Mood:  down

Sleepy Sunday — Mouster Awakening

HI I AM INDEED depressed and sleeping a lot. At least Chipper got back in touch (thank you). I'd begun to think that was one Christmas card list I'd got well and truly struck off. I'm glad he is okay. He seems to do more travelling than I'd imagined. That must be a knackering life, though.

Mousey cheered me up at an undignified hour of the morning. I shoved him up my sleeve in the night where he slept. Then at 6am he decides to get up. Not just awaken & wash his ears, but go pinging up and down my arm at a manic rate of knots. I closed right hand round left sleeve to prevent escape. He pushes at this with his nose: nudge-nudge-nudging. Eventually I let him out. He will not sit still. Madly he scrambles all over my hands. Eventually I had to put him in his proper house as I was scared I'd fall into a slumber with him tearing around my bedroom like a furry Scalectrix.

This afternoon my French American friend Pascal came round. He said I want to take Mouster to the vets because his balls are too big. I said no that's what they're supposed to look like. They are the size of hazelnuts, which, let's face it, on a Chinese mouse is not that small. I'm not wasting money for a vet to tell me that.

I did have some gear today so I'm not depressed because of that situation. Methadone Sundays are always miserable days. Mother Hubbard didn't want me round her house, as I said earlier. I found out this was because she had family round (about 4 grandkids + adult kids) so there wasn't enough Sunday lunch to go round (fair enough). I had dry old chicken shop Tenesee thighs instead. Boo-hoo! No I'm joking I love surthern fraahd chiihken. Me and Pascal called round quickly on our mutual friend Lucky then I saw Valium Marilyn briefly so it's been a busy day in that sense. I still feel down in the dumps though. I'm glad I have the mouse to amuse me. He is more entertaining than a giant cactus and Homebase were doing them on special offer at the time. If you're thinking £10 is expensive for a mouse it's because he's a special desert Chinese one with pouches (ie a hamster) who's supposed to eat live locusts (did you see that answer below?!?) and garlanded vegetables. I don't know about the live insects but I'm going to get him a giant stack-&-store box or something of that ilk to reside in. That should be big enough to kit out with branches &c for climbing because "Chinese hamsters love to climb" as Jennifer the expert reminded me.

The smallest pet I've ever had, by the way was a £2 aquatic frog. (I have to mention the price as he was such an entertaining bargain.) He lived in a tank full of tropical fish and was just big enough to be able to span a 5p piece (about the size of a 1¢, our littlest coin) with his undignified widespread legs (like a gold-toothed gypsy woman I once saw on the bus, they go wide open). He was about 1½cm long fully grown. Dark green—nearly black. He hid at the bottom for half an hour letting air bubbles out of his mouth at 5minute intervals. Then he'd frog to the top, gulp an air refill and plunge straight down again. Like a mini diver (not to be confused with the actress: Mini Driver) in the tank. He loved attacking dried tubifex worms. Yeah, he was cool my frog. And we had a colour-change fish that looked like a stealth bomber. Flew around the tank like a ribbon. Used to stick to the glass like a snail. (A Borneo sucker.) She was called Nubia: the only fish I've seen who could swim vertically down the bubbles stream.

I'd love to get tropical fish again. Everyone said the tank was beautiful, like the pictures in the books. All banked up properly with an underwater forest. An aquatic Garden of Eden. (I also get told my dinner looks like a serving suggestion; I'm a bit of a perfectionist that way.) 

Just realized how many things I have not posted you. Like my monumentally bad 4-at-once 1st time acid trip. My cold turkey detox at my Dad's house. The one I wouldn't even confess to what was wrong until day three... My massive OD. And so on & so on... Many things I do not wish (to be honest) even to recall right now... But I will post them all up in good time, my friends. I promise you. Okay then, I'm knackered; I gotta go so good morning/afternoon/evening/night/bye—Gledsx

Posted by gledwood at 9:37 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 14 January 2007 10:25 PM GMT

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Mood:  vegas lucky

html nervous breakdown... 

I did well to intone my mantra yesterday I am sinking down down again I feel it I'm sleeping hours and hours again all the signs.

Got a phone call from American friend saying other friend Mother H, says "don't bother coming round": I found this slightly rude but there you go.

