Bladder control?

What is it about the proximity to one's home making you want to pee with exponential effect, with each step you make towards it when returning from elsewhere? And the bloody key is never in the most obvious corner of your bag or pocket, is it? 

When you have a pushchair to bring inside, a toddler to de-shoe (pale carpets) and de-coat, well, it's a miracle the mad squirming dance works for long enough to keep the carpets dry. (Oh, and this is nowt to do with post-childbirth, unless S, too, has grown a womb and had offspring.)

These dreams go on when I open my eyes...

It's not the best start to a day when you have had a bad dream and the feelings stay with you, throbbing at the limits of your memory and leaving you with the mental equivalent of having swallowed unexpected bile. It's particularly annoying, as, let's face it, who recalls their dreams accurately? Usually, all you get is (in my case, what with the teeth-grinding fun): a headache, neck pain, nagging feelings of doubt and doom, and possibly suspicion of those around you, if the protagonist was one of your nearest and dearest, or a colleague (this latter scenario is especially strange). I've had some intensely bizarre and bizarrely intense dream action involving various family and friends (and, ok, people I can't stand) over the years.

Despite being an adult, or trying to be, I still cannot quite traverse that line between the subconscious splatterings of my untidy sleeping mind and the clear thoughts of daytime (in theory, in theory...). I recall going to work one morning many years ago, convinced that a chap called Yann was about to randomly get up from his manky black office chair, whirl around in the middle of the newsroom, making his cloak appear as he did so, and cast terrible spells on us, having turned into a wizard or something of that ilk. I stared at him all day. Then there are the dreams of planes crashing. Those aren't so good when you live nearish to the flight path of one of London's busiest airports. Hmm.

One thing I have noticed is that if I sleep on my back, with my hands on my stomach or chest, I always have a bad dream. The good thing is that by lying that way, I usually fall asleep within minutes (take that, insomnia, you fool!), but the sacrifice I make is that I'll be awake – with a jolt – once I get into REM sleep (something that insomnia took from me, making me slightly crazed). What to do? How should I lie down? I can't lie on my stomach, which is my preferred sleeping position, as I have lower back pain at present and the twist in my spine if I am on my front hurts rather a lot. On to my back it is. Oh dear.

Surrealism

I haven't been blogging much of late but that's because I'm having a rather strange time. Some strange-good, some not-so-good, some just plain old good and some not good.

I realise that that doesn't explain anything. I'll explain when I find words that are clear enough. Not sure when that'll be, but it'll be.

January...

...where did you go? Eh? How can it be February on Sunday?

When I got up this morning, I was surprised at the pale pinkish light in the sky. I wondered momentarily what was wrong then realised I was witnessing sunrise.

Spring has not sprung...

...but I am currently finishing off an article for the spring issue of a magazine and have just made reference to April 2009 in the text.

It's no wonder I don't know what day it is...

'Don't pee in your wetsuit'

Why is there a supposedly 'tailored' ad on my email inbox that says this? Eh?

Snakes

My spam inbox, which I clear regularly, just had a message in it telling me to 'grow giant snake in pants'.

No thanks.

Talking of snakes, GFG just passed me in the hallway; she didn't look at me (which satisfies me) but I had a brief, awkward chat with her husband, with whom I have no problem, as yet. I called the police station and left a message with the copper who had come round after GFG had kept us awake all night, saying that they were back. My initial instinct to walk the other way when I saw them at the doorway (going out), as I returned home evaporated swiftly. This is my home, I (and S) have done nothing wrong and I will not be made to feel uncomfortable again.

No thanks.

Craig Charles in my head

I didn't sleep well last night. The reason? I had a dream – a nightmare in fact. Craig Charles was running down a street, chasing me. I was running for my life. Running as though I had jets under my feet. Running because Craig Charles was chasing me with a paper aeroplane in his hand.

Yes. He let go of the – erm – paper plane and I ducked. It flew quite well but didn't hit me. After this, Craig changed into some unidentified assailant armed with something shiny, and at that point I woke up. Well, I screamed in my sleep and woke myself up and then was so scared that I couldn't get back to sleep.

I had had beans on toast for dinner and some Guinness at a pub quiz. Not a trace of cheese, but I'm not having that combo again, I tell you.

End of the world etc

I am pleased that the Large Hadron Collider experiment didn't result in the end of the world. It may yet do so – in 2012 – anything to avoid those pesky Olympics, eh?

It's said to take four years until the impact of the experiment is known. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if this was the equivalent of a massive schoolboy cock-up and we really did send ourselves into oblivion? What a way to go. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012, I think. Hmm. Ah well.

One professor un-eloquently commented that those who fear that the LHC will spell doom "are twats". Out of the mouths of scientists... comes a load of rubbish sometimes. How arrogant to assume that we know better than nature and the universe. Man has a phenomenal capacity for destruction, and science should not pretend otherwise. All actions have an equal and opposite reaction, as someone [a scientist, hmm?] once said...

