apologies

Okay. So after putting it off for a lifetime I’ve sent the last letter of apology out to my exes. I’ve already gotten two replies before now. One is NOW MARRIED! Another is getting married.



Even women I have just known casually are getting married!

How are those for updates. Nevermind. Anyway.

It is part of putting things to rest, but it is also genuinely about being sorry. Also though, there is curiosity behind it.

I like the fact that lives keep going without me and I can catch up with people later on down their road.

I’ve also meditated quite a bit on the things they have given. Some have really impacted me, not least one who is pretty much an inspiration.



The thing is, a lot of the problems I have with others comes from the fact I don’t deal with envy well.

I get really annoyed when they are able to fullfill dreams and ambition and I’ve not got the guts to do it.



Which is why these last few months have been so fantastic. I’ve gotten a chance to make money from art and live for myself and my ambition.



So they are letters, written in 10mins, that say thank you and sorry.



Now we’ll see how many of them get really pissed at me for getting in touch.

Filed under: Future, Girls, Women, about me, anxiety, connection , desire for change, writing

kissing? really?

Mistaken Intentions.

Been a while since i’ve written on here about my misadventures.

Spurred into thought by the recent happenings on Big Brother I was thinking about the whole ‘friend with benefits’ thing. Throughout university I seemed more than capable of keeping said type of relationship alive. However, the main contender for the role of ultimate ‘friend with benefits’ has to go to…

And you thought I’d name her.

No.

It was a good thing and I still count her as a great friend. She never failed to entertain. We’d go on nights out together and have a wicked time necking at the end of the night. It was great. Without it I might have been more unfaithful to the then girlfriend.

God I was a prick back then. Maybe I still am.

Anyway.

The question on the show was can it work. Can the friend’s with benefits thing really work out. Well after knowing the girl for about 3 years, the answer is – yes.

So don’t doubt it.

I still think sex is a handshake.

A trivial meeting of flesh.

So, what do you think? Does it work for you?

Filed under: Drinking, Existence, Friends, Girls, Happy, Love, Reality, Sex, Women, Youth, about me, other people's lives

Lessons Learnt

Lessons Learnt

When I came to this land of sandstone and moody weather. This dockside city and this peninsula. When I came to this new backdrop, I had no clue what lay in store for me. I had little knowledge of who I would meet. I had still less idea what I might do to make a living. I had a small collection of belongings and a small collection of clothes.

Almost six months have passed and I still have no clue what to do to earn a living. Then again, I’m in no hurry to. However, I have met a good stock of irregular people who now form a very integral part of my existence.

Not least of those I have met one who has made a very clear impression on me.

I come to the six month stage reflectively. I met the challenge of collating my lessons and describing myself in two senses. The former self and the fresh self.

Former.

I was selfish, a liar and a coward.

Fresh.

I am selfish (though less so) and cowardly. Though I no longer lie to anyone, not at all to myself.

Former.

I drank and ate in order to sate my boredom, lethargy and to comfort a troubled heart. I was self-destructive.

Fresh.

I have used self-destructive energy to create things. Jewelry, gadgets, art, writing, video, photographs. I drink only socially. I eat only when I am hungry. I have awakened myself to the need for challenge in my daily life and my troubled heart is therefore somewhat eased.

I should not consider myself truly a better person. Merely a different one. I do think that I am better equipt for life. The previous me was a lot more giving (but recklessly so) and that secured a wider social circle. In the short term I am not spreading myself so thinly that I cannot cope with the number of people who require my attention.

With all of this thinking, comes a review of my future and how I see myself moving forward.

I’m still awaiting appointments. I’ve set up many contacts with people regarding photography and reviewing and also in the realm of music. I have a keen desire to get more involved in the visual art scene in and around Liverpool. So that is certainly a goal.

I’m still in the process of refining my ideas for the near-future. I’m organizing my focus. More will follow.

Other News.

So I’ve clearly been inspired recently to be more energetic and to that end I have started to make a list of all my books and DVDs. The hope is that I can post the complete list online and have people request things from me, in exchange for other things in return. I am aiming to be less materialistic. So the idea is that I give away one thing to get some title/book in return that I will watch/read and then I will return said title/book to the person. If they like my book, I may well let them keep it. See how much I myself like the book.

