Light Relief (I Think)

Random snippets from my private journals:

(1) On our duckpond walk, I said to Mum something about people leaving personal memorials in beauty spots — sometimes there are so many they have to be removed. Mum said “the world is full of strange people.” I thought a bit and said, “I have a theory that people feel they can’t talk about things, and so they break out in these odd little ways. Like leaving memorials.”
“Yes,” said Mum, and kept walking.

(2) Found a large bruise on my right foot and, as I couldn’t think how it had got there, I was getting worried. Suddenly remembered I dropped an Ottobot on it last night.

(3) Dreamed I was in the office and approached my 3-tier in/out trays. My soft toys round it had cobwebs on their noses, and there were webs covering the trays. Peering past them without touching, I saw two monster bees hovering inside. I told my boss, who rolled her eyes. Next time I went into the room, I found everything except the furniture had been moved out. Even the in/out trays and bees were gone. My soft toys were in a swing bin near the door — they didn’t want new monster bees being propagated. But the toys looked clean enough to me and I happened to be fond of them, so I put them in my bag to take home. One of the other women in the office walked past me, talking to someone else. I heard her say disparagingly, “I didn’t think the bees were THAT big!” I thought to myself “but they were absolute monsters. Weren’t they?” And though I remembered them as being outsized, I was struck by self-doubt.

Something Thick This Way Comes

Today I was horrified to come home and find that my cat Samson had left muddy pawprints all round the toilet seat and down into the bowl… where he’s probably been drinking. I thought he had grown out of that by now, especially with his lovely cat fountain downstairs!

I warned Mum, and tonight there was a graphic toilet cleaner commercial. “We should make Samson watch this,” I said. The commercial was subtitled, and it zoomed in on a couple of germs inside the toilet bowl. One germ said “hey look, something incredibly thick is approaching!”

“In our house it wouldn’t be the bleach he was referring to,” I said, glaring at Samson.

Mum laughed and said “that germ was Tony Robinson.”
I opened and shut my mouth a few times, then said, “oh, you could recognize the voices?” (This skill in others always takes me by surprise!) Then I began to understand something about the expression he used. “Was he being Baldrick from Blackadder? That whole thing was a kind of Blackadder scene? Who was the other germ?”

Another thing that takes me by surprise is when people praise actors for their roles in animated films… I think “who? Eddie Murphy was in Shrek? But Donkey is Donkey!” So much washes over my head.

Doubting Oneself

Another blogger said recently we must write for ourselves, not other people — and I’ve been trying to use that thought to get my blog running a bit more smoothly. I’ve been re-reading things I’ve written and doubting them, just as I create pictures and doubt them. The difference is that I look again at the pictures a few days later, and doubt my doubt — but, somehow, once I’ve decided I don’t like what I’ve written, I never find my way back to liking it again.

I’d rather my blog was about sugar and spice and all things nice, but sometimes find myself returning to what I’m really thinking about. Even when writing what I want to write, maybe I have it too much in mind that I’m writing for other people. I want to make certain points, and drag them in by the hair of their heads.

When I read over my private journal, though, I’m more frank about things there than I am here, yet it sounds warm. In my blog I have been trying to strip away emotion, and just end up sounding cold. Also, if I’m writing about one heavy topic per post rather than flitting from issue to issue, it doesn’t have the ‘butterfly effect’ to soften it!

Gah.

Hey look, red flower over there.

Bond Cats

Another blogger said a couple of times how, when he feels really strongly about something, he can’t bring himself to speak. It reminded me of when I was saying to Mum how Samson was ‘Octopussy’ because he’s my eighth cat. I opened my mouth to add “Sharky was 007″ and the words refused to come out! I only meant it for a joke, but when you know those cats so well and are so fond of them — it’s not funny at all. They’re all special to me, but especially 007.

I miss him.

I wonder what Delilah is, though…. the 9th Bond girl, perhaps! Who was she?

