It's Gopher Day all over again!

"Asda; call Viscount Rothermere!"

Disclaimer: there's a lot of product placement in this edition!

The other day my sister came to set up an Alexa unit. Is that what they're called? Apparently its official title is 'Amazon Echo Dot Smart Speaker.'

Alexa will do. 

(Dad is shouting "Alexa!!" as I type this!)

I couldn't remember her name. Wanted to call her 'Asda'. I knew it was wrong. Alex? I can remember Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft and Halo) but for some reason 'Alexa' eluded me. I can see the first 2 or 3 letters in my mind, know how it should feel as I mouth the syllables. I know it's a short, 2 syllable word starting with 'A'- it's obviously a name. 

I just couldn't grasp it.

(I’ve realised since typing this it’s a 3-syllable word, so that should be a good aide-mémoire should I forget it again!)

As regards my illness, I was waiting for a quantum step downwards (it's never upwards) and this appears to be it. Or maybe it's excessive beerage. Heavy drinking is essentially brain damage-inducing anyway, but I do think this is part of the dementia.

I haven't drunk THAT heavily for a while.

So I was trying to tell an old friend of the last thing I saw at the theatre which was 'Groundhog Day: The Musical', at The Old Vic. All I could see in my mind was Punxsutawney Phil being held up and his cute but gormless face, Bill Murray and the letters G-O-...hence 'Gopher'. 

Had to back track and sidle-off to the left and right in my brain, then managed to seize on the elusive 'Groundhog'. 

Know your rodents from your marmots, young lion.

Some of these words are just becoming more elusive, but I consoled myself that it took me ages to remember Frontotemporal Dementia, and that was 3 years ago.

Did I tell you I'd cleaned the driveway?

I cleaned the driveway. 

Dad was excessive in his praise of my prowess with the pressure washer.

I said 'Don't thank me, thank KARCHER!"

Took me an hour and a bit. 

How to impress girls.

Repetition, Deviation, er, er...

In fact, I am forgetting things, as I told J the above story 3 times before she told me I'd repeated myself. 

I was up in London for a meeting with the neurology bods. 

It was a bit pointless really as they'd got the photometry scans (3d scans of my brain) 2 years apart, but had yet to measure the differences. That would happen in 2 weeks. 

They could have postponed the meeting till then. I mean, they may have post-doctoral theses coming out of their bums but common sense seems to have been the price to pay.

Anyway, as usual I had to undergo a neuropsych test which I blitzed. I also pointed out a typo on the card I had to read out which had eluded everyone previously, wrote a sentence and was complimented on my handwriting, and also knew the date when asked which the neurologist had to check.

When the Prof came in he said you've probably (WTAF??) got dementia but we don't know what type.

Well, we all know I've got a dementia but it has been previously described as atypical of atypical. And as we know the brain is so complex the variables are unique to that individual.

I definitely have Pillockitis.

Udder tings...

I have been walking Tomos every weekday. He's a splendid fellow. Today I sang him 10cc songs in the style of Nico. 

You should try it at home yourselves, once you've done a professional risk-assessment of course.

I have met lots of very nice dog-walkers, and Tomos is highly sociable and wishes only to run and run with other dogs and then fall asleep at his home. 

He is a very lovely dog, and very popular.

I know other people's dogs' names, but not the owners'.

(That was an apostrophe workout!)

At the weekend at J's I met up with J, Stanley, Chippy and Wilbur. Wilbur sadly, like many of us today, also has dementia. He has tranquilisers in the evening to stop him barking at nothing at all. I looked in his eyes and he's not the same dog anymore, which is sad. His barking used to set off the other 2, but even they don't fall for it anymore. 

They know he's a demented.

DOGS KNOW.

Sir Michael Take

My new favourite spoof person on social media is the above mentioned fellow, and former MP for Dorset West. 

When Trump was elected Armando Iannucci declared 'satire is dead.' Well certainly the lines are more blurred than ever before. 

