Having spent the last two entries on here whining about my inadequacies as a person, I thought it wise to perhaps lighten the mood somewhat with this one. So on went the old thinking cap ( it was a tight fit; I'd not worn it for a while and it's shocking how big your head can get when you don't stop to think*) and I came up with a story that, while it does contain me being daft, does so in a somewhat humorous manner. It's a funny story, anyway; I'm not saying it'll be funny once I've drained it of all life with my deathly prose.
The story is one that took place, in the timeline of my life, a couple of years before the point the blog is currently at. To be honest, I forgot about it; something that will probably happen quite a bit, but what the Hell. So, if you'd like to reacquaint yourself with what my life was like at the time this story takes place, or if you're new to the blog and haven't read the archives (and if not, why not? Get on it!), then it's roughly contemporaneous with this post.
Back? Right, then we'll begin.
My Grandmother, saintly paragon of virtue that she is, does have one vice; namely, she loves a bit of bingo. (I know, Granny playing bingo, what a cliche, but cliches become cliches for a reason, brother!) Eyes down, dibby dabby marker pen thing furiously stabbing at her eight different cards all strewn out before her in her lucky pattern, she was like a woman possessed when she got going. Which was every Tuesday and Thursday in the old Junior School assembly hall.
At this time it was considered perfectly OK to take kids along to these nights, sit them down with a glass of pop and a card, and let them join in the 'fun'. (I'm assuming it's a bit more strict these days; most things are, but I've not been to a bingo game in years so I don't know). Anyway, many was the evening I'd spend down there during the period I was staying with her and my Granda. I guess it was cheaper than a babysitter. (My Granda himself would have been at some pub or other, 'cos whether it be darts, snooker, dominoes, pool or, I don't know, tiddly-winks, he was on a team/team running committee. Dude never slept.)
There were times though; I guess when she just needed a night to herself; when my Grandmother would take a huge leap of faith and leave me at home with my Uncle Darren. The fool! It was on one such night that our story takes place. (I know right? Finally!) I should say at this point that these nights were probably far more fun for me than they were for Darren. He was, after all, a teenage boy, and I doubt that being left alone with a daft little pipsqueak who followed him around like a wee puppy dog was how he liked to spend his evenings. I loved it though; I idolised the guy, and I used to look forward to these nights like no other.
One one such occasion, we had been on our own for maybe an hour, watching TV with me pretending to like the stuff he was watching but not really understanding it, when a knock at the door broke his torture. It was a mate of his, asking could he do him a favour? He had just nicked a load of drink from his neighbours garage and could he stash it here for a bit? (Note to new readers, many of my family were minor villains, or friends with minor villains. They've 'mostly' reformed now). Anyway, the booze; six carrier bags full; was duly carted into the living room, the shady friend disappeared into the night and the TV was returned to.
Can you see where this is going?
Darren announced, after a little while, that he was going in the bath. I was to sit and watch TV until he got out, at which point it would be time for me to go to bed. I was gutted, and decided that I was going to prove to him that I was grown up enough to stay up with him. How on Earth was I to do this though? If only there were some 'grown up' activity that I could indulge in, to show him what I was capable of. Wait, what's that you say, voices in my head? Bags of alcohol? Ahhh.
Have you ever seen a 6 year old after a can? How about after 3 cans? Trust me, a 6 year old after 5 cans and 2 bottles is something even William Friedkin would think twice about putting on screen. I will say, in my defence, that I managed to stand up, the first few times I fell over, and even after I stayed down I never cried. I didn't quite have the energy to remove myself from the rapidly expanding pools of sick I was rolling in, but I had enough self awareness to know that crying wouldn't be cool. As it turns out though, I needn't have worried; it seems that I was fated not to impress Darren at all that night.
He returned from the bathroom and went, to be blunt, absolutely mental. The first time, and the only time that I can recall, that he would ever truly lose his temper with me. Even when I almost killed him he never got properly mad but this... I felt like shit. And not just for the obvious reason.
After he'd finished ranting at me he got me changed, stuck me over the toilet, and set about trying to clean the place up before his Mother got home. I can't imagine he had much luck. I say I can't imagine because I don't know for certain. The last thing I remember of that night is of depositing a bowlful into the toilet. I was told later that he'd found me asleep over the bowl and carried me to bed.
Awww!
*eh? eh? Bit of clever clever commentary for you there. Someone give me a Phd.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Monday, 14 November 2011
My Brief Career As A Bully
Normally, I don't pay much attention to those accepted theories that attempt to explain the behaviour patterns in people. I always feel that, however much credence popular opinion gives them, they are always far too keen to generalise; to put people into groups. Not to mention, their tendency to overthink things. I mean, sometimes people do bad things because they're unpleasant people who like doing bad things; there's no deeper explanation than that.
I will concede, however, that in some cases, the theories can be correct. Take 'bullying is a cycle', for instance. Whilst I am convinced that many people terrorise those weaker than themselves purely because they can, there are instances of it happening as a means of 'paying on' the pain and suffering; like my brief and somewhat anti-climactic career as a bully.
As a child I was beaten often by my parents and by other children. I could live with it, for the most part, and indeed the occurrences would be forgotten almost as soon as they were over. They were just one of those things; a part of life. On one occasion though, and I don't know why it happened, I decided that I was going to beat up someone else. It wasn't an emotional response; I wasn't overly upset or not thinking straight. I simply decided, on a whim, that I was going to find someone I was confident I could take, and I was going to beat them up.
Of course, being me, I enlisted help. My cousin was to be my wingman, as it were, and we would beat up our unfortunate victim together. This served 2 purposes; the first was that it meant I was less exposed should my victim fight back, and secondly I was convinced that this would make me seem cooler than I really was in the eyes of my cousin. The sad part was, I was right; he got very excited at the prospect.
We chose our victim and set about luring him to a place where we could beat him up in private. It was all very businesslike on our part; not in any way a damaged person lashing out in a rage, but rather a totally cold, pre-meditated assault. Quite scary to look back at, to be honest. Anyway, we chose a young lad who was maybe a year younger than us, who had been an occasional hanger on to our little group but not by any stretch one of our 'friends'. He was quite a shy lad, very nervous, (a lot like myself, had I been honest, though I was better at hiding it than he was, at least back then) and we knew he would probably go along with whatever we said. And we were right.
