I can put a spare bulb in my hand and light up my yard

Ok so to start off with a query.  boots have started selling an accupressure ring to stop you snoring.

Now we all know that Boots is a despicable peddlar of woo but this one is quite dangerous because undiagnosed apnoea kills.  people with problem snoring need a doctor not a parcel of woo.  I tackled them on Twitter and their response was that they had clinical trials, conducted by Aspen Clinical Research of Maldon that showed it was effective.  But I cannot find these trials.  Has anyone heard of this company ( it isnt the same as the one from Utah) and is it legit?

In other news...went into the loft to put stuff away.  Saw all the babystuff we were saving for our next one.  Had to get drunk.

My shoulders are unspeakable at the moment.  Left side: mobilised acromioclavicular joint, mobilised sternoclavicular joint.  right side mobilised glenohumeral joint, mobilised scapulothoracic joint.

Mobilised here meanss sitting further apart than it should until pressed, when it goes back in with an audible click.  the scapulothoracic one is so bad that you can see it from the front- my levator scapulae on the right is popping out past all the larger muscles it should be behind and the scapula is getting close to winged ( though not quite).

this sucks.  this sucks donkey choad.

meanwhile date hass cancelled on me for second time this week.


If i was a rabbit my ears would be at 6.35

You can't shake it (or break it) with your Motown You can't melt it down in the rain

So yesterday and today were what you might call busts. After my gym session yesterday i felt ok. But after being home for a couple of hours alone my joints...well my shoulders were usrless. My ribs are floating around and so are my scapulae. Total agony.
My jaw is coming off and my wrists and fingers hurt too.
On top of tgt date cancelled because of work trip so i was going through a whole neediness spiral of are they dumping me etc etc. So texted them.
They rang me back with a variety of versions of dont be a twat. Apparently am nice sexy horse and a catch of some kind.
Date is clearly deranged.
However am now too aware i have expised too much of my cup of crazy too soon.
Also have several mysterious bruises that came up overnight with no trauma.
Okapi action suspectEd.

Why can't you make decisions Can't make up your mind

I really do not understand what's going on.
MrsInky and I still live together, though officially separated.  I still see her everywhere, smell her, feel her round me.  But we are not "together".  Apparently.
But I am still doing all the support I used to.  She drove back the other night with no petrol, having forgotten her bank card.  So i went to the garage in my pyjamas to get a jerry-can (is that racist) and put it in her car, while she warmed up and watched Hollyoaks.
When she has a rough day I hug her (if she wants it- I have to ask and that alone is killing me) and make her something to eat.
Last night she asked me to help choose clothes for her work things this weekend.
She is trying to treat me like her gay room mate.  but I am not gay..  I am Bi.  She thinks I am gay, has never believed the Bi thing.  But I am not.
So seeing her half clad trying on clothes drives me insane with lust.  Then she packs it away.

I have other, more direct evidence that she still finds me attractive, that her body at least wouldnt mind a bit of Inky.

I just dont understand.  She values my sartorial opinions, values my support, finds me attractive...What the fuck is going on.

I am getting the strong urge to indulge in some very very self-destructive behaviour.  just mindless stuff to make this go away.

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

Yes I loved you dearly and if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid

I have previously mentioned my problems with humans.  There are many attempts to label this and frankly I am not sure if diagnoses are totally helpful.  However the fact remains that humans make me very...well nervous is not the word.  It is like the feeling you get when you sit next to a piece of operating high tech high tension equipment.  It is running and you are aware of it.  but you are also aware it can seriously fuck you over with a simple twitch.  And you have no way of predicting its moods.
I can appear to be social and sociable.  This is a performance I switch on and I can sustain it for nearly 2 hrs.  After that time I am exhausted and have to withdraw.  I cannot relax and show my true self around people.
There are 2 reasons for that.  Firstly the risk factor is too high.  Letting others in is too dangerous.  Secondly, and this sounds like dreadful boasting, when I let go and just talk almost nobody is capable of keeping up.  The amount I dumb down in conversation is staggering.  Most of the time talking to people is like wading through jelly. It gives me a headache thinking down to their level, as Marvin used to say.
But at the same time I get very lonely.  And, not to put too fine a point on it, horny.  I am blessed, or cursed, with  very strong sex drive, probably because it is the only form of intimacy I am at ease with, and it is very irritating at times.  Although I am not a Vulcan I am also not an emotional  thinker.  I reason first and wait for emotions later.  So being compelled to do emotey stuff is irritating.
I bring this up because of the breakdown of my marriage, which looks to me to be pretty final, even though I do not want it.
From my point of view I have been on a sexual starvation diet for 10 years.  I stuck with it because wife/promise/family, even though it was killing me.  Remember that other peoples sex drives are different so starvation for me may be a feast for others.
I am now in a situation that I have to go out and try to secure another source of sex (I think they call them relationships or significant others) because I can't go through life without one any more.  I have no idea at all how to do this.  I mean yes, obviously I could pay, which would hav been legal in switzerland, but that is not what I want at all.  Too dangerous.
But then what else do I do?  I cannot go dancing and pull at the bar.  Cruising the cripples at Zebra Con seems tacky. I am forced to try and socialise with humans.  Even go on a date. this has AAAARRRRRGGGG written on it in big letters.  It is very hard to persuae someone to engage in sexual relations after you have spent a date metaphorically holding them off with a whip and a chair.  Also my ability to read subtext is legendary, i.e. nonexistent.  The only times I have successfully worked out that people wanted to shag me is when they have grabbed my genitals.
Maybe I can employ some kind of chatupmonkey?  A feeling-emotion dog for the terminally cue-dense?

