The Shadow

I'd been to the gym, and jussst had to pop to the post office on what was technically my lunch hour. Dropped a package off, and was making to leave. I screwed my ear-buds back in and started singing along...as I do.
"I can't do what ten people tell me to do..." Otis Redding and I seemed instinctively to agree. "So I guess I'll remain the sa-aaaaaarrrrrrrgh!!!!"
Otis and I appeared to have a disagreement about remaining the same. I decided to go down the 'having heart failure route'. It's just a choice.

It's a choice that's easier to make when, while singing away happily to yourself, you feel a hand on your shoulder out of nowhere.

The hand, as it happened, belonged to my brother.
The odds of this happening are about 360-5, because he doesn't live around here. In fact, he lives very distinctly not-here, but in a town called Thurles in Ireland. He and his wife, and their 5-year old, Rory, had arrived at something like 3AM last night though, and are here, staying with our folks, till Sunday.
"sa-aaaaaaaaargh!!!!" is perhaps not the conversation-starter he'd been expecting. He blinked at me mildly.
"'Ello," he said, smiling. It took me a few seconds to collect myself. He had a faintly grey look to him, and reminded me in that moment of no-one more than Mort, the apprentice to Death in Terry Pratchett's eponymous novel. Driving and ferrying and driving some more till three in the morning will apparently do that to you. Puts my wuss-ass UberCommute to shame, frankly.
"'Ello," I managed, when my brain had recovered from having a girder of surprise dropped across it.
"A shadow of your former self," he said.
I should explain - we tend to converse in these non-sequiturs. Often they're loaded with what we still, at 40 and 39 probably like to think are pop culture references, even though they're from decades ago. It's a kind of linguistic shorthand - not, perhaps, as creepy as the twin-thing where they finish each other's sentences, but more often than not probably bloody annoying to anyone else who happens to be there. In a weird twist of fate that I purposefully won't explain here, just to leave you pondering, we were actually friends first, for almost a decade before we became brothers, and used to delight, on weekends, in confusing the bejeesus out of local Merthyr kids by pretending, for no terribly good reason other than addiction to the musical Grease, to be from America. So we have form in terms of confusing and annoying people.

Also, as it turns out, Geraint and his wife Mary are among the most terrifyingly dedicated readers of this blog. I have no particular idea why, but they're of course very welcome.
"A shadow of your former self," he said.
"Getting there," I acknowledged. "How's work?"
He shrugged.
"Look knackered," I observed.
"3AM," he explained.
"Ah."
Then, with that kind of slow suddenness that Grand Viziers are most particularly famous for, Mary appeared at his side. I blinked, trying to remember if she'd been there all along. I decided probably not, and we said our hellos.
"Still on for tonight?" he asked - there was a plan for the whole family to get together at a local restaurant.
"D'pends on your dad," I said (an obvious clue to our intertwined family history there, Sherlock-fans).
"Seems on good form at the minute," said Geraint. Dad hasn't been terribly well these last few weeks, so the whole 'family meal' plan was being kept flexible, in case he thought that, after all, he couldn't make it.
"Right. See you tonight then," I agreed. "Gotta go - should have been back at my desk eighteen minutes ago..."

And that was that.
Tonight we all met up in a place we haven't tried since we've been home, and d discovered they do a great fish and chips (one of very few British things we hadn't yet found in the town), so that was positive. Also positive, they had a 'calorie-counting' section of their menu, so I could suck the joy out of the party by having something nutritional and calorie-controlled. Things got moderately awkward when Mary ordered a Double Chocolate Fuck-You, with extra cream, and the two of them shared it, but we managed to avoid bloodshed, and I don't think anyone noticed me chewing the heavy china coffee cup. Have to say, it was quite tasty, as these things go. I even managed not to mug Rory the 5-year-old for his Smartie ice-cream cup, despite the legendary easiness of taking candy from babies, so a good night was had, with three generations around a single table.

Have been thinking about the shadow all day though (inbetween Getting On With Stuff, obviously). It struck me what a curious expression it actually is. Given that a) I used to cast much more of a shadow, and b) I used to do a whole Hell of a lot less than I do now, I think, on balance, I used to be the shadow of my future self - and indeed, right now, I'm actually the shadow of a further future self. The weight is the darkness that followed me around, rather than me now being a refraction of that old version of myself...

Of course, as you may be beginning to suspect, it's possible I've been thinking about this waaaaaaay too freakin' hard!

Got back to a fairly disciplined routine today - swam before work (because of course there's "no excuse" not to - seriously, thanks for that one, Ma!), went gymming during lunch, and prior to my disagreement with Otis. Then biked for about a couple of hundred calories towards the latter end of the day. Not swimming tomorrow - going for a second and final (in a good way) refresher driving lesson, and lunching up with the folks and the Irish contingent. Will presumably have to bike my ass off later in the day tomorrow, but hey, it's Friday - that's what they make nights for, right?

Incidentally, blood this morning was either 5.7 or 5.5, depending on whether you believe the pre-callibration result or the post. Am starting to believe I have Wheel of Fortune blood, that changes its sugar content on a whim, whenever it's called on to perform. Hey ho - on to Friday...