On a lighter note, I tried my hand at html pasting a supposedly "difficult" javascript sitemeter counter on to a dummy blog I set up. So glad it was a dummy, for counter successfully transferred: whoopee! However, in doing so, I did some grave damage to something inside the programming. The site doesn't work at all. But the counter is faithfully recording visits and page views. (If you click on it.) If anyone really wants to laugh at my folly go to http://gledextra.tripod.com/blog.

Bear in mind that this was an up and running blog with side picture, full colour scheme and random old postings loaded up. Now it's just a toolbar.

If anyone does understand how Tripod's blog system works just explain to me please where I'm mean to paste this eejut code?? I'm trying statcounter next time on another dummy blog. Because the 1st is so badly messed up by my random pasting (well I thought I was pasting between the body tags obviously I got totaly the wrong part of the body). I don't get how yous lot seem all to know about this stuff. Where did you learn it? They never taught me html at school (it didn't exist). Anyway answers please, if you do have any comments. Sincere thanks...

Posted by gledwood at 1:10 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 14 January 2007 1:46 PM GMT

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Mood:  party time!

Sleepy Saturday — Acid Dreams

I WOKE UP about an hour ago after having slept for SEVEN HOURS — that’s 7 hrs on top of the 8 hrs or so I slept last night. In fact I know I slept well last night as I woke at 10:30 which is really late for me. Usually I’m up at 5:30… Hang on, what’s “usual” about my sleep? It goes round in cog-like circles. You never know which little cycle it’s going to pass on to. I know I’m often awake at 5:30 because that’s when BBC World Service passes over to Radio 4 on the analogue transmitters and shortly after handover a programme called Farming Today comes on, all about prime steaks and winegrowing and cheeses— not so much “boring” as yummeee!!

    Yes I did meet a person of doubtful provenance on a mountain bike at about 11:30 this morning and this may explain part of my drowsiness. But today’s big sleep came on too late (at about 2pm and it doesn’t take me THAT long to get a vein) and lasted too long. The drowsing effect of heroin does indeed last the 4-hrs specified in certain textbooks. (How do you think I know the little bits and pieces I scatter throughout this blog? I used to own a mini drugs books collection…)

    I’m not getting depressed though I’m not getting depressed — my mantra.

    There’s not a huge lot to say today. Maybe I ought to mention the nightmares I keep getting. Also (more infrequently) some ultra-farout acid dreams. Brainfrazzlingly weird ones that I couldn’t describe in any meaningful detail. You know (if you’ve taken it) when everything goes like a computer game. And then the game gives way to the abstract codes behind it? Well some of that. Plus imagine you’ve been at a rave all night. It is now late… too late for you, you’d rather be in bed but it’s midday, the party shows no sign of stopping, daylight is burning in your head: and,more to the point your brains are frying so bad you’re like the experimental spider in the 1960s that stopped spinning beautiful orb-webs on acid and just span a dirty great blob of stickiness as the microgram-count eventually got too high. I often bear that spider in mind when I think of hard acid. True or not (and I think it is) the spider story is a damn good metaphor for what LSD can do to the mind.

    On that note I'm saying goodbye goodnight, folks.

    Okay, timezones: good evening/afternoon/morning/night...

Posted by gledwood at 12:02 AM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 14 January 2007 1:43 AM GMT

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Mood:  blue

To Those On The Slope

An Open Letter To Chipper & All Those Many People Like Him

THIS IS MY HEARTFELT MESSAGE to all those of you who are dabbling with heroin. I  know there are many of you. To use Chipper’s words (the title of his blog) you are playing with fire.

    Heroin is not called a hard drug for nothing. “Hard drug” means an addictive one. Heroin feels remarkably soft and mild. And warm and friendly and strangely fulfilling. That’s where its deceptive nature lies. Hard drugs are hard precisely because they feel so soft. Because you can (in the beginning) use pretty much as frequently as you choose without feeling many ill-effects. This “use me, use me — use me more” should set off alarm bells. Life on heroin isn’t living. Heroin eventually replaces life.

    If, say, you’re doing 2 days out of every 3 clean (my friend Chipper’s 72-hour rule) you’re living two-thirds of your life clean. Are these clean days any less valuable to you than the ones you use on? Are your clean days so very intolerable? If so, the heroin is getting to you already. Trust me, you don’t want it to get to you any more.

