Let's have a bit of a moan...

I started uni this week – one class on Monday and another on Tuesday – and, you know what, it was all right. Some of the things that were said were interesting and inspired me to stick my two-penneth in. In actual fact, I talked a lot. Feels a bit different, this masters’ malarkey, to the youth and drudgery of the undergraduate’s degree.

Also, girlfriend and I are now living in South Elmsall – yup, that’s the same South Elmsall that I lived the first seventeen years of my life in; and the same South Elmsall that I’ve hated and mocked for a good portion of it too. Except it’s sort of nice being back here, and sort of weird that I’ve been away for so long, given how familiar and natural everything is – even if I do, of course, feel like a massive outsider and voyeur. Then again, maybe I always did. It throws up lots of questions…

Number one, it’s really beautiful here, once you make the effort to stretch your legs beyond the village houses – which takes about seven or eight minutes in any given direction. It’s pretty amazing that it’s so easy to get away from things and be out in the fields and trees. The views are incredible. And obviously the weather has been out of this world for this time of year. I dig all that.

Though that’s not really a question, is it?

I suppose the question is this: that I had all these ideas about doing something creative in South Elmsall, about really getting into the village and finding out what’s going on here, what the people are like, and maybe trying to do something of good. I’ve dreamed so long about running for mayor or, more likely, becoming a councillor, and trying to bring something to the area of the wonder that I’ve discovered in my trips around the world (and beyond). Except now I’m here, I’m not sure I can be bothered. I’m not sure I have it in me – too lazy? – and I’m not sure, really, if there’s a) anything I can do, and b) anything I need to do. Weirdly, it all seems sort of all right; you know, it is what it is, and that feeling I always used to have when I came here of, what the hell’s wrong with place? why doesn’t someone fix it? seems to have left me. Maybe it’s okay, and has been okay all along, and it was just me that needed fixing. Like I say, it is what it is. And from those early days in spring, of shock and horror, to how I feel now, which is that everything’s fine – well, it’s not the village that’s changed, it’s me. And perhaps, like most things, that desire to change something in the world was really just a desire to change something in myself, and perhaps that’s now been achieved and all that thought of attempting to do something with this place was just a mistake of the mind.

Although, of course, that could just be a convenient excuse to avoid having to do anything.

Truth is, though, I suppose I don’t really care about these people or this place: more so, I just look down on them, and laugh at them, and wonder how they can be so crazy and weird. But to really effect change upon a place and its people I suppose you do have to genuinely care – otherwise how are you gonna put the effort in? There are people like that around here – you read about them in the papers – and they do their bit opening community centres and spending time with disableds and all that thing, and I just know that I don’t have that in me. Really, what I do when I walk around here is think of things I could write, that would sort of put people down. And I don’t feel good about that either. Seems sort of negative and arrogant – that damned superiority thing – and I don’t really think it would be that nice. Here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about:

1. Why is there so much dogshit around?

2. Why do some people have backyards full of dogshit and garbage?

3. Why do you find bags of garbage in streets and on county lanes when we pay binmen to take those things away?

4. Why is it mostly beer cans that I find strewn on streets and in fields?

5. Why is there broken glass all over the place, even on footpaths and playing fields? (Again, mostly beer bottles)

6. Why do people have to shout so much, when surely talking would suffice?

7. What’s going on with the empty and abandoned houses, when the council keep saying there’s a desperate need for housing in the village?

8. While we’re on the subject, why do politicians always say stuff about the need to build new houses, when we all know that a) tons of houses are left empty, and b) tens of thousands of houses are up for sale and no one wants to buy them?

9. Why do people around here – even the wee bairns – scowl so much, and look so fearful and angry?

10. What’s going on with men who just sit on benches drinking Special Brew all day long?

11. Why do people shout at their kids and treat them so poorly? Why have them in the first place?

12. People always say crime round here’s much worse than it used to be. But is it? What are the facts?

13. Why has there been an obvious program to build spiky metal fences all over the place? How has this improved things? Was there really a problem that necessitated it?

