The Conforming Monkey

Random Lemon flavoured thoughts

2008-03-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

No. I don't know why they're lemon flavoured...

I do know, that earlier in the supermarket I saw a net of lemons, but in this case, the net was made of somewhat stern looking black netting - more like a string vest than anything else, while the lemons in comparison were somewhat small and frail.

I've also been thinking about lime - I was buying a scented candle for my mother, a scented, overpriced, beautifully wrapped, candle... but a candle, nonetheless...

It was lime scented, curious, but pleasant.

My head is jumbled with thoughts, much like the space beneath my stairs, where I throw stuff I think I might need in the future. It's dusty and full of random junk, inhabited by spiders and smelling faintly of must.

Part of me is very excited by what is to come, but the rest is overwhelmed by work and worry.

Money, keeps ringing a faint alarm bell...

Work, rings a continuous alarm - I have so much to do, so many things I am not getting done, so many things I can't even think about...

My life, so many anxieties and concerns, but so much great hope...

And all of the other things I want to do, should be doing, could be doing...

I should make a list...

Perched as usual...

2008-02-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

Yep, lodged between my favourite rock and hard place...

You take two days off - and you get texts and calls from The Lieutenant on the Monday and email correspondence from The Boss on the Tuesday...

Nice to be able to relax...

I always loved the notion of waiting for the other shoe to fall... it's such a simple, brilliant image... There is that anticipation that follows a noise... you want to hear it again to be able to analyze it, to decide whether or not it's a threat, to start the process of working out what to do next...

Ever woken in the middle of the night? With that heart pounding, something just happened, what was it? feeling?

If you live with other people it's not as dramatic... If you live on your own, it can be terrifying.

You know that there is a reason why you are awake, and at the back of your subconcious you know what the reason is... Unfortunately at the front of the mind, you really don't know what it was... so, you find yourself, sitting up, adrenalin pumping and anxious, but lacking any idea of why...

By the way, the phrase "waiting for the other shoe to drop" apparently dates back to the turn of the century and vaudeville...

But back to the call and emails - since the day the Quarterly Report, I've been waiting for that other shoe to clatter to the floor... But it's been ten days... and there still had been no sound...

It's almost a relief now that the questions have started and the cycle of blame can begin... The question now is, have I done enough? Will there be a significant change when the next Quarterly figures are released? And best of all, what happens if there isn't any difference?

Inching slowly backwards...

2008-02-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of those posts that is awkward to write, but I need to speak. I don't really want people to read and comment, but I need to clear these thoughts out of my head.

Call it free therapy, click on to something else.

The problem as always, is my partner's psychotic ex.

The bile and poison that the Ex injects into my partner's life and my life gets harder and harder to deal with.

All of the posion that was produced in court, the invasive photographing of me and my partner, the following, the detectives, the medical records, the fake emails, the discussion of my name, my car registration, my job, my career prospects, how often I stay at my partner's house all of these things have been circling since the court case.

Now, slowly they are settling to earth.

I cannot be seen at the house, because the Ex's parents video and photograph my entry and exit.

I cannot keep anything in the house, becuase they may have gained access to the house and may make claims that I live there, if I have anything more than a change of clothes.

All of the poison, slops around in the space between me and my partner. It fills the air with fumes, it forces distance, it brings talk of lawyers and court orders and custody.

It removes any and all trace of affection. It drains any conversation of humour, or light or warmth.

I am cast out. I must not be seen. I am more trouble.

So, I feel the ties shiver lose, I feel the binds come free, I feel the distance grow and the warmth falter.

I am crushed with despair and understanding at the same time.

This is what the Ex wanted. They wanted the poison to kill whatever new life there was, they want control and mastery over my partner now and forever.

And my partner is trapped, caught in the glare, the spotlight of madness, pinned down by the In Laws and tortured by poky, obsessive, curtain twitching cunts.

I try to be bigger than that.

I try to rise above, to be patient, calm and wise.

But, I'm not.

I'm despairing, I'm distant and every day inexorably shifted further away by the tide of poison... I'm very nearly done...

And I'm angry. Beyond words or action. I am furious. But powerless, an observer, an eye witness at someone elses car crash...

The Day of Reckoning

2008-02-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well, today was the day...

The much talked and posted about, terribly important day. The day on which I was to be fired. The day that's kept me awake and dreaming in technicolour for quite some time, the finale to a triptych of horrible events that occured within a 14 day window...

Here's the deal... Every Quarter, there are results announced, indicating performance / sales etc.

And so, there is naturally a huge amount of pressure for the results to be uniformly positive. And as is the way of these things, not all results are good and it is tremendously difficult to break a cycle of bad results.

There are always two parts to Quarterly Report day. Part one, is the anticipation, the grim, giddy, stomach churning inevitability of the moment when the Report is published.

That part is the anxiety, the twitches and tics, the moments that stretch into hours, the tense, tetchy corridor conversations that just serve to pass the time.

It's the faint glow of hope from colleagues and the terrible, tantalising scent of optimisim that is the worst part of Part 1.

Interestingly, whatever the Report shows, Part 1 is always the same. No matter how well your previous Quarter went, you find yourself clenched and grim faced, waiting for that rollercoaster to drop away from under you...

Part 2 though, is a different matter. This is where two roads diverge.

On the good days, the Miracle Quarters, you open the report and everything is good. Sales are up in all the right demographics, all of the product lines are more popular and best of all, it looks like the closest competitor has had a nightmare...

You bask, briefly, in a glow.

And then in the peculiar way of my industry, you move on. You don't really celebrate, you don't collect acclaim, you shrug and start to worry about the next Quarter.

Part 2 on a Bad Day. Not pretty. The grimness accelerates, the rollercoaster surges downwards and you bang your head on the support bar.

Now, everyone else is upset, they look sad, they look angry, they look at you...

