Monday 14 March 2011

Token Update

Because the last update here is pre-Valentine's, and because much has happened since then (alas, not romantically, but I'm in a new flat, working in a new place and enjoying at least the presence of some new cute female friends in my life) I thought I'd copy and paste this piece of writing from my more frequently used Blog at Tumblr. Enjoy:

My bedroom window looks out onto a brick wall. It offers no distractions. This is both good and bad, as distractions spark off ideas as often as they lead you off on pointless exercises. But, look, a little closer. Just what is going on with this brick wall?

The brick wall is the far side of an alleyway into which the window looks down. The alleyway is occupied, upon further inspection, by a chef holding aloft a silver platter, upon which is a domed lid. Not a real chef but a plastic simulacrum of one, that I’m reliably informed was once lacking a head. I’d like to think in those days there was a suggestion that perhaps the concealed dish held his head, that it was some sort of macabre - if brightly painted - headless spirit, haunting the alleyway.

The alleyway has another occupant. Down from the bedroom window, looking out into the alleyway towards the same far wall, rests the glassy eyed head of a tiger. Whether it belongs to a genuine stuffed tiger’s head or some sort of costume I’ve not been close enough to check but there he sits, watching, perhaps guarding, perhaps just waiting for the sun to come.

Maybe the chef and the tiger take it in turns to use the chef’s body. I don’t know.

At the top of the wall opposite the window is a railway station. In particular, just over the edge, are railway tracks. Wild flowers peer over the edge, looking down towards the flat, nodding their heads in the breeze. It’s a little bit of nature surviving amidst the noise and chaos of Loughborough Junction.

And yet, beautiful as it is in daylight it really comes into its own at night. Whilst the alleyway and the wall are plunged into darkness the light from the station platform illuminates the plants so that they shine out as beacons atop the wall. A flame that does not flicker, a star that does not twinkle. Just a gently nodding living glowing thing, looking down amongst the darkness. Peering down on us peering up from the window.

Cool. Very cool.

Yesterday’s plan was to get in after work, cook food and then just write, accompanied to music as suggested by American cyber buddy prettyzombiegrl (mostly Sneaker Pimps), but it didn’t happen for quite some time since one of the flat mates was in. So, having made dinner and talked to her for most of the evening, which included moving some of my books into the living room and picking through them for the wise words contained within (think ‘Little Books of Calm’, but with a more zen twist) I ended up retiring to my room at about 11pm.

And then I read some more of a recently purchased book about writing.

And then, because it was so late…

I wrote. Fuck it. I’d had a good evening but there was still time to write. And so I did. And thoroughly enjoyed it. Writing there, in my little room, with my music playing, and a brick wall peering into the room from the darkness outside. I tuned in, found my voice, and wrote.

And then, this morning, after vivid dreams, made more notes.

Thank you. Yes, you. The chances are if you’re interested in what I have to say about writing, what I have to say about the flat or I have something to say about my life you’re one of the people that’s helped me reach this happy place I’m (for the most part) in at the moment. Yes, there are some really miserable things going on in other parts of my life, but that makes the good things all the more gooder.

Gooder IS a word. Yes.

Thank you. :-) 

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