living with a rock at your face and a hard place somewhere else…

So I’m going to cut to the quick with this and let the marrow show.

I’m not well. I haven’t been for years. Its not a constant illness, a lot of the time I have a hard enough time believing it is there myself – let alone the people who love me, who seem to settle on the idea of my getting better like I’ve got a broken ankle and just need to get the plaster off.

I can’t sleep again. I know the signs. I’m going to wake up one day soon convinced (like never before, but just the same as every other time) that I’m different.

Just like the million times it has happened before. I’ll take my head from the pillow and a new adventure will begin, one where I change my name, my loves, my taste, my friends… everything is thrown out and I just linger on the hinge of sanity.

Fuck it.

Truth is. Every few weeks I’ll have a down spell and I’ll feel worse than hell. Every now and then (Once or twice a year) I’ll wake up and do something about it. Delusion will push me into a new skin.

Right now, I’m in the grip of this nasty, evil, vindictive and destructive emotional state. I could, in this way, be very well described as bound and gagged by life.

I’m so distraught with the way I live. I’m always compensating for one or other element of my fractured character. Who the hell am I?

Am I Ric, the boy who wanted to be a grown up so bad that he sold innocent years trying every sin he could. Who was so in practice by the time that adulthood arrived he was driven to new and lower levels of sickness and depravity to get kicks, so desensitized to intimacy that he still now feels nothing from a kiss. That a fuck is a handshake to him.

Am I Richie, who traveled to many cities with a few people on his mind. Who got so close to giving in to a feeling that he jumped ship and escaped back to the city that was small enough that he was noticed, but big enough to get lost in. Who broke as many hearts as he did because love was meaningless – not least of all because its easy enough to kill it when you first feel it stir up. Who shaved his head to ditch a girl and met another the same afternoon. Who took out his upset at being ditched by his first university love, because she left him wanting more of her, on everyone he met who fell for his innocent looking blue eyes.

Am I Young Cup, the kid who had two dates lined up and shacked up with the one he got to fuck first. Who went out of his way to be a loving partner because it was easier to live with a happy woman than an unhappy one. Who two years later cheated on her out of spite and then went on a drinking binge out of guilt for something she never actually found out? The kid who knew she’d done the same to him, but he never spoke a damn word of contempt for it. Never treated her any less. Who had a down spell at the wrong moment and had the rug pull from his feet. Who fucked things up for trying his best to keep them going.

Am I Old Cup, the kid who being single and lonely found an anarchist to fuck senseless in the grip of such a life of senselessness. A girl who his best mate fell for (who she didn’t like). Who was outed by so-called friends for tearing an  Anarchist’s heart out and then (not one month later) fucking the same girl in my hometown because she was anything but heartbroken! She was a firecracker and sure she wanted more of me than I wanted to give, but that’s no-one’s fault! No friends left in the place he’d loved, because they didn’t have the good courtesy to ask me how it went down? A lost boy, who’s ex got the city and he got the boot.

Am I Jensen, the boy genius, who became an artist and traveled to the height of traffalgar square in support of some ill-thought out agenda? The boy who determined to surround himself with artists and writers of liverpool. Who went to every writers night and hippy hang-out and made friends with so many bands he was heavy with demo cds. Who’d live without a penny in his pocket, without a voice if he could wing it. Who wouldn’t eat for days because it mades him superhuman, and it still does. Who made a promise not to lie again and kept it.

Am I Richard, the friendly bookseller and lark-about who has no trouble making friends. If friends is what you call it. Who can deal with work for as long as it lasts. Who can just about shut out the noise of the rest of his life for the few short hours he’s in work?

Am I The Boyfriend? In a relationship where there’s never been a single crossed word, where we respect each other and anticipate most everything the other needs ahead of time. So in tune its a shame its anything but upbeat. The guy who can’t lie, so he just doesn’t tell her how bad he’s feeling. The guy who can’t hide what’s hurting, so he gives up the name of the lesser stress to hide the larger. The guy who still now doesn’t want to love, for the guilt and agony it causes him in his darker moments.

