Job

I just woke from a slightly unsettled dream: it was about my work, for the gambling company, and more particularly about how I lost my job (there were also shades of Charlottesville in there, some type of crossover). Anyway, I wake and I feel an urge to write about it, the realisation that something might be repressed – especially as I haven’t talked about it with anyone (the shame of getting fired).

So this job I had, well it was always a pretty weird job – me and Jim and Rick, mostly, just larking about and doing our thing ‘trading’ on the games – and I sort of liked it. Indeed, at first, I thought I’d finally found a job that I wouldn’t get bored of – since it mostly involved watching football, and interacting with a computer in an almost gamey, competitive way, and – did I mention? – larking about with some boys in our shorts and flip-flops/bare feet, and that was all cool. And when I started it was even more well cool – my first month I was top trader, and got a healthy bonus, and felt like just maybe it was something I could get really good at, even if at the same time I just dismissed it as ‘beginner’s luck’ – and maybe it was. Pretty soon, problems followed.

Sure, I made mistakes; who didn’t – but the biggest mistake I made in that job (in the sense of wanting to keep it) (and I’ve done this before) was getting into a slightly heated moment with my immediate superior, Will, in which I pretty much blatantly said that I didn’t respect him as a trader. Truth is, nobody did. He was the office manager and he was fine at that, but whenever he got involved with the games, or did them himself, something always went wrong. And everybody laughed about it, and he laughed about it too, but I guess I went too far; it was one night when he was trying to “teach” me things and I was getting frustrated – he was as abstract and anticommunicative as a university professor – and I said something like, “you know, if I could see your methods actually working, it might be easier for me to grasp them – but I don’t.” And from the moment that I said it, I could see that it was just too much and once again I’d failed in trying to bite my tongue as far as superiors and authorities go and overstepped the bounds. He was angry, and I thought I’d better try and smooth things over here, and later, in the pub, I thought I had.

Well Will and I got on pretty well in some areas – we played squash together several times, and chatted about travels, writing, beliefs (although he was also a nob at times, one of the worst people I’ve ever met to get into an argument/discussion with) – and over the next month or two things were better. I started to come around to his way of doing things (although there never really was any clear way of doing things; the trading we were doing was never an exact science) and in that sense, things were better. But in another sense, they weren’t, and I started to feel that I was being frozen out, not given the hours that I had been in the beginning, not being trusted. I asked Rick, the head trader, if I was doing something wrong, something I could improve on, told him what I felt, and all he ever said was there just weren’t the hours, it was the same for everyone – meanwhile Jim (who had, in fairness, been there longer than me) was working seventy hours a week. I tried to accept Rick’s words – but at the same time I’m not sure I believed him, felt that he was uncomfortable being put in the position of maybe actually having to tell me the truth. And the truth is, as it turns out, he was.

I was working on the Liverpool-Arsenal game – a real seesaw of an encounter, always guaranteed to be a loser, and a fairly major loser no matter what the trader did – and in the event we lost about five grand. It was pretty bad – though nowhere near as bad as other games, and other traders have had, Rick and Jim included – and it was the last game I ever did. Will pointed to something in the game that I could have done better and said it was emblematic of the way I worked and, along with other things, that was that. Basically, he didn’t feel like I was on board with his way of working and it was time for me to go. “We won’t be working with you anymore,” was what he actually said.

Except…except for me, there are problems with this: number one, the way he described me working may have been true of a few months in the past, probably up till around the point where I did my little faux pas, but since then I’d significantly changed my style, my approach, my way of thinking about him and the job, and I was on board. The results were no better, but I was on board. To him, though, I was still the same guy, and I guess that questioning him, and disrespecting him, had stuck in his head and that was that – my image was created, solidified, and stuck, and that was what I was to him. It’s annoying because…had we talked, had he made an effort to find out where I was then – to update himself of my persona – then things might have been different. But the Englishman doesn’t express, he represses – he doesn’t share, he gets stuck – and the first thing you hear about it is usually the last. If only he had voiced his concerns, given me a warning, I might have been able to do something about it; at the very least, we could have talked. And similar things I have found myself saying about Perlilly, too. But, like I’ve said, it’s not the English way – and, to be frank, the English way sucks.

Now the other thing about this is: the main reason we lost five grand on that game was because of something he told me to do – which is sort of technical for those who don’t have a clue about what I was doing, but which basically involved ceasing trading on the game with fifteen minutes to go – something we had been told over and over not to do – because it was 3-3 and because he said we shouldn’t trade at 3-3 since there wasn’t enough information. Well this was the first time I’d heard anything like that – and certainly there had been plenty of 3-3 situations in the three months that I’d worked there. But I did as he said, and stopped trading, when what the program would have done is invest heavily in the draw, and in the event it was a draw and we lost a load of money. He never said anything about this and the next day I was gone. And I’ve always wondered if maybe, just maybe, when the big boss genius man Paul came in the next day and saw that cessation in trading on the logs, and asked Will what went on there, whether it might have been me that actually took the fall for it. I mean, did Will blame me? Because, as far as I can see, the decision he made was about a million times more inappropriate than the one that I may or may not have made that he cited during my sacking (it was in no ways clear that I had made any such incorrect decision – and, indeed, at some point in that game he was actually clapping me on my shoulders for a good decision made, which he said out loud, with a big smile, was “the trade of the night.”) So how could it all change so quickly? Seems like the more I think about this, the more the fingering/lying/passing the blame hypothesis makes sense…

There are more issues at work here though. Number one, did I really like that job? And was it healthy for more? For sure, I much preferred working with Ollie and doing the removals, getting some exercise, being in more refined and psychologically together and more interesting company. But I still did like the footie job – undercurrents aside. Healthy though? Probably not. All that computer use was hurting my legs; I was getting into gambling in a fairly unsettling and major way; I was staying late in the office – like till 2 am or after – playing Risk with the boys; and I was getting a bit sullen and uncommunicative at work, focussed too much on the screen, losing the ability to talk. Plus, also, paranoid and suspective of things going on, feeling left out, pushed aside, the story of my life. So, no, not really healthy – but then it was my income; I relied on it. And what did I rely on it for?

I relied on it to keep me in the flat with Perlilly, to keep me in London – but Perlilly was gone now; and was London healthy for me too? The place where I was supposed to be? These are the rationalisations that I’ve had in my head, that it was for the best, that it was meant to be – and that it was no coincidence that it happened when it did, the day that I was feeling I just wanted to get out of there, the day that my friend Laila messaged me and said, “come to Peru.” It all seemed so perfect, made sense. At least, her beckoning did, the timing of it – a beacon, and a ray, and an answer to the question of why all my things were so maddeningly being stripped away from me. Peru. But was Peru just that? Just a beacon and a light? Because, for sure, it’s two months later and I still haven’t got a plane ticket and, with the way the prices are going, I wonder if I’ll ever get one (I’m certainly not going to pay nine hundred pounds, a grand; it’ll have to be reasonable). So here I am, back at square one, once more trying to figure it all out.

