clinging to the wreckage

In our imperfections lies our beauty. It is our imperfections that make us unique and alluring… this is the case with every human being I find attractive and it is the case with the forms of music and literature that I love. Animals too. There is a cat who often waits around in my garden around the time that I get home from work. This cat only has three legs and yet walks with perfect balance and grace. He is cross-eyed and his eyes appear to have cataracts of some kind, yet they are beautiful and understanding. When I step out of my car he runs to me and allows me to run my hand down his back once, just once, then he makes a noise and walks away. He is an amazing example of endurance and survival. He has had a tough life and yet he just peacefully lingers upon the grass next to the flowers and awaits a little bit of love or attention or joy… he is just like us… but better than some.

In pain and sorrow I fell asleep, then I dreamt of you and there you saved me. We were happy and inseparable… although the death crept into my dream too, how could it not? Never the less, all things seemed better with you sitting on my lap holding my hand.

There are things I’d like to say to you as I lie here and think about today… today the day that my grandfather died whilst my mother is in ICU after having part of one of her lungs removed… and she doesn’t yet know. She doesn’t know because she is too fragile to be given the news. It’s a tragedy. Life is a tragedy. There is no one to talk to. There is no one to hold. There is no one. Every single person has made their commitment and with that commitment they shall stick. And yet I see your photo and there are so many things that I’d like to say to you as I lie here and ponder the meaninglessness of it all. I see your photo and I contemplate your beauty as I realise there is only longing and pain and goodbye. There are brief flickers in between but I have left it too late and everyone has made their commitments.   Everyone is dying and sick or lonely and everyone has made their commitments.

When I first arrived in Africa I was eight years old. I hated it. I hated the extreme conditions, the dry sand, the hot air, the scorching wind, and the bright blinding light. Even the food tasted of dust. Bread was hard. Water was different. My skin burnt and blistered and, even though I was able to play in the swimming pool, life was a general misery. I couldn’t go shopping with my parents without feel waves of nausea due to the extreme heat. I recall many a mid-day spent sitting in the shade on the side of the street sipping a coke to try to regain some sense of normality. But then I started to see the colours, the wildlife, the vegetation, the people. I started to discover a place of unique and diverse cultures, animals, plants and regions. As time passed by I fell in love with all of these facets of African life and felt proud to be a part of it all. In my comfort, many things started to fall into place and I started to develop a love of music, literature, ...

Kipling’s Kim comes to life of a Sunday afternoon with beer as, outside, an ugly overweight man wearing a shirt that is too small even though it is large walks past with his beautiful wife and I wonder what their story is. Is he rich or is she just a good person who is with a man she loves in spite of the way that he looks? Ultimately it matters not. They have each other and all I have is people who run away and back into the arms of the ones they claimed to be sick of. I’ve sent a few messages this weekend but I have not had any replies. With others I have not even bothered. And yet the cats stroll the house like it is a palace and I am some form of king who shares in their reign. If only they knew that I reign over nothing… that I can’t even get a reply to a message from the ones I love… the ones who wish I would fall of the face of the planet.

When the book closes you are gone… and I am once more alone… but the words continue to speak to me and as I walk through the street back to my house to escape the masses of people all crammed into their cars and stuck in traffic jams as they try to make it to the parks to linger in the sun I think of how it was that you lived, refusing to compromise, suffering starvation, cold, and homelessness in the pursuit of your dream and through your persistence you achieved it. It truly is an inspiration but at the same time it makes me feel like something of a failure or that I am living a lie and selling my soul to the only bidder who will have it. I sell my soul in fear of hunger and hopeless homelessness. I constantly dabble in the things that I love to do such as sit here and write these very words but they certainly have no mass (or minor) appeal and would never allow escape from the relentless pace of the corporate pursuit of profit.      ...

She fell pregnant and everything stopped.  There were only two things that she could do… they were eat and talk. She wouldn't work; she never really had worked very well but in pregnancy all work ceased entirely. She would come into the office and talk… talk incessantly about her pregnancy and her scans and her plans and what she hoped for and how her husband said this and did that. I pity the husband deeply. How sad and trapped that man must feel. He has always been forced into doing things that he hasn't wanted to do, such as send his wife flowers on Valentine's Day simply so that she could be seen by the other women receiving them. The only time I ever saw the husband smile was one night I was out on the town and saw him out without her. Draw your own conclusions. Her ambition, her sole ambition, was to escape work by one means or another… and here is the means… the baby… all celebrate the baby for it means that she'll never work again. 

On paper with pen I scribble a note to you that borders on a love letter and yet, half-way through, I pause and try to resist destroying the page with negative remarks and fire because I become so certain that you are not truly interested and that I am just being dragged along like some hopeless puppy dog on a leash. It sometimes feels like you’ve milked everything whilst waiting for the perfect thing to arrive and now you’re realising it’s almost too late. You’ve hooked me but you’re keeping me alive in a bucket so that you can turn to me if nothing that you truly want comes along at the last moment. It’s all a game in which men like me have no chance of competing. All the likes of me can do is stand aside and watch you go through one after the next and, if we’re sad enough, hope that we will be the next one that you go through… somehow stupidly believing that we might be the one you stick with but trying to convince ourselves that we only want our fifteen minute...

