More random thoughts.

My computer clock says two twenty seven am, and I believed it until I noticed it is only ten past twelve. Still late, yet it's a Friday night and all is still and quiet here. So I decided to have a chat with my blog again. It listens but doesn't reply. Probably would tell me not to be so boring, if it could.
Actually that is me telling myself that I am boring. It is a weird word, always has been - boring.
"You can come and stay if you like, but you'll be bored." - nah, I don't get bored. Still don't really understand the expression. Some say it is another word for depression, or being down. I'd prefer to go with that. Maybe it is being tired, weary, ennui, but bored is the silliest word in the dictionary.
Is it what drove me to write this? Or is there some other driving force behind my sudden impulse to put into words the unputtable? I could talk to someone on the net, but I just feel the need to write, solitary, on my own. I don't have much to say as I feel I am in some kind of limbo-land, or twilight zone or somewhere. I think there are photos missing off my computer, but maybe it is just that I can't find them. How disorganised is that?
The neighbourhood is quiet tonight. The clock ticks behind me - tick - tock - tick - tock... and I don't know why I am not playing music. I do actually. It is because I am liking the stillness while it is here. Got my keyboard working again, the Yamaha. It jst needed a new plug. Back to playing the same old tunes. Still have to finish the postcards, for this project I am doing. It could be fun, maybe I will get into it properly tomorrow. Ordered another book - Body of a Dancer, which I can't wait to read. I hate finishing a good book. There is a sadness involved, a goodbye to be said. Being invited into someone else's head is a privilege. One day I would like to invite others into mine, properly. Maybe as some kind of return gift. They can feel free to like me or dislike me, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that one likes oneself. Of course, one can't always like everything about oneself, and that is ok too. As long as liking is in the majority, it's cool. I think I am done for now. The clock is still ticking, it's still quiet outside, so I am going to read more of Star of the Sea.
It's a brilliant book and I am reading it slowly but surely.
I cut a lot of wood for the winter today, chopped more hedge, the prickly one out on the public pavement, which is my responsibility to keep trimmed, and omg it really hurts to get stabbed by one of those strong spikes. I mean really hurts.  I flopped on the bed afterwards and slept for three hours, and woke up disorientated. I know if I give up smoking I will have lots more energy. Winter could be cold or mild this year, but I can already feel myself shivering in anticipation.
Spending money on books is my 'vice' I suppose. Those and cigarettes. A little wine sometimes, which helps oil the wheels. And I really, really want to do another 'chapter' of dancing in the air. I have kind of left it all hanging in the air, so to speak, and it is bugging me.

Good night blog. I am signing off now, and hope you sleep well, as ridiculous as that sounds. I have a need to say goodnight and good morning for some reason I will never know. Mystery sometimes is good thing, and I certainly aren't going to try analyzing that one. I have a fear that being over-analytical can lead to annihilation.

Just thoughts

Just thoughts
You don't have to be in jail to feel like a prisoner. I'm not, yet all this time, I have been fighting it, trying to to break down non-existent barriers, refusing to accept the status quo. That is what I think I think at least, for there are so many different options to think, that one thought will do as well as the next. When one has been harboring one set of thoughts or perhaps they were not thoughts but feelings or something similar, concerning a certain 'state of being', for many years, and over night that state of being alters radically, it is a cause for worry. Yet I am astounded at how unworried I am. As unworried as I might or might not think I am, as I am still not sure yet if I have cause to be worried, I have experienced an altered state nonetheless.
This altered state I am thinking may indeed be a positive thing. I am astounded that I haven't yet had a tantrum or broken a cup deliberately against a wall or even stamped my foot. So following that lead maybe it is safe to assume that I am calmer than a windless sea, on a starry summer's night.
It is probably shock mingled with an unease the like of which I don't think I have ever experienced.
And I have experienced a radical pot-pourri of shocks of different colours, shapes and sizes. I started writing this because I can feel my mind drawing inwards on what feels like a very lonely journey.
I have lost the capability to reach out. Maybe it is because it is a road I must travel alone, I don't know, and I don't like the not knowing. It feels like the calm before a storm. A storm I am not sure will actually materialise.
Truth is after having written all these words, I simply don't know what to think.

Stella Maris.

Stella Maris.

My head is wandering these days, but the one place it can settle happily is into a good book. I have been reading many but the book I am currently enjoying, and becomes better the more into it I get is 'The Star of the Sea' by Joseph O'Connor.

I don't normally do book reviews, but this author's astounding imagination leaves one breathless in it's versatility.

