My biggest problem ...

... is when there is no problem.

Another fine day at work. Busy and stressy in it's busy-ness. And I was making a point to S that I had been really busy Friday on my own with lots hanging over today to do. People wanting, wanting, wanting.
A client wants marriage counselling which I don't do. He is so demanding an wanting it all sorted out this minute because he is desperate. But there is too much to do. I could refer him/them to PD. He doesn't do marriage counselling and the clients wife trusted in me apparently. Well let's see. I have arranged a time when he can call me tomorrow.
The great day came when F returned to be HD. S apparently made a few comments to watch out for with our new boss-lady. I hope tomorrow to find the courage to mention my distaste with the behaviour in the office. It's so difficult though as it seems lie telling tales when she is not present but when she is present it becomes a slaughter house. I am not sure how best to handle this situation. God please guide me. When in doubt I guess it's best not to say anything.

AB is really irritating me at the moment. It is impossible to know the truth but it is possible to know it's not the truth that she speaks. And it's not something I am tolerating right at the moment. I wonder why I am feeling so intolerant with her. I think it's mutual too.

JS and I arranged to meet this evening and then when I called she wasn't available. I have an email confirming today. Anyway she was out with her son and that's good. So instead we are meeting tomorrow. AB did have a look on her face when I asked her if it would be OK ....... She would never say no to me directly I guess, instead moan about me behind my back. I know she does this because she moans about other people behind their back to me. I am trying not to do this ever these days. And that's why it doesn't sit comfortably to say anything without L being there tomorrow in supervision.
It just feels wrong.

Anyway this weekend I have had a pleasant weekend really. I didn't get on with my accreditation document. I keep procrastinating and wonder why? But this has left me with a feeling of "what's wrong with me? Am I detached?"
I realised that I don't have too many emotions connected with my dad's wife being ill because I barely know her and what I do know was of her being a bit crazy. I do have resentment that really is misplaced. I need to pray to God to have this removed and I do pray for her to make a full recovery. As my Auntie commented, I could end up looking after my dad after all. Goodness knows how he would deal with the situation if T should die. I am worried about him. The impact of all of this stress is not good for him. I hear his fear through his anger. It no doubt plays on his own sense of mortality. I feel afraid that he will die when there is still so much scope for improving our relationship from my point of view. I don't expect him to change but I am attempting to change.
Scared for selfish reasons? Not entirely I am scared for him being scared. I pray to God that he might find solace in some kind of belief other than himself.
It was good anyway to let myself of the hook of not feeling and even having fleeting thoughts of good. I don;t the person at all. Similarly it was a long, long time since I had spent any time with L, my cousin and equally my Uncle B. So with their passing is a sort of numbness yet feeling sad for the people who are left and their loss. I pray that each of them is with God now and all knowing. Peace at last.

So my story .....
Wow! The realisation that being the eldest of us three, the adopted baby they are talking about must be me. They just won't name names, be specific.
And they stole the baby back? It just seems crazy talk.
Or perhaps they're not telling the whole story and there's another baby that was adopted and stolen back. But what could possibly have happened to them now?

Is this a better first paragraph? And what happens next? I think I'd have to start describing this person narrating.

He's a boy, 16 years old, soon to be 17 on 31st March 1997. That makes him Aries, a born leader and one who takes the initiative in everything he does. Well he's certainly taking the initiative to uncover this partial story that seems to have leaked out.
Born in 1997 his Chinese zodiac sign is the Ox and admirer of power and possession and also stubborn, which is constant issue within the family and causes many arguments with his "Dragon" (Chinese zodiac rather than personality, although he'd say she was a dragon) mother.
He is very close with his "rat" of a father as he often says affectionately.
He's been interested in star signs since a peculiarly young age. He believes that everything in the Universe is connected and therefore everything influences everyone and everyone influences everything. His mother just calls him silly. His father wonders where he gets this from and at such a young age. He often sits and stares at Henry. Why did they ever call him Henry? It didn't seem befitting for one so wise? Or was it psychosis in which case Henry seemed perfect? It was better than Gill anyway. Why did people give girls names to boys. Didn't they think about the bullying at schools?
Right from a little boy he'd been "special", blonde curly hair procured him a special place with every passer-by as real cutey.

So how am I doing? Feedback please she pleaded into the empty room.....

