lobsidednote

trumpets

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:29:44 GMT

This was going to be some huge rant but I’ve decided against that, instead I’m going to show you this, I know they’re adverts but they make me happy.

Sitting in a Horse shoe

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:49:34 GMT

Yesterday we went on a bus over the hill and into Halifax. Pretty much everything was shut because it's an 1890's town. However an empty Halifax isn't such a bad thing. Had a pub lunch and bought random stuff from wilkinsons.

I like those little bus rides, they clear the air. In a strange mood today, this is coming out in chunks.

We're officially in winter, lock down the hatches.

Is it all perspective? It feels like we're having to do a lot of heavy graft. I was just about to get on top of money and then a four hundred quid bill comes out. Find a job that I can do and which is really close but it means i've got to do two sleep in shifts a week. Fix one thing and something else breaks. The other day I lost a bag of library books, my own fault, I was drunk but there was something about it when I remembered that just felt like one too many bitchy mood swings from fate. Got a leak somewhere in the hallway which is annoying me because I can't find it and I'm starting to believe this place is haunted. It's not just me, Jo's going through a similar time, losing ten pounds and finding five.

Do you believe in luck? The idea that outside forces might slant or create a bias towards or away from what you'd call success? It's a strange concept. If two people flip a coin in exactly the same conditions do they have the same chance of guessing the result?

Its always been about. I suppose drawing dead animals on a cave was an attempt to increase good luck. Most magic is meant to do that. Is that just a way of taking responsibility aka blame away from our mistakes. Or possibly it's a way of taking away credit from somebody elses successes because we don't find them deserving. Or maybe we ponder those options because people as a species can't think outside cause and effect and have to dismiss the concept of luck so we all have a level playing field and everything is under our control. It's well known that if we're in a situation that isn't under our control we'll over shadow it with something that is. We demand measured effort to measured reward and call that justice. In that way we naturally pulled away from heredity rule and became a meritocracy.

The only problem with that is there are things we simply can't explain through that process. How some people stumble across great business ideas, how some people get published or get approached for a fully funded PHD in Rome. It could be the system is so complex that one end doesn't seem like it's related to the other, or it could be that fate favours some people.

But if that was the case it would surely have to know what a person was wanting. How would fate know I didn't want a dirty great water stain in my hallway? It would have to come from yourself, it's only yourself that knows what you want, and most of the time even you don't know.

If it does exist how would you change it? Guess we've been asking that question a long time. By all accounts a Roman Emperor cancelled a whole invasion because he snagged his cloak on a nail. There's still a running joke, based on a common understanding which states you cannot say “at least it's not raining.” because you'll make it rain. We all have superstition and luck beliefs.

What would it be? Subtle manipulation of times, of events? I think some of it is perspective but not as much as people would have us believe. If you win £200,000 you have more time to do what you want and more opportunity, glass half full or not that's just a better situation.

What got that person to that ticket isn't big and wonderous and fantastical, it'll be pretty bog standard things but five minutes here, ten minutes there, letting that person go first, all that stuff adds up and then everything slots into place. Is that the winners good luck or the person before having bad luck? Who knows.

One thing for sure though is if you've got a morning spare to just idly ponder such things your life ain't so bad. I best go and get some stuff done.

Like an actual diary

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:47:19 GMT

So I’ve been thinking maybe I should use this more often. Use it as an actual diary, maybe, I don’t know, lets just chuck that in the air and see how it goes.
So tonight I’m doing the sleep at work which I don’t like doing for the startling uncomplicated reason that I’m going out with a girl I like spending time with. However if you want to be all ten buck smile about it the place I’m working at tonight isn’t bad, in fact it’s one of my favourites. One of the guys left a few weeks ago so it’s not as happy as it was but it’s still got just enough going on to make you feel like you’re at work but not that much it melts your head. Finish there at 15:00 tomorrow, come home, probably get some sleep then go out with Jo and a group of all-sorts-of-folk because it’s Friday night. Shall have to take it steady though because I’m working on the Saturday morning and just recently I’ve been able to drink about half what I usually would.
In a happier mood than I have been, not that I’ve been miserable, just been a little lost, more power than traction. Reason being is I’ve sent off for a home learning course, level 3 criminology. They reckon it’s going to take 80 to 150 hours of study to complete and it’s pretty cool because you can start and finish it when you want. Which is what I need. It’s cost me two hundred quid which is a bit of a worry but I think it’s going to be worth it while I’m an RCO just to say I’m doing something. Also if I was to go to college a level four would cost me over six grand, where as here it costs me a little over four hundred quid. Found a level four in life coaching which I think my next venture is going to be.
What else.
We’ve got a dehumidifier which, like the other appliances in this house, seems to be quite angry. Fills it’s self up in a few hours and I think it might be draining next doors fish tank or something.
At the moment I’m reading about time and something else about the workhouses, still practising contact juggling, going on the unicycle when I’ve got time and generally stopping out of trouble, guess it’s been about three months since I gave up smoking also.
Ah yeah, it was twelve months ago Monday that I first said boo to a girl in Manchester. Not just any girl you understand, I mean that girl, it’s not like I just go to cities and say boo to strangers, you shouldn’t think that of me, that’d be weird.
Need a bit of focus I think. Was talking to Jo about moving next year and it sounds really good, working part time, studying what we want, it’s just finding that best route to get there.
Anyway I’m going to go do dishes, maybe i should find a face for here.

