This is the thread where I have a good angsty moan (do not read if you hate me)

Keep working at making things better. Throw enough shit and eventually something will stick. Just when it feels so overwhelming that you don't think you can take it any more, something will happen to make life worth living again. I'm not being a Pollyanna here, I know this, I've learned this.

I've got Manic Monday stuck in my head. Tee hee hee!

And I'm way too intense for my own good. Need someone in my life to take my mind off me, if that makes even the remotest sense.

I understand the feeling of wanting someone else to take your mind off yourself all the time. But that really isn't healthy, it places quite a ... I hate to use the word burden, but it places a huge significance on the other person. My experience is that relationships do not thrive under this kind of condition, they wither, and wow oh boy have I paid the price for this kind of intensity. Even with people who I thought were my match in intensity - see Horton.

I don't know. I need sleep. But here I am blethering to try and cheer you up. Play some Teardrop Explodes. Especially Seven Views Of Jerusalem. Play that while walking over a bridge over the river Thames where you get seven views of St. Paul's for a wonderful Revelatory moment.

Perhaps I ought to take your advice and trash/burn everything, just let go of the whole bloody history...

And of course I know it's the intensity/dependence which stops me from getting what/who I want. I wish I could snap out of it. At the moment everyone's a Horton, and you know what I mean.

Perhaps I ought to form a band...

:-(

always something there to remind me

*good thoughts for marcello*

I've got to process a week's worth of invoices in two days and still squeeze in a rehearsal or two. My social life has been shot to hell this week, but in a good cause, I guess. Life sure is weird but what else have I to know?

Keep passing the open windows!

Oh I know you are, Kate, and I know we are. I wish knowing it could stop us from doing it, but never mind...

I think my life would benefit immeasurably from being "weird" and "shot to hell" in a good way, i.e. not "shot to hell" as is currently the situation, namely crap job + no life = too tired/frustrated to do anything else, so that I don't end up nearly kicking my TV screen in on Friday because of the asininity of Comic Relief and end up howling at the moon for an hour thereafter.

I don't understand this. If you choose to ignore everyone, why are you surprised when they ignore you back? Also, why do you care, since as you put it they're *fuckwits*? Look, most work people are not necessarily people who you would choose for friends, but few are so awful that they're worthy of total disdain. If you've got to spend 8 hrs a day with them it's worth trying to get on with them.

Social life - I, for one, was looking forward to seeing you last Thursday. It wasn't going to be the best night you've ever had in yr life, but *could have been* enjoyable for you. Then you have one of your ridiculous blasts at someone on ILX and stomp off. So, you stay in again.

You've had a wretched time, but largely the world takes as it finds. Sorry I couldn't be more positive.

I do not come into a work environment with an intent to alienate, although I adhere pretty stringently to the maxim "don't speak until you're spoken to." But if people LEAN OVER ME and DELIBERATELY EXCLUDE ME from their conversation to the extent of putting their elbow on the desk or the filing cabinet to block me out, then why should I go out of my way to connect with them other than work-related reasons? And yes I do care because I have to spend eight hours a day cooped up with them and it's killing me.

As for work, I can only suggest that being more friendly to them will generally get the same back, but I can't say I care a great deal at work - I get on fine with everyone, and as far as I know I'm not disliked, but I have no close friends here either, and that's fine with me.

this is not — she insists — because she is angelic, quite the opposite: "deep down, i intend to browbeat and irritate them mercilessly into realising that their only route of escape from me is civility! If I go to hell for any reason, i believe this to be it: they *WILL* feel guilty and bad..."

(i think i also told ilx the story abt her tirade-switcheroo w. the water board: the water was off for some ludicrous reason and she rang in as Unhinged Madwoman Screaming at Girl on Phone, then immeidately after as polite and friendly worried complainant... the second time she said, "I don't normally make calls like this, but some of my neighbours are getting quite upset", and the Girl on the Phone said "I know!! I've just spoke to a dreadfully angry woman!! She said awful things!!" "Oh dear, poor you," said mum, "I wonder who that was?")

