my nurse, put me to bed.

because i made a promise to blog, but my mind is a little scattered, this blog will be a blog based on random, seemingly separate, thoughts. a mind sneeze.

 

i have re-connected with a friend who i never really knew when we were in the same physical location, but thanks to the power of the internet we are now good friends.

 

i can’t believe that only one month (or longer) (or shorter) ago I was singing britney spears in a packed pub. it wasn’t even karaoke.

 

i will feel sad when i have to take my art down from the walls in my bedroom. i am no longer moving out, but i think i still need to take them down to motivate me to leave.

 

i want to make a home movie tomorrow.

 

i need to remember to finish doing the photograph for the aforementioned friend.

 

there are riots in liverpool and i really don’t care. i mean, i care that it is all pointless, but a lot of what we do is pointless. most of it is just walking around. i do that all the time; I, therefore, identify. or perhaps I really don’t care at all. I’m not sure and I don’t want to think about riots.

 

i would like to try my luck at moving away for a little while this year. perhaps i will move to a different country. then i can come back and start university somewhere.

 

i used to cry at night, when i was a kid – because i was convinced that i would never find someone just like me.

 

the dogs that i live with are howling. we are their pack, they are trying to locate us. we know where we are. they would know if they stopped howling and thought about it.

 

i regret not being able to be friends with The Grin, she was funny. i miss her story-telling voice. i don’t even think she knows that she does that.

 

i might just lock myself away from the world in a little room somewhere in silent contemplation.

 

my sense of ‘fair’ came from a kids tv show where the boys get £10 (between the two of them) for saving a man’s life. ever since i’ve found it hard to believe fairness exists in the world. if even fiction can’t be fair, who will believe the world could be better?

 

i am really tired.

 

i talked honestly with someone about The Smile Reverser tonight. i actually talked more openly than i do in this.

 

my home movie idea is me drinking something and then reversing the film. i hope it looks as cliché and pretentious as possible.

 

i am going to sleep.

how to be free

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The book I’m reading ‘How to be Free, by Tom Hodgkinson is without doubt the best novel I have come across since reading Jay Griffiths ‘Pip, Pip’ and ‘Wild: An Elemental Journey’ – it’s packed to the brim with useful facts that do what all good books should: open the mind.
His ideas are recycled and collated, rather than being original, but that doesn’t make them unworthy. I would not have known half the information that he has presented without this tomb. So I give thanks for his care and passion in writing it.

Rather than a self-help book aimed at fixing a broken life, he instead demonstrates that there is an innate wholeness within everyone and that we need to overcome certain modern obstacles in order to access our inbuilt fullness. Obstacles like TV and working life. Like newspapers and the adverts that infect our world. Hurdles like bills and the need to outsource in order to fix our problems. He’s not a crank, not some preacher. He’s well aware of his own limitations.

What he presents is an example of the things we can do to better our position in life. By tuning out the TV’s attempt to entertain and rely instead on our own creativity; whatever that may be. Picking up an instrument, learning a language, learning a craft. We can exercise our mind and souls and come out the other side without the faintest hint of boredom.

He knows that our modern world holds a great deal of pleasures, not least of all: drink, sex, music, film, tobacco, dance, photography. However we are often at the mercy of our jobs and cannot devote the time needed to truly extract joy from life.

How, in a nine-to-five profession, can we do anything but wake, work, eat and sleep. We complain about not having enough hours in the day. His answer, do less. It’ll turn out that you’re actually doing more. We consume out of lethargy. So why not use our idleness to our advantage. Rather than going to the effort of toiling away at a job, why don’t we just spent a couple of hours a day making something we can trade or sell.

TV is just a wind-down before sleep overtakes us again anyway. Nowadays, music is something we buy, rather than something we create. Ask any musician what they would rather be doing, working or playing music and there’s an obvious response. We needn’t have to buy music to enjoy it, instead we should venture into the streets and listen to buskers and go to gigs. We should drink and be merry and bring back the tavern. We need to turn our creative out-put into a means of permitting an ongoing lifestyle. We need to start producing rather than consuming. Self-sufficiency becomes the staple, the ideal, the tool to keep the wolf from the door. The wolves of tax inspectors, debt collectors and all other deplorable types.

What I have taken, though not what was detailed, is that instead of ‘my’ pack of cigarettes it is rather ‘our’ pack. Instead of ‘my’ money, it is ‘our’ money. Money that changes hands as quickly as we eat, travel, play and read. If I make something it is only ‘mine’ for the fact that someone else hasn’t made it first. What sort of idea is that? That the food I am eating was grown on land that actually belongs to all of us, not some private force. So I’m learning the harmonica, I’m not doing that to only play for myself. So I can use that to enrich other people’s lives and they will in turn enrich my own.