Zombee's

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:25:22 GMT

So I’m just watching a zombie film and I’m wondering why they’re so popular. Its more than that, it’s an ice breaker question and a scenario you can put to must people in a pub and not get a funny look.
I think it boils down to three things. One is people miss being in a small group. They always end up with like six or seven of them. Two is people dream of a time when life is as simple as get food, get shelter, be able to defend self against monsters. I think people long for a day when as a group they’ve crawled into a cave, blocked it off, wrapped in a blanket and now swap stories about survival old summer days with happy partners. I also think in a gritty kind of way people are for ever fighting against their own instinctual reactions to people. I think people piss us off pretty much every day but we can barely pass a strong word on through fear of upsetting somebody or standing out. I think a lot of us would like nothing better than to attack somebody without having to moralise and socially restrict ourselves. Which is kinda funny because that’s what the zombies are doing, we just want to have more control when we’re doing it. No zombie is known as a hero, apart from that wanky one in day of the dead. I suppose it would also make things a lot easier with regard to fitting in if everybody else was a monster. Not much point in being socially apt there. I also wonder if some of the less successful in relationships fancy the idea their chances would be improved if there were only five people left.
The problem with them relates to a secret myself and Jo uncovered in a conversation in a bar. It’s that the best stories need the best characters. The reason you keep going back to a film or a book isn’t because you enjoy the list of events that unfold but because you like the characters, at least one of them. In most zombie films the characters are wank. I can’t think of one where I really cared if they made it or not. But I think that might be the case with horror in general. I think people got all confused when they found CGI.
Anyway best find something to do.

What do you call a deer with no eyes?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:29:43 GMT

So instead I’m going to come and rant on here as a subtle compromise.
Yeah it was a bit dark and muddy that wasn’t it, though I don’t think you can really write a post about something that is making you miserable in a happy go lucky tone, some kind of tap dancing tragedy.
So come here an we’ll laugh and smile and dance a green mile and if you come a little closer I’ll make you a charm to add to your pile.
It’s not all face pressed against rain streaked glass. To be honest I do feel a little like I’m complaining about my exotic beech house getting sand in it. “My wallets too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight.”
There are niggling problems, the bank has sent me yet another letter today saying I can’t afford to do what I do. Doing work as a RCO is pulling me down a bit and the fact that I’m still feeling grotty after much trial and error is doing my tree in. But all this is related to work or lack of, even the health side is aggravated by stress it seems. So the only thing that needs to fall into place really is finding a decent job that’s not going to make me miserable. Not really a bad situation to be in.
I’m one of the few souls I know that’s going out with the person they’re madly in love with. Quit smoking which I’ve been meaning to do for years which opens up quite a lot which I’d immediately put a dampner on, like looking after myself lol. It’s also cool because I feel a little less Egor ish, it loses it’s cool when you need it. Got an interesting and familiar circle around me, went to a bar the other night and got collared by a handful of people as I walked round trying to find somewhere to sit, which is pretty much all I want from that side of it. Got a few problems with one friend but hopefully I’m going to go sort that in about twenty minutes. Got a big pile of stuff that interests me and excites me. Got an email from the council whom have shown an interest in a new PCP model I was talking about, geeky but cool, there could one day be a nationally used tool in social care called the Mark Scale of Independence lol, that’d be super. I think that’s where I’d like to be going, coming up with crazy new ideas to make the mad people happy and the sane people more understanding. I think very much for all my kicking and wondering I’m designed for that kind of thing and there’s not much point in arguing any more.
Strange how life can seem so much of one thing or another. I loads better now i'd not a thing has changed. I think the term life is what you make it is really lacking. Think more accurately life is what you think it is.
What’s more is we’re going into autumn which is a season for wealth as metal is at it’s best after being at it’s worst all summer. It’s also my natural element even though I don’t think of Autumn starting until at least mid-September, is there an exact day? There is something quite comforting about that idea though, the concept that there will be times, blocks of months through out the year where you will naturally do well or naturally get bugger all done but that’s okay. Some kind of system would do us wonders right now I reckon.
Anyway I best go and see what’s going on. You take care now and I’ll speak to you in a lil while.