What was the meaning of my dream? I woke and…I felt like it had something to do with my writing, that sharing what I shared yesterday had perhaps uncorked something – and, in truth, perhaps the only thing I hadn’t shared – and, perhaps more importantly, haven’t shared; not in the real world, not with friends – is what actually happened when I lost my job. I mean, I’ve told people I had a falling out with my boss, and that’s why it ended, and there’s truth in that (I’ve told others that it just ended, that there wasn’t any work, season over and all that) – but I’ve never told anyone the real reason: that I was fired. I feel ashamed, I guess; I don’t want to acknowledge the truth to anyone else. Weird, isn’t it? And very typically male. But I didn’t want to deal with the rejection, the feeling of not being wanted, not so soon after Perlilly, after everything else. Once again, the story of my life…

And now I have to lay down so a sort of pretty nurse can put some sticky pads on my body for an ECG. Good morning!

Monstah

Sunday 21^st June, 13.21

The first part will be about blogging and writing in general, and won’t really be about anything in particular, just an exercise to get the fingers moving after five and a bit blog-free months…

So I is here [in hospital] and – let’s go back and say, once upon a time, I wrote an online journal, starting in July 1997, and that I did that fairly regularly until about 2002, and then I pretty much stopped – with the odd intermission of words – until 2007; that’s when I started the modern incarnation of my writing, on a now-deleted myspace page, and I wrote just about every Sunday till six months ago. And why did I stop then? Two reasons: 1. I’d just written a book and I felt I didn’t have anything left to say, couldn’t type anymore, needed to make/take a break; and 2. because I had this girlfriend who was no longer enamoured with my blog (she was at first; in fact, it’s what brought us together) and it bothered her – and me – how much negative stuff I was writing about her. Well, in the end I’d had to make it a secret, invite-only blog – but even that doesn’t work, ‘cos when they know it’s secret, and they’re not invited…they know the reason why, too.

So that brings us up to last October/November time, and barring a few entries written around the turn of the year, when I was leaving Oxford and trying to give birth to a life in our nation’s great capital, I’ve barely written a word. Not even the short stories I was going hell for leather on this time last year. Not even the book that could possibly do with editing but which, I swear, I can barely bring myself to look at (and not that I dislike it or anything…). No, nothing.

And now in this next stage of getting the rusty old fingers a-loosened, let’s have a revisit and see where I was, and what I was going to do, and how it all panned out.

This is where I leave you for a moment and skip across to my last blog entries and see what was going on my mind at the time (the time being mid-January 2009)…

1. I was skint. I was down to my last three pounds – but then I sold my camera and beloved laptop while in East Sussex, and had about three hundred and fifty.
2. I was wanting to move to Stoke Newington; a curious lead about a job that I got from a baby’s pointing magic finger in an A-Z.
3. I had ideas about opening a funky alternative restaurant, and was seriously thinking about going for it.
4. I was struggling to understand how anybody makes it work in ‘normal life’ – you know, how people get and do and have jobs, and how they live in places, and how they manage things like time and money and socialising and friends.
5. I’d just been in East Sussex, helping Mikey’s dad chop down trees, and I’d loved that but Mikey wasn’t very nice to me when he showed.
6. I was fare-dodging.
7. I’d just found some spiritual/Conversations With God people at a small meeting just off Piccadilly Circus.
8. I was staying with some friends in Camden – people I didn’t really know all that well – and loving their company but at the same time feeling uneasy about crashing there when I knew how much they were paying for rent.
9. I’d just met Danny Wallace and given him a copy of my book, in the hope that he might love it and somehow help me make it work, publicity- and bona fide publishing deal-wise.
10. I’d just been for an audition for Channel 5 daytime quiz show Going For Gold.
11. I had these dreams of ditching everything and going to Israel, and the only things that were keeping me back were my girlfriend, Perlilly, my lack of money, and the eight months of interest-free payments I owed on my freshly restored and lasered eyes (totalling about nine hundred pounds). Oh, and the thought that I should be trying to make it work in London, opening the restaurant, all that stuff.
12. I was going to see guru/avatar/who-knows-what Mother Meera over in Roehampton University.
13. I was a few weeks off turning 33.
14. I was kind of in this position of saying, if I get a job (I’d applied for all the ones I could think of) then I’ll take it and commit to London (it’s a sign) and if I don’t then I’ll jettison everything and go to Israel (it’s a sign too).
15. I’d just written and published this book. Only the publishers had messed up the cover – oh, and the interior – and I was sort of wrangling them to get it sorted, which they’d said would take 1-3 weeks, but which hadn’t actually happened.
16. I’d not long since watched the film, ‘Yes Man’, and was in a resolve to say “yes” as often as I could, and it was sort of working out for me (having lead me to East Sussex; having kept me safe and warm those early homeless London days).
17. I was probably wondering what the hell to do about Perlilly. Although when I wrote my last blog entry I think we were getting on pretty well and I was thinking her lovely, even though I’d been consistently thinking of breaking up with her since the previous October, and very nearly actually did it – I mean, was like one sentence away – just after that last aforementioned entry). But as of January we’d been together, on and off, for something like fourteen months, and she was in the process of moving to London too. I was kind of thinking we should live together – makes financial sense – but also…well, if I say “unsure about my level of commitment”, given all I’ve said above…
18. Because I like to end on a non-prime number, and also an even one today.

Now I like that, because all of a sudden, rather than being faced with the overwhelming prospect of trying to make sense of the last six months in some sort of blank canvas, linear type of way, I’ve got compartments and subject headings and, it all seems rather easy. So I guess I could begin. So…

1, 2, 14. Money, work, gambling, savings, drugs

Yah, so I was broko mcspoko when I moved to London – but, hey, guess what? Yes, that’s right: little Peony’s awesome little finger-pointing bedroom hunch paid off and I got the call from the gambling company that her strange little strangeness had led me to, and soon I was working in this tiny little office learning all about some system some computer geek whizzkid/Rain Man-type had come up with for betting on football matches (as well as horses, darts, snooker, and tennis). And it actually worked. So me and about five other guys would turn up during the unsocial hours when football is played (evenings and weekend afternoons) and sit and watch TVs and press our little buttons and chat and mess around and win or lose tens of thousands of pounds; in a good match you might win about five grand; in a bad one, you could lose double that. It was mental, and it made a mockery of money, and it was quite possibly the strangest job I ever had; it was just boys on summer holidays playing games really, but I liked it. Of course, there was the weird and annoying and incompetent boss to deal with (not the mathematics Aspergers genius) – which eventually proved my downfall – as well as the strange situation of sometimes trying to work while my colleagues and their friends boozed around me (and it got well mad, at times, and I slowly degenerated into childish, nonsensical teenage behaviour, making noises and shouting out and wrestling and such) but all in all it was pretty cool. Plus I was getting ten pounds an hour, tax free, and I was getting plenty of hours to boot; my kitty went up. Some weeks I worked sixty hours and I was feeling mighty loaded and it was just a shame that I had to go and use all that new found information and knowhow to try my own hand at gambling – I learned about betfair and laying and going all green and greyhounds and correct scores and overs/unders and Martingaling – and I reckon I lost about a thousand pounds over the course of a couple of months once I got into it and once I’d found a system I thought I could trust (Martingaling on Virtual Football; went from a hundred and fifty quid to over seven hundred in a couple of weeks – then lost it all in five minutes). And, anyway, that was my job.

Also, I worked a bit for a moving man called Ollie – and he paid me in cash too, and paid me even more – and I loved that as well. In fact, I liked it better, ‘cos he was wise and nice and funny and we talked, and it wasn’t mental and stressful and teenage and daft, and I still work for him now (when I’m not in hospital) and carrying boxes and helping people and being strong and sitting in a van as we circle Trafalgar Square and talk about ladies and Ollie tells me stories of his London life and upbringing and I laugh is just a wonderful, wonderful thing.

