Being Popular and a Dream Manifested.

I seem to be popular today. This morning I received two emails – which is two more than I usually receive – both of which began ‘HaHaHa.’ (Actually, they didn’t. One began ‘HaHaHa’; the other began ‘HaHa’, but who’s counting? It is at least gratifying to know that some people occasionally find me funny.)

And then I went out for a walk before lunch and met four different people who all wanted to stop and chat. I did my duty and stopped and chatted. It seemed churlish to point out to them that at lunchtime I would much rather be eating my lunch than being unexpectedly popular. Besides, the four humans were augmented by a horse who likes me (apparently) and she’s excused.

*  *  *

Tonight I watched a German film called Cherry Blossoms and was utterly captivated by its beauty and poignancy. I have no hesitation in recommending it most highly to anybody with a heart, a soul, or anything approximating to either. And to anybody who does watch it, or already knows it, I would say:

Yu

Is my dream

Come

True

She’s exactly what I ache for every day of my life. One day, perhaps. And hopefully I won’t have to go to Japan to find her.

The Mystery of Ms Rachel.

I had another email from Rachel tonight. Remember Rachel? She was the friendly customer service assistant at my energy supplier who picked up my last few email enquiries.

I don’t know how she’s always the one to pick up my messages, or how I can be so lucky as to keep picking her out of the bran tub. She always responds so quickly, and talks to me like you would an old pal from high school.

You must admit, that’s most unusual for a representative of the corporate world. They usually connect you to a robot schooled in the list of FAQs and possessed of a minimal range of stock replies such as ‘I am unable to answer your query’, ‘resistance is useless’, and ‘you will be exterminated’ if the FAQs won't do. If you’re really lucky and get a friendly one, you might get a simple GOODBYE in big red letters.

So where did Rachel come from? If she’s a robot, she’s certainly a very advanced one from some superior civilisation far from planet earth. My growing conviction, however, is that she was my mother in a previous life and hasn’t moved on to a higher plane yet.

A Birthday Non-Post.

I was going to write a post tonight but I’ve been busy answering emails (and watching an episode of Doctor Who.) It’s my birthday, you see, and three people remembered. Getting three emails in one day is very rare.

It snowed heavily this afternoon to augment the cold, stormy winds we had over Friday and Saturday. I’ve been going frantic trying to provide the birds with food, while they’ve been trying frantically to get at it before the cruel snow covered it over. Did I say I hate snow? I do, with a passion.

Maybe I’ll think of something to say tomorrow.  

Arriving Early at the Underworld.

We had the first snow of the winter today and tomorrow is my birthday. The significance of the coincidence is simply that it’s most unusual to have snow in the UK before my birthday. The last time it happened it was followed by a miserable 5-month winter and most of my bat friends failed to reappear the following spring.

The sub-zero wind continues to bellow around my house and find access by unidentified means, which isn’t conducive to a comfortable evening. I decline to don a coat just to leave the confines of my office because such an action would merely accentuate the psychological impact of living in a fridge.

The supplementary heating I have in said office is struggling to make much of an impression on the temperature tonight. Unfortunately, it still costs the same amount to run.

The priestess has written me a number of deep and meaningful emails recently, but my replies have been taciturn and a little sharp in consequence of a sombre mood. It occurred to me that she might now be reluctant to write to me at all, and so I considered initiating an email back to say: ‘Please don’t be reluctant to write to me if such be your wish. Though my replies be disappointingly brief, I do still enjoy receiving them and take full note of everything you say.’ But it seemed like begging, so I didn’t.

OK, now I’ve got that off my chest I can return to the business of waiting patiently for bed time. I’m constrained from going to bed when the fancy takes me because I have a panel heater in the bedroom which is timed to work between 1am and 8am when the electricity is cheaper. I’m not a rich man, you see, and if the only point of being rich is to have a warm house in the winter, I see little reason to aspire to the condition. There isn’t really anything else I want for myself which requires money.

