musicshare

Absolutely LOVE this track:

John O'Callaghan feat. Sarah Howells - Find Yourself

I discovered it on Gareth Emery's Podcast Episode 77

Drawn into the backdrop here
You could fade, you could fade away
Bright lights on a starless night
Then a hole in the dying day

Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you'll find...

You'll find yourself, you'll find yourself alone...

somnolence and anhedonia are just excuses

I honestly feel terrible; I am guilt-wracked. I have almost no money and yet I am stuck, frozen, unable to get out and do things that I have to. Nothing gives me pleasure, everything is reduced to basal needs that need to be filled: thirst, hunger, a need for rest and energy. I try. I try to occupy myself with activity, I try to get things done. Most of the time I fail. It is as if my body conjures up excuses for irresponsibility in the form of panic attacks and sicknesses and severe needs for bed-rest. It would be much easier if I didn't have to get out of the house. I usually get stuck at getting washed and dressed to go out. Or at the lack of money to cab around because I cannot take public transport most of the time. I just want to stay at home.

Obligations slide off me like water off plastic. I cannot logically process - and act on - the steps toward doing simple things like sending an SMS, paying a bill. Sending an SMS means: (1) finding my phone (2) reading the text I have to reply (3) thinking up of what I need to say in an appropriate manner (4) finding the person's number and (5) sending the text. After which I need to reply. Before which I need to get out of my chair and find the phone. The thought of having to do that in itself fills me with anxiety. Freeze. And I cannot move.

exercise 2 from "Writing For Your Life" by Deena Metzger

The Journal Transforms Itself into Poem, Story or Drama

Select one or a few of the images or phrases from your journal and make a poem of it:

• gnawing paralytic pain.
• a choked disused well filled with saltwater.
• a single-malt on the rocks.

alone in thoughts
aplenty; yet ceasing
as if unspeakable.
my mind a choked well

disused, covered -
never to be drawn from
as if dead, but alive.
my mind a choked well

barren of water,
flooded with salt
undrinkable,
my mind a choked well

filled with dread and
a gnawing paralytic pain
yet inexpressible
my mind a choked well

instead, my carcass
reacts summarily
in physical discomfort -

and pain -
served on the rocks,

as if I should enjoy it
like it was a single-malt
to be cherished

enjoy life
and all that is with it
even the saltwater -
undrinkable -
keeps us afloat.

exercise 1 from "Writing For Your Life" by Deena Metzger

The Journal as a Dialogue with the Self

Write anything for five minutes, it doesn't matter what. Write as if you are walking in an unknown woods, attentive to anything you might see, or poking at an indistinct mass wondering what it is, whether it is alive or dead, whether it will snarl suddenly, turn and bite. Keep writing.

Let the writing feel welcome. Keep writing. Don't look back. Don't edit. Don't think of what it might be, could be. Only welcome it. Make a place for it to be.


1:39 pm

The air next to the left of my desktop computer is filled with trails of blue-grey smoke from a cigarette. Putting it out, the smoke dissipates, and instead the room is now noticeably noisy from the vehicles outside my flat, probably also trailing the air with diesel fumes, but I can only hear them now. I hear them, and feel the heat from the afternoon. I am only wearing a sarong made from a shawl, wrapped up like a halter-neck dress. It still feels hot. I hear the fan whirring next to me but its breath kisses my skin as if I were not in it, so alien I feel from this body. A body that fails me yet and again. Constantly acting up in anxiety, freezing me in place and not allowing me to move to do the things I have to do, like fulfilling my teaching commitments.

today's activity log

Every activity of every one of my days requires effort more than should be necessary. There are some things I find myself unable to do, having to coax myself out of the stress of having to do something, and that itself takes up a lot of time.

So I am going to try and congratulate myself on small activities I manage to get myself to do. This is what I have done so far this morning:

Activity

This morning I managed to make myself a cup of coffee when I woke up.

Outcome

The coffee was nice and it took me less energy than it had for the past couple of days. I managed to make it without having to hesitate or lie in bed to psyche myself up for it. It came as second nature.

Activity

I made myself a simple lunch of eggs, ham and bread.

Outcome

It was nice and easy to make, I managed to do it without having to hesitate. But I still cannot bring myself to do the dishes nor clean up afterward. It seems so hard.

Here are the things I plan or need to do for the rest of today, and the stress and pleasure I perceive to gain from them.

