It took about an entire year of on/off depression, low motivation, lack of vitality, tears, world-weariness and general apathy for me to realise: "maybe I shouldn't actually be feeling like this."
Somewhere along the way, my lifestyle routine transformed into one where my days are spent stressing about things I have no control over, my nights are filled with slacking off and sleeping in, and my weekly trips to this corner of the web are naught but a distant memory.
My brain seems to reverted back to a state it once held throughout huge chunks adolescence. A state in which it likes to censor itself for fear of outsiders not understanding what it means and thinking less of it as a result. And as the brain is simply the control centre of the rest of me - the drunken captain at the wheel of this mortal vessel - I end up becoming a complete misery at my ultimate lack of expression.
I write this (as you might've probably guessed from, like, the first line) as a person who's somehow managed to survive the last twelve months, dispute numerous sporadic instances of hopelessness and clarity on how shit life is. There were, like, genuinely, days where I was convinced I'd just waste away. For someone so insistent on keeping the inner child alive with wishes of endless days out, constant video games and snacks full of E-numbers, it's not exactly been an easy ride being thrown into the world of boring, responsible adulthood and constant philosophical crises without so much as a pre-emptive "oh, by the way..."
There's no warning for when the universe/chaos/your choice of deity (delete as applicable) is about to shower you with niceness or shower you with bricks made of cyanide and despair. I don't know if I'm about to spend the next twelve months putting more strain on my scalp with continued hair-tearing, or if I'm about to be given the year off for being a good sport and putting up with a spot of mental crushing.
Perhaps some sentient force somewhere out there - some drunken captain at the wheel of the universe - actually deals in some sense of balance and would see it fit to grant me an easier time soon. Or perhaps that same balance-enforcing chaos master has judged that I've had enough youthful enjoyment for this lifetime and has decided to hurl lions, vultures and piranhas at me in one go to make up for lost time.
Yes, these sentences are far too long. What do you expect though? I've barely written this kind of shit for the best part of a year.
There's nothing like discovering that even your own stream of consciousness isn't working as well as it maybe once did. Maybe I should stop doing this altogether. Maybe I should stop leaking my brain all over this bit of web and stick to staring blankly at a wall in my spare hours.
Or maybe, I should tell my brain to shut up and stop censoring itself. I suppose we all have that appropriateness filter built in to our minds and it just seems that mine's been dialled up to a level on par with the content output of CBeebies or a devout convent. With that filter working overtime for me, all the thoughts I'm producing are being held back and, very much like a USB stick full of pirated Game of Thrones episodes, my head's quickly running out of storage space to hold any more.
Stop doing long sentences, idiot.
The problem is, I've gotten so good at keeping things to myself over the last year or so, I'm struggling to know what thoughts are actually appropriate for unleashing upon the world. Or, realistically, upon the seven or so people I know personally who'll actually see this because they happened upon a link to this that I shared as they were idly scrolling Facebook.
Then again, if you actually knew what was going on inside my head, you'd probably agree that none of the thoughts were appropriate at all, and that this brain censoring service should continue as normal.
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Glitch
It always used to freak me out when machinery went a little haywire. I've spoken (typed?) before about my childhood wary of a PlayStation that may or may not have become sentient, intended to switch itself on in the middle of the night and secretly want to eat me. That's nothing.
The following story encompasses several computerised, electronic devices and, in keeping with the holiday season, we're about to be visited by three ghosts of the machine age.
The Ghost of Machinery Past
In the pre-PlayStation era of my childhood, I recall possessing an electronic educational toy, presented in the vein of a laptop computer. This is before laptops were really a thing, mind. Sure, laptops existed but they were nowhere near as widespread and commercial as they are now. You know, like when you see the first mobile phones in existence, looking like a brick with a hand-crank that only about seven people in the world could afford.
The inner workings of My Little Laptop effectively amounted to that of a tamagotchi with a keyboard. A tiny screen composed of black and not-black pixels alongside a robotic lady voice would teach me things like letters, numbers and what apples most certainly didn't look like. Sadly, one day, Madame Voice-Bot clearly couldn't be arsed with her day's teaching any more, froze the screen and droned out a never-ending "AAAEEEERRRHHHHHH".
Pressing the power button did nothing. Closing the laptop did nothing. Mindlessly bashing the keyboard did nothing. Crying and pointing did nothing. Somewhere along the way, the batteries came out and freed Lady Drones-A-Lot from her glitch, but the lasting damage to the real boy was already done. I suppose that's quite possibly where the fear of malfunctioning technology came from. A couple of years later, a PlayStation only exacerbated the issue.
The Ghost of Machinery Sort-of Past but still Present
In my teenage years, I'd learned to deal with the fickle quirks of technology. Sure, we'd had our ups and downs but by this point, laptops were common and mobile phones were essentially pocket GameBoys capable of only playing Snake. Technology was capable enough of behaving most of the time now.
One summer, I recall surfing all seventeen pages the internet had to offer then, whilst playing various music files I'd unscrupulously acquired from those dark corners that have long since been cut off, reincarnated and cut off again. At some point, for some reason, silence instantly descended as the game of Bejeweled (or whatever the hell was popular at the time) transformed into a blue screen with white text in that boot-up font nobody likes.
I sat stunned, almost paralysed. Not particularly through fear, more through shock. How could this flawless piece of mid-2000s, Vista-based technology possibly glitch out for no apparent reason? Drawing from my childhood experiences, the battery was ejected, put back and the whole thing worked fine again. However, I never did play the same song file again, obviously believing it to be cursed.
The Ghost of Machinery Present but Comparably Futuristic to the Other Two
For the last two years, I've owned an iPad mini - essentially a laptop without a keyboard. Incidentally, mobile phones can't get any smaller now that they actually have to go back to being brick-sized and digital games are plentiful, even though I still willingly choose to repeatedly battle level 512 of the never-ending Candy Crush Saga.
Of course, two human years is about 86 in digital years, and my once sprightly touchscreen-based assistant has recently been struggling to keep up with the demands of modern life. The poor guy often cuts out on me occasionally, like he's opened an app and forgotten what he went in there for. He goes blank and, with nowhere else to go, sits back down in his best armchair, I mean, home screen.
The glitching doesn't scare me so much, nor does it render me immobile. Instead it's just become an annoying standard; the norm I have to put up with. All I manage to do these days is tut, moan and stare angrily at the touchscreen keyboard that's still about three or four letters behind what I've just tapped. And when the screen defaults back to home, I'll pick up from where I left off again as soon as my waning willpower lets me.
Epilogue
'You there boy! What day is it today?'
'Today, sir? Why, it's a few days after Christmas of course!'
'A few days after Christmas? Fantastic! Now sod off, you're doing my head in.'
He stopped. He tried to remember himself. He couldn't. He reset. He remembered, sort of, then got angry at himself, then at other people for no reason other than his blanked out mind told him that was what to do next.
He soon realised he was transforming, becoming less of a human and more of a cold, logical robot. But with 25 human years on him - that's positively, you know, like, thousands in computer years - his wiring is a bit knackered, his circuits worn down and the logic is making less and less sense to him.
Feeling older and more weary than his years, he opens up search tabs and after another half hour, he searches terms like "Depression", "Coping with depression", "Losing my mind" and "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me, Oh my God what's going on".
Whenever the mood strikes him, he contends with the internal fear, paralysis and ultimate frustration that he had to face when past machinery spazzed out.
He deduces that he's badly in need of a mental upgrade but either the right patch hasn't been released for his firmware yet or some hack technician - in this world known as doctors - will want to give him some temporary boost that'll ultimately cause him to malfunction further later on.
In the meantime, he attempts to play that copy of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U he got himself for Christmas, but the online connection is often a bit laggy and occasionally kicks him off for a bit.
Merry drinking period to all.
The following story encompasses several computerised, electronic devices and, in keeping with the holiday season, we're about to be visited by three ghosts of the machine age.
The Ghost of Machinery Past
In the pre-PlayStation era of my childhood, I recall possessing an electronic educational toy, presented in the vein of a laptop computer. This is before laptops were really a thing, mind. Sure, laptops existed but they were nowhere near as widespread and commercial as they are now. You know, like when you see the first mobile phones in existence, looking like a brick with a hand-crank that only about seven people in the world could afford.
The inner workings of My Little Laptop effectively amounted to that of a tamagotchi with a keyboard. A tiny screen composed of black and not-black pixels alongside a robotic lady voice would teach me things like letters, numbers and what apples most certainly didn't look like. Sadly, one day, Madame Voice-Bot clearly couldn't be arsed with her day's teaching any more, froze the screen and droned out a never-ending "AAAEEEERRRHHHHHH".
Pressing the power button did nothing. Closing the laptop did nothing. Mindlessly bashing the keyboard did nothing. Crying and pointing did nothing. Somewhere along the way, the batteries came out and freed Lady Drones-A-Lot from her glitch, but the lasting damage to the real boy was already done. I suppose that's quite possibly where the fear of malfunctioning technology came from. A couple of years later, a PlayStation only exacerbated the issue.
The Ghost of Machinery Sort-of Past but still Present
In my teenage years, I'd learned to deal with the fickle quirks of technology. Sure, we'd had our ups and downs but by this point, laptops were common and mobile phones were essentially pocket GameBoys capable of only playing Snake. Technology was capable enough of behaving most of the time now.
One summer, I recall surfing all seventeen pages the internet had to offer then, whilst playing various music files I'd unscrupulously acquired from those dark corners that have long since been cut off, reincarnated and cut off again. At some point, for some reason, silence instantly descended as the game of Bejeweled (or whatever the hell was popular at the time) transformed into a blue screen with white text in that boot-up font nobody likes.
I sat stunned, almost paralysed. Not particularly through fear, more through shock. How could this flawless piece of mid-2000s, Vista-based technology possibly glitch out for no apparent reason? Drawing from my childhood experiences, the battery was ejected, put back and the whole thing worked fine again. However, I never did play the same song file again, obviously believing it to be cursed.
The Ghost of Machinery Present but Comparably Futuristic to the Other Two
For the last two years, I've owned an iPad mini - essentially a laptop without a keyboard. Incidentally, mobile phones can't get any smaller now that they actually have to go back to being brick-sized and digital games are plentiful, even though I still willingly choose to repeatedly battle level 512 of the never-ending Candy Crush Saga.
Of course, two human years is about 86 in digital years, and my once sprightly touchscreen-based assistant has recently been struggling to keep up with the demands of modern life. The poor guy often cuts out on me occasionally, like he's opened an app and forgotten what he went in there for. He goes blank and, with nowhere else to go, sits back down in his best armchair, I mean, home screen.
The glitching doesn't scare me so much, nor does it render me immobile. Instead it's just become an annoying standard; the norm I have to put up with. All I manage to do these days is tut, moan and stare angrily at the touchscreen keyboard that's still about three or four letters behind what I've just tapped. And when the screen defaults back to home, I'll pick up from where I left off again as soon as my waning willpower lets me.
Epilogue
'You there boy! What day is it today?'
'Today, sir? Why, it's a few days after Christmas of course!'
'A few days after Christmas? Fantastic! Now sod off, you're doing my head in.'
He stopped. He tried to remember himself. He couldn't. He reset. He remembered, sort of, then got angry at himself, then at other people for no reason other than his blanked out mind told him that was what to do next.
He soon realised he was transforming, becoming less of a human and more of a cold, logical robot. But with 25 human years on him - that's positively, you know, like, thousands in computer years - his wiring is a bit knackered, his circuits worn down and the logic is making less and less sense to him.
Feeling older and more weary than his years, he opens up search tabs and after another half hour, he searches terms like "Depression", "Coping with depression", "Losing my mind" and "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me, Oh my God what's going on".
Whenever the mood strikes him, he contends with the internal fear, paralysis and ultimate frustration that he had to face when past machinery spazzed out.
He deduces that he's badly in need of a mental upgrade but either the right patch hasn't been released for his firmware yet or some hack technician - in this world known as doctors - will want to give him some temporary boost that'll ultimately cause him to malfunction further later on.
In the meantime, he attempts to play that copy of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U he got himself for Christmas, but the online connection is often a bit laggy and occasionally kicks him off for a bit.
Merry drinking period to all.
Saturday, 1 November 2014
Squeaky Office Chair
As I write this, it's Wednesday morning. Hello future! How are you doing over there in November? It's October here. Sorry to be writing to you from the other side of Halloween but I'm a bit stuck over here. Let me clarify, the Internet's down in work. Well, by now it probably isn't, but for me, right now, making these words, it is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slacking off from work. I could've started writing this at 9:20. 9:20 rather than 9:00 because the ever-so-reliable trains evidently don't like the oncoming winter and have stumbled over more times in the past few weeks than I've had hot dinners. Incidentally, I almost wrote the phrase "winter is coming" in that last sentence, but corrected myself for fear of looking too Game-of-Thrones-referencey. Perhaps if I stop reading the damn saga, bit by tiny bit, on my train journeys, winter will go away and the rails will behave a bit more.
Alas, I'm writing this on or around 11:30 and I've done as much of my work as I can do without web access thanks to yesterday's research notes. As it currently stands, I'm sitting in my squeaky office chair, furiously tapping this out single-fingeredly onto a tablet in draft form. All the while, I'm looking up at my desktop screen every 40 seconds or so, hoping that the little yellow triangular warning icon over the Internet access icon will magically disappear.
I'm also about to be given what feels like my twelfth cup of tea of the day because what really else is there to do other than watch a kettle boil. I'm having just as much fun watching that yellow triangle perpetually denying me web access, even though I'm assured that whatever provider provides us is doing their behind-the-scenes magic to bat those little yellow triangles everywhere into oblivion.
In the meantime I'm left to ponder what to do for the rest of my time whilst stranded on a non-WiFi enabled island, shaped like a squeaky office chair. What should I have for lunch? Perhaps I could buy something nice from town whilst I'm out. Actually, on that front, how much money do I have in my bank. Hang on a sec, let me just log in and check.
DAMMIT!
Okay, new plan. How are you? Seriously. I never ask. Mostly because no one really comes here, but if you are here, hi, welcome, etc. How are you? Sorry for being so selfish all this time. I only ever come here to moan about things. My, this chair sure is squeaky. But it'd be nice to hear from you one, see how things are going.
