Four days to go!

Tired

A quick glance at some of the synonyms for "tired" reveals that there are lots of ways to say "I feel lacking in energy." I suspect it's a common human experience to be fatigued, worn out, whacked, flagging and bushed. It's certainly a common experience for me. I was reflecting the other day that I genuinely can't remember what it feels like to be refreshed, to feel not-weary. I wake up tired, spend the day in a state of tiredness and at some point in the evening am so tired that I can no longer do anything but go to bed. There isn't (I am fairly sure) any point of the day when, given some peace and a modicum of comfort, I couldn't easily fall asleep. I don't even need the peace and comfort - I've fallen asleep on a bus at 9 o'clock in the morning. So saying "I'm tired" doesn't really mean anything any more; it's as informative as "I'm breathing" or "I exist" - true, but generally able to be taken as read.

So when, as last night, I'm woken up at 2am by a vomiting child, how do I choose an appropriate synonym to describe my state at 10pm the following evening? I'm not sure that there's a single word or simple phrase that conveys the sensation of my head being both light and heavy, of my synapses being cotton-wool-balled to slowness; the effort of will to lift each leaden leg in turn up the stairs; eyes that burn until I close them and then burn until I open them; the disquiet of a noise that I can't hear distractingly invading my middle ear. Which word can convey the sense that there is so much to do, so much that will not be done, that tomorrow lurks only a few hours away with its own cargo of deeds and requirements and that sleep, sleep, no matter if it be brief or deep, will not, cannot hope to be enough?

Spring news

I've been in a kind of hibernation as far as writing anything for public consumption is concerned. It's not been the short winter days (though it is wonderful to see some sunshine again) but rather some of the murkier areas of my psyche that have slowed me down. The problem with ferreting around in your own soul is that some of the things that are unearthed become, well, preoccupying. I can't/won't write about them, but it's hard to write about anything else. I wonder if this is what newspaper editors have felt like over the past weeks - no matter how great your gossip and human interest stories are, Global Catastrophe pushes them off the front page every time.

You get what you give

I've been absent from online life for a while, barring the odd Facebook post. Last month I got so busy with the pantomime (review here) that I didn't have time to do any writing, and then... well, it was kind of hard to get back into it. There was always something else that I needed to do, and I wasn't sure that I had anything I wanted to say. Lots that I could have said, but not sure that I wanted to say it.

At the same time I had to miss church on a couple of Sundays (again, too much to do and only limited time to do it), and then because Rachel had extra dance lessons and Katrina was finishing up her dissertation I didn't get to small group on Tuesdays either. Unfortunately, with the exception of passing brief conversations at work, church and small group are my social world, so once I missed them I had cut down my contact with friends by about 95%. And at that point - because it was easy, because I was probably a bit stressed out and busy and a bit lonely, I started to succumb to self-pity. Why, I wondered, had nobody from small group phoned or emailed or sent a message via Facebook to see if I was OK? Sure, I'd said I wasn't going to be there for a few weeks, but surely someone would say "Have you heard from Steve?" and someone else would say "I'll give him a call during the week"? I began to wonder what would happen if I didn't go back. How long would it be before someone said something?

Thankfully all these maudlin and self-centred thoughts were stopped one day, when it occurred to me that I have never done for anyone else the things that I wished they would do for me. I don't call people, or send them messages, even if I KNOW that they're having a tough time. Sure, we don't have friends who drop by unexpectedly (well, none who are aged over 18), but I've never in the 12 years we've lived here gone round to someone's house uninvited just to say hello, see how they're doing, have a chat. I don't make any contact with people who I think of as my friends except when we get together for a common purpose on a Sunday morning or Tuesday evening; accusing anyone else of not making the effort is decidedly in the "throw the first stone" category.

Oh, and for anyone thinking that the title of this post seems familiar: New Radicals.

