Thursday, 27 April 2006
Sixteen
Or, as it is these days, surf-the-net...
But, of course, I’m supposed to be writing a book – so I have four days off (two in the week; no girlfriend) and then all these hours here to fine tune and fiddle and…it all reminds me of reading of some author who actually did all her writing at work and never really got anything else done, I suppose. But God bless the public sector for that! Lord knows, there’s no better place for getting away with being paid to do absolutely nothing!
Tuesday, 25 April 2006
Fifteen
This morning I woke up singing – later, singing – Celine Dion: “When you touch me like this/and I hold like that/I can barely recall/but it’s all coming back to me/There were nights of endless pleasure/It was more than any love could stand.” I don’t know if they’re the right lyrics – click – but they’ll do. Signs? Wonders? Expunge? Click.
There were nights of endless pleasure – click –but was it more than any love could stand? God, this screen is bright. I just ate custard; usually that hurts my brain. Sugar. Sugar hurts my brain – but I eat lots of it. Chocolate – almost every day. Large amounts. Beyond sickness. Not good for you – don’t care (click). It was more than any love could stand.
We get up – I get knocked down, then I get up again…no, you’re never gonna keep me down. Down. A little down today. But why? Sex? Sex sucks. Boring, crap at it, been there done that, borne the t-shirt. Next! Gossip, talk, I’m not who I once was. I’ve changed a lot; what am I doing here? Maybe I…
I think back often, to when I lived in Wakefield, to just before I stopped being so spaced – to people asking me, “do you go to Bretton [nearby college/university]?” – to me meeting a recent creative writing graduate from there – wondering…where these signs? One year later I’m swept into uni; two years later I’ve transferred to creative writing, and it feels like I’m doing what I should have been doing all along – but did I mess my chance? Did I throw my timing all of the loop? If so, then what am I doing here? I should have been finished with this two years ago; I should never have heard of Canterbury. I feel no attachment to this place – I could leave tomorrow and think nothing more of it. There’s nothing much here for me, even if I like it all the same. I felt more for Guelph.
I’m lost, I’m lost. I know not what I’m doing. I shouldn’t be here; I’m not who I was; I’m not sure where I’m going. I can’t be bothered with anything – I thought I’d do a PGCE, but that doesn’t seem like the way; I thought I’d write a book – I’m rubbish at that, at getting it done. People said, “oh, you should write a book” – but why? Writing a book is hard – and I’ve got nothing to say. Now I’m cursed, now I’ve got this millstone around my neck, that won’t ever leave me alone, snapping at my heels, stalking me like a tentacle of doom, like: the Count de Monty Crisco (yes, that was an intentionally bad sentence). It won’t let me go; it’ll either happen, and lead to nothing (or something) or it won’t happen and I’ll be doomed to knowing that I never did it, never did what I said I would, what I dreamed of, that I was…the ultimate failure. Talking and talking and talking the talk – but refusing to make the effort to even put my shoes on. Oh, bugger! Oh, drat! Oh zut alors mein Fuhrer! Donner und blitzen! Raisin crackers and biscuit butties on toast in a nutshell down the side of the bin last Friday!
You see? You see? I’m smiling now. Curse this life and its ups and downs! Curse the ups that invariably follow the downs! Curse the never-ending wheel of dharma karma justice life and death blood cycle love danger voodoo magic lust!
I’m going. Bye Bye.
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Fourteen
But writing: well, that’s been a bit of a no-go this last month, since I got embroiled in essays and then finding-a-job (spurred by oh-my-I’ve-got-debt). It’s kinda sliding away again – but, as ever, I’m hopeful that it’ll come back. I guess I’m not really in any kind of rush – and what I’ve come to realise is, I’m not one of these people that have a burning desire to write, to get something out of me, and to express. Even in my songs, which I went hardcore for a couple of years ago, there’s nothing new, nothing waiting to be said. I just feel like I’ve done with it all, made my peace with the world and myself; I just feel like everything’s okay, and if I ever need to say something, it doesn’t have to be in a song, or a journal (or a blog, as I’m begrudgingly realising that’s what this is, like the guy who’s finally given up trying to call Marathon Snickers), I can say it to my girlfriend, to a pal, to someone in the real world. It’s not that difficult – and, in all honesty, it doesn’t happen that often anyway. I guess I’m getting calm.
