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I can’t stop thinking of good names for bands, or good names for albums, or good names of bands and albums in combination.
For example:
‘Equine blues’ by The Cadillac Walrus
‘Don’t Forget Tomorrow, Don’t Believe Today’ by Bob 69
‘Out, and In, and Out Again’ by The Squidkillers
‘Mother Was a Pantomime Shire-horse’ by Hitler Roadkill
‘Songs from Dylan’s Toolbox’ by Tame and Wild
Ok maybe they’re all crap, but it killed a bit of time at work today, so….
RC 31-8-13
The Summertime blues
Do not exist for Rory
It’s my top season
A haiku poem
Is a lazy poem by
a lazy poet
Jacket potato
Can be part of a main meal
Or a nice quick snack
My next career move
Might be to become a clown
and scare little kids
Will I get married?
Philippa says Yes I will
But I have my doubts
RC 30-8-13
I went cycling today as I’m desperately aware that we are losing light in the evenings. It’s the first time I’ve biked in a while due to my unfortunate intra-scrotal impediment (please see previous blogs for further information) and it’s amazing how quickly my fitness has deserted me. I was breathless after ten minutes and the stamina in my legs was non-existent.
The good news is that the problematic testicle showed no bad after-effects when I got home, even after I’d massaged and stroked it in the shower for fifteen minutes (just for the purposes of medical observation, you understand) So hopefully that whole unpleasant incident is behind me. (or underneath me, if you see what I mean)
I’m getting confused now, and I’m using far too many brackets in this blog posting, so I’m going to give up and go to bed. This evening’s ride took far more out of me than I realised, I think.
RC 29-8-13
I’ve thought of a blog-related challenge I can do in the month of September: 26 separate postings; each title starting with a different letter of the alphabet. I may even do them in order, for a bit of extra spice. I don’t seem able to give this blog up, and I need a nice distraction from the entrapment of work at the supermarket, so I may as well make it more interesting for myself. Does that make sense? I read something somewhere recently that sums up how I feel about this blog most days, so I may as well just quote it here, rather than explain in my own words:
“Writing a diary is an easy habit to get into, but a much harder habit to get out of”
Some days I find myself trying to remember every single detail of what I say and hear and do, so I can relate it accurately in a posting. Other days something will happen and I’ll spend ages agonising over the best way to report it to you when I get to a computer. The best postings, I feel, are when I just sit down and bash out a few words without thinking about it too much - then you’re getting an honest bit of writing from The Real Rory.
Anyway - “The Alphabetical Order September Challenge” Coming soon to this blog!
RC 28-8-13
Philippa is up my arse about marriage again. We hardly speak for three days and then she decides we should have a discussion about wedding plans. Bloody women. She said “If you want to get married before your birthday we’d better get things moving pretty quickly.” I said, obviously, “I don’t want to get married before my birthday” and on we went from there. I tried to argue that it would make more sense to be settled in our own house before we considered a wedding, but she just said “But last year you said we should get married before we bought a house, because after that we’d be distracted by the mortgage” I can’t believe I ever said that, but I am notoriously forgetful of my own past comments, and annoyingly inconsistent in my points of view, so she may be right.
Some kind of weird compromise was reached about ten hours later when I said she could organise absolutely anything she wanted as long as it wasn’t before Summer 2015, and as long as it cost less than £1000. She went off quite happily, so I think she may have stopped listening at “you can organise absolutely anything you want….”
RC 27-8-13
You’re not a real man until:
You’ve got drunk and ridden in a shopping trolley
You’ve forgotten to zip up your pants after going for a pee and walked out in public with your wanger on show
You’ve owned your own car, and then crashed it
You’ve had your heart broken by a woman
You’ve been sacked for turning up late and hungover
You’ve been punched in the face, at least once
You’ve thrown up in a plant pot
You’ve driven 100 miles out of your way rather than admit that you’re lost
RC 26-8-13
Live music is great
I would love to perform live
But I play like shit
Too much alcohol
Helps you forget your problems
And then creates more
I’ll be thirty soon
How the Hell did this happen?
I still feel fifteen
Dark by nine o’clock
Next thing you know it’s Winter
And I’ll feel lousy
If I was a bee
I’d fly to America
and sting Mark Wahlberg
Supermarket work
Is just ruining your life
For minimum wage
I like my new car
But I miss TheLoveMachine
and I want her back
Films are my passion
I’m happy at the movies
As a pig in shit
If Hitler was nice
Would there be kids called Adolf
All over Europe?
Life plays a mean trick:
Men can’t live without women
But they make them mad
RC 25-8-12
I was so pissed last night I didn’t know if I was Benny or Jenny.
