Your words or mine
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A thought at the end of the day, contracted into two or three words used in an image search to link to the thought. Then once a week I come back to draw my favourite. It is all my favourite.
And in the smallness of the moment I find I am wondering how long I will have to continue this battle.
A good show moves the patron through lightness and delight to the point they wish to say, ah the fine show ended in a diatribe about white terror, I wonder if others felt it made sense.
Sometimes I get a little competitive and exert myself a little more than sensible when exercising, leaving me exhausted.
A continuous underlying feeling of being distrusted might mean others don't think the best of me, or I am not trustworthy, or that I am insecure, which can I fix?
Building to a disaster, the pain in my shoulder, the strain from working too hard stopped me sleeping, and not sleeping is not a good way to cure the body.
At least two people are at fault when a relationship ends, the fault may have happened any time, or many times from the first choice to have a relationship. Consenting, adult relationships only.
There are moments of wellness touching on the fringes of the clothes worn by joy and, of course, moments of boredom, but there seems to be an awful lot of feeling sorry for myself.
The thought drifting through my day, in and out of cooking, washing, reading and resting is will faking happiness lead to happiness?
So, if the soul were more than mere biology how is it tethered to my consciousness? And if I could break this tether, is the constrained at at all by either place or time? Could this be the start of a thought exercise in astral time travelling?
Irritability, I wonder why I got so irritated today, I wonder what it was that got my goat, come back Billy, is it the crashing of these not what I need moments, is it my compromises are not something I can live with or just a bad hair day.
And so there was a balance between the informed choice and the public vote which was a feelgood response.
Then there were the people killed in a racist hate crime, live streamed. What is this about, is life worse than the nineties
Round and round, here the end to the oh so clever story, but it had no soul, so I forget, or perhaps I did not care enough to remember when there is an apocalyptic food crisis because of the war in Ukraine.
Art recreates life, then life recreates art, and again the challenge is passed to art: recreate, you can. But does art really recreate life, or is it a version of life that is not what it truly is.
The tired is encroaching, it was a struggle to find the end of the story but then, then I am running away from the dark future coming back as a girl called Lea.
Your rules or mine, should I be concerned whom I have offended by the sexual imagery in my drawings, I kept it separate from my family for a long time, but not from my life. This is my life. They have seen it now, and are offended. But perhaps they should try to understand. Maybe. I will happily chat about anything, any of it.
I wonder if this disparity, this misdirection, this discontinuity is just how things are. There seems no way to change it, and the little things I do to retain my spirits are not constructing something new.
New ideas, new moves, new ways to retell the same stories we have been telling for millennia, both the mundane and the shocking, but sometimes we get so excited by the detail of the new that we forget the eternal.
Oh the excitement, the thrill of watching folk elated as their team wins and deflated as the other loses. Oh the thrill of the visceral emotion to the voyeur who cares little for this sport but loves the culture. Here's to you, my lovely.
Impending, it is impending, he finds it difficult to get up and he is of the age that if he doesn't get up then he may not again, though there may be a long while of the waiting for the impending.
Sometimes it is important to dance in celebration, particularly if the celebration is the achievement of someone special, someone close.
At the end of the day, like Alma's mother it is so easy to slip back into bad habits, bad because they are not striving or even aimed at a better tomorrow.
All of it in nonsense, pointless confusion while I wait with patience, or perhaps exhausted from the strains of struggling to stay above submersion.
How easy it is for me to deflate, to lose my confidence in this household, to see the bleakness of all and nothing, to want to give up.
Sometimes it is so difficult to tell you things because you can be so critical, so carelessly critical, it seems, but I suspect you are just forthright and straightforward.
It's just a device with no aesthetic relation to anything, how can something so vital to one be so dismissed by another, any other.
And yet I still pick at that phantom scar, that mindless itch consisting of nothing but presuppositions. Why do I keep repeating these pointless actions that give nothing to my life, nothing.
And even if the time were a marker still I would fail, for as I type the words I know they are weak, the story is dull, hackneyed and falling into those poorest of stereotypes I do not believe in though may fantasise about. Oh the disappointment.
Like the dancing monkeys, always remember I must not dive to the ground chasing the elusive nuts lest the mask falls and the clothes tear and they explore with laughter to see I am just a dancing monkey. Oh but these nuts are so hard to resist.
It appears that the dirty old man who liked to look at his pictures and listen to those stories that were, well, no need to talk about them as they were just stories, so it appears the dirty old man died of mercury poisoning, mercury vapour is deadly.
It seem that in abstinence the focus shifts from the desire or the desired to the tool, and thus the tool is now the fetish, and should this continue will the tool become a demigod or a deity of another form.
