throwing darts with some colleagues, i realised that if i really pay attention, i can reliably hit the board, and occasionally hit the thing i am aiming at. i came fifth out of eight. not very impressive. but why would a good soul care? they may be compassionate if, for some reason, darting competence was important to me. but the good souls don’t care about competence or endeavour. they just love other good souls.
any meal served at a wedding is a breakfast, in the british isles anyway, i understand. but when my great friends d + k were getting married, i was unaware of this. i just saw on the invitation that there would be breakfast. so i was an undiagnosed autistic at the time, and i was sitting at a table at the wedding with two other undiagnosed autistics. and maybe a few more to be honest. and we were starving because we hadn’t had breakfast because we thought we were getting it at the wedding. the father of the bride’s speech went on for about 3 hours and by the time it was over one of my pals was so drunk he somehow brained himself on a urinal and was off work for half a year. n.n.benn is a fictional character mind.
i do try and be a good stoic, and i touch on themes of stoicism often in the poem. every day i make a point of thinking about the fact that i will die and i don’t know when. and i try and remember to think of one specific person, and remember that they will die too. a different person each day. people i love, people i wish were already dead, people i barely know.
i think i’d heard on a podcast that the carthaginians were excellent navigators and seafarers. in fact, they even visited the canary islands, where i was when i wrote this line. both my grandfathers spent time at sea. ‘worse things happen at sea,’ they say. well, i was struggling with the stormy weather enough on dry land.
shrinkflation, skimpflation, it’s hard not to feel like we are living in troubled times. despite technological advances, we seem to be continually told we need to work harder, and for longer, and that we should expect less.
while the stock market rallies….
what is it to be a human? in any instant, all there is are the sensations you feel, see, hear, etc. a temperature, the weight of the earth pushing against your feet or arse, your shirt label on your neck. and then there is the story you tell yourself these things mean. but you know, you could be a brain in a vat being fed false experiences by a computer. and you are free to tell yourself that story if you prefer it.
i can’t really throw. or catch. i’ve got a bit better at it over the years, but i am just not a hand eye coordination sort of person. likewise, i am not designed to use raquets. i once chucked a tennis raquet into the air in frustration, only to catch it with my face shortly thereafter.
i don’t think i have ever successfully struck a shuttlecock. and how anyone can hit a baseball with such a narrow bat i’ll never comprehend.
so it’s little surprise that i am also hopeless at chucking sticks for the dog. yet every time, i’m a bit disappointed in myself. a bit of me seems to believe i’m eventually going to get the knack of it.
ah well. so it’s a year i’ve had these airpods now. returning from an early morning climbing session, my airpod escaped the ear canal and went for the drain instead. i presume anyway. i looked for a while then went to argos and bought new ones. can’t live an adequate life without headphones.
in the 90s i used to take long coach trips. to france, italy, spain. one year, i must have been 7 or 8, for entertainment we got a documentary about elvis pressley. i was instantly obsessed. and then suddenly bereaved – my hero was dead before i even knew him. i cried. i listened to elvis tapes. i got a leather jacket. quite autistic, in retrospect.
i don’t listen to as much elvis these days. but i will always love the king. and if suspicious minds comes on the radio, i will give it my full attention every time.
i met a pal at the supermarket and i think he mentioned he had recently had an injury to the testicles. and then i bought some kippers…
