Another year over...

Thoughts of the old year, and the new one to come have finally kicked the blogging part of my brain, long inactive, back into life. So I thought I'd catch up on what little I managed to bore you with this year, and look to the future with a promise to bore you on a far more regular basis. Thank me later.
kay ess jay kay
My first ever blog. Just a wee introduction to who and where we are. The whos are still the same, but the where is slightly different. We have temporarily moved to a fantastically posh flat nearby so we can clear out the old Kay Towers ready for selling. As far as I can see, the only way to do this is to position a skip under the window and start shovelling. Nearly 15 years worth of junk is not really the kind of pile you can sweep under the corner of the carpet. But we'll get there, and right now we're absolutely loving living in a posh flat in the posh area of a posh town. The deception continues...
all change
Not such happy news on this one. My situation will almost certainly be reorganised before March arrives. I am now firmly convinced that somewhere deep in the bowels of Aberdeen Council headquarters there lies a very special department, called the "Aintbroke Repair department". Employment in this department is by invitation only. If you show a particular prowess at rearranging, reorganising and generally meddling with things when there is absolutely no need, you're hired. And somewhere along the line, this department got wind of my current job.
"Hey, they're doing well, making a huge difference to the city residents and providing a high level of customer satisfaction and great value for money. We must do something!"
We've tried telling them, we've sat through endless meetings while they try and show us how we will do our job so much better under the new system, all the while seeing in their eyes that they have no earthly clue what they are doing. So unless something very dramatic happens in the next month or so, it will be on to pastures new for me and all my colleagues. Ah well.
Cheers
A mixed bag of updates, this one. A cocktail if you will. On one side I have a success story. As it happens the very person that I had in mind as I wrote that blog reappeared just a couple of weeks ago. And it appears that this gentleman did indeed hear the bell for time, and made his way to the door and back into real life. Albeit a little later than some of us, but he certainly has embraced his new found reality and is doing very well indeed. Happily married with a fantastic new career on the horizon. He told me all this while in a bar, as he sipped his diet coke, before dashing off to drive his wife home. Good man.
However there is another side to this update. Another of the original subjects reappeared in my life recently too. Only this one wasn't chatting to me. I was performing CPR on him after I found him in a dingy stairwell of a high-rise block of flats. Despite all efforts, it seems his doctor was right when he said he wouldn't reach 30. Time was called, and this time he definitely didn't hear last orders.
Para What?
I am still fiercely proud to call myself a drummer. No change there, nor will there ever be. So there.
Who's doing what now?
Well. I was trying to find an excuse for this but there really isn't one. I still absolutely love to run, I just haven't done it in a while. Like about six months. But I will. I'm actually really really getting the urge again. It was always there, but it kinda got drowned out by all the other stuff going on. But the less I run, the more I want to, so I am now desperate to get going again despite the weather, despite working shifts, despite any other excuse I can come up with. Where's me trainers?
self improvement through violence
Another thing I have let slide somewhat, but this time I have an excuse. The dire state of the NHS. No really, I'm waiting for an appointment to get my nose straightened after the last time. Now this may seem daft, to be waiting for my face to be repaired before I can get it dismantled again, but that's how it is. Now sherrep. Or I'll flatten you. As long as you give me plenty time to remember how to do it...
What a drag it is
Disappointingly, I still seem to be ageing. I now have two very young colleagues at work, and this has only served to heighten my awareness of how old I really didn't think I was. There is a look. It is a look I can't describe, but you may have seen it. It is a look that only the young can give to the old. It is a look that says "..." in some unspoken tongue that hits with unerring accuracy every time straight to the brain. In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (younger readers may not remember this) Adams (rip) describes an apparatus that can send any man completely insane, by illustrating the true extent of the whole universe, and highlighting his exact significance within it. The realisation that you are a mere nanomicroblip in the whole scheme of things is enough to render any man utterly incapacitated by worthlessness. The look of a young person towards an old person who has just tried to impart some wisdom is like a pocket version of that. Devastating.
So my ageing continues apace. Ah well.
So there it is. This is where I find myself at the end of one year, and the beginning of another. Some good news, some bad, some things I can do something about and some I can't.Pretty much like every other year, for every other person. On the whole, life is good, and I plan to tell you all about it as often as I can, if you'll have me.
See you next year.

what a drag it is...

