Category: Other

I’ve spent the last couple forays feeling neurotic as hell. The fact is that I’m waiting on other people, waiting on news that could alter a lot of what I’ve got going on, and today is the first of two days this week when I am supposed to hear back regarding one of them.

I’m not going to publicise this post in the way I usually do because if I don’t get my way I’m liable to kick off and delete it anyway but if it is good news I will post it here and reveal why I’m being so cryptic.

I hate waiting on other people, they never seem to grasp the utter emergency state that is my realm and take their precious time.
Pleasssse just let it work out.
I’d really like this.
I need out.
Please.

I’ve got some raisin toast and black coffee at my side, I don’t have a top on and I’m ready to do some writing. By that I don’t just mean a blog post, I’d like to finally get the first in a long line of short stories completed, it’s been kicking about at the four thousand word mark for weeks now, and I’ve just got to close the thing off and then I can move onto something else and not have to be so concerned all the time.

Yesterday I got to visit my godson Toby and his doting parents Will and Chloe who I lived with while I was at University. He’s a right little tearaway now, I haven’t seen him since his first birthday and while he hasn’t mastered the complexities of saying my name yet, he has learnt to open doors and store food in his chubby little cheeks so he can compost it down to mulch and then expel it to the carpet whenever he chooses, he’s adorable. It’s really nice to spend time with Will and Chloe because they remember what I was like at Uni better than I seem to myself, I had such a brilliant time while I was living with them and its nice to get lost in those memories for a while, and for Kate to realise that I’m actually a lot better, and that she’s lucky she didn’t meet me during those hedonistic times because I was a self centered little creep and for the majority not all that fun to be around. Regardless of that I still maintain a brilliant friendship with Will and Chloe who prepared for the arrival of their child by looking after me, ensuring that I was put to bed, up in times for lectures and eating properly, they’re naturally attuned to looking after a baby, because they had me first. They’re brilliant parents.

I’m going to get on with some work now, too much to do on a bank holiday, which is a bit depressing, but maybe tomorrow will bring a change of plan, or the news I’ve been waiting for, and everything will just work out for me. Here’s to hoping.

I’m off to Reading within the hour. It’s my first journey back to the festival in two years (I did go to Glastonbury last year), since Arcade Fire and The Libertines played and they had to scrape me off the metaphorical ceiling at the end of the night. I was in love and I was a mess.
Today it’s Kasabian and Florence and the Machine on the main stage although I’m more tempted by At The Drive In and The Cribs, for two reasons apiece. I have this rule that it’s always best to go and see the band that you are least likely to see again (this theory got me to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on Sunday last year for Beyonce). I only know a few At The Drive In songs but can guarantee they put on an amazing show. My second reason for wanting to go and see them is that I can be sure it will rile up some jealousy in some of my closest friends who have followed the band for as long as I can remember (and once smashed my living room door off its hinges dancing to them). My reasons for wanting to see The Cribs are exactly the opposite, I’ve seen them thrice before (?) and I know that they always get an incredible reception. The last time I saw them they had Marr in tow and I wonder how the newest album (produced by Steve ALbini) is shaping up live. I’ll have to see where the day takes us.

I’m also interested to see what kind of creatures inhabit Reading Festival now. When I first went in 2007 it was the pure love of music and alcohol that drove people there but each visit since has shown a shift in the focus, it now seems to be more about looking cool, chino wankers and girls in daisychain straw fedoras getting fucked up on their parents money before they go back to Wherevershire to be a burden on the general populace. I hope this is just me getting older and being jealous of the hedonism of youth because I would hate to think that people aren’t going to music festivals for the music, it would be like walking up to an ice cream man and asking for a doctorate in psychology. All I can hope is that everyone stays safe, and has a good time, and doesn’t mind me flailing about to The Shins this afternoon.

There was a moment of shock and burning as the shoddily constructed flap at the bottom of the door was pushed open and a tray of what could almost be described as food was shoved through it, slopping its grey contents over the lip of the plate and skid marking the floor as it came to rest by his head.

The last meal pushed through the hatch had made him terribly sick and he feared this was some part of their plan, whoever they were, to weaken him and make him more susceptible to whatever. He checked the date on his digital watch and concluded it had been just 44 hours before that he had got out of his car to remove a piece of paper stuck to the back window when he had been attacked. He was sure by now there would be a missing persons report filed, but he couldn’t work out who loved him enough to do it.

