Expected Week / Actual Week

Here is the week I expected to have
Monday - Second date with leggy Policewoman
The first date was fun and she had been texting me lots about what we were going to do.
Tuesday - Performance Review
I've been doing my job well, super well. I had a page full of things I've done that no-one else can. This should be two hours about how great I am. I have no life really apart from work so I've been giving it my all.
Saturday - Party with work people
Some of the sales girls asked me to a birthday party. Since I had a car now I thought I'd go along to say hello.

Here is the week I actually had
Monday - Stood up by Policewoman
Tuesday - Awful performance review where I was given the impression that I'm only just doing my job, all good stuff ignored.
Saturday - Car blew up on way to party, now broken and will cost more to fix than it is worth. I've had it less than a week.

The danger of ham

I'm trying to write something difficult, well to be exact I'm finally getting around to writing something I should have done ages ago but since I'm really supposed to be setting up my council tax payments I thought this might be a better thing to do.
I'm also cleaning the house. You can tell when I'm writing something hard because the house is spotless. Currently the house still has some spots but they are fast disappearing.

Now I'm writing this instead of writing the thing I should be writing, arrgh.
Anyway, I used to have a system for writing. I'd get up early, brew some mind bendlingly strong coffee and sip it while bashing away furiously. For really hard stuff I'd put some jazz on, nothing with words in it though, otherwise they would start appearing it what I was writing. Occasionally I'd take breaks to brew more coffee or make some poached eggs on toast. I managed to squeeze out a book doing that.

The thing is I don't really drink coffee anymore, I rather drank too much of the stuff and it was making me ill. Decaf is all well and good but it doesn't make your face tingle and mind move faster than you can type, so I'm trying to find other things to help me write. Other treat foods so I can train myself that 'this is writing time.'

Today I got a huge hunk of ham, as part of my experiment to find writing food. You know one of those cooked ones that looks like something Asterix would eat after duffing up some Romans. It was extremely nice, so nice I did a little dance while eating it, but it also made me sleepy, and thirsty and now I want to drink wine and have a nap.

I've got some other foods to try out, those funny little expensive chocolate puddings that lonely people eat instead of having sex and some very thin biscuits. Biscuits seem to get better the less of them there are.

I'm hoping that one of these will become my new culinary muse and I can finally do that work. It's definitely not ham, Ham is tasty and a good rewards after fighting legionnaires but it's not right for when you have to churn out 1500 words before you will allow yourself to go to the pub.

So kids, I suppose the lesson in all of this is don't ham and write.

Relationships with Rashomon

It's weird how two people who were in the same relationship can have entirely different views on what happened. Even when both of you were there. Isn't it?

This isn't in reference to anything specific, it's just an observation.

Being Bowser

In the late 80s and early 90s there was a convention in computer games. At the end of a level, or a series of levels there would be a boss. This boss would have to be defeated to progress through the game.

The boss would be impressive looking, but they would always have a weak point so they were more of a puzzle than anything else. Some would be invulnerable apart from a special point or others would require you to attack a specific point that would let you damage them. Bowser was a classic one of this, whole parts of my childhood were spent working out where to hit him with a turtle shell.

That's what I'm like. I'm mostly healed but if I hit my knee even moderately hard then, well I'm caused to swear an awful lot, for a long time and possibly roll around on the floor. I hope this goes away as I do tend to bounce off things as I make my way through life.

A sofa makes a house a home

Yes I've been rubbish not posting. I don't know why, I'd like to say because I've been entertaining my brother but mostly I think because I've been having a bit of a 'what's it all about' moment. I hope it wasn't birthday related but it might be.

The birthday was good. Small but good - I had a lot of last minute cancellations. We got a vast amount of strange booze, and drank it while messing around with one of those rockband games which was a great ice breaker. This continued until it was time to go to the slightly rubbish local club for some dancing.

We lost some of our party at this point because they were so drunk and they had to go home. The remaining people of the group danced, performed magic tricks (no really) and drank more. Much much later we returned home for some slow cooked pork and more band related nonsense.

The next day was spent in recovery watching films and eating more slow cooked food. It was a good day.

My brother has been here a week now and it's been great fun. I've even brought a sofa so people can lounge properly. I had no idea how important sofas were but now my house feel like far more of a home. Of course I got a vintage sofa set from the 1940s and so the downstairs room is now edging towards looking like something from The Chap. I've even got a new haircut to match it.

Louche-mas Eve

It's my birthday tomorrow.

Here are previous birthday related posts.

2008 - mostly about how nice my girlfriend was.

2007 - pleased with a new pith helmet

2006 - Hungover

I'll post something more in a bit but I'm feeling a bit spaced out after work.

Parallel Dating with zombies.

Today has been strange. It started off strange because I had no sleep. I had to stay up, well all night to make sure that some stories got posted for something pretty important. They were posted and we managed to get nine hours ahead of the rest of the world on some news. That was a good thing.

I made it into work, just, but I was in a daze the whole time. I don't think I've ever been that tired without being hungover in my life. It was made worse because I had to be extremely focused during the night, and that I haven't been sleeping brilliantly since the accident. I've been a zombie today.

Anyway, I had an important meeting at 2pm. It happens once every couple of weeks and I'm by far and away the most junior person in the room. I'm there because I know what I'm talking about with stuff and so I back up my boss when he gets quizzed. Well grilled would be more accurate, these meetings normally take the format of us getting verbally beaten up by a range of different people. I don't enjoy them that much, the only way to avoid getting a sack beating is to spend days before planning and re planning stuff. It's a lot of homework.

This one didn't start off well because I wasn't at 100% to say the least and my prep had been a bit sparse. The usual pleasantries were exchanged and then the grilling began. Then about half way through I said something, in passing that made it all change.

We had been set this almost impossible target of something to do, and without realising in the last month we had got mostly there. This changed the entire format of the meeting and suddenly someone else was getting grilled and I got to sit back and day dream about how early I was going to go to bed.

This was only a day dream as I have a date tonight, this is a first date with a scientist based in Cambridge. We are going to go for hot chocolate. Non-drinking dates are the new getting smashed on wine.

Also the Policewoman has said yes to a second date which is excellent. I like the Policewoman. I still don't really feel right about this 'parallel dating' but I just can't be bothered with waiting months while someone sorts their head out. Gosh, I wonder what could have caused me to adopt that attitude.

I'm being positive about it though. After the first date with the Scientist, I've got to meet up with the Teacher and the horsey lady and perhaps the Historian. Although that last one is less likely since a smashed up bike makes popping down to London a bit of a trial.

So while I may be single and slightly crippled for my Birthday, things are definitely looking up.

The thinking chair

Being a bit of a cripple is annoying. By crashing I've managed to make it so I can't do any of the things I like. I can't ride bikes, I can't ride bicycles, I can't go to the gym. It is rubbish, really quite rubbish.

I think this might be the thing that finally drives me to going to the art centre and finding something to do in the evenings that doesn't involve drinking. I need some hobbies, something to be passionate about. I also still need a cooker, which may end up being a birthday present to myself. Or at least a 'expenses cheque turning up' present to myself.

Today I hit my knee on my desk, that was extremely painful so I sort of jerked my head and now I have a hurty knee and an achy neck. I really should be put down for my own good. It's the nicest course of action.

I need to go on another grand adventure, or at least begin planning one. At the moment I just seem to spend whole evenings sat in my single comfortable chair thinking about things too much. No good can come of that.