Month: February 2016

Less is fewer is delete

Reading time: < 1 min

It’s been a while since my head was in a ‘decluttering’ mood but it appears to be back. I look around my flat and marvel that I have quite so much stuff. I excuse away all the purchases with valid reasoning that I know doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

I’ve been pretty good over the past six months, and new additions to my flat are few and far between. I’ve slowly chipped away at boxes and drawers, but part of me knows I’ve not been brutal enough. Not yet.

Yet I still can’t, quite, make the leap to where part of me wants to be, some drawers remained crammed full of things that I could label ‘just in case’. I wear half the clothes I own, so why keep the other half? I keep headphones and spare USB cables even though I don’t use all the ones that are in ‘active’ use at various points throughout my flat. I have unread book upon unread book gathering dust on my shelves.

I have successfully cut down my online clutter, Facebook is a weekly (or less) check, and I’m not on Twitter as much either, but I still face the prospect of going through all the iPhone photos I’ve taken in the last few years, but I know I can tackle that in chunks.

I guess I’m hoping, at some point, that I will find a point I’m happy with, I’ll have decluttered enough and have fewer things to consider, both physically and digitally, fewer things to pause over, less stuff. Where that point lies I’ve no idea and I guess there is only one way to find out.

Bin bags and boxes await, charity shops and the local recycling centre are poised with baited breath.

February 24, 2016

Time changes everything

Reading time: 2 mins

Our little poly family spent New Year together, the first time we’d done something like that, and whilst it took a little adjustment (and a few spoons) it was a nice relaxing time for us all. We did a whole lot of nothing, but just being in the same space, all at the same time, for a few days was a nice experience.

What was most interesting for me was seeing how the relationships, specifically mine with Kirsty, are evolving. She is spending a lot more time with Mark, which is circumstantial for the moment, but they have been talking about moving in together. It’s more a flat share than a co-habiting thing but it will change my relationship with her, even if we aren’t sure how just yet.

None of this is bad, just new, and it’s something I’ve been pondering for a while now. Kirsty and I have talked about it as we try and find a balance between that and all the other curveballs that life throws at you.

The circumstantial side of things was to be expected – I no longer drive to an office that is a few mins away from where she lives so I can’t just pop in for lunch, or stop by for a few hours after work (Mark works in the same building I used to, so it’s handy for him to pop in) – but beyond that it’s clear that Kirsty and Mark are close and it’s obvious to me that he’s good for her. Dammit, he’s a great guy!

Outside of that they share hobbies that don’t interest me all that much, but then I know that Kirsty and I share hobbies that don’t interest Mark. In fact what I’m starting to see quite clearly, when I look at Kirsty and Clare, is that I have a ‘type’ as they are both very similar in many ways. Hobbies and personalities overlapping.

Ahhh the Venn diagrams we could draw.

A lot has changed since Kirsty and I first got together, we’ve been through a lot in that time, and I guess this is where one advantage of being poly kicks in. We don’t get as much time together as we used to but we are still partners and enjoy time together. We have a very grounded, stable, relationship and both of us realise that whilst things around us may change, we stay the same.

The changes also, obviously, have a ripple effect on my relationship with Clare as she would probably (if we structured our relationships this way but we don’t) be considered more of a primary partner these days. In fact this evolving set of circumstances only confirms to me that we were right not to start off with the primary/secondary structure when we headed down this poly pathway or we’d have ended up hitting a tipping point and have to renegotiate the structure (which may be no bad thing for some, I know the structured approach works for many, it just didn’t sit right with us).

The short version of this is largely that everything changes; everything stays the same. It’s just that some of the interactions and timescales have shifted. I’m very lucky to be part of the lives of two lovely ladies, who make me feel so happy and loved.

February 17, 2016

Seated

Reading time: 3 mins

I look around at the others. We are all in our usual positions, legs planted firmly on the floor, facing our desks, backs straight. The low murmur of the black machines, the rectangle glow, the clicky-clacky, soft thumps vibrating through wood and metal to the floor. I can feel them through my feet.

Our soundtrack is the gentle thrum of the air boxes, the buzz of the overhead bright makers. Today the air boxes push warm at us, some days they push cold. I think it changes over time but I’m not sure what time is any more.

At night, when the bright makers are sleeping, an Upright will walk past every now and then, shining his beam over us, checking we are present and correct.

That’s what they used to make us say, during the time of Movement. ‘Present and correct’, like we were in the military. ‘Present and correct’, and an Upright would make a mark on the board it was holding using a long thing device, a dull scratching sound for each of us.

