Ina Disguise's Blog: New blog, page 67

Why I despise endless positivity

This was posted on facebook by an author on my friends list today.  He is probably quite well known, I find quite a lot of the authors on my timeline are fairly successful.  I objected to it, despite several of his followers applauding it.

Why? I have never experienced it, so I have no idea how that would work.  I can tell you what gives you drive as an artist, and it isn’t comfort or happiness. It is constantly questioning what you are doing and why.  It is abandoning things you spent weeks on, wasting time in order to get things right.  Sometimes it is waiting for months to move things on by an inch, particularly if there is no prior model to work from.

The food and home part, yes that is Malthusian.  The lovely people part, no.  Lovely people are less likely to challenge you, and challenge is essential for the best possible results.

He asked me to explain myself.

“Well I could tell you a story, but it would probably involve drama, conflict and negativity.”  My idea being that any decent story involves drama, conflict and negativity, therefore as an author he should know that comfort is REALLY BORING. Which writer improves?  The one that is told how marvellous he is by a compliant and doting companion, or the one that is challenged and stimulated?

Academics invite each other to argue against their hypotheses all the time.  It is done in order to strengthen the argument. Artists are also keen on discussing their methods, if they are any good.  Why then, are we spreading this complacency via crap like this?

Aging should not mean sinking into a chair being reassured that everything we do is fine.  That sounds like a swift death to me.

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Inflate your own importance

As I have probably mentioned before, one of the biggest battles you have as a shy or depressed person is the assumption that nothing that you do is remotely important, so you might as well not bother.  As somebody who was kind of forced into bothering, I can tell you that, as I suspected as an unusually positive person who has sporadic periods of melancholy, it is not true to say this.  Everything is worth trying, even if it doesn’t work.

The idea is that you rule out the hundred thousand wrong directions if you actually take them.  It doesn’t matter if there is no response or it is the wrong way, what matters is persisting in trying something new.  Most of my friends had either had trying new things beaten out of them by abusive parents and friends, or given up because of unpleasant circumstances.

Because my artwork is non-conventional, I went through twenty years of collecting wool from wherever I could get it cheapest, then finding when I actually made things I was being told not to do anything with it or that it was clearly shite, because nobody else does it.

As it turned out, within a year of showing my work it was being picked up by magazines.  Likewise with my writing, with minimal effort, I have now shifted about 30,000 books. I am not concerned about making money out of it at the moment, it just isn’t a priority, but it is 30k more books than I would have shifted if I hadn’t bothered to write or distribute them. I have also learned a lot about marketing and what people actually go for that I would not have learned if I had not bothered. (eg. Best Scandal Ever had £400 spent on marketing, and has long since been overtaken by Best Romance Ever, which I spent precisely nothing on)

In the meantime, all the naysayers that either questioned my reasons for doing it, or assumed that anything I did must be questionable just because it was me doing it still haven’t done anything.  My film director ex claims that he does not make things for an audience, and does not bother to market anything.  He will then presume to give me advice as if he knows what he is doing.

Be wary of friends and family who try to give you advice.  Please ensure that they have some actual knowledge before they assure you that you need an agent or a gallery, because chances are, especially if you are experimental, that you will hate what you have done within months of doing it.

Even when someone you are emotionally depending on, for whatever spurious reason, tries to shut you down, it is up to you to inflate your own importance.  Ignoring other people’s bullshit is by far the most important thing you can learn. From a personal perspective, had I not witnessed some of the haters of other people, I would have taken my most famous hater more seriously.

One of Wolfe’s most virulent haters was emailing me for about three years.  I was told stories daily by this person.  When I finally got fed up fielding the poison in my email, she continued to email for a further eighteen months, apparently not noticing that I had stopped replying. When I finally looked at what she was sending me, she had been sending me hate mail for months, based on a casual comment from two years before rather than any material I was putting out.  When I challenged her on it, she replied that she drank too much.

Take it from this, that slow poisons affect behaviour as much as their baggage, and you need to lose the idea that any of it matters.  I tried telling this woman that as far as Wolfe was concerned, I was rolling far bigger dice than she understood, but she did not listen to me, and neither did he.

I wish I had had the strength to understand this seven years ago, when I abandoned my work because of the rudeness of Wolfe and his team at the time.  Too bad, how sad.  I guess it is going to work out better for me though, because I would simply not have inflated my own importance to the point of even trying to do what I am doing now, which is a fairly basic case of saving my own life in the course of creating the real Ina Disguise.

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My Crazy Friends (narcissism and other problems)

Back when I had a social life, my family used to refer to my crazy friends a lot.  Each of them had different problems, none of which affected our friendships.  I have been on the same radar as these people for more than thirty years, despite many ups and downs in our relationships.

Because we do not see each other all the time, sometimes taking a break for ten years or so, it is a lot less stable, yet a lot less boring than most people.  My parents had much the same kind of relationships with their friends, so it does not seem unusual to me.

