Clothing

Well isn't it weird the effect of activity + socialising = hardly any time at all for moping about and thinking one's life rubbish. Also, being in one place + the passing of time = getting used to it. And exercise + less chocolate = not as fat. Equations to live by! And, boy, do we need 'em. 'Cos there I was thinking once more yesterday that we really don't know how to live.

Anyway, the week was decent once more, mostly taken up by Eve the ex being here until early Friday morning, and then my usual three hours of Saturday morning football followed by a weird 24-hour stint at Oxfam whereby I eat strangely, lose myself in several hundred dusty records, and sleep the night in a makeshift nest made up of other people's donated goods. I kind of like that. Eve's visit was a good one, I reckon - at least, it's one more thing off the list and I'm not longer saying, oh, I should have sex with that girl. The sex was decent. And she's nice enough. And I guess it's progressed things between in one way or another. I mean, for something like seven years she's been wanting me, and I've been resisting, so at least that's over and done with. I wonder if she'll stop wanting me now? That would be sort of good (and sort of bad) but, to be honest, I don't think it's going to happen - seems like, really, she kind of adores me and may even still be in love. That's weird. It's weird to sit there and catch glimpses of her watching me do whatever I'm doing and feel that adoration. Bit unsettling, really. And makes me wonder about her sanity. She shouldn't be adoring me! Oh well.

The other weird thing this week was when she took me to Canterbury with this strange insistence of buying me a t-shirt. Well, okay, so off we went to the various charity shops and cheap stores looking for something inexpensive and that was a pretty fruitless search (I'm pretty fussy about clothes, even though I generally end up wearing things I either find or am given). Anyways, at the end of it all we nipped in Fenwick's (designer stuff) for a wee and when I came back from the toilet she was holding a couple of things saying, try this on. One was a t-shirt for seventy-five quid! I said, no way, there's no point, but she insisted, and gave me a three-hundred quid jacket to try on as well, and, what the hell, I did. I gotta admit, I looked hot. And then she says, I'm buying that t-shirt for you. No way, I says, please don't. It's too expensive. You can't do that. But she insisted. I couldn't bear it. I had to go outside. It was sort of emotional. Really, I could hardly handle it, and it made me go all quiet and introspective, and sort of made me feel like a child, and made me think of my mother, and I found the whole thing very difficult to accept.

Then she took me in another shop - still a nice one, slightly less pricey - and said, let's get you a jacket. So she did. And that was another seventy quid. What's going on? This is mad. But I sure do look good. But that's more money in two foul swoops than I've probably spent on clothes in the last ten years. A seventy-five pound t-shirt, fer christsakes! It's mental. I've given up. I can't do anything. I'm in another world, a brand new realm, and I surrender. I sort of like it, and it makes me wonder all kinds of things - about money, about my deprived upbringing, about being tight and about thinking, why the hell not spend these exorbitant amounts on clothing, good stuff lasts and looks and feels good and it's only money at the end of the day. Like I say, whole new realm. Perhaps it was healing - would be nice if it was - but I really don't know.

And that was one of the main things from my week.

Also, I started to get a weird vibe about Australia, which is surprising. Well, we'll try not to force it and see if anything develops. And still waiting for "the Jasmine" to materialise. I wonder if it will, now that I've said it out loud?

dreams

Well that was another decent week in Herne Bay, even if I am still contemplating escape every now and then (thinking: maybe go live in the woods, and mix it up with nights in the Oxfam shop, visits to other towns, something like that). Worked a lot again in the Oxfam, sorting out my beloved records. Went through thousands of them! And spent three nights there in a little nest on the floor, amongst racks of clothes and teddy bears and ornaments. I tell myself I like it - and, certainly, I feel very cosy and jolly when I climb inside that handily-donated sleeping bag and get on my duvet mattress and think, "aaah" - although I do generally wake up feeling like I haven't slept a wink. Probably not as mentally peaceful as being in 'your own house.'

Main other news - Eve the ex turned up on Saturday (well, I invited her; another one on the list) and we've been sleeping together, for the first time in nearly nine years. It's been surprisingly easy - and a hell of a lot easier than fighting the urge, as I've done on several occasions in the past. Also, I've been remarkably good - in that - well, hey, I'm always good - but in that there hasn't even been the merest whiff of my annoying PE friend. I've been like a proper bloke! And, honestly, it feels like the first time since I was about eighteen. It's surprising. I wonder why it's like that with her. And I wonder maybe it's because I in some ways care less about her, feel less pressure, given the nature of our break-up (her cheating on me; me feeling like I don't really owe her anything). But she's a nice girl. Anyways, I hope I can take this with me onto the next one.