He has been quoted by The Daily Mail and GB News a few times. 

He has a wife, Bunty, who he tries to shield from coarse language, Ant and Dec, socialism and immigrants.

Did I tell you I'd cleaned the driveway?

Oh. Okay.

Homophobic Messiahs and the Sinister Rise of Fences

Jesus “The” Christ

I’m back in Wells. My friend Mark is here visiting his Mum, sorting out her furniture and what to take and get rid of before the move to Portishead. We’ve decided to go to Glastonbury for the day - the town not the festival.

Both of us have a fondness for Glastonbury from our youth. For me it was the legendary shop Gothic Image, which sold Dungeons and Dragons accessories in the eighties, which I would cycle to on a Saturday morning or even after school and buy miniatures and even the odd adventure.

Well Gothic Image is long gone, and every shop now is an identikit of New Age tat.

Today Glastonbury is a rather unpleasant meeting of Middle-Classed New Age hippies (the ones who live on the foot of the Tor in beautiful houses with Buddhist names and electric 4x4s), acid-casualties and surly drug addicts, and the working class townies. A bit like Brighton as a village. Without the sea.

I realise you might find this monstrously reductive, but it’s what I do best.

So after witnessing a stand off between one middle-aged hippy and an OAP tourist, we wandered up the High Street to The Shambala Centre to bleed our chakras.

Ricky Gervais’s less attractive older brother

Anybody who’s ever claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ has almost always been up to no good, and so a friend then alerted me to the window display a few weeks ago that the Messiah was asked to take down by the police. What a very naughty boy! (Python reference.)

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to his shop front when Glastonbury Pride goes past in the coming weeks…

Fences 

When I was a little boy all the houses in the street were relatively new. A garage was an optional add-on to the house build, and was a separate building altogether. The back gardens were separated by 3 horizontal galvanised wires going through uprights every 4-5 feet. You could go in the garden and talk with your neighbours, and just step over the ‘fence’ if you wanted to, to play with the kids next door.

Come the eighties and 2 metre high fences enclosing everything was the norm. Fewer neighbourly chats and no admittance to hedgehogs, while rats, squirrels, cats and foxes were the only ones who could make it through.

I think it’s really sad. The older I get the more I’m aware what an innately social animal human beings are, yet money and delusions of status prohibit us from interacting naturally with each other.

In historical terms, 5 minutes ago we were operating in groups of 30 hunting and gathering, working 3 hours a day and socialising for the rest, telling stories, singing, eating, laughing, reminiscing - all ages. Then we started farming, destroying biodiversity, psychopaths and their hordes created tyrannical systems of government, the vast majority of us were oppressed for centuries, we fought and died for the  rights we now take completely for granted and here we all are, in an age of total misinformation and another terrifying technological revolution we’re now trying to put a lid on with AI, all the while having wiped out more species than any meteor impact in the history of the planet, and in doing so making it more uninhabitable as the climate changes.

No wonder we’ve never been visited by aliens. I think any ‘intelligent’ life-form would have wiped itself out of existence way before it could ever develop the means to escape its planet by its own selfish needs to ‘survive’.

And it all starts with fences.

Ommmmmmmmmm

That being said, I am really chilled at the moment (for me). I’m happy about myself, all my crimes and misdemeanours from my dim and distant past I beat myself up about I just laugh at now. It’s always a way to defeat your enemies - they taunt you and you laugh. When they know they aren’t getting the reaction they wanted they soon tire of it.

I actually like myself. I’m in a good place. I feel like I did when I first met J. I have a ton of friends. I have fun. It’s beautiful weather at last. I’m really chilled.

It’s so verdant everywhere - exacerbated by the blue, blue skies. The verges aren’t mown anymore to encourage wildlife. Great to see wild flowers everywhere. I’m going to Nerys’s for lunch. They have a puppy called Tomos I’m meeting for the first time.

