Black Doggerel

...

Added a new LJ friend today, which prompted a rush of ridiculous embarrassment at the sparsity of intelligent words in my journal of late. It can't be helped. Deathtired is bigger than I am and I can't even let myself think too hard about everything I want to be doing.

Have some linkspam as a cunning substitute for an actual entry. Many of these are regurgitated from my Facebook: I actually hate Facebook, but you wouldn't know it these days. It's just that I can forgive myself for short meaningless entries more easily on Facebook. Every time I try and write more than five words about my life it turns into bitter self-pitying whine; better just to keep my face shut.

( This got bigger than I thought it would )

Why yes - yes, it's been a while, hasn't it? But I'm here now. I always come home, my darlings - never forget that. No matter where I go, I always come back here.

( Tonight I'm here to tell you a story )

I dreamed I was living in an old block of flats, very like the place in Lansdowne where I first lived alone with John except that the flats were bigger on the inside like puzzle boxes. Mine contained room after room full of heavy, dark Victorian furniture, lit by candles; but I couldn't seem to keep the door locked. I woke up in the morning and there was a strange dog, a Great Dane, playing biteyface with Spike. I went out onto the landing to take the Dane back to where he belonged, and one of my neighbours asked me when John would be coming back.

I clutched the ruff of long hair on Spike's neck. "It's complicated," I said. I knew he wouldn't be back. I went back into the room with the long dining table and tried to burn myself with the candles, but all I could do was put each one out, one by one. The hot wax wouldn't even sting on my skin and in any case it was useless, useless. I thought of the cold anger on his face and knew no amount of pain would persuade him to pity or forgive.

Make it stop, oh, make it stop.

Woke up in the middle of last night with a rush of memories coming into my head apparently out of nowhere. Memories of the good times, of coffee shops and motorway service stations, bacon and peacocks at Portmeirion, road trips to Iron Age forts and the expedition to Mortlake. Sunset over the New Forest, deer in Richmond Park, squirrels in shirts, silliness in supermarket car parks and the Weasel War Dance. It was excruciating.

Eighteen years. And, holy shit, I'm still here. If I wanted to be cynical (and, I'm aware, loathsomely self-pitying) I would call that proof that the whole thing is one vast cosmic black joke.

when you say to someone, "I feel your pain", I suspect most of us don't always mean it that literally. Empathy and imagination and compassion are marvellous things.

My downstairs neighbour's wife died recently. I say recently; I think it's been several months now, actually. Though believe me, that counts as recent.

It's still very hard for me to talk to him, to spend time with it. I do understand why death makes other people run away and avoid you. They don't know what to say, they know nothing they say can make it not have happened or make it hurt less. I also know why we need to try and not do that.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

So I've been spending time with him, like old veterans comparing war stories. I know it's helping him. But holy fucking shit, it's hard. I wish I could be enough of a coward to avoid him completely and not care, or brave enough to spend enough time with him not to feel guilty about all the lonely hours I'm not talking to him.

And yes, I know I've been a bit shut down and incommunicado with everyone lately. I feel guilty about that too, especially for some of you that are going through shit. And that this entry is disjointed, possibly unclear and a bit of a downer.

But eh, that's life for you.

...how the hell do you make 20 minutes of video take up 4GB? The wedding's on TWO DVDs and my media player wouldn't even play it till I'd copied the first half to my hard drive. And I can't copy the second half till I've made some space.

There were people I wanted to show this to. Some of you were there. The only way I can see it being possible is to mail you copies, though.