I’m occasionally listing some of the things I think are making me as “well-rounded” as I need to be - the latest one of these is here - and they’re highly subjective. Take what you will, leave the rest, it’s that kind of topic. (Because self-help material is useless when taken wholesale - after all, nobody else is You).

(Don’t write in if you’re a Cylon).

There are people who do this kind of thing much better. I’ve just started reading GapingVoid, who writes cartoons on the back of business cards. My words can’t convey, so please go see.

I spent a delicious few hours at the bottom of my garden this evening, and I’m still here. There’s a gazebo behind me for when it rains, and a huge IKEA easy-chair that I can drag into sunshine. We have a big garden festooned with life - it’s possibly the best thing about the house.

The house wireless network reaches all the way to the furthermost hedge. The only fly in the ointment is the limit of my laptop’s Li-On battery, which is around 75 minutes. I’ve just realised I have the battery from my old laptop (identical Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo A1650) but also just remembered that the storage capacity was pooched because I didn’t let it drain dry often enough. Even so, I reckon it’s 20 minutes of extra power.

I have a staggering, stonking, clodthumping amount of reading to catch up on, for business and pleasure. Some of this is on the laptop, some not. And this is where I can do it, here in the open air - even when it’s raining (which appeals to me a great deal). This isn’t really a country where you can spend 12 months of the year outdoors, but by God, until I’m in a country that is, I’m going to pretend.

After my recent cathartic trip to Italy, my lust for travel is starting to rise again - so this is also a good way to feel part of the Great Outdoors (in a mild, probably rather English fashion).

I’m starting to understand the appeal of sheds.

It’s time to slam on the brakes.

Coffee is wonderful stuff. As everyone knows, a single drop of coffee can turn base metal into diamond. Rubbed into the skin, it makes a person fire-resistant and able to hold their breath underwater for over a week. Apple Macintosh processors are created in a super-saturated mist of Guatemalan Elephant, which changes the wiring to allows computational operations outside the limits of normal physics. Coffee reanimates dead things (last month I used a wooden spoon to stir my coffee, and now there’s a tree in the kitchen). Small children trust coffee-drinkers.

Of course, coffee is also liquid Evil. It’s the major material in nuclear weapons, electric chairs and the Borg. Left unattended, a coffee spill will melt down through the floor and puncture the Earth. Coffee instantly liquifies your brain, which is why your thoughts get jittery and random, and when your brain curdles once more you’ll be missing things like the ability to shave, or play the piano, or remember 1983. If you drink enough coffee you will become Republican. Coffee is not actually found in Nature.

Actually, I love coffee. But it’s an unhealthy, obsessive, needy, living-in-each-other’s-pockets love. I kinda need it - but I want to merely want it.

So I need to cut waaaay back.

And it starts - today. To whit: ONE STRONG COFFEE PER DAY ONLY. This should be enough to prevent the crippling headache that comes with caffeine withdrawal, extremities crossed.

INTERESTING COFFEE FACT OF THE DAY

The mere smell of coffee appears to be an effective neurochemical stimulant. I know this because I’ve just written about it elsewhere.

COFFEE TIP OF THE DAY

Courtesy of a friend: when you’re selling your house or showing new tenants around, brew up a pot of fresh coffee and let the aroma percolate into every corner. It will make the place feel twice as attractive and chill everyone out.

Image: RefractedMoments

Overview

#1: Change Yourself

I’m bored.

Literal meaning: “I can’t decide what to do.”

Implied meaning: “There’s nothing interesting to do.”

But it’s fine to be bored. It’s acceptable to be bored - when you’ve:

