Budgeting for excess, and my motivation’s triggered once more.

I’m going through one of those horrible phases where things aren’t half bad. I have a bit more money in the bank than I used to, my car is running, I don’t own anyone anything, work is trundling along without incident. Nothing is happening. I’m bored senseless. Right now my life is comfortable and uneventful, which is a bit pathetic all things considered.

I did some maths too, and figured if I saved just £2 a day, I’d save what scientists call a metric fuckton of money. See, that’s actually less than what I’m paying getting my lunch from the work cafeteria, because I was lazy and didn’t make myself anything to eat before I left the house. Now, over the course of a five day week, that’s a tenner. Over a month, forty quid. Over a year, £480. Holy fuck man, I’m spending nearly half a grand on shit processed tepid food I don’t even like! That’s a few ounces of weed, nearly a ton of tabs of acid, 190 or pints of beer, a rollicking good evening with a lady (or two) of the night, or enough petrol to drive through France to Zürich, down to Monaco, and drive the coast to Malaga, with enough left over for a celebratory drink once you got there. Or the gym membership that I was actually trying to budget for in the first place.

As you might be able to tell, things have fallen by the wayside fitness-wise over the past three months or so. Still not having bread, but that’s been replaced with whatever shit is on offer at work that day, normally meat wrapped in pastry with a side of mediocre chips. It doesn’t taste that good, but it fills a hole well enough that I’m not more grumpy with hunger. My shifts have been straddling that line between starting too early to do anything, and finishing too late to do anything. By which I mean I can’t go walking in the woods with my dog in the dark without seeming like a nutter. Though now I think of it, wouldn’t that make the people judging me nutters too? In either case, I’ve fell off the wagon, and I’m wanting to get back on it. Already the diet has improved, I’ve got a couple of joints worth of weed left then I’m done with that (and subsequently smoking altogether) until at least a hot summer’s day months from now, and I’m already feeling a bit lighter and better as a result.

Two big things have triggered this: firstly, the people I work with. Not the stereotypical shut-ins you might think work in tech, but not exactly a crowd of Olympians either. They’ve got what I’ve come to think of as the “IT Physique.” Few are obese, but most are walking around with soft, shapeless bodies, with little pot bellies and ridiculously skinny arms because that’s the only part of their body that moves with any frequency. Some have really bad hunches from using computers for so long, and I’ve started to notice myself slouching in my seat, my spine all curved, and I really don’t want to end up like them. Secondly, Phill, the big fat guy I used to go to college with, has started losing the beef at a rate of knots, and annoys me that I haven’t been the one to do it first. Given he’d always been that way and I used to play sports six days out of seven, I kinda have to belittle his achievement by going one better, and beating him at every possible thing in the world. Infantile I know, but it has to be done man.

Nanu nanu.

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Eatin’ bread and Facebook dead.

This is a rambling, aimless post because it’s after five in the morning and I’m still not the least bit sleepy. The weekend has knocked off my circadian rhythm or whatever the fuck it’s called, which I’m going to have to fix rather quickly as I’ll be up early most days from now in. Which is what normal people do, so I’m not going to complain too much about it.

The fitness aspect of things has been going alright, steadily dropped a few more pounds since the last time I mentioned anything, though the past five or so days haven’t really been the healthiest. Not been able to get to a gym yet as I’m not able to afford it, which is another expenditure from my seeming six-figure minimum wage pay, which I haven’t started earning yet. I feel softer though, and a bit deflated, without any real extra sense of being fitter, and I don’t like it. Weight and fitness are two different things, it’s the latter I’m wanting to use to reduce the former, rather than simply melt off flab. I also had my first bit of bread in around two months. I’m not going to get all melodramatic and start throwing around words like “relapse” and “disappointment” because I don’t feel them. There wasn’t any other food in the house save for a three day old loaf and a couple of slices of lorne sausage that’d probably been lying in the fridge for at least twice as long. Faced with the prospect of either whacking on the George Foreman until the meat was nice and cremated or putting on four layers to trudge out into the snow to top up on tuna, I decided to take the easy way out. And you know what, it was a thoroughly mediocre meal. Eating bread all the time was a force of habit rather than a need for taste or whatever, and now that habit’s been well and truly broken. I don’t find myself going to use it as a snack, because I don’t snack altogether. Easy.

Speaking of habit, or at least things you can’t seem to get rid of, I’m trying to subtly and without drama remove someone from my life, and yes, it’s another girl, though not the most recent one. Nah, this is a girl from college who plain makes me feel like shit. She’s never said or done a bad thing to me, she isn’t horrible, and I’m not head over heels about her, she just isn’t good for me. I dunno what it is, she’s like a fucking dementor, sucking all the happiness out of me through nothing more than proximity. College finished and she was basically gone, only meeting up now and again when I stupidly thought it’d be a good thing or when we’d bump into each other in a club. Every time I did though those old feelings would roar back up, and I don’t know exactly what’s causing it. As I said before I’m not into her, I don’t lust after her, I don’t want her friendship, she’s not even a depressing person, I just can’t be around her. Cutting her out entirely was the easiest way, and I thought it was as simple as removing all trace of her from that most pivotal of social things: Facebook. But I couldn’t unfriend her, only “unsubscribe,” out of internet politeness that I’m struggling to justify. For some reason she’s constantly around wherever I go on the site. She pops up in every friends in common list, on my sidebar nine times out of ten, and she began liking half my statuses and even suggesting sledging later on today, something I’m going to just ignore. I really need to just man up and get rid, let’s face it.

