I am mental

I tried therapy twice. Here is what I found out:

1. Group therapy, Highgate, 2004.  

Group therapy is mental.  You sit in a room in North London (usually Highgate) and stare at some very good watercolours and nice Kilims whilst fellow members of the middle class talk about their problems. You have to call it "Group", and you are not allowed to talk to people from Group on the walk to the Underground after Group; nor are you allowed to acknowledge their existence if you happen to be seated at the table next to them at Cafe Rouge in Covent Garden.

I stopped doing it after 3 months because I found it embarrassing and weird and only liked one other person there, even though 'liking' people most definitely isn't the point.  Oddly, the first time the therapist (a terrifying Doctor from the Tavistock Centre with extravagant beads, a therapist husband and no doubt the most bonkers children in North London) smiled was when I said I was leaving. (I may have read something into that.)

2. One-on-One, Highgate, 2005

This was more like it for two reasons: 

1. You got to lie down.

2. You didn't have to listen to anyone else, feel guilty for thinking they're a twat and then struggle with the fact that you're too polite/nice to tell them to shut the fuck up and why when, in fact, that is the whole point of Group (as far as I can see). 

This was quite good and if anyone ever says: "do you want some free therapy with a proper therapist, not some new-age bellend?", say 'yes!' and go.  She was into Freud and all of that so I got to talk about dreams and the id and ego and conscious and subconscious (which my husband, a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who is a 'real' scientist says does not exist), which was quite interesting. I didn't do it for long because of an incident involving...

3. The Oldest Therapist in the World

The nice lady (see above) sent me to see a man to make sure I wasn't depressed. I didn't think I was, but we thought it was worth checking. 

Like Therapist 1 and Therapist 2, he also lived in a huge house in Highgate, filled with very nice paintings, interesting Scandinavian furniture and Kilims (because all therapists are millionaires with good taste).  

I was late because he was in a bit of Highgate I had never been to before; being late when you are going to see a therapist is a million times worse because you feel that they will say something like you are CLEARLY subconsciously RESISTING the WORK you must DO, when clearly they aren't, and are probably just thinking, Oh it's raining and the traffic is bad, maybe I'll have a cup of tea while I'm waiting.

Anyway, I digress. We had a nice conversation. 

Man: Do you think you are depressed?

Me: No, I don't.  I just wonder ... what it's all about, really. 

Man: My dear girl, man has been asking that question since the dawn of time. And I rather think that if Socrates and his friends couldn't work it out, there is no reason why you should. 

After that, I was declared Not Mental and stopped going to see therapists in Highgate.

Seven years later, I am wondering if I am in fact mental. Here is why: I am working like a dog. I am doing exactly the things that are not good for the brain: I am not sleeping enough, I am not eating well, I am not doing exercise. I am not writing my web-blog, watching enough back episodes of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", or cooking everything in Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  I do not see my husband enough (he is a sociopath so it suits him). I do not write enough letters to friends, or spend enough time staring out of the window. I have four more 3-hour sessions of laser hair removal to have on my legs, and a house in France I can stay in that I rarely ever go to. I have a friend in Glasgow I would like to see, and god-children near Brighton I would like to see too; on top of that, I have a new niece in Amsterdam I must see, urgently and soon. 

None of these things are possible at the moment. What is possible at the moment is conference calls at 7am and 9.30pm, and trips to Austin one week, Singapore the week after, and Brazil the week after that. (NB: travelling for work is not glamourous or fun. Anyone who tells you it is has never travelled for work.)  It is not much fun, and we are all very tired indeed. 

There are reasons why. What we have been doing has been very, very difficult, and very, very difficult is often also very, very interesting.   I am very fond of the people I work with.  We are highly amused by each other, most days.  

But I haven't written on my web-blog for months and months it is probably because I undeserving of the very name "Non-workingmonkey".   I am doing all the things I know are VERY bad for me, but can't stop doing it.  See? Mental. 

Some beaver shots

We went away for the weekend to a hotel made of wood.  I saw a bear. I went in a canoe. I did not die.  I went to a Buckwheat Pancake festival, and stuffed one with a sausage.


I fulfilled a life-long ambition and saw a beaver (called Carlo) -  thanks to a magnificent Beaver Safari, the enjoyment of which was marred only by a ghastly German woman with gigantic teeth running through the undergrowth in incomprehensible trousers.

The French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) was coerced into driving action by an ancient trapper in a hat covered in Fleurs-de-Lys.

Trapper: Can you drive a jeep?
Pathologist: Yes.
Trapper: Good. I have 14 Spaniards. I will take them. You will take the Germans and the Canadians.

Here are some photographs. You may like them. You may not. Fingers crossed!

Steve Jobs

2 questions:

1. Should I bring this web-blog back from the dead?

2. If I apply 'dynamic view' and I decide I hate it, can I easily revert to "old style", i.e. like it is now?

I am in an airport

I am in the airport known as JFK waiting for a flight to Sao Paolo. It is a six hour wait, which is quite long.  From Sao Paolo, I will go to Porto Alegre, and from there, to a suburb and an office. We are unlikely to see much of Porto Alegre, although it has (apparently) an enchanting late Victorian central market, where I could (if I wished) buy gee-gaws and sparkling items, and outfits with which to dress up as a goucho.

