Friday, 8 December 2017
Thursday, 7 December 2017
Thursday, 23 November 2017
Wednesday, 22 November 2017
Your Arrival
When we found out you were on your way, I made a little Star Trek-inspired video. Good, innit?:
Madman Running
Sparky is a brilliant young man. I made a little video about him just after he arrived:
Silly Pictures
Here are some funny pics of Dad when he was a foolish young man. The one with the lion hat on? Don't ask. We went to a festival. It was a good time. The black and white one is the latest (about 10 days old as of today) and as you can see, I've cut off all my hair for various reasons. I quite like it though - might keep it that way (if I can :))
Mummy is also silly, so I will be posting lots of funny pictures and video of her in here too, soon x
Mummy is also silly, so I will be posting lots of funny pictures and video of her in here too, soon x
Saturday 4th November 2017
Here's a great tune that sums up how I feel today:
"Heaven loves ya
The clouds part for ya
Nothing stands in your way, when you're a boy!"
You're a boy, mate! Wow! Hurrah! Amazing! Well done! I'm going to do all the things for you. We are going to have great times together. I am bursting to show you the world and everything in it, and because you're a boy, we journey through life from similar standpoints. I would have loved you to be a girl, too, of course, but you're a boy, and that's fabulous. I had been feeling pretty poorly for a few days before we heard the news, but feel so great now. This is going to be fun.
"Heaven loves ya
The clouds part for ya
Nothing stands in your way, when you're a boy!"
You're a boy, mate! Wow! Hurrah! Amazing! Well done! I'm going to do all the things for you. We are going to have great times together. I am bursting to show you the world and everything in it, and because you're a boy, we journey through life from similar standpoints. I would have loved you to be a girl, too, of course, but you're a boy, and that's fabulous. I had been feeling pretty poorly for a few days before we heard the news, but feel so great now. This is going to be fun.
Monday 30th October 2017
Hello darling :)
I felt the need to fill you in on a few things related to my family history, as it is pretty chequered, and, it seems, a bit more relevant to your life than I thought it was just a few days ago. I have taken a few days to write this entry as situations are changing for me that mean I'm feeling better now than I was a few days ago. Many bad things have happened in the last week or two, and some great things, but this needs saying, I'm afraid.
Cancer, apparently, has a free parking space outside my family's house. At the last count, my sister and my mum both succumbed to its spurious charms, and as of a few days ago, I am now the latest in the Jones line to get the pleasure. My mum developed stomach cancer at 62, having been diabetic since her early fifties, and by the time her cancer had made its presence felt, there really wasn't much the miracle-workers of the NHS could to do help her out. She went through chemo/radio like a trouper, being wheeled through the endless, freezing Bauhaus monolith that is Poole Hospital for several months - just a few hundred metres, as irony would have it, from the rooms in which both her children were born. In the end, she said all the treatment she went through was essentially a waste of time, and she'd rather have just had a shit-ton of pain-relief and had done with it. Despite my own current predicament, I have no idea what she was going through emotionally, having watched her own daughter succumb to cancer 15 years earlier. How do you keep going? Why even bother? Surely finding any resolve whatsoever in that situation is almost impossible? The mind - yes, even mine - boggles.
Lucy's brush with the Big C was, let's not be opaque here, sadistically unfair from start to finish. At the end of 1999, she finished her GCSEs, picked up a part-time job in good old Morrisons in New Milton (just like her criminally shy, Oasis-obsessed older brother). Quickly realising that divvying out ham behind the meat counter in a provincial supermarket wasn't the rock'n'roll dream she'd assumed it was, she took the opportunity to pack maps into boxes in our friend Bill Hunt's company's warehouse in California. For the record, at the time, I was offered the chance to do the same thing, but I was frightened of being 5,000 miles from my family, and I couldn't drive, so it never made sense for me to go. Lucy was as confident as a peacock dressed as a cockerel in platform-boots, so she had no problem with it. She had an amazing time - I got some genuinely hilarious phone calls as she wandered through illegal 'chiba' markets in Santa Barbara eating hash cookies, and passed her American driving test by going around the block once in the testers' car. Effortless stuff, clearly. Despite having to get up at an unprecendented 0500 each morning, my sister fucking smashed California.
Before she'd left for America, Lucy had started experiencing intermittent headaches, which our GP put down to exam stress, or something related to her finishing her studies. Then, after a couple of months of r'n'r and her new job in the Deli at Morrisons, her eyesight started to change. She had grown up with a brother with the nickname Wonky Eye, so nobody was overly shocked at this. But after a few more weeks, and a change in prescription, the same wandering pupil returned, so she went to the doctors'. 'It's stress', he said. 'Go away on your holiday to America and it'll go away, too.' Possibly the best worst advice he gave anyone, that.
In due course, off she duly popped to California, and for a good few months there, she did just fine, until one day, at about 0600, our phone rang at home. My mum answered it, ran upstairs, and told us what she'd heard - 'Lucy's collapsed and is in hospital with a suspected brain tumour. I'm on my way to the airport now. Look after Mike, and don't let him do anything silly while I'm away', she said. As she turned in the doorway, she added: 'Do you want to come with me? Actually, best not, you've got exams, and Mike needs someone to keep him steady,'
With that, she was off to the airport, where she bought an open ticket on the next available flight to LA (an eye-watering £1200 in 1999). By the time she arrived, Lucy was in surgery, and by the time she phoned, Lucy was in recovery. The doctors told Mum that she had less than a week to live when she was discovered, and that a raiki massage had saved her life. A type-4 glioblastoma approximately the size of an orange had taken up residence in her noggin over the course of the previous 6-12 months, and her prognosis wasn't good, even from there. Even with radiotherapy, chemotherapy, a will and a prayer, she had approximately 12 months.
The good news, such as it was, came in the tiniest portions - the surgeons said they had removed 95% of the existing tumour, which would buy Lucy time for other treatment; she would be able to fly home as soon as the swelling, caused by the operation, had reduced, so that she could speak again. After a couple of days she was chuntering nonsense to herself, and laughing uncontrollably at the very idea of being alive. After a week or two, the speech therapists weren't sure what was going on, as progress wasn't being made, but it turned out that Lucy just thought the speech therapists were arseholes, and was keeping her thoughts to herself. One particularly condescending meeting with the therapist which included Lucy's newly-shaved head being called 'gorgeous' and compared to that of Sinead O'Connor really lit her stove, though. After weeks of silence, the phrase 'Sod off, bitch' finally escaped her lips, and we knew that however short-stacked she was, our Lucy was coming back. The speech therapist didn't return, however.
