Post Royal Comedown

THE DAY AFTER THE ROYAL WEDDING. I bet the Queen guzzled too much wedding cake and Philip has a hangover. As for Charles and Camilla I'd imagine he had a sneaky spliff on the back balcony while she puffed away at the Benson and Hedges. Somebody told me Kate Middleton was a notorious crack-whore from Tottenham, North London and that all her punters had been mysteriously killed by the Security Services (I did get told this, the night I was invited to a Charles and Camilla party. Lots of drunk crackheads wearing cut-out face-masks from the Sun newspaper. No thanks.)

Maybe I shouldn't be so disrespectful to the royals. Well what else do you want to hear? How me and Anna both have suicidal ideation? Anna wants to top herself; so do I. Except that I keep laughing all the time. I'm sure my shrinko would have a field-day with THAT one so I'm keeping quiet and asking for lamotrigine (Lamactil).

Of course I was hoping for a manic episode back but I'm pissing in the wind hoping for that one. I know mania isn't cool. All that violent ideation, irritation, agitation, volatility of mood, paranoia etc. It's the euphoria and grandiosity I enjoy, along with the non-paranoid hallucinations (when the voices tell knockout-quality jokes, that's always a good one.) As for sanity I know there's not a hope in hell of that. If sanity means peace, happiness and contentment: not in this lifetime. If sanity means a low grade misery and a feeling of being alive in a bathfull of cold water having recently tried to drown. Yeah, there'll be lots of that.

I slept a good 14 hours last night. Yet another bad sign. Means I'm depressed.

I woke up this afternoon wondering what all the fuss had been about. When I'm in a relationship this usually means a thoroughly pantomime quality argument with the bitch I'm currently with the night before. More recently it meant something to do with having been severely manic, jumping out of bed at 2:30am and gone totally crazy by eleven o'clock, coming down slightly in the evening then taking a sleeping pill which brought me down enough to think what was THAT all about??! Knowing I'd wake up yet again in the very early hours feeling pilled out of my head on Ecstasy, which I haven't touched in ten years, for the whole charade to start all over again. Of course THIS fuss was the Royal Wedding. They didn't even trumpet out the tune I'd been hoping for. It's a fanfare you'll have heard at Royal Events time over.

Well I have to go. I don't want not want drugs rehab anything. I wish I would just fucking drop dead. Not a hope in hell of that happening.

If I do die I want my family to exploit exploit exploit my crappo writings tying in as much as possible with my fortunate death. Get 'em published by Harper Collins or Transworld. Do not self publish or I shall COME BACK AND HAUNT YOU.

If only I lived in 60BC I'd probably be dead by now and happy already. Maybe I should stop collecting my money. Then my heirs could spend all that and I could starve to death. Best of all worlds. Good job antibiotics don't work any more. Means my chances of kicking the bucket are higher. If I was more... whatever I'd just go and live on the street again it was far easier. And in winter you can die. Best thing about homelessness in February was ice cold cyder 1st thing in the morning and chilled corned beef.

Well I have to run. Fucking awful crap on television. Dealer just got in touch. Heroin. Whoopee. You can't hear the unenthusiastic voice behind that. If I could think up more crap to say believe me I'd say it but I can't so I have to go. Hope your weekend is full of eggs and kittens in country baskets.

20:46 gear in system. Direct in right shin. Feeling 100% better. If only they could prescribe something that made me feel OK I'd have no need of banging up gear, But I do need to bang up gear; I need it. Best thing I've heard of so far is Lamactil aka lamotrigine it stabilizes you out of bipolar depressions better than bipolar mania and it's elevated mood and mania I could do with the most. As for "normality" ~ there aint a cat's chance in hell of my attaining that

Pet Mouse/Royal Wedding/Crazytalk

I HAVE A PET MOUSE. A wild one. It is called Tonkie Ears or Donkey Ears if you prefer. It has been making loud nibbling noises from under my fridge for over a month now, but I never saw anything until the other night when this tiny mouse-shaped shadow appeared, pinging back and forth. It kept freezing, sitting on its haunches with its ears up. Then it ran right up to my feet, but I got scared it would try and nibble my toes. This must've made my foot twitch ever so slightly and it scurried away ~ the swine! I've been leaving out chicken bones and crumbs for it.

Mice love chicken bones. I used to feed my robo-hammies with bones. They like the gristly bits on the ends. I had to use a lot of control not to eat these bits myself because I love them too. I also like eating fishbones from tinned fish. Yummm yumm. I probably need all the calcium for my rotten teeth.

