overlap

I know I keep coming back to it, and I don't expect that's over yet, but my latest take on the last few weeks goes something like this... Over the couple of years where GUsparkliness has become an increasingly important part of my life, my rate of sparkly development has steepened. Over the isolation of the previous couple of decades, everything moved in a very gradual way, punctuated with the occasional moment of revelation within relationships. When that did happen within relationships, it often had the effect of a dam bursting; with all the secrecy involved, it has frequently been a case of going from something pushed deep into the background to something that was suddenly in the spotlight. And having finally got it there (for however long that might last) it was natural enough to want to make the most of that opportunity, and usually to the detriment of other aspects of the relationship. Eventually that flood would subside, usually having taken something of the relationship with it, and the relationship would find its own end in its own time, and I'd be back not quite where I started but with an increased openness threshold. Fast forward through a couple of years of discussion, of watershed moments of meeting people for the first and further times, and gradually feeling I was getting to know some of them, of increased comfort levels with both the subject and the issue. I'm happier and more comfortable with my particular -ism than I've ever been, and the role of GUsparkliness in getting to that point is impossible to overstate. I mean, until I stumbled into blogging there was practically nowhere else I ever discussed it, in any aspect. With all the build up to the day itself, and certain preparatory targeted shopping and so on, for the first time ever I may have found the damburst effect swamping me as well. I can only say this in hindsight, but I put so much time and emotion into making sure I felt comfortable enough to go through with it, there maybe wasn't much of the rest of me left. It would explain a certain amount of thousand yard stare on the day, which I'm sure was easily observable, and what followed over the rest of the week. It's been a very long time since I cried quite like that, and I couldn't even give you a particular reason why, beyond the whole intensity of how I felt. Seeing larger threads being culled that week, I went back while I still could to check how graceless an exit I'd made, and found loads of lovely goodbye-for-now wishes, which set me off again. My relationship with the communal GUsparkliness as a whole, though it naturally varies with different individuals, is very important to me, and it worried me immensely that I might jeopardise any of that. Relationships come and go, but this has become so much more important, and that's why I felt that taking a step or six back was the right thing to do at the time, so I could just get on with it and step away from worrying about the risk of alienating people (see information damburst theory). I've had email conversations with several people since, and I'm very happy to do so, but to force the post-Savoy coping subject on people feels like an imposition that nobody else signed up for. And if anyone feels that's what I've done (and I can think of people who'd be perfectly justified in feeling that), then I'm very sorry - I just hope that I managed to stop that before it got too out of hand. Everything's quite a bit clearer now and I'm a lot happier about the whole subject, but if you wondered where I've been and why, well, I guess this is a reasonable summary of the story so far. As for finding my way back, well, I've made the occasional visit back, but I really don't need to put myself or anyone else through all this again, so I'll be hanging around in the shallow end for a while yet.

I've found a couple of great pictures of where I rode the other weekend. In both, I was riding from the bottom right of the picture, into the hairpin. In the first picture that's going uphill (to the level of the skyline behind the hairpin), and in the second it's going downhill, somewhere in the mid-30s mph. Uphill and downhill, on the brakes! And in august it'll almost certainly be this for added quadriceps bashing. I don't have the time available in the meantime to train properly, and having done the better part of a twice as hilly 65 miles on commuting and base fitness alone, why not push my luck? What's the worst than can happen?

Never let it be said that I'm unable to tell a story which shows me in a less than flattering light...

This story begins somewhere in continental Europe. Existing on not a huge budget, I was being visited by Significant Other at the wrong end of the pay month and so hadn't been getting a fully balanced regimen of sleeping and eating, having already had to spend money travelling to fetch SO from an airport several hours away and so on. On the morning in question, SO was about to return to the UK, and being a great big soft git, I figured that having my ears pierced while SO was there after only, ooh, I dunno, eight years of having made the decision and not done the deed was the way forward.

Stud one, straight in, no problem.

Stud two, however, failed to go straight in to the back, and there was a bit of thud that I felt.

What followed belongs firmly under the heading you couldn't make it up...

I'd been told to get whatever solution they recommended (and stocked) for the purposes of keeping the freshly pierced holes clean. As I moved across the shop, I realised I was becoming unsteady on my feet and felt a little rise in my temperature, and attempted to leave the shop to get some fresh air. I recall seeing where I was placing my hand on the handle of the shop door, and at that point my sight started going.

