Too Much To Declare

Big Thunder wakes me.
My sleepy thoughts ,
Then a few blogged words,
Your reading,
Your feeback,
My love stats,
Big Pressure,
Self inflicted
Less thunder,
More jokey
Less pointful,
Too routine,
Thoughts gone.

Private posts for me (1) it says on my BCUK Home Page.  But I can't find it.  I've checked through my 10 pages of "Private Posts"  The oldest one was written 168 days ago.  All are marked as "Read".

Private Posts have their uses.  I might write one myself one day.  But this missing one is getting on my nerves.

Perhaps a Posts can be so Private, it isn't listed anywhere.  Has anyone else ever received one of these?

I can't resist the temptation.  Here are my book's opening an closing paragraphs:

She's moaning, heavy breathing.  "Yes, baby, yes!"
I was eighteen years old.  In the dream, I'm usually younger.  Once I wore my school cap.
    "Oh, baby.  Baby!  You're the best, you're the best."  Then, with no warning, she yawns.  "If you don't come soon, lover boy, I'll have to charge you for a double booking."
 

At the end, Frederique, the heroine (and not the woman in the opening chapter) sums up her feelings:

At this very moment, how many other young women, lying on beds, ten, twenty metres away from me, were having dreadful sex with men they didn’t fancy, for a few large banknotes?  Or, taken by surprise, actually enjoying themselves?
    To be fair, our sex this evening hadn’t been dreadful, and I did still fancy Grant, despite his transformation into loving, dull Gordon.  Nevertheless, as I walked down the corridor I couldn’t help feeling wistful for the times he used to despise me, and leave a big, unecessary, tip.  Guiltily wistful, of course.

It's all printed out and ready to go.  (Yes, Friends, I can barely believe it, either.)

Could this be the last time?  The last time of all?  Oh, no.

Another story that YOU can help write!

Technical note: Please make your contributions as a reply to the previous Comment, so it is easier copy and paste to a later post.

It was an extraordinary feeling, waking up and knowing he had been transformed into a Superhero overnight.  No wings or capes or anything, but definitely special powers.  He could mind read, for example, and avoid being tracked by Google.

But then George began to hear voices pleading for his help.  One in particular - Helen (or was it Henry) who was...

Another day without any significant blogging from me.

That's because I've been hard at work.  Almost there.

Unfortunately that leaves little time left to experience other things, let alone write about them.

Want to hear about my ten minute visit to Tesco?  Thought not.

i really am feeling spaced out.

so goodnight

Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?

My writing went well again today, finished the last all new section. Now, hopefully it only a matter of fairly minor revision..

I am terrified of finishing the writing of this novel

Writing without being published, being full of potential but never fulfilling it - I've got so used to this state, that it's become my comfort zone.  (I wrote a couple of post six month ago about feeling I was stuck in a cupboard Tag Cupboard).  I get more sympathy being a failure.  When I started this blog I described myself a "failed writer" in my Profile, until someone pointed out that how negative (and inaccurate) that was. I'm scared of the unknown - of what will happen if I get published...  The more I think about it, the more scared I get.

I have a thing about people walking close behind me.

So perhaps it wasn't the boys walking close behind me and taunting that put me for ever in an absurd fear of being stabbed in the back on the way to the supermarket.

Interesting, frightening.  Maybe the Virtual World will survive global warming, alone....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5370688.stm

A brilliant writing day, which began before nine o'clock.  I could go on longer, but I need a break.  Fresh air.

Guess I'm a minimalist.

Deep, deep sleep until 3am.  Panic - I haven't done my tax return... Nobody loves me...  I hate the Surgeon... I've wasted all my life... IBS.  Nasty, blocking IBS.  Dreams won't come, only a pile of worries.

And meanwhile, in the post below, the story continues...

