Bibliophilia and sulking 15.03.14

Yesterday, I was in somewhat of a grump.  Plans that I’d made for my day off were not panning out as I anticipated.  In my previous blog I discussed how I’m growing up – or at least feel like I might be – so I did the mature and responsible thing… I got back in bed and sulked.  This was a few hours long sulk.  I didn’t do anything at all.  I just led there, sighing heavily.  I didn’t make myself tea.  I didn’t watch any YouTube videos.  I wallowed in self-pity.  Very mature, I’m sure you’ll agree.

One of the aspects I do despise about getting older, I have no conviction for my own sulking any more.  I can do a full on strop followed by sulk, but at best, it will last for a few hours before I get bored.  In my teenage years, I could sulk for days and weeks at a time.  These days, it just stops me from getting things done, so what’s the point?!  Around the point at which I decided I was getting bored of sulking, I got out of bed and proceeded with the day I had in mind.  No, I wouldn’t have the company I had intended for the little trip to town, but I would have me.  One of my goals for the week was to read at least 100 pages of my current book, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.  No, this is not a huge undertaking, but I’m making quite long work of it, so off I went to Costa and sat there with my book.  I wrote in my diary about how I had sulked, read for a while, enjoyed a pastry then ventured into Wilkos and bought an antiperspirant.  All was going so well… Until I clocked Waterstones. 

                Just in case these ramblings have reached outside of the UK, Waterstones is one of the last surviving high street book stores.  Borders went down the drain a few years ago, WH Smiths sells more magazines and stationary than it does real reading material, Bookland went bust before Borders.  A man hunting for books anywhere other than the Internet will struggle if it was not for Waterstones. 

When I moved to Preston in June last year, one of the things that excited me most was to live in a town that had an actual bookshop.  Blackburn hasn’t had a dedicated book stockist since Bookland closed and was replaced by a pound shop.  Reading that sentence breaks my heart somewhat.  But now, not far away from my house was going to be one of my most favourite book shops in the whole wide world.  It smells exactly how a book shop ought to smell.  It’s got friendly staff and the walls are just lined with worlds and people and possibilities.  I love that place.  It feels like home.

Moving out of my old flat in September 2012, I was stunned at how many books I owned.  So many I had never read and some of them, I didn’t even know why I’d bought.  I had no intention of reading them so why did I own them.  At the time, I did what I considered to be logical and sensible and gave them away.  I needed less stuff to pack for putting in to storage.  I couldn’t have any near as much stuff in my new room and I needed to not take over the garage where most of my belongings would be living.  This seemed like a good plan. 

I was wrong.

Not long after I moved to Preston, I bought a Kindle.  More than my coming out, I think my Mother was incredibly disappointed in me.  She had raised her children to love and appreciate the magic of books.  I think it comes as part and parcel of her dyslexia; she yearned for the ability to read for so many years and as soon as she could, she bought and devoured books.  Whilst at University as a mature student she read War and Peace in one 8ish hour sitting.  The woman is nothing, if not conscientious.   And she isn’t an old fuddy-duddy either; she’s quite tech-savvy and recently invested in a smart phone and a tablet, but she will not forgo the experience of thumbing a book.  I, however, am a child of the new technology generation.  We have smart phones and apps and DVD’s and BlueRay and FaceTime.  Surely I would love a Kindle.  And I did.  Briefly.  The moment I truly fell out with it was when the battery died.  Now, I know I ought to have charged it regularly, but in my head, Kindle = Book = Do not need batteries.  Fatal error in logic, I know, but still true.  I will always hold the Kindle to be an amazing piece of technology (when charged) and the convenience for holidaying folks and students is unparalleled.  For me, it wasn’t cutting the mustard.

Part of my New Year’s Resolution for 2014 was to read more.  I had no intention of making this work with my Kindle.  I wanted books.  Real books with paper and smelled like ink and glue.  It’s not just a mental experience when you sit down with a book.  It’s one that stimulates all the senses, not just the as well as the imagination.  It makes me happy. 

If we add in my discovery of Carrie Fletcher – YouTuber ItsWayPastMyBedTime - and her adoration of Disney and the printed media format, I felt this compulsion to read again.  I read a book to help me with my creativity and one of the weekly activities was to look over the week and find any “synchronicity” and discuss it.  The synchronicity of finding Carrie, whilst rediscovering my love of reading and books… It was nothing if not good timing (Boys in Books are Better – never a truer word spoken.  Fan girls, go laugh and giggle and surrender your love of non-fictional men at the door.  They aren’t worth it).