I have a parent (mother) with narcissistic tendencies, a sister with a more defined form of NPD, which appears to be more of an affectation. I have shown a marked preference for narcissists over the years.  It is easy, I know the rules, I don’t expect anything, so I guess I keep doing the same thing. My father, who I resemble far more than my mother, was more empathetic and introverted, and so I was basically brought up with the idea that we had some jobs, the benefit of which meant we did not have to talk to anyone.  You need a lot of rests when dealing with people who believe that the world revolves around them.

A cursory look at the material on Youtube related to narcissism, is that a lot of it is not particularly good.  Some of it, in fact, consists of people over-analysing things about their relationships that aren’t worth noticing.  What they perceive as narcissistic abuse, is actually just some individuals showing a greater tendency towards selfishness than others.  narcissismvideos is probably the most dedicated narcissism researcher in the world, and one of the few I bother to listen to, because he himself suffers from NPD.

So it is rather ironic that the family would refer to my crazy friends, each of whom had different and in many cases more interesting sets of problems.  Some of these were environmental.  Aldous, the character from Best Scandal Ever and Best Romance Ever, had chronic reactive depression, brought about by living at home with his gifted yet sporadically violent brother and mother.  My own periods of sadness have been greatly lengthened by being at home, and I have lost count of the days I have lost to wondering why I put myself through any of this whilst being told that I am the problem.

If you try to get through life without feeling anything, you will seek out more bland personalities than I have chosen to spend my time with.  I tend to look on this as a strength. I am sufficiently secure to bear the brunt of many problems.  It becomes rather sad, however, when I see someone becoming ill right in front of me.

Because of a brain injury, my friend told me that he thought that he was dying when he was in fact recovering.  His memory has improved, his functioning has improved, he is in less chronic pain than he was in previously.  He has, during the same period, shown significant deterioration in his level of engagement.  You can have a conversation and believe that he is participating in it, only to find that he has not connected with anything that has been said at all.  It has, in the last week, become impossible to talk to him at all as he is clearly not engaging with any information and chooses instead to gaslight.  It takes time and knowing someone well to even spot this, and he is not all that safe, as company goes.

Naturally, since I cannot communicate with anybody about my work, I have come to the conclusion that the only answer is to shut the door on everybody and finally do it.  I am obviously going to have to become as driven and self-promoting as the average narc to get the necessary information out to enough people to finally be able to discuss it with anybody.  This is not good for my work, and it is not something I want to do at all, being an introverted empath rather than an extroverted narc.  In the meantime I have to work on my personal presentation, since my life has, up until now, consisted of servicing others.

This is the biggest change yet in my journey, brought about by my bizarre imaginary love affair with Wolfe, and I am well out of my comfort zone at this point.  I hope for everyone else’s sake that I can pull it off, because it is important.

Having had at least two ex boyfriends with NPD, one psychopathic, a sister with an affectation, a mother with sufficient tendencies to survive almost anything, and a best friend who showed strong markers for it, I am hoping that I have learned enough about putting yourself first to at least pretend sufficiently to make this work.  If not, I will be wasting my time.

Hopefully this is sufficient to explain to you that craziness is a tool, and a label, rather than something to be avoided.  You can learn from anybody, at any time, without fearing adverse results from spending time with more unusual people.  I do not recommend falling in love with them, but hey, shit happens, sometimes with good results rather than bad.

 

 

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Who is hiding behind your depression?

 

I am decluttering at the moment, and I am very surprised by some of the things I am finding. I have been shuffling about in the same rags for years now, since I did not consider it worthwhile to dress when nobody was going to see me, and I had thought that I needed to look at buying clothing.

Obviously, since I am losing rather a lot of weight at the moment – replacing the icon and logo with a new image is the current priority for the website – I do not want to buy anything.  The plan is to emerge as a completely new visual concept before I let Ina out in public, which takes a lot of work.

To my surprise, I find that I am quite a snappy dresser, and had twenty pairs of fairly nice trousers.  I also had a full cupboard full of jumpers.

The biggest surprise today is that I am clearly very kinky, and have a couple of dozen items of very restrictive underwear.  I haven’t worn any of it, so it is all brand new and in a variety of sizes.  Evidently my alter ego/non-repressed self is quite a gal.

Caring for others involves a lot of hiding your personality. There is no point in tarting yourself up to be covered in half digested food, poo or anything else, so you end up shuffling about in your studio clothing, if you happen to be me.  Even when I go out for my twice daily walk I am in glue covered clothing.  This is how I end up with three wardrobes full of clothing that I barely remember – there is no reason for wearing any of it.

I suppose this is why they try to insist that you have a day off now and again.  It doesn’t seem terribly relevant when you redirect your life around constraints you have had no control over.  I didn’t even insist on privacy until a couple of years ago, so it was necessary to hide any aspect of personality from any potential intruders.  I like to leave a pair of vibrams out now, since it disgusts my sisters.  Beyond that, I try not to tell anyone anything.

The point of hiding behind Ina, was to express myself without interference.  It turns out that even I was interfering, since I have clearly been hiding things even from myself.  Obviously, I was aware of my sexual proclivities in the past, but I hadn’t realised quite how much I was avoiding thinking about it because of sheer misery.