14. What’s with all the smoking?

15. Who sells the best fish and chips in South Elmsall?

So those are just some of the questions that occur to me as I wander these streets – and a part of me thinks, wow man, wouldn’t it be fun to investigate all that, to write tongue in cheek stories and maybe put it all together in a big compendium/book titled ‘South Elmsall’ which would basically be one man’s take on his hometown, articles about the place and its people, stupid little poems about one’s personal experience, and maybe something in there about growth and realisation – eg, the rapidly dawning idea that it’s really not fair to judge a people so much from the outside when you don’t even know them and that, at some point, instead of your stupid little poems and condescending articles you’ll probably have to try and see things from the inside and, who knows, you might even come to like it and realise, as you sort of already have, that maybe it’s not actually as bad as all that. Except, of course, typing that I realise that I don’t actually want to get to know these people: that I’m pretty sure they’re mostly angry and small-minded and simple and drunk and aggressive and backwards and that we really are totally and utterly different in almost every way – despite them probably being far more caring, in that salt-of-the-earth kind of fashion, and much less arrogant and judgmental and haughty-taughty and obnoxious and snobby than I am, which is obviously not a good thing to be. But then again, perhaps that’s what I am, and James Joyce got away with it, with his scathing ‘Dubliners’ (loon that he was) and I suppose we’ve all just got to do our thing, right, even if we sometimes doubt it and hate ourselves for it and – blah blah blah, who knows what’s for better, what’s for worse, what the point in anything is, etcetera, etcetera, ha ha ha?

I’ve sort of lost my way a bit this week. Girlfriend went away on Thursday to do something smart and healthy like spend a few days working on a farm up in North Yorkshire picking apples (obviously I should’ve gone with her, but didn’t, for various weird reasons which I finally yesterday realised) and being on my own in this town doesn’t suit. Sure, the weather’s been lovely – been “too nice”, as everyone keeps saying – but there’s more to life than weather, and I truly abhor that whole thing of, oh, the sun’s shining, you’d better get out there and make the most of it. So we gots fields and trees and it’s lovely – but who can arsed to get walking in it alone? For all you’ve got then is a man alone with his thoughts wishing he had someone to share them with (it’s Sunday now; I suppose I ain’t really talked to anyone since Thursday morning) and it brings it all home that, apart from the girlfriend, I really ain’t got no one. Telephoning someone seems like a thing of the past – is it just me, or do others still do this? – and, well, yeah, of course, I’ve only just moved back up this way so things are bound to be in flux but…well, like I say, it brings it all home. No job, no outlet, no nothing to do…without the missus I wonder what there’d be to keep me tethered to this world? Maybe once uni kicks in…maybe once things start moving…

I’d like a job but I don’t know what to do. I’ve applied for about four thousand this year and I haven’t even had a single interview – ‘cept for this dodgy bed-selling telesales place that seemed to mostly involve harassing old widows out of their savings (“you can’t take it with you, Mrs So-and-so” I heard one chap say while I was sat waiting shortly before fleeing after realising what kind of a job it was) (they were called Dreamwell, based in the Josephs Well building in Leeds; I’d thought it was customer service – you know, answering the phone and helping people, which I feel sort of attracted to – but they’d lied to me when I’d said, “it’s not sales, is it?” and got me there under false pretences).

(Probably need to start a new paragraph now: that last one’s totally ruined my train of thought.)

So…a job. But what job? Man need job ‘cos man need thing to do, reason to get out of bed, occupation to take his mind off his mind. Man need income also, though income not so terribly important as this man reckon he has enough in bank to live for some twenty weeks at current rate of expenditure. But job: what job? Usually something occurs to me, or appeals to me, and it all unfolds quite naturally. Maybe it’s not time for a job ‘cos, like I say, I don’t necessary need the income just now – and I am always saying, goddamn, if only I didn’t have a job I’d have the time and the space to write, why can’t I be free? But…well, there’s the next paragraph: writing.

Writing. Hm. Ho hum. Pffzl. I don’t know about writing: I don’t even know why or how I got into it – and I sure as shit don’t feel like I can do it. Everything I contemplate…the whys, the howfores – none of it makes any sense. Why write something? For, surely, everything has been written. And me – me as a writer – ha! It’s all a big joke. Real writers research things, craft – whereas I just can’t be arsed. I’m worried about this masters’: worried that I won’t have anything to say. Naturally, I’ve got ideas – I’ve always got ideas; if only I could get through life as an ideas man – but the implementation of them seems sort of pointless. Like walking around South Elmsall and being overwhelmed with all those thoughts, all those avenues of investigation – and realising them so negative, so unnecessary. Who’d want to read a book that just sat on high and shat on a town? Why would I even want to do it? And yet the ideas fill my brain and taunt me and tease me and I know that I could never do anything justice. The pain of having these thoughts and realising the inadequacies of one’s own abilities. That the sentences don’t come out perfectly formed. That others could do it so much better. That there’s really no point anyway. Sometimes I wish I’d never got started on this writer’s path: that people had never pushed me down it. All I ever wanted was to be happy…

