The Disappearing Masses

Blood was 5.3 this morning. Intrigued? Yeah, me neither - next!

d forwarded me an email today, from someone named Abbie. I don't know Abbie, never met the girl in my life, but she works in the same place as d. This confirms for me what I've pretty much always known - screw agents, I'll never have a better pimp than my wife.

Not that this was the point of course. The point was that I've never met Abbie, and yet, apparently, she reads this blog. I've only got 12 actual, official followers - for which, thanks - but I've known for a while that the readership of this mad experiment is bigger and broader than that. Ended up on a press trip with my old boss, and he referenced the blog. Picking up meds at the local pharmacy, d...what's the phrase...enthusiastically suggested...to our friend behind the counter that she read it. The guy who prints my day-job magazine reads it, and so does my ex-colleague who eworks with him...and so it goes on, this deliciously invisible network of Disappearers. I'm grateful for you all - this long since stopped being just a diary for me, it's become a driver, a disciplinarian, a sounding board, a flag for funny or curious or just plain weird incidents that happen to me day-to-day. And it's kinda cool to know you're out there, even in these odd little momentary ways.

Abbie had mailed d to say she'd enjoyed yesterday's blog, and that, apparently, I made morning train journeys enjoyable.

Had to laugh at that. I'd had one of those morning journeys that you have every now and then that make you wonder why, exactly, you put up with this shit and don't live on an island somewhere. People walking through me, other people jabbing their umbrellas into my groin, and all of us scurrying like rats in a horror movie, filled with our own importance. Kinda made we wonder what would happen if, next time I had one of those mornings, I stood up, struck a pose and shouted "Don't be jabbing me, beeeatch! I can make this shit enjoyable you know! Or NOT, if you piss me off!"

"...Today, a fat furry Welshman was stabbed to death on the District Line by disgruntled commuters..."

Turned out Abbie herself is a Disappearing Woman - she's doing Slimming World, and doing bloody well at it too - she was going for her weigh-in tonight, hoping to have lost her next two pounds, because she too is tickling a border - her 4 stone border (non-Brits, talk amongst yourselves, means a lot to us!). She said that if she gets to that border, she gets a treat - a hot chocolate.

I drifted off into a brief little fantasy about swimming through a lake of hot chocolate with my mouth open, but you've got to appreciate the power of treats. Now of course, it's a matter of record that I can't do treats, cos I'd turn them from treats into regularities, and collapse any semblance of will power on my part, but treats as a principle are fabulous - every time you hit a landmark, you feel like a treat, and it's a principle I use in the biking - except, being me, the treat I award myself for doing a mile is...not having to do that mile any more...

It occurs to me I may need remedial treat-training.

But the point, really, is to say a big what-up and you all rock to all Disappearing Folk everywhere, whatever method you use, and to those who read my rambling into what would otherwise be a digital wall. Some people have even - rather terrifyingly, I have to say - told me they're 'inspired' by this blog. Well I'm inspired by you lot. Inspired, and driven, and determined to push the Bastard Stubbornness that's in me to new, productive levels every day.

So...thanks for that.