Type ‘A’ Personality

 

Just wondering, was there a poll when they allocated letters of the alphabet to personality types?  If so, did the Type A’s (driven, neurotic, anxious, perfectionists, great fun at parties) all petition to be awarded the A Grade because nothing less would do? :p

I am in jest, of course.  I consider myself to have some of the ‘A’ traits, but I have reigned them in a lot and everyone knows those categories are tedious as hell.  They should be thought of as signs in the supermarket, pointers if you will – one aisle for the cereals, one for the meat.  If you need a packet of cheerios, you look in the cereal aisle, but you’re still going to have to skim the shelves through the mire of 100s of others.

Sherlock – BBC series – death

I watched the last season 2 finale of Sherlock tonight.  Well, I missed the first fifteen minutes, so I didn’t really know why Moriarty was in custody and Sherlock heading for the witness stand, but I’ll watch missed minutes when it goes on i-player.

Quick tangent:

ORIGINAL IDEAS – WHERE ARE THEY?

Okay, this isn’t just related to the Sherlock thing (which I think is a great character and great T.V. series), but I’ve been wondering recently why nothing is new anymore?

I loved HOUSE M.D. which was a character also inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

Everything feels derivative these days.  Maybe it was always like this and Conan Doyle’s work was based on something already extant (though I have read he based it on another person he knew).  Is there nothing fresh?  I can’t think of how many films I’ve watched that have later been revealed as re-hashed plots from old novels – Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare, Bronte sisters.

It is a bit depressing to think that we are so bereft of new characters, new plots, that we continually revert to the past and rework it to a modern day tale.  I suppose there’s sci-fi, which looks outward, but I wonder which characters present in living novelist’s books will be considered classics in a hundred years.  Or are we just out of new ideas…

BACK TO SHERLOCK – T.V. SERIES

I rarely watch British series’ and I only watched this because I happened upon a review a few weeks ago.  I’ve now caught up with the entire season 1 – not too hard as there are only 3 episodes per season (90 minutes a pop), and season 2, excusing the missing fifteen minutes tonight.

I was thinking about why I found it so good and enjoyable - the two don’t always go together.

It’s good because the actor’s are good – Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman seem to sit in their roles as if they’re sinking into a big comfy chair.  I suppose good actors do that all the time, but they did seem to fit together.

It was enjoyable because script was intelligent (had to be) as well as humorous.  The visual choreography of Holmes’ thinking process in the earlier episodes was a nice touch – text messages written on screen, ideas and thoughts pulled out and pushed away via Cumberbatch’s hand/head movements.  I don’t know much about filming, but I presume the producer or director is responsible for that visual representation sha-bang.

The idea of Sherlock Holmes is enticing – a man, supremely confident in his powers, but uninterested in the human needs of companionship, sexual relationships and so on.  That gives him great advantage when all he needs is the work.  I know they humanized him a little by moving his relationship with Watson from perfunctory foil to sort-of friendship.  Still, for the most part, he’s a calculating computer.  That fascinates me.  I’m jealous of the detachment in a way, not to mention the intellectual prowess.

There’s a long tradition of clever detectives requiring a less intelligent or in-experienced foil.  Holmes and Watson, Poirot and Hastings, Morse and Lewis, Patrick Jane and Lisbon.  It does seem a shame to resort to that device, so it was nice that the updated Watson wasn’t portrayed as clueless.

Well, I haven’t read Doyle’s work in a while and I gave my Sherlock tome to charity a few months ago as I reasoned that collected works like that are too cumbersome to read but tonight I’d have liked to dip in there.  I knew they’d pull the not really dead stunt at the end and you have to have a guess at how that would be explained, don’t you?  My uneducated guess is that mortuary attendant, whom Sherlock asked for help, knocked him up a latex face mold or something, then he somehow pushed Moriarty off.

The trouble is that’s flimsy.  So if anyone knows the answer, who’s read the relevant story or has a psychic connection with Gatiss, please, let me know.

p.s. I’m split between thinking the guy who plays Moriarty is really menacing and thinking, at times, he just sounds and looks like Graham Norton.  No more so than when he does the monologue on the T.V. screen in the taxi cab.  His slightly camp facial whoopsies and the Irish lilt.