Mind Matters.

The wind is howling with great gusto around the house tonight, the mysterious creature which inhabits the roof space above my kitchen is knocking and scraping around, and I just watched a Doctor Who episode about a werewolf. It’s all making me feel curiously unsettled, as though the enemy is at the gates and I can hear them digging a tunnel under the walls. Did you know that fear and loathing of invasion is at the root of most of my neuroses? I suspect it’s a past life thing.

*  *  *

There’s a motivational video which occasionally shows up on my YouTube recommendations. It says something like: As soon as you stop wanting something, you will get it. What kind of motivation is that? If you’ve stopped wanting something, what’s the point of getting it? The question here, of course, is whether wisdom is all the wiser for being irrational.

Emma and the Banana.

Having typed a short blog post and watched an episode of Inside Number 9 on DVD, I found myself at a loose end and becoming bored. I decided it would be interesting to get hold of Wiki, type in ‘Emma Watson’ to discover when she was born, and then try to work out where I was and what I was doing at that most propitious of moments.

Why Emma Watson, you may ask. Well, I always think of her every time I write anything about the Liberal Alter-Establishment, especially since I have fond recollections of the time when she was effectively indistinguishable from Hermione Granger. That was before she became a professional actor, caught the popularity bug, and decided to prove to the world that she really did have breasts just in case any of us were wondering. And there was also the fact that, for all her fabled beauty – and I would be the last to deny that she was and still is extremely physically attractive – I always found her nose slightly irritating and wished they would avoid photographing her in profile.

But then I decided that my present needs would be better served by having a banana, so that’s what I did instead. (It had a black bit at the bottom, you know. I swear bananas never had black bits at the bottom when I was a lad.)

So here I am, having eased back the habitual depression a notch or two, having come a little closer to accommodation with sitting in a cold old house on a frigid November night, and having managed, in consequence, to make a silly and utterly pointless blog post. Hoorah for that, I say. I expect I’ll still be scared to get out of bed tomorrow morning because I always am, but that’s in the future.

(So should I now consider writing that post I’ve had in mind for a while, about the notion that time doesn’t exist, and if it doesn’t exist does it mean that there’s no such thing as past and future, and if that’s the case does it indicate that life is a matter of each individual’s fragment of consciousness travelling through a fixed tableau? Erm…)

Questioning the Gagging Orders.

I gather that in some conservative Islamic cultures a person can be sentenced to death for using words which are deemed to be insulting to the Prophet, even if unintentionally.

Meanwhile, the liberals in Australia are up in arms over a new law which allows members of religious faiths to offer a derogatory opinion of homosexuality based on the teaching of their holy book.

Does this amount to a sublime irony, or just another example of the world becoming sillier and sillier?

(And at this juncture I have to say that I view with extreme disquiet the notion that an honest expression of opinion can ever be deemed a ‘crime’. Are we not all free to simply disagree?)

Re-Writing the Folk Tale.

I think I’ve mentioned that I did some damage to my right arm during the autumn clearance work in the garden. After two months it continues to be painful, and in the interim I’ve been transferring as much duty as possible to my left hand. Now I seem to have overdone it because my left hand and wrist have started hurting as much as my right arm. It seems the story of Rapunzel need re-writing:

‘I say, beautiful lady, your singing has brought enchantment to my heart. May we meet?’

‘Yes, yes, we may, fair princely being. I will let my long, luxuriant hair down so you may climb up it and we can be together.’

‘Well, actually, I can’t.’

 

'Can't what?'

 

'Climb up it.'

‘Why not?’

‘My right arm and left hand both hurt. Can’t you come down?’

‘Of course I can’t, you idiot. The witch has locked me in up here. That’s the point.’

‘Oh I see. Oh well, can’t be helped I suppose. Bye, then.’

Standing Back.

