Becoming me - Leave the House

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

I've been putting off the Becoming Me this week. You may have noticed.

This is partly because my few waking hours that arent spent at work have been spent playing with my new toy. Secondly, I really don't know this week, what I'm supposed to do.

I've left the house, I went out twice last week with work colleagues. I've been going to the gym, met my boyfriend and his work mate last night and even went to register at the doctors. But being too proud to admit I screwed up the list creation I am damn well going to write something.

I've got out the house this week. Go me,,,

This whole Becoming Me thing has progressed faster than I expected it too. I'm annoyed I've done so well. It makes it so hard to find something funny to write about.

That however is part of being British. Even when we do something well we have to berate ourselves for it. And of course, in true cynical englishness, there's bound to be something ghastly waiting around the next corner...

Hunger Shock

I brought myself a new PDA this weekend, part of my intention being that I could use it to update this blog. Instead I've spent the last few days playing with the PDA. Sorry. I have however, gained an amazing score on Space Trader.

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

Walking home from the gym the other day, munching an apple on the way, I planned to go to Tesco (God of all supermarkets) and get some healthy, but easy, food for dinner.
I was heading down the aisle towards the ready meals when I walked past the eggs.
Now I love eggs and my love affair with them is powerful. Looking back over my life it is one long story of egg. I could happily eat 12 a day if my boyfriend would let me and still be up for an egg mayo sandwich as a midnight snack. Which is why it was somewhat odd, when I decided I didn't want them.

Baffled I walked on. The cake section was the same, the pizzas too, even the chocolate seemed unappealing, and then I realised a very bizarre thing. I wasn't hungry.

I am always hungry. It is very rare to hear to my stomach growling but mostly because I never give it a chance to. I eat when I'm bored, I eat when I'm tired, I eat when food is put in front of me, and hunger has never really played a part in it, more a kind of reflex action involving my hand and face. But standing next to the chocolate display in Tesco (PBUH) I realised I wasn't hungry. The apple had filled me up. And I went to the ready meals, got an Indian (a meal, not an actual resident of India), came home, put it in the oven and nearly forgot about it.

Something is beginning to take effect. I'm hoping it isn't the flu virus....

(P.S. Over the next few days, l had a fry up, a pizza, and a Burger King, so it may not be quite the revelation I was hoping for. But I didn’t eat all the chips so maybe all is not lost…)

Gym Duracell Bunny

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

I have been to the gym four times this week and I am going again today. I am completely knackered, my legs are about to give out in a congealed mess of blood and skin below me, I’m finding it hard to raise my arms to type and I occasionally slip into a dream world between reps where working out is a federal offence, but I'm seeing it through.

And it is an amazing feeling, on par with making your partner orgasm before you do.

Not that I've had much chance for that recently. I have, after all, been spending all my free time at the gym...

A Miracle on Park Street...

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

I went out with my work mates last night drinking!
To those who may not understand why that statement is being exclaimed allow me to elaborate.

• Last night - a Wednesday! Even though I'm working today!
• Went out - I do not go out. I prefer to sit and watch TV or surf blogs trying to find the well written ones.
• I – the nominative singular pronoun, used by a speaker in referring to himself or herself.
• Work mates - I haven't had ‘work mates’ since I moved to Bristol, and I prefer not to mix my work and social (or lack of) life, but last night I went out drinking with people from work.
• Drinking! – Imbibing of poisonous toxins for pleasure and sexual gain.

And I loved it. Really - even though my friend and I started drinking early ad probably made complete tits of ourselves. But then that is the purpose of alcohol in this country.
And I made myself leave early so I could wake up in time to go the gym today!

Gym!

1. n a building or room designed and equipped for indoor sports, exercise, or physical education. (gymnasium)
2. n An English male name as spelt by dyslexics
   

What is going on with me? A month ago I would have hated the idea of going, refused to get drunk, sat in a corner and not spoken to anyone, and left at about 10:00. But last night I really enjoyed myself, had a few drinks chatted to everyone and left at the reasonable hour of 11:30 but only because it's a school night and I'm going to the gym today. (I also had Nandos for Dinner, but we won't tell anyone that...)