Decomposition

I recently buried Shadow, the last of our gerbils. He has joined the rest of the pets who have died in the last ten years or so, in his own spot in the garden. Digging a grave, even a gerbil-sized one, is a strange activity. Physically attacking the soil with the spade feels therapeutic when you're sad, but at the back of your mind is the knowledge that soon you'll be filling it in over a little body.
I can't help wondering at what point in prehistory people first formulated the idea that we are made of the same stuff as the ground. There must have been some point when the sum of human knowledge first contained the idea that if you leave a dead body long enough it turns into something that looks less like a body and more like the ground. I'm sure that there are paleoanthropologists who have theories about how this happened - did someone bury excess meat for safekeeping, like a dog with a bone, only to discover that it had changed when they went back to it? Or did dead members of the tribe get put in the same special place, so that there was an opportunity to see how the older bodies were different from the more recent ones?
It's frustrating that there is so much I know nothing about!

I know the heart of life is good

I was trying to think of a word to describe how I'm feeling - busy, too much to do, over-stressed, but yet feeling something that isn't exactly "everything for the best in this best of all possible worlds" optimism, but is a certainty that things are going to be OK. Then I remembered this song.

B&Q pricing scam

I went into B&Q yesterday to get some bits and pieces to reinforce the stairgate, which was no longer Oscar-proof. I was going to buy an enormous sheet of hardboard, because it was only a few pence more than a sheet about a third of the size, but then I realised I'd have nowhere to keep the offcuts, so I went on my way, muttering about how buying the smaller version of something makes it more expensive, etc, etc, looking for a roll of gaffer tape. Finding the right aisle, I was pleased to see that there was a plastic bin of "Value" tape. "Excellent," I thought, "I can save a bit of money after all."

But hang on, those Value rolls don't look as big as the standard tape on the shelf above. Let's have a closer look. Hmmm... the Value tape is 10 metres long. while B&Q's standard tape has 25 metres on the roll. "Let's see," I wondered, "How does that work out in pence per metre? Oh, wait - it's written on the price ticket."

That's right: the "Value" tape is 39.8p per metre, while the standard tape is 23.9p per metre.

So, B&Q, what's your definition of "Value"? Because I suspect that most of your customers think that it means "cheap" or "a better deal", not "actually more expensive". There is no way that a roll of tape that is both shorter and costs more per metre can be described as a "value" product, and putting an orange and white "B&Q Value" label on it does not make it so; this is either a mistake or a deliberate attempt to mislead in the interest of profit.

Showstopper

If you've not already done so, start listening to Showstopper on BBC Radio 4, 6.30pm Wednesdays. It's a half an hour show, during which a group of incredibly talented singer/actor/comedians improvise an entire musical, using suggestions from the audience. It sounds bizarre, but it's the most addictively funny thing I've heard in a long time.

You can also hear it on iPlayer.

Sabbath

I seem to be getting into a habit of writing these blog posts on the bus to work - hence the lack of links or pictures - basically because it's free time with an internet connection. The fact that I don't seem to have time during the rest of the day struck me particularly this morning, because I was already thinking about Sabbath.
My Bible reading this morning was the passage in Exodus containing the 10 Commandments. Now it doesn't matter if you think that the 10 Commandments are the actual words of God, or if you think they're a Bronze Age social code with a tag saying 'And by the way God says this, so you'd better do as you're told'; the point is the same: a day of rest is not recommended, but mandated.
I don't keep this commandment. Over the years I've broken them all except for one, but right now the issue for me is that I don't have sanctioned, agreed, planned-for downtime. Instead what I have is a never-ending to-do list, and hours or days when I think 'I'm too tired, I can't be bothered, I've had enough of this,' and I then do what should be leisure activities while feeling guilty for wasting time.
Of course this isn't good, and I know I should make a change, give myself permission to chill out, even plan a deliberate Sabbath, but the truth is that even thinking about it makes me begin to panic that I have too much to do and not enough time. Planned rest may be such a good idea that ancient societies (or even God) said we should do it, but there are too many things I've got to get done.

