I wish you could be here now. This is such a perfect moment. I'm sitting at my desk which is pushed up against the wall under an open sash window. The cream curtains are open and there's a stream of white muslin which is pulled across to one side at the bottom and spills down onto the floor around my feet. Just outside the window is a red berry tree, a bit messy, too many branches and twigs, no leaves, but hundreds of bunches of hard, neat little red berries. Stone Temple Pilots on the CD, a little cool breeze occasionally. The sky is pale blue and even a warm milky weak sun over to the right. There's a lot of brown and green and yellow. Lots of trees, grass and bushes. Two big dark, dark holly trees. A row of poplars, I think, very tall straight pointing upwards trees. My berry tree. A silver something. Ash? White bark and a fibrey, ganglionic mess of twigs.
There's a cobbled street, which is my road, and a main tarmacked road running across the end of it. Three big houses, twenty or thirty rooms in each I would say. One has a huge circular conservatory on the side, full of wicker chairs and tables and dark red rugs on the stone floor. Another is side on to me and has a painted white wall around it and there's a big stairway visible inside and large white painted pots of bushes against the side of the house. The other 'house' has a sign outside it "8 Luxury Apartments" and is dark orange red brick and is called Holly Grange and has black balconies at the windows on the top floor.
Next to that are three very solid, expensive 'workman's cottages', grey and stony with slate roofs and long thin gardens. The there are four tall white Georgian houses, Olive Grove, one has a glossy blue front door. There's just enough people and cars to keep me interested. I can just hear some bits of their conversations. It's lovely. There's a fair bit of twittering and chirping going on, a chaffinch in my tree, two magpies on the lawn - two for joy - usually quite a few squirrels, but not today.
There's a park on the other side of this house, with statues and a bandstand, a bowling green, a sand pit, an aviary, and the house of the old man who kept trying to kiss me and his son who raped me when I was nine backs onto it. I can't see those things, but I know they're there. And I can smell the smoke from a bonfire.
Monday, 27 April 2009
22nd March 1995 2.30pm
I can't think of anything better to eat than a jacket potato. Must be the Irish in me, "Any girls out there with some Irish in them? Any want a little bit more?" with salt and black pepper and butter. I just had one for lunch. So sweet too, I hadn't noticed before. I'm in such a good mood you wouldn't believe it. Not manic or wild, just so happy - it's bubbling man.
I just saw this unfuckingbelievably good looking love puppy stud bucket at the local grocers. I was dithering around looking for things to buy - a packet of bread sauce, bananas, milk, Worcestershire sauce - I don't know - and there he was - Oh my God! And he stood behind me in the queue and I'm like "Oh please don't let me do anything embarrassing" and then I noticed the two bananas on the counter and thought "Oh no! He's going to think I've bought them to have sex with because I'm so attractive". And then I remembered the one time my ex and I tried to have sex with a banana, but neither of us knew whether to peel it first or not. In the end we peeled it and put it inside a pink condom because I didn't want it to break up and go all mushy inside me. I couldn't concentrate for laughing and then I got bored and faked it to get it over with. I guess I wasn't really in the mood that time.
So, I was thinking about this and realised I was smiling at the bananas and that made me laugh, not a big laugh, nothing hearty, just an AHA. I know he noticed, he must have done. And what stunningly clever and original idea did I come up with to cover this up a few minutes later, on my way out of the shop. Oh yes - cough and he'll think, "Oh that girl who laughed at her bananas was actually coughing. Well, that's okay then, she must be a lovely person and not mad at all, just got a bit of a cough".
I just saw this unfuckingbelievably good looking love puppy stud bucket at the local grocers. I was dithering around looking for things to buy - a packet of bread sauce, bananas, milk, Worcestershire sauce - I don't know - and there he was - Oh my God! And he stood behind me in the queue and I'm like "Oh please don't let me do anything embarrassing" and then I noticed the two bananas on the counter and thought "Oh no! He's going to think I've bought them to have sex with because I'm so attractive". And then I remembered the one time my ex and I tried to have sex with a banana, but neither of us knew whether to peel it first or not. In the end we peeled it and put it inside a pink condom because I didn't want it to break up and go all mushy inside me. I couldn't concentrate for laughing and then I got bored and faked it to get it over with. I guess I wasn't really in the mood that time.
So, I was thinking about this and realised I was smiling at the bananas and that made me laugh, not a big laugh, nothing hearty, just an AHA. I know he noticed, he must have done. And what stunningly clever and original idea did I come up with to cover this up a few minutes later, on my way out of the shop. Oh yes - cough and he'll think, "Oh that girl who laughed at her bananas was actually coughing. Well, that's okay then, she must be a lovely person and not mad at all, just got a bit of a cough".
22nd March 1995 12pm
Exercise = Exorcise
I think I see it now. My illusion was an illusion. Reality took control of my fantasy and that pissed me off.
I think I see it now. My illusion was an illusion. Reality took control of my fantasy and that pissed me off.
22nd March 1995 9.45am
I woke up feeling suicidal this morning. I don't know where it cam from. It was just there before I opened my eyes. I think it might have been the dream I was having when I woke up. I wasn't going to let you know but then I thought it would be best if I was honest, so that you know it's not plain sailing every day. Up and down but moving upwards.
I was in this house that seemed familiar but now I don't know where it was. My old boyfriend turned up and I was a bit shocked to see him, because it's not too long since he dumped me. He, we, didn't talk about us. He was in a good mood, very pleased with himself and was lounging around on my bed, on his back. It was a sort of tacky Las Vegasy room, cream, beige, gold, big TV. Showing on the TV was a film of an enormous aerobics session at a place called Court Manor. But it was higgeldy-piggledy, not in rows or time. And it was filmed from above, like from a helicopter, but it was only about twenty feet from the ground and silent.
We began to realise that all the men had once been women, and the women men. Some had just tops on, others only bottoms, or swimsuits or leotards. One of the women was so thrilled to be a man that she walked around grinning with semen dripping from her limp dick. People watched but didn't seem to be bothered. He was enthralled and while I wanted to talk he wanted to keep watching and kept asking me about it. Then he asked, "what was that place called?". I told him and said "but I don't want to go there with you" and he said "I don't want to take you" and laughed and carried on watching and laughing.
I was upset by this and sat on the edge of the bed (my bed). Around the corner I could see the clock on the video, it said 20:34 and I asked "Are you going now?" "Yes, I have to me at a gig at 9o'clock". He was meeting some people. He leapt up and asked if I knew what a gig was. I looked dumb and he explained that it was when there was a blind date, he was going to meet a new girl and was excited. He left and I went downstairs and sat on a sofa which was next to the French windows. There was a board game on the sofa which we used to play a lot with other close friends. I wrapped it in brown paper and put it on the floor in front of the French windows. I thought it might get trodden on.
A girl I knew from Uni, but hadn't seen since, came over to see if I was okay and a crystal glass tumbler full of water on the floor on the beige carpet, got knocked over. I thought she'd done it, she seemed to think I had. Nothing was said. She started to clear it up. I didn't know how to clear it up. I walked across the room to the kitchen, where a friend of hers had just done a huge load of washing up. I felt as though I should be helping, but didn't know what to do. There was red wine in all the water I tried to clear up.
Shit, there's the binmen. Damn, I've missed them. Bugger.
That's it. That's my dream. I feel better now. Quite happy again., it's a gorgeous day. I wonder if it's anything to do with me being mega upset that that actor might be gay. Not that it's at all relevant to my life, but it just seems to take him so completely out of the game and there's nothing to be done about it. And that reminds me of:
30 Dec - in happy getting married relationship with my boyfriend
31 Dec - not in relationship with my now ex
Probably. And he was a bit of a homophobe (doesn't that mean he sounds like something else?). Me? I don't know. Have had a few sexual encounters with other women, but no relationships as such. I wasn't that keen, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable to find a woman sexy and I'd like to try again now I'm older. I can see why "America reacted with stunned silence to the news that...." That's how I feel. There's nothing to be said, it's nothing to do with me, but I'm speechless. Out of the game - my game. I can't let go of this and it's bugging me that I can't.
I was in this house that seemed familiar but now I don't know where it was. My old boyfriend turned up and I was a bit shocked to see him, because it's not too long since he dumped me. He, we, didn't talk about us. He was in a good mood, very pleased with himself and was lounging around on my bed, on his back. It was a sort of tacky Las Vegasy room, cream, beige, gold, big TV. Showing on the TV was a film of an enormous aerobics session at a place called Court Manor. But it was higgeldy-piggledy, not in rows or time. And it was filmed from above, like from a helicopter, but it was only about twenty feet from the ground and silent.
We began to realise that all the men had once been women, and the women men. Some had just tops on, others only bottoms, or swimsuits or leotards. One of the women was so thrilled to be a man that she walked around grinning with semen dripping from her limp dick. People watched but didn't seem to be bothered. He was enthralled and while I wanted to talk he wanted to keep watching and kept asking me about it. Then he asked, "what was that place called?". I told him and said "but I don't want to go there with you" and he said "I don't want to take you" and laughed and carried on watching and laughing.
I was upset by this and sat on the edge of the bed (my bed). Around the corner I could see the clock on the video, it said 20:34 and I asked "Are you going now?" "Yes, I have to me at a gig at 9o'clock". He was meeting some people. He leapt up and asked if I knew what a gig was. I looked dumb and he explained that it was when there was a blind date, he was going to meet a new girl and was excited. He left and I went downstairs and sat on a sofa which was next to the French windows. There was a board game on the sofa which we used to play a lot with other close friends. I wrapped it in brown paper and put it on the floor in front of the French windows. I thought it might get trodden on.
A girl I knew from Uni, but hadn't seen since, came over to see if I was okay and a crystal glass tumbler full of water on the floor on the beige carpet, got knocked over. I thought she'd done it, she seemed to think I had. Nothing was said. She started to clear it up. I didn't know how to clear it up. I walked across the room to the kitchen, where a friend of hers had just done a huge load of washing up. I felt as though I should be helping, but didn't know what to do. There was red wine in all the water I tried to clear up.
Shit, there's the binmen. Damn, I've missed them. Bugger.
That's it. That's my dream. I feel better now. Quite happy again., it's a gorgeous day. I wonder if it's anything to do with me being mega upset that that actor might be gay. Not that it's at all relevant to my life, but it just seems to take him so completely out of the game and there's nothing to be done about it. And that reminds me of:
30 Dec - in happy getting married relationship with my boyfriend
31 Dec - not in relationship with my now ex
Probably. And he was a bit of a homophobe (doesn't that mean he sounds like something else?). Me? I don't know. Have had a few sexual encounters with other women, but no relationships as such. I wasn't that keen, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable to find a woman sexy and I'd like to try again now I'm older. I can see why "America reacted with stunned silence to the news that...." That's how I feel. There's nothing to be said, it's nothing to do with me, but I'm speechless. Out of the game - my game. I can't let go of this and it's bugging me that I can't.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
21st March 95 8pm
Don't worry - you're going to be okay - it will be alright, you'll be fine, don't be afraid. There is nothing wrong with you now, I want to hold you, to touch you and kiss you. I don't care who you are, you have to know that it's really okay. I want to love you so much. I can't make you believe it, can I? I know it has to come from within you, like all the other stuff, but I want you to know it, to find it out, so much.
Try to believe it, concentrate, think about it, imagine there's nobody else, just you alone on the planet. Everything works perfectly, everything else stays just as it is, except no other people. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you want? How do you feel? Not the lonely, sad scared bits, but how do you feel about yourself? You're not good, bad, fat thin, right, wrong anymore. There's no-one to compare yourself with so you just are. You don't have to judge yourself any more, what's the point? Where's the standard? It's just you doing what you want to do. Being where you want to be. Feeling how you feel. No rules, just freedom. Would you lose weight? Susie Orbach told me I would. And I'm finding out that I believe her. Why? Because it doesn't matter anymore.