And who will the next one be? Well, I think about Sophie a lot - of course, she's the one at the top of the list - and I'm starting to feel like (with the encouragement of others) that I ought to just go and see her, even though she's doing her best to maintain 'radio silence', ignoring emails, keeping her distance, etcetera. She's afraid, I guess, and hurt. She's still 'the one', though, in my head. And this morning I dreamt of her and I, some long involved dream that was practically a movie, and in it I had sex with her sister (she doesn't have a sister), and then the three of us were in a motel room on our way to their mother's funeral, and this young Mormon guy was hanging around, and came in, and got undressed, and I could tell that he fancied her and that she quite liked him too. And I just kind of got out of the way and let it happen, and even though it was slightly upsetting I knew it was what I had to do. We parted company, and the next day I was somewhere with someone else (on a dangerous rock?) and at the last moment (the last moment of what, I don't know) Sophie came rushing forward and gave me the most passionate kiss, and spilled out her emotions. "We needed to sleep with other people," I said, "to get to this place." She wanted me. It was pretty much a metaphor for our whole breaking up.

If she'd showed me that she wanted me in Venice, she coulda had me.

Which reminds me, lone reader o' mine: any news on the Grace situation? I guess I could ring her myself, if I wasn't such a chicken shit...

Happy Monday!

Rory

Better

A good week, full of activity and productivity and all that good stuff. Got myself down the old Oxfam and spent three solid days getting their record section back in order. And played a wicked game of squash, and two semi-wicked games of football, and so I've earned the right to my bed. Life is instantly different when you start doing something useful with it...

More moaning and woefulness

Well I'll be honest, I feel like a bit of a loser. I don't seem to be very good at this thing called 'life'. I spend way too much time on the computer. I can't be bothered with much else. There's not really very much about the world that I find interesting. I eat too many chocolate biscuits. I seem incapable of doing the things that I have told myself I will do, the things that I believe would be good for me. Things like exercise, healthy eating, getting out and about, finding a job. The world seems rather pointless, to be honest. And writing...writing about what? I've nothing left to say, except the above, and why would I say that?

Sometimes, though, I manage to shake it off and do a little something that's productive - let's say, work on some of my old short stories - and then I almost feel good, and feel like I'm using rather than pissing away my time. Like yesterday. Soon, I feel, my 'to do' list - the list that had all those great ideas on it about new books and publishing other people - is gonna get whittled down to just pushing out a collection of stories and poems already written and then...maybe leaving this world once more: already, I'm dreaming of Guatemala or Tibet or New Zealand or something. I've only been 'back' two months. But the fact is, in England, I'm a waster. I'm not interested. I don't fit in. What is life here? Life is squawking babies and jobs you probably don't like and conversations about boring subjects and way too much busyness, and one day just to buy a house and then spend the rest of your foreseeable future paying for it and 'doing it up'. At least, that's how it seems to me. At least, that's how the people I'm surrounded by are living now. On the road I...I feel at home.

It's weird to be a wanderer. I don't want this normal life. I thought I did but I don't. I get bored so quickly. I feel whatever remains of my youth slipping away. I tell myself I ought to learn how to get settled, be 'normal', work and earn and stop moving and do the partner and child thing - and within weeks I feel like I've lost myself and my only respite is addiction to this computer. I tell myself to get rid of it - but then what? Lonely walks on the beach contemplating stuff and feeling even more bored? For sure, it would propel me out of here even quicker. I find this so, so hard.

And so...we'll see. Time will tell. Blah blah blah. I do know I have to produce something of the things I'd set myself up for in Mexico - but if it's just a collection of short stories and maybe Mikey's blog then so be it. The book about Derren Brown's already out the window - I tried it a little and didn't like it. Other things, too. And once more it seems it's not so much about ticking things off a list by doing them, it's about looking at them and realising that I don't want them at all. Rory thinks he wants babies? Well, shall we give him babies or shall we stick him in a house with kids and show him how noisy and annoying they are? And Rory thinks he wants England? So let's send him there, in the bleak mid-winter, and give him it, and let him experience it and see. You could have kept me in Mexico - but that wouldn't have taught me anything, I would have just longed, as always, for the grass on the other side of the fence. But this grass sucks; the grass everywhere sucks. And so what remains?