But this section’s primarily about money: in that now – or rather, very soon, once this volunteer drug study I’m on is over, like in two days (that’s why I’m in hospital; I’m earning £1060 for letting them trial a drug for prostate cancer on me) – I’m going to have a fair chunk of it, somewhere in the region of two and a half grand, and after being real skint at the start of the year, as well as when I lost all my money gambling (which I haven’t done since I stopped working at the company, thank God) that’s a pretty cool thing. Especially given what I’m probably going to do next…

3. Ideas about opening a funky restaurant

Well I don’t know where they went but they sure ain’t here now; actually, now I put my mind to it, they don’t seem to have lasted long at all – so what was all that about? Well, first off, there was the hope that something was going to happen with Mikey – and then when he flaked about it, I guess it must have got dashed. Secondly, I got the gambling job, and that seems to have taken over, and helped those ideas fade somewhat. And then, more than anything probably, there was the reality of the situation, and the obvious effort and stress and hassle that it was going to take, and I started to wonder whether it was really worth it; I mean, Stoke Newington’s already full of cool funky places to eat, and not that you can ever have too many of those – the places were jammed, there was definitely space for one more – it sure did look like a lot of work. And expense. The final straw came just as it looked like I’d made a breakthrough in my gambling system and was ready to get serious with it – looking at automated systems, buying a new laptop so I could do it at home – and had started dreaming that, shit, man, I could onto a winner here, if that works I could easily raise ten grand quick sharpish and get this dream a-rollin’ – ‘cos that was pretty much when it all went tits up, the one in ten thousand chance occurred, and I lost everything and gave up on the system too. And then – oh yeah – since then I’ve been pretty much occupied with other things – like being lost, and downbeat, and a little bit heartbroken, and wondering…

4. Struggling to understand how anybody makes it work in ‘normal life’

Oh yeah, I remember those days, before I got my job(s) – walking the streets and seeing people I knew were probably barely literate, and probably not as smart as me, and wondering just how in the hell of hell’s hell they had managed to get themselves going in this city of cities, with work, with a home, with the managing the bills and that and that and that. I mean, my man, I really mean – it seemed an impossibility to me. I felt so out of it. I felt like I hadn’t a clue.

But, thing was, I did it with relative ease in the end, and now it doesn’t seem so difficult at all…

5. East Sussex

My friend Mikey – I say he’s my friend, although I didn’t think he was very nice to me the last time I saw him – grew up on this beautiful big farm just north of Lewes, East Sussex (which is just north of Brighton) and I’d ended up there strangely (after leaving Oxford and making myself homeless and spending the night at Gatwick Airport; see January 6^th) and spent a week helping his dad in the woods – felling trees and hauling lumber, cutting up deer, that sort of thing – and I’ve been back a few times since in recent months: mainly to gather up all the wood that we chopped down over New Year and bring it back to a storage area just by the main house. Now, when I say “gathering wood” you probably get this image in your head of me picking up sticks, making bundles, something jolly like that – but you’d be wrong. What I’m talking about here is huge tall trees cut into logs four feet in length and sometimes three or four feet around weighing a lot more than I do and lifting them onto a trailer – I was driving a tractor! And I was good! And it was so beautiful pulling into the woods on that bouncing, throbbing beast and executing award-winning manoeuvres in the tight trees with my trailerload and only very rarely getting it stuck or taking an age or needing assistance – and then lifting them all back down again to stack in neat rows. What I’m talking about is shifting maybe thirty tons of logs, some of them HUGE, with my bare arms and hands and being covered in scratches and bruises and aching aching aching at the end of the day, and loving that too. I’m talking about a man alone in the woods, the sweat of his brow, exertion beyond exertion, returning to the house only to the call of lunch and dinner and an afternoon flapjack or cup of tea or shandy and sleeping REAL WELL, and being satisfied and needing no longer texts and telephones and emails and internet and distraction and entertainment and movies and running about and – in a nutshell, London life; mad old London life with it’s sirens and it’s –

– oh, this is where I could post that message I wrote on gumtree’s confessions section last night…

Modern Life Is Rubbish

I'm bored of it all - I know that "bored of London, bored of life thing" but - hells bells! all this shit is boring as hell. All the cars and noise and sirens and mess and stink and people - all the shallow, shallow people, boozing and stumbling about and talking shit - yeah, yeah, there's so much to do - but what if I don't wanna DO stuff, what if I just wanna BE something? Namely, happy. Money and drink and do this, do that - but all you end up with is a load of doo-doo; I tell you, it's all SHIT.

Trees are cool. The sun is nice. Nature is lovely and people who live a little slower, care a little more, take a bit more time...they're nice too. But London? Ah, you can take it and shove it up your arse for all I care!

It stinks; I feel like Agent Smith from The Matrix. People are stoopid. Who's got the time? I mean, WHO'S GOT THE TIME? I was in a bit of a funk the other day and a friend says to me, "do you want to talk?" Well I just snorted and, sure as shit I want to talk - but that's not really the question; question is, "who wants to listen?" She's a lovely girl but, I swear, these modern minds just go too fast for the things I want to say.

Ah, once upon a time I lived happy and free with a tent and a sleeping bag and I walked from town to town and smiled big and true and the people I met were nice. And there was space, and peace, and goodness, and love. People don't know how to hug these days; they hold you like they're holding a turd. Where's the love? I mean, WHERE IS THE LOVE?

The love is out there somewhere. The truth is out there somewhere too. And, I suppose, I ought to be making efforts to find it.

Thanks, Confessions, you're a star!

Peace,
therubsley

…and, yeah, over the months I’ve come to hate London; well I guess that sums it up pretty well. Of course, there’s much more to it than that – the good friends I’ve got to know, the fun I’ve had biking about and seeing things and how the south bank is genuinely lovely in this city of ugliness and stink but…

London, eh! I’ll tell you another thing about London: there really is too much choice. Cities this big don’t work for the human population, for the way we need to interact; I’ve been saying for months London is a bad place for relationships and it’s amazing the number of single people I know – I don’t believe this is specific to London, but probably to big cities everywhere – and why is that? It’s because there’s too much choice. You don’t like the person you’re with? Well that’s okay because there are a million other more or less the same around you. You live in a small village and you still find someone, despite the limited choice; you live in a big city and you soon go mad, because there are too many available, and nobody’s perfect, and when the one you’re with turns out to be less than perfect it’s too tempting to go off with another one – the one you don’t know so well; the one that seems perfect precisely because you don’t know him so well – and on and on and on. I have friends that are going on two or three dates a week; would this happen if they’d stayed in their own little town? If London hadn’t grown so big? Well there I go again harking back to a bygone age that maybe never even existed – and how much of it is my own projection? because the only people I find attractive these days are movie stars – but surely there’s some truth in it: listen, I’m in a hospital ward right now and it’s amazing, there’s maybe one semi-attractive girl in here – but I can’t tell you how good she looks, how nice she seems when there’s only seven women in total and there’s no possibility of any more. I mean, I came from a small village and it never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be someone in those few thousand people that I couldn’t live with and marry and spend a good and happy life with – but you move to London and everything explodes and suddenly it’s impossible to find someone you can spend a good and happy life with. And we’re all a bunch of singletons, and there’s always somebody better around the corner, and on it goes until we get old and desperate and sad and it’s not a very pleasant picture at all.

