ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day

interlude

17/09-18/09/2015

So there I am in a snowplough in Glenfinnan.  The weather continued fair, to be fair, and Glenfinnan itself is very pretty.  Well the Loch and the forest are.  The village is basically a one horse town that the horse converted into hotels and galloped out of on the proceeds.  No shops so staying here either means a lot of spending on hotel grub or running down my supplies.

But I definitely needed at least one days rest.  Actually paid John the Trainspotter for two nights and so was relaxing.  First I slept in.  In a bed. OK I had to use my bag but that was fine.  There was a stove I could make tea on and everything.

When I finally got up and had another god-sent shower then more tea I re-bound the knee, this time sans stick splints and headed off to see the sights.  The sights here include the Railway Museum where I was staying and the Monument.  

The Rail Museum is a perfect little station of Victorian vintage near the Glenfinnan Viaduct (famous for being used as the backdrop for Harry and Ron in the flying Ford Anglia trying to catch the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter film franchise).  It really is a good example of its type and I recommend a visit.  John clearly an enthusiast also acts as post collector, token keeper and Stationmaster for the line....which runs the Jacobite, the only scheduled steam train still running on the main line in the UK.  It typically runs Black Fives, which is slightly disappointing as they were...well...boring even back in the day.  I know it would be overkill but I would have stuck an A4 on there myself and sod the corners.

So one reason for the herds of Japanese and American tourists is the presence of the Hogwarts Express.  Though taken literally that suggests Hogwarts is in a small scottish fishing port.  Anyway it is well kept, has a small shop and I recommend a visit.

I also walked down to the Other Thing, which I had walked past the day before.  This was the reason the Merkins were here.  Because the Other Thing is the Monument, commemorating where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner in 1745 in the second Jacobite Rebellion.  And the Merkins love BPC and they all claim to have a clan.  ( I can talk, I actually do have a clan.  I am a Donald, more of this in later posts. )

Anyhoo this monument was set up on Donald land because the Donalds were big supporters of BPC.

For those who do not know the story here, a brief rundown.  The Stewarts (or Stuarts, spelling varies) were the hereditary kings of Scotland.  Sort of.  In fact calling them Stewarts is a bit problematic as they came down through the distaff side via Mary Queen of the Desert.  Sorry, Scots.

MQS was one of the most humped and abducted queens since Guinevere.  She had been queen of France much more than of Scotland.  She was the daughter of James V of Scotland but he died when she was 5 and a set of regents took over the throne.  As they felt they could manage quite nicely without a woman cluttering up the place they shipped her off to France as a child bride for the future Francis II of France, himself a religious loony and not too stable.  He croaked suddenly shortly after ascending the throne and so in 1661 she pootled back to Scotland, landing in Leith.

She was about as welcome as a fart in a space suit, as the regents had no intention of giving up the throne.  She married her cousin (what is it about British royalty and cousin-fancying?) Darnley and settled down to unhappy marriage.  Darnley knocked her up (it is debatable as to wether the highly religious Francis ever consummated the marriage) and she gave birth to James VI/I.  Her husband then gets murdered by Bothwell, a regent lord, who kidnaps her, takes her baby away to be reared Scottish and basically rapes her.  In an early version of Stockholm Syndrome she actually settles down with Bothwell.  Anyway in true Stewart manner she buggers up her rule magnificently, pisses everyone off and flees to England.  Elizabeth is on the throne, childless, and Mary thinks she is the heir. She first asks for shelter then leads a rebellion. Anyone with an idea of Elizabeths temper will know what happens next....Mary is banged up then executed.  Now I want you to look for a pattern here...Stewart gets near throne, behaves spectacularly stupidly and ends up deported or dead or both.

Elizabeth does actually name James her heir, and he eventually inherits despite being a bandy legged dwarf and bisexual spendthrift. (One lord at the time, commenting on the state of James budget and also his bedroom habits asked "how may we know the level of the barrel when the money disappears through diverse cocks" cocks meaning spigot (hence the other meaning) and also what it does now)

James survives Bonfire Night without too much bother though he does have a thing about witches, writing a book about them.  He also hated tobacco and Walter Raleigh.  So for a Stewart frittering the budget on rent boys and writing books on demons is a pretty successful reign.  he didnt get up to much else.  His son, Charles, was the second stupidest king England ever had.  He caused a civil war by trying to assert absolute monarchy (a belief that came from France via MQC.  England had never had an absolute monarch, even the Tudors had to keep the parliament onside).  Well actually he set off about 4 of them one after the other.  every time he made peace and signed a treaty he escaped and started it all again.  In the end Cromwell, above all a practical man, decided enough was enough and cut his head off.  When Charles II eventually got the throne he looked at the previous 2 generations, decided Grandad had it right and shagged his way through his reign with little else of note except the fire of London.  Then there was James II.  the stupidest one ever.  Again with the absolutism, using the Royal prerogative to overrule parliament.  Tried to reinstall Catholicism, which by this time was a no-hoper. Eventually his Lords got so pissed off they mounted a rebellion and removed him.  The army of William off Orange had both James daughters in it.  James tried to run away from the fight twice, had a nosebleed and buggered off to France.  nobody missed him.  We then go through Mary and Anne, James daughters and both die childless.  The English do not want another Stuart at any price so they invite a cousin, George, over from hanover....and the Haggis hits the fan.  The Scots, who hadn't 'really had to put up with the full idiocy of the Stuarts, felt nostalgic for them and wanted em back.  There was an abortive rising in 1715 which was put down and caused the founding of the Scottish road network and Fort William, and then there was BPC.  He was raised in France and had a total Monty Python French accent.  He was about as Scottish as the Queen of Englands tits but there you go.  He raised his standard at Glenfinnan.  The clans rose ( sort of.  a fair number couldnt be arsed or had a note from their mother).  He marches south and gets as far as Derby, putting the shits up George II (himself a fair soldier who was the last English king to lead troops in battle and would later die of a tricky bowel movement)...and then BPC gets the wind up, walks home, leads his army into a trap at Culloden, runs away, has it off with Flora MacDonald and goes into exile for good.

