On the week just gone...

So I'm having another slobby Sunday in my pyjamas watching Big Brother and motor racing, and also a marvellous lunch of twelve Yorkshire Puddings in vegetarian Bisto gravy (alas, yes, the cupboard is bare). Just had a look out the window and decided "there's nothing out there," so I don't think I'll be going anywhere/doing anything today. Anyway, it's the Big Brother Psychology show in four hours – so obviously I wouldn't want to jeopardise missing that. (He says, tongue in cheek.) Plus I finally got around to watching my appearance on Countdown – hey, I have actually done a lot today! – which wasn't half as bad as I'd feared it would be; rather it gave me lots of giggles in places and seems like a lot of fun. Obviously a part of me wishes I'd tried (a little more) and maybe come up with a non-embarrassing score, or perhaps given Mikey a little better run for his money – but then what would that have achieved? All I could have shown for it was, at best, a teapot and another (yawn) appearance on the show – and, as I said before, Mikey was a much more worthwhile winner, far more deserving of the extra teevee-time – plus he could have had loads more points too, with a little more concentration and a little less silliness. Mostly, when I get down to it, I'm just rueing the missed opportunities for even more ridicularity (new word there) having now seen how many close-ups there were of me while the clock was ticking down – man, if I'd known that I coulda been doing all manner of silly thing: pens up nose, daft expressions, eyes closed when should be writing, laying on desk, etc. Still, I guess I can be proud. And though they cut out some of my finer moments – complaining that no-one told me the rules, declaring a three when I had a six – to be fair they did also cut some of my more embarrassing ones too, so it didn't come out so bad. Shame they cut Barry's bitches though! Anyway…
    It's been quite a week, I guess, since I set off for London and Mother Meera (and Glastonbury, Bath, and a job interview) a little over seven times twenty-four hours ago. Funny, really, the changes that have happened – and that it's all pretty much exactly how it was. Let me explain.
    I have this memory of owning a silver Mazda MX-5 convertible which I shuttled myself around in over the last few months; a nice little car, despite the leaking windows and trunk, stolen CD player and occasional spin off the road. I have this memory of the two of us setting off for London on a sunny Sunday morning with the top down, filling up with petrol and of not being in any hurry, so keeping it at seventy-five all the way down – which is most unlike me. I have this memory of jostling with some middle-lane loving Landrover, of my Mazda and I getting infuriated by his refusal to change positions in the road – regardless of etiquette and laws – and of us trying to teach him a lesson by getting in front of him and slowing right down, and slowing right down, and slowing right down again, until we were doing about fifty and he finally budged – and repeating the process until he got sick of it and got the message. I have this memory, also – and, don't worry, it's not what your thinking – of the sound of a little 'pop' from somewhere under the hood/on the road/in my car and then noticing I was slowing down, and noticing that a light had come on, just like it used to on my VW, which would stall every five hundred miles or so, for no real reason, and then start up again straight away. I have this memory, then, of getting over onto the hard shoulder, weaving in between some cones, and giving it a minute before trying the key, expecting it to fire up, surprised when it didn't. Five minutes later, still nothing. And five minutes after that…
    I was broken down in this place where all these roadworks were going on; a sign just up the road said, "Free Recovery – Stay With Vehicle" (or something like that) – and I've always wondered what would happen in that situation. About twenty minutes after first conking out, I found out: a tow truck came and took me and my car on a little journey, and dropped us in some sort of works' headquarters/car park/pound. It was a lovely day; I was somewhere near Hemel Hempstead, just off Junction 8/the A414; I had ninety minutes to get to Mother Meera – and I didn't know what to do. I tossed a coin; the coin said, "hitch." I tried that; I got bored of it. I tossed another coin, and another – and then, a whole series of coins – and the coins said, "walk to the petrol station; try hitching again; now give up and go buy a sandwich; now – no, don't try hitching, or go back to your car, or walk into Hemel Hempstead and get a train – now have a sit down on that nice bit of grass in the sun, have a little relax and chill-out, and just enjoy your sandwich" – and that's what I did. Seemed like a good idea; trying to figure out what to do was just getting me nowhere, no answers were forthcoming and, anyway, in times of crisis – especially on a nice sunny day – surely the best thing to do is have a little chill in the warm and just try and stay positive. No point getting stressed out – and, anyway, this is Mother Meera we're talking about here, it's not like I can be late for her (what with 'her' being everywhere, and what with her knowing all about it) and, who knows, maybe she was the one making it happen; I wouldn't put it past her.
    "A test," I says, "a challenge. To remain positive in the face of adversity. To trust the moment. To stay present, and calm, and happy – to let nothing steal my joy." I like the sun; I like my sandwich too (egg 'n' cress). I like the twist life has taken. I like the challenge of relaxation under pressure. I like that I'm winning. It is a lovely day and everything's gonna be all right, one way or another – I just don't know what that way is going to be.
    But within twenty seconds of my sitting down I find out: a man filling up his car calls over to me and asks me if I need a ride. "I kind of do," I say – thinking secretly inside, "wow, coin/Mother, that was quick; here we go!" Thing is, though, he's going North, to Nottingham, and I need a ride to London if I'm gonna get to Chelsea in time. Shame. Still, we get chatting and I tell him about my car, and he says, "well I've got this auto-recovery type thing you could use, maybe they could get a truck out to have a look at your car" – and with that he's on the phone and getting them organised to come out and have a look ("I'm not in my normal car," he tells them, "is that okay?" They tell him it is) and then we're sitting having a little chat in the petrol station café and getting on quite famously, discovering lots in common, despite our twenty year age difference.
    He asks me where I'm going – and rather than simply say, "London," as I very nearly do, I decide to tell him I'm off to see "this Indian spiritual-type lady" and he tells me about his interest in Hinduism. We get chatting about travel and stuff – and soon the subject turns to his adventures as a youth busking around the coast of France for six years, meditating in his tent, living in Paris, generally living the good life – sound familiar? – and that leads me to share my adventures in America. In turn, then, he tells me about his current situation, caught in a dilemma over whether to move to America with his girlfriend of the past eight years (she's American; she's got to go back home for family reasons) and then him saying that, "wow, you know, I really wasn't going to do it but suddenly talking with you has made me feel like, 'yeah, I can do that,' just reminded me of all the good things about that place, etcetera, etcetera" – and then, it seems to me, all this breaking down there and bumping into him has a purpose, I've got a message for him and – especially seeing as I was on my way to Mother Meera's – it all make sense. I'm actually glad for it; I'm smiling inside – and I'm keen, too, to get back to my car. "Surely," I'm thinking, "it'll start up now, now that purpose has been fulfilled" – at least, I wouldn't be surprised/I'm half expecting it. And off we go, me and my new found friend, over the road and back to that pound to revisit my soon-to-be-revived old found friend, my Mazda, my miracle.
    Except, of course, it doesn't, and I'm…bummer.
    He doesn't know much about cars, and neither do I. He's got to get off to Nottingham now, and there's not much else we can do. He's got the tow truck coming, though, and – "since you'll have to pretend to be me, and my deal is that I pay upfront for whatever needs doing and then get a rebate in the post in a week or two, I'd better leave you my debit card, and the PIN, and is it all right if you post it through my mother's letter box near Chelsea, as I really, really need it tomorrow 'cos I'm a bit broke and will have to get some cash?" – which is not the kind of thing one expects to happen in this day and age, in Britain, given the current climate/newspaper media bilge/fear-in-the-head nonsense some people like to propagate. But it happened to me. I wave him away – my by-now good buddy, my all-the-things-we've-got-in-common, my easy-to-talk-with friend – and there I am, holding his bank card – the key to his fortune – trusted, accepted, rescued and seen. I guess I should be surprised – I'm not. I suppose I expect those things; I suppose it's why I don't freak out. I guess I must give out a trustable vibe. I guess somebody up there likes me.
    So what happens next? Well, the obvious thing is the tow truck comes, it's no big deal with my car, I'm on my way in no time, just make it to MM's as they're locking the doors, have a marvellous, humbling, enlightening and soul-elevating experience with her, restore my Earth-angel his bank card, and then I'm on the road again to Bristol for visit with lovely friend, next-day job interview in Wells (get it), smashing day in Glastonbury up the Tor and drinking the holy water and lovely evening and night with X in Bath before back to Yorkshire for gratitudes and tellings of stories and isn't it lovely how bright the sun shines and life is magical, I'm outta here, bye-ee! Oh, don'tcha just love it when a plan comes together! Oh, isn't it great how it all works out? Except, of course, life doesn't often work like that. What is it they say? "Man makes plans and God laughs?" Hm, how true! Listen…
    There was once a young man who wasn't having such a good time in life; things always seemed to go wrong for him; if it wasn't for bad luck he'd have no luck at all; if he fell in a vat of breasts he'd come up sucking his thumb; etcetera. The neighbours always got wind of his latest piece of misfortune and wasted no time in sympathising with his parents.
    "Isn't it terrible?" they'd say, "your boy's always in the wars; if it wasn't for bad luck he'd have no luck at all; if he fell in a vat of breasts he'd come up sucking his thumb; etcetera." The man's parents would stand at the garden gate and listen patiently.
    "Terrible?" they'd say, "maybe it is and maybe it isn't – who can tell?" And with that the neighbours would disperse, clucking their hens and muttering amongst themselves about that "poor boy's strange and unfeeling parents," returning to their kitchens full of gossip and bristles. And so it went on.
    One day, though, some altogether different news reached the ears of those clucking hens and guppies – for the unluckiest man in the world had been chosen to appear on a teevee show all about unlucky people, and would have the chance to win a very special prize.
    "How lucky!" the neighbours said, "That all that bad luck should turn out to be good luck after all! Isn't it wonderful?" They crowed excitedly at the man's parent's gate.
    "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," the man's parents said – and once more the crowd dispersed, even more righteous than before.
    "How can they be so unfeeling?" the bedraggled masses said as one, "you'd think they'd be happy now that their only son has finally found some good fortune in life," and they clucked one mighty cluck and ruffled their beaks to show their displeasure.
    The whole village tuned in to watch the man's appearance on teevee, and all were delighted for him when he was gifted a brand new BMW Mini – the car he had always wanted, but had never been able to afford. In the weeks that followed he was often seen polishing his shiny new motor, taking it for spins in the country roads and hills that surrounded his house, tooting his horn at the passers-by and giving them a cheery wave. No one had ever seen him so happy. He found a job as an air steward; he started dating and met a nice young man in a neighbouring village; he even took up football and was soon proving a hit striker for the local team. Everyone agreed that his luck had finally changed.
    Everyone, that is, apart from the no-longer poor, no-longer unlucky man's parents – all they could say to the neighbours demands of, "isn't it wonderful?" was the same old reply: "maybe it is, maybe it isn't…"
    One day, while driving home from his boyfriend's house, the unlucky man's car was hit by a large, frozen fish falling from the sky, which shattered his windscreen and caused him to swerve violently across to the other side of the road, where he ploughed head-on into a just-that-second parked vehicle. The newspapers said it was a one-in-a-billion occurrence. The force of the impact trapped him inside his now-destroyed Mini, and though he suffered no major damage to his internal organs, his legs were subsequently amputated, from just below the knee. He was in intensive car for several months, during which time his boyfriend dumped him and he lost his job, without compensation (he was only on contract, you see). He became severely depressed and made a number of attempts on his own life. His parents, meanwhile, were forced to remortgage their home in order to pay for his medical treatment (this is all happening in the future, you see, when the UK has foolishly gone the way of America, and abolished the NHS, and come to require vast sums of money from its citizens in order to pay for what once was a basic, freely-given right) and had to move into a caravan in the corner of a local farmer's field.
    Still, though it was a bit of a walk, their former neighbours still came to see them.
    "Oh, isn't it terrible?" they wailed through their sackclothes and ashes, "I tell you, if it wasn't for bad luck that poor, poor boy of yours would have no luck at all…what a terrible, terrible thing!"
    And still the same reply – though this time through the open top-half of an old caravan door – "maybe it is and maybe it isn't."
    The months passed and the poor, poor unlucky man grew strong. His depression faded; he resolved to overcome his previous weakness of mind and to conquer his adversities. He started to play football again, and went on to win many medals during a long and glittering career, including a gold at the 2028 Dublin Paralympics. He became an inspiration to many young people, and personally helped several prevail over their own particular difficulties and go on to do great things. And he met a new man – a handsome male nurse who had been on duty the day he was brought into hospital – and though he didn't know it at the time, they were to go on to spend the rest of their lives together, and raise several children and many more grand- and great-grandchildren, and die in each other's arms at the ripe old age of a hundred and two, while on holiday in Corsica, due to carbon-monoxide poisoning. His own long-dead parents, meanwhile, had lived out their days in happiness, discovering that they much preferred caravan-life to the comforts and conveniences of electricity, labour-saving devices and teevee.
    "It was," he would say to them, while they were all still living (and sometimes after they had died), "the best thing that ever happened to me." He would nod in his old dad's rocking chair and smile to himself, his heart bursting with gratitude, his hand holding his lover's hand tight, his lover's head resting on his artificial knee. "It was," he would say, "a wonderful, wonderful thing."
    And in reply, his parents would say, "maybe it was, my son, and maybe it wasn't – who can tell?"

