New Years Eve

Well its time for a quick summary of the Christmas period. For Christmas I got a lot of money and presents such as Juggling Balls, a Rubix Cube, Clothes Vouchers, a pint Guinness glass, and some cards. Also, for my birthday I got this wicked little voice recorder thing which looks like a mobile phone but can record voice messages, its absolutely mint. Also, I got at least partially alcoholated every day, which is obviously putting the Merry next to Christmas!

I’m back in Leicester now. I came back today, my dad brought me. Car conversation was sporadic at best. A radio talk show was illustrating the points of viewers about people who go out and drink themselves silly. Obviously they have a valid point but I noted with some distain that none of the people calling were those coming out in defence of a drunken NYE day. Surely there’s no better way to see in the New Year than not remembering doing so?

Tonight I am going round to Jo__'s house for drinks before heading to The SU bar for “Panic” night. It’s going to be fun.

Emo Truth

How do I feel?

I’m not doing anything with my life really. Just living it and going nowhere and that is not enough for me. I enjoy the experience and the endless possibilities of each day but find it too hard to see beyond. To see what I’m doing things, or planning them, for. I have dreams, but they are simply that, dreams. I feel like my want which I make as obvious as one can do are being ignored, my desert island is my prison.

I feel like my dreams are in cages, and I have no keys to release them. I can see them in my mind, the things I want, but only there. I don’t know how to get them, I need advice, and I need help. That’s easy to say to a closed book, to anything non human. With a person there’s an issue of pride damage that I simply can’t overcome. Yes I have pride in what I am, believe it or not.

So its left to me break open those cages, even if I damage or break the things inside. So long as they can move from the metaphorical, to the literal, my dreams are still alive.

Beds

It would seem, to me. That time teaches me few lessons, but time itself is the best thing to do anything with. As I dragged my protesting carcass from the bed this evening I had one of those inspirational moments. I can’t say much about it, as its message was wasted on me. It did however compel me to understand that, something has got to change. I’ve said this before, and in this very journal too. Maybe it’s just the realisation that for reasons A B or C, I’m not happy.

Something in me tells me I’m not happy and despite my fruitless search for answers, I know about the relativity of all humans to their world; things always can be better. Maybe I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing… but anyway. I'm going to make a list of things I would like to change, and see how I get on with it in the new year.

We have found a four bed roomed house about 5 minutes walk closer to university, on H_____ road. Right above a Jewellers shop I think (good security then). We are putting down the deposit on it tomorrow. I’ll go to spend more money than I have and more than the last of it, the same thing in two different ways. I need a job; I need a fucking job now.

Beds are cradles, beds are graves,

Beds are where we long to stay,

Beds are carriages to and from,

The world inside and one beyond.

Birthday Party Time!

Yesterday was my birthday and what a good day it was. Most of the people I was expecting turned up and a few I had not planned for (suprises are always good). We started off drinking here, just me and a whole bunch of Jo__’s flatmates (and st__ to__ and ni__ obviously) eventually Jo__ Jo__ Mik__ and Ja__ arrived, and lo, the kitchen was fuller than ever before!

We played some drinking games and I drank steadily. After a while we move into town to soar point for more of the same, I was busily rushing round seeing lots of people (as always seems to happen when I go out!), more people arrived and it was all good. We played the same game half an hour later when we moved into the Polar Bear, where people clubbed together and got me a “dirty pint” which is a pint of various shots, and some small quantity of mixer. This presented some quite bad problems even for me.

Eventually we got to Original 4 as planned, I cant remember much of that as I was reasonably merry by that time. I had a jolly good time though! I don’t honestly remember getting home, but know that I did, I also know that I stopped by the infernal Maryland Chicken on the way. Disgusting but lovely!

Library Times

It’s time to get the work done, once again, I’m at the library. Trying to get going and get my ass up to date. Learning lines for my drama performance, watching a movie about transsexuals (also for drama), and gaining ground on my creative writing assignments. Sadly I’m one of those people who get distracted very easily by passers by, like girls that are nice looking, and facebook.

25th November

Well it’s 5.30pm English Sunday time. I’m at the DMU Library, drinking relentless and feeling very on my own, because I’m on the bottom floor and almost all others are in groups! I fancy pulling an all-nighter, but have no reason to do so. Besides, I have to be up early tomorrow for my Devising lesson. We are in the middle of our first solo devised pieces.

For my performance, I’ll be talking about the internet, biggin’ it up as they say. But showing how it cuts us off from each other. How social networking sites bring us close to our distance friends and further from our current ones, showing that some people near enough live online.

Then I’ll go and talk about porn, my first porn movie. I’ll go from talking about it to doing it. Pretty harsh stuff, seeing me act porn on stage, but fuck it. It’s going to be a good laugh. In a real life twist, like the end of the performance, this laptop of mine broke earlier this week and wouldn’t load. I thought it was fucked, and it came at a very bad time! It gave me a real insight into my own dependence on technology, which since discovering the “f11” key on boot-up secret, has started to re-affirm itself on me.

But for a few days when I thought all my work was lost for good I spent a terrific amount of time in the real world, quite an interesting experience. I met the new manager of Leicester (a guy called Steve Holloway) and shook his hand. I’m meeting celebrities already, have at you, bitches!

18th November - Coming into the cold

Its really cold these days, the weather report says today's high temperature will be three degrees Celsius and the low will be one. To complement this it was snowing earlier. Snow or not, my feet feel icy almost all the time now! I do like snow, but done like cold!

I got my loan, and haven’t kept it! I'm sure it will have gone down about 500 since last week but can't imagine why! Money is a curious thing! I'm still only spending what little I need to and the Man across the road can whistle while he works if he thinks I'm going to make him a top priority! Ahh, what rebel stirs inside of me!

A new week starts and I'm going to try and make this a very special one, by attending all the lectures this week! Usually I miss one, or sometimes a full days worth, of lessons. But this week I'm going to pull my metaphorical finger out! There's lots of work to do, and assignments to start, yes indeed!

8th November

Tonight I talk little of abstract thoughts such as feelings, beliefs and the mystic (should I even affect more than pretentious insights into any such subject please correct me). I talk even less of the feelings hid in me, for who but me would care? I talk even less of my daily life than to say I have a big-ass bill I'm meant to pay, and I have sold some £55’s worth of McDonalds Coke glasses. Tonight I talk to make little sense, with freedom and fluidity, to empty my glass, to just get it out there.

I'm sick of squalor, I'm sick of brokenness I'm sick of being in THIS situation, I'm sick of waking up in the morning and knowing I'm doing all the things I do because I am flowing this way and that against my will. I don’t and will not LET things happen but will MAKE things happen. If I try and make it happen it won’t but if I wish and don’t, it will?

Should [SHE] care she would tell me, yeah? But maybe [SHE] doesn’t, and if I expect [SHE] to then I must say that I do too. Maybe [SHE] can be made to but if I wish then I act and that is maybe not good for me or [SHE]. They say to you “follow your heart”, but your heart does nothing, but beat. The thinking takes place in the head zone; the head zone is the place to be.

I wait for money, I wait for love. I believe both are out there within my reach, should I act. Action changes things and at least you showed purpose. Passive is a flaw I can no longer content myself to be. From now on active, for as long as it takes, to get what I want. Money finds you, and so does love, if it is your wish, find’s you at the strangest of times, and places.

Tonight, we ordered pizza, two 15” marvels which we did somehow manage to burn up. We watch two movies I had seen before, BLACK SHEEP and THE PICK OF DESTINY. I expect money tomorrow.

7th November

My loan papers have arrived.

I repeat, my loan papers have arrived.

