Mood: Having done nothing today and then played 90 minutes of Risk, I could cry
Location: Computer room, UKC (the one with the noisy fan)
About to: Go home and make music with my friend Matt
A good weekend! Feel like I made something of a breakthrough, after all my pondering about how to proceed. But what I've realised is, I like the journal format. For one, I think it makes it easier to be more conversational and personal, and, for another, it really solves the problem of bringing a present-tense feel to a past-tense project. Basically I can re-write the whole thing as though it were my diary, as though I had an audience (which helps me) and as though it were actually happening. I'm quite excited to get on with it - though unmotivated and distracted as ever. Still, I have got another 1500 words in the bag. We'll get there one day!
Monday 23 January 2006
Friday 20 January 2006
Eight
Friday January 20th, 2006 13:08
Well I had my class – made an effort to be nice to the tutor, though more argumentative/contrary later on – and then home for fried egg sandwiches yum yum. Supposed to think about what could be interesting about my life. Well, here goes…
Kicked out of home aged 17, live above a guitar shop, fly to America on a whim aged 20, when the holiday ends, I decide to stay, become an illegal alien, spend a night in a New York jail, buy a car with every penny I own (well, all but six dollars) and then total it two weeks later, work for a Jewish furniture-moving company, live rough on roofs and in squats, buy another car, drive to Arizona (crashing it in Mississippi on the way) where it dies, sell it for ten dollars, hitch-hike to Las Vegas, move to Virginia (after winter in California), buy another car and crash it while drunk, spend another three nights in jail, skip bail and hitch-hike to Arizona (in winter), live on a ranch and train to be a stunt cowboy, win a donkey in a bet (and then sell it), hitch-hike through Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, steal a grain-truck, ride a freight-train across the Rockies, get arrested on another train and deported, fly back to America, hitch-hike down the Pacific Coast to Mexico, camp in a mountain canyon for six and a half weeks, meet a spiritual teacher, have some mystical experiences and do a vision quest, stop drinking and doing drugs, hitch back to Virginia then back to New Mexico, meet a Yogi, meet a female Indian saint, do a 28-day vision quest, spend time with a healer/exorcist/psychic, die on a mountain, go back to England, live in a meditation center, go to India in search of a guru, go to Germany to meet one, fly back to America again and get deported, live in Paris and almost get married and have children, split up after I discover her infidelity, follow dreams, signs and feelings to a meeting with a soul-mate (four years ago now), and that’s about it.
Except…
I’ve never tried a cigarette, never seen E.T. (The Extra Terrestrial) or The Sound of Music, and once shook hands with Prince Charles (and had some sexual fumblings with a girl who had sat on Bill Clinton’s knee) (and vomited on Dave Mathews’s floor and hid it under his couch), I’m distantly related to Nick Faldo, Geoff Capes and the Sheriff of Nottingham (but not the Sheriff of Nottingham), my girlfriend’s Canadian and we share the same last name (purely a coincidence), and myself and my three grandmothers (who were all living until two years ago) are all Aquarius, and two of us shared a birthday. Also, I once tried to eat a 4½ LB steak in one hour and only ended up three or four ounces short, but I did succeed in eating a pound of dry rice for a bet. I haven’t been drunk or taken any intoxicants for nearly seven years.
And that is it. Although…
I like to write, and have had one story published (as well as some poems in the university magazine) which is mildly interesting. Also, I play guitar and sing, and can do this juggling thing with ‘devil sticks’. I can balance rocks, too, but you’d have to see some pictures to know what I mean by that. (People find it interesting.) Oh, and I’m very good at riding a bike non-handed, and have done it for miles on end, and travelling really quickly down really steep hills. I’ve had frostbite on one of my toes, and nearly trod on a rattlesnake once. I also got lost in an underground cave, have been charged at by buffaloes, and played music and sang in front of several hundred people on more than one occasion (more than two, in fact). I once owned over 150 vinyl records by Jimi Hendrix. I once lost over two thousand dollars (U.S.) in cash. I’ve crossed the Grand Canyon by foot.
