Recursive Words

I’m sitting in the dark of the junk room – the last person standing in the house as the new day arrives. I’m listening to “Seasons of Love” from the original cast recording of “Rent”. Love this song.

I’m trying to write more often, but find myself filtering more than ever. It’s a strange situation to find myself in – given that I used to be such an open book.

I sometimes dip back into blog posts from years gone by, and wonder at the little things – the daily happenings shared with the unknown audience. I wish I could get back to that.

Let’s try.

My coffee machine blew up yesterday. It was one of those nice Nescafe Dolce Gusto machines that take pods and fill your cup with frothy coffee. I put a branded “Starbucks” pod in it – which caused it to choke on its own steam, and turn itself into a working copy of Stephenson’s Rocket. There was an almighty bang, whereupon it ejected not only its own water reservoir, but also the glass mug I had balanced in front of it.

I recoiled from the machine on the B of Bang, and then watched in slow motion as the glass mug slowly rolled towards the edge of the kitchen counter and began it’s death plunge towards the tiled floor.

The glass mug made a strangely tuneful sound as it impacted the floor – instantly shattering into pieces no larger than your little finger nail – and spreading itself in all directions – tinkling as it went.

I swore. A lot.

And of course I was bare foot – surrounded by invisible razor-sharp shards of glass. How I didn’t cut my feet to pieces is still a mystery.

Today my other half accidentally knocked over a clothes drying rack that our eldest daughter had left out. The metal rack fell across my bare feet. Yes, I’m usually barefoot. The pain was sickening.

I swore. Spectacularly.

I find myself swearing a lot at the moment. Not always out-loud. You know that scene in the first Harry Potter movie where Snape is muttering things under his breath to prevent Quirrel from getting at Harry? That’s me, pretty much every day – hanging on to being outwardly cheerful and optimistic by inwardly festering all manner of spite and annoyance.

Anyway.

It’s half-past my bedtime.

Time to go brush my teeth, and see if I can have as whacky dreams as I had last night. I think most of them happened in the half hour between waking up, realising it was the weekend, and then waking up again. I do that a lot.

I might try and escape to the pub in town for breakfast. I need to escape for a bit. Find a little bit of “me” time before another week comes barrelling down the pipe towards me.

Last weekend I installed a writing app called “Day One” onto my laptop, with thoughts of using it to empty my head into about anything and everything – a place to unload. And then I didn’t write anything at all for nearly a week.

I’m still using it, but rather than keep it private, I’ll cut and paste this to the internet after I’ve written it. Somehow it’s easier to write for an imaginary audience of readers.

Each day is running into the next at the moment. Although I have put some holidays in place running towards the end of the year, I still have lots left – perhaps I’ll start requesting odd days off here and there – create some long weekends.

I caught up with my cousin in America this evening – for the first time in months. It was kind of lovely. We have always been close, but can somehow go months between conversations then carry on as if we were just chatting yesterday. I got to talk to my Uncle too – on camera – first time I have seen him in years. He looks like a distinguished rock star now – with long hair, and a white goatee.

My cousin laughed at the influx of Apple stuff into my life. I explained the idea to her about wanting something different than Microsoft and Windows when I switch off my work laptop on an evening, and she got it.

I’m toying with the idea of migrating all of my photos, documents, and so on over to iCloud from Google Drive – but need to look at the cost of doing so. Google storage has always been good value – I suspect Apple might cost double or more. At least it won’t convert everything to Google Docs format “for you” though.

I dread to think how many hundred gigabytes of photos we have.

I realised earlier today that I haven’t been out of the house all week. I didn’t go out last week either. I’ve just been too busy to stop. That’s not good, is it.

Ah crap – it’s 1:30am. I’ve done it again.

Sunday evening became Monday morning two minutes ago. Normally I would be digging my heels in for another hour and fighting the arrival of tomorrow for as long as possible. I’m too tired to fight it tonight.

I’ve been so tired recently. Being a busy idiot and trying to burn the candle at both ends catches up with you eventually.

It doesn’t help that the rest of the family keep throwing curve balls at me. Of course you deal with them as best you can – because that’s what’s expected – but there are moments when you begin to wonder about all the sliding doors you’ve watched slam shut over the years – all because you did the right thing – or rather the expected thing.

You begin to wonder if this is it – if this is all there is – if this is all the world has in store for you. It’s not that anything you’ve achieved or done is poor in any way – just perhaps that so little of any of it was anything you actually wanted or dreamed about.

