Sunday write/right Sunday

Well it's Sunday night and I'm here for the Sunday write, getting back on track, back in my rendezvous and routine; I feel quite emotional – perhaps a little weepy, a little raw – but that's in a good way, in the way that I like to feel, like to cry; it's been a good week, spanning London and Leeds, bicycle adventures and bicycle mishaps (I had my wheels stolen in the early hours of this morning), friends and homelessnesses, and abject gloom as well as totally inexplicable happiness and joy. I've also socialised quite a bit, and that seems to have taught me this and that (always learning more around people, it seems, than sitting on my own – as though that should be a surprise!) Anyway…

I began in London, with wicked and inspirational, super-social Countdown chum, Mikey, with lots of chats and pedal-pumping through the dark, exciting streets of London (Camden to Whitechapel and back again, and back again) and that was the tip of the cherry on the icing of my cake of a weekend that had encompassed lovely chats with lovely lasses and pyjamas and pillow fights and mad songs and funky dances and silly giggles and two – count 'em – beautiful vegetarian fry-ups and – wahey! – a big hats off and thanks very much indeed kindly ma'am to Lil and Esther and Abi and Charlie and the aforementioned SuperMikey and all the others for the magnificent fun of cream crackers and bowling and sock-stuffed foosball and way-too-much McDonald's (not me) and lots of giggles and keeping people awake till seven a.m. and doing more socialising – and chatting more – and feeling younger than I have in years. Marvellous. Thank you. Great.

And then it was back to Leeds, you see, and within four hours of leaving Mikey and pedalling quickly through going nowhere London morning traffic to catch my King's Cross train I was back in the land of old ladies and shifty-eyed Seacroft junky shoplifters and the paperwork was all mixed up and – lo! a room full of other people's castaways and – well, okay, it's not that bad, I love it really, but something had happened to me down London way, and suddenly Leeds was…I guess it was a bit of a comedown really, like coming down off drugs, and suddenly all that buzz of London was gone – the buzz that I had found so unappealing on first arriving – and it was back to life and normality and even though I was digging the space in Leeds, the lack of CO2 (in comparison) and traffic and people and crowd, I was digging the memories of those things more. Lord knows – at least X will testify to this – I've been no lover of London these past ten years or so, always going wrong when I go there, heaving heavy bags around on stationery, fume-infested buses or sitting morose underground or getting lost or being skint or watching my bags go to Italy without me – but this was just marvellous (the bike helped a lot in that) and then, like I say, I missed it, and actually wished I was there – and thought about actually being there, on a more permanent/regular basis – which is something I never thought I'd hear myself say, feel myself feel. But I did; I saw a light, somehow, and – okay, okay, one summer does not a swallow make and all that (yeah, I know that's the wrong way 'round) but – well, that's how I felt. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, being back in Yorkshire was dull, and I was depressed, and down, and uninspired by any of it – my being here, my job – and thinking things/places different, wanting away, wanting change. As I always do.

It wasn't helped, I guess, by my self-inflicted/enforced homelessness – which I'm still puzzled about today but, hey ho, that's the way it goes and – I guess I'd better tell you about that first. So. What had happened was this: I'd looked at places in Leeds – half-heartedly, sure – and kind of found one but then got beaten to it by someone else and was just so sick of Wakefield I thought, man, I've got to get out of here, I've got [secret location] I could stay at – which I quite like really (really like sometimes) but which isn't ideal in the sense that it's not, well, a habitation, and it could cost me my livelihood by living there (it's not a graveyard) – and, anyway, probably enforcing this homelessness on myself will be a good motivator towards better things, because, for sure, it was convenience and accumulated lazinesses that were keeping me in Wakefield so – ten minutes before my King's Cross train (southbound) I finished packing my meagre possessions (down to just over a suitcase full! yay!) and then sent my mum a long text saying I was moving out (did I ever tell you it was my mum's house? although she doesn't live there – I'm not one of those!) and then thought, well I'll worry (read: think/deal) about all this when I get back from London. I was quite excited by it; I still am. I like where I'm staying – apart from, maybe, one or two things – and I'm tickled right royally pink by the idea of it all, so random, so silly, so sort of spontaneous and ridiculous and free (in comparison to a great many other things that I'm aware of) and, above all, it seems like all that's available to me. There's a strange thing going on inside me; that is, I just can't be bothered. That's weird to me – I mean, I'm 31, I'm sort of normal, I'm employed and I've got stuff and I'm not broke and there's no reason for it – and yet I've made myself of no fixed abode and I just don't seem to have any inclination to do anything about it – that's the weird thing. Not the fact that I've done this thing – no, I thought this would be a way of fixing things – but that I don't seem to care, don't have any desire in my bones to change anything about it and – well, I think that must mean something. I trust my feelings, I trust my desires, my urges to make things happen at the right place, the right time – they've always worked for me in the past – so to see and feel them so absent…well, it must mean that something's going on, that there's a reason for it. A change of scenery? An unexpected twist? Or just a slight hiatus, a little break while the cogs squeal and turn and work themselves into place? I don't know; we'll see, I guess. And that explains that.

So I was all bummed out and missing those London times, those London people – which is a sad way to finish off such a great weekend, if you think about it – and then I started to realise a few things – one being that, probably, I was missing people, and had been for some time, and it was only by having been sort of social interaction that I realised that, that it touched me there – in my heart-box – and then showed me something about what I liked, what I wanted and what I hadn't been getting. I mean, that's a pretty messy and vague sentence, but what I'm trying to say is suddenly I saw that, wow, it's been a long time since I really did a social sort of thing – probably like since I lived in Charlottesville, some ten years ago (and I was such a different boy then!) although I'd really have to say my communal times in Mexico and Colorado at John Milton's place – or, even, at Dhamma Dipa, at the Vipassana meditation centre – should be counted, too, given that I was seeing and hanging out with the same people on a daily basis, for say a two-month stretch at a time, even though it wasn't 'normal' life – ie, it was spiritual/commune life – and wasn't really for that long. Point being, it seems like a long time, and I realised just how much I've kept myself to myself, and become a bit of a recluse, and sort of missed out on many things by not associating with people, by preferring my own (read: Pacman's) company. I don't know how it happened; I guess I just never found people I could get along with once I came back to England, outside of Dhamma Dipa (it all seemed to be booze, or TV, or boring stuff) and I kind of gave up. Then I was in a relationship for four years, and I was happy with that for company, save maybe a four or five hours with my one good friend in Canterbury, Matt, for a bit of squash and some blokey giggles. That was fun, and I was happy with that – but no it occurs to me that I wasn't really living my life to the full, wasn't getting out of it all that I could have – and also, especially, that I sort of missed something of those post-uni, first forays into the working world years. The very years my London friends are now occupying. At twenty-six I was surrounded by eighteen year-olds, at university and, understandably, I ran a mile. I was a caravan-dweller, a campfire man in the woods with his Sunday soup – I didn't fit in. And sure, I made some friends but…I guess what I'm saying is there's an aspect of life that I didn't live – perhaps missed out on – and that I bemoan that now – or, at least, am interested to see if I could still live it. I'm too young for thirty-something stuff – I'm not grown-up or responsible or normal in hardly any way – and it's not too late for me to taste that. I don't want to get down on myself – and I suppose it might sound like that – but the thing is that, bemoaning one's past, surely, is just a sign to do something about one's future. Is it too late? (For this, for a million other things?) No! Well then, to do something about it (I'm wondering if that's a message to anyone). I've been given, I feel, a chance to relive several phases of my life in recent years – my teenage years, in Dereham; my late-teens, my post-adolescent years, in Canterbury – and now maybe I'd like to see what it's like to be twenty-five, twenty-six, in a sort of normal, social, having friends way, instead of running naked through mud and living in a cold and icy bathless little box way, juggling barefoot in a high street for money and acquiring new clothes piled damp in the street like I did. Ha!