So the monument is to the congenital idiocy of the Stuarts or something.  Anyway it is pretty.

Monument visible in middle picture between tree clumps.

Anyway that exhausts the sights of glenfinnan.  Hotel dinner.  

Next day dawns. I arrange passage to Mallaig on the train the following day to Mallaig, hoping to get the ferry to Inverie and pick up the trail from there if the knee gets better.  I spend a lot of the day catching up on contacts as I can get signal here and wifi in the Hotel.  One of the editors of Science has sent an email begging for a review we started a while ago to get finished.  It is delayed because my former boss couldnt be arsed so after an exchange of emails I take it over and undertake to finish it.  Unfortunately this contact with the outer world triggers wife related nightmares and I have a very very rough night.

Anyway Genfinnan is well worth a half hour stop.

I sometimes think Kafka was a total optimist

So yesterday was a crisis.  Or rather yesterday the crisis I have been in since February came to the surface. I am an unusual psych patient.  Well I am an internet horse for a start. But beyond that...
I have spent my entire life subsuming emotion.  I operate two parallel processing systems, one emotional and one rational.  the rational one floats on the surface and that is the one you talk to.  i say rational not logical because Spock, as I call him, does get passionate about some things, and stubborn.  But in a reasoned, strategic way.  You come to me with a crisis and Spock will sort it out.  No blame, no emotion, just sort.
The emotional person, Emo, is doing all the feeling but like any juvenile drooling idiot is not allowed near the controls unless Spock is incapacitated.  Emo is like Dana's personality after possession.  There is no Emo, only Spock.
But Emo has been in trouble for a long time.  Spock doesn't enjoy things, that's not his role.  Emo hasn't enjoyed much of anything since 1980.  At the moment Emo is  covered in napalm and burning.
Yesterday Emo came through a lot.
Of course Spock comes to the surface at times when i interact with people.  When the police came to my house for safeguarding Spock offered them a cup of tea because that's what you do to guests.  The paramedic and I chatted on the way to A and E (no way could I drive) because that's what you do. (incidentally Suffolk police and paramedics v rugged.  Recommend).  So for long periods I appeared normal.If that's a word.
And the assessment team...they asked questions, so Spock answered.  Lucidly.  And all the time i was burning, burning.
I am burning still.
Because of course politics got in the way.
After yesterdays meeting I walked out and sat on a bench outside for 2 hrs.  I called PALS who were livid but powerless.  Eventually I called MrsInky, who was kind.  She rang off, called my GP to raise the alarm, rang back, talked to me to find out where I was.  I drove home at 20mph curb hugging, washed up, made a cup of tea and ran out of distraction.
I have been distracting myself since February.  When I ring out of hours line they tell me to distract myself.  The only treatment I have is distraction and sleeping pills.
Gentle reader how long could you distract yourself, so that you never have time just to sit.  Are never alone with your thoughts?  I have been doing it since February.
Spock is exhausted.  He will respond to provocation but it has to be quite strong.  Beyond that he is done. Hawkeye in the flu epidemic style done.
So yesterday I get taken to A and E by a rugged paramedic.  And they give me some tea, and put me in a waiting room, explaining they need to get a crisis team, but ask if I need help pro tem.  So I sit and origam for a while.  Then they come back and say someone from the IDT needs to come up for the assessment.  I say unless the IDT agree that Dr Snidearse is not in the loop I do not want them there, and pass that on to save a journey.
So when the assessment happens Clarice is there, I say to him "Snidearse is out of loop?"
"I cannot give that undertaking"
"Well then I want you to leave.  And tell Snideearse personally that I withdraw all permission for her to treat me."
This last because then I know she knows, for later unethical behaviour proceedings.
So Clarice leaves.  I give my version of events to the crisis team.  Or Spock does.
And then the problem.  Because I am under the 'care' of the IDT they have to be involved in formulating a plan.  They knock off at 5. So the conflab cannot happen until today.  They weren't going to admit me, which would have been my favoured option, that and some horse sedatives.  They couldn't medicate me.  They had nothing else and couldn't do a care plan without the IDT because politics.
It isn't like the IDT were treating me anyway.  Clarice is a social worker and is just about organising life changes. If my head doesn't change I have no life to change.  I have no psych intervention (I know they are a placebo but even homoeopathy would be welcome at this point.  Hell I am in the gym.  I will wait till some sane people are swimming, hit the pool with a bible then drink some) I have no meds beyond sleeping pills. And Smirnoff.
Everything seems predicated on the idea things will get better.  they won't.  Everything from here is worse.