Don’t let the voices get to you. I don’t.

Oom Shanka.

 

Waiting room

Nothing

 I can't think of anything.

 Just sitting here. Drizzle outside. Dogs don't seem interested in walking, That's a let off.

Nothing springs to mind. No more Youtube clips. Done all of the only podcast I like. 

Cars go by. Too fast for this road.

Can't concentrate on reading for long enough. Have to make myself.

Head is numb. A light head cold with no other symptoms confines me here. It's the wafer-thin mint that tips me in to total atrophy.

Apart from this of course.

Sip some expensive herbal tea. Drinking too much caffeine these days.

The others are working upstairs.

At breakfast J talked about when she was married. I don't think she counts this as one. Or certainly not anymore anyway.

I don't have much in the way of empathy but that was pretty telling.

It must feel like that to her though. That's valid.

Nothing like feeling a spare part. Reminds me that it's a recurring theme of my dreams - abandonment, isolation, pointlessness; purposelessness. 

Continue waiting.

Driving Fail

I cancelled a hire car this week. A slight cold was enough to dent my confidence in my concentration levels for a 3 hour drive on motorways. 

Expensive waste of money. 

The others need a break from me. I don't know how they experience me. The shouting is pretty horrible I gather. I'm trying to keep a lid on that.

More difficult than ever to be self-aware - nigh on impossible. Self-analytical is different of course.

Would have been nice to see everyone. I'm only going to take trains from now on, to Castle cary and back again.

It would be good to see other people but they all work hard and need their weekends.

My parents are properly old now. That part of middle-age where your parents' generation topple like dominoes.

I have to get out and go places for everyone's sake. Their mental health as much as my own.

Games

This is what I live for now. Meeting up with people. The joy, the energy of the shared experience.

I even watched some of the rugby. I don't like it so much these days - all that kicking drives me nuts. Finding rugby league more fun. More tries.

When I can't run D&D games anymore it will be something. Maybe not as profound as I expect. A gradual decline to nothing and then total apathy. I think that's how it goes.

Sorry for being depressing. I promise I'll make it up to you.

Stop this self-pitying bollocks!! 

Right - Pick myself up out of this fug and get on with it. Get into my walking trousers (for there are such things) and get the dogs walked. 

READ READ READ!! Force myself to do so and take notes. Prepare for Sunday and Monday - 2 - possibly 3 sessions of Dungeons and Dragons! Madness I know. 

I will be very knackered.

I move back and forward like Arthur Fowler "Shut up, Pauline!" in an effort to galvanise myself out of this seat.

I can only control myself in all this. Get up and do stuff.

It's the only way forward! 

Am I a fraud?

No news isn't necessarily good news...

I was going to write about Bruce Willis's recent diagnosis of FTD, but I won't because we had a meeting with the Neurology team as a follow-up to my lumbar puncture in late November and I know more about us than him.

The neurology team had sent a letter we hadn't received as a follow up from the lumbar puncture. They told us in its absence, that the tests had shown up no signifiers. This is more than likely, good news.

They did a quick neuropsychology test which as usual I performed with flying colours.

They said the MRI from 2 years ago and the most recent one showed no obvious increased atrophy in the frontal or temporal lobes, but did in the Hippocampus. They are going to use an AI program to 3d model one image over the other to get a more accurate picture of my brain.

They said they didn't know for sure what my dementia was - Behavioural or Semantic variant or other, and that in time it will show itself, but for now my dementia symptoms (searched long and hard for that word!) are atypical with any one dementia and are mild.

I'm due an MRI scan in July again.

As for the replaying of events over and over in my head and me shouting out for them to fuck off, that could well be a psychiatric problem.

When we got home I checked my email and paperwork. 

Despite my illness I'm still very organised compared with most people.

I put all my medical correspondence in the green box file. The letter isn't there, nor do I ever recall seeing it. They said they'd emailed it too. Nope. Been waiting months for it too. I would have known if it had arrived.