Please do not under-estimate the amount of joy this event, and it’s knowledge have brought me! In “three to five working days” as the lady who subsequently scanned said papers said to me, I will be in the money for the first time in what seems like years. I have been getting progressively poorer, riding the debt elevator down as far as it will go literally, and I am now £1,560 from being “in the black”. If it wasn’t for my earlier foray into the world of car wing mirrors and dents, I would stand some chance of being “in the black” for more than a few days, by my second loan payment. But this is not to be.

Whilst on the subject of money, I’d like to point out, HIGHLIGHT, the anger I am currently storing from my flatmates. As those who have read or found out might carefully remember, I have the smallest bedroom in the house, as from seven weeks ago. One of the preconditions of this room “blow softeners” if you will, was what I have uselessly come to call “soft rent”; money that the other housemates pay the guy in the small room, that’s me. Ten pounds a week we agreed, but of the Seventy quid I am now owed I have none. I don’t think I would be beyond my overdraft limit, or have incurred the £25 fine I did today had they kept their word. They have in this sense, let me down. It’s not as bad because they have been helping me in a time of need over this car business, but that’s not enough to keep me from the edge of starvation. The day before yesterday it came down to just one tin of spaghetti in my cupboard, nothing else. Beans, bread, sausages and everything else, all drinks all spam all milk gone.

Today is To_’s birthday. I got him a card, and drew him a mini on half of it, I was actually rather proud of the effort. Like last year we tried to make him do 20 shots, one for each year. This time I think we didn’t make it.

I only had funds to have about four pints, and get To_ a drink too. By the time he appeared at the Polar Bear pub, he was quite inebriated. He had gone to a house (or two) to meet course mates before coming down. He was swaying all over the place, and the only reason he managed to get served is that we told the staff it was his birthday (and that a few of us looked sober enough to care for him!). My contribution to his yearly shots was the 12^th 13^th or 14^th, I cannot remember.

After this I walked back home, accompanying some of the girls from the old G1 flat of Bede, Ha___, Mi___, Ca__ and Rh___. All this got me well ready for bed and I promptly fell asleep.

1st November

That’s it now, I'm so far in the red the idea of ever being straight with the banks again seems, frankly silly. I've had to say twice to people this last week that I literally have no money, however they still believe or choose the figurative.

Halloween just past I can say it was an average night out at liquid, save for the fact that I was more or less sober. So I noted the smell of sweat much more that I normally would, the club stank. All the usual bad things were encountered, inability to find anyone once lost, lighting which blinds and certainly hinders finding people and of course been packed in like sardines. I was safe from the ridiculous bar times by having no money though.

Then for some reason most people left really early and one got predictably off her bizzy P face completely… and dancing on your own, tsk that’s definitely a no-no in a place like liquid!

There’s more to say, but I'm really tired. perhaps the negative money situation is transpiring to make me more grumpy, it’s weird, I feel so weird sometimes these days. Enough, these are words for some place else than this page!

28th October

“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but Size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses Size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.” (Stephen King, The Gunslinger)

A less practical mind that a child may also be unable to imagine that the ground on which he sits really curves. That we can via the use of many technologies move from our sphere of existence and fly away into space to look down, is in itself a maddening fact. How could one from the clarity of space see our world, and the thousands of pinpricks of light in the universe and keep ones rational mind, when before you, infinity is present.

The answer is because we are stoic beings. Even the apotheosis of all philosophers, faced with that dim infinity of light would be simply unable to grasp the sheer size of everything. The adage is that we in our little solar system are to the universe as a speck of sand is to our world and even this is only conjecture. If indeed there is any kind of afterlife ahead I would wish for nothing other than a chance to walk at my own speed from one end of the galaxy to the other. An infinite task as it grows every day. Grows into what?

26th October

Welcome to the weekend. It’s Friday, and adversely I feel quite low again. See the money situation is not getting better. It’s getting quite bad actually, as I now have no money I can spend at all. Not even enough to pay the rent due in a few days time. So tomorrow I'm going to the bank to try and sort stuff out a bit. But yes, this feeling that you cant do anything without money, despite what I've written in recent times, is slowly taking over and filling me with gloominess.

To make things worse the guy across the road whose car I damaged came with a bill for the simply ridiculous sum for mending everything that’s wrong with his six year old car. Well I'm going to have to reason with him I guess, I certainly cannot pay that much.

So now would be a good time for some lovely lady to walk into my life and make me think of nothing but herself all the time and just make light of everything else. Oh no are the pigs flying again?

25th October

Suddenly the tunnel started rumbling, it had been a mistake to come here. Something fell from above, a piece of masonry. Cut deep into my hand. The blood started coming out, not slow and retarded, but fast, and fluid. I couldn’t stop the blood, squirting like three half dead water pistols. My hand goes numb, my arm, my chest.

I'm in a prison camp; everyone sleeps in stables, smelling horrible. The guards beat us viciously, the women are raped, and people keep disappearing. We hear gunfire. They don’t feed us. Some die, others go mad. We must escape. So we hatch a plan to. A friend organises most of it, him and his friend are capable of breaching the large locked doors, he tells us. Then we can run into the forest, where freedom may be. We go, they break the doors down and about ten of us run for it. Half a minute later and there is shouting. Gun fire, the men in front start to fall. I turn and see my friend, the one who organised the escape standing, just inside the camp, yelling that we are escaping to the guards. Repulsion arrives just before the bullet.

Dreams of the night, bad ones I suppose, but sometimes reality seems bad. However dreams are far from literal, and I understand the first one to be my feelings about who I am now. The second ones meaning is somewhat vaguer. I seem the theme of oppression and despair, and also of betrayal. I know the context, but not the frame of it. Maybe the answer will reveal itself in time.

People also seem at this time of year to be quite poor, and therefore downhearted, staying in because they “have no money”. As poor as you are my friends, there will always be a poorer person. Besides, there is lots that you can do with no money at all! Go for a walk or bike ride. Or go and see a sports match between Universities. Most matches are free, except the big ones near the end of the year. Or go and listen to some acoustic music, (like me and Ashly did at SUMO, before the bands). I did all that yesterday and none of it, besides the beers I bought at sumo, cost a thing! Surely its better than a night in front of the TV, or PC. Unless obviously you’re with a loved one!

21st October

So it’s starting then, saving up the money I used to drink excessively for other pursuits, namely replacing a car part I recently took a decapitating stance to. My financial frugality is needed now more than ever I think! It will pay off I'm sure, I'm already scouting out potential money making opportunities, from work at home to acting opportunities even thinking about hard core gambling, but my string of luck would have me betting my last pair of socks within a fortnight. At present I continue through life with some bemusement and no particular sense of goal, even though I have friends and parties to go to.

We’re always travelling, even if its just only in time. But we travel one way and wish for the other, because we’re walking into darkness; the future. Whilst the past is lit up through memories, we have no guidance system for the future. You can plan, but if the force of fate and chance wishes, your plans will be ruined before the day is over! So they say live in the moment, the irresponsible now.

Another week starts, another week of lessons and friends and parties (no arrests hopefully), of conversations and meditations. Another week where the only warmth in my heart is that warmth which I hope will be there one day.

15th October

Monday, we had a workshop with Nicholas Arnold. This was devising of course and it was really good. For homework we have to observe someone we don’t know (creepy) and learn to impersonate their gestures and movements.

I got bored later on, and realised I had books needing to go back to the library. I was just litereally moments from going when Jo__ Jo__ Ja___ and Mi__ said they would be coming round, insisted actually. I didn’t say no, as I hadn’t seen them in some time. I previewed them some of the songs I've made which they always (seem) to enjoy.

Later Jo__, Mi__ and Ja__ eft. Me, Jo__ and An__ went to An__’s room and burnt Mary Jane.

