Sometimes I think that I'm just a tiny cog in a ridiculously enormous machine - but there are also moments when keeping that cog turning seems to make a (slight) difference. I have good days and other days. Sometimes the other days get ugly. But, I always try to do the right things at work, for recognition perhaps, or perhaps simply to prove that I am really not incompetent at my job. I can do it well, and I do it the best of my capabilities. And if that means that I hit brick walls then so be it - I just have to get help when I hit one. I have learnt through bitter experience, that when I hit a wall, they will almost always out-stare me. So that's when I get a ladder, or maybe a sledge hammer. Knots (Dedicated to Mistress Alexis) I am naked, assume the position. I know it well. She grabs her rope. Around it goes. Through my arms and around again, knotted then back. " Keep still, please." and through again, and back around, again and again, and tied off in a love knot. She double-checks the bondage. Finally she is satisfied with my helplessness. Then she leaves me alone. I struggle a little. It is hopeless. I am helpless, totally! I move around a little, trying to become comfortable. The ropes bite in. Time passes, Hands become numb. The clock ticks on. I lose track of time, it goes so slowly, how much longer will she make me wait ? More time passes. Eventually she comes back. Soon I will have freedom, but not before we have played some more. Oh, the agony. Oh, the ecstasy. I truly love it. I can't wait for my freedom, then to do it all again. "He's fallen in the water!" Ying tong tiddle high poe and other shades of Goonism drifting in and out of the corners of my mind reminiscing about those hazy radio days crazy voices reverberating around the room antics of Milligan and co. amazing, surprising, entertaining, delighting, always echoing Voices again. Been there, done that... I can still vividly remember the last time that I was "hearing voices" (to use a worn out metaphor). It was less that a week ago. I had been there a thousand times before. Yes, I am on medication. Yes, I do take it regularly. But this was only a short lived episode. It was a Saturday, and I hadn't gotten dressed all day, but instead I had been napping off and on all day. I had also done my weeks washing and had it drying on a clothes horse in the lounge room (as is normal, being winter). It was early evening and I wanted to go to sleep. Slumber was a blissful escape, or perhaps only sometimes. Anyway, I couldn't get any sleep, and my mind was racing. "Everyone's going to find out all about those secrets.