Here's the thing though. We forgot. We forgot why we lured him to the secluded spot in the woods. We forgot why we had brought only him and none of the rest of the group. We forgot, because we had fun. We messed around, we played games, we had a laugh; what started as us luring him into a sense of security turned into us all having a bloody good afternoon. Then, when it started getting dark, we headed home.
It was when we left the woods and got back out onto the streets that the thought popped into my head... "If you don't kick his head in now, you've missed your chance". Just like that, and despite the pleasantness of the afternoon up until that point, a switch went in my head; I nudged my cousin and pointed at the kid. He nodded and, completely without hesitation, smacked him in the face, then I ran at him and kicked him in the back. We both laughed and the kid started crying. Then he said...
"Why are you doing this? I thought we you were my friends."
Totally guileless, totally without any attempt to look cool or save face; he just looked at us like a kicked puppy, heart on his sleeve. Something inside me shriveled up right in that moment. I'd like to say we stopped at that point. I'd like to say we realised we were in the wrong, apologised and backed off. I can't though, because we didn't. My cousin went back in for another go and, while I didn't lay any more blows I kept hurling abuse, telling him how much we hated him and we had never been his friends; all the while hating myself, but not being able to stop for fear of losing face in front of my cousin.
When he got tired of hitting the kid, we watched him run off up the street, sobbing, and I could have cried myself; until my cousin started on about how cool that had been and I felt a swelling of pride. Yes, all it took was a brief moment of someone saying I was cool and my conscience retreated back into it's shell. I didn't spare that poor kid another thought for the rest of the day. That night was another matter entirely though. The tossing, the turning, the inability to sleep for hours and then the nightmares when I did; it was clear that as cold and uncaring as I was capable of being in the moment, my conscience was never going to let me get away with that kind of behaviour. Some part of me knew how wrong my actions had been, and was damn sure going to drive the point home.
I never did apologise to that kid. Not because I didn't want to, but because he would never come near me again. He'd cross the road to avoid me, and I'd see that look of fear in his eyes that I'm sure was in mine whenever I saw one of my tormentors coming. Truth be told, I didn't deserve anything else.
I will concede, however, that in some cases, the theories can be correct. Take 'bullying is a cycle', for instance. Whilst I am convinced that many people terrorise those weaker than themselves purely because they can, there are instances of it happening as a means of 'paying on' the pain and suffering; like my brief and somewhat anti-climactic career as a bully.
As a child I was beaten often by my parents and by other children. I could live with it, for the most part, and indeed the occurrences would be forgotten almost as soon as they were over. They were just one of those things; a part of life. On one occasion though, and I don't know why it happened, I decided that I was going to beat up someone else. It wasn't an emotional response; I wasn't overly upset or not thinking straight. I simply decided, on a whim, that I was going to find someone I was confident I could take, and I was going to beat them up.
Of course, being me, I enlisted help. My cousin was to be my wingman, as it were, and we would beat up our unfortunate victim together. This served 2 purposes; the first was that it meant I was less exposed should my victim fight back, and secondly I was convinced that this would make me seem cooler than I really was in the eyes of my cousin. The sad part was, I was right; he got very excited at the prospect.
We chose our victim and set about luring him to a place where we could beat him up in private. It was all very businesslike on our part; not in any way a damaged person lashing out in a rage, but rather a totally cold, pre-meditated assault. Quite scary to look back at, to be honest. Anyway, we chose a young lad who was maybe a year younger than us, who had been an occasional hanger on to our little group but not by any stretch one of our 'friends'. He was quite a shy lad, very nervous, (a lot like myself, had I been honest, though I was better at hiding it than he was, at least back then) and we knew he would probably go along with whatever we said. And we were right.
Here's the thing though. We forgot. We forgot why we lured him to the secluded spot in the woods. We forgot why we had brought only him and none of the rest of the group. We forgot, because we had fun. We messed around, we played games, we had a laugh; what started as us luring him into a sense of security turned into us all having a bloody good afternoon. Then, when it started getting dark, we headed home.
It was when we left the woods and got back out onto the streets that the thought popped into my head... "If you don't kick his head in now, you've missed your chance". Just like that, and despite the pleasantness of the afternoon up until that point, a switch went in my head; I nudged my cousin and pointed at the kid. He nodded and, completely without hesitation, smacked him in the face, then I ran at him and kicked him in the back. We both laughed and the kid started crying. Then he said...
"Why are you doing this? I thought we you were my friends."
Totally guileless, totally without any attempt to look cool or save face; he just looked at us like a kicked puppy, heart on his sleeve. Something inside me shriveled up right in that moment. I'd like to say we stopped at that point. I'd like to say we realised we were in the wrong, apologised and backed off. I can't though, because we didn't. My cousin went back in for another go and, while I didn't lay any more blows I kept hurling abuse, telling him how much we hated him and we had never been his friends; all the while hating myself, but not being able to stop for fear of losing face in front of my cousin.
When he got tired of hitting the kid, we watched him run off up the street, sobbing, and I could have cried myself; until my cousin started on about how cool that had been and I felt a swelling of pride. Yes, all it took was a brief moment of someone saying I was cool and my conscience retreated back into it's shell. I didn't spare that poor kid another thought for the rest of the day. That night was another matter entirely though. The tossing, the turning, the inability to sleep for hours and then the nightmares when I did; it was clear that as cold and uncaring as I was capable of being in the moment, my conscience was never going to let me get away with that kind of behaviour. Some part of me knew how wrong my actions had been, and was damn sure going to drive the point home.
I never did apologise to that kid. Not because I didn't want to, but because he would never come near me again. He'd cross the road to avoid me, and I'd see that look of fear in his eyes that I'm sure was in mine whenever I saw one of my tormentors coming. Truth be told, I didn't deserve anything else.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Mathew
A while ago, the BBC broadcast a documentary made by Sir Terry Pratchett, about euthanasia. I intended to watch but, having forgotten it was on, managed to see only the last 20 minutes or so. Even this much proved too much for me to handle (as I should probably have predicted it would, given my much documented 'problems' dealing with mortality) and I sank into something of a depression. One symptom of this mood was a rather long and rambling stream of tweets on twitter, in which I spoke of a cousin who had lost his life to cancer many years ago. One follower opined that while what I was saying was interesting, it was hard to keep up on twitter and I should maybe write a blog about it.
