Now I Get It

Before I begin, let me just say that this is the first time I’ve used the new-look New Post feature and I HATE it.  It’s all white space and missing or moved buttons.  Wassup with that, WordPress?

I’m in a bad mood.  I have discovered the point of philosophy, a question which has puzzled me since the summer of 2003.  That was the first year of my Open University degree.  I attended summer school in Manchester – seven minutes away from my house by train; and I chose it for just that reason, having a sick husband and two young children at home.  Plus, I was a wimp in those days. Travel alone in such a lawless country as Britain?  Forget it.

It was a glorious summer (the sun always shines on happy memories) and I had a blast, spending all of my time in lectures and learning, singing in the choir that was composed of almost the whole cohort of students, and playing Medea’s daughter in an amusing stage parody.   I was disappointed not to get two weeks, à la Educating Rita, but loved any break from my adorable family.

I attended a lecture on the piece of music which was the subject of my next assignment and it was so good, all I had to do was transcribe my notes into coherent sentences, giving me one of my best marks that year.  It’s not cheating if you’re just paying attention in class.

Music was not my best subject but Philosophy was definitely my worst.  I just did not get it.  I remember sitting in a tutorial that summer and asking, What is the point of philosophy?  The tutor looked startled and then annoyed, and he didn’t have an answer.  I rest my case.

I wish he was here now, because today I learned the answer: philosophy exists to enable desperate poets to cope with the vagaries of Microsoft.

My Word stopped working.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know what version it is.  I don’t know why I didn’t read the dialogue box that came up every day for a week or more which probably would have told me.  But that doesn’t matter because of course it’s Microsoft’s fault: it is the creator, and we always blame the creator when things go wrong.  That’s my philosophy.

I haven’t been around the blogosphere much because I’m nearing the end of phase three of my second poetry collection: the editing process.  The editing process is my favourite part: the research has been done; the poems have been drafted from thin air; I don’t yet have to brutally cut some of my favourite babies, or put out for a publisher.  All I have to do is neaten, tidy and completely re-write until I’m sort of but not quite satisfied with the work that’s already done.

I edit, therefore I am happy.

I type, therefore I am busy.

I think, therefore I am using the education the Open University gave me.

I stay at my computer, therefore the Hub doesn’t have to see me.

I lose Word and my life falls apart: what am I supposed to do with my time if I can’t edit poems?  I might have to talk more to the Hub [shudder].  What if the world never gets to read my genius because Word owns me?  

Tain’t right; tain’t fitting; tain’t proper (how I miss you, Ross Poldark; please come back to my TV and be gorgeous again).

I may just be losing it…it’s only been thirty minutes since Word said Get lost and I’m babbling like a woman who just lost her Word.

On the plus side, I now have time to read your blogs.  

Sidebar: the architecture block of the 2003 course was fascinating but the only thing I remember is how to identify columns.  To this day, I have a weird finger thing I do to remind myself of whether a column is Doric, Ionic or Corinthian. Identifying a type of Classical architecture is a totally useless skill for me to have but I love that I can do it.

What’s your useless skill?  

A Poem to Mourn a Great Loss

I miss Word.
Word has gone.
How will my work be done?
I’m editless; I’m numb.
This poem is the sum of my madness.
Return, Word, and all will be gladness.  

Now you see how good a poet I am, you’ll understand why I’m going crazy here.

Some Words

Image via Wikipedia

Bitch.  That’s what Plinky Prompts says I should write about today – my favourite word.  I love the sound of it, the way it bursts out of my mouth like an alien from John Hurt’s stomach.  Titch or itch or twitch; rich, witch, which; glitch/hitch/stitch – not even pitch, switch or ditch come close to the satisfying pop of the lips that saying bitch gives.

Sadly, I can’t use it; I’m a good girl.  I don’t swear: except at the Hub in an argument; but I defy anyone to live with the Hub and not swear at him.  It can’t be done.  Nor is it possible to avoid arguing with him in the first place.   We were squabbling the other day when Matt the Finisher was here and the Hub said to him, ‘Don’t get married, mate.’  To which I unfortunately replied, ‘Yeah,  do all women a favour.’  When he started crying I had to backpeddle quickly and explain that I meant men in general, not him in particular because I’m sure he is a very nice young man who can fix anything in the house and I bet he could catch mice; Barbara Cartland once said pinkly, ‘There’s simply no equality when it comes to mice.’  By this time the Hub was rolling in the aisle make him pay for it later and I gave a How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? shrug and retired to my kitchen.

Another favourite word is solipsism.  Also another one I can’t use, but this time because I can never remember its meaning, no matter how many times I look it up.

According to Dictionary.com:

–noun

1. Philosophy.  The theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
2. Extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings, desires, etc,; egoistic self-absorption.

I’d say that describes every blogger on the planet.*  

*I know I don’t have to apologise for that one because the paucity of comments lately means that I can prove my readers don’t exist.**

**Except for slp and Viv, of course; thank you, dear readers.

The first time I came across the word solipsism, I wrote it on my A Level English folder, meaning to look it up later.  My tutor noticed it and said, ‘There’s a word.’  Then walked away and never mentioned it again.

Proving that sometimes it’s better to believe – to paraphrase The Sex Pistols – I am a solipsist.

*

Looking for a suitable photo, I came across this website: http://www.moviedeaths.com/alien/kane/.  I thought I was a nerd – I have seen every episode of every series of Star Trek, you know; more than once – but these people are something else.  You should take a look at the comments. 

It’s actually a pretty useful site.  I have never seen any of the Alien films and it gave me some interesting details, such as Hurt’s character’s name, and where he was at the moment of death: a sort of latter-day Kane and Table.***

***Pun. – noun.

1. A deliberate infliction of the wince factor on one’s faithful readers.  Punishable by desertion in droves, leading to the belief (correct) that only the self exists in one’s personal blogosphere.