Days 23 and 24 (sort of)

23 days in and I’ve already stumbled. Day 23, or at least the real one rather than the make believe one up there above me was never taken, I was ill, not in a good place psychologically and had a banging headache from working myself up . Because I was wound up over work, spent most of the night feeling sick and not really sleeping the last thing (almost) to enter my mind was the photo.

Taking into account I usually set my alarm for 730am and struggle to get up, I was at work the next day for 6am!! Wifey did come into bed at about 11pm the previous night and part of me thought to reaching out and snapping a few photo’s, but I wasn’t focusing enough to do that and before you know it time had slipped past midnight and I tossed and turned with not only worry but annoyance I hadn’t took a photo.
I still can’t used to the job I’m in at the moment. I guess from the outside I always perceived it, rather naively I know, as full of weight and potency and gravitas. I thought this was an organisation dealing with people’s lives so would potentially be full of incredible people making difficult decisions on a day to day basis a place I couldn’t fit in with at all. I hadn’t been to university and though I’m not under educated I know I don’t have that natural inclination to seeing all sides (thought that could just be my male gene) and I’m not well read. I thought when I got this job the best I’d be doing is making coffee’s and fetching stuff for other people. So when anything new occurs I attach a massive weight to it and find the theory of this new element of my job intimidating.
I’d dropped the ball (god I hate office speak) on a few cases I’d been dealing with and I thought I was the shittest of the shit because of this and a burden to the team. Over the sleppless night I’d made plans of ‘doing the right thing’ and handing in my resignation to save my boss having to sack me, she’s a lovely person and I didn’t want to put her through that. I came to work at 6am, caught up where I could and wrote it all down so I could pass it over to the boss. I went in with like Maya Angelou says “stones in the pit of my stomach”.
I’d prepared myself for the look shock and the disappointment as I was discovered to be a fraud who’s just very good at getting through projects or tasks but ultimately knows that doesn’t replace knowledge and skill and there fore it’s a dangerous position to be in. After the boss had spent some time talking about her her family, which made me feel even worse because I was going to take the geniality and friendliness of that sharing and that shooting the breeze conversation and say “Hey, look where I screwed up”, wonderful.
It didn’t happen like that though. After I apologised and said how worried I’d been and how I respected the fact that if I’d messed up I’m happy to accept the consequences and understood whatever decision had to be made, I went on to explain each case I had in my hands one by one then held my breath.
However I must have got the alternate ending of this scene, the happy one. The boss, probably still a little disappointed explained that no one was at risk and as it was a bit of paperwork and procedure I’d got out of sequence then it really wouldn’t be that much of problem. Not so low impact I really should let it happen again, but enough to say stop worrying your ass off will you.
It was like someone had open a pressure cooker on my psyche, the headaches I’d been getting almost instantly subsided, the stones fell away from the pit of my stomach and I felt my self being able to focus again rather than pushing through a haze of doubt I had been doing for the last two days.
So that, is why I missed my day 23. I don’t know if I’ll tag an extra day on at the end or and extra 22 so I’ve done a clear 365, we’ll have to wait and see.

Ok so these are my entries for day 20, 21+22. Not bad efforts at all I think. I actually like the way the third one looks here when you click on it, the darkness around it frames the pictures well. Haha, look at me less than a month in and I’m talking like I’ve got a fucking eye for this sort of stuff. The truth is it’s given me a little more confidence (read, acceptance, maybe even read lowered my quality threshold) as I have to crack the camera out everyday at least once a day.

However these two I’m really happy with as well, and I mean really really happy. I don’t think they are stunning in anyway but they make me feel happy about myself. Happy in the sense I may not be as butt ugly as I feel on a day to day basis. I know I’ll never be a super model or work for a male escort agency, but sometimes I’d like to think I’ve got a little bt of sexy sexy in me to inspire something.

In other news has anyone read the local BBC website or heard about the rustlers that have stolen a couple of dead sheep.

