Sad (What's New?)

SURELY ~ after I said I loved this time of year ~ I cannot have the autumnal blues?

There I was, posting how much I love the golden leaves and bonfires and how they "remind me of new beginnings". I clicked play on Eva Cassidy's Autumn Leaves ... next thing I knew, tears were flowing! And flowed on (intermittently) all day. And the next day. And the day after that. And I still feel down now. But what precisely it's all about I could not tell. (Because I don't know.)

*******

On to "new beginnings" ~ anyone remember my JAPANESE OBSESSION? This is nothing new ~ I have had a fascination with most things Japanese (not so much the food) since my teens.

I took Japanese classes for a few weeks at university when I was 19. But it wasn't part of my course, and on top of everything else it was too much, so it got dropped. So my Japanese language skills remain at the extremely elementary stage... as much as anything else for the lack of a half-decent textbook! Not a single one I've seen teaches the script along with the grammar ~ no doubt on the assumption that the casual student will find it too difficult. I find this extremely patronizing. Imagine a Japanese person turning up in London saying: "I learned English ~ only I cannot read or write it." Utterly ridiculous!

The one guidebook I used to have: Teach Yourself Japanese Script gave Chinese-originated kanji characters, along with their meanings ~ bamboo, river, mountain etc ~ IN ENGLISH! If you wanted to learn the Japanese words for these things you had to look them up at the back. After a few pages of this I was ready to scream and bang my head on the table. The fact that I still remember what bamboo, river and mountain look like yet haven't a clue how to pronounce them surely says it all.

To remedy the situation I sent of an email this morning to the British-born Professor of Japanese at Oxford. Surely if anyone can recommend a good book, he can ...

*******

The day finished off with my moody housemate ~ the one I was yelling at a couple of months ago after he claimed to my face that I hadn't said hello to him when I just did two seconds before... that person, who's forever convinced he's right, required my help assembling a double bed which screwed together ~ with non-screwing wooden supporting nubs in between. This man was trying to hold together two bed-ends and a frame with just the wooden nubs. He was planning to put the screws in afterwards. Surely I don't need to tell you how successful this approach was.

I endured ten minutes of such buffoonery before insisting I had to go. I have suffered too many fools over too many years ~ and not at all gladly. Nowadays my patience has run dry...

*******

AND how was your autumnal day?

Unless you live in Australia, in which case you're surely in the first flush of spring ...

Illustrated (descending order): Eva Cassidy's official biography; Chinese/Japanese characters for bamboo, river, mountain; self-assembley chaos ...

Doorstep "Misunderstanding"

I CAME HOME EXHAUSTED the other day. Late. I was meant to be doing three things at once and hadn't time for any of them. When I encountered a black man standing at our gate. It looked like the man downstairs who has only ever spoken to me to demand a cigarette, but I wasn't sure. Right height and all but this person was staring at me constantly, so I wasn't sure whether it was just someone who looked like him. My eyesight, bear in mind, is terrible, so I usually recognize people only by the characteristics of their blur. As I was about to walk past I mumbled "Alright mate," under my breath. And barely a second later this man, who I could now see WAS the cigarette-demander blurted belligerently, "A hello would have been nice!"

"I just DID say it!" I "retorted" (as writers of novels like to say).

"I do have ears!" he shot back.

"I just said 'Alright?' ~ right to your face!"

"Well I didn't hear anything," he said ~ and I thought how rude!

"Well I'm sorry maybe I mumbled it ~ no offence."

But he still wouldn't believe me and an altercation started in which he said "don't shout" (speaking too loud for you now, am I?" I thought, but kept my mouth shut. And this ignoramous, determined to take offence ranted on about how I obviously hadn't said anything. (Of course HE hadn't said hello either!)

"I thought you would have seen my LIPS MOVE," I said, circling them with a finger for added effect, but he kept on blathering and I went inside and let the door shut on his protestations. All I could think was WHO DOES THIS MAN THINK HE IS?

I mean what is this man's problem? Up until then I bore him no ill will at all. And yet he appears determined to find it in others (at least in me). Seek and ye shall find! says the proverb. Now when I go outside I quickly dash past his door (because he lives downstairs) hoping not to see him. And thankfully we have not met since that event about three days ago. I am not going to mention it if he doesn't. But I keep wondering:

What did I do wrong?

Harrassed and Happy

I'M GETTING TROUBLE AGAIN from nasty neighbours but, as the song says (see below) "I don't wanna talk about it"... all I will say is that when I threatened to call police the poison person in question quickly fled!

One of very few vaguely interesting things I've read about drugs recently came from an Ecstasy Fact Sheet I picked up in the drugs agency. It was actually a good 4 or more sides of closely typed foolscap/A4...

"Are people still taking that?" I thought, and read on. Now some of the old hippie types at ecstasy.org-type websites would say that MDMA (ecstasy) is a "heart-opening substance)... it's basically an upper that, as well as making you feel excited (like you're at the best party that ever was, hearing the greatest music, etc.. etc...) it actually does, to recoin some 1960s-speak, make you feel full of "peace and love"... quite amazingly so, in fact.

