The Cook, The Cops, His Wok & His Window

A double dose of me! It’s a great time to be alive, isn’t it?!

Well, after ten years of living in this hole, I seem to have finally become a target of bullying. I was kind of expecting this a lot sooner, I must say, but I guess now is as “good” a time as any. So I was in my curtainless kitchen last night after dark making a stir-fry, as I do, and I heard someone shouting outside. It sort of sounded like that neanderthal who’s moved in over the way, although “loud, obnoxious, northern chav” could be any number of people around here. I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying, but it sounded aggressive, and I remember thinking “I’m glad I’m not the person HE’S shouting at!”. Then, a few minutes later, things started hitting my kitchen window. I’m not sure what they were, but they sounded moist and heavy, so I’m guessing it was wet newspaper or toilet roll or something of the like. Who knows. Anyway, although I made sure not to react (that’s what they want!), it really did freak me out, so I called the police. After waiting a while on hold, I decided to just hang up and sat down to eat my stir-fry. This morning, I’ve found great streaks of white on my kitchen window, so goodness knows what they threw. Milk? The contents of their bedside spunk bucket? I have no idea, but it’s still left me shaken and upset.

I’m still wondering who did it. There is quite a distance between my building and the next, so it’d be some feat to lob something across. However, if it is that gorilla who keeps making all the noise on his balcony, I’m guessing he’s a well-built, muscular sort. I’m guessing guys who spend a lot of time working out don’t do a lot of book reading. It could also be kids, which makes sense for a Sunday (where they’re usually super-bored and wandering around in packs). There was a gang of boys playing football on the grassy patch below my kitchen window a couple of days ago, so maybe one of them saw me pottering about and decided to come back to harass me.

Sigh.

Well, booze is arriving around midday, so I’m going to pop out beforehand to post my prescription and get some energy meter top-ups. I’ll make a note of any odd things lying around on the ground below. This will also be the first time I’ve left the flat since that noisy guy moved in, so I’m anticipating some verbal abuse. Hopefully, after seeing that I’m a vulnerable, visually impaired white cane user, whoever’s responsible will leave me alone. Or, more likely, they’ll be offended by my frailty and turn up the heat. Either way, booze is arriving around midday.

The stir-fry turned out nice, by the way.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

P.S. You get a prize (my respect) if you can guess what this post's title is a vague, muddled reference to.

Melancholic whispers at dusk

Dare I say it – the weather might be improving! If it snows tomorrow, I’ll be very upset. Actually, I do need to go out tomorrow, as I’ve just run out of antidepressants, so I need a clear path to post my repeat prescription request. Sigh, there must be a shorter way of saying “repeat prescription request”. If you know one, do let me know.

I haven’t drank over the weekend, by the way. I did initially put some booze on my supermarket order for Friday, a jolly good binging amount, but then took it all off at the last minute. I’ve really been struggling with my mood over the past week, so I initially felt like I deserved it. Anyway, I decided to white knuckle-it instead. I definitely feel better today, although I can’t really discern a particular reason why. I’ve been oversleeping (12 hours instead of the minimum-required 8 hours), but that’s better than undersleeping. I’ve not been listening to anything in bed, which I don’t think I’ve done for more than 1 night in about 25 years. I think it’s been 3 days now. I’m very confused. I’ve got so much audioreading to do! But, I don’t know, my hearing has just felt a bit sensitive lately, so I’ve been lying in relative silence listening to the noise of the estate (including my neighbour “Angry Game Boy”, but that’s 24/7). I still don’t feel overtly “unwell”, but something’s definitely up.

I cleaned the bathroom today, which I’m glad and proud of. It really needed doing. It had gotten very brown in there, and had started to smell like a boys’ changing room in a secondary school (trust me, men are disgusting). I have a theory that the latter isn’t my bathroom, but perhaps the pipes in general, but I’ll just have to wait and see if the aroma in there improves. I can’t remember the last time I actually cleaned the bathroom, which is usually a sign for me to get in there and do it. I’m not proud of my poor housekeeping but, well, it’s just me in here and nobody ever visits. Just a bit of vacuuming and tidying up and I can finally start propositioning delivery boys again. Woo! There was a cute one dropping off DVDs yesterday, but I didn’t feel inclined to flirt. Not that my “flirting” would result in any activity anyway.

