Fat Chance

This is a bit random even by my standards, yet pus will out unless it decides to become a boil in which case it needs to be lanced:

Even I am not so stupid as not to understand “The Gambler’s Fallacy”. Naturally, such does the human mind work and superstition still with us since the caves, we try to will our wishes to come true and fall for the gambler’s fallacy every time. Don’t sneer. You will. Unless you are a salmon (or me) swimming upstream.

Vaguely related to the above: A friend of mine swore by that questionable person (can’t remember the author’s name for the moment) who conned his readers into believing that tossing dice/die does help to make a decision. I am not the most enthusiastic decision maker when I have no conviction to back up my spine 100 % but that’s just rot. The logic going somewhere along the lines that if, say, ‘six’ means you’ll do one thing and if you throw a ‘two’ it means the other you will know which way to go. If the die is cast at option one and you feel nothing but revulsion you know that’s not an option. Go for the other instead. Sounds plausible at first. But, take it from me, not that I have applied it since I can’t be arsed with shit like that: It doesn’t work.

Was it Rhinehardt or some such? Don’t try it at home. Man up. Make up your own mind. Props not needed.

U

Thanks for nothing

Sweethearts,

I swear intelligent  imbeciles are employed (somewhere – mainly India) to pile on premium number phone charges. It took the guy twenty minutes (wasting a lot of them on too many thank yous for my patience) to understand that him sending me an email with a link to resolve my problem won’t work because I can NOT open any emails.  Not being able to open any emails being the bloody problem I phoned ABOUT. There was something Kafkaesque about our conversation. One of those sublime moments when you begin to question your sanity. When you get an inkling of some of the chambers of Dante’s hell awaiting you. Still, by then I’ll be dead. So it won’t matter.

That I am not close to a nervous breakdown is because I had one earlier. And there are only so many breakdowns one can have in the space of an hour before the white van shows up.

U

Thanksgiving

On a point of housekeeping, and I effing can’t believe it: Just realized that comments I leave in reply on MY OWN blog do not show up, being shoved into spam instead. I don’t mind. That’s ok. We all need a broom or under stairs cupboard to hide rubbish. What I do mind that my poor commentators, already stretched beyond their comprehension (not least Tom), feeling neglected as a result. Sorry, Sweethearts. And remember: It’s November.

U

Twelve

Dearest sweetest Hearts, I rarely like using the superlative. Obviously best is better than good but worst is worse than bad.

November qualifies as a month I have come to dread. 31 October I go into hiding hoping to escape the furies, generally find God again as someone to answer my prayers, and emerging, tentatively. on the blessed first day of Advent. I am convinced that should I ever die it’ll be in November. Or, knowing my luck, just when I thought I was safe on 2 December. To be fair to November (Happy Birthday, Lorna) the month has ability to surprise most pleasantly. Can’t remember now (such gratitude): Was it last or the one before when someone dear to me saved my bacon? What’s today? 20th. Ten days to go. Ten days to pull lots of baby rabbits out of the hat in hope they’ll breed.

So, in the name of research (curiosity by another name), pray tell: Do you have a month you feel favours you, months which you favour? A month which largely ignores you and your desires, and the one you wish would drop off the calendar? Please embellish: Our belts might need tightening, imagination and words are free (until someone rubs your knuckles).

U

Killer

If (through no fault of your own stupidity) you came face to face with, were chased, mauled, torn apart and eaten by a wild animal which one species would you prefer to finish you off?

Please don’t say ‘a mouse’ – unless you are a piece of cheese.

U

What did you say?

Sweethearts, please do save me from myself. Like a Victorian times damsel in distress I am in need of loosening my corset lest I faint, recline on a sofa, reaching for my smelling salts. Yes, a certain fatigue has come over me: I have lost the will to comment. How tragic is that? And, no, it is no reflection on anyone other than my faculties telling me to consider how best to employ the last remnants of my diminishing returns. GG used to called it ‘ennui’. An infliction most becoming if you are French and male. I myself, of uncertain origin and female, call it boredom.

Don’t dismiss this tragic state of affairs. I don’t do boredom. Just as I never ever have headaches I am never ever bored. At least not with myself. And – worse – being human I need social discourse if not disagreement. LSF (longest standing friend) and I have just established that we aren’t any longer what we once were. And that was before we managed to calculate how much skin we have shed over our combined life time. However, what I was able to impart  – and it is very difficult to impart anything new to him – and I myself only learnt this a few days ago, bit late in the day if you ask me, that our brains partly shrink because all other organs take any water FIRST before passing the left overs to the place which is, essentially, the coordinator. Selfish, I know. There you are, or I am, drinking cold water whilst not trying to deplete my sodium levels (I am only obsessing about this since my mother was hospitalized on account of them – never had given it a thought before) and what do you know: Your poor poor poor brain rolling around your skull like a shrunken walnut kernel just because your kidneys, liver and heart get there first. It’s awful. No wonder I sometimes stare a hole into air trying to remember what brilliant thought I had a minute ago.