seven silver short of a shilling

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:42:14 GMT

I did a waking night at work last night, started at two in the afternoon so I’ve been awake about twenty six hours so if this comes out as gibberish then bring it back with proof of purchase and I’ll give you a fresh one.
Last night I decided I’d better drop the writing for a while. Annoying because I really like doing it but I think it’s having a weird effect on me. But then I guess it would if you spend all of your spare time immersing yourself in a world so you can accurately describe the sound of a guys entrails being ripped out and you can capture and communicate the mood the victims partner fell into as they watched. As fun as that is I think it’s straightening my smile some what.
I’ve always had a strange relationship with fiction writing. Very similar to the relationship I had with alcohol. I really enjoy it and I think with a bit of practise I could be relatively good at it but it soaks up all my time and I get weird when I can’t do it. The way I go about it though is pretty destructive anyway. I don’t want clichés and things people don’t believe in. I want to take this world we live in and just show how easily it can become something different and how many things there is that aren’t understood. I take simple things, small things, sometimes happy things and try to just file them down gently until they’re something to be scared of. There’s two really scary things in horror tales I think. One is a prime evil fear of the unknown, the other, I suppose a close relative of that, is a fear of madness. A fear that you’ve finally lost your marbles. But then you break that down a little and it turns into a fear of loss of control, because when you’re that kind of mad anything goes and if it’s not the demons trying to possess you it’s the shrinks, but there’s also a massive fear of isolation, because your family and friends at best don’t get you and at worst will turn you in. I suppose there’s a fear of a lack of identity there as well, if you don’t know what’s real you can’t be certain your reaction to it is real, and if it was real was it really yours, and if not then who’s was it? The problem is that part of my brain that can take something small and innocent and turn it into a worst case scenario isn’t a part I should be exercising. It fucks with your head too much asking what if to everything that came along. Turns into a massive game of ‘did I really turn the cooker off?’ it goes beyond planning and it’s not long before if you hear a word in a slightly disjointed sentence you’ve jumped to the absolute negative and you’re already reacting to it regardless. It intensifies everything, All your deepest & darkest emotions are right there, stuck to the back of your teeth because for twenty hours a day you’re using all your energy to keep them there as a sounding board because when you write about some guy finding his daughter nailed to a tree or what ever you want him to say and do something realistic. It’s not good for me and I’ve only just realised, I’ve accidentally possessed myself.
I think there will be a time when it’s not going to have that much of an effect on me but I’m pretty down on myself of late any road. I don’t want to be like this. It’s time to be more relaxed and straightened out. Enjoy what I’ve got rather than try and describe how much it would screw me up if I lost it. Just for a lil while at least.
Dam I want a cigarette, maybe I should get some sleep.

two and six, twenty seven

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:09:26 GMT

So that’s twenty six out the way. Curious year that was. My life is still very bitty but I seem to have got it down to the bits I need and realised a few bits I’m short of.
Had a good final days though I was let down a little by nerves and the urge to set fire to something/anything and inhale the fumes. Walking about a city so tiny and ornate it felt very much like a film set. Gargoyles pinned to every wall and the mad lights man turning a tower green for kicks. Fireworks over a castle seen from a hill and an embedded irony that lay in the fact if Edinburgh had always had that much gun powder at it’s disposal it wouldn’t have taken the beating it had, and had it not probably wouldn’t have cared much for fireworks. A warning from drunks for being on the wrong field. A band that was made up of people looking like every type of man in a job centre being commanded by instruments of expense in disguise. And we had cheese on toast, which was also cool.
So what’s next? Well I’m writing again. It’d be nice to see one through, not sure how long it’s been but I’ve not had a serious attempt in years and before that I was struggling to finish anything. It’s different now though, I’m living with a lot of inspiration as well as a lot of answers.
What else. It’d be nice to get six months or so at something slightly different. I need to take what I’ve got experience wise further down the line, and maybe slightly to the side. Not sure where all that’s going but I’ve worked with some of the more difficult out of the groups so should be able to take it somewhere. I’ve been told a couple of times I should work with teenagers, suppose it could work, be better if they had some kind of drug addiction or mental illness, make me feel more at home. At the moment it’s just a case of walking into a building that has people that act in an odd way and you get filled in with the rest later on in the day. Nice to have worked with so many folk but I think it’s time to get something together. Getting a stable amount of money would also be nice lol.
So what’s coming up. Some interesting things going to happen in this house, not least of all we’re going to have a bit more money kicking round and more time in a strange way so we can see more of the world. Might have to dip into writing circles on occasion. Got winter nights coming in which makes everything feel a bit more comfortable and homely in my opinion. I suppose I can get myself organised as well, get geared up to move to where ever calls us next. So yup, pull the pieces in, enjoy what I’ve got, learn more of what I want.

