15:42 
Fingal's mileage to date: 1192.
15:37
You can't fart and pedal at the same time
I had a really dismal session in the gym yesterday. The left side/right side disparity was even more pronounced than usual, the rash got really bad within about 5 minutes and I couldn't lift as much as I did last time I was in the gym. That sort of thing can be really depressing, but, on the other hand, I did my first start-of-season long ride at the weekend (40 miles), and my warm-up consisted of 10 minutes on the rower which I had inadvertently left set at the maximum resistance. Even so, I still managed to keep up my usual 2 mins 20 per 500m. I just thought it was harder work than normal. And then I went straight onto the assisted chin, which is always knackering, and I cut the rest periods between sets down to 45 seconds in the hope of building strength whilst still being able to lose some fat. So it wasn't all bad, just somewhat disheartening.
Finding it hard to concentrate on work today, but then, everyone else is away at some meeting or the other, apart from SSH, who is on leave looking after his kids at half-term. I usually have T'ai Chi to look forward to of a Wednesday, but, because it's half-term, the college where the classes are held is closed so we are on a break. I discovered last night that we have got far enough through the form now for it to be difficult for me to practise at home from lack of space. I could do it outside, but the weather is pretty foul and cold.
And there are the usual personal issues. If it isn't one thing it's another. Living in a polyamorous (note, this is not the same as swinging and needn't even involve sex before you start getting carried away) household has its ups and downs just like any other. The main problems centre around the balance of the relationships, though. Problems in polyamorous relationships can arise when one or more of the relationships gets taken for granted and other relationships are formed without properly taking the existing ones into account. It's a trap I have always tried very hard to avoid. Of course, monogamous people can side-step the difficult strategic complexities of new relationship introductions altogether. Either they are in one relationship or another. When one is monogamous, one does not have to consider the concatenation of emotional ties that can weave the most complicated and sticky webs.
This affects decisions I may make about my job. In fact, one of the things that concerns me in a not-very-concerning but there sort of way is the possibility that this household may be broken by any new job that I choose to take, particularly if it involves a move to some other part of the country. I feel oddly detached from any emotional upset regarding that, though. Mother Jaguar was right, of course, in various ways. Certainly, when Mug was being a grumpy fat arse on the ride into work this morning and I just let him drop back and sulk because that seemed to be what he wanted, I didn't feel guilty about it. I don't think I could have done that not so long ago. It felt quite weird, doing that and watching myself doing that and expecting it to get to the point where I had to stop to wait for him but never actually reaching that point. He did catch up with me, almost, when I stopped to investigate a fish kill [1], but I wasn't actually trying to get away from him, just letting him fall behind.
I don't want the household to split up. I have no desire to leave anyone behind. I know that Frood will come with me. We're probably going to do the whole legal married thing at some point this year, once Mum and Dad have decided that it is convenient (!) I'm not sure I would be brutally distraught if this household did end up going separate ways, however (apart from Frood). I have a sort of pragmatic fatalism about the whole thing, some of which may well be down to some potentially pretty major changes on that front, all of which I have been expecting for quite some time, and the arrival of which has only surprised me in how long it has taken.
Sorry to be so cryptic, but some personal matters are not really for general distribution. Not while they are still going on, anyway.
I haven't even had a chance to meet G properly, and now I hear he has shagged a lap dancer who turned out to be some gangster's bird, and he's worried about being kneecapped.
I wonder if this is a way you could tell actual empaths from people who confuse sympathy with empathy? "If you have no psychopathic tendencies you're just a soppy muppet, not an empath at all." I suspect that this wouldn't go down very well with the white-light and crystal dolphin brigade.
[1] OK. So it was one fish. But it was dead. Lying on the Exminster-Exeter cycle path, on the North-East bound side, just after the road crosses the railway. I think it was a perch. It had probably been dropped by some angler. It looked quite fresh. Shows that the river is improving.
Tuesday, February 19, 2002
