annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bag puss and that Crashed again - didn't go outside all day. The days like that are coming closer and closer together. There were good bits though, when I was distracted from my lethargy, but not from the shame I feel at such uselessness when so many others have exhausting mountains of responsibilities, fears and danger. I'm just lonely and bored which is hardly comparable, but I will moan in my blog and if I lose you in the process then at least it's real. I'm not going to pretend here. I just read 'Leave the World Behind' by Rumaan Alam, a kind of post-apocalyptic, or post-something novel that was both gripping and depressing. That choice came from feeling ashamed of reading just lightweight fiction for so long, but fuck it, I'm going back to that. I've read shit loads of complex stuff in my time, I can take it easy if I need to. There's a whole thing going on where I can't stop pushing myself when there's really no need. The diet for instance - who gives a fuck? I'm in this in-between place where I don't let myself eat much in the way of sensual, pleasurable food, but nor do I stick to the guidelines so that I lose weight at a decent rate. I do OK until about 40 minutes after I've taken a sleeping pill, when I'm just getting a bit drowsy, nodding off over my book, the point when a sensible person would turn out the light and go to sleep. Instead I think - ooh, biscuits and cheese would be nice and stagger off down the stairs, gripping tight to the banister - no more falling over for me - and make a big plate of corn crackers with cheese, very often cottage cheese. Which is not calorific, nor pleasurable, really, but breaks the fasting, making it all fucking pointless. In the morning, or even now, late at night, I tell myself I won't do that again, but I've had an unbroken run for weeks now. And it doesn't matter. But on the other hand the zoom meeting with Daughter and the art-making collective was scary at first but then zany and weird and good fun. We're building towards doing art projects in pairs - I think there were twelve of us - I'm going to be with Daughter. The theme is opposites, so to get us going we were invited to grab any two objects that we could hold. I chose a small Bagpuss that I'd found abandoned somewhere (filthy dirty, long lost, not recently dropped, but OK after a go in the washing machine), and a small plastic dinosaur that we'd unearthed in the garden. They were both just on the shelf. K is the organiser and she started by holding one of her objects up, describing it and inviting any of us to explain why one of our objects was the opposite. I can't remember what hers was but Bagpuss was opposite to lego bricks because they are hard, shiny and angular while Bagpuss is soft, rounded and furry. The dinosaur was opposite to a banana as that was a natural object that grew and would either be eaten or would die and return to the earth as part of the cycle of life while the dinosaur was some shit plastic, made in a factory, that would last forever. It was good and funny and I fell into the group with ease and I feel I didn't embarrass Daughter, but in fact made her proud. We later had a list of words to find opposites for, first alone, then to discuss with the person we'll work with on the project. I'd said Marilyn Munro as the opposite of Wednesday as I thought at once of Wednesday Addams in the Addams family, a film I haven't seen, but an image I'm familiar with. She was all black and white, with a cold look and square cut hair, whereas Marilyn is all blonde and soft and curvy. They liked that. I want to write about yoga too - I love it. I'm still especially in love with yin yoga, the one where you use props like blocks, bolsters and cushions to let your body totally relax and stretch into the poses, then, as they say, find the stillness and stay there for 3 to 5 minutes, letting gravity do the hard work. It's all floor based, mostly lying down and is quite amazing how much you can feel your body benefiting from it. The one I'm liking most at the moment involves lying back onto a bolster, so your bum is on the floor but your back is almost arched back onto the bolster. You might need something like a block or a cushion to support your head if it feels hard to lie right down, but your shoulders fall away either side of the bolster and it's a prefect antidote to sitting hunched round over a screen all day. I know five minutes of a yoga pose won't undo eight hours of screen time, but it feels utter bliss. The teacher is there softly reminding you to unclench your jaw, to breathe slowly and deeply, into your belly. I fucking love it, I tell you. Three Good Things Laters, safe, love, etc xx 11:31 p.m. - 04.02.21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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