The case of the stolen screwdriver continues…
If you missed the first episode (I didn’t realise either, until today, that it was a first episode), you can read it here – This Thing That Is Mine Which Belongs To Me – or I could just give you a quick summary in this post.
Yesterday while doing some dusting I found a screwdriver, my favourite screwdriver, hidden on top of my partner’s cupboard.
An argument started inside my head about a thieving magpie’s tendency to steal my tools, then…
An internal trial ensued…
While I was sitting on a bouncing washing machine during one of its manic cycles (and don’t Eric Idle nudge nudge know what I mean wink wink me about it, someone has already done that)…
And the magpie was found “not gillcup” because I was gillcuppier.
Judge: Not gill … cup? Not gillcup! (the foreman looks disappointed) You have been found not gillcup of the charges made against you and may leave this court a free man. Right. My turn. (the defendant leaves.)
tiny excerpt via Another Bleedin’ Monty Python Website which won’t make sense if you don’t read or haven’t seen Court Scene (Charades) episode from Monty Python’s Flying Circus Series 2
The internal trial and the verdict resolved matters for me, and I said nothing to my partner about the screwdriver.
I hadn’t said anything before either, for several reasons.
I was in cleaning mode at the time and if I interrupt the process, I forget about it, and it does need to get done at least once a year or the dust ‘n’ dirt gathers together into an entity which is messy to fight. I hate level boss battles.
And my partner is in super-focused and rather stressed out mode at the moment due to being balls deep in an intricate work project and the deadline is this week. Hwaiting!
He doesn’t take his stress out on me, he’s very thoughtful and self-contained, and because he is, I try to return the favour and be considerate, keep my crazy in check.
He doesn’t need me to interrupt and distract him, even with some funny fun. Once his work is done I can unleash the madness again.
Also now that I knew where the screwdriver was… it was better to leave it there as moving it might mean I wouldn’t remember where I moved it to, and next time I needed it I’d check the top of his cupboard, be perplexed-annoyed that it wasn’t there.
And afterwards, after the trial and verdict… well, because I wrote about it in a post… I let it go, like a small paper boat on a stream, completely forgot about it.
I didn’t remember it again until I found, waiting for me this morning on the kitchen table, this:
I usually wake up before my partner.
And last night he stayed up very late working… and, it seems he also got up to some wee hours shenanigans, such as reading my blog and finding a novel, brilliant, witty banter way of letting me know about it.
My partner doesn’t read my blog on a regular basis (phew!), he drops in every now and then.
Sometimes he does that when I’ve been very quiet and he’s wondering what going on inside my mind. He’ll usually ask me first what I’m thinking about, but if I said say “Nothing” as a reply… well, would you believe me if I said that I wasn’t thinking, that there was nothing going on inside my mind, especially if you’ve noticed that I’ve been feverishly cyber-scribbling?
He does ask me on a regular basis what I’ve been writing about in my posts. Sometimes I’ll tell him and… his eyes will glaze over because I talk the same way I write posts, if you press the sharing of thoughts button on me.
Which reminds me…
I noticed recently that another blogger who usually doesn’t read my posts, and only “Likes” them when I’ve “Liked” one of theirs (that’s the “thank you for reading and liking” use of the “Like” button), had liked several of my recent posts in a manner which suggested they might have been reading them.
It made me curious… and my curiosity was sated when I read one of their latest posts, and in it they mentioned wanting to write in a more “stream of consciousness” style for a writing challenge which requires lots of extraneous words on a daily basis.
Their post was very good, it had a lively flow, I felt as though I was sailing on their thoughts shared freely… yet I could also feel an undercurrent which tried to rein in and reign over the free flow. It gets easier, smoother, flowier with practice, by letting go of the fear of appearing foolish for sharing yourself unchecked, uncensored, unedited.
I know they won’t read this as they’re done studying my blah blah, are putting what they wanted from it into practice, and they’ll be too busy doing it… but I’ll wish them well in their experiment, in meeting the challenge and succeeding, all the same. Best wishes!
“I mumble something, Terry J bravely launches into a school reminiscence. TG, with consummate timing, kicks over the urn with Graham’s ashes in. From then on, we’re invincible.”
― Michael Palin, Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998
The real trick to writing in a stream of consciousness style, is to understand that the stream of consciousness flows within and also outside, all around you – the inside converses and communicates with the outside and vice versa. It’s like being in the matrix which is also in you.
