Andy's Blog

There is a lot to love about Spring finally sprunging [sic] its way onto the scene; the sun warming us itinerant t-shirt wearers, the blossoming of tulips and other flowery things, the sweet twittering of birdies, the tinkle of ice-cream vans as they slowly reappear after a lengthy hibernation, hot air balloons making their lazy way across the sky, yay even the ridiculously D&G bespeckled mid-life crisisee in his open top cabriolet gives one pause to snigger smile…

..and thus was I skipping through the daisies in a merry old mood, or less poetically strolling through Corley Service Station on the M6 after filling up the horseless carriage with liquid gold (or at least that’s what I hoped it was after I paid over a small mortgage), when my eyes did fall upon the less welcoming aspect of Spring’s sprunging.

Bent over double in front of me as I entered the shop, and searching through the sweets on the bottom shelf, was a pair of leggings.  Leggings stretched to a thin almost eye-wateringly see-through veneer.  Pale, cream coloured leggings, which were slowly coming up for air from betwixt the cheeks of a very VERY generously proportioned set of but-tocks.

Unfortunately the desperately escaping leggings also brought up a memento of their explorations of the inner workings of their host.

There is a moment when you feel as one with the bunny rabbits as they stare, frozen, at the oncoming headlights.

It was at this moment, of frozen horror, that some joker walking behind me looked over and, with (I hope) sarcasm, lets out a loud wolf whistle and exclamation of “Phwoar! Nice arse luv!”.. before continuing his journey onto wherever.

I looked in almost stunned admiration at his rapidly retreating frame, I would never have the balls to make THAT kind of statement.  It was then that I noticed that the bunny killing headlights were now smiling towards ME!

I don’t think I knocked over too many women and children in my hasty exit, I think I may have confused many more with my “roll on Winter” comment…

You know, in the midst of a mountain of things to worry about; lumps re-appearing, lumps being gauged out, ritual draining of blood, tiredness, soreness and wondering what the local quack will say when next you see them…  it’s the stupid little things that can surprisingly pick you up.

She beats me mercilessly around the dojo whenever the opportunity arises, uses parts of my body for punching and kicking practise, frequently uses a sly little put down to pop any form of self delusion I pamper myself with and more often than not can see through the mountain of bullshit I throw up in front of me to obfuscate the mountain of worry that’s bringing me down;

…Missing your skirt and legs :’( x

It’s a stupid little text message, done fairly late in the evening, and I am fairly sure has a certain amount of alcohol fuelling it… but despite all of that the day seems a little less of a downer already

Thanks for that :’)
xxx

This Monday just gone I was in a bad mood, and I hate being in a bad mood.

Being in a bad mood takes a lot of effort to maintain and really doesn’t do anything for ones complexion.

I especially hate being in a bad mood with the sprogs but sometimes, no matter how much of a “new age” parent you try to be, the little wallet drainers will dive head first into full martyrdom mode, throwing  proverbial dummies out of the even more proverbial cot, and get right on my tit.

The thing is, I remember being almost exactly the same when I was Number 1 son’s age.  The world was almost entirely against me and my parents were just the frontline of the battle-lines being drawn between me and the rest of the population of the Universe (yep, we’ve escalated from World to Universe).

To be fair my battles were minor scuffles when compared to the ding-dongs my Sister used to throw :¬)

To now find myself being that frontline soldier is somewhat startling.  Despite the rapid hair loss, white streaks in my facial bum-fluff, and snaps crackles & pops sounds that my bones make – in my head I am still that gangly 6’1 blonde idiot I was in my teenage years.

In a moment of revelation I look at the moping 13yo in front of me;

• 6’1? near as dammit,
• blonde? check,
• idiot? oh yes!

Oh crap!  I’m looking at Andy Mk II, the improved model.  I wonder if my dad ever had the same thoughts running through his mind?  …Probably not.

Not that this made the mood appreciatively better, although I now felt considerably older than I did a few seconds before that little epiphical revelation, cos now I feel I am just arguing with myself of 30-odd years ago!

*sigh* I feel the need to go and apologise to my parents…

I don’t want to name it, cos then it gives it power, but I can still hate it for what it’s doing; It’s taking my hair, slowly but inexorably.  It’s making my joints ache.  It’s making it more difficult to stir the carcass from the vertical to the horizontal in the mornings.  It’s making my teeth hurt.

Surprisingly it’s giving the words in my head the wrong directions to my mouth.  The words are there, I can hear them in my head, but they just refuse to make an appearance when either the mouth opens or fingers strum away at the keyboard.

It’s making me a miserable git; I actually found myself giving the local co-op manager a dressing down last night when I found that they had demoted the milk to an obscure corner of the shop, in pitiful quantities, in favour of a MOUNTAIN of Easter Eggs.. of Everest-like proportions!

Oh shit, I am turning into my Dad!

To say it “only takes” is a little disingenuous as it also gives; My body now has a surprisingly large repertoire of noises it is now able to make; cracks, snaps, clicks, poots, groans, etc, etc…  There’s also a wide range of pharmaceutical products upon which I can now prevail myself of.

A cousin asked, after I posted a previous blog post, whether a Therapist had told me to write these things.  No, but it does gives me the ability to “Shout obscenities at the moon” for a little while… An essentially useless past-time but it does make me feel a little better afterwards.

I don’t think I’ll broadcast this little postette, as it’s not something I particularly want to advertise, but it’s there if you look – which you obviously have… Just keep it between ourselves eh?

Beer, pizza, mindless violence, hyper-active kids, cider, karate, mad dashes across Northamptonshire, troubleshooting wireless access points, kung-fu in a film with karate in the title, pill popping, weak-ass shower switching between nut-shrivellingly-cold and skin-searingly-hot, missing a birthday party, talking-about-love-n-life, kiddies roller disco party, tea, more tea, COFFEE, fighting, laughing, Iron Maiden, bruises, yoda, young love, old friends, full english breakfast, kids up till 3am, Jackie Chan overload, grading, teasing, expectations, throwing up, winding down, blogging, snoozing…

How was your weekend?

