Man stuff

I did some man stuff today. I fucking love doing man stuff. Mostly because I'm not much of a real man. Except when I'm doing man stuff. Rah.

The thing about man stuff, is that for the most part I can fake it. However, the truth is usually that I stand in the garage for several hours, swearing like a navvy and hurling spanners about in impotent rage.

This current bout of spanner throwing was initially induced during the week, when one of my brake pads decided it had had enough and wanted to go explore the wide, wondrous world of the A52. Not stopping to pack its bags, or wave goodbye, it left my bike at something around (insert legal speed), never to return.

This had a few noticeable effects. Firstly, slowing down became a more challenging exercise than usual. Secondly, I felt my wallet sigh in resignation. After a tentative journey home, during which I displayed immaculate skills in not dying, I set about making plans to correct this troublesome predicament.

Admittedly, my brakes had been in need of an overhaul for a short period - say, two epochs - so the timing (if not the veiled attempt to kill me) was impeccable. Remembering that I now had a (meager) wage coming in, and having slapped my wallet into giving up my debit card, I set about the internet to accrue new parts in a radical fit of pique from my mechanical muse.

Now, since the invention of the motor car, my Dad has been a mechanic. He maintains a garage full of tools, junk, motorcycles and other man paraphernalia. He once built a boat from the roof of a milk-float.

A BOAT.

As such, I do not question his skills, knowledge or integrity when it comes to making combustion engines behave themselves. Some would think this means I am genetically predisposed to tinkering, fettling and general engineering-type tomfoolery. Wrong. Unfortunately, when tasked with a repair or maintenance, my knowledge, skills and patience only last so long. Genetics really dropped the ball on this one.

The extent of my mechanical prowess.

Through the years, necessity has led me to perform quite unique feats of mechanical marvel, from buckling brand new bearings, to flooding the car port with used engine oil. Undeterred by these successes, I continue  prove how manly I am, by taking my small collection of salvaged tools and poking them at my motorbike like a chimpanzee with a stick.

This was going well today, until Gayle returned from walking the dog and my inner man took over. Frustration, inexperience and stream of invective led me to turn the spanners over to my better half. I was attempting to display mechanical prowess in front of a woman who can strip down an industrial lathe and still have the time and patience to make glass penguins. Blagging it could only take me so far. But, in the face of overwhelming logic, I vainly held onto my manliness by letting her let me. Yeah.

So, as I sit here and stare at the thick black crust under my fingernails, wincing as my knees remind me they were not built for being used, I still feel slightly manly.

If anyone wants me, I'll be hiding in the spare room, learning Cross-stitch. Manly Cross-stitch.

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (Or 'How I learned to stop worrying and love my childhood')

It will not have escaped the notice of those that know me well, that I am effectively a man-child. The reasons for this are many-fold and perfect fodder for future posts, but the main one should hopefully be easily related to - reality kinda sucks.

We barrel through life with very little semblance of control. Hurtling through space, circling a phenomenally large nuclear explosion, clinging to a rock filled with wild animals, natural disasters and other people who want to kill us for our iPhone, it's easy to see why some people shy away from reality.

But there is some small hope. Some tiny aspects we can control, form and bend to our will. Naturally, I'm talking about LEGO.

"Look sir, Droids!"

It's a simple thing, really. Highly engineered plastic blocks that squeeze together to make the things from my childhood that filled me with wonder. The tactile experience, the thrill of creation and letting ones imagination take flight are all part of the joy. One might argue that some similarities to the writing process exist in these little bricks. Taking the building blocks of an idea and giving them structure, shaping them, seeing where the creation takes you. 

Or, it could quite simply be that it's goddamn fun and I'm easily amused. Either way, I made out like a bandit this Easter and by god it was good.

Being shallow and materialistic is often decried as the doom of our civilisation. I would argue that in some small ways, there is room for shallow and materialistic. Remember what you were like as a child. Shallow could simply be another way of saying you lacked the horror-filled knowledge of worry, of concerning yourself with the piddling bullshit that so fills our lives as we age. Materialistic could be interpreted as having purpose, knowing what you wanted without having to take into account the vast complexities of life and all it throws at  you. That kind of shallow and materialistic, I'll take. I absolutely loved my childhood, evidenced by my ceaseless efforts to hold onto it through comic books, fantasy novels, video games and LEGO.

I think these things take even more precedence in an age where we worry about everything as it goes rapidly hellward in a flaming hand-cart. For the love of all that is holy, hang on to what takes you back to those innocent, empty years, where shallow and materialistic were the only things you needed to get by.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make Superman fight the Hoth Wampa before work.