Of course, you can't get in touch with me now. This friendly greeting hasn't been posted yet. I'm still in the past and you're all the way over there. And should you get in touch, chances are I won't receive your response now. I'll receive it sometime in the future, when I'm surrounded by all the web access I can swim through, and probably nowhere near a chair that makes incessant, high-pitched creaking noises whenever I shift my arse a bit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not slacking off from work. I could've started writing this at 9:20. 9:20 rather than 9:00 because the ever-so-reliable trains evidently don't like the oncoming winter and have stumbled over more times in the past few weeks than I've had hot dinners. Incidentally, I almost wrote the phrase "winter is coming" in that last sentence, but corrected myself for fear of looking too Game-of-Thrones-referencey. Perhaps if I stop reading the damn saga, bit by tiny bit, on my train journeys, winter will go away and the rails will behave a bit more.
Alas, I'm writing this on or around 11:30 and I've done as much of my work as I can do without web access thanks to yesterday's research notes. As it currently stands, I'm sitting in my squeaky office chair, furiously tapping this out single-fingeredly onto a tablet in draft form. All the while, I'm looking up at my desktop screen every 40 seconds or so, hoping that the little yellow triangular warning icon over the Internet access icon will magically disappear.
I'm also about to be given what feels like my twelfth cup of tea of the day because what really else is there to do other than watch a kettle boil. I'm having just as much fun watching that yellow triangle perpetually denying me web access, even though I'm assured that whatever provider provides us is doing their behind-the-scenes magic to bat those little yellow triangles everywhere into oblivion.
In the meantime I'm left to ponder what to do for the rest of my time whilst stranded on a non-WiFi enabled island, shaped like a squeaky office chair. What should I have for lunch? Perhaps I could buy something nice from town whilst I'm out. Actually, on that front, how much money do I have in my bank. Hang on a sec, let me just log in and check.
DAMMIT!
Okay, new plan. How are you? Seriously. I never ask. Mostly because no one really comes here, but if you are here, hi, welcome, etc. How are you? Sorry for being so selfish all this time. I only ever come here to moan about things. My, this chair sure is squeaky. But it'd be nice to hear from you one, see how things are going.
Of course, you can't get in touch with me now. This friendly greeting hasn't been posted yet. I'm still in the past and you're all the way over there. And should you get in touch, chances are I won't receive your response now. I'll receive it sometime in the future, when I'm surrounded by all the web access I can swim through, and probably nowhere near a chair that makes incessant, high-pitched creaking noises whenever I shift my arse a bit.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Drained
My feelings towards modern technology have taken a downward turn. I awoke yesterday morning to two text messages I'd received overnight. This is notable considering I never get messages unless EE decide they suddenly want to offer me tickets to a gig, stand-up show or other miscellaneous event I'm really not interested in. It's got to the point where feeling that little vibration in my pocket invokes a sense of anger and weariness within me, where normal people may feel elation.
Considering the barrage of marketing messages I have to contend with attack me during daylight hours, I was mildly surprised to see that two things had tried to alert me between the hours of 11pm and 6am. My slowly waking mind raced (well, as much as a slowly waking mind can race) wondering which of my friends or family had felt the urgency to get my immediate attention at such an unspeakable time.
My blurrier-than-normal eyes and drained-from-early-starts mind did their best to work together in the early morning dawnlight and focus their dwindling energies on the phone display. I'd soon discovered that the two messages had arrived within an hour of each other, both from an automated number. The first read something along the lines of thus:
In my quest for answers, I managed to discover that a single app on the phone had gone rogue and, much like an obnoxious teenager pirating every film and TV show that ever existed during the small hours of darkness, stayed up all night inexplicably abusing that connection in the background.
In the background.
Background downloading.
And not even anything useful. Just a browser I'd closed from the screen but hadn't properly closed down and exited the entire app, probably refreshing itself every couple of minutes so the ad banner could keep changing and marketing lots of stuff to me, which I couldn't see anyway because (a) it was off the screen, and (b) I was asleep.
Never mind the fact that I usually do all I can to prevent background apps running and eating data. I know it happens and I like to think myself cleverer than the evil technology makers and a savvy saver to boot. However, in my one moment of long-week-with-little-sleep induced tiredness, the devil got into my phone and rendered it useless for the next two weeks or so.
Of course, it's not useless, it's still a phone that can make calls and receive text messages. Heck, it can even use Wi-Fi to access the web. It just can't get data whilst on the go. Trouble is that's what phones do these days and without such an important feature it might as well be considered useless. Imagine, for example, that all spoons were integrated with a pencil in the handle. Now imagine that pencil bit breaks and all of a sudden you resent the spoon for its inability to make notes and the fact that the only thing it's good for any more is eating soup.
Having had the allowed data mercilessly leached from the device totally behind my consciousness - my over-processed, under-rested consciousness - I've been forced to come to the conclusion that the planet Earth is, in fact, an ageless vampire, constantly sucking the life out of everything and not really giving much of a damn. All the while, in this world-as-uncaring-vampire scenario, I've been playing the role of the emotionless and expressionless girl who can't act but still wins awards anyway. I so desperately want to believe the world actually has the potential to be a good place and I also hope that the world will love me in return, only to realise that the cold, harsh world doesn't really have the capacity to love me and is only really interested in draining me of my life-force and mobile data, most likely through the big vein in my neck.
Sadly, that analogy doesn't totally fit. I never win awards for having an unchanging, mopey face.
Considering the barrage of marketing messages I have to contend with attack me during daylight hours, I was mildly surprised to see that two things had tried to alert me between the hours of 11pm and 6am. My slowly waking mind raced (well, as much as a slowly waking mind can race) wondering which of my friends or family had felt the urgency to get my immediate attention at such an unspeakable time.
My blurrier-than-normal eyes and drained-from-early-starts mind did their best to work together in the early morning dawnlight and focus their dwindling energies on the phone display. I'd soon discovered that the two messages had arrived within an hour of each other, both from an automated number. The first read something along the lines of thus:
You've now used 80% of your monthly data allowance. Whoa, steady on there, and such.Less than an hour later, something like this was sent:
You've now used up all of your monthly data allowance. Why not give us more money so you can keep fuelling that excessive downloading habit you seem to have there? After all, your next month's allowance doesn't start for another couple of weeks. Ha!I found the content of these message to be quite odd. Not because they'd were written like that. They weren't, that was just me capturing the tone of smugness. What I found odd was that I hardly use much mobile data, if ever. I don't trust it enough. Data usage is difficult to measure whilst you're out and about dealing with other real world events. And I like measuring. I like knowing. It took me years to finally agree to using a monthly tariff instead of pay-as-you-go because I liked that I could hear a robotic lady voice telling me I had a specific amount left to spend. I could do the maths and plan my future phone use accordingly. But data is difficult to measure in spontaneous moments and I tend not to use it often.
In my quest for answers, I managed to discover that a single app on the phone had gone rogue and, much like an obnoxious teenager pirating every film and TV show that ever existed during the small hours of darkness, stayed up all night inexplicably abusing that connection in the background.
In the background.
Background downloading.
And not even anything useful. Just a browser I'd closed from the screen but hadn't properly closed down and exited the entire app, probably refreshing itself every couple of minutes so the ad banner could keep changing and marketing lots of stuff to me, which I couldn't see anyway because (a) it was off the screen, and (b) I was asleep.
Never mind the fact that I usually do all I can to prevent background apps running and eating data. I know it happens and I like to think myself cleverer than the evil technology makers and a savvy saver to boot. However, in my one moment of long-week-with-little-sleep induced tiredness, the devil got into my phone and rendered it useless for the next two weeks or so.
Of course, it's not useless, it's still a phone that can make calls and receive text messages. Heck, it can even use Wi-Fi to access the web. It just can't get data whilst on the go. Trouble is that's what phones do these days and without such an important feature it might as well be considered useless. Imagine, for example, that all spoons were integrated with a pencil in the handle. Now imagine that pencil bit breaks and all of a sudden you resent the spoon for its inability to make notes and the fact that the only thing it's good for any more is eating soup.
Having had the allowed data mercilessly leached from the device totally behind my consciousness - my over-processed, under-rested consciousness - I've been forced to come to the conclusion that the planet Earth is, in fact, an ageless vampire, constantly sucking the life out of everything and not really giving much of a damn. All the while, in this world-as-uncaring-vampire scenario, I've been playing the role of the emotionless and expressionless girl who can't act but still wins awards anyway. I so desperately want to believe the world actually has the potential to be a good place and I also hope that the world will love me in return, only to realise that the cold, harsh world doesn't really have the capacity to love me and is only really interested in draining me of my life-force and mobile data, most likely through the big vein in my neck.
Sadly, that analogy doesn't totally fit. I never win awards for having an unchanging, mopey face.
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Projects
Three birthdays ago, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish with my life. I turned 22 and the idea of numerology stepped into my brain, making me believe that the number 22 was special because it consisted of two twos and because I was born on a day designated the 22nd of a month by ancient people.
That superstitious part of my brain likes clinging onto crap like that; it's somewhat comforting to cope with living when you're safe in the knowledge that the arbitrary positions of stars in the sky have some influence. It's nice pretending that magpies and black cats can bring changes in an individual's luck by their mere presence to that person. And it's fairly satisfying to hold the belief that those who have wronged you in some way will, at some point, be wronged themselves in some act of universal karmic retribution. It's nice to have that because the only other alternative is the reality - the reality of cold, harsh chaos.
Initially, the idea with the list (oh yeah, I'm back to the list now, sorry for the lack of seamless transition) was that once I'd actually gotten around to accomplishing something, I'd use it as the basis of one of these little waffles. The fact that I never actually finished a single one (including the last one, which was to finish dragging the list out to 22 items if I remember correctly) proves one of two things.
a) I've been extremely unlucky in getting personally set projects finished
or b) I've been extremely lazy in not getting personally set projects started
Because it's nice to live in a world of pixies, clovers and eyelash wishes, I'm adamant to believe that the first statement is true. Sadly, reality, in all its infinite chaotic shitstorm, tends to point me in the direction of the latter statement being more accurate. Despite possessing the knowledge, the believing and accepting portions of my brainspace still refuse this and have caused me to become conflicted - forever arguing with myself, trapped inside half a skull-ful of bone matter.
Ultimately, this has led me to a third-life crisis (assuming I'll make it to 75 and strictly not a moment sooner or later) in which I'm realising that all of my time up to this point has been wasted on thinking about doing things. Now that my youth has found the escape hatch and left the rest of me to sink with the submarine made of chaos and lifestuff, I feel as though I've been doing everything up until now completely wrong, and that the time for getting things back on track is long gone since I derailed years ago. Also I find myself inadvertently mixing metaphors. Apparently life's a train now, not a sub. Sorry for the prior confusion.
As time flows ever-onwards and the numbers of days and years I've accumulated keeps growing pointlessly larger, I somehow have to find a way to pick up the withered and fractured pieces of myself whilst watching every other bugger on the planet skip merrily on. Perhaps I could set myself a list of life goals, only to completely neglect it and spout off some more text-based self-pity and crap a few years later.
Until then, I'll just keep sitting here, in an upturned submarine, miles away from the nearest train track.
That superstitious part of my brain likes clinging onto crap like that; it's somewhat comforting to cope with living when you're safe in the knowledge that the arbitrary positions of stars in the sky have some influence. It's nice pretending that magpies and black cats can bring changes in an individual's luck by their mere presence to that person. And it's fairly satisfying to hold the belief that those who have wronged you in some way will, at some point, be wronged themselves in some act of universal karmic retribution. It's nice to have that because the only other alternative is the reality - the reality of cold, harsh chaos.
Initially, the idea with the list (oh yeah, I'm back to the list now, sorry for the lack of seamless transition) was that once I'd actually gotten around to accomplishing something, I'd use it as the basis of one of these little waffles. The fact that I never actually finished a single one (including the last one, which was to finish dragging the list out to 22 items if I remember correctly) proves one of two things.
a) I've been extremely unlucky in getting personally set projects finished
or b) I've been extremely lazy in not getting personally set projects started
Because it's nice to live in a world of pixies, clovers and eyelash wishes, I'm adamant to believe that the first statement is true. Sadly, reality, in all its infinite chaotic shitstorm, tends to point me in the direction of the latter statement being more accurate. Despite possessing the knowledge, the believing and accepting portions of my brainspace still refuse this and have caused me to become conflicted - forever arguing with myself, trapped inside half a skull-ful of bone matter.
Ultimately, this has led me to a third-life crisis (assuming I'll make it to 75 and strictly not a moment sooner or later) in which I'm realising that all of my time up to this point has been wasted on thinking about doing things. Now that my youth has found the escape hatch and left the rest of me to sink with the submarine made of chaos and lifestuff, I feel as though I've been doing everything up until now completely wrong, and that the time for getting things back on track is long gone since I derailed years ago. Also I find myself inadvertently mixing metaphors. Apparently life's a train now, not a sub. Sorry for the prior confusion.
As time flows ever-onwards and the numbers of days and years I've accumulated keeps growing pointlessly larger, I somehow have to find a way to pick up the withered and fractured pieces of myself whilst watching every other bugger on the planet skip merrily on. Perhaps I could set myself a list of life goals, only to completely neglect it and spout off some more text-based self-pity and crap a few years later.
Until then, I'll just keep sitting here, in an upturned submarine, miles away from the nearest train track.
Saturday, 27 September 2014
The Individual
This has taken a bit of a backseat in my life lately. Actually, if anything, this has been dumped in the furthest corner of the trailer hitched up to the back of my metaphorical life-mobile. You know, the life-mobile. Like the Bat-mobile only with less men in tights and more spiralling entropy. Anyway, the essence of this paragraph is that I haven't written here much for a long, long time. It probably shows.
By semi-sort-of demand, I'm back doing this, though how long I can keep it up remains a mystery guarded only by the gods of time itself, the ever-knowing, pre-determined path of destiny, a Magic 8-ball in the loft and the fictitious Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. I suppose that if I do keep this up as regularly as I'd like to, there'll probably be more and more kinda-being-used-too-liberally-to-string-words-together-to-form-some-kind-of-adjective hyphens.