I guess what I'm saying – in a really rather odd way, even for me – is that company is good, and that man is a social creature, and that you can really learn so much more by interacting with others – and feel so much better, feel far less crazy – than you can sitting on your own. I think I used to think it was all about the power of the individual – that one had to be strong in oneself, and not need anyone else, and that the best way to do this was to not be with other people – and while there's some truth in this – I'm sure we all know people who go too far the other way, who can't bare to be alone for even the shortest of times, who need other people waytoo much – I'm thinking now it's better to be with others – far better – and that an hour alone each day is plenty enough, that if life is for learning and growing and having fun – and I really can't see what else it could be about – then time spent with others, lived as the social animal man obviously is, really is just natural and necessary and the way to go. That sounds pathetic typing that – pathetically obvious, considering people don't really seem to have a problem being with people – but I guess it's sort of a revelation to me. LOLAM! (Laughing out loud at myself.) In any case, I'd like more of that – to be a part of what's going on – to hunt in a pack – to be the social creature – to feel wanted and liked and loved.

(I realised too that I still find that hard – this whole thought about feeling wanted, and liked, and loved. It hurts me somehow when I think about it; I feel a pain, a rawness, a something inside that is crying, a child, a weeping and unsure soul. It's strange, that – and it's also maybe an explanation of why I've gone off on my own so much, so I didn't have to face it. It's strange because I'm generally a very confident person, and don't really doubt myself too much – and yet I still find it so hard to believe that I'm liked. Being liked brings up those feelings, and that's why I avoid those situations (being hated is easier; you don't have to face them). I guess there's an unhealed part of me somewhere deep within – mother, is this you? :-) – and it's a place I can't quite put my finger on; too sore, I guess. How wonderful it would be to sort that out though!)

And anyway…

By Friday, something changed: it all started when I spooked my lovely Brazilian volunteer, Angela, by hiding under a table and creeping slowly into sight, giving her a gorgeous little shriek and jump and really putting a smile on my face. I don't know why but that cheered my up considerably! :-) And then after that Joan, one of our elderly ladies – she's about seventy-seven; a darling, sprightly, always laughing soul – came in and the thing with her was that she was kind of the victim of some of that crime I've sort of talked about recently in that we have this cage out the back of our shop that we keep the bin in and some vandals – we'll call them 'binners'; they come 'round at night and go through all the charity shop bins and take things we've thrown away, for God knows what pitiful purpose, that makes my heart bleed too – some vandals had broken the door off and she'd gone out there one day, unbeknowing, and the broken door had fallen on her and she'd had to go to hospital – and though she was kind of all right, about a week later she'd gone down with sciatica-type pains and hadn't been able to come in and that was really bugging her because, honest to God, she's such a lively and get out there kind of woman and, man, I love these old ladies, they're so full of life and wanting to do stuff and it's like a circle that completes itself because the fact that they do stuff gives them life and they just keep on going and our oldest one's like eighty-seven and she loves a laugh and my poor old gran who just watched teevee and didn't get out there and do things just sort of shrivelled away and if that isn't a lesson to us all then I don't know what is but, anyway – poor old Joan had taken a bit of a beating, and that had made me pretty mad with these binners – and made me go on my little crime-fighting spree, cunningly catching shoplifters on film and pursuing them down the street and taking their picture and then waiting here till three a.m. one night to catch the binners in action and have them police-ified and hopefully dissuaded – and not only that but I also felt responsible because I could probably have done a better job of securing the broken door (it was padlocked on, but she removed the padblock – like I say – unbeknowing) and that was kind of breaking my heart that this gorgeous old lady was suffering and maybe I could have done something to prevent it, had I known, benefit of hindsight, etcetera – well, you know what I mean (time to get to the point?)

Joan comes in on Friday – just to say hello; her leg's worse than ever; she can't do any work – and I make a point of saying to her about my healing kind of trying to get it across and saying that I'd like to do that for her (backed up by coin; always hesitant in situations like that) and this time she went for it and I was really hoping she would get something good. So we cleared the back of the shop, and asked the others to go in front, and we sat down and did our thing, and Joan – God bless her! (as she would say) – within seconds of me putting my otherwise cold hands on her pain spot was saying how she could feel heat and things moving and a certain confidence that gave me and the feeling came and every now and then she'd be talking about how relaxed and good she felt, and how she could feel the pain easing – and how great it was to see the happiness and joy in her eyes when we'd done! And how triply lovely to watch her stand up and walk, flat on her foot and ninety-percent sprightly again when but ten minutes before she'd barely been able to put her toes on the ground, couldn't rest her heel on the ground, was hobbling and in such discomfort! I mean, I've seen things like that before, but I'm always amazed when it happens, even though it seems so natural, just to take that step back and think, wow, that really works! I mean, she was like a thousand percent better – as though time, the healing process had been sped up by weeks – and I just felt so glad to have been of help, and to see the improvement in her, and to see that she saw it too and understood and was loving it as much as I was. I mean, Hallelujah! Praise God! And all that other stuff besides. I mean, thank You God, for Your wonders; I don't know how You do it but I'm sure glad you do! And good old Joan, Lord bless her! Good old Joan…

I've been wanting to do the healing thing for quite some time; it pains me so much that it hasn't been a part of my life – because it's so good when it is – and that fact has sort of caused me to start mentioning it more, when I haven't really done in recent years, for one reason or another. I mean, when I first 'got it', back in ninety-nine, I used to think that whenever I met someone who told me something was wrong with them, that was sort of a sign for me to mention that I had that, and then to take it from there. Back in the real world, I guess, I just sort of forgot about it – and, as well – especially working with old ladies, God bless 'em – there's barely an hour goes by without someone telling you what's wrong with them – and when you get things like that in such frequency it's just too difficult to see them as signs, you just become blasé I guess. And, more so, I suppose I just haven't been living a very spiritual life the last four or five years, since I went to uni and gave up sadhuism, and I kind of let it slide, didn't think to tell anyone about it – I mean, every now and then I did, and it was always good when it happened but, on the whole, no, I kept it to myself – not wanting to be weird, not wanting to be different, I guess – and not wanting to make the effort of going through with it all, the stories, the questions, and the possible challenges and misunderstandings and sort of tricky times that don't always flow so easily when you're not doing it professionally, in a proper place, in the proper way, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I've been wanting to do it more, and I've been telling more people, and I'm sort of determined to see it happen – while trying to make sure I don't do it an ego, pushy sort of way – and that can be kind of tricky but then with situations like with Joan it all seems worthwhile and somehow part of the divine plan and good – and I get hopeful that maybe things can move and 'take off' and that it can become a somewhat regular part of my life from there.

