I feel like a fucking yo-yo

I’m up, I’m down…

I know what’s making me down – I just have to deal with it and get back to being my usual happy self…bleah.

Harriett – bless her – was prepared to sort it out for me, she even went to do it this morning, but it’s something I have to do in person (yes, I toyed with the idea of a letter, or a text).

Cryptic huh? I’ll explain after it’s sorted…

Amusing bit for ya:

Harriett came round last night and was talking about her relationship with Glynn. She read out some texts from him, and her replies. I must admit I was smirking away when she asked my opinion, which was:

“Well, after listening to that lot, you and him both sound like a couple of 7 year olds in the playground – sort it out FFS! oh, and talking about moving in together is a no-no – moving in together is something you realise has happened – when you have more stuff at another place than at yours – it should never be a pre-arranged thing IMO.”

I love her to bits, but sometimes it really is like having a 45 year old child…

Overprotective parents

B3ta.com’s QOTW is about overprotective parents this week. This means I have no hilarious story to tell – my upbringing was full of AWESOMENESS!

Not that my siblings and I were neglected – far from it – we were allowed to play out, we got reprimanded (threatened with smacks more than actually smacked – when my mum threatened, you did as you were told), we were rewarded for being good. As such the lot of us grew up into well-rounded (no, I don’t mean fat – I mean look at me – do I LOOK fat?) adults with a good sense of right and wrong.

During my teenage years, I ‘went off the rails’ somewhat, getting into drugs and various criminal activities. During this stage, I developed a liking for going ‘walkabout’ every now and then. Back then, in the pre-mobile phone era, this must have been traumatic for my parents, but they accepted it, just a few words when I returned 1, 2 or 3 days later about letting them know where I was etc.

The walkabout thing continued and my boss even accepted that now and then, I just disappeared for a few days (I never took holidays, so I suppose it was a kind of break for me).

Fast forward to early 2008: I left the house one morning to goto work, walked a few steps and thought “Fuck it – I need a break.” and so turned off my phone and fucked off for the day to chill.

Come the evening I turned my phone back on to find missed calls a plenty from Harriett and one from my good friend H. Turns out Harriett got worried when she couldn’t get hold of me and had been all round my friends to find out if they knew where I was. The crowning moment though: she went to see my mum, told her she couldn’t get hold of me (bear in mind we weren’t even going out together at the time) and my mum just looked her straight in the eye and said something along the lines:

“And? he’ll be fine – he’ll be back soon.” and that was it.

So, I never had over-protective parents – I had the best parents anyone could ever ask for.

Since my dad died, I’ve tried to be as like him as much as I possibly can. I don’t get round to see my mum as much as I should, but when I do, there’s always a cup of coffee and the offer of something to eat.

What? expecting a punchline? there is none – just me saying in a cack-handed manner that I love my mum and dad

Something slightly surreal happened to me today…

I had to leave the office and run into town, so I decided to pop by my house to drop off some bits first.

So I unlocked the front door and there on the stairs was a cat. “Funny,” thought I, “I could have sworn I put Gif out before I left this morning – WTF? that’s not my cat!”

Meanwhile, the quite cute, fluffeh little kitten rubbed against my legs, had a stroke (I mean I stroked it, not that it suddenly keeled over and started fitting) and wandered out the door.

A few minutes exploration and I found a clue – a note from Harriett. She’d been passing and thought she’d grab some of her stuff that’s still there – seeing what she thought was my cat, she’d let him in and left him there, going on her merry way.

You just can’t make this stuff up…

Breaking news…

Result!

Well, it may be too soon to say that, but it certainly feels like it to me I’m smiling again and feel like a HUGE weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Let me explain: I gave Harriett my phone SIM card last yesterday evening, she put it in her other phone and almost straight away a text came through – I didn’t want to know what it said. Anyway, just had a call from Harriett, she told me there was another text came through during the night (about 2am – how screwy is THAT?), so Harriett rang her number and left a voicemail telling her that she had my phone and to stop calling and texting as it was harrassment. She then got a call back from Jane who hung up when Harriett answered.

