Blue Saturday

:(

brains shd have evolved some kind of downtime override that doesn't involve Drambuie

There are days that ILX is a really fun place to hang out and chat with my mates while ignoring idiocy. And then there are days when the overwhelming negativity and relentless low-level hatred is just a sucking chest wound in my already depleted emotional reservoir. Admittedly, the difference is me, and how much breathing room I have. Not getting enough sleep, not getting enough external social contact, not getting enough basic Maslovian needs met... I am feeling really shitty about my job search. And feeling shitty about it leads to searching less, which means fewer and worse bites from headhunters which means feeling even shittier about it. I don't think *this* helps. Right now I'm not even sure what does (answer: drawing boys) but good god, some reliable way of getting 8 hours instead of 4, that would help.

i got nothin' that i cd turn into a twinkly Facebook motivational jpeg but you've got all my sympathy BB

https://31.media.tumblr.com/025f7f8da6b7e19c23e4f8f77f222b16/tumblr_inline_n2rlweCEi11qklnhw.jpg

"Here's mud in yr eye fingers in your bang, kid"

meanwhile somebody scanned the Book of Kells

http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003v

which is a bugger cos it's kinda hard to look at discreetly whilst at work

books and sunshine and peace is all i want. surrounded by a mass acceptance that these are unreasonable demands.

― pings can only get wetter (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 March 2014 10:20 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems perfectly reasonable on a day like this. make some excuse at work, grab your book and take the bus out of the city.

Oh yeah that Kells online thing is amazing and good trippy fun. But not exactly work appropriate, unless your job is actually, Medieval Monk.

Why can't my job be Medieval Monk. I'd be perfectly suited for it. Sing hymns, draw strange beasts, read books, flagellate self. Why is this no longer a career option.

But now looking at the picture of Kessler with a glass of whiskey has awakened whisky rage in me and I waaaaaaant whisky.

I have sunshine and peace and instead of reading books, I'm fretting online. I am a fucking idiot.

I need to ask cause its been bugging me, who does that guy look like? I think I'm thinking of an actor.

Road trip guy, maybe

I looked at it in work! But I work (v. tangentially) on some less glamorous l*br*ry d*g*t*sation projects so I was all set to say "just checking out the competition, yo" if anyone asked. Which they did not. Which is good because that might be the most work-related thing I've spent more than five minutes on all morning. Oh dear.

Had a quite productive Tuesday, although it was a day of new tasks constantly rolling in and being dealt with, not actually getting any longer-term tasks done. All downhill from there...

it is a beautiful day in Hull. just spent an hour of it discussing how to manage other people's naughty behaviour. god the ironing.

Stoner dude from clueless! Right? Kinda.

I have never seen Clueless or Road Trip so I am useless at this game but I don't think anyone would appreciate it if I just posted loads of pictures of dude so you could guess who he looks like some more.

Also, headhunters, christ it's terrible when they don't call but it's even more terrible when they do and I am tired of talking to headhunters.

this thread has had lots of tawdrier things than pictures of dudes you want to commune with in a fingerbanging scenario tbh

His GUITAR TONE. I want to commune in a fingerbanging session with his ~guitar tone~.

OK, it would help if he made this face while doing it, but sure.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/1742fe0f5dee956c768ee77ca9d792d6/tumblr_n2rrlekWTg1r6cs0zo4_r1_1280.png

I have been for a walk in the sunshine and it is glorious. I have communed with some blossom and inspected my orchards. Now I have a painting to finish.

I have never seen Clueless

m8

just spent an hour of it discussing how to manage other people's naughty behaviour. god the ironing.

Just spent 45 minutes in a meeting where the manager talked about why it's other people's fault that work isn't getting done. Oh the ironing manager's transparently obvious skiving.

OH GOD I NEED TO GO AND DEAL WITH THE COUNCIL TAX PEOPLE.

SPARE ME. JUST FUCKING SPARE ME FROM LAMBETH COUNCIL.

I have managed to sort through a year's worth of unfiled billed and bank statements and found the supporting evidence that it is how I said it was, and they fucked up. (I wish I had kept copies of the letters I sent, but stupidly, I did not.)

But I am trying to gather together the nerve and the confidence to actually walk down to the nearest council office (probably to be told that they cannot handle it, and I have to go to Brixton) and attempt to sort it all out. ARGH.

too late now but keep copies of everything in future, yeah, they are evil for "losing" paperwork

It's entirely possible I have a scan somewhere, but my computer files are even worse than my physical ones. For a pack rat who keeps *everything* I sure am shit at finding things again.

i lost a bunch of v important work papers this morning and was right on the cusp of contacting HR to admit i was useless and unsuited for a position in management when i found them

never felt so alive for those 10 minutes

Think I need a Red Saturday (or possible Red Monday) thread. Just being in the office makes me constantly annoyed/irritable/sarcastic/a dick.

I need to focus on small mercies like being allowed to cut short my 3 month notice period in half, so at least I only have another 20 working days with these morons. And maybe anger management, but I'm about to start doing CBT next week so maybe that will help I dunno.