Lucy flew home to begin chemo at home soon after. As she was still quite frail, she travelled in a full hospital bed, with drips, monitors and, I remember being told, 'a sexy male nurse'. Also on the flight, then at the height of their fame, were the Spice Girls (ask your Mother). In an act of kindness I've always wanted to thank them for but surprisingly never managed, they sent their complementary BA bouquets back from First Class when news reached them that a bolshy teenager with a head injury was downstairs with a hot medic.
Lucy coped stoically with aggressive chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and during a period of six months when she was in remission, a truly terrible Oasis gig at Wembley which Uncle Joe can tell you all about, I'm sure. We are even on the DVD of said show, singing Wonderwall in a crowd of 76,000, and you can clearly hear Lucy. It is one of my most treasured memories, and something I plan to mention to either Liam or Noel should our paths ever cross. Your Great Aunt passed away six months after that footage was taken, peacefully and in her sleep, on the morning of New Year's Eve 2000. The first person I called was Joe.
He answered the phone with the words: 'I know mate. I woke up too.' And we had a little cry together, and then it got easier, as I phoned everyone else. Lucy's funeral was held at Bournemouth Crematorium on January 12th 2001, and she is buried at the Church of St Mary Magdelaine in New Milton. I'm sure you'll visit her and the rest of the fam one day. It's a nice place - I go back there once a year or so and say hello. Lucy's funeral was attended by over 150 people, and I remember it being bitterly cold, waiting in line to shake everyone's hands as they left. We chose The Masterplan, a great Oasis tune that sums things up nicely, and your Great Uncle Neil complained on the way out that he'd managed to avoid crying until Noel started singing. I still have a little moment to myself every year on New Year's Eve and go outside, toasting Lucy, my good fortune and good health, and the will of the universe, of which we are all still a part. You should do that, too.
I felt the need to fill you in on a few things related to my family history, as it is pretty chequered, and, it seems, a bit more relevant to your life than I thought it was just a few days ago. I have taken a few days to write this entry as situations are changing for me that mean I'm feeling better now than I was a few days ago. Many bad things have happened in the last week or two, and some great things, but this needs saying, I'm afraid.
Cancer, apparently, has a free parking space outside my family's house. At the last count, my sister and my mum both succumbed to its spurious charms, and as of a few days ago, I am now the latest in the Jones line to get the pleasure. My mum developed stomach cancer at 62, having been diabetic since her early fifties, and by the time her cancer had made its presence felt, there really wasn't much the miracle-workers of the NHS could to do help her out. She went through chemo/radio like a trouper, being wheeled through the endless, freezing Bauhaus monolith that is Poole Hospital for several months - just a few hundred metres, as irony would have it, from the rooms in which both her children were born. In the end, she said all the treatment she went through was essentially a waste of time, and she'd rather have just had a shit-ton of pain-relief and had done with it. Despite my own current predicament, I have no idea what she was going through emotionally, having watched her own daughter succumb to cancer 15 years earlier. How do you keep going? Why even bother? Surely finding any resolve whatsoever in that situation is almost impossible? The mind - yes, even mine - boggles.
Lucy's brush with the Big C was, let's not be opaque here, sadistically unfair from start to finish. At the end of 1999, she finished her GCSEs, picked up a part-time job in good old Morrisons in New Milton (just like her criminally shy, Oasis-obsessed older brother). Quickly realising that divvying out ham behind the meat counter in a provincial supermarket wasn't the rock'n'roll dream she'd assumed it was, she took the opportunity to pack maps into boxes in our friend Bill Hunt's company's warehouse in California. For the record, at the time, I was offered the chance to do the same thing, but I was frightened of being 5,000 miles from my family, and I couldn't drive, so it never made sense for me to go. Lucy was as confident as a peacock dressed as a cockerel in platform-boots, so she had no problem with it. She had an amazing time - I got some genuinely hilarious phone calls as she wandered through illegal 'chiba' markets in Santa Barbara eating hash cookies, and passed her American driving test by going around the block once in the testers' car. Effortless stuff, clearly. Despite having to get up at an unprecendented 0500 each morning, my sister fucking smashed California.
Before she'd left for America, Lucy had started experiencing intermittent headaches, which our GP put down to exam stress, or something related to her finishing her studies. Then, after a couple of months of r'n'r and her new job in the Deli at Morrisons, her eyesight started to change. She had grown up with a brother with the nickname Wonky Eye, so nobody was overly shocked at this. But after a few more weeks, and a change in prescription, the same wandering pupil returned, so she went to the doctors'. 'It's stress', he said. 'Go away on your holiday to America and it'll go away, too.' Possibly the best worst advice he gave anyone, that.
In due course, off she duly popped to California, and for a good few months there, she did just fine, until one day, at about 0600, our phone rang at home. My mum answered it, ran upstairs, and told us what she'd heard - 'Lucy's collapsed and is in hospital with a suspected brain tumour. I'm on my way to the airport now. Look after Mike, and don't let him do anything silly while I'm away', she said. As she turned in the doorway, she added: 'Do you want to come with me? Actually, best not, you've got exams, and Mike needs someone to keep him steady,'
With that, she was off to the airport, where she bought an open ticket on the next available flight to LA (an eye-watering £1200 in 1999). By the time she arrived, Lucy was in surgery, and by the time she phoned, Lucy was in recovery. The doctors told Mum that she had less than a week to live when she was discovered, and that a raiki massage had saved her life. A type-4 glioblastoma approximately the size of an orange had taken up residence in her noggin over the course of the previous 6-12 months, and her prognosis wasn't good, even from there. Even with radiotherapy, chemotherapy, a will and a prayer, she had approximately 12 months.
The good news, such as it was, came in the tiniest portions - the surgeons said they had removed 95% of the existing tumour, which would buy Lucy time for other treatment; she would be able to fly home as soon as the swelling, caused by the operation, had reduced, so that she could speak again. After a couple of days she was chuntering nonsense to herself, and laughing uncontrollably at the very idea of being alive. After a week or two, the speech therapists weren't sure what was going on, as progress wasn't being made, but it turned out that Lucy just thought the speech therapists were arseholes, and was keeping her thoughts to herself. One particularly condescending meeting with the therapist which included Lucy's newly-shaved head being called 'gorgeous' and compared to that of Sinead O'Connor really lit her stove, though. After weeks of silence, the phrase 'Sod off, bitch' finally escaped her lips, and we knew that however short-stacked she was, our Lucy was coming back. The speech therapist didn't return, however.
