SO TIRED AND SLOW AND WEARILY MELANCHOLIC. Deep in the middle of the night, close to 4am. I'm too too weary and not hungry. So I've just turned my slo-stew off. I made an intellectual stew earlier. Splintered neck of lamb. Very well done. Very nice. And I'm very proud of it.
I'm very depressed too. I don't know whether my memoir-writing caused this atack of "low mood" as my drs used to call it. Telling my story, as I've said. It's not only that I feel my life history has denigrated to a form of currency almost; but I have to desensitize myself to it anyhow if I'm to stand up and say "this is the book of my life so far and how I messed it up" - it has to be waters under the bridge. And that's how it IS and HAS BEEN for most of the time. What's made the difference is the necessity not of telling what happened, but of explaining how and why, of weaving the story together and telling consequences. That is something I've never done before because I don't you don't. We think of our lives in floating episodes whereas a book demands a continuous thread of sense. I thought I had become to used to my own story it could not hurt me any more.
The particular section I've been writing is not a section I've particularly pondered, mused, obsessed over. But I'm having to ponder it now. And maybe that's what's new.
All throughout my life from middle childhood I've fought low moods. They are nothing new to me. What I can't believe is that I'm actually letting this hold me back. And stop me from writing. As I said many times before - here's a simple fact about writing. If you want to write a book you simply must have or develop the strength to plough onwards no matter how uninspired or dispirited you may feel. Otherwise it will not get written.
I know all that and yet still I'm half capsized in a rut.
On a lighter note, reading about her Majesty the Queen last night and seeing her tribe of Corgis I realized they are the roborovskis of the dogs world. All looking exactly the same and yet so distinctive in personality. Greedy swines. And mischievous.
I did a nice stew last night. When I first fried up the lamb, real whiffs of pigs' diarrhoea came up. Then I stared at this "lamb" and realized how suspiciously anaemically light pink it was. I nearly puked. "The *******'s sold me pork!" I thought. Then I cooked it on and realized this was not the case. But it had a very narrow escape from being chucked out the window let me tell you. I loathe swineflesh. Ukkgh!!
In the end it came out rather nicely. The recipe is in the "sediment" post below. Don't forget that half a zuccini/courgette. I made dumplings but squeezed them together too much during the mixing process and so they were more like sheeps' eyeballs than proper fluffy Pigsy Delight from Monkey dumplings. The kind that frequently appeared steaming in the wilderness on a golden bowl from nowhere in the cult 70s Japanese TV series...
Right I have to go and put more dumplings on now. The old slo-cooker's been on about 2 hours now so it's probably frazzling the life out of poor yesterdays half-eaten stew!
All the best everyone!!
Vid of the Day:
Hamster Madness Montage... I thought I'd seen all this before in other clips... not the last bit though... hamsters peering at the sky then backflipping? Never seen anything like THAT before!!
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Is it true America does not have digital television yet?
I was just reading something about Berlin's switchover, first digital switchover in the world, in 2003 which multiplied the number of digital channels available in that city by digital terrestrial (ie by a rooftop aerial) to 27. This by shutting off all the analogue channels. And yet in this country even Mother Hubbard gets about 30 digital channels thru a freeview set top box plus we have five analogue channels. And yet all our analogue channels are getting shut down in Wales next year and here in London in 3 years' time. So what will happen after switchover? Does this mean we will all have 100 channels free through our aerials? Does anybody know about this? Please tell me.
If you want to read the "German TV is brilliant; American is crap" article, click here...
ps i think it is absolute scandal that the tatty british govt allowed scummy home shopping and 24-7 quiz channels and even pay-per-view to be broadcast over our democratic terrestrial airwaves. That is the true meaning of pirate broadcasting! The government hijacking our signals that ought to be broadcasting high definition David Attenborough documentaries 24 hours! Not kids broadcasting FM radio channels of dance music their local audience WANTS to hear and cannot get on Magic FM
And what a scandal awarding digital franchises to"i_iot ~ name the missing letter by spending £1 a minute on 0898-whatever" moneyprinting channels.
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In my dreams!
Hey look I'm leaving comments in Japanese now!!
