My invisibility cloak

As some of you know (or have guessed) I'm not exactly a small person. As my father has put it a couple of time I'm a "quiet, gentle giant". Don't let that fool you, getting in my way isn't a good plan for longevity. One thing I have yet to fully understand, is my amazing ability. I've noticed this ability for a number of years now. Most people don't believe me, that is until they see it happen. Cathy was one of these people. Even the first couple of times I'm sure she figured I was just not being forthright enough, or I wasn't doing what was accepted.
Well, I know I don't stand on the tables and start stripping - but really, having waiters and waitresses look straight through, around and over me does get a little annoying at times. I understand these people have busy jobs and to be honest I applaud them for the job they do. If it's good of course. I also understand that on a busy Friday night, there are going to be lots of people to serve and keep happy. The 6'4, 120 odd guy at the centre table who's looking straight at you and waving his hand ... well, you know, something as small as a "I'll be right with you" as you walk past me would be all it takes.
Even that apparently is part of my amazing invisibility.
It's not even that I'm a bad patron. I haven't complained about food before (unless it's totally wrong, or just plain horrible) - Cathy can attest to this, I love all food. When it's served by people doing a wonderful job, I try to be the best customer I can be. I don't do anything stupid (I may have been loud at a couple of events in my younger years, but even that wasn't over the top) but really, I'm just someone that apparently has an amazing ability to be invisible.
This skill would be so much better if I was able to turn it on and off at will. Or if it worked for other people, or even other industries. Would be wonderful to wander down the street perving on people and not being noticed.
Wait, I don't do that any more. That would have been before I was in a relationship. Yes, that's it. A long, long time ago in a single life far away...
Back on topic - anyone out there who is in the food service trade, please notice us big friendly giants. We don't like to cause too much noise, but if you continue to ignore me, I mean us, well really ... what else are we to do?

And if I ever find another weedy little turp jump in front of me again at any sort of food serving place, he's going to find himself squished between me and another immovable barrier.

Be warned.

I keep doing this

I really have to get back into some form of routine with this blog thing. It's been ages and while many things have happened, I just haven't felt the desire to blog. I've seen other people do this, some never come back, others attempt too, while others come back better than ever. I have no idea which way I'm going, but I guess I'll be trying to get something from somewhere.

So let's go through the usual stuff:
Work - new work is good, busy as all get out, but I'm liking it. The commute is hellish, but I'm hoping to be out of the office more and more so at least I can get a nice car allowance every month.
Love - is great. Things are going really well. Many are positive about us, while a few are still very hesitant. I refuse to listen to that particular group. There will always be idiots.
Shape - while weight is going down, the increased travel time and things being a little crazy I haven't been exercising much. Appears that I may have been exercising wrong. Back to more cardio and less weights. I have to cut before I can bulk.
Life - is getting there. Still a few dark corners out there. I'm feeling good about a lot of things though, we'll just have to see where it's all leading.

One thing that is new (and which I'm not sure I like it yet) - a request has been made for me to grow side burns. Now, I'm slightly conservative (ok, more than slightly) so going a bit out there with something like side burns is just a little uncomfortable. With a new job that is very professional and me not very comfortable with the whole "hair style" arrangement, it's leading to a little bit extra stress. Although it does make someone very happy with her "adjustments" to my presentation. Perhaps when it all fits together I'll be a bit happier with the changes. That and a lot more cutting and then some nice bulking.

Yeah, I can dream. Apparently a whole lot.


Cathy and I seem to have hit a bit of a dry patch with each of our blogs - one thing I suggested the other day was a joint-blog. Perhaps a few small snippets from each of us during the week will help us get rid of the "writer's block" and get the words flowing. At the very least it'll be a good laugh to see us try it. Thoughts? Opinions? Options?

Anything?

Bump

I sit here, unemployed and sick, bemoaning my life. That's really not a good start. I'm not "unemployed" I just haven't started my new job yet. Yup, I got me a nice little break and a cool new job too! Suck on that "You don't fit in" idiots! But I am sick. More than usual even! I have the dreaded spring cold. Apparently it's running rampant through Melbourne currently. My entire family has it and I've dealing with the last little bits of it now. It hit me last thursday and let me tell you from about 5pm friday until sometime saturday I was having a seriously fucked up time. I've never hallucinated without the need for drugs before, I think my body was doing something seriously crazy!

