Topsy Turvey, Man Flu

It is the long awaited Easter Weekend, and in typical fashion, when you wait a long time for something, it never quite turns out the way you expect it to.

Expecting a busy, but not unpleasantly so week, woke up on Tuesday feeling like my ribs had had a good kicking from the inside out. One of those days when you don't so much worry that you might not survive, but worry that you will. When I'm ill, I feel like all the times I have ever been ill are joined up together, so in effect I'm eight, sick and miserable.

Managed to make it back to work for Thursday, though not exactly feeling sparkling. Woke on on Friday feeling as if I had eaten half my tongue!

My wife has been suffering through this bug for the last fortnight, and I have been doing my best to avoid her, so now that it has finally caught up with me, it probably won't be going any time soon. One of my daughters had a friend over for a sleepover, but she too is coming down with the bug, and she too was fading out by the end of what should have been a wonderful time.

The weather too has been similarly afflicted. Our dog had been missing out on the odd walk, so I was keen to take him out for a decent walk yesterday. However the sky was that threatening grey that means it is full of snow. The wind whipped along behind us, and then the snow started up. All of this of no consequence as long as it followed us, but of course you need to come back from your walk, so the second half inevitably meant walking back, into a face-full of skin cutting hail. I was pretty miserable with my hat pulled down over my face, the poor dog, it must have been abject for him.

Now waking up, the ground outside is covered in snow!! Easter and the place is covered in snow.

In view of the whole general not wellness sort of thing, and the miscellaneous feeling sorry for self type issues, I'm not aiming too high at the moment. Satisfied to just plod on, rather than trying to change the world.

Although there are still further enhancements possible to my family IT set up, I think that I will probably more of less wind up the expansion of our IT facility at the moment. I could probably manage to run a thirty metre ethernet cable upto the girls room to provide them with the internet. There are other things that would be nice, wifi, more hard drives, a USB hub, more fonts, but there is always an endless list of such things, and the bulk of my objectives have now been met.

Anyway, with the good weather [note irony mode] I will need to get out into the garden, and there is a housefull of DIY to contend with as well.

Elsewhere, pleased to see that Throw Me The Statue have now appeared on iTunes, I downloaded a handfull of their tracks a while ago, and have been listening to them a lot. So I was keen to get the full Moonbeams album, and it looked like I would need to actually buy a CD from Amazon. It was their track Conquering Kids that first struck me, it sounds like one of those classic tracks that has always been there. The others that I've been listening to are Lolita and Yucatan, which did not grab me so immediately, but have become gradually more compelling. A first listen through to the album did not grab me too much, but it is probably one that grows insidiously on you.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I would recommend that you simply do a quick google on Throw Me The Statue, and download Conquering Kids, you won't be dissappointed.

Also on the web, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats has had to cancel his tour of Australia, citing health issues, though not clear whether it is him or close family. On the one hand there is the tabloid urge to hear the dirt, but these are real people with real lives too, and the only humane option is to wish him all the best. My thoughts are with him and his family. Probably worth noting, that if it had not been for the Mountain Goats, I probably would not have written a lot of the poetry that I have been writing recently. Like the very best of art, not only is the work of the Mountain Goats inspiring, it is also empowering.

Also in my browsing of the internet, struck by the short summary of the life of Italo Svevo, the author of Confessions of Zeno. He wrote a couple of self published novels, but never enjoyed much success. His novels are early stream of consciousness works, but like Tristam Shandy or the Sarragossa Manuscripts, it is literary inventiveness put to the service of splendidly entertaining tales.

His most famous work is about a rather unsatisfactory person, who lies to his therapist, and never has the courage to actually give up smoking, forever obsessing on his last cigarette. The author himself smoked all his life, and on his deathbed, joked that he would like a cigaratte, promising that it would be his last, but was refused.

Also looking at the rather haphazard lives of the people that write and draw for 2000AD, which I have been reading since around prog 350. I wrote a short strip for them years ago, and if I had been more conscientious/talented, might have written more. Maybe there is an alternate universe out there, where there is an alternate me, writing comic strips rather than working for the government. The beauty of writing, is that you can live anywhere to do it. So the usual monetary conditions don't apply, as long as you don't starve, you could live well on a relatively modest income.

Finally, very upset to hear that one of the members of the community group I'm on, lost his wife last week. I could not make the funeral, but my thoughts are certainly with him. You always think that the future will be incident free, but the challenges you face are never the ones you are prepared for, we should prize each moment we have together, there is nothing more finite.