Lately I have been stuck in a bit of a head hole. I have been working a lot of late shifts which means less time with the family, and more time to think.
It keeps me up for a few hours on most nights. They aren’t disturbing or sad thoughts or anything. Just.. thoughts. Problems and situations I guess. Stupid shit that is probably easily fixable if I just got off my scrawny ass and attempted to to something about it.
One of the more pervasive thoughts I have is ‘what is my next move’. Roughly two years ago I shifted jobs and started down a path of self discovery and growth. That came to and end pretty recently and in a way, I am back where I started. I don’t want to say that it was a ‘Grass is always greener’ situation. That makes it sound like I tried it and hated it, and that’s not the case. I loved it for the most part. A better way to word it might be ‘Reality is rarely the same as you might imagine it to be when you are feeling confident and invested in something’. I guess they mean the same thing maybe. Maybe I am trying too hard to sound like I know what I am talking about.
When I started that journey I had a clear direction in mind. That was what I wanted to do, I had a path planned out and if I followed it long enough something would happen. Now that I have had to take a step backwards, I cant seem to pick a fucking direction to move forwards again.
Every single night I get in to bed and weigh up my options. I try to analyse my priorities and figure out which step is the most in line with them. I compare the odds of success and failure and consider which direction might benefit my self and my family the most in the long run. It goes on for a few hours every night, only stopping when I get up to eat a monte-carlo like some lanky cupboard gremlin skulking through the house at 4:00am trying not to make any noise so it can shove biscuits down its gob.
It is like some kind of weird thought paralysis. I never end up coming to any kind of solid conclusion, and so every morning I wake up and do fucking nothing about anything. Not even small, easily achievable things. Nothing. It then gets to the next night and the present me looks back at the me the day before and just thinks about what a fucking peanut he was.
But the thing that’s kind of fucked up is these problems aren’t even real. As far as day to day life goes, things are actually pretty good. I enjoy my job as much as anyone not working their dream job possibly could. Home life is great. I have come a long way from selling video games for cigarettes. There have been a couple of health scares but nothing that ended up being completely crippling or life threatening. There is absolutely no urgency to make a massive change right now. I am just working myself up about it because I feel like I am getting older heaps faster than I imagined I would. Like who still hasn’t got their shit sorted post 30?
I know what the solution is too. I need to work on my mental state before even attempting any sort of life shifting move now. Fix the lifestyle I am currently living. Stop putting off small shit and gluing myself to a computer screen every night once the family is in bed. Just do things. Anything at all. Stop ignoring the clearly visible issues standing directly in front of me, bent over with their pants down doing massive and loud farts directly in my face.
P.S. I just noticed this blog is getting sent to 474 readers. What the fuck, who are these people. I thought it was just my family and a bunch of people from work reading this. I appreciate you though, quiet randoms.
Category: Uncategorized
Driving
I am not really a fan of driving.
It’s not that I’m a bad driver, or at least I don’t think I’m a terrible driver.
But thats the problem isn’t it? Nobody thinks they are a terrible driver. Everyone thinks they are heaps good, and the people around them are shit. I can’t remember a time that I have heard someone say they think they are bad at driving.
Theres nothing more dangerous than someone who kind of sucks at something, but believes they are great. You can apply that to pretty much anything and you will see what i mean.
The worst time for me was always first thing in the morning. Hundreds of cars on the road. Most of them behind the wheel before the coffee has even had time to hit their guts. Not really wanting to be going where they are going. Still half asleep. It’s not something i like the idea of being a part of.
I use to prepare for the trip to work in advance. Planning the lanes I would need to stay in. Making sure my route involved the least amount of lane changes possible. A little bit of risk management to reduce the chances of accidentally bumping into a car worth more than i could sell all of my ‘can probably get by with just one’ organs for.
But it wasn’t the best plan, as it involved staying in the right lane for the majority of the trip down the expressway.
People get so fucking mad about that.
I remember one time i was going about my usual commute. Half awake, probably wondering why I am so weak in my dreams and can never manage to beat anyone up. This lady comes zooming up behind me and starts tooting her horn. I looked in my mirror and she was waving her arms around and saying thing as if i could hear her. Swerving out of her lane every now and then. Speeding up, slowing down. The usual.
It’s weird that peoples natural reaction to bad driving is to become abysmal reckless drivers.
I know I should follow the rules better. I understand how annoying people like me can be. But I am going the speed limit. The only reason you are mad about it is because you want to be speeding. Why does your aggressive traffic offence trump my anxious traffic offence.
I then changed lanes immediately.
I don’t know what state of mind she is in, how her morning has been, where she is going to in such a hurry, or why she chose me to unleash upon at 6am. For all i know, my shitty driving could have been the straw that broke this lady’s back. Either way, i’m out. I’ll even shift even further across if it means you will stop turning your head and making faces at me. It’s not like I am actually in a hurry. I just want to make it to my shift without any assaults or hit and runs.
Road rage isn’t something I mess with. Steering wheels make people go batshit. Some of the meekest and mildest people I know bust out a can of chrome spray paint and start spraying their teeth whenever they see someone forget to indicate.
