I wish you could be here now. This is such a perfect moment. I'm sitting at my desk which is pushed up against the wall under an open sash window. The cream curtains are open and there's a stream of white muslin which is pulled across to one side at the bottom and spills down onto the floor around my feet. Just outside the window is a red berry tree, a bit messy, too many branches and twigs, no leaves, but hundreds of bunches of hard, neat little red berries. Stone Temple Pilots on the CD, a little cool breeze occasionally. The sky is pale blue and even a warm milky weak sun over to the right. There's a lot of brown and green and yellow. Lots of trees, grass and bushes. Two big dark, dark holly trees. A row of poplars, I think, very tall straight pointing upwards trees. My berry tree. A silver something. Ash? White bark and a fibrey, ganglionic mess of twigs.
There's a cobbled street, which is my road, and a main tarmacked road running across the end of it. Three big houses, twenty or thirty rooms in each I would say. One has a huge circular conservatory on the side, full of wicker chairs and tables and dark red rugs on the stone floor. Another is side on to me and has a painted white wall around it and there's a big stairway visible inside and large white painted pots of bushes against the side of the house. The other 'house' has a sign outside it "8 Luxury Apartments" and is dark orange red brick and is called Holly Grange and has black balconies at the windows on the top floor.
Next to that are three very solid, expensive 'workman's cottages', grey and stony with slate roofs and long thin gardens. The there are four tall white Georgian houses, Olive Grove, one has a glossy blue front door. There's just enough people and cars to keep me interested. I can just hear some bits of their conversations. It's lovely. There's a fair bit of twittering and chirping going on, a chaffinch in my tree, two magpies on the lawn - two for joy - usually quite a few squirrels, but not today.
There's a park on the other side of this house, with statues and a bandstand, a bowling green, a sand pit, an aviary, and the house of the old man who kept trying to kiss me and his son who raped me when I was nine backs onto it. I can't see those things, but I know they're there. And I can smell the smoke from a bonfire.
Monday, 27 April 2009
22nd March 1995 2.30pm
I can't think of anything better to eat than a jacket potato. Must be the Irish in me, "Any girls out there with some Irish in them? Any want a little bit more?" with salt and black pepper and butter. I just had one for lunch. So sweet too, I hadn't noticed before. I'm in such a good mood you wouldn't believe it. Not manic or wild, just so happy - it's bubbling man.
I just saw this unfuckingbelievably good looking love puppy stud bucket at the local grocers. I was dithering around looking for things to buy - a packet of bread sauce, bananas, milk, Worcestershire sauce - I don't know - and there he was - Oh my God! And he stood behind me in the queue and I'm like "Oh please don't let me do anything embarrassing" and then I noticed the two bananas on the counter and thought "Oh no! He's going to think I've bought them to have sex with because I'm so attractive". And then I remembered the one time my ex and I tried to have sex with a banana, but neither of us knew whether to peel it first or not. In the end we peeled it and put it inside a pink condom because I didn't want it to break up and go all mushy inside me. I couldn't concentrate for laughing and then I got bored and faked it to get it over with. I guess I wasn't really in the mood that time.
So, I was thinking about this and realised I was smiling at the bananas and that made me laugh, not a big laugh, nothing hearty, just an AHA. I know he noticed, he must have done. And what stunningly clever and original idea did I come up with to cover this up a few minutes later, on my way out of the shop. Oh yes - cough and he'll think, "Oh that girl who laughed at her bananas was actually coughing. Well, that's okay then, she must be a lovely person and not mad at all, just got a bit of a cough".
I just saw this unfuckingbelievably good looking love puppy stud bucket at the local grocers. I was dithering around looking for things to buy - a packet of bread sauce, bananas, milk, Worcestershire sauce - I don't know - and there he was - Oh my God! And he stood behind me in the queue and I'm like "Oh please don't let me do anything embarrassing" and then I noticed the two bananas on the counter and thought "Oh no! He's going to think I've bought them to have sex with because I'm so attractive". And then I remembered the one time my ex and I tried to have sex with a banana, but neither of us knew whether to peel it first or not. In the end we peeled it and put it inside a pink condom because I didn't want it to break up and go all mushy inside me. I couldn't concentrate for laughing and then I got bored and faked it to get it over with. I guess I wasn't really in the mood that time.
So, I was thinking about this and realised I was smiling at the bananas and that made me laugh, not a big laugh, nothing hearty, just an AHA. I know he noticed, he must have done. And what stunningly clever and original idea did I come up with to cover this up a few minutes later, on my way out of the shop. Oh yes - cough and he'll think, "Oh that girl who laughed at her bananas was actually coughing. Well, that's okay then, she must be a lovely person and not mad at all, just got a bit of a cough".
22nd March 1995 12pm
Exercise = Exorcise
I think I see it now. My illusion was an illusion. Reality took control of my fantasy and that pissed me off.
I think I see it now. My illusion was an illusion. Reality took control of my fantasy and that pissed me off.
22nd March 1995 9.45am
I woke up feeling suicidal this morning. I don't know where it cam from. It was just there before I opened my eyes. I think it might have been the dream I was having when I woke up. I wasn't going to let you know but then I thought it would be best if I was honest, so that you know it's not plain sailing every day. Up and down but moving upwards.
I was in this house that seemed familiar but now I don't know where it was. My old boyfriend turned up and I was a bit shocked to see him, because it's not too long since he dumped me. He, we, didn't talk about us. He was in a good mood, very pleased with himself and was lounging around on my bed, on his back. It was a sort of tacky Las Vegasy room, cream, beige, gold, big TV. Showing on the TV was a film of an enormous aerobics session at a place called Court Manor. But it was higgeldy-piggledy, not in rows or time. And it was filmed from above, like from a helicopter, but it was only about twenty feet from the ground and silent.
We began to realise that all the men had once been women, and the women men. Some had just tops on, others only bottoms, or swimsuits or leotards. One of the women was so thrilled to be a man that she walked around grinning with semen dripping from her limp dick. People watched but didn't seem to be bothered. He was enthralled and while I wanted to talk he wanted to keep watching and kept asking me about it. Then he asked, "what was that place called?". I told him and said "but I don't want to go there with you" and he said "I don't want to take you" and laughed and carried on watching and laughing.
I was upset by this and sat on the edge of the bed (my bed). Around the corner I could see the clock on the video, it said 20:34 and I asked "Are you going now?" "Yes, I have to me at a gig at 9o'clock". He was meeting some people. He leapt up and asked if I knew what a gig was. I looked dumb and he explained that it was when there was a blind date, he was going to meet a new girl and was excited. He left and I went downstairs and sat on a sofa which was next to the French windows. There was a board game on the sofa which we used to play a lot with other close friends. I wrapped it in brown paper and put it on the floor in front of the French windows. I thought it might get trodden on.
A girl I knew from Uni, but hadn't seen since, came over to see if I was okay and a crystal glass tumbler full of water on the floor on the beige carpet, got knocked over. I thought she'd done it, she seemed to think I had. Nothing was said. She started to clear it up. I didn't know how to clear it up. I walked across the room to the kitchen, where a friend of hers had just done a huge load of washing up. I felt as though I should be helping, but didn't know what to do. There was red wine in all the water I tried to clear up.
Shit, there's the binmen. Damn, I've missed them. Bugger.
That's it. That's my dream. I feel better now. Quite happy again., it's a gorgeous day. I wonder if it's anything to do with me being mega upset that that actor might be gay. Not that it's at all relevant to my life, but it just seems to take him so completely out of the game and there's nothing to be done about it. And that reminds me of:
30 Dec - in happy getting married relationship with my boyfriend
31 Dec - not in relationship with my now ex
Probably. And he was a bit of a homophobe (doesn't that mean he sounds like something else?). Me? I don't know. Have had a few sexual encounters with other women, but no relationships as such. I wasn't that keen, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable to find a woman sexy and I'd like to try again now I'm older. I can see why "America reacted with stunned silence to the news that...." That's how I feel. There's nothing to be said, it's nothing to do with me, but I'm speechless. Out of the game - my game. I can't let go of this and it's bugging me that I can't.
I was in this house that seemed familiar but now I don't know where it was. My old boyfriend turned up and I was a bit shocked to see him, because it's not too long since he dumped me. He, we, didn't talk about us. He was in a good mood, very pleased with himself and was lounging around on my bed, on his back. It was a sort of tacky Las Vegasy room, cream, beige, gold, big TV. Showing on the TV was a film of an enormous aerobics session at a place called Court Manor. But it was higgeldy-piggledy, not in rows or time. And it was filmed from above, like from a helicopter, but it was only about twenty feet from the ground and silent.
We began to realise that all the men had once been women, and the women men. Some had just tops on, others only bottoms, or swimsuits or leotards. One of the women was so thrilled to be a man that she walked around grinning with semen dripping from her limp dick. People watched but didn't seem to be bothered. He was enthralled and while I wanted to talk he wanted to keep watching and kept asking me about it. Then he asked, "what was that place called?". I told him and said "but I don't want to go there with you" and he said "I don't want to take you" and laughed and carried on watching and laughing.
I was upset by this and sat on the edge of the bed (my bed). Around the corner I could see the clock on the video, it said 20:34 and I asked "Are you going now?" "Yes, I have to me at a gig at 9o'clock". He was meeting some people. He leapt up and asked if I knew what a gig was. I looked dumb and he explained that it was when there was a blind date, he was going to meet a new girl and was excited. He left and I went downstairs and sat on a sofa which was next to the French windows. There was a board game on the sofa which we used to play a lot with other close friends. I wrapped it in brown paper and put it on the floor in front of the French windows. I thought it might get trodden on.
A girl I knew from Uni, but hadn't seen since, came over to see if I was okay and a crystal glass tumbler full of water on the floor on the beige carpet, got knocked over. I thought she'd done it, she seemed to think I had. Nothing was said. She started to clear it up. I didn't know how to clear it up. I walked across the room to the kitchen, where a friend of hers had just done a huge load of washing up. I felt as though I should be helping, but didn't know what to do. There was red wine in all the water I tried to clear up.
Shit, there's the binmen. Damn, I've missed them. Bugger.
That's it. That's my dream. I feel better now. Quite happy again., it's a gorgeous day. I wonder if it's anything to do with me being mega upset that that actor might be gay. Not that it's at all relevant to my life, but it just seems to take him so completely out of the game and there's nothing to be done about it. And that reminds me of:
30 Dec - in happy getting married relationship with my boyfriend
31 Dec - not in relationship with my now ex
Probably. And he was a bit of a homophobe (doesn't that mean he sounds like something else?). Me? I don't know. Have had a few sexual encounters with other women, but no relationships as such. I wasn't that keen, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable to find a woman sexy and I'd like to try again now I'm older. I can see why "America reacted with stunned silence to the news that...." That's how I feel. There's nothing to be said, it's nothing to do with me, but I'm speechless. Out of the game - my game. I can't let go of this and it's bugging me that I can't.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
21st March 95 8pm
Don't worry - you're going to be okay - it will be alright, you'll be fine, don't be afraid. There is nothing wrong with you now, I want to hold you, to touch you and kiss you. I don't care who you are, you have to know that it's really okay. I want to love you so much. I can't make you believe it, can I? I know it has to come from within you, like all the other stuff, but I want you to know it, to find it out, so much.
Try to believe it, concentrate, think about it, imagine there's nobody else, just you alone on the planet. Everything works perfectly, everything else stays just as it is, except no other people. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you want? How do you feel? Not the lonely, sad scared bits, but how do you feel about yourself? You're not good, bad, fat thin, right, wrong anymore. There's no-one to compare yourself with so you just are. You don't have to judge yourself any more, what's the point? Where's the standard? It's just you doing what you want to do. Being where you want to be. Feeling how you feel. No rules, just freedom. Would you lose weight? Susie Orbach told me I would. And I'm finding out that I believe her. Why? Because it doesn't matter anymore.