I'm tired now so I'm off to bed. Mighty night

Bliss
XX

The Secret In Their Eyes

Argentina. Retired lawyer Benjamin Esposito (Darìn) visits his old colleague Irene Hastings (Villamil) with a manuscript he has written about ‘the Morales case’, a 1974 rape/murder which has had repercussions ever since. Talking through the mystery, Esposito reveals what he has found out, but also his own long-suppressed feelings.



The Oscar for Best Foreign Language film is often controversial as heavy-hitters are shoved aside for odd, often political choices and heads get scratched all round. Last year, Germany’s The White Ribbon and France’s A Prophet seemed to be neck-and-neck for the top spot, but an unheralded Argentine thriller crept in and walked off with the statuette. Now, we get to see it, and cynicism about the voters of Beverly Hills evaporates because this is as enthralling a piece of cinema as the competition with the added bonus of having a heart. The Secret In Their Eyes feels like a world-class episode of Law & Order, set in a fascist state where bringing a culprit to justice isn’t easy and the government’s notions of right and wrong override petty concerns like who got raped and beaten to death.

It’s a profoundly human story, with a superb lead performace from Ricardo Darìn (the older con-man in Nine Queens) as a dogged yet hangdog investigating lawyer with a lifelong crush on his upper-class boss.


Written and directed by Juan José Campanella, from a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, this is a long, confident film. Its first act sets up a horrible crime, and shows how the hero’s sense of obligation to the victim’s husband (Pablo Rago) — as much for his ability to remain selflessly in love with the idealised dead woman as for any sense of duty — gets him in trouble when he refuses to prosecute two low-class workmen who have been battered into a confession.

A likely culprit is identified, loitering in the dead woman’s family photos, and the trail goes cold until a drunken colleague makes the vital deduction that a killer can change his name more easily than the football team he supports. This sets up a breathtaking, apparent single-take shot which outdoes Brian De Palma: a stadium is seen from above on match night, and the camera moves into the stands, among the throngs, throughout the concrete bowels and out onto the pitch — with the game still playing — as cops close in on the suspect.

The film seems to wrap up its story in mid-point, but there are stunning reversals, one of the scariest (but most understated) lift scenes ever shot, a telling ambiguity, more tragedies and two astonishing endings left...


Cast
Ricardo Darìn
Soledad Villamil
Pablo Rago
Directors
Juan José Campanella

This was given a 5 star. I gave it a 3.75. I realise I need time to reflect on things before making a fuller judgement. I enjoyed the film - a lot. AT times I thought the love element between Esposito and Irene was unnecessary but actually it was the pivot of the film. He knew the look in the eyes because he looked that way himself. Longingly. I'm not sure whether it was necessary for the happy ever after situation between them in the end but it did make me feel happy. All that agony for such an extended period of time and then they finally decide to give it a go. Both with so many years of lack of fulfillment and eventually there is something for them to enjoy. Perhaps it's my own hope that makes that good and yet tedious. It could have been left unsaid maybe.
I liked the speed of the film. It was contantly moving and yet it was slow. here was enough happening to fill the time whilst keeping it slow moving. Not painfully slow but appreciatively slow. Time to linger on points and amble with the events.
HIs obligation as the Empire describes it is more of an obsession without so much compulsivity surrouding it. He was determined. Something about the love really gripped him and kept him entrenched within solving the problem. And then of course the frustration of working with a corrupt system. I think there wasn't much in the way o showing the legal system. I felt confused really by that. I guess the local audience would have a clearer understanding. Actually as I write that they probably don't at all. The regime would keep that sort of thing from public knowledge. It keeps an element of unknown and with that fear which gves power.
What a bloody system this society conjures all in the name of greed.

I'm so tired I need to pop off to bed now. Food is prepared for tomorrow. A phone call to T despite not wanting to. She is very self-willed and I feel sad yet know it all too well. She taked anything I say as being unheard yet actually she simply wants to do it all her own way and yet doesn't want to lose FA at the same time. It's not possible to have both. She needs to ake a decision.
She decided to go away and that truly is self-will and a great example of powerlessness way beyond the food itself. Doing what she wants regardless of recovery. She insisted on going and now is scared.
Somethow I recoil as I think of my parents saying similar things from start to finish.
Crikey! I listened to little and yet hear I am demanding that I'm heard.
I need to listen more to my dad.
I am worried about him an I know I've written that before. I sort of want him back at the ame time as wanting to reject him. My Aunt suggested that I may be looking after him after all. I wonder how that would fit in with Sister N's calling of me.

