Plans for the future begin to take shape and suddenly I am getting scared. No, it’s not the arrival of BabyLock, but other things that I can’t talk about at the moment until they actuall happen. You know, one doesn’t like to talk of the future in case of a jinx or in case plans fall through and leave you looking like a twonk. Even talking about BabyLock leaves me feeling slightly presumptious as I fear that even imaging my baby in my arms might jinx the proceedings.
For example, I was toying with the idea of buying the Missus a Mother’s Day gift for last Sunday but I held off because I feared I would be tempting providence. I told her about my feelings and she understood. Luckily for me, my own mother had bought a “Mother-to-be” card (I didn’t even know they existed) and a suitable planty present. My skin was saved. Or maybe fate was tempted…who knows?
Yesterday, car was garaged and MOT’ed. It passed but needed a tyre replaced. I correctly guessed it would be the offside front tyre as that is the side that I sit on. Maybe the car is trying to tell me something? I’m not fat – there’s just more of me to love, baby! 🙂
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During my slumbers I had a dream and in this nocturnal adventure I was hosting a quiz show, you know, like they have on the TV where people phone in with the answer. So the question was: “Who shot Jr?” As this was a dream, no-one seemed to be able to get the answer right and to be honest, I wasn’t even sure what the correct answer was. During the various breaks, I would run around the studio trying to find the answer, looking for a PC to Google my way out of this situation. But despite this, no-one seemed to get the question correct and eventually the dream fizzled out.
Whilst listening to the radio this morning, I was munching breakfast to the sound of rabid right-wing fattie Nick Ferrari on LBC 97.3 (yup, I am a masochist) when he finished the show with the Dallas theme tune and announced that this very day is the 27th anniversary of the “Who shot JR?” cliffhanger. How weird is that, eh? I’d not read it anywhere yesterday, so I don’t know how that piece of information got lodged into my subconscious.
Before I went to bed last night, I was looking for a quote for some double glazing and found a website that supposedly gave you an online quote. I looked like a nice anonymous way of finding out a rough price for double glazing without being harrassed by a salesman, which I really have no time for. I entered my details to register and ticked the “Don’t contact me on pain of death box”. The site was a bit complicated, requiring all manner of measurements, so I decided to go to bed and return to it today with my tape measure and an increased amount of vim and vigour. Today at 10am, I got a call from said website:
Man from website: Hi, is that Mr Lock. You visited our website last night…
Me: Yes I did and I didn’t expect to get a cold call the next day about it. Goodbye.
And that was the end of the phone call. Remember folks, as long as you are polite you can just hang up on these vermin.
Some decisions in life are easy: should it be pizza or hamburger? Some are little more difficult. The system I use to settle life’s little indecisions has been the humble coin toss. Of course, the whole point of the flip of the coin is to polarise the decision and elicit a true response to the quandry – a bit like putting a loaded gun to your head but without the fear of leaving a smear of brain and tissue on the back wall. I find the whole idea of the 50/50 nature of the coin quite compelling and it is interesting how sometimes I just know whether it is going to be heads or tails or some decisions remain consistent during the coin toss even if I change my predicted guess from heads to tails.
Yes, it might seem flippant to leave important decisions to such a process, but trust me: it works. It certainly clarifies a situation and helps you through to the other side. Of course, if you are indecisive in the first place, this methodology isn’t going to be any good for you because you’ll still argue the toss – pardon the pun.
So one decision in my life has consistently come up in the positive to a point that I am willing to travel down that road into the unknown and change everything. It could be a gamble, but then getting out of bed is a gamble, no? Another decision has also been confirmed thanks to my trusty two-pence piece…but how to extricate myself from that particular position? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.
Bathroom was successfully wallpapered. Hurrah! It was a relatively easy job and there was only only little bodge along the way. In our bathroom hung two ugly plastic towel holders that we never used. Today was the day that I was going to remove them and throw them away – I could not way, the anticipation was palpable. So I removed the first no problem, but the second was a toughie has the final screw seemed to be cemented into the wall. I had the bright idea of using a set of pliars to gently loosen the screw, but instead I managed to dislodge a thumbsized piece of the wall. It must have been a magic screw – too tough for a screw driver, but too weak for the pliars, despite me being gentle. Oh well, thick blown vinyl wallpaper covers a multitude of sins. The Missus was dead impressed with the result when she came home from the 9 to 5. Who knows – maybe next week I’ll tackle the hallway? Look, there goes a pig in a helicopter.
Am I boring you with these tales of DIY? You would tell me if I am boring you, wouldn’t you? So why do you come here avid reader? What juicy titbits do you hope to read? Nah….I’m giving nothing away. If you want to know what’s really going on, you’ll have to ask. I realise that I have been neglecting me old blog, despite paying for it. A guy off the radio was saying that it is incredibly arrogant to keep a blog because you expect people might want to read what you write and that your life is THAT important. Hmmmmm….
Now the thing about writing or any creative pursuit (whether it be blogging or whatever) is that you have to have a degree of arrogance. Writers have to be conceited otherwise the page would remain empty. You create not because you are paid to, or that you think someone might be reading (or listening) but because you have the drive to do it. Why write a novel? Because you expect people to read it? No…most novels get written because the writer WANTS to tell the story. Like music, which often gets recorded because the musician does it for themselves. I know I record the songs/albums that I want to hear and fuck what everyone else thinks. If you care what anyone else thinks you don’t get anything done. See…arrogance…conceit…
Or maybe I really am an arrogant so-and-so. I know my shyness is often seen as aloof arrogance. Who knows? But the thing is that I am trying to resume the blog and that I’ve got to forget that certain folk might be reading and to stop worrying what people might think. The bottom line is that I pretend that I don’t care, but I do care and I need to toughen up and really not give a fuck. OK?
