Aw Diddums

Time flies, and I regret nothing.

A black-haired lad from my past. We met at a wedding.

It happened the way it did because it had to, and we still share certain memories. I wonder if he remembers the same things.

I regret if I ever said or did anything to hurt… though for a long time I didn’t know what else I could have done.

Last night I solved a mystery. I’ve blogged about tinnitus, and how it often takes the form of music, or seems to. I’ve seen it referred to as musical ear syndrome, which I quite like. It often dogs people with hearing loss.

Mine are not completely random… right now it’s a tune I’ve experienced repeatedly over the years. Not all the time, or every night; I mean ‘now and then,’ maybe once every couple of months.

I never understood where this tune came from, or why it should be one that returns frequently. I speculated that it matches noises in the house… bearing in mind that I’ve experienced this particular tune in my old house as well. It’s not specific to one building.

Last night (breakthrough!) I matched it to a song. I’ve not been playing any tapes, CDs or video clips. It wasn’t on TV. I haven’t seen the singer mentioned anywhere, or the song… but now I can almost hear him singing it in the background, and it definitely matches the MES tune I’m getting. Having seen the title of this post, you’ll already have twigged… it’s In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins.

The black-haired lad had a Phil Collins tape in his car. Once we were on a motorway at night, headlights all around. We sat in companionable silence, not talking, and In the Air Tonight came on. Of all the fleeting moments that come and go… we remember a few for the rest of our lives for their magical quality and significance.

When In the Air Tonight is playing, I think of him. He’s a ‘what if’; a fork in the path I turned away from.

Well I remember, I remember don’t worry
How could I ever forget, it’s the first time, the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you don’t fool me
The hurt doesn’t show; but the pain still grows
It’s no stranger to you or me

And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord…

Shu’s ‘10 random facts about me‘ meme… another opportunity for me to haver.

(1) I paused to think what random 10 facts I could come up with, and Mum popped up behind me and said I only have 10 minutes; we’re going out to feed some cats in town. (Are we STILL feeding those cats? Feels like they’ve been on the agenda all summer).

(2) If I have to wash dishes by hand, I clean between fork prongs and wipe round the rims of glasses, cups and mugs. Would that claim me back any points towards being a brilliant 1930s housewife?

(3) Not only does Mum not do my laundry now that I’ve moved back in, I hog it all to myself. She comes and says “I’m putting on a wash, do you have anything to go in?” and I always say ‘no’. I say to her “please don’t do any of mine; I will do it,” and she sneaks into my room and washes my stuff anyway – for example, a load of my pale pinks along with a rusty red-brown skirt.

(4) It was as round as a ping pong ball but not as big… the baby wren who perched on the wall beside Mum. It was so tiny, fluffy and pretty that we stopped to stare. It hopped up to Mum’s window and stared interestedly into the car, so we shut our doors and drove away.

(5) The rain is spitting down out there. I went to clean a cat litter tray, and the drops were thudding coldly onto my back. That was a bit too much, so I hurried back into the kitchen, abandoning the tray. Samson was out there with me, and when I turned to watch, he looked around oddly, shuddered, and ran for the kitchen. He was running so fast he skidded on the kitchen floor and fell over.

(6) I’m just like Shu in her 10th point… terrible procrastinator, often a bit late, hating to be told what to do. When I’m about to do something, and someone says “do…” (whatever it was I was already going to do), I feel like turning round and not doing it, just to prove I wasn’t doing it only because they told me to. I think Shu’s word ‘bloody-minded’ is spot on.

(7) To balance that out a bit, I adore praise. If I do something and somebody else says “atta girl” or something of the kind, I purr like a kitten. I mean, some people would see it as being patronized, but I’m happy to have done something that somebody approved of. For a change.

(8.) I am trying to declutter by taking at least one item into a charity shop every time we go to town. Today I took two Jellycat toys… a sleeping pony and a curled-up grey cat.

(9) I read this article over my mocha in a coffee shop. I always said Neil Diamond is still very cool, so I was delighted. I liked some of Paul Weller’s stuff (I’ve got his Wild Wood. If you’ve not heard it and don’t mind YouTube, give it a listen). The Specials were another favourite… I have to admit I didn’t like all of their songs, but the ones I did like got me big time. There’s a good chance that I saw this Top of the Pops airing and decided I had to get their single. (Check out those cosy jumpers… and that band member’s ironic grin halfway through the clip! Friendly and yet not… Click the video clip’s ‘more info’ link for the lyrics). I played it over and over and over and over till the parents cracked. I’m about to play it over and over and over while I do my editing…

… because….

(10) … the report we’re editing has just come boomeranging back at me for my bit. Rats.

I’ve gone a little quiet, I know – I’m following more Photoshop tutorials. It’s great when I find ones I can use in Photoshop Elements 2.0. So many other Photoshoppers seem able to afford the top applications.

