The Blog of Lone

No, it’s not the title of a new best selling novel  by some unknown, Kenyan born, London based, award winning, young and funky writer (not yet anyway), it’s something I’ve been thinking about this week.

I’ve had a lot of time to spend thinking.  Doing a job where you work for half an hour and then sit drinking tea for four hours gives you that luxury.  After 4 days straight of it you have nothing to say to your co workers, and quickly lose yourself in your own thoughts.

Got an email from a friend in Canada, someone I’ve not heard from for a long time.  Nothing special, no revelations or massive news, just a ‘how you doing’ kinda email.  But it was nice to get, nice to be thought of.  Set me off thinking about how some people you come across, even if you only share your lives together for a brief time, make an impact on you.  They rock your world, open your eyes, blow your mind and change your life.

These people you feel you just click with at a deep level, you know they have good souls and you understand them better in half an hour than someone with a dubious soul who you might have known for months.  (Dubious soul?  Someone ill at ease with themselves, someone who can’t see, or can’t stop their self destructive behaviour.  Someone who hurts others to create drama in order to feel like the centre of attention, someone who brings others down in order to make themselves feel better, someone who can’t see the harm they do themselves.)

I’ve recently known people of both sorts, the difference between that instinctive feeling of rightness and the gradual realisation that some one has a splintered and damaged soul is just worlds apart.  It’s not love at first sight, but it’s the feeling of two compatible people sharing their happiness such things are possible.

Think of your best friends, those that have been with you through the good times and the bad, those that ask nothing from you but that you be yourself.  Good souls.  Flaky friends who use you and cast you aside, people to whom you’re nothing more than a tool for making themselves feel better.  Bad souls.  (To quote a famous meerkat) Simples.

Peace

I’ve just spent about two hours going through the photos and getting them all sorted out and titled.  Erg.

To celebrate this massive achievement of administrative goodness (it’s 2am and was actually quite an achievement) I’m running a mystical, magical, fantastic, fantabulous Photo Comment Competition!! < Woo.>  <Yay.>

THE RULES: You have a look at the photo page, and if you think  you can come up with a better title for one of the photos, leave a comment at the bottom of the page with your suggestion.  Please ensure you include the current title of the photo along with your suggestion otherwise chaos will reign supreme.

THE PRIZE: If your title is funny, filthy, imaginative, or just plain odd, you’ll get to see it up here on the Blog.  Also, if it’s particularly good, or if I just like you, you may win the chance to feature as a guest writer and have your own post put up on the Blog.  Wowwee, are those fantastic prizes or what?!?

Legal Disclaimer: No persons under the age of 4 may enter. Breast feeding is not allowed in the corridors. All entries must be sent on the back of a postcard, from Sweden. The judge’s decision is final, even if he’s drunk. For external use only. No ringers. No junk mail or soliciting, nor any lawyering either. No more than 3 children in the shop at any one time. May contain nuts. Please open away from face. Not open on the 1st or 3rd Wednesday of the month. No entry without ID. All transactions are liable to a 5% surcharge. No more than 5 items in the queue. Please leave the right change. Batteries not included. All actors are over the age of 18.  Stop reading this now.  Stop.  Now.  Quit it already.

Earlier this week I happened to be late for work (something that happens almost daily) at the Music Museum where I serve tea and cakes to old dears and generally don’t do very much.  In my rush to get out of bed, showered, and ready in 10 minutes I made a mistake. A huge mistake.

I only post this in the hope that I can save others the pain and mental anguish I’ve gone through.

PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING: Never, ever, have a shave while you’re still half asleep.  It’s a foolish mistake to make, and it cost me a beard.

Now I have had a naked chin all week, and I don’t like it.  Sudden breezes catch me unawares and make my face shiver.  I look about 5 years younger than before.  I’ve spent the week mourning my lovely beard, the source of all my powers, and the best friend a chap could have had.

On a side note, after buying some bits and bobs from the US, I’ve finally got my camera up and running again (even if I can only charge it in the car).  So expect more photos and oddness on the photo page.  I would have taken one of my now beardless face, I’ve been asked to often enough, but, (as an effeminate elf once said) for me the pain is still too near.

Peace

Applying for jobs and getting rejected is disheartening and stressful, but, so it seems, is actually getting offered them too.

Got offered a job in China, but it seems a bit dubious.  Here are the reasons why.

1. The only questions I got asked were: Have you been to China before? What age group do you want to teach?  How soon can you get here?  They didn’t even ask if I spoke Chinese or Mandarin.

2. The emails I’ve had have all been brief, and not very business like.  While I’ve been deliberating about it for a few days I got one just saying: “We really hope you to come to teach adults at XXX XXXX XXXX Centre very soon.” Sounds a bit desperate to me.

3. The contract says I get my own accommodation, but not the airfare.  The contract also goes on to say that if I fail to file a lesson plan, can’t teach for some reason, or leave my room in a mess(!!), I will get fined.  If I get “drunk, addicted, or eccentric” (yes, that is an actual quote from the contract) I get fired.