Finding faults

I had my first lesson yesterday for my Part 2 exam, the second stage in becoming a driving instructor. I'm hopefully going to be taking my Part 1 (Theory) in the next couple of weeks, but I have to have 18 hours instruction before my Part 2, so the lessons need to start now. I'd been thinking about how I drive over the last couple of months, trying to spot and eliminate bad habits, but it turned out yesterday that my main driving fault is one I wasn't even aware I had. I change gear too soon, even changing up as I steer round corners. Not necessarily life-threatening, but enough to fail my test.
It did make me think, though, about my other faults, in other areas of my life. I can list lots of things about me that need working on - some urgently - but there must be some faults of which I an completely unaware. Which is why I need genuine friends, who will point out the problems I hadn't noticed - and why I'm not being much of a friend if I won't do the same for them.

Is it just me, or is this a bit creepy? (Potato smiles)

Essential historical metaphor no. 43

Genuine dinner-table conversation:
My son: Are there any European countries that haven't kicked the Jews out?
Me: Probably not, at some point in history
My son: So Europe is basically musical chairs for the Jews?
Me: Erm... Yes.

Book review: Pistache by Sebastian Faulks

Over the last couple of nights I've read "Pistache" by Sebastian Faulks, which is, according to the cover "A collection of fanciful, satirical and surprising parodies, squibs and pastiches inspired by The Write Stuff on Radio 4." It may help to know that this description is written in a whole variety of fonts and sizes, with intermittent capitalisation. You may also have realised by now that "Pistache" is a simple anagram of "Pastiche." If not, then the back cover explains that it's a combination of pastiche and piss-take. If that gets you rolling on the floor laughing, then this book is for you. As for me, it didn't, and I'm afraid it's not.

Essentially a drawn-out variation on the theme of "What if one author with a distinctive style had written another author's work?" this is the kind of clever humour that knows it's clever, that enjoys being clever, that wants to tell you every other moment just how clever it really is. So we have pieces in the style of Kingsley (and Martin) Amis, D H  Lawrence, John Betjeman, Richmal Crompton and many others. And most of them are recognisable, especially since there's a helpful title on each piece, telling you who it's supposed to be. Some are amusing: Dan Brown (always an easy target) visiting the cash dispenser made me wince and smile at the same time; some are clever ("Kubla Khan" rewritten as an account of building a conservatory) and some are... well, you can see what he's getting at, but is "American Psycho" written by Jane Austen really, as the front cover quote from the Sunday Telegraph puts it, "unforgivably witty?"

If your idea of fun is to have a really clever person tell you clever jokes about cleverness, buy this book. Unfortunately I'll have to disagree (yet again) with the Telegraph: "Pistache" as a whole is, I'm afraid, forgivably unwitty.

Weirdest warning ever

OK, so this is a picture of the packet of Tesco cotton buds in our bathroom. There are some warnings on the side, saying that plastic bags can be dangerous, etc. There are also some storage instructions. The first one says "Store in a dry place." Fair enough, I suppose. You don't want damp cotton buds. But look closely at the next one.

It says "Keep away from light."

Yes, "Keep away from light."

Maybe I've missed something here, but I really don't understand why Tesco's cotton buds should be kept in the dark, or what might happen to them should they accidentally be bombarded with photons. Short of adding "Do not feed after midnight," it's hard to see how this could get any stranger.

All work and no play (well, panto)

The last couple of nights I've woken up worrying about the panto - nothing major going wrong, but I'm very aware that there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that needs to happen, and that it's down to me to make sure it does. Unfortunately at the moment I seem to be pretty bad at prioritising my time, so that I never get past the 'Urgent do it NOW' stuff that keeps the household running, and the 'Important do it soon' stuff gets put off again and again and again...

Today is the second day of the rest of your life

It's so easy to make a new start. All you have to do is wake up in the morning and say "Today is going to be different"; meet someone inspiring and think "I want to be just like them"; read a book that changes your life and resolve "I will take the first step"; wake up in the gutter and decide "Never again." Starting a new life is easy. Continuing a new life, now that's hard.

