2008-9 review

I think many people tend to blog less when they're busy as although there may be more to report there's less time to do it. I've been on my old road sign project 3 weeks now and the best therapy besides sex. Having places to go and things to collect again has motivated me to go to more and more shit places like Lambeth again as I need to. And Bethnal Green which was like going to hell and back. It's all here in London, we have the best and worst districts in the country, usually next to each other. Drive from Highgate to Archway, Hampstead Garden Suburb to East Finchley and Hampstead to Kentish Town you cross from heaven to hell each time. Very odd.

Anyway, that will have gone down like a private joke to 99% of the readers but at least you can look up pictures easily to see the places. So besides that and seeing a few friends and cousin from abroad that has been about it besides each day aiming in a different direction. There are no other projects but this has been so guided as to keep turning up new material each time I thought I'd run out, with more coming over the weekend. I've collected all my life and am happiest when doing so. Besides the sex of course. The year means less as each new one arrives as besides organising what you've done in a certain period besides 2000 adding a new number doesn't really change anything else besides what's on your gravestone. I've learnt now to plan the day ahead and no more and there's no need to. Plus any plans made beyond than inevitably fall apart as so much can change by the time you get there, and it will gradually stop me worrying about it as well. Trusting it is even harder but not thinking about it is the first of the two steps.

What I'd like to happen this year never changes and so far never happens either , well not since 2002 or so. Plus the TV appearances. Many gaps on the other fronts but I no longer try and tinker with the social side as that seems out of my control and happens when it wants and not when I want. My friend won't come back from America as I want him to, my ex won't leave her boyfriend for me, and no other women will go out with me just because I like the look of them, for every possible reason from being married to hating the sight of me. I can't change that. I can't get new TV jobs either, they come to me, and even if I paint and write more than a full time job there's no reason I'll sell any of it. Just collect heaps of work like Van Gogh and if any sells I'll be long gone before it happens. But one change in 2009 is I don't give a fuck anymore. And I didn't swear before I came here and read everyone else's, so that is another liberation as I was trained not to as soon as the first 'fucking ice cream' came from my lips. I don't want that fucking ice cream! or the like, in front of my friend's mother, aunt and two young female cousins around the age of 8. It was worse than Russell Brand's latest outburst, the whole world came down on me and I kept it to myself ever since, most of the time. But never ever wrote it to stay after it had been said. Like blasphemy to me. So to those who complain this was 45 years of repressed rude words queueing up to come out like the South Park film where they could finally say what they wanted to in all the TV series. I hadn't laughed so much since my teens.

I find it's only the people who swear as punctuation who waste it, as demonstrated in the 'Shit' episode where everyone was allowed to say it there by law and the fun wore off. Every bad word needs to be saved for where it works otherwise the effect is gone. I proofread a book for my teacher once and got a shock near the end when he said 'Fuck off', precisely to demonstrate we are not who and what people assume or expect us to be. But had he not saved it till then but peppered his lectures with words as some do no one would have noticed it after ten minutes. Only Derek and Clive managed to make repeated use of two or three words funny indefinitely as they were geniuses and went to Cambridge. Everyone else has to do it carefully.

Well looking back over last year (we only get one opportunity so I may as well) the main high was my health finally improved and once my energy came back I could do many of the things I hadn't for a couple of years, not through any phobias but I wasn't well enough. It forced me to sort out my priorities and was able to turn down most invitations with no embarrassment as I had no choice and people had no chance to complain. I knew anyone who objected would drop me and it would save me finding out what they were like later on. But as I understand other's limitations they should bloody well understand mine as I don't ask them to do anything for me as so many do to me and others. That's far worse poncing off friends than turning down their wanky arrangements to go to some affair 20 miles away or go to the funeral of someone you hadn't seen for 20 years. When I'm dead I won't care who comes and when my family die I'll be focused on the loss and not who does and doesn't come to the funeral. I'd be happier not to waste the effort and have one as it doesn't bring them back.

It is true your health is the main thing as without that you can't enjoy anything else. The year was technically as sterile as a science experiment but I was more and more free to shop and travel again and now appreciate it all as I couldn't do it for so long. So I wander around Golders Green, bump into the odd person I know there (it was always the one place I could do that) and cover all the places I knew when I lived in Finchley as well. I used to think going to the shops and library were boring but now see them as social activities and talk to all the staff as you can easily get into a conversation with anyone if they are there to speak to, unlike online. Or on Big Brother. So I take full advantage of it and appreciate it as once I get home there's no one, including the cat since she died in June.

So although I know I can easily be alone for the rest of my life I don't think about it any more, I plan today and tomorrow and there's nearly always enough to do for them. And so many people have turned down my invitations I realise it's not just me, so many people pick and choose and try and dictate what we'll do and only when I started objecting realised how bloody inflexible many of them are as well. So no, I'm not that different, ask someone over when you usually go there, they either say yes and never do or turn you down flat. People are picky. I think if they just go to parties and films then they can get away with avoiding everything else whereas I am the opposite. I just want to see my friends and don't care what we do or who turns up to my death. They may go for surface appearance but going to someone's wedding you barely see or know or seeing a friend all the time and not going to their wedding seems very clear to me which is better but not to many others. Yet.
Have a good 2009, except the anon person who I reckon would probably support Hamas. It all comes in the same package, just look at Ken Livingstone for a perfect example. That is good riddance to the worst rubbish, he did to London what Castro did to Cuba and he was actually voted in to do it twice. People are morons.