- Brexit just got personal. Now I’ve always been aghast at the mere concept of Brexit, literally everything about it is and has always been terrible, but Brexit is now fucking with my cheese and THIS WILL NOT STAND. Except it will, obvs, because I can do exactly nothing about the situation and if I had the power obvs I would have stopped Brexit four years ago, but I am VERY UPSET to find that Migros no longer has cheddar. Aldi has cheddar, presumably from Ireland? But it’s not as good. I have aaaaaaall the Swiss (and French etc) cheese at my disposal and that’s great, yes, lovely cheeses, but there’s something particularly comforting about cheddar. I need my comfort in these days of woe, I really do. TURN BACK BREXIT NOW!
- Small realisation: I find that when learning a piano piece, I only improve so far. I can get it like 90% right but never perfect, there’s always a fumble somewhere, no matter how much I practise. I think I know why, too. At first, it’s all new and hard and requires my full attention. By the time I’m 90% there, it’s largely muscle memory; my brain won’t stay in one place and focus. If I try and pull my brain back to the business at hand, it kind of interferes with the muscles and the fumbling gets worse. If I let it drift off, I still fumble because I just haven’t achieved mastery yet. This is annoying. I enjoy the learning part most but at some point it would be great to be able to play something properly.
- Cat training progress: Venus has developed the habit of coming to bed with us – first, at around our usual bedtime, she makes her way to our room and settles down on the foot of the bed. Second, when we’re both actually in bed, she moves over to my side, in the cuddle zone (i.e within easy reach) and stays there all night to be petted. Not always, but usually. I find this very pleasing. However, on Sunday, we were out the entire afternoon/evening visiting grandparents, and the minute we came home she was following us around and staying in our room. Which, firstly, awww! she missed us! But secondly, well, shit. I really never leave the house for more than a couple of hours? You’re terrible Muriel!
- The weather seems to be turning – still wintry but leaving the icy days behind us. Meaning we can look forward to a lot of rain, probably, and I’m not at all convinced that’s an improvement. I admit I get sick of having to bundle up all the time, and it was a huge pain having to climb over piles of frozen slush for over a week (felt like longer) to walk literally anywhere. But it’s been very pretty, and the very slightly frozen lake is very pretty, and rain is just so boring. And dark.
- People talk a lot about “listening to your body” as a guide to decision making and I find this deeply suspect. I mean yes, “gut instinct” is a whole thing but dude my body has an awful lot of fear and tension-based responses that are not really helpful for strategic thinking. However I have been very aware lately of how extremely embodied I am. Yoga feels very different according to my varying mental state. There are times when I’ve been emotionally wrung out and in a state of surrender, and I feel like spaghetti. Then at other times, when I’ve experienced tension during the day, even if it’s all over, I’m so much stiffer and less bendy. And then there’s the highly irritating way that my body expresses stress through skin ailments. Tending to the body is clearly very necessary and important for mental well-being, and vice versa, but it’s very tiresome. Seems like in a well-ordered system one should be able to compartmentalise a bit better.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic) 