ADDENDUM:

Having had an idle day today I have decided that the non-death of Sherlock could have happened via these steps:

i) Sherlock is facilitated by Mycroft and Molly (the two not in the line of fire, as three bullets are for Watson, Hudson and Lestrade, confirmed on the rooftop by Moriarty).

ii) Moriarty dies.

iii) either someone from Molly’s mortuary table (homeless person, perhaps) or Moriarty himself is then fitted with the clothes and a mock-up mask of Sherlock’s face.

iii) the conversation with Watson could have been pre-taped or be live from near the back of the roof, either would do.

iv) Watson is in-fortuitously knocked onto the ground by a cyclist (convenient) before he can get to the body, perhaps leaving him concussed and less sharp.

v) Ambulance men arrive to take the body, seemingly within a minute, which is unlikely, unless pre-arranged (Mycroft has that power?)

vi) Mandatory identification of the body would have to be done by Mycroft, again making me think he may have been involved.

The alternate option, which I really hope, if there is another series, they don’t go down that road, is that Holmes had lost his mind – seven per cent solution-style.  Haven’t read the book but know the skeleton plotline: it’s author has Holmes inventing Moriarty the uber-villain and projecting it onto an innocent man, due to drug addicted psychosis.  Shutter Island sort of thing.  I hate that plot device, it’s boring, plain and has already been done.  To death.

Self Doubt and my perfectionist trait

Session 1 – Photography course

I attended the first session of a photography course this week.  It is an interest I developed (no pun), probably through the monotony of being in one or two rooms for long periods of time.  After a while the patterns within the patterns on the wallpaper started to sing to me ‘we’re here!  Look at us!’  It drove me potty.

So, I took a lot of photographs of my surroundings.  By the way there was this fab sunset yesterday so I’ll show you:

And this was another that I really liked, a bit earlier:

Dealing with people who have more experience/better photographers

There were points were I felt my pictures looked crap or weren’t technically good (which, of course, they probably weren’t, since I have never used a camera without the buffer of knowing I can edit it later) and the photo assignment took place during the class.  We were shooting buildings nearby.

I have this feeling that maybe a leisure course would be better in terms of enjoyment (avoiding the competitive side), and really I wanted something a little more geared to digital manipulation because I am more drawn to that creative side.  I also need to earn money, so I’m very much a confused tired woman at the moment.  I don’t know what to do for the best.

I’m writing this post to make sense of my feelings.  Being positive (stone-blood-hello!!), I contributed in the class, I chatted with people during the breaks and there were moments of feel-good about being with a group, doing something different and being sociable.

My doubts

So, I have to wonder why I came out feeling flat for want of a better word.  Deep down I don’t think this course is right for me.  But I have started it due to nothing obvious to replace it with right now.

The rock – being in the house, alone too much

The the hard place – an overly long 4.5 hour course, which flies against the ideal of controlling my M.E. via pacing, enabling the same amount of activity everyday, not one huge burst and then crashing out the next day.

Why do tutors still read powerpoints?  Don’t they also want to avoid waffly time-wasting?

I got irritated because the tutor gave us PowerPoint handouts and insisted on bloody reading it through through.  For me, those monotonous 50 minutes were actually pointless and I knew they were wasting my energy.  The other bits of the session were much better, particularly going outside to take snaps ourselves.

Self Doubt “I’m not good enough”

Where does the self doubt come in?  Well, before pictures were to please me, but today they were an object to be remarked upon.  I don’t think mine were the worst but there were some that were just so good that I felt a stab of jealousy/inferiority.

I can’t stand being middle of the road.  I know it’s stupid but the perfectionist has not left me.  Even while ill I’m unable to shake the idea of needing validation through exemplary standards.  Anything short of that and I just feel inadequate.  In my depressions the polarizing (no photo pun intended, honest) idea of be good or it’s not worth doing, is quite disabling.

Anyway, won’t ramble on further.  Just hopefully will be able to think a little clearer after a night or two of sleep and time to regroup the brain cell troops.

