Now, by now we all know that, aside from breaking the law and filing for divorce, the worst thing to do whilst consuming alcohol is blog / text / telephone or do anything remotely associated with technology … and so it is that we reach a juncture in my life when I have beeeeen left at home unsupervised with alcohol and a computer, and bloggin g duties to perform.
I’ll do my best not to cry, fight, or destroy my computer through an unexpected combination of low calorie alcohol and high sugar mixer … but I ain’t maiking any promises!!!!
Furst up is Leendaluu and her name tag thing. This is actually well overdue and apparently I’m meant to:
The Rules:
1) You have to post the rules before you give the facts.
2) Players must list one fact that is relevant to your life for each letter in your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name then use a name that you like.
3) When you are tagged, you must write a post containing your own middle name game facts.
4) At the end of your post, you must tag one person for each letter in your middle name. Don’t forget to comment them telling that they are tagged and to read your post to get the rules.
Did you read those? No, me neither! I think it’s a name thing … a middle name thing … let me check, um …
… yup. OK!
Right. My only stumbling block here - aside from an addled brain - is that I don’t have a middle name, which is actually a good thing … it was one less thing to be bullied about when I was growing up. However, I do like my first so I’ll use that instead.
ALASDAIR
Note. That’s the Gaelic spelling, apparently, and not one of the other anglicised spellings … it’s like Niall in that respect … only with different letters … and I’m not even sure if that’s Gaelic?!
Anyway.
On with the show!
A is for ABILITY. I think everyone has one particular ability. Something they are really really good at. I don’t mean a work thing, I mean an other thing! Just because it’s not a work thing though many people will apply their thing in a work environment or find a way to use their thing in everyday life …
Example, take the most useless tosser you know. It’s not that their useless, it’s just that they’ve lost their thing … or perhaps life has beaten it out of them - life can be harsh like that sometimes!
I think that my particular ability, apart from being able to consume alcohol and blog simultaneously (if not spell … this comment is going to superfluous once I’ve spell checked this thing!), is empathy. Anybody who is empathic will understand how useful this can be in life, and how much of a burden it can at times too. I think that this is largely why my career as an HR (personnel) dude was doomed to failure from the get go …
… I could almost feel what the staff felt. Frequently I would find myself torn between what was ‘right’ for the company and what was ‘right’ for the person. In terms of conscience the person more often won out, this led to conflict with management and even as that conflict grew I found myself empathising with the managers who were being overly harsh.
Ability, everyone has it … application isn’t always so easy though.
L is for LAUGHING. I like to make people laugh, I sometimes think that if I could make more people laugh then I could be content in all things.
I do try.
My mother always said I was ‘very trying’.
I know that I can make the mrs laugh, and I can even make the kids laugh … currently that’s as much as I can ask.
A is for Alcohol. Not that I consume a vast quantity you understand. Yet it has played such a massive part in my life - all of our lives? - that it can’t be let to go by without a mention.
Oh! it’s also the reason why the postman failed to deliver any post for the past 6 - 7 weeks and why we just received 38 items in the one go!!
S is for Shyness. My great ‘disability’. My greatest weakness. Face-to-face I’m like a shy little boy, scared of my own shadow and unable to articulate without having first spent a year coming out of my shell. As debilitating as any disease it has held me back time and again, friends lost, opportunities missed.
It’s not like I can’t buy a paper or go out and get my messages … just don’t expect me to hold any great conversations with anyone. It’s probably why I blog. I’ve got so much to say at times and it can seem like no one to say it to!
Sheesh, it’s not like politics or poetry rank up there on the topics of conversation to be having at the local toddler group! Not that their not lovely people, they are! But I doubt I’ll ever be able to discuss such ‘weighty’ topics with them for fear of entering into a fierce debate!
I had to force myself to attend that group in the first place, I think I caught myself unawares the first time I went! It would be ‘awkward’ at best if I fell out with anyone in the small group!
D is for Dad. In so far as I am one, and, I had one. I won’t go into the latter, but the former pretty much defines me as ‘who’ I am at the moment, as well as ‘where’ I am. As one of my good acquaintances has said more than once on hearing my, “I look after two small children” in response to the inevitable ‘question’ … “the most important job in the world”. If I wasn’t so damned shy (see above) he’d probably be a friend by now!
A is for Armpits. I really must bathe more often!
Oh come on! It’s the third bloody ‘A’!!
FINE!!
How about Anthropoid? As in like a human. Sometimes I feel like a ‘human’, but not … you can prefix that with ’sub’ or ’super’ as you see fit. I imagine that like most parents, there are times for me when it’s one, other or neither.
I is for Idiosyncracy. I won’t bore you with the details, but following my visit to the highly educated yet vastly “stumped” doctor today I fear that I may be somewhat idiosyncratic. Her suggestion being that my problem is ‘behavioural’ - which admittedly sounds worrying without being in possession of any of the facts.
It’s not.
Worrying.
Not in the least.
It’s merely …
… idiosyncratic!
R is for Reading. I’m a prolific reader, picking upa a book whenever I get a chance, or a paper, or a blog, or a packet of bloody cereal!!!! However, my chosen reading for this last year or two has been Robert Jordan.
Robert Jordan (17 October 1948 - 16 September 2007) was perhaps the single most compelling fantasy world author of our times, arguably in league with, if not surpassing, Tolkien in his ability to create and communicate a fantasy world through the medium of words. I have followed his ‘wheel of time’ series of books from books 1 - 10 (read twice), intend on reading book 11 next, and hope that the final book in the series, book 12, will be able to be published in a fashion that will do this author proud … incomplete as it is.
The most profound and powerful medium of communication must be the written word. It speaks of civilisation, of art, of love, of faith and hope, for many it speaks of salvation and redemption. Even without faith, the written word can compel and drive and focus and educate. Make us laugh and cry, stir the heart to feats of greatness, or simply give us the strength to go on.
Reading is part of who we are, part of whatwe are … and in it’s almost purest form, it’s not great works of literature, or great works of journalism. In it’s purest form, it’s simply communication, it’s letter writing and it’s blogging … here’s a thought …
… instead of writing your blog tomorrow, write a letter, a long one, to a friend or relative. Someone you admire or don’t see enough of. Write them a letter and communicate with them.
THE END!
I think I should have chosen my childhood nickname for that one, Al. I could have finished this hours ago … Christ! I’m sober now … damn!
I was going to do another tag thing just now from 21st Century Mummy, but I’ve just realised I’m going to have to research it!