Yeah, fuck it, I’m going to give those few little mouse clicks and unfriend her. I just took a little stroll down memory lane and realised that pretty much all the times I’ve felt worst over the past year have corresponded with the times I spent most with her. Much as it shames me to admit it, that girl’s caused me a fair amount of heartbreak.

Gone.

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Let’s dress up as Slutty Samedi!

I had another appointment at the “work programme” on monday. They seem like a fairly disorganised bunch, giving out random and sporadic times to go and see them. The girl who works in there does possess one of life’s most precious gifts though: the ability to talk for twenty minutes without saying anything at all. She didn’t so much prattle on about a load of gobshite that a lot of women (and a fair few men) do, more that what she said was very serious, completely useless and I couldn’t tell you what it exactly what it was about. I walked out with 20 copies of my own fucking CV (despite me saying that yes, I had a printer) and went back home. She did tell me that I’d be seeing another person from now on, seems that I didn’t get a job quick enough and fucked with her commission. Almost worth it to be honest.

Really slowed progress on losing the beef, only a pound gone this week. But it’s something so I’m not worried about it. Have to watch what I’m having for my dinner, which I’ve been treating as my main meal and just taking whatever’s on offer. The stuffed-crust pepperoni pizza was awesome, but after checking the box and realising that it holds more than a day’s worth of fat it’ll need to be a very occasional treat from now on. Having chicken in various ways is still a great dinner having said that, and some pasta to fill it out a bit. Exercise wise I need to get to the gym. I’ve nowhere to do circuits properly, no space for free weights and with the weather getting worse I wouldn’t mind training indoors a bit more often. There’s one nearby to where I live run by the council, so I may get money off for being on the dole. My dad has his card for it through work, I may see about using his. And if it’s still too expensive, and as it is run by a public body, I could try being cheeky and going to the doctor to get prescribed gym sessions. Needs must when you’re skint.

And now I’m going to tell you that while I can’t spare any money for the gym, I can for drinking at the weekend! It’s Halloween after all, when the girls are out in outfits officially starting with “naughty” and “dirty” and a man can hide his face behind makeup and pretend that the belly is all padding, and I’ll prove it back at your’s hen… I’ll be at Scotland’s premier rock club on Saturday, avoiding as much of the rock as possible and hunting for any hint of bass. The one thing I don’t have is a costume, so I’ve decided that I’ll shave my head into a mohawk, cover it all in white face paint, and black up a funky skeleton / voodoo design. Perhaps a Baron Samedi? Clothes-wise I don’t know, I’ll probably just throw any old shit together. Riggers and a G-string. I could pull it off.

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Breadless, senseless, tailless, hopeless.

Been roughly a week since I had my last slice of bread and stopped eating a load of shit so I decided I’d hop on the scales and see if it’d made any kind of difference. Now, I wasn’t exactly scientific about it the last I’d checked, it was later on in the day and I’d already had a couple of meals under my belt and all the rest of it whereas today I hadn’t eaten anything and it was not long after I’d gotten up. With that in mind, the scales told me I’d lost eight pounds. That’s a hell of a lot in the space of a week, but the majority of that will have come from both what I’d eaten that day and the fact that a whole load of junk food I’d pigged out on in the few days before was still in my system. Which is a polite way of saying I simply shat out nearly two-thirds of a stone. I’ll check weekly, but I’m under no illusions that it’ll be anything near that next time. I’m also not looking to simply aim for a number, I’m using it as an indication that my work is paying off, but the main thing is that I get fitter, which requires hard work. Losing pounds is a piece of piss so far, at the end of the day it’s about making sure more goes out than comes in, but I’ll still be weak and unfit at the end of it without working out. Still, it’s progress so I can’t complain, and I’m perfectly happy with slow and steady, not as if I have a dress to fit into or anything.

For once I did end up taking the dog out to where I had originally planned, and on a whim gave 28F a text to see if she wanted to tag along. Sure, she put my dog into Cheech and Chong territory, but I can’t be arsed holding grudges over making a labrador have a heavier case of the munchies than normal. Plus I needed someone who didn’t mind trekking through mud and had a dog that wouldn’t run over a cliff. And yeah, it was good I suppose, we talked and laughed, the two dogs ran wild and tired each other out, could’ve been a lot worse. She looked a bit more pale and gaunt than usual too. Where it was normally the kind of thing that looked nice in that kind of scene/goth kind of way, it’d veered into unwell chic. The reasons for this seem to be two-fold, one of which she told me about then and the other which I found out tonight. The first was that she was “poisoned” by a mutual friend of ours. All in good spirit of course. She works with a guy I used to go to school with, my brain is running short on nice describey words so I’ll just say he looks and acts in a similar fashion to this guy:

"I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight."

Except skinnier, less imposing, and more akin to a picture of an effeminate Weimaraner I saw a couple of weeks back but can’t for the life of me get my hands on now. He’s treading the fine line between youthful experimentation with anything going and apprentice junkie. And he shagged 28F a few moons ago, I keep forgetting that I secretly loathe him for it, the long haired runtish cunt. Anyway, they were in his house and he had procured or grown whatever brand of psychedelic he thought would grant him an audience with god this week and they took it with a special beta-blocking brew he’d made to try and offset… something, who fucking knows, I figured he’d have been talking out his arse so didn’t bother memorising the recipe for future use. Long story short she drank the tea knowing there was a chance of it making her sick, which it did, making her vomit to the point she’d hacked up bits of stomach lining as that’s all that was left, and was still feeling the effects that day. Oh, and flashbacks too. I was wandering around the woods in a tracksuit/army jacket combo with a girl that looked like death warmed up who kept seeing streaks of light and colour on occasion, and a dog that’d chewed its own tail off.

