Twirling flu

How about, Bliss, next time you go to work, the mall, or a labyrinth, you glide, slide, and twirl a bit? Wink, smile, and wave? Dip, bend, and high-five? Strut, saunter, and beam?
Just a bit?
Teeny, tiny?  
    The Universe

When I feel well I do this from time to time. I have a flipping fluey cold. I ache and feel giddy. My head hurts, my nose is blocked, my throat is sore and my chest is tickly so I cough every so often, which hurts my sore throat. So in my mind I wink and twirl but physically I can even walk properly.
Every year about this time October or November I come down with something. I have noticed this over the past 5 years. And I wonder if a shift in hormones happens leaving more vulnerable to all the colds and flus that buzz around at this time of year.
It's a nuisance. Especially as the P Group do not pay sick leave. I hate the way this country is going. More and more companies are adopting this mean attitude. Lord Beveridge fought for rights for employees and this Government is allowing that all to change. We are reverting back to the 1930's is so many ways now. The great depression. I have huge feelings about this. I feel hard down by for sure and a mounting fear. But I feel powerless and with that comes hopelessness. The small people cannot combat with the super powers and those are the ones with the money - the employers. It is awful.
So many people are stuck in these horrible situations.
When I get accredited I am going to work harder at setting up a private practice. Yes that will mean if I don't work I don't get paid. However, it does mean I am not in the control of uncaring people. I suppose it will be just as scary so then I could have a little of both. Employed and self-employed too.

Bliss
xx

Novakovich

Review Notation: Mixing It Up

APRICOTS FROM CHERNOBYL
by Josip Novakovich

Published by Graywolf Press

I began to write stories in the States out of nostalgia when I dodged the Yugoslav Federal Army and could not go home. Nostos-algia, the Greek components mean return + pain: the pain that drives you to return. But I could not return, because in addition to the politics, time banned me. I missed the times and places and people of my boyhood. I thought I could stay in touch at least with the people and the place, if not the time. I wrote a long letter a day, under the illusion that I was reaching beyond the ocean and plugging my spirit into my native soil, through that bit of a tree, the page, which contained traces of being rooted in a moist black soil. In return for the long letters, if I was lucky, I'd get a few postcards. I thought I might just as well give up on the lousy lot of my friends and brothers. But by then I was addicted to remembering through writing, and so I wrote to the wall in front of me. I described the places of my childhood in more than a hundred pages, and my fingers walked and ran, barefoot, as I used to in summer days...
--Josip Novakovich, from his essay "Revising Memory"

The yearning in Novakovich's collection of essays envelopes land and sea, language and thought, faces and facades, with a bitter humor almost sweet at its core. Although writing in a time when xenophobia has become an absolute madness in Western nations all over the world, this author's clever sleight-of-hand turns each bruising of the psyche into an opportunity for ripening, like the "stunted apricots" in the title essay of this book. Novakovich is, above all, an ascerbic optimist. Having fled his homeland in the former Yugoslavia, leaving behind kin and community, the author here significant portraits of what is lost, what is remembered, and what remains. Within those moments of fresh clarity of the past are the instances of repeated culture shock that never seem to lose their harsh edges. "Almost whichever border I cross," Novakovich reports, "the police take out their books and search for my name among the names of terrorists, murderers, rapists; and, not finding it, they look at me as if meaning, 'All right, not yet, but we'll catch you some day!'" And yes, this treatment is most certainly racially-motivated: "Whenever I am tired -- and after bumming through Europe for two months I certainly am--" we learn, "I think I look very much a Slav. These 'free-world policemen are like dogs trained to smell us out, which in many cases quite literally should prove possible! I am the only one dragged into the police station, while others admire what a free country Switzerland is, where nobody even bothers so much as to look at your passport" (from "Crossing Borders"). A variance on the theme of immigration purely from hardship, Novakovich takes a broader stroke at the issue of passage:

Many people enter illegally, through fraud -- buying passports, green cards, copying visas, or plainly crossing the borders where they are least attended, risking a not-so-gentle treatment by the U.S. border patrol. People are driven by poverty, or by the desire for wealth, or by hardship of one sort or another, greed of one sort or another, to move to another country and seek a new life. Even where life is not hard materially, it may be hard spiritually. You can run into many Dutch, Swedish, German, Japanese, and other immigrants in the States and other countries. It's not that materially they didn't have good chances at home, but they just needed a throwing away of their strict upbringing in a country where different customs rule -- a breakthrough into a new life, through borders not as obstacles but as thresholds to imagined freedom. --from the essay "Crossing the Border"

Insights here take into pointed regard the changes cultures of many European and U.S. cultures. The humor, anger, nostalgia, and wisdom of this first collection by Novakovich mark a splendid entry into U.S. multicultural literature. A necessary book for the shelves of every informed reader.

Review by Canéla Analucinda Jaramillo

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writing characters

Apparently character is plot and plot is character when writing - according to Henry James (1995). "Building a strong sense of your main character or characters, then add a dilemma, challenge or conflict, you will automatically be generating your plot" (Open University).

And that I realised, when writing about Miriam, was pretty difficult. It's already a vast subject for discussion just from my first few lines about her.


First drafts .....

Miriam loathed the idea of being labelled by others. She enjoyed being thought of as different, not fitting into the usual mould. She really was quite quirky and unique without really needing to try. If only she knew that. Perhaps she did really. This conflict within her is frustrating to get to grips with and she is so changeable too. Does she even realise she is battling with an internal rivalry? It's not external but watching her it sometimes seems as if she is battling the world. She is a story all by herself but there isn't room to go into that detail here.

Phoebe had longed for a simple life away from the hubbub and to live off the grid. Yet she loved her gadgets and occasional trips into town to visit a gallery. And her car was an essential! With all her protestations within herself and to her friends, here she was with a low income, living in housing association accommodation, scaling down. Now the conflicting discontent. Not having enough money to do and possess all the things she wanted.  And so she sat sometimes for hours grieving the loss of her former self, the adventurer, the risk taker, the high-flyer. That person and that lifestyle were long gone. These days Phoebe had to be cautious when considering an evening at the cinema or a meal out with friends. Oh yes, she was still socialising but carefully selecting which she could afford. Sometimes she didn’t choose and impulsively did them all. That part of her hadn’t changed, the throwing caution to the wind attitude lived on despite the financial insecurity. But this meant something else had to be forfeited, such as food.

 Spending on binge foods thus resulted in not only a financial dilemma but more erosion of self esteem. Not to mention a self berating session.  The need for binging always felt like a real need for the food but intellectually she knew that it was something deeper, some emotional trigger, no doubt contributed to by the sense of distress at her now small world. Phoebe had reached across the spectrum of the haves and the have nots. When she had and was receiving in abundance she craved a simple life without the high-powered stresses. Now she has little, there was a sense of loss and shame. What got her here?

How do these two come to be friends? What brought them together? Crisis! A rock bottom. Emotional fall out and a long lasting supportive friendship was borne out of adversity and gloom. From thereon a different set of adventures ensued. The same underlying people bringing a new dynamic in their togetherness and adventure unlike anything in their individual former lives ....

More envy

jaundiced

Affected with or exhibiting prejudice, as from envy or resentment.

I had been chewing a bitter cud of remembrance, so bitter that it engendered the gall which, in the end, jaundiced my vision of things that were past and things as they then existed.

-- Mary E. Waller, The Windmill on the Dune

And yet with jaundiced eye I gaze upon all the beauty and wonder about me, and with jaundiced brain consider the pitiful figure I cut in this world that endured so long without me and that will again endure without me.

-- Jack London, John Barleycorn

Jealousy

With reference to my own recent ramblings about jealousy and envy I thought I would add this Blog to my Blog. Interesting.

What Can Jealousy Teach You?

Your jealousy can inform you about your relationship with yourself.