One of my more curmudgeonly friends, who preferred nasty old speed, told me "but I don't want to sit in the corner of the rave feeling like Buddha" (exactly the effect I took it for!)

Anyway this new (to me) info told me that ecstasy does not elicit any feelings that are not inside you anyway...

... which is one of the most positive things I have ever read... meaning that I am full of the most amazingly transcendental joy it breaks the limits of description.

To put it another way, I suddenly realized something I suppose I've always secretly known all along: that you don't need drugs to feel "high"!

After reading this, I decided to contact this Inner Joy: and suddenly I did. It was a couple of weeks ago and I was trotting mundanely back from the chicken shop with my £1 special deal (+ piece + fries), and I thought about what I'd read and ~ wow! Amazing! I did get right directly in touch with this amazing joy inside me!

That is the happiest thing that's happened to me for a long time..!

Videos:

Everything But The Girl: I Don't Wanna Talk About It

Everything But The Girl: Missing

This one got to number one time back in the late 80s (if I remember rightly...)

a v nice tune.

The group's name, btw, comes from their original ad in Melody Maker or the NME magazine "everything but the girl" (ie we have a group put together but we need a sweet singin' vocalist) and she does sing sweet...



This, however, is probably their greatest and most memorable hit:~

Everything But The Girl: Missing (club mix)



ps Bashful's name should really be バシフルさん Bashifuru-san (far as I know, that's the nearest Japanese equivalent...)

and here is the dictionary definition for "itchy":

かゆがってさん (that is Kayugatte-san)

Bashful would be 内気さん (Uchiki-san)

Spherical is 丸さん Maru-san

(the katakana readings given yesterday are phonetic transliterations (yes: Iichi-san, Bashifuru-san and Suherikuru-san are the nearest the Japanese can get in their own language to Itchy-Bashful-Spherical!

PS yesterday's title Frank was a pun I forgot to elucidate on the former British National Drugs Helpline "Talk to Frank" ~ clickonit to see...

Neither Hide nor Hair

MY HOUSE HAS BEEN QUIET SINCE MONDAY when a man from the council came to "measure everybody's rooms"... he had ever such trouble getting into Immaturity's room; standing outside waggling keys in the lock etc etc...

... the house has been quiet and I am glad.

I keep finding Roman Catholic magazines on the street from some organization called The Two Patricks (or something like that)... all stuff to do with apparitions of the "Blessed Virgin" ("Mother of God")... I looked for apparitional videos on Youtube but found only disappointing shots of Virgin Mary dolls (supposedly a statue) opening its eyes... a cross-shaped light over an Armenian church... oh and a "film of a real demon"... but as soon as I saw the first shot, a guy in darkened woodland with a torch on his face I thought "no no no!" and disconnected. So I posted something far more REAL instead: a nuclear bombing. THAT is the real future!!

VIDEO: HIROSHIMA



MUSIC: Cygnus X: Orange
Here's one of my favourite tunes from olden times. Here in the original version with video



ORANGE: BEST MIX

There are gerzillions of versions of this out, but I think this is the best. You need to give it nearly a minute to get going, then it doesn't stop (made me feel like I'd been at the disco biscuits again...)

"Washing My Door For Me"

WHEN KINDERGARTEN KID returned after 11pm last night, she stomped upstairs to my door (I was in); she did not knock but I heard something clacking loudly against the woodwork, as if she'd petulantly smaked the door with a dogchain or keys or something. She hared off downstairs, I ventured outside in time to hear her entering her own room downstairs. An empty McDonald's style Coca Cola cup was lying outside my door and wetness at the bottom. She had chucked the remains at it and what I'd heard had been the ice-cubes.

So I stood the cup neatly at the top of the stairs last night. This evening, just before leaving, I brought it downstairs and put it neatly by her door. Unfortunately she was out. When I do get to speak to her next (and I'm not speaking to the boyfriend again. Do you know he was actually pressing up at me agressively in a way I've not been treated since my school days. And I left school over 18 years ago!)... If he ever does that again I shall say what I was tempted to gush before and say, "really, I do wish you'd stop rubbing up to me like that ~ people might get the wrong idea!"

And when I do get to speak to her (not that I'm going out of my way to have anything to do with a silly attitude-ridden little girl: as I say I had my fill of that ilk of behaviour at school and am not up for tolerating any more now that I'm approaching 40, living alone, keeping myself to myself and less interested in "The World" by the day...

... I'm going to tell her, "it was ever so sweet of you washing my door for me like that, but you don't need to do that on my account as we have a cleaner coming in once a week. And I thought you might like your cup back."

Thanks last night's wise remarks, people:


Baino said...
. . .shame you can't pick your neighbours . .
Too true!

