Aaaand We're Off

Sent application this morning.
Now waiting and seeing. Sadly, waiting and seeing doesn't burn ANY calories.
Looks like I have to go back to the gym. Get my fabulous ass off my chair. Switch Greek Goddess mode back on.

God. That already sounds like so much work. 

The John . . . Going On A Bit...

The Place: a bar
Name: The Void
Actual Fact: No one cares since it's the Void


I am now officially pledging the Fifth. In my case it should be the Sixth. I.e. THAT part in the universal law of Wine Drinkers Solitary And Anonymous that refers to the state of inebriation (i.e. units of alcohol) of the individual in question and in connection to that the inability to be held accountable for what was said and/or written in said state of inebriation.
SUCH a good thing that we are talking VOID here.

Alcohol makes you both naive and wise. (Really what it does is simply lower your inhibitions.) (Oh good, pointing out the obvious here.)
I believe this is why people tend to say that children and drunks speak the truth. (As above.)
As to speaking the truth - I honestly cannot say that I am or, IF I was, which?
Literary studies taught me, there is never only ONE truth. A complete and utter philistine would now utter something like: Makes you wonder just how much Shakespeare and the likes were drinking. Well, our beloved Mr. Pope, I am sure, was always anything but. A drunkard that is.

I am partial to the occasional drink. Especially on a New Year's Eve when there is nothing better to do and no one around. (May be turning into Bridget Jones. Must check for further signs.)
There is some kind of list of classic and highly appropriate things to do on this night in particular. Fancy dinners, friends galore, lavish parties, countdowns and toasts, and not forgetting auld acquaintance(s) and days of auld lang syne.
And you know what, this lady is in no mood to tick any of the boxes.
I love me some red wine, some sherry, too.
I shall dance and skip and gyrate and whirl like a dervish.
I may remember this and forget the other.
I may cry and laugh, joke and swear.
I shall be talking to myself a little. Aloud. Like me, myself and I were three different people.
In my mind I will be dancing with John Mayer in my kitchen. Slow dancing to some old Gershwin number.
I'd even pretend to have on a fabulous gown and my hair'd be sleek and simply wonderful.

In the end, all it ever really is is make believe.
The new year is the old year is the old is the old is the same old same old.
It's crushing. It is devastating. Nothing ever really changes. No one ever really changes. That is what is called the universal experience of being human. That is why, Mr. Mayer can wax poetic about the mundane and the easily forgotten and overlooked.
We carry on.
Regardless.
Whether we have learned anything or not.
It simply does not matter. Because the world does not stop turning just because we break a leg, a heart, a crown.
The world does not give a shit.
I wonder whether that is something to take into 2014.
To take into consideration at least.
At last!
Because, for sure, this lady has not in the past.

It is that kind of knowledge that eludes you for a long time and screws with you continually.

So make sure you got that down!

For posterity and all...

The John (An Entry Far Too F***ing Long-Winded For It's Own Good)

I am not talking about toilets
I am talking about Mayer's John.
Say about him what you will I love his music. Straight from Room For Squares it's been a lot of jumping around in dark rooms on Friday nights, a lot of inebriated nodding and swaying, a lot of crying and the occasional shout of SING IT, MR MAYER! Because I know he knows.
Yup - that is what OUR relationship is all about. Honesty. Understanding.

Sometimes my cynical self goes something like this:
Good thing, JM is around - he goes on Soul Searchers and comes back with bags of knowledge so you don't have to. Of course, I chide this part of myself and retort, that really what JM is doing - and kindly so - is to provide a soundtrack to life, not so much his, exclusively, but  - since we are all experiencing basically the same thing - a large portion of "us".

Coming to think of it - I am not a musician, I am a language person, so the notes and riffs and the whole composition which I am sure are fascinating, are way beyond me.
But still I believe JM is a poet, too. In the literal sense of the word.
Is that too much?
Not sure.
Am I singing praises where they are not deserved?
No clue.
What I know is that his words - and I know, too I am mixing metaphors here - think of it as COLLAGE - are like snapshots.
And WHAT do you mean by that, Ms.? Pray, tell!
Well. He highlights a mood, a feeling/emotion - a quick observation, a hint of something, nothing lasting, just a thought. And that is what photographers do, right?
Both capture something. Something intimate. It's like looking at the world through their eyes. Cliché, I know. Can't think of a decent metaphor. Am not Alexander Pope after all. So there.