My desire to keep these reminiscences in roughly chronological order (although that hasn't worked out exactly), coupled with the fact that once my mood lightened I didn't really want to throw myself back into the Dark Place straight away, has meant a bit of a wait, but now, here we are. Or at least, here we are at the beginning of the tale. There will be more.
Mathew was my cousin/uncle. He was born to my Uncle Eric and his first wife, but when that marriage fell apart and his mother (I can't remember her name, but then I think I only ever met her once) disappeared from the scene and wanted nothing to do with him, Eric decided that he couldn't handle raising a child alone and Mathew found himself being raised by my Grandparents. Hence his insistence on us calling him Uncle, which was nothing if not really fucking annoying.
And there's the rub. Mathew, or the memory of Mathew, is something of a sacred cow in my family. He died young, and not in a very pleasant manner, so of course he must always be spoken of kindly. So I don't speak of him. You see, I only knew him as a child, have only my childs-eye opinion of him to go on, and consequently have very little in the way of nice things to say about him.
The first time he came to stay with us, it was in the very early stages of his illness. We all knew he had been poorly, but we didn't know with what, or how serious it was. He himself gave no indication that he was anything less than 100%. We were told though, that we had to be nice to him, that we had to include him in our activities, and that we had to 'take care of him'. This last directed at me of course, as the oldest. It was easier said than done.
Everyone hated him. Seriously, everyone. He stayed with us for a week and day by day our group got smaller and smaller as one person or another decided they didn't want anything to do with him. He was arrogant, he expected everyone to do whatever he wanted to do at all times, and he spoke to people like they were shit on his shoe; I wanted to punch him on may occasions and am genuinely surprised that certain of my friends didn't do just that; thy weren't a bunch that were shy with their fists.
Now, I know what you're thinking; he was ill and we should have cut him some slack. Well, as I say, we didn't know he was ill. We knew he had been ill, but we had no reason to think he still was. Even he himself didn't know. He was, so far as we could tell, just a spoiled brat. Maybe he was spoiled because the adults knew the extent of what lay in store for him, I don't know, but that didn't change how the situation appeared to us. All we knew was that this kid was behaving in ways that would have seen us get the hiding of a lifetime, and getting away with it, while at the same time doing nothing at all to endear himself to us. We couldn't wait for him to leave.
Do I regret, now, that we didn't treat him with more kindness? Do I wish we had known what was down the road for him, so we could have made more effort to enjoy the time we had. I'd like to say yes, but if I'm honest, I don't think it would have changed anything. Regardless of what we knew or didn't know; regardless of how long or how short his remaining life would be; the truth remains the same. He wasn't a very nice person. At the most, we might have made more of an effort to pretend to like him, because that's what you do, right? Our true feelings would have remained the same though.
I often think back to those days and wonder what it says about me. Am I a bad person because I didn't like him? I don't think so; he gave ample reason. A better question perhaps, is am I a bad person for not feeling worse about it now?
Maybe the answer to that one is yes, I don't know. Maybe by writing this post, and putting these thoughts out there for the world to see, I am exacerbating my guilt; they say, after all, that you should never speak ill of the dead. No story of my life would be complete without him, however, so I must write about him, and I'm afraid to do so in any other manner would be to be a hypocrite.
So there you are. I am a heartless bastard. Who knew? Oh, yeah, everyone who reads this blog knew, that's right. I'll leave it there and I'll be back next week with another memory of my terrible youth. I'm a twat in that one too.
My desire to keep these reminiscences in roughly chronological order (although that hasn't worked out exactly), coupled with the fact that once my mood lightened I didn't really want to throw myself back into the Dark Place straight away, has meant a bit of a wait, but now, here we are. Or at least, here we are at the beginning of the tale. There will be more.
Mathew was my cousin/uncle. He was born to my Uncle Eric and his first wife, but when that marriage fell apart and his mother (I can't remember her name, but then I think I only ever met her once) disappeared from the scene and wanted nothing to do with him, Eric decided that he couldn't handle raising a child alone and Mathew found himself being raised by my Grandparents. Hence his insistence on us calling him Uncle, which was nothing if not really fucking annoying.
And there's the rub. Mathew, or the memory of Mathew, is something of a sacred cow in my family. He died young, and not in a very pleasant manner, so of course he must always be spoken of kindly. So I don't speak of him. You see, I only knew him as a child, have only my childs-eye opinion of him to go on, and consequently have very little in the way of nice things to say about him.
The first time he came to stay with us, it was in the very early stages of his illness. We all knew he had been poorly, but we didn't know with what, or how serious it was. He himself gave no indication that he was anything less than 100%. We were told though, that we had to be nice to him, that we had to include him in our activities, and that we had to 'take care of him'. This last directed at me of course, as the oldest. It was easier said than done.
Everyone hated him. Seriously, everyone. He stayed with us for a week and day by day our group got smaller and smaller as one person or another decided they didn't want anything to do with him. He was arrogant, he expected everyone to do whatever he wanted to do at all times, and he spoke to people like they were shit on his shoe; I wanted to punch him on may occasions and am genuinely surprised that certain of my friends didn't do just that; thy weren't a bunch that were shy with their fists.
Now, I know what you're thinking; he was ill and we should have cut him some slack. Well, as I say, we didn't know he was ill. We knew he had been ill, but we had no reason to think he still was. Even he himself didn't know. He was, so far as we could tell, just a spoiled brat. Maybe he was spoiled because the adults knew the extent of what lay in store for him, I don't know, but that didn't change how the situation appeared to us. All we knew was that this kid was behaving in ways that would have seen us get the hiding of a lifetime, and getting away with it, while at the same time doing nothing at all to endear himself to us. We couldn't wait for him to leave.
Do I regret, now, that we didn't treat him with more kindness? Do I wish we had known what was down the road for him, so we could have made more effort to enjoy the time we had. I'd like to say yes, but if I'm honest, I don't think it would have changed anything. Regardless of what we knew or didn't know; regardless of how long or how short his remaining life would be; the truth remains the same. He wasn't a very nice person. At the most, we might have made more of an effort to pretend to like him, because that's what you do, right? Our true feelings would have remained the same though.