    Until it truly “got” me, got right under my skin, hooked me with its formidable chemical bonds, I honestly had no idea quite how addictive this stuff really is.

    Quit Smoking clinics often compare nicotine to heroin. Frankly, this is just to make tobacco smokers feel better about their habit. For there is no comparison. Ever seen someone with their head down the toilet because they need a cigarette?

    Well, then!

    Kicking heroin, well and truly stopping for good and turning your back on it, the world you took it in and everyone you know is just about the hardest thing anyone could ever achieve.

    That is why that angry guy Jamie keeps shouting on your blog, Chipper. Because being “clean” is a hard-won state to be in. You’re two-thirds of the way there, yet you don’t seem to appreciate this.

    There’s nothing glamorous about a helter-skelter ride that ends in the pits, believe me. An addiction to hard drugs is about as much fun as a bus ride along a main road — with a five year-old child at the wheel. You’re putting your most base and childish instincts in control. But the grown-up you must face the pain and the consequences and the wreckage this causes.

    If you CAN stop now, you MUST.

    If you CAN’T, you must at least admit that you do have a problem.

    Otherwise you might just look back to this time and see this new direction you’re hurtling along in as the worst wrong turn you ever took in your life.

Posted by gledwood at 11:18 AM GMT

Updated: Friday, 12 January 2007 11:33 AM GMT

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Mood:  d'oh

OKAY I've just flicked down this page. Full of hamsters and poems, hmm... I really need to put this stuff in another blog. This one's going crazy. Do you want to hear about drugs? I slept in till 2:30pm today. 2 dealers tried to phone me up "telesales"— do I want their wares? Well no. Because one's is weak and the other not too bad but it goes foamy in the spoon (yeah, right!) which is kind of offputting. So I'm going to the one I saw last night next time.

Place yer bets folks: how long will next time be?? When I have the dough and the guy's one street away?

Get outta here, Einstein — you're not required!

Posted by gledwood at 3:23 PM GMT

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Mood:  d'oh

I AM IN ONE OF MY QUANDRIES. I want to score again. The money's in my pocket. I am trying to distract myself by listening to the radio quiz mentioned below as I type, but it just ain't working. The cash is ready and waiting. The man is no doubt close. I feel like I'm going to. Aaargh! I don't know what else to say. What's the point of posting this when the outcome feels like a foregone conclusion. Let me talk to this guy.

Okay, I spoke to him, he said Come straight out. I went direct to the specified street-corner, called back to rub in I'm here and waiting. "He'll be with you there in under seven minutes," the surly dealer intoned. Grrr. First time we spoke, he'd been making it sound the guy was right there already. But this is typical.

Sure enough, on time, guy appears on bike, produces blue lump. On eventual inspection it turns out to be a (plastic-wrapped) lump of heroin not much smaller than a small sugar cube with a corner crumbled off. Which is not bad for £10. You seriously cannot tell a substance's quality with just the naked eye; an experienced junkie, however, can make snap—usually accurate— judgements. And this to me looked okay quality (better than his usual rubbish; that's why I don't phone him that much).

So, having cooked my gear up, I cooked up some of the shopping I got earlier: Sainsbury's cod in parsley sauce with “seasonable” vegetables (who am I trying to kid? They were frozen “farmhouse” cauliflower, broccoli, peas etc) on a bed of fresh wholegrain tagliatelle (well worth the indulgence at £1.17 for 500g) all liberally sprinkled with Parmesan. Mmmm. Yumm-mmeee!! And a vein on the back of my right hand behaved well enough to add genuine bon appétit. (I've not 100% “recovered” from that heroin food “problem” I described a day or so ago.)

Now it's late and I'm dead tired. And I'm gonna try & not touch that bit of gear left over till morning...

Speak to yous L8R,

Gleds—xx

Posted by gledwood at 10:25 PM GMT

Updated: Thursday, 11 January 2007 1:12 AM GMT

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Mood:  special

DOES ANYONE KNOW & LIKE "JUST A MINUTE"?

It's a radio panel game. A topic is announced. One selected player must speak on said topic for one minute without hesitation-deviation-repetition.

