So much to do, and yet i’m stagnant.
People always have things to do.
but you always have a choice in how you spend your time.

Think of all the things you could do. -right now-
make a list.
From that list how many can you achieve today.
This is what I need to be doing in 2015.
Kicking goals, ticking boxes, enjoying what I do.
Have a goal, and revel in each step towards its completion.

I want to trim down.
I need to exercise more,
call the hospital,
call uni,
change over my phone,
read my book,
buy my brother a present
do research on the the world cup
really find out what fracking is
call mum
fix my computer
box up my things
choose my university courses
buy dad a nice tent
purchase some RM williams boots
get a massage
catch up with Tilde.
Learn french
clean my room
clean the bathroom
go to bed earlier
read some Shakespear
brush my teeth
buy wireless headphones
get an external harddrive
talk to my cousins
wash my sheets
book flights

Just off the top of my head…

Strange, somehow today has been longest day.
I woke up and went to work at 5.30.
I currently have a man-cold, the flu, whatever.
It rained and rained and the cafe was quiet enough for me to go home at 10.30.

Buckets and Buckets of rain.
I bought chocolate and vegetables to make myself better.

Home and sunburt from the day before I felt inspired. JOG TIME.
And so I ran. Refreshed, tight in the left calf though.

Home again, I ate pasta and fell asleep in the bath, listening to a music playlist I put together.

Awake again the bath now quite cold.
I jump into bed and watch Porco Rosso. What a class film.
Again, asleep.

Awake again I look at the texts asking me what i’m doing.
-nothing obviously-
In the wrong headspace for such a bland explanation so I went looking in my notes for the name of an art piece I enjoyed when visiting Spain years ago. Madrid. Sofia I think. Yes.

The piece talked about being sick, and how people look after you when you are sick.
And then how the author became obsessed with the idea that life is best, being looked after.
No expectation. 0% effort. Society will carry you.
I hated it and loved it. Such a spin on my fathers mentality that I’ve been instilled with.
“If you haven’t got your health you haven’t got much”.

The search continues for the name of the work alas.

Later I ate an iceberg lettuce, half a tin of peaches and half a block of chocolate.
What a treat.

I went for a jog and missed the Australia game. 4-0 to the green and gold. O-MAN!

Bed again for the 4th time today. I’m sick but the health bar is full.
Don’t worry Dad, don’t worry everybody.
Look after the people that need it.
I’m O.K.

Today I made plans for 2018.

Today I had toast for breakfast

Today I tanned for hours, without sunscreen.

Today I called her, at long last.

What is it with having a “feeling”. What kind of person gets a gut instinct. And how do you express an entirely out of the blue thought?

When a person gets an inkling that something might happen. How do they deal with it.

My mum would always voice her concerns. “Bye Mum, me and my friends are going to play in the quarry, throw rocks at each-other, fashion swords from sticks and just go berserk”. -back for dinner, no worries- Right?
Of course not. Mum wouldn’t let me out at all, if that was the case.

But lets say i’m fifteen, its the middle of the day and i’m walking to the city.
“Be careful, I’ve just got a bad feeling O.K!” – Great Mum, or should I say Miss Clavel. What am I supposed to do with this seemingly hocus-pocus warning. Am I being careful of anything in particular? Nothing bad ever happened. (mum was always on the alert and always wrong). correct?

So my mum voiced her thoughts, wild and unfounded warnings. Spooky if you ask me.
Having grown up with this my whole life, I have a common practice whenever I think “worst case scenario”.

I understand where she was coming from in some respects. And I’ve picked up a rather annoying habit of voicing my own strange thoughts.
My very own Murphy’s Law, protection against bad things happening.
“Say it out loud, so it doesn’t happen”. SIMPLE.

I went to see a football game this eve, beforehand I went for a jog (2015 health kick and all that).
Alone on my jog, mind wandering I thought.
“There’s going to be a terrorist attack”.
What a strange, strange notion.
Quickly now let me address, I do not live in fear nor do I have the slightest understanding of radical movements.
So I mentioned this thought to my friends -mentioned in the hope that it wouldn’t happen, like all bad thoughts I have- and lo and behold! Nothing of the sort.

But the reaction I got from my friends made me think twice about sharing my scary thoughts.
Truly though, I don’t think I’ll hold back when my brain is firing out worst case scenarios. But I did freak them out, unintentionally.
“why would you say that” said a friend.
I was shocked at the reception I got and how my frame of mind could be so misaligned from that of my friends.
UNTHINKABLE and UNACCEPTABLE, the thought and then practice of vocalising what your brain has fathomed.
Shame on me.

“Touch wood” I guess is what many people do.
Others sit quietly and hope for the best.
Try not to jinx us, one might say.