I often think back to those days and wonder what it says about me. Am I a bad person because I didn't like him? I don't think so; he gave ample reason. A better question perhaps, is am I a bad person for not feeling worse about it now?
Maybe the answer to that one is yes, I don't know. Maybe by writing this post, and putting these thoughts out there for the world to see, I am exacerbating my guilt; they say, after all, that you should never speak ill of the dead. No story of my life would be complete without him, however, so I must write about him, and I'm afraid to do so in any other manner would be to be a hypocrite.
So there you are. I am a heartless bastard. Who knew? Oh, yeah, everyone who reads this blog knew, that's right. I'll leave it there and I'll be back next week with another memory of my terrible youth. I'm a twat in that one too.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Childline
So, today you were going to get the mirth filled tale of how my psycho neighbour killed my pet rabbit (and not in a good way, I didn't even get any freaky sex out of the deal) and the separate, but related, incident in which said psycho neighbour egged her children on to physically attack me. However, and that's a very big however, I couldn't manage to fit the tales into a respectable wordcount nor, and this is the big problem, make them readable at *any* length.
So I quit. I'll no doubt come back to those tales at some point, either together or, more likely, stretched out to fill two posts instead of one, like the relevant bits of a weekends X-Factor. In truth, I realised as I writing it that I'd actually jumped ahead a bit in the old life story anyway, so I can justify postponing them as a narrative preserving act, rather than the 'I'm too lazy to do another re-write' act that it so obviously is. Win!
What's that I don't hear you cry? What will he replace it with at such short notice? Well I'll tell you. Childline.
A grand idea in principal, Childline was the freephone number for children to get advice about their problems. (They're still around, but online now.) But to me, Childline was first port of call for your more imaginative prank caller.
Yes, I did indeed use Childline as a source of great amusement. You see, as I've noted before, I didn't, for the most part, consider myself to be all that badly done by. Certainly I knew that I was somewhat neglected by my Mother and her waster boyfriend; certainly I knew that technically speaking the beatings I regularly received from them were not strictly legal; and certainly I knew that some would consider the daily torment, both mental and physical that I endured at the hands of schoolyard bullies was less than ideal. Just as certainly though, I knew that I had good mates, that I was a bright student and that I had everything I needed to have a grand old time. Life was pretty good.
So it never occurred to me to actually use Childline for it's intended purpose; that being, to talk to someone about my problems. Instead I used it to talk about fake problems, to invent stories of such deprivations and indignities as would make Dickens himself think "nah, mebbe not, bit far-fetched there Charlie lad".Did I feel bad, as they poured sympathy and concern down the phone? Nope, twas hilarious.
At one point, I made mention of the fact that I had been on the phone to Childline, while in the same room as my mother and Maurice the dickhead pseudo step-dad. I genuinely hadn't thought it through, as to how they might react, having only mentioned it because I thought my tale of woe that I'd spun the volunteer might make them laugh. The looks of panic on their faces were priceless. So good in fact that I didn't finish my story and just let them sweat.
Looking back, with the growed up eyes of a jaded mandult, I see how reprehensible my behaviour was. Childline was a charity, running on fumes and staffed by volunteers who gave up their time because they genuinely cared and probably felt like shit after listening to the horrible stuff that *genuinely* traumatised kids must have been telling them. I wasted their time and probably caused them more distress.I was, in short, a little shit.
So there you have it. A post in which I was to be portrayed as a victim has been replaced by a post in which I am the villain. We were overdue for one of those anyway.
So I quit. I'll no doubt come back to those tales at some point, either together or, more likely, stretched out to fill two posts instead of one, like the relevant bits of a weekends X-Factor. In truth, I realised as I writing it that I'd actually jumped ahead a bit in the old life story anyway, so I can justify postponing them as a narrative preserving act, rather than the 'I'm too lazy to do another re-write' act that it so obviously is. Win!
What's that I don't hear you cry? What will he replace it with at such short notice? Well I'll tell you. Childline.
A grand idea in principal, Childline was the freephone number for children to get advice about their problems. (They're still around, but online now.) But to me, Childline was first port of call for your more imaginative prank caller.
Yes, I did indeed use Childline as a source of great amusement. You see, as I've noted before, I didn't, for the most part, consider myself to be all that badly done by. Certainly I knew that I was somewhat neglected by my Mother and her waster boyfriend; certainly I knew that technically speaking the beatings I regularly received from them were not strictly legal; and certainly I knew that some would consider the daily torment, both mental and physical that I endured at the hands of schoolyard bullies was less than ideal. Just as certainly though, I knew that I had good mates, that I was a bright student and that I had everything I needed to have a grand old time. Life was pretty good.
So it never occurred to me to actually use Childline for it's intended purpose; that being, to talk to someone about my problems. Instead I used it to talk about fake problems, to invent stories of such deprivations and indignities as would make Dickens himself think "nah, mebbe not, bit far-fetched there Charlie lad".Did I feel bad, as they poured sympathy and concern down the phone? Nope, twas hilarious.
At one point, I made mention of the fact that I had been on the phone to Childline, while in the same room as my mother and Maurice the dickhead pseudo step-dad. I genuinely hadn't thought it through, as to how they might react, having only mentioned it because I thought my tale of woe that I'd spun the volunteer might make them laugh. The looks of panic on their faces were priceless. So good in fact that I didn't finish my story and just let them sweat.
Looking back, with the growed up eyes of a jaded mandult, I see how reprehensible my behaviour was. Childline was a charity, running on fumes and staffed by volunteers who gave up their time because they genuinely cared and probably felt like shit after listening to the horrible stuff that *genuinely* traumatised kids must have been telling them. I wasted their time and probably caused them more distress.I was, in short, a little shit.
So there you have it. A post in which I was to be portrayed as a victim has been replaced by a post in which I am the villain. We were overdue for one of those anyway.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
You Can't Put That Many In, The Suspension Won't Take It.
Last week MoaN once again did what it seems to do a lot lately and failed to update. Why did it fail to update? Well, because I hadn't actually gotten around to writing anything, that's why. Still, the legion of loyal readers who just can't get enough of my childhood trauma can at least console themselves that MoaN manages to update a hell of a lot more regularly than my TV blog or my book blog have managed recently.