I reckon were I to be single now, for whatever reason, I’d be single for a bloody long time. There’d be no rebound, casusal, ‘just friends’, new love potential at all. Not because I wouldn’t want it or I hold a torch for my wife so much I’d be reclusive for the rest of my life, but more because of my unreadable rules I have in my head.

Were I not happily married and had the intention to be so the rest of my life, and were anything to change not to alter my current situation, I think I might just be in such a naïve relationship blinkered place I ay just be single the rest of my life.
Mr Runner is fancying this girl at the moment we call Sports Billy and already from the stories he’s told me I have dumped her half a dozen times.  I guess I have a moral set or standard or social rules that allows my psyche interpret the real world with in an agenda to keep my alone.  There’s probably a whole lot of nothing or normal pre relationship courting type shenanigans going off, but when my head gets old that data it puts it through a quantum idiosyncratic filter that helps e form misplace ideas and askew conclusions.
The thing is when I fancy someone else (not at all hopefully as I’m happily happily married, fankoo!) I don’t expect to be played or to have to jump through any hoops.  I expect two people to contribute to the chasing and/or interplay and I don’t expect me to be the one that potentially wins the girls heart over by pure weight of force . If that girl really isn’t interested those overt gestures actually come across as looking a little stalkery or sad which frankly I’m not going to put myself in a position to be judged by.
This isn’t happening with Mr Runner, I’m just digressing into my own subconscious because I’ve made a fool of my self years before and on many occasion when I laboured under the “this will make me look great/cute/caring/loveable” when really it made me look like a twat.
The funny thing is, it also crosses over into my dreams.  When I think of a future scenario when if/my wife is not with me, for what ever reason, and the possible women I might date or where my life might go all I can think of is dumping them?
Haha, I’m predisposing myself to dumping people before I’m even on the market or over my current relationship.  I’m imagining scenes where the lady will do something ‘just because’ like try to pass commentary on the clothes I wear, or decor of my house, or the amount of chilli I have on my food and unknowingly fall into my very wide zero tolerance zone.
In my I’ve changed locks, packed bags, dumped them in public, walked out of social situations and even gone into long conversations with their friends. I’ve told their friends how wrong they are and how I will not be controlled or compromised, I will not have someone expect to have so much say in my life or have a level of expectancy that I should let them control the things that make me.  If they felt they could do that then frankly they should be with someone who doesn’t mind that, because for me it’s an easy decision.  I’m not going to be in a relationship for the sake of a relationship, I have no fear of being alone and if they think because of my age/desperation they can brow beat and control me then they can shit.  They need to go find a different person.
Phew, and that’s the way my mind goes whilst I’m happily married and have no intention of ever dating again.  I’m living vicariously through Mr Runner.
That and I’m aware of everything I do have and what a wonderful, understanding and perfect match of a wife I with. When I think beyond those boundaries no-one will ever match up.  As I will put up my own hurdles and impossible walls that any potential love interest will not be aware of and it will take a girl of latent psychic skills who can see my incredibly well hidden real self and ser Edmund Hilary determination to wait it out them out I guess if anything happens with the life I have now then I will be single the rest of it.

What a great day for the two weekmark. Shit up to the eyes in hayfever and a great looking picture to go with it  Just in case any of you are a little out of the loop with how the real world works, this is my pulling face.  If ever I want any hot sexy action I always opt for the snotty swollen, red, sore, itchy beat up look.  It pulls all the ladies.

There you go, three more days three more forays into vanity.  I always struggle when I say it like that as I don’t think someone like me can be vain, I don’t think I’m attractive so can I be vain? Can’t only beautiful people be vain?And am I vain if I don’t like what I see?