• A dream of Israel. Ten years ago a woman who claimed to be a prophet told me I should go there, walk in the footsteps of Jesus, go on some divine journey. I've never let this go. And a year ago, when I was plotting to get away, I was writing about it and in came my girlfriend singing, 'oh little town of Bethlehem' and in another time and place that would've been the sign I needed. Instead, I eventually went to Mexico - and there I met an Israeli - my first Israeli friend - and that sort of seemed to put the seal on it. I don't know what's there - but it's on my list, and there's no real way to take it off other than by going there.
• Suddenly, though, there's an offer of a free flight to Guatemala, by way of a volunteer drug study. That's quite tempting. That could happen any time between now and September, and I could go for anywhere between a week and six months. It, of course, is totally impractical, but - what the hey! It's free!
• My ex who I used to play music with has started lining me up for some gigs with her, which on the one hand is cool, 'cos it's an extraordinary amount of money for very little work, and on the other it's commitment to dates and places in the future, which is a pain when I'm feeling like this. I never ditch out on anybody, though - not when it might drop them in the shit, not when I've said I'll do it - but if I have to, then I have to. I really have to look after myself. And, to be honest, it would take her about twenty minutes to find herself a much better guitar player than me.
• Books: I might as well do Mikey's blog (even though I haven't worked on it for two weeks) and I might as well do some sort of collection of my short stories and poems and stuff (have been working on that, and it feels sort of good and fulfilling and I like them). Other than that, I've lost interest. I can't even remember what was on my list. Maybe it will happen. Maybe I should just wait for a publisher to get interested - and if they don't, then fuck it. I've also lost interest in the idea of publishing other people.
• Still, I am looking for jobs around here, and that may totally change everything. I know I don't cope well with having too much time on my hands - especially in a cold and dreary and concrete urban environment. Perhaps one day I'll find somewhere more natural to live!
• I thought I had one person reading this - but now I think I was wrong about that. That's okay though, I'm not proud of what a downer I've been in these words. Maybe if I had someone to talk to in real life - but my friends here are way too busy with their kids and other things to have 'conversations', and everyone else I guess I just feel this pressure to be something other than 'down' - the supporter, the cheery one, the one who has it all together. Probably ego stuff, that is. Plus, it's just a bit shameful, really, when there's nothing really wrong and so much of what I feel is just disapproving, negative, anti-this, anti-that. Hell, my one imagined reader nearly died in a car crash and she doesn't seem so glum. In fact, nobody does. Just me. And so I hide and hide and I wonder if I'm becoming more and more like my reclusive, autistic, angry brother by the day. Now that would be scary. Oh, what is this thing called life! Where is it! Why me, my youth dripping away, wasted, as the oldies always say it is, and nothing nothing nothing to do with it, to save me, no one, no thing, no where. Bored! And frustrated! And anxious and lazy and disappointed and disappointing, and totally, totally lacking that part of a person that won't take no for an answer, that gets up and gets doing it, that makes the things they want happen - and finds things they want. But what is there in this world for me? What, what, what?

That's kind of how I feel, really: a real lack of interest in the world. And in life, even - for once upon a time my inner-life would have sustained me, the changes that I observed there, the things that I worked on and saw come to fruition, awareness and attention and growth. But now, none of that either. I ought to be righting things about myself, I suppose - but I really can't be arsed. I lack motivation. I'm mostly okay - when compared to my former self - and I guess I feel no need to push myself beyond it, not like in the days of meditation and vipassana and vision quests and inner-growth. But maybe that's where it's at. Except...nothing in me - so what do I want?

• I want to feel good. Whatever that takes, that's what I want. Even if it means giving up thinking, giving up wanting, giving up hope. Of course, this isn't consciously what I want - but it's true, I suppose. At least I think it is...
• For once upon a time I would've said God - but God eludes me and I don't even know what that is. Once upon a time it was everything - now, it's nothing. Now, it seems like something of the past. But, oh, to meet someone who knows 'my God' and could spark that flame again!
• Wife and kiddies? Ha! So much of my last travels I thought about that, and thought about the ones who could make it happen, and was resolved to it - and within weeks of being back in England it was nowhere. Oh, my mind! Such a trickster!
• To travel. Yeah, sure, I'll go off to Israel, and maybe even try the 'round the world with eighty quid thing', and probably one day go to New Zealand. I don't like England, I don't think. Too busy. Nobody has any time. My friend's husband is from Nepal and he marvels at us crazy Brits, working 'only eight hours a day' and still having so much less time for each other than they have in his native land. No time sucks.