Still on auto-pilot, I opened the door and the vague blurry outline of a couple walking towards me registered on my retinas, but to no effect, and I walked straight into them. Remember this is an old-style jeweller's shop, where the door is a matter of metres back from the pavement, up a sort of channel between plate glass display windows.

I hit the guy of the couple with my shoulder, pivoting around his shoulder, smacking my head into the window glass and falling on the floor. One helpful chap who stopped suggested I now had a stud in an acupuncture point, and that probably didn't help, and undoubtedly my less than 100% physical condition wasn't a great contribution to my wellbeing either.

Non-local-language-speaking SO was petrified at losing all spoken interface with people via me, and couldn't do much but stand and watch and wait and worry. One ambulance ride to hospital later, I was sat with a saline drip in my arm, and faced with someone who now had to make an immediate decision on a rush to the airport in a taxi to make the flight home.

Offered the choice between the reassurance of familiar company and not, still being a great big soft git I suggested the flight be missed and we'd worry about it later.

The mother of SO (who at this stage was barely 17) was rather unimpressed to hear how the flight had been missed, when a friend of mine (see 'Fiends Reunited', several posts below) made the call to share the news.

The flights had been booked under some sort of cheap ticket deal where there was no prospect of refund or rescheduling on offer, and neither of us was up to arguing the toss.

Which left no choice but the long overland train ride, and having been offered a ticket for the next train due, I took the decision that there was no rush and waiting for the first train the following day would be plenty good enough. In so doing I avoided a very dangerous scenario – that next train was scheduled to arrive at the international platform of London Victoria at about the same time that the international platform of London Victoria was subject to a little, er, wholesale redesign and disruption on the part of some people who may or may not have some connection on the other side of the Irish Sea.

The downside of that was that what should have been a one hour train ride from Dover and a two hour onwards journey from London turned into a seven hour plus mystery tour of south east England as train services around London were disrupted somewhat.

Obviously I've graduated to a far greater scale of sparkly vanity in the many years since, but I've yet to repeat a single incident with quite such an expensive or potentially significant set of consequences. Until the Savoy, I suppose, now I come to think about it. Then again, the day I had a chat with a couple of nice policeman threatened to get exceptionally interesting for a moment or two, but this is more than enough story for one day.

It's a rare event that I spend a whole weekend at home - I reckon it happens maybe five times a year. So far I've got rid of my glass-for-recycling collection, put some surplus clothes in the way of some charity that has better use for them than I, and rewarded myself for my selfless generosity with a new glass vase and some flowers. I've done some essential bike maintenance but I've got plenty more to do on that score, I've mended my collection of punctured inner tubes to replenish my stock of spares for commuting with and filled another binbag full of rubbish for disposal. I've shredded a load of bits of paper, and I collected my altered jacket from the local seamstress, and I'm very happy with the job she's done. I've caught up with my outstanding laundry, and there was still time for a sparkly saturday night in with a lovely pizza and not too much wine. *** Sparkly tip of the day - L'Oreal Elvive Body Boost Shampoo for non-stop volume really does what it says, despite the horrors of the 'because you're worth it' experience. This must be how real people live, and I can't go on spending every weekend driving up and down the country forever, so maybe I'll settle down into domestic normality yet!

Today I had email from Friends Reunited from one of my few friends from university days. In response to an email I sent when I first found him listed on there a good three or possibly four years ago. Naturally I now need to spend money to be able to reply, but I got paid today and I'm bound to do so. Why is this amusing? Well despite sending out a few emails a few years ago and meeting up with a couple of people from my past, I kinda left all that behind after the big 2002 FR-upheaval, and it's cheered me immensely to suddenly get an email today. I've been briefly in touch with a couple of university era people, but there were reasons we didn't really stay in touch in the first place. The other day I found where I'd saved the ear-piercing story so I didn't have to type it out again, and this email is from the chap who had to make the phone call to share the news. And so of course I'm now bound to add the ear-piercing story here too, though it's on my work PC so won't appear here for another couple of days. Nostalgia - it's nearly as good as it used to be.

The past ten days have been an interesting period of reflection, and it's not over yet.

The whole big day out at the Savoy was something that took quite a lot of working up to, and while I pulled off the working up bit, I either didn't have the time, or the energy, or the capacity to think about what might follow. Possibly inevitable, but hindsight's a wonderful thing!

