Moods in the gym

My moods are all over the place at the moment. Some days I'm feeling like a character from The Road, barely scraping an existence with no real hope of reprieve. Other days, the situation is entirely the same but I don't seem to mind so much.

I mean, somethings about the current situation are good. I like the people I work with, and the cottage. Other things are less nice, no real way to progress at work, the work isn't that engaging at the moment and my social life is almost non-existent. I do the occasional thing, but nothing on the scale of my previous London adventures. I miss evenings in a pub, bizarre art shows and long afternoons in the best wine merchant in London.

I miss my friends, I know they are technically a train journey away but it's quite an awkward (as in the linking trains are awful and infrequent) and expensive train journey. I have to say that when I move back to London (and I will) I will NEVER complain about having to cross London on the tube to see someone. NEVER*

I managed to go to the gym again today, this was a challenge because I have done something awful to my foot. I think I did it while running down a hill towards the pub after the hike. Anyway, it was a sort of easy gym trip, at least to begin with the spazzy foot meant I couldn't do any running, or cycling or anything like that. Instead I did weights, and played around with the machines. This resulted in me setting myself two new challenges.

1) I want to be able to bench press the weight of a co-worker.
2) I also want to be able to do 20 pull-ups.

The second one is going to be challenging, I've lost a bit of weight since going to the gym but I've also put on a lot in muscle so I'll be pulling up a fair old lump. Still I didn't think I'd manage the 700 calories in 20 minutes and I can do that with relative ease now. So there is hope.

God I'm boring these days.

*For at least the first few months.

Hike 1 - Louche 0

That was quite a walk, 8 miles in the mud. It was like the Somme at some points. Even the dog was knackered afterwards. It took a couple of hours, and by the end of it was broken. I was so tired I just wanted to lie down by the side of the road and die.

It was brilliant, I'm going to do it again next weekend. Nothing like a bit of wholesome exhaustion to cheer a chap up. Plus this gives me something to do at the weekend to keep fit in a different way.

The pub quiz was good too, or at least so bad it was good. The questions were mental, and some of them were trick questions. The git. Still you can't beat a good pub quiz. I love the mixture of blank expressions and whispering as people try and work out the answers. The questions were a bit mental though, who knows the last four arch-bishops of Canterbury before the current one? Mental.

Talking of mental, while on the pub quiz Chuck sent me a text. It just said 'I saw you today'. What is up with her?

Walking through the weekend

This is a shocking weekend, it's shocking because I'm doing TWO things at the weekend. Neither of which involve going to London. I know, it's amazing, boggling even.

In a moment I'm going to go on a long walk, almost a hike I've been told. With a chum and his dog. It's going to take a couple of hours and I'm really looking forward to it. I like walking.

The second event is that I'm going to go to a pub quiz this evening in a local pub. It's amazing! Especially after last weekend where I managed to go the entire weekend without uttering a word. That troubles me.

On more positive notes I've finished the second draft of the children's book. The first few chapters were a struggle but by the end I was really enjoying it. I'm currently sticking post-it notes all over my wall with things I need to clean up.

When I'm being slack about writing I look at pictures of London to inspire me, or at least I tried that this weekend and it really worked.

Brown rice

Brown rice isn't very inspirational is it? Perhaps it will grow on me but I struggle to imagine a time when I think 'oh larks, I can't wait to get home and have a steaming bowl of brown rice'.

Maybe it will come, I couldn't have previously imagined a world where I not only went to the gym every day but one where I was in line for member of the month. It's basically an award for turning up a lot but I'm in the lead so that's something. For someone who previously thought getting out of breath was a bit vulgar I'm turning into an unlikely gym bunny.

So plans for tonight? Well I shall cook some brown rice for lunch tomorrow. Try and do a bit of writing and then go to bed early with some Japanese homework. Not such a terrible evening, but it's the format of every evening of 2010 so far. Perhaps I'm just getting all the dull stuff out of the way so I can begin a life of wonder and joy for the rest of the year.

Hurrah for words

I'm re-writing the children's book at the moment, it's hard going (which is why I keep finding time to work on my C.V. and learn Japanese) but I just had a massive breakthrough. I just enjoyed doing a chapter. That's the first time that's happened as before it's been a huge slog ever step of the way.

If this keeps up I may even get dangerously close to enjoying the experience.

In which Louche talks about January

January is the worst month. It's cold, everyone is poor and summer seems like a fictional place that someone invented just to torture you. It seems like an age since I shared a cocktail with someone fabulous, even though it's only been about a month.

Today was my first date without bread. I've been eating sandwiches for a while at work, mostly because the food in the canteen is so dire. And since I've been going to the gym and working out so hard I've needed more and more sandwiches to fill me up.

