"And that's how two characters should dance together in life"

And that's how two characters should dance together in life?

Yes, and it's all explained here in this (almost finished*) version of The World According to Boring John (PDF version) - you'll need a password!**

Enjoy! I know I didn't.

* This book may never get finished - He may not be up to it!
** And the password is... - contact me (or Him) for it!

"How do you like them apples?"

Apologies, dear reader, for the lack of blog entries. But, hey, I can't be in two places at once now can I, and me and Him are still working hard on the book. (The book? Yeah, the one imaginatively titled The World According to Boring John.)

Anyways, as part of my research for today - my material really was poor, and I needed to pad it out a little - I came across some quotes from that top film, Good Will Hunting. So, I thought I'd share.

And if you want me to explain what's being said here, especially in bold, well you can, er, suck my mother-hubbard stick! (Sorry, the testosternone levels are high - book pressures, etc. It's gotta be finished by the end of the year, and we're only half way through the latest rewrite. I meant to say that I just don't have the time to explain - work it out for yourself. ;-) )

Okay, peeps, here come the quotes...

Skylar: What is your obsession with this money? My father died when I was 13 and I inherited this money. You don't think that every day I wake up and wish I could give it back? That I would give it back in a second if I could have one more day with him? But I can't, and that's my life and I deal with it. So don't put your shit on me when you're the one that's afraid.

Will: I'm afraid? What am I afraid of? What the fuck am I afraid of?

Skylar: You're afraid of me! You're afraid that I won't love you back! Fuck it, I wanna give it a shot! At least I'm honest with you.

(By the way, that Will was a lucky bugger indeed. I've always fancied Minnie Driver, despite the dodgy name! As for Skylar, I think she might be onto something there! Whaddya think?)
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Who Said This?

"I cannot be happy whilst you, someone I care about, are not. I am not responsible for your happiness but it does not seem fair for me to find peace when your life is still shadowed in pain?"

Whoever said it, and I have a strong idea which Idiot it was, they are destined to live a life of struggle, for sure.

"It wasn't your fault," said the adult to the little boy in the photo. "It wasn't your fault."

Wipe the tear from your eye, Mr Idiot. It was not Your fault.

I APOLOGISE!

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

I apologise.

For every time I pissed you off, stood you up, made you feel second best, didn't get your joke, didn't flatter you or 'had a cow, man', I apologise.

For those times I dumped on you, rejected you, didn't listen to you or overreacted to what you'd said, I apologise.

For the odd time I ignored you, hurt your feelings, laughed when I should have cried, hugged you when I shouldna touched you, I apologise

For those things I did wrong that I didn't realise I'd done wrong, or those things I don't remember no more, I apologise.

I apologise for apologising too much.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

Right?

Can we start again. Can we? C-a-n w-e s-t-a-r-t a-g-a-i-n ?

Can we draw a line under this?

It's not going to be perfect from here on in, but I will stop saying sorry.

Agreed?

Okay?

I'm sorry.

Let's move on...

(Cos soon we'll all be dead.)

And then we'll both be sorry.

Changes

Changes happen every second of every minute of every day. That's life, baby! But, despite this, some personal changes just don't happen or they don't happen fast enough. Now I can live with not possessing a Bill Clintonesque charisma, but the other stuff below... well, it's got to change.

Welcome to my changes. And, yes, they're timed to begin happening on Jan 1st, 2007

Change #1 - start treating my work as a business, and not as work

Change #2 - stop worrying about my love life; just do it (thank you Nike, but I still won't be wearing the shoes !)

Change #3 - stop worrying about anything, especially offending other people (hey I offend people whilst worrying about not offending them, so I might as well not worry about it!)

Change #4 - start being more direct with the opposite sex (this combines changes #2 and #3)

Change #5 - stop planning, start doing

So what's going to change in your world in 2007?

Do tell!

Confessions Of A Little Boy

Dear G

This might sound a bit of a big drama, but...

I think I see what my problem is, now (after our chat). It's a big one, too, I think. I fear being with a girl, any girl, where I might get rejected, again; where what I want is ignored.

For some reason that really, really scares me! :-(

Yes, it makes me scared. I just don't know what to what to do about it. Because, obviously, I will never be able to have a long relationship with a lady unless I am ready to do things without worrying about it going wrong.

