Conversations I Should Have Had With My Godson.

Please don’t assume this is about “The Birds and the Bees”. To be honest at the age of twelve he probably knows more about that subject now than I did at his age (actually thinking about it my first instance of sex education was about that age, but in London, where things seemed to be explained earlier than they are in other parts of the country. Experienced from having to sit through the same rubbish a few times as we moved around the country as I got older).

As you will probably appreciate I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Possibly too much for some peoples liking.

One of my favourite pastimes is the dialectic, to my understanding conversation taking two opposing points of view discussed in an attempt to bring some understanding to the particular situation, philosophical point, what ever.

Dialectic in my case usually occurs most of the time internally, with idealised versions of individuals. Actually quiet shockingly occasionally when the conversation or imagined opponent takes their own point of view and begins arguing their point independently.

What I’m trying to say is I spend most of time wandering round Portsmouth deep in conversation with myself like some muttering loony. Listening to the voices in my head argue with myself or each other. It can be quiet amusing when I burst forth with a witty replay only to realise that I have spoken out loud, and I could actually be frightening the other people on the bus.

One of my favourite dialectics at the moment is the conversation I should have in whole with my twelve year old godson. I have managed to broach the subject with him already in part. But the real version of the conversation is so much more spectacular (in my head).

Life is all about compromise and negotiation!

All of life is about compromise and negotiation. Every relationship, love, marriage, friendship, sex, work, is about compromise and negotiation.

You live with your parents and the things that annoy them about you is the lack of compromise (hasn’t cleaned his room, never does the dishes, could make his own breakfast). It’s only later that you appreciate the work that was done for you because you have to do it yourself. Like pay the bills, mortgage etc.

I don’t share my life (on the whole) because I am essentially a very selfish individual. I don’t want to “negotiate” watching “eastenders” to be able to watch a Star Trek episode. I don’t want to negotiate the fact I’ll be home at seven to see her parents, just for a quiet life.

I have frequently compromised my circumstances. To allow for the fact that I worked in pubs I “lived in”. They paid my bills, fed me, paid my council tax and even gave me wages (pocket money), so I worked seventy hour weeks and only took a day and a half off a week and didn’t complain (no blog then).

In my older more cynical years (actually more cynical is not really achievable I’ve always been this bad) I have become more and more convinced that love and marriage are purely compromise and negotiation for regular sex. Or in some cases (my own included here), for any sex.

Work is purely compromise with your employer for what little you can get away with doing, for as little as they want to give you for doing it.

(It’s at this point that I descended into a darkness that could only see relationship, and marriage as just an excuse for each to try and get something off each other, so I left it at that.)

As a P.S. last night I dreamt that I had two axalotals and two newts. The newts where actually huge hairy versions of the axalotals. The two huge newts killed and ate the two axalotals. Now taking the biblical precedent (Josephs interpretation of the pharaohs dream of the cows), I’m taking this two mean I’ve had two years of shit and now my luck is going to change drastically.

Technorati Tag: Conversation, Humour, meekon5, Obsession, Depression, Dark, Axalotals.

Rainy Bank Holiday Monday.

As is traditional it rained Monday. It always rains bank holiday Monday (as far as I’m concerned). By some convoluted logic my company allows those of us with six months continuous service too be paid for “religious” bank holidays, but you need a years service to be paid for “non-religious” bank holidays. This particular bank holiday was not a “religious" bank holiday, I was on the rota to work. No amount of arguing on my part that, as a Pagan, all bank holidays are actually religious to me, would allow me the day off.

So I did the usual, up at seven out of the house by half past to be in work about eightish. These people are allowing me to work myself to death. Thirteen hour shifts four days a week and the odd eleven hours on the fifth day (actually Mondays). The little they pay me means I have to take what overtime they give me, and that’s overtime at basic rate, the gods forgive if the possibility of me working overtime on an occasion where I may earn more (say a bank holiday for instance) should occur. You see I can work as much overtime as I need, as long as it doesn’t give me the opportunity to actually benefit myself.

Much the same with the new position. We have to “prove” ourselves before they will consider even offering us more money. So they have four high class data analysts for half what it would cost them to actually employ them from the open market. Supply and demand will overcome this situation because I only need them as long as it takes me to get another job. The fact that they were the only people to offer me a job in a position of need, for that please read “back against the wall desperation”, is a small point.

