My it has been a long time since I've written anything on these pages hasn't it? Rather longer than I had thought in fact. I should say that it is not for want of things to gibber about, nor the the thought to do so just that lately the times when a suitable period for mindless ramblings has come upon me I have of late found myself too worn and wearied by this world that ceaselessly besets me to put my mind into a suitable order for writings. Still, today is a Saturday and there doesn't appear anything much worthwhile on the TV to distract me so here I am. Perhaps then, after such a lengthy gap in which the world has so often seemed to intervene in my efforts to chronicle and ponder my exploits within it, it would be most appropriate where my words have been lacking to make use of the words of another with a vaguely similar sentiment. So how about this?

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

- William Wordsworth

Well, ok, so Mr. Wordsworth probably didn't have the likes of me in mind when he penned those lines which are, in any case, a rant against 19th Century materialism rather than anything to do with my own more doubtful psychology but still I can't say Mr. Wordsworth is really one of my very favouritest of poets so I don't mind so much adapting his words for my own nefarious purposes and broadening their meaning somewhat. It's not so much the materialism of the world rendering me out of touch with nature, but my own nature rendering me somewhat out of touch with the material world. Maybe. Unless that's too easy and glib a statement to be making in the wake of such a highly esteemed literary figure. I don't know, decide for yourself. Either ways, I have found that the world has been rather too much with me of late than I could properly handle but then I can only feel if I weren't quite so useless and drowned in a vat of unnecessary nerves and self-doubt and insecurity I really ought to be able to do so much more than this.

Now I come to try and think of it though, I find I can't really seem remember very much about what I might have been doing over this past, what, a fortnight? (Really, has been longer than I thought!) Perhaps that in itself might go to showing something of the stasis that I have found my brain slipping into at the hands of the world, when things feel like they get a bit too much instead of taking action to do something about it the first reaction of my brain is to shut itself down and go hide in a corner until all the scary bad stuff has gone away. The tiresome and wearying the world gets the less I want to do things and engage with it and so the cycle escalates. Thus the world slides by, feeling somewhat oppressive, but without me really grabbing any kind of intellectual hold upon it. Life passes like water through my fingers or rather, given that it does this when I find things are a bit too much, painfully boiling water, but still liquid nonetheless, and even evaporating into a nothingness of steam. Hm, ok, so I'm getting all too metaphorical now, let's see if I can't bring things down to a more concrete reality by eyeing up some of the usual culprits in my existence.

So at the shop things have quietened down somewhat after the tumultuous events of the murder of our colleague, but there is still a certain tension in the air I feel. Over recent days though I've been dropping by more often in my days off, partly because we have had a huge influx of books to deal with lately but also maybe because my bookherding efforts are one of the few times that I actually feel particularly in control of anything. At least the mountainous deliveries we have had have actually contained some quite pretty tomes and have allowed us to do some proper rotations of the stock on the shop shelves and refresh the place a bit. Stock rotation can be a little disheartening though given that you start with a full bookshelf and lots of other books in sacks and you take the old stuff off the shelves and put on the new but you just end up with a full bookshelf again and a whole lot of books in sacks and it can be a little difficult to see quite what has been acheived. And meanwhile you've just got really exhausted. Still, it's been at least somewhat satisfying to the more obsessive side of my nature and I do think that sales were rather improved this last week so maybe good things were done. Things may now start get a little more difficult at the shop as we are losing one of our longer term staff, though thankfully in not quite such a shocking manner as the sad loss of our previous friend. Still, we are losing one of our most reliable members as they moving out the area and it remains to be seen quite how those shifts on the till are going to be covered, particularly what that will mean for me on Tuesdays, but I suppose I shall see what is to be seen.

Meanwhile, in Coliseumland preparations have been feverishly underway for the Open Day on Monday for our new round of unsubsidised Interweb courses. It remains to be seen quite how many will turn up and might be willing to learn in our friendly and informal environments now that they shall have to pay £5 a time for doing so. Really though I have no particular idea of quite what it takes to run the place so I've no real conception of how many people might be needed. I do fear somewhat that our brave trustee may be slightly coming from a different world with what he expects will happen on Monday and how many folks might actually turn up. Then again, I just fear generally all the time and in reality I have no idea what is going to be involved so I suppose I shall just have to wait and see on that as well and hopefully I will be good enough to survive it in some manner. One person though that I know will be turning up at the Coliseum on Monday will be my great friend from Americaland who is today arrived in the country, and presently enjoying the Dark Waters festival thing in Nottingham before journeying up to see me here. She will be arriving at the Coliseum sometime Monday afternoon, so I'm quietly hoping that we won't really be too busy and I'll be able to skip off and show her the sights. Also hopeful of course I won't be too nervous about it and I'll be able to master this meeting in person thing. We've known each other going on for sixteen years now yet this will be the first time we have actually met! Hopefully I won't get too confused and just start trying to silently type things. Helpfully the weather forecast seems somewhat unsettled but with luck there shall be enough dry that we can still wander and look at things. It's one good thing at least in the midst of a whole bunch of other ambivalences.

Of course meanwhile all this is going on, I've had me a trip to Scaryborough, though thankfully a not too scary one as it just involved a supervised jobsearch session rather than any serious, sit down and look me in the eye and justify to me the air that is presently occupying your lungs, sort of session. That will come later though. Meanwhile there has been all sorts of noise in my email inbox about preparations for big brother's stag weekend which I haven't as yet really been able to take much part in but it's still quite terrifying as is thinking about the wedding itself. Of course I know none of these things should be quite so scary but whilst I might have the understanding and intelligence to quote a sonnet by Wordsworth in my journal entries, I am sadly lacking when it comes to those much more difficult tasks of talking to people, going out and having fun and liking myself. Now those things are hard. Perhaps at some point I shall be able to be able to share myself with the world and actually manage to hold on to something without the overwhelming terror of somehow inevitably letting everybody down horribly. It hasn't happened yet but I try to remain hopeful even if I'm not very good at it. So, yes, err, that's all fun stuff. Otherwise, meanwhile I sit here in my little flat casting my eyes over all the various bits of rubbish that litter everywhere and curse myself for not tidying or doing anything particularly constructive whilst my head agonises about how I can find something in the world I can actually feel and maintain a real sense of connection with. Heh, yes, and it isn't without me noticing the self-defeating irony. Really, it's quite a clever trick to pull off if you think about it. And I do. Far more than is helpful.

Ho-hum. So anyways, that is my world, or at least those sections of it I feel I wants to write about here. Make of it what you will although I'm conscious that may be tricksy since I feel as though I've gone about it in an even more spectacularly rambling and gibbering style than usual! Still, communication isn't really my greatest skill at the best of times but my head as been unusually fuzzy today. My legs meanwhile were also somewhat puzzlingly uncooperative when I did venture out amongst the crowds enjoying the weekend sunshine. These curious aches and dizzinesses remain annoyingly mild though so whilst I seem to have been having them on and off since January I'm still not convinced enough it's anything more than the usual strangeness of my nerves to overcome my inherent nervousness about taking myself to see an apothecary. Still, I don't suppose if my limbs do actually fall off there won't be anything much that can be done about it anyways. Yes, that's the sensible sort of attitude that I generally take to my own welfare. Still, now as the cool of evening draws in and entertainingly angry looking clouds begin to gather in the sky I hope that just maybe I shall be able to collect enough of myself together to make the week ahead, which I may spend as much of as I can in the company of my longest-standing friend, an enjoyable, but also useful and constructive one. I can't really say I hold out much hope for those latter two, but finally meeting in person my oldest companion of the Internets should at least prove to be a pleasant thing.

I'll let you all know how it goes on my return to these pages no doubt, hopefully this time not taking so long about it that I can't think of anything specific or even vaguely comprehensible to say about the state of my existence at that time. In the meanwhile I do hopes that the world proves reasonable and kind to all my nice reading folks out there and that you manage to engage it with in a more reasonable manner than I seem to have the skills for. Be seeing you.

