Andy's Blog

There’s a lot to be said for getting out of the office every so often, to blink in the bright, warm sunlight and to just relax and speak with friends that you haven’t seen for a little while.

Not to speak on any topic in particular, or anything of much importance – but then again, that was the whole point. 

Yesterday for me was not a happy day, it even got to the point where I felt it necessary to retreat for a wee while into an electronic hermitage; no facebook (*gasps*), MSN or email!

This afternoon, however, I am thoroughly relaxed and suitably de-stressed.  Hopefully the friend, who was just as stressed but for entirely different reasons, found it just as therapeutic  :)

I am tired today;

• Tired of ribs that still ache.
• Tired of not being able to breath properly, and having to take deep breaths.
• Tired of everyone thinking I am sighing all the time (see above).
• Tired from not being able to sleep at night and looking up at the ceiling.
• Tired of not being challenged at work.
• Tired of not being able to help those I really want to help.
• Tired of maintaining the status quo.

..and more importantly, tired of feeling sorry for myself!

The whole rib experience is taking a slightly more worrying, from my perspective anyway, turn.  I am now starting to find myself breathless, even after the shortest of walks, which ordinarily wouldn’t register on my radar, but considering I am doing karate three times a week and each of those is about 2 hours long – I really shouldn’t be THAT breathless!

Quick visit to the local quack, only for her to come up with this little nugget of wisdom;

Breathing is good for you, you need to keep breathing.

There was some other gubbin’s about needing to take deeper breaths and possible pneumonia if I didn’t breathe properly, but that particular phrase stuck in my mind!  I think she figured out I wasn’t hugely impressed by the idiots guide to medicine she had just dispensed, as she had the good grace to look embarrassed and slowly go quiet.

I smiled; she was young and fairly pretty looking after all..

I feel I should be writing some update on my blog, the unfortunate thing being; I am not sure what I want to type, what subject I should be typing on or even what title I should be giving this post! 

I have an uncomfortable feeling that my last few posts were somewhat touchy-feely in their subject matter (or ‘airy-fairy’ as a friend put it… yes YOU mate!), so feel the need to ground it in on the hum-drum of life-in-the-shoes-of-Andy’dom…. Or at least I would if I could (a) get motivated and (b) think of what to write!

One of the causes, I think, of this general malaise is that the ribs are STILL causing me grief!  It has already meant a lost weekend of being out in the sun on the bike going around our local Country Park – which really put me in a funk.  Also, the lack of sleep doth bother me somewhat – I ain’t the most pleasant buggar to look at, so need ALL the beauty sleep I can get!

However, on the plus side, my youngest son is now definitely most mobile!  He has finally mastered the joys of two wheeled freedom, which is another one of those ‘defining’ moments in a boys (and father’s) life.  Still a wee bit wobbly, and definitely a menace in the presence of pedestrians and parked cars alike, but I am looking forward to more bonding time as me and the boys all wobble around the Reservoir; collectively menacing the afore-mentioned pedestrians and adding wild fowl to the mix!

Any other interesting news?  Weight seems to have settled around the 88kg, which is a wee bit above the 13 stone mark, and is not shifting from there.. buggar!  Looks like I am either going to have to find some other form of exercise or eat even less (Soooo hungry!!).  I have thought about re-taking up canoeing at our local Reservoir to help make me somewhat more svelt in appearance, but need to find the time and more importantly the energy.

…and that’s it!  So in the end something was typed up, not earth shattering or even particularly interesting; but it is life at the moment.  I feel another post is bubbling up at the moment as the subject of ‘life’ is a recurrent theme with a couple of friends, so be warned; another ‘airy-fairy’ bit of navel gazing may be on the horizon.

I am wondering if opening up my blog to allow some friends to post their own thoughts may make the whole subject more relative, as well as some cross-linking to the blogs of friends that are also discussing the same sort of issues; Mark Fitchett’s Slices of a digital life, Damian’s Life, laughs and loves of the Clayton-Bull clan and Casper’s musings (if you ever update it mate ) to name but a few.

Collective, multi-site, navel gazing… What a thought!