The second and rather more sad part I found out tonight when I was out with Marsha. We had a catch up and she gave me the usual hangover debrief of my birthday night out three weeks previously given my propensity to make sure I have the “can’t remember therefore I’m innocent” defense when setting foot anywhere that sells drink. I found out why Phill was so happy to find out it was me his girlfriend was dancing with, but don’t worry I was well behaved. I’d went for a drunken wander to sample the different music the club had to offer, couldn’t find anyone I’d come with, and ending up drinking my pint at the edge of the main dancefloor. Phill’s girlfriend comes wandering past in much the same boat, a decent song comes on, and the pair of us wander onto the dancefloor. Two or three songs later we come back off again and find Phill standing not ten feet from where we’d been with a couple of other people from our group. He’d worked himself up into a state thinking that his lady had been lost/stolen/went home in a huff. I got treated like a valiant knight. Go me. Not a very interesting story, but it’d been nagging me, I couldn’t join all the dots up. Aside from that it was the usual thrills, spills and the odd spot of drunken violence I’m never quick enough to witness or be a part of.

It was then that I found out that 28F had phoned Marsha crying, telling her that she thinks she’s gay, is only into girls and doesn’t like guys anymore. None of which is very surprising, she’s fairly open about being bi. I thought when I was out walking the dogs with her that there was something else on her mind that she wasn’t saying, guess that was it. And I can understand why she didn’t tell me, I can’t do the “oh dear that’s such a shame” kind of consoling or counsel. If she had told me I’d have no doubt said “Who gives a fuck? You’ve shagged plenty of girls, now you’re telling everyone you’re not having cock for the foreseeable future. Congratulations, you’ve turned into a middle-aged divorcee.” Which is harsh, but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve gotten into the habit of ridiculing the problem, showing that it’s meaningless and isn’t worth giving two fucks about. Some people appreciate it, some people think it’s them I’m getting at or just want a shoulder to cry on. Of course when I’d said all that I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to think and realise that it was more than just an internal struggle, she’d have to come out to her family and other friends as well. It’s a shit state of affairs to be in, when something private that harms no-one can cast such a shadow over every other aspect of your life as well. I’ve never doubted my sexuality, so I really don’t know what it is she’s going through. Course, I’ll need to make sure that if she decides to take a dick on one last test drive, that it’s my turn… [/pig man]

Something far worse happened later on tonight though, and more importantly, it happened to me! I’d told Marsha I was looking for an emergency vagoo to commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the split and were there any girls she knew who were free. She rattled off a few names, one of which was nicknamed “The Bear,” which I had to turn down there and then, another couple of names I forgot by the time I’d gotten home, but there was still one that was firmly in my head. As is custom I immediately jumped on Facebook to see what she was like. She was beautiful, absolutely fucking stunning. Naturally tanned skin, light blue eyes, a gorgeous wide smile, awesome full lips… she had this air of complete chilled-outness to her and not one picture looked posed, it was like every time she laughed someone had to capture the moment on film… there had to be something seriously wrong with her. I looked, and at first I couldn’t find anything. She works, comes from an alright place, is into stuff that I am, seemed really fun. I wish I had just stopped there, admired some nice pictures and arranged to meet on Saturday. But I didn’t, I kept on digging and I wish to fuck I hadn’t. I noticed a few pictures of her with a girl, the best friend of a distant ex. Alright, it could be worse, maybe that girl isn’t friends with my ex, it was a long time ago after all. But no, I kept on clicking, and there I found it, a picture of this beautiful girl and my ex, arm in arm, bestos. She’d even been tagged in it. If it was any other schooltime girlfriend I wouldn’t have cared, but this was the first proper one, I’d went with her for over a year and when we split it was far, faaaar from amicable. This goddess was unreachable, too far within the Auld Enemy’s camp. I could’ve fucking cried man.

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Secrecy and pork blood.

So, what’s happened after last night? Um, nothing. Sent her a text earlier on in the day and not got one back. Knowing how she’s usually got herself plugged into every possible means of communication I think it’s highly likely that I’m just being ignored. Which is fair enough I guess, let shit simmer down. I’m presuming that she hasn’t told her boyfriend, otherwise I’d have gotten at least a strongly worded PM by now. With a bit of luck that’ll be the end of it, or I’ll pay for it later, who knows. Hey, this not giving a shit malarkey is a piece of piss!

The day’s been more or less a write-off. The weather’s been fucking awful and I haven’t set foot over the door. Did get some more writing done having said that. The thing seems to grow a bit more each time, from a simple outline to a highly detailed synopsis, to something almost resembling a story. Most of the writing I’ve done hasn’t exactly been creative, I never knew “not trying to sound like a pretentious wank” was such a big part of it. But it’s still coming along nicely, even if I have a habit of beginning something, then thinking too far ahead and not remembering what it was I wanted to say in the here and now. When voice recognition has advanced to the stage that it can understand a Scottish moan, I doubt I’ll ever touch a pen or keyboard again. Which neatly segues onto your second portion of Scottish Comedy You’ve No Idea Exists:

Ho ho! Wasn’t that wonderful? And that’s from one of the shitter sketch shows! Anyway, due to me staying up until everyone normally heads off to work and feeling all cosy curled up in bed it was pushing seven in the evening by the time I woke up, knocking my routine properly out of whack so now I’m going to have to spend a day and a bit awake in order to compensate. Doesn’t really do much for my new healthy routine either. I’ve found myself eating about one meal a day and not feeling particularly hungry. Though it has been a lazy few days, not been burning many calories. At worst it’s been a bit of mild hunger, I’m looking to get fitter, not starve myself.