Just for fun, I typed ‘ninth Bond girl’ into Google, and it said there was no such thing. It kept mentioning Olga Kurylenko, though, and said she was in something new called The Eagle of the Ninth… also in the Bond film Quantum of Solace (which I’ve not seen yet). I wondered what she looked like and clicked on ‘images’, and found myself faced with ranks of bikini-clad photos. “Oops,” I thought, “I better get off this page as I don’t know what Mum will think!”

I switched to a Wikipedia page about Olga, and there was a mug shot of her there. Her eyes are like Delilah’s, perhaps… all cats have beautiful eyes, but Delilah’s are stunning. She knows it, and does that innocent ‘Puss in Boots’ sort of stare (from Shrek) when she’s trying to make you fall under her spell.

Mum came out from her bath, saw the head shot on the Wikipedia page, and toddled over rapidly. “Who’s that?”

“It’s a Bond girl called Olga — I was wondering who she was. She was in Quantum of Solace.“

“Oh,” said Mum. “From where I was standing, I thought it was you!”

Ahhh, mothers.

Deafness and Depression

I found this discussion on the BBC Ouch! forum about deafness and depression; I particularly liked the messages from Number 23 onwards. And Message 27 is depressing!! Black comedy, if you like.

Things are said there that I’ve thought a lot myself over the years. Even on the internet it’s so obvious that therapists’ advice is geared towards those without disabilities and communication issues. When I saw a cognitive behavioural therapist years ago, I really felt we were not on the same wavelength. She was trying to persuade me nothing was as black as I was painting it in my mind, and I was wondering how black couldn’t be black, and if she even knew what the picture was.

I asked her once if she thought that maybe my anxiety and ‘panic disorder’ (which she’d diagnosed it as at the time) was caused by my deafness, and she said “oh, I don’t know!” in a tone that seemed to say, “well, perhaps, but you don’t have to be deaf to have issues, and let’s not get into that anyway!”

I found myself thinking of that exchange much later, when I read that cognitive behavioural therapists are trained to guide their clients away from the probable causes… we’re supposed to focus on changing our behaviour and the way we look at things. How it all happened in the first place is apparently irrelevant (and, I grant, often impossible to untangle anyway).

I said to Mum recently that a therapist would advise one to go into a difficult situation with the intention of proving that yes, one can handle it perfectly well… but it’s not so simple when that you are deaf and have poor speech, and have to go through the wringer merely to get fish and chips from the local takeaway. Generally you prove to yourself all over again that any two year old could do it better and faster. I don’t see how the fact that one is deaf can be ignored.

Some of those taking part in the discussion thread say that of course we have these anxiety or depression issues — we’re all of us being shaped to fit in that round hole, whether or not we’re round.

Subtitle Grumble

Answered the Soulless TV comments (see my last blog post).

I don’t like snooker but Mum tends to have it on TV. Was idly watching the subtitles… one of the  players was looking very tense, and the commentators said:

“He has a tendency to torture himself.”

“Yes, he puts himself through the Windmill.”

I said to Mum “did they really say that, or was it just the subtitler falling asleep?”

“What? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention.”

After that, every time I saw that same player with his tightly knitted brow, I couldn’t help thinking “there he goes, putting himself through the Windmill again!”

We are trying to watch The Darling Buds of May for old times’ sake, and I say ‘trying’ because every other time we try to watch it, the subtitles are off by a big way. It’d be like this:

Charlie: “Oh what a lovely day!” (Nothing appears on the subtitles).

Mariette: “I thought we could just bask out here in the sun.” (Subtitles: “Perfick!”)

Charlie: “Actually I was wondering if we could…” (Subtitles: “What’s so funny, Ma?”)

Mariette: “Oh Charlie! I just want to lie here in the sun.” (Subtitles: “Nothing, I was just…”)

Eventually you catch up with the bit that’s already been subtitled, but it’s annoying watching. I mean, you expect there might be glitches once in a while, but not every other episode. Then there are loads of commercials that go on for ages, and I seem to remember reading that this channel (or some channel) said they find it hard to get the subtitles spot on because of the ads. Varying length, perhaps.

