Inertia: A warning from history

There is very strong language from the start, it’s generally gratuitous but worse even, it‘s unnecessary, thank goodness then there is no violence. My teeth, buttocks and fists have all led peacefully unclenched lives, a little outrage sometimes without much rage, firmly stoppered but still always evaporating away, in a bottle of sulky indignation. Not then, the stuff revolutionaries are made of, maybe that’s why I admire dissenters so much, I’m not sure if I would have the pent-up belligerence or insurgency to even make an effigy let alone burn one.

Through leading a wholly cosseted life there are only small things left to be annoying and even those far more so in the past, proper personalised outrage today requires too much concentration and self-importance. Mildly chagrined then is the best I can muster and then only if it’s something meaningful, something of massive importance that gets as they say, with probably more relevance for a Taureg bloke, my actual goat.

Over the years I have probably cooked and eaten quite a few fried eggs, would-be flocks of them, and up to a few years ago almost one in three would deposit it’s lovely runny yolk into the frying pan from it’s bottom, giving birth to a litter of tiny instant omelettes as it was gently, so gently lifted by slice to travel to it’s penultimate resting place; to lie in state on a plinth of toast. I was disappointed, peeved, saddened, frustrated and perpetually bemused with this outcome, nice as white is, without the centrepiece of the yellow domed bubo it is just a gelatinous support system. Essential in highlighting and providing a rubbery counterpoint to the viscid smooth warmth of yoke, but that really is all it can ever be, something of a wrapping foil to it‘s superordinate.

This confounding anti-climax has largely disappeared, whether eggs have grown stronger bottoms or my slice handling has improved or it’s yet another virtue of olive oil, whatever or whichever it hardly ever happens now. A ratio of probably less than one egg in twenty sags yokeless on leaving their oily bath, which naturally is still distressing, painful, and brutally harrowing when it does happen but in comparison to even just five years ago, generally thought to be an acceptable casualty rate.

I also rarely feel personally offended. I can feel exceedingly offended on behalf of other people and frequently do so, and sometimes by objects like cameras that shut their eye when you try to take a snappy of the moment picture by pressing the wrong button, and then you’re forced to watch them while they go through their getting-up ritual. “No I won’t be hurried, if I miss this bit my whole day is just ’wrong’.”

That I find a little irritating too, the whole business of ‘my day’, my own, that must never be tainted with even a slightly sour note, day. If people would stop constantly asking themselves how they felt, they might feel better, the ceaseless inner monologue must become tediously repetitive after a while.

In a way, a continuation, sequel and prequel to this, probably best looked at first though it might not make any difference.
 
There is always going to be the opportunity, if you recognise and take heed of being slapped repeatedly round your metaphor to question yourself about the person you’re with, if they are the ‘right’ person or more pertinently are you the ‘right’ person for them to be with. I have had this feeling, instinct and dreaded eventual realisation far more than once or twice, and despite recognising the truth in a truthful answer, have done nothing to redress it and on the contrary, have actually made it worse.
 
It must be rare to have at the same time, the opportunity to be prodded, and not so gently that it tickles, with sharp quip-sticks by a cabal of self-congratulant shiny-haired jog-monkeys. Nevertheless that’s precisely what happened when Michelle and I joined a ’great bunch’ of her work-friends for an evening of wine, nibbles on plates, nibbles in divided glass dishes and social misgivings. These planned accidents are invariably conducted in a set-seated position, which leaves no escape from the stubbornly murmuring poly-babble, where two or more conversations form dissecting paths across a space. I expect you’ve also found yourself in the soiree situation where you are trapped in an endlessly vacuous listen and nod with someone reliving, like a drugged vision, their yoga class while you sit right beside another person, invariably bloke-like who is arguing the aesthetics of the Esprit over the Elite, and you can’t do a thing about it, as you chew over the finer points of the Lotus position.

Having met none of these people before, I had no idea if there was going to be much common ground between us, but I am always ready to forage semi-relentlessly until we discover something. No matter how tenuous, something that can make us nod simultaneously, smile knowing that it‘s just us this time, point at each other and say: “No, you and me both, I haven’t worn my Lederhosen outside since the Lisbon Treaty ratification either mate.”  

This time no yoga, federalism or cars and it doesn’t help when they all work together and insist rudely in chortling solely over the minutiae of everyday colleague interface hilarity. Which meant, mainly taking the piss out of the sales manager Derek, distinguished by his glass eye, a limp and a comb-over, I found my higher-self putting a chummy and unthreatening arm round his shoulder and gently leading him away, telling him: “It’s not you they’re talking about, it’s just transference, they are really holding a mirror up to their own inadequacies. Now Derek, have you thought about having your hair cu…..”

