Christmas

Christmas has been lovely; spent it with Perlilly and her fantastic family down in Oxford. A beautiful, beautiful time. And, yes, in love again. And, yes, big, big changes afoot, and much more mutual this time, and seemingly totally different, and amazing, and awesome, and good...but the big question - the question of the day (or week), as it were - is, where to go on holiday? And - also - what to do about this idea of doing a master's in Creative Writing, at either Uxbridge or Sheffield? And, therefore, where to live?
    And the answers? Well, on the latter, nothing's really emerged for Uxbridge, apart from the course being good, but nothing on the job front that would lead me down South, so, I guess if I'm going to do one it'll be Sheffield, up in Yorkshire where I already have a job and a stable life and - if I want it, from the beginning of February - a room in the house that I always wanted to live in all along. So that seems pretty clear - unless something comes to divert me from that.
    As for going away, I really haven't a clue; it's strange because there's not really that much in me that wants to go away, or that wants to go anywhere in particular, although a break from things would be nice. At first I thought it would be India, but then I heard about Bruce Parry's ibago experience in Gabon and thought that would be pretty wild and adventurous - but probably not easy or wise - and then I thought maybe New Zealand, or Israel, or Thailand, somewhere like that. But nothing stands out. At the minute the plan is to get a dice on New Year's Eve and let it choose one of six places and do that. Number six, however, will be labled "other" - and other could mean anything, including going nowhere at all. My Glastonbury psychic said somewhere "third world" - and that appeals to me - but that rules out New Zealand and probably Israel; I suppose India's always the easy option. It's just so strange doing all this without having any real urge, and having it based/forced by work/timing and not on my own mad impulses; it's new for me, I guess. Still, no doubt whatever it is it'll be wonderful and all work out and I'll come back having had a great time and learned loads and been totally refreshed and reminded and re-energised and good.
    I've had such a grand and lovely time this Christmas; I'm tired right now, and having a downward hour - after four solid days of fun and joyful socialising - but it really has been such a blast. I feel like I've learned a lot, been loved, had a change; life is too incredible for words sometimes.
    "I love you," is what I want to say right now - and good that I can, because I'm here.
    And then: "I love you too."

Return

Just back from a glorious elongated weekend darn sarf, with a marvellous woman - make that two - and lots and lots of magic and giggles and good times and learning and feeling better and growth. Couldn't be finer. And that's all I'm going to say about that; I think I may have been writing/thinking a little too much of late...

and maybe it will!

07.33

Woke up an hour ago and I'm saddened. Saddened that it's so hard to just express a few simple emotions and realisations, and then move on, and go back into funness and light. Saddened at the realisation that I've got emotionally involved with someone who isn't even on the same page, some mistaken assumption based on pre-getting together conversations about her ex, and what he was/wasn't able to do. Saddened that I didn't just ask certain questions about where I stood ten days ago, which would have probably cleared the whole thing. Saddened that there's now a heaviness clouding the friendship/relationship I had with this lovely young girl. Saddened that there's nothing I can do about it. Saddened because twelve hours ago I was happy, and that was better for me, and now I'm sad and less clear. Saddened because I want us to just be friends and lovers again, and for all this to go away.
    What happened? What happened was, I thought I could express myself, and that would make everything better – given that non-expression had made everything worse – but she wasn't into that, and didn't want it, and now that it's out there it's made everything worse. What an idiot thinking more of this lovely 22 year-old! What a fool to think that I could be understood!

08.43

Oh boy! Three hours sleep sandwiched in between several dozen pages of 'On The Road' and – man! – that book's gone given me the fever again – okay, not as bad as the first and second time, when I was rushing around madly, a hundred miles an hour, the bedevilled soul of Neal Cassady whapping through my veins – but there it is, interspersed and added-on with my own emotion-soaked mind and to and fro attitudes of the previous weeks, a hundred thousand things in this head at once – women, work, writing, old ladies' tales and what oh what to do with this shop and my holiday and the world – and suddenly I'm wishing I was beat and could cruise on all around this country picking up and laying down and had those mad chums he has where you turn up at three in the morning with tramps and bums and freaked-out, crippled-handed cripples just for kicks. Oh, I said that book was pointless – and forgive me that but, obviously you know what I meant was, what I want to say goes further, goes beyond the drunkenness and mad-headed insanities of his and my Charlottesville and New York youth – but then, man, can that cat write a boozy, blowin' jazz-hoppin' night! And, man, can he bring to life the vroom of the mad, mad road (I need to make more of my solo non-stop 29 hour, 1800 mile trip from San D. to New Orleans) – so much so that it's in me now, and got me wanting it – and got me typing like this – and like some poisoned med-sun pill I'm happy to swallow it down – but eager also to shit it out, the bad stuff, and just take the nutrients from it and be clean – which is what I'm doing here now. I'm not beat – not really beat, and probably never was – but maybe was – but the beat is in me a little bit, and I think I'd better get it out, just store it up for when I need it, when beat Charlottesville gutterpunk days come to be told and the road needs more spark in it, more life. Are all the things I've ever swallowed still in me somewhere? Man, I read last night some of my journal from five/six years ago and I just can't believe the things I was saying and doing! Is all that still in me too? I hope so. Or did I lose it? Is that possible? I hope it's still there; if not, can I get it back please? And – oh! – I bleed for Mexico, for my Mexico words – almost fully formed they were – and why did I have to go and delete them all? Are they really not there in the world anywhere, those seventeen freshly written chapters all full of that Mexican hot spring crazy shaman magic that I'll be amazed and pushed to recreate and recall? Damn the world! And damn my own silly head for ridding myself of it – perhaps – because then, damn the whole silly business, what will out will out and I'm sure it's all there somewhere and that's why I deleted it in the first place. Listen: 63% of the writing from my original website survives – although a hundred percent of that is from post-travel days, 00-02; it drops down to 53% from before that (233 surviving entries out of 433 written on 96-99), and only one out of fifty for my spring/summer '99 'quest', and only 40% of sad, sad Mexico. Plus only about ten out of two hundred pictures – which is a real heart-breaker. Oh, what did I do? Please God, let it all be in here somewhere. Maybe I'll have to return to America to take more snaps, fake 'em and say, this was me ten years ago, standing thumb out in this desert; walking miles up mountains and treading on rattlesnakes; crossing continental divide on back of freight train, me and a driver and no other human within two or three walking days; me in jail with my mugshot; me on back of mad crazy pickup in Mexican mountains getting ready for sliding off the road death and smiling smiling smiling. I don't know what I'm saying; I'm just trying to shake the beat out of me. I should stop typing – I thought it was a Sunday thing! Madness is in my veins this morning and it's all damn Kerouac's fault!

10.37

In the library, having just typed up my handwritten notes – 22.56, 01.05, and 07.33 – and having just taken a nice, easy, fun, non-heavy call from Perlilly in which we chatted about our days, and made some jokes, and nothing more, and that, coupled with a few realisations that have come while typing, has made me glad and happy again, and I may still go and see her down Oxford way tomorrow. I really hope there's more to us – and maybe it doesn't even have to be in a sex way, and it's not about the sex anymore anyway – because what I've realised, and what I'm excited about, is the learning possibilities here, and the prospect that the emotions and feelings stirred by my time with her are leading me somehow to the source of those 'mother things', and, ultimately, the cure – which would be a pretty heavy and major and life-changing breakthrough for me. But, if not her, then probably any woman would do it – probably I have it in me to only be attracted to those women that will do that for me, will push those buttons, will leave me acting in these certain ways. My clairvoyant said this was something that needed to be dealt with, not necessarily just for my relationships, but for my life, for my spiritual progress, and for my work, and I'm eager to get it on! Oh, if only I could make a sweet, sweet deal with her – for her to get the good lovin' and great sex that she wants and likes, and the fun, and the silliness, and the support and encouragement and creativity, and me to just be able to experience myself and these areas of myself, these emotions, and go deeper within me to the root of all that, just in my head and heart and in my writing, and not dragging her into it at all but being there lightly and funly and just have all the watching and observing and realising going on inside me just for my own brain and satisfaction; how sweet would that be! Life is about learning, sometimes, and especially in relationships we come together and take things from each other, and learn about ourselves on the way – that is what I want. She's all hung up on the thought that I want more from her – ie, this whole deep and dark and foreboding "long term relationship" hanging doom cloud thing, which couldn't be further from the truth – and I don't think we're gonna be able to go beyond that. But, Perlilly – as if! You're too young for me, you're not quite my type – even though you are in lots of ways – and we're just not compatible in that way (ie, emotionally, spiritually, financially, affectionately; all the things that are important in the long-term thing). Plus I'm waiting for another lover – and you're helping me find them. But you won't believe that because you can't believe that someone would not want you in that way – well, someone, at least, who has said, "I love you" and, "I'm in love with you" – and because it's beyond your frame of experience to believe a man who could say, "I want to be with you these days and weeks because of what I learn, because life is about learning, and relationships are one of the best ways to learn, and because I feel like I'm learning something important and useful with you" (plus the great sex and saucy times and smiles and laughter and fun). Well you can't tell that type of thing to people, I guess; s'too heavy, too open to misunderstanding, too much information and too weird – but I'm allowed to feel it here, in my safety. Is anyone in my tree? Yes, I think I know the answer to that: a lot of people are. And sometime soon, I feel, one of those people is going to make themselves known to me and become someone special in my life…
    And now I'd better get this done – decide whether to put it online or not – and get my ass to procrastinating and staff Christmas dinner today work.

it’ll make things better

08.36

Woke up to a nice text back from Perlilly and singing, "good day sunshine," and, "I'm in love – and it's a happy day" (by The Beatles). Feeling suddenly much better, head clearer, possibly in love again. Back as I would want it.