I went to that horrible clinic appointment at 10am. Even though I was up early I was still late. I went in the post office with my heart in my mouth in case my card didn't work (it's split nearly in half, so it doesn't swipe, the magnetic strip is broken but the chip is fine; last time the woman said "give it here" then said "your card is broken" and didn't want to serve me but I insisted on putting it back in the machine and after 2 more attempts it worked.

Anyway I got £50 out and was so happy I could have cried. Now at least I had the option of calling my dealer.

I met a down and out at the main bus stop who said he had £100 and wanted me to score for him but I said I had an appointment and would come looking for him on the way back. We both knew this wouldn't happen. But I got on the bus all wound up over this because I could have given up my appointment, scored, wasted half a day, ran in the clinic just before they closed with a flimsy excuse. I'm not a terrible liar I just really hate doing it. The next day (today) is a bank holiday so I absolutely had to be at this clinic today also my script ran out so I didn't even have one pick-up left. Any mistake on that script and the chemist would have refused to serve me. That's why the appointment was at 10am so that I had time to get back to the clinic if the script was wrong. I got my worker to check the script carefully and he said it was fine.

He asked me how I was and I said I didn't feel very good blah blah I managed to change the subject on to the royal wedding. Guess what: my druggieworker was only ONE year old when Charles and Diana wed. I was about nine. I remember being in my Auntie Ann's house watching her enormous (for the day) Rediffusion television which had 4 buttons like cigarettes poking out and a coin box that took 50p pieces on a timer. 50p in that day was worth about £2 now so that's $3 a pop if you're American. For $3 you got about ten hours, maybe five hours' viewing. In those days TV only came on in the late morning and was off by about midnight. No breakfast TV. No late night TV. Only three channels.

My auntie Ann who wasn't a relative, she was my Nanny's next door neighbour, was ooing and aahing at the screen "aw look at Charlie!" etc. Then there was a street party. The entire road was closed off. We were in Windsor at the time (the wedding was at St Paul's cathedral in London) so we got in Annie's Mark 2 Cortina and went to see this massive bonfire in Windsor Great Park which is basically thousands of acres of Royal back garden at the Queen's weekend residence. I remember missing what was being billed as the most amazing firework display Britain had ever seen in order to do this. But we'd have only seen it on TV as that was held in central London over the Thames.

I wish Wills and Kate's wedding was today. I'm really in the mood for a royal wedding today. If you're reading this on foreign shores you have to understand this is a really big deal. It will be a national holiday and everywhere from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey (which is opposite the Houses of Parliament) will be closed off. So if you want to line the route you'd need to go into the park and go along that road that leads from Buckingham Palace to Parliament Square. This is the most picturesque part of London, far more beautiful than any area of Paris by the way, so it should look really good on television.

I'm glad Prince William finally popped the question at least and stopped dangling that poor girl on a string. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd agreed to this and talked it over three or more years ago and only made it public more recently.

Well that's it for today. I'm still sleeping for hours on end but the mood is more up than before. The gear I got yesterday was real rubbish and I got someone else to score that from me from yet another number that was already in my phone but who I don't actually know. This one's name is B, which is a strange thing to call yourself as a dealer as B means "brown" and brown here means heroin. Almost all our heroin comes from Afghanistan or Pakistan and it's brown heroin base.

I have £20 on me especially for scoring but I'm not sure I want to do it. If my number one dealer is back on I know he'll have something at least half decent. But I keep telling myself he'll be on next week and the week after and the week after that and if he's not someone else will, so I'll be able to chuck £20 away then.

All I've used today is 2 cups black coffee. I was hoping to hype myself up a bit as I require a manic episode in order to be happy. The manic euphoria was better than any drug I've ever tried and it had no side effects, except when it went so extreme I coudln't concentrate or focus at all, my thoughts raced into each other so fast they smashed apart into a garbled mess and I was constantly losing my temper even though I was sitting on my own. Just thinking about something was enough to make me lose it. I don't want to be like that, but the milder end of the spectrum feels really really nice and it's far superior to drugs. That is the feeling I want back. The feeling I had when I was obsessively DVD shopping. I had £150 in the bank as I'd not been taking drugs and I blew the lot on my DVD collection over 4 days. I was buying at least 10 films a day.

Well I'm going down to Sainsbury's to obtain roast chicken of the cold variety rather than freshly cooked. The cold stuff is higher in salt and glucose and pumped full of water. So it's lovely and industrial and I luuurve industrial food.