And the real management, the distant and all knowing Higher Ups? Oh, they're on the phone, or they're coming in for a meeting and you, yes YOU, must instantly be able to do the following

1) Explain what happened

2) Explain why it happened (and ideally how it will never happen again)

3) Devise a cunning plan to fix everything immediately

4) Explain what happened.

5) Find a scapegoat

6) Explain what happened.

7) Promise that immediately after this meeting, the face of the company will change utterly, so that from this day forth, there will only be good results, preferably for less cost and with more revenue...

Those meetings are tricky.

Today?

More Bad than Good. Officialy, I'd be saying "flat" or "static"

In reality, one of my offices went up, one stayed where it was and the newest one did remarkably well...

In the weird world i live in, not good enough, more pressure than ever for the next Quarter...

Oh and... still not fired!

I'm a difficult friend...

2008-02-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

I can only imagine that I'm a difficult friend to have...

I'm not nasty, or malodorous, at least as far as I know...

But I do maintain a certain distance, I think it's partly because of my work, there is a difficulty with managing people who you'd rather be friends with.

So, it's easier to be their manager and not be their friend. In fact I specialise in the art of the distance. It's a little bit of smart mouth, a touch of disappearance and a smidgeon of not responding to calls / texts.

Oh and rarely making public appearances.

It's trying never to be drunk in company, it's watching how much you reveal about your personal life and it's about careful misdirection of conversations, usually through humour.

The question is whether this distancing is work related, or has it been a life long thing?

My mother used to say that I made friends easily, I suspect every mother says / wishes that.

But, it's true. I get on well with most people, I guess I have a certain oily charm.

The problem is, I retreat then, I step back and I drift away.

I do it to friends, I most definitely do it in relationships.

I don't really know why. Sometimes, I just prefer to be by myself, living in my head, having quiet and space. Maybe, because I work in a "soft skilled" industry and I spend a lot of my day adjusting behaviours and sidestepping egos. But I don't think that's the real reason.

I'm happiest in my own head. Odd, but true.

So, all my life I've drifted off, leaving in the dead of night, metaphorically, slipping loose from the moorings and setting off across a new horizon. I have made and lost friends, started and never finshed relationships, had more great first dates than I could count...

But some people are relentless. The small but ferocious band of friends I have amaze me. They just will not let go. They persist beyond all reasonable effort, to the point where I eventually ask myself, "what exactly am I resisting?"

That is the mystery, I like these people, damm it, I love some of them, I am amazed at their persistence, curious as to what they see in me that is worth pursuing...

Some, prod me, poke me and drive me to do things I like doing. Like posting here.

Some, push me, challenge me and try to break me out of my gloomy rut.

Some, I've left behind and wish I hadn't.

It bothers me, in my secret heart, I wonder if I'm missing something, am I wired wrongly? Why, when I have the social skills, do I prefer to hide, to duck and skulk?

And why in God's name do Paul and the rest persist?

All I can say, is, Thanks

Stop me, if you've heard this one before...

2008-02-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but Good God, I work with some thick people.

Not by choice. By which I mean, not by my choice, I'm sure at The University of Thick there's a list as long as my arm of people who'd love to work under my benign but invigorating regime...

I'm still in work by the way. 13 hours of nonsense so far today.

I've been away for the last week as I mentioned, so I've been running things by remote control using email and the occasional threatening phonecall.

However, I was back in the glorious, technicolour world of the Thick today.

And my God, they unlearnt a lot in one week.

I had three infuriating meetings at which people wandered around in leisurely circles, wondering about things and making half assed suggestions, that I know they will later be bitter and resentful about, when we decline to take their suggestion and use it...

I can hear them now in the kitchen, during one of their many breaks, muttering to each other, about how "I told them, we should be doing X and of course now we're doing Y and I'll get the blame"

Of course in this case, X would be the equivalent of having a quiet smoke on the forecourt of a garage and then stuffing the smouldering butt into the fuel tank.

They say in brainstorming there is no such thing as a bad idea.

Sadly, this could not be further from the truth. And bad ideas are a potent currency that the generators of cling to with a touching fondness, hoping that they can cash these crappy suggestions in at the altar of success.

Trust me when I say, I'm a lot closer to the altar and frankly the ideas you so fondly offer are worse than useless.

I sometimes have to literally bite my tongue to avoid shouting aloud "What is wrong with you people?"

The worst ones are the ones who just fail to get things done. You discuss something, you explain, you answer their questions, you listen to and deal with their objections and you get their agreement that this new idea is the best way forward.

Then, at the next meeting, or say for example if you had been out of the office for a week, at the next opportunity, you hear a cavalcade of complaints and moans about how they don't understand, how no one explained, or my favourite one "We tried that and it didn't work"

The notion that the way that they had approached it might be at fault, or that their execution was completely arseways, simply does not float through their heads.

I guess that is the most annoying thing. Thickness and Self Confidence seem to run together, hand in hand...

It must be a wonderful world for the Thick. They seem to suffer from no self doubt, or maybe they simply lack the ability to think about whether something is right or wrong.

If I could remove one category of people from the world, it would be the Self Confident Thick person... Then maybe I'd be home by now...

A Day Off...

2008-02-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

But not from blogging... obviously...

Today was the first day in a while that I had nothing specifc to do.

It took me a while to get my head around it. I kept making up things that I should really be doing, fighting off urges to get in the car and go somewhere, maybe to get the car washed, maybe I should go and buy new sheets or something. I don't know. I just had this nagging urge that I should be doing something.

I didn't.

I went to the shop, I bought stuff for breakfast / lunch, I bought meatballs for dinner, it's kind of a shop meets deli... And then i cooked pasta and had the meatballs with it. Great.

I watched the rugby, I watched Shrek 3 on Sky Movies, I played around with Sky plus and recorded loads of stuff I'll never watch.

And all the time, I felt like I should be doing something else. In fact I checked my email any number of times... I thought about hoovering...

It was only late in the day that I realised how much difficulty I was having unwinding. And only on my second glass of wine that I started to think about what my friends keep telling me.