Also, I guess I’m getting old. I’ve turned thirty now – and that’s all well and good – and something about me has changed. Even looking back to who I was when I started uni, not even four years ago, I seem so young. Twenty-six – it even sounds young. Don’t even get me started on 23 or 24 – that’s like being a baby. And that’s the me that I so often think about – and want to write about – the me that hitched and travelled and slept by the road and just wandered wandered wandered every way where thing. And that’s the me that I would probably be hard-pressed to ever live again. Those things just don’t really appeal – well, they do, until I start thinking about the reality of it all – ‘cos I genuinely am more into safe things these days, staying at home, getting the shopping in, watching a bit of comedy…very normal, average, everyday stuff. Boring? I dunno – that would be quite judgmental. But definitely different. And maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to go.
There’s a big field full of sheep just down the road from our house – I pass it everyday – and just now the new lambs are in there, running about and suckling on their mummies, and being kind of wild and funny and cute and all stupid, all at the same time. They look like they’re having fun – they’re adorable – and then you get to thinking about human babies and children, and puppies and kittens, and even baby tigers and horses and chicks, and you think, man, all things at that age are just great, just having a laugh, just being cute and crazy and not caring about bills and blah blah and the trials and vicissitudes of life – and what happens to us all as we get older, as get more boring, less adventurous, stop doing fun things, stop being wild and crazy...? You can get depressed thinking about that – thinking about the passing of your youth (at least, I imagine some people do) – but watching those sheep, and thinking about how this is spread throughout the natural world, I just think, that’s the way it goes. It tickles me and I feel okay with it, and with the way things go. I feel okay that my belly is growing and I’d rather sit at home and play spider solitaire than go sleep in a field in Norway, just for the hell of it. The old sheep chew the grass and get on with it. Lambs are cute but mad; they bounce all over the shop; they get frightened by any little thing. I guess that’s what your youth is supposed to be – a time of discovery, of adventure, of tasting the world, in all it’s sweet and bitter flavours – and then it ends, and you take what you’ve learned and kick back somewhat, and devote yourself to bringing up the next crop of lambs (or something). In any case, it’s all okay by me...
Friday, 17 February 2006
Twelve
Monday to Friday I wake up between 5.30 and 7.30 and start to write, which I generally do till around lunchtime. Except on Thursdays and Fridays, when I have classes at 9 and ten respectively. The classes are two hours long. The Thursday class I go to about fifty percent of the time. In the afternoon I do various tasks. These will include: errands and shopping; napping; watching comedy DVDs; working at Oxfam, one or two days a week; having a two or three hour session of Risk, one or two days a week; sorting out email; and various other online procrastinations. On Thursdays I play football at noon in a 5-a-side competition. On Mondays I have a game of squash with my friend Matt, and then we usually have a sauna, come home and eat lots, and play (and record) music together. My girlfriend is home around six. Sometimes I cook for her. Sometimes we hang out. Saturday morning is football morning - two full games fill my time between 9.30 and 1. Then I'm gloriously knackered and don't do much else. Sunday I'll probably write some, or occasionally get together with some people for food. Among all that there might be one or two movies, and a walk (though probably not a walk, as of late), and perhaps one or two episodes of sex. I sometimes do some work for uni too, but not very often.
And that's about it. Not very exciting, I suppose. And not a very socially-full calendar - certainly, these past few months I've come to spend more and more time alone, and I'm starting to get a liking for it. I'm even getting a liking for spending time apart from my girlfriend. This book thing is coming to possess me - it's in my head all the time, always being written and tinkered with, whether I'm on a computer or not. The only time it's not there is when I'm on a football field (or on the computer playing some ridiculous game of Risk). I long for the day when it will be done, and the monkey will be off my back. It's hard to imagine how I'll feel then. Free, I suppose. Free and happy and light, in the way that I feel free and happy and light - and ecstatic, even - when I get an essay done, only times a million. That's something to look forward to.
Thursday, 16 February 2006
Eleven
I'd really like to feel that this thing is publishable. I can't tell whether it's great, and will be good for people, or whether it's just a monumental waste of time, one great big so-what. I do know, however, that there's no letting go of this, that I'll never forgive myself if I don't do it, and that I will somehow be stuck here at this place forever, unless I get it over and done with.
I wonder, too, whether it just might be my 'Divine Duty', as Shawn's angel once told me. In that case, I really shouldn't worry about quality or presentation, because it's not mine, and it's out of my hands. That's kind of freeing in a way. And if it is my 'Divine Duty', it would also explain why I can't let it go, and don't seem to have progressed in my growth of late (aside from getting back down to Earth). I guess, like Jonah, there really is no escape, and no way past but through.
