annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Bleh

Friday night:

Back on bleeding Word as the internet has gone flickery. This has been the prevailing descriptor of my utilities in recent times. Flickery. Intermittent. Not broken, but getting in my face all the time. I know it�s a luxury to have hot water...
Man � I am struggling . Every thought leads me straight to a land ruled by guilt and shame (. I went to bed last night feeling all warm inside, after dear Bluey and I finalised our plans for me visiting her in Florence during her trip there. I bless the world that put me and Bluey together despite that ocean between us. We are the best combination of similarities and differences in just about every regard. Having spent time with her before, I know how happy I�d feel to spend four days in a cell with her, but oh no, we�re meeting in one of the crucibles of western civilisation, which sounds fucking pompous for a medieval city that wears its graffiti so lightly. Man, me and Bluey hanging out on The Ponte Vecchio, eating, cooking, drawing and talking up a storm. She�s paying for it as well, which leaves me feeling as if I�ve been tucked into warm cosy safety. Thank you, Bluey.

I miss my green for writing. Some ha$h has been sourced, but it's not the same - gives me munchies beyond my power to resist and leaves me in a weird place, anxious about starting to write, all hung up on 'the reader', which is bollocks.

Sunday morning:
 
Well I am back in the pit, or the black dog has me by the heels, whatever metaphor suits. I don�t like to write when I feel like this but I don�t like to not write either. There�s been a lot of stuff about depression in the media recently � I�m not doing links, sorry � like the �Time for a change� campaign, which is about reducing the stigma of mental health problems, encouraging us to speak out. Yeah right. I don�t want to speak out, I want it to just fucking pass. There�s also Black Dog Tribe, where you can find �your people�, except I can�t find my way around the site, probably because my laptop is as close to the end as I am and we both find it all very hard.

I read a review of a book about depression (From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression) yesterday which included the following. First, from Hildegard of Bingen, writing in the 12th century, who believed that it was caused by black bile which, �causes the veins in the heart to overflow; it causes depression and doubt in every consolation so that the person can find no joy in heavenly life and no consolation in his earthly existence.� By 1613 black bile was still seen as the cause. Timothie Bright wrote that it, �shut up the hart as it were in a dungeon of obscurity, causeth manie fearfull fancies... whereby we are in heaviness, sit comfortless, feare, distrust, doubt, despaire and lament, when no cause requireth it.�

Paradoxically, that last cheered me up � that�s exactly how it is for me and somehow that reassures me that it�s real, not just some product of my fucked up head. I know, that doesn�t seem to make sense, but it does to me. The gist of the book, according to the review, was that depression has always existed, there�s always been some explanation for it, and there�s always been some kind of cure on offer, but nothing that works for everyone all the time.

What I should be doing instead of all this is having a shower and getting dressed to go to my sister�s for dinner, which they eat very early. It�s 4 o�clock and I�ve so far managed to make two cups of coffee and smoke about fifteen fags. I�ve sat in the front room for a bit, thinking about tidying up, then come back to my bedroom and thought about getting dressed. Repeated a ludicrous number of times. There have been tears. My key phrase seems to be, �I�ll do it in a minute. I�ll just have a fag, then I�ll start.� This is not a great motto. (Hang on, I�m just gonna roll a fag)

Apart from this, lots of good things are happening, which my intellect feels happy and grateful about. It�s just my emotions that are out of kilter. Another paradox: during the week I had a drunken phone call from NurseyBoy, during which we arranged for him to come to dinner on Saturday (last night). With the help of Bloke, I managed to get to the shop and buy some chicken and a load of stuff for a marinade and even to assemble it all in a bowl in the fridge. Come 7 o�clock, still no word from NB, so I called him. Pissed as a fart, out in the town centre with a friend, full of apologies, he remembers the phone call but not the arrangement, so sorry, blah blah blah. Now. This is the point at which a person could get downhearted, feel unloved, unappreciated and so on, with due and proper cause � preparing a meal for a dickhead who promptly forgot, me being so insignificant etc. Instead of which I suddenly felt steadier than I have for fucking days and days and days. I hate myself at times, I really do.

2:20 p.m. - 05.03.12

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