Gorra go to sleep now.
Goodnight, God Bless ..... (then liste can be quite endless sometimes so I won't start)
Goodnight, see you in the Mooorning.
XXXX

Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie

Alice's Restaurant
By Arlo Guthrie

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's
Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in.  Havin' all that room,
seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't
have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be
a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump.  So
we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW
microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed
on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving."  And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving
dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the
next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.  He said, "Kid,
we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And
I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we
finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the
police officer's station.  So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the
police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at
the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for
being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and
we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out
and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,
which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was
both immediately arrested.  Handcuffed.  And I said "Obie, I don't think I
can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on."  He said, "Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop
signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the
Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,
being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to
get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of
cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and
they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us.  Took pictures of the approach,
the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to
mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail.  Obie said he was going to put
us in the cell.  Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your
wallet and your belt."  And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my
wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you
want my belt for?"  And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings."  I
said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the
toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took
out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the
toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape.  Obie
was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice
(remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few
nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back
to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,
and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one, sat down.  Man came in said, "All rise."  We all stood up,
and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he
sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the
judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.  And
we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not
what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected.  I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so
I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.  `Cause I wanted to
look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill.  I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill.  Kill.  I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth.  Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL."  And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "KILL, KILL."  And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections,
detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me
at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four
hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty
ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was
inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no
part untouched.  Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the
last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there,
and I walked up and said, "What do you want?"  He said, "Kid, we only got
one question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre,
with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all
the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever
go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on
the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want
you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
looking people on the bench there.  Mother rapers.  Father stabbers.  Father
rapers!  Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!  And
they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?"  I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage."  He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Littering."  And they all moved away from me on the bench
there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said, "And creating a nuisance."  And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench.  And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."  He looked at me and
said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints.  And the only reason I'm
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.".  And walk out.  You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him.  And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization.  And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out.  And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the
guitar.

With feeling.  So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and
sing it when it does.  Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible.  If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes.  I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant

So I've listened to Arlo singing this (You Tube) and read a little about Arlo. He based this song on a lady called Alice Brock. She was the librarian at teh school Arlo attended. She then opened the restaurant. Now she has an art gallery in Provincetown Massachusetts. If I ever get anywhere near Provincetown I shall visit. Her work somethow reminds me of the artists we saw in T's gallery in Skien. What was her name again?





I'll report on the film adding it later.

Bliss
XX



 

Judgement Day

I made it. I got to visit Sister N. I was an hour late. She had set up tea and cakes. She was disappointed that I didn't want to eat them and said "after all that" and I felt guilty but I think it's probably her English too. And even more alarmed that I only wanted hot water to drink.
We chatted and she enquired about addiction. I explained it as an illness. She asked then the question if homosexuality was an illness. I said no it was a sexuality. But she really sees it as something that needs to be suppressed. I felt quite angry at this. She made the argument that like she has made a commitment to a marriage with Jesus and therefore to celibacy she has had to learn to suppress her human desires and urges. So in the name of God it seemed to me she was making a judgement. She said that the Church would not condone homosexuality as it would be contributing the downfall of the family unit. That gay sex was not human. I felt more and more annoyed but I also need to remember that she has no direct and personal experience so how on earth is she supposed to know. All her knowledge comes from the church. When she said she prays for them I thought it was arrogant. As if she is praying for them to get well from something. She explained that just as she does everyone else she prays for them to get closer to God. She ha been praying that for me. She prayed to God she told me to bring someone closer to God. And then I called. She looked tearful as she said it, saying that she believed I was the one she was praying for without knowing it. I feel closer to God. She wants me to take up the Catholic faith. I don;t think I can with all the doctrinations. But I can use it as a way to get closer to God. I want to be closer to God.
God please guide me to get closer to you. Thank you.
Thank you God for Sister N. She is one beautiful woman.

A lovely afternoon. I didn't like leaving LouLou in the car. But there was no option as Sister N certainly wasn't going to invite her into the house.I thought she might but of course she likes cats.

She gave me some lovely gifts. A scented rosary, two little books, one about the Saints and it's good for me to know the pain they went through yet kept their faith. That takes courage and strong trust. Staying consistent too, usually dying in the name of God. A little meditation book and Sister Teresa of Calcutta's prayer. Oh 2 lettuces, 1 keyring from Roma and another pen keyring also from Roma.
She also asked if there's anything I need, carpets etc because she understood that I am not well off. I thanked her very kindly and said that I have more than I need and remember my gratitude.

