Andy's Blog

Popularity is always a nice thing, however it’s a little unsettling when the people you’re popular with are only after your blood.  I tried interesting them in my body, but no joy.

It also seems a little strange that being negative is an absolute positive, at least in the minds of the aforementioned Vampires that I appear to be so popular with.

You have to hand it to the National Blood Service, they know exactly which buttons to press to get my full attention, and the lovely female Gaelic lilt on the end of the phone certainly pushed the majority of them; so, on the 9th March, I am off to give my usual armful of red go-go juice.

Truth be told though, I hate needles… Really, really *HATE* needles!  So the thought of voluntarily going to a place where I’ll be jabbed and drained is somewhat of an anathema to me (I think I may have ‘intimated’ in previous posts about my slight squeamishness).

But, seeing as the Blood Services website tells me my blood (O-) is ‘very special indeed‘, it would seem churlish not to gift them some of it for the greater good; especially after such a nice compliment.  Usually when people tell me I’m “special”, I get the distinct feeling it’s not in quite the same way I imagine they mean.

Another reason I go is precisely BECAUSE I hate needles so much!  I am hoping that one day all these visits will finally get me over this little phobia.  It’s this vein hope (get it? get it? vein, rather than vain… forget it!) that I also volunteer to do Kata at each Karate Tournament that comes along.  One day, maybe the one coming up on the 27th February, I won’t be my usual mitigated disaster and complete it without looking like I have swapped feet with my 8 year old son!

It’s a hope, however vein or vain, and until it’s realised I’ll just have to be content with being “special”.

It’s true, I have reached a kind of prolonged brain-fart.  The brain is whirring around, as much as it ever does, the fingers are itchy to put something down in words, but all that comes out is some slightly stale air.

As much as I want to jot down the daily doings of me, in some kind of narcissistic ‘dear diary’, the truth is that not an awful lot of interest happens.  Life certainly isn’t in any shape or form as life-and-death as Ann Frank’s, or as tally-ho-trousers-down-and-up-the-constituents as Alan Clark’s.

So I find myself, during lunchtime at work, again within one of the music pods, sitting in front of this blog wondering what the hell to write down?  Life, as I see it, is pretty much consisting of the following;

1. Work is work.  I work in a Bank designing computer systems, how exactly exciting do you think that can get?   Of course, the slightly annoying element of me being no longer required come 31st December does cause some concern… but 31st DECEMBER?!  That’s like a lifetime away! (feel free to point me in the direction of this post in 2011 and rub my face in it if things don’t entirely work out the way I hope)
2. Karate is still providing the source of me getting beaten up in various, and intriguing, ways by multiple peoples.  Just as an aside a new lesson has been learnt; do NOT do leg exercises at the Gym just before a karate lesson later that evening.  The results are not impressive and the scowling by ones Sensei is something frightening to behold.
3. Home-life is home-life.  Trying to resolve the latest home based dramas; house, heating, repairs, family arguments, money, etc, etc. is starting to feel like work.  In the spirit of holding my hand up though, this is no different than anyone else.  However the feeling of just throwing the arms up in the air with some of the new drama’s and say “Fine, I give up, have it your way!” is just too strong at the moment.
4. Sleep is not sleep.  ‘Nuff said.
5. Go back to step #1

In my actual verbal self I am a person who doesn’t mind not having something to say.  I am completely comfortable, when I have nothing of interest to say, in saying nothing at all.  I don’t have the gift of the gab or have a hundred and one amusing anecdotes with which to regale friends and colleagues alike, and as seen from the above there’s nothing of note to bore the poor person I happen to be with about.

I just wish I had the same control when it came to blogging, although why blog in the first place if that were to be the case?  Here’s as good a place as any to dump any brain-fartage and it’s not as though anyone reads the thing!

There, “ramble” done and dumped onto the t’interweb along with all the other rubbish that inhabit it.  No violence (or at least none seen), or porn (that would be too terrifying a vision to dwell on) or conclusion to this post….

…just a faint stale smell, depending on how long after I posted this you read it, and a slightly relieved feeling on my part to expel it albeit somewhat publicly (which is very rude).

