Let's try brevity...

1. I don't feel so good a lot of the time lately.
2. It all seems to be because I moved out of my flat.
3. Like many things keep going wrong, and they're all linked to that.
4. Sometimes I do stuff - like sport, or work - and then I feel good. But when it's over, I go back to normal, which isn't great.
5. All these humans in the world - they just look like molecules.
6. Whenever I get overwhelmed I think about flying to Mexico or Canada. Habitual response?
7. There's a construction site next to the house I'm living in now; they start up at 7.30 every morning. Not a fan.
8. I scored over five hundred thousand on Chuckie Egg and got to level 53.
9. I decided to start buying and selling guitars again. So far I've bought five and sold none.
10. Also bought two bikes.

The devil's fiery trumpet

Well I guess that’s about the end of what feels like my dumbest month ever: the passport didn’t materialise, I gave up on Canadian/American impromptu dreams – the last day of the reasonably priced tickets were Friday – and I reached the end of the tether called ‘not living anywhere madness’. It all limped to a slow crumpling halt when, after an almost sleepless night haunting various university floors and corridors, I awoke to a shaking shivering fever and cried helplessly frozen dressed in homeless man’s clothes to my ex. She took me in and made me feel better; I then raced off to pass a referee’s exam, before late at night the fever returned. Ex had already invited me to stay at hers but I must necessarily wait for her to return from singing in a café – and where wait? I hear you ask. Wait in the shed, she said. Cold and shivering and close to vomitus and tears I crawled into her shed and – glory be! – what did I find there but a pile of binbags full of clothes and a large, cuddly shark. I collapsed into the binbags as best I could; lay a few on my legs; and balanced the shark along the length of my back, for warmth. And that was where she found me.

“Why did you leave me in the shed?” I whimpered.

But truth was, the shed was good; I even slept some. About the best sleep I’d had in days.

Yes! There was fever. And: yes! There was more silly madness and going wildly out of my mind trying to navigate this dumb ridiculous minefield of not having anywhere to live and feeling simultaneously bound to Leeds but also with half a stupid foot on board a jet plane to Canada, checking tickets endlessly, even with passport still unfound by Thursday thinking, ah, but if it should appear today there’s still a chance to get that Friday flight – but of course, it don’t, and destiny is fulfilled. Life helps out and takes away the things one doesn’t need – but how much easier to surrender when the things aren’t that much wanted anyway. But when it’s young boy’s fantasies of bare-kneed adventures through the bear-lovin’ woods and visions and dreams of a youth long passed standing on American roads waving at flaxen-haired girls all now wrinkly and with teenage daughters of their own; how difficult sometimes to let these things go – even when own wisdom and I Ching and Great Grand Life Itself are directing and pushing and shoving you that way –

But to surrender to Morrison’s charms and the dirty streets of Leeds from whence I came, once more to a life of fish and chips and television when I had such Buddha dreams and lived the sun and smiles of Mexico and all those shiny New Age Californians –

Yes, it’s hard to let it go.

But I am here. I took a room. I’m back in Leeds. I have no work. I have no girlfriend. I didn’t get the job. I –

The job! The job! Now there’s a travesty if there ever was one: the whole (pretty much) goldarned reason I stayed in Leeds in the first place, thinking of this wondrous job and how it was meant to be, and meant for me, and how it would answer the question of, “what the hell do I do with my life?” for the next two years, at least – what a weight off one’s mind! – but…the job didn’t happen. The job was working in Sports Development at the university – which I would have loved, been awesome at – but the job also included a funded Masters in Communications Studies. Well, whatever, I want the job and it can’t hurt to have another MA, I guess I’ll do it too: just a wee little Masters on the side. But! What I found upon enduring interview was: it weren’t no Masters on the side, it was a dumbass Masters with a sweetass job on the side. WTF! Why put sweetass job as a side dish to pointless, academic-ass Masters? But that’s what they did. So all this time that the sports people were making me feel like a shoe-in and that the job was a cert of the very deadest kind, it turned out it was the weird brainy woman pulling the MA strings that was in charge. And that’s what all the questions were about. And the biggest question of all was, “why do you want to do this MA?” – and the answer to that was, of course, “I don’t, it sounds like some major boring bullshit, I just want the job but I suppose I’ll toss this off if I have to.”

