some people never learn lessons, other lessons aren’t worth learning…

I’ve learnt lesson in life recently. Bluebird, Robin and AIG have all given me a lot of advice. That I can’t beat myself up for being me and that I just have to get over myself and get on with things. I can’t make things better for the people in my past, I just have to move forward and stop lying and cheating people out of knowing me. Also, there is nothing wrong with getting over love by being a young man and getting solace from women. In fact, AIG gave me a song by Nada Surf recently that helped a lot. It has some great great advice in it.

Three important rules for breaking up

Don’t put off breaking up when you know you want to

Prolonging the situation only makes it worse

Tell him honestly, simply, kindly, but firmly

Don’t make a big production

Don’t make up an elaborate story

This will help you avoid a big tear jerking scene

If you wanna date other people say so

Be prepared for the boy to feel hurt and rejected

Of course the same goes for a flip of gender. I failed badly when my last relationship ended, instead of getting smart and getting it over and done with back in October, I struggled on getting more and more unhappy. More and more annoyed with her for not being lovable enough. Which is stupid because it really was my failing not Her’s.

I kept up the pretense of love so that I didn’t lose a friend. But, in the end, she didn’t want to help me and wasn’t that good a friend. She didn’t stay in contact, she was too self-involved, which doesn’t help when I am too. We always were very similar – she wont talk to people if they don’t make the effort to talk to her often and neither do I – I just give up on them.

So hopefully she’ll understand that and not hate me. Maybe she will understand that being apart is better this way because we wont annoy each other. I can get on with my fun and not have her all upset that I’m not getting ‘better’ by her standards. I’ve got a lot of respect for the kid, I’m more angry at myself for not having balls to be a real man about things. For confusing myself into a mess. I wont make that mistake again.

Throughout the relationship I just couldn’t shake the feeling that we might grow to understand each other better with time. Not annoy each other quite so much. Even tried to make her see how I thought, the process, so she could understand. Didn’t work. I hoped that she might mean a lot to me one day… but I didn’t ever let myself ‘fall in love’ her. Being too scared of getting hurt. What you don’t realize is that you hurt yourself anyway, because no one is close enough to lift you up when you are sad.

I prolonged things, I made a big song and dance number and I told elaborate stories – I lied and cheated and I’m sorry I did, because it made me feel rotten at the end. I wasted time when what I could have done is ended it long ago and maybe salvaged something from it. We could have been friends and I could have stayed in Bath. I have no real regrets, as if I did then I would be disrespecting those new connections I have made. Instead I have come to terms with it and moved on.

So this time I’m just rolling with that side of me. That I have a problem letting people get close, I put up barriers and now I wont.

I know that I can’t feel all-loving at the moment… I can have great respect for people, treat them well, care for them – but romantic love is beyond me, for the moment.

AIG has said that I shouldn’t betray myself the opportunity to find someone wonderful by shutting myself away and pining – instead I should dress up smart, get out there and take a stab at finding someone to love.

So that is what I’m doing. Not setting out to hurt, but not sparing people at the expense of my own happiness either.

Filed under: Drinking, Existence, Food, Friends, Girls, Home, Love, Reality, Sex, Strangers, Women, about me, accusation, much, news, nights out, other people's lives

flame-grilled

Actually, it’s you who missed the point. The more you protest that the world has you all wrong, the more we can see through the deception. Perhaps you’re only trying to fool yourself? You may have fled north when the truth got uncomfortably close but it will always catch up with you – Resolutiongirl

I’m sorry honey, you seem to be upset. You just want to have a little go with me and I’m too far away aren’t I? Hop a train to Liverpool – or a plane or whatever you need to take to get here – I’ll show you a great time and make you believe that you are the only one in the world that matters. Promise.

P.s. From now on I’m going to approve all your comments, you amuse me.

Filed under: Girls, Strangers, about me, accusation

The most heartless man to ever own a pulse…

Consider the weekend dust being bitten. And so, another one shows her lack of understanding. Another deems me the villain in my own story.

I had a good weekend and then the whole thing is destroyed when the girl gets all emotional. Bloody women. Oh well.

Seriously these pills, my god, these pills make everything ok. I can think about things, but it is like there is a filter that is removing the emotional significance of it all. Right now I should be deeply hurt that a woman I shared a lot of myself with determines to hurt me by calling me a ‘user’. I mean, that’s the catch-phrase of the moment. Ex-friends, Ex-lovers… ex-cetera… all of them calling me a ‘monster’. And what for, I hear you cry?

For telling the god-damned unabashed truth.