So from today, if someone asks me for a cigarette I will say – “sure, you can have one of our cigarettes.”

I will work to chip away my debt and learn a new way of earning money after that. It might be hard, but it’ll be a damn-sight more enriching than working in some crummy retail space for less money than my life is worth.

Anyway, the book is a joy. It is enlightening. Go read it!

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absurdity revised…

This has always been a place for honesty, it remains that way.

The pills stopped working 3-4 weeks ago. I’ve been running up-hill ever since. Every day is a new effort to stay on top of my mood.

The doctor has doubled my dose. Little effect has been felt over the past 3 weeks, not even a superficial improvement.

I can’t tell if I’m getting worse, or if I’ve been sad all along and it has been buried. It could just as well mean that the pills never helped and I had just gone back to my default again. Just as many times before; I have recovered from a bout of depression after a month or two of rest. I sail through the storm, rather than calming it in any real sense. Calm water mistaken for a persistent force.

Now I’m back to the stage I was at before, that black hole of sadness to the side of me – stretching to swallow me, but for now just remaining a peripheral threat.

I can be intensely happy, I can run about and scream and make noises. I can read for hours and hours, keeping focus. I can play stupid little games on the Wii with a semblance of satisfaction. It seems that when I am around people I can just forget it all. Except, when it comes to trying to sleep I just lie there getting stressed. I have to take my sleeping pills to make any attempt at sleep. Otherwise I’ll lay awake and my head will just endlessly play out encounters and projects and then start to hurt.

Headaches. I’ve never had them before and now I get one a day, usually around 5-6pm. It isn’t unwelcome. It keeps me focused on physical pain rather than the inertia of melancholia. At times it will feel like my brain is breathing with the same futile effort of a bulldog.

I’m still not any nearer, thanks to this slug-like NHS, to getting any real help. The consensus is ‘swallow these and wait.’

To begin with you always take the options handed to you, because you’ll try anything to climb out of where you are. You’ll clutch at the straws of wishful thinking and convince yourself you are getting better, when really you are just subtly forgetting your fault lines run where they do.

I’m still reading. I’m still writing. I’m still taking photos. I’m sailing. I’m managing to eat a little when I can. I’m exercising. I’m alive.

None of it gives me real lasting pleasure. I’m trapped in the talons of this sickness. There is no reasoning with myself, I will just find myself sad and wishing that life would stop. It feels like I’m wired up to the taproot of human misery, I’d give anything for a little of my usual apathy. I’d give anything to have my ego reclaim me. The thing is that I just don’t care.

Selfishness, I guess. Therein lies the dilemma.

Am I so self-involved that a perceived misery is unconquerable in the face of all the joys laid out ahead of me?

In the light of all the misery in the world, what makes mine seem acute in comparison? Do I have a right to ache?

Is pain relative or is that egotistical? Is pain in fact on a scale from one extreme to a far greater one?

Is comparison to other perceived ‘greater pain’ helpful? Or does it just make one wallow even more in your own limitations and self-centered attitude?

Most recently my life has been especially given over to other people. I have put myself second in the greatest of my efforts and helped (often beyond my means). I have not done so for gain. Except that I have gained friendships that I value and make me regretful for not establishing with similar candidates in my history. I have not lied. I’m not even proud, I care very little about what people get from me. My misanthropy has now been turned on myself only. I retain my skill of apathy as a challenge to myself, making more and more elaborate efforts to assist people. I suppress my selfishness when it rears up, forcing myself to do more and more beyond my comfortable inclination. I feel I am better for reducing those unpalatable parts of myself.

It gives me a question… can you be a good person by suppressing your sinful attitudes?

Can you be human and be free from selfishness? Or is it just a quieter voice over time?

These are all questions that mean very little to me. Before they’d have driven me to madness, but now (with a little help from Camus) I have seen that they are all absurd questions. They will never be answered to any great or helpful point. What matters is that I ask them and continue to act in a way that comforts me. It comforts me to ask these pointless questions because it focuses my aims. I am content to be a good force in the world where previously I have been a negative force.

I understand that it is in my nature to be sad. That is who I am. For a reason unknown, I must ache. It is not an obstacle, merely a feature of my landscape. Just as a mountain is not an obstacle to a mountaineer, but a victory he attempts to claim. The man seeks not to climb over it, but to conquer it in the name of joy. Just as to a fisherman a sea is not an obstacle, but a landscape of harvest. Not to be skipped, but endured to obtain a bounty.