On Wednesday night I had a dream…. it cast a slight shade, a transparent gradient, over my day. The closer we got to bedtime, the bluer the cast of my mood.

In the dream, I went to tea with one of my cat clients, doing my best to make pleasant conversation, but she cocked a sardonic eyebrow at me. I was relieved when one of her cats shot off to the end of the garden, and a terrible caterwauling arose. It seemed her cat was picking on one of my cats, Lucky. Lucky died years back, before I started this blog.

I rescued him by picking him up and carrying him back to my seat. He seemed surprised at first, then clung closely to me, purring deeply. I could feel it vibrating through my heart. He seemed to be saying “it’s such a long time since you last held me.” I was bemused to realize it myself, and couldn’t think why such a distance had grown between us.

Later in the dream I discovered I had a huge aquarium at the back of my upstairs sitting room. It contained three large fish, about 40 cm long: two sharks and a human diver. I had to carry one of the fish to another part of the house in a red plastic bucket. I could have picked any of the three – the diver, the slim pretty shark, or the strong, sturdy, moody shark… I picked the moody one. He was the most likely to bite, but I felt he would be better able to deal with being removed from the tank. After scooping him out, I was annoyed to find there was no water in the bucket – I had to dash off to get some before I could put him in.

We were possibly showing him to a visitor, after which I returned him to the tank… he was slightly limp, but recovered quickly. Nobody had been bitten.

Sharky… I wonder if there’s a connection. Cats who have passed on… one of them missing me, and the other swimming moodily in a tank.

And then thinking how people are here one day and gone the next. Dad working abroad, making a life for himself and his family – and now it’s just us. And the baby mouse… I rescued him from the cats. At first I thought he was dead, and Samson was pinning him down with one claw, but when I got closer, the little thing was shaking. His legs were so thin and crumpled under him that one looked broken, but he was just weak. I took him straight outside with some crumbs. I don’t like wearing my nice pink slippers outside, but for the mouse’s sake, I trekked them across wet grass and placed him in a snug corner near the shed. He hobbled and wobbled slowly under the shed… Not convinced he will have survived, but maybe he found a nest of leaves and slept himself to recovery.

Mum accused Samson of nibbling the top off a muffin, but I said I gave it to the mouse.

I was in Photoshop Elements painting a light bulb in a lamp, when a song came into my head… one of Melanie’s most ’sobbing’ melodies. It might have been Candles in the Rain but I’m not sure; it’s years since I’ve played her music. It wasn’t Ruby Tuesday; I would recognize it as soon as it came up.

The Photoshop tutorial was absorbing, but while working on it, I remembered a stray comment from one of the 30 or 40 others who have already followed it. She said she decided to do it because there was nothing else to do, and she was feeling sad, longing for some human contact. I became aware in my mind of all the others tracing the same lines – some quickly, some slowly, some happily, others less so.

I’d like a nice pink gradient tomorrow, please, and a different song.

I’m reading Dean Koontz books again – the last one (One Door Away from Heaven) was as unputdownable as Brother Odd. I won’t give away the plot. Odd things annoyed me slightly, but not enough to spoil it for me (except somewhat at the end, but we can always change the ending in our minds).

Near the beginning, a mention of Ghost Riders in the Sky was inspired. The tune that came into my head was the Shadows’ version, Riders in the Sky. It was one of my favourites when I was a teenager, and it greatly added to the novel’s atmosphere: power, speed, technology, hope, vigour, love of life… and an underlying menace. Perfect.

The main annoyance I had with the book was that the print disappeared into the crease. It was too big a book to be constantly pushing the pages back… quite a strain on the hands. Though I call it ‘unputdownable’, sometimes I had no choice. Sensible people would probably just break the spine but I can’t bear the thought! I’m sure the pages would have started to fall out.

It’s impossible to blog with an insane kitten jabbing her claws into your armpit. Samson has run off into the night, so Delilah has latched onto me. I placed her in her comfortable cot downstairs and came up to bed, but even as I went, my back was stiff… as I expected, there was a ferocious drumming of paws and she shot past me up the stairs, her tail held high. She didn’t want to sleep alone.

I’m worried she’ll sink her teeth through the downie into my feet, she pounces so enthusiastically. Furthermore, I have hopes that she won’t bite my nose off while I sleep, or shave my hair, or something of the kind. No wonder Samson skedaddled.

For no clear reason, the song in my head has changed to Here Comes the Sun.

Little darling, it seems the ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
It’s alright

It’s both sunny and icy, and Delilah (kitten) is unsure of the wisdom of venturing outdoors – I’d say she had perfect sense. However, I feel as though I’m cast in the role of singing “little darling”…

A little while back I said there was something particularly sweet about Delilah – Mum said the girl at the vet was saying how lovely she was. I said they wouldn’t have said that about Samson, and Mum laughed at the thought. Samson is all round-eyed tom… young, gangling, cautious and shy, but definitely a (neutered) tom.