I have to turn away until....things subside

Anyway back to where I was before twitter intervened.
predictable slump I think.
Remember I have no treatment regime and a home life that is utterly stressful.  Yesterday was a day signifying no motion at all on the treatment/diagnosis front.  Still the same bureaucratic bollocks no movement.  Home is wors, not because of anything new but because it is failing to go right.
Pain is bad (not quite so bad right now but thats the tail end of last nights gin n codeine).
All this has left me...well Spock is still carrying on organising.  but Emo is properly depressed.
I havent felt the need to masturbate in about a week.  No interest in sex at all.  No interest in going out.  No interest, in short, in anything.
Overwhelming suicidal thoughts.  Have identified the trazodone on my shelf as the best means available.
I do not want this life.

Right round baby right round

So today has been mildly hellish.
I am in high levels of pain and asthenia.  I forced myself to do my gym workout but had to be very careful of form. Slightest deviation from perfect form resulted in massive pain.  I got some endorphin help from it but not much.
After that was the appointment with myself, Clarice and Clarices manager (Jack, I suppose) to discuss ongoing issues like are they going to offer me any treatment, or a firm diagnosis, or in fact anything.  Recall I was referred to the MH team BEFORE my life fell apart, so just dealing with the adjustment disorder is not dealing with the issue.
You recall also that due to her being an unethical untrustworthy snidearse I sent a letter some weeks ago refusing my psych permission to treat.  This means I do not want her having access to my notes.
Therein lies the rub.  The one thing they keep saying is the cannot guarantee that the Psych will not have access as they work as a team.  I point out this is a gross breach of confidentiality and ethics and means that I cannot access their service and am left totally without care.  They say well thats the system. I point out this is an ethical breach, a breach of their statutory duty, a  breach of good practice and contrary to recent high court rulings over patient autonomy.  They say, well she is a good doctor.   I point out she may be good but she is unethical and IS NOT TREATING ME and so showing her my notes is a gross breach of confidentiality.  they say but we work as a team...and round we go.
It has been 4 weeks or more since I had someone to talk to about any aspect of my life.  I have no social support network IRL.  No one to interpret the actions of people for me.  I have no treatment.  I am not sleeping well at all, late sleeping, early waking.  No pills, Well I have some opiates but having weaned self off those not keen on relying again.  Too much alcohol is too much.
A lot of the conversation today kept veering towards them saying they wanted to discharge me.  I pointed out this was a gross dereliction of a duty of care.
They are, for the second time, going away to consult and getting back to me in a couple of weeks.  meanwhile no treatment.  I have their numbers n case I need them...they do not realise the barrier here.  I would literally rather die than be forced to share confidences in these circumstances.
There are areas they are looking into motion in- pathways to firm diagnosis of aspergers for example.  but it all comes back down to the same thing- they cannot ask Dr Snidearse to leave the room when discussing me.  Why is beyond me, but they feel unable to do this.
What do I want?  well vengeance would be nice.  But two things- I want some way out of the hell I am in short term.  I also want some reason to hope that life can be better long term.  that there is some way for an aspie to be happy.  Because I am not, and have not been for a very long time.  i don't want to continue like this for another 35 years.  Just thanks but no thanks.


UPDATE
emailed the relevant PALS.  they say they are going to enquire as to why exactly my suggestions were not put into place immediately.  watch this space

Des reflets changeants Sous la pluie

OK so the bright spot today was being very cheeky to Dawkins and Colquhoun and suggesting they get shipped out to Bangkok.
But on top of that is a layer of shite.  I spent the morning doing the mrsinkyhelping I agreed to yesterday, whilst at the same time hating myself.
Throat infection still bad, and joints ridiculous. bad subluxes both shoulders and hips really complaining. will try and force through and do some movement.

Last night I had to take some codeine but even so was a bad night.  And this morning the pain unbelievable.  Could be because codeine tunred it off and then i was plunged back in.  frog in a pan of water theorem.  ho hum.

Tight as a tourniquet, dry as a funeral drum

I am aware I haven't posted very much recently.  That is because I have been having a bad few days.
There is an episode of MASH where Hawkeye is the only surgeon left who hasn't got flu.  he carries on alone just long enough for the others to recover.  Then he keels over.
It has felt a bit like that.  It isn't an exact parallel because of course everyone has carried on around me as normal.  But in real life I have been feeling more and more distant and withdrawn from everyone around.  I haven't been able to answer the phone for several days.  I can call out on my own terms.  But incoming callers are traumatic. Today I managed a couple but I knew who they were.
The situation with my psychiatrist is as before.  I have had an appointment come through to talk to the practice manager again.  But that is it.  As it was the managers refusal to grant my request that my former psychiatrist be excluded from my case left me totally without support before fathers day, when I needed it most.  I could not talk to them under those circumstances.
I have no care, no medication, no counselling, no nothing.  Just conflict.
My mood has been very very bad.  I have been functioning, mainly.  But carrying a level of deep deep despair.  I spent 3 days last week totally on the couch.
Date has been unreachable and I suspect is not a goer.  Though that may be a solution not a problem.
The trauma reached its zenith on Friday which was Foal's sports day.  Foal is not sporty, and is traumatised by this.  They have been training them to do a long distance run for weeks and Foal was begging me to let her go off sick to avoid it.  I rang the school to find it was a fun run, not compulsory.  3 weeks of pointless trauma.  I stand by my opinion tht competitive sport is utterly corrosive and has no place in PE lessons.  After school if you must.  PE should teach fitness, not conflict.
Because to me, possibly because of Aspieness, there is no difference between competitiveness and conflict.
I remember sports days.  oh yes,  Given I was abused by my Primary School headmaster (psychologically) because I was not 'trying' to catch a ball or run, then was forced to be humiliated in front of everyone I knew and their parents whilst he  commented on a loudhailer....yes I remember them.  Should be banned.
So I was in trauma before it started.  I sat crying in the car for 40 mins before I could go in.  Then I got there, and saw that foals lot started an hour in.  So I took a seat, hunched my shoulders in, got out my Kindle, put sunglasses on and read.  Short of barbed wire I could not have signalled my unwillingness to engage socially more obviously.  And yet 3 people tried to chat to me.  I may have been rude.  Not Fawlty rude but unresponsive apart from grunts.  One was offended I think but, really, I think it was fair enough.
So I am sitting there surrounded by baying wolves.  the parents shouting at their kids to win win win...it was utterly horrible.  Like finding out everyone around you is a murderer.  I withdraw from competition completely.  I cannott do it.  Either people are happy with what I say or they arent.  So this environment was completely harrowing and toxic.  I never want to see anything like it again.
Foal did her best.  Its all I can say.  Next year I will ensure she wont be attending. Ritualised child abuse.
Foal also had a band camp concert on saturday so that was more torment.  Not foals bit, the conversation of the non-vaccinating, alkaline diet, woo worshipping thickshit mummies and daddies waiting outside.
Anyway, highpoints? Saw Minions.  it has very good bits.

