annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Day 181
Still feeling too close to the edge of the pit. The pit of doom and of unravelling. There have been quite a few bits of goodness today, even some jolliness, but the slightest bit of aggravation led to vast surges of despair.
This morning was a writing group morning, which started badly - the blokeiness does get on my nerves, but it's the only class that has pushed me into writing fiction on a regular basis so I keep going. Today the guy who runs it had found a random verb generator and generated three verbs for each of us to put into a piece of writing. Mine were hear, amend, evolve. I decided to stick with Bella as I'm really enjoyng bunging her in situations and seeing what she does. She's a character I created for a novel I wrote in the 1990s.
"I hear you," said Bella, as she knew that was a good phrase to shut people up without pissing them off, although she hadn't listened, not beyond "two months notice". He was quite handsome, her landlord, her soon-to-be-ex-landlord apparently. He reminded her of Jose Mourinho, with his silver hair, cheekbones and expensive suits and he could drone on like Mourinho as well, not about football, but other stuff, like whatever was pouring out of his mouth now. She used to think she'd like to kiss him to shut him up and stop this endless wall of noise - well she'd thought that once when he was explaining how to bleed the radiators - but today she'd rather punch him or whack him round the side of the head with that table tennis bat she'd found on the beach."...as some kind of amends," he was saying now, hooking her back in.
"Sorry, what?"
"I said I won't charge you rent for these last two months, by way of amends for this unfortunate situation."
Cool. She didn't know what the situation was and she didn't care, she had the key points. The landlord talked some more while Bella thought about taking up table tennis, then he left.
As she shut the door behind him, the tiny Siamese cat came flying in through the window, landing with a thud on the wooden floor. It looked at Bella and yowled, demandingly.
Bella sighed. This was not even her cat. It had just kept turning up, coming in through the window, then sleeping on Bella's bed. At first she regarded it as an interloper but the relationship evolved over the summer and now she supposed she'd have to find a place that allowed cats. She wasn't actually allowed pets here, but no one had told the cat, who'd just moved itself in.
I was quite pleased with how this led on from the last bit about her and the cat and also sets up the possibility of something new happening to her. I have three writing classes next week and will try to force her into whatever prompts I'm given. I already have a bit about her in Venezuela with her father, not the father she used to have, the one who fucked off to Spain.
My pal SB turned up and came in for a bit. As she passed through the hallway, she saw my shrine to Sammie, made a year ago and not maintained as reverently now as it was then. Or not consistently at any rate. Stuff gets dumped in the hall - all that is waiting to go back in my car really.
SB knew Sammie well when she was a child, for years. She was my best friend and Sam was the only child in our circle. When she saw the shrine she cried and said, "Oh, Sammie!" and it made me cry but it made me happy too, that someone else loved her enough to still cry for her. Then we went to the beach and had loads of seafood and things from the great restaurant. We bought a takeaway box and sat on the beach to eat it - chips, bread, crab, mackerel pate, prawns, smoked salmon, frito misto, Sussex smokie. Totally broke my diet but I didn't care, I was in need of comfort and it was beautiful
Dozed in bed all afternoon then did the yoga nidra with my lovely teacher on zoom. It takes you to a place of such deep relaxation - like sleep but not sleep. I love it and will try to remember to do it more often - maybe every day while I have this fucking boot on.
Three good things today: a nice note from my pal R who helps me with diet and stuff; spending time with SB and laughing loads; also having big laughs with Daughter who came round later. Lots of laughs as well as lots of sad. That's a rich life, I suppose.
12:35 a.m. - 12.09.20
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