And for a while all I felt was the sadness of the impitance I felt in my inaction, and the injustice of your not doing what I felt you could. But you chose not to do I must just get on with it, this faded life is what I live, nothing more.
Then half the day dribbled away, after a fine start of words and drawings, but there was nothing put on paper in which I showed any insight into life, just a waste of time.
After making the choice not to take an action, all that remains is to wait. It is shit at the moment because I don't have a plan for marking the time in a pleasant manner. Being pleasant is the plan.
So, this may not be what I want exactly, but neither do I not want this. There always are those times when the weight of tears behind my eyes makes me demand change, but you are considerate, you are kind, we have just got stuck in a bad pattern, a spiral.
So for a moment I figured it means so little, what can go wrong, I mean what is more than a minor inconvenience. I have a shop down there that has everything I need.
I think this may be another repetition, but I am struggling with the thought that I may not be welcome in your family, at the least you are not trying to include me.
Once again another day passes, drifting by like an empty punt without a punter or a pole, another day and I didn't say the words I thought about saying, worked out carefully, but now the words are losing shape, dissolving in indecision
So let's start today, let's not start tomorrow as tomorrow is nothing, today is what t by ere is. Today is really just a mixed box of confusion. Today is just a period of waiting for tomorrow.
One evening on a night of disrupted travel I enjoyed a couple taxis and a train with two delightful woman, one who was a conversationalist and the other an achiever. And at the end of a delightful night we parted, never to be seen again. Like life, so short, no time to sink into dejected misery.
Once I dreamt I was underwater, but it was ok, I realised I was dreaming so I could breath underwater. Normally I don't realise I am dreaming and even shit like buying a house can turn into a disaster dream that gets me up at night.
I am so tired of this constant inadequacy of my days, this repetitive cycle of sadness with the situation I have settled for but I fear tackling the issue for I cannot see any outcome other than losing the little I have, and for something unlikely to be better, why did I all those years ago joke about mortgaging my future.
Do you think my distraction is losing focus of my meaning like the end of the show got lost in social media when I had worked out the way it would end. It probably did.
There are many ways to tell a tale, the effortless writing I have been reading today, and will read tomorrow, makes me constantly want to finish the chapter, then to start the next. No breaks, no retakes. Just pleasure.
Flimsy, this distraction I find, this indulgence that is not productive, for I am no longer productive. All I can hope for is to do something that is at best a minor distraction, a distasteful one at that.
I think the most important change to make is now, and there is only one thing to change now, goodnight. X
This loneliness is unbearable, crushing, the only way out I can dream of is to be more fun. God how horrifying, but the only other option is a lonesome walk in the dark as it seems my tribe is no more.
I can't help but feel disappointed that I am so easily disregarded, so easily put aside without being understood. Maybe there is nothing to be understood, maybe all I am is yesterday's foot note.
On in the end the edge is found, it is embraced and it is what folk-them say makes them feel alive. So alive. But where is my edge, where is my alive.
Is it too complex to try to figure this out, once your mind is set on one solution is that the only solution, or are there other flies in this spider web that will help
Then Dobbs came by, changing what was certain, now we know nothing, nothing, there is no middle ground. And now for me I wonder where the middle ground may be.
When the word is spoken, when the expectation is given there is still a lag, not a lug, a lag to the acceptance of the word, until the word is trusted. How big the lag is is down to faith and history.
There will be a time to look under the hood and examine the foibles and peccadilloes that make up us, but for now let us content ourselves with a nod and a smile.
I wonder if the pain behind my eyes, and at the back of my head are signs of impending illness or anxiety about facing tomorrow, a situation in which I am reminded of how little time I have left to make a splash, compared to the time I have wasted in the desert.
And the wine flowed, topped up by the polish woman before the last sip was done, and we talked of the pageantry we had come to see, the lifetime of influence remembered.
And the day is past, my day is past, I have made it to the famous chimes on radio four, and now I begin another year tired and with lack, just lack, nothing to hope for, no hope, just mechanical movement onward and onward.
There is only one thing to write about today, the one thing I have read but haven't said, I knew it would be coming and so did he, this is what happens, this is how it goes.
I have become stuck, firm in the inertia of doing nothing, not in a creative way. It seems there is nothing for me to do, no cinema, no theatre, no art, nothing at all of interest out there that I want to see or do. When did I lose my imagination?
My outfit may not have shown the pride some, no most of the fine people had in their presentation, perhaps a lesser proud but I was there. I did something. Do something every day, I say.
I wonder if my story should begin with my understanding that I am indeed a sideman and to achieve the glittering success I sought it would need to be through writing myself an alpha, only how I think is not how you read, and my writing is wobbly at best, but generally just put down after the first few sentences. Always stick to a few sentences.
