Is That a Grey Hair?!

Dear God! Get it out! Ahhh!!! No. Wait. Oh... phew. It was just the light.

*sigh of relief*

Don't panic. I'm not old. Just older. Now next year, next year I'll be twenty-five, which of course is a quarter of a century and might be worthy of observance and a small-scale people's revolt. But today. Twenty-four's just this number you know? Habitually noteworthy for being the number of hours in a day, and, inexplicably, the name of some popular TV show. It also, almost magically I might add, is divisible by the numbers one through four inclusive, and six, eight, and twelve, if you try hard enough. Way better than twenty-three, which is divisible by fuck all, seein' as it's a flippin' prime number. Shyah.

Glad to be rid of that drag.

The Last Great Adventure

Let’s go somewhere. Anywhere. Cornwall? Madagascar? Or we could scale both summits of Kilimanjaro, and build a bridge between them. It’s really not important. What is important is that it’s not here. For here, we both know we’re merely treading water. Life’s being put on hold, and for what? We work for the holidays, but even then, there’s always an end in sight. Travel should be limitless. You should go ‘til you can go no more, and whatever golden place you reach, you then call it home for a while. There was a time when this felt like more than a dream. But then reality intervened. Money and time and promises and commitments. I’ll revolt though. All the tangibles that mean fuck-all will be burned, along with all the bridges, and I’ll become the homeless, penniless wanderer. Care to join? You go one way, I’ll go the other, and we’ll meet on the other side of the world, having lived it all. And by the end, you’ll know who you are, and I’ll know who I am, and for that one moment we’ll both be real.

I'm always five pounds short of the loveliest dream.

Hang on a Moment

‘Now just hang on a moment. You don’t detach yourself to increase the common passion.’ So sayeth the new age celestial bastard in the seat behind me on the bus from London as the masterstroke of the argument I’d been avidly not listening to for most of the journey. Between his infuriating platitudes and the strident screech of his domestic disputee filtering through the earpiece of his mobile phone, I couldn’t help myself. But I maintained my isolation. At least until the common passion remark, which was too much and I turned in my seat to tell him to kindly refrain from saying, preferably, anything at all, since his misfounded rationale was only further degrading the entirety of human civilization. Or it’s equally possible, and maybe more, depending on which bookie you usually place your bets with, that I sat in my seat and, since mine was the next stop, said nothing untoward at all.

But I did think it vehemently.

Karma Chameleon

So just write. Sit down and write. It’s what you want to do. It’s when you feel the most free. All the suavity, all the wit, all the wisdom you feel inside can be expressed, instead of remaining pent up as it does in the waking world. The world inhabited by you and others. But here, in this literary existence, the rules are mine. No lack of confidence holding my tongue silent, no over thinking complexities, no mold to fit. So write what you feel. What you wished you’d feel. I’ve realized I’m Kerouac’s ‘Sal Paradise.’ The consummate observer, always willing to go along, but never the instigator. The California summer was the greatest of my life, but it wouldn’t have come about without Ryan. His was the idea, I was just the back up. The companion he needed to go through with it. And I know there’s a level of respect given to me for going through with it. For leaving everything behind with a half-baked idea and, and this is where the respect comes in, making it work. Or maybe that’s not where it comes in. Maybe had we been total failures and come crawling back penniless it would have been the same. Well you tried. Bloody failed but you tried. That wasn’t the case though. We believed that it would all be golden, and it was. Make your own luck? Maybe. Want something bad enough, you make it happen, or simply believed it happened, whether it did or not.

Or maybe this is all wrong. Maybe I just have a low opinion of myself. *Yes* shouted the chorus in the wings. In Morocco I felt the instigator. I was the one hup hupping everyone to make it down for the camel trek. Coordinating, setting it all up. And only part of that was my command of French and the others lack. A lot of it was me seeing what I wanted to do, and urging it to be done. So maybe it’s just in the company we keep… Stand me next to the outspoken and I’m the background character. The accomplice. The follower. But then in another story, I'm the adventurous one. The one seizing and throttling the day. They’re the parts we play. We’re all actors on this great stage. Pick the role you want, when you want, and you’re golden. But more often it’s fitting into the roles that are there waiting for us. Playing the unfilled character. Is everyone like this? Or is this my thing? Do other people have their personality set, whether it’s the forceful, dominant character, or the quiet, meeker one, and they play that role always, no matter the company they keep? Whereas I’m the chameleon. The shape changer.

Watch out, for you never know where I might be hiding.

Buy Me a River

So I very much need the assistance of an economist. Someone who can enlighten me as to the sense behind English business theory. Why, when the typical office working day is from 9-6, do all shops in the town centre only stay open between 9 and 5:30? Small matter, you might say, for one always has an hour lunch break within which to take care of any errands. And so I said to myself today. Lovely weather outside, frightfully unusual as that is, I'll go for a walk and pick up the things I need. Only to then spend fifteen minutes fighting my way through the crowded streets to arrive in front of the store, step up to push my way in, and be pleasantly rebuffed by the door itself. Locked. With a little handwritten note saying 'Back at 2:15.' It's somehow as if these shops are trying to avoid all opportunities for business.

Add this to the phenomenon of '24 hour shops' closing on a Saturday evening, and only reopening for 6 hours on the Sunday, and one has a very laxadaisical approach to business. At least compared to the American version of buy what you want, when you want it. I always did enjoy going into Walmart in the early hours of the morning. Especially in Nacogdoches where all manner of creatures would appear to do their shopping. Here those creatures must do their shopping between 9 and 5:30. What a strange place this is...

Talk about your culture shock.