And London with your stink, and the endless sirens a-blaring – is it really necessary? I mean, is it really necessary? – and the horror (the horror!) of that day I cycled down from Camden to East Croydon and those endless miles after mile of same old scabby looking shops and high streets and traffic and noise, and people everywhere and, I swear, I long for the day when there just aren’t so many people, all those bodies, all those faces – too many people to know, to even look at in one lifetime! And the madness of London by night, the drunks and the zombies and the end of the world is here, upon us, in nightclubs, on streets, in chippies – I mean, I mean, I mean, what is wrong with the world, its people, the gleeful little babies now shrieking and stumbling and poisoning minds bodies brains with madness madness madness. It stinks.

In places, it’s good. I like my friends in Camden. I like those days when someone comes to visit, and they want to see this and that, and you go a-walking past all the touristy places and wind up back again outside the Tate Modern – oh, the ridiculous shit that passes for art in there – and you look back over the Thames and think, yeah, that’s nice, this view could almost rival Paris. But Paris and Amsterdam and Zacatecas it ain’t; it’s ugly and it stinks and, my God, did I mention that there’s just too many people!

Anyway, what was I saying…

Ah yes, since my first visit to the woods – to East Sussex, to Mikey’s parents’ place, to Knowlands farm – I’ve been back several times, and moved loads and loads of wood, and ate well, and slept well, and felt satisfied with just the company of an elderly couple and some games in the evenings and trees, and it was an antidote to the hell of the city. Maybe I’m just a smalltown boy at heart…

Intermission: This is where I cut and paste a couple of very long messages I sent to my friend Shawn (and also his reply; I’m sure he won’t mind)

1. From me to him, 2^nd June 15.12

Well hey dude, how's it going? How about you and this weird ass dream of me being sad in a kitchen? 'Cos, thing is, it's probably pretty damn accurate! lol

Did I tell you I broke up with Perlilly (well, she broke up with me, although I'd been thinking of it for a long time - can't believe you said we shoulda got married! lol) - and then just after that my job came to a sudden end and all of a sudden I got really unhappy and started eating chocolate again and even the occasional (very weak - shandy; do you know what that is?) alcoholic beverage and plus I realised I hated London and the smell and the noise and the busyness and started getting real paranoid that nobody liked me and - well, pretty much this was all on one day - the same day (about ten minutes later) an old friend from Charlottesville messages me (we haven't really had any contact in the last ten years) and says, "I'm going to Peru; I want you to come with me" and I just thought, "ok, that's no coincidence, cool, that's what I'll do". In a nutshell: everything seems to have fallen apart and I'm not very happy at all (although, still, deep down sort of happy despite anxieties and lack of peace and frustration and occasional hatred) and I feel like I really hate this world and there's nothing in it for me and, wowee, once again, for the first time in like six or seven or eight years, I'm free (no book to write, no Sara, no Perlilly, no job, no debt, no nothing) and - well, here I go again; it's the same old same old, I guess.

So... Peru; I have dreams of magical, unknown things happening again - things like those I found in Mexico. And I hope that's the way it goes 'cos, I swear, I don't know what else will do it for me. But also, phewee, I'm scared - because it's going back, and back on the road, and you know what that's like...and what if I don't find it? And what if I just go nuts and loosen all my ties to this world and then I'm just a drifting hairy lonesome bloke who nobody likes all alone and no possibility of making it work in this strange old world of 'so-called' civilisation and modernity and shit like that that I don't really like. Well, for sure, once upon a time I had light and now whatever light and peace I had has long gone - and no only that but gone so far gone that it's gone the other way into bitterness and anger and boredom and frustration and, I swear, it's weird that I can't find a single place or thing or person in this whole damn country that can satisfy me. And probably that's just because I'm not satisfied full stop - but then, will I ever be? I doubt it. But there was satisfaction and peace and love and bliss out there, on the road, in better, more lovely, more spiritual environs and - well I suppose I'm going to go and find it. Perhaps I've been a fool to put myself in London; I met some nice people and I like them but I'm just such a different and odd soul (an Englishman who doesn't like pubs!) and, well, I was blabbing in the beginning but I'm certainly blabbing now.

So, in another nutshell: yes, I'm not happy, and I'm stuck in the kitchen (only for kitchen read "bed, with a laptop full of zombie movies, and a couple of packets of crisps), and you - despite you being in the world and with your family and responsibility and socialising and booze-embracement; all the things I seem unable to do - you still got the power, the psychic power, my friend; lol!

I hope this finds you well; that's probably the maddest and fastest message I've written in a long time. Take it easy brother!

2. From him to me, 3^rd June 22.10 (PST)

Hey there nice to hear from you on this side of dream land. I wondered how long it would take you to comment on that getting married thing. I couldn't help myself, she's damn cute when she sings! But yes I think i knew you had broke up or were going to.

Peru sounds cool, it should do you some good getting out of your rut. I worry though that maybe you have too many expectations, the time in Mexico was so fucking incredible it will be hard to live up to and you are a different person now than then maybe slated for a different kind of experience than you think, something unexpected perhaps. Not to say Peru wont have it's own magic but if you have something specific in mind maybe it will blind you to something that's waiting for you...

I didn't write the rest of the dream though... as I said I was trying to cheer you up but in the dream you didn't fully want to hear it and you were riding a bike or scooter or something outside of the kitchen window as I spoke, your hair was longer than I have seen it. Weird part is that the things I was saying to you to cheer you up were strange, I was comparing you to a guy I worked with here at my current work, he was the other night dispatcher. In reality you two are nothing alike but in the dream I was comparing the two of you as if you were. This guy, his name was Tobias, killed himself a few months ago. I was wondering after, how that could conceivably be helpful telling you that you were like this guy who killed himself. So that's the whole dream.

Angst and dissatisfaction are strong driving forces, I say go to where they take you. I know that most of my life I have had the most tremendous dissatisfaction with this world, always wanting to transcend it, find the truth behind it. That was the driving force of my life and it was worse in me than in anyone else I met, I felt alone and un-guidable. I followed it thinking that there was always something I had to do to get what I wanted.It took me to the point where something amazing started happening and my very self, my thoughts, ideas, my very framework of reality started to get eaten up. In retrospect I am not sure of the how or why of this but it's what happened. My attitude was always like, "Yes bring it on...is that all you got!" Each merger or whatever it was was more blissful but when over left me more empty and I saw that I had to let go of it all. My worst fear was that I would have no connection to God or the Divine and it became clear that I had to let it go to get what I was after, it seemed a contradiction though. 

I don't want to babble too much but basically I did let go of everything (or everything was taken from me...not sure which) who I thought I was what I thought I was after, very painful until something else took over, something very clean and free and wonderful. I found (at least to some degree) what I was after is always right here and right now (cliche enough for you!?) that I was free from what I thought I was and wanted and free from the wanting and became totally satisfied with everything just as it is and whether its good shit or bad doesn't seem to matter. I felt that I was finally collaborating with the grand design, I surrendered to my life sort of and everything became quite clear, but mostly un-explainable. Its an incomparable experience to be free of everything and yet still be able to function happily within the track your life is moving down, without resistance. I hope this can happen for you my friend in whatever form suits you, truly I do. I don't really think that anyone's path is the same and I really feel that whatever is in you to do, do that....in the end you cannot go wrong. Just at the end of the path give the path up itself, or something like that. You'll see....I KNOW that you will and it will be fun to talk to you about it then!!!!!

