A fart and a mate

I'd love to have a famous friend, someone who might be an actor or just important and known to the world. We'd meet up maybe every six months for a drink and a chat, a general laugh and enjoy each other's company. Hopefully not like the friends you'd normally acquire like jewellery and then get discarded as they are out of fashion. Then on the other hand, maybe they don't have to be famous at all, just to have a connection which is meaningful and we both enjoy. Connecting with people is important, the thing is you never know when it is going to happen, who it is going to be or what the circumstances are when it comes about. Instantaneously, enlightening and mutually agreeable.

The other day when I went to the loo I sat down in the cubical. I'd been having a bit of a tummy upset. It plagued me the entire day.  Within a few seconds of getting seated out was let this enormously loud fart.  I mean it was explosive. Then there was a space of a second or so and a second very loud fart, followed by another short space in time and a third very loud fart.  The cubical next to mine was also occupied.  Someone else was sitting there and had heard these explosions. I don't know who it was but the was an eruption of laughter. It would of been an appropriate time for him to have shit himself with laughter I suppose, if it is possible. I know people can shite themselves when they drink to much and guess it may be true of laughter as well.  He said something along the lines of "blimey, that was loud". I replied, "well if you can't fart in a toilet where can you fart?" his response was, "you must work with a lot of women then." This is quiet true. I do, and it is difficult when it comes to farting around women.  It's like this is something they never do and certainly do no let on about because every woman in the world never farts in public.  They will do it in private but not a public or work place thing.  I don't know who the man was in the next cubical, but I liked him. I guess if we worked together then we'd both be able to fart without a care in the world.

I've never made a mate while having a fart, and it seems to me an interesting situation. Unfortunately I guess this was a one off life experience which will never happen again.

Oh well, better find the cork

Friend wanted...apply here

I don't know if this is a common phenomenon with people in this world or whether it is just me. But the older I get the fewer people I class as friends, to the extent I am not entirely sure if I have any friends at all.  For to have a friend suggests there is some kind of regular catch up with so called friend, and if it has been months and months since you saw each other, or even years then the friend becomes an acquaintance with history.  Real friends take a while to nurture, they provide comfort, compassion, discussion and fun. They can also be complete pains in the arse, but usually the two balance out, until the day of reckoning and you realise this thing can no longer continue it's course, a line has been crossed and the psychological contract is broken.  Friends on the internet are not friends and I don't have any of those either, well except for the odd person on Face Book (FB), but I don't even like FB because to have a friend should of seen them in person, conversed and have coffee.  Some people have thousands of friends on FB yet I am sure they do not see each of those persons even once in a year.  So a FB friend isn't really a friend at all, it is a name on a list and gives the user a false sense of perception of their own popularity. I've seen videos on YouTube of people who used to have FB accounts and then closed them down, realising FB was an addictive and none productive piece of software which had taken over their lives. They then grew as they ventured out into the world to meet real people. The problem is meeting real people to make friends and I'm not really counting people who are met in the workplace.  Again, workplace colleagues are not friends unless you see them outside of work and you don't work with them every day because now it's beginning to sound like some joint stalker pact scenario. I can see it now, two people discuss a conference call, catch up on emails then shake hands on a mutual stalking policy to be enacted once out of the workplace.  Doing their best not to let their partner's know.

I really would like a friend, but not at any cost, a good friend or one I could call a best friend would be great. Not someone who is continually depressive and needs company to share their sorrow.  I got family who can do this, they live in their own little bubble of self involvement, self devaluation, self judgement and self hatred. I struggle and fight against them on a constant basis so they don't infect me with their vibes.  Showering in holy anti depressive water, buying in bulk depressive repellent garlic, which I then make string necklaces of and wear when I have to go and see them. They are emotional vampires and I end up confronting their self indulgently and debating a different view of how they should take it on themselves to do something and get out of the shit hole they just purposefully sat in.  The world has damaged them so much they say and they didn't do anything, they are the victims.   Though not innocent.  I'm psychologically exhausted by them and now revert to do my best not to talk to them if I can help it. I would not mind a friend who has different opinions from me, it's good to hear a different viewpoint of the world, but I would hope they are not a typical male of the kind who is preserved in a formaldehyde of sport TV and football. I can't help but think how much life has been lost by males who can only talk sport and nothing else, who have encyclopaedic knowledge of the last 30 years of football games and will talk avidly about their team but don't have much to say when talking about their family, how their children make them happy or mad.  It is as though they have lost something important in their life. Sport may be important to some people but it is not as important as life. Passion is good but is should have a variety of sources and not be centred on last seasons fixtures.