I guess I need some help. I'm falling down. It's not good when a man can find nothing to be interested in, and when a man totally lacks the motivation to create that interest. I'll tell you something, though - it's not 'stuff' I lack, it's something else. 'Cos when I think of my one happy time/place in recent years in England - working in the woods down in Sussex - it was a time devoid of almost everything except graft and physical labour. I hurled logs. I drove a tractor. I lived miles from the nearest anything - and miles further from the nearest town. I never even wanted to go there though. I was satisfied. My day was breakfast, work, lunch, work, dinner, a card game, bed. I loved it. I didn't even feel an urge to be online. Never underestimate the benefits of work - and of work in the great outdoors, on your own doorstep, using one's body. It was perfect, really. And maybe I should go back to it, or to something similar.

Settling in...?

Pretty decent week, mainly taken up with a five-day visit from a friend and 'cuddle buddy'. Interesting relationship. Very uncomplicated - which I'm not used to. But she don't seem to mind the way it is at all, so why should I?

Didn't do much else; I hurt my foot and sadly couldn't play squash or football. Though I did sell my car and buy a pretty snazzy racer instead. Also, paid rent, which is a good thing. Today I went down the farmers' market and sold three - yes, count 'em: three - copies of my book. And then spent the rest of the evening putting my music and video files in order, which is always nice. Though not as nice as it used to be when they were real and made out of plastic and had 144 square inches of pictures and words to look at.

Right now my belly tastes of cheese. Also, I'm wearing a really nice shirt.

Cheers!

Rory

Lots and lots of moaning, like a tit

Reading old blog entries from nigh on three years ago, around the time when I went on Countdown, was sleeping with C, was thinking about getting back together with S, and then fell in love with L. When I started befriending cool London types. When I worked at Oxfam and used to go home and write insane nonsense things about old men and chickens and it was all rather groovy. When I used to do stuff (like drive a convertible, spend the day building a rubbish raft in a dirty river, walk about and wonder) - and now...and now I can't think of anything at all, other than a daily - and sometime twice-daily - trip up to Morrison's to buy something sugary and unhealthy and fattening. I've never had much luck with Kent. This isn't inspiring at all. But where is there life? And where is it in me to find it?

I seem to have changed. I chart it by thinking of the people I was with and how I was with them. I remember L and how in love I was at the beginning, cycling over to hers late at night to deliver her ice cream, hanging out in her student house even though I was like nine years older than everyone else. I don't feel that I could do those things right now. I feel very reclusive and uninterested in other people. I mostly just want to be alone, spend time with myself and my computer - compulsion, addiction, distraction, I know - and am back once more to looking at the world and thinking, but what's out there? It just seems to be a load of bricks and faces aimlessly wandering about. It feels like nothing. I admire people that can get something out of this life - that can take joy in babies, and sofas, and interactions with other people - but right now I don't understand them. What is there in this world? In my mind: nothing. Except, perhaps, trees.

I live by the sea - but, truth is, I don't really like the sea. And not just because it's an ugly sea, all brown and unswimmable and grim - because I didn't really like the sea when I was by the beautiful Pacific coastline in Mexico. Some people love it; but I don't. It's too noisy. It's just a load of water. Who gives a shit? I like hills and forests and trees and nice, quiet, fresh rivers. So what am I doing here?

On the whole, Kent's crap. I haven't a clue what I want to do for a job; I don't even know where to start. Or how. I feel lamer than the lamest serial doley who hasn't the brain of a peanut. How people get doing stuff, and how they find satisfaction is beyond me. Except, a man needs an income, and an activity, and I dig that. Oh, if only I could find satisfaction in writing! And be able to accept those lovely little government handouts without feeling guilty as so many other creative-types have done on their way to success. But I find it hard. And in my mind there is always that need for work, for money, for place, for job, and it distracts me.

Still, I've a few writerly things coming up and I suppose Kent's where I'm to be for now, despite my dreams of Guatemala or Yorkshire. Also, I have many, many copies of my book which I need to get rid of. Also, this car thing is getting me down...

Did I mention I bought a car while I was up in Leeds? Well, I did, and even though it seemed like a good deal at the time, it turns out it might not be. Turns out, in fact, that it's got a problem, and it could be quite a serious problem, and given that I spent almost every penny I had on it thinking that I'd make it back, and then some, when I got here, it's been a bit of a headache. Although a headache that has lessened with the passing of time (ie, I've started to forget that I even have a car). Did I also mention that I've driven it seven hundred miles, uninsured? That's sort of naughty, I guess - but despite being mostly good these days getting insurance is still the kind of thing that I find bothersome and annoying. Like paying for train tickets. Indeed, fare-dodging and driving uninsured may be the only naughtinesses I've committed in the last ten years. Which, when given my track record earlier in my life, I suppose isn't too bad.

