Spring

I've been sick for a while.  I got a cold, and then as usual it turned into bronchitis and dragged on and on.  I think it's been four weeks since it began.  I felt very washed out and lethargic but my energy is gradually coming back.

I thought I'd share this photo of the daffodils coming through the lawn.  Spring is here!  The two blackbirds that live in the garden are nesting busily, the ash tree is thick with sticky buds, the daffodils are wonderful -- they look as if they are the source of the light, not as if they are merely reflecting it.  At the other house I had a much bigger daffodil patch--I planted over a thousand.  But this one will grow in time.  Next year in autumn (April/May) I'll plant some more so that the patch is twice as big next spring.  I lost a lot of temperate bulbs because summer was so very hot (global warming), but this year I shall make sure they're well watered over summer, and I shall cover the patch with a thick layer of straw, so the soil doesn't heat up too much.

Anyway, they cheered me up no end, when I was in a fit state to start enjoying life again.  So beautiful and full of hope!

Finally

Gay marriage is now legal throughout the US.

The struggle naught availeth

Well, not quite.  I am losing weight.  Not fast, but it's been 3 weeks now.  The chart shows my weight, measured each week on a Saturday morning after my shower.  You can see how I gained weight over the Christmas period (wife's birthday, wining and dining clients, Christmas, New Year, wedding anniversary), reversing the previous downtrend.  But once again I'm losing.

I'm on the low-GL diet, discovered  by the nutritionist Patrick Holford, and I was on it before the Christmas splurge.  GL stands for "glycaemic load".  "Glycaemic" is a nice Ancient Greek word meaning "sweet-blood" (glykos/glukos=sweet, haim/haem = blood) and the low-GL diet is about controlling your blood sugar.  Well, much follows from that, which is a little bit complicated.  But it is NOT a conventional low-calorie diet.  And unlike all other diets I've tried, it works.  I tried it 10 years ago and lost 1 kg a week over 20 weeks.  I'm never hungry.  I avoid high-GL carbohydrates such as white flour and sugar, but eat (as a vegetarian) a fair amount of low-GL carbs like beans and chickpeas. I eat lots of raw nuts whenever I am hungry.  You can eat berries (delicious), nuts, peanuts, beans, veggies, tofu (meat if you have to, but I never eat meat or fish), apples, cheese with care, tehini, hummous; but you must avoid things made with white flour and sugar.  I avoid alcohol; it seems to make me gain weight very fast (hence the Christmas gains).  You do have to give up caffeine because it affects your blood-sugar much like high-GL foods, and that was by far the hardest thing to do.  You must exercise 15 minutes a day, which I find doable.

So, by next Christmas I want to be 20 kgs (44 lbs) lighter.  And I'll have got there without self-deprivation .... except for not drinking tea .....

New Year Resolutions

1. Lose weight
2. Be happy
3. Drink less
4. Judge others less
5. Try to be more forgiving

So many of the people I loved have gone.  This is life, is it not?  So I must adjust myself to it, because sure as phuque it's not going to change for me.

So I mustn't judge people for their cruelties and wrong-doing.    That'll be hard: some I will never forgive.  But I know in my heart just how flawed I am.  Surely I can extend forgiveness to others if I want them to forgive me?  And maybe forgiving will allow me to gain the first 3 of my goals.

I will try harder.

When Albert met Anne

A story about gender and about the stupidity and cruelty of our laws.

When Albert met Richard, he offered to buy him a gin and tonic.

Homosexuality had been legal for almost a decade in Britain, and young men flocked to gay bars with a giddy ardour they were still reticent to display on the street.  

"You had to be careful. We had friends who were roughly treated. It still wasn't something you shouted about, because you could get derision, or worse," Ann Urch says.

Almost 40 years on, the light gleams on Ann's golden bracelets and ruby-coloured nails as she tells their remarkable story.

Their first lease on a flat (she still has the papers), migration to Australia and forays into local politics in Frankston. They settled in the bayside suburb of Mt Martha, in Melbourne.

Richard Urch, a nurse at Frankston Hospital, sits on the sofa opposite. He fills in the gaps in her tale, sometimes takes the lead.

For the first 34 years their relationship, Ann was Albert.

A tall, balding man with a deep Mancunian accent, Albert Knowles was a Frankston councillor and mayor in the mid-1980s, skilled in manufacturing and management, one half of a gay couple.

But Albert was also someone who - for as long as he could remember - had a deep conviction his gender did not match his body and he was a woman, a condition known as gender dysphoria.

As Albert grew older this gnawed at him and he became depressed. But he did not feel ready to tell Richard.

Read the rest here.

Intimations of mortality

A Honda 750 4-pipe: my bike 30 years ago

When I was young, I never really believed I would die.  I was, in my heart of hearts, not just immortal but invincible.  As an example, I used to ride a big motorbike along De Waal Drive, which is an old, very winding freeway along the face of Table Mountain in Cape Town.  Drunk.  And I survived, idiot that I was, to tell the tale.