This is all too much, or rather, the last few months have been too much. I kind of got lost in the rush, drama, pressure and anger. I've been wound up like some kind of tightly wound metaphor...

I still have a million things to do and huge issues to worry about, but at least today I had a moment or two, to realise that there is an end in sight, that other things matter too, that I have a nice house, that I can cook (or at least reheat stuff)...

Not too bad really.

Itunes is more depressed than I am...

2008-02-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

I posted earlier today from London...

Now, I'm back in Dublin.

This has been an hellacious week. Stress, anxiety and very little sleep because of the insane pressure that I've been witness to...

It's exhausting.

And I know that in some ways the week ahead is worse...

So, I put on Itunes when I got home, and brought the bottle of grappa and a shot glass upstairs with me. I need to stop thinking for a while.

My first choice of song, Bob Dylan "It Ain't me babe" - probably tells you more than you need to know about where my head is it.

And true to the mysterious game I was introduced to in one of those two room pubs in the back of beyond in Kildare, Ipod Iching, the next song up?

Joy Division, "Love will Tear Us Apart"

Have you played Ipod Iching? You ask the Ipod a question, then you set it to random and click next...

It doesn't always work. But, it you've been drinking and are in that place, where everything is crowded with meaning that will evaporate in the morning, it can seem fleetingly profound.

I struggled to assign meaning to the third song briefly - Gorillaz, "Dirty Harry" - but with a chorus, sung by children of "you need a gun to keep yourself from harm" meaning quickly suggests itself...

And, because Itunes, knows that I'm effectively live blogging it's choices, now it's playing Radiohead "Bones", which I blogged about only last week...

Inchoate is a word that has been floating through my head... It is a word that for me is always attached to the word rage...

Inchoate rage. Incipient or imperfectly formed.

That's me that is. Anger floods through my mind, dark thoughts of vengeance against an enemy who is not mine, impotent and crushing worry and despair.

Itunes has provided The Beatles and "A Day in the Life"... It's not really trying to lift the mood is it?

Like everyone else, I don't know where my breaking point is, but I'm starting to feel I can see it from here...

This week, Thursday in fact, the single biggest day in my working life happens. I have to have fixed the problem I have by then. The figures will be analysed, there will be phonecalls, it may be the point of breaking.

Frankly, I have nothing left to break...

And the last word from Itunes?

We're waiting... and it's stupid, childish and superstitious to say... We're hoping...

The song, flooding from the speakers? Cocteau Twins, "Cherry Coloured Funk", a song, that for me is rich in sadness, happiness and mystery... A good place to end.

Ex-treme behaviour

2008-02-08T08:17:00.001-08:00

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find your partner's ex going through your pockets, or walking out of your house or your partner's house and having a flurry of activity from two doors down, as they video and photograph your every move...

It sounds odd... It is odd

Ok, so the ex's partner wasn't actually at the foot of the bed, but for the case that is ongoing, they have been poking around in every intimate detail of my partner's life and my life...

It's not a joke... We've been followed and photographed, they have gained access to medical records, there is at least one private detective, the ex has set up fake email addresses to get information out of estate agents, cancelled insurance policies, opened post and quite possibly bugged my partners house...

It all sounds impossible, like a bad made for tv movie...

Apparently, not only is it possible, but it's happened and is happening.

And, the oddity and obsession seems to have no rhyme or reason to it...

The Ex left my partner, the Ex settled down with someone else, the Ex has all the money...

In fact, I suppose as always it comes down to money. The Ex is so obsessed and consumed by the fires of greed and arrogance because of money that they will stop at nothing to tear apart the life of my partner, my life and anyone else that the Ex thinks there is an advantage to be gained from.

I am physically sickened by the arrogance, by the obsessiveness and the all pervading, creepy, disturbing, twisted, ignorant bitterness of this freak.

I have thought about some dark paths in the last few days. But, I am not prepared to become twisted and Gollumlike. I will not follow down the gloomy path, I know that madness lies that way, I fear that madness has already taken hold of the Ex.

The question is, when the case is over, when the verdict is in, where does all of that twisted, manic, destructive energy go next?

Well now...

2008-02-01T16:41:00.001-08:00

Ok, I survived...

No being carried out my shield today.

In fact, I faced down the tiger, I ducked the chariot and I answered the right questions at the right time...

Now, it seems silly and anticlimactic.

But, there you go.

I never know what the actual value of the equation is.

Did I worry too much, wasting time and effort imagining scenarios that were never going to happen?

Or, did I get it right. Was I prepared for every eventuality and so, could answer all the right questions?

I don't know.

I know I eyeballed the Billionaire and he seemed happy.

Roll on the next event...

In the meantime, I've been followed by a private detective for the last three weeks.

It turns out, I would be crap at spying.

People have been videoing me, taking pictures, noting my every move since the end of December.

Admittedly, they are by and large, crazy, psychotic people....

Still, it's a total headfuck.

Long story, current partners psycho ex is trying to wiggle out of a settlement.

It is however an intensely upsetting experience.

However, tomorrow morning I am having the words "Fuck you, CUNTS" spray painted on the bonnet of my car...

And I will now be parking directly in front of the psycho's house

The day of the Meeting...

2008-01-31T16:03:00.000-08:00

Well, tomorrow is really the day of the Meeting.

In fact, I have two tomorrow.

This is a first. We've split things into two seperate entities. I, however, get to go to both meetings... Happy Days...

The Billionaire and his Chief Lieutenant are never predictable in these meetings.

It's a series of odd and unnerving presentations, questions that come out of the blue and just occasionally an absolute, stone cold, stinker, that you did not see coming...

Worst of all, they encourage a "make it happen, NOW!" culture.

Sounds ok, until you're sitting in a meeting and suddenly find yourself pushed into repainting by hand every single display unit in a blend of tangerine and mocha by 5pm that day... Or something like that...

So, I've spent the entire last week working from 7am to 10pm.

Worrying?

24 / 7

I've been through every presentation, I've sat and worried about every possible question, I've laid out my new suit and worried about what colour shoes...

