November 23

Wrapping the blanket about me is a comfort but not as much as the heating, for it is November and we don't need to feel guilty about putting on the heating. Of course it doesn't change other plans, and the storytelling through picture books for adults is still what I want to do. I have a couple dozen outlines this November is when I start filling in the finer detail.

Sharpen and click, but now there seems to be just too much, the list of things to do, things needing to be done, the list has moved from long to overwhelming. The rule for getting rid of that overwhelm is to break down into steps and discard what is not. But this overwhelm is driven by a feeling that I have no say. I cannot affect things so I have to answer two questions, firstly do I want to affect one or more thing, and if so, what level am I prepared to fight to.

Tick tock tick, I let things go on not worrying too much about the stuff that I worry about. Those big anxieties, those great dreads I had as a youth, they sometimes just nudge me a little to say we are still here. It may no longer be a worry that the world will end before you die, but the world ending is still a pretty fucked up thing. And look at it so its best to kill itself in spectacular and mundane ways.

All the voices are played be the one actor, because the story is being told by the one character. This is not a story you discover, this is the character revealing Thier story, their biography. How much of the story is true, or told in good faith, you won't know. All you are asked to do is reflect on the truth you may find in the story, it is what you should do for any story.

Perhaps it is better to take a decision and get it wrong than to wait for the perfect evidence of all the pieces at play, but that is not how this tired mind works. This morning I wondered if she didn't like a situation, or perhaps she was just a little tired. But I didn't say: hey, what's up. I said nothing and life slipped on by.

About three quarters through the day today I was struck with the dilemma: how much do I restrict people. A dilemma that needs to be broken into small manageable details, for as a whole.dilemma it is just overwhelming. And once I have thought of all the people I possibly restrict I will be in a position to evaluate the restrictions I impose and decide if I am going to do anything about it. And then what about society in general, I can easily say I don't restrict society, but maybe I restrict society by not fighting the restrictions I don't believe in. Oh, what an overwhelming task troubling over freedom is.

Expectations. They lead to disappointments when I let them expectations fill up with the hot air that is my understanding. They lead to disappointments because that hot air is only my understanding and nothing more because I haven't put in the effort to ensure that you know what my understanding is. I wonder what would happen if I was certain you understood and still let the disappointments happen.

Just how it is, just stop. Hop, drop, tip top, words are a flop, slop, crop. Cut it out completely. And slow, slowly breathe in, gently draw the air, and out. The words that come back to me, the warning that was given when I may have said something compromising, those words, definite words, those are the words I want spoken about me. But I will not say those words, and I do not know if they would be true if I did say them, as I haven't said them I don't need to confront their validity.

What will it be like when no one knows what the visual equivalent of white noise is. What will be the shorthand, the visual shorthand when I am no longer in the conversation. It feels like I am being pushed out of earshot, probably really the conversation is moving away from me and I am just a bit too tired to try to keep up.

I wonder if the trick is to simply think to yourself you are going to enjoy the journey, whatever the metaphysical journey you are taking. It seems to be how it works when I am enjoying the thing, even if it is a hard thing. So I guess the trick is to be very convincing when I tell myself I am about to enjoy something I don't like doing.

The Bleakness is in those moments when I am reminded that everyone thinks I did wrong. Sometimes it happens in general conversations, the meaning behind the spoken words. Not always unkindnesses, usually just carelessness. It takes a while for the words to infest, and for me to scuttle to aloneness in the Bleakness. And the only escape is to wear the Bleakness like an emperor's new clothes. Or to run like fuck, never look back.

The moment of pleasure is listening to the quiet conversation in the hall, the advisors advising, the clients listening, and I, I have finished my thing. The pleasure deflects the little moments of effort I have put in. I am a good person to welcome, I am chatty and I smile. What more do you need from a receptionist .

I noted your knickers, hanging, as they do, in the bathroom. I noted your knickers but did not think anything until I read Grace's words and thought maybe that was the way it was for you too, that your knickers in the bathroom means you feel at home. You are at home.

Then I said, my son travelled to Edinburgh to get a tattoo, and the customer was happy because not only had I remembered her name and reached for her order without her saying anything but also I had shared a little personal information. I wonder if my son will mind my sharing this information. I wonder if I should have shared that I am old enough to have a son getting a tattoo.

Change, I tell you. The thing I need to do, the thing that will make it all a lot better is to create that box, or cupboard, of things I can reach out for when I am feeling a little.sad. Well, here is the point. The box has to be filled with wholesomeness, not gluttony or greed, or synthetic or natural highs that, once the momentary release has escaped, leave it's traces in obesity or I'll health. Change, that is the thing, I tell you.