Assuming everything stayed just as it is, no decay, self-filling shops and power stations working by themselves etc why would you need to go and get 2 tubs of ice-cream and a treacle tart and two bags of Quavers and a packet of chocolate digestives and take them home and lock the door and stuff them all down? Nobody is there to know, or care, or tell you not to do it, or laugh, or scold or anything. It's up to you. Have it if you want it. It doesn't matter. Have it, hide the warppers and go back for more, much more. Why not? There's nobody else anyway to say or think anything about it. It's no big deal, it's not a problem. Next time you go to the shop you could just as easily eat it in the shop - nobody is going to know, there is nobody to know. Have 3 or 4 cartons of ice-cream, eat all the cakes you want to eat, have sex with the chocolate right there on the floor, rub lovely double cream butterscotch and toffee flavoured melting ice-cream all over your hot naked body. No rules, no criticism, just you doing what you want to with all the food in the world, whenever you want to, wherever and however. Why not if you want to? There is no-one else to interfere or to know. It's up to you.
There are no gods, no people, no heaven, no hell, nothing, just you alone on earth. Everything works, planes and cars will take you wherever you want to go, just tell them. The shop selling everything and always full is just down the road, or around the corner, behind those trees, over that hill, not very far away. There's no time, just movement, nothing to rush for, everything is there for you. What do you start to wish for? People? Knowledge? Biscuits?
If you could choose to have one other person, real or of your own creation, with you, would you? Would that be good or bad? Would it make you worry that they might comment on your physical appearance? Do you want to rush to the shop? Would you think, "what if They get fat"?
What do you think? Why? Why is it different to have complete total freedom of access to every food you want whenever you want it when there's nobody else on the planet? What's the difference? Is it different?
Does it matter if the other person is fat or thin? Very fat or very thin? If they were just unclassifiable? Mediocre, perfect? If they wanted cake, not salad the first time you ate together? What would you think? Would you notice? Would you notice the twelfth? Sixtieth? Would you think more or less of them for it? Would it be forgiveable or unimportant?
If, everytime you went into all the other houses and tried their clothes on and they always fitted pefectly, or all the shops you went to stocked only clothes that fitted you perfectly, and all the mannequins were the same size as you, and all the photos in magazines were of people the same size as you - would it make any difference? What? Why?
If the other person ate just what they wanted when they wanted and always stayed the same size and shape, would you risk doing that too.
Do you know why you don't do that anyway? Do you have fear and anger energy that you don't know what to do with? If you make a place for yourself where you could always go and scream it out, or write it down, would it help?
If the other person said they felt angry or scared how would you feel about them? Is that how you react to yourself when you are angry and afraid? Would you tell them how you felt about them feeling that way? Or run to the shop? Or run to the place where you can let it go?
Is it difficult to talk about food or eating for very long without turning the topic onto relationships and emotions. Tricky business relationships. Forget everything, start from scratch and be yourself.
HOW? I knew this girl once, a real stunner. I don't know what she thought of me but I thought she was a beautiful, gorgeous, slim, charming, manipulative, two-faced, insincere, foxy little bitch. She was a mess, like me. All over the place. She did people, mostly men, and drugs. I did food, not so glamorous. One day she broke down in the kitchen, there were about half a dozen of us there, all female, and we all talked about how hard life can be. She said that she didn't know how to have real relationships with people. ' I don't either' I thought. "Be yourself" the others said. "HOW?" we both cried out together. 'What do you do or say? How do you act?'. There's nothing really there, only pretending. Always pretending something.
But there is something there, confusion. Helplessness.
'Deep down under this hurt I think I'm cool and vivacious so I act cool and vivacious, but that's trying to be cool and vivacious, not being cool and vivacious'.
'Be what you are', "be confused and helpless?". Say it - I am confused and helpless. I can't I'm too proud. Too scared. Stay like that then. There's no other way out. You are you and you have to admit it. I am me. not what I want to be but what I am. You won't let yourself be anything else until you are you. I feel absolutely empty. I'm confused. I need help. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm lonely and afraid.
If you want to get from A to B, it helps to start of at A. Trying to get from A to B by starting at C is not getting away from A, it's taking it with you. It gets messy and mixed up and heavy and laboured.
If you don't start from A you'll end up at Z with all the alphabet of letters on your back, and around your waist and in your pockets and on your head and under your feet. Stop, sit down. Have a cup of tea. Take a deep breath and havea look at yourself, see yourself as you are, not how you want to be. Tired and weary and exhausted, it's not surprising dragging all these not yous everywhere with you, all that extra weight.
Stop right here and now, just for a moment, or a year. How do you feel? Who are you? You're just you? That's not so bad. What do you do? Do you want to stay like this? Do you want to be someone somewhere else? Doing things in a different way? Start with exactly where and who you are now. Get that clear first. Look at it, examine it, touch and feel it, accept it, love it, be it. Laugh. Carry on, let it go, feel it going, be whatever's next.
I'm trying.
PS 12.05am the next day!
I know I'm not completely insane because all the time I was apathetic and past caring I still crave dthat big blond shaggy haired tanned laid back dope-smoking chilled out surfie boy to listen to Pablo Honey with .
Try to believe it, concentrate, think about it, imagine there's nobody else, just you alone on the planet. Everything works perfectly, everything else stays just as it is, except no other people. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you want? How do you feel? Not the lonely, sad scared bits, but how do you feel about yourself? You're not good, bad, fat thin, right, wrong anymore. There's no-one to compare yourself with so you just are. You don't have to judge yourself any more, what's the point? Where's the standard? It's just you doing what you want to do. Being where you want to be. Feeling how you feel. No rules, just freedom. Would you lose weight? Susie Orbach told me I would. And I'm finding out that I believe her. Why? Because it doesn't matter anymore.
Assuming everything stayed just as it is, no decay, self-filling shops and power stations working by themselves etc why would you need to go and get 2 tubs of ice-cream and a treacle tart and two bags of Quavers and a packet of chocolate digestives and take them home and lock the door and stuff them all down? Nobody is there to know, or care, or tell you not to do it, or laugh, or scold or anything. It's up to you. Have it if you want it. It doesn't matter. Have it, hide the warppers and go back for more, much more. Why not? There's nobody else anyway to say or think anything about it. It's no big deal, it's not a problem. Next time you go to the shop you could just as easily eat it in the shop - nobody is going to know, there is nobody to know. Have 3 or 4 cartons of ice-cream, eat all the cakes you want to eat, have sex with the chocolate right there on the floor, rub lovely double cream butterscotch and toffee flavoured melting ice-cream all over your hot naked body. No rules, no criticism, just you doing what you want to with all the food in the world, whenever you want to, wherever and however. Why not if you want to? There is no-one else to interfere or to know. It's up to you.
There are no gods, no people, no heaven, no hell, nothing, just you alone on earth. Everything works, planes and cars will take you wherever you want to go, just tell them. The shop selling everything and always full is just down the road, or around the corner, behind those trees, over that hill, not very far away. There's no time, just movement, nothing to rush for, everything is there for you. What do you start to wish for? People? Knowledge? Biscuits?
If you could choose to have one other person, real or of your own creation, with you, would you? Would that be good or bad? Would it make you worry that they might comment on your physical appearance? Do you want to rush to the shop? Would you think, "what if They get fat"?
What do you think? Why? Why is it different to have complete total freedom of access to every food you want whenever you want it when there's nobody else on the planet? What's the difference? Is it different?
Does it matter if the other person is fat or thin? Very fat or very thin? If they were just unclassifiable? Mediocre, perfect? If they wanted cake, not salad the first time you ate together? What would you think? Would you notice? Would you notice the twelfth? Sixtieth? Would you think more or less of them for it? Would it be forgiveable or unimportant?
If, everytime you went into all the other houses and tried their clothes on and they always fitted pefectly, or all the shops you went to stocked only clothes that fitted you perfectly, and all the mannequins were the same size as you, and all the photos in magazines were of people the same size as you - would it make any difference? What? Why?
If the other person ate just what they wanted when they wanted and always stayed the same size and shape, would you risk doing that too.
Do you know why you don't do that anyway? Do you have fear and anger energy that you don't know what to do with? If you make a place for yourself where you could always go and scream it out, or write it down, would it help?
If the other person said they felt angry or scared how would you feel about them? Is that how you react to yourself when you are angry and afraid? Would you tell them how you felt about them feeling that way? Or run to the shop? Or run to the place where you can let it go?
Is it difficult to talk about food or eating for very long without turning the topic onto relationships and emotions. Tricky business relationships. Forget everything, start from scratch and be yourself.
HOW? I knew this girl once, a real stunner. I don't know what she thought of me but I thought she was a beautiful, gorgeous, slim, charming, manipulative, two-faced, insincere, foxy little bitch. She was a mess, like me. All over the place. She did people, mostly men, and drugs. I did food, not so glamorous. One day she broke down in the kitchen, there were about half a dozen of us there, all female, and we all talked about how hard life can be. She said that she didn't know how to have real relationships with people. ' I don't either' I thought. "Be yourself" the others said. "HOW?" we both cried out together. 'What do you do or say? How do you act?'. There's nothing really there, only pretending. Always pretending something.
But there is something there, confusion. Helplessness.
'Deep down under this hurt I think I'm cool and vivacious so I act cool and vivacious, but that's trying to be cool and vivacious, not being cool and vivacious'.
'Be what you are', "be confused and helpless?". Say it - I am confused and helpless. I can't I'm too proud. Too scared. Stay like that then. There's no other way out. You are you and you have to admit it. I am me. not what I want to be but what I am. You won't let yourself be anything else until you are you. I feel absolutely empty. I'm confused. I need help. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm lonely and afraid.
If you want to get from A to B, it helps to start of at A. Trying to get from A to B by starting at C is not getting away from A, it's taking it with you. It gets messy and mixed up and heavy and laboured.
If you don't start from A you'll end up at Z with all the alphabet of letters on your back, and around your waist and in your pockets and on your head and under your feet. Stop, sit down. Have a cup of tea. Take a deep breath and havea look at yourself, see yourself as you are, not how you want to be. Tired and weary and exhausted, it's not surprising dragging all these not yous everywhere with you, all that extra weight.
Stop right here and now, just for a moment, or a year. How do you feel? Who are you? You're just you? That's not so bad. What do you do? Do you want to stay like this? Do you want to be someone somewhere else? Doing things in a different way? Start with exactly where and who you are now. Get that clear first. Look at it, examine it, touch and feel it, accept it, love it, be it. Laugh. Carry on, let it go, feel it going, be whatever's next.
I'm trying.
PS 12.05am the next day!
I know I'm not completely insane because all the time I was apathetic and past caring I still crave dthat big blond shaggy haired tanned laid back dope-smoking chilled out surfie boy to listen to Pablo Honey with .
21st March 1995 3pm
Last night. What boolocks! Although I don't know why it is so embarrassing to reread things that felt right at the time. At least it was real.
I oscillate. I am an oscillator. Cynicism vs. Authenticity. I remember the first time someone told me they were being ironic. I thought it was big, cool and clever.
Today 'Lover you should've come over' amplifies my waves. I was reading this book once on Warrington Central Station and it had a description of this thing in it called re......., re something. I can't remember the word but it reminds me of re approchment. Does that exist? Reproshment! It's where you live your life according to a philosophy or set of values / aims etc that you're not especially aware of all the time, but then there's a change and you'r made aware of your old system, and a new possible one, and you become embarrassed by your unquestioning belief in the old one and take on a different set of priorities (which might be the new one, or not) and so on. Like when you suddenly discover orgasms or have a baby or your parents die.
I think that's had a big affect on me and although it turns out that I do it about 20 times a day, at the time, on the platform waiting for my train home, I thought a violent Ugh. How revoltingly embarrassing to really believe somehting, to have an ideology, and then discover it was fallible, to have to admit you were wrong.
So I thought I would believe in nothing and not be fixed to anything or certain. That way I could always be right, save face and be fluid and that's meant a lot of heartache, loneliness and floundering. Lack of commitment, fear of failure, fear of success. All to stop my pride being being hurt by a possible change of mind sometime in the future, possibly. What a fuck-up.
