Tax Disc is hard for me to say

It won't be long before I have to pay tax for posting this blog. Tax is salt and the government put it on everything. They grind it out of your wages, then shake it onto anything you want to buy, or use.

My road tax was up this month. So, just like last year I visited the post office with my papers and tried to pay for it. The post office - what a great pic & mix of personalities: Children swinging from the queueing rails. A foreign couple arguing with staff in half English. Five quiet pensioners shuffling through the line - I say quiet, but some of them do seem to hum constantly. A mail carrier wearing shorts, squeezing through the crowd trying to avoid eye contact. Two mums (who don't know eachother), one of whom thinks the post office is a necessary place to discuss the following with the other. . . . actually, before you read the list, 'discuss' is probably the wrong word. It's more like an indirect broadcast. She is looking at the other mum but is, in fact, talking to the whole room about:

- Where her child goes to school.
- Why her child is off school and in the post office.
- The nature of her visit to the post office and the full details of her "perfectly fucking reasonable" complaint.

And me, me who just wants to pay my road tax and drive home. Yet, much to my surprise the woman behind the perspex said I could not give away my £165.

"You need your reminder letter." She said.

"Why do I need reminding? I'm already here?!"

I don't even like salt but I'll put up with it if it's already on my chips. What I'm not prepared to do is have someone tell me to have it on my cereal and even when I reluctantly agree (just to get them off my back), they take my Cheerios and my salt, only to ask me to present a particular spoon before I can ever eat cereal again.

I'm aware this metaphor may have been stretched a little too far. Of course there's nobody in my life who determines what ingredients go into my breakfast. Hey, take the description with a pinch of salt! . . . . . .or just tax me for every desperate piece of writing I produce.

(If you do decide to tax me, please, just make it easy for me to pay)

Automatico

Taking a dump. It's automatic: get that heavy feeling in your bowels, bum dilates a little, sit on toilet and deposit. However, taking a dump has now become automatic in every other way possible.

My most recent visit to Frankie and Benny's involved a chicken, sweetcorn and mozarella pasta bake...with weird green vegetables. No idea what they're called but for argument's sake, let's just call them Nature's Strongest Laxatives. Inevitably the F&B's toilet was in for a chicken, sweetcorn and mozarella pasta bake too that night.

Upon opening the door the lights blinked on and I was greeted with Salute by the toilet itself. It then said Hello. Come stai? it said. How are you?. It was only when it counted from one to five in Italian and again in English, that i realised how educational this turd was becoming.

I finished and by now, me and the urinals were having full fledged conversations in Italian. I turned to flush the chain. There was no handle. Instead there was this sort of button, before I even touched it the toilet had flushed. Why this is the cleverest lavatory I've came across I thought. There were no taps just magical, miniature showers for my hands to be cleansed under. So impressive. Of course there were automatic hand dryers too.

So despite my chicken and Laxido pasta, the visit to Frankie & Benny's was a refreshing insight to the modern world we live in today. Well, it would have been if the toilet door was automatic too but it wasn't. I mean, I don't really have any use for an automatic door on the way into Specsavers or the Apple store, yet after I've just washed my hands (in a very convenient, germ free way) why should I touch the same germ ridden door handle that all the other converted Italians, who haven't bothered with the mini hand showers, have touched as well?

Cio che un carico di poo e wee misti!

The Bank of Excuses

Everyone has a bank of excuses. We make withdrawals mainly when we are lazy. Small cash withdrawals are for things like getting out of a dinner party with your boss - It's my nan's birthday that day, sorry. Of course this is from your fictional excuses account, an account system founded by the first boy ever to use - dog ate my homework.

It is your factual account, that can be the most pride swallowing to cash out from. Once you have made a withdrawal from this, you usually can't stop yourself. A huge lump sum of an excuse is withdrawn first, something that has some meat behind it, like a death/birth in the family - Oh it's too soon after what's happened.

We withdraw from this account, usually to avoid self improvement rather than to avoid awkward nights out, with not so close friends (colleagues). In my case I'm pretty much into my overdraft with this account because I've been writing much less and lessening my efforts in a job search...because I'm really just lazy.