Brushing my teeth
- Perceived stress 5/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10

Taking a shower, includes washing my hair
- Perceived stress 5/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10

Getting dressed, including skin care and make up
- Perceived stress 7/10
- Perceived pleasure 3/10

Teaching, includes packing bag, taking cab
- Perceived stress 10/10
- Perceived pleasure 5/10

Talking to my students and their parents
- Perceived stress 9/10
- Perceived pleasure 5/10

Hanging the laundry
- Perceived stress 10/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10


As of now, I feel quite so frozen in place I cannot bring myself to do these things. Even though I have to and time is running out. I don't know how I am going to get through this day successfully.

If I dislike most chick-lit, why then am I reading them?

If I end up with a successfully written book of chick-lit, I am usually immensely entertained by the lightness and frivolity of the genre. Chick-lit often examines issues close to a girl's heart: depression, relationships, family, friends, and career. It is also somewhat like a fashion magazine, talking about the places, food, drinks and clothes that we all want to enjoy.

I try to alternate my serious reading with chick-lit stories that lighten the mood - that is why I still insist on reading them. And I am still hoping to discover intelligent chick-lit.

what I have been up to

For some reason I have been rather busy. I now have to teach up to 5 days a week, sharing my time between 2 secondary students, and 2 families of children whom I teach art to. It has been exhausting.

Which is why apart from teaching, I have been resting. My stamina is horrendously low: a half day of teaching and I have to rest at least the next whole day. If it is a morning, I end up needing to sleep (or try to) for the rest of the day leading up to the next afternoon. I sometimes get so tired I can hardly make myself a cup of coffee.

Also, with our new kitten, there seems to be more to do. Sayang is very attention-seeking, and needs to be cuddled and played with often.

We got Sayang from the pet shop near our place, Angels Pet Shop. The owner Aswat found Sayang the kitten half-dead, sick, alone without her mother, near a coffeeshop in the area. He brought her back to his shop, and to the vet, and told us about her. Our hearts melted when we saw her, and took her home. We have been spending a lot of time at the pet shop after our nightly dinners downstairs, playing with the current batch of abandoned kittens he is trying to find homes for. There is another kitten exactly like Sayang, black and white, and still homeless.

We have also been doing what J calls our Ubi Kuching Project, taking walks around the neighbourhood, looking for cats to feed and play with. Most of the cats around the area are well taken care of, but we found one cat (a likely sibling of Slinky) we call Spotty, who was sick. Her eyes were swollen, and she was coughing and sneezing and listless. We took her home (much to the consternation of our two cats) and nursed her back to health before returning her to her spot downstairs the next day. Spotty is now much better. Doing these things keep us busy most nights.

Which means we haven't really been gaming. Being busy, tired, sick, and occupied with kittens and cats pretty much take up all my time and energy. I end up wanting to do extremely solitary and therapeutic things when I do have the time, like painting and reading. Or spending time with my cats. Or even watching tv! I have truly changed, I actually hate tv. Sayang on the other hand, seems intrigued by the tv; she often sits in front of the screen and watches it curiously.

For today, I will be nursing my flu (developed since yesterday morning), admiring my cats, reading, possibly painting, and having dinner and other neighbourhood activities in the evening with J.

about chick-lit and (other genres of) books

In general, I find chick-lit alluring but boring. Most of the time when I buy a book of chick-lit it disappoints. I recently bought Candace Bushnell's One Fifth Avenue; am now halfway through it and entirely bored. I am glad I waited for the smaller, post-new-release version of its paperback, and saved at least ten dollars, because it is not worth the money.

To date, my favourite chick-lit author is still Marian Keyes. I have also discovered Emily Giffin, and found her a good writer, if only a tad serious. All the other chick lit authoresses I have read to date are somewhat shallow and uninteresting. And I usually buy them one-off, meaning I hardly feel enticed to read their entire collection like I do Marian Keyes.

I like intelligent chick-lit. Unfortunately it is hard to come by.

I recently toyed with the idea of opening a bookshop in my neighbourhood. Alas rental on neighbourhood shop spaces is hugely expensive. For example, half a shop space costs nearly two thousand. The only thing I can possibly profit out of getting my own bookshop, is that I would save tons on books for my own reading. Not exactly a business idea.

I spend around $200 on books a month, thereabouts. Because I am a collector, the library does not have much appeal - I like seeing my shelves full of books. Which reminds me, I ought to go rearrange my shelves a bit, they are looking tardy...