Which is far easier said than done.

(Repetition, for example, means repeating any word more unusual than that/which/and/I etc...)

If you want to hear it, you can click http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/justaminute.shtml and select Listen Again. (Just a Minute, BTW, = not to be confused with Jest a Minute.)

I listen every week. There's probably some good plays there too, if you take a look. (They're not all full of middle class people sighing... honest.)

(BTW does anyone remember Just a Minute back in the early 80s with Kenneth Williams on board?... Those were the days...)

Down the Line is another one that's good. It's a "unique" phone-in prog that must be heard to be believed, believe me... http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/downtheline.shtml. This one attracted loads of complaints on its 1st airing from listeners who'd grabbed the wrong end of the stick!

One more — then I really shall go — is the World Service magazine programme Outlook (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/outlook.shtml). This one's not comedy but I like it. It's often playing when I'm wide awake and Mousey's out for a 3am ramble...

Right. I'm off!

Posted by gledwood at 10:06 PM GMT

Updated: Thursday, 11 January 2007 1:35 AM GMT

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Mood:  special

OKAY, MY DIARY FOR TODAY: Hey, before I start, I was going to start up  a new blog and call it "The Thoughts of Gledwood" — and I'd just leave it all blank... wah-waaah!....

I'M FIGHTING A BATTLE WITH CRACK. It's not like I take loads of it, (though I have done at certain times that are hopefully long gone never to return)— but when I do have a tenner spare, that's automatically what it goes on.

I want to be able to say (truthfully, of course) that I've turned my back on that stuff for good. Because I don't really like it. I don't like people who take it. (I do like the way it makes me feel in the short term, but that doesn't necessarily contradict the above: think about it.)

I could have posted earlier that I'd suffered and beat that craving. Because I turned down the opportunity of scoring. Then, idiot that I am, I got itchy feet and did end up going up to a certain park. No-one was there, so I rang the dealer. Turns out police had come and grabbed his stash-bag (and presumably his runner too, though of course he didn't say that on the phone), so "nothing's happening for a little while" (which means, no doubt, all afternoon). So I hared off home and scored in the next street from me. Bigger "rock" but quality not nearly as good.

And so the battle rages on...

Posted by gledwood at 7:01 PM GMT

Updated: Wednesday, 10 January 2007 7:14 PM GMT

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Mood:  suave

Another poetry book I found is a dull-looking schoolbook. Longman English Series Poetry 1900-1965. (A lot of these collections contain only British and sometimes "Commonwealth" writers but not American. Which irritates me. We all speak English and one of my favourite poets was American (Sylvia Plath)— I particularly like her Insomniac click http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1402 I'm sorry about all the ads around it.

Another favourite (who I consider a great poet, not just a great war poet — Wilfred Owen. Two of his best are Dulce et Decorum Est (click http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1543.html) and Futility (click http://www.poemtree.com/poems/Futility.htm). As I said (somewhere) I'm going to start a poetry blog. Maybe I'll post on it all my faves as well as my own dubious & uneven works. Sometimes I've found stuff by myself and thought "wow — did I really write that?" It doesn't seem possible. Other times I just read stuff back and cringe. It's taken quite some willpower not to remove certain past postings (or bits of them).

But, talking of execrable verse, did no-one like my William McGonnagal? It's difficult to pick out single quotes that sum up the full grandeur of this man's prowess. But these lines out of Jottings of New York (http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/jottings.htm) give a good idea of why people say of him "he's so bad, he's good":—

And Brooklyn Bridge is a very great height,
And fills the stranger's heart with wonder at first sight,
But with all its loftiness, I venture to say,
For beauty it cannot surpass the new Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay.

(He loves his bridges on the "silvery" River Tay (http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/disaster.htm). He also wrote some lines on The Tay Bridge Disaster, and a lovely work on the railway's replacement http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/railway.htm...)

And, believe me, the morning I sailed from New York
For Bonnie Dundee, my heart it felt as light as a cork.

Wow!

Mr McGonnagal said his best time of year for public readings was Easter, as the crowds seemed to have less spare supplies of eggs to hand...

