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Disaster Continuation
I don't know if this is fated or what. I lost the diary I wrote in Colva with the
premonition, at the same time as this one... I think because of a virus on a public computer
that made me think I was saving an update to text, when in fact I was actually deleting
everything.
Yesterday I tried to write a retrospective of what's occoured since September, then lost it
because of, I think, the maxima casino software on a different computer.
So now I try again...
Hmmmm, back in September, it wasn't all so bad, though it probably felt that way at the
time. I was getting ready to sign on. I got into online poker and played for a bit. I was
meeting mother weekly, mostly in Llyods or Moon on the Square. She started hinting for me to
sign on, saying there wasn't much money left.
I stayed in a place in Camden and had an interesting time for a few days.
I'm looking through my little black diary now to try and get the dates. October 24th was the
anniversary of when I first spoke to Junko Imanishi, in a jazz club in Perth in 1994. It is
also my niece's birthday, the eldest niece Carly that is. But this year, 2005, I was sitting
with mother in Llyods in Abington Street. She'd had a lot of problems with her eye. I had
been with her when she first went to the optition. Now she told me that she was booked in
for a scan because it might be a tumour. She said she wasn't telling anyone else. She'd
spoken to Carly, but had got upset, both of them. So basically I was the only person she
could talk to. I started thinking about not much else then, because I had already had the
prophesy in Colva that she wouldn't be here 'for the feast of St. Steven', which is pretty
much why I had returned to the UK.
All this time after I was doing two things, trying to find housing and education options,
with lots of online whining inbetween.
Mother had an operation for a cataract on the 16th November, and went to stay with Geoff for
a few days to be away from smoke. Then she stayed with us for a bit, then she went back to
work, but kept insisting that her vision was worse. She was constantly on a waiting list for
various tests.
Although I usually move around London, I started staying in Globetrotter in Hammersmith a
lot by then. I went to the CAB in Mund Street and they told me to sign on, so I signed at
Hammersmith Job Centre on December 2nd. On December 8th I had to go back and see someone
called Warman, for a habitual residence test, which I passed. Nikki from India contacted me
about then and said she was house-sitting and invited me up. Sorry, it was the 12th I did
the hrt with Peter Ellison. On the 8th, I think I saw Carla Warman for the general
interview.
This is everything that happened up unto Christmas generally. Other things going on then...
I had a lot of dreams about J.... as usual, but a lot of OBE's. There was one where I saw
her. I'd been thinking a lot about this illness I suffer from, the genetic disease, and in
some roundabout way, there has been some acceptance. I can't remember if this is in another
diary, but I came out my body and thought, now I've faced up to this, can I see her? I flew
through a tunnel and saw her in a street. I shouted that I loved her.
I had a lot of other obe's but many of them were the same. I came out but couldn't leave the
room. So I opened my arms to the sky and asked to be taken. I felt a white light enter me
from above, into my head and shoulders, but returned to my palpitating body before it was
complete.
It was sometime in December that I saw an advert for training towards an ABTA certificate in
ticketing and travel, funded by the European Social Fund, it comes with six months work
experience. I applied. I passed a written test and was then interviewed by Reece Bigwood in
Clapham Junction job centre and he accepted me.
Mother started getting painful and debilitating spasms in her arm, which was diagnosed as a
trapped nerve. She also started getting dizzy.
Nikki invited me up for definite over Christmas week as she was house-sitting for rich
friends. I booked to be in St. Cristophers Inn over Christmas, then with Nikki, then at
Oxford, in Oxford backpackers for New Year.
I checked in Christmas Eve in Bath and it was OK. Christmas day everything was closed. I
can't remember which day it was. Just, I updated the diaries and was alone and glum in the
hostel, but then these people turned up and it was fun for a time. I didn't update again
until New Years Eve in Oxford, but due to technical difficulties had to save the entry to a
mail program, so conversely I still have it. I'll cut to that now and write what's happened
since in a new page. I've learnt my lesson about making the page lengths too long!
The following is uncorrected, so there may be some mistakes there, plus it contains some
general gibberish I wrote while bored as hell with Nikki.
Saturday 31st December 2005
Oxford Backpackers, Oxford.
(The following written earlier at Nikki's)
It's funny how things turn out sometimes -- you never
know what's going
to happen. About an hour after my usual festive morose
entry, the 'chill
out' room suddenly filled with people. There was a
non-descript guy,
two South Africans and an Aussie member of staff who
shook my hand and
introduced himself as Shane.