18.59

Just watched, "What The Bleep Do We Know?" – which has got to be just about the stoopidest film I've ever seen. Talk about half-baked! One thing I found interesting, though – and it's almost always worth sitting through a book or film to find one interesting idea – was to do with love, and to do with the way we associate love with other emotions, circumstances, experiences, and therefore maybe don't really feel love at all. Not that this is a new idea to me but I've talked about this recently with regard to my own situation, and my upbringing, and whether what I actually think of as 'love' is, in fact, 'wanting'. It then talked about 'addiction satisfaction' – and that made me think of today, and my situation with Perlilly, and also things to do with Sophie, in that, well, I've sort of given in to this feeling of wanting to see Perlilly and half-made arrangements to go down there this weekend – tying it in with the Big Brother auditions in Birmingham – and as a result of that I've felt really happy – or, at least, absent of my mental strains from days passed. The question is, why? Why, when we're no closer together, either emotionally or physically, and when nothing's really changed? Is it because I've stopped fighting with myself and gone with what I want rather than what I've been trying to tell myself would be good for me and the situation? Or is it because I've taken away the aspect of separation and brought us 'back together'? With Sophie, too, after we broke up I couldn't bear to be 'not wanted' by her, even when I didn't want her; I couldn't stand the disharmony, and the separation, and I guess that's why it lingered on so long; whenever I felt like she was drifting away from me I would reel her back in; whenever I felt I had pushed her away too much I had to repair the damage. Is that just not wanting to be alone? Or is it something else – something linked inextricably to woman, and wanting, and love – and perhaps my mother and my own experience of her, and of love, from when I was a child? I swear, there's still something there – and I'm determined to get to the bottom of it. Either that, or doomed to keep repeating these cycles of falling and wanting, and pushing and pulling. As ever, it's beyond me, just out of reach, unclear and intangible. Maybe I should just call her and ask her – my Glastonbury clairvoyant said it might be to do with something from when I was three or four, but I can't think of a thing…

19.16

I came from the library over the road the other day and – well, I'm in and out of there all the time, uploading, procrastinating, skiving, escaping from old ladies' chatter – and this one day – two days back, it was – three times running, sitting first in line at the traffic lights, I saw red Nissan Micras. Three times in a row – just after I'd been thinking and writing about it. Now what are the odds of that? And what, oh Great Mysterious One (or Ones) in the Sky, does it mean? The only connection I have with it is through Laura, who drives a Micra – though it's not red, and doesn't really make me think of her. Okay, so she was the only woman I never had to pursue emotionally, never had to change myself for to get to love me – which is kind of relevant – but, beyond that, I don't think it's anything to do with her. It's kind of delicious, really, these clues – I'm convinced it means something and I'm looking forward to it coming to fruition, having reported it all here in this blog. It's sort of like when I was getting messages about dying (but not really dying) – through random emails, through Star Trek episodes containing characters named 'Lazarus' – and how I wrote in my blog one day, "I wonder if I'm gonna have to die for this [my quest for God]" – and sure enough, within the week, I did (that was Mount Shasta days, with Shawn). How nice it would be if this whole red Nissan Micra mystery were to lead to something and be revealed here!

19.23

And – heads – the coin says, yes, and call your mum, and ask her – except she's not in…

22.56 (Thinking of P)

Just wanting someone for sex…even though you like them, and think them smart, and enjoy their company, and have meals with them…wait a minute – isn't that something I've done in the not too distant past?! And isn't it, really, when you get down to it, what I'm doing with P? Ah…karma! So here we go – what goes around comes around – I need to experience what I've made others experience; okay, that makes some sort of sense…

Now – the question is – what to do with it?

Titles

On the Holy Road (s of America) (I Found My Soul/Self/Love)
At the End of The Road is a Rainbow
(On) The Road To Somewhere

Dear God, please tell me what happened when I was 3/4/5?

When the time is right.
Is Perlilly a part of this?

Yes. She helps reveal these aspects of you, to your conscious mind.
Oh.

So just go along with it?

Yes. Don't fight – do what is in you to do – and then you'll learn the lesson you came to her to learn.
Oh. Okay.

That makes me sort of sad.

Yes. It's matters of the heart you're dealing with – old stuff – it's bound to make you sad.
I don't like feeling sad.

I know. But sadness is a part of life, there's no getting around it.
Sadness.

Just bear with it. Walk through it. Don't despair. Sadness and despair are two very different things – sadness is necessary, and unavoidable; despair is hopelessness – and there's always hope.
Yes. You're right. Walk on, with hope in your heart, right?

And you'll never walk alone.

Yeah, I know the song – and it's true, isn't it?

Yes. But you don't know it very often – one day, however, you will – and you'll look back on this…

…and laugh. Haha. That's a good one.

Okay, I think I got my answers.

01.05

I just got off the phone to Perlilly; I was calling to try and express myself, to find some clarity, to repair the gap that has grown between us. I thought it would be easy – you know, just express, explore, laugh and discover truth and get underneath it all, the semantics, the emotions, the misunderstandings and assumptions – but she wasn't into it at all; she was defensive and annoyed, disbelieving of what I was saying, not wanting to talk at all and saying it just made the whole thing worse. I found it incredibly hard to deal with; it wasn't what I'm used to at all. At some point she even said, "I thought I wanted a man who talked about his emotions – now I don't think I do." I began to feel acutely the difference in our years, in our levels of emotional experience, our perspectives. It made me so frustrated and sad – and then, unexpectedly, I burst into tears, the pain of this so pointlessly fractured relationship finally getting to me. It seemed to soften her somewhat, and we made progress; turns out so much of what I say she hears loaded with the connotations of others – and other things I say, and the way in which I say and mean them, are so alien to her, and everyone she knows. It's hard when someone doesn't believe what you say; it's hard when you try to speak as plainly as you are able – and they still think there are hidden meanings and things beneath your words. I know she's not the one for me – but how sad when it becomes so hard to even converse with someone you've shared something wonderful with. Emotions are hard; talking is hard – yet still I must persevere. Better not to say, "I love you," to someone unless they know what I mean! And funny but, even in that conversation with one who is speaking a different emotional language to I, and who said that she didn't know anybody who felt or talked the way that I do, in my heart of hearts there was a gladness there, because, different though I am to many, I know I'm not unique, and I could sense that out there somewhere was the opposite to this, and out there somewhere, sleeping human and in a female body this night is someone who feels the way I do, and that at some point we are going to meet.

So tenderness followed tears, and my sniffles seemed to soften Perlilly's stance and we were able to find some common ground. I was grateful for my tears – they had done what my foolish mind and words had failed to accomplish, and two unfriendly friends were friends once more. It was almost unbearable to feel that gap, that thing that had come between us, and to not be able to do anything about it; it was heaven to feel that connection again, for things to be as they should. Friends should be friends, and friends should work together to try and remove the blockages between them, so that they can continue being friends.

And friends that kiss? And friends that make love? Alas, I seem to have burnt my bridges there – just as I'd realised that I'd wanted to continue being that – because now Perlilly says that "just good friends" is probably a good idea, and I'm guessing she'll probably stick to that. Oh well. It is a shame but, lackaday, what can you do? I decided on it because I didn't want to do the 'sleeping with two people at once thing, either on my part or hers, and the bitter irony of it is that she'd assumed that that would never have been the case. Me, I assume nothing; I just fear the worst, where this kind of thing is concerned. I guess that's why I like to talk things out; you know what they say about assumptions…

And so, after we were done I turned over to muse and then sleep, and my thoughts drifted once more to the question of my mother issue, and an image flashed in my head of Eve, one time when we had a falling out, and I bawled and bawled and begged for her not to leave me – and when I say "leave me" I mean, like, not even 'leave the room'. In that moment I thought of my mum, and now laying here, tonight, I thought again of that and wondered, could that have been the start of it? Some minor disagreement, some falling out, at some tender age – and my mum, or my mum and me never repaired it, a block in the pipe that connects us, unremoved, a chink in my mental mindtank, my heart-valves, my young inner-child and being? Did something occur – something perhaps totally minor and trivial – at age 3 or 4 or 5 to send me into this decades old loop whereby separation from women I'm close to is devastating, and it somehow also has the effect of making me want a certain type, those that don't want me [as I am], those from whom love is a thing to be sought and earned? Thinking that – and maybe realising; was that a realisation? – made me want to experience this separation more, made me glad for the tears I'd just shed, and the misunderstandings and frustrations that brought them to me, and all the tears I've ever shed over the years – for, if there is any truth in this, then they come from that same, deep unhealed place that I currently seek; they spring forth from the same well. Shedding those tears gives me a lead; like a silken, watery rope to grab hold of and follow to its source. It makes me excited – like a detective uncovering a clue; like a doctor on the verge of a cure – and it makes me grateful again for the gift of tears, which I love, and which I experience all too rarely; they make me feel alive – alive and feeling – and feeling is great, whatever the feeling is. Feeling, they say, is the language of the soul. And just another thing about me that so many people won't understand – and yet some – and enough – will. Different to the majority I may be – and thank God for that! – but unique, and alone in my way of thinking and feeling, I am not. I know this in my heart to be true – and in my heart, right now, I am happy. I can feel it; it feels good.