Someone I know is currently being driven by the powerful winds of passion onto a course which I fear will drive her onto the rocks. So should I advise caution? No, for several reasons.

Firstly, I don’t give advice because I consider it presumptuous. Secondly, it isn’t really any of my business. Thirdly, I might be wrong. But the main reason is the fact that I know her to be an experience junkie, and experiences come in all forms, some good and some bad. That’s life and it’s her right to experience it warts and all.

If I’m right, perhaps I will still be around to help her patch up the ship. Or maybe I won’t.

*  *  *

I’m currently being wowed by Shirley Jackson’s masterful skill at drawing a character by the classic expedient of showing, not telling. I’m actually quite pleased that I never discovered this woman before. I think she would have slipped by unnoticed, and that would have been a shame.

Down But Not Quite Out.

So, what does a writer write about when the will to write is weak and there’s nothing to write about anyway?

That sentence jumped into my head two nights ago after I wrote the post about not being as good a writer as I used to think I was. And still there isn’t much to write about, although I suppose I could mention a couple of things in passing:

I read two reports this morning which left a strong feeling that I no longer wish to be a member of the human species. The first pushed my depression to an even deeper state, and the second opened the tap for a few minutes. It’s just that the dark magma which lies at the base of the human psyche, and which threatens to erupt only too readily and too often, is not to my taste. Reclusiveness seems to be the only way forward.

I discovered yesterday that John Fowles (author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman among other works) and I have certain notable character traits in common. If only I had an Elena van Lieshout to keep me company as winter approaches. Maybe I would if I’d begun to write earlier in life and taken it more seriously, but who knows where the road not travelled would have led?

Talking of winter, my house has now developed its characteristic winter chill. It’s probably no coincidence that my angina has also become more uncomfortable. The taking of walks around the Shire is now just another chore.

I wonder how long it will be before I think of something else to give me an excuse to exercise my fingers at the keyboard.

(I don’t much like being as self-indulgent as this, but I haven’t much else to do during the long, dark evenings. The priestess said to me last night: ‘I know we’re worlds apart at the moment.’ She was right.)

Re-Appraisal.

I’ve just started reading one of Shirley Jackson’s earlier novels, The Bird’s Nest, and it’s teaching me something important:

I was never as good a writer as I thought I was.

Not that I ever had a particularly high opinion of my writing you understand, but I did have a vague notion of occupying a certain – albeit undefined – position on the spectrum of Very Good to Very Bad. That’s changed and so I’ve demoted myself.

I am in awe of this woman’s skill and mental energy. And if that means my self-perception pales further in comparison, I consider it a good thing because knowing myself is one the two biggest preoccupations I have. (The other is knowing the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything, but that line of enquiry never fails to offer many disparate paths in a fog-shrouded wilderness. Knowing how good or bad I am at something is much easier.)

Symbolic.

It will have been noted that awareness of mortality climbed out of the depths of a little used pocket when I had the cancer issue nearly four years ago. It crept up to sit on my shoulder and has remained there ever since, growing bigger and more visible as each new health issue has come along.

 

It never stops nudging me now, reminding me of its presence to ensure that I entertain no pea-brained notions of presuming to have a future. And that’s why the sight of autumn leaves falling to the ground, sometimes silently and sometimes with a clatter, has become especially poignant.

The Gothic Proclivity.

The urge to write seems to have fallen dormant lately, which is a shame because writing is the only thing which charges my batteries. Everything else is either a chore or something to be dreaded.Today I considered telling the little tale of the busker, the homeless man and the £5 note, but it seemed too insubstantial (which is a little odd considering the mass of even less substantial drivel I used to commit to this piece of cyberspace back in the early days.) And the story might have suggested a note of sanctimonious self-congratulation, which simply wouldn’t do.

Apart from that, the only thing worth mentioning tonight is the fact that the full moon is peering through the branches of the ash tree behind my house, apparently keeping a furtive watch on me through the smaller of the two windows in my office. That’s the one Mel keeps telling me needs a curtain because it’s creepy. To me, the sight of a furtive moon peering through the branches of a tree is merely gothic.