Utterly brilliant strategy. I'd like to try it myself...

essentially what I said to the owner of the Antelope, who fired me for, among similar stated reasons, not playing cricket with him and his friends on weekends, boo hoo

Well you do certainly reach people with your writing, that's true. But as someone who doesn't know you personally, just from limited contact on here and from reading CoM, I hope you can find a level of personal happiness. I was genuinely pleased to read the other week that you felt you'd turned a corner after the march, and it was disappointing to see this thread and hear things aren't going so well now.

Please don't let the bastards grind you down.

I end up attaching myself (or trying to attach myself) to the wrong people. And then I wonder why I end up getting hurt.

Always "Oh MC you're smart/clever/funny/a wonderful writer." Never "Oh MC you're sexy/gorgeous/I want to (fill in blank) you."

I can't let go of the past unless I know I'm going to land somewhere else, rather than just plunge into the abyss.

Thoroughly depressing, as if I weren't depressed enough. Started to write something for CoM about Velvet Tinmine but gave up. It read like a laundry list. Cat Power playing in the background: "Gonna keep on crawlin' 'til the day I die." That about sums it up. Gave up in despair and went to bed, reading Sinclair talking about Watford, the Grand Union Canal, the A40 and Chalfont St Giles!! Dreamed about L yet again; we were out record shopping. She expressed delight about the Wedding Present's Hit Parade (!!) being reissued on CD. Then, inevitably, woke at 4:25 am, feeling utterly suicidal. Lay there in mute despair for awhile and then got back to sleep but the damage was done.

Don't really want to do anything or go anywhere, except to work, robot-fashion. Might go to Oxford again on Saturday. It's not what I want to be doing...what I want is to do things with someone else on Saturday, i.e. record/book shopping/browsing, eating, drinking, art, films, gigs, laughter, friendship. But there is no one else, and no one on the horizon, so literally I have nothing better to do.

The thought which kept going through my head this morning was: "you're a servant, Carlin, a slave, that's all you are, you don't like it but that's what you've ended up being, that's what you've been reduced to."

(note: this thread is a form of self-therapy, and I am really just talking to myself/thinking aloud/lamenting in order to try to avoid doing it on other threads. So you don't need to respond to it, or even read it. This is just me thinking things through on a daily basis)

Strange isn't it...when I was a kid back in the '70s, meeting Oldfield would have been "Jim'll Fix It" time; he was a kind of pre-punk idol to me, through his first three albums, Rock Bottom, Kevin Ayers, Viv Stanshall etc. - but now the prospect of meeting him is just aargh/yeucch!

One by one all the ties with the previous life sever themselves. Alan Keith died Tuesday aged 94 (58 more years); presenter of Your 100 Best Tunes on Radio 2 on Sunday evening for 44 years. Thinking of Sunday nights in Oxford towards the end; when all of this felt cosy and secure, when an utterly conventional life of parenting and weekend motoring trips was at long last something to look forward to. It is called settling down. Not crawling like a spider. And then the carpet is pulled away from under our feet at the last minute, after which everything and everyone is in limbo. But I got a warm, reassuring glow from things like Your 100 Best Tunes. Now I can't.

War being hyped up everywhere but I don't care about any of it, can't get worked up by it or be afraid of it. My world ended 18 months ago. There's nothing left to destroy.

Sinclair warns: London's mapped out like a heart. Get too closely involved in it and it will strangle you. Another bucolic-looking morning, as if to persuade me otherwise, but I'm not fooled. This is all shadow dancing with no purpose yet visible.

I still enjoyed the evening though. I have to get out more, either of my own accord or be dragged out if necessary. It is true that I need to learn to love myself before I can be loved again. It is like learning to ride a bike but I have to do it - tiny steps at a time. In the meantime there are still just pieces of a confused and dislocated person who's trying to put himself together again. But at least I'm trying.

But twas a good evening, yes, and good to see you out of the house, Marcello!

