Archive for the 'in a previous life' Category
I have told the story at least twice before of how my dad and my sister had such a massive impact on my musical taste albeit completely unknowingly, here’s another story.
I went out this evening and while still searching for music I found myself reverting to another old favourite.
Sometime in 1998 my friend Alan (I know that some of you never thought you’d see those words) bought a house. It was somewhere out in Stillorgan (that’s in Dublin for the rest of ye) and a whole load of us went around to help him out with stripping wallpaper and carrying furniture and all that. It was a Saturday afternoon and I think there was some booze but I can’t be sure. Not much if there was. Anyway we rocked up there, off the top of my head we had Avril, Liam, Frank, Jono, Liz, Emily, Liz, Mary, Nora, Chris, Joni and possibly Morna and Genevieve, in fact nevermind possibly that’s a probably (Jean, was this before your time or were you there too?…hmm I think Jean was there too - come on it was a decade ago, I can’t remember last week!).
Anyway I remember that Liam arrived a little late but he had brought some music. The reason I remember that day so well is that it was my introduction to The Smashing Pumpkins. Liam had just bought Adore. It was brand new and on CD. I remember that he was agog over the lyrics “you’ll always be my whore” and the liner photos of a woman in a very sheer top. I was totally lost in the music. I sat by the CD player for a good hour just lost. I remember saying to someone, Liz perhaps (Liz?) that I loved this album and I had to go and buy it and being told that I’d said that four or five times in the past hour and would I just go and buy it already (them were days huh?)
So I did. It’s easily one of my most listened to albums and it’s, unfortunately, reached that level of being overplayed for me. Sometimes I come back to it, like tonight, when I’m looking to just touch base with life and it’s perfect. Most of the time though I can’t listen to it.
Now I know I know, it’s not a good Smashing Pumpkins album but you know what, fuck that. It’s the only good Smashing Pumpkins album. Ooh controversy!! I know I know! I like a whole load of Smashing Pumpkins tunes (my favourites aren’t even on Adore which by the way works as an album but none of the songs really work on their own) but this is the only album I love. Don’t get me wrong Melon Collie… has some awesome tunes but and I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I prefer them with the guitars turned down. Shocking huh?
Anyway I took a little listen while I walked out tonight and I’m listening now. Not that it’s connected but to follow up on some other old days, same timeframe different people, I thought about getting in touch with people some more and send a couple of emails today to what were way back then mutual um acquaintances and so we’ll see what happens there.
Now as I’ve started typing I’d like to keeping going. I’m, I must admit, a little wary. There are a significant number of smart people reading this (that’s not you Dave, nor you Rich and especially not you Patrick!) and I suspect that it’s pretty clear but again I’m finding it a struggle to go between using this to work out things for myself and having others reading along. I think that’s part of the reason that despite having all the free time over the past few days that I haven’t manage to really type up anything. I know what I want to type but I know that I can’t post that here and so I’m stuck.
For newer readers all the possible context you need on this is here from a few months ago. I never really decided what to do about that.
I was most amused and most shocked though the other day. When I landed in Australia, something went wrong that afternoon. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I was out and I went into a shop to buy pen and paper because whether it was to work something out or not, I had to write down a few words. I had to see them on paper. I still have that notebook and I’ve written a few things in it that I’d be really really unhappy not that if someone read but if I had to explain because I’m still working on all that.
But then a few days ago, I lent the notebook to someone to write down a phone number or something like that and it didn’t even cross my mind what was written in there. I got the notebook back and it’s open, totally randomly, at a page that I have only vague memories of actually writing but that means so much to me and I was alright with that. Hmm I’m loosing this one.
So um photos! I’ve uploaded about 70 today, go and take a look! . I’ve not being doing very well on the Flickr front in a while. As it’s so much a social site not having time to look at people’s photos and comment and stuff means that I don’t get so many people taking a look at my own photostream (and hopefully staying a bit!) and so I’m much lower on the exposure meter than I had hoped. I did spend a while today whoring some photos around and with luck I’ll get some more people in to have a gander but if you have a moment or two click that link and then take a look at just 2 photos that catch your eye!