Joan's healing put me in a right happy place, it did, and I think I've stayed there ever since. My post-London blues were washed away (was it just a matter of readjusting? Just the onset of winter, that first chilly days' depression that comes with the realisation of cold?) and now I'm on another high. Friday passed in a blissful, in-the-shop haze; Friday evening was spent with Angela and her boyfriend chatting and eating copious curry and big-belly-bloated fun and giggles; Saturday, likewise, another full and happy day in the shop – I mean, I might as well live here at this rate! – and then off in the evening to be brought to the edge of despairful tears by 'Atonement' (that's a joyful and glorious despair, because it's movie-induced) and then more up-till-the-early-hours socialising with another lovely new chum with even more giggles and fun conversation and lots and lots and lots of sex talk and then somewhere in sleepy-eyed that we discovered my bicycle wheels had been stolen and I was going nowhere. First thoughts: "sons of bitches!" (smiling); "aw, doesn't my bike look sad without its wheels?" (sad); "oh well, I guess I've done worse things to other people" (brave face; recognition; reality). I've said before I think all my nice things are going to be taken from me – probably until I've paid for my bad karma, at least. I mean, I know I don't do bad things anymore, and haven't done for years, but I guess I've still got a debt to pay – so fourth thought would probably be: "oh well, that's another one I can chalk off the list – I wonder how many to go?" (convincing). That's just the way it is, eh; you've got to accept these things – worse things happen at sea (ships get their rudders stolen); I could count the number of times I've heard that on the palm of one hand (titter titter)…

I walked this morning up from Hyde Park (right by where I spent my happy teenage years in my dad's first guitar shop, in his house, in the pub, and with my friend Tim a little later, on Chestnut Avenue, on Britain's most burgled street) and up the hill then carrying my sad and wheelless bike over my shoulder thinking how glorious it all was, a beautiful and warmer morning, the trafficless streets; the first stirrings of non-rowdy and purposeful students; the gorgeousness of Leeds around and across the university and then down into town behind the Town Hall and The Headrow and how beautiful the old market building is and nearly all the upper-stories of the tall old shops in town. On a morning like that Leeds is a stunning place; it feels more like home than anywhere to me; I forget that I used to live here; I shouldn't be surprised. I chatted with a few people, and bought a beggar a cup of tea, and gave some info to a train station employee about where to buy a nice bike for under two hundred quid (his having been stolen) – and even found one pound fifty in drunken student change. On a morning like this, nursing wounded and pitiful half-bike over shoulder, joyously tromping, doing surreal tasks and digging the buildings and loving the sunny Sunday waking world everything was right with the place; without those loss of wheels I wouldn't have seen those sights; without those loss of wheels I wouldn't have had that walk, or found those coins, or enjoyed those few extra hours of sillinesses and giggles…without those loss of wheels I wouldn't be here, where I am today, strangely amused and happinesses and content. It's glorious how right life is sometimes; it makes my heart want to crack open and swallow it all in one giant THANK YOU; I don't know why I feel this way – but I do. People like me; if I only I could feel and understand and accept that they do. One day soon, perhaps, and that's something I shall look forward to. This waterfall of words has come to an end; I thank you; goodnight.

My weekend just gone

Rory went to London

And had fun

And hung with lovely, cool, friendly people

And felt alive and young again

He also moved out of his house

And is now writing this from a top secret location

Which is not deep inside a mountain

Or on a Pacific island

But may one day be

And back in Leeds

Three hours after leaving King's Cross

He was chasing thieves

And untangling messes of Oxfam paperwork

And in his homeless state

And his uncertainty

He wasn't as happy as he was in London

And that's something he never thought he'd hear himself say

But it's true

Yorkshire seems dull

His lack of friends

His lack of interests

All the things he hoped he'd find when he moved here

Nothing seems to have come to pass

His job...

His manager is pissing him off!

He longs again to quit and leave

Or be fired

Like he always does

He's in danger, perhaps

Of drifting off into space again

Like he always does

He doesn't know what to do

Even that relationship that seemed to be putting itself back together

The one with X

Seems not to appeal anymore

Like he's forgotten about it

Like something's changed

During that weekend away

(Maybe it was the CO2)

And Y, the one he hurt

Wrote him a long letter about all the things he did wrong

And all the things that are wrong with him

And though it seems kind of unjustified and misplaced

Like she's missed the mark

Like she doesn't really know him

He's not really bothered to defend himself

Everyone's entitled to their opinion

Everyone's got their own trip to live

And him...what does he want?

To be in that place that feels right

To be with those people that feel right

Where one can be himself

Where life is happening

Where things occur

One is too young to die just yet

(By death one means 'not live')

So voluntarily homeless and confused once more

It's time to hang out in the uncertainty

To resist the urge to rush back to what's safe, the known

To wait...

For the thing that will occur, that will reward

That leap of faith that says

"I want more - I demand satisfaction!"

To life

And when life says, "do you?"

And when you have shown you do, through sufferance

The thing will come.

I am me, I feel

This world, my oyster

And I'm sorry, guys

Because I know you're reading this

And I'm guessing you'd like more

Something different

But...I wasn't able.

I'm smiling now; I want to say "thank you"

I feel some love

I'm done

By-eeeeee! :-)

Crap (me, I'm crap)

It's official; I got infomania! Or, rather, it would be official if it had been all officialised by someone official, I suppose – but, fact is, if this were an Infomaniacs Anonymous meeting I'd be the first up there with my, "Hi, I'm Rory, and I'm a computerholic." I mean, man alive, I'm addicted to this thing, I know I am, and I know I gotta stop 'cos it's affecting me now and not in a good way, and not just in my legs and wrists and elbows, but in my brain. That's not good. But, hey, I beat the booze, and drugs, and caffeine, and chocolate, and meat; I can beat this. I may not be able to control my impulses and urges but I can control how I act on them. And, okay, this is different – because giving up those other things was easy, they only brought good stuff, whereas giving up this…well, that's gonna bring me a whole lotta time,and means I'll have to find something to do with it – but, listen, I'm Rory Motherfucking Miller and there ain't nuthin' I can't master...

Anwering some questions for a magazine...

1. Can you explain more about where you hitch-hiked and why you choose to travel in this way?

Charlottesville, Virginia to Tombstone, Arizona (approx 3000 miles; 02/98-03/98)

Tombstone to Glacier National Park, Montana, via the Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Rocky Mountain National Park, South Dakota and Yellowstone, Wyoming (2000 miles; 06/98-08/98)

Vancouver, BC to Todos Santos, Baja California, down the Pacific coast (2500 miles; 11/98-12/98)

Todos Santos to Charlottesville, Virginia, across mainland Mexico (2500; 04/98)

Albuequerque, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, Yosemite, Tucson, San Diego and then to Todos Santos, Mexico (2500; 10/99-12/99)

Todos Santos to Charlottesville (2500; 01/00)

Also various other trips around the States, Mexico and Canada, as well as France, Germany, Ireland and the UK

I chose to hitch-hike for a few reasons: mainly, initially, out of a combination of necessity (ie, lack of funds) and adventure (ie, I had already driven across America twice, and it felt like hitch-hiking was a 'step up'; driving's pretty cool but it's often dull and lonely, as well as expensive, whereas hitch-hiking across the country seemed like it would be a much bigger adventure, a real step into the unknown). Also, the only other alternative in America is taking the Greyhound, which I had done before, and which I found infinitely less appealing than spending four hours by the side of the road in winter. Greyhound sucks.