And, anyway, I'm doing it now, because I'm ashamed of my pride and fear and massively super-inflated, over-blown opinion of myself. So, this time, here's my new position. Feel free to mock and remind me in 10 years time (still positioning myself against the storm!): I'm a wanker; I might be mad, but I don't really think so; practice makes you better; you can't win if you're not in; don't give up; it doesn't really matter, but act as if it did; to thine own self be true; don't be afraid; you're not alone; it's never too late; give a dog a bad name and make mine a double.
There was this other book too, about the "Coma" time. The title eludes me. Read the blurb on the back and nearly died trying to get home quickly enough to read it. I was looking for answers, as usual. But shit, this was something else. Like reading "Candide" for the first time - mindblowing, jaw-dropping, oh my God, totally stunned, gomsmacked. It was about this man who is disgruntled (without grunt? stopped from grunting?) with his life and one day out strolling he finds a magician's shop and goes inside where the magician agrees to send him back to an earlier point in his life, 'If only I could go back to 12 years of age knowing what I know now'. Well he does, but can't help himself and does everything the same way that he did it first time around until, eventually he finds himself wandering through the streets feeling disgruntled with his life and stumbles across the magician's store.
It felt like the point of the story was that there's no free will, which was quite liberating because you don't have to be ashamed or afraid because this is who you are and were always going to be. And it's not an excuse to sit back and do nothing because either you were going to do that or not anyway, so you'll just react to the 'No free will' thing in the way you were going to react to it anyway and possibly carry on acting as though there is free will because that's what you were detined to do given the past. Each moment predetermines everything for ever because you can't go back and not have that moment exist. It did. So this does.
That's what I meant yesterday about all our cells having all our potential actions, exeriences in them, but given that we only exist in the context of the past and present our future potential is limited to one possible course. The big bang banging the way it did means I prefer pink lipstick ot red. I will grow to be 5'9 but not a happy president or whatever. Personal responsibility? Guilt? I don't know how it all fits together. Ouspensky. That's who wrote the book. I wonder if like all the things we come to know are in us from the start, are all the things that can be known in us all, or is it different things in each one of us? We could all be the same person if we were all raised in the same way, by robots in a sealed light and dark room with video screens for walls and the same toys and stimuli presented during the same exact times in our lives. 1 year, 4 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 25 seconds into life: present teddy. At 16 we would be freed and let out to meet up with each other and laissez faire. Two scientists working on the same problem, one gets there first, why? Is it all out there waiting to be pulled in or already in one of them but not the other. Would we have got to the moon if we hadn't learned to talk? Does the brain work like a muscle? Does the pope shit in the woods?
I'm getting giddy happy. Leaving the baths today this man, for whom I'd held a door open, said, "Thanks Angel" - ! - I know it meant nothing, but he could have said, "Welcome back into the human race, you're not irrelevant any more. I can see you", and it wouldn't have felt any better. So thanks middle-aged man wearing green, you made me feel very happy today.
I oscillate. I am an oscillator. Cynicism vs. Authenticity. I remember the first time someone told me they were being ironic. I thought it was big, cool and clever.
Today 'Lover you should've come over' amplifies my waves. I was reading this book once on Warrington Central Station and it had a description of this thing in it called re......., re something. I can't remember the word but it reminds me of re approchment. Does that exist? Reproshment! It's where you live your life according to a philosophy or set of values / aims etc that you're not especially aware of all the time, but then there's a change and you'r made aware of your old system, and a new possible one, and you become embarrassed by your unquestioning belief in the old one and take on a different set of priorities (which might be the new one, or not) and so on. Like when you suddenly discover orgasms or have a baby or your parents die.
I think that's had a big affect on me and although it turns out that I do it about 20 times a day, at the time, on the platform waiting for my train home, I thought a violent Ugh. How revoltingly embarrassing to really believe somehting, to have an ideology, and then discover it was fallible, to have to admit you were wrong.
So I thought I would believe in nothing and not be fixed to anything or certain. That way I could always be right, save face and be fluid and that's meant a lot of heartache, loneliness and floundering. Lack of commitment, fear of failure, fear of success. All to stop my pride being being hurt by a possible change of mind sometime in the future, possibly. What a fuck-up.
And, anyway, I'm doing it now, because I'm ashamed of my pride and fear and massively super-inflated, over-blown opinion of myself. So, this time, here's my new position. Feel free to mock and remind me in 10 years time (still positioning myself against the storm!): I'm a wanker; I might be mad, but I don't really think so; practice makes you better; you can't win if you're not in; don't give up; it doesn't really matter, but act as if it did; to thine own self be true; don't be afraid; you're not alone; it's never too late; give a dog a bad name and make mine a double.
There was this other book too, about the "Coma" time. The title eludes me. Read the blurb on the back and nearly died trying to get home quickly enough to read it. I was looking for answers, as usual. But shit, this was something else. Like reading "Candide" for the first time - mindblowing, jaw-dropping, oh my God, totally stunned, gomsmacked. It was about this man who is disgruntled (without grunt? stopped from grunting?) with his life and one day out strolling he finds a magician's shop and goes inside where the magician agrees to send him back to an earlier point in his life, 'If only I could go back to 12 years of age knowing what I know now'. Well he does, but can't help himself and does everything the same way that he did it first time around until, eventually he finds himself wandering through the streets feeling disgruntled with his life and stumbles across the magician's store.
It felt like the point of the story was that there's no free will, which was quite liberating because you don't have to be ashamed or afraid because this is who you are and were always going to be. And it's not an excuse to sit back and do nothing because either you were going to do that or not anyway, so you'll just react to the 'No free will' thing in the way you were going to react to it anyway and possibly carry on acting as though there is free will because that's what you were detined to do given the past. Each moment predetermines everything for ever because you can't go back and not have that moment exist. It did. So this does.
That's what I meant yesterday about all our cells having all our potential actions, exeriences in them, but given that we only exist in the context of the past and present our future potential is limited to one possible course. The big bang banging the way it did means I prefer pink lipstick ot red. I will grow to be 5'9 but not a happy president or whatever. Personal responsibility? Guilt? I don't know how it all fits together. Ouspensky. That's who wrote the book. I wonder if like all the things we come to know are in us from the start, are all the things that can be known in us all, or is it different things in each one of us? We could all be the same person if we were all raised in the same way, by robots in a sealed light and dark room with video screens for walls and the same toys and stimuli presented during the same exact times in our lives. 1 year, 4 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 25 seconds into life: present teddy. At 16 we would be freed and let out to meet up with each other and laissez faire. Two scientists working on the same problem, one gets there first, why? Is it all out there waiting to be pulled in or already in one of them but not the other. Would we have got to the moon if we hadn't learned to talk? Does the brain work like a muscle? Does the pope shit in the woods?
I'm getting giddy happy. Leaving the baths today this man, for whom I'd held a door open, said, "Thanks Angel" - ! - I know it meant nothing, but he could have said, "Welcome back into the human race, you're not irrelevant any more. I can see you", and it wouldn't have felt any better. So thanks middle-aged man wearing green, you made me feel very happy today.
20th March 1995 did I really 'really' believe in God?
Here's one I prepared earlier - as found - not edited. There was no date on it but I found it with a letter marked 18th Feb 88 and I think it's from the same sort of time.
Shit. I've just re-read it and I'd forgotten I'd ever felt like that., it's sort of a junior version of now. Maybe not, maybe it is different, I can't decide. I feel a bit depressed and embarrassed by it now. I hadn't read it since I wrote it, although I knew where it was. There's some other stuff floating around too, I must find it. I'm stalling. I have met a lot of people who feel similar since, I thought I was special because I hadn't met enough people. Justifying and stalling....
(But I have to say I am very embarrassed).
February 1988
"Cry quietly darling, Mummy might hear you. If she did then you'd have to explain why you're crying and she doesn't love God anyway, so she wouldn't understand that you really, really, really hate him.
I wish I didn't have to believe in God. I've tried not to, by saying, at nighttime, 'Okay then God, if you exist, prove it, show me, give me a sign that I will recognise straight away and think, um, yes, God really does exist and he's listening, and then just as I think I can comfortably forget about him, something will come on TV and I'll know it's God for me. Or I might think, 'Oh, for God's sake, it's just a coincidence'. So I'll ignore it. But even as I'm writing this, even though I know it's blasphemous, God has just thrown a little beetle onto my bed and it was lying on its back and going to die and so I had to save it by throwing it out of the window. And now God keeps trying to divert my attention by making it sound as though it's raining outside, which is one of my favourite things, listening to the rain. But it's not raining at all.
Mummy's come upstairs again so I have to be quiet, I can't scream, swear or even cry because I'm in someone else's house, not my own, so I have to play by someone else's rules, Mummy's rules. Then my favourite record comes on the tape-recorder and distracts me and God has made my passion die down and I don't want it to, because it's all I can do. I've done everything else and lost interest. I'm so extremely bored. The only thing I can do now is to make my emotions entertaining. At least that's what I think I'm doing. I can't play with anyone else's emotions tonight.
I have to try to make myself feel able to conquer the world until I really believe I can do it. Either by making the most money or by making everyone else wake up and realise that they are ALIVE, when really all they are doing is existing. I want to help, I want to be responsible for making things better, to be the person who woke up the world.
Or else, convince myself that I want to be dead that very moment.
And I lie on my bed and scream silently with my arms outstretched and tears making my hair wet and my whole body shaking and really truly wanting to die at that very moment and begging God to show some mercy and let me die, but he never will because I'm supposed to be here - suffering. Perhaps, I do everyone else's suffering for them because I'm one of the only ones who can really feel any emotion. Maybe that's what my purpose in life is, to suffer for others who don't know how to live I'm not very good at practical living, but I don't think there are many people who can feel and understand emotion as well as I do. They just feel a little bit fed up because things aren't quite how they want them to be - but they can't really understand how powerful emotion is, unless of course, something big happens, like a death, or a birth, or marriage or rejection. But then that's easy, it's chemical, so it's cheating.
Pure emotion is like nothing else in the whole wide world, and you can create it, either way. You can hurt so much at the futility of everything, the pettiness of people who patently don't have a clue what real life is like. Do you know what it feels like to live life on another level? Probably not. I think it's like God gives you a shot of Golden Heroin without you knowing and suddenly he will point something out to you, maybe on TV or when you look out of the window, or it's a book, or a piece of music and then that's it, you're gone - Wee! You feel higher and higher and then your brain suddenly moves up a gear and you don't think anymore, you realise and you know, you have revelations and things become clear and you can do absolutely anything. But the sad thing about that is that you can only do it in that other really real world, not in this one, because in the other, real world the people are yours, so they do what you want them to and react how you want them to .
In this practical, physical world though you can't live like you can in the other world because nobody else is really alive. There's no enthusiasm. I wish God could give everyone this sort of mental heroin all the time - then I wouldn't need it, I could just be carried along with everyone else's euphoria. Then everyone would love each other obsessively and care passionately and we would all be content with the least amount of material stuff, but would probably end up with the most because we'd share everything all the time, without being frightened of losing things or having them broken or stolen or damaged as all the real stuff that would be worth having would be in us.
I wish I could find one other person like me who would let me love them as I really have the power to, but people don't like to be loved that much. Maybe I have all the extra love in me, the love that some others don't have within them, as well as the suffering. Most probably they're the same thing, which would not surprise me at all because, oh, I can't be bothered....
But when that injection wears off you have to try to feel like that again, because it's so boring having to be dull and lifeless and useless again and then that makes you unhappy and then you think that God is playing tricks on you, and making fun of you and laughing at you. He's got a swimming pool full of his special stuff and he won't let you have any. So what do you do? You pretend that you don't need it and you can do without it, and you try silently to feel that high. to be real, again.
Sometimes it works a little bit, but it's so fragile when you do it on your own, so volatile, it comes and goes and it gets more and more difficult to remember how it felt. I mean you can remember what it makes you think and want to do, but you can't get the feeling of it back. It's like riding on the back of a motorbike at speeding along at 100mph and you love it. Or, right at the edge of the ocean, or at a pop concert - when you just forget that you physically exist and just feel, become the emotion. Most people call it excitement, but that's how it is just to be alive, when I'm real.
