If You Must Use Your Tongue, for Christs Sake Untie It.

Thank God we no longer use hieroglyphs.
Communication is tricky enough without the nuances of a hand carved Ibis. Imagine the embarrassment of a hastily written note “crouching man snake cross slave donkey stork" when what you had REALLY wanted to say was "crouching man snake cross slave donkey one legged Heron".

Not only do women and men speak in tongues some 20,000 light years apart, even amongst our own sex we can come a cropper when expressing our needs and wants armed with anything less than a fully functioning mouth, arms and legs, pens, paper, graphs, spread sheets and diagrams, a PDA, an interpreter and- these days and for those 'i' inclined- Siri.
I work in a communication heavy environment.
And whether it is getting a 12 year into a gold medal position or an actor into his character, getting my point across so that someone else can get THEIR point across is my daily challenge.
Mostly I am successful.
Mostly this is because I listen.
I have long held the view that the best communicators are the ones who know when, and how, to shut up.
People who do not listen do not learn.
Simple as that.
Human beings are not designed for circulatory data processing.
Many Australians know that the Didgeridoo- an Aboriginal instrument- is played by the musician inhaling and exhaling simultaneously.
This works for the didgeridoo.
It's a hollow tube.
WE, on the other hand, work a little differently.
Information goes in, gets filtered and processed, and THEN comes out.
Sometimes what comes out bares little or no resemblance as to what goes in.
There's none as queer as folk, so they say.

So, internet dating.

Don’t ask how we got here, I just deleted 17 lines of diatribe about the belittling of William Shakespeare on the HK Theatre scene and the bastardry required to turn a comedy into a farce and how upset I was for my friends performing and how even very clever people can be very very stupid when they use their ego to think, and not their brain……but moving on…….

Lately I have been wandering through a website called ‘Tagged’.

A friend, who is single, told me about it because, he said, loads of great people used it.

Now I have to say, this is where thinking can severely fuck up the open lines of communication. Because what I have found- with all due respect my friend - is that the people who use ‘Tagged’ are freaks.

Last week a man named Kanny J used the opening line “I love ur pointed nose, R U white” as an opening gambit to sweep me off my feet and get me into bed. Unless he is looking for true love and a wedding with smooth moves like that? I may be mistaken.

‘Loads of great people’ does not sound like people like Kanny J to me.

‘Loads of great people’ sounds like ‘normal intelligent, reasonably attractive humans who can start a sentence without freaking me out’.

In the past 7 days I have been sent emails that include, and I quote “i saw ur profile and got stucked with ur beauty and looks” to “,i had a wife and three kids,two boy $ a girl unfortunately i lost them on a plane crash.” Not forgetting “ you'r smile tuch my..........! if ones you meet me ........! hope you will never forgate me..........! have a nice day. god bless you.” And finally “Hello dear,i am Mr DANIEL FREEMAN from Uk searching for a Nanny to work for me here in Uk due to busy work with me so if interested write to me back quickly”

Actually, that last one sounds OK. I am not sure what about my online profile said I was looking for a nannying job in the UK, but if times get tough, who knows ?

Gentlemen. If you are going to attempt to hook up on line, for fucks sake, learn to spell- yes, I know English not mother tongue blah blah blah, but unless you are French it’s not cute, and even then it’s only cute in person-, and also, do not talk to me about how we will be lifelong soul mates if only I would send you my personal email and an MSN contact. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. YOU SCARE ME.

Also, not so many of the topless photos unless you are built like Federer. For sexy times I can go to Adult Friend Finder or any of the hubs related to fornication. You, laying on the bed all sweaty and hairy and built like a lesser Lord of the Rings character does NOT do if for me….or anyone.

Why is this so hard? Are there not websites out there for people to go to for advice if they REALLY do not know how to express themselves?

Have we not watched Oprah? Or Dr Phil? Or Skippy? Hell, even that Kangaroo could communicate more effectively than these people and he could only use his ears , a few dodgy clicks and a paw tied to a stick with wire.

I shall stick with ‘Tagged’ because it amuses me. Like watching a hopped up Shakespearean actor with a speech impediment, it is the closest thing I get to a contact sport. Internet dating and bad Am-Dram. One way or the other, you’ll find yourself fucked over.