I did nothing today, it's not official but I said it as an answer to what did you do today? It is not that I did nothing, but that there are no anecdotes to be told bout my day.
Sometimes when I am feeling alone I look at bedsit rents in our area, I make sure my phone faces away from you so the light does not wake you.
I chose not to do a thing and it has diminished me, to claim back thing I will need to work hard, I will need to find a book club, and life drawing, and stuff. I must find thing to be more me.
I must not forget the joys, the successful days when I still wrestle with my self doubt, I must go, ok, I am now as old as I am now I can live in the moment, emotionally.
Then there was a moment when I was no longer necessary, so I moved to the shadows, out back, round the corner, waiting in the wings for my next call. Somewhat bitter still, but it is all there is, live with it, do something to turn my world exciting, orgasmic.
And another day has passed without more than these few words written about the sideman who came to terms with his sideness and could, thus, set forth in the hope of creating a minor diversion, perhaps even a little amusement.
Sometimes I eat because I am bored, or have lost concentration, or am distracted. But sometimes I eat because I am sad, despondent, disappointed, lonely. Those times I eat sweet foods. Then later I will feel the same way but with the added thought that my full stomach will be turning the sugar into fat.
Unlike Florence, among others, I have no certainty in my thoughts, they are only doubts and miscommunication. What is it that I want, all I have is me pretending I am not saddened by what I have.
I think I might, I think I can, I think I will give this a bit of a go. It does not really matter, I might want you to reassure my ego but it is not necessary. I can take this in hand.
The kind of tiny panic that is anxiety causes such stress over nothing, or over such little things that float away with a little smile of kindness of a laugh of casualness. Oh the chance of releasing the stress.
I tried to be jovial, to say things with wit for entertainment but again and again I missed the mark. I had a pleasant enough day with them but each, every joke hit the tumbleweeds. Where do I go with this.
So, what would it take for me to wake in the morning with an excitement for the day ahead? What would it take for me to be the person joyous to see you so you would be happier, that is how it works. Happier is the normal response to joy.
Sometimes I think I get it and life feels good, perfect, well, it feels like I am in the moment. But then it slips away, and somehow the thing I thought I got may have got completely wrong. The opposite of getting it, and I outcast myself.
She says he seems to be happy during our conversations, perks up from days of lying in bed, but I am sure he puts in an effort because the conversations are important to her. But I may be wrong, priorities are hard to work out, sometimes.
If I were to curate an art show, I would invite artists to create two works of art, the second can only be viewed by destroying the first. What would you do, smash it or save it?
The point of this house is the loneliness, the thing I have labelled with I don't feel like I am part of your family, but has so many names, must actually mean I must move to a place where I am self sufficient. Maybe here maybe elsewhere.
So it was nice to go out, to be a little out of my depth, worrying about my social skills, keeping on my toes but there was no need to worry because these are beautiful kind people.
I had a thought, it was that to achieve greatness or longevity a person need concentrate on developing a skill set to become good enough at that thing to be able to take advantage of a lucky break, if one comes. That is to be great aim to be good.
Setting out again, I seem to have slipped back in the back door by mistake and must now set out again on the adventure to seek my solitude, the solace of being me, the reason to carry on to another day.
That was the day, it was, full of activity, moving from one action to the next and ending with a fine show I found because they talked about it earlier, on the radio, while I completed the activity. A day without sadness yet still empty.
Then came the drums, oh how good it would be for life to be a fine performance rather than this repetitive shit show of just about making do, just about making do with the diy,just about making do with the cooking and cleaning, just about making do with life and love.
And it was like the time it all went wrong and I ended up journeying with these wonderful people, real conversationalists and we divulged our life's to each other then parted, I guess I regret the jam stain on my shirt but I wouldn't be me without it.
I am sure you only ever think the best of me, but let's not dally, let me just tell this tale.
And in a flash I am on the abandoned ship, Mare something, thing is there is nothing to do on an abandoned ship as there is too much to do, one person, me, a one person is pointless in this life.
Repetition and rote, key ingredients to this good day, a walk but little talk, action not reaction. Though if it is a good day that is just to say it was not filled with badness, which is a low bar and a mixed metaphor.
A week is gone, and I guess I have got fairly close to doing what I thought would like to have done, I am just not so sure that this was the best list I was working towards, perhaps I should work harder on my expectations list.
Then I composed my experience as a short anecdote focussing on balancing the different points in a neat juxtaposition, perhaps, if I might say, an amusing distraction with poignancy. But I have no one to tell my anecdote so all I have left is to cast these words into this pit.
I am trying to work out if I am sulking or troubled, the issue isn't new and I cannot see it changing which leaves a choice of going in hard and making a scene or feeling sad, unsettled and, possibly sulking. I don't like to make scenes.