Assuming everything stayed just as it is, no decay, self-filling shops and power stations working by themselves etc why would you need to go and get 2 tubs of ice-cream and a treacle tart and two bags of Quavers and a packet of chocolate digestives and take them home and lock the door and stuff them all down? Nobody is there to know, or care, or tell you not to do it, or laugh, or scold or anything. It's up to you. Have it if you want it. It doesn't matter. Have it, hide the warppers and go back for more, much more. Why not? There's nobody else anyway to say or think anything about it. It's no big deal, it's not a problem. Next time you go to the shop you could just as easily eat it in the shop - nobody is going to know, there is nobody to know. Have 3 or 4 cartons of ice-cream, eat all the cakes you want to eat, have sex with the chocolate right there on the floor, rub lovely double cream butterscotch and toffee flavoured melting ice-cream all over your hot naked body. No rules, no criticism, just you doing what you want to with all the food in the world, whenever you want to, wherever and however. Why not if you want to? There is no-one else to interfere or to know. It's up to you.
There are no gods, no people, no heaven, no hell, nothing, just you alone on earth. Everything works, planes and cars will take you wherever you want to go, just tell them. The shop selling everything and always full is just down the road, or around the corner, behind those trees, over that hill, not very far away. There's no time, just movement, nothing to rush for, everything is there for you. What do you start to wish for? People? Knowledge? Biscuits?
If you could choose to have one other person, real or of your own creation, with you, would you? Would that be good or bad? Would it make you worry that they might comment on your physical appearance? Do you want to rush to the shop? Would you think, "what if They get fat"?
What do you think? Why? Why is it different to have complete total freedom of access to every food you want whenever you want it when there's nobody else on the planet? What's the difference? Is it different?
Does it matter if the other person is fat or thin? Very fat or very thin? If they were just unclassifiable? Mediocre, perfect? If they wanted cake, not salad the first time you ate together? What would you think? Would you notice? Would you notice the twelfth? Sixtieth? Would you think more or less of them for it? Would it be forgiveable or unimportant?
If, everytime you went into all the other houses and tried their clothes on and they always fitted pefectly, or all the shops you went to stocked only clothes that fitted you perfectly, and all the mannequins were the same size as you, and all the photos in magazines were of people the same size as you - would it make any difference? What? Why?
If the other person ate just what they wanted when they wanted and always stayed the same size and shape, would you risk doing that too.
Do you know why you don't do that anyway? Do you have fear and anger energy that you don't know what to do with? If you make a place for yourself where you could always go and scream it out, or write it down, would it help?
If the other person said they felt angry or scared how would you feel about them? Is that how you react to yourself when you are angry and afraid? Would you tell them how you felt about them feeling that way? Or run to the shop? Or run to the place where you can let it go?
Is it difficult to talk about food or eating for very long without turning the topic onto relationships and emotions. Tricky business relationships. Forget everything, start from scratch and be yourself.
HOW? I knew this girl once, a real stunner. I don't know what she thought of me but I thought she was a beautiful, gorgeous, slim, charming, manipulative, two-faced, insincere, foxy little bitch. She was a mess, like me. All over the place. She did people, mostly men, and drugs. I did food, not so glamorous. One day she broke down in the kitchen, there were about half a dozen of us there, all female, and we all talked about how hard life can be. She said that she didn't know how to have real relationships with people. ' I don't either' I thought. "Be yourself" the others said. "HOW?" we both cried out together. 'What do you do or say? How do you act?'. There's nothing really there, only pretending. Always pretending something.
But there is something there, confusion. Helplessness.
'Deep down under this hurt I think I'm cool and vivacious so I act cool and vivacious, but that's trying to be cool and vivacious, not being cool and vivacious'.
'Be what you are', "be confused and helpless?". Say it - I am confused and helpless. I can't I'm too proud. Too scared. Stay like that then. There's no other way out. You are you and you have to admit it. I am me. not what I want to be but what I am. You won't let yourself be anything else until you are you. I feel absolutely empty. I'm confused. I need help. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm lonely and afraid.
If you want to get from A to B, it helps to start of at A. Trying to get from A to B by starting at C is not getting away from A, it's taking it with you. It gets messy and mixed up and heavy and laboured.
If you don't start from A you'll end up at Z with all the alphabet of letters on your back, and around your waist and in your pockets and on your head and under your feet. Stop, sit down. Have a cup of tea. Take a deep breath and havea look at yourself, see yourself as you are, not how you want to be. Tired and weary and exhausted, it's not surprising dragging all these not yous everywhere with you, all that extra weight.
Stop right here and now, just for a moment, or a year. How do you feel? Who are you? You're just you? That's not so bad. What do you do? Do you want to stay like this? Do you want to be someone somewhere else? Doing things in a different way? Start with exactly where and who you are now. Get that clear first. Look at it, examine it, touch and feel it, accept it, love it, be it. Laugh. Carry on, let it go, feel it going, be whatever's next.
I'm trying.
PS 12.05am the next day!
I know I'm not completely insane because all the time I was apathetic and past caring I still crave dthat big blond shaggy haired tanned laid back dope-smoking chilled out surfie boy to listen to Pablo Honey with .
Try to believe it, concentrate, think about it, imagine there's nobody else, just you alone on the planet. Everything works perfectly, everything else stays just as it is, except no other people. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you want? How do you feel? Not the lonely, sad scared bits, but how do you feel about yourself? You're not good, bad, fat thin, right, wrong anymore. There's no-one to compare yourself with so you just are. You don't have to judge yourself any more, what's the point? Where's the standard? It's just you doing what you want to do. Being where you want to be. Feeling how you feel. No rules, just freedom. Would you lose weight? Susie Orbach told me I would. And I'm finding out that I believe her. Why? Because it doesn't matter anymore.