It was getting silly how much bread I was eating and so now I've cut it out of my diet. I'm only on day two of bread free land and it's mostly okay. The most difficult part was when my salad leaked all over my bag. Sandwiches don't do that. My manbag smells funny now.

The gym is rammed at the moment, perhaps it took people a while to dig out their p.e. kits and find their gym shoes to join the new years resolution rush but today there were more people than machines. I'm going to have to start going earlier to beat the rush. It's not that I don't like people, it's just the gym is my quiet time away from that all. It's time to think, or not think, or at least work myself to exhaustion so I can sleep at night without fretting about pointless things.

Yes I am writing this instead of updating my c.v. BAD LOUCHE.

Being a grown-up

My life is a lot more grown up these days, and I'm not entirely sure I approve. It's not like I've got kids, or any real responsibilities, it's just things are a bit more dull. I used to have a rule about not seeing girls at weekends, or that a week was wasted unless I got wasted at least twice.

Last time I went to a nightclub I even paid to get in, I didn't do that for the entire time I lived in London. The closest thing to a steamy affair is with my gym and I've even started eating brown rice. Yes brown rice. I used to only eat fruit if it was part of a cocktail.

What has happened to me? Where did it go wrong? I mean apart from moving out of London. This job may have been good for my career but it's been dire for my social life.

*Pause in writing while frantically updating C.V.*

Updating a c.v is terribly dull isn't it? I mean, even when you've got loads of good stuff to put on it, it is still very boring. The last three months have just been a bit of a training montage, and not a lot else.

Strip Poker?

The following is an actual conversation had recently between me and a girl. The rest of the date was a disaster but this brief dialogue amused me.

Girl - "Hey, do you want to play strip poker?"

Louche - "Erm, okay, but I don't think I have any cards."

Girl - "Do you have any other games?"

Louche - "Not really. How about scissors-paper-stone?"

*brief pause*

Girl - "Okay, after three..."

This story didn't end how you would expect, but that's something for another time.

(500) Days of Summer, a rather belated review

WARNING THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.

The first time I watched 500 Days of Summer I hated it. I think I hated for a few reasons. I didn't have the ending I expected, or sort of wanted but didn't want at the same time.

I also hated it because Zooey Deschanel plays a less than pleasant character, this made me sad because it caused me to interrupt my usual flow of gazing at her while simpering.

Anyway, I watched the film, was angry for reasons I couldn't really explain and then didn't think much more about it for a few days. Then I thought about it a bit more, and more, until I watched it again and then I loved it.

It's not the usual sort of rom-com, that's sort of missing the point. What it really is, is an excellent film about dating awkward women. The sort of pretty woman that is like being in a cage with a wild animal who is fun for a brief time, and utterly consumes you until tossing you aside a slightly broken person.

I've not seen a lot of films about girls like that so it was refreshing to see. It was nice to see someone else making all the same mistakes and ignoring all the same signals. I think that's why 500 days of summer is now one of my favourite films, not one of those films you watch constantly, or talk about to impress people but something that someone just ticks a box in a way you can't quite place.

I really like it.

Memoirs of a mental.

Okay, so you have date with someone a few months ago. It doesn't go great for a range of reasons. She spends most of the time talking about her ex and how he never spent enough money on her and how he made her pay for half their meals together. Yes I know, the bastard. How dare he try that?

She also has that special property, she radiates mad. The sort of thing that just sets off all those animal instincts that tell you to get away fast. So I didn't think much more on it, I never thought I'd see her again after that date. That is until she sent me an email asking me to ghost write her memoirs.

I should point at no point did I say 'I've got loads of free time and I'm looking for a incredibly tricky but ultimately futile project to get my teeth into'. She sent me, what was about a four page email detailing her life, and why she thinks it would make a story that someone would ever want to read.

I'm not sure which date is the 'write my life story' one but I'm pretty sure I've never got to it. How do I attact these women?

Forcing words in my head

I've been getting my learn on recently, and I think my new attitude to learning is gym inspired. The thing is, when you first go to the gym it's a bit awful. You will discover that really you aren't that fit. The next day you will feel terrible, massively sore and it's hard to work out why you would even consider going again.

Add to this the fact that you won't notice any difference in your body for a while and it's easy to understand why people give up after a bit. The thing is, one you get through that it starts to get really fun. All the modern machines give you numbers to compare yourself with so you can see yourself making progress and so it's rewarding. I enjoy this.

It's spilled over to other things, while learning Japanese I've been forcing myself to study every night and I've had to learn a whole load of symbols for the alphabets. The first one is pretty sorted now, and I'm working on my second alphabet. It's hard, after having learned all the noises and shapes I have to learn a new set off them. Still if I can get this nailed I'm most of the way there.

Work is hard at the moment, we are under huge pressure to do lots of things with no end in sight. If I didn't have the furious learning of Japanese to destract me I think I'd go a bit mad.