I thought about this (or rather, the original, far more concise Chinese proverb that inspired me to write that just now) often that day, during those long hours waiting for the tow truck to arrive, kicking my football, tossing my sticks, watching the clock drift past any sort of time that a meeting with Mother Meera might be possible. I thought about it, too, after the tow truck had been, and after the man there had informed me that the cambelt had gone, and that you can't get much more serious than that, and that it would cost between six hundred and a thousand pounds to fix, as it would have basically wrecked the engine. I've thought about that, in fact, in all my recent car shenanigans, in all my gettings-lost, in all my wrong turns – because, it seems to me that it's so easy to see where the things have gone wrong, but so difficult in the midst of that to imagine that just maybe the slightly bad – or even, quite bad – could have prevented something really, really bad. I mean, who knows what might have happened if I had continued on down that road? Or who knows what might have happened had my car been fixable, had I been driving it today, and for the seven days previous? A million things far worse than losing a thousand pounds are possible – and even though that's the only reality I can see, isn't it only fair to balance things out and consider all the other possibilities? How many times does something bad happen to us and we trace it back to some decision, to some crossroads and say, "oh, if only I hadn't done that"? And yet, who knows how many unknown and never-to-be-known bad things have been prevented by some other turning, some other decision? That's what I like to consider, what keeps me from cursing my luck and still thinking, "well I guess as long as I'm in one piece then I suppose it's what's meant to be." And not that I can say I feel that a hundred percent, by any means, but…it's mostly there, it's mostly how I feel. It's the overriding sentiment in my brain. Plus, far worse things happen to far nicer people…
    In the event, I'll tell you what happened. The truck thing was useless, and though I could've had it towed somewhere, it just seemed kind of immoral – even if I wasn't paying for it, even if it was some faceless large insurance company – to spend all that money and time and effort on dragging a dead piece of metal halfway around the country. So I kinda waited, to see what would happen, and some time around eleven o'clock my new-found Earth-angel friend came back that way, invited me to ride along with him, and we loaded all my stuff in his car – which included many items way too unsuitable for a breakdown situation (e.g., my guitar, my football, my football boots, several changes of clothing, a big heavy laptop which I was supposed to be selling in London also). I said one final "adieu" to the Mazda and then it was on the road to London, to spend the night at his mother's place in Kensington. In the morning, over toast 'n' tea, we talked music – he has a recording studio, knows A&R men, wrote a song years back that got to number one in the US – and played each other a selection of our songs. He dug my stuff and I dug his, and we said we'd keep in touch and maybe meet up to play some tunes down London's open mic scene. I felt happy, and glad to be free of four wheels, and even though I then missed my job interview in Wells, for the Glastonbury Oxfam position, I felt like everything was still very much in place. So I lost a thousand pounds plus – well, as they say, "easy come, easy go" (it was only quizshow money, after all) – and surely something like this has to have happened for a reason: either because of something I've done recently – which I don't think there is – or something I did a while ago, in order to burn up some old karma (which is more than possible!) or to bring something good into my life/ prevent something bad, which is all well and good. Already, in fact, I can feel the benefit of being free from that money-eating, lazifying full-speed-ahead beast – for one, I might be able to lose some of the weight I've put on since I got my first car just under a year ago and forsook the slightly more humanly-paced methods of transport such as walking and riding a bicycle; for another, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't improve my quality of life in terms of human interaction, in terms of being in the world – and, almost perversely, in terms of getting out and about; I know cars are supposed to give you the freedom "to go places" but, for me, I've pretty much found that hasn't been the case, and that the only place I've really managed to go was home, far quicker than I would have done otherwise! No leisurely strolls, no getting lost over hill 'n' vale, no meanderings 'round town killing time before the next train and discovering something wonderful and new – not when I've got my four-wheeled friend to speed me back in solitude and noise to the comforts of my four walls and 'home'. Plus, given that it was a choice between Wakefield+car or Leeds+nocar, I guess this means that I'll finally be heading somewhere far-better-suited a little sooner than I thought – so, thank You God for saving me from Wakefield, and automobiles, and averted tragedies unknown, and for delivering me into my much-improved future! I sure do appreciate it, y'all!
    And now it's time for a break, and Big Brother the Psychology Edition – which I really do love! – and maybe to return later to finish it off – or maybe not, since I've probably got enough time to do it now, if I make it quick…