Who cares for the carers?

J has taken yesterday really badly with another sleepless night. 

No definites - no tangibles - from the best neurology department in the country.

She no longer has a husband. Just this child. What is the future? How can she plan? This isn't what she signed up for. And am I making it up? 

She's not so sure it seems. 

Geraint earlier today

That old adage of walking a mile in someone else's shoes. Very difficult to do of course. The nearest thing I can do to communicate where I am is write this blog.

What with work, family and the house, and the lack of sleep that induces, J doesn't have time to write a blog.

This aspect of the disease and how it affects others is horrible.

I don't want to put words in J's mouth, but it's clear to see how awful this is for her.

So do I have dementia?

Well, I'm finding reading more difficult. It's more of a mechanical process and I don't always ingest the message of the writing. I will sometimes start at the last paragraph then impatiently dart to a previous paragraph, then to others, not completing the article, and then move to a different article entirely which will hopefully garner my undivided attention.

I can't cope with work. Haven't really been able to for years. Fyfe was doing everything by the end.

I leave lights and the oven hob on. I discover unfinished tasks, and search for things I never used to lose.

I need to make notes about a D&D session so I know it really well. I open my notepad and the notes are already there. A vague recollection of doing it; the names and contents are familiar, but I don't know it well enough to run it, but I end up doing it anyway because I can't knuckle down to study for the reasons above. 

More mistakes but the players don't know and are  - hopefully - still enjoying it.

I'm just being rude when I think I'm being funny. I can't do light and noise like I used to. I just want to get out of party-situations, which I used to love.

I don't want to go out or do anything, apart from games and TV. I obsess about something for a while then another thing after that. 

I'm more absent-minded and my short-term memory is going. I lose words, take ages to find them straining my brain, then forget them again in seconds.

I flap at anything unfamiliar. I can't deal with stress at all. I feel the physical effects - brain-stalls, headache and blood-pressure sky-rocketing almost instantly. I can't take this in. Got to get out. So I walk away.

Is it part-Alzheimers, part FTD, part Semantic Variant? I think a bit of all of them. 

But even putting one name to it - does that even really help? As we know dementia can have a name but it brings out very different behaviours in the sufferer. 

Floating in the void.

Remembering Simon Mayo

Simon Who?

 Lying in bed at whatever o'clock. Thinking about a film review and it took me ages to think of their names. 2 familiar people but no names. Mark. French surname. Not Lamar. The other guy. Philip? Odd surname again. Mark Kermode! 

Then I forgot the name again.

I went back to sleep. I woke up and the name - Mark Kermode. That's a good start. And Simon. Simon what though? Amstell? No.

Mark Kermode

I got downstairs and remembered Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo. But that's a new one. I'm forgetting names a lot more now. I need to keep practicing.

Bruce Willis

So Bruce Willis who we knew already had a form of dementia. His family have recently released the news that it's FTD. (J as usual guessed it was months ago.)

I hope they use his fame to promote knowledge of the disease, rather than lie back and do nothing.

It's quite nice knowing I'm a trend-setter.

Walking the Dogs

J and I walk the dogs every day. J uses it as a form of catharsis where she works through her work out loud. I don't say much at all. Just listen and occasionally drift off into my own thoughts. 

Most of it is jargon-rich corporate stuff and people who I've never met and never will. I don't understand most or any of it. But it helps her and I don't have much to say when we walk - just take in the natural world and the joy of the dogs.

Now and again she expresses the burden she feels, being the primary earner, the runner of the house, mother to me as well as the children, the dogs, her parents, her family.

It sometimes takes a while for me to express how I feel - to first work out the elemental message from all my thoughts and verbalise them in a way that's factual and free from emotion.

So I go quiet and she knows I'm upset.

I'm sorry she's burdened with my illness. It's not what I wanted either, and don't think I don't feel both guilty about it and grateful to you at the same time. But what am I supposed to do with this information? What do you want me to do?