But was that the answer I gave them? Even when I very nearly did? Was it hell: the answer I gave them was lies and blags and sweettalks and trying to wheedle my way in and satisfy the requirements as I’ve always done and usually succeeded thinking it didn’t really matter and – afterwards, I’ll tell you what, I felt sick to my stomach as though I’d sold my very soul. I cried for it – not literally – the lost opportunity to be truthful and the way I’d spieled such bullshit and exposed myself in front of cold-hearted librarians, the way dear sweet Emma who I laugh and joke with sat stone-faced through the interview as though pretending to be some judge on high! I feel like such a child and I can’t understand why people feel the need to put on hats and faces when you’re like, but I know you, we have giggles and funs, and now you’re acting like you’ve forgot who I am, and I’m wearing some weird sombre outfit that I would never normally wear – why suit and tie? more soul-selling (and black shoes, two sizes too big, that I found in a bin, like a clown’s shoes) – and…

Yeah, I felt real sad – and that was even before they told me I didn’t get it, au natural, for it was plain to see I wasn’t into the Masters. Well, who could be? And there was relief that I wasn’t going to have to write any more stupid essays or try and wrap my head around highfalutin’ concepts drawn up by eggheads and weird-brained losers in the midsts of opium and alcohol-fuelled genius episodes when convinced that things that don’t mean anything actually mean something, but unlike some poor coke-spieler’s victims, a section of the world buys into it. Yes, even before I got the no I was hoping for the no to avoid the weirdness of modules called “de-Westernising the media” and endless stuff on Arabs and politics and theories of God knows what.

It looked like the worst thing in the world – and what, pray tell, had it to do with organising football tournaments and getting young, happy, gay, beer-swilling youths excited about sport? I loves being a student and being surrounded by all that easy-living university freedom – but, Goddamn, some of the stuff these academics come up with to fill their brainspace really takes the biscuit. And not only that, it makes me sad too.

So there I was, relatively homeless and at that present time up at the glamping place near York, passport nowhere to be seen, mourning, as ever, the decision to uproot myself from my flat, a headful of women, and right in the midst of all that comes crashing down the vision of my future: September 2012 to August 2014: two whole years of employment and foundation and routine and reason to exist and freedom from having to create a life and, also, sport and fun and still being a student and still having my sportspass and still being able to play squash and football and get involved with things and…

And now it’s all gone. So what am I? And why am I here? And yet here I am – because I’ve been saying it for too long, life wants me in Leeds. But why, goddamnit? For there is no life in Leeds for me, as far as I can see, and the prospect of the coming months is scary. Sure, the football season will start, and I’ll be back to reffing once more; and, sure, I’ll get my home back and have my comfortable basement base and dwell in there alone and away from prying eyes and other people’s boring chatter, hopefully – but, what else?

Well, I suppose that’s me getting ahead of myself – this time last year I was just getting the news that I’d be back in Leeds full stop, having just won the bursary. And back then my head was full of dreams of where my current writing MA would take me – somewhere great, I hoped; in the event, it hasn’t – and also I had my new girlfriend and ideas of her and us and, you know what, the best thing about being in Leeds – the refereeing and all the squash I’ve played – wasn’t even on the radar, ended up being totally unexpected and out of the blue. So perhaps there’s a lesson there too.

But: oh, I will tell you this also: when I had my fever and lay shivering homeless on the postgrad room couch feeling seven kinds of miserable and wanting to vomit and cry, and later realising that my arsehole was bleeding, even without any kind of poo-action, and bleeding quite profusely too, I smiled inside and imagined some kind of colon cancer or maybe even leukaemia and saw then blesséd release and the end of this journey: an angel from on high singing, come home Rory, you’ve done all you can, there’s no more you could do in this limited, beaten, unloved and poorly-brought up body. You’ve taken it fair distance and done your best but I can see you’re done with this world – with the weirdness of it – with never being able to find your place – and so we’ve arranged for you to come home. In fact, a few days before that, I had a dream in which I was playing the character of Frank N. Furter in an amateur production of Rocky Horror Picture Show and just before I woke I was singing that sad song about him realising he’s going home (to Transylvania) although he’s actually about to get killed and that’s exactly what I thought when I opened my eyes: that I’m going home; that I’m going to die.