So recently I've been thinking a lot about growing old. And I've decided I'm just going to go ahead and do it.
The reasons for this 'codger-tation' are manifold, but three main ones seem to have aligned lately.
Work.
In my current line, I meet a lot of people. A LOT. In fact it's basically what I do. I walk the streets and speak to people. I go into their houses, their schools, their workplaces and speak to people. It's more than interesting, it's eye-opening. And there's nothing like seeing other peoples lives for getting you thinking about your own. If I felt confident enough in my ability to keep identities entirely unfathomable then I could fill endless blogs about the stories I encounter. But to be on the safe side, I'll restrict it to the odd snippet here and there, perhaps to illustrate a point, perhaps to embellish a tale, but most likely to have a laugh.
Anyway, the mind-prod I will be borrowing on this occasion is my meeting with a woman who I calculated had started secondary school the year in which I left. No problem there, but this woman is now a grandmother. At first I was amazed at how unusual it must be to be a granny at such a young age, she must have had kids very young who also had kids very young etc etc. But then I did the sums and realised to my horror that there was nothing very much out of the ordinary here at all. Junior Kay is now six months old. My first daughter. But supposing I had had my first daughter at a still perfectly reasonable 19 yrs of age, then this adorable little bundle of dribble and eyelashes could quite easily be my 20 year old first daughter's first daughter. In fact, not so many years ago, this would have been very much the norm. I've never been the best at being on time, but now it seems I am already a whole generation behind schedule.
Self-improvement.
If you have been supernaturally blessed with enough patience to trudge through some of my previous witterings, you may be aware that I have embarked on a course of physical self-improvement, in the form of running, and most recently violence. The benefits of this programme are dubious, but are making themselves apparent nonetheless. I can now happily carry a baby, a buggy and various other juvenile accoutrements up the several flights of stairs to Kayessjaykay Towers with little or no ill effects, and I appear to have changed shape to a certain degree. But it bloody hurts. I never really understood the term aches and pains before, but I have more of an insight now. I always thought if something hurts, either you know why or you don't but at least you know exactly where it hurts. But now I find myself getting out of bed for example, and making an old person's noise. You must have heard it. Like this -
"HHHOOOMMPH"...
It's very common.
The surprise is when you hear it coming from yourself.
"HHHOOOMMPH"...
"What the hell was that?"
"That was you"
"No... was it?"
"Yes. you sound like you're in pain"
"Well, I am. That really is quite sore."
"What's sore?"
"I have no idea..."
A general aura of discomfort seems to surround me sometimes. It feels like it's either my ankle or my shoulder, or it may be somewhere in between.
To be fair I have given my body a fair bit of abuse over the years. When I was just Kay, minus EssJayKay, I lived for a while in a one bedroom flat. The number of bedrooms didn't matter a bit, because there was very little actual sleeping going on. Sleep was for old people who had nothing better to do, we were just too busy building beercan mountains, paddling dinghies across the road, jousting on stepladders, or whatever else I can't remember. But not sleeping. You can't be having fun if you're sleeping. In those days of course nothing hurt. In those days I could jump from first storey windows without a thought. Nowadays a powerful sneeze is a danger. I'm like a J Reg Golf GTi. In the early nineties I was fast, efficient, fun and a bit cool. Nowadays I can still move, but certain parts don't move quite so smoothly, I tend to rattle a bit and there's the occasional alarming noise from the rear end.
Blogs.
Maybe it's just me, but I recently realised that my blog is just a new-fangled way of ranting at strangers. The desire to express opinions on anything and everything is another sure sign of getting old. Where this used to be done by sitting on a park bench like a hungry spider waiting for anyone with ears to pass by, it's now done by remote control over the ether. Cyberspace instead of Council space. But the principle is the same. I have opinions, which to be honest has always been the case, but only now do I have this inexplicable compulsion to pass them on.
If I was to sit in my flat from x years ago and tell any of the assorted funseekers present my personal views on the world, I would likely have been met with
"Aye, very good. What're ye wantin', a hat?"
And rightly so. Not only would I have never expected anyone to be the slightest bit interested then, I would almost certainly have been wrong anyway. Now though I am always right, so people should naturally have a desire to know my thoughts. So I am kindly sharing them here.
So. Case closed. I am old. And I think I like it actually. As a wiser soul than I once said -
"I much prefer it to the alternative"...

self improvement through violence.