Fair point.

I'm glad I expressed myself like that. It's increasingly difficult to express myself constructively as the alternative would be an irrational, emotional outburst.

I ask myself what do I want to say, what is underlying all these emotions?

It doesn't get any easier.

Elden Ring and gaming update

Love/hate relationship with Elden Ring. After 174 hours of game play. - 174! -  I'm on the last 2 bosses. I'm not expecting a good outcome. Some of them take 30-50 goes to get past. I ended up asking myself if I was enjoying or hating the game.

I left it for a couple of days and told J I had had enough. 

She looked relieved the man-child was off the console.

I was back on a day later. It is daft though. I'll be glad to complete it. However it's such a massive game world you could play another 100 hours to complete it all.

I've 2 D&D campaigns which are both in their latter halves - the Monday crew at its final chapter. 

I'm finding it more and more difficult knuckling down and properly prepping the games. I think having the temptation of The Elden Ring in the other room doesn't help.

But when reading and taking notes my eyes dart around the page and then I've lost my thread. Staying on a page is tough. Making notes is good but not if you find yourself on autopilot. You end up with notes that mean nothing.

I really have to knuckle down today and get my head round it all. Try and visualise the party in a situation, the motives of the NPCs (non-player characters who I run) and then play out possible outcomes. Of course, the players rarely do what you expect them to do but having various options gives me food for thought - it fleshes out the characters - so when the players throw me a curveball I'm more in the head of the character and can react accordingly.

Sunday afternoon - here I come!

Second Opinion

National Hospital for Neuroscience and Neurosurgery 

Monday - To the National Hospital for Neuroscience and Neurosurgery for a second opinion on my condition. 

The journey in was strange. I haven't commuted in to central London for years, so I wasn't looking forward to the crush of commuters. The legacy of lockdown is that people are working from home, and we got seats on the train to Waterloo and the Underground. Really weird, for someone like me who took the tube for decades to see the change.

When we arrived we were seen immediately and went into an office with 2 neurosurgeons and Speech and Language Therapist god, Anna Volkmer. We were later joined by Professor Walker himself who asked very specific questions and suggested to us that he thinks something else is going on with me. Not just FTDsv and FTDbv but something else.

I did a load of memory tests recalling numbers and pictures, physical tests with one of those hammers to test reactions and also tests to determine my coordination. At one stage there was a huge amount of talking in the corridor which made me unable to concentrate on a visual test and I shouted "Can someone make the noise stop?" Christ.

As J said, it was good they saw that, as I flew through many of the tests with flying colours.

I then had more extensive testing by a neuropsychologist for a further 90 minutes. Very tired by the end.

I'm having an MRI scan soon and a lumbar puncture to ascertain what other stuff is going on. J reckons it could be Lewy Body Dementia but it will all be revealed in due course.

Step this way sir...

It was a bit of a pisser to hear this - that there is another dementia prevalent. But after 15 minutes I was fine with it, having stoically absorbed it.

It's the others closest to you who suffer more with the anxiety of it all. 

You've been avoiding me.

Remember me? 

Nice guy up the road. He has a spaniel too. We used to stop and chat. Have a middle-aged bloke moan. All good natured. I saw him the other day. He said "Hiya!" and turned right to go up the main road. I'm pretty sure that's not the way he intended to go as the park entrance is on the adjacent road, where he was originally heading.

I don't think he wanted to make contact.

I've had that on social media too. People I thought I had a long history of friendship with: those friends and acquaintances separated by distance or time who you knew really well back in the day. You'd been through formative experiences together, helped each other, fallen out, fallen back in; all the stuff friends do.

Silence from some. I can't help but feel disappointed when that happens. 

A few people (and they are a minority) didn't send me a text or post on Facebook when I did my dramatic "Notification of Dementia" Facebook post back, whenever it was. 