 - FIFTH BEAKER - I would like to mention this, Void, and though I know you are as unforgiving and uncaring as ever and in ANY way possible, I am STILL recording it!
... for posterity... or whatever. That is a contradiction in terms I know... but hey it is New Year's Eve and I am on my fifth beaker.

I have lost my train of thought completely - not that it was ever there... mark that down to beakers and heavy drinking. So sorry.

I was - in fact - advised to take up drinking to get myself in the proper creative mood. If writing would not come - and I think it was meant as if Creativity is reluctant  - then "seduce her by all means possible".
I believe that was to say: Take charge. Get drunk if need be and coax her out.
Her?
Her?!
Anyway - a healthy drinking habit is said to have been beneficial to many a literary endeavour. Not so much the liver, mind you.
But! This is a story for some other time.
It's a good one.
It's Christmassy and all in the "Spirit of the Holiday" and "Good-will-toward -men (and women, clearly)-malarkey.

Back to Mr. John Mayer. Who is as flawed as the next person. So?
I think what really matters and is the only thing that should matter - since he is a songwriter and musician first and foremost - that he has an ear as well as an eye - and perhaps, most of all, he has a heart.
'coz it takes a heart to be bothered in the first place.
By the every-day. By the minutiae of a so-called ordinary life. By the insecurities of growing-up. By Love. By breaking-up. By Not-knowing-what-the-hell-to-do-with-the-rest-of-your-life. The list goes on.
JM is a archivist. A diarist. A snap-shot-taker, for lack of a better word.

For some reason I am a little worried that he might be offended, arguing that it takes so much more than just clicking the button in the right moment. His recording is both a challenge of words and of notes and keys. And while writing that I am not even sure what that means.
I think it tries to touch upon the fact that both lyrics as well as music are involved in this particular artistic process.
Be that as it may, in cometh the laywoman:  - Both are a kind of a language, right?

Golly...

... it has been quite some time.

I will not go on and on about it. I shall be sweetness and light.
For which there are plenty of reasons.

Actually, no. No!
I am not going to spend one whole entry fibbing about how bloody happy I am ALL the BLOODY TIME.
Because I am not. Alright? Satisfied?

Of course I am happier, A LOT happier. Actually I am REALLY happy.
But I am also simply shattered, knackered, exhausted, debilitated, frazzled even.

My Doc says it was ok to be tired in times of transition. I love that. I also love that Doc seems to appreciate the nature of my reality right now: happiness aside, I am still only human and have not suddenly mutated into Zeus' illegitimate daughter with super magic goddess powers.
Wait - weren't all his children misbegotten - out of wedlock an' all?
Alright so I'd be one in a long line of bastard children whose mothers were kidnapped, tricked, rained upon (I still find that one kind of disturbing and a little disgusting, too), played for a fool by this dirty old man. And he was married to his sister, for crying out loud... but I'd also be one kick-ass immortal who would not be tired out by a few double-shifts and pondering too hard on - dare I say it - the past. I'd just shrug and get on with it. Heck, I'd re-write the past and eradicate all villains in my story. THAT's what I would do.

HOWEVER, it has turned out I have no magic super powers. (Shocking, right?!)
My powers are sub-par at present.
I am not as irritable as a bear just out of hibernation but I am sure as energetic.

So Doc says to take it easy. Be patient with thyself. Get some rest.
Well if I could I would not need her to tell me that. But such ist life.

What else is new?
I have settled more or less in my new flat. Things are still all over the place. But I cannot be bothered due to aforementioned problem of too little sleep.

I have still not overcome delayed rage. Still harbour sinister thoughts against a person of the past.
Wonder whether these will ever turn into deeds...

Have ordered rifle catalogues online.

Only joking.

Apart from the superficial and, I suppose, rather average tiny things of the every-day variety, I have noticed something which does not strike me as unsettling or even mildly surprising, which says to me that I should not worry. If anyone (anyone?) else wishes to do so, feel free and be more than welcome.

