Here we go again

what's the crack with this sleep thing! bed at 4, wake up at 8.30, realise how ridiculous it would be to get up after 270mins sleep, spend an hour of frustration trying to get back to the divine embrace of unconsciousness [made almost impossible by the constant repetition of the main riff from 99 red balloons rotating around your head - stupid music] fall back to sleep, alarm goes off at midday - snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze, re-set alarm, snooze some more, turn off alarm - wake up at 3.30pm immediately pissed off at wasting almost all of the last day off work - admittedly, what were you gonna do with it anyway? nothing.. pesky miserable life

as a great yellow man just said on tv, fate has a funny sense of humour

so a little light reading has shown that, predictably if i'd engaged brain at all, is the day that everyone blogs/bullitens and posts about how they will be improving their life in 2007, and let's face it, we all have a lot of work to do.. being by and large fools, and in worrying quantities, alcoholics.. of course most of what is declared in full belief and confident prose today is merely rhetoric designed to make the hangovers and new year blues go away [what kind of civilisation ritually starts the new year wishing it could just die as collective bodies reject the poisons embibed the night before] and all the crap about self-'improvement' will have fallen by the wayside within days if not hours.. but hell, if there's anyone who understands futile exercises it's me.. so let's join in

where to begin? well, as i spent 2006 gently, steadily, and sometimes cruelly, pushing away anyone and everyone... and quite succesfully i might add *looks around* which i guess i deserve a badge for... i should probably reverse that [variety being the spice of life and all that jazz].. i shall become the all loving gravitational centre of my social world.. mmm.... or maybe i'll just start changing my clothes before they start to smell like sumo wrestlers bum cracks.. either way.. you know i'll make more effort

on a similar token it's come to my attention i've forgotten how to have fun, developed unnecasary inhibitions and a strange aloofness that really doesn't suit... so erm.. i'll find a way of fixing that too... that seems a tougher one though.. so i might wait till march to get started, do a little background reading, maybe an instructional video or two, perhaps a course of night classes - write a dissertation entitled 'fun: the having of - a case study of 21st century lower-middle class merry making'

so maybe those are the biggies.. and quite difficult to grasp at.. like jelly [ever tried picking jelly up with your hands... or even better.. watching someone else do it.. hours of entertainment!] so there's the more practical.. and cliched stuff.. the stuff that you remember doing one time that seemed to make life slightly more tolerable.. y'know, like thinking and doing... now i can't really blame 2006 exclusively for the atrophication of my brain and body... it's been a slow deliberate process that started somewhere around 1995 when i got bored of being.. y'know, active and intelligent...and of course, my mother stopped cooking my meals and a balanced diet flew out of the window faster than a really fast thing.. but i reckon it's time that all stopped.. so we'll start with the reading and learning again.. maybe try with some langauges to get the double whammy of not feeling like an arrogant, ignorant brit.. which would be good for showing off at parties and stuff... i dunno.. there'll be a ponder... there will also be some of thet fancy exercise & outdoor stuff... by the end of february i will have been cyclinh, swimming, played badminton and gone skiing.. by the end of the summer there will have been climbing [and of course abseiling], caving and i will have jumped off, or out of, something into, or onto, something - i think those are fair ambitions

i will of course eat better and drink less... but thanks to the wonder of marks & spencer half of that has already begun.. so i'm ahead that's a winner!

well what do you know it, that blog did the job, i feel a little better and more motivated.... a i am hungry though.. now where is that chinese menu... [i'll order a meal i haven't had before.. that'll be the loophole in this fatal flaw]

thanks for reading...wanna go skiing?

x

Writers block

Woe oh woe oh woe is me, the gods have taken it upon themselves to single me out and rain down misery upon my weary sole, I am suffering the sufferage of the unimaginable devastation…

.. . I have a slight cold.

The only known cure for a low level illness, is a day of self piteous introspection whilst wrapped in a quilt watching bad American sit coms.

