Congratulations on getting 200 total follows on MikesFilmTalk.
Your current tally is 203.
After my not so brilliant day yesterday, things could only get better and they did. What is most impressive (to me anyway) is that things got better on the same day. Just when I’d grabbed my metaphorical bootstraps, pulled and nothing happened; I got two bits of fabulous news.
Firstly, it looks like I won’t have to starve to death, at least not this year, as some of my financial woes have been sorted. I’d love to tell you how but I cannot. Suffice to say the “fix” as it were has nothing to do with illegal activities such as robbing a bank or selling addictive substances.
Secondly, I broke the 200 follower barrier last night. It is amazing that something so not related to my main issues could have improved my mood so much. My heart did a long and energetic Snoopy dance and my mind set off copious amounts of fireworks.
The human brain is an odd sort of duck. It is pretty damn resilient. It’s function, beyond that of the body’s Central Processing Unit (CPU), is to help us cope with certain emotions and it enables us to “switch hit” through every day (and not so every day) problems.
When I came home yesterday I was really down. I mean right at the very bottom of the darkest well in existence. But the human brain that I call mine started to immediately function as a pep squad; cheerleaders with pom-pom’s waving and doing handstands.
After I’d written my first draft blog post about yesterday’s events I already felt better. I felt good enough that I pretty much “canned” the first post and I re-wrote it. Talking things through with my daughter Meg also went a long way to improving my disposition. I wasn’t quite ready to do cartwheels of joy just yet, but damned if I wasn’t almost cheery.
After washing the dishes, I made a cup of coffee and went into the front room. I checked my emails and the other windows I had open and I realised that I had another follower or two. I immediately went into the fist pumping show of joy accompanied by my internalized Snoopy dance.
I woke up this morning, back aching and brain on temporary hold, came downstairs and put a load of laundry on and made my first coffee of the day. Switching on the computer I saw that I was still over the 200 mark and despite the firm lecturing I gave myself the night before about not writing about this so soon after my “bragging” 40,000 break-through post; I sat down and started typing.
I am now sitting in my living room. I’ve hung the laundry up to dry, finished my first cup of coffee and I’m looking out the window at a beautiful snow-covered sunshiny day. The confusion and hopeless feeling from yesterday is a million miles away and I am back on the optimism train in the first class section. *It looks like I didn’t need to dodge the train at all, I just had to grab hold of it and “hop” a ride.*
I am also sitting here thinking about that 4th draft copy of my ancient screenplay upstairs lying on the desk. I’m thinking that while I have all this enthusiasm, optimism, and vigour I’d better take a look at it and start again.
But first I’ll have another cup of coffee and enjoy the fireworks a bit more.
With a speed that would make Superman himself envious, my life continues its rapid dervish-like decent into the realms of possible disaster. After a month-long wait, I finally got to see the Citizen’s Advise Bureau (CAB) today. With visions of all things positive running through my mind I answered when the lady called my name. We went into a little room and got down to business.
And business…was not good.
It turns out that the little light that I was envisioning at the end of the long dark tunnel was not an exit, but the train. All that was missing was the rope necessary to tie me helplessly to the railroad track. I think though, if I’d waited long enough, the rope would have been delivered…with a bow on it. But all allegories aside (or is that metaphors) I can now proudly claim membership to the “It so totally sucks to be me, right now” club.
It seems like my only options are to starve to death quickly or just to starve to death. My pension is not enough to house me or clothe me never mind feed me. If I take a lump sum, said lump sum will reduce the amount of my yearly pension drastically; and the worst bit is that the lump sum will get gobbled up by creditors. I will have to move because not only do I have “too much house” but I cannot afford to pay the rent any longer.
Here’s just one fun bit.
As I am renting on the private sector, no one will want to rent to me as my pension is too small and I don’t have a job (yet). Lack of job equals lack of stability, never mind how I got into this predicament. The prospective landlord will not care about my personal circumstances and that is their right. He (or she) is in the business of making money on their property, not doling out charity on a case by case basis. All my joking about cardboard boxes isn’t quite as amusing as it once was.