I need to call T, She is off on her travels tomorrow but I am also drained by her very easily. I will call her as I promised to.

Bliss
XX

On Humility (and despondency)

C's chair last night was enlightening as well as her usual entertaining quirks.
And she talked about becoming aware of her quirks. I have quirks that are destructive and some that are just delightful and harmless. It's those that are OK to keep but my destructive quirks need to go, with God's help.

Humility. C referred to Bill W's quotes on humility and I wanted to take a note of them since she had done some research and noted them down. What a pity I don't have her phone number.
Eeew I felt discomfort when P talked about the P and pointed at me. Only very few people in those rooms know what I do as my work and where. But then the pride part of me was all sort of fluttered and flattered. Just as M intimated with his body language to describe that feeling of flattery and pride. But to then hand that over in the way he did in the meeting, to make it light-hearted and recognition of pride was release in itself. And I can do that. Laugh with others at the pride itself. As if people knowing what I do will make me any less of an alcoholic or a somebody. Oh no no no. I am fully aware that any good that comes from the work I do is all thanks to God and nothing at all to do with me. I am merely a channel.

Here is a letter that Bill W wrote to a friend and was later published in Grapevine apparently, January 1953.

EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven.

Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task.

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work?

Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.

Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.

Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.

While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine"


Bill Wilson

Attitude is Everything

This letter is meaningful to me. I particularly relate to the unhealthy dependence upon people places and situations. I depend upon people being nice to me to feel OK. I depend on money to buy things to feel satisfied, as if a holiday is going to be the only thing that could make me feel better. I think I was bodily craving warmth and sunshine though, so thank you God for this last week of sunshine. Maybe this is enough right now, you'll know best. It was chilly walking just now but sunny enough. I can depend upon external things to give me everything and yet I need to let go of that dependence without though letting go of dependence all together. I depend on the FA fellowship to support me in maintaining my strength. I need FA fellowship. I can depend on God to be there all the time and every time I reach out to God. I cannot do anything without the fellowship and without God. But when  expect then to start providing, then that's unhealthy dependence.
I was also realising that I could slip so easily into despondency when my unhealthy dependence lets me down. I think it's the external that has let me down but actually it's me that's let me down by being needy. So if I let go of that unhealthy dependence I regain my independence and can not be let down externally or by myself. Then I can stay away from feeling a victim or deprived and thereby stave off despondency (when it attacks from this particular direction, being mindful that it can manifest in many shapes and forms).
Despondency brings me to despair and hopelessness. And then I usually have given up and eat. When I eat these days there is no high anymore. From the first bite I feel even more despondent and this descends into a deep gloom and depression. I am usually then not wanting to live. I isolate, I feel miserable and everything appears to be bleak and benighted, as Bill says.
Of course there is still a feel good factor of using relationships and sex. But I also know that this quickly stops working these days and filters rapidly into the same black hole.
I raise this as it's crucial for me to be recognising my thoughts about G and P and D. My first thoughts are not literally but around the subject of potential. "Oh could this be a relationship?". Each of them offers something different when in fact I am not attracted to the whole of them. D is attractive physically and has a shy vulnerability that can appear attractive, something that can be rescued and nurtured. I can be the one to bring him out of this. G is funny and intelligent even if not cultured or maybe educated although he seems somewhat educated and there is something physically attractive about him. P has money but there is no physical attraction, he is the least attractive of the 3. But oh my gosh it's surely possible simply to be friendly and not try to go down the flirtatious route. The best think I can do is nothing. I am talking with them as and when they approach me and not pursuing my pursuit thoughts. Last evening I knew I could end up talking with P and did. I was thinking I would enquire if he's going to the convention he mentioned and could I go with him. Uh uh! No way Jose. It's not the right thing to do. Staying quiet about it and waiting was the break I needed to make. Thank you God. God please help me with this. I would like to be in a loving and lovely and comfortable relationship. I trust that if that's what you think is the right thing for me it will happen. In the meantime I am committed to no relationships until after my AWOL is completed. Wow! That seems such a long way away.
So you see this men thing can still appear to offer fun and lift me away from despondency.
I live on the edge of despondency. It seems to be a default setting still. I can feel a tangible pull. It would be s much easier it seems to give in to it and stay home, not facing the world and all the difficulties that the world and it's ways present to me. It is stepping out of taking responsibility for myself and can appear to be so much easier. And yet it's painful. It real has a physical pain and an interminable feeling of fight and draw on every ounce of energy.
So for today I am stepping aside of it. Every so often that feels difficult because the pull is alluring. Doing nothing at all, not having to deal with people, places and things. On the other hand I know that I can deal with any situation and pray to God that I will not feel fear in any situation. There is nothing to fear so long as I stay close to God. Thank you God for removing my fears and guiding me through any situation I am faced with. Somehow everything will be OK even though I have no idea how sometimes. Things always seem to work out just dandy.
There is also a grieving. letting go of despondency and depression. I have a close relationship with these twins.
I'm not sure I've written really about humility. Perhaps it's because T had asked me about despondency and the letter seemed to correspond across both topics. Humility is something to consider further from this point.