I’ve been thinking this a lot lately. Not in a suicide, depressed kind of way, but in a happy, complete, I’m done and I’m kind of tired and bored kind of way. I suppose, I’m sure, there is more of life out there and it’s my own lazy fault for not being able to find it – but, there you go, that’s the way I feel, and the way I’ve been feeling a lot lately – for so much of this world I just don’t find interesting, nor able to do – not women, not work, not interaction or socialisation or making it in any kind of way or even wanting to be or do anything in particular – which is even more heightened than ever, what with the writing coming to a conclusion and not for the first time in years chasing or wanting women or any other particular idea at all. If only I could drift off into war film-watching, cigarette-smoking oblivion like my dad and grow fat on a sagging, stinking couch eating takeaways and thinking not…

The night before my Frank N. Furter dream I woke in the middle of an episode of sleep paralysis: I always think of Mother Meera when I do this, either that she’s there or that she can help me, cos it usually feels like there’s some bad juju afoot. Probably that’s just an imagined condition. But, whatever, I think of her, and it helps. Although I do occasionally wonder if she isn’t bad juju herself. Sometimes I feel something – I imagine it to be her – when I’m lying immobile on my front, pinned, and it’s like one of those things from The Matrix is being inserted into the back of my neck – invisible, non-physical, yet physically felt nonetheless. I fight it. Then I think, maybe it’s okay, and try and relax into it, which isn’t easy. Sleep paralysis is a weird and scary thing: I think there’s some culture where people actually die from it, from the fear cos they think it’s a witch. It always feels like there’s someone else there. And they always think it’s a woman. Maybe there are evil spirits after all (I don’t think I really believe that).

I’ve gone off the track. I’ve contemplated lately not writing this blog anymore, or, at least, trying to make it more normal again and about things that actually happen and also intelligible and not difficult to understand but – well, I don’t seem to have the ability. Maybe when life is somewhat settled. Maybe when I start doing things again and actually have something to report, other than the contents of my own mad head. Or maybe I’ve just lost the ability, don’t care what comes out, have been taken over by the master of the fingers and his own crazed agenda. He just wants to type – the bee speaks! – and he doesn’t care for no audience wishes or ears and eyes that scream, stop! Just say something that makes sense! Quit it with the gibberish already! And I am his puppet: when I serve his needs, he gives me happiness and a clear head – temporarily, at least. He says, here, sit down, let it all splurge out and I’ll take the troubles of your life – give them unto me – and progress you through them. Give me your three hours and I’ll take all those days of backlog and burden and set you free, and rocket you into something new. But, he says, like some crossroads devil, your soul is now mine, and you must keep coming back, lest I cast you into the pit of wretchedness – that is, you won’t feel good unless you do it – for I draw my power from the tap-tap of your fingers on these keys and you get your reward and linked to every word you express and every thought and feeling you put on that screen are wires attached to hamster wheels attached to the fiery furnaces of hell – which is how I keep my house warm.

Writers sell their hours to keep the devil’s hot water tank and central heating system piped up and in return receive the feelgood liberation factor of expression and Catholic confession-style release from woes and it can never, ever end. It’s my job. I don’t know where I signed up to this – but it’s what he wants.

It’s not so bad, I guess: a few hours typing each day – a few hours taking mad dictation from an invisible and infinite lineage of ever-shrinking bees – in exchange for gladness and answers and relief.

But woe for the eternal cycle of it all! The never reaching a stop! The endlessly turning hamster wheel merry-go-round!

For what when a man wants to get off – wishes to rest – has had enough? And yet dragged back, ever more, to the keyboard, to life?

Did I really commit my soul to this? Did I really sign up and say “I Do”?

In other news, wasn’t it nice to see Andy Murray cry at Wimbledon? And didn’t he do well? And isn’t it good to see Roger Federer not quite dead yet? And what about Spain? Sheesh, they sure know how to win a football match – but still very boring to watch, in my opinion. I like Episodes, the TV show with Matt LeBlanc, and I’ll miss it now it’s finished. I’m not sure the second series was as good as the first but it was still good and had some really fine moments. Also sad that they cancelled Shooting Stars again – easily the funniest show in history. Vic and Bob are two geniuses: probably all good British comedy of the last twenty years stems from them. When they die, the world will mourn and realise what prophets, what royalty, what gods they were.