Hm, this weeekend proved something of a curious sort of beast. I can't really seem to recollect anything much of what may of happened on Friday so, err, that means it must have been good right? Saturday however was rather less than pleasant as I awoke from an intriguing dream in which I somehow managed to extract an impressively large blob of transparent gelatinous goo from my right eye, I emerged into wakefulness with a another clear image to add to my list of memories of things that never happened and also a decidedly insidious sort of migraine. The pain wasn't too terrible but the waves of nausea and general brain liquidising sensations meant that very little good was done that day. Or very much bad either. I suppose the silver lining that might be that not really going out and eating very little I at least was able to save a bit of money on missing out on my usual sundry expenses. Heh, I rather need to save as much as I can right now having just booked me a hotel room in London and now also finding myself with the brand new exquisite terror of the prospects of plans for the stag weekend in Edinburgh which is going to come before. Still, that remains for the future and who can say what sort of state my brains might be in then?

Sunday, you might just remember, was just a little wet. Only the very hardiest of goths chose to brave the streets and make their ways to the shop, and those that were had their elaborate coats very firmly buttoned! I did feel slightly sorry for one old lady though who had apparently come on a coach trip and had clearly not chosen the best of days for a visit to the seaside although sympathies perhaps slightly diminished when she asked me the way to the pound shop and told me it was the most exciting thing about coming here. Still, I suppose we wouldn't have half the customers we do without such folks as these! It's a good thing Saturday appeared to have been very busy though since in all the hours we were open we took less money than in the hour after cashing up the day before, the takings from which roll over onto the next day and thus made efforts look a little less pitiful. The general quiet also allowed me, with the assistance of nice manager lady who was also in to catch up lost ground from the tumultuous events of the week gone by, to get some very useful bookherding done and arrange our latest stock such that I should hope to be in a reasonably good position when I go in on Tuesday which is when I get most of the rotation done with the aid of my glamorous assistant. I shall see how that goes when I gets there though of course.

These have been rather strained times at the shop though. Before I got to the shop that morning I saw on the news that police had arrested their suspect for the murder of my Heart Foundation colleague. In fairness I can't say I really knew Julie Davison all that well, none of us did as she hadn't been with us for particularly long. Still, she did seem an altogether nice person and really particularly harmless, quite in stark contrast to the manner in which she was killed. Perhaps it so not so much affecting as if it had been someone who we had known for longer but it still remains quite a shocking event. She was there with us on the Tuesday, a perfectly normal and ordinary day, with not the smallest conception of what was to come. I find the mind wants to speculate on things in order to try and make some kind of sense out of such an event, as much as there is sense to me made of these things, still there will be a trial no doubt and we may find out then some more of the details. In the meanwhile, those of us that remain can but endeavour to go on living as best as we might be able which is about as much of a tribute the living can pay to the dead as any. Presently he continues to be questioned, apparently in an effort to uncover whether he had any assitance from someone given his apparent ability to move so quickly around the country undetected. I can but wonder what details may be forthcoming and how many of the various possible questions might be answered but it is good at least he has now been apprehended and we may all do our best to go on living as best as we may be able.

Quite how well that might prove to be remains to be seen of course. Monday didn't start particularly well as I found myself somewhat oversleeping. Perhaps my earlier migraine had left me more wearied than usual. Either ways it wasn't until late I managed to get to the Coliseum and there engage in mild debate with the Overlady on the use of capital punishment, given recent events. It would take me more time and energy than I have now to go through all the various reasons I am very much opposed to the use of the death penalty but, though I know I'm a bleeding-heart liberal and if the polls are true then also pretty much in the minority when it comes to such beliefs but then I'm used to not seeing things quite like most other folks. Anyways, there are lots of reasons its a bad idea, besides miscarriages of justice, questions of moral equivalence and the nullifying of any deterrent effect after the first capital offence, it also seems that dying is easy. Everybody does it eventually from inspiring saints to murderous wretches and is it not more of a punishment to force a person to live without freedom and the consequences of their actions and then still dying in any case? Well, anyways, it's not something I really want to ramble on about at great length so I shall cease before I get too carried away on my train of thought and miss my intended station.

Anywho, the rest of the day at the Coliseum was an interesting battle against various gremlins, starting with a wireless mouse that wasn't connecting before the curiosity of one of the computers not connecting to the wi-fi. They've been rather odd though since they got the new router with many of the machines saying they can't connect and yet still accessing the Internet without trouble. It took some time poking and turning things off and on again before this one actually did deign to access Google. Hours of fun though was to be had with the printer, in endeavouring to assist the stylists just down the way to print out their advertising posters, one in particular which needed to be an odd size made the printer get all sorts of grumpy! It simply wasn't having it for some strange reason and proceeded to chew up and jam various sheets of paper before I eventually took the image onto Publisher and resized the image there. It's still a little curious why it wouldn't print before hand but whatever settings it had on it from the computer of its origin our machines really did not like it. Still, it passed the time I suppose along with some mild photocopying and general padding about. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere for the general state of my brains but then my brains are all rather tangled and muddled and just generally refusing to print what seems like a perfectly clear and sensible image properly whatever I try and do and whatever sticks I might try poking it with!

Sadly though my skull doesn't have useful doors in the side to open and get out all the jammed bits either. Hm, still perhaps with all the dramas and traumas of last week some befuddlement is to be expected. Heh, that would though be to ignore the many years of befuddlement that there have been before and what I see as years of rather haphazard and generally unwilling shambling yet to come. At present I continue to cast about for some new sort of star or prospect that might seem to make the effort feel worthwhile or like I was actually getting somewhere. At the moment I can't really seem to find any great sense of eager for doing stuff, admittedly I wasn't really very good at that before either, but now the efforts of trying to find it again seem without really much meaning. I could accept that much of the time my connections may be somewhat intermittent and however clear the thought may be it still doesn't seem to come out on paper but now what chance even in those moments I do get all my components connected that I'll actually come out with anything much worthwhile at the end of it and where to look now for the hope that I might at some point do any better? Well, I suppose I have just come out of a tiring week and weekend that was mostly fuzzy icky-sticks but I sense a lot of such weeks ahead and, whilst not wanting to diminsh those little nice things I do have in the offing, I find once again that I can't really see how I could make it much better. Though I keep pressing buttons it doesn't seem to result in much of a change. Oh, and sometimes the buttons I do press just undo a whole bunch of work like then a little untoward pressure on the laptop mousepad managed to delete the whole paragraph I had just written after this one! Smrrs. Oh I really do hopes that this isn't going to be just as good as it gets. (Which, incidentally, is an anagram of 'adios stoat eggs' for anyone who was wondering and hadn't watched Pointless Celebrities at the weekend!)

Oh well, the hour grows late and I must aways to me bed. Though I did have a far more erudite conclusion to my entry than this one written out I fear I don't really have the energies to write it all out again. Still, it's not as if that be the only thing I yet needs to write and arrange at the moment but like everything else it shall have to waits before I can gather a little more of myself together. In the meantime though I do hope at least all you folks be well and I shall see you again I don't doubts, somewhere a little further down line. NIght nights.

My, has it really been over a week now since I last updated? How time flies when you're dragging yourself in precarious and haphazard fashion through life! Well, I had been meaning to update for a while but the days of late have been leaving a little too wearied in spare time. Still lets see now if I can't rectify that somewhat by trying to pick things up from where I left off last time. So, anywho, well my trip to Scaryborough was largely unpleasant. The day, as most have been this week was one of grey wetness and the moors were shrouded in thick impenetrable sea fog as the bus trundled along its way. My nerves meanwhile were shrouded in their usual mix of needless terror, self-loathing and general mournfulness at things lost. This didn't really leave me when I got there either, as sometimes my brain improves once I actually get to the thing, but this time was trying and I was glad to get away. Still, the good news is though perhaps that the next time I have to go there will only be for what I hope should prove a straightforward jobsearch session (my job coach being on holiday) so I shouldn't have to face too much trauma to incite my needlessly sensitive nervous system. So I can perhaps breathe a little easier at that at least.