One of the South Africans was about twenty five and
came to sit with me
by the window. He had something very nice,
herbally-wise, to smoke and
we sat giggling. He told me that he was a geographer,
and explained
that his job is to make maps from satelitte pectures,
so actually he
sounds more like a cartographer.
He went back and sat with his frined, who told me he's
a soldier based
just south of London and would be leaving to
Afganistan in two weeks.
They put on the film Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas, to which
they knew all the words. I watched a scene where
someone, maybe Johnny
Depp, was walking through a casino, I remember the
line: 'the LSD has
started to wear off but the mescaline was kicking in'.
I wanted to know
what that meant, so asked, and they both became fully
animated, telling
me it was the best film ever made, about some guy who
took drugs
everyday of his life.
I gave them some of my own 'herbal smoke', and they
passed me
champagne.
Shane was lying on the floor, and when one of them
started smoking, he
bacame very serious -- saying that it would set off
the alarms and we
would be thrown out.
Previously, Shane had left the room, and came back
visibly changed. I'm
pretty sure because of cocaine. He had perched on a
beanbag, but his
leg coordination had gone.
At the smoking complaint, the srmy South African
laughed and said,
'Come one, you're n your underpants; you have no
credability man.'
So Shane said: 'It gets worse', and stripped naked,
asked again and
agian was ignored.
The army man started asking me about Hammersmith, the
other had a
disossiated giggling fit and I then watched Shane,
honestly, lay down
and make love to the bean bag.
There were various comings and goings. We were asked
to leave because
of the noise. There was a bit of playful wrestling,
which I notice is a
habit of South AFricans, then they shook my hand and
left.
I sat alone in the dark for a bit and was happy.
Next day I went out abouty three. I must have gone up
and down every
street in Bath before accepting that every single
thing was closed. I
took stock of my rations: four pieces of bread, four
satsumas and ten
cokes. I had a piece of bread and one satsuma, and
then went to bed at
six thirty. About ten minutes later M. phoned to say
hello. About
twenty minuter later, two Chinese women next to me
came back and
slept.
So, there I lay for 18 hours until midday boxing day.
I thought an
awful lot, and will probably write about this thought
process later.
Boxing day I went out, and thonkfully, much more was
open. I had a
coffee at Mickeedee's and them M. phoned to check that
I hadn't starved
I walked up the the Rat and Parrot and had Nachos and
house salad. The
South Africans came and said hi, but they were the
kind of people I can only know when intoxicated.
I went home and was alone in the dorm, and so had a
drink there.
In the street outside, there was a really drunk woman,
being very
dramatic with a boy while another girl shoo'd everyone
away because they
were 'sorting int out'.
The girl had a really long go at him, then tried to
get close, but he
seemed quite sober and disinterested and just walked
away..
That was boxing day. I fotgot, I sat in the toilet for
an hour
Christmas Day and finished The five people you meet
in heaven.
Next day I checked out. I had nothing clean and was
thinking of a
night in London, but Nikki phoned abut 10:30 and asked
when I was
coming up.
The coach was three hours to London, a coffee in
Victoria, then the
tube right out to Aversham, then she picked me up.
We chatted, arrived at a huge country house, gravel
drive so big that there was furniture out there, five garages with a
racing car in one
of them, stables with two horses and three fields.
She showed me to my room. It belonged to a girl and a
teenage girl, and
it showed, in shocking pink full of teenage stuff. It
was strange. The
whole house looked like the family had just walked out
with their stuff
thrown everywhere, shampoo uncapped, underwear on
floor. For example,
for the whole of the time I was there a child's shoe,
single, lay in
the middle of the loungue and was never picked up or
reunited with its
other.
There were three dogs. Hers, Briggs a mixed breed, and
two Dauchhounds.
Nikki cooked pasta and we ate. She insisted that the
TV be off while
we ate. Then she watched The Quiet American
while I went to a
seperate games room and watched the French and
Saunders Christmas
Special.
Next day I woke. She has a smokers cough, so I made
coffee and went
outside. She said she hadn't slept so well and so went
back to bed. I
sat and wrote about soberiety. When she woke we went
for a walk around
the fields with the dogs and she showed me the horses.
We passed a man
in tweed who touched his cap to her.
