Right Here Right Now – 4.

Sleep is the dream.

Sleep is not in the realms of reality.

Sleep is what is required.

The last seven months has been awful for my sleeping patterns!

I used to be able to get plenty of sleep, these days I can float through the daylight hours like a zombie! I have been averaging less than four hours sleep a night, only occasionally do I get more than five and a half, then I pad about my house like an intruder looking for something to cause mischief. I wouldn’t say that I am tired as such just in a casual kind of a daze, thankfully I can powernap when I travel to and from work, so that’s an average of at least one more hour, I know I’m not really sleeping but it does help bring a little sharpness into my focus.

I have actually tried a few different methods to improve my sleep, none have worked so far, it’s a ghastly nightmare especially when I have always been such a good sleeper, I wouldn’t complain if I could have a couple of extra hours at the weekend and by that I mean in bed asleep not like some drunken uncle in my chair in the living room, just a little something extra to pep up my life battery so to speak, I’ll take whatever I can get, as long as I can rest, I’m sick of being awake at 3.30 in the morning looking for any old film to watch to fill my time before I head off to work!

Monday was lousy, up early got to work then around 12.30 I could feel life draining out of me, I made the decision to go home I didn’t feel well (that’s the first time I felt like that) thankfully fresh air perked me up, but I almost didn’t make it home I was so worn out, I literally dropped my bag in the living room climbed the wooden hill and was asleep as soon as I hit the mattress, I awoke 150 minutes later not knowing what day it was, what the time was or even which planet I was on, did I feel refreshed? Kind of, but not enough, I was praying that the little snooze wouldn’t affect my nightly attempt, thankfully it didn’t I was awake again 03.10 the next morning, back to being a zombie.

I’m not really complaining, I simply have no clue as to why my body is giving me a kicking, I’m eating healthy, had no alcohol in nearly a year, maybe that’s it I need seven pints and massive full kebab, I doubt it, my body would wake me from my golden slumbers at the usual time and tell me to move my bleeding arse.

Ah well it could be worse, as long as I have my hair and my looks………………………hang on a minute!

I will be back soon not refreshed…………. until then Toodles!

Beast of Burden.

So, this blog has been brewing in the back of mind for the last six weeks or so, I feel the need to get it out of my head and then to move on, every time I do something to get rid of it, it seems to come back stronger.

I know I’m not in the best frame of mind at the moment nor at my worst either what with work, family issues and my general health and mental health its all been kind of crap, my sleep routine isn’t helping either and everything I seem to do to correct it doesn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference, put it all into a pot and it is definitely a recipe for disaster, to be honest I have been fighting a losing battle for what seems like months now, not a total all out disintegration on my part, small time skirmishes that never seem to die out, I am fighting the good fight and mentally I feel stronger than I have done in years, but it does wears you down, thank god for music to soothe the savage beast (ok I’m not that savage these days).

Bob has been getting ever closer (see previous blogs for clarity) and though he hasn’t committed to a full-on assault I know he is there and I’m edgy because of it, the constant being on edge is not helping my mental health, which again is feeding my lack of sleep which in itself is feeding the edginess. But I keep plodding on, I keep swinging away at all of the targets that come within striking distance, and all the while Bob just lies there out in the trees waiting for the best moment, he knows its not yet, its almost like a hot summers day when you can feel the storm about to roll in and break, but you have no idea when it’s going to hit.

Ok so let’s do this one thing at a time, work, well I was in a team of three with a heavy workload, now I’m in a team of one with a huge workload, again its like playing whack a mole, and I’m not going down without a fight, its not helping my sleep  as my brain just seems to be trying to work out resolutions to work and the busy schedule trying to accommodate everybody and the needs of the role! As always the needs of others come before mine, and I know that’s my issue nobody else’s , it’s the way I operate, I always have and always will, it’s the same for the family, I worry about the wife I worry about the kids and I really worry about one of my grandchildren, diagnosed with ADHD and autism throw in a helping of Tourette’s well it’s a prescription for disaster, he has his flare ups and at times I have no idea how to help him, I have no idea how his mother gets through her days, at times he is a complete hand full, I would say 90% of the time he is with us he is fine, but he has his moments and although I try my best to help him, my best simply is not always good enough!

