Naturally, that which I laughingly refer to as 'real life' got in the way and so, gentle reader, this is all you're going to get.
//ƒuƶƶy[løgic] started for two main reasons:
- My erstwhile cyberstalker was no longer working with me - I'd had a kind of blog (little more than occasional random musings, written up in HTML) on my personal website, and removed it because he'd told people that reading it had become part of his weekend routine... Every Monday morning, when he arrived at work, his first action would be to enquire if I'd updated my website, and it just got creepy after I found out that he'd already know one way or the other... was he just asking in the hope of catching me out? Whatever, he was gone, I was free to start writing personal stuff again without fear that it would be twisted and used against me in my workplace. Even so, rather than reinstate my Ramblings, I figured I should take people's advice and start a blog, and make a rather more concerted effort than I had done with the Ramblings.
- I wanted to get back into the habit of writing, with a view to bashing out some stories. This hasn't been entirely successful - it's still just as hard as ever to concentrate and focus my ideas accurately and effectively enough to generate works of fiction. In these six years, I've only really written a very few stories. But, hey, I'm sort-of writing, sort-of regularly...
Even so, learning from my experiences, I tended not to speak about my blog. I've kept to a fairly strict 'no names' policy except in very general instances and only a very few close friends and family know anything about this blog, while I'll chat about the others quite freely. No links between this and those, either - they're not even the same account. Even so, the very fact that I know that a few people I know 'in real life' can (and sometimes do) read this, does tend to lead to some self-censorship on matters I consider truly private.
Over the years, this blog has followed my rather skewed view of things, from complaining about my old job and the foolish people I worked with there, to the shock of being made redundant - that announcement coming a full nine months before the final departure - and on through my ongoing experiences of being out of full-time work, temping very rarely through 2011 and rather more frequently this year. It's covered the movies I've seen, videogames I've played, the events I've attended, family Christmasses, days spent in isolation, experiments in photography, weird dreams, and even a few things that only happened in my head when I've had 'flu.
Back in 2008, I bought a home of my own - a flat - with a good chunk of my savings as deposit, and a correspondingly more manageable mortgage. Since then, I've had many conversations with the Managing Agents about the leaking roof and the effects it's been having on my ceilings (and my ability to sleep) and, finally, after about four years, the landlord last week agreed to pay for the entire main roof to be replaced. I should mention that this is a year after I received notification of the intention to replace the first floor (balcony) roof, which still hasn't happened, and would have been of no benefit to me if it had. All it took to convince the landlord was the suggestion that his tenants and leaseholders could take legal action against him for (a) negligence, in not maintaining the roof and (b) any damage to their property coming as a direct result of that negligence. And it's been several months since that suggestion was first put to him. Some people, eh?
Moving out of home was a pretty big deal... I still think that, had circumstances been different, I might still have been living with my folks today. Certainly, one of my friends is still looking for 'the perfect place' - aiming for a maisonette or house, which will be bought with help from his parents - rather than 'settling', as I have done, for an easily affordable and reasonably spacious flat which is conveniently located for transport links, and has an awesome view from the front door/kitchen.
I guess, in part, the reluctance to fly the nest comes from the fact that I didn't go to university, so I had no experience of living away from home and family. I also have no experience of cohabiting, except briefly (on holidays, for example) so the idea of moving into a flatshare, or any situation where I was not the sole occupant of a property, was rather repellent... and yet I'm not such a hermit that I wanted to be completely isolated from friends and family. Obviously I still have the long-term goal of having a family of my own, but that seems ever less likely as years go by.
Thankfully, my sister had a daughter a few years ago, so I get to play 'Cool Uncle' and teach her all kinds of things that her mother will disapprove of. I'm still considering my strategy for getting her into TransFormers. I get the impression I'm the favourite Uncle but, all things considered, the competition ain't exactly strong.
The weird thing is, having a niece is simultaneously making me more broody and less broody. Moreso because - as I've been told for many years, and by many people - I do think I'd make a pretty good father, and the idea of raising a child, while daunting, is very appealing. Less so because, through my sister's experiences of motherhood, I'm getting a more detailed picture of how difficult it all is... and there's all the background stuff of "would I really want to bring up a child in a world like today's?" In many ways, it just seems unfair.
