Once upon a time, I was really really masculine. No, seriously, ask anyone that I went to school with. I was the hunkiest of the testosteroniest of the jockiest of the Men.
Many of you may remember Men Behaving Badly.
**Tony:** *I’m sorry, look what happens when you live with a woman? She’ll fill the place with cushions.*
**Gary:** *Cushions, yeah.*
That’s always stuck in my mind, for some reason. And it comes back particularly hard on occasions.
I never used to go to the doctor’s much, because as far as I could see, it was a place for poorly people, and I have always been a tough fucker.
Dentists and opticians, of course, are quite different. You go there regularly, and they keep you tip top. They say, “Why Sir, you look good. Keep doing what you’re doing. And floss more.”
And they take money off you for it, so you think, ah, that’s cool. They get money, I get guidance. This is business. They like me being there.
But doctors are different. If you went to a doctor without an ailment, you’d be wasting their time. They don’t get money. They don’t think “awesome, that was the easiest £15 I’ll ever make.” They think “fucker.”
Recently my girlfriend has been getting very concerned about me. No grounds for it, as far as I can see, but I’ve been to the doctor’s twice in the last fortnight, for two different reasons, but on both occasions I’ve been told to “go back if it gets any worse.”
So what happens next time the girlfriend has one of her panic attacks and wants me to go to the doctor to have a particularly ugly looking hangnail checked out? Do I tell her that I’m a man, and can look after myself, and by golly, cavemen didn’t go to the doctor when they were poorly, and they were tough fuckers?
What then happens if the ugly looking hangnail jumps up and strangles me? I’ll wish I’d listened to her advice then.
The woman who would later reveal her name to be Dorothy looked up at me through the windscreen like a pouty puppy looking up through a car windscreen. I adjusted my trilby and spat my long-extinguished cigarette out onto the tarmac.
“Hey, ain’t that a bit dangerous?” she said, looking around her like an inquisitive yoghurt. The air moved around her like a confused bumblebee at an Olympic opening ceremony.
“It’s flameless.” I replied, my voice hinting at the burning sensation that this woman was creating within me. Her beautiful brown eye and her beautiful green eye reached into my body like a rubber-gloved surgeon performing a colon inspection, piercing me as if the surgeon had forgotten to put their keys down beforehand.
Something about her was familiar.
“Something about you is familiar.” I said.
Our eyes met for a second. Then she disappeared out of my life in a cloud of tyre smoke, never to be seen again for the next four minutes. I shook my head and went to find a mop to clear up the puddle of petrol on the forecourt.
“What an odd woman.” I said out loud, to no-one in particular.
I’ve known a lot of girls,
In the days since I was born.
Some were real and made of flesh,
And some were merely porn.
I’ve given laughter to many girls,
I’ve even made some cry.
One of them even slit her wrists,
Because I made her want to die.
But these are just a sample,
Out of all the girls I’ve met,
For most girls that I’ve spoken to,
I’d much rather forget.
The girls who laughed at my geeky ways,
Who sniggered, sneered and scoffed.
You turned me down, well that’s your loss,
But I hope your tits fall off.
Yes I hope your tits fall off.
I stubbed my toe earlier today. Everyone accused me of hobbling round and making a big meal of it, but it’s bright purple now. I’m afraid that it’s going to turn black and drop off.
I took a photo of it with my new camera with the intention of putting it up here, but it’s just too gruesome to look at. Not only does my toe look like a plum, but my nails are dirty and I haven’t shaved my toe knuckles for… well, forever.
And besides, I would only have been putting it up so that I had an on-topic way to let you all know about my new camera, which I’ve done anyway. It’s a modest 3 megapixel Pentax, but it’s a step up from my clunky old 2 megapixel HP which was grainy and feature-sparse. This one’s loaded with tricks, and fits into the pocket of Pete.
For this theme, I decided that I would dig out my old love letter archive and find something reasonably suitable to be extracted and posted.