Alright I should sleep. I have to *gasp* set an alarm for tomorrow.
02.02 Buenos Aires Sunday December 21st
According to my sister, she and my mother have dismissed what I write here as (and I quote) drunken ramblings for the most part. Now I shall not try in anyway to convince you that I’ve written every word here sober, that would be a lie. But still, it’s nice to have so much just dismissed out of hand.
This is, I think, yet another reason to kill off this blog and take it back to something private where I can actually try and work out issues without having to worry about the consequences of readers.
Working with this, I give you a pretty significant posting. I wrote this going on a month ago when I was in Melbourne. I wasn’t sober when I started tpying but I was by no means drunk. I’ve been wary of posting this and I’m still not convinced. I don’t think I should hit publish but I’ve given up. This is unedited.
A month ago(ish)
Continue reading ‘I’ve got nothing to do, but hang around and get screwed up on you’
Right, let me prefix this by saying that I didn’t get much sleep last night. I don’t know why. I went to be around 11.30 and I pretty much didn’t fall asleep until sometime well after 4am. This was not good, especially as I was up early this morning.
So I’m not feeling too hot right now. So a good start to what promises to be a long (is it the weekend yet?) week. Hurrah.
In other news, I’m searching for a book. I’ve read a few good books lately but nothing that has reached out and grabbed me and now I’m loosing interest in reading. I went back and read Kingdom Come again last night and it remains glorious but I need a novel. I had a couple of interesting sounding books recently but due my complete lack of paying attention and some well placed stickers in the store, I appear to have bought two children’s books and so I’m totally put off them. Oops.
So. I decided that I’d put aside the pile of semi serious modern literature and dive back into modern sci-fi in the hope something would really grasp me. On the tube on the way to work this morning I started M. John Harrison’s Light. It’s talked up quite a bit and so it seemed like a good place to begin. However it has left me totally cold. I’m onto page 48 and I have this dread that I’m going to struggle to finish it. So not really too pleased about that. It’s not so bad as that I’m not going to finish it
I’m also reading, and this is the only time it’s okay to read two books at once, a short story collection called The Last Book You Read by Ewan Morrison. The first two stories were excellent. I’m generally not a short story fan, I prefer to sink my teeth into something a little more but recently I’ve read and enjoyed a few collections (of particular note Elliot Perlman’s The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming) and I’ll come back to a story in this every now and again. I have a little tidying up of books to do at some stage this week so hopefully I’ll be able to pick out something for my next book which will do better than this.
After realising that the song I kept hearing around the place and liking is the Editors Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors, I’ve gone back and given their first album The Back Room another listen and I think it’s going to grow on me a bit. It’s also good to not listen to Stars again for a little while. Onto my new obsession :)
Now having just tried to make an appointment to see my GP, I find that because I’ve been so considerate as to not need to see him for about two years, I find that I am no longer registered with him and need to go in and register as a new patient again. Then once that is all done I’ll be able to make an appointment. For all the bad things (and I know there are a lot of them) about American health care, I was able to just walk in the door, pay some money and see a doctor. It’s the same in Ireland. None of this registering in the right area and then making an appointment or any of that crap. Just go in, say your name and take a seat. Now in fairness the guy did say he could sort it out if it was urgent but I mean for fuck sake. I was sure that all my records from America were sent to this guy, so I wonder now where they have ended up.
Now in fairness, when I had my tumour fun at the start of the year I did have to pay some money myself and the insurance bill was not small but it was still a case of seeing a doctor on day 1, a specialist 2 hours later and then I went home with scans and the surgery already scheduled. So while I know there is much America could learn from the British health care system, it would seem to me that there is something the British could learn too.
