I've been doing this in different guises for a year. We won't mention the earlier incarnations and probably ought not to mention most of this one which, on a recent re-reading, I decided was more bad than good. However, here it is. It seems the right moment to take the long view: 12 months ago, I was in the midst of a divorce battle which was about to get worse. I worried constantly about how life would turn out. Where would we all live? How would we all live? It seemed endless and was far and away the worst thing I've ever been through, making all the other things I moan about seem no more unsettling than a gentle summer breeze. So for me, blogging started as an outlet, and the internet was a place where I could deposit anxiety, a medium through which the urge to communicate about something terrible could be harnessed to the urge to remain anonymous. It was all rather self-indulgent and "poor-little-me" and there are things about it that I regret, not least the intemperate outbursts. No more of those.
In fact, life now is so different that I can hardly believe it. Then, work was an escape from trauma and a way of avoiding trouble. Now, I don't really have anything to worry about and have become bone-idle and unmotivated: often, I just want to do nothing but sit here in the mornings and read other blogs while sipping ice-cold Diet Coke. Keep your aspirations within easy reach, I say.
Essentially, I've run out of steam, maybe even run out of things to say. Perhaps description is the way to go rather than opinion (infantile) and self-analysis (futile).
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Mine is a small house, really just a flat on two floors. It is very easy to keep clean but gets dirty very quickly if things are not kept tight-hold of. I managed to tread some mud from the riverbank in yesterday without really knowing how and then got held up by a phone call before heading to work, leaving no time to clean it up. Some of last night's supper, muesli, slid off the dish - dry cereal rather than milky slop - and that has been trodden through to the hall, too. There is washing in the machine waiting to go onto the airers, the bed is unmade, the dishes unwashed, myself still in my jim-jams at midday. The whole place has that feeling of middle-aged male slobbery. Excellent. I'm going to stop in a minute and sort it all out. Or maybe not. Perhaps I could just stay indoors forever. Yes, I'll do my work via the internet, get groceries and clothes sent round in vans and pay for everything else with direct debits. The Howard Hughes of River Terrace. In 100 years, when they knock these buildings down, my remains will be found under piles of junk mail, blunted shaving razors and McVities chocolate digestive wrappers, not to mention those Huntingdonshire district council bin bags in a pretty shade of blue. "Oh, yes," my discoverers will say. "He was a funny fellow. A well-preserved example of Meltdown Man."
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