But part of the problem with today’s information gathering episode was me. I placed far too much importance on the CAB visit. I had pumped myself up to believe that they would answer all my questions in a way that would benefit me. They did answer all my questions, but not how I wanted them answered. The answers, when they came, only made the situation seem worse.
I am sitting here feeling slightly nauseous, partly because I haven’t eaten today and partly because of my current state of mind, and not a little depressed. On the plus side, I am not panicking (yet) and I’m not even hyper-ventilating; I think my daughter Meg is doing that for me. I think I am still in the same state of mind I was in before I went to see the kind folks at CAB. The only difference is that now I have a better idea of what I won’t be getting in the area of financial support.
The only thing I can do right now is not let the future override my present. I have to believe that no matter what happens, I will survive and thrive. I’ve had a lot of people (my family for example) say, “What you’ve got to remember is that you’re alive. You almost died; you need to hold onto that.” I do hold onto to that thought, but, another thought tailgate’s the first one and that thought has to do with the irony of being saved from death only to starve or sleep on the street.
But I have learned a very valuable lesson today. Don’t place too much importance on thinking ahead when the future is so uncertain. Focus instead on the short-term and keep a flexible attitude. It’s okay to plan for tomorrow when you know the facts and not so okay when you don’t. Sometimes you just have to live each day and take comfort in the fact that you did at least one thing that made you happy whether that one thing was just getting up or something more esoteric.
So despite feeling a bit like the fickle finger of fate has given me a prostate exam sans lubricant, I can take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I can actually “trot” up the stairs (a feat I was not capable of last week). I take great comfort in the fact that I can walk to and from the Metro twice in one day and not collapse from exhaustion afterward. Okay, both trips were not end to end, so to speak, but not a whole lot of time had elapsed between trips.
I’ve been put off my stride, again, and I will face more obstacles as this little scenario plays itself out. I refuse to let it get me down though and the CAB did give me some brilliant websites to access for more information. The main problem with today’s session boils down to me trying to plan ahead for things that have not happened yet. Oh some of them had, but not all, and it was that problem that led to my depressing meeting.
I do know that just writing this blog post for the second time (the first draft was so full of depressing information that I could see myself being blamed for an increased suicide rate) has improved my low mood no end. I don’t feel like I can take on the world just yet, but I feel like I can at least dodge that damned train.
When I looked down and saw that my last post was the 400th one, I was shocked, surprised and not a little proud. I wanted to stand up and thrust my imaginary sword to the sky and yell manfully, “This is Mich-ael!”
All kidding aside, I am really surprised that I’ve managed to keep it up for so long. *and yes, I do know how rude that sounds, thank you* I had no idea that when I started blogging in 2011 that I’d keep writing and posting so religiously. It has become my newest addiction.
It is also my most satisfying endeavour. Through the blogging community, I’ve met some great people and read some great blogs. My follower count (a combination of three different blogs) now reaches over 175. For someone who never thought he’d get one follower to now being within a gnat’s whisker of having 200, it’s mind-boggling.
Although I’ve reached the over 400 post mark, this one will be 401, I still have not really decided if I should branch out into different pages or not. I have a pretty eclectic range of blog posts. Film, which makes up the majority of my posts is closely followed by personal ruminations and philosophy. I have also done a lot of autobiographical posts as well as health, politics and the odd rant.
My blog title of MikesFilmTalk could be a little misleading I suppose, but as I do talk about film a lot, it seems fitting. My first ever blog was titled Random Thoughts for a Random World. It seemed fitting. Most of my original posts were just that, Random musings.
But as my first love is still writing, cinema and acting my current title seems apt enough.
I’m taking the long way around the barn again, I do apologise.