So let's say there's been a death, then someones birthday, then you had a a confrontation with someone and it upset you for a week, something went wrong in the house, the car needed an M.O.T., the cat vomited, you caught a cold, while you were in the chemist getting paracetemol you saw your ex with a pregnancy test, you tidied your room really nicely, you went the gym once and was sore for a fortnight, you had a nose bleed, you done a favour for somebody and felt fulfilled with yourself for another week, you visited a family member in hospital, the car insurance went up, you worked extra hours to make up the payments for it, worst of all you booked a holiday because of everything that has been happening - so why do anything between now and the holiday? Nah, let's get the break out of the way first, relax until then.

I'd be lying if I said the examples were not drawn from personal experience but you can apply your own excuses and problems to the subject matter. Despite the current economical climate you can depend on your excuse bank not to go bust. It's infinite. You can withdraw as much as you like but only smelly men with yellow pants spend their life in a bank.

Killing Time

The strap on my watch just broke. Does that mean it's now just a really small clock?

My Shadow is Green

The pool at the gym has been green for months, and I'm not talking someone couldn't resist a wazz in the corner green. No, I mean really green, like Shrek and the Hulk had an aqua swinger's party, with Frankenstein and Slimer and Kermit the Frog (and of course their partners).

I pay well over the odds for that gym membership, the least I expect is a pool I can trust. The truth is, green, in all its forms, has been following me for a while now anyway.

A green balloon floated by my car as I was driving the other day, I think it was from Frankie & Benny's. Broccoli has ended up on every meal I've had recently. I'm full of envy for people in proper jobs that stress them out (Yes! I want to be stressed out for something I care about, not just stressed because my steel-toe-cap boots dont fit me properly or a customer didn't say thank you one day). Also, seems like everywhere I go I can smell weed and that's not because I smoke it, because I don't.

Maybe I'm turning into the Hulk, I'm getting really angry lately and I ripped my jeans earlier in the week. Maybe it was me who turned the pool green. I definitely did not have sexual relations with any fictional creatures though.

I just need to get away from all the green, perhaps I should stop recycling for a while too and start driving more and I don't know, leave all the lights on in the house, all day! And chop a tree down, I've kinda always wanted to that anyway.

Next set of traffic lights I come to better not be green.

Have I said green in this post too much? Have I defeated the object of trying to stay away from green by simply repeating the word excessivley? Has green won? Am I going insane?

Spare Key

He opened the van and inside was quite odd. Millions of keys hung on the walls and scattered on the floor (I doubt there were millions but there was a lot!) and one rackety wooden stool. I imagine the real Father Christmas to be like this man, no sleigh or reindeers but a Transit van holding the key to every house in the world. He sat and it took ten minutes to forge a new key.

He opened my car with it and switched on the ignition. He yanked a plastic covering from under my dashboard before plugging in a strange computer. I thought it was a bit of an aggressive violation to be honest. He pressed a few buttons on his computer and ended up extracting some codes from the vehicle. I didn't know my car was holding such information inside it and I thought me and my car told eachother everything.

The whole process took about twenty minutes and it cost me £45 to get a spare key for the car.

Now...I've lost my passion. Who can I phone to forge me a spare? And how much will it cost?

A Clean Break

If, for whatever reason you follow my blog - you'll have noticed that there has been a considerable gap between this and my last post.

I accidentally created this gap. Like when you accidentally snag your favourite jeans and you go along with it, nobody will notice. The World Cup happened and it was my cottony scar on the thigh of my denims. Why waste time juggling two passions, football and writing - when one of them is so colourful, has an opening ceremony and is televised across the globe (well except in North Korea) and the other well - is literally black and white?

So yeah, instead of blogging, reading, creative writing or even looking for a better job - I succumbed to the green fields of South Africa. I postponed anything that required any real effort until England inevitably went out of the competition. That week, when it seemed like the England team had also postponed anything that required effort until they were knocked out the competition - my mum and dad went on holiday. This provided time alone and a good opportunity to stitch up the pull on my jeans and get back into writing, job hunting etc. Before I'd even thread the needle, the initial tear was stretched to a gaping hole and it wasn't even a fashionable rip, it was ugly:

My brother's girlfiend of six years+ walked out on him. It's my duty, I think, as a brother, to substitute her for a short period while he reassembles his emotions (Note, I do not substitute her sexually, I'm merely a substitute for companionship). So that's what I did and that week, until my parents returned, I still didn't blog or do anything much, other than offer my ears and a nodding head, to my heartbroken sibling.