Truth is

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:40:38 GMT

I don’t really know where to start with this but I’m going to give it a shot. Truth is I don’t really like writing on here any more, it reminds me too much of last year which was 90% completely fucked and very lonely and things have changed so much now it’s crazy too look back but last night somebody really came through for me and I was sitting around wondering what I would’ve done at any other point in my life. The answer was pretty much that I’d get drunk, maybe try and work it out on paper, throw that away and find somebody with a problem I could talk about. Keep everybody out the way till I’d finally worked it out but then of course a dozen more discrepancies would appear and I’ve been working that cycle for a good number of years now.

I keep thinking how to word this, guess I’m out of practise lol, but it’s actually pretty simple, I spent most of my years trying to drive myself mad, damn near succeeded, saw that I could be happy, picked myself up and started taking it seriously. Kind of like the travel bug I guess, you might not do it for years but then you get there, you get that feeling and you realise how achievable it is, then you get off your arse and aim to keep that feeling. I’ve cleaned out a lot, cut some bits out because I get it now, I know what I want. In a way it’s quite comical to think some people might think I’ve found a bad influence because I’m changing so much, as though I’m being locked in a basement and given a list of strict orders, bullied into being something I don’t want to be. It’s comical because it’s that very mentality that I can be bullied so easily and dragged against my will that I want to get rid of, because it’s bullshit, which is why I’ve taken so many steps. Truth is people that can’t see what’s going on and how I’m feeling better because of what I have now either didn’t have a clue what I was about in the first place or must have some need for me to be a self harming/destructing drunk and I can’t see how either is going to get me closer to the person I want to be.

This is a woman that’s great for me in some ways I can tell you and in other ways I’d like to keep between us but in all ways conceivable. For example I’ve been ill for a while now and earlier today I put myself in her shoes. How would I be if for damn near the length of time we’d been going out I’d seen her be fine one minute and clutching her chest the next. If we were walking around town and she had to suddenly kneel on the floor and sit in pain until it passed. How would I be if there was nothing I could do and whenever she came back from a doctor she had no news. How would I be if she suddenly broke down next to me and said she didn’t know what the fuck to do. I know I wouldn’t go anywhere, I’d try and be as strong as possible for her, but I don’t think I’d do as good of a job as she does. In a lot of ways I think it’s harder for the person with the one having the trouble. We’ve been practically living together for about four months and never wanted it to be different. She makes me feel like I’m somewhere great and the places I’m going are even better. She’s somebody I can tell my problems before I’ve worked them out, a pretty huge thing for our blood line. Proud to walk down the street with her, proud to introduce her to people, feel her pride when she introduces me to others... Jo sugar I love you, and just wanted to say thanks xx

I’ll leave it there for now, I’ve got a lot of time ahead of me to write more, but not immediately.

Oh before I go though, Lucy, great to see you the other day, glad you guys had fun, glad you didn’t hate me lol, be cool to all meet up again.

& Rachel, don’t speak to you as much since I’m not on here but how’s it going? Course alright?

Mark

Midsummer morning

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:06:10 GMT

Ah it’s getting late isn’t it. Alright a proper update some other time, for now I’ve got something on my mind. I was jus talking to somebody really close to me and she sounded a bit down tonight. There’s a huge part of me that wants to be able to wake her up with breakfast and flowers and some of the reasons why she’s great, it annoys me I can’t. I mean this woman is fantastic, and in about sixteen hours I’m going to be talking to her in person again but that’s not quite enough for my head. I want her to wake up knowing how happy she makes folk, she deserves it. Kinda person that lets you lose just enough control over yourself to discover what it is you actually want. So I’m kinda hoping she’ll pick this up when she wakes up and before she starts to go about her day.

There was a song I used to think about her to, still do, thing is I wasn’t sure if she’d like it so I kinda kept that one to myself for a while, even though it was her accidental idea. I really like it though and it reminds me of her. I’ll listen to it before I go to bed and hopefully, about thirty miles and seven hours from here she’ll get the same feeling I have now. Hell maybe I’ll get a Pingu impression.

an as for the rest of you we'll do angry and crazy some time soon, i promise :)

Something new

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:37:11 GMT

Alright I don't normally do this but lets give it a shot.
I like this

Pulling at threads

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:06:29 GMT

What you doing? Alright what were you doing before this? Was it fun? Or something you had to do? It’s strange what you think of as things you have to do isn’t it.

I’ve had a few different jobs in the past ten years. First one was a waiter in a pub. It was a grimy place though it tried to be posh, set it’s self up for walkers. I liked it, keeping the chef from screaming, keeping the customers away from the chef. Things going wrong and having to make bizarre excuses to people I didn’t know. It was only when I tried to go to a more upper class place that the job sucked beyond my resilience.

