Sunday, January 09, 2005
PUNished
I was in a mood today (tomorrow I'm on call. 'Nuff said) and so I went to the gym and punished myself.
One of the staff must have seen me hitting the treadmill (to be honest I was doing a rather sedate speed of 12, but it was... some effort thanks to the fencing class yesterday) because he struck up a conversation with me as I was leaving and said it was good once in a while, but not to do that too often.
This full-time working-life thing sucks. I don't get to the gym often enough to actually work on slicing that time down still further; in fact I'm making a backward slide and am currently barely holding at 11:40.
I tell myself that it is because my thighs hurt from all that lunging. Yes, all you girlies, fencing is extremely good for toning those thighs.
*****
Subliminal
I think my UK-made telephone (with torchlight. That always wows the crowd here for some reason, even though it does not have colour, camera, or even polyphonic ringtone) is trying to tell me something.
Everytime I try to key in the word "mum", the predictive text neatly inserts "nun" instead.
And when I painstakingly press-in "home" I get "good".
No amount of dropping it on the floor has cured it of its goody-two-shoed-ness. Currently threatening it with upgrading to a Panasonic with everything which my brother keeps trying to give to me. There must be a catch somewhere, so I am holding off...
*****
Illogical
You'd think, after all this time, and all that I've written, that randomly re-elicited memories of Her would either upset me or be easily shrugged off.
Instead, they still make me smile.
As commander Spock himself might have said, Humans are not a logical race.
*****
Cracked
One of my more long-term friends helpfully filled in a sentence for me the other day, while I was rambling about life, love and all sorts of other things beginning with the letter L. (except lust, which I don't ramble about, so much as enthuse. heh heh.) While I was commenting about certain trivial things about this country which might have led me to leave it in the first place, including the way particular places elicited memories of a certain person, and how strange returning was... and because they still had that same effect, and... , she interdicted that I re-visited these places often?
I paused for a moment. The whole universe seemed to pause with me, and hold it's breath as my answer hung in the balance. I thought.
Is that how the world sees me? Is that how my friends see me.
Man. What do you all think I am, some kind of crackpot...
I'm just a regular guy. I don't hunger for pain. I avoid it. The neurology may be slightly frayed, but it is most certainly wired up within normal limits. If something hurts, I avoid it.
You just get caught offguard, sometimes. Is all. That was my point.
I think.
*****
Apologies
Apologies are a bit like buns. They start to become stale after a while, and after too much time they become worthless.
I should know.
I will admit that I'm not very good at them. It's not so much a case of face, or pride, but... what someone else described on his own blog (pertaining to me) as a heightened sense of self-righteousness. (there were some other choice phrases that amused me, although one suspects that was not the intention at the time of writing) But I'm not so blind as to pass over the truth when I bump into it.
So maybe I am anal retentive about certain things, and the truth, and, well, wanting the good guy to win are things that really, really, really drive me.
Maybe it's because once upon a time a certain strange guy lost... almost everything he held dear, because... he wasn't very good at spelling out the truth directly. The other things that everyone else including his parents holds dear, car, credit card, cash, condo... well. Those are nice, but those are - can't you see it? - distractions.
Anyway, this is probably coming too late since the first more conventional attempt has fallen flat, but V, I apologise. I can of course see why you got angry, and I can see that my choice of actions was not perfect.
But there were reasons, behind everything. And in a sense, it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Sometimes silence is more harmful than the truth.
And though actions may speak louder than words, this is me saying sorry anyhow.
And to K, I apologise. It's all water under the bridge now, I know.
But somedays, when the memories hit hard and I'm... somewhere back there in the past, remembering how I knew I was making a mistake even as I made it, and knowing that this far down the line... it would still suck bigtime, I remember how it felt. It felt like I didn't have a choice.
But I did. And perhaps I could have done it some other way; and I just wish I had found it.
Perhaps nothing was worth hurting one of my tried-and-tested-est friends in the world.
I am sorry. And these aren't just words.
*****
Dedication
You took your coat off and stood in the rain,
You're always crazy like that.
And I watched from my window,
Always felt I was outside looking in on you.
You're always the mysterious one with
Dark eyes and careless hair,
You were fashionably sensitive
But too cool to care.
You stood in my doorway, with nothing to say
Besides some comment on the weather.
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees, and...
These foolish games are tearing me apart,
And your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.
You're breaking my heart.
You're always brilliant in the morning,
Smoking your cigarettes and talking over coffee.
Your philosophies on art, Baroque moved you.
You loved Mozart and you'd speak of your loved ones
As I clumsily strummed my guitar.
You'd teach me of honest things,
Things that were daring, things that were clean.
Things that knew what an honest dollar did mean.
I hid my soiled hands behind my back.
Somewhere along the line, I must've gone
Off track with you.
Well, excuse me, guess I've mistaken you for somebody else,
Somebody who gave a damn,
Somebody more like myself.
You took your coat off,
Stood in the rain,
You're always crazy like that
- Jewel, Foolish Games
Somewhere out there lives a forgotten score with the words "From B, to A" on it, that I dearly wish I had a copy of.
Right now, this song goes out to the dozer, and the stormie-one.
Because sometimes, it just isn't anybody's fault. But it sucks anyway.