How long does the energy last? How long will shame or ambition motivate you? How do you make that change stick? How long before the gutter calls you back? It could be days or weeks or months or hours, but there has to be a second step after the first, and that can be really tough.

It's inspiring, deciding to change. There's a buzz about it. Fresh from that book or conversation or personal moment of clarity, life seems new, everything is possible. But on the second day, in second week, month, hour, it's not so new any more. Doing the new thing is... getting kind of the same.

If this was a different kind of blog, there'd be a list to follow of the top five points to get through the second day. There'd be helpful links to my ebook "Making Change Stick" (order now and get 25% discount). There'd at least be an inspiring personal story. This is not that kind of blog - sorry about that - so you just get the questions, without the easy resolution. Maybe another day. Or not.

Blogging when tired

Was halfway through a blog post while on the bus home but was warm and tired and started to fall asleep; hit the wrong button on my phone and lost the lot. Meh.

There ought to be a word...

...for the sensation of only having drunk half a cup of tea or coffee because you got interrupted or distracted. It's not thirst or regret or annoyance; it's a whisper emotion of being almost indefinably half a cup short.

Epiphany

Today, 6th January, is the day when we celebrate Epiphany: the visit of the Magi to Jesus. It's also traditionally the day when we take down Christmas decorations. It's the end of Christmastide, and the beginning (depending on your tradition - if you're a Christian) either of Ordinary Time or of the season of Epiphany. It tends, however, to feel much more like an end than a beginning. The Christmas lights are turned off; the baubles put away; the tree goes either back in the attic or to be chopped up for composting. The house feels feels bigger and emptier and somehow much more bare than it did before Christmas. And Ordinary Time (which comes from the same Latin root as "ordinal" - the numbers like first, second, third) feels like just counting off the weeks and, well, ordinary. In some traditions the Christmas crib is left for a while longer, and figures of three kings with gold, frankincense and myrrh are placed next to the infant Jesus. But that's the end of the Christmas story - bar the slaughter of the innocents (which is another story that never seems to make it into children's Bibles).

Why does this feel so much like an ending? In the early years of Christianity, as it spread, it made good sense to co-opt existing festivals. As people who celebrated a mid-winter festival became Christians, it was helpful to be able to say "You already know that in the middle of winter, something amazing happens: the days begin to get longer again. You talk about this using the language of birth, of newness. The Good News is that you're right! What you've been grasping at is the truth, that Jesus was born, and that the midwinter of your sin and shame is melting away." But this was part of a cycle (you just wait until the Spring of Resurrection), whereas now I think that we tend to see our festivals as discrete parcels of time. Never mind that in consumer culture the bulk of the festival happens before the event, rather than after; too many centuries of clocks have made us not very good at thinking of continuous time. We forget that the events we celebrate: births and birthdays, achievements, victories and memorials, are milestones, not destinations. They mark where we are on a journey; they're not an end in themselves, which we then reluctantly abandon to move on to the next distant target.

So I hope that Epiphany, for you and for me, is not the start of something, but the continuation of something. The Magi brought gifts which referred to Jesus' adult roles as king, priest and sacrifice. They were, in fact, for life, not just for Christmas. I hope your Christmas has been good. But I also hope that it is the kind which leads to many days of Ordinary goodness.

Exciting

I'm writing this on the bus to work (Marks and Spencer have given me another contract - until March) because I've just posted a Facebook status about being happy to be alive and I wanted to elaborate on that a bit. It may be to with having followed a link that a friend sent me about jobs for writers, and thinking of maybe sending off a CV, but I think that that sort of optimism is another symptom, just like sitting on the bus feeling happynervous at the thought of experiencing 5th January 2011 for the first and only time.

Yesterday I was thinking about dipping one's toe into life, rather than diving in and becoming submerged, and thinking that I have to get fully immersed, fully alive, as a matter of urgency. It occurs to me that a good description of how I feel this morning would be the sensation of standing on the edge of the pool, having decided to jump - that delicious mix of agency and dread: this may not be entirely wise, safe and comfortable, but it is deliberate - and it might even be fun.