Thankfully I became ‘pleasant drunk Rory’ so Philippa is still speaking to me. I shouted at her once, apparently, when she was driving home and I insisted she was going the wrong way. It seems I’d completely forgotten that I moved house over a year ago! When we got in I told her I wanted to sleep under the stars and spent ten minutes trying to throw our bedding out of the window. Then I curled up on the kitchen floor and asked why the tiles were all moving in different directions. It took her an hour to undress me and help me into bed. Bless her, she does put up with some shite from me sometimes. But I have to put up with a lot of shite from her too, so I guess it evens itself out and I don’t have to feel too guilty.
This morning I found a hand-scribbled note stuck to the bathroom door on which I’d written: “Idea for album title - NEVER AGAIN”
At least I think that’s what it said. Much of it looked like a combination of hieroglyphics and spilled ink.
RC 25-8-13
Philippa knows about our holiday to Tunisia now. She tells me she is ‘touched and angry’ which just about sums her up. She says it’s very sweet of me to arrange it, but also rather devious of me to book it without telling her as she didn’t have a chance to ‘help decide the destination‘.. Hey, ho. What’s that saying? “You can’t do right for doing wrong”? Never is that truer than in a relationship with a woman.
Ross and I are going to see a band tomorrow night. They’re called ‘The Warblers’ and they’re very good, apparently. They’re appearing at a nice country pub that is holding a Bank Holiday Beer Festival, so it’s a win-win-win situation. Philippa is coming along too, as I intend to get drunk and I’ll be needing a lift home.
I may have to re-think my ‘resignation deadline.’ I’ve been looking very hard but there just don’t seem to be any jobs around worth going for. I’m also aware of our impending house move creeping closer and closer and I don’t want to take on too many changes at once.
Or maybe I’m just lazy and deciding to settle for what I’ve got….
Nights getting darker
Days becoming less sunny
Summer is waning
RC 23-8-13
So much for stopping blogging at 1000 blog posts! I was in such a state when I woke up yesterday that I had to blog about my dream and I didn’t even stop to think about whether I ever wanted to blog again or not. Now I feel like I’m committed to go on for at least another thousand…..
RC 21-8-13
I had a bizarre, disturbing, strangely satisfying dream last night. It turned out I was the father of the recent Royal baby, even though I could not remember ever meeting Princess whats-her-name, much less doing anything pregnancy-inducing with her. Prince William came to see me to ‘sort things out’ and he brought his Political Advisor, who was Ken Dodd. The Prince said “I’m not angry. I’m just concerned about the Constitution. Either we have to charge you with treason or I have to abdicate and let you marry my wife” In the end I promised to maintain my silence in return for a solid gold basketball and a one-way ticket to Thailand.
The Prince had very small hands.
RC 20-8-13
If and when I leave the supermarket, I’m really going to miss those snippets of overheard conversations and mumbled comments from the customers. People seem to think that carrying a shopping list makes them inaudible to others around them. Not so I’m afraid. Here’s an absolute gem that I picked up today in Aisle 7:
“Mum says I need a woman, but I don’t. I just need a vagina.”
Ross and I haven’t written anything original or thought about a gig yet, but we do have a name for our duo……… TAME AND WILD.
We’re so rock!
My problematic testicle is much less problematic now. My scrotum looks like a scrotum again instead of a lopsided coconut. Philippa says she wants to keep an eye on it and check it regularly and that is fine with me..
I made it, by the way. One thousand blog postings, including this one. Unreal. How will I celebrate tonight? By deciding whether to continue this blog, or kill it off at a nice round thousand.
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow….
RC 19-8-13
I sat at work yesterday and read an article about the meteor shower that the Earth is passing through right now. It happens every August, and the paper said “between 11pm tonight and 2am tomorrow you could see 100 meteors an hour!”
I got home, made a flask of coffee, wrapped myself warm and sat outside as excited as a toddler at Christmas. I sat there for an hour and I saw nothing. Today I checked again and the paper I’d been reading had been 4 days old.
Sometimes I wish I was someone else so I could punch me in the face for my stupidity.
RC 16-8-13
Currant sandwiches are heavenly.
RC 13-8-13
I spent most of today watching the World Athletics on television. It’s nowhere near the same as the Olympics last year, but it’s a nice way to distract myself from life and a nice excuse to be sat on the sofa.
Philippa is starting to get edgy about moving. David and Becky are definitely returning in November so she’s starting to feel the pressure of time. God knows why. It’s still three months away, and most of the stuff in here isn’t ours anyway so it’s not as if we’ve got vansful of possessions to relocate.
I think she’s worried that the weeks will race past and catch us out. She doesn’t realise how slowly time can pass sometimes because she doesn’t work at a place she despises.
