Old Gigs
Posted: Fri 4 May, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Gigs, Music, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This year seems to be another one with a lot of band revivals – and I’m happy about it.
First of all, the band “The The” announced that they were going to do their first tour in twenty-odd years. Having been a fan for a long time, I got tickets.
The first-announced one, back at the Royal Albert Hall (where I saw them *cough* years ago) is the single most expensive gig ticket I’ve ever bought – the gig sold out in minutes, and I was in the queue, so the only ones that remained by the time I got there were ridiculously costly (but also have hospitality included, so I’ll make it pretty much work out, somehow) but fuck it, got one anyway.
Then they announced a second gig, this time at Brixton Academy on the following night. Much much cheaper. So I got one for that too.
Later, they also announced a smaller warm-up gig, in Nottingham. Yup, got that too. (It’s ridiculous, and I just hope it’s worth it)
There are a couple of others this year as well, including Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, both of whom I’m going to see.
And then yesterday, the Cowboy Junkies announced they were coming to the UK for three concerts – in Glasgow, Manchester, and London. I think the last time I saw them was on their last visit here, although for some reason I appear to have missed one a couple of years ago – had tickets, didn’t go. I’ve been a fan of them even longer than I have of The The, so it was a no-brainer.
Glasgow and Manchester went on sale today, and I’ve got one for Manchester. The London ones don’t go on sale ’til the end of the month, but I’m already seriously considering getting one for that too. It’ll depend on the price, but it’s pretty likely, if I’m not going to see them again for another decade…
Non-Stop
Posted: Fri 27 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Business, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This last week has been (and continues to be) pretty non-stop, even by my standards. It’s been a weird mix of work, social, and work-related social.
I’m still trying to calm things down – and weirdly, at the moment my weekends seem to be freer than my weekdays, so I suppose that’s some kind of progress? But as usual, something has to give – and this time it’s been writing on D4D™.
I’m aiming to find a better balance of things, but right now it’s all on some kind of weird mutant seesaw/roundabout combination, and figuring out the physics of that is pretty tiring in and of itself.
I’ll get there, though.
Property Inspection
Posted: Wed 18 April, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, People, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the other things that came up last week was the annual property inspection and safety check by my landlord. It’s my sixth year in this house, and I don’t mind the safety checks at all. (Yes, they’re a legal requirement, but still, I’m happy for them to happen)
Getting them done is always a pain in the bum – every time I leave them a note to say please make sure the cats aren’t allowed upstairs, or trapped upstairs when they leave. Every year, they’re upstairs and closed in the bedroom. I get it, they’re not cat people etc., but jesus Fuck, is it really that difficult?
Anyway, this year, I decided to stay home while they did the checks, and now I can see why it all happens. They just leave doors open, no thought of anything else, get the jobs done, and then bugger off. I’m not surprised, but it still just strikes me as being a bit slack. Or maybe I’m too tense/stroppy about these things. I don’t know.
On the other hand, it also meant I got to finally meet my landlord. Again, six years in the place, and we’d never met. So it was good to do that, and for both of us to be able to put faces to names and so on. (Well, I think it’s a good thing so far. He might just decide I’m a disaster area now, and get rid of me come November…)
But all’s well with the house, too. A couple of small maintenance things and so on, but nothing urgent or needing lots of stuff done.
And at least the bloody cats weren’t trapped in the bedroom this time. I class that as a win.
Aging – Making Improvements
Posted: Mon 16 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Single Life, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss 3 Comments »Following on from my general feelings of being flattened and feeling old, I’ve also been doing some stuff to try and alleviate it a bit, or at least to give myself better information.
The first part of that was a general health review, a visit to the GP to get basic information, as well as booking myself in to get blood tests and so on. (I try to do that every couple of years, as there’s a family history of stuff like underactive thyroid, type two diabetes, heart issues and the like.) As usual, that all came back fine.
The blood-tests were more of a pain in the arse – mainly because I live right on the border of two health authorities, and my surgery refers me to the authority that’s not the one for where I work. So it took me a couple of weeks before I could be bothered to go that way and get them done. But again, once it was done and I’d bothered rinnging up to get my results, everything was fine there too. A couple of figures that aren’t perfect, but everything’s still well within acceptable range of ‘normal’. Which is enough for me. I’ll probably work on them a bit, but it’s nothing that’s even important, let alone urgent.