I suppose it isn’t too bad now I can catch the train to work. That has it’s own issues i guess, what with the pandemic and all. People sneezing gets me all edgy. I start listening to see if they are going sneeze again. Oh shit they sneezed again. Time to check google for any news of an outbreak in Adelaide. Start thinking about how long I am going to be on the respirator for.
Or even worse if I have to sneeze. Have you ever tried to hold in a sneeze to the point where it is silence. You make that weird squeak noise and feel the pressure instantly in your head. Get a little tingle in your arms. I hope you have, otherwise i should probably book a doctors appointment.
Country driving is a bit more enjoyable. Less cars around. Long roads with minimal stops. The threat of kangaroos is fine because they aren’t going to come after me with a ball-peen hammer. It is just a way better time. Scenery is fine, no billboards selling real estate or iced coffee. Just cows and fences.
Although there is always at least one peanut that decides they want to play chicken on Sunday morning so that they can taste the worlds greatest beef and lentil pie a minute and a half faster.
Courtney said something to me the other day while we were driving through the hills. ‘I am not paying attention to anything else other than the sun on those trees right now’. I thought it was really nice. I don’t think i have the ability to appreciate that sort of thing anymore, but I enjoy it when other people do. Besides, it isn’t really something you can effectively practice during peak hour traffic. Just shut out all other thoughts and focus all your attention on the guy picking his nose two cars down at the lights.
I am looking forward to moving out to the hills. Away from the suburban life. It isn’t something I imagined myself ever doing again. But I am excited. I wont need to listen to the neighbours trying to kill each other while I drink my morning coffee. No more playing ‘fireworks or gunshot?’ at 2am. I will be able to walk down the street without being concerned about getting mugged by a bunch of kids with scooters again. It is going to be a nice place to raise a family I think. An adventure.
I went a bit off topic there.
The art of the awkward handshake
I bumped into some old friends at the pub on Saturday night. I hadn’t seen them in a couple years, so it was kinda cool.
But from the moment I layed eyes on them, I started to feel anxious. I started getting that sick feeling in my gut. I contemplated just avoiding them the entire night.
This was because I knew I was going to have to shake their hands…
I fucking hate shaking hands…
For reasons I don’t fully understand, I have never been able to master the art of greeting a fellow human being.
I guess it’s because people like to shake hands in a whole bunch of weird and stupid fucking ways. I can never seem to predict what way that person wants to do this, so 90 percent of the time it ends up all cringey. Awkward handshakes are the worst. Awkward handshakes are also my specialty.
Sometimes people hang on slightly too long, or they want to do multiple things within a short time frame. I can’t get my head around it.
Or if it’s a woman, they go for a full blown hug, or a kiss. How long are you suppose to hug for? Do I kiss someone I don’t even know? Where the fuck am I meant to kiss them? Why do we have to fucking kiss eachother at all god dammit. Can’t we just say hi and be done with it?
In high school everyone I knew just did the “slap and pound” thing. It’s super lame, but I liked it because it was informal, required minimal contact, and there wasn’t really any way to fuck it up.
But now people are getting creative, and it’s ruined everything.
So I went to shake the guys hand.
I thought to myself “just go with the regular, straight shake. You can’t go wrong”
I started moving my hand towards his, until I noticed his hand was angled slightly upwards.
He wanted to do the bro shake.
I don’t know how to do a bro shake well.
I mean, once you’re hands are joined in that upwards sort of clap formation, where do you go from there. Are you suppose to just kinda wiggle you arms together or…
I started panicking.
I was too far gone with my regular shake.
“Abort. Fucking abort Nathan, this is going to be weird”
It was too late.
I kinda grabbed the bottom half of his hand, and started shaking. He uncomfortably tried to adjust his grip to suit mine, but before we could make it work, I let go.
We both pretended like what just happened wasn’t unbearably awkward. And I continued on to the next one.
This time, I knew what I was in for. We are doing bro shakes tonight. I got this.
I reached my hand out to the next guy in the upward facing position with my elbow slightly bent.
“Fuck yea, gonna nail it this time”
He slapped in hand clean into mine. We did the wiggle thing. It was beautiful.
But..
He then started to move towards me.
For fuck sake… He wants to man hug.
From what I understand. Man hugs are different to regular hugs. You aren’t suppose to fully embrace the guy. You just semi-sorta put you arm around eachother quickly and then release. It’s really stupid and I hate it.
I don’t particularly like hugging anyone at all to be honest, unless it’s Courtney, so this is one of my least favourite.
He started moving towards me, and I hesitated. He noticed that I hesitated so he hesitated. When I noticed he hesitated I pulled him in closer because I didn’t want to fuck up this shake again. I placed my arm around his shoulder without touching him with it, and patted him on the back once or twice, then let go.
I felt dirty.
Once again we pretended like it all went well, and I retreated to the bar to fill my belly with alcohol and forget about what just happened.
One day I will get the hang of this. Maybe I’ll put it on my to do list.