While I do write in a stream of consciousness style, my writing is also reflective of the way I think, and the way I think is in conversations with myself.
Within the flow of what may appear to be extraneous wordus blah blah blah to others (and sometimes it looks that way to me too) is a focus.
That focus is like a guided missile, a torpedo homing in on what it is seeking to hit, while traveling through waters of words, the sea of extraneous wordus, ocean of blah blah blah, surfing undercurrents of thoughts, waves of ideas.
As the focus travels it listens for blips on the radar – messages, insights, valuable information. Those are easier to spot when there is more rather than less communication, talking, wordus because the real gems of information are often in the bits most people edit out.
The focus hones in on relevant messages, which are not always in word form but in other forms of communication, such as images, gestures, sounds… like a plinky-plink as a vacuum sucks up a wall plug which gets stuck in the nozzle.
“You’re not a has-been, you’re a has-now.’ I like that.”
― Michael Palin, Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998
The focus notices things… which may seem irrelevant, white noise, but aren’t.
What it notices, when shared with others may cause discomfort at times (nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!), especially if someone was trying to do something stealthily, be unseen, and at other times it may make their heart leap in other ways too, bringing the comfort (no, not the comfy chair) of having been seen, heard, noticed.
My partner has a similar way of noticing, and of making my heart leap, sometimes with discomfort because he noticed something I didn’t want him to notice, but more often with joy.
Things like that note with the screwdriver make my heart leap with the joy of living with someone smarter, sharper, wittier, wilder and crazier than I am… he’s crazier than I am, M’Lud, because he loves me.
Shortly after I saw his “message”…
And I almost didn’t see it, because first thing in the morning I’m very tunnel-vision-blurry-eyed, partly because my hair is a messy curtain over my face (like the girl from The Ring) which I don’t bother pulling back to let in the light, in case I melt from the glare.
After checking the news to see if the rest of the world was still there, I checked out the headlines on Psychology Today and spotted a title which I would have ignored if it hadn’t been for my partner’s wonderful message.
Here’s a screenshot, can you guess which headline caught my eye?:
I didn’t click on the article to read it, because… why would I?
It’s not a reality of relationship experience for me. It’s not a question that I have… is mine, which belongs to me.
While the message my partner left for me to find this morning was brilliant banter and not a real apology… as there was no need for a real apology since nothing which needed one had happened… when things which require a real apology have happened, he’s quick to give one and sincere about it.
I’m actually the one who takes longer to give apologies… especially those I need to give sincerely to myself.
It’s nice to know when you’ve inspired someone else, indirectly or directly… it can be that moment when you realise it’s time to give yourself credit instead of taking it away, and say sorry for all the times you stole that from yourself, and perhaps because you stole it from yourself you stole it from others too, accidentally or on purpose.
“Know what I mean? Eh, eh, Nudge nudge, Say no more?”
― Eric Idle
An Upturned Soul 
Good insights. I often don’t read long posts but enjoyed my visit
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Thank you very much, Sarah 🙂
Haha! I’m like that with short posts, I don’t tend to read them. I prefer to read long posts from other bloggers since there’s more to them… although it does depend on the writing style of the long post, I like when it flows freely like thought allowed to think.
One of the weirdest things I’ve noticed is that the bloggers who write long posts themselves are the ones most likely to complain, albeit politely, about other bloggers writing posts which are too long. I’m thinking of two bloggers who have mentioned to me in comments on my posts that my posts are too long, but they write posts as long as mine – I didn’t notice that until they prompted me to notice it due to what they said.
One of those bloggers has admitted that reading posts is a bit of a chore for them, a duty which they do because they feel they have to rather than a pleasure they do because they love reading and finding out more about people.
Then there’s the bloggers who spam the reader with about five or six shortish posts a day, on WP spamming of the reader makes it hard to find those who post once a day or less, who think short posts are the best kind of post to do and yet if you placed all of their short posts for the day in one post it would be a very long post.
Life is full of weird insightful twists of perspective worth noticing 😉
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Well my habits changed 3 plus years ago as I do not sit online all day as when I started my blog.
Limited phone data.and library are it for me so I save posts in app and go back
Likewise I started writing different on my dinosaur offline Vista laptop(free its my typewriter lol).
So this is long because you will probably read it.😎
I post extra so I don’t lose stuff but if I get my regulars popping in I’m happy. This is my therapy hobby. And I enjoy the community and comment when I can. Blog on!
