Journal Entries
Thursday 30 November 2000 - very early
Posted Dec 15, 2000
I can't get my internet connection to function at all, now. I'll have to ring the ISP in the morning, and I haven't had to do that for a long, long time. I am somewhat disturbed. It's as though I'm being prevented from doing the things that I like to do by everything around me, and everything is conspiring actively against my will.
The ISP is responding to my attempts to connect by requesting my access password, and then ignoring it when I supply it. I can only hit the ‘enter' button so many times before I tire, lose the rhythm and inadvertently disconnect the call.
What's going on...
?
Some solace has been provided in the form incarnate of books by the undeniably great Linda Jaivin. ‘Rock'n'roll babes from Outer Space' is still one of the funniest books I've ever read. The original ‘Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy' would have been like it, if it talked more directly about sex. ‘Miles Walker you're dead' is also good - just as concerned with Sydney and Sydney people and places, but more topical, slightly less fantastic, and full of much better quotes, I suspect. I think a relevant quote will have to go up on the headline of my user page...
I'm not sure whether to get Umberto Eco's latest collection - anyone read ‘Kant and the platypus'?
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Latest reply: Dec 15, 2000
Wednesday 29 November 2000
Posted Dec 15, 2000
Another rainy day, but this one was preceded by a few days of sunshine and hotness, and even most of today was sunny. Nights are now steamy and plagued with mosquitoes, as well as hot. I'm sleeping a lot better without blankets, though, so on the whole this is probably actually a good thing...
.
Tonight was the second-last class in the fitness instructor's ‘Core Theory' course. We did a test exam, which virtually everyone passed, without any preparation whatsoever, so we're confident about the real exam next Wednesday, which is good. For myself, though, there's still a lot of preparation to be done! The after-course party is on the Friday night after the exam. This will cause me to miss my Brother's baby's ‘naming party', which is on the next day, in Sydney, but I'm not too fussed about that - and I don't think my Brother is, either (it seems to be his wife's family's thing, rather than his, which is a relief!), given the distance and the importance of saying a proper farewell to my classmates!
My housemate isn't home at present, which is a relief, me having cycled home in a light rain with a thunderstorm flashing around me as I came down the ridge - it was spectacular, and sufficiently far away that I heard hardly any thunder, and I suspect that my housemate has virtually no conception how important or significant, or beautiful, such things actually are. Cretin. He's having a birthday party to celebrate his 30th on Saturday - I'm looking for an alternative gig...! I still want to come home that night, though, to give me the opportunity to get really angry at whichever of his friends tries to sleep in my bed. I'm still looking for another house, but the market is flat as a board at the moment, unless you've more money than I have - or than I'm willing to spend.
Volunteering at the Folk Festival is fantastic - enjoyable and significant work which is appreciated, and which gets me out of the house and away from the indolent fool who lives in my place, and who stays here all day, every day, lurking and being stupid, offensive, selfish and lazy. I'm enjoying myself, and to hell with the idiot.
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Latest reply: Dec 15, 2000
Thursday 16 November 2000
Posted Dec 14, 2000
Another rainy day. Apparently, this year, we've had only two dry days for the whole of November. The weather is not doing anything for my state of mind, I can assure you - things are still desolate, empty and unexciting, but I know that only a bit of sunshine can make them better.
Nothing extraordinary is happening. Nothing even interesting is happening, and what is interesting is constantly overshadowed by the depressing weather. I must be a real SAD case, I think, although the season itself is the right one for uplifted spirits. The weather itself, though, remains unseasonal, and it's not helping anything...
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Latest reply: Dec 14, 2000
Saturday 11 November 2000
Posted Nov 10, 2000
Remembrance Day.
This is only one of its names, and it's an odd name to be remembering in present circumstances. I just had one of the oddest experiences I've ever had...
Shortly before midnight, I think I had what could be termed a ‘psychotic' experience, except I didn't really feel like killing anyone, including myself. I was low, BSL-wise, I know that, but I was also profoundly depressed. There was no real reason to feel this way, but I did...
I think I'm coming round, now.
