De-blog

Driven: determined; ambitious; motivated; impelled; compulsive; goaded; involuntary. Committed: pledged; sworn; bespoken; affianced; attached; loving; wrapped up; bound. There is a point at which derived meanings become less synonymous with the original terms, where the ambitiously driven are no longer afforded prestige. What we value as most virtuous becomes obsession, to be admonished instead of rewarded. Sometimes I consider the people I am acquainted with who are overtly ambitious, those who will stamp on heads to ascend mere inches. Yet it has occurred to me that this level of drive toward personal success could be condemned as some kind of involuntary compulsion. That said, I don't expect it to be included in DSM-V. A very small part of me retains envious admiration for such individuals, for on occasion I have attempted to set myself on a blinkered route towards some end goal, planning out how I will thwart those who step in my way, packed ropes and hooks and carabinas for su...

Like most topics that crop up in this blog, I vowed I wouldn't write about my weight and now here I am doing it, even though I could be anything from the width of a stick to the side of a house and it wouldn't matter as far as my internet presence is concerned. However, as this has been a significant preoccupation for all of my adult life (and most of my adolescence), it's remarkable that I've failed to mention it at all. By medical and social definition I am obese, not quite 'morbidly obese', but with a sufficiently disproportionate height to weight ratio for that incredibly ugly word to apply. Honestly, I'd rather be called fat, chubby, tubby, lardy, pudgy, chunky, cuddly or anything than 'obese'. I've experienced many phases of 'obesity': first there was the puppy fat stage, which coincided with puberty and in retrospect is somewhat more than coincidence, in that every epochal change in my weight has occurred at the same time as a sign...

Anyone who has ever posted to Blogger will know that above the textarea for the main body is a place to add the title. I have always started from a title, as my posts are never entirely pre-planned: I have something I want to say but there's no concrete destination in mind when I begin. My title provides a succinct frame of reference, keeping me focused in some direction or other. Today a title eludes me, although I don't quite know why. At 7.30am I was set on getting straight down to some novel editing, just as soon as I reached a suitable place to leave the book I am reading ( 'Barking' by Tom Holt ). Then my concentration drifted and I lost interest, not because the book is bad. It offers Tom Holt's usual blend of off-the-cuff fantasy with chuckles and I've read enough of his books to feel qualified to say that, in my opinion, it may not be one of the best novels he's penned, but it's certainly not one of the worst. So I dragged myself into the world,...

Yesterday I endured the same old question-answer routine that I have for the past seven years. "So, you're a teacher?" "Yes." "What do you teach?" "Psychology." "Whoa." Inquisitor makes some backward movement to ward off evil mind-reading powers. Actually, it can go one of two ways at that point: either the person with whom I am conversing develops a sudden terrible fear of the seer status they themselves ascribed to me, or they mumble some regret about psychology not being on the curriculum when they were at school. And really, as I've written a lot more than I've taught over the past four months, my defining occupation is that of writer, by choice and reality. Alas it occupies but still doesn't pay, and it's not going to get me corporate rate membership at the local sports and fitness centre. By now it is custom in this type of scenario for me to demystify the magic of my discipline, such as it i...

Who the hell were they anyway? This is what I imagine so far: Miss Elizabeth Mills (Betsy to her friends) was a fifty odd year old spinster (actually make that an odd fifty year old spinster), who met another lovely middle-aged spinster, Edith Boon, one day in the publisher's office. Both had achieved limited success as writers of tame, fairytale style, romantic fiction - love stories for discerning ladies of leisure. You know the sort I mean: wives with empty nests who have nothing to fill the void but paperback consumption. "We are very good at this." said Miss Mills. "Indeed we are." replied Miss Boon. "Let's set up on our own." suggested Miss Mills. "What a simply splendid idea." responded Miss Boon. And so they did, buying the novellas of other like-minded souls and casting them out into the ever yearning world. To be perfectly honest, I don't care how Mills & Boon started or became the leviathon in bulk publishing that it i...

It was windy last night, so windy in fact that our milkman was delayed in his deliveries, or at least I assume that's why the milk was late arriving. I imagine battery powered, open-backed vehicles with a maximum speed of about 15MPH don't fair well in weather like that. Still, he got here in the end. Unfortunately the empties had taken flight at 4am, but they've regrouped, ready for tomorrow. And it's a 'Green Day': the local council's day for collecting all recyclable household waste. Again, due to the severe winds during the night, it would seem that the vast majority of the crescent's plastic bottles, cans and whatnot ended up in our front garden. Why, when our own rubbish stays firmly where it's put does everyone else's erupt into a bouncing merry-go-round echoing through the night and keeping me awake? Because the buggers don't 'rinse and crush' as directed and empty vessels, noise etc. So that's air for you. Water - well - ...

If I could sit here a moment longer, The wind drifting over my head, Dust clouding my view, I'd have a vision. If I could wait a second more, The gust lifting my collar, Howling in my ears, I would find a voice. If I could walk a mile further, The gale pushing me onward, My hair in my face, I might find a way. If I could take a day over, The breeze capturing my thoughts, Lifting my dreams, I will find them outside.