Bad dates

I had an awkward date this weekend. It was a second date with someone via work. It happened because the person at work was hassling me to go out with her again, and I gave in. I really should learn not to give in to stuff like that.

What followed was far, far too much polite conversation and mental counting down hours. There just isn't any spark, so it was a fight to keep the conversation going. I'm not saying that I'm insisting on love at first sight, but you should be able to at least spend time with the person without strugging for topics of conversation.

This date went on for far too long, I got drunk, so drunk that drinking some chilli oil in the restaurant seemed like a good idea. We ended up back at the cottage and she stayed the night. Nothing *really* rude happened, but enough to make me feel a bit wrong in the morning. For some reason she kept bringing up the subject of long term relationships (Top Tip: Don't do this when in bed with someone for the first time) or various insecurities (Top Tip: Women, you are all beautiful, men want to see you naked, don't ask them turn the light off, draw the curtains, and then close their eyes) or just weird stuff (Top Tip: The tip here was too rude to publish).

It was just uncomfortable and what makes it worse is I'm going to have to deal with work people asking about it, the ones who set us up. Oh dear. Still I must be resolute, I'm not going on another date with her, nope. Not at all. Please?

Snow

It's snowy here. Not end of the world snow, but a light dusting. I was quite hoping for joke snow but this is far too managable for my liking. It's also been bloody cold which has caused me to discover that I've messed up the circulation in my left foot a bit by crashing. It's a bit annoying, it's not completely broken, it just get's colder easier. Oh bum.

I've returned to the gym and my first visit was really unpleasant. My strength hasn't taken that much of a knock over the Christmas period but my stamina has been destroyed. I'm working on getting it back though and the second visit was far more pleasant than the first. The gym is very busy too as lots of people have New Year resolutions to work on.

My resolutions are rattling away, well at least one of them is. I'm re-learning Japanese. My oral skills are coming along okay, although I'm sure my pronounciation is a bit rough but my reading skills are being harder. Last night I just couldn't get the alphabet to go in my head. I stuck at it and about three hours later I was at about 40% comprehension (I've got an Iphone app that tests me). I suppose the main difference is I didn't give up, for which I'm slightly surprised at myself.

Not a lot else to report really. I don't do that much in the evenings. I've got a date lined up for the weekend, a second one with someone who is 'okay' rather than fabulous. I think I agreed to it because she is fairly local more than anything else, and no it's not the racist.

Other dates are in early planning stages but all of them are in London. I'm trying to work out a system where I can go down and a load of them in one go. Not at the same time of course, but you know, sort of have a long weekend of interviews, *ahem* I mean dates.

NYE with cider

New Year's Eve was surprisingly boozy. I was in the rural part of the country with the family so we had a large meal and then wobbled up to the local pub.

The local pub is, well terribly local. Some of the people I vaguely recognised from school. They were younger than me, and I suppose still are but they were herding children around. That was alarming.

There wasn't much else to do but drink, so I got very drunk. It seemed rude not to with pints so cheap. The clock raced around to midnight and everyone poured outside to sing the first verse of that song before mumbling the rest of the way through it. I was feeling a little bit blurry but not too bad. We scampered back home through frosty lanes and I got increasingly drunk.

For some reason this seemed like an excellent time to give my brother some useful life advice. So the rest of the walk was spent with me saying things like 'never offer to buy a girl a drink as an opener' and 'With very few exceptions you can always walk home from an awful party if nothing else'. He wasn't drunk and took this in good grace. The full moon lit the way home so it was a very pleasant walk.

By the time we arrived home I was ruinously drunk and stumbled into bed. I woke up a few times, feeling more drunk each time until about 7am when I just felt weird. Still that's NYE out of the way, now I have a month of purity and self enforced improving to look forward too.

Anything will be better than this bloody hangover that is still haunting me. I'm never drinking cider again.

Resolve

I've started working on my new Year Resolutions. Here they are so far.

1) (re)learn Japanese, and then go to Japan.
I've actually started this one, I've got some new teaching programs and they are going well. If I can get my Japanese up to conversational I can probably blag some press trips. Huzzah.

2) Re-write children's book.
I've been meaning to do this for ages. I've started and it's going pretty well thanks to some useful feedback from my mum and some chums. It should have been done months ago but I'm rubbish.

3) Do more Stand-up.
I thought I wasn't going to do anymore but then I accidentally went to a gig (it was downstairs at a party and we were morally obligied to go). One of the chaps at the gig was someone who was on before me at my first gig ever, it made me think I really should have another crack at it. I've got some new jokes too.

4) Move back to London, or somewhere with a night life
It's gotta be done. Cottage or no cottage I'm too young and too single to be living out the rest of my life as a hermit.

More to follow.

