Hello lovely peeps - man, it's been good to hear from you these last few days. I feel I'm crawling back out of the pit and that there are hands reaching down to give me a lift up. It's gonna take a while - this has been worse than for years but I'm on my way up. I still haven't read anyone else - I'm scared - there's been a run of people I care about going through bad shit and I've been beyond overwhelmed with all the suffering. I hope you know I haven't deserted you and sincerely hope you are all having a fine time grooving about like the hip and happening people I know you to be.

So good to go back today to the old hospital where I did that frankly life-changing extended recovery programme a few years ago. Apart from anything else, one of the few nuggets of stone cold factual information I have about my birth mother is that when she and my dad met, she was working as a nurse in this very hospital. I love that. I project her into the very air I breathe up there, watching over me, helping me heal the wounds caused by her untimely death (when she was 22 and I was a mere 15 months old). Massive wounds, on and on, repercussing endlessly about my life like a bunch of nasty fuckers.

The mental health unit has such a nice vibe. Separate entrance, through an ancient garden, the staff are treated well, everything starts from respect - the idea that respect is something you might lose (by being an unmitigated cunt), not something you have to earn. I saw a guy called J, who had a load of notes from the various professionals I encountered on my lost weekend and just asked me to chat about aspects of it all. I was then offered a range of options and chose a group, going over what I did before, the old strategies and - ach I can't even remember what he said, but I know that spending a few weeks being guided through some better ways of living my life, of going about things, is just what I need. I walked home, over three miles, mostly in the sunshine but also in the rain.

Meanwhile, in housekeeping, I noticed that the stats I put up here have vanished and when I checked into the page it said no one had been here since july, which is clearly not true as there have been comments. So I took a deep breath and plunged into the help section where I found this:

Problem: The counter has stopped showing up on my site and I'm seeing a broken link. The statistics reports for the account are still tracking visitors but all the charts don't display. What’s wrong?

Solution:
You may have installed something that has put a text file on your computer called "HOSTS". Search for the "HOSTS" file (it doesn't have an extension). To fix the problem, remove any lines that have "sitemeter.com" on them. You may want to go ahead to delete the entire file because it may causing you problems accessing other sites.

Well, the reports are also saying no visitors, I wouldn't know a broken link from a hole in the ground and I can't make any sense of the solution. I understand every single word of it, but strung together in that order it conveys nothing that I can use. Search where for "HOSTS"?

Any advice on that would be gratefully received.

Today's letter was G which eventually, after many a boring shot of greengrocers, gates and grey clouds, became G for for graffiti when I remembered this quite famous and always cheering Banksy was only a few hundred yards out of my way:



I stuck my bag in the front because a) it's green with a G and b) I've been in more than one argument with people who don't believe that one is here.

So that's me.

Today I am grateful for: The NHS; you guys; writing again, even if it is with the fags - starting vaporiser tomorrow when all the baccy's gone; haven't cried all evening; and Joni Mtichell



Laters xx