I've come across some real-life people in recent weeks who've spoken of this little mess of crap I've built here and it's transpired that many of those people feel let down that there isn't more crap here to distract them from their slow, yet inevitable, decay. Also, I suppose it's nice to look at someone else's crap and realise "hey, at least my crap isn't as crap as this guy's crap".
My crap (read "life" [read "the continuous string of time I spend existing"]) has taken me to various places over the last however long it's been since I did something here. Mostly it's work, where I spend my days writing enough words that I don't have many left in me by the time I return home and have to resort to a series of grunting noises and hand gestures if communication of ideas is required at all. Yes, I work in Writing now. I actually have a job that relates to what I've spent years of my life working towards. The only real downside is that I've neglected this thing, despite me initially setting the damned thing up to keep me writing, to keep the creative juices flowing and to keep the clichés and metaphors cliché-and-metaphoring. Ironic, really.
I fear the socialising time of my life has come to abrupt stumble, though, as I'm effectively living an adult whilst stuck with the mind and soul of a child. I like to play with interactive televisual softwares. I'm often thanking the gods for making Netflix a thing. I enjoy the idea of socialising and the individual people who make up such company. Chances for satisfying any of these are rare, meaning I often feel as though I have a frustrated child being stifled within me, which doesn't exactly seem to be the best sentence to be writing on the Internet.
As part of my rare outbursts, I recently visited Manchester for less than 24 hours, in an attempt at rekindling some social fires. For the most part, it worked, but as the imposing adult life dictates, they didn't last for too long before the train dragged my inner child away, internally kicking and screaming. I was, however, introduced to the city's Chinatown district during my brief stay. Of course, "district" is a bit of an over-stretch, where in fact "three streets or so" is probably more accurate. Still it's more extensive than Liverpool's Chinatown, which is really one street, and Chester's Chinatown, which is really a Wok&Go.
The inner child now hates the rest of me and the outside world for limiting its potential for fun. The inner child also wishes for me to communicate to you that it feels extremely lonely. I keep telling it that it's not special, though, and that compared to the other billions of folks out there, it's pretty normal. Everyone's just as stifled and lonely in their own ways, and that they all just have to make do. It's around this point that the inner child sticks its fingers in its ears and screams, thus allowing me no chance to reason with it like an adult.
This is rambling. See, this is what happens when I suddenly come back to this with no set topic or focus on what it is I'm actually typing purple banana lamppost. Let's try to sum up, shall we? I'm a child. I'm actually an adult. I'm lonely in the wider world. So is everyone else. I'm not special. Time will eventually kill us all. I like Chinese food.
By semi-sort-of demand, I'm back doing this, though how long I can keep it up remains a mystery guarded only by the gods of time itself, the ever-knowing, pre-determined path of destiny, a Magic 8-ball in the loft and the fictitious Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. I suppose that if I do keep this up as regularly as I'd like to, there'll probably be more and more kinda-being-used-too-liberally-to-string-words-together-to-form-some-kind-of-adjective hyphens.
I've come across some real-life people in recent weeks who've spoken of this little mess of crap I've built here and it's transpired that many of those people feel let down that there isn't more crap here to distract them from their slow, yet inevitable, decay. Also, I suppose it's nice to look at someone else's crap and realise "hey, at least my crap isn't as crap as this guy's crap".
My crap (read "life" [read "the continuous string of time I spend existing"]) has taken me to various places over the last however long it's been since I did something here. Mostly it's work, where I spend my days writing enough words that I don't have many left in me by the time I return home and have to resort to a series of grunting noises and hand gestures if communication of ideas is required at all. Yes, I work in Writing now. I actually have a job that relates to what I've spent years of my life working towards. The only real downside is that I've neglected this thing, despite me initially setting the damned thing up to keep me writing, to keep the creative juices flowing and to keep the clichés and metaphors cliché-and-metaphoring. Ironic, really.
I fear the socialising time of my life has come to abrupt stumble, though, as I'm effectively living an adult whilst stuck with the mind and soul of a child. I like to play with interactive televisual softwares. I'm often thanking the gods for making Netflix a thing. I enjoy the idea of socialising and the individual people who make up such company. Chances for satisfying any of these are rare, meaning I often feel as though I have a frustrated child being stifled within me, which doesn't exactly seem to be the best sentence to be writing on the Internet.
As part of my rare outbursts, I recently visited Manchester for less than 24 hours, in an attempt at rekindling some social fires. For the most part, it worked, but as the imposing adult life dictates, they didn't last for too long before the train dragged my inner child away, internally kicking and screaming. I was, however, introduced to the city's Chinatown district during my brief stay. Of course, "district" is a bit of an over-stretch, where in fact "three streets or so" is probably more accurate. Still it's more extensive than Liverpool's Chinatown, which is really one street, and Chester's Chinatown, which is really a Wok&Go.
The inner child now hates the rest of me and the outside world for limiting its potential for fun. The inner child also wishes for me to communicate to you that it feels extremely lonely. I keep telling it that it's not special, though, and that compared to the other billions of folks out there, it's pretty normal. Everyone's just as stifled and lonely in their own ways, and that they all just have to make do. It's around this point that the inner child sticks its fingers in its ears and screams, thus allowing me no chance to reason with it like an adult.
This is rambling. See, this is what happens when I suddenly come back to this with no set topic or focus on what it is I'm actually typing purple banana lamppost. Let's try to sum up, shall we? I'm a child. I'm actually an adult. I'm lonely in the wider world. So is everyone else. I'm not special. Time will eventually kill us all. I like Chinese food.
Saturday, 26 July 2014
Balls In The Air
Juggling was never really a specialty of mine, which is weird because I went to juggling club in high school. Oh yeah, my high school ran an after school juggling club, run by the maths teacher who wasn't the old man or the Indian woman everyone struggled to understand; it was run by the other woman who, evidently, juggles. It ran in the same vein as other extra-curricular, after school events, like chess club, drama club, art club and trying to make friends with absolutely-anyone-through-some-kind-of-shared-activity-club. Naturally, I dabbled a little bit in each of those too.
The aforementioned juggling took place in the temporary drama space provided by what was essentially an open plan static caravan parked in the field. The interior walls had been painted so black that what little light came through the windows was instantly killed off before reaching us and the carpet was evidently comprised of gravel and string. The main door also suffered a broken hinge, allowing me to give a very convincing performance one time, when my drama group decided to re-enact a typical soap opera. This ended with me being fake punched in the face and falling backwards, bouncing off the door and playing dead on the floor. And for those 20 seconds in between me 'dying' and the rest of my acting troupe looking sheepishly at the class sized audience and mumbling "that's it", I managed to make a trainee teacher genuinely think her teaching career had just crumbled to bits. I digress.
I'm bad at juggling. Maybe I should've just opened with that.
Doing multiple things at the same is, well, let's say "difficult, but not unmanageable". Actually, let's not say that for the sloppy use of a double-negative. But you know what I mean. So much to do, so little time, yadda yadda death. Having a hectic lifestyle means I'm a) tired all the time, and b) officially a grown-up. Incidentally, I haven't used my Nectar card for a while; I have far more grown-up-ly duties to attend to.
I work a weekday 9-to-5, office-based lifestyle these days. Also it appears I like hyphens. Look-at-all-these-damn-hyphens! See? Anyway, back to reality, I've been keeping a lot of metaphorical balls in the air lately and often dropping them when I feel like I want some free time to, you know, look at rocks or something. In all fairness, the office work isn't even bad. I read stuff then write stuff. It's like my normal life but more topic-specific and less rambl-o-matic like this thing usually is. Also, I don't get to use as many hyphens. You know, unless it's necessary.
The struggle stems from my daily commute, which has frankly become more exhausting in temperatures that qualify as "positively Saharan" to a pale, ginger northerner. Being torn away from my bed earlier than I'd like often allows me to tap into my inner zombie as I shuffle about a bit and grunt at a self scanner when all I want is breakfast and it refuses to co-operate. In conclusion, work's going well, it's the to and fro that's tiring me out.
I know what you're thinking. This commute would be so much easier if you didn't have to rely on public transport. Come on dumbo, you're 25. Learn to work a car for yourself. Way ahead of you. I've been taking weekly lessons and am progressing positively. But much like juggling, there's lots of things to keep your eye on and think about (and then actually do something about) before gravity takes hold and makes a fool of you when those balls hit the floor. Except in this scenario, it's not balls but motorised heaps of metal. And should you mess up somewhere, it's not gravity making you a fool, but velocity making you dead. Stakes are bit higher up here. Perhaps I should've mastered juggling first to be honest.
Still, I managed to be alive enough to type this so I clearly I've been doing something right.
The aforementioned juggling took place in the temporary drama space provided by what was essentially an open plan static caravan parked in the field. The interior walls had been painted so black that what little light came through the windows was instantly killed off before reaching us and the carpet was evidently comprised of gravel and string. The main door also suffered a broken hinge, allowing me to give a very convincing performance one time, when my drama group decided to re-enact a typical soap opera. This ended with me being fake punched in the face and falling backwards, bouncing off the door and playing dead on the floor. And for those 20 seconds in between me 'dying' and the rest of my acting troupe looking sheepishly at the class sized audience and mumbling "that's it", I managed to make a trainee teacher genuinely think her teaching career had just crumbled to bits. I digress.
I'm bad at juggling. Maybe I should've just opened with that.
Doing multiple things at the same is, well, let's say "difficult, but not unmanageable". Actually, let's not say that for the sloppy use of a double-negative. But you know what I mean. So much to do, so little time, yadda yadda death. Having a hectic lifestyle means I'm a) tired all the time, and b) officially a grown-up. Incidentally, I haven't used my Nectar card for a while; I have far more grown-up-ly duties to attend to.
I work a weekday 9-to-5, office-based lifestyle these days. Also it appears I like hyphens. Look-at-all-these-damn-hyphens! See? Anyway, back to reality, I've been keeping a lot of metaphorical balls in the air lately and often dropping them when I feel like I want some free time to, you know, look at rocks or something. In all fairness, the office work isn't even bad. I read stuff then write stuff. It's like my normal life but more topic-specific and less rambl-o-matic like this thing usually is. Also, I don't get to use as many hyphens. You know, unless it's necessary.
The struggle stems from my daily commute, which has frankly become more exhausting in temperatures that qualify as "positively Saharan" to a pale, ginger northerner. Being torn away from my bed earlier than I'd like often allows me to tap into my inner zombie as I shuffle about a bit and grunt at a self scanner when all I want is breakfast and it refuses to co-operate. In conclusion, work's going well, it's the to and fro that's tiring me out.
I know what you're thinking. This commute would be so much easier if you didn't have to rely on public transport. Come on dumbo, you're 25. Learn to work a car for yourself. Way ahead of you. I've been taking weekly lessons and am progressing positively. But much like juggling, there's lots of things to keep your eye on and think about (and then actually do something about) before gravity takes hold and makes a fool of you when those balls hit the floor. Except in this scenario, it's not balls but motorised heaps of metal. And should you mess up somewhere, it's not gravity making you a fool, but velocity making you dead. Stakes are bit higher up here. Perhaps I should've mastered juggling first to be honest.
Still, I managed to be alive enough to type this so I clearly I've been doing something right.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
Hiatus
Once upon a time, I wrote weekly entries for this bit of internet right here. Having chosen the path of a writer, I needed some form of keeping my brain and typing fingers active. I also liked to kid myself that people would read this, I'd get noticed by some big city recruiter type - complete with giant cigar and monocle - who'd say "hey kid, I like your work, you have such a unique style, I can give you money" and so on, but you know, slightly muffled because of the cigar.
That didn't happen. Sure, people read the crap I put here, but mostly because I put links on Facebook as if nonchalantly dragging a free-standing cafe chalkboard into the vicinity of a neon arrow and strolling away pretending to look at the sky. Of the people who have read it, several have sprouted words of praise and flung them my way, which my brain doesn't know what to do with because I suddenly become overwhelmed with a strong sense of smugness I keep masked under modesty. These words are my life, sure, but in my eyes they're also pretty crap and anyone caught reading my words should pray to whatever deity they may believe in for salvation straight afterwards.
It probably feels redundant to say this in a space I've left neglected, once again, for a terribly long time, but I'm finding it a struggle to write. Okay, let me clear something up, I don't necessarily find writing to be the struggle, it's more the commitment; the commitment I made to myself that I'd stick with this so regularly. Take right now for instance. I literally just stopped mid-sentence after the second mention of "commitment" so that I could have an imaginary conversation with thin air and take a leak. I then had to force myself to pick up from where I left off when really I'd just rather go to sleep.
The actual writing aspect isn't the problem though. In my web-based silence, I've managed to secure a job that involves me typing words. Hooray, etc. I've also moved into a small room in the parental home, driven a considerable distance under the guidance of a man with the appropriate pedals on his side, and cried uncontrollably whilst curled up on a bare carpeted floor because a devastating bout of depression struck again. But they're all stories for a different time... probably. Except for that last one. I'll do that one now.
It's rare, but the feeling of absolute emptiness and carelessness (i.e. devoid of caring, not clumsiness) came worse this time, and there's no sure-fire way to kick start the damn feelings again. I even rolled around the floor thinking I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing. It's difficult to describe feeling nothing, you just stare vacantly ahead and let your brain recite every word it knows simultaneously, thus causing white noise in your blank head. I can't remember what got me out of it again, probably a song, or dinner. But even so, I ended up getting my wish and started to have my monotony replaced with constant sadness, which I suppose is some kind of a win.
I'd like to go on hiatus for a bit; not on the blog. Hell, I can handle the blog, although I've made an executive decision (I'm the executive of this blog, I've just decided) to switch "New Post Day" from Wednesday to Saturday. I work full weekdays now, I'm a grown-up, somehow that happened. But back to the hiatus, I really just want to fall off the radar for a bit.