That practice ceased as the time of Movement ended. Now we are always present and correct.

The older ones, like me, remember those before days. Today we only see the Moving Light when it appears beyond the See-Thru, but somewhere in my deepest memory banks I know I saw the Moving Light in other places, with no See-Thru framing the view. Everytime I try and think of it, one strange word always floats into my mind, ‘green’. I do not know green, not any more. I think green might have been like the Under but my brain doesn’t let me think of such things.

Most days it’s all clicky-clacky.

There are long days when the clicky-clacky is again and again. The Moving Light appears and disappears slowly. Some times we have days where the Moving Light zooms across the See-Thru and we are all chattering away, fast with clicky-clacky and excitement.

They brought in a new one the other day, pushed it over near me. It’s odd how you forget what it was like, being new. He said he wanted to get up and walk. We all said we didn’t know what that meant but maybe some clicky-clacky would be just as good?

He seemed upset when we said that, and then something strange. I’m not sure any of the others saw it, maybe I imagined it, but I was sure his wheels moved a little without an Upright to help them… a tiny little movement but then it stopped, almost like it had never happened. Most odd indeed.

He’s quieter today. He was given a Shake by an Upright yesterday; he had shouted at the Upright, said ‘Help’ and ‘it’s not fair’ but the Upright shaked him and I think that has helped him realise that clicky-clacky is good and anything else just means a Shake.

I think I had a Shake a long time ago, but thinking about it makes me scared so I try not to remember it. Sometimes it creeps back in and the same word is repeated. Silence. I find being in silence is best now. No more Shakes. Silence.

Yesterday two Uprights came through and stopped and pointed at all of us. They weren’t Uprights like I’d seen before, they had white darts around their chests, one had a centre colour that was striped, the other had one single bold colour. They talked a strange language that none of us understood.

“When did they transition?”
“Most of these transitioned several months ago, some over a year”
“Do they remember anything? Did they have names?”
“We have their names stored somewhere but they rarely remember things, the transition is a slow thing. You’d be amazed at how you can alter the thinking of someone just by changing small details every day, hell, if I wanted to I could’ve made some of this lot be desks… but of course that isn’t as useful”

The Uprights made a noise after this and walked off.

Oh well, not much I can do about that. Back to the clicky-clacky for me.

February 10, 2016

Engaged in Long Form

Reading time: 5 mins

Throughout last year I tried to be a little more choosy with my content consumption and as a result, whilst I am definitely consuming more, it feels like what I am consuming better, more higher quality fare.

Looking back at 2015, whilst the goals were laudable, I’ve gotten more from the process of deliberately making conscious choices than the I necessarily did from the actual content itself (leaving aside the discussion of how art feeds the soul); actively and consciously deciding how to spend my time rather than giving in and going for the cheap and easy option (not that cheap and easy are bad per se, sometimes we all need a day on the sofa, sitting in our dressing gown, eating Pringles, farting, and channel hopping for a couple of hours before eventually succumbing to an entire weeks worth of Come Dine With Me).

This all started as a desire to be better to myself, to waste less time and, hopefully, use my actual down time properly, to gently nurture myself rather than killing my brain cells with mindless entertainment. There are, of course, exceptions to this and we each have our own – I will not stand to hear a bad word about the gentle salve that is Great British Bake Off! – and I bear my PS4 FIFA addiction proudly, but by and large my goal was to at least pause and consider what I was consuming.

Aside: Yes, I did end up watching all of West Wing again but I file that under ‘good quality’.

I’m not trying to be a snob, each to their own and all that, and I know many millions of people enjoy shows like X-Factor and more power to them*, it’s just not for me anymore, and hasn’t been for quite a while.

Of course it could just be my usual contrariness (I like to think I like to be different when the reality is I’m pretty much a middle of the road kinda guy, with the odd detour down Tattoo Lane and Polyamory Crescent thrown in to keep things interesting) but I’ve never really been one for the latest fad. In fact, about the only place where I’m prone to following the crowd is when it comes to selecting what book to read next.

And I’ve only really just realised this.

Funny how taking a step back to consider your own actions can reveal more than you had expected.

Following the crowd

For most media formats, I’ve got a pretty good handle on how I choose what I like. For TV and Movies, the potential story, director, or actor plays a large part in that, rather than how many people are talking about it; I loved Fortitude but didn’t hear many people mentioning it.

Music wise I’m happy to dip in and out of ‘new artist’ lists, listen to some samples and make up my own mind. Some services help by offering ‘if you like X’ comparisons, but again I’m not swayed by how many million plays a track has had; for example, I love Lordes track ‘Royals’ but have yet to find a Taylor Swift track that I want on a playlist, but both are frequently ‘suggested’ to me.