14th October

Today my main task was doing my washing. So I got up at the unacceptably early time of 10.23. My badly planned Sunday washing day did not go so well as we have limited space in the house to dry things and outside its almost as cold as a polar bears arse (that’s not from personal experience though). So its now 9pm and theres a lot of washing still to be dried. In fact I now cannot be bothered to bring in what’s out there, so it can dry tomorrow maybe, if a phantom ninja doesn’t come along and steal it first!

I've done nothing else really except for a few hours downstairs I went on internet radio stations and sampled a lot of different music from around the world. Bhangra, Happy Hardcore, Latino, Experimental Electronic; there really are some strange things out there!

And now there’s little left to do but work. I have browsed ebay to death, looking at cameras, electronics, extra speakers; that pointless stuff that you don’t really need but really want. The million green specks of light dancing above my head are really nice but I have work to do and I just can’t be arsed.

Next week, tomorrow I am going to start making my fortune, one bit at a time. I will get dirty rich, quickly in whatever manner I have to, hopefully famous along the way. I'll become rich as Bill Gates and then I'll just disappear, leaving my millions to charity. Helping those whose lives will never be a fraction of what mine already is, I feel sick when I imagine people dying pointless deaths every day. Not the religious fanatic, no they can die if they think they have a right to tell us what to do. The poor primarily, but you must think, if we made the poor as rich as we are, then technically that would make us poor too? Not that I'm saying its right to leave people in poverty, but there is ALWAYS going to be a poor.

So yeah that work I was going to do….

13th October

Today I went shopping, on a budget. The £14 spent is hopefully going to last me till next week. I actually got in touch with my mum who has now twigged on that I have no phone and checked her emails. She has filled out the forms the SLC sent and is going to post them on Monday. That’s good, I've not had any idea where my loan process is, and now I do. Good god it looks like I may actually get my loan by Christmas. Hopefully year three will be the time when I get my loan done properly, forms filled out and everything. Like the model swot I want to be!

13th October

Today I went shopping, on a budget. The £14 spent is hopefully going to last me till next week. I actually got in touch with my mum who has now twigged on that I have no phone and checked her emails. She has filled out the forms the SLC sent and is going to post them on Monday. That’s good, I've not had any idea where my loan process is, and now I do. Good god it looks like I may actually get my loan by Christmas. Hopefully year three will be the time when I get my loan done properly, forms filled out and everything. Like the model swot I want to be!

12th October

It’s Friday, and I've kind of got that Friday feeling, but not much. The weekend is normally big time party time for students and I'm quite penniless. I spent a while playing computer games and then working on some songs on the pc. I want to try and get some super sequel to my current “hit” “Black Magic”, if only I was really famous instead of just writing songs for my friends to have a laugh at. I could be the next pop star… actually probably not.

I changed my room around today. At the sacrifice of two of the poorest drawers in history I gave my room that much needed “spacious” feeling. It took ages though, and re-wiring my 300 watt 6 speaker sound system did take a long time!

I keep telling myself, “at the weekend settle down and do some writing work” but this weekend turns into “next weekend” and I envisage this weekend being quite the same, unproductive and practically boring time as every other skint weekend I've ever had.

11th October

Getting things in motion, doing lessons, on the whole it’s been quite productive. I am now so poor I'm going to give up or seriously limit my nights out and drinking, yes things really are getting that bad. When I first found out it put me in quite a bad depression then I started to see that a penniless life isn’t quite that bad.

Unfortunately life in houses means parties are much fewer and definitely further between, not bad though as I have no money. Lots of people are going on about missing Bede Hall, and wanting the first year again. Personally I think I'm immune to that nostalgia myself, but I digress. Also being in houses makes it a lot difficult to communicate with other former flatmates and Bede-mates. My phones still broken, so the internet is the only real tool. Most people seem too busy though to use it, in fact some seem not to even bother talking anymore, which is sad indeed!

This week I decided to have a birthday, or at least plan one. 28 days before normal so that there’s a good chance people wont have good excuses not to come. So far 16 people have promised their company for December 1^st and more soon will, I hope!

The lessons are over for the week. I'm not as clueless as I used to be about my student loan. It’s on its way soon hopefully, my mum got and filled out and tomorrow will send back the forms for them to check out, so hopefully soon I'll have the form I need to take and show the university people!

10th October

The flu has left me, thank god! I also was able to go out and socialise on a grand scale in a somewhat drunken state. After being in Mosh until about two am we decided to pop next door for a Subway meal, until we realised how skint we were.

Nothing else to report today, we had another creative writing lecture, about the basics of story writing. I must admit that, however boring the subject sounds the lesson was actually quite interesting. Nothing much happened in the evening, no party invites, no parties at all that I'm aware of. This is good. It means I don’t have to feel bad that I haven’t got the money to socialise/drink as there are no opportunities to do so.

9th October

We had quite an interesting lesson with Sim___ this morning. We watched these weird art films that were all philosophical, relating to humans who are affected by their surroundings, in a dramatic way. For instance how impractical it would be for Stephen King’s “Misery” to have been set in the city.

After this my flu decided to start giving me hell, I think it’s on its way and is about to go out with a bang, which I'm going to try and sleep through. I'm missing two or three lessons in the afternoon in some vain hope that it’ll have gone by this evening so I can go and get very drunk.

8th October

Well in truth I'm quite upset today. I have almost no money left to my name, well to the names of the bank accounts I own. I don’t have the faintest clue when or where my loan is and life seems quite bad to be in right about now. This is Monday though, and the opportunities of the week are all open, like the chance to get trashed then go to Mosh tomorrow, or the chance that someone amazing will walk into my life between now and its end. Also, I still have some kind of flu virus, damn those freshers and their airborne diseases.

3rd October – Held

At close range, you can see the smudges on windows, the stains. Someone came along and changed that window; they left an imprint on it. No longer is it the see through situation you thought it was. Almost always someone is touching the pane, how does one keep it clean? Sometimes these windows make time seem to stop. For one terrifying moment you are there locked into looking and unable to do anything but imagine.

When these windows have such power, you are indeed vulnerable. My fallacy and many others, is in trying to keep the window clean, we hide the truthfulness of where we’ve been and what we’ve done, what we seek and what we know. We do it because we don’t want the smudges, no one wants to be easily read, but some marks are easier to hide than others. We want people to think we are see through and that we obscure nothing, that we’re as shiny as the rest or better.

My window is far too dirty for my own good, but for a few priceless seconds today I was read more clearly for all the dirt I've accumulated. I let mine dirty, for although some marks are foul scratches, the total of the imprints shows a greater understanding to those who may wish to stop and look into me.

27th September – New inscriptions

27^th September – New inscriptions

Well the Funky Penguin bar crawl is now about 8 hours past. I tell you in case you don’t know, because it is one of the most manic nights of the year for DMU students. Large groups wearing certain colour t-shirts going to various Leicester bars, meeting new people and err, drinking.

Without this knowledge, an observer of me might wonder where this badly drawn moustache that still adorns my face came from. If so they would truly marvel at the 11 inch penis inscribed on my chest, especially given the somewhat dubious “10x larger” written next to it. But this is the tip of the iceberg… My arm reads “I rule – worship me”, the penguin on my t-shirt seems to have been given a cigarette (or maybe something else) to smoke as he smiles and delivers a thumbs up. “Leg-end” has been inscribed under one arm pit and opposite “Black Fuckin Magic” resides. On the back more writing says “Crinkly Chrisps”, “Crazy Chris” and “Tinkall Winkall”. These are the ones I have found….

Make no mistake I think I know who drew each one and I remember more or less all of the night, which I know is more than some will this morning. Fresher’s week is definitely under way. I must however admit, I'm dreading seeing the pictures!