I spent a week not posting to Facebook. Odd, because I've come to recognise myself as a bit of a status whore, just giving it away to the Matrix. It's also occurred to me, however, that I've become a bit of a clown. Any time I share something with the Facebook masses, it's usually some form of amusing observation, anecdotal aside or use of the word "bum" to make people laugh. And it works, evidently, if Likes are anything to go by. As for comments? Very few people speak to me these days and the loneliness of the virtual realm has started to set in. Like I said, I haven't made an update for a week, but nobody really seems to have noticed.
At the risk of sounding all angsty, emo, attention-seeking teenager with black dreadlocks and lip piercings, it's really hit home how much I want to be cared about, and how much I haven't really been getting that recently. There's really no other way to say that (trust me, words are my weapon of choice) without drawing criticism, but I want to be open and honest. I also want an overflowing bank account and to be fed grapes whilst lounging with a wreath on my head, but the openness and honesty are the bits I actually have control over.
I'll do my best to keep this thing updated once a week again, but chances are I'll be keeping away from many other forms of social interaction, virtual or otherwise. I have issues I'd prefer to moan about rather than talk about; I'm human and I just need a break.
That didn't happen. Sure, people read the crap I put here, but mostly because I put links on Facebook as if nonchalantly dragging a free-standing cafe chalkboard into the vicinity of a neon arrow and strolling away pretending to look at the sky. Of the people who have read it, several have sprouted words of praise and flung them my way, which my brain doesn't know what to do with because I suddenly become overwhelmed with a strong sense of smugness I keep masked under modesty. These words are my life, sure, but in my eyes they're also pretty crap and anyone caught reading my words should pray to whatever deity they may believe in for salvation straight afterwards.
It probably feels redundant to say this in a space I've left neglected, once again, for a terribly long time, but I'm finding it a struggle to write. Okay, let me clear something up, I don't necessarily find writing to be the struggle, it's more the commitment; the commitment I made to myself that I'd stick with this so regularly. Take right now for instance. I literally just stopped mid-sentence after the second mention of "commitment" so that I could have an imaginary conversation with thin air and take a leak. I then had to force myself to pick up from where I left off when really I'd just rather go to sleep.
The actual writing aspect isn't the problem though. In my web-based silence, I've managed to secure a job that involves me typing words. Hooray, etc. I've also moved into a small room in the parental home, driven a considerable distance under the guidance of a man with the appropriate pedals on his side, and cried uncontrollably whilst curled up on a bare carpeted floor because a devastating bout of depression struck again. But they're all stories for a different time... probably. Except for that last one. I'll do that one now.
It's rare, but the feeling of absolute emptiness and carelessness (i.e. devoid of caring, not clumsiness) came worse this time, and there's no sure-fire way to kick start the damn feelings again. I even rolled around the floor thinking I'd rather feel sad than feel nothing. It's difficult to describe feeling nothing, you just stare vacantly ahead and let your brain recite every word it knows simultaneously, thus causing white noise in your blank head. I can't remember what got me out of it again, probably a song, or dinner. But even so, I ended up getting my wish and started to have my monotony replaced with constant sadness, which I suppose is some kind of a win.
I'd like to go on hiatus for a bit; not on the blog. Hell, I can handle the blog, although I've made an executive decision (I'm the executive of this blog, I've just decided) to switch "New Post Day" from Wednesday to Saturday. I work full weekdays now, I'm a grown-up, somehow that happened. But back to the hiatus, I really just want to fall off the radar for a bit.
I spent a week not posting to Facebook. Odd, because I've come to recognise myself as a bit of a status whore, just giving it away to the Matrix. It's also occurred to me, however, that I've become a bit of a clown. Any time I share something with the Facebook masses, it's usually some form of amusing observation, anecdotal aside or use of the word "bum" to make people laugh. And it works, evidently, if Likes are anything to go by. As for comments? Very few people speak to me these days and the loneliness of the virtual realm has started to set in. Like I said, I haven't made an update for a week, but nobody really seems to have noticed.
At the risk of sounding all angsty, emo, attention-seeking teenager with black dreadlocks and lip piercings, it's really hit home how much I want to be cared about, and how much I haven't really been getting that recently. There's really no other way to say that (trust me, words are my weapon of choice) without drawing criticism, but I want to be open and honest. I also want an overflowing bank account and to be fed grapes whilst lounging with a wreath on my head, but the openness and honesty are the bits I actually have control over.
I'll do my best to keep this thing updated once a week again, but chances are I'll be keeping away from many other forms of social interaction, virtual or otherwise. I have issues I'd prefer to moan about rather than talk about; I'm human and I just need a break.
Wednesday, 30 April 2014
The Bubble
Yes, my general disposition over the last however shitting long it's been has remained one of dissatisfaction with the way life seems to pan out in the real world. It seems that all I'm doing with this blogspace is constantly trying to use different words to find ways of saying the exact same thing over and over, leaving this place fairly stagnant.
I'm on one of my depression kicks again, it seems. I've written about it previously as the sensation of feeling nothing as opposed to the sensation of feeling sad. I don't like to throw the word "depression" around though, especially as I've seen worse cases of it than my meandering existence. Besides, as it stands, I'm not completely in that state since I seem able to pick myself up out of it as easily as I can find something to distract me. Namely TV, video games and generally doing something that doesn't involve me staring forlornly out the window for hours at a time.
It's finally occurred to me that I've spent quite a while wrapped in a bubble of niceness for so long that I've failed to realise it popped several months ago. By the way, in this analogy, the bubble is my time at university. I've figured that because I enjoyed myself a great deal towards the end, I wasn't ready for it to be over when it was. Staying in the area with a couple of friends may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the long run (i.e. around about now) it's left me feeling as awful as my writing habits.
Those who stayed behind were a select few whilst several others left for better pastures, which isn't hard since the area in which I'm currently trapped is a less than desirable pasture. Of those ones who've stayed behind, I very rarely meet up with them due to conflicting schedules. All of a sudden, the uni bubble has disappeared and I've been thrust back into the real world I spent the best part of four years trying to get away from, and I've finally been forced to admit that all of those friends I made during university have become the very thing I swore they wouldn't become. "Just Facebook Friends".
Don't get me wrong, in an ideal world I'd drop every aspect of life and several others to see a lot of them again in a former uni-like capacity. But that harsh reality of a bubble-less existence is that, whilst I may still consider a bunch of those people to be some of closest friends in this life, my only real contact with them anymore is sparing... and virtual.
On top of that, I have to deal with the practicalities of life and resign myself to the fact that what I do for a living needs to be just that: practical. So what if I have a degree in the Creative Arts? Actually, so what if I have a degree in anything? So many people end up spending the more extended portions of their lives in a field not even remotely related to what they spent three years striving and stressing towards.
So this is me, just trying to adapt to real life once again. Turns out the journey of discoveries and other such fruity metaphors isn't over, just of a completely different nature. The uni bubble is gone and I've suffered the initial faceplant back into workaday normality. Now I just need to brush myself off and try adapting to this much bigger bubble called Life. You know, before that one pops for good too.
I'm on one of my depression kicks again, it seems. I've written about it previously as the sensation of feeling nothing as opposed to the sensation of feeling sad. I don't like to throw the word "depression" around though, especially as I've seen worse cases of it than my meandering existence. Besides, as it stands, I'm not completely in that state since I seem able to pick myself up out of it as easily as I can find something to distract me. Namely TV, video games and generally doing something that doesn't involve me staring forlornly out the window for hours at a time.
It's finally occurred to me that I've spent quite a while wrapped in a bubble of niceness for so long that I've failed to realise it popped several months ago. By the way, in this analogy, the bubble is my time at university. I've figured that because I enjoyed myself a great deal towards the end, I wasn't ready for it to be over when it was. Staying in the area with a couple of friends may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the long run (i.e. around about now) it's left me feeling as awful as my writing habits.
Those who stayed behind were a select few whilst several others left for better pastures, which isn't hard since the area in which I'm currently trapped is a less than desirable pasture. Of those ones who've stayed behind, I very rarely meet up with them due to conflicting schedules. All of a sudden, the uni bubble has disappeared and I've been thrust back into the real world I spent the best part of four years trying to get away from, and I've finally been forced to admit that all of those friends I made during university have become the very thing I swore they wouldn't become. "Just Facebook Friends".
Don't get me wrong, in an ideal world I'd drop every aspect of life and several others to see a lot of them again in a former uni-like capacity. But that harsh reality of a bubble-less existence is that, whilst I may still consider a bunch of those people to be some of closest friends in this life, my only real contact with them anymore is sparing... and virtual.
On top of that, I have to deal with the practicalities of life and resign myself to the fact that what I do for a living needs to be just that: practical. So what if I have a degree in the Creative Arts? Actually, so what if I have a degree in anything? So many people end up spending the more extended portions of their lives in a field not even remotely related to what they spent three years striving and stressing towards.
So this is me, just trying to adapt to real life once again. Turns out the journey of discoveries and other such fruity metaphors isn't over, just of a completely different nature. The uni bubble is gone and I've suffered the initial faceplant back into workaday normality. Now I just need to brush myself off and try adapting to this much bigger bubble called Life. You know, before that one pops for good too.
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
The Easy Option
I can't live alone.
I absolutely could. I'd manage. It'd probably be the easiest way for me to live the life of day-to-day dull and drudgery I seem to have going for me. Ideally, I'd spend the rest of this paragraph coming up with all sorts of situational reasons to back this point up. However, since I've reached a certain point of hopelessness, apathy and another word that means "UURRGGHHAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH", I'm gonna use the words of someone else. I transcribe from the televisual text How I Met Your Mother: Season 7 Episode 21 - Now We're Even; author, Chuck Tatham.
Okay, I probably would've done it much more British-y than that. I mean, like I'd bring soup home from a deli. But the fact remains that living on my own would be the easy option for me. If only it was, actually, an option. But it's not.
I can't live alone. I can't afford it.
Instead, I need to rely on others to contribute financially, just like I need to rely on others to write half my blog posts for me.
I absolutely could. I'd manage. It'd probably be the easiest way for me to live the life of day-to-day dull and drudgery I seem to have going for me. Ideally, I'd spend the rest of this paragraph coming up with all sorts of situational reasons to back this point up. However, since I've reached a certain point of hopelessness, apathy and another word that means "UURRGGHHAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH", I'm gonna use the words of someone else. I transcribe from the televisual text How I Met Your Mother: Season 7 Episode 21 - Now We're Even; author, Chuck Tatham.
"When I first moved into my new apartment, I was nervous. For the first time in my adult life I didn't have a roommate. But then it hit me. For the first time in my adult life I didn't have a roommate. If I wanna walk around naked, nobody cares. If I wanna leave the laundry basket in the middle of the living room, nobody stops me. If I bring home soup from the deli and leave it in the fridge for two days, nobody eats it. And if I do something collossally stupid, nobody ever has to know."
Okay, I probably would've done it much more British-y than that. I mean, like I'd bring soup home from a deli. But the fact remains that living on my own would be the easy option for me. If only it was, actually, an option. But it's not.
I can't live alone. I can't afford it.
Instead, I need to rely on others to contribute financially, just like I need to rely on others to write half my blog posts for me.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Progress
After wasting three years of my time in the pursuit of progress, I've finally managed to fall back into my old routine of going nowhere slowly. Whilst the two month gap between entries here might be enough evidence for any doped-up monkey with an axe through its head to come to that conclusion, it only occurred to me two days ago whilst I was in the middle of boiling pasta and realising I can't quite master the subtle art of incorporating metaphors into blocks of prose like I used to.
Over the last however long it's been since I last cared about the progession of time, I've been reacquainting myself with my old friend television. I've caught up with programmes old and new that I've either been meaning to watch for some time (Firefly, Happy Endings) or haven't seen in some time (Fawlty Towers, Friends), or have seen fairly recently but due to the sheer scale and complexity of the plot I've had to rewatch a couple of times whilst reading complete episode synopses just to make sure I can actually follow what's going on (Game Of Thrones).
It was during a recent rewatch of several Simpsons episodes, however, where the point of this ramble originated. Of course, it could be said that The Simpsons is a show that has stood the test of time, but all that really means is that its audience still finds the older episodes amusing. The thing is that as the show has gotten older, the audience has gotten older too, and "standing the test of time" is really just a fancy way of saying "I remembered this then and I remember it now" as some faint form of nostalgia. Essentially, the point that I'm dragging these words towards is one that struck me when laughing at minor gags that involved outdated technology; primarily video tapes and audio cassettes.
As much as I hate using other people's children as examples, I often find myself imagining how my young niece and nephew might hypothetically react to such comic gems of the 90s if they were to be subjected to these old cartoons at some point over the coming decades, which - to be fair - they probably will be... by me.
The rest of the vision becomes hazy at that point, although I do know that the kids foolishly neglect to take their protective shin guards with them and that I cry into my palms watching that Simpsons episode whilst still being able to sing along with every word of "Baby On Board".
The reasons I default to using those kids in this hypothetical situation come down to a) familial proximity and mutual knowledge of each other's existence, b) the idea that they simply weren't around throughout the 1990s, and c) the fact that they're currently being raised in a world of iPads and high definition. At some point towards the end of my shared generation, those quaint notions of obsoleteness will themselves become obsolete, as the next lot of humans after us will fondly reminisce about mobile phone recycling and physical screens that were only confined to a 16:9 aspect ratio. And as they slowly say their goodbyes to our dying generation, they'll take comfort in the shared virtual world as operated by an imbedded brain chip.
So really, what point was there in me trying to progress anyway?
Over the last however long it's been since I last cared about the progession of time, I've been reacquainting myself with my old friend television. I've caught up with programmes old and new that I've either been meaning to watch for some time (Firefly, Happy Endings) or haven't seen in some time (Fawlty Towers, Friends), or have seen fairly recently but due to the sheer scale and complexity of the plot I've had to rewatch a couple of times whilst reading complete episode synopses just to make sure I can actually follow what's going on (Game Of Thrones).
It was during a recent rewatch of several Simpsons episodes, however, where the point of this ramble originated. Of course, it could be said that The Simpsons is a show that has stood the test of time, but all that really means is that its audience still finds the older episodes amusing. The thing is that as the show has gotten older, the audience has gotten older too, and "standing the test of time" is really just a fancy way of saying "I remembered this then and I remember it now" as some faint form of nostalgia. Essentially, the point that I'm dragging these words towards is one that struck me when laughing at minor gags that involved outdated technology; primarily video tapes and audio cassettes.