You see, I’ve lost faith this week: I’ve been on a track that’s taken me to here – the masters’, the impossibility of paying for it, the being awarded the bursary, the waiting for it to start, the wanting of a good woman, the wanting away from London, the desire to have freedom, the dreams of making something out of/in South Elmsall – and now I’ve got it all – now that the meal has been served – I look at it and I’m not sure I want it. Or, rather – perhaps rather – I look at it and realise that this is where the work begins and, as ever, I find the work daunting. Dreams becoming reality – and reality requiring that, instead of merely dreaming, there are things we must do. But how? For all my ideas are stupid, and nobody wants them anyway – and even if they weren’t stupid, I wouldn’t be equipped to carry them out. And what are these ideas I’m talking about?

1. South Elmsall. Living here and getting into it. Discovering things and trying to make the best of it. Writing up my experiences, my realisations, my observations, and maybe making it a book. Calling it, originally, “One Year in Hell” – but now, perhaps, just simply “South Elmsall.” Putting it on the library shelf and have big-chested men, the sons of miners, read it and puff out their red cheeks and want to beat my head. Be castigated and ostracised and never show my face in this town again. Be hated.

2. The companion piece, after the masters’ and after South Elmsall, called “One Year in Heaven” about me and my girl living in the canyon in Mexico and sitting there on the sand, in the sun, by the river, with the hot springs, a little baby and our fires and avocados and everything is groovy and paradisiacal and I write a book about that too and inspire the world. (Bullshit.)

3. I keep saying, every time I read some spiritual thing, that I’ll write a quick book called “The A-Z of New Age Wisdom and Bullshit” and sort of just list all the things I know about to do with the New Age and modern spirituality and report them truthfully (as I see it) and whimsically and I sort of think that would be fun. But typing that it seems like a crock of shit.

Oh, I don’t know, I do this thing where I write up my ideas every few months or so – but will I ever actually achieve any of them? It’s looking less and less likely. When will the mothership ever tell me what to do? Or will it soon dawn that it’s all lies, and all the pretty women that have looked at me and thought that one day I’d do something wonderful and take care of them and give them awesome lives with babies and comfort will realise too that it will never amount to anything, that I’m little better than my brother who has sat housebound in the same place for nigh on ten years since since finishing his own uni, never having worked and never having even kissed a girl and – wow, yeah, I’ve done so much (yeah, right) – but here we are today in the self-same place: leave me alone for two days and what do I become ‘cept a TV watching hermit who, on the hottest days in history for this time of year can think of nothing to do but mope and moan and who sees the outside as a cruel taunt and tease. Naturally, were girlfriend here – or were I with her, as I probably should have been (though wouldn’t have learned all this) – we’d have been off having walks and picnics and trees and skies would no doubt have been beautiful but, all that being alone and digging it alone has passed me by, it’s just not the same anymore: all I get is the avalanche of things I ought to be doing, the jobs and the place to live and the stupid ideas of what to write, and the inevitability of the slide this life of mine must surely one day take, once looks and youth have faded, I mean, what will there be? Thirty-five and with a CV that equips me to do nothing except show someone that I won’t stick around. Zero qualifications, bar a degree in English, which somehow means less than nothing to me. I have no idea how people get jobs: all I’m qualified to do is sweep the road, but not even that; all I’m qualified to do is things that I don’t want to – and the rest of it? Well I don’t want to do that either. If only I could be a drunk, or a homeless, or a suicide – but no, my conscience wills me on, and back I can never turn – but where will it lead? Where will it lead?

I told you I’d lost my faith this week – but isn’t it funny, the turns in life, that if only I’d gone apple-picking, as woman suggested – how many thousands of times have I told myself to always, always do what the woman suggests? – then I’d be reporting on something completely different. Maybe we shoulda gone to Morocco, as she’d suggested too: some weird resistance in me that just doesn’t want to go anywhere anymore – and I have my reward.

But sometimes I think I’d like to be homeless, live amongst deserted dark university rooms, creep about like the phantom of the opera – and then I could write! My God, yes I could write. Because then I would be free, and I would have time. And it would be a better quality of time than the one I have now – because the time I have now – the one that involves a comfortable house and no pressures and internet on tap and everything I could possibly want – is somehow different, somehow prevents me. Yes, that is the answer: more change, more things that will happen in the future. Must make everything perfect before anything can take place. And perhaps we can just keep doing that until the day we die.

If you don’t realise what I was saying in the paragraph above you’ve got no business reading these here ramblings of mine.