There’s something motherly about Delilah, though still a kitten with sharp claws – an oxymoron, almost. (I’m starting to lose all faith in the existence of oxymorons, but that’s for another blog post). Delilah’s not sure about going outside, but Samson let himself out before I was quite ready… just like Sharky did. He seemed to be getting on fine, and didn’t run off anywhere, so I relaxed. Watching them milling about at suppertime, I said to Mum “it occurred to me I shouldn’t worry about them running away – it’s more likely we will never get rid of them!”

Later that night when it got dark, we were watching TV. I glimpsed Samson moving stealthily in the darkness of the hall. A couple of times his eyes turned towards us, shining like lamps. It put me in mind of Sharky disappearing one night quite soon after we got here. We didn’t know if he knew his way back, and left the doors open till he finally came back. It got chilly and we put our coats on. On that occasion, Sharky had moved about in the hall just the same way, flashing his eyes.

During a commercial break, I left the room and came upon Delilah, sitting in the middle of the hallway. “Delilah says her boyfriend is missing,” I said. I didn’t look round to see if he was there or not, and hadn’t known he had left the house… but I knew what Delilah was saying.

“No, he’s not – he’s right there!” said Mum, pointing at his bed.
“Oh,” I said, mentally kicking myself for reading something into the body language of cats that hadn’t been there, but when we reached Samson’s bed, we found it empty.

We did the leaving-doors-open-wearing-coats thing. He was gone till the early hours of the morning, and Delilah was very worried and upset. Every time we took a walk around outside, she peeked out as well, and stared into the dark with sorrowful eyes.

I took her to watch the film with me – it was Jewel of the Nile. The girl in the film was imprisoned by her mortal enemy, who told her “your man is dead.” She gasped in shock and said “no, he’s not! He wouldn’t die without telling me!” We looked at Delilah, and smiled.

Now, every time Samson comes back from somewhere, Delilah grabs him round the neck and says “come here, I have to check that you’re all in one piece.” Mum complained once that Delilah wouldn’t let her out the front door… she parked herself in front of it and scowled.

We were discussing where Samson went to that night, as we thought maybe something happened to make him think twice about going out the next day. “He can’t tell us,” shrugged Mum.
“If anybody could tell us, it would be Delilah,” I said, and we giggled at the thought. That girl makes her feelings known. Wouldn’t you be glad to have her in your corner?

Got up early this morning – there seemed to be no reason to lie around, as I was just

• too hot
• dreaming about desktop wallpaper every time I dropped off
• struggling with tinnitus and other thoughts

While still lying there, I was being driven mad by a plodding, depressing tune that was in my head along with a monotonous roaring house noise. “I don’t have to put up with it,” I thought, “I can take control of my own head. I will listen to whatever I choose to.” I rejected the plodding tune and threw open the doors of my mind to the world of music… what else will come wandering in?

It was The Entertainer. Wouldn’t you just know it? But there’s something special about The Entertainer – hush just a minute.

Last night Mum got a phone call and said “that was Maria… Charles has died.”
Charles and his wife Rosemary lived in a house down the road from us in Edinburgh… Maria was their daughter, and there was a son called Allan. They were related to us, enough that I could call Charles and Rosemary ‘uncle and aunt’.

They loved dogs, cats, gardening, long walks by the beach, baking, and sewing. They took my sister and me on a short holiday to their but and ben – there was a caravan close by and my cousin Allan liked to sit in it and read – maybe he slept there too, while the rest of us were in the cottage.

It was on this trip we were first introduced to flying saucer sweets – Uncle Charles stopped the car and went out to a small local shoppie, and when he came back, he had a paper bag with these strange sweets. “What do we do with these?”
“Why, eat them, of course!”

We went to the farm near by for fresh milk and baths. The baths were lovely and hot, but came out of the taps a strange yellowy brown. I was told this was normal – must have been peat or something! We had cream and sugar with our porridge in the morning, and at night I was in the bottom of the bunk while my lovely older cousin Maria (with her long hair unpinned and loose) dozed on the top. I bothered her with things like Old Macdonald Had a Farm, Ee I Ee I O!, but she never snapped at me, just sounded sleepier and sleepier…

My sister (older than me by three years) got so homesick that Uncle Charles had to drive her home, but I was enjoying myself and stayed.

I don’t know if perhaps there were two or three trips to this cottage, all confused in my mind into one. I’m not even sure if the flying saucers were courtesy of Uncle Charles or my grandparents. I seem to remember my grandmother with us when I found the rabbit’s tail. She said she saw it but didn’t want to pick it up, but Aunt Rosemary said “it’s lucky”.

Aunt Rosemary loved baking, and I still have some of her recipes. She made me copy them down when I was about to go to university. I wasn’t much of a baker and didn’t know what all the fuss was about, but I’m glad of them now.

In the aftermath of my father’s funeral, my mother and I went down the road to have coffee with Aunt Rosemary. She liked to sew and had a couple of rag dolls sitting on the sofa – I picked one up and smiled. Something about that must have touched Aunt Rosemary, because when we went back up the road, she said “please keep the doll”.

