From the heart

. Wills and Kate, if you are reading-this is all your fault. I was more than happy to be happy for you until today. Not for me the Bah Humbug of General Public who whinged about it being too close to Easter, too early in the morning, to early in the year, too soon after announcing the engagement. No, not at all. This is what I thought..
"Hooray! Another reason for a very big party!. We can celebrate our Britishness (we don't do that nearly enough- we spend too much time watching sitcoms set at Thanksgiving, visit France for Bastille day, save for the Rio Carnival.... you get the picutre. But yesterday, of all days, was a day to celebrate the fact that we live on this tiny island called Britain and look what we can do! No-one does carriages better than us. You'd be very hard pressed to find such good-looking story book prices and princesses anywhere elseI've been trying to do some work for 4 hours. I really need to do it. I have been looking forward to this particular piece of work and yet, the will to do it escapes me

rantathon

Can we do something about the uk being just short of Zimbabwe on drop down menus? Don't you know who we are?

How can sons make an art form out of avoidance of everything?

She wears Short Shorts - Part Deux (or ASBO stands for Anti Social Behaviour Order)

Another 2 hours before I collect Short Shorts from the party (you'll recall from a previous post that I am waiting up till 1 am!) .

Was that a noise? Jeez it's dark. I don't like being awake past 9.30pm.

I was once in bed in my garret when I heard a crash as though something had fallen from my roof to the patio below. Assuming that it was that bloody fat pigeon again, drunk on the contents of my garden, I ignored it, hoping it was suicide.
Welllll!! It often kept me awake with its strutting and cooing and its lack of respect for the downstairs neighbours as it thundered across the tiles in avian jack boots.

But this was followed by another crash and this time from inside the house.
I was now up to amber post-pigeon alert.
I had considerable experience of this threat level which involved my making the rounds of safety checks wearing a thug resistant dressing gown and carrying a substantial torch, only to discover that the toilet seat had flung itself on the mercy of the bowl when the strain got too much, or that the camping poles that I never get around to putting away, had developed exhaustion from leaning upright and passed out on the floor.

But this time, as I descended to the first floor the ruckus continued to continue in a continuous manner.
I yelled softly down the bannister that I could hear the buggers, but amazingly they seemed undeterred. I was incensed at the cheek of the bloody tykes, but didn't want to damage the torch. I was torn. The sounds of my cupboards and drawers being emptied and the contents strewn upon the floor were unmistakable; the professional sound of right villains and no mistake.
I tiptoed to my kids' rooms to ascertain that they had not been stolen. The oldest one is 16 and her brother, 15 months younger, has recently gone from preppy catalogue cherub to brick shit house, so he'd be tricky to pilfer. The little 'un was snoring with her mouth open. Adenoidal music to my ears.
I called the police. The brick shit house loves his mum like a good boy should and so, being the only male in the house, strode towards me to deliver a protective bear hug then handed me his baseball bat and went back to bed, asking me to tell him when the police arrived.
5 mins seemed an eternity but finally flashlights surrounded the house and garden. I thought for one ridiculous moment that the 'tea leafs' had called for back up, the dressing gown having proved too much but then I came to my senses. The officers were very thorough and one of them was really quite handsome.

 like the one on the right.

"Love, there's a bin overturned in your garden-think they've been through this way"
"Erm, well actually it's been there for a while...I'm using it as a wildlife tunnel (I've always been a quick thinker). I could bore you with the cliche of the house being in such a mess that, although I knew there was no burglar once I had ventured downstairs, the police could not be. They were so patient about it, ' Better safe than sorry!' and all that. And to be fair to myself, the WPC had a bit of egg on her face as she had been searching the grounds of a different house altogether and turned up telling her tale in great gusts of whispered giggles.

Finally, having discussed suggestions such as a fox had been trying to get into the (upright) outside bins for example - the handsome policeman hovered around for a few seconds longer once the others had returned to their panda cars :)              

I thought 'This is it girl. Brace yourself! You've done it at last. It may not be the most auspicious of starts, but love finds a way.'  He leaned forward to put his hand upon my arm and as my breath quickened and bosom heaved he whispered "Em.. love. I think it might have been you hamster on its wheel. They can make a lot of bloody noise those can," and then he left.
 I felt humiliated "Absolutely not!" I yelled after him  "It wasn't that sort of noise!",  but I was fooling no-one.