Back to Waterstones yesterday.  I have a very bad tendency of self-pity-purchasing when I’m out and about and feeling bad.  I think this is probably quite a normal thing.  Is it?  Let me know!  But the love of owning books and the possibilities inside gets me giddy.  I looked it up.  I qualify as a bibliophile.  So I came home with my 4 new books and a notebook, which I also did not need, and put them on my book shelf. 

 

My book-shaped accident from Waterstones (14.03.14)

Today, I walked past the shelf and got mad with the disorganisation.  There were too many piles on top of the rows and I couldn’t really see what was there.  Being a normal person… don’t look at me like that… I had to sort it out.  All the books I have yet to read are now neat and organised … But I just had to go and count the buggers.  It turns out I have 54 books on my shelf that I haven’t even read yet!  Do I have an addiction to buying books?  Is this normal?  Moreover, do I even care?   I love reading and am reading more now than I have in years.  Perhaps it is going to take me years to get through this lot, but at least I have plenty to go at.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to carry on with my reading…

Being a Grown up 07.03.14

Part of the problem with keeping a diary is that the thoughts that run untamed in your brain take up permanent residence on paper; somehow it makes them more final.  A thought can come and go through your consciousness without leaving much of a footprint.  Even if it does, the tide-of-time washes over it and it can be gone again, without anyone ever knowing it was there.  A pen and paper, or a keyboard has some sense of permanence.  It reinforces the links together in to a chain that becomes much more difficult to break; you can push thoughts to one side, but when they’re written down, you lose most – if not all – of the pushing power.

I don’t mean to say that thoughts we may harbour in our hearts or in a diary cannot later change or be found to be untrue; time changes many things and opinions are incredibly flexible. 

Over the last few years, living my life as an adult post-university-pre-mid-life-crisis, I've wondered on many occasions what it actually means to be a grown up.  How should a grown up act?  How do they behave?  Is maturity the same thing as being grown up?  People said I was a mature teenager; does that mean I've done all my growing up?  Is growing up the same thing as getting old?  That last question in particular is plaguing me of late.  Having made the mistake of immortalising it on the page, it now won’t let me alone.

When I was 19 I had a kitchen accident that left me with a rather unsightly scar on my right hand.  I broke a glass that sliced across my fifth digit gifting me with a lovely talking point (should conversation die at a party, I can always whip out the conversational ice-breaker of “Do you have any interesting scars?” and delight a crowd with how I tore my hand up trying to do house work.  This opportunity has yet to be afforded to me, but I live for that day!).  Given the way I chose to hold my phone – sort of balancing against that finger, fingers curved around – or in the cold weather, I have noticed this winter how much it aches.  I've noticed how old people talk about the cold setting in to their joints, giving them troubles.  It set in my finger this winter.

Scar on my right finger.  Even my hands are looking old today... Where is my moisturiser?

It’s not just an aching finger, along with a question of what it means to get old that makes me feel that way.

Since the passing of my Grandmother in November last year, I've been forced to think about my own life.  Where am I going?  What am I doing?  No, I'm not suffering from a case of sleepwalking or intense amnesia.  I've had a rolling set of realisations that have led me to a point where I have to accept the way things truly are.   This life I'm living is not what I want.

I was gifted a full time job when I left university.  I walked into it through coincidence.  I needed a full time job and where I was already working part time needed a person.  Ding-ding.  After that, I reacted constantly to situations at work, never really thinking about what I truly wanted to do with my life.  I toyed with the thought of teacher training (a thought which continues to dart around in my brain from time to time) but never really planning what I really wanted to do.  The universe gave me a kick in the ass when I lost my job and one of the most horrid periods of my life was being without one.  Character building is the more poetic way of describing a situation that nearly broke my spirit but somehow I muddled through. 

A friend happened to be a team leader for a place that was hiring, the place I ended up working.  He let me know of a vacancy in his department and I interviewed.  Despite the impression some people may have given, I wasn't handed the job through a convenient connection and I've stood my ground there since.  Despite a lot of moaning I do about my work, I do like my job.  I get to talk to vast variety of people on a daily basis who I wouldn't get to speak to any other way and, naively perhaps, I like to think I help people.  That’s the thought I like to carry through after a bad day.

