Because I Have to Write Something

Yes, I am still alive, and in quite good (ish) health, thank you very much.

I am aware, however, that (despite my assurance this would NOT become an old man’s blog) you are aware that I am not getting any younger, and I am aware that you are aware (by the by, according to the WHO, I have only recently attained middle age) of that, and, therefore, allowing this blog to fall fallow for even a few days, let alone six weeks, might stir in some of you the suspicion that I have gone to the Big Blog in the sky. No, I’ve simply been busy. But, unfortunately, doing boring things.

My life is full these days; full and satisfying, but sadly predictable. The week ends, the week begins, and it’s often difficult to tell the two apart.

My previous post was a month and a half ago and, as I recall, I strained to make something of very little because I hadn’t posted in so long and I needed to get something up. (Although, I think I deserve credit for getting nearly nine-hundred words out of a trip to the theatre.)

In short, nothing funny is happening, and nothing that I can turn into something funny is happening. And since I have been doing this consistently for twenty-eight years (to the day, I might add; since 18 May 1997), I’ve pretty much wrung all the humour I can out of my mundane day-to-day. It’s like the space in this flat. There isn’t any, yet we managed to manufacture some. These projects, whether they worked or not, provided additional space (and something to write about) but due to the laws of physics being as intractable as they are, there isn’t any more space to squeeze out, just as there now seems to be a sudden dearth of interesting minutia worth writing about.

Waiting for something note-worthy to happen no longer seems to be working, and I appear to have lost the knack for making something out of nothing. Back when I was writing humorous essays for various newspapers (this was when I still lived in the States) I was challenged about my ability to opine about anything, so I randomly pointed at a fire hydrant and began verbally spewing out a hilarious essay about fire hydrants (okay, it might have been merely humorous, but still). I can’t do that any longer, though I think the world is a better place because of it.

This is not a complaint. It’s more of a Watch This Space; sooner or later, something is bound to happen.

Like yesterday: I opened an email telling me I needed to renew my Plusnet account and, long story short, ended up switching our broadband, as well as our phones, to EE. This switch required us to follow a very simple set of instructions (1 – 2 – 3, easy-peasy) but after falling spectacularly on Step 1, I decided to get the professionals involved.

And so it was, with confidence that the issue would escalate into an overdue misadventure, we visited the local EE store but, to my bitter disappointment, a personable young lady sorted out both our phones and we left the shop minutes later having experienced neither drama nor trauma. So, no blogpost there.

But there is hope ahead. We are soon to embark on a three-day family gathering and, after that, holiday season begins. Amid all that activity, something is bound to go awry. I can only hope.

In the meantime, if this blog does go quiet for an inordinate amount of time, don’t rush to send condolences; I’m just waiting for something—anything—to go wrong.