NOVEMBER 2008

Well, that was a bit of a gap. How time flies when one is watching TV, selling/buying religious stuff on Ebay or listening to my wife about how everything is awful. Yes, if before the cup was half empty, now it is pretty much empty. Everyone is healthy, the credit crunch hasn't affected us, the builders have left our improved home, I'm here 4 days a week, there is no shortage of money, the children are happy at school, no-one is dying apart from Bruce the new dad-in-law and he doesn't count because he has always been doing that.

And the some total of this OKness is... misery. Queenie is pissed off in possibly this order:

HAVING TO LIVE IN OUR TOWN. TWEE ISLINGTON EXPAT HANG OUT ON THE SOUTH COAST WITH HIGHEST PROPERTY VALUES OUTSIDE... ISLINGTON.

OUR RELATIONSHIP. MY NAZI COLDNESS AND HOW I HAVE DESTROYED HER CONFIDENCE AT REVERSE PARKING AND SEX.

HER SKIN. SHE HAS FANTASTIC SOFT TEENAGE SKIN - PART OF THE PRICE OF THIS ARE OCCASIONAL SPOTS.

HER BEST FRIEND MAZ IS AN UNRELIABLE COW WHO DOESN'T RETURN HER CALLS FOR DAYS/WEEKS AT A TIME. DESPITE LIVING NO MORE THAN 5 MINS WALK AWAY THEY HARDLY SEE EACH OTHER.

HER MUM IS AN UNEMOTIONAL WASTELAND - JUST LIKE ME! SPOOKY HEY?

I'm kind of reminded of Renton in Trainspotting when he does that 'Choose Life' spiel at the start of the film. With Queenie, it would be 'Choose Misery'. I said that to her the other day during one of our rows (Long drawn out apologies by myself punctuated by the ocasional outburst of truth as I see it). That didn't go down too well. That was another one of those moments where she stormed out in order to sacrifice herself to muggers on the Brighton seafront. I stopped her this time. It is a worry because she has this self-harming personality - nothing as crass as cutting herself with a school craft knife; more putting herself into dangerous situations where she can then say it was my fault if she does get assaulted, etc.

She is clinically depressed.

I don't know what to do.

She wont take uppers or sleepers. Wont consider seeing any shrinks or therapists or head quacks - only phsyio-type non-mental body helpers. She knows why she is unhappy (see above). What can she or me do? A job would be the simplest fix.... But. She doesn't want to do anything boring/demeaning/embarrassing. This of course rules out the very few jobs that she might get. Can't blame her for that; I certainly had that approach to employment all the way through the 1980s and did nothing much apart from sign on and piss about. The difference was, I was content to be a waster. If only she would write. Sadly, though she is the most articulate, best read person I have ever known, she does not feel able to do it. Some working class bollocks about how her parents brought her up to believe that her 'sort' just don't do things with words and paper.