I will post later with more details.

Photography is going well. Very well indeed with my camera phone, I’ve caught some wonderful images with it. Will continue to post them to jensensnaps and hope that you will comment on a few, tell me what you think.

I’m working on making my way over to a few gigs in Liverpool in the next few days. I’m thinking it will be both a chance to take some snaps and also an opportunity to do some reviewing. See if I’ve kept my ability in that sense.

Writing.

Writing is going wonderfully. Really working hard and hope to make a writing blog shortly, until then I will continue to use the excerpts section on here.

Reading.

I’m reading Quest for Adventure: Ultimate Feats of Modern Exploration (Hardcover) by Chris Bonington’ http://amzn.com/0792279530 – which is about…

‘There is a special breed of person who thrives on risk, for whom an unconquered mountain or an unexplored ocean represents an irresistible challenge. Some are world-famous — Hillary, Heyerdahl, Chichester — while others are known only to a tightknit group of their peers, but all share certain hallmark qualities: a fierce desire to be first and best; a deep commitment to their goals; and most important of all, a kind of determination and endurance that is even more spiritual than physical.

Chris Bonington understands the powerful allure of adventure, and in this enthralling book he chronicles a generous selection of the most remarkable and daring exploits of the past half-century. A record-setting mountaineer, he’s the perfect guide to some, of the world’s most remote, forbidding, and dangerous places, from the blazing sands of the Sahara to the frigid Antarctic ice cap, from the blinding white of a Himalayan blizzard to the pitch-black depths of an underground river. Along with the first-person story of his own pioneering ascent of Annupurna’s treacherous South Face, Bonington presents vivid accounts of 16 other epics — on land, on water, and in the air.

We voyage across the Pacific with Thor Heyerdahl’s crew on the primitive balsa raft called Kon-Tiki and ride the jet stream around the world in the gondola of the ultra-modern Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon. We free-climb the vertiginous face of El Capitan and follow the footsteps of solo climbers into the Death Zone of Karakoram peaks. We cling alone and desperate to a tiny, dismasted sailboat in an Antarctic ocean gale, fight gun battles with murderous bandits during the first boat descent of the rapid-strewn Blue Nile, cave-dive hundreds of feet beneath the English hills, and much more.

This book isn’t just a lively narrative of 17 great adventures; its also an expert overview of the history, lore, and techniques of aeronautics, ocean sailing, mountaineering, and polar trekking, to name just four, as well as a wonderful portrait gallery of scores of colorful figures, familiar names, and unsung heroes alike. Finally, it’s a fascinating analysis of the wide variety of styles and personalities drawn to adventuring, observed with the keen eye of an experienced insider.

Highlighted by more than 125 photographs, illustrations, and maps, these truly suspenseful tales of triumph — and often tragedy — offer a wonderful panorama of adventuring and its all-or-nothing champions, the extraordinary men and women who feel most alive when they are on the very edge of a perilous unknown.’

Also reading some other books, but going slowly on them because they are what I call ‘food books’ rather than ‘reading books’. So some digestion is required and notes are taken to tear the things into smaller ‘bite-size’ pieces.

Filed under: Bath, Day-to-day, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Girls, Strangers, about me, books, connection, hopes, job, music, news, prose, work, writing, writing the novel

pronounced and hyphenated. so much for caffeine.

.

the most pronounced yet ill-refined example of base humanity stares back at me. i’m looking a mirror, if you hadn’t guessed.

i guess over the last few days i’ve been sick and not giving life what-for! now i’m back, almost, to the healthy state. the garden state of my own over-landscaped heart.

i’m liking my hyphens today. paint-pot, mis-ery, j-oy.

so, there was a shot at genius that i missed for the last few days. now i’m relegated. but i’ll take heart in the notion that every hour brings a new shot at redemption! relegation is a time for recuperation.

i think i’ve, in the last few days, secured a model and a make-up artist. hopefully they will all come together to start the first of many amazing shoots. lord knows i’ve now got the lighting and backing sheets!

so, what else?

i’ll try shooting film a little too, just because i’m like that. my granddad’s old camera is shying away. or so my mother has told me.

the typewriter is tired, so i’m going to give him a break for a bit.

saying that, i’ll bet this keyboard can tell some stories.

signing out.