Nobody really reads this diary, anyway, I suppose.
I was sitting on my bed, and I felt, ‘vacant'. Not really there. I could hear the traffic on the road outside my window, but it wasn't as loud as it should have been. When I pinched myself, there was no real feeling in my arm. I could pinch myself quite hard, and it didn't hurt. I couldn't taste lemonade in my mouth, either, and I was chugging it down, to bring myself out of the hypo I was sure I was having, and which my blood-testing machine was reading levels to confirm. I felt no real antipathy, no real love, no real hate - no real anything, I guess. The weather outside is overcast, as I know from when I went outside to try and look at the stars to dispel some of my unhappiness: no stars, of course.
I'd been contemplating suicide. The Screaming Jets made a good song out of a line that was very similar to that, but the song didn't have the same psychological ramifications as my state at that time, which was leading, seemingly inexorably, towards self-immolation - or possibly self-mutilation. I was feeling frustrated. No job, no money, no love in my life, no friends who are good enough to stay and talk - only those who are good enough to read what I have to say here, without inquiring further. Some of the people I am pleased to call ‘friends' won't even do that, despite having the capability and much more money than I have. I was feeling psychologically isolated, desolate, destitute, and very alone. I live in a house with a man who is sufficiently self-centred as to be considered rude by virtually everyone who doesn't know him as well as his ‘best' friends (i.e., by virtually everyone), I long for a woman who doesn't want to consider anything I say except for the bits which are easy to accept, I am manipulated into volunteering for organisations which can use my help, but unable to find work with organisations who are capable and willing to pay for it as long as I am willing to lie about what I can do for them, I engage in talk all day but am never given the opportunity to say anything, and I am lonely, miserable, frustrated and angry about the way things are not working out for me. It seems very much as though there is no reason to keep on living - no one, evidently, would miss me for being gone. Even if I died, for example, no one at the ‘Guide would have any idea that this had occurred - possibly ever.
Most of this is merely the product of being home alone on a Friday night, but it builds up over the hours. One cup of coffee and there are several more of those hours than might otherwise be the case to negotiate your way through. Add a hypo to that scenario and you're well on the way to the coniption I was having a few minutes ago. Thankfully, though, all it takes to get to sleep is a good, long journal entry...!
Remembrance Days should not ever be held on Saturday - that gives far too many people far too much self-justification to do nothing about it.
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Latest reply: Nov 10, 2000
Friday 10 November 2000
Posted Nov 10, 2000
It's a weird time, this one.
I ‘volunteered' to work for the National Folk Festival, rewriting some of their customer databases in the first instance. It's interesting work, it has some potentially nice kickbacks in free entry to the festival itself, and it's useful. All this makes me very happy to do it - I suspect I'll try to keep doing it even if I do manage to find some work: it's much more interesting than any of the paid jobs I've done lately! Monday after lunch is when I'm expected to turn up, and I'm looking forward to it.
People in general seem to be ‘turning away' from me, though. My friends seem unaccountably distant. No one is talking to me, except in superficialities. A friend of mine who has had an unfortunate run-in with somebody who likes to take saved bill-money from her house is completely mum - so shattered by the whole house violation thing that talking to me seems too much of an effort, maybe, or maybe she's written me off as another person simply not to be trusted. Some people even seem to be talking (or whispering) about me in my presence, which is disconcerting. I wouldn't mind so much if I actually knew what they were saying, but imagining is often worse than the actuality...
I still want to move house. One of my friends told me the other day that living in a house where you're not happy is just sad, and I suspect he's right. I can't really afford to move, though, even in spite of the help I'm likely to have from my parents and my friends. I can't get a place anywhere nearby for the same rent, let alone less, and extracting my bond for this place from the agents looks to be nearly an impossibility. I'm puzzled and depressed about this aspect of my life at the moment, and Saturdays are just a continual reading of classified advertisements - looking either for jobs or houses..
The weather's undecided. Can't make up its mind, seemingly, about whether it wants to be cloudy, sunny, overcast or raining.
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Latest reply: Nov 10, 2000
Hypoman
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