Lucy flew home to begin chemo at home soon after. As she was still quite frail, she travelled in a full hospital bed, with drips, monitors and, I remember being told, 'a sexy male nurse'. Also on the flight, then at the height of their fame, were the Spice Girls (ask your Mother). In an act of kindness I've always wanted to thank them for but surprisingly never managed, they sent their complementary BA bouquets back from First Class when news reached them that a bolshy teenager with a head injury was downstairs with a hot medic.
Lucy coped stoically with aggressive chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and during a period of six months when she was in remission, a truly terrible Oasis gig at Wembley which Uncle Joe can tell you all about, I'm sure. We are even on the DVD of said show, singing Wonderwall in a crowd of 76,000, and you can clearly hear Lucy. It is one of my most treasured memories, and something I plan to mention to either Liam or Noel should our paths ever cross. Your Great Aunt passed away six months after that footage was taken, peacefully and in her sleep, on the morning of New Year's Eve 2000. The first person I called was Joe.
He answered the phone with the words: 'I know mate. I woke up too.' And we had a little cry together, and then it got easier, as I phoned everyone else. Lucy's funeral was held at Bournemouth Crematorium on January 12th 2001, and she is buried at the Church of St Mary Magdelaine in New Milton. I'm sure you'll visit her and the rest of the fam one day. It's a nice place - I go back there once a year or so and say hello. Lucy's funeral was attended by over 150 people, and I remember it being bitterly cold, waiting in line to shake everyone's hands as they left. We chose The Masterplan, a great Oasis tune that sums things up nicely, and your Great Uncle Neil complained on the way out that he'd managed to avoid crying until Noel started singing. I still have a little moment to myself every year on New Year's Eve and go outside, toasting Lucy, my good fortune and good health, and the will of the universe, of which we are all still a part. You should do that, too.
Tuesday 29th October 2017
After one of the worst weeks of our lives, during which we had to genuinely question our futures and work out how to live again, we could do with some good news. That good news arrived this afternoon, and it was all down to you. You kicked! You're wrigglin' around in there like a healthy little thing! You have no idea how delighted this makes us (and me in particular of course).
I knew you were in there of course, but your Mum's reporting of kicks as we were taking Sparky out for a tentative walk this afternoon really lifted the old mood. I love you little cake. Can't wait to find out what sex you are either - I have a feeling you'll be a boy now; couldn't tell you for why. Just is :)
Happiness and light returns :)
I knew you were in there of course, but your Mum's reporting of kicks as we were taking Sparky out for a tentative walk this afternoon really lifted the old mood. I love you little cake. Can't wait to find out what sex you are either - I have a feeling you'll be a boy now; couldn't tell you for why. Just is :)
Happiness and light returns :)
Tuesday 24th October 2017
Sorry for the lengthy post - pretty full-on couple of days. After a couple of weeks of being a bit unsteady on my feet, tired and increasingly confused, it all went to pot at the local shop the other day when I had a massive fit and blacked out. I know - showy!
A further five epileptic fits - which involve hollering, convulsions feeling exactly like you've been doused in petrol, and in one case not breathing - followed in what was a very long, sleepless night in Exeter A&E. It is a cliche, but the tireless enthusiasm of the nurses and doctors - who thanks to the meds i wound up falling in love with a bit - got me through.
All this palaver led to a diagnosis: I have a brain tumour, like my sister before me.
However, before we climb out of the pram, railing at another cruel hand dealt an absentee God, it appears to differ from the one that beat Lucy. It is not as large or vociferous as hers was, and 17 years down the line, we have evolved new and cunning means to keep this bullshit genie and his friends in their box. There are encouraging signs, as they say. Also there is no cancer anywhere else, physically.
At this preliminary stage, with a biopsy pending and a meeting for cancer-fighting's biggest ball-busters in Plymouth this week or next, it appears to be small and treatable with surgery and chemo/radio, but we will have to see. Frequently cancer presents an evolving picture, So you gotta roll with it, as some fool once said.
I do know this though: previously my family has been destroyed by this disease, and even that requires extraordinary courage, but cancer is not sentient; you do not have to outwit it - it has already taken the precaution of being as dumb as a post. I do not intend to waste my time giving the random subdivision of a different kind of cells more credit than it deserves.
Life is a nought but a series of challenges, with the last one - trying not to die yet - being the hardest. This challenge however is one I cannot fail - my beloved wife, while she is my rock, cannot be expected bring our child up without me alongside our lunatic dog.
I love you all more than I say as much. I should be home later today but then in and out like the proverbial fiddler's elbow for the foreseeable. If I need anything beyond your unflinching support (which I know I have anyway) I will be in touch.
Right - wallow over. Not today, motherfucker - not today.
"They invade our space; we fall back. They assimilate countless worlds; we fall back. Not again. Not this time. The line must be drawn here. This far, no further. And I will make them pay for what they have done."
A further five epileptic fits - which involve hollering, convulsions feeling exactly like you've been doused in petrol, and in one case not breathing - followed in what was a very long, sleepless night in Exeter A&E. It is a cliche, but the tireless enthusiasm of the nurses and doctors - who thanks to the meds i wound up falling in love with a bit - got me through.
All this palaver led to a diagnosis: I have a brain tumour, like my sister before me.
However, before we climb out of the pram, railing at another cruel hand dealt an absentee God, it appears to differ from the one that beat Lucy. It is not as large or vociferous as hers was, and 17 years down the line, we have evolved new and cunning means to keep this bullshit genie and his friends in their box. There are encouraging signs, as they say. Also there is no cancer anywhere else, physically.
At this preliminary stage, with a biopsy pending and a meeting for cancer-fighting's biggest ball-busters in Plymouth this week or next, it appears to be small and treatable with surgery and chemo/radio, but we will have to see. Frequently cancer presents an evolving picture, So you gotta roll with it, as some fool once said.
I do know this though: previously my family has been destroyed by this disease, and even that requires extraordinary courage, but cancer is not sentient; you do not have to outwit it - it has already taken the precaution of being as dumb as a post. I do not intend to waste my time giving the random subdivision of a different kind of cells more credit than it deserves.
Life is a nought but a series of challenges, with the last one - trying not to die yet - being the hardest. This challenge however is one I cannot fail - my beloved wife, while she is my rock, cannot be expected bring our child up without me alongside our lunatic dog.
I love you all more than I say as much. I should be home later today but then in and out like the proverbial fiddler's elbow for the foreseeable. If I need anything beyond your unflinching support (which I know I have anyway) I will be in touch.
Right - wallow over. Not today, motherfucker - not today.
"They invade our space; we fall back. They assimilate countless worlds; we fall back. Not again. Not this time. The line must be drawn here. This far, no further. And I will make them pay for what they have done."
