Month: January 2010

AJ

Living Dangerously…

Talent is the desire to practice…..It is that you love something so much that you are willing to make an enormous sacrifice and an enormous commitment to that, whatever it is — task, game, sport, what have you.

– Malcom Gladwell

Last year I closed out a fair bit of my plans – at least I was waaay above the average 12%. This year, I decided I would only do one thing – Live Dangerously.

Contrary to SisiBola’s expectations,  I am not heading out on a tour of duty to Iraq, or learning how not to use underwear, or packing my bags and running off to some exotic island with Halle Berry (IF she offers it, I’d be jumping, thank you very much!).  I am merely deciding to do things differently – plan less, reflect less, analyze less and DO more!

The hardest lesson I have had to learn on the Journey is that above a minimum level of planning and detail, the incremental safety is illusionary and counts for nothing. That goes against my grain!

So here I am, an intrepid bird-man, tottering on the edge…… and jumping off….

AJ

TGIF..

TGIF… I get to stay awake till the wee hours of the morning without thinking about any repercussions!

The last bout of insomnia I have struggled with yielded dividends today. A solution that popped up duirng one of those nights sailed through at work today! And in a funny way, I am kinda sad that the insomnia faded significantly.. I miss the late night/ wee hours of the morning pleasure I had for a week 😦

Not every thing ‘bad’ is bad after all then.

AJ

Randoms….

I had forgotten how to sing,
Blame fear, blame pain, blame sorrow deep within;

I’ve had these two lines in my head all week. I might have read them somewhere…. Or they might be the opening lines of a poem I have to write…. the first salvo fired by my dark and weary muse….

I once thought I was doing very well in my attempt to understand women folk – clearly I was reading from the wrong manual…. Doesn’t help that this bloke has been out of action for over a year….nearly two in truth! That was some ill – advised move I tell you……

Jesus said to forgive our brother seventy times seven times…. After  how many times does a failure to fulfill a promise to ‘call you back’ eventually consitute a tacit recommendation for you to scram from the scene?

Currently reading Chris Abani’s Becoming Abigail… I love the way he takes pain, takes sorrow and weaves it into a coherent whole… that, I find intriguing…

On the subject of work, open plan offices suck! I hate the fact that I am unable to shut my door and sleeeeep away when I want .. or snack on some well made banga soup from a flask, while keeping an eye on my computer…

Contrary to popular belief, I have my off days.. days when I doubt my ability..days when I am afraid, day when words get stuck in my throat and I pine away……I’ve had more than a few in the last year….. I’m getting stronger.. everyday – my current favorite song.. bar Miley Cyrus’s  – The Climb… .. I know, its so not Macho!!! Blame x-factor……..and Joe McElderry

I am officially an uncle again – cute little bloke – not seen him yet as usual… this Christmas, by fire by force, I will….

Dang… falentine is coming again o.. and the facebook people have started o.. Last year, I got an anonymous text… this year, if una try am, I go shoot persin o!!!!!!!

I think, the whole webexperience is losing its attraction for me…. I’ve not been on facebook in a bit… I barely keep up appearances on twitter these days……and i deleted my old chat email…. No I’m not PMSing (blokes don’t do that!).. Just whimsical….. in a quirky way…

My friend asked me a question — too lazy to think seriously about it…

Is it enough to do the right thing, or must we also do it for the right reasons?

AJ

Three is the tipping point…

Three weeks in and a semblance of normalcy has descended… I know my way around town, I have my bus and rail passes in tow, and the confidence garnered from familiarity with the tasks in hand is steadily growing… The minus is its all open plan – and shirt/ ties except for Fridays, that goes totally against my grain.. I am surviving…. For that I am thankful..The way on from here is up! We’ve passed the tipping point.

AJ

Me, Insomniac

Hi, My name is theOOhj and I am an insomniac… And I have been this way for all of three years!

My friend agony aunt Titi asked me if it was physiological or psychological…..100% gibberish… plenty grammar.. All I know is that I can’t sleep…. and when I do manage to sleep I dream.. of different things.. people.. places…. events… and of her….. the one who chose to fade to black…. her voice is still etched in my mind’s ear like the striations of a fatigue crack.. and I am left with the questions.. the could haves, the would haves and the should haves…..Each day, I remind myself that it is over… dead… that we are done……but……

How can you forget what you always hear?
AJ

Re-educating me….

Every night when I sit across the room from him, eyes glued to the TV set trying to avoid the endless background information he has on every show on the BBC, the thought never fails to cross my mind that whoever runs the Universe has a queer sense of humour. In a way our lives are akin – I have been given a second chance to restart my life after a mid-life crisis of sorts; he has been given a second chance with a heart transplant…

He….is white, in his early sixties, and has a demeanour mellowed by a near death experience. We talk – bitch in resonance about life – high taxes, the loss of jobs, yobs, people on benefits, work and all that….. but he never fails to end the day with a phone call….. Each day, he calls his wife, he calls his twin girls and they laugh and chat about the day….

Tonight he stopped suddenly, pointed his index finger at me and said….. you know when push comes to shove…what is important is not the bank or work… its the people in your life…

I wish I had an answer to the contrary… Gladly, I don’t!

AJ

(Almost) the first week

One week in and its already shaping up to be a hard long slog….Our honeymoon lasted exactly 4 hours and then it was me being thrust into the deep end…. Sub zero temperatures – the coldest winter in Scotland in fifty years – and a role that seems so much like a continuation of the one that I fled all those months ago – only more intense, only less margin for error.

I thought resolving my God issues was one of the focus areas for 2010 – this is it. I am forced to accept that I am human, that there are limits to my capabilities, that I need super human effort sometimes. Perhaps there is some redemption after all…..

AJ

If I did crushes.. this would be it…

If I did crushes, Bassey Ikpi would be it. I stumbled on some YouTube videos back in the day, but I never got to dig into them until a bout of extreme boredom got the better of me.  The poem Homecoming is a precise distillation of all the various emotions being caught between two worlds generates in us. I totally loved it! Oh and she’s cute too….  🙂

AJ

10 years on..

My Uncle Fred was the nearly black sheep of Mother’s side of the family. Bloke had all the women purring over him and he lived for the attention. As recently as the year 2000, he still left his plates on the table after eating and Mother would use him as an example of how not to behave.

It was to my utmost surprise therefore, that in the midst of a phone call with me, Uncle Fred excused himself to go stir some soup he was making! Uncle Fred and cooking are about as diametrically opposed as they come..

Maybe its the UK life, or a strong wife, but that is a sea change… So much for the archetypicalundomesticated husband.

AJ

2010 – The Plan

Last year was about a laundry list – 20 things I wanted to get sorted by year’s end. I did Ok.. Never got to learn french and missed out on the distinction..This year I want to have focus areas – key directions in which my energies will be focused.

  1. Career: Manage my transition to a new job/ new city; target getting confirmed on the job and a raise by year end.
  2. God and Faith: Get back into the regular church thing – sort out my niggling God issues.
  3. Weight and Health: Get a full physical exam – for info – and shed the excess weight sharp-ish.
  4. Love and Loving: End my girl hiatus; actively get back into the meeting and friendship scene again.

One more, which doesn’t count as a specific goal I think, but which is needed nonetheless, is to toughen up. I fear for the past few years I have grown too soft, more altruistic than is necessary. 2010 is my year.. of living dangerously..

2009 was a year to forget – almost. Thankfully there was an upturn at the end of the year… Hopefully 2010 is a lot better! Oh and that this blog is a wee bit less sorrowful too 🙂