The reasons for my not writing as much as I did haven't really changed since the last time I posted one of these 'I haven't posted much recently' messages. Or rather, the surface causes may have changed, but the root issue remains the same; namely my utter dissatisfaction with my life as it is right now. Where previously this had led me to not blog because I either couldn't be bothered or my mood was already so low that I didn't want to dredge up yet more misery from my past. Now however, it has led to new blog-blocking issues.
Yes, the self improvement drive that I recently announced I was about to embark on is in full flow. Very much early days still, of course, but with my history of procrastination and, let's face it, just plain not doing what I say I will, I choose to feel proud of myself that I actually made an appointment and signed an enrollment document. Of course, now that I have I have no choice but to see it through, given that the 'free' course is only free if you complete it; walk away mid-way through and they hit you with the bill, which would be disastrous, since my long term employment is still up in the air and I'm trying to save up for a trip to Scotland next year.
So, with my free time now taken up with listening to women with bizarrely good enunciation explain simple mathematical theories in as confusing a manner as possible and massively over excited men yell "Well Done! You Got Them All Right" whenever I answer a bunch of questions my 6 yr old nephew wouldn't struggle with, the time available to post up on here is limited.It's not all bad though. I can amuse myself by mocking the ridiculous 'problems' I find myself faced with in this bizarro world they seem to think we live in.
Take grout for instance. If I was ever going to buy grout (unlikely in the extremis) I would probably just read the label on the tub to know how much was in it. Not an option, apparently; you have to work out the volume of the tub using a mathematical formula. Now, I work in a builders merchants and we sell grout. I have never, in all my years there, ever seen one of our customers working out the volume of a tub of anything. In fact the only time pi crosses their minds is when we have a promotional breakfast morning on.
Or there's the time I had to work out how many paving stones would fit in the back of a van. Apparently you do this by working out the volume of the van. Well, here's a little tip for you, from me; if you work out the volume of your van, and then purchase enough paving stones to fill it to capacity, Congratulations, you've just killed your van. Little bit of wisdom there, that I've picked up over the years.
Anyway, the maths is over soon, and then it's on to the English course. I'm hoping for less blatant nonsense there. Although, given my complete and utter inability to remember the definitions of 'noun', 'verb', 'adverb' etc., I possibly shouldn't look forward to that one too much either.
That's enough pointless waffling I think. I will endeavour, next week, to do another trip down memory lane; I know you are all missing your vicarious wallowing.
The reasons for my not writing as much as I did haven't really changed since the last time I posted one of these 'I haven't posted much recently' messages. Or rather, the surface causes may have changed, but the root issue remains the same; namely my utter dissatisfaction with my life as it is right now. Where previously this had led me to not blog because I either couldn't be bothered or my mood was already so low that I didn't want to dredge up yet more misery from my past. Now however, it has led to new blog-blocking issues.
Yes, the self improvement drive that I recently announced I was about to embark on is in full flow. Very much early days still, of course, but with my history of procrastination and, let's face it, just plain not doing what I say I will, I choose to feel proud of myself that I actually made an appointment and signed an enrollment document. Of course, now that I have I have no choice but to see it through, given that the 'free' course is only free if you complete it; walk away mid-way through and they hit you with the bill, which would be disastrous, since my long term employment is still up in the air and I'm trying to save up for a trip to Scotland next year.
So, with my free time now taken up with listening to women with bizarrely good enunciation explain simple mathematical theories in as confusing a manner as possible and massively over excited men yell "Well Done! You Got Them All Right" whenever I answer a bunch of questions my 6 yr old nephew wouldn't struggle with, the time available to post up on here is limited.It's not all bad though. I can amuse myself by mocking the ridiculous 'problems' I find myself faced with in this bizarro world they seem to think we live in.
Take grout for instance. If I was ever going to buy grout (unlikely in the extremis) I would probably just read the label on the tub to know how much was in it. Not an option, apparently; you have to work out the volume of the tub using a mathematical formula. Now, I work in a builders merchants and we sell grout. I have never, in all my years there, ever seen one of our customers working out the volume of a tub of anything. In fact the only time pi crosses their minds is when we have a promotional breakfast morning on.
Or there's the time I had to work out how many paving stones would fit in the back of a van. Apparently you do this by working out the volume of the van. Well, here's a little tip for you, from me; if you work out the volume of your van, and then purchase enough paving stones to fill it to capacity, Congratulations, you've just killed your van. Little bit of wisdom there, that I've picked up over the years.
Anyway, the maths is over soon, and then it's on to the English course. I'm hoping for less blatant nonsense there. Although, given my complete and utter inability to remember the definitions of 'noun', 'verb', 'adverb' etc., I possibly shouldn't look forward to that one too much either.
That's enough pointless waffling I think. I will endeavour, next week, to do another trip down memory lane; I know you are all missing your vicarious wallowing.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Scruff.
For any of you who may be wondering, I am over my little funk of last post. I'm pretty convinced that my worries weren't paranoia and the problem really did exist but I'm equally certain that a)it's all blown over and b) I'm not going to dwell on it regardless.
So this week I drag the blog back on track and head once more down memory lane; to a boy named Scruff and one of my most terrifying experiences.
I spent a goodly portion of my childhood living in constant fear of Scruff, who lived just a couple of streets from me and was, during our time at Primary School, in my class. Luckily, come Comprehensive his, shall we say lack of academic aptitude, meant that we saw little overlap in our classes so I only had to worry about him after hours. At the time of this weeks tale however, we were still entrenched in the Primary years, so his presence was constant.
Now, before we go any further I should like to point out that I was not the one to coin the name 'Scruff' for him. Far from the most well dressed person in my social circle I was all to aware of the negative affect being mocked for your appearance can have on a person. He seemed perfectly happy with the name though, to the extent that I genuinely can't remember what his actual name was. I'm sure he had one; God, how awful would it be to have been christened Scruff? You'd have no chance, would you?; but to this day he is indelibly etched into my memory as simply Scruff.
Scruff and I didn't get off on the wrong foot. Quite the opposite in fact. One of my first memories of him is from, oh, it must have been a week or so after I started at that school. We were selected by random drawing to stay in at playtime and clear up the art supplies and he was pretty upset about it. Personally I wasn't that fussed, everyone got picked eventually, it was just our time, (although I was pretty unlucky to have been picked so soon) but he was really stropping. I ended up telling him to just sit down and I'd do it myself. That was it, friend for life. Or friend for a month or so anyway. Pretty much everyone tried to warn me, after that first playtime bonding session, that I should stay well clear but I liked the lad, he was a good laugh, and I didn't listen.