Published on February 25, 2011 by Mary C. Lamia, Ph.D. in Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings

The emotion of jealously feels so terrible that it might seem counterintuitive that you can learn anything from it. The fear, anxiety, and anger about a potential loss that jealousy evokes can be experienced as negatively as the loss itself, and sometimes worse given the torturous nature of the unknown.
Jessica, for example, always bristled when her partner would comment about another woman expressing interest in him, and she didn't like his lunches with female business associates. She had a hard time trusting that he was truly loyal to her, and found herself occasionally looking for evidence that would confirm her fear.
First of all, a woman or man in Jessica's situation should learn that jealousy is not always about you. It is entirely possible that the personality characteristics of a partner may lead him to provoke you to become jealous, and, in doing so, he secures his tie to you. Such behavior is typical of people with personality disorders. Narcissistic and borderline personalities are so fearful of abandonment that they evoke jealous reactions in a partner and then blame their partner for being jealous. In this case, Jessica would become so preoccupied with her own security that she wouldn't consider her partner's own abandonment fears.

There are other variations on the theme of jealously not being about you, but instead belonging to a partner who evokes jealousy in you. A partner might be jealous about his previous partner, but instead evoke that jealously in his present partner. Jealousy, as you may have experienced, tends to cause intense negativity or anger in a person toward the object of that jealousy. How convenient it is when someone can evoke rage in a present partner about the behavior of a previous partner, all the while remaining neutral and even sympathetic toward the previous partner.
However, in Jessica's case, her jealously wasn't limited to her partner. When a female friend talked about a shared experience with a mutual friend of theirs she felt jealous as well. It could very well be that Jessica's choice of friends unfortunately resembled the personality disordered characteristics of her romantic partner, but let's assume that not to be the case. Thus, we are assuming that Jessica is prone to have jealous responses when people in her life express closeness to anyone else.
Jealousy, when it does belong to you, represents a threat to your connection with another person that is experienced as anxiety and fear that someone else can and will take your place. In evolutionary terms, securing your tie to a partner would have enormous benefits, and thus, jealously and the responses it evokes serve to protect one's self-interest in a partnership. A rival, in caveman days, might meet a dreadful fate. But in contemporary society, for the most part, jealously tends to make the jealous party appear and feel weak, insecure, inferior, needy, and lacking in self-esteem. The jealous person is often plagued by uncertainty and quietly lonely. However, sometimes a jealous partner is aggressive and offensive. In any case, one who is jealous has a few things to learn.
Jealousy does trigger a negative, self-protective response, but it can also inform you. So if you experience jealousy you have an opportunity to learn about yourself by asking yourself some questions: Are you perceiving that you are lacking in some quality that you would like to develop for yourself? Are you experiencing jealously because, actually, you want something more from your relationship that you are unable to obtain from that person, whether it is passion, intellectual stimulation, or intimacy? What do you think of yourself and who do you want to be? What experiences of loss and abandonment in your life have led you to fear that it will happen again? Being close to others can trigger the emotion of jealousy, especially if you do not value yourself or have experienced childhood loss or abandonment. However, you must recognize that your feelings have more to do with your relationship with yourself than your relationship with someone else.
Like jealously, envy is a social emotion that is evoked in relationships. Where jealousy is evoked in three-way relationships, the experience of envy involves your relationship with another person

Spies sewn into the regimental breeches

A good film I thought. I just think John Le Carre writes a marvel of a story anyway. A told me how the party in the film, which was not in the book, evolved as an anecdote from Le Carre from his time in MI5 or was it MI6? What's the difference anyway????. A party, everyone got drunk and the evening ended with the police arriving when a window was broken. Ironic really.
Gary Oldman did a good job although as G said he was miscast as the character was supposed to be much older according to Le Carre's description. I though he had a certain command about him. I think the filming ensured the focus was entirely centred on the complicated and intriguing relationships and interactions - disloyalty, deceit, double-crossing.
There were shots of the Cities but these were secondary to the camera being on the people. I liked this approach. Great filming can be a beauty asset to a film but in this case it was never about places which really are incidental. It's about the people.
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Director of Let the Right One In - yes good directing in my opinion not that I know anything at all about directing a film ha ha ha - but this one worked well for me.
One thin I noticed is that Big Ben was very clean but in the 70's London was very grungy dirty. In the shot it was in the distance, the actors were standing at a window with Big Ben in the background. Nice and sparkly clean.
I enjoyed it and it was great to be seeing it on the big screen.