Despite whatever planning, the day itself took more out of me than I could have imagined, and on a few different levels, and it took me a few days to get back to feeling like myself - one of the things I have realised is the degree to which I've become reliant on the lovely GUsparklyfolk, and how close I've come to more than pushing my luck and certain people's friendship.

I don't feel especially good about this, or indeed about myself because really I'm old enough that I ought to know better.

I know what happened, and how, and for the future the best I can do is ensure I learn from the experience and don't repeat the mistake. And until I can realign that with reducing my emotional reliance on the lovely GUsparklyfolk a little, I need to leave them a bit of room and keep out from under their feet, which is why I'm not rushing back there immediately.

This is a conversation I'm happy to pursue, via email or via the comments field, but I'm in something of a cleft stick - especially where the problem is the extreme of specific over-communicating, as I know too well that it can be. Further explanation feels like repeating the same thing I'm trying to make amends for, so at the risk of making it look like I'm not bothered I guess I have no choice but to let the dust settle for now.

The final results have been published, and while it's not entirely conclusive, I've got a better picture now of how well I did relative to the other riders even though not everybody was individually timed.

There were two routes, of which I did the shorter, the longer one equates to a moderate Tour de France stage. I'm assuming almost all those who went for the longer one chose to have an individual time recorded, being pretty serious riders, and they number 220-odd, so I think it's safe to say that with a total field of 750, my final place of 36th is out of around 500.

Which is remarkable considering I've only done two rides of more than ten miles so far this year! While I wouldn't have wanted to repeat it the following day, I do feel rather pleased with that :-)

I completed the 100km + 1280m height gain, and had far less difficulty than I was prepared for. Total ride time under four hours, and if it hadn't been for a puncture with 7 or 8 miles to go, I'd have been quicker still. So I reached the finish mostly hacked off about a puncture while I'd been feeling pretty good and was still moving well. And then I checked the big screen at the finish and found that I was in the top forty finishers (out of 750, though not all were doing exactly the same ride), which was a remarkably pleasant surprise on commuting fitness alone!
This is the second big hill.
This is further up the same hill - if you look at the skyline directly above the car in the distance, that's where the road leads. Eventually.
And this is the long leg into the hairpin bend over that piece of skyline - one of the five biggest road hills in Wales and there was another of those five still to come!
But what goes up must come down - this a lovely sweeping descent where my local knowledge meant I could catch and overtake a few people :-) No more pictures, but I rather think it gives you something of a feel for the important features of the landscape!

Yeah, the succession of I've just washed my hands and here's how it reflects on the day my pencil case got stolen when I was seven text-heavy posts must be a laugh a minute, I'm sure. So I'll try to keep this brief. I've just racked up another minor sparkly first, by taking the new jacket into the local seamstress' shop and inviting her to join in the pretence that there is some mythical she in my life, whose instructions are to remove the excess shoulder padding. Having taken shoulder pads out of jackets before, and managed to repair the lining in a suitably tidy way afterwards, there's a bigger step in getting someone else to do it rather than doing it on my own, than in the work itself. Especially having negotiated the conversation with the seamstress who advised strongly against doing so. The jacket wasn't expensive, and with the pads in there at the moment it looks strangely misshapen on me, and I'm confident my non-standard-female-pattern shoulders will adequately fill the resulting completely destroyed shapeless jacket (her words) that I'll collect next week. And if not, well, worse things happen and I won't lose any sleep over it. The day when I walk in there and ask for a couple of darts to be put in my dress, because I don't like the way it hangs around my waist is still some way off, however!

You may recall the sparkly clear-out posts from a little while back. This is the excess or not really suited to me or, er, the long past the throw in the bin due to being many years outside any sensible useability section of the make up I've accumulated over the past cough years. By now it should be well on the way to making a landfill site that little bit more sparkly, and even if I'm not telling you which item it is, I can say the oldest thing there is at least a decade old, and it's not on its own in that by any means. This is not something to be especially proud of, but finally getting shot of the stuff I can't or shouldn't use definitely is. My thanks to the catalyst for the exercise are well-deserved, and heartily expressed. I possibly could have done it without you, but almost certainly would not have. I do appreciate your help.

Labels: make up

It's been put to me by more than one person recently that the way I live must be lonely, or words to that effect, and I wanted to clarify how I see that.

