2. Although I did immediately start thinking about new blog ideas – about making the proposed fictionalization of ‘Discovering Beautiful’ – ‘Around The World With Eighty Quid’ – into a fake blog that would appear to be happening to some young buck NOW.
3. Not having anything to write about I suppose ought to free me up to do other stuff, like uni work, and also chasing agents and publishers in America (primarily Atticus).
4. The impetus to do uni work, however, seems to have tailed off the last few weeks, after a pretty intense time maybe a month or so ago. I guess this term’s stuff is 90% done. For a non-completer like me, with over a month to GENUINE ABSOLUTE DEADLINE, 90%’s enough.
5. I seem to keep doing a little bit of wee on the floor – ya know, right at the end I hear this little splashing tinkle on the linoleum. I wipe it immediately up but it’s goddamn annoying. Also funny. It reminds me of the time I went to my dad’s shop and there was a sign in their first floor loo – the one I used to piss n shit and wash in when I was 18 and lived upstairs – that said, “stop peeing on the floor, its soaking through the ceiling.” I went to my dad’s partner and said, what’s all that about? and he said it was my dad, look over there. Sure enough there was a big damp circle on the ceiling below. Like father, like son, huh? It also reminds me of our old downstairs toilet in St Anns in Leeds that had a seat that would keep falling down unless you held it up and sometimes get weed on. Then this one time I was peeing and maybe my hands were busy with something else – cup of tea? eating a banana or sandwich? – and the seat fell down so slammingly that the lid fall down too and before I could stop I’d peed all over the top of it. That made me laugh. I went back into my room and told my girlfriend at the time (Perlilly) and she laughed too but was also sort of horrified and half-joked that she didn’t know if she could be with a man who kept peeing everywhere. I don’t think that’s why we broke up though.
6. That reminds me also of that house and how the other girls we lived with said, you boys, there’s always piss on the rim. I looked and it was true: little splashes of dried yellow all about the porcelain. Thirty two-years-old and I never knew that. Though I think it was mostly Diego. Still, it taught me something new and I got into grabbing a bit of paper and giving it a wipe before I left. Girls’ eyes see all kinds of things boys can’t – dust, for example. I guess it’s a bit like how dogs can hear high whistles.
7. That in turn reminds me of several other things to do with toilets and especially shit – but I don’t think I’ll get into that just now: we’d be here all day.
8. I just finished watching ‘American Splendor’ with Paul Giamatti playing some comic book writer I’d not previously heard of. I’d not previously heard of the movie either but I plucked it off the library shelf ‘cos it looked sort of interesting and it was. I hope Ali’s not reading this: we saw the first forty minutes together a couple of nights ago and I guess I was supposed to be waiting so we could finish it together.
9. Only time to watch movies though is bedtime and it’s apparent Ali would rather spend the time before sleep making love. Gotten real good at it of late: she sure knows how to get her kicks. My libido and drive’s diminished somewhat the last month or so: think it’s the weather and that my head is full of other things. Still, we’ve done it every night so far this week – two normal, one backdoor, one blow job turning into normal – so I guess I ain’t doing too bad. Now I really hope she’s not reading this. ;-)
10. I’m gonna go for a wee now, even though I’ve not long since had one: s’probably ‘cos I’ve already had two full pots of green tea – and it’s a pretty big teapot. That’s my mo
11. rning routine of late: wake up, have a bit of breakfast, maybe watch a little something while drinking two or three or four pots of jasmine green tea – I got the teapot for my thirtieth birthday from Hong Kong Magdalene when I lived in Canterbury; took it to Leeds with me; left it there when I moved to Oxford in 2008; and then got it back when I came back from Mexico early 2010 – and then I’ll probably sit there in bed in my pink dressing gown and type something like I’m typing right now. Maybe play a bit of guitar and do the washing up from the night before, then it’s off to uni or whatever the hell else I’ve got going on: one day a week probably a trip to town to buy some eggs; another day or two a week a cycle up to Weetwood to referee some football.
