Attractiveness. Surely attractiveness depends on the spirit of the person. Sure, someone who doesn’t look like a pig is preferable but falling in love is a funny thing. The hard part comes when you fall in love with someone who doesn’t fall in love with you. That’s difficult to come to terms with without losing self-esteem. Maybe it’s easy to put it all down to pheromones. What attracts us to certain kinds of people could be an innate attraction we have little control over. We are apparently attracted to another whose genes complement our own, giving a greater chance of healthy offspring. Well, it didn’t work in my case because I don’t think I can have kids so that’s that fucked. I should be grateful the odd person still fancies me, if it was all to do with childbearing then 180
I’d be fucked. Or not, as the case may be. And that would be tragic.
I sometimes think that domestic cats think they are tigers. I know they come from the same line, hence tigers being ‘big cats’ but sometimes the guts shown by such a little animal are plain stupid. Why would a tabby cat attempt to take on two fully grown working dogs in a scrap? I would say that was plain stupidity.
But you want to know the astounding part? The cat won. The deflated dogs ran away in fear. True.
Old MacDonald had a farm, ee ei ee ei ow And on that farm was foot and mouth ee ei ee ei ow With a bang bang here and a bang bang there Here a bang, there a bang, everywhere a bang bang Old MacDonald had a farm but all his animals were shot dead and he lost his livelihood and now he lives in a council flat debating whether or not to blow his own brains out.
Rock a bye baby
Curled in her bed
When the thing cries
She’s dropped on her head
Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow
With genetically modified crops and pesticides And besides, my garden has just been bought out by a multi-national.
The world hasn’t changed. It is no better or worse than it used to be. We’re just a bit more aware of things. Or at least, we pretend to be.
I wonder if I’ll ever run out of useless things to say.
181
I thought of a fantastic idea for a book or possibly a screenplay yesterday. Today, now I’ve sat down at the computer, I can’t remember what the fucking hell it was. I nearly wrote it down on a scrap of paper at the time but I thought it was such a good idea, there was no way I’d forget it. I’d even thought of details for it.
Now it’s completely gone. I have no inkling of any of it. How depressing and totally mind blowing is that? It was only yester fucking day! I can’t even remember where I was when I thought of it, maybe I even dreamed it. Who knows, I certainly don’t. What a fool. Oh well, I’ll just have to hope it comes to mind another time or that it was a pants idea anyway that I would have thrown out of the window after ten minutes. Fucker.
Inner peace. I think I have that some of the time. It’s just everything outside that really smells. No, honestly, I do think it is vital to have a kind of inner sanctuary. A place within yourself to escape to. I have come to the conclusion that I am at my most stressed when I have had no time alone with my thoughts. I keep meaning to practice meditation – not the religious kind, more of just spending time in a quiet relaxed place, shutting your eyes and focusing on your breathing, leading you to thoughts of how you feel. I do this once in a while but then life gets busy and you forget and then you’re back at stage one, tense and irritable. It’s amazing how chilled out you feel after only ten minutes or so in a naturally lit room, either lying on your back or sat on the floor just listening to your breathing, I’d recommend it to everyone. Our lives are so hectic. When you do start to meditate you realize just how difficult it is to clear your head and relax. All sorts of thoughts intrude, ridiculous things as well as the dull everyday tasks we think we could 182
be getting on with instead of wasting ten minutes with our eyes shut. I know I for one, get pants of guilt no and again for spending time ‘indulging’ in such things but when I think more about it I begin to think I should spend a lot more time focusing on what I think and feel about things because usually my judgments are made amongst a barrage of noise and background activity, when I’ve probably got a dozen others things crawling around my brain as well. How can you make an informed decision in so much of a confused state?
I’ll tell people I’m feeling depressed. I haven’t stopped to think why I feel depressed. How can I improve my life if I don’t know who I am? That’s a huge statement I know but I’m only just finding out who I am. I would hazard a guess that I’m just under halfway through my life and I’ve only just begun to notice that the me that I always thought was there, based on other peoples perceptions and assumptions that I have taken on board, might not be me at all.
And how would I know when I’ve never stopped and looked. I think I will adopt a new therapy. If I get pissed off or miserable I need to go and sit alone somewhere and figure out what the real me would like to do about it.
I feel bound to writing. It feels sometimes like a never-ending curse. I love it and despise it at the same time. I love it when ideas flow into my head and I can’t type quickly even to keep up with my train of thought and I despise it when I sit looking at the screen for hours without a single thing to say, no matter how trivial. However, what gets me most about this whole love affair I have with words is that it is always there, goading me. I have an empty day ahead and all I can think of in the lead up to it is how much writing I can do. The day approaches and I get nervous, will it be a productive day or a wasted one.
183
In the morning, I awake, I’m too nervous to write straight away in case there’s nothing there in my head.
I may write, I may not. At the end of the day, just before I drift off to sleep, I mull over what I’ve done and wonder what the next free day will bring. It’s always there, even if I’ve not written a sentence for weeks. Every spare moment I have I think I should be writing. I’ll be halfway through a chapter of a book or doing some washing and I’ll think, ‘I could be writing, look at all the time I’m wasting’. It’s as if I have an alarm clock constantly ringing in my head. I can’t turn it off. I think I’ll live with this always. I think it may eventually haunt me.