Am I The Fractured Man? Who wants so much for the world to melt away. Who is in agony for wanting the world to stay the same for just one day, to get to grips with the pace of it. Who can’t deal with an ounce of stress. Who buckles and flays his wrists at the first sign of depression. Who wants to shave his head, don rags, drink bottles and bottles of whatever booze he can conjure up. Who he has been since his second university year, where he gave up on living, but didn’t have the guts to finish his own sentence.

Truth is… there is far more of me than this.

Fact is… I fucking hate the lot of it and I don’t want to keep being so many shades of myself. Because I’m not stupid enough to think that I’m actually many different people, just I find it deadening to try to squeeze all of me into this tiny little slip of a body.

I’m tired.

I want to wipe the slate clean.

I want to hit reset and go back to year dot. I want to forgo love in favor of lasting friendship. I want to ditch desire for the better elements of feeling.

Here’s who I want to be.

The guy who cares enough and is courageous enough to say so. Who doesn’t hold back his feeling because he wants to look like he’s a tough guy. I want to be anything but a tough guy. I want to be a guy that doesn’t lie, because the truth is hard enough. I want to be calm, content and able to challenge myself. I want to be able to deal with a pinch of stress now and then without getting ulcers, quivering hands and headaches. I want to make friends and not worry that they hate me, because that’s what I’ve been faced with up till now. The sudden removal of faces from my life. I want to be able to rely on people, not just myself (barely). I want to make friends and not get paranoid about them changing team, becoming the enemy. I want to admit that I loved people. Not lie to myself and everyone because it means I failed at staying in that great way of being. I want to be the guy who doesn’t just chuck about ‘sorry’ but that adds a little weight to it with some honesty.

‘I’m sorry, I was sick’ just doesn’t cut it. Truth is, sickness is no account for action. I did some horrible things because I chose to do them, because I wanted to feel something, or I wanted to prove that I didn’t. I did things because if I didn’t do something I’d have lost the fight a long time ago. I have done awful things, but I need to bury them and I need your blessing to do it. Everyone should know that I suffer for my sins, if you read this blog at all then that much is clear.

I just roll the pattern over and over in my head. Or it is a bitter pill on the tongue. Whatever cliche works best.

I’m the cause of most every one of my troubles, yet I can’t seem to turn things around. I feel like a time traveller, like every mistake I try to fix causes a bigger one. I feel like everything I do just brings its own troubles.

I’m still here, a month away from the anniversary of my first real attempt to get some help, to get better, to change. I’ve not had any appointments because the NHS is shit. I’m not a woman and I haven’t actually tried to kill myself, so in the eyes of the medical world I DON’T EXIST!

Except, I’m still here aching. I’m no better, though I am better off. I’ve a great life, except I still don’t think I deserve it. I still want to end things before they’ve even begun. I’m 23 for god’s sake!! I should be half as experienced at life as I am. I know people who are 10 years further down the road of life and haven’t had 1/100 of the life I’ve had.

Except it isn’t a matter of pride. Its just disbelieve. I can’t understand why I’ve not cracked the code of life. I’ve gone through a run of combinations and still don’t know a single way that works. I want to have it easy, but easy is hard to find.

I don’t want to start my life 9 years from now, when I enter my own Rosy Crucifixion saga. (I’m reading Miller)

Either I’m a better man now, or I’m just not worse than I’ve been so far.

Only time will tell, but god help me! I want some sort of sign – I want some idea that what I’m after is achievable. Otherwise it’ll just be another few years of holding on, before I work up the courage to let go.

I’ve never held anything back from this blog.

This is truth, this is me (all of me), laid bare.

(This was written at 3am 09/12/09 – please forgive the typos and the lyrical style is just because I’ve been writing a lot of poetry recently.)

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.

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

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.

The rowdy lives of poison arrow frogs.