every now and then i get a little bit lonely

soooo...

Date has been very elusive.  He is self employed and client dependent so I can understand that to an extent but it seems he is never available at evenings and weekends.  So I suspect I am not the only one.  Well shucks we never had that conversation so I cannot really complain.  So in the meantime I have been trolling Grindr and...well mixed results.
of course there is the normal bombardment of people who want to shag me because of oliver but to be honest i suspect most of them are hucksters. I make it plain its coffee first.  I have hadd 2 meetups.  One with a really charming guy who has similar minority bingo scores to me. (In his case, CP, Aspergers, gay).  To be honest meeting another high functioning aspie (becoming more convinced that diagnosis is correct) was refreshing as much in common.  really nice chat.  But I think he is interested only in chat.  may well ddo that again if only for company.
Last night, unexpectedly was at loose end so took a gamble on one of the randoms...seems lovely guy.  He is on his uppers and i went round with DVDs to just spend an evening of takeaway and chat.  or so i thought.
except of course he is in the closet, isnt he.  andd his lodger unexpectedly needed to come home.  so i was out the door wasnt I.
Shame as i then had an evening of crappy films on sky and pizza.  with sheldon, who is charming but not my species.
He was very apologetic and having been so far in the closet myself for so many years (there were talking animals back there and this lion kept having god delusions) I sympathise but...pah.
So so far we have vanishing date, asexual aspies and captain closet.
My love life sucks.  and not in a good way.

Meanwhile my clavicle is ejecting slowly.  the left one is moving in and out of the sternoclaicular joint by about a cm with a resounding clunk.  and at the acromioclavicular about 5mm with a glonk.  turning the steering wheel goes clunk-glonk clunk glonk clunk glonk scream.

Betty davies eyes...

Monday we went walking at Priddy. I am a bit shocked at how late some plants are. There were still bluebells out ffs and this should be nearly orchid time. Still we walked around through the mineries, then up through the two barrow cemeteries. Not hot day but enough to give oliver his first taste of suntan. Saw a dead sloworm and much frog action.
So Monday night asI said I was round at Cheries with her and Mr Cherie. She served a lovely meatball tagine and we played Cards Against Humanity. We talked long and late. Cherie may be going through jobchange too but is in rather a better position. She was always tougher than me.
It was very good to see her, and to see her happy. She and MrCherie seem to have an accord.
So then yesterday I woke with a slight headache and thought i would sleep it off.
OMG.
I think this was my first migraine in 25 years. Photophobic, head bursting, vomiting. Well retching because i can no longer vomit due to lack of stomach.
Gentle reader have you ever vomited without a stomach?
Dont
Poor old foal. We were meant to be driving back so that she could be home for her birthday. I couldnt move all day. So foal had  a small party here with more to come.
So happy birthday to foal.

telephone exchanges click when there's nobody there

Soooo

Last night Mrsinky let a bunch of what-used-to-be-my friends know of our status via the medium of farcebook.  Should say upfront she speaks/farcebooks them more than I do, and so it is natural she should do that.
Of course that triggered phonecalls.  I spent the evening letting all my phones ring and ring.  Its my turn to be hounded by phone.  Only its not the banks wanting money, its my friends wanting to kill me.
Well that's what it feels like.
I now don't want to be at home near the landline because it doesn't display the number.  I might have to talk to one of my friends if I answer it.  I have to be careful opening my computer in case it displays available on Skype because then my friends will try and track me down.  I have to turn off location on my blogging from my phone in case one of them is nearby.
The urge to just disappear, emigrate, walk off bivvieing is so strong.  No people with their incessant demands on me.  No intrusions.  No hounding me with demands for information and emotion. Just silence and loneliness and loss and failure.
I miss oblivion.


I took a zopiclonealike last night.  shrink wrote a prn for a coupla weeks supply.  It worked but it was pushing at an open door, given 3 hrs sleep night before and a week of late sleeping early waking.  Spock has a bit more space today.  but Emo has also been given a new lease of chaos.

