I don't even know I'm doing it 10/07/06

After the previous day's running around I was truly knackered on the Monday morning. Pushed myself to go swimming though and became incensed by the amount of hapless twats who kept getting in my way (see Rants). Tuesday was the first semi final of the World Cup between Germany vs Italy and I sat down with my bro to enjoy it. Both teams played really well and although I wanted Germany to proceed Italy did play better and did deserve the victory. I'd also bought the fourth series of Quantum Leap on DVD and we watched the first episode which had Sam and Al swapping places. It's good to know that I've got a good few episodes to chug through when there is little on telly.

Should have gone to the gym on Wednesday but en route decided that it was pointless trying to make a concerted effort to watch the World Cup and then miss the second semi final. Besides I wasn't that fussed about the weigh in after that disappointing 1/2lb loss after two weeks. The match, as is always the case when you make a special effort to watch a sporting event, didn't deliver though at least the French went through and the Portuguese revealed themselves to be even more dirty, cheating, diving bastards than when they were playing us.

I downloaded a couple of state of trance's for the nano which I was pleased about on Thursday. It was quiet at work and I looked around the blog world for something interesting to read. I had over the course of the week sent some messages to some blogs that I found entertaining. Not crappy 'love your site' ones but reasonably well constructed, complimentary ones. I confess to being really disappointed by the lack of response. I know people will say that they are probably busy but it does make me wonder what point you have to reach in the evolution or maintenance of your blog when you simply can't be bothered to respond to complimentary comments from new readers to your blog. I had also had a mooch round myspace and similarly found a couple of girls that looked nice with interesting profiles. I sent them all messages, again ones that I thought were funny and highlighted points they had mentioned in their profiles. I do try to rise above the standard 'Hi sexy, wanna be my friend' pap. Again the response was cool. Ok I wasn't expecting marriage or lasting friendship but there is a contentment when you have sent 'out there' about six or seven messages and think well maybe there are a few irons in the fire out there. In reality there weren't and making a connection on the internet world can at times be just as hard as the real world. At the moment the lovely Amy from myspace and J from Finding Fruitcake are the only people reminding that there are some genuinely nice people out there. My new t-shirt that one of my colleagues had got me arrived and fit better than the rather snug one that came last week. Is says 'Pardon Moi' on the front and 'I don't even know I'm doing it' on the back. I look forward to wearing it soon.

Friday was the time of the weigh in for the diet. To be honest I'd lost heart in the competition for the final two weeks after that miserable 1/2 lb loss. I'd still been trying to cut back a little but a gradually increasing return of hunger and less attendance of the gym spelt doom I thought. Amazingly I'd lost another 4 lbs. I know this isn't very much but considering I've not really been 'giving it some' I was astonished and, if anything, a little frustrated that I'd not tried harder for the last two weeks.

Looking through some more random blogs on blogexplosion I came across this one site on Friday morning that just blew me away. Rather than explain how good it was I'll just copy in the email that I wrote them after avidly reading it for most of the morning.

"Hi Guys
I copied this to both of you as it’s both of you that I want to address. I hope you won’t think me rude for duplicating the same message.

I’ve been flicking through an assortment of blogs over the last few weeks. It generates credits on blog explosion which I can then use to enter ‘battle of the blogs’. It’s a poor way to get my blog, and more importantly my site, noticed particularly as I seem to get beaten and few seem to actually visit either.

I confess to wading through a host of banal and yawn inducing blogs ranging from over political stuff to heavy religion and IT tedium. Even the personal blogs I’ve encountered seem shallow, light in content and vain. You read a blog to try and get inside the head of a person but unless they offer up something genuine or sincere it’s really hard to care or take an interest in them. I try to keep my own rambles intimate and personal to reward the reader and use as a cathartic device but have become disillusioned at many of the other sites that I’ve seen.

I then found yours and have been hooked. Others have commented on and thus I’m sure you are already aware of your impeccable word craft. Creative, imaginative and enticing to read. It’s very quality humbles me into thinking that my content suddenly looks very shabby in comparison. Being good writers is one thing (and its amazing that two kindred spirits would both be so good) but it’s the subject matter that lifts it above anything else that I’ve read.

