Things That Make You Feel Normal Again (Antidotes To Terror)

3) Queues of Routemasters, with their tops ON crawling like ladybirds over Streatham Hill

At least we had Livingstone acting like a human being, he made me think that someone in power had a lick of sense, compassion, and might actually be in control.

5) Ken Livingstone

I will do my usual Friday evening after-work shopping therapy in the West End and that may also prove reassuring.

But until we hear news from/about Liz, things will not really be normal.

X-post

SGS - I was in tears watching that last night, it's too sad. I then proceeded to watch "Desperate Midwives" which made me cry even more.

And like Marcello I found it hard to look at any other thread on ILX last night and this morning except, weirdly, the SNAILS one.

This Liz thing is hugely concerning, I feel like there's more we could be doing but I doubt there is. I'm sure Rob is doing everything possible.

But actually, things have become far less normal since it happened.

But trying very hard not to panic or freak out, because honestly, what good does that do? All I can do is hope that she is OK.

I still haven't heard from Joe, either, despite going round to his house, and also leaving a message on his ansaphone. I don't know if he hasn't rung me because he is injured or dead, or if he's out of town, or if won't actually let me know he's OK because of all the badness between us.

So what can I do? Only try to stay as calm and as normal as possible, despite the death and devastation around us.

I'm not sure I feel like being alone tonight.

Well, I tried.

i think i need one now actually

I'll be at the Freemasons Arms on Long Acre - kitty corner from the Freemasons Hall - if anyone wants to join me. (Provided it is not too full of Freemasons.)

x-post

yeah i like this one!

She lives between Tavistock Place and Russell Square and is understandably freaked out.

-Free cheese and pickle sandwiches for everyone who made it into the office today!

this doesn't make me feel more normal but it does make me feel a bit better, and quite proud of the city.

He asked in his reply if I was alright - obviously I am alive, since I rang him. But I'm not sure if I want to open a dialogue by responding. (Though obviously this is another topic and another thread.)

Back to the thread in hand, I just looked out of the window at work & saw rabbits playing in the grounds & I smiled for a moment. Then I came back to ILX & feel overwhelmingly sad again.

Roisin Murphy album taking my mind off things a little now.

DECODE(SUBSTR(A.PLTYPE,1,1),'X',GCD,0),
DECODE(SUBSTR(A.PLTYPE,1,1),'X',0,GCD) BZW_COMM,

Who are these FEES and PROCS and COMMS and why do they need so much decoding?

Tony: "I don't belong to the realist school of art, I'm an impressionist!"
Irene Handl: "Well it don't impress me!"

Hands up: who heard Christopher Ecclestone when reading this? Yes I know he's from A North, but still.

Rose, I'm coming to get you...

Yeah, eiriely similar, isn't it?

I expect I've just been reading too much of the Simon Reynolds book.

spoilers! oh no!

(set the video before leaving for work this morning. hopefully it hasn't been pre-empted by more bad news.)

you could walk to the Blue Posts tomorrow for about 2:30.

this doesn't make me feel more normal but it does make me feel a bit better, and quite proud of the city.

Having written that diatribe (and not really being able to remember writing it, and not normally being someone of much Fellow Feeling), it makes me feel much better that it might have made anyone feel a bit better.

So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our planet.

Rose, I'm coming to get you...

I see what you mean! cf this: "It's hard to panic the British. They've dealt with the Blitz, the IRA, the Silurians, the Zarbi, the Daleks, the Cybermen..."

We're Iraqis, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.

And, of course, I wasn't talking to the Iraqis, and if they said this, they wouldn't be talking to us. Citizens are citizens. Oh, it's that damn Fellow Feeing again.

Hope everyone here is okay, and that good news is posted very soon.

(xpost - I've felt very proud of the way people have pulled together in the last couple of days. Like everyone realised the best way to get through all this is not to leave anyone alone).

I'm just about to go and get a bowl of icecream and pour some alcohol of some description on it. Baileys or Cointreau usually works.

Food, especially proper Sunday dinners, are the best thing ever when you need normality.

http://photos22.flickr.com/24991967_343faeb1a7.jpg

(but, no, there is no normal)

It felt really, really weird having to get onstage and do a show and pretend to be HAPPY HAPPY GIRLY BOUNCY when the last thing you feel is happy or bouncy. We dedicated our prettiest song to Liz and Rob. Corny, I know, but what else can you do?

i went to cambridge on friday night, which i was doing anyway, for the film festival. it meant going through KC which i didn't enjoy much. on the way back, i jumped off at finsbury park. i'm dazed, being back in central london. going away was good, but not long after i got back, i had to switch the tv back on, and check ilx, and felt like shit again. i don't feel normal, but i'm going to the cinema this evening, doing what i would normally do.

That and chips and beans.

it's all rubbish,really.

