My old friend

I don't know why I'm coming back to this blog. I think it's because that it's the only way I can record my thoughts without my brain getting in the way. It's funny, but when I do it on paper, I end up with a page with more crossings out than text. With my old friend here, I seem to be able to just unload my thoughts without ever looking at the screen and because the spell check and delete button are so instantaneous, when I eventually do look at the screen, if the whole thing's a disaster, the remedy is quick and satisfyig.

My 50th. was brilliant. Thanks to Ann. No thanks to me. All through the evening, I just couldn't believe what a shit I'd been. Things haven't been too good between us since then. Ann is somehow distant and in spite of working part-time, spends more time out of the house than in it.

There's a take-over in the air at work and although I've taken over from Jeff as temporary manager while he's off with stress, I'm just finding things at home difficult and on my mind constantly. And that's not good. Cos I'm cutting the mustard at work and making a few changes that have needed doing for years. But that's a bit of a problem too - people are relating to me differently as if I'm the other side of the fence now. Except for Angel.

As Jeff's - now my - secretary, we'd always been mates and it was me that had shortened her name by one letter. Now we were working together more closely, we occasionally worked right through lunch. But yesterday she suggested we go to the pub for lunch. I'm not stupid; alarm bells rang and I declined. But for the first time in weeks, nay months, I didn't have thoughts of home pre-occupying my thoughts all afternoon. I wondered if I were unconsciously giving off the wrong messages, although I would never discuss Ann's and my relationship with anyone, no matter what. Still, I did wonder.

I've been thinking a lot recently whether thinking a lot does you any good? I've got a 'me' that everyone thinks is the real me, and the 'real me' that everyone sees depends on what I want them to see. And for each person there are subtle differences dependant on what I feel they'll find attractive and cause them to want to know me better. And all this goes on before I open my mouth! So like I say, I've been thinking whether I'm doing too much thinking. And I wonder whether everyone has these thoughts or am I strange. I sometimes think I'm in 'The Truman Show'.

And there's something else. I frequently build the most unlikely things into a surreal comedy sketch. It can happen at the most inappropriate times too - in important meetings, in the car because of the shape of a tree or a cloud, during nookie, anywhere;anytime. The image suddenly comes into my head and I start laughing. I love it: until other people start looking at me strangely and on the odd occasion that I've described the scene and added the dialogue from my two imaginary friends, they've shaken their head as if I've completely taken leave of my senses. I think I'm normal, but how can you tell for sure?

Do you have to be mad to be happy? Or are happy people always a bit mad? And doesn't everyone have thoughts like these and is just too embarrassed to say? I can't imagine what it must be like not to have all these happy thoughts - I don't think I'd survive the hard times without them. I must assume that everyone has them. I just wish they didn't only play in my head. I love doing Am Dram comedies and have to work really hard at sticking to the script - I 'went off on one' during a performance once and although the audience loved it (they didn't have the script), my fellow players swore they'd never perform with me again! They did thank goodness, but it took a lot of humble pie.

A friend of mine works with the Samaritans and he says that there's been a massive rise in young men committing suicide immediately after they have posted their dying thoughts into the ether. I can understand that a bit better now. That's how I'm going to use my blog - no-ones reading my book nor my blog, so I'm just going to use it as my own private world where I don't have to impress anybody. Cos I'm not strange to me - it's everyone else who's mad!