Remembered suddenly a concert of Chris Rea, the concert I must say. He had just written a song that he then decided to sing for the very first time. It is in internet ofcourse, look it up. I was, as always, in first row, right in the middle, seat 16 or 17 is always mine. Or both of those seats in fact. The song is Two lost souls. If you can find it live then that is, ofcourse, always better then the studio version. Well, at least in my opinion. For the artists who can sing that is.

I came to the two seat thing quite some years ago, some think I am just hopeless. I take two tickets to all the concerts I go. Yes, you got it right. I hope to have a date or a companion to go with me. Sometimes I have my girlfriend or even sister in law with me. But many times I end up going alone because everyone I know lives far away, hours of driving if not a daytrip away. So I go alone for the most of the events. Especially in winter. Nobody bothers getting out of the house in freezing cold. And in this endless darkness.

In my playlist this song is among Tom Waits’s “Hold on”, all the Leonard Cohen songs, all AC/DC, Metallica, Richie Sambora, Rammstein, and all the best blues songs on earth. “Tennessee whiskey” and such. Time flies. Last year I added a few favourites like “Sad motherfuckin’ parade” and “Let it be me” to my list. I put my endless list to play when I write. That actually slows my writing down because I have to sing along loud and wrong 🙂 Many many moons ago I had a stroke after which I had to learn to talk again. I did not even know I had a sideeffect or talk-impairment (not sure if that’s the word in English)! I did not know my mind was thinking one thing but mouth was telling totally different words!!! I realised it some four months later when at work the ladies did not understand me. I was telling about work, so I thought. I was telling about shiploads, forklifts and discharge speed, but out came some blur about horses, rainbows and bunkbeds!!! And all that happened in Russian language. The ladies looked at me in shock and distress, you know, the look like “wtf is this chick yapping about”…. My speach did not make ANY sense but they did not understand that they should somehow adress it. Because they did not know I have had stroke so they did not know I am in trouble. Or, probably they did not realise this situation needs to be adressed. 

Went home thinking what the hell just happened. Started to put one and one together. I thought I told proper words. But out came totally wrong words. I started to hear myself, thinking back the audio what I heard myself telling. I sure felt I am dumb!!! Huge confusion! Asked around if anyone had noticed my speach being strange. Answers were not pleasing. I asked eveyone to alert me if they hear and see that I am talking nonsense again. Boy, it was every day. In addition of blurring nonsense out I lost letter “S” aswell. Took me some 1.5 years to have brain and mouth cooperating again. I still have sort of a blackouts but they are similar to what “normal” people have – you know, when you want to say something but you have lost every single word. As if you just don’t know the words. I have it in every language, which makes it slightly confusing if I tell something to my kids in Russian and they have no clue what I am talking about. My work is 90% in English or Russian, none of which are my languages at home. Today. Used to be English for many years, then Russian for not so many years…. Many times I start to talk at home in Russian after work, as throuhgout the days that the language I use and think in. The strange thing is I did not even realise I use wrong language. So all in all I think I have not totally recovered from the stroke effects on my brain.

The side effects or leftovers of paralysis are more or less gone, only rarely feel the difference. I also started to work more with my left hand. Probably initially I subconciously chose left hand to get over the paralysis. So I kept my left hand busy with everything I needed to do. Except writing or brushing teeth. Everything else I can do with left hand as far as I can think of. However, people around me think I am not right in the head because I laugh all the time. With or without obvious reason. I can confirm I have not been that happy camper all my life. For obvious reasons. But I do not remember being that jolly. I suspect it is the result of stroke. People ask me quite often what drugs am I using 🙂 and when I tell that nothing more but occasional Paracetamol or Iboprofen then they just look at me with suspicion in their eyes.  

Singing was one thing that got me back to normal. I actually still don’t know if I am all normal again because nobody here knows the difference 🙂 of before and after. So I just hang around and be myself. Always laughing, 

Sunrise. I see it coming through fog. The heatwave is over. Had a week of zero degrees outside. Now promises another round of freezing cold, some -25C. I love to look up what it is in Fahrenheit. It’s roughly -13F. We used to go to school with this freezing weather. One reason being we did not have thermometre nor phone or any other means of knowing that school is closed. So we went anyway and as many other families were poor as fuck as our family then their kids came to school aswell. So the schoolhouse itself was open because nobody ever locked the doors…. until one day the teachers realised someone on 5th grade had changed the grades in the “book”. The Book was the main book for the whole class’s grades, everything in one for every subject including sports. The Book was usually in the teachers room but sometimes the representative from class had to carry it from one classroom to other. While doing that every now and then someone realised how easy it is to better the grades. Usually “3” became “5” and “1” became “4”. If you failed and got “2” that was difficult if not impossible to “better” without teacher noticing. Changing the grades was pretty naive thought in our tiny island tho. Teachers knew not only everything about every student but also every parent, every grandparent even. So if you dumb enough to get “1” or “2” then this struck out and stayed with you forever. The first inventor of “bettering” grades got away with it mainly because the teacher of geography was a heavy drinker and she was not sure if she really put bad grades or were the kids suddenly all excellent in geography. Her 3-s an 5-s were both chubby and roundy, very easy to mimic. I know it because I had red ballpoint pen. Not one kid in school was allowed to use red pen. I also did not use it every day, because of fear of it getting confiscated. That was the rule. Only teacher write in red. So when my classmates came to me with that Book and asked me to write some numbers for a test paper I knew what they wanted. Oh, yes, giulty I am! No harm for me because I only had best grades, straight A student as they say. In our time the grades were 1 – suck at max, 5 – exellent. I turned some of the 3-s into 5-s. Not all, ofcourse, because that would certainly be strange – our boys were not all the brightest.

Storm is picking up. Time to close the windows I guess. 

Stay cool and hot!