.

Filed under: Existence, Friends, Girls, Strangers, about me, hopes , desire for change, idea, interviews, omitting, photography, Sex, sorry, stylized, writing

songs about me

So I’m still not feeling fulfilled.

I have a great life. No need to work. No deadlines. No stress. But I still don’t feel like I actually can be bothered breathing.

That isn’t anyone’s fault. I’m very happy at a lot of things in my life. Great relationships with people, great deal of success already with my projects.

I’ve taken to making jewellery and that is going really well.

I can now juggle. I can make my funky art. I can write (i’m really producing some amazing work). I can make clothes. Upholster chairs. Sail the family boat. Travel when i like.

I have a 32inch hd tv in my room. Surround sound. Dvd player. Laptop. Camera. Camcorder. Guitar. Typewriter. Sewing Machine. Mountains of books and dvds. I have material things to make one tear your own material to pieces in lamentation.

I’ve taken up photography and that is going really really well – as i’ve been offered a fair few opportunities of late to take photos of all sorts of events etc.

Just to touch on writing again. I’ve written the most exciting pieces of fiction ever recently!

I’ve not gotten drunk in weeks and weeks and weeks. So i know i’m not an alcoholic. I’m just a bit of twat when it comes to knowing my limit. So i learnt that lesson! lol – (On the flip side, due to not drinking i’ve picked up on inherent social anxiety, so i think that is why i drank a lot – to lubricate the old personality and push away the fact i get scared in big groups. I draw a lot of energy from people, but crowds really upset me and get me timid. Hence many times leaving parties and street festivals and declining to go on trips off to outdoor festivals too..  when i then lied and came up with some lame excuse. Least now i’m honest enough to admit i’m just a pussy when it comes to large groups.)

But it all amounts to a hill of beans when even on these bloody pills I still can’t seem the conjure up a will to live.

I had a song written about me a while back and the idea of it was – that Much came “to realise that it is life that you (I) despise.“

I’m sure that isn’t true, as much as it is too strong a thing for me to feel toward life. I’m not crying out for help, nor even really making much of an assertion past the simple honest truth.

I don’t care.

I really couldn’t care less.

With that is freedom and oblivion – but i really have no opinion on the matter of life and its vice and virtue.

The last relationship fell on a sword of my uncaring. I’d given up hiding behind a mask made of smiles. Showed a little too much of what it means to live near me. That there is very little that can stir up a case of genuine joy.

Maybe pills are making me apathetic and i’m looking back on life through these eyes, but i think i’ve pretty much always had this outlook.

She goes on to ask why I “must be so blue.” – It used to be up on last.fm, but it has been taken off now – but it is still a damn good song, despite the personal nature of it.

I really don’t try to be. I’m the life and soul. I’m happy and moving like a blur and i still can’t seem to shake this apathy.

Perhaps it is to give me a little wall between my mind and the worry of death? I used to worry about that a lot as a kid. Death became a sort of monster to me, stalking the land, killing indiscriminately, no proof of hereafter, of continuation. I feared a lack of a thereafter more than anything else. Here i am, several years later – not caring.

Perhaps i got bored of the question.

Unsolved questions will drive you mad – unless you temper it with some disinterest.

I’m quite able to hold myself out of the top floor window in my house and not fear the fall. Is that scary? Should i have vertigo to prove i mean to continue?

I’m not sure. I just get the sense that all these wonderful opportunities and skills and talents etc… are just wasted on me. I’m too ambivalent about them all.

Or maybe that isn’t true, maybe what i mean to say is that i can’t hold on to the joy of it for long? I have short bursts of intense happiness and then bam, nothing.

I don’t know, fuck it. At the end of the day it isn’t important. Except i do ache for a little purpose. I’m considering making up a god and just following that blindly. I’ve already taken up Buddhist meditation. That is too much the absence of God, but it meets with the fact i don’t care a stitch for all this junk in my room.

p.s. I’m still pretty lonely and need to meet more people to keep me entertained and motivated.