Right then. It’s Monday morning and I’m shattered. I’m sat at my desk listening to Queen and trying to figure out an order for my thoughts. I may as well start with the Queen story.
I’ve written before about how my sister and my dad had such a major impact on my musical taste, both completely unknowingly. Next up to them, and in fact long before them was my next door neighbours while I was a kid in Dublin. I’m the eldest of three and so of course I had started school and all that before my sisters. Our next door neighbours at the time had twin boys the same age as me. They got a lift into school every morning from their dad. So for the first few years when it was just me in school, I use to get a lift in with them.
I use to look forward to these lifts every morning for one simple reason. They had a tape deck in the front of the car and as best I could tell, there was only one tape for it. So most mornings I would get into the car and there was at some stage during the few minutes a song playing that I loved. I’d have only been five, maybe six at the time and music was pretty much a new thing to me. As it turns out, it was a Queen album which I’d later come to find out was The Works but the song was of course I Want To Break Free. So it’s pretty much the first song that I remember, I still love it. Under Pressure has supplanted it as my favourite Queen song (and I’ve described it as my favourite song more than once) but I still have a little moment whenever this comes on.
Now the reason that I bring this up is that I had another little moment yesterday. I mentioned a while ago that I had developed a fear or at least a nervousness of flying. I still have no explanation for this. I was slightly unhappy on the way over to Dublin but it wasn’t so bad. Coming back last night though, it just wasn’t good. I wonder if it’s something as simple as an over-active imagination or something stupid along those lines. I still can’t figure out what it is. Anyway I was at a window seat yesterday and there was a lot of rain going on. I had seen a plane land on the runway we were about to take off from and it threw up so much water. I was not happy with this at all. But I was sat there, unhappy, thinking pretty much that I was a fucking idiot, I had no idea what was causing this and I should just get over it. I don’t know exactly what it was but something did just click and I got over it. I wish I knew what it was, as it’d be great to be able to just think something the right way and get over something. Anyway I had the window seat and it’s generally a new view in/out of Dublin and in/out of London so I put my book down and enjoyed the view. When I was allowed (stupid regulations), I put on my headphones and started scrolling through my iPod. I was looking for some inspiration for something to listen to and I thought I may aswell have a little laugh at myself and pick a song to listen to while the plane plummets to a fiery end :)
It took a little while, obviously the big guns (U2, Radiohead, R.E.M., Dylan) all got a few minutes of consideration but after scrolling through for a little while I realised I had to go old school. OK Computer (Karma Police, No Surprises) was quite high in there but on thinking, it had to go proper old school. So the next step was of course Michael Jackson. Thinking about it, I had to go with either Billie Jean or Liberian Girl, the latter something that I often forget but still one of my favourite songs. As I was scrolling back up, I spotted Queen and I knew on the spot what the song had to be. There was no question anymore, it was to be I Want To Break Free. So the rest of the journey home was Queen and it was glorious.
I was also thinking that in a way it’s quite lucky that I can’t write anything like as well as I would like or else I’d end up writing about music all of the time.
I bought some film on the way home last night. I enjoyed using the Spectra so much at Glastonbury that I thought it would be fun to take to Dublin with a group of friends next week and see what comes of that. 10 shots for £12! So I won’t be buying too much more of that unless I can find somewhere online that does it a hell of a lot cheaper!
Anyway I got home and dug out the camera. I had been doing a little more unpacking in preparation for my furniture actually arriving this week and I had put the camera in the corner of, uh important stuff I guess is the right phrase. In yet another circle, it was actually sat on top of my paper diaries for the mid nineties.
I was talking to a friend about them the other night and we were laughing (perhaps slightly crying too) about the codes that were used just in case anyone came across the diaries. The usual stupid shit that teenagers would be writing about and would be embarrassed to death if anyone read it and figured it out. To which, it’s not always easy trying to remember what the codes that you used such a long time ago were. Though in some cases it was easy enough as initials but in another case what the fuck was EHDGGJN suppose to mean? Okay well actually with a little thought that makes perfect sense to me, in my own strange way but still the point stands.