I've had various living situations.  I've flat shared with friends, house shared with family and friends, each time through a necessity of theirs or mine and I've reacted to the situations as they unfolded in front of me.  Like with my job history, my habitat has been a knock-on effect due to factors beyond my control.

Relationships and my utterly abysmal choice in men is another example.  In my adult life, I've rolled from one bad relationship to another with inappropriate people (they weren't axe murders or criminals, just not the right guys for me) for the sake of being with someone because that’s what grown-ups do, isn't it?

All of these situations have something in common.  First of all, they’re all aspects of being a grown-up; looking for a good living situation, finding the right job and looking for the perfect partner are all things grown-up people want.   Whilst all of them are grown-up pursuits, my realisation this week is that my attitude towards them has not been.

The PS2 game Kingdom Heats II is far superior to its predecessor in my opinion and the chief reason for this would be the huge improvements made to the fighting aspects of the game play.  The most useful introduction was the ‘Reaction Command’; during specific fight scenarios, certain activities were available to you in order to better blat the enemy.  The problem is that my life has been a constant series of ‘reaction commands’ under duress.  Not a physical fight against minions of darkness, no, but still, adverse circumstances presented themselves to me and I was forced to react to them.  I may have mentioned in my blog before that I have a tendency to ignore my instincts and make bad choices. 

I may have also mentioned before that I love making lists.  Part of how I get through stressful periods at work is through making lists of what I need to do and complete in order to ensure I don’t forget anything.  I love a good list.  It allows me to plan ahead and prioritise.  It dawned on me last year that the fulfilment I get from ticking items off my list at work could easily apply at home if I needed to get things done; I have a weekly list of things to do now to make sure I don’t waste my time and it’s working for me (Item 2 for this week is to write an entry for my blog; just saying…).

There was a fluttering of the “light bulb moment” in the autumn, that never fully materialised and it was in relation to looking for a relationship.  I date the wrong men.  Fact.  Why do I keep dating the wrong men?  Not a clue.  This led me to the inevitable thought that I ought to stop dating (period) until I had concluded what I want from myself and, in turn, from a partner, before going to find one, idealising him, later to realise what a waste of time that had all been.

The real eureka moment I have been having has only really started in the last few weeks; I haven’t been planning for what I want.  I haven’t given it any time or consideration.  I have brief moments of lovely ideas of how life might be in the next few years.  That’s day dreaming, not planning.  Similarly to work, to ensure that amongst the many other things that might be going on, I get the work done I need to do, I set myself some goals for what I want to achieve; some of them are time bound, some of them are not; some of them are creatively orientated, some of them are financial.  I realised that if I was going to get the life I wanted, I wasn't ever going to be able to do that if I kept reacting to life instead of making the things I truly want a reality.

I'm in a house-share and I want to live alone.  I'm planning and organising to ensure that becomes a reality.  I love to write, but I wasn't giving myself the time I needed to do it, so I made changes to ensure I didn't have that excuse.  I love to read but I wasn't and the books on my shelf gathered dust; I'm now trying hard to get through Game of Thrones even if the print is tiny and the pages are huge.  I want to go on holiday somewhere abroad because I've never been but I don’t have a passport; the application pack is now in the post so that I can get one.  I want to learn to drive for the freedom and job opportunities it will afford me.  That one has to go on the back burner because the desire to live alone is more fulfilling to me.  It is on the list though! 

For some reason it’s incredibly hard to list what we really want, particularly in a forum where other people can read it – anyone that reads this might think I'm really selfish or silly for wanting these things.  So what?  It’s my life and no one else has to want these things… but I do.

The final moment of realisation I had was to know that planning is what being a grown up is; feeling confident and comfortable in myself (perhaps with a little support) to be able to admit what I really want and the balls to try.  I can’t live with people for the rest of my life because I made a hash of living alone the first time.  If it is what I want, I’ll find a way to make it work.  If I want to write and draw, I’ll make time to do it.  If I want to read about the Mother of Dragons instead of just watching it, I’ll get my book out on the train and before bed.  For me, being a grown up and an adult is the choice to stop giving yourself excuses to not do the things we really want and make the changes we want to see.

Am I scared?  Course I am.  I love a good rut – they’re comfy to sit in when you shape out your butt groove.  They’re also consistent and lined with excuses.  Sitting and staying in my rut won’t get me what I want though.  And I don’t want to spend the rest of my adult life complaining that I don’t have the things I really want.