Distracting yourself with friends does not help with this, since naturally you concentrate on more sociable topics.  I certainly don’t discuss my sexuality with my exs, since they are either aware or were not capable of dealing with it.

So, I wonder, have you considered what you are avoiding by hiding behind your depression?  Would it help to identify and indulge whatever that is?

 

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My raw food eating disorder

One of the exs, who befriended me this week to borrow a ladder (I kid you not) last night announced that my objection to his attempts to sabotage my health constituted an eating disorder.

This guy has just spent three years with us, on and off, and is well aware that in the course of his gaining 14lb I gained 140lb eating the same thing. He literally just watched that happen. I am very active within the constraints of taking care of my mother and this place, basically the only difference between us is that I am constantly under a great deal of stress, which is usually made worse by spending time with an unpredictable and potentially violent person who is apparently obsessed with getting attention in the form of food and interest.

This is one of the main weaknesses of declaring yourself a raw foodist.  Your former friends just don’t get it.  They believe everything they have been told and think that you aren’t getting a balanced diet.  Another objection, which I have just read from a Paleo site, is that the use of superfood products just ain’t natural.

The social difficulties of retaining your raw diet include not being able to eat out, being an awkward guest at parties, frequently finding yourself either very hungry or eating non hydrated nuts because nothing else is available, and basically avoiding social events because you know you will be unable to eat anything that you haven’t prepared. You can get as obsessive as you want, the opportunities are endless, but there are workarounds for almost any problem.  Fairly early on, I came across someone who had managed to remain raw whilst eating from a MacDonalds, so I figured, you have to be a little flexible.

In recent years, thanks to some of the wrecking attempts of close observers of the raw foodies, it transpired that almost nobody was 100 percent raw, even though they were telling you they were.  Having actually done it for some time, I concluded that my first impression was correct.  90% is as much as is sensible.  That was certainly the case for me, but as I come from a cold, meat obsessed country, it may not be the case for everybody.

Another frequently observed criticism is that raw veganism, as it is sometimes misnamed, represents extreme asceticism,  in other words you are not only vegan, you are raw vegan.  This is a typical reaction of somebody that has never either done it, or thought about it.  Many raw vegans are not actually vegan, using bee pollen and honey, for example.  I prefer raw foodist, as it conveys the same difficulties in feeding yourself without the loaded moral gun.  Besides which, my ten percent involves smoked fish.  From a personal perspective, it is more of a way of indicating that I am unlikely to suddenly enjoy flour, sugar, potato, steak, milk etc so please just give me a green salad.

Over the last few months, I have employed what I learned from the raw foodies to create a high nutrient diet for my mother.  Having seen her go from ‘weeks away from death’ to a more robust state, I can verify that the use of superfoods and raw food principles works extremely well in cases such as hers.  From being unable to lift a fork to guzzling down 1500 calories of nutrient dense drinks per day, with a meal when she requests it, she would have probably have died in hospital if I had not used my knowledge to take care of her.  Nevertheless, I had to explain her diet over and over again to nurses with no nutritional knowledge or interest in learning anything.  I then had to explain it to GPs and a dietician.  I have no confidence at all, even after all these explanations, that they fully understand the implications of my mother’s life having been saved by this.  Even now, they attempt to tell me that she should be eating more mince. (she hates it)

A great reason for doing it is in combination with use of your knowledge of herbal medicine, amino acid and antioxidant therapy.  It is a particularly good base for this, and if you happen to sell health products, I am sure it is very lucrative.  From my perspective however, I wanted to be able to regulate, medicate and ensure that my mother and in the past, myself, had the building blocks to repair actual damage, and a ‘normal’ diet would have slowed this down enormously.

Having said all of that, I choose to combine my ‘health crank’ raw foodism with some eggs and fish.  This is not to denigrate all the people who do it without, I just find it works better for us as we do not like to think about food all day.  It is still easier to say raw foodist than list all the things we avoid in order for her treatment to work.

My friend knows this, and still refers to us as having an eating disorder (he is an ex-nurse, so presumably old habits die hard.  I had to explain poo to him a year or so back.)  This from a guy with high blood pressure, anxiety and a host of other health problems, which vastly improved when I briefly managed to persuade him to do it.  He is, of course rather jealous of Wolfe, as he was the perceived problem blocking my undivided attention.

Having been goaded into again ruining my own health by the aforementioned emotional garbage (see previous posts) of the last few years, I am having none of this.  A normal diet makes me ill, is the bottom line.  Now the awful Wolfe issue has finally been cleared up, he is nothing to do with it.  I employ a vastly different knowledge base than he does anyway, as my original interest was from the European/Swiss tradition.  I am just sick of being sick, basically, and I am more than tired of prioritising other people since it clearly does my health and well being no good at all.

So, when in doubt, do more research.  This Paleo dude I am reading seems to have thought that raw foodism consisted of eating a bag of raw cabbage.  If you thrive on that, I will happily shake you by the hand, but it isn’t really how you do it long term.  The bottom line is that you are unlikely to be eating enough vegetables, and you are likely to be eating too much of everything else, so start from there if you cannot be bothered doing any further reading.