Posted by gledwood at 2:00 PM GMT

Updated: Wednesday, 10 January 2007 2:55 PM GMT

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Mood:  sharp

I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING I'd omitted from the piece you find below. Something obvious and simple that throws light on the issue. It came to me in a flash this afternoon. So blindingly obvious, I can't fathom why I left it out, but hey. The biggest difference between the darker side of British and American life can be summed up in one word:— GUNS.

The prevelence of these across the Pond seems to have given America a harder edge indeed...

I WAS READING IN IVY'S "Losing My Name" (listed to the right) about people being carted off to jail just for "trespassing" on McDonalds' property. Which puts me in mind of something I've felt like commenting on for some time: how draconian the American authorities' way of doing things seems to be compared to ours'.

Prison over here is a last resort option. Nobody goes to jail here unless it's for pretty serious wrongdoing, or they're convicted for the umpteenth time of some petty offence, such as shoplifting. In other words the court feels it's the only option.

I remember a documentary about some Americans trying to make it in the film business without much money. One was caught shoplifting food and did two weeks inside until someone stumped up something like $2000 to get him out. That would never happen over here. You only have to pay bail if the crime with which you're charged is extremely serious (e.g. drug trafficking) and there's considered a risk of your fleeing the country. Normal bail involves just signing out, adhering to certain conditions (possibly a curfew) and visiting the police station on a regular basis to sign the Bail Book, proving you're still around.

As for trespass, unless it's done on the railways or, perhaps, restricted access Government property, it isn't even a crime! One can sue for trespass in the civil courts, but a successful claim must prove that actual physical damage or financial loss was incurred...

You don't need any special cards to flash at police if you're stop-&-searched carrying needles. The police are most concerned that needles should have the proper lids on. Their main worry over here is not getting needlestuck! And should you overdose the police are unlikely to accompany you to or visit you at hospital. Unless, say, you were underage or some similar dodgy factor was involved.

There was recently a BBC documentary on American child prisoners. Most of those interviewed were in their late teens, but had been convicted at the ages of 14 and 15 of serious crimes (e.g. murder), tried as adults at the District Attourney's discretion and sentenced to life without parole. That could never happen here! A child is a child under English law, no question. The age of criminal responsibility kicks in at seven or thereabouts. And anyone who commits a crime, whatever their age after that, will be held responsible. But the court at which they're tried and the sentence will depend totally on their age.

Tthe death penalty was banned here in the 1950s. And the peculiarly American  ways your authorities have of doing it — electric chairs, (allegedly) agonizing lethal injection — would never be approved of over here, even if hanging were to be brought back.

I find it quite strange that two countries who consider themselves "cousins" if not "brother" nations can have such differing attitudes to something as fundamental as justice...

I can't put my finger on why the British should be so very much more tolerant. Perhaps, as the stereotype goes, we really are a more clement people. A trivial first offence (for example bog-standard marijuana possession) usually attracts a formal warning or caution. Whereas in America, "citations" seem to go flying out left right and centre. Though it's a popular catchphrase, often spouted by press-hungry politicians, us Brits never did quite get the idea of "zero tolerance"...

Hmmm... I don't feel like I'm being as analytical as I'd hoped. My point, to the American addicts reading this, is: you have my sincerest sympathy. Being a junkie is no walk in the park. And you seem to be having a far rougher ride than most of us...

Posted by gledwood at 11:53 PM GMT

Updated: Wednesday, 10 January 2007 7:00 PM GMT

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Mood:  loud

I DID SET EYES ON MY LANDLORD at about 8:12am, 12 mins following the close of my "clear up or else" deadline. I was on my way to the corner shop for more alcohol supplies and I pretended not to see him. I got up extra early to put finishing touches to my suddenly amazingly sparse-looking room. I drank lots of cyder in doing so. By the time 8am dragged itself round I was roaring drunk and ready for a confrontation. None happened. Which is probably just as well, I s'pose. I was in such a mood with him I honestly didn't care about consequences. Sometimes, in moments of despair, I believe I just was not cut out to live in a civilized house with locking doors, windows and an intact roof like the rest of 21st century man. I'm only fit to live in freezing squalour on the streets, I tell myself. But that is probably depression talking, so best ignore it, eh?