What does being a grown up feel like?  Terrifying.  I love it.

Decisions Decisions 23.02.14

When I sit down with my flat mates to decide what we are having for dinner (Oh, who am I kidding?  When we sit down to decide which takeaway we are going to order) there is an inevitable moment where I have to make a decision about the type of food we are getting or what I want to have.  In most normal, rational people, this would not create any sort of major existential crisis; I am not most normal people.  Unless I know exactly what I fancy on that evening, I usually have the exact same thing as I had the time before, just so I don’t have to make a conscious decision.  Mostly, it’s because I’m a bit of a pig and everything on the menu sounds really nice.  The ensuing crisis about choosing the wrong thing or if I would have preferred something else is not a normal thing to do, so I stick with a decision I made years before and have the same thing again. 

The same applies when I am deciding what to buy in a supermarket.  I end up eating the same meal time and time again because I am so terrible at making choices and the neurosis that accompanies any decision I make.  What if I don’t fancy what I’ve decided to buy tonight for my dinner tomorrow?  It’s an impossible deadlock to release yourself from, yet I keep on putting myself in to it.

My diverse taste in films and music are yet more pitfalls for coming to a decision.  I have (by a lot of people’s standards) a large DVD collection.  Unless a thought occurs to me about what I want to watch, it can take me anywhere from 5 minutes to, on one shameful occasion, an hour to decide what to stick on.  If we venture into the horrible land of Netflix and the ridiculous amount of choices that has to offer, you can see how this could take a while.  When I lived with a girl just after I left university, to avoid this paralysis –like me, she was an invalid when it came to making any manner of decision – we ended up making a list of things we both wanted to watch and worked through them in the pre-set order we had agreed on so that no decision had to be made, unless one of us had a burning desire to watch something in particular.  Music, I have a similar paralysis, hence the amazing use of Spotify, the playlist function it offers and my instantaneous stabbing at the “shuffle play” on screen.  I know instantly if I don’t want to listen to that song, so can skip to the next. 

I do the same when deciding what book to read.  As a certified bibliophile, I have a grand array of books I haven’t got round to reading yet.  The issue doesn’t come in the shop of choosing what to buy – that is never a problem I’ve had.  However, when you see them lined up in a row (Ok then, two rows… with some stacked on top) of choices to be made, I find it impossible.  Reading is more time consuming than people give it credit, and if you get to the end of a book to discover the ending sucked, you have just wasted the last however-many-days you’ve spend reading it.  It can be immensely disappointing.  It’s a big decision.  At least for me it is.

My name is Michael and I am a 27 year old male who has decision paralysis.  “Hi Michael!”  No, this isn’t an Indecision Anonymous meeting but it might as well be.  It’s an aspect of my personality I am far from fond of.  Guys in movies who dither about inevitably end up losing the guy or girl of their dreams; their ideal job sneaks away from them; their arch enemy gets away with the murder.  It doesn’t tend to end well for guys like me. 

At work all day long, I am forced to make decisions – who goes where, when they go there, what to do, who to speak to, how quick something needs to be done.  Unfortunately, all the decision paralysis scenarios I posed above do not make a tremendous amount of difference to anyone except myself; when it comes to the work I do, it has a huge impact, either negative or positive, on my colleagues or the customer.  It isn’t a very good position to be in sometimes. 

The key element here is choice.  Sometimes having choices is nowhere near as good a thing as people would like us to believe.  Sometimes selecting a default action is not a cowardly choice; it’s a necessary one.  When people are pushing on you for a decision for their work or for ordering their dinner, my inability to make my mind up has a knock on effect on them. 

It isn’t all bad though! Being forced to make any sort of decision in a stressful situation can be a mixed blessing.  No, you don’t have time to way up the pros and cons but the spontaneity can have fantastic repercussions and, should the situation arise again, you have a new path to take.  But having the balls to make that decision is not an easy thing to do for a neurotic like me.  I came to the conclusion many years ago that I am not a man intended for management roles at work purely for this reason.  Staff members look to their manager for decisions to be made and directions to be set and courses of action to be applied.  I know what I’m doing well enough, but when it comes to telling someone else “This is what you ought to be doing”, I rarely feel competent to do that.  I have a trusting nature and often trust that people older than me know better about most situations and I look to their experience rather than my own inner compass.  This is not always the best way to operate.