Then you can't get it back and you feel yourself getting worse and worse and falling out of that world, so now you're on the same level as everyone else and it kills you and you don't feel special anymore and that makes you more unhappy and because you've been floating along without any effort, everything becomes heavy, laboured, it's physically hard work to be alive and then it starts to hurt and it's like when you're very, very tired, but someone won't let you get into a nice warm, comfortable bed. Although you can see it just in front of you, you can't reach it because someone is holding onto your belt from behind, and you can't take it off because you're straining forward so hard and you can hear them laughing and saying "No, don't go to bed, you'll be alright again soon", which you know you won't be unless God can help you out with the stuff. God, I really really hate him then.
But, really, inside you, you know that it's worth it, because you never believe that the next time God gets his trusty needle out, that you will let it all slip away - You believe, you have faith in him, and I do as I'm writing this, that next time you will feel like that forever and that you will get lucky and everything will come true for you. You will be able to dream anything and given enough time your physical body will catch up with the real life that's been going on in your head. Then everything will be worked out and you won't need God anymore at all.
But another thing is that no matter how you feel, you ALWAYS know that you are being watched, by God, by angels, by dead people in heaven, who all know all your thoughts so you can't plan properly because you can't have private thoughts."
Still 20th March 95 11pm
Does this make me mad? I think I might be, or might have been. I don't feel it but that's a bad sign, isn't it? That I feel sane. I can' t be, can I?
This is ridiculous, there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I'm a paranoid manic depressive, maybe not! Reading that made me feel as though I am. But I don't feel it now. I'm not so different from other people am I? You recognise some of this don't you? I'm not alone and I'm ok. Shit.
Questions calm me down. Do things have colours? Garlic prawns taste electric blue, have to be. And pain, sharp internal pain is lime green.
If I feel a bit stressed I sometimes have an internal shower. You imagine you go into a pitch black room and stand in the middle, in the darkness. Then a long slow shaft of bright, blue, white light comes down around you from above, changing from opaque to clear light and back. Clean light without a colour or source. Just clarity in the darkness, all around and through and rinsing through you, gentle, pure and positive, flowing down and around from head to toe, slow, sure cleaning. Cleansed and relaxed step forward and open a door, walk out into a fresh green summer meadow. Warm sun, cool breeze, soft wet grass. Cool, clear and bright. Lovely. Stress all gone.
Elixir - Golden rarefied honeyed yellow nectar - peach juice - melon juice - pumpkin juice - white rum - lime juice - coconut milk - lemongrass - saki - champagne - brandy - honey - cloves - banana - cinnamon - white truffle - chestnut horses on sun-drenched white sandy beaches - dark blue water - sea green trees - a hammock - tennis on the radio - gin and tonic ice and lime.
This is how I feel tonight.
Shit. I've just re-read it and I'd forgotten I'd ever felt like that., it's sort of a junior version of now. Maybe not, maybe it is different, I can't decide. I feel a bit depressed and embarrassed by it now. I hadn't read it since I wrote it, although I knew where it was. There's some other stuff floating around too, I must find it. I'm stalling. I have met a lot of people who feel similar since, I thought I was special because I hadn't met enough people. Justifying and stalling....
(But I have to say I am very embarrassed).
February 1988
"Cry quietly darling, Mummy might hear you. If she did then you'd have to explain why you're crying and she doesn't love God anyway, so she wouldn't understand that you really, really, really hate him.
I wish I didn't have to believe in God. I've tried not to, by saying, at nighttime, 'Okay then God, if you exist, prove it, show me, give me a sign that I will recognise straight away and think, um, yes, God really does exist and he's listening, and then just as I think I can comfortably forget about him, something will come on TV and I'll know it's God for me. Or I might think, 'Oh, for God's sake, it's just a coincidence'. So I'll ignore it. But even as I'm writing this, even though I know it's blasphemous, God has just thrown a little beetle onto my bed and it was lying on its back and going to die and so I had to save it by throwing it out of the window. And now God keeps trying to divert my attention by making it sound as though it's raining outside, which is one of my favourite things, listening to the rain. But it's not raining at all.
Mummy's come upstairs again so I have to be quiet, I can't scream, swear or even cry because I'm in someone else's house, not my own, so I have to play by someone else's rules, Mummy's rules. Then my favourite record comes on the tape-recorder and distracts me and God has made my passion die down and I don't want it to, because it's all I can do. I've done everything else and lost interest. I'm so extremely bored. The only thing I can do now is to make my emotions entertaining. At least that's what I think I'm doing. I can't play with anyone else's emotions tonight.
I have to try to make myself feel able to conquer the world until I really believe I can do it. Either by making the most money or by making everyone else wake up and realise that they are ALIVE, when really all they are doing is existing. I want to help, I want to be responsible for making things better, to be the person who woke up the world.
Or else, convince myself that I want to be dead that very moment.
And I lie on my bed and scream silently with my arms outstretched and tears making my hair wet and my whole body shaking and really truly wanting to die at that very moment and begging God to show some mercy and let me die, but he never will because I'm supposed to be here - suffering. Perhaps, I do everyone else's suffering for them because I'm one of the only ones who can really feel any emotion. Maybe that's what my purpose in life is, to suffer for others who don't know how to live I'm not very good at practical living, but I don't think there are many people who can feel and understand emotion as well as I do. They just feel a little bit fed up because things aren't quite how they want them to be - but they can't really understand how powerful emotion is, unless of course, something big happens, like a death, or a birth, or marriage or rejection. But then that's easy, it's chemical, so it's cheating.
Pure emotion is like nothing else in the whole wide world, and you can create it, either way. You can hurt so much at the futility of everything, the pettiness of people who patently don't have a clue what real life is like. Do you know what it feels like to live life on another level? Probably not. I think it's like God gives you a shot of Golden Heroin without you knowing and suddenly he will point something out to you, maybe on TV or when you look out of the window, or it's a book, or a piece of music and then that's it, you're gone - Wee! You feel higher and higher and then your brain suddenly moves up a gear and you don't think anymore, you realise and you know, you have revelations and things become clear and you can do absolutely anything. But the sad thing about that is that you can only do it in that other really real world, not in this one, because in the other, real world the people are yours, so they do what you want them to and react how you want them to .
In this practical, physical world though you can't live like you can in the other world because nobody else is really alive. There's no enthusiasm. I wish God could give everyone this sort of mental heroin all the time - then I wouldn't need it, I could just be carried along with everyone else's euphoria. Then everyone would love each other obsessively and care passionately and we would all be content with the least amount of material stuff, but would probably end up with the most because we'd share everything all the time, without being frightened of losing things or having them broken or stolen or damaged as all the real stuff that would be worth having would be in us.
I wish I could find one other person like me who would let me love them as I really have the power to, but people don't like to be loved that much. Maybe I have all the extra love in me, the love that some others don't have within them, as well as the suffering. Most probably they're the same thing, which would not surprise me at all because, oh, I can't be bothered....
But when that injection wears off you have to try to feel like that again, because it's so boring having to be dull and lifeless and useless again and then that makes you unhappy and then you think that God is playing tricks on you, and making fun of you and laughing at you. He's got a swimming pool full of his special stuff and he won't let you have any. So what do you do? You pretend that you don't need it and you can do without it, and you try silently to feel that high. to be real, again.
Sometimes it works a little bit, but it's so fragile when you do it on your own, so volatile, it comes and goes and it gets more and more difficult to remember how it felt. I mean you can remember what it makes you think and want to do, but you can't get the feeling of it back. It's like riding on the back of a motorbike at speeding along at 100mph and you love it. Or, right at the edge of the ocean, or at a pop concert - when you just forget that you physically exist and just feel, become the emotion. Most people call it excitement, but that's how it is just to be alive, when I'm real.
Then you can't get it back and you feel yourself getting worse and worse and falling out of that world, so now you're on the same level as everyone else and it kills you and you don't feel special anymore and that makes you more unhappy and because you've been floating along without any effort, everything becomes heavy, laboured, it's physically hard work to be alive and then it starts to hurt and it's like when you're very, very tired, but someone won't let you get into a nice warm, comfortable bed. Although you can see it just in front of you, you can't reach it because someone is holding onto your belt from behind, and you can't take it off because you're straining forward so hard and you can hear them laughing and saying "No, don't go to bed, you'll be alright again soon", which you know you won't be unless God can help you out with the stuff. God, I really really hate him then.
But, really, inside you, you know that it's worth it, because you never believe that the next time God gets his trusty needle out, that you will let it all slip away - You believe, you have faith in him, and I do as I'm writing this, that next time you will feel like that forever and that you will get lucky and everything will come true for you. You will be able to dream anything and given enough time your physical body will catch up with the real life that's been going on in your head. Then everything will be worked out and you won't need God anymore at all.
But another thing is that no matter how you feel, you ALWAYS know that you are being watched, by God, by angels, by dead people in heaven, who all know all your thoughts so you can't plan properly because you can't have private thoughts."
Still 20th March 95 11pm
Does this make me mad? I think I might be, or might have been. I don't feel it but that's a bad sign, isn't it? That I feel sane. I can' t be, can I?
This is ridiculous, there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I'm a paranoid manic depressive, maybe not! Reading that made me feel as though I am. But I don't feel it now. I'm not so different from other people am I? You recognise some of this don't you? I'm not alone and I'm ok. Shit.
Questions calm me down. Do things have colours? Garlic prawns taste electric blue, have to be. And pain, sharp internal pain is lime green.
If I feel a bit stressed I sometimes have an internal shower. You imagine you go into a pitch black room and stand in the middle, in the darkness. Then a long slow shaft of bright, blue, white light comes down around you from above, changing from opaque to clear light and back. Clean light without a colour or source. Just clarity in the darkness, all around and through and rinsing through you, gentle, pure and positive, flowing down and around from head to toe, slow, sure cleaning. Cleansed and relaxed step forward and open a door, walk out into a fresh green summer meadow. Warm sun, cool breeze, soft wet grass. Cool, clear and bright. Lovely. Stress all gone.
Elixir - Golden rarefied honeyed yellow nectar - peach juice - melon juice - pumpkin juice - white rum - lime juice - coconut milk - lemongrass - saki - champagne - brandy - honey - cloves - banana - cinnamon - white truffle - chestnut horses on sun-drenched white sandy beaches - dark blue water - sea green trees - a hammock - tennis on the radio - gin and tonic ice and lime.
This is how I feel tonight.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
20th March 1995 293lbs
Just been to register at the local Temp Agency, should really think about getting some work, I have hardly any money left now and I really don't want to sign on if I can help it.
If all my cells all carry all the information needed to make a me, does that mean they contain all the experiences I can have actually or potentially? Do all my cells contain all my life, experiences, emotion? Does that make time run backwards? It feels like it does.
And, if all my cells are reducible to bits so small that they are no longer bits, but now places on a wave, movements of something, memories of something, potentials for something, is that why music 'strikes a chord within us', why 'we're on the same wavelength'? Ripples in the same one big wave that we all are really. Do those points activate, resemble, amplify, join in with the wave bits that are us, that is me? Is that what emotion is? Music? Movement? Music and movement. Didn't they teach that to us in primary school?
Education - pulling out. So do I already know everything? I just haven't remembered it yet. Can there be an everything? Wouldn't it keep moving outwards in concentric circles as the knowledge and self-awareness and point of view of the observer of the rest of it had to be taken into account to make up everything.
Why are we drawn to some things and not others? Is it all psychological? But then that would become all physical anyway. Were the bits that make up one thing or person and the bits that make up me once bits combined to make up something else and we're being drawn back together by our common ancestry our memory of each others bits?
What makes something irresistible? Why do we go off things? Are 'we' 'inhabiting' a 'space' 'in' a 'place', like a jelly mould? We don't exist as us but are filling the us shaped hole. We're held in place, held together, by everything else in its place. Nothing moves but the essences that flow through the mold. Why do I hate nuts so much? Or is it that they hate me? They're allergic to me and want to escape me? I'm very suspicious of salted peanuts. Have to keep an eye on them all the time. Sneaky bastards.
If all my cells have all the information about me in them, do all my experiences contain all the experiences I can have? No, that's not quite right. I almost had it. I thought about this on the way back from the swimming pool and I knew I'd forget it. When I was swimming it made perfect sense.
