This has probably been an odd Christmas for lots of you, so I just wanted to send you all some good feelings of peace and warmth, like a hot toddy in front of a well contained fire. xx (for anyone not from UK, these are kisses, not just random ‘xx’s. It’s actually perfectly normal to put ‘xx’s at the bottom of a message, and I think you should all start doing it 🙂 )
Hello fellow piglets (and those who identify as human)! I’m off work this week, and since we’re in lockdown I haven’t got a lot to do but play around in my garden and with the Internet. I might clean the flat at some point, but I don’t want to rush into anything drastic.
Anyway, to fill the time I’ve been organising my blog by creating proper categories for it, instead of listing almost everything under ‘blogging’ out of laziness. This means that I can find things here when I want to, and more importantly, so can you! All those brain-searing posts from the past you might have missed. Like when I found a penguin! Or spent days watching foxes play football and piss in a shoe. Not to mention loads of weirdy and short tales, dragged up from the days when I still wrote proper stories. (Note: I don’t understand the phrase ‘not to mention’, because it is always followed by mentioning). You can find them all with the squeak of a mouse, just to the right of the page there >>>>
Today I’m sharing with you the delightful journey of the Inspirational Quotes category. Including both Inspirobot wisdom (which, now I’m looking back, is quite harsh!) and my own take own motivation. Honestly, these snippets of insight might change your view of the world. Nay! Even your whole life!
Last week the heat turned my brain to porridge and shriveled all the plants to dust. I didn’t post because I was too grumpy.
But now it’s cooler, greyer and my brain got impatient because I haven’t been on a proper adventure into London since lockdown began. So off I went.
I’ve been studying tunnels and catacombs under London recently and came across a place called Leake Street. This is a tunnel going under the platforms of Waterloo station, where graffiti is legal. It sounded like the kind of place I should know about, so I assumed I must have been there and forgotten. I was wrong.
I went today, I’ve never been before and it was ace, but a tiny bit creepy early in the morning.
You could see history in the walls. Layers of images piled up expressing rage, sadness, disgust and joy with life. Lots of current events (of course plenty of covid comment) and delight in colour and shapes.
I found this great blog showing the graffiti on the walls each day as they change – 100 Days of Leake Street.
Next week, more tunnels under London (albeit less colourful ones).
It occurred to me walking to work today, that London may never look this empty again once the virus is over, so I took a couple of photos. Although Dan reckons that London is changed forever now, the people won’t return.
‘So London will become a rotting husk? Just the occasional cyclist and confused tourist wandering about?’ I asked. He nodded.
Okey doke. We know the movies and the TV series, the plague comes and the busy city life never returns. We end up huddled around a camp fire roasting cockroaches on sticks and trying to open a tin of beans with a plastic spork. And yes, I am aware of how melodramatic I am, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
I have tagged this Lifestyle, because this is my covid lifestyle, watching fox cubs. And here are some words for such a lifestyle.
Deponent – having a passive form but active meaning (I feel this sums me up at the moment, because I definitely mean to be active, but my form is passive.)
Stygian – having a gloomy or foreboding aspect; murky (not sure if this is my mood or the mood of the world today)
Medusiform – resembling a jellyfish (self explanatory).
Along with watching foxes, I went out to buy some milk and watched a bit of Seven Psychopaths ( I haven’t the concentration to watch a whole film at once). And I decided to stop trying to write a book that was annoying me, and start writing a new one. It went quite well too. I might start another new one when this one gets annoying. Maybe I can sell them on to people who have trouble starting writing.
So I fixed my goddamn camera (well, I assume I did. I was trying to fix it and now it works. I’m not exactly sure what the connection between these two states is, but presumably I did something.) And I can take actual photos! I can’t really go out exploring, of course, but then the fox cubs came to visit.
I crept out the back door and got a couple of wonky snaps, (I had to kind of lean over the fire escape, it was awkward) and then, just as I was about to take the best photo ever, the kid from next door started shouting out the window.
‘Go away foxes! Go away!’ she yelled.
They weren’t even in her garden, they were in mine. The little bugger.
I sympathise though, she’s about eight, has been left with her grandparents and is going slowly insane. She spends hours hitting their washing with a stick while singing nonsense very loudly. This cannot be an easy situation for an only child. Still, she could have waited a few minutes before shouting.