I just feel as though I have fallen through some time warp and ended up twenty years ago (if it were not for the fact they all wear modern clothes I would think I had undergone a similar situation to the main character in “Life on Mars”).

I miss my bank holiday Mondays. I own most of the “Carry On” films on DVD. Actually from the point that during my deep days of depression I needed something light and inconsequential, as apposed to the not too surprisingly dark feast of angst and depressingly dark horrific fare that is the majority of my film collection. Nothing better than to sling on a “Carry On” and fall asleep to memories of mum cooking Sunday lunch and the rest of the family slowly drinking ourselves into a sherry addled stupor in front of the TV.

The flickering of the neon light in the gents reminds me of so many scenes from various film noir.

The down trodden hero’s profile starkly outlined against the intermittently flickering neon sign (either a bar sign from the seedy dive they live above, or the street light intruding through inadequately closed curtains). The hero (sipping at whisky from a shot glass, smoking a cigarette almost carelessly, blowing random shapes out of the window), sits on the windowsill watching the city flow past below. Sip on the whiskey, long drag on the cigarette. The sound of a police siren in the distance. Exhale, long and slow, smoke billowing towards the heavens. A drunken brawl, mostly shouting, threats of what they would do to so and so, if they caught them. The forlorn cry of an abandoned lover as she pleads in a painfully coarse, and common, voice for her mate to return, and that her impropriety meant nothing honestly. Sip of whiskey, draw on smoke.The smash of glass down some side street, heralding some other fight, or petty crime, thuggery, or vandalism. Exhale. The large old clock on the wall ticking too loudly in the quiet of the room. The drifting lilt of music from some bar down the street. The too merry karaoke style drunken revelry as some group of regulars attempt to join in. Sip of whiskey, draw in the smoke. The occasional car whizzing past with that ever present Doppler affect on the note of the engine, as it draws closer, then the shift in pitch as it passes and recedes to the distance. Clock tick, whisky sip, draw on the cigarette, nothing is going on this evening. Nothing at all. Cats fighting in the alley. Cars less and less frequent. Rise in the ever present drone of the by pass in the far distance, a road that never sleeps. Top up the whiskey from the dregs in the bottle, too little left, Have I really drunken all that? Probably.

Slowly turning to the room. Not stumbling too much. Slight chuckle to self at how difficult the simple things are. Place the bottle on the table. Remove my shoes and slump onto the mattress. Finally fall asleep.

Technorati Tag: Film Noir, Humour, meekon5, Obsession, Depression, Bank Holiday, Dark.

Twenty minutes just to think.

A new experiment.

I am putting aside just twenty minutes a day just to talk to myself in writing.

I hate Valentines Day! My dad used to tease me that all my birthday cards (my birthday’s tomorrow) were valentines cards when I was younger (much younger). Then I spent years working in restaurants (most restaurants of any worth are very busy this evening, so I was never able to take the evening off because of it). Humbug.

Anyway, happy Valentines Day to you to.

Yesterday I received notice that my building society has chosen to oppose my claim for some £6k-£7k claimed as illegal charges. This may be delaying tactics on their part or they may actually be stupid enough o let me set president against the vast weight of court cases and discussion amongst websites and professionals sighting the fact that punitive damages are actually illegal. As a result I didn’t sleep well last night. Fascists.

Tomorrow as of 0830hrs I will have trod this earth for forty two years precisely (give or take a few milliseconds).

I suppose it is time to reflect on what I’ve done and where I’ve been.

Fifteen minutes to sum up a life.

First I regret nothing. What I have done, what I have seen, and heard and experienced all make me the person I am now.

Born in Africa (didn’t see much of that as I was flown back to the UK at the age of a half, that’s six months to you).

Done many jobs. Including Barman/cellar man, waited on table. I trained as an accountant first time out of college (ACCA), but that was too boring for me. Ran restaurants, pubs and bars for a while, but the English licensing trade is one, too dangerous, and two, takes the piss when it comes to actually paying individuals. I’ve worked in the off-licence trade, in shops and private nursing homes. I’ve served petrol on station forecourts. Done “the Post” one Christmas. I liked working in IT until the problem with , how can I say this, I would call it harassment, but I think the whole company is treated with equal shite, so the corporate feeling wasn’t a blame culture more of a who can I dump- this crap on so I don’t get blamed. Only the bottom feeders and the gutter snipes survive for any length of time in that state. Too nice a person to exist in the rubbish for too long without being affected. Eight months signed off with stress and depression. I’ve stopped taking the medication but still find myself too emotionally exposed at times, crying at adverts for no apparent reason.