Hobby-wise, I’ve still been sticking to foreign films of late. Not to be a snooty film buff but, well, I just don’t like hearing English voices at the moment. Maybe it’s because of social media and everybody having their say all the time about everything, but I’m just enjoying hearing people speak without knowing exactly what they’re saying. Anyway, I think I covered all this in my last post.

I finished off the Apu Trilogy, which had a sweet finale. Most of the final film, The World of Apu, I felt relied a little too heavily on imagery from the previous two, Pather Panchali and Aparajito, but it certainly wasn’t bad. I felt very much like a 21^st century boy watching it, as I spent much of its runtime picking out health and safety issues, like characters having casual conversations as they walk down train tracks. You could actually show it to a group of office workers on a H&S training day. They must be getting sick of those ones starring John Cleese by now, surely. Cleese gotta eat!

Golly, I just had a major mood dip while thinking what to type next. What’s wrong with me, I wonder. Perhaps it’s all the not getting out. Erm, cabin fever, I think is the appropriate term. I’m tempted to put another grocery order in tonight, this time keeping the booze on it. I don’t know why I think booze will cure all my ills, because it won’t, but I somehow manage to convince myself that it’ll “shake things up”, like electroconvulsive therapy. I’m just very lonely and very ill so, for a few days, I’d like to not feel either. Maybe I'll be lucky and not wake up the morning after. I cross my fingers every time.

I’m still working on my new writing project, which does actually boost my mood. I don’t add much to it each time but, when I do, I really feel like I’m achieving something. I hope it’ll be worth it. I’m just about to start the third chapter, with the first two being about 5-6,000 words each. Is that good? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a first draft, and I’ve got plenty of ideas for revisions. I haven’t even got the intended plot going yet. It’s just, well, meandering stuff happening at the moment. But that’s ok, I like meandering stories. Let’s just hope a publisher will too.

My gaming buddy is back from his Easter holiday break, but I’m not sure how free he will be. He’s started going back home (he lives with his grandparents to be near college) in order to visit his new girlfriend, so that’s why I’ve not been hearing much from him. I’m happy just to take a backseat while the initial fire of their relationship burns, as they do. I know I’m low on his list of priorities, which is why I’m in self-imposed social isolation. I can’t take the stop-start nature of how things have been lately. Why do people start to slot you into their lives, after a while? I’m probably just being a diva. We all have our issues, I guess.

My Twitter and YouTube accounts are still either deactivated or stripped down to their bare-minimum. I doubt I’ll put things back to how they were, as I didn’t get much feedback when I announced, rather melodramatically (as I do), that I was calling it a day. A few people liked my goodbye tweet, which was grimly amusing in itself. There’s a good Family Guy joke about that sort of thing, but involving Facebook. I haven’t deleted my YT videos, just switched everything to private. In fact, I have been uploading gaming clips this week but, for now, they’ll remain private too. Maybe all this is for the best. Maybe it’s forcing me to get on with my writing. Who knows.

Golly, I can hear an ice cream van making its rounds. Those haven’t been about in a while, I’m guessing.

Well, lovers, it’s getting late, and I have a whole lotta nothing to be getting on with. It takes a lot of concentration, as you can imagine.

I’ll be sure to let you know whether or not I end up biting the alcoholic bullet.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Boys, buoys and booze

I had a sudden dip in my usual hop-skip-and-jump positivity (don’t laugh) last night, which has continued on into today. I really struggled to get out of bed, not finally emerging until midday. I’m guessing it’s just a random low mood attack, but I’ll prepare myself for it to go on longer. How does one prepare oneself for such a thing, you ask? Hmmm, ordering in lots of chocolate and digging out my comfort movies may be a good start. My desire for alcohol has rocketed sky high, but I’m still planning on waiting until my birthday next month. It’s not helping that the pubs are partially back open today, although my regular is, like me, waiting until you can sit inside. So, yeah, I’m not sure what to do. I’ve just ordered a curry, so hopefully that’ll cheer me up a bit. I’ve found a great restaurant, who’s food actually tastes like it’s worth what you pay for it. My homemade stuff was becoming better than a lot of the curry houses around here, which isn’t a good sign.

