ready for bed

ready for bed, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Curling up where it's warm to sleep.

me right now

Tired at the end of a busy, but fun weekend.

As seen on blogs by Rosie, Anne and Mary deB.

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
5. Add it to the Pool.

to sleep, perchance to dream?

I am STILL having weird dreams. I'll try fiddling around with when I take my drugs again, but I'm not sure it makes much difference. It's what happens to me in the early morning I can't take. It's more like hallucinations than dreams. I'm sleeping lightly, but as soon as I close my eyes I'm in dream world. It's as if I have to chose between being awake and sleepy or dreaming and confused. And the unreal stuff seems so real, so tangible. This morning I dreamed I was writing and when I opened my eyes my hand was waving about in the air, writing. So strange.

In other news. I am knitting lots. I've finished the fronts of a cardigan. I have an interview for a part time temp job tomorrow. It's only 8 hours a week, but I think it'll be a good first step back into working. On Friday I'm going to London to the 900th anniversary celebrations of the church I grew up in and went to until I went to uni. It'll be good to see some old friends again.

Life is weird, but God is good. I am still alive, and there are people who love and care for me, for which I am very grateful.

I need to make myself write more. Probably not on the blog, but I keep coming up with ideas I want to get down on paper and work out and then being too scared to sit down and write. So my head gets stuffed, and things don't get sorted out. Not good.

I think I'm scared of reading too. Which is daft. But it's like I can't read any serious books, because I won't understand them, or be able to talk about them properly. I'm not sure. But there's definitely fear there. I dreamt the other day that I was talking to someone about books and they started on a subject I knew nothing about - French poetry, I think - and I just had nothing to say, so I laughed and said something like, "I recognise all those words, but I have idea what you're talking about." Which is totally not what I'd do in real life. I'm a terrible bluffer; I hate to be wrong or to be found wanting. Maybe there's a solution there, to be able to admit when I don't know stuff and laugh about it. And learn. I may not know everything, but I want to. Is that a useful aim in life, or am I just setting myself up to fail? I suppose one can keep learning to the end of life.

What about beyond? Will we still be learning in eternity?

I shall stop now and lay my befuddled head down to sleep. And pray for deep and peaceful rest.

Thank you!

To the lovely anonymous person who paid my next month's rent: Thank you so much!

Thursday Thursday

I thought it was time the last rather plaintive post got moved off the top of the blog. Some days I'm OK, some days I'm not. Actually, the good days mostly outweigh the really bad days. But then not many days are free from hopeless moments.

Yesterday was good. I went swimming first thing in the morning with a couple of friends and then had breakfast in a cafe. I hadn't been swimming in ages and it was good to do some exercise and brilliant to spend breakfast chatting to Lizzie and Rachel. I was fairly worn out for the rest of the day though. I sometimes forget how tired I can get, do too much and wear myself out. It's frustrating. Still, it was good to be tired out by exercise rather than tired out by doing nothing.

I'm doing a lot of knitting, in between looking for and applying for jobs. I'm spending a lot of time on Facebook and reading blogs. I'm barely reading any books. That feels really strange. I've always been a bookworm, but now I seem to have gone off reading. Maybe my brain just needs a break. It's probably getting enough escapist entertainment from my dreams (still vivid, but mostly not scary unless I'm worrying about something.) I'm supposed to be having a break from studying, so I shall just wait and not force myself to read when I don't feel like it. It's just odd.

I don't know what to say

I am alive. I am breathing. I am sad. I am trying not to worry.

I'm going out for a stomp in the woods.

things I would like to do

A list written in the middle of last night when I couldn't sleep. Some of which are achievable, some of which are dreams.

• Find a job
• Do Pilates
• Lose weight
• Go to the gym
• Sing more
• Go to Rev again
• Take more photos
• Have a dinner party
• Laugh more
• Paint my wall
• Get rid of stuff I don't need
• Ride horses
• Find a husband
• Go dancing
• Go for more long walks in the countryside
• Walk to Ely
• Go swimming
• Cook for friends
• Go to parties and not be scared
• Go to parties and not stuff my face
• Listen to God more
• Sing prophetic songs
• Knit another jumper I wear as much as Forecast (Of which that is a very unflattering picture)
• Find some perfect jeans
• Make people happy
• Visit friends
• Go out and socialise more
• Not be scared
• Not be afraid or ashamed of being me

Friday, achey

It's been a strange week. I'm sure it must be Saturday already? I'm very very tired and achey, think I'm going down with something. :-(

Still, on the positive side, there have been lots of fun times with friends and family this week. I'm getting lots of sleep. I've hardly had to cook for myself all week. (Actually I mostly like cooking, but I've not had the energy for it much lately). I have filled in forms and registered with agencies. I'm not quite completely broke, yet. I have lots of lovely friends, here in Cambridge and elsewhere in the world.

Can I go back to sleep now?

what next?

I've had a few days of fun and relaxation. Now I'm back to being stressed again. The weird dreams seemed to have gone, before returning with a vengeance last night. I suspect the fact that I knew I was planning to start job-hunting properly today made me feel tense and my sub-conscious reacted by producing scary monsters and a set of disconcerting nested dreams I kept trying to shake myself awake from, with no success. Why does my brain do that? Just when I could do with a good night's sleep, it goes crazy and weird. :-(

Today, I have been mostly filling in temp agency forms and trying not to pick fights with Americans. Tonight, I'm helping Liz strip wallpaper. Tomorrow, who knows?

finishing things

Today I finished my last essay for a while. The next one is my dissertation, which I can't face at the moment, so I'm taking some time off and coming back to it in February. Or later. Or maybe never. Who knows. But today I filled in the forms to intermit for a semester.