• Read every book, magazine, manuscript and letter (not private letters, that would be rude) in the world
• Speak every language in the world, modern and ancient, living and extinct
• Seen every painting (and not just looked at it - seen it)
• Sung along with every song, hummed along with every melody
• Been everywhere, starting with everywhere in your home town
• Prepared every dish of food
• Talked to every person
• Written a book and painted a picture and written & tuned a song about everything you’ve ever done
• Loved everyone as much as you’re capable of
• Pushed yourself all the way up to the limits of your physical fitness
• Learnt all there is to know about relationships; learnt all there is to know about sex; learnt all there is to know about parenting
• Made so much money that you will never have to earn any, ever again
• Read everything on the Internet - particularly the infuriatingly narrow-minded stuff, because it’s impossible to be bored when you’re bloody furious.
• Mastered every musical instrument and can play every song in the world on any of them (Bohemian Rhapsody on the Jew’s Harp, for example) to a concert-level standard
• Answered every question you’ve ever had, even the really difficult ones like “Why is the sky blue?” (I’ll save you some time: it’s Rayleigh scattering)
• Come first in every competitive sporting event or hobby
• Stomped your imagination completely flat
• Stopped wanting everything you already have
• Done everything again - because you’ll have missed a few things the first time round.

When you’ve done these things, and when you have proof that you’ve done these things, you can be bored. Enjoy - you’ve certainly earned it.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Dorothy Parker.

Image: stygiangloom

…. here: including this one - “Gold” (a relief map of where gold is - or perhaps has been - found).

Prettier than statistics, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I’m in the middle of my first week away from contract temping work for about 4 months. I’m getting plenty of writing done, and doing lots of planning for the Big Things I decided upon a few weeks ago.

I’m also drinking unusual quantities of beer.

Unusual for me, that is - because I hardly drink the stuff, or indeed like it. Since I don’t like football either, I’m an outcast in England. I live in a shack I’ve made of the things British men throw at me (tea bags, newspapers, grenades etc.). It’s not much of a life, but it’s all mine, and that keeps me going in the long Winter months when everyone’s warm at the pub watching Sky Sports and sipping beer, and I’m leant against a cow for warmth, melting snow to make a brew.

Anyway, enough about me. There’s a great little publette in the centre of York that I can thoroughly recommend. It’s Pivo, at Patrick Pool, which if you’re like me you’ll need qualifying with “it’s down the side of the market near Mark’s & Spencer”. Recessed into the ground floor of one of the (mock-?) Tudor buildings bordering Newgate Market, it’s comfortable without being tatty and has a well-stocked bar. The Pale Ale is very good. I only had one, but…

So anyway, this is how it looks from the outside if you’re me, after a Pale Ale.

Now here is my obligatory “I’m not really a wuss” defence. Apparently my dad was a little allergic to beer, and ended up with headaches. I’m the same: the last 4 days I’ve had at least one beer every day, and the last 4 nights I’ve had a headache. It’s not a hydration problem, as I’ve been knocking water back to the extent that I may have a Water Problem. (What? Yes, of course it’s a dependency, I’ll die if I don’t drink it. No, really, dammit).

So, I did some reading around.

Last year I thought I might be lactose-intolerant - after drinking milk I felt sluggish and flippant. (”Put the bottle back in the fridge? Do I look like I’m putting the bottle back in the fridge? So there’s your answer. No, we’re done.”) I’m back to drinking milk, and some days I’m a bit sleepy, but….well, if I am l.-int., I can deal with it. Not so with beer. One pint and I’m fighting off a headache? Excuse me for choosing to be elsewhere.

Luckily I’m not the least bit allergic to whisky.

Because that wouldn’t be a life worth living.

#1: A Fear Of Flying

#2: When in Rome (1)

From my notebook:

“Leave hotel not-Valeria-Golino at 10.30 after approximation of breakfast, and head for Colaseum (sic)……and because of weather still miserable, decide to skip sights again and go straight to Termini and look for way to Tiburtina.”

My destination was Giulianova, far away on the eastern Italian coast overlooking the Adriatic. The width of Italy away. No pressure. Because there was a bus. In theory.

“Rome Metro Line B northwards. Roman metro carriages are absolutely caked in graffiti, as if they were already partly so and the authorities hired the same people to finish the job for continuity’s sake. (Apols. spidery writing: am on metro, v. juddery). Rattle to Tiburtina.”

“At station now, bit confused. Walk past “busker” - sawn off electric with once-every-2-minutes strumming method along to sounds-like Kraftwerk. Multitude of ticket booths plastered with unofficial-looking signs. Hint of Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler about it all. Get ticket - 1 Euro. Are you sure? Turns out he got it wrong when I go back [he thought I meant a station in Rome that sounded a lot like Giulianova if said by an Englishman]. Am redirected to bus station across the road.”