• So even though I missed my interview – the second of the three things that I had to do last weekend – I still went west-country way, wanting to see X and also dig a little something of Glastonbury, and I took a train to Bath after goodbyes with new-chum and sailure of laptop (another new word there). I must confess, I felt a bit glum on that long and dreary train ride – going for the cheap ticket option of slow trains via Basingstoke and Salisbury, which I probably wouldn't do again – but I guess I can forgive myself that.

• And Bath was beautiful! And seeing The X was jolly nice! And, who knows, maybe we'll be getting back together one of these days – and maybe not. But it was good to see her – we bond, we like each other, we fit – and now that Y's no longer speaking to me I suppose things look like they're heading in that direction…

• The following day – Tuesday; a finally sunny day – me and a good friend-from-yesteryear-recently-reconnected went and had our day in Glastonbury, drunk on Chalice Well water, giggling like children atop the Tor for no apparent reason except that we were feeling divinely high – oh, how reminiscent of Shawn and I with our feet in the snow on Mount Shasta! – and little magics in that magic little town. What a place that is! What a feeling I get when I go there! But – and pleased to say – I also realised that I wouldn't want to live there, that I like to keep it as a treat, that there are too many crusty old hippy weirdoes for me to want to deal with on a regular basis. I visited the Oxfam shop there and I felt nothing. I don't regret missing my interview. Glastonbury…a wonderful place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there – at least, not just yet…

• And one reason for that is, I feel like I want to stay in Yorkshire longer. I had a good week the week before my trip away, with a fun gig at The Little 'Un in South Elmsall, and some nice times with friends – plus I discovered something new to sink my teeth into at the old Oxfam shop: something that I was actually feeling pains not to do, should I have been offered the Glastonbury job – so that's all good (for now). Also, I'm resolved to hug more, and have been doing it lots with a select number of people, while I get back into the swing of things. So that's all groovy.

• Did I mention that my brother has become a ghost? Well, he has! See, at first he was like a ghoul, this dark, malodorous presence that (energetically) stunk out the home with his negativity, that skulked around and oppressed me in my sleep, giving me the shivers, the heebeegeebees, the ginsters. Well now something's changed – now it's like I can hardly see him; even when he's in the room he's just like something I catch out of the corner of my eye, something I'm not sure is really there. I can walk past him and not notice; I can forget he lives here too. In fact, it's only because he moves things around – i.e., because he washes all my dishes – that I know he's here at all. He's like a really mild poltergeist – but the best kind of poltergeist you could possibly get: one that buys loo roll when it runs out; one who empties the bins and sorts out the council tax; one who picks up plate after plate, cup after cup, and washes them, and puts them back in the cupboard, fresh and ready to be used again. He's a dream housemate in many ways – although, to be honest, I would probably want to have a conversation with my actual dream housemate every once in a while. But that he's become invisible to me can only be progress. I know it's harsh, but he's given me and the rest of the family enough heartache and headstrain with his non-willingness to do anything that resembles living over several years now, and so to accept that this is how he wants to live, and to let him be – to realise that, hey, some people do just live their lives in unceasingly dull ways, never work, never explore the world, never leave behind mummy's apron strings, etcetera, until the day they die – really does seem like the best course of action. Believe me, I've tried to give him a hand – now all I can do is let go.

• I sold my car on eBay for £310, so probably lost about a grand in total. Not so bad, I suppose.

And that really is it, popquiz fans. Just to let you know the ending of the story: that the once-unlucky, now-triumphed-against-the-odds, deeply-at-peace-with-the-world hero-of-our-tale's great-great-granddaughter went on to start World War III, wiped out ninety-nine percent of the population, killed all known elephants, lions and seals, and made Hitler look like a weally sweet wittle bunny wabbit all kitted out in pink doll's clothes, nose a-twitchin' and tiny wittle hoppity-hops awound the garden on gentle summer's day to the delighted squeals of toddlin' twin girls in their frilly dresses and blonde curls and smiles – and none of that would've happened if he hadn't met that handsome male nurse and fallen in love. In fact, had he not had that accident and stayed with his other boyfriend – the shallow one that dumped him when he lost his legs – they later would've adopted the child that gave birth to the girl that brought up the next Son-of-God, the saviour of mankind, the Divine-cum-down-to-Earth and general all-round top-drawer chap – which would've been better, right?
    All together now…

Happy Birthday to me

Ten years ago today, I started something: Sunday July 27th, 1997, I sat at a computer in Charlottesville, Virginia and uploaded my first ever online diary entry. It tells the tale of a day's tubing on the James River; of waking up on the Kappa Mutha Fucka couch with no memory of getting there; of not having taken out my contact lenses for three days. It's an inauspicious beginning - it doesn't really say very much – though I do still raise a smile at the remembering of one occurrence…

"After the car incident, I was determined to make a good impression on Deya's folks. I had been informed that Mr Ramsden was an ex-alcoholic, so it would be best to keep my beer from his sight. Unfortunately, my attempt to hide it resulted in me spilling it all over their couch! The ludicrousness of the situation got the better of me and an attack of the giggles ensued. Needless to say, it wasn't quite the impact I'd been looking for..."

Ha! That seems like a very Rory-esque thing to do! (The 'car incident', of course, was the occasion I woke up – once more, on the KMF couch – to be informed that someone had taken Deya's car in the middle of the night and left it in a ditch a few miles away with a burnt-out clutch and a punctured tyre, and that I was the prime suspect – 'cept the last thing I remember was drinking enormous shots of rum from a glass vase with a chap called Monster Boy…) Anyway, fun to reminisce…though I find what I was doing exactly a year later a more entertaining read: I love reading that! (Did you click??) Ah, how lovely to have those memories brought back to life through the power of those words! What a time that was. What a very special time in my life. Marvellous! And thank God for my friend who found 70ish percent of my journal a few years back after I'd somewhat hastily deleted all eight hundred thousand words of it back in Dublin, 2002. That was perhaps a little silly! It's funny…I'm so different to who I was back then but…I like who I was back then, too. I seem like rather a fun-loving young man. Oh, what a life I've lived! Happy birthday, Down The Rubadub In A Terry Nutkins Stylee, Postcards From NowHere, Message To The Universe, happy birthday!

Sunday

So two things stand out from this week, arising in conversations with two of my volunteers (two volunteers, actually, who have a lot in common: they both started the same day; they're both from over the other side of the Atlantic; they both moved here to be with their English boyfriends, at about the same time; they're both really nice; they both can't work and kind of rely on Oxfam to fill their time in that kind of way; they're both in their twenties; they're both really good volunteers). The first thing was when I got talking to the Californian, Sara, and somehow the subject turned to spiritual matters and, in particular, Mount Shasta. Now, I've had my Mount Shasta experience, and it was good to connect with that again, in some way; not only that, but she was reading a book about the supposed 'ascended masters' that live inside the mountain, and knew all about St Germain and that – and the whole talking of it really got my skin moving, shivers all over my body, a certain…feeling. Even nicer to remember; made me want to be there, to relive/retrieve that, to have more of it. And then talk turned to Glastonbury, where I'm due to go on Monday, and maybe move there – England's Shasta – and that got me kind of excited too.