I carried my mother through her divorce, then had my first breakdown (once she found someone) after splitting with my first girlfriend. Details at some other time. Broke my mothers heart that I was unable to rely on her the way she had relied on me to get over that.

Split with my wife after thirteen months. Despite what certain members of my family think there was an incredible love there, that I think I will not repeat again even almost twenty years later. Even if for her part it was just, as has been frequently suggested by my family (yes even twenty years later, their mistakes forgotten mine forever relived), the visa. I came from a broken home (so was determined not to make the same mistake myself) so there had to be an incredibly powerful force to put aside everything life had taught my by then.

Relationships came, and went. Some good, some too fleeting to really matter. No that’s a lie. I don’t let anyone that close to me without them having some effect, we each take a little part of each other away when we split from any kind of relationship.

Jobs came and went. I am yet again trying to climb out of the lower rungs of the social ladder. Working sixty to seventy hour shifts to cover debt and bills again.

Talking of my wife I suppose I should list the times I should have died.

One. The incident where my wife attempted to stab me. The little Karate I had done at the time stood me well. I blocked the blow, twisted the knife out of her hand and stepped back. Knife in my grasp, serrated edge glinting in the light. A moment to remember. Lucky to be alive.

Two. Drunk as a lord hitching back from Durham after some posh do. I was hit in the hand by a lorry, it didn’t even notice me. Lucky to be alive, lucky to have both arms, and hands. The knuckles on my left hand are still scarred.

Three. The time I walked through the middle of a bar full of drunken Irish traveller (no disrespect to the gentlemen), sat down with the boss and told him all the women behind the bar where my women (I wished) and I didn’t want them disturbed. On returning to my seat by the bar my companions commented that it was probably at least one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Too much wine makes you indestructible. Or think you are.

Four. The Olympic face sliding incident. Out to meet two mates who didn’t show. Woke the next morning to find my face stuck to the pillow with the blood from a gash above my right eye. Some drunken point the night before I had fallen and smashed my glasses pushing a shard up through my eyebrow narrowly missing my eye.

These just the ones I can remember.

Another highlight has to be my university years. Finally entered uni at twenty nine, thinking “what have I done this time?” Only to spend three years drinking (champagne in night clubs), dancing (at any provocation), and

living life to the max. Was diagnosed dyslexic finally. Had the time of my life. Recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity.

Forty two years, another year over, still deeper in debt.

On debt.

Got home the other night. About 2130hrs as usual. My mates Pete and Jo had lent me the £250 quid to sue the bank for the charges so I was preparing to do that. In fact quiet looking forward to it. There on the mat as I stepped through the door was a letter from one of my creditors.

An aside. Whilst on some particularly heavy medication during my “insane” period (mental breakdown and all that). I agreed to have all my windows and doors replaced (the gods know how I thought I was going to afford it). Well the long and the short of it was I didn’t afford it so one court appearance later I was £9k in debt and paying them £10 per month for the privilege, with the rejoinder that should I ever default I loose my house because the debt collection company can repossess the thing and sell it to cover the debt.

Well it was that company that was now threatening to take my house and throw me out.

As you can believe I had a particularly bad time last night worrying about the fascists.

I managed to keep my head together and actually process my application to sue my bank rather than run off down the pub and spend the money Pete had lent me.

Turns out, ringing the b*stards this morning, that they are under the impression that I have to pay them by the first of each month. Checking the wording of the court order this is not so. But not having paid them instantly on the first of Feb they raised a letter threatening to take my house. Users, wh*res, scum!

So in answer to your question (“How are you today???? ”), not as stressed as I was this morning, but need more sleep (which I will do this evening), also slightly happier because the sods have agreed to me paying by debit card Friday as I was going to do anyway (F*ck em).

I still remain single. Mostly from the point of view that I want to sort my own situation out rather than get into some relationship, rely on another person to help me sort the crap out. Then split up with them only to descend into the same situation again.

Well slightly more than twenty minutes gone (once the bullshit starts it’s difficult to stop)

Anyway Happy birthday to me for the fifteenth (tomorrow).

Technorati Tag: Happy Birthday, Humour, meekon5, Obsession, Banks, Bank Charges, Paranoia.