I was though able to manage some degree of pleasantness from the weekend however, spending time on my own in the peace of the caravan with the companionship of a friendly kitty. I did get just a little bit rained on in my walk there from finishing at the shop and came to discover that my socks had somewhat melted when I arrived and turned my feet an interesting shade of navy blue. Still, kitty greeted me with a friendly meow and was kind enough to lick my eyebrows dry for me and I was soon settled in for a very brief evening of forgetting that the rest of the world exists with kitty cuddles and pizza. The next day had its amusements too as kitty found a lovely new playmate! I happened to be standing outside, taking in a brief moment of actual sunshine, when I heard the unmistakable low, rumbling growl which is essentially cat for 'Get off my land!' Heh, well he is orginally a farm cat after all! It took me a little while of listening and padding about before I eventually spotted the beast behind a hedge and a few more moments before I was able to spot the cause of the argument, a tortoiseshell of equally fluffy coat to the beast which makes me ponder the possibility of it being some relation from the farm up the road. Still, after a little while the tortoisehell was chased back up off the hill and out of sight though in truth due to the obscuring presence of hedge it was difficult quite to tell quite who was the dominant aggressor in this instance. Indeed, I'm not even sure which of the two animals was responsible for the 'mmmmmrrrrrooooooowwwwwww'. Either ways, the creature returned a little later for some victory meaty chunks in jelly and all seemed reasonable and well.

I was decidedly loathe to leave my little place of tranquility come Saturday evening really, and it wasn't helped by kitty looking up at me with its big yellow kitty eyes as I departed. The domestic cat is a master at emotional blackmail and I am a master at feeling guilty for breathing. This pondering left me feeling somewhat grumpy as I weaved my way around the drunken Saturday night revellers on the way back to my flat. Really why do I have to feel such stupid sensitivities and guilt and lack of self-belief? I know its self defeating and in the greater part unwarranted but yet I can't seem to unwrite the feelings from my mind and so I also continue to contrive situations by which the evidence only affirms those unhelpful beliefs. I do greatly frustrate myself indeed. There's no way I should find life anywhere near as difficult as I make it for myself, I'm perfectly intelligent enough to know what I need to do and roughly how to go about it, but still I seem to have been programmed in a manner that my inner self will lead me to feel quite the opposite. Heh, in my case being true to yourself is not entirely the greatest ideal. Some voices can be ignored but its hard indeed to ignore the messages that seem to come from your own self, even when you know they are self-defeating. And that in itself complicates things further with more self doubt and questioning about just what it is a reasonable response in any given situation. Oh well, such is the creature I am however and for now it seems the best I can do is to adapt and incorporate and hopefully come to terms with my various and myriad flaws as best I may be able.

So, anyways, the week. Well, things roll on at the Coliseum. We now have plans for a new open day to showcase our shiny new unsubsidised courses which can no longer be given free. Quite how all that is going to work remains to be seen but our new trustee person seems to be rather more hands-on and business minded than anything I have known in the two and a bit years I have been there. Indeed previously I bearly heard anything from the trustees but the climate seems to be very much changing now we are part of the Whitby Area Development Trust and the funding for charities all over the place is severly diminished. Other community centres around the locality are also now having to find new ways of subsidising themselves and I rather clearly sense that things will all have to be a lot tighter for everyone from now on. The same is also true to a degree at the shop, even with us being a national charity, the Heart Foundation are focusing there efforts on a new drive for shiny stock and better customer service at lower costs. To that end we got to watch a shiny video presentation from the beloved area manager which, in fairness, wasn't as bad as it might have been. I don't really need telling of the need to just make a little effort in engaging the customer and the donors but the tone was at least not condescending and it was actually good to feel more part of a broader organisation and connected to the good work in saving lives the charity actually does! So much of the time it seems the shop is just a bunch of people selling stuff and then sending the money off into the aether but it was nice to feel a bit more valued and connected. How long that may last remains to be seen but in general it was relatively positive or at least, mostly harmless besides the squishy migraine it left me with by the end of the day, though I wonder if might have had anything to do with the free jelly sweets that were on offer during the presentation.

In other positive news we are now down to one van driver, that being positive in terms of reducing costs and that the driver we lost was stealing our stock anyways. We may now just start making a bit more profit again which may make things easier for everyone. However we do continue to have certain strains upon what might be described in corporate circles as our team dynamic. This was put under rather more stress today too it would seem with the decidedly shocking news I came upon when I paid a brief visit that one of our number had been found murdered! This wasn't someone I knew particularly well, and details remain light, but it was certainly a heightened emotional atmosphere that I found on my visit. The brief article I was going to link to on the local paper website now seems to have been taken down however which is somewhat curious, but still, we can only wait and see what investigations bring. It made for a tense atmosphere at the shop however, not helped by those who hadn't really done what they were supposed to yesterday and, for some reason, someone who had never even met the victim deciding they were so shocked by the news that they had to get their friend to phone in and ask if they could be taken off the till and allowed to go home? Hm, a bizzarrely puzzling way of going about things really. Still, it is shocking news and it's difficult to know quite how folk will react to it. I can but see if things may perhaps have settled down a little when I go back in to do my shift on Friday.

For now though I am intent on sitting today and gathering what energies I can. The good news is at least that I have booked my place at the Hilton hotel, Islington so my accommodation for big brother's wedding is largely sorted. Earlier in the week I had an unexpected message about arrangements for a stag night which I really hadn't factored into my thoughts at all and doesn't really help settle me but we can but see what plans are hatched for that. I'm mildly amused that the advert over to my right is currently trying to advertise me to book again at the Hilton since I've visited the webpage but obviously GoogleAds isn't quite elaborate enough to see that I already have my room there. Still, now that's in place at least I can focus all my energies on getting properly worried and insecure at being all unworthy and such in my appearance and socialising skills to grace the grand occasion that will be the gothic ball. Fun stuffs. Speaking of gothic things though it is now Whitby Goth Weekend which has rather crept up on me this year without me noticing. The streets are not yet too crowded but hopefully I will yet be able to about them without too much antagonism from my innate lack of self worth. We shall see. It bodes to be a rather rainy and windswept goth weekend though which perhaps may be appropriate but might also keep the streets relatively more quiet and somewhat less of a challenge for me to pad my way along.

Anyways, that's about all of the news that I can thinks of at the moment. Doubtless there are more details that I shall remember as soon as I click to post but that's all I think I has the energies for typing now. We can but see what the days to come may bring I suppose. How will stuffs work out at the Coliseum with the new challenges faced there, besides what our small band of plucky heroes might have to deal with at the shop. There isn't I fear a very great deal I find I can feel exceptionally positive about in the offing, but then positivity isn't something that comes to me easily and I shall shamble on as best I can in search of solid ground and some meaningful sense of self and purpose. At least I yet still has the prospect of my friend visiting soon to look forward to so that indeed is a good thing, though with the world in its presently complicated mood I wouldn't wish to much tempting of fate in anything else tediously untoward occurring. Still, in the meanwhile I do hope that all you nice folk out there are managing and finding some kindness and sparkles in your endeavours. Wish me luck as I shamble on in my own haphazard way through mine! Be seeing you.

If I learned anything from watching Wall-E over the weekend once again it's that the best thing to if, when after many years alone spent shuffling bits of other people's rubbish around (if occasionally selling one or two items), the robot of your dreams suddenly appears from outer space is to slavishly follow them around until they stop shooting you and eventually they might think you are cute. Then, when said robot suddenly goes inexplicably silent then it is imperative to constantly sit very close by and then cling tight to any spaceship that might miraculously appear. In so doing I might just find out where the rest of the world has gone and a series of bewildering events finally be explained, hopefully to some degree of satisfaction. Yes, I tend to learn all my life's lessons from watching television. Admittedly though I did watch the anniversary screening of a Phantom of the Opera the previous weekend however I don't really possess the energies for a psychotically destructive obsession so instead I shall continue to sit about here, move a few unwanted objects around, and hope that at somepoint soon that spaceship will turn up and things may become clear. I do hopes it doesn't take too long.

As it is though I don't presently find myself with a vast amount of energies for doing anything much useful at all but I don't suppose that is anything much new. Tomorrow, for instance, I has the entertainment of yet another little trip out to Scaryborough....