Assuming everything stayed just as it is, no decay, self-filling shops and power stations working by themselves etc why would you need to go and get 2 tubs of ice-cream and a treacle tart and two bags of Quavers and a packet of chocolate digestives and take them home and lock the door and stuff them all down? Nobody is there to know, or care, or tell you not to do it, or laugh, or scold or anything. It's up to you. Have it if you want it. It doesn't matter. Have it, hide the warppers and go back for more, much more. Why not? There's nobody else anyway to say or think anything about it. It's no big deal, it's not a problem. Next time you go to the shop you could just as easily eat it in the shop - nobody is going to know, there is nobody to know. Have 3 or 4 cartons of ice-cream, eat all the cakes you want to eat, have sex with the chocolate right there on the floor, rub lovely double cream butterscotch and toffee flavoured melting ice-cream all over your hot naked body. No rules, no criticism, just you doing what you want to with all the food in the world, whenever you want to, wherever and however. Why not if you want to? There is no-one else to interfere or to know. It's up to you.
There are no gods, no people, no heaven, no hell, nothing, just you alone on earth. Everything works, planes and cars will take you wherever you want to go, just tell them. The shop selling everything and always full is just down the road, or around the corner, behind those trees, over that hill, not very far away. There's no time, just movement, nothing to rush for, everything is there for you. What do you start to wish for? People? Knowledge? Biscuits?
If you could choose to have one other person, real or of your own creation, with you, would you? Would that be good or bad? Would it make you worry that they might comment on your physical appearance? Do you want to rush to the shop? Would you think, "what if They get fat"?
What do you think? Why? Why is it different to have complete total freedom of access to every food you want whenever you want it when there's nobody else on the planet? What's the difference? Is it different?
Does it matter if the other person is fat or thin? Very fat or very thin? If they were just unclassifiable? Mediocre, perfect? If they wanted cake, not salad the first time you ate together? What would you think? Would you notice? Would you notice the twelfth? Sixtieth? Would you think more or less of them for it? Would it be forgiveable or unimportant?
If, everytime you went into all the other houses and tried their clothes on and they always fitted pefectly, or all the shops you went to stocked only clothes that fitted you perfectly, and all the mannequins were the same size as you, and all the photos in magazines were of people the same size as you - would it make any difference? What? Why?
If the other person ate just what they wanted when they wanted and always stayed the same size and shape, would you risk doing that too.
Do you know why you don't do that anyway? Do you have fear and anger energy that you don't know what to do with? If you make a place for yourself where you could always go and scream it out, or write it down, would it help?
If the other person said they felt angry or scared how would you feel about them? Is that how you react to yourself when you are angry and afraid? Would you tell them how you felt about them feeling that way? Or run to the shop? Or run to the place where you can let it go?
Is it difficult to talk about food or eating for very long without turning the topic onto relationships and emotions. Tricky business relationships. Forget everything, start from scratch and be yourself.
HOW? I knew this girl once, a real stunner. I don't know what she thought of me but I thought she was a beautiful, gorgeous, slim, charming, manipulative, two-faced, insincere, foxy little bitch. She was a mess, like me. All over the place. She did people, mostly men, and drugs. I did food, not so glamorous. One day she broke down in the kitchen, there were about half a dozen of us there, all female, and we all talked about how hard life can be. She said that she didn't know how to have real relationships with people. ' I don't either' I thought. "Be yourself" the others said. "HOW?" we both cried out together. 'What do you do or say? How do you act?'. There's nothing really there, only pretending. Always pretending something.
But there is something there, confusion. Helplessness.
'Deep down under this hurt I think I'm cool and vivacious so I act cool and vivacious, but that's trying to be cool and vivacious, not being cool and vivacious'.
'Be what you are', "be confused and helpless?". Say it - I am confused and helpless. I can't I'm too proud. Too scared. Stay like that then. There's no other way out. You are you and you have to admit it. I am me. not what I want to be but what I am. You won't let yourself be anything else until you are you. I feel absolutely empty. I'm confused. I need help. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm lonely and afraid.
If you want to get from A to B, it helps to start of at A. Trying to get from A to B by starting at C is not getting away from A, it's taking it with you. It gets messy and mixed up and heavy and laboured.
If you don't start from A you'll end up at Z with all the alphabet of letters on your back, and around your waist and in your pockets and on your head and under your feet. Stop, sit down. Have a cup of tea. Take a deep breath and havea look at yourself, see yourself as you are, not how you want to be. Tired and weary and exhausted, it's not surprising dragging all these not yous everywhere with you, all that extra weight.
Stop right here and now, just for a moment, or a year. How do you feel? Who are you? You're just you? That's not so bad. What do you do? Do you want to stay like this? Do you want to be someone somewhere else? Doing things in a different way? Start with exactly where and who you are now. Get that clear first. Look at it, examine it, touch and feel it, accept it, love it, be it. Laugh. Carry on, let it go, feel it going, be whatever's next.
I'm trying.
PS 12.05am the next day!
I know I'm not completely insane because all the time I was apathetic and past caring I still crave dthat big blond shaggy haired tanned laid back dope-smoking chilled out surfie boy to listen to Pablo Honey with .
21st March 1995 3pm
Last night. What boolocks! Although I don't know why it is so embarrassing to reread things that felt right at the time. At least it was real.
I oscillate. I am an oscillator. Cynicism vs. Authenticity. I remember the first time someone told me they were being ironic. I thought it was big, cool and clever.
Today 'Lover you should've come over' amplifies my waves. I was reading this book once on Warrington Central Station and it had a description of this thing in it called re......., re something. I can't remember the word but it reminds me of re approchment. Does that exist? Reproshment! It's where you live your life according to a philosophy or set of values / aims etc that you're not especially aware of all the time, but then there's a change and you'r made aware of your old system, and a new possible one, and you become embarrassed by your unquestioning belief in the old one and take on a different set of priorities (which might be the new one, or not) and so on. Like when you suddenly discover orgasms or have a baby or your parents die.