Maybe if I just express everything I’m feeling

Oh, God, I just can't get Perlilly out of my head! What a doll! What a darling! I feel so smitten and restless and woeful and unhappy – this is no good at all. I'm urging to rush to her; I wish I was there now. I'm thinking irresponsible thoughts about hitching down to see her, about buying a cheap car off ebay, about turning up in Oxford with no place to stay, not caring, even though it's cold. What the hell is wrong with me? To lose my head so suddenly and easily – and to someone who doesn't really seem to care.
    But then visions of her and I, arm in arm, always smiling and laughing so much, in the bright lights of that Christmas Market, that corny joke about the big chocolate thing that said, "will you marry me?" – and why did she talk about children? And why did she say, "see, I'm perfect for you"? And why did she kiss me so strong and true in that Spanish restaurant, in the street afterwards, in her room? And hold me, and pull me close, and say all those such nice things? It was only in the mornings she was aloof and adrift – cold and harsh, even – and even then she made an effort, transforming herself, being nicer. Did I end it prematurely, when there was nothing really wrong? That's the way I feel right now…
    I'm more clear tonight of my reasons for doing it; it was all about thinking she would get with someone else during our absence – and maybe I should have talked about it with her. My thinking went something like this: we're going to be apart for something like four to eight weeks; she can't go that long without a man, so she'll get with someone, and I don't want that; my options are to say, "I don't want that, let's stay true to each other" – but I couldn't do that, because you can only do that if you're in a relationship – or the doing of it would imply 'relationship' – and she didn't want that, so that wasn't an option – or to end it, which is what I did. Except there was a third option, I suppose – there always is – to talk about it, and to find out what she wanted, and to say, well, this is how I feel, and this is what I can't live with, and it's up to you to decide what you want – or we could have decided something together. Instead, timing and circumstances – being busy, me being away, her being away, and her not being interested in talking – meant I felt I had to do it all in my own head – since it was all me; me who needed saving from this situation – and that's what I did. I did it in the hope of freeing my mind from this, but it hasn't worked – unless I just need to suffer it a bit more, to get over it, to work through it. But I don't like it at all; I wish it was back as it was; typing this makes me feel like crying.
    Oh, I can't do this! I'm not cut out for human love! I lose myself, I need so much – I can't handle the disharmonies and misunderstandings, and when someone else won't do this, won't express, won't share what they feel, withdraws into weird behaviour and keeps their heart under wraps, behind a shield. I'm all heart, I am; I stumble and bumble and tumble sometimes but really my feelings are all there for anyone to see; I can't hide from them; I can't cover and lie and pretend.
    Oh Lord, save me from my own stupidity and madness and desires! I can't can't can't find a way through this…
    I guess it's just being miserable for a bit then – well, other people seem to do it, why not I? That'll be novel! A change is as good as a rest! :)
    Or maybe I'll send her a saucy – but true – text, see if that does the trick…

Handwritten notes from the last two months

Creative types

Where do they live? How do they find each other? And how do they stay true to their vision of what they want, when all others are surrendering to 'normal life', to TV and nothingness (like me)? Where are they? Where are they? Where are they?

Y

A victim; probably I did wrong – I always think I do! Too much pressure trying to see if she was "the one." X is a sweet girl – but no great urge right now for anything more with her. E says stuff – but it's just words. And on my part – just sex. That's mostly all I want from these girls – Z included. And what more could I want? Companionship, fun – sure – but that all follows naturally (obviously I'm not getting involved with someone I don't like). P? Ah, P! Yes, I'm interested there! But too young, too soon – too emotional and dramatic! Six months – friends (yes, I always say that). Well, in any case…

Dear God

All of a sudden, oh Lord, I'm not sure what I'm doing.

It'll pass.

My head is full of the desert; I can't get it out of my mind.

You've been reading a book about Route 66.

I want to be there sometimes

What would you do there?

I need to write my book.

Yes.

I'm here for now.

Yes.

In a bar in Huddersfield

If this were America what would I say? Glad I'm where I am? Where else would I be? Tucked up warm with lover? Laughing with friends? Playing with family, the children I've never had? Alone in the world and how funny that we could have been two months pregnant by now! How different life could have been! And it's not because? Because of wants – because we're new and have no tradition except the tradition of desire, and desiring something different, something more than that which we have. Can I blame X? Sure I can!! Would I have ever left her? No! Was I happy? Yes! And that wasn't even the point. Okay, so certain things I didn't like but…her wanting more made me want her less.

Why don't smokers realise that smoke travels?

And for my part? Yes, it's true, when I bought the car I thought, wow, isn't Y sexy, all Amazon and boobs – and the way she hugged…nice! X was a moody sod – lack of energy – reminds me of my mum, when she just lay in bed and I used to shout, mum, mum, get up, get up! E used to stay in bed a lot too.

Dublin

Oh God, I can't sleep

Why can't I sleep? Because I went to bed too early. Because I drank green tea!

Because I'm thinking of P?

She is bad for me, isn't she?

Yes, I've been silly.

Yes, I should make some space.

But where does that leave X?

Nowhere – for now.

Maybe one day – but not this day.

Fuck P. Number 13?

Unlucky for some.

I guess.

Bristol airport

Dear P------,

I'm sorry about this but I think I've realised you're not going to be good for me; in that I probably don't have the capacity to handle caring for/loving someone who doesn't feel the same way about me. I think I would probably go a bit mad. As it stands, you're in my head all the time anyway – and that disturbs me somewhat; I mean, I don't really know who you are, do I? I don't know if you're honest, or trustable, or anything more than your average drunken student, which I at first thought you were. Yes, I guess I could get hurt; yes, I guess it could be dangerous, my giving myself to you. I wish there was a middle way but, this giving, that's all I seem to know how to do…

I'm going to try to put some space between us; that will probably feel like me ignoring you. Again, I'm sorry for that, I just don't know what else to do, for my own sake of mind – I mean, how else am I going to survive?

I still think you're awesome, and lovely and cool; I guess I should just know somebody better before falling for them. Like I say, I give myself away – just maybe I need to be careful who I'm giving myself to. I don't want to be hurt. I don't want to lose a friend. I don't want to be made a fool. I don't want to lose myself.

I need my head to be here, with me; at the minute it's all on you – but I don't even know who you are.

I was wrong. Sorry.

Rory

>>>

X,

Tomorrow we'll see but already I know: at present, you bore me, and bring me down. Your incessant demands, your emotionality; your taking, and lack of giving, and aloofness and exclusion.

I want somebody that gives to life; I can't make you happy.

I'm a happy soul and I have things to give.

I love you, and bless you, and maybe see you some other time.

In the meantime, I set you free.

With love,
Rory

Oh, P's in my head – but faded fast. Now I'm thinking of X and once more…maybe. Hard to break it off for real – because there's nothing wrong with me; I rarely do anything bad; I'm a great guy. Open, too – so why leave, why stop it? I don't hate, I don't close the door – the door remains open, to those from my past, to those who have walked through it before.
"Do unto others…"

With P? She goes with another, I'll feel wrongly done by – therefore, I shouldn't do that either.
Making plans/keeping dreams alive (with X)? This could go on forever; I'm never going to say "no," am I? I don't have it in me; it's never going to happen.

But circumstances and geography dictate – I mean, what if – just imagine – I said "yes" – what then? Nothing. Not possible. S'just not gonna – can't – happen. I'm not leaving Leeds, or changing my life for Bath, for her. So there can be no "yes." No…yes.

In the airport in Treviso

Well I guess that's it then. Hard to believe it's finally done. 4 or 5 years – and the rest – and now it's over. Quietly sad; perhaps should cry; should cry. A lovely girl, that X – s'just certain things, I guess. She's so weak; so almost not there. But I meant it when I said I hope she finds someone to love her, to make her feel better. She deserves it; I didn't enjoy seeing her that sad. And maybe…when we're older…no, I shouldn't think like that.

Sadness. P------. Oxfam. Life.

I'm 31 years old and I'm new again, fresh in the world. My other biggest goal of the last five years behind me.