I must admit that each day for the last three days I’ve not been in the mood for taking the photo’s, it bordered on the apathetic and depressing, I feel I’ve taken something else on I’m going to fail at, the story of my life, or so I feel.  When I get to it though there’s always one or two shots I like. I guess I’ve been looking for the best of a bad bunch and then photoshopping them a little to tweak the flaws.
When I say tweaking though I haven’t been putting extra eyes in to where I usually have a empty socket or removing scars from all the knife fights I’ve been in. I do tend to blur the skin and put an extra glint in the eyes, as standard.
A thought however is that as each day goes by and I take another picture from another angle I’m unintentionally forced to think about the perception and perspectives I have on myself and each day, I’m not as uncomfortable with the photo’s as I thought I was.
My outlook has always been “I’m ugly, I know I’m ugly, I don’t pretend to be anymore and I won’t dress myself up to combat this as it’s a waste of my money and my time. When I look at myself with expensive clobber on I’ll only become annoyed that I’ve wasted so much time and effort” That’s not a whinge or a cloy for attention, ultimately I’m very happy being the person I am (a lot to do with my beautiful wife and son).  There will always be scope for improvement and I could be thinner, richer, have more time to read, more time to be with the family and other such things. I believe those desire will always be there on the periphery of my vision and were I to pursue them I would stop being happy, I would be looking ahead rather than where I am now.  Where I am now is fine.
The point is, as I become more accustomed to actually taking time to view myself, my perception has altered.
I reckon in time I will start to photograph the parts of me I’m really not happy with like my teeth, my eyes, my warty left hand and my feet (though that’s because they smell so won’t come across in a picture)
If I use this project properly I think I could culture some change at least.  Change in my writing, my reading, perception of myself, and dedication to habits. I suspect as well there are a multitude more benefits I’ve yet to realise.

I’m tyring to get it into my head how my web places are all linked together but I don’t think I have enough brain cells to work that out, it’s a spider diagram gone mad, haha. I’ve just spent an age trying to configure my own server based wordpress to show up on facebook, which in the end I did with a neat little app called wordbook that took me more than a while to understand.

Then I’ve been an added and configured FlickR manager so I can insert FlickR pictures straight into my blog from my blog, rather than having to go to FlickR, find the photo and click Blog this above it, then come back to wordpress to rejiggle it.

So Flickr will update to the blog should I need it, that will in turn update to facebook. Twitter goes to facebook and I suspect there is a programme that will update my facebook feed back over here onto my blog!!! Now that gets confusing. I put a picture on my blog, facebookfeeds that to my profiles front page and my blog pick the facebook frontpage feed and stick that feed into the side column of my blog.

All I need to do is work Digg into this (I don’t use it that much but like the idea) and then get del.icio.us to appear on here and I’ll be all linked up and ready to go. Which translates into a healthy enthusiasm for a week or two which drops off to a burden for a month and then becomes another thing I’m shit at completing for the rest of my life, hah.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from my FlickR set that I’m sticking in to test out the new tool that lets me post from the blog and opens the pictures in a very funk manner.

The single life can take you on a whole host of different adventures and risky scenarios, should you let it, that a married life closes down for you from well before the moment you say I do. Though I fully accept there are upsides to being much as much as there are downsides. Maybe it’s because I’m married and I sometimes see the grass as being greener, but one of my friends has been a very single, very busy lad. He doesn’t see it as a cup half full life as I do, but along the way he’s building up an excellent repository of stories and experiences. I think he feels he’s not in a brilliant place at the moment and his lifestyle choices and actions are reflecting this. He isn’t in a dark place and I don’t fear he’ll do anything silly like

• wear clowns feet in public

• learn the chicken dance

• paint himself orange

• Pick a knuckle fight with a pit bull

• Smoke dessicated coconut

• (insert witty reference to something political that’s happening, I can’t be bothered)

One of the things he is doing however is going out with every girl and everything that’s within arms reach and says yes. It goes with saying he’s left his discerning standards, and filtering out the pond life skills clearly in their boxes to be unwrapped for special occasions. The result of this choice has been Mr Runner (for that is what I’ll call him if I remember) has had some hilarious dates, near dates and never dates that you couldn’t script if you tried. To add to the fun I’ve took to giving them all nicknames, as a way of identifying them. So if I meet them in public I can got through that wonderful uncomfortable silence you get when you really want to call them by their real name but your subconscious is screaming the offensive one we created for a laugh.
To date as far as I can remember, he has dated chinzilla fagella, bigmomma, kipper lips, gas girl, dunkin’ dora, mad Italian, polanski/romanski/ (something interchangeable with ’ski’ on the end to make a sweeping generalisation about all the nationals he’s dated, fireman Sam and one that is actually a compliment because this one he really likes ‘sports Billy’.