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Hanging by a thread

Hanging by a thread

When your life falls apart, as mine did in 1995 you try very hard to find a silver lining. You grasp at straws, you pretend all the bad stuff is temporary, even when it goes on day after week after year. Your mother can be vile to you, your father can be getting sicker and sicker, your family can show how immature and stupid they are. You make the best of things as best you can, even when your idea of the world has fallen apart.

By 1998 I had given up my career in stately home catering and gone to university. This added a few extra unexpected years of youth and I did well despite working throughout my studies at a variety of horrible part-time jobs.

It was not until 2003 that things really started to unravel. When my father was resituated next to the front door I realised I had to stop going out at night, and my mother, not the most caring of people, started to really struggle. Four years of over-working, over-caring and slowly coming to the realisation that my life was effectively over ensued. There was no question of introducing new people to a situation in which I would have to explain that my family were dishonest or having children in this house.

Besides which, the house needed lengthy repairs, which had to be fitted around my jobs and paid for. I quietly got on with it. Now and again the exs would turn up and help for a while, apart from that it was a case of accepting that the education was a waste of time, since I wasn’t able to go anywhere.

My mother had a stroke a month before my father died. My best friend and my uncle followed in the next six months. Two cats died in the same period, which with my isolated life is just as bad as losing a person.

It still took until a few days ago to fully accept that my life was over. I kept looking for things to do to distract myself and pretend that not having a normal adult life was OK because I was helping other people and doing other things. I was quite literally clutching at straws for all that time.

I had busied myself with creative projects, all of which were labour intensive and not otherwise practical. I am quite good at some things, not so good at others. What has really fallen by the wayside is the sense of perspective and dumping things that just don’t work.

In the spirit of my rather extreme delusion, I decided not to deal with things I cannot change in the real world, in favour of things I might have been able to change in the virtual world. Now that this thread has also, mercifully, been cut I am left in a fairly poor state of health, realising that even the few people I have been engaging with have not really been engaging with me. I seem to have spent a lot of time pandering rather than bothering to observe whether I was being pandered to.

Any close observation of American soap operas will tell you that thin women whinge about their feelings an awful lot. Fatter women simply eat instead, enabling them to shut up and get on with whatever they are doing. It seems to me that the alternative is to take up activities which avoid people, avoid stress and in particular, avoid women altogether. If the last three months has shown me anything, it is that I was right to avoid them for all these years as their communication seems to consist of bullying each other.

So, to that end, I am now up to walking 10 miles per day. I have to sneak out during the hours that we are not under scrutiny, and I am working on felling a few trees when I am here. One of the exs tried to create boy jobs, and I told him that if he did that, I would not be able to manage anymore and to butt out.

My neighbour laughed at this at the time. She is not laughing now that her husband has dementia and is only capable of burning a few weeds. I have been offering to fit a bannister in her house for the last year, and despite visual deficiencies and having fallen down the stairs, she is refusing. These are big Georgian villas, you have to prepare well in advance if you plan to remain in them during your dotage.

Who knows if the combination of fasting, detoxing and walking excessively will produce anything apart from a very tired Ina? Does it really matter anymore? Is there any point in talking, when you know nobody is listening? Do trees make a sound when no-one is listening?

If I persist with the project I am forced to believe that I can deal with a lot of stress that I do not currently think I can deal with, otherwise I have to give up entirely. I could have lived without the last 8 years altogether. Perhaps sometimes life trades happiness for longevity and it isn’t actually worth it at all? Certainly if I factored happiness into my calculations about life, I would have decided not to bother at all, so how important is it really?

All that there is left, as far as I can see, is anger and a modicum of self-worth that I did not previously have. Maybe this is a good thing? Time will tell.

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Disassociate to succeed

 

As I walk off some weight in order to progress Ina – I am more aware than ever that a face is required to move projects on in this day and age – I am considering the lessons from a lifetime of being too considerate of other people. I cannot tell you how much your connectedness to others holds you back.

In the past, I have considered my family, I have considered my friends, I have considered everybody else before myself. I used to think that this was a virtue, that vanity was selfishness and that my health was incidental and not to be considered above anything else that came along.

This led, in 2009, to my painting a 14 room house in 10 minute increments, lying down for 20 minutes in between times to recover. I was extremely ill by the time I started researching natural approaches since my GP was not at all interested in helping someone who worked four jobs and looked after everyone but themselves when they said they were tired!

Ironically, had I indulged my fascination with selfish people at a much earlier age, I would have been ready to discard others far more easily. I have always been fascinated by the ability to simply ignore everyone and carry on regardless as I am incapable of doing it.

In the most recent case, I tried many times to let go of the idea that I had done something terrible to deserve the last few years. I had not done anything apart from being born, being a perfectly normal adult, and trying to make the best of a bad situation. I am continuing to punish myself for it, even by persisting with this project. What I should do is ignore any new information and continue to push for what I want, regardless of anyone else.