The second conversation was with Angela, from Brazil, just talking about the English, our reserved natures, our lack of hugs, of physical warmth. That made me eternally sad – for I remembered how huggy I was back in my America/Mexico days, hugging strangers in the street, hugging male friends for up to an hour at a time, lovin', carin' hugs with newly-made chums – hugs that really meant something. Basically, I was huggin' all the time – and good ones, too. And now I'm sad because, something got lost along the way, and it's ever since I came back to England. I mean, at first I did that, and it was good, but I guess after a while it got lost, maybe was received in the wrong way, just wasn't the done thing…maybe I changed too – but, more than that, it wasn't the right place. Man, even really nice, cool, funny happy people here don't know how to hug, don't know the value of it – and I guess I just gave up. Yeah, that makes me really sad – makes me mourn for the death of a life I once had. My conversation with Angela brought all that up, and made me want it back – so I started with her – Brazilian, affectionate her, and that was good – and thought maybe I could move on to my old ladies and perhaps be the one that gets it going – or, at least, gives it a try. As you can gather, I miss that life.

So now I've got to hit the road – originally I was supposed to be gone on Friday, down to Lincolnshire and then Dereham, Norfolk, for friends and family, but the flood put a stop to that. Then it was yesterday – my day off all arranged, nothing holding me back there – but for some reason I just couldn't get it together, and was actually kind of relieved when my cover texted and said she was stuck in Southampton and I resolved to do the nice, safe thing and just go in to work, and just give Lincolnshire and Norfolk a miss, head straight for London. Today, though, there's no putting it off; I've an appointment with Mother Meera in Chelsea town hall in about five hours, and then a job interview for the Glastonbury position in Wells tomorrow afternoon. And then it'll be an evening with The X, in Bath. A little holiday; a little road trip – maybe a taste of the kind of life I'd like to get back to. A few days ago I was thinking I could just live outta my convertible, drifting 'round the country like some preposterously-carriaged modern-day sadhu, a few days healing here and there, money for petrol and food and sleeping wherever, visiting whoever, just spreading a bit of love and goodness, etcetera…or maybe not!

The road!

Saucers

One

So while the housemates whittle on in my ear I sit down here and think about fulfilling my obligation, although brain has been destroyed and thoughts fail to forthcome. I am not who I once was, nor who I want to be; I don't know who I am. Somewhere in this world is a place to fit but I don't know where it is. This week I did bugger all; the rain has returned; it creates a Seattle-like cocoon of dread upon my house, my head – if that means anything at all…

Two

The secret to using a microphone is to not sing to it, but through it. I discovered this about half-way through my first song on Wednesday, and then I thoroughly enjoyed it. The audience were shite – can you believe they didn't listen intently to my every word and nod and smile and cry and think in all the right places??? – but I didn't seem to care, it gives you a certain freedom to do whatever you feel. My dad was there and that was perhaps some important step, because of the way he'd traumatised my singing when I was young, but it didn't really feel like that. I felt normal; I generally do. The whole time though he was bigging himself up the way he does – man, he must be really insecure – but by the end of it, after he was telling me how much better than me he was for the forty-forth time (and, don't get me wrong, it's just water off a duck's back, 'cos I know how he is) I just said, "yeah, but I write better words than you," and there was nothing he could say to that. You have to give him some credit; for all his bluster he is quite good at taking things at times.

Three

I never know what I'm going to write – well, sometimes I do – and tonight I thought I had maybe half a sentence, at best. I rarely even feel like it until I get going – but by the second paragraph I've generally got a taste for it. I don't know what comes next, though – although I did know I was going to type that before I did, because I said it to myself in my head first (just as I said that). I thinks before I speaks, you see. Not everybody does that.

Four

I've been applying for jobs down South; I've been a bit disappointed with Yorkshire, and with my chums here. I feel like I was a stranger and nobody made much of an effort, even though I made a bit (and, to be fair, some people made a bit also). But, on the whole, it's been pants. I think I need something different (always allowing for the possibility of a sudden, exciting change). So I've applied for Oxfam jobs in Glastonbury, Bath, Oxford and Totnes. Also, I sometimes feel that London is calling me; London scares me though. Times I've been there and hated it with tear-eyed madnesses. Times it was all I could do to get away. And sometimes it feels like…oh yeah, this is quite nice. London calling? We'll see. I'm going there next weekend, to see Mother Meera…

Five

I feel like reviewing my life; I don't know where to start; the beginning would be good, I suppose…

Six

So I was born in Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, in January 1976, the son of a seventeen year-old Lincolnshire girl and a twenty-four year-old guitarist/electrician – and also of a twenty-two year-old motorbiker/stockcar racer/scrap merchant who it turned out was my actual biological provider, though I didn't learn of him till I was 11, and didn't get around to meeting him till I was 25. In any case, my parents divorced when I was six and my younger brother and I grew up kind of poor in council houses in South Elmsall and I guess I was more or less happy, blessed with a modicum of intelligence and some common sense and humour, and perhaps a slightly different way of thinking. Education ensued, blah blah blah, a bit of work, and then, after being kicked out aged 17, a few years in Leeds, I flew to America aged 20 and I guess that's when life began.

Seven

And then I travelled! And then I grew, and learned, and saw something of the world! I saw nature – I saw fireflies and mountains and rattlesnakes and rivers and canyons and butterflies and big enormous trees and holy windin' roads. I lived in New York, and slept on roofs, and worked jobs, and went back and forth between penniless and alone and moneyed and befriended several times. I lived in Charlottesville, San Diego, Colorado, Tombstone. I bought cars and drove cross-country. I pushed the hedonistic lifestyle to my extreme – and then I hit rock bottom, in terms of everything (ie, money, work, friendship, mental/emotional health, hope, happiness, security, future, etc) and that sent me into the world of hitch-hiking. From there, over tens of thousands of miles, backwards and forwards across America and through Mexico, I discovered something wonderful in life, a perfection, and myself. I saw beauty unimaginable, in nature and in people, and witnessed miracles of provision, found a trust, a magic, an 'always being taken care of'. It was incredible. It was the best thing I ever did. Losing two thousand dollars in an envelope was what forced me into it; talk about a blessing in disguise! Eventually I found something else: a happiness; a higher purpose; a God. And love.

Eight

Between January 1st 1999 and sometime in the summer of 2002 I lived a pretty intensely spiritual life. During my time in Mexico and the west of America I had met some fairly enlightened souls, and some genuine spiritual teachers, and had my mind blown over and over again. I learned the truth of what it means to say "the universe provides"; I had a few mystical experiences; I discovered I had the gift of healing hands, got into Tai-chi, and yoga, and meditation. I did vision quests (one of 6 days, one of twenty eight) and lived like a sadhu, wondering penniless from coast to coast seeking the next enlightenment, the next high, drifting with a purpose to wherever my heart, my intuition, the signs would take me. I got higher and higher, went deeper and deeper into the mystery and the magic, till I saw God everywhere, in everything, and not seeing It became almost as impossible as seeing It would have been to my previous, atheistic self. I lived in this bubble of grace, so high that nothing could bring me down, spaced out on bliss, without a care in the world for food or money or shelter or the morrow. It was the most amazing time of my life – amazing, but mad. Eventually I came down – I was brought down – after a fairly disastrous and traumatising relationship in Paris. I came home, floated around for a bit, and then I went to university.

Nine

I remember that day distinctly, walking down the High Street in Canterbury just after my interview, after they had accepted me, and suddenly, for the first time in years, I didn't feel absolutely and totally different from everyone around me – I wasn't a visitor, passing through, I was one of them. I think I quite liked that: it was refreshing, relaxing; it made a change. I slotted in – kind of – and struggled through university (not in the work) fighting my desires to be out there, my needs to always be moving, my difficulties with staying in one place for more than three days, three weeks, three months. I overcame that and then I overcame my avoidance of others, of conflict, of going beyond the short and sweet travellers' relationships by living in a big house full of noisy students and actually indulging in arguments and ups and downs and the joys and challenges of communal living. I got into a relationship, and I discovered something about writing. I had a short story published. I switched my degree. I graduated with a 2:1 in English and American Literature and Creative Writing last June, aged 30. I then worked as a teacher for a bit, but quit. It wasn't for me – it wasn't where I wanted to be in ten, twenty, thirty years' time. I left Canterbury; I moved home. This is where I am now.