5 years ago I wanted: X; a degree; to write a book; to be a teacher.

Three down, one to go…

But I have no career, no partner, no home, no real future…and you know what? It doesn't scare/bother me; it's kinda thrilling; it kinda tickles me.

Man, I hope this book things works out!

In the laundromat in Leeds

P – sex; fun time; laughter; talk. No, she don't want more than that. December 8th, she goes; doubtful I'll see very much of her from then until February.

So, enjoy, Rory. Laugh. Fuck. Talk. Be inspired.

Love? Sure, why not. Love life, love yourself, and love the experience – love her, if you want, that's okay. But don't let your love be more than love (ie, wanting, imagining, dreaming, controlling, denying). Love love. Just…love.

Easy. Less in my head now. Less needing to see her. Take it as it goes.

Nice.

Dreams 6/12/07

Dreamed this morning of Michael Palin, me seeing him in the street – "Michael Palin!" – and then going biking with him – sort of helping him out – and going on about my book, wanting to send it to him; him strangely resistant, yet coming back to find me in a restaurant after we'd become separated, umming and ahing over giving me his number. Don't know what that means.

Two nights/mornings ago I dreamed of Amma, her pushing me towards Mother Meera and sort of saying "she's the one – she's the Avatar." I went to her and asked her and she said nothing, which I knew was right, and then we chatted and this and that. She said, "do you want to see your body?" and I was expecting to see light – my body turn into light – or something, but instead it was like a long line of Chinese faces (that her face became). Felt good. Then she started confessing that she had sexual feelings for me, which I liked. Don't know what that means.

Also I dreamed P was a signed singer appearing on Jools Holland's 'Later' and maybe it was Dublin/Ireland, and I couldn't really get to see her. A bit odd. Don't really know what that means. Talent being used/recognised? Her me? A sign?

In an Oxfam shop at night

Oh Perdona! The sweetest, most loveliest, most alive and fun and sexiest girl I ever did meet, where have you gone? And what have I done, to say, "it's over," to say, "let's just be friends," to say, so soon and so suddenly, "let's put an end to what we have"? One minute, in arms, in comfort, in bed, the next virtual strangers, me remembering none of this, just a headful of your name, your face, a longing to call you and wishing you were just that six mile bike ride away again so we could talk it through and have a laugh and then do something silly and kooky and fall asleep some point in our green tea sleep and cuddles…

I thought, many weeks ago, that the day you left would be the end of it; I couldn't see you not getting with someone pretty soon, after we said our goodbyes, and I prepared myself for that. And, more so, what with my going on holiday immediately after your return, making it two months absence in total, well, what was the point? We had no relationship – you'd stressed that – so what was to keep it together? Nothing. And what alternative did I have? I don't want to hurt – to lose you – to share you – so, instead, I choose to be alone, and without you, and empty once again. Oh, how suddenly it comes from the days of Craig David and magical bonfire night and even, just last week, making our stories together…

Maybe you're good at that sort of thing, and used to it – I'm not. Maybe that's what the younger generation do, move free and easy, no attachment, no commitment, no sense of wanting or needing, just doing it day by day and, hey, if I roll up one night and you say, "how was your day?" and I say, "good, I spent it boning some girl I met last week," that's fine by you, as relevant as, "I bought a pair of shoes." But I couldn't do that, and nor do I believe could you – remembering the times you've wondered about me, going to Venice with X, writing about meeting someone "new" in my blog. So I ask you/the world/the universe, what was the alternative?

I need to feel free to write; I need to express myself unencumbered. You didn't want that – and yet it was precisely what brought us together. I need to say to the next person, "this is what I do and it's not going to stop" – they know what they're getting themselves into; it's their choice to make.

Oh, my heart breaks for you, for us – and yet you feel nothing. Can that really be true? Is that even possible? I suspected it wasn't – things you said, ways you acted, things you let slip (and there was plenty) – but maybe I'm wrong about that; at least, you'll probably tell me I am; maybe you were just teasing, and reeling me in, and doing it to get what you wanted. Or maybe I should take you at face value: "don't think there's more to me than what you see; there isn't." And yet, I don't and can't believe that; there's more to everyone – so much more – and I can't help but see it.

Talking's hard; I made a mess of that, with you, those last few days, and maybe I should have made more of an effort but you just never really seemed interested. Did it even cross your mind that we needed to say something, that we couldn't just part without a word? Or was it all in my own head? It seems to be – and again, I find it hard to believe; I mean, how can a man and a woman share times like that and never mention it, part again as though it meant nothing? Unless it meant nothing; unless it was just sex. Was it? I guess it was – from your perspective. I guess that's why I can't understand this, and find it so hard to grasp. I don't think I have that capability any more.

Oh, Perdona, yes you've bewitched and beguiled me, and left me feeling I don't know which way is up – and for that I'm unhappy, and confused, and longing for an answer. Yet, at the same time, of course, there was too much good stuff for me to even think about silly things like, "I wish it hadn't happened," and, "it wasn't worth it" – because I'm glad for it, and it was – things like the way I saw I could fall in love again, just when I was thinking it was impossible; things like the way you made me feel like such a nice and special guy, and a great lover, and smart, and funny, and talented, and good. And as for you? Am I just what you wanted and needed, in the short term, at least? Didn't you love someone but hate his anger, his emotional immaturity? And didn't you love another but hate his lack of expression, his absence of passion and spark? And did I show you those things in man – or did I just fill a hole, and make you feel wanted, and give you the love and the attention you desired?

"I'm very easy to love," you'd said, right back at the beginning, "I'm very lovable" – and it's true. But was I like a fly in your web, a bee drawn stupidly to your pollen? Is this lovability of yours real, and is it love – or is it your lure, your scent, to capture doomed sailors and leave them floundering on your rocks, having given you what you want? Thinking of you now I want to say not; I want to say that these are the words of my cynical, afraid mind – which is allowed expression too, if you may – and that I put them here not because I think them right, and not because I am unwilling for them to be wrong, but because they are in me, and in my head, and because they need an out; the only truth I know is that I don't know what's true; beyond that, today, I miss you lots, and am thinking of you, and am wishing you were closer, so that we could talk. You may laugh at that, and it may mean nothing to you – I may just be some older fool who is getting all worked up over nothing – but there it is; that is the truth – of this moment, at least.

A little bit later, having typed up all of the above

Goddamn, I seem to have forgotten how amazing she was! How I gushed when I talked about her with others, how I always used the word, "awesome." And how looking back it all seems kind of inevitable the way we were sucked and drawn together. Oh well. Life is confusing – and no bigger aspect of life than romantic love – and I'm not terribly good at it anyway, so…it's what's to be expected.

Also, I keep failing to mention my psychic said I might meet someone at the end of this year; I guess that's a part of it as well, a reason to stay open and not committed to something over the next few months (committed to what? there was never anything to be committed to in the first place, except my own sense of decency and morality).

Also, I talked to Z last night; my mind started to wander…

I've got a wandering mind and it's just the way I am and – oh, I can't help it! [Laughs] God love me the way I am or not at all! I still deserve it, shoddy though I be at times…

Basically this is all just an attempt to fix my own head - but at some point soon I'm going to meet someone and this is all going to fall into place, and make perfect sense, and I'm going to be grateful for the whole bloomin' lot of it, realising it was just what I needed, that the future couldn't have been possible without it...

Reading 'On The Road: The Original Scroll'

A few weeks back I thought I was pretty beat; now I don't think I am really - but that's not discouraging. 'On The Road' is iconic - but what is it really? Some bloke said, "that ain't writing, it's typing," and much as I love it I'm beginning to see what he means. That book fills me with fever; Neal is a classic character but what is he really? Would you want to meet him in the street, hang out with him, all jumping up and down and sweating everywhere and "Yes! He knows time!" and Bill Burroughs' drugs and all that sleeping around and madness? No, not me, not really - not since I was 21/22. Where does 'On The Road' go? Where does Kerouac's road lead? To kidney failure and insanity? Seems like he was searching for something that he never found - well my road goes there, and that'll be the difference. I'm less beat - less able to create that energy, those characters, that feeling and madness (I think) - but at least it has a point. I do like it still, though, pointless as it is...

Thoughts

Christmas

What are you doing for Christmas, Rory?

I don't know; nothing, probably, I haven't really thought about it. Maybe my mum'll invite me over and maybe I'll do that; maybe she won't and I'll do something else. Not fussed, to be honest.

What are you getting for Christmas, Rory?