I was drawn back in from contented social exclusion with an innocent sounding question thrown right at my perceptibly borderline-obese and patently unfit for purpose face.

”Do you run Nactus?”

“Well no, actually I don’t.”

“He wouldn’t run if my life depended on it.” Three guesses who said that.

“He might run the other way Mitch.” Laughter, cruel and mocking.

“He’s never done any running, I don’t think you can run, can you?”

“He looks a bit run down” Diagnostic laughter before I can reply.

“That’s only because his nose is running.” Nasal laughter.

“As long as he hasn’t got the runs as well.” Not sympathetic laughter.

“I reckon he’s giving you the run-around Mitch.” Accusatorial laughter.

“Has he run out of excuses then?” Quizzical rolling-eyed laughter.

“This is turning into a running joke.” Laughter of itself, laughter.

“Unlike Nactus, this could run forever.” Laughter of the prophetic.

“He’s just another run of the mill non-runner.” Extra plaudits for the double.

“You can’t run but you can hide.” Pause to appreciate, then appreciative laughter.

“He’s running…his cup runneth…..he’s…” Subsiding stuttering dying laughter as they reach for Pringles.

“ He won’t play squash either.” She’d started it again, I couldn’t believe she would do that, like a Roman Emperor amusing himself, calling for more lions.

“What about ping-pong Nac?” Stunned, I just shook my head.

“He’s more pong than ping.” Laughter, irrational laughter.

“Phew yeah, you’re right there.” Simple, good old-fashioned derisive laughter.

And so it continued, through all sorts of sports and physical exercise until they sat back smiling, shaking their heads and looking dreamily into the distance, musing on their wit, pack reaffirmation, rude health and athletic superiority. Before Michelle could open her cupped and nurturing hands to display another of my scorn-worthy shortcomings to the assembled toned comedians, hostess and, I like to think, compassionate objector Tina, stepped authoritatively between us and suggested: “Mitch, you and Nactus should go to Venice, it’s so romantic.”

Later, what seemed a lifetime later, in my car outside her house.

“I told you they were a great bunch didn’t I?”

“Yes you did.”

“So?”

“So?”

“So what did you think of them?”

“I didn’t really.”

“What though?”

“Not much really.”

“What not much, though?”

“I didn’t think much of them.”

“Alright then, why didn’t you?”

“They just seemed like…well, I don‘t know them really.”

“What? Seemed like what? What did they seem like really?”

“Really? A bunch of complete wankers.”

“Oh for God‘s sake, just because they were having a joke, you’re so sensitive and you’ve got no sense of humour have you? You take everything so personally and why do you always think everything’s about you, all the time, these are people I work with, they’re my friends for God‘s sake, I care about them a lot. Why can’t you join in like everyone else? Oh …suit yourself. God, sometimes you‘re as bad as Derek.”
 
The car door slammed shut behind her retreating form in the darkness. I had upset her by not being what she wanted or I suppose who she hoped against all the evidence, me to be. How could she have been so uncaring I thought, that she knew so little about me after a whole year, I wasn’t complicated I was and remain simple, as simple as an egg. I only ever expected a smear of politeness, consideration, kindness and humanity and maybe hopefully a smudge of some sort of loyalty but she hadn’t it seemed taken the trouble to notice even that. I felt slightly offended then by her being offended, but still continued with hardly any regard to what was fairly obviously with hindsight, an impetuously fool-hardy and rash, of biblical proportions, decision.

I must thank my diary and therein myself for rekindling these wonderful memories, and she was wrong, I was actually not as bad as Derek, I was worse. I’m pretty sure, while standing on some no-name bridge over an Italian canal looking at her perfectly too beautiful face and holding her soft slim hands in his a few weeks later, he would never have asked her to marry him. He would instead, have rightly asked himself, “What am I doing? I don’t mean this, any of it, I haven‘t thought about it anywhere near long enough. What the fuck in a bag of mushrooms am I doing?”  

And in a perfect world filled with uplifting notes, that must exist somewhere, she would have answered my plighted troth not with a whispered and almost tearfully smiling yes, but with an indignant, haughty and this time contemptuously laughing: “Are you joking? No way, you sedentary unsociable fool, I’d rather marry Derek for God’s sake, and spend the rest of my life running around Grimsby eating fried egg whites. For God‘s sake,what made you even ask?”