INERTIA#1

There has been a substantial interval between this blog entry and the previous one. My sincere apologies. My sincere apologies also for writing a sentence (“my sincere apologies”) that is not technically a sentence, as it lacks a main verb. It also makes two syntactically hamstrung sentences since verbal nouns and gerunds don’t count. (Please get to the point – ed.).

My excuse for this inertia is rather lame - so lame in fact that over several weeks I have managed to convince myself that the blog should be humanely put down by a vet; and it is only over the last week that I have started to change my opinion on my lexical ability after giving myself a good metaphorical talking to and rereading people’s comments on the blog. As a result I am finally starting (sort of) to try to begin to be able to believe that my subscribers possibly or even truly appreciate the self-indulgent ramblings of an insipid hack writer like me, and I should carry on posting them. Any lack of appreciation appears only to exist in one person’s judgment – my own. I must stop being chronically self-deprecating, and accelerate the publishing timeline. As Samuel Beckett put it, “I can’t go on, I’ll go on”. Interestingly, the indecision and self-contradiction that characterizes Becket’s work are also dementia traits, at least as far as my experience so far of the illness is concerned: enervating and unsettling, but also sometimes refreshingly novel and invigorating at the same time. My brain is becoming an independent Theatre of the Absurd. Eight shows a week, two matinees. Roll up, roll up.

There I go again… despite the best of intentions, I’ve already gone down one of my rabbit holes, as I call them. Sometimes I get so deep in the warren that I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. If I carry on in this vein it will turn into a sequel to Watership Down. I start with an idea and pertinent title (Inertia in this case) and an equally good idea of where I want to go with it. Then my brain gets all flighty and recalcitrant, and I end up writing stuff that is so left field it’s crossed the Atlantic, landed in America and immediately applied for diplomatic immunity.

As well as my (admittedly waning) disbelief regarding people’s feedback, which has stymied my attempts recently to sit down and compose, I am chronically tired and lacking in confidence and self-esteem at the moment. This might be linked to a noticeable decline in my reasoning and logical thought over the last few months, which I have only recently begun admitting to myself, never mind to others. More of this in Part 2 (I’ve realised that I have enough material to offer two blogs again on the same topic).

This inertia or writer’s block is a symptom of the illness itself. Alzheimer’s is like a pickpocket: it robs you of language and ideas at one turn, then discovers a conscience and returns them without notice or apology; it is furtive and unpredictable in both deed and restitution. It feeds on nervousness and communication atrophy. It plays skittles with the neurons in the brain. It steals a memory one day and returns it the following day without apology or explanation. It permits memory but not memories (for instance I can recall hundreds of lines of Shakespeare from study and acting, but I have no recollection of family holidays for example). The neurons in my brain play tennis with each other using the synapses as a net. At my stage of the disease they’re also behaving like John McEnroe (apologies to any next generation readers who’ve probably never heard of him): throwing tantrums and racquets and arguing with the umpire (the brain). New balls, please. And when the mind fails the emotions and reactions react accordingly. In recent weeks I have become much more nervous about, and easily unsettled by, trivial quotidian occurrences.

Example: the purchase of a new printer. In recent weeks we have been researching printers to replace our old one after it became increasingly untrustworthy in the colour department, and then started shutting itself down with the message “Ink System Failure”. The web had plenty of advice on the cause but very little on the solution. Whenever we rebooted the computer, it whirred and clicked and beeped and then turned itself off again with the same unhelpful message. It reminded me of the Red Dwarf episode ‘White Hole’, in which, after passing through a ‘White Hole’ (which chucks out matter rather than sucking it in, if you’re interested in the pseudoscience), Holly the spaceship’s onboard computer gained an IQ of twelve thousand and something but her run time was reduced to minutes. So she gets stroppy and switches herself off each time the crew press the on button…Life imitating art?

After some research and a few calls, the problem was traced to the printer inkpad. I’d never heard of this, but from subsequent research I discovered that it’s like a blotting pad that captures and absorbs stray print from the nozzles. It’s not a common problem, but it does happen. Our computer repair guru said it could be replaced, but it would mean taking the computer apart and replacing said failing component: a couple of hours’ labour would be involved, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t fail again, and as a result of his advice we decided it would be more cost effective to get a new printer instead.

Consequentially for a few weeks we have been researching and purchasing a replacement printer. Easy? Sadly not. My illness doesn’t help. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Alzheimer’s is a right pain in the a**e (which is an odd place for it to metastasize to, I grant you), and trying to find a printer that ticks all our boxes, including fitting into the cabinet under the desk in the study, proved to be very frustrating, and in my case mentally debilitating. Covid has resulted in a tidal wave of people trying to find a new job or working from home; causing in turn a surge in purchases of home printers and a concomitant sharp decrease in availability of said products. Several times when we thought we had found the right one for us but it was out of stock. I was getting increasingly stressed by the number of tabs that were open in my Safari window, and given that I have appalling short term memory they remained new and threatening every time I logged on. But in the week that I write this, we have finally (finally!!!!) found one which is in stock; and is widely recommended (including by my wife’s brother-in-law, who purchased one himself). It also fits into the cabinet in the study with just enough space enough either side to allow the vents to work properly; and is one of the models that was on our preferred list. The relief is overwhelming, and my cerebral tennis match was abandoned, temporarily at least. And it should be here in the next few days. You have no idea how happy this will make us feel…lockdown fatigue means that anything new is something to be savoured.

All these factors militate against conceiving, gestating and delivering the next blog entry. Normally I breathe a sigh of relief when I finish one, and enjoy some time off for being a good boy; but I get itchy and obedient fingers again quite quickly. Sometimes however, brain and thought aren’t on speaking terms and I have to wait until they’ve both finished sulking, and this lexical impasse can make me sit and stare vacantly at the screen at intervals over several days without inspiration (or weeks in this case). Eventually however cerebral diplomacy via the UN (United Neurons) prevails; neurons and synapses get back on speaking and writing terms; and I stop being precious and self-indulgent and pick up my quill so to speak; and the words start to flow. The inertia evanesces, and the spring of inspiration flows freely again through the reeds that clogged its movement previously.

You may have noticed the hashtag/number in the title, and if you are a seasoned reader you will remember that I had so much information to impart regarding the process towards, and reaction following, my diagnosis, that I split it into two separate entries. I am going to do the same this time, for three reasons. Firstly I have other material (including some TS Eliot inspired musings on inertia) that I want to impart, which would increase the length of a single blog entry considerably. Secondly, the Alzheimer’s has progressed in ways that I myself have unwillingly, frustratingly, and in one case frighteningly, become aware of (normally I rely on family members bringing such neurological failings delicately and caringly to my attention). It needs a more delicate approach, as well as more space. I didn’t want to reduce the other material to a bookend or afterthought. Thirdly, I have used up a lot of text in saying very little; but as this blog was about inertia, it is inevitably embedded in the text. Style and content are intrinsically related.

I shall leave you with one final example of where having Alzheimer’s stymies my ability to lead a completely normal life. Bearing in mind I suffer from severe short term memory loss and the inability to process information, whether written or oral, this week I received a summons to appear at Gloucester Crown Court for jury service in September. Something I always wanted to do as well…Oh, the irony…

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