I also keep trying to persuade him to look for a girl we can refer to as ‘vagina munchin pubes’ simply because that name came to me on the way to work one and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.

So far though we have

Dunkin Dora - Masturbated down the phone to him on the first phone call ever, pre-’any date at all’. They’d emailed a few times, sent a few texts and then she’d plucked up courage to call. Well she plucked a lot of things that night and spent an hour getting to a full “when Harry met Sally” orgasm crescendo. The next day, taking into account he’d still not met her and now had no plans to, she called to accuse him of only wanting her for sex. That was filed under ‘amusing anecdotes’ and ‘FUCKING FRUIT LOOP”

Gas girl - An inbred girl from an inbred town on an inbred street and an inbred family. Considering the town she comes from, the saying ‘the best to come out it is the road’ is a statement of truth rather than a throw away witticism. She once let my friend down on a date as she had sniffed too much gas. I don’t know whether that says something about her perception of Mr Runner or here love for all thing butane and gaseous. That’s it, openly uses gas and even puts it’s usage above life.

Kipperlips - Wonderful girl as long as you’re prepared to have a boiling hot shower where you scrub you skin with a wire brush to get all the psychological dirt off you after every time you touch her.
This girl when on a second date with him did lots of pretending to grab some popcorn (which he held in his lap) spent an entire film cock groping. She’d also said before she went in that she had a boyfriend at Uni. Which we both found hard to believe, a man of education would surf so low.
As a joke my mate said whilst driving home, “I guess we should find a lay by for a shag then” expecting a
“No way matey”, “Not in you dreams”, “Ha-ha you’ve been in the wilderness to long it aint gonna happen”
Nope, her response was “There’s one about a mile ahead I always use, you could pull in there”

Mad Italian - Looooong story there, even I tried to get him to move in with her because we were both deluded and I thought she might be lovely for him. Top and bottom of it was she was seriously unhinged. Every time he found her work (he worked at an agency) the employers would call up to say “What the fuck have you sent us? This girl is a pallet short of a warehouse, she can’t keep a thought in her head”
Last time he saw her she’d asked him out for a drink in our local city. He’d thought, well I’m single so no harm no foul, she was a very attractive lady. It turned out she was meeting her very muscle ridden boyfriend later in the evening as well and just wanted to promote the new Thai girls she rented out for sex to Mr Runner. Wow, there’s a career choice, become a female pimp.

Polanski/Ronski/CanUSki - Girl number one kept saying how much she liked him and wanted to be with him. She did have a child but that really didn’t make a difference, not when you think you really like someone. About three months of dating on and off though and she told him she was pregnant. Eeeek, seeing as he was really trying be a gent her he hadn’t actually slept with the girl, apparently it was the ex’s the father of her current child.
I must go look up in a translation dictionary what love translates to in polish, I think it means casual, open, disease spreading, leg spreading sexual relationship.

Girl number two knew him, had never really been on a date with him but every now and then she would phone him up. Usually late at night (2am late at night) when the nightclubs had turfed out, drunk and alone she call to say she really liked him and wanted to meet him and see him. Mr Runner would run (silly boy) to her only to have her become all angsty and unsure and she would leave.
She would call him once or twice a month after the clubs were turning out to have the same drunk, lonely conversation. Up until the point however when she did and he asked her very politely that there was no real point to her doing it and she was wasting his time and she would have to find someone else to run to her.
She “oh” very quietly, he hung up.