 

 

Talking to Fritz, I couldn’t help but swing my face to the sky. Almost completely smoothed over in black smudges – there was only the clicking of the pennies in my pocket to distract me from the depression seizing my chest – It’s always made me upend a smile when I see a good sky turn ugly. Much like it has always weighed my heart to find people who wish to remain forever unremarkable. Fritz and I are not those types of people. We are boundless in energy and ambition and likewise, for the moment, in struggles. Then again, ‘suffering has its benefit – to those who can read the brail of higher significance’, as Fritz himself once said.

 

So to lead you into a tale I will explain that Fritz joined me on a weekend away. It was a training weekend for a new job I had lined up working for The Cellphone Distribution Hive. The C.D.H. sent me on this trip to learn how best to distribute said devices and I needed a means of transport, hence the appearance of Fritz.

 

So both of us, sent forward by our buxom rarity, jittered our way to Stafford, myself in the back of Fritz’s steed ‘Bike’ (and yes we are aware it is an irregular name for a car). For Fritz any day is another chance to score some saccharine slut, the trip to Stafford meant that he’d be rid of those he’d already tried to pull. In his mind this was only adding to the likelihood of a lay. To myself, thinking more deeply on the scenario, I imagined carving a great path forward by mimicking the local slang – I figure anywhere away from home is a chance to be someone you aren’t.

 

High-tailing it to the second stop on a five stop journey – Fritz pulls into a road named after some long dead factory manager, one of them own-the-homes-of-the-poor-bastards-that-work-for-you-type roads – we take ourselves out of our car and I say ‘our’s knowing full well it was entirely his, except for the CD in the stereo.

 

Did I mention God’s hungers for our words? I don’t think I did but it matters so little anyway I don’t think I will carry on with that. When it is a duly considered fact, that most Gods are jealous of our brief intensity.

Anyway, Fritz and I made it to a bar quick enough to escape sobering to aching heads and dry tongues. We walked into a local joint with a pinch of talent in one corner – the rest populated by 30-somethings in tracksuits. There was a fully staffed bar, but most of them were standing like citrus fruit in the light of a lack of orders, so we offered our services as patrons and sat on the stools.

 

While we knocked back some sauce – increasing our devil-may-care attitude toward the notion of wandering over to said talent in the corner – we chatted about the heavy anchors in our chests. Always pulling us down. Always bringing down the mood to stringence and then to restlessness – or else, always tearing at the seabed of our sanity, while we used a gust of drink or drugs to fill our sails and push us onwards regardless. It was Fritz who hauled anchor for us, pitching the keel suddenly to shake me awake. It was Fritz who turned our eyes back to the shore; return to conquest.

 

 Interminable in courage – or foolishness – we made our way over to the flock of skirts with a view to pealing them free of what little they had on. Further and further became nearer and nearer and then we were upon them. Well I never saw – before that moment – a collection of shinier women. Hair was slick to their scalps and pulled back – amateur face-lifts – to ponytails. Their skin shimmered and looked to melt at their foreheads. In a flash we were greeted with glossed lips – parted periodically to partake in greedy gulps of beer. We could see their navels; pushed forward by their paunch little beer bellies, a little stud in each. There was, from each, a clicking noise, which we later learned was their tongue piercings flicking against the backs of their teeth. Each girl was as slimy as a newborn lamb. There is something to do about such things and that is to take each to your room, run a bath and chuck them in; like unwanted puppies. Its all fun and games to them, water is a novelty, so while you introduce them to soap and shampoo, you are also bringing a degree of hygiene to the proceedings. First you had to resolve to desire them. So while I looked on in horror and questioned whether my eyesight had somehow been tampered with, Fritz simply licked his lips and put forward a salutation.

 

We learned that their names were Rach, Tina, Chlo, Law and Sammi and that each had a laugh that shuddered your vertebrae. Why fuck them? The only answer is that ‘it is in our nature’. We taught them by example and the only homework was revision – oh yes, they would replay this night in their minds for a long time to come! Ours was a diploma in satisfaction and you got honours for demonstrating give as well as take.

