Boring.

I've said it before, but something is wrong with me.

Like, right now. I am just sitting here, hot, unshowered and slightly fatigued. I feel sick. It is very possible that I have been before a screen for longer than I should've been.

My eyes just filled with tears. A few moments ago, I had a great urge to duck into the front room, where we usually have guests, and cry.

Delivering folded piles of clothes to appropriate rooms upstairs, I felt the - what? Grief? Pain? Anger? Some melange of the three? - come back. Earlier, I had had a sudden vision of slicing neatly into my arm with a blade of some sort. Would it make me feel more in control? I put the thought aside because I don't think we have any knives sharp enough to slice skin open like paper, and I'm NOT doing it with scissors.

Anyway, I was in my room and I just looked at the light 'fixture' (as I have learned to call it, in the American English parlance) and it would NOT be suitable for a hanging. I reflected on what on Earth I could hang myself with anyway - my scarves are probably too slippery. I don't think a belt would work (but maybe it would...?).

Now, I just feel tired and the thought of doing any theory test preparation is too much.

Ho ho ho, tiny mango!

*engages in frantic Cossack dancing without falling over - HAHA, ONLY ON THE INTERWEBS!*

Since I somewhat neglect the business of writing when not angry or upset, this post is intended to buck the trend.

I do indeed have a tiny mango. I sat down to eat yesterday (dinner) and it was looking up at me, laid cosily by my plate. I looked at my sister and mother in bewilderment. They returned fire with 'Yes? Your question is?' faces while chewin' away.

The mango WAS MINE!

However, I was apprehensive about taking a knife to its little baby contours and had ten billion twelve pieces of work to hand in, plus several forms via email, so hi ho, hi ho, back off to the PC I went. What felt like years later (midnight), I had sent every last mofo off. I have a horrible feeling they are going to be all 'What the fuck, why is this one written exercise in four parts?!' To which I reply: Move to Gmail so you can send and accept up to 25MB of attachments, biatches!!!!

Thus music was not made with the tiny mango, but it might be at lunch today.

Meanwhile, my sister is reliving my teens. I have told my parents again and again and again - I should just make like Joseph the stalker in Amélie and record myself saying it, to play as evidence whenever needed - getting angry at her for being upset about her divorce is USELESS. Not only is it useless, it's actively damaging. Yesterday reached a sort of break-point.

We were having dinner when my mum started talking (as she does) about how the previous day, my dad had asked her why women feel the need to be scantily-clad. In typical Mater fashion, she brought new gravitas to the phrase 'beating around the bush,' going on about how dressing like that makes people hate you (yup, I've seen that, it's often called misogyny), cotton and making my sister feel bad about the fact that she was wearing a strappy top.

Increasingly irritated, we both asked what her point was. She fired off another rambling anecdote. This one made me angry. She was talking about our sort-of-aunt criticising her 16-year-old granddaughter for having worn a top that was off both shoulders. She implied that my 16-year-old sort-of-cousin's parents were not guiding her sartorially, as they should. We asked her to get to the point. She did - and I wasn't disappointed. In classic victim-blaming style, she announced that 'if you dress like that, you invite crime upon yourself.' My sister and I retaliated, me by quoting rape figures at her and my sister by pointing out that if my mum were to get mugged, would she like it if we turned around and said 'You had a handbag, you were asking for it'?

I was quite pleased with that. However, before we even got to this stage, my sister dropped a (deliberate, I think) bombshell saying that she missed her ex. As I went back to the PC, my mum discovered that she had called him the night before. My mum went into the usual 'come down like a ton of bricks' mode. I tried to be calm and warned my sister that I would let it go, but that taking such measures wouldn't help her in the long-term, especially if she started to do it a lot.

Now, normally I wouldn't jump to my parents' line of thought so quickly, but an incident from the weekend made me worry. I went with her to her former home to pick up some things, and was shocked at how frightened she was. She almost jumped out of her skin when I got out of the car and joined her, and was shaking all over when we entered. She actually dropped her keys twice as a result. Despite my trying to gently usher her along, she went to the front room where he was and spoke to him, making small talk. Then she broke down crying silently and didn't really stop till we'd left.

