Holding My Hands Up

Yes. Mmmm. I have a confession to make.

That picture in the previous post? Pretend it's not there please. Actually, just disregard the whole post.

I can't speak to the road to Hell (although some may say different) but the last couple of days of October were filled with good intentions. And the last day was also filled with an absolutely stinking head cold. I tried, I really did, but I could only just get my head around words enough to manage at work - there was just no chance that I was going to be able to generate any kind of invention beyond that.

So I'll give up for another year. Good luck to everyone who has the creativity to press on with NaNoWriMo, whether they reach the end or not. Kudos.

Words are tricky things, sometimes. I don't think that people have a limitless supply of them in a set period of time. You have to let your Word Store get new stock. I guess that usually happens when we're asleep (don't ask about people who talk in their sleep - that blows the whole analogy out of the water) but maybe not so quickly when we're poorly. Fingers crossed that over the next few days my restocking will get quicker again.

2nd Time Lucky

Six years after my first attempt, I think I'm going for it again...

 

Wish me luck. There might not be many words here in November. I have limits! I'll keep you posted, though.

It's been a long time since I rock & rolled...

Yesterday evening was lovely. Out for a meal  with my Lovely Lady and then to the movies to watch Celebration Day. 

Call it a happiness hangover maybe but today has been a strange one. When one is working for a living one expects some days to be more stressful than others but I'm not talking about stress, necessarily. It's just been kinda...weird. There's been a lot more bustle out in the square than usual for one thing, and I certainly didn't expect to spend part of the evening having an e-mail conversation with a house-hunting ex-DJ.

So tomorrow is Friday and it'll be a week until the blessed relief of payday. Of course, I have to get through the weekend to get there but I'll pull my big boy pants on, square my shoulders and cope like a man (i.e. whinging and complaining). I've spectacularly failed to do any housework at all this week, aside from running the vacuum cleaner round quickly, so I'll have plenty to keep me busy.

I'm sat here just waiting for the computer keyboard to come up with something that I can work more Led Zeppelin lyrics into. I guess it's not going to happen, unless I'm less than subtle about it, though.

"If my wings should fail me, Lord, please meet me with another pair."

As I have another alarm call to answer in the morning, I'd better stop tapping away. The typing is starting to fail me and what little inspiration I sat down with has run as dry as a very, very dry thing.

Fingers Crossed...

...but I think I may just have fixed my Blogger template. What a palaver!

For The Day That's In It

Today is, apparently, World Mental Health Day. It's crazy that I didn't know that.

Okay, we've got that out of the way.

I just nearly typed "people fortunate enough to have good mental health need to cop the fuck on", but it's not about that. It's about realising things like depression affect more than 350 million people of all ages, and in some countries fewer than 10% of those who need it receive treatment. We're not talking about moodiness here, or that dude at work who's as crabby as hell in the mornings before he's had three coffees, I'm talkng about The Black Dog - real, clinical depression. The sort of thing that, if left unaddressed, has the power to turn bright, charming, intelligent people into uncommunicative agoraphobes. 

Now, if you're sat there muttering under your breath "They should pull themselves together. In my day etc etc" then I was wrong earlier - you do need to cop the fuck on. Depression isn't a lifestyle choice and it's not something that people can always overcome without medical help. Even with help, it may be something that's "managed" rather than "cured". Unfortunately, even reaching out for that help still carries a certain amount of stigma. 

Do yourselves a favour, people. Look after yourselves. Yes, mens sana in corpore sano by all means but be aware and be understanding. Don't be too hard on yourself. Sometimes the most grown-up thing you can do is ask for help when you need it. 

Missed!

I have the feeling that there's something I was going to say here. Can't for the life of me think what, though.

If it were earlier I could maybe sit here and waffle on in the hope that whatever-it-was would come back to me. As it's now pushing midnight I probably shouldn't be doing that now, though. More's the pity. This could be the moment when a great work of literature goes unstarted or a profound insight into the human state is missed.

Both of the above are unlikely, I'll grant you. But there's always the outside possibility that I might have typed something vaguely amusing. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

What??

It is, incidentally, entirely unacceptable that Blogger appears to have broken my template with no interference from me. Have they not noticed that I also have a blog at Wordpress? They haven't broken my template!

If I'd been messing around with the html coding then that would be fine - my own stupid fault, as it were. But I haven't and it ain't! Growl.