I think I’ll lie down now.

xx

More confusion

Just came out of job interview, feeling emotionally bereft. So difficult to do that lying thing where you pretend like you want/know something and people pretend to be judges up on high asking questions like any of it matters. What a weird fuckin' world we live in! And the weirdest thing was 66% of the interview panel I knew, in a jokey, friendly way - but then they had their different heads on and had to be 'interview them' and all I am is a confused child wondering why all these games and rules and why can't people just be themselves?

The job I had such high hopes for...it's not so much the job, it's the MA that goes with it: another bullshit MA described in abstract and vague terms that weird people wank off to.

I've got to get out, get some perspective. I'm off the country for three days. Moving out of my flat was probably one of the worst things I've ever done - and I do love Leeds but right now I want to be anywhere but.

My soul hurts, I swear - and then I start dreaming again of Canada and the US all over again and jumping off the cliff. But you know the extraordinary thing with that? After all I've said about Leeds and how I feel Life just wants to keep me here?

I can't find my passport.

It's gone.

Elsewhere.

And so I couldn't go even if I tried.

Everything's gone weird since I left my place - and all the money I hoped to save, and all the income I thought I didn't have...well, plenty of reffing (and other) work has come in in the meantime - and travelling and living elsewhere and having my bike nicked and losing my passport...it's all gone somewhere else anyways.

Not to mention the cost and the stress of uncertainty - and yet still remains the question of -

[on the chat, Dave S. pops up - let's see what he has to say...]

[ten minutes later] Yep, that was useful - another bullet to the head of Canada/US dreams. Why can't I just let it go? It sucks when your desires and dreams are all fucked up and stoopid...

I gotta go. I gotta get away from the internet and put my head in some country nature space, a comfortable bed in a fancy tent with burning logs on the fire and some clarity...

Another catch-up

I suppose I’ve got some catching up to do. It’s been quite a bit of time, and quite a bit has happened, and that could lead to two things: one, I write about eight billion words and try and capture and recall everything; or two, I attempt to be succinct. And then there’s always the third option – not write at all? something presently unknown? – but we’ll gloss over that for now. In any case, I suppose it’s the bee that’s in charge and the bee that will be deciding. Unless, that is, I actually have two bees in my head, and though I have no power over what they decree, I do have the power of which one I choose. But then again, that’s just me being whimsical and pretending that I’m mad. Of course I know there’s actually an infinite number of bees in my head, and all bases are covered. So…

The Confessions of a Fare-Dodger

Ever since the day of the Montana Hamburger Epiphany almost fourteen years back I’ve been ever such a good boy as far as crime and such goes. But one thing I’ve never been able to give up on is skipping paying fares on the English railway system. There are several reasons for this. One, the fares are exorbitant. Two, the system is screwy and fucked up and totally unfair (it really is). And three, because I’m massively tight. Also, it’s just become a bit of an out-of-control habit – as the Pringles slogan tells us, once you start, it’s mighty difficult to put an end to it. But, thing is, like eating Pringles also, it just makes me feel bad and I know it isn’t good for me. And yet…

When I was coming up from Norfolk the other week I gave myself about eight hours to get to work. I’d checked the fares beforehand and they were all mad expensive. Truly, it’s cheaper to fly across Europe than take a train more than about fifty miles in Britain. So, bollocks to that, and I thumbed it. Except the thumbing was slow and bad and I was still like a hundred miles away with less than two hours to get to my destination. I…

I can’t be bothered to tell this story. In a nutshell, I got stressed out, wandered hither and thither avoiding paying for tickets, worried about stuff, cursed myself for blighting my almost continual good mood with unnecessary sadness, and didn’t get to work at all. In the end my tightness ended up costing me money, rather than the break-even I woulda had if I’d splashed out on the comfort of a train and then earned some. The weird thing was…even though I knew it was making me sad to try and swindle the system and I was constantly vowing to sort myself out and do the right thing in the future, I felt almost pathologically unable to do so. I was sick in my stomach and crying in my soul and yet I still couldn’t do it.

What the fuck, huh?