It's in the stars, next July we collide with Mars.

That one you may need help with.

Went round to Ashes place.  I was due to take pudding so I invnted

Toffee Apple cake

You will need:  1 bramley apple

1 Bramley applee

Cinnamon

4 oz muscovado sugar

4 large eggs

11 oz butter

 9oz caster sugar

9oz SR flour

Oven to 160C

Get a mandoline.  seriously.

Line the bottom of an 8 inch cake tin with non stick parchmentslice a layer of apple onto it using mandoline.  Then sorinkle thickly with muscaovado, then another layer of apple, then 2 ox of butter dotted around, then a bit more musco.

Cream caster sugar and the remaining butter, add eggs 1 at a time, then the flour.  adjust to soft dropping stage using milk.

Cover the layer with half the cake mix, then put another layer of apple on, sprinkle with cinnamon then more musco.  then the rest of the mix.  

Bake until the middle feels like the edge.  while still warm turn upside down onto a plate then take off the tin and the paper.

So that was the pudding.  Ash had bought some terrscotta tiles and we used these to bake pizza.

Two other lads there, using the same film as sources I will call them Parker and Brett.

Parker is a friend of Ash from way back.  In fact Ash was once his boss.  He was a little cool about my description of Ash which was naughty.  Parker basically looks like Daniel Beddingfield and sounds like the Big Brother voiceover guy.  He is a really nice guy, married, kid.  Never floated my boat.

Brett is another incomer to the group.  He too married one of the local flange.  He is ... well if you needed help to build a shed, or catch chickens, or help organise a group of young people, or ...well Brett is the guy you would ask.  Generous and honest.

Anyway wee all made pizzas.

Ash had set out the ingredients, we assembled them and then baked them.  Ash won several more inkypoints for having anchovies.  Oh god I love anchovies.

Anyway we all chatted, even about politics and no-one shouted and it was nice.  really nice.

Brett left early.  Parker and Ash and I got talking about my situation.  Probem is I am fine with the whinging but when people start urging me to make decisions for myself....I have never acted in self interest.  Not purely.  My whole life since adulthood has been about helping others, supporting others, living for otherrs.  I have been miserable but I had a plan.  Now I have noone and people say do something for yourself, look after yourself,

I do not know how.  Or why.

So I diverted and gave a small class in making origami frogs.  Our efforts below.

Anyway shortly afterwards Parker left.  Then after a few minutes so did I.  I gave Ash a very chaste hug goodbye, brotherly style. 

He can cook.  His cupboard contains anchovies.  

aaaarrrg.

As ever my emotions are all mixed up.  I feel like shit.  But any outreach triggers a predictable longing for company. And me being me I get things all mixed up.  Textbook transference.  Or honest feeling.  How should I know.?

Got hoome and have no tonic.  drinking gin and dr pepper.  oddly sort of works.

Waiting on the first step, show me where the key is kept

So here we are once more on the sofa in Costa.  This is a step up on yesterday as I have stayed out of the house but it is not exactly lovely.
I am really very typically depressed today.  dissociated and anhedonic to an extreme.  I know I am reporting this to you reasonably well but life as a scientist allows that.  I once spent 9 hrs observing droplet formation mismatches with a dislocated shoulder.
My life is such a fearful mess I cannot begin to sort it out.  So I am trying to apply for jobs.
I am not well enough to do them to be honest but that seems like the only positive way I can do anything.  I can at least try before giving up.
I still struggle with wanting to live.  I do not see a reason.  there is a lot of effort involved and absolutely no pleasure or motivation.  No why.
So, you know, fuck it.
Same with social interactions.  Sex I understand, and even I get pleasure from that.  But people associate for other reasons, allegedly.  I have spent a long time trying to work that one out.
I am locked into a cycle of doing things because I am doing them.
My GI tract is painful.  I stopped Mirtazapine because the munchies it triggerred made me eat till I hurt.  I may have stopped too late.  real discomfort from stomach.  guarding and tenderness too.  It hasnt worsened though so it probably isnt a perforation.  but really not pleasant.
ah well, what the hell.
Mrsinky said last night she missed the old me.  So do I.  I mean he was fucking miserable but less miserable than this.

And if I say, I really knew you well what would your answer be?

So I spent most of the night grinding over the visit to the shrink.

I am currently waiting on a callback from the team.  My intention is to tell them their services are no longer required as I have lost what little faith in their abilities I ever had.

The problem is that yesterday during conversation the shrink mentioned her diagnosis of longer term issues would likely include narcissistic as a characterisation.  Quite how someone with self esteem as low as mine, with a history of continually putting others first, sacrificing career, standing and health to support others etc. can qualify for that is an interesting leap of mental gymnastics.

During the sessions of contact with the team I have rehearsed the basic problem.  I am asocial, but lack a peer group.  My brain functions in an idiosyncratic way at very high speed.  I read faster than I think, have an IQ in the dubious range where the measurement is so high it is meaningless (IQ only measures IQ though) and if I relax and speak at my ease only 3 people I am aware of stand a hope of keeping up.  The boss who just sacked me will cheerfully refer to me as the brightest person he has ever met (He has worked for decades in Universities classed as top ten in the world) and the guys at Cambridge refused to do pop quizzes with me in the room because my brain was cheating.  My peer group in the intellectual aspect ( emotionally I am a stunted toddler and physically...my 9 year old daughter can whup my ass at 10 pin bowling) is a disparate group of similar hermits scattered by the vagaries of genetics.