I See Your Breasts and Raise You a Testicle

In the battle of the sexes a man with a fully loaded gun simply has more firepower.
Trust me ladies, there is nothing we have that shoots that far.
True, when my milk came in with baby number one my breasts did take on a garden sprinkler quality.
But breast milk is at best PH neutral.
As ammunition, it is loaded with fail.
I sometimes why we even bother to pretend to want to battle each other anyway.
Look at what we get if we win.
Each other.
I like men, don't get me wrong.
I like them as friends and as lovers.
I once even married one.
I like the way the look.........and when they think, I like that too.
I respect men for their differences, and I am grateful they exist but as creatures I think we are so completely different in terms of pre-birth wiring I am amazed we have not already accidentally killed each other off.
Thank God we have different mating apparatus is all I can say.
Nature is not so stupid after all.
I get to work with children a couple of times a week.
It's always enlightening.
My contact with them always involves performance, so I get to see the side of them that is more to do with EQ as opposed to IQ.
That's OK.
I like that part of people.
Even small people.
This week I was directing a drama class for very small people, aged 5 and 6.
Drama is a good leveler because performance involves creativity, energy, trust, acceptance and self control.
Most people have at least one of those functions.
Some have lots, some have all.
Boys have a maximum of 4.
Guess which one they lack.
Little boys, I have discovered, have almost ZERO...and by that I mean ABSOLUTELY FUCKING ZERO self control.
They are not unintelligent.
Ask your average 5 year old boy about the significant dinosaurs of the Mesozoic period and he will rattle off a hundred palaeontological facts that would put Wiki to shame.
Ask him to stop running and smashing into his mates then trying to touch them on the bum whilst in a pile on the floor, and boys appear deaf and blind and 50 IQ points lower.
In the same group, a bunch of girls will happily imitate the actions of a bunny in time to music.
The inappropriate touching 5 year old boys rabbits will suddenly sprout guns from their paws and slay each other in a vicious showdown of cyborg nature verses improbable scenario nurture.
Why must boys insist on conquering EVERYTHING?
Is it not enough that they will eventually get bigger?
Must testosterone insert 'lack of listening' from conception?
If I wanted a room filled with half petrified floppy eared females and a heap of small boys with welts on their foreheads, I'd have made the instructions clear.
Of course, there is always one 'sensitive' boy in the group.
I always mutter to myself 'He's gay', and he may well be, both of my outrageously over sized and much loved sons are gay....but to be honest, I think in drama classes my lads were the ones hurling imaginary hand grenades screaming "DIE MOTHER FUCKER" when approaching the 3 little pigs houses.
Not wishing to die during a game of Duck Duck Goose does not mean you are a gay.
I am not saying this behaviour is invalid, by the way.
I pass no judgement at all.
I merely note that it is fundamentally wired in.
Pre-set.
Default.
Boys work one way, girls work another.
Girls can be wild and crazy, and can come up with a million ways to harm and maim benign living creatures.
They just don't immediately assume that every 2 minute skit has to involve numb-chucks and an ambulance.
I also work with teens a couple of times a week.
They come from every corner of the Earth.
Culture and custom play very little importance when it comes to who must die and why in fairy stories.
True, if the male students are ethnically Asian, there may be some extra bowing involved just before Cinderella cops it with an AK47 at the ball, but I am waiting for the day when the wolf eats Red Riding hood with some sense of decorum, or the same said wolf is chopped with one mighty blow rather than being hacked to death with a thousand whacks delivered by a smiling wood chopping assassin.
It's no wonder more men get caught and sent to jail for murder.
Men do not do subtly.
From birth they surmise that if one will work , they may as well use ten.
That if fast is good, faster is better.
Why use a quiet voice, when a loud one is louder?
And why use that voice when shouting is available?
I am aware, for the record, that men find women equally bewildering.
Which is why I sometimes wonder why we even try.
A group calling themselves The Gentleman's Rant on you tube are all about why women are irrational and make stupid decisions.
Some of their points I get.
Why DO women wear such high heels, then complain that their feet are sore?
Well, actually, we know why....I do it too and in a much earlier blog I talked about the biological reasons and the thing with the butt etc etc etc....yes, women are complex....and men are not.
I get it.
Opposites attract and all, but I am getting suspicious.
If men and women speak such different languages and see the World in such different ways, is being together logical?
I'm not saying we all seek out same sex partners, I am asking if we need to go through the rigmarole of the battle in order to find a truce.
Because that's what we are doing make no mistake.
The other day a married friend excitedly announced "Oh you have to meet so and so, he's single and I think you two would be perfect together"
My immediate thought was "Why? What's wrong with him?"
I am no shrinking violet, and any man brave enough to step in the ring had better bring his A game.
I will go down *cough*, but not without a fight.
And frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Anything worth having is worth fighting for.....but I hardly think we are on the same planet as men, let alone in the same field.
Perhaps it's time we women just faced up to the honest truth and accepted that in the battle of the sexes, like all good wars, you need Generals...and you need cannon fodder.
We are the Generals.
The men are there to run about and huff and puff about being pumped up or some such thing.
We ought to let them.
Eventually they will tire themselves out anyway and then come in for band aids and further instructions.
By that time we should have been able to get some work done.
Less obvious confrontation , more manipulation ladies, that's what I am suggesting.
Skin that cat with stealth.
He wants to battle the other Knights of the Boardroom Table for the afternoon, or smash some heads in another macho display of might over matter, then why not offer to hold his balls for him in case they get injured.
That way, he knows where they are, and you always have them safely in your hands.