I had a lovely lunch with P. He paid- We went to Jamie's which I thought was very gimmicky. All the serving gimmicks which are products that can be bought of course. Clever money spinner for sure. The food was alright, the service appalling and the noise levels ridiculous. I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of the things JH had mentioned - something stuck under chairs that I think he said absorb noise. Anyway for me it was a fast food style - it is really popular because Jamie is. I am probably very out of style or something but to me it's not a classic that will last. However he is surely making a packet!!

Then I walked over to the cinema. A missed call from A! I called back only to be asked what I thought about them not coming. I listened to the decision backwards forwards and then said I was disappointed at which point A said they were going to make it. I felt the codee cringe in me. I think the decision was taken by A because I had said I was disappointed. I ha to leave that choice with her but eeeek it was uncomfortable. I was disappointed as I had organised my time and plans specifically to ensure I kept to the agreed arrangements. And I was there! Anyway they did make it. A with her red irritated eye and G with her bad back. I wasn't a fabrication which I thought it might have been. It's all too easy to just back out. Which is one thing I am glad about not backing out from yesterday evening. I really didn't want to go and yet I really wanted to go. It was easy and pleasant and more than that I am glad to have made the effort for Kim - and I do that because I value.Similarly with H and H tomorrow, I am going because I value them and able to put aside my issues. Also with P - I organised my time to be able to meet him for lunch because I value him. It's odd really because there's not an awful lot to talk to him about outside of work. I wonder more about him, interests etc but we don't talk about those things and I don't think he's interested in that of me.
So A and G arrived much to my surprise. I am glad because I enjoyed being out at the cinema. I treated them as a thank you for looking after LouLou - which makes me feel better more than it probably does anything for them.

So a good day - friends and film.

Bliss
xx

Nagasaki bombo

She's visiting from SA for just a month. It felt so lovely to be sitting next to her ... there was a sense of home and calm about being with her. K is one of the wonderful people in life that I have met. Sincere, honest, thoughtful and agreeable. What a lovely gift of friendship. And to think I haven't seen her for two years. No on would have known that I am sure. And now we are meeting for a coffee on Wednesday too for a one to one catch up. I feel very honoured and privileged.
I did feel at ease with the person I am - I didn't like that I had been so certain that E worked in Godalming only to realise later that she didn't. I was wondering why - I think there is some financial security and envy that manifests. Let me be clearer about the scenario (I am a little cagey just in case any friends are beginning to discover the Blog and recognise themselves and me but that realisation in itself is learning as if there are any behaviours or thoughts I would not be happy to share then there is something going on - shame is a strong indicator that something isn't sitting comfortably - privacy and discretion is something else I think). Anyway let's get this out with clarity.
Recently M was saying that she had seen a job advertised for £30k - Godalming job. That scares me. I feel more comfortable when I think there are others like me - not so financially free and easy - I would feel left out perhaps if they were able to afford lots of things that I can't afford. I know I can't afford so much but when there are others like me then I feel OK with the situation. How weird is that. This is jealousy and insecurity. I think also that they would want to spend less time with me doing their other things with other people and I would feel even more alone in the world.
It's so selfish. I  don't like how this looks. Anyway When I said that I think E works there - I can't quite remember whether I said think or does I was trying to be encouraging with a under current of jealousy. I would actually be so happy and enthusiastic for M to be successful in just the way she desires and to be financially comfortable would be wonderful. It would not stop me feeling jealous or is it envious, I am never quite sure.
envy - a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.
covetousness - wrongly desirous.
And envious is the emotional expression of that envy
I take that to mean wanting for oneself for example what someone else has.
jealous - feeling resentment against someone because of that person's rivalry, success, or advantages (often followed by of )
            - characterized by or proceeding from suspicious fears or envious resentment: a jealous rage; jealous intrigues.