And this may sound stupid, but I’ve been keeping it fairly quiet as well, as in not telling anyone about my change in diet. What I’ve been doing has been working, and like most other things I do I learned years ago that if I want to enjoy doing them then I don’t tell my family. Regardless of the idea it’ll be at first either stupid or plain wrong, and eventually move onto not good enough. The first time I told my mum that I was going to college to do my Highers she asked me why I didn’t do a night class “like normal people.” Funnily enough the image I had in my mind was of a gay kid coming out to his staunchly conservative parents. All I did was say I was off to get some better qualifications. Go figure. At any rate, saying something like I’ve stopped eating as much shit will see me hearing that I should be doing X instead, telling them that I’m training will find me being told I either should be doing something entirely different or am doing it wrong. So I keep it quiet and tell nobody nothin’ as that means I can do whatever the fuck I please in relative peace. Like be unemployed and wonder if I’ll be stopped in the street by an irate boyfriend or two. That kinda stuff.

That’s it pushing seven o’clock, nearly a whole twelve hours of consciousness. My immediate plan is to head on up to my room and watch Captain America, which will take me up to a respectable time where I’ll come back out, go for a shower and if it’s still cold enough try to find myself a hot breakfast that doesn’t come with a heart disease warning on it. Man I miss black pudding, even if the main ingredient is “pork blood.” Then I’ll take the dog on a good long walk round the woods, and perchance buy myself twenty quids worth of dope and sail the night away. Have a good one peeps.

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Plot outlines, anti-Hovis and a wee shot of Limmy.

It’s been a quiet one today, I’ve not looked for any work, usually don’t on a friday anyway. Figured that people are too busy looking forward to the weekend to bother looking at a CV, it’s more likely to slip out of mind or just be deleted by someone in a grumpy mood looking at the clock and wishing it would go faster. So I annoy them on a monday morning, hoping that they’ve spent the last two days and a night recuperating and relaxing so they’re ready to face the new week and not nursing a hangover and feeling bitter at having to get up before even the sun itself is properly awake.

I’ve thought more about the story I’m going to do for NaNoWriMo and jotted down a few notes. It’s going to be a superhero story with delusions of grandeur. The rough idea is that a guy is chased by a gang, he runs away and ends up getting knocked down by a car, spending a couple of months in a coma. I’m looking for a bit of realism in the story, so he doesn’t wake up and suddenly he’s Superman overnight. Nah, in real life people are lucky if they aren’t badly brain damaged after spending so long unconscious, so it’s going to start off with him being unable to talk, trying to recall memories, and a period of physical therapy as his muscles have atrophied and he can barely walk to start with. But he gets better, slightly quicker than a normal person but nothing exceptional, then he keeps on getting better. You all know this bit: he’s stronger, fitter, more alert, all culminating in him finding out he can fly. He won’t be able to hear or see like a superhero as I have this idea of him sitting in his flat, getting RSS feeds from different news sites and responding that way.

To begin with though he’ll be reluctant to help anyone out at all, he doesn’t want the publicity or the responsibility, and thinks it’ll cause more hassle than it’s worth. He’s Scottish, as it’s what I know, and I didn’t want him flying for Uncle Sam either. The idea of the world’s first and only superhero coming from a country with a population smaller than a lot of cities seems more intriguing than a farm boy or high school kid that rides a nice yellow bus to school. And I know sweet fuck all about Liechtenstein, so Scotland it is. With invulnerability comes the opportunity to make some easy money, namely flying down south, finding out where the local drug dealer is, and robbing him. Cash in hand, free drugs and nobody that’s going to look too hard to bring the culprit to justice. Eventually sitting by the wayside is going to have to stop, and some form of natural disaster is going to force him out into the open, and shortly after that he’ll be unmasked. I’m trying to think of what would happen if a masked superhero appeared tomorrow, what would happen? Probably that everyone would go apeshit. Who is he? What does he want? Is he human? Ally/Threat? Like if a walking, talking nuclear bomb started wandering around, people would be worried.

I’m trying to avoid it being a Mary Sue story. There’s nationality and gender, but I’m trying to limit it at that. He’ll be a painfully average guy, but not a bullied teen or shortarse weakling, who gets handed a ton of power and tries to be decent about it. Might as well mention just now that there will be no supervillian, and no kryptonite, no weaknesses at all. I’m not looking at it as something that will ever have a sequel, so this invincible man is going to appear in the world and we’ll see what happens next. I have an ending already thought up, but I’m keeping that to myself. Dunno if 50,000 words is going to cut it, it should though, hopefully.