U

Stick to your guns

I now know at least two people who keep bleating (not at me, just generally): “Whatever works for you”. It’s a sort of swiping at a pesky fly type statement. Which has set me thinking about curiosity. I know it kills cats. Eventually. Humans won’t admit to it. I am the type of person who does not snoop. Not because I am a saint but because I have my pride. And there are levels I will not stoop to. My son leaves his various journals and notebooks flying around the place in the safe knowledge that I wouldn’t dream looking at anything he doesn’t show me voluntarily. Has there ever been paid a greater compliment? No. My poor father still remembers (had no idea until he told me recently) that it shook him to the core how incensed I was when he opened a telegram addressed to me. I was in my early twenties – briefly staying with my parents. My mother did the same once with a letter from my sister addressed to me. Her feeble (and she is a lovely woman) excuse that the letter was addressed to her (we both have the same first name and – at the time – shared the same surname). So fair do.

Where was I? Curiosity. As you know: Once upon a time I was wooed by a gay man. Not in a sexual way since – what do you know – I am not a man, but in a romantic way. God didn’t we love each other. Him being the front loader. Myself slightly mystified in the beginning but – and with most my friends being male – eventually falling hook line and sinker for him. Three years later he called it off. Just like that. Took me another three years to get over it. Yes, I know I am slow. Or maybe not used to be shown the door. Mind you, there must have been something in the water in 1961 because one of my sisters is the same: UNFORGIVING. It’s quite fantastic HOW UNforgiving some people are. They are incapable – as we say in the mother lingo – to jump across their own shadow. They rather chew on their vomit.

I am now pumping up volume since I have been reliably informed that blogs (like mine) shorter than 1500 words are not worth reading. Bloody hell. I have only just arrived at 387. Who in their right mind, and unless they are Lorna, Charles, John or Tom (links on request), thinks they can hold a passing flyby their blog with essay lengths of sometimes stupefying content? Not that I don’t admire EGOs the size of ostrich eggs. What I don’t like if an Ostrich tells my Quail I should lay large eggs to justify my existence.

Yes, back to GG and curiosity. Since I do not wish to become a stalker through the back door I have not visited his blog for I don’t know, say, a year. Do you actually know how much will power it takes to stifle a primal (as the Angel would call it) instinct? Obviously not a lot in my case. Sure, I am dying to know how he is but I know masochism when I see it. Not my game. I suppose I could phone his mother. Don’t worry. I won’t. There comes a time when we need to know when to let it rest. I am not good at resting. But learning.

Word count 571. Please don’t bother (see above). Unlike the L’Oreal advert I am not worth it. So please do go and waste your time on something far longer and proof read. Not this shit spur of the moment stuff (without visual content).

Water cooler hugs and kisses,

U

Poison

Brought on by John I was reminded that smell is the last sense to fade. Maybe it’s because we don’t stem from monkeys but cats. And, no, this is not going to be a sentimental post on how nay to impossible it is to slip a cat a pill. It’s about music. Yes, Phil. Music.

As people get older, not me personally – I am still five, one can’t but help panic about loss of senses. Without wishing to go into specifics a couple of years ago the Angel pronounced that if one of my fears does come true: “Well, Mama, then we are BOTH fucked”. It’s the latent accountant in him: Add up, subtract, draw bottom line.

Yes, music. Compared to most people I don’t listen to music much. I find it distracting when I need to concentrate. I like silence other than incidental and necessary noises like those made by children, birds, the wind and people putting their trash out.

The Angel will sit me down and MAKE me listen. It touches me that it is so important to him to keep his mother in the now (know). Having had a classical upbringing in music – yes, my father also used to sit me down on a Sunday afternoon (and make me guess the composer) – I know the forefathers of what the Angel is doing so very well. For reasons unimportant I blended classical music out of my life for many many years. Other than the ‘accidental’ listening when cooking Sunday lunch – say, the Radio 4 programme “Desert Island Discs”.

Forget what people read. That’s just pretentious shit. And I can say this with some authority since my life is lived in and on paper. You’ll learn more about anyone by knowing what music their heart cherishes. Emphasis on ‘heart’.

Writing this whilst listening to the divine, on earphones donated to me by the Angel. What is it? HA. That’s for me to know. Intimate. Personal. Come to my funeral. You won’t hear a sermon. You’ll hear this. Take it with you. May it make you happy and cry.

Possibly – for the first time in my life – I have understood something about music. Once heard – and again and again and again – you “hear” a piece in your mind. It’s quite wonderful: You don’t actually physically need to ‘hear’. Like an ear worm it’ll play itself out in your brain. So, Sweethearts, keep listening. Might come you in good stead one day. Not least when you find yourself in prison.

As to touch and sight – we’ll come to that another time.

U

November November

Sweethearts, bring out the champagne and let the corks pop. Hold the bottles away from your face or you may lose an eye.

Front page:  Have found favour once more. Takes people a while to see a good deal when it stares them in the face – but then the English are not known for their bartering skills. Slightly annoying that I can’t go into detail – what with drones watching your every key stroke. Mark my words – if I feel mildly paranoid NOW soon (give it five years – no, make that three months) a new DIS ease will be coined, named and you’ll be given the badge whether you want it or not. Doesn’t matter. Just don’t swallow the pills. And please don’t flush them down the toilet either.

In other stale news: Yesterday I was paid the ultimate compliment: I do not bore.

U

Up Creek Abbey

What’s that cloak called that those repentant wear? Whatever. I repent. I am in the dog house. No, I am in the Dock house. As one is. More of which once I have traced location of my smelling salts.

U