All of this is ultimately pointless.

I've been going to these meetings for nearly two years.

The worst part? They turn on the tiniest thing... One mistake, one issue, one tiny microdot that I missed? It could turn into World War 3, for me...

If, if, it all goes well, by 1pm I should be free and clear... with another month or two before the next one... If it goes badly, I'll have an action list as long as my arm and we'll go back to the horror of waiting for the phone to ring or the email to arrive... Torture, death by a thousand texts...

Given all of that, why am I not asleep?

Too much, too wound up, too agitated...

But secretly, looking forward to it... Waiting, to buckle up, to lace up my sandals, to oil my sword and to get into the arena....

In my heart, I'm a gladiator... I want to pit my wits against the barbarians, I want to be faster than the tiger, I want to take down the chariot...

And that is why, one of these days, I'll be carried out of one of these meetings on my shield...

The Man Who Would not be Fired

2008-01-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

No, not me.

But, equally, no, I have not yet been fired.

I was considering my Imaginary predicament, in which I work for a theoretical Billionaire and his Chief Lieutenant.

And something struck me. Most of my favourite blogs are the ones that are work related. Odd, I know, me, with a work fixation?

Anyway, yes, the blogs I read most often, which I will list at some point tend to deal with people's working lives. The storytelling is usually pretty good and I love watching a scenario unfold through someone elses words.

That's probably why I read so much junk fiction in my ever diminishing spare time. But, really I'm chasing characters and situations and puzzling over the whys and wherefores of each one.

It occured to me, gradually, that maybe that is what I should be blogging about.

I do spend some considerable time in work.

I do have some extraordinary stories of madness that goes on.

I would then have something about which I could write.

I may never win Young Scientist, for various reasons, particularly at this stage, the blatant Age Discrimination inherent in the competition, but even I could figure out the potential here...

By the way, how do the Young Scientists get away with such blatant anti ageist propaganda? Where are the Mid Life Scientists, the Aging Scientists, the Semi Retired But Still Do a Bit of Science In The Garage (Don't Tell The Wife) Scientists?

And why don't they win prizes and get to be on the front of the Irish Times with their braces etc?

Anyway, the story that fascinates me at the moment is the one of The Man Who Would not be Fired.

The Imaginary company I work for has many different locations, the Man (as he shall be known), runs a small and not very profitable branch, in fact, his branch is losing money hand over fist.

He, on the other hand, is a large and somewhat noisy individual.

I dread seeing his name in my Inbox, because inevitably, he will have written an epic email, full of posturing, demanding to know why everyone else has made a mess of something and deploring the fact that only he had the foresight, wisdom etc to notice this terrible error.

99.9% of the time, he is in the wrong, he has misunderstood the original instruction and quite probably, caused the problem in the first place.

It became a grim game in the Management Meetings, to watch this guy dice with death as he increasingly annoyed and frustrated the Chief Lieutenant.

Eventually, patience diminshed and the Axman was sent out to sort him out.

By which I mean, fire him.

Which he did, apparently. Well over a month ago.

However The Man, continues to work away. Only today I had four or five emails, which I was cc'ed on. In which, he deplored some error that everyone else was making, which was of course in fact his misunderstanding.

I asked around. Everyone thinks he was fired. In fact he has told staff in his branch, on a couple of occasions that today / tomorrow / last week was his last day.

In fact, we've even sent an interim Manager to the branch. And the next Management Meeting is on this Friday. But still I get mails, with discussion of future plans, laying out deals he wants to do for 2008 and agonising over how we are messing everything up and how he couldn't stand over it.

The urge to shout at the top of my voice "Fuck off, you were fired" is unbearable.

I am resisting only because my curiosity is getting the better of me.

How long can a man who was fired keep working for? It's like one of those Action Movies in which the villian keeps popping up from the bath, or climbing out of the meat grinder, or magically reappearing under the bed of the hero...

The Man Who Would not be Fired. He's an inspiration in some ways...

Pistachios and Porn

2008-01-28T14:47:00.000-08:00

Well, that was the first title that came into my head...

Somebody pointed out that I don't blog anymore...

It's true...

The simple version is that I find myself crushed by the weight of expectation at work and deeply challenged by the weird rollercoaster that my personal life is on...

In fact, I don't really seem to have a life at the moment.

It feels like I live bits of other peoples.

I have a challenging job, I'm not a heart surgeon, nor do I regularly save the financial markets through some staggering work of non theft... In fact at the end of the day, my principle source of income is a very odd set of skills.

This gives me very little comfort.

I think I'm good at what I do, but what I do is terribly subjective.

At the end of the day, its cultural value is minimal, but the pressure is intense.

On good days, I can feel like I made some kind of a difference.

However, things have not been good in a small but highly significant part of the empire I am custodian of. Let's pretend that I work for a Billionaire, who had a pet project. His pet project is not going well. I have to fix it. There are phonecalls and a certain level of expectation. It's not entirely easy.

Now, every time my phone rings, it could be either the Billionaire or his Chief Lieutenant. They won't be happy, if history has taught me anything.

This places a certain anxiety around my phone. So, in fact, I really have stopped using it, I rarely send texts or make calls that are not work related.

All of this sounds unpleasant when I write it down... Maybe it is unpleasant.

It is coming to a head, there are two significant events in the next two to three weeks. And always, always, always, there lurks a fear that my skills will not be sufficient and that the mythical axe will fall and I will be cast adrift.

The problem is that I don't know what else I could do.

Nor, do I know how I would replace the income I get paid for the extensive, elaborate and torturous existence that I lead.

At one point, my theory was that I should become a taxi driver, as the worst things that would happen would be that

a) I would be stabbed and robbed
or
b) someone would puke on me

Neither of these carries anything like the weight of expectation that I struggle with now.

All of which takes us back around to the title of the post. I find myself on a Monday night, unable to sleep, wound up and home too late for dinner, so I'm eating pistachios and contemplating porn.