Chinzella Fagella - This was so close to being ‘it’ They got on, they could talk for ages, they liked the same music, they both were quite relaxed with the pace of it all and they both liked lots and lots of sex.
But there just wasn’t that spark, well as long as you didn’t count the constant sparking up of cigarette after cigarette she did most of the time. Mr Runner wasn’t much into smoking or smokers for that matter, but was into lots of good shagging, which there was plenty off. So one balanced out the other for a while. She even let him do lots of dirty things he’d never done before and could only dream of and that sort of loving can blind a man to everything else that might not be in a relationship (like love)
Other little niggly things was her foul personality when out in public which would make Mr Runner cringe as Chinzella launched tirades at stranger just because she was confident enough to. Mr Runner had spent many an evening seeing people stare or react to Chinzella’s behaviours.
That and she liked to store plenty of hard rugs at home in the freezer so she could be buzzing her tits of 24/7 should she so wish. No room for peas mate I have plenty of crack, and I aint talking about my fanny.
I suspect he would have gone for a lot longer and maybe even mistaken longevity with love and maybe woke up in 20 years time and said “Fuck, where did that go” Turns out however she wanted something less serious than no commitment sex and they ended.

So you see, as long as you see this life as a journey and the single life as a journey where you’ll have a propensity to meet a lot more strange characters, and shag them, then you could take a lot more away with you (as well a a few diseases) I always say to Mr Runner that this is the period of his life where he’s defining his perfect women and what women he wouldn’t touch with a shitty stick if her were to ever think of settling down. When he does meet his perfect women it’ll be obvious, we won’t have a nick name for at all, it won’t seem right.

God how do I hate hay fever. For several years now I really thought it came on only after I met my wife, she was the one with all the allergies. Then I went and slept with her and I metamorphosed into an allergy ridden (cat hairs, do hairs, hare hair, grass, pollen and dust) life intolerant dweeb. This means until either I find some medication strong enough to dull all the symptoms without putting me to sleep I’m destined to spend countless days explaining to people how long I’ve had it for, how bad it gets and what I do about. Then they can tell me what there friends use, their brothers friend did to get over it, how, touch wood, they’ve never got it. Brilliant, thanks for telling me that as I scratch away at my nose taking layers of flesh off just to slow the constant trickle of phlegm. Not only is it so debilitating but it leaves every single female out there to say “Oooh have you got the man flu?”

What? At what point does it become a man flu? When my nose is red, when my eyes are itchy, when I struggle to let thirty seconds go past without sneezing scratching or struggling to catch my breath. When I take so much medication and caffeine and false stimulants just so I can come to work and hear whiny little wastes of my pollen ridden air churn out your clichés and equally sexist statements men have been getting pulled up for, for years. People like you make me wish Emily Pankhurst had thrown you under the horse rather than herself. Next time I know your going to say a statement so unconsidered even Alf Garnett would cringe I’ll take an extra does of anti histamine and a packet of razors on stand by.
Why don’t I apply the same thinking to everything you do.
“Nice driving, well I guess that’s women driving, well I expected you to say that because you’re a women, earn your money luv, put the kettle on” You know it won’t be tolerated coming from me. I’d soon be up in front of my manager for some sort of discriminatory or oppressive bullying behaviour.
“Oh right I’m having a women’s written warning, Oh right I been women suspended for six months. Right I get it, you no longer want to employ me after the ‘women disciplinary”
Onto the picture though, I was going to look for multiple shiny surfaces and even spent some time photographing spoons and pepper pots, but in the end they all looked a little shit.

There you go. Each day I think, I really can’t be arsed with this now, I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end. Then I surf FlickR and see other people’s ideas and I’m full of inspiration.