As much as I hate using other people's children as examples, I often find myself imagining how my young niece and nephew might hypothetically react to such comic gems of the 90s if they were to be subjected to these old cartoons at some point over the coming decades, which - to be fair - they probably will be... by me.
"Hey kids, come watch this animated show about a funny yellow family and all their friends and the super-hilarious situations and mishaps they get involved in."
"But we already told you," they cry in unison, "we've had enough of you trying to relive your teenage years through our eyes, uncle. For Christ's sake, you're forty-two! Leave us alone!"
"But this is a funny one, guys," I retort as I navigate the endless DVD menus to play one single episode without Spanish subtitles or a hidden audio commentary track. "Homer sings in a barbershop quartet and they put their songs on vinyl records. Meanwhile, Marge distracts the kids with Homer's voice on an audio cassette which gets garbled up and freaks them out."
I can barely contain my amusement, speaking through gasps of breath and tear-filled eyes as I slap my knee at the joviality of it all.
"We don't care about any of that," they still seem to speak in unison since my brain can't decide between them over which one I like more in this hypothetical fantasy. "We just want to read our laser-vision books in three seconds and go hoverboarding down by the grand carbon fibre statue of the almighty Global Lord Bieber."
The rest of the vision becomes hazy at that point, although I do know that the kids foolishly neglect to take their protective shin guards with them and that I cry into my palms watching that Simpsons episode whilst still being able to sing along with every word of "Baby On Board".
The reasons I default to using those kids in this hypothetical situation come down to a) familial proximity and mutual knowledge of each other's existence, b) the idea that they simply weren't around throughout the 1990s, and c) the fact that they're currently being raised in a world of iPads and high definition. At some point towards the end of my shared generation, those quaint notions of obsoleteness will themselves become obsolete, as the next lot of humans after us will fondly reminisce about mobile phone recycling and physical screens that were only confined to a 16:9 aspect ratio. And as they slowly say their goodbyes to our dying generation, they'll take comfort in the shared virtual world as operated by an imbedded brain chip.
So really, what point was there in me trying to progress anyway?
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Priority
My dreams aren't entirely dead yet, but I often fear that they've been coffin shopping behind my back recently. This week's morbid musing stems from the fact, just as with the case of Christmas, I have taken time away from my normal work/sleep routine to visit the ever-presents of my life. Just as with the case of Christmas, my thoughts have wandered in the direction of "no direction" and how, for possibly the billionth time in my life, I realise I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. Furthermore, for possibly the only time in my life, I realise that such a thought is crippling me. Not physically. That would be impossible. I mean psychologically. But you got that; you're clever, you understand hyperbole.
In an attempt to force myself out of mental cripple-dom, I've had the epiphany to start approaching life with a new mindset. One which says that I am an adult, I can do whatever I want, wherever I want, for I have no ties to any people or place. That probably sounds like a linguistic slap in the face to the people who know me, but trust me, I have reasons to justify my words. And they are reasons that I've had to keep telling myself in order, as I opened this paragraph with, stop being mentally tied down.
Over the last three years or so, I've come into contact with various people by way of university study. Some of those people have proven themselves to be smart, open-minded intellectuals. Some of them proved to be alcoholics-in-waiting. Some proved to be warm and caring, and some proved that simply opening their mouths was more than I could handle. On the other side, I've come away with, what many ex-students call, friends for life. The only issue here is that life gets in the way, as do the lives of all those other people. But still, Facebook friends for life is better than nought.
Meanwhile, back from whence I came, all the old friends I had have also sprouted lives and seem to have peeled away one by one until the only "old friends" left are few and far between. Returning to my origins would feel like taking a step back career-wise whilst not broadening my social circles. Basically, the point I'm labouring towards here is that whilst I've met, befriended and am determined to stay in contact with several people from on my travels, none of them are realistically a strong enough reason to keep me around, and ultimately, what I'm going to do for a living is my number one priority. So yeah, all point and sneer at the guy over there typing this shit. Point and sneer at his selfishness.
On that mental note of not being tied down by personal human connections, my mind is free to explore career-oriented possibilities wherever I actually want and doing whatever I want. My main problem here is that I've always been indecisive. Hell, I've stopped writing this particular load of babble three times up to now because I wasn't sure if I could be bothered with carrying on.
And that's not just a recent thing. I studied Art at school, segued into Graphic Design at university, abandoned that for retail work, found myself again with Film Production, somehow spun that into Creative Writing and have now wound up back in retail. I've enjoyed aspects of all of them, but I still don't know how I want a further career to pan out like. Over the last few days, I've even dug into mental lists of stuff I am still yet to explore. Needless to say, my browser currently has multiple tabs open that relate to the basics of Flash animation, computer coding and interactive game design and development. Evidently, I'm never satisfied.
I still have avenues I want to trundle down but somewhere along the way I need to make a living. And while making that living along the way I need somewhere to live. Before me is a vast freedom to seek out roles related to what I'm capable of right now coupled with the freedom of being able to travel wherever those roles may take me. My biggest stumbling block right now, though, is the fact that I'm a fairly social creature and would be abandoning every aspect of social life I know and have currently. Once I get over that and feel able to loosen those people ties (I would never want to cut them completely), I'll be able to embrace that freedom and that sense of the unknown in a slightly more positive light once more.
By the way, I apologise if all of that made absolutely no sense, but like I said, brain's a bit crippled right now.
In an attempt to force myself out of mental cripple-dom, I've had the epiphany to start approaching life with a new mindset. One which says that I am an adult, I can do whatever I want, wherever I want, for I have no ties to any people or place. That probably sounds like a linguistic slap in the face to the people who know me, but trust me, I have reasons to justify my words. And they are reasons that I've had to keep telling myself in order, as I opened this paragraph with, stop being mentally tied down.
Over the last three years or so, I've come into contact with various people by way of university study. Some of those people have proven themselves to be smart, open-minded intellectuals. Some of them proved to be alcoholics-in-waiting. Some proved to be warm and caring, and some proved that simply opening their mouths was more than I could handle. On the other side, I've come away with, what many ex-students call, friends for life. The only issue here is that life gets in the way, as do the lives of all those other people. But still, Facebook friends for life is better than nought.
Meanwhile, back from whence I came, all the old friends I had have also sprouted lives and seem to have peeled away one by one until the only "old friends" left are few and far between. Returning to my origins would feel like taking a step back career-wise whilst not broadening my social circles. Basically, the point I'm labouring towards here is that whilst I've met, befriended and am determined to stay in contact with several people from on my travels, none of them are realistically a strong enough reason to keep me around, and ultimately, what I'm going to do for a living is my number one priority. So yeah, all point and sneer at the guy over there typing this shit. Point and sneer at his selfishness.
On that mental note of not being tied down by personal human connections, my mind is free to explore career-oriented possibilities wherever I actually want and doing whatever I want. My main problem here is that I've always been indecisive. Hell, I've stopped writing this particular load of babble three times up to now because I wasn't sure if I could be bothered with carrying on.
And that's not just a recent thing. I studied Art at school, segued into Graphic Design at university, abandoned that for retail work, found myself again with Film Production, somehow spun that into Creative Writing and have now wound up back in retail. I've enjoyed aspects of all of them, but I still don't know how I want a further career to pan out like. Over the last few days, I've even dug into mental lists of stuff I am still yet to explore. Needless to say, my browser currently has multiple tabs open that relate to the basics of Flash animation, computer coding and interactive game design and development. Evidently, I'm never satisfied.
I still have avenues I want to trundle down but somewhere along the way I need to make a living. And while making that living along the way I need somewhere to live. Before me is a vast freedom to seek out roles related to what I'm capable of right now coupled with the freedom of being able to travel wherever those roles may take me. My biggest stumbling block right now, though, is the fact that I'm a fairly social creature and would be abandoning every aspect of social life I know and have currently. Once I get over that and feel able to loosen those people ties (I would never want to cut them completely), I'll be able to embrace that freedom and that sense of the unknown in a slightly more positive light once more.
By the way, I apologise if all of that made absolutely no sense, but like I said, brain's a bit crippled right now.
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Explaining Religion
Sometimes my mind drifts off. When this happens, the brain follows one particular thought train, but doesn't stick with it for very long. Soon after disembarking, my mindstuff suddenly regales itself with "Let's Go To The Mall", the song from the Robin Sparkles episode of How I Met Your Mother. That's probably because I've been watching endless repeats of those episodes in a similar fashion to the way E4 treated Friends for years. In light of this recent lifestyle, meaningful thoughts and thoughts in which I search for any meaning have been abruptly halted by twee bubblegum pop songs that proclaim how cool it is to go to an indoor shopping centre with friends.
I've recently conducted fabricated conversations between myself and my young nephew set in the future. Here, he plays the role of himself as a young teenager - his mind brimming with questions about life, the universe and everything - whilst I play the all-knowledgeable, wise, advice-giving uncle I keep kidding myself I'll one day be to him. In these hypothetical conversations, he's asked me about a multitude of topics: history, relationships, politics, religion. However, simply because of the fact that at this precise moment he is still actually a toddler, my way of speaking to him in the future in my head borders on patronising baby-speak. Yeah, that's right, you try explaining the concept of religion to a four-year-old whilst trying not to forget to take your robot pal with you when we go to the mall, today. Now tell me you don't have a massive headache.
Forget the toddler bit though. Imagine a human being, any human being. Actually no, better yet, an alien. An alien just about clever enough to understand our language, cultural practices and able to survive in the environment of our planet, yet not informed enough to know a single thing about the concept of religion. Now try explaining religion, without implicating anybody or any belief system as good or bad, right or wrong, and without causing offense to anybody or any belief system through any prejudices or scepticisms brought on by personal viewpoint. Explain religion. And you're not allowed to get a headache or to be sidetracked by the jingles in your head that keep vying for your attention.
I've found that the only way to describe religion comes down to two words: essentially stories. But you can't boil religion down to just two words when it just produces another mesh of thought-lines on top of that, and then another one on top of that. In its simplest terms, one group of people have a set of stories with morals and meanings, meanwhile another group of people have another set of stories with morals and meanings. Then another, then another, then some other ones after that, but by that point you're straying far from the realms of religion and slipping down the scale towards Tumblr-based fan-fiction. Seriously, if Christianity was a modern-day anime series, there'd be a plethora of tales and fan art depicting the on-again, off-again made-up relationship between Jesus and Moses, despite the fact that they lived in entirely different centuries. How the fuck did I get here?
With many different religions floating about and many different stories relating to each one, that well-educated alien or teenage toddler nephew in the future in my head who doesn't even exist yet but still totally exists will start to wonder something along the lines of "why don't we all just believe the same stories then?" or even the much more likely "so which religion is the right one?" And that's where we, as humans - as utterly stupid, simpleton humans - fall down. There is no right answer as far as we can ever be concerned. Even if there is a right answer there's no possible way that we moronic, Earth-bound, thick as absolute pig-shit humans could ever find out, or even come up with the means to find out. We humans have done some wondrous, genius things with our time here. Medical advancements, technological progression, intricate storytelling; they're all grand achievements from our fellow kind, but there's only so far we can go, and proving religion is well out of our puny, pathetic reach.
Since we have no way to prove our religious ideals, we then have to resort to convincing each other that we're right and everyone else is wrong. Humans are stubborn and fickle like that and it's at this point I start to blame the kettle. I was in the kitchen at the time I had this imaginary nephew conversation. This stubbornness and borderline ego-centricity that we are right sometimes overspills, and depending on your viewpoint of your religion - whether the stories are a set of metaphorical and symbolic messages to stick by for harmonious living with your fellow man, or a set of literal instructions to be fundamentally stuck by to the letter - this overspilling of righteousness manifests itself as conflict. And boy, do we clever, stupid, genius low-life humans know how to do conflict?
You then have to inform your alien or made-up teenager about "the bad man" and "the good guys" in your most patronising toddler-talker-toer voice. But wait, didn't I tell you you can't use terms like "good" and "bad"? Look at it from the opposite side. Sure, for some, religion leads people to acts of public atrocity, but as far as they're concerned, they're doing right by their stories. Who is anyone else to tell them they're the bad guys. Nobody's right or wrong, or good or bad here. Everyone follows morals and ideals for harmonious living, but they also have conflicting ideas about the stories and are too stupid enough to realise that's why they hate each other. And absolutely none of this can be described easily or effectively to any child. Each person has to grow up in the world, follow whatever's taught to them and - providing they can keep their mind open a sliver - discover the bigger picture as a young adult and try, feebly, to get their head around it without causing themselves any undue stress. Fucking sink.
Hopefully, the kids will see the beauty of life and that, ultimately, religion shouldn't matter. That's not to say religion is stupid and I absolutely hate it and everyone in the world is wrong except me. Religion is extremely important in the ways that it keeps people together and gives them a sense of purpose and a set of codes and ethics to live by so that they can treat people as actual people without pissing everyone off too much. But religion isn't the be-all and end-all of us. Or at least it shouldn't be. The most important thing is people and the sense of goodness that they share with each other; sharing good times with good company, having fun in a wide variety of places and situations, whether at home or at a popular hang-out spot.
Because, at the mall, having fun is what it's all aboot.
I've recently conducted fabricated conversations between myself and my young nephew set in the future. Here, he plays the role of himself as a young teenager - his mind brimming with questions about life, the universe and everything - whilst I play the all-knowledgeable, wise, advice-giving uncle I keep kidding myself I'll one day be to him. In these hypothetical conversations, he's asked me about a multitude of topics: history, relationships, politics, religion. However, simply because of the fact that at this precise moment he is still actually a toddler, my way of speaking to him in the future in my head borders on patronising baby-speak. Yeah, that's right, you try explaining the concept of religion to a four-year-old whilst trying not to forget to take your robot pal with you when we go to the mall, today. Now tell me you don't have a massive headache.