 

Now you can – from the get go – write off Rach and Tina as both were none too kind on the optics, even after a sousing. As for Sammi, well she was so far gone she’d never remember consenting. Chlo and Law were nightclub get-up angels with halos of cigarette smoke and right for worldly education.

 

We chatted wasteful hours away, in-between gulps and tokes – you noticed frank want and need in their eyes – and time came for retirement to bedrooms and sofas, by this time Fritz was beside himself with the libido quivers. Thighs pulsing, faces flushed – like a kid on Christmas Eve, dreaming dreams of unwrapping new toys.

 

So two parts of Bath’s Literary Barbershop are slipping knickers off two saccharine sluts – when there is a knock at the door.

Fritz lies on the sofa with Law – well into intimacy with no regard for the caller, or for me – while I greeted a smile with more gaps than teeth. The stranger – dressed in a suit and slick smirk – just uttered two words, ‘Too Loud’, before walking away back down the hallway. Fritz can’t help but shout at me as I stood there – in disbelief with door wide – in my boxers. ‘Cunt, you should have told him he was a Twat!!’

 

At that moment a sticky soberness came over me and I felt sick and sweaty. A grim reality hit me. Chloe, well she is a Virgo. This in itself mean very little to me. It wasn’t fair to say that I trusted in superstition. Failure appeared to me in a vision and then sped off into my future – so I watched the path of it with my mind’s eye – until it flickered its last embers and faded out as it went beyond range. Virgo or not, she was a ready and willing catastrophe.

 

I left the girls at his mercy and wove a path down the hallway – palms assisting me – before I turned the corner, took the elevator and dropped to ground level to the sound of crap music. In my life only two things hold any real certainty; death and the occasional re-emergence of a soul-crushing feeling of listlessness. Utterly – achingly – awful. In my life, also, two things can pull my head above the surface tension of misery. One involves primal urge, the other… a large measure of any given liquor to lighten the spirit. There is nothing more wholly satisfying than a one-gulp start and a second to finish. Back in my room the mini-bar screams for me. That night I tried to calculate my future, the equation was simple – the outcome fell on the sword of Jensen’s Inequality Formula.

The PolarTropicals

Chatting, in Cafe Nero, on a bright morning with Fritz – it was so damn stuffy we had to pries open the window, use a coffee cup to hold it from shutting, just to breath clean air – we were chatting about the simplicity of horse racing; each omitting the fact we’d lost near a years wages between us, because it was – all said and done – just down to luck. It was when we were in the middle of a gripe about Jack Quick – a heavy against, which had proven itself a loser time and again – that we noticed Erin. (I’ll not pretend at this stage that we knew her, it was simply a name that we later held on our tongues and savored.)

Cupid lifted our chins at the moment she swaggered in – the cruel bastard drew our eyes from sandals to hair clips, before he sent us – inert – towards the figure of her boyfriend. It was Charlie – a three time runner up, in each of the three fights we’d had – a thin branch of an arm lay at her hip and the other pressed a cellphone into the side of his face.

Clean shaven, clean spoken and whiter than white teeth, that was Charlie entirely summed up. A cocky little inbred, with Daddy’s notes in his wallet and Mommy’s ‘love ner-ending’ and her looks to-the-letter. The two of them took a seat, hidden in plain view, and the waiter breezed over to take their order – taking special care to drop his gaze down her top – then scuttled away. Erin was a sweep of shoulder length black hair – slender neck, with a dark mole elegantly placed on the cusp of her shoulder-blade – and eyes, god she had eyes, eyes I can’t describe.

So we watched them, Fritz and me, in-between more mindless chatter, until something lifted her chin to look at us. With a greeting of smiles, we knew that she knew our game. We were fans – were connoisseurs  of her curves – aficionados of her attractiveness – enthusiasts of her elegance – et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam… in summery, your honors’, we meant no harm – it was flattery. 