Mum and Dad come home! - time to patch up those jeans! Not quite. I won't go into details but Dad got shingles, brother's front door broke, my bedroom ceiling caved in from flooding and my cat got raped (by another cat, not a human). This week though, it's been a little bit quieter - maybe that's because my brother's gone away camping.

Right now I'm wearing pyjama bottoms and a pair of my girlfriend's socks, I don't think a rip would make me look any more stupid - so I might as well keep writing, regardless of what happens from now on.

Next Week on Previously On

Imagine I began this blog with "previously in Rob's blog..." how incredibly self indulgent would that be? How annoying? How insecure would it be to declare the need for you, the reader, to know everything that has gone before this particular post? As if this post wouldn't work without the others. Would it not render the other posts pointless - because why scroll through my scribbles if I can give you the gist of them all, in some sort of mishmash, right now?

But you love my blog, I know you do, all of you - I say all, I mean one. Actually, I'm not even sure if that 'one', isn't just me rereading, for punctuation and grammar mistakes.

So, I'm watching Luther at the moment on BBC All...I mean...BBC One. It's awesome. However it has this thing at the end of it. This 'next week on Luther' crap. It's literally like crap, little pieces of crap stuck to the hairs of your arse, that have somehow evaded the main wipe and insist on prolonging your time in the bathroom. Furthermore spoiling what seemed to be the most heavenly of turds.

I turn the TV off when this metaphorical shitty arse comes on. I do not want to know what happens next week. Not until next week! Damn it! I hope you can understand my hatred for it all. (Of course you understand, you're me - I am the reader, I am the writer, I am the eggman, koo-ka-fucking choo). My brother however, does not understand my hatred. He called me after the show last night. As he went to say, 'Did you watch what happens next week?' I interrupted him with the following:

'Fuck off and die.'

I did feel like that response was a little harsh and it made me realise that I tend to take fiction a lot more seriously than real life. Maybe this is something I should address.

Next week on Rob's blog....He addresses his life and its substitution for mainstream TV dramas. He is bemused at his brother's random death. He vigourously wipes his arse and begins the blog with a healthy Previously-on montage.

The Empire txts Back

I remember the days when the abbreviation 'tb' would be tagged onto the end of a text message. It was not to spread awareness of any lung diseases, but to inform the person receiving the message that this particlar text required a reply (Text Back). These two letters not only took up two valuable characters (you pay as you go people know where I'm coming from) but they kind of seemed needy and desperate too.


As a result I think 'tb-ing' has gone out of fashion. Instead, there is a mutual trust between texters now, to text back as soon as they can. This mutual trust has formed over time because not texting back promptly enough could lead to disaster.


I've experienced this on a personal, almost silly level. For example when you have one of those days, when you just can't remember if you shut the front door on your way to work. You text, your parent or spouse or sibling or housemate or dog to check. What if they don't tb? Well, your mind begins to race - maybe they've been tied up and gagged during a robbery, has the dog escaped? Is the door open wide enough to see my novelty underwear hanging on the banister?

A new dilemma soon arises in situations like this. Do you send another text message? Because, somehow, it is perfectly logical to you that the phone company may have messed up and not delivered your message. Or did you even press send? Who knows? Check your sent items. Yes you did send it. Send it again, why not?


Well, I'll tell you why - the pain and suffering you experience when not initially receiving a reply, doubles when you don't receive one again. It only confirms your most ridiculous thoughts of kidnapping and runaway dogs. Before you know it you're abandoning your job to check on a front door that is more than likely closed anyway.


In conclusion, I'd like the idea of 'tb' to come back, only let's make it law enforced. The rule being:

If you attach the abbreviation 'tb' to the end of a text message, the police also receive that message.

If there is not a reply within five minutes an officer checks on the person you have texted.

If that person is alive and well and both thumbs are in full working order, then the officer has the right to question their inability to follow the correct protocol, when receiving a 'tb' marked message.

