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New Year Mark II

January 4th 2018.

New Year’s Day.

Yes. I’m starting again.

Yesterday, I found myself slipping back into my old ways, the ways I want rid of… the ways I want improvement in. I’ve written off yesterday. It didn’t happen. Monday and Tuesday were fine, so they can stay, but my New Year begins again today.

I channelled my Inner Mrs Blotts yesterday and gave myself a Stern telling off. Not just a stern one… no – a Stern one. I was very stern.

(Mrs Blotts, by the way, was my Technical Drawing ‘teacher’ at school. She was one of the teachers who bullied me back then and left a lasting impression on me… only not the type a teacher should really leave. To put it mildly, she was hideous.)

(Mrs Blotts may have warmed to me by the time I’d left school, my Inner Conciliatory Adviser is whispering to me, but I could also just be imagining that to smooth things over. Mrs Blotts made me create the same design two times over after I’d been allocated to her class for a second time, although she marked me with an A+ the first time I did it. A waste of time the second round of ‘lessons’ were. I knew it. And so did Mrs Blotts. When I questioned why I’d been allocated the same course again, she merely snarled ‘Get.On.With.It’. So I did. Without listening. There are only so many ways you can draw a V over a W.)

After I let myself down yesterday, I took myself to one side, and in my finest Mrs Blotts’ voice I said, “You.Idiot.Start.Again.” Whilst pointedly pointing an imaginary finger at myself in an over exaggerated fashion. I was livid. Three days into the new year, and I was living as I had before. This is a new paradigm. A new way of thinking. Time for change and all that – but with me it was business as usual with the same old same ol’.

“No.Internet.For.You.” I/she(it) scolded. “That.Means.No.Blogging.”

(I know how to punish myself, I do.)

“OK” I thought, “I’ll just blog about it the next day. It doesn’t matter.”

Forgive and forget, they say.

I’ve forgiven myself for yesterday now, and everything is rosy and back to normal. New starts do that. Blank canvases do that also. I haven’t forgiven Mrs Blotts, however. No way. Bullies have no place in society and need reminding every now and then just how their actions can have a lasting affect on those who they targeted. Even if the bully ‘turns over a new leaf’. Even if the bully befriends their victim, and they eventually become the best of friends, they were cruel in their actions at the time and that needs to remain on their consciences. I don’t care how they feel about that. They did it. Live.With.It.

Ah.

New Years.

Blank Canvases.

Hehehe.

That brings me to my point of this rather pointless whiney post. I have a blank canvas.

Well… it’s blank for now. That can only mean one thing – yes! I’m feeling that ol’ paintin’ pull. I shall be focussing all of those negative memories from yesteryear and painting them out once and for all. I’m going to create some abstract pieces. Negativity morphed into powerful and positive images that probably won’t make much sense (pretty much like the majority of my blog posts, thinking about it!) but a way to release those bottled up feelings and move on.

It’s time to leave some of the past behind… although that might mean I may have to channel a few more of those bozos through my blog posts to get things started.

Ah well. I’ll keep things positive. It’s the best way to be.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let’s Feel Good during 2018.

This is my blank canvas… it’s only small but EXTREMELY powerful…

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Strange things can happen at any time…

Another blast from the past, this one, and fortunately a blast not caused by 2012 BX34. 2012 BX34? What’s 2012 BX34? You may well ask. Read on, and you may stumble across the answer…

Oh, and by the way… wording in italics have been added since the post was written back in 2012. It would appear very dated without the additions.

Who would’ve thought something from 2012 as ‘dated’?

———————

The date: 27th January 2012. I remember it like it was yesterday.

The time: 01.28am That is important.

The place: Cheshire, North West England.

<Clickerty Clack…Clackerty Click> (Imagine the sound of typewriters)
<OoOOOoooOoOOOOoooOOOh> (Imagine eerie sounding music)
(I’ve just realised those sound effects also look like a train, but never mind) I never managed to get sound effects to appear right in my posts.