This, however, would be psychotic behaviour, and I am, despite my many other failings, a thoughtful person. What I now have to do is repair my ailing health, pick up the torch I was trying to give to Wolfe, and do something with it. Whether it turns out to be useful or not is not really relevant. What is relevant is whether I believe in it, and I think the most loving response is to decide that I do, regardless of the consequences to my privacy.

So. in the spirit of disassociating, my first job is to replace the icon on the homepage, which will take about a year, since it is a work of self-sculpture. In the course of doing that, I have to turn myself into a public speaker and I have to write at least two major non-fiction books. The first one being Lucifer Ogilvie, which is my alternative history of Boris Johnson, and the second being the original book.

Do I feel stupid for trying to invest in Wolfe, when I knew it was a bad bet in the first place? No, it was an act of stupid selflessness, but it was in keeping with my less bitter and twisted character and it was a kind of play against someone I knew to be extremely selfish from his history. I admire that, rather than condemn it, but any time I have tried to give a gift to such a person, they immediately assume that the gift is somehow loaded. From this, I consider that time spent listening is as important as time spent talking, and this should stand me in good stead for the future.

That is not to say you should take everything everyone says on board. Quite the reverse, you should discard anything you aren’t interested in, otherwise you end up being a follower rather than a learner.

There have been many times over the years that I have tried to take it in other directions in the time I have available. All of these have turned out to be bad ideas. Best Adventure Ever, the game I am working on, for example, will fail to absorb Wolfe’s marriage, but it is still worth making from the perspective of what it has to say about people and their approach to life. Therefore I am going to persist with it anyway. As a creative exercise it is still a worthwhile project, despite its failings in terms of reality. If Wolfe has a problem with a couple of million extra followers, I daresay he can let me know.

I have actually come quite a long way since the pre-Ina days. I used to worry about doing anything because my name was on it. Ina solved that problem. I used to worry in case things weren’t of sufficient quality. Wolfe cured me of that. What is most important is that you do something, regardless of anybody else or the consequences, because the more ripples you create, the more inspiration you dispense.

So, I must again thank Wolfe for my new cold, more efficient approach to rocking the boat. There are far more ways to skin a cat than you could ever imagine. There is always a way out of the most convoluted mess, as long as you are willing to leave it behind. Shame and feeling sorry for others is a waste of time you could better spent making your dent in the world, whether the dent is useful or simply self-serving.

Being bullied is quite serious in the course of your life, both in terms of your assumption of lack of importance and the voice that tells you that you just aren’t good enough. If you are in a similar position, please remember that the love of your life will not understand your baggage and it is therefore important to discard it and not expect any understanding or consideration. Fight for what you need to grow beyond what you are told you are capable of, regardless of the consequences or the length of time it takes you to stop beating yourself up. I know better than most how difficult that can be, especially after this harrowing and lengthy episode of self doubt. I can do better, and so can you.

For the benefit of regular readers, I obviously have no intention of attending the event in October. I am sure I could manage to have a civilised conversation, since that was all I wanted in the first place, but I am not at all confident that Wolfe could manage it, whatever his dick-led reasoning.

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Contentment versus Glory

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they choose contentment over glory. Chefs, in particular learn this very early in life. We discover that we don’t actually have to work 20 hours a day to earn a living, and that it is kind of counter-productive for your health. Therefore we take lower level jobs, and work fewer hours for more money as there is better profit in lower level food.

Today’s blind fury with Wolfe, for no really good reason other than I thoroughly enjoyed being furious with his apparent contentment. was extremely productive. (I think that blog post was probably written 2 years ago, so it may be rather out-of-date, but never mind.)

I have no real wish to rain on his parade, nor the opportunity given that I have been here for years taking care of my mother. I just missed getting annoyed with him I think. It is very odd that a person who irritates me intensely, and that I have had so little interaction with, makes me feel more alive than some of the people who were actually in my life in the even more distant past.

This begs the question of why I would actively crave discontent for me, and more importantly attempt to inspire it in him. I see discontent as being strongly linked to achievement, in terms of striving for future contentment. This is very Western, this idea that happiness is something to be pursued but not gained.

I find it hard to forgive Wolfe for not wanting to achieve more, and yet I daresay he feels he has done enough. I have attacked him on a similar basis several times over the years. I am not sure how much sense it makes from the other side, probably none at all.

My mother used to say it was the irritation that kept my father alive, so perhaps, having had two parents with radically opposing political ideas, I identify argument as affection. Certainly I find calling Wolfe an asshole more affectionate than his syrupy assertions about happy relationships. Whether this is personal psychology, or an expression of how driven I feel on his behalf, I do not know. What seems to have been a brief and insignificant period for him, has been absolutely devastating for me.

When I first made contact with him, it was with a view to simply handing him my work when it was finished, having established a direction he was happy with. My life is kind of over, since I took on care of my parents and this house. I no longer tolerate people terribly well, so, I reasoned, why not pour it all into him. I rather like the idea of doing something spectacular for the world in a slightly self-serving way, and Wolfe has demonstrated a capacity for this.

