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.)

Margin:0.0px or maybe ?0.o?

“  City of Birth

Much of the place is now just a flourish of the mind. Rivers and streets have altered position and where you might follow one in real life and come out at its proper exit, in my mind it turns about and you arrive elsewhere altogether. The whole city is a fading dream, less and less factual as the months wear on.

Except the truth is that I do not strive to remember, the death of it suits me. Rather than not leaving me at all, gradually is an accepted evil. However I lament that it could not have been torn away in one swipe. I wish the whole place burnt away, its ash caught and carried off by a wind of forgetfulness. I wish nothing ill on the inhabitants of that city in its real and present form, but its form in my heart is a solid lump that runs to the throat if I consider it for too long. I mean it not to remind me of my own failures.

In truth the city is merely the scapegoat for my own shortcomings, for my own mistakes. It is a laden creature, cast out and laboring under the burden of blame for injuries I’ve suffered. The city did nothing directly, supplant me and my life to another with the same set of circumstances and I’d be sure of similar results. The same progression of cruelty, neglect and eventual isolation. The same reasons for the breakdown of relationships with almost everyone. My own ego and lack of humility. My envy of other people’s talents and embarrassment at my own lack of courage.

No, I cannot blame a city for what was my own doing. The truth is that I lost my sight, my judgement clouded. Or, more rightly, my vision was distorted by a thin film over the eyes. An idea of how the world looked, except that in that way of seeing I could not perceive the slow corruption of my life. Each time I rallied myself and thrust forward with my creative projects, I was in fact just shuttling along in a blinkered, eager rush. I shut out the distraction of friends and lovers. Then, when I’d collapsed into the sense of futility that seems to run through me like a core, I was surprised that they’d moved on to better things.

It is a great and painful process for a man to learn of his own failings. More-often he might bury the facts under a layer of disbelief. Or else under the debris of the facts themselves; as he picks each apart with lies and self-justification. Delusion is the tonic for most things.

Myself, I’m no less the fool. Even knowing what I do I cannot bring myself to believe I was to fault. I too ignore these things and move on with what I do agree to take with me. So from these lessons comes the genesis of a new self. I do not wish to remember my sins, though I will learn from them. It is hypocritical indeed to ignore the legitimacy one’s crimes and yet still take wisdom from them; though to have the position reversed would be far worse an error.   “

—-

The above is the beginning of the novel I was speaking of, not too long ago. The tale of my life. A way to purge myself of the old crimes and explain how things progressed and perhaps absolve myself slightly through showing how I’ve bettered myself. It will however be ‘warts and all’, I hope – if I have courage enough to paint myself in my true (past) monstrous form. All names altered, no great revelations about the other people involved. I will stay in the bounds of my own head, the things that I saw and thought – I will not attempt to second guess the people around me, nor anything of their opinions of me at that time. What I do not want it to be, is a way of explaining away the evil I have done, but rather to seek to hold onto it – lest I forget – and remind myself of how far I have come so that I do not retrace the same steps. I also don’t want it to hurt anyone from the past, hence the only alterations will be to the unsavory portions of lives of others and not to my own life, wherever possible.

The NaNoWriMo novel is far more accomplished, though I do wish to return to the previous novel soon. I’m a little behind in terms of the monthly goal – though it has proven itself as necessary and so I will be moving forward with it. I’m not all too bothered about the NaNo win because NaNo has been a bit of a joke as far as I’m concerned. There’s been no proper management or communication with those involved, so the community fun was sucked dry long ago. I’m just glad that I’ve got a wonderful manuscript out of it and I can break on through with the knowledge that I can write about 2,000 words a day with very little hassle, so long may it continue. Fuck NaNo.

Nevermind.

I’m loving quite a few bands at the moment.

1) The Bicycle Thieves

2) Cocoon (‘Hey Ya’, ‘I don’t give a shit’)

3) Soko (‘I’ll kill her’)

4) The Thermals (‘Now we can see’)

5) Fresh body shop (‘My artificial sun‘)

And in terms of poetry?

1) Derek Walcott (‘Elsewhere’, ‘For Adrian’)

And I’m reading…

1) 2666 by Roberto Bolano

2) Omeros by Derek Walcott

3) The Book of Shadows Don Paterson

4) Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (again)

In other news. I’ve made a promise with myself to write a poem, take a roll of photos (34 photos), make a short film and read a book every week from now on.

Further updates will follow.

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.

kissing? really?

Mistaken Intentions.

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

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

And you thought I’d name her.

No.

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

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

Anyway.

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

So don’t doubt it.

I still think sex is a handshake.

A trivial meeting of flesh.

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

songs about me

So I’m still not feeling fulfilled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t care.

I really couldn’t care less.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps i got bored of the question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

missing trains but not opportunities…

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

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

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

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

And then.

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

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

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

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

“Hey there.” Toucans 1 says.