So, I can safely assume I have no readers. Good, back to the way it once was. Or perhaps it is that no one comments, for it seems that people are terrified of writing anything on the public web unless they are extremely wealthy or write about conservative politics/ideas/religion and promote positive thought and business ideas. But why does no one ever express themselves and reveal their true persona? It’s raw but surely we should not live in fear of offending an employer be it present or future. This is what I find to be the case with most… a deep fear, mostly, of upsetting potential future employers. Just the fact that I am writing this right now is offending certain people. What is my alternative? Hide inside and never express a feeling other than to say ‘Amazing lunch, amazing meeting, amazing everything all the time and no one is ever sad anywhere.’? My mother is in hospital with a lung problem, the books I read expose the brutality of mankind against his own ...

I know there is no point in hoping any more. I know that all dreams come to naught. I know that every one is settled and taken and stable. I am lost and unstable… hoping that something will change and striving for that but to no avail. Totally disconnected is what I am. Total disconnection. I may as well not be here and I often wish that I were not. We all go on and go on and go on and what for? I’m not too sure any more.

Sometimes something works out well for a change and it is such a pleasant surprise that it can almost make one’s night. This thing may be something small such a software update or a message.  But just as quickly something terrible can happen and wash the joy away. Tonight as I felt happy and started to write about it I read the news that explosions at a marathon in Boston had caused numerous deaths and injuries. So now people can’t even go to a marathon without losing limbs or their lives. And here I was thinking that my day at work had been bad. As I sink into darkness my thoughts are with them…

If you’re out there anywhere in the world and you actually read this blog, please comment and say hello.

Some moaned at the way I cooked. Some moaned about my drinking. Others moaned about the way I spoke. They’ve moaned about many more things too and now I don’t recall who it was or what it was as I sit here on this sultry Surrey day having just arrived back from a dismal visit to a shop seemingly filled with mutants. I'm glad that there is no one here to moan that way right now. There are moments of loneliness but the peace of silent isolation is something that outshines that loneliness and causes it to fade into insignificant corners.      The sun shines outside and it is warm but some man walking his dog just paused directly outside of my window and he was wearing boots, a jacket and a woolly hat. Insanity is everywhere. Inside I sip a beer and feel like the only sane person for miles. For the first time in months the heating is off and I am wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I think about yesterday and its incessant rain as we made our way through ...

It’s a beautiful, sunny day for our trip to London and Wembley Stadium for the FA cup semi final between Wigan and Millwall. Let’s hope Wigan grace us with a victory and that the Millwall fans behave themselves. No sooner have I typed this and the sun has disappeared. Never the less, it is Wigan’s first ever FA Cup semi final and I shall not let anything dull my excitement. The aim is to venture into London early and to go for drinks in Covent Garden before making our way to the stadium. I’ve just checked the weather forecast and it has changed from ‘sunny with some showers’ to ‘heavy rain’… all day. What else did we expect? I’m a little bit concerned that the message I sent to the dark seductress in black was not returned. It may have been a little too suggestive and one never knows when there is a husband/fiancé/boyfriend lurking in the near vacinity. The sad thing with growing older is that all the women one knows tend to have these unnecessary attachments such as husbands.

Walking through the drizzle for some exercise and air and a break from the insanity of the corporate world I ventured into the supermarket to purchase a bag of crisps to satisfy the often insatiable appetite I have for that particularly unhealthy commodity and, once I had paid for them, I decided to walk back into the shop to have a look at the beer and wine to see if there were any good deals on my favourite items. There weren’t, so I walked on towards the exit but as I passed the cider I noticed a lovely figure with beautiful, dark, flowing hair examining the bottles. Upon closer investigation I noticed it was you. I pinched your arm and we began to speak. You put your basket down as it was so heavy and I helped you to choose a bottle of cider. I carried your basket and helped you choose dinner. I wished we were choosing something to share and felt envious of the one who would be sharing the feast with you. We packed your bags together and then walked back together in the pouring rai...

Someone asked me who I compare myself to as a writer. I don’t compare myself to anyone. I’m too innocent and gentle for Bukowski and I’m too simple for Miller, I’m too drug-free for Kerouac and too unstructured and angry to be any of the top selling/commercial writers of our time. Unlike those people, I don’t have a rich and/or powerful connection in the publishing industry somewhere to push my name and works forward. I write for myself to keep myself alive (or, at the very least, sane). I write because whilst others love to be mountain climbing or partying or generally having an endless succession of dinners and dates, I love to be indoors with books and pens and computers and anything that involves using the word to express, to inform, to communicate. Going out as a teenager for me usually involved a trip to the stationers followed by a film and time drifting through the book store. I found punk rock but that was a way of challenging conventional thoughts and beliefs for me and not a...