Sometimes Saintly Nick said...
Well, it seems the adolescent “house mate” likes to play damsel in distress and whine to the would-be dragon slayers. And you got to be the dragon!

Am I really a "dragon"~? Ooer!!

S**t! I mean, I’m glad you didn’t accept the s**t and I believe you did the absolute best thing in confronting the would-be damsel directly rather than messing with her rescuer!

Great job! I applaud your handling of the situation.

Thank you, Nick!

Anonymous said...
Hhehee Nick has said it all! You handled it well Gledwood, best avoid the trio from now on.

BEWARE: do not bounce along gathering bluebirds. They will bite!

What is gathering bluebirds..??!?

Vincent said...
What a twat man. Someone's going to be ignored for a while I think.

Yes most definitely, Vince. I'm just flattered that I seem so important to these people!


Flipside said...
Good evening Gledwood!

Sometimes Saintly Nick makes some very valid points.

Your house-mate may just be attention-seeking!

Girls can be very sensitive :o) You were consciously avoiding your house-mate, but she left the door open for you. That was an indication that she was aware of you, and made a friendly gesture. You then "banged the door"? She may have seen this as an aggressive response, and been disappointed! Maybe she was expecting
a shout, "Thanks for leaving the door for me!"?

Does she fancy you?! (She effectively got close and spoke to you, and got you to speak to her (!) without incurring the wrath of her big fat "bodyguard"!)

The man may have been attempting to sus you out and establish "Pecking order".

You skilfully defused a potentially explosive situation by employing a biblical technique, (ie "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.")

PS Intrigued to know who I am ? - why? I'm also intrigued to know if it would make any difference to your response if I was a rock star, a waitress, or the heir apparent? ;->
In time you will know me.::::::::::

I don't think she does fancy me, as I've been pootling about in my German exchange student fluoro orange kagool, wearing my worst glasses and doing all I can to appear (drugswise) "straight"... and it works! Junkies in the street beg spare change off me, not realizing for a second I'm one of them! Oh the joy of sheep's clothing!!


Bimbimbie said...
Hi Gleds, I'm in agreement with Nick, you did the right thing speaking directly to the girl. Hopefully she's a quick learner and won't try that one with you again.

... would you believe the great seed trail brought two King Parrots around for breakfast just one day after my telling you I hadn't seen them for weeks. They must have heard your request ;)

I'm glad the parrots came back. I love those redbreasted "giant robin" style ones especially... like that one that used to follow you round the garden...


Akelamalu said...
Some folk can cause trouble in an empty house! I hope this wasn't a taste of things to come for you Gleds.

Hopefully not! If things deteriorate any further I'm keeping a timed/dated (+witnessed, if possible) antisocial behaviour daybook... if any of these little kids DARES touch me physically I'll have police on to them quicker than they can say "but he slammed the door in my face when I wasn't there!"

K.C. said...
Good for you, honestly, writing it out and getting it out. Can't change what others do.. only how you react to what others do. How you react will determine how the situation will evolve...

I didn't know you at all until a few days ago, and now I find myself thinking of you several times during my day and wishing you all the best... you will change lives.

Kayce

I would like to think I could change lives when I'm clean... I've been thinking of that a lot. Of course I want to redeem myself and the only way of doing that is by reaching out to the "still-suffering addicts" and to the vulnerable kids. Maybe I could do something worthwhile... I certainly hope so!


Nicole said...
What stupidity. It's probably just mental illness of some sort, but still nothing you should be putting up with, you've got enough worries of your own.

Precisely! And I really do not have time for timewasters ANY MORE. As much as anything else, I'M TOO OLD for it!


Puss-in-Boots said...
Would you say that behaviour is drug related, or is she just an attention seeker? Good idea to keep clear of them, Gleds...idiots they are...what's with the black dude, is he their pimp??

Interesting you brought up the idea of "pimp", too. Someone else made that suggestion to me. If he IS, he's well at the amateur end of the spectrum.

I've met some pretty formidable people in my time: these lot are childish, amateur would-be's and all the more pettily irritating for that!!


Kahshe Cottager said...
How very annoying, but it sounds like you handled it very well. I wonder why people do things like that? It seems a waste of energy to me.

I'm not wasting my energy on THEM, that is for sure!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...
Oh, dear, Gleds .. there's just no fathoming some people! You take care.

No fathoming: yeah. I'm not going to waste my time fathoming the sewers of some 17 year old's insecurities. Far as I'm concerned she can go on being insecure, just not in MY face!



Megan said...
Wow. "Overwhelmingly ridiculous" is right.

Here, here!

Monogram Queen said...

Yes just avoid them if at all possible. I hate smart-ass whippersnappers!

That's precisely my plan!

AS for the Proverb quote above: well said, Nick! "A soft answer turns away wrath!" That's always my first line of resistance...

OK folks, slightly unusual post here, I know, but I gotta go. Time's timing me out already.

Take care everyone!

Gleds
xx