Last night I was punched in the face. Very hard. So hard that my nose is swollen, probably broken and I have two black eyes. I asked for it. In fact I paid for it. And it was all for my own good.
As part of my continuing plan for self improvement, I decided to take up karate. To be exact, Kafdo Karate Aikido Jitsu. This is a bit different. Not for me the 'mincing about in white pyjamas pointing the toes at 56 degrees while pondering the ethical implications of catching a fly with chopsticks' type karate. This is proper 'break his arm then stick your fingers in his windpipe til he passes out' self defence style karate. The training is very hard, but it has to be. The whole point of it is that we can fight hard and fast when required. This means we're not going to have time to remove our shoes, slip on our jammies and centre our chakras or whatever else. So we don't. We literally walk in off the street and get kneed in the groin, choked to unconsciousness then give money to the man doing it. It may seem like more of a voluntary mugging than a lesson, but it works. I've only been at it for a month or so, and I already have the ability to restrain anyone with a wrist or elbow lock so unbelievably painful that they will move exactly how I want them, all with one hand behind my back. And his. Now this is actually quite useful in my particular line of work, not to mention certain social situations, but that's not why I'm doing it. I don't want to use this ability, this is why I took up running first. I just want to know that I could do it. So don't start, cos as soon as this swelling goes down and I can see you, I'll have you. Without hurting a fly.

Who's doing what now???

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances...

This quote, whilst obviously true, is of course rather out of date. All the world is actually a High Definition DVD (with bonus features). And when the fade to black is complete on my life, the credits will roll for a very long time indeed. So long is the list of supporting players that most of the viewing public will have shuffled out blinking into the kitchen to put the kettle on long before the copyright notices appear. Some perhaps dabbing a moistened eye, others bemusedly scanning the cover blurb and wondering if Blockbuster do refunds. But those who stay on the sofa while all the names of the beautiful people who played their part in my story scroll gently skyward will definitely get their money's worth.
Obviously I'm not going to list all, or even some of this castlist here on these pages, but now and then one or two may make an appearance. Think of this as an occasional 'making of' documentary.
One such name that will be ascending towards the set-top aerial before the thought of a cuppa has a chance to traverse all but the quickest minds, is the one who calls herself Misssy M.
Her influences on me are legion, probably more than she realises, but my thoughts today turn to a Summer afternoon and a fantastic barbecue at her parents house.
Possibly intentionally, it was a few hours in when she struck up conversation. I don't remember the exact dialogue, but the memories I have are thus -
M - "So what do you think?"
K - "Oh yes, definitely... Um, what?"
M - "Would you be up for it then?"
K - "Absolutely. Why not. Up for what, exactly?"
At this point I took my nose out of my wine glass long enough to finally smell trouble. I realised that we had been discussing M's admirable efforts at running, and it appeared I had just agreed to join in. More than that in fact - to stand in. There was a 10K race in a months time which she was unable to attend, so I had just agreed to fill her Nikes. How did that happen? Ordinarily if anyone had asked me to run 10 kilometres, I'd have run a mile. I don't think I had actually run anywhere for over ten years. And even then I was being chased.
But of course by this time I was well enough lubricated to buy the snake-oil. Well, I thought, how hard can it be? Can't do any harm? Would probably do me good in fact. I was carrying an extra pound or two, maybe I could see them off in the process. And it was for an excellent charity.
So the next morning, even after the Resolve had fizzed away the 'wrath of grapes', my own resolve remained. I could do this. And I did.
My first run was memorable. I was smart enough to not set my goals too high to start with, so I was merely aiming to still be alive after running round the block. To be honest it was a large block, probably around a kilometre in total, but I did indeed manage to return in one piece. I had taken the precaution of running sometime after 11pm, so the streets were suitably empty, and my embarrassment was kept to a minimum even as I trundled along at a geriatric pace. But once I got home - bright red, sweating profusely and steaming gently - a remarkable thing happened. I wanted to go again. Whether this was oxygen starvation making me delusional, or endorphins kicking in to placate my indignant leg muscles I couldn't say. But the fact remained that I loved it. So after a couple of days rest, I did it again. And again. Every other evening I would go a bit further, until after a couple of weeks I was up to 5K. After that I could really say I was hooked. Or at least my bank manager certainly could. My local branch of 'Run 4 It' were already organising their second staff bonus night out, as I emptied their shelves of all the lycra, overpronator-stabilising rehydrating high-visibility wicking monitoring paraphernalia I could lay my pin number finger on.
So it was that four weeks after polishing off a cheeky rioja over a blackened chicken leg or three, I was transformed into an amateur but addicted athlete finishing in the top half of a large field in my first race. And certainly not my last. Credit to the Misssy.
Stay tuned, more cast featurettes will no doubt appear soon.
FIN.

para-what?