Ten

There are certain things in life we can think of as the cornerstones – but I'm not sure I can remember what they are. Money would be one – and perhaps sex/love/our relationships with others. Work, too – that's one of them, for sure – and then our relationship with God/our emotions/our minds/ourselves. I'm not sure what else there would be…perhaps home, perhaps entertainment, hobbies, distractions and interests, etc. Expression, creativity, and family – you know, things that you need, things that are eternal, across all cultures and eras – not like shopping, or getting drunk, or doing your hair in a certain style, those things aren't eternal – and then, I guess, neither is money, 'cos that's just a representation of time, of work, used to trade for other things – so I guess we can scratch that one and stick with work. But anyway, you know what I mean. Work, love, home, expression, higher power, mental/emotional well-being/growth – the basics…

Eleven

I lived with my girlfriend for about two and a half years, and we were together for about a year and a half before that. It was good, I guess, in that we had lots of fun, plenty of harmony, always having a cuddle before one of us left the house, always having a cuddle when the other one returned from the day at work, long nights and mornings talking, hugging, snuggling and [ahem] in our bed. Jokes and walks and meals and arguments and discoveries and learnings – you know, the usual deal. Maybe not as exciting as Hollywood, as flash in the pan romances – but probably better than we gave ourselves credit for. Open communication is not to be sniffed at. Nor love and understanding. Mother Meera says harmony's the number one thing in a relationship and I'm wont to believe her. In any case, it lasted, and then it ended: unhappiness in our personal lives, a desire for change, a moving in slightly different directions, some misunderstandings and a feeling that perhaps there was something better out there. I moved to Yorkshire, she moved to ****; I started sleeping with an ex-lover, she started going out lots. I thought that maybe ex-lover was the one for me; I realised she wasn't. I feel older now, more sure: even two weeks ago I agonised about how one could choose their partner, how it was ever possible; now I feel I know something more about it. It's the way you feel, I guess, the way you look at them, or can hold them, or want to be with them, beyond sex and lust and the always-there physical attraction. It's thinking, "could I stand in front of the priest and the altar with this person and look them in the eyes and say 'I do'?" It's wondering about the shape of their belly as it grows with your seed inside it and how it would feel to wrap your arms around it and love. If you can do that, then I guess it means something – and if you can't, then I guess it means something as well. But relationships are confusing – maybe the hardest thing of all.

Twelve

Which makes me think, why bother? And I'm not sure I have the answer to that one – especially when I consider all the things I want to do, in travel, in writing, in being wild and financially insecure and freight-train riding and random, job-quitting, plane ticket-buying and just generally free. Can the two combine? Or does a man like me need something that allows that freedom? Why is it the only things that seem to make me happy are so random and ridiculous and maddeningly mad and free? And why, if that's the case, do I live a life that includes so few of them? Because I can't combine them? Because I have to be doing one or the other? Staying put and working the old 9-5 and doing nothing else or ditching it all and hitting the road and roaming penniless and wild climbing trees and hugging strangers and building mad rafts to float down dangerous dirty rivers? Man, those are the things I love – and some people (I'm thinking my new latest heroes: comedians, artists, etc) can do them (or their equivalents) – but me…aagh, now I'm thinking there's something wrong with me, 'cos I'm realising there's nothing holding me back except myself and, perhaps, my own inabilities, blind-spots, lack of upbringing, etc. Oh, and a strange obligation to just stay and work, stick where I am, live a normal life when what I love is elsewhere. Except I have the time to be elsewhere as well, and I just don't do it. Laziness. Lack of inspiration. Boredom with the world, and the people in it. This country, this town – everything but me. Ha! But, but…but the things I want: to write a book; to record my songs; to jump in my car and drive away from it all; to fly to New Zealand; to have no possessions; to climb the mountain in the rain like I did in Montana, in only a checked shirt and jeans and to feel it lashing on my face and the life pulsing through me and to be out there alone in it all knowing there are bears and only that moment and how fantastic it all could be. I should have been an explorer; a drifter; a beatnik; a tramp – anything but what I am now, Mr TV-watching, computer-fixated, bored at work-slash-home, in the shopping-loving society he lives in, always thinking, there's got to be something better than this. And that, I suppose, is expression taken care of…

Thirteen

Oh God! Once I knew you so well, you walked with me everywhere, I saw you all the time, you filled my head, my heart, my days, my experience. You cured the sick through my hands; you provided for me for months on end, in the most wonderful ways, filling me always with joy, in the darkness of our meditations, in the thrill and ecstasies of our encounters with nature; in the ever-new adventure of what-lay-around-the-corner, always some new surprise, some new height to take me to, some washing away of all that I had thought I had known and to replace it with something even better – and where are you now? I know, I know, you're hardly gonna come knocking when I make such little effort – but truth is, God, I don't know where to start – beyond giving away everything I have and casting myself loose once more into the world. How can I combine it with work and living and girlfriend and maybe even children one day? I just don't see how I can. But I miss you, oh Lord, I really do. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and that's what makes it even more painful, because now everything I try to bring me that joy just pales in comparison, can only provide it for a fraction of time and then it's gone, replaced by dissatisfaction, a pining for you. But I pine, and I cry, and I say my prayers, and I chant, and I find you nowhere no more – 'cept sometimes, in that tingling, in those little miracles of healing that you do, in the provision, and in the light; okay, yeah, sometimes – but not enough, oh Lord, not enough. Nothing compares – and that makes me want to weep. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? And how can I put it right? Why do I work (because Mother Meera 'told' me to) when perhaps I would be better served out there, living the life, learning and growing and being wild and free and in love, with You? Or are you going to rescue me and make it all worthwhile, make it all make sense? I live in hope. I want you back. I want to bathe in that light and next time I want to make more of it, so that it will never leave me. It's the best thing, it really is – better than any drug or football team or cup of tea or sex – I swear, It is.

Fourteen

Money. Ha! Money's funny. I was happiest when I didn't have any; now I've about four grand in the bank (and another one and a half in my car) and it doesn't mean a thing. When I was penniless I flew all around the world, and never wanted for nothing, and had the most incredible experiences; now I've money, I fly nowhere, and want for plenty, what a bitter irony! I mean, not that I'm complaining, but – oh, the happiness of sleeping under my found grey blanket in that cold November Paris doorway, a genuine smile of joy as I shivered the night through with barely a penny in my pocket! The trips across America and to Europe and Mexico bought for me when a wandering moneyless sadhu, provided for always and in possession of everything I needed, which was next to nothing. Oh, it makes me sad to think of it! Oh, I'm a man lost and harking back to the past! Oh, I just bloody can't help it! I wanted to do this life review to help move me on somewhat – but I always get back to the same thing: missing my carefree wandering life when I had not the burden of possessions and responsibilities and jobs and just wanting God, and light, and magic, and realisation and – is it just the thought of being old and still penniless and wandering that stops me? Or is it something else? A shame, the dirt, the being outcast, the being different? Oh, how I'd long to be different – and to truly not care!

Fifteen

I'd have to scroll up to see what else there was; I'm slightly mad sometimes; it's twenty to four and my mouth's all coated in cough candy twists and Ziggy and Brian are still going on, man, those guys never sleep! Well I don't feel better after writing all that; it's so abstract again, as usual; I don't take very good care of myself these days; I don't give myself time to think; I think I'm destroying my brain. Isn't that where we started? Can you really bare to read this? Doesn't it just make you feel as mad as I must be? (No, I know I'm not really mad, that I just use that word 'cos I like it, but, relatively speaking, I'm in a pretty good space, mental/emotional-wise). But – don't you just wish I'd write normally and actually stick to the "this is what I did" kind of stuff? Something you could pin your hat on, you saucy old fox of a horse, you! I've got arms like an old Staffordshire pony, all floppy and gray like a saucer of donkey's little germaline. It makes me think and smile a little when I go like this; it gives me giggles and props to squirt juicy little melons in your general direction and paste a couple of drawings here what I did earlier in a telegraph pole/face soup manner, if you know what I mean. Nonsense is making me smile now; you can't take the man out of flan – but you can take a plane to Japan. Mick's mog make's Maggy's moo mink mack muck. I like cheese; it's a grottie's favourite barnacle. Goodnigh-eeeet!