I'm not a natural people person. I've always been an independent operator, it's an instinctive thing and I'm perfectly happy with my own company. I have a learned history of expecting people to let me down, and I find it hard to ask for help in anything, unless from someone I feel I know very well.

It means I have a habit of preferring to sort things out for myself rather than get someone else involved, and if I know what information I need and roughly where to find it, I'm happier doing that and knowing where I stand than relying on someone else. Now while this makes me good at the working things out elements of how I earn my living, it's also a good example of the problem I have when it comes to letting people in.

I know it's a problem. I'm not expecting the world to change for me.

But I also know it's a problem that's gradually becoming less of one, as I have the full historical context to measure now against. And what I like about the fact I don't have loads of people who know vast amounts of my history is that I get a better face value hearing. It's healthier for me to be challenged for what I still can't quite do than to pay too much attention to what I used to be unable to do but now can, even if it's occasionally slightly frustrating too.

I've already wasted too much time and too many tears over the pursuit of some idealised total communication relationship that may not be possible, and while I'd still love to feel someone truly knew me, I'm increasingly inclined to accept compromises in all sorts of areas I'd at one time have considered impossible.

And what it means? Well, I've already briefly suspended my exile to share my excitement at the new pink shoes, and for someone to whom sharing is not normal custom and practice, that is a healthy sign, if a minor one.

And I don't feel lonely, I feel happy that I have people I can share such things with. And I would like to share more, even if there is no switch to flick to just make it happen, however much I might wish. I'm trying.

If you're reading this then I've just pulled off a good example of how I earn my living. From my brief sojourn in the land of sparkly exile, it occurred to me that somewhere I'd seen an option which allows you to make blog postings via email, and since I'm currently on a multiple postings every twenty four hours kick, it seemed both an interesting idea and one that would be rather handy. Especially since one of the reasons why I'm never near a blog from the office PC is that little visit counter that tells the blog-owner exactly where the visitor came from, and the work/sparkliness divide is the one I'm still not keen to bridge in a trackable way.

So now I can post as things come to me instead of over-working them - it's a better stream of consciousness form of honesty than a six times re-read and heavily edited variant. I tried it out this morning before I left to check I understood how it worked, so it should be fine. But if you are reading this, could you leave me a quick comment to say so, please? That way I'll know that it did work a little sooner. Ta.

Last night instead of staying up too late as usual, I went to bed with Martin Eden. That is to say, I love Jack London's 1909 novel 'Martin Eden', and along with the Sillitoe short story which is bound to come up sooner or later, it's the closest thing I've ever found to a novel that for me feels personally autobiographical, as I relate to it strongly. And I have to share with you this passage from as early as the second page.

He was surrounded by the unknown, apprehensive of what might happen, ignorant of what he should do, aware that he walked and bore himself awkwardly, fearful that every attribute and power of him was similarly afflicted. He was keenly sensitive, hopelessly self-conscious, and the amused glance that the other stole privily at him over the top of the letter burned into him like a dagger-thrust. He saw the glance, but he gave no sign, for among the things he had learned was discipline. Also, that dagger-thrust went to his pride. He cursed himself for having come, and at the same time resolved that, happen what would, having come, he would carry it through.

Yes it's over-dramatic, but throttled back just a little it is curiously applicable to saturday, which makes me laugh no end. But you know the really funny thing, if I hadn't been in a dress, I'd have felt like that more and not less.

And the point? That even here, I'm reminded that I'm not that special, at least in the sense that I do share common feelings with others, and that I'd do well to remember that I don't operate in a parallel world but the same one as everyone else.

It seems that a cream top works pretty well. Good!

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?