New Year’s List (+ why resolutions don’t work)

Things I’m looking forward to in the New Year:

1. Getting my new cameras.  After painstaking pricing versus features comparisons, I’ve ordered two.  A cheap Kodak compact (not had a Kodak before) and a Nikon ‘bridge’ camera to try out some manual controls.
2. Not going out on New Year’s Eve, having ‘contrived’ fun, as Alison Graham of Radio Times so aptly puts it.
3. Not feeling left out for not going out this New Year’s Eve.  I’m virusy to exactly the right amount – past the sweating/shivering stage, able to keep boredom at bay, but not well enough to want to par-tayyy!!
4. Maybe a bit of good luck?  I don’t mind in what way, but I’m putting it out there to the God’s of Luck.  Chuck a bit my way and I’ll be grateful

I don’t have resolutions.  I’m going to give you a choice – a cerebral la-di-da reason (go to answer ‘a’), and a down-t-to-earth reason (go to answer ‘b’)

a)  Resolutions don’t work because

the New Year is only a new year for a few days.  We don’t change our habits just because we’ve reached the end of a year, and when we aim to do so, we invariably fail.  This isn’t our fault.  It is a product of  forced ideals of change without the conscious volition to carry them through.  It’s like a diet that always starts on a Monday and finishes on the Tuesday.  When you want to create a change, Wednesday afternoon is as good a time as Monday morning or New Year’s Day.

b)  Resolutions don’t work because

they suck.  Most of the naughty stuff that goes on the ‘I won’t do this anymore’ list at New Year – smoking, drinking, drugging, cheating, lying, donuts etc – are pleasures.  January signals a return to work for most, an end to the holidays and Christmas festivities.  Now, does that sound like a good time to forgo your 10-a-day habit?

Relative Strangers

I have mentioned that we have our Christmas with relatives – aunts, my Mum, Dad, sister, some other halves, cousins, and then there are The Others.  The ones who are there by virtue of some relationship to our aunt – not our side of the family.

The Others this year were slightly different in that one old guy wasn’t there, but some new raven haired woman turned up, invited, mid way through the meal.

I don’t talk to the Others because I only see them once a year and the general consensus is they are weird.  Harsh?

Well, yeah, in a way, but in another way, I’d say there’s some unspoken pact: we’ve decided not to pretend to be interested in each other, when we will be eating a meal, getting drunk and then not seeing each other until the next year.

The Others talk to the kids and generally the men of both sides blend together by the force of  football and man-speech.  It’s a useful device this man-speech, as it appears to require little effort, be genuinely interesting to the participants, yet never dip below the surface.  Perfect for Parties.

The women are harder.  Hit and miss.   There would be an opportunity to be surprised by a mutually satisfying conversation, the click-click, wow, we’re so similar moment, but then we’d move on, talk to the uncle who joins us with a fresh drink in his hand, ready for conversation in a small space.

Raven-haired woman, it transpires, is a sister to weird guy, who is the cousin of a non-bloodline aunt.  We are weird to them too, no doubt, but for this purpose you’ll just have to go along with me that they’re weird.

Weird bloke – let’s call him Harry – is a regular.  He’s about forty I think, and has a mental illness.

When I say that I wonder what your reaction is?  When my Mum told me he suffered from bipolar, it was because she’d talked my uncle who, as a straddler-by-marriage, is Gatekeeper for knowledge snippets for both sides.  At first I thought,

oh, well maybe he’s not weird then, because if he’s weird I’m weird and if I’m weird I’m fucked.  And ‘maybe I should make more of an effort next time

But this was a few years ago and I have yet to find an inroad into satisfying conversation.  I wonder if my Mum, in gleaning this knowledge, thought ‘ooh, well that’s a point of mutual common ground then’.  I thought it too, momentarily.  It doesn’t work that way.

Mental illness is commonplace, many suffer a bout, some just once, some chronically.  It doesn’t mean you will click with a person just because you’ve both had attacks.  It, also, isn’t a conversation topic for parties.  I can’t walk up to him with the opener:

“Hi, so I hear you’re mental?  Me too.  We’ve got lot’s to cover tonight.  You first?”