Final festive party

I'm hungover, I have cuts on my hand and I bump on the back of my head. Yes I've been drinking. It was the work goodbye drinks and they started at 3pm with desk Whiskey and went on from there. I really can't handle my drink anymore (the gym effect) and so I had to excuse myself at 9pm with a case of 'absolutely ruined'. I stumbled home, slipped on some ice banged my head and cut my hand before I finally fell into bed.

I feel a bit special today, but it could have been much worse. The drinks were, well actually really good fun. This job may be in the wilderness but I do like the chaps I work with. I even had a proper blokie chat with someone I don't get on with terribly well. It was jolly festive.

So now I'm packing to return home for Christmas. I'm in a very different situation form last year. I've got a job, a proper career one, a house of my own but this time I'm single. Which is the default mode for me.

I'd like to say I'm going to use this much needed time off for some soul searching but really I'm just going to eat too many mince pies and sit next to a log fire. In balance I think that's better anyway

Crimble

I've completed my Christmas Shopping, hurrah. It took a couple of hours but that's mostly because my sister is so awkward to shop for. Now I've just got to muscle through my final day of work and then it's time to eat as much food as possible and watch James Bond films. Christmas is going to be great.

New Year's Eve might possibly be a bit lame. Last year with The Hitchcock Blonde was excellent and so I've been rather spoiled. The year before that I got mashed with the Brightonian Princess which was also good. The rest of New Year's Eves have been a bit patchy. There is a huge weight of expectation, vast cost and a vague feeling you should be at a party somewhere else.

One option, which I hadn't really considered, was that the Actress now owes me an a meal and a rescue, would it be bad form to call in the favour on New Year's Eve?

The danger of wedding hats

I had another first date on Sunday. It was a friend of someone I work with. We met at the usual place - an 18th century coaching inn - and had a good bottle of wine. After that we decamped to an even older pub for more booze and mince pies.

I got fairly blasted and I know this because I started ordering brandy. The girl was nice. Easy to talk to and pretty. It went well, not amazing but nice. Of course since this was a work arranged date my work chums are now talking about wedding hats and dresses.

I think I'll see her again, but I'm in no huge hurry. I think the problem is I've been rather spoiled by having excellent female chums and so often the women I go on dates with just aren't as entertaining.

Panto with pencil skirts

I'm a few days out of sync, you'll have to forgive me. Things keep happening. Right, so last Thursday I went to see a panto with my London chums. I was feeling a bit strange from the night before (too much naughty behaviour) but I was feeling very excited as I jumped onto the train.

The old office in Soho was full of the old lovable misfits that have sort of fallen together over the years. Ms Pencil skirt was there, and thankfully it wasn't weird. It was great to catch up with the London lot while drinking gin.

After a couple of snifters we stumbled towards the tube and eventually surfaced in Wimbledon. More people met us here while we had another drink to prepare the mind for panto.

We were assigned tickets at random, I swapped with a chum so that boyfriend and girlfriend could sit together which through chance caused me to be sat next to Pencil skirt. Luckly this wasn't weird and there was even a bit of light co-ordinated dancing going on between us. I blame the gin.

The panto was excellent. Brian Blessed is everything you'd want him to be and Pamela Anderson was good too, on top form but completely outshined by Brian.

After the panto I had to disappearing to the night, H had parked his car and it was running out of time on the ticket. We scampered out to it and parking wardens were swarming over the carpark trying to catch people out. The rotters.

One short car journey in the snow and we dropped the car off and went to the pub. I only managed a couple of cocktails before I was absolutely exhausted and crashed out. It had been a good day.

The next day I got the train back up North but was delayed by a few hours because of the snow. When I finally arrived at work there was a minor blizard going on. So I did the only logical thing - dug out my off-road bike and charged around the business park. It was for a feature, so I sort of had an excuse. Sort of.

During the day Pencil Skirt sent me an email asking if we could go for tea in the new year. I said of course and so plans are being made. I'm not reading too much into this - but I may cross a couple of toes.

The office party.

The office party was more like a trip to a nightclub than a party. The company is far bigger than I expected. Clearly I need to explore the other floors a bit more. There were a lot of people I didn't recognise - also girls seem to dress up a lot more for these things than the boys do. The chaps were just wearing normal work gear, where as the women were dolled up to the nines.

The nightclub was in an old library so it was a pleasantly pretty building. We were armed with 5 tokens to buy drinks and then we would be on our own. I caught up with a few people I hadn't seen in a while, including another person from the journalism training course who is now leaving. He was in good salts, defiant and full of vigor thanks to leaving.

The rest of the evening was fun, bouncing around from group to group of chums talking about all sorts of things. I chatted to the girl in HR (Tall, dark hair, great sense of humour) who I'm going to be working with in a few weeks and even danced for a bit. The music was awful but when needs must. I left at about midnight and in an excellent mood.

The next day I was off to Panto with Pencil skirt and the rest of the London lot.