I had opportunities but I turned most of them down

I’m bored today. Very bored. I have this job to do but it is probably the most boring thing I do at BAe. This is a fucking amazing achievement – to be the stinkiest piece of shit in an ocean of effluence.
So, I’m putting it off. So far in the two hours I’ve been here I’ve read today’s Achewood, scanned the DigitalSpy gaming forums, read Football365, looked for bowling shoes on ebay (some nice ones from America), played the music quiz on my IPOD (though it stopped me listening to the new BSP album) and jotted down the things I need to buy.
Here is my list:
- A stair rail
- A light shade for the master bedroom
- Some clothes (not a necessity but I’d like to check out my fave shops in Manchester)
- Lots more soapmaking equipment

The soapmaking is frustrating at the moment. I’ve made two batches, one for chicks, and one for manly men who do manly men work. The latter seems to be fine, it’s virtually hardened in two days. Bonza.
The former is a pain in the arse, and after almost two weeks it still isn’t hard enough to cut up into slices. I’ll give it another week, if it still hasn’t set then I may have to put it into little pots and let ladies work out how to use it. It does work as a soap though, and it leaves your hands smelling of orange and geranium. I’m thinking the problem may be down to the fact that I grated up some orange peel for the mixture and whereas this makes it look mighty pretty, it may have altered the chemical make-up of the mixture and made it too “mushy”.
Also, I found out that I have to be certified to sell it in any shops. Bah. This is apparently because it can be dangerous if I get the formula wrong. Pfft.

Christ, this is a dull blog.

Over Christmas I was looking at some pictures from when I was a kid. And it suddenly dawned on me that these pictures of me playing football or stood in front of various London landmarks are 20-25 years old. A quarter of a century! I suddenly felt rather old and became aware that when I remembered my days playing youth football that my brain kind of thought “oh that was 10-15 years ago”. But it isn’t. The picture of the Fleetwood Gym Under 10s football team posing for a group photo on the park is 24 years old. 24. Fuck, it is 17 years since I went to Florida and it feels like it was about 8 years ago. Time really does accelerate the older you get.
But, I didn’t really mope for the fact that I’m now 33. That’ll probably hit me in a few years when I find myself sat in a sports car at some traffic lights, glance up at my reflection in the rear view mirror and the see this tragic image of a balding, podgy and wrinkled 38 year old. In a sports car…and a Carhartt jacket.
No, what left me bewildered is how old everyone else will be now. Our Fleetwood Gym manager was a really nice guy called Brian. In the picture he looked about my age, still quite young and with most of his life in front of him. He’ll now be about 57. Nearly 60.
My brother turns 40 next month and I can still remember him at high school. My parents are now in their mid-sixties. And if I think about the likeable teachers at my primary school, how old are they now? Mr.Clapp was around 40 when he taught me, he’ll now be about the same age as my parents.
I spent my youth in a race. I couldn’t wait for certain landmarks to arrive. 16. 18. 21. I remember thinking being 24/25 was ace, but that was almost a decade ago. Richard Herring does a routine in which he rightly says that the first half of your life is a race up a hill, you’re impatient to get to the top and to see what the view is. But on the other side of the hill is a steep and desolate journey to the grave, a hillside filled with disease, a decaying body and countless obstacles which can kill you without a seconds notice. And then you look at that beautiful green hill you’ve just raced up and you think “fuck”.
I’m almost at the top of this hill but I’ve started to stop and look around. I wasted a lot of my youth being introverted, shy, supercilious, aloof and downright grumpy. It seems such a waste. I had opportunities but I turned most of them down.
But you can’t let the mistakes and missed chances of the past get you down and it’s why I’m generally happy today. Just, ya know, don’t leave your life as a series of what ifs?

Do you see what I’ve done, I’ve turned a dull blog into a dull and miserable one. Go me!