This, allegedly bedtime, story began in the Comments on my post Dead Tired/Silly Story yesterday.  You're welcome to help it build into something truly epic...

alec weston:
A couple in their forties are sitting on the deck of a cruise ship and....

welshceltgirl [Member]
22/09/06 @ 23:08:
...they gaze around them across the dock they can see other equally rusty liners, a soft drizzle is falling....

alecweston
22/09/06 @ 23:33:
...creating a rainbow, moments before the sun sets. They can hear music and laughter from the party on the deck below.

msfullphat    23/09/06 @ 18:19:
have a clue who is she is. He looks behind him to see who's she talking to...and the large white rabbit says "...

alecweston 23/09/06 @ 21:00:
"You can by me from Carphone Warehouse and PC World." It's a new speech-implemented mobile/MP3 player/heart monitor from Toshiba. He fondles the Rabbit for a moment, longingly.

The woman is still talking to no one in particular. Her mouth is...

So what invisible force is stopping me going to bed?

No, it's not working.

Yesterday (well, after 2am) I said no to blogging.

I think I had too much ice cream yesterday.  And too much fun.

It's the Equinox today.  What a bummer.  For the next six months days are shorter than nights.

Gloom gets me down

A few months back, before I bought a Pro Account to get rid of the Google-Ads that splattered my blog (and then BCUK got rid of them on the whole site anyway), I clicked on one of the "messages" which promised self improvement.  I purchased a program, mainly of hypnotic-type videos. I had to view the program every day for a fortnight.

I wonder if I'll say NO to something big tomorrow.  Something I'm happy to tell you about.

I wasn't going to blog today, but a story won't leave my mind. I apologise in advance if it disturbs you, too.  But who said life was fair, or undisturbing?

I returned to my regular fishmongers this afternoon.  The new one, nearer me is too expensive - and I've being going to this other shop for ten years or more.  The staff are friendly, never change - up to today I thought they were a father and two brothers.  In fact, they're not related at all, despite their similar look.

Anyway, when I first arrived, one of the 'brothers' joking around with guys from the greengrocers next door.  One of them said how much they hated "rhubarb, beetroot - and customers."  I thought it quite funny, but the fishmonger later apologised.

"It was just helping me to take my mind off things," he told me.  "My mother has had to have her second leg amputated this week.  She lost the other leg last year."  Apparently she went into hospital to have a hip replacement (she's 66), and things went wrong.  Of course her son's emotional account was a little garbled, but he told me they removed the second leg in three separate operations, one piece at a time.

His father, her husband, died three years ago.  One of his two brothers, a paramedic, just doesn't want to know.

Nothing else to say, really.  It was touching though, that he felt able to tell me.  He's just an ordinary guy, full of banter, a little overweight, who has sold me fish over a counter for 10 or so years.

Revising is so much more fun than writing the original - suddenly things spring to life, and besides it's much less like hard work.

In other words, I've had a good day working on my novel.

As so often, for lunch (It's so easy to forget to eat, and curse at the need to cook) I went to the French cafe across the river.

The old Polish lady was there, as usual, fussing around, waiting for chef Fabrice's individed attention.  She was fingering a copy of The Times.  I'm not sure if she ever reads it.

She came over to me, my head in the Guardian (a great five page spread about this monstrous Pope.  As it happens, the old Polish lady carries round a photo of her with the previous Pope, only marred by a man in the background, but in the middle.  She wants to have the bystander photo-shopped away)

Anyway, today she came over and stage whispered:  "Reading a dirty book?"

All possible clever Pope remarks escape me.  Instead, I reply:  "No. But I'm writing one."

For once, the Polish lady was lost for words.

PS If you want to read the article about the Pope online:  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1875791,00.html

Last night, I decided to heed the good advice someone made in a Comment to one of my posts, and not phone my mother. (My sister phones every day, as well.  Usually twice, often more)

At 10pm, my mother phoned me.  Am I all right?  Had she left the phone off and not realised?  How was my new cleaner?  She expects details.

Of course, she says, it doesn't matter that I haven't phoned.  I feel sleepy and sheepish.  Still, it's a start.  I'll try not to phone again soon.

