Streaming.

Crap I haven't done the blog! And I'm running out of time now, so this'll have to be stream of consciousness - hello Virginia Woolf, and echoes of Mrs Dalloway from uni.

Why so unprepared? Weeeell, been tidying the house for the in-laws, so it's ready for them to come and tidy when they arrive (a complex process, but one now established as canon by years of repetition), and finishing a painting, well illustration, of a serpent/dragon, then fuming at my phone while it takes an entire train journey to upload - practically giving me third degree burns as it strains with the effort!  

So I'm a bit rushed today, and slightly preoccupied with a change of pattern at work that I'm trying to get my head around. Yet there are times when having it 'all to do' is exciting, giving a feeling of purpose and drive. For a moment you can pretend you're in one of those glossy and tense TV dramas, where it all rests on you and the clock's ticking - what will you do? What do you do?! 

Those moments colour the day with the sheen of importance and momentousness; for a while you are a giant, a superhero, you're "king of the world" (Cheers Cameron - looks like that's gonna stick!). You puff up, walk a little taller, strut a little more. The trouble is that feeling is addictive. It is delivered intravenously and gurgles along your blood stream, pumping the heart faster, expelling endorphins into your brain, and laving a sour taste in your mouth.

This is because it hides the rising stress; the sense that it all rides on you becomes endemic, and a fundamental expectation that is taken for granted, yet gives you nowhere to BE. Those jungle drums become background noise; so easily ignored that you don't notice how loud they've become, and how much you're shouting to be heard, and how intent you are on the softest note that you can no longer hear the melody. 

It is on days like this, when you feel like a king, that it is sensible to remember that we live in a democracy and bear the weight of suffrage together, not alone.