Tuesday, September 27, 2005
I feel edumacated
Well I finally bit the bullet and admitted I had no idea what the term video game meant. I know that this is insane given that the majority of people I hang around with describe themselves as gamers, many play WOW and such and I am (as far as I'm aware) the only person I know who has failed to engage with computer games in any way shape or form (I nearly made a lovely man cry as he tried to get me to understand how to play a driving game, I just couldn't see what I was meant to see no matter how hard I tried, maybe I try too hard. but it's tricky when there's no bit of paper with the instructions written on it). So obviously I should have known shouldn't I? well I guess not - too embarrassed to ask my friends etc. So having see the headline 3 times in the same part of the guardian I decided to overcome my stupidity. I enquired within the great wikeopedia... and discovered that a video game is in fact a console game and a computer game is a game played on a computer. Well obvious isn't it? Although I'm still not convinced, I'm sure the context of video game was that it covered both types... Ah but at least I now know that this is not a whole new genre that I'd not heard of, it's just a crazy name for playstation/nintendo/PS2/gayboy (are they allowed to still call it that, surely the connotations distress too many evangelical americans) etc stuff.
Sadly the learning of this life shattering information, whilst giving a lift to my somewhat unfullfilling evening has not resolved it entirely - I have indeed had a lost evening - the job application(s) I should have done was dismissed (1 of them, I don't really know about meighbourhoods and mousing) and the other I couldn't find. So I talked myself out of them. Division Bell by Pink Floyd has regained its links with a "your life is so stuffed you need to drown yourself" mindset, I'd relinked it with a happy place a couple of years after it gained it's close ties with the failure of my business, clearly that's bust. So a pervasive gloom that started after tea did not get thwarted. I'm developing a theory that my gloom is meat related - could this be possible? I seem to plumet if I consume the red stuff several meals in a row. Perhaps I should give up meat for a month as a test? Hmmm it's an idea.
I also discovered today (courtesy of yournotme.co.uk) that I'm unique in this country - at least based on the 2001 electoral role anyway. Go me I'm the only one, alone awash on the shoreline of humanity, I was kind of hoping I could meet other poor souls who get greated with awful songs as their name is misread.
Sadly the learning of this life shattering information, whilst giving a lift to my somewhat unfullfilling evening has not resolved it entirely - I have indeed had a lost evening - the job application(s) I should have done was dismissed (1 of them, I don't really know about meighbourhoods and mousing) and the other I couldn't find. So I talked myself out of them. Division Bell by Pink Floyd has regained its links with a "your life is so stuffed you need to drown yourself" mindset, I'd relinked it with a happy place a couple of years after it gained it's close ties with the failure of my business, clearly that's bust. So a pervasive gloom that started after tea did not get thwarted. I'm developing a theory that my gloom is meat related - could this be possible? I seem to plumet if I consume the red stuff several meals in a row. Perhaps I should give up meat for a month as a test? Hmmm it's an idea.
I also discovered today (courtesy of yournotme.co.uk) that I'm unique in this country - at least based on the 2001 electoral role anyway. Go me I'm the only one, alone awash on the shoreline of humanity, I was kind of hoping I could meet other poor souls who get greated with awful songs as their name is misread.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
disappointments
Sometimes I slip into a world where high expectations seem reasonable. Well I frequently slip into this world which might explain a lot of my disappointments really but better to have expected and lost than never expected at all I think.
This week my hopes have been dashed again: Now I do confess to an inpending sense of doom whenenver the person on the phone says "hi Iola it's me..." and I know it's crazy J. Why? Because crazy J lives in a hellish world where she tries to work out what she did wrong that means here kids fucked up so badly and doesn't get on with her own life , but of course "if I was her I would understand". So Sunday; I get a call, can she call round, yes of course, I am aware that I'm the only sane person she seems to know (I find this worrying that I'm kind of her rock, it doesn't sit well with me, I may be the most normal person I know but I'm not exactly the most balanced). She comes in, she seems OK, less wallowing going on than usual, then a couple of hours later the bombshell "of course we'll see when the baby arrives..." "what?" Arrrgh. Just when you think there is hope; there is a child that has been taken into care but at 16 has the nouse not to become yet another teenage parent, packing in college for the baby....