In many ways it’s odd looking back. It’s a very plain yardstick, even over the past few years writings nevermind the past decade or the one before that of growth and maturity and all that but at the same time it can be a reminder that perhaps some things have stayed more constant.
I have an idea for a photo project rattling around. Something very small and very geeky but it struck me the other night as I was trying to think of things to do. I’m out tonight and tomorrow night catching up with old friends but after that I have a few days with nothing in particular planned. Hopefully the weather will be nice and I’ll be in the right mood to get out and get working on it. Co-conspirators welcome!
Right so here is something that bugs me. It happens more often than I would like but really not all that often. When it does happen, it really bugs the fuck out of me.
I realise that a number of you reading this are my friends, some are good friends, some are really good friends, some are more acquaintances and some are even family. I’m not entirely sure how many there are in the latter category (there are some odd visitors from Ireland that could be my parents computer).
I don’t post here for your benefit. I’ve been writing in some sort of a diary for about 15 years now. First on paper for most of the 90s and then in some form of a blog since late 2000. Family aside, I’ve been writing in some shape or form since long before I knew each and every one of you.
I started using Live Journal a few years ago because it was becoming quite a social hub for a group of friends in London. I use to occasionally cross post entries to there from my real blog. This lasted for a while but then for various reasons, mostly to do with where my head was in work, I moved to LJ because I liked (and still do) their privacy levels. It was quite nice to be able to vent to a select group of friends or to just be able to go into more detail with a selected group. I got lazy and moved to LJ only for about 18 months. I took my site down for a redesign (if you can call this a design) and it took a long time to get to that.
Now I have this site and it feeds some posts in LJ so that people can still read me on their friends page if they so choose. I very occasionally post something locked to LJ for a group of London folks but that’s about it. It’s all automated (thanks mainly to Greg for link to the excellent Wordpress plug-in) otherwise I’d not bother. I’m way more open about this place, it’s linked in some places and a lot more people in work and family as mentioned now know about it.
But still, I mainly write for me. I realise it’s mostly a diary at the moment but sometimes I just need to sit down and type to be able to work some things out in my head. Those posts may never be published but that’s what this place is actually here for.
Now unless you are a new reader, you know all of this. I’ve mentioned it before, more than once. For a while on LJ, I had some inter-action turned on via comments. I turned them off quite a while ago (with some rare exceptions) for various reasons but it boiled to something I said at the time and I’ll paraphrase because I simply cannot be bothered searching through archives (marking everything private has the unfortunate side-effect of disabling the search) but I’m not really interested in talking about anything I write about here. I’m glad that people find it interesting enough to to come back to, but that’s ya know really nothing to do with it. I watch my stats, actually I don’t watch the stats, I watch the visits just to try and figure out who I know is reading this (work, family, odd searches etc).
So I write for me, I write things which amuse me, annoy me, entertain me, puzzle me, strike me, amaze me, the list goes on and on but the important word there is me.
Now search all you like on this page, but you won’t find somewhere to leave comments. You may find a mention of it in the source code if you choose to take a look in there but it’s either commented out itself or for the most part removed. It was one of the more recent bits of HTML I’ve done. I’m for the most part, quite simply not interested in talking about anything I write here. I’ve said what I have to say and that’s really it.
Again this isn’t news to anyone who has read this for a while and in particular it shouldn’t be to anyone who is actually a friend, I’ve talked about it with some of you before and explained my thinking on it.
So this is why, when I have actively gone to trouble to prevent you from commenting on the actual posts themselves, I think it’s a little bit presumptuous to send me comments in another format and so it bugs me.
First, and for the record, I have never slept with any barstaff*. Obviously this should be followed with some comment about not for lack of trying but I can’t recall ever really doing so. There was girl I worked with in a bar back in Dublin that I had such a crush on but that kinda fizzled out after a while.
