Concentrate man!

3rd Feb 2005

Listen up! I'd better make a note of this before I forget.

Strange things happen to me sometimes.

When I'm cycling around or running about, inbetween all the deep, philosophical thoughts, I imagine, very graphically, the results if I were to fall. In the last ten years of cycling and running I've had my fair share of accidents, luckily all minor! On two wheels I've been hit twice by vehicles, slipped and crashed innumerable times on wet and icy roads and been blown about in the wind like a piece of Glaswegian litter. On foot, my toes have been squashed by car wheels, my knee was once left with a smashing hole after colliding with a rock, I've lost count how many times I've turned my ankles; I cracked my ribs once tripping on aprotruding tree root and I've suffered countless injuries through ill-training. Yes, this just sounds like I'm a clumsy clot. Or put another way: I sometimes lack concentration.

Armed with this awareness I always err on the side of caution when venturing out into the perilous world of The Pugilist. I concentrate hard, 99% of the time if I can. As soon as I let my guard down I'm as good as knocked out. This characteristic inevitably crosses over into my daily work and living too. If I don't keep a level head and concentrate on matters in hand then I fall to bits. Embarrassingly so sometimes.

An example from this morning. I was getting dressed for work. It was like a weird timeslip or something as I look at it now (he says as he tries to pass off the incident as anything but his own lack of concentration). Just showered, I walked round to my pants and socks drawer and proceeded to put on a pair of underpants. As I pulled them up I looked down and realised that I'd already put a pair on! When did I do that? This sort of thing concerns me gravely. It's probably the first signs of dementia or alzheimers... I'm only 31! Where will it stop? Will I forget to lock the house when I leave for work? Will I forget to look both ways when I cross the road? Will I forget who "L" is? Or my parents for that matter?