If swimming a length is the same as my whole life - A to B = effort, joy, difficulty, constant breathing, motivation, energy, skill. No it's gone, forget that for a while.
Hm, if we are souls living in jelly molds, experience is a by-product of existence, not existence itself. It's all just telephone message but we think we are telephone because that's how we exist.
What has this got to do with losing weight, I wonder? It needs to come out, I guess. That's what I promised myself. Write it all down, anything that wants to come out. No matter how silly or vain or pretentious or painful. It's just a jumble. But if this is what it has to be like to lose all this extra fat attached to my spirit, oh I meant body but spirit came out. So I'll leave it all in then.
Does it help you at all? I don't know if I'm talking to myself or a you (now as I'm writing this). Does anyone lose fat weight without losing the heavy thoughts first?
Were the Renaissance and the Enlightenment the same thing? Or at different times? Or different things at the same time? That's how I feel this year. I used to be annoyed that when I invented something, for example the turbine engine, that someone else had got there first. But now it seems as though the joy of it is not in being first or recognised, not a people social thing, but an emotional intellectual spiritual thing, of going through the process of creating and working out and being inspired.
I sometimes, regularly wonder how I would react if something disobeyed a law of nature. If I was driving along and the car in front of me disappeared before my eyes. Would I speed up into the empty space, or stop or swerve? I put my keys on top of an orange flannel in the bathroom the other day, but in a flash, snatched them back up again to stop them from falling out of existence. Crazy lady, it's not the orange ones that are the problem. It's the red ones.
When I'm alone I sometimes have the feeling that I'll look up or turn around and there'll be someone there. I wish there was someone there, I'm expecting at some stage for there to be "someone" there for me. Someone from home. Wherever home is. Do people from different cultures experience madness in cultural terms? Like heaven has a green garden and a white picket fence - actually it has a black and white tiled floor and white wrought iron tables, but that's neither here nor there - for some countries and a red dusty yard for others. So it's not an actual place, but an idea, an expression of something.
If there are aliens, as the radio keeps telling us today, I hope they keep to themselves for a while I'm enjoying all this shit and I don't want any disturbances from this journey discovery thing.
I know I should get off my fat arse and do something but it feels as though things are under control at the moment. I don't seem to have a problem with food at the moment. I eat what I want when I want it and I seem to want fruit and veg and salad all the time. I'm losing weight. My periods have started again after two years of no periods. You know when you're late and you don't want to be pregnant and you swear that you'll never ever complain ever again if only you could have a period? That was me last month 'Oh thank you, thank you, bleed, hurt, be spotty and crabby, oh the pain, oh the blood, oh the joy'.
I've got a small, clean flat to myself, I'm up-to-date with my studies (am doing 2 years of study in one year this year to speed things up a bit). I'm getting on with people. I don't want to be in a relationship again so soon after. So, apart from getting a job, and the agency now knows I am here, I'm pretty much in control and happy and peaceful with my swimming and writing and the sky and my bed. Am taking time out to get better and it's working.
Cue a 1000 catastrophes on my head. I wish I wouldn't do that, expect retribution for happiness. I do it a lot. But for fuck's sake I can't not be happy just in case I tempt fate.
I'm getting bored now, that must be a good sign?
If all my cells all carry all the information needed to make a me, does that mean they contain all the experiences I can have actually or potentially? Do all my cells contain all my life, experiences, emotion? Does that make time run backwards? It feels like it does.
And, if all my cells are reducible to bits so small that they are no longer bits, but now places on a wave, movements of something, memories of something, potentials for something, is that why music 'strikes a chord within us', why 'we're on the same wavelength'? Ripples in the same one big wave that we all are really. Do those points activate, resemble, amplify, join in with the wave bits that are us, that is me? Is that what emotion is? Music? Movement? Music and movement. Didn't they teach that to us in primary school?
Education - pulling out. So do I already know everything? I just haven't remembered it yet. Can there be an everything? Wouldn't it keep moving outwards in concentric circles as the knowledge and self-awareness and point of view of the observer of the rest of it had to be taken into account to make up everything.
Why are we drawn to some things and not others? Is it all psychological? But then that would become all physical anyway. Were the bits that make up one thing or person and the bits that make up me once bits combined to make up something else and we're being drawn back together by our common ancestry our memory of each others bits?
What makes something irresistible? Why do we go off things? Are 'we' 'inhabiting' a 'space' 'in' a 'place', like a jelly mould? We don't exist as us but are filling the us shaped hole. We're held in place, held together, by everything else in its place. Nothing moves but the essences that flow through the mold. Why do I hate nuts so much? Or is it that they hate me? They're allergic to me and want to escape me? I'm very suspicious of salted peanuts. Have to keep an eye on them all the time. Sneaky bastards.
If all my cells have all the information about me in them, do all my experiences contain all the experiences I can have? No, that's not quite right. I almost had it. I thought about this on the way back from the swimming pool and I knew I'd forget it. When I was swimming it made perfect sense.
If swimming a length is the same as my whole life - A to B = effort, joy, difficulty, constant breathing, motivation, energy, skill. No it's gone, forget that for a while.
Hm, if we are souls living in jelly molds, experience is a by-product of existence, not existence itself. It's all just telephone message but we think we are telephone because that's how we exist.
What has this got to do with losing weight, I wonder? It needs to come out, I guess. That's what I promised myself. Write it all down, anything that wants to come out. No matter how silly or vain or pretentious or painful. It's just a jumble. But if this is what it has to be like to lose all this extra fat attached to my spirit, oh I meant body but spirit came out. So I'll leave it all in then.
Does it help you at all? I don't know if I'm talking to myself or a you (now as I'm writing this). Does anyone lose fat weight without losing the heavy thoughts first?
Were the Renaissance and the Enlightenment the same thing? Or at different times? Or different things at the same time? That's how I feel this year. I used to be annoyed that when I invented something, for example the turbine engine, that someone else had got there first. But now it seems as though the joy of it is not in being first or recognised, not a people social thing, but an emotional intellectual spiritual thing, of going through the process of creating and working out and being inspired.
I sometimes, regularly wonder how I would react if something disobeyed a law of nature. If I was driving along and the car in front of me disappeared before my eyes. Would I speed up into the empty space, or stop or swerve? I put my keys on top of an orange flannel in the bathroom the other day, but in a flash, snatched them back up again to stop them from falling out of existence. Crazy lady, it's not the orange ones that are the problem. It's the red ones.
When I'm alone I sometimes have the feeling that I'll look up or turn around and there'll be someone there. I wish there was someone there, I'm expecting at some stage for there to be "someone" there for me. Someone from home. Wherever home is. Do people from different cultures experience madness in cultural terms? Like heaven has a green garden and a white picket fence - actually it has a black and white tiled floor and white wrought iron tables, but that's neither here nor there - for some countries and a red dusty yard for others. So it's not an actual place, but an idea, an expression of something.
If there are aliens, as the radio keeps telling us today, I hope they keep to themselves for a while I'm enjoying all this shit and I don't want any disturbances from this journey discovery thing.
I know I should get off my fat arse and do something but it feels as though things are under control at the moment. I don't seem to have a problem with food at the moment. I eat what I want when I want it and I seem to want fruit and veg and salad all the time. I'm losing weight. My periods have started again after two years of no periods. You know when you're late and you don't want to be pregnant and you swear that you'll never ever complain ever again if only you could have a period? That was me last month 'Oh thank you, thank you, bleed, hurt, be spotty and crabby, oh the pain, oh the blood, oh the joy'.
I've got a small, clean flat to myself, I'm up-to-date with my studies (am doing 2 years of study in one year this year to speed things up a bit). I'm getting on with people. I don't want to be in a relationship again so soon after. So, apart from getting a job, and the agency now knows I am here, I'm pretty much in control and happy and peaceful with my swimming and writing and the sky and my bed. Am taking time out to get better and it's working.
Cue a 1000 catastrophes on my head. I wish I wouldn't do that, expect retribution for happiness. I do it a lot. But for fuck's sake I can't not be happy just in case I tempt fate.
I'm getting bored now, that must be a good sign?
20th March 1995 still 12pm (spellcheckers, pah)
If you say, 'this food - yes, and only then. That food - no, never again.' it's too difficult. Balance. Trust between mind and body. Too much confusion, thinking spoils it. Your body knows, it can think for itself.
Who gets fat?
People.
Which people?
Those who think about food.
Who doesn't get fat?
People whose bodies do the thinking for them.
Mind?
Yes body.
I need tomatoes and chocolate
Ok
= not a fat person
It still feels very scary. Susie Orbach says it's right. No restrictions. Scary. It's happening though. Slowly and steadily. I'm losing weight now. Like never before. It's too easy.
I had steak and kidney pudding the other night, with chips, because that's what I wanted, and still, because I'd had salad, albeit willingly, all week. When I got it home I felt almost too sorry for it to eat it. Not thought, felt. It wasn't the wrong food, or bad or evil as I'd always thought. It was just steak and kidney pudding and chips and I ate it and I enjoyed it and I felt full. But not that 'I ate steak and kidney pudding and chips and you couldn't stop me because you didn't know so fuck you' full. Not even, 'it's inevitable and I'll stop doing this tomorrow'. Just 'hmm, that was lovely', what shall I do (not eat) next?
I've almost got there with biscuits. I used to have 2 sandwiches, and 2 bags of crisps and an ice cream Mars bar and an ice cream Crunchie and a Kitkat and a flake and a packet of biscuits for lunch.
I was bingeing, but thought I was just eating lunch. If you'd asked me if I binged, I would say with total honesty and sincerity, 'oh no, I don't do that'. I was totally shocked when I realised one day what I was doing, that that word #bingeing# applied to what I was doing : 0
I thought it was just lunch.
Oh well. I probably had more than that some days. Asking me to eat less than a whole packet of biscuits in one sitting would have been like asking me to <>.
Now I'm eating them 2 or 3 at a time, over a few days, putting them back into the cupboard in-between time and leaving them there.
I even had half of one the other day, decided I didn't really feel like a biscuit and put the other half back. It makes me want to cry with relief, disbelief and happiness just writing that.
I'm not brave enough to try this with chocolate biscuits yet, but Rich Tea and Arrowroot are my stabiliser training beginner biscuits. I can do these.
And since I started writing I haven't wanted to eat ice cream at all. How did I do it? Eat all that, I mean. One litre of ice cream (two really, but I'm not admitting to that), 2 packets of biscuits, two bags of crisps for an afternoon snack. After lunch. After a breakfast of 2 bowls of cereal, 4 slices of jam and toast, 2 cups of tea with milk and sugar. Throw in 3 packets of extra strong mints, 2 litres of Coke (Diet), and twenty Marlboro lights and it's nearly time for dinner. Kebab and chips, or curry and rice or (note the ors not ands) chinese, pizza, McyDs. Hot milky chocolate at bedtime. Then, snacks....
I went to see this professor at a big London hospital. Not helpful. He suggested I get my boyfriend to take away my cash and credit cards, or to chain me to a radiator, or to build a set or iron bars into the doorway to the kitchen too small for me to get through. He showed me a photo of someone's kitchen doorway, someone who had done that. Chain to a radiator with a chain, to a radiator, while he was out at work for the day. There's no denying that might work.
He also said 'just drink milk'. I took part in his study to see if just drinking milk would help, by day 2 I was mixing every milk drink with sachets of hot chocolate, by day 3 there was no day 3.
Healthy way: feel hungry, think food, eat food, stop.
Unhealthy way: think about food, eat, think, eat, eat, think, think, eat, think, eat, eat, don't stop
I'm going swimming now. I'm looking forward to it, except it's Monday. The worst day, full of people who are thinking 'it's Monday a fresh new start. It's going to be ok'. Tuesday is better. Thursday is the best day, by then it's close enough to the next week that people are thinking, 'It's too late for this week, too close to the weekend, I'll start again next week, on Monday'.
Who gets fat?
People.
Which people?
Those who think about food.
Who doesn't get fat?
People whose bodies do the thinking for them.
Mind?
Yes body.
I need tomatoes and chocolate
Ok
= not a fat person
It still feels very scary. Susie Orbach says it's right. No restrictions. Scary. It's happening though. Slowly and steadily. I'm losing weight now. Like never before. It's too easy.
