Depressed today. It's because I wrote about part of it. but I've done it now. I won't write about the other for a while, it's a bit... uh.. not good.

1. The BBC Betsie. Wayne wrote it, the darling bloke. Fantastic. Now I've got to persuade people here to join the Betsie movement.

2. Quatermass, last night, NFT. Very strange business, going to a cinema to watch late seventies TV programmes. It was in turn hilarious and surprisingly good. Wooden acting in parts, but great acting in others, plus, it was actually written by the original Quatermass writer. Toyah Wilcox appeared as an extra with one line or so.

Tired as hell. Don't know why. Must phone doctor. My neck *is* getting larger. I thought it might have been water retention (what with it being around the beginning of the month n'all) but it hasn't become smaller. I don't know how I feel about it. Trying not to think too hard, to be honest. You want to know what being in the throws of it is like?

Pshhhhhtttttt… ok. You think everyone notices it all the time. You think that they notice it before they notice you. You think it makes you look like a fat faced freak. You think that because it makes you look so entirely different to anyone else, that anything else you do will be irrelevant, because all people will do is think of your scars and swollen stuff, and not even think "what a funny person" or "hey, she's good at x, or y". They'll turn you down in job offers, they'll turn you down in life.

That's what it's like. Every time you look in a mirror. And the sickening thing is that it's your own body letting you down, it's not like you've been eating too much, so you stop eating, or you take up swimming - there's nothing, absolutely nothing you can do.

Nearly ran over a stupid, *stupid* woman this morning who walked out in front of me, at a crossing, when I was two feet away from it. I was insanely angry - the crossing had lights and they were red for pedestrians when she started to cross, dumb ass bitch, what the fuck kind of example is that to set a child?! Not to mention the fact that I could have seriously injured myself, never mind her little boy. AAARGH.

Something I got myself for Christmas was "The Pocket Canons", the King James bible, published as single books with whacky introductions. Well, not really very whacky, but there you go.

What is curious is, having never read these things in my life, how much of it story-line wise, you just *know*, by default. Curious also to read what is at least to Christians if no one else THE definitive Bible text, and find it riddles with strange unexplainable occurrences that people would, and will, narrate from the pulpit with a straight face!

Of course, I've begun to forget the detail of bits I've read so far, but - ok, there's a guy who has an all night wrestling match with a "man" who is to all intents and purposes a personification of God. God finishes the wrestling when he touches oh, ok - it's either Abraham, Isaac or Jacob - I've got a feeling it's Jacob, on the inside part of his thigh, which then becomes withered. 2 things - what a bizarre sentence - does that mean testicles? If it does, why not say a slightly more specific euphamism for testicles! Secondly, if that *is* the case, then God finishes the wrestling match by kicking his opponent in the balls! Now I don't call that sporting, do you?
Secondly, ok, (she says, on a roll) Joseph asks his father and the clan to move in to Egypt at the end of Genesis. Hunky dory. Pharoah says "any friends of Joseph" etc, and the seven years of famine pass. Now, why on earth didn't they just leave? I mean, it's not as if seven years is a long enough time for fifteen generations to be born, for the roots to become so deep that they couldn't possibly move. The land that God had always been promising them was not in Egypt, they all knew that - it's not as if God didn't reiterate it over and over again - not only that but he'd warned them against living in Egypt before too.

Wieeeeeeeerd.

Just to make this clear: dyed in the wool atheist, this is an intellectual exercise. I'm not about to suddenly "see the light".

Reading the bible and becoming vaguely interested this season in spirituality - that endless toil toward man finding any sort of real inner peace (they're still toiling at it, and that's after several thousand religions and several more thousand years, so something tells me that there's something deeper involved here that religion just can't answer, but please excuse me for pointing out the bleedin' obvious). Anyway. I was thinking about some comments that Kai, Simon, Paddy and a few others were making in a conversation once. One of them posited the question: "Do you think we're being watched" (they were talking about life on other planets - unusual, what?). the unanimous answer was of course, yes, they all fervently "believe" that Earth is being watched (presumably by "minds immeasurably superior to ours", then). And it occurred to me that it's not so much the "little green men" thing, which you can put down to the desire humans have for some sort of omnipotent force on Earth itself, but… ok:

Man/woman strives constantly for this inner peace, and as I have a tendency to characterise humans, they are 2 parts insecurity to 1 part ego. So there's this constant striving to find out what the hell is going on, whilst at the same time, a constant striving to be the people who explain it and make everyone accept their "truth". In other words, hopefully come some way toward solving those questions that bug people, that cause that disturbance in the aforementioned inner peace. So, over the ages we've had "Oh God there's a famine, or drought or whatever - what the hell is happening" - answer - the Egyptian, for example, God of the River, god of Death, God of birth… you name it, they had a God for it - it explained everything. Personally, I find this idea of various Gods somewhat more sensible than one overall God - an Executive decision-maker. So, we develop these systems which explain adequately (or inadequately as is more often the case) things going on in the Physical world, and hopefully in the esoteric world too. Given concrete understandings, we are then centred. We feel our egos in control. We are: cool.
These days however, science has adequately explained why there are floods, why the sun comes up, that we are not the centre of the universe (etc, etc). Yet this inner peace problem, the insecure part of ourselves, that raises it's head when we don't feel perfectly in control of a situation, is still there. Why are we here, what are we doing here? Because the smaller issues have been explained reasonably adequately, the ones that are earth bound, the ones we are left with are the post-Yuri Gagarin numbers. The "ooh, blimey, Earth is a bit teeny isn't it, what the hell are we doing in the universe, where is everyone else". Because of our capacity for reasoning, we are also able to take the human condition (the questioning one) from a micro, independent level to a macro, whole planet level.
So when my science oriented, science-fiction obsessed friends tell me things like they believe that alien races are watching Earth, waiting for the moment when it's time for them to introduce themselves, not only does it betray an horrific level of Trek brain infiltration, but it also betrays that insecurity, that doubting inner self - the one which is still searching for those answers: the "What are we doing here, why are we here, what is our purpose", ones. The unknowable, all seeing, all hearing aliens have simply replaced the unknowable, all seeing, all hearing God. After all, Aliens, they presume, are capable of a non-linear view of time. Surely that makes them omnipotent?

