So I'm doing a thing...

...which isn't the most original thing in the world, but will hopefully generate one or two.

You see, there comes a time when a blog can't survive on venom alone. Oh don't get me wrong, I love being angry and indignant about what the world has to throw at us. I enjoy daubing the vitriolic oozings of my spleen upon  this particular slice of digital soapbox.

Also, I don't want to upset the many (both) fans of this page that probably come here to see what's crawled up my vagina this week.

However the more observant of you will recall that when I started this blog, the intention was to squirt creative juices on these shiny pages. In lieu of that, it's got a little acidic and I figure it's time to neutralise the burning sensation and put some words out there. Made up words.

So in a desperate bid to generate muse, I've tasked a few folks I know with supplying some mind fodder. The format is fairly simple and I encourage any of you with creative leanings to give it a go.

• Down the left hand side of a sheet of A4, write the numbers 0 to 9.
• Add four column headings - Character, Location, Object, Motive.
• Ask one friend to supply ten types of person or occupation.
• Ask another friend to supply ten locations, specific or general.
• Ask a third friend (if you have that many) to give you ten objects.

The last column should be completed by yourself and contain the following motives - Love, Money, Power, Survival, Revenge, Glory, Integrity and three others of your choosing.

Then ask an assortment of folks on Facebook to supply a four digit number. The number 4057, for example, will give you Character number 4 in Location number 0 with Object number 5, and the plot will be driven by Motive number 7. Now try to write a short story or a play scenario using these four elements.

The intention is not necessarily to come up with the next best seller, but to start the cogs turning. To find plots and characters from a very simple set of instructions. Most will be an exercise in scribbling and some may lead to other ideas. Suffice to say I'll bore you, gentle reader, with those that I feel safest putting on this page.

Then when I'm done with all that nonsense I'll write another post that's rude about car drivers or has pictures of cats.

See? You give a little, you get a little.

Rise

Like a  zombie dictionary, dripping with torn pages plucked gleefully by a schoolboy giggling at the word bum, this blog refuses to die.

Or more poignantly, I refuse to be dragged into the current mire that is plaguing my sleep and inspiration deprived brain.

I think I've been getting it the wrong way about. Complaining about my job has now become a sport, of which I am the current Lance Armstrong. A multiple world champion in bemoaning my lot in life, I achieve this level of self-loathing with seemingly little effort. However, I am cheating myself. See, it shouldn't be the shitty things in life that dictate our moods and outlooks. Rather, it's the very fact that 'regular' life can be so mundane that should force us to transcend such misery.

The roller coaster of my attempts to work out just what I am has most recently been on the down slope, but any sane person knows that if you don't pick up that downward momentum, you won't get up the next rise. I'm not usually classed a sane person, so I often lose sight of these simple physical laws. Twice before in this life I have hit rock bottom and only then realised that the next part is up.

So what does this amount to in terms of actual action?

Do things to force the momentum. Add a few horsepower to that carriage. Take some practical steps to ensure that when you hit the top of the next rise, you're going so fast that you barely notice the subsequent dip.

Oh, and fasten your seatbelts...

Talk about your all time backfires...

Whoa. So that last post kinda backfired quite spectacularly, huh?

I'm not sure what this says about karma, other than she remains an unrelenting bitch.

Not one week after posting that weak affirmation of the edges of happiness, lowlife caravan-dwellers take it upon themselves to break into our home and steal our only forms of transport. Even Jeff Beck couldn't find a silver lining on this cumulonimbus.

I guess I should have blogged about this when it happened, when it was still raw, but the result would have been akin to the Hulk attempting needlepoint. My furious fingers would have blundered across the keys, painting all manner of inquisitorial punishments for the scroteless fuckwits that took not just physical objects, but our freedom, our independence, our memories.

With time I feel I have developed the correct balance of impotent rage and acceptance. Shit happens, get a helmet, et cetera. Going backwards has been a skill I've honed through life, but I'm getting a little sick of watching and waiting for it to be 'our time', for life to relent and let us get on with the pleasure of living how we choose. So I keep looking forward while a tumult of apocalyptic rage furies on behind me.

Objectives for year end 2012? (Mayan calendars not withstanding)

• New job (oh sweet Jesus yes please, this above all else)
• Car

Yes, I've finally succumbed to the need for more wheels and a sense of utter detachment from the dangers of the road, found only in the warm, radio-filled, bucket-seated comfort of the motor car. Two lessons in and I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. 

Stayed tuned for our next installment, when Mistress Karma dons the guise of a sweet old lady who appears from nowhere with the intent of wedging her adorable and harmless face as far as possible into the windscreen of my instructor's car...

Keep Karma and Carry On.

Never let it be said that I am averse to tempting fate. Hell, on most days I am proudly there with a pointy stick, poking fate in the eye and calling its mother rude names.

I think there's an alarming propensity in the human race, to assume that because good things are happening, something horrendous must be looming. This bizarre match game of tying independent events together is what constitutes our lives. 'Without the dark how could you have the light?' and other turgid platitudes abound.

So it is with the calm and considered precision of Evel Knievel jumping a rocket powered pushbike over a pit of flaming, acid-filled crocodiles with rusty glass for teeth, that I proclaim - "I'm having a pretty good day."