In the water she saw demons. Her own demons. She stared deep and fearfully and wondered what it was that she could see glaring back at her from this aquatic abyss of shimmering shades and shadowing silhouettes. Her life was an empty one in which she clung tenaciously to the brief flickers of attention and affection that she received each day. It wasn’t enough to fill the immense gap, wasn’t enough to satisfy the insatiable longing that she suffered.

The first rays of sun this year appeared on Sunday and we braved the outdoors with beer and our demons for company.

I’m too exhausted to unleash my negative writings upon the world at this moment in time… aren’t you fortunate?

The sun shines and strives to break through this incessant cold air. It’s the 7th of April and the temperature has just risen from −2 degrees to somewhere around zero. I have awoken from tumultuous dreams of immense complication. Dreams in which I dragged the one I loved from an icy river only to be rejected and then to struggle against the police, computers, cars and shoes. It’s a day that seems to pave the way to a certain doom. This afternoon could bring elation or crushing despair… and riding in the wake of this afternoon comes that sunday night dread of what is to follow. Those endless questions of what and where and why? And so I sit here in bed, listening to the Weakerthans, the sun beating deceptively against the curtain, and all seems calm and well and pleasant. The day stretches out ahead with an early promise and I refuse to accept that it will turn out to be as meaningless and as empty as other sundays.

A week that began in terror turned out to be quite an interesting and pleasant one in which I had a few laughs, met some interesting people, and even found my heart beating fast as a result of an attraction to a person to whom I reached out yesterday in the hope that I might see more of her. The response was positive but now I must wait and see. I may see her again on Thursday but I am really hoping to hear from her again before that.      ‘Hoping’… such a strange word for me. Do I seriously hope that this beautiful, young, French woman will have any interest in me whatsoever? Not really. But the interactions and the gestures and the dreams are what make life interesting. The note I wrote I handed to her in an envelope and said ‘something to read later.’ She looked in shock and excitement and said ‘Later? Not now?’ Then she went on ‘I must read it now, I cannot wait.’ She tore open the envelope and read the words. By the time she was finished the room was full of peo...

In her French accent she asked if I did not like to wear shoes. So common was it for me to not wear shoes that I had actually forgotten the fact that I was sitting before her on the sofa outside of our corporate training rooms with my shoes off. I was pleased with the smile that it brought to her face and the fact that she sat back and shyly giggled upon me answering that shoes made me very uncomfortable and that bare-feet or flip flops were my methods of choice.         I asked her what it was that she usually got up to on the weekends and in the evenings… since she had only been in the country for three months. She explained that she has several friends scattered around London, most of whom are French, and that she usually does things with them most weekends. In the evenings of the week she’s too tired to do anything and after work she goes home to eat and sleep. I couldn’t help but drift off into dreams of lingering kisses on soft beds in darkened ...

I must have done something right, for the three of them are still in contact. One acts as if she's in love with me and the other two cling as if I am something they dare not let go of. All the while, I attend class and pay more attention to the young french lady at the front of the room than I do to what is being taught. This after a nihilistic weekend of extreme alcohol abuse resulting in me venturing out on my bicycle, drunk beyond safety, and walking into the Apple store to buy this fucking Mac upon which I write right now. I spent the night writhing in turmoil but I appear to have made it through to the other side and now I must simply exist in the knowledge that I sold my soul to the devil for what reason I know not. 

Sometimes you have to leave the house. Sometimes, when the knives and razors and pills and bottles are calling your name, you have to leave the house. Sometimes you do silly things like come to the bar and sit alone drinking beer in the presence of a woman you love from afar and it probably does nothing other than make you look like an idiotic, lonely fool. Sometimes you're already drunk and your bicycle, although dangerous, is the only means of transport and you push yourself to go out and blow lots of money and to drink a lot more because the alternative is a lonely death of a broken heart or something colder. Sometimes as you're sitting in the bar, drinking, alone, you start to think that you may throw up and you almost cease to care. There is a guy in the bar telling the staff it is his birthday... he keeps telling them it’s his birthday... he's telling them he plays guitar... he keeps repeating that he'd rather live in Spain. I sense the bar lady's pain....

All of today’s writings and joys have just changed. Funny how a few words can cause that emotional black cloud to arise. The ice at some point must thaw... this fucking ice age that has set in physically and metaphorically. It is said that one should not run away from problems. But what exactly is running away? Some say ‘don’t run away’ and some say ‘don’t waste your life doing the things that you don’t want to do.’ For decent pay we stay and do not pack up and pursue our true dreams. I know that chasing my own dreams would more than likely result in living on a park bench and, to be honest, I am not the kind of person who could survive that. I’d say a week on a park bench (at most) and I’d be dead. But what is life off the bench? Are we merely flogging a dead horse? Someone is getting rich whilst I can’t afford to buy a gift for a friend. Some have skills and deserve what they have. Others are very good at kissing arse and jumping through hoops. The arse kissers, the keeners, the...