Maybe a new look will shake the dust off things around here? I don’t like the header image (it’s not mine, comes with the template) but I need to ask a friend for help dealing with it.

So I ordered my food processor. Now, bear in mind, as I said to the lady in the health food shop when she asked if I needed any help ‘no no, I’ll just be here for ages, looking…this is my shoe shopping’. I think she understood. Anyway, food is what I enjoy ’shopping’ for, not clothes or shoes or handbags or house furnishings, (okay, I have a small soft spot for those, but when money isn’t freely available you have to prioritise), my priority is my cookery, ingredients, books and gadgets.

I started with the Cuisinart Brick Oven, then I added that kick ass blender I linked to in the last post and now, it’s the Magimix food processor. In red, because I just couldn’t help myself. I really love red things. Have a peeky here. I thought about it a long time before I went ahead and got it and I’m happy with my research and my choice. I am so terribly particular about quality (of equipment and food) and well, I’m delighted with my decision and dying to meet the new beastie in person.

You know that irritates me. This deep seated need of mine to justify what I do, why must I feel so anxious that I am understood? I know that I have made the best choice available to me with this product, so why should it bother me that someone else might not understand? Might think it was silly? I still care too much about what other people think and it’s daft really.

But I think the over-explanation comes from wanting to share the joy – I am positively joyful about this purchase, I haven’t been in a position to start buying proper cooking aids/things for ‘us’, for our home ever before. Bits and pieces here and there, but not proper big investments like this.

So I over explain because I don’t want that joy to get lost in griping, don’t want my enthusiasm turned into feeling daft or misunderstood, so I do everything I can to make sure my happy feeling is protected, insulated from any possible attack, intentional or otherwise. I don’t want any rain on my parade. But the real question is – why do I fear being misunderstood so much, why does it have the capacity to hurt me? In reality, if someone says, ‘god, why are you spending so much on  some hyped up piece of crap’, surely I can say to myself that though I appreciate where they are coming from, I know my own mind, kitchen and wishes and this is absolutely the best choice for me – the nub of the thing is – why am I getting upset that they don’t understand? Why am I upset that they can’t understand what I understand? Maybe I reincarnated from a planet where mind reading was the principle method of communication.

Anyway. Even if I don’t know why I should be able to zap this with a bit of ‘awareness’. I should be able to say, like Anthony De Mello, that I’m an ass, you’re an ass, so where’s the problem? I misunderstand people and unintentionally hurt them, so why should I expect anything more from any one else and why do I give them that power to hurt me?

I reflected and the thought that came was: but I don’t want my happy joyful thing tainted by ignorance and irritation.I don’t want to be questioned maybe? Perhaps I feel that for the other person to not just say ‘oh good for Louise, she must really feel she needs this and she’s delighted, so I’m delighted for her’, means that they’re having a go at me, trying to take my happy feeling. My happy feeling is a balloon and there they are with their critical needle, waiting to hurt me.

Hmm. So am I projecting this quality onto other people? Do I suspect motives that don’t really exist? Why have I chosen to interpret someone else’s lack of thought as a personal insult? Why does it result in upset for me? What is the nature of my hurt…

Okay, it’s a feeling of frustration, vulnerability first, a sore sort of kicked feeling below my heart, then comes the frustration, always characterised by a mental image of hands being thrown up in the air ‘not this shit again, why can’t people just cop on and think before they say things’. So there is a constant war between me that thinks about everything and the unthinking ‘world’ who does everything without thought or concern for consequence. (I’m not saying any of this is realistic, I’m just breaking down the emotions and the odd shite that goes on somewhere on the border between conscious and subconscious).

That fight has been going on for a long time within me. I think, no one else does. I analyse, everyone else just seems to act on impulse and with selfish disregard for how they’re behaviour impacts on everyone else around them. I feel things strongly, can’t stand loud noises, can’t wear socks with holes in them, everyone else characterises me as ‘particular’, ‘overly sensitive’. But why in the name of all that is good am I fighting with this imaginary everyone? It must be within myself. It must be me that this war really emanates from. I am trying to mold reality perhaps, I have a delusional concept of how the world should work, what people should be like. Or perhaps it’s because I was bullied and I haven’t shaken the damage. Perhaps those thought processes and reactions got so embedded that they are habit now and everyone is a bully, friend, indifferent stranger – anyone that hurts me is a bully – anything that hurts is like being bullied, disliked, feeling different and ostracized. Hence the overreaction. Not a bad suggestion actually.

I’m retraining myself in general. Trying not to get lost in the future or the past, trying to be present in the moment. Trying not to war with reality. Trying to listen to my body, unclench myself standing in grocery queues. Trying to remember all the time, with everyone, that though they might be annoying me or hurting me, no matter who they are, I would climb through broken glass to help them if they were in a car crash. We are all dying, we are all hurt, we are all told to be more than we are when all that we can be is already inside us. Compassion and love are the balm to soothe the inevitable knocks, the key to unlocking the hurts and letting them fly off.