I was fast asleep in bed. I’d gone to bed at around 11.30pm (or thereabouts) and was so tired, I think that I drifted off to the land of nod straight away. I wanted a good night’s sleep as I had to get up very early the following morning as I had to run quite a few errands before starting work.

At 1.28 something woke me suddenly. I looked at the time – I have a clock beside by bed where I press a button, and the time is beamed across my ceiling in great big bold red figures. The date and the temperature is also there too, but I was only interested in the time at that time.

As soon as I knew the time, I realised what it was that woke me. A smell. A strong smell. A very strong smell. A very strong burning smell. A very strong burning metal smell. A close very strong burning metal smell. A very close very strong burning metal smell.

I have a radiator next to my bed – well, actually over on the other side of the Bedroom – on the opposite side to where the clock is. I touched it, in case it was that creating this strange odour that had aroused me from my slumber. It wasn’t.

I got up, and investigated all of the other rooms in the Mansion, and there was nothing to be found anywhere.

Someone earlier in the day had been doing some work with a circular saw in the Grinds at the back of the Mansion (I know, everything seems to go on back there!), so I looked out of the window, to see if they were perhaps now soldering something (yes, I know it seems unlikely that someone would be soldering something at 1.30 in the morning, but I had to look… The Grinds can be a hive of activity at times… It’s like those movies where the person hears a noise in the middle of the night and they have to go out and investigate it – only I just looked out of the window). There was nobody there.

I returned to bed, and the strong burning metal smell had vanished.

My alarm woke me at 6am. I got up, and walked out of the Bedroom, and across the vast Landing to the Bathroom (Yep, the very same Bathroom that occasionally develops a strange occurrence!). I had an extremely itchy right ear, for some reason. I had a quick bath and washed my hair (which did not look like it had when I went to bed the night before! And yes, my hair occasionally has strange occurrences as well!) but the itch remained. In the end, I had to itch it with a piece of tissue, which did stop the itch. But, on the tissue, there was blood. A tiny speck of blood, from inside of my ear.

I grabbed another tissue, and there was another speck of blood, not as much as the first time. I continued to get dressed, and as the itch had now gone, I set about thinking of the possible things that could have happened to me during the night.

Thing One.
I had been kidnapped by aliens, and subjected to tiny microscopic ear examinations whilst hurtling at super-speed around Sirius at 1.30 in the morning. With me being woken by the strong burning smell – which could have been sulphur (which, incidentally, is associated with extra-terrestrial activity) rather than burning metal. I could have been hypnotised into thinking that I was looking around the Mansion and out of the window, when in fact I was in a large white room with miniature probes stuck here, there and everywhere.

Thing Two.
I was dreaming. Which is possible, but I have never bled from the ear from a dream before.

Thing Three.
I hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens, and someone had been soldering in the Grinds, but they had been disturbed by the light from my clock when I checked the time, and put everything away before I looked out for them. They probably knew that I’d be checking the Mansion first.

Thing Four.
I hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens, or had been dreaming, but had been bitten inside my ear by some miniscule insect with a venomous bite that causes hallucinations at 1.30 in the morning.

Thing Five.
A tiny fragment of the latest asteroid to come within a hair’s breadth of the Earth (named 2012 BX34, it passed within about 60,000km of Earth – less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon at 4pm UK time today (This was 27th January 2012, remember!). Experts weren’t expecting any damage) had shot ahead of the rest of the asteroid. Instead of being burned up by the Earth’s atmosphere, it was super-charged, and shot into my Bedroom through one of the tiny gaps in the vents in the window. It then embedded itself inside my ear, where it did eventually burn up. And it was the smell of it burning that woke me up. And the burning itself!

Thing Six.
I hadn’t been kidnapped or hit by a passing asteroid shard or bitten by a venomous insect. No-one was soldering at 1.30 in the morning, and I wasn’t dreaming. I simply woke up because I couldn’t sleep, and then went back to sleep, thinking that I was investigating the Mansion. And, my terrible hair this morning was due to the tossing and turning as I tried to sleep, knowing that I had to get up early.