Filed under: Bath, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Lonely, Travel, Women, Youth, about me, anxiety, childhood, cracks, hopes, much, prose, the novel, undervalued, vacuum, work, writing, writing the novel

Wide Sargasso Sadness

“Very soon she’ll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they’ve got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it’s a long, long line. She’s one of them. I too can wait – for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie…”

Last page of Part Two. Wide Sargasso Sea. – Jean Rhys

What wakes in me is the knowledge that I am very similar to Antoinette in this novel. (Perhaps we all are and that is the glorious moot point to this whole journey. Each of us have our own yearning for a place to be comfortable. Each of us, the need to escape persecution from a life we have not chosen.) I dread to go on, as I do, about Bath – except that it is still at the core of my subject. The centre of my recent sadness. So I must re-conjure it, yet only in the explorative sense – no hint of the nostalgic.

Bath is a picture to me, a movie, a reel of film. Non, it remains as a negative for me to hold against the light. Raised as a sample. A solution, contained within a petri dish, which I will match against a depression I cannot hope to master. Trying to determine if it would make for a good culture of inoculation. A vaccination against future bouts of restlessness. I know I cannot change who I am, though I can choose a lesser pain and use it to vaccinate myself against further heartache. Allow myself to learn; teach my immune system a way of fighting off every sign of sadness.

I get restless when I am not fulfilled – as we all do – I begin to fear a lack of feeling. Then a fear of feeling too much. I rush around and try to re-ignite my own passion for life. Distract myself from what is undoubtedly on its way. I start to sit and contemplate how I have reached this point in my life. Then I am overwhelmed.

In Bath – after I realized my lack of romantic love for Much – it became clear that I was rushing around and burying myself in other people – so that I wouldn’t lose my good mood. In January things took a nose-dive out of that revelation. So that I wouldn’t dip any lower than I was I buried myself in drink and social things. Invited myself along with American students that I met randomly. Got numbers from them. Planed on sleeping with one. Except even that didn’t save me, it was too late to raise myself.

It didn’t work because, when I reached the understanding that I’d only been treading water – that eventually I’d be drowned, I couldn’t help but reel back and lose control.

So home I went. But I packed away that understanding of myself. Took it with me to pull it out when I was strong enough to look at it. I only need to refine it now. Learn from it. Move forward.

I know what helps me.

Nightingale helps me, she understands my weakness because she has already begun the journey I am now starting. I’ve learnt from her, or rather… her voice is allowing me to hear my own.

Exercise helps me. Just a little a day helps keep those blues away.

Chemistry helps me – understanding that to help myself I need to believe I am simply a mess of chemicals – that there is an equation behind and yet controlling my emotions and I can curtail any lowering of it by simply adding more seasoning. A hint more distraction. A pinch of passion. A sprinkling of spontaneous energetic activity.

As clear as it is that I am preoccupied with Bath and the last few months. As mad as it makes me appear. As obsessive and compulsive and nostalgic as I might come across. I can’t help thinking that actually, it isn’t a negative thing to examine a sadness that could save me. If I didn’t – if I just buried it – then I’d only make the same mistakes.

Much like I did many years ago, leaving the Wirral for university (leaving my first girlfriend), I buried the pain and ignored it. I became a new person like a snake shedding its skin. I’m good at it; I’ve done it many, many times since. It was the wrong thing to do. I should have been smart enough to work out that there was something to gain from understanding ‘why’ I was unhappy with things the way they were.

Maybe it is maturity. Another plateau reached on the struggle to the peak of wisdom. You know, before I lose all logical cognitive function and fall off the other side into senility.

Antoinette moved from her island home – into marriage – and back to her island again. A honeymoon in a hell that she loved. It was her, as she was it. What I read from that decision is the old idea of returning to the scene of the crime.

As she, I have come back to the place of my childhood – a place that has forced such unnumbered pains upon me. As she, I have managed to find a renewed admiration for such a wonderful place. As she, I will face my hardships head-on.

Unlike she, I will overcome the forces met out against me. Unlike she, I will bow to the unconquerable, retreat and repair, so that I may return with redoubled vigor. Unlike she, I  will win a real victory – rather than surrendering to a fact that is unreconcilable.

Antoinette had a childishness about her that never fully lifted. Antoinette retreated into herself – rather than healing, for her, came the notion of hiding. I mean to break the spell of madness.

The book held a lot of goodness in it. I will write more on it.

“Do not be sad. Or think Adieu. Adieu. Never Adieu.”