Anyway, it's been a long time since posting and since I've been very sick it's been a long time since I've been able to exercise (or eat anything by fruit - score I've lost weight!!). It's just that I've had nothing overly tempting to post about.

I tried the other day. I thought to myself "Go out, it's the perfect time to do those things you wanted to do during the day but were at work". Thing is, I can't think of anything I want to do that doesn't cost money. I don't like spending money at the best of times, so when no money is coming in, I'm even worse.

I dragged myself out to the local shopping centre last week (perhaps where I picked up my cold) and was again amazed at the amount of people there during the day. All sorts of different people. I really had no idea so many people didn't have "normal" work type things to do. And no, I'm not counting the mothers who have the "JOB TIMES ONE MILLION" that just isn't fair. I'm looking at the teenagers who should have been in school. The 20-somethings who looked like they knew they should be somewhere else. The 30-somethings escaping from the office or the store to wander aimlessly. There wasn't a very big mix of the 40-50-somethings, but once the 65 age hit, oh boy, the blue rinse brigade were everywhere! I'm all for power in your retirement and all that, but some people really need to learn how to age gracefully. Or at least somehow. It's just a little scary.

I almost got to the point of understanding those "Fix your life up" shows on TV, just watching these people stumble through life (20-somethings all the way up) was amazing. Mouth open, eyes glazed, credit cards ready to swipe. I tell you if anyone has any argument about humans not being herd animals, they haven't been to a public place recently.

I tested it. I caught myself following along behind a group of people. Well a big group of little groups. Many 2's and 3's joined together. On both "sides" of the shopping centre. Each "side" going the different direction. Of course not the "stay to your left" or anything like that. So I changed. I walked in the centre of the aisle going in the different direction to the crowd, just to see how it went.

Most looked at me through glazed eyes if we approached closer than normal, then shuffled out of the way. The odd one or two would register I was a person and step aside. At least one every so often (it happened 3 times at that trip) actually bumped into me.

Perhaps I should clarify. When I say "bump", it's actually someone walking where I'm going to be walking. It's not me being very arrogant, it's me accepting the size I am and respecting my own personal space. ... Ok, yeah sometimes it's me being arrogant. But I like that at times. Cath can tell you about the trip to the Vic Market one day, I'm sure that other woman and her child will never stop in front of someone ever again. Damn tangents - bump. People seem to have this perception that if they keep walking everyone else will get out of their way. Generally there is a short list that will make me step aside - if you are bigger than me, if you are scary than me, if you are in some way confined, or I have some sort of respect for you.

In other words, if you are a short middle-aged man pushing people aside as you walk by them, I will NOT step aside. I will however ask in a loud voice "What the fuck do you want?" When your body ricochets off my side and you stumble in the group of giggling teenagers. Being 6'4 and a little large, I'm not the one who ends up rubbing my sore butt after it lands on the ground. I will be the one laughing at your sorry arse for being so stupid though.

Perhaps all this stems from that one time the 7 foot Mongrel Mob bikee stepped aside for me on a footpath in Auckland when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Not only did that scare the crap out of me, but it sure put the knowledge of respect into my head. I believe he even smiled at my mum as I tried to figure out how close his head was to the sky. Damn that guy was tall. And I was so small.

That's the way life goes

I've been real quiet recently. Not too sure why, but now I know things are looking up!

I am now unemployed. It's been a weird couple of months at the place I was working. But I know now that I won't be pushed into doing illegal or dodgy things and when it comes down to it I'm more than willing to put my job on the line for the things I believe in.

... now, does anyone have the number for Microsoft's piracy and licencing department?

Is it a little sad ...

When I spend most of my afternoon (at work) virtua-bowling? ... and then score a perfect 300 just before I go home?

Ok, I think I just answered my own question. Perhaps next week I'll get to do some actual work!

Oh and perhaps a blog entry or 2 ...

