'tis the season

Friday at work was reasonably enjoyable. Old habits reared their heads with my ridiculous campaign of winding up my friend. I think my psyche doesn't like me because I keep trying to sabotage my relationships by being stupid. I've just realised I've written about this before, oh well.

Saturday, went out for the christmas do with friends I hadn't seen for a while but I found it tiresome. It's not their fault, maybe I just wasn't feeling it that night so I went home early.

Sunday was spent getting drunk again. Just sat at the bar drinking until I couldn't fit anymore in. Went home slept for a couple of hours had a hangover slept some more and woke up around ten at night (you see I started at midday) and watched crap telly until I had to get ready for work.

Monday working again 'twas dead but that made the day drag worse than Lily Savage. Just spent the day pissing about. Went for a drink after with a mate, we had a couple of large ones and agreed christmas is a bit shit. On the way home I stopped in me local for a quick large one then went home and had a few large large ones, wrapped some presents and went to bed.

Today I've been up a few hours, no hangover to speak of, haven't opened any presents yet, again I just don't think I'm feeling it.

Merry Christmas Everyone

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Watch me crank dat robocop *shrugs*

Friday

I started writing this in present tense but left it till now to complete so it switches to past tense somewhere.

OK, so it's just gone seven in the morning and I'm at work waiting for the day to start. No one else is here yet, I've got a long day ahead especially because there isn't anyone in that I like today. I'll just have to put my head down and actually do some work. I've got to work tomorrow aswell which is bad because the christmas do is tonight so I can't let go as much as I would like.

There's a girl at work who I adore and we get on great but I have this bizarre compulsion to wind her up. I have no idea why. Most people will use the old playground analogy of bullying a girl cause really you fancy her. There are also the immature colleagues who don't understand that members of the opposite sex can be friends without wanting to hook up. She's really attractive but I don't want to go out with her, which is odd because I normally would want to. I've said it before, I get crushes easily. With her it's just really comfortable, no pressure to impress, She calls me a geek which I don't mind at all, while I take the piss out of the big hood on her jacket and the fact she can't open the tropicana bottle in her McDonalds breakfast, oh, it's all fun and games in our office.

I went to the civil service christmas do where the drinks were ridiculously cheap and I still managed to spend £70. Drinks flowed, silliness ensued I even tried that soulja boy dance.

Saturday

Woke up half an hour late but I didn't have a hangover so I went to work, sod all happened there but afterwards we went for our own christmas meal. A poor showing, 8 out of 20, but free cocktails so it evened itself out. One of the cocktails had a cherry in it so I made what was quite possibly the naffest joke in the history of naff jokes and said to my friend from two paragraphs ago "Would you like my cherry?" much groaning and rolling of the eyes all round. After the meal I walked her to the station and listened to her talk, I don't talk much and I like to listen so it turned out good for me.

So two christmas dos and no dramas, how boring.

The Good Ship

I've spent the last 36 hours laid up in bed feeling terrible. Drifting in and out of consciousness a ridiculous amount of times. I think it's work making me feel like this.

Went for a big ol' walk on Sunday through a nicely quiet city of London in to the lively market at Middlesex Street which I hadn't been down in about 16 years, it hasn't changed much. I walked through the underpass to get to Whitechapel Road but the exit was shut and I ended up walking down Commercial Road then through an estate to Mile End Road I walked past streets that made me feel like there was some kind of community spirit even though they were empty. I thought of what it must've been like during the war, all the kids in the street playing, all the doors unlocked, number 12 a pile of rubble.

I said it sounds romantic, life during the war, and there was an audible gasp of incredulousness and shock from someone because they didn't hear all of what I was saying and took it out of context, twats, they started moaning about the atrociousness of war and losing relatives. I was thinking about the sense of people coming together as a community and looking out for eachother, people still carrying on even though they have lost everything, the spirit and passion, strength and courage, land of hope and glory indeed.

I don't feel English but I love Englishness. Or at least what I deem to be English or more specificaly London. Three bar electric fires in east end council flats, a Nan in a hat from a cracker at christmas watching the Queen's speech on telly. Music blasting from those big houses converted in to flats along the Westbourne Terrace. Fruit squashed underfoot and plastic wrapping blowing across the street after the market has closed. Old British Rail slam door trains to exotic coasts in Essex, Sussex and Kent. The South bank of the Thames between Westminster and London Bridges. Smokey, pokey pubs with tiny pool tables and bent cues. The songs of Peter and Carlos' Albion, the words of Graham Swift's London and Kent in Last Orders.