Filed under: Bath, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Home, Lonely, Nightingale, Sad, Strangers, Women, about me, anxiety, books, childhood, hopes, novel, writing

the ended frenzy…

So script frenzy is over with and I haven’t updated for a while because of that and other reasons.

Many thing have been preying on my mind lately. Mental health being the main one, closely followed by the natural course of life and all things in its wake.

Regardless, much has happened.

Script isn’t ‘finished’ finished – just 100 pages done and the whole idea is ripe in my mind. So I just need to write it out and round it off.

It concerns the exploits of Trip Ryder as he makes his way from trouble and into a new day. He comes out of a relationship with Calista Melia and discovers the more pleasing example of Gravity Hertz. Things are weighed up and Gravity wins out against Volvo Wilco’s argument that Trip should just distract his life away with misogynistic meandering.

After the win of Gravity, Calista returns to win back the only boy she’s been unable to understand. With enigma being the draw, Trip knows he has to play her at that game and dismisses her using her own words – so she can’t read anything more from things.

And that is that, the story in its infancy was nothing like the present day. We’ve more quick wit than a barrel of 20th Century Fox writing monkeys. We’ve got more aching than a dodgy tooth could muster. All encased within the guise of a love story long estranged from the normal formula. Where even mistakes are the order of the day, to lay bare the next step he must take.

The main aim is production.

Tonight – or rather in a few hours – begins the after party of script frenzy. I’m not drinking. Again. I wonder how they will stand the sober me. Things will be okay. Staying out, parents are worried, but standing at ease.

More to follow shortly.

Filed under: Coffee, Competition, Day-to-day, Depression, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Girls, Happy, Home, Love, Women, about me, anxiety, connection, hopes, much, nights out, writing

20mins isn’t enough…

Yesterday was a great day. Starting at 6am when I woke up, after a lovely dream about flying, I got myself groomed and then my mother took me to the church offices.

It was back in 2004 that I last walked in there – when I worked doing transcription and general admin stuff – it was a strange feeling, because the whole place looked the same. Nothing had changed.

Its an old folks home, so there are an array of wrinkly people walking around. There is a massive grand staircase. The place used to be a hospital, before it was converted by the church. Since then its been 35 years or something and they’ve now moved over to the church opposite, so this building is now just a retirement home and a children’s day nursery. Oh, and our offices out back.

I was asked to just trawl the interweb to look for funding options. We’re sorting out an intergenerational project for local people. Two tasks. Find funding for a mobile football cage. Find funding to implement a day caring scheme where young people interact with the old ones to get some connectivity.

Cue the research that says that the break down of the family unit has meant a shift in peoples attitude to age ranges and now we’re sticking with our own age group – rather than getting a more rounded example of humanity – colour me a contradiction. I don’t conform, I love older people.

I got to leave at 2pm, after picking up some more paint for the living room.

Reaching Liverpool I was maybe 10mins waiting for Eagle to arrive, which gave me plenty to whip out my script and have a scribble.

We walked about, got some wool, headed to Waterstones, then on to 3345 (which I adored).

We did some script readings. Some people read (not out-loud though) my script and hopefully they were sincere in their professed love of it.

We read some more. TurtleDove arrived. The write-in began. I just sat and nattered to people, rather than put anything productive in motion. Before long it was time to move on. We left Bluebird to finish her wine and took flight to FACT.

In FACT my mind couldn’t focus on anything but Nightingale. Its really strange how preoccupied I’ve gotten. Smitten is how I’d describe it. I can’t call it more apt than itself. I’m not blinded by obsession. I just really like her and its lovely how honest that emotion is. After a long time having the upper hand in everything its a good feeling to let things play out as she pleases. It smacks against all the advice I’ve ever given.

MEN: – You should hold on to a certain level of dignity.

Well, this isn’t too dignified, its out and out enjoyment of a wonderful feeling. I’m awkward, my mouth goes dry around her, I get nervous. What I mean is… that doesn’t happen usually! I’m in command of myself around people, I can calculate their feelings and fake my feeling to the harmony of it. With Nightingale, we’re in harmony without me reading her.

I’ll try to be a little clearer… I’m not aware that either of us is acting out our feelings, rather than feeling them. So that’s messy, not refined and tidied-up to fit the idea of what romance should be. Its sushi-romance – raw but tasty.