So, I was worried that she was actually thinking about going back, and my mum's input didn't help. My mum told my dad as soon as he got home, which made him get angry of course. A bit later, my sister was called downstairs and then everything went horribly wrong. I was busy sending off my stuff (or trying to) and I didn't want to make things worse, so I just listened to what was said for a while.

The whole thing turned into a horrible testament to my parents' inability to listen and accept things outside their immediate understanding. The point my sister tried to make - eloquently and honestly - was that she has to keep up a front for everyone outside, and that she just wants to be able to say how she is feeling at home without my parents jumping to conclusions. That means: my dad should stop telling her to 'go back, then' just because she is upset that her marriage ended.

As I said - I have tried to emphasise enough times to my parents that they are speaking from a position of distance and logic. Sure, she SHOULDN'T be upset because she escaped an abusive twat... but that's just it - she's NOT sorry she left! She is mourning for herself and the death of her hopes as much as she is mourning the end of the marriage. Why my parents can't get that through their thick skulls, I DON'T FUCKING KNOW.

Anyway, my dad proved her point by not listening to her and getting steadily more defensive. She said that their reactions, accusing her of being weak and like my dad's sister, made her feel worse and feel like a disappointment. Despite this my dad kept:

a) saying 'I don't know how a child of mine can be so weak-minded'
b) getting aggressively defensive and making her feel guilty for not accepting his anger, because (to simplify) he rescued her and he's her father and all he does is care, and he has a right to be angry IN HIS HOUSE!
c) muttering about how she must have a 'sick' and 'twisted' psychology and saying 'Well, I just want someone to explain this to me LOGICALLY.'

I tried hard to mediate between the two parties. My parents had a point in saying that she should reduce communication with her ex - but she has. She made the point that she can't cut communication altogether just yet, and even if she did, it wouldn't make the feelings inside of her go away. That's NOT TO SAY she regretted her decision to divorce, just that she was feeling bereaved. Having gone through a break-up myself, I reflected and realised that I do understand her decision to occasionally have minor contact. It can be better than sitting there, dwelling on your ex, becoming nostalgic and then collapsing into tears and masochism.

The whole thing ended with - what else? - my sister bursting into tears while my dad grumbled and raged and then she walked out and went upstairs whilst he still sat there muttering about how 'it is a sick psychology - twisted.' I went to her a bit later and told her to just not bother trying to explain grey areas to my parents. The thing I realised, whilst speaking to TL about it all, is that my dad lives in a very black-and-white world, and - crucially - he's never had to listen. In his life to date as the head of a gurdwara, he's accustomed to being told what we wants or needs to hear. When I pointed this out to my sister, I said 'He's used to 'yes' or 'no' - there have never been any grey areas.'

It's interesting to see how much I have taken after my parents in some ways. In personality, I can be much more like my father and now I can't help wondering if he's ever had depression. I can believe it, though he'd never tell anyone or let anyone get close enough to see. It's sad, because he really is a good man, surprisingly open-minded at times, but he has grown up so defensive about what's his, and the respect and obedience that he is owed, that he can't hear others. Everything becomes an attack to which he must raise his defensive shield and fight, even when the 'attacker' in question is his own child and in need of understanding rather than rejection.

I despair!

Emo fucking shit.

I met two people today. One I'd never even spoken to on the phone before, the other I had a history with.

The first experience, lasting barely an hour, made me feel like a fish on a hook. Even when I think I know the right thing to say to somebody, or what seems like it anyway, why can't I make it come out right? So much verbal communication with others is horrible. I come away from it feeling wounded, wondering if I am some sort of misanthrope. I certainly don't have a continually balanced relationship to people, that's for sure.

Tout le temps, toute seule... mais quelquefois, je me trouve toute seule.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't hurt physically. People seem to like me. I don't know for sure that they do; I have to believe and that's where it falls down. It's not as if the metal tip was bloody in my chest. Of course there was no deathly experience. Yet always, social interaction is... so much twisting. So much twisting into knots, as if you can reconfigure your own face and body into what the other person is attempting to reflect from their face and body.