After I went to the fields and helped out my step dad building stables and drains for rich folks. Did that for about two years, I liked working with the dude, he was good enough at what he did to take his time and sit around pondering for most of the working day. It was like the zen of building for a lot of it. He had some crazy ways of doing stuff as well. One time we had the side of a barn held up by a bit of wood we couldn’t move and spent the rest of the day eating sandwiches smoking cigarettes and wondering what the hell we were going to do if it collapsed. Did that for about two years I guess, good times. Same as always though the work ran dry and soon enough I had to find something else. Ended up at a garden centre which was kind of like the other two jobs put together, some pretty good times there as well. I was the Christmas tree man, the guy that would block and wrap which ever one you pointed at.

After that was the worst job, working nights at a plastic factory. So bad in fact that I ended leaving the place and writing a novel about how bad it was, shame that’s not still around, would like to look back over that. Did that for about eighteen months. Folk there has been around for twenty five years or more. That was soul destroying. How could it be they’d been spending forty hours a week behind the same machine for so many years, a third of their life time. I hated that place. In winter you wouldn’t see day light because you’d be asleep, when you weren’t you’d be to knackered to do anything. But there was a path. I went in there with one FLT license and heard if I was really good I could get another, which was another step toward managing the little bit of the factory I worked in, which meant one day in years to come I might be considered for management of the whole factory. What a joke. Did my other license, you’re allowed thirty penalty points and I got two, but that didn’t change the fact that you could call me a manager, a king or a sodding over lord I despised the place.

When I left that place I got into support work and the rest is pretty well documented. I;ve just been wondering these past few days what it is that makes me put so much on employment. Why it’s important for me to be in a job that’s pushing me forward or at least giving me room to move. It’s not money otherwise I would’ve stopped in advertising. It’s not respect because otherwise I would’ve stopped in the last place I worked. The foundation degree I’m pratting about with will only make me more qualified for the level I’m at. I wonder when it would stop, making myself more and more qualified and knowledgeable for the next job. Weird thing is, asked straight out I put very little on what you do and the rest on why you do it. I wonder where I’m supposed to be at twenty six. Blow all that aside, guarantee myself I’m not going to get any further into a career I wonder what would happen. Take away that target that gets drilled into over the years, swap it for doing what makes you feel good. What a crazy idea. It’s been hammered home for so long, primary school kids are getting graded, get to the best school, pass your exams so you can go on and get a good job, or go onto uni and get better qualifications for an even better job. Think about the experience, keep with the groups because employers like team work. Spend more time in the office than you do with your family. But you need to right? You need the cash for cable TV and a nice car that can drive you to a fancy eating establishment. Hell these days you need extra money to buy healthy food or you’re a bad person and you need it to be marked with and marked up by fair trade or you’re worse. Right through the company you’re working for somebody else, somebody that owns your time and can make you believe you owe them that time. Throw it all in and climb that ladder, get to the top and you’re your own boss, but you’re not, you answer to the people that buy the product or use the service and you’ve got to plough your time back into the people below you or it all goes to hell. Is this the only track? It can’t be.

Devil on a biro

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:02:02 GMT

Come here, take a seat. Right so I’m having to write three thousand words on Personal & Professional Development and to be honest I’m liking better the idea of sticking this pen in my eye and tickling my brain. There’s just something almost perverse about asking me to write how I’m going to be a better person and get a better job. The very idea that those two things apparently go hand in hand is just silly to me.

We’ve had to do these graphs and these charts to identify our learning style and areas of confidence. I’m crap with numbers and I know this, knew that before I took an online test. There’s a very good reason why I’m crap with numbers, it being because I don’t give a flyer. I find measurement of life the most uninteresting thing about it and, though I have an intelligence that will grasp rules and regulations, on the morrow it will mean nothing to me, the vaguest memory, as though delivered by an alien probe. So if we toss aside our security passes and brave the world beyond an institution what are we talking about? What will make me a better person? I think it falls into retraining the eye as to see the importance of detail, soothing the spiritual unrest and visualising unhappiness as a grime that can be easily washed away, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with whether I can use Power Point or not.

It annoys me because I have a nostalgia for knowledge. A spiralling idea that we’re all in this together and the unravelling of the mysterious is the point “let us not mince words our very lives depend on truth.” Bill Hicks, but nobody will talk about it, I don’t feel like I’m in a learning environment, I feel like I’m in quarantine. Lots of gowns and secret handshakes. I talk to the students and they say it’s all bull but it’s just what needs to be done, I talk to the tutors and they eventually get round to saying the same thing… so who are we following? Surely there are less rule makers than rule followers at this point. People don’t seem to get the bigger questions in my job. I once said to my manager that we’d be better employing the mentally unstable than those qualified in care because they will have a point of view that is essential to our job, an empathy (or sympathy, can never remember) which can not be bought or taught. It’s strange, I think I’m just looking at it wrong. My last chunk of information was about policy formulisation, who said what where, which is nice in a sense, but when you’ve got a guy that’s wanting to top himself because he doesn’t understand his benefits form that particular bucket of facts does very little good. And that’s my job. It’s not preservation but liberation. Being able to talk people round and have enough knowledge of what’s available to bring in resources they’d never even heard of, not to get them everything they want but to make them realise it’s possible to get what you need, and then you can probably see more of what you want and if you’ve got five things in your life that you want then it’s your life again. You can build these things, grow them, keep your blood pumping and have something to defend on the day of reckoning. Life it’s self is about choice, my job is to put the education to the guess, so really, who gives a rats arse what Beveridge thought. But nobody wants to here this, nooo, I’ve got to put my bells back on and do a little dance while humming the tune “the purpose of this essay is to identify areas of high and low confidence…” lol, it wouldn’t upset me so much if I didn’t think if we were to put our heads together we could make me and the students on the course better at the job of supporting people. It’s the waste that gets me. Maybe I should’ve studied something I wasn’t so involved in, or something that wasn’t so heavily soaked in opinion. Maybe I should’ve done languages, I’m doing that for kicks and whinging about the course I’m doing. Lol, that’s how I can develop myself, pick my bloody courses better. Anyway I best get back to it. Speak to you soon