Still this truth brings no real conclusion. I am a captive of myself and to myself I must bear witness.

I continue to grow, even if there are pains in doing so.

have a heart? almost.

[the stops are because I can't get the formatting right. sorry.]

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I’m going to answer a couple of questions about my progress this year.

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• Think about what has gone well this year. What are you happy with? What has been successful — & how did it come to fruition? What have your greatest achievements been so far?

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This year has taken me up and down further than any year before it. I’ve evolved so much I’d swear I was in new skin, if it wasn’t the same damn face staring back at me every morning.

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Success is measured in so many ways, but I’d have to say making my emotions level out has been the biggest success. Learning to drink in moderation. Making lasting friendships. Two more things that I’m greatly thankful for.

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Great achievements have been getting published (and paid!) in The Times for my photograph of One and Other in London.

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Surviving a massive breakdown isn’t something I’m going to sell myself short on either. I’ve done a hell of a lot of work toward easing my mind and heart. I’ve been up and down, but I’m flying along at the moment.

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I’ve no stressful job, a roof, a great girl, creative expression out the yin-yang. Photography is great, designing and making clothes and jewellery is wonderfully fun, writing is triple kick-ass. I’ll have a collection knocked out in a couple more months.

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So, yeah. Lots of stuff.

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• Think about what could have been improved upon. Could you have tried harder in a couple of areas? Of the things that didn’t go well, what could you have done to change the outcome of that situation? If you had taken 100% responsibility at the time, do you think things would have played out differently?

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I could have done a lot better at making money. I’ve let quite a few opportunities slip by me. I’m not really sorry that I did, more just that I could have made a bit more cash and had a few more nights on the town with people.

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If I hadn’t been a coward, then perhaps things might have gone better. I wimped out on things because I was being overly careful after a few setbacks.

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• What were your goals at the start of the year? How are they going? Are they 20%, 50% or 100% completed? If they’re not checked off yet, why not? (Don’t be afraid to admit they’re no longer important to you if that’s the case.) If they’re still things you want to make happen, what could you do to speed up your progress? Who could you ask for help? How can you break up the goal into manageable chunks to make it easier to achieve?

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I didn’t make any real commitments at the start of the year. If anything things all changed pretty sharply, so if I’d completed the goals that I had, I wouldn’t even be in Liverpool. So I think rather I’ve adapted well and when my goals flew out from me, I took the opportunity to put a bit of distance between myself and making goals.

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Some things I did decide on quite quickly was to make better friendships and invest myself in people more. Be more honest with myself and others. 100% complete I’d say.

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• When you look at the people around you, what have they achieved that you’d like to do too? How can you make that happen? Can you ask them for assistance or advice?

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I haven’t considered this, but there are a few people I have met which have made a real impression on me and I do intend on emailing them for advice and simply to make myself known to them. Some are local, others are netweb people, but all are fantastic people.

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• How are your finances looking? Are you making as much money as you want? Are you saving any money or just spending it as soon as you get it? Should you ask for a raise, start a savings account, cancel your credit card, stop obsessively trawling eBay… ?!

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My finances are in better shape than they ever have been. I’m usually crippled with debt and spend more than I make. Right now I’ve lowered my bills and have made a few streams of revenue. Plan is to get into seasonal retail to get enough cash to pay back my parents and take a trip to a few places in Europe. Venice and Rome are on the plan. Paris is a place best kept for a romantic escape. Maybe Berlin too. Cheap travel with only a satchel and a few empty journals. Definitely taking my camera too.

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No one is ever making ‘enough’ money. But I’m making enough to keep me comfortable.

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Credit card is cleared off, long ago.

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There is nout wrong with internet shopping!

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• Are you happy with your career? Do you feel stuck? If so, why? How could you alter that? Is it time for something new? How can you improve your situation? Where could you grow? How could you branch out?

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I’m LOVING work. Whatever I earn is from art. Whatever I make is from something that I have made. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’m not stuck at all. I’ve got to do some seasonal work, but there is no stress because I can jack it in after I have the cash saved up to travel. Then when I get back I’ll only have to get some part time work to keep my head up, earning more money from art as I go.

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• What do you do with your spare time? Are you constantly playing catch-up & running errands with no time to relax & just do nothing? Is there a class you want to take? When was the last time you took a holiday? Are you in control of your free time or is someone else?

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Spare time. Well, I have it all to myself now. I’m running about doing things, but having fun doing them.

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After doing my bit around Europe I’m hoping to enroll in University again, but starting again from Year 1. I figure it gives me a year to get into shape and then I can play the last two without pressure.

