Eureka in three easy steps

I found out last week that my friend Lisa’s sushi bar has had to close down, which is a real shame because it did great food at a reasonable price, and just around the corner from where I work. On Friday, I left a note and some chocolates there to cheer her up. In my note I wrote: I hope this setback doesn’t stop you from taking risks in the future, for our dreams mean nothing unless we dare to chase them. This was the first of three things that combined.

I went to Sheffield on Friday to catch up with the good friend the Colonel, who I haven’t seen since Christmas. I’ve known him for four or five years, and I really value his friendship. He’s armed with razor sharp wit, tempered with no small amount of humility, and I admire his confidence to do what he wants to do regardless of the opinions of other people. Over a beer or two, he told me that he’d recently taken a week off work and trained in industrial abseil techniques. He said that he’d wanted to do it for ages, so he pulled out his finger and got on with it. This was the second of three things that combined.

Until today, I haven’t been in work since 18th March because of a variety of factors. I’d been away for my first aid course, off for the early Easter Bank Holiday weekend and using up the last of my annual leave before the end of March. As you’ll see from the ‘jobmoan’ tagged posts, I’ve not been much enjoying my work of late. On Saturday I started to get anxious about having to go back to work after a blissful period of absence. This was the third of three things that combined.

I dislike my job. Dreams mean nothing unless we pursue them. Re-training is a realistic and achievable goal. So I’m going to follow my heart and re-train so that I can change the direction of my career. It feels exciting and liberating, and at the same time scary. I feel hopeful.

Sweet potato and goats cheese mash

Chance dictated that my partner on last week’s first-aid course was someone that I got on with quite well. The physical intimacy of touching each other from head to toe each morning – to practice checking a casualty for injuries – was beyond that with which our nascent acquaintance ought to have been comfortable, particularly as my partner was a young woman my own age, Marianne. There wasn’t any romantic attraction between us, but I thought that we’d make good friends. After the course ended, most of us students took the same tram home. Marianne and I got off at the same stop, but we didn’t exchange contact details, we just said goodbye. I regretted it immediately, but didn’t do anything about it.

I’d arranged to go for a walk with Clare this morning, but I found myself awake long before I thought she might stir, so I decided to do two walks, one without Clare, and one with her. I set off on one of my standard routes - down Palatine Road, along the Mersey, and around the lake at Chorlton Water Park, listening to “Black Holes and Revelations” as I left the house, NWA and Rage Against the Machine along the back end of the river, and switching to something more jangly as I arrived at the lake, “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.” It was beautiful out - a clear, bright morning.




There was a pair of young ladies walking ahead of me on the path that I’d not really noticed. As I moved to overtake them, one turned and said, “Can I give you this?” It was Marianne.

“Hello! Sure, what is it?”
“It’s a leaflet. We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses? The associations I immediately make when I hear that phrase aren’t positive – knocking on other people’s doors uninvited, not celebrating Christmas, something about refusing blood transfusions – but I think I did quite well at hiding my gut feelings and maintaining a smile. We chatted a little longer, and exchanged surnames – or rather I gave mine up to her – so that we could get in touch through the internal email system at work. Then I bounded off.

Fear crept over me, founded in my own ignorance. I’m not religious; in fact I’m slightly wary of those who are. Could I be a friend of someone whose values are so massively different to my own? I’m being presumptuous - being a Jehovah’s Witness is a particularly involved approach to religious practice, but I should judge people on their merits, not on my prejudices about their beliefs, shouldn’t I? I ought to be more concerned that Marianne reads the Times and doesn’t like the Guardian.

Of course, I don’t have her surname, so I can’t look her up on the internal email system. We’ll have to see what happens next.

I met Thom and Ed in the Vic for the Liverpool derby, with their friends Ozzie, Sam, Ali and a handful of others. After the game, Thom invited me to his house for Sunday dinner. This is what we had.
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Roast chicken, in bacon
Roast potatoes
Sweet potato, mashed and creamed with goat’s cheese
Roast butternut squash, with cinnamon, five spice and star anise
Wilted spinach, with garlic and onion
Steamed green beans, with chopped tomato

Rhubarb, apple, prune, apricot, walnut and pecan crumble, with custard.
-----

I made the crumble.




These two jokers were there.

Pepe update

Pepe wrote:

Hi DTRMCR,

How are you? I hope everything is ok! It has been a long time since I have heard from you. I think the main reason we haven’t seen each other is our jobs. I’m not too bad. Here in Rome I’ve the same usual life, only work!!! It’s (very) demanding and every day I finish work at 7:00-7:30PM about!!! (Now I remember the meaning of “about!!!!” can you remember? (it’s was your explanation/lesson) This word stays always in the middle) I’m feeling very tired.