All of my health issues keep kicking me fair and square in the butt, my diabetes is what it always is, crap, but my nurse says that I am getting better, I’m still struggling to lose weight, but I try every day and the last couple of weeks is me trying to strengthen my resolve with some success, my mental health thanks to Bob hasn’t been so lucky although again I have been putting up a strong defence, I haven’t lost any ground but I haven’t gained any either, its like a shark circling all day every day, and slowly very slowly getting closer and closer to me, I was hoping my weeks leave was going to repair my leaky boat, I haven’t been successful……yet, but I also haven’t given up, my knees are as they were, thankfully I wasn’t kicked off the surgeons list (as I was expecting) I have been given a further spell of time to lose the required weight ( and I am determined to do that). But if you put everything together, I know I’m losing the battle, I feel like there is an episode coming at me and I have all of my defences on full alert, you can only maintain your defences on high alert for so long before something bad happens!

Hopefully me venting my spleen is going to go some way to resolve some of my issues, and they are mine, I’m not down about this, I simply feel lethargic and yes I have been writing (as a way of venting steam) but its this particular blog that I keep coming back to (this is my fourth attempt, the others were really bleak and that’s not the picture I wish to paint) it, the weekend is coming towards me and I simply want to relax and have a peaceful time, I’m not sure how I can achieve that but I do know I’m going to have a damn good try!

Life has also been throwing my past in my face, the name from the “Girls” blog (who I wont name) has been popping up in the “people you may know” section of Farcebook that’s a curve ball I can do without, and no I haven’t cyber stalked her, she has managed quite well without me in her sphere of influence, and I intend to keep it that way, its also been throwing up people who I can’t stand, and I really don’t want to go there at all, I didn’t like them before and I certainly don’t like them now, its almost like the algorithm is having fun at my expense, bless it.

I’m hoping that once this is posted my writing can attempt to go back to normal, I am working on a couple of things at the moment including a new version of “Now Hear This” as the questions are piling up from you the discerning reader! I have a couple of musical things in the works, and I know that Ozzy Osbourne has passed there’s not going to one about him as I have little to say on the subject, I am a fan, I like most of his music, I have seen him a couple of times, here’s hoping that he is now at peace and I hope that the family can move on.

The blogs themselves have done nearly 24000 hits in the last eight weeks and I have no idea who has been reading them, it is what it is, there is no name game this edition, if there is a song out there I don’t care, I called it this because of “Bob”  here’s hoping that someone offers me a writing  job because of it (unlikely but one has to dream) so thanks to everybody who has been reading and hopefully enjoying the previous blogs and hopefully they will stick around for the future ones, so stay safe stay alive and I will be back before you know it, well allegedly as  I always make promises that I can never keep, so until then……….TOODLES!

Four on the Floor – Kiss.

 

This is one blog that has the potential to polarise the entire readership, love them or loathe them, people have very much an opinion on the group once described the Little Richards of Rock!

Me well I fall into the love them, I can still remember when my brother got Kiss Alive for Christmas and I let him hog the record player most of the day as I fell in love with this band! to be honest Kiss Alive is still my favourite album by them, it’s a straight ten out of ten, so I have disqualified the album from this list as I simply cannot be more biased about it, so I will come back to it in a bit.

To be honest there’s only one album I don’t care about and that is Pyscho Circus, I don’t hate it but I simply don’t care for the whole album as a package, the rest do rotate out of my top five Kiss albums on a daily basis with the exception of Kiss Alive, but I already told you that! So, if we were to do a list of the albums it would be the bottom of all of the Kiss albums, the only thing I can say with any certainty I didn’t care when members left, I simply got on board with the Stanley Simmons point of view, that the band is greater than the members, and I didn’t care when Criss and Frehley rejoined enjoyed Carr, Vincent, Kulick, Singer when they joined.

Kiss – Creatures of the Night 9.0/10.

Now  is this their best studio no, but it’s the album that is burned into my brains from the first listen, some of the songs are a bit…..poor, but I didn’t care, simply listen to Eric Carr’s drums throughout the whole bloody album they are simply awesome, it was a statement of intent to rock or get crushed as they ran over you, this is probably the most consistent album I probably do play this album on any playlist I play it at least twice  a week, and I do play a lot of music! It’s not the most polished production either but the whole album gels and simply ROCKS!

Kiss – Unmasked 8.5/10.

An album I loved from day one, I remember is that you being an opening track on the Friday rock show when the album was released, (do you remember the Friday rock show… TV on the Radio) yes it’s a pop album, so what, it’s the reason why I like the band they never hang their hat on any peg, they are always trying something different, I love the production, and I had the album cover on a dodgy t shirt that I wore until it fell to bits, there’s a couple of  tracks that I simply love (Tomorrow and What makes the world go around) hey even Torpedo girl is funny and only Ace could get away with, it should have sold more than it did!

