overlap

Now the dazzle dust is starting to settle, one of the other things I need to get to grips with is re-establishing some sort of sparkly balance. What started out as a distraction, a coping mechanism, a brief detour into fantasy or just a very short holiday from being me has now been fully absorbed into simply being part of me. See all those names in the links column on the lower right? They and their non-blogging sparkly friends share credit for the latter stages of this, and there's a much better than even chance that includes you, dear reader, as well. I could document all the phases it's taken to get here, but I think it's more helpful just to work out where here is; there's something about the process of pampering myself that has a comforting, restorative effect, and it's partly that it's the next step up beyond the return to zero of cleaning my hands of bike grease and rubber dust, for example. The right-here-in-the-great-wide-open nature of all my sparkly interests in various places on the web has been its own proof of the way it has gradually moved from a subject once treble-padlocked and buried under fourteen carpets in the bottom of a locked wardrobe in a secret room to just being something that is. And yes, I know I probably should use 'closet' rather than 'wardrobe' in this case, but I don't have the heart. If you walked into my living room now you'd see my collection of nail varnish on a shelf above the telly, and you'd see other stuff without looking very hard. I'm not hiding any more. But it's not a label I want to limit myself to, any more than I want to introduce myself to people by saying 'hello, my name's Martin and I'm left-handed'. It's a personal issue that remains my own business, but it's not so top secret I'm completely paranoid about it any more. And after all the recent attention, time and emotion I've put into that aspect of me, it's important right now just to leave it alone and get on with some of the other parts of my life. On which note, guess where I'm going to be on sunday? With nothing more than normal commuting miles in my legs and no specific training whatsoever, the use of the capitalised 'Mountain' and word 'gruelling' are something I'm really pleased to see! But sixty miles and 1200m of height gain on the way is nothing, right?