It occurs, that overall, I may not be leading the full and wholesome life I dreamt of as a child.

The Anonymous Paradox

2007-09-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

Having blogged most recently about Blogging, I return to the topic...

The thing that is exercising my mind today is the question of Anonymity

Now, I read quite a lot of blogs, sometimes in a "check through my list of bookmarks" way, sometimes in a totally random, "clicking on the ones with cool names" kind of way...

One way or another, I've seen quite a few...

Honestly, I have a certain fascination for three types of blogs

1. Sex Blogs... (duh!)
2. Funny blogs
3. Knitting blogs

I just love the randomness and enthusiasm of the knitting people...

Anyway, the point was, that Anonymity and the maintenance of it, is something that takes up an awful lot of blogging time...

Now, I realise that 99% of the sex blogs would simply not exist if everyone used their full name and address...

I, contribute to a to group blog. Which is anonymous.

In fact, I only really know who two of the group are...

It is both a blessing, in that you can write with freedom and a curse, in that you spend so much time watering down and anonymize-ing stories that sometimes it feels like there is no sting left in the tale...

I do also have a secret blog... But alas, that remains completely secret... and unvisited by even Blogger... In fact, I could write the content on a page at home - and there would be more chance of someone reading it. I live alone.

It's a pity really, I often think I write best when I'm angry - and it's easier to be angry if you can name names...

Blogging about Blogging

2007-08-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

It always seems that Blogs about Blogging are frowned upon.

I know anytime I have posted previously about the difficulties or otherwise in posting, older, wiser Bloggers, shake their heads and tut tut about introspective navel gazing... Then they usually ask why I'm not using Typepad and why I don't post more often...

Still though, sometimes I need to write things down to work them out.

And writing them down in a word document and saving it on my laptop doesn't seem to have the same power as writing them down and placing them in the public eye.

Yet, when I come to write stuff specifically for a blog, I am always hamstrung by self consciousness...

So, I write glib posts about non important matters.

I've tried the secret blog - and I just re-read the posts on it - I was certainly very honest, but it's difficult to imagine anyone reading it...

I need to get beneath my skin and let the things in my head out... A fine mixed metaphor...

This morning on the plane, I was thinking about the way I live my life.

The simple version is that I always sit in the aisle seat. This morning's flight was not that full and I was seated in what would normally be the business section, so I was in a two seat row. Just an aisle seat and a window seat.

I had of course checked in two hours early, which meant I got up at 5am.

Anyway, I was sitting in my aisle seat, the guy beside me was sitting in his window seat.

The following points of difference unfolded during the flight...

HIM
Window Seat
Pushed seat back
Had two glasses of Red Wine
Bought E160 headphones on the way through the airport
Stared out the window at quite spectacular views
Went to the loo twice

ME
Aisle Seat
Kept seat upright
Drank Water
Bought nothing
Read book, stared at nothing
Went to the loo once

Anyway, the point was, he seemed to be living more of a life than me.

I sometimes feel like I live my life like a part time freelance person.

Not really committing to anything, always waiting for something to happen, never actually in the moment, putting up with things but not doing anything

It's like how I behave with money - I worry about it incessantly but I don't actually plan or act on any of my worries

Or my job, somehow in my head it's a temporary thing - so much so that I haven't even signed up for frequent flyer clubs - because I don't really think I'll be doing it for long enough to benefit... This is after 13 months of pretty much continuous travel.

I don't know how to get out of this cycle of stop start, temporary living.

I need to sit in the window seat more often

The Older I get

2007-08-08T00:02:00.001-07:00

The older I get, the more I learn about people - and the more I realise, how little I actually know.

For years I think I've listened to people, but not really heard what they say.

I know what they are trying to say, or so I think, then I filter that through my own needs and concerns and carry on doing what I was doing anyway.

I don't really listen.

I know this, because I found when I actually do listen to someone, pay attention to what they are saying, think about why they are saying and ask myself what made them say it in the first place, my reaction is usually about 180 degrees different from what it would be otherwise.

I say this, I know this, I've learnt this, but it is still very hard to put it into practice.

And when I look back at my life and the mistakes I've made and the stupid things I've done and the time I've wasted - I wonder whether things would have been different if I had listened more...

Could I have fixed things that are now broken forever?

Could I have lived a better life - or made life easier for other people around me?

Could I still be friends with all the people I just drifted away from?

I don't know how to go back and fix things - and I have no confidence that I won't keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Sometimes it's only when you see other people heading down the same torturous path you've already stumbled along - that you realise, you can't change other people, you can't even change yourself.

All you can do is listen and at least try to learn.

One day, maybe I'll be a better person - Some days I struggle just to be me.

Who knows?

2006-11-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

I'm dizzy and disturbed

Just at the moment things seem to be very diffcult - I keep hearing the same expression from the people I work with - "nothing left in the tank"

It sounds about right...

I feel like a sputtering engine, low on fuel, struggling to keep going...

I'm tired, but not from lack of sleep

I'm depressed, but not because of any events

I'm lonely and miserable - which may explain the depression.

I don't quite know how to get myself out of this situation either.

I'm thinking about it though.

And tomorrow I have to write. I have to work. I have to start finding answers.

2006-10-31T14:47:00.000-08:00

C*nts

All of them

What is the point?

I don't know.

I'm tired and fed up.

And I'm not sure what to say...

Other people are difficult.

Especially when you care about them...

I'm off to live in a cave with Osama and Suri Cruise

I have been ill, you know...

2006-05-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hello again...

Sometimes in life, a cloud lifts away and the sun shines... Both actually and metaphorically, although frankly, with the weather in Ireland, metaphorical sunshine is pretty much all we're left with...

While I've been busy not posting, amongst other things I haven't done, I have been thinking... oh and talking, and talking and talking...

That was after the sore throat cleared...

My head is full of stuff, but I seem to have lost the knack of writing it down...

But, amongst my thoughts...

