It is not what is lost that hurts the most, It is the thing that takes its place - - Jerome Kugan (The Myth of Displacement)* I say the things that try to take the place of what is lost - yet fail to do so, or even come close - are what hurt the most. They bring back memories…..which often are more legend than reality - the perfect bloke he never was, the doting girl she never would have been, the manipulating mofo everyone but you could see….. ...
HT: XKCD
I have a theory…. The world would be a much better place if everybody smoked and drank together.. This is a finding that cuts across age, race and location… I have found it true - based on anecdotal evidence mind you. I have not quite acquired the cross gender data yet… but I suspect it still holds true…. The proof? The way people’s eyes light up when they share a smoke…You can almost feel the electricity of bonding as they exhale in unison.. The smoke from their nostrils blending into an upward swirl… especially if it is a shared stick… Or more.. The sense of fully belonging when beer bottles lose their contents… Men are never more equal than before the bottle… Stories of hurt, of pain overcome and of success unlimited are swapped with reckless abandon under the inebriation the lager induces…. I suspect people would trust their smoke buddies more than their priest..and given the news continuously breaking, I wouldn’t begrudge them the lager… ...
The only thing worse than boredom is routine. I find myself living each day like a dream - sleep, wake, eat, work and sleep - Waiting expectantly for the 3pm chime that alerts me to the impending freedom from boredom - and then the bus that takes me home. Each day passes - sometimes like a bore, sometimes like a breeze - living for the weekend - and then the dread as the weekend ends - and the grind starts all over again. This is the life of me!
My Mother is my mother - so in theory, I should send her a gift for Mother’s Day - that’s a given, even if its only an extra long phone call :) What worries me though - and this is all altruistic - is where the wives, the sister who is now a mother, the aunts and the girlfriends fit. The wife, or official girlfriend is a critical case in point; they are not your mother, and they usually do not have children who are old enough to get them gifts for the day - but they do have the influence and ability to make the day horrible for one…. ...
If wishes were horses… I’d be out playing golf at the moment; not crunching numbers and telling lies giving expert advice to clients. This glorious sunshine is simply begging for a game of golf! Sadly, I am neither kith nor kin to Dangote nor to Mutallab Snr; and my dear father (bless his overly patriotic heart) turned down the offer of a tenure at Bristol back in the day :( ...
Coming into 2010, it was clear this was the year that could potentially make or break me. Coming off a mid-life crisis in 2009 a nasty break up in 2008 that was finally formalized in 2009, and major changes that seemed intent on tossing my well laid plans aside, I thought four things would be a small number of items to focus on - turns out even those four are a big ask. ...
A bride should be five years younger than her groom, should come from the same cultural background, and be the more intelligent of the pair if couples are to have a successful marriage, scientists have announced. Apparently the critical difference in intelligence is 27%… leading to a 20% increase in the probability of a good marriage. Perhaps eHarmony can include these critical findings in their much vaunted Compatibility algorithm. I have already included them in my spreadsheet! ...
Once bitten you’re smitten. I underestimated just how much this space means to me. I’ll be back.
I suspect……. …… that beyond all the rhetoric; behind the superfluous arguments, the cynical barbs and the seemingly pragmatic fronts we put up; at its most prosaic, life is about the desire for acceptance, the illusion of autonomy and an ineluctable gravitation towards the certainty that safety brings - And we want to love, and be loved, inspite of our protestations to the contrary. Sigh…