私の日本の良い一日をお友達に言えば！私が見つかりましたブログを、インターネット上で非常にランダムにします。私の日本の良いことではありませんので私はと言えばカンニングを介してgoogleの翻訳！それはどのように私はこれらの言葉を書くことを、日本を今すぐ！ただ言いたかったことをブログには本当に面白いと少しして、友達のように見えるマイケルジャクソン1980年代後半にします。 （しかし、このように優れた方法！ ）とにかく来て私のブログにする必要があります。私の秘密日記を読むことができますが、オンラインで徹底的に楽しませました。 http://gledwood2.blogspot.comは、その場所に！すぐに私の希望で会いましょう！すべてのベストになります。よりgledwood "Vol 2 " ;->...
(It is still one of my biggest dreams to learn to speak read and write Japanese. When I am rich I will get a Mac notebook loaded with Rosetta Stone software. I find the Japanese people and their culture fascinating... (everything except Japanese food in fact!))
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Wonderful Rouen Pictures
Shall I use this as my new avatar for a while?
Goldfishycarppondstuff.
Enchanting Indonesia Pixx
Amazing Tibet Pictures
Postcards from the World - Ireland
Disney Blog
http://madridquebec.blogspot.com - does anyone know what the huge building, 2nd photo from bottom is (this one)? And where precisely it is? Wow. It's amazing. I'd love to have a house like that, wouldn't you??
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I love banal pictures of everyday scenes from foreign lands. This one depicts an American supermarket checkout.
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You couldn't make it up! Read this letter from an American local council to a local landowner of two "debris"-blockaded streams...
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See the cocaine up Amy Winehouse's nose!
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AARGH! Gotta get a lid for that slow cooker! I came back after three hours of "letting it mull" as I thought it was doing. No! It was not mulling at all.
ALL water had evaporated through the gap where the illfitting frying pan failed to cover as lid. Said stew was dried out, ashy and smelling of burning plastic.
I still threw cold water on it, picked off the black bits and ate it with fresh dumplings though.
Waste not want not - hey!!
12 hours ago
21 comments:
mmmm, lamb, that's what I'm having for dinner, roasted. It's half price in tesco's dont cha know!
I got mine from the local cheapo butcher it was £1.49 a pound or $3 a pound in American for anyone from there reading this.... yeah lamb rules... I once found a really nice crackling lamb kebab fully wrapped up and still warm near my front door on Friday night... yummy!! haha!
;->...
Wow, I'm not used to seeing Sinead with hair. She's a fox!
Cheer up, buddy. The lows provide contrast to the highs.
Hmmm. We must be on the same page mentally of sorts as of late, for I too have been utterly fascinated by the Queen as well!
It's a nice tradition to have I suppose, but how do most people in the U.K. really feel about having a monarch still?
Hi Gleds,
My Mum used to make a fantastic lamb stew and she only ever used the cheapest cuts of lamb.
Gleds,
You always have so much activity going at once. It's like a party. Good music, good food, good conversation, good host, everything. A real variety show.
I really LOVE that Sugababes track. I am going to download it now. Sinead has always been a favorite of mine, back when she was clean shaven.
It's true, we don't have digital yet, not completely, it won't happen until 2010 (I think?) We are so far behind on that front.
Wow, you can really write in Japanese? Impressive. I love Rosetta Stone too. It's like a cool language game.
I have an explanation. You wrote that post on 4am. You don't sleep enough and that's the reson for your bad mood. So you should sleep more.
oh my gleds what a mixed bag of interesting entertaining stuff .... I just dipped into a random few. Loved those backflipping hammies and that little white one at the beginning gets a 10 for try, try, try again. The building in Canada - might be the famous Scottish looking Castle hotel at Banff, the Fairmont?
... and your comment you left me, the impressive Greenlandic - showoff ;)
I just popped over to see you from Merles place. I loved the 'double chin smile-a-gram... :o) I had a good visit, thank you. :o)
My suggestion is to change the memoirs into a novel, and mix real $h!t with stuff you made up.
Sorry you have the blues, Gleds. Not nice at all. It could be from reliving your life through your writing, but (here's something trite for you), when you're down, the only way left is up.
Love the video of those hamsters. I wonder what they're on...?
Vi vi vi vooom, shops at the same place as me.
You keep freezing on me again. I'm typing very quickly in case it happens. I saw roborovskis in the pet shop when I was getting treats for George. I thought you'd made the name up!