Growing Up is Nice and All .......

I used to worry that I could only write when I was angry.
The connection was a simple one to make.When I find something irritating beyond belief I will brood and brood and let my irritation fester until BAM it pours out as literary vitriol, and a sense of calm comes over me, the boil having been lanced.
Writing has great catharsis and let's be honest, it's better than what I used to do, which was self-medicate my anger.
Plus, my natural sense of the ridiculous means that when I get really, really pissed off, I always see the funny side.
That funny side is what has kept me -relatively- sane in some very dark times.
Truthfully, most of my problems are very much First World related.
I know this.

If I was picking grains up one by one off the side of a track in order to provide a meal for my family, my unbridled annoyance at middleclass narcissists (for example) would seem pretty damned foolish.
But then, THIS is my life, NOT that of the poverty stricken and I am aware of, and genuinely humbled by, that fact.
Knowledge is a complex thing.
When I was younger I thought I knew what having knowledge meant.
It was either this way, or this way.
Right or wrong.
These days my black and white palette contains a vastly broader spectrum of greys.
What I 'know to be true' has become 'what I know to be true as I see it''.
I still make judgement calls, but I partner them with some understanding.
Some things have become clearer to me with age.
I now understand that being content is more important to me than being happy.
I now understand that there is little that can be done for someone who does not wish to see a self-evident truth, and I am prepared to let that go.
I know less about what is right for the world, but I understand more about what is right for me.
I laugh more often and with more freedom than I ever have before and I suspect that this is because I have surrendered to the idea of being happy.
I like surprises.
Of course, some things still keep me guessing, like why a sexually rampant woman is a slut, and an equally rampant man is a stud.
I will never understand hypocrisy, nor prejudice.
I worry less about what people think of me, and yet I understand more about what they may see when they look.
I have come to accept the 'warts' oft mentioned in the 'warts and all'.
Warts are not desirable, which is why they are given to witches in fairy tales.
According to myth, you can get warts from frogs.
I love frogs.
I also think witches get a bum rap.
Given that we are talking about knowledge and wisdom today, a quick delve into your history pages will uncover the awful truth about female persecution and subjugation by accusation of witchcraft from 560 BC to the current day.
The books of Exodus and Leviticus also mention the evils of foreign women (i.e.: witches) and do their best to keep ancient tribes bound together by fear.
Once again, prejudice will suffice where no knowledge is available.
But back to me.
I mentioned earlier that I no longer feel that I must be angry to write.
This is a good thing.
One of the side effects of getting older and having a little more understanding is the gradual calming of my angry inner child.
Don't get me wrong, I am not about to burst into song and spread forgiveness and harmony throughout the hills.
I still hate all the stupid people.
I think nature should take them out.
I don't understand why she doesn't.
This knowledge escapes me even after all these years.
Having read both the Bible and the Quran looking for clues and having found none, I must assume it has something to do with molecular science, not faith.
Not a LOT of science in religious texts, but there are lots of spectacular promises.
I like a good show.
I am not a HUGE fan of locusts, and blood rain would be pretty damn hideous if CSI is anything to go by.
The showers of frogs I could handle.
Seriously, how cool would that be?
Way cool.
It will never happen; I know this to be true.
Sad.
Like discovering that Sea Monkey's do not ACTUALY wear crowns and carry a trident, I must accept that there are something’s that will remain better in my head than in real life.
This is the power of understanding.