Forget the toddler bit though. Imagine a human being, any human being. Actually no, better yet, an alien. An alien just about clever enough to understand our language, cultural practices and able to survive in the environment of our planet, yet not informed enough to know a single thing about the concept of religion. Now try explaining religion, without implicating anybody or any belief system as good or bad, right or wrong, and without causing offense to anybody or any belief system through any prejudices or scepticisms brought on by personal viewpoint. Explain religion. And you're not allowed to get a headache or to be sidetracked by the jingles in your head that keep vying for your attention.
I've found that the only way to describe religion comes down to two words: essentially stories. But you can't boil religion down to just two words when it just produces another mesh of thought-lines on top of that, and then another one on top of that. In its simplest terms, one group of people have a set of stories with morals and meanings, meanwhile another group of people have another set of stories with morals and meanings. Then another, then another, then some other ones after that, but by that point you're straying far from the realms of religion and slipping down the scale towards Tumblr-based fan-fiction. Seriously, if Christianity was a modern-day anime series, there'd be a plethora of tales and fan art depicting the on-again, off-again made-up relationship between Jesus and Moses, despite the fact that they lived in entirely different centuries. How the fuck did I get here?
With many different religions floating about and many different stories relating to each one, that well-educated alien or teenage toddler nephew in the future in my head who doesn't even exist yet but still totally exists will start to wonder something along the lines of "why don't we all just believe the same stories then?" or even the much more likely "so which religion is the right one?" And that's where we, as humans - as utterly stupid, simpleton humans - fall down. There is no right answer as far as we can ever be concerned. Even if there is a right answer there's no possible way that we moronic, Earth-bound, thick as absolute pig-shit humans could ever find out, or even come up with the means to find out. We humans have done some wondrous, genius things with our time here. Medical advancements, technological progression, intricate storytelling; they're all grand achievements from our fellow kind, but there's only so far we can go, and proving religion is well out of our puny, pathetic reach.
Since we have no way to prove our religious ideals, we then have to resort to convincing each other that we're right and everyone else is wrong. Humans are stubborn and fickle like that and it's at this point I start to blame the kettle. I was in the kitchen at the time I had this imaginary nephew conversation. This stubbornness and borderline ego-centricity that we are right sometimes overspills, and depending on your viewpoint of your religion - whether the stories are a set of metaphorical and symbolic messages to stick by for harmonious living with your fellow man, or a set of literal instructions to be fundamentally stuck by to the letter - this overspilling of righteousness manifests itself as conflict. And boy, do we clever, stupid, genius low-life humans know how to do conflict?
You then have to inform your alien or made-up teenager about "the bad man" and "the good guys" in your most patronising toddler-talker-toer voice. But wait, didn't I tell you you can't use terms like "good" and "bad"? Look at it from the opposite side. Sure, for some, religion leads people to acts of public atrocity, but as far as they're concerned, they're doing right by their stories. Who is anyone else to tell them they're the bad guys. Nobody's right or wrong, or good or bad here. Everyone follows morals and ideals for harmonious living, but they also have conflicting ideas about the stories and are too stupid enough to realise that's why they hate each other. And absolutely none of this can be described easily or effectively to any child. Each person has to grow up in the world, follow whatever's taught to them and - providing they can keep their mind open a sliver - discover the bigger picture as a young adult and try, feebly, to get their head around it without causing themselves any undue stress. Fucking sink.
Hopefully, the kids will see the beauty of life and that, ultimately, religion shouldn't matter. That's not to say religion is stupid and I absolutely hate it and everyone in the world is wrong except me. Religion is extremely important in the ways that it keeps people together and gives them a sense of purpose and a set of codes and ethics to live by so that they can treat people as actual people without pissing everyone off too much. But religion isn't the be-all and end-all of us. Or at least it shouldn't be. The most important thing is people and the sense of goodness that they share with each other; sharing good times with good company, having fun in a wide variety of places and situations, whether at home or at a popular hang-out spot.
Because, at the mall, having fun is what it's all aboot.
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
...And A Crappy New Year
Two years ago now-ish (during that period of New Year where it's technically 2012 but still feels like yesterday night), a friend of mine in touch with their spiritual side told me I'd find love very soon, offering the only timeframe of "before 2015". Please bear in mind my brain was still swimming in Jack Daniel's and there's a very good chance I've simply invented this portion of the night just to give myself some delusional sense of security. In fact, I brought this event up with that same anonymous friend some time later and was met with denial of such a conversation ever taking place. My friend then went on to blame the consumption of alcohol for the fickleness of memory, and considering we were the only sentient beings present at the time of the supposed conversation, I think I can say with all certainty that there can be absolutely no certainty as to what actually happened that night. Hell, we could've rented unicycles, thrown them into a shark-infested river and sang long lost hits of the Spice Girls at the top of our lungs whilst spinning around uncontrollably for all I know. In my version of events though, I was prophesised to be single for no longer than three more years, and despite the fact that I'm far more sceptical of divination and psychic predictions now than I ever have been, I've found that I still seem to be clinging onto that thought for dear life. And it seems I'm clinging onto that vague sense of optimism quite simply because the alternative is, frankly, rather embarrassing.
I've never been in a serious relationship, or any relationship. Well, there was that one time when I was seventeen where I met someone, asked her out (to which she reluctantly accepted) and spent two weeks chatting with online, never really seeing face-to-face. Ultimately, the whole thing ended when she informed me of how she didn't really feel like she wanted to be in a relationship right now. I accepted her request for termination and went about my days as I had done before I met her. We've never spoken since, but I hear that she and the guy she got together with a week later are still going strong.
Since then, I've breezed through life lonely as the day ma birthed me, never having much of a chance to lay with somebody in the dark. The only opportunities for bedroom activity that ever presented themselves occurred in that period of late-teenage sexual frustration, confusion and sense if experimentation wherein some blokes also seemed physically appealing considering they had a pulse. A small number of homoerotic encounters ensued, both with extremely limited degrees of intimacy that they might as well not have happened at all. Needless to say, alcohol was a significant influence there.
It's at this point in the tale, one might wonder if any of this is true at all since it seems horribly unfeasible that someone could make it to 24 having never had a lasting, functional relationship with another similarly aged person or any naughty bedroom activity that could actually be considered naughty bedroom activity. The thing one needs to bear in mind here, in that case, is that the message I'm conveying is that I'm a perpetually single, emotionally retarded, sexually inexperienced male in his mid-20s. Nobody would make that up. Heck, if anything, I should be lying by trying to convince you that I'm an extremely virile character who got laid every night he spent throughout his time at University and bragging about how many bitches I've intercoursed and how many fingers I've pussied.
According to the initial New Year prophecy I got given, two full years have now passed meaning that the love of my life that was most definitely promised to me will appear at some point over the next twelve months. With chaos now playing a much more significant role in causality than fate ever did, one could understand my scepticism here. If not, go back and read that last paragraph. Done? Good. Now do you believe me, or do I have to spell it out for you? *sigh* Fine. I'm fucking lonely. And the only thing that's kept me trundling on this long is sheer faith in the fact that things will eventually work out "one day", both in love and career. Each day, however, has presented more of a struggle than the last with what little faith and optimism I have being cut down further and further. And I feel that if I have to keep up with that spiritual struggling for another 364 days, only to see that it's kept me in that very same physically and emotionally virginic state, there may well just be no faith left to diminish.
That's why I say a massive "screw you" to any notions of a predetermined destiny and consider the possible ramifications of extending that "find a girlfriend" deadline. Over this seasonal period, a recently engaged relative (of a similar age to me, just to kick me in the balls while I'm already down with no indication of ever getting up any time soon) announced the time and place of the upcoming nuptials. A wedding in mid-2016 taking place abroad means that those who wish to attend -slash- spend a week in New York City will need to start saving around about now to get that two-and-a-half year head start as far as finances go. Don't get me wrong, I know there's a lot of cynicism in my tone today but I'm very much looking forward to such a trip. However, at the same time, I need to digress back to an extended "soulmate finding" deadline.
If I extend that deadline, that gives me two-and-a-half years to become enamoured with somebody, instead of just the one remaining year I have left under the current delusion. Takes the pressure off a bit really and means that I don't necessarily need to enter 2015 with a raucous "...and a crappy New Year" when I inevitably reach next January alone; after all, I'll still have time left before I feel like a total failure. The flip side of all this, though, is that if I do reach the late Spring of 2016 and still haven't managed to convince somebody, anybody, to spend a veritable chunk of their own personal time with me, then I'll be forced to conclude that something is most definitely wrong with me.
But still, New York though!
I've never been in a serious relationship, or any relationship. Well, there was that one time when I was seventeen where I met someone, asked her out (to which she reluctantly accepted) and spent two weeks chatting with online, never really seeing face-to-face. Ultimately, the whole thing ended when she informed me of how she didn't really feel like she wanted to be in a relationship right now. I accepted her request for termination and went about my days as I had done before I met her. We've never spoken since, but I hear that she and the guy she got together with a week later are still going strong.
Since then, I've breezed through life lonely as the day ma birthed me, never having much of a chance to lay with somebody in the dark. The only opportunities for bedroom activity that ever presented themselves occurred in that period of late-teenage sexual frustration, confusion and sense if experimentation wherein some blokes also seemed physically appealing considering they had a pulse. A small number of homoerotic encounters ensued, both with extremely limited degrees of intimacy that they might as well not have happened at all. Needless to say, alcohol was a significant influence there.
It's at this point in the tale, one might wonder if any of this is true at all since it seems horribly unfeasible that someone could make it to 24 having never had a lasting, functional relationship with another similarly aged person or any naughty bedroom activity that could actually be considered naughty bedroom activity. The thing one needs to bear in mind here, in that case, is that the message I'm conveying is that I'm a perpetually single, emotionally retarded, sexually inexperienced male in his mid-20s. Nobody would make that up. Heck, if anything, I should be lying by trying to convince you that I'm an extremely virile character who got laid every night he spent throughout his time at University and bragging about how many bitches I've intercoursed and how many fingers I've pussied.
According to the initial New Year prophecy I got given, two full years have now passed meaning that the love of my life that was most definitely promised to me will appear at some point over the next twelve months. With chaos now playing a much more significant role in causality than fate ever did, one could understand my scepticism here. If not, go back and read that last paragraph. Done? Good. Now do you believe me, or do I have to spell it out for you? *sigh* Fine. I'm fucking lonely. And the only thing that's kept me trundling on this long is sheer faith in the fact that things will eventually work out "one day", both in love and career. Each day, however, has presented more of a struggle than the last with what little faith and optimism I have being cut down further and further. And I feel that if I have to keep up with that spiritual struggling for another 364 days, only to see that it's kept me in that very same physically and emotionally virginic state, there may well just be no faith left to diminish.
That's why I say a massive "screw you" to any notions of a predetermined destiny and consider the possible ramifications of extending that "find a girlfriend" deadline. Over this seasonal period, a recently engaged relative (of a similar age to me, just to kick me in the balls while I'm already down with no indication of ever getting up any time soon) announced the time and place of the upcoming nuptials. A wedding in mid-2016 taking place abroad means that those who wish to attend -slash- spend a week in New York City will need to start saving around about now to get that two-and-a-half year head start as far as finances go. Don't get me wrong, I know there's a lot of cynicism in my tone today but I'm very much looking forward to such a trip. However, at the same time, I need to digress back to an extended "soulmate finding" deadline.
If I extend that deadline, that gives me two-and-a-half years to become enamoured with somebody, instead of just the one remaining year I have left under the current delusion. Takes the pressure off a bit really and means that I don't necessarily need to enter 2015 with a raucous "...and a crappy New Year" when I inevitably reach next January alone; after all, I'll still have time left before I feel like a total failure. The flip side of all this, though, is that if I do reach the late Spring of 2016 and still haven't managed to convince somebody, anybody, to spend a veritable chunk of their own personal time with me, then I'll be forced to conclude that something is most definitely wrong with me.
But still, New York though!
Wednesday, 25 December 2013
Very Shitness...
The notion of a forward moving career trajectory right now feels as pointless and non-existent as a vigorously sandpapered unicorn horn. I only bring this up again because of recent events relating to the actions of others in the world of Facebook and because working in retail over the Christmas period is enough to send even the most optimistic person on a ride in a one-horse open sleigh off a cliff made of discounted spirits, pigs in blankets and mass avarice.
Let's go back to Facebook for a moment and leave the clumsy, rambling, overly-elaborate similes to one side. My own personal ventures into 'the book' lately have resulted in shared YouTube videos and anecdotal asides that could only be collectively described as "shit my 4-year-old nephew says". Meanwhile, others have used the medium to point out good things that have occurred in their respective existences. Okay people post bad stuff too, but screw the bad stuff. It's not that time of year. It should more "Merry Christmas" and less Very Shitness.
People post the positive developments in love, career and wealth; that's the Tarot card holy trinity right there. Anyway, as is human nature, when I become aware of someone else's good news, I feel something akin to happiness for their cause. Unfortunately, such a feeling lasts for much less time than an ice cube does in an oven, before it's taken over by a mix of jealousy, selfishness and the need to continually come up with rubbish bits of rhetorical extravagance like a vomiting dictionary. I start to examine my own current state of being and compare my relatively crap lifestyle to that of those others who actually have exciting news to share.
As it stands, I live away from family, with a select few friends in a fairly dilapidated portion of the country. My current financial stature has me now in a position where I'm earning enough to live comfortably, but still dealing with the spectre of outstanding, backdated rent, thus forcing me to stay in a co-dependent situation without the freedom to go it alone. Regarding freedom, I lack mobility in terms of long distances. I'm unable to drive an actual vehicle and thus rely on others to move me across vast spaces, namely railway companies. The full-time retail work I'm currently associated with seems to hold a kind of monopoly on my life since it's my only source of steady income but restricts me to one particular place. The problem here is that any future career prospects are most likely going to require me to relocate, which is something I simply can't afford to do since without my current job and steady income, I'm kind of screwed.
Back in the virtual realm, my escapades in the written word - mostly coming from this perpetually stagnating blog - have attracted the attention of a former college tutor of mine from way back. When I say "way back" I really mean 2008, but a fair bit's happened to me over the last five years, meaning that a sudden inbox message from someone I knew for one term and have kept on the periphery of my digital contacts ever since actually took me by surprise.