I know that during America's Next Top Model tonight I will, for just under an hour, feel as normal as I can imagine feeling right now. Unless Lluvy gets voted out (PLEASE NO SPOILERS!)

"We took on the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, the French, William Wallace, the Black Plague, the Roundheads, the Great Fire, Napoleon, the Nazis, and the Blitz, and we're still here. You terrorists are bloody amateurs."

"Steady on, Rick" I thought.

I was told afterwards that I was one of the only guest DJs to get that it was unpop not anti-pop; setlist's on my blog.

I couldn't listen to any music with vocals for the first couple of days: Ellen Allien and Thomas Tallis helped, then the Pet Shop Boys on loop since then.

I don't know if this is calming (that they are taking everything so seriously) or scary (because we were all just joking about it in that sick black humour sort of way). It's getting to the point where it just seems normal.

One of the most important moments in human history happened in this street, on September 12 1933. The Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard was standing waiting for a light to change at the point where Southampton Row becomes Russell Square. That morning, the papers had reported a British Association speech by Ernest Rutherford, concerning the splitting of atomic nuclei. The 33-year-old Szilard, a friend and colleague of Einstein's - they had patented an unusable but ingenious new kind of magnet-powered fridge - had been thinking deeply on the subject.

When the green signal came and Slizard moved, something about that moment of stepping off the kerb put an idea into his head: what would happen if neutrons were smashed into the nuclei of atoms in a way that released two neutrons from the second atom? You would get two neutrons for the price of one, and if those two neutrons did the same, then you'd have four, and then four for eight, and so on, and very quickly "it might be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale, and construct atomic bombs". And all this came to Szilard in one blinding revelation, as he crossed Southampton Row, the street where the atom bomb was born. Whoever it was planted that bomb on the number 30 bus had a terrible idea, one designed to bring nothing but grief. But their visions, however dark, are not as dark as some things that have already come to the world from Southampton Row.

I love that story. I used to cross that traffic light every day, and think about it while I went to do my shopping.

I'm posting all this stuff more to reassure myself than anything else.

I'm having a really hard time recconciling the seemingly conflicting ideas of political reaction, and refusing to let terror affect my life and beliefs, with the personal reaction of fear and concern and the gaping hole in our lives caused by a friend just going "missing".

kate otm, sorry.

How much of this do you reckon is "Stop acting normal! My friend is missing!" and how much is "Stop acting normal! Things Have Changed!". The first might be a normal reaction on your part to things, but obviously isn't going to affect how most people feel. As regards the second, presumably many of these people were here (sorry, there)during the IRA campaign, and have some practice with life after this.

One of the I-can't-decide-if-it's-terrible-or-great things about people is that they can push away things that should by right dominate their thoughts. I went out on Saturday night. I had fun. I forgot about Elizabeth Daplyn for stretches of time (granted I forgot my name for one of these). I'm not particularly "proud" of that, but I was grateful for it at the time.

I constantly forget that not EVERYONE knows someone missing (and indeed how relatively few people really are affected in this way), so there have been moments where I've been bemused at the sight of other people having fun. Not to say there haven't been moments where I've laughed over the last few days, and genuine laughter at that, though inevitably followed by an aftertaste of guilt.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of Scrubs, and not even minding JD's crappy sentimental narration half as much as usual.

It's the former. It's very much the former.

I have moments where I manage to forget everything and have a good time, and then it's almost like I feel *guilty* for being able to.

How much of this do you reckon is "Stop acting normal! My friend is missing!" and how much is "Stop acting normal! Things Have Changed!".

i never met liz, though i knew her from ilx and it is agonizing, and i identify with the oscillation -- and i think it is partly a matter of 'things changing'. why this is different from the ira is also why you can't entirely separate the personal from the political. i don't think people who seem to be getting on with it are really unaffected by it, i'm sure everyone in london at least is more scared than they were. you act normal so you might feel normal, but i don't think anyone feels normal yet.

Yeah, I've never been more grateful for having a shed load of work to do this weekend. That involved getting the hell out of London. And enjoyable and physical work at that.I never thought chasing mid-level indie musicians around a Scotish field with a microphone could be soothing, but there you go. Crumbled when New Order dedicated Atmosphere (my favourite Joy Division song) to the people of London, but I got hugs from random festival goers "don't cry lassie, people keep going."

I too keep putting it out of my mind and then feelng terrible.

So maybe the title is still appropriate. :-|

Ha, OTM! If ever I wanted to turn off the distanced auto-blogger in my skull, now's the time. No chance tho.

(gah xpost, but Tom, I accept yr offer)

*oddly, one of HG's sons was called Gip.

Oxford Channel's Danny Cox to thread.

For £$%^&*@# sake...

I bought some CDs and a pair of shoes.

Sorry AF. I actually was trying to warn you but I understand that I wasn't making a huge amount of sense, even at that early hour.

BTW the idea that someone telling me that I look fantastic = "normal" is currently boggling my mind.