Three days ago Martina sent me an e-mail. She told me a few things e.g. a few days ago you met her and then you have talked about “Giuseppe” (that sounds good, it’s a good news when a friend remembers me); she wrote to me that in her flat there is a room available and she has invited me to go back to Manchester. Now I’m thinking about it!!!!

Next Monday, when my boss comes back to the office, I’ll ask him if it is possible to take a 2 o 3 week holiday (still have to take 24 days of leave from last year!!!!)
Hopefully, I think it might be possible during the second half of April. I’ll get some days off.

Please give my best regards to Paul and all friends (Alison, Tom Wood, Steve, Holy etc. etc). Is Shit-man watering the plant???

Take care my friend

So he'll be back round here soon, excellent news. I think Holy is supposed to be Ollie Keck.

Cake

I made my first cake since my childhood at the weekend, here are the photos.

Things go from bad to worse for the Dazzler

Bad luck Darren. Get well soon.

The Guardian says

United suffered an injury setback yesterday when it was revealed that Darren Fletcher is unlikely to feature in the league again this season after damaging knee ligaments while representing Scotland in midweek. "It was a bad blow with Darren Fletcher, which to me just emphasises the futility of playing these friendly games. It's crazy. We have lost him for six weeks now," Ferguson said. But, while the recent losses of Eduardo da Silva, Tomas Rosicky, Denilson, Abou Diaby and Bacary Sagna have hurt Arsenal, Fletcher's absence will not impact on United in anything like the same way.

Things I find attractive in women.

Until reasonably recently, I'd absolved myself of all responsibility for not having a girlfriend by deciding that I didn't have a type, and that I'd judge every possible candidate that crossed my path on their individual merits. Such passivity also meant, naturally, that it wasn't down to me to do any form of looking, that it was down to Miss Right to fling herself in my direction, that doing nothing would result in the best possible outcome. Recently, I met Miss Wrong. The things about her that make her Miss Wrong have made me realise that I do have potential partner preferences. These are:

Intelligence
- I love mental agility, someone who is naturally comfortable with complex ideas and abstract concepts, which leads into...

Articulate conversation skills
- Not only someone who's smart, but whose sharpness shows through as they speak. Someone who can put forward their side of an argument convincingly, and can unravel someone else's. Again, leading into...

Strength of opinion and principles
- If being intelligent is a measure of the ease with which difficult ideas can be conceptualised, and if being articulate is a measure of the ease with which those ideas can be expressed, then strength of opinion is about why it's worth arguing. My principles and values are central to the way I live my life, and I'd want the same in a girlfriend.

Indie sensibilities
- Without meaning to sound superficial, this is mostly about personal style and look. I don't mean skinny jeans and backcombed hair necessarily, but that I'd like the kind of girlfriend that looks more charity shop than Topshop, more Hot Hot Heat than Heat Magazine. Indie as in indie music, but also as in independent from mainstream fashion. And not even necessarily an indie music scenester type, just someone who doesn't dress like an identikit High St mannekin.

Sexiness
- I can tell if I think a woman is sexy almost as soon as we meet. If she's intelligent, articulate, principled and 'indie,' then we're off to a good start. There must be physical attraction, but I can't specify how that manifests itself except that the prospect of making love should be exciting.

No fuss attitude
- I find someone who's willing to get their hands dirty, to put up with the cold for ten minutes of walking rather than seek out a cab, to clamber over the occasional fence much more attractive than someone who won't go out if it's raining.

Creativity
- Inspire me! Surprise me!

Shared values
- I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who doesn't believe in recycling, for example. Or with someone who steals. Or someone who's always smashed on drugs. I've laid out some of my values above, I'd hope that the things I've mentioned would be important to the sort of woman I'd fall for.


Miss Wrong does have some of these traits, but there is something about the overall package that mean that she just isn't Miss Right. I don't think I'm being too picky.

Garfield minus Garfield

This strip is mint. In its own words:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Manga exhibition at Urbis

I popped down to the Manga exhibition at Urbis this morning, and particularly enjoyed this mural.





I met Kate, who said that she'd had an interview there that day that had taken the form of a 'why you shouldn't throw me out of the lifeboat' group exercise. She picked Ray Mears, good thinking!

Paul left this under my pillow

Thanks Paul!

I love Resuci-Annie