When are you off to Peru? Let me know how the Ayuahasca is! Don't pee while underwater in the amazon or little critters will swim up you dick and lay eggs or something like that. Take care brother, look forward to hearing from you!

3. From me to him, 3^rd June 12.14

Yeah, I hear they got bugs out there that swim up your dick and eat you from the inside out, and even after they've eaten your entire body and your brain you're still alive cos of some sort of venom until it's just your eyes and then they eat them too - imagine that! Just being a pair of eyes slowly getting eaten and there's nothing you can do about it! lol

Maybe that comparison with your friend was a good one; sometimes I think I could just die tomorrow and I wouldn't give a shit. Sometimes I think I'm so ready for the next life, and to maybe be born into a better family, a better mother, better circumstances...I just don't know how much more I can do with the brain and personality and mind that I have now. I'm so lazy. I can hardly ever find anything sustainable to interest me. I like to wrap it up in things like dissatisfaction and needing to find more from life than the humdrum that's mostly on offer (and memories of, like you say, amazing times) but I wonder if really I'm just depressed or inherently negative or something. I wonder if I've been too screwed up with my whole upbringing with my mother (I feel it so much on the surface all the time, this lack of love, this inability to love - I don't know how other people cope, I really don't). Sometimes I see myself acting in ways not too dissimilar to my brother - and certainly there's nothing divinely grand about him, he's just fucked up and slightly autistic and adrift. I'm not sad though, I'm just...floating. And at the same time - how I really, truly believe my life would be so much better were I living somewhere like Northern California or Mexico or even Virginia than in this weird concrete jungle that seems devoid of feeling that is modern-day London/England. Except, you know, I put myself here...

Yeah, Perlilly is well fanciable when she sings. And at other times too - like when she's got her cleavage on display. But beyond that...well, since we broke up and we've hung out I've felt like, oh my God, she's just a kid - she's ten years younger but at times it seems even more! It's a bit embarrassing, really. But in a funny way. Still, we're getting together every now and then and that's okay... ;-)

Also, Eve's coming over for a week from Saturday; I'm interested to see how that goes. I had a lot of feelings around that girl - as you well know - and this is probably the first time we'll see each other when 1) we're both single, and 2) I'm not semi-insane. So I think we'll probably end up getting naked and doing the do, and I'm down with that. Yeah, interested to see where that takes me; definitely had a HUGE amount of those lame-ass mother feelings/issues arising back when I was with her...

As for Peru...well, it's interesting, because until yesterday I was thinking that I wanted to go and just go really open-ended, maybe one-way, probably just throw myself in and go back to how I was, wind my way up through Ecuador and Colombia and maybe end up back at the hot springs for New Years - but plane tickets ain't what they used to be (the prices, man!) and my uncertainty and desire to do things that I wouldn't be able to do over there (play squash, get to know my friends more, play music) made me think just last night that perhaps I should just go for a month or two (my friend that I'm going with is going for six weeks) and then come back and be normal, do the normal thing, earn money and all that rather than just buzzing around penniless and being sadhu-like again. So it's interesting to read your email which is sort of reminding me that I can't recreate the past, that I have to let it go and go with what's there. Also interesting that my friend Laila - the one I'm planning to go with - also just mentioned wanting to take Ayuahasca and that's something I've been interested in for a while, ever since I heard about it on this English guy's TV show where he goes and lives totally native-style and does what they do and he said it was like - well, he basically described a classic sort of New Age post death experience of experiencing your life from an all-encompassing perspective, which seemed kind of cool. So we'll see. I really need to pick a date to go and a date to come back but I'm so so bad at making decisions! lol But I'm sure it will all become clear.

I think writing to you helps; maybe cos of simply expressing, and maybe also because of who you are. Plus, writing has always been a help for me, always helped me to move on. One day I guess I'll get back to blogging...

As for now...well, hopefully when I leave this 'puter and step back into the world the act of expressing and sharing will have helped me move on. Sometimes I think about Shane and his place - him and his dad post these pictures where they're surrounded by cute young hippy girls and they live on the beach and that seems pretty awesome when you compare it to how I live right now, and of course it was a very happy and special time me being there with them - but, you know, whenever I read Shane's status updates on facebook I just think he sounds like the biggest nobhead on the planet, all that "oneness" and "love" bullshit. lol! And I know you're laughing too. Well, what do you think of that? It makes me so angry when I read his crap - but maybe that's just jealousy 'cos he's having a good time and living outside the box and I'm not.

I got kind of bitter in my old age. ;-)

Okay dude, I'll try not to kill myself.

Take it easy,
Rory

6. I was fare-dodging

Well I still like that, but now that I’ve got money it seems like the doors have closed there and there’s always a guard on the train these days; ne’ermind, ‘twas but a blessing for a short while.

Prices are bloody extortionate, though! Lol

7. Spirituality in London

Yeah, I was excited about that at the time – it felt like I’d met ‘my sort of people’ – but then the gambling job took over and I was never able to make the meetings and that was pretty much that; I even missed a sort of ‘more advanced’ get together because it was on a Saturday afternoon and I wanted the bucks from working. Who knows, maybe London would’ve been better if I’d got involved in some of that instead of just being surrounded by rank materialism, secularity, ‘pop-spirituality’ such as Christianity?

8. I was staying with some friends in Camden…

Ah, my Camden chums! Lovely lovely Anita and Stuart and Steve (and later Catherine) – my only true friends in London (I think) who put me up for the best part of January and February (even though I wasn’t at theirs for at least half that time) and to whom I’ve been sort of relying on and indebted to since going back homeless again at the end of April…

…which is probably where I need to say something about that – but that I can basically sum up very quickly: yes, Perlilly and I moved into our own lovely lovely flat just off Newington Green on the first of March – not too far from my work, not too far from hers – and then, promptly and sort of out of the blue, split up (at her insistence, not mine – after all my months of wanting to but not, trying out this commitment thing; really!) and – and here, too, I can cut and paste a little something, an email I wrote to some trusted chums while I was trying to figure whether to stay in the flat or not…

Hi dear friend that I actually trust to say something sensible and that (you privileged few!) - just looking for a bit of advice here about something and, you know me, not one to mince words so, basically here it is: Perlilly was saying the other day that she thought she wanted to break up with me (because I didn't want to go out with her friends, etc, and that was something she thought she needed) and I just thought, that's fine (certainly, I've thought plenty about breaking up with her, not having done it because that's what I always do and I'm trying to learn to stick at things), and so that's all good - not what I need the advice on, etc. Anyway, the thing is that we moved into this flat together only just over a month ago and that obviously complicates matters; I mean, one of us will have to go and that's what I'm wondering about really. So...

1. She said she'd move out and pay her share of the rent for the rest of the lease, since she had agreed to it and put me in the position of living somewhere more expensive than I would have done left to my own devices. (Scenario there: we looked at a bunch of places, got something really, really nice, and paid about 40% more than I would have paid on my own - so obviously her moving in and then out would put me in a pretty dodgy situation financially). My feeling on this: I don't think it's right for her to flake out so quickly and that it's good that she would offer to do that - but at the same time I don't think she should pay so much, and if I was going to go down this road - ie, she moves out, and continues to pay something - then I don't think it should be half, it should be more like the difference between what I wanted to pay and what we are paying, minus a little bit (which wouldn't be much at all).