Silence


I gritted my teeth and walked with seething resentment back to the cage where ASBO Hamster looked like butter wouldn't melt.... She gazed at me, mustering every ounce of adorable that she could - plainly acting as her own defence "What guv? It weren't me guv. Honest! Would these eyes lie? I lurvvvv you," and sucker that I am, I believed her.

That is, until 30 mins later when I was either being burgled again or something else was afoot . When I trudged down the two flights of stairs for the umpteenth time that evening and surprised her with my flashlight, she was gripping the bottom of her metal cage with her teeth and trying to uproot it from its moorings with superhamster force. I'd got her bang to rights!

Chapter 2
I occasionally see the lovely policeman, laughing with public outside the bank or at the traffic lights. I can feel his eyes following me with mirth and I feel certain that he's retelling the 'Night of Nibbles' to the delight of all. I am so ashamed. Especially as, when he did leave the house, I could hear him calling out to question his colleagues in the car "Isn't this the house of the girl who said that we'd find her mate in the wardrobe?"

It is and they did.

Talking of Short Shorts, best go get her. x

Blog Off!

I worked on the most enormous blog entry yesterday (that's 3 Innuendo Bingo points Paula!) and I just can't bring myself to post it.
I read and reread it and there's nothing wrong with it per se. It's just a bit ....whatsit. You see, I'm not even sure what being a bit whatsit entails.

                     I'd say it rambles but it doesn't really. It doesn't go off piste.          


'Talking Trollops' gives some valid points, it weighs up the arguments but somehow it doesn't feel right. It's informative but not very entertaining.

I think it's because I set out trying to write something about the topic de jour- 'Talking about Mental Illness' when what I really wanted to tell you was that I'd been punting up the Cam. None of these people are me.

And I was excited that my 2 favourite Australian Bloggers had responded to my tweets and comments
.http://www.woogsworld.com/2011/04/honourable-mention.html
http://catep36.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-of-easter-according-to-two-pissed.html

  And I'd just been sent the most stunning version of Roy Orbison's 'You Got It'.  Its beauty made me cry..an amazing gift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtC1Nf-KvI&feature=related

And I didn't really want to talk about being bipolar 'cos I'd just been to a Meditation shop  (recommended by my therapist) and been told that I shouldn't be meditating at all as it was dangerous  for me to go  further into Golightlyland, when what I should be doing is learning how to cope with life.
There was a look of grave concern and heartfelt sympathy on her face that made me want to kick her head in. I  used to work in social services and never saw an honest-to-goodness do-gooder in the 10 years I was there. I've seen one now and it ain't pretty. It gives you rosacea.

Grudgingly, I have to admit that I had wondered myself whether it would be wise to head for Enlightenment when a milestone of that journey is a feeling of euphoria and light radiating from your solar plexus which builds until you have enough power and love rising within you to blow your fucking head off.


Well - to be frank - I've been there,done that, got enough T-shirts for Arsenal to play in, and I'm not allowed back.
  Not without Oprah.


I do find the irony quite delicious that I meditate away from the euphoria of madness, whilst half the world actively seeks it by doing the same. Priceless!

Anyway, to paraphrase my local Buddhist nun-I'm getting above myself if I think that I'm even going to find the bus stop to Enlightenment by meditating every alternate Wednesday, excluding holidays.
Phew, what a relief!

But the whole meditation shop scenario made me think about my blog. For the first time since my diagnosis, I can see that not EVERYTHING needs to be about being bipolar. I need not try so hard nor make everything relevant to it.
 Now here's a phrase I read in my Bipolar handbook 'I am not defined by it. It is only part of who I am'.
 At the time, I thought 
Of course you must be defined by something that controls you.'
Now I am not so sure.

 My ruddy-faced friend was right about something. Being bipolar is about an inability to cope with life and I find that that particular definition diffuses the fear.
I can learn to cope with life. I just have to retrain. I am not a patient.

       I am a student

When I started this entry, I was going to end by saying that I'd write 2 blogs but each one less frequently.
One on being biopolar and the other with day to day observations. People would know what to expect from each of them.
Now I'm thinking   'Sod It! Take Me or Leave Me!"'


(Actually, can I just qualify this by saying that I really need you not to leave me as an anonymous blog cannot be publicised down the usual routes).                              
                                                                                     Cheers!