I play drums.
Now, what I see as a proud boast, you probably see as a cry for help. I don't care. I just love hitting stretched plastic polymer sheets with bits of wood. As far as any of my family can remember I have always had a desire to hit things with other things. I can't remember seeing someone play drums and thinking "I fancy a bit of that" - because as far as I can tell I was doing it already.
I have a vague memory of being told to stop tapping my feet when I was at nursery school, and certainly right through primary school I was always annoying everyone else by tapping, clicking banging and clattering on anything that came near.
If anyone remembers Meccano, they did a junior version with plastic bits, and I had two long pieces which made perfect drumsticks. I quickly became expert at which household objects gave me the best sounds. I quite favoured the dampened thunk of a good cushion, coupled with the arm of the sofa. I guarantee we had the most dust-free furniture in the street. And I have the lungs of a coal miner.
I don't know why I felt the need to do this, it just seemed like I had to. My 'internal jukebox' in my head was forever playing drum beats, and it never occurred to me that other people might not be totally fascinated to hear them. You know when you're listening in to a conversation and you suddenly think of a really valid and enlightening point that you know will bring something vital to the table, so you just have to push in and express it? That was me, but my points were beats. I felt like I was constantly thinking of good rhythms which I just had to express. But I soon discovered that tapping someone on the shoulder, then yelling "dugga-chugga-chink-a-chug, duggabachuggada -PISH!!!" in their face does not always elicit the desired response. Especially on a bus. It took me a while to realise that this affliction was quite possibly mine and mine alone.
"What do you mean shut up? Listen, you may have missed it but I was doing a paradiddle between my left hand and right foot, while my right hand kept a steady triplet over the top!"
"Yes dear, but the congregation can't hear the minister give the eulogy"...
And so it has continued into adult life. It may well bother a lot of people, but not me. I've learned to live with it. Whether it's on stage in front of several hundred people, or sitting quietly alone in my favourite wing of Kay Towers - I play drums.

Cheers.

Picture the scene, dear reader - You and I are in the pub, when I ask you a question -
"Would you like a drink?"
Now I'm guessing two things would happen. The second one being you would get back up off the floor.
And there's a fair chance that you would be quite pleased, and accept graciously. But -
"Do you like a drink?"
might result in two slightly different things happening. The second one being that I would be getting back up off the floor.
The difference is subtle, yet potentially violent. One word different seems to imply that you may have a problem. It's a strange insinuation, that I've never really understood. Practically everyone I know has been known to partake of a tasty ethanol-based beverage, with no sense of shame. In fact most people I know, including myself (quite possibly more myself than others, to be honest) could be said to show a certain sense of pride in having partaken of said beverages to excess.
But as soon as that pride is questioned, or the insinuation made that you have a need for it, things get uncomfortable. There seems to be a control level, a cut off point beyond which the social exclusion zone kicks in.
You like having a drink, you're good at it, but you don't need it obviously...
One minute you're sitting on your favourite hard wooden chair with the mystery sticky bit beneath your feet, slap bang in the middle of a gang of best friends, with a warm glow in the cheeks, a grin on the face and the buzz of multiconversation in your ears.
Next thing you know you're sitting in the same chair, same sticky bit, but the realisation slowly hits that there is no strand of the multiconversation that is any of your business. And instead of being in the middle of a gang, you seem to be on the periphery of a different group. It seems your gang are now at home, whispering about how you just didn't know when to stop...
This line in the sand interests me. Where is it? How are we supposed to know? As far as I can tell, I managed to pass the test and came out safely on the other side. But I really have no idea how I managed it. Maybe some people are just not so lucky.
My current line of work brings me into close contact with these unfortunates every day. I spoke to one a few days ago who was in the Navy for most of his life with an exemplary record. He travelled around the world, had a massive social circle and had a drink with all of them wherever he went. He retired with a full pension, and a raging alcohol dependency. He now lives alone in a bedsit drinking two full bottles of cheap whisky a day waiting for his next seizure.
Another one I met yesterday is 29, his doctor doesn't think he'll see 30, and he recently woke up on a riverbank with a broken jaw and internal injuries, and no explanation.
Totally different people, with one thing in common. They just didn't hear the bell for last orders.

all change...

We trained hard… but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.*

Who is watching over me? Who decides what happens to me next? The discussion of God, destiny or fate is for another time, but right now I would really like to know which celestial Grand Master is moving me from square to square. Sometimes I don't even see the move coming, the first I know of it is when a mighty pawn comes along and knocks me sideways clean off the board. Other times I am quite happily sitting in place, happy that I am exactly where I should be. Then out of the blue appears a looming Bishop, and I just know that I have no choice but to pick myself up and shuffle off to a new, empty, cold hard space in order to keep playing the game. This is one of those times. 7 months after finding my dream square, safely surrounded, I look up to see the shadow of a great lumbering rook. So off we must slide. Not straight away - the game is still in progress, with several moves still to be made by others first, but I can see the way the game is developing. With the strong likelihood that my analogy has become hopelessly convoluted, I should probably just say - It appears I will shortly be changing jobs.