You are both so open, so sincere and so able to articulate exactly what you are feeling that I’ve devoured your words like a starving man. I’ve read and been truly touched by mojo’s unease at the airport, the blowing out of his attendance at the wedding, the beautiful time in the tent, when mojo sang the song in your bedroom and you lay on the bed together, your visit to the church and other pieces of your lives and recollections. Some of the pieces were written with the kind of passion, intimacy and love that only others can dream of decorating their so called ‘personal’ blogs with.

The power of good writing is to be able to affect emotion and the words and images you have created in my mind have truly affected my mood today. It’s made me quietly reflective, evoked memories of childhood crushes and reminded me of the wish that I could one day truly experience, even for a short period of time, what it is that both of you have.

You could say that the blog world was like the real world. You search through a sea of dross, you

begin to become disillusioned that you will never find that spark or that nugget of gold and then when you least expect it you stumble across something that for a time genuinely touches your soul. Your descriptions and mood setting have almost reminded me of the way that Stephen King could bring so many of his stories and characters to life. Naturally I don’t mean they have been horrifying but that he had the ability to weave scenes in my mind that seemed incredibly raw and possessed a lingering resonance that could be digested after reading like a fine wine.

Thank you for sharing your memories and articulating them so well, thank you for letting me into your hearts and letting me see through your eyes and experiences. A very average Friday has been illuminated by the radiance of your writing and thoughts. I’ve blogmarked your site and will look forward to taking another deep, immersive look round one day soon.

ps Although I’ve emailed this to you I’m happy to post this up as a comment on your site if you would like others to see the credit that I think you both so richly deserve."

For those that might be interested the you can peruse this wonder at http://mojoshivers.blogspot.com/

With the diet over and the fact that our only female colleague had been on holiday all week we decided to continue the 'man town' feeling with a hearty hot lunch. Pastie, beans, buttered rolls and chips. Man I love a hot lunch. The five of us then sat around munching, talking about university days for those that went and letting out the odd burp now and again. We weren't busy and it was nice to chill, chat and let the food go down. Headed out that night with my mate. I was wearing my new t-shirt which staggeringly elicited a response from a girl and her three mates. She asked that bearing in mind what the back of it said and as I had my hand in my pocket whilst chatting to my mate whether I was having a crafty wank. I admired her balls in approaching and we got chatting to her friends who then wanted to head downstairs. The girl who'd made the approach was happy to stay but her friends did the normal girl thing of hanging around and saying ' ok we're heading downstairs now' & 'ok we are going to take the drink downstairs with us'. I don't know if they thought we would bash her over the head and bundle her out to a waiting car but either way she disappeared downstairs.

Mate and I continued chatting for another half an hour or so before heading down. It sounds like we were playing hard to get, which we weren't. It's just that downstairs is pretty much the dancefloor and my friend needs a bit more drink in him before he'll consider dancing. Unlike myself who will dance sober. The girls were nowhere to be seen and a trip to the toilet later found them chatting with a bunch of guys. We weren't necessarily disappointed. They looked nice and friendly and it would have been fun to spend the evening in the club with them but c'est la vie. My friend got ignored at the bar for an age which really pissed him off and caused him to miss "why do you fill me up buttercup" which is normally his subliminal trigger to attack the dance floor regardless of state of inebriation. His theory is that he was too good looking to get served and that the staff ignored him out of envy. Although light hearted it does have some merit I think.

We headed back upstairs for the final twenty minutes and took a seat next to one of the four who had originally chatted to us. Her feet were hurting and my mate relayed his theory to her on his lack of service. Her friends came back upstairs and the girl who had originally approached me came over and perched on the arm of the chair with her arm around me. I was quite surprised that they'd all come back upstairs without men in tow. We had a brief chat, she kissed me on both cheeks and disappeared with her friends to get her cab. Drove past the tea hut and was up for a pit stop but the queue was madness and thus we passed, which was a shame. Ok we didn't 'score' per se but it was great to receive the confidence boost that someone would come over to say hi. When you see it happen and how gracious we were in chatting back it foolishly makes you think 'yeah everyone is like this, maybe it isn't so hard for me to chat to women in a bar'. I know that in all likelihood I would be cut dead if I tried it.