I’ll leave my SIM card with Harriett for a couple of days though, just to make sure it’s all over. Hopefully not too long – I already don’t like using a pay as you go phone (I get almost unlimited free calls and texts on my calling plan – told Harriett to use it as much as she wants).

Harriett – my hero that’s twice she’s done this for me – first Maria, now Jane. I’ve told her she must vett all future possible partners for me.

OK, the mental image of Harriett interviewing a woman just made me snort and spit coffee*…I can imagine Harriett sitting their, a pen in her hand with a form in front of her:

“So, X, just what are your intentions to Paul?

A) Just friends (good answer)
B) Purely sex (GREAT answer)
C) I want to marry him and have his babies (um…where’s the door?)
D) All the above (erm…)”

If I get some spare time today, I’ll mock up a form for her – it’ll make her laugh

So, as a big THANK YOU, I’m buying a curry tonight. I do have an ulterior motive though – the Spurs v Liverpool game – Carling Cup – is on Sky Sports tonight, and I don’t have that channel (could watch it down the Tudor, but I’ve really spent too much time there hiding from stalkers turning up at my house**).

Ah…The sky is blue, no clouds visible from my office window, I’ve got a full mug of coffee (refilled), AWESOME friends (that includes many of the perverts regular readers). Life is once again, good.

And with that, I must get some work done.

* No, I’m not chopping up lines of Nescafé™

** Yes, this whole thing has stressed/scared (delete as applicable) me so much, I was actually scared to be at home

Confused.com

That’s me – confused.

I thought I’d started getting my head together but it seems I’ve not. Well, maybe I have – it might be everyone else…

As anyone who reads this blog knows, Harriett and I aren’t together any longer. That isn’t to say we don’t see each other at all – we’re best friends and probably see each other 3 or 4 times a week (usually a few drinks are involved too).

Anyway, I met a woman, got on well and have been out with her 3 times – taking her to dinner tomorrow night The weirdest thing about all this is, until Harriett mentioned it, I hadn’t even thought about sleeping with her – we get on well together, have a laugh, no uncomfortable silences etc. That’s not to say I’m not attracted to her – she’s lovely (will post a picture at some point) – I think I’ve matured with age, and no longer do I have to prove myself by bedding women in the quickest time possible (personal record is 20 minutes from meeting someone to getting her into bed – yes, it was impressive to me at the time)

I mentioned all this to Harriett as that’s what friends do, and she seemed pleased for me. Then I get a couple of strange texts.

Basically, I have no idea what she (Harriett) wants from me – as far as I can tell, she wants me to be happy, but that’s NOT to include other women…

So here I am, back to the “don’t have a clue what’s going on” stage. Is Harriett being:

1) Just unfair to me.
2) Very bad at telling me it’s me she wants?
3) — Space for rent –

Why is there no manual for life?

On a different note, I get claustrophobic in enclosed spaces (where else would you get it?), so I tend to avoid lifts (although I can now ride in one without panicking too much), caves etc.

So last night Dennis asked me if I’d like to watch a film with him, his missus, and a couple of friends. I figured it’d make a change from getting drunk, so I went along.

The film was ‘The Cave’ or something similar. I managed to watch about 20 minutes before I had to leave – I was getting so stressed out watching these scenes where people were in these water-filled caves squeezed into tiny spaces – it’s made me shake just thinking about it again.

So I went and had some beer – as you do.

She doesn’t read my blog (as far as I know), so I can say this here without being told off:

Harriett, I love you – you know that. I’m gutted we’re not together, but happy we’re really good friends. I think about you a lot of the time and miss you so much when I’m doing things alone (not THAT – keep it clean ), but I’m not a monk. I’ve (grudgingly) accepted you’re seeing someone else, you have to do the same for me – or tell me what you really want.

Oh yeah, today’s the day the septics fuck up again vote in the new leader of the empire president. Do me (and the rest of the world) a favour eh? DON’T FUCK IT UP AGAIN!

Rik – I’ll email you later when I get home, but January sounds like a fun day…I’m in