I think, maybe, someone should get me Doctor; there is clearly some strange sociable creature that has taken over my brain,
And at this rate it will probably take over my liver too.

Organic Remains

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

I don't want to do this too you, I really don't. But I'm so proud I will anyway.

I'm about to show you some leftover curry and jacket potato, rather in the way that a toddler will shove a potty in your nose and say look what i did! Readers of a squeamish disposition may prefer to look away now and resort to reading the rest of this entry in brail instead.

Why, you may ask (you nosey bugger,) am I so proud of my fermenting remains. Well, because they are remains! I have never before walked away from a plate of purchased food without eating every last edible scrap, licking the bowl clean and prising any remaning sustenance away with a a scalpel at the crockery's molecular level. But yesterday, eating slower, enjoying my food and taking my time I felt happy to leave about a quid’s worth of food (two twix bars worth!) simply because I didn't really need it.

Of course, I could have just written about this rather than subject you to an image of it, but then I might as well use this fancy camera phone for something.

Isn't it wonderful how technology is enriching our lives...

Becoming me - Week 3

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

At the moment, when I relax, my stomach unrolls against my underwear, folding the waist of my boxers down over my jeans like a horse curling his bottom lip. Sexy huh?

I've been dreading this week. I've been avoiding it. I’m unhealthy and I know it but as long as I don’t admit it it’s not really true, kind of like Global Warming. I've stopped taking care of myself. I let myself go, which isn't as complicated as it sounds.

I love food. If I was allowed to, I would go to bed with it. I tried that once with Cod and Chips. It was the first time my genitals had ever smelt of fish. But I also love feeling sexy, when I feel sexy my confidence has a natural boost, and I stand in front of mirrors more often.

If I’m honest though I’m not doing much to get healthy at the moment and the only way to get healthy is to get healthy. So for the first week I'm going to throw myself into it like a lesbian into a chocolate cake, get myself acclimatised, and make the remaining weeks seem like a walk in a cruising ground.

To Do

• Concentrate on my food.
I currently hire a man with a shovel to spoon feed me. This week I will attempt to concentrate on every mouthful I eat and actually enjoy eating.
• Go to the gym Mon - Fri for at least 30 minutes of cardio.
No sauna till I’ve built up a natural sweat.
• Walk to and from Work
• Maximum one vending machine purchase a day
• Five fruit and veg a day
• Learn to love my body

I will not however be detoxing. I refuse to do anything that makes me spend money. Unless of course it's chocolate coated.

Read Archived Articles about my health.
- I can make you thin
- Steaming
- Calorie Counting for idiots

Review of Week 2 - Get off the Web.

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

The last week has not been a success.

I’ve lied to myself, stared at a blank computer screen, tidied my room, bathed and ate - pretty much a normal week except for the whole tidying my room and bathing thing.

Other than that all I’ve really done is read, and my books can’t take many more rereads before they fall apart enough to be sold on Amazon.

This may have been the wrong point to try this stage. After all, there’s no benefit in spending time off the web if I don’t have anything else to fill the gap with; I just get bored in a whole new way, kind of like watching the latest bond movie.

And I’m bored right now, which is why this looks it was written by a catholic monk. I imagine they must get quite bored too.

After all, monks don’t have the Internet…

How to keep an idiot busy

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

Yesterday I sat down and spoke comfortably to people during both my first and second break. It was bizarre, and an experience I haven’t felt in a while. Kind of like physical contact with a human being.

Then I came home and surfed the web, looking at my bank account, because again, that doesn’t really count does it! I think I’ll only find it easy to get off the web when I have friends and activities to fill the gap, or just a whole load of new porn.

For those of you still on the web, this beauty of a site may keep you occupied for longer than you imagine. I'm afraid to say it kept me busy for longer than I care to admit...

Relapse, don't do it

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

With nothing to do and boredom kicking in I found myself sitting at my PC last night clicking between pages on Google Analytics. I've had 842 unique hits since the blog was created, 1,752 page views. 55% of my viewers use Firefox, 42% use internet explorer, and only 47% of my visitors were me.