Mum thinks I should write and complain, but you would think they would already know that there is a problem, and it has to be sorted out. Why do we have to complain about something that should be obvious? Hmm.

Edit: The channel says they rely on the commercials for their funds, and have to edit programmes in order to fit the ads in. That’s possibly why the subtitles go bad.

Soulless TV

Happy Halloween!

Hope you have all enjoyed your day. We paid Halloween more attention than usual… decorated a little bit, wore something colourful (but not spooky or dressy), and had a family Halloween dinner. We have a ceramic pumpkin from Aldi’s, in which we burned cinnamon and orange tealights. We had no guisers and are having to eat all the sweets ourselves. That’s why I suggested Mum get monkey nuts and apples, but it went in one ear and out the other.

TV was kind of boring… Harry Potter was on, but it was the dull, dark one where the Ministry of Magic takes over Hogwarts. Hermione in the book is one thing, but I never liked the one in the film. Mum said she’s never been keen on either her or Harry, but we both like Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint). While watching, I kept considering the words of a friend who has noticed a particular trend in books and films… people get what is considered their just deserts, no matter who else is hurt along the way.

If we take Harry Potter…. we don’t want Voldemort to win, but, as far as I could make out from the film (not having read the book), Harry is supposed to have looked into his mind and understands something about the way Voldemort thinks. And, I suppose, he’s strong enough to reject Voldemort’s way of thinking, otherwise he would become like Voldemort himself. At one point he tells Voldemort something like: “You will never have any friends or love. And I feel sorry for you.”

I’ve seen that kind of comment before, coming from the good guy and directed at the bad one… but it has never struck me as “I really am sorry for you”… but more as “you’re a bad guy to think that way, and you deserve to be lonely. We will leave you to your misery, and be happy that things have worked out better for us.”

When I was younger, I was totally on board with evil getting his just deserts, but I’m increasingly uncomfortable with these stories… both old and new. I don’t want evil to win, or the (relatively) innocent to lose, but in some stories it seems that even marginally weak characters end up with some quite nasty things happening to them. “Well, he wasn’t worth that much to us; it doesn’t matter if the dinosaur eats him! Serves him right for spilling Hero’s coffee and then giving him the wrong change.”

Of course, it’s the story itself that is ruthless. Probably Hero stands helplessly out of reach, watching with sadness… and then he shrugs, and turns away, and gets on with saving the people he actually cares about, including some cross and outspoken female. But it still means the audience is supposed to take satisfaction from the fact that Mean Coffee Man is getting paid back for having got out of the wrong side of bed that morning.

Another thing I’ve observed is that strong and decisive qualities triumph in films, whereas gentler, more anxious souls tend to be treated with contempt. Particularly so in women. Even nicer women turn out to have a soul of steel or a black belt in judo! Or they’re being heralded as some mother protecting her children, in the face of whose fury any childless person (male or female) is as nothing.

Hmm…  me not relating, right at the moment.

Bally Times

Was looking at a rack of Halloween costumes today, and found:

Luscious Lady Bug
Fairy Tale Princess
Cleopatra

Eh?? Strange Halloween selection, but it all points at the fact that it’s an evolving holiday.

It seems to be on our minds a lot… Mum pointed out some shiny black curtains, and I said “Halloween curtains!” Then we went into another shop and found some plain black gift paper and Mum said “Halloween paper!” Then we went to Starbucks and had cold mocha and cold cappuccinos (they weren’t supposed to be cold).

Anyway, the thing that made me sit up today: Wooster (in ‘Jeeves and Wooster’) proclaiming “The bally balliness of life makes everything so bally bally.”

Halloween Elements

I have to confess the reason I started thinking more closely about what makes a Halloween scene or image was that I made a desktop wallpaper for the Halloween part of a site — it was promptly booted out into a more general category.