So the story: J is 61, I met J through M, her son, who I went out with about 15 years ago. J was a defacto mum to me and was the person who most introduced me to complementary therapies, she's was a little OTT even then but OK. M swung from piss/stone head to completely straight, seeking "the one truth to teach the world" regularly. J had divorced her hubbie on the discovery that he was having an affair, most relieved about this as it was getting to the stage where the beatings were getting bad enough for the middle-class need to not to make such things public and disgrace a man would have to be overcome. J still seeks the man who will fix her life, J is more into alternative/spirit than ever.
Mi is her daughter, Mi is incredibly physcic and doesn't function well in the real world but when I met her F was 18 months and things were OK. Mi married, separated, I continued to keep her as a friend after stopping seeing the son (we don't explain what the final straw was, if you don't say what happened you don't have to decide what really went on). One day she cut the contact, I sent Xmas and birthday cards for 2 years. she made contact again, F had been taking into care at the age of 7, J had gone off traveling/working with someone Mi probably had a nervous breakdown, F wanted to go home to mum. I failed to maintain contact.
F spent the next 8 years wanting to go home to mum. At the age of 9 she was permantently fostered, at the age of 12 she had a sister, 3 days later the sister was taken into care, 6 months later the sister was adopted. J comes back about the time of the permanent fostering, but conflict between J and Mi and Mi's representations mean that J is excluded from Social services interactions. J has nervous breakdown due to her own and her families changes in circumstances. About 4 years ago J contacts me out of the blue, I start seeing her again about once a quarter.
At the age of 15 F has some contact again with her mother, more with her uncle, she starts running away from the foster home back to mum. She points out to the social services that she's old enough now to just keep catching those busses. at 16 she's trying to live at mums, but it breaks down, moves to uncle M, he has his own demons to fight, J has hers. F seems savy, manipulative but savy. F gets place at college, can't live with mum starts to get own flat. F goes to court (June) to stop social services influencing her life and convinces a judge "you are clearly capable responsible and focused on your future go forth and be functional" September F fails to start college course - she's 14 weeks pregnant and "it's all going to be great, I never stopped missing my little sister". Now she's going to a different college (which has good creche facilities) but WHY? Mi is 38 and still values herself by how others see her, being a granny really is going to be great for her. Finding out her daughter has been told to keep her child away from her "because your mother can't be trusted with babies" is good. spot the next breakdown. M is devastated because if he didn't get so drunk F and boyfriend wouldn't have been locking him out so they could have sex in his flat, eating his food and encouraging him to "go to the rehab, we will look after the flat" J now wonders what she did wrong that her granddaughter has chosen to be teenage mum not teenage designer afterall.
Me? I thought F was smart enough not to become a standard statistic, she knew she was bright, she knew she was a babe, she knew how to manipulate people, I suspect she even knew she forgot the pill for a few days, I just don't think she knows why, I really don't understand people. Arrrgh.
My next dissapointment is quite mundane: Why are people queuing at petrol stations when they really aught to be at work? Why are people bloking traffic to do so? Why are people so self centred?
My 3rd one is rediculous: why does my boss never do anything more than 1 day before it needs to be done? sending me an email at 3pm saying "bring flip chart paper and pens tomorrow" is not forward planning (and given he is walking from work to the training venue a 10 minute walk, and I am walking from home a 35 minute walk why am I carrying these things?) I really shouldn't be disappointed in this behaviour but I am.
This week my hopes have been dashed again: Now I do confess to an inpending sense of doom whenenver the person on the phone says "hi Iola it's me..." and I know it's crazy J. Why? Because crazy J lives in a hellish world where she tries to work out what she did wrong that means here kids fucked up so badly and doesn't get on with her own life , but of course "if I was her I would understand". So Sunday; I get a call, can she call round, yes of course, I am aware that I'm the only sane person she seems to know (I find this worrying that I'm kind of her rock, it doesn't sit well with me, I may be the most normal person I know but I'm not exactly the most balanced). She comes in, she seems OK, less wallowing going on than usual, then a couple of hours later the bombshell "of course we'll see when the baby arrives..." "what?" Arrrgh. Just when you think there is hope; there is a child that has been taken into care but at 16 has the nouse not to become yet another teenage parent, packing in college for the baby....
