beleaguered

first week (not a full week, actually) back at work / a shock to the system ...

looking to spend the weekend recovering / still need to do stuff / prioritise ...

me and my girl

towards the end of the show, Sir John says (of Sally): I think she's got it! a reference to another musical which also features a young lady transformed - there's a strong indication, in fact, that the same teacher is responsible. After 3 performances, I may, just about, be 'getting it'. Why should a 21st century audience care about a Cockney lad who finds out that he's an aristocrat? a duchess who is determined to groom him (and doesn't care about the collateral damage to the most important relationship in his life) ...

What about an ancient family member? deaf, hobbling around with a stick (miraculously cured, for the curtain calls) ...

It helps to be among performers who have star quality / to be ably directed (and choreographed) / to have musicians who swing / to rely on the people who set up the stage, look after the props, prompt, manage costumes / and the Brunton Theatre is one of my favourite venues ...

the story features faithful love / people being true to themselves / a rather touching, unexpected love story / and a sly old gentleman who may not be quite as rickety as he appears ...

eh

it's not (just) what you say / it's when you say it. three weeks to-day (hopefully), I shall have three performances under my belt, and one to go / as Sir Jasper / elderly (and somewhat deaf) nobleman / a minor character / in 'me and my girl' ...

it doesn't help that to-day I have a bit of a cold / still anxious about work / anxious about most things, actually / including the cbt sessions that are to help me deal with my anxiety ...

why do people (like to) argue ...

self care

another tough week / worked hard / we're in better shape than we were this time last week ...

important, I think, at the weekend / to incorporate some self care / doing stuff which is inherently relaxing ...

battle

Jesus told a story / about a man / from whom a demon was cast out / but who, sadly, ended up hosting seven demons ...

This past fortnight, I have had the privilege of following a series of bible readings, with notes by Rachel Boulding, inspired by the life, sermons, and poetry of John Donne. Under God, coincidentally, a fierce battle has been raging / it has been either, or ...

For better or for worse / I believe that the battle is over / and has been won (time will tell) / and, inevitably, there has to be a mopping up / a new world / the demon is cast out / and neither he nor his friends / are welcome, any more ...

I should try to get to know Donne's poetry better / it would have been nice to have ended this post with a quote / instead, as an alter ego has said:

to win, at least, to survive ...

successes and failures

I probably tend to dwell more upon failures / than I remember succeeding ...

Just an observation / possibly to stimulate some (constructive) thinking ...

loneliness

What happens if you say to a psychologist: I think that the primary problem is not stress, it's loneliness. How can you be lonely in a room full of a hundred or more people?

Having Asperger's Syndrome (or something that in some respects looks like Asperger's Syndrome), my answer would be along the lines of: Communication! but it's more than that. I suspect that people generally find it difficult to relate to one hundred people at once. That the occasional unfriendliness I encounter is just overload. And that I, also, need to adapt. My first response was to live in a bubble. To shut out the noise.

Or to run away - but that isn't allowed. And I do have conversations. Good, interesting conversations.

Over lunch, generally, I read. Somehow, the books that have landed on my in-tray are challenging: The Street Bible (now called Word on the Street, I believe), by Rob Lacey; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey (which I've paused, having reached the end of a chapter - it doesn't help that I've seen the film, which doesn't exactly have a happy ending); and, currently: unApologetic, by Francis Spufford ...

changing the script

of course, the script is there to be adhered to / I've just been handed a script for 'me and my girl', as I shall be playing the part of Sir Jasper in a production taking place in May / and no-one would thank me if I decided, instead, to improvise ...

when I started to work in what we then called computing support / we had to improvise / there wasn't a script / nowadays, still having to improvise / or to follow a script which has been cobbled together / and is not supported by the software supplier / or, to be honest, sometimes resenting having to follow a script which has been devised by somebody else / and which doesn't appear to me to be the most effective, appropriate, or efficient way to deal with the situation / I would welcome a clear, well-documented, official script / offering reassurance ...

but not every script is helpful / our brains, naturally, develop habits / ways of coping / and it can be difficult to develop new, better ways ...

mindfulness

have been advised by a psychologist to practise mindfulness / at the same time, my bible reading notes are focusing on contemplative prayer / are these two sides of the same coin ...

being mindful (as I understand it) / involves quietness / awareness (of breathing, particularly) ...

contemplation (for me) / is actually more difficult to grasp / it depends on God playing ball (as it were) / being there / showing up ...

are we thinking about readiness? respecting God's timing / his initiative ...

challenge

we are agreed (I think) that one of my coping methods (it doesn't deserve to be called a strategy) is unacceptable. and that the approach of Lent makes this a good time to stop.