2. Then she was like, I'd really like to stay here - and that obviously got those ears of mine that like to be free so much a-pricking up 'cos I was thinking "freedom!" [from leases and girlfriends and all that] and that I could be back on the road and travelling, or just coming to London for when I work (which is mostly just on the weekends) and then gadding about and visiting and saving money and all that good stuff, and that was kind of what I thought I would do, and since she was keen on that, and it wouldn't leave her out of pocket, it seemed like a good thing.

3. But then I thought, no, that's not right - this is my home and I'm fairly settled, and want to be more settled, and it's not fair (not fair - ha!) that I have to so suddenly go back to the trials and headaches of searching for a place to live, or being a wandering homeless sort of person just 'cos she's flaked out on me, and if she's the one that wants to do that then it ought to be on her to deal with the consequences, and the last few days that's where my thinking's been. Seriously, I was almost desperate to find a place and a home and get stuck into this London life, and feeling practically mentally ill when I didn't have that (when I was crashing here and there while waiting to find a flat, and waiting for the move-in date) (and obviously that's in total contrast to the part of me that wants to be a-wanderin' and free - but is that just old habits? commitmentaphobia? boredom? escape?) and it was such a relief when I did move in, all that stress of the before stage dripping off of me and, you know what, I like I little home. So...

I'm not clear on what I want to do. Part of me thinks it would be wrong to have her pay a share of the rent if she's not living here; and part of me thinks that she should, since it's her decision to destabilize the situation and end this. Part of me is excited by the freedom and the dreams of what I could do with that; part of me is frightened by the memories of the tiredness of travel and freedom, the lack of thrills I've found in it in recent years (and yet, my happiest memory right now - I mean a moment of pure genuine happiness - is of me standing alone in the Spanish desert last year in the middle of a fifteen mile stroll and just loving the bliss that came over me; the close second is the feeling I had when I was working in the woods with my friend's dad felling trees and stuff; you know, good physical work out in nature and that satisfied feeling at the end of the day). And then there's London, and whether I like it or not - and whether I like my job or not and whether there's even enough hours there for me to survive (they seem to be a-dwindling lately; there's no security in it). I did a gig the other day with my own songs, my own vision, and it was amazing and awesome and before that I was all set to go - now I wonder if maybe I shouldn't be giving it more effort (London) and trying to develop things in this urban environment that I never feel truly suited to but am always drawn to (like moss to a flame, if I can avoid a tired cliché by making it nonsensical). Well, that's the question.

I don't know if that's clear; ask more if you want to. I suppose  basically I'm thinking, should I stay or should I go? What's my feeling? That going seems unfair and saddens me because this is my home and it's not me that wants to leave [the situation]. Why would I want to go? Because I cherish freedom - or, perhaps more accurately, I fear the (perceived) lack of it.

But then maybe it's the right thing - and the unknown that would await me is the thing I need.

Or maybe by staying, and doing the known, I'll get the thing I need.

And if I do stay, what of the money situation? Obviously the biggest part of me thinks it would be wrong for Perlilly to have to pay when she doesn't live here (although I'd gladly and rightly have done the same had I left; the male/female dichotomy of right and wrong when this sort of thing happens).

I think I'd find it hard to muster the energy to go through the whole flat-finding process again (it took maybe two months last time).

I think I'd probably just leave London, maybe come for the weekends and work, maybe not bother at all and jack it all in and go walk in the desert in Israel and see what happened.

Advice?

:-)

Lots of lots of love and thanks very much if you've actually made it this far and not chewed your own back off.

Cheers!

Rory

Now I’m lost…oh yeah, I suppose I could talk about what happened next…well – my mate Stevie wrote me a wonderful reply that sort of pointed out to me that there were loads of places in my email that showed that I knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was to stay in the flat and not be homeless and rootless and really make an effort at getting settled – for sure, it was driving me fucking nuts not having anywhere while we were waiting for the place to come up (Camden chums aside) – and I was resolved to that (another friend, Katie, said it was obvious my heart wasn’t in it and I should go; so what to make of that?) and stayed. EXCEPT, after that, well Perlilly and I got into wranglings over bills, and that and the simple fact of the flat and being there with all her stuff still there and feeling sadness and heartache made it a little less appealing – and then, most importantly of all (and Perlilly was still wanting the flat through all of this) I lost the job with the gambling people (fallings out with my immediate superior, the authority figure for whom I had no respect, and who knew I had no respect for him – because I’d done nothing to hide the fact, as usual) and without that regular income I thought, “enough is enough” – and right there, in pretty much the same moment I’d decided to give Perlilly the flat (I say it was the same moment; I tell people, like, ten minutes later; truth is it was some time that day, though when I’m not really sure) I get this facebook message through from a friend from like ten years ago, who I haven’t really had any contact with, and it says, “I want to go to Peru and I want you to come with me” – and I just think (and type), “ok.”

So that was the flat and job gone – as well as the girlfriend – and what with having no work with Ollie, and what with this invitation to Peru and actually having a little bit of money now, it all seemed pretty much open and cool and the way was clear. Except this was two months ago now. And I’m still here.

Why, then? Why am I still here? Well, number one, it was commitments: I had to wait for a few certain things which I can barely remember but which included:

1.              My mate Tim coming over from LA; and we hung out for one day and did the South Bank thing and it was lovely

2.              An operation on my lip, to remove a mucocele

3.              A follow-up laser treatment on my eyes

4.              A visit from Eve, my French ex

5.              A trip to the US Consulate to apply for a visa

6.              And several other things that have now slipped my mind…

And now, like I say, I’m in hospital earning just over a grand for mostly lying in bed and playing on my laptop – which is not necessarily so different from how I lived my life after Perlilly and I broke up, and the work dried up, and I wasn’t in East Sussex being wholesome and active and good; the problem with London is, when you’re not working and all your friends are, there’s really not that much to do for a guy like me; and what with the outside stinking and being full of noise, and what with lacking any real interest in shopping and museums and piles of bricks formed into buildings and ‘people watching’ I was at a loss, really. So I decided to just go a little bit loopy and laze in bed and watch zombie movies and war films, and that was pretty much what I did for a large part of May (while I was actually staying in my friends’ flat in Shoreditch; it being empty while awaiting renovation) and it was kind of okay but certainly wasn’t any good for my head – on which my friends, when they turned up to renovate, commented – also saying how good and happy and refreshed I looked when I came back from the woods, despite lacking the strength of wrist to pull a zip, such were my exertions.