I thought it was worth mentioning – you are just as likely to click with people who tick the normal boxes as you are with other OCD’ers, depressives, Phobics, whomever.

In that light, then, you’ll understand that I can say the guy isn’t on my wavelength – at least not what I’ve heard from him during these short ‘family’ gatherings.

Tangent.

What I wanted to tell you was an anecdote that I found funny.  My cousin and uncle are more outspoken in their declarations of Weird Guy being weird.  I never really thought he was weird, just didn’t have any common ground, didn’t think about it.  My cousin came round a few days after the meal and said

“Oh-mi-god, did you know that Harry has a homeless person in his shed?”

“What do you mean?”  I said, overhearing the conversation.

My cousin beamed “Yup.  He has a homeless person he lets stay in his shed.”

Okayyy…

After some giggling and further questioning I find out that the ‘homeless guy’ was  sleeping in Harry’s shed, and he must have said oi! get out of my shed, or similar, I imagine.

“So, what’s he going to do about it, then?”  I ask.

“No, no, he’s letting him stay there now,” she says.

It turns out this isn’t a new arrangement.  Some guy has been staying in Harry’s shed for the past year or so, but my cousin thinks he pays a bit of rent now.

“So, he’s not really homeless then, is he?”  I had to say it.  I found her initial dramatization humorous but let’s cut to the chase.

“Well, he was, but I think Harry let’s him stay there now, and he sometimes comes up to the house for a cup of tea.”

Again we all laughed.  What a scenario.  Weird Guy, living alone, middle aged and unemployed, keeps homeless man in shed for small fee.  Hardly the story to break down the barriers of assumed weirdness.

I think there’s a big part of me that wanted to get on with Harry because if he’s weird, I’m weird, so I wanted to rescue him, and therefore myself, from weirdness.  I am irked to admit that I don’t want to be thought of as weird.  Well, not tragic-weird.  I don’t at all mind being cool-weird, like Johnny Depp it’s cool to be weird weird.

Alas, on paper, Harry and I are both weird, we both get attacks of needing to be away from people, neither of us are in regular employment with our problems – I’m not great at the moment in terms of mood, but other times I am more physically ill with immune/fatigue stuff, which then keeps me in a mental place that isn’t so conducive to feeling good.

The family I have accept me and I am mostly not bothered about the opinion of strangers.  Sometimes people say ‘well, you’d never know from looking at you’, either about my recurrent depression bouts or my CFS/M.E.  Well, that’s because when I come out and talk to you, I am having a good day, or a less than dreadful day.  If I pass the time of day with you in the local shop, you won’t know I’m having suicidal thoughts every week,.  You won’t know that I talk to you for ten minutes, drive home with some shopping and then have to rest in bed for an hour before I get up to do the next thing.

I am not proud of my mental illness, but I’m not ashamed to be alive, the way I was when I first got ill.  I’ve had to educate myself about it.  I’m not happy I have CFS/M.E. and am frustrated that I have these unseen physical ailments, but I realise that the attempts to push through it as if it were a matter of will power, are futile.

Some days I’m like the equivalent of Gay Pride and I don’t give a shit who knows I don’t work: if someone asks me what I do, I will, if I can be bothered, say ‘Nothing!  I’m ill – depression, CFS -let’s talk about something interesting now that’s out of the way’.  Other days I don’t feel too happy and don’t want to wear the badge on my sleeve.

My point, in this post, though we got here by a winding road, is to articulate this:  Being mentally ill doesn’t mean you are weird, though it often makes you feel an outsider, and that feeling is crap.  Most people have something they think would make them look weird to other people, it’s just that not everyone has it in the open.  How many bulimics maintain well-kept personal and professional lives?  A lot I imagine.  How many people have a secret they wouldn’t share with their neighbours?  Is your hand up?  If not – LIAR!

The other point is, putting two people who’ve struggled with mental illness in the same room doesn’t work like you’ve put two golf enthusiasts together.

Finally, very important, I get to have mental illness and I still get to call you weird.  I get to call you weird and you get to call me weird before we know anything about any mental disturbance present.  That’s a perk of being human.  That’s a benefit that mental illness can’t strip from you.  That’s human nature for you

Christmas Cake = It’s a Wonderful Life (of weird food combos)

Today I am grateful that I did not eat any of my aunt’s Christmas pudding/cake.