Now onto food: I’d pigged out a fair bit over the past couple of weeks, not too worried about it. No point seeing it as a big setback or slip-up, I couldn’t be arsed making proper meals for me and my brothers, not that they were bothered either. What I have done is decided to cut bread out of my diet. There’s no chocolate or crisps in the house, so I used to make sandwiches as a snack, and if there was nothing decent to use as a filling I’d have it without, just some butter and sauce. Not very imaginative but it tasted alright. So no bread means no snacks, and as it was always white loaves (brown isn’t as good, let’s face it) it meant I was having the unhealthiest bread I could eat, even if it was the best tasting. Been about three days now, which is the longest I’ve went in recent memory without any, and I can’t see me slipping up any time soon. Even to me it sounded a bit like one of those daft fads you hear about, but I figured that no bread = no unneeded calories, no extra condiments, no butter or margarine, and no pointless snacking. At the end of the day, it was the stuff I was using to wrap round far healthier foods like tuna or chicken, I’m not losing much.

Also been swithering on what to do about the blog, if I should try some different layouts to jazz it up or something, not got a clue right now so it’s a work in progress, I rather like the dark, empty style…  I’ll finish with my first embedded video, enjoy!

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In which I’m drunk and whipped.

Friday night carried a few nice surprises with it. Started off with a couple of pints with a friend, who I’ll call Phill (as in Jupitus, who he bears a resemblance to, or John Goodman circa The Big Lebowski), before everyone else came. He’s one of those rare people in life who is just an all round sound cunt, who nobody dislikes and is naturally hilarious, without being big headed or really aware of how he’s being funny. Few pints later and everyone else had arrived and Marsha pulled out a bag with a few presents in it from everyone for my birthday, little things like novelty soap, chocolates, shower gel inside a statue of The Stig and some test tube shots.

The nicest thing though had to be a comic that Hans had made out of pictures from my facebook of all of us and my family. The title was “Johny vs The Tories” and revolved around me putting a superhero squad together to defeat the evil emperor in the form of David Cameron. It no doubt came from my many rants during college and nagging at Marsha constantly about how she was a right wing bitch, in the most loving way of course. (It worked too, she went from a unionist centre-right party to the SNP, a separatist socialist party, enjoying their first majority government in a “fair” system designed to make sure the chances of them doing so stayed slim. Though the fact she was a student living on a bursary, not getting money from daddy and needing half the rent on her flat paid by the council probably showed her the upside of helping your fellow man.) The comic means a lot to me, gosh darn if stuff like that doesn’t make me feel all soft and fluffy inside. Shows that someone knows you, you know? Those few pages of A4 paper stapled together are better than something big and showy any day. Though, some things do come close…

We’d moved from Wetherspoons over to a pub across the road as there was (apparently) an ex of one of the folk in our group they wanted to avoid. So off we went, a few more pints were had and then the DJ shouted out my name. I thought that they were going to end up singing happy birthday or something and cause me to die of embarrassment, what happened instead was far, far worse/better. I stood up, deciding to take it like a man, expecting the DJ to keep on talking, then saw a woman standing dressed in what I’m fairly certain wasn’t a standard issue police uniform next to an empty chair in the middle of this crowded pub with a mic in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other, asking if I’d been a bad boy. I’ll not go into too much detail, as some things are best left in my mind and in the pictures and videos that are currently residing in too many phones. Suffice to say, it involved those handcuffs not being nearly big enough, a belt as a leash, a quiet thank you to God for making sure I wore my good boxers that night, and one of the finest bodies mine eyes have ever had the good fortune to see. Was vaguely aware of a guy with a video camera filming it all, I’m not sure if it’ll arrive in the post mailed to me, or maybe they’ll find it funny to send it to my mum or just keep a hold of it until the next house party and stick it on repeat. Whatever happens, I. Regret. Nothing. I’ve got Marsha and Belle (de Jour, natch) to thank for it. They know me too well!

After the pub we’d staggered to my house so I could put in my stuff before we got the train to the Cathouse, Scotland’s biggest and as far as I know only rock club. Things around this point get a little bit hazy, though I do remember champagne on the train, a bladder killing queue to get into the club and a fuckton of dancing. Also some guy in the toilets shouting about being able to smell coke in the cubicles like they were fucking lavender scented candles. Met a surprisingly large amount of old school faces there as well, including one guy who slurred that he’d always meant to catch up with me to reminisce about the time I streaked in front of a bunch of visiting Italian students. Other than for rugby it’s the only time I’ve ever gotten into the papers, thankfully not named. Passed out on the night bus home, managing to float my way to Asda for some badly needed Oasis and crisps, part of my post-binge preparation to ensure that the next day doesn’t make me want to top myself.

Which I wasn’t far off from doing, I was a bit of a wreck. Aside from the usual weird dreams, which involved zeppelins flying over the Dover Cliffs and culminated in a different one about me hiding on a roof from a rampaging bear, which then climbed up the side of the house and was about to bite me before I realised that hey, it’s just a fucking bear, and grabbing it by the scruff of the neck and throwing it back in it’s cage, I had trouble keeping myself in the one spot for more than twenty minutes but a complete inability to get out of the house which the odd attack of wondering where the fuck I was. Like I said, was a wee bit rough. Had an awesome night though.

Went to a sort of military fitness group yesterday, so suffering again today, more in body than mind this time. It’s one of those things where 40 odd people are getting shouted at in public, doing press ups and sit ups. My dad had signed me up for an induction last night and moaned at me to make sure I went as he goes a lot. Wasn’t as bad as it could have been, the people were friendly enough and it wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before, not really sure it’s for me though. They didn’t try to act as if they had a secret method of curing all your troubles either, it was just “exercise more, get fitter.” It’s all exercises that I can do myself though, and at the danger of sounding like a misanthrope, I don’t see the point in doing it in a big group of people when there’s no goal at the end of it. Not like you’re a team and this is part of training, feels like I’d be better off just going to a gym and working on my own. I’d be tempted at going back to it, but with my dad offering to pay for it and him saying they take six months up front it’s really too much for something there’s a chance I’d end up hating. Train by yourselves, cunts!