22nd September – Grey days are back to stay

22^nd September – Grey days are back to stay

It’s been quite a week. Tuesday we went to re-sample Mosh and it was actually quite good as usual. I met some new people, ladies I should say really. Wednesday I went round to As___, Do_ and Vi___’s house and we watched Team America and s funny film called without a paddle. During this night no alcohol was drunk at all. Thursday night Ni__, Jo__ and Me descended on Jo__’s house for some old school drink action. Everyone got very drunk and I remember bits of getting home. The burger meal a purchased and later gave to the toilet. Ahhh such fun.

The grey days of hangover sickness have begun. Today I have done very little, to compensate for my hard working life. We’ll I've done some washing and cleaned the kitchen and my room a little bit but that’s about it.

I've looked online and found out my timetable is almost exactly the same as last year, except the creative writing people have seen sense and moved the 9am starts back to 11pm. Who can concentrate on the history of writers such as Proust and Woolf when it’s less than 9 hours since your last drink?

Tomorrow i think is the day when it's all happening; Ste___, An__ and To_ come to stay, i do believe. And it's when the room disputes will be settled for good i hope, the worst thing would be bad vibes between people lasting all year round. Monday is the day Fresher’s Week begins again... oblivion waits.

11th of September – just Drunk

11^th of September – just Drunk

We went out last night to Mosh, Ste___, Ni__, Jo__, Mi___, and some of jo__’s friends. They have upped drinks prices a little, and changed the lowest priced drink from a respectable blueberry-vodka mix, to some horrible cider-blueberry mix! It’s awful, but thankfully the middle floor was still selling the same old stuff we know and love. At first it seemed empty but eventually a lot of people turned up and it was “buzzing” as they say.

I danced for the first time in ages, months perhaps. I danced in the crazy and useless style I always do, but it feels good. I felt good, really good. Here is a guy that’s spent almost three months in a boring job cleaning stuff, seeing the bare minimum it seems of friends from home, and of course being quite depressed for a lot of that. The guy is in the space of a week, finished in work, moved back to Leicester, and back with his university mates, of course I'm happy.

You get the wonderful feeling that everything in the world is going to be fine, all your worries slip away and you are left with this great feeling of their being no better place to be than here, with these people. Moving your body in ways you cannot accurately defend or explain. Everything is subjective and even death and taxes are not so black and white, the feeling that everything is good. You’re one step closer to true everlasting happiness and in this new found state of mind you will always be happy.

I'm not going to argue against these points. But no, you’re not reaching some higher level. The world is not without bad things, and you never know where you will be so how can you say this is the best you have ever been. You’re just drunk, that’s all.

And that’s not to say the experience is meaningless, it’s very important to have these euphoric experiences, to feel as special as you wish to be. To be held in the hands of good fortune for the tiniest yet significant moment of your life in which you feel more than conceivable happy. Or maybe yes, you traverse the world of the unnatural and gain access to feeling and understanding beyond anything we can scientifically prove, or even imagine with our creative and romantic minds.

All that matters is that moment, one small moment, that requires neither booze or drugs or anything at all. Not even the dance floor, the friends, the location or that invisible spark of life which exists inside us all. The moment is yours and only you can understand it.

10th September – Knackered and fed

10^th September – Knackered and fed

Yesterday I got my room more or less sorted. My many bags have dissolved into cupboards, wardrobe and a small space I created behind my bed. I put my collection of DVDs, games and home made movies on top of the fireplace (yes my room has a fireplace, but it doesn’t work, at least half of the perimeter of this room has wires around it. There are also eight speakers which are mostly hidden in corners unobtrusively.

I also put up my poster collection too, which took probably two hours. Well there is 75 of them (and more to come). For a wonder I am actually tidying up after myself too! Something I always have trouble with when I'm at home. Maybe it’s the knowing that mum’s around, some kind of instinct switches on. Like one of those natural survival issues, doing it because you need to do it.

In the evening Jo__ and Mi___ came round and we got a fair bit drunk, and invented a game called “Dice of Death”, a drinking game of course, it requires two dice. It’s quite hard-core, like “Circle of Death” with turbo boosters. It does the job. After playing this for about an hour and all being quite inebriated we went in search of Maryland Chicken, and it was roughly about then that I realised just how far we were from the town center. After the Maryland we came back home, knackered and fed and went to bed.

9th September

9^th September

Sunday had been a strange day, nothing much has happened except Ni__ had gone home for a day or so. An__ came up today, seemed a little disappointed at the room situation, but not very much at the minute as he only came to move some stuff in and is not going to be back until the 23^rd. There’s very little else to say about today.

2.06pm – technically Monday

Well about 30 minutes later my evening changed considerably. The phone rang, it was As__. Asking if I’d like to go to Jo__’s place for a evening. Jo__, Mi__ and her were at the bottom of my street 20 minutes later and we whizzed round to see As___’s house, very nice indeed. Her bedroom (the smallest) is at least as big as mine; they are paying £7 a week less rent than me.

It was good to see these guys again, Mi___ is growing this really good looking moustache, but is not sure if he is keeping it or not. Jo__’s baldness is being replaced by hair, albeit the shorter version of his previous moppage.

We got a little drunk playing everyone’s favourite drinking game “Circle of death”. As always, we spent the first half of the game trying to remember the rules. The second half was spent trying to remember the rules we had forgot over the course of the game. And after all that my lovely “Chauffeurette”, As___ drove me home. Not a bad night and to think earlier I was ready to just go to bed at a civilised hour!

8th September

Well, that was quick! It’s early evening now and I'm in Leicester. There was no time to talk before leaving as my dad arrived a full hour earlier than he told us he would and ninety minutes before we expected him. However, I had planned ahead and had got basically everything packed an hour early. Intent on having one last bath at home, before making the final preparations for going. It turned out that dad turned up just as I was about to turn the tap on.

So we loaded the car and the trailer he brought (the same as last time), and set off. Half way down the M1 we were scared off by orange words saying “DELAYS AFTER JNCT”, we were in Nottingham, and the rest of the journey was made on normal roads. This slowed us down but eventually we arrived, just in time to see To_ leaving for the week. He had come up briefly to do some painting, as the original colour of his room displeased him. Unloading the car didn’t take long, but parking did, as this “cul-de-sac’s” road is quite narrow.

After unloading my gear, we went shopping. Parking was problematic as my dad brought the trailer along, so we had to find a double space, not just a single space. I know mum told dad NOT to wrest my choices from the decent stuff to the cheapest stuff on the shelf, but my dad was paying, so I had little room for argument. It wasn’t so bad, and he’s right to be getting me to save money. It’s just aggravating to see him point out much cheaper deals than I even consciously consider as a consumer.

7th September – Throwing down the plastic

I'm retarded. No really, I am a bloody idiot. I've just had the worst drama in months going off. Being scared out of my wits, dashing from my nearly empty bedroom to the bathroom, jumping over the landing like Indiana Jones, with a 500 page book on how to design custom levels for the classic pc game “DOOM” in my hand… because of the spiders.

Yes two of them, a while ago there was one on the landing and it was fucking massive and that’s no joke. That beast had a size of over 3 inches! I and mum just cowered in our rooms for the night. In the morning it was gone.

This evening though a small one, a child-spider emerged from behind my desk, it was barely an inch and posed no threat to me. So I watched it with interest. I decided if it crossed the half way point of my room, and started heading for the bed bit, I would kill it. It went around half of my room and then out of the second door which we don’t use anymore (it’s from the time my room was two rooms).

I went out; to watch it, and make sure it strode far away from my room. I watched it move a little along the skirting, moving with impressive speed for its little size. Then two things happened almost at exactly the same time. The first was that I noticed I was standing in the landing at the top of the stairs, where the big spider had last been seen, the second, almost as a direct answer was movement, fast and close by my feet.