cloudy

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:06:12 GMT

Today I don’t know what’s going on. Something needs to happen, things are getting too close, to much by the bit.
Went back to the doctors today and the tests I need aren’t something I’m going to get in hospital, these days though I don’t fancy the idea of hospital much anyway, it was just a nice idea, walk into a place and throw my hands up, get tested in the morning and results back in the afternoon, it was a nice idea. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t really know how I feel about any of this, the biggest slab of irony is everything seems too fast but I know it’s because I’m moving slower than even the slowest. I’ve got folk askin about me from here to Edinburgh and I seem to know more than my doctor yet nothing at all.
A few years ago there was a rabies outbreak in Brazil. It started to eat away at the population of tribal villages and nobody knew what to do. They sent a medical team in there and while they worked on some the village shaman worked on others. The doctors with all their plastic and lights solved zero cases, the shaman with all their smoke and madness cured five. Maybe I’ve used the wrong door to this one is all I’m saying.
Part of me is pissed off enough to be kicking right now. Part of me is furious that sometimes I feel okay, sometimes I feel like I’m bein pulled in half. I’m losing weight like it was a memory and I’m losing blood somewhere along the line “You were once a careful student Jack tell me where did the blood go?
The bed sheets would be covered in blood… Something just flew up there, sucked it out of her I suppose?
Yes, why not? You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear that which you can not account for. Do you not think there are things in this life which you do not understand but which are true?” Dracula.
I don’t know. This has gone on too long. When I’m well I wonder if I can just ignore it. Just increase my vitamins and food, drink more water and power through it, keep my eyes on what I want and my head down. It works for a while, an hour or so sometimes. Get some uni work done, if I could I’d be cutting my stress in half, but I can’t because I have too much stress, breath deep the irony, at least it’s familiar. I’ve got two or three months to find another job, I’ve got minus two months to add up all my work hours for some uni thing. Everything is tangled and head heavy. Is it really this complicated? There needs be some judge in my head, some wooden hammer to crash down “order!” or maybe “sold!”. Shining a torch onto black card and wondering why I can’t see in the dark. Roll my eyes like some Lewis Carol joint and wonder where all the teeth have gone.
It’s not that complicated. I’m not dying, jus a bit fucked up. It’s actually pretty straightforward. I want a house with this woman. I want this woman to be happy in and out of it. I want a job without the hypocrisy which is the homeless sector. I want a decent mark on my foundation degree because I think it will count for something. I want to be able to speak five different languages and to be able to use that in my job. I want to learn massage so I can take some of the stress away. I want to spend time in haunted houses. I want a project on the horizon, a writing project. I want to go to Egypt. I want a taste of the ten thousand years we’ve been here. That’s not that complicated.

little cloak skin

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:52:24 GMT

It’s those little bits of wonder, that’s what it’s all about isn’t. That’s the stuff that keeps you going, keeps me going, always has been.

When I first started reading about dinosaurs and pictured these living breathing animals that were bigger than buses and twice as angry. When I read into ghosts and found this world of possibility, this what if? What is it? Why does it come along? What types are they? Do they think? Do they feel? Is it just a burn in the time spiral? After that it was telepathy, telekinesis, esp, evp, out of body projection. I was hungry for it, just soaked that stuff up. I obsessed about it for years. What were the possibilties? Was it all fake? How can two lines of soldiers all stop firing and look at an angel projected on a battlefield? Have we learnt it all? We can’t have, nobody was coming up with anything new. The best of them were reverting to theories of everybody being mad, crazy, broken in the head for imagining a world where we didn’t know it all. Running along side it I played their game and studied madness. Studying people, how they should think, why they should think like that, who polices it, who’s happier. I always thought it astounding, it threw up all these ideas, all these possibilities.