4. They suggest I get a tourist visa, and will apparently square all the paperwork to get me a working visa and registered as a foreign expert with the government.  Leaves me at their mercy somewhat.

5. The pay is less than I got as a barman, and only about what I get now.

6. 1 week holiday if I teach for a full year.

7. If I offer “similar teaching services” during or up to 2 years (!!) after my employment, I pay them compensation.

8. If I fail to show respect for China, or its culture or tradition I get fired.  Probably shot too.

9. The Principle has accidentally given two, very different, names for the school

10. Just plain getting bad vibes.

What do the Blog monkeys think?  Good job?  Entrapment to a life of male prostitution and beard pornography?  Take it, or count myself lucky that I didn’t?

Peace - 10 point list style stolen from the marvelous Emma’s blog.  Can be found at …

So, my Bro has a week off work, and we were going to go on a random and last minute hiking/camping/fishing roadtrip to Wales.  Due to nasty weather etc we decided to postpone it until sometime next year.  So instead we went over to Canterbury Uni to party with the Hockey Club (which he used to be a big part of, and most of whom I’d met/drunk with before).

Wearing a hockey shirt that hadn’t been washing in 6 months (took it off after a while, it really stank) I threw myself into the whole uni experience all over again.  Freshers’ Week.  Snakebite.  Drinking circles.  Lots and lots of fun was had.  The best bit of all (for someone who has been feeling a bit lonely) was how friendly and insane the hockey people were.  You can’t really appreciate this until you’ve played ‘Bunnies’, ‘Yeehaa’ or any of their other crazy games.  So once the games and downing of snakebite was out the way, I got re-acquainted with some people I’d met before, and got to know lots of new people as well.  Incidentally, I’d forgotten just how gorgeous and, erm, welcoming, the hockey girls are.  A very good night was definately had by all.

Watch out for some photos of that evening going up, as well as some other random ones.

Bum Face

The only problem with having your friends down and having a fantastic weekend of fun, mayhem and mately love, is that once they leave again everything seems pretty empty.

Seeing my mates always reminds me just how much I’m missing out on not living with them.  Tents is a small town, I have no real friends here (as the last week or two has made very apparent) but until I find a job, a real bone fide job, I’m pretty much stuck here.

Doing nothing sounds very relaxing, but after a few days of it, it makes you feel like you’re in a prison.  At the moment I’m climbing the walls, probably on the verge of depression, seriously bored and pretty down.  Nothing to do, no money to do it with, no one to see.  Life can feel pretty bleak at such times.

At the moment I’m willing to take the first job I can find, be it in Luton, Spain, China or whereever.  I just need to get out of Kent, see some life, meet some people, fall in love, make some money, have some life changing experiences.

Is that really so much to ask?

Peace

Have had a very good weekend.  Was lucky enough to have the fellas down Saturday for party and good ol’ fashioned fun.

Managed to fit a spot of fishing in with Mr Toby during the day, although we managed to hit the damn fish with the line, they still refused to bite.

After that the party started, lubricated with far too much booze, smokes, weed and love.  Had ourselves a cracking bonfire in the woods, were once again stalked by V raptors, played bizarre impersonation drinking games, shotgunned a bottle of JD, tried to climb a tree (and failed),  ninja kicked and ate a small tree, stole wizards staffs, burnt the butter, ate bonfire sweetcorn, played hide and seek (I missed the second bout and football afterwards due to passing out on the sofa) and generally had a very, very, good time.

Much love to all the boys who came down, we really needed to catch up and I had a perfect night.

As you may have noticed, the Blog has undergone something of an overhaul.  You can now find many more photos by following the link at the top, and things generally look shinier and better.

Long live the shiny.

Things are starting to slide.

If you don’t want to read my list of woes look away now.

I’m counting on the fact that no one reads this thing to safely vent some feelings, things always feel better once I’ve got them written down, you can be honest when writing down in a way that’s very hard to be directly to another person, and also to yourself.

If by some miracle you are reading this, you have been warned.  It’s very personal and a bit intense.

Here be monsters.  (Ugly emotional monsters, not the exciting scary kind)

If you can’t read it, it’s because I’ve made it a private post while I decide whether I want it here for people to stumble across or not.  Probably not.

While I was busy on my CELTA course, life was dandy and fine.  I was busy, learning, doing something interesting, and I had a girl back home who I really liked.

Now, the course is finished, I have nothing to do, no money to do it with, and the girl back home is gone.

We’d been seeing each other a month or so, I really liked her.  She was kind, exciting to be around, intelligent and gorgeous.  We’d both fairly recently come out of break ups which had left us damaged in a variety of ways.

It started out really well, going for meals together, going to the cinema, getting to know one another.  I was on my good behaviour, trying my hardest.  Perhaps that’s where things started to go wrong, when we were an ‘item’ when I started taking things for granted, things that when you’ve been in a 5 year relationship are natural to take as a given, but when you’re dating shouldn’t ever be.

