Cat with Claws Turned Inwards

I am lost in this very maze, only it feels like the leaves aren’t neat at all, they’re harsh and stick-like from up close and they are grazing me, and the hedges are ten feet high and I can’t find myself.

A certain site lists

Perspective on emotions. What goes up, must come down, and back up again. Viewing life and issues from both ends makes you more philosophical about the meaning of things. Would this matter when not depressed? Would that seem a good idea when stable? Emotions become illusory flavourings.

as one of the top ten most super-fabulous things about being bipolar.

Oh really? says I.
I guess, maybe, in my most serene of moments, which to tell the truth, have been few and far between of late.

What the book said about it all

So I started rewriting, or updating, or whatever, this blog on Thursday night, and something distracted me (*cough*music*cough*) and I saved draft and moved on…thinking thinking thinking.
The person I was referring to had sent me a letter the previous day, the Wednesday, a YouTube link (links being his “thing”) to an animated video of a man and a woman meeting for the first time, with the meeting degenerating into the woman bullying the man into a henpecked existence, the house in the suburbs, the SUV, the 2.4 kids, the losing the dreams, the mortgage and debt and no communication, the fighting and wanting and needing and so forth. Is that really how you see me? I angrily replied. (He’s previously commented that I am the most “sandton” of his girlfriends). No. He said. That’s how he sees himself. :’( what can I say? What can I really say? And then he asked me to stay away. No contact, no chats, no more fb friends, no nothing. It’s nearly a year after the break up and now I finally have to let go. So then I started questioning why I don’t wanna. What my selfish motives are for befriending him, for attempting to keep him close and not letting him hate me and for attempting to be the saint. I left him, remember?

This one is for me

A whole bunch of people in my life have been bugging me to write again, and I just….have been unable to. There have been times in the last few months I can count on my (now damaged) right hand that I have opened up WordPress, and stared at this blank page, maybe written a title, maybe not even, and sat, and sat some more, and then….closed it. Gone on to do something else. Or not.

But then something took me tonight. Maybe it’s the album I listened to. Portishead took 10 years to write their third album. It’s sublime. Beyond a imaginings of what I though it could be, and then I thought, why don’t I write something? In fact, why don’t I write down my reasons for not writing something, numorous as the stars as they are…sensible as they are….maybe they won’t seem so multitudinous or so reasonable when I’m done with them. Or maybe they will. Either way, I will have written something at least.

Social Networking and Class

I know I haven’t blogged in a while. There is plenty going on in my life, and, unfortunately, I haven’t…um…worked through it sufficiently to share it with the greater public.
However, something I can share - my working life seems to be moving mroe and more in the direction of Information Architecture and the user psychology of web development, whetehr i stay in my current job, shift job descriptions in my current company, or jump ship at some future point.

Aaaanyway, I encountered to fascinating articles about this phenomenon in the past two days.

The first, here, is all about the class distinctions on the web - a place where supposedly, one cannot tell if you are speaking to a 56 year old fat balding guy from Onbekend who claims to be a hot blonde chick from NYC… funnily enough his user habits (ha!) might give away more than you think…

The second is about the visual and user dynamics of that Social netowrking phenomenon, Facebook - find it here, or read it below

public weeping

I don’t have anyting to say on this topic that the numerous people who commented on this awesome post about city living haven’t already said.
it’s one fo the most beautiful posts, and triggered the most reponses of any post i’ve ever read.
It’s beautiful.
As a regular public weeper, I identify.

Winter, spring, summer, and then some more…

It’s strange when you can watch yourself falling into a place, you can see everything is happening just like they wrote it in the textbook. But there’s no stoping it and there’s no going back. Forward is the only direction left. Standing still isn’t an option, no matter how badly you wanna. Everything feels muted, slightly slowed down, but at the same time, moving just that little bit too fast for me to keep up.

Tarot Card

You are The Star

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat with my tarot…I have a beautiful set at home that I used to sit with regularly. (I use the words “sit with” because I don’t like the word “consult”. I don’t believe that they fortold the future as much as they helped, through their storytelling, to clear my head rather than what strengths and weaknesses, what elements I needed to focus on at that particular point, more through a power of suggestion to my subconcious as to what was really bothering me, or “on my (subconcious) mind than anything else…does that make any sense?)

anniversary

Anniversaries are funny things. Cause for reflection, mostly. Occassionally cause for celebration. This particular one brings up some very conflicting feelings in me, since it is natural for me to reflect on my progress in the past year as well as want to deny the opportunity to celebrate what I may have achieved. My inner child wants rewards; lots of them. Wants spoiling and attention and all that good stuff.
My outer adult believes that there is nothing worth writing home about, and it’s just another day, and simply a milestone is my race to catch up with my peers.
I was 8 years clean and sober on Friday.

Toothlessness

Imagine gurgling under water. *grrrrrrrr*
Breath gone.
Then shouting. Open mouthed.
All air is expelled.
The impetus to make a sound must be significant, as one is pushing against intense force…and the water is trying ever harder to gain entry into one’s lungs.

Been a Long Time…

caaaa-lick….sshhhhhhhh (almost silent click) ahem
I remember the very first cassette tapes I took ownership of: they were my dad’s and I forced him to play them on repeat on his fancy Monza-brand electric tape-player built into his bottle-green ‘80 Merc. IN fact I remember singing loudly along to them, balancing on the cream leather arm-rest sticking my head out of the sun-roof as we zoomed past The Wilds on what must’ve been a Sunday afternoon:
Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer and Song Sung Blue and some Dolly Parton recording that had Love is Like A Butterfly and Jolene on it.

I remember the very first cassette tape I ever bought from my own pocket money, money made from making and selling uselss trinkets around the neighbourhood and the collected rewards of two year’s worth of Chanukah gelt; Olivia Newton John’s I Love You, I Honestly Love You. In fact, i can stikll see the cover in my mind’s eye - the reduced record cover with the golden MFP logo across the top, the tracklisting in bold across the back fold, with fuzzy edges after days and days of pulling it out and putting it back (a compilation of country ‘n western, Bread, Juice Newton and Air Supply covers, for those who care)