So I’m gonna try and be better from now on. The biggest bummer was, like I say, I’d been in a good mood for quite a few months and then I was bummed beyond bummed for several day afterwards. A bit like…

Still being homeless

I’d arranged, at least, a place to stay in Leeds until the end of the month, and had that to go back to on my sad late night return, having finally shelled out on a ticket from Sheffield – wee struggle – and ridden the relaxing train of non-scumliness. But when that ended I was still up in the air. Too many things to do in Leeds to leave here. Too many old thoughts and memories and plans and ancient habits – travel, get away, run to the hills, jump into America – to commit to seeing out the summer here. And so…I was back to thinking of secret university rooms on cushions and leaky tents in the rain. More sadness. More self-caused uncertainty. More kinda mild self-destructive behaviour. It becomes so apparent: that my happiness is almost shining and crystal clear like a pure, pristine pool – and that it only takes these little specks of muddy ridiculousness to sully it – and that I’m the one who’s plopping in the mud. Everything is great and yet I persist in foolish behaviours for reasons I don’t understand – really seems to be purely out of habit – and even though I think I ought to stop it, and do what seems apparently right, I can’t. Or haven’t yet. Or don’t. But surely there’s only one victor in this struggle…

So, the day I left my friend’s place I took my stuff back to uni and wondered what to do, deciding not do anything and thinking, well, to hell with it, maybe something’ll arise by the time I need to sleep. And it did: I was called up by an ex and invited over for dinner, and offered the sofa, and offered the bed, and she said, I won’t be having sex with you, and I said, I know – but then her lips inched over towards mine, and her hand went down there where all lines have been crossed – and then she got me touching her, and then she said, I’m ready for you, and then…well, funny creatures, women. 3-1 to her and a good night was had by all, I’d like to think. Certainly, I…

No, we’ll refrain from that.

The next night it was secret university room under a child’s sleeping bag I’d found in the street outside an empty house and it was okay. But the following day the situation was too much and too ridiculous – no one was going to come and rescue me, and I was tired and sullied once more – and I managed to find a cheap local room that I could take on a week-by-week basis and move in immediately. And, whaddya know? It’s better to have a bed to go to each night and a place to hang your clothes than it is to wander oddly through the streets puzzling endlessly over your immediate and unfathomable future. Who’da thunk it?

Not that I wander through the streets, of course. I sit in the nice uni room and ponder useful things to do on the computer and do useless things instead.

Oh Canada

That I Ching I did about giving up my flat (after the fact, sadly) said I was riding a wave of energy and impulse which no longer needed satisfying. Many moons ago I realised that the relationship wasn’t working and I wanted out – I didn’t get out, though; instead, I thought of other things, started making plans in my head, and bought into those plans and dreams and schemes. Then, when the relationship did end I said, right! That’s it! I’m free to bring it all into fruition. And yet…it was all built on the root of that first initial feeling of wanting out; when the out came, the tree that had sprouted from that root should have collapsed. But it had such momentum, and such apparent reality, that I bought into it. The wave rolled on – waves and trees? – and I rode it not knowing that it was high time to get off. Such is life: big lessons and learnings especially in the times gone wrong. But a man has to pay – and for his greed and ignorance in riding the wave and living in dreams, he loses his home and tastes the bitter tang of uncertainty and lostness until he can stomach it no longer. I don’t drink booze because it would make me feel bad in the moment, do daft things, and feel bad later too. I’m wise to that. Similar situation here. ‘Cept I’m not yet wise to it.

So Canada is…a dream I haven’t let go of. Still my calendar is free from July 13th to the beginning of September and there’s a window there. One voice says, gosh, wouldn’t it be awesome? To go, and have adventures, take risks and isn’t this what life is about anyway? Forget being boring and normal and be the Rory you know you are, the Rory that so few people have the ability to be. Good and tempting voice. And adventures and things to write/talk about. But other voice says, be sensible, man. Pay attention to the signs. Leeds is good to you and you feel settled and happy here. Think of your refereeing! Think of your beautiful new kit! Think of 5-a-side and squash and the simple joy of waking up in your own bed and pootling naked to your own bathroom and supping your own sweet tea out your own sweet pot.

Other voice says: yeah, but all you do in Leeds is waste time online – in between the sports – and what would you be without that?

Both voices nod: that’s true, they say, ought to be something better to do with life than just flicking through videos of fights and stupid goalkeepers and boobies.