I think it's all because my Mum left my Dad when I was younger. Dunno. I can't remember much about it, what happened or anything - the memories are already buried away. First thing I can remember is living in someone else's house with someone else's family in a place called Linthwhaite. Mum had only just left him, then. I was five.

So even simple stuff like 'taking things as they come', even these words frighten me. Cos what if something goes wrong!? It might do, you never know.

And, as you know, I really don't like upsetting people because... well, I guess I'm frightened they might leave me or get mad at me.

So I try and please, so they don't get cross; I try and please people, girls, and I try not to complain, try to be good, but after a while I just get so mad inside that it all boils over. And then they leave me or I leave them. Like what happened with you and me.

Sorry.

Thanks for chatting a while ago, though. I think it did help. It helped me see that sometimes I'm nothing more than a scared little boy who doesn't want it to go wrong again.

BJ x

5

A character I know quite a lot about was running in the rain last night, at the end of a six mile run. Almost back at his running club, and seemingly for no reason at all, he just shouts out the number "Five!", clear as you like. He then trailed off with "six, seven, eight"

Bit strange, really.

Wonder if it had anything to do with the hulking articulated lorry that sped close by him on the road at the time.

Was he trying to tell himself something?

Or is five just a number (another summer, sound of the funky drummer)?

Random thought of the day

Don't you just hate it when this happens! You're minding your own business when, bam!, you find yourself tuned into someone else's thoughts, someone else's fears. It wouldn't be so bad if they were sexy thoughts, or sexy fears, but no! Instead...

"... I guess I have kept the drama alive over the years, so part of me could feed off the pain

"I've dallied with internet dating, for example, so I could be distracted (and have some excitement in my life) and so I could add to my complex layers of guilt (morning after the excitement before).

"Why do you I don't want to succeed?

"Why am I holding myself back?

"Why do I still believe that life is difficult, life is hard, when it's really as easy, easy, easy as you want it to be?

"So why do I want life to be hard?

"Why am I fascinated by my so-called nemesis? I am far more negative a force in my life than any imaginary foe, any queen bitch..."

Grim stuff, eh!

It gets even worse.

He starts reciting a blimmin poem! I'd click away now, if I were you. It's a shocker...

Poem 666
========

Queen Bitch
You aint seen
nothin Sis
For I'm the King,
the QB of this dome main

Where are you
first thing?

I... wake with Him;
taunt Him morning,
noon and night.
Make up stories, I do,
'bout You
Who you with, and
why - you're - not - thinking - of - Him

Your twisted and bitter
refrain?
Disdain!
I got fifty better
in my locker,
locked away

I delve deep
into HisStory
Play out his doomed
scenes once more,
(Just in case he forgets)

You help, oh yes
But you're just part of
an extensive 41-year
cast-list.
...Just a player
But *I* star,
in the mind of
my Master

I know my Man
I haunt and
I taunt,
like no-one else
can
*I'm* the Queen Bitch

I undermine
I talk back
I demean (LIKE A DAEMON!)

I reduce
I traduce

I keep him alive!
Just so I can do it
all over again

I'm the man,
the Pain Body man

At your service...

If you please...
(IF YOU DON'T PLEASE!)

I'm the devil,
if you will
His precious
3 letters
e.g. (?) Oh!

Or try this 4-letter word:
Fear

I know You too...

I know your curse...

(Charmed... I'll
be round Yours soon!)

:-O

Fear?

Are you afraid of anything?

I mean are you afraid of anything that you shouldn't be afraid of? Like commitment, love, change.

And what do you do if you recognise that you are afraid of something? Do you simply:

• Make it go away, like magic?
• Tell yourself to snap out of it?

Or, do you simply:

• Be unafraid?

I have the answer to this problem (and no, it's not a website). I just can't put my hands on it right now.

(But I guess it's summed up by oft-quoted phrase, feel the fear but do it anyway!)

I didn't dream of you last night!

I wish I had, though.

Instead, I was some kind of daring fugitive, on the run for doing something wrong! (Probably complained too 'loudly' about the incompetent and corrupt BLiar government. Do you reckon he ever read George Orwell's Animal Farm?)

Anyway, the boys in blue were after me. Some kind of uniform, for sure.

And they easily caught me. Meant business, I seem to remember. I was to be summarily executed. Each and every one of the 'soldiers' was to take turns in emptying a few rounds into me.

They were pretty angry with me.

