Out of literally ALL the ways in the universe I could have spent the last hour, I'm fairly sure that winding up my ex-girlfriend and biting my toenails was the single least productive I could have possibly chosen.

A comprehensive summary of what I've been up to this past week

When I Grow Up

Is there anything more depressing than logging on to MSN and seeing 0/67 contacts online? Stop having a real life, people, get on the internet and entertain me! So in the absence of either human contact or anything resembling adventures to share, I'll just have a moan about something instead. Today's topic poses the question... is the Pussycat Dolls' When I Grow Up the single worst song in the history of recorded music?

“Now I've got a confession / When I was young I wanted attention”

That's perfectly natural – its called the Terrible Twos. Most toddlers grow out of it. Its most certainly not endearing to persist through childhood, let alone into adulthood.

“I promised myself that I'd do anything / Anything at all for them to notice me”

Yes, you became strippers. Oh, sorry... burlesque dancers. You take your clothes off for money. This is not an achievement or something to be proud of.

“Now I ain’t complaining, we all wanna be famous / So go ahead and say what you wanna say”

Well since you gave me free reign, OK. You're talentless whores who can't sing whose entire careers are based around almost – but not quite – getting naked. And that's just for starters.

“You don't know what its like to be nameless / -”

Actually I'll just stop you there before we go through the entire song lyric by lyric. Are you seriously suggesting that the majority of your audience doesn't know what it's like to be not-famous? Are you trying to paint some sort of picture of a bleak, horrible world where everyone is famous except you and are asking for sympathy for that fact? I admit we seem to be well on our way with your X Factors and Big Brothers, but until everyone in the western hemisphere has had their 15 minutes (which should be around, ooh... 2016 or so) you seem to be using some sort of backwards moon logic here. Or maybe they're just 'before their time'. But if you were going to travel back in time to a simpler world, before the Oil Wars and before every man, woman and child had been on reality TV, would the song you submit for recording as your own really only be THIS piece of drivel? Surely there will be some pieces of artwork in the future worthy of bringing back with you and claiming as your own genius beyond “When I Grow Up”, or Simon Cowell's got a LOT more to answer for for his assault on our culture than previously thought. And don't even get me started on the finer points of my time travelling 'songwriter' theories – I have my suspicions about Freddie Mercury, for one, but that's another topic for an equally boring day.

"But be careful what you wish for cos you just might get it"

Yes, this is a popular trope throughout our recorded history, but how is it relevant to this scenario that you've laid out for us? You've failed to put forward any sort of downside to receiving the fame and attention that you've apparently craved since birth, so what's the moral of the story? If you want something badly enough to take your clothes off for money, then... you might just get attention after all? While as a straight male I am honour-bound to applaud this example, as a staunch feminist (stop snickering at the back, you!) I can see more than a few minor holes to pick in it. Which I just have.

So yes, in conclusion, a group of strippers attempting to become popstars have failed to add significantly to our musical culture, and have annoyed me in the process. Who could have foreseen that?

Mayday Parade did a pretty cool cover of it though, from one of the 'Punk Goes Pop' albums. It's worth checking out, I suppose.

But still. Grr!

Swimming the Channel

In a stunning piece of foresight, it seems that my prediction that time would pass regardless has come to fruition. Who could have seen that coming? While I might not be any closer to understanding the world, my efforts in surviving it have at least taken another step forward.

If I wanted an easy out to explain away my lack of updates, I could try to claim that for the first time, I've been actually living in the world instead of sitting back and describing it, but as neat as that might sound its not quite true. Things have been charging forward at a relentless pace, and while I seem to be doing a great job of at least keeping my head above water while the current sweeps me along, things are still proving hard to analyse and appreciate the scope of what they mean when I sit back to rest and reflect on them.

I might have mentioned it in an early post, but before I started this blog I was racing along at a rapid pace with my going out progress, chipping away minutes at a time before finally hitting a wall and getting slapped back down to reality when I over-stretched myself getting to the local garden centre. Up until then everything had seemed so easy and simple, but that just... knocked my confidence, reaffirmed what I'd tried to forget about how difficult getting to where I want to be would be. It was as far as I'd ever gone, the limits of what I could manage if I pushed myself and really suffered for it.

So on Tuesday, in a half-asleep daze, I wandered back to the milestone, sat around on it, and went for a little sightseeing walk of the surrounding countryside. The barrier's been shattered, and I just... don't quite know how to analyse it. There should be trumpets, flower petals falling from the sky, instead its just another thing that I was supposed to do, so I let myself get swept along by the current towards it. I haven't swum the channel, I've just washed up on the beach at Calais after falling off the dock at Dover. I survived without drowning, but next? The Atlantic Ocean awaits?

I'm no closer to understanding what it, or anything else outwith my control around me means, but for just now I've placed my trust in others that doing what I'm 'supposed to do' is what will help me in the end. I can't really see where this road leads or how it eventually connects to my final destination, but I'm trusting my guides for now. By the rest of the world's scale of progress, its been a monumental week.

Just Dance: part 2

So let me get this straight. You've got a woman who's dazed and confused to the point where she admittedly "(I love this record baby but I) can't see straight any more", is disoriented ("whats the name of this club?"), her shirt is inside out and she seems to be missing her keys and phone?

She's been mugged! Telling her to 'just dance' is the worst advice you could possibly give, get her to a police station or at least an A&E!

Thinking

I've been meaning to update for the past week, but I've found it a bit hard to. I've said before that I didn't want to turn this into a diary and share every last detail of my life, but over the last week my thoughts have been a bit dominated by something personal that I didn't really think was appropriate to broadcast on here. I'm alright and there's nothing that anyone needs to worry about, I've just had an awful lot to get my head around and think about that's making it a bit hard to idly chat about anything else.

It's still been a 'positive' progressive week regardless though, another OT session, another outing, all went well and I continue to move forwards, whether I can fully comprehend it or not. Next week I start my new magic wonder pills, so if they work then I might just be able to measure my progress by more normal standards than my current skewed scale.

And I remain very thankful for my background noise, I don't know how I would have got through this week if I didn't have something I could sink my hours into while I try to process things.