Well I need to phone my friend JB. I wrote to him yesterday expressing my thoughts of being boring to him. I wonder if he read my email hence the text to speak this morning. Well lets see.

Bliss
XX

You either love it or hate it.

Well day zero came and went. I watched the flipping opening ceremony. Actually I had it organised that I collected Lady Lou after the meeting having worked later due to being alone and matters arising that needed sorting. So dinner at work, straight to AA and snoozed off and on, rudely. Then to the B's and watched the entire thing until after 1am. Then home and not sleeping properly until about 2:30am. Poo. So this afternoon I am salty-eyed tired.
It was not terribly enthralling. A lot of the time I thought it was just a big shambolic musical. There were messages there, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. But things like the display for the NHS. Well if only they were investing in the NHS in the way they were celebrating it. Maybe that was a subtle hint from Danny Boyle. His name is certainly top of the list now. I wonder if there is anyone in the UK who no longer knows who he is? I guess that's done wonders for him in many ways.
As they say anything he did wasn't going to please many. So far the few people I've spoken with haven't had anything wonderful to say about it. I don't know what I imagined but that wasn't it.
It was thrilling to see Team GB stride out though. They looked so excited. What a great thing, to be taking part in representing your country in the country it's taking place. A wonderful experience.
The German minister whoever he was seemed to be Sieg Heiling (the arm signalling is what I mean but don't know the name of it) as the German team went by. I thought it very odd and inappropriate. Is this the way they still salute each other in Germany? I wonder if anyone else noticed. I must remember to ask.
Anyway, today that's done and dusted and I can retreat into oblivion from the Olympics for the weekend. It was amusing when Dr D and I were talking about not being engaged with teh Olympics and also similarly not liking Christmas. This coincided with someone talking about Marmite and either loving or hating it. I likened it to Christmas at which point C said she hated it but liked Christmas, and the Olympics. So in a quick mini survey we saw a correlation: Not linking Christmas, the Jubilee and the Olympic hype but loving Marmite and vice versa. We chuckled. So far we had a 100 per cent correlation.
The week has been lovely i the sense that PD, SH and I have been just getting on with everything. We know each other and know that we are all covered. But it's more than that. We synchronise our ways of working. There is room for individuality but also similarity. There is respect for each others skills and weaknesses. There is knowledge that we are all heading in the same direction. We respect one and other. There is organisation with what we are doing. Everyone knows where they stand. We will cover for each other without fretting.
I did feel reverberating fears and control. Amazing how powerful I can make a person. It's not dissimilar to my dad. In fact there are times when she has the voice of my dad in my head. Nothing but disdain for me and totally controlling. Gosh it's hard thinking of her returning and how soon it will be miserable once again.
However the wonderful news is that PD is getting more prepared to launch his new venture and he is talking more solidly about me joining him. We talked about salary and leave and getting accredited (which I am not sitting and completing at this very moment as I planned to do). It seems more certain even though it will depend on him getting the correct operating licence for the premises. He suggests all will be ready for me start either the beginning of Dec or Jan. Wow I am so relieved and also very excited. I just know we will have a good time as well as working hard to put everything into successful motion. I have a lot of faith in PD and oddly enough if it doesn't work I have faith that I will be OK. Now why don;t I have that from this situation now.
What is essential is that I leave on good terms with my employers. It would be good if that included L but I don't want to be a pain for F or others int eh company. I like the people within the company and want to make myself available to help out if necessary. I will need to word this very carefully. I think I would want to talk to F prior to talking to L and ? Oh blimey, what's his name? I think I'm having an increasing amount of memory blanks. What the hell is his name? N. Of course.
I would probably need a months notice but would offer longer and even could help out sessionally beyond that with Saturdays until Jan when my studies start in earnest. I am starting in September actually but it's a much shorter course and only 1 essay assignment. Thankfully no exam either.
It's been great catching up with fellowship folks. Little by little getting back into the routine of calling people and chatting about FA.
I put on my jeans this morning and they fit. They are no longer loose. I am glad on the healthy thinking side but I feel bloated and uncomfortable. This is as a result of now eating 6oz of grain per meal. I feel as if I am piling on size and weight. I am worried about this of course. I feel full after meals, uncomfortably so. I hope that when I've put on some weight and size then things can reduce again. It's not easy with an anorexic head though to determine if it's anorexia talking. So thank you God I totally trust the process. Even though my thinking is saying that my sponsor will say "let's stick as you are for the next week and see what happens." I DON'T WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!!!! I want to have gained a little and then remove the extra grain amounts. It's a lot of bloody food I eat in a day. My lunch boxes are full to the brim lunch and dinner.
Breakfast
1oz oats
8oz fat free yoghurt
1 piece of fruit of 6oz berries