Walkin' on sunshine...

I really want to be on Big Brother I'm definitely gonna apply next year I had a dream about it this week that I was on there and it was really long and then when I woke up I was quite disappointed (even though it wasn't the real big brother house, it was my nan's old bungalow from about fifteen years back) but it made me even more determined to go on there and I'm DEFINITELY gonna apply for it, even though it's stupid and people hate it (and I hate it sometimes) hey, you gotta do what you wanna do, right? And maybe I won't get on – but I will – and definitely that I won't win – and probably that I'll go totally nuts – but I'm going on and that's that.
    X came up this weekend; obviously I can't say too much about that – or anything really – but it was good and nice and – yeah, that's all I can say about that. Also I've applied for a job in Glastonbury, managing the Oxfam shop there, and I hope I get it – and, if it's the right thing, then I will get it. X lives quite close to there and it's just gorgeous and beautiful and special and – who knows? That's one for the future. I like applying for jobs; it's a win-win thing: you get it, cool, you don't get it, also cool, because it wasn't meant to be and you don't even have to think about it, just know it wasn't the door for you, some other one will be appearing shortly – or not (ie, the path that you're currently on is the right one, you just can't see it yet, only when you look back will you realise, oh yeah, now that all makes perfect sense). And I'll tell you another dream I had this week: I dreamed I had an accidental baby – you know, getting someone pregnant because of some fling and, wow, your whole life changes because of time of the month, or lack of contraception, or just leaving it that split second too long before pulling out and – man, that's gotta be my worst fear, the accidental baby, the baby with the woman who's not the one for you, 'cos then your whole life's gone/changed irrevocably and there's no going back from that, it's a biggy – and so easily avoidable, and so absolutely final – except in my dream the baby was only the size of a fingernail and cute though it was, I lost it (like a contact lens in a pond) and then there was this feeling of relief because then I could get back on track and I wasn't tied to this thing that wasn't meant to have happened but did happen because I hadn't been quite careful enough. And I'm sure that means something – but obviously I can't talk about it here.
    You're enjoying this, I guess; that's good, I'm glad for you; I'm playing The Cockpit in Leeds on Wednesday I hope that goes well. I probably think it won't but then I always do, visions of having to tell people to sh and making snide comments my anger and frustration getting the better of me so hopefully pleasantly surprised. Better think of some songs – or maybe just my instrumental improvised lullabies that are always the best things I play but can never bring myself to do on stage but how lovely it is to be able to relax people and even put them to sleep with fingers and tunes and nylon strings and gentle wave of sound lip-lapping over toes and thighs, putting you in slippers and letting you slide down into the seat like that lady I met randomly at the train station and for twenty minutes I just strummed sat down beside her and then after she said how relaxed she was (like they always do) and how she could've fallen asleep (like they always do) and I guess that really is the best thing I have, more so than words and tunes and whatever trying to play a song but just being spontaneous and letting that feeling flow – but probably I won't do it. Unless the audience are really bad, in which case I won't care and then I'll be free to make whatever bloody racket I fancy – which might be lots of fun! (The people at The Grove, by the way, in Leeds, are a stunning crowd, very attentive and appreciative and, man, definitely the nearest thing I've had to a standing ovation in there, they just love it – but then everyone does love the "girlfriend's nice" song – except the girlfriend, that is :-)
    I wonder, does that last bracket – the smiley's smile – count as a last bracket, or should there be another one after it? Obviously there should be – but then aesthetics and all that…)
    I scored lots of goals at football this week; my team won 14-4 and I like to think it was my old head that inspired those young legs to play with a bit more nous, their eager beavers so often so keen on shunning defence and passing and things for the doubtful glory of taking on their man and shooting from afar. It's nice to see how old heads triumph so easily over the speed and skill of youth, it really is no match. We do everything in slow motion 'cos we live in The Matrix and nothing ruffles these feathers, the illusion has no hold, we're tired but we're able also, to go on, to survive. You know what I mean; you were there also, in the beginning – unless you've forgotten, that is…
    I also played way too much Risk one day this week – and I'd been doing so well the last two months! It makes me feel like dying, makes me want to quit this life and as though there's nothing worth living for; it's worse than death because at least in death something happens, there's some movement – even in sleep, or in rest, there's some movement, and motion is all, as I've said before, long ago, still holds true – but in Risk, in computer shenanigans, there is very little motion, very little movement, no room for emotional growth or learning or revelation (other than this one, which is revealed enough times already) and I think, what if that is all you do, from age 12, do you just stay 12 forever, 'cos there's nothing there. It's my drug, I suppose – my thing to take me from the boredom and frustration of this world – of this civilisation/society/situation, I should say – of myself – because the planet is nice, it's just 'the world', if you know what I mean – thing is, though, even though I don't drink or do drugs, it seems like in that there's at least the possibility of movement and motion and revelation – so maybe what I'm doing is worse. That really sucks; lower than Pete Doherty. Wow.
    But speaking of the planet…Madonna; Live Earth; Phil Collins; Ha! What a load of nonsense! What a silly, silly thing! As if a pop concert – a pop concert that has God-knows-what environmental impact (all that trash, all that fuel, all that electricity, etc) – is gonna do anything to stop climate change and all that. Raising awareness? Man, that's the biggest joke I know: raising awareness my arse! It just seems like an excuse for not doing anything – "oh yeah, huh, we're raising awareness about this problem, we're telling people what's going on" (in a Chris Martin voice) "so that, well, so that something can be done." Something can be done my arse – the only thing that's gonna be done is more awareness raised – and I guess that can feel like something bu…oh hell, just leave that to students please, not in the grown-up world, surely no-one can believe that stuff: yeah, right, Madonna sang a few songs, she's such an ambassador, that's really gonna help as she swans off in her helicopter/limo and forgets all about it: sing/sing along/clap your hands in the air/like you just don't care/'cos you just don't care…
    Planet Schmanet! (Janet) Use less petrol? Use more petrol! Using less petrol will only postpone the day when it runs out – and the day, therefore, when electric powered hover-cars/chip shop methane grease takes its place. I mean, it's gotta go some point, so why not now? I wanna see the end! I wanna see some change! Use it up, man, get your SUVs and leave that engine running and – burn, baby, burn! (Disco Inferno) Get it done with – you know what I mean. Likewise, oh what a laugh all this lightbulb and turn your tellies off and why not ride a bike and all that – when Canadians are busy destroying an area of what was pristine nature beauty probably the size of Wales in trucks as big as houses to dig out oil and polluting all the rivers and, that's okay – but you my boy, don't you dare leave your teevee on stand-by now – and make sure you buy an energy efficient lightbulb, and don't drive, and how about some more tax on plane travel 'cos that'll save the planet (except it won't, 'cos we can all afford to fly these days) and then is it true that mining the stuff they put in catalytic converters totally destroyed some country-sized area of Siberia too? And that loads of our recycling ends up in dumps anyway, after maybe being shipped to some other country? I think it might be. It's a big joke, eh? Like the boy who pulled the wool over the emperor's clothes' eyes. Hey, as long as we feel like we're doing something (like pots and pans for the war effort) then that's all that matters, right? No, fool! Burn more petrol! Buy a bigger car! Take more holidays! And only cycle/turn the teevee off/buy organic 'cos it's cheaper or better for you, no other reason. Save the planet my arse! Save your self – planet goes on forever, and so do you – not worth worrying about really (apart from the smell) (and the noise) (and I'm not talking about Madonna there really).
    Roger Federer won Wimbledon; a stunning match, quality-wise – though not up to the emotional standard of the Ivanisevic-Rafter final in 2001 – but then could it ever be, that was something else, definitely the greatest sporting event I've ever seen and I really can't think of anything else like that in the world, makes me cry every single time I've seen it (and I've seen it probably like twenty times now) so…what was I saying? Oh yes, I haven't barely cooked a single thing in like five months; I really ought to sort that out. Probably ending a relationship has thrown me through a loop, some sort of mild depression; there's not much in the world that means anything to me and – I think I've said that before; I think I've maybe said enough for tonight. I should say, though, that there are many things I love – that I love dearly – and I love loving them too. Those things make me smile and make my eyes come alive and give me glowing red hot energy right here in my heart strings. Try a little experiment for me: point to yourself. Now, where did your finger go to? To your heart, right? Isn't that strange! Not to your head, or to your stomach, or to your leg, but to your heart – the place where those lovely spiritual yoga guru enlightened types always tell you your true self is. Try it again; say "this is me" and point to your heart/chest – and feel how that feels. Now point to your head and say "this is me" – and feel how that feels; now point to your stomach – you can't do it. You say "this is me" but really you're thinking "no it's not, it's my head" or "no it's not, it's my stomach, my leg, my face" – but yet when you point to your chest there's no conflict, no argument – why is that? Is that you? And if so, what is you? What is the me that this is? Who is the thing that the head, the leg, the stomach belongs to, that resides there in that chest, away from the brain, away from the so-called centre of personality. This is me; I'm here – but what am I doing there? Who knows? Answers on a postcard please!