However, when it comes to novels, other than a few writers – David Mitchell, Ian Rankin, Stephen King – I tend to be swayed by popular opinion. Case in point, I’ve just read The Bees, which was on many ‘Best of 2015’ lists and I largely read because a few people I know have been raving about it (and rightly so, it’s a great story). More recently I’ve been using Goodreads as a reasonable measure of books that are both popular and good, but it does feel like I am following the crowd way more than I do with any other format.

This is not a bad thing, just an observation of how my decision making process is changing.

Independent or not

When it comes to films, whilst January was a quiet month (due to illness), the number of current movies I’ve watching has increased due to the fact that I signed up for a Cineworld card; I’ve managed to keep my average monthly visits above the two required to benefit from the pricing (technically you only need to watch 1.5 movies to ‘get your money back’ but given that I’ll sit through awful movies because I believe art has impact whether it’s good or bad, I don’t ever leave a movie halfway through. Not yet at least).

I’ve seen some of the recent blockbusters, Spectre, that Star Wars one everyone was banging on about, but I’ve much preferred the less popular ones, independent movies usually. My favourite from last year was probably The Lobster (I’d say Birdman but I only caught that on Sky Movies a few weeks ago), a weirdly dark, funny, moving drama, set in a world not all that far from our own.

And my more frequent visits to the cinema has had an impact on my TV habits as well, I’m much more likely to choose to watch a movie than just randomly channel hop. Or I’ll consider investing my time in a TV series/box set and it’s here that the long form approach starts to bear more fruit. As someone else noted (apologies, I forget who) the fact that Marvel are investing in TV series allows those characters to have a much richer character/story arc than they would if they were in a movie, and so they become all the more compelling.

I don’t think I’m alone in this, the rise of TV shows created by Netflix and Amazon is notable (and on the whole the quality of them is high).

The deliberate choice

Have you heard of the podcast Serial? I tried it out last year and soon became hooked. Why? Because it’s good quality storytelling, well paced and delivered, and despite each episode being around an hour I found I was going out of my way to listen to each new episode as soon as they were released; most of the podcasts I subscribed to are a more commuter friendly 30 mins or so.

I’m finding my behaviours are the same for new TV series – at least for those that are still realised one episode at a time – with the Netflix approach of releasing an entire series at once allowing me to make conscious decisions to spend two or more hours watching multiple episodes. I’m choosing to invest my time in quality.

But as I said, this isn’t really about content, format, or the amount of time I spend nor how I choose to invest it. It’s about changing my own behaviours to be more conscious of my actions, more deliberate, more considerate of the impact. If I spend an evening watching low quality, unstimulating, TV, most times I feel a bit guilty by the time I get to bed.

And I think being more conscious of the decisions I make for these specific things is starting to filter out into my everyday life. Rather than just charging headlong into things I am pausing to collect and consider my thoughts, regardless of whether the change is a big one or not, and as a result I feel much calmer and relaxed about, well, just about everything these days.

Which has to be a good thing.

* actually, no, not more power to them, I don’t trust them at all if this is the decision they make!

February 4, 2016

These boots were made for walking

Reading time: 2 mins

With our tickets booked for Glastonbury this year, myself and the two lovely ladies who let me be a part of their lives are determined to be a bit fitter for it.

Glastonbury = walking. A LOT of walking and standing around. A LOT of walking and standing around and hills.

Basically it’s a big place and you spend a lot of time on your feet. Last year we promised ourselves we’d be better prepared but we never really managed it. This year I’m determined!

One of the issues we have is the location of our ‘off-site’ campsite which is at the top of the hill on the opposite side of the valley from the big GLASTONBURY sign (which is near the top of the hill on that side). Every night we have to leave Glastonbury and trudge up the hill… it’s a balance of sore feet and legs versus creature comforts (a quiet campsite, clean toilets, showers and plenty of space.

So, the plan is to do some hill-walking and in that respect we are very lucky as we have some gorgeous scenery and walks available to us, all just a short drive from Glasgow.

I’m looking forward to it as I’ll be revisiting several walks I did when I was younger and did them as part of various activities for the Boys Brigade. The first few are local enough to where I grew up you only had to walk for 30 mins to get to the start of the ‘walk’ itself.

Anyway, time marches on, it’s already February so we’d better get our fingers out! Not just from a fitness point of view but I’m already very aware that each week is zipping past with few gaps so, if nothing else, we at least need to get plans in place ASAP!

February 1, 2016