Neck fillet used to be really cheap but now it's sold in supermarkets as a posh cut.
But you know, even with all those Freeview channels, there's rarely anything good on.
Do we go digital in wales next year? Will my digibox be enough? Do we have to buy a new telly? If you find out, let me know.
Whitenoise: Sinead is/was/stillis really beautiful... it's just she has this thing about sleazy men so she prefers to look like a prisoner awaiting death sentence on drugs charges in 3rd world prison look... as for da blues... I'm tryin'!
Wat:... well bearing in mind how utterly deadbeat most of our politicians are (and now the minor royals have calmed down and grown up a bit and stopped scandalizing the newspapers) I think most of us would FAR rather have a nice old lady like "Ma'am" as head of state than any possible other alternative! One scant advantage I can conjure of living in Britain over America is that we have a wealth of "Royal Family" books in the public library. Also they get star billing on the evening news unlike vulgar nobody Paris Hilton style celebrities haha! ;->...
Angie: yeah definitely cheapest cuts no point paying more if you're boiling it to death for 3+ hrs!
Alexys: No! Rosetta stone isn't a game it's a linguaphone type course but on a computer so you have audio-visual prompts and you gotta speak aparently it's meant to be the best language teaching at home thing and I'm usually good at languages so evening classes are frustrating as everyone else is so slow (in every other subject I'm behind tho, let me make plain...)
Sugababes: yes it's top innit!
Darling there's not THAT much going on at my house maybe I just make it sound good haha!!
PS: No I can't speak Japanese. I wish I could. But that was Google translate doing it for me... I notice it even katakana'd Michael Jackson's name haha!!
Ropi: you may well have a point!
Bimbimbie: As for the Greenlandic - no! That came from my googling "polysynthetic language" hahar! ... What else.. oh yeah the backflipping hamsters TWO were doing it ~ how extraordinary. I've seen that one place elsewhere too... and that poor white one that couldn't get a look in on the wheel... did you notice how huge those Russian "dwarf" hamsters are compared to Robos ... absolutely enormous!!
Daffy: <;->>>.... (that is a double chin person wearing Dunce's cap)
Zen Wizz! I was thinking of doing that but it seemed somehow ya know not quite good enough... I DID try writing a novel about junkies but didn't like it enough. Even though I did do all 80,000 words. May as well tell the truth I think. It is the vogue these days!
Pussinboots: maybe the owner was giving 'em amphetamines. Years ago some nasty person blew cannabis at my hamster Pandable while he was rambling on the dining table. He put his ears up and looked confused for about five minutes. All on one puff!
Queenie: REALLY! I used to go shopping in Nottingham when I was 4. Is there a precinct called the Queen's precinct or something? With big exciting (for a 4 year old) fountains in it...?? And 10 foot tall dogs (... o! That is my memory of being 2 at the market hahar!)... Also there's a really cool hospital called again something like the Queens Medical Centre. My granddad died there but it's the WOW!est hospital I've EVER been in... I'd love a house like that if I couldn't have the building in Canada...
Liz: no! Aparently someone called LT Roborovski discovered them in Mongolia in about 1910. They are very fast and pingy and hard to tame.... Only since 1990 have they been on the British pets market... and later than that elsewhere. They're not easy to get in all countries. Winter White Russian hamsters are lovely, except they're all grey. The Americans have their cousins that are called Campbells. I had a Campbells once and it kept trying to bite me every time I picked it up which did NOT impress me...
As for digital switchover... hang on I'm just going to find the link 4u... I will post it up this evening...
don't worry though freeview will work BETTER if anything you should get MORE channels after switchover and possibly HD channels too...
Gleds,
Ha ha. I know Rosetta Stone is a language program. I got the sampler and it was soo cool. If I wanted to learn a lauguage I would use it. It is really fun "like" a computer game. I know it's not a real one. ;D
Take care.
Hello
Thank you for your message on my blog.
If you want to know about japanese people and culture
please ask me I'll talk to you.
Of course I use google translation too.
We *do* have digital in America. Some people still use analog, though. That will all end in 2009 (I think).
Even writers have to take a breather every now and again. Just a day from trudging through the past may actually be good for your creative juices. Just a thought...
Feel better, Gleds.
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