As I got into hitch-hiking, though, my reasons changed – it was like I had discovered a whole new world, a whole way of life. I met the most amazing people, who showed me the most amazing kindnesses; who restored my faith in mankind and opened up all sorts of possibilities for me. I was taken to places I would never have otherwise heard of, let alone visited. I began to see a sort of 'perfection' in life, in the way that the rides matched my needs, took me to exactly where I needed to be, at exactly the right time. Things sort of seemed to make sense, add up. And I was free – free to abandon my hitching for the day and walk off into the hills or the desert; free to hike across wildernesses and emerge out the other side and carry on; free from all the burdens of a car. Free from the need for money, too – I probably spent an average of about £2 a day on the road, because there was nothing to spend it on (I had my home on my back, my transport in my legs and thumb). So those are some of the reasons that I continued 'choosing' hitch-hiking.

2. How do you go about catching a lift from people?

Mostly you just go and stand by the side of the road and stick your thumb out. It helps to choose a good spot, so if I was heading West, I'd walk to the western edge of town, near to where the highway begins, and find a place where people can pull over. Other times, though, I have hitched from within the middle of a city (in Brighton, and Paris) and that has worked too. Or been in a spot where it seemed impossible to get picked up – where cars were going 70mph for instance – but I've always got picked up, even there. When I first started hitching I'd always have a sign – always carried a marker pen and found bits of cardboard on which to write my destination – but I stopped doing that after a few years, because it didn't seem necessary, didn't seem to matter. And a sign can limit you, because a big part of hitch-hiking is letting go and letting the road decide where to take you. So I haven't used a sign in years, and it doesn't seem to have made a difference. Probably the last sign I made just said "Somewhere Cool" anyway!

3. What is the best and worst things about hitch hiking?

The best thing about hitch-hiking is the freedom, the adventure, and the leap into the glorious unknown, as well as the meeting people. Sure, there're the other benefits, like how cheap it is, and how much more comfortable and less mind-numbingly dull it is compared to the coach – and, in Britain, how much quicker it can be when compared with public transport, but, for me, my abiding memories are the times when I've been picked up by the most wonderful people, been invited home and offered food and sleep and been shown around town, even for several days; when I've thought I wanted to go one place – even, several times, wanting to go back to England – and when I've ended up in a completely different place, and found something wonderful (in '98, for instance, I was travelling through California and preparing myself to go home the next week, when hitch-hiking randomly led me to bump into someone I had met four months earlier and 2000 miles distant – actually, through hitch-hiking as well! – who then persuaded me to go to Mexico; another whole set of adventures began, and it was another year before I made it back to England – that kind of thing happened more than once); the freedom of it, being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, some remote Arizona desert outpost, some crossroads miles and miles from the nearest sign of life, and the sound of the crunch of your feet on the desert floor, the slamming of the car door, and then the long, slow fade of the noise of your departing ride as he disappears into the distance – and then it's just you, looking around for twenty miles in every direction into empty, rocky wasteland and the silence of the desert is enormous; that's pretty cool. A dream come true. The level of freedom you have is incredible, everything you need on your back, and all choices available to you, whether to walk, to thumb it, to camp out somewhere, to rest, to eat – totally alone, and yet company and movement only a stuck-out thumb away. The kindness of countless others – not only in picking me up, but in their manner, their way of life – rubbed off on me immeasurably, and changed me for the better, and changed me for good. Simply put, hitching across America was the best thing I ever did.

The worst things are – well, to be honest, the worst things are all really challenges to be overcome, so it's hard to think of them as the worst things. I mean, you could say that standing for hours by the side of the road is kinda crappy – but you could also say it was an opportunity to learn patience, to learn to maintain positivity and optimism in ostensibly negative circumstances; at least, that's what I got from it; at least, that's what it taught me. You could say that meeting scary people is bad – but you could also say that it's a lesson in trust – because trust plays such a big part in all this, and realising that there is some unseen power at work, and that it can be trusted is probably one of the biggest things I got from this – so really having to deal with these people is another challenge, another lesson. Although I must say there were a few that were a bit annoying, mostly a handful of gay guys who would weave these ridiculous, obvious stories that always ended with them wanting to get it on with you. In all, though – and despite what I imagine to be public opinion – even in America the number of crazies/unpleasant rides was probably only about 0.01%. Really, the only bad memories I had of this were in the very beginning – this was winter in Tennessee, sub-zero temperatures and rain and snow – when I was still wondering why the hell I was doing this, as opposed to living in a comfortable house with a nice girlfriend (that's what I'd given up), when I hadn't discovered/stumbled on the magic and the joys of it or conquered my challenges, and at the very end, when really I'd done everything I needed to do with hitch-hiking, and things were becoming a bit repetitive (lesson learned already) and when I was perhaps getting a bit old for standing by the side of the road when I had money for a train and when there just wasn't really very much left for me to find there. In a nutshell, the worst things are only the worst things if you make them that way – otherwise, pretty much, they're all challenges that will actually make you a better person. Apart from the rain! :-)

4. What benefits do you gain from travelling in this way rather than more obvious (and perhaps easier) forms of transport?

Probably already outlined above, I think. Even now, though, I should add that when I've done it recently, here in England, I've found it much quicker, much more comfortable, much more interesting – you still meet great people, and have great conversations (hitch-hiking conversations go pretty deep, pretty fast, for some reason) – and obviously much, much cheaper (ie, it's free) than taking public transport. I recently did Yorkshire to Norfolk in four hours; Norfolk to Tewkesbury in eight; all the while meeting really nice and interesting people, the time flying compared with the drudgery and discomfort of the coach, the expense of the rail (okay, trains are pretty nice – but still nowhere near as much fun as I had on those recent trips).

5. We can't ignore the safety issue of hitch hiking? What advice would you give to others worried about their safety?

Honestly? Don't worry about it. The big thing about hitching, for me, is learning and experiencing the bigger picture, the underlying magic in life, in synchronicity, in the grand design and your own personal destiny. Hitching should be a voyage of discovery, a real learning experience – and learning trust and going beyond your fears is a real big part of that. You also learn that there's a real truth in the law of "you attract what you are" – so that the kind of people that pick you up somehow mirror you (for example, when I gave up drinking and drugs, I suddenly stopped being picked up by people who offered me drink and drugs, even though they had been totally prevalent and frequent before). You have to learn how to trust – or you have to do it until you do. If your number's up, your number's up, simple as that; everything leads on from what has come before. Obviously, if you get a really bad feeling about someone then you don't have to get in a car with them – you've got to learn to trust your feelings – and if you're a pretty weak and docile person, you can probably expect to be taken advantage of – you've got to be strong, got to know and do what's best for you, got to have it within you to stand up for yourself. Hitch-hiking will act as a magnet, because you're so totally open to life, to the universe, and you will attract not only what you yourself are, but also your fears, your lessons, and things that will pry your shortcomings. It's a challenge, and if you're not up to a challenge, and to a real learning experience then don't do it. People will also say it's different for girls – and maybe it is – but at the same time I've met plenty of girls who have done this and who haven't had any problems, because they weren't 'victims'. I never had any problems, and I've done over 20,000 miles, over several years, over probably several thousand rides. The worst thing that ever happened to me was some guy asking me if I had a big foreskin – that's not bad, really – that's, let's be honest, far less than you'd expect in everyday life, in your own city. As far as I can see – judging by my own experience – hitch-hiking across the US is far safer than driving a car, going to a pub or nightclub, getting drunk, or walking through an English town late at night. Hitch-hiking probably gets a bad rap, just has this stigma about it, and I guess that's why it's dying, why people are afraid – both to do it, and to pick people up – and yet, as far as I can see, it's totally unjustified. Why worry? What is there to worry about?

