My girlfriend is amazing. Today she brought me this amazing advent calendar she'd made. Each of those dangling ribbons is numbered and has a gift tied to the end! Those black things are socks - it wouldn't be Christmas without socks right? But... there's another present inside each sock!

There's no ribbon for the 25th - on this day I get to unwrap a BIG present she also brought. So I don't have to wait until Christmas for present opening fun - I get one to open every day until then!

So far:

1 = A red wooden cylindrical block, about 2" in height and 3/4" in diameter. I'm told its mystery will be revealed as I open more presents.

2 = Cadbury's Dairy Milk. My favourite chocolate, brought over from her recent trip to London.

I am at odds with myself - I'm generally pretty messy in that I just chuck stuff anywhere. My wardrobe contains bundles of clothes rather than neatly folded piles - after washing I tend to just ram stuff in there. It's a fucking state.

But I'm also a bit OCD when it comes to chaos and disorder - I can tolerate my messy room and desk for a short amount of time before I spaz out and meticulously order it, even though I know that within a couple of days it will become chaos again.

Aren't tidy people usually consistently tidy? And other people I know with messy rooms don't mind them and they remain so for eternity. ETERNITY! I'm the same at work, although my spazzing out occurs more frequently and with shorter intervals - I know if it's busy the bar and kitchen will acquire a build up of debris, and that cleaning up after one round is pointless since there'll be more and more to come, but it freaks me out and I have to organise things all the time, over and over.

Weird stuff

I love food. I wish I'd been a chef. I consider myself relatively open-minded when it comes to food - I'll try most things and it is my ambition to taste every kind of meat - even the forbidden meat.

I don't like eating meat that still has eyes, and I won't eat shrimps and prawns that are still whole - partly because they look like insects (I'd never eat insects), and partly because I hate food that is a chore to prepare - all that deshelling, and head-ripping - that's the chef's job! I don't even like eating meat off the bone purely because I'd rather just shovel the stuff into my mouth rather than have the extra effort of separating meat from bone.

Most of the stuff on that page I'd eat. Live shrimp - not in a million years. Live anything for that matter.

I know I ordered 4 or 5, but I can't remember which ones. Which is nice because it means it'll be like receiving a surprise gift. From myself.

I consider myself extremely unfit and not as flexible as I was a few years ago.

I've never been big on exercising - I used to do a few pushups every so often and lift hand weights from time to time, but then when my back got fucked I couldn't and since recovering haven't bothered starting again.

I used to be able to lift my left leg almost over my head whilst standing on my right, but now can't get anywhere near that.

I can't even touch my toes, and can only get down to about 4 inches above the floor.

Most of this is down to my surgery I guess, but I could still be a lot fitter. Thing is I can't be arsed with exercise - I spend around 5 hours a day on average on my feet, walking around and the last thing I want to do first thing in the morning or last thing at night is exercise.

I most definitely drink too much, and probably eat too much bad stuff and not enough good stuff, but I don't particularly enjoy fruit or salad.

I did quit smoking a couple of months ago though.

I've put on about 30lbs in the last 2 years, and although I'm far from fat, I look like I drank from the wrong holy grail - all a bit melty. 210lbs for 6'3ish of height isn't bad, but if this continues I'll soon be a proper chubs.

What can a lazy, overworked alcoholic like me, with no willpower do to raise my general fitness levels, without completely altering my lifestyle?

It just happened right now.

Here's what happened last night in real life:

I worked an evening shift, 5pm until around midnight. Nothing of note occurred. At the end of my shift I closed up and joined some friends downstairs for poker, but didn't really play and left after a few hands. On the bus home I bumped into another friend and we went for a few more drinks. I left him and returned home around 5am.

Now, I just had the following experience:

I finished work and the aforementioned friends invited me to a party. I went, with an old schoolfriend and we played poker for a while in a garden of elaborate decor. It was a tournament which I won, much to the annoyance of others, as all my hands were insanely good - if someone showed what would seem like a surefire winner, I had the only thing that would beat it.. I then had to leave as I'd promised my girlfriend I'd meet her, so left early in the morning, and started walking back with my friend, to her house. This was all pretty realistic, as in nothing in the dream happened that was out of the ordinary - it was like real life - which is weird in itself since my dreams usually contain at least one completely fantastical element. The only thing out of place here was that I was with a guy I haven't seen for a couple of years, and he was speaking French, but I understood him. I may even have been speaking French myself. But stranger things happen, right?

Anyways, on the way home we passed a house with an odd blue light in the upper window. We stopped and pondered over it for a while. There was a street sign on a pole outside the house so I decided to climb the pole and have a look. Now, the climb appeared to take a long, long time. Hours, during which I was constantly climbing. Eventually I reached the window, was briefly confused on looking in, as it appeared to be my own flat, but managed to climb inside. I remained confused as I wandered and wondered around this place, which was identical to my own place in every way. I started looking in all the cupboards in every room.

I then came and sat on my bed, after around ten minutes of wandering and it was then/now that I realised I'm awake and no longer dreaming. I've never been so disorientated.

I've slept walked before but never lucidly, and I've had dreams before where I thought I was awake, but unless under the influence of hallucinogenics I've never thought I was dreaming whilst awake. I'm kind of freaked out right now as I have no sensation of ever waking up so everything feels as if it actually happened just now, and the realisation that I'm awake was a real shock to the system.

Is this actually real, or still a dream?*

Cue The Twilight Zone music

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


*(Of course I know I'm awake now, but wanted to end the story on a dramatic note, since I realise it's not that interesting really)

I took the liberty of transcribing the lyrics for all you Eddie Vedder fans:



ahaaaAAAAYYYEEYEAHHHHhhh
ahaaaAAAAYYYEEYEAHHHHhhh
ahhhaaaAAAYYYYEEEYEEAHHeehheeaahhnnnggaaaAHHH EEEEE

HEEEEEGGGHHHooooooo
TEEEEEEGGGHHHooooooooohh
heeeeEEEHGGGGHHHOOOOOOO oooooohhh

It's well tabloid yeah?

I used to love looking out for ludicrous headlines there, my all time favourite being 'Man Escapes From Stinky Drain' a couple of months ago.

Today is a more serious story. I'd like you all to bow your heads because:

'Paul O'Grady's dog Buster dies'

As of now, I'm back in the UK from 23rd Dec - 4th Jan, flying to and from Gatwick but spending the in between time in Grimsby. I'm considering switching my return flight though so I can have a couple days with mates in London.

Any of you gonna be around for a session early New Year? I know it's a long way off but as a foreigner I have to plan ahead.

I'm off to see them/her support Grizzly Bear in a bout an hour. I may ask her to be my girlfriend.