Kiss – Rock n Rollover 8.5/10.

The first album I actually bought by the band, I bought it the week after Dynasty came out and I was simply hooked, great cover great songs the whole package the last three songs on the album are simply stunning and take my breath away a great rock band, and then came the sophistication that was Dynasty and that really did blow my mind, I didn’t believe that it could have been the same band I love both albums just for completely different reasons.

Kiss – Revenge- 8.5/10.

After wandering a little from Kiss did best this was a true return to form even Simmons was back in the groove with Unholy, Spit and Domino, it all made sense, Bob Ezrin got them back to what they did best play as a band and have fun yes fun but with a capital F,I didn’t care much for the cover but that wasn’t what I bought it for, it was what was in the grooves, it delivered what the band were all about and the stage show and set list on the tour were pretty damn good as well!

To be honest it’s hard to separate any of them (including Carnival of Souls) I could rewrite this blog every single day and come up with something different every single day, and yes I know I haven’t mentioned The elder or destroyer or Love Gun or Lick it Up and all the others, I have friends who are more fanatical than I am, got more copies and different versions of the albums/singles/Cd’s I get that there are people who seen them more than me (9 times in total) but I do love them they are a guilty pleasure that I revel in.

One thing that I will say and it gets me into so much trouble, but its still my fave Kiss song, what’s that I hear you all cry……Kissing Time, a throw away track but I love it, it should have closed every single gig, ha what do I know!

Right Here Right Now Part 3.

Well, that seemed to hit the mark it’s been doing good numbers and is still going strong, why this blog now, well I wanted to get some stuff about the last blog off my chest as there has been a number of comments, both good and bad, so here we go!

So, I blogged and it kind of took off, sometimes those types of blogs do, I have no idea why, they just do, and its one where people want to have their say, well kind of! Mainly it was nice, but I did take some shit, why should you be bothered what I write about something from 45 years ago, so if you sent a shitty opinion FOXTROT OSCAR! I write for me not for you, I had something on my chest and I wanted it off.

I blog for my own mental health and it works for me, go figure, because that’s all I’m trying to do, it wasn’t a woe is me type of blog, it was more of a what if blog. Part of the reason I don’t allow the general viewer to see what’s posted is because some people write shite, its not about you and although I’m venting my spleen here, I can because its my page for my blogs, funny that, if you think I’m going to give you oxygen to air your thoughts on my life, you must be a bigger cock womble that I had assumed, bless you! I would say around 98% of the reply’s were supportive, not that I was asking for any I was simply saying I had had a dream.

I wasn’t saying I wanted to get back with the person I wrote about I was simply explaining that I would like to apologise (no its not a weakness its good manners) for the way we ended, as it happens the person popped up on another friends farcebook page and she look incredibly happy in her life, good luck to her and her family, I love my wife I have no desire to be with anybody else, after 34 years its safe to say we are happy as well, well sometimes we are!

So the next blog will be a musical one, yes it will, how do I know because I wrote it before this one, but I feel the need to get this one out, is it about music it most certainly is, it’s a Four on the Floor blog about Kiss, see I have broken my cardinal rule I have given spoilers out, I might polish it a little but it should be online by Monday, too many blogs at once damages the numbers, and we all know how I obsess about numbers, so thank you for the likes the reads and any sensible comments on the last one, I think it has a way to go yet but hey ho back to the salt mines of blog writing……………………Toodles!

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Wow, after a long night’s sleep, which is unusual for me, I had a head full of dreams and  just a few regrets, I awoke later than I normally would and for once I haven’t felt the need to play music, I’m not down I just have a head full of thoughts regarding my dream, which was vivid and strong, strangely I seem to remember most of it.

It primarily deals with people I no longer see, people from school, friends that were and the odd person who wasn’t a friend, I wish I had wrote notes as its fading like the tide as it pulls away from the shore, yes it involves that person from the “Girls” blog and there is something tantamount to regret residing along with that memory, maybe if I could/would/had said sorry the memory could fade, it was and still is the biggest regret of my life!

I wasn’t a bad kid, slightly hyperactive at times, basically I wanted people to like me, the desertion of my father bit harder than I realised and after a course of cognitive behaviour therapy later on in life, of which I had for other issues being discussed, my father was spoken of by the therapist and I was gently nudged to understand that I did have issues at that point that have largely (even now) gone unresolved, I have had no contact with my father since Christmas eve ( I have mentioned it in previous blogs) 1973, again I just got (typical male behaviour) on with it, or so I thought I did, and I don’t blame him for any of my woes, but someone to teach me how to use the tiller in my boat of life might just have made it a better sailing experience for me and all the people in my sphere of friendship.