Since a lot of the stuff I ordered from the supermarket the other day didn’t turn up, I’m thinking of putting another order in before the end of the week. I may or may not put booze on it. I think the easing of restrictions has sent people into a buying frenzy. I think I’ll be smelling barbeque aromas for the next week or so. Apparently fire pits are the new thing. I don’t know what the difference is between a barbeque and a fire pit, but I’m sure there’s a beardy hipster out there who can rant at me about it for an hour. Sigh.

I’ve started watching the “Apu Trilogy” of films by Satyajit Ray: So far, I’ve done Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), so I’ve just got The World of Apu (1959) left. I’m very impressed by the realism of the first two. To think that British and American cinema at the same time featured a sort of hyper-reality, where few locations were used and you felt like you were watching something set in another dimension. But Ray’s films, while not uncompromisingly gritty, do feel like they’re about people on this planet. I’m watching them without subtitles, but I’m managing to follow along. The only thing I didn’t pick up on, in Pather Panchali, was the argument about the stolen necklace. I got that the mother and daughter were arguing about SOMETHING, but it wasn’t until I read the plot summary afterwards that I matched the argument with Apu (well, “Opu” really) throwing the necklace into the water at the end. It’s a shame that there’s so much emphasis on the males in these films. To tiptoe around a spoiler, I get that Apu is the only consistent main character in the trilogy, fine, but the first two films are such feminine movies that it feels odd that so much attention has been put on Apu. The actress who plays the mother, Karuna Banerjee, had me crying by the end of Aparajito. Hopefully things have changed in the past seventy years, so that women get the credit they deserve. And that’s a sign of great filmmaking too – if you can have a visually impaired English speaker watching an Indian language film and STILL have them awash with emotion by the end, then you’ve done something right. I’ll watch The World of Apu another day, as I’m a bit too emotionally drained after the first two. I’m curious to see who plays the titular character this time, as there have been three actors portraying him so far in only two films. The teenage Apu in the second half of Aparajito looks like a dark-haired version of my gaming buddy, who distracted me. He’s shirtless a lot too, which is no bad thing. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve invested in the Blu-rays, and I finally know what all the fuss is about.

Speaking of my gaming buddy, he’s started texting me all of a sudden over the past two days, which I’ve carefully replied to. I’m not being rude or monosyllabic, but I’m also not getting too excited. I think I’ll still say I’m busy, should he want to game, but I sincerely doubt he will.

I started playing the video game Subnautica recently, which is a sort of “No Man’s Sky meets Minecraft” thing, but underwater. I was drawn to it due to the underwaterness (real word), as I’m sure I was a gender-non-specific-merperson in a previous life. Not that I believe in previous lives. But, yeah, I enjoy being underwater whenever I get the chance. In fact, my mum used to worry I was drowning when I was a kid, as I’d keep myself under for so long. I think that, had my eyesight been better, I would have probably gone into something involving the deep. Marine biology? The navy? Well, you know how I like sailors. Anyway, back to Subnautica! I’ve tried Survival mode, but that was too difficult (you have to find food and fresh water), so I’m now on, erm, Easy, I think. That’s where you don’t need to find food and water, but you can drown and be injured by alien sharks or whatever. I’ll resort to Creative, should I find Easy too much effort. I just wanna swim around underwater and frolic with the fishies!

Oh I did that “Buy 3 Extra Credits” thing on Audible, so I’ve got three new audiobooks to be getting on with. One is a series of lectures on Ancient Greece, while the other two are classics of Chinese literature: Monkey King and The Plum in the Golden Vase. I won’t be bored once my sight inevitably goes altogether, that’s for sure.

See how half-glass-full I’m trying to be?