I suppose it might be a bit stressful when it happens. We don’t have an exact date to move out yet, and we don’t know where our next assignment will be, so we don’t know if we’ll have to rent accommodation in the gap, or be able to move back in to one of our old houses, or whether we’ll just be homeless. I don’t fancy ending up back in the family home with Hannah and her noisy co-habitants, I must say. I think I’d rather spend a few weeks on the streets.
Mmm, maybe Philippa is right to be feeling a bit edgy about it all. They say moving house is one of the most stressful events you can go through (alongside marriage and divorce) and we might end up doing it three times in a month! Plus, we’ve got to squeeze in a week in Tunisia which I still haven’t told Philippa about yet. I don’t make life easy for myself do I?
RC 12-8-13
My last few blogs have been a bit heavy and introspective haven’t they? Sorry about that! If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I do sometimes go through these spells of darkness and confusion, and as my blog postings tend to reflect my moods and thoughts, during those times I write accordingly.
To try and redress the balance though - I’ve spent today writing some light-hearted haiku, which I personally think are quite amusing. I hope you agree:
The Summertime blues
Make Rory write like a twat
Make his blog boring
Indiana Jones
Should have stopped making movies
After the third one
I would like a dog
But I don’t want to walk it
Or clear up it’s shit
If I was richer
I would hire Rachel Riley
To add up for me
Cucumber sandwich:
Only eaten by posh folk
and vegan children
RC 6-8-13
I think every person, in every situation, be it a relationship, a job position or a geographical location, reaches a point where they know in all certainty that it’s time to move on; to change. It’s not discomfort or boredom, it’s an absolutely certain knowledge that if you don’t get out, and soon, you’ll be rendered insane or unstable, and you have to make the move for the good of yourself and all the other people involved. Once the point of decision has been reached, delaying departure for even one day could be catastrophic.
I reached that point with work three months ago.
I’ve realised now how much my life in general is dominated by my work life. If I have a bad day at work, it makes me miserable at home. If I have a day when everything goes well at work, then I am happy and contented and nice to Philippa. It should work the other way round, I know, but for some reason I can’t get it right. Surely if I have a great morning with my fiancee, then that good feeling should carry me through an evening shift at the supermarket? Well it doesn’t, and I can’t tell you why. My head just will not work that way. And on my darkest days, I see that as Philippa’s fault. I think “Well if she was really the one for me then her love would be enough to see me through a tough day at work. But it isn’t enough, so she can’t be the one”
I know that’s ludicrous, but that’s just the way it is.
So I’m setting myself the task of being out of the supermarket by the end of September. I have to give them a month’s notice, which means I have to have found something new and handed in my resignation by the end of this month. So I have four weeks. Four weeks in which to change the thing I really want to change, rather than dwell on thoughts of changing other things that deep down I really want to keep the same.
Recently I’ve considered care work, I‘ve considered teaching, and I’ve rejected them both. But that shows you that I’ve been looking for a way out, and trying to set myself on a new path, even while I’ve been dragging myself down further by continuing with my current career.
The decision is made. The deadline is set. Now I’d better go and look at some job websites……
RC 5-8-13
They don’t happen very often, but I love those moments when you’re sitting somewhere quietly and you suddenly realise that you’re not thinking about anything. Obviously, as soon as you realise you’re not thinking, then by definition you’ve started thinking again; but that brief moment of inner calm when your mind has switched into neutral is magic. It’s just a shame we can’t have them more often. Maybe that’s why people meditate everyday - to achieve those rare instances of peace more regularly.
After a shitty day of busy work, I sat in the garden this evening with a glass of wine and this strange wave of serene happiness washed over me. I’m not sure where it came from, but it was delightful. It was like being hit in the head by everything that’s good about my life all in one go. Living in a nice house (even though it’s not mine) with someone I am totally in love with; having a job that pays me relatively well (even though I hate it); being reunited with my sisters, and being closer to both of them than ever before; having nice weather and beautiful August sunsets. I swear I couldn’t have had a negative thought if I tried.
And could I please point out that all this happened during the FIRST glass of wine, so it wasn’t one of those ‘pissed misperceived perfection’ things.
I felt so good I went indoors to tell Philippa how much I loved her and how great it is to be with her and how sorry I am that I sometimes don’t show her how much I appreciate her.
She was already asleep.
RC 4-8-13
And so we awake in another month of the calendar.
I’m sure time didn’t pass this quickly in my teens.
It certainly doesn’t pass this quickly in Winter.
I didn’t really enjoy myself through the end of July. My shoulder hurt, I had a bad cold, and my haemorrhoids felt like they had haemorrhoids on them.
Still - at least we had some good weather!
RC 1-8-13