Some time later, Aunt Rosemary was killed by a lorry. She was waiting at the bus stop and was hit by the lorry’s wing mirror. Imagine… the very last thing you would expect. Bright and bobbish in the morning, full of plans. And then her family being phoned at work… it must have been terrible for Charles and the others.

When I went out to join my own family abroad, I was the last one to fly out. I went on the plane alone when I was six, but it was Uncle Charles who drove me to the airport. I was so excited I couldn’t believe we had to wait for him to come home from work and then have his supper.
I remember looking at him as he drank his tea, and he caught my eye, made a resigned but amused gesture, and got up out of his chair.

I went on the plane with a shiny red handbag – inside was a small pink bottle of rosemary oil perfume (and it still smells good!!), a bag of barley sweets (to stop my ears popping) and a book – Bottersnikes and Gumbles. But that’s the start of another story.

All this kindness over the years… but when Mum said “Charles is dead,” the thing that came first to my mind was when I arrived too early at school. It was a frosty cold winter morning, and my breath steamed in the air. The school was still closed, no other children were about, and the janitor wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I wandered round the school building rather forlornly, then spotted Uncle Charles moving books around in one of the classrooms – he was a teacher there. I tapped on the window, and when he saw me, he smiled and let me in. It was warm and peaceful, and I was grateful.

It seemed more than just a coincidence that The Entertainer was the song that came in when I opened the door for it this morning. Aunt Rosemary played it on the piano – I had never heard it before, and I thought it was wonderful and cheerful and fun. Just like Charles and Rosemary themselves.

Playing Neil Diamond again – my favourite tape of his has always been Tap Root Manuscript.

One of the bad things about my having moved to WordPress from Blogigo is that I can see which of my links people have clicked on. Nobody followed my last link to Soolaimon… do you all know what it sounds like? Either that or most people read this from work. I should stay out of the blog stats, but my main reason for looking is the keyword search data. I used to envy how people could see what searches brought surfers to their blogs. Now I can, too. Nothing of particular interest so far – most visitors from outside the local blog community drop by looking for Nothing Lasts Forever (it seems to have a connection with Ashes to Ashes?), Forever Autumn from The War of the Worlds, D.i.d.d.u.m.s P.a.r.t.y S.t.o.r.e (I don’t know what that is, but I put the dots in to make it less searchable), writing inventories (makes me feel warm and fuzzy knowing I’m not the only one), desktop pictures, ScribeFire, magic teddy bears and “life will find a way” (from Jurassic Park).

Also the occasional search for the best way to break one’s neck.

I seem to have given a few pointers to people setting up ScribeFire. Talking of which, I’m still using it. I even use it if I’m not posting on my blog but need a bit of code for a comment. It has been updated twice since I downloaded it, and it now has tags as well as categories, plus a few other extras. It seems we will be able to put timestamps on our posts if/when we get Firefox 3.

Something I’ve always liked about this is, when I have ScribeFire open, it takes up the bottom part of the browser, and I can switch from tab to tab (or scroll) without disturbing the ScribeFire section.

I mentioned Neil Diamond at the start of this post for a reason, but got sidetracked… Mum was sorting through her tapes and came across some by him. She put them in the ‘keep’ pile, and I said “I don’t know why people are so down on Neil Diamond. He’s cooler than most singers.”
“Never a dud song,” agreed Mum.

I was just thinking about the video clip I found of him singing Soolaimon. What amazed me about that was I never saw him sing it; just knew the tapes and the records for years… then the other day I saw the video clip and he sang that so effortlessly. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’d like to speak the way he sings – speech to me is something that takes so much effort, and I’m lucky if anybody hears or understands – I have a very quiet voice. I’d like to say something as though it was round, warm and full of the sun, and everybody would know just what I meant.

Somebody did come to my blog trying to find out what Soolaimon is, but that’s not what I’m referring to. I always thought it was King Solomon, but that was the best judgement I could come up with as a teenager. I didn’t know the words of the song, so I had no additional clues. If anybody finds out who Soolaimon is, I’d love to know too.

And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams
And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams

Have you ever played that game of reading back in your blog or diary to see what you were writing and thinking a whole year ago? I’m generally unlucky and find I wasn’t writing anything on a particular date, but today I found myself moving across a post from the old blog that I wrote exactly a year ago: It’s an Awful Long Way Down. In it I noted that I was writing a lot of rambling rubbish (I know – I was deleting most of it!) and then talked about a song in my head. “It will pass,” I said.

Well, unfortunately, it hasn’t. It’s a whole year later, and I’ve got the same song in my head that I had then.

People say we never learn from the lessons of the past, but I’ve got a new perspective on that now. Maybe it’s the looking back and stepping into old shoes that causes the same things to happen?

Iain directed me to this Guardian article about listening to music with a partial hearing loss – Life in mono by Nick Coleman.