I think that's had a big affect on me and although it turns out that I do it about 20 times a day, at the time, on the platform waiting for my train home, I thought a violent Ugh. How revoltingly embarrassing to really believe somehting, to have an ideology, and then discover it was fallible, to have to admit you were wrong.
So I thought I would believe in nothing and not be fixed to anything or certain. That way I could always be right, save face and be fluid and that's meant a lot of heartache, loneliness and floundering. Lack of commitment, fear of failure, fear of success. All to stop my pride being being hurt by a possible change of mind sometime in the future, possibly. What a fuck-up.
And, anyway, I'm doing it now, because I'm ashamed of my pride and fear and massively super-inflated, over-blown opinion of myself. So, this time, here's my new position. Feel free to mock and remind me in 10 years time (still positioning myself against the storm!): I'm a wanker; I might be mad, but I don't really think so; practice makes you better; you can't win if you're not in; don't give up; it doesn't really matter, but act as if it did; to thine own self be true; don't be afraid; you're not alone; it's never too late; give a dog a bad name and make mine a double.
There was this other book too, about the "Coma" time. The title eludes me. Read the blurb on the back and nearly died trying to get home quickly enough to read it. I was looking for answers, as usual. But shit, this was something else. Like reading "Candide" for the first time - mindblowing, jaw-dropping, oh my God, totally stunned, gomsmacked. It was about this man who is disgruntled (without grunt? stopped from grunting?) with his life and one day out strolling he finds a magician's shop and goes inside where the magician agrees to send him back to an earlier point in his life, 'If only I could go back to 12 years of age knowing what I know now'. Well he does, but can't help himself and does everything the same way that he did it first time around until, eventually he finds himself wandering through the streets feeling disgruntled with his life and stumbles across the magician's store.
It felt like the point of the story was that there's no free will, which was quite liberating because you don't have to be ashamed or afraid because this is who you are and were always going to be. And it's not an excuse to sit back and do nothing because either you were going to do that or not anyway, so you'll just react to the 'No free will' thing in the way you were going to react to it anyway and possibly carry on acting as though there is free will because that's what you were detined to do given the past. Each moment predetermines everything for ever because you can't go back and not have that moment exist. It did. So this does.
That's what I meant yesterday about all our cells having all our potential actions, exeriences in them, but given that we only exist in the context of the past and present our future potential is limited to one possible course. The big bang banging the way it did means I prefer pink lipstick ot red. I will grow to be 5'9 but not a happy president or whatever. Personal responsibility? Guilt? I don't know how it all fits together. Ouspensky. That's who wrote the book. I wonder if like all the things we come to know are in us from the start, are all the things that can be known in us all, or is it different things in each one of us? We could all be the same person if we were all raised in the same way, by robots in a sealed light and dark room with video screens for walls and the same toys and stimuli presented during the same exact times in our lives. 1 year, 4 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 25 seconds into life: present teddy. At 16 we would be freed and let out to meet up with each other and laissez faire. Two scientists working on the same problem, one gets there first, why? Is it all out there waiting to be pulled in or already in one of them but not the other. Would we have got to the moon if we hadn't learned to talk? Does the brain work like a muscle? Does the pope shit in the woods?
I'm getting giddy happy. Leaving the baths today this man, for whom I'd held a door open, said, "Thanks Angel" - ! - I know it meant nothing, but he could have said, "Welcome back into the human race, you're not irrelevant any more. I can see you", and it wouldn't have felt any better. So thanks middle-aged man wearing green, you made me feel very happy today.
I oscillate. I am an oscillator. Cynicism vs. Authenticity. I remember the first time someone told me they were being ironic. I thought it was big, cool and clever.
Today 'Lover you should've come over' amplifies my waves. I was reading this book once on Warrington Central Station and it had a description of this thing in it called re......., re something. I can't remember the word but it reminds me of re approchment. Does that exist? Reproshment! It's where you live your life according to a philosophy or set of values / aims etc that you're not especially aware of all the time, but then there's a change and you'r made aware of your old system, and a new possible one, and you become embarrassed by your unquestioning belief in the old one and take on a different set of priorities (which might be the new one, or not) and so on. Like when you suddenly discover orgasms or have a baby or your parents die.
I think that's had a big affect on me and although it turns out that I do it about 20 times a day, at the time, on the platform waiting for my train home, I thought a violent Ugh. How revoltingly embarrassing to really believe somehting, to have an ideology, and then discover it was fallible, to have to admit you were wrong.
So I thought I would believe in nothing and not be fixed to anything or certain. That way I could always be right, save face and be fluid and that's meant a lot of heartache, loneliness and floundering. Lack of commitment, fear of failure, fear of success. All to stop my pride being being hurt by a possible change of mind sometime in the future, possibly. What a fuck-up.
And, anyway, I'm doing it now, because I'm ashamed of my pride and fear and massively super-inflated, over-blown opinion of myself. So, this time, here's my new position. Feel free to mock and remind me in 10 years time (still positioning myself against the storm!): I'm a wanker; I might be mad, but I don't really think so; practice makes you better; you can't win if you're not in; don't give up; it doesn't really matter, but act as if it did; to thine own self be true; don't be afraid; you're not alone; it's never too late; give a dog a bad name and make mine a double.
There was this other book too, about the "Coma" time. The title eludes me. Read the blurb on the back and nearly died trying to get home quickly enough to read it. I was looking for answers, as usual. But shit, this was something else. Like reading "Candide" for the first time - mindblowing, jaw-dropping, oh my God, totally stunned, gomsmacked. It was about this man who is disgruntled (without grunt? stopped from grunting?) with his life and one day out strolling he finds a magician's shop and goes inside where the magician agrees to send him back to an earlier point in his life, 'If only I could go back to 12 years of age knowing what I know now'. Well he does, but can't help himself and does everything the same way that he did it first time around until, eventually he finds himself wandering through the streets feeling disgruntled with his life and stumbles across the magician's store.
