Estranged

I don't know why I do it.

There are times when I find myself trawling YouTube for old songs I used to hear in the clubs back in the mid-nineties. Usually when it's late at night and I really should have gone to bed, like tonight really.

It always makes me nostalgic and the yearning is something else. Like a pang in the stomach.

I guess most of us leave a part of ourselves in that point in our lives when going out, drinking and dancing is what the weekends were for.

Nowadays I can't be bothered or at least thats what I tell myself, the truth is likely somewhere in between and blended with anxiety and self-image issues in a cocktail I'll christen 'too old for all that shit'. I can't hack the hangovers, can't be done with over-crowded bars filled with fresh-faced tossers and mostly, by comparison, the music of the noughties has been a steaming pile.

But when you get the right DJ playing the old stuff... It still gets under my skin. I'm not saying I was a devout clubber, a pulling machine or even a good dancer for that matter. Far from all of that, but still you couldn't beat a good night out and an alcohol-driven wiggle. Anything else was just a bonus.

How do you reconcile what you enjoyed immensely back then and the face in the mirror that greets you every morning? The one you can't quite believe is yours because it belongs to some adult and theres more wrinkles than you want and less of a hairline than you need.

Its true; youth is wasted on the young. My observation was that by the time you realized how narrow the actual window of true youth was, it was gone. In your twenties you're still young by anyone's gauge but twenty-five is not twenty-one and twenty-one isn't eighteen. The silly thing is I'll probably look back in ten years time and think how young I was now.

And perhaps I think too much, write too little of any merit and should have gone to bed already!

I am in a long-term live-in (all but married officially) relationship and have been for many years.

My girlfriend's Christmas party in December 2007 stands out in my memory for three reasons - two days later we discovered she was pregnant, from my perspective the party was cronically dull and finally, we had sex when we got home. It may seem odd that the sex stands out, the event itself I have no recollection of but because of the following fact it does stick in my memory (and my girlfriend did point out the fact, and date, once on this very subject), since then and until this very day, we've only had sex once since and that was pretty recently. Theres been very little contact in that sense between us at the last (nearly) two years.

Pregnancy I accept can get in the way and if we're being honest I would say it was me, not her, who switched off at that point. Then we have the newborn phase where people are generally too busy and too knackered to bother, which for us has been and passed.

While being honest, on the one occasion recently I think I only succumbed to the notion in the end because I'd passed what seemed like a milestone at eighteen months and the idea seemed to be with us both that day. Its like my approach to quitting smoking, as much as the notion appeals to me from time to time even now years later, I won't even smoke a single cigarette because that will ruin my record and I'll have to start again. Somehow I decided it was close enough, i'd make it a nice round abstainance!

Since then, the flood gates haven't opened and theres been no rumpy-pumpy renaissance. The question is why?

Shortstuff comments that I never try it on with her and my stock reply is just to repeat the same back to her. I don't say it spitefully, it is just a statement of fact. These two comments occur isolation and never result in either discussion or action; Shortstuff could choose her times better, if I'm trying to get to sleep I'm never going to engage on that one. In some respects this celibacy has started me thinking about sex and its place in my life, its obvious that I'm not particularly bothered at this point; the question now is not "why am I not having sex?" but more worryingly, "why am I not bothered that I'm not having sex?'

The physical mechanics still work and I have a young family but there is still plenty of time.

I could say I know her too well to sleep with her and that you need a little bit of unfamiliarity to give it that edge, sometimes thats the real exhilaration but the other arguement is that its better when you know your partner and I'd subscribe to both ideologies equally.

I find myself wondering if the opportunity did arise to sleep with someone else what would happen. I'm not the cheating kind, its more that I'm curious to know whether that adrenaline-pumping animalistic urge would suddenly switch back on even if it was just to be subdued in order to remain faithful.

I believe its more a mental thing than a physical attraction thing. Pregnancy can be hard on a woman's body, its taken some time for bit to snap back into place but Shortstuff is almost there now and overall hasn't really changed. Unlike the next door neighboor who we bitch about and is quite a different shape altogether after her recent family addition. Fat-arse *snigger*

I think I've just got to face it head on - we don't really communicate, we talk but its the perfunctory talk that comes with a child and running a household mainly. Its the connecting thats utterly devoid from our relationship.

Admitting the fact and doing something about it are two different matters however.

I think I've locked her out now and just do an impression of being here. I can do that all to easily with people and can find it difficult to backtrack and re-engage again. Not a helpful trait when theres this invisiable line that won't be crossed, the big elephant in the corner that needs addressing and neither of us is have attempted to bluntly confront it head on.