In my head there was nothing wrong with my repetitive clicking. It wasn't really surfing, just Google, just filling time. But that's what I used to do, mindlessly flick between pages while life rushed past me. I have nothing to fill the gap with at the moment. I've read my Stephen King Collection, started and got bored with Tom Holt, Watched my Simpsons' downloads and DVDs, typed the whole of Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven from heart, had three baths, and spent a ridiculous amount of time staring at the Google homepage.

I need to find something to do in the meantime. I'm working late today. So long as it isn't raining I'll go to the park, watch the ducks, maybe to do some writing.

I'll probably end up staring at the skater boys though and wondering how to get them to comment on my blog.

09:41
Should really open the curtains before I write this things. Raining like a Gene Kelly Musical out there...

Click

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

It's the strangest thing.

I have time on my hands and not the slightest idea what to do with it. I find myself sitting at my PC clicking the Send/Receive button repetitively on Outlook as surely that can't be counted as using the web.

At other times I've decided that I simply must just check something on Wikipedia, say a review of the most hated Simpson episode The Principal and the Pauper, and that doesn't count as using the Internet - it’s research, even if I don't need that research for any reason.

I've now read all of Stephen King's Carrie, watched the latest Simpsons and Family Guy episodes (downloaded, but I wasn't actually using the web,) and even spent time with my Boyfriend.

Part of me believes that I will reap the benefits of this crazy experiment, gaining more time and a more interesting life and should therefore keep going. The more stubborn part however, is convinced that the web existence of myself is the only interesting thing about me.

Well... that and my expanding collection of Stephen King books.

Five minutes till Curtain Up

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

It’s harder than I imagined.

My web clock is reading 1 hour and 20 minutes and that’s in the space of one day, not including time checking e-mails or chatting on MSN, which must have counted for at least an extra hour, as people want to talk to me all of a sudden.

The hardest part though was actually unplugging the internet.

‘But I won’t be able to see who’s reading my blog.’
‘You can always check tomorrow,’ my brain said.
‘But I won’t be able to get my e-mail to see if anyone comments.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I won’t be able to surf for new funny things to post.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘If I get horny I won’t be able to search for por…’
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll love ya tomorrow! You’re only a day away!’

I paused for a moment.
‘Why you singing show tunes?’
‘Because you’re gay,’ my brain said.
‘Oh. Ok…’

I’m running out of things to do. I’ve already read Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory including all the special features. I’ve even, God help me, watched My Boyfriend playing Fuzion Frenzy 2 on the x-box.

And I have at least 6 days of this left to go.

If I haven’t murdered my brain by the end of this week, it will only be because he’s a good singer.

Part 2 - Get off the web

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

Now I know some of you are worried about this one…

After all, how can I produce works of genius and keep you entertained if I’m not on the web? How will you cope without me?

Well, there are two possible options. Firstly you can come to my house and watch me perform card tricks whilst reciting Shakespearean soliloquies or I can keep using the web. As I really don’t want you in my house, and my sleight of hand isn’t as strong as it used to be, I’m favouring the second option instead.

So rather than eliminate the web from my life, like a maid with a feather duster, I’m simply adapting my lifestyle.

Presently my life follows a remarkably dull pattern like a work of unimaginative modern art. I wake up, surf the net, go to work, come home, read some blogs, watch most haunted, stumble the Internet and go to bed.

There are of course such essentials as eating, showering and beating up my boyfriend inter spliced into the routine, but one major element (apart from masturbation) takes up most of my day and it is this sheer amount of web use that I want to eliminate – not ban use of the web itself as an Amish man may do after discovering cable porn.

My aim is to limit my surfing 30 minutes a day. This means 30 minutes of actual surfing not including page loading time, as measured by Time Tracker.

I hope this will encourage (force) me to discover more interesting and useful things to fill my time with such as reading, talking to my boyfriend, or maybe, Heaven forbid, even venturing outside.

As usual I will keep you posted, probably in much shorter entries, and I will visit your blogs from time to time but as my Internet will be unplugged for 23 Hours and 30 minutes every day that may be harder than you imagine.