Friday 20th October 2017
Hey darling. Me again.
Just wanted you to know that Mum and Dad are spending most of their hard-earned on your good self right now. We had a really good time at the Baby Show in Bristol last week, bought your crib, lots of sleepsuits, various other bits and pieces - some of which attach to your mother, which I find amusing. Our house is now full of boxes containing your essential items, and more are on the way. It's just a good job we both love assembling furniture, isn't it?
We are very close to finding out whether you are a boy or a girl, but don't mind which, of course. Just to know that you're ok is the only thing we need. Honest to God, we don't really care about anything else - not even the dog. We are off to Tim and Claire's the day after we find out, which will be a great laugh, too.
The really weird thing that's happened this week is that I went to hospital, in an ambulance, because I was stressed, basically. I felt fine, but apparently starting a new job and discovering you're pregnant almost simultaneously can be quite crap for the ol' equilibrium. The irony is that I am, internally at least, really relaxed about the idea of the challenge that you represent. I think we will be fine, and the more I think about you being in our lives, the calmer I feel. I am great with bubs. Getting you into the world is a stressful prospect, but somehow I know it'll be alright really. Silly Dad just needs to calm down and stop worrying about whether we have enough bibs, doesn't he? Silly Dad.
Just wanted you to know that Mum and Dad are spending most of their hard-earned on your good self right now. We had a really good time at the Baby Show in Bristol last week, bought your crib, lots of sleepsuits, various other bits and pieces - some of which attach to your mother, which I find amusing. Our house is now full of boxes containing your essential items, and more are on the way. It's just a good job we both love assembling furniture, isn't it?
We are very close to finding out whether you are a boy or a girl, but don't mind which, of course. Just to know that you're ok is the only thing we need. Honest to God, we don't really care about anything else - not even the dog. We are off to Tim and Claire's the day after we find out, which will be a great laugh, too.
The really weird thing that's happened this week is that I went to hospital, in an ambulance, because I was stressed, basically. I felt fine, but apparently starting a new job and discovering you're pregnant almost simultaneously can be quite crap for the ol' equilibrium. The irony is that I am, internally at least, really relaxed about the idea of the challenge that you represent. I think we will be fine, and the more I think about you being in our lives, the calmer I feel. I am great with bubs. Getting you into the world is a stressful prospect, but somehow I know it'll be alright really. Silly Dad just needs to calm down and stop worrying about whether we have enough bibs, doesn't he? Silly Dad.
Wednesday, 11 October 2017
Busy busy busy, baby
OK, I know, I know, it's been a while, but your Dad's been busy working, see? Lots of stuff going on. You are 17 weeks-ish as I type this. Go you! We have finished the nursery! Go us! Go team! Pics to follow a trip to Bristol this weekend, during which we are buying your cot and various other 'essentials'.
Exciting midwifery update this week, in the form of our first opportunity to listen to your healthy-as-hell ticker, thwacking methodically away at a steady 135bpm. A good tempo, that. Brisk. Lots of my favourite songs hover around 135, and I for one am taking this as a good sign.
Other than that, I don't have a great deal to tell you. We are studying up on your various needs when you emerge, and are this week contemplating having you at home (carpets be damned!). Your mum looks radiant, and is mostly rocking dungarees these days. And no bad thing, given your insane expansion plans. She is in London working at the moment, but I will post a new photo on her return.
Exciting midwifery update this week, in the form of our first opportunity to listen to your healthy-as-hell ticker, thwacking methodically away at a steady 135bpm. A good tempo, that. Brisk. Lots of my favourite songs hover around 135, and I for one am taking this as a good sign.
Other than that, I don't have a great deal to tell you. We are studying up on your various needs when you emerge, and are this week contemplating having you at home (carpets be damned!). Your mum looks radiant, and is mostly rocking dungarees these days. And no bad thing, given your insane expansion plans. She is in London working at the moment, but I will post a new photo on her return.
Thursday, 14 September 2017
We have a winner...
Leafing through some old papers the other day, I discovered copies of my Grandma and Grandad's birth and marriage certificates. On my Grandad's birth certificate, his parents' names are listed: Harry and Beatrix.
Beatrix is a nice name. It is also the name of the mum of one of my favourite people. You never know, eh?
Beatrix is a nice name. It is also the name of the mum of one of my favourite people. You never know, eh?
Latest names we're toying with...
We're really close to knowing what to shout across playgrounds and supermarkets now, look. It is very likely one or more of these is yours, and if you'd turned out to have a different number of chromasomes, you'll always know what we would have called you :)
Bump Update!
Check out the view from outside at 12 weeks!
This being Week 12, of course, we went for a scan and checked you out. You seemed pretty bonny, all things considered. A letter subsequently arrived from the doctors' confirming our worst fears: there isn't anything wrong with you at all, and we will have our work properly cut out. Hurray!
Anyway, here is your Ma at 13 weeks, quietly continuing her vital expanding work, there:
So, I bet you're wondering what you looked like when you were 70mm long and mostly made of mist, eh? Check you out!
You definitely have my legs and nose. Hopefully Mum's Climbing Toe is all present and correct, too, you little champ...
Anyway, here is your Ma at 13 weeks, quietly continuing her vital expanding work, there:
So, I bet you're wondering what you looked like when you were 70mm long and mostly made of mist, eh? Check you out!
Thursday, 17 August 2017
Stuck in the Middle With You
We solved your name problem. But first - some history.
I don't know whether I've told you this yet, but you're 18 now, so one assumes I have, and we're all OK with it, otherwise you're not reading this and it's all moot anyway. Jesus I'm beginning to sound like Dr Emmett Brown in all this 'writing to your as-yet-unborn 18 year-old offspring' carry-on.
Wait, I did show you Back to the Future, right? OK, good.
So, the surname thing needs some back-story and just in case I've not mentioned it, here are some thoughts:
1. My surname is Jones. My Dad's name is Barry Ernest Jones. Mike - the guy you know as Grandad or whatever we've decided on - is my step-dad. His surname is Cranidge, so just be thankful you're not stuck spelling that one every 28 minutes.
1a. Mike is excellent.
2. As I write this, in September 2017, I've not spoken to my Dad in person since 1991. That's 26 years. We have to date exchanged three letters in that time, which served only to reinforce my previously held opinions re: the true extent of his dickishness.
3. I like my surname, despite it reminding me of (a) the fact that I have no living relations left from before Mum married Excellent Mike in 1990, and (b) that my only real relation is Not A Nice Man.