6. Can you pick out one anecdote that sticks in your memory about your hitch hiking across the States?

One? Sheesh, that's hard! I could probably pick out one hundred. Lemme see…

[Thinks for five minutes]

Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll attach a little thing I wrote for a creative writing class - [August the First] – that'll save me time trying to narrow things down, and, also, it's already there. Hope that suits you! And I hope this helps. Let me know if you want any clarification or want to ask any further questions – I love answering questions about my life!

Thanks, and I hope all is well,
Rory

Loveletter

So it seems like ever since I been sharing my relationship stuff here things have been progressing, internally, and becoming somehow more free and clearer: thoughts of Y have fallen away, and X has come so far back into the picture it's hard to feel like we're not together anymore, like the last seven months were just part of some dream. And, more so, she sent me a letter this week saying that she feels bad about things, about taking me for granted and being selfish and not recognising all the good things I used to do. That felt like progress. And good, in oh-so-many ways. Anyway, I wrote back to her, and I thought that's what I'd put here today, as my regular Sunday blog, as my words-on-a-screen that seem to have an effect on life and make things happen. I wonder what they'll make happen today...

Hi X, sorry I didn't manage to get in touch with you before you left [for Canada], I ended up missing my last train home and had to stay over with A (who's a volunteer at Oxfam; lives with her boyfriend not too far from the shop) and then my phone had no charge. It did come on later and I sent you a text explaining but I think the phone died as it was going through. D'oh! Anyway, didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.

So, I hope you're having a good trip out CA way (I met some Canadians yesterday, from Oshawa; they talked so funny! lol) and I can't remember when the wedding is but if it's already happened then I hope you had a good time and if it hasn't then I hope it's not being too stressy and also you're not worried too much about your speech. I'm sure it must be fun to go home for you and see everybody, I know how much you like that. And thanks for getting the strings! I'm excited!

Things have been pretty nice here lately (I think); went out Thursday with S and A from Oxfam (the Californian and the Brazilian) and we went early-bird bowling in Wakefield (had five games; was fun) and then chilled in the backyard for quite a while, which was really lovely (don't think I've ever spent any time there, beyond a minute or two; but really nice to be with company - I like hanging with people!) and then we went to Leeds to meet up with another volunteer, M, to go and have Chinese (A wanted cheap, S wanted ghetto; we found both; it was pretty nasty but plentiful!) and then we were going to go and watch a movie at A's but when we got out the station there was karaoke on (we'd been talking about it earlier) and so we just stayed there all night. It was pretty good fun, even though I didn't sing (it was a bit of a meat-head place). S was doing lots of funny dancing and I thought she had awesome moves. She wanted me to sing 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash and do the backup dancing for it with actions but I said maybe I'd learn it and do it next time. I think I can do a pretty decent Johnny Cash on occasion.
Also I looked at a place last night in Leeds, round where my dad used to live, not too far from Headingley. It was pretty cool. Not sure if I should take it or not, though.
Anyway, to your letter...

The first thing I wanted to say was, thank you - and to let you know how amazing and honoured I felt by the things you said, about the good things about me and our relationship, and how you maybe hadn't seen them before or appreciated them. I never expected to be reading something like that - or expected the effect it would have on me. It was like something came back alive, like I could really feel something again that I hadn't for a while. It was like being recognised, and appreciated, knowing that you saw those things and were telling me. I guess it felt very healing, and touching, and made me very hopeful for a future for us, restored a connection. Maybe not having those things seen and said has had some sort of effect on me, killed something inside, I don't know. But it really touched me to read your words and to think that maybe something had changed for you, some realisation had occurred. And it made me sad to think that it hadn't been there before, to think of the effect it might have had on me, and our relationship. Reading your words definitely restored something in me, made me feel more drawn to you again...

I feel sad that you're going on dates with other people. I realised something reading your letter about why I feel like I never went on dates and why there's a difference between using that word and then just hanging out with someone of the opposite sex, because hanging out is just hanging out, but going on dates is checking someone out to see if you want to be physical or romantic with them and I didn't like hearing about you doing that, I'm not sure if I can handle that. I mean, if we're not together, then that's fine - but that's why I find it confusing, because we've talked so much about being together, and been physical with each other, so it feels really strange that you're checking out other people too with a view to being physical or romantic with them. I find that confusing. I find it confusing that you would say you want to have babies with me and grow old with me, but then in your actions be checking out other people. I find it confusing too that you say you want those things but then you say you're "not sure if/how they will happen" - as though it's normal to want things but really you just want them and sort of leave it up to fate. I just think if you want something then you have to do something to get it, not sort of see if it happens and if it doesn't then that's okay too. I guess it makes me think that maybe you don't really want those things if you're not doing anything to pursue them and actually doing the opposite. I guess, also, that I've realised that I'd really like to feel wanted - because I always felt that I did all the wanting, the pursuing before - and a big part of me just doesn't feel like it can want, can give, until I feel that. I guess I just don't want to feel "not wanted" any more. The silly thing is, though, another big part of me believes that you're not the type of person to go round pursuing or wanting - eg, flying across oceans and turning up on doorsteps like I've done with you - and that therefore it's never gonna happen. I do know I want to feel wanted by you, though.

It seems like you're flip-flopping in your thoughts on career again! :-) I guess it must have a real strong hold on you, this conditioning, these ideas about working. I guess a lot of people have that - at least it seems like they do when I talk with them. And you're right, I don't really have that, and it must be hard to understand. I suppose I feel sort of lucky to grow up to parents and in a place where it's pretty much impossible to have expectations of anyone, beyond the hope that they won't go to jail or become a total crackhead! But also, I suppose my plans for my future do exist, too, in that I feel that I can write a successful book - and more besides that one - and so I have some sort of feeling of security, or certainty in that, which takes away my worries for the future, for finances, and all the rest of it. I know that could all be pie in the sky, but yet...it's something I feel, some sort of reward (from God) for living the life I lived and for committing myself to telling it. I have a real belief in that and I feel one day the time will come when all that's borne out in actual, physical life. Of course, you'll want to see the proof in the pudding - but I just wanted to explain to you my feelings about that, about 'my career' - and not necessarily that I "don't want one", but that I have one already, and that it's unfolding in its own sweet time, building towards some happy and satisfying conclusion. I suppose it's funny that I should feel this way, but I do.

When I think about what could happen in the future with us I don't think too much about us living in different places right now, I think things like: Bath isn't very far away, and seeing each other every week or two would be pretty easy to achieve and probably quite nice; I think that maybe you'll get a job with Golder and we'll live together near Wetherby (there's a job opening up at the Oxfam shop there); I think that I'd still like to settle down in Canada one day, have some kids, try my best to be a good dad and partner; I think that I don't think there's anyone else in the world that I'd like to do this with, beyond some currently-unknown, never-met, never-heard-of stranger that may one day appear in my life but who never seems to and who I don't actually believe exists; I feel like the world of others is closed off to me now, they don't interest me, there's no-one out there; and I think that if you really want it to happen it will. I think also, for me, I'm too tired of wanting it to happen, too tired of chasing and asking and pleading with you - and like I said, now needing to feel wanted. There's a big sadness in me of not being wanted by you, and of not being recognised in the ways that you seem to have realised in your letter, and it's made me wary and weary, and afraid, like a child who's been hurt and needs to be held and healed and loved before he can come out of his shell again. If that makes any sense.