And I just accepted my fate. Walked with the first 'soldier' to my place of execution -- the man that was going to actually kill me -- and even agree remember agreeing to keep my hands in the air so that he would know if I was dead or not!

(How accommodating of me.)

Gun goes against the top of my head.

Bullet is fired.

And then another bullet.

Strange feeling, having a bullet pass through your head.

Don't remember being frightened or cross or anything. I don't think I was looking forward to the pain of the bullet passing through my not-so-thick skull, but that's all that came to mind (if you'll pardon the expression).

So two bullets pass through my head.

And then I seem to be floating, floating past my very own body a little while later.

I see only two bullet holes in my head. The other men had obviously not wanted to waste their bullets on my already dead body.

That was considerate of them.

And then...

As I woke from yet another marvellous BJ dream, I could hear the pigeons doing a merry dance on my rooftop. So loud, and repetitive was their banging around that I seriously thought someone was banging, albeit halfheartedly, on my front door.

I then had a short day-dream about putting spikes on my roof, and imagined the argument I'd be having with the pigeon owner when the first of 'em got spiked.

(Why can't I have sexy dreams like everyone else?)

(Why can't I dream of you?)

I don't like doing stuff I don't like!

I guess that's just my excuse for putting things off, for procrastinating.

Well can I tell you that I didn't like 'not procrastinating', not at all. It interfered with my days, interrupted my social life and was occasionally bloody annoying.

Anyway, with the help of a friend, I got the following done:

21. Put my "Storth Avenue" sign on my bedroom wall. (Yes, it might look silly to you -- should you ever get to see the inside of my bedroom!! -- but not to me!)

22. I made an appointment with the sports injury clinic. (My right knee hurts, my right calf gets sore, my left calf too. Anyone would think that I was gettin' on a bit!)

23. Put curtain blinds in bathroom. (You could easily see in from outside. It were embarrassing it was!)

24. Buy a new vacuum cleaner. (The old vac. really had sucked it's last bit of dust.)

25. Buy off-road running shoes

26. Buy running shorts. (Previously, I either ran in track-suit bottoms, Gunner Sugdens, or shorts so skimpy even the ex- blushed!)

27. Put two mirrors on the walls upstairs

28. Refitted the door to the store room, off the kitchen. (It now opens without scraping the floor!)

And, I don't care if you think if you think these are tenuous tasks, I started reading my gardening book (thanks, Alan Titchmarsh) and I have been exercising every other day.

29. and 30.

There. Done. Phew!

(We'll ignore the fact that I repeated one of the tasks! Spot it?)

I promise to try and not let things stack up, quite as much in the future. If only to avoid another month like June!

More Mythical Nonsense...

"All the best things in life come packaged in a ribbon of risk. You untie the gift, you assume the risk, and equally, the joy. Parenthood is like that. Marriage is like that. Friendship is like that. In order to experience life in the full sense, you expose yourself to a bottomless pit of vulnerability. That is the essence of true love." - Kristin Armstrong(*)

I think this is what I was trying to say in my Mythical Creatures post.

* Courtesy of MyDailyInsights

I must not get distracted...

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted

(It's not working! The phone's ringing; my buddies are on IM; email; text... )

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted

I must not get distracted...

4 Reactions...

Assuming you are not that virtuous, so you do not have an ulimited amount of patience, what do you do (and how do you react) to the following situation:

You've just texted/emailed/phoned your [Mum/brother/friend/lover/someone you fancy - consider each option, separately] and they haven't replied back yet -- and you want them to reply -- even though it's been several days/weeks/months, respectively.

How do you react?

Do you react differently if your Mum snubs you compared with your lover?

Can your best friend ignore you and it doesn't matter at all but if your brother forgets to phone back well, that's a completely different matter.

And if you contact that special person you've just started fancying, are you mortified that he/she seems to be ignoring you.

I know what my answers are.

I am an impatient bugger, alas!

So I know that I react differently depending on how well I know the person and how typical 'being ignored' is, or what 'other stuff' that person has to deal with at the time.

If you're reading this and thinking 'hey, just get a life man!' then I hear you, don't worry. However, this affects you too -- unless you are special and have an unlimited amount of patience and wisdom -- and you'd be lying if you don't think it does.

I've found the biggest factor in how patient (or otherwise) I've been in the above situations is how comfortable I am in that particular relationship, and so how rational my fear is.