When it comes to the bigger decisions in my life, I find it very hard to do.  Be it a career choice or financial or property, the last thing I want to do is have the decision made for me, but it doesn’t mean I want to make it in a vacuum.  Plenty of people are fine with that and god love them for it.  I just don’t operate that way.  I trust that the people who love me and know me best will have a very good take on scenarios I put to them and will give me an insight… Hopefully before I go blundering into something daft and have to come crying to them to help me fix it.

As I get older, I don’t have the stamina for making as many mistakes as I used to.  I suppose it’s seeing the long term impact that can roll on for years.  Some bad decisions in my 20’s about how to spend my money are going to have a knock on effect for me until I’m almost 30.  10 years of digging through a bad decision.  It’s sort of like deciding to commit murder and serving the associated prison sentence… only the view is better and I don’t have to panic about dropping the soap.

One of my favourite movies is Bound- a not very-well-known little film about two lesbians who decide to take down the mob.  When Jennifer Tilly’s character turns to her lesbian lover, Gina Gershon and tells her “We make our own choices, we pay our own prices” she’s talking about her loveless marriage.  Those are the sort of decisions and choices I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying for. 

I’m currently trying to decide certain things in my life I don’t want to debate on a public blog.  The comfort of checking in my two people I love the most in the world for their honest opinion and not only getting it, but their accompanying support was so uplifting to me.  When I’ve decided to do things in the past, many people are so quick to point out the negatives from their own perspective and not take the time to consider my perspective, my motivations and to say if they thing it will be a good move for me or not.  When you’re giving feedback on anything – decisions, art, writing or work – it’s an important thing never to leave the person feeling demotivated by what you’ve said.  No matter what decisions I make in the coming months, the support that has been given to me by my loved ones this week has proved invaluable.  More than anything else, it has reminded me I am not alone in anything I do and there will always be people there to love and care for me, if it goes well… or if it all goes pear shaped and I end having to start all over again.

Hamlet, making a decision surrounded by "action choices" - borrowed from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWFGryzZj0LlKlXi2ZX6ci_UjO_9kFC7YxyfkE1Rd9ubhddIp2AjBgUe6UHBd-3JnJ0_pxFt91zJh9qJGGHivbHb8B2ARASTLG-CFExbTDaKyMO7GMZcsSacN0MK1Bs6gl1nINcqjAMM/s1600/Picture+1.png

The Contextual Framework of Priorities, avoiding conflict and making time for reading 21.01.14

A long time, in fact, *goes back to original notebook to check* on the 3^rd December 2012, I was living with my sister and her fiancé.  We lived in the next town from Blackburn, where I was and continue to work.  This involved a bus ride to get home, followed by a very strenuous half an hour walk entirely uphill.

One windy and dreary day, the bus began the descent down one of many hills towards my stop.  That day, I remember quite distinctly how frustrated I had been that a colleague had implied that I didn't know how to prioritise.  Just to compound the issue, the chap I had been dating – that didn't last long at all and least said, soonest mended – had implied that I didn't know how to prioritise our new and fledgling relationship within my life.

As a person, I am comfortable in admitting one of my biggest flaws is being defensive.  I can’t help it.  In nature, the fight or flight response manifests itself in me as follows: 

1. I feel criticised 
2.  I get defensive
3. I runaway and stop speaking to people until the situation goes away.

It is, by far, not one of my more attractive qualities and one that I am working on improving as I grow up – It is definitely not a mature response to any sort of confrontation, but having ear marked it as evolution and survival instinct, I've given myself the “Get out of Jail Free” card on it for a little too long. 

The bus hit traffic and my stop remained out of reach for a little while longer.  When I travel, unless the god of technology should forsake me, I listen to music.  Particularly after a bad day, which this had been, it helps me not to mull it over too much.  Let’s be honest, something we all need to accept more readily is that when the day is done, there is nothing more you could have done or anything you might have done better.  Plugging myself In to the wonderful world of music helps with this enormously.  On this occasion, it hadn't stopped the dwelling process entirely.  One question sprung into my mind, quite abruptly and with no warming.  The question proved to give quite a violent response and I had a little sob in my lonely  seat at the back of the bus:

Who decides what matters?

It can be people, places, possessions, a sentimental attachment to a shoe lace, but we attach priorities to all manner of things, no matter what they might be.  The problem with that question is the answer because its so glaringly obvious.  We all do.  Every single one of us has a stake in the world we share.  Consequently and unfortunately, we are going to clash periodically when we encounter someone who has a different agenda and set of priorities to ourselves. Overall, it means we can’t win. 