I was so tired at about midday that I fell asleep with Mousey running all over me at play. Of course I woke up about ten minutes later, checked my clothes and — gaah! — the swine has gone! Couldn't see him anywhere at first. Got his tank and tipped it sideways, hoping its nesty aroma would tempt him back in. But five minutes later there I saw him, pinging supersonically like a hyperactive vole. Man, this creature is seriously fast. Even when I'm knelt right next to him that's no guarantee of catching the little beggar. If you've ever kept a pet mouse, you'll know how dopey the petshop version is compared to his cousins in the wild. Fear and lightning reactions become tamed out of him. Well my Chinese Mousey is just as lightning fast as a wild housey mousey, if not faster. And certainly quieter. (Whoever came up with that expression as quiet as a mouse was either deaf or hadn't lived in a house teaming with them in the age of the modern carrier bag because house mice can be exceedingly noisy when the lights are off at night.) After one badly failed attempt I did snatch up the wayward rodent, whose ears went instantly down — all repentantly. I shoved him up my sleeve where he instantly calmed down and started washing himself and settled down to bed. He seems to think of it as home up there and relaxes. I blame the escape on my evil landlord. If he hadn't implied he'd be paying that visit at 8am, my sleep pattern wouldn't have been quite so desecrated to begin with.

Well that's about that about landlords and mice. Keep reading. There's some cringeworthy poetry below. And I'm not necessarily just referring to the William McGonnagal links...

Posted by gledwood at 10:34 PM GMT

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Mood:  flirty

ONE OF THE WONDERS of a good clear-out is the stuff you find you never knew you had.  The following poetry I salvaged from my old Green poem collection... I don't know what to say about them, except these are three of the best ones (so just imagine what the worst are like!!) I've not written any poetry at all (to the best of my memory) in the last ten years. Oh yeah. Except that wonderful mousey song you'll find posted some time in December. Because I remember t'was the season for "Little Donkey"-type carols anyhow. Oh, and BTW; concerning these three:— that last one, the wanderer. How grim, eh!?! Hmm...

If anyone has a comment/comments I'd be interested to hear what people think of these. They don't seem to be quite as crappy as I remembered.

PS If you want a real laugh, go for a poke through the works of William Topaz McGonnagal. The Tay Bridge Disaster is one of his best known works. Click here for an entertaining read: http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/disaster.htm. The closing couplet is fantastic. My American friends might prefer to start with Jottings of New York: http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/jottings.htm — a "Topaz" command performance.  Not, to my mind, as boringly Victorian as his Tay Bridge ejaculation, in it he murders one's sense of the sublime more practisedly & is altogether entertaininger. See what you think.

Anyhow, folks; here's me:—

Embankment by Night

A thousand lights are hanging in the Thames,

garlands strewn by swirl and tide

into a protoplasm of stars

echoing reticence of frosty night;

glitter so gladly and so bright.

I wish to touch their candied radience,

they lift me like a trip,

smiling, splashed, fantasticated suns

immune to miseries of wind and cold,

shards of celebration drawn from sleep,

the cosmos of a reverie reflected

in the blood of a town too jaded to dream.

                                          11 January 1997

Words

What are words for?

Words make use of breathing:

consciousness of living:

they tell us we can hear.

Lips and faces.

What are faces for?

If not for telling who we are.

And how we feel

and how we are.

Words can lie; but eyes find flickered feeling.

Without eyes, faces have no meaning.

Then only words could tell the truth

or lie.

Do you see?

                                          7 January 1997 

The Wanderer

The evening wanderer moves

amongst the shadows of the night:

the world of people is passed

and dusk takes its own.

Day by daylight he moves,

a shadow among people;

a ruined church

in a thicket of lost graves.

Night by light the days

pass like speeding cars;

merge, drop by drop

in some forgotten pool...

Grey memories crowd

in sleepy groves, shades

of shadow-cities gather

gloating in the gloom, attentive.

The cold fingers of past

caress his throat,

tightening like strange dreams;

a whispering: "Remember me."

And when the wanderer rests,

his bed will be his grave.

                                          1991/1992

Copyright © 2007 by Gledwood all rights reserved & all...