Remember me?

The other day on the train, I saw a woman who looked oddly familiar. She had longer hair than when I had last seen her six years ago. She had also added a few lines to those that had already formed on her face, but she wore exactly the same expression, which I can only describe as a half smirk/half sarcastic purse of the lips coupled with disapproving, hooded eyes that you only usually see when a sneer is on the cusp of someone's next facial movement.

I had to suppress the urge to make sure that the woman saw me as well as a powerful desire to make sure she didn't see me. This conflict of instincts made me stand up taller while also making me want to step backwards (though I didn't). We had been seated on either side of the train doors and now, at the final stop, we would inevitably clash at the doorway. There were plenty of people around but the rush-hour crowd was not so thick that we would be shielded from one another. I looked at her again and again, smiled to myself, and knew that I had more drive in me now than I had had when I first knew her (and back then, when she and I fought, I gave her hell). I was daring her to look up, to meet my gaze. But she did not, lost in some inane thought, no doubt. Or maybe she had seen me.

This woman, with her beige bag and beige hair and face (and personality) is the last person I worked for before going freelance [I am so tempted to name her here...]. Let's call her Linzi [she'd like to think that that would suit her]... So, Linzi. A bully in a beige suit. A bully who made me vow to never work for a company, to be tied to any one place for my income (after I woke one day with blood all over my pillow and duvet) was there, right there... I thought I had an ulcer but I didn't – there was a bizarre amount of blood over my chin and mouth, and I have no idea where it came from – there were no cuts in my mouth or bites caused by teeth-grinding.)

Linzi was a bastard and probably still is. I know where she works because me and my ex-colleagues (now friends – oh, how we bonded!) sometimes Google her. I know which train she takes now, and where she sits. And that she still wears beige. Not much changes.

Suffice to say that this woman tried all manner of means to get me and my colleagues to leave so that she could replace us with her cronies. I came off badly because I stood up to her. In time, the office ended up as a Linzi version of Friends Reunited. My colleagues and I eventually left because, frankly life was too short to put up with the evil idiot who embezzled a load of money and somehow got away with it – due to an incredible police mess-up with the case notes.

By the time Linzi's computer was seized, I must have been a distant memory, and had left only a legacy of my fury and defiance (I started cases against her – just to teach her a lesson – and I got the unions involved, though they were largely useless, but it gave Linzi something to worry about...). I remember when a friend called me to tell me that Linzi had been arrested. I was in M&S buying tights at the time and yelled with delight and laughed for about 15 minutes. Shame she didn't get to spend some time in jail.

If I see her again, I'll grin. She'll probably fall over on her beige shoes with shock.

Holding back the fears

Apparently, one of the reasons I can't always (well, often) hit as hard as I want to in kung fu is because I am internalising certain things (namely anger). I hold back. The reasons are myriad.

It's quite bizarre, this mind-affecting-body lark. I am going to try to cease with this internal baloney, which only ever damages me, and hit/kick the crap out of the next pad I meet. When I get there, the catharsis, I imagine, will be explosive.

Thought spinners unite

This has been a strange few weeks (I may have said that before on this blog). My mind has been a pickle. It has been pickled. Not in excess alcohol, but in excess thought. The amount of pressure in my head has been immense. It has caused me to sleep fitfully and dream the most bizarre, and often deeply disturbing, dreams – nightmares, in fact.

The brain is incredible. Literally in-credible. Its ability to spin thoughts into garish garments with three legs and four holes for heads is just phenomenal. At times, I have felt as though my head will explode. It happened slowly – one thing after another. Slowly, slowly, break the camel's back (sorry to mix metaphors)...

When One Thing after Another becomes hump-shattering, you just can't think. Clarity becomes an abstract concept and you lose your words. You just can't speak for the pressure cooker in your head. Why do humans do this? (Well, some humans...) Do the people that have tendencies towards thought spinning have an eye for the minutiae, nuance and unsaid that makes them perceptive where others simply drift by? Does this enrich? (I think it does – to a point.) Or, would their lives be easier if they could switch off and deal only in the factual? Hmm.

Mind reader

Do you ever have periods where others keeps tuning into your brain and say exactly what you have thought, using unusual words and phrases? It's happening to me at the moment. These synchronicitous (is that even a word?) happenings do, erm, happen, from time to time. But this time it's quite ridiculous. And good. I like all this sixth sense stuff. It's fascinating. And very real. It's all about wavelengths, I guess.

Erm, how old? (part three)

Heavens. I was asked for my ID again when trying to buy two bottle of Argentinian white wine. (This is the third time in six weeks; I was quizzed while buying Superglue at the weekend and had the wine situation a few weeks before that.)