Meh, you know what?  I had sat down with the absolute intention to try and list some resolutions for this year, but after faffing about without typing anything at the keyboard have come to the realisation that I really can’t be bothered to set any.  This is not actually 100% true, I do have some goals that I have set for myself, but these are the same I always have;

• Get better at Karate (at least one grade better this year)
• Get fit (also interpret that as ’slim’)

But that’s about it.  I also can’t be much bothered to review last years, apart from; I did achieve the two belts, but didn’t get fit.

Ever so slightly uninspired today.  However the cartoon below did brighten the day somewhat…

A split lip, loud ringing in the ears, seeing double for a while, some very sore ribs and a wonderful sense of achievement… all the ingredients of a successful grading!

It would seem I was a little premature in my moping last week and needn’t have worried quite as much as I did.  Yep, this does mean that I have actually completed at least one of my new years resolutions and graded two belts this year!

It probably seems a strange state of affairs, especially when seen by those who don’t do martial arts, that progress and a sense of achievement is only gained after a beating.. and let’s be clear, I was battered senseless last night, but it’s the way in which you pick yourself up and keep going forward that differentiates between a white belt and a black belt.  Or at least that’s what Sensei says as he delivers another blow!

The other differentiator is having a group of friends behind you, cheering you on, and picking you up when you do hit a low point.  Special thanks to Libby, Sarah and Ed, who always seem to make that little extra effort to gee you up and tell you, when required, to stop being an arse (not that Libby would ever use the “a” word… Sarah on the other hand would probably use something stronger and involve a back-fist to the stomach somewhere in the conversation… but you get the picture).

As Epicurus once noted;

“It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.”

In a particularly low point at the moment, so have decided to wallow in some self pity and retrospective angst.  I think I’m turning into a Goth, or worse, my sister when she was a teenager!  (..that particular joke will have some severe repercussions).

My karate, as with other things, has stalled.  Despite putting in what I feel is 100%, the execution seems to fall far short of the expected standard and the appearance of going backwards more than forwards is somewhat disheartening.

Maybe it’s just a recurrence of what a good friend once called “Blue belt blues”.

T’would seem my old managers favourite dictum, muttered every pay and bonus review time, has come back to haunt; “Remember, Andy, that 100% of nothing is still nothing”.

Wallowing, angst and other inglorious forms of self pity will of course be accompanied by some very loud music, in the Marilyn Mansun and Iron Maiden flavours methinks, and occassionally interspersed with some comedy genius.

…buggar!  Still not sorted this out either!

When I was younger, as is the want of small boys, I could be found doing mock ninja battles or showing off my martial arts skills in homage to my heroes on TV, more often than not this would usually be “Monkey“.

Although I started karate, a few years back, for very noble reasons; the pursuit of fitness, control, the learning of ancient japanese martial arts, and of course to not be beaten up by my own kids… a little part of me was also the young boy playing Monkey in the playground.

I think it’s fair to say that, at no point in time, did my playground playing include hideously drunk idiots taking wild pot-shots at me.

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Another night out doing karate, another bloggable post about conversations had outside afterwards, and some before we’d even left the hall!

Now I’ve sat here trying to put into words the double-entendre’s, shocking  invites and phallic’ising of an innocent wireless card.. but, frankly, even I can’t put *THAT* into words, so I won’t

Some things, as the title suggests, are just better left unsaid.

“It’s dislocated”

…and with that proclamation the Nurse confirmed my latest Karate related injury, from a tournament 3 weeks back, and then went on to put the fear of God into me;

“Do you want to know how it’s fixed?”

She knows me well.  Now this is something that I have freely admitted to in the past, and is the source of much amusement amongst certain most Senseis within GKR Region 33 (and as it turns out most of the Senseis of Region 55 too!), that I am not the most ‘unsqueamish’ of people.

Although, truth be told, I have a fairly good idea, I answered “Probably best I don’t know”.  There’s plenty of scope within my life for self denial.  And with that I have an appointment with the Doctor to “fix” me, a sense of foreboding and a growing appreciation of the opposable thumb;

• Great for gripping liquid containers such as tea mugs and more importantly PINTS OF BEER!
• Writing or drawing becomes somewhat easier with this appendage.  My writing was never the neatest in the world, now it’s damn near unintelligible (even a Doctor would be embarrassed).
• Stops you from shaking other peoples hands like a wet fish, and also pulling this funny kind of face when they insist on pulling some sort of Vulcan death grip on your hand.
  

