Bork Slowly Borking

 Eh meh eh, weird state of mood and mind. After my sad period with thoughts of Ares, I noodled around, not terrible, not great. Started to wind down for the day in the early hours of the morning. And was hit sideways by even worse grief. And this one I couldn't pull out of the nosedive. My feed is half full of boxers or dogs. Running around. Being goofs. It's nice. It's funny. It has an enormous underlying payload of melancholy for me. And of course, as is the way, here and there you get that awful sad story of when they go. And it's shit. And yeah. Here was a story of a new boxer. Replacing an old one. Same setup as Athena and Ares. Same problem as Ares. But gone when they were seven. Sudden. Blow out. Dead in hours. And it wasn't that it reminded me of Ares so much. It wasn't so much the loss of Ares. But. Just that connection to how much pain there can be in the world. Like holding on tight to a mains live wire unable to let go whilst it fries you. And she wr...

 Yesterday, in the scale of things, was a good day.  Noodled about. Kept to myself. Made a very low effort roast dinner. Played some games. Watched something good on Netflix. Didn't feel awfully ill. Didn't feel awfully low. And the day rolled by stress free. Which is as good as it gets for me. Just a little under 2 years ago, I made a post on reddit, a last shot, asking the actual experts and the armchair experts, what was wrong with me, could they help. A bunch of good suggestions, empathy, sympathy, but ultimately, no breakthrough answers. The other day I got a message from reddit. After 2 years of silence. Someone checked up on me. How was I doing. A random internet stranger. Just asking. How was I doing. We had a short chat. Back and forth. Sympathy. Empathy. They said I was a tough person. Ha. I don't think so. But it was nice. There are random good people out there. The world can be shit. People can be awful. And flawed. But. Somewhere in there is also good. And cari...

 Christmas. I didn't sleep through it all. Just  half of it. In the news today, more rumbles basically slating the NHS for doing a piss poor job. Another analysis piece that has linked a massive ramp in people getting sick over the pandemic and proceeding years, and then, either scaling back their work, or dropping out of work entirely. This is the third full on piece I have seen riffing on the economic data analysis that dropped a month or so ago. People not working nakes the rich people very unhappy. Because. Workers generate the money for the rich. No work. No money for the rich. Less workers and all that. Lower GDP. Lower taxes. Lower profits. That shit won't stand. To fix the "slacking" of the proletariat, government advisors are now suggesting that they need to up health care checks, fix those sick and get them back to work. Or at its darkest. Just get the sick back to work, healthy or not. The elephant in the room - sometimes pointed out explicitly, sometimes l...

 My sleep is absolutely fucked beyond all measure. Today was worst of all. Didn't go to sleep until 9am. Up at 2.30pm. Stumble around. Back to sleep by 5pm. Drag myself awake at 9pm. I am basically doing nothing in a day. Managed to get Athena out for a walk. Pick up some further grocery supplies. Done. And that's a struggle. Bleh. I need to get my sleeping back on track, it's really not doing me any good. Super tired. Super lethargic. Meanwhile hole in ass doing me no favours. Yeesh. After a short chat with Andy on Wednesday, after working til gone 4am on the same day, I have packed up for work for Christmas. I think he was genuinely worried I was blowing a fuse. I said I was ok, but super pissed off. And here's why, yada blah. So. At least that's that taken off the stress table for a while. On the other hand my sleep schedule has now gone full fucked and I'm in a weird place with my mentals. When I'm fully awake, I am fine. When I am not, I am not fine. En...

 Pop goes the hole. 9 days between pops. Open for what, 3 days ? Closed for 5 ? Something like that.  I will keep tracking it. Back at work today faced with a stack of bullshit. Half way through the day, more bullshit. Forward one step, backwards two. Ok. In short order all the good work that's been done this year in re-ordering work, not relying on me to just bail shit out has been undone. Instantly we are back to just pile it all on. The super annoying thing is that Andy has this passive aggressive pressure bullshit thing where something has to be done, must be done, is it done, let's get it done, it's bad it's not done. And then. Suddenly. A new priority comes in. And it all goes quiet on the thing that Just Had To Be Done, revealing that, yeah, it could have waited, it was just in fact Andys anxiety spreading like a fever. His anxiety is god awful and increases massively if he's just spoken to a given client. Meh. This is absolutely 100% not where I want to be. ...

 The communication around post virals has improved step by step since Covid hit. There is now an increasing understanding that virals *of all types* can cause long term, or even permanent debilitating effects to people. Which is a good thing. When you've made it to Time magazine, you know the message is really starting to hit home. https://time.com/6240058/post-viral-illnesses-common-long-covid/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

 And after the crashing of thunder came the stillness, a deep quiet into which no sound penetrated. Slept. A lot. Catching up on missed sleep and a super busy week perhaps. I think I slept a solid 12 hours without so much as a twitch. And then lazed. And went back to dozing. Today I have not done anything. After the stupid ridiculous no good busy week, I have given myself the day off. To play games. Not do much. And doze. I have no food in the house. I can't quite bring myself to go do groceries. Things just. Eh. Drift. Today I finally put away the two grievance cards I got for Ares. 16 months after getting them. Time is a funny thing in my house. It reflects me. Not entirely grounded in the ongoing world. I talked to a friend a little. A new conversation but the theme is a recurring one for him. Does it ever matter how many partners you've slept with ? Or in other words. How many people have you banged. And specifically, although he didn't really say this at first, in rela...