It is a challenge I am excited to be taking part in. But God only knows what I will do if I need to order pizza…

Review of week 1 - Talk

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

Lessons learned this week.

• The only way to be confident is to be confident
• The only way to change is to be start making changes.
• And the only thing stopping me is a fear of making mistakes
  

Also

• My colleagues and I fear drunken louts.
• One way to change depressive thoughts is positive mental reinforcement and chocolate
• And a good way to hold a meaningful conversation is to talk to a gay man.
  

More importantly, I learnt the one person I can always talk to is my boyfriend, even if he doesn’t always understand what I’m saying. One hour of ranting and pouring my heart out to him and the world seems that little bit brighter again. It’s like Prozac, which is possibly what he takes after listening to me.

It’s been harder than I thought to face parts of me I don’t like, harder still to start changing them, and even harder than that to make it funny enough for this blog.

But, the first step has been a success. I made a new friend, I’m more comfortable talking to my work colleagues, I got a sale and I found refuge and a whole new kind of love and acceptance in the arms of my man.

And best of all, I found that challenging myself can be fun. Even if it does make for incredibly dull reading.

Aversion Therapy

Oh, I see! I try to talk to people and you guys get jealous and stop talking to me!
Or, maybe I’m just being boring at the moment. Geez…

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

So I spoke to people at work. It wasn’t as I imagined. I am, for example, still alive.

They were discussing aversion tactics when threatened by a drunken lout. Now, I consider myself an expert on this, having been in several bars and not being beaten up in any of them. Plus, having read Derren Brown's, Tricks of the Mind, I know rather a good way to get out of it.

The trick is to talk about something completely different. For example, if being threatened with a knife you talk about the monsoon season in Bangladesh. “It rains for months you know! And because they’ve cut down loads of trees everything gets flooded as well. The water is like this high.” The confident randomness makes you appear unafraid and in a place of power whilst confusing your assailant and giving you time to get away.

I mentioned this in the conversation, but due to nerves, intimidation and trying too hard to seem intelligent it sounded like this. ‘You know Derren Brown system to it make strange speak no sense make burble-weep.’

They looked at me for a moment, confused and intimidated (proving at least that it works.) ‘Yeah!’ they said, and went back to ignoring me.

Luckily, there’s a gay guy sitting with our team at the moment so I spoke to him about gaydar profiles and butts instead…

That, at least, is something I am an expert on.

My Chatterbox

Thank You for all your comments. Your words of encouragement, advice and anecdotes mean more than you realise (unless of course you have a really big ego.) I was expecting people to post things like, ‘Stupid idiot. Get a life and be funny again.’

Feel free to post that now if it will make you feel better...

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

The first stage to Becoming Me is to break my negative thought patterns, so I’ve been keeping a metaphorical eye on my brain today.

I have an entertaining negative voice. It says things like this.

“I’m not going to succeed at this. I’ve failed before after all and I’ll fail again. I used to be confident and interesting and happy and I’m only going to fail again so I don’t know why I even bother anyway, I might as well just give up now, no one really cares anyway and if I’ll give up they’re just forget me, they probably want me to get back to being funny anyway and Ooh a Penny!”

I’ve been replacing the negative thoughts with more constructive positive ones but this isn’t always as productive as it sounds. For example ‘I can’t seem to sell anything today’ quite easily turns into ‘I ‘m a good salesman and will get a sale next time’ which is quite motivating even if it didn’t actually get me a sale today. However, transforming the thought ‘What if my Boyfriend Dies?’ into ‘Think of all the money I’ll get from the insurance,’ seems somewhat less encouraging.

It’s hard going today. I keep falling into random depressed hits and have to remember to talk myself back from the ledge, none of which is helped by the fact that I’m currently the furthest from target in my team at work. I’m no good at being last, it reminds me of P.E. I was always last then and people used to laugh at me, and I was fat and stupid, and no one liked me, and I hated school so much and Ooh a Penny!

Clearly, I have a ways to go.

Tomorrow – talking to friends and co-workers...
I'm really quite dreading it.