This blog has also recorded the death of one of my Grandmothers, and occasionally touched on the slow decay, through Alzheimer's, of the other. Both Grandfathers passed away many years ago (one before I was born), so these changes have been very strange. The former was a rather old-fashioned, well-travelled powerhouse, the latter was more friendly and outwardly lively. Now, I strongly feel the absence of the former, and ache as I see the latter becoming bitter and spiteful as her memory both fails and deceives her.
I can look back at my old posts and not recognise the writer. I recall the events well enough, but I don't recall the emotions attached in quite the same way. In much the same way that I can dimly recall the events I wrote about in my primary/middle school "What I Did at the Weekend" essays, the tone of the writing seems strangely alien. Have I really changed that much in recent years?
Of course I have, if I really think about it. Only a while ago, I met up with a former colleague, and bent her ear for about three hours - asking about her life plans, comparing our experiences of the jobs we've held since leaving our former common employer, generally shooting the breeze with her... I probably talked more in those three hours than in total, for all the years we'd worked together... and it only hit me weeks later that I'd actually seen surprise and bemusement on her face, but just didn't associate it with any changes in myself.
My folks observed that, at a certain point early in my schooling, I suddenly became quieter and more insular, though this eased off over the years... it was only a few years ago (relatively speaking) that I started really building up walls between myself and the outside world - most specifically with regards to my workplace. I've often surprised people by referring to "the office" and "the real world" as two very separate environments, but I've never quite understood why they find that so surprising.
And, even now, while I'm certainly chattier and more personable in my temping roles (my enthusiasm for the work is frequently commented upon), I'm still reluctant to get too personal, to be especially open, with the people I'm working with. I'd vowed that, whenever I returned to an office situation, I'd not slip back into the office personality I created for my last full-time job. It was colder and harsher than it really needed to be and, while I wouldn't tend to consider colleagues as friends, the people I work with these days don't tend to be quite such self-absorbed, self-entitled morons. Some of them are actually pretty cool. I don't meet many people who are like me, but I certainly meet more these days that I feel able to converse with on some vaguely meaningful level.
Likewise, while certain events which predate this blog might make me extremely wary of online friendships, I have made other acquaintances online. I guess it's a case of 'lessons learnt'.
I don't have a massive audience with this blog, or a particularly impressive view count... I believe I get about 20 visitors per day at the best of times. A couple of my postings have had significantly more viewers than the rest - the 'all time' top two postings combined account for about
And, gratifyingly, the worst that's happened on this blog is that I've had an awful lot of spam comments, which are simply deleted.
I do wish I'd got more fiction writing done... It has been suggested that the idea of "writer's block" is just an excuse trotted out by folk who, like me, can't quite pluck up the courage to write something because of the nagging doubts over its eventual quality, or the 'validity' of the work, even though that's technically beside the point. All I've actually managed, really, is a couple of stories - normally written at the last minute (or later) - which were birthday/Christmas presents for a friend, and the latest one of those is already about half a year overdue.
In my heart, I know all I need to do is plonk my arse on a chair and start typing. The words will come. They may not be right first time, but the point is to write them out, then figure out how to fine-tune.
That isn't really something this blog can help with because, other than the semi-conscious self-censorship, I don't do a great deal of editing or refining. I might pop back into a post and correct formatting or typos, even sometimes insert addenda... but the posts stay largely as they were when I finished spewing my stream of consciousness.
So, to sum up, this blog has been going for six years today. My life has changed almost immeasurably since 2006, mostly for the better. I can't say this blog is a big part of my life because, on balance, it records quite a small slice of it, and I still take some pretty long breaks from blogging every now and then - sometimes because I'm doing other stuff, sometimes because I'm doing absolutely nothing - but it's going to carry on for as long as I enjoy doing it. It's equal parts creative writing and therapy, and it costs nothing but time.
//ƒuƶƶy[løgic] - a perpetual work in progress...
it's kind of like life that way.
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