Let me tell you about the dream, for it is really a distopian novel in the waiting. Or even a current story, if we are that far already.

All forms of communication have been reduced to the words tapped on a screen. For the hero, a middle aged man, all human contact is through the screen. It is not that he is isolated in some form of virtual world, just that the post virus world shuns physical contact or talking. The crux of the story is that the hero's text has changed from blue to pink which means he no longer is able to pay for data storage, thus any words beyond the 144 characters is discarded, forgotten, lost. And this it is the hero loses his voice and is himself discarded, forgotten, lost, as without a voice he has no way of earning the money to buy more data storage.

I think he might have forgotten how to delete old data to make space for the new.

This morning as I walked to work I thought of something, an interesting idea. I can pinpoint where I had the thought of a map with a big red pin. I can also pinpoint on the map where I realised I had forgotten the idea less than ten minutes later. I have mulled on it all day and the idea has not returned. Perhaps I should draw a picture with missing detail, forgotten areas in memory of lost thoughts.

So, she comes half way round the world to visit on my side of the world and I would like to visit her while she is not too far away. I think that 32 hours travel for a dinner is silly as the dinner will be shit after 16 hours journey. Her trip means another day she will be 8 hours away, but I can only stay for afternoon tea. Are these worth it? How much is too much.

You should take a moment to watch them, take some time to think about how you want to approach their age, their slowing age. The time they take to make a decision, do they realise they are going to get it wrong, you have yo spend a lot of time with the grandchild to know what is the right gift. But getting it right us not the point, making the best effort is.

Today I had the weight of disappointing someone I don't want to disappoint follow me.through the day. It coloured everything, annoyances and frustrations amplified, concentrated moments distracted. And all through the day I was building to the point where I could raise my concern that I might disappoint, in the future. I have now done it, oh the joys of instant media, all day to work up to the text.

A desire for a particular thing to happen, I think hope is active, it is not a whimsical desire but a manifesting desire. Hope is what makes me try again, even when I am tired, even when it seems like this thing that I would like to happen in impossible, still then hope takes a slow calming breath and tries again. Tries the same thing again, usually. With the same disheartening results. Occasionally things go better. Occasionally the particular thing happens. I wonder.

A fascinating concept of tracing the stories of people through a fixed place over centuries of time. I loved discovering the new occupant at the beginning of each chapter, and enjoyed the coincidences when stories wove about each other. I give this book an average rating as I felt the interesting concept was not fully exploited.

There was that line in a story about thinking of the right thing to retort but only thinking of it the next day, or maybe week. I am not sure I actually come up with that retort. I am not sure I am able to express those inner feelings in clear and passionate words, and I wonder if it is because of my lack of language skills, or aptitude, or is it because I don't really have those inner feelings, except, perhaps, the self-preservation reflex.

And so, perhaps, there is no point in trying to work out how this can be fixed. It is just a little run down, a little weary. It is not a delapidated thing that needs to be torn down and built anew. It is just this life weary thing that is me, that is older, that is tired.

If I would like to embark on a great bicycle journey the first thing I will need is a bicycle. But it would be better if it were a camper, a hybrid bicycle-camper. With solar panels, as it would be nice to be able to charge my phone and write these notes. And a little electric motor as my knees are not what they once were, and they were never that good.

Wobbling, perhaps even stumbling into this new year, without much of a plan other than an idea of trudging along hoping the bad is bottoming out and the good still has a fair way to climb. It is a balance, not so? It is always a balancing trick.

Overwhelm
Sharpen and click, but now there seems to be just too much, the list of things to do,...

Old anxieties
Tick tock tick, I let things go on not worrying too much about the stuff that I worry...

Storytime again
All the voices are played be the one actor, because the story is being told by the one...

Slipped on by
Perhaps it is better to take a decision and get it wrong than to wait for the perfect...

Restricting practise
About three quarters through the day today I was struck with the dilemma: how much do I...

Disappointments
Expectations. They lead to disappointments when I let them expectations fill up...

Valid and validity
Just how it is, just stop. Hop, drop, tip top, words are a flop, slop, crop. Cut it out...

White noise
What will it be like when no one knows what the visual equivalent of white noise...

The trick
I wonder if the trick is to simply think to yourself you are going to enjoy the journey,...

Bleakness
The Bleakness is in those moments when I am reminded that everyone thinks I did...

Reception
The moment of pleasure is listening to the quiet conversation in the hall, the advisors...

Knickers
I noted your knickers, hanging, as they do, in the bathroom. I noted your knickers...