the exact date we moved in. I then received a bill for £8300. Surprisingly, it sort of made me feel better.
Paying it in instalments that are higher than my rent every month does smart a bit though. Especially since the recycling men keep wandering off with our sodding green box and refusing to take the recycling away in the 12 working days it apparently takes to deliver us a new one, cos we've had to put it in a cardboard box. Tossers. But at least this new expenditure has forced me to put the brakes on my Vivienne Westwood habit, of which more later.
So the gist of the post is the little and not-so-little things that have made me feel like a proper grown-up. I have a career. I have a long-term relationship. I pay my bills before the final reminder. I could well have evaded a large bill for many more years to come, given what breathtakingly incompetent twats Haringey Council are, but I chose not to because it Wasn't Right. I have a skincare routine. I haven't watched Star Wars for at least 6 weeks now. I know my dress and shoe sizes in Italian, American and French. I watch C-SPAN for pleasure. When I binge drink, it's on red wine or expensive Irish single malt.***
What little things made you feel like a grown up? If you do, that is....
Oh, and I also turned 26, meaning I am closer to 30 than I am to 20. The less said about that the better.
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*Mr Violet being a notable example (SIX years! a great improvement on my previous record of three days. And I wasn't really sure what was going on for one of those days) but I think he might object to being put in with the other objects and concepts on the list, as he is a Person whom I am not to Objectify, even though he does have a great arse.
**And not because I hadn't been home or because I was frantically finishing something, smart arses.
*** Sudden horror-struck thought - what if all this just means I'm middle class instead??! Aieeeee!
Cheese.
My sort-of-new job, in a pretty building in lovely grounds full of crows and Canada geese.
The Jack Daniels hip flask I 'won' at the pub last night by drinking Jack Daniels.
Sherlock Holmes.
The Murder City game that Mr Violet won't play with me anymore.
The fact that my jasmine plant is still not dead after nearly a year of my (somewhat intermittent) loving care.
The smell of Hammerite.
My new cauldron.
Hair metal.
Star-shaped stuff.
African hunting dogs.
Not sure how I feel about blogging at present, though. Hmm.
I started taking fluoxetine, an SSRI antidepressant, after months of umming and aahing about it. It fucking rules. The fog of melancholy that had enveloped me for no apparent reason since about the age of 5 suddenly evaporated after about a fortnight of taking it, which spaced me out a fair bit I can tell you. I can hardly describe the difference it's made.
Example: When I come in from work, rather than collapsing onto the sofa and staring into space feeling utterly exhausted, panicked and overwhelmed because the relatively small amount of washing up seems like just too much to cope with and that its very presence has RUINED EVERYTHING, I am now capable of doing the washing up and a bit of tidying and going and getting changed and making myself some tea before settling down to read a book or something. Slowly losing the ability to concentrate on books was a really horrible aspect of my depression that went into overdrive in the year or so Before Pills, probably linked to the addition of severe stress at work (which I may possibly have mentioned before here). I can't remember ever not being able to read and through my life books have been so important to me, so getting them back is a joy. Might all sound daft to you but whatever switch has been flipped in my brain has improved my life and general wellbeing immeasurably.
I have since turned into a bit of a hippy. From feeling like a dark little island, turned in on myself and separate and different from everything, I began to feel... sort of like a proper person. Like the world isn't something that was made for other people, that I am intruding upon and constantly misunderstanding. Don't get scared, I remain cynical and misanthropic for the most part and still find most people incredibly annoying and irrational. The 'Oh For Fuck's Sake' series is alive and well and will continue to be directed on occasion at innocent strangers who have the gall to use greatly incorrect grammar or chew gum with their mouths open. But I am taking a great interest in my surroundings and in, like, nature 'n' shit. I want to know what kind of tree that is I've been walking past on the way to work every day for 5 years or what kind of bird has just pooped on my office window. I have planted herbs seeds in innumerable pots in my living room and was really upset when he majority of the first batch of seedlings died after a month. I continue undeterred and with a strict watering schedule. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Yesterday I had the NHS psychotherapy appointment I've been waiting for about a year for, but I'm not sure I really want to carry on. I don't have some big trauma that's behind everything that I need to un-repress and cry about, and I'm not clear on what I would be hoping to achieve by spending an hour a week reliving the most miserable periods of my life and vainly searching for a reason behind things. It just seems sort of like unnecessary narcissism in my case really. I have some clues as to why my personality has turned out the way it has, but I can't do anything about that now and taking time every week to rant about it and tell someone about my mother... I don't know why I would be doing that, really. I think that what's been up with me all this time must have been for a very large part a case of brain chemistry, given the massive difference the Mad Pills have made. I feel fixed. May give it one more go at the therapy, as I have been waiting for a long time and I don't want to rush into a decision, but I don't think I can see what good it's going to do.