But over the last few years, I have had several warnings from Ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων  ( Silver-bowed Apollo)  A heart-attack scare, a cancer scare, decaying knees, gut problems,   The sore knees won't kill me (I hope!) but they're just another sign of wear and tear.  And tiredness,  I used to have abundant energy.  Now I seem to need more sleep in the day, but can't get a decent night's sleep at night.  Boring.

Yet I might live for another 30 years.  Who knows?  These days I live as I did then, from day to day.  Then because each day's fun was immediate and thrilling.  Now because I don't know when it'll all end, and since there's sweet FA I can do about it, I  might as well get on with life.  The deep depression I endured after Henrik died is past.  All the same, I'm still not joyful, as I was then.  I miss the insensate joy of those days 30 years ago, driving too fast on a sharply curving road along a very steep mountain, drinking too much without ill effect, staying up till all hours, sleeping with unsuitable people, finding out about literature, music, art, cinema, talking intensely with other people about the meaning of life.  But I am still alive, for now, and there is still beauty and interest in the world, despite everything.

Male bonding

One of the tragedies of society's hostility to gayness is that straight men are afraid to get "too close" to other straight men.  After all, loving another man is gay, right?  And being gay is a very dreadful thing, God wot.  I don't need to point out that you can love another man very deeply without wanting to have sex with him.  I adored my father, and I love my sons more than I can say.  But because of these absurd and horrible taboos against being close to another man, too many men never really  bond with other man.

A Finnish study, reported in The Guardian, shows how being stroked in a non-sexual way bonds people closer.

Researchers have shed light on the chemistry that bonds one person to another by taking brain scans of men being stroked while in their underpants.

The Finnish study found that gentle stroking – which was not in sexually arousing areas – changed levels of opioid brain chemicals which work behind the scenes to form lasting bonds in animals.

The findings suggest that opioids might be the critical chemicals that enables human brains to distinguish between strangers and people who are closer to us, such as friends, families and lovers.

"We know this is hugely important for humans because we have these strong, lasting bondings with friends and relatives and so on. But what kind of system maintains these bonds, and makes them last?" said Lauri Nummenmaa who studies the neural circuitry of emotions at Aalto University in Finland.

Studies in animals have shown that opioids can play a crucial role in pairing up. Prairie voles are monogamous in the wild, but when given a drug that blocks opioid in their brains, they seek out other partners. If opioids are blocked in monkeys, they groom others less and neglect their babies.

To see whether opioids were important in human bonding, the researchers invited nine couples into the lab. The men stripped off to their underpants and lay under a blanket in a PET scanner. The first scan was taken while the men were alone. For the second, their partners touched them gently all over, but avoided anywhere likely to arouse them sexually.

[Read more here]

Health Update

Four or five weeks ago I "did" my knee.   I used to run long distances and as I posted here, my running shoes definitely damaged my knees.  That attempt to start running again failed.  Which is pretty sad, because I adore running.  Anyway, running and even walking being impossible, I decided to swim instead.  Don't much like swimming but ... what can you do?  I have to exercise.

But I did my knee at a swim session!  Maybe it was the bouncing around while I was trying to get water out of my ears.  Maybe it was ....  Who knows?

Anyway, a long a tedious program of tests and doctors' visits started.  X-rays.  Ultrasound.  MRI.  And it all culminated in a visit to the knee surgeon on Tuesday.  I had hoped that an arthroscopy would be enough to fix things.  But it was not to be.  I have lost virtually all the cartilage in my right knee.

He suggested three treatment options.

First, glucosamine.  In about 30% of cases it helps, he said (he's a professor at the University of Melbourne and also head of the Royal Melbourne Hospital orthopaedics unit)  It has certainly helped me, even though the Wikipedia article doubts its effectiveness.  My pain (which is often severe) has been greatly reduced.  I'm taking a vegetarian glucosamine (I am a vegetarian).

Second, weight loss.  Losing 25 kgs (55 lbs) is often as effective a treatment as knee replacement.  I've started!

Third, knee replacement therapy.  He says I'm young for that, LOL.  It lasts 15 years or so and then you need to do it again.  I want to postpone that extreme solution as long as possible.

I walk with a stick, which is uncommonly tiresome, and the pain depresses me.  But as ever, I hope for better days!  I am losing weight (1.9 kgs/4.2 lbs since Wednesday); glucosamine does seem to help; and I intend to start swimming again this coming week.

As ever, onwards and upwards.

Writing

I haven't written anything, really, for a while.  Lots of reasons; health, depression, time.  But I am in writing mode again, have written several episodes of Majorca Flats, enough to post one a day for week, and in fact I'll be posting one later today.  Thanks for your patience.

Plus I'm working on another writerly project which has me really enthused.  I'll keep you posted.

