A Day In The Life

Wake up. Need to pee. It's early. Crying baby. What to do? Reach for laptop. Turn it on. Oh boy, here we go again. Not too much. Emails. Facebook. BBC. Click click click. Facebook. Emails. BBC. Enough. Not enough. More BBC. News stories. Not interested. More. Click click click. Do something productive today. Click. Facebook. Refresh refresh refresh. Nothing's happening. Refresh. What am I doing? Clicking. Refreshing. Why? Oh no, here goes the day. Tomorrow. Something productive tomorrow.

Baby's crying. Voices. A vacuum cleaner. Already! And the sun is shining - should go outside. But where? Why? What? There's nothing out there. A walk in a beautiful place. No. Will just think. Will just come back. Nothing changes. [Laughter and stupid noises from housemate. Annoying. Don't understand them. Endless quotes from TV shows. Laughter that grates. Can't communicate.] Sun still shining. Should go outside. But why?

Cup of tea. Slice of toast. Back to computer. Should do something productive. The short stories. Mikey's blog. Can't be bothered - they're 90% done; they've been 90% done for weeks. So that's okay, 'cos it won't take too long to finish. Something else instead. What? There isn't anything. Refresh facebook. Click. Nothing. Watch some comedy, some youtube clips. Half learn a song. Refresh facebook. Refresh email. Nothing. Nobody. Click. Always waiting for something, some news to change everything. Think about getting away. Where? Guatemala. Mexico. Israel. Australia. I'll walk/bicycle/hitch to Australia. Have an adventure. Why? Why not? This is boring, this staying here. I'm boring. I don't know how to live. I can't be happy in one place. I don't understand other people. I don't want to be like them. Get away. They say you're running. Running from what? Running from yourself. Are they right? You should settle down, stop moving, meet a girl. What girl? Eve, Nicola, Sophie, Perlilly, Laura. Tried and tested two. Must meet Sophie. Can't go anywhere till I do - mind will always be coming back to her. Go today. No. Send her a postcard first. Okay. Been saying that for weeks. Many other things been saying for weeks. Time is passing - oh God, I'm getting old, wasting my life, my youth. Must do something. But what? Do something good. Help people. Want to - but never do. Am I good? I don't know. Bored and with too much time but too lazy even to help the people around me. Middle class. They talk about home improvements and wine and cheese. Don't understand. Want to feel happy. How? Where? Remember the canyon in Mexico, arms outstretched, a man alone in nature, saying, "I love you so much." Love here? No. Hate it. Hate England. Hate the noise of traffic, the concrete, the shops and the shopping and it seems even with all this stuff there's nothing nothing nothing to do. Nature. Nature here? Yes. But also the noise of cars. Go alone to the woods and dig it. No. Can't. Why not? Just...can't. Can't get it together to do anything. Can't drag myself away from this computer. It's always with me, always in my head. Sell it. Get rid. Finish projects first. Yes. Then get down to it. Can't. Too much time. No pressure. Always tomorrow. And the days drift by like this over and over again, always the same, nothing out there, too much computer time, always loathing it and keeping on doing it, and slowly I wonder what I become.

A job. Get a job. Work. When you work, everything is better. Go to Oxfam. Sort records. Sleep there. And why not live there? Avoid paying rent. Be more free. Be cheap. Be weird. Don't want to be that again, homeless and drifting and always in need of a rest. But in a home...I'm lazy, my life sucks, these walls my prison, this comfort nothing but a handicap. Why here? Why Herne Bay? Because friends offered and it seemed easy - and I Ching said "yes." Learned something? Yes. Had a place to experience Eve again? Yes. Had a place to experience being in a place again? Yes. Had enough? Not quite. Get a job. I've applied. For many - will probably start hearing back soon. That'll change everything. Apply for everything, take what comes. Trust that it's right. Yes. My legs hurt from using this computer - why is that? Whether I'm lying or sitting, they hurt. Get some exercise. Work off your belly. Go for a run. Can't. Boring. Will just be me, running. What's the point? Don't like it. Like football and squash and doing something competitive, and if I could I'd do that every single day and probably everything would be a thousand times groovy. Physical exercise. Movement. Working as a landscape gardener - good. Tried again but no joy there. Nothing comes. Will something come. Yes? But a job. Can I commit. I want to be a writer! I sound like a child. I say that, but I don't do any writing, I've nothing left to say. Get away. Stuck. Committed now to gigs with Perlilly in June/July. Damn! Hate committing to the future - but probably will be here anyway.