It's easy to forget where you live... not actually, unless you're hammered... But sometimes where you live just becomes a place to go, somehwere you eat and sleep and if you're lucky have a shower... I think it probably applies most when you live on your own... You become absorbed in the functional features of your residence, living on alarm clocks and fridge contents and never thinking about where you live, how it looks, what you want to do...

It's only when someone else visits, or stays that you experience the joy of a home, or so it has been in my case...

It was only when I had friends to so, one for 4 days, another for a couple of nights, that I started to pay attention to what goes in my house... And I love it all over again... the sun in the morning, the little bird that's building a nest in the wall out the back, the vast numbers of skips that populate my street... In fact I was so enamoured I headed out last night with my camera to take some photos of my beautiful surroundings...

Here's a couple...

Tied Up

2006-05-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

And not in a good way

Just too many things at the same time. None of them leading anywhere.

Hiding in music.

Feeling ill.

Back soon

Sunny Days

2006-04-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

Everything seems a little easier to bear on a sunny day.

I don't hate rain. I don't hate wind. But it's so much nicer when the sun is out.

God. That is a terribly, terribly lame and anodyne post.

Sorry.

So, its been a while since I posted. Things have been busy. I have no space in my head to think. Less work. More walks on beach.

I'm trying to change gear. I think I've been working in a low wattage kind of way. Getting through. Not really thinking. Agonising about things rather than dealing with them. Getting more tangled up in the process of worrying about things than actually working out how to do them.

I've been busy. But busy doing what exactly?

It's kind of like waking up. I realise that I'm faster, better, smarter than I've been for the last 6 months. It's annoying but its exhilirating.

I know why it happened too. Too much time spent peering down the road at the future. Too many stupid people in my way, just doing nothing.

It's so annoying to wake up from that kind of half assed stupor and realise how much time and intellect you've wasted.

Like the start of the post. Aren't sunny days great?

You know what? Fuck sunny days. And rain and the rest. The point is what have I been doing at work for the last 6 months? Nothing. Waiting for winter to pass. The equivalent of doodling on my notebook during maths and then wondering why I didn't understand it and couldn't do my homework when I got home.

Idiot.

Anyway. Life is not all about work. Otherwise. Things are good. All the more reason to get my dumb brain in gear and make some progress

Angry. Out.

The Shroud

2006-04-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

So, I'm away for the weekend...

I'm sitting in a pub and I glimpse through a door a very, very odd picture.

It's like an impressionist Edward Munch...

I didn't go to see what it actually was, I'm guessing some kind of awning, propped against a wall, viewed through a frosted glass window....

Spooky

Tired, like an old joke...

2006-04-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

You know, the kind of joke... the one everyone knows, no one remembers, until your drunk.

That may not make much sense...

I've had a long week and it's only Tuesday - by my reckoning I've worked 40 hours in three days... I know doctors work longer hours but I am exhausted...

My brain keeps snapping off in random directions. I have to stop and remind myself what I was doing. In fact since I got home, I've been making lists out loud to help myself remember what I'm supposed to be doing...

So, I've been wandering around the house going, "check email, post something on blog, brush teeth, sleep".

And it's only 8.15pm

Anyway, I fell asleep about five or six times on the way home. You know, one of those weird disjointed, entirely seperate series of micronaps. Each one had a different theme, each time I woke up, startled and at a different stop. People disappeared from beside me, new people appeared opposite me, I half eavesdropped on conversations then included them in my dreams... Very disturbing.

Right, stop posting and go to bed...

Later...

That Girl's interview with The Monkey

2006-04-09T03:59:00.000-07:00

That Girl has interviewed yours truly... It's part of a Blog version of Spin The Bottle

Here's the interview...

http://www.thinkingoutloud.biz/archives/000673.html#more

Next, it's my turn... But first I have to select a Blogger...

Killer on the Dart

2006-04-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not a killer...

I am however reading James Ellroy at the moment, "Killer on the Road". He's a tough read. I read most of the LA Quartet, but eventually had to stop because his writing is just so dark and claustrophobic sometimes that you get swallowed up by it.

However, I was in my local library, when I stumbled across "Killer on the Road" and thought I'd dive in again...

In this book he's writing from the point of view of a serial killer, in fact it takes the form of a confessional / autobiography written from Death Row. It tracks the early years and the starting point of this guy's descent into madness. Once again I find myself tangled up in these incredibly well written but horribly dark thoughts.

So, while sitting on the DART, inevitably it affects your perspective.

You can imagine how the killer lurks, preying, watching, waiting.

And as the DART slices through sleepy suburbs, suddenly, you find yourself peering into people's kitchens, or catching a glimpse of someone busy making breakfast and wondering about the crazy people...

Look there, a flimsy garden fence, half collapsed, a back door ajar, when you see the world with a killer's eyes everything looks a lot less secure...

Maybe I should go back to reading Cecilia Ahern... At least that way I spend DART journeys sleeping...

Another Dublin Blog Post

2006-04-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

For no good reason, here's a post on the new Dublin Blog...

Rambling about Bird Flu

If you haven't seen The Dublin Blog - check it out, there are some great writers (and me)

My Weather Hell

2006-04-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

God, I really, really don't like this weather... stop with the rain, wind, cold thing, please...

I briefly attempted to go for a walk today, only to be defeated by some kind of half assed monsoon. Grr

Anyway, I've been thinking about drinking.

Last night, I was out in town, after a rugby match. My God, there were some incredibly drunken people out.

Now, I freely admit, I drink. Often to excess, but hopefully, not with the results that I saw last night.

A pub, in town. It shall remain nameless. But clearly, a number of eager customers had been busy imbibing throughout the day. Late in the evening, inevitably one had to visit the downstairs toilets. Now, my theory about pub toilets is that generally, pubs with toilets in the basement are not good. I think it may simply be "out of sight, out of mind" for the bar staff...

These toilets were a case in point. Stairs, overly step and narrow. Aroma, not pleasant. Paintwork, grim and ancient. All of which served only as a gentle warning for the state of the toilets...

