Sunday I came back to London: that's okay, 'cos I've got those plans - plans that take me up to lunchtime Tuesday. And then once they're done...wow! It's mere hours from getting back to my usual London bullshit of not knowing what to do with myself, where to go, what the point of it is. Listen...
As soon as I come back to London
I get
Housebound
Stuck inside
For there's
Nowhere to go
And nothing to do
Except television
And hours
And hours
And hours
Of internet
Well -
I suppose I could write:
Write some of those dozens of ideas
I've had when away
Just wanting a place
And a computer
To do it
And now that I have them...
Nothing comes
It's all in my head
My reality:
A little less
Glorious
I'd love to give up the thought of writing almost as much as I'd love to give up the thought of spirituality. Sometimes I just long to...disappear. Delete my facebook; shut down my email; wander off into a new town unknown to anyone; keep myself to myself; a little job, a little room...and start afresh. Sometimes it feels like...there's nothing in this world for me; I can't relate to anyone; neither am I interested in anyone. There's nothing to do, nothing I want to be, nothing I'm terribly interested in attaining. Ho hum. Except...that's pretty much only how I feel in London: elsewhere, lately, it's been a whole different story. And going back to February I've been determined that I've just got to get out of here. So why am I still here? Why am I still buzzing around this place that I despise so much, and which so clearly doesn't suit me?
1. My football team. Very attached to that - it has my name on it! - and I do love that when I'm playing. In fact, when I'm playing football on those Monday nights I wish all my nights were spent playing football. What could be better than that? But, I have to remind myself, there's football everywhere - and, no doubt, a new group of guys all lovely and good...
2. My house and my housemates - who I rapidly feel more and more alienated from. Not their fault - lovely guys - I just don't fit into this world. I feel too old for shouting and silliness and being rubbish at the boring old fogey stuff like cleaning and recycling. Not to mention this 'other world' of beer and ciggies and going out, which I find completely puzzling and weird: it's all 'emperor's new clothes' to me. I couldn't feel more strange were I dropped into a creche and expected to stick a dummy in my mouth and act like a baby.
3. That's pretty much it. Outside London, I'm okay, because there's places to go and nature and peace and quiet. There're trees and it's not just 24-hour sirens and aeroplanes and cars and people shouting and nothing to do except walk among shops and piles of bricks that have been arranged into buildings and -
The man who said
"When a man is tired of London
He is tired of life"
- Doctor Samuel Johnson -
Died in 1784
Over a hundred years
Before the internal combustion engine
Before it had become the norm
To sit miserable in
Poorly-ventilated
Underground tubes
Before women
Vomited and pissed
In the street
Before the man
Who wanted no part of this
Was judged to be a terrible bore
A curmudgeon
And a judge himself
Before aeroplanes
Terrorised the sky
Robbing gardens
And parks
Of any peace they once had
Before the tiny city
He had known
Sprawled and swallowed up
Every village and field
Within ten miles of the Thames
Before sirens
Before Topshop
Before fried chicken
And concrete
Before London had sold its soul
For a job
And a mortgage
And a life
On a keyboard
Well I don't know about any of that. And googling Doctor Johnson for his date of death I then find he wrote a poem about someone moaning about all the crime and corruption and squalor in the London of the 1730's and who decided he'd be much better off in the countryside; probably always been the same. Anyway, the point is it doesn't suit me and so I need to stop moaning about it and get out of here: for far too long I've been defining myself by the things I don't like - but how dull! How about defining myself by the things I do like - of which there are plenty. How about I finally get around to 'living life on my terms'? I mean, I'm allowed to, right?
Fuck it! I want to break free, as the song goes. Facebook's going for a Burton - right...now (done) - and I guess something else after that. This house? Damn my foolishness in signing a long lease! The boy's are lovely, like I say, but...it ain't me babe: at least the room's sublet.
Ah, fuck it all, yer basterds [sic] - I came here wanting to splurge my stupid life and all I've done is realise - yet-a-fucking-gen - that I need to get out of this hemmed in, noisy-as-fuck, concrete jungle of a hell of a city. Which is, probably, as far as cities go, quite a nice one - but big city's ain't for me. Balls!
Plan: Survive the weekend; play football on Monday; go to York on Tuesday (just bought a ticket); take it from there.
To sit miserable in
Poorly-ventilated
Underground tubes
Before women
Vomited and pissed
In the street
Before the man
Who wanted no part of this
Was judged to be a terrible bore
A curmudgeon
And a judge himself
Before aeroplanes
Terrorised the sky
Robbing gardens
And parks
Of any peace they once had
Before the tiny city
He had known
Sprawled and swallowed up
Every village and field
Within ten miles of the Thames
Before sirens
Before Topshop
Before fried chicken
And concrete
Before London had sold its soul
For a job
And a mortgage
And a life
On a keyboard
Well I don't know about any of that. And googling Doctor Johnson for his date of death I then find he wrote a poem about someone moaning about all the crime and corruption and squalor in the London of the 1730's and who decided he'd be much better off in the countryside; probably always been the same. Anyway, the point is it doesn't suit me and so I need to stop moaning about it and get out of here: for far too long I've been defining myself by the things I don't like - but how dull! How about defining myself by the things I do like - of which there are plenty. How about I finally get around to 'living life on my terms'? I mean, I'm allowed to, right?
Fuck it! I want to break free, as the song goes. Facebook's going for a Burton - right...now (done) - and I guess something else after that. This house? Damn my foolishness in signing a long lease! The boy's are lovely, like I say, but...it ain't me babe: at least the room's sublet.
Ah, fuck it all, yer basterds [sic] - I came here wanting to splurge my stupid life and all I've done is realise - yet-a-fucking-gen - that I need to get out of this hemmed in, noisy-as-fuck, concrete jungle of a hell of a city. Which is, probably, as far as cities go, quite a nice one - but big city's ain't for me. Balls!
Plan: Survive the weekend; play football on Monday; go to York on Tuesday (just bought a ticket); take it from there.
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