And this is what happens when you don’t write for six months and you have no particular interest in presenting anything intelligible…

Now, if I can get back to the subject in hand, my friends in Camden…well, yes, what can I say? I’ve been staying with them; sure. They’re nice; that too. But mostly what I’m thinking is how hard it is for me to be in that position, to rely on others, to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that they like me and don’t mind me being around, despite offers and reassurances, and how I’ve lately come to see and feel that there’s a paranoia about me, and I really do worry and don’t believe that people like me and what me around, and on the one hand I know that’s silly, and on the other it’s not, and I wonder what it is about me that keeps me on the outside, keeps from establishing a circle of friends, and though part of me thinks it’s something to do with an age gap, and something to do with lifestyle (eg, not drinking, being interested in different things) another part of me thinks that I’m just a big loser, some fucking weirdo who hangs about and says strange things and – sure, I say strange things, but so does everybody else – but then everybody else gets away with it, it’s just normal, and I don’t seem to and that does just seem a little paranoiac, doesn’t it? But at the same time I’m sensitive to things and it’s like when I say that I thought Mikey wasn’t being very nice to me, just from one or two sentences he said over the phone and, why? you may ask. And I’ll tell you – because he resented me being there at his parents’ place, and that made him act like an ass towards me – ‘cept I took it all as my fault and wondered what I had done wrong, as I always do, and it’s only later when I tell others they say things like, “well, he can be pretty jealous,” and, “he is a bit of a dick sometimes,” I realise that I’m not just dreaming these things, that I have picked up on something real – and then he goes and admits it himself later (“I was worried you were going to replace me as mum’s favourite son”) and I guess that should be all well and good, but it doesn’t stop me feeling displaced, paranoiac, unliked, and like there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I just pick up on things too easily and maybe people don’t like certain things and I take it to heart. Or maybe they don’t like themselves. Or maybe they’re uneasy with themselves. Or maybe I’m an ass and I judge them and look down on them. Or maybe I am weird and don’t deserve to be liked. Or maybe I just put myself with the wrong kind of people, and should find people my own age instead of hanging with people a lot younger than me who like to go to pubs when I really, really don’t. Or maybe I should try harder, and be nicer, because, for sure on a stick, I’m certainly no mister popular. Or maybe I should just forget people and be on my own. Or maybe I should find my own kind. Or maybe I should move to North America, where people aren’t so weirdly repressed and busy and rush rush and miserable and drunk and emotionally incapable. Or maybe I should people who care and know how to express themselves and hug properly. Or maybe I should find people I look up to, rather than people I can tolerate and who can tolerate me. Or maybe I should just stop thinking like this and be happy. Or maybe I should make a concerted effort to try and find what I really want instead of living this half-life of trying to squeeze myself into a box I neither like nor fit in to.

Like I go to this Christian church which is pretty open and welcoming – ‘cos I still like God and have a desire for That – but it all seems like such a childish approach to spirituality when I’ve had Amma and John Milton and Genuine God.

Like how we all watched I ♥ Huckabees and I sort of fell asleep at the end and when I woke up it was like days of old where reality had slipped and desperation for truth was in my heart and I didn’t know who or where or what I was and how there was no one around that I could relate any of this too (like my old brother Shane and I, in the closet, being mad together; Shane who I totally just slagged off on facebook about half an hour ago) and that’s where the:

“Do you want to talk?”

Laughs. Shrugs. Laughs again.

Of course I want to talk, he cries, but do you want to listen? Can anyone listen? To my mad mutterings of dissatisfactions and longings for truth and who in this world, in this city, in this country, in this modern mobile phone internet laptop busy busy society of ours…

“No, it’s okay” – and off she goes to tidying up and talking about things not about longings for truth and deepnesses and the unanswerables.

Not her fault. No right to demand. People have got things to do. People don’t think like you – aren’t thinking like you in this moment. You’re weird. You’re strange. Get out of here.

He goes down to the basement. He sits and strums and wonders. He hears them looking for him, wondering where he’s gone.

And little wonder he wants to get out, sweet and good and lovely though they are…

Have I got frontal lobe damage? Did I do something to myself during my spiritual wanderings? Have I crippled my ability to be social and normal ever again? Or am I someone slightly different? A seeker of truth, a wanderer, a wanter of more than just this, and this, and this? Sometimes I say I am, and I’m happy, and everything slots into place – of course I don’t fit in! – but the need to be liked, the need to feel safe takes over. Will love come if I can just be liked? If I can just be like everybody else? I doubt it – but I keep on trying – I, me, the child part of me – even though I know that’s daft. Will love come if I squeeze myself into a shape I’m not, push down my urges and tendencies, pretend that I don’t feel the way I feel, pretend that I can be like you? And isn’t this what I’ve just tried with Perlilly?

Ah, Perlilly, 23 – 21 when I met you – into your makeup and hair and Hollyoaks and going out and, lovely though you are, not much depth; how could I be such a fool? A few months without you – well, without a relationship with you; sure, we’ve been seeing each other, and sleeping together still – and it’s so stupidly clear now: how wrong I was to think that it could work between us, the age difference, the difference in wants and beliefs and outlooks. The lack of love. Did I ever love you? It’s doubtful. But for goddamn sure I wanted you, at least in the beginning, and I did sort of want it to work. You’re a nice girl; you’ll make a great mum – and I hoped that would be enough; I hoped love was something that would grow, something that would conquer differences and didn’t matter and it didn’t have to be this modern thing of all encompassing, joined at the hip and maybe it could be more traditional, like my old Oxfam ladies, and some day in maybe 20 or 30 years we would be inseparable best friends and the kind of love you see between the really old wrinklies who’ve been through everything together – but maybe that love don’t exist no more. And maybe it was just my own take on a foolish romantic dream the way we young now dream of the perfect person, partner in every way and as a result are always flitting and changing and ending up single…

And that brings us to Eve, the French ex from 2000/2001, who broke my young and foolish heart by sleeping with one of the guys we lived with in our strange, space cadet little French spiritual commune in Paris, and from whom I have perhaps never recovered (in the way that I don’t trust women; and maybe in other ways too); well, yes, she came to visit me a few weeks back – after making declarations of wanting to be with me, of love – and we hung out a bit and, even though I thought we’d probably sleep together (I’ve repressed the urge everytime we met since out split) we didn’t. And not because…well I don’t know, but the fact is that, face to face, my heart was closed in comparison to our emails and I didn’t want to give her anything, didn’t want to let her in – much as I was with Sara during our trip to Venice, when it finally ended for us. It’s not nice, this heart closing business, and I much prefer it without it, but…thing is, if I opened my heart I know what would happen: I would feel love, and shed tears, and end up in kisses and hugs and bed and – much as the theory of that sounds good, when the reality comes, I don’t want it; I don’t know why. If only I could love ‘em and leave ‘em, share my ‘love’ and spread my seed around willy-nilly, without a care, as I’m sure some guys are able…

The thing I noticed about Eve, though – and in stark comparison to Perlilly – is that she does seem to have the things that I want in a woman: in love, in caring, in wanting, in communication. We communicate very well, despite the language differences, because we seem able to say just about anything and it’s all honest and open and even things that should be heavy are fun. I feel like we’re on the same page. And for love, and for wanting…what I mean by that is this: that with Perlilly, and to a lesser extent, Sara, I never really felt wanted, or loved. In Perlilly’s case I’ll say this is her youth, that she doesn’t know how to, isn’t experienced enough – or perhaps it was because of how I felt about her, or the lack of a deeper connection between us, and not her at all – and…well, in any case, I knew that she didn’t want me in the way that I wanted to be wanted, and neither did Sara, and the weird thing I feel with Eve – the one I’ve pushed out because of the heartbreak she caused me – is that she does want me in exactly the way that I want to be wanted, and it feels good. And it’s just a shame that what happened between us happened because, God, mad though I was back then in those days of spiritual delirium, I sure felt something for that girl and we sure had some times…

But where was I? Oh yes, Camden friends. Oh, they’re lovely people; and we have our fun. Mario Kart. Music. Hanging out and dinner and talking. It suits me to a tee in a lot of ways; if only I’d somehow moved in there instead of moving in with Perlilly…I could have made this London work; I could have succeeded in my job, and saved up for the next few years, and put a deposit down on a house, and dwelled forever and ever in this city of traffic and pollution and pubs and expense and…ugh.

