Here's the thing, I'm generally considered by most who know me to be a cynical MoFo with little (or no) spirituality about me but thats not *exactly* true these days.
Things happen. Events happen. Coincidences happen. Life happens. And I kinda think some of these seemingly unconnected, random things have permeated through my outer skins of grizzled skeptic and made me ask a few questions. Now don't get me wrong here, and let me make this very, very clear from the proverbial "get-go"; I ain't signing up for no tree huggers, hemp wearing, patchouli showering, commune with the earthworms because "lumbricus have feelings too" type brigade but sometimes, occasionally and extremely infrequently randomness collides with reality and you have to stop for a second and think "WTaF just happened?"
Clearly there's some background here rather than a massive post-ket comedown so, if you'll indulge me I'll fill in some blanks (which actually you've got no choice - this is after all the Grumpy Man's blog so Grumpy Man will have his say.)
Where to start then? I suppose it fair to say that as a fully paid up member of Miserable Fuckers Anonymous, this Grumpy Man bounces through life generally doing OK and making the best of what Life irritatingly throws in the way.
Like for example those inconsiderate fuckwits who stop randomly at the top of escalators or those - and probably the self same fuckwits - who decide to walk really REALLY fucking slowly four abreast in front of me on a pavement only really wide enough for three.
Or the customer service lines that have eleventy hundredozen menus and sub menus and subsets of the sub menus before deciding to tell you to refer to the website where you originally got the phone number form in the first place. If I wanted to dial 8 for option 6 to select from categories 1-5 to decide on pressing 3 to then choose between "yes, no, something else" and "why not try our website" I'd have saved myself some time and actually laid my own fibre optic cables and produced my own medieval/fantasy adventure show. In space. It would have been quicker.
Anyway back to the point, 2020 for many reasons that we all have seen, felt, been subjected to, suffered from, has been one of staying at home, not travelling, not seeing friends and family and generally worrying about if the Mayan's were right all along and perhaps we should have just done as they prophesied called it quits in 2012?
My year has been the same of many others, monotonous, difficult, samey-samey and generally a bit rubbish with the added Brucie Bonus of a Grumpy Man's health thingy. A combination of age, lifestyle, not forwarding that chain letter on to ten other people, saw me needing an operation. This was a member of the Big C family, a very scary word to hear of course, however this one did look kinda pretty. Like a few mushrooms gently swaying in the breeze. Weirdly beautiful in their tumorous dark ominousness and 100% getting tattooe'd somewhere on me at a later date.
The added deep joy was that this op needed to be done under general anaesthetic and through what I can only describe as a totally impractical "exit only" tube that should be best kept from attempting to spray pee half way up the urinal walls. Stung like a bastard for weeks afterwards I can tell you but it all got taken out with no hidden surprises or additional fungi partying on. So all good.
The reason this is part of the "WTaF" story is that the timings of various parts of the journey coincided with various momentous dates for family and very close friends. Anniversaries, birthdays, celebrations, reflections, memorials and everything in between. Often people will ask "where where you when you heard Celebrity X dies?" , Referral day was one, diagnosis day was sort of the same but more so as it fell on a date already being honoured. Operation day the same. Weird huh? The regular five senses (or six if you are one of the woo-woo spooky Wiccan-y kinds) gives the memory compartments of the Brain massive kick starts. A smell or taste can take you back to a specific moment in time. A piece of music will remind you of people and places that you may not have even thought about for years. The more obscure the trigger, the stronger the memory tends to be.
The combination of randomness needed to match one, two, or three of these tastes/smells/sounds together in a single unconnected moment are astronomical in terms of odds. Add to this totally unconnected places, and throw into the mix sequential occurrences, it gets into the territory of winning the Euros on a Tuesday, the Lotto on a Wednesday, and putting your USB cable in the correct way round *first time* on Thursday (and by far the least likely of all three innit?!)
But this happened. It happened to me. Now as I said earlier, I'm not standing in any kind of queue to regress my inner being to its medieval animal spirit guide or foraging in the ancient woods for wild sage to bundle up and "smudge" , far from it. I'm, still the first to take the piss out of those spending thousands on genuine (fake) ancient (brand new) terracotta (plasticine) Mesoamerican (made in a factory) artefacts (tatt and tutt) and laugh and point at those wearing pink taffeta tank tops and purple shit-pants. As an aside, if you aren't MC Hammer then you've no business wearing trousers with a gusset lower than your knees.
And the lesson learnt from all of this? Dunno really but but I do, occasionally, on my own and in the quiet, take a moment to reflect and go "fuck me, that was random"
Stay connected my friends and be generally kind to everyone.
Even Gingers xx
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