"Hey," said he. Well probably not really, I'm just paraphrasing to give you the general impression of the message I received. "How's it going? I see you've graduated. I see you write a fair bit. What kind of forward moving career trajectory have you got going on now?" It was as if he knew misery and wanted to caption it for me. However, he works in the field of creative arts where work is never easy to get into and never stable enough to cling onto. I felt the warmth of his sympathetic sentiments as he offered a few words of encouragement in the form of handy job-recruitment websites. I told him I'd have a look at them and then went and did the exact opposite.
I suppose I have to cling onto the hope that time will solve everything and I'll get to a more comfortable career-wise position eventually. The only problem I'm facing right now is that time seems to be moving so slowly, yet it's constantly racing away; every day that I'm not thinking about where I'm going to end up or how I'm going to get there is just another day wasted in the grand scheme of things. Part of the problem is I don't even know exactly what kind of career I want to pursue and haven't quite taken the time, courage or initiative to consider it. That's why, after typing all of this, I'm going to dig out that list of handy websites, take comfort in the fact that figures from my past still have some shred of faith in me, and start exploring where and how that career trajectory can actually start hurtling forwards for once.
To put it in simpler, and more seasonally appropriate terms:
Dear Santa, I have been a good boy this year getting my degree and not murdering anyone, so pretty please can I have a new job for Christmas? Well, not a new job for Christmas, but can you at least give me the strength and encouragement and enlightenment as to what it is I want to do with the rest of my life, because I sometimes worry that if I stay working in retail over festive periods, I'll turn even more and more bitter towards life and all its human inhabitants and I'll end up on the naughty list. Oh, and a clockwork train too. Cheers mate.
P.S. Forget the train. Even though it's clockwork, it probably won't run according to schedule anyway.
Let's go back to Facebook for a moment and leave the clumsy, rambling, overly-elaborate similes to one side. My own personal ventures into 'the book' lately have resulted in shared YouTube videos and anecdotal asides that could only be collectively described as "shit my 4-year-old nephew says". Meanwhile, others have used the medium to point out good things that have occurred in their respective existences. Okay people post bad stuff too, but screw the bad stuff. It's not that time of year. It should more "Merry Christmas" and less Very Shitness.
People post the positive developments in love, career and wealth; that's the Tarot card holy trinity right there. Anyway, as is human nature, when I become aware of someone else's good news, I feel something akin to happiness for their cause. Unfortunately, such a feeling lasts for much less time than an ice cube does in an oven, before it's taken over by a mix of jealousy, selfishness and the need to continually come up with rubbish bits of rhetorical extravagance like a vomiting dictionary. I start to examine my own current state of being and compare my relatively crap lifestyle to that of those others who actually have exciting news to share.
As it stands, I live away from family, with a select few friends in a fairly dilapidated portion of the country. My current financial stature has me now in a position where I'm earning enough to live comfortably, but still dealing with the spectre of outstanding, backdated rent, thus forcing me to stay in a co-dependent situation without the freedom to go it alone. Regarding freedom, I lack mobility in terms of long distances. I'm unable to drive an actual vehicle and thus rely on others to move me across vast spaces, namely railway companies. The full-time retail work I'm currently associated with seems to hold a kind of monopoly on my life since it's my only source of steady income but restricts me to one particular place. The problem here is that any future career prospects are most likely going to require me to relocate, which is something I simply can't afford to do since without my current job and steady income, I'm kind of screwed.
Back in the virtual realm, my escapades in the written word - mostly coming from this perpetually stagnating blog - have attracted the attention of a former college tutor of mine from way back. When I say "way back" I really mean 2008, but a fair bit's happened to me over the last five years, meaning that a sudden inbox message from someone I knew for one term and have kept on the periphery of my digital contacts ever since actually took me by surprise.
"Hey," said he. Well probably not really, I'm just paraphrasing to give you the general impression of the message I received. "How's it going? I see you've graduated. I see you write a fair bit. What kind of forward moving career trajectory have you got going on now?" It was as if he knew misery and wanted to caption it for me. However, he works in the field of creative arts where work is never easy to get into and never stable enough to cling onto. I felt the warmth of his sympathetic sentiments as he offered a few words of encouragement in the form of handy job-recruitment websites. I told him I'd have a look at them and then went and did the exact opposite.
I suppose I have to cling onto the hope that time will solve everything and I'll get to a more comfortable career-wise position eventually. The only problem I'm facing right now is that time seems to be moving so slowly, yet it's constantly racing away; every day that I'm not thinking about where I'm going to end up or how I'm going to get there is just another day wasted in the grand scheme of things. Part of the problem is I don't even know exactly what kind of career I want to pursue and haven't quite taken the time, courage or initiative to consider it. That's why, after typing all of this, I'm going to dig out that list of handy websites, take comfort in the fact that figures from my past still have some shred of faith in me, and start exploring where and how that career trajectory can actually start hurtling forwards for once.
To put it in simpler, and more seasonally appropriate terms:
Dear Santa, I have been a good boy this year getting my degree and not murdering anyone, so pretty please can I have a new job for Christmas? Well, not a new job for Christmas, but can you at least give me the strength and encouragement and enlightenment as to what it is I want to do with the rest of my life, because I sometimes worry that if I stay working in retail over festive periods, I'll turn even more and more bitter towards life and all its human inhabitants and I'll end up on the naughty list. Oh, and a clockwork train too. Cheers mate.
P.S. Forget the train. Even though it's clockwork, it probably won't run according to schedule anyway.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Spent More Than Enough
Money-wise, I'm on my last ass right now. I would say I'm on my last legs but my bank balance is far too low now that not even metaphorical legs can save it. And as far as figures of speech go, the last ass seems more fitting. According to Andy Williams, it's the most wonderful time of the year, although sadly, I'm forced to disagree with the late crooner on that. Daylight hours are shorter, gas consumption is larger and retail establishments are crammed to the rafters with people throwing money about in exchange for pieces of tat they're not even buying for themselves, all because social and cultural protocol says so. Season's greetings.
Anyway I'm not being bitter about the festive period or retail, or indeed the festive period in retail. I've actually managed to reach a point where I'm fairly comfortable about the impending holiday, and to be even more accurate, I reached that point on Sunday night. All of my gift shopping for other people is done and all of those bits have been draped in colourful paper and shiny ribbons. I'm actually done with it early this year, or at least earlier than normal. Last year I did virtually all of my shopping on December 21st then spent a solid evening wrapping the heck out of it. The fact that this year I've managed to get everything finished whilst the month was still in single digits (i.e. the 8th). Go me!
In order to complete the task at hand, though, I've had to go a bit spend happy. In fact, over the last four days my debit card's seen more action than I have over the last twenty-four years. Slutty little bit of plastic; inserting itself into every slot it sees, ejaculating money like nobody's business. There's a mild chance I'm sexually frustrated right now, but then again that's nothing new. And as much as you probably don't want to be reading about such a topic... well... to be honest that's really what the internet's for now. Quite frankly, if you didn't want any of that, you shouldn't have come online in the first place. Weirdo.
Having such low funds right now means that I can't really splurge (which still hasn't stopped me from buying presents for myself alongside presents for others). Having to live on bread and water seems to be the order of business up until Christmas though now. Okay, it's not as drastic as that, but I think I'm allowed to exaggerate a fair bit if I want to continue utilising words in my life as some sort of career path. As it stands, though, my current working lifestyle is getting in the way. In fact, I'm probably supposed to be doing that right now. You know what, forget "probably". That is actually what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Besides, I've spent more than enough words today. Any more and I'll surely be facing some kind of word debt very soon. I should stop before I fall into any overdraft.
Bye.
Anyway I'm not being bitter about the festive period or retail, or indeed the festive period in retail. I've actually managed to reach a point where I'm fairly comfortable about the impending holiday, and to be even more accurate, I reached that point on Sunday night. All of my gift shopping for other people is done and all of those bits have been draped in colourful paper and shiny ribbons. I'm actually done with it early this year, or at least earlier than normal. Last year I did virtually all of my shopping on December 21st then spent a solid evening wrapping the heck out of it. The fact that this year I've managed to get everything finished whilst the month was still in single digits (i.e. the 8th). Go me!
In order to complete the task at hand, though, I've had to go a bit spend happy. In fact, over the last four days my debit card's seen more action than I have over the last twenty-four years. Slutty little bit of plastic; inserting itself into every slot it sees, ejaculating money like nobody's business. There's a mild chance I'm sexually frustrated right now, but then again that's nothing new. And as much as you probably don't want to be reading about such a topic... well... to be honest that's really what the internet's for now. Quite frankly, if you didn't want any of that, you shouldn't have come online in the first place. Weirdo.
Having such low funds right now means that I can't really splurge (which still hasn't stopped me from buying presents for myself alongside presents for others). Having to live on bread and water seems to be the order of business up until Christmas though now. Okay, it's not as drastic as that, but I think I'm allowed to exaggerate a fair bit if I want to continue utilising words in my life as some sort of career path. As it stands, though, my current working lifestyle is getting in the way. In fact, I'm probably supposed to be doing that right now. You know what, forget "probably". That is actually what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Besides, I've spent more than enough words today. Any more and I'll surely be facing some kind of word debt very soon. I should stop before I fall into any overdraft.
Bye.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Still Here
When Internet historians in the distant 45th century take off their headsets, disable their brain chips and discover our primitive mesh of information transfer, they'll probably wonder how we managed. They'll marvel at how people had to use their fingers to manually input individual characters to spread the word. They'll wonder how a static, two-dimensional 100x100 pixels thumbnail could possibly be used to represent a person's entire personality. And when they find millions upon zillions of homebrew blogs, they be astonished at how so many people seemingly dropped dead immediately after their first and, tragically, only entry.
Back in the now-most times, however, we understand that people create blogs and neglect them very quickly when they run out of either stuff to say, energy to say it, or memory to stop and go "shit, I've still got that blog somewhere in the technological ether". I have - at one point or another - done all three. Not all at the same time, that would be ludicrous, illogical, contradictory and possibly lead to the explosion of brain matter. But at various times, I've done each of the three. As it happens, I've not been here for a while, not written for a while and if I hadn't started typing this one, those 45th century historians might've looked back at this time when I roamed the planet and naturally assume I ceased to exist at some point in early November. I didn't though, I'm still here. These words prove it. Furthermore, my brain matter is still intact as far as I can tell.
I wish I could inform the great wide everywhere that the last few months have been filled with numerous wild adventures that have prohibited me from heading over this way and actually bothering to make words about it. I wish I could tell you that I've traversed dangerous mountainsides, swam long and winding rivers, and collected all kinds of exotic treasures along the way. To be honest, I kind of have been doing that whenever dipping in and out of brand new The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. The real world truth, however, is that my wild adventures have amounted to nothing more than working, sleeping, occasionally eating, farting, and trying to come up with another thing to make me sound moderately interesting, but failing. This, evidently, is a feeling that has plagued my entire existence over the last however long or so.
My enthusiasm for writing something, anything in this space has waned due to a lack of exciting things to mention in the here and now, alongside a strong sense of fatigue that comes from picking up extra hours in convenience retail. In future, I may well have to rely on my past. The problem with the past is that I can barely remember it well. Hell, I don't even remember what I wrote two sentences ago, but it probably had something to do with hypothetical historians of the future or the existence of a fickle attention span. It's apparent now, though, that I'm going to have to have a sit down and good long think about things that have unfolded before my eyes over the last 24 years and pick out the interesting ones. At the risk of turning this webspace into a bad sitcom-style clip-show episode of my life, I regret to inform you that the more exciting stories aren't really happening this season. Maybe a look back into the past will remind me of how the show used to be back in its heyday whilst also attempting to improve those sinking ratings and angering the critics at the same time.
Hey, at least I've written something here this time. Don't cry to me if you find it crap. I know it's crap. This is my personal crap space where I come to write crap. My theory is that I have a certain amount of crap within me, so if I write out all the crap first, that'll only leave good stuff left to write about later. Meanwhile, all this talk about getting the crap out has made me notice that shifting sensation in my bowels so away I go now. I hope that, as you're reading this, you're now imagining me sitting on the toilet doing some natural - if a little bit icky - business, because that's actually probably where I actually am right now.
Back in the now-most times, however, we understand that people create blogs and neglect them very quickly when they run out of either stuff to say, energy to say it, or memory to stop and go "shit, I've still got that blog somewhere in the technological ether". I have - at one point or another - done all three. Not all at the same time, that would be ludicrous, illogical, contradictory and possibly lead to the explosion of brain matter. But at various times, I've done each of the three. As it happens, I've not been here for a while, not written for a while and if I hadn't started typing this one, those 45th century historians might've looked back at this time when I roamed the planet and naturally assume I ceased to exist at some point in early November. I didn't though, I'm still here. These words prove it. Furthermore, my brain matter is still intact as far as I can tell.
I wish I could inform the great wide everywhere that the last few months have been filled with numerous wild adventures that have prohibited me from heading over this way and actually bothering to make words about it. I wish I could tell you that I've traversed dangerous mountainsides, swam long and winding rivers, and collected all kinds of exotic treasures along the way. To be honest, I kind of have been doing that whenever dipping in and out of brand new The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. The real world truth, however, is that my wild adventures have amounted to nothing more than working, sleeping, occasionally eating, farting, and trying to come up with another thing to make me sound moderately interesting, but failing. This, evidently, is a feeling that has plagued my entire existence over the last however long or so.
My enthusiasm for writing something, anything in this space has waned due to a lack of exciting things to mention in the here and now, alongside a strong sense of fatigue that comes from picking up extra hours in convenience retail. In future, I may well have to rely on my past. The problem with the past is that I can barely remember it well. Hell, I don't even remember what I wrote two sentences ago, but it probably had something to do with hypothetical historians of the future or the existence of a fickle attention span. It's apparent now, though, that I'm going to have to have a sit down and good long think about things that have unfolded before my eyes over the last 24 years and pick out the interesting ones. At the risk of turning this webspace into a bad sitcom-style clip-show episode of my life, I regret to inform you that the more exciting stories aren't really happening this season. Maybe a look back into the past will remind me of how the show used to be back in its heyday whilst also attempting to improve those sinking ratings and angering the critics at the same time.