12. One thing that occurred to me watching ‘American Splendor’ was that the guy there was really involved with real life: he had problems, he got angry, he worked a crummy job, argued with his wife, and talked with all the normal people that I’m so skilled at avoiding. I thought about my blog and thought about how mostly I write about my thoughts but then how often I’ve thought, really I should be writing about what actually happens – but, the thing is, I don’t really do that much: especially of late. Like I say, avoiding people and interactions is generally more preferable to me – though I suppose the last couple of weeks I have had some fun discussions with uni people (it’s more the fun of me being able to spout off and say the things that are in my head, if I’m honest). I guess some people are into other people and some people aren’t: and I just ain’t that bothered. I keep my life simple and plain because then I feel all harmonious and balanced inside – and other people’s problems and weirdnesses I like to keep at a coupla arms’ length. I guess that’s kinda bad, what with all the suffering in the world and such. Perhaps I should seek out some of this ‘real life’ that people are always going on about: volunteer somewhere and try and lend a hand. But it all seems like such a drag.
13. I feel a need to say that even though I’m generally nice, it’s plain to see that I’m not that nice. Oh well: I never said I was. I’ve thought about trying to be nicer but I’m not sure I have it in me. But should I be doing more? I used to enjoy the charity work and volunteering with kids stuff after all…
14. Thinking that I should be doing more depresses me: perhaps best to get back to my own happy cosy bubble in which I sit in a pink dressing gown, sip green tea, watch sometimes interesting things on a screen, bike up to campus to do sometimes useful things on the internet, spout off in classes and entertain myself with giggles, and then come home and have a nice mellow dinner with my level-headed girlfriend before rocking each other to sleep in our sweet warm bed while dreaming always of writing something and maybe even occasionally doing it: t’ain’t a bad life. And anyway, it’s winter: and more and more as I get older I feel the urge to winter hibernate move over me like a warm sleepy blanket that whispers, just lie there, Rory, take it easy, the whole world may think it can rush rush these dark short days like summer ants but you’re okay with your tea and your bed, the bright days of boundless energy will come again, they ain’t doin’ nothin’ anyways…
15. Getting off track. Let’s talk about something real. But what real is there?
16. I closed my eyes just then. I looked inside my brain and had a search. I pondered. I saw no more words to come and also I saw this: me refilling my pot of tea; me standing by the sink washing dishes; me playing a song or two on my guitar; and me biking over to uni to go online and maybe finally get stuck into yet another attempt to find an agent or publisher in America. Plus, uploading this. Plus, checking and writing emails and looking at the BBC football pages and maybe – if the mood takes me – getting distracted by something for an hour or so. But mostly thinking about how to further the book.
17. I do have uni work to do: I doubt whether it’ll happen though. I honestly find it impossible to start anything until the very last minute – and the last minute ain’t for a while yet.
18. There: you take all that and you have a pretty complete picture of what my days are like at the mo’: I’m pretty satisfied with that, as I am with basically everything else in general. It’s a steady life these days: no ups, no downs, no struggles, no stresses – just goodness. God bless Leeds. God bless not living in London. God bless having a woman and not having the feeling of the need for a woman. And God bless having a good woman at that, and never thinking, jeez, the hassles she gives me! God bless material security and prosperity – the roof over my head, the food in the cupboard – and the savings in the bank and the promise of regular refereeing work which tells me the future’s okay. God bless my lovely handsome body, still fit and strong though now nearly thirty-six years old, more than a match for any eighteen or twenty-one-year-old I might meet on the squash court or the football pitch. God bless my lovely face, getting lovelier all the time. And God bless my lovely mind, which was saved from certain doom by grace and effort and fortune and my heart. God bless all those things and also the desire for well-being that I suppose I must have been born with – in fact, all good things I possess I suppose I must have been born with – even the desire to possess good things – so who can take credit for anything? All I can do of myself is feel grateful, like now. So God bless Leeds again, and for bringing me here – for this however short period in my life where I dwell in respite from restlessness and longing and have something going on that I enjoy: no job to dream of quitting; no home to want to escape; no foreign countries whispering at me to say hi; no woman to pursue or want away from; no desperate screaming at the sky for satisfaction and purpose and direction and the right track: I’m feeling thankful for all of that. Amen.