Now the intention when I started typing was to do a lengthy and poetic blog about 2006 and all the wonder and heartache it brought, but this has failed for two reasons, my mind-brain is lacking in creative words [as anyone who has spoken to me this week will testify] and, well frankly, it was my year, not yours… it is simply enough to say I've had pockets of fun, obviously hidden in the woe, I've got to know some new people who will have all changed me slightly, I've sent some embarrassing and inappropriate digital messages whilst drunk [which I have been too often], I have sacrificed potential times with impressive people because my heart was once left in a rusty bucket in a kitchen cupboard many years ago and neglected to take it with me when I moved to new surroundings, I've visited the capital of, I've travelled alone on an aeroplane, I've played thirty nine gigs in sixteen different towns in two different countries, I've had a record that I played on played on radio1 [one of those moments when your life feels like a film], and since September I've had an amazing experience every tuesday night and I've finally moved into a flat that I really really like, so much so I'm even keeping it tidy. I've I've I've, Me Me Me MEEEEE!!!

You know a genuinely think I've broken my brain, I just read back at the blogs I did in the first half of the year, and well, all todays words feel mocked by them… I think I shall sit in a corner and weep gently at the loss of my cleverishness.

As an addendum, a thanks to the couple of people who kept me sane last night, it was a pretty stressful do and the company, smiles and hugs were much appreciated… I shall return the favour one time. 

x

I fell in love with the marks & spencers checkout girl

ok, so let's kick this off as god [tom] intended when he created blogging, other than the fact he might get to read a few secret confessions of the girls he went to high school with of course, i'm a little miserable just now, y'know it goes without saying that i'm woe, but y'know, i reckon i could even be described as 'blue', and i'm not a smurf, though i do still think smurfette is hot. 

If i was 14-19 year old girl i'd claim i had SAD in a desperate attempt to live life like the magazines and blame my mood on chemicals rather than reality. But as we all know 90% of people who claim this are undiagnosed and simply attempting to glamourise the rather mundane human emotion of sadness. So i won't, my current rather minorly deflated mood is down to the more conventional causes of long days and empty heart, y'know, like every one else.

Anyway, the point in this isn't to whinge and moan about the soulessness of my existence, i know bad news sells, but i don't wanna sell bad news...erm.. baby. No, i want to sell encouragement. When you're feeling a little under the weather you're more sensitive to the little things that make you happy, like the other day when i did a poo and it made the shape of a smiley face in the bowl, that was most excellent, but more accurately the way people treat you when they don't have to.

I'll explain, i went shopping today, now it's a saturday, it's december, understandably everyone i encountered was acting like a cunt, and there were hundred of them, shop assistants with no smiles, grunts from strangers, people pushing in and out of queues, y'know, normal human behaviour. So when a checkout girl makes the effort, despite what has clearly been a long day of constant serving to stuck up middle class women in neutral colours, to smile, say hello, engage in pleasent conversation while the purchases are going through, it's like a hole opens up in the sky and a beam of heart warming sunlight shines down upon all the people in range, or more accurately, y'know, it' cheers you up a little.

Of course it helped the she was hot.

But the long and the short of it is, i feel better, and now i'm in the frame of mind to be pleasent to anyone i happen to encounter today.. thus perpetuating the chaos effect of good humour.

This little story was brought to you with an appeal, if you work in the service industry at all this weekend, do it with a smile, ask the customer about themselves or their day, make it your job to put a brief smile on their face.. y'know.. christmas spirit and all.

Holy shit i've turned into a hippy.. i'm off for a bath in bleach.

x

I need your help Mr Simpson

weeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeoooSTOP
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i'd been asleep 4hours

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i just wanted to die

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it was 11.05am, i should have been at work 5minutes ago and i was being forced away from the sweet sweet embrace of unconciousness by the slight noise of the fire alarm going off... it had already been doing this for over an hour.. and would contunie for the 35more minutes i pressed snooze for, with only a brief respite of 7minutes during which i mananaged to dream of cheese, it wasn't the most memorble of dreams, or even the most interesting of topics, but dammit i had a deep attachment to every second of it before

weeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeoooSTOP

of course if we lived in a world that actually worked the first sign of this noise would have inspired myself and everyone else in the apartment block to walk briskly but calmly into the car park wearing only what they happened to have on... which would have admittedly been cold.. but most something of a treat... obviously though this didn't happen, as our world is broken, the alarm was uniformly ignored and we all just lay around muttering under our breath vague threats against unclear authority figures and then went to work tired

the rest of the day passed in the way in which we are all accustomed, waiting for something to beep, swearing, then doing whatever needs to be done to stop it beeping

until the wonderous fates looked down upons me briefly but kindly with the most wonderful of natures miracles.. unexpected, unseen, simpsons. i nearly wept.