Depressed. I'm a loser. What a shame, when I used to have so much going for me. Was given so much. Had so many tools and opportunities. And every movie I watch I cry and say, oh, I should do something good. I think about helping people, providing care and a home for kids that are lost. But I don't do anything. And then I just want to run away, be alone, on the road, be a recluse. Need my own space, away from crying children, middle class parents, cars and concrete and computer. But need computer to write. But don't write. But would want it anyway. Pen and paper. Yes, maybe.

Lunch. Tired. Nap. Laptop in bed. Movie/comedy instead. That was funny! Hahaha, now I feel good. A bit more comedy, perhaps - and what haven't I got? Downloading. Searching. Reading. Watching. Oh yes, remember this one, and this, and this. Watch more. Getting late. I'm lying in bed, click click clicking - always facebook, always intermittent emails, opened and answered immediately - but always waiting for something different, something unknown, something that never seems to come - legs and wrists hurt, too late now to do anything productive. Cold outside. This damn English weather! If only the weather was better here then everything would be different. So go somewhere with better weather. But when the summer comes, they say, then it's just lovely. Is it? Maybe. World Cup. Wimbledon. June. Barbecues on the beach and happy times playing cricket in the park. But does it ever happen/come? Or will it be more of the same. Get away, get away, get away - did I not realise what I was a little under a year ago? The wanderer? Unable to make it work in this life, this modern world, these strange and curious ways because it violates your very nature? And yet, back, and back again, in city, in urban life, in England - for why? What brings/compels me here? Give up email, give up facebook, give up communicating with the past and just disappear, disappear, disappear. A whole new life. A whole new way of being. A stranger emerging into a strange place and making it work there, and all these things of London and England and here and friends past long gone and unthought of, as I'm sure people used to do.

Running moving thinking breathing writing creating, and once upon a time, God - but where is God now? Or was it just a passing phase? America. Mount Shasta. Sneak in across the border through the woods from Canada. See people, places there. Leah. Shawn. Stevie Jay. Charlottesville. Back to a time and a place where...you can never go back. Always different, always changing.There is nothing in this world. Alone. As ever. And yet, if I had a woman, and someone to come home to, and someone to talk to, everything would be different. And only Sophie fills that hole - and yet I don't even know who she is. See her. Yes. Put it on the list. Send her a postcard. And then go, even though she doesn't want you to, because you need to. I need to. I can't move on until I see how I feel in her presence. I wish I was more get up and go, like I used to be. But think so much of money now! Even when it comes to taking the bus or the train in England. Must see Sophie.

Dark. Food. Tired. Bed. Another day, oh boy, a few encouraging messages and a bit of interaction, I visit the supermarket and buy some food, cook it and eat it and say, tomorrow, productivity, things to do, get it on. And tomorrow is the same as today and even though it's not a happy day, it's nowhere near miserable enough to provoke me into action, because I always have this laptop for distraction. I wonder what's underneath all this time I spend on it, though? What would I think, where would I go, if I wasn't using 10+ hours of my day to look at this screen and do nothing in particular. Wouldn't everthing be different?

Sell it. Get rid. See what lies beneath. Yes.

But do the projects first.

Yes.

But will I really do them?

Or will I waste another week, another month, and creep ever onward in this life towards my middle age, my death.

Oh, God, what am I doing with myself! I don't know how to live. I don't know what to do. And you wonder why I look to the stars, the heavens, to other people to decide for me!

Loser. Failure. Temporarily lost. Still devilishly handsome - but for how long?

Something will happen, sooner or later.

Sleep. Tired. A little more comedy, a little more facebook. Click, refresh, click. Damn these legs and wrists!

Maybe a movie.

It's late, it's late, it's late - but, shit, I've done it again. 2 a.m. This is the last time, I swear. But how many times I've said that. Oh boy, wake up in five hours, feeling shit, another day lost. And I just know what the first thing I'll be doing is. Don't do it then. But can't not do it.

7 a.m. A baby crying. Open lid, power on, wait and then click, and over and over and over we go again...