Brexit and Ass Burgers

Good evening. And what a fine evening it is. I think I’m just going to ramble today. I’m not good at not talking to anyone for very long periods of time. Well, I’m probably better than most but eventually I think there gets a point where it’s good to have some kind of communication outlet.

First of all I’m going to write about Brexit and about politics as a whole. Let me be the first to admit ignorance, because I am ignorant and there’s no escaping this fact. I find it very difficult to grasp the idea that anyone isn’t hugely ignorant around politics because I don’t believe that we’re given all of the facts and I think a lot of the facts are bent. BUT! I also think there are a lot of people who are far more clued up than I am.

Take my voting habits, for example. Now, I consider myself a socialist. I quite blindly go forth and vote labour. Not because labour have inspired me in any socialist way over the years, but because the Conservative party usually in my life-time have given a display of wanting to destroy good socialist ideas. And to further my ignorance, besides dismantling the NHS I can’t give you a for-instance. Thatcher was a witch in my house in the years of my childhood, and that’s got to have an effect, and I certainly would never vote for a party that ever gave hunting another vote. It’s true, I’m a meat eater, but I don’t believe it’s right and I certainly don’t think chasing animals through people’s gardens whilst they’re terrified out of their minds running from dogs is a particularly nice thing to do, whilst dressed in the most ridiculous outfits claiming that it’s a sport. When I was younger I used to think shooting the huntsmen and women with their own guns was a good idea. Now I’ve aged I’m not sure they have guns, I think they often do, I can see them holding guns, but I’d just go for the foot anyway.

So politically I am an ignorant little man. But I do have strong feelings about what’s right and what’s wrong. In the case of Brexit I have to admit I just go by what I’ve read. I remember before all of this began, on the run up to the vote three years ago, reading about how it would be bad for the economy. I also felt pretty sure that all of the racists would vote to leave, and one guy in particular used to annoy me at work and for me, I voted to remain for all of these reasons. I noticed Will Self, someone I find interesting to hear speak as he comes across as very intelligent and with a wonderful vocabulary, pointed out to someone how all of the racists would have voted to leave the EU. The guy he was talking to was too unintelligent to note that Will hadn’t said that only the racists would have voted that way and exclaimed that Will should apologise to the millions of people who voted to leave.

I still remain on the side of remain. Yes I do only have a vague idea of what day it is these days, and I’m certainly not an expert with Brexit and the current situation, but it seems to me that unless you are blindly clutching at straws shouting such things as “Leave means leave!” and “What are we going to do, keep having a vote until we get the answer you want?!” then I honestly think you’d have to be a fool not to. Patronising? Especially coming from an ignorant? Probably. Probably arrogant too. Sorry.

A friend of mine came out with that old multiple vote chestnut and I think it’s ridiculous. If we were voting on a new prime minister, what would be wrong with multiple votes? To me it seems extremely sensible. For one thing, the first vote would wake up all of the lazy people like me into voting. Some people need that. I heard quite a lot of people say, after we’d voted to leave the EU, that they didn’t vote because they really didn’t think that this would happen. I really do believe we weren’t as clued up as we are now, and yes that too has become a bit of a soundbite, but it’s also sense. In fact if I had any money I might bet some of it that we might get one because the current situation, well, it’s painful to watch. Do I think planes will fall out of the sky if we don’t have a deal at all? No. But you hear people often say “We’ve had hard times before!” Oh! Oh! Well let’s impose them again just to please lots of people who, like me, don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about! So there.

It is very abstract. I find that a lot in life. Everything feels abstract. Go into a job and it remains abstract to me. I can’t grasp it with my mind if it’s too abstract. I do love abstract art though. Anyway enough about Brexit. Let me find Will Self having a row and then I’ll go on about how I’ve wasted my life. And why the fuck does no-nicotine-ecig-fluid cost the same as that with it in!?

Moving on from Brexit, I should advise you to go now if you don’t like reading crazy ramblings of someone who feels he’s wasted his life.

This isn’t positive thinking. I might say it’s not negative too but I don’t think I’d be believed. I feel like I’ve wasted my life always staying in, not really understanding the world around me and feeling safe indoors. The friends I’ve made over the years are virtually all from work. Is that normal? I often wonder about friends. Meeting people. It’s funny, though, once I am around people I generally just want to leave anyway. So maybe, for me, the real waste is in not getting good at the guitar, remaining bad at it my entire life. I don’t like sitting around on my own but want to retreat back to it once I realise people leave me feeling anxious.

Speaking on the subject of my own behaviours, I have now a date for my Asperger’s test. I know why I’m getting this test. It’s about self-realisation. It’s also about work and why I have a hard time in jobs. On the 16th of April I should have a yes or no answer. How will it help me? Really? How will I feel? I’ll feel superior! To everyone else! I’ll probably be able to join a club! A special secret one! I will write down how I think I will feel in both cases now because I think to be able to synthesise the future is useful. Is it? Or does it make the future more boring? I’ll do it anyway. You might find it terrifyingly boring but I need somewhere to keep these ramblings.