Posted by gledwood at 8:56 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:33 PM GMT

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Mood:  chillin'

1. Re the bin-diving/etc, (see below) the word in question is "freegan".

2. I dunno why I call this guy Crackhead of the Century. Saddo of the Century would be more appropriate. He was still out begging change at 4am. Someone (whom he knows) ran off with the previous tenner he made. What can I say? Also (re some past happenings) he is either mentally retarded or a stirrer of "muck" par excellence—got me in real trouble one time.

3. I've not been chucked out. Yet.

Wahey!!

PS If you want a laugh, click on this: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/fugitives/internl/internllist.htm & have a gorp at some "international fugitives" from justice. Elizabeth & Fritz Otte —what are they wanted for? Robbing a Sue Ryder shop??

Posted by gledwood at 12:28 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 9 January 2007 12:50 PM GMT

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Mood:  crushed out

HI PEOPLE. I got myself in a tailspin earlier. I wish I hadn't spent so much of my life being depressed sometimes; it means I can launch right back into all the old negative thoughts with a fingersnap's notice. The guy I named Crackhead of the Century went "yeah, right," under his breath when I said I hadn't got 50p to spare earlier on and I had to seriously keep my hands to myself.

What I did to cure it all was eat my "junkie sausages & bakedbeans" (the recipe's given in "topics" list under Junkie Cookery if you want a laugh. My twist on sausages & beans (for those impatient with the cooking) is you brown the outside then chop 'em up & upend them, searing the resulting little sections. Goes all lovely & crunchie. Yummmm.) & then I slept for a couple of hours. And now I feel a lot better.

As I say I've made a huge effort lately not to be living like a glorified down-&-out (albeit with my own little roof over my head). My clothes are clean. I have on Puma trakkie bottoms the same colour blue as my blog background — a beautifully clean and laundered cobalt blue. I have on a black hoodie, that is also (fairly) freshly washed (well, a week ago and that's good for me, believe!) My trainers (sneakers) are scummy though. Silver Nikes I've overworn but I've another pair I'm saving up for when these really disintegrate. (I barely ever buy clothes but people have been incredibly generous with me. I'm nowadays wearing pretty much the kind of stuff I'd choose if I had the choice... I have some very generous friends (one in particular, Mr Dodger, has a habit of bin-diving. There's a word for this when you live on stuff others have chucked out... but it escapes me. When the expression does come back to me I'll post it. It's been on the radio & in all the papers. The newest, most ecosound way of living.)

Okay, I've a hit waiting for me then I'm going to reorganize the last of my stuff. After that, que sera sera, as Doris Day trilled. Whatever will be will be...

... The future's not ours to see ...

... Que sera ...

... sera!!

& now to quote Bazil Brush:—

"Boom-boom!"

Posted by gledwood at 1:14 AM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 9 January 2007 1:38 AM GMT

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Mood:  irritated

THIS TIME TOMORROW I could be homeless. "Could be" is the operative expression; it's my landlord's threat. He says I must tidy up my room by 8am tomorrow and unusually for him (he does nothing in an organized fashion usually) the threat is put in writing in a one-sentence letter. Yes, that makes it more legally serious, I know.

I don't get on with my landord. I am recovering from severe problems with depression and just not coping. [I just read this back: I mean I'm recovering from the not coping+depression. Not I was depressed & I'm still not coping. Okay?] As I've hinted before I literally gave up on life a while ago— almost completely. I ended up in a room full of clutter (it had all gone in my friends' shed during the months I was homeless and the years I spent with Nutnut but it had to come back to me eventually. And I was in no right mind really to deal with it when it did.) And the problem just exacerbated. Eventually I did clear the room ship-shape so most of that old clutter's long gone.

The council have me down as "vulnerable". I'd not have been housed otherwise. But when "vulnerable" shows its true "vulnerable" colours, the same council that demanded vulnerability as a box-ticking manoevre don't want to deal with its untidy actuality.

I've an Everest mound of washing in the middle of the floor. A load of books is next to it. The pile has toppled. The bin also I knocked over during my yesterday's efforts at cleaning. So he looks at this and doesn't see my effort, he only sees my mess.

It's going to take me an hour or so to get my room all ship-shape for his inspection.

And then, tomorrow morning, I hopefully won't be homeless.

