Rory, Who Lives At Home

Woke up this morning from a dream in which exotic horrible bugs were all about me and biting into my flesh, a part of me aware they were maybe lethal. Had to rip all my clothes off to get at them and squish them in my fingers. I was wearing shorts that were like long johns and so my tallywhacker was hanging out. But to the assorted people around me I just said, it doesn’t matter, you’ve seen it all at the lifedrawing anyways. Then I opened my eyes and thought, hm, is that a warning against foreign travel?

Don’t leave the country, she’d said.

After that the Halifax called and the man was all apologetic and instantly offered me a refund on those charges I’d mentioned yesterday. He also apologised in case any more letters came. Great what you get when you complain! Just last week I received £72.60 in rail vouchers – a 100% refund – for all that kerfuffle I had getting down to Vipassana just before New Years. That made me smile. So I got my cake and ate it there too. And did I ever mention the awesome voucher I was sent by Northern Rail? I emailed them once cos a train was twenty minutes late and the electronic updates were useless: they sent me a pass for two free days travel anywhere on the network – which given that it stretches from Newcastle to Carlisle to Liverpool to Sheffield…well, two days of that is certainly worth a twenty minute wait on a three quid journey. Am thinking a daytrip up the old Settle-Carlisle railway, glide over some viaducts and whoop it up o’er hill and dale. Thirty quid these days to make it up there from Leeds.

I did a bit of complaining a few years back – always genuine, always deserved – and they pretty much never fail to send you stuff. Made me think about just writing to everyone I could think of with made up complaints and seeing what I could get. Probably make a decent article or something, for someone who’s that way inclined. I took some peaches back to Sainsbury’s once and they gave me double the value. Another time I said their cheese rolls had given me a rash and they gave me a five-pound food voucher. I believed it at the time – but later figured it was actually the girl I was visiting that night I was allergic to.

Anyways, more thoughts about that whole writing thing. Last night, for inspiration, I stayed up past midnight reading about how it was when I wrote my book. Can’t believe I made it! A hundred thousand words, a couple of full edits, a cover design and formatting and all the rest of it, all in less than a month. And all while I was dealing with girlfriend troubles and on a backpacking holiday to Spainand Morocco! Crazy times.

I’m not so bothered about the procrastination. It’ll all out in the end. Elizabeth Gilbert says all that stuff about a writer needing motivation and discipline is nothing compared to taking it easy on yourself. Self-forgiveness. I dig that.

Anyways, here for posterity – and the jogging of my mindcogs – is the original extended ending to Discovering Beautiful when I really didn’t know where I was going with the thing. A couple of people were like, save it for the next one, and I figured they were right.