Regarding not going for the job in Glastonbury: it was a combination of coin, and circumstance and feeling that told me it wasn't right to pursue that. My car breaking down seemed like a sign to me - and though I did try to get there, in certain ways, I felt prevented somehow, and took that as another sign. Finally, seeing the shop, and feeling what it would have been like to move to Glastonbury, and then feeling what it was like to be back in my shop in Leeds, once I had found some renewed enthusiasm sort of showed me that it was the right thing to do, that I had seen the way in which life was trying to direct me correctly. You know me, I try to read the signs and be guided by them; I think it usually works out, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. But I'm glad I stayed up here; I think it's the right place for now.

I feel like I need to say something. I feel like I need to say something about the way you say you have confusion about what our relationship is, and what it will be in the future. I guess I find these things hard to relate to - because, isn't it up to the person that is in the relationship to define what it is, and what it will be? I feel like if you want it to be something, then you have the power to make it that something; that if we want something then it up to us to get it. I feel like asking you, "what do you want it to be?" and "what are you going to do to make it happen?"
I've thought a lot about where things went wrong and it seems like I can trace things back to certain places. Obviously, I can go back to you choosing Bath over us - but, before that - back to the cause of that - there was the way I was being about 'the Y situation', and my confusion there. I know I screwed up, and acted in ways that a wiser me wouldn't have done, getting carried away in my thoughts and thinkings about what might happen, in my dissatisfaction with the way things were with us, in thinking that perhaps we weren't right. I feel bad about that; I feel silly, as though I got carried away in something - in my thoughts - that weren't really real. Back beyond that, though, I trace a line to September, to your mum's visit and our arguments there about me not wanting to go to Glastonbury, about you saying that you needed someone who would do those things - and me therefore hearing, "I can't possibly be with someone who wouldn't do those things" - and me thinking, "well, either she's going to get over that or this is the end for us, because if that's what she needs then that's what she needs and there's not much I can do about that." Writing that, and thinking about it as I have, that seems like a really huge, crisis-type thing; it definitely felt like the end of something for me, and is perhaps where a lot of my hurt, a lot of my giving-up comes from (and, of course, it was all in the middle of probably the most stressful time in my life, what with all the teaching and everything). Before that, I can't see anything - I can't follow this line any further. Before that, all I remember that pertains to this story is when you were in Canada and me being on my own at home and though I was happy and enjoying life - the world cup, my nest in front of the telly, football and early nights and school being okay (although I was falling asleep about 8pm most evenings) - I really remember thinking, wow, my life would be nothing without you, there wouldn't be any reason to be here on this Earth, in this house, in this job, with this future - that I might as well not exist, that there was no purpose in doing anything. It made me feel very happy and grateful for you - and, therefore, incredibly sad and hurt when it was followed so suddenly with all that stuff with your mum. I know I didn't act in the best way - but the way you were on that, I guess it just felt like an end, an impasse for us, and I don't think I went much beyond it. Then with all the stresses of school - which I'm so glad I'm out of! so happy where I am, work-wise! - it was just all downhill from there. That's the line I have, the line of thinking, where I've gone in trying to trace what went wrong, the cause and effect. I'm sorry about the Y thing; I feel like a fool with that.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it at that - s'probably enough for you already! I would have liked to have written by hand - but then, honestly, I don't think I could write this much - or it would take me hours and hours to do (not much good with a pen). I guess I like typing a lot; s'one of my favourite things to do.

Right, well I'm going to send this and then hope you get it soon - and then maybe do some tidying up and preparing myself for getting out of this goddamned place sometime soon.

Hope you're having a great time out there!

Lots of love, and hugs (especially hugs),
Rory

Final instalment of DS:BB madness (before I got banned for ’pointless posts’ - tsk!)

Ziggy Appreciation Thread

Ziggy went way up in my estimation with his interview; I finally saw what he is - just a normal bloke, with hang-ups and insecurities and stuff. At first it was like, boy-bander, male-model, and that created an image that he should be something special - and when he showed himself to be kind of crappy and confused and lost it was like, what's with this guy? But the thing is, with the boy-band thing, well he couldn't sing or dance - so God only knows how that happened - and as for being a male model...I can't see that in a million years! Take those things away and what you've got is just a young guy trying to be something he's not - ie, perfect and together - and you're left with a pretty normal bloke, riddled with nueroses and insecurities, and full of politeness, charm, and an ambition to do the right thing, no matter how misguided at times. He definitely improved for me in that interview - he wasn't trying to be anything then, he was just showing us who he actually is (for the most part) with his vulnerabilities and all.

Nevermind, Zig, just try being a normal bloke and maybe you can find a bit of happiness by doing something good instead as chasing that celebrity malarkey.

Cheers!

This forum and its members

I hope some of you take on board what I say, but for most of you, it'll be a chance for you to hurl abuse, or, like you've done all summer, be complete tools.

God, love, get yourself a brush and sweep some immortal genuines from under the table! Your basil and formica twisties "don't impress me much"; they smell of effluent; they cream like Dolly's part on Eskimo Joe's Little Shlop of Horrorors. I think you need to take a long, short look in the mirror and go, "ooh, aren't I pretty, I've got four ears and a tusk and I don't look anything like Barry Manilow does since he choked on that giant truffle and his eyes swelled up to less than 3 times their natural size." I mean, don't you think that would make you feel better? Or, at least, it would give your wives and their seventeen blubbering children something to hang on to while they quizzed your lovely mummy on her whereabouts during the executions of Saddam Hussein and the seven squalid squids of Olde London Town, don'tcha think?

Tracey innocent

Squeegy board and black Fred's ruler have confiscated maitre d'olive when Simon Templar's uncle felt unwise and grimped. "There's the little bleeder!" squeaked Arthur's bran-stalk, "I'll cratch him!"

Did he? Blimey, no! He left him slipper and cramped a wee little orphan's toothbrush on a pole.

Quite!

D'you know....I was just thinking the same thing...........

Brian a virgin??

He bummed me once - does that count?

(Even though it was an accident...)

Gosh... are you ok?

I'm a man; I can take it.

Good as long as you are still in one piece!

Well I'm okay - but I'm definitely not in one piece. That's because I'm made out of lego.

You have to give Amy credit!

Sorry but I don't have to give Amy anything - I already gave her my address, phone number, two pairs of slippers and an almost full pint of milk (organic!) and what did I get in return? Nothing! She's ignored all my calls, sellotaped her letterbox shut and now I hear she's telling her friends that she wouldn't let me clean the leaves out of her gutters even if I was the tallest person in the village - which I am! (7'2")

To be honest, the only thing I want to give her now is a cactus-shaped tomato I've been hiding the last few years down the side of the toaster. It's got crumbs on it. They're all brown and smell of mouldy onions.

A question about grammar

WEhat about this sentence?

"Is am ninehrently lost or is inehrnetly lost man?"

Is the averb in the right place?

Am I the only one who can't understand this post?