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The return, the run, and Jiminy.

Well shit, where in fuck’s good name have I been? What’s been keeping me away from updating this lovely wee blog here? Truth is, not much. Nothing’s really changed in the past month or so, I’ve just shamefully let this fall by the wayside for a few weeks. I am thoroughly ashamed, and vow that I’ll get back on the wagon and spouting shite every few days. Might as well begin…

It was a cunt, no doubt about that, but I finished the run. It started off at the transport museum and basically went in a loop around the Clyde. There was a few hundred other runners doing it as well, but it would have been ridiculous of me to try and compete with the lanky gazelles who treated it as a matter of life and death. Instead I chose the fairly short chubby man with facial hair that was too long to be stubble and too short to be a proper beard, he also had glasses and was determined to encourage me all the fucking way. Needless to say, I absolutely detested him with every fibre of my being and made it my life’s mission to beat him to the finish line. And I did! We all need a nemesis right? There wasn’t any obstacles until nearly halfway (three miles) into the race, and I though I wasn’t expecting much they did seem a bit sub par. The first was three fairly low inflatable walls that had to be jumped over. The number pinned to my chest was ripped off so I had to stop to go back and get it, one of the safety pins was gone never to be seen again, and another had been driven into my chest, giving me a makeshift nipple piercing. Hurt less than I thought it would, and I carried on my way. After crossing the river there was a section where I had to go into the water up to nearly chest height, not the most exciting thing but the novelty factor was good. The only bad point is that soaking wet feet make it easy for blisters to come on, and trying to run straight after getting out of the water is like trying to move with iron boots. There was also a “snow” section where you had to crawl under netting while trying to ignore the ice cutting into your knees and forearms, a swim by the docks, and a mediocre obstacle at the old Finnieston Crane.

The best was saved for last: jumping from the deck of the Glenlee, an old sailing ship moored outside the transport museum and the main thing I’d wanted to do the race for. I love the feeling of falling and jumping from high places, eventually I’ll get around to going sky diving, but for now I settled for the thirty or so feet from deck to water on the ship. I’ve found that the most worrying part of doing something like that is not actually hitting the bottom, but reaching up and not feeling your hands break the water either. There was that instant when I wasn’t entirely sure just how far down I went, and how long it was until the surface either for that matter. But it was a rush, I would’ve went and done it again if they didn’t have so many stewards making sure that no-one did exactly that. From there it was just another couple of hundred metres until the finish line, where the last obstacle was a steep wooden slope with a sheet of oil coated linoleum and a rope to drag yourself up, with a jump onto a crash mat and little sprint to the finish. I enjoyed it, first time I’ve ever done anything like that, so it’s a little box ticked. I’ll confess though that I did think that there’d be more obstacles than there were, along with them being a bit more elaborate than they turned out to be. Channel 4 were there filming it, but it was only the first wave, which I wasn’t a part of, so they’d all buggered off before I got the chance to embarrass myself by getting seen on TV puffing and panting along. Not sure whether I’d do that particular run again, as the “run” part wasn’t really worth paying for, but there is the Tough Guy early next year, which is meant to be a whole lot better. Gives a target to train for, which is always good.

Found myself with this horrible feeling coming over me at times, this nagging little voice in the back of my mind telling me I shouldn’t do some things, and making me feel bad if I do. I’ve enquired with various medical professionals as to what exactly this is, and they’ve come back with the diagnosis that I’m suffering from a “conscience.” The symptoms manifested most obviously when I was lined up to be That Guy after a breakup for one of Hans’ friends who had come over to eat ice cream, watch The Notebook and have a good old cry. We went out for some drinks, got along well, but she was so damn nice. It’d have been like sticking your knob in a puppy after you’d just told it off for pissing on the carpet, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I failed miserably in my role of foreign cock that can be left and forgotten about in a faraway land, and I’ve yet to add a dot to my Atlas Pussy Bingo card beyond the British Isles and Spain, but there’s always the Olympics down south next year. I’d been thinking a bit more about finding a girlfriend until I mentioned to someone that, while I wasn’t looking, I was open to the idea, then their reply had the word “relationship” in it and I damn near shit myself. Took hearing it from someone else to solidify the fact that if there’s one thing I don’t want right now, it’s the hassle of a girlfriend.