4. My Dad is not a murderer, or a drug addict, or a paedophile, though, just for context. He's a very financially successful businessman and entrepreneur who inherited a lot of money early, lost his parents when he was young, shagged around, got drunk a lot, had some really good times on boats, and developed some really mysoginistic, boorish ideas, but he's not Darth Vader. He is not the Antichrist. He's just Not A Nice Man.
5. That said, he has, however, done some fairly horrible things. He is vindictive. He is a bully. He is a womaniser, a heavy smoker, and, as my Mum went to her grave saying, a 'no-good alcoholic' who beat her. He was never violent towards me or Lucy, but he was clearly capable of violent outbursts and nasty, victimising behaviour, even when we were young kids.
6. My earliest memory is from when I was about three. I listened to my parents rowing downstairs, my father throwing a plate, which smashed on the wall, and my Mum sobbing quietly as she tidied up the mess. When one of his girlfriends left him, he taped me and Lucy's sobbed entreaties to her to return - because we really liked her - and mailed her the tape. I could go on. I may have already, who knows?
In short, this is not a man I want you to emulate or be reminded of every time you sign something.
7. You are not allowed to hate him, either - you have no reason to. Jones is not poisonous; it is strong, and noble, and ancient. It is one of the oldest names in the English language, and it is also mine.
So, when all's said and done, the best thing to do is to combine the best bits and make something new. Your being a Jones means a great deal to me. Therefore, it has to be part of your name, nestled as it is in the middle of everything. As well as my Dad and me, it also refers to Lucy - the last person to pass away with that name. There's someone to look up to. Ever since we decided to really think about making a child, I have always foreseen you being called Hutchings - nothing else 'sits' quite right with me.
If you're really nasty though, I'll change it to Hutchings-Jones, and you can have the most annoying email address in the world. So think on, kidder xxx.
I don't know whether I've told you this yet, but you're 18 now, so one assumes I have, and we're all OK with it, otherwise you're not reading this and it's all moot anyway. Jesus I'm beginning to sound like Dr Emmett Brown in all this 'writing to your as-yet-unborn 18 year-old offspring' carry-on.
Wait, I did show you Back to the Future, right? OK, good.
So, the surname thing needs some back-story and just in case I've not mentioned it, here are some thoughts:
1. My surname is Jones. My Dad's name is Barry Ernest Jones. Mike - the guy you know as Grandad or whatever we've decided on - is my step-dad. His surname is Cranidge, so just be thankful you're not stuck spelling that one every 28 minutes.
1a. Mike is excellent.
2. As I write this, in September 2017, I've not spoken to my Dad in person since 1991. That's 26 years. We have to date exchanged three letters in that time, which served only to reinforce my previously held opinions re: the true extent of his dickishness.
3. I like my surname, despite it reminding me of (a) the fact that I have no living relations left from before Mum married Excellent Mike in 1990, and (b) that my only real relation is Not A Nice Man.
4. My Dad is not a murderer, or a drug addict, or a paedophile, though, just for context. He's a very financially successful businessman and entrepreneur who inherited a lot of money early, lost his parents when he was young, shagged around, got drunk a lot, had some really good times on boats, and developed some really mysoginistic, boorish ideas, but he's not Darth Vader. He is not the Antichrist. He's just Not A Nice Man.
5. That said, he has, however, done some fairly horrible things. He is vindictive. He is a bully. He is a womaniser, a heavy smoker, and, as my Mum went to her grave saying, a 'no-good alcoholic' who beat her. He was never violent towards me or Lucy, but he was clearly capable of violent outbursts and nasty, victimising behaviour, even when we were young kids.
6. My earliest memory is from when I was about three. I listened to my parents rowing downstairs, my father throwing a plate, which smashed on the wall, and my Mum sobbing quietly as she tidied up the mess. When one of his girlfriends left him, he taped me and Lucy's sobbed entreaties to her to return - because we really liked her - and mailed her the tape. I could go on. I may have already, who knows?
In short, this is not a man I want you to emulate or be reminded of every time you sign something.
7. You are not allowed to hate him, either - you have no reason to. Jones is not poisonous; it is strong, and noble, and ancient. It is one of the oldest names in the English language, and it is also mine.
So, when all's said and done, the best thing to do is to combine the best bits and make something new. Your being a Jones means a great deal to me. Therefore, it has to be part of your name, nestled as it is in the middle of everything. As well as my Dad and me, it also refers to Lucy - the last person to pass away with that name. There's someone to look up to. Ever since we decided to really think about making a child, I have always foreseen you being called Hutchings - nothing else 'sits' quite right with me.
If you're really nasty though, I'll change it to Hutchings-Jones, and you can have the most annoying email address in the world. So think on, kidder xxx.
Wheels!
Today, your first set of wheels arrived, and they are bitchin'. No offspring of mine is going to be caught dead tooling around in anything too-not-cool, right?
Check out the whip:
As I say, bitchin'. You'll turn heads, I can tell you.
Also, because your Dad's a complete idiot and likes fiddling around with editing programmes and Star Trek, I made this:
Check it out. Geek City!
Your crazy uncles are going to shit themselves. Your Mum just rolled her eyes as per usual. Maybe she misunderstands my subtle genius, eh? Maybe.
Check out the whip:
Also, because your Dad's a complete idiot and likes fiddling around with editing programmes and Star Trek, I made this:
Check it out. Geek City!
Your crazy uncles are going to shit themselves. Your Mum just rolled her eyes as per usual. Maybe she misunderstands my subtle genius, eh? Maybe.
Saturday, 5 August 2017
Getting Better
I joined a gym today, primarily so that I would be strong and fit enough to carry you around before you can walk, and chase you around when you can run. Once you are Blessed to drive off in a mood, you'll be chased down by your mother of course, probably on a self-driven solar-powered hoverboard, as it is 2036 where you are now.
Incidentally, how am I holding up as a 56 year-old dude? Pretty bloody well, eh? It's all in the genes, y'see.
As I write this, your Mum is sound asleep, busy making you as she dreams. Today we talked about what our first holiday with you would be like, and our memories of holidays taken with family as far back as we could remember. I wonder what we will see and do together? It will be my life's work to find out, eh?
I hope you are not too surprised to read this - I am supposed to be a writer, and I always struggled with finding things in my head that were worth writing about.
You are, as it happens, the thing I will turn into the piece of writing everybody was waiting for for all those years, and some never got to see. Quite a bit of pressure for someone who, at eight weeks and two days old, has only just transitioned from an embryo to a foetus.
Thursday, 3 August 2017
Names and Nappies
We are eight weeks into Project Peppercorn now, and things are starting to get steadily realler. We have been tinkering around the edges of what to call you - uniquely, your surname is also up for grabs, as are both mine and your Mum's, too.