I was wondering about the architecture of sound that he mentions. With profound hearing loss in both ears, I was asking myself if I get the full impact of what he’s speaking of – probably not, but I must have my own equivalent. I like the concept, though the visualization of buildings would mostly make me think of dust, olive green paint, school bells, concrete yards and bird droppings on the windows – I’m probably thinking of the wrong places.

In OMD’s Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans), there’s something sounding very like the school bell at my old school! Probably not so odd that I should think of that song, as it was on the album Architecture and Morality…

Otherwise, if visualizing a musical structure, I’d be imagining something like a natural version of the Crystal Palace – all shimmering glass, curving domes, soaring arches, seeing the sky through the panes, feeling the sun…

Well, I don’t know – what about the outdoors? The Four Seasons by Vivaldi is all storms and hills and birds. Neil Diamond’s Madrigal is an African afternoon with low sun filtering through the stubby trees, and his Childsong puts me in mind of African children in a classroom with a bad thunderstorm going on outside. I also seem to link it to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Mount Vesuvius, as I was studying for an exam while the rain came down!

Songs that make me happy are full of freedom, light and warmth.

I was interested in Nick Coleman’s experience that he was getting good sound from some sources but not from others – certainly not from the equipment that was fashioned to do it well. I have a theory that I used to hear music better on the monoplayers, my old stereo hi-fi, and on Mum’s ancient analogue TV (currently at my house being rented out). It was one of the first Teletext TVs, and even the remote control is built like a brick.

I don’t know if it’s just that I heard better in those days, so I don’t really know what I think.

To me it’s a new idea that the brain can wire itself into getting a better handle on music. I listened to records and tapes from a very young age, then stopped for a long time from the early 90s onwards… since then I’ve not been hearing music so well.

And you shall come
To hear our song
And learn its tune
Before it fades away…

From Childsong by Neil Diamond

It’s frustrating when you know from past experience that there’s a specific sound in a particular song and you just can’t hear it. Listening to music takes effort now. I used to be able to put a record on and get on with something else, but nowadays if I do that I miss the music! I never seem to know what’s playing unless I look at the CD sleeve and concentrate. I’ve been using different equipment anyway – CD players, computers, newer televisions. Making a proper comparison between then and now is tricky.

Having said all that, I dug out an old tape of Neil Diamond’s Tap Root Manuscript to play again after so many years – and it’s wonderful. I didn’t feel anything was missing from what I remembered. Have you heard Soolaimon? It has such energy… a strong wind rushing through the trees and into the heavens.

God of my want, want, want
Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on
On to the woman, she dance for the sun

God of my day, day, day
Lord of my night, night, night
Seek for the way, way, way
Taking me home

From Soolaimon by Neil Diamond

Total Sensory Deprivation – a few nights ago I recorded a Horizon documentary on the subject. It reminded me of the office I used to work in.

You would expect everyone to have a fair number of office connections and opportunities for socializing (if only by the water cooler, though we didn’t have one). Unfortunately I wasn’t really talking to anyone after my original friends and contacts left for pastures new. I tried in my quiet way to make new friends, but people had their own friends already and didn’t pay a lot of attention. I think they didn’t want to get involved with someone so deaf and so ’shy’, feeling that I was not their responsibility. They could get on with office life in their own comfortable bubbles and leave me to my colleagues in my own small department. After all, the folk in my department were the ones who chose me.

The feeling was awful, actually, and the longer it went on, the worse I felt. I wasn’t getting any of the office news or gossip, and I had no one to vent steam with or help me get a sense of proportion about things.

Some people were quite kind and friendly, but when I asked one what happened at a pension-related meeting, she forwarded my email (without checking with me first) to the Human Resources Manager. He told me people were not allowed to advise others, for legal reasons. It was now office policy.

Because of my profound hearing loss, I never knew what people were saying at meetings or amongst themselves. It made me wonder how I was ever going to inform myself if no one was allowed to discuss meetings with me… I wanted to tear my hair out!

There was an image in my mind of what I was going through, and I can still recall it. It felt to me as though I was falling down a bottomless well. I was trying to reach out and touch the sides but all I felt was air whistling past my fingertips. Not Alice in Wonderland – more like Diddums in Limbo.

That was my state of mind not so long before I crashed.

Total Sensory Deprivation? No, not quite. But the concept reminds me of that office situation – of me falling down my dark well, disassociated from everybody else.

The Horizon documentary was interesting – in an experiment, people were shut for 48 hours in small, bare cells without light, sound, human interaction or entertainment. It had quite a disturbing effect on them – some started to hallucinate, but I wondered how much that had to do with tiredness. That’s probably the point – they’d feel tired, out of touch and less sure of themselves.

One man who was kept in solitary confinement in real life talked of his experiences. When he mentioned his auditory hallucinations, I laughed out loud. The more he described them, the louder I laughed – and this was in the middle of me grieving for my cat, so I felt slightly hysterical. It wasn’t because I thought what happened to the man was funny, but because I get those… those auditory hallucinations.