Most workplaces will generate such conflicts. I used to work in management for retail.  I hope never again in my working life will I fall victim to such a huge clash of different priorities that become the way you work.  The customer thinks they’re most important, you have a store visit from your area manager any minute to inspect your visual merchandising and you haven’t finished the tidy up because you've taken £300 more than your target in the last hour, and a staff member is waiting to be given their return to work interview after a period of absence.  Plus, atop all that, you haven’t finished your rota revision because three people have decided they can’t work their set shifts.  The delivery arrives, as the area manager walks in and someone asks “Do these shoes come in half sizes?”  None of us can please everyone all the time.

On the walk home, in the rain, I had to walk down one hill before I could climb the next, where home was.  On the second leg of the journey, another thought popped into my head; an answer to the question of how can anyone ever get their priorities right, when everyone has their own agenda.  The simple answer was still that you never can.  The reason why was the epiphany, and it really did make me feel better: I called the Contextual Framework of Priorities.

The basic principle off the framework is accepting that in our work or personal lives, our priorities are not always going to match up with everyone else’s.  As soon as you accept that, you are ready for step 2:  Your agenda and responsibilities might be lesser than someone else’s.  Step 3 is by far the hardest to come to terms with: everyone’s priorities are always in a constant state of flux. If you have a loved one in hospital, ensuring you get to their visiting time is an entirely different prospect to getting to say your final goodbye.  At anytime where something more important comes to your attention, which becomes your top priority.  And that happens for everyone else too.  Our own goal posts are moving and everyone else is moving theirs.

Image found: http://mdcoastdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Thngs-to-do2.jpg

Naturally, that is going to generate a certain amount of conflict.  The attitude adjustment that we all need to make is to make sure the conflict of interests that we all experience doesn't end up being a confrontation. We all need to work on communicating the urgency of what we are asking for and compromise where we can.  From personal experience, I know that creative problem solving can come from these situations.

The reason all of this came into my head at all was my realisation that I waste a lot of my own private time.  I’m not writing the things I want to write.  I’m not reading the books I want to read.  Computer games, art projects, the list could go on for a while, but the fact remains, I’m not getting this stuff done.  And part of my 2014 aim is to make sure I’m prioritising the things I REALLY want against my willingness to be lazy.  I’m putting myself into a conflict that means I actually get to do things I want – I finished a book this Sunday: Joyland by Stephen King.  Exceptional book.  Read it! 

I have had lazy days, don’t get me wrong.  The thing is, if I want this year to be a better one, all I have to do is look at my priorities and keep in mind what they really are.  As soon as I start to slip, confront myself with them and resolve to do better.  I think that this year all of us could do with remembering our priorities and making sure we achieve them and help whoever we can achieve theirs.

Internet Security Bytes 20.11.13

Tonight, my mission, as I have chosen to accept it, is to rid my computer of malware and spyware.  Now, for those of you naively assuming all is well on your computer, join me in the land of paranoia and angst.  Is it really all ok? 

For a while, I have noticed that when I load Chrome, my normal homepage was missing, replaced with a search engine, MySearchDial.com.  Never heard of it either, eh?  I Googled it to see what it was and was stunned to discover it was Spyware.  Of all the indecent things to discover!  How the hell had that gotten there?  I have no idea how and am still wondering.  It turns out to be completely harmless.  Yet, I don’t want it there.  Why is it there?  How can I get rid of it? 

I browsed my way through forum and help webpage over and over again; like all good things in the world that you might not be familiar with, you can find a Youtube video to assist you in getting rid of the blighter.  Yet, even after several hours of jumping back and forth from safe mode and haphazardly deleting parts of my registry, I was no nearer to having my beloved Google Chrome homepage back.

It has been my evenings obsession.  I had run various virus searches, over and over again.  Nothing.  I uninstalled, reinstalled, deleted bookmarks, backed them up, added them, removed them.  Nothing.  And after all of this, I managed to find a wonderful website http://malwaretips.com/blogs/start-mysearchdial-removal/ that allowed me to completely remove the little shitbag from my computer forever.  I’ve added the little gem to my bookmarks, just in case this ever happens again.

I share this with you lovely people because nowadays we keep so much personal and private information on our computers, we should be very careful about what we do (and don’t) allow past our firewalls and to worm its way into our browsers. 

