Bear blog

Blogspirit has been good to me (kind of), but it's time to leave.

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Broken:

I went to my uncle's funeral on Friday which of itself wasn't too bad. There was a scary woman who told us all when to sit and stand and get out all very sternly. She had a hat like Oliver Twist's. And the priest person was really old and doddery. He had a hearing aid and a walking stick and I took the time whilst he was praying to contemplate how every funeral he did must have been one more quiet victory for him. While we were leaving they played country & western music (cause apparently that's what my uncle liked) and his friends from work had had this fantiastic bouquet done up like a bus. He was a bus driver.

I saw lots of people I hadn't seen for years too and remarked upon how alike everyone on that side of my family is. It makes you feel like you belong. Then at the wake Baby Reb kept everyone amused by being cute and Grandad got his first hold of her. He seemed pleased enough. But then my aunt was talking about how it was still all a shock and how she kept opening draws and seeing my uncle's stuff everywhere and how she found herself just wandering around the house. And that was quite sad.

Then we went back to visit Nan and Grandad for a bit and I realised that my Nan has turned, inexplicably, into one of those little old ladies I used to see what I was working with Social Services. One of those frail little things who's slowly caving in on herself. And that was quite sad too. She's been saying for the past twenty years that she wished she'd hurry up and die but now it seems like quite an imminent prospect. Which will be alright for her but quite upsetting for everyone else. To get out of their house you have to leave Nan's room and go through a room with all her paintings on the walls. And some of them are amazing. It's hard to reconcile the little old thing in her chair with the stuff that's on the walls. And then you consider the circularity of things and realise that my artistic bent probably comes from her and suddenly there's my own life laid out before me, and you have to wonder at how helplessly redundant everything is.

Over the weekend, interspersed with a bit of juggling, we watched Star Wars episodes 2 and 3 which got me further contemplating the pointlessness of things. Yoda tells Anakin that fear of loss is the path to the Dark Side and really none of it would have happened if Anakin hadn't formed his attachments to his mum or to Padme. Life would be a lot easier to bear (or not bear, depending on personal preference) if we weren't attached to people. It's compassion that makes it all so pointless.

Why couldn't he have just listened to Obi Wan?

I'm upset because there's a new cat in the neighbourhood who's looking for love, but I'm not allowed to show him any.

He's a big black tom that looks a lot like Dini, except for having a bushier tail. I've spotted him from the window a few times lazing around in the garden and have run to open the back door for him, thinking that I'd shut Dini out, only to realise that Dini was slormed on the chair and perfectly inside the house.

But last night he decided to appear at the back door and miaow incessently. Dini miaowed back in a slightly aggrieved fashion and I gave him a bit of food because I thought he was needy. But he obviously isn't a stray because I picked him up and cuddled him and he's actually quite chunky around the middle, although about a stone lighter than Dini. Pete didn't like it. He said that we already had one cat and that it wasn't fair on Dini, and that we couldn't afford to keep another cat. Even when I asked whether Black Cat could just be a cat that sat in our house every now and then and didn't get fed Pete said no.

It made me sad, but we shut the back door and told Black Cat to go away. He sat there and miaowed for ages before Pete made me leave the kitchen. And then this morning when I opened the door to let Dini out he was there again and tried to get in and be cuddled. And I had to turn him away again, even though I could see him through the window sat outside the door crying.

Poor Black Cat. I feel bad for him because he just wants to be friends. But I feel bad for Dini too because Black Cat makes him feel insecure and second-best. It's a quandry I'm in, to be sure.

Sigh,

I wish I was Lucy Pevensie.

I'm having the shittest couple of days ever because I'm essentially untalented and out-numbered.

I was having a really good time on the uike on Monday, and feeling like I was making some good progress. But then I went out to the park yesterday evening and couldn't even go five metres. It's incredibly annoying. I spent the rest of the night feeling like a complete failure. Even funny Alan-music didn't cheer me up.

I wish I had more time to commit to this sort of stuff. But instead of spending time enjoying myself I'm stuck at work eight hours a day taking shit from students and suffering under inept management. And then even when the time materialises to think about fun stuff, the enjoyment is significantly diminished because of the need to get inolved with trying to organise people.