It really shouldn't come as any surprise that such a major event might be followed by something of a comedown, but all the same I'm still knocked sideways by just how much it's taken out of me. So much of my life has been spent with different parts rarely overlapping, not deliberately but just because that's how things have turned out, though due to its nature the sparkly part is something that's always been a vigilantly separatist element. I could tell you all about the little boy I used to be, and it wouldn't help an awful lot. I could share my theorising as to why I turned out the way I am, and if you're really that interested then it's something I'll happily explore at a later date if prompted. I could tell you all sorts of stories about stupid and less stupid things I've done with my life, but none of that lot really matters right now. What I was reminded in the starkest terms at the weekend is that the many things which I've struggled to let go of are certain to end up holding me back if I can't cut them loose, and while I could explain the reassuring, sentimental background behind one or two pieces of the jewellery I was wearing, for example, the people behind it are gone and they're never coming back in the way they were when it really mattered. Yes, I'm equally cursed and blessed with a memory that goes far beyond the call of duty. And the little reminders that sneak out of nowhere often leave me with a tiny hint of a smile. I could tell you just how much better I am at not living in the past these days, and you'd still be entitled to tell me I've got some way to go. As things stand, I'm much more giving with technical or academic information than I am with personal information and feelings, and that memory and a knack for obscure nonsense means that's playing to my strengths. But it's not playing to my needs. One of the ways in which the digital information age suits me is that I can share both information and feelings at a distance, but the convenience is a double-edged sword that leaves me a little too much room for being selectively communicative rather than just jumping in and getting on with it. I've learned to deflect conversation away from where I don't want it to go, and it means I have little middle ground between saying absolutely nothing and endless gushing. And because of how long I've been doing it, it sometimes happens as an instinctive reaction where I'd really rather it didn't. One to one is an environment I'm far happier with than one to many - it takes me a long time to get to know people well enough to be my naturally communicative self. It's in there somewhere, no, really! I had some interesting chats with various people on saturday, including ones I'd not met before and given my rabbit-in-headlightsness at the whole thing, I'd say it went ok. The next things to work on are a) binning some of the excess baggage that still gets in the way sometimes and b) turning down or switching off some of those learned reactions. I do have plenty more to me than just my sparkly side, and while it's very important to me that that is finally blossoming, I can't rely on that alone if I'm to be a proper friend and fully reciprocate the acceptance and friendship I've been shown.

Well, that was quite a day. Started off with a brief walk in the sunshine to clear my head, returning to take my time over getting ready - the combination of rushing against time pressure and trembling nervous hands does not make for an effortless elegance and a flawless decorousness. Despite having failed to bring my favourite mascara, I managed to pull off a look I was happy with and just had time to knock back the limoncello that was thrust at me while the cab waited outside. As well as matching the bag and cardigan, the fabulous sparkly pink sunglasses I'd bought the day before provided me with both metaphorical and literal rose coloured glasses, and checking my make up in the cab made me feel a bit more like the uptight, high maintenance chick I really am! Getting out of the cab elegantly without showing too much leg just about worked, and there were a few reassuringly familiar faces, and new ones too, to greet me in the foyer. By the end of the first glass, all the moments where the what-the-holy-fuck-are-you-doing-ometer had threatened to go off the scale in the cab gradually faded away, to be replaced by a champagne-induced feeling of increased wellbeing. We got through quite a few champagne top-ups, for which we were later to be charged extra, and a nice mix of people I've met before and ones I'd not met allowed for pleasant conversation and I gradually got more comfortable with the situation - I've been comfortable being the woman I am for a long time, but that sort of environment was something entirely new. With the exception of the previous weekend's outfit assessment, this was only the third time I've had any sort of sparkly exposure to non-partners, and while it's true that I'm in the habit of finding excuses to drive to a post box across town, to use cash machines in less heavily populated and busy areas and so on and so forth, I just don't do around-people-sparkling. So going to such a swish venue on the special occasion of someone else's birthday was upping the ante big style. And then some. Even including the odd sideways glance, there was no hint of a problem, except perhaps for my knocking over a glass on my initial approach to the table, so definitely no harm done and the brown paper packages tied up with string was a nice touch from the birthday girl. So, a great time at the Savoy, and then we moved up the road a short distance for cocktails. A short walk, and we were in the lower light level basement of the cocktail bar, which suited me. Knowing we were moving on, I took the opportunity to change from the dress into a skirt and top - the dress is lovely, but I was feeling increasingly conscious of how short it is and so the skirt was a better option for feeling a little more relaxed. Despite sticking with water rather than going down the cocktails route, my good judgement in changing was balanced out by my decision to change into the higher shoes, and the result was that the few minutes walk to the final venue meant the thronging pedestrians walking towards me were faced with a 6'3" giant in a pink cardigan. But hell, what's the point in having fuckmeshoes if I never wear them anywhere? Over the course of a few more glasses of wine, I gradually reached the tipping point where I became a little more animated and communicative - it's always nice to be told by someone who's never met me before that I give the (true) impression of being comfortable dressed as I am. I also had a nice chat about what I might want to do with my hair in the not immediate term, which confirmed what I probably already thought, as well as a whole load of other bits of various conversation, some of which I'm sure to remember eventually. I have the distinct impression someone grabbed my bum in passing on the street outside as we worked out where we were going to get a cab, and the cab ride back was plenty quicker than the afternoon one. Getting through the front door came with a certain wow, I managed it! feeling of triumph and relief, and it's very difficult to distil what the whole thing means to me into a non-dissertation length quote or two. It would be remiss of me not to mention at least half a dozen people who made various elements of the whole experience do-able, and one or two who perhaps won't realise quite what difference they made, so without naming names, here's a big sparkly **thank**you** for all of them. I'm very pleased to call you my friends, and that's worth a great deal to me. Lifetime firsts of the weekend; * gin (yes, really) * champagne (nope, not that I can ever recall) * being drunk, or indeed drinking alcohol outside of the four walls of someone's home * being driven in a sports car with the top down And that's plenty to be going on with.