I guess I was always pissed the magicians would eventually take the money and tell you how the trick worked. But all magic can be is a phenomena that dances just outside the knowledge and understanding. Once you know it it becomes a science. It’s not hell fire, it’s a chemical reaction, it’s gun powder, lets bottle it, sell it, taint it with colours, some people can use it for festivals, some people can use it for wars. That’s not magic anymore. But somebody sits in a plain room and makes an aluminium sheet ripple because he increases the heat with no visibly understandable methods in laboratory conditions, that’s magic, or it will be once we’ve gone through the data base of our understanding, it would be if we didn’t fear that like the creature in the closet. Fear the idea that magic might still be about, but longing for it. What a curious relationship, we need it but we need to understand it, to keep it, to reproduce it.

My old obsessions are still there, monsters and spirits, mind powers and madness, with something new, something I find myself longing for and scared of. It’s some kind of magic, something I can’t for the life of me track and explain. I’m not sure I want to. I don’t want to mechanise it but the idea I don’t know what’s going to happen next is nerve wrecking. How weird is it that sometimes not knowing is the very fuel that keeps you going, other times it scares the hell out of you. How strange it feels to have both those feelings going on at the same time. What kind of magic is this? Should I care if I still get to see her?
Ah hell i don't know, weird day. Come back tomorrow, tomorrow we do crackers, jokes, paper hats and balloon animals i promise. You take care of yourselves
M

medic whinge

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:16:20 GMT

Now I’m pissed off, this is jus a whinge so if you’re havin a good day I’d whistle past and carry on about it.

My x ray results came back clean. No fractures, shadows, blemishes, fuck all. The doc told me over the phone with his you’re about to be relieved voice and I must’ve sounded annoyed because he finished the phone call saying “er this is good news”. I wanted pneumonia. What a stupid thing to say. It’s true though. I’ve been off and whinging about this for over a month now, I’m down as long term sick at work, I feel knackered an heavy, I notice more when I don’t have a head ache and every now and then a stab in the chest will shut me up and drop me. I’ve not slept properly in ages and my stomach is going mental because I’ve been on a steady diet of nuerofen and anadin. I jus wanted something serious enough to justify it all an curable. I said to my girlfriend last night my biggest hate is I’m going to pillock about with all these tests and end up with a diagnoses of stress, or maybe not even that. Next job I go to they ask if I’ve had any sickness “yeah I was off for over a month with chest pains. They never did find out what was happenin with that, jus kinda went away. Yeah I never thought about that, suppose it could happen again whenever.”

Ah christ I don’t know. I just want to get away from all this for a while, start a fresh. I feel like I’ve fucked this up. I said a while back it’s a good job I don’t believe truly in reincarnation other wise I’d never get passed eight years old. I’ve got a rip it up and start again mentality that’s screaming to get it’s claws into all this.

Normally when I get like this I go for a walk, blow off steam, clear my head, tire myself out. Marchin fifteen miles can put things in perspective a fair amount but I can’t at the minute, walk less than a mile and I have to sit feelin crushed and dizzy.

I wonder if I could jus power through it, I wonder if I should stop bein a kid about it an accept I’m goin to be runnin at a lower standard from now on. You know that feeling? It’s probably nothing, you’re jus bein soft, it’s probably jus all in your head anyway. Do what everybody else does and just get on with it.

Wouldn it be great if you were dropped a load of money. You could appear at somebody’s house and say ‘hey, you got your bag? Your phone? Lets disappear, we’ll think about where we want to be on the plane.’would’t that be something.

Sixty lives an hour

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:00:24 GMT

Hold my breath with your eyes and spin your tale like a forest fire in my mind giving light and warmth. Burn the moors so we can grow anew.

My head is spindley today. All fingers and thumb nails. I’ve been off work for four or five weeks with phantom pains and I think I’m developing a bit of a Jacob’s ladder twitch. Tomorrow I go back home ready to re-start college again. God I hate the miles sometimes. There’s a handful of bodies left I want to take to a village out of the way, set up something different. There’s a woman I want on the train with me.

Can you put up with my drivel while I untie my tongue? All change goes in the hat, silver and gold, save the copper for the ferry man, sure he’d appreciate the surprise.

A few months back my area manager was giving us a motivational speech about the direction of our jobs and our service. He said we need to be clear on direction. He likened it to pulling up in a car next to somebody walking down the street and asking “where are you going?” and how crazy you would think the person if they replied “I don’t know.” From that point on I’ve thought that to be the most honest person I’d speak to, but then my area manager is a pretty penny away from a Buddhist.

Are you where you want to be? If you get to where you want to be do you just stop? Live there? Get a job and a dog? I’m not but I’ve recently seen a sign that said I was headin in the right direction.

Just recently I’ve changed my email, my journal id and soon my phone number when O2 learn how to run a company. I want to change my address, get through this uni course in the quickest time allowed because I despise the idea of them tying me to Halifax for another eighteen months. I want a job that’s progressive naturally rather than tonguing the nipple of government tick boxes. That’s the kind of thing I need to stop saying actually, apparently folk are starting to track people down through blog sites to see what they really think of their job, lol, think they’d find the oldest oak tree in the village square for my crimes I’m sure.