It felt like the point of the story was that there's no free will, which was quite liberating because you don't have to be ashamed or afraid because this is who you are and were always going to be. And it's not an excuse to sit back and do nothing because either you were going to do that or not anyway, so you'll just react to the 'No free will' thing in the way you were going to react to it anyway and possibly carry on acting as though there is free will because that's what you were detined to do given the past. Each moment predetermines everything for ever because you can't go back and not have that moment exist. It did. So this does.
That's what I meant yesterday about all our cells having all our potential actions, exeriences in them, but given that we only exist in the context of the past and present our future potential is limited to one possible course. The big bang banging the way it did means I prefer pink lipstick ot red. I will grow to be 5'9 but not a happy president or whatever. Personal responsibility? Guilt? I don't know how it all fits together. Ouspensky. That's who wrote the book. I wonder if like all the things we come to know are in us from the start, are all the things that can be known in us all, or is it different things in each one of us? We could all be the same person if we were all raised in the same way, by robots in a sealed light and dark room with video screens for walls and the same toys and stimuli presented during the same exact times in our lives. 1 year, 4 days, 16 hours, 3 minutes and 25 seconds into life: present teddy. At 16 we would be freed and let out to meet up with each other and laissez faire. Two scientists working on the same problem, one gets there first, why? Is it all out there waiting to be pulled in or already in one of them but not the other. Would we have got to the moon if we hadn't learned to talk? Does the brain work like a muscle? Does the pope shit in the woods?
I'm getting giddy happy. Leaving the baths today this man, for whom I'd held a door open, said, "Thanks Angel" - ! - I know it meant nothing, but he could have said, "Welcome back into the human race, you're not irrelevant any more. I can see you", and it wouldn't have felt any better. So thanks middle-aged man wearing green, you made me feel very happy today.
20th March 1995 did I really 'really' believe in God?
Here's one I prepared earlier - as found - not edited. There was no date on it but I found it with a letter marked 18th Feb 88 and I think it's from the same sort of time.
Shit. I've just re-read it and I'd forgotten I'd ever felt like that., it's sort of a junior version of now. Maybe not, maybe it is different, I can't decide. I feel a bit depressed and embarrassed by it now. I hadn't read it since I wrote it, although I knew where it was. There's some other stuff floating around too, I must find it. I'm stalling. I have met a lot of people who feel similar since, I thought I was special because I hadn't met enough people. Justifying and stalling....
(But I have to say I am very embarrassed).
February 1988
"Cry quietly darling, Mummy might hear you. If she did then you'd have to explain why you're crying and she doesn't love God anyway, so she wouldn't understand that you really, really, really hate him.
I wish I didn't have to believe in God. I've tried not to, by saying, at nighttime, 'Okay then God, if you exist, prove it, show me, give me a sign that I will recognise straight away and think, um, yes, God really does exist and he's listening, and then just as I think I can comfortably forget about him, something will come on TV and I'll know it's God for me. Or I might think, 'Oh, for God's sake, it's just a coincidence'. So I'll ignore it. But even as I'm writing this, even though I know it's blasphemous, God has just thrown a little beetle onto my bed and it was lying on its back and going to die and so I had to save it by throwing it out of the window. And now God keeps trying to divert my attention by making it sound as though it's raining outside, which is one of my favourite things, listening to the rain. But it's not raining at all.
Mummy's come upstairs again so I have to be quiet, I can't scream, swear or even cry because I'm in someone else's house, not my own, so I have to play by someone else's rules, Mummy's rules. Then my favourite record comes on the tape-recorder and distracts me and God has made my passion die down and I don't want it to, because it's all I can do. I've done everything else and lost interest. I'm so extremely bored. The only thing I can do now is to make my emotions entertaining. At least that's what I think I'm doing. I can't play with anyone else's emotions tonight.
I have to try to make myself feel able to conquer the world until I really believe I can do it. Either by making the most money or by making everyone else wake up and realise that they are ALIVE, when really all they are doing is existing. I want to help, I want to be responsible for making things better, to be the person who woke up the world.
Or else, convince myself that I want to be dead that very moment.
And I lie on my bed and scream silently with my arms outstretched and tears making my hair wet and my whole body shaking and really truly wanting to die at that very moment and begging God to show some mercy and let me die, but he never will because I'm supposed to be here - suffering. Perhaps, I do everyone else's suffering for them because I'm one of the only ones who can really feel any emotion. Maybe that's what my purpose in life is, to suffer for others who don't know how to live I'm not very good at practical living, but I don't think there are many people who can feel and understand emotion as well as I do. They just feel a little bit fed up because things aren't quite how they want them to be - but they can't really understand how powerful emotion is, unless of course, something big happens, like a death, or a birth, or marriage or rejection. But then that's easy, it's chemical, so it's cheating.
Pure emotion is like nothing else in the whole wide world, and you can create it, either way. You can hurt so much at the futility of everything, the pettiness of people who patently don't have a clue what real life is like. Do you know what it feels like to live life on another level? Probably not. I think it's like God gives you a shot of Golden Heroin without you knowing and suddenly he will point something out to you, maybe on TV or when you look out of the window, or it's a book, or a piece of music and then that's it, you're gone - Wee! You feel higher and higher and then your brain suddenly moves up a gear and you don't think anymore, you realise and you know, you have revelations and things become clear and you can do absolutely anything. But the sad thing about that is that you can only do it in that other really real world, not in this one, because in the other, real world the people are yours, so they do what you want them to and react how you want them to .
In this practical, physical world though you can't live like you can in the other world because nobody else is really alive. There's no enthusiasm. I wish God could give everyone this sort of mental heroin all the time - then I wouldn't need it, I could just be carried along with everyone else's euphoria. Then everyone would love each other obsessively and care passionately and we would all be content with the least amount of material stuff, but would probably end up with the most because we'd share everything all the time, without being frightened of losing things or having them broken or stolen or damaged as all the real stuff that would be worth having would be in us.