If their reason is not deemed good enough by the officer, a fine of erm I don't know, 10 pence, that's the price of a standard message right? Yes they will be charged an extra 10 pence for their next ten messages - ha! Impolite bastards.

tb x x

Skipping in the Street

Now and again a skip is placed in your neighbourhood. There's no way of telling when one will arrive, it just appears. An ugly, yellow, overflowing rhombus. Without fail, there will be a mirror in a skip. There always is.

This inevitably becomes the communal mirror. When I'm lying in bed I hear the footsteps of a 9 to 5 office woman in heels, knocking down the road, then an unnatural three second pause, before she carries on. This is her three seconds of shared mirror time.

It just goes to show that a mirror needn't look pretty, a mirror's job is to judge the prettiness of others and it can do that job from wherever it pleases. Including a skip erupting with brick-a-brack.

The skip on a whole, also becomes the communal bin: Finished an apple? Toss the core in the skip. Lucozade empty? Skip it. Football gone flat? Kick it one last time into the skip. The duration of a skip's stay in the neighbourhood is unnerving. Cars avoid parking near it, parents warn their children to stay away but until it starts to develop that unique stench, it is the area's guilty treasure.

I declare this day Skip Appreciation Day -

Skips, doing the hard work your wheeley bins can't handle.

Diets, Delays and Dimensions

I don't know about you but I don't fancy the whole 3D television idea. Besides being three dimensionally expensive, I can think of nothing more distracting than Dot Cotton flying towards me when I'm having my tea.

Working in the electrical store I receive magazines featuring the latest TV's. It's like retail's version of Hello, but instead of Kerry Katona slimming down, it's the brand new LED TV from Samsung in a before and after shot. I'm waiting for a double page special with a Russell Hobbs microwave, 'papped' outside a nightclub, it's door wide open and its plug dangling about.

I just don't like the speed stuff is developing. We need to perfect the technology of today before we spawn the anorexic furniture of tomorrow. For example, anybody who has Sky or Virgin, will have experienced the 20-channel-flick-delay. What I'm referring to is when you press the appropriate button on your remote in order to change down from, I don't know, MTV Hits, to just regular MTV. You press the button. Nothing happens. Hmmm? You press it again. Nothing. Again? Nothing. You give up and suffer the commerical break. Then, suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, the TV flicks through at least twenty channels. Before you realise, you're watching Gay Adult Previews and your mum has walked in.


...and before we achieve flying cars, can someone please invent a smoke alarm that doesn't shout at me for burning toast?

Short, Back and Shy

There's a scene in Gran Torino when Clint Eastwood get's a shave from his barber. He does it simply because he's never done it before. There are two reasons he's never done it before; one, he is not a Soprano and two, nobody ever gets a shave from the barbers!

Well, when I make generalisations like this, I am usually assuming everybody in the world is like me. Of course, some people would prefer an Italian looking Englishman, deleting their facial hair with a cutthroat razor - to Mach 3-ing it off in the bathroom sink themselves . Me? I'm nervous enough about the haircut.

The barber's is, at times, an intimidating place to be. Especially if you're not a frequent visitor. Frequent visitors are usually men who have a strict limit on the length of their skinhead, like some kind of urban monks:

For example, I imagine Mr Ross Kemp (left) thinks Mr Fuzzy Head (below) is less manly because his hair has grew over the standard length. I remember feeling less human when I coloured outside the lines in infant school. I wonder if this is the same sort of feeling.

....actually, to be fair, that vest
isn't doing Fuzzy Head any favours
in the manly department.

Frequent visitors establish a relationship with the barber. I've seen skinheads having full conversations about the barber's children and vice versa.

It shouldn't be but a haircut is an ordeal for me, being a non-frequent visitor, a once-every-couple-of-months visitor. I sit there pretending to read the free newspapers, quarrying my mind for potential conversation starters before it's my turn in the chair.

Will he remember me? Even if he does, what did we talk about last time that got us through this necessary evil? Will he make a comment about my quif again? That seemed to take up a minute or two last time. Shall I mention my double-crown? Do I tip a barber? What's the etiquette? I tip cabbies and I'm not even sure if they deserve it. Yes, he shall have a tip, the silent haircut must have been awkward for him too. It's the least I can do. Will he find this odd? I don't know! God I'm pathetic.