Not good... Floor, flooded. Toilet paper, soggy mass on the floor. Underwear, lying in the middle of the sodden mass beside the toilet, in the cubicle.

But and somewhat belatedly, I return to my point. There was a person. Standing, swaying, propped against the sink. They may have been there for sometime. They had that slack jawed, vacuous look that speaks of a long day of imbibing. They, I think, were attempting to close their belt.

They were having some trouble.

I entered, avoided, abluted and departed without our friend making any obvious progress towards reassembling their outfit.

The kinder hearted readers are wondering why I didn't ask them if they were ok? Well, my primary concern was to leave before they threw up all over themselves, myself and the already somewhat scruffy facilities... I am not, I'm afraid, a good samaritan.

Seeing this incpacitated, inebriated, incompetent had the effect of opening my eyes to the other drunken denizens of downtown Dublin. I saw a man, with what looked like dried blood on his face, I saw someone else, "resting" by the side of the road", I watched another man, read aloud, very, very slowly from The Sunday World.

We're not pretty when we're drunk. We should really drink less. I should drink less. And yet it remains very difficult for me personally to imagine going out for a night and not drinking anything as a matter of course. Is it our culture? Is it me? Is it healthy?

Clearly not. And yet on Friday night, I drank cheerfully until all hours and had what I would consider a great time. So, if you do meet me in a toilet in a semi belted state, remind me... it's ok not to drink, in fact sometimes it's fun to just go out without getting out of it... Don't be afraid of yourself.

Dublin Blog...

2006-03-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, despite moaning about not having any time... I've signed up to write for the brand new Dublin Blog...

It's at www.DublinBlog.ie

Oh and my first post is here...

Gay saves the day

What ate Time?

2006-03-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

It is such a tired cliche to suggest that modern life is hectic, nearly as tedious as suggesting that modern life is rubbish... But, golly, I don't know where the time goes anymore...

Without being overly specific, I used to have time for a relationship, a gym membership, hobbies, weekends away and well, what seemed like a vast quantity of "me" time...

Now? Well, I'm single - which seems to save me no time at all...

I've given up the gym - and am avoiding the bathroom scales, which has taken on a judgemental look...

I never seem to take holidays... and I find it hard to find time to blog, never mind shop, go for a walk, meet friends, write novels etc etc...

All of my time seems to be sucked into some kind of work related vortex... I am in work at 8am, somehow I rarely leave before 7pm, when you factor in the travel time and the post work exhaustion, I hardly live at all...

This is exacerbated by my activities this weekend, which consisted primarily of working - an 8 hour day on Saturday, a 7 hour day on Sunday... I barely had time to see my Mother...

The worst thing? I'm not in a good work place right now, frustrated, irritated, blocked in any attempt to expand and develop, yet still spending my whole life there...

Tonight, I planned to return home and celebrate the extended daylight hour by walking on the beach. I'm home, it's 7.30, my ipod is irritatingly not charged, it's raining and I haven't posted for a week...

I think I need a PA...

The ubiquity of Bananas

2006-03-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

A small part of your mind is thinking, he's just invented that phrase as some kind of teaser to drag me into his blog, which is probably about politics or horses or something...

Another part of your mind is thinking... bananas, you know, I do see a lot of them...

So, I'm away for the weekend, in the UK... And I'm sitting on a train, wondering and gawping at the many wonderous and strange sights... hoping to see streets paved with gold etc...

Well, actually, I was on a train, ruminating about the similarities and differences between a train at night in one country and another... because this was only England, south coast, there really wasn't a vast world of difference in the appearance of the people... Equally, the fundamental design of the train was the same... As was the general, sodium light, passing at speed, urban landscape...

And then it occured to me as I watched a commuter, snacking on a banana... That the banana itself was the oddest thing in the picture... Where do bananas grow? Hot, tropical places... How well do they travel? Not very well, judging by the amount of damage a small group can sustain in the transition between the supermarket and my house... How quickly do they ripen and decline? Pretty darn quickly, unless they've been evilly frozen by an uncaring gobal conglomerate - in which case they go a kind of startled brown...

And yet they are in fact nearly ubiquitous in our daily lives - we just take their presence for granted, whether in some grotty Spar shop, or in some high end organic fruiteria....

And then, I mentioned them to a dear friend who has a grasp of trivia that is second only to his knowledge of Evan Dando... He assured me that the sale of bananas is a key performance indicator for supermarkets... although in truth, anything more than a cursory search on Google, leaves me confused about the accuracy of that statement, but let's imagine for a moment that it's true...

If you're in the mood to have a look here

Anyway, my point, more or else is we live in a furiously modern age - where we take for granted so many things... Let's stop a moment - and enjoy a banana... and remember just how complicated the process of getting that banana, into our hands, or onto our trains, in a perfectly ripe and edible condition really is...

Oblique

2006-03-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

Not everything makes sense the first time you encounter it...

One of the great mysteries to me is how I can hear a song the first time and hate it. Yet, eventually I grow to love it and listen to it over and over again.

It happens regularly, I make snap decisions and get it wrong.

You meet someone and because they look like someone you used to know, someone you disliked... you make a decision, that you won't like this new person...

In the middle ages physiognomy, the shape of faces, gaps between teeth and the shape of noses meant more than they do today... but the fundamentals still apply... "I don't like his nose", "she's got funny coloured eyes" and so on...

Malcolm Gladwell, has written one great book "The Tipping Point" and one slightly less great book called "Blink". In "Blink" he argues that one of humanities greatest gifts is the ability to thin slice an event or a meeting and make an immeadiate and accurate decision.

I don't believe him.

I think we thin slice things and make mistakes all the time.

And if you combine snap decisions and stubbornness, well, that for me, explains a lot about how humanity carries out its daily business...

Sometimes the best things take time. Sometimes things that look great, taste awful. Sometimes a song you hate becomes brilliant.

Life is more complicated than television wants you to think it is.

I say, enjoy complexity - don't ever fear it.

