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.

a feeling not as fickle as love.

-

I know that I write so that I can make a living, some day. But now I’m worried about my characters. Even if they are real.

God.

Most of the people I write about are real. So when they die, that is that. So I need to write about them, to capture them (if I can).

Most of the time I do that, in my journals. I write people as they are, no shields up, no gimmicks.

Without a single declaration of love, there is no one I won’t try to save the way I save people. Even the people I hate, I save.

Right, back to the work.

I do love you.

You know who ‘you’ are.

I love you, but I can’t say it to your face and will never allow myself that close to another living being. So in the absence of calling it ‘love’, I cannot live without you. Even if you are far from me, there will always be the show of affection. There will always be the place in my heart. A feeling not as fickle as love.

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.)

My Hour as Art: The calculations of a Soft Machine.

One must always bare in mind the often overlooked power of a single thoughtful person. Though we are often unaware of the impact we can potentially make, we must attempt to prepare ourselves. This thought was brought to me from my recent experience as a plinther. That is, being a lucky participant in One and Other, Antony Gormley’s new art installation.

Being up on the Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square was one of the most unprepared moments of my life. It was like approaching one of the seven wonders, or the peak of a mountain; there is simply no way of knowing how you will react.

When confronted by such opportunities, a more refined soul might have gone up with a speech prepared. I might have preached, screamed, recited or otherwise constructed some form of sentiment that would have undoubtedly taken the moment away from me. I might well have run for an hour like a robot, speaking words that I’d pawed over for weeks in advance. Not so for the willful creature that I am.

Instead I listened a little too intently to a small voice from within that said ‘you need only ‘be’!’ I decided to go up, no props, no gimmicks – just a lone soft machine, held aloft for an hour.

I would say even now, that was/is enough.

Art itself (for the most part) cannot alter its form to better suit the audience before it. Once it is produced it is cast in that form. The painting cannot gain another few brushstrokes, to add more colour here or focus the eye there, just because the person seeing it would find it easier to understand. It can but assume a lasting posture and only stand by and weather the praise and criticism it receives with equal solemnity.

I went up there to ask the world questions more directly than most art does, to be a mirror that might allow people to see something of themselves whilst speaking a language they themselves spoke in. I went up there to do what art does, not interact with the audience around me, but to get the audience to engage with itself.

The truth is we make art to remind us of what will always remain important. We don’t make it as a target for our insults, or produce it so that it will locked away. We want it to be shown to an audience, to tell a story, to make a point, to request more of ourselves than is polite to ask in person. We use art to crack open the human spirit.

Of course I am referring to art as generalized art, that of the gallery displays (paintings primarily, or perhaps music also, certainly the photograph), rather than the more innovative methods that artists now engage in. I know full well that art does not stick to its definitions, by definition it is endlessly re-educating us of limitless features.

So, I got up on that stone pillar with the idea that I’d more clearly do what art does. So that I might connect more directly with people and get the message across. My mission was to Raise Awareness for Awareness. I wanted people simply to start asking themselves questions.

Back to the experience itself, once up there I lost my words and almost my balance.

We cannot know our qualities until we have been tested to our limit. So all I could comfortably expect of myself was that I would continue to breathe and that my heart would beat (albeit madly).

When I got up there I had no idea that I would lose much of myself to nerves. There is a lot to be said for the written language (and much has been); however, I more admire anyone who can stand to speak and explain their message with clarity. I do not have the ability to speak easily in public, though I do now intend to improve.

In any case I am happy that, with that small sight of my limits, I was inspired.

I’ve come off the plinth with a renewed acknowledgment of myself, but also of the influence and inspiration I have to offer. I met and spoke with many people and the reactions have been incredible.

People do want to talk, people do want to learn why things are the way they are. Even those who initially became hostile in the face of art, grew later (after conversation/explanation) to understand. They too added their own voice and perspective to the endeavor.

I may have been alone, an example of a young man with a lot (perhaps too much) on his mind; but no-one was unworthy of a place there on that plinth and those who asked questions took their place alongside me.

Now uniquely aware of how much impact a single soft machine can make when placed in the right location. My plan is to go on putting myself in challenging places, to do what I think is good and right and just. To ignore the voices that want me down on their level and to use my own to lift others out of the flood of indifference.

I’ve shaken a dozen hands, hugged people who were strangers, dealt with the irrepressible masses and I have come out of the experience; not better, nor worse, but different.

oneward and upward

Okay. RIght. Testing, testing. Hope this is working.

It is.

Right.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this whole One and Other thing. I’ve done my smart thinking now, I’m over that. I’ve reasoned out things and I think I’m going to be okay. Just going to get up there, pose my ideas and then breathe it all in.

Been having a few emotional tantrums recently – my heart all a flutter.. ex-cetera … It all comes from me putting too much stock in this thing.

The truth is, I don’t need to get it ‘right’ or do anything to ‘please’ anyone. I’m smarter than needing to take my level from other people’s figures.

I wrote a little piece last night for my novel – “Feel bitter, feel like you want to hit me; but don’t deny the fact we made each other pretty happy. In the time we had.”

That’s what all this means, it is getting up there and just saying ‘This is me. What are you?

I am the art that can ask questions of itself, as much as of the observer. Now that is a revolution!

This morning I got a call from a mental health team member and they have invited me over to get checked over on Wednesday. I’m going to go along and tell them everything. I will write a little something for them first. A little history maybe. Something to explain better than I might be able to.

Oneward and upwards with things.

what is the point of change?

What is the point of change? Is it for yourself? Or for others?
At what point do we change? When we learn our lessons? Or when we act on them?

I’m growing. As ever, I’ve been reflecting on self again, but in way of a preface to this post I will say something.