Well, while I was writing the paragraph about the Apu Trilogy, my curry arrived, so I’ve got some fancy food in me now. In fact, I’m feeling a bit more upbeat already. I’m also in the midst of watching Life of Brian, after watching The Holy Grail earlier. There are few funks in life that Monty Python can’t drag you out of.

Anyway, I best go back to my banquet. I’ll try and save you some, but I’m not promising anything.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

P.S. And, yes, I did consider using “seamen” instead of “sailors” whilst talking about joining the navy. The former seemed a bit too obvious and crude though. Was “sailors” better? Only time will tell.

The lost, the found, and the mentally unwound

I’m so sad to hear that Max von Sydow passed away last year. I’m just watching The Seventh Seal now, and thought I might check how he was getting on. Alas! 90 years old. Golly, they don’t make them like they used to. I have so many Sydow films in my video collection. He probably rivals Liam Neeson for how often he turns up in my disc carry cases. I admired Sydow in particular, as he seemed to be a down-to-earth working actor, who clearly had no pretensions about what he starred in. He seemed to have the Peter Cushing approach which, as far as I can tell, was “be the best thing in a bad movie”. Although, to be fair, Sydow did actually feature in some amazing works of cinema. It just didn’t seem to go to his head. Well, wherever he is now, I know he’ll be bringing some gravitas to the place.

I just felt like I needed to say something about that. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about his passing. Perhaps I just didn’t want to check, as I hoped he’d be alive forever. I’ll have to watch more of his films over the weekend.

There’s an interview with him somewhere about the alleged curse that surrounded the production of The Exorcist. Whoever was interviewing him was clearly trying to get him to spill some superstitious gossip about the shoot but, to my enduring respect, he just said something along the lines of “Films take a long time to make, and life doesn’t stop happening as they are, so tragedies will naturally occur during a production”. However he actually said it, it was well said.

Right, in other news…

I crashed around mid-afternoon yesterday, after initially getting up at 3 am. I crashed from about 2 pm until 5 pm, then got up for some dinner. I even had a cup of coffee but, for whatever reason, my body had just had enough. I ate half my meal, then went back to bed around 8-ish, finally getting up this morning just after 6 am. It’s not the longest I’ve spent in bed, but the sudden wave of tiredness was very intense. I feel fine now though.

I’ve got a grocery order coming tomorrow, so I may have a takeaway tonight. I think the Easter break has gotten people panic buying, as I found it more difficult than usual booking a delivery slot. Sigh. As if there isn’t enough food to go around!

The cold weather persists, so I’m wrapping up warm. I don’t know how much credit I have left on my gas meter, so I’m prioritising hot water to do dishes with. I don’t mind snuggling up under cheap blankets etc.

I watched Andrei Tarkovsky’s first post-film school work Ivan’s Childhood this morning. It’s quite amazing, and a very confident debut, all things considered. It’s perfect for when you’re in the mood for a dour, stark, bleak, haunting, black and white Russian-language film about the horrors and futility of war. I mean, who isn’t?! The titular main character is played by a fabulous young (well, he was young back in 1962) actor called Nikolay Burlyaev, who plays traumatised and beyond-his-years astonishingly well. I can’t believe he’s not, like, the most famous actor in the world. Anyway, do watch it, as it’s fantastic. The visual style is somewhere between Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick, so perfect for film nerds! I’ve got two other Tarkovsky films, Solaris and Mirror, on video as well, which are also classics. I shall be hunting down more, that’s for sure.