I hear music – choirs, orchestras, jazz singers, country singers, opera singers. When you allow them to disturb you, they get louder. And then suddenly they stop, just like that! As though someone took a needle off a record.

It’s very strange.

I never thought of it as hallucinating, which is probably why I’ve been more fascinated than stressed; even comforted sometimes. To me it’s a form of tinnitus. Maybe it even masks the real tinnitus, which to many people is just a wasp’s scream (description courtesy of my mother).

Nor is it like having pop hits playing in your head, or (you’ll hate me for this) How Much is That Doggy in the Window? You can HEAR heavenly choirs or beautiful baritones or whatever – the sounds are in your ears.

At my old house I abandoned my bedroom, preferring to sleep on my sofa. I was never quite sure why I did that, apart from a general feeling of claustrophobia. The documentary offered me a fresh insight. Was it so different from the kind of experiences the people in the experiment were going through? With my blinds closed and lined curtains drawn, it was fairly dark in my room – and without my glasses I’m very myopic. Without my hearing aids I’m almost stone deaf. There were no other humans to talk to in that house: lack of human interaction. Then, when you’re lying there, trying to get to sleep, there is nothing to occupy yourself with. Thus I got the auditory hallucinations quite frequently, and when I was absolutely exhausted but not dropping off for any reason, I very occasionally got visual hallucinations as well. (Like Mr Guppy). Now that DID frighten me, in a way that the heavenly choirs didn’t.

It wasn’t Total Sensory Deprivation, but it wasn’t all that far off.

When I moved out to the sofa, I had two windows and a glass door – it was a lighter room. There were the cats strolling in and out: company. There was the TV… talking people and entertainment just a switch away. I feel sure now that’s why I changed rooms… and I’m not potty or anything, I’m just like any other human being. I like to be a part of life.

A guiding light that shines in the night
Heaven’s gift to me
You are so beautiful to me

It’s been in my head the past couple of days.

Sharky wasn’t improving as rapidly as we hoped and we took him back to the vet. He was kept overnight on a drip and returned to me today… along with renal cat kibble and tablets.

He seems brighter – his eyes have cleared.

There was black ice today; looks like tomorrow will be the same. At least it’s not raining any more. The rain yesterday did excuse me from walking Thundercloud, which I was grateful for. I felt shell-shocked about Sharky, having just left him at the vet, and though I could have accepted a dog walk if the day had been bright, I couldn’t face one in the lashing sleet. I would have caught whatever Marianne got in Sense and Sensibility. A case of the fainting Willoughbies.

Last night there was nothing on TV so while Mum watched something, I was reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. In it was a chapter about someone very ill achieving her greatest wish. I’d been feeling numb up to that point, but that was just too much – and I hadn’t even finished the story. Mum was in the next chair and I didn’t want to get all teary and whimpery while she was there. Escaping quietly was a huge struggle. Upstairs I hid in my dark cubby hole and mopped my eyes, which just got wet again.

When I returned to the book and finished the chapter, there was a twist to the story that made me giggle – it wasn’t at all what I thought it was.

But I was so tired.

The next morning we received ‘more optimistic’ news from the vet over the phone, but I was still bushed and rather moody. We met my sister in a coffee shop in town, and (having struggled to find somewhere to put my shopping trolley) I whipped the conversational notebook out.

Me: ♦♦This is ridiculous – there should be more room – you wonder what happened to the DDA.
Mum: ♦The DDA?
Me: ♦♦Disability Discrimination Act.

Pause while the girl came and served our coffee and hot chocolate.

Me: ♦♦I think the only coffee I like now is mocha – everything else tastes like liquid sawdust.
Mum: ♦You often drink liquid sawdust?
Me: ♦♦Here and in Starbucks.
Mum: ♦Is everything wrong this morning? Chilblains? Headache? Blue-tinted specs?
Me: ♦♦Non-pink clothes and sickly 10-year-old cats. And horrible TV with the same shows over and over.
Mum: ♦What’s that about pink clothes? You’ve lost me.
Me: ♦♦I think something red was washed with them and turned them muddy.
Mum: ♦Red with pink means pinker.
Me: ♦♦Not rust red.
Mum: ♦Big Sister says would we like a trip to Fuddyduddytown?
Me: ♦♦I suppose – Fuddyduddytown is not my numero uno town. How can Thingy live there?
Mum: ♦People get stuck in places. It’s not the worst. Remember Yobtown?
Me: ♦♦Not really. When did we go there? I remember Thingyside Leisure Centre as being stuck in a bubble of stark. Probably because they wouldn’t let them build it anywhere nice (can’t blame them).
Mum: ♦Yobtown had most of the shops at either end of the town boarded up. Graffiti everywhere.
Me (distracted): That dark photo of the poppy… it’s like a puddle of thick paint that my eyes have got stuck in. When I pull them away with a *squelch*, it leaves that pattern there.