As usual it is to do with The Day Job. My agency have offered me a three-week gig at the Royal Free, starting tomorrow. But "the consultant is difficult and you'll have to jump straight in." And there's nothing else on offer. It was: take that or starve. They more or less forced me into accepting it. So another three weeks of misery, stress and shouting to look forward to.

And I could so easily have said no. I could so easily just walk away from the fucking NHS RIGHT NOW so why don't I? Because I need the money. Because of fucking money. Because I cannot earn enough from IPC Media to get rid of the NHS. Because I'm weak and cling on to things which have long since stopped being useful to me.

I actually think that walking out in front of the next container lorry to come down Streatham High Road would be less painful than having to endure this fucking cycle of misery OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

You know? It doesn't matter which jobs I take. It doesn't matter which hospital I work at, or whether consultants are "difficult" or not. It would be exactly the same pattern, wherever I went.

Fed up with the whole fucking circus.

Anyway, despite my agency doing their best to scare me (think I'll change my agency for a start!), the Royal Free was remarkably quiet and placid. Own office YAY!!!! but no internet access for temps GRRR!!!! so will have to do all posting/emailing in the evening/at weekends for a bit.

Hopefully I will be having company for my usual Saturday morning record shopping binge this weekend! :-) So things, as tend to be the case, aren't that bad after all.

I see there's now an ILx blog (see, that's how out of touch I am) so I might post the pieces on there for now. Petula Clark and Yo La Tengo, if anyone's interested.

Still taking a break though.

Strange to look back at CoM and marvel at the energy I somehow found in myself to write in depth about EVERY piece of music which came my way; the ongoing dialogues with the original Stevie Nixed blog, and so on and so forth. Now it seems clear to me that it must have been something comparable to the unusually intense light you see burning from a light bulb just before it fizzles out forever; it was semi-directionless energy harnessed as a means of coping with loss. Now I feel increasingly that music ended for me when Laura died, but I'll come back to that particular subject later in my ongoing 1974 series on NYLPM.

Depression has been particularly bad these last couple of months, which won't be news to anyone I imagine. While in Paris I seriously contemplated the idea of entering a monastery. Unbelievable, really - just to find a means to hide from the world. Then I remembered what Leonard Cohen said about the average diet in monasteries and that put me off.

The Clear Spot programme was a marvel but clearly not one that can be repeated.

The recent break-up has robbed me of the miniscule amount of confidence and self-esteem I'd regained these past 12 months. Now I don't trust anyone, prefer to stay away from everyone, because it's preferable to sticking your nose out and having it cut off.

I keep wondering whether Laura was the exception that proved the rule with me. I felt like a pretty solitary person when I was a teenager, and I feel that way again now. L was the only person who had the humour, compassion and patience to be able to "get through" to me.

The last "relationship" was, well there are the inverted commas there - we were both looking for substitutes for other people we couldn't have. It's a horror when several months into a relationship you realise that you really have nothing in common with this person. It was too uncomfortable. Going to San Francisco and Seattle maybe camouflaged the inherent difficulties we had. It was like working in an office with someone you hate and just cannot get on with, but you're stuck there with them, day and night. Maybe that's too much of an exaggeration - we don't "hate" each other, we're just not compatible. What (or who) she wants out of life isn't what (or who) I want. It happens. It will also teach me to rush into something without first looking carefully.

(not a bad analogy, actually)

Trouble is now that I'm a forty-year-old neurotic widower (41 in January!) who has kind of painted himself into his own corner. These days large crowds of people and noise do my head in, so that rules out pubs, clubs and FAPs. Perhaps that's just a convenient excuse for me to shut myself off from the world without having to go to the hard work of doing something about the situation.

I am aware that any lasting future relationship is likely to take a long time to develop and will evolve from a deep friendship. Problem is, because of age, circumstances and awareness of one's own mortality (the "running out of time" train of thought), I'm as guilty as anyone of seeking a transient quick fix "relationship" without realising that things do not happen overnight or that I have to be in the right psychological frame of mind in order to allow even the possibility to present itself. God knows when I'm likely to regain that.