Agh. I was just writing this and my stupid PC crashed, so I'll do a potted version. Had PMT, hence misery, remember for Feb 1st likely again; bought loads of records (bad move economically, good move mentally), more Pete Bagge, hooray. Listening to records, all good. "Asteroids" for Playstation - big-up retro fun, the original is a beautiful aesthetic experience compared to the new 3D version, which is basically shit in comparison.

Uh... that's it.

So, it's been ages.

Quick Christmas/New Year review:

Xmas: eating, drinking, my Dad's house… he doesn't go out of the house except to smoke a fag in the back garden, and after three days I'm going completely nuts. I didn't realise how much I crave walks and greenery these days. I think I was harsh on Tod too, he yacks endlessly. I mean - endless. And he's very defensive too, I get that from him. Git. Down to Kai's parents… very nice, walking about. Back, sit around, play Playstation, do sensible home things that need sorting (I know - shock news), Saturday, cycle up to Wimbledon Common and cycle up and down mud for a while. Trees, greenery, birds, horses… lovely. Aliens on TV, "Two Days In The Valley" on video (okayyyyyyyyyyy I guess. A bit, I dunno, too gimmicky, but nice ensemble playing, apart from the English guy).

New years: A bit disappointing, but then anything would after last year At Michael's for a party. Sitting around with a bunch of stoners… not my idea of fun when I could have been at New Order, jumping about and having fun. Oh well.

Yesterday: first Sign language lesson for about 3 weeks. Hello! Wake up and smell the roses, Cait you need to practice, you don't know any gud dammed word! However, I did work out a funny wee thing. There's a sign called "Vee" which you do with right hand two open fingers on left shoulder (sort of like "why?" plus one finger). Everyone was having problems with it until I made the connection to Homer Simpson. It's "Doh!". Heheheh. the official explanation was "Very annoyed or feeling a bit stupid".

Today:
Don't ask me. Pain and misery. I really wanted everything to be positive and good at work, to be pro-active and positive. Then I made the mistake of having a meeting with people who *genuinely* don't seem to give a *fuck* that we're in the business of providing a *service* ie: you can't just fuck these people around and expect them to fucking stay with us.
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH.
*Upset*.

Also, I forgot to tell you about this. The direct debits site dream people did it. Fucking love direct debits. It's the only good advertising site I have ever seen, and it's still good two years on.

Your dream has been examined by a crack panel of crack panel-members drawn from all quarters of the international dream interpretation community. The result is below.
[Sorry about the delay but they have been very busy and must pause often for soft drinks and hard stares.] ------------------------------------------------------------
I dreamed that I knew prior knowledge that I had been at least involved with killing someone. Except, in fact it wasn't me but a being made of pure evil who was more of an invisible force in that, you just sort of knew when it was around. Standing in a room with someone else, I said "it's here", and at the same time I knew that the dead person had been found in Hong Kong harbour. The evil force decided to centre itself in my head, where it spoke to me in the form of words that appeared as if typed on to an invisible wall, about 2 feet in front of me. I read out what I could see it saying to the other person in the room. got too scary - woke up.
------------------------------------------------------------

Interpretation:

The evil force represents your id*.
The corpse is your ego**, done in by your id.
The other person in the room is your super-ego*** whose help you hope to enlist in order to fight back against your id and resurrect your ego. In playing out this drama in a dream you are subconsciously preparing yourself any potential problems with the balance of your mind.
[People often experience this type of dream during times of disorder in their waking lives: when, for example, there are problems at work, or when a personal relationship is undergoing upheaval, or when household finances are in disarray as a result of failure to deploy enough direct debits.]
The Hong Kong location may or may not be a clue to what triggered the dream: HK, through its status as a former colony, represents the notions of exploitation and exchange.

*The mass of primitive instincts behind antisocial behaviour.
**Conscious mind.
***Conscience.

Did I say my neck has grown? It's a bit weird. I mean - it looks a bit weird. My Mum noticed it ("I mean, you haven't got a chin" - gosh, thanks for the sensitivity there, it's not like I might find that a little disconcerting or anything) and I suddenly realised that about 4 people recently have said something along the lines of "ooh, what's that" whereas normally you don't notice unless I look up 45 degrees.
So. I surprised myself by being quite ambivalent about the idea of getting in touch with the surgeon. There just seems no point to me unless it gets infected - which, by the way, is a possibility. If it gets infected, I want it out as soon as fucking possible, or my… or just everything will fuck up. My job, my, everything… I don't want to think about it.
A strange thing is how my scar suddenly looks alien to me. Normally, it's a thick red line that draws itself along my jaw-line. I've got so used to it I have no idea what it would be like not having it there, but it looks swollen and strange now.
A bit freaky.