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Going to study either writing or photography – I haven’t decided which. I figure that photography gives me more earning potential. Writing is still my main talent though. We’ll see what the world offers me as direction.

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Last time I took a holiday was prolly down to Falmouth. Can’t wait to go back. I think I’ll be heading off down there again to see a mate later in the year. Just need to get some cash.

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• How does your body feel? How healthy are you? What are you eating? Do you exercise? Are you drinking or smoking more than you’d like? Do you need a spa day? What positive steps can you take towards a lifestyle you feel happier about?

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Damn, these are loaded questions. Can I just say that people seem to like it? OH!

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Yeah, healthy. I get a good lot of walking done. Sailing keeps me fit enough.

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Not smoking. Not drinking much.

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I totally need a spa day.

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I need to get my bike in action, so I can start racing around this tiny slip of land I call home.

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• Are you getting along with the people around you? How are things between you & your lover? Your workmates? Your kids? Do you ever see your best friend? Do you ever get personal emails?

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Things are great with people. I’m getting on with my friends well. Set to meet more shortly when I start doing the shoots I’ve got arranged.

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My ‘lover’ is fine.

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My workmates are quiet. I’m solo, but it means I have less nights out with the crew.

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Best mate is many miles away.

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I get a personal email pretty much every day, people from my past, people who like my blog, people who hate it, people who want to meet me in Liverpool. I’m in demand.

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• How about you? How do you feel about the person you’re becoming? How’s your personal integrity? What are the attributes you hold in high esteem? Are you embodying them? What can you change? What can you begin accepting?

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I feel i’ve answered this already. I’m 100% wicked, wicked, wicked.

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Personal integrity is at an all time high. Which is as much a surprise to me, I can tell you.

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Truth now is paramount to me. I will not lie.

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Totally embodied.

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I can be bolder, more courageous.

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I can begin accepting every given opportunity.

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• Are you involved in your community? How are you helping the people around you? Do you know your neighbours? What could you do to improve the lives of people in your immediate vicinity?

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More and more involved with the people in this fine and grubby little city.

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I like to feel I’m here if people want to make use of me. I could get more involved helping people (note to self).

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I do know my neighbours, but I want soon to have new ones.

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My new motto for improving lives is :- Give more, take more.

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It improves mine and other people’s lives. Wonderful.

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photo-journalist AWAY!!!

Hello world. Again he returns with stories about his half-lived life.

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So, where to begin?

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The beginning of this month started fantastically with the #oneandother carnival rolling in to Trafalgar Square. @thespyglass did her time up there and I took photos.

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The whole place was theatrically dark, the curtain of dawn rose as she took her place and the photos were epic. Ones taken by Photographers even made their way to Grazia Magazine in fact.

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I’ve still not gotten around to editing and uploading mine of @thespyglass‘s time up there. However ones that I took of another #oneandother contestant actually ended up in a Times Supplement. So I’m over the moon and my wallet is packed with £20s thanks to the amazing fact that they PAID!

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The rest of the month has seen me writing quite a bit in two new novels (not unlike me to have more and more projects flying around) and also taking photos and making things. I’ve taken to putting my energy into easy to finish projects. I’ve written a short story, fixed things… you get the idea.

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I’ve recently started making a range of jewelry. Just necklaces and rings and bracelets for now, but my abilities are increasing all the time. I’ve also taken up designing clothes. I think I’m pretty good at it!

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Another cool thing was the Liverpool photo walk sponsored by these guys WWPW – Starting at 5:30, we walked about taking photos. It, personally speaking, wasn’t that enlightening from a technical point of view (but then it wasn’t meant to be). I guess the best thing about it was just getting to see other people working creatively. Seeing the types of people that live in the anthill of this fast-paced city.

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I’ve certainly been a lot more thankful for living back on the Wirral. It is just the best place to be. Quiet and beautiful on this side of the water, but a mere few quid away and you get a sprawling, decaying, developing, waking, groaning, creative and infinitely exciting city. Not to mention beautiful cafés and funky people to photograph.

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Another big change has been that I’ve gotten a new phone to help me with my business endeavors and emailing and blogging on the move. I already had a bluetooth keyboard from a long time back and I’ve paired that to it, so I can now be the photo-journalist I’ve always wanted to be. Best thing about it is that I’ve managed to slash what I was paying. I’m now paying Orange pretty much half the price of the phone! Not to mention I have the mins I need and unlimited data and texts! Sometimes it pays to have a really, really shit job in a phone store, just to learn how to negotiate.

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Okay, signing off.