Mirronic

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

To begin with let me make something clear. Deep conversation I can handle. In fact I enjoy it, so much so that I paid out £200 for a 10 week counselling course to do it even better. It basically told me that I was good at listening, but it's good to be told nice things about yourself even if it does cost you money. That is the point of counselling after all.

However, getting someone into a state where they are happy to pour their hearts out is hard. I use to be able to engage in competent small talk with anyone, about anything, and more importantly used to be able to say positive things to myself.

Talking to people during lunch used to be a pleasure, even if I had never met them before, although I can't say for sure if it was such fun for them.

It is that kind of confidence that I am looking to regain, beginning with talking to the mirror.

Something like this.

Part 1 - Talk

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
   
7. Spoil Myself

There are many confusing steps on the Becoming Me list, mostly because I invented it during a boring sales call. I imagine however, that none will confuse those who think they know me more than the first – Talk.

Talking has never been easy for me.
I have a stutter, a small lisp and talk faster than bad news. Generally I write
instead. Writing can be edited and it is easier to appear witty when you’ve rewritten your punch lines.

But in Reading, I was a loud annoying bastard. Overconfident in my importance, I forced my way into conversations, dominated discussions and generally pissed people off. It’s a gift I’ve always had, or did at least, hiding my verbal insecurities by talking loudly enough to sound important. It’s a common trick used by many, most notably George Bush.

All that changed when I met my boyfriend. It became less important to impress people, because hey, I was getting laid! I would spend evenings in a corner talking to him or eating his face. Love was overpowering. I didn’t need anyone, and they’d still be there if I did, possibly with a sharp stick to prod some sense into me.

Overtime I learnt to shut up. It was, although those with teenage children may not believe it, a remarkably easy lesson. I wasn’t special, just one of a couple, the Corbett to his Barker. And I moved to Bristol unable to lead a conversation, function as a single unit or repair the stubble rash on my chin.

In a social society, communication is important for survival and happiness, as well as a good way of getting arrested. If I want to be part of the world again I will have to start acting like it.

Hence my first weeks aim to start talking again –in four stages.

1. To myself
2. To my friends
3. To my Co-workers
4. To new people.

During the next 6 days the blog will be updated with (hopefully) short entries detailing how my various talking adventures are going.

I hope, if nothing else, they will make your laugh at me, although always politely.

Becoming me

I would like, if I may, to take you on a rather unusual journey.

I sat down the other day (not that sitting is an important aspect, although it would be awkward to do what I did standing up) and realised that somehow my life had gotten off track.

Back in Reading I was confident, in a job I loved, and had a friend just up the road from me. In Bristol I'm shy, in a boring job and alienated from the known world. I’m also fat.

Clearly something has gone wrong, possibly to do with cheesecake. I have evidence to suggest that Cheesecake is in fact the route of all evil, rather than money as was previously believed.

Now I’ve tried to change before but lacked the motivation (or the guilt) to see it through. But I have this blog for guilt now and an upcoming shopping trip to London for motivation. And my efforts can be recorded and boasted about for the rest of my life or until hell freezes over, whichever is longer.

So I sat down (see note above) and wrote ten steps to finding the old me. Then I crossed out three, added four and combined two together. My London trip is at the end of March so, unless I blatantly lie here, (which I considered for a while) eight steps is too many. I crossed out two more, added three, reworded five and, with a deft pen stroke, deleted two of those remaining. And so finally came up with my Seven Steps to Success. I call it 'Becoming Me.' If you can think of a better name - screw you.

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
   
7. Spoil Myself

To celebrate I went out and brought a burger.

Over the next seven weeks, with you as my witness, I will make these stupid principles my mantra. Taking on one step each week, and reporting my progress here I will attempt to find something of the Cynic that I left behind in Reading.

And failing that I will at least have something to write about for seven weeks.

My aim is to make this light-hearted for my readers but a tear-wrenching, emotional-churning, life changing adventure for me. I feel I will succeed on at least one of the two.

Wish me luck,
And then go on secretly hoping I’ll fail.

Simon