It has just become very obvious...

...that I'm probably going to disappear off the radar in a few years.

I have great friendships with a lot of you folks out there, most of whom will never read this and remain blissfully unaware of this revelation. I treasure silly passing remarks, odd grins from across the street and conversations which have lasted deep into the small hours of many dreary mornings this country has had to offer in the past.

It's all stopping though, of course.

I'm rubbish at keep up to speed with any of you in any way. I rarely show my face for big evenings out on the town; I am drawn to a different lifestyle, I fear - a lifestyle which aspires to peaceful villages where residents spend their days wandering about playing instruments and smiling and drinking tea and feeling perfectly happy with the state of things.

What's more, my inevitable career path leads me far away from the big cities and noise many of you enjoy so much. I'll end up in a cottage somewhere in the country, drawing the occasional thing for some newly developed shop that requires it, then strolling off to work at a post office until the day is through. It will be time spent alone, too, by the looks of things.

I have tried, mark you - I have twisted myself to fit into many frames and stories, but in actuality, it is never genuine; my presence is not intrinsic to the memory, simply moderately interesting excess used as kindling for another anecdote around the cheese and biscuits.

Yes, I will disappear. Many of you will forget me, some of you may have a flicker of interest in where I've gone, I might even be lucky enough to hear that one or two of you experienced genuine sadness with the passing of time. However, all in all, I will still fade away. I have loved many of you, but I can't keep pretending this lifestyle is my own.


These are, of course, simply words, and they will be passed over by tired eyes, and silently disregarded by busy minds. They'll probably be void by tomorrow anyway.



'tonm. xx



Book of the Moment: Still Stephen Fry's Autobiography.

Song of the Moment: "Samson" by Regina Spektor

Whiskey and Coke tonight...

...and some seriously loud music in my headphones. I actually detest living in this house.

I can deal with the conflicts between myself and those around me. I can deal with how small this place is. I can just about deal with the severe lack of anything remotely resembling a garden. All that will stand with me as long as it needs to. What get me are the residents of Fratton.

My neighbours, for example, have several, very loud dogs. I hate dogs as it is, but these foul creatures will wail and howl at any human or movement within a 1 mile proximity of their house, and they will keep going until either the termagant of a mother screams at them like a banshee or they receive the necessary blood sacrifice from whatever poor, unfortunate soul happens to be anywhere near them at that precise moment.

The family are loud, associate with other loud people and make no bones about it - They bitch and whine at each other until the sun sets, by which time they have all presumably returned to their respective bomb shelters and injected more adrenaline into their veins so that, when the morning creeps round, they have absolutely no problem leaping from the sheets to fire off more expletives at one and other, an event which is louder even than the disgracefully bad choice of music shamelessly blasted through the speakers of the stereo of the teenage daughter on the other side of my wall.

I don't know, perhaps i'm having a bad evening? Well, i most certainly am having a bad evening, lets not beat about the bush... perhaps i'm over exaggerating? Maybe they're all just tormented philosophers, desperately trying to seek new plains of understanding by battling out every day over questions above and beyond my own thought process...


No. That simply doesn't work. Nietzsche never bellowed "Gimme your eye-liner or I'll smash your face in" from the pages of Thus Spake Zaratrustra...

'tonm. xx




Book of the Moment: Still Stephen Fry's autobiography - See yesterday's entry.

Song of the Moment: "Butterfly Caught" by Massive Attack

I can see the finish line...

...and now I can dance the last few hundred metres too!

I finally got a new iPod, and this time it's a classic, so it'll last, plus it has basically everything I own on it - Groovy.

Anyway, to matters at hand - I finish semester in near enough 2 weeks, and the pressure is seriously on. I have to make a book, the frame of which will hopefully be entirely twisted, as a reflection of the notions of tormenting, manipulation and nagging referred to in my chosen novel, "An Essay on the Art of Tormenting" by Jane Collier.

I have to a whole butt-load of preparation for it tomorrow - In fact, I basically need to absolutely decide on what it's going to look like and how it will be built, because it needs to look really good, and if I haven't started to build by Monday, it'll be rushed. Research, as always, is boring as stripping wallpaper and ultimately not as helpful. If I don't do enough, though, then my final solution has to be utterly perfect, because its a 50/50 marking scheme. I'm sure it'll pan out OK.

Well, not sure, but you get the idea.

I'm ready for term to be over.

'tonm. xx



Book of the Moment: "Moab is My Washpot" by Stephen Fry

Song of the Moment: "Creepy Crawl" by Be Your Own Pet

Point A to B is dull and lifeless.

"It's about not being oppressed by time, not being oppressed by the idea of the journey; that life begins here and ends over here.
So you grant yourself a little bit of freedom in the moment. You allow yourself the privilege of spontaneity.
~
If you aren't governed by fear, you can live truthfully and you can find a kind of beauty. But if you're inhibited and fearful, you will live a prescriptive existence. But, like, once you get beyond the hedonistic first impulse of that philosophy, you find that you need to focus on something wider, more permanent and beautiful and valuable.
~
That's what I've learned, and I kind of think 'I want to do something worthwhile.'"

-Russell Brand on his Jack Kerouac journey experiences.

It's been said before, let's not be kip around the facts here. People, forever, have been on journeys to find themselves and come out saying similar things. But there is something unique about this particular example which I can't quite pinpoint. I don't know whether it is because Brand, a man of total hedonism and debauchery appears to be having something of a spiritual experience that is genuine. It's entirely reasonable to think that is the cause.

I just can't be sure - I've spent all day writing an essay and, in hindsight, that is prescribing to the rules of an a-t-b day. I have worried about finishing it on tie and achieving it within the bounds of the other event of the day, but that's madness. I could have left it and finished it at 6 in the morning if I wanted. Or, better still, 4am, when silence reigns and I could be alone with it. Regardless, it's utter arse-gravy as an essay and I shan't be receiving a good mark for it. Still, it's been something of an enemy to be.

I really want to be able to look at a day as just a space of time, not a strict, chronologically-linear sequence. But work always ruins that for me, because I panic about it. "Deadline" - There's a terrifying term. It grabs my attention and ties it to the desk, threatening it with a gun to the back of the head should it move.

I need to remember that I could die at any point. I could fail anything. I could watch all my circumstances change in front of me, and then the sketchbooks and essays and forms would all be void. Irrelevant in a flash. I know they are important to a point, but I've got to stop letting them conquer my lifestyle, because I become miserable company when they do.


'tonm.

xx

Book of the Moment: "The Stars' Tennis Balls" by Stephen Fry, page 210

Song of the Moment: "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles