Category Archives: General Rambling

For posts that just go on and on and on and on and ……

The thing on my finger

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Finally it burst, just a few moments ago, whilst I wasn’t really paying attention, all the poisonous pus started to seep from the opening, from me.

I am grateful for that for this poisonous thing was and still is, ugly.

For days and days it went unnoticed by everyone, including me and then, yesterday it started gong quite crazy and I could see that it was going to ‘come to a head’. One could see the poison welling up, coming to the surface. It also hurt like hell.

And yet, it was only today, the day when, although at its ugliest, it was already mending itself, that people would ask me what had happened.

Even for the seepage, there is still quite a lot of poison there. It won’t be over today, nor tomorrow, nor, maybe, until next week. These things take time. However, I know it is over and I know the poison has been/is being ejected and it will all heal (I hope) and in a few weeks, at the most, it will look as it was before.

It was caused by a mosquito bite on my finger which, I guess, got infected and then poisonous and then, like a volcano.

And, as I sat there, watching this eruption of poison, I thought how like real life it is, except that I was my own mosquito and my own infection. But I watched the poison leave me in the same way as I just did with the thing on my finger. This time it took someone else to force the poison to escape.

For which I am very thankful.

The Price of Coffee and Plastic People

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She is wearing a red dress today. She tells me that it is the first time she has bought a red dress as she ‘doesn’t wear red’. I say, without any feeling, that I think she looks nice. She thinks that makes me a gentleman, which it does not but I don’t correct her, even if I should.

It started with me looking at her fingernails. The new fad of having them half covered in sparkley bits is something she had succumbed to. After all, she likes to think of herself as ‘young and hip’.

She goes on to say that she is tired of this fad now and has told her manicurist that she won’t be doing it any more. She is going back to short nails with brown. I am not impressed. Brown?, I say in that disgusted voice. Well, Bordeaux, she say. OK, so red then, I reply.

That’s why we talked about the red dress.

She then starts telling me about some film she watched last night. She can’t remember the title. But she’s going to describe it anyway. Already, I can tell that I am going to be bored and what I really want is for her to stop.

It’s the price I pay for a ‘half coffee’, which thing I’ve never actually understood but it’s a ritual for her and I benefit by getting the half coffee.

The film stars Kim Bassinger. She starts to tell me the plot from the beginning. I wonder if the price for my half coffee is actually worth it. I want to go back to my desk. I feign surprise, interest, enjoyment, etc. I briefly wonder if she can actually tell the difference. Would she know the real thing if she came upon it and, anyway, if she did ‘get it’, would it scare her? Would it make her ‘real’? Would she become less ‘plastic’?

And I wonder if, by feigning the responses that she requires, I am becoming more plastic myself?

The price of coffee is expensive, I decide.

Colours are interesting

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I’ve always thought that colours are interesting in that, what is ‘red’ to me may be an entirely different colour to you. I mean, we all know what red is but that is because, as a child, you are ‘taught’ what name a particular colour is. So, the questions is: when you see red, do you actually see the same colour as me or am I seeing what would be blue or green or something else, in your eyes?

And, last night, Best Mate and I had another lengthy conversation, which was useful for both of us although I’m not certain which of us was more grateful, her or me.

In this lengthy conversation, we talked for a while about feelings. To me, feelings are a bit like colours. Except that they are also like being colour-blind as well.

She was trying to explain her feelings and said, quite rightly, that, unless you had been through what she has been through, there is no way for you to understand.

What was interesting was that, when I was describing my feelings and the problems of how they made me feel physically, she said that she had never had these.

So, are my feelings unique to me? Is it really something I can share with others? I was trying to explain that I was aware that the things that are currently happening to me are as a result of chemicals that my brain is releasing or permitting to be released into my body and why it has left me feeling so crap.

She said she would like to have those feelings. I said I would rather be like her, without them ever. She said they were good (for me). I said that they were terrible and I want it all to stop.

Earlier on in the conversation she had told me to ‘get a grip’. And, the logic side of my brain knows this to be true. The problem, as I explained to her, was/is that my brain starts thinking and then, before I have time to stop it, it has thought the thoughts that it shouldn’t (logically) and off we go again, into this helter-skelter of emotions and almost flu-like symptoms.

I said I would like to ‘get a grip’ and know that I should but I just can’t stop my thoughts, even if I know them to be stupid, pointless and just giving me a hard time for no good reason.

At least, for the while I was talking to her, I felt much better. It would be better if she were physically here although I would probably break down into tears, so, maybe not. I’ve promised to fix this before she comes over.

Let’s hope so.

I think I may have a strategy

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I think I may have a strategy to get through this. Actually, it was something that someone mentioned over 20 years ago and it has just come to mind – well been sort of hanging in the background for a day or two.

The strategy is to have something, some project, to focus on and to devote one’s time to. Often, this can be work but I don’t do enough here to be able to do that and, unfortunately, the web stuff won’t do it for me either so it has to be something other than work.

And, then it came to me that, maybe, I could do an Italian thing and, using my contacts, help someone else. It doesn’t really give me anything – except what’s most important which is something to really concentrate on.

So I need to check a few things out and then I will have to ask the person, since the plan that would follow can only be with their agreement. This is, of course, where it may all fail but it’s worth a try as it’s something I am really interested in too.

Let’s hope so as, this morning, it was 3.30 ish when I woke up (because of a ambulance/fire engine siren) and no amount of anything would get me back to sleep!

In other news…..

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I am afraid, in spite of my promise not to post, I still am. However, the bulk of the insanity is now relegated to elsewhere and I am making a serious effort to lighten this one up a bit, not least because it was becoming a bit of a bore.

And so, in other news:

I cannot get really angry with Dino. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I glanced over and saw what looked like something white on the front of my shoes, which I had not put on yet.

I went over to find it was not white on the shoe but rather the floor showing through what should have been the front of my shoe. And they were relatively new shoes too! To be honest they only cost me about €15 from the market and I can always get some more. Whilst I can’t get so angry with him, Dino will be banned to the kitchen until further notice. And he’s been doing so well recently, too!

S, my colleague that I mentioned in the last post, told me that, whilst she was on holiday and her husband still at home, her dog had committed suicide! Stop laughing because, really, it’s not funny. Now, she had told me, in the past that C, her husband, never got on well with Carmilla (the dog – and here, I’m not referring to our latest Princess of Wales). Anyway, S went to the holiday flat with the kids leaving Carmilla and C alone together (he was working). It seems that, at the ripe old age of 15, this resourceful dog, whilst not exactly going into the kitchen, getting a bread knife and slashing whatever her wrists are called, squeezed herself between the railings on the balcony and jumped to her death! I just can’t help but have this sneaking suspicion that C, having had enough, kicked her and, unfortunately, she went flying over the balcony but, obviously, he can’t tell his wife and kids that. However, with her having lived in the same house for 15 years, the idea of jumping off the balcony herself sounds, well, quite absurd.

To go back to the current insanity, just for a moment, for the second morning running, I have been wide awake at about 4.30 a.m. And I don’t seem to feel really tired which I find quite amazing. I don’t start off wide awake but as soon as I start to ‘come to’ I start thinking and that’s the thing I really need to stop, that and the pain-which-is-not-real-pain that causes my stomach to churn and ache as if I am hungry and full to sickness all at the same time. Once I can get those two things sorted, I’ll be fine.

Still, this 4.30 thing has one advantage. I get up and take the dogs out and don’t have to rush. I don’t have to rush over coffee and I don’t have to rush to work, arriving earlier than I have to, meaning that, in theory, I could leave a little earlier, if I wanted.

Finally, I’ve been invited to a party by FfI. Interestingly, during the conversation she mentioned that the Weasel would be there. Is it possible that my lusting after him was noticed after all? You know what women are like with these things whereas us blokes can be pretty useless. Although, I am aware that, in my madness, I don’t quite realise that things I think are ‘secret’ are, in fact, known by everyone around me. This can, of course, lead to much embarrassment later on but I am finding that, being in the middle of such madness means I am incapable of determining when I have crossed that magic, invisible line from being unobserved to slightly, or worse, completely, blatant. I didn’t ask as that would have made it much worse. We wait to see what happens. Let’s hope I can keep myself in check enough.

Saturday morning, I shall have to revisit the market for new shoes. Ho hum.

About Families and Death and stuff

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S, my colleague, has a father who has the cancer associated with asbestos, with which he used to work. When she first found out she asked me to look on the internet to see what British doctors had to say as she was thinking he should get a second opinion.

I looked for her. It became clear that, in spite of anything she may wish, this was terminal, with or without chemo. I feel sorry for her but in a detached way, as he’s not my father nor is she, really, a friend, for whom I am likely to empathise much more. And, in spite of the fact that she had complained about him and how they didn’t really get along for the last few years, I can see that it is affecting her deeply.

Another friend also has problems with his father, who I have now met. However, he doesn’t really tell me much although I think he’s worried. His father seems to be in and out of hospital most of the time although there seems to be some indication, from what he has told me, that it may be a little hypochondria.

And I wonder, at what point does the parent become like a child? When the child-that-was becomes more concerned over the parents well-being, health, state of mind, etc. than the parents ability to influence the child’s life? And, is the worry more associated with guilt on behalf of the child, rather than anything else? But, and this is just me talking in my own special circumstances, why the guilt? Is it because the child feels they ‘owe’ something to the parent who gave birth and/or nurtured them for the first x years or the blood-thicker-than-water thing (which, obviously, I don’t believe in)?

I have thought about my parents from time to time. I have played the scenario in my head where one of them is on their death-bed and, although seemingly impossible, they find me and I get ‘THE CALL’ – the one that asks me to go to their side.

I wondered why they would do that? To try and make it right, perhaps?

I have also played out the possible two responses. The first being that I would say ‘no’ because if the point was only to satisfy them then that’s not good enough. The second being ‘yes’ because who would ever deny a dying person the right to at least
to fix a problem that’s existed for over 30 years! I mean, with their last dying breath and all!

And would I, at that point, feel the guilt that everyone else seems to feel as their parents approach their last years? I would like to say ‘no’ but if I am to be honest, then I really don’t know.

Of course, the reality is that it would be very difficult to find me. Not because I’ve gone out of my way to make it so but because it has been over 5 years since the last contact with any of my family and, although there are ways they could find me, it would take a great deal of effort and, basically, have to be my sister who worked it all through. After all, I have one ‘advantage’ over some other people – my name is a very common name and there are many people with my name who are much more famous and, therefore, take up most of the Google web search result pages (and, yes, I have looked, as have most people, I would think). Although both this and a conversation recently means I really should take another look to see how difficult it is to find me, If one were to make a determined effort and had some basic information.

And, anyway, going back to the subject, I don’t fool myself that this call will ever come. I cannot believe that after all this time they would want to make it right. What good could it possibly serve?

Thanks to Ico who inspired this post and, in my case, whereas the rest of my family may be on one island (although I believe that they ‘suffer’ the same situation as Ico’s family), certainly, I am on an island well adrift from theirs and so far away that it is over the horizon and, if not in reality, might as well be the other side of the world.

The Killer Car Wash

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One of the funniest posts TSM has made.  Excerpt below:

As I walk away, I hear screaming coming from the car wash.  I happily ignore it.

Bombshell: “Their car wash is work now”
Me: “I think so, they’re screaming”
Bombshell: “Screaming?”
Me: “Yeah, I think the car wash is killing them.”
Bombshell: “Shame”
Me: “I know”

A truly English meal out.

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OK then. Just one more post for now, since it is about last night.

We decided on Indian. We’ve been there before but I wasn’t so impressed last time and less so this time. But that’s not what I need to talk about at all.

We talked without really talking.

How was the flat hunting going?

How are you getting on where you’re living?

How’s work?

They were the subjects. As part of the answers there were things like, ‘a friend who lives on that street came with me’.

What friend? A colleague? No. But no explanation. An explanation is not needed – I know already or, at least, I guess but I bet I’m right since the things that I do, actually, know lead to a guess that will be, pretty much, spot on.

And, whereas it still has the power to wound, it is only a little now, like a pin prick compared to a stab with a bread knife.

The flat-hunting story continues. I ask questions, just as I am supposed to. He asks me questions just as he is supposed to.

We do the things we are supposed to with no feeling, no desire (and I don’t mean for each other but, rather, no desire to make a wave or really enquire or, be involved).

The conversation could be wrapped up in one of those typical English conversations:

Hello! How are you?
Fine, thanks, and you?
Oh can’t complain, you know.
Well, goodbye then.
Goodbye.

The end.

Of course, it went on much longer than that. But nothing was ever really said. I wanted to tell him of Ico; of the fact that Best Mate is coming over for some more time as she’s feeling much better; of my potential few days with the boys at a friend’s place in Rome.

Instead I said nothing. Partly because I now want some secrets from him, as he now has from me and as he thought he had from me but didn’t, so much, over 6 months ago and partly because I didn’t want him to tell me of things that he has done or is going to do that mean I am permanently excluded from parts of his life that I hadn’t been before – just like he is already excluded from parts of my life.

We could never get those back even if we wanted to.

He did tell me of the holiday plans that he doesn’t want to do; that he says he won’t do. I don’t enquire as to what he will do instead but stick to the simple things that I know about him such as ‘and when will you tell them that you won’t be going? The day before?’, smiling and laughing but without smiling and laughing at all because this is ritual and, after 20 years, I can do it without thinking, without feeling, without anything. Not that I expect anything amazing after 20 years. I’m not that deluded. Nor am I sad for that either. It’s the way it is and what can be expected. No surprises after all that time.

I notice he looks thinner still but that at least the moustache has gone, which is better. And I tell him so. He tells me the story of why it went and I am bored within the first couple of words since it is all irrelevant and as irrelevant as me telling him in the first place but at least mine was only a sentence.

I joke that, as his ‘mother’ and ‘father’ have phoned him during the meal, the holiday with them will make them all like a little family. He knows me too. He knows I am joking and taking the piss. We laugh as we should; as is required. We probably both know what we are doing.

We talk a little about FfI, complaining about the same things about her. United in our complaints but not really caring what the other has to go through, knowing that the other doesn’t have to go through this if they didn’t really want to.

The samosas were crap. The main course was decidedly average. The house wine expensive, as I pointed out just after he had ordered it, but we only drank half a litre in the end anyway, probably because neither of us wanted to extend out this nothingness when no possible good could come of it.

It wasn’t pretty but it could have been much worse. It did, however, feel more like we were in a Mike Leigh play (such as Abigail’s Party) and had the same ‘cringe factor’.

I didn’t go with the thought that it would be any better but I think I was prepared for most possibilities. This, though, left an empty feel.

Prices seem to have dropped for flats and it seems he will end up with a bigger flat than mine. I feel a little jealous but, at the same time, know I could have done no different and still love my flat anyway. And I do hope that he is happy with whatever he finds.

We shall see each other on Tuesday when certain things will be finalised. The Final Question still, after all this bloody time, hangs there. I can tell no one. I am alone in this, again, as always, as we all are, really.  I want to tell someone but they will only try and give me good advice – which I already know anyway and which will change nothing.

Those ties that bind are thin now and about to break. I can still see the things in him that I like and love but they are not mine now to ‘have and to hold’ – not that they ever were nor ever could be, really. To think that is so is a delusion.

And where is that bloody Knight in shining armour when you need him?

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Everybody wants me to be
What they want me to be

Easy – The Commodores

It was playing on the radio this morning and, you know, it’s not a love song but an ‘end of love’ song which fact I didn’t realise until now.

—o—

I remember, oh, twenty+ years ago, trying to explain to M (my partner of about 8 or 9 years standing at the time) that what I wanted him to be or, what I really wanted (which may not have been the same thing) was my Knight in shining armour, riding into view on a perfect white horse and coming to save me from this situation; take me away to a quiet place where none of the people in my life nor the problems that were associated with them, could touch me. And keep me there, safe, calm, at peace, fighting off those who would seek to destroy me or have me be what they wanted me to be – which was not me at all.

And now, with the weather here about to break, from the calm stillness and stifling heat (although I prefer it, as you may know), we shall probably get violent storms and much rain and wind and ‘cold’.

Conversely, finally, the storms in me may have passed already (I hope) and a calmness may have been restored. In the end, I was wrong and I was right.

I was wrong about the Knight in shining armour – he just doesn’t exist .- and that’s because, as in the lyrics above, the ‘Everybody’ does, in fact, include myself, or, maybe, is only myself. So, that’s what I wanted, then? I wanted someone to save me from myself; to take me away from the turmoil that was, in reality, not really outside of me, but inside of me.

And, I wonder, what does that look like from the outside? Looking back over the past few days (when it all came to a head), I can see that I was, in a way, a crazed madman, desperately searching for a way out of the madness, staring eyes, wild hair, head turning this way and that, but quickly and without measure.

And just like a madman, as I reach out to grab something/someone, with those staring, wild eyes and contorted features and wild hair, wanting help, seeing in someone/something the thing that I want or, maybe, the thing that I think I have found after this search that seems to have been going on for ever, they turn away, as any sane person would or reel back in horror at the wild thing in front of them, grasping and grabbing.

And so, the time that I mentioned, with M, he wasn’t the Knight (how could he ever be?) and then, as the madness continued, I found some respite (but it was not respite at all just a continuing of the madness) in my affair with a married colleague, AA, of which I am not proud, but we were travelling away a lot, together, and it just sort of happened and went on for a while, which seemed like an eternity and the emotions were all mixed up and high and intense, between us and inside of me and, then, finally, I dropped him because I found V and I left him, probably, perplexed as to what had happened and why the sudden change and I told him:

‘I’ve found someone else’

as if that was the reason. It wasn’t the reason at all. It was a coincidence. What had happened was that I had come to a place of calm or near calm and V happened to be there at the time. Not that the madness had quite finished but it petered out, like a slowly dying thing, flapping it’s wings but weaker and weaker, gasping for breath but each breath becoming shallower until I became, again, this person who seemed in control, who was content and at peace.

_____________________________________________________________

At the top of this blog I used to have a sentence that included something like:

I came here to find the passion and, here, it is all around me and still it doesn’t touch me

Well, in these last few weeks and last few days, I certainly found some sort of passion. It touched me alright. It made me ‘touched’ as we would say. I lost my way, briefly calmed and sated by my afternoon with Ico and written about here but, by then my madness was at it’s height, and so I can only hope that the wild, raging madman didn’t scare him too much with the aftermath of the afternoon as it is a place that I would rather be and a place that I value so highly but not a place in which I can live, since living is about so much more than talking and walking and being with a friend, unfortunately. But it is somewhere I can visit (hopefully, if he permits me) to get away from the actual process of living which, is not ‘living’ at all but ‘existing’ and ‘surviving’ and, perhaps, a place, an oasis, in which I can relax and be ‘myself'; that is – my real self.

And, so, I have reached this calm this morning. It came to me because I realised that I was doing the stupid, crazy, wild thing with the grabbing and clutching, expecting someone else to pull me out of this mess that I had created and, in the process, probably, scaring them and achieving the very opposite of what I needed and desired. And the ‘passion’ was found, in a way, as I have, in fact found it before, a few times – but I just can’t handle it; it’s just too much for my mind.

And so, I shall stop writing, for a bit and recuperate some of the energy I have been using in this madness and concentrate, maybe, on some things that need to be done to do the living that is not living but surviving and being ‘normal’ (and here, I was going to write ‘whatever the hell that may be’ but I know what that is – it is the ‘not rocking the boat’, the ‘doing the right thing (at least by everybody else’s standards – ‘everybody’ being those other ‘normal’ people)’ and ‘behaving myself in a proper manner’ – proper by the standards of society, that is).

And, maybe, this time it was not the physical presence of a real lover but the dream of the other night that allowed me to rapidly move to this new calm? Since it was all so real and so perfect, without being too perfect so as to be unreal. However, if he is out there for real, now is the time to step forward and make yourself known.

I am ready, finally.

I can’t even be bothered to give this ramble a title

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I sit here, being paid for something else, not this. Of course, my ‘waiting’ thing is still going on, a little like ‘The Final Question’ – still not finalised.

I would prefer to be doing the thing I am paid for. It would stop me from thinking and would stop me from messing with my nose, which has developed a sore, at the base of one of the nostrils. It isn’t a true spot, since it is not raised nor does it have a head but it feels like an ‘inward spot’ if you know what I mean. And it is red in that point but not inflamed. It’s a lack of sleep, I know, not from last night but, rather, from the last few weeks.

The sore is just like the ‘waiting’ and ‘The Final Question’, both of which are not on any surface but mostly hidden, except from me and just like the sore in the nostril, they are annoying and irritating and sore.

And V has emailed again as we are due to meet up tonight.

He said: ‘I don’t have anywhere in Milan to stay (at the moment).’

I don’t answer straight away. I think it was the addition of ‘at the moment’. Worse was to come, I felt. I responded that I guessed he was living in the Hinterland.

I looked it up. It is even beyond the Hinterland! A long way from the centre of Milan. Anyway, we are still to meet up, it’s just that he must leave early. He adds, ‘if I stay in Milan obviously I can stay later but the apartment is still quite a way away. I’m not sure what he is asking or, even, if he is asking.

Either way, I studiously ignore it in my reply. I am good at that. At least, I say to myself, I am good at something.

Apparently he doesn’t like where he lives.

I took off the weeding ring a few days ago; the copy of his that we had specially made for our 10<th anniversary. I must remember to put it back on. He notices these things whereas I always mean to but always forget. It’s one of those things one does as a couple. Taking roles. I fleetingly wonder if I became worse at noticing these things because I could rely on him to do it for me and tell me. However, I don’t want to shut any doors as one never knows and I still do love him and want him and…. well enough of this shit.

I get called to the Purchasing office. It means a walk outside and the chance of a cigarette. It is now so hot that it is like stepping into a furnace. The only creatures brave enough to be in this heat are me and the ants – the lizards, normally sunning themselves at every opportunity are hidden away in the coolness of the permanent shade – unless they have all died or something?

And I watch the ants, from some shade that I find, whilst I finish my cigarette. I watch them move from the shade to the open sun. In the shade they move at normal pace; in the sun they move at three times the speed and more erratically as if they were chickens with their heads ripped off and running around frantically hoping that they will find their heads and, as if by magic, become whole again; then they find the shade again and immediately go back to normal speed. It is funny to watch them do this. Funnier still when you see one that, apparently didn’t learn from the last time of being in the glaring sun and goes back to the madness the extreme heat induces.

It all seems so random and I think that we are the same. When we are in the comfort of the shade we move at a moderate pace, seemingly aimlessly (and almost certainly it is aimlessly, not matter how we tell ourselves it is different) and then we hit the sun and it makes us crazy, running faster and faster, still aimlessly, still with no plan as to how to get out of this shit. I think I may be in the sun. What is it they say? ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen……’

Oh enough already. Enough of the ‘waiting’, ‘The Final question’ and the bloody sore nose thing.

And, since I wrote this piece to be posted tonight, the ‘waiting’ has stopped and I cannot tell you how relieved I am.  And, excited or, maybe, that’s just the relief.  I could jump in the car right now and speed down there just to shake his hand and buy him a beer (that being a very blokish thing to do) and give him a hug (which is not a very blokish thing to do nor very English).