After leaving FACT I thought I’d chance asking her where she was. Out with some people it turned out, but able to steal herself away to see me for 20mins.

For the first 5 I just looked at her in passing and kept trying to work out where she was. I couldn’t read her, I saw no sign that might indicate a feeling. I wanted so badly to grab her and kiss her, but then… courage failed me. ME, the walking ego. ME! I was dry mouthed and timid as a mouse.

I’m not sure I can make it clear enough that this is a great feeling and that I’m not nuts. You will read this and think ‘oh IS, he’s gone all mushy over a girl’ – I’m still me, I’ve got my doubts, reservations, etc.. But this time – I think she’s holding back more than me. Its a reversal of roles. So if it goes wrong – if she turns around and ends things because I’m not what she wants – maybe that is karma working its magic on me.

THEN… In a dramatic moment of ease… she grabbed me! And then I’m certain -holding her close – that she’s in the same place, just as cautious… just as eager to have things go well, rather than badly.

We shared what will be marked as our first kiss. We were both nervous. It was wonderful. I want many, many more of them.

I’m not going to write all the things I was thinking, many of which were filth – others of which might get me the label of ‘softy’. Instead, I’ll say that I had a great 20mins but it wasn’t enough.

The thing is – if 20mins isn’t enough. That in itself is a truth worth paying attention to. If 20mins isn’t enough and I can recognize that, then its got to be more than a passing fancy. With anyone else it’ll be 5mins and I’ll already be thinking about what I could be writing, or doing, or where I could be. When I’m around her, I’m caught in a temporal distortion. There is no way of knowing how long its been and there is no compulsion to check.

So, if I’d like nothing more than to steal her away forever, hole her up in a cave of sheets and talk about poetry (without the frank want and need of libido becoming too loud and ruining a good thing), well – might that prove its worth reaching for? If only to roll with the new experience of infatuation as opposed to careful litigation.

You see, to me, just it being different means its something worth seeing through, whatever happens. After all, this might well be what books and movies have been talking about. We will see.

Filed under: Coffee, Drinking, Existence, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Love, Nightingale, Poetry, Sex, Women, about me, anxiety, connection, hopes, job, news, nights out, office, work , Bluebird, close, eagle, karma, kiss, magic, Nightingale, relationship, TurtleDove, wonderful, writing

liberation in migration…

This afternoon I went to my writers group and met with TurtleDove, Magpie and our new ‘fledgeling’ recruit – Swift (the long-flight migrator). After many tortuous hours hammering on plastic keys, in an attempt to protract my script, I happened out into a bright sky and a down-ruffling breeze.

Both Magpie and Swift took flight to somewhere far off, and so it left myself and TurtleDove with little to do but to grab a coffee and have a twitter about things.

We talked about scripts and poetry (Anne Michaels ‘Flowers’ to be exact, as it was the only one I could remember even part of) and our favorite types of puppy.

As ever though, I got uneasy with eating up someone’s time. So much scripting has already been avoided, because of your’s truely, that I could hardly expect yet one more to fall from the sky.

So, not long later, TurtleDove’s sensible migratory instinct kicks-in (without the need for suggestion) and I wave her on her way. [Of course, like many times before, I walk her to her stop and watch as she disappears on me quicker than I can motion a goodbye.]

Now at a loss until the gig, that will be happening later on, I wandered the streets like an urchin. Luck finds me a seat in a cafe and I’m able to imbibe another coffee and scribble some sentences down. Before long many others have had the same idea. The place is packed with all sorts of people, most probably down to the Everton match.

(As an aside – MY GOD were people happy with that result or what!?!? I’d already been accosted by a group of three guys with friendly banter and legs a-faulter)

Looking around the cafe, my attention is quickly taken by a lone girl looking lonesome.

Could I help myself? No. Whenever can I?

We’ll call this one Nightingale, firstly because ‘what she had to say was so enrapturing’ and secondly because ‘she had an aversion to one of my favorite romantic poets’. (Which was slightly wonderful, because I like a girl who can have her own opinion.)

A coy little introduction and a graceful landing was made.

Regardless, I took to the next thing on my nut-sized mind.