And that really really really is it.
Except…(I’m not meaning to do this)
I’ve spent more than ten straight hours playing online computer games like Risk and Scrabble on several occasions in the last few years (not stopping to think about food or water), I’ve stolen quite a few things (in my youth), I’ve kissed three men, but never gone further (I once kissed three women – and a man – in one night), I’ve taken naked pictures of myself and once put one or two (tasteful) ones on the internet, I’ve punched one man (since my teenage years – but plenty of boys and one girl before), I’ve had sexual fantasies about my mother (though not for the last two or three years). I still have wet dreams.
Enough?
Enough
...
Phew! Well I didn’t know what was going to happen. It started out, of course, thinking that, wow, I really have had an interesting life – especially in comparison to the nineteen/twenty year-olds I share my class with – but then…well, I guess you can’t do that mush bragging without having it bounce back at you; without the memories of the occasions that you were less than glorious welling up to the surface. The only question then is, do I push those down, or do I acknowledge them and let them out? I guess I’m one for truth – and since I know the content of my mind, and since I know when I’m running and hiding, then I also know when I can go beyond those impulses. So I type, even if ‘I’ don’t want to, even if it’s stuff I’d rather keep to myself – and some of it I did. Stuff like…having my drink spiked and coming round in some gay black guy’s bed, or punching my girlfriend (in the stomach) one drunk and messy New Year’s Eve about ten years ago. Not so glorious there. (She’d punched me before that – but that doesn’t seem to excuse it, this indoctrination that violence against men is okay, but not oh no definitely not against women.) Is there worse? Curiosity about sex and children – don’t even want to know where thinking about that might lead (but I am curious; like, how is that even possible?) – and then obviously the specific naughtiness of my various crimes – especially the one where I nicked that band’s musical equipment. Damn. See how hard it is to just indulge in a little bragging! I don’t feel elated at all, I feel bummed out and keen to get off these computer, having been reminded of my past transgressions (even though so many of them were committed by the Rory that I hope and believe has long since vanished from the face of this Earth). But I guess you can’t escape your past – or, at least, your memory of it. Children, don’t do bad things – not because of any Divine punishment, or even the punishment of man should you get caught – thank God, I never really got caught – but because one day, if you make it through the storm, and if you’re honest with yourself and don’t hide behind a mask (of intoxicants, of distractions, of falsehood, or hypocrisy, or intellectualism) then one day you’re going to have to sit and face it all over again, in the mirror of your own conscience, from which there is now escape, and even if you mend your errant ways, and become the embodiment of goodness itself, you will never, ever forget what a crooked and deceitful shit you have been in your youth. I mean, oh God look at me, I’m not a bad guy, and I don’t really do bad things, but here I stand, on the verge of adulthood, and still I suffer for the knowledge of what I did in my younger, stupider, drunkener days. I am not those things any more – and yet, here they remain. Maybe because I never made amends – maybe that would help – but maybe simply because that is yet another of the consequences that we must face when our actions are not only wrong, and bad, and unholy, and not-good, but when they just plain suck.
Ow. [Rubs forehead with right hand, closes eyes and moves head from side to side.] I mean, he says, Mamma Mia!
1401 words, 67 minutes, including break. 21 wpm.
Must have been a longer break than I realised!
And then I had this enormous nap. Wowee!