Life would be much simpler if people could decide what they wanted. It really doesn't matter how hard you try; you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want the benefits of student society status, you have to work for it and you have to have people willing to commit to taking time out to 'run' things and do the crappy admin tasks that have to be done. On the other hand, if you want a no-hassle turn up and do your own thing group you've got to be prepared to pay for it. In the end, everybody has an equal responsibility for what happens to the potential for juggling in Leicester.

Personally, I'd rather pay every week for the no-strings-attached time to juggle in peace and quiet and actually make some progress, than I would run around after students, sorting out grants, publicising my existence and wasting what little free time I have on things I don't particularly enjoy.

But I get the feeling that I'm just a lone voice.

In one of the books that was returned to the library yesterday I found a little letter someone had randomly written to themselves. He'd obviously stuck it in the book as a page marker and forgot all about it. I bet when he realised he started kicking himself because it was a really depressing letter. It was one of those cry-for-help type things that you're supposed to give up on when you hit 17. This lad was stressing that he couldn't cope with working a 30 hours job, doing 25 hours study, and spending time with his fiancee. He was moaning that his aunt had laughed at him when he suggested to her that he was under a lot of pressure.

I read it all through and then put it in the bin cause I didn't want anyone making fun of him. It's not the sort of thing someone comes back to collect anyway.

I wonder, would it make a difference to this bloke's life if he knew that someone had read what it was he'd wanted to say and had spent time thinking about him? I don't think anybody is ever as alone as they think they are. The human condition prevents it.

I'm terribly depressed after just finishing reading Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History'. It's all about murder and deceit and pain and anguish and suicide and all things Greek. It also sparks thoughts about how healthy and productive relationships with friends are/can be.

Last Sunday, when Pete was taking the car to pieces, I was sat in my friend's house watching Sky (read watching wrestling) and I saw Shawn Michaels for the first time in years. It suddenly occured to me that he wasn't a young man any more, which makes me incredibly sad. I'm not sure why. It's not because it reflects my own ageing. It's probably something more along the lines of the fact that, having held him in such high esteem for a good portion of my life, it hits home to think that he's going to get old and die pointlessly like everyone else. And that means that there's nothing that makes anyone more special than anybody else, despite what we'd all like to believe. We're all chaff.

I've also been thinking recently about how little things can affect you for the rest of your life. To carry on the theme, because I had an affection for Shawn Michaels when I was 12/13, who I saw as a masculine, well built, charismatically arrogant man, now that I'm older the only men I could ever have an affection for are-you guessed it-masculine, well built and charismatically arrogant. If my affections are so easily manipulated how transparant am I in other areas of my life? It gives me a terrible sense of incapacity.

People are trouble.

Pete broke the car. I blame him unconditionally.

It was working fine until he popped the bonnet and started taking things apart. I'm sure of it. There was a bit of a whispy whiteness coming from the exhaust but nothing that seemed too alarming. And I for one never once had to top up the coolant or anything. No. The car was fine. And then Pete broke it.

To be fair his efforts were all made with the best intentions. In a perfect world we'd all be able to take cars to bits and put them back together again without the slightest mishap. But life is cruel. Spark plugs sheer off for one thing. And secondary problems are discovered that hike up the price of fixing the car both financially and in terms of time and effort.

Most importantly, it should be remembered, little adventures like these always end badly for Clare Bears. We end up having to walk home from work in the dark and the cold at all times of the day and night. There's never anybody to take us food shopping or run us to juggling club or back. Fixing cars is a bad idea. And Clare Bears don't like it.

As a totally unconnected aside, I haven't seen one of my uncles for ten years or so and I don't have any pictures of him or anything, but I dreamt about him last night and had a perfect picture of his face in my head. Brains are good like that. I like my brain. Except for when it's talking at me and I can't make it shut up.

I've just been reading my friend's blog and it inspired me to add something to mine. Actually, I was thinking about my blog today and worrying that I was an essentially uninteresting person with a humdrum life. I hope that's not the case because I have a lot invested in my life.

I'm at work, on my break, sat on my own in the staff room. It's nice to be in a big room like this with so much space and have time to be on my own. I spend a lot of time in tiny little spaces with rather too many people. On the other hand, when I'm in wide open spaces on my own I tend to feel anxious. I start to wonder whether I should really be there or not. Was there an announcement on the news this morning telling people to stay in their houses?

Friends and relationships are both tricky things. Being emotionally unattached is easy and superficially pleasing. Fighting the urge to delve deeper under your superficial happiness is, again, a tricky thing.