Love is a two-way street. Watch out for oncoming traffic.
One of the staff must have seen me hitting the treadmill (to be honest I was doing a rather sedate speed of 12, but it was... some effort thanks to the fencing class yesterday) because he struck up a conversation with me as I was leaving and said it was good once in a while, but not to do that too often.
This full-time working-life thing sucks. I don't get to the gym often enough to actually work on slicing that time down still further; in fact I'm making a backward slide and am currently barely holding at 11:40.
I tell myself that it is because my thighs hurt from all that lunging. Yes, all you girlies, fencing is extremely good for toning those thighs.
*****
Subliminal
I think my UK-made telephone (with torchlight. That always wows the crowd here for some reason, even though it does not have colour, camera, or even polyphonic ringtone) is trying to tell me something.
Everytime I try to key in the word "mum", the predictive text neatly inserts "nun" instead.
And when I painstakingly press-in "home" I get "good".
No amount of dropping it on the floor has cured it of its goody-two-shoed-ness. Currently threatening it with upgrading to a Panasonic with everything which my brother keeps trying to give to me. There must be a catch somewhere, so I am holding off...
*****
Illogical
You'd think, after all this time, and all that I've written, that randomly re-elicited memories of Her would either upset me or be easily shrugged off.
Instead, they still make me smile.
As commander Spock himself might have said, Humans are not a logical race.
*****
Cracked
One of my more long-term friends helpfully filled in a sentence for me the other day, while I was rambling about life, love and all sorts of other things beginning with the letter L. (except lust, which I don't ramble about, so much as enthuse. heh heh.) While I was commenting about certain trivial things about this country which might have led me to leave it in the first place, including the way particular places elicited memories of a certain person, and how strange returning was... and because they still had that same effect, and... , she interdicted that I re-visited these places often?
I paused for a moment. The whole universe seemed to pause with me, and hold it's breath as my answer hung in the balance. I thought.
Is that how the world sees me? Is that how my friends see me.
Man. What do you all think I am, some kind of crackpot...
I'm just a regular guy. I don't hunger for pain. I avoid it. The neurology may be slightly frayed, but it is most certainly wired up within normal limits. If something hurts, I avoid it.
You just get caught offguard, sometimes. Is all. That was my point.
I think.
*****
Apologies
Apologies are a bit like buns. They start to become stale after a while, and after too much time they become worthless.
I should know.
I will admit that I'm not very good at them. It's not so much a case of face, or pride, but... what someone else described on his own blog (pertaining to me) as a heightened sense of self-righteousness. (there were some other choice phrases that amused me, although one suspects that was not the intention at the time of writing) But I'm not so blind as to pass over the truth when I bump into it.
So maybe I am anal retentive about certain things, and the truth, and, well, wanting the good guy to win are things that really, really, really drive me.
Maybe it's because once upon a time a certain strange guy lost... almost everything he held dear, because... he wasn't very good at spelling out the truth directly. The other things that everyone else including his parents holds dear, car, credit card, cash, condo... well. Those are nice, but those are - can't you see it? - distractions.
Anyway, this is probably coming too late since the first more conventional attempt has fallen flat, but V, I apologise. I can of course see why you got angry, and I can see that my choice of actions was not perfect.
But there were reasons, behind everything. And in a sense, it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Sometimes silence is more harmful than the truth.
And though actions may speak louder than words, this is me saying sorry anyhow.
And to K, I apologise. It's all water under the bridge now, I know.
But somedays, when the memories hit hard and I'm... somewhere back there in the past, remembering how I knew I was making a mistake even as I made it, and knowing that this far down the line... it would still suck bigtime, I remember how it felt. It felt like I didn't have a choice.
But I did. And perhaps I could have done it some other way; and I just wish I had found it.
Perhaps nothing was worth hurting one of my tried-and-tested-est friends in the world.
I am sorry. And these aren't just words.
*****
Dedication
You took your coat off and stood in the rain,
You're always crazy like that.
And I watched from my window,
Always felt I was outside looking in on you.
You're always the mysterious one with
Dark eyes and careless hair,
You were fashionably sensitive
But too cool to care.
You stood in my doorway, with nothing to say
Besides some comment on the weather.
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees, and...
These foolish games are tearing me apart,
And your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.
You're breaking my heart.
You're always brilliant in the morning,
Smoking your cigarettes and talking over coffee.
Your philosophies on art, Baroque moved you.
You loved Mozart and you'd speak of your loved ones
As I clumsily strummed my guitar.
You'd teach me of honest things,
Things that were daring, things that were clean.
Things that knew what an honest dollar did mean.
I hid my soiled hands behind my back.
Somewhere along the line, I must've gone
Off track with you.
Well, excuse me, guess I've mistaken you for somebody else,
Somebody who gave a damn,
Somebody more like myself.
You took your coat off,
Stood in the rain,
You're always crazy like that
- Jewel, Foolish Games
Somewhere out there lives a forgotten score with the words "From B, to A" on it, that I dearly wish I had a copy of.
Right now, this song goes out to the dozer, and the stormie-one.
Because sometimes, it just isn't anybody's fault. But it sucks anyway.
Love is a two-way street. Watch out for oncoming traffic.
