 What a weekend!
Such as it was.
Cheerful French rag 'Le Parisien', skimmed over my morning coffees in the happy noise of a bar downstairs, Le Bouquet, yesterday offered a front page full of "fun outing" ideas, mostly outdoors, while the weather forecast on the back page gave every reason to do none of them.
It hasn't been quite that bad, the skies even cleared sometimes, but the pigeons were the most miserable breakfast guests I've seen in ages. Very few of the usual band braved a soaking. They just hid.
A cat I seem to have inherited gets annoyed since she can't battle the birds any more, has to put up them. She hid when her "rightful owners" -- a laughable term -- sought to repossess her!
Equally courageous, last weekend, was a neighbour who took ages to cut through enough red tape to be allowed to paint a bit of street in peace, but the two days cars were banned from parking on the spot or drivers dissuaded from routinely doing so illegally the other side of the road, her pictures got drenched.
 The man you can hardly see thinking Ms Red Rain Hood must be mad is my landlord, Serge the greengrocer.
Olya, the next-door florist who raindanced prettily away from my pretty useless phone camera, thinks my plan to replace dead geraniums that escaped the worst of winter but died of shock when we got some warm weather is premature.
"Wait," she says without being too gloomy about it, "for the spring, if you want flowers hardy enough to survive as long as your last lot did."
Oh well. Like last year and the one before, we all know global warming's changing our expectations, but I won't rant again; we just have to put up with grey days that seem to last for longer decade by decade.
If there's another sudden very hot summer, it won't surprise me either. I hope there is.
Such a climate gets me down far less than it did, but I was impressed -- during a Factory stint in which Africa had no regard for European notions of a quiet Sunday -- by an outstanding bid to put an end to the way too many people judge those prone to a bad bout of the blues.
zzz
In 'Demystifying Depression, Part I,' (Kuro5hin) Name of Feather set a cat among the pigeons:
"'Depression is a mood disorder': so start many descriptions of the illness. That is a gross understatement. Depression does indeed seriously affect your mood, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. A clinical depression is an incapacitating illness, affecting your ability to perform tasks that require concentration and rendering you unable to work.
I had a depression. By writing this document I hope to provide you with the knowledge I wish I had when I was younger. Because you see, depression is not an unavoidable fate. It is essentially a physical illness which takes years to develop, and whose symptoms provide ample advance warning if you know how to identify them."
The direct approach of this Dutch fellow is bold. Having been there for years myself -- but no longer inclined to log it -- I strongly commend anybody who takes such trouble to dispel the public ignorance that still surrounds depression. Those who suffer from it have to endure a lot of nonsense from everybody who doesn't, notably their "hierarchical" superiors.
There is little more debilitating than being told you're "not up to a job" when you already know this and would like to find enough energy to belt the idiots who tell you to "snap out of it", "get more exercise" and "look on the bright side" when you simply can't.
His outlook and recommendations to depressed people were, in my view, sometimes unrealistic in the May 10 piece, but it's already had the merit of attracting much attention and comment, some of which is as well worth reading as what Name of Feather had to say then.
In my job, avoiding stress and many of his other suggestions are out of the question. High stress levels are inherent in journalism. However I know what he means by never rushing your mornings, whatever happens. If I have to work "early" -- not very by most people's standards -- I'll get up far earlier to allow a long waking-up time. As for chemical treatments, such is my mistrust of almost all of them, apart from a basic serotonin regulator and what must be an occasional dose of Valium, I've little respect left for doctors who see it otherwise.
Such has been the feedback to the article, I came home to find the man at work on his 'Part II' (Kuro5hin Diaries) today, responding to some of his critics, and must say: "More power to you, mate, and good luck when you publish tomorrow."
Though you loyal lot have put up with entries some found very heavy going -- frankly, a complete turn-off -- during a period I tried to explain far too much when I could scarcely understand what was happening myself, the real and permanent upside of what I'd now dare call post-therapy blues if smitten by them is knowing they won't last. It's as reassuring as being able to look out of the window at the most flatly oppressive of skies and say "To hell with it! There will be a summer."
In the past few days, moreover, by taking a bit of a risk some friends described as sheer madness, I've cleared away big misunderstandings in one of the relationships I treasure enormously. You won't get any more of that; what's more to the point, neither will one of my friends.
Our lives remain full of things it's impossible to explain, so why bother to try? Everybody's much happier when you don't and if you've really got something to say, it's also best to think first: "Does she or he or do they care, do they need your nonsense?"
zzz
 This woman is M.I.A., she's a Sri Lankan who lives in London, came through Paris recently and is much in the musical news, with good reason. Her real name is Maya, but that M.I.A. (her site) does stand for "Missing in Action" because Mathangi Arulpragasam, born in 1977, is not the kid some have taken her to be.
She's had one hell of a life. A life? Many lives, some of them now released on a hot rap-away first album, with two more in the pipeline under her contract.
Renewing acquaintance with Blondie between the ears as I read an M.I.A. interview in 'Les Inrocks', I packed in Debbie Harry for a while since the bland banality of many of the lyrics were unsuited to a story like Maya's. She's very politicised and committed, and a lot more than "sassy" with a "cute rawness mixed with real modern beats and cool design" as a first comment says of 'Arular' (Amazon UK, released last month).
She will "go far" and she did, back to Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tiger war, guerrillas in the family, and a film full of interviews with ordinary people that scared her mother so much she wouldn't let Maya out with the camera. The film work of 2001 got nowhere, Maya's spell in Los Angeles to discover gangsta-rap is just part of her music.
Many will disagree with her politics though getting right into her music, but Maya has grounds cynically to tell my favourite French weekly (as always, for lack of what she said in English, I have to translate back): "All these speeches about security and defending democracy, that's just a machine to churn out refugees, like me."
Her music's her own, comes of listening to lots of hip-hop, liking Public Enemy and getting Elastica (as yet unmentioned here) and, heavens, even those "Fuck the Pain Away" Peaches -- already part of my beloved kid's remarkable playlists, bless the little witch -- for teachers.
Throw in some Sri Lankan traditional music and the dances Maya was forced out of bed to do as a kid and you have a notion of why 'Arular' is one of my VoWs of the moment.
When I look at the East European women in the Métro with babes in their arms, it upsets me, I don't want to give them money because I know there's a nasty and very exploitative network in action behind them.
Maya looks at the children, told 'Les Inrocks': "The life of these kids is to stare at people, every day seeing faces go by. I'd really like to know what they have to say in 15 years."
zzz
The cat. Is Kytie a refugee too?
I asked for it. She arrived before Manou and her mum went off to Brittany a while back. Cathy said, joking, "Should she have fallen out of the window by the time we get back, I won't mind that much."
So I didn't bother to press her to reclaim the cat on their return, since the woman has enough work on her plate as it is. But when she did come, yesterday, to give me the Kid and take back the cat, Kytie found a really good hiding place.
I said, joking, "Well, if I'm supposed to keep her for months, I will."
Today I got home from work to find the Kid's gone. The cat is still here. And I bet the Kid told Cathy what she told me, "Kytie purred half the night on your bed."
It's a trap. I fell right into it.
I don't think Kytie much cares either way. She certainly hasn't explained.
No fool her.
10:44:19 PM link 
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