I have made another forray into politics. See the new rant on ramrage.

Ram.

New rant up on Ramrage. Short and bittersweet this time I assure you :D

Brighton and London this weekend

Nottingham the weekend after

Third weekend unsure

Christmas busy seeing family, etc.

I hope to see all of you who harbour some affection for me over the festive period.

Yours, ineffably,

Ram.

Two thoughts:

1) She is all shades of lovely.

2) I am friends with some people who have belittled me, dragged me down, scared me, indimidated me, guilt-tripped me, emotionally blackmailed me, bullied me, tore apart what I considered my world to be at the time and generally been quite unpleasant towards me.

If I can still be friends with THEM, why shouldn't I be friends with the woman I was madly in love with for two years?

"A bird flew into a cage then when it turned around it found the cage was locked.

If the bird was a God, what would be it's cage?"

From the Book of Questions by Vyassa.

(or, more accurately, from the tabletop rpg 'Nobilis'. A Game so vast in scope that I have only ever run it once for a couple of hours. However, thanks to tvtropes I found the blog of the Lady who wrote it (and all the little 'extracts' in the margins.)

Hitherby Dragons

I hope you enjoy them too.

P.

Laika (from the Russian: Лайка, a breed of dog, literally meaning, "Barker" or "Howler") was a Soviet space dog (c. 1954–November 3, 1957) who became the first living mammal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital casualty.
Little was known about the impact of space flight on living things at the time Laika's mission was launched. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so space engineers viewed flights by non-human animals as a necessary precursor to human missions.[1] The United States used chimpanzees; the Soviet program elected to use dogs.
Laika, a stray, originally named Kudryavka (Russian: кудрявка, literally meaning, "Little Curly-Haired One"), underwent training with two other dogs, and was eventually chosen as the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into space on November 3, 1957.
Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating, probably due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. The true cause of her death was not made public until decades after the flight.[2]
Although Laika did not survive the trip, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments.
On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. The small monument is near a military research facility in Moscow that prepared Laika's flight to space. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket."

(From Wikipedia.org)

I have decided that every year on this day I am going to think of Laika.

Peat.

see more pwn and owned pictures

This is how they get you.

You want to stay in London because despite the fact London doesn't care about you and probably never will you like it here.

You need to pay the rent, the bills, the council tax.

So you get a job. You think, just for now, I need to pay the rent, the bills, the council tax, but I won't give up on my dream, this I just to survive.

But then you find you don't have the time to pursue the dream outside the hours of work, you just want to relax after your 9-5 or do something fun. Then you find it is over a year since you did anything successful towards what you ACTUALLY want to do for a living.

Then your despair kicks in and you start to think that maybe things are too late, that you should just sink into this mundane career you have started. But you still dream.

It makes you unhappy sure, but what choice do you have? You need to pay the rent, the bills, the council tax, you need to buy clothes and food and booze, spend money on train tickets and oyster cards, buy sandwiches rather than make them because you forgot to have breakfast AGAIN because you didn't want to get out of bed. Which just makes you more unhappy. Finally you realise your brain has turned to mush and you don't care about work, the rent, the bills, the council tax you are simply a cog in a giant machine.

So realising this you pour out your melancholy onto your blog you have had since you were a student in the hope that doing so shakes you up enough to actually DO something about your ever-increasing slide into middle age. And you pray is shocks your Brain with it's catharsis and as soon as you post you ACTUALLY, not SWEAR, PROMISE or DECIDE, but ACTUALLY DOOOOO something about your life.

That's how they get you and that's how I'm getting out.

Ram

Top five jobs/vocations:

1: Archaeologist
2: Stage Manager
3: Herald
4: Writer
5: Buddhist Monk

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

George Orwell

So I am talking to you again in an effort to make peace.

I do want to work towards us being friends again in the future. But we are not best friends again.

Tread softly, for you still tread on my shattered heart.

Egg.

12th of september

Drinks and Dancing.

Be there.

Climb down off your high horse so you can actually hear what I am saying.

"Stop now before it's too late
Eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate
Nothing lasts forever that's the way it's gotta be
There's a great black wave in the middle of the sea for me."

Arcade Fire

Just because I don't want to speak to you or see you now doesn't mean I never want to again.

I'm just not strong enough at the moment.

How many Buddhist monks does it take to change a lightbulb?

They are the lightbulb.

Om.

Is it wrong to still want to be friends with her when it hurts so much?

Can I still be friends with all the people I met through her?

When will I trust myself again?

"Now from his breast into his eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by the swimmer
spent in rough waters where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big surf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever."

From 'The Odyssey' by Homer. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald

Ram

#Everyone says that you're so fragile#

London chewed me up and spit me out.

My lung was punctured and I was in hospital for a few days. I think I am better now, but I am scared that I'm not.

What would I do without you?

Who would I be if I didn't have you in my life?
If you hadn't given me that kind or harsh word when I needed it. If you hadn't been quiet when I needed you to be. I you hadn't done what you did, I would not be here.

God only knows what I would be without you.

But I'm glad I am me and you are you and that we can share some of our lives together.

I love you all.

Cashing a reality cheque

It seems as if 2007 has one last card to play. I have to leave my house by March as the building has been sold and will be gutted to build shops and flats.

I have to decide what I am going to do next in my life. I feel that I must review my path and quickly.

Jo gave me a Bonsai tree for Christmas. I think it is the most beautiful thing anyone has given me. If I take care of it, he, that is to say 'Aldebaran' my bonsai tree will outlive me. My life will be but a moment for him. So why worry?

I wish I felt more sure that I was going to make something of my life and die feeling that I had adventures, romance and left the world a bit better. But other times I think a quiet, humble life will be better.

But then, I am me and my life tends to take interesting turns and I seem to seek adventure so perhaps it will not be a dull life either way. That fills me with hope and joy.

My love to you all.

Ram