I wish it had more sequins and flashing lights, but I'll live.

When I am not being an angry young woman, I shall become an amused old duckie....twittering away to her self and writing rude limmericks on public toilet walls.

That will suit me nicely.

If I Had a Hammer, I Would Hit You With It.

Studiers of human psychology are right into acronyms.
I'm sure there is a reason for that.
Not enough love as a child resulting in a lifetime spent trying to break words down into their most simple form as a means of controlling anger.
Plus knowing the lingo of something makes you feel like your one of the gang.
I study people.
Not actually as a profession, just 'cause I'm nosy
The BIG FIVE in human behavior are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, which are quite often broken down to the acronyms OCEAN, NEOAC, or CANOE.
These then get broken down again, and again, and again and then we have the Myers Briggs psycho-profiling tools, which I DO use for work, and I find to be eerily accurate.
But today I am going to have a rant about EQ.
EQ is when you use your brain and gut to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups.
The reason we generally call it EQ and not EI, is because we compare it to IQ.
IQ is how clever you are.
EQ is how intelligent you are.
At least, that's my definition.
And immediately you can see where the acronyms have some unresolved parenting issues.
Because let me tell you, I know some very clever people who are so fucking dumb I wonder how they function.
Take a man I shall call 'Fanny Boy'.
Fanny boy works for a white collar industry. He has a -somewhat creaking- marriage, and spawn.
He can hold a conversation using modern buzzwords and owns all the relevant flashing conveniences replete with up to the minute applications designed to make us feel plugged in.
Like a lot of men, he is thrusting and confident and secretly terrified of his own life.
I can forgive all that.
The world is a genuinely scary place for most people.
But whereas I am often introduced to people who have strength's in either IQ, or EQ, or sometimes equal measures of both, this man has neither.
It is rare.
Even amongst men.
Quite how someone with so little Heart, Mind or Instinct has managed to make it into breeding adulthood, I do not fully comprehend, but he has.
He is not ugly.
I think that helps.
I will truthfully say that there are countless millions of woman also blessed with the same lack of brain power (IQ) who breed, but most of these people have at least the good sense (EQ) to attach themselves to an intelligent or wealthy male and therefor the gene pool gets some kind of compensation for being such a lazy bitch and allowing these women to survive early childhood.
Darwinism, it would appear, has a soft spot for pretty people.
Fanny Boy is irritating because he is married to a woman, and that means- given what an absolute moron he is- that she is either obtusely ignoring the obvious, or deliberately going against nature.
No good can come of this.
I recently had the excellent misfortune of working with this man.
I thought about ways to harm him.
Not emotionally...there simply would be no point because all he hears is white noise where we hear our consciences....but physically.
Not a lot, just a bit.
I wanted to slap him.
More than once.
I have never slapped another human in my life.
Except for Kip, and that was on the bum when he was being VERY VERY naughty and he was 8.
And he was capable of learning.
Unlike numb nuts.
Fanny Boy walks through life smashing into the mind spaces of other humans with the blithe disregard of the truly truly blind.
He is so unaware of his lack of awareness that a mallet bearing the words ' SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SIT DOWN' could be brought down on his head time and time again and he would wonder where the blood was coming from.
Did you see how much violence was in that last sentence?
That's how angry he makes me.
Because his cretinous behaviour comes coated in a fat layer of arrogance.
The arrogance ensures that no ray of emotional intelligence will ever shine down on the empty fields of nothingness that are his Cognitive Personality Dimensions, his CPD.
Where you or I would see the faces, feelings and minds of other people, he sees only mirror images of his own wants.
Now I must say whilst he has irritated the living Christ out of me personally ( obviously) I have not actually been hurt by this dullard.
He simply doesn't have the strength of personality.
It's his impact on others that I find so bewilderingly painful to watch.
I want to shake him and say " LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING !!! WAKE UP !!!"
But there would be no point.
By your mid 40's if you have not learned the skills of observing and thinking, you never will.
He huffs and puffs his way through life telling all, and convincing no one, of his relevance.
Empty vessels do, in fact, make the loudest noise.
I feel a bit sorry for him.
Personally, he is not well liked....but he does not know this information and even if he did, he would not know why......
Occasionally he will be picked up by an equally crude human and used as a battering ram for the purposes of evil and not good.
He will see this as success.
His puppet master will see this as a means to an end.
I see it as a tragic re-enforcement of his lack of understanding of human interaction.
The clinical term for that is:
D.O.N.T.L.O.O.K.N.O.W D.U.M.B.F.U.C.K.B.U.T.Y.O.U.R.S.T.U.P.D.I.T.Y.I.S.S.H.O.W.I.N.G.
Even watching his slow-motion-car-wreck-life fall apart from the side is not as delightfully amusing as it is stomach churning.
Delusion is only fun if we are all taking the same pills.
Sigh.
Poor old free from instinct, empty hearted, empty headed Fanny Boy.
The pipes ARE calling.................but no one is home.