 Absolutely slammed busy at the moment. Cramming work, non paid work, and various house hold bits in where I can fit them. For the moment, my energy seems to be - remarkably - holding up, despite the fact I am taking the piss, not getting a lot of sleep, and burning until at least 5am. My stress has gone up. Work. No sooner I am doing an extra day. More stuff gets piled on. On reflection, it doesn't matter how much time there is, there is no winning the whole, oh, just an extra day and we can make more progress. No. Just more shit gets lumped on. Eh well. It's ok for the moment. It's a blast from the past. And by ok I mean, I am coping with it. It's absolutely not fucking ok at all in terms of what I want to be doing, and work management, and attitude to giving me shit to do. It just really, horribly, smacks of a backward step of just, yayyyyyyy, lets just shovel shit out of the door at Johnny again. Fuck. That. I do not want to spend my dwindling years shovelling other...

 Can't stop sleeping at the moment. And the hole in the ass is real. It's baaaaaccck. For sure. Ho hum. I will track everytime it decides to pop. I know. Delightful. My quiet mood deepens. However I am not silent. Yesterday I talked to my sister, I didn't intend to talk about me at all, but she dug a little, so I shared a few things. Mostly I just phoned her to see how she was doing. To listen. Not talk. At least that was the intention. But still. The quiet in me is expanding. I no longer find myself curious about others. Wanting to hear their stories. About fighting the good fight. Reducing the suffering. It is. Still. A core part of me. But. There is something overlaying it all. A sense of futility. The conclusion that it cannot be helped. That people are going to people. On reflection, the whole theory of mind thing, with the collection of voices and drives and so on, as opposed to the singular construct has done much to blunt my thinking that shit can be fixed, things c...

 The dates on the posts have got into a weird state. It reflects my staying up to epic hours of late - usually working. And writing some shit in the wee hours of the morning. Winter has finally arrived. A sharp toothed cold grips the city, and even at the peak of day, a sheet of ice sits on the car. It took me 5 minutes at 2pm to clean the ice off. Yikes. On such a cold day, out with the lovely Athena, she of course thinks this is an excellent time for a dip in the river. Repeatedly. Wading up til its up to her chest. She seems utterly oblivious to how bloody cold it is, and trots out of the water, tail up, a bounce in her step, water dripping from her belly. What ? Water. Good. Is that not cold you idiot ? A passerby smiled and called her brave. Athena was unphased. She was on good form today, having a bit of a run, trotting a lot, and being very investigative in her explorations. A bit like the old days. Where she would disappear out of sight 500m away. The cold weather always su...

 Tired today. Worked half a day just about, but given I had been up past midnight the day before working, eh, I figure I am more than even. Spoke with Andy. The 3 days are temporary. I can flip them on and off at will. We are on the same page. As the day wore into evening, a melancholy settled on me. My mom has been on my mind today. I get flashes. At random. Today. Walking up the stairs. My thoughts blipped to her, followed by the always inevitable immediate follow up thought - oh yes, she's not here anymore. Gone. And on that thought all my thoughts that follow are altered. The impact of her passing away is so much more than just the loss of a parent for me. It has also triggered a seismic series of thoughts and feelings about who I am, where I am, the passing of time, the end of an era. Of being suddenly severed from my past. It often leans in heavily to my whole, I am just marking time whilst my own inevitable end rolls closer. Because it feels like the credits are rolling. Th...

 Work. Work. Work work work. Of one form or another. I am making a habit of staying up past midnight coding. Not entirely sure what's going on. Apparently I have a bit of coding fire back again. Andy recently has convinced me to go back to doing a 3 day week. Because he really needs it. Work is piling up. I kinda agreed without thinking about it. I've thought about it. And it's a mistake. So I need to correct that and tell him that no, on properly considering it, rather than just being ambushed in a dev conversation, that no, I am not doing 3 days. I think I might propose a temporary uplift to 3 days. But I am not sure. I mean. It's aces for Andy. For me ? Eh. Meh. In pure terms, I can do another 4 or 5 days work a month. And walk away with £1k. Which is a lot to many. But to me. It's not worth it. I'd rather have the 4 or 5 days thank you very much. I am very grateful that I have the luxury of being able to make choices like that. Or that my skills are highly ...

 Slept a lot yesterday. Seems to be a kind of pattern at the moment - if I have to be busy during a day, or step up to the plate of normality for a while, I then crash the following day. Limited energy reserves I guess ( and also very neatly fits into the whole CFS malarkey ). My kind of anti social kick is still in place. Yesterday I really had to fight it. The urge to quit stuff like Facebook is strong. I mean. I don't exactly like Facebook anyway. And the original reason I was on there was to manage the whole games malarkey. As I don't do that anymore, my primary reason for having it has disappeared. Of course. I've just fallen into using it, and more than anything, using it to communicate to people I know. Just another chat thing. So it has drifted along. But my patience with people has waned. And my anti social demons want it burned. There is one person on there that I know it would probably affect a lot if I quit - limited other communication channels -, especially if...

 Tired. Sandy eyes. Late. So late it's early. Brain is humming full of stuff, ready to roll, let's gooooo. The rest of me disagrees. My patience and acceptance of people slowly recovers. Very. Slowly. I am still it has to be said in something of a fuck it mindset, done with the rise and fall of others. The about faces. The inconsistencies. I am tired of people being people. Which is not really like me. But eh. And also, as noted before, contravenes my whole, don't let others alter your behaviour for the worst. But. It happens. I am unsure if this whole "mood" lifts or it sticks. It could be a bit of a mindset shift overall. Time will tell. Despite me lapsing into a quiet phase, or at least, on my half, lapsing into a quiet phase, I have not been given space to do so. I've had people seek me out to chat. Or ask. Or yada. I am not avoiding people. I am just not seeking people. So as it turns out. I have had plenty of unintentional social contact over the last w...