Today I also finished the video editing and uploading I've been doing at the place I worked for until a year ago. So, approximately a year after I left, I actually finished working there.

Next week, I must start looking for a job in earnest. For the next few days I'm going to relax, sleep lots and generally flop.

technicolour dreaming

I have been having the weirdest dreams. Super-vivid glorious technicolour dreams directed by Cecil B. deMille or Busby Berkeley or George A. Romero. Dreams so vivid they seem more real then reality sometimes. I keep flashing back to things I remember and can't quite work out whether I dreamt them, or they really happened. So far, I've not misremembered or invented anything important, but it's getting harder to tell.

Sometimes my dreams are entertaining, mostly they're odd, occasionally they're downright disturbing and distressing. I wake up frightened in the middle of the night or so unsettled I can't sleep. In the morning, I'm more tired than when I went to bed. I almost dread going to sleep because I don't know what's going to greet me, monsters, wombats, shrinking houses, bullying armies or giant slides. For a while, it was funny, but now it's not. I'm not sleeping properly, I can't concentrate.

I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow and I'm going to tell her about my dreams and see what she suggests. I suspect it might be a side-effect of the anti-depressants I'm taking. If so, then perhaps switching to something else will make the dreams go away. I hope so.

a walk in the woods

There's a little patch of beech woods I've been visiting about once a week since about March this year. When I first went, the trees were bare and bleak, black silhouettes against a clouded sky. I've seen the first leaves appear, bright zinging green, seen them sway in the wind and shade me from the summer sun. I've been there in the rain, in the sunshine, on cloudy days. I've sat and been miserable there and been just about OK and been happy and been barely holding it together. I've drawn what I can see. I've drawn what I can't see. I've drawn how I feel. Now the trees are covered in dark green leaves, but I can see them beginning to turn yellow and brown. I'm looking forward to watching the autumn colours sweep across the trees. Already, there are blackberries on the brambles and beech masts crunching underfoot. There are brown speckled butterflies and huge snails climbing slender twigs and squirrels doing acrobatics. Once I stood under a tree and watched and listened to a blackbird singing on the topmost branch.

It's my place to be. Just be, breathe, watch, wait, listen.

holiday!

I'm off on holiday today! I'm getting a train to Wales. The sun is shining, right now. It's a good day.

I suspect I'm unlikely to post anything for the next fortnight. See you when I get back!

better wednesday

It's Wednesday again and I'm feeling OK. I've been sleeping better the last few nights and though I'm still very tired (and soooooo ready to go on holiday. Just a few more days to wait) I'm feeling positive. Yesterday I finished an essay (woo hoo!). I might try to finish another one by the end of the week. Not going to push it though. There are lots of little pottery things I want to do in the next couple of days (that's pottery as in pottering about, not pottery as in ceramics) like make a laptop case, tidy my room a bit, pack, obviously.

Yawn! So ready for a holiday!

I don't like wednesdays

Or they don't like me. Wednesday always seems to bring a dip in energy. Today I'm tired and tense. I didn't sleep very well last night or the night before. Last week, Wednesday was my worst day. Maybe my body objects to working more than two days in a row? I had two good getting up and going to the library days on Monday and Tuesday and now I'm flopping.

What have I done? I went for a walk in the woods, had a snooze, had some lunch. Maybe I'll venture out now.

sleepy thursday

sleepy thursday, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I should go to the library. But I'm sleepy.

ray of light

I've been away for a few days in Kent, on the Isle of Sheppey, where the family of my friend Lizzie have a holiday cottage. It's been wonderful. The sun shone, the sea was warm(ish), the beach was quiet. I've been doing lots of nothing much, sitting around reading books, playing a bit of tennis and scrabble, swimming in the sea, stroking the dog and lying in the sun.

It all felt like a lovely break from Cambridge and worry. I was so tired last week. I'm sleepy now, but in a relaxed sort of way, rather than feeling exhausted. Plus I had a long day travelling yesterday and my arm muscles are still aching from tennis. Today I'll take it easy, maybe get to the library this afternoon, but not try to do much. Tomorrow, back properly to my essay, which was going pretty well last week.

sleep, busy, sleep

That's not how life is supposed to be going, but sometimes it feels like it. How did it get to be Wednesday? I'm trying not to do too much, but still end up feeling exhausted by the end of the day. Sleep isn't exactly refreshing when you dream that you keep being woken up or beaten up by random people. (I think last night it was Billie Piper demanding that I tell her where to find the Doctor. Weird).

Today I went to the UL, which is a little energy-sapping in itself. At least it didn't nearly make me cry this time. I had a bit more of a clue about how the classmarks worked and managed to find what I needed first go. And I found the photocopiers and bought a card and copied the articles I wanted, so that's an achievement. Now I actually have to read what I've copied. Maybe not tonight though. Tonight I flop.

talk to the bear

talk to the bear, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I'm hiding in my cave.

sunday night in purple

sunday night in purple, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I remember reading a book in which the heroine (a princess) had amethyst eyes. The Ordinary Princess maybe? Or was her name Amethyst? Anyway, the idea appealed. My eyes aren't purple, of course. They're blue-grey, sometimes greenish, depending on the light and what I'm wearing. If I did have amethyst eyes, would I have to have green skin to match?