Argh, that "I've lost this important thing!!!!" panic, that was yesterday.

I went up to the Community Garden like I always do on Sunday afternoons. I dug up / turned over / pitchforked (we have 200 seed beds for you to weed, right?) this massive plot of earth then went over to drink tea with the other workers. And someone asked me about my bag, and I realised in the course of talking about where I got it, that the pocket where I normally keep my wallet is FLAPPING OPEN with no wallet inside. Cue massive panic because, well, I don't actually think my wallet has been stolen, I think that while I was working on one of the 200 seed beds, my wallet flopped out of the open pocket and got hoed down into the earth and bye-bye bank cards and bus pass and ARGH and I do not want to have to dig up 200 seed beds looking for the damn thing (like, have you seen the damage a pitchfork can do, for real.)

Anyway, they told me to go home and just check and ARGH PANIC RUN THE WHOLE MILE HOME and phew, it was in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing the night before when I'd gone to buy biscuits.

But yeah. Panic. And now I have eaten lunch and have no more excuses and have to go deal with the council. For real.

(Isn't there a "thread where we work out our notice period" for that sort of hell, but if there isn't, argh, Poo, I feel your pain, that sounds shit. Just remember it will be over soon.)

And lo, this is how I now become benefits scum. This country!

I paid my council tax a bit late last year, but I paid it in full. However, because I paid it by cheque, it cleared in a day past the deadline, and triggered an automated process whereby they took me to court for an amount that was already paid, and whacked me with £127 for the privilege.

And apparently no human being on earth, in the customer service centre, or over the phone, can revoke that charge once it goes on. "I can't pay this! I'm unemployed!" I moaned. "Oh, you're unemployed, you say? Right, then you can apply for Council Tax benefit, which covers the whole amount." I don't want to cover the whole amount with benefits. I want to pay my council tax, but not have to pay a £127 late fee for an amount I already paid. That isn't possible. I can go on benefits for the full council tax, or nothing.

So I am now applying for benefits I don't want to be on. This is fucking stupid.

Here you go. How much of modern management technique is descended from slavery:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/16/the-messy-link-between-slave-owners-and-modern-management/

Fuck councils and their 'automated processes'. Every time I'm £10 in arrears on service charges I get a computer-generated letter threatening the beginning of a repossession process. Imagine some mentally ill person getting one of those and having a fucking heart attack.

I've managed to get my way with the council over bullshit charges by adopting the 'frankly, you can whistle for it' line, but my borough still allows people to escalate issues direct with managers who can make decisions. That said, I always phone the automated payment line for my council and pay them that way, not by cheque.

oh god that sucks. I don't trust them with a direct debit after they fucked up once, so I do it online every month, but am not too precious about making sure it is cleared by the 1st or whatever.

They have fucked up far, far, too many times to ever get a direct debit out of me. And you can't even pay online with Lambeth. There's supposedly a phone payment system, but I'm not paying them in any way I don't have a receipt and a proof of the date I paid them. Guess it means going down to Gracefield Gardens every month until benefits (30 day wait) come through. :(

I preferred going to counters at the Town Hall with cash and a paying-in booklet, but they closed the counter in my borough late last year, and I only have enough wiggle room to have a few direct debits. Post offices should be able to process Council Tax payments if you've been issued a barcoded booklet. Phone payment systems do give you a reference number in lieu of receipt, which you can then quote in correspondence as proof.

"And lo, this is how I now become benefits scum. This country!"

Really? When did some Mail columnist hack your account. I mean have sympathy for your dealings with fuckwitted LA's, but you should be better than that.

You know that thing where Imago posted something that was ambiguous, about whether it was actually ableist, and he claimed that "come on man, it is so obvious I am taking the piss out of this attitude, rather than expressing it" and everyone jumped on me for even asking, saying "jesus christ, how tin-eared and unaware of imago's personality or politics or whatever would you have to be, to not understand that this is not the usage he intended?"

Maybe you could show me the same benefit of the doubt.

But... naaaah. This being ILX of course not.

<3 at you BB

thinking about moaning about boredom to beguile the morning's boredom into boring words but god i've not even got the wherewithal to do that much i don't think altho it's interesting (to me) to see how long i can keep this sentence going just for the sheer boredom of it

i recommend a short trip to the wdyll thread where you can see djp's baby twins.

Boredom, boredom, boredom... BOREDOM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoYiQ8Qsozk

x-post to NV

i've been lying awake for four hours at the early stages of a panic attack, neurons circling in the distance like sharks a mile out, typing post after post and "saving to draft"

estela i saw them last night on Facebook and yes so beautiful yes

Goon Tie, the idea that you have bad days and panic attacks and awfulness... I know. It doesn't make any difference when your brain decides to send you on a crazy neurochemical trip. But it's like, you're so funny and so smart and so elegant and so talented and such a beautiful human being and you have the ability to make things so astonishingly lovely that they make the whole ugly world go away and instead become a sparkling place of joy and beauty for like 3 minutes and 20 seconds or whatever. The sense of unfairness is overwhelming, like, you should be sitting on a golden throne surrounded by cherubs feeding you stuffed grape leaves or delicious food and leaving no room for panic or badness.