Hey, at least I've written something here this time. Don't cry to me if you find it crap. I know it's crap. This is my personal crap space where I come to write crap. My theory is that I have a certain amount of crap within me, so if I write out all the crap first, that'll only leave good stuff left to write about later. Meanwhile, all this talk about getting the crap out has made me notice that shifting sensation in my bowels so away I go now. I hope that, as you're reading this, you're now imagining me sitting on the toilet doing some natural - if a little bit icky - business, because that's actually probably where I actually am right now.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Weird And Wonderful People
So yeah, October can bugger off. The whole month has skipped by without me getting much of a chance to input words into this 'ere white space via the data highway. Well, I say that. Actually, I don't say that; I'm not sitting here talking to a keyboard. What I mean is: Well, I type that, but the truth is I've had a couple of chances to update over the last four weeks but the working lifestyle thrust upon me lately makes me want to spend every free moment I have sleeping. The problem I face with this is that falling into such a work/sleep routine makes me loathe the other people who live in my house for the fact that they get to actually live in the house, whilst I treat the place like a very personalised hotel with albeit pretty shit cleaning staff. What follows here, therefore, is a brief list of things I've managed to get done over the last month that I can vaguely remember. My apologies in advance for the amount of shitness to come in this post.
The childish side of me has reared its ugly freckled face over the last few weeks following the release of Pokémon X and Y, rendering a lot of my designated sleeping time moot and causing me to fall victim to addiction like countless alcoholics and smokers before me. I blame Uni - more specifically the people at Uni - for making me this way. Up until about a year ago, the last time I'd so much as thought or even cared about the Japanese gaming franchise was, as far as I can remember, in the pre-Internet era for me. This is the best recollection I can make considering my memory in times without Internet is rather sketchy. I also feel I should point out that I first gained access to the online realm in 2002, so we're going back at least eleven years here. However, Uni does weird things to people, forcing you to mingle with a multitude of weird and wonderful people with one collective like-minded childhood.
Somewhere in the mire of young adults who seem to have shared cultural aspects of my youth, stories and jokes have been shared creating an air of nostalgia. This fond nostalgia has convinced me to revisit older aspects of my childhood in a move generally labelled in the geek community as "retro". However, when the good people of Japan announced they were continuing the seemingly never-ending franchise with yet another game with the same premise in which the same sequence of events occurs but now with updated graphics and shit, I just knew I'd have to honour this collision of a long forgotten childhood and updated technologies by spending 35 quid and countless hours of life on it. The inner child has now taken over and takes pride in the accomplishments achieved in the game despite the fact that the difficulty level of the whole thing is so considerably low, not even an ant could limbo under that stick.
I mentioned smokers earlier in this and that reminded me of something else that's occurred in my life-sphere lately, thus making a seamless transition from the last paragraph to this. No, I'm not suddenly smoking now: it still smells like the dust from behind a long-standing pile of bricks being burnt and I don't quite fancy the idea of standing outside for ten minutes at a time whilst winter approaches. My smoking story emanates from the fact that a large portion of my work time is spent behind a kiosk counter meaning that I can now identify most brands of cigarettes or loose rolling tobacco by the design of the packaging, despite never touching the contents myself. It also means I can hum the little jingle produced by the National Lottery machine whenever a winning ticket or scratchcard is rewarded at will.
In a twist of events, though, a considerable portion of the locals in my area come from one of three groups: Polish migrants, Spanish/Portuguese/possibly Latin-American migrants, and native English locals probably inwardly complaining about the number of foreigners 'round 'ere. In my embracing of all the peoples of this world, I don't differentiate between people who originate from elsewhere, just as long as nobody's rude to me I'm happy to serve the human race in all its forms. Unfortunately, however, there comes a point where a certain amount of basic English-language skills may be necessary to partake in a transaction involving what variety of tobacco-related product one would like to purchase. Usually the name of the brand is enough but one of my most recent customers was unable to produce such a name for me to look for, providing me with only the description "Smoking Kills" in spite of the fact that virtually every type of tobacco is brandished with "Smoking Kills" as a kind of standard issue governmental warning.
Never a dull moment there really. And before the whole Internet descends on me to jump down my throat becoz I is bein' a racist, I'd like to point out that as a worker in the retail sector, my only gripe with humanity is rude people. As a matter of pure fact, I've dealt with several native English people who gruffly grunt as a form of communication and several non-native English folks who are just peachy and pleasant regardless of their level of speaking the lingo. Now that I've dug myself out of that hole, you bunch of web-space dwelling, accusing bastards can jog on.
The childish side of me has reared its ugly freckled face over the last few weeks following the release of Pokémon X and Y, rendering a lot of my designated sleeping time moot and causing me to fall victim to addiction like countless alcoholics and smokers before me. I blame Uni - more specifically the people at Uni - for making me this way. Up until about a year ago, the last time I'd so much as thought or even cared about the Japanese gaming franchise was, as far as I can remember, in the pre-Internet era for me. This is the best recollection I can make considering my memory in times without Internet is rather sketchy. I also feel I should point out that I first gained access to the online realm in 2002, so we're going back at least eleven years here. However, Uni does weird things to people, forcing you to mingle with a multitude of weird and wonderful people with one collective like-minded childhood.
Somewhere in the mire of young adults who seem to have shared cultural aspects of my youth, stories and jokes have been shared creating an air of nostalgia. This fond nostalgia has convinced me to revisit older aspects of my childhood in a move generally labelled in the geek community as "retro". However, when the good people of Japan announced they were continuing the seemingly never-ending franchise with yet another game with the same premise in which the same sequence of events occurs but now with updated graphics and shit, I just knew I'd have to honour this collision of a long forgotten childhood and updated technologies by spending 35 quid and countless hours of life on it. The inner child has now taken over and takes pride in the accomplishments achieved in the game despite the fact that the difficulty level of the whole thing is so considerably low, not even an ant could limbo under that stick.
I mentioned smokers earlier in this and that reminded me of something else that's occurred in my life-sphere lately, thus making a seamless transition from the last paragraph to this. No, I'm not suddenly smoking now: it still smells like the dust from behind a long-standing pile of bricks being burnt and I don't quite fancy the idea of standing outside for ten minutes at a time whilst winter approaches. My smoking story emanates from the fact that a large portion of my work time is spent behind a kiosk counter meaning that I can now identify most brands of cigarettes or loose rolling tobacco by the design of the packaging, despite never touching the contents myself. It also means I can hum the little jingle produced by the National Lottery machine whenever a winning ticket or scratchcard is rewarded at will.
In a twist of events, though, a considerable portion of the locals in my area come from one of three groups: Polish migrants, Spanish/Portuguese/possibly Latin-American migrants, and native English locals probably inwardly complaining about the number of foreigners 'round 'ere. In my embracing of all the peoples of this world, I don't differentiate between people who originate from elsewhere, just as long as nobody's rude to me I'm happy to serve the human race in all its forms. Unfortunately, however, there comes a point where a certain amount of basic English-language skills may be necessary to partake in a transaction involving what variety of tobacco-related product one would like to purchase. Usually the name of the brand is enough but one of my most recent customers was unable to produce such a name for me to look for, providing me with only the description "Smoking Kills" in spite of the fact that virtually every type of tobacco is brandished with "Smoking Kills" as a kind of standard issue governmental warning.
Never a dull moment there really. And before the whole Internet descends on me to jump down my throat becoz I is bein' a racist, I'd like to point out that as a worker in the retail sector, my only gripe with humanity is rude people. As a matter of pure fact, I've dealt with several native English people who gruffly grunt as a form of communication and several non-native English folks who are just peachy and pleasant regardless of their level of speaking the lingo. Now that I've dug myself out of that hole, you bunch of web-space dwelling, accusing bastards can jog on.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Brain's Not Working
The old work/sleep routine has well and truly been reinstated. The fact that I actually have time on a Wednesday afternoon to type words into this is nothing short of miraculous. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating there; miracles aren't that bland. Sorry, brain's not working and I have an awful lot of stuff from the last week or so piling up in the virtual depths of a Sky+ hard drive that I need to catch up on.
It'll probably take me the next two days to get through everything, which is just enough time to cover it all before I head back into a working environment once again.
It'll probably take me the next two days to get through everything, which is just enough time to cover it all before I head back into a working environment once again.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Communications
It's a rare occurrence for me to check my emails; even more rare than me checking my older email address. I currently claim ownership of two separate accounts, completely going against everything nineteen-year-old me stands for. The way nineteen-year-old me sees it, you are one person, therefore you only need one account. One email address, one bank account, one phone contract, one place to live, one plot of earth to rest, one gravestone. Anything more is just wasted extravagance. Nowadays, 24-year-old me (a.k.a. me) is faced with a certain sense of uncertain future and feels like the only thing he can control in his life is the amount of online presence he has. Also he displays a tendency to switch perspective from first- to third-person mid-paragraph.
The latest addition to my vast roster of two electronic communication channels happens to be a Gmail account, courtesy of that powerhouse of search engines (and the only website your nan has ever heard of), Google. I'll be honest with you, having a Gmail account is great. Emails are easy to access. Whenever I stupidly sign up to websites that churn out newsletters and notifications every seven seconds they get automatically filed away as "Social" or "Promotional" or something I don't give a crap about, leaving only the actual ones in my actual inbox. Connectivity to many things is easier, including this blog right here. Yes, you there reading this. Hello. I'm able to communicate this to you a lot easier now thanks to Google. Hell, if anybody were even to actively search for this particular one there's a fairly decent chance Google might put it somewhere near the top ten of all found results. Furthermore, I don't get spam.
Previously, in my email account history, Hotmail (currently known as Outlook and formerly affiliated with the virtual equivalent of an early 2000s youth centre, MSN Messenger) was the only channel of communication I used on a regular basis. Since the end of my University adventures some three months ago, though, the place has been fairly abandoned, gathering virtual messages equivalent to a discarded yogurt pot gathering fluffy green bits. And that's just the inbox. The spam folder however... let's just say that if it was a person that needed taking to a virtual hospital, I'd probably have to check it in for cases of diphtheria, polio, meningitis, high cholesterol, liver failure, appendicitis, a broken leg, tennis elbow, a lodged Tic Tac in one nostril and (apparently) erectile dysfunction. The only reason I haven't pulled the plug on its life support yet is that, on occasion, it may still prove useful. And behold and lo...
A series of communications between a past uni tutor and myself have unfolded, skipping over the fact that it might actually be better to get in touch with me another, more Google-orientated way. Ultimately, we've briefly had the "what are you doing now that uni's finished?" discussion, with potential University-related opportunities being mused over by both him and me in a blind attempt at (a) remaining a part of the University family after my recent graduation, and (b) giving me something to do.
As it happens, we've now progressed to the stage where, semi-awkwardly, he's asked me if I want to go out for coffee. This could, of course, quite simply be an innocent offer of meeting up and having this discussion in person rather than in words. Cold, static, Times New Roman words. However, there's a little part of me that is aware of the underlying meaning of two people going out for coffee. Heck, I even wrote a shite story about it; one which this same tutor marked fairly poorly due to its obvious shitness. Anyway, there's a certain awkwardness about the idea of meeting up with my past tutor for coffee in this way. For starters, he's not really my type. For other starters, I don't actually like coffee.
Needless to say, I have tentatively accepted his invitation to meet up since it'd be nice to have a bit of a catch-up and hopefully get a chance to hang around the University campus for a little while longer. However, I must stress that I have only accepted purely on the pretence that there's no funny business.
The latest addition to my vast roster of two electronic communication channels happens to be a Gmail account, courtesy of that powerhouse of search engines (and the only website your nan has ever heard of), Google. I'll be honest with you, having a Gmail account is great. Emails are easy to access. Whenever I stupidly sign up to websites that churn out newsletters and notifications every seven seconds they get automatically filed away as "Social" or "Promotional" or something I don't give a crap about, leaving only the actual ones in my actual inbox. Connectivity to many things is easier, including this blog right here. Yes, you there reading this. Hello. I'm able to communicate this to you a lot easier now thanks to Google. Hell, if anybody were even to actively search for this particular one there's a fairly decent chance Google might put it somewhere near the top ten of all found results. Furthermore, I don't get spam.
Previously, in my email account history, Hotmail (currently known as Outlook and formerly affiliated with the virtual equivalent of an early 2000s youth centre, MSN Messenger) was the only channel of communication I used on a regular basis. Since the end of my University adventures some three months ago, though, the place has been fairly abandoned, gathering virtual messages equivalent to a discarded yogurt pot gathering fluffy green bits. And that's just the inbox. The spam folder however... let's just say that if it was a person that needed taking to a virtual hospital, I'd probably have to check it in for cases of diphtheria, polio, meningitis, high cholesterol, liver failure, appendicitis, a broken leg, tennis elbow, a lodged Tic Tac in one nostril and (apparently) erectile dysfunction. The only reason I haven't pulled the plug on its life support yet is that, on occasion, it may still prove useful. And behold and lo...
A series of communications between a past uni tutor and myself have unfolded, skipping over the fact that it might actually be better to get in touch with me another, more Google-orientated way. Ultimately, we've briefly had the "what are you doing now that uni's finished?" discussion, with potential University-related opportunities being mused over by both him and me in a blind attempt at (a) remaining a part of the University family after my recent graduation, and (b) giving me something to do.
As it happens, we've now progressed to the stage where, semi-awkwardly, he's asked me if I want to go out for coffee. This could, of course, quite simply be an innocent offer of meeting up and having this discussion in person rather than in words. Cold, static, Times New Roman words. However, there's a little part of me that is aware of the underlying meaning of two people going out for coffee. Heck, I even wrote a shite story about it; one which this same tutor marked fairly poorly due to its obvious shitness. Anyway, there's a certain awkwardness about the idea of meeting up with my past tutor for coffee in this way. For starters, he's not really my type. For other starters, I don't actually like coffee.
Needless to say, I have tentatively accepted his invitation to meet up since it'd be nice to have a bit of a catch-up and hopefully get a chance to hang around the University campus for a little while longer. However, I must stress that I have only accepted purely on the pretence that there's no funny business.
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