What do you think I'd see, if I could walk away from me.

Yesterday I placed 96th in the Independent on Sunday's Pink list of the top 100 most influential LGBT people in the UK.  As I understand it this means I now get to tell anyone who identifies as LGB or T who is further down the list, or not on the list at all what to do.  I think this makes me some sort of Colonel for the Gays, and definitely a General in the Trans Army, this along with my title of Political Correctness Brigadier makes me one of the most highly decorated sexual minorities in the pigeon hole (not a euphemism).

The truth is of course I'm probably not even the most influential LGBT person in my own head.  That honour goes to Ian McKellen who voices my internal monologue.  But of course that's just one of the perks of being on the list, he'll do that for you.  I hear Mary Portas has Frances Faye doing hers, and George Michael has Stephen Fry.

What do I do now?

It's been a strange old week, last week I was in London for most of it and enjoying myself stopping over with my friend Tat.  She's got a lovely place in Hackney and I got to stop there for a few days, wander round London Fields and discover that it's true what they say, in London you're never more than 6 feet away from a twat.

Saturday evening I headed back up north, my last minute search for gigs had been unfruitful and I was going to be spending a Saturday night off So I headed to my sister's house where I'm currently in residence on her couch.

The next day She went off to Chester for the day and was stopping over so I was on my own in the house.  I don't deal with prolonged periods of being on my own very well.  I have got a lot better, it's part of the addict in me that I don't trust myself on my own, when I'm on my own it has always appeared, I'm in bad company.

no offence

Offence is easy to cause, often we do it without even thinking about it.  Sometimes we can brush it off without thinking too much about it.  "What someone I don't know thinks that something I did without realising was offensive?  Fuck 'em!"  Other times it's more difficult.

Today I managed to cause offence to someone I really liked via the medium of the internet and she blocked me before I had a chance to explain.  The internet makes us all autistic, it removes context and nuance from our words, often I've found myself getting really angry at something that someone's said to me on an internet forum and told a third party what they've said and the third party has responded "That's only horrible with the intonation you've given that.  Read it in a silly or daft voice or as if they're being sycophantic and then think about it?"

To which I always fly into a rage and tell them they don't know what it's like and then flounce out, before realising that I'm being unreasonable and then flouncing back in to apologise.

T'was ever thus.

Privacy on parade

It's an interesting time for me at the moment, I'm newly single and not too happy about it, but time moves on and I'm sure I'll feel better soon enough and be ready to move on with my life.

To be honest I'm quite excited about all the opportunities that this brings, the end of a relationship is a time to reinvent, to reassess who you are and what you're about.  See if any of those opinions you held so strongly have changed or if you were holding on to them because you thought you should cling to some unchangeable truths.

I'm fairly sure that I've done some of that, I'm stil trying to overcome the fact that I can be massively co-dependent, and trying to balance that with being a good partner who's helpful and kind without being too helpful and kind and making myself indesposable would be a good thing.

One thing has changed this time though and I think it's a testament to my mental health getting so much better, my opinion has changed on being dumped.

I use to say to partners, "if you ever leave me, please leave me for someone else."  People always thought this was weird, that it's far worse to be dumped for someone else than just dumped because there's the extra level of betrayal.

I never understood that, but that's partly because I always though that there's nothing worse than being on your own, so at least if you get dumped for someone else there's a reason;  they want to be with someone else.

Whereas, if you get dumped and they're not leaving you for someone else it means that they'd rather be alone than go out with you.   And that's much much worse.

I should have told ya that the things that you love start to own ya

Judgement, and prejudgement.  We all do it from time to time, it's natural and it's one of our basic defence strategies passed down to us from our ancestors on the plains, a stranger comes in to our group from the outside, we're suspicious and fearful, and if something bad then happens to upset the equilibrium it's clearly their fault.

It's not always the first answer that's the right one though is it?

It gets better

I've always been of the opinion that the world is incrementally, day by day, step by step getting better and better, there's little hiccups along the way but gradually we're getting more enlightened and getting closer and closer to figuring out the one simple rule of life.  "Don't be a fucking dick"  and if you are being a fucking dick "Stop being a fucking dick".  Which is the simplified version of what I believe Siddhartha, the Buddha said upon realising that suffering is an inherent part of human life and that the only way to end the suffering of the self is to not harm another living thing.  A less nihilistic version of Sartre's Existentialism, which was built on realising that life has no purpose, no overriding meaning, and that in discovering that we are truly free we first despair, and then realise that the only true choice open to us is to extend the freedom of others.  Fuck yeah, check out my basic level of general knowledge masquerading as intelligence!