The pathological desire to please. The hatred of the desire to appease. The knowledge of the 'rules' and the gnawing fear of contravening them. What will people think? What will people think? WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?

My pride suffers. I need my family; I cannot reject them whatever they might have done to me. Yet part of me deeply resents the need for others, at times. The Libertarian has proved to be so astoundingly compatible with me that I'm starting to get over this in terms of romance. I have a couple of best friends who are usually there for me.

But deep down, right in the bowels of the fear, is the terrible knowledge that I don't matter. Nobody is indispensable, The Libertarian told me once. 'Hearts' colours change like leaves... Like leaves.' We were discussing an event I am unsure whether to attend or not, on account of the fact that I admire the people there. I don't hero-worship, but I always want to feel like talking to me is not a way to pass the time in between 'real' conversations with other people.

Those weren't his exact words, but that's what he meant. I know that it's true.

I perhaps ought to mention that one of the people I met today was my ex-partner. I tried to talk to him. It was a laboured experience, and I was filled with horror at the fact that I had tried so hard to make this person relate to me, who was so beyond my reach. I had a sudden flash of the future I once wanted. I would never, ever have been the person he was looking for.

Seeing him left me emotionally drained, as I'd fought some kind of battle. I had - I was trying to prove myself to him, I think. Still trying to undo the damage that I wasn't really even responsible for. Just friendship is dangerous though - I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

He said I made him feel callous and shallow. Or something. I wasn't totally certain of how I'd done that - we were talking about cynicism and political involvement and blah-de-blah. I was basically trying to argue for greater self-awareness for those who consider themselves thoughtful human beings. We looked around for food this evening, and I said 'I don't know why, but I feel like I might cry.' He said 'Why?' then laughed in a frightening, hollow way. I admired him so much, and I still do.

I feel like he could kill me - not in an actual, physical sense, but kill whatever it is that makes me want to keep going. When I was with him, I tried to take his grief and confusion and suck it out, like poison from a snake-bite. Simultaneously I was trying to break myself up, let the pieces of myself re-form into what he was looking for.

Or was the one the means to the other? My sister came to me, I held her and hugged her and talked at her. She cried in my arms, I told her we [the family] loved her. I think it worked. Why am I so rubbish at human interaction? I have been beset with terror for the last year or so that all my friends dread talking to me because all I talk about is TL. I know this is not true, and none of them would lie to me like that. Yet deep down, it is because I know that all I do talk about is TL and political stuff. Not because I am a boyfriend-obsessed hairbrain, but because I have no life. Lack of money - and fear - hold me back.

I don't want to be famous, or particularly rich, or successful. I wish I felt able to believe people. Doesn't help that many of the recent people I've met are journalists (ha ha). Even if a few people could say they loved me. I keep wondering, if I die suddenly, what will my family say? How quickly will they recover from my death?

Next time I meet somebody I like and admire, mayhap I should just hide. Or make like Saul Green in The Golden Notebook and stammer 'I - I, I, I, I'. I know I am paranoid, but I don't fit anywhere and I don't look right either. If I was pretty in some real way, it might help - but I know that is ridiculous because my sister is pretty and she is heartbroken.

Groups of people frighten me. I want to bolt. I feel like a sacrificial offering. I can never be sure that they won't choose to get rid of me, because they have no obligation to hang on - and I take so much, with my petty need to be loved all the time. Crude, crude, crude. Sometimes, I want them to put me out of my misery, morph into birds, take to their wings and tear me to shreds. Like bait on a hook.

Libertarians skewered

Um, I may be lying to you. Or not so much lying, as omitting to mention the fact that I will not, obviously, do a Marina Hyde-style takedown-in-detail of the faults of all libertarianism EVARR. I also miss the French language, so prepare for my inserting it at random in a pretentious and untidy manner (I would quite like to skewer and lightly roast some libertarian ass, but all the wafting scent of deluded privilege would probably make me forcément rediscover my former vegetarianism de nouveau).