I like gothic. Seeing a full moon being alternately hidden and revealed by scudding clouds is also gothic. I’ve always had a yen to be one of a party of strangers trapped in an old dark house by a storm, while mysterious goings on scare the willies out of everybody but me. It won’t happen, of course. All I ever get are black dogs leaping at me out of my bedroom wall and startling dreams of an arm reaching over my shoulder to grab whatever is in front of me. (It happened twice a few nights ago.) And in those situations I’m always alone, which isn’t ideal. It’s an odd fact that interaction with strangers, while being unwelcome in most situations, is vital to the gothic experience. I’ve no idea why; it just is.

A Muse and a Little Magic.

I saw or heard something recently (alas, I forget what it was) which left me with the thought that none of us can have the remotest idea of what life is about until our consciousness learns to see itself for what it really is. It occurred to me that maybe that’s the secret of enlightenment. If I get any further, I’ll post it here.

*  *  *

And today I saw something close to magical on a nondescript street in nondescript little Ashbourne. There was a pristine, pale cream Hansom cab waiting to convey the bride and groom from their wedding at the nearby registrar’s office to wherever newly married couples retire after the ceremony. The Hansom cab was, indeed, handsome, but it paled beside what stood ahead of it: two magnificent, jet black horses, 16 hands apiece and identical as a brace of twins given genesis in some magical realm. I suppose that was the point. I suppose they were meant to symbolise the romantic and tragically ill-conceived notion that there is something magical about the state of matrimony. When it comes to the matter of magic, I’ll take the horses. I so wanted to reach out and touch these two, but it seemed disrespectful.

Mystic Meteorology.

By 11 o’clock this morning I was beginning to feel that I was about to fall over backwards and start frothing at the mouth, all courtesy of several incidents and an unexpected phone call from the Cardiology department of the Royal Derby Hospital (it was the third one this week, and I’m not going to elucidate further because it’s all becoming too silly.)

And then I had the phone call I was expecting from the Urology department, the one I’ve been dreading for a week because it seemed likely that it would be the purveyor of bad news. It wasn’t. CT scans clear and a simple projection for future screening was all I got. I went to do my weekly shop in a better frame of mind and even found something I’ve been seeking for two years in a charity shop.

So then it seemed to me that periods of good and bad fortune are much like weather systems. You wake up in the morning to dull skies, blustery winds and rain as a deep depression passes through. And then the rain stops, the wind dies down, the sky clears and the sun comes out.

We could do with a fortune version of weather forecasters, couldn’t we? Only they’d have to be more reliable than astrologers (and even weather forecasters.) And women called Mystic Myrtle who get paid to write whatever they feel like writing in tabloid newspapers definitely won’t do.

A Worrying Encounter.

I went for my Covid booster jab today. I arrived ten minutes before my appointment time only to find that the system had been changed and appointment times counted for nothing. The venue had become a walk-in centre and it was a case of first come, first served. In consequence, I was kept hanging around in a room full of people for an hour and twenty minutes.

That was irritating, but what bothered me more was the old lady sitting on a chair when I went into the hall where the jabbing was taking place. She offered me her seat.

Why would an old lady offer me her seat? Did I look as though I needed one? I’m fairly sure that I didn’t and so I politely declined. But then she moved to another seat on the further side of the room and I noticed that she was looking at me. When I returned her stare, she offered me her seat again.

She didn’t look mad or anything. She wasn’t dishevelled, she didn’t have long black hair covering half her face with only one eye showing, and she wasn’t wearing a long white nightdress. She looked perfectly smart and presentable.

At first I thought it nothing more than today’s little oddness. Lots of days have one or more little oddnesses about them. But then I had another thought: Suppose she was gifted with some form of second sight. Could she, perhaps, see the Grim holding station close to my leg and following my every movement? Might she have X-Ray vision and be cognisant of some internal feature of which I’m currently unaware?