Sad, ain’t it? So…

Canada! America! Mad adventure!

And…this is the conundrum I am in.

Meanwhile, the rain lashes down and it’s cold and wet and grey – as it has been all ‘summer’ – but the funny thing is it doesn’t bother me, never has. So what if it’s raining? If this was December we wouldn’t mind. Just because a man put his name on it and said, during this month, nine times out of ten, the sun willeth shine and the weather willeth be better, it don’t mean that ‘cos it ain’t my mouth’s got to turn upside-down. Summer, spring, winter, fall – it’s all the same to me. It’s what’s inside that counts. And what the weather man says…is all good – as long as you’re not homeless. How do you dry your shoes?!

Happiness and blogging

I only write when I’ve got something to get off my chest or when I want to have a doolally flurry of fingers and make up stuff and pretend I’m mad. That’s all quite good fun – an enjoyable hobby for me – but it understandably leads people in the ‘pretend world’ to think that it represents something true of ‘real world’ me. So they think I’m mad and crazy and also kind of unhappy, I guess. Looking for something. Riddled with confusion and woe, maybe. But…I’m not: that’s just what I like to write about. And anyway, happiness writes white, right? And very few people want to hear that.

And the other hand, maybe I’d like to experiment with more accurately representing the joyfulness of this existence – and maybe that’d be good for me too. Joy begets joy – and maybe the vice versa is also true. The joy of my wonderful new refereeing kit. The joy of my unexpected game of six-a-side last night. The joy of confronting small boys about their stolen footballs and wondering if their dads really would come down and get me. The joy of seeing branches and leaves dance spastically in the wind. And all the flirty texts I send. And all the girls who…

Too much. Woids, woids – they fall out of me like water from a dripping tap. Splish splosh! Splattering on the sink.

But you know what? I really hate the sound of a dripping tap.

Also…

I had my second counselling session – it was all right but it was really just me talking about things I’ve said a million times before. My mum this, that time that…kind of boring. I guess I’d like to uncover new territory and break through into something – realisations! bucketloads of tears! – but I’m not sure it would. Does all this talking really work? Maybe for some – but experiential is where it’s at. I wanna cry my goddamn eyes out and then never feel paranoid or insecure ever again: that’s what I’m after. Maybe this’ll unlock some door. But all it ever seems to lead back to is how I used to shit my pants as a boy and it doesn’t seem to matter how many strangers I tell that to, we never really get anywhere…

Did I mention my new refereeing kit? Only twice. It’s lovely and I feel so proper and authoritarian in it. I got a small even though I’m generally a medium and it fits me like a glove, much more gladiatorial than all the other referees look. They’ve got fat bellies and generally wear saggy kits that cover over their paunches. But I’m young and handsome and fit and I’ve got muscles to display too. I’m the David Beckham of football referees. If I’d started a bit sooner and made it to the top I’d no doubt have been the first pin-up whistle-blower. Oh well.

I think I’ve lost my passport: that’d be quite somethin’ in this whole going/not going to Canada/America thing. Talk about a sign.

I also had my bike nicked. That links to the above in that neither of them would have happened if I hadn’t given up my flat – so hoping to save money (being tight) ends up costing you it. Who’da thunk that? Well, me: I would. It’s Divine Retribution – except there’s nothing vengeful about it, it’s just lessons and karma and all that good yet slightly painful stuff that helps a man to grow. The bike was chained to the inside gate of the house that I was staying in last week: I came out on the Sunday morning to go play squash and – voila! – it was gone: the bike and the gate. I marvelled at my mind: the instant I saw it I teared my eyes not but, instead, just chortled and said, man, people are fuckin’ crazy. All that trouble for a fucked up twenty quid bike. And how dumb they’d been not to know that they could have chopped through that lock with a half-decent pair of pliers. But no, instead, they’d knocked down a bit of the wall and ripped off the heavy metal gate and then gone lumbering down the garden path with the gate/bike contraption on their shoulders all for a few paltry dozen quid. I feel sorry for people like that: that they’re out there at like three a.m. doing dumb things like that for such little reward. And what about the state of their heads, that they don’t think of the consequences of what they’re doin’? I doubt they’re leading very joyful lives. But then, I nick miles off train companies, so I should know – and deserve it probably too. Luckily I’ve a spare bike, but still…

Passport. Bike. Day’s work. Sleep. And well-being. What else have I lost by stupidly giving up my flat? And still I sit myself in no-man’s land, because of old habits of getting away and wanting to LIVE LIFE TO THE PEPSI MAXXX, YEE-AHHHH!