Glorious lay in, felt like it had been an age since having one. Had a damn good session in the gym with was helped immeasurably by having those 'state of trance's' on my nano. Decided against doing the rowing as it was this exercise that I feared was causing the post gym knee ache. Great to get down to the trance though and a couple of times I had to discreetly punch out a finger in time with the beat when a breakdown reached an exploding crescendo. Headed out with a friend that night to a new bar we'd discovered. The female quotient was high and there were some nice looking girls although a lot of them knew they were good looking. I continued to survey the scene and felt quite relaxed in my pink linen shirt with that feel good, post gym vibe. I spotted two very nice girls who sat down very close to us. They were both similarly dressed in jeans and black tops, tall, slim, brunette and one was a clear winner for me with the requisite curves. She seemed incapable of smiling mind you and was certainly giving out miserable and 'fuck off' vibes.

Mate went to the bar and as on the previous night took an eternity to be served. He came back frustrated again and I endeavoured to lighten his mood by recounting the joy I'd had when cleaning the office toilet on Friday night including having to wipe round the seat and sweep away the pubic hair and arse crumbs that seemed to collect by the hinge of the seat. This had him practically pissing himself with laughter and it's amazing how from being invisible to everyone, now that we were creating independent humour people started to notice. I saw that the misery had been to the bar and also took ages to be served. She returned to her mate and I noticed a smile crack across her face, which was nice. She knew I was looking and buoyed by the confidence of the girls talking to us the previous evening felt like I could make a move and instigate a conversation. It would have been risky as they were sitting down and giving off cold vibes but I thought my mates theory would have some weight with her. Needless to say I never have a problem getting served! My mate said that he could see in my eyes that I was surprisingly ready to make a move and as I went through the final contemplation process, two women to our left suddenly started talking to us. We naturally responded and after ten minutes the two girls sitting down got up and moved off. Whether in a huff I don't know but I didn't see them again that night which was frustrating as I really fancied one of them.

We seemed to partner off and the one I was talking to certainly seemed more intelligent, interesting and nicer. There was no physical attraction and I'm sure the feeling was mutual but it was nice to talk about her travelling experiences. The other one was a lot shallower and self centred and kept attempting to close her gaping top (she wasn't blessed so I wasn't that excited) as a way of garnering further attention. It's funny but the fact they had approached us and I wasn't head over heels attracted meant I wasn't trying hard to impress and thus could be a little more piss takey, which they seemed to lap up. It sounds arrogant but I think they were surprised by our indifference. They were debating whether to go downstairs and I think were waiting for us to decide for them. I was relaxed and would have been happy if they had headed downstairs so I could use the confidence they'd given me to go and source out the two miseries. Whether they would have thought I was being a 'player' I don't know but hopefully with their grandstand seats they would have seen that it was the two women that made the first move on us.

They ummed and ahhed a little more and then invited us back to theirs. I was really surprised. Maybe it's the confidence of the older woman but I almost wanted to say 'are you sure, you don't know us from Adam yet you want to let us into your home'. We walked back to the car and then drove to the woman I'd been talking to house. We chatted over a cup of tea and some nibbles and the shallower one, who was desperate to hold court, wanted to head home. She did make me laugh when she talked about pole dancing and how she'd had classes. She'd start doing a little and then stop. I almost wanted to say ' I'm enjoying the company but really please don't assume that just because I'm a bloke that I'm attracted to you or are gagging for it'. I ran her home along with my mate, which again was surprising that she was so trusting and then dropped my mate off.

Sunday was very lazy. Washing, tidying up etc. Watched a DVD of the 2002 superbike championship. This was one of the best ever that raged between Troy Bayliss and Colin Edwards and actually went down to the very last race. Incredible racing. Watched the World Cup final that night with my bro which was a little disappointing. I had wanted Italy to win, which they did, but they didn't play in the same way they had against Germany and it was a slow paced and very defensive game from Italy. Zinedine Zidane did a crazy headbutt which certainly added some drama and resulted in him being sent off. Had difficulty sleeping because of the mugginess but found my mind returning to the blog that I'd read on Friday. It had reminded me of those feelings of love etc and I gave thought to how much I would like to experience them again soon.