DIARY 87 - Troughs & Balances

Without wanting to appear the least bit over-dramatic (what moi a drama queen!) this week has had a background drone of dreary despondency going on and on and on. It was more reminiscent of a bagpipes jarring whine, than the sustain of a medieval plainsong, in that its tone was not remotely soothing or sedating. It served only to put me emotionally on edge, and my thoughts to persistently veer into the bleaker cavernous ranges. This nagging type of mental noise appears effectively to jam, block out, or at the very least deter, any resolve to meditate or be spiritually disciplined in a positive way. Yet,when I look at the detail of my life it does not feel worthy of such deep despondency, so what exactly is up? Well, its the same old song, in a slightly different setting - that old favorite of mine -a lack of satisfaction. This state paradoxically seems able to kick back and put the kybosh on any thing I do value doing - nothing then seems to be worth making the effort for. This does appear to be a state I'm compulsively drawn towards, a trough I often wallow in like a pig in squalor. Yet how would I break my addiction to it eludes me.
















The really good news of the week, is that David and I are finally moving out of our noisy, increasingly hell like, flatlette. One of the Buddhist communities in my previous residence- Abbey House, has agreed to us joining it, as a couple. This is a first for a Cambridge Buddhist community, to have an openly established gay couple as part of it. The problem for the community was that it has two large bedrooms that need to be shared, and its grandest bedroom currently has only one person in it. When he moves to a single room at the beginning of January, that room would be empty, with little chance of them finding two guys wanting to share it, except for us of course. When I lived in an Abbey House community before, I shared with two different people during the three years lived there. I quite enjoyed sharing, but that really isn't so for most people in the Sangha, the present zeitgeist is for everyone to have their individual personal space. That said, having a room half empty, was not a situation Windhorse Trust, the communities landlord, could allow in the current economic climate. The chances of them have to rent it out to non-Buddhists was looming large as a distinct prospect.

The room has probably the same floorspace as our current abode, we also get a separate kitchen, dining, living and shrine room, plus a large walled garden thrown in. It is also quiet. So how could we resist? So we've handed in our notice. We'll need to spend a fair bit of time over the next four weeks packing and cleaning up after ourselves in the flat. It has got a bit grubby in places. David and I have been in a relationship now for very nearly four years ( on January 17th ) and lived together for three and half, so we have acquired a few bits of crockery and cookery equipment, etc, etc. I know the community wont have much space for these. Our current flat has served us well, but we have quickly outgrown it. Finding a larger place was going to increase both our outgoings a bit too much, and send us even further out of town. This way we will have the best of both worlds, our own private space, in a great community, in a beautiful house, that is also much nearer to town. Moving into Abbey House will also save Windhorse a bit of money on David's support package, and I will be quite a bit better off too. Hopefully, we'll get a bit of money back from our deposit, and the day when I can substantially reduce my bank loan grows nearer. There is bound to be some loss to us along the way, but I don't envisage them as being major, or things we can't accommodate ourselves to. We'll have to see how the rest of the community finds accommodating us, I think it will turn out to be beneficial for them too.





















After getting into a bit of a rut with watching I-Player far too frequently, we decided to try not viewing anything during the week. As David was to be away for a long Christmas weekend with his folks, last night David ask if he could watch Nigella's Christmas Kitchen on my computer. Neither of us had seen her in the flesh before. We were enthralled,aghast and in awe, so ended up watching both episodes ,both of us could not believe what we were seeing, how posh, yet decidedly high camp, - my god, what a tart she is ! As she turned each dish to show you, above it, like spectral moons, hovered the cleft of her mammary shelf, taking ones attention completely away from the food - what exactly was she enticing you to eat, as she raised her eyebrows so archly? She seemed at times to veer completely towards being a self-parody. All the way through her fleshy pinnacles featured far too prominently, for those of infirm sexual health to contain their gustatory excitement. At one point the camera tracked showing her taking food to lay on a table, and David remarked, barely suppressing a hearty chortle, 'did you see that, the entire shot was cut to focus on following her boobs across the room, the plate of food wasn't even in it', sadly this was all too true. We want more of this sort of high quality television.