From Brum to fatherhood (…is my ticket still valid?)

Hey all, got some more scary news to share with the intermaweb.  A week last Sunday (my how time flies :S) I met up with Wilson in Brum for some catching-upness and general merriment.  After going to a few of the regular haunts like the nicer of the two Spoons and getting some grub, possibly fueled by the harder drink, we thought it would be cool to try out a few new and random watering holes.

Well we didn’t get that far in all fairness.  We went to O’Neill’s which I believe is a part of a chain of bars, a franchise if you will, but it wasn’t too bad.  Following that we went down the road about 50 metres to find a new bar called “Walkabout”.  Encouraged by the promise of a cider festival which as it happened started that very same day, we popped in to check it out.  Confronted with two Australians behind the bar it prompted the question, “Do you have to be an Australian to work here?” to which the reply was, “No, but it helps…”.  One random fruit of the forests cider and some Australian rugby later, it was time to move on again.  It was at this point, that the evening was starting to draw to a close, and I thought best to be off, it was a Sunday, and the trains get really bad late on in the evening. 

We checked in at New Street, realising we had some time to grab another, although good ol’ Wilson reckoned we have time for two rounds, mmmm.  Anyways, as it turned out we went to the other Spoons, although it was for a pint of Old Rosie, which is slowly building up the rep it held when I was back at Uni – which is pretty awesome.

That single pint of Old Rosie was proving tougher than originally planned, so had to develop some speed drinking, and bless, I had to help Wilson finish his.  Realising that we had to really go, as in leave about 3 or 4 mins ago, we left at a brisk pace back towards New Street.  I got to my platform and did a little jogging to my train, which was not needed as the train sat there for about another 10mins, grrr, it’s so undignified to run for public transport, but I thought I had no choice, alas.

 

So there I sat on the train on my way back home, beer slowly digesting, and feeling pretty good about the brief hours spent in Brum, when uh oh! thanks to breaking the seal in one of the earlier bars, I had to go on the train itself.  Now that is a challenge all on it’s own, especially on the older carriages, where it is incredibly bumpy and rickety – would people understand if I had made a mess of myself?  Anyways, on the way down to the train loo, I spotted an old friend John Jones from school.  Once I got back I grabbed my bag and sat with him to catch up on what was happening at his end, which I have not done at all properly – I’ve seen John getting off the train I get on to get home from work, but that’s about it.

 

Anyways, so I got chatting with John, and the reason why he’s on the train comes up.  As he tells me, he’s on his way back from Kent, which as he stresses is an 8 hour trip and not an enjoyable one.  He continues, and as it turns out, he met a girl when absolutely wasted down in London some time ago, and all he remembers is waking up in this girl’s house in Kent.  But the first bombshell is that he has only gone and got this girl pregnant, so she is now with child. I’m not actually sure of the timings and John wasn’t completely specific but it seems that the wasted adventure John had in London could well have led to the conception of this child.

I actually asked John, “so do you love this girl?” to which he was especially non-committing and kinda shrugged it off, “Yeah, I gotta” or words to that effect, it was late, and I was liquored up remember.

Scary stuff, so another old friend has joined the list of people who have, or about to start a family.  I was probably in shock for a lot of the rest of the journey.  I often get worried that I’m not growing up like I should, and hearing of people having children does nothing to dissuade that view on my life.  I’m 22 now and although I do believe I have changed considerably in the last year, I still do not feel anywhere near mature enough to raise a child – the question to throw out there is, will I ever feel mature enough?  That’s probably how it would all end up, me winging it and potentially screwing up the child’s life.  Ah well, it won’t be the only one hey? :D  Adding to that, I don’t feel the want or need for raising a child right now, so even if I did achieve the maturity, there’s no way I’d be up for a child, the whole thing scares me :S

 

Here’s waiting for them to invent maturity pills…

No Topic :S [Dated 20/04/07]

Hey again, and welcome back to the library, the liviest place in town! Anyways enough of that, down to business lol.

I think this is the first time since resssurecting this blog that I’ve started blogging without a clear topic to start with, so this will probably be a bit of a rant.

To kick things off, I moaned in the last blog about Carl’s friend, and how I prefer to walk home from the train station on my own, well I must have jinxed it or something, cos thanks to a kid who hopefully had tourettes on the train, she felt like venting towards me. Just like when I bump into this guy Matt who works weekends, I don’t actually say much, he like Carl’s friends just like talk. I do wish sometimes that I can just switch off and just drop into a daydream while they yap, but alas no luck yet – if it happens enough, I could probably tune it out with practice.

speaking of trains lol, the other week I bumped into an old friend, well not really more acquaintance – a guy I knew back from Secondary School. We called him Seggar, as it was his last name, and well that the was the lazy nickname of choice at our school, I’m sure it was at yours too. Anyways, I hadn’t seen him since college most likely, so the last heard he had become a chef, so that’s what I told him.

