Things I Found When I Was Sorting Out All The Crap In My House:

1. A previously unscanned photo [about three years old, judging by where I was working when it was taken];

2. A total of £1.73 down chairs, behind the bed, and – for some reason – behind the bog. [Which made me wonder if the tooth fairy has a sister - the turd fairy?]

3. The following note left for me one early morning by Butterfly eighteen months ago; a bitter-sweet feeling to find it, but also a proud one: warning – maybe TMI so click to read:

[with apologies to Pet that she usurped your title]

4. Lots of scraps of paper with random lists of things to do on them. I'm very good at making lists and very bad at actually doing the jobs on them.

5. The CD single of Internal Exile behind my computer desk:

6. Enlightenment.

[...no, not really.]

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In which we take another of our occasional peeks into Mr. Fish's out-tray and see what he has to say to the universe…

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Dear Citizens Of The USA:

May I wish you a happy "We-Got-Rid-Of-England" day.

I hope you will join me in also wishing for we Scots [including those of us in exile] to be able to celebrate a day just like this somewhere in the very near future.¹

Yours independently,

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Dear Bloke Next Door:

I'm glad you've seen fit to take advantage of the sunny afternoon to get all your power tools out and use them all at once. I'm only surprised you've that many arms.

Did you ever see "Home Improvement" starring Tim Notfunny? You know, that show which despite its seemingly innocuous content turned out to be all about Mr Allen using carpentry to try and make up for what he couldn't do with his dick?

Or maybe the constant vibration is the "Anal Intruder" you need to get it up.²

Either way, you see where this letter's going, and you can probably work out from it what I think of the din.

Yours Keep-The-Sodding-Noise-Down-Illy,

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Dear Butterfly:

It was lovely to bump into you today, and to be able to talk despite what was a very difficult break-up for us both.

I do sincerely mean it when I say that I'm glad that you're looking and doing well, and I have never wished you anything but happiness for yourself.

It is, however, just damn typical that on the occasion I do bump into you for the first time in some weeks, you happen to be wearing my favourite red shoes of yours…

Yours fetishistically,

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shoenotes:
1 This is not small-minded nationalism, but more – as the singer Fish once put it – kind of "hey, Dad, I'm grown-up now, you've got to let go."
2 A reference to the film "Top Secret". Unfortunately I couldn't find a clip of this bit; just go rent the movie instead. It's worth it.
3 Dear PC: Please don't crash on me again five seconds before I'm due to hit "publish". Or you'll find out why I was the psychiatric hospital staff team's star right-wingback….

This evening, two people who'd eight and a bit months ago decided that "they didn't know where they were going, but were on the same bus anyway" took different routes.

The reasons behind this and the explanation of how it occurred is long and torturous, and I don't want to inflict it all upon everybody.

But I think it's enough to say that some of the rollercoaster of the past month has been continuing uncertainty over the Project, and the decision I had to make was whether the uncertainty – and the presenting symptoms with it – were arising from or contributing to anxiety.

If it had been the former, I could justly be charged with "running away" from a relationship. I don't think that's what I've done. As best as I can call it, being in this relationship was something that isn't good for me right now, and the symptoms were my not wanting [for various reasons] to face that decision.

B's reaction to this was that she went into classic passive-aggressive mode: "That's fine." "Whatever you want." Although I left the door slightly ajar for further journeying in the future, my instinct right now is that it won't happen.

Which is painful for me, because I do care about her very deeply, but I also know that it would be further hurt for her if I were to cause myself further suffering for her.

Certainly although I feel like a right bastard right now, there's also a sense of relief. How it pans out from here is something that I don't particularly want to think about right now.

I just know that I want it to be on the surface, I don't want to have to suppress anything in the cause of the furtherance of the relationship right now. I've still got growing and sorting out to do, and I need the space to be able to do that. It's very sad that it's come to this point, but now it's here, it's become inevitable.

But seeing this as a new beginning is difficult right now…

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Tonight B. finally had her visit to the ear specialist – only to be told that her problems aren't ontological, but neurological.

This news is welcome in many ways since it provides her with a much clearer sense of what's going on than her GP's "oh, it's an ear infection"; she'll be seen by a specialist in Ips Hospital in 8 weeks ish.