Until he headbutted me for tackling him in PE.
You see, Scruff was a psycho, or at least that was our expert opinion when we were kids. Truth is, looking back, he was obviously deeply troubled and his home life, from what I saw of it was about as far from perfect as you could get. And I say this a someone whose own childhood, as you'll know if you read this blog regularly, was far from rosy. These days he'd get counseling, maybe moved to a separate school where children with his issues were better catered for. Not back then though; to the teachers he was a troublemaker and to us kids he was a psycho. A psycho with a temper.
I very quickly, being the terrible physical coward that I am, began to live in fear of Scruffs mood swings, which ironically enough meant that I actually ended up spending a lot more time with him than most. You see, while others were happy to ignore him or, the brave ones, tell him to f*ck off, I was always trying to appease him. I figured if he thought of me as a proper friend (and one who posed no threat) I'd be less likely to feel his wrath. Shoddy thinking, I now know.
Anyway, I had two major run ins with Scruff that stay with me to this day. The first was one of the proudest moments of my life. The second was the moment that I realised the first had been a massive mistake.They say, don't they, that you should stand up to bullies and they'll back down. Sound advice, if you're living in Ramsay Street or going to school at Waterloo Road but here in the real world it doesn't always work that way. Or rather, in my experience, it never works that way.
It was a pretty normal day like any other and we were all quite happily sitting in class doing whatever it was we were doing. The sun was shining through the windows, people were laughing, it was pretty idyllic. Then my mate Chris and I went to get something from the side cupboard. Scruff arrived right behind us, he wanted what we had, we offered half, he wanted it all, we said no, he said he would kick our heads in. So far, still normal, if not quite so idyllic.
Then I screamed "Fuck Off" and punched him. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking but he was snarling threats at us and I was terrified so I lashed out and punched him in the stomach. Shocked myself to be honest. He doubled over and stayed doubled over, my hand still in his stomach because I was in to much shock to pull away. Everyone who saw it started laughing and cheering, Chris tried to drag me away, Scruff was puffing and wheezing, everything was in slow motion.
So teacher arrives on scene, we're both sent on our merry way to the Headmasters office, get a bit of a bollocking, apologise, are sent straight back to class. The whole way there, and the whole way back, Scruff doesn't say a word to me, just shuffling along with his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor. For my part, I was terrified; I was convinced he was going to turn and beat the crap out of me, right there in the corridor.
He did no such thing, and he did nothing at break or Lunch either. Hometime came and he went straight home, no sign of hanging around to 'get' me. It seemed that I had gotten away with it. I became something of a minor celebrity in class for all of about 3 days, and then it all blew over.
Until a few weeks later. I'm in a shop, Scruff walks in with a couple of mates, heads straight over to me and starts yelling in my face. The shopowner kicks us all out; I guess the terror in my eyes wasn't good enough for him, he just lumped us all in together as noisy kids and out we went. We were outside scant seconds when the first punch connected to the side of my head. I staggered, a couple more blows were struck and then interference from a passer-by was enough of a diversion for me to do one.
Now, I'm no athlete, but when I think there's a chance of a kicking I'm like a whippet, so it wasn't long before I was at the end of the street and round the corner. Had I kept on I would have most likely gotten home before Scruff and co could have caught me but instead, in another case of me trying to be too clever for my own good, I nipped up the back of the main street, intending to hide in one of the yards. This I do, and am soon happily ensconced in a nice little alcove, out of sight and sitting pretty.
Except, I'd failed to take into account that while Scruff had many flaws, being an idiot wasn't one of them. He must have realised that I hadn't had time to get out of sight on the main road, and that having come up the back street I wouldn't have had time to reach the end; hence, I was hiding up the back street somewhere. I was cornered within moments and bracing myself for the kicking I was sure was coming.
He pulled a knife.
I can honestly say, hand on heart and without fear of contradiction, that I was legitimately more scared in that moment than I had ever been before and I'd be hard pushed to think of many times since that matched it. I can clearly remember thinking that Scruffs friends looked nearly as terrified as I did; I don't think they were expecting that! And do you know what I did? What my big, brave, plan of action was? I cried. I cried, and I begged for him not to hurt me and then I launched into a wild attack that I'm sure had little effect other than to shock him (still crying all the time) and then I ran like fuck and didn't stop until I got home; where I cried some more, got wrong because I wouldn't say why I was crying and then went to bed and had nightmares. So, you know, a great plan all round. And Scruff...
Scruff showed up at school next day like nothing had happened and was laughing and joking with me in the playground. Best friends...until the next time.
So this week I drag the blog back on track and head once more down memory lane; to a boy named Scruff and one of my most terrifying experiences.
I spent a goodly portion of my childhood living in constant fear of Scruff, who lived just a couple of streets from me and was, during our time at Primary School, in my class. Luckily, come Comprehensive his, shall we say lack of academic aptitude, meant that we saw little overlap in our classes so I only had to worry about him after hours. At the time of this weeks tale however, we were still entrenched in the Primary years, so his presence was constant.
Now, before we go any further I should like to point out that I was not the one to coin the name 'Scruff' for him. Far from the most well dressed person in my social circle I was all to aware of the negative affect being mocked for your appearance can have on a person. He seemed perfectly happy with the name though, to the extent that I genuinely can't remember what his actual name was. I'm sure he had one; God, how awful would it be to have been christened Scruff? You'd have no chance, would you?; but to this day he is indelibly etched into my memory as simply Scruff.
Scruff and I didn't get off on the wrong foot. Quite the opposite in fact. One of my first memories of him is from, oh, it must have been a week or so after I started at that school. We were selected by random drawing to stay in at playtime and clear up the art supplies and he was pretty upset about it. Personally I wasn't that fussed, everyone got picked eventually, it was just our time, (although I was pretty unlucky to have been picked so soon) but he was really stropping. I ended up telling him to just sit down and I'd do it myself. That was it, friend for life. Or friend for a month or so anyway. Pretty much everyone tried to warn me, after that first playtime bonding session, that I should stay well clear but I liked the lad, he was a good laugh, and I didn't listen.
