Bicycles, speed dating and potatoes

Fingers hover heavily over the keyboard as my eyes stare gloomily at the screen.

The heat and slight vibration from the fan in my laptop, makes the tips of my fingers and my wrists twitch. There must be something to write about, something must have happened today?

My boys must have done something whacky this morning, or maybe Jo amusingly put too much milk in her coffee? Nope – nothing.

According to Answers.Com there are more than 575 types of potato. Nope - nothing.

The screen is still blank, my eyes are still blurred and my fingers are still getting hot.

I had this problem earlier when I had to write an introduction about myself for my first contribution on Writers Rising. WR is another blog that guest bloggers like me submit their work on, in order to reach out to a different audience. It’s interesting because you then sit and read the other bloggers work too, reading work that you would never otherwise be exposed to, and I’ve already discovered some interesting blogs to read.

I hate writing about myself. Oh I know what you are doing now, spitting coffee all over your keyboard and pointing to all the places on the blog where I’ve put my name against things, and all the posts that I’ve banged on about things that I’ve been doing. You have gone red in the face pointing to the large photo of me on the Who is Glen page or even jabbed your finger against the screen at my join me on Facebook invite on the contact page.

Your points are valid; I never said I didn’t love myself! There is a massive difference between joking about your life or the things that you have done, in the comfort of your own blog, and trying to seriously introduce yourself to a whole new bunch of people, on their territory. Writing those little “about me” pieces drive me nuts, I hate it. It’s like standing up and introducing yourself at a meeting or on a course. “Hi I’m Glen, I’ve been with the company 12 years and I’m hoping to one day get my first promotion, and have a mop of my own, rather than sharing the team one”.

I just can’t take myself serious enough to do it properly.

I can’t even start to imagine how I would get on at speed dating? I’d have no hope for two reasons.

It would take me two minutes of silent flatulence to eventually say “Hi, I’m Glen, I wondered what type of woman would be desperate enough to try this, and now I’m gutted to discover that you are actually in my league!”

Listening is not my strong point at the best of times, but when I’m desperately trying to think of something witty to say about myself in a small window of time, no chance! The woman would be wasting her time saying anything to be honest, because nothing would be going in. I wonder if this is true of all men, or just me. At these events, at the end I imagine all the women sit there and tick the name of whoever made them laugh, or had a good job, or who had an interesting story, or had taken an interest in them and their life. All the men, meanwhile, would scratch their heads trying to remember if any of the women had actually said anything, before all of them tick number 12, because she had a very low cut top on, big boobs and smelled of lager.

Somewhere along the way, writing about me like that has wiped my mind, and I can’t think of anything to write about today. I’ve just spent 10 minutes trying to think of something funny to Google for, in order to put some witty comments about it here and I couldn’t even do that. 10 minutes staring at a Google search box and the best I could do was “How many types of potato are there?” Really, that actually is the best I could come up with!

Ah well, these things happen. Hopefully tomorrow, someone will fall over near me, or Daniel will pull something out of the hat again that will make me laugh enough to write about. Daniel can come out with some crackers sometimes. The other day he was laid on the sofa with his Mum behind him having a cuddle. We were talking about who people were most like in the family, such as Jamie being like his Uncle Paul. Daniel asked who he was like and Jo sniffed disgustedly before complaining that he was too much like his father. Daniel waited about 4 seconds and then with perfect comic timing, let out the loudest fart I’ve ever heard him do.

We were in tears and I fell off my seat laughing as Jo pushed Daniel away, shaking her head. I high fived Daniel with pride at the glee he had taken in proving her right.

By the way, apparently there are actually only 7 million bicycles in Beijing. I feel a little let down about that to be honest.