In the meantime, she's been given a list of minor dietary and lifestyle changes to make which impact upon the condition: chief amongst these is giving up cheese.

I can't tell you how sorry I feel for her for that.

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Whilst we're being medical, there's much to be said about the reports all over today's newspapers: Anti-depressants "of little use" to most patients. However, most of it doesn't need to be aired here for a general audience.

The one point I do want to make is that little [clinical] use is not necessarily the same as no use: there's particular reasons for dividing clinical effect from experiential effect in this field.

My feeling and hunch about this is that over-prescription and mis-prescription of anti-D's, especially SSRIs and related drugs, is much more to blame for any uselessness of them rather than any particular problem of the drugs themselves.

The experience of the people I work with [as well as friends, bloggers and even myself] is that anti-D's become useful when trial and error is used to find the "right" one for the person. In a lot of cases the problem either recedes before that happens, or there is unwillingness on each side to spend the time and trouble messing about finding the one that "works" – has the best balance of positive effects whilst minimizing side-effects. So no wonder they seem of "little use".

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My own mood? Not too bad. Those of you who know what "futanari" means will understand why I'm enjoying it. Those of you who don't: trust me, you don't want to know.

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Cleaning Week

Kitchen, bathroom – done.
Bedroom – mostly done, just need to re-pile books and hide items which are none of my landlord's business.
Living area – still looks like downtown Baghdad.
Motivation and energy for further cleaning – none at all.

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I've been using "rollercoaster" as a metaphor for my moods, but perhaps it should be "see-saw". Yesterday I was feeling fine, ready for a day of chilling and other things slightly more energetic with B. – and then her ear starts playing up again, and it was her turn to just want to curl up and moan quietly until things improved.

Some good news though: her referral to an ENT specialist has come through. Back in the days where my sinuses were being looked at regularly¹, the waiting time was six months to a year. Her appointment is in a fortnight, with a doctor about whom brilliant things are said, apparently.

Incidentally, whilst surfing for the links above I came across this summary of a TV programme on synaesthesia: where senses blend so that, in the example given, one man gets the taste of earwax whenever he meets anybody called Derek. Does anyone remember this show?

I also remember a story about Andre Previn and the composer Messiaen: after a rehearsal of one piece, Previn asked "so how was that then?", and Messiaen replied "Not bad, just needs a little more orangey-green."

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Talking of B., the dreaded V-Day is upon us this week, so I'm having to keep my eye out for something to present to her on Thursday.

I had a quick look through the cards in the local shop – 5,000 "to my girlfriend", "to my wife", or "to my 'luvvy-duvvy sweetie-weetie'", and only one using our preferred terminology of "to my partner", which I snapped up.

I bet the woman who runs it thinks I'm gay now².

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 foot[fetish]notes:
1 "Various ENT specialists have, at different times, embarked on major speleological expeditions into my nasal passages but most of them have come back baffled. The ones that didn't come back baffled didn't come back at all and are therefore now part of the problem rather than part of the solution." [Douglas Adams, "The Nose", in The Salmon of Doubt]
2 I wouldn't have a problem with this if I weren't in a small town with all the cultural sensitivity of Jim Davidson.

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Things Today's Blog Will Not Contain:

- Me grouching about the state of my stomach, the state of the sky, or the state of the Zimbabwean economy.

- Anything bad about Zo, because she's one of the most wonderful people alive. [Yes, the parcel did arrive this morning ]

- A link to a hilarious site of stupidities people have typed on the BBC Have Your Say website, because the damn b3ta newsletter got there first;

- A picture of a woman dressed as Dorothy and tied up;

- What? You're all disappointed? …Okay, here you go then.

- Zilch concerning the thing that got stuck in my head all morning today, which questioned exactly what would happen if a busy working parent mixed up Calgon with Calpol? [At least it'd ensure the baby or toddler would be free of limescale.]

- There will be nothing at all about The Big Garden Birdwatch, because my folks are teetering on the brink of becoming unrepentant 'twitchers', and I bet they'll be spending the whole of this weekend peering out into their back garden.

- But above all, by order of memsahib B., I shall definitely not be blogging about what happened when daughter P. found our nipple clamps in the bedroom, nor about the explanation B. gave for this.

Although they did look really funny dangling from her fringe…