For saying, ‘you know what, this isn’t working.’ Or ‘I never loved you, so I’m going to start hitting the field.’ Or ‘I’m going to start drinking again, because you made me out of be an alcoholic when really I was just unhappy.’

All these wonderfully monstrous confessions. How I can say… ‘i enjoy sex.’ And that is read as, ‘i used you for sex.’

The thing I’m learning is that people feel too much, too little and too late in the reverse order. They don’t realize their own objectives. This latest one took a last ditch effort to change me into a man who could love her. FAIL. It’s temporarily beyond me.

The only thing that the text gave me… because I know you’ll read this… is a distinct dislike for you. You learnt me well enough to say something hurtful to me… you don’t care for me if you treat me like this, so I’m not going to waste my time on you. Goodbye. Great life.

Onwards and outwards. Another thing that the weekend has afforded me is a closure on my sexual-escapades… or for now, anyhow… I’m tired out at the thought of randomly shagging my way around Liverpool… so now my objective is to stick it out as single and just do some fun dating. No sex, just relax, take things slowly and stop saying no to feelings.

I think slowly is the key. If I keep things nice and arm’s length for the time being then it will at least stir me into the right type of thinking, without hurting anyone in the process.

Except god knows every woman I have ever been out with has always fallen for me inside a week and is confessing their love not long after. Its a symptom of being too irresistible. Don’t protest… I joke, I jest, I play the fool.

Today I started reading Miller again to perk up what little chauvinistic skill remained intact. I read about his life and the ‘rosy crucifixion’ portion of his existence – where he moved away from everything he knew to begin again. Much like myself. Actually there is quite a lot of parallels to see when it comes to his prose. Certainly his life speaks a direct epiphany.

Regardless this is just one more reason I should be grateful for being free. At least I haven’t gotten myself in too deep. Gotten used to loving anyone or anything like that. That would be tragic, the old Jensen might well have taken to some model he managed to discuss marxism with. Or taken the number from a girl only to call her the wrong name down the phone. Or similarly fallen into the trap of some honey with a mind of mush and a great body, one that he couldn’t help but wish to be with because of their ‘connection’ and then, not long later, finds she’s dating another guy too. Spreading the odds. As well as her legs.

I’ve done nothing I can really be upset about. Instead I’ve held it together pretty well and… if I don’t have any more undue surprises… I think I’ll be well on the way to a happy day with some beaming broad one day soon.

See, the more time that passes without me needing to apologize, the less I have to be sorry for.

No man in a sorry-state can be happy, nor can he attract someone to share an evening with… in any true format of proclivity.

Filed under: Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Home, Lonely, Love, Lucy, Melissa, Nikki, Sad, Sarah, Sex, Steve, Strangers, about me, accusation, hopes, lissa, much, solitary , heartless, jen jen, pulse, sorry

perhaps not irreparably so

 

Even when she’s caught out I am still short of beckoning any remorse from her. She doesn’t feel it and it hardens me. I move on in mind and heart. Now I no longer sense her pulse in my future, no longer allow myself the comfort I have grown to take for granted.

 

 

She’s done wrong and she doesn’t beg forgiveness or plea for sympathy at her apparent weakness. There comes no, ‘I’m sorry I was drunk’ – no, ‘I’m sorry to have worried you.’ – In fact, all she’d said on the matter was, ‘I don’t want to argue.’

 

 

Who was? I was going to let her speak her tongue numb. My question was simple; why didn’t you tell me?

 

 

And with that comes the thought of high windows, sun comprehending glass; et cetera, et cetera… ad nauseam.

 

 

I never had a Father who taught through explanation, mine was a Father who I learnt from by example. It was pos-neg right from the fire up. He was someone who taught me to be good, honest and courageous; and thought I didn’t pick up any of those traits, I do feel that I, at least, know what they are. He was someone who showed me what it was to give up on a dream; he was the victim of consequence and apathy.

 

 

So I had to pick up on, more conversational, lead by example sorts that were closer to my own heart.

 

So enter Larkin, my Papa Phil, the father who taught me real, candid and gritty lessons. ‘Collected Poems’, is my New Testament, ‘Juvenilia’, my Old. Papa Phil is a brutally honest father, with a clear motive of deft truthfulness.

 

 

So… should I take my own advice, from previous posts? Should I call time on a forgone conclusion?

 

 

I’ll have to consult with old Papa Phil, to answer that one. As I said, not long ago, and learnt it well! – I trust in luck, not other people’s integrity.

 

 

Last night I was sorely disappointed but perhaps not irreparably so.

 

 

Filed under: Love, Philip Larkin, Sad, about me, accusation, anxiety, news, nightmare, poet, undervalued

Little else with the presence of voice

Little else with the presence of voice.