I cannot understand the appeal this stuff has with our nation?

For anyone uninitiated, Christmas cake is mainly about

WRINKLY FRUIT

WHITE ICING

A weird combination of sultanas, cherries, figs, prunes (my nose is wrinkling at the thought), zests of orange (that’s’ the peel, the puckered, thick, outer casing that, on any other day of the year we throw away in favour of the fruit beneath)  The Christmas Cake/Pudding turns this concept on it’s head and then some!!

I’m not giving a recipe here, this is just the stuff I have heard goes into these dirge-like desserts.

When I was 10 I said “I don’t like Christmas pudding”.

My Mum said “No, children don’t usually like it.  You’ll change your mind when your older.”

She said the same about boys.  She was right about the boys.

The Christmas cake remains a mystery.

See, I think it has something to do with the fact that it, done properly, takes so goddamn long to make.

There’s a ritual involving many stages of soaking the wrinkly fruit in alcoholic mixtures, mixing up whatever else goes into it and then, this is the weird part, waiting about six months for it to come to its matured glory!

A Christmas cake is a cake of dried fruit made moist by months of soaking, then packed tightly with a small amount of dark ‘cakey’ brown filling the gaps between the befuddled fruits.  Then, to make sure that heavily seasoned, rind-filled gunk stays in cake form, it is covered in about two inches of cement hard icing.  All over.  Then back in the pantry for more maturing.

It’s a wonder they don’t need to take a chisel to it come Christmas Day.

I put It’s A Wonderful Life in the title because it got the most hits on this blog by saying those words near Christmas (unintentional, but it’s bugging me that my most ‘traffic’ day was in April 2009.  I’d like to move it on a notch so underhand tactics will be brazenly employed until it happens.

Oh, and the weird food combos refers to our leftovers.  No other day than Boxing Day is it fine to eat a bit of sausage roll, some chocolate and a bag of crisps for breakfast.

Yum.

What Does Christmas Mean

 

It’s not a hard question.

I grew up in a Catholic family.

Christ was born on Christmas Day.

Hence: Christ + Mass = Big Day

 

Now I skip the Mass bit,

So I am left with Christ.

I am unsure of my beliefs, so I’m left with turkey.

 

Turkey, ham, potatoes, vegetables, too much alcohol.

Too much expectation,

Too little appreciation.

Another helping of apple sauce.

 

I am thankful for the effort my extended family make in hosting The Day.

I’m wondrous at the children’s wonder and who needs Jesus when you have Santa?

All the better they have both I guess.

I handled my fatigue symptoms by taking my lovely aunt’s offer of lying down upstairs (I usually just go home when I feel the flop coming).

I handled my depression symptoms by bailing out before my stomach became too full of food and wine and reasons to break down.

Christmas means very little to me now, but meant a great deal fifteen or so years ago.  So, things change.  So, they will again.

So, merry christmas, and if you cried or laughed or stayed in bed, I wish you a final hour of christmassy-ness.

Over and out!

Depression Poem

Depression seeps through

And, for

A Moment

Is terrifying.

 

Fortunately

The especial type of terror

Lasts but 

 

A Moment

 

Unfortunately

Depression has an eclectic taste

In Terror

The next 

 

Moment

 

Filled, as expertly

As the former.

 

Grab on to something

Lest you be consumed.

My 8 year-old niece dances like a ‘Ho

This is something that has been in my thoughts for a while.  I feel really uncomfortable when I see the dance moves my cute young niece innocently – and, it has to be said, unstoppably – busts out in front of any willing audience.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a heavy topic, so I’m going to find an unrelated picture to post first:

Ok, it wasn’t entirely unrelated, you got me!

My niece is a real girly girl, a pink ‘n’ pretty kind of girl.  She’s lovable, sweet and mischievous.  I don’t see her that often so I don’t think about her that often, but now I realise that every time I do see her, she sort of shocks me with something I find…discomfiting, or distasteful, I’m not sure exactly how to phrase it.  I just kind of have a moment where I want to take her to one side and say ‘Look, I know you like these dances and singing these songs and acting and playing, and you think it’s fun – But, please, for God’s sake, don’t ever do that stuff when there are strangers around.’