Once again I am writing about the thing that encompasses with such mundane repetitiveness, that thing I have no need to be repeated because it is always occupying its evil space in my me.
In a diary from over forty years ago I referred to him as the big guy, I cannot figure out if I wrote it ironically, psuedo-ironically or in ernest. I cannot work out from the text how I felt, nor can I remember. I wonder if he would know, if he could know.
In the end it wasn't me, I could hear the sights and see the sounds, but when it came to the end it was all but noise, like that party still playing not to far away, and that isn't me either. Neither. Nor.
In this metaphorical brown envelope I place my hopes and expectations, my position and my sense of belonging. Oh god, what about my sense of belonging. Sometimes it feels like I am here because there is so daunting, not because here is where I belong.
So, I choose to draw a nude self, using pen and ink as a fasade of decorum but nonetheless it was just me naked, then thrown into the world and now I've noticed the folk who liked it. Folk I know, strange.
And the anger bangs, thumps, booms out notifying me this is not my space, this is not where I am welcome. It has been a while since I have felt that familiar drag on my eyes as they wet, but not so long, not that long.
I am not sad about you leaving, but I am so sad that I am not sad, this is not the scenario I had imagined for this chapter of my life. I imagined a very different me, I wonder if the successful me might have been less compromising, and I wonder if the less compromising me would have been happier.
And with ease, but with tiredness I have slipped into the next, nothing more interesting about being in the next but still I find myself here, in it, wondering what the next will hold for me. Waiting with tired eyes.
It is true that I am not surprised to hear nothing of your adventure. I guess you could say I never tell you about my adventures, which is a bit sad really that I don't have adventures to talk about. Just a mundane, repetitive existence.
A dozen words at the end seems a poor penance for wasting a day available for creativity or chores with two films and half a TV series, but the time is done lazing in bed, tomorrow will be different.
So there are thoughts on being alone, thoughts about working out the alternative futures mapped to important issues like effort, and sadness, but all of this without any progress of thought.
Full, like the tap is constantly dripping honey into the moneymaker, like consumption is limited only by desire and distraction, like the flood can be held by these small implications and indications of decorum. Oh the decorum, it just wouldn't do.
So I offered my inability of clear expression, because of my lack in precise thought and a confusion of the overview, but perhaps the difficulty is conveying understanding when my experience is so different to yours and my experience does not fit snuggly into your ideology
Funny how it can have all the constituents of a good story, interesting characters, plot twists that forewarn and fulfil their potential but miss that something that may be called pace which leaves nothing more than a memory of uncomfortable seats.
There is a thought, a small thought, that it would be manageable to take the sensible approach of vegetarianism, especially after surviving a meat-free order at that most delicious Indian.
Like a deep pond, dark with sediment, stained yet empty, void not through poison, no, not salts or toxins just void, perhaps like virgin, like waiting for life, but not virgin, waiting for the spark to return, waiting for the life to re-invigorate and re-invest, regards.
Disappointment is most crushing when it is disappointment with the self, but if there is anything further it would be disappointment with all, everything, tout le monde. What is there to get me out of this mire, fire.
There would be the moment when I shrug my metaphorical shoulders and pass over the annoyance, with that zen-esque disregard for the tribulations and say, well, tomorrow sometime nice might happen tomorrow, or the day after. Love it.
So, there were many wonderful things today, a conversation about books read in childhood, a baby that looked newborn but rather too big, and perhaps the portent of a cuddle at the end, nothing to certain but perhaps a bit promising.
Sometimes I have to remember that I don't need to hold my breath, as I am not under water. I can relax and get on with things and life will be okay, it is not all about me being unable, it is about me enjoying as best I can.
Weariness and weight seem to be my day, moments of bouncing up a stair followed by moments of searching metaphysically for a chair that I know is not there. There is not a soft reclining chair nor a day bed.
Carnival with the beautiful, and not so beautiful, young things in their sexy outfits and the beautiful oldies sexing it up too, though the men rather let themselve down with their lack of effort. Carnival, only slightly spoilt by not having someone to regale my anecdotes to.
There was a chance, a little puddle of persons into which I could pour my tales, and perhaps another, but the tales are not as honest, any more, the tales have traveled to far so instead of accounts they have tended towards boasts.
Was there nothing that happened today or have I not framed anything from the day in a thirty word anecdote or was there no listeners when I thought I might pop out the story of humour and grace, but believe as middlemarch ends: we all have our stories.
Dispassionate, perhaps another word for content, or distracted, or there might be something more to it but this is what I have, this and a slight ache behind the eyes from the wine I drank earlier.
Just for a moment a little sparkle as a remembered and thoughtful comment reminded what all this life is about, when existential angst has burned its fury then a kind action lights the moment onto the next