…so tired today, and yesterday too. OK, yesterday’s tiredness was apparently caused by a bout of insommnia the night before. I stayed up late again last night, but only until midnight or so.
But today I am still tired and lacking in energy. We went shopping today in Ayr – I wanted to look at and maybe buy some drawers or a small filing cabinet that will go under the table when I move my computer downstairs. We trailed around three or four big places, but couldn’t find anything suitable. Finally, we went and stocked up on some cheap groceries at Lidl. At which point I definately knew I was running out of go – my head was getting fuzzy, the crowds and bright lights were starting to freak me out, I wanted to sit down, I was short of breath – hell, I wanted to sleep.
So we drove straight home without doing any of the other food shopping we had planned. We’ll do that tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I’ll look on the internet for cheap storage stuff. No walking involved there.

But a nice letter from a friend was on the doormat when we got home, so that has cheered me up.

….feeling blahhh. Besides the usual (headache, stiffness, nagging bladder) I felt low and depressed. This was probably to do with something I’d talked about with a friend last night, an ongoing situation that gets me down sometimes. But, it’s my problem, I’ve lived with it for long enough. It’s not that serious. It just gets me down every now and then.
So I’ve spent most of today doing a piece of digital art, which I’ve now upload to my RedBubble portfolio. Doing something creative and constructive has considerably lightened my mood.

…that cannabis – especially when combined with a shedload of other pharmaceuticals – can be bad for you comes in the no-longer-chubby form of David Shayler. The ex-MI5 whistleblower appears to be shapeshifting into the new David Icke.

…from the annual Oakleaf Camp. And still dead tired, despite having nine hours solid sleep.
But it was mostly fun.
What I didn’t like:
The unending drumming. If anybody wondered why I never appeared at the fire, that was the reason – I don’t like having to listen to hours of mindless skin-thrashing. Even away from the fire I still couldn’t escape it, as the sound carried all over the fields; on Saturday night, it actually precipitated one of my thankfully rare panic attacks and I had to sit in the car, amidst blessed silence, working at staying calm until the 11pm curfew. (Have no drumming fans ever wondered why the military through the ages have used massed drumming as a weapon?)
What I liked:
The Green Man, wandering around proudly painted and naked all weekend. Not actually doing anything, except reminding us all what the event is about.
The Black & White Ball – who’d have guessed that a bunch of scruffy pagans could scrub up so well? It was a delight seeing all those smartly-dressed people attempting to waltz and cha-cha in a rutted field; and the sight of the MC, perfectly outfitted in white tie & tails and shiny shoes, elegantly performing a formal dance with an invisible partner, will stay with me.
The Wickerman ceremony. It was a blast from beginning to end! I somehow found the breath to dance around the circle at least four times; and the energy was palpable. It just about cancelled out all the grief from the bl**dy drumming!!!
Oh, and Nikki Noo-Noo (well, that’s what everybody called her the whole weekend) “aspergating” in the Roundhouse like she had been a priestess for years, instead of a non-pagan who had just been roped in to officiate. Well done, Nikki!

Getting ready for the Oakleaf Camp. We’ve packed the car, now we just have to get our clothing and other bits together, ready for an early start tomorrow.
I’m going to be selling some of my greeting cards, and I’ve just printed off and laminated some rather snazzy business cards for myself. I’ve decided to try and start selling my photos, and I’m starting a portfolio on RedBubble.com. It’s rather like Deviant Art; you can showcase your work, blog and talk on a forum and the site sell it for you as cards, posters and prints.
I had originally planned to put a shop on my site, but this is a much easier way of selling. The only drawback is that my photos are too small for anything but cards; I need a better camera!

I joined Second Life for about three weeks ago. I’ve not been there all that much – it’s terrifically time-wasting. However, from my POV as an Aspergers person, it is proving quite an interesting experience.
For me, being on Second Life has many parallels with my RL experiences. Notably, it is impossible to tell what anybody is thinking or whether they are telling the truth when they ‘speak’ – avatars have no visual nuances at all. And if there is an overall social structure, or a set of defined social rules that everybody must follow, I cannot see it; my poor avatar spends most of its time wandering around trying to work out just what the rules are and worrying that it might unknowingly make some dreadful faux pas at any moment. That is rather too much like real life for me; for instance, it was only about a decade ago that I finally worked out that when people greeted me with “How are you?” they didn’t actually want to hear a quick rundown of my current medical status.
But it’s not all been awkwardness. I – or rather, my avatar – has somehow or other managed to earn over a hundred Linden dollars; I was quite excited about this, until I checked the exchange rate. And I’ve found a nice place for my avatar to spend time in – a Buddhist monastery, where I can leave it to sit cross-legged (something that I’ll never be able to do again, in this life) while I read the Buddhist texts on offer. Somehow, I find that quite relaxing.

The Slacktavist is one of my favourite US bloggers. Besides doing a sharp and often hilarious weekly takedown of the excreably-written – yet unfathomably popular – Left Behind books, he often comes up with gems like this:

Early next month, 425 Wal-Mart stores nationwide will begin carrying faith-based toys from One2believe that target parents who would rather that their kids play with a Samson action figure than a Spider-Man action figure. …
Because a costumed crime-fighter just isn’t as much fun as an ancient terrorist and the inventor of the suicide bomb. Plus the Spidey figure doesn’t come with gouge-able eyesockets.
The toys, including a 12-inch talking Jesus doll and 14-inch Samson or Goliath action figures — target pre-schoolers to 12-year-olds. …
Hmm. Goliath was said to be nine feet tall. If Jesus is 6/7 as tall, that would put him at, let’s see, about 7′ 7″. That seems a bit off.
On the plus side, I was worried when I saw that the talking Jesus doll was endorsed by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, but it turns out it says mainly things like “Love your neighbor as yourself” and not “Spare the rod and spoil the child” (or “Kill all the bad people and keep your family safe”).

For the time being, I’ve got very little computering work to do. I have been thinking about a big new project, but it’s still in the “thinking about it” stage. So I’m faffing with yet another new design for the Oakleaf Circle site.
The Oakleaf Camp is the weekend after next, and there’s going to be a Steadings stall, with Carol, John, Sue, and possibly Jan & Dave selling their craft stuff from it. I’ve been invited to sell something there as well, so I’ll print some cards – I’m selecting photos for them now. I’m also going to attempt to sell two or three of my paintings.
I’ve taken loads of photos in the last couple of years – I’ve become quite obsessed with light and colour. So most of them aren’t the conventional sort of landscape/nature pictures that most people seem to like. So I don’t know how well they’ll sell. But I like them – I’m going to start putting some on my office wall.

Something else that obsessing me at the moment is Bob Dylan’s songs. A couple of weeks ago, B said something about Dylan not writing anything good since the 70s; I was sure he was wrong. Then last week I finally got a pair of headphones for my ‘puter; it’s never had speakers, so I’m now wallowing in music while I work. And I’ve been listening to loads of Dylan.
For virtually the whole of the 70s, I was cut off from most popular music – no TV, very little radio. The reasons are too boring to go into here; but ever since, I’ve been slowly discovering musical gems from that time (yes, there was some good music in the seventies!). So this week, I’ve heard Sara, Forever Young and Isis for the very first time; plus I’ve listened anew to the superb Things Have Changed and rocked along to Thunder on the Mountain. Dylan hasn’t written anything new? Pshaw!