With love,
Rory

Q.

Some questions Rory would like to know the answers to:

1. If men and women have such inherently different styles of communication and expression, then why, instead of trying to translate one another's words, don't we just not bother? I mean, if a woman wants to talk about her problems, and she gets frustrated when the man tries to fix it, why doesn't she just go and talk with other women and leave the poor guy alone, rather than expect him to perform some miracles of translation and be something he is not (e.g., all empathetic and sharing)? And vice versa?

2. Has there ever been a professional football player who was a goth in his youth? Can goths even play football?

On second thoughts...(no explanation necessary)

So we had another month's worth of rain on Monday, and things got seriously flooded around these parts. Sheffield was looking like a cross between New Orleans and Venice on the TV – cars getting washed away and people 'having to be rescued' from offices and factories – and even Wakefield got a bit of it. The river was about fifteen feet higher than normal, and just down the road from us a load of streets got flooded out and living rooms and carpets and rose bushes were all under water. Me and Arthur went down there about 10.30 at night and it was still all fire engines and rubber dinghies, and crowds sloshing about in the street, in the dirty brown water. I've never seen a flood before – but I've always wanted to. It was a real eye-opener, a real thing to see. It kind of felt like something, all those people milling around and you could just talk to anyone and take pictures of people's gardens, stuff you couldn't normally do. I mean, you've got to feel for them that's lost their TVs and sofas – but at the same time it was quite exciting. And old Arthur was like in his third heaven's finger or something…
    "It's like Arma-fucking-geddon," he was saying, shaking his hands like two gigantic pepper pots, "I'm fucking loving this, me." His eyes were on fire, I swear, reflecting those flashing lights and beaming out into the belaked gardens. "Long may it continue. This is what we need," he said, "the whole country underwater, something to shake things up. I love the sirens everywhere. I love all the traffic jams and people wandering all over the place, thinking how to get home, thinking where they're gonna stay, thinking everything they've worked for's gone down the pan, drowned in shitty brown water, one day's rain and all life's changed. Imagine if it rained for a week! Imagine forty days and forty nights. Imagine that!" His big mad hands were raising up now; he was preaching to the dark night sky and getting too worked up for my liking. There were old men in soggy wet slippers saying how they'd lived there sixty years and never seen anything like it; they were looking at him shiftily and slyly fingering their pockets. I didn't want to find out what they'd got in there; probably a pipe or something. Nobody needs that.
    "Let's go 'round the other side," I said, "check out Warwick Road, that's supposed to be the worst." I took his arm and started back through the crowd: an Asian woman in a pushchair; a bloke in sandals and shorts walking through the water towards a fire engine; some kids clambering up a wall to stare at a lady watching TV in her front room, her feet in wellies, ducks swimming 'round her ankles; some lady was being pulled towards her house in a dinghy, putting on a brave face, making grand declarations over and over, "I don't care, I'm not bothered, I just want to see it," etcetera, etcetera. Arthur was blind to it all. He was lost in his own soliloquy.
    "I hope it rains tomorrow," he said. "Oh water, keep on rising! Ruin us all with thy blessed wet goodness and save us from our so-called civilised society, our love of stuff, our blessed boring lives! I want it, man," he said, "I really do. You might think I'm being dramatic but I'd love to see that kind of thing: death and destruction, yeah! I've lived my whole life being promised this kind of thing and, now I ain't got so many years to go, I'm not kidding I'm gonna be feeling cheated if we don't get some of that. Polar ice caps? Global warming? Freaky weather and t'big old Earth tipping on its axis? Bring it on! I want wars, I want viruses – I want something that's gonna proper shake this world and change things beyond credit cards and buying stuff and finding your nice cosy house and that's it. Super Volcano? Hell yeah! You know there's one under Yellowstone National Park, right, in America? And it could go off any minute, and wipe out America, and kill half the planet – or it could go off in another ten thousand years; well I'm praying it's now; I'm praying it's before the end of my lifetime. Why not? I wanna see something, man. I wanna see some change. I'm bored of all this; I'd love for it to come. I feel like it's what's been promised to me…"
    We were up by the graveyard now – the graveyard I'd slept in a few years ago when my mum wasn't having me in the house. I liked it there. I liked it in this other graveyard I slept in too, in Norfolk. I've been thinking lately I was actually much happier when I was sleeping like that, living wild and free, away from a house, four walls, a computer, a television, car…maybe I should be getting back to that, back to being out there. I'm thinking I'm not really cut out for this; that I should be an explorer or something, permanently. Arthur would understand. Arthur probably knows exactly how I feel.
    "The problem is," he said, "it'll probably never happen. I mean, we've had the millennium – and that turned out to be a big fat zero – and ever since old Jesus walked the Earth and that mad bloke wrote the Revelation Christians have been getting up in arms every hundred years or so thinking something was gonna happen, this 'second coming', this 'apocalypse', this 'rapture' – all from some crazy-headed misreading of some crazy-headed gibberish-writing. Even the goddamned New Agers have got their apocalypse, with the Mayan Calendar and Twenty-Twelve and the Earth flipping upside down on its axis and everybody transmuting themselves onto their lightbodies. Man, can you believe I used to be into that shit! I tell you, there's gonna be a lot of disappointed New Agers come Twenty-Thirteen!" He laughs. "I wish it would come, though, I really do – it wouldn't bother me, I'd just be like, 'oh yeah, the change – right, head for the hills, and keep your heads, and lets see if we can survive – and thank God we'll never have to be ruled by our bank balances again.'" We were up by Jackson's now; he was shaking his head and smiling into the puddles. His hands had softened a little; they were kinder now and swung loosely by his sides, like two dripping puppy's ears. I told him I had to get some chocolate.
    "Get a double," he said, "I'm in the mood for some chocolate too."
    Jackson's seemed brighter than normal; it seemed like the flood was in the air there too. Had people been panic buying? Were the shelves of tins a little more threadbare than usual? Had anyone been in that day talking of anything other than the enormous puddle full of people and uniforms not a hundred metres away? It was an event, that was for sure.
    I picked up a newspaper and then decided – or realised – that there was nothing good in there. Same old shit – man, I could pick up a newspaper from any day over about the past ten years and I really couldn't have told you which was now and which was then. Somebody got blown up in the middle-east; some politician was making a fuck-up; somebody got caught with their hands in naughty forbidden pants; somebody was getting transferred and somebody wasn't liking it; money was going up or down and things were about to change for the better or the worse but never actually did. Chuck in a few specials every now and then, like some disaster, or some warning of disaster to come – bird flu? anthrax? world war three? (Arthur's right; they never do come) – and there's you news, today, yesterday, ten years ago and every tomorrow for years and decades to come, and none of it has ever made a blind bit of difference to my life, or to the life of anybody I have ever known, and I really can't see that it ever will. Can it really just be a big massive industry in filling space? In giving us something to talk about? That doesn't seem right – and yet the evidence is there as plain as a buttock on a chinaman's forehead.
    I bought my chocolate and left. I didn't say anything to the girls on the till there about rain or water or flooding or weather; I didn't want to be that predictable. I wanted to pretend it was normal, I guess, like I didn't care, as though I was refusing to make any drama out of the whole thing. If that makes any sense.
    "What do you think about the suffering, though?" I said, "all the houses and that destroyed. I mean, that's gotta suck for these people, right?" We were getting back into the crowds at the other end of the pond/lake/puddle; I couldn't really tell who was bereaved residents and who was gawkers like Arthur and I.
    "S'just stuff," he said, "we shouldn't be so attached. Carpets? Sofas? Livelihoods? Jobs? Just wait until the fabric of their society is ripped away from them! Then what will they care for carpets and toasters?"
    "But people have died, Arthur."
    "Yeah," he said, "and look at that – four people have died and look how that happened: three of them fell in rivers and one got his foot stuck trying to unblock a drain. Ridiculous. All totally avoidable. I mean, how stupid must we be? I mean, how easy is it to not fall into a river?" He laughed again; I laughed too. He had a point. "I love it the way we die in such stupid ways: trying to unblock drains; reaching for the last bit of Twix behind the sofa; rescuing dogs from up trees. Remember that story from out the Middle-East somewhere, about those people that were trying to rescue a chicken from a well, and the first one died, and loads more died trying to rescue him – and the chicken walked out of there alive! Ridiculous!" He shook his head, a bit of a guffaw. "And you know the kicker?" he said, "You know that guy who got stuck in the drain? Well, I saw his picture on telly, on the news – and there he was, sitting there in the bath! I mean, what a joke! I mean, in this day and age, when everyone has like a million pictures taken of themselves, is that really the best his family could find? Or were they like, 'take this one, it was his favourite, he woulda wanted that splashed all over the news and in the papers if anything happened to him'?" He shook his head again, wiped a bit of drool from the side of his mouth. He always drooled when he got excited about things. I handed him a bit of chocolate and took a bite myself.
    "That's pretty harsh Arthur," I said, "the bloke's got a family, you know."
    "I know," he said, "but listen – it's only a matter of time. Tragedy plus time always equals comedy – and for some of us that time equation is different."
    "An hour?" I said.
    "I move quick," he said, "stuff flows through me, time don't mean nothing. It takes time to process anything, but I process fast." He licked his lips and stuck out his hand for another bit of chocolate. "I got cleaned out," he said, "I'm like a refurbished bowel, my pipes are shiny clean and new, nothing sticks to me, it just flows right on through."
    "And you're a poet, Arthur," I said.
    "I am," he said, "I'm a poet and I didn't have an awareness of that fact."
    A fire engine swept past us and then with it some gentle shrieks of ladies and small children as the brown shit wave it generated rushed towards us. Ankles were wet and overrun; bodies dashed backwards in futile hops; some stumbled and almost fell – and me and Arthur, in a flash, had smoothly floated up the wall behind us and watched that killer wave lap against the bricks a foot beneath our feet. I was not wet and neither was he. There was something beautiful in all of that.