I realise now that I came on far too strong.  Affection should be parcelled out in sensible amounts, held in check, fucking locked up if need be.  Having been in a relationship for 5 years where emotion and affection weren’t really shown, sometimes down to the point of downright coldness and business like efficiency, I had some big hangups to work out.  Trying to move on from that, trying to lay the past to rest and get on with life, I headed too far in the other direction.  Being overly affectionate and thinking too far ahead is definitely just as lethal to a relationship as a sub zero lack of affection.  But it felt strange to be attractive to someone again, for the first time in a long time (my ex used to joke how she’d never actually fancied me).  I didn’t know how to deal with it and have now blown it.

Going to London for the course started out well, the lady came down to see me and we had a fantastic day picnicing in Hyde Park and relaxing together.  When she left I knew I was going to really miss her.

But then after that the cracks started to appear, and I didn’t even realise.  The CELTA course kept me insanely busy, and without ever meaning to, I must have been cutting her out more and more as it went on.  Txt after txt after txt meant that sometimes when we were talking nothing much was being said (I was doing the same thing day in, day out, for a month), and what was was often misunderstood.  My hatred for making phonecalls definitately shot me in the foot on this one.

Getting back just made matters worse.   I hadn’t realised just how many trust issues I had, wasn’t able to talk to her about things, and when I did, somehow managed to say exactly the wrong thing and make everything worse.  Worse was that I didn’t know her well enough to understand her issues, so we just kept banging heads.

One big issue with my ex, one arising from a particular night, meant that I royally fucked things up.  A fear of being somebody’s fool, of being the cuckold, and being used for sex managed to combine in one evening to really screw me over and depress me for a couple of days.  Being depressed I took things the wrong way, and sent her a really shitty text that I shouldn’t have, and which she really didn’t deserve.

Ended it.  Badly.  She now thinks I’m an indecisive and messed up dick, and that she wasted her time on me.

Couldn’t tell her the real reason for it.  I still have lots of trust issues to work out, that I kept thinking she was seeing another guy, which made me angry, jealous, doubt her, doubt myself, and hate myself for thinking that of her.

The real reason I ended it was because she didn’t deserve me thinking about her that way, and I didn’t want to become the sort of person to be thinking like that.  I’m not a negative person, and thinking negative thoughts all the time was messing me up.  If it means she thinks I’m a wanker, but at least is spared the hurt of knowing that that was what I was thinking, then it’s worth it I guess.  Have already screwed things up, no need to hurt her any more.

Would be strangely ironic if she had been seeing the guy I thought she might be on the side.

PS.  Have decided to publish this after all, mainly because the day after I split up with her, girl goes out clubbing, pulls guys and sticks photos all over Facebook.  Wonder who that was aimed at?  So now I don’t feel I owe her anything.

And the best part?  If she’s the sort of person to do that, something spiteful, something just to cause hurt, something of dubious morality, then she may well have been seeing people on the side.

Suddenly all my self doubts are justified, self loathing vanquished.  It’s not me who’s the bad person for thinking she wasn’t perfect after all.

Note to self, in future forget about dating beautiful women, only date women with beautiful souls.

Ps.  Just an additional note added a while after posting.  Girl was sleeping with other guy.  All suspicions on my part justified.  Lone isn’t a bad man after all.  Personal equilibrium and vibe restored.   Peace and love rules the Blog once more.

Hello, hello, hello.

Once again it has been a long time since I’ve last posted.  There is, however, for once, a good reason for this.  Blog.com, the lovely people who host this madness, have been changing over their systems, and in the process I lost a few postings and so have waited for the bugs to crawl out of the electronic floorboards before posting again.

What has been going on, hmm?

Well since the last posting, I’m now a fully qualifed TEFL teacher (teaching English as a foreign language).  This involved living in the Big Smoke for a month, which is hard for a country boy like me, getting up early, working all day, and coming home and working until stupidly late, and then repeating the whole process.  Turned out I actually loved the teaching side of things, but the admin before and after was a lot less fun.  It was a long, hard, slog of a month, and I heartily apologise to all the peeps I’ve neglected while I was doing it.  You know who you, and hopefully how sorry I am.

Since getting back home to the countryside I’ve not been up to much, just trying to adjust to life back among the big green.  I did take a very cool road trip to Somerset, via Stonehenge, with my brother, stayed in an awesome hotel/pub and get to drink in a new part of the country and mock their silly accents.

Today I took a lovely long walk on a windy beach with my dogs, to clear my head about some of the things that have been whirling around it recently.  I really missed having the lovely CJ there to talk to, the beach is our usual hangout time, and it just wasn’t the same without her.

PS.  Had a few negative comments, enquiring why I called my readers (all 3 of you) Blog monkeys.  I didn’t approve the comments, I felt the dude posting wasn’t on our wave length, didn’t get our jazz and was jinxing the Blog vibe.  You’re my lovely Blog monkeys, and you know I love you.

Peace out.