Time you knew SOME details

Posted by zeno on July 19, 2010

It has often been suggested that blogging, at least the type of blogging I do, is pure self indulgence. I can’t argue with that, it satisfies a deep craving for love and attention. It’s true that I have always been chronically self indulgent. So much so that I often stop strangers in the street and quiz them as to why they are not more interested in ME. That’s not true, by the way, I am self indulgent, not crazy. At least not that kind of crazy.

SO anyway, this type of blogging, the interesting type of blogging as I like to think of it, opens little windows into the lives if the writers. Even if the writing is poor the spirit is strong, and that shows a certain enthusiasm for life, doesn’t it? Telling everyone how lousy (or fabulous) your sex life is, explaining in detail the process by which you drain your beloved chihuahua’s blocked anal gland, exposing the world to your immense poetic talent, all of these things take guts.

The truth of the matter is that we all have needs of various sorts, my needs tend towards a desperate craving for attention and, if ladies choose to send me pictures of their breasts, so much the better. I’m sure that drew a serious grue from my younger readers, but I am what I am and I have always been, take me or leave me. Actually, for the most part the choice is “leave me”.

Which leads me to the events of this year. Any of you who were at my birthday party (fabulous cake) will have heard me announce that this was going to be a BIG year, the biggest of my life. I was looking forward to it with a hunger and an enthusiasm that I hadn’t felt since I was 16 and in a park in Meikle Earnock for, let’s just say, lessons in life.

So here’s the list of BIG things I’ve encountered this year:

1. Amber isn’t sure if she wants to be married to me;
2. Friend chooses this exact time to pay me a “surprise” visit in Brussels and gets pissed off when I use the phrase “bunny boiler”;
3. I discover that my crushed vertebra (T10 for those of a medical persuasion) and broken back muscle are not fixable;
4. I discover I have osteoporosis and a “high risk” of further spinal fractures;
5. I become addicted to narcotics and develop an unhealthy fondness for Diazepam;
6. My three year contract extension is reduced to a sixty day contract extension;
7. Amber chooses to divorce me (I honestly can’t blame her, considering);
8. I discover this morning that my 60 day contract extension has now become a zero day contract extension, i.e. no job, AND I have already booked my flights;
9. I am fatter than I have ever been and therefore a an ugly portly curmudgeon (thank you Susan);
10. Friends are concerned for my mental well-being which, all things considered, is fair, because I have suffered from depression since I was seven but didn’t get treatment until a scary episode in 1988;
11. My house renovations are “almost” finished. Note, “almost”;
12. I will now have to sell the house, unfinished, and in the worst possible market conditions, and will probably lose money because I’m utterly desperate;
13. I am too much of a fucking nutter for anyone to remain friends with me for any length of time;
14. I am as stoney broke as I have ever been;
15. I’m barred from speaking to my closest friend.

On the upside, the head pain helps distract me from all this shit;

But there have to be good things too, right?

1. My kids are amazing and smart and beautiful and talented (that includes the informally adopted ones);
2. My eyes are still blue (though I do need glasses now);
3. I’m not bald;
4. I can write better than most people I know (including Marting fucking Amis);
5. I don’t actually have an anger problem;
6. Sex, in all it’s many guises, doesn’t seem quite so important any more;
7. Pasta is cheap;
8. I have lots of toys;
9. I have learned (the hard way) that I don’t need anyone;
10. I can still take most of you in a fight.

SO, big year it has certainly been. I still have a sense of humour, which when combined with despair just makes the poo jokes all the funnier… and I still care about you. All of you.

More will come, this is just an update, OK?

Love

There, and Back Again

Posted by zeno on June 2, 2010

it's not *my* plane, but you get the idea...

I’m on a plane.

Actually, by the time you read this I will no longer be on a plane, I will be in an office, at a desk, under fluorescent light and looking at a computer screen. However, let’s not allow reality to intrude. I’m on a plane and I am enjoying the ride, for a change.

Perhaps it was the weather as we took off but, something in the way the sky looked this morning, gave me the wonderful takeoff thrill that I used to get, all those years ago, when I started throwing myself about the planet.

There’s a definite chance that this could be my last trip for a while and I’m not completely  sure how I feel. Obviously it will be nice to be home more, to be able to help with the things Amber has had to manage on her own for the last few years. It will be great to be able to say goodnight to my children every night and it will be nice to be able to schedule a weekly class of some sort during the week. But what about my itchy feet? After all, I’ve been traveling, doing the rounds, in one way or another, since I was 16. That’s almost 20 years, people.

It isn’t so much that I don’t like being in the one place as that I feel a sort of hunger for change.

When I was growing up we only moved house once, but in those two houses my mother would change the furniture around, have us swap rooms, change the decor all the flamin’ time. It became almost a family ritual, my mum would decide a change was needed and the three of us (she, my sister and I) would set to for the day and see how we could lay out what we had in different, creative and exciting ways. Maybe that is where this hunger came from.

Or maybe it’s that, before I was born, my parents lived in East Africa. Moshi in Tanganyika, to be precise. I spent a large part of my gestation there and my mother only moved home when my father died. My uncle lived in East Africa too, he had farms in Tanganyika and Kenya and he lived there till he passed away, just a few years ago. I had relatives all over the world and a cousin who traveled to, and lived, in various exotic locations, Mauritius, Khartoum, Oman, all (to me) exciting sounding places, but the only person in my family who had never been anywhere was me (I was also the only person in my entire family who had never met my father, bat that’s a whoooole ‘nother set of issues).

I also wonder how my perpetual presence will affect Amber and the kids. Will they get fed up with me and wish I was off somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else? Will the dogs start to feel that I am a tiresome owner if they don’t get to greet me enthusiastically once a week, to practice their leaping and smiling?

There’s always the chance that this won’t be my last ever trip. We’ll see.

I’m not on a plane any more and I’ll soon be back in Kansas.