Wanted a friend, someone who I can have one-to-one heart to hearts with, hey I'm not gay either.  A friend who has a sense of humour but they don't have to be a comedian.  A friend I can learn from and who I in turn can give support and opinion to, I'm not arrogant I'll not overwhelm.  I want a friend who will defend me when needed. I was once in a café and ordered a meal, the meat on my dish didn't taste fresh so I complained, a friend I was with said to the waiter "it must be his mouth" even though he was eating the chicken and I was eating sliced beef.  Lets just say this incident and others mounted up to the day of reckoning.  I don't think I am demanding too much. Nowadays my best friend happens to be my ukulele, but it doesn't talk back to me and can on occasion play out of tune. Further, I can hardly sit in a London pub having my one pint of Guinness and sit there talking to a ukulele balanced upright on a chair.  Ukulele's have only just so many uses.

If I get no reply I understand, it's life. People are busy rather than searching the internet for real friends. At this rate though I'll be on course to become a ukulele virtuoso.  As long as I'm happy I wont mind. Where'd I put the garlic?

Friend wanted, feel free to leave a comment, I'll get back to you.

Catching up with an old friend and new music

I have few friends, it's just the way I am, some people have lots of them, but probably a lot of people just have a few or certainly a handful at most.  It all depends on what you call a friend, the extent of the friendship.  It's possible there are various categories.  This evening I ran up an old friend.  I've known him for 38 years and seen him less as the years have passed.  But he's someone I love.  Next birthday he will be 80, so this old friendship is more than just old in years.  My ex English teacher.  It was great having a discussion with  him on the phone.  Like me he likes to talk politics and put the world to rights.  We discussed the plight of the economy, Europe, the decline and change of our culture, Greece, Spain, the Euro, a Prime Minister and cabinet full of millionaires and impending financial breakdown.  Before I knew it we had been chatting for an hour and twenty minutes.  There's a kind of realisation when a conversation has been going for a long time it should come to an end.  When he hits his next birthday it will be a significant day.  I can't help feel sad because as each year now passes it is more likely he will not be around, when he has been a stable influence, confidant and help to me.  I then get choked up and sad.  We all have to go some day, it's a fact.  But it will mean my available friends have now diminished to the point they are generally in some way related to me rather than direct friends.

How the hell, do you make new friends and keep them again I wonder.  For to have a friend means a commitment to catching up with them at some time.  Usually the start of friendships begin with seeing each other on a regular basis.  Friendships can build up in the workplace, however if they are purely in the workplace they are more of a colleague rather than friend. Sometimes there are fleeting moments when I have met someone and hit it off with them.  Had a laugh and enjoyed their company, but those moments would just be the once and mean little more.  Again this is a little sad.  Yet a friend is someone you generally know quite well.  Their likes, their habits, their peculiarities, and regardless these aspects of personality are accepted.  Unless of course there is the significant event which breaks up the relationship. Which happens; or you just drift apart through time or distance.  Friendship, is more than just company, although being in someone's company can be fulfilling, being a friend has a level of involvement and is a two way street. Sometimes it comes to an end, that's life, sad but true.

I may have revealed my inability to learn songs before, well I'm just restating this point.  However, unlike a lot of people I know who seem to be stuck in a musical era, I do have a curiosity to listen to contemporary music and new bands and the recent hits.  It's an urge which jumps up on me every so often.  Sometimes a couple of times a year sometimes a couple of times a month.  It just does.  So my appreciation of music also becomes contemporary.  Odd how I can name band (when I remember them) that some people around me have never heard of and pull out of the hat groups where are three or more decades old.  Well, this evening I've come across a band called Metronomy.  They have an electric sound, which takes me back to what used to be called New Age Romantics.  And the great thing is discovering something by yourself, you like, by accident, and you can't get enough of it.  So I've say here the last hour or so searching through YouTube and finding every song I could by Metronomy and playing it.  I don't know if this is the same for everyone else.  It's not like people purposefully go out of their way to listen to old music, but they do to new music.  Old music is something you might hear as part of a film, and think the track was good and wonder who it was who did it, only to find it was years ago and the artist or group were no more than a one hit wonder.  Something I personally dislike are the groups or artists who are one album or one hit wonders.  I like artists to stay around for as long as possible, the more albums the better.  It shows they were special because they persevered and left a mark.  Metronomy are going to be around for a little while, I hope.  Like a friend.  Except with this one all I got to do is select the tray and play the music to be transported to a different place.  For 3 minutes or so anyway.   Then it ends, as does a lot of things.