I wish I could find one other person like me who would let me love them as I really have the power to, but people don't like to be loved that much. Maybe I have all the extra love in me, the love that some others don't have within them, as well as the suffering. Most probably they're the same thing, which would not surprise me at all because, oh, I can't be bothered....
But when that injection wears off you have to try to feel like that again, because it's so boring having to be dull and lifeless and useless again and then that makes you unhappy and then you think that God is playing tricks on you, and making fun of you and laughing at you. He's got a swimming pool full of his special stuff and he won't let you have any. So what do you do? You pretend that you don't need it and you can do without it, and you try silently to feel that high. to be real, again.
Sometimes it works a little bit, but it's so fragile when you do it on your own, so volatile, it comes and goes and it gets more and more difficult to remember how it felt. I mean you can remember what it makes you think and want to do, but you can't get the feeling of it back. It's like riding on the back of a motorbike at speeding along at 100mph and you love it. Or, right at the edge of the ocean, or at a pop concert - when you just forget that you physically exist and just feel, become the emotion. Most people call it excitement, but that's how it is just to be alive, when I'm real.
Then you can't get it back and you feel yourself getting worse and worse and falling out of that world, so now you're on the same level as everyone else and it kills you and you don't feel special anymore and that makes you more unhappy and because you've been floating along without any effort, everything becomes heavy, laboured, it's physically hard work to be alive and then it starts to hurt and it's like when you're very, very tired, but someone won't let you get into a nice warm, comfortable bed. Although you can see it just in front of you, you can't reach it because someone is holding onto your belt from behind, and you can't take it off because you're straining forward so hard and you can hear them laughing and saying "No, don't go to bed, you'll be alright again soon", which you know you won't be unless God can help you out with the stuff. God, I really really hate him then.
But, really, inside you, you know that it's worth it, because you never believe that the next time God gets his trusty needle out, that you will let it all slip away - You believe, you have faith in him, and I do as I'm writing this, that next time you will feel like that forever and that you will get lucky and everything will come true for you. You will be able to dream anything and given enough time your physical body will catch up with the real life that's been going on in your head. Then everything will be worked out and you won't need God anymore at all.
But another thing is that no matter how you feel, you ALWAYS know that you are being watched, by God, by angels, by dead people in heaven, who all know all your thoughts so you can't plan properly because you can't have private thoughts."
Still 20th March 95 11pm
Does this make me mad? I think I might be, or might have been. I don't feel it but that's a bad sign, isn't it? That I feel sane. I can' t be, can I?
This is ridiculous, there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I'm a paranoid manic depressive, maybe not! Reading that made me feel as though I am. But I don't feel it now. I'm not so different from other people am I? You recognise some of this don't you? I'm not alone and I'm ok. Shit.
Questions calm me down. Do things have colours? Garlic prawns taste electric blue, have to be. And pain, sharp internal pain is lime green.
If I feel a bit stressed I sometimes have an internal shower. You imagine you go into a pitch black room and stand in the middle, in the darkness. Then a long slow shaft of bright, blue, white light comes down around you from above, changing from opaque to clear light and back. Clean light without a colour or source. Just clarity in the darkness, all around and through and rinsing through you, gentle, pure and positive, flowing down and around from head to toe, slow, sure cleaning. Cleansed and relaxed step forward and open a door, walk out into a fresh green summer meadow. Warm sun, cool breeze, soft wet grass. Cool, clear and bright. Lovely. Stress all gone.
Elixir - Golden rarefied honeyed yellow nectar - peach juice - melon juice - pumpkin juice - white rum - lime juice - coconut milk - lemongrass - saki - champagne - brandy - honey - cloves - banana - cinnamon - white truffle - chestnut horses on sun-drenched white sandy beaches - dark blue water - sea green trees - a hammock - tennis on the radio - gin and tonic ice and lime.
This is how I feel tonight.
Shit. I've just re-read it and I'd forgotten I'd ever felt like that., it's sort of a junior version of now. Maybe not, maybe it is different, I can't decide. I feel a bit depressed and embarrassed by it now. I hadn't read it since I wrote it, although I knew where it was. There's some other stuff floating around too, I must find it. I'm stalling. I have met a lot of people who feel similar since, I thought I was special because I hadn't met enough people. Justifying and stalling....
(But I have to say I am very embarrassed).
February 1988
"Cry quietly darling, Mummy might hear you. If she did then you'd have to explain why you're crying and she doesn't love God anyway, so she wouldn't understand that you really, really, really hate him.
I wish I didn't have to believe in God. I've tried not to, by saying, at nighttime, 'Okay then God, if you exist, prove it, show me, give me a sign that I will recognise straight away and think, um, yes, God really does exist and he's listening, and then just as I think I can comfortably forget about him, something will come on TV and I'll know it's God for me. Or I might think, 'Oh, for God's sake, it's just a coincidence'. So I'll ignore it. But even as I'm writing this, even though I know it's blasphemous, God has just thrown a little beetle onto my bed and it was lying on its back and going to die and so I had to save it by throwing it out of the window. And now God keeps trying to divert my attention by making it sound as though it's raining outside, which is one of my favourite things, listening to the rain. But it's not raining at all.
Mummy's come upstairs again so I have to be quiet, I can't scream, swear or even cry because I'm in someone else's house, not my own, so I have to play by someone else's rules, Mummy's rules. Then my favourite record comes on the tape-recorder and distracts me and God has made my passion die down and I don't want it to, because it's all I can do. I've done everything else and lost interest. I'm so extremely bored. The only thing I can do now is to make my emotions entertaining. At least that's what I think I'm doing. I can't play with anyone else's emotions tonight.