Of course the shrink sees this and instead of trusting me, believing what I am saying as simple truth I can back up with evidence and helping me cope with the grinding loneliness assumes that this is an exaggeration, that I am self aggrandising.

This is so much like every other interaction I  have had with psychologists and psychiatrists and so disappointing.  Time after time I reach out honestly and display the problem, to find them treating me through a prism of their own distrust and limitation and trying to label me as something that denies what I am so that I fit into their world.

Enough.  No more.

The truth is that a long term diagnosis would be career useful but I dont have a career.  The shrinks short term diagnosis of adjustment disorder is plausible, but there is no treatment beyond "taking it day by day" which I have been doing for 34 years so fuck that.

It was foolish of me to expect more.

What could I do more yeah I'm really not sure I know I'm running circles but I can't quit...

Ha, find that reference without googling or clicking...

It used to be a backing track on a Tony Hawks game.  Oddly I do have a slight taste for skaterpunk.

It has been a weekend in a hell of my own making.  Well there is the first lie right there, I didnt make it all but what the hey.

It is difficult to encapsulate my feelings on this one. But I am going to try.

Roll back to Friday evening when, if you recall, Ash took me out as an act of kindness to cheer me up.  I think I did ok in Human Emulation most of the way through, but on the way back home I  started with the verbal spew which is characteristic of nervousness on my part.  Kept rabbitting on about the weirder things I have done in the name of science (making transparent noses for example), and even though I could hear myself and was thinking "Shut up Inky" I couldnt do it.  poor Ash must have had a shit journey.
So then Friday night I was properly alone, MrsInky being away and foal at the Hutts place. Cue massive loneliness and depression.  Guilt.  Worthlessness. I watched telly, then porn, then more telly.  Finally got some sleep due to Mirtazapines caress.
So then Saturday was an early start after little sleep.  I was in withdrawn mode, not so much from the pills as from severe depression.  If you havent experienced this for yourself the closest is the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb.  I could respond to people but only with a time lag, and distractedly.
I had to take Foal to Band Camp ( local school music workshop) so picking her up from the Hutt had been what got me through the night.  I drove her there, she was anxious because her friend was going for the first time and she wanted to help him find things.  Foal is very caring for others.
So as I say I sit there surrounded by all these fecund people with their happy families and their perfect lives and I can feel myself getting more and more tense and sad and sad an tense and tense and ARAAARRRRRG.  Last time i felt like that was the day I lost my job and then had to go for an ultrasound.  I asked for a seat in a cubicle because madperson.  at Band Camp I just had to hang on with my fingernails.  The urge to violently self harm was so strong.
I got through it.  But the rest f Saturday was a write off.
Yesterday was not much better.  Foal and I did the normal stuff then went 10 pin bowling.  she is rather good and beat me first time.  second game  think she let me win. I put my hip out doing this though.
Then MrsInky came home.  She had been given shit by the Hutt and was crying.  I wanted so much to hold her and make it better.  But I am not allowed to do that any more.  The things she reported about what made her mother cross...I cannot process.  It seems the image they have of me is so warped and horrible...If I really seem that way to others then that is it, I am out of here.  Maybe they judge me by how they behave?
Anyway MrsInky being back meant I wasnt in charge any more.  Major danger.  I just sat there and cried.  So hard to believe that the woman I turned to for comfort for a decade doesnt want me any more.  So tough trying to be strong and amicable but just hurting hurting hurting all the time, my soul bleeding to death while we stand around and watch and be polite.
I was meant to be going to the gym, but this meant crossing the Orwell Bridge and that scared me.  Eventually I went.

A close run thing.
This pit I am in....I really cannot see a way out.

I cry sometimes When I'm lying in bed Just to get it all out What's in my head

Gosh look a music reference from the current era...

Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyaena offal?

My moods have, of late, been a little gloomy.  And swinging around a lot.  The background emotional stress and crap is just something I cannot cope with.

Let me go back a bit.  When last we interacted I  was bemoaning my inability to do human interactions.  In a way I think this is the reason for the dip.

On Friday I went out.  A friend asked me out basically because he wanted to be supportive.  I suggested we didnt just sit in with me ranting because I get enough of that with everyone else.  So we went out to Mizu  for dinner then on to the Film Theatre afterwards to watch Wild Tales.

This friend, who we shall call in here Ash, is part of the local friend group that Mrsinky introduced me to on our first meeting.  She has since kinda faded out of that group a bit because life, thought there has been no breakup as such.  Ash was always what you might call an outlying animal of the herd, being the only gay in the village, a bit older than the others ( my age really, give or take a bit) and having a kid.  But he went through he whole divorce thing a long time ago and so he knows something of where I am.  I call him Ash because he reminds me of Ian Holm, though a bit more attractive.

Anyway Ash asked me out as a friend doing cheerup.  I am 99% certain this is the case, because I think he is in a relationship and also because of the way the evening was transacted.  Of course this being me for all I know he was actually asking me out to establish an alibi for a bank raid, or to mystery shop the restaurant, or any of a number of other things.  But the likelihood is this was a cheerup.