I believe, or am coming to believe, that a major reason for my ongoing difficulty lies in my inability to resolve myself to myself. I have been brainwashed by a religion, and by relationships I have had, into thinking that I care only for myself and no one else. That to do what is best for you is to act out of self-interest and that is inherently a bad road to take. This is a hard thing to wriggle free from. However I think I have reasoned toward an explanation.

I am aware of myself and my impact on the world. That does not make me egotistical. I am not self-interested as much as I am interested in myself and what I am. I am capable of love and adoration for people around me. I close myself off to those around me so that I do not infect them with my sadness. That is a selfless move. I am normal.

So many things are driving my change. As ever the continued focus is self-development, whether I should consider myself egotistical, or if I am not unreasonable to assume that I must be aware of myself. Is it really egotism or just an important self-awareness?

To that end I’ve started a new blog askyourselfaquestion in which I will pipe my enquiries and ask questions and see through the investigation.

Very quickly here I will explain two main inspirations. The first being Socrates ideas. 

Socrates theory is that the soul is ‘mutilated by wrong actions and benefited by right ones.’ He means those actions undertaken by the self, rather than those undertaken by others.

One striking thing about it is that it doesn’t appeal to the altruistic, but rather to the germ of self-interest.

His idea cannot be realized by the greedy and self-interested alone; but instead putting self-improvement above all other motive. Neither does this unusual ethics rest on any hope of heavenly reward or the fear of its opposite conclusion.

The benefits of virtue are reaped more or less immediately, for ‘to live well means the same thing as to live honorably’ and ‘the just [man] is happy and the unjust miserable.’

Tough idea to swallow. It doesn’t hold water in the way you think. He is highlighting the idea of the health of the soul being paramount, above the importance of the body.

His idea is of practicing moderation to secure a future of good health, instead of hedonism to secure a few more immediate ones.

This strikes me and asks fundamental questions of me. Namely my own motivation of change – do I act solely for myself? Or does it bring a greater good? By being more aware of myself and my impact on the world, will that make me more sympathetic to others. I think it has so far. I feel a lot more in tune with things by being more comparative in my reasoning.

The next point is to talk about how I will develop myself. I think it is not nearly enough to tone one part of the self. So… Frank Harris puts it like this.

I made up my mind to train my will by exercise as I would train a muscle, and each day I proposed to myself a new test. For example, I liked potatoes, so I resolved not to eat one for a week, or again I foreswore coffee that I loved for a month, and I was careful to keep to my determination.

Celui qui vuet, celui-là peut: ‘He who wills, can.”

To explain this in its effect on me is to say, ‘I have realised pretty late that I need not punish myself for not being immediately able to control myself. I need to train myself to be slowly and accumulatively better.’


So I’ve set myself the aim of exercising my mind first, as it is the part of me that is most refined to this point. Hopefully the change and development will be reward enough to insist that I continue with my project. Next will be the body. I feel it is something I take for granted. I’m not sure I can say I’m healthy now, certainly more so than I was, but I do want to be more of a temple and treat myself with more care.

So ‘mind.’

Indeed – questions i’m wrestling with are… 

Why do I sway toward the conclusion of a divine creation/will? – Is it childhood teaching; or a force-infomed conclusion, like gravity?

What does a creator mean? Does it require worship? Does it define goodness inherently?

My question for today – why do i want there to be a god?? To relinquish responsibility for my existence? or to have an explaination for it??

Does my wish for there to be a rule or order to things come from a spirit of self-interest? Do i wish for rules so i can learn/utilise them?

one and other anyone?

I’m going up on The Fourth Plinth for One and Other (oneandother.co.uk)

This is my official coming out.

I’m going to get the train down on the Morning of October 3rd and go up at 7pm till 8pm. It will be night time and I’ll be lit up.

I’ll be couchsurfing whilst I’m down there.

I’m yet to get confirmed officially by the charity that I want to go and support, but that looks set.

Once it is done, I have a tent and a bit of stuff ready for my walk back.

Yes, my ‘walk’ back from London. To survive by my wits.

I have decided to walk along from London to Oxford and then up the Welsh border back to The Wirral and then finish in Liverpool.

I can’t wait.

Other than that.

I get my new glasses on Thursday. I can’t wait because they are going to make me look sexy. I need the confidence boost.

I’m loving the fact that I’m meeting more people in Liverpool at the moment.

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.

photography and other modern aids to social proclivity

Last night saw the emergence of an old character. The social butterfly materialized and I was reduced to a handshake and a winning smile. Exempting of course the camera, slung around my neck like an albatross.

Cast out into an ocean of faces I was taken aside and asked, early on, to be an unofficial photographer in exchange for free drinks.

Colour me interested!!

Then again, I’d have walked around with a kick me sign to get to free drink. Not that I knew at this point it was as free as it turned out to be.

I get to the bar and I’m greeted by a delightful looking barmaid. I ask her the question, handing her the token, “What restriction does this have?” – I’m in return given a reply that almost made me weep. “None, what are you having?”

I’ll not lie, of course I’ve been happier. The point however, is that this night had changed beyond my expectation and turned into something skirting the hem of euphoric.

I ran the mile taking photographs of everything – band, broads and bouncers.

I chucked back more free spirit than I was showing and came to the band room at the back, exchanged my card with people and then left.

I woke up as the daylight vision of myself. Not at odds with anything. Not a single hairline of negative feeling.

I’ve not been this content after such a heavy night in a long time and I have only Nightingale to thank. Though she wasn’t there when I woke, I was still given the greatest chance at a glorious, sun worshiping sunday.

The most heartless man to ever own a pulse…

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

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

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

For telling the god-damned unabashed truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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