 

 

 

22^nd/02/08 – 09:30 – singers and so longs

 

She sings like a female Elvis, all whole-throated and deep, with a gurgle of honey and milk. Wanda Jackson, and her Rockabilly tuneage, walks with me to work this morning. She is screaming in my ears as I round the corner and slick my keycard through the slot by the side of the door. I’m sure a green light flashing is a warning not to try to cross the road anymore; you’ve missed the window. This was to be my last day, half-unbeknownst to me. (I had the pondering that I might be impulsive enough to leave; yet none of the clairvoyance it would have taken to predict the event in detail.) I got to the office and was called to an impromptu meeting.

 

They sat me down, told me that they had come here to this blog and read all about me. They were not as pleased as some. [The rest is censored with the intention of not worsening the situation for the other party]. They told me that if I wasn’t happy at the company I could hand in my resignation. So I did.

 

I said ‘I think it would be for the best’ and then was told to leave that evening, and not to see out my notice. I took it as a benediction, to be blunt. No layer of surface skin missing from me, no scuffs, not a scrape.

 

Regardless, I feel I was, at least, heartbroken to leave the people I have. To leave those that have shaped and influenced me since I arrived. And they have. I’m not sure all have. But some have.

 

Regardless, I feel I have escaped. The only lingering element is that bitter-taste at the base of my tongue, that is usually reserved for the breakdown of a relationship; for that moment where you close the door, both actually and metaphorically.

 

 

23^rd/02/08 – 23:00 – drinks are for drunks

 

I had a night tonight where my guests asked if ‘that’ was ‘the only vodka left’ – ‘yes’, was the only response I could come up with. I was more interested in oblivion than their so-so chatter and sobering sutras about this and that triviality.

 

And so to the future, where I fear we all must follow; except those by the roadside, or taking the long slide. Out of the working world, on to life anew. I will amble along my writing trail, by that I mean write something resembling prose. I will start to exercise and watch the food I inhale. I will start new things. I will plant a new crop to yield, when time has matured my ambitions into bright little pebbles. When I have lost the will to bear insecurity, I will look for other employment.

 

My life will become vesuvian-like to the brimful, an untempered flame to kindle the beyond that is, and will be, ever coming nearer.

 

 

 

24^th/02/08 – 08:01 – the sun is ineffective, cloud proves a second horizon

 

 I close my eyes and can see ‘them’ as they press into me with their eyes. I feel a pressure at my temples. I open my eyes and swear I can feel my pupils puff up. Hangover at dawn. Gravity has me in a bear hug as I try to stand. The realisation hits me. I have no purpose. What could be worse?

 

Thinking about the last few days, thinking about all those moments and now all the moments of ahead – well it just damn upsets me. I still, as ever, have little real purpose to my life. Still just passing moments like gallstones, on and on and on.

 

I’m still not sure what is wrong with me. No closer to diagnosis, let alone treatment or cure.

 

Question. So what should I do with my life?

 

Answers to… jensen.evan.wilder@gmail.com

 

 

Filed under: about me, accusation, connection, fired, job, novel, office, the novel, work

The Burslem Sextet

  

Molly Leigh (born 1685) was a woman who was accused of witchcraft, died before being tried, and had her grave altered foloowing claims she still haunted the town.

Molly was born in 1685 in a cottage on the edge of the moors at Burslem. She was a solitary character who made a living selling milk from her herd of cows to travelers and passers-by. She was an eccentric person who kept a pet blackbird. The bird often sat on her shoulder when she brought milk into Burslem to sell to the dairy. She was known for her quick temper, and the people of Burslem were suspicious of her. This was not uncommon, throughout the country women, particularly elderly women, who lived on their own in remote places, were labeled as witches.

In Molly’s case it was the local parson, Rev. Spencer, who made the accusation. It was claimed that Molly sent her blackbird to sit on the sign of the Turk’s Head pub that the parson frequently visited, turning the beer sour. She was also blamed for other ailments suffered by the townsfolk. Leigh died in 1746 and was buried in Burslem churchyard but there were claims her ghost haunted the town. Spencer, along with clerics from Stoke, Wolstanton and Newcastle had her body exhumed, opened the coffin and threw in the still live blackbird that had been her companion. They then re-buried Molly in a north to south direction, at a right angle to all the other graves in the churchyard.

-

The point of that?

Well, that all things are connected, you need not know how or why.

Filed under: Sad, accusation, blackbird, burslem, connection, molly leigh, other people's lives, sextet, solitary, witchcraft