The other big thing that happened this week – apart from a little change of Prime Minister (like that's gonna make any difference to anything – unless he goes all Pol Pot or Mao Zedong and starts executing, oh, I dunno, all Lancastrians over five foot five) – was the introduction of the new no-smoking laws in public places. Now that is something to get excited about! For me, actually, it feels like one of the biggest things ever – and a real positive and huge change for the country. I mean, I abhor smoking – or, at least, being forced to partake in it whether I want to or not, and that's why I've barely been in a pub in the last nine years or so, since I got myself cleaned out and actually redeveloped some sort of sensitivity to my body and my environment. Since then, it's been pretty much impossible to be around cigarette smoke without feeling sick, without feeling like I couldn't breath, without getting a headache, and so I've avoided it like the plaque outside Arthur's old chip shop that reads "Sir John Betjeman lived here, 1921-1933" that instantly blinds anyone that steps within forty-four feet of it. Some people don't like that I've done that, I suppose, and feel like I'm being one of these wimpy, judgemental non-smokers who just want to put a downer on things – but it's nowhere near as complex as that, it's just a simple matter of self-preservation. I don't like stinking up my hair and clothes; I don't like having to struggle for breath, or feel like I'm eating the contents of an ashtray, or wake up the next day coughing like I might as well have been smoking the night before, for how shit I feel; I don't like any of it. And, of course, you try and explain this to smokers and I guess they just can't hear it – not necessarily because they're unable, but because they really can't relate. How can it be that the thing they suck into their lungs twenty times a day without ill effect can be so violently noxious to another practically identical member of their species in minute doses at a distance of fifty feet? Hey, nobody else seems to mind. And the thing is, before I'd sorted myself out – and after I'd first killed my sensitivities through abuse and neglect and ignorance (what some people erroneously call "tolerance") – I suppose I didn't mind either; I mean, I'd sat in pubs, sat next to smokers and, sure I'd had streaming eyes and needed fresh air every now and then, but not so much that it properly grabbed my attention. There was this one thing, though…
    (Some background first: I've never smoked – never even tried a cigarette – though I have inhaled the smoke from pot via various contraptions (between the ages of 21 and 23); I started going in pubs when I was about 14, to watch my dad play (they were real smoky affairs; I definitely remember having to step outside quite frequently in those first few years); about 16 I went to pubs, sat with smokers, drank lots of beer, and never thought twice about it, until I was just shy of 23; and then, at age 23, I wound up down in Mexico, quit drinking, got into healthy eating and bodily awareness, did lots of meditation and tai-chi and spiritual practice, kinda got in touch with myself, didn't hang around any smokers or smoky places, and that's pretty much how it's been for the last eight years.)
    So…back to this one thing: you see, there was this little period about five years ago when I was living in Dublin and wanting to get into playing music, and me and my chum started doing open mics and things at various pubs. I didn't particularly like hanging out in them, but I wanted to play and that was that, so I put up with it, even if I felt pretty crappy the next day sometimes. At the time, too, Dublin was like the smokiest place in the world, pubs so thick with the fog of it you couldn't see from one wall to the other (and God only knows how they've managed with the smoking ban over there – but from all accounts they have, so good luck to them.) Anyway, after a while of this I noticed this hard, pea-sized spherical lump under/inside my nipple – and it kind of occurred to me that it was something to do with smoking…
    The thing was, you see – and I never twigged this at the time – back when I was 14 and first doing the pub thing with my dad, the exact same thing had happened, and I remember very vividly rolling this thing around and squeezing it and wondering what the hell it was – and watching this dirty grey liquid drip out of my nipple from my squeezes and the whole thing was kind of spooky, to be honest. It preoccupied me for some time and then I guess I forgot about it – until those Dublin days when my pea-sized friend reappeared. Suddenly, it all made sense.
    It was smoking – it had to be. It had occurred to me only twice in my life, and both times were when I had gone into smoking environments in a relatively pure state: once from being my pubescent angel unexposed teen, and once from being my newly reborn clean-as youth. As soon as I stopped going to the open mics, the lump disappeared. Even that dirty thin grey stuff kinda looked like what you'd imagine smoke juice to look like. I wondered if my body had been turning all the smoke stuff I'd been taking in into those peas; I wondered if perhaps maybe that wasn't the very first little build-up of something that becomes cancer – or, at least, something along the way. I wondered too if that's what was going on in my body from second-hand exposure then what must it be like for full-blown smokers – and no wonder they stop listening to themselves, cut themselves off from their bodies, ignore all the coughs and splutters and headaches and sick feelings and build-ups and lung-cakes and tar. I guess that's what I had done too, in my teenage years – and what we all do with alcohol, until we build up our 'tolerance' (and how funny that we label an inability to feel our "tolerance"!) Naturally, of course, I haven't had any problems with these nipple-dwelling peas since I stopped going to smoky pubs – and for that I can only be grateful; it's nice to be able to put two decades-separated twos together and stumble on something cool and intriguing and exciting and all on my own. Sounds a bit weird, I know, but really makes sense to me – even if the doctors couldn't give a monkeys about my 'discovery'!

And now it's four thirty in the ay-em and I guess that's far too late for a chap like me to be sat up typing and crunching cereal and kinda watching/having on Big Brother in the corner of my eye when I've got work in the morning – oh! it is the morning! – and I haven't really been sleeping so good anyway. But how nice to write! And to get a few things off my chest! Or, rather, to just let the fingers flow and take me where they will and…and now there's no reason to say any more, just struggling to find an end. Where to end? How about here.

Sunday

Because I'm failing miserably at Life, I don't think I can be arsed to write today – even though I said I would every Sunday, and even though I'm writing now, thus fulfilling my requirements, thus negating the first part of this sentence. Cock.