I had steak and kidney pudding the other night, with chips, because that's what I wanted, and still, because I'd had salad, albeit willingly, all week. When I got it home I felt almost too sorry for it to eat it. Not thought, felt. It wasn't the wrong food, or bad or evil as I'd always thought. It was just steak and kidney pudding and chips and I ate it and I enjoyed it and I felt full. But not that 'I ate steak and kidney pudding and chips and you couldn't stop me because you didn't know so fuck you' full. Not even, 'it's inevitable and I'll stop doing this tomorrow'. Just 'hmm, that was lovely', what shall I do (not eat) next?
I've almost got there with biscuits. I used to have 2 sandwiches, and 2 bags of crisps and an ice cream Mars bar and an ice cream Crunchie and a Kitkat and a flake and a packet of biscuits for lunch.
I was bingeing, but thought I was just eating lunch. If you'd asked me if I binged, I would say with total honesty and sincerity, 'oh no, I don't do that'. I was totally shocked when I realised one day what I was doing, that that word #bingeing# applied to what I was doing : 0
I thought it was just lunch.
Oh well. I probably had more than that some days. Asking me to eat less than a whole packet of biscuits in one sitting would have been like asking me to <
Now I'm eating them 2 or 3 at a time, over a few days, putting them back into the cupboard in-between time and leaving them there.
I even had half of one the other day, decided I didn't really feel like a biscuit and put the other half back. It makes me want to cry with relief, disbelief and happiness just writing that.
I'm not brave enough to try this with chocolate biscuits yet, but Rich Tea and Arrowroot are my stabiliser training beginner biscuits. I can do these.
And since I started writing I haven't wanted to eat ice cream at all. How did I do it? Eat all that, I mean. One litre of ice cream (two really, but I'm not admitting to that), 2 packets of biscuits, two bags of crisps for an afternoon snack. After lunch. After a breakfast of 2 bowls of cereal, 4 slices of jam and toast, 2 cups of tea with milk and sugar. Throw in 3 packets of extra strong mints, 2 litres of Coke (Diet), and twenty Marlboro lights and it's nearly time for dinner. Kebab and chips, or curry and rice or (note the ors not ands) chinese, pizza, McyDs. Hot milky chocolate at bedtime. Then, snacks....
I went to see this professor at a big London hospital. Not helpful. He suggested I get my boyfriend to take away my cash and credit cards, or to chain me to a radiator, or to build a set or iron bars into the doorway to the kitchen too small for me to get through. He showed me a photo of someone's kitchen doorway, someone who had done that. Chain to a radiator with a chain, to a radiator, while he was out at work for the day. There's no denying that might work.
He also said 'just drink milk'. I took part in his study to see if just drinking milk would help, by day 2 I was mixing every milk drink with sachets of hot chocolate, by day 3 there was no day 3.
Healthy way: feel hungry, think food, eat food, stop.
Unhealthy way: think about food, eat, think, eat, eat, think, think, eat, think, eat, eat, don't stop
I'm going swimming now. I'm looking forward to it, except it's Monday. The worst day, full of people who are thinking 'it's Monday a fresh new start. It's going to be ok'. Tuesday is better. Thursday is the best day, by then it's close enough to the next week that people are thinking, 'It's too late for this week, too close to the weekend, I'll start again next week, on Monday'.
20th March 1995 12pm
Yesterday was like sitting in a quiet place when 2 orange Tango men appear, one on either side and one shouts YES, the other No at the same time. My head is still buzzing, thoughts funnelling, bustling, jostling, pushing to get out. I can't hold onto one thing for very long. My body feels better though. Almost still. Still a bit twitchy. A little bit of weak current still sparking, dully, here and there, fizz, running through then out. But much better.
Where has all that energy gone? It used to go in eating. I'd eat hard, shop for food hard, stuff it all in. Quick, hard and secret. Disperse that energy, diffuse it, expend it. Eat it all up.
What is it about music that touches me, us? How does it work? Why do some sounds make us cry or whoop with pleasure? Where's the point that the sound, vibrations and the emotional response meet? What happens there? Why? Why does it make us want to dance? Twanging that emotion. How can an idea make me cry? It's not real. Is there an essential truth? I'm so confused. I need to get a job. Photocopying. A dull job, numbing. I can't handle all this thought and emotion. It needs damping down, I need a bit of plodding.
I get weighed today - once a week, at Boots on the public scales.
I feel so dumb and stupid. I know nothing and find it embarrassing. All those dead souls in heaven listening to all my thoughts and watching me and laughing because I've almost got there and then, I'm sure I've got something and then, poof! It's gone and I'm left with an empty head again. I read this thing about not giving up. I don't know what stopped me every time, killing myself. What was it? It's not over till it's over. This thing said, don't give up because you never know when one more day or one more hour would make the difference, you might be just one more step from your goal. What's my goal? I don't know.
Losing weight?
Trusting my body?
I think too much. Thinking is a tricky business. Exquisite delight. Pain and torment. Too much thinking. Doing is better. Feeling and doing. Experience is flatter than thinking. Think about it and it's complicated.
Do you know "Iron" in "The Periodic Table"? I recognised him immediately. As something alien to me. Someone I could never be. I couldn't feel it. Just did and was. How? How do you be sure and stable and certain? I don't know.
Where has all that energy gone? It used to go in eating. I'd eat hard, shop for food hard, stuff it all in. Quick, hard and secret. Disperse that energy, diffuse it, expend it. Eat it all up.
What is it about music that touches me, us? How does it work? Why do some sounds make us cry or whoop with pleasure? Where's the point that the sound, vibrations and the emotional response meet? What happens there? Why? Why does it make us want to dance? Twanging that emotion. How can an idea make me cry? It's not real. Is there an essential truth? I'm so confused. I need to get a job. Photocopying. A dull job, numbing. I can't handle all this thought and emotion. It needs damping down, I need a bit of plodding.
I get weighed today - once a week, at Boots on the public scales.
I feel so dumb and stupid. I know nothing and find it embarrassing. All those dead souls in heaven listening to all my thoughts and watching me and laughing because I've almost got there and then, I'm sure I've got something and then, poof! It's gone and I'm left with an empty head again. I read this thing about not giving up. I don't know what stopped me every time, killing myself. What was it? It's not over till it's over. This thing said, don't give up because you never know when one more day or one more hour would make the difference, you might be just one more step from your goal. What's my goal? I don't know.
Losing weight?
Trusting my body?
I think too much. Thinking is a tricky business. Exquisite delight. Pain and torment. Too much thinking. Doing is better. Feeling and doing. Experience is flatter than thinking. Think about it and it's complicated.
Do you know "Iron" in "The Periodic Table"? I recognised him immediately. As something alien to me. Someone I could never be. I couldn't feel it. Just did and was. How? How do you be sure and stable and certain? I don't know.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
12th March 1995 a bit later and when I look at all this now it looks like the ramblings of a mad narcissistic self-indulgent tantrum throwing teenager
Most times in the coming and going of the oppressive pain and misery and black white cold heat I wouldn't be able to get my fingertips into the fissure. Something in "Coma" maybe the thought of me sailing away to death, I worked up the momentum to leave my room and go to the Doctors. Just like that. I could always get fish and chips on the way home if nothing else.
When I got there I came out with some bobbins about having a sore throat. At one point he walked out of the room to get one of those flat wooden things to hold my tongue down with and I just dissolved into tears. I was going to bottle out. I couldn't say "I'm depressed, I'm suicidal, I need help". When he came back and asked what was wrong I knew if I didn't get the words out this endurable unendurable pain would just go on and on and on. So I told him.
He was pretty cool about it. He arranged an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist and that was that. Done over and sorted. I felt as though someone had approached me in the street and said 'If you sign this blank sheet of paper I will give you a big bag of money', and I signed and they did. Like, is that it? Where's the catch? Why haven't the shutters come down? Where are the wailing sirens and men with restraints?
It was never quite as bad again. Still hurt, depressed, confused, suicidal, begging for release, locked in my room, staying in bed, 24 hour eating and TV, stuffing my face, but never quite as bad. Maybe it was knowing that there was such a smooth system for dealing with me, that there had to be others. I still felt marked out for a shit emotional life, but a well-established procedure meant maybe there had been others before me, maybe others now. There might be ways of healing my head. I couldn't be quite the only me. And being alike meant not being so alone.
I was still very reluctant to go and see the psychiatrist (guess the fear of hope had to be dealt with by switching from the fear of hopelessness) because it felt like voluntarily signing up for a programme of brainwashing and I should resist that at all costs. I'd rather have the pain that was real than the peace that was not me. I didn't want to be a fluffy bunny head. I didn't want a New Age grin, a Hare Krishna dance of joy. I'd rather keep cynicism and pain. I didn't want to lose myself. Just the immobility. I was terrified of what I wanted. Terrified of being ambitious for and satisfied with this stereotypical ideal of a 'happy life'. Job, house, marriage, kids, death. I'd rather just die. And yet I wouldn't. Can't have it both ways. That way lies cream cakes and fish and chips.
I wish I'd kept a record of what I felt then, but it all just sounds like words anyway. You'd never believe I felt as bad as you. I'd just hate myself in the morning.
The psychiatrist was pretty useless, just gave me Prozac and told me to imagine a happy triangle of good things. Probably that's not how it happened, but it was the way it seemed. It helped though. After 9 months I decided I'd had enough and stopped. I felt pretty normal, not up or down, just okay. Still suspicious and wary, but okay.
The thing that helped me most was finding out about other people, people I knew, who were taking it to, seeking help, had had lithium, cocaine, sex, vodka, food, reflexology, massage, been committed. I suppose I didn't notice those who dealt with life by sharing and exercise and feeling what needed to be felt when it needed to be felt how it needed to be felt. I assumed that meant they didn't feel in the first place, manageable meant negligible.
Did I just know a bunch of freaks? I don't think so. Married, single, straight, gay, in their 20s and 30s, housewives, students, nurses, something in the city, surveyors, actors, accountants, waiters and writers. They were my 'move your arse I can't see the TV' people. 'I'll have one if you're making one' people. Friends, not strangers. How had I missed all this? Looking inwards and not outwards. It seemed that I just couldn't tell who was like me and who was happy. It was so random. The ones you'd most and least expect, both ways, happy or like me. Good looking, good job, good education, lots of friends, funny, good at sport, - could be happy or like me. It was funny.
Until they told me, I didn't know "I had electric shock therapy"; "I got the pills ready"; "dogs talk to me on the common"; "I held a gun in my mouth". I didn't know. I'd heard the words, but it had never been real, real people. I felt normal, part of the world, in a world that had a place for me. Still not an 'ideal' identity, but an identity, and 'ideal' was dissolving.
I missed it too. I had been special because of this. I wasn't special any more. I wasn't even the worst. I didn't have the best stories. I wasn't good enough at being depressed, special. "Like, I was so special, I'm so sensitive and deep and complicated". Now I was just another miserable person who couldn't cope with the world and everything in it. I hadn't hidden it very well. I was so overweight, dressed like a tramp, didn't wash, didn't work, stayed at home a lot and ignored the phone and ate.
I just kept eating for every reason and no reason. In 1985 I was a size 10/12 135lbs, by 1993, 313lbs. I didn't have a bad childhood, wasn't abused, didn't feel poor or deprived, didn't do drugs or get drunk too much.
In a stupour for a decade.
I need a break.
When I got there I came out with some bobbins about having a sore throat. At one point he walked out of the room to get one of those flat wooden things to hold my tongue down with and I just dissolved into tears. I was going to bottle out. I couldn't say "I'm depressed, I'm suicidal, I need help". When he came back and asked what was wrong I knew if I didn't get the words out this endurable unendurable pain would just go on and on and on. So I told him.
He was pretty cool about it. He arranged an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist and that was that. Done over and sorted. I felt as though someone had approached me in the street and said 'If you sign this blank sheet of paper I will give you a big bag of money', and I signed and they did. Like, is that it? Where's the catch? Why haven't the shutters come down? Where are the wailing sirens and men with restraints?