That's my England, the England of my memories and dreams. Romantic, nostalgic, that warm feeling inside like brandy.

I ended up walking past the Valance Road thinking of the song and on to Brick Lane where they were selling furniture like we had when I was a child and went in to a reverie about the flat I lived in behind the Old Kent Road even though I barley remember it.

I ended up back in Brick Lane later that night after drinking in the Griffin and the Old Blue Last to get salt beef on rye and a steaming cup of tea on which I burnt my tongue.

I walked for over 3 hours that day and when I finally got home sleep was a most welcome friend who I had been fighting stupidly for the previous few nights.

Something new

Mother Superior? No. Mother modest! It's hard for you, I know. You handle it with a grace and poise I find awe inspiring. You may not think so but what you do puts most of us to shame. You take on responsibility and make sacrifices which I don't think any of our peers would. A hero at home where the last thing on your mind is you, a princess in the pub your bastion of freedom where every so often to let your hair down, no one can deny you that precious respite although you do deny yourself.

I wish I had your strength to just ...be.

Know one thing, your friends are there for you like you are for them and that will never change.

Here's to you and your beautiful struggle.

x

Anchors

I'm a thinker not a talker.

Most of the time spent in silence, despair grips me tight across the chest. Relief comes in many forms. The music is an important one, I've come close to losing my faith in love and music but I hear those two voices and guitars and I know all is not lost. Certain people, old and new, fleeting and long-haul, they keep me here. Links are stronger than previously thought.

I wanted to say something so I did but I said it in my head and you didn't hear it, I thought you did though and when I asked you about it you gave me a funny look.

You still talk to me even though you probably shouldn't, so thank you.

I'm still here!

I know some...

Can't get to grips with these people.
Understanding not forthcoming.
Now I seem to be surrounded,
Top to bottom with miscreants.
Sorry, you just make me feel sick.

4G

Sunbeams balance on heavy air
through tired eyes. He cracks a smile
The bed is still warm with her scent.
A stretch, a yawn,
Feet in slippers,
Cane in hand and up for some tea
Everyday since September,
Twelfth, Nineteen Seventy Seven
It doesn't get any better than this
His love waits for him at the Kitchen table.

No point

My profile cuts a dark figure on the dirty bedroom wall. The candle nearly dead on the hardwood floor. Windows painted black, painted shut, it smells of sweat and spilt vodka. The room is hazy through my broken eyes but I can see someone else, slim and sleeping on a mattress under a heater that has never worked as if the mere thought of it being there gives off warmth. I know who she is though it takes me a minute to remember and I permit myself a smile before returning to a stony face I'm more comfortable with. Gently, I make my way across the room avoiding various debris and crouch down beside the girl. She stirs sightly but doesn't wake. I sit next to the mattress and move a stray lock from her pale white face and pull up the blanket over her skinny shoulders. The candle has gone out now leaving the sound of the street outside and my heavy breathing and I feel strangely more aware even though I'm tired now.

I hear a lock click in to place and realise it's the only sound I've heard for a while, I look down and see the blanket which covered her is now over my chest the early light is dim through the darkened windows. My cheek is moist and her image still indented on the bedding.

My heart hurts.

So I was out drinking Cristal...

and I've always wanted to say that. It was, in fact, a Belgian pils which was nice none the less.

Nothing new with me I just need to vent.

I went out for four days in a row last week. I didn't get any hangovers just that empty guilty feeling that tears me up inside. I was rude to someone. I reacquainted myself with the live music scene. I became closer to someone. I hurt someone. I kept a promise. I drank too much. I didn't drink too much. I wrote a poem.

I feel really mixed up at the minute. I don't deserve some of the friends I have. They put up with my bullshit and my mood swings. I can be an absolute cunt at times.

I don't believe in myself, you shouldn't either!

Taxi

The Taxi from the terminus takes me through town. Past cold, empty houses blocking the reluctant Sun. My journey was long and fraught with difficulty. The familiar smell in the cab is a relief. It was nearly over now while most were starting theirs. The Sun was getting braver now, I couldn't see through it's brightness. The cool air through the slit at the top of the window made my eyes water, It was like nature didn't want me to see. They didn't need much help though, I knew what was waiting for me at the end. Everything was in order. There were things I wanted to see but I knew I had the memories and didn't need to. There were people too, friends, family. Like pictures in an album I had in my heart. I'm here now, my breath still visible reminds me it's real. I wanted to be inside were it was warm and comfortable. I fumbled with the keys and eventually, I opened the door.