Of course I can’t say that as her parents are her guardians (and are always there whenever I’ve seen this kind of play-acting) and I don’t know what they think about it.  It’s not as if I have kids of my own to compare with.  Maybe they all do it and I’m just being boringly stuffy about an attitude and way of moving, speaking, behaving that Rihanna would happily demonstrate any day of the week.

Perhaps that’s overstating it a little.  She doesn’t come to family gatherings dressed only in hosiery and a smile – she wears actual clothes…It’s the attitude, the ”I’m a sexy bitch, ya ha!” attitude that is evident in the mimicry of a raised eyebrow, a roll of the eyes, a hand on a prepubescent hip, a knowingness without knowing anything.  How could she know?  She’s just doing what the other girls her age are – watching pop stars strut their stuff and seeking out accomplices to encourage her learning of routines (another close family member, nearer my age, has been schooling her in some of the routines – she thinks it’s funny apparently.  I’ve heard this second hand, but I can imagine it’s true).

I never thought of myself as narrow minded or stuffy.  It’s true I don’t have much of a respect for the pop industry, since it’s a game of who can wear a) the least amount of clothing on stage or b) Rhianna, are you listening?  Who can get away with S&M inspired bondage cossies.

I don’t have much of a respect for it – but I still watch it, I still listen to the music if it’s catchy, and don’t turn the channel over just because someone is raunching it out in front of me.  I don’t think about it.  What is it to me?  I see the girls (it’s usually girls) on stage are just doing a job, hopefully being well paid etc etc.

BUT MY NIECE SHOULDN’T BE MIMICKING THE SEXUALITY THAT’S SOLD IN THESE PERFORMANCES.

Sorry, to shout there – don’t know what came over me.

I wish my niece didn’t dance like a ‘ho, want to get outfits to look like a ‘ho and mimic smouldering expressions.

I’m not afraid for her, exactly, because she’s well guarded by her parents and she’s so innocent in other ways (she mentioned santa claus to me over a family meal recently).  She’s innocent, but wants to appear knowing.

Generally, I find it depressing the way the children’s exposure to adult ideas is made so early.  I find it depressing that it’s okay for them to count X-Factor and Dirty Dancing among their favourite programs.

I know she’s fine while she’s with adults at home, school, dance class, gymnastics (she does the usual little girl activities).  When I see her sometimes, I pray to God that she knows not to do/say some of that adult stuff in the company of anyone outside her protective bubble.

I think of pedophiles, maybe just watching kids in the playground, and my stomach lurches.  I wish I had the authority to just warn her that she doesn’t know the half of it, the world isn’t as nice as it should be and to please, please just be safe.

It’s A Wonderful Life – in black and white, or colour?

I was returning a printer cable I borrowed from my uncle.  This was a few days ago.  While I was there he had ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ on, the classic Christmasy film with James Stewart and..I don’t know who everyone else is but I’m sure they’re famous.  I say Christmasy because I think it’s too good to be labelled just a Christmas film – it’s a classic.

Anyway, so I watched it with him.  In COLOUR.  Because he’d bought, for £15, an anniversary edition with both the black and white version and a new, bright, sparkly colour version.

I can’t believe they’ve done this.  Why mess with a good thing?  I hate the way today we think just because we can do stuff with technological wizzadry, we should.

It was little things, like when Violet is walking past in a dress “oh this old thing”, they’ve coloured it pink.  In my imagination that dress has and always will be white with a slight lavender hue.  Don’t ask me why.  That’s just my imagined colour.  Same witht the big dance feature in the hall when the floor parts.  Mary’s dress is a colour I never dreamed of, a frilly duck egg blue confection – yuk.

By the way, I differentiate between colourizing a film and restoring a film.  I am not opposed to taking a grainy/damaged film and helping it back to it’s former self.  Restoration = good.

There were some bits I thought were nicely done, but I stand by my original feeling.  It didn’t need messing with.  And people are buying it for £15, that’s just odd to me.