Oh, where is the life! What is there in this cursed Herne Bay! And why not get on a bike and go somewhere else if it's so bad, you lazy fucker? Laying in bed constantly on a laptop even though you're hungry and need a piss and it hurts your legs - honestly! You really are a bit of a loser.

Oh well. Arseholes. And cotton. Plus sugar, as well. Every fucker's having a baby and I can't even support myself. Sometimes I could just go wandering off and leave everything and everyone behind. Just go walking, or cycling; try to make it to the ends of this Earth. Stand there on the edge looking out, and maybe leap. To fall into space. To be alone in the grand desert. If someone mentions ****** to me today I'll go there next month. To delete every account and be untouchable, and fresh and new. Before email we made friends and lost them naturally; now we keep them forever, even when our friendships have ended. Isn't it strange that the technology of the future prevents us from stepping into our future? Tied to the people of our past, even though we perhaps don't want to be...

I'm waffling. There's so little to talk about when you don't exist in the actual world, and when you have no interest in the things of this world. I admire, too, people who take up the cause, who battle for something they feel passionately about, who want to change things. Government, campaigners, protesters, etcetera. They get something in their heads and they go about it. Leukaemia, that sort of thing. I sometimes care but only in a very vague and passing way. The only thing I really care about, I suppose, is me. Everything else could go and die, but I would remain. I've wondered sometimes if this isn't perhaps the source of my dissatisfaction - because if you forget about yourself, how can you be unhappy? But, even if it was true, how could I change? People look at babies and go goo-goo ga-ga and love them - but how could I learn that sort of thing if I don't currently feel it? Or could I work, say, with little ones or old ones, and then one day find myself after a month or a year suddenly feel myself moved and in love, my heart astir and touched, and realising the connection and beauty of other people? I lack empathy and caring; other people mostly annoy me and I want to avoid. I'm paranoid, too; did I ever mention that? I think people are talking about me - and talking about me in negative ways. I fear abandonment and being turfed out and it makes me want to live on my own, so then there'll be no one that can do that to me. I know these are all psychological flaws within me. And I keep it all to myself, except when I'm writing here (as far as I'm aware, there's only one other person reading this - though it may be less than that).

I'm just talking, just writing. I feel like a flop. All those ideas I had about when I came back to England - getting productive, eating well, exercising, being this and that, doing this and that - it's all illusion, there's nothing there. Reality is, I'm bored, and regretting leaving Mexico. I don't have the patience to suffer mediocrity, not even for a day or a week. I think about getting back with C, and living with her in her house, and settling for it, even though I don't really fancy her. I dream of various pretty young things that would ultimately prove entirely unsuitable for me. I fear I'm getting worse, slipping further and further away from an acceptable and normal life - which I don't really want anyway. People are getting old; I don't want to be old. I'm only good at two things, it seems: writing and travel. And I may not even be that good at them. And all this is okay, because I can always dwell in the forest and be happy there...

Here's what normal people do: they go on travels; they come back; they find a job; they work; they save up money; they go on travels; they come back; they find a job; they work...

Oh, to be that kind of normal! But maybe it's not too late for me.

I'm not sure I'll find work around here. I can't think of any kind of job anywhere, to be honest - except for the landscape gardening I was doing in south London, which I was really enjoying. Summer days, with some lovely boys, building fences and digging holes, keeping fit and going home happy; that sounds nice. But London? Well, it couldn't be worse than here. And south London? Away from all the hustle and the bustle and the ponciness and all the things that make it London? Yeah, there was a time when I quite fancied Peckham or Dulwich or something. In any case, I've texted the guy and asked him if anything's going, and we'll see what he says. Apply for everything, take what comes, right? Maybe one day I'll apply for a job that actually uses my brains and abilities and skills - but I doubt it. Oh boy, the workings of this world really do escape me. I so hope I make it as a writer! (Not this drivel, obviously; hopefully I'm better than that)

But, honestly, who would want to follow my path if this is where it leads? In bed, with a laptop, and being majorly dissatisfied and disapproving with just about everything? People don't want that - and I don't want to make out I'm in any way better than that. Oh, the simple routine of washing and keeping things tidy and maybe eating well. But I can't even manage that. And my legs hurt. And I really am moaning like an old woman now! lol

Listen: if you get out of bed and maybe tidy something up, have a pee and eat a little and then go outside and walk or ride a bike (maybe pick up those jeans you left for repair a month ago) you'll feel better, I promise you.

Okay. Let's do it.