Of course it’s easy to watch through the sliding doors – to project the lives of others onto “what might have been”, when in reality you know almost nothing of the lives of others. Too often you see no more than their highlight reel – not their truth.

Anyway.

It sounds I’m being really gloomy. I’m not trying to be. I’m just… tired.

Tomorrow is another day. Another day to continue being whoever and whatever everybody else wants. I’m sure it won’t seem like such a chore in the morning.

There comes a point where you get thrown under the bus so often, you start to see it as strangely normal. Not a shock or surprise. It gets to the point where you see the bus coming, and don’t even bother bracing for impact – because you know you’ll survive somehow or other.

It’s been that kind of month. Or year, depending on how dramatic you choose to make it.

Before anybody worries – I’m fine. I’m good.

The rest of those around me – not so much. I don’t want to share too much of their stories, because they are not my stories to tell. Let’s just say I’m getting far too used to being the calm in the centre of the hurricane.

In story books the hurricane picks you up and brings you to rest in magical lands filled with flying monkeys, tin men, and talking lions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that could happen in the real world? Except perhaps without your house landing on Elphaba’s sister.

I wonder if you might get to meet Idina Menzel as a consequence though? That would almost make it worth it.

Random trivia for you – do you know where Elphaba’s name comes from? Elphaba – famously the green witch in Wicked – is based on the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was written by L. Frank Baum. Sound out his initials – “el-fa-ba”.

You’re welcome.

In other news, I’m experimenting with “Day One” on the Mac. In the long run it might see my personal blog descend beneath the waters of the internet entirely. While it’s wonderful to share idiotic thoughts with an audience, I filter an awful lot.

Perhaps there’s room for both a private and public journal.

We’ll see.

We went out this morning in search of some new tea, coffee and sugar containers for the kitchen. The old ones had been knocking around the kitchen since the children were small, and were starting to show significant signs of battle damage. Quite how we came back with said containers, a biscuit barrel, a new toaster, and a new kettle is something of a mystery.

It’s been that sort of weekend. We went to the local garden centre yesterday to get some fat-balls for the bird feeders in the garden, and came back with a new hanging basket, and flowers for the pots either side of the doorstep. My other half volunteered that a diversion to the supermarket yesterday afternoon escalated from a loaf of bread, to groceries for the entire family for three days, and a box of beer.

Just to cap off the idiocy, as referenced by the title to this blog post, my journey to the dark side was completed today with the arrival of an Apple Watch, and Air Pods. I’ve been using a Fitbit for the last couple of years – their most basic model (that looks like a wrist band). Graduating up to the most basic Apple Watch seems like a leap of sorts – it would appear to be able to tell me all sorts of things about myself – all of which seem to centre around my body failing in a variety of inventive ways.

The Air Pods seems to be tailored towards the same suite of domesday scenarios. One of their calling cards is a hearing test. I was shocked, stunned, and amazed to discover that I have an almost undetectable amount of hearing loss (which, given my age, seems somewhat miraculous). I will admit to closing the doors and windows, and sitting in absolute silence while doing the test. I’m intrigued now – to try it again in the dead of night (when I can’t hear every word on every television throughout the entire house).

I have no idea what benefits the watch might bring, other than hassling me to do things. I think I can answer calls on it, and talk to Siri – that seems a bit too close to Jerry Anderson puppet-show levels of sophistication. If I meet a girl called Aqua-Marina any time soon, I’ll let you know. F.A.B.

I wonder how many people will be triggered by referencing Stingray and Thunderbirds at the same time?

Tomorrow an Apple Pencil will arrive in the post – allowing me to use Note Shelf and Good Notes in the same way I’ve used a bullet journal for the last decade. Who knows – I might even start drawing again. I can’t remember the last time I drew anything.

It’s been seven days since I last wrote. Seven days of work, chores, drama, and mayhem. The last two days particularly so.

I need to get back to writing – to emptying my head into the keyboard. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing it, and I kind of miss it.

I’m not sure I have much to share though.

Self doubt and second guessing creep in, and before you know it you find yourself writing a few sentences, deleting them, writing another half a sentence, deleting that, and so on.

At least some things are constant though – the clock ticked past midnight twenty minutes ago. Perhaps I’ll go take my own advice and read a book rather than doom scroll, or end up buying some gadget I don’t really need.