We have whittled the lists down to some pretty frickin' ace options. At this remove though, I obviously don't know what we have picked, so this is bound to be enlightening and embarrassing for us both...
As of 15 July 2017, these are my options, with Mum's three-point score alongside. 3 is good:
Boys
Rowan 3
Finn 2
Bear 1
Zander 1
Robin 3
Eric 1
Evan 1
Jude 2
River 2.5
Girls
Mae 1
Robin 3
Rowan 3
Esme 2
Este 1
Beatrice 3
Minnie 1
Stella 1
Zelda 2
Jude 1
River 2.5
I really like Jude for a boy and Esme for a girl today, but it changes a lot. Beatrice is our current runaway winner for team pink, though, and I think Rowan for a boy, or Robin...
Today we readied ourselves for your arrival by... filling in shit loads of forms pertaining, on the main, to our overwhelmingly abstemious lifestyle choices. It is such a good job we have never smoked, consumed alcoholic beverages or so much as stayed up late, that's all I can say. Of course, the faultless example we have set you over the years can be directly traced back to this wellspring of good behaviour which it gave me great pleasure to document for the midwifes's benefit, and dare I say it, the benefit of medical science in general.
We have also established that we are going for a cloth-based fecal-retention infrastructure, rather than a disposable, plastic-based approach, largely for environmental reasons. Humans throw 12,000,000,000 (BILLION!) TONS OF PLASTIC WITH BABY SHIT IN IT AWAY ANNUALLY! A PLACCY NAPPY TAKES 500 YEARS TO DEGRADE IN LANDFILL!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOO-OOO-OOO!!!!!
By the time you read this, Time Team will be long-gone I assume, but check it out on whatever gesture or voice-based searching thing replaced Google. Now imagine that in 200 years... all they will find is nappies, man. What will they make of us?! No way - I don't care how many washing machines we kill through overwork, we are going cotton. Until about week 3, when we have a massive Exhaustion Breakdown and I run to the shop for plastic cack-britches for you... light of my life.
In all seriousness, you are scaring us a bit. We learned more about SIDS today - it seems you might just forget to breathe while we aren't looking? Seems a little trusting for someone who can't sit up by themselves, don't you think? I will be watching out for you, you little blighter - no funny business, right?
We will look after you though, don't you fret. We are just ordinary people with an extraordinary new challenge ahead, but we are over the moon about it all...
Tuesday, 18 July 2017
Well, shit
So, we're pregnant, and I couldn't be happier. You are officially boiling away in there, getting yourself ready to meet a couple of completely unready chancers who suddenly have a lot of shit to buy, and no clear holiday plans for the next five years. Thanks for that :)
I feel like a huge ball of warm, calming light is fighting to burst out of my chest and fill the room. I want to tell everybody, because I have a three-word comment in my locker that has astonishing power to halt all other conversations. We aren't telling anyone yet because we only found out yesterday afternoon. Sparing you some of the details, your Mum thought you were in there, and I had a feeling she might be right. Call it fatherly intuition if you like. It's not, but you can do so if you wish.
So, we went and bought some tests from the supermarket, for use at the weekend, to confirm what we both secretly suspected, but were having trouble telling eachother. An enormous, soon-to-be-true fact hovered over us like the spaceships from Arrival, but less scary. Or more scary, depending on your viewpoint.
Yesterday was Tuesday. The plan was to do the tests on Friday. We agreed this, primarily because I had a pile of work to do and several people shouting at me to get things done. I thought finding out I was a father could - and I'm sorry to say this now, but it's true - wait until the weekend. In a precedent that you're no doubt familiar with by now, your mother had other ideas.
There I was, typing away in my little room, a resplendantly childless 38 year-old married man with stable finances, a sensible wardrobe, some guitars and no clear idea of who, where or what I would be in two years' time, never mind five.Your mother let out a unique, scary and excited sound from the confines of the bathroom. She is no stranger to the unbidden emission of bizarre noises, but that notwithstanding, it is a unique amalgamation of fear, excitement, holy-fuck-overwhelmedness and mental adjustment that will stay with me to my dying day. It is now known as The Sound You Make When You Find Out You're Going To Have A Fucking Baby, or TSYMWYFOYGTHAFB. The branding people are working on something snappier as I type this.
On hearing it, I immediately thought: 'Hmm, that sounds portentous.' Right again, gentlemanly foresight! 2-0 man-intuition!
Your mother comes out of the bathroom, laugh-crying and holding her pregnancy indicator thingy. You know - the one mentioned three paragraphs ago, which we were going to use on Friday night. Pregnant, 2-3 weeks, it announced, somewhat coldly I thought, from its little life-defining LCD screen.
We are going to see a doctor about you later in the week, just to check you're actually there and everything, but I know you are, because of my intuition. Already and without realising it, the little peppercorn-sized bundle in there is changing our lives. Immediate benefits include a renewed interest in completing various DIY tasks around the house, but deeper and more meaningful consequences are also emerging. I already know how new parents feel re: work. That is to say, work don't mean shit to nobody no more. Work is for you, and your Mum. It pays the money to buy the things, as the Beatles once said (I've probably bored you to death about them by now). You and your mum are the most important things in life. End of.
I mean, the dog's quite important, but largely in a comic relief/decorative sense. But then, you know that all too well.
I wanted you to know that we wanted you to be made. We agonise over most things in our lives, and we agonised over you for longer than anything else, and quite rightly. We worried that we wouldn't know how to be parents properly, or how to cope with the realness of being parental. We worried that we'd miss out on things, but couldn't really say what those things were, because we spent ten years doing most of the things that new parents miss. But then we both wanted you to be in our lives, so we decided to just see if we could make you for a bit. Turns out we're pretty fucking A+ at conception, too, eh?
I knew, once my mum died, that one day I would probably have a child of my own. Ours is a small, keen but ultimately unready army, and we need the reinforcements. I expended many thousands of mental calories fretting about dull things like money and mortgages and how work would work, and your mum worried about what being a mum would mean to her sense of self - which is really common among mums and mums-to-be. She is, I would imagine, worrying about that on her way to work in London on the train, with this tiny, massive secret inside her which is more life-changing than any faint backache deserves to be. You and I both know she will be fine, though, and your arrival will change us both for the better.
I can't wait to tell everyone you're real. This is an amazing feeling, and if I could bottle the warming light-in-the-chest and sell it, I'd be rich enough for you to go to university. Imagine that!
I love you already, you glorious little speck of trouble.