now we have reached that 8pm precipice where a free night hangs before us and the daily decision must be made.. roper, or internet?

answers on a postcard

May be second best but life is never fair.

because you're all just gasping to know.. i went and got the tree, and some lights, i didn't even mention it to my little brother who lives in my flat rent free, never mind re-launching the debate... that's just the kind of guy i am, impulsive, commanding, a veritable golden god! send me to iraq, i'll have everyone christmas tree'd up within a week, whether they like it or not, and they will be happy.. truly happy

the micro-world in which i inhabit is a tense one at present, the bigger picture is probably also tense, it usually is, but newspapers angry up the blood aand the news on tv clashes with simpsons, so it's a distinct possibility that everything outside my line of vision was reduced to nuclear oblivion months ago.. the only evidence i have to the contrary is the people around the world that still seem to inhabit cyberspace, though having said that, they seem to be largely candias, and, let's face it, when the world does finally take it's rightful place as atomic dust, the only way that anyones gonna blast canada is if they were aiming for the US and missed... or more likely, that the US were aiming for pretty much anywhere but in their sweaty palmed eagerness to push the button forgot to re-target the missiles from that time they were having that drunking joke at the office party

but erm.. yeah, everyone seems kind of tense around here, distracted tense, obviously the impending days of good will to all and of course, seeing your relatives, is enough to give the best of us the mental equivalent of piles, but it seems a little worse right now.. i guess the idea that if you don't find the perfect present for your current regular naked chum will look at you like you are hitlers ugly sibling and run off with that funny looking kid who sweats a lot, causes a little brain badding, but i it would be really nice to walk into a room, which contains other people, just once this week and not get the overwhelming urge that most of them are just looking for an excuse to smack you in the nadgers simply to release some of the feelings inside them they don't understand... it's like the whole world is going through pubert again

single people seem to be the worst, of course, single people are always the worst, because they are not complete and balanced like what couples are, couples who exude nothing but warmth and happiness and make everyone around them feel like bunny rabbits are dancing in their heart, let's take aa moment to think about how wonderful couples are

...

but yeah, single people, it's like the 24th december holds up the great big red shining deadline that says.. if you are still single by this day.. you have failed this year and will have to repeat it, and of course all year you'll feel like a fool because everyone else in the year is younger than you, and when they look at you the respect:pity balance will be tipping into the less ego boosting zone, so of course all the single people go out every single night in the hope that the vodka soaked rooms they've inhabited all year have presently become vending machines of mr/miss rights where they will meet the the yin to their yang and spend the rest of days curled up in front of fires on deep rugs feeding each other cherries and talking about how they will soon open up a sweetshop in a little village just outside smiletown and sell candy hearts to the other couples who live close by causeing the sky above their houses to constantly light up with a pastel shaded rainbow

of course all that is really acheived is that these places are filled with dark airs of desperation and fear... and of course their natural partners paranoia, insecurity and distrust.. all of which make for fun fun and a bit more fun

FUCKING BLOC PARTY! if i ever meet them i'm gonna smack them in both ears with a fucking cuckoo and ask them how they like having their ear drum assaulted without warning. recording your album at a higher volume that everyone else.. kids today have no respect.

x

We expected great things from you.

it's been ages since i blogged, i honestly thought i had, but i've been doing that thing a lot recently where you're not quite sure which things have happened in real life and which were dreams, it makes life confusing, especially considering i've also been doing that thing a lot where your dreams are filled with fantastic terrors, you know, the ones where you wake up suddenly to find your body shaking a little and the overwhelming sense that you're not quite as alone as you should be [of course that could be the whispering ghost].. but anyway, the two things mix a little unfortunately when you catch yourself pausing mid-dunk of biscuit in tea gripped with the horrific recollection of murdering a 14th century baker, or having a machismo driven one up-up-man-ship session with jack that led to you both cutting out your own livers to prove how much of a man you are. Of course a glance around the room is enough to remind you that you are neither in the 14th century, or sawyer from lost, and the only real tragedy is that you now have soggy biscuit floating in your tea.. which IS a tragedy, the adult equivelent of a child dropping his ice-cream on the floor, and one that has been known to cause tears on many occasions