When the sofa and I sat down the twelve housemates became levitating shrimp and called their mothers each and every day on those new-fangled cell phones which can speak themselves and have seven different types of ears built into them; this was on a Tuesday, the day before our Kevin's birthday, when his little known world-famous brother, Bartledunsqueak sent him a letter from Japan which read: "Dear Kevin dear, I am in Japan and sending you this latter letter from Japan where I am. Yours, loveletteringly, Bartledunsqueak." Well, as you can well understand, a tea cosey and furniture store ombudsman quacked when they heard this and shepherded themselves into a dove's oven and cried. "Boo-hoo," they said, "we aren't made for fancy biscuits like these, we're just cream cracker men, we can't handle the expense of it!" They wailed and wailed and then they were like, "Oh, I know, let's be happy now" - so they were. Anyway, when Kevin's magic elbow finally saved the day and bought everybody an enormous ice cream, big enough to block out the sun, the moon, and a number 14 bus, twelve tiny flowers opened and spewed their behemothic waves of plight upon the land. "This sofa is ours," they said, "it ain't big enough for the two of us." The residents of Kampuchia fled; they were ostriches too. "All these wheels will camp on darkness and swoon," Uncle Franklin J. Rumbush cooed from the silence of his own clay oven, "and when the big hand smiles on a manifold dung-donkey sprocket-based chimney worm I'll be there, cheering you on, likening your plimsoles to a well-worn toothbrush and going 'whoop whoop' like that Russian tennis player I once dreamed about but who never actually existed - or for that matter, appeared in my dream about her." The twins fell silent; they were squealing with delight. "We don't really understand you," they intoned in their noseless earballs, "but whoo-whoo's all right for an early morning basket-weaving conglomeration of saintly sinus markets." Goo! Make your bloody mind up!

I hereby nominate you for 'post-of-the-day' award. I am afraid all I can offer in way of an award though is a pink pencil with a lovely bit of bouncy rubber at the end.

Favourite One-Liner This Year

Ziggy to Jonty: If I lick your little bell will you whip me up a kipper and some chips?

Jonty: No.

Your fav thing about each person

Ziggy: eats snow and real handy with a plough
Carole: twelve funny
Liam: bent some spoons for me once when I was on holiday, and also ate my cat's litter tray
Amanda: can do really great joined up writing and also swam in the 1976 Montreal Olympics for Ireland
Carole: good at incubating and also following orders without actually knowing what they are, which is a real virtue in this day and age
Sam: working day and night for a cure to the ebola virus, invented wikipedia, smells really nice, like a big onion
Brian: sold his limbs to buy his mum a can of hairspray and then made do with two sticks for arms and an old lawnmower instead of legs, and never a word of complaint
Jonty: sweats little gold coins which he then gives to the poor and suffering of Gateshead, and sends all his used carrier bags to Willy Rushton's aging mother, so at least she has some company
Ziggy: makes little bow-ties for a colony of bats that live in his neighbours' shed, and never charges a penny
Carole: fed the five thousand with just a few loaves of bread and raised Zebedee from the dead
Amanda: likes cuckoos, and tells them bedtime stories every twenty-three minutes or so

Have I missed anyone?

Mad

Who am I mad at this week? Mainly, I think, three groups of people: the shoplifters that visit our lovely Oxfam shop; the vandals that visit our lovely Oxfam shop; and the fly-tippers that visit our lovely Oxfam shop. And why especially mad this week? Well, apart from the accumulation of incidents, which has now reached tipping point, I'm mainly mad because of the vandals that tore the hinges off our cage out back – the cage we had to have built to try and stop vandals breaking into our bin (if you can believe that) – which then lead to the cage door falling on one of our elderly volunteers and her having to go to hospital. Don't worry, though, she's okay. Still, it was a straw too far.
    It's hard to believe, I suppose, that people would stoop so low as to steal from a charity shop, on a repeated basis. It's even harder, I think, to understood why people go to such great lengths to break into our bins, when all we have in there is usually total garbage, broken plates and glass, used teabags, and the occasional cuddly toy. Yes, very difficult to comprehend. But it seems to be something of a fad in Cross Gates – at least, there are several groups of people who regularly come 'round the back of the charity shops on our street asking to look through the bin. God knows what they're hoping to find. And to them, fair enough – but to those who have repeatedly broken off our padlocks, and now torn the doors off our protective cages – and then thrown the bin on its side and left the carpark strewn with rubbish – to those people, all I can say is, I just don't understand.
    Now, of course, it's personal; they've hurt someone. Now, it's time for 'fightback'.
    I went in yesterday hoping to catch the fly-tippers who have left their 'donation' outside the backdoor on each of the last three Sundays, despite the sign there saying, "don't leave donations unless someone's here to collect them; the rain or thieves usually get here first." I mean, I guess they could argue that they're just trying to do good – but, really, when they're doing it in the face of that sign, they're not. What happens is this: they leave the bags and boxes, and then sometime before Monday morning when we arrive some binners and/or scroungers will come by, tear them open, take what they want and then leave what's left scattered about in the dirt, probably to get rained on; when we arrive we find that mess, feel disheartened, spend an hour or so tidying it up and then have to dump what's left straight in the bin, which costs us money to empty and quickly fills up. That's why we have a sign. And that's why the people who are leaving this stuff aren't doing us any favours. Also, given that the things I've found from them have price tickets on them reeking of 'car boot sale', I think I'm pretty safe in deducing that they're just using us as a dumping ground for the things they haven't got rid of. So yesterday I waited, ready to nab them, give them a talking to, take some pictures, maybe lock them in the carpark – but nothing arose. Oh well.
    Today, however! Today was a better day – today it was the turn of one of our lovely shoplifters, who I'd deduced was a regular Monday afternoon visitor. Now I don't normally work Mondays, but I'd kind of realised something fishy was going on and I'd narrowed it down to the afternoon shift – when, bless 'em, we have some of our less eagle-eyed old ladies on the till. And how did I know? Well, it's all about finding ripped off price tickets and empty coat-hangers hidden behind clothes, the same place, the same time, the last three or four weeks running. Anyway, here's what I did: I set up a camcorder we had donated on Saturday and hid him behind a cardboard cut-out of a donkey high up on a top shelf aimed at the men's clothing (where the discarded price tickets had been found) and waited. Every now and then I checked for evidence, and finding none I just kept filming; the morning was clear, and I rewound the tape and started over again. Nothing happened – and then, having another peak behind the men's clothes, I found two torn-off price tickets (for two ninety-nine each! Have they no shame!) and rushed in the back to check my camera; sure enough, there she was, a sneaky peak around, the empty hanger put back on the rail, ticket dropped down the back and item of clothing folded up and deposited into a bag under her arm – naughty lady! It was kind of fun watching her do it, and having captured it in such a way – I mean, I've never seen anything like it – and though she got away today, woe betide her if she comes back next Monday and tries it on again. I'll be there, camera'll be there, and now I've got more of a pinpoint on when she comes in, and know what she looks like, I'll be even more ready – and I don't envy her position when I get my hands on her.
    As for the vandals – well, they've come twice on a Tuesday, and I may just have a little something up my sleeve for them one of these days; a little overnight, a booby trap, and a whole lot of vengeance. Watch this space! But this particular O-shop manager has been pushed too far.

