Iron Will

Tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of Headscissors. That's my iron anniversary, according to Wikipedia. Next year is wool, which seems like a backwards step.

I'm feeling anxious this afternoon. I put it down to the chocolate and orange sponge pudding I had at lunchtime. It was warm, and came with chocolate custard.

I don't normally do warm desserts. I don't know what compelled me to have one today. Probably an external malevolent force, like a witch or some kind of pang.

All I know is I ate a warm sponge pudding, and now I feel anxious. I've been a fool. I'm going to reform. I believe I can be a better man. I believe a better man is a spongeless man.

Let me tell you a story about a spongeless man. I'm sure you'll find it...

absorbing.

;-)))))))))))))))))))))

The Ballad of a Spongeless Man

***

This isn't a ballad. This isn't even a hilarious meta-ballad where I claim not to be writing one. I wrote the above section yesterday. I fully intended to write a ballad then, for all I know. But I don't feel like it today.

Today, the chocolate and orange sponge pudding is but a memory. Also, I don't really know what the a "ballad" is. I think it's a type of duck.

It's not a palindrome, but it's better than a palindrome. It's almost symmetrical.

ballad

It's a lovely word to look at.

***

I wrote the above section on Tuesday. I wrote the section above that on Monday. Today is Thursday.

I refuse to abandon this post. I've put too much effort into it already.

It means that my iron anniversary was actually two days ago. My rosette is obsolete already. And rusty.

I didn't have a sponge today, and I still don't feel comfortable writing a ballad.

It's useful to be able to document my sponge consumption in increments. It's useful.

I used my new power drill yesterday (Wednesday). It was only for putting up a bathroom cabinet, but I already feel like more of a man than I did on Tuesday (ballad) or Monday (sponge).

I can't drive or fight or drink lots of alcohol, but I can drill holes in walls. I'm a real man.

It might seem sexist to suggest that there's something innately masculine about drilling, phallic symbolism notwithstanding. And it is. Women are allowed to drill. And, for all I know, it might make them feel like more of a woman. I think it's what that Shania Twain song is about.

But I felt more like a man, because I was already going down that path. I'm on the man track, so ended up further down the masculine continuum.

Not that you can't switch tracks. I would hate for anyone to think I was being transphobic. It's possible that drilling might make a girl feel more like a man, and a boy more like a woman. Drilling affects different people in different ways. We should be prescriptive when it comes to power tools, unless we're prescribing a certain drill-bit for a specific type of wall.

*sigh*

It's really hard trying to follow a thought through to its conclusion when I'm constantly concerned with political correctness.

Let's just say that drilling made me feel like less of a failure in life. There. Failure is gender-neutral.

I drilled holes and it made me feel better about my comic collection. That's it. I'm not trying to oppress anyone here.

Except for walls. I'm oppressing them. If you're a wall, my drilling adventure was a fucking bloodbath.

I'm not wallist, but I am willing to dismember them in order to mount cabinets. If that makes me a fascist, then you'd better lock me up and throw away the chuck key.

Six years...

Six years is a long time to have been doing this.

Has anyone done a joke about a palindrome being where people race Michael Palins?

Yes, they probably have.

I'm old.

That's the lesson here. It's the common thread.

Sponge puddings, ballads, drills, iron.

Only old people like these things.

Young people like Frubes, diss tracks, lasers, plastic.

It wasn't like this in 2007. What's happened to me?

I look down at my hands and they're all lined and withered there are four of them.

Hang on, that's a zebra carcass... I wondered why my hands had a mane.

I'd better post this, or I'll have to come back in a few days and judge past self. I'm young compared to that guy. He will be ancient.

Youth is wasted on the young. And oldness is wasted on the old. It falls on deaf ears.

Everything is wasted on everything else. It's a fundamental force, like gravity.

The only thing you can do is ignore it. Make something of yourself. Turn a safari exhumation into a profitable hoof depot.

Don't do what I did (or did not) do.

You don't want to wake up in six years' time, wondering "when was the last time I had a sponge pudding", and not even bothering with a question mark.