The only bit I hate about supermarkets is going through the till because I feel the staff are judging me. I can't keep myself together like a proper person would I look like I'm homeless. It's as much as I can do to wash/shower but my clothes are dirty, I have no clean ones. It's a real ordeal trying to sort out washing clothes etc. I got told this is symptoms of this "illness" I am meant to have because I never used to be like this before. Now I just can't handle doing things. Too many details all pressing me at once. Too much to deal with.

I did some research into schizoaffective disorder to see whether I really have it.

I have a mood disorder which is bipolar in type ie I get depressed which can last months and for years I used to have little flashes of something I suspected might be hypomania but wasn't really sure. The last thing I was going to do was fess up to a doctor and go and get the label "bipolar"* hung around my neck so I kept shtum about this. I never went full-on manic until last December and then my brain really was racing out of control. As well as this I've had psychotic symptoms which are hearing voices or having voices coming into my head "thought insertion" and also paranoia. Those are the main ones they started properly something like seven years ago but were really mild. They would come and go but they were bad enough that I remember having to keep stopping the bath running on more than one occasion because the sound of running water set off something that sounded like someone calling my name over and over and over. I never went full-on psychotic until last December and that lasted until some time in March. Now I'm depressed a bit still but not as depressed as before. But I never heard any voices during that depressive episode, which lasted more than a month. And I'd given up the antipsychotic because I thought it was making me feel flat and dull and wanted the chance of some mania back.

The only schizo thing that happened to me a few times was I'd be thinking of one thing eg "chicken" and another totally unrelated idea would stick to it eg "branches" so I'd have a weird confluence of ideas in my head: chicken that was like tree branches. It happened quite a few times. Sometimes I can't bear to say or think of a word because it has really weird associations for me (that it didn't have in the past) I think this is what they mean when they talk of "marked loosening of associations". I can't describe it any better than this.

Does anyone know anything about schizoaffective disorder; and do my symptoms match it? I've only given the main ones else I'd be detailing it all day.

I looked up a schizoaffective forum and found some really good stories that have a distinct similarity to mine in its more extreme stages.

I noticed looking between the lines that schizophrenics seem to have more trouble with "thought disorder" whereas schizoaffectives seem to get a really high incidence of visual hallucinations and illusions. I remember one time I was at nutter club and pretty manic the guy opposite me suddenly grew a purple face out of his neck and it stayed there for a minute then went away. You'd think something like that would be scary or disturbing but I was honestly too high to care. That's the thing about mental illness it doesn't add up logically the way youd assume it might.

*ps my diagnosis is "schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type" and it means i get symptoms of bipolar AND schizophrenia

Here are the links:

I really relate to this. I had feelings like this when I was manic, too:

http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Schizoaffective-Disorder/1146253

A schizoaffective story:

http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Schizoaffective-Disorder/1108308

This describes the entertainment hallucinations of schizoaffective disorder
(You have to see them as entertainment; otherwise you truly would go insane.)
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Schizoaffective-Disorder/1518298

Best psych meds site I have found:
http://www.crazymeds.com/

pps i found out the name of one of my more unusual "symptoms" that i still do today, it's called verbigeration and it means "meaningless repetition of words, phrases or sounds as a symptom of mental illness". I do it when I'm stressed or when my mind is racing so frantically from mania I can't hold on to anything else but single words or just bits of words and i repeat them over and over. I dont know why

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

TODAY IS HM THE QUEEN's Official Birthday...

... note the term "official"; Elizabeth II actually has two birthdays. Her actual date of birth was 21 April 1926, making her 84.

Her Official Birthday has no set date, but is ordinarily celebrated "on the first, second or third Saturday in June, though it is rarely the third," say the experts at Wikipedia.

As well as hosts of cards, bouquets (why would you send the Queen flowers, knowing they will more likely than not spend half an hour at the Palace before being sent on to a children's hospital?) and prezzies great and small from politicians, dignitaries, presidents and Kings, the today's highlight is the ceremony of Trooping the Colour; all soldiers in microphone-hats (bearskins) and Her Majesty riding side-saddle on her trusty steed Burmese. A stately display of pomp and splendour straight from the lid of a souvenir toffee-tin!