You Are Only as Old as Your Self Delusion.

Time can be SUCH a bitch.
Ask anyone over the age of, say....30, and they will tell you that the years that used to last at least 365 days have sped up every year since the candles started completely covering the top of the cake.
Which is not to say that aging should be feared....oh no no no, but it must be acknowledged and it must be treated with the respect it deserves.
Personally, I love aging.
I may be odd that way.
I have ZERO desire to be back in my twenties, or even my thirties, other than to relive those precious moments when my children were younger.
The thought of going back to a time when I knew so little, but I thought I knew everything fills me with horror.
Ignorance is not bliss, as I have often said. It is ignorance.
Not knowing what you do not know does give rise to some amazing leaps in progress, it's true.
There is a terrific amount of confidence in assuming you are right simply because you do not know the ways in which you are wrong.
I am all about taking the mighty leap of faith.
But what I know now is so life affirming, and I simply didn't have those tools when I was younger.
For example.
When I was younger, I used to think that in order to be taken seriously as an adult I needed to be the loudest.
I am not sure WHY I started thinking that, but I did.
It may have come about by never feeling that I was the prettiest. Most certainly I was not the tallest. I had hoped to be seen as clever but I knew, even then, that I was not the cleverEST.
So I endeavoured to be the NOISIEST.
OUTGOING.
That was the word that was used.
It's a nice word, outgoing, and even now I would describe myself as such.
But the difference between the THEN outgoing and the NOW outgoing is that NOW I am outgoing in a friendly, attentive and open way.
THEN is was outgoing in the sense that I was completely fucking obnoxious.
At least, that's what I think of it as NOW.
In the past few years I have come across a number of men and woman who are quite a lot like me.
We are a 'type'.
Bossy and confident, and hopelessly fragile.
A dichotomy, but an entertaining blend.
Unless we have very little self awareness, in which case we turn into a parody of ourselves.
I know women, way too old to be as out of touch with themselves as they are, who are so SHOUTY and NOISEY that they emotionally enter the room before they have walked into the house.
They shriek CLASS with a capital C.U.T.G.L.A.S.S.
"LOOK" they shout "I AM STILL YOUNG AND SEXY AND RELEVANT AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME, HERE ARE MY TITS".
These woman always have big tits.
It's like nature gave them superboobies in order to attract men who have mummy issues.
I have big tits, but since getting older, I do not use them as a conversation starter (well, after a few dozen glasses of Pinot Grisio, but by then all bets are off).
There are in existence, I know, HUNDREDS of pics of my cleavage floating around in cupboards taken at such appropriate occasions such as 3 years olds parties , house warmings and funerals.
This is why aging has been good to me.
I may still not be the prettiest, tallest, or smartest, but I now know I have more to give than free hilarious outrage and a bra full of party tricks.
When I entertain these days, it's for an invoice.
Woman in their 40s and 50s who still try to hide behind the role of NOISIEST and MOST FUN EVER at a party should see a therapist, or at least buy a full length mirror.
Leopard print on anything much larger than a scarf makes the mature woman look like mutton dressed as dead leopard.
Not a good look.
Of course, what we are talking about here IS maturity.
Not getting old.
I hardly think I am the type to settle into the rut of a social norm.
But knowing when to remove some of the brass and add some grace is certainly the trick to staying ahead of the game.
We have all seen men in their 60s who swagger through life with their wispy hair wrapped across their balding pates dressed in slightly too tight pants with a 20 something bimbo on their arm.
"Good grief," we wonder "who does he think he is kidding?"
Um, the same people YOU think YOU are if you insist upon being taken seriously in the workplace whilst signing up to face book with the screen name barbiegrlluvs69.
At 20, that's hilarious.
At 50, that's tragic.
And so you see, time IS a bitch.
Because if she just stood still and allowed us our arrested development, everything would be rainbows and lollipops.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, and the painful truth is that if you are still seeking that kind of attention 30 years after leaving home you will simple never find it.
Not in the way you truly need.
What you actually need, more than the eyes of the room and the title of ' woman most likely to sing an ABBA medley after two tequilas' is love.
Self love.
And by that I mean love from within.
This is what time, and maturity, has taught me.
A bitch she may be, old mother time, but any good parent knows that the lessons we learn the hard way are the ones we never forget.
One day age will take away our memories as well, and as painful as that will be for those around us, for us, it will be just in the nic Time.