I must be a terribly suspicious person, but I can’t help raising an eyebrow when I see I’m being googled, three different hits today alone with my name and either this town, my occupation or my diet…hmm…reveal yourself googly-snooper!

Anyway, as you’ll no doubt have noticed it’s been an eon since I wrote here last. Plenty happened, plenty of very exciting things happened, and in general, I didn’t want to write about any of it. I may not still, but if I don’t try I wont find out.

Today we had a nice trip into town where I bought something I really would have never thought I would buy, that naffest of naff 70’s fad kitchen articles: a Fondue set. Of course I had to change the name to ‘Dippydoo set’. I finally got Joanne Stepaniak’s The Ulitmate Uncheese Cookbook on Friday and I’m delighted with myself. I’ve made a mac’n'cheese from it, a cheese spread for toasties and an alfredo sauce using cannellinis and sweetcorn to create the cream sauce. It’s my idea of heaven, healthy wholefood that tastes like it’s sinful but that you can eat a massive pile of because you know it’s not in the least bit bad for you, rather the opposite. And frankly the mad scientist in me loves mixing up the concoctions in my blender and seeing what they come out like, it can all get a bit playdough factory at times, and I love my blender (I bought it around the same time as the Cuisinart brick oven but I didn’t blog it, you can have a look at it here if you’re inclined, I highly recommend it, stuff comes out like whipped velvet).

I got a job lot of cookery books over the weekend actually, the sterling/euro conversion is favourable at the moment so it was time to buy all those long coveted vegan classics from Amazon, including The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook which I’ve wanted since the very start. It tells you how to make your own Tempeh from scratch, it covers all the basics, soy yoghurt, milk, tofu…the whole shebang (is that how you spell it?).

I also got a diddy little ‘Deli Jar’ in Tkmax, gorgeous orange glass lid (kilner style) and a plump little glass body embossed with fruit and leaf shapes and a great heavy gauge very small baking tray for the small oven, perfect for two pies, sausages, baked tofu for sarnies or whatever.

Cookery has really become one of the greatest passions in my life, in fact, when I’m finished writing here I’m going for a good hard google to decide for once and for all what food processor to buy (the old one can’t even puree cannellini beans to a smooth consistency – seriously, that’s bad).

The other passion, is of course, the mogs. And Boy have they been interesting this month. I need to write that up over at t’other place though, it’s detailed and not for here for various reasons. Will post a single line here when it’s done, which will be whenever I can motivate myself to go up there and fiddle around with flashcards and photoshop.

Right,time to go watch the Xtra Factor, Benny can’t stand Holly Whatserface so I keep it for myself – I love the behind the scenes stuff.

Take care all, x

(found via http://reponere.com/walloffluff.php thanks to Gord for the suggestion)

email me if I haven’t sent you a reminder where the secret hiding place is

I had an interesting dream last night, particularly considering I had just put down a book on Carl Jung before going to sleep in which he recounted a dream about a house and took it to represent the psyche.

True to form I had a hotel, complete with business conference facilities, migrant families, student accommodation (large apartments which had access from a communal stairs or an internal one – I chose the communal hoping not to be seen, I had a key to this ‘other world’ hidden side of the hotel because of a previous job and I knew I could bluster if I was found but I didn’t want to be.

On my travels I walked past a window which particularly grabbed me. It looked out over a meadow, with beautiful red, cornflower blue and yellow and pink flowers. At first when I looked out my depth of field wasn’t working and I thought they were trees on a high hill, then I realised they were tiny flowers on a small rolling hill. I stopped to savour them, thinking something along the lines of, ‘I’ll take some deep breathes and be still and meditate on this’. As I continued to look a mountain became apparent in the distance and I immediately felt that warm ‘ah, so you came back, I know you’ feeling. It was a mountain like a fang, with that sculpted side like a canine – sweeping up on one side to a point. I deeply recognised this mountain and took it as a Buddhist sign/symbol in the dream.  As I stood taking it in bubbles appeared in the scene, like heat waves rising off a radiator but distilled into a floating undulating, clear, yet not see-through configuration of three ‘bars’ in a sort of rectangle shape. It appeared in front of me like melting celluloid would tear apart a scene in a film. I shook my head thinking there was something wrong with my eyes but wasn’t overly perturbed by it.

I came across a bizarre lift which had material like a parachute on the outside of it and had something to do with cleaning you while you were in it. I got the feeling it was an experimental thing that the students in the building might have had something to do with. When I got out of it (it was very cramped and sort of swooshed in on you, catching at your ankles), I was in a small foyer like somewhere in an airport and a family of Arabic looking people were splayed around the seating area. There was a water cooler and I wanted a drink but all of the plastic cups were put back into place used and half filled with water. I used my hand to get as much as I could but I got my hair wet and got impatient with it.