Be grateful for this one and all the bloody time it took to prepare this, I had to take all the safety netting from my son’s trampoline and even removed three or four poles at the front (before I realised they all just slipped out. Now as I put it back together I reckon I’m going to have to give it a bit of a scrub because we haven’t really looked after it that much and all the tree detritus that was one it smelled a bit of poop.
In other news I haven’t been at work, I won’t go into the long of it here but my wife is having a bit of a poor pregnancy and has fiiiiinally got a sick note of the doctor so she doesn’t have to go to work. Seeing as she’s been blacking out (not passing out and hitting the floor) and wandering in fort of traffic like a mad old toothless women with far too many plastic carrier bags. Then on her first day of relaxation…well it wasn’t pretty but she’s resting at home now so I can’t complain.
I did leave a whole stack of work that needs typing up and panel applications and phone calls and a mass of other stuff, but I guess this might help me realise that the world will turn when I’m not there. Not that I think I’m irreplaceable, I just don’t want to leave anyone in the lurch.

I was thinking about this post on the way to work the other day, something for 365 days project over on flickr. What could I photograph that would be representative of who I am but not just another photo of me looking sullen or grinning like a special needs student blissfully unaware of the people laughin at him not with him.

I got it down to a small list of items that people might say when asked what they identify with me.  Not including idiot, arse, clumsy, ugly, creepy, smelly or twat, you can’t buy any of those. Well, if you’re crude you could argue how you can buy a twat but I think it sounds better if you call it “renting a call girl”
So were you to boil me down (you sick fuck, why would you boil another human down, what are you trying to do, make some man glue (eugh that’s even worse it sounds like I’ve made a euphamism for my jizz)) to ‘items to identify me by’ coffe, chiili, gadgets, psp, ipod, cotton trousers!! and camera would be a fair list.
Just because I’ve thought to photo my gadgets though, don’t think that this is some sort of vanity exercise like when people take pictures of their gadgets all buffed and shiny with the little neon lights on. These three objects in my photo go everwhere with me, and have done for a good year now. Longer if you don’t count the vario which I’ve only had just over a year. I’ve had my iPod so long now I’m just about to change it’s battery for the second time, and the average life on one of those can be about 18months.
I’ve been getting a little geeky with the PSP and have learnt how to put custom firmware on it and consequently a whole host of adapted programmes such as emulators making me able to play any Commodre 64, Atari ST, and PS1 game I want. I can also play any NES, SNES, SEGA and all the other console I never really got into so hav only put them on my friends consoles.
I have and am so joyous over the Elite (C64) Paradroid (C64) Parralax (C64) Dungeon Master (Atari ST) and Spyro the dragon (PS1)  that I have working.  These get some heavy rotation off my little machine.

When I stand back and look at this set up I see an iPod that holds 20,000 songs that is repeatedly playing 24 songs over and over again from a playlist I made and I wonder  “That’s a compilation double album CD isn’t?” If so I’ve become my worst nightmare and created a personal NOW album those fucking annoying vapid compilation products that blight the world and not only clog up HMV’s shelves but seem to be bought by the socially inept who feel they need these albums as an indicator of how “current” thier tastes are.

Add to that my PSP all prepped and ready to go for some serious gaming fun and I have it pottering on with all my retro pre/post pubescent gaming memories. About as challenging to the PSP’s processing chip as an episode of Hollyoaks is to me.The only difference is I don’t feel like my brain is leaking out my left ear when I play the PSP, it’s not on everynight and there’s not a PSP omnibus on Sunday where I can catch up on all the purile shite I attempted to avoid throughout the week.
It’s only the Vario that has surpassed it’s expected remit, with the word docs (I’m writing this now), the qwerty keyboard, picture album programme, the wireless net browsing, the few games I’ve downloaded, the ALL singing “pockerbreeze” (god that is a bloody boon, I really shouldn’t rest so much faith in it as it has been in to be repaired twice and both times I feel a worryingly lost. God bless the company though they couldn’t repair it so I’ve had a brand new replacment handset. This means I can now apply all the lessons I learnt the hard way with the first unit

• Don’t be heavy with the stylus (it scratches the surface)
• Don’t wipe your arse with broken glass
• Don’t download lots of third party software just because you can (it crashes the system)
• Do get one of those faux leather case protector thingies, regardless of how much of a twat ot makes you look
• Switch off all default internet connection protocols so it doesn’t connect when in your pocket running up a £60 bill in a month.