I dodge traffic awhile. This feels very Italian.

“At station, find right ticket booth, bit like finding the right crate in that warehouse in Indiana Jones. Timetable I have is wrong but happily so,bus is at 12.25pm. Off I go.”

It’s a stunning journey.

“Small Italian towns here and there struggle free from an almost total canopy of green. Rocky outcrops offer the opportunity for a castle or wannabe-castle to shout “we own the land” while all around the town knows better and hides in the shade. There’s snow up there, filling crinkles in the topography.”

“A quarry shows the land underneath, the colour of my boots. ” [Mustard-brown].

“Come out of L’Aquila’s subterranean bus station in full sunshine and snow-streaked peaks of Apennines line the horizon. Up close, the mountains are impossible. Now way beyond feeling like western Crete.“

“As I write, we are going through the Apennines.“

“And out, into a colossal sweep of pillar-supported road…..

….high above the treeline. The mountains behind us are gone, into the cloud. D. Copperfield would approve.”

“Now spikely-rolling patchwork, rich greens with tree-smothered hollows. Houses look like everyone would know who lives in them. Everything looked tended and valued (rose-tint?). Slumped hillsides fray the carpet.”

“Adverts and modern buildings starting to look out of place (nice feeling). Butterscotch and cinder toffee walls. Where grass can grow, it does. Churches rise elementally, unbroken rock. How can I be in the heart of rural Italy and listening to Mercy on the radio? And why does it fit? She’s Welsh. “

“Someone inspecting a used car in a car-lot, grass waist-high everywhere in it.”

“I almost don’t want to arrive. But we have.”

(More soon).

“Dance like no one is watching.
Sing like no one is listening.
Love like you’ve never been hurt
and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”

- Mark Twain.

Image: Fábio Pinheiro

I leave my current day-job tomorrow, after working here for 3 months doing ‘data cleansing’.

Since it’s spreadsheet work, there have been plenty of slow days. Here’s what we did to stay sane and focused.

…..

1. RUBBER BAND WESTERN FRONT.

2. The office has 14 long windows, the majority facing towards the back of the York city wall. Tourists can be seen clearly against the skyline as they wend their way around to Micklegate Bar. So we play GUESS THE NATIONALITY, based on dress sense, loudness, manner of walking and other amusing xenophobicisms. For example, Germans are always first up on the wall in the morning. And Americans are always stopping to take photos, bottlenecking traffic which, if it’s English, never complains.

3. A variety of QUIZZES. We’ve scoured the Internet. Really.

4. GOOGLE QUICKDRAW. Or: WIKI JESUS (go to a random Wikipedia article, and try to reach the entry for Jesus Christ in the minimum number of moves).

5. That day where neither team had any work to do, so we cleared the middle of the room and played RISK. There are tears in my eyes, thinking back.

6. Making a huge FAKE WORK COLLEAGUE out of cardboard, packing tape, paperclips, a bucket and other stationery. Zak (for that was his name) sat at an unoccupied desk for a couple of weeks until a few hours before a managerial visit.

7. WHAT’S THE THEME TO? Usually aimed at me, as I have a near-phonographic memory when it comes to TV show themes - but someone got me with Hart To Hart and I’ve never really forgiven them.

8. PLAYLIST BINGO - the week before, you choose 8 songs chosen from anywhere, and the first person to get them all played on the radio the week after….wins.

9. CHAIR WARS. Clamber onto your steed (a standard rotating office chair), wait until you are completely still, and then - without touching anything else at all - do a 360-degree rotation. Technique is everything. (This is a demanding game, and not to be attempted after a heavy lunch).

10. Points and kudos could be achieved for GETTING ON LOCAL RADIO any way possible. The office fishtank originated in a successful local radio competition entry.

11. BALLS OF STEEL. Before my time. You don’t ever want to hear the rules of this. I wish I hadn’t.

…..

I know this kind of thing goes on everywhere. That’s why everyone loves The Office (Brit and U.S. versions). So what do you get up to?

I remember taking this photo, from the window of a train. It was very, very important I did so at the time. And I caught whatever-it-was smack in the middle of the frame.

But I don’t know what it is.