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been away a day or two

so where do i begin? after near on a month how have i done?

okay. really!

got loads of great photography done. made loads of new friends.

been working on taking apart a Furby and other electronic related geekery.

read and written a lot of really great stuff.

currently working on 101 things to do before i die. also 101 things to do in the next few years.

i find that i’ve got so many opportunities opening up for me. my parents have bought a boat that i can sail away on. loads more things. things, things, things. (even the option of following my dad on his business trips to European cities – he’ll work, i’ll take photos and drink coffee)

i’m really really happy, even without working (because i’m not spending a lot)

just being positive that there is life after a life lost. been a bit regretful – but then, when aren’t i?

anyway.

more will follow as i detail more about my movings.

as ever. follow me on twitter. @jensenwilder

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.”

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.

painting and god-forsaking…

Apologies for the boring nature of this post. Nothing exciting happened today and all my thought have been compressed to diamond dust under the weight of the sadness I’ve felt due to a withdrawal from hell. Except I’m on the mend, taken the right dose again, everything is shifting back into focus.

This morning I woke up, said a blissfully fake ‘good morning’ to my mother (the sentiment existed, it just hadn’t woken in me just yet).

I had coffee, pills, breakfast (crumpets) and then set about sorting what I’d do with the day. There were two niggling concerns. 1) My head docs are coming. 2) I have an appointment at the job centre to go to.

BOTH of which I had completely forgotten the exact date and time for. So I was at a loss.

No sooner had I thought it, than my head docs came to the door. I pretended I knew they were coming all along, they came in. Had a chat. Long and short is that I’ve got to chill out and stay on the meds for a long time to see what we’re up against. Wonderful.

Regardless, that felled one bird.

The next hour a call came asking if they could change my appointment from Wednesday coming (that I now, loosely, have plans on) to Thursday. All’s good says me and up rocks another knock on the door.

Opening it to a rather funny looking bald man (nose too big for his face and fish lips) he informs me that he’s here to give my father the car. I look outside and a Mercedes is sitting by our drive.

All I can think is… my god… I wish I could key-scratch it because that tin-can could have bought a great many people a great deal more than they have.

I’m hating the fact that he’s indulging himself – I have no right to think bad things – the old man sets up orphanages in India and Africa – I think he works hard too – fair play – but that taste in my mouth wont go away. Maybe it comes from never having these things when I was a kid. You just get accustomed to being on a comfortable living and then when extra comes your way – you either respect it if its occasional – or you resent it if it becomes a more constant part of living.

My motto is – ‘we can always do more’ when it comes to helping people. Except if I really look at myself, I’m not doing much at all. That is one thing that will go onto my 101 things. Help 101 people better their lives. Ticked off after  each one, but only if I’m truly honest with myself that I’ve helped.

My bad taste was transfused with a pack of saliva to water it to palatability after my father turned and told us he was taking us for dinner. How quick high-horses trot-on.

Here is the starter.

starter - pan fried tiger prawns and sweet chili on ciabatta

And the main.

sea bass

Wonderful meal.

More driving to get home. I ignore my hatred of the capitalist pig in him, thank him. We move on.

I also did the rest of the stripping, mother and father were both impressed that I was able to finish the whole room in such a short time. My lack of perseverance is legendary. The blemishes of jobs long discarded are marked on the house like battle scars. Half-sanded banisters, half-painted doors, half-…. Well you got the joke before, but I’ll finish it… half-arsed attempts to complete things EVERYWHERE.

Now I’m in bed.

Not sleeping but drowning.

(In wonderful warm coffee to keep me awake)

share a day with me…

After yesterday not much could bring about a better day.

You do struggle on though. lol

So you wake up to the sound of your alarm. It’s 8:30 and its time to get a head-start on a new day. You wake-up knowing that you have it in you to write more than you’ve yet sat down and written, in the whole history of this month’s scriptfrenzy.

You grab a shower, you grab some breakfast (a first for some few days), you dress yourself and then you are able to settle down.

Hours and hours pass, along with a shower of pages. You print out the so-far… you edit it (even though you know you shouldn’t), you draft in another regiment of scenes so you have something to do tomorrow. You start and finish your CV. You grab lunch (a whole pizza *burb* Such a pig!).  You put aside the writing and pick up the book you are reading.

More hours pass and your mother suggests you have coffee and take the dogs off for a walk around Royden Park. Lovely.

Photography is the order of the day as you almost trip intermittently around the park and meet lots of other interesting dogs and other walkers – one who wants you to email over several of the photos you took of her little bundle.

Back home and you get to read another few chapters in a wonderful novel as the sun sets into the sea.

Few days have had this level of contentment.