And, Thing Six-A.
The red speck on the tissue wasn’t blood, but a red speck on the tissue. However, as the tissues are plain white, this seems unlikely.

Whatever happened at 1.28 that morning is certainly a mystery. And, it looks as though I may have been thinking maybe a little too deeply into things as well… Me thinking too deeply? Moi???

———————

This post ended with me asking if you had noticed anything unusual at 01:28 on 27th January 2012, but it seems a little silly in keeping that line in now, after all these years. Although you MAY remember something – you never know…

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The Pinocchio Effect

Decades ago when I was just a wee boy, knee high to a grasshopper, and in total awe of everything that was around me, I made a monumental decision. OK, I wasn’t exactly knee high, getting on for eight, nine or possibly ten years old, and the awesomeness of some things had started to shine a little less brightly thanks to a few ‘others’ who really deserve not to be mentioned, but that’s by the by now – water under the bridge.

I was knee high to a grasshopper in my mind when my monumental decision was made.

I used to love evening television in those days. Doctor Who used to terrify me, and I was always pleased when it went off, but I still watched it. Scooby Doo and Goober and the Ghostchasers were my favourite cartoons at the time, Scooby still being up there now, although Goober seems to have faded away somewhat. And Friday night TV used to show Mind Your Language at 7pm followed by Space:1999. Mind Your Language was a sitcom about foreign adult students learning to speak English with hilarious and child-like results, and Space:1999 a sci-fi series about a colony of folk trapped on the Moon after it was forced, following nuclear explosions, out of Earth’s orbit and sent hurtling off into outer space. I think this is where my fondness of the Universe at large stems from – although some of those stories were quite frightening at the time. I always felt sad a little when this programme went off.

It was during Space:1999 that I worked out how old I would have been in 1999. Bearing in mind I was in my mind knee high to a grasshopper at the time, my 1999 age of [AGE REMOVED DUE TO THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT] made me seem ancient. It was years into the future, and there was no way, in my mind, that I could ever be that old. So, in that instant I decided I would never age. Never grow up.

Obviously, time had other ideas. Days came and went, and with them I aged. I wasn’t unique. I didn’t stay knee high to a grasshopper. I became tall, gangly, lanky, spotty, introverted, awkward, spottier, less tall, wider, more awkward, clumsy, less spotty (at last!) and finally more rounded (in more than one sense). And through all of those stages, I aged. Year after year my body did what bodies do everywhere. I reached [AGE REMOVED DUE TO THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT] and I decided enough was enough. I was going to stay at that age no matter what. When asked how old I was, the age [AGE REMOVED DUE TO THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT] would just spill out of my mouth, even though I looked older. Puzzled faces looked back at me, but I couldn’t see why they thought it was so strange I was as old as I said I was. It was my age.

That age has since doubled, and I can no longer use it. I’m still growing. I had lived my life as Pinocchio.

Inner Librarian: You’ve got that wrong.
Me: No, I haven’t. That’s the story of my life so far, without events.
Inner Librarian: Yes, I know, but you’ve still got it wrong. You’re referring to the Pinocchio Effect, which is about lies and untruths. You should be referring to the Peter Pan Effect, which is about the boy who never grew up.
Me: Oh. But I have been lying about my age, and I have grown up, so the Peter Pan Effect doesn’t fit. The Pinocchio Effect doesn’t really fit either, as Pinocchio was a wooden boy, and I’m not wooden.
Inner Librarian: …
Thomasina (Inner Woman): I think he’s referring to your dancing. Have you seen yourself dance?
Me: Oh, so you’re all ganging up on me now, are you? Fine.
Fingers (Inner Typist): Nto lal of su.
Me: Well that’s good. And I’m a fabulous dancer. And I have great hair as well. There. Is that good enough for the Pinocchio Effect???
Inner Librarian: And the Peter Pan one.
Me: Whatever. Sometimes I wish there was a Jack and Jill Effect so I could lead you all out of my head.
Fingers: Lal of su?
Inner Librarian: And you now mean the Pied Piper Effect. The Jack and Jill Effect is about ups and downs.
Me: Yes. And I know what I mean. I think. Anyway, I’m Piscean.
Inner Libran: What has that got to do with things?
Inner Librarian: I was thinking the very same thing.
Me: Seeing opposites. Being dreamy. Being creative.
Inner Libran: Did you know that Albert Einstein was a Piscean?
Me: Was he?
Thomasina: Of course you knew that. You have his hair.
Fingers: OLO!
Me: I. DO. NOT.
Inner Libran: And he was creative.
Inner Librarian: And a good thinker.
Fingers: Oyu tned to oervnithk tnihsg.
Me: Sigh. I can’t win. Anywya, (FINGERS!) all of you Inners – stop spoiling my post! Go. Get out of my head. GO!!!