No luck yet with work, didn’t get the one for Pets At Home, which was a bit shit. Figured I’d had a better than usual chance for it, but not exactly unexpected. The rest have all been rather quiet too. The JC put me onto one as a loft insulation inserter or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Told them it sounded good and I’d apply for it, then the guy starts trying to sell me the fucking thing, marvelling at how good it is and the training has travel and accommodation paid, then the woman next to him joins in and says how good the pay is and that it’s a lot and it’s a really good job etc. Good good good. It was minimum wage. Literally the least amount of money you can pay someone by law, and they’re trying to dress it up as if a position at Facebook had just opened because Mark Zuckerberg was taking early retirement. Colour me paranoid, but I get suspicious when people are too eager about anything. Maybe they can’t stand the sight of me for that twenty minutes early fortnight…

Was my mum’s birthday yesterday. She’d mentioned a few weeks ago that she hadn’t watched Desperate Housewives in years and I was out at the shops trying to look for a box set that had a few seasons in the one set, but they were all individual. Plus I could download them with no hassle later on. Luckily though I did find the complete Cold Feet box set, which I remember her watching from way back when I was a kid, and it was a bit less obvious than a more recent program. Trying to choose presents, and shopping in general, is about the closest thing there is to something that actually causes me stress, everything else I just take it as it comes, but trying to find that thing that someone will like, while not being so expensive that it looks like you’ve just thrown money at the problem in the hopes it cures everything, or giving something that’s too cheap that it looks like you don’t really care is a fucking hard thing to balance. She liked it though, and I bought some supplies of chocolate and sweets as a joke for her to have while she watches it. Watched Billy Elliot later on in the night, everyone else cunningly buggering off when she put it on so I was suckered into sitting and watching it with her being the kind dutiful son I am. Not a bad film either, it’s usually only British films that can get away with kids being battered and brotherly love consisting of “fuck off” for goodnight and still somehow be heartwarming.

Also, it was my birthday today! Big 22. Pulled out about that many grey hairs this morning though, damn I’m getting old. It’s been a fairly quiet one, few cards, some DVDs and a bit of money from my parents and brothers, was good. My phone has been on silent and left in my room most of the day, it’s been going every two minutes between texts and facebook notifications of folk saying happy birthday. God bless the like button. Spent the afternoon helping my mum choose a laptop, managed to find the one decent deal in amongst the rip-off shops around here and the clueless staff swindling even more clueless customers. Got it set up for her and she’s spent the rest of the day avoiding it like the plague, typical! Went for a chinese buffet with the family as a joint dinner for our two birthdays, food was great but the music made me feel like I was in a seriously bad 80s nightmare. Got to enjoy my little brother thinking that just because you can choose your own food doesn’t mean that fired rice and profiteroles are supposed to mix. A good time was had by all. I was full to the brim and sleepy on the way out, making my brain fall into an unwary state so when a pretty girl walked up to me and asked if I had a cigarette I looked dumbly down at my hand, back up to her, and said “Naw hen, it’s a fortune cookie” then walked on for ten paces before I realised what a fool I’d been. Overall I’ve really enjoyed today, had good food, good company, a girl I like has come back on the market which I’m convinced is a secret happy birthday to me, my cake was tasty as fuck, and I’m heading out on friday for some proper drinking. Shaping up to be a good week.

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Rabbit cocks, rendezvous, and absent zombies.

So the interview was yesterday, and it went alright I think. Got there just before the shop opened, there were three other people already waiting: one other guy who seemed a bit quiet, a girl who seemed a bit prim and proper, and one woman who I hope actually knew the people who worked there, because she never shut up. We were split up and had different people showing different parts of the shop, first was the tills. I’d never used them before but they seemed easy enough to pick up, I’ll have to work on my hellos though. They’d made a big point about the till monkey being the first and last thing you see in the shop so you had to make sure you made a good impression on the customer. At first I tried a breezy, almost campy “Hello!” that felt like a lime green g-string cutting into my bollocks, so for the next customer I a normal “Mornin’.” They seemed to change their mind for what I’m sure was an entirely unrelated reason and promptly turned heel and walked back out of the shop. Next was the warehouse, or shelf stacking, side of things. So mundane was this section of the business not even my tour guide couldn’t think of much to say about it. Though she was kind enough to tell me how she’d just had to serve a gypsy she used to shag, which served a nice wee ice breaker. The one-on-one interview came after that, featuring the kind of idiotic questions that I can’t imagine ever give an accurate reflection of what a candidate is actually like as a person. All the same, I fed them the usual shit that’s gotten me work in the past: I worked as part of a team when I captained the rugby squad for a few years, my friends would say I’m reliable and punctual, of course I love answering questions, yadda yadda. That part went alright, the interviewer was friendly, we both liked to read and I guess it doesn’t hurt to have something in common with the people who decide whether or not you get off the dole.

Last up was working with the animals themselves. The girl showing me was around a foot shorter and surprisingly cute until I noticed The Thing. Everyone has it, there’s that certain part of them that stands out, like a freckle or the way their ears are, or they bear a resemblance to someone you know or who is on the telly so that afterwards each and every time you see them from a certain angle or have they a certain look on their face, it always reminds you of it. So what ruined this otherwise quite pretty girl? She gave a wee coy smile and I caught a glimpse of Limmy:

RUINED!

I could barely look her in the eye from then on. It was as if he was chopped at the knees and had undergone a few months of hormone treatment, I was horrified. But she was nice, and took great pleasure in showing me how to tell the sex of any small furry creature she could get her hands on. Hamster vagina, phwoar! I was shown mostly stuff I’d picked up while at the kennels, cleaning, caring, all the usual shit. We were all brought back together to be told that we’d hear if we got the job in a week or two. There’s supposed to be another couple of groups to come in in the meantime, so I’m guessing that maybe four or five jobs with roughly twelve candidates to choose from. Better odds than a lot of places. Tits McGee was nowhere to be seen, fingers crossed we both get the job.