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Haha! 😀 I always read the comments on my posts, and I listen to what is being said because I learn a lot from others and about others. I also reply to comments because it’s polite 😉 and comment-chatting can lead to great insights in a variety of ways – it’s great for observing the self.
I use blogging as therapy too, it’s rather wonderful how it works that way.
I agree with you about balancing time spent online. It’s fun to get caught up in it during the early stages of doing it, like the first flush of love when you want to spend every second of every day with your loved one. 😀
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I’m both a long writer and a long post reader. So maybe that’s weird? And it’s not about me is it? I was ‘comment eavesdropping’ on you and Sarah C. I’ll say something (comment) if I have something TO say, otherwise the ubiquitous “like” has to do. Lately I haven’t had a lot to say, because there was too much to DO and distracted ‘writing/blogging’ annoys me. I’m still giggling over the case of ‘the perhaps ”stolen” screwdriver’ and what was developing in the court of personal interaction in your castle over there. Still thinking about my hammer. And reading your posts..
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Thank you for sharing, Melanie 🙂
What you said here – “I’m both a long writer and a long post reader.” – seems logical to me, not weird at all.
I also write and read long posts. I prefer reading long posts. When I read a short one, I often find myself thinking – That’s it!? Where’s the rest of it???
But I am a very weird person, so what I find to be weird may be what’s “normal” and what I find to be “not weird” may be eccentric.
As I see it if a blogger writes long posts which they expect/hope others will read, and they think their posts are an acceptable length, then it is weird when that long post writing blogger tells other bloggers that their posts are too long, particularly when the posts which they say are too long are the same length as their posts.
It’s a bit like someone who asks people to remove their shoes when they enter their home and gets upset when people don’t want to, but when they visit the homes of other people and get asked to remove their shoes they object to doing that.
Although I do understand that those who write long posts but prefer reading short posts have that preference sometimes due to time constraints – they give themselves X amount of time to blog, and they spend most of it creating their own post and then don’t much time left to read the posts of others.
I “like” the posts I read and that “like” is my comment. I’ll only leave a written comment if I feel a strong impulse to say something. I don’t comment regularly on the posts of others, especially when they don’t reply to comments or acknowledge the comment with a “like”. The latter is something I do in RL too, I won’t bother talking with people who don’t listen, and who don’t dialogue but monologue. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to respect my own time and how, where and on who I spend it.:)
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Hiya😉
I just wonder where the screwdriver will live now? How will anyone know where to look for it? Or will it turn up in unlikely places? Perhaps where the toothbrush belongs?🤔😂😂
Thank you for sharing a peek behind the curtain of your partnership. Expressions of love (especially ordinary every day love) make me happy!💃😍
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Thank you very much, Angie 🙂
I love noticing the subtle gestures and expressions of every day ordinary love too, they’re powerful messages. Noticing the subtle is how you know the way someone truly feels. It’s a good gauge for knowing your own true feelings too, noticing the little things you do for and to others.
Big gestures can be fun too, but the subtle things… mmmmmm ❤
The screwdriver is now in the Ender chest – you won't know what that is, tee hee 😉 unless Ben plays Minecraft, I wonder if he'd enjoy it?
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Oh, I’m glad the screwdriver is in a “special” place. Fun! You’re right, I dont get the reference🤷♀️
We’ve thought about getting games for Ben, to encourage his imaginative play, problem solving and to give him something to do besides making me tape things together😉 He still breaks things when he gets frustrated so the cost is a factor. He did play some goat party game on younger daughter’s friends xbox and enjoyed it so….🤷♀️
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After I’d mentioned the Ender chest, it occurred to me that Ben might enjoy Minecraft, you might too it’s rather relaxing to play. Good for when you need a boost of Zen.
Minecraft can be played on a PC, I think there’s a tablet version too. It’s basically a building blocks game for all ages, you build things, and collect things to make other things, but it’s so much more. You can play it with monsters or in peaceful mode. You can check out videos of it being played on youtube, there are millions of them, some are like watching a cartoon. The Yogscast crew are fun to watch. They’re gamers who livestream.
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Cool. I’ll shall see if His Majesty has an opinion on Minecraft😉 I have seen him watching YouTube videos of games so we’ll start there. Thanks.❤
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I get your point! A lively and interesting post. Nudge…..nudge… wink ….. wink
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Thank you very much, Sadje 😀
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👍😉
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