....now of course I know that its all entirely harmless and no real harm shall be likely to befall me but still my whole body tenses with unnecessary nerves and unpleasant sensations. You'd really think that my subconscious would have got the idea by now but sadly it seems to be far too interested in feeding off its own anxieties to pay any attention to the efforts of my conscious thinkings. Oh well, hopefully I shall be able to gets it over with quickly and return once more to my little abode to get back on with my various abortive attempts at actually managing to achieve anything worthwhile. Translating thought into action however has never been my greatest skill at the best of times which is a bit of a shame really because some of my thoughts aren't really that bad are they? *paws* Ah well, I could ramble on a bit more about how I surmise that mindset got unhelpfully lodged in my skull but I have done that enough times before I expects and besides is just a little too wearied to structure such ponderings into suitably coherent sentences at present.

Things do seem to have been rather tiring of late though, is trickier these days to find a worthwhile purpose and satisfaction from my doings. Still I keep myself largely out of the rain at the Coliseum, poking at the website and our new Facebook page whilst vaguely endeavouring to try and assemble some thoughts in preparation for our shiny new unsubsidised courses! There will be some marketing shenangians to do for those at some point no doubt, whilst meanwhile today I had fun times clearing old marketing gubbins from out a cupboard. Meanwhile I continue to bookherd as best I can at the shop with a dramatically unpredictable flock. The combined powers of a little managerial assistance enabled us to refresh the non-fiction shelves for once over this week which seems to have given us a little more room to move in the back cupboard, at least until the next delivery of broken down old books comes in. Things remain rather sparse in terms of general fiction however, or at least certainly far from the amount we need to keep the shop floor properly up to date, though the shelves are kept reasonably full at least. Pesky customers do keep insisting on buying things however. I begin to suspect that they do it on purpose. Ah well, I can but do my best to keep up as much my little paws may have the strengths and will so to do. Next Tuesday we have the entertainments of the much presaged meetings with area manager on our brand new shiny marketing spree with pointless customer service videos to watch. I wonder if there will be any advice therein on trying to store stock for fifty metres of bookshelf in a corridor and arranging it single-pawed? I can but also wonder whether there will be any advice on what to do about van delivery drivers who turn out to have been stealing a good portion of the donations for themselves. Again. If action might be taken on that then the general ambience could become just a bit more perky once more. Oh well, in the meantime I have my cupboard to hide in I suppose.

In other things to look forward to I now very just about have arrangements arranged for big brother's wedding. The booking of a hotel room in London for the night is just about on the very edge of what I can presently afford, but that may all depend on just when why erratic landlady comes for the rent. To give you some idea, I've yet actually pay anything so far this year. *sighs* Still, hopefully things should be ok. Actually, the maths and the not spending anything aren't nearly so much of a problem for me as just getting my brains into action and doing stuff I know needs doing. Things should hopefully be in place soon and then I can go on to worrying about buying clothes, the train journey back and the whole ecstatically terrifying business of the event itself. There are some genuinely good things to look forward to though. I shall soon be having me a visit from a most exceptionally good and long-standing friend, certainly my longest-standing Internet friend and barring a couple of people I have but the vaguest fleeting contacts with on Facebook these days, my longest-standing friend of all, shall be visiting these shores from across the Atlantic, so that will be a fun thing. Strange perhaps that the friend I have known for longest I have never actually met, but that will hopefully soon to be put right. Such things at least can help prove me to be not yet entirely useless!

Meanwhile, I should hopefully have a relatively pleasant weekend to look forward to as well due to parents being away, I shall be taking on cat-sitting duties by myself. Thus I can at least look forward to one night of peaceful quiet over at the caravan with just my little fluffy friend and quite possibly some pizza and whatever new life lessons I may be able to learn this time from digital television. It's somewhat more scope than the rather fuzzy four channels I presently have at my little flat although my kindly Overlady at the Coliseum will hopefully soon be sharing a little Freeview box with me. Of late my TV signal has been even more rubbish than usual however so it remains to be seen how good it will be at actually receiving digital but hopefully things will work. Really though, at the moment I am just looking forward to getting Scaryborough over and done with and then having a quiet night alone with feline fluffy cuddle snuggles and, most probably, one or two friendly licks to the forehead as the beast is also inclined to share. Now though I suppose I should be off to sleeps to accrue what strengths I can for my afternoon's appointment with destiny. Doubtless I will think of a whole bunch of other stuff I was going to write about whilst I was lying in bed and curse myself for not doing so but for now I has run out of thoughts. Wish me luck and any other nice things which I barely feel deserving of and I shall be sendings all the best wishes to all you reading folks too and hopes the world be treating you kindly. Be seeing you.

It's Friday the Thirteenth! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN! Ahem. Not that I'm particularly worried about the day ahead being particularly disatrous since my stars seem to have been pretty much on some quite considerable misalignment for the past few months. Needless to say though, as the old saying goes, just because you're not superstitious doesn't mean your Friday the Thirteenth still can't turn out to be exceptionally tedious. Well either ways, I expects I'll be finding out soon enough. Before that though, perhaps a little look back to the week gone by is an order. Not that I can think I really has very much to say. The shop was mercilessly busy over the Easter weekend but I did my best to keep my muzzle above water amidst the ocean of humanity that spilled over the compact streets of our historic little town. Away from the shop I spent as much time hiding from humanity as I could, spending a wearied Sunday evening and Monday at the caravan with parents, being fortified by kitty snuggles, the occasional nibble on my fingers and lick of my forehead inbetween which activities the fluffy beast happily lay on his back with paws elegantly in the air or entertained himself by eating the newspaper or pawing at the shiny silver pen which for some reason he seems to find particularly suspicious! So it was largely a curious time of excessively busy activity interspersed with hiding and falling over. Much the same as ever then really.

Given the Bank Holiday this week has then proved marginally shorter than most and generally just managed to confuse my little brain as to quite what date it actually was and whether I had any essential appointments to go to. Fortunately I didn't but my head kept wanting imagine that it had missed something vital. Still, this is only my head's second favourite game it would seem, it's favourite pastime being subtly insinuate the thought that, whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it wrong. Still, nevermind, I continue to shamble on as best I can, vaguely hoping that no one will catch me being bad as I consistently endeavour to convince myself I am doing. I have also been fending off somewhat random head pains and odd spells of fuzzy dizziness which haven't particularly helped. They made Tuesday at the shop particularly taxing, especially I was on my own with the books that day, but the concentrations involved did actually manage to ease my brainache somewhat and I was at least able to rotate the romance sections even if I was far from being able to keep up with the rapacious appetites for literature of the customers. Well, if you can call most of what actually gets bought literature. For some reason lately folk have also seemed unfeasibly keen to buy stuff out the window too which is most annoying. I suspect they do it on purpose. Really, do they have to go buy all the nice new pretty stock as soon as I puts it out? Why can't they go for the older tatty stuff that's been on the shelves for an age? Err, it's got character! Umm....

Anyways, Wednesday I was on the till so there was little I could do to improve the displays and organisations but I dropped in on passing today and things didn't look so bad so hopefully I can get a more solid paw on stuffs when I'm in there tomorrow. Meanwhile, at the Coliseum I have been making further updates to the website and our shiny new Facebook page, including the incorporation on our website of shiny new like buttons for extra social media integration. Utterly pointless perhaps but all sorts of fashionable right? Yeah, it's the equivalent of my website wearing shades indoors or something. Still, I'm not quite sure how all this Facebook content works yet. I've been trying to work out some sort of app that will link content on my webpage with the page on Facebook but I haven't had much success with that yet. Still, I shall work out something swishy and useless I'm sure. Apparently, this coming week we are going to start work on new lesson plans for classes on Ebay. Joy. Personally I prefer the website stuff, I don't have to interact with people that way, but still, you can't have everything I suppose. Never mind, I've bought stuff off Ebay before, how hard can it be to break down into easily understandable bitesize chunks for people whose brains are not quite constructed in the same peculiar compartmentalised manner as mine and don't quite grasp these concepts quite so easily? Well, I don't know, but perhaps it will be fun finding out, or at least non-fatal at any rate.