I find writing about Charlottesville, and thinking again about my less than glorious past, on the whole, quite a titillating experience. I'm amused by what I was and what I did in my youth - and it seems so far removed from what I am, and what I have been for some time, that it's hard to believe it was me. Even reading Gus's less than flattering opinions of the old Rory doesn't really bother me - even when they're not even based on truth - but rather, in most cases, makes me laugh. Sometimes, though, I must admit I'm a bit disturbed.
I read today an entry I don't think I've come across before - and a piece of information that I definitely haven't. Basically, it said that Tyler, my old housemate, was offered money by the owner of the restaurant where we both worked to evict me from the house we shared. Two days after Gus reported this, I was evicted. I'd always wondered why Tyler had done this, and why he hadn't talked to me about it, or given me any warning, and now I guess I know. It seems to have disturbed me somewhat, and I'm not sure why, but I guess I'm hurt.
Strange that, to be so affected by something that happened so long ago.
I've been thinking for a while that, whatever stage I've been at in life, it always seems I can look back on myself and feel I'm looking back at idiot. Realising that, and taking it to the next logical step, I must conclude that not only am I being an idiot right now, I must forever be doomed to be one - at least to some future version of myself. Even the me that is looking back at a long line of idiotic former mes and feeling pretty okay and happy to have learned and grown somewhat since his predecessor's time will be an idiot. And I guess there's no escape from this.
I can't work out whether that should be a depressing or a liberating thought. A part of me thinks it should be liberating, because no matter how hard I try to be perfect and do the right thing, and no matter if I feel that I've actually succeeded, I'll still look back one day in the not-too-distant future and think, "I was being an idiot." A part of me does find that funny - but the bigger part, right now, today, thinks it's just plain depressing - especially considering that I'm currently in a stage where some of the biggest and least reversible decisions of my life will be taking place (e.g. buying a house, making a baby, finding a career, etc).
But what if they're just idiotic whims? What if I'm mistaken in my choices? Lord knows, I've wanted all those things before - and, likewise, Lord knows I was being stupid then. The question is, am I being stupid now?
I miss God. I still feel sometimes I wish I could leave it all behind and head for somewhere, and discover something wonderful again. I'm not really sure I like any of the people around me, to any real or great extent, and I'm not sure I like the life I lead. Sure, I've got a great girlfriend, and a sweet place to live, and I'm not really wanting for anything, but…I don't really know if it's me. I don't really care for possessions - definitely, they get you down - and I don't really care for the world I live in - meaning the world of busyness and jobs and running around here and there trying to fill it with things. Sometimes I feel that I'd much rather be out in the trees, with a tent on my back, and no noise and other such botheration-type things of the modern world. I don't even know if I like the charity job I do.
There's not much to keep me on this planet. Maybe I'll die when this book is finished, job done, your time is up Rory, now have a nice new body in some nice new country where God is more important than wearing the right shoes and your spirit can grow some more, unburdened by the wearisome memories of all that you did wrong in the youth of your current life. I'm not sure what else there is for me from this world.
Sunday, 5 February 2006
Ten
Originally I had the beginning as a chapter describing my arrival in New York. I thought that was okay, if a little pedestrian. Now I'm thinking maybe I should just plunge straight into the action, and start it at some point in the weeks before I left Charlottesville to begin my hitch-hiking odyssey, in the middle of my mad little depression. It was a good time for thinking, and revisiting the past, and I did do a lot of writing then, which would help the authenticity of it...but actually getting down to it, and getting it all straight in my head is where I flounder. I just don't know. This is starting to feel like a very difficult thing.
In other news, though, I turned thirty with the minimum of fuss, and it hasn't really made any difference to my life, or to the way I feel. Maybe because I don't have any regrets about things I didn't do or feel any particular sorrow at saying goodbye to my youth (I mean, it was interesting and all, but not exactly easy, or happy, or settled). No, the only thing I've noticed is a slightly odd sensation inside when someone asks how old I am and the number comes out, and I realise that I can never be twenty-something again. So many things you get a second chance at, but that has gone, gone, gone.
Monday, 23 January 2006
Nine
Location: Computer room, UKC (the one with the noisy fan)
About to: Go home and make music with my friend Matt
A good weekend! Feel like I made something of a breakthrough, after all my pondering about how to proceed. But what I've realised is, I like the journal format. For one, I think it makes it easier to be more conversational and personal, and, for another, it really solves the problem of bringing a present-tense feel to a past-tense project. Basically I can re-write the whole thing as though it were my diary, as though I had an audience (which helps me) and as though it were actually happening. I'm quite excited to get on with it - though unmotivated and distracted as ever. Still, I have got another 1500 words in the bag. We'll get there one day!