Its more than that though.  For me personally, I’m a control freak and like my computer and my phone a very specific way.  If I change something, it’s because I want it like that.  Some naughty piece of software changing my digital landscape without permission is not what I asked for.  There have been countless changes to Facebook over the years that have proven how resistant to change I can be.  Sometimes, when things change, it turns out to be better than it was before (the new iphone iOS for example). Other times, not so much.  In this instance, I’m more than happy to announce the return to how I want my browser to be.

As I type this, my new friend, 'Malware Bytes' (http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/) is working its way through my computer and finding me new things to worry about.  That’s part of the bigger problem for a lot of us I think.  There is so much in this world for us to worry about.  The things we worry about the most are things like spyware, malware, identity theft and on the list goes.  The truth is that we have no idea how any of this stuff works; that’s why we’re afraid for our digital selves.  The real truth, as I see it?  There is very little difference now to how things were thirty years ago; you feel perfectly safe in your home until you’re away on holiday and your house is broken into.  The violation is no different.  It’s a strange thing to discover how much stock you really put into your digital reality, until some irritating search engine just won’t go away.  Suddenly, my paranoid digital eye is roaming far and wide.

 I currently have 17 pieces of malware, and rising. 

Image borrowed from http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/computer-virus.jpg

Solitude, Sociability and the Sweet Spot - 15.10.13

Going through my old book of thoughts and scribbling, I found a little entry about my desire to find solitude and that sometimes, I just need to be alone.  Other times, I find that I need to have the company of those I love.  I always think I’m the living embodiment of “Leave Me Alone, I’m Lonely” by P!nk (Edit… I like to think…). 

I was poorly in the middle of September and spent the majority of my time alone.  As an extension of that situation, most of that time was spent exclusively delving around in my mind.  I was writing more and kept realising the same thing over and over; I had somehow managed to isolate myself from those I loved.  I was keeping in touch with them; I could see that by looking at the messages in my phone or on Facebook.  Despite knowing that I am far from a fan of digital-facsimile friendships, apart from my family and housemate, I had reduced myself to nothing more or less. 

I spent so long romanticising the concept of being alone and having  time and space to myself, I had gotten what I wanted – isolation.  And I despised myself.  I was wracked with guilt.  Maybe I’d just given people the escape ladder they needed to get out of a crappy friendship with me.  I have mentioned on here before “purging” my Facebook and my life of fake friendships.  What if those I loved had thought the same of me?  Was this karma?  What’s a boy to do when the penny drops there is something wrong?  Cry all over his sister, durr!

I’m not prone to accepting people’s advice on anything.  I dispense very well, but personal adoption and application of the same, I suck at.  I truly believe – for better or worse – that I could run my loved ones lives better and more efficiently than they do.  I’m not a complete crazy – I also believe that others would do a better job with mine.  Friends and family have insights into us and our lives that we simply miss.  So what do we do?  Turn to them in an hour of need and ask for help… Which we then ignore, because we know better. 

This time, I didn't want to do that; I didn't want to carry on as I was and knew Laura would tell me what to do (No change there; she’d been doing that since we were kids!).  The difference was this time, I knew she would tell me the same thing as I was thinking.  I just needed to reach out to the people I loved and they would reach back.  She didn’t put it in such a poetic way of course.  My sister, administer of common sense, told me to get a grip and get in touch with people.  And this I did.

I’ve reconnected with people I truly love and adore.  I have an innate ability to surround myself with those I consider to be extraordinary and their presence in my life, even if only briefly, makes me feel extraordinary too.  I don’t go in for the “unique snow flake” approach to the human race.  Only some people are different.  I’m different, but not always in good ways.  The people I mean are truly wonderful, and this is a little love letter to them.  You guys rock!

But this isn’t all there is to say.  I wasn’t entirely wrong about my situation.  I was right and I do need my space and my time to myself.  After two weekends in a row being sociable, I find myself mentally exhausted.  There are other factors of course – work is far from a barrel of laughs at present and I’m cruising head long into the obligatory birthday blues.