I seem to be spending an inordinately large amount of my life, at the moment, just waiting around. The problem is; I’m no bloody good at waiting!

Waiting for test results to come back, waiting for ordered items to be delivered… although to be fair some of these haven’t taken *THAT* long to be delivered, it’s just that my geeky heart can’t wait to get its greedy mitts on the latest play-thing.

Waiting for the next bout of unpleasantness to arrive, and more frustratingly waiting on the motorway for traffic to start to think about moving again.  This has gotten to the point where I am loading up the ol’ smartphone with some frankly quite bizarre music tracks to take my mind off the static here-n-now.

So in an attempt to wrestle back some control, and inject a little deviation from the normal run-o-the-mill, I’ve decided to finally get around to doing some things I’ve been promising myself but have been thinking “it can wait”…

..It probably can, but I don’t think I want to any longer.

Granted it’s not anything life changing, but every so often a little “what the hell” can’t hurt and is good for the soul.  It also gives you the chance to remove yourself from all those little ‘waits’ that are trundling along, admittedly slowly, but will at some point arrive – what to do at that point is another blog post altogether!

I feel like this sometimes..

I am angry and pissed off.  Not something I am usually either of very often.

Sitting here with the music playing very loudly and very fast.  The choice of listening material is probably not a very good one for climbing out of this mood, but Iron Maiden is suiting me very well at the moment.

There is a certain requirement on my part to maintain a number of ‘faces’; normal, work, karate and mine.  Each of these having a time when they come out and to compartmentalise what I am really thinking, to switch off, to almost ignore the realities of some situations.  What’s probably a little worrying is that the private ‘face’ is starting to look like Eddie in the picture here; angry and more than a little unreasonable.

It’s probably a good idea to find a little ‘steam venting’ diversion somewhere and get back to a more sociable face.  Maybe just after this..

…maybe

To be honest, and let’s face it it’d be rude not to be, it’s been an “interesting” year so far.  As I sat here in front of a blank screen, wondering what words to type into this post, Crowded House’s song from which this particular blog post takes its title started up – which seemed apt.

The broad range of emotions, in what would otherwise have been an average two days, did swoop and peak somewhat alarmingly between the hours when my feet hit the floor in the morning and the hours that I got reminded of “life’s certainties” in no uncertain terms.

Ah well, ones metal is defined when the path of your life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil’s own Satanic herd.. to paraphrase Blackadder just a wee bit.

This will probably break all kinds of ‘blogging ethics’, but I can’t actually be arsed to put down in words what has gone down, for a number of vague, and quite franky lame, reasons.

Primary amongst these is just the plain fact that I am uncomfortable around raw emotions, whatever those may be.  It’s easier for me to just carry on regardless and deal with issues and/or problems in my own slightly abstracted way.

Secondly, I think it actually makes for a more interesting post.  Rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of detail around the how, what, why, when, etc… the more interesting detail is what we do about what’s thrown at us.  That, and the mostly cos of the primary reason noted above!

So don’t ask, as I won’t tell.. and yes probably won’t overly think about the matter at hand either.  Time to put some things on the back burner for a while and concentrate on the mundane, as well as some longer term goals which are starting to look like they may actually be possible!

I am not entirely sure whether this comes across as ignoring the issues, it’s not, but to each their own mechanisms for dealing with the “cowpats” strewn on their particular paths… this is mine.

It’s also given me a damn good excuse to use rather a lot of the fine cartoons that plognark has done for me, as they cover the “range” I was speaking of earlier in a rather better way than I can communicate in words.

….and also to put a cartoon picture of what I’d look like as a pirate, cos let’s face it, that’s something each of us would like to know!

Well 2011 has kicked off and as usual a bunch of vague promises have been made to myself as to how I will better myself.  These boil down to pretty much the same resolutions I had last year, the year before, and I’m fairly sure a few more years before that.

These being;

• Get better at Karate
• Get Fit/Slim

Very possibly one year I will acheive either, or being the eternal optimist that I am, both of them!

The ‘Get better at Karate” started off this Tuesday just gone with me huffing-and-puffing around at Senior Class and desperately trying to remember my chudan tsuki from my mawashi geri, after an extended Christmas break, so we are off to a flying start there!

I of course, for the second of those resolutions, am joining millionsof others in the thoroughly unenviable and unenjoyable diet phase of the year, full of all sorts of good intentions;  I shall not yield to chocolate treats, biccies or any food based produce not on the “You can eat that” list.  …and it’s an eye watering short list!

However, and it’s a HUGE “however” of biblical proportions, with a nice dusting of hundred-and-thousands of “however” on top and a rather fetching “however” themed double-whipped cream in the middle… does there really need to be that many McDonalds drive-thru’s between home and Birmingham?!?

I mean, really, I can’t remember “resisting temptation” being on my list of Resolutions listed above?!

“Most people would like to be delivered from temptation, but would also like it to keep in touch”
–Robert Orben

As is usual for this time of year I have drunk and eaten far too much.  Obviously it’s everybody else’s fault though, I mean if they feel the need to provide me with a quarter ton of confectionery delights then it’s only polite to consume them.

Of course the descent into consumption hell means a heck of a climb back out.. and this year, if all goes well, is an important one and one I need to be at my top form for.

That's me that is

So the coming New Years bash will be something of a blow-out as I plan to drop a fair number of kilos and hit the weights in an aggressive manner come 2011, or at least that’s the plan.

So until then, I bid you a very Happy New Year / Blianadh Bha Ur.