One family in particular really disappointed me by an almost total absence of communication. 

I guess some old friends probably feel awkward, or they may be thinking well, he was always a bit of faux-pas merchant or a loose canon; he must be bloody mental now. 

Or simply 'what do I say?, 'what can I say?'

That's me on the left and you on the right.

The fact is I haven't changed markedly since we last spoke. I am going downhill in many ways, but not so as you'd notice. Not superficially at least.

I still read the paper, have an opinion on almost everything. Yeah - still the same. 

Just more emotional, forget words, absent-minded. That kind of thing. Can't do noise - children's birthday parties would be hell.

(And the rest, but I won't go into details here.)

But it would be nice to see you. 😜

You shall not pass!

Help, I'm becoming Toby Young

 One thing about FTD is that you end up with no friends as you piss everybody off and when you die no one comes to your funeral. With my last couple of blog posts this aspect of the disease is coming more to fore. I find it hard to not fixate on certain people and I care less about what others think - not that I care nothing - it's that I don't understand immediately why something is offensive or how it could be hurtful.

So I deleted certain content about one particular person who I'd begun to hate as it's totally counterproductive to this blog and what its original intention was, which was to help people understand my neurological condition.

Jacqui and I originally had a name of the dementia - we called it Piers (as I dislike both Pierses Morgan and Corbyn, it made sense) and it enabled us to laugh about it, making the distinction between 'me' and 'it'.

Recently it appears that Piers is trying to dominate Geraint. This has been pointed out to me in no uncertain terms by J. 

Now I get it. Henceforth I'll make a concerted effort to look for the signs and try and head him off at the pass, Gandalf-style.

Ya Balrog bastard!

This is the reality of FTD. It's the nasty vicious side of the disease; the disappointing sequel without the laughs. 

I'm not looking forward to this or the effect it has on those around me. I have to try my utmost to recognise the signs and develop coping strategies. 

It's getting difficult.

Pick's Disease or Semantic Variant?

When we received the diagnosis back in December 2020 it was FTD Semantic Variant with a little bit of Frontal Lobe degradation. I now believe it's the opposite way round.

Pick's Disease as it used to be known, or Behavioural Variant (FTD BV) is when the Frontal Lobe which controls behaviour shows Pick Bodies and Pick Cells. The long and the short of it is that behaviour-wise it  manifests as apathy but also in impulsiveness and disinhibition.

It's the most common after Alzheimer's, which is a little bit disappointing as I thought I belonged to a more exclusive club...

The SV part is characterised by a loss of semantic understanding. I've mentioned before that if you ask me a point blank question like "What have you been doing this last week?" I stall - I can't think. I also grasp at certain words, but that aspect doesn't seem to have worsened in the last year.

For example yesterday, I ran a 4-hour long D&D session and played the parts of the characters. And then I came home and when I'm no longer in the zone I fire off a blog entry I think is really good and end up naming names and saying outrageous stuff and pissing off people I care about, as well as presumably those I don't.

I just need to retain a level of mindfulness about the here and now. Ask how my words could backfire. I know to others it's obvious, but it's getting less and less obvious to yours truly.

Miserable Bastard

Annie get yer gun

My friend Annie is an excellent photographer and great businessperson. We live in close proximity but hadn’t seen each other since lockdown. We met up for a coffee and I cheekily asked her if she would put my blog site on her Facebook feed to her 1700-odd followers/friends.

My intention was quite selfish really. I want to get my blog out and get the numbers up. 

The reaction I got wasn’t what I expected. 

I wanted them to say how hilarious and brilliant it was. No.

People were very caring and kind. And also the numbers were quite small. 

I think part of the problem was the post they first hit on was the one previous to this, and it’s probably one of the least good (crap in other words) posts I’ve written.

I guess the other problem was people (myself included) don’t want to read stuff that will bring them down.