As usual, they all say I’m too heavy – file under “Sherlock, Shit, No” – but then when they see the figures, and the speeds/distances I usually walk at, they seem to worry less. I’m still working on losing some again, but it does somewhat lessen the urgency when they pretty much shrug and go “Oh, OK”…
Following on from that, I got the aforementioned eye-test, which was also positive. Small changes, but nothing major, and the optician said that my eyes are a lot healthier than those of most people who have similar levels of vision correction to me.
Oh, she also worried me by telling me that people with my level of vision correction are at risk of detached retinas – something that has never been said to me before! – but that mine were OK. (I mentioned this to my parents last weekend, and they added to it by saying ‘Yeah, there’s a family history of doing that, too”) So that’s been great, being told all of a sudden about a potential future health issue I wasn’t even aware of. Joys.
Anyway, all told I’m actually doing OK. Now if I could just get my brain to follow the same path, things would be wunderbar…
Slightly Explodo
Posted: Fri 9 February, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Single Life Leave a comment »This week has been an oddly distrubed one in some ways, which has ended up meaning it’s all felt a bit disconnected and weird.
Back on Monday, I drove home from the on-site office feeling rough, heartburn-y and so on, which wasn’t overly pleasant. I assumed I’d had too much caffeine or something.
But no. As it turned out, it was the start of a fairly unpleasant dose of food poisoning (so far as I can tell) By seven I was sweating and knew I was unwell, and by half seven I’d barfed my stomach out. Still rough, I went back downstairs, and basically passed out – which has happened before when I’m seriously unwell, so that in itself isn’t a massive concern. (It’s still not great, don’t get me wrong – but it’s not a “fuck, I need to get to the hospital” type of event like it might be elsewhere) I didn’t come round in a good state at all (and I’m not giving the details on that one, don’t worry) and still shivering and feeling rotten. By half nine I was in bed, and didn’t get up ’til eight the next day. To be honest, that’s always the biggest sign for me that I’ve been really bad, when I ended up sleeping like that.
Since then, I’ve been on the mend. Tuesday was pretty much a write-off, although I did get some stuff done, appointments fulfilled and so on, but didn’t go to the cinema screening I had booked for the evening. The rest of the week has been a bit calmer as a result, and I still don’t feel 100%, but I’m a lot closer to it than I was at the start of the week…
Booking Time Out
Posted: Mon 5 February, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Depression, Do More, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), SAD, Single Life, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »At the end of 2017 (and of 2016, and of 2015 – I know, I know) I said about needing to take more time out, take some breaks from work and so on.
I am rotten at taking time off – it’s never been high on my driving factors, and really it just ends up being expensive, and me just spending time on my own somewhere else. And with all that, I find it way too easy to put off booking holidays and time away, it’s such a low priority that it always falls off the bottom of the list of things to do.
So this year, I’ve booked stuff already. I’ve got three breaks locked in, booked and paid for. One in February, one in May, and one in November.
It’ll be interesting to see, come the end of 2018, whether I feel better for having those breaks or not. I’m not sure, but I’m going to give it all a go, and find out.
Friendship Gap
Posted: Wed 31 January, 2018 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Single Life, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Something odd occurred to me the other day, and it’s been bouncing round my skull a bit since.
Basically, it’s pretty simple – I realised that I don’t have any real friends or connections still in my life from the time I was with Herself, or her successor. Nothing. It’s like there’s this eight year hiatus, from 2004 through to 2012.
Plenty from before 2004, plenty from after 2012. Just a complete blind-spot over those years. In some ways it’s like they simply never happened.
I find I feel like that with a lot of the stuff that went on – a lot happened, a lot changed, and by the end of it, there were very few positive memories at all.
Of course, hindsight has shown that period proved to have some massive mistakes in it – but at the same time, it looks now like I sort of knew that even while they were going on, even while they were good (or at least OK) I wasn’t leaving any anchors or connections to it all.
What annoys me most is that I don’t quite know why or how that happened.