A nice chat

I went up the pub yesterday evening feeling really low. I had a lovely time because I saw all the odd bunch. How can you possibly feel sad in company like that? We played scrabble & had a pizza, and best of all we had a bloody good laugh. We also got through a fairly vast quantity of alcohol.

I never went out on my own at all until I was 53 years and 10 months old. Found a brilliant pub which looks out over the water. It's a tiny place with lovely staff. The good thing is that you can sit outside if you want, so it's not too claustrophobic during the summer. Now that the cold weather is here you'd have to be pretty brave to sit outside.

Since I started frequenting this establishment I have started to build up confidence in chatting to people. I'm still not very confident and will generally only talk to people I know. My friend with aspergers is also getting much more confident in this respect. We talk to each other about issues that affect us, and how our lives are, and laugh about things that (possibly) only we find funny. There is one customer at the pub who has issues of his own. This person takes over conversations by butting in very loudly and continuing to talk loudly so that you have to stop. Not just once, but every time he appears, which is daily. Both I and my friend find this difficult; he doesn't know how to extricate himself from the situation, I don't know how to extricate him, and I don't know whether I should say anything. The frustration this causes has led to me exploding on occasions, and swearing at the person. This is really horrible for people like ourselves, who find social chit-chat very difficult. Dear reader, if you have any suggestions I would be very grateful to hear from you.

This blog has been a useful tool for me. I am able to organise my thoughts and express things that would come out pear-shaped if I were to try & speak them. It is very hard for me to speak about my feelings. When I talk about them I use words that don't really mean what I want to say. I have sounded really ridiculous when speaking about my emotions. It's funny that I am now writing exactly what I mean. I can't go round handing out notes on bits of paper to people when they ask me how I feel. I must somehow overcome this.

Today and tomorrow I will be playing the harpsichord at a historic building. Lovely! People milling around, no static audience, no staring, me sat at the side of the room, very, very nice.

Went to bed at 2.10am, woke up with the alarm at 9am. I did wake up a couple of times during the night but got back to sleep. My mind has been very busy with the usual barrage of thoughts etc, but I don't feel as frightened or sad as I did yesterday.