I have to try to make myself feel able to conquer the world until I really believe I can do it. Either by making the most money or by making everyone else wake up and realise that they are ALIVE, when really all they are doing is existing. I want to help, I want to be responsible for making things better, to be the person who woke up the world.
Or else, convince myself that I want to be dead that very moment.
And I lie on my bed and scream silently with my arms outstretched and tears making my hair wet and my whole body shaking and really truly wanting to die at that very moment and begging God to show some mercy and let me die, but he never will because I'm supposed to be here - suffering. Perhaps, I do everyone else's suffering for them because I'm one of the only ones who can really feel any emotion. Maybe that's what my purpose in life is, to suffer for others who don't know how to live I'm not very good at practical living, but I don't think there are many people who can feel and understand emotion as well as I do. They just feel a little bit fed up because things aren't quite how they want them to be - but they can't really understand how powerful emotion is, unless of course, something big happens, like a death, or a birth, or marriage or rejection. But then that's easy, it's chemical, so it's cheating.
Pure emotion is like nothing else in the whole wide world, and you can create it, either way. You can hurt so much at the futility of everything, the pettiness of people who patently don't have a clue what real life is like. Do you know what it feels like to live life on another level? Probably not. I think it's like God gives you a shot of Golden Heroin without you knowing and suddenly he will point something out to you, maybe on TV or when you look out of the window, or it's a book, or a piece of music and then that's it, you're gone - Wee! You feel higher and higher and then your brain suddenly moves up a gear and you don't think anymore, you realise and you know, you have revelations and things become clear and you can do absolutely anything. But the sad thing about that is that you can only do it in that other really real world, not in this one, because in the other, real world the people are yours, so they do what you want them to and react how you want them to .
In this practical, physical world though you can't live like you can in the other world because nobody else is really alive. There's no enthusiasm. I wish God could give everyone this sort of mental heroin all the time - then I wouldn't need it, I could just be carried along with everyone else's euphoria. Then everyone would love each other obsessively and care passionately and we would all be content with the least amount of material stuff, but would probably end up with the most because we'd share everything all the time, without being frightened of losing things or having them broken or stolen or damaged as all the real stuff that would be worth having would be in us.
I wish I could find one other person like me who would let me love them as I really have the power to, but people don't like to be loved that much. Maybe I have all the extra love in me, the love that some others don't have within them, as well as the suffering. Most probably they're the same thing, which would not surprise me at all because, oh, I can't be bothered....
But when that injection wears off you have to try to feel like that again, because it's so boring having to be dull and lifeless and useless again and then that makes you unhappy and then you think that God is playing tricks on you, and making fun of you and laughing at you. He's got a swimming pool full of his special stuff and he won't let you have any. So what do you do? You pretend that you don't need it and you can do without it, and you try silently to feel that high. to be real, again.
Sometimes it works a little bit, but it's so fragile when you do it on your own, so volatile, it comes and goes and it gets more and more difficult to remember how it felt. I mean you can remember what it makes you think and want to do, but you can't get the feeling of it back. It's like riding on the back of a motorbike at speeding along at 100mph and you love it. Or, right at the edge of the ocean, or at a pop concert - when you just forget that you physically exist and just feel, become the emotion. Most people call it excitement, but that's how it is just to be alive, when I'm real.
Then you can't get it back and you feel yourself getting worse and worse and falling out of that world, so now you're on the same level as everyone else and it kills you and you don't feel special anymore and that makes you more unhappy and because you've been floating along without any effort, everything becomes heavy, laboured, it's physically hard work to be alive and then it starts to hurt and it's like when you're very, very tired, but someone won't let you get into a nice warm, comfortable bed. Although you can see it just in front of you, you can't reach it because someone is holding onto your belt from behind, and you can't take it off because you're straining forward so hard and you can hear them laughing and saying "No, don't go to bed, you'll be alright again soon", which you know you won't be unless God can help you out with the stuff. God, I really really hate him then.
But, really, inside you, you know that it's worth it, because you never believe that the next time God gets his trusty needle out, that you will let it all slip away - You believe, you have faith in him, and I do as I'm writing this, that next time you will feel like that forever and that you will get lucky and everything will come true for you. You will be able to dream anything and given enough time your physical body will catch up with the real life that's been going on in your head. Then everything will be worked out and you won't need God anymore at all.
But another thing is that no matter how you feel, you ALWAYS know that you are being watched, by God, by angels, by dead people in heaven, who all know all your thoughts so you can't plan properly because you can't have private thoughts."
Still 20th March 95 11pm
Does this make me mad? I think I might be, or might have been. I don't feel it but that's a bad sign, isn't it? That I feel sane. I can' t be, can I?
This is ridiculous, there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I'm a paranoid manic depressive, maybe not! Reading that made me feel as though I am. But I don't feel it now. I'm not so different from other people am I? You recognise some of this don't you? I'm not alone and I'm ok. Shit.
Questions calm me down. Do things have colours? Garlic prawns taste electric blue, have to be. And pain, sharp internal pain is lime green.
If I feel a bit stressed I sometimes have an internal shower. You imagine you go into a pitch black room and stand in the middle, in the darkness. Then a long slow shaft of bright, blue, white light comes down around you from above, changing from opaque to clear light and back. Clean light without a colour or source. Just clarity in the darkness, all around and through and rinsing through you, gentle, pure and positive, flowing down and around from head to toe, slow, sure cleaning. Cleansed and relaxed step forward and open a door, walk out into a fresh green summer meadow. Warm sun, cool breeze, soft wet grass. Cool, clear and bright. Lovely. Stress all gone.
Elixir - Golden rarefied honeyed yellow nectar - peach juice - melon juice - pumpkin juice - white rum - lime juice - coconut milk - lemongrass - saki - champagne - brandy - honey - cloves - banana - cinnamon - white truffle - chestnut horses on sun-drenched white sandy beaches - dark blue water - sea green trees - a hammock - tennis on the radio - gin and tonic ice and lime.
This is how I feel tonight.
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