When I got home I got a phone call from a girl I went to college with, who I shall call Hans despite it being a guy’s name, because she’s German and it’s short. Thinking of it now she makes up a kind of trinity of the people I spent most time with when I was there. 28F was like the Id, who had a habit of making me go “fuck it” and fall for whatever impulses were around at the time. Marsha would probably be the Ego, who broached the middle ground, indulging baser instincts but in a less self-destructive way. So Hans would be the Super-ego, which is a retarded fucking name, but she’s the one who encourages me to be on the straight and narrow, study, do well, and thinks I should be a writer. According to the wikipedia page on the matter (which I checked in the hope that my lack of Psychology knowledge wasn’t too obvious) the “super-ego works in contradiction to the id.” Hey, that’s foreshadowing! Maybe there’s something to that whole being a writer idea…

Anyway, after the exams Hans disappeared off the map, didn’t answer anyone’s calls, didn’t reply to any messages on the internet. Bunch of ideas got thrown around: she’d decided to just close one chapter of her life and move on, her teacher boyfriend didn’t approve of us, she was in a state over the exams, she plain didn’t like us… Loads of stuff. Marsha made more of a fuss over it than anyone else, got quite hurt at being snubbed. I was slightly too, but in all honesty I thought that I’d end up not seeing anyone either, and most of us have drifted apart anyway. So no-one had seen her for months, but she messaged a few times. Like a bitter ex, it’d only be when she was drunk, but she seemed happy enough and I just let her get on with it. On Wednesday night she’d messaged again asking if I could come in with her to an interview for uni the next day, obviously couldn’t because of my own interview, but I wished her luck and figured it’d be another few weeks before I heard from her again.

So she phoned, asked if I wanted to come into Glasgow, where she was with another girl from college, Missy (as in Elliot, she loves her rap music). Figured it was time for a catch up and I’d nothing better to do, so I got the train in. George Square in the center of town has been turned into a mini Philadelphia for the filming of World War Z. This has caused an outbreak of yokelism as papers and people make a big deal of Brad Pitt being in town and a few American cars parked on the street. It’s embarrassing really. We met up there, picked up exactly where we’d left off, no awkwardness or bad blood between us. Hans said after the exams were done she’d gotten depressed about it all and spent a month inside, then the rest of the time travelling and going back to Germany for a bit. Getting worked up to the point of acting like a hermit sounded like her, so I accepted it, told her she was a daft bitch, and we forgot about it. We went to a pub, had a few pints and shot the shit. Turns out that neither Hans nor Missy are, nor ever were, particularly fond of 28F. I had an inkling, but didn’t think it was that bad. My annoyance at her feeding my dog hash cakes has grown rapidly larger over time, and if I wasn’t still drunk and partly high myself the next morning I would have most likely told her to fuck off out of my sight. Having her laugh after my dog managed to make it out of bed and be sick in the back garden pisses me off more each day. I knew that dope wasn’t going to hurt her, just make her thirsty and tired, but it shows a lack of common fucking sense for 28F to have done it in the first place. Rant adjourned. Hans felt bad about not replying to any of Marsha’s messages, I told her that the pair of them could pussy-foot around it and end up not seeing each other again, or just meet up, which Marsha would be happy to do. A few more jars later and we got the train home together. Got dropped off by Hans’ boyfriend on the way to take Missy home. He’s a nice enough guy, but I’ve yet to see him not talk like he was a teacher, though it is funny for one of the first questions I hear him ask people is “what school did you go to?” even if they’d left years ago. Not sure what to make of him, don’t think he’s too fond of me, but I see him little enough that making sure he’s won over isn’t high on my list of priorities. I’ll get the cunt drunk one night and see what he’s really like.

This run is really looming into view now too. My default reaction to somebody saying “you can’t do that” is for me to go “wanna fuckin’ bet?” and then doing it just to prove a point. I’m liable to have a heart attack doing this thing. But I’m committed, and it’s better to just fucking get on with something and make a memory than do nothing and watch one day bleed into the next.

 

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That sense of impending doom.

Just over a week until I get my exam results in, not looking forward to them. I know that I’ve almost certainly failed one subject entirely, and didn’t get enough sleep before two more, so it’s only one subject I think I’ll have gotten decent marks in. Having said that, even if I was likely to get four straight As, I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with them. I’m going to see about trying to get back onto the course for a second year, probably left it too late though. It’s a cunt to hear people my age with trades behind them, or talking about honours dissertations, and I’m worrying about shit they haven’t thought about since they were 17.

The run at the end of august is looming up into view as well. I’ve been going a run in the woods with my dog like some sort of retard Rambo with a pair of boots on as that’s all I had. Getting a cheap pair of trainers so I can do some road running instead. God bless JSA. Going to pick it up to running most days of the week, I’ve got the free time so there’s not much excuse for me not to concentrate on it. Running alone can be a bit of a bastard, but that’s what dog’s are for. Cutting until after the run as well, just trying to shift as much beef as I can, then start proper weightwork afterwards. It’s sad, looking forward to buying a pair of trainers, though mainly it’s because they won’t kill my feet as much as riggers do. I could live like a hobbit thanks to my now bullet-proof feet.

Was meant to be seeing the final Harry Potter film tonight with the family, kind of a tradition as the five of us have went to see every other one together. As has become the way though a big fight broke out, and that’s not happening anymore. Stupid shit that just balloons for no reason. Well, another night trawling for work and rotting my brain with How I Met Your Mother in the background. You can tell it’s a shit night when you’re having to resort to your hangover TV shows.

On the plus side, today Scotland was officially hotter than LA. Everyone was acting like skin cancer was going out of style.

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