I watched a short and rather unfocussed documentary the other day about Pompeii, featuring (although I’m not sure whether she actually wrote it) Mary Beard, who did the audiobooks on Pompeii and Ancient Rome that I’ve been listening to recently. I found the documentary a good companion piece to the Pompeii book (obviously), as I did get to see a lot of the sites I’d hitherto only read about. While it sets out to tell us about the digital scanning of Pompeii’s still-buried buildings, it often goes off on more general tangents. Considering the documentary is under an hour in length, I’m guessing they didn’t have much to talk about in relation to the main scanning subject. Beard is a very fun guide, although there are a few cringe-worthy moments. I think she may very well be a little eccentric, or just passionate. I don’t think she got on well with one of the scientists she talks to in a few segments, as there’s definitely a strange vibe going on between the two women. It’s perhaps worth watching for that oddness alone. The awkwardness reminded me of that mad woman in the documentary about finding the bones of Richard III. I think it was called “The King Under the Car Park”. I wonder if the latter has become an unintentional comedy classic now. I hope so. But, yes, while it is pop archaeology, along with anything to do with Tutankhamun or the Titanic, the story of Pompeii is so fascinating that, well, I doubt anyone wouldn’t be drawn into even the briefest, confused and awkward of factual programming about it. This only cost me a couple of quid on Prime Video.

We all have our guilty pleasures.

It’s only been a few days since my last post, so I don’t think I have much else to report. I’ve just needed to air a few items relating to the arts. Hopefully I’ll have a more melodrama-filled rant in a few days. We shall see.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

 

 

Late winter/early mornings

Remember when I said the weather had officially turned nice? Well, it snowed yesterday, and we’re now in the minus figures, temperature-wise. Go figure. Maybe the change in human activity over the past year has affected the climate somehow. Although, I do remember it snowing as late as this fifteen-odd years ago, so there’s precedent there. Still, it’s bloody cold. At least it keeps the local scallies indoors, which is a massive plus. That annoying tit, who I mentioned in my last post, who sits out on his balcony playing loud music and shouting to his mates down the street, has officially decamped into his hole. In Britain, you kinda have to decide which you’re prepared to put up with: cold weather, or chavs making noise. Sigh.

I think I’ve just about managed to get my sleep pattern back on track. I was able to sleep until 3 am yesterday morning, then I had a nap at midday, then stayed in bed from around 8 pm to 6 am this morning. A disturbed sleep pattern doesn’t affect my life a whole lot, but it does have a negative psychological effect on me. I start to lose track of what medication I’ve had and which meals are due, plus I get generally disorientated and, well, sad. Oh well, hopefully I’m back now. I have let my writing slip over the past few days but, fingers crossed, I’ll get some done today. I seem to be on a roll with my new fiction project, so I don’t want to leave that for too long.

I’m still wondering whether I’m unwell, as odd little symptoms keep appearing. A rather unpredictable digestive system has been one, but I shan’t get into any great detail about that. In a way, I just want whatever-it-is to reveal itself so I can get properly sick and then better. This lingering semi-uncertainty over my health isn’t much fun. It’s probably all related to something I have already, as the diabetes lowers my immune system. Nothing would surprise me. It’s not bothering me that much though.

I’m getting a lot of history audiobook reading done. I’m still going through my second listen of Kenneth J. Hammond’s History of China lectures, and I’m nearly getting to the end of my first listen of a, pretty-epic, history of ancient Mediterranean civilisations. I think I’ve been dipping in and out of the latter for a good few years. I’ll just restart it, once I’m done. I’ve got a couple of new ones on Spain and Japan that I need to restart. I got a chapter or two into both, then just stopped. I’m not sure why.

I’ve been buying up a bunch of world cinema boxsets recently, as I’m still not keen on English language films. Yesterday, a Federico Fellini collection arrived, plus Satyajit Ray’s “Apu Trilogy”. The latter has been out of print for a while, I believe due to the negatives being destroyed in a fire in the mid-90s, or something. I haven’t properly looked into it. Anyway, I’ll do my usual watching-without-subtitles and report back. I don’t know why I enjoy doing that. I guess it makes me feel relaxed. It’s like being a baby again, where you can see and hear people talking, but you can’t quite understand what’s actually being said. Or, on the same analogical line, being back in the womb, where you can only discern mumbles form the outside world. Does that work? Hmmm. Anyway, I’ve added a few more to my browser’s favourites bar, so I might put another order in soon.

