Good Times with Great People, and updating the Ritalin Diaries.

June 9^th 2012

                                                                           The Gratitude Cardigan

Henry the Native Wood Pigeon

Hello dear ones. I’m just going to get my gratitude on. I suppose it’s a bit like a comfy cardigan. What would my gratitude look like if it was a cardigan? Maybe it would be made of stars and cashmere, silver and black, warm and shining, moving easily into the darkness. I slide into it, and moonlight pulses in my blood. I am full and full and full. I notice more of what I like, and more of what I like notices me.

It’s cold tonight. I’m nicely frumped up in the woods. My place seemed like it could get tidy a week ago (notice how I say that as if it tidied itself), but now it looks like  I’ve been in the dress up box and didn’t put everything away. No matter. I’ll be tidy again eventually. I’m going to have another cup of tea, but should probably put the chocolate biscuits away since I’ve now had about four.

The talented Silke at The Wine Cellar on Thursday night.

On Thursday Handsome Rob and I went and saw Marconi Receiver. They were on late, after a few other bands that weren’t my thing (but still interesting nonetheless). There was an outfit called The Spoilers of Utopia. They were like a Salvation Army band on a bad acid trip, but I do believe this was their intention.

One performance I really liked was Silke’s. She does a show on BFM, but until that night I didn’t realise she is also a talented singer. Wow, she’s good. She sang these songs about having a broken heart and I was transfixed. People weren’t paying enough attention at first. I was quite close to standing up and yelling

“Excuse me, if you want to stand around talking during this performance then fuck off into Whammy bar or back into the Wine Cellar bar!”

I didn’t do this as I realised it could be my impulsive ADHD aspect kicking in.  

The flash went off right up in Rob's face. You can see he's not that pleased about it.

Speaking of ADHD, last week I spoke to the Nursey noo at my doc’s, and we talked about how it’s all going for me. I described the massive ‘lunchtime crash’, and she said that my dose of Ritalin can now be increased. She explained that sometimes people don’t respond well to it, or have bad nausea, which is why they have to give you a super low dose to begin with. Thanks Nursey. My only side effects have been the headaches, some nausea if I don’t eat in time, and being thirsty.

Started taking my increased amount of Ritalin on Friday and was able to stay awake and function well all day (like a ‘normal’ person, ha ha!). I went out for Suze’s birthday drinkies at The Gypsy Tearooms that night and really enjoyed seeing the lovely Lynn again. The last time I saw Lynn was my ill fated night of Bully Bouncer at Golden Dawn. What a prick he was.

I suppose most people in that situation wouldn’t have questioned his authority.

     Anyway, I meant to stay in contact with Lynn, so it was good to see her and

immediately talk about deep shit. She’s off to China to teach English, so she’ll start a bloggie and I’ll make her read mine. Ha ha! So that was a lovely night, good to see Suze after such a long time. When I got home, I was tired, but couldn’t resist playing some online Scrabble. My god that thing is addictive. I keep saying ‘I’ll just play one more move’, and an hour later I’m sitting there staring at the computer with sore shoulders and a headache. I’ve realised I need to restrict how long I play it otherwise I get a bit tense about the whole thing. In order to make it more fun I try to encourage my opponent to make sentences out of the words we have on the board. If someone doesn’t engage, then I won’t play a rematch with them. Sometimes the person doesn’t have anything to offer; they might just write LOL, but at least they’re showing they’re not completely devoid of soul. I haven’t had a response to a sentence about an orgy of onions yet. So yes, far too much scrabble, and then to sleep and to dream. Oh what dreams I’ve been having lately!

The dream I had on Friday night (fast forward if the dreams of others bore you)

I’m sitting in a living room with about 8 friends, they’re all about 27 or so, and they do not resemble anyone in ‘real life’. One of them is a gorgeous guy who is telling us about this girl he’d been seeing (past tense).

“So you know how about 55.5% of women can’t have orgasms?”

I corrected him in the dream with some other equally incorrect statistic.

“Well anyway, I’m really aware of how that can be a problem for a lot of women, so when she climbed onto my face I made sure she was … okay … but …”

 I finished the sentence with “but she didn’t even have the decency to thank you!” and we all laughed.

He sort of laughed but looked upset. I quickly said sorry for interrupting. He said “well, the thing is that straight afterwards she introduced me to her flatmates and some friends who were in the living room … and I don’t know why I did it … but instead of just saying hello I went up to everyone and licked their face. Why did I do that?”

We all started laughing so hard that it hurt. Tears were coming out of my eyes, I was laughing so much.

He looked a bit bewildered.

“But why did I do that?”

“Because you’re wired differently!” I said, and we all laughed a bit more.

“Oh. Do you really think so?” he seemed quite pained.

“Oh yes. Definitely. That’s okay because everyone’s wiring varies. Some more than others. I’m taking Ritalin because my wiring doesn’t always connect reliably … and I’m fine with it. You might have to find out what’s going on … I don’t know why you licked their faces. Maybe you were angry because she didn’t seem to appreciate you. I don’t know. …”

I can’t remember anything after that, except he seemed happier about it.

And so my darlings, my horses at midnight, my nosegays of delight, I shall now retire. I’ve had a great day with Tieneke, we drank wine, coffee and had my version of *baked beans on toast. I’ve never liked beans until recently. Used to make me gag. Now I’m all ‘hey, I love Cannellini beans’.

Somehow the time has melted away so fast. I thought I might get something accomplished today, like sorting out clothes. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow. Ooh, tomorrow I’m seeing my friend Jaq, that’ll be good.

Awww.

Slip on your Gratitude Cardigan. What does it feel like? What’s it made of?

I think I might have an entire wardrobe of Gratitude outfits. Perhaps in the morning I have a fluffy wuffy one and it’s the colour of a blush. Gently it takes me into the day. For now though, I am in my starlight cashmere, silver and softness, I know that when I wake up in the night I will be smiling.

*Better ‘baked beans’.

Cannellini beans or a mix from the can, the organic ones if possible. Fry ‘em up with red onion, add tomato and pile that onto buttered toast. Top the beans with some sort of cheese. I had haloumi as I'm in love with it. I use The Collective traditional haloumi 'the cheese that squeaks'. Finish with a side of something green. I had baby spinach with thai coriander and lime dressing.

This is probably a series of farts in waiting, but oh well.

Love yourself and rock out like a trout.x