Pint-Sized Ireland: In Search of the Perfect Guinness is a great book. I have been collecting copies of a similar book as presents for some people in the US before I leave. I was looking for more of that in Barnes and Noble in Georgetown when I came across this one. I figured it would do for one and that I’d have a read of it first. I just finished it in the pub this evening and it was pretty good. It’s one of the few recent books that does a good job capturing some of the spirit of Ireland.
So as I say, I was in the pub this evening. A good few months ago my friend Nick was over for work and crashed at mine for the weekend. We stupidly listened to Schro and hit a local club for the Saturday night. We were the youngest people in there by a long shot. It was, as best I could tell, an over 40s and twice divorced hook up spot. So we had some dinner and some drinks and we caught up and that was good but it was hardly a great night out.
However the food was pretty damn good and it’s quite closeby where I live here. So a couple of weeks later I stopped in and had dinner on the way home. Food was good, it was fine in the early evening and the bar staff were pretty nice. This became a habit and I’d stop in there once a week or so with a book or newspaper for a quiet dinner and a few pints. Ya know often enough to know the staff by name and to have them know what I want to eat and drink. It was pretty good.
Tonight I had what’s likely to be my last dinner in there and it kinda sunk in that I’m finishing up here when I paid my bill and said goodbye. With so many gone from the office and V leaving drinks not till this weekend there hasn’t really been anyone to say goodbye to yet. Have I ever mentioned that it’s odd over here?
One of my many leaving drinks in London was in a bar nearby work. It was, and I suspect still is, a shit hole. However it had exceedingly attractive bar staff, or so I was told. First it was Nick who started going there on a regular basis for the straight Polish boys he never had a chance with but liked to look it and then Rich took up the mantle with, the admittedly very cute but in a long term relationship, Karolina and so it took way too much of our money and our time for several years. Anyway quiet leaving drinks in there with Nick and Rich became less than quiet. While Rich left early on, we had hooked up with one of the previous barstaff and her sister. I was quite dunk that evening but and overwhelming memory remember is a sense of vague guilt when Rich walked back in around 11.30 after being somewhere with his girlfriend. I’m not sure why the guilt…okay I have an idea and Nick’s recollection seems to indicate the same reason but he was trying to avoid the advances of a young drunken Irish girl (the fool!!) and so is not a reputable witness and I choose to disregard his testimony!
Anyway the point is I guess I really am leaving. In just a little over a week I’ll be back to heading to Hammersmith five days a week and seeing what that life brings for me now.
Now where is that dunk thread?
*barstaff of course being the politically incorrect term for barmaids.
Okay so about a week ago Derek asked:
How do your expectations for your future now old up to the ones you had five years ago? Ten years ago?
(I assume she mean hold instead of old)
I’m not sure that’s actually what I’m going to end up answering here but it’s what kicked off this line of thought. I suspect that if you change the word “expectations” to “hopes” then perhaps I’d be giving a slightly better answer.
So first off lets jump back 10 years. It’s 1997 and right now I’d just be coming up to doing my Leaving Certificate. (This is usually for ages 17-19 and is for teenagers leaving secondary school.) I’m still living with my parents just outside of Dublin city. I may have been seeing a girl called Trish in or around this time, my terrible memory isn’t clear on that timeline.
So then I’d have been planning to pass my exams (though not doing too much about it) and go to college. I wanted to study something computer related. My top choices were probably various computer science degrees. I don’t think there would have been much else really going on at that time. I’m sure at the time there were things that were important to me but not really grand scheme of things ya know? So, yes ok go to college, get a degree and then get a job down the line.
Actually having said that there would have been other things but it’s a lot of the stuff that I look back on and wonder just who I was back then. Some of it is just so alien to who I am now. It’s odd how so much can change, actually all of that was just odd.