Having said that, I dialled a wrong number once when trying to contact my girlfriend and was convinced that she'd been kidnapped or some other grisly thing had happened to her. Only took 5 minutes of thinking, too.

--

By the way, you really should react the same way to everybody.

But then you knew that, didn't you (*).

* Note to myself: who do you think you are kidding BJ? There's no bug*er reading this but you!

Do We Deserve What We Get?

Do we deserve what we get?

(Well do we?)

You know when you listen to a woman going on about the men that she meets in her life. On and on and on about how [crappy / ineffectual / controlling / weak / arrogant etc.] they are. And how come she can't meet a decent bloke (whatever decent is).

Do you roll your eyes in a slow circle like I do.

(Hey, I'm not bashing the so-called fairer sex here. Men that moan they only meet [bimbos / goldiggers / naggers / bitches / undersexed women / oversexed women etc.], they belong in this moan-piece too!) .

So, yeah, I roll my eyes, I smile. I might even go through the 'Agony Aunt' routine (I'm good at that, especially for a mere man!) and 'ooh' and 'ahh' and 'huh?' and 'NO!' and 'Really. Really! Really?' in all the right places.

But.

Really!

Get a f*****n life, people!

You deserve what you get!

"Only blonde blue-eyed bimbos (who pretend to be thick) seem attracted to you? I wonder why."

"No!? You've met yet another man who turned out to be a 'narsty arrogant barstard'? No-oh? You don't say!"

"You're kidding? Again? You met another goldigger? She only loved you for the money (that you kept on slooshing around). Jeepers. That really is creepers!"

Okay, I'm bludgeoning home my point here.

But it is a subtle point I'm making, that affects discerning people (who really should know better, but don't).

Let's get personal for a while. I know a couple of really intelligent, clever, smart (aren't they all the same thing -ed) SEXY(!) women.

They moan.

A lot.

About the men they meet.

Either these men suddenly turn into arrogant monsters, or they're always meek as mice and never get past 'first base'. (I've never played baseball in my life - probably never will - so why do I use such American-centric expressions! How *leftfield* of me! Aaaargh!)

Okay, let's get really personal.

Why do I only ever meet sexually timid and repressed types who like sex but don't REALLY LIKE SEX!?

It's not that I don't meet sexy - far better than the horrible expression of over-sexed - women. I do. And they (obviously) bloody frighten me away.

So there I am, sulking on a Sunday morning because I want *it* and t'bloody missus (chance would be a fine thing) wants to get up and do chores or get up and go for a walk or get up and go rowing. But I know one thing, she doesn't want me to GET UP!

I've met the woman I want to be with. But something puts me off her.

So it's more than likely that the moaning minnies above have also met the men they'd like to be with too, but can't get past that indescribable annoyingness, weakness or whatever.

It's a shame. It really is.

So what solutions do I have?

Well, apart from getting all ranty and shouting 'STOP BLOODY MOANING ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE, MISSUS, AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT', all I can suggest is the following...

(And I say this, being a fan of Phil McGraw, he of Oprah Winfrey fame, as well as one that is involved in marketing.)

CHANGE what you're doing!

Yes, change what you're doing, people. It's the only way to get a different result.

Even better - and here's where the marketing principles come into it - change what you're doing, and measure the success or failure of that change; and then adjust accordingly.

Simple.

Life is so simple.

(Of course you might just like moaning. Ah, that's the subject of another rant dear Reader!)

On a much loftier note (though I guess it is related to the above nonsense) I see a lot of trouble and strife in the world right now (twas ever thus, I know!).

I see a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of hate, a lot of intolerance, and (of course) a lot of fighting and killing and war.

What can *I* do about it all.

Well - and I've lined the punchline up beautifully (even if I say so myself) - to quote someone far greater than me (and I'm not talking about Oprah now), I can...

be the change I want to see in the world(*).

Amen to that.

Knock on the door, and that's the man you'll find.

Good night.

(And, for God's sake, stop moaning, sexy!)

(*) I always loved the opening quotes in Luc Beson's Subway
"To be is to do" - Socrates
"To do is to be" - Sartre
"Do be do be do" - Sinatra

(Priceless.)

4 Sentences (about who?)

1. I love you, but
2. I still don't trust you
3. And I'm not sure I believe you, and
   think you're just playing a game
4. But I'm not angry with You anymore (which is nice!)