Money. Tightness. Stubbornness. Arseholes. Me arsehole: that’s who. Sentence not making…any sense. And yet, everything okay, everything calm: just words. And fun in doing this. And maybe progress to. I’m sorry for taking up your time.

I played football on Thursday night, went up my old high school to see if I could get a game and, after two hours of waiting, I got a game. If I could play football every night I probably would. Life would pass quite pleasurably, I would imagine.

I’ll get to play again next Thursday: there’s something to look forward to.

So let’s put it all in a nutshell and see what we’ve got…

1. The masters’ will kick in soon, and I’ll get into that and discover new things and it will take up much of my time and, hopefully, lead me in new directions – screenwriting, plays – much as the undergraduate took me into short stories, which was totally unexpected.

2. South Elmsall will probably only be for a month, since girlfriend’s gone and got herself a job way on the other side of Leeds, and Leeds is where it’s at. That’ll be good – t’ill be nice to be among my own kind, and to be saved from the peskiness of my mind, which will suggest to me a million things that I should do every time I walk out this here Elmsall door…

3. I suppose I shall write something. Or God up on high will spare me the trouble and take this cup away, having brought me finally to the realisation that I just can’t do it.

4. And then I shall get a job, and God up on high will again step in and take away everything in me that has made it thus far impossible for me to feel satisfied in any line of work, and I shall be transformed into a blissful automaton that finds joy in performing the same task over and over and who’s life is for things like mortgages and furnishings, which is what I’ve actually wanted all along before I got sidetracked on this weird alternative lifestyle journey that was all really just an expression of my psychological condition anyway (ie, wanting to run away from my unhappiness).

5. And then I shall live happily ever after. Or – no wait, I’ve got distracted again after number 2 and drifted off once more into fantasy. Ah, pooh bear, you’re having a laugh with me again, got me thinking not on what’s actually happened, or the very immediate future – which mostly involves getting out of bed, having a piss, and maybe making a bite to eat – but trotted me stupidly down avenues of nonsense typing, which you know I love, but which doesn’t really do me any good. Can we please just stick with reality? Please?

Ok. I suppose I’ve come to the end. Mainly all I want to say is, despite the weather, it’s not been the best of weeks, and I’ve only myself to blame. Everyone else is innocent in this and I need to try harder. And I will, having realised one or two things. No doubt something’ll turn up: it always does.

With love, and light – which is how I always used to end my emails back when I was a spaced-out spirit ninny,

Rory

…

I like writing like that: it always feels good afterwards. I’m sure, like avant garde music and African drumming, it’s nowhere near as pleasurable for the audience as it is for those on the inside, but what the hell, it serves its purpose. Seems like the last few years I’ve become more reluctant to let the fingers fly on those days when I feel like everything’s gone to shit, a certain pride, I suppose, in wanting to be seen as ‘having it all together’. But even if that’s true the vast majority of the time, there’s no way it’s true all the time – and when I lose it, I feel like I lose it big. Or, perhaps, not: it’s not like I ever really fly into a rage or go mental or resort to drink or go out and do incredibly strange things: nah, I write what I did above and smile and think, hey, that feels good, let’s have nice cup of tea and see what we’ll do with our day. Girlfriend’s coming back later: we’ll no doubt look forward to that, and maybe cook her up a little something, and see if we can’t have a good old talk and a laugh (plus nooky) and everything’ll be groovy. I need to relax more, watch a movie or something and chill out. Too much time in a man’s head…gets you thinking crazy. Who cares if I can’t write? The world’ll still turn and, by the end of this year of study, by which time we’ll have found out one way or the other, I shall no doubt have answered that question. But wait! I forgot my other ‘big idea’ of the last few months: a book/blog called “Man Woman Sex Love” wherein I thought I might write my entire history of relationships and women – no holds barred – and perhaps it might be something good for others, and perhaps I might learn something along the way: after all, that bad old autobiographical writing is really where I’m at, n’est pas? Even if the academics might not like it. I even had an idea for an installation piece – inspired by a talk by a chap from Leeds council who organises the converting of empty retail spaces into artists’ projects (I went to one, it was shite) – in which I could hole myself up in one of these disused places and sit there with my laptop and write a book before your very eyes. Maybe it’d take a couple of weeks, or less, or more, but there I’d be, from dawn till dusk, typing away, with screens wired up to show what I was writing, what I’d written, and to have the process also on display to all and sundry; no doubt being just an autobiographical splurge it would take no time at all to come up with the requisite eighty to a hundred thousand words. Good idea, no? ‘Cept I’ll probably never do it.

Now: to the porridge-mobile, Batman! Awoooo!