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.

Where is a Sarlac when you need one?

So the weekend was packed with stuff. Today I am in labile phase which is netter but its like the skin on porridge. All it takes is a little stir...
But make posts while the cognitive functions shine. Its at times like this I get glimpses of how my bipolar friends may feel. Thing is zebras twnd to be autonomically wierd. We sweat oddly. Our hearts beat wierdly. And we have a strange relationship with adrenaline.
Zebras use adrenaline to get things done ime. You know how you are meant to pace yourself and stop for a break and work steadily? I whinny with contempt. For a zebra the endorphins released by frenzied activity allows us to continue. We do things in long frenzied bursts. If we atart a job we carry on till it is finished even if that is 6am. With Chumbawumba on the ipod.
Why? Partly a noted difficulty with adrenaline processing. Partly we know what happens when we stop.
Back to the weekend...Saturday was rough. I was weeping in public depressed and Foal  had a trumpet concert. Normally mrsinky has a lie in but because concert she came along. But getting her out of bed was hell. She has borderline ME. Diagnosed properly but not truly disabling. So her bed gravity was high.
Then we had a row in the carpark with a yank twat. When we arrived all parking was messed up by someone parking avross the bays. Were forced to follow suit. When we left for an errand while Foal rehearsed all the other cars had gone leaving us looking like fools....cue shouting...which left me wrecked. I cannot do conflict.
Foal did well in concert but they had a photographer going and afterwards I had to go up and explain they must delete all photos of foal as we had not given any permission and never would.
Also the music school director annoyed me. His whole opening was focussed on pushing music as a career. I would rather Foal became a prostitute than a musician as it is steadier work with better pay and fewer drugs.
So having drunk myself to sleep on friday after errands i zizzed out hoping not to wake. Happy Steak and Blowjob Day
So then to yesterday. We were at a loss as to what to do with the Hutt as she normally defaults to wanting a huge meal and row in a restaurant but we couldnt face it. So I said how about afternoon tea?
The photo shows the fare. Two types of sausage rolls...note for people who buy frozen sausage rolls to bake...9 yo Foal made these. Cheese scones. Cheese straws. Derby scones. Gingerbread.
So I made all that then sat down. I couldnt straighten up again until I had been for a gym physio session.
I had salad with mine to avoid dumping syndrome.
So after a 2 30 tea it took 5 hrs to get the Hutt off my sofa. Even packing school bags itoning clothes hoovering round her and feeding foal her evening meal didnt drop a hint. Unfortunately no sarlac pits in suffolk.
Anyhoo eventually she went. I went to gym. Then came back and wrote a 1000 word press release.
Am still riding the adrenaline.
Eventually gonna crash...

Stoke place hotel #2

I remember you well
At the stoke place hotel
You were rapping so long and so sweet
The things that we said
On the unmade bed
As the moonlight illumined the sheet
Raising two fingers to colin the boss who repressed you with the Bradford Index
You smiled and we kissed and hey never mind. It really was mindblowing sex.

Midnight on the firing line

It is difficult to explain today.

Essentially I spent the day on the sofa. I know that sounds luxurious and I suppose it is. But I am in shutdown.

My joints are bad. I foolishly tried to show foal how to stand on a skateboard. I fell off of course because of my eds even as a child I could never balance. I rolled properly but the shock destabilised my left hip and shoulder. It could be worse. For a zebra I am very lightly afflicted.

My depression is not lifting. It just changes. Today after no sleep and a row with mrsinky all i could do was slump.

I keep not calling the gp because it will get better.

Im not sure thats true.