This isn't a fully formed set of thoughts, and I'll no doubt come back to it again. Something that came up today provides a good example of something important for me to explain - if you go digging deep enough in the essence of what makes me me, you'll come up against the issues of control and attention again and again. Attention bothers me in an entirely unrational way - if someone approaches me in the street and tries to give me something, I'm as liable to instinctively turn it down purely on the basis that I wasn't looking for it in the first place. The alternative is free stuff, but only where it's something I've seen going on from a distance and had time to form an opinion where I or anyone I know might want it, then my greedy side is unrestrained. But all of this comes down to the fact I just don't like talking to people. Specifically, I don't like talking to strangers. Not because Charlie says strangers are dangerous, not because I'm scared of anything, but simply because they get in my way. I've always hated making telephone calls to people I don't feel I know, and while I've learnt to be able to do it, it's not something I enjoy. I've never returned a faulty product to a shop, apart from twice, and one of those was only because it was for someone else. Anybody who's reading this is instantly excluded from that strangers category, and sure enough if you ask me a question I can answer, I can go on for hours and probably will unless stopped. But among the things I don't like is going into shops and having staff ask if they can help (Yes, get out of my way!) So it's no surprise that I much prefer supermarket shopping, where I can go on looking until I find what I'm looking for, and failing that move on to the next big place round the ring road until I find somewhere that's got it. Yes I'm familiar with the cliche about the gender divide when it comes to asking for directions, but it would be a mistake to read this as a pride issue. Unless I try to overcome it, or there's something in it for me, there's an instinctive reaction not to engage or not to join in that goes beyond the ego. People try not to hit their fingers with hammers because it can bloody hurt rather than because they are worried about being seen as poor hammer technicians, on the whole. Sure, I was born for the digital age where I can measure my words, re-read and edit them and only press send or enter when I'm happy, but it's not much help in the real world. This evening I realised how much difference having my own home has had, in ways I'm not going to detail here. And the effects of the information age that allow me to move between handbag-swingingly obvious ( a good phrase I'm pleased to nick) and desperately secretive at the click of a button. I know there was a point, yes, it was the post-it trick mentioned elsewhere this afternoon. It serves well to allow me to avoid having to ask too many questions or approach and talk to someone beyond a bare minimum, and it achieves the other objective of making someone think what I want them to think. Not because it matters that they either do or don't know I'm buying make up for me, but because I find it easier to deal with known quantities and familiar scenarios. Too many changing variables at the same time and I'm lost. On which note, this is going to be a very special weekend, and one that probably represents yet another step in a process that's taken twenty-odd years for me. Whatever happens, it's important for me to acknowledge to myself just how far this shows me to have come, then to shut up, drink up, and enjoy it.

First things first, I've just got in from seeing Half Man, Half Biscuit for the first time in over a decade, and I've had an absolute ball. I get to see most of the bands I truly I love every year or three, or sometimes more often than that, at least the ones who are still playing. So this amount of time away from a band is an exception, largely because they don't play a lot of shows. So it's a very different experience to be faced with songs from half a dozen different albums that I've never heard live before, as well as a good few old favourites that are up to twenty years old. And in all of it there are still surprises, or references that finally drop into place - only yesterday I finally put together exactly which bits of 24 Hour Garage People are nicked from Rock Island Line. No pretensions and no risk of a flying fibre glass white tiger, just some good old traditional English curmudgeonliness and cynicism, and some eminently hummable tunes. Hovis Presley R.I.P.