Today then, besides a brief moment where I broke cover and went in search of essential supplies, I have been mostly hiding in my little room endeavouring to corral my unwilling mind into doing something useful whilst bleakly broodng upon my myriad shortcomings, general uselessness and other broader philosophical conundrums of my pointless existence. All par for the course really. Things weren't much helped by the presence in the corridor outside of friendly maintenance man doing his painting thing. I find my brain is far from enamoured by the sounds of voices and movements of which it cannot see, regardless of how innocuous I may consciously be aware the source to be. It leads me to various thoughts on my youth and experiences and quite how my nervous responses to things learned to be the way that they are. For once I shall not bore you with too deep a speculation on such matters though, I can only really speculate as to quite how significant the things I end up thinking about really are when it comes to the make up of my fragmented personality. So I'm afraid you shall have to wait for another post before you find me musing in any more detail on Skinner boxes, derealisation or compartmentalisation and how such things may figure in my make up having grown up caught between two wildly differing family units.

Still, if CBT is anything to go by I ought to be focused rather more upon the present. As it is though I can't really say I'm particularly fond of the present at the moment. I've still not particular sense of where I'm really supposed to go now with things the way they are. The earth keeps turning though and it would seem I don't really have very much choice whatever efforts or appeals I might wish to make. I suppose I have at least now managed to work out that I could just about, very nearly afford to book myself a hotel room for one night in London for that looming monolith upon the horizon of big brother's wedding. I shall feel maybe slightly better at least to know that plans for that are in order if it will be a task to persuade my brain to actually look forward to the event. In the meantime it's yet a little under a week before I has to return to Scarborough and I'm doing my best to ignore that fact so as to not be too troubled by the unnecessary nerves. Meanwhile I at least have the return of such mindless televisual entertainments as Have I Got News For You too look forward to, and the forthcoming releases of Diablo III and Guild Wars II that is if I actually had any money to be spending on video games but it's still fun to watch the videos. The rest is just about avoiding reality as much as possible, but then is that so much different to everybody else? Err, actually best not answer that. Heh. Oh well, perhaps someday soon I might yet find myself with a brain and a life I can feel suitably in control of and the confidence and self-esteem to actually do the stuffs and ideas that my reasonal intelligence and gentle, caring and creative spirit comes up with. I can't say I hold out a great deal of hope at the moment however, well, it is Friday the Thirteenth after all. Heh.

Anyways, I thinks it's probably best I scampers away before my gibberings grow too inane. Well, ok then, any more inane. I do hope though that the world is being kindly to all you kindly folks out there and I shall rejoin you with further news as and when I can manage to do so. I don't doubt that as soon as I sign off and post this I shall bring to mind a myriad of little topics I had also been intending to waffle on about but such is always the way when I write anything. Perhaps here though, my brain's editorial staff really do save you and the rest of the world for a true excess of tedium! Well if anyone is feeling particularly masochistic you can always leave a comment of some form and then I can badger you further with all sorts of self-obsesseed nonsense, depending on whatever tangential thought occurs to me in that instant. Err, yay? Hm well, perhaps I ought to be asleeps. So yes, I am off to my fairytale castle to see if I can't dream up just the smallest bit of magical sparkle for my soul. Perhaps I shall see you there, or if not, someplace else. In any case I hopes that things will be well with you in the meantime. Take care, x.

*with possible apologies required to Niels Bohr

Oh, yesterday proved to be rather more of a trial than I might have really appreciated. I was somewhat troubled to discover on waking that my radio alarm clock, usually glowy yellow and burbling some incoherent noise at this point was all dark and silent. A somewhat fuzzy glance upwards showed that the spooky green glow that usually emanates from my smoke detector had also ceased. My brain took a few moments to register these facts before coming to its conclusion. The electricity had gone sometime overnight. This then led to a moment of considerable worry that I may have overslept the time I needed to be up for my journey to Scaryborough! This was a worry for which I may or may not have felt a certain ambivalence admittedly. However when I finally did manage to raise my unwilling body from its bed and scrabbled about to find my mobile phone I found it informing me that somehow or other my brain had yet managed to rouse itself for a little after 7am, in fact a little earlier than might have been strictly necessary. Funny how, very occasionally, my brain sometimes surprises me by actually acting in some useful manner. Heh, one day I might hope to work out actually how it goes about doing that! Still, I wasn't going to be late at least so that was one possible crisis averted.

This however was unfortunately not the only difficulty I would be faced with that day. As I padded fuzzily about my cold rooms my attention was brought to the fact, which in normal circumstances only occasionally filters into my consciousness, that pretty much everything in my little abode is electric. So it was the waking my self to any great degree of alertness was a rather greater task than usual on account of a lack of light in my windowless little bathroom area, a lack of hot water and equally a lack of means for boiling liquids for caffeinated beverages. All this of course on top of the exiquisite reluctance I had for my morning's quest and a slowly flowering migraine that was beginning to uncurl within my skull and spread its tendrils all through my head to the point where it seemed my brain was endeavouring to claw its own way out through my eyeball. That particularly unpleasant sensation was to last pretty much all day and so render my efforts with a greatly unhelpful additional weight to drag, but still somehow or other I managed to put myself together in something vaguely resembling a reasonable shape, whilst the peculiar sensation slowly diminished that I had since waking in the silent and powerless environment that I had somehow overnight slipped into the afterlife in circumstances somewhat akin to those in the Others. Meetings with the living however eventually managed to dissuade my brain of this possibility and with the vague hope that somehow last night's stormy weathers may have put off the buses this morning I dragged myself out into the cold, wet and windy streets and made my unenthusiastic way down to the bus station.

Most sadly however, worse news was to come on my ways down the hill however as, passing by the point where I would occasionally encounter a little Jasmine kitty I was instead beckoned over by friendly elderly lady who has a cottage on the street. It was indeed some most very sorrowful news she had to relate however as sadly the friendly little tabby had lately been quite unwell and, after spending a few weeks living with nice elderly lady, had sadly had to be put to sleep. Apparently she had developed a tumour on her liver for which nothing could be done. Not the best news to here, particularly on the sort of day I was just about beginning. Still, now in the somewhat clearer light of day I can at least say that I know not how old Jasmine might actually have been, possibly she had come to the end of her natural life, and at least I know that the little quietly mewing creature was well cared for in her last days. Of course it remains a very sad thing that there shall no more be chance for me to encounter the charming little creature on my journeys into town but perhaps in time as I pass by her spot I shall yet be able to give a smile at her memory of her having been there rather than too much sadness that she will never be sat there again. Still, rest in peace little Jasmine cat, and hopefully my little poem I wrote for you may yet prove a reasonably worthy epitaph to your own highly discerning feline eyes.

Anyways, it was with such sad news, an aching brain and a general sense of clinging nervous fear that I got the bus across to Scarborough. There were some impressive and really quite pretty snows up on the moors, which small children enthusiastically pointed at through the window as we passed. I wasn't particularly in a position to appreciate them greatly however with my head swimming with migraine and fears. Of course the appointment itself is bearly worth mentioning for the thirty minutes I was there nothing of note happened or was discussed as really I knew there wouldn't be, but try telling that to my nervous system and the various unpleasant sensations it chose to wrack my body with in the course of my journey to some imaginary doom! Oh really by now I wish my neurons could have learned that I am not about to be set upon by ravenous beasts in the course of my visits to Scarborough but my brain causes my body to feel like it is about to be. I do wish it would stop. Still, such seems to be me however and I would also again seem to be incapable of rewriting the coding of my mind on my own. I can but hope that perhaps in time I shall yet grow used to the whole business and maybe in time it might also come out with some kind of employment and some actual sense of solid ground beneath my paws. I'm afraid at present I now feel myself a rather further distance aways from that than I previously had but I shamble on, not with much hope, but at least with a general refusal to give up entirely.

On the ways back from Scarborough I was at least released from the unpleasant nervous sensations but I was not however released from the unpleasant of migraine and so I had a decidedly achy and nauseating return journey. It was equally a rather unpleasantly achy and nauseating time at the shop too. Undoubtedly though it was a good thing that the circumstances of the morning, the power cut had affected the whole town, rendered it an incredibly quiet day in shopland. We barely took £100 for the entire time we were open. Fortunately then this didn't leave me with a great deal to do as I don't thinks I would have been much capable of any more than the mildest of till poking as I stood behind the till, very occasionally being called upon to poke at the buttons as the mild gibber of the radio washed over me. I say radio, as the latest development in shopland is that the powers that be have chosen to save however much money it might save by not purchasing a license that would allow us to publicly broadcast musics to our milling customers and so the only option we are left with is the publicly broadcast radio stations. Having said, I don't really know what nonsense Richard Bacon might have been gibbering about given that I hadn't much spare attention to give it but it might actually be an improvement on the excruciatingly wrist-slitting country music that certain of my colleagues are partial to. Anyways, my time at the shop passed in a fuzz of pain and a wash of nausea and I was most glad indeed when I was able to get back to my home.