I need an image, probably a photograph, to put on the top of this blog, symblising the TOO MUCH TO DECLARE brand's unique qualities and appeal.  If succesful, the image could be used on T-shirts, racing cars and egg cups.

The prize will be presented by a Celebrity named at a later date.

It's the silence that's getting to me.

My new, Polish, cleaner is here for the first time today.  She seems to be creeping around, making as little noise as possible - and not getting things done very fast.  I'm tring to write, and each time I stop, I hear an annoying nothing.

Daeva used to make satisfying, bustly noises.  And I always broke off from my work once or twice to have a short chat with her.

I keep asking the new girl (she's 19 or 20, compared to D, who was - is - over 30) if I can help get used to the place, but she's not yet confident in English...  and I've just discovered she's "tidied" the papers in mu unique floor-filing system.

She's the best friend of the waitress in the French cafe (ibid), newly arrived.  Better than going through an agency or employing a complete stranger.  But, at this precise moment, her shy slowness is making me feel a stranger in my own home.

Why have a cleaner at all?  I'm not trying to sell the house at the moment...  maybe I should try and economise....  Want to imagine what the place would look like by Christmas?

I've always been a bit of a typeface nut, as regular readers may have noticed (and indeed inwardly groaned about)

I really like this one, Trebuchet MS, which is now the default typeface on this blog.

Are you interested?  Am I bothered?

It's strange how typefaces make words look different.

Types with serifs, particularly Times New Roman always comes over on the screen as a bit pompous.

While the typewriter ones suggest immediacy - good when  I haven't thought out exactly what I want to say.

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

I have now transeferred all my novel to one Word file.  As it consists of two first person narratives, his and hers, I put their bits into two separate typefaces.  To-day, I changed his face, as it were, to Trebuchet - and hey, presto, his words look better already!

She's in Baskerville at the moment (not available here) but I may make a change.

If you spend your entire life making sure you're always in the right, you'll have so little energy left to be happy.  But hey, what does that matter, if your priggish attitude can make others feel continually guilty and miserable?

Self Righteousness may never be made a capital offence.  But what a malicious waste of time!

I've found often that writing honestly about an emotional problem here helps sort it out.

But, sometimes, like today, resisting the urge to be over-confessional feels right.  This isn't because I feel coy about displaying my emotional guts - but the simple process of running through the proto-post in my head leads on to other more constructive thoughts, and other, less angished, emotions.

And, frankly, in this instance, the post would have been my umpteenth visit to understandable, forgivable, but no-need-to-have-any-moreable adolescent rage.  So I'm off for a long walk, partly instead.

Useless, unanswerable, question for the day:  Why do I have to make the decision finally to grow up, quite so often?

Shall we just say
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrhhhhhhhhh!!!!

There is no chance I will ever be famous enough to be a guest on the Jonathan Ross Show.  I will never have to pretend he is funny, and not merely offensive.

This thought has cheered me up.

Following by cry from the depths this morning, I'm pleased to say I'm feeling a lot better.  A haircut helped, which it normally does.

Also, as I have discovered before, the mere fact of writing about how depressed I felt helped lift the depression.  I say "discovered before", but every time I forget.  And I'm aware that reading a post about someone feeling down and hopeless isn't much fun.

There are several reasons I've been depressed (as well as several, maybe the most important because all our minds ares so good at avoiding the obvious):  my Lithuanian cleaner, who had become a friend, has left to do a full time English course. (see my somewhat obliquely written post last week - Universe, parallel). I can't get in touch with my best male friend, who had University job in LA - phne disconnected.  I feel sad that we have both been so lazy keeping touch this last year....

And, then, as always, there's my mother.  I saw her on Saturday as usual last week, and on Monday for the Residents Metting as well - and another Saturday is now a few hours away.  I so wish I could distance myself from her on another days, but she expects me to phone every evening.  More than that - it's almost as if I do so little, particularly with my social life, becuase I then don't have to tell her what I'm up to.  Pathetic or what?  I feel trapped, almost hypnotised.

For example, I love travelling.  But, even when, pre-Vanessa, I had money to do so,