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

“Yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

old flames

So back after my VERY VERY bad Easter Weekend…

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the limitations one has to accept when it comes to writing characters. It isn’t that you can’t flesh them out, make them believable… etc… but rather that there will always be a face missing, some small part that wont be expressed because it would take more than a thousand novels to encompass the human being. We’re multi-faceted in the extreme.

I’ve come to the same conclusion when it comes to blogging – that there are people who know me (or think they do), and people who don’t, that will read this blog and think that it a condensed version of me. Somehow the subject matter, or the manner in which I present things, justifies their views. Puts context to their compartmental vision of me.

This carpel-tunnel world of blogging, invariably then, has its risks. What if a woman comes on here in a year’s time? What if I like said woman and she deems my outpourings to be abhorrent and vile and therefore concludes that I am unworthy of her… all these ‘what if’s will be the death of me, but lets just say that I’m right. Do I care? Yes. Can I do anything? No.

Bring it on home that whole idea of people liking me for me – if said woman came here and didn’t understand my motivations then I’ll be damned if she’s right for me – just like the last.

So this idea of me coming across as something short of myself got me thinking about everything really. As much as I’ve put things to bed.. So to speak.. I do have to say that certain elements of my character are coming together to show me as anything but an honest, caring and kind man. Not least to everyone, but mostly to myself. See, I’m such a self-deceiving creature. But you knew that.

Anyway – so getting on with life… this whole breaking away from the loss of Bath and life down there. Its taken me off facebook and taken away my one mode of constant communication with the world back there behind me. It’s a good thing too, because the old lovers were already starting to feel brazen! Old flames leaving suggestive messages on my wall, the odd filthy reply to an unassuming statement. Laura might just have put two and two together to work out when and where and with whom. So I’m glad that is all behind me. Now I can move on to new pastures with a clean slate. Chalking line after line on that board above me. Remembering.

I intend to start my education of myself by starting with history. I’ve opened up various memories and I’m taking a good look at what makes me. I have nostalgia abound. Zounds man, I might even have unleashed a realization or two.

I know that what I had in Bath was a best friend and various distractions. Not to play them down, we got closer toward the end (hence the sadness at parting) but since then I’ve more than replaced them and feel in a better place than I ever did. Lying in the sun this morning saw that I understood what was important. It was the second moment I’ve truly felt content in the here and now of here.

The funny thing is that the people I have met in the last 2 months have been better friends to me than anyone else I have ever met. They know me better too. I could have one person here in Liverpool take on a team of every person I have known for the past 4 years in Bath and they’d win a quiz on me hands down. (Save for Dom of course, who remains the only man I’ve ever confided truth in.) I’ve opened my heart to some of the loveliest people imaginable and all they’ve done is pay in kind. So I have to admit, scary as it sounds, I was wrong. (Gosh, didn’t that make you tingle inside??) I was wrong to hate my home so much. Wronger still, to think that the world ended when my little false life in Bath hit the fan.

But more, much more than this… I feel like I’ve gotten better. I’m not second guessing the old relationships like I used to. I used to lie in bed with Laura beside me and listen to songs that took me back to other women I’d known. Back to Jenny the Stalker and my inability to love her. Back to Patty and my inability to love her. Back to every woman I’d ever known and my inability to love them. But always the same feeling of regret and the need to retrace those steps. The feeling that there is a girl beside me that is beautiful, but I feel more for these old flames than I do for her. This is what brought me to wanting to leave her back in October, what had me almost there so many times. Before the idea of moving to Cardiff gave me the stupid idea that a change of scene might bring a change of heart.

I’ve known a lot of really beautiful women in my life and I treated them all, at the time, as though they were a piece in my puzzle – rather than a light to work under. They were short-term soul-mates, some of whom became habits that I stuck with until it became too difficult to keep going. One or two I got with, out of a deluded idea that I could be happy with them in time… given time I was soon proven wrong.

And that’s it for this blog post… more to follow, beg and borrow. I mean… tomorrow…

Perspective

As a kid I used to run away a lot. The most common place I would have been found, had anyone tried to look, would have been the park. I had a tree there that I’d sometimes spend the day in. In that way that boys do, I’d pee from the top of it and jump down and scare little kids from time-to-time. No I never peed on any of them.
I’d often spend hours just laying there in the tallest branches thinking about life. Soon my thoughts would drift to all the happy kids below and how unhappy I was. The thoughts used to make me cry, so I was glad no one could see me.
Later on my thoughts turned to the kid’s mums and how from that vantage you could look right down their tops. I’d watch their ample boobs wobble about in their low cut tops.
Its strange how your perspective can change with age, and how much difference puberty makes. More than anything it gave me something to distract myself with, and boy was I distracted!

Behind

My ex-girlfriend had a rather large bum, which I fell in love with almost instantly. We used to walk from school to her house and I’d sometimes walk slower to get a better view of her rear. Sometimes she’d look back and I’d grin at her and raise my eyebrows cheekily. Most of the time however she just kept looking forward while I took my fill of bottom-gazing, until I’d catch up to her side again and we continued hand-in-hand to her home.
After some time however it became clear that we couldn’t stay together. I had to go to university and so I chose to leave her behind.