Well I had my class – made an effort to be nice to the tutor, though more argumentative/contrary later on – and then home for fried egg sandwiches yum yum. Supposed to think about what could be interesting about my life. Well, here goes…
Kicked out of home aged 17, live above a guitar shop, fly to America on a whim aged 20, when the holiday ends, I decide to stay, become an illegal alien, spend a night in a New York jail, buy a car with every penny I own (well, all but six dollars) and then total it two weeks later, work for a Jewish furniture-moving company, live rough on roofs and in squats, buy another car, drive to Arizona (crashing it in Mississippi on the way) where it dies, sell it for ten dollars, hitch-hike to Las Vegas, move to Virginia (after winter in California), buy another car and crash it while drunk, spend another three nights in jail, skip bail and hitch-hike to Arizona (in winter), live on a ranch and train to be a stunt cowboy, win a donkey in a bet (and then sell it), hitch-hike through Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, steal a grain-truck, ride a freight-train across the Rockies, get arrested on another train and deported, fly back to America, hitch-hike down the Pacific Coast to Mexico, camp in a mountain canyon for six and a half weeks, meet a spiritual teacher, have some mystical experiences and do a vision quest, stop drinking and doing drugs, hitch back to Virginia then back to New Mexico, meet a Yogi, meet a female Indian saint, do a 28-day vision quest, spend time with a healer/exorcist/psychic, die on a mountain, go back to England, live in a meditation center, go to India in search of a guru, go to Germany to meet one, fly back to America again and get deported, live in Paris and almost get married and have children, split up after I discover her infidelity, follow dreams, signs and feelings to a meeting with a soul-mate (four years ago now), and that’s about it.
Except…
I’ve never tried a cigarette, never seen E.T. (The Extra Terrestrial) or The Sound of Music, and once shook hands with Prince Charles (and had some sexual fumblings with a girl who had sat on Bill Clinton’s knee) (and vomited on Dave Mathews’s floor and hid it under his couch), I’m distantly related to Nick Faldo, Geoff Capes and the Sheriff of Nottingham (but not the Sheriff of Nottingham), my girlfriend’s Canadian and we share the same last name (purely a coincidence), and myself and my three grandmothers (who were all living until two years ago) are all Aquarius, and two of us shared a birthday. Also, I once tried to eat a 4½ LB steak in one hour and only ended up three or four ounces short, but I did succeed in eating a pound of dry rice for a bet. I haven’t been drunk or taken any intoxicants for nearly seven years.
And that is it. Although…
I like to write, and have had one story published (as well as some poems in the university magazine) which is mildly interesting. Also, I play guitar and sing, and can do this juggling thing with ‘devil sticks’. I can balance rocks, too, but you’d have to see some pictures to know what I mean by that. (People find it interesting.) Oh, and I’m very good at riding a bike non-handed, and have done it for miles on end, and travelling really quickly down really steep hills. I’ve had frostbite on one of my toes, and nearly trod on a rattlesnake once. I also got lost in an underground cave, have been charged at by buffaloes, and played music and sang in front of several hundred people on more than one occasion (more than two, in fact). I once owned over 150 vinyl records by Jimi Hendrix. I once lost over two thousand dollars (U.S.) in cash. I’ve crossed the Grand Canyon by foot.
And that really really really is it.
Except…(I’m not meaning to do this)
I’ve spent more than ten straight hours playing online computer games like Risk and Scrabble on several occasions in the last few years (not stopping to think about food or water), I’ve stolen quite a few things (in my youth), I’ve kissed three men, but never gone further (I once kissed three women – and a man – in one night), I’ve taken naked pictures of myself and once put one or two (tasteful) ones on the internet, I’ve punched one man (since my teenage years – but plenty of boys and one girl before), I’ve had sexual fantasies about my mother (though not for the last two or three years). I still have wet dreams.
Enough?