Labels: HMHB

I just pumped up the tyres on the lovely bike and dragged it round my hour circuit for the first time since October - my first go back to using a bike with a gear system that I never really got to grips with using instinctively in the first place. Leaving aside the fact that any knack I had for selecting the right gear at the right time has left me completely, I'm stunned to find I was quicker than all bar one time round that route before. I put it down to the eight months of only commuting on a bike with just the one gear giving me no option but to rely on power more than gears. I'm not sure whether I can entirely trust the speed on the computer, but there's a very long hill I come down towards the end of the ride, and I do hit the mid-40s on it on a regular basis. But tonight the computer shows my maximum speed as a whopping 51 mph, and while it's true I wasn't by any means hanging about, I'm a little reluctant to believe that fully. But it would be funny it if were true.

It's been a very long time since my legs (or any part thereof) were hair-free. But I like the way it feels.

To briefly go back to something I was talking about earlier this week, I was out at lunchtime buying myself some lingerie, possibly my first in person purchase of same, and musing on the sparkly shopping subject. I'm well rehearsed in affecting the somewhat typical manner of the average bored husband who'd rather be watching the football or washing the car - anything to reduce how closely I feel I'm observably looking at sparkly items. Not that it should really matter, but if that's how I feel, then it makes sense to cope with the feeling rather than attempting to deny it or fight against it. And I was struck by the contrast between my conscious dissembling and the way more than a few people can't read me anyway; whether I'm walking around the shops or just not doing something that requires active concentration, then I'm almost certainly thinking about something, and like any other kind of muscle, the brain shows signs of activity, perhaps via facial expression. The number of people who are unable to accept anything less than a beaming smile as a situation of non-distress is staggering. I couldn't count how often folk betray their ignorance in this way, whether it's strangers with the old 'Cheer up!' routine, or people who really should know better than to attempt to attribute a state of mind or heart to something with no more basis in diagnostic fact than tossing a coin. Sure, I dissemble as a coping mechanism to enable me to do stuff I'd otherwise feel less comfortable about. But given how often people fail to take in the face value of the unvarnished truth, maybe I shouldn't bother. * It's been pointed out that it's not a hugely uncommon thing to feel a little concern about not being slim enough/tall enough/pretty enough/young enough/anything enough for what clothes may be on sale in a particular shop, which is something I have to say I'd missed entirely. Even if it's based on different reasons and different issues, I'm happy to find myself perhaps a little closer to the sparkly sisterhood than I imagined!

This isn't normally a good time of year for me - my sparkly wardrobe is very much an autumn/winter one, and the sort of seasonal stuff that's on sale right now is naturally enough at the flesh-revealing end of the range where my taste tends to be at the other end. Then again, from a certain perspective, all of my sparkly expenditure is pure self-indulgence and extravagance, and while I'm lucky that I'm now in a position where I am not counting every single penny, I still need not to get carried away. For non-sparkly clothes, function is everything, and as long as it's relatively cheap and relatively plain, that'll do. I shop purely on a targeted basis - want shoes, look at all shoes on offer in town, find shoes at an acceptable price, buy shoes. I've never got the hang of shopping for sport (but music shops are another game entirely), though I bought my expensive super-techno windproof fleece after going into the shop every other day for a couple of weeks and looking at it and trying it on in order to be certain I really liked it before parting with that much money. But that's pretty much a one off. It can be difficult for me to openly look at sparkly stuff in the shops, but I do know the longest ways to walk through all the womenswear sections to get to the menswear departments. I naturally walk at a rate of knots, so that's another 'normal' thing I need to concentrate on doing differently, so I can take my time scanning the racks. Most of my in person sparkly shopping is done out of the corner of my eye, followed by website research to find out a bit more, and to consider it in detail, before making a decision that I do actually want to spend that money. And you'll find me doing my shopping after the evening shopping rush is over in the late opening out of town megabranch of a major high street clothes retailer, where I know the racks are full, the aisles are empty and the queues are short. That helps me concentrate on looking at the clothes rather than worrying about who's looking at me. The process works well for me, because I like to be prepared for things. Sure, I'm used to the look at the till that says what's he doing buying that skirt? and because I know there's a good chance it's coming, I'm expecting it and it doesn't take me by surprise these days. And I know to take it at face value and that the world doesn't end when it happens. And on the subject of being prepared, I'm trying to get myself psychologically ready for a major sparkly event in my near future. On which subject, more later when I think through what I really want to say.