The inquisition began with a question about the theory of there being a god. I thought it apt to ask the most unanswerable question to test her good graces. With humor she took to it and I was soon challenged in turn… regaled with stories… and eventually intrigued by the occasional pulling back from an awkward topic.

One coffee ends up being three (all in different places) and then we’re on to 7pm.

We got lost in well-spent moments.

The thing with Nightingale is that she is too smart for her own good. Having understood that I was only interested in prolonging our meeting – she saw fit to extract every possible truth from me. Until I’m flat-out admitting that I find her attractive beyond measure. Even to the point of telling her my feathers were being ruffled by the attention she was getting from a rival male.

I don’t think I was unduly honest, though I get the feeling that I might have said a few things that would have been better left unspoken until a bit later on.

In the end, rather than being tongue-tied, I found myself spilling my guts about how much I wanted to see her again.

After all the banter, one thing is evident about this latest interest and that is that pace is to be a prerogative.

Filed under: Coffee, Friends, Future, Girls, Happy, Library, Poetry, Strangers, Women, connection, hopes, poet, prose, writing , afternoon, Coffee, coke, conversation, lonesome, Magpie, migration, Nightingale, Poetry, romantic, screnzy, script, script frenzy, stories and well-spent moments, Swift, TurtleDove, writing, writing group

missing trains but not opportunities…

So last night was one of those nights that I felt wonderful and everything fit together fantastically.

I was at a loss as to what to do and karma paid me for a good deed. I got a bed, no agony.

Setting the scene: It’s 10, or something stupid and Eagle has left me alone with Bluebird and TurtleDove. Bluebird is keeping up a wonderful conversation about how I should be a little more aware of the fact that most women are in need of a certain amount of ego stroking if you are going to ditch them. TurtleDove is making do with twittering about the next meeting. We move on to Magnet and settle our tail-feathers down. Before long it is obvious that Magpie is a little too hammered. The evening ends not long after – maybe 11:30 – I’m walking TurtleDove to the bus stop.

I know full well that the trains have gone – here’s honesty at its finest as I know she will read this – but I wanted to make sure that TurtleDove was ok on her homeward flight. Also I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going introspective on us. If something was up, I could hear it because I’m a good listener. I wanted to make sure that she got the bus she needed, where she needed it and wasn’t shot at by poachers along the way. Little else to say.

And then.

With the flight of TurtleDove I was sort of at a loss as to what to do. Trains had quit for the evening and its looking pretty likely that I’ll be having to bench-up for the night and write to keep myself warm. I took myself straight on, right and then right at the end of the street to come to where I’d been last weekend. Outside Travelodge.

Can’t help a guy for getting nostalgic. It smacked a little of returning to the scene of a crime though, I was haunted by the wonderful time we’d spent in there and then the awful way that things went after she’d left. She was a great friend. A very smart soul. Still…

I walk along and spot two girls sitting on the steps outside with fags in their mouths and sullen faces. Before they spot me I take my headphones out and pocket them so I can hear if they decide to speak. Because I’m a good listener.

One is sporting yellow shoes, a pink skirt and a yellow top. Two has pink neon tights and a green fishnet top over a black vest. Both are wearing fake tan and have wonderful breasts. The first is Toucan 1, the second is Toucan 2.

“Hey there.” Toucans 1 says.

“Hey, you ok?” I ask, not really caring. (I’d planned on heading up a little to the park next to St George’s and sleeping on a bench after some writing.)

“Yeah.”

I’m not sure what possessed me, maybe a lack of something better to be doing… but I asked the question.

“Do you want to hear a story?” – So I told them how I was a lovely guy and how TurtleDove had needed protecting from Magpie (not that that was true at all) and that – because of my knightly act – I had now missed the last train to my home.

“So, like you have nowhere to sleep?” Toucan 1 asked.

“There’s some benches up there.” I said, pointing to the park and looking at the girls with the most pathetic look I could muster. I know it was shameless, but needs must in times like these!!!

“No way! You can stay with us! Come up and party!” And so the invitation was RSVPed and we were all beaming.

As a little overkill I added “Really??!? Fuck that would be amazing, I’d kip on the floor like – I don’t want to seem full-on or nuthin’.”

I know, I know. I debased myself – my linguistic skills would have worked against me here though.