Having been brought up with a particular interest in public speaking and natural health, it appeared to make a peculiar kind of sense to do this work. The emotional string-pulling just happened kind of by accident, and then when I became despondent, fiction made more sense than trying to produce something more solid alongside the inevitable artwork. I am glad at least part of the mystery has been solved, although I am not so glad that I could not help being stuck behind a non communicative block in terms of actually getting on with the work. I can only blame my crippling self-doubt. It certainly isn’t directly Wolfe’s fault, although some communication and a modicum of actual respect would have speeded things up enormously.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Apparently I would be faster to come out of my shell than await Wolfe smelling the fucking coffee in terms of work. It comes back to my usual ponderings on economics. The basic economic problem is not scarcity. It is satiety. Wolfe is sated, apparently, and his knife is somewhat blunted by contentment. Therefore the raw material is not nearly as appealing.

I am not in a hurry to become content if it means that I become similarly blunt. I am a spiky character, and I plan to remain spiky for as long as possible. I miss the slightly tortured Wolfe. Perhaps he no longer exists. I’m sort of weirdly glad I bumped into him then, even though he has been a royal pain in the ass. I did so enjoy sticking pins into him. It made me very happy.

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The Best Husband Ever

I have also published this as a short ebook to go with the rest of the Best Ever Series, you will find them all on Smashwords, but in case you cannot be bothered downloading, here it is as a blog post.  It was written to this music, so you may find it beneficial to turn on the video before reading it.

 

 

“He’s like a total gentleman.” Erica blushed slightly as she gushed about her new husband. “He takes out the trash, I never have to fill the dishwasher, he takes real time with the kids.” Julia, Erica’s sister, looked sceptical.

“It doesn’t exactly fit with what I’ve read about Sam Redwood.” What happened to all the girls?”

“Oh, he’s left all that behind him. He’s really just into work now.”

“Well I guess the great thing about misogynists is that they don’t really understand equality, so you can easily just role play your way through almost any situation.” Julia, the feminist in the family, smirked slightly as she adjusted her turtle-neck sweater in the mirror.

“Oh no, Sam loves women.”

“Yeah, I heard on his last podcast.” Julia had suffered listening to Sam giving his delta-male opinions on fascinating subjects such as the quality of breasts on starlets way out of his reach in an effort to please the interviewer, who had sounded unphased by his efforts. Julia was of the opinion that Erica was being had, but she stuck to dropping heavy hints rather than upset her more feminine sister.

Erica stared at her sister, unblinking. “I only know what he’s like with me.” She was aware that she was wailing slightly. “He even slowed down for me this morning, on our run.”

“Yeah? That was big of him.” Julia, who actually got on slightly better with Sam than Erica, gave her sister a withering look. “Just make sure that pre-nup is breakable.”

“Oh no, we are so happy, we will be married forever.” Erica twiddled the beads dangling from her throat. “He is like so cool. I got a big parcel of stuff to make more macrame with this week. He really cares about my problems, ya know? He even switches his smartphone off sometimes.”

“Yeah great.” Julia was now very bored with this conversation. “Let’s go, we are going to be late for yoga.”

Sam, meanwhile, was attending to his business marketing his forthcoming event in Canada on the computer. He had so far latched onto a performance artist from Toronto. He had become mesmerised by her thumbnail photograph on Facebook, which showed her in a rather tight PVC corset.

“Goofy, you seem a little goofy.” he tried “Can you answer your direct messages?” The girl had failed to realise she was talking to Sam, as she was only eighteen. “Wanna chat?” She continued to ignore him, rather frustratingly. Sam was keen to present his accessibility in this particular case.

Irritated, he turned to an older woman, who seemed a little more savvy. Although she knew it was him, she wanted to talk about herbs, which seemed rather tiresome. Sam sighed and looked at the rest of the fans commenting on his page. None of them seemed relevant to this particular campaign. Tired of this game, he turned to the bug on his window sill. He suppressed the urge to crush it, instead waving it out of the window. Nobody was watching, but he was not sufficiently irritated to express his American masculinity in traditionally violent fashion. He decided to fill the dishwasher. Maybe Erica might want to make some babies later if she didn’t have too much to do. He might even ask her what she wanted to make for dinner later, if he remembered!

Sam dimly remembered doing all this for himself, but it wasn’t his job now, he reasoned. Getting married was the most sensible decision he had made. It freed up so much time for more hook-ups, and more kids were always welcome. Now that he had reversed his vasectomy, he was the proud father of 27. He guessed he needed a bigger house. He settled down to some online porn, and worked on his lymphatic drainage.

Erica, pleasantly stretched from the yoga, was looking forward to trying some macrame. She could make a plant pot holder, maybe a chair eventually. She noted the neatly trimmed lawn as she walked up the path, and entered the house, feeling pleased as she looked at the cleared kitchen. Sam was so considerate!

“What do you think we should have for dinner, darling?” Sam cocked his head to one side, smiling fondly at his lovely wife.

“I was thinking of some quinoa?” Erica moved towards the fridge.