it's hard, because change requires effort, and where am I going to find the resource?

there and back

a family celebration (we took Sapphire / she had to wait inside while we got the car ready) / 120 mile round trip / there, we had a nice walk, and a nice meal / on the way back, we encountered the snow, and roadworks, and traffic ...

update

it's always chilling (in a bad way), to see the words: could we have an update, please? in a work communication / it always implies that the sender is less than happy with perceived progress / and I quite enjoyed replying to one of these messages recently with: yes, I sent you an email a week ago (haven't you read it?) ...

as the light returns / and the evident untidiness of the garden becomes more difficult to ignore / it seems to be, mostly, business as usual / and I'm trying, with the help of a psychologist / to be more positive about that status. it's always difficult to meet with people, roughly contemporary with me / who have somehow managed to retire, either fully or partially. I can't help feeling envious. As another birthday approaches, my best estimate of time to retirement is six years / which is far too long to be counting days ...

the old adage / a day at a time / usually helps / whether the source is Jesus, or Dale Carnegie / we've been designed, it appears, to inhabit the 18 hours or so between getting up and going to bed / to make each cycle a story / which makes it especially pleasant to be welcoming a new blog - the bad day blog - by (I hope that she doesn't mind me calling her a) seasoned blogger, Josie George / looking forward to hearing from someone who can aim for 'a bloody good bad day' ...

information

our puppy (now around 7 months old) is a border terrier / we love her to bits (obviously) / the cats aren't so sure ...

what the MRI scan (of my brain) showed is 'a small lacunar infarct' / I have been told that it indicates that I have had a (small) stroke / they can't say when / I'm seeing my GP in a couple of weeks' time, for a chat ...

first week back at work has been challenging (to say the least) / quite important, I think, having reached the weekend / not to think too much about it until I have to ...

bleak midwinter

Christmas is a receding memory / the credit card bill is a present reality / a recent brain scan has shown that part of my brain is damaged / back to work on Monday ...

Christmas Day

puppy's first Christmas ...

managing fear

this week, I received an MRI scan (that is to say, my brain was scanned) / the experience was instructive / I'm pretty sure that, by default, the reaction of a creature to being enclosed / is to want to flee / so / while I was inside the machine / my conscious mind was continually reassuring the part of my mind that was afraid / saying: it's ok ...

ailments

monday / daughter has to go into hospital / for a planned operation / thankfully, home by the evening / but a long day ...

tuesday / daughter, recovering / I, foolishly, tried to catch up with tasks ...

wednesday / daughter back to school / having to sit a chemistry test (which has been brought forward a day, at short notice) / she fails the test, and is subsequently told that she isn't working hard enough / I go back to work ...

thursday / wife is feeling the effect of stronger antibiotics / the medicine is making her more ill than she was / son goes back to school, having been at home since the weekend, coughing ...

friday / wife is told that she can switch to different antibiotics / I make it through the working day, just ...

challenges

November - autumn has truly arrived - Christmas (dare I say it) isn't far away - and, it's the month of people on the internet setting themselves targets - write a novel, make progress on a thesis, publish a blog post every day - a year ago, one of my alter egos managed to upload a photo to blipFoto every day for a month ...

and, no / I'm not rising to the challenge this year / but (surely) it won't do any harm just to put a photo here / taken this morning as we took the dog (now 20 weeks old, we reckon) for a walk:

the good person

I remember, as a teenager, reading Bertolt Brecht's "the Good Person of Szechwan" (although I remember  her as the Good Woman of Setzuan) / what struck me then (and seems still to apply to-day) / was how the heroine found it impossible to maintain the good side of her nature, and had to call upon a more ruthless alter ego in order to survive / it's all very well / being told to trust God / to put the Kingdom first / but for most of us there has to be some compromise / in order to live / to be effective citizens / we have to spend some of our lives putting our employer first / doing what the world requires / expects ...

recognising that even within ourselves / there's stuff we want to do / to prioritise / which doesn't come straight from the Bible ...

place in the kingdom

a bit of a grand title / trying to address a (not particularly) simple choice / which church do I attend?

when one's wife has decided to start attending a different church / should one follow her / if one's daughter still attends the place where we (all) used to go / except that one's son hasn't attended church in years ...

the world (in this country) has changed / many people do other things on a Sunday morning / they even wash their cars (for some reason, an early memory of mine is of our minister berating his congregation / how awful, that people would spend Sunday morning washing their cars, instead of coming to church / his audience, presumably, agreeing with him) / it is more difficult, nowadays / pressure of time / both parents working / the case for spending Sunday morning worshipping God / is no longer self evident ...

and if the churches are competing / not easy for an individual ...