In conclusion I am much, much more comfortable visiting the dentist.

The Lingering Password

HairyBollocks9t9. That was my password for ICT in year 7 of school. I don't know why. Perhaps I thought someone would find it out one day and think I was a radical. Or maybe it was because I'd began to sprout a fluffy moustache at that age and the dread of hair growth on my testes, was constantly on my mind.

The '9t9' bit was just the thing to do. The year was 1999 and this clever shorthand was written on park slides, lampposts, bus stops and the back of every academic book:

Modern History - "Johnno was here 9t9"
Biology - The Wonders of the Human Body - "Miss Wright's tits control the tides -Smithy 9t9"
Mathematics - The Easy Way to do Algebra - "a + b = Karl's dad bums kids, 9t9"

Besides, I needed a number in the password.

So, every month in school our passwords needed to be changed. HairyCock9t9. That was my alternate password. To this day I haven't seen a cock with hairs (I'd like to point out that my cock research is not extensive).

When I left school, I went to college. I tried other passwords (Liverpool04, Greenday2004) but always forgot them. HairyBollocks9t9 and HairyCock9t9 had been with me throughout my highschool education, why should I abandon them for my higher learning?

Why even stop there? I got my first job in the electrical store and yes, I needed a password to log onto their systems. I created a MySpace (R.I.P.), inevitably this led to facebook, YouTube, MSN, Xbox Live, iTunes and Blogger - all graced with hairy, genital orientated literature.

In work, if you are logged onto one of the stores fifteen terminals, then you cannot log onto another. These terminals are scattered all over the store, back offices and warehouse. So what if you need something urgently, for a customer or something? Well, you ask a colleague to log on for you. What if there isn't a colleague close by? You spot one in the distance and shout across the store - Hey, giz your log on, mate!

So imagine my misfortune when my manager needed my log on. He was selling a microwave to an elderly couple. I'm fifty metres away. He shouts. I hesitate. He shouts again. I give him my employee number. He types. I hesitate. He shouts. I try miming the password to him. He shouts. He glares.

'HairyCock9t9!'

He wasn't a child in 1999, so he wasn't aware of that genius shorthand. He types it in wrong and I have to walk fifty metres towards a manager, who looked like he was chewing dynamite and an elderly couple, chewing their gums and looking very, very disappointed. I typed that password in for the last time that day.

Fee Fi Fo THUMB

Three bin men (Waste Disposal Operatives) in a truck, gave way to me as I drove home today. I thanked them with a thumbs up. A thumbs up. A real, enthusiastic thumbs up. Not just a flick of the thumb but a stiff, vertical thumb, thrust towards my windscreen - it wasn't a thank-you-thumb, it was a thumb that said 'Nice one, lads. Keep up the good work'.

If it were, for example, a middle aged woman - I would never give the same thumbs up. I wouldn't even consider my thumb at all. Instead, I imagine I'd quif the steering wheel with my fingers - leaving my thumb out of sight. Reserved for specific situations.

Sometimes, especially if it is someone about my age, I don't even acknowledge their kindness. Unless, of course, it's a very attractive lady person. In that case, I run through every possible way to show appreciation for a "giving way" - I panic and either duck behind the dashboard or do them all, in some kind of gesture variety performance: Thumb flick, thumbs up, double thumbs, thumbs down?! Flash the headlights, wave, smile, finger flick and nod.

There's a flipside too. When I give way to others, I glare, scratching their retinas with my eyes, waiting for their decision, hoping for something original, like pulling tongues. I don't glare really, I merely glance, sometimes I get confused and end up thanking them! It's such an awkward, unexplained part of driving. They're should be a guide:

Waste Disposal Operatives - Big thumbs up.
Man/woman in suit - Raise index finger from steering wheel (almost as if to point at them).
Neighbour - Anything goes depending on mood. Ideally, a wave and smile.
Muscular man in 4x4 - Look down and speed up.
Just because somebody is in an identical car to yours, it doesn't mean you have bonded - a thumb, nod, index finger or full extension of the fingers at the top of steering wheel, will do just fine.