Who else am I mad at this week? Jobsworths and smokers, that's who. Train guards who insist on sending me to the ticket office to say, "I want to get on this train with my bike," instead of just letting me get on the train with my bike when I'm standing right there and the train's about to leave. Security blokes that insist on making me walk all the way around something when there's no good reason that I can see, and then getting into silly arguments about it (which is also my fault). Anybody that can't do what's obviously right because they're so stuck on doing what's been written on some stupid piece of paper, whether it makes sense or not; I can't get into the heads of those people, and it makes me so mad that they just won't listen and see what I'm trying to say. And then all the people that think it's okay to spark up on Leeds train station and pollute me with their stink; fair plays, most of them put it out when I politely ask them; some require a little persuading - like the lady I threatened to unleash my toxic farts on if she insisted on persisting. Next time I think I might just let rip - and show them what stink is all about.
    Who am I not mad at, though? My area manager, that's who; seems like we had a big clear-the-air last week and I haven't felt any resentment and anger towards him or my job since then; seems like I said everything I wanted to say, got it all off my chance, held back nothing for fear of 'going too far', losing my job, etc, and it was all rather good in the end. Good to express oneself, it is. Good to stand up for what you believe in, and to do what's obviously right, forgetting rank and authority, and other such imagined designations. At the end of the day, all humans is what we are, and that, I can dig.

Now Onniss, it seems, wants to hear the end of the Story of Y; I'm not sure where exactly I was with that, or what there is left to say – although I do have a sentence in my head, enough to begin with, and if I know my head at all I wouldn't be surprised if there'll be more to follow on from that sentence, once I've got it down into fingers and black 'n' whited on this screen here. Anyway, the sentence goes…so Y's not talking to me anymore, because of X coming up for a visit in the beginning of July; she got real mad; she smashed my BrainTeaser mug – and though she didn't say much, I could tell that was kind of it.

And?

And, you're right, there is more. The thing was, just before that – just a few days before that, back when we were still lovers and eating/cuddle buddies – I'd started thinking that maybe I would get back with X, and since X was coming for a visit, for a trip to Manchester and the theatre, I ought to say something to her. Also, I'd been thinking that if I did get back with X one thing we should do, rather than trying to be all enlightened and post-New Age about it (ie, maintaining friendships with our exes, having them visit, and visiting with them) we should just be more traditional and try and wipe our exes off the map, out of existence, and throw paddies whenever their names were mentioned or even the slightest whiff of them came around; I'd started thinking that maybe that would work better – hell, it seemed to work for others – because, for sure, this sort of 'adult' approach didn't really appear to have done us much good. And with that in mind, and thinking I might get back with X, it only seemed fair that I should tell Y that, in the event of our 'getting back together', I probably wouldn't be able to see or communicate with her anymore. She took that on board – she never said too much on an emotional level (which I kind of like, for the most part) – and then X came, and went – and, sure, we had some kisses and cuddles and the like during the weekend, and talked about the prospect of getting back together – and then two days later Y came round to see me.
    "What did you do this weekend?" she said, sitting in the back garden, sipping tea from my poor, doomed, soon to be smashed into multiple, beyond-glueability pieces.
    "X came," I said, "we went to Manchester, to the theatre, had a little drive around." For some reason I had this silly smile on my face; I'm not sure why. I was fighting, though, to suppress 'the giggles'. Those dreaded giggles. I love them, but sometimes, I tells ya, they can be most inopportune!
    She was quiet for a long time. She looked like there was some deep sort of underwater volcanoes going on somewhere down there. She's kind of an ice-lady in lots of ways, keeps it all underwraps, if you know what I mean.
    The quiet continued; I thought it best to just sit there and look at her and be ready to listen, or answer questions, or just provide some kind of support; in any case, I don't suppose I really knew what to say.
    Eventually, she looked back up at me.
    "Did anything happen?" she said.
    She continued looking at me, and I said, "kissing and cuddling, you know…" I swear, again, that damn grin wanting to break out! Me, struggling to hold it in! Not the right time or place for that – and why was he here anyway? I turned away and so did she; I thought probably this was giving me something; I know that's bad.
    She was quiet again for a really long time.
    Like, I mean, a really long time.
    And then, probably five minutes later, she stands up, says, "well I guess that's it, then," and sort of stares at me for a bit as though she'd trying to figure something out, trying to wrestle with some computation – and then: arm goes up in air, hovers there for a second, cup clenched and…crash! Down it comes, bouncing on the concrete, bits flying off into various plants, destroyed. She walks out and I think, "oh, my cup – I wonder if I can get another one?"

The cup, alas, was beyond repair; I picked up the bits, and put them in the bin, and felt kind of sad, kind of composing emails to the producer of the show to see if he had any left – he probably does; it got taken off air not long after I was on – and wandered sort of calm pondering it all. I felt that Y probably had some anger issues, wasn't so hot at expressing things, either keeping them bottled up or allowing them to gush out in non-beneficial ways. I wasn't sad for our relationship, though – even though that was probably as broken as the cup – in some ways, perhaps, it was a bit of a relief, and I felt that given that she probably hated me now, it would be easier for her to move on, after lots of years of the old 'keeping the torch burning' and all that. I guess I feel kind of cold typing that – and I guess it's bad of me to have basically done the dirty on her and then felt any real remorse or guilt about it, even if it is for the best (which I don't know if it is or not). I'm not really sure why I feel that way – but then, I know I have a bit of a dodgy time with feelings sometimes, especially when I'm in the wrong. I mean, am I in the wrong? It's really hard for me to see that sometimes – and then, even if I do see it, to feel something bad about it – or to feel anything at all. I wonder what that says about me? Am I just a bastard with women – like all men? :-)
    So Y isn't talking to me anymore, although she did send me a text asking me if it had crossed my mind to apologise. I texted back and said, "sure it did" – which is true. But that's probably as far as it goes – and maybe that says something. I don't know….I don't know what I am sometimes; oh well. And even now all I can think sometimes is, "gee, wouldn't it be nice to have some sex with Y?" – honestly, that is as far as it goes! I'm certainly not as emotionally plugged-in as perhaps The Handbook on Being The Perfect Modern Man would have me be. I mean, I guess you're just not supposed to act like that, are you? But – and let's get to the point here – fact is, I did, and can't alter the way I feel about this, and that's that. Hey, I'm a shallow man, I choose women for their looks or their bodies, and sometimes all I want is sex – is that so bad? I mean, what's the alternative, to fight what I am and try to be something I'm not, something I read about in a book? I don't think so…
    One down, two to go…and the way I go sometimes I could end up a very lonely man. I don't make friends easily, even though I seem to be well-liked; again, oh well, that's just the way it goes. I can see me as a recluse, a loner, a drifting wanderer, the littlest hobo. I'm waffling again; my head is tipping to one side; my dingdongs can't live in a tenement yard. Outta here, Mufti! I'm all kindsa outta here and jellied little Frenchmen quipping their way through several thousands gallons of treacle and tiny evaporated ice-cream berets that lick their gussets and spew invisible donkeys a million time a day like some giant funnel-shaped earlobe never been brushed; ooh, my hair, I can't do a thing with it, I've tried everything – I've tried running my hand through it, I've tried wetting it…have you tried washing it, ya dirty rag-towel, ya left-handed sponge, ya son of a moccasin oil well? Good point, cream cheese, I'm not even Graeme Garden and you've swelled me up a corker. Cool nachos, Eve-a-ning, bon teeth!

Rory