It is something I have been feeling all my life, more or less - and I am not unique in feeling thus. I am not making myself out to be. I am just stating a fact here.
Namely that a person can feel - while the turmoils of a certain part in their lives have been resolved and put to rest, while new beginnings have been made and things have turned out for the better - a kind of happiness, or relief but also finds that it is temporary, fleeting.To many, I have found, it seems to be that way. To equally as many this is a sign that something's wrong. Because: if they are not happy all the time, something MUST be wrong with them.

Who in their right mind is happy all the time, I ask.
Who honestly aspires to that?!
Naturally, if quizzed, a lot of us state: happiness. Whatever that may entail for the individual.
But that is the question right there isn't it. What's it mean to be happy, to have happiness in life? Is it fame, is it health, is it the car/the house/the yacht/the trophy wife, is it having enough money to live comfortably, is it love?
This despite the fact that we are told by those apparently in the know that failure, hardship, even sickness is the "stuff" that growth is made of and that in times of crises we must turn to ourselves to find answers, for all the riches and fame in the world will not solve your issues. (Though it helps I have been told.)

My happiness is a fickle thing. It never stays long and often leaves a sense of melancholy behind and then a kind of stressed-out feeling. I do believe this stems from my habit of making the proverbial second step before the first. (Oh, time was when I would attempt to take the 5th or even the 10th before I had even started to take steps at all.) I sort of live in the future in the sense that I worry about what may or may not happen. My life is a chores-list and after one chore is crossed off I move on to the next. I do not feel satisfaction about the things (little as they may seem to others) I have achieved, accomplished. I do not feel pride. I rarely feel joy about them. It's just something I've done. Can we move on now?
I do not celebrate the bigger events in life, so do not even talk to me about the small ones.
Should this really be down to my inability to stay "in the moment" as it were? Yup, 'cause what I do instead is leave the present in order to speculate frantically about my future. And that I really (really!) cannot know or control.

My little friend called D.R. (the one that frequently leads me down the path of anger towards a certain person of my past) is also in on it. He likes to shackle me to said past. And I let him. I invite questions of WHY oh why things happened and I create ever different scenarios of what I should have done. Only problem is, of course, I cannot change what has gone before. I may know it but again I cannot control it.

It's an old hat, I know... all this being able to live right here in the present moment and how difficult it can be for one that is so easily distracted, that is so misguided and insecure.
However, the older I get, the more I get it - which is not to say that I am any good at practising it.

My mind wanders on very sturdy legs every day all day. It has not learned to be still. It offers opinions, it spouts them like a never-ending well, bubbling, teaming with incessant "talk" of likes and dislikes. I am thus only the passenger. I get carried away, in the truest sense. Not least from myself.

So, I figure, happiness would be detachment, being still within oneself, shutting the hell up.

Not sure how to break this to my overly chatty mind, though. "Right, Past and Future are off bounds, you hear me?" Yeah, that's really gonna work so well! And it doesn't stop there, does it now. Any kind of judgement would be on the list of no-go's. What is to become of my little rants?! I have to ask myself here,  Am I really ready to part with my tantrums and my bouts of self-righteous anger, my regular moments of complacency? I do cherish feeling superior. (Sue me! Like all of us ever only criticise others in order to help them. Bollocks!)

You see, it is a big decision. And I shall take my time making it.
And I shall take my chances with feeling a little happy now and then and dog-tired in-between.
Clearly, it is not bad enough yet for me to do anything about it all.
I simply have a high pain threshold and my "too much effort" radar is super-sensitive at present.
Does that make me a bad person? No.
It simply shows once more how strong one's resistance to new things truly can be.

Ah, times of transition, eh...

Only one week into the new year and I have come to the conclusion that I am EVERY bit as bad and slovenly and gluttonous as last year. So sorry to all those list-writers and thank-you sayers, to the breathers and relaxers, the yogis and the gurus, the hopers and whishers, the aware and the enlightened. I suppose the LIST goes on . . .

Resolutions? Bite me!

I suppose one could now say: The year is but young. You simply slipped a little.
Nu-uh. I never thought I'd say this ever but here goes: What I have started I shall finish.
I rarely stick to anything but I do have a habit of giving up. I believe I can stick to that.

Good evening all.