Still unsure of what devil lifted Charlie’s chin – made him wise to the happenings – I’d like to say he took it on what he lifted and turned cheek. That he knew our jest and we had no real gripe against a man we could easily do in. Sadly, no, he took offense and put up fisticuffs, for a fourth attempt at victory. It was Erin that made him re-think the equation – two against one – so he simmered down after a spattering of reassuring kisses. Charlie invited us over, not to get a better look, but to catch up.

His plan became an example of clarity – he wanted us next to him, because comparison was a given – he imagined, it would undoubtedly lead to Erin taking heel with him… the lesser of assembled evils. His plan fell at the hurdle of book titles.

Erin is a well-read broad – a fanatic when it comes to the well-known Subterraneans – we aching-jawed it, until closing time and dragged Charlie to a bar to continue until last orders were swallowed. (This is where the main focus of these scribblings hones to an ant-burning precision.)

We tell her about our new love for the self-titled ‘stylized interview’ form. How we gleaned it partly from the form taken by the few articles you can unearth between the tundra of advertisements in men’s mags. Took a pinch of the noir in detective fiction and mixed it with our over-wrought idolization of musicians and movie stars. We aimed to write ourselves and our friends into the next cult characters of a changing era. 

“Then you should put up a site for yourselves!” She protested.

The idea stuck, we’ve started up on our quest. Fritz and me have already bought the domain and started on the first few articles. (This is an invitation to join, a sort of reward for reading this far.) Charlie wont be involved, but we have recruited Evan, Nicholas, Gene, Ginny and Laura from the ‘Literary Barbershop of Bath’, otherwise known as our friends.

Let it be made clear… This is a call to arms for ALL – no matter what country you live in – those who are underprivileged, rejected, denounced and demagnified when it comes to literary endeavor, all who are looking for a leg-up to notoriety. We’ll write so skillfully and with such magic that our friend’s bands will be signed a day or two later, our writer friends will be published and our photographer friends will have something to do.

We’re starting slowly – slowly and lowly – but we aim to rage against our dying lights. Here’s to creating a new destiny. Here’s to the PolarTropicals.

Here’s to getting Erin’s digits and an open-ended invitation to her flat.

www.polartropic.co.uk

Floating in the vacuum of space

 

Whatever falls in my path I have fun with it. I’m still not sure what to do with my life, but soon I will need a job. I will again return to the pits. Prepare myself for some personal agony, personal anxiety, and get hook up with a healthy dose of personal apathy to get me through each day.

 

Personally, I think it is rather cheeky to request eight hours of my time a day for the five out of seven, and only give me near-on one thousand pounds for the privilege each month. Then again, I’ve not met anyone willing to pay more, so I guess I have to put up. Cruel and unfair, this world, but there is nowhere else to go.

 

Pause for a moment thinking of the young Jensen floating in the vacuum of space with an ever-increasing bank balance.

 

I see a lot of people ahead of me, not altogether fairly either. I look at their work and scoff and turn cheek. That’s the luck of the draw though, someone must like that tripe, otherwise why would the author have had it published.

 

This week I trust in publisher’s and their amazing knowledge of great literature… or not.

 

Regardless, I have the distinct feeling everyone undervalues. Taken for granted, rather than picked for Granta.

 

I need to focus on writing these bloody stories I have in my head.

 

Continue with The Coconut Stopwatch, Trip, The Pack, The Boy Who Entered Dreamtime and The Formicary. The problem is picking just one to really focus on. I love them all like children and love the pace I’m going at. I have more ideas that I want to start on as well!

 

Too many ideas and not enough time to write them all.

 

I think I’m going to focus on The Coconut Stopwatch, as it is a collection of short stories, which means there is at least fourteen opportunities at accomplishment before the grand accomplishment of finishing the compilation.

 

I have my computer hooked up to the printer, a big yellow folder to hold the drafts, little bulldog clips, a new ergonomic pen. Now I mean business. I’m going to write the epics out. Place sections on here.

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