9. Danny Wallace and my book

Nope, never heard from him again. He’s a busy man and probably my book’s not very good/not up his street. I got a friend to give Dave Gorman a copy too, and nor have I heard from him. Maybe giving my book to published authors who work in a similar genre in the hope that they’ll love it and recommend it to their agents isn’t going to be quite as successful as I’d hoped…

10. I’d just been for an audition for ‘Going For Gold’

My God, that seems like a long time ago! In fact, it was January and I didn’t win. I did wear a rather lovely red shirt though. And didn’t come last. Just.

11. Going to Israel/opening a restaurant

Well I think I’ve covered these; Israel seems to have been replaced by Peru. And Israel hasn’t ‘talked’ to me one bit – whereas Peru’s been appearing in ‘message type ways’ for a while. Probably a more likely place for a spiritual adventure, in all truth. I likes the American continent I does.

12. Going to see Mother Meera

Ah, Mother – you who I first saw in 2000 at the end of my intense guru search; who I felt had filled the hole; who propelled me back into the world of jobs and women and who got my sorry ass grounded; and who I haven’t seen since 2002, since just before I started university and felt once more like a part of the world, yet whose presence and guiding hand I’ve felt/imagined many times since – you, Mother, who I cycled/trained down to Roehampton to see. Where I felt nothing. And left. And haven’t thought of it since.

Except when I was weirdly feeling that odd and terrifying stabbing/drilling sensation in the back of my neck while sleeping, and which I always associate with you…

13. Turning 33

I turned 33. I didn’t tell anyone. I rushed back from work to Camden to catch my chums before midnight, but nobody was home. I saw my old friend Diego, but he was in a loud and noisy and hideous pub and I didn’t fancy it. I slept, I guess.

14. I got the job

See number one.

15. Discovering Beautiful and the Legend of The Fucked Up Covers

Oh, my book! My poor lovely book – so disfigured and made a mockery of by the careless hand of the retarded chimp/child that did spew that hideous, ill-placed font across your carefully hand-painted cover; the same child, no doubt, that did succumb to the temptation of ignoring the emails I sent that pointed the way to the correct manuscript and instead printed the one riddled with errors and the embarrassment of “Indian tables” instead of “tablas.” Youwriteon.com, the bunch of clowns, the one man show of arse-banditry and incompetence, the biggest frustration of stupidity I think I’ve ever come across – six months on and I’m still waiting for the second edition to come out, with new, beautiful, Rory-designed cover, and proofread and improved manuscript. Although, it hasn’t been all them: at least 60% of it was me, lol.

But soon, dear world, but soon – and then Discovering Beautiful shall fade into its marvellous obscurity at least looking pretty and not saying “donkey’s are cool.”

How do you feel about your book?

I feel glad that I wrote it, and glad that it’s done. I think it’s probably quite good – although I haven’t been able to read it again myself. But people say it’s good, and that’s nice to hear. It’s a bit weird, though – all this time I thought it was going to be something great and, really…well there’s just so many books in the world, and so many good books, and so many books that probably have much more appeal, and after all my dreams and schemes and things it looks like I’m just another guy who’s written a book that practically nobody’s ever going to read. Do I believe it’s as good as books like On The Road and Into The Wild? Well, yes, I do. And do I believe that it should sell as many copies? Ah, look, I don’t know. I think…I think I’m in two minds about where to go with that.

Which are?

Which are that I should put some effort into it and make some headway into marketing and publicising and selling – hell, the Celestine Prophecy didn’t sell 20 million copies without some effort from James Redfield – and then maybe something would happen; or that I should just let it go – let God – and if it’s going to be a success then it’s going to be a success – and this could be when I’m dead and gone – and I don’t need to beat my head and get down on the whole thing to make it happen. That’s what I think.

And?

And we’ll see what Peru brings. And then maybe we’ll put some effort in. Because, just maybe, that’s how God’s going to make it happen…

(If, you know, it’s going to/supposed to happen…)

16. Are you still saying “Yes!” Rory?

Hell no! lol I’d forgotten all about that. Shame; it was working out quite well. Maybe I should watch it again…maybe life woulda been better if I hadn’t said, “no” to a certain few things…

What are you thinking?

I’m thinking Perlilly; about how the whole ‘breaking up’ thing came about because I didn’t want to go to an open mic and that was what triggered it. Maybe if I hadn’t said, “no”…

Would you rather still be with her?

Yes. No. I don’t know. I know that my life in London was better with her than without her. And, truth is, despite all I’ve said about the shortcomings in our relationship, maybe it was all just me, and I needed to try harder, and we could have been better if we’d worked at it – maybe, and this is what I’m really trying to say, what I’ve thought about a lot over the months – I’m just not cut out to be in a relationship, and I get all high and mighty and put this reason and that on it, but just maybe I’m no good, too negative, too boring, too irresponsible and flaky and not giving enough or something; maybe I’ve been too fucked up in my upbringing – like those goddamned wire-raised monkeys in [so and so]’s experiments – and I just haven’t got a clue what love is and actually need to give myself to the love of a good woman so I can learn that, and get the things I never got from my mum. Love. I mean: love; what is it? I’ll be fucked if I know. So who am I to preach?

And Eve?

Yes, she had love – but is she a good woman? Maybe now – but she certainly wasn’t then. Or, rather, she was too spaced out and spiritually unhinged to be ‘good’ in the normal, moral sense of the word. At least, that’s what I think. Again, who knows? Maybe it was just my karma, the karma of the situation; maybe I just need to put my intention out, take the parts of all the women I’ve met that I liked and hope for something that combines the best of them – although, to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I want a woman – you know, all the hassles and headaches of kids of compromising and bills and all those years of future together – I think what I really want is love. To feel loved. A mother; and a mother’s love. To be wanted. And adored. But a woman? I’m not sure…

That’s almost poetic.

Thanks.

So what about Eve? What happened there?

She said she still wanted me; she said she wanted to kiss me – and there was still something there between us, despite my barriers. And I know that if I’d dropped them down something would’ve happened, I would’ve given in to something that I’ve been something, something akin to love, to being cared for…but I just couldn’t, didn’t want to, not with her – and, I suppose, it doesn’t have to be with her, for when I was first with Perlilly I felt love, felt the world shining bright, was excited and new despite thinking I never would again after Sara. So there’s always hope, and possibility, and it’s not necessary to revisit these old flames, because there will be new flames, and new feelings, and out there someone who will once again stir my soul (cliché) and I just hope it’s someone with whom I don’t feel these feelings I have of insecurity and jealousy and possessiveness that stem from Eve’s cheating ways way back when, when I was a boy and I didn’t know, and didn’t trust myself…

And other girls? Anyone else on the horizon?

God, you’re relentless aren’t you? You won’t let a boy move on, eh? When I could’ve left this subject pages ago, lol. Well…there is that girl Leah, who has been sending me emails and wrote me a poem and said stuff about us being lovers, and talks about coming to Peru and, to be honest…well who knows what to make of that? It’s all a bit weird, to be honest: on the one hand, it’s every guy’s dream; and on the other…well, it’s stalker/groupie territory, and if it was the other way around (ie, if I’d been reading her stuff on the ‘net and then gone for her in this way; reversing the man/woman thing) then it would be creepy indeed. But…well, maybe it’s not.

Done?

Done.

17. Perlilly

Done and dusted, it seems! :-)

Now, only six hours and twelve thousand words later, I guess that brings us up to date. In a rather roundabout, higgle-piggledy sort of way.

Cheers!