On Thursday I will take a 6am flight from Porto Alegre and go to New York. I will be there for 3 days.  I will have some meetings and some dinners with old friends, and my "husband", the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) and I will wander the streets and possibly sleep. We will have dinners. I will not go to either Eileen Fisher or Anthropologie and buy everything in both shops (especially not the plates). We will fly back to Burlington, again, and from there we will drive home.

Anyhoo. I have been visiting things. Here are my reviews.

Miami
Hot as all hell and like in the pictures. Lots of ladies with scrawny bodies and sun damage. They have heads like horses and eyes brimming with despair. I think they should eat some cakes and not spend so much time on pedicures and all of that.  Lots of French people and Quebec people in the W being knobbers.  Didn't see much of it, to be fair; spent most of the time buying emergency projectors for $700 and sweating.  The Standard is where I would stay if I had to go to Miami again for work. It has views of the lake, Chinese ladies singing jazz, yoga twats in $500 outfits, and millionaire hipsters sitting in swing seats, drinking ironic beer.  

Austin
Hot as hell and not like anything else. It is great and people really do wear boots, even when it's hot.   I had Mexican food there and it was brilliant.  There are hippies there and all of that.  On my first day there I was offered a beer, a discussion about Lakeland terriers and threatened with a gun within 3 minutes by the same people - a generously butch couple fresh from their holidays in the Isles of Lesbos, who I intend to visit next time I am 'in town' (week after week after next). I go there a lot so it's just as well I like it.  Austin is a bit like Montreal and Amsterdam. People don't give a shit and don't sneer. I like that in a city.


Burlington
I hate Burlington and I've never even seen it. I just go to the airport and get picked up my by "husband' (a man who is an intriguing mix of sociopath and saint), or driven from there to my house by a serial killer called Don who lives in his van and has a girlfriend called Betty who eats crips and rides shotgun (with me paying).   When Don gets lost (which is often), he ignores his GPS, maps and me and chooses instead to call his friend Merv, who reads extracts from Wikipedia to him via a hands-free device patented by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1984. Last time, we were 3 hours late.

Montreal
This is where I live now, except I am not really seeing much of it because I am working all the time.  It is my choice to work, but I am not managing to remain truly non-working in my heart, which is an ishoo, as I am sure you will agree.

Enough of that.  I am in the "Skylounge" with only 2 hours to go until my 11 hour flight to Brazil boards. I am grateful I am in a 'lounge' and not downstairs. I am eating free peanuts and drinking free wine, and being called madam.  It is, of course, the beginning of the end.  I do not like corporate hotels, but I am consciously choosing a certain type of hotel to collect points. The only place I want to go is home, or maybe Stockholm for a holiday, but I get cross when the work travel agency forget to redeem my flight points against my 3 different cards.

It is odd to see them written down, those things. Even when I do them I am aware they are ridiculous, but for a while, this is what I have chosen to do.  But I must confess that it is nice to be writing with my tiny little monkey hands again. Tap tap tap.

Pip "tap tap" pip

NWM

Items of moderate interest

I have been to Miami of late.  Called a "fucking shit" by a cab driver with one leg, I drank too much tequila and nearly fell in the hotel pool.

The next day, returning to Canada via Burlington (for reasons too distressing to relate), I was followed on two flights by a woman with the kind of voice that causes parts of  your skull to shrink closer to your brain to protect it from bad forces. "I saw something so cool outside Target this morning", she said. "A man with only a head and a torso, on a stand. No arms. No legs. Just a head and a torso, on a stand. Sad. But also SO COOL. Do you want a breakfast burrito?"

Her children did not want a breakfast burrito. Nor did the "maid", or her husband, Eric.

I will write more in a minute. I have to go and eat a tortilla. I am scared.

I am going full-tilt with the 'holiday snaps'

Actual house where we are staying. All of England looks exactly like this.

"I tell you who would find this interesting. Graham. He loves this sort of thing."

We did not see any froglets.

Old pots and stuff.

Bee things.

Gigantic English bee.

Gigantic sandwiches.

N-Dubz is my favourite food, too

There is a lot going on in Cornwall.

I supply more photographs of my 'holiday'

Vanity!!!

We didn't, but only because it is illegal to take bulbs back to Canada and, as everyone knows, I am very law-abiding (apart from the whole hams)

I do not wish to view Rolf Harris' new works. Also, since when did he paint with his mouth?

I am on holiday

It has been "all over the gaff" on the internet front, but now I am in a place called Shop, and BT are offering me the internets for only fifteen British pounds for five days.  It is great! Last week we went to  Llandudno for a bit (i.e.  4 hours). It is quite amazing: there are over three (3) shops hiring out those mobility scooter things, and sometimes game old gentlemen get stuck in pub doorways trying to execute a three point turn. I do not have photographic evidence of that, but I do have other photographs. Here are some of them:

There will be more. Until then I remain, in this, as in all weathers,

NWM

I cannot blog

... Even though I would like to, because for some reason I have booked cottages and B&Bs without the internets for our holiday. iPhones are nice and that but not good for stuff with many words. And I making no comment about how many books I have read, etc.

I will try and post some photosnaps or something.

Pip pip!

NWM