According to Jimmy Buffet, If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane.

I need my friends.
I never used to.
But as I've gotten older I have realised that without them, I would live solely inside my own head.
A strange and eventful place.
Luckily I attract forcefully creative and emotionally dynamic people, and the insides of THEIR heads makes the inside of my own look manageable.
I say this with love.
If I wanted to live in white bread world, I would.
Having said that, too much of the 'Drama' and you will find me sitting very still in a corner.
Stupidity terrifies me.
I like crazy as entertainment, not crazy as a brutal imposition on my daily life.
However, as to what counts as 'normality' these days, I am beginning to question.
When I look at the news, and I see people killing each other because they thing that their God is better than another God, I want to reach in and smack some heads.
That has to be the most morbid insanity there is.
I am an avowed atheist, therefore unburdened by the need to seek responsibility or cause from a higher power, but even if I wasn't, the idea that a creator would seek destruction seems absurd.
Logic has no place in religion, this I know.
Men are animals driven to dominate, this I also know.
These two statements are inextricably linked.
To what extent, I do not know.
As for logic in my neighbourhood...sometimes also MIA.
And this is where my friends come in.
I sometimes need to check with the treasured inner sanctum that it's not me.
Twice in the past two weeks I have sat myself down with a quiet hot chocolate in hand and thought about the line between what is eccentric ( and therefore delightfully entertaining) and what is just mentally unwell ( and therefore way too much trouble).
The people who have given me this pause for thought are both relatively high functioning and educated creatures.
Both can be disarmingly charming and have moments of genuine contribution.
Both are egocentric- but then so am I and I don't give a shit- and they both nurture others throughout their day.
And they share one more common bond.
Professionally and superficially outstanding, inwardly they are both damaged.
And I mean broken.
Does this make them crazy?
Is that what that is?
'Cause if it is, I am pretty damned damaged myself, and that can logically only lead to one conclusion.
So I run my crazy past my friends as a mental health check sounding board.
True, the people inside my circle of trust may appear- at least to the outside world- nutty as squirrel poo, but I like them so it works for me.
One very dear friend insists on reminding me that we are all a little damaged.
She is right of course, and it would be foolish to imagine that without that little bit of scarring we would be able to fight the good fight.
One can not forge steel without first beating the shit out of it.
This same friend, and she will know who she is by reading this next bit, told me that her partner was 'dropped on the head at birth type damaged' but that she liked the type of damage he had.
That really made me stop and think.
Hard.
Is it that the crazy that I find so appalling, the selfish and juvenile kind, presses some button deep within my wounded place?
I guess this must be true.
Because if you tell me you believe in faeries, or that you remember things from your past lives, or that you once saw a ghost, or that you only eat yellow foods on even numbered days, or that place the furniture JUST SO to enhance the flow of energy in your room, or that you wish you were a woman even though you were born a man, or vice versa, or can't go into tunnels 'cause you dreamt that they would collapse on you, or that you secretly transform into woodland creatures during the full moon...I will be OK with that.
None of that will surprise me, in fact it will delight me.
I love the diversity of the human psyche.
But if your crazy causes me pain, or causes pain to others........
Not so much.
But that's when I need my friends, just to check that I am not seeing demons where there are none.
That's my kind of crazy, I think too much.
Which appears to be different to many people whose crazy is that they think too little.
Which I consider to be insane.
Reality is based on perception.
So , it would appear, is mental health.
Which makes the majority of us not actually crazy, just a little unwell......and the 'sane' ones, positively barking.