“When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
doki doki (Japanese) the anxiety when someone is doing something nervewracking
Note: this word interpretation comes from a dictionary of mine, and I checked online for accuracy. There I found another interpretation, which may mean the above isn’t right (anyone out there speak Japanese?) However, much as I like the above interpretation, I also like the online one, so here it is:
ドキドキ (dokidoki) is a word that mimics the sound of a beating heart. It is used to describe physical/emotional excitement or racing of the heart. It can indicate that someone is thrilled, excited, or nervous
psychiasis – healing of the soul or psyche (something we don’t focus on enough in society)
quoz – absurd person or thing (my favourite kind of person or thing)
How are you all doing? I think I may be getting the hang of this isolation thing, (my biggest problem right now is that a neighbour is playing Amazing Grace extremely loud) but I know many of you aren’t or have serious problems to deal with right now, so please share. Communication is good!
“Yossarian was flabbergasted. His leg went abruptly to sleep.”
Catch 22
Word of the day: Bloviate – to write or speak windily
After returning to blogging last week, I came to a standstill. Because if I’m not working at my loopy job, what am I supposed to write about? And my three flatmates ran back to their respective countries just as all the trouble was starting, so now I’m in the flat on my own. Isolated. And more importantly, boring.
It’s a good life really, I’m doing much thinking and meditating. Watching videos and snoozing. I’m putting the finishing touches on the book that I wrote. I’m cleaning all the nooks and crannies of the flat. But none of that makes for an interesting blog. And even if it did, I’m aware of the humongous amounts of scary shit many people are going through, so it feels heartless to chatter on.
Being isolated, I do need to talk to people though, so I’m going to try and blog, then hope it provides some distraction or company for others and doesn’t annoy.
I’m going to carry on putting up interesting words and quotes, plus any photos from work I didn’t use. I hope you like those. And if I do have any thoughts or events worth sharing, I will.
Is anyone else enjoying the little moments of connection with strangers that happen in a crisis? Exchanges of raised eyebrows and grins when things go wrong. Or a shy smile when I step out of someone’s way so we can maintain space. When the big interactions stop, the little ones become more significant. Is this how we get communities?
For all of you out there who are scared, lonely, in danger of losing a job or a loved one, my love goes out to you. I’m so sorry. I could well end up in the same situation soon, but while I’ve got things easy, feel free to vent.
So I’m in London, land of blitz spirit and denial, greed and disaster. Hunkered down in England’s plague-pit, I promise you all, everything is going to be absolutely fine.
Mood: Sort of itchy and news-obsessed. Waiting for doom to knock on the door.
Weather: Sunny, blue sky, little fluffy clouds. Distinctly inappropriate weather for a global catastrophe. Anyone would think nature was fine about our impending ending.
Word of the day: Impest – to infest with plague or pestilence.
“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”
The Year Of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
It’s been a while since I posted. I just finished writing my book yesterday (woohoo!) I’ve got my head to a somewhat settled place, and a huge disaster is sweeping through everywhere except Botswana and Yemen. The UK government is doing a great job of making a plan up as they go along, London may soon go into lockdown, but I’m still working. Working is actually pretty nice, it feels like we’re a lifetime away from danger when we’re out with the flowers and the robins.
How about all of you? (going to have a look in a minute) Are you isolated? Healthy? Scared or complacent?
Note: for anyone isolating and bored, the above picture was made using the website http://weavesilk.com/ If, like me, you like making beautiful and impressive pictures, but don’t really have any talent or skills, then this is the website for you. Click and drag ineptly as you like and the results will be delightful. The controls in the left hand top corner give you enough variety to keep it interesting. A seriously soothing site.
I know I haven’t been around, and I’ll explain why in a minute, but first I need to talk about the foxes!
Those who follow this blog, might remember that I have some foxes that like to sleep in my back garden, and they brought a shoe in. I left the shoe for them because I figured it might be a toy for them. Turns out it wasn’t.
A week ago I was watching the two of them sleep, curled up under the tree. Then one woke up, stretched, walked to the shoe and squatted over it for a moment and left. Ten minutes later the other did the same. With great trepidation I went out to the garden and looked in the shoe. It was filled with fox pee and one fox turd. It wasn’t a toy, it was a toilet! They brought a toilet to my garden. I disposed of it and they haven’t been back since. I have no idea what this means. Have I evicted them?
And now for a brief announcement, I’m disappearing for a while. It’s for a mix of reasons, the simplest is that I’m trying to write a book. I know I just finished the draft of one book, but now I’m working on another (I know I’m so damn productive! Superslow though 😉 ), so I need to concentrate on that for a bit. The other, less fun reason is that I’m having a resurgence of all the PTSD stuff from years ago (I wrote about this in the past, old blogs under the tags to the right). It’s not terrible (certainly nothing like it was), I’m still working, but I’m exhausted and cranky and I don’t want that bad mood to spill into my blogs and bring you all down. I’m not going forever, probably just a few months, and I’ll pop into visit your blogs occasionally to see what you’re all up to.
Please look after yourselves, keep the adventures going without me.
Oh and I went to see the moon in a church. Bet you never realised it would fit!
inkbiotic 