I think the jealousy is much more nasty actually but I am not sure that I get this the right way round as people often say envy is worse than jealousy. Yet jealousy is fuelled with resentment and in my opinion can involve for example the jealous person not wanting the other person to have either.

I do not feel like this overall but do get scared that if someone else has they won't be interested in me. I think with M I do feel insecure at times. And I think some of this is fuelled by realising that she can withdraw easily and doesn't trust. There may be some sort of counter transference there for me. It is not completely clear. But I like M very much indeed and would like her friendship eternally. When M talks about friendships though I get a sense that it's sort a forewarning not to expect friendship and I'm sure she has said that if I didn't keep in contact with her she wouldn't keep in contact with me. Or maybe that's what I have interpreted. Blimey interaction is complex at times.

Anyway the discomfort or embarrassment is that I didn't ever acknowledge with M when I thought about it later that E maybe didn't work there but did work for a wildlife charity. So when it was raised last night I cringed with that knowledge of myself. More work to o on ME.

Anyway this is a convoluted journey around me sort of tying in M with E and a well paid job. Whatever it is what I don;t like is that I made yet another statement as if I know when actually I thought but wasn't certain. I am practicing changing this because I don't know much at all - the more I do learn the more I realise I don't know.
And yet I know some things.

It was lovely seeing S as well - he is a funny fella. Full of energy and sharp in his thoughts. He has a direction which sounds so exxciting. Interestingly he is forging forward and towards a PhD with gentics and biology in some form that I didn't fully understand. It is really exciting. He triuly has a quikc and able mind - far from the young guy that I first met around 9 years ago or 8, I'm not sure. He has grown enormously just being himself. Quite self assured outwardly. I think beofer he was a lot self assured in his arrogance. Maybe he is truly is at ease with being him. I hope so.


I felt strange yesterday - not having anything t have to study and doing things without the guilt of "should be studying". It felt weird and thumb twiddling. What did I do?
Well this mroning I sorted out admin paperwork. I started learning how to use the OU online library. Well practicing according to their help pages. I don't think their help pages are very easy for me to udnerstand. It all seems coplicated to me and wonder if that's just me.
I watched the Gene Code - part 2. I have found the whole thing fascinating and interesting.
I watched White Ribbon last evening. A German film


It brought to mind The Salem Witchcraft trial of 1692 and which was the story of the film Crucible.
(How I love the internet to help me research this because my memory loses so much information like names for example).
I thought it was a very good film. Michael Haneke is the director. I wonder what his inspiration is for his films. The original version of Funny Games was so so sinister. I like his work though. There is a feel of sinister mystery and evil. It was told so well with the protaginst being a talk over story teller. I love the black and white feel taking me really to the times it was suposed to be portraying. That's an odd thing to say because life would have been in colour but filming at those times of course wasn't. When did cine come into existence - Internet!!!
Cristian Friedal is the school teacher who is recounting the events of this strange cillage community. He has done little and this is his second fil. I thought he played the part well. Unassumingly. It will be interesting to see what he does next.
And yes miving film was in the late 1800's early 1900's so the first world war would have been cpatured in black and white.

I am off to have lunch with P. I feel very honoured actually as I don't think P lets people easily into his private life. And his life has changed beyond all recognition in many many ways over the last 10 years. Significantly now with the death of his lovely mother. I know for me I was bereft and didn't know how to manage without my mum. I am certain there is a massive hole i his life right now. I wish for him to stand still and give himself time. I think P's standing still is to be on the move - change everything. I can relate to that. Run from the enormity of the emotions. I had SH to help me to stand still but looking bac I was all over the place.
Then this evening I am seeing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with A and G. I am looking forward to being at the big screen. It's a novelty these days.

Off now to late lunch
Bliss
XX