Tuesday 15 September 2009

Dur Brain


I'm watching videos. I love how Michael McDonald's beard makes him look like his mouth is just opening and closing without forming shapes when he sings. Like a restricted fish. I think it's just the top lip. Or maybe he doesn't actually move his mouth much. Who knows. It's amazing how that voice comes out of such a little escape hatch.

Anyway. About half an hour ago, I was at the doctor's. Maybe more like an hour and a bit ago. Losing the plot. It's a fallacy that your host is able to talk to anyone in any situation. I used to be all wibbly around authority figures but that's largely disappeared from my repertoire now, and I'm known for being able to talk absolute shit to absolutely anyone and feel like I'm making a positive imnpression. I should add that it all gets deconstructed later and I actually become myself and get to know the other, and once this has happened I never remember how I behaved when I first met the person. The one exception to the confident codshit rule is the minute I walk into a doctor's surgery. I immedately feel like I won't be believed and I shouldn't be there anyway. I get so nervous I can't speak and I have to fight back tears. TEARS. From the woman who wishes she cried like she used to, instead of getting angry, which is what she always does now and always used to wish she could do. Self-pitying and self-righteous don't really come into it. I think hormones might. The doctor (Hakes? It's another new one) heard and probably saw enough to recommend changing my pill. They're pushing the implant there, though, and this new pill is constructed very similarly, so it's basically a trial run, and if I don't die, they'll tell me to get a piece of plastic in my arm.

Fuck off.

Anyway #2. My bank balance is, for me, extremely good. Before that provokes an outcry, it's not good per se. It's just really good for me, because I'm on target. And you have no idea how unhappening that happening usually is.

To quote Brook: In other news...

Fizz had her lady parts removed yesterday and is recovering on the sofa. She was a zombie dog last night. She didn't even wag her tail when I came home, which she had done for Rich, who took her to the damn vets' in the first place. My god, the guilt I felt when she left yesterday morning, full of excitement at the thought, could it be? A first-thing walk. Before breakfast, even. As time would have it, the vets' didn't open at half 7 like it said online. It opened at 9. Richard sent me a picture of Fizz out and about, which I must have read in my sleep because I found it last night, looking to delete my messages.
This morning, she ate sardines out of my hand then got up to select the best bits from her bowl, mainly the cheese and liver, and have a drink. Relief. And not just for me, I'd imagine. Her belly was going bonkers last night. The poor thing was just managing to grow her beautiful coat back and now she's got a bald ... bit. I'm not sure what that particular part of her is called. Back belly. Abdomen? Phneh. I know it's necessary. It's just not pleasant seeing your first lady dog in pain, out of it.

Dur brain is what my brothers and I called each other when we were kids. It's how I felt after I messaged Rich to tell him what an utter flid I'd been at the Doc's. And now I know how Joan of Arc felt, la la la la. The image is a total steal but I love it. It's what happened when I typed Dur Brain into google images. It's a sign that I have to turn my dur brains into iron mans. Definitely.

Wednesday 9 September 2009

I have many small unconnected things to say.



Which begs the question, why am I doing this if I don't feel like I have anything to write? Well, writing is a pig. Sometimes you stand in front of a closed door wondering why you don't see any action outside it. You need to force something forwards before things start rushing in towards you. So that is why I'm writing on here, and it's also (one of) the reasons I've boycotted facebook. Because I have one of those switches in my head that, once it's on, is happy for me to sit and click - click - click - click - through. Through anything. For no reason. Obsessions are born through tedium and mindless repetition. If it's mindless, it means nothing, including no harm.

WRONG.
It's the most dangerous form of semi-involuntary action there is. I was going to say apart from sneezing while driving, but I don't think that's voluntary at all, unless someone's cleverer than me and has figured out how to do it for fun.

Another reason : I sit and think of one-liners in the third person, arbitrarily. "Natalie just saw a Dalek in Hathersage" was one, the other day, that I caught myself composing. (For the record, I usually put full stops at the end of my status updates because not doing so would equate to shredding the last of my dignity for the online community to see. Not that they'd notice, or particularly care.)

Another reason: I find myself lying and saying I read something on a blog or that someone sent me a message, so that I don't have to say "I was on facebook and my brother's friend said..." particularly to my other half, who thinks I'm a loser internet addict charity shop addict nincompoop anyway. I just googled nincompoop and I now want to watch the nincompoop championships on metacafe. See? SEE? He's right.

Nik is right, too. I was most offended when she called me a loser that spends her whole life on facebook. In my defense, at the time, I was starving and it was a distraction from eating all the food I'd made for friends that were late coming over... it calms the waves of my brain. It's that dull repetition thing again. It's better than tetris, absolutely. But it had to come out some time. Better that there was a valid excuse (not that Nik had any of it) and I could bow out gracefully before it was too late. HAH.

Natalie has not been on Facebook since Nik called her a loser that spends her life on facebook.

I think this is an achievement.

I've also been meaning to write on here again for ages... and I met a girl yesterday who told me she writes. "I used to do that." Yeah, she carries a notebook everywhere with her. "I did that, too." Add to that the fact that she was overweight but didn't care, that day at least (look, I'm a woman, I know, it's knowable, visible, OK?), pretty but wasn't flaunting, and had moved to Sheffield because she was sick of home, with no job, during a recession and just got on with it... I know she didn't realise how much of a happy heroine she was for me yesterday. When I think, actually, back to how much I actually wrote, I remembered that my mam did my washing and I didn't have a dog (or rent to pay, actually, never mind a mortgage). I didn't even wash up. I was just driven insane by constant dialogue, with no mundane tasks to distract me. Mainly through laziness, not because my mother was stupid. Anyway, threads of thought that I couldn't ignore. So you can see how that could be re-shaped to fit the facebook mire. The trick is, to sit down with one and catch it. Follow it. Move it around, force it to stretch, link it up. Do that with the rest, too. It's a mini miracle. It's taking little fragments, and making them multiply and morph. Not very exciting words to describe such a subtle chancy process, I know. But I could definitely feed five thou' or so with my words. Nourish some people. I've heard a similar story somewhere.
Some of the things I've written in the right frame of mind, that have been lost because they were sent in emails or messages to people, have occasionally been quoted back to me (thanks, Robbo) and I'm a fucking awesome word machine! I'd give a specific example, but I'd have to log onto facebook to pick up the quote and I'm still too sensitive. It's too soon. And anyway, I'm stubborn. Even if I have a reason, I'm not going to go back there.

This still hasn't explained why writing is a pig.


I used to call my brother a pig when we were little. I would whisper it in his ear. He would tell my dad, and I'd say I didn't call him a pig, I said he was pink. Writing is pink. No, writing is a pig. My brother was very sweet. Now he's covered in tattoos, but he's still very sweet. And better at drumming than me (but only because I haven't played for 7 years and he has his own drum kit).


Writing is a pig because as much as it clamours, it also stuffs you up. It fills all the gaps like water. Makes you heavy. Sluggish. And it's all there, but you're not making it move, so you don't really know it's there. It is a stubborn pig. And sometimes, it's all come out, and you've not managed to make it bend to your will, so it just looks like you threw some water on the page.
Or something.



Hey, I tried.