Yes, another blog. I am presuming that this means I have climbed over some emotional barrier to bloghood which previously prevented me from regular assaults on the blogwaves for lengthy periods and that this in some small way means I have turned a metaphorical corner and am heading back up the home straight towards the winning post, representing some theraputic leap forward.
Of course there is also the fact that probably no one gives a shit if I blog or not, which leads me to the question of why do it at all. For a lot of people writing down the nonsense of their lives is a catharsis, a way of making sense of it all. It is there, on the screen ergo it is real and not just a nightmare happening to someone we've imagined. Whilst my life is in no ways perfect it could, in many respects be a lot worse. This is something I once resolved not to say because it was usually the precusor to my life taking a dramatic turn for the worst. Now I've come to accept that into each life a fair amount of shit gets thrown, I feel a lot calmer about things like saying "it could be worse".
Of course if you're reading this blog in six months and I'm writing from an internet cafe because I now live in a cardboard box under the railway arches at Kings Cross, you can take it as a dire warning that I was wrong to be so phlegmatic and, yes, things can get a lot bloody worse!! Oh yes!
But at the moment there is a kind of bucolic tranquility to my existence that is both enjoyable and slightly disturbing. Enjoyable for the obvious reasons of sunshine, wide open spaces and unpredictable but nonetheless enjoyable bouts of sex. Disturbing because I now have the 'doom' gene and am constantly wondering when this pleasant bubble will be burst, exposing me to the grim reality which doubtless lurks without.
As I write I am still without employment; something which ought to give me great joy as I do nothing but complain about work when I have it to do! But it is not so much the being without that disturbs me as the knowing that I have a job but not knowing when I will suddenly be expected to begin doing it. You can't make plans or get on with things under such circumstances. It's all very peculiar. In an effort to save money I am in a state of semi-temperance. My body is very puzzled by this. "Where are the copious amounts of cider, pringles and weed?" it demands in the plaintive Cartman-esque voice of a small, fat child abandoned by the side of a seldom used road.
"There are none." I explain to it in the solemn, rational tones of an adult. Then I have to listen to it crying for the next 16 hours.
This afternoon in another attempt to save money, I dusted the mouse shit off my bike and pedalled the five miles or so round trip into the nearest town with open shops that sell anything anyone might actually want or be able to afford; this small and pretty market town is jokingly referred to around these parts as "the metropolis". It is an essential part of Sadie's day to day existence as it is where the library lives and it has that most miraculous of things in our increasingly dumbed down, corporate-whore-world - an independent bookshop. It also has a very nice wine shop. (The fat child is now grizzling again!)
Ignoring the fact that I haven't regularly ridden a bicycle since I was about 14 years old; I boldly pedalled on, sweating like an Arab's donkey and managed not to fall off the bike or get run over by a combine harvester before I got there. Feeling virtuous I admired the fact that our society is not so far in decline that we have been denied such things as pavement cafes (I counted three, which for a town of approximately 5,600 people and a cocker spaniel is pretty good going) or a French Market (it's going to be either French or Farmers... around here generally the latter!) I bought some very nice Caemembert, in a fit of whatever the french word is for rampant cheese frenzy. *waves nice cheese at newly suited DC* resisted cake *doubly virtuous* and accquired a Guardian and some Linda McCartney country pies. (I had to go to the Co-op for the pies, obviously. The French consider vegetarianism to be a fatal disease!)
I also failed to resist the lure of the bookshop and ordered a book (by Martin Clayton, one of my MSpac friends... go and say hi to him). On my way home I had to stop to answer my mobile (a rare occurence as Sadie does not actively encourage people to ring her on her mobile if she can avoid it!) It was the lady from the bookshop, politely apologising for the fact that the book was published in the USA and would take 2 weeks to arrive. I was not too distressed by this as I have a pile of things to read that you could quite easily bridge the English Channel with. I was however bemused by the fact that a novel by an English writer, about English people living in an English town has to be published in the USA where they probably couldn't find England on a map (unless they googled it). What is wrong with the English publishers? Too busy looking for the next Harry Potter, no doubt!
It has just occurred to me on examination that the other reason I probably don't blog so much is that bugger all ever really happens. Or is that just another state of mind? Oh well... at least the sun is shining.