Oooops. Part of me really hates that…. being wrong, and having to be corrected. It hurts my pride. But it got me thinking about the traditional and not so traditional elements of Halloween.

I’ve been looking in the shops at Halloween window displays, and at the Halloween paraphernalia they have on sale. In previous years I didn’t care two hoots… but last year I looked at the desktop wallpapers on deviantArt after Halloween was already over, and got angry with myself for missing the whole thing! I always rather wanted to make a Halloween wallpaper, and there were some good and imaginative ones.

Anyway, the following were in the Halloween displays of local shops in the UK:

Strictly traditional elements:
Witches, broomsticks, witches’ hats, cauldrons, black cats;
Ghosts, ghouls, ectoplasm;
Vampires;
Skeletons, skulls;
Tombs, tombstones, fangs;
Spiders, cobwebs;
Bats, full moons, spooky trees, haunted houses;
Carved pumpkins.

Traditional but less common:
Carved turnips… actually none of these were in local shop displays.

Acceptable but slightly less traditional elements:
Owls, rats, toads, cockroaches, toadstools;
Zombies, mummies, monsters in general, gibbets.

Elements I’ve seen included, but not especially traditional:
Poison bottles, old bottles with melted wax;
Snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, scorpions;
Aliens, Chewbacca, gremlins, Furbies.

General decorations:
Glow sticks;
Uncarved pumpkins, autumn foliage and flowers, conkers.

Not quite sure how to categorize the following! Probably ‘daring’?:
Weaponry, shackles and irons, dungeon signs, torture implements;
Body parts, blood, eyeballs, violent maniacs;
Pirates, highway men, mad scientists.

Things you would think would be included but weren’t (perhaps out of some basic Scottish unease):
Horned devils, dragons.

Presumably body parts and suchlike are there to symbolize those who have died violently… who are now wandering spirits having their last night of fun. But I was disturbed by the presence of a masked maniac who had costumes in some of the local shops. Who is Freddie with the boiler room? Do I really want to know?

Spiders aren’t ghosts, so why are they so traditional? Why are they more Halloweeny than snakes? Actually, I had this question answered only yesterday, when Mum said it’s a good job she’s not afraid of spiders. There she was, driving along, and a spider suddenly jumped on her. Then tonight I opened the kitchen door and looked out, and there were silvery spider webs on both corners, with the black night sky as their backdrop. This is a very spidery time of year, I guess… whereas presumably snakes are a bit past their best! (I don’t actually know that; it’s a stab in the dark!)

Anyway…. would you say a row of living, glowing test tubes was suitable Halloween fodder, or a bit borderline? It occurred to me to type in ‘Halloween test tubes’ and a surprising number of hits showed up. They’re all tied in with the mad scientist idea. I was saying to Mum “look at the glow sticks; they’re like my test tubes,” and today I found somebody out there asking if you could put the contents of glow sticks into test tubes for Halloween decorations, or would that be dangerous? (Answer: very probably).

And perhaps the real answer is that Halloween is still evolving in people’s minds.

Halloween Test Tubers

What is Halloween About to You?

Trying to figure this out… what Halloween is about? Is it always pumpkins, witches, bats and ghouls, or is there something more? Can it be about anything surreal or spooky? Provided there’s a big moon in an image, or a black cat, is it Halloween? If there’s no big moon, does it stop being Halloween?

I’ve been looking around the internet, and so far I’ve seen the following perceptions:

If it’s a scary face on anything except a pumpkin, it’s not Halloween.

It’s a holiday of the imagination.

It’s a bridge between the spiritual and the physical world.

It’s about dressing up and having fun.

It’s about ghosts having a last-night fling.

It’s about stealing sweets from kids.

It’s about everything negative, scary and evil.

I think I’m going for a lie-down — I’ve had too much coffee.

The Halloween category at deviantArt.