Posted by gledwood at 5:13 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 9 January 2007 1:53 AM GMT

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Mood:  a-ok

RIGHTY-HO FOLKS; I've just spent ages tinkering with that huge list of links you see to your right. A huge, yet in many ways barely started list of links. Because I'm planning to develop a comprehensive library of the absolute best links for druggie addiction and related topics. Which will take quite some time. BTW if anyone knows a good drugs info website not there, would you please be so kind as to tell me? Also one question: what's the American national antidrugs info society (there must be at least one) called? Or is it the one I've already got up there: the Thingie for a DrugFree America? or the National Institute of Drug Abuse? Isn't there any other one? Ours is called Frank (The National Drugs Helpline). Now I have googled this without the success I'd hoped for, but I'm looking for national equivalents to this accross the English-speaking world.

So if you know a link (or just the name of a famous drug help agency or drug info network, Comments please! And don't worry about stating the obvious. If I've not listed it, I don't know it.

Re the blogs I've resorted and categorized. Yes I know a few of yous might laugh at being called "normal"...! But you are normal compared to me.

Basically the new categories go • Druggie and using (like me (ie Chipper)) • Druggie past; trying to stop or successfully stopped • Normal people's blog-journals • News-oriented blogs (Power&Control) ... & lastly • Wonderblogs; these are ones that aim to bring a little magic into your life. Not personal diaries so much as ideas resources, plumpiemousian dreams, ginger cats' purrings, etc...

The blogs listed are the ones I'm reading. I hope you have fun with them too.

Gledwood

xx

Posted by gledwood at 2:13 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 8 January 2007 2:31 PM GMT

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Mood:  caffeinated

THANKS FOR THE BLOGSPOT REPLIES. Hope I wasn't too offputting with my ranting. Sometimes I spend quite a long time pondering what I'm going to say... only for said comment to have to go unposted... that does drive me up the wall!!!

Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 11:48 PM GMT

Name: "Ruth"
Home Page: http://ruthjen.blogspot.com/
Believe me it's a right pain BEING a blogspot blogger; there have been sooooo many problems.

Take care

Rx

Yep, I think you said it all, Ruth!

When I'd decided to do this blog (bear in mind I'm someone who's very lazy, but when I do make up my mind to do something nothing gets in my way, does that make any sense?) so I thought, Who's best known - ie who will best promote my blog? Ah! Google! (How naïve was I then??!) So I googled, 'google blog' and got to blogspot. Went through fairly lengthy registry process. Even put in a short blog entry.

Then when I try to log back in... can't do it.

They repeatedly asked for a username I hadn't given.

Eventually (and this was at long last, maybe an hour later during which time I'd smoked about 12 cigarettes and hit the ceiling) a help page told me my username was the email address I'd given.

To cut a long story short, google blogspot let me open THREE blogs using the SAME username and password (totally not knowing; it's their fault not mine). NONE of these blogs would subsequently log in. Oh I tell a lie. I ONCE got into ONE of them. And most annoyingly of all this was using up the treasured domain names I really wanted, because once I'd attempted blog one with one name obviously blog 2 had to be called something different.

That's what put me off blogspot right from the beginning. So I "know your pain", folks!

Posted by gledwood at 10:44 AM GMT

Updated: Monday, 8 January 2007 10:56 AM GMT

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Mood:  irritated

IT HAS JUST TAKEN ME LITERALLY 20 MINUTES to leave a simple comment on a "no anonymous comments" blogspot blog. 

Some of you google blogspot bloggers need to bear in mind by not allowing anonymous comments you're closing your blog off to the entire outside world EXCEPT people who blog with your service provider... I know loads of people on blogspot who accept (a) google (b) other (c) anonymous. Will it really hurt you to allow this?

If someone leaves an objectionable comment on mine I can easily delete it. If I get left loads of them, I can moderate before they are published. You have these options too.

I've attempted to open so many google/blogspot accounts they mess up my passwords and identities all the time (I write them down so I know who's at fault).

Look I'm not trying to have a personal go at anyone. And I'm not even just talking to one or two people. This has happened to me loads of times. It is really frustrating. Trust!

Come on. Sort it out. I beg you!

Comments/remarks/opinions/info, please!

Posted by gledwood at 7:28 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 7 January 2007 8:33 PM GMT

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