Also, I am for some inexplicable reason quite upset. It has a lot to do with a runaway, organic, nearly-fuckin'-THREE-POUND Stilton. Not even bought for myself - I would've been less upset if it had been! Getting thoroughly soaked, and then travelling like a Tube-bound pancake, may also have contributed.

For a laff, I went to the online home of what sometime-commentator here asquith hilariously refers to as 'LURPAK'. Although I must say, that would do Lurpak's firmness something of a disservice. Battling back the cattiness (oh, so nobly!), I took LPUK's 'Are You A Liberal?' test and sat back, lips quivering, in anticipation of the result.

It was oddly fitting - apparently I am '50% liberal'. I read through the sanctimonious breakdown of the results - green ticks for where I was liberal and 'right,' and red crosses for where I was illiberal and 'wrong.' Let me make it clear to anyone who may have been fooled - I didn't actually care about the results and what they apparently said about me, I was more interested in what it said about LPUK. The results did not disappoint!

Take this gem:

We should get rid of the minimum wage?
Your answer was illiberal

The minimum wage is an illiberal restriction on free trade. It also places an artificial value on the cost of labour which makes it more difficult for low skilled workers to find work, and therefore gain experience and training.

Now, I know that SOME libertarians have suggested replacing minimum wage with a Citizens' Basic Income, which sounds good to me. Otherwise... what the fuck? Ensuring that people who do the shittest of the shit jobs get paid a fair wage 'makes it more difficult for low skilled workers to find work'? If they mean that it makes it harder for businesses to employ whoever they want at shit rates, and that this is somehow bad, then they ought to say that.

Maybe they mean that the minimum wage is somehow bad for immigrants, because it denies them the opportunity to undercut local people? In which case I must say: darlings, most of the immigrants don't undercut them because they want to - they usually do it because they are at a racial disadvantage, desperate for money and there's no other way.


Et puis:

It should be illegal for members of the public to own guns?
Your answer was illiberal

In a liberal country people can protect themselves as they see fit. Remember if someone owns a gun it does not mean they will murder anyone. In addition it is very dangerous for a people to allow their state to have a monopoly over weaponry and therefore force.

What about accidental injuries sustained through use of firearms? What about children and firearms? See, I would have no problem with introducing guns if there was some way to educate people about how to store firearms responsibly (or somesuch), so as to avoid incidents like these. Somehow, though, I imagine such a suggestion would not sit too well with LURPAK - sorry, LPUK, as it would be 'authoritarian' or 'assuming people are inherently bad'. Or something.


The state should make people change their behaviour to tackle climate change?
Your answer was illiberal

In a liberal society the state will not force any law abiding person to behave in a certain way as this is an infringement on freedom of thought and action. This is an especially acute issue when you consider there is still great debate about whether climate change is caused directly by human action. People should note that the state have a lot to gain in terms of social control from climate change catastrophe. Along with large corporations who will find it easier to cope with environmental regulations than their smaller competitors.

This is really laughable, since the state doesn't really do much to 'tackle climate change' as it is. Maybe once we face that scenario, we can judge better. I personally feel that getting people to sort their recycling and generally give a shit about the planet on which they exist and the generations ahead of them (as well as those in other countries likely to be sooner affected by climate change, such as Bangladesh) is hardly an infringement of their human rights. Maybe if the state beat them up for not doing so... but it doesn't, and I find it unlikely that it would. Meanwhile, large corporations can use libel suits and professional intimidation to silence critics and whistleblowers. Unjust, much? However, I have just spotted the denier dog-whistle:

there is still great debate about whether climate change is caused directly by human action

Er, maybe among the LURPAKers. The more sane and reasonable and unselfish among us have moved beyond this kind of debate-halting stalling tactic and on to trying to do something about the stuff that IS happening right now, like the retreat of the polar ice sheets. I'm no hardcore greenie, I'm sure I waste energy and have committed environmental crimes, but I am genuinely trying to STOP MYSELF DOING IT.