19. All religious phraseology – “God bless” – “Amen” – don’t really mean nothing: it’s just an expression of something else. All “God bless” means is that I’m grateful for the way things have worked out, and for the things I have, and that I’m taking a moment to recognise that; to recognise it’s not really my doing, that it’s Life and Life is kind and good. “Amen” is just a nice way to end a paragraph or a piece of writing when you can’t think of anything else.
20. I’m glad I made it to twenty. I like a certain tidiness in my lists.
21. Though twenty-one is a tidy number too. Nineteen ain’t.
...
Now it 's just after 10pm and unlike a typical Thursday I'm still here in the postgrad room at uni typing away and being online: here 'cos Ali's off listening to folkie fiddlers in Halifax with her parents; that's okay with me. So instead of dinner and cosiness and an early night I've got stuck into another one of my stupid mad projects which is basically called 'put your entire diary online again, Cyril'. Been thinking about that one for a while, going right back to the early days - but then I realised that even though I'd deleted it all back in 2002 (and only regained about 60% fortuitously from a friend) there were still something like five hundred entries and I really don't see me converting it all to this format and going through them one by one: instead, I imagine, they'll surface elsewhere. In the meantime I figure I can at least stick up everything post-2002 - it ain't that much - and have it complete on here. For what purpose, who the fuck knows? It's either for some or none; it don't matter. Anyways, I was ready '07-'08 the other day and I thought it was cool. So '07's up here now in its entirety - less a few personal emails.
Beyond that though - yup, I played me guitar, did the washing up while listening to Radio 4, had a spot of lunch - yum yum cheese n crisp sandwiches - and then put a wheel on this nice abandoned bike I cracked the combo lock for the other day (took me a bit longer than before: maybe 3 or 4 minutes). Then I came to uni, didn't get around to agent stuff, read and watched Harvey Pekar things - of course - and now I'm doing blog. But there was something I wanted to talk about - 'cept only thing I remember is -
That Radio 4 show they had a little segment going on about alcohol sales having fallen in Scotland due to recent changes in legislation regarding 'bargain booze'. Sure made me think about the thing I wrote the other day - about the 'financial crisis' - 'cos judging by the dour worrisome tones the woman presenter was scooping out like mouldy gravy she thought, and expected everyone else to think, that this was a bad thing. Sales are down 8%! she trumpeted out across the airwaves. Doom and gloom! England, meanwhile, is 'only' a flat market. Fuck's sake: only in an insane world could the reduced consumption of a toxic and damaging substance be seen as a tragedy. I swear, all half the people in this country cares about is the money: forget health and crime and sanity, figures are DOWN. Meanwhile, another wood or meadow gets ploughed under for the building of new houses, which is of course a good thing, 'cos despite the hundreds of thousands of houses that sit empty and unused, we don't have enough, and they create jobs. Bulldoze the whole fucking thing eh? Reduce the drinking age to 12 - real untapped market there - and maybe we can get those figures looking pretty again. But wait: what happens when we've boosted it to new unprecedented levels? Increase it from 1.3 something or other to 1.56? 'Cos even though that's 20% - you'll still have to find more figures to pull out of thin air at some other point in the future: we ain't gonna be happy with 1.56 for very long - can't stay stuck on it - that ain't growth: that's a flat market. Just have to reduce the drinking age again - get 'em boozin', get 'em sozzled - and bulldoze and plough some more. 'Cos if we ain't growin', we might as well be sat naked in mud licking potatoes, right?
The other thing was something that I really can't remember: well, shit, I'm sure if it's important, I will. Or, probably even if it's not, I will too.
But now: time to get the hell out of here and hit the hay! Arooga, amigos.
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