Enough
Phew! Well I didn’t know what was going to happen. It started out, of course, thinking that, wow, I really have had an interesting life – especially in comparison to the nineteen/twenty year-olds I share my class with – but then…well, I guess you can’t do that mush bragging without having it bounce back at you; without the memories of the occasions that you were less than glorious welling up to the surface. The only question then is, do I push those down, or do I acknowledge them and let them out? I guess I’m one for truth – and since I know the content of my mind, and since I know when I’m running and hiding, then I also know when I can go beyond those impulses. So I type, even if ‘I’ don’t want to, even if it’s stuff I’d rather keep to myself – and some of it I did. Stuff like…having my drink spiked and coming round in some gay black guy’s bed, or punching my girlfriend (in the stomach) one drunk and messy New Year’s Eve about ten years ago. Not so glorious there. (She’d punched me before that – but that doesn’t seem to excuse it, this indoctrination that violence against men is okay, but not oh no definitely not against women.) Is there worse? Curiosity about sex and children – don’t even want to know where thinking about that might lead (but I am curious; like, how is that even possible?) – and then obviously the specific naughtiness of my various crimes – especially the one where I nicked that band’s musical equipment. Damn. See how hard it is to just indulge in a little bragging! I don’t feel elated at all, I feel bummed out and keen to get off these computer, having been reminded of my past transgressions (even though so many of them were committed by the Rory that I hope and believe has long since vanished from the face of this Earth). But I guess you can’t escape your past – or, at least, your memory of it. Children, don’t do bad things – not because of any Divine punishment, or even the punishment of man should you get caught – thank God, I never really got caught – but because one day, if you make it through the storm, and if you’re honest with yourself and don’t hide behind a mask (of intoxicants, of distractions, of falsehood, or hypocrisy, or intellectualism) then one day you’re going to have to sit and face it all over again, in the mirror of your own conscience, from which there is now escape, and even if you mend your errant ways, and become the embodiment of goodness itself, you will never, ever forget what a crooked and deceitful shit you have been in your youth. I mean, oh God look at me, I’m not a bad guy, and I don’t really do bad things, but here I stand, on the verge of adulthood, and still I suffer for the knowledge of what I did in my younger, stupider, drunkener days. I am not those things any more – and yet, here they remain. Maybe because I never made amends – maybe that would help – but maybe simply because that is yet another of the consequences that we must face when our actions are not only wrong, and bad, and unholy, and not-good, but when they just plain suck.
Ow. [Rubs forehead with right hand, closes eyes and moves head from side to side.] I mean, he says, Mamma Mia!
Must have been a longer break than I realised!
And then I had this enormous nap. Wowee!
Seven
The twentieth of the first, which means, in ten days I shall turn thirty years of age. Hmmm…20+1+10+30=61=7 meaning…well, obviously the symbolism of the numbers aren’t lost on me, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Interesting – very interesting…
But, of course, I jest. Thirty, though, is supposed to mean something, and I might make that meaning something to do with writing, with reflection, and with purging and preparing for the future. I was reading some of my stuff from years back this morning – looking for a certain paragraph, which was a bit like looking for a weasel in a gaystack, and just as successful – and, man did I used to write a lot! And, man did I used to think a lot too! It seems like these days I hardly have any thoughts at all…
So I’m supposed to be writing this book – and yet every time I contemplate it, the size of the project overwhelms me and I go nowhere. It’s a month since I wrote anything – another reason I’m here, in the hope of kickstarting the old grey matter – and it’s seeming quite impossible. I know, I know, if I just take one step at a time, and if I just start, and see what comes, and take it from there, understanding that first drafts can be improved on, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s better to have something than nothing, but…it’s not just the sheer size, but also how to capture some of that spirit I once possessed: the one that thought, the one that pondered and contemplated and sought out the meaning behind things…now, I’m afraid to say, there’s little of that; my mind seems to have become nothing more than a conveyor belt for random and useless trivia, furnishing me with nothing of meaning, just leaving me wishing I could turn the damn thing off. Another reason I’m writing here today: to see if there’s anything left in there, and whether expression, and written expression, isn’t perhaps what I need to put it to work again. The mind is a workshop, not a warehouse…
I will be thirty in ten days time. How do I feel about that? I feel…I don’t really care. It doesn’t mean much to me – and maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe because I don’t have any real regrets; maybe because I did all the things I wanted to do, saw the world, denied myself very little, and found my God (and then lost It again); maybe that’s why I don’t regret things and dread this ‘getting older’ and going beyond my youth. In a lot of ways I’m ready for it. And in a lot of ways I’m not. Which is as clear as fud.