One more little incident did yet await me on returning to my flat however as I opened the front door to the building to find large step ladder blocking my way as our friendly maintenance human was busy painting the hallway. This has been going on a couple of days now and I quietly suspect the painterly aroma that the hall outside my rooms is presently suffused with may have gone some ways towards inspiring my headache. Still, the man had also brought with him the special shaped battery that is required by my heat detector in my living quarters. For untold months this has now been beeping every thirty-two seconds although by now I have grown so used to it as to not even hear it most of the time. I wasn't really feeling in much of a condition to go through the whole humans being in my rooms rigmarole again, even it was for only the shortest of moments. It was an extra annoyance I wasn't in the mood for. Still, I remain mildly amused that despite now being in full possession of a replaced battery the little heat detector, presently directly above my head, is yet still beeping merrily to itself regularly every thirty-two seconds. Indeed, yesterday I had a moment's mildly hysterical giggling after hearing it start up again almost as soon as the man had left! Heh, perhaps the little thing is just lonely up there and wants some attentions? This is entirely unlike the smoke detector in my bedroom which continues to sit in quiet, sullen silence, glowing a spooky green once more. Heh, it's to be expected though I suppose that these two siblings would have such a difference in their personalities though is it not?!

Ahem. Well, anyways, I largely gave up after that and took for myself a quantity of drugs and collapsed into bed decidedly earlier than is my norm. The extra sleeps at least does seem to have done me some good as I feels perhaps a little more alive this morning and my brain has only offered the most minor suggestions at aching. Still, it was indeed a long and arduous day and I am most glad for the time off that this Thursday allows me. I am glad too I think for the extra days of rest this coming Easter weekend will allow me. Although the charity shop will remain open for the bank holidays, and I yet expect to be irritatingly called upon for sunday service, the Coliseum is yet closed Monday so I shall have an extra day for quiet and sits. It is of certain annoyance that these days off can never seem to held consecutively and thus a decent rest and recuperation is rarely to be properly had. At the moment I really rather need some time in which to pause and edeavour to knit my brains together back into some reasonable shape for dealing with my new set of circumstances and coming to terms with the ways things be now. As much as I may not likes it, there is stuffs I yet has to do, but presently I haven't been proving very good at doing them. The world hasn't really been helping however. Oh, still, whilst long days have indeed been most long, perhaps I shall yet be able to use the little extra free time I do now have to sit and pause and reflect before getting myself into some greater order and taking real steps about doing stuff. Maybe. I'll have a go. For today though I thinks a good deal of sitting is in order and hopefully some relatively pleasant peacefulness. I do hopes the world is being kind to all my nice reading folks in the meanwhile. I shall hopefully return to you in slightly more consistent shape. Possibly. Either ways, be seeing you.

Oh. I just seems to feel somewhat lost today. I thinks perhaps it be the fact the month is coming to its end that has tipped my thoughts into an extra melancholy, nostalgic perspective. When this month started it was all set up to be the start of something new and bright and shiny, the culmination of a year's promise and dreams and now it comes to an end and I find all that disappeared like smoke. I never even got the chance to find out what could have been and still I don't precisely know the circumstances that brought it about. I can but guess and ponder what else I might have done, or done better, that might have made a difference but it seems again however much I try with my noble and foolish ambitions, I haven't the real substance to carry it through. Now I sit and ponder a future that I don't really want and am at a loss to know what to do with but then equally seem to have run out of things I can do that can make any difference. So at this present moment I sits in the Coliseum, Overlady is away and so I am on my ownsome, trying to find something useful for me to do and not particularly succeeding despite the variety of things available that I could possibly have a go at, and having the entirety of the Interweb at my disposal.

Further evidence for my general lostness could come in the number of days I've actually just been trying to write this journal post! It's already been sitting as a draft for a good three days whilst I keep starting and giving up as the words don't come together. So, if you're reading this then at least this time spent sat on my ownsome has given me time to knit some small portion of my brain together. It seems to be the way of things at the moment though that I am even more incapable of getting anything done than usual. Whether that's anything so simple as reading or just listening to music, I make a move to start and then my brain shrugs and decides it doesn't want to do that any more. Only for a few moments later to think, well maybe I should have another go at doing that thing. This is sadly even of things I really need to be doing. The trouble is, besides all the other expected feelings that swarm around me, none of these things is really what I wants to be doing right now. I don't really know how much time a little wolf should be expected to flap around in a little lost and confused manner, naturally I can but imagine that a better person would be able to react to all this in a more positive and effective manner, but as yet my thoughts and feelings have a ways to go before they can really come to terms with where things are now and I remain largely beset by a general brain kerfuffle.

Sunday then proved interesting not particularly for any event that occurred, although the sun was still shining and the town still teeming with humans they largely seemed to have other things on their mind than shopping for unattractive ornaments, but for the battle that seemed to ensue between my sad weariness and obsessive compulsive desire to keep the books in reasonable order. Heh, it shows the seriousness of my present plight when even bookherding grows tiresome! I did at least though manage to keep the shelves reasonably well stocked and filled by the end of the day, and the back cupboard reordered as best as our current limited resources might allow but by the last hour I was rather taken over with exhaustion and so resigned to sit and leaf through the boxes of CDs to see if there was anything interesting I could snaffle, which there wasn't. Curiously despite this though I still managed to sell more stuffs in my time on the till my helpful minion which I could do more than but roll my eyes at if I could be sure that this was anything other than a coincidence of timing. Still, I did get five minutes of fun out of the recent software updates our till has acquired, now for every transaction it tediously slows everything down to provide you with a helpful reminder message to check for gift aid, as if I didn't know what I was doing, although some of the new reportsit now generates are interesting. For instance it allowed me to discover that last week books accounted for 17.6% of the whole shop's takings (bearing in mind a book will sell for barely half what an item of clothing may) and entertainingly broke it down into what proportion each flavour of book had sold. Pointless statistics yet remain an etertaining diversion at least, a shame though they couldn't have made it generate graphs!

Ahem, so anyways, my weekend was generally fairly mindless and consisted of a variety of false-starts and failed attempts at getting anything done. I can but wonder how long this state of the wolf might last. Presently today I have had four whole customers for my Interweb accessing services whilst I have made a few minor additions to the Coliseum website and of course our new Facebook page. There are yet bunches of other stuffs I might like to do but my brain is having something of a tricksy time in getting its paws on its thoughts with sufficient grip to make anything concrete out of it. Physically I yet feel a bit weird too, which I ponder whether it may be emotional or a general continuation those peculiar symptoms I've been having. So I sit, feeling somewhat more wearied than I really think I ought, with a fuzziness of brain, mild dizziness and a strange stiffness of limbs as if some serpent had wrapped itself about them but was only mildly constricting. Oh well, I have things I ought to be doing so time for me to go see what I might yet be able to make of them. My apologies to all my potential reading folk for the bleakness of my ramble but I require someplace to put my self-obssessed sensations and this is fairly out the way, where other folk may only be bothered by it should they specifically choose to be. Anywho, is off to try and do, erm, something. I hopes the world is being kind to all you peoples out there in the meantime and I shall return to you in whatever best ways I seems to be able to manage. Be seeing you.

My radio alarm woke me yesterday with the tail-end of an advert for some home furnishing company or other such that the first sentence I heard upon opening my eyes was thus: "You too can sleep like a princess." A strange thing to hear whilst still somewhat encased in the mists of sleep and when even the radio appears to be questioning your masculinity you start to feel something strange may be afoot. That wasn't the only curiosity to occur that morning though as, whilst I was in the midst of shaving, a friendly spider took it upon itself to abseil down in front of me. This left me slightly concerned as Legs (which I named her due to the fact hers were gratuitously long) seemed to be descending directly into a sink filled with warm water. I was therefore left in something of a quandry, being halfway through shaving might leave me somewhat handicapped if it came to be that I needed to rescue the precariously dangling creature. Much to my relief however, spidey sense prevailed, and the beast noticed the pool that lay beneath it in time to swing itself over to the side and land herself gracefully on top of a sponge. Crisis averted. Still, having started the day with such life and death drama I pondered that the rest of the day might hold something truly significant and momentous. I was wrong, but I still pondered it.