Weird times. When I was really young I kind of made up this friend that could exist in my escape fantasies. Somebody that could ride the cargo train with me. As I got older I figured that person was the most unrealistic corner of that dream world and got it down to just me, my beer, my pen and my music kicking back as the train rhythmically thumped along. Hell I’d divide myself to three if I needed company that badly. There wasn’t any flesh and blood gonna improve on that feeling, make it feel any more natural, central. Just have to put up with the folks you pass at the coffee house. The folks you swap a word or two with at a bar. Might even spend a night putting the world to rights with a friend but the train was mine. Then, jus as cat and string as fate can be, a voice came from behind me and asked if there was any ice. Green eyes, red hair, sharp tongue, soft lips, kind of logic that’s drinkable and the kind of smile you get drunk on. A moving destination that makes sense of the fact that I never knew where I was going.

So I just need to take the focus off somebody else’s watch and get hold of things again. There’s a few logic puzzles I need to attend to. I suppose it’d be a different kind of wrong if I had everything sorted at twenty six years old. I suppose if you’ve got the right hand holding yours flicking over your options is kind of the point. That’s why it’s a train ride and not a camping site. Strange how choice makes you feel lost sometimes when you always did know where you wanted to be. That said I suppose it can be taken we never do have that much choice after all. What a smoked mind it is when that doesn’t make it any better. I want choice and clear direction. Without clear direction I might be wasting time. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Without a clear idea of where I want to end up I might be short of the time to kick the pebbles when I get there, marvelling with my head down at the speed I managed to finish this off. Maybe this is the finished point, and the start. Living a reality at sixty lives an hour.

Anyway this is our stop, going to go for a drink, this train comes round again in a while, sure I’ll catch you on the next circuit.

Open All Hours

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:18:09 GMT

Hey how you doing? Watch the walls, they’re still wet. Yeah thought I’d move, wanted a clean page you know? I couldn’t decide what to call the place but I like notes. You get your angry notes on the fridge, your basic life maintenance notes and to do lists, ransom notes, notes left on a pillow, notes you find in your pocket that were written to remind you about something but at the moment mean fuck all and you take note when you want to learn something. As well as that I have all the musical talent of a narcoleptic fire walker so a lob sided note makes sense.

There’s still a lot to do with the place. Still got to write that bio/interests rubbish. I hate doing those. Tell me the kind of person you are, but bullet point it alright mate, we’ve all got stuff to be doing.

So yeah, this is 2008, interesting. Still no hover boards or holographic TV’s but I guess we’ve got time. Apparently in a couple of years Skynet is going to take over the world and we’re going to have a war against the machines. It’s all in the way you say it don’t you think. Two thousand and eight doesn’t sound too bad but when you say twenty ten it sounds like we should all personally know a space marine.

I don’t know about you but I decided to simplify the new year resolution thing this year and got it down to one which is to get healthier. From the point of deciding that I’ve been off work with un-diagnosed chest pains, what a piss take. I’ll take it up when I’m better I guess. Currently I’m addicted to the taste and ritual of complan.

Looking in WhSmiths the other day though there is another resolution that has clawed it’s way to the fore front of my iris. Writing, specifically for the horror genre, what a sad little beaten puppy that has become. Why do they insist on clubbing fantasy, horror and sci-fi together? & Why do they all have to have the same front covers? With the same two dollar lines? “gripping” “a real page turner” “as good as Stephen king” how easily amused are the guys at the papers? You can give them any old shit and apparently they start panting and sweating like they’re short of some illegal medication. When it comes under Drama people give a shot at being different, when you give them a slight theme they seem to panic. If I read the back of another horror book about a psychic detective or Bill the existentialist vampire I’m going to beat myself to death in the middle of the shop with their promotional card cut outs. & my god when you get the guy writers that talk about how beautiful their main female character is, with their flowing hair, enchanting smile and gun holster on their tanned thigh. Must be hard to punt that stuff out typing one handed. I don’t know if it’s the publishers, the readers or the writers but come on, Stephen King, James Herbert and Dean Koontz aren’t religious icons, they’re not even that good. Anna Rice and Kim, shit what’s she called, I can’t remember but anyway if you’re female you don’t need to write about vampires. I don’t mean to be sexist but out of a male writer and a female writer I would rather read the female, guys generally are more basic. “he smiled, the corners of his lips turned up.” Isn’t a line I need. “he smiled and my soul spat.” Is.

So come on, lets hum our own hymn. Lets burn the ties and toss Dan Brown books like the piss poor javelins they are. Eat your cereal with a fork.

Right glad you came round, pop in any time for a brew or a beer but I need to lock up. Got a lunch date with my fantasy.