In the tradition of rhetoric, the third and final head-'splodey bit:

It is wrong for democratic nations to overthrow foreign dictators?
Your answer was illiberal

It is illiberal, and a sign of gross arrogance, for one state to impose their will on another in this way. These issues are for the people of said state to resolve themselves with their leader(s).


Pardon me while I have my Exorcist moment, and spit in French. Que c'est facile à dire pour vous! If we think of this in terms of Iraq - well, I agree entirely. That was totally illiberal. However, what about when the said dictator was installed with the help of 'democratic nations'? What about when the local people WANT outside help? Putting those two aside - what about when the people 'of said state' are in no position to resolve the issue with their leaders? An apparent case in point being Iran. This whole bit smacks powerfully of cultural relativism.

Obviously, one needs to be careful in such situations. What will you do, for example, if a certain state treats its citizens so badly that lots of them leave and make a bee-line for your state? I hate making this argument, because it veers into classic racist territory, but it is a genuine question. It's the whole current 'deserving VS undeserving' immigration debate summarised and I'd like to see the LURPAK's answers. Some of them are going to have trouble integrating and want to be recognised as different. Not even treated as special, just acknowledged as different but equal. What then, eh?

This is the beauty of being a libertarian. It's tailor-made for rich white middle-class types, men in particular. You can shrug your shoulders and repeat platitudes about seeing the good in people and believing in meritocracy. You can argue, de votre certitude béate de suffisance, insupportable, that to intervene in the affairs of another nation in any way is unthinkable.

Sadly, it doesn't change the fact that a load of white, mostly rich and mostly male people went around the world and exploited the people and resources of other countries for the benefit of their own countries and themselves. Hell, the slave trade turned people into resources. I would really like to believe in a lot of the nonsense that libertarians spout. However, I always have the urge to ask them to do one tiny little thing. Go to failing inner-city-London schools and tell them that we live in a meritocracy. Go to the mother of a teenager who has been killed in a gang attack and tell her:'Remember if someone owns a gun it does not mean they will murder anyone.' And, let us consider the Forced Marriage Act and its application in other countries, as in the case of Dr. Humayra Abedin. Without it, she may have died; Lord knows if she could have escaped alone.

It's all just so laughably naive. You can almost smell that it's coming from the perspective of people who have had either class, gender and race privilege, or the first and last if not the second. I can imagine many libertarians would go 'Yeah, but we're not disagreeing about the FMA...' or 'Well, gang murders only prove that guns should be legal, because they'll always find their way onto the streets...' However, I just want to laugh and go 'Well, of course you don't dare to disagree with this. However, why has the Libertarian Party never highlighted solutions to these? Why does it acknowledge, but not engage with, such things as forced marriage? Forced marriage is surely one of the greatest affronts to one's personal liberty. As is rape.'

And that is where the humming and hawing would start, because if you ACTUALLY wanted to address such problems as forced marriage (and rape), you have to act. Forced marriage in particular shows the callousness of the 'shrug my shoulders, if it's not MY personal liberty being threatened, then I don't care' philosophy. Rescuing women is not a 'public good,' why should people be taxed to pay for it? Also: poverty. If more libertarians actually saw that many ethnic minorities have to work twice as hard because of racism, they might understand why their ideology has such limited appeal. If libertarians really gave a shit about poverty, they would have to ask why (for example), there are so many poor Bangladeshis. Are they just racially genetically inferior? Are they not trying hard enough? Or *shock horror* might they be forced to acknowledge that racism and snobbery still exist in force, and that waiting around for the 'natural good' of white (middle-class) people to emerge, just isn't going to cut it for many people?

My own Libertarian is inherently quite sensible and generally diverges from the magical thinking of the others on a lot of these issues. Still, I thought that a blasting of libertarians was long overdue. I often rant about how most of them are simply deluded conservatives to him (which is patently obvious to most people), but really, the privilege overload I got today just had to be addressed. Dear Lord, deliver me from the day when I care more about 'illegals taking my tax' and 'the illiberal restrictions on free trade, that are ensuring decent conditions for workers.' Seriously, let me be run over by a Chelsea-tractor-driving, LURPAK-subscribing delusionary before I do such a thing!