However, when I looked in my super secret private folder where I keep them, they all seemed to be gone, except for one. I expect that Karen has discovered them, and thrown them all away. Except for this one.
> Dear Peter,
> I know I agreed to meet you at 8:00 but I totally forgot that I go to my Grandparents house on Thursdays, every single week!!! Sorry again but I didn’t really like the thought of you waiting for hours outside your house like a total lemon.
> I’ll speak to you tomorrow.
> Love Emma
Then again, perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps that’s the full extent of my love letters collection.
Ho hum.
Yesterday I saw an advert in a music shop that had been put there by a guy looking for a bassist and guitarist to join his indie band. It looked cute, so I made a note of his number.
Today, I phoned him back, and very quickly decided that his band was not for me.
Reason 1: I asked him about how much feedback he’d had already from his advert, and he said that he had had a few replies but most people couldn’t commit enough. So I asked him what sort of commitment he was looking for. It was soon clear that we were not a good match in this respect. I think his words were “Obviously I wouldn’t expect you to give up your job straight away.” I work full time, and it would take a lot for me to consider giving my job up for music. I told him this. He’s got his heart set on world domination, and I can’t compete with that. I make music for fun, not for a living.
Reason 2: He was reluctant to define exactly what he meant by indie. I kept probing him, as I knew it was important. He eventually said Coldplay. Ugh.
I’ve given him my contact details so he can send me their demo, but without knowing the guy I don’t think that I could join his band, because I don’t want to waste his time by hanging around for ten minutes and then leaving.
We’ll see.
*This was copied from my diary sometime in 2008*
Karen has been pestering me to throw out my holy socks for some time now. I resisted, for a while, as I knew that though I currently have a lot of pairs, once the culling began then there would be no stopping, and we would find out exactly how many, or rather, how few intact socks I own.
But because I love her, I obliged, and yesterday I began the process, terrified as I was.
The girl is a darling, though. This morning I opened my sock drawer to find five new pairs. Excitedly, I decided to forgo an old pair and wear a new one today, to show my appreciation.
Here’s where it gets horrid. I grabbed some scissors to cut the plastic frob that holds the socks in the pack. However, my incision was slightly off target.
The sock that I wear on my left foot became the first sock in my history to have a hole in it before it had ever been worn.
Pertaining to the previous post, it has all become clear.
There was a time when I used my mind as a weapon. It was an unpleasant time, because there were unpleasant wars to be waged, but it was also a good time, because I had something to fight for. I used my brain to produce the words and thoughts that I needed to fight with.
Now, I’ve successfully made things easy for myself. It took a lot of work, but I managed it. And I was pleased with myself. But now, years later, I miss the thrill of battle, the excitement of clashing intellect with opponents known or unknown.
I see only one thing for it. I need to invent an opponent. Even if they only exist in my head, at least I’ll have a nemesis — a reason to never grow complacent, a reason to strive to continually produce better and better output, a reason to always force myself to learn more.
Playing the guitar well is largely a matter of practice. The more I play, the better I get. But is songwriting the same? Should I write hundreds of songs, in the hope that there will be diamonds in the dungheap? Or should I allow myself a few weeks or months between each attempt, in the hope that I will have amassed enough original concepts in my brain in that time to produce one really really sterling piece?
One thing that I do know for sure – I need more feedback. I need to record these demos, put them up as MP3s, and get opinions back from those whom I can trust in such matters.
Where has it gone?
Once my life seemed to be awash with opportunities to write. I wrote letters, and songs, and even directionless rambles. When I sat down in front of my keyboard or with my guitar, I felt a need to talk, a need to share my thoughts with the world. I felt that things needed to be said, lest they be lost forever.
Nowadays, I don’t get that anymore, and I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly I no longer have the same fear that the product of my creativity will be lost forever. Which is nice. But it is nice to have songs, letters, directionless rambles, which can immortalise these thoughts forever and provide me with an archive.
This thought tails away.