You get the picture. I shouldn’t blog in this sort of humour.

Mum frequently emails asking, “anything for the charity shops?” and I rush around hastily, looking for things and yet more things as sacrifices to keep the mother goddess happy. Gave away three mugs I use every day (clean, of course). Well, the mug collection will have to shrink, and those were D-list mugs. I still feel as though I betrayed them, and even while I’m berating myself for that, I’m choosing yet more mugs to abandon. There’s a cream one with pale yellow flowers. That one’s being marched out, blindfolded, the next time the mother goddess beckons.

There’s also a tin with old-fashioned teddy bear pictures on it – nice enough, but I’m not a tin collector. It sat for years on the top of the wall cupboards in the kitchen because I didn’t know what else to do with it. There are always things around the house we can give away without a second thought (or not too much of one).

Though why is it that, when I feel like listening to a particular song, it turns out to be one of the ones already gone across to Mum’s? I’m in the mood for Straight from the Heart by Bryan Adams.

Have to pick another CD. Dido’s Life for Rent already had a spin earlier this afternoon. I found it was on the plaintive side for a listener who’s about to move out of her house, maybe forever…. there was just something lonely in the sound of it, and there are songs with titles like Don’t Leave Home. I suppose that’s a good reason to play it! Or is that flawed logic?

Definitely no Bryan Adams in the house. Dido it is, then.

Edit March 2008: Comments to this entry when it was on the old site:

1. Pacian wrote at Mar 10, 2007 at 20:23:
Better check under the sofa and behind the curtains. He is a sneaky fellow, I think.
o_O

2. Diddums wrote at Mar 10, 2007 at 22:38:
He’s not there – but Robert Palmer is.

Mood: Tired
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: ‘Classic’ by Adrian Gurvitz

I don’t know what it is, but these days when I start out to write a nice short blog post, it ends up going on and on and on forever.

And… usually I know why a particular song is in my head, or can work it out, but so far I’m puzzled by Adrian Gurvitz. All this recent talk of books, surely – I was deciding to keep some classics but not others. Many of the ones I chose to keep were written by women (e.g. Jane Austen), while the ones given the push were by men (e.g. Thomas Hardy). I didn’t intend to discriminate but it certainly looks that way!

I didn’t even like all the ones by the female authors (Wuthering Heights, aargh! but keeping. Why?? Because the writer was a gurrl?)

Meanwhile I’m wandering around sadly, singing

And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams
And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams

All Mum’s cats and mine blink kindly.

It will pass.

Edit 8 March 2007:

Last night I switched off the computer and walked away, and suddenly I understood, like a lightbulb turning on, why I have that Adrian Gurvitz song ‘Classic’ in my head! You know those lines

Got to write a classic
Gotta write it in an attic

Someone mentioned the books in the rafters, referring to my mother sending most of our books into the loft. At that moment I had an image in my mind of War and Peace balanced on a beam. That’s where I was going to put it if there was no more room on the shelves.

Ah. The books are singing.

Edit 8 March 2008 (a whole year later):

Comments to this post when it was on the old site:

1. kateblogs wrote at Mar 8, 2007 at 16:44:
It’s nice to meet someone else who isn’t keen on Wuthering Heights. I did it for A’level and (letting you in on a secret now) I didn’t read it. I made a start, but soon realised Cathy and I were never going to get along, so I winged it using what I remember from the film and the York notes. Don’t tell anyone LOL

It’s not a patch on Jane Eyre, which is a far superior book IMO.

2. Diddums wrote at Mar 8, 2007 at 21:35:
I admire anyone who can read the whole of Wuthering Heights and keep his/her focus. Though I read it all, my mind definitely wandered. The best thing to come out of Wuthering Heights was Kate Bush’s song…

I should really let the book go. If there’s another ‘book sweep’ in our houses (which seems likely) I’ll send it to the charity shops – maybe it will find a home where it’s appreciated.

Tinnitus can keep people awake and drive them to distraction. I’ve never been that troubled by it – a lot of the time it sounds to me like music.

• orchestra
• choir
• Shirley Bassey

It doesn’t trouble me much, except that there are times when you feel that all that exists is you, the ghostly music, and the mutterings of the house. I suspect the house dictates which music it will be – there does seem to be a link. You think it’s settled in for the night with a choir of angels singing you endlessly to your rest, and then suddenly it shuts off. Just like that.

Somebody closed the pearly gates?

The house has been responsible for years of restless nights, interrupted sleep and bad dreams. There are ‘noises’ which I feel rather than hear. I was never able to work out if there’s a fixable problem and what exactly it is.

Grumble, mumble, bags under eyeses, nightmareses, scream…

Then, one night recently, I was lying wide awake. I really needed rest, but couldn’t get any because my thoughts were going round and round.

Toss, turn, moan, twitch.