I screamed involuntarily, not a girl scream, it was more of an “arrrh!”, but surely it must have woken my mum (but if it did, she hasn’t stirred). I ran to the bathroom, now trapped. I looked back and saw that… yes indeed. The big spider was back (although thankfully no bigger). The small spider had, in a few short moments ran it seemed to within a few feet of the other spider, which seemed to not notice. My heart could have been emulating a very fast hardcore song at that moment and I had a weird feeling that it was going to give. It didn’t.

However I was now trapped, from my bedroom where I knew all the potential weapons were. My previous feelings of benevolence were gone, now I was in survival mode, and there are no ethics or laws to govern how you think in such situations. It was kill or be killed. I can cope with knowing perhaps that there is maybe one spider in the house but not two! And certainly not when one is that big bastard over th…

OH SHIT IT’S MOVING LIKE A FERRARI, MY WAY!!

Something then clicked and I knew I had to get to my bedroom, which was the other side of the landing, door still ajar. There was a book in there, heavy and big, it could do the job. I mustered my courage and simply performed the most impossible long jump for a house, I almost crashed into my desk, I found the book (its hard to miss) and went back, the little spider was coming back my way.

I dealt with that first, it ran up the wall and I slammed the book into it. Although I hate the things (and that is rather xenophobic isn’t it?) I didn’t want it to suffer. Last I checked it’s crumpled body was still stuck to the wall.

Then there was the big one, and that bastard could really move. As proof of this, whilst I was killing the big one, it had gone, vanished. Or so it seemed. Then after a moment I noticed, right there in the corner a mark on the carpet, where I had not seen one before. To be sure it was what I thought it was I chucked pennies at it. All missed.

When I had returned to the doorway with penny number four it had gone. Couldn’t see it, couldn’t find it. Then I noticed it, right in the other corner, it must have warp factor or something because I could not see anything that moved that fast at such a size as being natural. It was book time.

It took me almost four minutes to aim the book and muster the courage to throw it, and when I did the book missed it completely, and fell downstairs. For some miracle, mum had not stirred at all. But my constant mutterings about “I've got to kill it” and “oh fuck it moved” may have put her in the know. Then I got another weapon, as the spider would never let me reach the book.

It was a flimsy plastic rectangle, weighing very little. It is one of those things that come in the bottom of big bags to keep the base flat and square. The spider was moving, it moved, now limping up and under the Hoover. I tried to shine a light on the thing but couldn’t as my lamp was at the length of its cable. The landing lights could not shine under it.

Then it made a break for it, heading for my mums door. It was now or never, I crossed the landing threw down the plastic and jumped on it, but to make sure the job was done, I stood on it, proper and all over. Nothing besides sheer rock would have survived my weight. It was all over.

That entire insanely useless story, which outlines the cruelty of humanity when faced with the unknown, has left me little time to talk about my actual day. So I'll write again tomorrow morning, before I leave, if possible.

5th September – Penultimate Days

My bedroom is emptying as its contents slowly make their way downstairs, wanting to get away from this place. Their feelings are shared by their owner.

My imagination experienced death twice today. The first time was when I was crossing the bridge from Meadowhall to the transport interchange. The bridge is more of a corridor with full size windows on either side. As you cross the river you can still see the damage done by the floods; brickwork and metal from the road-river wall that fell in had been exposed when the waters lowered. From the bridge you can see roads, Meadowhall itself, and beyond, some hills.

I saw in my head, a huge black hole appear, where suddenly, the atmosphere and ozone had been ripped away. Something hit the biggest hill and it exploded. The debris did not go in all directions, but towards the hole, and eventually out of sight. The hole seemed to be acting like a hoover, sucking up the very land. And cars and people were flying into the hole, exploding as they did so. Then the bridge was suddenly snapped free of its cables and weldings and was flying towards the hole. Either end was ripped from the building by a force nothing I have ever seen could equal. After a few seconds the ends suddenly seemed to cave in of their own accord. A few last seconds of air for me, the only occupant of this flying thing that soon would not be. Cracks appeared in the window, then suddenly the whole structure seemed to implode violently, I was crushed but not quite killed, but then the whole structure, now in some weird blackness, exploded into nothingness, and so did I.

The second time was more paranoia than violence, I was almost home, walking along the street outside. I could see and sense the car that seemed to be driving along the road too slowly. I saw it’s light light up the passage that takes me to the backdoor. I felt as though some awful weapon was trained on my head, ready to fire. I even sense I felt something hit or perhaps even go through me, but nothing did.

Besides those morbid visions today has been pretty normal. I did almost nothing at work but talk and wander round the place.

2nd September

Drunkenness has stolen me again, but only moderately. The guy retching in the toilet is my mate Burke. His and his girlfriend’s party has ended now, at the respectable time of 1.30pm

It had been planned that the journey from Leicester to Sheffield would fit in with a party here that he decided to have, during which I met his girlfriends sister, some local friends of theirs and my old friends Techie Jules and BJ. There were a variety of drinks on offer, none of which were very weak in ethanol rating.

I however took it reasonably steady I guess, compared to Craig, who has just finished retching, or whatever he was doing in the bathroom. Tomorrow it’s a short hop home and then back to Meadowhall, for the final week of oasis work ever. That’s for real this time.

1st September (00:58) – Red Rivers

No thought had been put into anything. No gloss or trim, no reflection. There it was… all of it, down on paper, even if it was in his minimalist form. Before bed, he had to go to the bathroom and get a drink, eyes still filling with tears for reasons he no longer even thought about, he had cried till his head hurt and he felt dizzy, and only then did he try and stop. He’s never cried like that before…

The dreams came;

People went through their routines, faceless and gaunt. In a huge city by the sea. In the distance were mountains, with rivers running down into the sea, clearly visable, somehow. The sun was setting/ Before it did, the mountains started to weep red tears instead of blue. The red rivers flowed down, clouds of billowing red below the surface, until all the water was red. The people carried on. Puppets or symbols in a unreal world that never was and never shall be.

He swam in the sea and it was warm, so he swam further out. He called to people to come and swim and they didn’t hear him. He couldn’t go back now, the sea turned to mud and he is stuck, being pulled down inside it, yelling and screaming, no one listens, no one hears. Before he is sucked under he takes one last breath and sees something… There is a silhouette of a person by the sea, with the sun hiding behind, holding a present. He guesses it’s for him, he reaches out, but its too late. Wake.

I spent over half an hour just thinking about that dream earlier. Not something you would probably expect me to share and you can take any meaning from it you wish.

Last night… it’s not something I want to live through ever again. A horrible empty feeling as some hard truths hit home, things I have thought I knew suddenly seeming to be turned into fact, and by the most natural (to some) of events. It felt like I was a city suddenly being scavenged by nuclear blasts

Get your philosophy hats on…

Life is entirely what you make it, true. There are no gods but the ones we choose to believe in, and they exist because we need them to. The same with lovers, we believe in them so they exist because we need them to. As priests love god, lovers love each other. You can see the common word emerging… love. Love, should it exist or not, is both wonderful and terrible.

The person in love sees nothing but love in their life. The problem is.. this is exactly what the person not in love sees. They see love everywhere, else. Some of my problems stem from this situation. A life without love you can (and many do) argue is a terrible thing. A realisation dawned on me yesterday that made things seem awfully devastating; I have not been in love for over 7 years.

True, I've had girlfriends, even long term partners, but never loved someone who loved me, or been loved by someone I would have wished for. That’s what being in love for me is all about. Theres a question though, a silly little *if*. What if, I just don’t feel love? What if a terrible event almost 7 years ago to the day has left me numb to it? My recent examinations of life in my spare thoughts and moments left me negative, without love’s influence. So things tend to look bleak, and yes, I still argue that there are no gods, aliens or even love because we cannot prove any of it.