That’s what’s bothering me because such things do, especially when I'm awaiting the results of two medical investigative procedures.

The Waiting Game.

Nearly three hours away from the house for the sake of a 20 minute procedure smacked of inefficiency to me. I had my echocardiogram today at the hospital.

The radiographer with the white plastic tool and the pot of slimy stuff was young, female, taller than me and somewhat taciturn. She was, however, wearing scrubs, and few things endear me to a young woman more than the wearing of scrubs.  I told her that I had written something about scrubs on my blog once, to the effect that I wondered why young women didn’t go to nightclubs in them since they’re far sexier than what young women routinely wear to nightclubs. She seemed unimpressed. Taciturn people usually do. So when she asked me to remove all my garments above the waist and I felt inclined to reply ‘I will if you will’, I chose discretion and kept my mouth shut. Remarks like that, however innocently meant, don’t go down too well these days, and rightly so.

She proceeded with the little white plastic tool and the pot of slimy stuff without saying a word, as you would expect of a taciturn person. The upshot of this was that I had no idea what, if anything, she was finding which might give cause for concern. She told me that her report would be sent to the cardiology department and I would be advised of the outcome in due course. So many words for such a taciturn person. I said ‘thank you for your time’ and she replied ‘you’re welcome.’ And that was that.

Next stop the vending machine on the way back to the car park. I’d decided to celebrate the successful prosecution of yet another procedure (that’s the 40^th in less than four years) with a cup of hot chocolate. Unfortunately, I omitted to read the instructions and performed the operation in the wrong order, the consequence of which was that I spent £2 on my debit card and received only an empty paper cup in return. I read the instructions and was faced with a decision: whether it was better to spend £2 and receive nothing, or spend £4 and get what I wanted. I chose the latter; it seemed the more positive approach. My first sip of the steaming beverage was immediately spat out (it’s fortunate that I’d taken it outside so I could remove my face mask.) It wasn’t so much steaming as searing. I suspect the machine needs a little adjustment.

So was that a good day or a bad one? You decide. I’m tired.

Meanwhile, I have a consultation with the urology department coming up on Wednesday, at their request. I can be quite sure that it won’t have anything to do with my heart, but apart from that I’m in the dark. The word of the moment is ‘waiting.’

Oh, I forgot to mention... The only truly notable feature of today's echocardiogram procedure was the fact that the machine which produced the images occasionally went into audio mode and I could hear my heart pumping blood. As reassuring as the sound was for obvious reasons, I couldn't decide whether it sounded like a pig gobbling swill or a dog being sick.

Danish Blue.

I discovered recently that the Danish word for speed is fart. They have road signs, apparently, which say ‘fart kontrol.’ And the surname of the young woman from whom I learned that interesting little fact is Klitgaard. I haven’t yet summoned the courage to ask her whether it’s Danish for chastity belt.

I do apologise for stepping a little outside the bounds of decorous communication here, but I’m having increasing difficulty finding something to say on this blog. I’m tired of the health issues, you see. They’re becoming extremely tedious again, although I expect there might be more to recount after I’ve had a procedure called a something-or-other cardiogram next Friday.

But for those interested in quality literature, I might just add that I’m at roughly the halfway point of Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial and have only just realised that it’s at least in part an absurdist comedy. Her awareness of the offbeat is most impressive.

Aborting the Dark Germ.

Some things just shouldn’t be written because sometimes they can take form and grow and cross over into the world we call the real one. Mahler knew this when he wrote Kindertotenlieder. He knew it again when he wrote Das Lied von der Erde. He ignored the warning of his instinct both times and suffered horribly. What’s worse, others suffered too.

I mentioned recently that I had the germ of an idea for a ‘ghost story for Christmas.’ Tonight it began to take shape, and as it did so I began to feel scared and ill. The red light of warning seemed clear. I chose not to ignore it.