I don't know; nothing, probably. No doubt my dad'll fish in his pocket and dig out twenty quid when he sees me next, but apart from that...not a clue. If I was gonna make a list of things I'd actually like - let's say I had people who wanted to buy me stuff - I'd mostly try and put non-physical things on it, since I don't want any more possessions (have quite enough, thank you) and also I don't want to be lumbered with things I won't use or don't like. Plus I'm not bothered about having any money spent on me. So, apart from the obvious - you know, giving something to charity on my behalf - I think I'd go for things like mp3 files and copied DVDs (I mean, if you give me original DVDs or CDs I'm only going to copy them and sell them, or give them to charity). I'd really like an mp3 of the tune 'Zabadak', as featured in 'Bang Bang! It's Reeves and Mortimer' when the car guys are slamming their doors, and also some Beautiful South - and maybe some burned DVDs of comedy shows I haven't got, or ones that I have got but don't work anymore, like 'Peep Show' and 'The Royle Family'. A man asked me the other day why I didn't buy books and I just think, why would I? It all just weighs me down - and there's libraries and bookstores if you ever want to read something; I can't understand people that have shelves full of books that they'll never read again, and maybe never have.

A flaky red-rock town in Arizona…

Initially, strength, and clarity, and weightlessness; later, sadness comes, a hole, and an urge to call. Resist, he says. But so beautiful and so great! Resist.

Heart pines.

Resist. And wait.

There ain't no love and there ain't no use (goes the song in my head) when a little red car drives by.

Tales of Christmas Past

30. With X's family in Kingston, Ontario. TV, eating and ice-skating.
29. With X, my mum, her husband and my brother in Ossett. TV, eating, presents and games.
28. With X's mum in Kingston. Got some ice-skates and a jumper.
27. Alone in an empty house in Canterbury, tired after selling cheese.
26. Alone in a caravan in Canterbury, thinking about my life and going for a sunny t-shirt bike ride in the warmth.
25. With a gay man in Victoria, BC, the day after his other house burnt down.
24. Alone on a beach, mid-vision quest, feeling sad for the unable-to-hug whales.
23. Woke up in San Diego, took a plane down the Baja to my hot springs canyon.
22. On a beach in Baja, with a chum, a whisker away from drowning.
21. Alone? In Virginia, homeless? Or with girlfriend's rich family near DC?
20. Rollerblading up the beach in San Diego feeling warm and shopping.
19. Depressed in Leeds, shunning all and everyone.
18. Girlfriend's family in Leeds?
17. Different girlfriend's family in South Elmsall?
16. Dad's, probably,
15. eating hot dogs and
14. bacon sandwiches with
13. television, and a minimum of fuss.
12. Last Christmas for 17 years with my mum, at her mum's in Lincolnshire, hating it.
11. Ditto. One year I got meccano,
10. sneaked it commando style about
09. four in the morning from
08. under the tree, crawled under my mum's bed and
07. played with it in the kitchen
06. then put it back.
05. Another year I ate a whole chicken by myself; that was all I had.
04. My brother and I
03. sat on our own away from the table;
02. there wasn't room for us amongst all her brothers.
01. They were train spotters, and I was too.

Title

My book needs a title, I'm realising, even for when I'm just sending off chapters and project outlines to publishers and agents. At first I thought, 'Journey', that'll do, until I find something better – but then I realised it was rubbish, even for that purpose. So now I need something that kind of works; I need to brainstorm. What to call a book about a young man from Yorkshire who goes on a trip, gets a bit down, loses himself – "if you want to find yourself, you've got to get lost in the first place" – and then takes to the road, discovers nature, gets hellbent on happiness, from one thing to the next, and eventually discovers it in the weird mysticism of Mexican deserts and shaman, and tromps ecstatically and sadhu-like around and around the country living in the lap of angels and learning his own soul and God? What indeed! Me and my chum fired some sixty second ideas the other day and the best we got was the strange and ungrammatical, "Discovering Beautiful"; I kinda like that. But what else? Finding beauty; finding beautiful; discovering…wonder…journey…America – a thousand days in America, discovering beautiful…on a train – on the road! ha! – in deserts and the hearts of strangers discovering…beauty…truth…heart…soul…I dunno. "Discovering Beautiful: A Thousand Days in the Heart of America" – is that total rubbish? I don't even know if I like it at all. Titles suck! What about, "Down The Rubadub in a Terry Nutkins Stylee"? The best damn title I ever came up with! Or "Postcards From NowHere" – ha! :-) Titles are embarrassing.

Sketches of Charlottesville

So ten years ago exactly I lived in the small and fancy and convivial and green and humid-in-the-summer northern Virginian not-too-far-from-the-mountains town or city of Charlottesville, which was shortened to Cville by its populace, and which was not far from where Thomas Jefferson lived in Monticello (check out the back of your pennies or dimes or nickels, whichever one it is) and he designed the rather grand and expensive and preppy and fat-necked, keg-chugging university there – UVA; the University of Virginia – and all in all it's a pretty nice place, with a pedestrianised downtown area and lots of bars and arty types and money and – handily – the ghetto is kept on the other side of the slow-moving railroad tracks, so the blacks know their place, and several dozen restaurants are each staffed by several dozen cool young drunken waiters and bartenders and waitresses and dishwashers, milking in the tips and blowing it all on booze and fun livin', and I was one of these. I was a waiter and, best of all, I was a Britboy waiter – perhaps the only one in town – and I was raking it in and I was mighty drunk with it too. I knew mostly gutterpunks and alterna-types – and that's probably what got me into trouble in the first, even though they then for the most part mostly turned against me but – well, before all that there was good times as well (you know, riding on the roof of the car swerving fast down 3am roads and out into the country drunk and yahooing for a jump in a quarry pool, or 4am fishing that was never gonna be successful, or apartment swimming pool hopping, chased away by superintendents and unhappy residents, or all-night parties gulping cough syrup and vases full of rum, broken windows and huntin' frat boys' kegs, or some other such nonsense) but that all ended, pretty much, when I got tired and wasted and pranged my '72 Ford LTD into two other cars and got arrested and felony charge and sniffer dogs and three days in jail – suicide watch and all – and then the day of my release ending up in bed with my best friend's very recently broken up girlfriend (like, maybe three or four hours) and putting a wedge between everybody and threats of fights and beatings and lots of bad blood and hatefulness and never speaking with him again, except to say, "fuck you," and "motherfucker!" and, well, me and her, we stuck it out though and stayed together about four months and were somewhat in love in our unitedness and shared psychic understandings and also the fact that we were drunk and dramatic and young and both waited our tables and then blew our money and got into trouble and were shunned here and there, but tenderness and talking and love and dreams up hills and mountains, and out there in her parents' place with bouncing Labradors and fields, hippy swimming ponds and sauna, and that was different – but December 3rd – let's say it was December 3rd – we were in the city and it was twelve noon and in some redneck bar up JPA the drink was about to start flowing.

I'd told her – Leah, we'll call her, for that was her name – about the fine English tradition of the 'pub crawl', wherein one drink is had in each bar and on to the next it goes, and the next, and the next, and she'd kinda got a liking to that idea, and so off we went one day to give a go. Twelve noon seemed like a good time to start – I mean, that only gave us 14 hours till closing – and – and, you know what? I don't think I can be arsed with this; it ain't time for Part Two – when it's time, I'll know – so I think I'll go back instead to editing my chapters and working on some kickass letter with which to wow publishers and agents, maybe. Well at least I tried! And found out that juice ain't there; I can be happy with that, and let it go.

My Ideal Woman

She will be kind and generous, light-hearted and silly, and maybe somewhat creative - but definitely with enough of her own interests to keep her interesting and satisfied, and not too much in my own hair. She will be fun; perhaps spiritually minded. She will be emotionally aware, and interested in exploring that world, and not punish me, and criticise me, and make me feel like shit. She will give to and want me as much as I give to and want her, and she will be affectionate, and love cuddles and kisses - and not complain about my beard - and when we make love it will be fun and easy and passionate and hot, and afterwards we will curl up next to each other and fall asleep with smiles on our faces, and when we awake our bodies will be curled and pressed together still. She will like my sweat, and not be squeamish; everything will be good; anything goes. She will not require lots and lots of money, but instead will be happy with what we have, will understand that love is the greatest thing of all, and that the universe will provide, and provide in abundance, even when we are making babies. She will support my heart's desires, and encourage, and give useful advice, and perhaps we will create something together - and I will do the same for her. Her face and body will be beautiful to me, and I will never tire of looking at it; I will forever be enthralled. Her parents and family will be nice to me, and her mum will be the kind of person I could see myself being happy with in thirty years time. She will be faithful and true - as will I - and I will trust her implicitly. She will be reliable, and I will never let her down, and when we disagree or argue she will not be afraid to take whatever issues on, will not run away, will not curl up in a black ball, but will love the voyage of discovery, the untangling of the emotional web, of semantics. She will love to get to the bottom of things.

She will be called Boris, be about six foot three tall, and drive a red Nissan Micra. She will have three and a half cats, a frying pan named 'Stanley', and weigh less than the sum total of each and every root vegetable and fruit stocked in your average Tesco's. Her brother will hang to the left.