I'm tired of it all and I haven't even been driving for a year yet. I'm just not cool enough to know exactly what gesture, to give what person, at what time. To play it safe, next vehicle to give way is getting the finger - nobody's perfect and I bet everybody, especially people who drive, deserve the finger now and then.

Pain

I stole a wheelchair from the main hospital for him. It was ten o'clock at night when I wheeled my brother into hell. One woman was asking the A&E for a light. Every word had a Z in it.

'Hasz zanyone gotz za lightzzzz?' She staggered towards a foolish man who answered yes. Before she reached him, she tripped and cracked her cheek on a metal chair. The nurses at reception did not care.

A man was bleeding from at least five different wounds in his face. He was still intoxicated with whatever and was kissing his wife, smearing blood on her chin. He repeatedly advised the room to not pick a fight with a tree.

Another man came out of the GP's office. He was wearing a bed pan for a hat. He claimed the devil was in his head before preaching the most racist political views to the waiting room.

'White jobs for white people. Fucking darkies.' The man was escorted off the premises by security.

We waited here three hours, for the x-ray results.

'Do you want any painkillers?' Asked the doctor. My brother answered no. He could withstand the pain, it was a physical, sharp pain across the top of his foot. The doctor made no such suggestion for me.

Of course, there is no painkiller for guilt. Guilt isn't an illness, it's a sentence - a punishment. Guilt sits in your throat like a ball, with its chain hanging down and coiling in the pit of your stomach.

I'd broken my brother's foot in a football game. It was the most naive tackle and it should never have happened. After the hospital, I dropped him off at his house. It was half one in the morning. He hopped out of the car and fixed himself on the crutches. He closed the door and tapped the window with the base of a crutch. He done it in a way that said, goodbye, don't worry and even though you've fractured my foot, you haven't fractured our friendship.

Traffic lights, brake lights, head lights, street lights - they all splinter into several lines when you look at them through tears. I never want to seem them like that again.






I'm sorry for this being the softest blog I've written so far but it's been a good way to help get over one of the worst nights of my life.

The Frog, the Butterfly and the Whale

She wasn't a big girl. Not at all really. She wasn't skinny either though. Most of her weight rested in the flab-hammocks of her arms. In fact, I've seen a lot of swimmers with this physique - quite averagely sized people with really flabby arms. Perhaps it's intentional and they act as fleshy ores when doing the breast stroke.

This woman was not doing the breast stroke. Instead she was face down and kind of hurling her stomach in order to project her body and drag her lags behind. This whale-like technique was not only unusual but also very, very splashy.

Between her and a man practicing his butterfly, the waves made my early morning swim seem more like a Navy Seal training exercise. If it wasn't for the taste of chlorine and nasal gym announcements, I'd have expected a submarine to go by underneath.

There's always a set of rules at the side of a swimming pool:

No Running.
No Glass.
No Alcohol Consumption.
No Diving.
All swimmers must wear a swimcap.
Always use the steps upon entering the pool.

Yet there's a set of rules that are not displayed:

Use the steps only if you're using the first lane.
Dive in if you're a man.
The fatter you are the closer to the first lane, please.
Make sure you wear a swimcap, even if your back and chest hair is longer than that on your head.
Always show how you feel about the temperature of the water by shaking your head and saying 'bwuuah'
If the pool becomes busy, do not feel like you need to exit. Instead, take turns using lanes and dodge other swimmers.
You don't even have to swim! Jog up and down the pool if you like. It's not like there's treadmills upstairs or anything.
If somebody gets gets in ten minutes after you and gets out any time before you, they have failed!
Most importantly pretend like you're not judging anybody.

There is no rule however, written or unwritten, about the level of splashing permitted. For really thin, lightweight people, like me - people who are just pretending they're a frog in a pond, a rule like this would be ideal. I suppose the food chain reigns supreme and whales will always dominate our waters.

The Perfect Accident

I saw a crash the other day. Well, I heard a crash and saw the aftermath. It was, in my opinion, the best type of crash you can see. Two taxis, one private and one black cab. Nobody was hurt. No passengers involved. Just pure idiot on idiot crashing.