Highlights of the Queen's Birthday Honours include: actress Catherine Zeta Jones becomes a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British British Empire), she says it's "humbling and overwhelming" to receive such a distinction; Oscar-nominated actress Sophie Okonedo ~ who I don't like because she skulked into the shop I begged outside on a regular basis and never spared me so much as a glance, let alone a penny ~ gets a CBE too; a railway station announcer ~ MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) and a farmer who was awarded an MBE for "services to ploughing" ..(!)

WORLD CUP:
England v USA at Rustenberg. 7:30pm kickoff (London time) tonight.
(Not that, though I've yet to watch a game this year, I'm secretly following this in some underhand, mentally interesting unconscious-eyes-closed-type way ...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MA'AM!

84 GLORIOUS YEARS:
Commentary by the Queen herself ...
If you've ten minutes spare, this will provide educational, entertaining and highly informative coffee-time viewing...
Excerpts are from my Elizabeth R documentary. You can watch this in its entirety (about 2 hours) on my Fabulous Celebrity Blog!



TROOPING THE COLOUR:





BEN STILLER ~ ROBERT DENIRO ~ BARBRA STREISAND ALERT!
MEET THE F*CKERS IS ON BBC1 AT 21:30 HRS!
Having seen Meet the Parents, I wanted to see this sequel when it came out. But of course my local cinemas ran it for all of three days so I missed it. And every subsequent chance of seeing it. Till now...
To those of you not resident in the UK. Sorry.
Why not move here? Half of Mogadishu already has ...(!)

NOTE TO SELF:
GERMAN GRAMMAR LESSONS: BEGINNERS'/ADVANCED

Semitic Circles

MY MIND is running anticlockwise and in circles. Well anticlockwise is circles; ya know what I mean. I have been reading and writing backwards (practising Hebrew). And because I don't have recurrent phlegm problems, the pronunciation of this Semitic tongue doesn't come naturally either. Not a single word of the 100s I've encountered yet not really learned is even faintly familiar to a native speaker of English. (Except for אוניברסיטה (university) and סטודנטים (students).) E.g. I constantly confuse taxi and hotel. So the chances are I shall arrive at Tel Aviv airport with an original language Old Testament in my hand that I still can't read, step into the road ~ nearly get run over because foreigners drive on the wrong side ~ flag down a car and say "Are you a hotel? Take me to the nearest cab!" At least I know the word for driver ~ נהג nehag ~ so I'll be able to tell the hospital who ran me over.

I must apologize for three days' nonstop hamsters. Did you know there are about 20 species worldwide? So only 17 left to go! At one a day we'll be finished mid-September. (Joking!)

I am reading an "absorbing" tome about the Royal Family. It says Prince Philip has (or used to have when he was younger and more "dashing") discreet affairs from time to time, but HM the Queen didn't mind, as she prized loyalty above fidelity.

Unlike the late Princess Diana, who's portrayed as mentally unstable. Partially because she couldn't accept it was merely traditional for the Prince of Wales to have a mistress. She wanted Charles all to herself ~ crazy lady! Camilla Parker Bowles's great-grandmother Alice Keppel, incidentally, was mistress to Edward VII. His wife, Queen Alexandra, even allowed her to be present at the old and ailing King's dignified, nonmelodramatic and very royal deathbed scene.

The local Morrisons have restocked up on butterscotch Angel Delight and sold me a whole (and not budgie-sized, unlike Tesco's) hot roast chicken for £2. I couldn't help noticing the man in front of me at the till was paying £3.97 for one that was smaller and raw! So anyway I'm eating well. In fact if I eat any more chicken I'll grow feathers and start cooing. The day before my £2 find I had purchased a pair of enormous breasts for £2.80. I gave them a good rub-over with curry powder and cooking oil and slammed separately in the oven. One for 45 mins 200F preheated; the other for the same time and temp but from cold. Both times I left the fillets in the hot oven to cool. The first was a little overdone but the second luscious and absolutely perfect.

Now I must go, I've an appointment with a Linguaphone tape and some more "spring" cleaning ~ with only a couple of days till September this is getting rather urgent.

Also I must dash to the launderette. I've not a clean stitch to wear. I don't take my clothes off these days, I peel them.

Must dash. Cheery-bye and till tomorrow, y'all!

Over-Emotional (& Squabbly Gremlins)/State Visit

IT'S ALL CHAOS at Gledwood Towers. Laundretta's gran died at the weekend and Matran's been taken away by family troubles of his own. She bought me drinks yesterday. I supped too quickly and was soon drunk. Then I got all emotional too.