Y'know, when you're 18 you're not too bothered about the passage of time. 18-21 seems (seemed) no time at all. Whole lives in front of us, and all that.

Just before L's cancer came on we had started to plan for children, so that would have been more "whole lives" in front of us, as parents, to enjoy. But that didn't happen, so consequently I am 40 and have nothing else to take my mind off that fact.

Also because I have zero self-esteem, I tend to scare people away from me - it's pre-emptive, you know, do it before they do it to you. I was the same at school. When any girl approached me I automatically assumed that they were taking the piss because no girl in her right mind would want to go out with me, so I always said no, and usually not in a pleasant way. As I say, these problems are not recent, they go back an awfully long way.

I'm ashamed to say that the moment I saw the dog, I also saw the lady and wondered to myself "should I talk to her"? But she turned out to be a bit of a prat so I didn't bother.

What suits me/is right for me apropos grief is to go away for a year and grieve properly. But I cannot financially afford to do that, so I instead have to like it or lump it.

My brain tells me that when I did the Clear Spot programme that was when "the time was up." But my heart tells me differently. I wish I could draw a line but I can't because (a) life doesn't work like that; and (b) all strategies I have tried to get on with a new life (including new partner) have failed.

Pubs and clubs, you see, just aren't my thing. They are not me. Too loud and claustrophobic. I like quiet and space. Walking in the country, or around galleries, or just walking through seldom walked-through parts of London.

I don't think there's a "me" to prioritise - just a ghost.

Hence your attendance at improv gigs Marcello?

Your grief went from obstacle to crutch a long time ago by my reckoning.

You can spend the rest of your life curmudgeonly and unhappy, nobody's stopping you, but if you don't want to, then don't, stand up on your own two feet and walk away.

Namely: DO NOT READ IF YOU HATE ME?????!!!!!!

This is MY thread, this is how I feel and if you don't like reading about my misery then DON'T FUCKING READ IT!!!!!!!!

Got it? Good. Bye.

Have you:

1. Gotten your depression and social anxiety treated? Therapy + medication?

2. Gone to a grief counselor and sought out support groups for people who have lost spouses (maybe one for younger people).

Also, why do you think you deserve the least courtesy on these boards whatsoever?

Marcello can also feel sorry for himself for 9000 diary entries in the comfort of his own home, what other reason besides the fact that he chooses to wear his personal tragedy as a badge on his forehead would he go posting to an internet messageboard where he's achieved great renown as a disrespectful troll?

I DON'T WANT YOU ON THIS THREAD. If I wanted haters to come on this thread I would have subtitled it "please read if you hate me."

I don't want you on this thread, or any of my threads, because you are a pathetic Republican scumbag, and I wish you'd fucking died of cancer instead of Laura. You're a waste of fucking oxygen. I hope you get cancer and I hope you die slowly and painfully from it, preferably in front of your idiot mother so that she can regret ever letting your father penetrate her cunt, so that she can watch you gasping for breath, sipping your Complan, deprived of speech, energy and life.

I wish you were dead. But then perhaps Al-Qaeda might get a second wind and blow your worthless atoms into dust, because this world would be better without you.

You don't like it? Tough. That's what bereavement does to a person. Makes them angry, unreasonable and unfocused.

Now fuck off out of my thread before I ask the moderators to block you.

Now I can't deny that any/all of the above would take a supreme effort, but you know there is a lot in what Tom says - ultimately you have to decide whether the wretched time you have had over the past couple of years is going to finish you for good or not. You shouldn't be in the position you're in, you don't deserve it, nobody deserves to lose their wife like you have, but it happened and you are capable of finding a way out of this. Do you want to teavj me to play jazz piano?

Who?

Well Dan I think even if I did that the usual suspects would go on it and cause trouble anyway, and I've had enough of it, so could you please just delete this thread? Thanks.