I Think , Therefore I Should Not Run With Scissors.

OH MY GOD, I am SOOOOOOOO excited.
I have just discovered I have a skill I didn't know I had.
I think you may have it too.
Maybe everyone does, but it's only now I am aware of it.
I finish sentences in my head while I keep talking.
I know you are wondering what the fuck I am on about, but try this.
Imagine you are talking to the biggest prick on the planet....you know who he is.....and imagine he is standing right in front of you.
Now the thing is, even though this you fantasise about this person being hit by a bus, for whatever reason, be it that he's a colleague, your boss or an ex you made children with, you can't actually kill him or ignore him, and sometimes you have to play nice nice and not say the things that are sitting right there on your frontal lobe.
So you do this, you say half the sentence with your mouth, and the BIG EDIT button kicks in, and you finish the sentence in your head, but you can still talk nicely and even listen.
So out loud you say " Actually I sent you those papers yesterday"....in your head...." you mother fucking moron"....whilst you are saying..."I'm sure they will arrive next week"
" Yes , I think I can see your point"...in your head..."because I am excellent at spotting stupidity"......whilst you are saying..." and I am trying to find a way we can both be satified"
This self editting appears to have become a hardwired skill.
This is a great relief.
For years working on radio I used to set myself into safety mode around an open microphone.
My natural syntax is littered with profanity, and I also stand up and speak in front of others most days.
These two things never run concurrently.
The only time I drop a rude word whilst being paid, is if I am BEING PAID to swear.
Even then, on a mic, I find this a little stressful.
I have to override my safety switch.
But that's for bad words.
Bad THOUGHTS are a whole new ball game.
Tonight I was in a pub, working on a mic at a brand new gig when some Strapping Great Middle Aged South African Male decided that he would 'check up' on his ipenis to see if what I had just said was true.
And he decided to tell the bar that this is what he was doing.
So I said " Good idea, check my facts, just in case"...close mouth and inside my head..." You total twat, ps, I think it's time you stopped drinking"......open mouth and outside my head SIMULTANEOUSLY...."I will wait while you find the answer".
So check he did ,and I was right, and he was wrong, but no harm was done.
To me especially.
He was way big.
I know a woman who is so barking mad that the only things that can love her are Labradors and somehow her husband (whom I suspect of being one of those man-babies in the bedroom).
Mixed breed dogs and animals with survival skills keep a wide birth.
Labradors love unconditionally because they have emotional problems.
But I digress.
My point is, that this woman has the body shape of a smurf ( the boy ones) and the personality of a 'past-it's-bed-time-and-wired-on red-cordial' 4 year old.
Plus she is totally insane, and yet every time I see her or (God help me) speak with her my mind sentences get longer and longer.
" How are things with you ? You look well "...internal dialogue......"but why, oh why do you wear things that make you look like an advertisement for pear shaped bottoms? No one is buying the 'colourful smock makes me look creative' bullshit. You look like the joke version of a 70's art teacher and when will you just shut the fuck up about your poor ( and probably straying) husband whom you playfully -shudder- call 'boy'-shudder-? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
See, now I do this, but I don't go silent through this time. I finish the sentence in my head, but I can keep talking about her dogs and her deep deep belief in the Mayan Calender.
That's a skill right?
Or schizophrenia.
Whatever.
I am just pleased to have discovered I have learned tact.
It's taken me the better part of 42 years.
If I've had to contract a mental illness in order to do it, I'm a peace with the concept.
Perhaps the Scientolotards are right, maybe mental illness is a made up thing and the glazed looks and jabbering found in psych units is actually the outward manifestation of mental and verbal multitasking.
I don't know, and frankly I don't need to.
Now that I know my brain will protect me from actually saying things like " Wow, you look like shit" whilst actually thinking it, I shall spend my days making hapless small talk with all the fairies and fruit loops in my domain, safe in the knowledge that I, at least, can think in 'mute' whilst shooting from the lip.