I recently found out that he died in 1990, not a lot I can do to resolve the relationship, I wasn’t shocked or saddened, I barely remember him, I didn’t hate him then I don’t hate him now, I simply don’t understand how you can walk out and have no further contact with “family” actually I can, again as I have said previously being in this family is like being a member of the CIA, too many secrets and not enough leaks, with only one member of the family I could ask these days left alive, maybe my brother might have insights but I don’t want open that particular can of worms, I doubt I am going to resolve any of this anytime soon, especially as they fucked me off over thirty years ago when all of the cast members were alive! That’s not what this blog is about although no doubt many of the seeds of my time were unknowingly sown at that part of my life, I do feel that many members of my family have hidden or even lied about the events that led to this cataclysmic incident, again because family matters are rarely discussed even now, if done with my brother it sometimes feels like we are playing passy the parcel with an unpinned hand grenade!  

The people from school gave me a happy feeling inside, again I recognise some of my traits were not good, not bad either I simply wanted people to like me, I didn’t really know how to interact in situations with other family groups, I have been told by people that some parents thought I was a little wild, and there’s me thinking I was being adult like and well behaved, it puts your childhood into a different perspective on how people perceived you, I’m glad I’m not in therapy now as it would go on forever, as a youngster I was prone to temper tantrums, thankfully I have mellowed as I got older, nowadays I simply want a quiet life, I suppose many people might not recognise the person they went to school with, maybe they would but hopefully a better version and not the angry young man that I was. I can still do angry, something I don’t care for and something I always regret afterwards, not for others but purely for me, because I know I’m better than that or I should be.

The dream that started this retrospective was I met the person from the “Girls” blog and we discussed everything and I apologised for anything that I did at the time, at that age I had a tendency to say “Fuck it” and damn the consequences, what a silly boy I was, because obviously they are still with me all these years down the line obviously they appear to be magnified to me as I sail along, having said that this is the only relationship that I miss in a serious way, we were young she treated me like a human being and I was a mixed up kid who thought that the nice things in life didn’t last, I know that they don’t, people grow up and move on, I miss my friends from this era and yes we speak to each other if we bump into each other, but they move on and there is no connection, that is something else I don’t understand, was I such a dick (don’t tell me I’m heartbroken enough over the loss of these people in my life) I could go knock on some doors and say sorry for whatever I may have done, they could also look at me as though I’m some kind of lunatic and wonder what the hell I am talking about, seeing as I haven’t done anything wrong, and they simply got on with their lives while I haven’t!

At the age that am, I have no understanding of how life works at all, I have bimbled through life with no real idea about anything other than being angry, thankfully this happens far less now as I realise, what’s the point? My brother who was one of the most anti-social people in life has adjusted to life and talks to millions ( a slight exaggeration I know)of people but he sees people in the street and says I went to school with them (in different years) he asks me all the time if I remember so and so and unfortunately I don’t remember them at all, I have been recently diagnosed with prosopagnosia (Brad Pitt suffers from it , I wonder if we are related?) its face blindness, maybe this has been the root of all my issues, LOL I doubt it, but at this stage in my life I will clutch at any straws that might resolve the issues in my poor demented head!

So, what’s the point of this blog? I have not a bloody clue, I simply like millions of other people wish to be happy, I want to know that I haven’t caused anybody else any harm, I wish to know that the people who I called friends at school have had a good and productive life, I do genuinely miss them, If by saying sorry resolves any issues that I may have caused or simply have been oblivious about, well I am sorry from the bottom of my heart, now I am clever enough to know that none of these people and the person who the dream was about last night never read this blog, in truth I know very little about the people who read the blog other than I see where the readers originate from (however with the use of VPN’s these days it could all be lies) sometimes I gaze into the belly button of life, as always not the blog  as was in my head this morning, but its nice after all the years of horrible repetitive dreams that I had in my younger days, its nice to have something with a positive outcome, shame it will never happen in real life, as the world conveniently slinks me in the present day, I’m not a bad person honestly, and if you did know me when I was younger, approach me and tell me what I did wrong, I will probably apologise profusely!

Well, that felt good to get off my chest (I think) the world keeps turning and I will plod on in life again thanks to everybody who has been reading the past blogs the numbers are starting to slow down but I don’t care as I am very happy with what we have had, stay safe, stay alive and until the next blog (definitely a musical one) ………………Toodles!