Oxfam etcetera

Well that was quite an interesting week – more from the internal perspective than the outside. Seems like my past – and even my near past – has faded from me, and started to be replaced by what is to come, the writing, the getting serious about my book, improbably inspired/backed up by my weekly horoscope. So Monday I decided to not be in love anymore, needing to not feel how I'd been feeling, no longer able to give emotionally to someone who wasn't really in it to give back. And not that I didn't take loads of overwhelmingly good things from it – I did – but for my own peace of mind, and for the futility of any future – plus, perhaps first and foremost, not wanting to deal with the hurt when they get with someone else – it seemed like what needed to be done (inspired by the words of Roy Orbison's 'Pretty Woman'). It's hard to care for someone who doesn't care for you, awesome and lovely and a good, good friend as they may be; in the long run, it just doesn't seem healthy.
    I could dwell on that, and relate it to things from my past, but I think, instead, as in life, I'll move on: the signs were strong this week, regarding my writing, my book project, and now my head has become filled with that. Things really kicked in on Tuesday – several things slotting into place, unexpectedly, synchronistically – and I can feel the juice building quite nicely. "The time is nigh," I keep saying to myself, and others – and it is. 'Into The Wild' is in the cinemas, 'On The Road' is getting made, and loads of 50th anniversary stuff is happening – including the release of the original manuscript – while the Palins and the McGregors of this world continue to churn out their BBC-sponsored 'adventures' to the delights of millions. The world is ready for me, I feel, and I am ready for the world.
    People say, "Just Do It" – I agree with that, but I also say, "timing." You can't push the flow of the river; you can't make the grass grow faster by tugging on it. Things happen of their own accord, when the time is right. You have to tune in, and try and feel those things, and follow the signs. And when the signs say, "get proactive – now's the time to do it," you do, and with ease, because the juice is there to help you. I learned so much about this writing university essays, of all things, waiting till the very last second to begin, and watching as they appeared in front of me, effortlessly, in amazingly short spans of time – generally about 3 or 4 hours for 2000 words, including research, reading, writing and checking, and getting top quality grades; the full kit 'n' caboodle – and it's given me great faith in the juice. I can feel it flowing now – or, at least, beginning to; really, it's like the time is nigh for the time to be nigh…
    I went to see Amma again this week, down in London, for Wednesday and Thursday. Took four new chums – probably my favourite thing to do there these days – and I think they dug it too, and got something good out of it. She probably is the most amazing person who ever lived. She fills me with awe and wonder, and makes me wish I was doing more with my life; the amount of things she and her followers do for others, so selflessly, is breathtaking. Working for Oxfam doesn't seem to cut the mustard, compared to watching videos of people carrying bricks and cement to rebuild houses and villages destroyed in the tsunami. I cry so much whenever I see that stuff! But all I can do right now is give her money – that seems to appease that feeling somewhat – and wait for a time when I am free from my earthly responsibilities, in writing, and see what happens then. For sure, I want to do more good with my life.
    Oxfam is good, I guess – I mean, in 06/07 we spent £213.2m on helping others, out of a total income of £290.7m, and that's a pretty amazing thing (and typing that here makes me wonder why I should actually question any of it) – it just grates me sometimes when I find out my area manager – who will come here and visit with me for three hours, and say nothing useful within that time – spends £3000 a year just on having his laptop maintained. That doesn't make any sense to me – I mean, how much maintenance does a brand new laptop need? And surely they could find someone to volunteer to do it? It makes me mad because we're here scrimping and saving – and getting pressure to do it – just to save and raise pennies, and he – with his company car and expenses and hotels – is blowing it in what I'd say were pretty pointless and stupid ways. Three grand to look after a laptop! Man, I could probably do that for him – and then he's got the nerve to wonder about the expense of managers like me – I earn £7250 a year – and won't cough up for a new carpet when ours is a dirty disgrace, and talks about people finding cheaper parking when they come to the utterly pointless and boring area meetings that he uses to check out his own voice.
    Of course, though, that's just me being negative – well, the laptop thing, I don't see how that can possibly be justified – but then there's got to be a flipside to it as well. For one, he does do a pretty good job, and though his people skills suck ass like a Soho toilet trader, he's probably not half as bad as some other managers could be. For two – and here's the big one – even though the costs of running Oxfam's shops account for 80% of its trading income (that's £15m net income left out of a total of £75m, after expenses) I guess what I fail to take into account is the way that these shops of ours act so much as the 'public face' of Oxfam, and how they generate income in ways other than through the sale of £2.99 M&S tops and Full Monty videos. £106m comes in from donations and legacies; another £18.5m from specific emergency appeals, such as the one we've just had for the cyclone in Bangladesh, and I'm sure running the shops makes so much of that possible, being here for the public. So maybe the shops themselves don't raise that much – and spend far more than they should, in my opinion – (although £15m profit is hardly small change!), what they do is worth far more than the income they generate alone.
    Also, what I need to remember – and have tried to remind myself of many times over the years – is that you've got to speculate to accumulate, and if I was in charge of a thing like this, with my penny-pinching ways and obsession with thinking all you have to do is raise and not spend at all, I can't imagine Oxfam would get anywhere, would just be another back street charity shop sending a few thousand pounds a year to some local hospice or pet's home. So I balk at the £35,000 my area manager gets paid – it does seem like a lot to me, for a money-raising organisation – but when you compare it to the £213m that actually does go to the needy, I guess it's small potatoes; I guess I can justify it that way. Maybe I'm just too steeped in Amma, where people give so much for free, of their time and resources, and where salaries like that would be unthinkable; even her charitable exploits – which are considerable: $46m dollars to the tsunami victims; $1m to Hurricane Katrina; annual pensions for 100,000 widows; the building of more than 125,000 houses across India and Sri Lanka, plus hospitals and orphanages and universities and feeding programmes – probably don't match that which Oxfam does; I guess I should be happy. It's just when you see the waste – at ground level – and I'm talking the whole laptop thing here – that it's a little hard to swallow. Maybe it's because Amma and her devotees are in it for the love, and doing it for some higher purpose, and we're kind of a business, with pressures, figures coming, ultimately, before the people that we're eventually helping, who always seem to be obscured and at the back of the picture somewhere; who knows why I feel the way I do? Maybe I should just get over it.
    So the rest of my week was pretty mellow, editing chapters and watching movies (War of The Worlds, Secretary) and getting over the tiredness of staying up till 4.30 just to get another touch of Amma's glorious divine hand – oh, she smells so good! (In my darshan this time I just cracked up laughing – which I totally wasn't expecting – and Amma seemed to dig that too; it's hard to explain the feeling in her arms, suddenly the whole world is centred on that spot and the chaos around you has gone and it's just you and her face and you want to stay there forever. I don't know if I take anything lasting from it – I'm maybe too far gone, and too well hugged to have my life changed by her, and by that kind of thing, like I was eight years ago – but it sure is just about the most wonderful thing in the world to experience, and I'm so, so grateful for her. I shudder sometimes when I think about the hole that is going to be left in this world when she's gone; truly, there's never been a saint or another living person like her, that has done the things she's done.) The other great thing this week was down in London, a lazy morning with a chum down there, reading her my chapters – at her request – and seeing how useful that was, in spotting things I wanted to change, and also how great it felt that someone actually wanted to hear more, and more, and more (even though it's 'the boring bit'). That's my kind of friendship; that's what I'd like a little more of in my life. I like being down in London now, after so many years of hating it – but after some serious contemplation and consideration on the subject, it doesn't look like I'll be moving down there, the doors just haven't opened with regard to Oxfam jobs (of which there have been a few). I'm thinking of doing a master's in Creative Writing starting this February (maybe after going away; it all ties in with my Glastonbury clairvoyant's predictions) and I was thinking of maybe doing it down London way – but if the job door don't materialise then it ain't gonna happen. And, of course, I love Leeds, and have a job here, and have been offered a place doing the MA at nearby Sheffield so…well I guess we'll see what comes. I've got three weeks to make a decision on that front – and in the meantime I've got a holiday to think about – maybe India or Africa, for about a month – and I guess we'll see which way the signs're pointing when ticket-buying day comes (whenever that is). I'm waiting for a few signs at the minute – for my holiday, for my writing future, for my living situation – but all I've got so far is the strange significance of about a hundred red Nissan Micras, which is pretty bizarre but may well mean something (and which, I know, to the vast majority of people reading this will sound insane; well, you'll just have to bear with me and watch this space, I suppose).
    In the meantime, I've sold half my nest and poor old Chamone's skis have gone, leaving him homeless and having to move on – well, he never existed anyway, like half the people in this blog – taking with him the magic pills that I've realised did actually have an effect on me, and which he confessed to have been slipping me for about the last six or seven months, before he disappeared/faded into the mist/I shot him/he became plants. That means I live in a nest, loveless (except for the love that fills me and is making my chest glow warm and a smile cross my face as I type) and with Sedona/Perlilly having almost ninety percent erased X, and now the former of those two (oh, pur-lease!) having gone too, and the writing and juice creeping through my insides like an all-pervading creeping red weed, I've come to this place of freedom and focus, sated by the sociability of the past three or four months, and ready to get it on – post-holiday, at least. I'm going to buy myself a laptop soon – not because I need one – well, maybe I do – but because I deserve one, and want a friend on which to do my life's work, and want to be able to do it whenever and wherever I choose, uninhibited by time or place or train journey or anything; when the juice is there, the juice will flow unstoppable. That's what I'm going to write about now – forget woman, forget boobs, forget silly little adventures and car-buying and whimsy, my brain must be pointed east.