I need to try harder at keeping in touch with friends.

I have a natural propensity to just keep my head down, and keep pushing forwards when dealing with whatever needs dealing with. I vanish in plain sight. I even do it mid-conversation sometimes – my other half pretty much knows that if she loses eye contact with me while talking to me, I’ve probably wandered off inside my own head. She stops, and raises her eyebrows.

Anyway. It really is getting late now.

Time to brush my teeth, fall into bed, and attempt to sleep.

I’ve commented in the past about falling off the internet bicycle – somehow not finding the time to keep up with anything, or catch up with anybody. I’ve decided that I’ve not so much fallen off the bicycle than mislaid it completely. Perhaps it was actually stolen? I could use that as an excuse.

Yes. That’s it. The reason you haven’t seen me around so much in recent weeks and months is because somebody stole my internet bicycle. I would very much like it back, if anybody sees it. Perhaps I should put some signs on nearby street corners?

Somebody put a picture of cat on the lamp-post at the end of our driveway a few weeks ago – a little black and white cat that had gone missing. I always wonder if people go and take those signs back down if the animal is found. I wonder if they realise that we will all wonder for months if the animal in question got home in the end…

I don’t have much to share, but I’m going to share it anyway.

I almost cut my own leg off last night. While that might be a slight exaggeration, when you hear the actual story, you might agree with me.

I was busy firing up my work computer yesterday morning when I heard an enormous crash in the kitchen. The night before, one of the kids had stacked several plates filled with leftover pizza in the fridge (I know… what is this “leftover pizza” nonsense?). Anyway – our eldest daughter’s boyfriend had stayed over, and was getting ready for work in the morning. He looked in the fridge, and the booby-trapped pizza slid out onto the floor – smashing the plates it was on spectacularly.

I arrived mid-clean up, and retreated back to “the office” to carry on with work.

After work that night, I wandered into the lounge – bare foot, as I usually am – and something incredibly sharp stuck in the bottom of my foot. It turns out it’s quite difficult to see the bottom of your own foot – I contorted this way and that, trying to grab my foot, and hold it up such that I could see it. I discovered a shard of pottery from one of the smashed plates embedded in the heal of my foot, and pulled it out.

As I walked over to the corner of the kitchen where we keep plasters and antiseptic cream, my other half started shouting at me – I was leaving a trail of blood on the floor.

Here’s the thing – it wasn’t my foot that was leaving the trail of blood.

When I swung my leg around to get a look at the bottom of my foot, the shard of pottery – while still embedded in my foot – had sliced across my leg – leaving such a sharp cut that the blood didn’t start to appear for some time – and then it did – beading up, and running down my leg like a waterfall.

I grabbed kitchen towel (and got shouted at for that too), and started to put myself back together. Rather than leave red footprints everywhere, I was ordered to the sofa by my daughters while they fetched improvised items to stop the bleeding – including an enormous plaster.

The plaster fell off in the shower this morning, and miraculously my leg hasn’t fallen off. I reckon it was a pretty close run thing though.

I wonder what I’ll manage to do to myself next?

The clock ticked past midnight three quarters of an hour ago.

After living with the default Apple task-list app for the last few weeks, I finally caved this week and bought a copy of “Things” – a rather wonderful task-list app that will run on my phone, tablet and laptop, and help me keep on top of the various plates I’m attempting to spin. I fully realise that I’m the weak link in this story.

Of course “Things” was the key holder to the gates of hell. I’ve somehow spent the last hour looking at Bear, Day One, and Evernote. Day One is kind of interesting. A personal journal app – where you can record the days of your life with no options to export, or publish it. A proper diary. I’ve installed it – I’ll see where it takes me.

I’m not paying for Evernote. Notion and Obsidian do exactly what it does. The only reason I’m looking for alternatives to the native Apple note-taking app is because I don’t like orange titles. Seriously – whoever designed the Apple apps needs their head testing.

Anyway. Time to go fall into bed.

I’ll try to write something of more consequence soon. I’m more than aware that I’ve been “mailing it in” for some time.

I need to somehow carve out enough time to go sit in a cafe or pub during the week for an hour – just to escape these four walls.

Another week has whistled past. Again, I’m not entirely sure where it went. I didn’t run. I didn’t read. I did listen to music though. I’m listening to music right now – Carly Simon is singing about “coming around again” – she must have seen me running around in circles and thought “I’ve got a song about that for him”.