“That would be lovely, darling.” Sam breathed a sigh of contentment as the little woman prepared his dinner. He went back to the computer to see if he could find any more Canadians to attend his event. He was in luck, a hot little girl from Montreal was on his page. He quickly chose an account to give her some encouragement. “I’m heading out after dinner, honey.”

“OK.” Erica couldn’t really say no, he had been working so hard all day. He really was the best husband ever.

They ate together, gazing across the table. Sam was aware of being bored out of his mind, but it was tolerable for the sake of domestic bliss. He would be seeing his business manager, a lady of only 40, that he had known for twenty years after dinner. Erica could only think of what a perfect life they had.

“Is that a new sweater?” Sam smiled. “It’s really lovely. You know you look great in green. I love you.”

“Ooooh I love you too. Yes, I got it at the market. I’m going to do some macrame tonight.”

“That’s marvellous, darling. I gotta go. I shouldn’t be too late.” Sam got up from the table with some relief at the thought of getting out. He bent down to kiss Erica and headed for the door.

Erica cleared the table, washed the floor, cleaned down the fridge and the surfaces, saw to their daughter and settled down to learn some macrame, blissfully unaware of Sam’s appointment.

Some hours later, Sam pulled his trousers back on and thanked Kiki for her time. “Do you think it would be OK if we tried something a little different next week? A little, ya know, darker?”

Kiki nodded silently. She had known for years that conversation with Sam was somewhat limited, and therefore pointless. She was unsure how his marriage was working, but she was relieved that he had found someone that hadn’t become bored with him. That had always been a worry, since Sam only seemed to have one distant, superficial speed. That wasn’t to say it was a bad thing. Kiki had had a taste for promiscuous men for years, and was aware that platitudes were a good weapon if you didn’t really want to engage beyond the physical. It had not worked well for Sam’s relationships however, so Kiki and the rest of the stable had breathed a sigh of relief that Erica seemed to be just as skilled at empty conversation as he was. She watched as Sam crushed a beetle on her floor and clenched his fist. Something different at last. Sam often seemed like a coiled spring, perhaps something a little darker indicated some actual passion.

As Sam left the apartment building to return home, a small child tried to ask him for the time.

“No.” Sam swept past the child and moved away. He checked his smartphone. The pesky Dr Cedar was trying to message him again. Some time-wasting bullshit, nothing to do with money. What a waste of time! She seemed to be saying she had several years of work she wanted to discuss. What use was that to him? It wouldn’t sell any health food. He sneered as he blocked her. Probably just wanted to talk shit, like the rest of them.

He checked his fan page for any potential Canadian hotties, and decided it was time to go home.

“How has your day been, darling?” Sam had allocated fifteen minutes to listen to his wife, as he had read somewhere that this was a big part of the male-female divide and an important part of being the best husband ever.

“You’re such a good listener, Sam.” Erica blinked.

“Wanna go to bed, baby?”

Dr Kira Cedar had been trying to talk to Sam for weeks. She had been working on a slightly whacky piece of ecological economics, tracing the history of marketing and food politics in the course of explaining how the general public’s lives had been misled to the point of mainstream consumption, mainstream illness, and mainstream chemical cures. She could not understand why he only wanted to talk bullshit. She had tried to cultivate Sam, since she and Sam had seemed to get on rather well since their fortieth. Sam, however, only seemed to want to pretend to be a variety of different people and talk nonsense, so it was taking rather a long time.

Finding herself blocked, she realised that she would never be able to cope with interacting with anyone, never mind the public. If people liked reading rubbish, how would she ever persuade them to read her book? She had wanted Sam to use the information, since it was an upgrade of what he was doing and would probably ensure global fame. What had she done? Did Sam only like stupid people?

As Kira had taken up this project because she was effectively trapped at home taking care of her mother, she was not in a position to be presenting anything, nor did she want to. What use was the book, if nobody would read or talk about it? She had nobody else to discuss it with?

Falling into a deep depression, Kira abandoned her work and took up sewing. She became quite famous for it. The research festered in a drawer. Kira became lonely. Her friends fell away as they were aware that this melancholy had begun with the Sam incident. Her confidence waned. She stopped leaving the house.

Sam had seen her videos, he didn’t understand it. She had seemed interesting, to the point of becoming a slight manic obsession for a few weeks, but why was she so upset? She must be insane.

Thank God he was married. At least he knew those rules.

 

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Best hate ever – Ina Disguise versus David Wolfe

As you can imagine, I am feeling a bit flat today, given that I have just had another lousy birthday and have ascertained that I have wasted yet more time appeasing somebody on an utterly pointless basis. Therefore I will be spending today re-editing some of my funnier stuff and tidying up before I decide whether to remove all the free marketing Ina did on the grounds of really not caring about anything anymore.

On a funnier note, here is why Wolfe and I did not get on, although should he read this I happen to know that he will secretly find it hysterically funny – no, I do not plan to explain this further, worry not Wolfe. This is from his lovely blog post, which I found yesterday. I did catch sight of some boring and rather staid posts a couple of years back, but chose to avoid them and I was hoping the indication of brain aging was temporary.   David’s words are in bold:

Here are 10 Things I do to Help Keep my Wife Happy!