Life is meaningless; death really is the brick wall at the end, but so what? Life is also a gift, to us that are allowed it. Hundreds of children die everyday, people are still being blown apart and gunned down in most corners of the world, even Britain. So why not be glad to be here rather than there?

Winds of change

Winds of change

We packed up mum’s car and made the first journey to Leicester today. Hers is a small thing but hopefully it will ease significantly the stress of the main journey, the one which happens next week. My dad will be bringing me down, this time to stay.

We went to the housing place, on Western Boulevard. We parked in a very familiar car park, by a very familiar building, to which I no longer have the keys. It stands empty, all rooms cleaned, familiar thick blinds of the windows drawn half way down, all rooms reset I suppose to some empty state. All for the next inhabitants, who will probably start arriving in about 3 weeks time, but for now, Bede Hall is dormant. I saw my room, my mirror, my bed I wonder if the cleaners were able to remove the ultra-violet paint with which I wrote on most of my walls, if so it never made the bill, messages to those that might find them, advice on good times. I don’t know if I ever expected to see the building so close again when I left it in dad’s car. It was quite emotional to see it cleansed of any personality we had given it.

One entire desk of the housing office was filled with envelopes containing keys, there were at least 50 there, and each needed ten pounds and a signature from the recipient. That was all. Then we went to the place, where I would be living. A place I hadn’t seen since a cold day in early February.

Seven months later and here I am. Unlike my last visit, there’s no near naked man in the middle bedroom (now mine), no baby in the upstairs front bedroom and any other trace of the occupants has been washed away, almost. There are some flaws here and there. There are only a couple of major ones, like the boiler does not work, so we have no hot water for bath, shower or washing up. The cooker oven also seems to be at fault. Besides those we are in a perfectly usable residence.

The room controversy goes on! I managed to take the room I was after, but only by approximately about 10-15 minutes. Any later and I am sure nick would have taken it and I would be where he is. Which incidentally is the front lower room, the one Andy was after. I'm in the middle front room, which isn’t as big as the one nick is in at the moment. I say at the moment as I imagine that when Andy gets here, there are going to be massive arguments about it. The house is nice though, and as last year, my bedroom is the nearest to the kitchen, but further from the toilet.

30th August – Mad

I think I am mad. There’s no way to really tell anymore. Maybe it’s the combination of a hundred nights’ bad sleep and endless work. Maybe it’s just a phase, I'm sure we all go mad at some stage, feeling strange emotions, anger, despair, extreme joy, giddiness and all the rest of the wonderful and horrible things that make up us.

Trouble is its hard to have this feeling of belonging when it seems that, after weeks of being on the up and down rollercoaster I've melted to some all time low, without much reason or purpose. It started i think about an hour ago, and unlike last time I’ve had absolutely no coffee. There seems to be some acid trails burned on my cheeks from where salt water has just sought pastures new, I know its warm in here but I am shivering and talking to no one.

Everything in the world seems so bright and cheerful and great, covered in bad things which are still somehow good, as more saltwater, this warm and much fresher, leaves some inner home I have for it but cant see. Everything seems so much better elsewhere, where I am not, I feel that people stop talking near me about normal things because I am there. People put up with me, but no more. They go to parties, fall in love, go on holiday, and enjoy the social life. I don’t know if I can do any of that anymore. Everywhere feels good but me. I feel stuck in some dark poorly lit room, but nothing but a screen and a keyboard for company. Oh fuck. I can’t imagine anyone else being able to live this way, anyone else that did, they could never live… never love again.

Most people think it’s slightly cool to be mad, more people wish they could understand mad people. Being mad is like having all of your senses swapped, nothing makes much sense, nothing seems to work for you, and the absolute worst part is that no one can ever understand how you feel.

There is no reason for any of this. I know also that putting something like this weird stupid entry by a strange idiot man on the net, in a book or even on a screen could lead to serious consequences or concerns, and I don’t care, because I want someone to think that they have even the slightest understanding of how shit I feel now. They cannot. Everyone else’s world seems so much brighter, I am good at reading and have not seen anyone whose summer seems to have been as woefully sad as mine.

27th August – For my own good

I can’t wait to get back to Leicester. Not just for the parties, nights out, potential encounters or even university stuff. Another reason is this, free healthcare! Students, apparently don’t need to pay. Which is going to come in handy soon, but I'm not ready for confession time on these pages yet!

I will say this… I am ill, potentially very. I can think of 3 perhaps 4 major things which are wrong with me. One of them is after years of neglect now quite serious. Actually two, the second one has suffered probably ten or more years of neglect. The serious third cropped up within the past four or five months, I don’t even know what it is, but when it’s a problem, its very distressing.

I'm not however, a hypochondriac. I don’t go to the doctor everytime I get an itch. I go when there seems to be no other option. I would probably not be in the state I am now if I’d gone sooner. Lets hope I don’t end up with cancer (not one of my worries, but it does seem to run in the family), otherwise my diagnosis will probably be done post-mortem!

Moving away from such morbid subject matter… there’s another reason for having these problems addressed; to be healthy yes, but also to feel better about myself. Problem numbers one and two affect my confidence greatly. Problem number three just makes me paranoid and shit-scared, as they say.

And now, once again I'm up past midnight. The twilight typist strikes again. I suppose it’s a good time for reflection on ones day. I’d go to bed but problems one and two are flaring up again. Painfull and distressing. When they’ve gone though, its bedtime for me in a room filled with sleep music!

25th August

There’s a lot been going on behind the scenes recently, I can’t stop my brain from thinking and my dreams are getting totally epic. I'm looking forward to the impending return to university life, but given the things I've been questioning to myself, is it the best place to be?

I suppose I'm not making any secret about how alone I seem to be at the minute, its getting to me I can tell. This leaves me thinking about my friends, and wondering how infinitely better their lives must be, as it’s hard to get in touch with them. Some are on holiday in far off countries, having exciting days. Others seem to progress from party to party with nothing in between. Others I simply haven’t been able to get in touch with.

All I have is work, and home. A few college friends for sure, but they are hard to catch up with it seems. Unless… of course they are just in avoidance of me. It’s only a matter of weeks till I get back to university, and I need to shake off this male PMT or whatever it is. I go from happy to sad and despair within hours. I'm in no state for booze, university or love should it seem to exist, and I sincerely hope it does, or I may be very ill indeed.

22nd august – A broken wave but anywhere

Were I some inspirational master, I’d come up with all sorts of reasons why right now I feel more crap than I have in a long while. The truth is startlingly simple; life’s let me down once again. Yes this is emotional and epic, so read on if you feel like being depressed. You were warned.

Well that wave of happiness that appeared to me out of the blue a few days ago is gone. Reality came along. People say “don’t expect much from life if you don’t want to be disappointed”. This is useless, it’s like saying don’t shop for much unless you want to be hungry. I expect lots from life. Hell! It’s my life so why shouldn’t it be great? What good is it to know that someone else is happy when you are not? I'm a jealous bastard by default and I don’t care. I want to believe, I want to be in love, but I can’t do either and it’s just not fair.

Others of course blame bad luck and ill feeling on God. It’s nice to shift the blame on to the most unbelievable fiction that ever was. People need to realise there is no proven god; there is no excuse to live your life in a peaceful and civilised manner, people that use guns know this.

