annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unedited, sorry I've been using I done this today, great web site. They send you an email at 6pm every day, asking what you did that day and whatever you reply goes onto a calendar that's really easy to view. The home page has a big spiel about tiny steps towards a big project, but I started using it to keep a log of how much I do, with a view to doing less, and it's been brilliant. There's something about an email arriving - you don't have to remember for yourself to write anything down, just choose whether or not you want to continue detailing your activities in this way. And I do, as it's about recovery, full fucking recovery, quick, before I'm just too old to gad about like a nutter ever again. Chris De Burgh is singing away on the telly as I write - a clip show of singer-songwriters at the BBC, from the 70s and 80s, with little snippets of info across the bottom of the screen. I discover that he was brought up in Argentina, which makes my urge to slap him almost vanish. Turns out he's not just a histrionic Irish dipstick, he's Latino, which gives it a different context. Still not my cup of tea, but I was interested to watch myself suddenly get where he was coming from, quite literally, and see the irritation just ebb away. I mean, what's that all about? It's still the same man, singing the same song. Not 'Lady in Red' - one I'd never heard before, but he still annoyed me as soon as he started - what am I really believing here about Irishmen and Hispanic men? Nick Lowe's on now and I know I don't like him, though I did back then. He was on in the old codger's slot in the acoustic tent at Glasto one year and he came over as a right prick. Exactly the sort of old geezer I was moaning about last night, just fuck off, life's too short to spend any more of it with you. I'm less and less willing to tolerate misogyny, but blokes my age (57) or older grew up as I did when marriage was a deal in which the woman promised to obey in return for board and lodging. There was no such crime as marital rape - consent had been given and could not be revoked. That was my first, brief and thankfully childless marriage. Straight men of that generation and those before them KNEW that women were there FOR them, so they've had a lot of changes to adapt to. Some have done so with more grace than others; some not at all. My ex-BIL won't allow his wife to have the internet installed, which the whole family seem to accept as 'one of those things - but what can you do about it?' I know many who are all mouth and trousers - but I bet they all have moments when they just wish they could have a wife like they'd been led to expect, who'd pick up after them without moaning and let them be the boss. Whether such women ever existed is another question, of course. Anyway, I know a bit about how they feel, as, having lived a solid middle class childhood in the fifties and sixties, where work for females was presented at home and at school as a 'little job' to do until you got married and had children. Although no one, ever ever, said listen girls, choosing a bloke is the single most important decision of your fucking LIFE. If he's feckless, you're fucked. It was all about presenting yourself so as to be chosen, never mind who by. Anyway, I expected to be living in my own nice detached house with a big garden by now, till I was at least sixteen (when I read Germaine Greer - hurrah for books!), and that's in there, down in my emotional roots, beyond knowledge and experience. There's a little voice in me that every now and then screams that it's not bloody fair. Why haven't I got a man to do all the money stuff and keep a roof over my head? (I can't believe I wrote that down - the shame.) And it's two o'clock again already, so I'm offski. Grateful for: MH coming round for dinner; managing to slow roast some belly of pork without destroying the roast veg; still my bed - I do so love my bed; nights drawing in, seasons changing, not too cold yet; ED having access to the outside world - only to the deck so far, but she's been in and out all afternoon - her voice on the phone - this is HUGE; your comments, thank you and sorry for being rubbish at answering them. Sweet dreams xx 12:10 a.m. - 10.10.11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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