What did occur was, first at the Coliseum, a small discussion on what was thought about the small discussion that had been had earlier in the week with Mr. Trustee. Apparently, Mr. Trustee was heavily involved in the early days of Microsoft and developing Excel and even knows that nice Mr. Gates! Hm, makes you wonder if he might be willing to make a small donation. Ahem. As things are though, now that we are without funding from those folks at ukonlinecentres we are forced to find some other means by which the costs of running the place might covered. Quite what these might yet end up being remain to be seen though ideas were suggested. We are already working on contiuing our regular classes, though these can no longer be given free of charge, and also we are developing some more detailed tutorials of our own. There seems to be a reasonable demand for more detailed teachings on email and also for Ebay, but how any of our other ecourses may work out remains to be seen. The man is also apparently a member of the photographic society and suggested even he might do a course to explain to his fellow members the delights of Photoshop Elephants, erm, I mean Elements. Still, how all this is going to work out I've really no idea. In fairness I've really no conception of what it might actually cost to run an Internet cafe, but I know our current contacts are not quite the sort to wish to pay a great deal for that sort of thing. Anyways, we shall see. Mr. Trustee Man did however manage to ask me what is possibly the worst question you could possibly of my brain which is, "So, what do you think?" Heh, great. So, immediately whatever my brain might have been thinking at the time immediately vanishes and the little bunny in my head panic and jabs wildly at the controls going, Ah! What can I say we were thinking!?' Still, apart from that it was an interesting Monday but it remains to be seen what develops from here.

On Wednesday, after my introduction with Legs, we talked about him and then I went about the business of developing new marketing materials. This included the construction of a new ad to go in the local magazine and also the commencement of work on a shiny Facebook page. So I've got stuff to do and keep me distracted if nothing else. My nerves shudder somewhat at the prospect of teaching classes in some more active way than watching and occasionally pointing at buttons on the screen when folk get lost but we shall yet see what can be seen. Things at the shop meanwhile continue to be a little awkward as the book flock is not nearly as large as the dogs and I might like it to be and so keeping the shelves refreshed is something of a challenge. We are reduced to recycling the old stock that we remove from the shelves back into our storage for putting back out next time. It's unlikely that any of the customer folk will particularly notice this but still, it's the principle of the thing! Ah well, I can but endeavour to manage as best as I may. Recently though it has been quite gratuitously sunny which has resulted in the shop actually proving to be a little quieter than might be expected. In such conditions the human folk seem to prefer spending time at the beach rather than the confines of a charity shop. They are strange creatures but what can you do? Still, with the Easter holidays on the way and the weather seeing little sign in cooling I nervously expect things to get quite monstrously busy soon enough.

Perhaps though this will prove a useful distraction from other thoughts and feelings at the moment. On the other hand there are some ways in which I would rather not be distracted. More difficult and personal as these things may be, they are possessed of considerably deeper meaning and resonance for me than other things and, for me at least, a life of meaning and purpose would come before one of ease. As it is I don't seem yet to have too much of either and there are various things I yet know I ought to be doing which I seem not to be. Oh well, my brain has never been the most adept at taking actions to begin with but hopefully I can yet poke it towards doing the things I needs it to. Meanwhile though the sun yet causes other difficulties with a resurgence in the various peculiar little symptoms I have been experiencing variously on and off since, well, this year began really. Yesterday I had an ache ensconced in my temple and much else that I could pass off as a migraine but then also there are other curiosities like a certain little dizziness, confusion and the occasional numbness of my fingertips. I yet ponder taking these things the local apothecary but then, unusual and sort of persistent as they are, they remain mild, vague and quite possibly related to any sort of harmless thing. I've had enough to stress about lately and reason to be oversensitive. Still, I shall be keeping an eye on legs of all sorts for as long as I still have use of one for the time being and see what occurs. At the moment that really seems to be as much as I can do with just about anything. I shall let you know at some point how I manages to get on. Adieu.

I surprised myself by waking unusually early on Friday morning. Most of this surprise was down to the fact that I had only lain down for a brief rest the night before so I found myself with a little confusion, followed by greater irritation, to find the sun shining and birds tweeting when my eyes reopened. I do rather seem to have been having something of a string of those sorts of days of late though. Rather unexpectedly for instance, I now find myself with new curtains! This happened on Thursday when entirely out of the blue, or some similar colour, I had a knock on the door from our local maintenance person with some curtains in one hand and a stepladder in the other. This really wasn't something I had planned for and so helpfully my room was perhaps not in the best state of repair to be having guests. Anyways, he went away allowing me fifteen minutes to prepare which also required me moving my table aways from the window, the process of which naturally led to various kinds of rubbish spilling everywhere so by the time maintenance person returned I was in mild state of panic. Up to this point I still don't know really what he may have thought, or indeed landlady might yet hear or think, but I seem to be prone to a certain quantity of pessimism at the moment. On the other hand I also seem prone to a certain quantity of fatalism too, which at least makes things seem easier at the same time as not helping. Oh well, I has new curtains anyways so that's, umm, something?

Still, Friday at the shop I spent a relatively quiet time at the till, refining my equations, before scampering off for a weekend at the caravan with parents and kitty. That was at least a reasonably pleasant and quiet time, apart from the traditional disagreements that parents always have whenever I seem to be there. It was largely nice though, and kitty was friendly and cuddly. Returning home was something of a curious experience though. Instead of going back my usual ways along the old disused railway line I chose to make ways along the new, used one. Or just beside it at any rate. It hasn't been long since they fenced off a little path alongside to allow the folks who constantly illegally trespassed along it the opportunity to do so without breaking the law. It had been a good few years since I had taken that route though but a strange variety of sensations came upon me as I did. Perhaps it was the night air or the way the mists lay strangely, hugging the ground across the fields at either side, but I felt rather sorrowful, as if my feet were remembering times past when I had gone this way and how much might have been lost in the time that had since passed. A strange moment but in my present condition my world seems to have many of those.

The emotional state continued through the evening due to my watching of the Keats biopic Bright Star, on account of me being a glutton for punishment or something of that nature. Annoyingly I did miss the first twenty minutes but it was still an achingly lovely film and especially to hear the poetry itself. Ah, but there is so much deep beauty in sorrow. I can't, of course, make strict paralells but still it was a timely piece of scheduling, heh, and an infinite number of times more touching than Avatar that I am currently ignoring on the TV as I type this! Sadly though I don't have the mind of Keats and cannot seem to do very well in getting my own to do all I would wish it to. Then again a biopic is hardly life. I wonder, in pretentiously grand manner, if anyone made a film from my journal for some mad reason then how accurate would it might actually be? Stories tend to miss out the bits where people sit and stare at the walls, heh, even in the story of poet spending so much time caught up in his muses! Hm, not that I have really been visited by those recently, though in fairness I wasn't before either. I'm still not proving very good at turning thought into deed either but then I can't say that is anything new. Maybe this pesky brain of mine will learn one day, one way or the other. We shall see.

In the meanwhile though I continue with my stuff and today at the shop proved no less of a peculiarity than the previous few days had been. I spent the first two hours at the place alone after, mildly unsurprisingly, my colleague for the day had apparently managed to forget that the clocks had gone forward an hour the night before. Hm. Still, I managed although I had to be somewhat creative at times when I started running low on change in the till! Still, the most curious thing was after he had gone, and indeed after everyone had gone and I had cashed up and done the banking and was just doing a little last bookherding to get everything in shape for tomorrow. Then I happened to get a knock on the door from what turned out to be a nice little Italian lady who perhaps could be a little more forgiven for not realising that the clocks had changed and had been puzzling that everywhere was shut. Still, I was at least able to her out a little and, after fifteen minutes or so of scampering managed to find her a nice little book to buy, even if it was over an hour after we had actually closed! Oh well, it's nice to be of small, useful service to someone.

Hm, anyways, I'm sure I had other things I wanted to type about but now they seem to escape my brain so I shall scamper aways and see if I may regain some of my thoughts. Tomorrow I has the fun of the Coliseum and a meeting with a mighty trustee to quite what purpose I don't yet know but I shall see what can be seen. Then I has the fun of skipping to the jobecentre, but at least that should make the day relatively short and allow me more time to at least have a go at doing something useful and productive. Those are probably euphemisms. Erm, anyways, time for me to wander aways and see what else I can do but I shall return with further news should anything marginally newsworthy occur and I have the time and inclination. Until then.

Trips to Scarborough and bookherding shenanigans yesterday, on top of other tiring things, left me an excruciatingly achy and wearied little puppy last night. The results of this was oversleeping in the most annoying manner this morning. I recall being woken by my radio and reaching over to switch it off and thinking that I ought to get up now. Then I recall being a couple of hours later. I can't say I'm really feeling the world as such at the moment. I have though sort of remembered the point that I was trying to make in my previous entry but now I find myself in a small quandry as the best means of its expression or whether it ought to be expressed. Oh well, I will see how this little entry evolves perhaps. Anyways, my oversleepings this morning meant that I missed my usual time at the Coliseum. Is a guilty wolf but hopefully I didn't miss anything too significant. I have vague recollections of a dream, which I can but assume relates to our forthcoming discussion with trustee, of some strange creature endeavouring to convince me that they knew everything about the Internets whilst I knew nothing. Heh, I'll have you know that I'm well aware that it is a series of tubes! A series of tubes filled with cats. Still, I also recall a fragment of a dream I had recently in which Charlie Brooker was making a commercial for a supermarket which for some reason involved him playing with a small dog on top of a chest freezer whilst a small girl ran along the aisles chasing a pink pelican. I remember thinking at the time that my subconscious had been going for a flamingo but then got a bit confused. Perhaps its metaphorical of something.

Anyways, regardless of that nonsense I hopefully managed to make up a bit at the shop for what I missed at the Coliseum. There were two significant events at the shop today. One event of note was that I actually found myself using actual algebra in order to solve a real life puzzle. I mean, who ever would have thought the ability to rearrange basic equations would ever come in useful? The puzzle was endeavouring to decipher quite how our percentage conversion of gift aid sales was being calculated as the powers that be have us under strict targets for such things at the moment. It was a tricky business as it was not so simple as dividing the amount of gift aid sales by total sales and multiplying by 100. Only some of the things we sell can technically have gift aid applied and to add complexity the targets relate only to what are classified as over the counter sales rather than sales of items brought in by van. Then there was the puzzle of whether the percentage was taken on gift aid sales or on the actual amount reclaimed in gift aid or what. We have complete sales figures for the previous week but it was a puzzle relating those to what our recorded gift aid percentage had been. This is in turn made slightly more tricky as the sales report is based on sales per day whilst gift aid is calculated from the point usually about an hour before we close when the banking is actually done. Heh, still with me? Anyways, after much playing around with various letters and numbers I eventually came up with a fun little formula which I shall be able test at the end of this week, once all the figures are in for this week to see if they match up! That formula is expressed thus: x = 4(100G/C) where x is the total OTC sales, G is the total reclaimed in gift aid and C is the gift aid conversion percentage. Fun stuffs no? What is interesting is that if I am right then this conversion percentage for which we are given targets is actually calculated in a manner that actually bears very little revelance to the process by which we are made to record gift aid sales and thus in practical terms the figure is actually pretty meaningless. All sorts of fun indeed.

The first of these was my rescuing of a spider from a squishy doom at the hands of a squealing customer. Poor little spider. I was a good five minutes trying to persuade the little creature into my hand but the traumatised arachnid wasn't in the mood to be picked up by some giant predatory monster but eventually I managed to persuade him onto a little piece of paper to transport him to a place of safety. I noticed the poor thing was already missing one leg, I suspect this may have been one of the famed Ukrainian hunting spiders, in which case he deserved all the care he could get. Still, he seemed to have limped off and aways the second time I went to check on him so hopefully he will be ok. According to a nice lady customer who was also in the shop at the time for my spider rescuing actions I would get 10 God points. Hm, I think right now I could probably do with as many of those as I could get, though I wonder how many God points might be required to offset my atheism? Hee, according to our more jumpy customer the creature was the size of a dinner plate which makes me wonder how small her meals must be. Either ways hopefully little Boris will have found a nice safe corner to snuggle up in. Particularly good customers are little spiders, particularly with the amount of shoes they are in a habit of buying. Ahem. Anyways, I am the kind of person that takes about 10 minutes of gentle coaxing and encouraging in order to rescue a little spider thing.

Perhaps though this little note on my personality brings to me to ponder the conclusion that I was going waffle vaguely about in the first place. I am by nature, amongst other things, a soft and sensitive, quietly kind and caring sort of creature. These are not in themselves bad traits to possess of course but being so in excess as I obviously often can be has its complications. It does seem though that in possessing a nervous and sensitive heart I also find it is drawn more to those of equally sensitive dispostitions who themselves have their own challenges in life. Indeed, I find such senstivities and challenges lends an extra tenderness and beauty to what I see in people, perhaps there is nothing much extraordinary in that, but I feels more affections for the sensitive, complicated and challenged and those that see the world in deeper and more intricate manner. In turn my own sensitive nature, at least so I modestly like to think, lends me a greater understanding of such sensitivties and a particular kind of empathy and compassion. Sadly though, it also sometimes seem that in my careful considerations I undermine my own expressions of love and thus though I may be more attracted to perhaps more delicate creatures I'm yet rendered not quite man enough to hold on to them. Perhaps this is a gross simplification but it is, on some level, the lesson my brain seems to learn from the evidence it has available. Maybe it isn't me, maybe there was nothing I could do that make things any different now, but from the messages I receive on some level I can't help but think if I were able to love in some sort of better way then people wouldn't want to discard it. Maybe were I more strident or forceful in the expressions of my feelings, to the right level at the right time my love would be a support than a burden?

Oh, well, I don't know really, and when it comes down to it the only creature I can try to be is me although the evidence around me would suggest I'm not very good at being me. I have evolved what I think to be a good and tender heart and yet not the force of mind and will to put it across. I find myself wondering if things could have been different had I grown in any different manner, though of course if my past were altered I might well not have been in this situation in the first place. All these myriad of thoughts I have and much of them are probably really rather pointless but I still keeps having them anyways. I don't know if I'll ever actually manage to get my self to work properly, or at least feel as if I am, but I can't say I has a great deal of faith in myself at the moment. Of course, on other levels I'm aware of my neuroses too and aware I may not be the very best judge when it comes to my own abilities, capacities and nature. Still, I can't entirely escape the self-sabotaging thoughts my subconscious conjures for me. Stupid brain.


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Oh well, perhaps now I have that random portion of my neural network down in print I should scamper aways and see if there may be anything I can do about it. Not exactly feeling hopeful, evolution has had millennia to come up with the processes and workings of my subscscious mind and the bunny that sits in my head has had less than three decades to work out how to operate the controls. Actually, bunnies probably don't even live that long so my replacement bunny had had even less time. Heh, maybe my next bunny will turn out rather better at this game? Still, maybe yet some goodness will happen along in the near future that I'm not expecting. All that spider saving must surely turn out good for something eventually! In the meanwhile, well hopefully I can yet remain alive and awake and not too depressed enough to wake up and do at least some of things I need to be alert for and get done. There is a plan in the air at least that I may go visit parents and see fluffy kitty this weekend so that should hopefully be a nice change of scenery with some additional friendly meowiness. Still, I can't really complain much can I. There are folk in the world suffer far worse trauma than I am likely to ever know in my relatively wealthy and peaceful part of the world. I am minded to finish on a dark little joke that I have always liked that I recall from Peter Cook once although I forget the precise source. I shall also have to pass to paraphrase to bring it a little up to date (the original quote featured Laker Airlines). Anyways, maybe it will provide my nice reading folk with some small cause to smile, if not some sage and useful advice!

...but remember this. Somewhere in the world there is someone who is even more miserable and worse off than you. So why not take a Ryanair flight over there.... and laugh your head off!?!