Musically, I’m mainly listening to instrumental stuff, although I’m finding Muse is a good wake-up tool, along with my usual cups of coffee. I still can’t work out whether Matt Bellamy’s lyrics are supposed to be serious or not, as they’re pretty on-the-nose. Still, there’s some nice liberal philosophy/politics in there, if you do want to try taking it seriously. I still wonder whether their first five albums contain the progressive acts of a story arc about the descent of human civilisation, the destruction of Earth, humanity’s leap to the stars for a new home, and their eventual struggle for survival and power once they get there. Who knows. Answer’s on a postcard, please! I’m willing to write the screenplay, if they wanna adapt it into a movie.

I’m still off my guitar playing and music production, although that has more to do with the tidiness of my living room than anything. I’ve just completely let housework fall by the wayside. I do have a music-making buzz inside me though, so I should probably get cleaning. Just basic tidying will do.

My old work colleague and “guitar Yoda” did follow my YouTube channel and posted a comment on one of my videos the other week, but he’s not said anything else since. That kinda got me down. I was hoping, maybe, that we’d get back in touch and, perhaps, start talking music like we used to. But no. Maybe he was drunk or something, and doesn’t even remember posting. That’d make sense.

Speaking of which, I’ve still not had a drink since late-February. My disturbed sleep pattern did nearly break me, but I think I’ve passed that. I’m curious to see what I’ll do once the pubs are open. Will I continue this sober existence, or go back to drowning myself in nihilistic despair? We shall see.

I’ve not replied to my gaming buddy’s last few texts, so I think he may have given up. It’s a bit harsh of me I know, but his hot-and-cold attitude to our friendship has been getting me down. Plus, hey, his new relationship seems serious, which takes up a lot of a person’s time. I just need some closure.

I’m getting a lot of friend requests on the PlayStation this week. I was getting CLOSE friend requests (where your full name is revealed) from complete strangers, which I assume was some ID theft sorta thing, but these are just regular requests. They seem legit, but they usually already have tens, if not hundreds, of friends listed in their profile already, so I doubt we’ll ever actually socialise. I keep monitoring game chats to see if anyone wants to talk but, alas, it’s usually just silent people with their mics on and their TVs on in the background. They really need to switch one of those off but, hey, that’s addressing a larger issue about human ignorance.

I did have a phone chat with my ex yesterday, which was nice. She seems very upbeat. She usually has a major melodrama around my birthday, so I’ll have that to look forward to next month. I’ll probably ask our mutual friend to field any issues while I’m “partying”. I can’t do emotions when I’m hungover. I’ve got too many of my own to be dealing with.

And, yes, I’ll probably get wellied on my birthday, whether the pubs are open or not.

I’m still off watching DVDs in bed at the moment. I did restart the old Robin Hood series from, like, the 60s, but I only got a couple of episodes in. I’m fine with just audiobooks or music for now.

Urgh, my OCD is getting clogged with obsessing over comma placement. I’m never sure whether to overdo it or underdo it. I should read more ebooks, to get an idea of what other people generally do. “Do do”? Oh, I dunno. I’m far too emotionally fragile for the writing game. I guess grammar and punctuation is where editors come in. I should just chill out and get working. “Chilout”? “Chill-out”? Ack! See?!

Right, I’m due a shower, so I best get going. I’m still having a few coffees before I scrub myself down each day, which has been helping me get out of bed. I’m hoping to get back to my new-ish shower-first rule, but I’m trying not to stress over it. TRYING not to.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

P.S. I nearly called this post "Minus Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", as that sounded more fun (plus I really believe that he, Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves were put on this Earth simply for our own wry amusement. I'm sure they're all lovely guys. It genuinely seems that way). Although it did seem a little too apropos of nothing. I'm still willing to change it, if you want. Let me know.

A life running hot and cold

Well, the weather has officially turned “nice”. I prefer dry, cold weather, but I’m aware that I’m in the minority there. Sunny skies mean the neighbours flock outside to annoy me. In fact, as I type, a scally is blaring aggressive hiphop from his balcony. Sigh. Volume doesn’t make music better, it just makes it louder. Oh well, it’s vaguely amusing, especially when he tries shouting along, so I shan’t get too upset about it.