I don't want to leave, I've no particular desire to be anywhere else. Space would be great but we're not a couple anymore, we're a family and as such thats going to be in short supply. We don't argue, we co-exist quite nicely and its not an affectionless situation its just not an intimate one. We adore our child and we both want more children however now I think about it, it did take about a year to conceive last time which wasn't to do with any biological constraint, but through a lack of effort on our part. So, basically, the sex issue had started even before Shortstuff fell pregnant, based on ratio of attempts to pregnancies I'd say fertility wasn't an issue but if you're only trying once a month the chances of hitting the right days were going to be slimmer.

Perhaps we've just hit that spot that all long relationships stumble across but I'd say its less of a case of it getting a bit stale and more a case of being disatisifed is tolerable in the short-term but over time...?

If it wasn't for this lack of emotional intimacy I could just talk to her about it... Egg, Chicken, Chicken, Egg...

We used to have a lot of fun. Living together can really spoil sex can't it? The humdrum just ends up replacing that 'I haven't seen you all week' urgency.

Gah, maybe its just a phase.

I watched a film today and the subject matter of the film although totally light-hearted made me come to this point. It's smiliar to points I've expressed during office conversation but from a more defensible stance.

There all these people who go around espousing that they believe in God, praying to God, worshiping him ...But the moment you turn around and say God told you to do something they automatically assume you're a nut-job.

Hang-on.

If he's so real and he listens to everyone of us [sic] then surely it is not inconceivable that he might also talk to us? And indeed if his motives are so unfathomable to us mere mortals that his priests defend them with the explanation that his designs are beyond our knowledge... Then how come no one listens to David Ike?

Ol' Ike is certainly beyond most peoples rational comprehension but we've been told for the past two millenia that we're not to question and we're not privy to the levels of existential understanding required. But it does raise the point that anyone who did claim to be the son of God now would just be ridiculed and chastised.

It does strike me as odd that when we [the ubiquitous human race] were worshiping false idols such as statues of golden cows and being a little less civilised than we are now, which in itself is an arguable point I'm not willing to defend myself, God allegedly sent his only son (lets just gloss over the fact we're all his children and Jesus, God and the Holy spirit are one and the same because that just muddies the waters) down to Earth to redeem us by talking whoopie and getting himself strung up for being a wee bit fruitier than your average smoothie.

Since those heady days of cosmopolitan enlightenment, we've proceeded to deface ourselves, commit genocide on scales that only statistics can describe and the human mind can only fail to comprehend, we've used nuclear weapons against each other and partaken of countless other unspeakable crimes against the spirit of existence.

And what came of Jesus' supposed return? Not a lot.

Unless of course, things haven't yet gotten as bad as worshiping gold plated effigies to the spirit of Moo yet...

My personal favourite hypocrisy is the 're-interpretation' of the Bible whenever it suits the Church's needs to be trendier and more Nu-Liturgy. Now each to their own and their happiness, its of no consequence to me but to press my point does it not say “man shall not lie with man” somewhere in that big waste of tree pulp?

Errmmm. Now Bishop Kiddiefiddler, exactly how DO you come to a new understanding of that statement where it means homosexuality is okay and lets bag a few of our new friends for ordainment while we're at it?

And why is it that the God squad can blather on about resisting evil and renouncing the Devil but the moment someone declares themselves as a worshipper of Satan its just someone being a bit silly, or different for the sake of being different? If he existed as the juxtapose in the sermon, he must exist and therefore be an equally valid choice for those inclined?

What about the bit about clothing? This one gets my goat especially. My limited understanding of all things Biblical leads me to believe that to be ashamed of God's image is against the grain of the tome, but the moment you're naked, believers have a tendency to denounce you as wicked and debased. Oh the irony of the long skirts and high necklines amongst the congregation...

And then there's the depiction of Jesus as a middle-class white man with a neatly trimmed beard... Please, spare me.

The whole premise of that tale is borked from the outset really. Either Joseph didn't know what it was for, or was what we educated modern types would term; a retard. There is the 100,000:1 outsider that Mary was an impossibly rare fertile hermaphrodite but I'd prefer to stick with the assumption that she was a bit clever than that carpenter she'd shacked up with. Wink!

'm going to Hell now aren't I?

I was intending that maybe this post would progress into a productive piece that would have endeavored to make some sense of my limited spirituality but mostly is just been a total flame. Perhaps, I'll get on to that subject another day.

Its still shorter though than anything I would have written about America or world politics...

In a rare break of form, I've decided to go against my usual habit of posting and disappearing again for months at a time.

Maybe perhaps that says something about how I am feeling of late? I seem to have plenty of things on my mind and not without justificationr. I'm just not certain that despite my willingness to sit here armed with the power of qwerty, that even a fraction of it will ever make the page – it never does, and thats despite the fact I can go on a bit at times!