So the story: J is 61, I met J through M, her son, who I went out with about 15 years ago. J was a defacto mum to me and was the person who most introduced me to complementary therapies, she's was a little OTT even then but OK. M swung from piss/stone head to completely straight, seeking "the one truth to teach the world" regularly. J had divorced her hubbie on the discovery that he was having an affair, most relieved about this as it was getting to the stage where the beatings were getting bad enough for the middle-class need to not to make such things public and disgrace a man would have to be overcome. J still seeks the man who will fix her life, J is more into alternative/spirit than ever.
Mi is her daughter, Mi is incredibly physcic and doesn't function well in the real world but when I met her F was 18 months and things were OK. Mi married, separated, I continued to keep her as a friend after stopping seeing the son (we don't explain what the final straw was, if you don't say what happened you don't have to decide what really went on). One day she cut the contact, I sent Xmas and birthday cards for 2 years. she made contact again, F had been taking into care at the age of 7, J had gone off traveling/working with someone Mi probably had a nervous breakdown, F wanted to go home to mum. I failed to maintain contact.
F spent the next 8 years wanting to go home to mum. At the age of 9 she was permantently fostered, at the age of 12 she had a sister, 3 days later the sister was taken into care, 6 months later the sister was adopted. J comes back about the time of the permanent fostering, but conflict between J and Mi and Mi's representations mean that J is excluded from Social services interactions. J has nervous breakdown due to her own and her families changes in circumstances. About 4 years ago J contacts me out of the blue, I start seeing her again about once a quarter.
At the age of 15 F has some contact again with her mother, more with her uncle, she starts running away from the foster home back to mum. She points out to the social services that she's old enough now to just keep catching those busses. at 16 she's trying to live at mums, but it breaks down, moves to uncle M, he has his own demons to fight, J has hers. F seems savy, manipulative but savy. F gets place at college, can't live with mum starts to get own flat. F goes to court (June) to stop social services influencing her life and convinces a judge "you are clearly capable responsible and focused on your future go forth and be functional" September F fails to start college course - she's 14 weeks pregnant and "it's all going to be great, I never stopped missing my little sister". Now she's going to a different college (which has good creche facilities) but WHY? Mi is 38 and still values herself by how others see her, being a granny really is going to be great for her. Finding out her daughter has been told to keep her child away from her "because your mother can't be trusted with babies" is good. spot the next breakdown. M is devastated because if he didn't get so drunk F and boyfriend wouldn't have been locking him out so they could have sex in his flat, eating his food and encouraging him to "go to the rehab, we will look after the flat" J now wonders what she did wrong that her granddaughter has chosen to be teenage mum not teenage designer afterall.
Me? I thought F was smart enough not to become a standard statistic, she knew she was bright, she knew she was a babe, she knew how to manipulate people, I suspect she even knew she forgot the pill for a few days, I just don't think she knows why, I really don't understand people. Arrrgh.
My next dissapointment is quite mundane: Why are people queuing at petrol stations when they really aught to be at work? Why are people bloking traffic to do so? Why are people so self centred?
My 3rd one is rediculous: why does my boss never do anything more than 1 day before it needs to be done? sending me an email at 3pm saying "bring flip chart paper and pens tomorrow" is not forward planning (and given he is walking from work to the training venue a 10 minute walk, and I am walking from home a 35 minute walk why am I carrying these things?) I really shouldn't be disappointed in this behaviour but I am.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
on the up
I appear to finally be on the up. I did some exercise (helps) I entertained old friends (helps) I got cross and ranty about the level of publicity the american typhoon gets compared to the south asian one (1,000,000 displaced Chinese, 100,000 displaced Japanese are less significant than the "suprise" flood of a city build in a tropical storm area below sea level with two massive lakes above sea level either side of it). I have some stuff planned, I have renewed self enthusiasm and the jobs paper tomorrow should be really rather big... I have no activities I fear looming on the horison, the bloke is on the mend, albeit less rapidly than we'd like. I suspect that the hormones have just settled and whatever chemicals in my head were off kilter are now getting it together again. And I've decided to rise above my colleagues gloom. May consider an evening class this year, may find a group to be involved with of a campaigning variety, will work on links with lyha walking.