Last year, I read ‘Quiet.  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking’ by Susan Cain.  That book taught me an awful lot about myself.  I had never considered myself to be an introvert before and had a lot of negative assumptions about what it meant to be one.  I was wrong almost completely. The key element that I took away from the book was not that I needed a cave to live in.  I learnt that there is a balance that must be struck in life for everyone, but for introverts, they are more susceptible to ebbs and flows when the balance is off.  She refers to it as the “Sweet Spot” which is the perfect description of it.  It refers to everything across the board; the  volume of the music or the television when I’m trying to concentrate; the amount of work I need to get through when I’m feeling stressed or the lack of it when I’m bored to tears.  It also applies perfectly to being sociable.    I need to work on finding my social sweet spot; making the effort with those I love so I get to see them but also allowing myself the time I need to process and make sense of everything, drink too much tea and dance around my kitchen (If I feel the need!). 

It comes as a constant surprise, even at 26, there is still so much that to learn about how to make myself happy and content.  I know for a fact though, that I need time to think and time to talk.  As for right now, it’s time for me to cuddle up with my hot water bottle and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, home alone and perfectly content.

My inner comedian, doing voices and perceptions - 13.10.13

I like to think that I'm funny and that might be part of the problem.  I know my own sense of humour very well; I am a very simple creature when it comes to making me chuckle.  Innuendo, sexual humour, silliness in general and a well worded pun are almost always going to get the giggle juices flowing. 

I'm less worried these days about the voice in my head.  Having checked in with some definitely sane people to discover that they have chats with themselves in their heads as well, I don’t feel the need to be concerned about myself.  Whilst I'm conducting these internal chats, I quite often think things are funny.  It goes both ways; sometimes, I have a go at myself.  On the way to start writing this, I spilt a cup of tea on the stairs and have only just stopped telling myself what a plank I am.  But I digress.

The point is, when it comes to sharing these thoughts aloud with people, they aren't funny.  In fact, I'm often perceived as, well, odd.  That would even be kind.  I think a few of my colleagues would take the point a lot further.  The comedian Eddie Izzard will often deploy a fake notepad on the palm of his hand make a note of when he isn't amusing his audience, which I love and take as my own now.  That often gets me odd looks. 

I've always been aware of the way that people look at me.  When I was in school, I often thought the word “weirdo” or “queer” was tattooed on my forehead because it seemed to be the general consensus of total strangers and passers-by.  Things haven’t really changed much over the years, only I've become more comfortable with the situation.  Yes, I'm a little odd, and yes I like men – if you’d like to make a complaint, write any comments on the back of a self addressed envelope and then shove them up your ass.  It would be a total lie to say that I don’t care entirely.  I wish it was the case, but at heart I am a people pleaser.  I don’t want people to be made to feel uncomfortable by my off beat perspective on life and my odd sense of humour. 

But quickly, you hit an impasse.  If being myself in a very controlled and restricted environment makes people a little uncomfortable, should I moderate myself down in order to make others more comfortable?  And right there is the problem.  I ALREADY AM.  If people think I'm bad now, they should pop in my head for a little visit.  They should hear my internal monologue.  They should witness the constant parade of media clips and one liners.  Its constant.  If you imagine the inner world of Ally McBeal (circa season 1-3 before they forgot about her awesome imagination), then you’re in the right head space. 

The problem at its core ultimately is perception; I perceive myself one way and the rest of the world perceives me another.  Within that separation of perceptions, there is a whole spectrum of people – those who connect with my crazy and those who look at me like I have two heads when I turn on my Gollum voice and quote Lord of the Rings.

http://undergroundchatline.com/web_images/paddedcell.jpg

A common saying I've heard many times in my life is “It wouldn't do for us all to be the same” and the older I get the more I think that’s a giant crock of shit, particularly in the work environment.  We have dress codes and uniforms, rules and regulations over our conduct and the way we work.  Uniformity is the key to big business.  It needs to be.  Consistency is required in order for work to be productive and profitable.  Whilst I understand that, it is not my business I work for and I like to pass the day with the odd film quote, a random story about a bird flying in the house whilst I put the bins out with my house-mate and singing the same song lyric sporadically until it stops playing in my head.

The same goes for my personal life.  I can only assume one of the reasons I don’t do well at making friends is because people need to take time to realise I don’t need to be medicated or sectioned.   Whilst I might not give the most sane of first impressions, it is probably the most accurate one.  Most people are more complex and intricate than they first appear.  I'm an idealist who believes we ought to be able to be who we really are, as long as we don’t make people run to the hills or get out the tranquillisers.  If that means toning it down, I am happy to, but that’s as far as I will go.

All of that being said, I am willing to take feedback to become funnier.  It’s always awkward being the only one laughing at a joke, particularly when it’s my own.