I feel like a huge ball of warm, calming light is fighting to burst out of my chest and fill the room. I want to tell everybody, because I have a three-word comment in my locker that has astonishing power to halt all other conversations. We aren't telling anyone yet because we only found out yesterday afternoon. Sparing you some of the details, your Mum thought you were in there, and I had a feeling she might be right. Call it fatherly intuition if you like. It's not, but you can do so if you wish.
So, we went and bought some tests from the supermarket, for use at the weekend, to confirm what we both secretly suspected, but were having trouble telling eachother. An enormous, soon-to-be-true fact hovered over us like the spaceships from Arrival, but less scary. Or more scary, depending on your viewpoint.
 |
| "What? Oh, that? That's just a life-changing fact. You'll get used to it after a few minutes. It just sort of lurks there." |
There I was, typing away in my little room, a resplendantly childless 38 year-old married man with stable finances, a sensible wardrobe, some guitars and no clear idea of who, where or what I would be in two years' time, never mind five.Your mother let out a unique, scary and excited sound from the confines of the bathroom. She is no stranger to the unbidden emission of bizarre noises, but that notwithstanding, it is a unique amalgamation of fear, excitement, holy-fuck-overwhelmedness and mental adjustment that will stay with me to my dying day. It is now known as The Sound You Make When You Find Out You're Going To Have A Fucking Baby, or TSYMWYFOYGTHAFB. The branding people are working on something snappier as I type this.
On hearing it, I immediately thought: 'Hmm, that sounds portentous.' Right again, gentlemanly foresight! 2-0 man-intuition!
Your mother comes out of the bathroom, laugh-crying and holding her pregnancy indicator thingy. You know - the one mentioned three paragraphs ago, which we were going to use on Friday night. Pregnant, 2-3 weeks, it announced, somewhat coldly I thought, from its little life-defining LCD screen.
We are going to see a doctor about you later in the week, just to check you're actually there and everything, but I know you are, because of my intuition. Already and without realising it, the little peppercorn-sized bundle in there is changing our lives. Immediate benefits include a renewed interest in completing various DIY tasks around the house, but deeper and more meaningful consequences are also emerging. I already know how new parents feel re: work. That is to say, work don't mean shit to nobody no more. Work is for you, and your Mum. It pays the money to buy the things, as the Beatles once said (I've probably bored you to death about them by now). You and your mum are the most important things in life. End of.
I mean, the dog's quite important, but largely in a comic relief/decorative sense. But then, you know that all too well.
I wanted you to know that we wanted you to be made. We agonise over most things in our lives, and we agonised over you for longer than anything else, and quite rightly. We worried that we wouldn't know how to be parents properly, or how to cope with the realness of being parental. We worried that we'd miss out on things, but couldn't really say what those things were, because we spent ten years doing most of the things that new parents miss. But then we both wanted you to be in our lives, so we decided to just see if we could make you for a bit. Turns out we're pretty fucking A+ at conception, too, eh?
I knew, once my mum died, that one day I would probably have a child of my own. Ours is a small, keen but ultimately unready army, and we need the reinforcements. I expended many thousands of mental calories fretting about dull things like money and mortgages and how work would work, and your mum worried about what being a mum would mean to her sense of self - which is really common among mums and mums-to-be. She is, I would imagine, worrying about that on her way to work in London on the train, with this tiny, massive secret inside her which is more life-changing than any faint backache deserves to be. You and I both know she will be fine, though, and your arrival will change us both for the better.
I can't wait to tell everyone you're real. This is an amazing feeling, and if I could bottle the warming light-in-the-chest and sell it, I'd be rich enough for you to go to university. Imagine that!
I love you already, you glorious little speck of trouble.
Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Things I Write About When I Write About Thinking About Running
OK, so the amount of mithering you'll find on this blog might make it seem as if that bloke from Sleaford Mods finished his A-levels, but really I'm not that fucking bad. I find it easier to be negative, that's all. I apologise to those bored enough to still be reading this.
Anyway, things are about to get a lot more interesting, but before I reason out exactly why that is, there's just enough time for A Minor Reminiscence:
Since time immemorial, I have hated running. A sliding scale, where x is speed and y is negative feeling, clearly exists in my brain - somewhat thus:
As a child, I was made to run, but I am uniformly bad at it. I was overtaken by my younger sister from the age of nine onwards. I have no pace, stamina or particular technique. Like Teddy Sheringham or a late-career Beckham, I prefer (or more accurately, hope) that my mind will be quick enough to put my slow-turning, non-accelerating body in the right places in life. So far, it has done just fine.
I'm sure we've all done cross-country runs in the past, right? Horrid, obviously, but a part of growing up, like acne or terrible haircuts, which simply must take place. I don't mind having had to do cross-country runs as a kid - I don't think they did me any good, but I don't mind them being there, smelling faintly of Deep Heat and BO, in the rusty locker in my head where I keep all those old secondary school memories.
During my mid- to late teens, I benefitted, as some young whippersnappers are wont to do, from having the apparent metabolic rate of an impala. I ate whatever I liked. I did no exercise, other than that demanded of me by polyester-rocking PE uberleiutenants or, for one diverting year, the bloke who ran the paper rounds down at the New Forest Post's fusty headquarters. Fred, his name was. Wonder what happened to him? Dead, probably, by now.
Anyway, I was an arrogant, bonk-eyed whippet of a thing, all piss and vinegar, and everything fitted and nothing hurt. Ever. 'Fuck you, exercise as a concept', I must have shouted as I sauntered through university, still whip-thin, powered by Lambert & Butler, Skol and burgers. 'Hahaha!', I will have bellowed to myself as other 'squares' started to go to gyms voluntarily, and in order to look and feel good, both internally and to others. Dickheads, obviously. Waste of time, all this. Just you wait and see.
The honeymoon from any kind of meaningful exercise lasted until I worked in videogames journalism. Already an underpaid, sexless, dietician's nightmare of a career, my colleagues and I added extraordinary levels of alcohol and nioctine intake to our already meagre diets. Seasons changed. Burgers were eaten. Beer was consumed. Hills were avoided. And slowly enough that you wouldn't really notice, in a manner later perfected by both global warming and the Republican Party, things started to change. My body, once a rusty trampoline of a thing, blithely repelling the four sausage sandwich breakfasts and twenty lattes I threw at it on a weekly basis, started to run out of bullets. Down in the engine room, Scotty had his oxygen mask on, and first-year ratings were being thrown off gantries to their undeserved deaths by exploding panels of lights and dials. The outer hull remained, to the untrained eye at least, unchanged, but within, trouble was afoot.
Slowly, I began to run to fat. I'm not fat, though. Just sort of 'unkempt', physically.