What I leave out could fill chapters, not pages. But if I was working under the assumption that no one else would ever read it, then I wouldn't be writing it here for anyone to see would I? And with that in mind, I generally opt to steer clear of gratuitously excessive naval-gazing. That, and it does me no good either - the plaster may have cracks in it but if you cross your eyes and squint a bit...

Another truth is, I'm enjoying a lot of what I'm reading from other people's pages. While it may be that I am taciturn for months at a time, it is rare that I'm ever truly absent for long. And seeing as am I here anyway...

My mother.

Ugh.

I was almost tempted to start there but no, I'll let that one stew for a while longer and head to happier pastures.

Cot Mobiles!

We have a mobile for the cot of the little one. Purchased, constructed, attached and tested, all ready and waiting for her when she chooses to arrive. And I am in love with it.

It has little plush fishes hanging from it, it projects fishes and stars across the ceiling and plays harmonious tunes that I find soothing and compelling myself.

Coming home from a less than joyous day at work on Monday, I went and sat listening to the mobile for a short while to perk my spirits up a bit.

I think it reaches to a part of me that I keep very closely protected, the part of me that treasures the total innocence of the thing and the world that it represents.

I suspect that is one of the scariest aspects for me of becoming a parent is coming face-to-face with such utterly unspoilt, untainted life. If only life were as simple and as beautiful as such an object as a child's mobile eh?

Its almost, kind of heartbreaking(?) in a sense to know that those moments of total innocence and happiness will be fleeting and that soon enough life will intrude. I suppose, that one day life will shape my as yet unborn little one too and the glimpse of pure innocence will be gone there with time.

I guess I should be thankful for the 99% of me that can be cold and project a solid persona because the other 1% really isn't hard enough to cope with the realities of the world.

It is scary isn't it? Knowing that this little person whose feet I chase across the skin of Shortstuff's stomach will reach right through and find a heart I keep so closely defended.

I could go on, but perhaps this is enough.

Having tried to finish up neatly countless times and just erasing my words I'm just going to give up. It is indeed, enough for one day! The brain has stalled!

Seriously now, I have to say I have no patience for the world any more.

I don't agree with 95% of the western world and its ways and as for those nut-jobs in the middle east... well, lets just say although they do have a point occasionally, a good old medieval crusade to thin their numbers wouldn't go amiss either!

Is there anywhere on this forsaken mudball where a little common sense and perspective still reign?

It must be an age thing, the more you understand of the world around you the less you accept of it. And I accept very little of it as relating to me in any way. The standards and accepted norms of todays society aren't of my choosing lets put it that way.

I'm still waiting for the death of political correctness and have been since the 90's passed by. I'm sorry but between 'defered successes', personal protective equipment for playing conkers, civic insurance for egg and spoon races and all the other multitude of things we can't do, or can't say out loud I think I've reached the conclusion that *drum roll* that global warming IS the best thing to happen to the Earth in thousands of years!

Thats right! The answer to all the world's problems is the one we simple little organisms believe to be the greatest peril it faces. How ironic.

All we need to do is carry on with the pollution and eventually the world will become so inhospitable we will suffer and eventually become extinct. The Earth however, will still be here and will still continue to orbit the Sun.
Without us meddling buffoons turning the glorious wonder of nature into one giant excuse to work rather than live, the Earth will recover and prosper without us quite merrily!

It would be interesting to see if you stood a politician between the train tracks how long it would be before he reached to conclusion that the train would, indeed hit him and wouldn't veer aside at the last moment. Ignorance like that over making positive, not lip-service, policy to combat pollution is yet more damning evidence that as a species, we frankly deserve to go extinct.

Whoever coined the phrase 'Save the Earth' needs a spanking too, global warming is just humanity's brush with celestial Cillit Bang... now if folks had come up with the more correct terminology of 'Save the Humans' people might actually sit up and pay attention.

Anyway, I rant on...

Maybe the next generation will do something more imperative about it... but then again by all accounts they'll be obese, diabetic and dying of heart failure before they're 50 anyways so they won't give a shit either.

Is it just me, or is anyone else waiting for a new breed of politician to arrive?

The one who stands up and says 'with all due respect, the right honourable gentleman is an inbreed fuckwit and wouldn't know his arse from his elbow!?'

The one who looks at the education system and says 'defered success??? Bollocks, its called failure. Some of them are good, some are crap - thats life, get used to it!'

The one who says to all the asylum seekers, 'If you're so scared of persecution I'd have thought you'd have been happy to settle in the first country you came to that was safe - rather than continuing on to the one with free healthcare, free housing and cash handouts'

I await the arrival of the Common Bloody Sense party.

PS.I'm not holding my breath.

PPS. Yes, I NEED a holiday... BADLY!