So in answer to the lovely compliments, I can provide the following reality check…

Sensitivity

Brave. No. I’m quite cowardly. Although when it comes down to it, instead of being a dribbling retard on a commode, give me a bullet to the head any day.

Journey Makes it sound like a noble cowboy on horseback wandering towards the sunset, like Alan Ladd at the end of Shane. It’s very romantic but the reality it’s more of piss-up in the wind.

Generous. Well, I buy my rounds and I’ll help people just as I would like to think they would help me. But in this context I think generous is the wrong word. I don’t think I’m being generous  - in fact I think calling me generous is being very generous indeed! 

I’m doing a blog as I’m quite good at writing, I find it easy, and it gives me something to do when I’m not working. Also, I don’t feel after my diagnosis I have anything to lose really, and any adulation is gratefully received. 

Quite selfish really.

Sorry to anybody reading this. But my diagnosis doesn’t make my motives or persona more noble. It’s just a thing I have and I write about it. I’m no better than you. Unless your name is Xxxxxx Xxxxxx..

Mandelbrot Cat Syndrome

Mrs Malaprop, I presume?

Over breakfast, Jacqui said she wasn't sure whether Stanley had pooped or not when she took the dogs out. (Stanley is a dog by the way, not an elderly relative.) It made me think of the cat metaphor, where there is a cat in the box who may be dead but also alive and the 2 can be simultaneous in the quantum world, but what is the threshold where the quantum world is superseded by reality and once you open the box you have either a live or dead cat?

What's it called? I'm trying to think of it, and all I can think of is *MANDELBROT CAT SYNDROME. And I know it's wrong but I can't think of the real name for it.

Come on come on....type in 'cat physics'. Of course it's Schrödinger's Cat.

Reminded me of that scene in The Office where they're doing a pub quiz and the question is 'Who has been president of Cuba since 1959?', and David Brent said Fray Bentos, which has proven to be a massive spanner in the works. No one can think of the answer and people are super annoyed at Brent.

Leader of Cuba 1959-2008

It's true though - the actual answer is much more evasive after a daft but similar-sounding answer is given in its place. 

I'm going start assembling the daft things I say from now on. 'Dimensions' keeps substituting itself for 'dementia'. I'll try and keep a log of these. Another word is 'Initiative', which in RPGs comes up all the time, and I keep forgetting it and all that comes out is 'er, er, er, er, er, um.' I end up having to look at the character sheets as I know where to look for the word.

*DISCLAIMER: not strictly a Malapropism, but almost.

It's Christmas!!!!

Tomorrow I'm going to see my Mum and Dad and my sister and nephew. I haven't seen them for months. Christmas was a disaster for us because -  like many families - one of us got Omicron and it scuppered visiting. That person was yours truly.

Nephew (not sure I'm allowed to say his name online) is a top gamer so I thought I'd take some stuff down with me. He's a great lad and I really enjoy spending time with him. He knows his uncle has this neurological condition and he was really sad when he found out, and that made me sad.

Anyway, I suddenly felt Christmassy at the prospect. I imagined Christmas trees and baubles and presents opened with wrapping everywhere and smiles and laughter. 

That made me feel a lot warmer inside. 

When emoting goes wrong

Many say "Oh I do that!" and words to the effect of  "Join the club!" when I tell them I can't remember words or can't start a job, or get increasingly flustered at starting a seemingly mundane task.

The thing is yes, we all have our foibles that get worse with age - forgetfulness and so forth, and with some of us we go through our lives with that particular bar set quite low - common examples would be poor spelling and absent-mindedness. 

People say I started off quite high in many regards, but I know certain aspects were always low. For example:

1. my propensity to procrastinate for things I wasn't interested in (covers 90% of everything)
2. low- attention span
3. total failure to really embrace modern capitalism
4. intolerance for entitlement (the irony of living in SW London!)
5. intolerance for teenagers
6. intolerance for...(I could go on ad infinitum but will stop here)
7. occasional social faux pas - although I'm keeping the Dalai Lama's advice to say nothing unless it's better than silence (when I remember to...)