Both had gone through a red light at a junction. It was late, in the town centre and the collision cracked between the empty streets and echoed down the alleys.

It was only me and my Dad who witnessed it. To everybody else in earshot it was merely a noise - a shutter closing on a store, a kid popping a Pizza Hut balloon, a firework for St. Patrick's Day Eve. To me it was reassurance that life does catch up with the gobshites.

You know the type of people I'm talking about, those naughty kids in school - rewarded with days out for "good" (normal) behaviour. The parents who take their child's free laptop (provided by the government for school!) and sell it on ebay. The people who walk into you instead of around you. The people who think that split second after a red light belongs to them and for the most part, get away with it.

P.S. check that ebay thing out it's ridiculous....Laptop Model = ACER EXTENSA 5235

Broken Bones and Open Mics

My wrist was broken. Definitely broken. And fat. And blue. Tighten your watch up a bit, go to sleep and in the morning, you'll know exactly what my hand looked like. I'd saved this boy's shots before, I didn't realise he could've hit the ball so hard. I played on, which was bad enough, but I still had to drive home.

Letting go of the wheel when changing gears, would have been more of a fun game, if I wasn't in agony. Somehow I made it home.

This was all two months ago and the wrist is still goosed. However where it closed the chance of playing football it opened a new, unfamiliar activity - like those foyers on Sci-fi films that won't open the door to the unknown, unless the door to the ship is closed.

The alien planet is an open mic night. You'd think having a broken wrist would hinder playing the guitar more than it would kicking a footy but the wrist has been fine with movement, it just wouldn't hold the strength of a fall, or a ball, or a wall, or a maul. Me and my dad play at this bar in town to an audience of about three people.

I've been going for about four weeks and it turns out my wrist is getting better too fast for my liking. I want to keep going but the open mic night falls on a monday (the same night as football). Doing something like this with my dad has been amazing for us both but I've been playing footy with my brother forever and I can't just quit him. The faster I recover, the more I run out of oxygen and need to get back on the ship. I just don't really want to.

Holy Smokes

It was upon fiddling with a HDMI cable at the back of my (wall mounted) tele last night which made me realise, my whole life has been about finding holes and filling them.

I was already out of synch because somebody was in my usual parking space outside the house. My parking space is one of those ‘holes’ that unsettles me if it contains anything but my car: A stray flyaway football, a lost branch, an intrusive neighbour’s vehicle etc.

The heat from the screen was strong on my cheek, but kind of nice, like someone’s breath (someone nice, of course). The actual T.V. was super awkward to get underneath. After half a minute of holding a weightless cable, it became the heaviest thing in the world. I caved and dismounted the unit. I plugged the cable into the appropriate slot and it was this moment the ‘hole philosophy’ came to me, because all of a sudden I felt satisfied – like I deserved a biscuit or something.

My theory is – holes, when filled, are forgotten and it’s the space between them which makes me anxious. For example, I’m looking for an internship in editing/copywriting and similar fields. If I go for an interview for any of these, this means I will be able to see the hole, I’d be standing on the edge of the - ‘internship hole’. It would be undoubtedly scary jumping into that hole, as with many holes. It’s like a metaphorical vertigo, peering over the edge of opportunity.

By the way, I think I’ve done incredibly well to avoid filling the sexual innuendo hole in this blog and I’d like to continue to avoid it in the finish (I'm sure everybody is capable of filling that hole themselves) . The interesting thing to me about holes, is that if they’re not filled by myself, they could easily be filled by someone else, resulting in a bad thing, e.g. the intrusive neighbour vehicle. Nonetheless, it could easily be a good thing:

At 4:30am today, my next-door neighbour’s car was set alight by two men (I’m aware this isn’t a good example of ‘good’ – but hear me out). Nobody was hurt and my car was safely two parking spaces/holes away. The lesson learnt was not to worry about unfulfilled holes and just be happy with the ones that are taken care of.

You might think the idea is a little too Alice in Wonderland and I don’t want to push it as far as to say ‘we all fill a hole/grave in death too.’ However, this thought helped me to stop looking for imperfections in my life and more importantly (at the moment with the intern hunt) - my C.V.