Parallel Lives

2006-03-14T14:53:00.001-08:00

Where I live, I am uniquely privileged to be at one end of a public transport system...

Why, privileged? Well, there are a number of advantages...

Firstly, your chosen means of transport is almost always awaiting you , like a vast and glorified chauffeur driven delight, it's like being Johnny Ronan, the guy from Treasury Developments who has a brand new Maybach Benz (there are only two in the country, the other one belongs to Enya, they cost about half a million euro) sitting outside his office all day, with his driver, on standby...

Obviously, it's not quite like that, but there is some similarity...

Clearly this cuts down on waiting in the rain time... It also means that you get to see the patterns of other peoples lives much more clearly...

Every morning, I sit in a certain place and around me, the same people gather... There's a girl, with blond hair and a dark coat, who sits at the furthest end, as close to the driver as possible, there's a man in a hat, who looks entirely different when he removes it, there's a girl in a tracksuit who smokes, there's a girl who's dad drives a brand new Mercedes CLK and drops her off every morning... This morning, he stopped to give her money...

And at each stop along the way, you get to recognise the same faces, there's an older woman and a dark haired woman, who get on together at the same stop, there's a man who always seems far too warm and insists on opening windows... there's a girl who looks familiar, but isn't...

All these parallel lives go on around me every morning... and it's weird to see and so different to driving in a car, in a little isolated world....

The thought that started all this was, the other morning, as I was walking towards the stop, a tall man, emerged from his apartment, he walked in front of me all the way to the stop, I watched his back pack bob up and down....

In fact, the only thing that drew my attention to him was that he seemed to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... he tried to bin it along the way and it fell on the ground... I spent a good five minutes wondering, why and how he came to be carrying an empty aftershave bottle in his hand... I had no answer...

And that evening, as I returned home, the same guy passed me, back pack bobbing, departing from my view at the same apartment I met him at in the morning... And i wondered, what had he done with his day? And how odd is it that our days were exactly the same length? and what did he do next?

So much blogging...

2006-03-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

Wow, the level of coverage and cross blog support today is amazing... It really does feel like a community - and not just because we all emerged blinking from behind our monitors and braved daylight... Although that may be part of it....

Imagine for a moment, if every night out with friends involved people taking photos, writing up the highlights of the evening, posting videos, linking to each other and sharing what happened with those who couldn't be there?

Are we at the start of a future wave of virtual community meeting the real world? Or are we just a bunch of sociable people who leapt at the chance to share a few drinks and chat with people who we feel we know because we read their thoughts almost every day?

It's an interesting question I think - and I freely admit to spending quite a bit of time, looking through photos, reading as many of the blogs from people I met as possible... It really does feel like a community experience - although in some ways it shouldn't...

Let's face facts - when i walked into the Alexander Hotel - I physically knew two people... I had spoken by phone with two more, but it was an entertaining and enjoyable evening that has only been enhanced by the photos and accounts that other people have subsequently shared...

In some ways, I had a better time and warmer feelings following a night where I had never met 164 people then I did after the previous week at an industry function where out of 500 people, I probably knew 164 people at least by sight....

Odd...

But I'm looking forward to next year

Joining Irish Blogs

2006-03-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

#

Well, I think it's time to say hello to the world... with this post, I will join Irish Blogs - I think the spotlight will only encourage me...

The concept...

2006-03-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

I was at a gathering of Bloggers last night... and as is customary at these things, eventually everyone there gave out about my inconsistency in posting, about my posting of the trivial and my posting about not posting...

I did explain to many and all that I had, in part because of these things, decided to retire my current blog and create this new one, which will see me post more often and on more interesting items, while also protecting my anonymity in the general world...

I have realised of course, that it would be difficult for me to write at length if I thought no one would ever read my thoughts, that primary ego gratification is a part of the ened to write in the first place...

I did have an interesting conversation with a friend, who I haven't seen in a while, she is an accomplished blogger, therapist and independent consultant... And I shared with her some of my thoughts on blogging...

I will recap on part of our discussion here, at the risk of returning to my old favourite theme of why and when I blog...

But, to some extent the point that she made is true - that blogging or any public display of your thoughts or creativity is in fact like art - it is an exhibition, a controlled display of things that you think when taken together have a merit.

In art, or in sculpture or in photogrpahy, the decision on what to include and what to leave out, the choices of what make the display are part of the nature of art... So, what we write, the tone we take, the amount of our lives we allow into the world is part of a structured display of content - an exhibition

In that way a blog is more than just a website, or a diary that is available on line - it is to some extent a work of personal creativity, which displays and details facets of the blogger's personality.

Some people my be more ostentatious than others in their displays - some people use simple blogging tools like closed community blogging - Bebo - and the like to interact with their friends... But the point of all of this, is that, it is a new way to define in part who you are and to tell the world how you feel and how you choose to interact with the world and other people...

In the same that you join a club, or name your house, or attend mass... Blogging is part of an expression of you - expressing yourself to the world at large

I think there is also a potential therapeutic role in it too - but I will return to that at another time....

In the meantime, with the advent of Irish Blogging Awards and having seen a room full of people who have had the courage and creativity to express themselves on line - I am optimistic that this may well be a new way to open debates and have conversations with the world at large in a way we have not done before...

Do you like My Manifesto?

2006-03-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome

This in truth is my third attempt at a blog.

The first one, I made the classic mistake of telling people I know about it... Yes, instant ego gratification, instant inability to write anything of interest or reveal any of the gritty, sordid semi truths of my battered existence....

Hmmm...

Blog No. 2? Yes, overdid the gritty thing - posting at length semi coherent rants and details of my life that even I find hard to read...

So, why Blog No. 3?

Well, this time, I think I will try to strike the famous happy medium...

I will remain anonymous... I will write about things that are actually important to me... I will not sputter and spray dark hearted thoughts, nor fill the blog with spam and updates from uninteresting newspages...

Here, perhaps, I will find out, if I can write...

Welcome... And I hope it is an enjoyable visit