Later she didn't feel like cooking, so we went out for
take out. I
insisted on paying because she'd made the pasta
previously. Later we
went to The Merlin pub. She told me about her best
friend Nicole, whom
she had grown away from since she had children and she
had settled for
a man Oliver, who she wouldn't have bothered with ten
years ago. Then
she told me about this self-centred Aunt who had
messed up her
Christman plans.
I was turning off by now. I realised that if I ever
tell anyone my
thought process I might be locked up. I was imagining
being a war
orphan from London, being shut up in this place I hate
and don't fit in
with. I went straight to bed and she asked if I was
happy and glad I
came, so even by then it was becoming obvious I was
tuning out.
Next day, she wanted to go to IKEA, so I stayed alone.
I made coffee
and sat out on this trampoline looking out over the
fields. I was
really unhappy by then; the bordom. I just couldn't do
what I wanted.
She returned with a fleece blanket as a gift. Her
debit card had been
declined because the owners hadn't left her any money.
I went to lie down to walm up and be alone, then she
called me down for
a walk. During this, she asked me about my leg. I said
it was a symptom
of a genetic disease but didn't go further.
The dogs ran away. She told me about a dream she had
the previous
night. She had a ticket to go somewhere on a train but
left them on the
counter when someone came to show her something. She
was led to a
platform where someone had nailed a dog to the floor.
It still wagged
its tail 'because dogs can always be friendly, even in
pain', so she
took it to the vet where it died... and she felt
really angry at the
people who had done this.
She said she didn't know what it meant and I was
shocked at her lack of
insight.
I went straight up the the bedroom when I got back and
took notes for
my diary. I realised how much better I feel when I
know all this is
going online and anyone can see it, even though no one
ever reads this
far. At one point I wrote, 'I'm in a foreign prison'.
She wanted to watch Eastenders, so I said I'd wait in
the pub at the
end of the road. I went and it was so good to be out
and alone. She
came and we left straight away because she doesn't
like the smokey
atmosphere. We walked on to the Milton Indian Thai
Restaurant. She had
a chicken dish but I only ordered soup as this was
expensive. We pulled
a cracker. I had a balloon and the joke was, What
martial arts hero
lives in a pod: Bruce Pea. My mind was elsewhere
and she kept
telling me to say something.
Then she said, either say something and have a
conversation or we might
as well have it take away. You've taken me out so you
have to say
something. I said I can't just force a conversation. I
tried to think
of something to say but couldn't, so said I'd ask if
it can be
take-out. The owners said yes. The bill was sixteen
pounds. I looked,
and after the total, tax and charge, there was about
two pounds
over-charged, but I just wanted to go so I paid it all
myself. She
offered ten pounds but I said it was OK. She looked
over to another
person sitting on the sofa paying for his takeout.
When he took all his
change from the folder, she said, 'there's someone
else with no
conscience'.
We walked home. I felt ashamed in a way, although
looking back probably
shouldn't have as the ADD symptoms do make me
withdrawn and 'elsewhere'
for much of the time; but at least it was over. I
decided that if I
ever meet someone in the future and get an invite to
something, I'm
going to say straight up the condition I have and list
all of the
symptoms; I'm not much of a friend I guess, and never
can be.
As soon as we got back, she said she wants to watch
'The Shipping
News', which was maybe why she hadn't wanted to stay.
She went to bed
after. I went out in the cold to smoke and was really
dizzy, even
though it was only tabacco.
I was up at nine. A couple of photos of the dogs. They
really liked me.
She got up and said she wanted to go to M&S, but I had
the feeling she
wasn't really going just then. She drove me to the
station and I gave
her a Christmas Gift I'd got in Northampton before
leaving. Then I was
gone.
It was really difficult to get back to feeling normal;
though great to
be out. The tube in took ages. The bus to Oxford left
in Buckingham
Palace Road. I arrived after two hours at the station
and found Oxford
Backpackers. It was young and friendly. I went out
shopping, came home
and showered and had a nice night watching dvds with
foreigners in a
brash, loud atmosphere -- HOME!
Today I went out to Cowley Road but there was nothing
there. I came
back. M phoned to say hello. I came home and here I
sit typing.
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Places I'd Rather Be Than Here
1 -- A Coal Miners House
Up north, a small and pokey sitting room with a
traditional man in
a dirty whit with braces, not liking my nancy-pancy
ideas -- like
running water.