Well I’ve lived a good life. Man, I did some incredible things! And it’s funny, it all seems to have ground to a halt when I started uni, and when I got a girlfriend. Yeah, things haven’t progressed very much in the last three years – other than in the sense than I’m a little less mad, have a little less light, and feel a little less interesting. I sometimes think that uni has damaged me – all that thinking, all that emphasis on the intellectual mind, on academia, on the surface of things and not the heart, the substance, the truth of the matter – but…what the hell, it’ll be over soon (three months; I can hardly believe it!) and then it’ll be on to…on to what? A career? Teaching? (Hey, that could be cool – I like kids, they’re fun, alive, youthful and interesting…) Or maybe the old writing lark, who knows where that might lead? And, in reality, who cares? The most important thing is just to do it – whatever follows doesn’t matter even a hundredth as much.
So in thirty minutes I have another class. My tutor is a published young novelist, Scarlett Thomas, who I read about on the web yesterday. Seems like we have some shared interests – Britpop, video game addictions – and maybe we’d get on if I wasn’t so anti-authoritarian and didn’t treat all my lecturers with disdain. A bit silly, really, but I just can’t help it, I really seem to have this “us and them” mentality with this, even when I like them. I wonder what that’s all about?
Seventeen minutes, 717 words. 42 wpm. Not bad.
Well I guess I don’t really have anything to say. Too conscious of time – but maybe I’ll be back later. Reading my words this morning inspired me – inspired me that I did have something inside, and that it’s probably still there, if I just take the time to have a look around – and I think it’s worth a nosey. Just to celebrate the passing of my second decade, and the ending of my youth, and my unavoidable slide into adulthood and stuff. Etcetera, etcetera. Amen.
But, of course, I jest. Thirty, though, is supposed to mean something, and I might make that meaning something to do with writing, with reflection, and with purging and preparing for the future. I was reading some of my stuff from years back this morning – looking for a certain paragraph, which was a bit like looking for a weasel in a gaystack, and just as successful – and, man did I used to write a lot! And, man did I used to think a lot too! It seems like these days I hardly have any thoughts at all…
So I’m supposed to be writing this book – and yet every time I contemplate it, the size of the project overwhelms me and I go nowhere. It’s a month since I wrote anything – another reason I’m here, in the hope of kickstarting the old grey matter – and it’s seeming quite impossible. I know, I know, if I just take one step at a time, and if I just start, and see what comes, and take it from there, understanding that first drafts can be improved on, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s better to have something than nothing, but…it’s not just the sheer size, but also how to capture some of that spirit I once possessed: the one that thought, the one that pondered and contemplated and sought out the meaning behind things…now, I’m afraid to say, there’s little of that; my mind seems to have become nothing more than a conveyor belt for random and useless trivia, furnishing me with nothing of meaning, just leaving me wishing I could turn the damn thing off. Another reason I’m writing here today: to see if there’s anything left in there, and whether expression, and written expression, isn’t perhaps what I need to put it to work again. The mind is a workshop, not a warehouse…
I will be thirty in ten days time. How do I feel about that? I feel…I don’t really care. It doesn’t mean much to me – and maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe because I don’t have any real regrets; maybe because I did all the things I wanted to do, saw the world, denied myself very little, and found my God (and then lost It again); maybe that’s why I don’t regret things and dread this ‘getting older’ and going beyond my youth. In a lot of ways I’m ready for it. And in a lot of ways I’m not. Which is as clear as fud.
Well I’ve lived a good life. Man, I did some incredible things! And it’s funny, it all seems to have ground to a halt when I started uni, and when I got a girlfriend. Yeah, things haven’t progressed very much in the last three years – other than in the sense than I’m a little less mad, have a little less light, and feel a little less interesting. I sometimes think that uni has damaged me – all that thinking, all that emphasis on the intellectual mind, on academia, on the surface of things and not the heart, the substance, the truth of the matter – but…what the hell, it’ll be over soon (three months; I can hardly believe it!) and then it’ll be on to…on to what? A career? Teaching? (Hey, that could be cool – I like kids, they’re fun, alive, youthful and interesting…) Or maybe the old writing lark, who knows where that might lead? And, in reality, who cares? The most important thing is just to do it – whatever follows doesn’t matter even a hundredth as much.
