stream of semi-consciousness

Wobbly travel drawing from commute

[The following is copied and pasted from a document I typed up while at the place of employment, in a state of giddy boredomus extremis. Not entirely sure if enough oxygen was getting through to my brain at the time, so consider yourself forewarned.)

Well! How are you? A good moving on to 2012 was had by all, I hope? Twenty twelve, folks. Do you remember how spaceshippy that sounded when we were teenagers? And yet, still no beaming-up! I don't know.

Here I am in Hotel Recession on the hinterlands of Dublin, teaching my class. They are working away busily and I am terribly, terribly bored. Every so often I circle the room, and lurk behind them, hoping for a answerable, not too challenging question to come my way. And it's only 11.16. We've already had our morning break. Hysterical shriek of disbelief! I can't get the internet on my laptop, AND my fancy Christmas present phone is banjaxed for reasons known only to itself, proving once more that technology is worse than useless when it breaks because it creates the expectation that yes! we are contactable at all times! Aren't we modern and fantastic? Except when NOT, and we feel silly and cheated. I have a crick in my neck - it's all creak-ouch-yikes and I feel sort of vaguely broken, because it's January and the other morning, I woke up and smelled the January air of loss. It's like there's a seasonal alarm clock in my cells, waiting for this time of of the year.

Sitting here, all abandoned by modern technology, a person's thoughts are apt to turn all random and profound. I've been thinking a bit about the parenting I received, and how it's affected me. I have been thinking  what it was to have an absent, workaholic father, half-suffocating, half-neglecting. Like DramaBoy. Not much like the JB, who is relatively sane and present, all things considered. I've been doing a lot of reading on mental health, (research for the show I am in) and it's hard not to point and say, ooh! Borderline Personality Disorder! Bi-polar disorder! That's my da! And it's suddenly clear to me that I have chosen to be loved by people who confirm my own bias about myself. And I have been trying to fix my relationship with my father through my romantic relationships. What did I think, that if I could make them love me, like I want them to, that I'll feel better, somehow?

I did think that. Or I acted as if I did, which is the same thing. Thank God for the JB. If I'd married Dramaboy, ooh. I dread to think.

In another hour and a bit, (ARG. THAT IS LONG) we'll all convene in the kitchen where we'll boil water in the white plastic kettles, one of which leaks and the other emits a ferocious smell of burning rubber, which can't be particularly good, can it? My co-teacher on this course says huddling in the kitchen for lunch with the 20 strong class makes her feel that she should leave so they can complain about her. But there is only half an hour in which to eat, (a terrible state of affairs!) so I stick it out.

So! Some resolutions, for the season that is in it:

• Draw every day, one a day.
  
• Make a cartoon every month.
• Get therapy.
• Go/keep running.
• Be bold. Don't get the willies. Or don't act on them, anyway. And then:
  
• Hope that it's true that fortune favours the bold.

How about you? Have you resolved?

Whatever your resolutions  might be, and wherever you find yourselves, I wish you all such a happy new year.

x
T

Comments

[Andie]

oh! That means you are in the show then, the one you wrote about a few weeks ago? That is wonderful! I shudder to think what I might discover about myself if I was to read books about mental health. Argh.

I don't usually resolve. But because I have finally had some breathing space to enjoy myself and do some things that I wanted to do, I have resolved to get some creative balance back in my life. I have started, and it is wonderful.

[irretrievably broken]

"Hope that it's true that fortune favors the bold" is my new mantra. Thank you.

[a]

Happy New Year to you! Good luck with those resolutions - I think fortune will favor you...

[Adele]

That's a very good list, Twangy. And as for the recognition of various syndromes and behaviors, that's happened to me, too. In a way, it's very good to be able to put a name to it, to describe someone else's behavior in a rational way (especially if that someone has at any time been a mystery to one, from childhood on).

I can recommend the therapy. Highly. As long as you find the right person. And I was very therapy-averse at the start. Not a done thing in Upper Goatlandia. But it helped. Yes, it helped.

My resolutions are mostly of the "stop stuffing my face with sweets" variety. And to slow down and breathe more. Important for all kinds of health, that breathing thing.

Happy 2012, Bold One.

[Valery Valentina]

maybe here I dare to type I resolve to go to Spain before my birthday. Yes, for DE.
AND reevaluate my job and quit if it doesn't make me happy.

"January air of loss" indeed: tomorrow it is 5 years ago that my cousin died. Some family will gather around his grave, I'll bring thermoses with tea and then we'll walk through the dunes together. I'm both dreading it and needing to go. With extra chocolate I'll get through the day.

[Womb For Improvement]

I think that to prove you are keeping up your one drawing a day you should post it here. EVERY DAY. (no pressure).

[bunny]

I love that "get therapy" is on your to-do-y-resolution-y list. It's so, I dunno, proactive! And I admire you tremendously for even resolving to be bold. It would be such a huge waste of time for me to attempt such a thing. Anyhow, I hope 2012 is a better year than you've had in decades. Fame! Glory! Love! Etc!

[Hairy Farmer Family]

Totally with Womb on the Drawing A Day!

I have no resolutions, apart from pushing my brain a bit harder this year, but am keen to borrow from yours: be bold, and don't grow a willy. (Sorry, GET the willies, you said? I'm down with either or both.)

I don't know many folks that had a stellar 2011, and I would SO dearly love a better, twinklier, shinier, new-and-improved 2012 for all my pals who have been bludgeoned, battered and otherwise had to pull themselves up out of the brown stuff by their own eyebrows. And I very, very much want fortune to favour you, however bold you are feeling!

[Fernando]

Happy new year!