My gremlins have gone to their tartan bag as protection from Evilstein the landlord. I thought I was doing them a big favour by adding long clingfilm tubes and other bits and bobs into their realm.

In my exhaustion I fell into a profound slumber for several hours only to be disturbed by a distrought Laundretta phoning and then repeated honks and squeakings from my gremlins' trottery.

The tartan bag is now right in front of me (I'm writing this at the witching hour of the night but posting around 2:30pm) Spherical is cantering away on her wheel; Itchy pinging round and round and in and out of a tube in solitary confinement. Separate accommodation because I have just seen her mercilessly harrassing the others, especially Bashful with this kind of "wrestling bears" posture, and slapping at each other with paws (very girlie)... Obviously something inside her has snapped as perpetual bottom peck in the robo-hammy hierarchy.

I let her back in with the others. Straight away she is disturbing old momma Spherical and instant chaos descended. So it's back to the handbag box for her. (Well that's what I call it. A plastic box that holds about five litres, complete with handbag-style handle. It is vaguely the shape of an oversized fishtank-shaped handbag...) Scrabbling away. Jumping up and up and up again at the light. She can jump approximately 3 inches at best, which from a 2 inch hammy means a grown man jumping NINE FEET!

When I just told her she was "very naughty" she slunk into a nibbled up toilet tube. I don't know what to do. There can be no wars among the trotters. If she carries on being naughty she is going to have to live separately which is robo-misery as they're social creatures. So I don't know. I really don't know. More robo-reportage tomorrow.

*

And last but by no means least Britain has the most glamorous state visit for generations this morning. France's President Sarkozy and wife Carla Bruni (Mick Jagger's ex among many many many many MANY others...) are to enjoy a state banquet tonight at Windsor Castle... then tomorrow they have to suffer the rather more dour company of Gorden Brown and his missus at their pokey Downing Street apartment... woo!

Read The Sun's reportage:~
Prince Charles Kisses Carla's Hand here
France's First Lady Carla Furious Over Nude Photo Shock here...
Nicola Sarkozy Promises Boring 1000 Extra French Troops For Afghanistan here...

...

Poor Harry~!

POOR PRINCE HARRY! Ten weeks in Afghanistan, the news embargo broken by an American website... closest thing to normality he's had in his life, so he says (what a life, then!)... Now poor Harry has to fly home, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of his comrades who would be put in extra danger if the taliban thought that by blowing them up they might score an international news "victory" by getting him. How very sad, I feel for the poor boy. Born into the most famous family in the world: destined to a life of cossetted boredom that really doesn't suit his character...

ROBO-CHAOS. I cleaned them out this morning. (Changed their newspaper.) This caused a tubby horse-race type event with them scuttling round and round and round. Ever since I got rid of woodchips or shavings litter their fur (surprise surprise) has improved. Imagine if YOU had to live stark naked upto your waist in woodshavings. Sawdust in your hair. How comfortable would YOU be? Yet that's what we inflict on our small pets as per standard...

When I had Russian hamsters, which have the softest fur of any rodent (like chinchilla fur: and just like chinchillas they bathe in dust which means you'll see them inexplicably rolling around on the floor as if they have itchy backs.) I soon realized the wood-dust was doing them no good at all and changed their litter to cat litter. They improved immesurably in record time.

That is pretty much the only thing I did today. The day is cold. And dull. And rainy. And nasty. And thoroughly unpleasant. I went to bed in despair at about 10am and didn't get up till nearly three...

Outside it is raining. Lights are on everywhere despite it being mid-afternoon (no wonder we have such galopping "carbon footprints" our shops and offices are so poorly designed! Why not make USE of this flooding natural daylight? Instead of blanketing it out and then running the entire country on electricity 24/7?

I must go; I am cold. May the weekend come and go quickly or slowly. Whichever is best for you...

Research News: Heroin for Hamsters: Hamsters Tested With Self-Administering Steroid Patches To Test Addictive Potential of Drugs Commonly Abused in Sports

Blog of the Day:
Diary from Laos

(Laos along with Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam the ONE area of the world I've most wanted to visit... I wouldn't even dare go there without a massive supply of the opiate-blocker naltrexone ... imagine the consequences if I did not...?)

Resolutions!

DO YOU LIKE PRINCESS MARGARET (the late Princess Margaret) with her drink and fag? I was sure every other photo I'd find would have her with drink in one hand, cig in the other: that's how I remember her. Seems in actuality she was more discreet than that - as you can see the rum-&-Coke's been quickly stashed behind her and the fag put down in the bottom of the frame but not quite out of shot... Rumour even had it that Princess Margo's drunken dropped Dunhill that sparked the great Windsor Castle fire of 1992 though Buckingham Palace still vigorously denies this ...

