flickersticked

Yeah, I've been staring at one of my bookshelves again.

I have so many interesting books on so many interesting and useful topics! From the sublimely intellectual, to the inspiringly beautiful and fantastic right through to the delightfully practical. I have them all.

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I've even got a fine collection of highly thought-of books on how to manage chronic illness that I haven't read yet.

I'm glad I noticed these ones during my bookshelf-staring session, because just before New Year's (when I'd decided that in 2010 I'll drastically reduce spending on books) I had my last internet binge and bought what I believe could be a really useful and relevant book on how to make the most of what brainpower you have. (It's called "Mind Perfomance hacks" or something).

Now, at the very least, I know where I can put in when it arrives.

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OH dear. Bugger the list, I feel a profound need to lie down with a pillow over my head.

Don't mind me, I'm just going to complain about the weather.

1. It's too fucking hot. It's so hot that even with airconditioning, you can still feel it. The heat snakes in at every opportunity like a sentient, poisonous gas.

2. It's windy. Which means I get windbrain. Windbrain is a scatty, anxious sensation, an inability to settle and focus, bought on by windy weather. Windbrain is not nice.

Oh and
3. I've been Not Thinking about the end of this year and the start of the next one. This is a bad idea: downplaying and trying not to notice a significant moment is the surest way to ensure it really fucking trips you up. The passing of time is really annoying me at the moment.

Stupid time.

Going now.

I'm really sleepy, I think I'm having a much needed crash. It's not that Christmas was a big deal this year but it's a deal nonetheless.

And I think hobbling round on one foot since spraining one of the pair on Monday is taking its toll. Having said that, it's doing quite well. I've not got it strapped up today, nor am I using crutches. I'm just keeping off it and limping when I can't.

Also, Wednesday was infusion day at the hospital and instead of being out by noon, which is roughly when they expect you to be done, I was there until just before five. They had trouble finding a vein, then they had trouble finding a doctor who was willing to look for one. So at about 11:30AM one of the gastro doctors that I know came down and found a vein within moments and things finally got started.

Thursday was a lovely day here, friend over to celebrate the birthday of 10B and later to do a Christmas gift exchange. Yesterday was a very quiet Christmas with 10B and his Mum-In-Law.

We both got really glum last night. For me it was missing Mum and Dad and the general post-Chrissy blues.

I failed to make it to church again, but that was an unrealistic thought. This year I was quite well organised for the holiday, enough that even spraining my foot at the last moment really didn't mess things up. I also failed to give myself time to think about family and absent loved ones, which is why it felled me in the evening.

I do so miss Mum and Dad. And my siblings (in some ways) and my childhood. And I do bloody wish my family could get things sorted about having Mum and Dad's ashes interred somewhere other than in Eldest Brother's laundry on one of the Ikea storage shelves. I want somewhere where I can go and sit occasionally. It's not that I can't sit in his laundry, in fact I have often sat in his laundry when I visit - that's where the downstairs toilet is - but it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

My family's protestantism really does go too far sometimes, with it's total rejection of sacred space and ritual. Object really are just objects and are never to be infused with anything. I occasionally suspect that if left to my own devices long enough I'd wind up converting to Roman Catholicism, and probably going to the local RC church that does the full Latin mass just because I long for external signs of meaning that come with the trappings of Catholic space. And I love the way they can worship without really having to pay attention to each other and make nice all the fucking time.

Or it could just be that my family are shit at getting things organised. In my hankering for meaning and connection this summer, I pondered a visit to my grandparents grave, which isn't too far away, but Grandpa's name still isn't on the headstone and he died in 1974. I discovered this oversight about 15 years ago. I mentioned it to Dad at the time, he gave me his pretend-wise smile and said in his play-superior tone that we were not a family that worried about such temporal matters. And then he muttered something about how he'd mention it to one of my uncles who could probably sort it out, but it certainly hadn't happenned last time I looked.

Maybe I should do it.

And let's face it, my grandparents were buried rather than cremated because they believed in bodily resurrection on Judgement Day, which rather suggests that the rejection of all things temporal and worldy is a modern affectation and really just an excuse for being slack. Not to mention a recipe for a serious case of the glums on Christmas Day because if you want to go and commune with absent loved ones you have to stand at a grave with an incomplete list of occupants or sit on the toilet in your eldest brother's laundry.

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In other news, Pachelbel Cat is eating well and generally doing a very good impression of a geriatric but lively enough cat. Way too thin, but very much herself nonetheless.