Suddenly, the house launched into one of its deep rumblings, causing my bed to shudder like a train. All the tension flowed out of me with a whoosh. I dropped off to sleep on the spot, and the last thought I remember was, “all those years of blaming the house for keeping me awake, and at least some of the time it was rocking me to sleep.”

I’m not sure now that I would ‘cure’ it even if I could.

The note of the house has subtly changed – time to turn off the light.

In this world, confidence is vital. Not just confidence in your own abilities, but also confidence in how you communicate and how you face the world.

This reminds me of two songs from old musicals. The first being Have Confidence In Yourself (Oliver Twist) and the second being Whistle a Happy Tune (The King and I).

There may well be others, and with reason – can you imagine how far any of us would get in this kind of civilization without confidence? How far would one get without friends and contacts, and the ability to communicate well with them?

Well I started to blog about this issue, but it’s a truly difficult one, so I’m hesitating. The problem with confidence, ‘fitting in’ and generally being normal (this topic was recently discussed by Goldfish on her blog)… well, the problem with that is, if you don’t feel able to get along as smoothly as others do, (for instance I’m profoundly hard of hearing), your confidence takes a dive. It takes a dive nearly every day. And when your confidence has banged its nose on the ocean floor often enough, you can end up with panic disorder and agoraphobia. After which everything gets still harder!

How do you contemplate a job in an office, supermarket, shop or anywhere else when you’re not even sure you can face the interview? Well you can go to the doctor for help, but how do you (a) make the appointment? (b) get there? (c) cope with the very claustrophobic waiting room? Particularly if it’s the kind of waiting room where you wait to hear your name being called.

Actually I’ve been through that in the past. I was starting to get stressed out at work, so I went to the doctor and said I was worried. She said “oh – what are you going to do about it?”

The problem with that was that I wasn’t really able to talk to people about something that I was finding increasingly difficult to handle. I didn’t feel able to say all the right things, ask for all the right things (even if I knew what they were – what I REALLY wanted was never to have to darken their doors again) … and on top of all that, how to avoid the inevitable hearing complications. Perhaps I had left it a bit late to ask for help, but there is no ‘right time’ as people won’t take you seriously till they see you actually disintegrating in front of their eyes. And then they panic.

My immediate superior was terrified I was going to turn round and say it was the work that made me ill. When I said to him the work was not the problem, he was so relieved that I had to smile. It was never about the work. It was never about him either.

Around this time (it’s all blurred in my memory now), I had gone to the doctor to see what she said. (All this happened ten years ago)! She said she would refer me to a cognitive therapist, but as they were booked up (the rest of Scotland was cracking up as well, presumably) I wouldn’t get to see this person for six months. Meanwhile, what was I going to do about the job situation, asked the doctor solicitously? I said well I might feel a little better if I moved my desk somewhere quieter (even though I knew there was nowhere – the office was packed out like a sardine tin). She said good, come back next week and tell me how you’re getting on.

Well, next week, I was well along in my little nervous breakdown, thank you very much. I couldn’t even face my mother. I was at her house, and every time she came into a room I was in, I smiled politely, sidled out, and went somewhere else. Eventually she found me lying on the spare bed, gazing at the ceiling.

I sat up and started to slink away again, but she stopped me – in tears. She knew something was badly wrong. I said I had to go to the doctor’s that afternoon and wasn’t sure I wanted to go. She said I must keep my appointment and get this sorted out.

Even more upset, I toddled along the road rather as though I was drunk – in fits and starts, hiding behind lamp posts every time a car went past. I felt completely dizzy – the sky spun around and the cement seemed gritty beneath my feet. It loomed at me.

I got most of the way to the Health Centre and then got stuck outside the small shops just across the road from it. There were cars parked outside, and a man waiting in one of them, looking at me. I couldn’t force myself past him – it was like trying to get a nervous horse to pass a large flapping scarecrow. I just couldn’t. (Ever since then I’ve had a special sympathy for skittish horses). Eventually I turned round and went home.

Now, every time I hear someone say “we ought to make people pay for not keeping their appointments and wasting everybody’s time”, I cringe. I don’t want to live in this unforgiving kind of world. I’m not hinting that I’m going to jump off a bridge or something revolting like that – I just sometimes feel like saying “enough! Stop the world! I want to get off.”

But I can’t.
So.
Next step is to bolster my flagging confidence. For we are nowhere without it.

I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid

Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are…

Sorry, I’ve just realized – I can’t whistle either. Kind of stuck now :-).

Edit Feb 2008: Comments to this post when it was hosted by Blogigo:

Pacian wrote at Jul 21, 2006 at 12:07:
Hum instead!

I haven’t had it quite as bad as you, but I sympathise with much of what you wrote. It would be nice if confidence came in pill form. Although I’d probably be too timid to ask for a prescription.

Diddums wrote at Jul 21, 2006 at 12:57:
And that’s the real problem, isn’t it :-). Maybe we should try Ally McBeal’s trick – her imaginary backing group.