I’ve decided to shut my social media accounts down again. I’ve been working relatively hard on my YouTube channel but, after over a thousand uploads, I’m still regularly getting no views, even with live streams. I take the hint. After a while, you just start to feel like you’re embarrassing yourself. I’ve posted a melodramatic tweet about it, saying it’ll all be gone by the end of today, so I’ll see if anyone wants to stay in touch. I doubt it though.

Social media is, for an adult, a very cold vacuum of loneliness. People like to showcase themselves, but have very little interest in actually making contact with others. It’s more for keen youths who actually want to experience life and society but, well, I obviously can’t be a part of that. Being a grown up can be a very solitary experience.

I’ll still post here, of course. One must have an outlet, after all. I’m glad I’ve started writing again. My periods of silence seem only to be fleeting. I’m keeping up with my fiction writing project, which has gotten me feeling very positive. I was so excited by last night’s effort that I just couldn’t sleep. Even though I woke up about 11am yesterday morning, I didn’t get to sleep, properly, until first light today. It was frustrating but, well, I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I just lay there in wait for unconsciousness. I got up at 10am today so, fingers crossed, I’ll get a more sensible switch-off tonight.

I do wonder if I’m not well, actually. There really was no reason, other than excitement, for last night’s insomnia and, when I did sleep, it was only for a couple of hours at a time. Then, this morning, I had rather intense diarrhea, which came out of nowhere. Well, technically it came out of my bum, but you know what I mean. I can’t think what I’ve eaten to make me unwell in such a way. I don’t feel ill, my body is just acting like it is. Perhaps it’s the change in temperature, which wouldn’t surprise me. Heat is good at messing me up.

I had a grocery order delivered yesterday, so I’m nicely stocked up on fresh food. I bought a strawberry trifle, which maybe the first one I’ve had since I lived at home twenty years ago. It was fine. I believe the four portion container will be finished off by the end of today. I’m a growing boy.

My cultural tastes seem a bit skewed at the moment, as well as my bodily functions. I couldn’t settle on any music or audiobook in bed last night, and I’m even feeling a bit distracted today. Although, to be honest, that might be to do with the noisy asshole in the next building. I’ve been listening to a lot of Muse and Manic Street Preachers, but I’m struggling with anything else. Audiobook-wise, I’m sticking to history non-fiction, which is giving me ideas for my story writing. I’m going through both the history of China and Mary Beard’s book about Pompeii again. I’ve not gotten any further with that lecture series on King Arthur, but I’m sure I’ll make a return to it soon.

My gaming buddy is still fairly absent, although I think he texted me yesterday to mention the nice weather. Nothing about wanting to game with me though. Clearly, on his list social priorities, I’m pretty far down. It’s fine. I’m not bitter.

What?

Anyway, hopefully the pubs will be back open soon, so I can go back to my pre-covid life of hanging out with racist pensioners during the day. Good times.

Right, I think that’s today’s rant over and done with. I’m thinking of opening a private Twitter account for this blog, to replace my gaming one. It’ll be where I post more personal thoughts and link to these posts. I won’t be socialising, unless someone wants to. I’ll make a decision about whether to open one after the close of today.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

A long time ago, in a one-bedroom council flat far, far away...

I’m writing this as I sip my 4 pm breakfast coffee. Yes, my sleep pattern is disturbed. Again. It does just seem to come out of nowhere. I went to bed, genuinely tired, at about 8 pm last night, but found myself still pottering about at first light. I usually assume it’s the booze that messes my sleep up but, apparently, it’s not, as I’m still not drinking at the moment. I kept getting those strange adrenaline seizures last night. About for of them. Which force me out of bed to do something stimulating. No, not THAT. Just anything. One day I’ll get my doctor to actually give me a diagnosis but, for now, I’ll stick to my theory that it’s something to do with my nyctalopia.