Some of the most fictional lies created by humans; God, Aliens and Love, have been designed to help us ignore the most basic of facts that every other organism on the planet knows instinctively. We drift through cold space on a rock, purposeless and alone, there is no point to life, no goals or game plan, and no rewards. Human religion provided us with violence of rival beliefs, resulting in so many pointless fucking wars. Aliens were created simply by lazy people, who think, as the definitive poster on Agent Fox Mulders wall pointed out “I want to believe”

Love creates violence too, anyone that’s ever been in it knows this, its not exclusively physical violence either. The self deluding belief promoted by marriage (another religious invention that’s doing very well) is that you are destined or even supposed to spend the rest of your life with someone. There is indeed a high price to pay for believing that some things, unproven in any sense, give life meaning and purpose.

I suppose my lack of good looks or mystical providence provides me with plenty of opportunity to write and believe these blatantly disgusting facts about humans. The truth is nothing is certain, so why spend evermore believing something pointless?

21st August

Another brick in the wall I guess. Today was an average day with nothing really spectacular happening, as my self written horoscope predicted there wouldn’t be. Instead of going on about big issues I'm gonna talk about a smaller one. See… theres this game I've been looking forward to getting for ages now, indeed well over a year, and it comes out on Friday. The game looks amazing, and the story seems quite good too. Heres a summary for you interest:

Bioshock

It’s the 60s. After your plane crashes in the Atlantic ocean, you swim and find a lighthouse nearby, with a submarine type vehicle inside it. You climb into the vehicle and are taken below the surface. It takes you to rapture.

Rapture is a city, a mile under the sea; built by the rich and powerful, a world where normal rules were deemed a hindrance and cast aside, as man sought to better himself. Artists were freed from the censor, science freed from morality. Life became better, new forms of art and expression dominated, and soon science was making unstoppable headway into genetic engineering. You could buy genetic upgrades to make yourself faster, smarter, and even more attractive.

And soon science could not be stopped.

As the people changed their bodies to their own desire, or even the latest fashions, they lost parts of their identity, parts of their mind. The glamorous art-deco corridors and buildings are full of debris, and deranged monsters. There are little girls walking around with their metal tank-like “daddies”, monsters of iron, with a fist on one hand, the other a 2 foot drill. The mastermind of the city is still controlling everything, and to top it all off, the water is coming back through the cracks of the falling city, to claim the space again.

In order to survive you must conquer these enemies, and you aren’t going to be able to do it without re-engineering yourself, without changing part of your soul.

It sounds exciting doesn’t it? Well it would be, but it doesn’t work on my computer very well at all. I downloaded the demo, and it is good, but it’s not really playable. I waited ages for it and now it wont work for me. That’s not a good feeling. What is, though, is that a lot of others are having problems too. Lots of problems, so hopefully the game-making people are going to make some changes for the better for me! They better or I wont buy the full thing. And I know they would be ashamed if Chris Drinkall didn’t like it!

20th August – Capricorn

Elliptical

Today you will start to realised how much of a financial tight spot you are in. You must (and will) take that refund of housing damage deposit, Cheque from DMU to be cashed. You will be disappointed to learn that this will lead to financial frugality, but not to worry, your planning skills in this area will come to good effect. You start to put large scale plans into place today, but suffer a minor setback.

Any worries, anxieties or bad feeling you have will subside today. Indeed on some occasions at work you may be feeling positively euphoric, quite strange for such a dull job, but not to be sniffed at.

Monday is the start of a new week for you and you may find yourself thinking far into the future for a change. Major changes are on the way, in terms of finance and location. Single? Don’t worry if you have been through a dry patch, major changes for the better, in your love life are to be expected soon.

For more information call my rape-rate phone line now on 08132, bugger off, bugger off.

18th August

I made it to Saturday. I am impressed as all week I've been feeling super low about a number of issues. Maybe its just my body fighting off the litres of caffeine I've pumped through it, maybe its my brain not my body, and no amount of Lucozade or sugary coffee or chocolate is going to do the trick! I guess, that at just around the half way point, I should produce some summary of (work, personal, professional, and love) life so far these holidays, but its probably depressing reading, be warned, reading on may put a crimp on your day!

My work life is going as well as the job can do, which isn’t bad, but after the forty hour week I've just had I'm craving a rest. Sadly, as of yet I've not saved up much money, which is very bad, and my own fault for spending it on numerous things I shouldn’t!

My personal life is kind of bleak at the minute, I get up, play a computer game or do some writing, or work on some music of mine, then I go to work, and then after work I do the same, till I get bored at around 1-3am and call it a night. At weekends (like now) I rest, do more stuff on the computer, and watch time pass by. Professionally speaking, my writing projects aren’t coming to fruition anywhere near as far as I would have liked. They are doing, but slowly. My website has been not working now for what seems like an age, and I can’t be bothered to get it back up and working. My love life’s just as shit and dead as its ever been, I figure there’s no point looking for a girl at home, because when I go back to uni she’ll be over 70 miles away for most of the time (and we already know that long distance relationships always go wrong eventually). At uni though it’s equally hard as the only people around you are you’re friends. Please form an orderly queue ladies.

Who ever said I was negative? I'll stop now before you laugh your socks off.

18th August (23.02pm) – Limited Catharsis

Today was a bad day, it’s been a bad week! I can’t point at any specific event, but I felt really sad about things this morning. So I spent all day doing nothing, except things that make me feel better. Using Virtual DJ to create a nice mix of tunes (except that one of the effects is broken), programming pointless garbage (it asks you what your name is, then shows it form from blocks in 3d), playing computer games and holding a firefox window open upon “myspace” and “facebook”.

It seems strange to think that the management of sound, working out mathematic equations and jumping from virtual world to virtual world, would actually improve your mood, but different people chill out to different things. I'm not through this damp patch of grey

I say chill out, but that’s not it, most of you that know me know that I'm probably one of the most chilled out guys there is (usually). I think I mean some form of limited catharsis (emotional cleansing). I couldn’t for the life of me tell you all about it, but its good to know there are worlds within worlds. Computer games for one, and the ones inside our heads for a second.

16th August

Nothing much to say. I'm working quite hard at the minute. It feels like eat, sleep and work. Theres hardly time for anything else. This is why I’m finding myself more agitated and easier to get angry. My plans are not working out. I would explain more, but I've just injected 2000 fresh words into this, and I don’t feel like writing any more. Energy, mental ability, it seems to be draining away from me. At least I'm only doing this 40 hour week this once. Jesus, imagine if I’d gone ahead and got that second job, I would verily much be screwed.

13th August – turbulent week.

Little over a week ago, it was me waking up in a strange but pleasant town of Thetford. Looking back, that seems like forever ago now. Theres been a week of information, work, and violence.

It’s 2.00am now. Rather late or early to even think about going to bed but hey, nice guys finish last. Outside is quite quiet, but there is a factory (or a warehouse) across the road and down a bit. Machinery there lies almost dormant, but a few fans and a buzzing noise can faintly be heard. Cars too can be heard driving by at a distance. The roads near here though, seem lifeless.

Outside, starts twinkle in the mostly clear sky, but every now and then pillows of dark orangey cloud obscure there light. Mars too is visable tonight, as a faint but definite red dot in the sky. It seems so tiny. My windows look down over most of the town, lines of amber lights converging and dissecting here and there. A park is across the street, with trees standing as black silhouettes against the sky. Not a soul stirs, but me. I'm not stirring though, my last cup of tea was hours ago, but I type!

It’s been a week of changes to. Changes beginning to happen, surprise changes, and changes that I should have expected, most notably in the world of friends. Names not mentioned, there are some in particular that, as close as I feel or felt, seem to be avoiding my presence. Also I realised just how close, and even far I am to others, though they seem to not know. It hurts, this stoic silence pins me down, turning my mind over thoughts and feelings as a farmer turnes over the earth. I am looking forward to Uni now, a chance to hang out more, jobless, and penny-free, laughing all the way until the bank.

Things are not well with the house I'm moving to. On my own part all the forms, cheques and materials are complete, but not so for one of our number, and until he does, none of us can enter that house. So now’s the time to get the boots on and the hammers down.