Meaning

My lady, my elder son and I were talking about "meaning", as in the meaning of life or finding meaning to life.  My son sees meaning and purpose to his life.  Yet my lady and I struggle to see them in ours.  Our parents have died; friends have died; and our favourite little dog, which we both adored, died a few weeks ago.  We are both very conscious that our lives might end too, any time.  Life seems to be just a long slog, paying off debts, working at jobs which we don't like (though I like mine more than my lady likes hers); struggling with ill health.  And so boringly on.

I used to wonder why old ppl appeared so grumpy.  Now I know!

And yet .... I do get meaning from simple things: my garden, books, music, the love of my family.  I can't drink any more (it gives me gout,  don't dare laugh, gout is agonizing) and that was a comfort to me.   It helped take the edge off things.

So ... I count my blessings.  Every day.  And sometimes it helps.  And sometimes it doesn't.

Today it helped.  Tomorrow ... who knows?  As the Bible says, sufficient unto the day the evil thereof.

Onwards and upwards.

Môre is nog 'n dag.  Tomorrow is another day!

I loves ya

Love. Without it we whither and die. With it we survive all sorts of horrors.

The Road goes ever on

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
 A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
 West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

Saturday Night Thoughts

It's late at night here.  Late-ish, anyway.  And I've just watched a Hercule Poirot and imbibed several glasses of champagne which has left me a little,  well maudlin is the best word.

Alcohol hasn't always affected me like that.  Once it made me happy, and sometimes, when I forget, it still does.  But there are so many wounds, so many scars.  It becomes harder to be joyful.

One mustn't grumble and complain, since it's unseemly, as well as offensive (I have so much: a roof over my head, food and drink in my belly, a wife who loves me, children, and enough money to buy books and records).  Yet once it was easier to bounce back from the stumbling blocks life throws up.  Now I know that the world is far from perfect and in fact never will be perfect.  I used to believe it could be made better, that things could be improved.  Now I don't.   I miss those whom I loved who have died or gone away.  I miss my youth, my good health, my joie de vivre.

All this makes hope harder to hold on to.  And without hope, what point is there?

Footy, chapter 11

I've just uploaded it to my website, here.

They decided to eat at the Italian pizza place half a block away. They ordered pizzas and beers, and leaned back on their chairs with a sigh.

“Well, that’s over,” said Tom, with a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. “Anita persuaded me to buy the house, and I’ve done well out of it, but it doesn’t have good memories for me.”

“You may feel the same about the flat in a while. After we’ve had our first blazing row, for example.”

“What would we argue about? I’m too relaxed and you never disagree with me.” He took a long swallow of his beer. “Oh, that’s good!”

“You don’t know that. Maybe I just keep quiet.” Adam drank some of his beer too. Beer went well with pizza for some reason.

“Which could be a good reason to quarrel. If we’re going to live together, I want you to tell me about the things that piss you off.”

“Oh yeah. ’Course you do!”

“Adam, I don’t like secrets or hidden things. I don’t like lies. I want to know if there’s something wrong, else how can I fix it?”

As Tom spoke, Adam could feel his heart sinking. If Tom ever found out the truth, he would never forgive him. It would be bad enough when he learned that he’d been sharing a bed with a homo. But when he found out that all Adam’s secrets were connected with this, that Adam had fancied him from day one, and that he’d helped him because of that, their friendship would be over.

-- 

Happy New Year

It's 10 pm on 31st December 2010.  So not quite new year, yet.  But these times are quite arbitrary really.  In New Zealand it is new year, and being d'un certain age, I prefer to celebrate early.  And anyway, it's summer (daylight saving) time.  If we didn't change the clock between winter and summer, it wouldn't be new year even in Noz.

It's been a day every bit as hot as they said it would be:  nearer sea level the temperature did reach 40 C (104 F) and the cool change promised for 9 pm has yet to arrive.

But I watched the light drain out of the evening sky: cobalt high up, a pale turquoise in the middle and a pearly opalescent sheen at the horizon, bracketed by drifting cumulus tinged rose on their western edges.  In the distance the Wombat State Forest loomed a sooty-hued olive, the sky happily clear of bushfire smoke.  Nearer, the elms and oaks planted by homesick Englishmen one hundred and fifty years ago were ink against the pearly shine.  A distant rhythmic thump from a party (when last did we go to a party we enjoyed?)  My lady and I sip the champagne she gave me for Christmas and wish each other Happy New Year (NZ time)

I contemplate the last three years of hell, and wish -- hope -- that this year might be different.  But I know that Providence is neither to be relied up, nor suborned or persuaded.  Que sera, sera.  All the same, defying these tedious realities, I wish you all  'n gelukkige en voorspoedige nuwe jaar:  a happy and prosperous new year.  Perhaps this year Providence will be persuaded to let up.  Next year in Jerusalem.  Or whatever your Jerusalem is.







But perhaps you prefer this more light-hearted look at Fate, from the thirties when they knew horrors and had to strenuously pretend they didn't exist.




Singing Auld Lang Syne is impossible: I remember too many dearly beloveds who have died, who will not be here this evening with me. Adieu mes chers, adieu.

A Haiku

Winter mistiness
Thoughts about my loneliness
Daffodils bring hope