The most attractive is Toucan 2 (thankfully Toucan 1 has a boyfriend to distract her) – Toucan 2 is all single, owing to an argument that cast her Absent Boyfriend to hell before they ventured out on this trip. They’d been out, Toucan 2 had gotten ID’ed and had no valid ID – so Toucan 1 and Boyfriend (i forget his name, dan or ben or stan or something) had taken the party to the rooms in the Travelodge instead – to make up for the lack of ‘thumping beats’ they plugged their MP3 players into two sets of ineffectual little travel speakers that sounded tinny and shit.

There was ‘always tomorrow night kid!’ anyway. The trip was to celebrate Toucan 2’s 18th. No ID was down to the fact that Toucan 2 didn’t see the point in learning to drive so didn’t get a provisional due to the fact that she aspires to be an air-hostess – (my god, I’m proud of myself for not being very mean to her from that point forward.)

Boyfriend tells me that Toucan 2 hasn’t gotten any good sex in ages. He tells me that I’m “fuckin’ sound” and “well funny”- his breath smells like crab-sticks. I think that any moment he might kiss me, because his little brown eyes are jabbing all over the place, like there are 10 tennis matches going on across the surface of my face. Or he’s reading hebrew or something. Part of me was thinking that it might turn into a foursome, that he might be curious or something. Heaven forfend.

2am or slightly later and I’m being dragged about by my pants and falling over an open pink suitcase in Toucan 2 and Absent Boyfriend’s room. Absent Boyfriend is a stupid dick to have given up on this girl. As much as I would never pick her myself, I can see why any regular joe would relish her. She’s got long black hair, bad tan on, but a great pair that are snuggled up in her top. Her lips are lovely, all plump and juicy. We’ve got dark eyes and straight teeth. We’ve got long legs and hardly a gram of fat where it shouldn’t be. She’s the stuff of nuts magazines. Not my type, but I’m remorseless.

So anyway, I thought I was slightly more sober than I turned out to be. They are drinking the cheapest vodka I have ever tasted and not even mixing (the angels!) – Toucan 2 and I just click and start to kiss, the other two melt away. We move to Toucan 2’s room and my shirt is off in a heartbeat. Belt off and my trousers start falling down (due to all the recent lost weight *YAY*). We neck each other and roll about for at least 20mins before she stops.

Never so embarrassed, my face is bright red as she asks me to shave! She grabs me by the hand and leads me out like a child to Toucan 1 and Boyfriend’s room, before beating on it with her knuckles and asking if I can use Boyfriend’s razor! Boyfriend relents only because Toucan 1 is after his cock (for some god-unknown reason he’s suddenly irresistible.)

Toucan 2 makes a nuisance of herself playing with Toucan 1 as I shave in like 2mins flat and then Toucan 2’s got me by the hand and dragging me to her room again having stolen a handful of condoms from Toucan 1 (to much chagrin).

The rest needn’t be specific – but there was a reason why faces were shaved and she loved the attention.

Slight confession that might blow apart my stud image – but I’m happy to do it really – we never actually ended up fucking, in fact we were both FAR FAR too pissed and ended up sleeping. There was a lot of fumbling, she was worse for wear, so I told her to take a little kip for a bit and she was out before I could change my mind.

Myself, well – I thought about some things that I now can’t remember, script ideas ex-cetera, the room was spinning so I closed my eyes. A bed for the night was secure.

I woke up at about 6 and put my shirt on (trousers are still on me and I find my belt under the bed) I dress with the light from my mobile because the curtains make everything really subterranean. Picking up my bag I just open the door and slink away. I get lost down the hallway until I work my way back and take the right instead, finding the elevator to freedom. I use my last £3 to buy a single to my home station, settle down into the train seat and almost nod off on the way home. Wonderful experience.

I don’t feel bad, she loved every moment. I didn’t lead her on and she’ll be glad I fucked off, I reckon.

Filed under: Drinking, Friends, Girls, Happy, Home, Reality, Sex, Strangers, Women, Youth, about me, bed, music, nights out, the novel, writing , about me, bed, Bluebird, Drinking, liverpool, Magpie, neon, night out, Sex, shaving, sleep, Strangers, Toucans, train, travelodge, TurtleDove, Women