Pacing Yourself

Pacing Yourself ©

By

Michael Casey

When you have a job you have to pace yourself, your life. You have to get up, to SSS, pooh, shower and shave, though some don’t understand this SSS, they think it’s SS with a stutter, or are you dressing up for some Allo Allo fancy dress party if you remember Rene. The reality is your life is not your own, you are owned by your job. I did do a lot of long hours, 12 hour shifts, even 12 hour night shifts. That’s why I have strong legs, all the standing and carrying.

Now I just carry on with words and nag the rest of the family to watch the clock and be on time for work or school or choir practice. I don’t have to pace myself, my heart does it for me thanks to my beta blocker. I can look up at my pendulum clock on the wall and say tic or tock as I watch it swing. I have a steady slow pace of life. When I feel like it I can write or rather tell you all another story. I am as storyteller after all.

We were in the garden calling our cat and I thought perhaps she’s a Food Reviewer, like Ratatouille in reverse, see the cartoon and you will not be disappointed. So the idea sprung to my mind so maybe tomorrow that’ll appear on my site, once I write it.That’s how the pace of my life works, my tempo. However as you all also know and I bore you all about it, my pain from Arthur my arthritis does come along unexpectedly, as does heart pain etc.

So that is the balance the see to my saw. It can all be so unexpected like parents coming home just when you finally persuaded Jane to, but to never happens as your parents arrived home early, interrupting your pacing heart. So it is with my pain, its pattern its rhythm is totally unpredictable, a bit like Jane but you never ever found out. Again I’ve planted an idea in your mind, without ever being specific, I am a stripper but you are all blindfolded, thank God for that you cheer, but that is the secret to my writing, well I hope. Maybe it is me who is blindfolded and stripping and you are the readers suffering the sight of me naked on the page, or is that just a horrible horrible metaphor. Boris bring us all a vodka fast.

A gentle stride to the fridge to get a drink then I’m back with you, though today I’m limping all day, my neighbours think I’m a character, a character actor practising a walk, like Alec Guinness. But it’s my arthritis. I can start my story any time I like as I have no set bedtime, once written I post it on my sites and wait for the apathy or applause as I see where in the world you all are.

Sometimes I feel like Napoleon, as I inch across the map with my word conquest. Portugal, France, Germany, Poland and Ukraine all in the same day. I think there must be some Christian Brothers forcing students to read my rubbish in an attempt to make them polish their English. Though the Polish do seem to like my stuff the most, so I promise to spend more money in the corner Polish shop. Their mayo is great by the way.  

I am lucky these past years have allowed me to spend more time with my daughters, and educate and confuse them in equal measure. Once a story is finished I shout listen to this and I read it back to them, and my smallest daughter gives me a score out of 10. So they have heard a lot of my 1,000,000 plus words.

I did offer to put some stories on a USB stick for the Polish girl at the deli to help with her English, I have 11 hours of audio too, 200 of the 1300 stories recorded. However perhaps USB stick is not in her vocabulary, the local Polish community come to the store for food and get me reading stories instead. Luckily we don’t have hunting licences in central Birmingham or I could end up mounted and displayed on the wall of the local Polish Deli.

We have a Turkish store and an Iranian pizzeria maybe I should offer my USB stick there, or perhaps they would teach me some new words about pacing myself.