  Nice to meet Yoooooeeeoow!

“You’ve been here a few times with Karate related injuries haven’t you Andy?  Are you any good?”

..and with those parting words from the Nurse I sloped out of the Surgery somewhat more depressed than I entered.

“You have to do a blog post when you get home!”

Unfortunately, and almost bizarrely,  NOTHING had happened at the point of exiting my usual Tuesday visit to Senior Karate Class.  There has been a couple of Incidents within the carpark, after the Senior class had finished, which almost makes me sound like some kind of pervert hanging around dark car parks at night.. not helped by the fact that both incidents seemed to involve at least two female colleagues from Karate.

“Tart” as a friend called me, and no matter how much you protest your innocence; it only seems to make you seem more.. more… something-or-other!

However, it was incident free.  Nothing extraordinary had happened, apart from me not making some kind of arse of myself as usual, and no unintended double-entendre’s had been uttered.  How uneventful.

I was just musing on how quickly a holiday can fade into memory, and even more on how much you get out of shape during said hols!!  The evidence m’learned colleages;

• First karate lesson after coming back from hols and I managed to completely destroy my hard man of karate persona (self delusion is a wonderful thing); Shouting Ichi! Ni! San! Shi!… and then squeaking like mickey mouse on helium “Go”, “Roku”…
• The Alfa Romeo has decided to act all Alfa Romeo’y and decide it wanted 450 of my finest english pounds to be spent on its lower regions (brakes, disks and bearings)
• My sunburnt head has now turned to a peeling head.. I look like a “shoulda used head-n-shoulders” disaster advert.
• 563 work emails on the first day back is never a fun thing to behold.
• The holidays are not even a week old and I feel like I need another one.

Ah well, there was always Senior Karate?  Unfortunately I was bloody awful!  I felt like somebody had strapped lead weights to the ends of my arms, which wasn’t clever as Sensei was not in a very forgiving mood today.  I think I caused at least one of the press-ups that were metered out as punishments, but not all the others.  I was sweating, heaving and panting by the end of the lesson.  Nice!

I wouldn’t mind all that, but it didn’t look like I had even BEEN on holiday.  I stood next to Libs and looked all wan and pale next to her gorgeously tanned self.. Even Sarah looked more tanned than me, and as far as I am aware she spent the past two weeks in rainy England.  *sigh*

Chewy condom anyone?

..and then to top it all off, as I stand in line at a BP Station to purchase some much needed cold beverage to throw down my parched throat, I hear from the two young teenage girls standing behind me; “Eeeerrgh! You’d think he’d be too old to need those!”.  I look down at the pack of chewing gum I have also decided to impulse buy.

I look up at the two girls, who look back at me like I’m the perv as described in the first paragraph of this blog post.

“Whoah, hang on…”

But it’s too late, they wander off.  So now it’s official, I am now too old for chewing gum, or worse.  I woulda given them a reverse shuto to the heads, but I was feeling my age and couldn’t even if I wanted to.

*double sigh* time to check the calendar and figure out when the next holiday is…

Some blog posts just seem to write themselves, and for me this seems to happen right after conversations in a dark car park after Senior Karate has finished.

One of the usual suspects was present, although nobody offered me their nuts this time.

It all kicks off with Sarah A offering to give me her home address, for entirely innocent reasons, but did set me up to embarrass her just a little; cue the smoothing back of eyebrows and the “I Say, let me get my little black book out” in my best Leslie Phillips voice.

However the comment about getting my ‘impressive equipment’ out, and the offer of  5EX on her handwritten note (or was that part of her postcode?) was just too much – and cue the double-entendre giggles.

..and yep, you were right Sarah C, the desire to blog this was too much for me to resist!

Ah well, off on hols for two weeks now – hopefully come back sunburnt, none the wiser but well rested.  Have fun y’awl and see ya in August!