Last night I ate a really good steak. It was so good that twelve hours later on the train to work I’m still thinking about it, that’s the sign of a good steak.

Kate and I stumbled across Hundred Crows Rising in Islington whilst trying to find somewhere to grab dinner before a show at the Lexington. It’s a great find. The place is almost laid out like a cantina with bare wooden floors and an open bar/kitchen area so I could smell my ribeye coming.

It was also very reasonable, two big steak dinners and two drinks for just over forty quid in Central London is pretty unusual and I plan on heading back there again. The staff were friendly without it seeming put on and the food left me with cravings on my way into work. Good show.

you’ve got to try.
It feels like a different person has passed through this skin since then. I have some exciting revelations in the coming week but I can’t give anything away upfront, because you’ll call me a blog slut.
Just trust me when I tell you that I’m getting excited, and that I hope everything comes to fruition because it will all be much better for my psychological welfare.

In other news I’ve decided that I want to start writing longer blog posts, I’m impressed that I manage to find some time and some words every single day but that’s not enough of a challenge for me, so on top of that I also intend to start planning a number of longer blogs, maybe verging on the term essay or the word article, depends on the content I suppose.

The good news is that I’m going out in big London tonight with my little Kate and we are going to see Joy Formidable. I realise that in going with Kate to see Joy Formidable I am basically consenting to the affair Kate conducts (pretty exclusively in her own head) with their frontwoman Ritsy but hey, she came to see The Amazing Spiderman with me, so all is fair in love and war.

I can’t think properly when it’s humid. I know Essex is hardly the dizzying heights of Marrakech or Salamanca. I’m using that as an excuse for not having done any writing over the weekend. That’s usually the best time to do it but I spent the time with friends and family which I think was far more beneficial.

Spending time writing basically means writing a paragraph, googling myself and sitting on Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and WordPress and telling myself how good I am. It’s not the most productive way of writing. I seem to have lost a bit of focus since I finished Situation One which is probably for the best considering my intensity with it at times. I do have other stuff to be getting on with, but it’s hard to balance with the feedback I’m getting on my first completed novel (or the implied feedback I’m getting). Never more, must keep reaching, must keep on, worse things happen at sea.

I’m enjoying a nice relaxing Sunday.
I’ve literally done no work this weekend. I’m managing quite well.

This afternoon we are having a BBQ at my house. I think it’s the first one we have had in two years. All of us will be in attendance. I’m tempted to make an episode of You & Me & Him & Dad about it. It’s hard work to get the four of us together but when we do you can guarantee something funny. Bless those boys.

I feel shit.
I went out last night with my little buddies, and ended up sobbing in a bar in Shoreditch but that’s another story for another time.
I woke up to find that I had post. Unfortunately ‘post’ doesn’t excite me in the way it did ten years ago, there was a time when I loved getting post, it was always something good. I believe Arcade Fire covered this feeling in their song We Used To Wait. Today my post was my Reading ticket for next Saturday and a message to say that I had to collect a parcel from the Post Office because the full postage costs of it hadn’t been met. I wondered what it could possibly be, and who would be so stingy as to not cover the cost of sending it.

In a state that I would describe as less than rosy I managed to drag myself into the shower, get dressed and head out of the house. By the way it’s too hot out, don’t do anything today, just stay indoors, shut the curtains or something, it’s not a practical kind of heat. Anyway I got to the post office, handed over one pound eighty and then realised that the cheap bastard who didn’t cover the cost of sending that package was me. It was the self-addressed envelope I sent off to a literary agent two weeks ago.

This hasn’t helped me feel any better. I’ve accepted that I’m probably going to be receiving rejection letters for the next couple of weeks as they slowly filter back through my front door, that’s not what bothers me, it’s the way I’ve built it up in my head. At the end of the day my novel is a piece of work that I gave up a lot for, not just time but everything else, I got completely lost in it, and it consumed me, to the point that when I finished it I didn’t really know what to do. I think I cried a bit. This post is full of tales of me crying. Anyway, that’s what bothers me, that I actually tried, for the first time in a long time I committed to something work-wise and it isn’t having the payoff I have built it up to have, but that’s my drama and in time I’ll deal with it.
In a related note I would appreciate it if people stopped telling me about ways I could get it self published, I am well aware of these avenues, but I want to try and get it published via an agent and publisher if possible first, so while I appreciate any help or input anyone may have, just shhh.

Just smashing up the high street with my droogs.