I say it, because it could happen but it won’t if, I say it.

I went a bit Dexter Morgan on the garage.
Cling film, carpet and plastic on the walls and floor. The stage was set.

Filling empty egg-shells with paint and throwing them at canvas is a joyous release I really cannot explain.
The indulgence of it all, the glee and elation I feel. The fright of a possible miss, the eruption of colour as the egg breaks into a hundred, tiny pieces. The splat, splash and spatter. Akin to a fly on the windshield of a fast moving car.
Drive-by art.

I have no talent for the straight lines of drawing nor the relish of painting. But hand me an egg filled with paint and I’ll call it art until the cows come home.
Today was a good day. Paint everywhere, but the crime scene was relatively easy to clean up, all things considered.

The housemates will never know.
&
The works continue to grow.

So we begin 2015.
Everyone is on a new diet.
Everyone goes for a jog.
Drink less, eat healthy, be more this, do less of that & try new things.

What have we learnt? Or should it be learn’t…

What % of people follow them through? Do we know what’s good for us? Will these small or even large changes
really change us? What’s 365 days without alcohol going to do to me? Life isn’t determined by 365 days.
It’s the 9000 days before and the 40000 days after your little beerless stint. -so what’s the point-
I really truly don’t know, but its a start right?
Maybe I just want to be a cheap drunk next year. Maybe in the short term i’ll save a lot of money.
I might even spend more hours doing something slightly more productive.
Save some brain cells too along the way.
Hang on this is all sounding like a good idea.
HOW MUCH LEMONADE DID I DRINK TONIGHT.

So i’m currently reading a series by Steven Erikson. Its depth and quality amazes me.
S.E’s ability to write so fluidly from one character’s perspective to another is immense.

I need some books in between tombs though, so I might pick up ‘Perfume’ again.
Too many books not enough time. Life always seems to get in the way. I should endeavour to make time.

“hello only ends with goodbye”

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost though abuse
The bounteous largess given to thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive;
Then how when Nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, usèd, lives th’executor to be.

Bit of a vocab and translation workout for myself and the flatmate last night.

Sonnet by Shakespear.

Coming out of Christmas and thinking. “- somebody surprise me with how much you care”.
He took the sensible approach and hit a home run.

‘Selected’ Brian Molkom.
-the lyrics of-

Placebo are my favourite band and B.M. is their voice.

My life, they have been the fulcrum of my coming to terms with feeling emotions I may have had trouble processing and expressing otherwise.
I remember one afternoon finding mum sick and “Meds” had just been released. I cried and cried to the first two songs until I was numb, until my sponge eyes had nothing left. I felt better.

Meds:
I was alone, falling free
Trying my best not to forget
What happened to us, what happened to me
What happened as I let it slip

I was confused by the powers that be
Forgetting names and faces
Passers by were looking at me
As if the could erase it

Baby… did you forget to take your meds?
Baby… did you forget to take your meds?

I was alone, staring over the ledge
Trying my best not to forget
All manner of joy, all manner of glee
And our one heroic pledge

How it mattered to us, how it mattered to me
And the consequences
I was confused by the birds and the bees
Forgetting if I meant it

Baby… did you forget to take your meds?
Baby… did you forget to take your meds?

And the sex and the drugs and the complications

I was alone, falling free, trying my best not to forget.

Infra-red
One last thing before I shuffle off the planet
I will be the one to make you crawl
So I came down to wish you and unhappy birthday

Someone call the ambulance
There’s gonna be an accident

I’m coming up on infra-red, there is no running that can hide you
‘Cause I can see in the dark
I’m coming up on infra-red, forget your running, I will find you

One more thing before we start the final face-off
I will be the one to watch you fall
So I came down to crash and burn your beggar’s banquet

Someone call the ambulance
There’s gonna be an accident

I’m coming up on infra-red, there is no running that can hide you
‘Cause I can see in the dark
I’m coming up on infra-red, forget your running, I will find you

And the dark is running after you
That’s right, the dark is running after you
The dark is after you

Someone call the ambulance
There’s gonna be an accident

I’m coming up on infra-red, there is no running that can hide you
‘Cause I can see in the dark
I’m coming up on infra-red, forget your running, I will find you
‘Cause I can see in the dark
I’m coming up on infra-red, there is no running that can hide you
‘Cause I can see in the dark
I’m coming up on infra-red, forget your running, I will find you

I will find you
I will find you

These are two songs that have touched me deeply.
But the beauty lies in the tangle of associative memories I have with each song:

One for each emotion.
One for alone
One for together
One for sex
One for sport
One for party
One for girls
One for guys
One and the same.
Any song for any time.

I’m not an overly emotional person. When I listen to Placebo I’m immersed, I feel.

Words are empty in the face of brutal will.

-S.E