All this falls into context: the other night after refereeing I was hungry and I stopped off for fish and chips at the very excellent – despite being Asian-owned – Royal Park Fisheries and there I sat, on their step, munching away in the humid night. Over to my left, the massive hulk of the Royal Park Pub – the place where I got my first drunk with my dad aged thirteen, just around the corner from his shop, where I did my first paid work. Over to my right, his old house, where I slept on couches and had Christmases. Viewed my first porno. Laughed and talked and learned. Where I watched Everton draw with Liverpool four-all. Where I puked at the smell of curry. All those memories – and later ones too, aged seventeen and eighteen and nineteen – and here I am, right back where it all happened, and it’s hard to know I’ve ever been away. Leeds 6: it feels like home to me. So why do I want to leave?

A: I don’t. It’s just habit. It’s all I can think of when freedom arises and opportunities come. Old desires as yet undead. Mysterious Grace in Colorado – the unrequited dream woman – and America all forbidden, which of course makes me want to go there. Ideas from years back, unfulfilled. Dreams die hard – even the ridiculous ones. I struggle to let them go because I don’t want to be one of those that says, gee, I really wanted to do this thing but I never did – and now I’m here on my deathbed and it’s too late. I’ve lived pretty much my whole life doing all the things I wanted to do, for better or for worse, but this one I haven’t done. It’s probably wise. But…

Well, I shouldn’t say, “I can’t let it go,” I should just say, “I haven’t yet been able to.”

Fuck! It sucks being good – having a conscience – being unable to glibly ride the trains without paying. I…

There was more to that sitting there eating fish and chips than what I’ve said. There was also the sense of perhaps this is where I ought to be build my life. Okay, it’s not palm trees and sand in Mexico – or sun – or those Colorado mountains and bikers and – okay, it’s full of rain and red brick and the women are generally far from pretty and the people course and noisy and – okay, there’s barely any nature and the only thing that keep life ticking is an infinite disembodied store of generally useless knowledge but – this is home.

What the fuck: that’s the worst paragraph I’ve ever written, lol! It wasn’t even anything to do with what I was thinking about with those fish and and chips. You see! I just – the bee just…waxes lyrical, with what it wants in the moment. A guy in a bedroom thinking without feeling and loving words and the process of typing and –

You’re losing them Rory: your audience is going. You started succinct and now you’re drifting into abstract nothings.

Oh, what to do with this world, one’s head?

Leeds, and refereeing, and bees, and…

Gosh, I hope I get this job. You think it would be good for me to have something to get out of bed for? A reason to live? Some interaction with the real world? To knuckle down and do some work? ‘Cos I do!

The journey – the process that I seek an end to in half the things I write – it ain’t even half-done yet. Patience must be applied. In a little under two months time everything will be revealed and make sense and all these questions will no longer be relevant. Entonces, one mustn’t be in a hurry and if in the meantime watching Shooting Stars or tennis under a rainy sky and reffin’ two nights a week to pay your rent and food in a stranger’s home is what gets you through then why the hell not? Like Lennon said, whatever gets you through the night, it’s all right, it’s all right.

But – damn! – that fish and chips revelation: if only I could remember it now.

Is travel a curse? Could I have been the man I am now – all the good bits, I mean – without having had to go to the States and Mexico and Canada and meet all those groovy people and have, alas, my current day thoughts spread and torn in a thousand directions across the globe like the scene from Hellraiser where the hooks pull apart the guys face and his skin rushes off in every direction?

Email: that’s the problem. And the internet: imagine only interacting with the people in your immediate vicinity, like we did in the good old days. Imagine if I just deleted my email accounts and refused to rush to it every time I had a problem and fired off messages to people I haven’t seen in decades and actually stayed focussed on the place I’m at. Imagine a world in which Leeds is my reality, and these city boundaries are my universe, and I were never to leave again, unless absolutely called, but never out of habit or simple flee escape. Imagine a life in which my room, my head, my local baker for morning’s cheering greetings was all I had…

I see me jettisoning my email as I once jettisoned facebook. I see me quitting the online life as I once quit chess. So little good has come of it. Everyday twenty messages land in my inbox and all they do is serve to distract. The people are lovely and loved without my replies, as am I, and I hope they know it.