Lunch
4oz protein
6oz 1 variety of cooked veg
6oz mixed salad
6oz grain or potato
1 tablespoon dressing (1/2 oil 1/2 balsamic vinegar
6oz fat free yoghurt
1 piece of fruit or 6oz fruit

Dinner
4oz protein
6oz 1 variety of cooked veg
6oz mixed salad
6oz grain or potato
1 tablespoon dressing (1/2 oil 1/2 balsamic vinegar
1 piece of fruit

You try it. And this is the maintenance. I got down to 119.7. Which seems a long way beneath the lower end of the scale but in fact it's only 0.3oz. Eating as I am I don't feel so skinny. I was truly liking the feeling.

I had planned to get a new battery fitted in my watch but forgot to take it when I went food shopping. Anyway, I had been so late getting out of the door as a result of lots of phone calls and also my tiredness taking away any desire to move. Similarly this afternoon. It's lovely having a day out kinda day. I just do that every Saturday and really it's the only full day I have now as on Sunday I am part of the AWOL at 12:00 noon. It is a great time for it o the one hand and a bloody nuisance on the other hand.

I really need a hot drink and want a Tea Pigs Peppermint and Liquorice tea. However the liquorice is sweet and I wonder if it might be a trigger. However I will have another as I want it. Sometimes, someone said in a meeting, we have to be strong enough to say no to an idea before doing what's required and gradually coming together as one with all the underlying matters as well. Trust development. After all with a hidden mother she would not protect, not even comfort.

"Oh my gosh! The sudden realisation, that I am the eldest of the three of us. Therefore the story they are telling about adoption and stealing the baby back is probably about me! Unless they had to give the baby back and they don't ever talk about that bit."  Could this be a good opening of a fictional story?

Chats with A have been nice this week. He has had some personal matters, not to mention a gratefully received increase in time because the admissions aren't coming in almost 24/7. The director of course needs full beds all of the time. But for all of us workers it's impossible to work at that pace and pressure. But A has some worries and I guess that's meant he wanted some time to talk them through. It must be so difficult being so far from home and family and friends and dealing with life matters alone. I hope I can offer a friendly ear. He has very kindly invited me to his home when he returns to Hungary. I am sure people wonder about us but they don't know he's gay. It's lovely to have a safe friendship with a man.
I am so sorry for his hurt. He's been so committed to this relationship and been earnest with it too. I relate to that so much. Giving of myself completely and then feeling so disappointed. And then I would act out, usually seeking another male outlet. This is what A seems to be doing too.
The thing is that it affects my equilibrium and my esteem. I feel guilty and ashamed. And disgusted with myself too.

I've been watching the latest series of Wallander,. Recommended by so many people for some reason I didn't get to see any of the series, English or Swedish. To be honest it may have been one of the first but it's all very familiar territory. I like Engregages because there was something quite different about it. A view of the way the legal system works, characters developed and the murder stories a way to expose all these other elements. This set of story lines seems a way to show his difficulty with his life. I guess I've missed the character development over the other series.