So I started running the other day. And I almost like it. It makes you feel physically in touch with the world, and tired. So damned tired. You sleep well, you feel present and capable and awake in a way that sitting at a desk for nigh-on two decades so far hasn't been able to replicate. Getting over what others think of the sight of you running is easier than I thought it would be, too - turns out, you just start fucking doing it and if you need to, see it as a fuck-you to everyone else who isn't looking after themselves. 'Haha', you shout silently to yourself, 'I have one over on you lot - I'm self-improving.' Or something.
Anyway, long story short, I did a 5k, with several walk phases, up several hills, in 32.33. Some people I know who are 10 years younger than me can't do that on the flat. Keep going, I say. I want a flat, treadmill 5k time around 24 minutes, and the one involving steep hills outside my house in under 30. Then I will be happy. I'm happy now, though, because I know if I just put my shoes on and go, I'll have gone, and will therefore get where I want to be. QED, innit.
Anyway, things are about to get a lot more interesting, but before I reason out exactly why that is, there's just enough time for A Minor Reminiscence:
Since time immemorial, I have hated running. A sliding scale, where x is speed and y is negative feeling, clearly exists in my brain - somewhat thus:
I'm sure we've all done cross-country runs in the past, right? Horrid, obviously, but a part of growing up, like acne or terrible haircuts, which simply must take place. I don't mind having had to do cross-country runs as a kid - I don't think they did me any good, but I don't mind them being there, smelling faintly of Deep Heat and BO, in the rusty locker in my head where I keep all those old secondary school memories.
During my mid- to late teens, I benefitted, as some young whippersnappers are wont to do, from having the apparent metabolic rate of an impala. I ate whatever I liked. I did no exercise, other than that demanded of me by polyester-rocking PE uberleiutenants or, for one diverting year, the bloke who ran the paper rounds down at the New Forest Post's fusty headquarters. Fred, his name was. Wonder what happened to him? Dead, probably, by now.
Anyway, I was an arrogant, bonk-eyed whippet of a thing, all piss and vinegar, and everything fitted and nothing hurt. Ever. 'Fuck you, exercise as a concept', I must have shouted as I sauntered through university, still whip-thin, powered by Lambert & Butler, Skol and burgers. 'Hahaha!', I will have bellowed to myself as other 'squares' started to go to gyms voluntarily, and in order to look and feel good, both internally and to others. Dickheads, obviously. Waste of time, all this. Just you wait and see.
The honeymoon from any kind of meaningful exercise lasted until I worked in videogames journalism. Already an underpaid, sexless, dietician's nightmare of a career, my colleagues and I added extraordinary levels of alcohol and nioctine intake to our already meagre diets. Seasons changed. Burgers were eaten. Beer was consumed. Hills were avoided. And slowly enough that you wouldn't really notice, in a manner later perfected by both global warming and the Republican Party, things started to change. My body, once a rusty trampoline of a thing, blithely repelling the four sausage sandwich breakfasts and twenty lattes I threw at it on a weekly basis, started to run out of bullets. Down in the engine room, Scotty had his oxygen mask on, and first-year ratings were being thrown off gantries to their undeserved deaths by exploding panels of lights and dials. The outer hull remained, to the untrained eye at least, unchanged, but within, trouble was afoot.
Slowly, I began to run to fat. I'm not fat, though. Just sort of 'unkempt', physically.
So I started running the other day. And I almost like it. It makes you feel physically in touch with the world, and tired. So damned tired. You sleep well, you feel present and capable and awake in a way that sitting at a desk for nigh-on two decades so far hasn't been able to replicate. Getting over what others think of the sight of you running is easier than I thought it would be, too - turns out, you just start fucking doing it and if you need to, see it as a fuck-you to everyone else who isn't looking after themselves. 'Haha', you shout silently to yourself, 'I have one over on you lot - I'm self-improving.' Or something.
Anyway, long story short, I did a 5k, with several walk phases, up several hills, in 32.33. Some people I know who are 10 years younger than me can't do that on the flat. Keep going, I say. I want a flat, treadmill 5k time around 24 minutes, and the one involving steep hills outside my house in under 30. Then I will be happy. I'm happy now, though, because I know if I just put my shoes on and go, I'll have gone, and will therefore get where I want to be. QED, innit.
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
Sorry in advance
I can't see people passing their driving tests and humblebragging about it on Facebook anymore. It's poisonous to me. I hate their success. Hate it. And by extension, I hate them. I hate them because they have categorically succeeded where I could not, and never will. Their lives are apparently limitless. Mine is restricted to a lovely house in the middle of fucking nowhere. I cannot escape. I cannot change. I cannot move. I cannot grow. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.
I am moving in two years' time to a place from which I can get about unaided. This is ridiculous. I feel disabled, and useless, and sub-them. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them.
My life has all the makings of a big heap of nothing. He is literally some sort of fucking rocket scientist. I am a writer who has written nothing. I have sat in the back-bedroom of my house and failed to complete a simple form, and then failed to do a basic job. No one has cared, or called, all day. Fuck this.
Of course I didn't do that great idea I had. Because I'm a cunt. A useless fucking cunt, sitting on his own, shouting silently inside his own head, unable to change a single fucking thing.
As you were.
I am moving in two years' time to a place from which I can get about unaided. This is ridiculous. I feel disabled, and useless, and sub-them. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them.
My life has all the makings of a big heap of nothing. He is literally some sort of fucking rocket scientist. I am a writer who has written nothing. I have sat in the back-bedroom of my house and failed to complete a simple form, and then failed to do a basic job. No one has cared, or called, all day. Fuck this.
Of course I didn't do that great idea I had. Because I'm a cunt. A useless fucking cunt, sitting on his own, shouting silently inside his own head, unable to change a single fucking thing.
As you were.
Thursday, 5 January 2017
I've just had a brilliant idea...
I would like to write more, but don't know what to write about.
My life, as it happens minute-to-minute, doesn't seem like the kind of thing that other people would like to read about. But then again - I live in Devon, I have a dog, I work in London, or wherever, and I travel a hell of a lot, pretty much at will.
I could stretch this and form some sort of creative pursuit/blog/vlog out of it, no?
I'll start a little blog and push 1,000 words a day through it for seven days to see if it has legs.
More on this soon (maybe).
My life, as it happens minute-to-minute, doesn't seem like the kind of thing that other people would like to read about. But then again - I live in Devon, I have a dog, I work in London, or wherever, and I travel a hell of a lot, pretty much at will.
I could stretch this and form some sort of creative pursuit/blog/vlog out of it, no?
I'll start a little blog and push 1,000 words a day through it for seven days to see if it has legs.
More on this soon (maybe).
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