Redundant-No longer needed, superfluous, omitted without loss of meaning or function.
Laid-Off-Having lost your job, discharged, dismissed, fired, pink-slipped.
Today was my last day at the job I’ve spent the last 3 years at. Continue reading »
Over the weekend I was in London attending Uncon with Dave and Adam.
Uncon is a convention that’s put on by Fortean Times. It’s a two day event featuring all kinds of lectures on a vast array of subjects, none of which could be called mainstream.
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This morning on BBC Breakfast there was guy talking about writing a letter to his 16 year old self. It caught my interest mostly because I’ve found that writing is the most therapeutic thing in the world to me.
I have journals and notebooks full of streams of conscious, I’m writing whatever comes into my head, I’m working out a problem, or how I feel about something. If anyone ever reads any of that stuff they’ll discover two things. 1) They’ll think I’m far more crazy than they ever thought and 2) They’ll be able to see my thought process at work and wonder how I’d avoided the nice padded cell.
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*blows dust off blog … chokes and sputters*
Hi!
So I’ve been ignoring this blog, I think it’s because I wasn’t sure just what kind of direction I wanted it to go in. I had wanted to to write about important things, to have some sort of theme. But having spent so long avoiding writing things because I was worried about it not fitting into a theme I’ve decided that since this is the story of a geek in a strange land I will write about me. Hows that for self centered?
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Today is Mom’s birthday. For her tenth birthday my Grandmother gave her an Army surplus compass.
Mother Nature gave her a blizzard.
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Looking back at 2010 I realized that I actually managed to accomplish a lot without even trying. I managed to work out how my brain ticks a long with learning some very valuable lessons. So with that in mind I wondered what would happen if I actually tried to accomplish things.
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It’s been a funny old year. I’ve celebrated my 40th birthday. Also, for one reason and another I’ve spent a vast amount of time at home.
I’ve learned a lot about myself this year, things that I’ve heard people say about me for a long time but I’ve always brushed the comments to one side because I didn’t know what to do with the compliment or observation. Continue reading »
Last Sunday we got a phone call, one we knew was coming, but all the same we dreaded it. Auntie Paddy had finally lost her battle against cancer.
In the 12 years that I have lived here Paddy played a huge part in my life. I’m positive if it had not been for Paddy I wouldn’t still be here. She was my support, my tour guide, my confidant and most of all she was my friend. The time I spent with Paddy was always fantastic. She was who I turned to for advice, help or when I just needed someone to listen to me.
Without Paddys help and support, the first few years of me living here would have been a lonely place and I would have found adjusting so much harder than I already did. She helped me sign up for a National Insurance Number and to sign up for temp work. She went with me to hospital when I broke my finger, brought food and drink when I was ill. She listened to me when I needed someone to rant at when everything seemed wrong with the world.
Paddy was like my second Mom…my English Mum if you like. She was a strong woman who never took shit from anyone. She’s the type of woman I can only dream of being like. If I can be half the woman she was I’d be happy. I was proud to have known her and blessed beyond anything she could have grasped to have known her and to have had her in my life.
Selfishly I would give anything for one more day to spend with her, one more hour to tell her how grateful I am for everything that she did for me, one more second to hug her and tell her that I loved her. But this is the price we pay for opening our hearts and for loving people. We get left behind with a hole in our lives.
I will miss Paddy for the rest of my life, I hope I continue to live up to her expectations and I will forever hear her voice in my head when I need to.
Saturday afternoons when I was growing up was the best time ever. Well okay maybe not ever but I have fond memories of part of Saturday afternoons. It’s actually more of a moment frozen in time. A collage of memories.
My best friend Brian would come down and we would watch the Saturday afternoon monster matinée on TV. It was almost always a Godzilla film of some sorts along with some other film. Brian loved Godzilla, he would even pretend he was Godzilla some times. Or if I had missed a film he would tell me in detail what happened and would rattle off the names of all the monsters that had appeared in the film.
Me I thought the Godzilla films were good but it was always the second film that I liked the most. It was always some 50/60′s sci-fi B movie. You know something like Them, Forbidden Planet, The Day The Earth Stood Still… stuff like that. I remember at the time wondering if I was supposed to think they were cool, or just awful. Regardless of the effects, the plot or anything else I would sit and watch the film engrossed in it. Even then thinking some of the ‘future’ stuff was past it’s sell by date. But enjoying it none the less.
After the monster matinée they would normally show an episode of The Twilight Zone and then The Outer Limits, followed by Star Trek. Star Trek was always watched on a small portable TV that lived on the end of the dining room table while having dinner.
All of that may or may not have happened all at the same time, remember I said it was like a moment frozen in time. It’s all bunched up in my head, all under the same category in my brains filing system. Brian, Monsters and Sci-Fi it all some how goes together.
I’ve recently been reliving those moments in time. For Christmas this year I asked for a long list of 50/60′s B movies, the box set of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone box sets. I’ve found myself getting sucked in once again even though the ‘future’ stuff is even more past it’s sell by date and the effects are even more tired and awful than they were in my childhood. They still hold some power over me, they remind me of Brian being Godzilla, of Ants the size of giants and of a time when the world seemed to hold amazing secrets and felt so huge.
Pass the popcorn, it’s about to start so shhhhh!
Back in the 1990′s I discovered The Doors. I don’t mean that I didn’t know they existed before then, I’m sure I did. But I got hooked on them in a big big way. For months they were all I would listen to. Their music spoke to me on some level. Looking back on that time I’m sure I was struggling with … something. In my early 20′s, trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I was going to do with myself. You know that kind of angst. The Doors seemed to be a fitting back drop for that time.
But this post isn’t about the Doors. It’s about a Grasshopper. Its actually about both.. and music and … well okay I’ll start this again.
When I had been younger I wanted to own a record shop. An idea that never has completely left me even now. But when I was in my 20′s I decided that I was also going to sell reconditioned retro 50/60′s furniture. Way before being retro was cool I might add. I didn’t have a name for the shop, until one day while watching The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl.
Jim is dancing around on stage during the song The End. He notices something on stage, bends down to look at it to see what it is, gets up dances around a bit more and then as he picks up his mic again starts singing/chanting
I think I’ll open a little shop
A little place were they sell things
And I think I call it, “Grasshopper”
There it was! The name I’d been looking for my whole life! I would name my little shop Grasshopper, it’d be an in joke, Doors fans would get it but no one else would. But wait Jim was looking at the grasshopper on the stage again…
Oh, I blew it, it’s a moth
That’s alright, he ain’t got long to go
So we’ll forgive him
Well calling a shop Moth wasn’t going to work, it didn’t have the same ring to it… okay I’d stick with Grasshopper… and I’d have a little moth flying through the P’s it’d work. It was sorted… in my head anyway.
The shop never did happen, came close though but it’s still there in my head with all it’s funky junk and it’s big green sign out front.
So the point of all that… what do you call a blog when you can’t think of a name… combine your favorite color and the name of the mythical shop you were going to run all those moons ago.