The point of this short blog post is to say thank you, again, friends and neighbours for your continued support; and for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and followed me? Bless you.
It is the follower’s, liker’s, and commenter’s who brighten my day. I hope I can continue to post at least daily, although I’ve posted several posts in one day in the past) and some days not posted at all.
I am learning a bit more about writing a blog and how to improve on it. I am also loosening up old creative muscles that I thought had atrophied through lack of use. If you are interested here is the first blog post that started me on my way to the over 400 that I’ve written and uploaded.
My daughter has had a fascination with old dilapidated buildings since college. I remember taking her out on photo shoots of the many Industrial Estates around the area that had lost a lot of business to a continuing economic downturn.
Considering that I used to patrol a lot of these estates when I worked in Security, it felt strange to pass these same buildings that only a few years previously had been bustling businesses.
Only the weeds are growing.
A lot of these places I’d delivered office supplies to in a previous job. At no time during my office supply days did any of these thriving places seem close to financial ruin. I remember smiling faces at the reception desk and helpful hands taking the supplies from the back of my van. A cup of tea or coffee would be offered and if I had time, I’d accept. Coffee, biscuits and gossip then on my way.
No cars, no security.
My daughter would always ask what building housed what business. When was the last time I’d been there. Did I know anyone who still had access to the buildings so we could take pictures inside. The answers varied, but, in each case I knew of no-one who could let us inside. It seemed a shame then and does now. I would have liked to have seen if they all resembled the deserted place I’d been in before.
Not down yet.
I remember when my daughter (Meg) finished her last year at University, we collected all her things from her shared house and put them in the handy HomeStore Self Storage warehouse in Ipswich. It sat at the end of Ransomes Europark and we had to drive past a lot of ‘dead’ businesses to get there. Because of the ease involved with entering and leaving the place we went there a lot.
We passed the old business where I had collected old office furniture years before. The one that was so disquieting and surrealistic. Each time we drove past I wondered who, if anyone, ever went into the building now.
Still empty after all these years.
As times continue to force more and more businesses under the hammer. Industrial Estates are becoming the new ghost towns of this millennium. All that’s missing are the rolling tumbleweeds and the lonely blowing wind.
My cold-water flat was getting claustrophobic. Despite having a huge window, the room was oddly airless. Smells seemed to ‘dig’ into the room, refusing to leave no matter how much you ‘aired’ it out.
The final straw came when a girlfriend, after a particularly amorous night, threw up a horrible mixture of Yukon Jack and cheese savouries on my duvet. This momentous event occurred while I was in my communal toilet and she struggled to reach the sink which was an arm’s length away.
Our relationship sort of cooled after that night though the memory of it remained. I was reminded of it every time I entered the flat. Despite air fresheners and freezing the room out by leaving the window wide open in the winter, the smell lingered. Even the duvet’s chemical smell from the dry cleaners didn’t mask the rooms pong.
As I went to pay my monthly rent to the landlady, I noticed someone was moving from a hugeground floor flat. I inquired about it and Lady Luck was on my side. No one else had even looked at the flat yet, so I transferred my deposit from my tiny flat to the new huge one. I was able to move my things the same day.
The new flat was an old shop, I don’t remember what type of shop it had been, but, it still had the full window street footage in front. A giant floor length curtain covered the room sized window and it was separated from the rest of the flat by a ‘false’ wall.
My front door was a glass ‘French’ door. As you walked in the flat if you looked immediately to the right you could see another door that led into another flat. This door, though permanently locked, was very thin and let a lot of sound through. One night my ‘neighbour’ had two local ladies in for entertainment.
They were very vocal about their obvious enjoyment of my neighbour’s love-making techniques. When the noise began to mimic the ‘When Harry Met Sally‘ moment in the diner, I banged on the door.
“Hey!”, I said. “Either keep it down or invite me in!”
There was a startled silence followed by muffled whispering. I did not receive an invite, but they did lower the decibel levels of their appreciation. I took a couple of cold showers and was finally able to go sleep.