Pause for effect.


Still here.

The reasons for this abundance of fatalistic joy? Firstly, I got a new toy. A phone so spangly and jammed with Star-futuristic-Trek technology that I'm genuinely surprised it can't take photos of itself. After two years of wallowing in entry-level smartphone hell, it's nice to finally move into the digital age.

Reason the second, I sent off a job application today. Will I get it? Who knows, but the very process of applying for jobs while working is decadent and exciting. A chance to pimp myself AND practice writing. Sho' nuff.

Thirdly, but more importantly pre-firstly, my Gayle is a wonderful human being whom I adore with a soppiness that would make Liberace blush.

Stayed tuned as fate gets its knickers in a bunch and makes me drop my new phone down the toilet...

Frantic mind, empty page

It seems I've made a bit of a mockery of this blog's title of late.

While I don't have the hubris to think that I have been noticeable by my absence, I do have several perfectly good excuses for changing the title to 'Frantic mind, empty page'. Those that know me are most likely aware of the main reason why I've not been here in a while. The loss of a good friend has a very final way of driving you inwards. The irony here is that I have developed a wider lexicon for writing, however, I pray that portion of my writing vocabulary remains unwritten in for a long time to come.

Grief is something I've explored before, but never in so intense and immediate a fashion. Gayle and I grieve in markedly different ways and reconciling these has proved challenging to say the least. I've ridden the highs and lows of both that aching void where a friend used to be and the tearful joy of memories. A vast range of emotional baggage has been spread across the bedroom floor or my life, to be picked through at moments of weakness.

Given the recent emotional tumult, it's no wonder we've experienced vast torrents of liquid sunshine of late. Pathetic fallacy has never been so well fed. Even back when we still had a dog, the oppressive misery that is British Summertime, was weighing ever greater on my increasing dissatisfaction with my current career.

We really are talking the perfect storm of crap over these past few months.

All of which, I guess, is why it's so important I get my arse back into gear on this tiny portion of the web. I've wittered on before about the catharsis behind writing, but never for the way it truly regulates my emotions and my sanity. We're not talking relief - a balm for my sins - but rather a necessity.

Destiny? Fate? An excuse not to iron a work shirt? Perhaps. 


Stay tuned...

The epic art of pimping things

Slap my balls and call me Susan, what an outstandingly epic few days.

I should probably tack a disclaimer in here - this post is going to gush about the many amazing people and things I have experienced in the last few days. It might get a touch on the sycophantic side, but then that just goes to show what an amazing few days it has been. It's also going to be long, so fetch your glasses (wine or reading).

Being one of advancing years, the raw pace since Thursday has almost been as relentless as the energy I showed. We've been needing something like this for a very long time and I guess I'd saved up quite a lot of 'play'.

But I digress. Dear reader, presented for your delectation four insane days start here.

It all began on Thursday night with a gig. I'm allowed to say gig now. I think I qualify. We arrived at the Rescue Rooms in time for the end of Vreid, which was disappointing. In so much as it was tantalizing taste of what we had missed. Definitely one for the list. Still, it gave us time for a pint, which we happily downed as we watched the roadies setting up for the next band.

"Howcome you never see bands soundcheck their own equipment?" I asked the exceedingly knowledgeable Gayle, scant moments before the self-same roadies came back out and promptly blew the roof off the venue. Insomnium were everything about a band you needed - technically perfect and well aware of how much the crowd appreciated what they were doing. Bravo. A sobering lesson for what followed. In the wake of this, Paradise Lost seemed.... well, lost. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, even the guy who threw his phone at me while I was waiting at the bar. More on that later.

Friday. Nerd Day. After what can only be described as the most bizarre queuing experience in cinema history, we settled in to watch 'Avengers Assemble', or 'The Avengers' as it should have been called. Dreadful naming decisions aside, this movie did everything right. The perfect pay-off for the five movies that set it up. Everyone got their moment in the sun, it was respectful to the source material and funny in all the right places. With nerdish grins plastered on our faces, we left the cinema, maintaining a respectful silence until we reached the pub, then exploded in an orgy of nerd gushing. Bliss.

Saturday. Oh sweet merciful hell.

Saturday started quite gently. A late breakfast in the awesome company of Andy Smilie, talking all things Warhammer and Extreme Plumbing. Always a pleasure, never a chore.

What better backdrop from which to rush home and turn the house upside-down in a cleaning frenzy of titanic proportions, whilst Gayle did battle with the woeful organisational skills of Boots Opticians?

How could this day be salvaged?

Enter the UK's best parody metal band, Evil Scarecrow . I kinda hate these guys, but in the best way possible. Simply because they are clearly having more fun doing what they do than should be acceptable. Add to that the fact that they're the nicest bunch of folks you could hope to knock back a drink or two with and you've got a recipe for all kinds of emotional confusion. Taking audience participation to a new level, jumping between angry, vengeful cartoon theme tunes, fury powered waltzes and darkly gothic weep fests (with actual man-crying), these folks did everything right. The evening finished up with us finally finding a venue that we can hang on to, making some new friends and the astounding realisation that the guy spinning the turntables threw his phone at me on Thursday night.

I could see myself doing a few more weekends like that. Bring 'em on.

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.