Until he headbutted me for tackling him in PE.
You see, Scruff was a psycho, or at least that was our expert opinion when we were kids. Truth is, looking back, he was obviously deeply troubled and his home life, from what I saw of it was about as far from perfect as you could get. And I say this a someone whose own childhood, as you'll know if you read this blog regularly, was far from rosy. These days he'd get counseling, maybe moved to a separate school where children with his issues were better catered for. Not back then though; to the teachers he was a troublemaker and to us kids he was a psycho. A psycho with a temper.
I very quickly, being the terrible physical coward that I am, began to live in fear of Scruffs mood swings, which ironically enough meant that I actually ended up spending a lot more time with him than most. You see, while others were happy to ignore him or, the brave ones, tell him to f*ck off, I was always trying to appease him. I figured if he thought of me as a proper friend (and one who posed no threat) I'd be less likely to feel his wrath. Shoddy thinking, I now know.
Anyway, I had two major run ins with Scruff that stay with me to this day. The first was one of the proudest moments of my life. The second was the moment that I realised the first had been a massive mistake.They say, don't they, that you should stand up to bullies and they'll back down. Sound advice, if you're living in Ramsay Street or going to school at Waterloo Road but here in the real world it doesn't always work that way. Or rather, in my experience, it never works that way.
It was a pretty normal day like any other and we were all quite happily sitting in class doing whatever it was we were doing. The sun was shining through the windows, people were laughing, it was pretty idyllic. Then my mate Chris and I went to get something from the side cupboard. Scruff arrived right behind us, he wanted what we had, we offered half, he wanted it all, we said no, he said he would kick our heads in. So far, still normal, if not quite so idyllic.
Then I screamed "Fuck Off" and punched him. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking but he was snarling threats at us and I was terrified so I lashed out and punched him in the stomach. Shocked myself to be honest. He doubled over and stayed doubled over, my hand still in his stomach because I was in to much shock to pull away. Everyone who saw it started laughing and cheering, Chris tried to drag me away, Scruff was puffing and wheezing, everything was in slow motion.
So teacher arrives on scene, we're both sent on our merry way to the Headmasters office, get a bit of a bollocking, apologise, are sent straight back to class. The whole way there, and the whole way back, Scruff doesn't say a word to me, just shuffling along with his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor. For my part, I was terrified; I was convinced he was going to turn and beat the crap out of me, right there in the corridor.
He did no such thing, and he did nothing at break or Lunch either. Hometime came and he went straight home, no sign of hanging around to 'get' me. It seemed that I had gotten away with it. I became something of a minor celebrity in class for all of about 3 days, and then it all blew over.
Until a few weeks later. I'm in a shop, Scruff walks in with a couple of mates, heads straight over to me and starts yelling in my face. The shopowner kicks us all out; I guess the terror in my eyes wasn't good enough for him, he just lumped us all in together as noisy kids and out we went. We were outside scant seconds when the first punch connected to the side of my head. I staggered, a couple more blows were struck and then interference from a passer-by was enough of a diversion for me to do one.
Now, I'm no athlete, but when I think there's a chance of a kicking I'm like a whippet, so it wasn't long before I was at the end of the street and round the corner. Had I kept on I would have most likely gotten home before Scruff and co could have caught me but instead, in another case of me trying to be too clever for my own good, I nipped up the back of the main street, intending to hide in one of the yards. This I do, and am soon happily ensconced in a nice little alcove, out of sight and sitting pretty.
Except, I'd failed to take into account that while Scruff had many flaws, being an idiot wasn't one of them. He must have realised that I hadn't had time to get out of sight on the main road, and that having come up the back street I wouldn't have had time to reach the end; hence, I was hiding up the back street somewhere. I was cornered within moments and bracing myself for the kicking I was sure was coming.
He pulled a knife.
I can honestly say, hand on heart and without fear of contradiction, that I was legitimately more scared in that moment than I had ever been before and I'd be hard pushed to think of many times since that matched it. I can clearly remember thinking that Scruffs friends looked nearly as terrified as I did; I don't think they were expecting that! And do you know what I did? What my big, brave, plan of action was? I cried. I cried, and I begged for him not to hurt me and then I launched into a wild attack that I'm sure had little effect other than to shock him (still crying all the time) and then I ran like fuck and didn't stop until I got home; where I cried some more, got wrong because I wouldn't say why I was crying and then went to bed and had nightmares. So, you know, a great plan all round. And Scruff...
Scruff showed up at school next day like nothing had happened and was laughing and joking with me in the playground. Best friends...until the next time.
Monday, 5 September 2011
Twitter People, And An Apology
So, this is not the post I set out to write this week. I had planned an account of my torment at the hands of a schoolyard bully and how the old adage, 'stand up to a bully and he'll run away', isn't always the best advice, but that will have to wait for something has come up which I need to address. Something which has been playing on my mind for a couple of days.
Now it's entirely possible that there isn't a problem and I'm just being paranoid. This has certainly been known to happen in my long and torturous history of 'trying to interact with other people like a normal human' but if it is all in my head, then all that's going to happen is I'm making a fool of myself, which is kind of what this blog is all about. If I'm not paranoid though, and there really is a problem, then I hope that this post will go some way to putting it right.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter; a time sucking indulgence which has become akin to an addiction for me, and I don't use the word lightly. You see I joined twitter, as I do so many internet do-hickeys, with the intention of extracting the michael out of all the saddos but unlike the various forums I've joined and never posted on, or the MySpace and later, facebook pages I set up, I have stuck with Twitter and now wouldn't be without it. Why? The people.
In a course of events that I didn't foresee and would never have thought possible, I began to engage. It took me a while but I began to consider these 'tweeters', these people I've never actually met and possibly (probably) never will, as friends. Is that 'sad'? Is that 'abnormal'? If it is, I don't care.
My whole life I've struggled with the social niceties, with the societal pressure to 'do this', 'think this', 'feel this'. I've had few friends, I've become estranged from the bulk of my family, I consider those I work for and with as nothing more than interchangeable/replaceable colleagues. When people are particularly happy or miserable; when babies are born or engagements announced; when people are ill or die, I feel nothing. I put on a show of camaraderie in the good times and feign empathy in the bad but it's seldom genuine and if it is, it's fleeting. I had begun to think myself broken. Until Twitter. I don't know how they did it but they brought me out of my shell, they made me laugh genuine laughter, engage in genuine banter that I wasn't forcing to fit in, care about what they were doing in their lives and want to share what I was doing in mine. So yes, I think of them as friends.
