Yup, Sure does. I'm pretty certain that I'll be able to make use of this soon enough.
I also just spent the last couple of hours of my Saturday evening sprucing up my bike, Polly, adding new bits, giving her a bit of a buff. Oil. Lots of oil. She certainly needed a good seeing to, though, having spent the entire winter in a shed. Poor thing. I bet she's well happy now that she's able to frolic around the streets and fields of Kettering again, her new wheel working more beautifully now than it did out of the shop.
You know, for the last year I've been struggling to think of what I'd class as my "hobby". Because while throughout uni, videos were certainly my hobby, they've now become my life. At the moment, I spend the weekends and some weekdays working at Wicksteed Park, and then in the evenings and every other moment of my life I'm making videos. DMU pays me a wage to make them. So now it's my profession. Don't get me wrong, it's what I always wanted, but some of the magic and sparkle has gone away. It's no longer the activity I use to break away from the world and enter this magical realm, where anything can happen. That said, News Man certainly falls under the "magical realm" banner, what with it being completely off our own backs where no one makes any money. Not even our professional actors.
So yeah, I'll admit that turning a hobby into a profession kind of bummed me out a bit when I thought about it. But there I was today, with my workshop clothes on, oily rags in hand, sprucing up the current love of my life. It may sound simple and not at all exciting, but I may make cycling my new hobby. It's been years since I took my bike out for a good thrashing around Pitsford or wherever. The other week, I took my other bike, Cyborg (named as such because I built it last year as a spare bike), on a half hour sprint north along the River Soar, and that was great. I was run-over of course, due to the lack of breaks on Cyborg, but otherwise it was a nice getaway. So now all I have to do is hope that there are some really nice cycling routes around Kettering that don't require a car to get to. There'll be something, I'm sure. And hey, sling my DSLR on my back and I can take some pretty pictures too. That'd be nice. I like pretty pictures.
My life is going to take a pretty weird turn soon. I've lived in Leicester for four years, three of which have been because of uni. I do find it a bit odd that I now work at said uni, but it is a massive stroke of luck. But yeah, soon I'm going to finish my stint at DMU, and then my tenancy is going to end on my house in Leicester, and then I don't ever intend to return. I'm going to move back to Kettering for a while, but do I want to stay there? I have some pretty cool Kettering-based projects coming up, so for the time-being at least I will be. I know living back in this relatively cramped house with shitty internet is going to annoy me, but I do need to save some dollar and start driving really.
You know, when I started writing this post, it was meant to be a complete rip-off of my friend, Natalie's post about finding happiness in the life you live, even if it's not where you wanted to be. Many of you will know that I've never been a particularly positive person, and sometimes I can be downright miserable, but her post did inspire me to try and find these little nuggets of happiness. Perhaps in May, I shall keep a journal each day of the things that made me happy that day. Hopefully "alcohol" won't appear too often. This paragraph definitely isn't finished yet, what with the point made in the first sentence not being completely resolved.
So for the last few days, I've woken up feeling pretty shit about myself. And unfortunately, that happens on more mornings than I'd care to admit. But fortunately, when I'm alone, there's a logical part of my brain that usually tells me to cheer the fuck up and get on with my life, because negativity can only kill you quicker. Of course, when I'm with friends, it's all good. They do that for me. And the last couple of days have been a tribute to that, really. Yesterday I was tearing down the road on my bike, swearing at every driver who came an inch too close to me, and being almost too willing to cut up cars on that busy roundabout. I didn't particularly fancy being alive, to be all honest with you, but the positivity of my buddy Richard started to rub off on me a little, and we just had genuinely nice customers. Well, a couple of awkward assholes, but hey, it's part of the job. Today, I was sort of feeling the same, but I was on a ride with Natalie all afternoon, and there's just no way that anyone can be miserable around that woman.
This brings me back to last week, actually. There were these pikey kids who were terrorising us and the customers, and when they made a derogatory comment about two little girls, I lost my shit and shouted at them, "DO NOT SAY THOSE THINGS. GET OUT AND DON'T COME BACK," and they didn't come back. I was fuming. A few minutes later, I saw the two little girls again, with beaming smiles on their faces and they gave the most heart-warming "thank you" of all time. They didn't half make me feel better about myself, you know. And then the day after, I was letting a middle aged woman and her son onto a ride, and I went through my usual spiel, to be met with, "thanks, sexy" (from the woman, thankfully). I was completely taken aback. I fumbled about, completely lost my train of thought and totally messed up my verbal instructions. "Thanks, gorgeous," she ended on. Christ.
So uh... I'm not really sure what the moral of this story is. It hasn't really been a story, to be honest. Hopefully you've learned something new about me, I certainly have. Two things, really.
1. I can totally velcro things to my beard.
2. There is at least one woman out there who thinks I'm attractive.
I'm going to chalk that up to a win.
I want to go on an adventure. And write about it. And take pretty pictures while I'm on said adventure. Yeah.
Pete out.
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