 Set during the famine circa 1847 on a ship heading for the America's, the character development is sublime and the plot thickens effortlessly, (though I am sure effort was put into it), in contrast to the thin gruel the passengers in steerage had no choice but to eat. What strikes me most about this book is it's believability. Though a work of fiction, the choice of subject and the attention to detail,

leaves one wondering if it is not a true life account. He brings the dark heart of the famine to a place my own imagination could never have dared to adventure. There is a sensitivity to both sides of the cultural gap which only an intelligent and broad mind could dally into, recounting the trials and tribulations of all spectrums of society in that particular time and space.

It is a dark book, brought into the light through the medium of humour, the sometime subtlety of which can leave one reeling in a space between laughter and tears.

Here is a lighter extract from my last night's reading session which is one of the lighter moments in the book.

"And the cockney's talked as though talking in colours. Brash, browsy banners of words. He listened for hours as they nattered in the markets, as they dandered in the carnival in Paternoster Square. How he wished he could talk with such brio and bite. He practiced in the evenings over and over, made reverend translations into their tongue.

our old guv'nor

which dosses in Lewisham

swelled be thy moniker.

Thy racket become;

in Bow as it is in Lewisham.

Scalp us this day our lump of lead

and let us be bailed for our dodges;

as we backslaps the pox-hounds and Berkshire Hunts

what dodges agin us. (The bumsuckers.)

And Jemmy us not into bushes or lurks

but send us skedaddling from blaggery.

For thine in the manner the flash and the bovver.

Till mother breaks out of the clink. Amen.

The lexicon of crime became his favourite contemplation..."  

Some may think this irreverend. In the right context though, it is well placed.

and so on... his love of the written word is the key, to this incredible work.

I can only show a small part of it. In another life, I would wish to able to write like this.  

All aside, this is a serious book, and I would recommend it to anybody, anywhere to read. It is well researched and puts the social history of that period into a clear perspective, in a palpable manner

NB. Cockney - is the 'secret 'slang language of the native Londoner.

My nod to synchronicity here, something I like to do, is that I owned a house called: 'Stella Maris' - Star of the Sea, back in the nineties. They were good years, of which I have a multitude of fond memories. But also some not-so-good ones.  Everything is in the balance.

The now of now.

I haven't blogged for a while. I am not in a face-book kind of mood these days and everything I try to do just seems to go wrong. Yes, it is going to be one of those type of posts. I don't know why it is so important to get my printer working, but it is.  I can't do it, but I will try again tonight. I have half-written things which I don't have the motivation to finish and post. My mind is in a strange place and I hardly know who I am any more. Crazy things have been happening, highly emotive stuff, which has left me drained. I am coming back from it all but, fuck, I realise I have been living in hell. A hell not of my own making. I take some of the responsibility, but not the majority of it. I was born for one thing.
Counselling is helping, I think. It is not a physical hell, more a psychological one. Things could always be worse, I keep telling myself. Of course, things are worse than this, somewhere else. But I am here, not there. And here is my own personal hell. I am not looking for feed-back on this, because everything anyone says to me these days, I have to take with a pinch of salt. Why? Because I am over-sensitive, living in a perpetual state of post-traumatic stress disorder, from way back. As soon as I think I have figured out one thing, worked it through, something else crops up. It is all very well saying things like: "Live in the now", "Enjoy the moment". I can't. As simple as that. I hope to some time. But I can't now. Recent events have left me numb. Not in a good way. But I hope to turn it around or at least bury it. Again, it depends on others, though nothing ever changes in some respects. I am not lonely alone any more, I am just alone. That's how I feel anyway. Trying to connect the jigsaw pieces together, of a smattered, scattered life. It's all good, just wish it was simple.
I wonder though. If everything was 'perfect', (what is that anyway), what then? (and shut up about my grammar and bad sentence construction, and simplex wording, I know!). Would I be any happier. I don't know. I have read thousands of positive words, possibly millions. They go in there and will lurk in there, waiting until I am ready. For what? Again I simply don't know.

Then there are the false promises. I say I will do this and that, then I don't. Maybe it's catch up time. Maybe.

Anyway, if anyone does read this, because I doubt I will post it in a group, sorry it isn't more up-beat, or humerous, or interesting. It is what it is.

Now I am going to use my escapism tactics and go read a book, because that is all I am up to recently.

Something different.

"Most cultural manifestations of desire are typically boring, symptomatic, and even perpetuating of the dominations they claim a wish to alter. In this way, living with restrictions is inevitable. There is no greater self-delusion than believing one could ever be free of restrictions. Any sensation of transcendence is always traceable to an ambivalence toward one domination or other, and in that ambivalence also rests an act of perpetuation. If one acknowledges or takes responsibility for that act of perpetuation - no matter how unavoidable or undesirable - then there is no possibility for transcendence. It becomes moot." - Terre Thaemlitz

This is a quote I have taken from an article I have just read that rings true for me.