so i'm writing, as blogs are often written, while i wait for a hangover to subside and hope that i didn't offend or upset a friend with irresponsible words, or worse, make myself known as more of a tit than i would normally deem acceptable titdom. i understand i'm hoping against hope, as i've met me when i'm drunk, and i really am an unquestionable pillock.. which i'm not over the moon about, but i'm willing to live with, as underneath it all pretty much every living soul in the world has the capacity to be a proper pillock, and celebrates this capacity on regular enough occasions.. whether they've spent the evening poisoning themselves or not.. and at least it's better than the old school drunkeness that invariably led to tears and on one occasion a 20minute session interogating a friend aas to why they weren't crying? they said they had no reason to cry and this didn't make any sense at all in my head.. turns out i was crying because Halloween H20 had the wrong girl from Dawsons Creek in it on that occasion.. see, there is always a reason to cry

though i haven't cried whilst drunk for many moon, i fear this means i've become a *shudder* happier individual.. the very thought brings a fear to my soul.. happy? no, i'm neither simple or senile, i think it's just that my insides have stopped producing fuid.. i can't be sick either.. which is a concern

anyway this isn't medical monthly so maybe we should move on

hair straighteners are impossible to use on yourself... impossible

well done for reading this far.. but seriously.. why?

seen as you got here though, you can help me settle an argument with my brother.. we're getting a christmas tree for the flat, it's the first time i've had one in years, partly because the first time i got a christmas tree for my own flat was with a friend who's far away now and i fear seeing one everyday might make me a little sad, but mostly because the last time i got one i discovered it actually impossible to get pine needles out of certain types of carpet and i couldn't walk round in barefeet again till i moved out of the flat, and the landlord had to replace all the carpets on the stairs, yet never mentioned it to me, which is shocking considering the very obvious trail of needles to my flat door.. he was a nice man.

anyway.. yeah... my brother insists that a tree should not be purchased, ereceted and applied with decor until "mid-december", but i figure it's fine to get one now.. the christmas lights are up, the shops are staying open late and i fully expect my mother will be blessing me with a chocolate filled advent calender the next time i see her as she allows me so kindly to cling to that last vestige* of childhood.. so, it's ok yeah? yeah?

thankyou, come again!

*i have no idea what the word vestige means... none at all

Bump

So I do what I planned and I go to the random word generator and challenge myself to write something not entirely sleep inducing about whatever word it spits out. Maybe i’ll have to write about some form of food, or an activity that i’ve done in the past, maybe i’ll really luck out and get a big topic that i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, like love, or hope, or even bridges.

’Bump.

There it is, the minute the page loads up, ‘Bump’.

Right. Well..erm.. yeah.

Now for some reason all that settles into mind is Mr Bump, a childhood favourite for me as I recall, after Mr Tickle of course, who could get his own breakfast in bed. Maybe it was in the tale of this little blue bandaged sphere that I found the kindling for my great love of schadenfruede. Who can’t be entertained by what is essentially a fat, smurf that walks into things and falls down holes. It’s the learning to read equivalent of watching a toddler drop his ice cream on the floor. Then of course the whole thing goes all Taoist on our backsides when the clumsy critter takes decides to work with, rather than struggle against, his disability, and of course now we’re in the 21st century we can recognise his tendency towards accidental injury as a disability, when back in the 20th century he would simply have been thought of as somewhere between unlucky and foolish. In fact if we think about it nowadays he would be viewed, depending on which newspaper you read, either as somebody with an unfortunate condition that should be understood, treated, and used as an excuse for not doing so well in his GCSEs or as a con man of the highest order with Legal Vultures 4 U on speed dial.

Wait, I did a tangent. Yeah our beach ball shaped chum goes and gets himself a job walking into trees in an orchard and causing the apples to fall down. Now you can call me a monster of you like and set the Society for the Patronisation of Clumsy People on me, but I can’t for the life of me think of a better job than as Security Camera Operator at that orchard. Watching Bumpy go about his daily business, tottering into a tree, falling back on his bum rubbing his forehead as the apple smacks him on the bonce.

I’d never be late for work.