I smiled as some of my cards fell out from my purse on to the floor. I didn't have anything with ID on it. The man looked closely at my eyes and smiled back with embarrassment. I said that this situation had happened previously and that it was very kind but I am 39, not 19. He smiled some more, almost shy. The queue built behind me. I think the people behind me thought my card had been refused or something as they shifted impatiently.

Eventually, he scanned the two bottles. I thanked him as he carried on looking at me as though I had just done cartwheels while swallowing fire and chuckled to myself as I walked back to my car.

Just how old are you?

I went to Homebase to buy some glue, a new vase to replace the one the wind blew over and shattered this morning, and a paint roller.

The vase and roller (plus some plain white plates that hadn't been on my list) were easy to find but I couldn't locate the glue. There didn't seem to be a glue section, nor was there a big 'ADHESIVES' banner hanging above any aisles.

So, I asked a Homebase man where the Superglue was and he literally looked me up and down as though I was insane. He frowned: "Hmm, are you over 18?"

I am 39.

Thirty-nine!! Hahahahaha.

I laughed, how I laughed. The man, perhaps taken aback by my manic cackling, took me to the glue area and left me there, still looking at me somewhat askance, probably imagining me later with my hoodies and dem, swigging cheap booze and, erm, copping a load of Superglue fumes. There was a fat man standing in front of most of the glue display. Squinting, I read from a distance to see which of the many types of glue I could use, reached in front of his massive belly and plucked a packet from the display. He continued to stand, motionless, mesmerised by the yellow tubes of Araldite, apparently.

I've been asked for ID in the past two months when buying wine but at least there you have to look 21. I cannot believe this man thought I was 17. It could be flattering, I guess, but I don't want to look younger than 18, thanks very much!

Anyway, the vase is in place, the glue was used to stick down M's pawprint motif on her bed (she had pulled it up and eaten a bit of it), and I just can't be bothered to paint today, so am listening to rock music while online shopping and intermittently cleaning the place.

I'll try to buy some wine later and see if the youth fairy's spell is still working.

----------------
Listening to: Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon

Eight of wands

It was my birthday during the early hours. I woke having had the eight of wands, a tarot card, going through a sequence of dreams. Often I forget such details but this, to me, seemed significant and it was clearly in my head.

I wasn't sure, in my dreams, what the card meant, although in waking life I know it is a card of action. So, to be sure, I have looked it up. If it is a portent of what is to come, I am pleased. It's all about action, bowl-you-over energy, newness, doing, having passion for things, and moving on from things that may have held you back. Communication is meant to be good, too. It's pretty powerful. Lovely.

Affair of the tarts

S and I went to a live comedy show at the weekend. Sometimes the acts are good, sometimes appalling, and, on occasion, you'll see a mixture of the two.

So, anyway, that's enough about the acts. Really. (Seriously, they were nondescript.)

Anyway, what really got my goat (and S's) was that there was a couple in the front row, a man and woman, who were openly having an affair. They told the acts they were married (to other people) and seemed nonchalant about it. They had the air of a couple doing illicit things who were obviously getting off on the people around them disapproving. (It wasn't a joke, this pair were far from jokers...)

OK, so I know affairs happen. But bloody hell, this was ridiculous – why they didn't just go public and make it 'legit', I don't understand. You could just tell they were off on some 'business trip' as far as their spouses were concerned but, most disturbing, they were loving the fact that they were talking about their wonderful relationship in public where no one knew them. A pair of exhibitionists. They really didn't give a damn.

The comedians commented on the affair but you could tell they were uncomfortable with the whole thing and mainly resorted to looks of disbelief at the canoodling pair. At one point, S saw them sucking each others insides out and the woman said to the man (referring to the comedians' disapproval): "This always happens when we come to [insert name of area]." And she giggled madly. Pair of tarts. And you could just tell that the man had bought a new shirt from Ted Baker to impress the woman. It was a pulling shirt and he must have been 45 or so. Nowt wrong with being 45 but bloody hell, he looked odd.

Cringe x 50 million.

Chirp, chirp, chirp

There is a bird chirping outside. It chirps every two to three seconds usually. All day. Just one note.

chirp

pause

chirp

pause

and on and on...

It sounds plaintive. It isn't singing. It sounds like the whistling your nose makes when you have a cold and can't breathe well.

It's a cycle

I don't cycle much, and when I do, I prefer to stick to quiet roads and the path by the river. I wear a cycle helmet. It felt so tight today that it gave me a headache. I was too scared to loosen it. And, anyway, the instructions said it should be tight, so that has to be right, doesn't it?

A tosser in a Porsche drove right behind me at one point – inches away – in a scary manner. He revved the engine as he passed me. Moron with small penis.

Bike bum

Yesterday, I rode my bicycle for the first time in 18 months. Ouch. Sore backside. But it was good fun.