You are all very kind.

Actually, that reminds me I did have an actual mini-breakdown on Sunday. I was walking down to Fopp, thinking about how nice it was that Colette and Toby had given me a bed for the night at short notice and a large Selfridges bag to carry my ridiculously large coat back in, and maybe I should try and get them a small thank you gift, when my vision froze, I stumbled and fell down. People rushed over and were lovely, I picked myself up after a bit and continued on.

The main reason for this is that the last time I was over, for the Poptimism Election special, Liz and Rob were the kind-hearted people at the end of the night. I got a night-bus back with them (I remember Liz had the hiccups, and Rob mentioned that they are so twee that all their most serious fights have been about the right way to cure hiccups), and then they swore at the telly for a while about the Tory gains in London, then they went to bed too late. I had the next day off, so they left my the run of the flat while they went into work, and I thought this was so great I bought a copy of Kiki's Delivery Service and mailed it to them while I was still in town. I don't really know Liz and Rob as well as many of you do, but they are quality people, and that shines through.

So anyway, the entire contents of the previous paragraph all arrived at my head at the same time, hence the falling-over.

Attend a vigil

A vigil will be held in Trafalgar Square at 6pm on Thursday July 14. The names of the people who died will be read out and poems of remembrance will be recited.

I've found the best thing for me to do to make me feel normal again is stop desperately trying to find the latest on the internet and actually do some work

xpost

(multiple xpost)

I suppose that I really shouldn't do a FAP immediately afterwards though, even though there are some super great pubs around there, but I gather that I will need a cookie and some orange juice.

Yesterday afternoon that just seemed to change, sitting by the river in the sunshine with a pint and a book and feeling content, then thinking "no need to feel guilty, these moments are a gift, just appreciate them". Then finally thinking how weird it was I had to analyse this, justify it to myself. To me, its not about whether or not you're going round in a cloud of despair or defiance. I doubt I'll feel properly normal until I can view simple pleasures simply again.

These are things that make me feel extremely NOT normal:

I was on the bus home last night. Around the Oval, a gang of yobs got on, very drunk and shouting about cricket. One of them was dressed as "An Ay-Rab" complete with comedy head-scarf and ridiculous sunglasses. He kept shouting loudly about "ha ha, can you hold a package for me?"

I was debating going up to him and asking him to please refrain from such tasteless and offensive jokes, but instead I just burst into uncontrollable tears.

I know I'm on a hair trigger right now. This morning I tried to be nice to people, stepping out of the way so others could get on the bus who had been waiting longer than me. I'm just trying not to be so tightly wound.

Henry Normal.

ed took the words right out of my mouth. i was relieved there weren't more rallies/vigils/events last weekend, but i guess they're all this weekend. yeah, the 9/11 events really left me with a bad taste in my mouth, so i'll probably stay away (also not wanting to be upset in front of loads of strangers). i guess tom's suggestion of talking about things here, with people in similar emotional states, and having low-key get togethers is probably the best way to feel normal.

andrew, i'm sorry you fell down, i'm glad people were there to help, sounds terrible!

sgs, that picture is so rad.

i wonder if going to see nine inch nails tonight will seem fitting or weird with my mood. hmm.

i can see how some people find work to be irrelevant and flip at a time like this, but for me it's been brilliant. i've spent this week dealing with loads of little bits of things, interviews and mailouts and whatnot, this afternoon immersed in listening to, thinking about and writing a press release for my new favourite band, i've been to/am going to see some gigs, and it's keeping me on a level.

london is being amazing.

Quiet drinks might be in order, though. Not a big gathering because I'm afraid I'll start crying and shouting again like last week.

1. Going through my email, and finally getting round to rating my sellers on Amazon.
2. Seeing banal and random things I want to take pictures of, and wishing I hadn't left my camera at home.
3. Walking round the near empty park with my dog.

Meeting up with a few people in London helped me, too.

Often you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to such things, but it involves some kind of "1talian Job"-themed treasure hunt type affair around London in minis.

Since I'm being so ineffective at work this week, and since I think I could do with looking at London a little, reminding myself of how and why I love it. I think I might join in. I wonder if that sounds like a terrible idea?

Plus, London Treasure hunts are cool. I've been on some!

The LP which has soundtracked my week, though, has been Alasdair Roberts' "Farewell Sorrow". Extraordinary, at least in parts.

one word: sketchy!

Crush of Shame 3: RETURN OF THE LIBIDO!!!

That makes me feel very normal.

-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe...), July 11th, 2005.

including the last track?

And insane amounts of rum.

But currently normality is an abstract concept. I'm sitting here at my desk, getting on with the work, but in essence shellshocked.

Oxford was peaceful and lovely and tranquil. Lying by the side of the river, my legs dangling in the river, drinking wine straight out of the bottle, watching the sailboats float by, I felt at peace for the first time all week. It was the right thing to do.