A car quietly drives past, a midnight taxi from A1. The first vehicle I've heard in over half an hour. I was staying up especially to try and see some meteors falling from space. I was made to act a fool again, for my fascination with space and its mysteries! The news said there was going to be a great shower of them, and no telescope was needed, as they would clearly be visable if the night was clear. The sky is mostly clear, but it seems they must have been hiding behind that massive tree. I swear I'll cut it down one day soon! Peace out.

5th August

5^th August

The party went well. There were some 14 year old kids there that managed to drink themselves sick. Ah, it reminds me of younger times of my own! To my utter surprise Joh_ and Jos_ made it to the show, which was a bit of a treat. I seemed to have forgotten what joh_ told me previously, that he’s had his head shaved; he looks like Vin-Diesel now.

Summer shines down on this quiet station in the middle of Thetford, a posh tree-ridden town with unusually long street names. The atmosphere is a quiet Sunday summer, cloudless and hot. I can hear the rustle of trees far away, and some distant cars and the chatter of some travellers waiting, I presume for the same train. I wonder how many are going as far as me today. It arrives at 3.15

There are a lot of forest areas around here, it looks like a lovely place to live if your bank balance is ten figures long. The two carriage train is almost full, I have to sit in a reserved seat (at some later stage of the journey). The ticket man is having a difficult conversation with a man further down the train. This train takes me all the way to Sheffield, or so I thought, but when I heard the man near me ask for a ticket to Stanstead airport I became quite worried. As the ticket man told him he would need to change trains at an upcoming station, I relaxed though.

The movie is playing in reverse, its speed varies. Still more trees pass as we return to Ely; A Pleasant town with many rivers, boats and Idyllic houses. The summer sky complements the town perfectly.

But now the journey was starting to get crammed. There were too many people for the two car train. In the end I gave up my seat to this woman and child and stood up, balancing on the luggage rack. I was not alone in standing. About 30 others joined the standing brigade at Nottingham. I stood near my luggage and did not want to move; It would be difficult to apprehend a bag robber on this crowded train!

At Nottingham, the train stopped for a while. This was to let it have some maintenance work done on it. I envisaged for a second, going up to the ticket man and asking if we would have another carriage. “More??!!! More??!!” he replies in a Dickens inspired sequence. After this maintenance, drivers change, or at least I assumed so as the returning driver had no idea of where the train was meant to stop, so he stopped at every station, not just the scheduled ones. My legs were aching, the child before me screaming uncontrollably. Why do parents bring unruly children they cannot control on public transport? By the time we arrived at Sheffield, it was 7pm

This was nothing compared to the ridiculous farce at the bus station. When I got to the stand I saw the next x78 bus would be in 25 minutes time. Not an unreasonable wait, I surmised. The bus arrived, but the driver closed the doors and started walking up the aisle talking on his mobile phone for ages. Eventually he stepped off the bus and informed us that the bus was broken, he was taking it back to the depot, and another would be along shortly. By “shortly” he meant we would have to wait 70 minutes for the next one.

That’s where I am now; In a bus station which is too warm, with some Chavs (track suited Youths), some eastern family (quite extended I'll tell you) whose children are loud in the quiet bus station and Romeo and Juliet! At least they would be if it was legal to do so in public. As it is they can only slobber over each other, suck on each others faces, and I'm sure his hand has gone up her modest skirt at least once! God, give me a break.

He’s not either. The foreigners family has come over and stood, or stopped, directly behind me. Their children’s screams are akin to animal noises. It was short lived though, the bus arrived 15 minutes later. The x78 service is supposed to run “up to every nine minutes”. Funnily enough, today feels 10 times worse than normal, which is 10 times worse than what the bus says anyway. So, the journeys over, but not the dream; the dream goes on forever.

4th August

4^th August

Out going Journey:

Time	Start	Destination	Arrive
11.41	Sheffield Stn.	Doncaster	21.11
12.21	Doncaster	Peterborough	13.07
13.37	Peterborough	Thetford	14.37

Return Journey:

Time	Start	Destination	Arrive
12.47	Thetford	Ely	13.17
13.27	Ely	Peterborough	14.06
14.19	Peterborough	Doncaster	15.09
15.33	Doncaster	Sheffield	16.03

Above is the original plan of action, but as per usual for, it’s not going to happen quite like that. It is, so you know, a list of train times on a journey which is going to put me even further out of pocket than I already am. I missed the very first train, but think I might be on time if we reach/leave Peterborough at the time shown above. I have the uncanny hunch that I am. We are 10 minutes out of Nottingham, rolling through a small town. Gliding I should say, the track is smooth and the engines aren’t revving. So the train and tracks themselves seem strangely quiet.

There is a gust of muffled thunderous wind, and a purple blur rips past the scene.

It would be pretentious and ignorant of me to pretend I'm the first writer ever to sit on a train and write. Far better wordsmiths than me have conveyed their thoughts and feelings to a page or screen. I can’t give a more impressive account of the journey process. It’s like a performance, or a movie. The landscape, trees, fields, villages and occasional cities sweep past. It’s an impassive scene on a stage with no surface story to read from its many brief parts. The viewer sees only what they want to see.

Suddenly all external light is cut off. We are in a tunnel. The performance enters a scene-change, the audience’s ears pop. As light re-emerges, we are coming into a small town, Grantham. The driver tells us we are approaching Grantham. Then he starts to tell us what services we could catch from the upcoming station. Between these he gives long pauses, as if thinking up what is coming next. It seems as if he’s musing on places to go, as the silences get longer and the services more like sporadically interjected names. 15 minutes out of Grantham, and another tunnel swallows us. Its black jaws press down around windows and ears. It’s only small but pleasantly uncomfortable.

I have a “Big one”. That’s a make of Lucozade drink in case you were wondering. I'm wondering how much liquid I can drink before the soft tilts and vibrations of the train send the bottle falling over. So far most of the liquid is gone, merely two mouthfuls remain, but my big one stands up straight and strong!

A gaggle has sat next to me, their full breed occupies about 7 seats. They are at odds about something, the stress of a holiday perhaps? There is a very young cygnet with them that occasionally talks crap. Next to me is a young girl that seems quite quiet. The king and queen and girl are talking about a mobile phone that seems to have gone missing on the last day of their holiday, apparently room service came in during breakfast and took it.

Another streak, this one blue, flies past. It’s wind filled thunder seems more violent, yet still muffled. Then shortly after it, as if in echo, a smaller streak thunders past, trying maybe, to keep up with the first. We approach Peterborough; the driver starts to ramble again. We must be heading towards a corner of the country now, as his rambling place names seem much more vague and limited than before.

The eye in the sky burns in blue water, so hot that most surface steam has been fried away. The eye sees most things, but not behind my pen, whose discourse lands in high contrast to its plain white bedding. I've been writing for much more than an hour now, it’s time to stop and take stock.

Don’t worry; there is of course a reason for all this. It’s Ash_’s (from university) barbeque today. I'm on my way to her house in Norfolk to go and have a wicked evening, meet some of her friends and family, and rediscover some of my flatmates from Bede Hall (Dom, Joh_ and Jos_). My wallet has been raped, but never mind it’ll be worth it! Then tomorrow go back to Sheffield. In train fares alone, I'm paying about 2 days wages just to get there and back again.

It’s also been exactly one year since I wrote the first words of this journey. Extraordinarily, both this entry, and the first have both been handwritten, by pen. I couldn’t have imagined being in the place I am now, last year. Although to be honest I would give anything (metaphorically) to go back and re-live that year. I'm not going to go into great histrionics about it, simply go back and re-read if you like, and rediscover again, the best year of my life.