That paragraph gives you an idea of exactly how confusing I find human interactions.  Here is a simple kindly gesture.  But because I know that people have this weird telepathy,  to which I have no access, I have to calculate all possible reasons even the wacky ones and then assign Bayesian probabilities, recalculating as necessary to try and work out what the fuck is going on.  This is exhausting.  But at the same time it doesnt seem acceptable to get people to fill in a tick sheet of their intentions before talking to them.

Anyway the food was good, the film good but rather violent.  fun though.  And we talked about his business and stuff.  Which made me start thinking about dates.

Now two things to start with.  This wasnt, as far as I am aware, a date.  If it was then I trust Ash will let me know I have the wrong end of the stick.  But given that we were doing meal for two and a film it made me think of them.
Also don't think I would kick him out of bed if he was interested.  He is both sweet and cute, though as I say I think he is taken.
But as I say this is mainly about me being taken out for cheerup and it being enough Like a Date without Being a Date for me to think of Dating in general.  And not really coming up with a cheerful picture.
I never really did dating at all.  my relationships  have al sort of happened without it.  On the few occasions when I have dated ( Jo the Radiologist circa 1999 for instance) it has been disastrous, because I am ok at going, and the first half.  but I get increasingly uneasy as the date progresses and at the end basically run out of the door.  I could have ended up married to Jo but it was totally sabotaged by me not kissing her.  I can see this in retrospect but at the time....I just imagined she would let me know if i was supposed to.  And i think she was imagining the same.  It is a lesbian sheep scenario.  Sheep (ewes anyway) signal sexual willingness by standing around waiting to be mounted.  Lesbian sheep, therefore, have a Hellerian paradox when it comes to starting a clinch.  So farewell Jo.

I know people have suggested Grindr or similr for sex, and that isnt a totally out-there idea but essentially I don't want to have such a hard time (fnarr).  It is difficult for me to be around people and intimate with them.  So hooking up repeatedly with strangers... I would need drugs to do that.  And I am off the opiates pro tem and not wanting to be back on them until i neeeed to.

So then you have OKCupid and the dating sites.  which brings us back to dates.  and lesbian sheep.
I mean OK so I could hand out a card at the beginning saying if you want something you need to ask using your words because I am a freak, but that seems oddly pressuring and I suspect would ensure I didn't have to worry about it.  I also have a real problem with being put in the freak box.  I know I am a broken toy, without having everyone else treat me like one.

So my head is going to a don't try/ die alone scenario and thinking about moving the date of the latter forward a few years.

I cannot process the losses of the last few weeks.  I am forlorn of purpose, just marking time from appointment to appointment.  All that I lived and worked for is gone.  I have nothing else because I was working towards this.  I am sitting in the crumbling wreck of my life pretending it is normal.  It is like a post-apocalyptic comedy.  the Bed-Sitting Room comes to mind.  Occasionally I toy with moving on but I lack a reason for doing so.  Apart from just going through the motions. I eat because I am hungry.  I sleep because I am tired.  I care for foal because I care for foal.

I get dark patches.  I know that seems dark but it really isnt.  Yesterday morning I was in a local school while foal did trumpet thing with a millin other kids,  The parents were waiting around.  I saw dads with their large families and wanted to kill them out f shear jealousy.  All around me people were chattering awway and I had to concentrate hard on origami or anything else just to keep the noise and threat out.  one woman kept talking about "packed-up lunches" and I wanted to scream "it is a packed lunch you vapid whore, where did the up come from".

I was basically in a very bad place all afternoon.

Why?  because I had social interactions.

But I am human enough that my biology needs them.  I am desperately horny.  I get lonely.  The lament of the lesbian sheep through the millenia

With a pink hotel, a Boutique and a swinging hotspot.

I live in Margaret Thatchers frot-fantasy.

The developement where Inky Towers rests was pushed through in the eighties just after The Maggon shot the Parker-Morris guidelines in the head.  Parker-Morris set a standard for how much space should be allowed per person in a house.  Ever wondered why dwellings from pre 1980 cost much more than new ones and are so much larger?  That's why. When they went you got what we have now, hutches.  our 3 bed semi is actually a 2 small room and a cupboard semi.  The largest bedroom gives you a choice: double bed, or the ability to walk around.

The houses on our development, and there are way smaller ones with 3 beds, are sold mainly to young aspirationals. Not blue colour but pastel white.  It is quiet and ha a green for them to play on.
I am the only one with a front rose garden, of course, because I love roses.  Typical really, it just matures and I have to sell it.  Albertine reached 12 ft by 20 ft this year.

In the mornings at 8.30 everyone, me included, gets into their car for the school run.  the doors click in unison.  On alternate Thursdays we put the bins out.  It is the picture of ordered neighbourlyness.

It drives me potty.

Foal has now got used to me singing Malvina Reynolds greatest hit as we drive to school.  It is irresistible. I just cannot stand the conformity at the same time as being drawn to its sickly addictive grasp.

Structure and system rule my life and mind.  I struggle when I do not understand where I fit in.  Or what the people round me are for, what they want.  People lack purity of intention, due to woolly-mindedness.  So this kind of conformism seems attractive.  but at the same time it is all structure without benefit.  they all suffer in these hobbit sized houses with their giant sized mortgages because they think they should.  Something went very wrong here.

My daily shrink visits continue.  Yesterday I met a trainee who I  shall call Eric.  Eric sat in the meeting where I was pouring out my bitterness and hurt and was clearly moved by it.  I spoilt it by asking, at the end, what the hell switch flipped in his head and said "I want to be a Social Worker" but then I suppose there is no answer to that.  Unless they are all on community service, or Lizard Men in deep cover.

