OK, so...wow, that didn't work.
Updates:
Failed the Starbucks challenge spectacularly. Ultimately, you know what got me? Bordeom on Paddington Station. That's it, yes, I'm blaming Paddington Station. If Paddington Station had somewhere to unselfconsciously wait in the warm for a couple of hours, with tables, and non-Starbucks coffee, dammit...oh wait, hold on - it's actually littered with places like that. Damn. See, when you think things through at 3.47 in the morning...
Anyway, the truth is, I cracked on Paddington Station on what I call an UberCommute - the run up and down to London in the space of a day - and drank what was actually utterly vile - an orange hot chocolate, of all things.
Since then, we've been away to Greece and I'm more than vaguely ashamed to say that one of the highlights of that trip was finding Starbucks Heraklion. So the Starbucks challenge is dead, failed. And there it is.
The whole "Lose Three Stone" thing has also been, if not categorically failed until October, then at least radically inconvenienced by having in fact put ON at least two stone since the challenge began. I'm now around 18st 11, which feels unremittingly fucking horrible, and is probably not a little to do with why I write this at 3.51 in the morning. I don't like looking like this, I don't like feeling like this. I may have to re-start my previous blog, The Disappearing Man. At least, when I was doing that, I felt obliged to tell people the truth, and therefore didn't feel like I could get away with nonsense.
I am now going to begin this part of the challenge again. And I'm going to break it down into manageable chunks or stone-miles, as it were. Challenge 1: See a 17 on my scales. Discipline and defeating the urge to wantonly self-sabotage is all this takes. Self-sabotage is something of a raison d'etre of mine, but the Disappearing Man was predicated on the idea that it didn't have to be. It's funny really - when I set up my editing business, I was perfectly willing to be taken seriously, and I take it seriously. Why I feel this compunction to be taken seriously in absolutely nothing else - from my writing to my weight - I don't know, but it's sick and self-defeating and it needs to bloody well stop if I'm to have anywhere near the life I actually want and am capable of. To arms! And what's more, to bloody exercise bike!
The rejoining of my male voice choir hasn't happened yet either, and I rather thought it might have. To be honest, I'm a bit torn about it. Love the singing and the discipline of singing correctly. And love the idea of the camaraderie of blokes and all that. The actual camaraderie of blokes...meh...I think I've probably missed the boat on knowing how to do that. I've never had a large number of male friends, and I don't actually give a toss about a large number of "male" interests, so the male bonding thing only tends to happen by accident. And don't get me wrong here - have certainly bonded with a number of fellow choristers, including at least one who, when I first met them, I thought I'd never get on with. It's whether or not I have the time and the inclination to go back to it right now that's the question, and to be honest, I'm as busy and as pressured now as I was when I left. Perhaps it's actually little wonder that the majority of such choirs have a largely retired membership. Plus, I'll be honest, being or feeling like the only atheist in the choir is a bit naff.
The choir was there for me in what was probably the most difficult year of my life to date, and I'll always be grateful for that. But can I commit to it in the way it needs committing to right now? Hmm...
What else has happened recently? Well, I've had my first manicure - I realise of course that wasn't on the list, and probably does little to establish my commitment to male bonding, but it was an interesting experience. I'm not looking to have it done again (says he, sitting here with pigging talons clacking on the keyboard), but should the opportunity present itself again, I might well go for it. Oh I've also experienced chiropractic since I last wrote, probably. Quite a lot, as it happens - not least because when I lay on my front on the chiropracter's couch, I popped a rib out of position. Soooo that was fun. Fortunately he was able to...well, essentially, hammer it back into submission for me, not once, but twice. Enjoyable stuff, and to be honest, if I had more money coming in on a regular basis, might well keep that up.
Have just this minute made enquiries about learning to swim and ride a bike in the local area. And of course, have been away to a country I've never visited before. Crete was breathtakingly beautiful, heartbreakingly historied, economically impoverished, generously peopled, and not a little scary inasmuch as the language barrier was total. Am I now likely to achieve the goal of visiting three new countries this year? Notsomuch, but maybe one a year from now till I die will be at least a good start, no?
Oh, have written a few poems towards the goal of self-publishing a volume of those, too, and re-done my first chapter of a novel. Not quite done tinkering with it yet, but nearly - who knows what might happen by dawn?!
The social media blackout continues successfully - in fact, too successfully, as I'm sort of avoiding the sites even for legitimate purposes, like my business and my day job. That has to end this week though, as my day job has become interested in the tantrumming, "take me seriously" three year old of social media sites - LinkedIn, and I'm going to have to get involved. (shudders). Silly bloody site, if you ask me, but nobody can deny it takes itself ever so seriously. Sigh.
Anyway, that's where you find me. Blubber-covered and remorseful, basically. Let's see where we go from here...