For what would it avail me but a small fragment of kudos perhaps? Someone, somewhere, might compliment its originality. Such a small reward for the possibility of what it might engender. Such a high price to pay for so little achievement.

And so the child of imagination called Sadie Blackmore must never come into being. Please forget that I ever mentioned her. And do feel free to call me a fantasist and a coward. That much I will happily accept.

Cardiology and the Genius Loci.

I had to go to the cardiology department of the Royal Derby Hospital yesterday and I felt uncomfortable there. I looked around and found nothing obvious to explain it. The furniture and fittings were pretty much the same as all the other departments I’ve visited; the staff were polite, pleasant and efficient. And yet it didn’t feel right and I was anxious to leave.

Maybe it had an entirely prosaic explanation. Maybe it was all to do with the layout, the size of the rooms and the quality of the light. And it is a fact that the main part of the hospital is a veritable succession of mazes within mazes. It’s relatively easy to find your way in by following the signposts, but the signposts mostly point inwards, so finding your way out again is rather more difficult. Maybe the labyrinthine nature of the place simply encouraged the fear that the Minotaur’s lair might be too close for comfort. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I have a mild form of claustrophobia.

But I wondered whether other people felt the same way. I suspect they didn’t because I imagine most people are less sensitive to the genius loci than I am. Is that arrogant? I don’t know. I suppose other people might well feel the same way, but just don’t think about it as much as I do and don’t make the same connections. I have been accused of being weird often enough after all.

And on a more practical note, I’ve decided not to take the medication the doctor prescribed (and for which I waited nearly an hour at the hospital pharmacy.) Too many rules and requirements around the timing of doses, and too many side effects. It would screw up my lifestyle and take away what few simple pleasures I still have left to me. The angina is uncomfortable, but it’s the lesser of the two evils.

Today and Tomorrow.

Today’s visit to the hospital proved to be a somewhat difficult, dispiriting, lengthy and perplexing experience, and I returned rather later than I had thought likely. It was very nearly dark by the time I got home and the daily business of replenishing the birds’ feeding facilities only added further impetus to a mood already made sombre by a conscientious cardiology registrar and an overly busy hospital pharmacy. Tasks normally performed in daylight were rendered awkward by the requirement to possess three hands – two to perform the basic operations and another to hold the lamp. Being a typically symmetrical human being, I only have two.

The mood did not deepen when I shone the lamp into the mailbox by my front door and saw deposited there a letter bearing the words ‘Private and Confidential.’ ‘Deepen’ would be an understatement. It crashed. Here is a letter from the hospital, I thought, and there is no reason to think that it can refer to anything other than my recent CT scans. Furthermore, its being so prompt after the procedure can only mean one thing: this is a call to attend an interview with a consultant to be informed that either chemotherapy or curtains is imminent. I continued to do my duty by the birds, and then collected the letter to be read indoors.

It wasn’t from the hospital as I imagined, but from the credit card company informing me of my monthly debits and credits and resultant balance. Some sense of relief was in order, as you might imagine, but tomorrow is another day and another day might still bring with it the dreaded missive. That’s how life is at the moment and the situation is becoming tedious.

Meanwhile, the old dark rider who has been prowling around since the matter of the cancerous kidney nearly four years ago has been joined by a companion. This one concerns himself with matters of the heart – not the one which speaks fondly to attractive young nurses and sallow-skinned pharmacy assistants with chocolate voices – but the physical one which gives life to our mortal vehicle. He waits patiently for the verdict from two further procedures to which today’s visit have committed me. They will determine whether the dear old organ has the means to sustain its host without assistance, or whether the attention of those trained in such matters will be necessary. For the time being, I now have a fourth medication to augment my ratting habit.

Are you getting all this?

The house is colder tonight than it was last night. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

Life goes on for now.