So in thirty minutes I have another class. My tutor is a published young novelist, Scarlett Thomas, who I read about on the web yesterday. Seems like we have some shared interests – Britpop, video game addictions – and maybe we’d get on if I wasn’t so anti-authoritarian and didn’t treat all my lecturers with disdain. A bit silly, really, but I just can’t help it, I really seem to have this “us and them” mentality with this, even when I like them. I wonder what that’s all about?
Well I guess I don’t really have anything to say. Too conscious of time – but maybe I’ll be back later. Reading my words this morning inspired me – inspired me that I did have something inside, and that it’s probably still there, if I just take the time to have a look around – and I think it’s worth a nosey. Just to celebrate the passing of my second decade, and the ending of my youth, and my unavoidable slide into adulthood and stuff. Etcetera, etcetera. Amen.
Sunday 15 January 2006
Six
Well the holidays are over, and I'm back in 'school'. Got my essays back - and got some mighty high marks, sixty-eight and seventy-four. Wahey! Much higher than I was expecting. Also got away with not reading Ulysses and had a good old rant about the whole thing. Started another Creative Writing class too.
This one might be interesting. Have to do things like "conceive of and carry out a gonzo journalism project." That could be fun! But really, it's the book thing that I'm thinking about again, and I'm a little lost as to where to go next, as I'm not even sure about how to tell the story. Should it be present tense or past? Journal style, or straight novel? Or maybe even a mixture of all of the above? I feel a little bit crippled right now.
This one might be interesting. Have to do things like "conceive of and carry out a gonzo journalism project." That could be fun! But really, it's the book thing that I'm thinking about again, and I'm a little lost as to where to go next, as I'm not even sure about how to tell the story. Should it be present tense or past? Journal style, or straight novel? Or maybe even a mixture of all of the above? I feel a little bit crippled right now.
Wednesday 11 January 2006
Five
Location: The ‘office’, at home
Mood: Singy, and bemusedly amused
Days since eating a Twix: One
So what I’ve noticed since restarting my journal is a process of stating what I need, and then saying in the next entry that I got it. It's happened with my essays, and it's happened with our finding house. It also happened when I wrote last year in Canada, when I was bored, and it was often like that in the old days too. It’s like a little ‘wish jar’. To me, there’s a definite correlation between the expression of one’s needs, wants and dissatisfactions, and the situations and solutions which invariably follow.
Next thing on the agenda, I suppose, is writing. I want to be in the position fairly soon of being able to send some sample material to a literary agent. That's the goal. Question is, will I be able to do it? Especially given the amount of online Risk I've been playing!
Mood: Singy, and bemusedly amused
Days since eating a Twix: One
So what I’ve noticed since restarting my journal is a process of stating what I need, and then saying in the next entry that I got it. It's happened with my essays, and it's happened with our finding house. It also happened when I wrote last year in Canada, when I was bored, and it was often like that in the old days too. It’s like a little ‘wish jar’. To me, there’s a definite correlation between the expression of one’s needs, wants and dissatisfactions, and the situations and solutions which invariably follow.
Next thing on the agenda, I suppose, is writing. I want to be in the position fairly soon of being able to send some sample material to a literary agent. That's the goal. Question is, will I be able to do it? Especially given the amount of online Risk I've been playing!
Thursday 5 January 2006
Four
Back from Yorkshire, and Christmas with the family. Jolly good, it was. Now it's a few days killing time before we move into our new place on Saturday. And jolly nice that should be too. Was supposed to read Ulysses over the holidays, but fifty pages in decided it was crap, so shan't be bothering. Oh well.
In other news, the car has died. That's six I've had now. Here's a picture of the girlfriend having a dance while we're waiting to be rescued. Loud music is playing at the time.
In other news, the car has died. That's six I've had now. Here's a picture of the girlfriend having a dance while we're waiting to be rescued. Loud music is playing at the time.
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