That’s some tough talking, Darren, but I thinks you is still a pussy…
So the second day in the bathroom commenced with me regrouting tiles and then waiting for grout to dry. While this happened, I cracked open the white gloss and started on the woodwork in the room. When that was done, back to painting over the old, yellowed tiles. Today’s task done with no melting bits. Hurrah!
Meanwhile, a new music site has started and so the obligatory Darren Lock page appears: http://www.sellaband.com/lock/. Plus, the other night it struck me that I had actually registered a web domain and completely forgot about it and so I have revived my “Dead Rock Star” blog, where I am posting chapters from the novel I wrote in 2005.
Now I am off for a cup of tea, a biscuit and a lie down to get rid of these paint fumes out of my tubes… ACK!
I’m a man. I am a big, fat hairy-arsed man. A big, fat, hairy-arsed, dick-swinging, ball-scratching, beer-quaffing man. However, this does not mean I am great at manly occupations like D.I.Y. I mostly blunder through and bodge my way to approval from The Missus. Last year’s redecoration of the bedroom is now legend – the results still cause a little flutter of pride in my chest whenever the golden rays of dawn pass over my eyes and cause me to rise from my slumber. I am also intensely proud of my recent tiling around the kitchen sink which is almost up there with the Sistine Chapel in terms of beauty and magnificence.
Today, I begun the project of redecorating our tiny bathroom. Ceiling painted with no major disasters – check. Removing paint from around the tiling surrounding the bath – check. However, I was using some major paint removing chemical. Let me tell you, this stuff really burns your hands and the skin on your arms – ouch! So I sat on the edge of the bath, my feet in the bath and painted the paint removing chemical around the tiles. I was entranced by the sight of the old paint blistering and lifting off, you could hear the paint and chemical fizzing and reacting against each other. It appealed to the seven year old in me that used to play with that chemistry set I got for Xmas one year (you remember, the one where you broke the test tube and hide it from your Mum in case she went ballistic).
When I went to move there was an unfamiliar “SHHLOOOIP!” noise as I lifted my foot away from the bath. A blob of paint remover had dropped in the bath, reacted with the rubber sole of my trainer and left a black chemical splodge at the bottom of the bath. The soles of both trainers were melting. Oh well, at least I didn’t break anything, but I still feel very giddy after inhaling all those lovely chemical fumes. I hadn’t felt this out of it since the neighbours tried to poison me! Tomorrow, I shall be mainly painting woodwork, regrouting tiles and painting those too. Ooooh, I can’t wait.
In the post: ProjeKct Three in Alexandria 03-03-03, which is King Crimson without Adrian Belew. I must say I have really enjoyed this release and have been playing it in heavy rotation. It certainly makes a change from hearing “Elephant Talk” or “Easy Money” for quadzillionth time.
I’ve known that I am a father-to-be since the end of 2006, but there’s nothing like seeing your unborn child in front of you courtesy of an ultrasound scan. Now you might think that you’ve felt every emotion going: love, hate, fear, joy, laughter, tears, abject misery, grief, mourning, euphoria, but nothing prepares you for that moment. Just when you think all the doors in your brain have been opened, something as wonderful as that ultrasound scan opens up that final door.
And so I sat there, having a much better view than The Missus, who had to lie down on the couch and not move and I saw the sound waves cut invisibly through the tissue and fat to rebound off this living being inside my wife. The sonic reflection doesn’t paint the most perfect of pictures, but if you have half an imagination and have seen enough nature/health programmes on the TV, you have a pretty good idea of what you are seeing.
I could see the body, the arched spine, the skull, limbs (1-2-3-4) and a pulse that signified that this was life. The foetus moved and twitched slightly and in my imagination I was sure that I saw it playing air guitar. (And I hate referring to the foetus as an it – it is a he or she, depending on my mood). So here he was. This was the great masterplan reaching its next stage. This was the moment I was put on this earth for. And it makes you feel very, very humble. All the crap and nonsense you’ve done gets reduced to its component parts: crap and nonsense. All the time you’ve wasted on selfish folly, all the pointless words and music, all the money spent and beer consumed and good times had are swept away by this tiny little life.
Yes, I admit that I had to stifle a tear, but I let my eyes get moist on the journey home in the car, where I protested that I had got some dust in my eyes to The Missus. She laughed and cooed at me. During the scan, the sonographer seemed a little concerned because the baby didn’t seem to want to move. She pushed and prodded and poked with her jelly-lubricated probe. Eventually, she got the measurements she wanted after The Missus was forced to lie on her side.
“This baby is being lazy and stubborn today,” said the sonographer.
That’s when I knew that baby-to-be was a chip off the old block. 🙂
Now I can’t claim to see the future, but I have a fair idea of what comes next. However, one can’t be too proud or too knowing for you never know what cards fate might deal you. I live in hope and optimism and lose sleep at night praying that everything will be OK. We’ve still got a long way to go down this particular road, but at least we have a map and compass and support from family and well-wishers to propel us forward.
Exciting, isn’t it?