Stuff & Nonsense

Pad Project Day 4: Random brain dump

Today, let’s talk about some good old random crap.  Here’s what’s on my mind at the moment (excluding stuff that…well, isn’t suitable for a public venue).

1) Facebook.

I disabled my facebook account a couple of days ago as part of my attempt to actually do something productive with my time.  Before that I would spend literally hours each day just sort of…looking at facebook.  Maybe occasionally posting random thoughts onto it but generally just looking at it.  It’s truly insidious how facebook has wormed its way into our lives to the point where it seems to have become a fundamental part of how we interact with each other.  I’m genuinely shocked now if I meet someone and they don’t have a facebook account.  In fact, I’m convinced that the rise of facebook has something to do with the global economic meltdown of the last few years.  I bet if you correlated the rise in facebook users against inflation (or some other measure of economic worth) you’d see some pretty interesting results.  Also (since I just thought of it) guess what the fastest growing economy in the world is?  That’s right, China.  And guess what website (among others) is blocked in China?  Hmm.

2) Pets

I’m currently the nominal owner of 4 animals.  3 cats and a dog.  None of which I wanted in the first place, and everyone one of which gets right on my tits to a greater or lesser extent.  The dog is… reasonable.  Apart from the fact he smells.  A lot.  I don’t know if there’s actually something wrong with him, but a few days after having a bath he…well, he smells like a tramps socks basically.  Not pleasant.  Other than that he’s pretty amenable.  Oh, except when you take him for a walk you have to be constantly vigilant for other dogs.  God forbid another dog should dare to walk within 100 yards of him.  Despite being the size of a handbag, he’ll happily try to fight anything on 4 legs.  Anyway, that’s the dog and like I said I can deal with him.  Other than walking him and feeding him (and shutting him in the kitchen at night so he doesn’t decide to lovingly leave his ‘scent’ all over my carpet) he’s pretty easy going.

The cats though just piss me off to an amazing degree.  To be fair, I’ve never really been a cat person… I’ve always had a very stand offish relationship with them.  Then, a few years ago I was talked into getting a cat due partly to the mouse problem we had in the house we lived in.  That worked brilliantly, the cat we got (a little black thing) was a kick ass hunter and within a couple of weeks we had a mouse free home.  I kind of made my peace with that cat, I’d occasionally play with her and so on…all well and good.  Then my partner decided we needed another cat.  I have no idea why.  He’s the stupidest fucking animal on the planet.  But again, after a number of years I grew…not fond, but tolerating of him.  Yes it pisses me off that I have to get up at least 15 times a day to let them in or out of the house, but I can cope with that.  Anyway, the third cat comes from another failed relationship… he’s currently lodging with me while my ex tries to find somewhere permanent to live.  He’s…fairly docile actually, doesn’t really both me too much.

So…individually we’ve seen that any of those animals is actually not much of a bother.  However, 4 of them in one house is just a 16 legged route to madness.  The original cats don’t get on with either the new cat or the dog.  The dog will eat any cat food that isn’t immediately eaten by the cats.  The new cat hisses at the old cats whenever he see’s them.  One of the original cats will take any opportunity at all to leg it upstairs and go to sleep on my bed (I don’t like cats upstairs, so I try to stop this happening whenever possible).  The only time they’re not pestering to be fed is when they’re outside, and at that point they’re usually pestering to be let in.  Pets man, they’re a complete nightmare.

3) Social anxiety disorder

This is actually preying on my mind quite a bit at the moment.  Ever since I can remember, probably for at lest the last 15 years or so, I’ve had serious issues with social situations.  To the point where I find it incredibly difficult to leave the house some days.  Walking down the street turns into a game of ‘which ridiculous panic attack type symptom will I have today’.  Will it be the legs that suddenly forget how to work?  The sudden intense sweating?  The amazingly embarrasing blushing?  Not fun at all.  A couple of months ago I decided to actually do something abut all this and got in touch with my local NHS service since, as well as making it difficult to actually get out and do stuff, this combined with working from home meant I was actually getting quite depressed and turning into a bit of a recluse.  A depressed, reclusive hermit with 3 cats and a dog.  Not good at all.  Anyway, rather annoyingly since doing the mental health assessment (no, I’m not going to top myself.  Really.)  and finally getting an appointment to see a counsellor I’ve actually found that I’m finding it much easier to go out.  I mean, I still don’t choose to go out if I don’t have to… but on the occasions when I do have to venture into the outside world I’m finding it much easier to cope with.  Which is kind of annoying, because…well, what if the counsellor thinks I’m just making shit up or something?  Or what if I’m somehow cured myself and don’t actually need counselling any more?  Well, my first appointment is the day after tomorrow (ha, that’s the film that’s on telly at the moment) so we shall see how things transpire.

Well I could actually carry on ranting about random stuff, but I think I’ll leave it there for today and actually save some for tomorrow.  So…that’s all folks!

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