1. Chores

Small tasks seem simple and straightforward, but they tend to pile up. Pretty soon, the wife is running around the house for a half an hour getting everything done before bed. This is hard for anyone. Small things like emptying or loading the dishwasher, moving along the laundry, or taking out the trash, are easy to do and help to make a loved one feel more appreciated. It is hard because I really live to work, to make sure I am helping around the house. However, taking 2 hours out of each day to be one-on-one with my daughter is a huge break for my wife. Helping with bath time, reading time and simply making sure I clean up after myself is enough to keep things rolling with positivity.

Congrats on managing to clean up after yourself.  This already looks like the most boring day ever. Do not refer to your wife as ‘the wife’ as it is extremely insulting. What happened to the queue of groupies you were so proud of?  Is she first in that queue?

2. Her Needs First

Being in a relationship means caring for the needs of your partner. As often as possible, I try to put her needs first. I ask her what she wants for dinner instead of stating what I want. When we walk or run together, I try to match her pace. Alternatively, she will yell at me to slow down!

I am not sure why anyone would have to think about this, unless of course they aren’t actually doing anything apart from role-playing ‘the best husband ever.’  Time apart is a lot more important than time together, unless of course you are trying to create a homogeneous unit of melded non-thought and pithy unproductive boredom.

3. Listen Not Fix

Sometimes my wife just needs to talk about her problems without someone trying to fix it. Men want to get to a point in the conversation where they can offer a quick fix and then drop it. However, my wife needs to talk through her issues, and I allow her to do that with me, without glancing at my smartphone as she does.

This is straight out of a self-help book from the nineties.  You do not deserve a medal for avoiding your text messages.

4. Use Kind and Grateful Words

I constantly remind myself to use kind and comforting words with my wife. Thank yous and pleases go a long way in any conversation. I want to make sure she understands how much I appreciate what she does for me.

Know each other well, do you?  This is not the person I know.  He was a lot more interesting and doesn’t give a shit about anybody.

 

5. Compliments

I make it a point to compliment my wife whenever she tries something new like a hairstyle, a new sweater, or even a new craft. I also talk highly of her to our friends. She is very talented and, whenever I can, I tell my friends all about how amazing she is.

That said, my wife and I keep it real with others. We are not afraid to look ‘messy’ around others, as real relationships are not without complications.

OK this is now into the realms of extremely tedious.  How do you expect to get better at anything if you are constantly soft-soaping each other?  Try starting from the standpoint that you aren’t good enough and work from there.

 

6. Take Responsibility

Jobs like mowing the lawn and taking out the trash, are mine to do. I try very hard to get them done without my wife having to ask me more than once. No one wants to be a nag, and by getting stuff done when asked, I take that burden off of her.

You sound like Theresa May  “There are boy jobs and girl jobs.”  What a boring old fart you turned out to be?  What happened to the importance of male – female friction?

 

7. Listen, Apologize, Change

Your wife knows you better than anyone else on the planet. Thus, when she has something to say about how one deals with other people, take note. She is the perfect outside observer that has your best interest at heart. She stays out of my business affairs but when she speaks up, I listen, and it has helped me take my business to the next level.

Evidently she doesn’t know you very well, otherwise you wouldn’t continue to be such a rude, tiresome wanker.

 

8. Ask Her Opinion

I always ask her for an opinion when I have a big decision I have to make. She is also very good at considering the feelings of others and does a great job helping me see all parts of the situation.

Keep doing that, she is undoubtedly better at that than you are.  She couldn’t be any worse.

 

9. Support Her Dreams

Supporting your wife’s dreams is a lot easier than one may think. All one has to do is make sure she has the time and the materials to make her dream happen. If she wants to learn how to operate her computer better, get her a book about that. If she wishes to take up hiking, set aside time so you can both enjoy the outdoors together. We have a second kid on the way, and we are looking to move into a bigger home to accommodate that. 2016 is a year of big dreams for us.

That’s really great, I am delighted that you are happy, but you aren’t going to be saving the world any time soon.  This is a time-consuming, patronising and boring relationship.  Sorry, but I am glad you are happy with it anyway.  I didn’t realise you were this limited? Is this new?

 

10. Say, I Love You

The phrase, “I love you” should be used as often as possible. You chose your wife to have and to hold, and she should never have any doubt that you still feel the same way about her.

Role-playing a relationship isn’t real.  I take it she has more money than you then?

 

One’s words and actions have a huge effect on how their loved ones feel. This is especially true in a husband, wife relationship. I make it one of my biggest priorities to help my wife feel cared for and happy.

Tell me about it.  I do not forsee a bright or productive future.

 

What are the little things you do to help your wife feel happy and cared for?

Well, personally I like to lock myself up until I feel less ugly, stupid and undervalued, which can take anything up to fifty years.  Perhaps you should try insulting her intelligence more.  That seems to work well for you. I’ve been dead for years anyway.

 

If anyone wants any artwork, I am wanting rid of some of this stuff before I have to pay to store it.

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