Imagine a world without texts.

We’ll still have letters and phone calls. We’ll still, perhaps, come to visit…

Is that all?

Oh, there’s always uni. Did I tell you I failed my first ever course? Not that my work wasn’t good enough – highest mark so far, apparently – but because I handed it in four days late it therefore fell below the pass-mark threshold due to the penalty. But I can still get my MA if I do my last piece all right – not that I’ve got a damned clue of what I’m going to write.

Okay, it’s 1.35 and I’ve been blabbing long enough and it’s about time for the tennis. Plenty of Hugh Grant ‘About A Boy’-style units there! Gawd, I love the tennis. Come on Murray! You’s got to beat the Tsonga! Aiiii.

A quick blast

So last time I wrote all was falling and now all is up in the air. Can't write anything. Can't do owt but wonder. Is it Canada or is it Leeds? Is it being normal or being mad? Presently, I'm being mad - but I keep thinking not to be. Too much in my head and too much pressure. A new beginning, the I Ching says. The problem, it says, was lack of flow, things getting blocked up. Sounds reasonable: maybe the flow - and life - will begin again. Maybe that's why no words come. The feeling that no one can understand me and no one could give advice. But maybe that's just projection cos I don't understand myself, feel so separate from the rest of the world. And that's just words. And, anyway, I keep everything back. No emotions, no feelings. Just calm wide eyes that watch all: a floating movie camera staring at the human race: an alien anthropologist wearing the most perfect disguise. All men aliens, for all men from another world travelling through time and space in bodies made from stars. Something like that.

And this body...

This body sits in a room. Contemplates endlessly where to put itself, what to do. Limbo and waiting and wondering and...no, not seeking - nothing left to seek. Observing with quiet interest and curiosity. Life is not something I do, it is something I see as it flows through me. Oh look, a river in my being - the river rushes on. I watch and wait and look down puzzled and half-smiling. The gorge it rushes through is green and gold and glorious. But to jump in would be fatal. Crashed and smashed upon the rocks. The water foaming rapid.

In other times it wouldn't be mad to have no fixed abode. Even great men slept as dogs. But in my head there is the world and all its voices and woes and fears. I have, unfortunately, let them get the better of me, and so I fear and woe too. Ah, to be old Lao Tzu and smile content lying in rags under the stars!

Sleep, sleep: I'll try to sleep. The older I get, the less easy it is, to be out there, running wild, living odd, shutting eyes on flickering phantoms of security guards and bastards. But when I was young, razor rocks I could lay on, and drift off good, and wake refreshed. That time under a truck in Anaheim, CA. And all those highways and cities and woods. Even the Norfolk cemetery, with its gladly sheltering Yew umbrella. No rain there did touch my head! And my sleeping bag and guitar case mattress was hotel heaven. But now I fear bludgeons and troubles.

Does all of that make sense? Does any of it make sense? I don't know what's happened to my ability to write - maybe because I delved so deep into labelling it all "pointless" - and like when I was a boy who pretended he couldn't sing in tune, and then became no longer able - perhaps the wind changed? perhaps my nose grew? - maybe it's become a reality for me. Self-convinced. Hypnotised. Psychosomatic writerly paralysis. These words are not the words I used to know. The bee has gone bee-army; perhaps he has a bee in his head too. And on and on and on. Maybe I'm just a bee in someone else's head. This whole universe is. And somewhere a giant tiny man is scratching his ear and wondering why the universe keeps turning and happening, keeps telling him to write and say and do things. But it's all just an infinite procession of bees, right back to the original one, which must be so tiny that...but no, even the thing that is the smallest thing ever - the next size up from nothing - can be cut in half, right? Even the smallest number imaginable can be divided by ten.

Sheesh: what a tiny little bee that must be! And yet that's where all the power lies.

Ha! Fuck that bee that thinks it's controlling me - he's no less a puppet than I am, the son of a bitch, the swine (I love him really).

Ice is nice and rice is twice

as

nice/rice/ice.

Know what I mean?