It was never quite as bad again. Still hurt, depressed, confused, suicidal, begging for release, locked in my room, staying in bed, 24 hour eating and TV, stuffing my face, but never quite as bad. Maybe it was knowing that there was such a smooth system for dealing with me, that there had to be others. I still felt marked out for a shit emotional life, but a well-established procedure meant maybe there had been others before me, maybe others now. There might be ways of healing my head. I couldn't be quite the only me. And being alike meant not being so alone.
I was still very reluctant to go and see the psychiatrist (guess the fear of hope had to be dealt with by switching from the fear of hopelessness) because it felt like voluntarily signing up for a programme of brainwashing and I should resist that at all costs. I'd rather have the pain that was real than the peace that was not me. I didn't want to be a fluffy bunny head. I didn't want a New Age grin, a Hare Krishna dance of joy. I'd rather keep cynicism and pain. I didn't want to lose myself. Just the immobility. I was terrified of what I wanted. Terrified of being ambitious for and satisfied with this stereotypical ideal of a 'happy life'. Job, house, marriage, kids, death. I'd rather just die. And yet I wouldn't. Can't have it both ways. That way lies cream cakes and fish and chips.
I wish I'd kept a record of what I felt then, but it all just sounds like words anyway. You'd never believe I felt as bad as you. I'd just hate myself in the morning.
The psychiatrist was pretty useless, just gave me Prozac and told me to imagine a happy triangle of good things. Probably that's not how it happened, but it was the way it seemed. It helped though. After 9 months I decided I'd had enough and stopped. I felt pretty normal, not up or down, just okay. Still suspicious and wary, but okay.
The thing that helped me most was finding out about other people, people I knew, who were taking it to, seeking help, had had lithium, cocaine, sex, vodka, food, reflexology, massage, been committed. I suppose I didn't notice those who dealt with life by sharing and exercise and feeling what needed to be felt when it needed to be felt how it needed to be felt. I assumed that meant they didn't feel in the first place, manageable meant negligible.
Did I just know a bunch of freaks? I don't think so. Married, single, straight, gay, in their 20s and 30s, housewives, students, nurses, something in the city, surveyors, actors, accountants, waiters and writers. They were my 'move your arse I can't see the TV' people. 'I'll have one if you're making one' people. Friends, not strangers. How had I missed all this? Looking inwards and not outwards. It seemed that I just couldn't tell who was like me and who was happy. It was so random. The ones you'd most and least expect, both ways, happy or like me. Good looking, good job, good education, lots of friends, funny, good at sport, - could be happy or like me. It was funny.
Until they told me, I didn't know "I had electric shock therapy"; "I got the pills ready"; "dogs talk to me on the common"; "I held a gun in my mouth". I didn't know. I'd heard the words, but it had never been real, real people. I felt normal, part of the world, in a world that had a place for me. Still not an 'ideal' identity, but an identity, and 'ideal' was dissolving.
I missed it too. I had been special because of this. I wasn't special any more. I wasn't even the worst. I didn't have the best stories. I wasn't good enough at being depressed, special. "Like, I was so special, I'm so sensitive and deep and complicated". Now I was just another miserable person who couldn't cope with the world and everything in it. I hadn't hidden it very well. I was so overweight, dressed like a tramp, didn't wash, didn't work, stayed at home a lot and ignored the phone and ate.
I just kept eating for every reason and no reason. In 1985 I was a size 10/12 135lbs, by 1993, 313lbs. I didn't have a bad childhood, wasn't abused, didn't feel poor or deprived, didn't do drugs or get drunk too much.
In a stupour for a decade.
I need a break.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
12th March 1995 Oo, Time Travel - Spooky
Me in the summer of 1992 - close to suicide a thousand times a day; 270lbs; unemployed; locked in my room; lots of friends; in a 'happy enough' 7 year relationship; angry; hopeless; lost.
Me now - fairly happy; 300lbs; unemployed again; alone; freshly dumped from a 9 year relationship.
In my head it all feels sorted. I'm already slim again in my head. It's all sorted except the expression of it, the details. I just need to empty everything out and wait. I'm still fat, but that's just timing. No-one believes me yet, they still see the fat. This time next year they'll see how I feel now because my body will have caught up with my mind. Light from a troubled star. It looks fiery and stormy all ablaze, but now, there, it's calm and cool.
I always used to think wishing to be happy was a wasted wish. Being rich or beautiful would make me happy anyway, so why not wish for that. I didn't get that being happy would also make me happy. And rich and beautiful *might* not.
I was slim, I was very attractive, I had money, I was bright, I was loved by the man I wanted to be loved by, I had everything I was looking for and cocked it all up because I spent all my time wishing I was happy.
It started to change when I heard this news report on the radio about a young man who had died after taking ecstasy and my first, instinctive reaction was "lucky bastard" and I sort of revelled in having had that reaction too. Shocked delight. When I thought about it -he might not have wanted to die. I'd assumed everybody did, really.
It began to seem odd to me that I'd assumed that so certainly. The next day I spent all day on my bed listening to music, "Coma" a lot, crying for my life, planning to kill myself over and over again. Out of nowhere a twinge of sadness that it had to be this way, it was so inevitable. What kept other people alive? How did they deal with these feelings? Not those who had these feelings, I was thinking of those who actually didn't, or so it turns out.
Is it possible for this to be different? Was depression reality, or just an option? Am I wrong? Could I be someone different? What would that be like? Curiosity. If it didn't lead to a perfect life I could always kill myself on another day.
Me now - fairly happy; 300lbs; unemployed again; alone; freshly dumped from a 9 year relationship.
In my head it all feels sorted. I'm already slim again in my head. It's all sorted except the expression of it, the details. I just need to empty everything out and wait. I'm still fat, but that's just timing. No-one believes me yet, they still see the fat. This time next year they'll see how I feel now because my body will have caught up with my mind. Light from a troubled star. It looks fiery and stormy all ablaze, but now, there, it's calm and cool.
I always used to think wishing to be happy was a wasted wish. Being rich or beautiful would make me happy anyway, so why not wish for that. I didn't get that being happy would also make me happy. And rich and beautiful *might* not.
I was slim, I was very attractive, I had money, I was bright, I was loved by the man I wanted to be loved by, I had everything I was looking for and cocked it all up because I spent all my time wishing I was happy.
It started to change when I heard this news report on the radio about a young man who had died after taking ecstasy and my first, instinctive reaction was "lucky bastard" and I sort of revelled in having had that reaction too. Shocked delight. When I thought about it -he might not have wanted to die. I'd assumed everybody did, really.
It began to seem odd to me that I'd assumed that so certainly. The next day I spent all day on my bed listening to music, "Coma" a lot, crying for my life, planning to kill myself over and over again. Out of nowhere a twinge of sadness that it had to be this way, it was so inevitable. What kept other people alive? How did they deal with these feelings? Not those who had these feelings, I was thinking of those who actually didn't, or so it turns out.
Is it possible for this to be different? Was depression reality, or just an option? Am I wrong? Could I be someone different? What would that be like? Curiosity. If it didn't lead to a perfect life I could always kill myself on another day.
20th March 1995 10.00am
Found this from my diary in 1994 :
"When Kurt Cobain killed himself I was so angry. Really angry. Silently screaming, shouting, stunned, shocked and angry. I wasn't really that into him. I played Nevermind quite a lot, but never gave him a second thought.
.
I was on my own when I saw it on TV. All my housemates had gone to Poland. I didn't want to go. I was too fat. I wanted to be alone, to get my head straight in the peace and quiet of an empty house. I thought then I'd be myself again, okay. And, that when they got back life would be good.
.
I don't know why I was so angry. It wasn't for doing it, it was what I wanted to do every day. It might have been that although I couldn't hold out any hope for myself, just -
flat, lifeless, bemused - What? What the fuck do you want from me? Leave me alone. I can't feel good. I don't want to. I just want to go back to bed. But I'm scared and I'm nothing inside and I've too much inside. It's all boiling over and I've got to get it out. Kill something, someone, myself, or die or go mad. I want you to save me. I can't do it alone. There's no have, no solution. Nobody knows how I feel, there's something wrong with me. How can you all get through life so easily, through the day? How do you all do it?
- I'd thought some image of a man could give it to me. But he killed himself and made me think, there is no hope, absolutely no hope. If there was help to be had, he would have had got it. If money, fame and talent and good looks and a wife and baby aren't enough, aren't the solution, what else is there that could be?
.
People say they love me, and show it, but I can't feel it. I can't get hold of it, touch it. I know one day I will kill myself and I know it has to be that way, nothing I do or try and keep failing to do is going to change me. Hope just killed itself.
.
It feels hard just to be alive. I'm so powerless, all I can do is nothing. Or cry, or eat. I don't want to know this but at least it's real. I wish I could have my old Saturday job back, I want to be a shop assistant. I don't need this brain. I don't want it. No brain, no idea. I'd be happy again, I wouldn't know any better. Ambition is a curse. Intelligence is a curse. A damnation.
.
If I could be anything I'd be stupid and beautiful. Do stupid beautiful people ever kill themselves? What else would I need? Nothing I'd be happy and taken care of and loved and able to love myself. But I'm not stupid and not beautiful. I'm fairly bright and I've made myself fat and ugly to punish myself, or the world. "Look what you made me do". "I hurt and care".
.
I don't know and I just wish I could stop thinking about it and just get on with things. But it's so hard. I'm weighed down and dumb, scared and angry. I hate you and I hate myself.
.
I know I'm not the only one. I can hear it in some music, with and without the words. In the words, with and without the music. I can feel the frustration, absurdity, rage, fear and confusion, the desire and apathy, fantasy and reality. Is it in the music? Or in me? Or everything?
.
I think I've found the answers in it, or in old poetry or books, but it doesn't last long. They seem to be answers, but they're just reflections, just echoes, a communal howl. We all feel this together, but I never believe you feel this quite as much as I do.
.
I want you to give me the solution, but I don't want to lose myself. So I'll hold onto this pain, it's me, and if the alternative is a Stepford Wife, well I'd rather die."
Passion without direction. Apathy with a purpose. Things are in the last place you look because once you find them you stop looking. Jesus was a surfer dude. A storyteller zen man. He had the answers but it didn't help him or us. Kill your idols. etc.
20th March 1995 1.00am and a bit
I'm not afraid of death. Never have been. A few times, especially recently, I've wanted to not die because I'm enjoying being alive, the beauty of the world, the humour, the books, the music, the stories of the films, the look of people. Life is a senses thing. I can't understand being afraid of death. Either it's nothing, so no problem, or it's something else, and how can you not be curious to know.
.
Sometimes I've felt impatient to die, to go home. To find out. Not the depressed 'I'm so unhappy I want to die' wanting to die. What's outside? What's next? Is it more of the same? Is it a communal thing? Are we atoms that are making-up something bigger? Is it all the same but on larger and larger scales? Is our universe a single atom in something bigger and the same again? Which cell is the Soul Cell?
.
If we lived (like this) forever what would we do? Dying gives life meaning? What is the meaning of death? Life means nothing, death is everything.
.
Do you ever get those flash pictures at night? In the dark. A bright flash of an image that's usually a face, always a different one. Looking with my eyes open, not vizualising. That scares me too. I feel uneasy afterwards as I don't want to open my eyes in case the face is really there. It's like a camera shutter, click flash, the face is there and now the shutter's closed and it's back to imagining.
.
I'm trying to describe some things about me. What it's like on my side of this skin I'm in. Is it the same for you? What happens inside you? I can only see you on the outside, hear what you say, not how it feels for you. Why are we different? Are we more the same than different? Or more different than the same?
.
If you could be someone else for the day, would it make any sense to you? How would you interpret what's happening? Would you do it in your way? Or their way? Would you be you or them? Would it be best to have you and them inside their body? Just you and their body? Or you as them, become then and then process the memories of being them when you are back in you again. If they laughed where you might have lost your temper would you understand why? Could you feel why? If you were yourself and in someone else at the same time, you'd be able to see how you would react to you, and you reacting to them.
.