Love, actually

So what did I do this week? Oh, nothing much! I've only gone and fallen in love again! And so, alas, my head has run away once more, and my happiness is affected by the company of another, on the frequency of her texts, on her state of mind and pleasure/displeasure with me, blissful when laying in her arms, in the first hour of the glow of our morning goodbyes – and slow, slow torture when apart, the minutes pass like hours, my mind just rushing to a picture of her, no words to accompany it, just a longing for that presence, that touch, that smile. Such is the rollercoaster burden of my sort of love!
    I go to Subway every Friday, pretty much religiously, 'cos that's when the one sandwich I can eat – the tuna – is 'Sub of the Day' and I've kind of got a liking for it; there's one just in the shopping centre near my shop and I generally always go there. Ten days ago, however, I was, by a strange mixture of thwartations and synchronicities and wrong turns in a totally different and unknown part of this marvellous and beautiful city of Leeds when the appointed hour came and I hit the Sub there (there are so many in our gorgeous town). And there she was: a vision of radiant, warm smiles and child-like joy and beauty; a cheeky chimpy face with happy/sad eyes; a long, voluptuous body under t-shirt and cap (okay, I couldn't make that out – but I know now); and a shock of red hair (dyed; a new one for me). I felt instantly dirty, in need of a hair cut, wishing I had more clothes; I wanted to be beautiful for her too. She said to me, "what would you like?" – and all that echoed in my head was, "you, you, you…" I left a shaken mess, a six inch chicken on white in one hand and a chocolate chip cookie in the other, which I quickly donated to a man asking for change for a cup of tea (eating neither sugar nor meat myself) while I wondered how long I could wait to return for my tuna, and for another look at her, and whether or not I needed to make up some story to explain my behaviour – which I quickly realised was ridiculous, but which I found incredibly hard to resist. I returned – I waited twenty minutes – and was better, a bit more composed, a bit more together – even managing some small talk (God knows what I said) and it turns out (God knows how we got on the subject) that we had a mutual friend through my dad's guitar shop, and that gave us something to laugh about, and she knew the shop, and plays guitar and sings, and I said I did too, and went to this certain open mic, and she said, oh, that's just what I've been wanting to do, and I said, well how about this Wednesday? and – well the rest is history. A beautiful, beautiful history.
    Before Wednesday, though, I ended up near her place and bumped into her on the street; we chatted and she invited me in for a cup of tea and we chatted some more. We got on brilliantly. We laughed, and flirted, and later on we went upstairs and talked until the early hours, me laying on the floor, on beanbags, and her on the bed peeking down at me, and at some point I was laying there and I could basically see my body climb up out of me and slide on to the bed next to her – a bit like the energy that comes from people's chests in Donnie Darko, preceding their movements; I get that quite often – and though I resisted it at first, after a bit the resisting started making me feel weird and not talking so right – the denied impulse leaking out of me in other ways – and in the end I just told her what I wanted to do (thinking of how one of my volunteers had just that day been going on about men not making moves and that they should) and she smiled and said, "you can do that." And on I hopped, and cuddle soon followed, and noses began to reel each other in, until noses were barely an inch apart, and when I glanced down and saw her lick her parted lips in preparation I knew we were going to kiss – and we did.
    Oh, Sedona, what delights in your mouth and in your body! What joy at the ease in which we came together, and at how good and fun and great it was! What – and I mean this sincerely – a wondrous lover you are; how much I thrill at the thought of every inch of you, love to see you in your morning knickers, want to always be kissing your back and neck and thighs. And how great you are as you, too: your laughter, your energy, your passion and interests and zaninesses in our late night cuddled conversations; your understanding of emotions, of the workings of them, of the way you know yourself, and know how to do the right thing, even when you've done the wrong thing; how did you learn all that at your young age? A woman that apologises – what a refreshing and welcome change! A woman that can blow her top while shopping and not getting the shoe compliments that she wants – the ones that bring to mind bodily insecurities (bodily insecurities that make this boy want to cry with frustration, so beautiful and flawless is that body of hers) – but five minutes later realise what she's done, and say sorry, and laugh about it, and go back to happiness and smiles – and shoe shopping – rather than the several hours of black cloud and blame that I'm used to. Oh boy, is she good – although, actually, "awesome" is the word that seems to keep springing to mind when I foolishly tell my friends and family about her in my exuberance and glee. Awesome.
    I spent about eighty percent of my free time with her last week, and I'm seriously liking her a lot. I would say I was in love – and love, even – but I know I can't say those things to her face: girls freak out at that, think it means things that I don't mean it to mean; think it means I want something from them, want to tie them down, give them babies, get them wed, have them say it back – when all I'm really saying (in "I'm in love with you") is "I think you're incredible, and I love spending time with you," and (in "I love you") "sometimes, when I hold you close, or look at you, I feel love inside of me, in my heart, like a warmth, and a glow, a tenderness and happiness at knowing and being with you." But I know I can't say those things because, I guess, words are too loaded – and who would understand anyway? And, even though it's clear she likes me – and likes me a lot, I would venture to add, although I've no idea how much, she never says, and plays it mostly pretty cool – she's also made it clear that she's not looking for a relationship (well, neither am I) and though I'm not sure what that means – since it looks like we're sort of in a kind of one anyway – I've been happy to take it day by day, not really bothered about calling it anything – because what could I call it? In any case, it looks like we've become pretty inseparable, pretty quick – rarely two hours go by even when we're apart when one or the other isn't sending some text – and I'm just grateful and happy for what we have, no matter where it leads, or ends up, or goes. Except, of course, I would like it if my head were a little more free of thoughts of her, of needing contact, of always wishing to be by her side! I don't know where that kind of thing comes from; I guess that's the downside of 'being in love.' I worry, too, that maybe she's using me, for my company, for my loving – sure, I fill a hole, if you'll pardon the expression (I meant a hole in time, in male companionship, in affection and laughter and cuddles) – but, well, does that alter the fact of the good things I get from this? I like the love I'm feeling, and I like who I'm being with her; she makes me feel like a nice guy; she heals me of some of the things from my past, with X and Y; she makes me feel hopeful for the future, that I've progressed, that I deserve someone good; and she cleans away my past, makes me feel like I'm starting anew. What if I'm left with broken heart? What if I have been used? Will those things change – or will I just be temporarily sad, and feel that absence painstakingly but delightfully close to my surface and my heart (you know, ultimately I guess any true feeling of heart is good in the long run, because it's what I'm about) and be left with just the good things? In any case, she's leaving Leeds at the end of this week, and I haven't been able to look beyond that, and a big part of me thinks that will be the end – so perhaps all it is and all it ever could be is a glorious flash in the pan romance that gives us both something good (I don't know what she takes from it; I hope and assume it's something good) and leaves us better people for the future. In the meantime we have a few days left together, for laughter and giggles and more, and a man's got to happy and grateful with that.
    I've many endearing images from this week; none more so than the one from early Friday morning, of me sitting cross-legged at the far end of her bed tapping away on her laptop while she slept gorgeous and beautiful off to my right, typing out that boy/frog/forest story to be ready for when she woke; we'd fleshed out the plot together a few nights before – it was for some project she was doing; she knew I was into writing – and I'd promised to put it together. I loved doing it there in the early morning gloom, my two great loves, writing and woman, her accepting and undisturbed of my other passion – not all have been – and me lost in my work, focused on that, but able every now and then to look up and gaze on that beautiful snoozing form cuddled down in the duvet and feel contentedness in my heart before returning to the keys. In a way, that moment, it's almost the perfect life for me; it gives me a taste of what I want; it shows me what's possible. Sure, some day soon she will be gone – but how wonderful it is to have shared what we have in just these few short days in which time has lost all sense of reality anyway.
    I didn't want to write any of this because I know Perlilly and some of her friends will be reading, and that's partly why I wrote so much about women this week, because I've had woman on my mind, and a desire to express, and therefore it's kind of leaked out in a different way. I need to write, though, and I don't think I can suppress it – even if it means losing another. Luckily, though, I'm getting quite adept at twisting things a little. The other reason I wrote about women was because I feel like I'm having a fresh start, and wanted to have a bit of an emotional and mental clearout by telling my old story, as sometimes seems to work. It wasn't really what I expected – too coloured by my need to express what is currently going on – and I was thinking there'd be more in there about, say, my upbringing in the feminist "caring, sharing nineties" and how hearing statements like "every man is a potential rapist" as a small boy sort of shaped me and made me ashamed to be a man. But then, that really is an old story, and one I've told plenty of times, so maybe life is tired of hearing that one from my lips. In all, it was kind of fun – if a little vague at times, perhaps, and maybe too bigging-myself-up as a nice guy (well, I am a man; it's what we do) – though I was expecting a bit more feedback, what with all that sex talk ('cept you can always rely on Stellaluna to come up with the goods). Still, I did move one lady reader to say, "I want you to know that it will be with a REAL pleasure to give you the best orgasm of your life again and again and again"…
    And now I'm off to work – forgot what else I was gonna say; sure there was more – something about Kerouac, and the fiftieth anniversary of 'On The Road', and the new scroll version, and that damned 'Into The Wild', and how it seemed like something was in the air, and how I feel it inside of me too, and how the time is getting ripe – and maybe something about my dad, but not sure what that was – and lunch with my mum – first ever lunch! – and how that was jolly nice – and, also, I left facebook (even though it makes myspace look like some angelfire page from the eighties) because it just seems like a big waste of time – but, like I say, I've forgot all what else and I suppose it'll have to wait for another day because my mind is filled with Sedona and – damn! – what a fine, marvellous, awesome woman she is but – oh! – how such a big, big part of me longs to shake myself free (and how another part doesn't) and I guess that's all just the way it is when you choose to go the way of falling, falling, falling in love and being blessed with a psycho-spiritual make-up such as mine. Oh love, how I love thee! But – oh, love – what you do to my head is a crime! Set me free, foul beast – no, bless me more; I can take it – no, give me peace – but, no, I'll miss my love – but mind – but heart – but…love.
    S'been a long time since I've written about love. Seems to make me talk gibberish too. Cheers!