And, as I'm told is common in real life, by the tellybods and the bookwriter people, some are better friends than others; some are more important to me than others.(You can see their names over to the right there). I care, not just about their opinion of me, but about them in general. How they feel, whether they're happy. So when I think that I could have done something, however unintentional, to make one of these people unhappy, it pains me. It pains me a great deal and I want to put it right.
ON SATURDAY I posted a comment on twitter about Person A. It was a joke; a comment posted in response to something Person A had posted earlier that day, which had in turn been posted in response to something I had said the previous night. You know, like a conversation, but with reaallly long timedelay. Shortly after I posted this comment, someone we shall call Person B seemed to get very upset. They posted some things that, while not addressed to me personally, could have been written in direct response to my post. The timing and their content certainly indicated that they were. I pretended not to notice. I hoped very strongly that what I thought had happened, had not happened. I'm now convinced that it had.
You see, taken in context, I like to think that my comment was mildly amusing. Taken out of context (and let's face it, what's the likelihood that anyone would have just happened to see the previous 2 messages in the sea of thousands over the 24 hour+ hours that the conversation took?), the comment took on a whole other meaning. And it was a meaning that Person B would have had every right to get upset about.
I hold my hands up here. It was a stupid thing to do, especially since I knew that Person B was online at the time. I just didn't think; I had an idea for a funny thing to do and I did it, without a thought for how Person B would take it. I apologise; all I can do is apologise, but I want that person to understand something.
It was never my intention to hurt your feelings or upset you. I was an idiot and I've felt like shit about it since it happened. I hope you understand that you are genuinely one of my favourite people to talk to online and a big part of what makes Twitter so positive an influence in my life. The thought that I played any part in making you unhappy kills me. I hope you understand, it was a joke.
As I say, it's possible that I'm overreacting; that the whole thing was in my head, I'm the only one worrying and the above post is just a big load of 'Paul Being An Idiot'. If that's the case, nothing would make me happier and you should all feel free to mock me mercilessly. But if not, then I hope that Person B understands how sorry I am.
And also, I suppose, that all of Twitter doesn't now disown me for being the freakazoid needy loser that I have just ousted myself as. Slipped up there.
Now it's entirely possible that there isn't a problem and I'm just being paranoid. This has certainly been known to happen in my long and torturous history of 'trying to interact with other people like a normal human' but if it is all in my head, then all that's going to happen is I'm making a fool of myself, which is kind of what this blog is all about. If I'm not paranoid though, and there really is a problem, then I hope that this post will go some way to putting it right.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter; a time sucking indulgence which has become akin to an addiction for me, and I don't use the word lightly. You see I joined twitter, as I do so many internet do-hickeys, with the intention of extracting the michael out of all the saddos but unlike the various forums I've joined and never posted on, or the MySpace and later, facebook pages I set up, I have stuck with Twitter and now wouldn't be without it. Why? The people.
In a course of events that I didn't foresee and would never have thought possible, I began to engage. It took me a while but I began to consider these 'tweeters', these people I've never actually met and possibly (probably) never will, as friends. Is that 'sad'? Is that 'abnormal'? If it is, I don't care.
My whole life I've struggled with the social niceties, with the societal pressure to 'do this', 'think this', 'feel this'. I've had few friends, I've become estranged from the bulk of my family, I consider those I work for and with as nothing more than interchangeable/replaceable colleagues. When people are particularly happy or miserable; when babies are born or engagements announced; when people are ill or die, I feel nothing. I put on a show of camaraderie in the good times and feign empathy in the bad but it's seldom genuine and if it is, it's fleeting. I had begun to think myself broken. Until Twitter. I don't know how they did it but they brought me out of my shell, they made me laugh genuine laughter, engage in genuine banter that I wasn't forcing to fit in, care about what they were doing in their lives and want to share what I was doing in mine. So yes, I think of them as friends.
And, as I'm told is common in real life, by the tellybods and the bookwriter people, some are better friends than others; some are more important to me than others.(You can see their names over to the right there). I care, not just about their opinion of me, but about them in general. How they feel, whether they're happy. So when I think that I could have done something, however unintentional, to make one of these people unhappy, it pains me. It pains me a great deal and I want to put it right.
ON SATURDAY I posted a comment on twitter about Person A. It was a joke; a comment posted in response to something Person A had posted earlier that day, which had in turn been posted in response to something I had said the previous night. You know, like a conversation, but with reaallly long timedelay. Shortly after I posted this comment, someone we shall call Person B seemed to get very upset. They posted some things that, while not addressed to me personally, could have been written in direct response to my post. The timing and their content certainly indicated that they were. I pretended not to notice. I hoped very strongly that what I thought had happened, had not happened. I'm now convinced that it had.
You see, taken in context, I like to think that my comment was mildly amusing. Taken out of context (and let's face it, what's the likelihood that anyone would have just happened to see the previous 2 messages in the sea of thousands over the 24 hour+ hours that the conversation took?), the comment took on a whole other meaning. And it was a meaning that Person B would have had every right to get upset about.
I hold my hands up here. It was a stupid thing to do, especially since I knew that Person B was online at the time. I just didn't think; I had an idea for a funny thing to do and I did it, without a thought for how Person B would take it. I apologise; all I can do is apologise, but I want that person to understand something.
It was never my intention to hurt your feelings or upset you. I was an idiot and I've felt like shit about it since it happened. I hope you understand that you are genuinely one of my favourite people to talk to online and a big part of what makes Twitter so positive an influence in my life. The thought that I played any part in making you unhappy kills me. I hope you understand, it was a joke.
As I say, it's possible that I'm overreacting; that the whole thing was in my head, I'm the only one worrying and the above post is just a big load of 'Paul Being An Idiot'. If that's the case, nothing would make me happier and you should all feel free to mock me mercilessly. But if not, then I hope that Person B understands how sorry I am.
And also, I suppose, that all of Twitter doesn't now disown me for being the freakazoid needy loser that I have just ousted myself as. Slipped up there.
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