2 -- Camping on a Snow-Laden Mountainside in a storm
With some guy who's 40 but looks 50, with ice in
his beard, ear
hair, nose hair, eyelashes, with super micro
underclothes bodice, micro
bodice, standard bodice -- and then all the laters of
waterproofs
start, while I languish there with only a silver lycro
jockstrap
because when he invited me on holiday I assumed that
it would be to the
tropics.
He makes soup to cheep us up. He had the gorme delux
stuff as he paid
for everything, and I get a pot noodle, which he thaws
his beard in
before serving.
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The Intruder
I've broken into someone's house and am in intruder. I
don't want to be
an intruder, but I am.
This is awful; she got to know me at home in the
tropics where I was
drunk and myself. So I came to see her here, in a
country estate, with
horses, icy fields, tractors, dogs and myself, as I
am.
Stiff and awdward, out of place and desperate to be
alone, lost in some
hostel or a busy street where no one knows me and no
one notices.
Everyone aspires to a country estate, but here,
I realise, I
don't. Alone in a beg house, with oil paintings
of forgotten
relatives, children's clothes and books on the floor,
uncapped shampoo
in the bathroom, a Marie Celeste of a normal white
family in the
English countryside; I am an intruder.
Maybe I drifted too long, but the rough edges chipped
in from rolling
down random paths will now never be chipped away.
Alone, I have to
leave the house for a fresty corner of the garden,
sitting on the edge
of a trampoline where the normal children played their
normal games, I
gazed over the fields, treea and grass, the for from
my breath: trying
to feel comfortable in the few things I know.
I'll never know for sufe, if it's my disease, my past
or just who I am
-- but I can never be what most people are. I'll never
want one little
place where I can be snug and live in forever. I'll
never have somewhere
to live with nicknacks, useless ornaments and remiders
of places now
lost. Objects to look at and not use. Things to have
that can be used
for a time, and then become things to look at on a
shelf.
I think, deep down, I'll never meet with somebody.
Whenever someone is
there, the distancing starts. My few possessions are
functional and not
for shelves. There's no one for me who wants nothing.
Perhaps it's
better to admit that?
Once, it was all I wanted; the though of sharing
everything about each
other with someone who just gives a damn. But I don't
think that that
exists, expecially for someone like me. Just because
you always wanted one thing doesn't necessarily mean that your life
should be spent
obtaining it, the point could also be to realise that
either it's not
right for you -- or it also might not exist at all.
What, really, is that whispy phantasm which people are
hoping for when they search for love and stability?
I just now realised why I'm so blase about my health
and future,
there's nothing to lose. A few times I've found a lump
in by body; they
come and they go and I sigh, because they mean a
different thing to me
than to the family man who owns the estate. Who did,
in fact, nail down
this puppy?
to be alone in a bar, with nachos, soda and my
notebook, listening to
the voices and writing as I please
have dinnner with someone who really likes me and I
feel comfortable
with, out, somewhere nice.
for a really good film at the cinema
to be in a big dorm with 25 beds and all races, ages,
nationalities and
faiths surrounding me
to have movey and a ticket to be ging somewhere new
to do an acrylic painting, a still-sife, which I can
give as a gift to
a friend.
to see my friend again.
to have a day somewhre new with a camera and a million
cafes to write
in.
to have enough money to not worry about the future.
to have someone to show me what to do when I'm not
sure.
to not have this disease, but retain a few of its
symptoms.
for people not to hate this disease.
to know that someday, somone will read evertthing I
ever wrote, and it
will make them a better person.
to one day slip away from life, removed from the NHS,
escaped from
England, surrounded by compassionate people who let me
choose, with
dignity, when I leave the earth.
to eat a pad thai
to know what's expected of me by whatever put me here.
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A Million Miles Away
I'm here, but I'm not.
She speaks,but I'm paying attention within.
I'm looking around, but the things I see, aren't with
my eyes.
My bodie's here, but my mind wont stop, going where it
pleases, into
the worlds it chooses.
Sad -- because it's lonely, but sometimes it does what
it does.
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I yearn...
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1st January 2006
Oxford Backpackers
I love sitting here typing with the keyboard on my
lap, which is how I type, in the colourful little
hostel.