In a show of love and understanding from my work colleagues, I received many a sympathetic email, although I am beginning to feel not all of them are taking me entirely seriously…

..Especially when most of the emails were addressed to “Hong Kong Stewie”!  Here’s one of the better ones, or is at least clean enough to post on a family orientated website;

EMAIL TITLE: 50 Rib Tickling One-Liners (Pun Intended)

Confucius Says :

• Man who drive like hell, bound to get there.
• War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who’s left.
• Man with one chopstick go hungry.
• Man who drop watch in toilet, bound to have shitty time.
• Man who stand on toilet high on pot.
• Man who wants pretty nurse, must be patient.
• Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
• Man who lives in glass house should change in basement.
• Man who pee on electric fence receive shocking news.
• Man who sleep in bed of nails is holy.
• Man who sit on tack get point.
• Crowded elevator always smell different to midget.
• Man who keep feet firmly on ground have trouble putting on pants.
• Man who leap off cliff jump to conclusion.
• Man who scratches ass should not bite fingernails.
• Man who run in front of car, get tired.
• Man who run behind car, get exhausted.
• Man who tell one too many light bulb jokes soon burn out.
• Condom should be used on every conceivable occasion.
• Bird in hand makes hard to blow nose.
• Woman who cook carrots and peas in same pot very unsanitary.
• Man who go to sleep with itchy butt, wake with smelly fingers.
• He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands.
• Virginity like balloon-one prick, all gone.
• Baseball all wrong-man with four balls can’t walk.
• Man who take lady on camping trip, have one intent.
• Secretary not permanent until she screwed on desk.
• Man with tool in woman mouth May not necessarily be dentist.
• Couple on 7-day honeymoon make hole weak.
• Man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day.
• Man who excels at putting worm on hook is Master Baiter.
• Man young when he snatches kisses, old when he kisses snatches.
• Schoolboy who play with schoolgirl during wrong period, get caught red-handed.
• Squirrel who run up woman’s leg not find nuts.
• Passionate kiss like spiders web – soon lead to undoing of fly.
• Man with tight trousers is pressing his luck.
• Man who put rooster in ice compartment take out stiff cock.
• No difference between man and mouse – both end in pussy.
• Woman who wear wonder-bra make mountains out of molehills.
• Learn to masturbate, come in handy.
• Woman who spend much time on bedspring may get offspring.
• Man who put cream in tart not always baker.
• Girls should not marry basketball players – they dribble before they shoot.
• Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.
• Panties not best thing on earth, but next to it.
• Boy who go to sleep with stiff problem wake up with solution in hand.
• Man who fight with wife all day, get no piece at night.
• Man who sit on tack get point.
• Man who eat crackers in bed wake up feeling crummy.
• Folk who make Confucius joke speak bad English

Enjoy!

Apparently, in Karate, you are supposed to block the kicks that are aimed at your ribs, or anywhere else for that matter.  Unfortunately this is not a lesson I seem to have learnt very well, as I got a rather rude kick to the aforementioned ribs last Thursday from my Sensei.  I, of course, mention to everyone that will listen that he *IS* a black belt… did I mention that?  Black belt.. no?

I passed off the pain the next morning to bruising and carried on; Teaching my own class on Saturday, three hours of grading on Sunday, going to senior class on Tuesday and during the other class I teach on Wednesdays something went; “that’s it! you had you chance!” and went…. *ping*

Not the manliest of sounds I grant you, but enough for me to go “oooooooh f*ck!” and feel thoroughly sorry for myself.

Unfortunately the rather unhelpful nurse at the A&E fobbed me off with a “We don’t deal with Sports injuries over 48 hours old” and gave me a big pink horse pill to take (hopefully you were supposed to swallow it)!  Not sure what medical miracle happens within your body, but apparently on the 49th hour it can figure out your rib was kicked sportingly and repair itself – unfortunately somebody forgot to tell my body.

Quick visit to the rather more helpful Doctors Surgery; a few prods, pokes and hmmmm’s from the young female Doctor (inflate chest, suck in stomach, pump up biceps and THEN lift up shirt so she can look at painful area)… and her prognosis – “Yep, fractured rib”.  Unfortunately not a lot they can do about it apart from tell you to pop Paracetamol and Ibuprofen in equal measures and rest.

