Which is a slightly strange thing to read, especially as I never had ‘religion’ in the first place.  There is a heart dropping moment when you feel that the next bit of advise to come your way is about how God will magically come along and fix things for you if only you believe hard enough, visit his house on a regular basis, put pennies in his coffers, read his biography, and mumble to yourself with your hands clapped reverently in front of you.

Well that did flit through my mind briefly and was then rudely drowned out by a mandolin that started playing in my head and the image of some bloke dancing like he’s had all the bones removed from his body.

Support forums are a strange land to inhabit.  Sitting in front the computer screen talking with someone you’ve never met about where to stick your personal “use by” tag and whether it really should be “best before” (split decision on this between being a physical or mental age requirement) or “display until” (we shan’t dwell on the conclusion as to when and where that sticker should be placed on your person).

“by the way I am referring to the REM song” clarified the screen.  I think it detected my hesitancy in replying… or knew that I had finally came to the end of the aforementioned song in my head.

Apparently, and who knew?, the song is about getting to the end of your tether.  That point when, after all the false façades you’ve put up, making light of the situation, putting the whole sorry situation to one side, you finally get angry.

There are still potential Karate decisions to be made (although this can wait till near the end of the year), work (more on that in another blog postette), and life in general… but for the here and now?  Methinks I need to dive into a little diversion, dig out the heavier music, get back in the saddle and generally let off steam.

Until then…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw

*sigh*… follow the youtube link >_<

Sunday was very much a “Grand Ol’ Duke of York” day; When I was up, I was up.  When I was down, I was down.  Today I’m neither up nor down.  I was going to title this post “Four seasons in one day, part II” for pretty much the same reasons as the original post.  A rollercoaster of emotions varying from pain, joy, sadness and pride although not necessarily in that order.

The joy of getting my students to their next level, especially all the new brown belts, was tinged slightly with the realisation that I wasn’t going to be able to make my own progression.

Despite eminently wise words from Sensei, and other friends, about priorities; one can’t but feel that the ‘ongoing buggerage’ has won this little round just before I deal with it ultimately.  As noted to my Sensei, “at least it gives me more time to practice my sanseru and sepai“.  Although truth be told my heart really wasn’t in it.

I think, if nothing else, the two weeks “off” I’ll be having will give me time to charge up the ol’ batteries.  I have already started to fill up my media player with an almost obscene amount of musical tracks and the kindle is starting to groan under the weight of books that have been loaded on there.

It’s also good to know that friends “have your back” and that if nothing else things will be ticking along whilst I’m not there.  The hugs have been rather lovely too :¬)

I won’t be online though.  Recently, and I mean very very recently, it’s almost been too hard to keep things in check; grading, as I said, was too much of a rollercoaster – and funnily enough I think Sensei was very much aware of that fact… as did my tough love guardian angel (as always)!

you can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong
who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

The answer, as always, is ultimately “me”, but you can’t help but wonder somtimes…

That apart I have the uncomfortable feeling that I really haven’t moved any further forward from where I was a few weeks back, I may have even moved backwards on a few items, which is a buggarage and all of which is making me even less fun company to be with than usual.

Introspection is all well and good for a hormone overdosed teenager, who feels the whole world is against them, but for a forty *cough* year old it can be a little ridiculous, but here we are.  Turn up, do what’s expected of you; smile, laugh, practise, teach, drink, chat …. leave quietly.   All without actually being there in mind or spirit.

I am missing not having a motorbike at the moment, taking very long, very fast rides to nowhere.  In my mispent youthdom, when in the same type of mood (when it wasn’t a ridiculous age to be as introspective) this was my favourite form of escape… at least for a little while.

Now I have a blog, a large music collection and a hidy-hole where I can be anti-social to my heart’s content.  I think that’s progress?

……also I do worry that Creed, 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Theory Of A Deadman, Seether and Stone Sour are not the sort of tunes to help my teenage regression… but DAMN! There’s some damn fine lyrics in there and is at least helping me to figure out some future blog post titles.

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?

How was your weekend?

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!

Search and ye shall find plenty of whinging on this fine blog about my absolute loathing of the early hours, and today is no different.  Laptops of varying sizes slung around my person and boldly step outside to greet the day with a heartfelt “Fookin’ hell it’s COLD!”

This lad is ugly (er) without the blessed bean coursing through my veins so a visit to the nearest Starbucks is always a must have pitstop as I potter up the M6.

I like Christmas, I really do.  However walking into the Service Station to be greeted with a profusion of Christmas decorations, Christmas themed goodies that can be purchased (complete with snowflakes, snowmen, santas, and the like) *AND* cheery Christmas songs blaring over the speakers IN NOVEMBER is extracting the urine somewhat.

I can’t help but feel that by the time Christmas ACTUALLY comes around that the 8 weeks of relentless ramming down my throat will perhaps have jaded me to the whole thing.  Of course this could just be my caffeine retarded body having an early morning gripe…. nah!

Bah-Feckin’-Humbug ya bastard shops!

…I feel somewhat better already.

I don’t often get calls at 3am, but I’m grateful for my friends insomnia and good sense to make that call.

I don’t often knock on strangers doors in the wee small hours of the morning, but desperation is a compelling motivator.

I don’t often drive around Northampton as the sun slowly starts to uncover its landmarks, but I couldn’t just sit and hope for the best.

I don’t often ask my sister to do something that I wouldn’t do, but somebody had to stay at home and  man the phones – even if it meant at times all she could do was sit and hope.

I don’t often cry, but all the fear, tension and tiredness couldn’t be contained as I saw you moving on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance.

I don’t think I’ve ever told, but life would be so much less without you.  Don’t do that again!

Somewhat reminded of that scene from Blazing Saddles where Lilly Von Shtup is singing “I’m Tired”, not so much in the sense of being a “Goddess of Desire”, etc, but just the sheer sense of not being able to get the energy up to do anything of much use.

These past few weeks have been a manic blur of competing priorities, unrealistic expectations of what one person can achieve in a relatively short space of time, and this week just gone is something that just doesn’t want repeating.  Headless chicken mode is a thing of wonder and highly amusing… when it ain’t you that’s the nogginless avian!

Won’t go too much into detail, cos… well… I’m too tired to string the relevant words together properly, and in my case that level of in-eloquence isn’t pretty – suffice to say; kids, injuries and a little measure of work.  ’nuff said.

All of which is a rather round-about way of apologising for a lack of posts on my narcissistic little corner of the Internet.  I will try better, honest… just let me chug a few cans of Red Bull whilst chewing coffee beans and Zolpidem!

..Should make the next post an interesting one (at last)!

…but not enough.. or way too much.

I’ve spoken before about how a song, a snippet of lyrics taken out of context, an image, or some other medium, provide a far more accurate and personal reflection of self at a point in time.

I won’t try and put into words what the mental image is, inoffensive as it is, as that seems counter intuitive. Maybe later, when I have some personal time, I will search for something that matches it on the big, bad, t’interweb… or, god forbid, put my artistic abilities to the test and actually translate from mental image to physical medium.

Until then I’ll share one of the ‘lyrics out of context’, that I mentioned earlier.  It’s from a song by Madness and perversely it’s probably the one bit that makes the song sound darker than it’s actual intent – which is exactly the opposite;

Standing up in the falling down
In so much rain I could almost drown.

If I ever do manage to scribble the image down I’ll make sure to add it to the blog… maybe.  However now seems a perfect time to plug in some headphones, hit ‘random’ on the playlist, and see if I can either create some new audible monuments or just lose self in the moment.

…not a unique sentiment at the moment!