A dull, damp day

It's one of those gloomy, damp days today in Prague and I seem to have developed a similarly glum, dull ache that would come from being left out in the damp.  Except I haven't even been out.  (Too much to do.)  I'm not managing to get anything done today though, partly due to persistent tummy ache, partly due to perpetual brain ache.  The brain ache is down to trying to do too much in one go.  Things like my accounts (major brain ache contributor) and organising my plans for a website and co-ordinating social network use to present my work with in the meantime take up too much head space.  I think I've had enough of business webinars and online tutorials.  

So I'm pulling back for a little while and getting some rest.  I might even read a book.  Eye-soreness permitting.   I have a list of books I'd like to get, but at the moment, things like travel insurance for our planned road trip and website investment have to come first.  I can't quite believe that either will become a reality, but I suppose they must somehow.  Flights are booked, the front page of my website is designed and a tender has been put out to recent new contacts in the Prague arts world to get me a suitable web designer to work with.  So it's all 'in the offing' as they say.  (Whoever 'they' are.)

There's just a pervasive sense of dullness on a day like today.  The sounds of the road are suddenly dreary and irritating.  The car horns actually offend my ears.  The  gentle shuffling sound of car wheels going over damp roads in sequences of short shifts allowed by the traffic lights infiltrate my softly throbbing head and I have to contemplate taking an aspirin.  I hate days like this.  I don't even know where it comes from, but I find myself having gone from an optimistic, "getting things done" kind of energy in recent days to a possibly hormonal sense of self-loathing and sheer boredom with who I am.  

I'm tired of being complicated.  I'm tired of never having a holiday in the sun.  I'm tired of struggling to afford things to enjoy and above all I'm tired of my repetitive thoughts and apparent shortcomings.  I wonder if everyone has this, or if this is a self-indulgent phase only ex-musicians and artists go through?

The only answer, I have concluded, is to listen to my inner child, pick up the spare duvet, wrap myself up in it and curl up to watch House re-runs with a sugary yoghurt and dark chocolate.  It might be nicer to snuggle up with someone else, but I am alone here, and the architect might not be feeling much love towards me today, because he doesn't always, and I might be better off enjoying the non-judgment that comes with doing this on my own.  And I'm not in the mood for sharing the chocolate anyhow.

Postal failures and other dramas

"Little things break, circuitry burns, time flies while my little world turns, every day comes, every day goes, a hundred years and nobody shows..."   Happy Rhodes '100 Years'

Another night of strange dreams linked back to places from my childhood and very little sleep left me feeling really tired this morning.  Then I discovered that the meet-ee I was expecting hadn't confirmed and thus wasn't coming, so I needn't have got up quite so early.  I was also stupidly hoping beyond hope for something to arrive in the post from the following list:

1) An emergency tea (and possibly also coffee) parcel.  (Lapsang Souchong tea, I need you now!)

2) A surprise parcel, with surprise things in it, one of two in fact, sent from family

3) A month overdue edition of a monthly magazine

None of which appeared.

The Czech postal system's apparent competition with the UK to win the top prize for Europe's worst postal service is now within reach... 

In other 'news', if complaining at the Czech postal system and then moving on to 'emails I have received' could be deemed 'news', a former drama teacher sent an email to say that she'd left London and moved to LA.  From all the things (very few, actually) I knew about her and from reading her new blog, which can be found HERE , I read between the lines and put two and two together and sensed that she may well have gone through something not entirely dissimilar to what I went through over a year ago.  I could be wrong, and like many moments in acting classes when I was convinced that something I'd performed had come over as wholly inauthentic, but others hadn't 'registered' that at all, I could merely be putting my own biased and entirely unfounded spin on it that isn't true and isn't perceived by others.  Nonetheless, the pain and loss that I read between those lines (real or imagined) had a profound effect on me, especially as, if my hunch is right, she had put a positive and optimistic slant on it that I would never be able to achieve nearly as successfully, nor that perhaps, I would I want to.

It's also strange, to read about someone being able to be spontaneous (something she's an expert at, and I'm only good at on 'good days') about travelling.  I wish I could feel that the world is open to me, that I could travel whenever I needed to.  (Or that I would ever have the option of moving abroad again.)  I suppose it helps if you have friends or family in far-flung places who have somewhere to live so that you could stay there too, if funds do not cover accommodation as well as travel.  (Which is ALWAYS the case for me, and I'm sick to death of that being the problem all the bloody time...) Even so, I still marvel at her bravery, her sheer 'force of nature'-ness.  I just hope she's ok and that she has far more support than I do to get through whatever difficulties she may be facing.

I sat and looked up at the clear blue sky in Prague this morning and even though I was crying, from sheer exhaustion and feeling trapped, I thanked Prague for getting one up on London and being consistently sunny for so many days in a row.  And that made me think, hmm, I can see why Gaby would want to move to LA after years of being in London!  There's only so much rain a girl with a sunny disposition can take, and there are limits even for those of us with no such predilection.

Two rainbows, a double chocolate Magnum and a few tears

I still don't know what to think about this whole relationship thing.  How does anyone ever survive them?  I feel at a loss after a weekend of such ups and downs.  I actually feel a bit sick.  But that could also be due to my attempts to lose weight by not eating more than cereal and an apple.  But maybe I'm only trying to lose weight because I feel so miserable about everything else.  Or maybe I'm just miserable and that's just me and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Ups:

1) I had a Magnum

2) I tried out driving again, after a two year gap since I last tried and a 15 year gap since I last drove properly.

3) I went for a walk in the forest, which was beautiful.

4) I got to watch some of a film I quite like, snuggling up on the sofa.

5) I had some hugs and kisses.

6) I had some red wine.  Because I brought some.

Downs:

1) There is no downside to a Magnum.  (Apart from getting fat, which is something to consider, actually...)

2) I was abysmal at driving.

3a) It rained just as we went out for a walk in the forest and I was cold, until I walked faster and the sun came out and I got too hot, then it rained again and I got cold again.  Oh and my clothes for walks in the forest are uncomfortable. 

3b) The walk in the forest was about an hour longer than I found enjoyable.

3c) The walk in the forest was a mere fraction of the time the architect would like to spend walking in forests or up mountains on our holiday next week.

4) I didn't get to watch all of the film.  The architect was still tidying up when I arrived (after a planned day off from me for him to do whatever sorting out of his flat he had wanted to do) so we ate late and we didn't have the pizza or any kind of warm food I'd hoped to have, just a sort of Czech-style cold meat pub-snack affair...

5) I don't know if I will ever have hugs and/or kisses again, because the architect seems pretty annoyed that I didn't enjoy the forest walk very much.  Signing off 'bye' in recent correspondence would seem a bad sign, really, wouldn't it?

6) There is no red wine left. 

All I can say is, I hope the two rainbows that appeared in the sky just as I was leaving the architect to go home, is a symbol that there is hope left for us, even though the second one is very faint.

Please let that hope be true.  Please.