So I am stuck at home watching daytime television today… and planning my escape back to work tomorrow so I won’t have to watch any more of it!

The title is a doffing of the proverbial cap to Sigmund Freud who called our dreams the “royal road to the unconscious”. His idea being that our dreams were shaped by experiences in our childhood, which psychoanalysts could use to reveal our childhood miseries, and thereby cure our inner torment.

Which is all very nice, but a bit too dry and dusty for my tastes.

I think it must be the time of year, the fact that you can actually feel Autumn beginning its onset, but I have been having conversations with a number of friends about our/their dreams.  Not the stuff that psychoanalysts get all excited about, but the aspirations we had when we were younger and why none of us seemed to have done anything about them.  Suggesting that these conversations are the product of our imminent crash into mid-life-crisis’dom doesn’t win you many friends - go figure!

The outcome of these conversations?  Bit of a mixed bag really, and nothing you could, or should, base an ethos on.  Mostly that; when you are younger life seems to stretch out in front of you and you have plenty of time to deal with those dreams later on, after a healthy bit of hedonism.  Unfortunately at some point you blink and find yourself married, with kids, a mortgage and more responsibilities than you can shake a stick at!

The dreams you had now become an object of regret, instead of something still to aspire to.  A number of friends are dealing with this in different ways; from the “sod it, i’m going for it anyway!” to the ”it was only a dream, I was a lot younger..” more grown-up attitude (their words, not mine). 

Unfortunately, the nature of some of those dreams have a more acidic impact on our “today” life and would probably mean giving up more than we ever envisioned.

Me?  For the moment I am taking the path of escapism!  It has been more years than I care to mention since I passed my Motorcycle test and had twatted around on a motorbike (‘twatted’ being the appropriate verb, as I had more accidents during that period than at any other point in my life!).  However a rather good friend of mine, in the hope that I am tempted to buy it, has lent me a bloody great beast of a bike and is allowing me to once more forget about my “today” life and escape into the moment.

Helmet down, iPod set to heavy metal, flick the electronic ignition, feel 1000cc’s between ya legs (no rude comments!), slip the clutch and roar off at a frightening rate of knots… bliss!  For a small while you are back to the teenager you were, no responsibilities and the road ahead is open to make of as you will.

What a dream!

HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats
1899

As with all things relating to me, this is another aspect of my personality that is not straight forward or easy to button down.  “Confidence” I find is a corporeal thing which pops up in the strangest places, and at other times buggars off when you need it most.

In work related items I am extremely confident; I know what I know, and I know them very well.  I have the confidence and conviction in my skillsets to deal with the majority of issues that are thrown towards me, and more importantly the confidence to hold my hand up to those things I don’t know and ask for help from my colleagues.

However in other areas of life I find myself pausing, that corporealness doing the “buggaring off” I mentioned earlier.  This is probably not unique to myself, but is a constant source of “sadness” and frustration.

There are few things going on where I need that confidence, but where I find myself doing that “pause”.  As ever other factors come into play, nothing’s ever *THAT* easy, and a huge amount of uncertainty as to how the other partie(s) will react.  So life is, currently, in that “paused” state and the status quo prevails – even if unhappily for me.

However, as mentioned in previous posts, this is something that I have long lived with and have built up an extremely thick skin for the things that life has thrown at me, and an oblique view on life.  This obliqueness has given me a certain “kismet” attitude, which allows me to go “OK, if this is as good as I can have – then I will live with that and be satisfied with it”.

Probably not an entirely healthy attitude… or is it?

Another interesting read on the BBC News website; according to Professor Adrian North, of Heriot Watt University, my musical tastes are linked to my personality.

Apparently the type of music that you listen to shows what type of personality you have, for example;

• Listening to Classical music means you have high self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease.
• Listening to Heavy Metal  means you have low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease.
• Listening to Chart Pop means you have high self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease.
• Etc…

Which is a bit of a buggar for me, and a friend I was chatting to about musical tastes last night, as we both have somewhat ‘eclectic’ tastes in music.  My tastes range from Classical (when mellowing out), to 80′s pop (ahh my yooof!) to Heavy Metal (when in a good or ‘fast’ mood). 

It looks like I am a very confused little individual, which is probably not such a surprise to people who know me!