Back at the front door, if you looked to the left you had the sleeping area and a door leading to a short hallway. The hallway when entered from my end had a shower room to the right and a little further down from the shower room was the toilet.
The toilet was a small windowless room with a door that was hard to close. The door itself had ‘bolt’ lock on it. The ‘bolt’ lock was as hard to use, old and a bit rusty, you had to really shove the damn thing to lock the door.
At the other end of the hallway was the other flat that I shared the shower and toilet with. He was a nice enough chap who had a lot of fondness for drink. I can honestly say, I don’t ever remember seeing him sober.
He was a very amiable ‘drunk’ who liked to laugh and loved getting ‘massages’ from the local working girls which he paid for in steaks bought from the USAF commissary for a couple of dollars that would have cost a fortune if purchased down town.
One day I came home from work and really needed to use the toilet. Rushing in, I ran for the littlest room in the flat only to find it closed and locked. Peeved, I went back to my flat and waited for a minute or two.
Nature was dying to take it’s course and I soon rushed back to the toilet door. Trying the door again, I found it was still closed tight and locked. I tapped on the door.
“Frank? Dude, I really need the toilet. Can you hurry up?”
Silence. I knocked louder.
Still nothing.
I was worried now. What if my drunken neighbour had passed out in there? What if he had died in there.
This time I kicked the door. Hard.
“Frank!”
Panicked now, I pushed myself back against the narrow hall’s outside wall and shoulder down slammed against the toilet door. I had to do this two or three times before the door smashed open.
The door rebounded off the inside wall and something tinkled on the floor.
The room was empty. There was no slumped body on the actual toilet or on the floor. The only thing in the toilet was the door frame bracket for the bolt lock. Looking at the inside of the door, I saw that the bolt lock tongue was protruding.
The door had been locked and the only way to lock it was from the inside.
It was impossible to lock the door from the outside.
So who in the hell had locked it? Or more accurately, what had locked it.
After I was finally able to answer my ‘call of nature’ I got a screwdriver and re-attached the bolt lock’s end bracket to the frame. I went to the pub and promptly forgot all about it.
One week later, I came home from work and went through the little hall to use the toilet. The door was hanging forlornly off of one hinge. I drug the door closed and paid my compliments to Mother Nature. As I came out, Frank exited his room and faced me in the hallway.
“Hey Holmes (Frank called everybody Holmes) I got home today and I really needed to use the toilet. I come in here and the door’s closed and locked.” He pointed to the door. “I thought that you were in there and I left. You know? Then when things got a little more urgent, I decided to knock and ask you to hurry up. You know? But you didn’t answer Holmes, cause you weren’t in there. But I didn’t know that. I thought that you were like, passed out or had a heart attack or somethin’. So I kicked the friggin door open? And Holmes? There wasn’t any body in there!”
He looked at me, clearly puzzled. “Holmes? How did that damn door lock itself?”
Shaking my head, I recounted my bathroom adventures from the week before. We both decided that we’d better fix the door back on its hinges and not tell the landlady that we were trying to destroy her property.
The door went back on the hinges no problem, but the bolt lock bracket was a little worse off. It hung loosely on the door frame and the bolt that slid into it was very wobbly.
Exactly one week later, I returned home to find the door closed and ‘locked’ again with no one inside. This time, however, it was very easy to force the door open. I told the landlady about the ‘self locking’ door when I moved.
Everyone I told about the door said the same thing. “The place must be haunted.” My ‘new’ girlfriend, after looking at the door and the room, said the same. “There is no way ‘humanly’ possible to lock that door from the outside. It’s definitely a ghost or poltergeist or something.”
I never did find out what had locked that door, but I did move. I had a mate at work who had rented a huge house in the country and wanted someone to split the rent with him. He asked me if I was interested.
I said yes and then moved into a house that was more haunted than the flat I’d just moved from.
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