Anyway on to last nights recipe, which was a kindacassoulet.  The idea was a stovetop stew to do while foal and I were out.  I included chicken breasts for foal and mrsinky but any tender meat will do, rabbit quarters or pork loin being good ones.

1 onion
3 duck legs (in suffolk even the ducks are inbred)
2 chicken breasts
4 rashers bacon
A smoked sausage of some sort, skinned.
olive oil
1 large can white beans
a good handful fresh green beans
a tray of button mushrooms
a tray of baby corn (optional)
a bouquet garni heavy on the sage

You need a heavy based pan.  this is an old fashioned layered stew so respect the order.  First bone your duck legs.  It isnt hard, just cut down the inner thigh and circle the leg.  Remove tendon but keep the bone.  Tie the legs up with string into parcels.
Chop the onion and cube the bacon.  fry in olive oil until the onion is dark.  Add in the duck legs and brown top and bottom, then fish em out.  brown the leg bowns on both sides then leave them in the pan as a lattice to form a layer at the bottom.  the bottom of your pan should be dark brown here.
lay the duck legs on top of the bones.  then the chicken breasts on top of that.  then the white beans.  then the green beans.  then the mushrooms, then the bouquet garni, then the baby corn, then lastly the sausage.  Pour enough weak stock or water over to just cover the duck leg layer.  put a tight lid on.  bring to the boil then turn right down.  leave it for 2-3 hrs.
Thicken with beurre manie or cornflour, making sure to incorporate the fat which holds the flavour.  traditionally this is topped with breadcrumbs then toasted.  Serve with new bread or rice.  It is VERY filling due to the fat.  You should serve with a spoon and dig down through all layers.  at 2 hrs the duck will still be parcels.  at 3 it will be duckpaste, which is actually nicer.

I saw this morning mornings minion

Well, the GP I suppose counts.
It was one of those quick visits to get drugs and paperwork, but where i really need to talk more at another point but we both know we currently need other things, like the psych assessment, to happen first.  Normally my GP visits run like an episode of colombo, with me constantly turning round as i am nearly to the door, pulling a scrap of notepaper out of my pocket and saying "theres just one more thing ...".  Ask any doctor, the most important thing comes up last.  This time it was like something particularly pensive from Harold Pinter.  So much left unsaid.  He asked how i was and i said better, but its llike a skin on a rice pudding.  It is all there waiting for the skin to break.
I sometimes wonder if that is what I am supposed to be aiming at. Just forming a skin over the cess pit and being careful where I step.  Is that normality, just pushing down the misery?
I suppose some catchup is in order.  After Tagine day we managed to get the family together to do an outing to Jimmy's Farm where they were having a science day.  It was enjoyable enough for a small attraction event.  I met some people from Coventry Uni who were struggling a bit with a TLC setup and got chatting, much to foal and mrsinky's mortification.  One of the things about my calling is how multidisciplinary it is.  I am a renaissance horse in a way and so I can drop into a lot of science setups and banter quite well.  For some reason this never goes down well with the distaff side.  We had a day where we didnt shout and we didnt fall out.  And we met the worlds least convincing emu.

That has to count as a win.

Also one of the lds at the gym apologised for mr blondee twats behaviour.

However other things lurk on the horizon.  Old fans will be aware that my typing is often a little random.  This was something \i always blamed on the opiates, which I was taking  a fair amount of.  However  I have not been taking the opiates for some while...and it is getting worse.  Others noticed previously it was always the same type of error- one spacce difference on the keyboard.  It is the same thing.  Typing like this on my laptop I can do most things, though errors pop up when i think i have touched a key but havent.  on my phone it is almost impossible.  My guitar playing...well its sometimes worse sometimes ok so cant really say.

I talked to the optician and she said its not me guv, so that leaves neurological.

the most pleasant option are things like vitamin B deficiency and also the old favourite eds which is linked to proprioceptive deficit.

the other options are....well hypochondriac.  I shall not google.  Or not again anyway :(

I am an old worry wart at times.

It is very frustrating though.  twitter is v difficult as it is.

In a line that never ends.. .

I woke this mornin with ahek of a headache. also I hae to cope with a parental visit for which I do not really have the energy. So after the foal delivery run l came straight to David Lloyd to work out and Sauna. Also partly to try not to let my encounter with Mr. Blonde Twat Scare me away from using the place. Because it would. Although I must say the management response has been very good they are let down by a corporate image which does not admit we cripples exist.
So first of all L am sitting down eating their porridge (which would get a 7/10 from EPD I think) and overhearing a lady holdng Court to her adoring friends.
What she was spouting was pure Shite from beginning to end.
Her promise was that it was harder to prepare healthy food than unhealthy food. That got me listening due to Its divergence from culinary reality. She actually said it was harder to prepare a salad than a roast dinner.
Now leaving aside the false equivalence of healthy = Salad this is Just Bollocks so I was keen to hear more of her world.
What followed was pure woo. Organic food, fear of pesticide, fear of GM. The feverish washing of all veg. except cabbage and brocolli , All Apples Must Be Peeled!
But Tesco ready meals were fine.
I despair at times. This is a product of Thatcher axing Home. Ec., The Daily Mail and the Paleo Woo here, plus scientific illiteracy.
Serious problem. Why can't the English teach their children how to think ? Or cook?