I've edited the top and tail of the email but the story remains entact:
How goes life? I know this a rare occurrence, another email so soon after the first, but I’m in a writing mood or perhaps a doing mood so here we go again.
Ever since leaving University I’ve been finding a bit of a void appearing in my life. Suddenly I have one thing that I do in a day like most normal people but I think we all know that it’s a long time since I was a normal person who’s happy with that. In the run up to Christmas it wasn’t really a problem since I was working 7 days a week and I had joined a new gym. However the coincidence of giving up one shift at Kingdom FM and putting out my back which stopped me from working out highlighted this void. Now couple this with the long commute to work each day (1 hour each way) and you’ll perhaps understand that I’ve started formulating plans. As the months have gone on I’ve refined the plans more and more until the point I reached tonight where everything fell into place. This may be dull but if you’ve got some spare time then please indulge me. Hey, you feature in this towards the end. Oh and forgive me if this becomes disjointed but I’m half watching Ally McBeal at the same time (series 4 with Robert Downey Jr). As I write this I’m starting to realise that I should start a web diary on my verygeeky site if for no other reason than it makes an interesting historical document for myself.
I’ve started back at the gym. It’s no coincidence that I’ve started going again just after booking my summer holiday; a holiday in the sun that will involve me exposing parts of my body that haven’t seen public daylight since summer 2000! The big plan is to go as often as possible which for the first two weeks has meant 3 times per week. Not too shabby, really. This weeks target is 4 visits. Last Friday I started doing weights as well as the old cardio-vascular exercises and so far I haven’t broken anything but I am feeling energised again.
Hold on that makes work and exercise during the week. Excellent! Now what about the weekends? Let’s see,… Kingdom FM on a Saturday morning then,… then,… erm,… nothing. Hmm, we seem to have some spare time. Actually I’m not telling the full story here. Since giving up the Sunday shift at Kingdom my friends have pounced on my Saturday nights and keep filling them with events. At least they do when I haven’t been at the ice hockey. This also means that Saturday afternoon is often spent in bed (when you get up at 4am you need a little afternoon catnap, I’m not 18 anymore).
Okay then I need to fill Sundays. Well there’s NFL Europe for 5 weekends, plenty of motor racing over the summer but that still leaves a lot of free weekends. Plus when I come back from holiday I’m sure to stop going to the gym as much (I hope so at least, I’m going to kill myself with exertion) so what on earth could fill the time. Wait a minute where does music figure in all this? Where, in the last 3 years, has music vanished to? How could I ever let that vanish from my life? I guess spending so much time playing other peoples music on my radio show has allowed me to forget that I love playing music. I haven’t written anything since I was on camp in 2000! Oh my god, what has happened to my life?
Here’s where you come into this. You remember telling me about the little voice in your head with the Scottish accent that keeps asking if you’re too chicken to make a career out of music? Well the owner of the voice was inspired by a certain American lady and her talents with a guitar. Ever since I’ve wanted to learn the guitar (it’s easier to carry about than a keyboard) but I’ve never had the time. Ah, ha success, we have a new hobby. I started thinking about this recently and visited my local guitar shop. I’ve found a nice starter guitar (haven’t bought it yet) and bought a book (Guitar for Dummies) which is a complete course on learning this fantastic instrument. It takes the reader through the basics (forming chords, strengthening the left hand) through to styles (rock, blues, etc) plus background on 10 famous guitarists (so you can talk to guitarists without seeming ‘green’). But wait, how focussed am I on learning the guitar? What’s driving me? The answer came to me through the West Wing (and the movie Shrek, but I wasn’t watching that at the time). I was watching it and towards the end of the episode they played a song which I think is called Hallelujah. Can’t remember the name of the artist but it’s basically one guy and a guitar and some top lyrics. There we go, I have a goal. Learn the guitar and that song so that next time we meet face to face, I can play it.
Bringing this right up to date, as I drove home from the gym tonight I decided (and this is perhaps where the fantasy comes in) on a bigger plan. Since I’m planning on being very wealthy and money is not going to be an object (hey, I can dream) I think we should plan to meet up at least once every year. We’ll do some music, perhaps record some songs. Sound good? It’s not a complete plan yet, my journey was only half an hour and I had to concentrate on the road from time to time.
So what do you think? Is it a workable plan? Do I have something to fill the void? Will I ever realise that voids are good? Will I get off my butt and organise a trip to see you before December? Has my life become a soap opera? Tune in next time to,… I should stick this in a web log.
Okay, you can get back to your life now, thank you for indulging me for once again.