So what a dozy day. Phone calls. Lovely connections with people and then a stroll with Lady Lou then the supermarket and then lunch then a doze and then dinner and get ready for the meeting, with Wallander playing in the background. It doesn't hold my attention for some reason.
I haven't flipping well even opened the things for the accreditation. I have had some ideas for it though.

I've dressed for the meeting. Why? Just fancied wearing something a little bit dressier. And also just to be a little more attractive. What for or for whom? No one. Not attracted to anyone. Really? Well no not actually attracted but wanting to attract. Know what I mean? Wish I didn't feel I needed to. So instead lets turn this around and say that I wanted to dress just to use some of the clothes I rarely get to wear these days and I tend to choose to wear jeans. It's warm now so maybe I'll put on the long dress after all. Yes.

Bliss
XX

Start writing fiction

Introduction

This unit looks at how characters might be drawn and how setting is established. It works on the different levels of characterisation, from flat to round, and how character and place interact. It also works on the effect of genre and how genre can be used.

The main teaching material in this unit is taken from an existing publication, The Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich (1995).

Novakovich is an award-winning writer (of short stories mainly), who teaches fiction writing at the University of Cincinnati. His chapters on ‘Character’ and ‘Setting’ are included within this unit. I'll indicate when you should read these extracts and I'll also outline the listening and writing activities that accompany them.

This unit is split into the following sections:

• Character
• Setting - A particular part of space, described and identified with certain characteristics and qualities, possibly named, though by no means necessarily real.
• Genre - A literary or artistic type or style, e.g. thriller or romance.

This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Start writing fiction (A174) which is no longer taught by The Open University.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this unit you should:

• have begun to identify your own strengths and weaknesses as a writer of fiction;
• have developed a general awareness of fiction writing;
• have developed a basic vocabulary to discuss fiction.

Block 2 Character, setting and genre

Fiction Writer’s Workshop

Josip Novakovich

Source: Novakovich, J. (1995) Fiction Writer’s Workshop, Cincinnati,

Ohio: Story Press, ‘Character’, pp.48–66; ‘Setting’, pp.25–42.

Character

Most people read fiction not so much for plot as for company. In a good

piece of fiction you can meet someone and get to know her in depth, or

you can meet yourself, in disguise, and imaginatively live out and

understand your passions. The writer William Sloan thinks it boils down to

this: ‘‘Tell me about me. I want to be more alive. Give me me.’’

If character matters so much to the reader, it matters even more to the

writer. Once you create convincing characters, everything else should

easily follow. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, ‘‘Character is plot, plot is character.’’
 
But, as fiction writer and teacher Peter LaSalle has noted, out of character,

plot easily grows, but out of plot, a character does not necessarily follow.

To show what makes a character, you must come to a crucial choice that

almost breaks and then makes the character. The make-or-break decision

gives you plot. Think of Saul on the way to Damascus: While persecuting

Christians, he is blinded by a vision; after that, he changes, becomes St.

Paul, the greatest proselyte. Something stays the same, however; he is

equally zealous, before and after. No matter what you think of the story of

Paul’s conversion, keep it in mind as a paradigm for making a character.

Of course, not all characters undergo a crucial change. With some

Characters, their unchangeability and constancy makes a story. In ‘‘Rust,’’

my story about the sculptor-turned-tombstone-maker, everything (the

country, family, town) changes, except the character. Even his body

collapses, but his spirit stays bellicose and steadfast. Here he is, at work:

He refused to answer any more of my questions. His hands

- with thick cracked skin and purple nails from hammer

misses – picked up a hammer. Veins twisted around his

stringy tendons so that his tendons looked like the emblem

for medicine. He hit the broadened head of the chisel,

bluish steel cutting into gray stone, dust flying up in a

sneezing cloud. With his gray hair and blue stubbly cheeks

he blended into the grain of the stone – a stone with a pair

of horned eyebrows. Chiseling into the stone, he wrestled

with time, to mark and catch it. But time evaded him like a

canny boxer. Letting him cut into rocks, the bones of the

earth, Time would let him exhaust himself.

Seven years later I saw him. His face sunken. His body had

grown weaker. Time had chiseled into his face so steadily

that you could tell how many years had passed just by

looking at the grooves cutting across his forehead. But the

stubbornness in his eyes had grown stronger. They were

larger, and although ringed with milky-gray cataracts,

glaringly fierce.

14