But I guess the same cracks that let in the joy and beauty also let in the panic and badness.

I think you're going to get up and get through it and things will happen like they happen, to the best of your abilities, and mostly it will be fine (maybe some of it will be a mess, but you will survive the mess, too, and laugh about it when it's over). And this isn't any help when your brain decides to send you down the panic and freak out path, but I think you're a good guy and you deserve good things. <3 to you, dude.

^^^

A cook was butchering an ox for Duke Wen Hui.
The places his hand touched,
His shoulder leaned against,
His foot stepped on,
His knee pressed upon,
Came apart with a sound.

He moved the blade, making a noise
That never fell out of rhythm.
It harmonized with the Mulberry Woods Dance,
Like music from ancient times.

Duke Wen Hui exclaimed: "Ah! Excellent!
Your skill has advanced to this level?"

The cook puts down the knife and answered:
"What I follow is Tao,
Which is beyond all skills.

"When I started butchering,
What I saw was nothing but the whole ox.
After three years,
I no longer saw the whole ox.

"Nowadays, I meet it with my mind
Rather than see it with my eyes.
My sensory organs are inactive
While I direct the mind's movement.

"It goes according to natural laws,
Striking apart large gaps,
Moving toward large openings,
Following its natural structure.

"Even places where tendons attach to bones
Give no resistance,
Never mind the larger bones!

"A good cook goes through a knife in a year,
Because he cuts.
An average cook goes through a knife in a month,
Because he hacks.

"I have used this knife for nineteen years.
It has butchered thousands of oxen,
But the blade is still like it's newly sharpened.

"The joints have openings,
And the knife's blade has no thickness.
Apply this lack of thickness into the openings,
And the moving blade swishes through,
With room to spare!

"That's why after nineteen years,
The blade is still like it's newly sharpened.

"Nevertheless, every time I come across joints,
I see its tricky parts,
I pay attention and use caution,
My vision concentrates,
My movement slows down.

"I move the knife very slightly,
Whump! It has already separated.
The ox doesn't even know it's dead,
and falls to the ground like mud.

"I stand holding the knife,
And look all around it.
The work gives me much satisfaction.
I clean the knife and put it away."

Duke Wen Hui said: "Excellent!
I listen to your words,
And learn a principle of life."

Thanks BB. I've always thought that it's the sign of a good creative mind to have one foot in sane, one foot in crazy, but sometimes it gets super hairy

The twins are super cute but DJP and Mrs. DJP's beaming faces are even cuter

I really mean that, BB, thanks, you totally brightened it

Maybe you could show me the same benefit of the doubt.

Sorry late night drinking sake response, so much genuine BS contempt about right now sometimes one can develop a distorted view of peoples comments. I suppose it doesn't help that I am in a very misanthropic condition right now. Good luck with yr council tax problem, don't let it become a bigger problem.

Hey, no, I'm sorry that I used such ugly and offensive language. I don't get a free pass on that shit, either.

From my perspective, I'm coming from a place of such huge fear, and such self loathing that this does happen; ugliness that I think is directed firmly at myself ends up hitting other people, and that's not fair and that's cool.

I'm in a pretty shitty place myself at the moment (I try not to talk about my unemployment woes, what brought them on, illness and disability and all that shit, too much around here, because I don't find ILX and understanding place for these issues, for me, for whatever reason) so I certainly understand the whole thing where being in a shitty place and being surrounded by *real* specious bullshit makes a person unable to deal with "jokey-jokey" or sarcastic or even well-intentioned iterations of the bullshit. I don't know that I'd call that "misanthropy" but it is a real thing I understand very well.

It's much easier to take a grrr blah blah jokes bruv snarky tone, on ILX as in life, than it is to say, flat out "I am really fucking scared right now. Most days I am pretty much one beautiful guitar solo* away from thinking suicide is a preferable option to where I am at the moment. A council tax bill I can't pay is the latest lead straw on a flattened camel." I pick myself up, I go on.

*Today it's Listen Snow Is Falling by Galaxie 500.

"being surrounded by *real* specious bullshit makes a person unable to deal with "jokey-jokey" or sarcastic or even well-intentioned iterations of the bullshit"

You nailed it perfectly there BB and I wouldn't expect less from such an incisive poster as thee.

paperwork so piled up i don't think it can be done, like the washing up piled up in my sink except i know that can be done, work till half past 8 tonight then back to my empty house, time for bed, get up bright and early so i can fail at stuff again, comfort starving didn't pan out so back to food even tho the taste doesn't innerest me at all...people round me take on an uncomfortable, faintly menacing tinge and beneath it all my brain up on bricks, burnt out and it's cold outside and i don't see so much human warmth right here now

and somehow it feels just the tiniest bit okay, to feel aloof and blue and look at the grey world thru blue lenses, there's a crumb of comfort in retreating from all this booshit

Blue is better than grey because at least blue is a feeling, and grey is the absence of all feeling. <3