We did the pub quiz this week on our own. It was all quite dispiriting really – we didn’t think we had done that badly, but got beaten by a team that scored a third more points than us. While being really quite annoyed for a few seconds I started wondering if any of them got out much (they didn’t look like they did), but then realised I don’t get out much either – so kept my mouth shut. I shrugged at my other half and said something to the effect of “oh well… it was a night out”.

We also went to the cinema and watched Brad Pitt’s F1 movie. It was entertaining in it’s own way – but if you paused for more than a few seconds to think about any of it, the entire house of cards didn’t so much fall down, as beg to be set fire to. Without ruining the story too much if you’ve not seen it, the entire premise for the plucky upstart team’s antics in the first two thirds of the movie would have resulted in them being banned, fined, and ejected from every race they attempted to manipulate.

Oh well.

The Doobie Brothers are telling me to listen to the music now.

As part of getting an iPhone, Apple have offered me three months of Apple Music for free. That I’m sitting here listening to Spotify instead of Apple Music probably tells you everything you need to know about that. I’m not sure what turned me against it so quickly.

I’m dithering about buying some AirPods, or an Apple Watch. They are both expensive. I’m not sure I would really get much benefit from them either. I made the mistake of trying out my other half’s work headphones (AirPod Pros) – and they kind of ruined me. My current earbuds are some no-name tinny rubbish ones from Amazon, because I presumed I would lose them. I haven’t lost them yet. Yet.

The Beach Boys are singing God Only Knows now. Love this record.

Back in the day I was a huge fan of Wilson Phillips – the 90s girl band that Brian Wilson’s daughters sang in. I had several of their albums, and a poster on my wall.

It’s funny – as soon as I say “Wilson sisters”, I also think of Heart. Probably my favourite band of the last few years. Their live cover of Elton’s “Mona Lisa’s and Mad Hatters” is wonderful. I remember the first time I listened to Madman Across the Water – while commuting to and from London – the words really hit home.

The line about the workaholics not knowing if it’s light or dark outside.

Anyway.

It’s getting late. I should go crash into bed and sleep. I’ll try to write a little more often this month. I enjoy writing, but struggle to find anything to share at the moment. Maybe I’ll start keeping notes of idiotic thoughts or moments. Starters for ten.

I think I may have unwittingly succeeded in departing the loop entirely.

It’s been a week since I last wrote.

I fell off the running wagon this week – only managing one run after a succession of long days and late nights. At least twice I thought “I’ll run at lunchtime” – only for lunchtime to not happen. The late nights are entirely my own fault – the result of lifting an entire pretend universe in the air.

I have too many fingers in too many pies. I need to step back, and slow down. I know that’s not going to happen any time soon though – there’s always going to be something or other that needs doing, buying, replacing, fixing, or whatever it is that only I can do for some reason.

This is coming across really negatively, but I don’t mean it to. I’ve achieved a lot over the last few weeks – both at work and at home. I’m not good at giving myself credit. I’ve had a few emails recently from people in the flight simulation community – both on the industry, and the audience side – thanking me for what I do. They were entirely unexpected, and kind of wonderful really.

Thinking about “kind of wonderful”, we had an entertaining discussion around the dinner table last night – about the “Brat Pack” movies of the 1980s. I told our eldest the story about the making of “Pretty in Pink”, and how it didn’t land how John Huston had originally intended – which gave rise to “Some Kind of Wonderful”, where the genders were reversed, and the story suddenly worked. The kicker? “Pretty in Pink” is the movie everybody remembers.

I saw recently that Andrew McCarthy has a book out. I’m tempted to pick it up, but also know I have a huge pile of books I’ve not read yet. I picked up Matt Haig’s “The Life Impossible” the other week – along with a quite wonderful little book about a cat by Hiro Arikawa.

While recounting the trope about the protagonist pining for the object of their affections throughout a story, blind to the wonderful person right in front of them, my other half chipped in that Jane Austen wrote the story long before the Brat Pack movies.

It’s the whole “sliding doors” thing again, isn’t it. While I can relate to being blind to those around me that perhaps I care about more than I let on, there’s also the realisation that if everybody chased their dreams and never gave a damn about anybody else, the world would be a pretty terrible place. I guess that’s the difficult bit, isn’t it – figuring out what to chase – and what to daydream about.

What did Dumbledore say? “It doesn’t do to dream, and forget to live”.