The last part of the dream that I remember was going down to the level where the showers were and speaking with a janitor type about which ones needed to be fixed. I seemed to think two would be enough really. I had my shower and was waiting for some kind of conditioner in my hair to work, or some kind of moisturiser to do what it needed to do or whatever, when I saw my Buddhist friends come into the shower area. I told Rita to go ahead into the shower I had used as it was working perfectly (knowing I would have to wait to finish in it but wanting her to have it anyway), and I sat back against the marbled wall behind it (you couldn’t see in now!) with Rento who was engaged in some kind of computer activity on a small palm pilot type device. He said something to me but I can’t remember it.

There was a lot of other stuff in the dream but that last part is the bit I remember most. I’m particularly taken with the meditation part as I have been trying to be in the present moment as much as possible lately and it struck me as lovely to have maintained the practice even while dreaming. Similarly the ‘meadow’ is very similar to the one that I see in my buddhist meditation. There’s more I could say about it but I have to run, just had to record it here for myself and your (possible) amusement. Actually though, just reading back down through it – the lift (elevator) that cleans you is very interesting, the ‘parachute’ like exterior has a touch of the womb/cervix to it (I was fasinated by the texture of it in the dream, how it was soft and beautiful but concealed a muscular  and strong interior…

The above is a lyric from Joni Mitchell’s “Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody” a great favourite of mine. That fragment has been drifting through my mind all day.

You see, I think I know where my bad mood came from, this past few weeks. It’s something I should really recognise at this stage, but just before something big happens to me, I get into a funny mood. Sounds very flakey no doubt, but long term readers probably recognise what I’m saying. Anyway, this funky mood centred around my job at the library, the plans came in for the new library a few weeks back and it hit me rather harder than it should have that my job was about to change . I’ve been ruminating on it for the last week. I didn’t know when it would happen, I thought maybe early next year, but it upset me, realising that I would lose what I have their now. My own boss, my short hours, working alone, building the place up from scratch, getting it all shined up and running as well as possible, the particular community atmosphere – and really, that’s in no particular order, everything about the place and the job is important to me and nearly everything will change when we go to the new building. But you know, that’s the way these things go, musn’t grasp, must welcome change, improvement and so on. But I couldn’t let go of it, this nagging feeling of sadness and upset.

This morning I was told I’m going to be working in a different library, from tomorrow. Eventually I will get back to my place, but from tomorrow, I’ll be working in a different, much bigger and busier library, pretty much exactly what I’d gotten so fixated on last week. I am upset, but, I will make the most of it. I don’t want to write an awful lot more about it here and no doubt you’ve all forgotten the link to the ’secret’ blog – but I may have to resurrect it if I want to say more about this. Just had to note it here, for posterity.

Night all, x

I can’t remember if I’ve already shared this but Stephen Fry reminded me of it this afternoon (via Twitter, wish I could say it came up in our weekly catch up down the pub!)

Worth a watch again anyway, very short:

No particular reason for not writing this past week or so. Well, I’ve been feeling a little grumpy. Information overload continues and my perfectionism is melting my brains. Too personal, too involved, too emotional. But it’s how I learn and it’s what happens when I’m passionate about something. I put the foot down and point myself in the direction of becoming an expert (and get impatient when it doesn’t happen unrealistically quickly), I can’t stand to be ill-informed. It’s funny, that holistic, guts, emotions, mind combination that happens when I learn, it’s the exact thing I argued in my dissertation about Rohinton Mistry’s use of Gothic and Horror symbols/modes and how effective that tactic was in educating the reader (that’s a very short and crap way of putting it).

Sorry, I’m not writing tonight to be clear, just writing to write so that I get back into the habit.

Millie has just curled in beside me because I went over to give her some lovins on the way back from getting a glass of water. She hasn’t been feeling the best the last few days, slightly sore eye and she’s gotten a nasty cut from Sasha somewhere along the line, though it’s just a long scab on her belly now, no swelling thankfully. She also had a nasty scare when next doors pitt bull managed to get into our garden. Her tail was as wide as her body. Of all of them I trust Millie the most to get out of the way of danger, she doesn’t so much run as rematerialise in the kitchen. She is a very small cat and incredibly fast. Still though, it wasn’t nice for any of us when it happened. She’s curled up in the giant fleece blankie beside me now anyway, so, cuteness. I shall go dedicate all of my attention to her full recuperation

A lot of action this weekend, for Benny at the International Celtic Congress, for us both travelling to Letterkenny to meet with the local veg/vegan group, and a trip to Dublin for some shopping, a car service which melted my earballs upon hearing the price and a nice visit with my parents.

Back to work tomorrow, after an extended long weekend. We always want one more day, don’t we? No matter what the job.

Will be back soon, head in gigantic cloud of learning and data processing so not inclined to write.

Night all, x