Well, for some reason I can't open the web-space, so
I'll be correcting this and uploading ot from London
no doubt. New Year wasn't so bad. I sat in the hostel,
which I like, and had a drink. There's this London guy
of about forty. He kept trying to join in with
everyone. So there was this party, and he kind of sat
in a corner and smiled at all the jokes and talked to
them even though he wasn't part of the group. I feel
like that sometimes, though I'm rarely the oldest in
these places. There's a woman of about fifty. Last
night she came in and was reading a book from church
Solace for the Lonely.
So everyone went out, and I went to the hall for
midnight, looking at the colourful muriels in the
hallway. This place, like so many hostels, is
basically for teenagers or early twenties and I do
feel like an outsider sometimes... but other times
not. Last night, this Australian woman gave me chips,
well, we shared them, and kept coming over and talking
to me.
The next day (she just passed actually), which was
today, the first, I went out and bought another
disposable camera. Then I went sight-seeing. Like so
many days this winter, it was sunny and pleasant. I'm
not sure exactly what I photographed, but one of the
places was a square where Oscar Widle spent time as a
student... which is the second time I've been where he
was.
So, then I went to BHS and wrote everyone a postcard,
including Junko. Next, I went home. I was thinking of
the cinema, to see The Producers, but it's seven
pounds. So I went on to the pub next door (almost) and
had a nice time there. then I came back and it's dvd
night. There are a couple lying in a makeshift bed in
reception, and the pool table has been made into a bed
with two women, including the one who spoke to me last
night, watching Madagasgar, which was fun. I went out
after for food, but now it's an action film... so I'm
sitting here typing this.
I dunno what to say, though I suppose I should say
something, as it's new year. This keyboard, on my lap
while I touch-type looking away from the computer,
it's almost like a loved musical instrument which I am
using to express myself.
Oh yes, yes, the meaningful thing I feel oblidged to
say.
I think this year, perhaps, I've come to accept that
the thing I was really looking for doesn't exist. You
know what I was looking for. I was looking to be
together with someone. Maybe my few days with Nikki
just brought home how all-pervading this illness is,
and it really means that FI'm not going to be with
anyone. I suppose everyone is looking for
companionship, but if you find it, there must be a
mundaneness to it. There's something shameful in not
having found someone also I think. All these people
sit about and say that they don't need anyone, but
everyone knows it's not true; there's just nothing
like having that degree of intimacy with another
person. It IS failure isn't it?
Oh, this is good. I'm leaning back and looking at
theyceilihng while I type; it beats any kind of
psychotherepy.
But it isn't foing to happen. I've always had this
attention problem. OK, so now I know it's a symptom,
but the effect is still the same. I recall with
eceryone I ever got to know at all, I did go inside
myself and shot them out without knowing.
So what was different with Junko... Junko Imanishi (of
course)?
There's only one problem with it all. If I accept that
this is just the way I am and this is how it's going
to be for me, there's not so much to carry on for. I
don't mean that I shouldn't carry on, but that...
there's just not so much fun going to all this trouble
to eke out a new life just for myself.
This is what I'm doing; I'm sitting on the edge of a
backpackerworld, starting to not fit in, hah, that I
ever fitted in, and I don't know what to do. I would
soon be like this goy of last night, trying to muscle
in with a place, or world, that doesn't want me. If I
was only really ever happy in Perth, then maybe I've
spent my whole life trying to recreate that?
So what if I don't recreate it? I can do these
courses, work somewhere, maybe even do well and save
money, but for what? I accept that I can't be with
anyone, it's even hard to make a simple friend as I
ignore people without knowing, then there will have to
be enough happiness for me to bother. ... ... ... and
what if there's not?
I think that the only thing to cling to is the
knowledge that everything has a reason. Whatever I
face, and always have, it must be for the best. Look,
I'm still here, I expected to be gone on boxing day.
Maybe I should not think about it all for now, but
just enjoy the common room.
Some Pictures from this Period
Main Church in Bath
There are ladders on the outside to commemorate someone's dream, about... ladders to heaven
The ladders closer
River near where I stayed
Nikki's dog
The plants ended up growing OK!
Mother at Annes on a sleepover
She was already feeling ill by now (pic might not be available)
At Nikkis house, I had to stay in the room belonging to two teenage girls, and it showed
They were rich people
Very rich
Couldn't settle
Hardly ate anything
New Year in Oxford was fantastic, but I lost the little disposable camera
Bumped into Yasmine but I can't remember when
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