I think that I’d have expected to still know some people from then that I don’t now. Sticking with school in that case, I’d thought I’d know David and Finbar and Jonathan and Jennifer and maybe even Amanda and Claire (<- I don't know when, but sometime there is so much to write about in this line). I’m not so sure on much of that. It really is at times just a blur. Some of those ended badly, some just ended and some I guess just I don’t know did something else. It’s odd in a way how few people who were important to me then are important to me now. There’s only a few of them and for the most part those are totally different relationships.
Man just thinking about all of that really does leave me wondering about so much.
So moving swiftly along lets get into five years ago
Context for this one. It’s 2002 and I’ve been living in London for 2 years. I’ve just about settled down in London at this stage. I have a group of friends, mainly from work but this would grow a lot more in the next year or so.
My memory in this case is aided quite a bit by blog archives back as far as then…although I’ve just remembered that I have my 1997 diary here with me. I don’t think I want to dig that out but perhaps. So believe it or not on this day in 2002 I was actually flying to DC from London for work. This actually means that I had just gotten a new job. I had moved from uh what I’ll call web development into localisation. I was pretty unhappy in the former so I was quite pleased with that move.
I was seeing Karen at the time but she lived in Bristol and it was getting to be quite an issue for me to travel back and forth so much. So I guess we can sum this up as a new job (hi Dave!) that I liked and had gone out and fought for and a serious enough but with some issues relationship.
Hopes and expectations then would have been to learn localisation, work through all the toolset, master them and use them to complete the new clients. That all came true. My standard answer, and it partially remains true to this day, to being asked in reviews where I wanted to go was to say that I wanted my bosses job. It was true then, it’s semi true now but technically my boss is European CTO and that’s a few years off for me. Ugh that is technically he’s my boss till he gets a director in for us, he is EU CTO. Outside of work I was building up more friends (it was around now that I started meeting people through the WEF), I was thinking of owning somewhere and there had been early (very very very) early discussions of living somewhere with Karen. The distance eventually killed that, I could not do it anymore but those would have been the thoughts at the time.
So that was then, and then and this is now. I have a new job with a whole lot more responsibilities. It’s a job that I hoped to have someday, I reckon I’m about 2 years ahead of my planning for it. The work here in the US really worked in my favour. I have just put in the paperwork for my first proper direct report and I’m looking forward to both of these challenges over the coming months. Not really any particular hopes or expectations longer term for work really. The whole structure and roles have changed so much that I first need to do this job and figure out what there is for me before I can have hopes.
Obviously I have the move back to London and I’m working to get all of that sorted out. I’m looking forward to getting back and seeing friends and seeing what else there is back there. I do want to get a degree at some stage. I’ve been trying to do this for the past couple of years but the chance to move to the US trumped it. Now I’m going to take a much more active role in pursuing that. I don’t know if I’ll be ready for it by the coming college year but I have some basics I can get going on.
I’m still hoping to own somewhere. I don’t know when that’ll be. It’s a little while off, maybe 12-18 months maybe a little longer. It is getting a little closer but not as fast as I’d like. So I guess that’s one big one.
I suppose I can say that some of them hold up and that some of them have grown or perhaps matured is a better work along with me. I don’t think I ever really had unattainable hopes, to be honest as I write this if I were to make a list the ones I’ve achieved outweigh the ones I have not. The big gaps as I see it are not owning somewhere but I’ve still got a couple of years to go before I hit the average buying age and of course I’m single. The year in DC has hurt the latter almost as much as it’s helped the former. So guess it’s fair to say I’d hope to work on both of them.
Oh duh of course. Now I have a hobby, a real one. I’d expect to keep taking photos and I’d hope to have more published and perhaps someday to be able to make some money from them.
I don’t know if I can summerise now and then. I hoped for the same things that everyone does I guess I can say that at pretty much everytime in my life I’ve had some of them and at everytime in my life I’ve always hoped for others. And well wasn’t that a shit summery?
I’ve think I’ve typed close to what I wanted to tpye and I think I’ve said what I was thinking about but I don’t think I’ve answered the question. And so it goes.