Part the Last

So I watched that Mel Gibson film 'What Women Want' last night – and, like most films, it was pretty cheesy and silly, but there was this one bit that stood out to me, where he's in bed with Marisa Tomei (who I think is gorgeous!) and gives her this "life-altering sex" because he's able to know what she's thinking and wants, and does everything totally right. I was thinking what a marvellous super-power that would be to have! I'd love to be able have sex with a woman in that way. And, hey – maybe I do! :-)
    It's another good reason to spend some time watching a woman masturbate, or play with her sex toys, etcetera – to get to see what she likes, how she likes to be touched. Of course, it's a massive turn on – but also a great way to pick up tips. The thing is, what works with one doesn't necessarily work with another – I'd say that's true; seems to be something I've found out – so, although it's never a case of going back to square one (it seems to me that, in my sex-life, it's always been advancing and evolving, on the whole, as I've loosened up, learned new things, progressed) – there's always a need to learn a particular person's likes and dislikes. (Maybe with men it's a little different – oh, we're such simple creatures to please! just give us a woman who loves what we do for her and who loves us in return!) That's where talking helps as well.
    I could never do the talking thing until I went to North America – I related very much to the main character in Nick Hornby's 'High Fidelity' when he goes with his first American woman – but I found the women there so straight-to-the-point, and vocal, and unembarrassed – unlike your stereotypical Englishman (which I was). Then again, since coming back from there, and since being with English women again, I can't see I've noticed any real difference; they've seemed just as vocal and forthright as Americans/Canadians. Maybe it's the change in me – you know, I learned that, and you attract what you, etcetera – or maybe the generations have changed somewhat, I don't know. Actually, I'd tend to go with the first; I think I've changed, and so, naturally, the people I attract change too. I'm probably still a little bit reticent and cautious in certain situations – but all it'll take is for a woman to mouth the word "cock" – which still kinda shocks me somewhere inside (like, maybe 0.1%) – or say, "fuck me hard" and then the floodgates'll open. I'd say I'm not exactly backwards in coming forwards – but I'd like to think I stop short of going into yucky grossness like the sleazy American guys you get on internet porn videos. I mean, at the end of the day it's about communication and fun, and doing what's mutually beneficial; I'm not averse to calling someone a "dirty bitch" or "slut" in the middle of passions – things I'd never think or say otherwise – but only if it's a turn on for the person I'm with (which it has been), and only if I know they'll understand where I'm coming from with that (which they have done). I'm amazed at how powerful the effects of saying things like these have been; there wouldn't be any point saying it otherwise. It's all fun and games. And, to be honest, I don't really understand how it could be anything but; I guess I just don't understand sex that isn't mutually beneficial because, for me, the ultimate biggest turning on is getting the other person off. But I think I've said that already somewhere during "sex week" – so I guess I'll move on.
    You know the worst thing a girl ever did to me? Well, apart from the one that slept with the Frenchman that I ended up headbutting and which tore me apart but wound up being for my benefit in the long run? (And this is a good one, this.) I once had this girlfriend who came back from a night out and, over the course of the next few days I decided was acting a bit funny and had to find out what was going on. So we got into this conversation, and I probed, and, lo and behold, it turns out she'd slept with some guy and, well, I was fuming, and really, really upset, and chucked her then and there – except, the next day, word gets to me through a friend that, you know, she hadn't actually slept with him, it'd been forced upon her, if you get my drift, so what's a guy to do? Naturally, I take her back, we do all the crying and talking it over, and discuss going to the police, and in my room I spend hours and days and weeks plotting revenge and finding out where the guy lives and picturing myself knocking on the door and sticking a screwdriver in his head and it sort of eats me up, and makes me kind of hate men, and we move on. I think about it every now and then, even after we part, and I later see how it has affected me in some way, in the way I look at the world and men. Only later on – years later – I find out the whole thing was a tissue of lies and I'm the dufus who was taken in by it. Oh well.
    Those are the only two times, as far as I know, that I've been cheated on – save for a very drunken relationship that wasn't exactly exclusive, in which both parties were pretty free and easy with their lovin', sometimes even in each other's company – while, for my part, I'd say I'd been pretty good. I kissed a girl once while I was seeing someone else – right at the tail-end of an eighteen month relationship which had long since shrivelled and died – and then there was the thing with Y, where we were kind of seeing each other, and were supposed to be exclusive, but when it looked like I was gonna be getting back with X, and X came up for a visit, I told her all that and said something might happen. I guess that was me being honest and trying to do the right thing – but everyone I've told that to – all women, including my mum – seem to think I did something wrong – and even though I didn't see it at the time – I mean, I really was just trying to do what seemed like the right thing – I'd say I agreed with them. Although what the alternative is, I know not. The worst thing I ever did in that regard, though, was getting with my best friend's girlfriend on the night they split up, which devastated him, and drove a wedge not only between the two of us, and the two of them, but between several dozen other people too (it was kind of an incestuous little town and we were young and carried away). I never really understood the impact of that until my French episode/debacle, and even though it was years later, those 'love triangle' times came flooding back to me and made me see how wrong I'd been. It was another reason why the French thing needed to happen, and why it was a blessing: it was just my karma coming back to me, a lesson I needed to learn. I never truly understood the importance of the purity of love until then. I wept for my past indiscretions and knew that I had to be true. If you love someone, I believe, you'll do what you can to avoid causing them hurt – even if it means sacrificing your own immediate and – let's face it, if it's sex we're talking about - unnecessary wants. So even if I've been with someone new – someone wherein it wasn't even stated that this was an exclusive thing or not (and maybe wasn't on their part) – and maybe an ex has come to visit, and it would be very easy for something to happen – and justifiable in so many ways – I've always avoided that, because I've felt that it would be unfair to the other, and hurtful, and because I wouldn't like it if it was the other way around; you know, "do unto others" and all that…
    Mostly, though, I guess I've had a pretty happy time, in sex and in love, and known some fantastic, amazing women. I loves 'em, I really do – and I've been very blessed and lucky with the ones that have chosen to spend some time with me – especially since I don't really go out on the hunt, or go looking for them. I've had periods of celibacy – a couple of fifteen months here and there, mostly in my sadhu days – and periods where I was able to share in intimate relationships – share beds, even – in a purely platonic way, which was always great, and I can't say I've ever wanted for anything. It seems to me sometimes like there were two Rorys, and two stages in all of this, hinging around the time when I got myself sorted out, spiritually and emotionally, and quit drinking, and stopped being an arse; my relationships before then were characterised by a messiness, an uncertainty, and a whole host of inhibitions and neuroses and insecurities; after that, it's been pretty plain sailing, a series of interactions characterised by love, and openness, and honesty, and fun (save the French debacle – a result of my getting carried away in spiritual delusions and ignorances – but a great learning experience, none the less). I once shared a bed with a beautiful naked girl cuddled up together – I was naked too, and she was beautiful – and the thought of sex couldn't have been further from my mind; I find something amazing in that. This was back in '99, after things had changed for me – and that kind of thing was happening quite often. I guess girls feel somehow safe with me; I couldn't think of a greater compliment. Wonderful as it is to have fantastic, mind-blowing sex – how much more wonderful it is to find love, and closeness, which is perhaps what we're looking for in that anyway (oh, okay, and the nerve-shredding ecstasies and highs, but you know what I mean). I'm thinking now of the time I was with this girl, making beautiful love, and she got this sex injury and started bleeding everywhere – so we had to stop, and she was understandably freaked out, but – the way we handled it, with calmness and humour, and cuddles, and tenderness – the whole thing brought us closer together, perhaps, than sex ever could have, and was probably a more memorable experience because of it; at least, the thought of that closeness fills me right now with a glorious happiness and love.