I'm going to bed. I don't want to sleep. Love sleep. Hate sleep. I want to be awake all the time, but sleeping is so beautiful and relaxing and warm and safe and comfortable. Well, both sides of it are, I assume the middle bit is too. Is that like life - before and after? Maybe it's all just a dream, just dreams in something else's sleep. Just a dream in our 'life'. Maybe real life is on both sides of this dreamlife. Is it a collective dream, or are you all mine?
20th March 1995 1.00am
I'm on this massive high, have been for a few days, but today, tonight, it's too much. I'm frightened, it's making me cry. I need a friend. A strong friend. I've never not had a friend before, a soul-mate type friend:
No1 - 5 to 18 years
No2 - 19 to 20
No3 - 20 to 29.
So, I suppose this is good now, 29 years and 6 months, that I'm on my own, learning to live, learning to just be. But tonight it doesn't feel so good.
It's so vast, so wide, so deep. I don't feel at the bottom of a pit anymore - instead I'm dead centre of the universe: universe / experience ground zero.
I've been swimming a lot recently. I had a jolt one day when I realised I could stretch out my arms and legs as far as I wanted without touching anything - it felt so unusual, liked I'd been caged in a, well, cage, for such a long time. It stayed with me for days. Then, on another day, I swam. Just swam. No thinking, no tension, no thoughts, no touching, no effort, nothing, just swimming. It was exquisite. But I don't know if my pleasure in it came whilst doing, or in the second when I realised I was doing.
If I feel this good now, filled with energy and joy, compassion and laughter, whilst I'm so overweight, unemployed and alone, I'm scared that, I'm not exactly sure why I'm scared.
Recurring thoughts, I've had a few, but then again.....I don't like this one. I've had it since I was 9. I dive into a swimming pool and either I dive too far or the edges of the pool move together and I end up on the other side of the pool. Or I just scrape into the pool against the wall on the other side. Very infuriating. It even happens if I go to the other end of the pool, lengthways on, it's just never big enough. If I do get in it's never big enough, it just seems so, so small, too small to swim, and getting smaller. Sometimes a clear lid comes over the top - it makes me angry.
Another one is fun, but more difficult to describe. It most often happens when I'm in bed about to fall asleep and I know how it feels, but how to describe it?
It feels as though I'm bouncing on a trampoline in outer space winding wool off my hands. (Hmm). I'm holding the wool on my hands and moving them, you know how you do when someone is winding the wool into a ball, where it's just one long string wrapped around your hands. It's the motion, not moving physically, but internally, another dimension. Like a black hole breathing, like the universe-is-the-skin-of-a-balloon thing, being blown up and let down. In, out, up, down, all together. Regular, controlled, zooming in and out, wibble wobble, like the waa waa peddle on a guitar. Like the fairground ride - four arms, four cars on each arm, going round, going backwards and forwards, inwards and out, to the edge and round to the middle and round, everything at once. And the wool is pink or brown or rust or orange or red.
No1 - 5 to 18 years
No2 - 19 to 20
No3 - 20 to 29.
So, I suppose this is good now, 29 years and 6 months, that I'm on my own, learning to live, learning to just be. But tonight it doesn't feel so good.
It's so vast, so wide, so deep. I don't feel at the bottom of a pit anymore - instead I'm dead centre of the universe: universe / experience ground zero.
I've been swimming a lot recently. I had a jolt one day when I realised I could stretch out my arms and legs as far as I wanted without touching anything - it felt so unusual, liked I'd been caged in a, well, cage, for such a long time. It stayed with me for days. Then, on another day, I swam. Just swam. No thinking, no tension, no thoughts, no touching, no effort, nothing, just swimming. It was exquisite. But I don't know if my pleasure in it came whilst doing, or in the second when I realised I was doing.
If I feel this good now, filled with energy and joy, compassion and laughter, whilst I'm so overweight, unemployed and alone, I'm scared that, I'm not exactly sure why I'm scared.
Recurring thoughts, I've had a few, but then again.....I don't like this one. I've had it since I was 9. I dive into a swimming pool and either I dive too far or the edges of the pool move together and I end up on the other side of the pool. Or I just scrape into the pool against the wall on the other side. Very infuriating. It even happens if I go to the other end of the pool, lengthways on, it's just never big enough. If I do get in it's never big enough, it just seems so, so small, too small to swim, and getting smaller. Sometimes a clear lid comes over the top - it makes me angry.
Another one is fun, but more difficult to describe. It most often happens when I'm in bed about to fall asleep and I know how it feels, but how to describe it?
It feels as though I'm bouncing on a trampoline in outer space winding wool off my hands. (Hmm). I'm holding the wool on my hands and moving them, you know how you do when someone is winding the wool into a ball, where it's just one long string wrapped around your hands. It's the motion, not moving physically, but internally, another dimension. Like a black hole breathing, like the universe-is-the-skin-of-a-balloon thing, being blown up and let down. In, out, up, down, all together. Regular, controlled, zooming in and out, wibble wobble, like the waa waa peddle on a guitar. Like the fairground ride - four arms, four cars on each arm, going round, going backwards and forwards, inwards and out, to the edge and round to the middle and round, everything at once. And the wool is pink or brown or rust or orange or red.
19th March 1995
I can't believe he's gay! What a shocker. Not that it should make the slightest bit of difference to me. Not as though I'd ever meet him. Not as though if I did meet him he would be in the slightest bit interested in me. It really shouldn't matter at all. But I like to have a little reality in my fantasy. It's what gets me through the days and nights. I don't want reality 24 hours a day.
Apart from this it's going pretty well. Funny co-incidence yesterday about objective self-awareness. Well, it made me laugh.
I'm not quite back in my head all the time, but most of it. I can feel things coming together. Like film of a chimney-stack being blown-up, running backwards. My life is a backwards blown-up chimney stack. What bollocks.
Last night very excellent documentary about Charles Bukowski. If he hadn't been, or I didn't know he had, how would I feel today? Less sane, more alone. Sean Penn, what a poppet.
Too much to say. I can't control it.
I'm so angry about this news. I wanted him for me and even though it could never be, now it can never be.
Ides of March last week. If today was 31st December 1999 I couldn't feel any more like this was the end of one era and the start of a new one. It's a bit troublesome, but there's potential. Full of portents, portenteous. Like today - beautiful blue sky, big fluffy white clouds, hailstone. Nearly vernal equinox.
It's too immense, like Micromegas, there's something there, it's all there, I can feel it, I know it, but I can't quite see it or think it because it's too big and it won't all fit into my head at the same time.
I can see a huge eye, and I know I'm looking at a face, but its scale is too grand for me to be able to describe it as one thing. Is it God? Am I mad?
I think I've got it, then it's gone.
I feel enormous, not physically, not bad. I feel as though I could run across the universe, striding over galaxies, running fast and hard, big steps, speed, fast, hard running. Run harder. It's too small, I need to fly into infinity. I don't want to touch anything. No end, no boundary, faster, faster, harder, run, swim, fly, run. Speeding up. Swooping and tumbling slowly down, falling through the sky, falling from the sky.
Controlled, flying, slowing, coming down to land, near the ground, above the grass. Step down onto the grass. Lie down by a river, listening to the water. Trickle. Rush. Pure. Clean, fresh, refreshing. gentle warm breeze, trees with leaves, rustle. Peace.
Apart from this it's going pretty well. Funny co-incidence yesterday about objective self-awareness. Well, it made me laugh.
I'm not quite back in my head all the time, but most of it. I can feel things coming together. Like film of a chimney-stack being blown-up, running backwards. My life is a backwards blown-up chimney stack. What bollocks.
Last night very excellent documentary about Charles Bukowski. If he hadn't been, or I didn't know he had, how would I feel today? Less sane, more alone. Sean Penn, what a poppet.
Too much to say. I can't control it.
I'm so angry about this news. I wanted him for me and even though it could never be, now it can never be.
Ides of March last week. If today was 31st December 1999 I couldn't feel any more like this was the end of one era and the start of a new one. It's a bit troublesome, but there's potential. Full of portents, portenteous. Like today - beautiful blue sky, big fluffy white clouds, hailstone. Nearly vernal equinox.
It's too immense, like Micromegas, there's something there, it's all there, I can feel it, I know it, but I can't quite see it or think it because it's too big and it won't all fit into my head at the same time.
I can see a huge eye, and I know I'm looking at a face, but its scale is too grand for me to be able to describe it as one thing. Is it God? Am I mad?
I think I've got it, then it's gone.
I feel enormous, not physically, not bad. I feel as though I could run across the universe, striding over galaxies, running fast and hard, big steps, speed, fast, hard running. Run harder. It's too small, I need to fly into infinity. I don't want to touch anything. No end, no boundary, faster, faster, harder, run, swim, fly, run. Speeding up. Swooping and tumbling slowly down, falling through the sky, falling from the sky.
Controlled, flying, slowing, coming down to land, near the ground, above the grass. Step down onto the grass. Lie down by a river, listening to the water. Trickle. Rush. Pure. Clean, fresh, refreshing. gentle warm breeze, trees with leaves, rustle. Peace.
18th March 1995
Last night I dreamt I was a squirrel.
That's not true, why did I say that?
I will be an acorn.
I fell from the tree, I think, I don't remember.
I can see the tree. I have a memory of living there.
Degrees of dead.
I need food and sleep, but that's not what I want.
I want to stay awake and be 24 hour being.
Wide, wide awake, but so sleepy.
I was so little as an acorn in a big noisy forest.
I seeped milky acorn tears at my littleness.
So small.
Such a tiny acorn.
My world is upside down.
I'm breathing all confusion.
I cuddled up to the wall for comfort.
The wall was a good wall. The wall held me close.
Big hugs, wall.
Watch me wall, won't you? Look out for me.
So sleepy now.
Nooooooo.
Where's the tree gone?
Where's the wall?
It's dark and heavy.
Too much for a little acorn. You're popping me.
Let me free.
Where's my forest gone?
So cold and damp and heavy.
I have to burst to stop the pressure.
Go away darkness.
I'm upside down again.
All gone.
It's funny.
All broken.
It tickles.
Insides out.
Warm all over.
I can feel my acorn blood.
I can feel it moving. Pumping.
Not pumping now. Trickling away.
Hot, wet and sticky.
It's nice.
I like it.
Blood in the earth, earth in the blood.
Not a little acorn now.
Don't know what I am now.
We're the earth now.
Sleeping now.
Feeding now.
Sleep and feed to grow.
Of the earth.
Moist and rich.
Mother earth.
There's the rain, there's life.
Let it rain.
Chemical rain.
We need a seed.
I cede, you cede.
Suck, cede, to succeed.
We are the seed.
I was an acorn.
That's not true, why did I say that?
I will be an acorn.
I fell from the tree, I think, I don't remember.
I can see the tree. I have a memory of living there.
Degrees of dead.
I need food and sleep, but that's not what I want.
I want to stay awake and be 24 hour being.
Wide, wide awake, but so sleepy.
I was so little as an acorn in a big noisy forest.
I seeped milky acorn tears at my littleness.
So small.
Such a tiny acorn.
My world is upside down.
I'm breathing all confusion.
I cuddled up to the wall for comfort.
The wall was a good wall. The wall held me close.
Big hugs, wall.
Watch me wall, won't you? Look out for me.
So sleepy now.
Nooooooo.
Where's the tree gone?
Where's the wall?
It's dark and heavy.
Too much for a little acorn. You're popping me.
Let me free.
Where's my forest gone?
So cold and damp and heavy.
I have to burst to stop the pressure.
Go away darkness.
I'm upside down again.
All gone.
It's funny.
All broken.
It tickles.
Insides out.
Warm all over.
I can feel my acorn blood.
I can feel it moving. Pumping.
Not pumping now. Trickling away.
Hot, wet and sticky.
It's nice.
I like it.
Blood in the earth, earth in the blood.
Not a little acorn now.
Don't know what I am now.
We're the earth now.
Sleeping now.
Feeding now.
Sleep and feed to grow.
Of the earth.
Moist and rich.
Mother earth.
There's the rain, there's life.
Let it rain.
Chemical rain.
We need a seed.
I cede, you cede.
Suck, cede, to succeed.
We are the seed.
I was an acorn.
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