Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Sweet Fanny Adams is what I've achieved. Yes, yes, it's yet another fucking negative blog entry. But at some point along the line I have to switch on. It nearly happened today, but didn't. And again the thoughts of ... unpleasantly unpleasant things intrude.

I'm thinking - seriously - that I should go and talk to someone. Yet that would mean admitting defeat. Admitting that I am a total fuckwit, and not just a bloke with a problem.

Here's the rub. If I don't pull my finger out I'm going to sink. And all the nice fluffy thoughts of a future with Mick will come to nowt. Perhaps we've known each other too long, too well. Perhaps whatever I do I can't change the way I am. But if I don't, and NOW I'm fucked.

I go to bed at 4am get up at noon spend all day reading instead of getting down to achieving goals that I know I can achieve. Why? Why do I do it to myself. It's as if I'm seeing just how far I can get before I fall.

The Dark Tower

I'm reading Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'. I go through phases of reading intensely for a while, and then not reading at all. I'm hoping this one lasts long enough to get to the end of the seven books. I'd be rabidly envious of him had it not taken him thirty two years to finish. As it is I'm in awe. Thirty two years! Blimey!

I'm just starting 'The Drawing of the Three', the second book, and I'm hooked.

Fantasy

I'm drawn to fantasy. No idea why, except I'd think I'd prefer to travel fantastical lands having adventures than have the hassle of the normal day to day mundane.

I started a story which was loosely about a bully at a boarding school. Now, like 'Nyquist', it's taken a left turn, and the hero finds himself in an otherworld where he makes friends with a Centaur called Ma'suela. How I got from the one to the other is beyond explanation ... if anyone knows, please tell me.

I feel like my life is holding its breath waiting. It's been sunny for the last week, and even though I love the sun I get the impression - I'll quote a title - 'something wicked this way comes'. I don't like it, but I don't feel as if I'm in control. Of course logically I am in control, but I'm not feeling it...

Here's an idea. I should sit down and write a blog entry for every mood. Kinda like blogging by numbers. Then I won't have to bother dredging up real feelings, just pick the requisite entry and post it. Hmm.

Snap out of it. Dolt.

Brain Ache

I want...

I want a lot of things, but I am still, even with this 'new attitude' of positivity, totally inept at achieving them.

My emotions seem to run around and around the gamut of my desire, swinging from 'Yes I'm gonna do this, and do it now!' to 'why the fuck should I bother?'

I wish I'd been sensible when I was younger. I wish I'd decided who I was much, much earlier. I yearn for that lost halcyon youth, as much as I curse some of the paths I took. Pointless and Pathetic. But I don't really see myself as pathetic - just lost.

Thank goodness for friends.

Anyway, enough frippery. I've nearly finished another short, and the sun is shining.

Where to now?

In 2003/4/5 I wrote a lot of music. When I say a lot, I mean a lot. Probably five albums worth of material. Sure a lot was crap, but amongst the detritus were some 'good and worthy pieces'. Then I discovered writing fiction and I changed. I packed away the studio and although I've still written lyrics, and have some melody lines floating around my head I haven't recorded anything in over a year (except for one voice and other old stuff for the set).

Now I've come to a point in writing fiction where I seem to have stopped. I have to finish Seraph - but not really because I want to. Then what? What am I going to do next? I'm too old to be an astronaut. Train driving seems dull now they're mostly electric. Cowboys (or Indians) are a bleak prospect, especially after 'Brokeback Mountain', and I'm too much of a wuss to take to crime....

Life is such a trial.

Change of Attitude

It's been pointed out that I'm being extremely negative about life. Rather than seeing, and talking about the good, I'm focussing on the bad, and it's not healthy. Take my last post about the gig at the Poor Boys Cafe. On reflection I'm grateful that anybody came and saw us play, and chuffed as hell that they liked us. So what if I only came out with £18. £18 is far, far better than nothing.

There was an episode of Oprah on this afternoon on a topic called 'The Secret'. This is supposedly a new philosophical way to live your life, that brings you everything you desire, with little or no effort. It's championed by a lot of celebrities (who already have everything they desire) and a lot of people seem to be leaping on the 'Secret' bandwagon. However, as with anything 'new agey' there is also a raft of critics. Here is a presis of one of them which made me laugh: 'The Secret takes the well-worn ideas of some self-help gurus, customizes them for the profoundly lazy, and gives them a veneer of mysticism.'

Profoundly lazy, hmm ... sign me up!

Anyway, from now on, I will be positive rather than negative. I'm also going to try creative visualisation. Add all that to getting off my rather lazy backside, and I'm going to be a much happier bunny.

Poor Boy

I'm in a semi-sulk.

We played a gig on Thursday night at the 'Poor Boys Cafe'. Mick organised it, and seeing as how I was too chicken (read shy/perpetually embarrassed/stupid) to go in with him, I didn't get to see the venue before we arrived to play.

Mick did say it was small; but I equated small with small, not with Lilliput. Also, rather than getting a straight fee, we were being paid 20% of the bar. Woo Hoo! I thought, rubbing my hands in a Shylockian fashion, dancing up the street, and wondering where to salt away the pounds of flesh.

Alas alack, although it was packed, the Twenty or so people were not alcoholics. The total takings were £180, ergo our cut was £36, or £18 each.

£18 for three hours, and the angst and other shite that performers suffer. Plus petrol. The Bowling Gnomes we are not ... nor The Rolling Stones either.

We have been 're-booked' for 5th May, and are henceforth considering Poor Boys as a paid rehearsal. It's an apt name.

All that aside, musically it was a great gig, and I had a whale of a time!