These have all gotten (even) worse in the past few years, apart from #3 which has always been a flat-liner.

People say "well, I was always a poor speller" or "I'm forgetful too". 

But when you could previously do things to a certain level and you see those abilities diminish, it's not really much comfort when someone says they were never very good at them either. It's done with good intent, to quell the significance of the problem. 

'It's just a thing.' 

'It's not the end of the world.' 

'I get on okay without it.'

But it is significant to you because it's part of who you are or who you were. And now it's going or gone.

Something you used to find easy or automatic is no longer the case and that can be very frustrating.

So next time someone in a chronic condition says they're having difficulty with something, think before you say something well-meaning as what they hear might be something different to what was intended. 

And this is intended for me more than anyone. I am the biggest hypocrite in this regard as I often say clumsy things to people I would never like to be the recipient of.

And finally...

I didn't want to leave on a sanctimonious note, so changing the subject...

...I hate this time of year as gloomy old Winter stubbornly drags its heels, refusing to hand over to Spring.

By February/ March we've all had enough of the gloomy, short, cold days and are eager for signs of Spring. The days are getting longer now, and the trees will soon be in bud, but like anything you're desperately waiting for it, takes twice as long to arrive...! So it was great to see all the daffodils are out everywhere, bringing colour and joy to our lives. 

Come on Spring, do your thing!

Hope

Sorry to bore you but...

Executive (Mal)Function

Oh dear me. 

This is one of those posts where I start writing not really knowing where I want to go. What did I do today? Well, I walked the dogs with J first thing, then I looked for my keys for over an hour, trying (successfully) not to get angry with myself. I found them in the box containing my toiletries. J's bought me a locator thing so I can trace them if...no WHEN it next happens. I know we all do it now and again but it happens with increasing regularity. It seems there are fewer compartments in my brain with which to multi-task. 

So after I did that I watched the latest Louis Theroux episode about hard right trolls in America, and then some of his other stuff, like the ones about Westboro Baptist Church. I am rather fascinated about cults and the psychology of how they recruit and keep their members.

Alt-right internet nasty person

I'm watching TV as it's safe. Safer than doing anything right now as I don't trust myself. 

As regards my view on Mr Theroux's latest programme, it's amazing how thin skinned and pathetic the subject matter are when confronted face-to-face. And none of them can produce facts to back up their assertions. Their whole shtick ranges from demagoguery to vile and pathetic threats and rants. They are a sad bunch of bitter people who would benefit from therapy. 

What a shame the internet enables their connection with other similar people.

Google Indexed me!!

I am now not only online but I can be searched on Google. These are 2 seperate things. If like me you are starting a blog, you fill out the form with your details, write your post, and you can send a link to people who can also see your blog on the internet. Brilliant.

However, being on the internet doesn't mean Google's search engine looks for you. It doesn't register your existence so it can't find you. Only by 'indexing' you - something you can speed up by requesting it - can you be searched for.

This was news to me.

Luckily a person I live with who can't be named for legal reasons, set this up for me as despite me complaining about them in previous posts, they are essentially a very nice person with a great brain. 

Thank you anonymous person.

Writers' Block

I've been writing a new part of my long-term Dungeons and Dragons adventure (known as a 'campaign') linking disparate modules (single adventures ) and trying to get a hook or hooks to stick them all together. I've got the overarching narrative for the next few sessions and it's all coming together in my mind. With every day the vision becomes clearer and clearer.

However, writing it is easier said than done. I look at my notes and just can't start to write it. I don't know why.

I'm also dribbling out of the side of right side of my mouth a bit more - a higher yield of saliva. 'Gusting!

It may be because I only slept about 6 hours last night. It may not be. I am tired though.

I notice these incremental changes and it’s a bit depressing to be honest. How could it not be?

Enough already.