He told me that he still was, and had recently moved back up from london where he did a stint of cheffing down there. As it turns out, he has a child, omg. I hid my suprise pretty well I thought, but fair play to the guy. This is a guy, who probs by his own omission is a large guy, but he found a partner (his word, not mine :s) and they had a child, but were not seperated. He had allowed custody to fall to the mother cos well he said that a child can’t be without their mother plus he then took the job down london. Anyways, he moved back to be closer to his offspring, and he was moaning that he had him more than his mother recently. He then went on to say, that he could easily get custody of the child, as he is in a stable full-time job, and she is, to paraphrase Seggar, on benefits, and always getting lashed everynight.
It’s quite scary that Seggar has a child firstly, and that he is actually the more stable of the parents. I dunno, I mean fair play to him, I probably suffering a little from Peter Pan syndrome, not wanting to grow up, and the idea of being a father is a scary one.

Once upon a time, I was quite pumped at the idea of being a daddy, obviously sometime in the future, not like next week lol. But reading and seeing all these stories about raising children, and how this generation seem to be the most awful parents – problems with junk food, obesity, paedophiles, it’s a scary world.
I also was quite happy at the idea of getting married one day, but in today’s society, it hardly seems worth it, what with about half of them ending in divorce. Maybe I’m seeing the extreme end of the spectrum thanks to daytime talkshows, but unless I’m wearing some rose-tinted glasses, standing at the alter reaidng my vows on how I will love this woman forever, I’m not sure I would believe it. But then again I’m a cynic, pessimist, call it whatever…

Maybe it’s an idea to move on to something a bit more upbeat. I have purchased Guitar Hero for the 360, a week or two ago, and it’s pro. I’ve hot a bit of a wall so far, playing through on hard. I was stuck for ages on Wolfmother’s Woman, the solo was killing me, I kept failing, but I eventually managed to crawl through. Saying that, in the next group of songs, The Police’s message in a bottle is much easier, so a little upset that the balance of the difficulty isn’t quite perfect. It’s a lot of fun with my shiny Explorer guitar, and thanks to good ol’ Claudio also possessing one, I’d actually really like to own my own explorer one day, but a quick check on the internet at prices, and oh my are they expensive :S
It’s quite bad in a way, cos my actually RL guitar playing has been slipping, and I’m simply not practicing as much as I’d like, it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day. Finally bringing work into the picture, and the 4 hours I am there are incredibly boring and tedious, there are times when I’ve looked at the time, and thought “shit, I haven’t even been here 2 hours!” :(. It also is pretty sucky, that thanks to the train timetable, I spend about 7 hours out of the house for 4 hours of work, which thinking about it, it’s pretty lame, I almost feel sick at it.

There’s a possiblity of a job in Telford as a web programmer, but I’m trying to not get over excited about it. I sent off my Cv etc and should know next week if I have an interview, which hopefully I should. Again with the few hours in the day, thanks to spending 7 hours away for 4 hours of work, I never feel like doing anything constructive when I get back in. Cos I haven’t done much programming at all really since leaving Uni, it would seem wise, to start getting back into that frame of mind, in preparation for this potential interview, but most of the time, I end up thinking, meh.

To sum up, moan moan for 4 paragrpahs and relax… Nah, but seriously, the hope is that it’s healthy to vent like this but I’ve been doing this kind of stuff for some years now, and well i’m not sure if it’s working. Looking not too far forward, I was chatting with Eric on the msn last night, and he and Karlie are coming into Wem, the only reason being to hang out it seems so far, and we’re going for a few drinks this eve, so that should be alright. It seems a bit of a highlight of this week so far *sob lol. Also, can you believe that Eric reckoned I should hookup with Carl’s friend, until I explained her unattractive qualities which I cba to list here. And before ppl turn round and say that’s harsh to put it like that, as Wilson convinced me, we can’t help who we are attracted to, so I’ve learnt not to feel bad if I am only attracted to stunning model types and not ugos. I’m kidding, it’s not quite that extreme, but I can’t help who i think is attractive or not, so thanks to Wilson for convincing me of that.

Until next time, take it easy.
J-Man.