Sometimes think I seem more bipolar than depressive. It certainly moves in swings. It may be that what I consider well is really more like mania, though I’m looking at the last “up” phase with something approaching amazement from my current position at the bottom of the whole entire universe. I certainly seemed to do a lot of laughing, flirting, embarking on big projects, dancing, this last time I even found I was able to engage casually with anagrams and wordplay which I haven’t been well enough to handle in a decade. This list reads like what my bipolar friends do when they’re going manic, but I don’t, quite, yet, do any of these things really enormously inappropriately. Not even the dancing. Maybe the flirting.

I will mention this to my doctor but it still seems the most productive time of my life, much more like the real me. I’m a bit lost.

Nonetheless, it’s not where I am now. Tried to look at my level 1 textbook this morning and it was like wading through treacle. I should be able to manage a paragraph of a level 1 coursebook without my brain freezing over. Blimey.

“Oh well,” as I believe the young people are saying these days. Off to get my son, and then I’ll make a third attempt at actually writing up the minutes I should have done nearly a month ago. It had better work this time, the next meeting’s tonight!

You’re all awesome and I love you massively so here’s Mr Cholmondley-Warner.

x

ps: if you are following me on Twitter and I haven’t followed you back, I probably don’t know you’re you, if you see what I mean. If you’d like me to follow you give me a poke, it’s always nice to meet a real human being out there.

:: shuffles in wrapped in blanket ::

Hullo.

I’m not very well.

I’ve got depression. Oh you remember me mentioning that do you, well bully for you, I suppose you want a big shiny medal or so-

Sorry. Sorry. Right. Yes.

I can hardly move. I can’t think. I just want to sleep all the time, so that’s what I’m doing thanks to a generous spouse who has realised I’m not well. In between sleeps I’m sort of alright for a short while, long enough to go and do one simple task. Like buying this filing cabinet for example. As far as I can see all it just provides another surface to pile stuff on though, it can’t change my ultimate incapacity for untidiness and -

Sorry. Did it again. I’m in rant mode.

There’s very little I can do. I went down to the bottom of the hill, bought the cabinet, came back. Nearly got run over but that wasn’t my fault. As a matter of fact none of it’s my fault.

I feel very, very guilty. Like I’ve done something awful just out of reach of memory. And I feel hated, exiled. And ugly. And so on.

I’m alright as long as I don’t get tangled up in anything too complicated, though. I can even brighten up and laugh if I’m just having a straightforward conversation. But any friends I make are going to have to be awfully patient when I’m unwell, and for the most part it hasn’t happened.

I got retweeted eleven times on Twitter the other night, y’know. For this tweet, this tweet and then this one. I must have been on a roll, but I was feeling completely horrible at the time. It’s funny how the borderlands of misery and mania can make our minds work at max efficiency for a bit. I reckon if I manage to get back to running once my back stops hurting, it’ll help me retain some control.

Anyway I’m now out of rant mode and into ramble, so I’ll leave you with this.

This may be the only time anybody tells you the truth about Burns Night, so pay attention. Though we appear to do this in a spirit of joy and bonhomie, that’s a carefully fostered illusion (clue: when was the last time you associated any of your Scottish pals with joy and bonhomie? Exactly.) We do this because we all know that if we don’t, Rabbie Burns rises from his grave. He then stumps round the country for the rest of the winter, sullen and dead, a terrible stench in his wake – and if he comes upon a house where they didn’t hold a supper in his honour, he enters it by night, corners the cowering occupants, lifts high his rotting arms and in a voice straight from the bowels of hell begins to recite his poetry. This has been known to go on for up to ten minutes, at which points he bows, collects his things and leaves, but the damage is already done. Don’t applaud, he’s more than happy to do encores.

Those few who have survived the dreadful visit are invariably driven insane, and can only be usefully employed as dancing idiots at Hogmanay. That’s what Hogmanay is for. Look, for the love of all things holy, if somebody invites you to a Burns Supper, go, okay? Your hosts’ sanity depends on it.

Here in the name of jingoistic madness is a fundamentally racist stand-up routine by Stewart Lee. The second part is the part underneath the first part, which is the part on top or, if you like, the first part.

Another video, the blogging equivalent of a supply teacher. Your normal host is still stumbling around in a numb fog. It’s amazing how much music seems to help. I managed to take my daughter out for some breakfast this morning and we talked about how she’s just emotionally wide open that way too – music, even without lyrics, makes her cry very easily. She takes a little solace in knowing I’m the same. Then took my son for a walk this afternoon which is rather more like exercising a one year-old golden retriever than anything else. But otherwise my thoughts are barely intelligible. It must pass, because this is not me. I’m going to go to sleep as soon as I can, and either that’ll clear my head or JIM MORRISON WILL TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

Until I return, this video will show you the way. That was not a Frampton reference.

If I was going to blow something up I would be really, really disappointed if I didn’t get to see it. Seriously.