(no subject)

[caddyman]

I have just noted, reading through my friends list, just how many people are feeling ill, or thinking about feeling ill, or are stressed or depressed.

Even I, your sunny-natured correspondent has recently taken time off work with stress and hypertension.

Ladies and Gentlemen. What the fek is going on here? I live in one of the top seven richest countries in the world. Everyone on my friends list lives in at least the top ten. We can feed and clothe ourselves and have a roof over our heads. We have enough free time and disposable income to be able to sit and navel gaze like professionals.

So, I ask again. What the fek is going on? Why are we all stressed/miserable/distressed/frightened etc etc etc?

And just to jolly us out of it, who in the London area is up for a TexMex at the Café Sol in Clapham High Street in the not too distant future for a communal cathartic feed and grouch?

I don't do miserable very well, and I'm damned well fed up with it.

Let's cheer up, people!

And on that note, I go to burn a hole in a shirt for tomorrow morning, and then stand under a tepid shower.

It's something I do.

Comments

[lupercal.livejournal.com]

Amen amen amen.

r0wan was recently trawling through my old LJ posts and brought my attention to one I had forgotten writing. It's not often I see my own scribbles as anything approaching inspirational, but this one did strike a particularly resonant chord when viewing my friends list this week..

As a side note I find it amusing that the only people apparently up and posting are N.W.O writers.. co-incidence? *giggle*

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Café Sol sounds good, though rotwang won't be able to make it for the remainder of this week and all of next week; they've packed him off to the wilds of Cambridgeshire for the duration. Grumble.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

In that case I'll leave it for a minimum of two weeks! Mustn't exclude the lad. Anyway, need to see who else if anyone is interested.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

You just want to see him eat a chili and turn puce again, don't you. Well, it's understandable really ;)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Damn. Busted. ;-)

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Lead me to the chilli!

Much better today, BTW

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Wunderbar!

[boredinsomniac.livejournal.com]

I know I would be less stressed were I at home. Even though when I am home I will have unpaid internship + job and will have to support myself (and make car payments on the car I will be buying on return) and eventually pay tuition with what will be somewhat less than full-time income, I still think I will be less stressed just because I will be able to stay in one place.

I haven't spent more than five months in one place in the last 4 years. It's not like moving all the time is stressful, but it will be nice to just live somewhere and settle in. Plus, as much as I love being here and being able to travel, it is also somewhat bad because I feel that if I don't travel at every opportunity I am wasting my time. This means, of course, that I feel obligated to spend a lot of money. Thus it is that I am looking forward to being at home and not having anywhere to go, and just living like a normal non-abroad non-travelling working studying person. I'll be stressed, but it will be a more secure kind of stress.

But yes. Lately I have been realizing how lucky I really am - it's corny, but just things like having a bed to sleep in and not having to worry that I might starve to death tomorrow, and how if I do run out of money on my travels "running out of money" just means "I guess I'll have to go ahead and use the credit card even though I didn't want to resort to that." and how I always have someplace to go back to no matter what happens. I have a lot of safety nets and a lot of good fortune to which I have been largely oblivious until recently.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Spring let-down maybe? I read somewhere that suicide spikes in the Spring rather than during the winter holidays as people tend to believe, supposedly because if you're depressed and everyone around you is getting a little lift from the nice weather and you're not, it just seems that much worse.

FWIW, I'm feeling fine if a little irritable.

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be on top of the bloody world in a week and a half, but until then everything is bad.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

There's a wonderful exchange in Rushdie's The ground beneath her feet between a patriarch and his aging servant. The patriarch has just returned from London and the servant is peppering him with questions about life in Britain: Is it true that Britons are paid money if they cannot work? Is it true that doctors treat them for free? The patriarch keeps answering "Yes" until the servant breaks down and exclaims, "Then why is anyone there ever unhappy?" But we are. If surveys are to be believed, we're more unhappy than poorer people. What's our deal anyway? The curse of unrealistic expectations?

[thalinoviel.livejournal.com]

Do bear in mind that I at least use livejournal for the kind of internal monologue I would normally not bore people with. Livejounal allows me to externalise it without muttering vengefully on the bus...

Yes, I know I am on track to become the mad old lady everyone knows but nobody speaks to, with either an improbable number of cats or all my gear in shopping bags.