They’ve dropped a major updated for the dreadful Windows 10 recently, so I’m still finding things they’ve changed. If they just returned everything, apart from their great accessibility features, back to how they were 25 years ago, then that’d be great. Trying to compete with Apple, and making cosmetic changes just for the sake of it, clearly isn’t working for them. My next laptop will definitely be a Mac, which I’ve nearly got the money for. I’ve had enough of Microsoft.

Well, the one positive thing about insomnia is that I get a lot of audiobook listening done. I’ve started the Great Courses lecture series on King Arthur, by the fabulous Dorsey Armstrong. She VERY seems keen to raise awareness for a historical subject that, even an Englishman like myself, doesn’t know all that much about, which is great. I found her enthusiasm a bit grating at the start (the word “awesome” is uttered, perhaps, once too often), but she seems to be calming down now. I really respect the amount of work that’s been put into researching the Arthurian legend, as a lot of the information is buried in Welsh poetry, which can’t be too fun to trawl through. The one thing that’s upsetting me about this, and other history books I’ve been audioreading lately, is that, well, it makes you feel rotten about being English. I don’t know who my pre-500CE ancestors were but, if they were Anglo Saxon invaders, then the past 15 hundred years have just been a nonstop shit-show of awfulness, on our part. But, hey, that was the past, so I’m trying to just enjoy hearing about a bygone age. But, yeah, this country belongs to the Cymru people. Oh and I’ve managed to memorise “1, 6, 23”. Erm, I think. If you listen to Dorsey’s lectures, you’ll know what that’s a reference to.

One of the upsides to me listening to all these history books, is that they’re giving me inspiration for my own prose writing. I’m still working on my new creative writing project, which is astonishing, even to me. Not its quality, but just the fact that I’m still going. I’m sure my motivation will dry up soon, but I hope it doesn’t. I’ve still not decided where or when to set it but, so far, it’s in a sort of post-Bronze Age/pre-Industrial Age Italy. So, yeah, pretty well defined there. It’s been fun trying to find non-stereotypical Italian names, to use for my characters. I basically find an Italian film on IMDb and go through the crew list until I find something that sounds interesting. I’ll let you know how I get on.

My gaming buddy is still mostly absent right now, although he did text me yesterday to ask whether I was free over the weekend. I said I wasn’t sure, as I don’t really like being slotted into other peoples’ lives like that. There was a time when ewe chatted every day but, well, now he’s out of my routine. Like I’ve said before, he doesn’t do it on purpose, but somebody with as little going on in their life as myself is prone to noticing gaps in communication more. I’m not needy I just, I dunno, enjoy consistency.

I’m guessing my sleep pattern will get worse over the weekend, but I’ll try to correct it as I go. I was going to order a takeaway today, but even my appetite has been a bit off lately. If I sit down to eat something, then I’m fine. It’s just the idea of food that’s not exciting me.

I have felt a little more sexual lately, which is nice. I think my transgender feminine side has returned. I don’t think I’ve felt like this in over a year. Maybe two. It was nice engaging in some nasty anal masturbation on Tuesday or Wednesday. It felt SO great. I just wish I could get an actual real-life human cock in there. It’s been a while. I was so exhausted afterwards, as I very rarely exert any energy these days. But, hey, it was worth it.

I’ve not watched any more Walking Dead since the boxset arrived the other week. I’ve just not been in the mod. I’ve been more into my foreign films. In fact, I got annoyed going through the Roberto Rossellini boxsets I have as, much to my dismay, there were a lot of English speaking roles in the ITALIAN films. Perhaps my not wanting to listen to my own language is linked to the horror I’ve been experiencing listening to history audiobooks. Nothing would surprise me.

Music wise… hmmm… I seem to have settled on Radiohead now. I’ve made a bunch of playlists for their albums and many b-sides, shuffling songs around or removing them altogether, should I not like them. I also made a Manic Street Preachers playlist last night for their first three albums. I’ve not gone through an MSP phase in just the longest time. Hopefully, this desire will stick around a while. We shall see.

Well, I best pop off and go for my shower, then sort out a takeaway (if I’m in the mood for one). Don’t be surprised if you find me posting at strange times over the next week or so. In various states of mental deterioration.

Good times.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!