I feel vaguely guilty about this photo and hope the cat's alright. I had noticed him perched up on the neighbour's roof watching the backyard in detail. I heard a catfight (ie growl) in the pitch black last night after a plaintive meow and a bell-collar.

So - naturally or lazilly - i assumed this rather large cat up on the battlements was the source of the defensive behaviour. This photo looks as if though it might have got a painful shock.

I thought it would be good to send to a friend the latest cat intruder, and as it was dark and on automatic naturally the flash went off.

I also think this cat stops Blackie from visiting - and could even be the lacerator. Innocent until, they say, so i will only ponder on the possibility.

Gosh i dont think i'll take a picture of anyone again using an automatic focus without warning them!! LOL.

After the emotional of the last weeks in which i tried to regain some semblance of control, subtly demonstrated by a resulting lethargy i will get rid of today, it all turned out alright, midst a cloud of mishaps. I don't really know where to go from here, but i think that's the point. However, i did wish today, after greeting a friend in the street, that i had a huge big kitchen into which people would drop in much like locals at a pub. An expression of familiarity and relaxedness that i honestly felt. So different from reality, that i thought i could treat it as one does when one wants to buy something and gets obsessive about it. The pictures of the huge kitchens on sale and installed in houses help. A goal. Right now the goal is housework :-D

even tho' today was quite emotional, starting with wierd vibes in the shops (blotchy face yet cheery smile; another one turned away as soon as i'd paid, so i had to put the stuff in a bag myself; finding the letter our dad had written to explain how mum died) i won at the races : got both winners and a place. it was funny looking back... but heh i dont mind where i am. at all. really. lol.

I've got a favourite book at home. Well it's not mine. It was given to my father by one of his students, probably about 40 years ago. It's a translation of the poems of Hafiz. It is done in the form of stitchomancy, ie that you can open it and it will help you with the particular transition of life. Yesterday i was really tired, which makes me depressed. I'd not slept the night before, and had had a major collision on Saturday - well that's how i'll put it, because you never know who reads a blog. So it was an arabic friend who pulled me up for being down. Not that he doesnt get down, but when i saw a friend walk past he let me go wheras he wouldnt before cos even though i said it was being tired he said i wasnt happy. When i got home I was still tired, but happier because of talking with friends. I needed sleep but had that frustration before it. I went and opened the book and it was a page i had never seen before, about the fact that your friends have such influence on you you must check them out really carefully to see if they are having a bad influence on you. I remembered back through the year that that is exactly what i have been doing. I thought of one friend who protests her deep friendship for me but her actions speak louder than those words and especially when she protests how wrong it is for friends to ring up after years in tears because their marriage has collapsed. I don't think that is wrong, because those friends needed someone, even if they did not get the total sympathy they expected from me due to their blinding anger, which in time will abate. Other than her, there are no more friends that are bad for me - because there is a difference between friends in need, who are in a down spell, and friends who are bad for you. The friends up the road i gave up because they were bad for me - when they got drunk their attitude toward me showed they were unfamiliar with my train of thought which to them was not of their unparalled level. They also were critical of my friendships with labourers and tradesmen rather than intellectuals and snobs. Even their children were horrified sometimes in their treatment of me. So i opened the book again, still waiting for that blessed sleep to alleviate my temporary trauma. It said that i was well on the way even though i thought i was an idiot. Well, in that vein : don't kid yourself, you're doing fine. Sleep came.

Gees. I woke up feeling OK, and happy at least that i was alone, ie no responsibilities, and a bit worried about next weekend, which i had hoped to reserve for that special someone, yet family seemed to be bearing down.

This started me thinking about ego, and how one can feel controlled and dominated by another's use of their personality to assert own way. In fact we all do it.

I was a bit upset when i came back from getting the paper about this, and determined to find a way where i could assert my way, which was with a friend rather than family. It all seemed hopeless, and i wrote notes about it while i was at the computer, but when i came back from the shop and started cooking brekkie i decided to just let it roll over me; ie cry.

Suddenly i heard the door of the main house go - i wasn't alone - they had come this weekend instead of next. When i got over the shock i was quite civil, and had gone down the road to ask a friend if my eyes were red... he said they weren't and i looked good.

When i came in to the computer i realised that the book with the assertion theory was open and easily read - as they had asked to check their email. Oh well, stranger things have happened, and at least i mentioned to them that i might not be around next weekend (in other words no way in the world will i let them interfere with that).

Sigh. How ridiculous this all is. How willing and able i would defect, if i knew no-one would get hurt - and if i was welcome. :-)

Sometimes when people avoid you it's not a paranoid reaction that makes me wonder why but genuine concern. But it's also letting go - they obviously avoid you because they're happier that way.

There was a huge conservatism, and i was still in mourning and a happier friendlier maybe less jokey me seems to be re-emerging. I have, this year, made strong efforts to avoid/ostracise people myself : for various reasons - including giving up drinking inordinate amount of alcohol as relaxation; one's enough. Also an almost cruel way of trying to change another's mindset that was becoming unbearable. I tell, get it out and therefore can appear negative; but actually it's not, and i am happier and easier to be without pretending.

I am very at peace at the moment, with myself. Enjoyment. Almost reading a fun maths book for relaxation. Peopl politics suits some people and not others.

The person who drew this hasn't talken to me for years, but i remembered this when i was reading about borderline personality disorder and just found it in an old book (selected writings of mahatma gandhi which i havent read right through but which has a favourite clip in) Looking back, all i needed was someone to take the weight off my body, literally, as i did myself decades later; my self-image conflicted with my mirror-image. Then just now i was wondering whether i've always had problems with that in one way or another, but by now the goods outweigh the bads and i don't care anymore.... about that.

I converted someone to suduko today - he said he didn't understand it, yet i had heard him tell someone he had a hiIQ, and sure enuf he pickt it up quick; and a friend at lunch whom i hadn't talken to for a while (well, not since the lost wallet incident below but before that yonks) said she loves the diabolical ones. Strange how life goes, really; in this present job i've never really had a lunch-mate, someone you have lunch with; ive roamed the streets and such for years, instead. . . the first job i've been so ostracised (well, in a way, that's what it is). And in the last month iv had friends ring i never see; we part again, each to their own lot; some mistrust but in that case, a strong binding force made it obvious the link wasnt about to break. Friends from overseas that maybe in a truthful sense there's been decades of jealousy which seems to have vanished.


And my love, the invisibility of it. I guess that is wotis changing me.. and god bless new orlean-ers

I haven't had a pair of these in decades; wanted red but the lady said that they're not in this season's pickings, pointing down at her own that she'd worn for nine months, and practically chose these for me. I would have gotten the size smaller, but she said the make of shoe is long and thin, it gives your feet room to move, and wear insoles. Then when a friend said that room at the top was like a brake, i started to enjoy them and imagine playing basketball gain, especially after seeing a guy practice hoops in the beautiful courts just behind work. But at my age, gently does it ;-) !