I'm at a mental blank. I've hit the wall. Do I dare even think .. writer's block? I can't even get my butt into gear to write the things I've scribbled down in the past.

I can't even write pure unadulterated crap as I usually do. What's wrong with me??

I figure I'm still at those crossroads. In fact there are a few crossroads, actually a couple of them look like cliffs I have to dive off. I'm not good when it comes to jumping off heights. That last step is always a doozie. Will I choose right and fly, or will I choose wrong and plummet to the jagged rocks below?

Do I really mind which way it goes? Have I decided that it's all about the journey and the destination is so far away that it's not even worth contemplating any more. Not even I can answer that question, I just don't know right now.


I think I see where this has come from. Friends of mine got married a year or so ago and they have been considering ruining their financial future by having children (I don't really believe that, but it made you think). Well, the wife fell pregnant a few months back. Got through the morning sickness, etc. Then had a miscarriage last weekend. The weekend before her birthday.

Understandably they both are shattered. Perhaps I'm a bastard for saying this, but the name they picked out was horrible (I hope that name is now scratched off the list) and the whole fiasco about getting a bracelet with the picked name engraved on it and writing a poem (which wasn't bad, but forcing everyone to read it at her party was a bit over the top).

I understand people have different ways of grieving and that's cool. Just seems to me that they way this particular girl is doing it is a little too ... clingy. A little too much holding onto the past and not willing to move forward.

Am I a bastard for thinking that she's going over the top? That really, the first pregnancy is very unlikely to go full term and committing so much seems a bit wrong. What happens the next time? Hell, my mother had a number of miscarriages and while she grieved for them each, life moves on, a material reminder of things isn't always necessary.

In fact a material reminder of things past can be the worst possible thing. Is the next pregnancy going to have a negative stigma because it survived where the first one didn't?

Is everyone around me growing up and having "real" adult lives - while I stumble my way through it all attempting to catch up. Or at least work out what the hell I'm doing?

I don't even know what sort of Dad I'd be ....

When I started this blog, it was a way to blurt things out in a "public" forum in a way that I could stay a little hidden but always show what was going on underneath the surface.

Over a short period of time, that changed. Then (miraculously) it changed again. The first was that I got lazy. The second was that I started dating. Let's be honest a relationship began.

I got to thinking tonight, I wanted to post something. For the life of me I couldn't think of anything. Then I realised my blog has gotten away from me a little. It's become somewhere I left off a bit of steam, but with confines. Which it's really not what it's all about. There has to be boundaries, but even within those boundaries I'm playing it very straight.

Not that I have any idea how to play anything by straight, but I digress.

I can't be the perv'ing Subtle I was in the beginning. I still perv, but these days it's only on one woman. I've also changed a lot since then. I can't be the straight-laced person I was a few years ago (let's not go into that "relationship" right now) that person is done and dusted, not going to drag him out again.

I'm (attempting to) re-invent my physical shell, I have to re-invent my inside as well. In doing that, I have to re-invent my blog persona. I just have no idea where to start.

I feel that I'm on the very edge of a cliff, or at the apex of a rollercoaster track. I know I'm safe to step (or roll), yet I'm still unsure about where it's all going.

Or whether I actually want to take that jump (or roll). It's all pretty good right now, do I really want things to change? Or have I been so fucked up by change in the past that when good change comes along I'm so overly cautious I freeze myself.

The truth is, I have to find a way to balance everything. To have the peaks and troughs. To be the sappy guy. To be the bastard. And then to be the real guy I am. Or perhaps just the real guy. Then I can be a real blogger too.

Although, I'm sure people would like to hear the story about the very younger girl walking around in the gym tonight wearing a tight white top with the words "Yes, they're real" across her chest. I'll await the "uh huh"s to escape before I add that 75% of the gym was pointing and laughing at the 25% of the gym who were literally following this poor young lass as she was trying to work out.

And yes, I was part of the 75% ... there's no way in hell I'd waste money on steriods to look like those idiots.

Either way this blog, like my life, needs some direction. Some journey to take. Something to sink my teeth into and really get my brain spinning. I don't know, any ideas???