Actually I am writing this on Sunday night the 30th of December. And I am all forlorn and lost-feeling and depressed. Hmmm. Also I've had the heating on and working so very successfully I am now sweltering...

Well, whatever: on to Resolutions.

I don't actually make New Year's resolutions these days, having always believed that just doing things, whatever the time of year is by far the best course of action. Also, January 1st is but an arbitrary date to me. I've always felt my personal New Year began around September - in line with the academic year.

Having said all that, here are some things I'd like to accomplish in 2008:

~ Finish Memoirs
~ Write Baying Gwendolina novel
~ Get 1000 hits a day on blog (as if - I think it would be easier to sell five million books and at least I'd get paid handsomely for that)
~ Learn to cook just like Chinese takeaway (and save £££s)
~ Move out of present craphole where I live (by choice; not eviction)
~ Cease all nonprescribed drugtaking and immoderate drinking
~ Give up smoking

If I manage just one of these I'll call it an achievement; all 7 and it's a genuine miracle!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008 EVERYONE!
MAY IT BE FAR BETTER THAN YUKKY OLD 2007!!

Aargh! I am sposed to finish here. And yet the emptiness is killing me. So here's a poem I really like. (From Shakespeare.)

Fear no more the heat of the sun
nor the furious winter's rages;
thou thy wordly task hast done,
home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great
thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
to thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physick must,
as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;
fear not slander, censure rash;
thou has finished joy and moan.
All lovers young, all lovers must
consign to thee and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee
nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee;
nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consumation have
and renownèd be thy grave.

Cymbeline 4:2:259-282


The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
he makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside the still waters.
He resores my soul;
he leads me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the prescence of my enemies;
you annoint my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house of God
for ever.

Psalm 23


R: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
J: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
which mannerly devotion shows in this;
for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
R: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
J: Aye, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
R: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
J: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
R: Then move not while my prayer's effect I take. - (they kiss; woo!)

from Romeo and Juliet 1:5:93-106...

After 3am

I KNOW WHAT my real Resolution should be: to have some respect for myself. Because some couple of years ago, feeling suicidal and yet unwilling, when it came to it, to actually perform the act. Though even the train drivers (well, one driver in particular somehow saw into my eyes at 90+ mph. I wasn't being stupid, either. Wasn't acting out or hanging off the edge of the platform.) He just saw my eyes and frantically waved his arms across each other as if to say "DON'T!"

Something else along those lines happened another time.

And I lost all respect formyself. Let everything go. RAtcheted up my beloved bank account, which allowed me a Visa debit card with holographic flying wings, right far past the max until the entire account was suspended on me. I had kept that card through thick and think and the pits of homelessness and addiction. It represented my future and a nominal place as a respectable member of society. I was the ONLY junkie I knew who'd managed to hold on to such a relic of past life. Most had never had Visa cards. Because, being fulltime junkies since 18 or even 16, they'd never had jobs or normal lives...

I used to cradle this Visa card in my hand, as I slouched on a damp mattress all alone by flickering candle light in a raindripping cavern of an abandoned industrial building. I would tilt the card and watch the birdie flying free.

While I lived out this subterranean life...

And every day, when I woke I felt like I was lying face-down on the pavement, banging my head on the ground. "This does not work. I cannot do this any more."

And so I hit rock bottom every day. And yet lived on.

FOR MY SINS.

***

Video of the Day:
Queens' Speeches Go International -
This one is the:
Dutch Queen's Speech!!

***

I was going to post lots more blarble but I've got Thai chicken babycorn egg fly lice wafting mysterious oriental aromas out of a plastic bag so I must go back and devour it!!

***

Meanwhile, New Year has kicked off in Australia, New Zealand and many South Sea Islands already. It's nine minutes to 5pm as I write... Japan to get it very soon... America and Canada, you are still late morning in New York and the eastern seaboard; not even 9am in Vancouver and LA...

I will not be able to get to everybody's pages in time to say this individually, so I'll say it again here:-

HAVE A MARVELLOUS 2008 EVERYBODY!!!

STOP PRESS ~ 19/01/10 ~ someone put the most disgusting picture on my hyperlink here. If you click on this you either get needle and candle or a starfish. (Clue: not sea variety...)