If I do get told that I have something resembling Asperger’s, and of course it’s on a spectrum, then I will feel quite happy, I think. It’s not all alcohol abuse that’s made me the way I am. It might well be, but it’s worth investigating. Anyway, I will feel happy. And will look into extra benefits! It still wouldn’t be enough to live on but given that I have issues in work that actually prevent me from being able to function like everyone else, as far as I can see, I think I should have some more tax-payer’s money, thank you very much. I’m going on a tangent and making jokes. How will I feel? Well it doesn’t change anything does it? A little vindicated, perhaps. It’s so hard to explain to people how you feel. Or what you struggle with. I’ve told people I’m mad in the past, and it’s just a sweeping statement. I think when I tell people that it just means I’m frustrated with myself to the point of feeling a kind of mental implosion. I’m not mad. I know I’m not but I have always felt different. Like an outsider. Alone. Afraid. It’s all terribly adorable.

I think ultimately I’ll feel emotional. I know that’s pathetic because nothing will have changed. But the shock say, of losing a tooth, which is big for a human being, or losing one’s hair, is possibly equatable in size, not in that I’ll have lost anything. More like discovering something about yourself. If it wasn’t because I thought I could gain from having a label then I wouldn’t bother having this test. I can’t go and work in retail, for example. I just can’t deal with the people, and for once I’d have a reason in my head as to why I get home so tired from work and never seem to have the energy other people have. And why I say quirky things. I can’t stop myself. I don’t understand why more people don’t say quirky things, and in fact I wish they weren’t quirky and that people just got them. Got them. If I say something I think is quirky, I know it’ll come across as inappropriate. I get nervous just before it flies out of my mouth. But sometimes it has to be said. It’s preferable to Tourettes which as I understand it is having no real warning. It would be a nightmare for me as my brain often conjur’s up crazy imagery, or imagines the most inappropriate things. Offensive as hell is the mind, but you’d never let it out. I recall imagining eating eyes at a meeting once, and felt quite disgusted.

I’ll be able to forgive myself for not being able to process information like other people. What are the biggest struggles with that? At work it’s remembering what someone’s just said to me. I can ask repeatedly what people have said to me but it gets irritating for them and embarrassing for me. I have had this, years ago, with alcohol, so that worries me. Well it doesn’t. Well it does. I mean if I’ve done my brain in so much over the years, and I drank a hell of a lot over the years of growing up, then I’ve shat all over my brain to a point of not being able to function properly in the workplace. How can I justify that to myself? I can’t. But it does mean, at least in my head now, that the only way I could comfortably write code for a living — not a choice, now, the only way to make enough money — is to do it in a freelance manner. I do hope I can just help animals instead though. I am tired of code. I don’t think people believe me when I say that, I just always end up coding at home because I badly lack energy so moving my fingers and playing with ideas is easy. Coding on other people’s code is, however, fucking difficult.

What about if they say “You don’t have any signs of Asperger’s Ash. Go home.” I think I’ll feel down. I know that there is something. Something that prevents me from going out. I did leave home late but I can’t get my head to believe that that’s the only reason. I feel inadequate in life. I don’t feel inadequate at learning. Or doing. I do feel inadequate at working with others. Grasping their knowledge and calling it my own. Is that just me? When people do introductions or tutorials in the work place, is it just me that find them more of a useless gesture? I cannot learn that way, it would be stupid of me to try. Is everyone as foggy headed? How do I clear my head?! I’ve wanted to clear my head for years.

I just feel like there’s a lot I need to be taught. How to deal with life. How to behave in a pub. Actually if I’m in a pub I probably wouldn’t listen and would end up embarrassing myself, but finding it within myself not to go from the pub to home and then drink a vast amount of gin or whisky. How to find it within myself not to over-eat or under-eat. I sometimes feel like I don’t know how to look after myself. How to find it within myself not to repeatedly create a linkedin account, delete it, and recreate it. How to stop tapping things in case something bad happens. How to believe the washing machine when it tells me the temperature I actually want. To understand why I can’t absorb new information verbally, why I can’t get my head out of the bigger picture of life when in the office, discussing some new code, why I am attached to specific knives and forks, why I’m such a picky eater, why I can’t relate to people, why I have no sense of limits, why I count things and make vast lists of SHIT! IT’S ALL SHIT! AND IT DRIVES ME MAD! AND FINDING OUT YES OR NO ISN’T GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING! Or is it? I think self-understanding is important and after my last experience in employment, whilst I don’t blame myself for my leaving, I know I struggled with the work. “Has trouble grasping basic concepts” I think that was a bit fucking rude of them to say, actually, but it is a little bit true. I need it written down so that I can make the knowledge my own.

You know I think I’m finished. I’m going to go and apply for another job.

And now it’s back to topless darts…at Roehampton.