Right. Sorry about that: back on track now. What I was trying to say, before being so rudely side-lined there, is that lying about your age doesn’t really work. I’ve spent years being [AGE REMOVED DUE TO THE PINOCCHIO / PETER PAN / JACK AND JILL / PIED PIPER / HUMPTY FLIPPIN’ DUMPTY EFFECT] when in reality I was growing and ageing all along. I’m now almost the same time this side of 1999 as I was when I first made my monumental decision. My mind, however, has always stayed young. That, I think, has never properly grown up. Sometimes I’m still knee high to a grasshopper.

Sometimes, I still see everything around me and I’m in awe of it.
Sometimes, I make things up. I live in a make believe world, where everything and everyone is just so. Just so what is difficult to explain, apart from being pleasant. Yes, it’s made up. I’m aware that the world isn’t as pleasant as I imagine it to be, but putting the two worlds together it really isn’t that bad. I suppose it’s like growing up without focussing on the events, or staying put in a time that just Feels Good.

Sometimes I’m still knee high to a grasshopper, but a little wiser. Not as wise as Albert Einstein, or a wisened Doctor, or Captain Koenig in Space:1999, but wiser just the same.

I’m just me. With flaws, likes and dislikes just like the rest of us. I’m at an age where being at my age should really be reflected outwards, but it isn’t. Not all the time.

And my Inner Child is loving it.

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Memories

Like clouds they appear, gently at times, urgently at others, jolting us from our daydream existence. Thoughts of yesteryear, yesterday, this morning… what ifs and what could bes… whys and hows… remember thems and remember whens. Teardrops fill laughter lines, hearts beat sometimes faster, sometimes heavier. Answers are gleamed. Questions raised. Blanks are filled, names are remembered. Schooldays. Away days. Even boring rainy days. Unfinished plans… realised dreams… successful outcomes paired with future goals.

Old friends, one-time friends, zany friends, and strangers with familiar faces.

Places. Favourite places. First-time places. Pass-through places. Meant to go places. Even scary places.

Glances. Secrets. Wishful thoughts and hidden regrets. Happy moments. Cherished moments. Wished I’d bottled them moments.

Cheerful hellos… tearful farewells.

Missed opportunities and moments grabbed.

Flavours. Scents. Sounds. Sights. Sensations. Vibrations. Imagination! Exhilaration!!

What ifs and what could bes…

Blanks are filled. Teardrops fill laughter lines.

Happy moments.

My moments.

Memories.

Even boring rainy days.

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Island of Dreams

The Land of Nod beckoned. Stars shone brightly in an almost clear and endless sky, each one representing someone’s dream; someone’s hope. The island sparkled in the starlight, frozen on the horizon, frozen in time. The Land of Nod. Eternal gateway to the Realm of Dreams, accessed only occasionally by souls travelling as their host bodies slept. Some remember their visits there, trying to revisit as often as they can. Others merely recall snippets… snapshots… fragmented memories and out of order recollections of a magnificent surreal reality. The icy waters lap the shoreline, gently ebbing and flowing, gently passing the time and gently reflecting both the wonder and the fluid nature of the imagination.