Bore.
Writing yesterday about a moment of loneliness ... well, a good night's sleep and that nonsense is in the past.

Today is the first day of Spring, apparently, and it is snowing with alarmist local weather reports about keeping a shovel in your car at all times. When it was warmer a couple of weeks ago I replanted a lot of primroses artistically on the banks of the two 'drives' down to the house. They are all flowering and budding and seem totally oblivious to the fact that they are straining to keep their heads above inches of ice. They aren't even meant to come out for another month .. how brave and cheerful they are .. what a lesson for us all. Or ... a lesson in how making a superhuman effort to do something not only beyond the call of duty but also completely unnecessary may well lead to your death. This is not unlike my own life philosophy.

After the evening of loneliness I spent a little time reflecting on what the f.ck I AM doing here. The thing is that I can't actually think of anything that I really want to do. I don't have to work for money .. and if I did would that be a salvation? How many people really enjoy their work? How many would stay on if they won the l0ttery? I don't want to be famous because I have finally realised that the only good thing about it would be the money and the rest ... chat shows, fans, mean newspaper articles etc.. would be torture. And I don't want to help animals in a hands-on way because I find that sort of sadness completely unbearable .. it has to be the long-distance cheque option.

And I don't want to help people because ... I don't care enough. Placed in a one-to-one 'I am so unhappy and desperate' scenario .. I am actually renowned for kindness and hours of listening and .. indeed .. offers of money. But there is always 'another me' standing in the room thinking 'For f.ck's sake. Stop being so self-indulgent and feeble. Where is your sense of humour ... get a grip'. I don't include coping with the deaths of family members or close friends here, obviously. Or cats. Once it moves outwards to hordes of unattractive strangers then that is it for me.

I have lived quite a varied life with many ups and downs of money and jobs and types of friends. This has taught me that most people are quite crappy ... and not 'nice' or heroic or even .. horrors .. totally honest. I am surprised that I can still be surprised at the depths to which humans can sink. I think that everyone is born selfish and has to be taught to be 'decent' .. and that seems to be happening less and less. In no way do I believe that there is 'good' in everyone.

Not only that but huge numbers of people are massively boring .. filled with unoriginal opinions and chunks of regurgitated media rubbish and excruciating sentimentality. Why is it so odd to prefer to read books and watch the better TV programmes than sit around enduring conversations that make you want to scream or you find you have tuned out? It was when I found that I needed a large number of strong drinks to get through all the social events that I was attending and the first thing I ever said to a visiting 'friend' was 'How about some whisky?' that the lateral thought of 'Not seeing them anymore' rose into my brain. You may be thinking 'Why doesn't she move into another circle .. find some cleverer and more amusing friends'. Err ... these WERE supposedly some of the most intelligent and amusing people in London. Journalists, writers, artists, actors ... I don't want to sound like an assh0le (too late, probably) but I was once considered an ornament to any dinner party and not the dreary, whiny old frump who appears on these pages.

Okay .. this may not be a life that suits many people but I can manage it .. for now. I DO often wonder if there is 'more' out there ... well there must be .. but I have such a strong core of cynicism (to me this is a virtue) that I really have no idea how to find the way forward.
- posted by Iris @ 3/01/2006 11:17:00 AM comment