Absent Friends

I missed a gig tonight. That is a first. I can barely afford to turn down the work, let alone fail to turn up for it. In actual fact I had a diary malfunction, and arrived in January for a gig that was actually tonight. That, my friend, is early. I was angry, oh so angry, I think I even huffed. I was certainly reluctant to leave. Finally I decided that performing card tricks to empty chairs probably wouldn't raise much of a reaction, or, more importantly, a fee. But back in January, so off-ticked was I at the no-show, that I must have failed to reschedule the schedule in my scheduler, and hence, last night, watched television and ate crisps whilst a whole room went without card tricks. Imagine! A room left bare, absent of the wonder of Me, alone in vanderpoverty. I can hardly contain myself thinking of all those poor little people, desperate, stranded, boring each other silly with stories of their poor little lives, crying out in vain hope against hope, for a handsome, besuited, hobbitty stranger to stride in and baffle them with card tricks. When they were denied, life can hardly have been worth living. So I take this moment to apologise to one and all. Fear not, for like my rope, Normal Service has been restored.

Moving on

That the vans had painted signs was why she never saw it coming, she said. Logos, letter headings and uniforms, they had it all, she said. That's why she never saw it coming. When they came she even offered to lend a hand, she helped them load up desks and drawers and cupboards and chairs. She made coffees while they wheeled cabinets and stacked self-assembled boxes three high one by one. They didn't stop at the painted vans, she said, they had offices and mobile phone numbers and receptionists who put her through to extensions. She felt safe that they had receptionists. She never suspected a thing because they had receptionists. It was only when she arrived to a bare office, stripped of all but the carpet, wires trailing, doors left open, absent of life, she twigged all was not well. They called numbers that nobody answered, they wrote letters to which no-one replied and filed charges against a company that had never existed, two of them even went to the addresss printed so effortlessly on that 80gsm paper, but, of course, by that time it was all too late. They never did locate their office. Sometime later, through a friend of a friend, one of them heard about a new firm, just recently opened up across the river, selling a fine line in office furniture, that just so happened to have some wonderful stationary. But that was just a whisper.

Not An Option

I don't know why I bought it really, a book I'd never heard of by an author I'd never read. I don't know why I bought it, but I bought it nonetheless. That was the conversation I wanted to have; a conversation I stood there rehearsing, pretending to be with some good friend, the book resting in my hand in its polythene cover as I talked him or her through this extravagant purchase. Silly really, standing outside a shop silently moving my lips and gesturing with my eyebrows, practising. I'm kidding myself of course, looking through the glass at a book of pictures I have been unable to shake from my mind since I passed by three weeks ago. Any excuse I get, any opportunity, I detour past this shop, night or day, rain or shine, I walk down this little alley and stand looking through the glass at that monochrome man. His dark eyes, looking down, off to the right, his thin skin covering his sharp cheekbones, the scattering of stubble and his thick long black hair, swept back. I stand looking at that. One day I would like to go in, ask maybe how much it cost. One day I would like that.

Hair

On Saturday the Tenth of February I sat in a chair and had my hair cut. In that well lit mirror I watched my hair chopped, I saw it snipped and sliced, I saw locks come tumbling down and months and years fall from me. And as I saw all of this, something lifted from me. Understand this: every day for four long years of sickness, every day, whether it was crawling from my bed in the morning, waking in some fluorescent hospital ward, or vomiting into some unknown toilet, every day I would look at myself in the mirror, to see those gaunt, haunted, dilated pupils, to see that face, long haired and unshaven, to see my self. And though I will always have those memories, I want no more reminders; it is time to move on. So, on Saturday the Tenth of February I sat in a chair and had my hair cut. At £61.89 it was the cheapest therapy I've ever had.

Sign Language

The underground is at war with our perceptions, each day they use more and more of their linguistic mind control and each day we know less and less what to think. Regular service is a thing of the past, it has vanished like the 'small' in McDonalds, these days service is 'Good', like a saint or the messiah. 'Bad' service is not an option; when things go wrong Minor Delays are spoken of, as if the fault lies anywhere but with the Service. The Service is Good, it can be nothing but. No 'average', no 'it's going ok, thanks for asking', no 'fingers crossed', it's either piety or denial. Repairs have been rebranded, they've given up on Engineering Works, because it obviously doesn't, and now they rather smugly refer to line closures as Improvement Works. Is this one more way to spin a positive slant or, more worringly, is this the start of a slow slide? Are we witnessing a steady decline in their optimism? What's next? Possibly Works? Occasionally Works? Soon they'll finally come out and admit what we know already: Nothing Works.

No Laughing Matter

I went to a clown's funeral today; I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. As I walked into the church the other clowns were parping their big red noses into soggy handkerchiefs and wringing them out over the slippery floor. I knelt by the casket and laid the flowers I had brought; a small bunch of daisies near the rear squirted water in my eye. The priest said he died with a smile on his face. I wondered how they could tell. Afterwards we drove to the cemetery, the parade led by a tall clown called BoBo, pedalling furiously on a tiny bicycke and clutching an umbrella in the beating sun. When we arrived, twelve clowns with bright yellow wigs tumbled out of the small black hearse one by one. The doors fell off and the rear suspension collapsed, sending the coffin shooting from the back, knocking down a small whiteface called JoJo tying his laces. He fell into the open grave and we shuffled nervously not sure what to do. Someone else passed forward a little hat with propellers on the top, a lady clown pulled out a small ladder from her stockings, and others suggested we get hold of a trampoline. Eventually though we passed down a belt from a fat clown at the back that no-one seemed to know. We tied it to a tree a few yards back, threw in a unicycle and JoJo peddled out, wobbling and juggling rocks as he went. The fat clown's pants fell down and everyone clapped. As they lowered the coffin into the grave, people started to whisper. The poor dead fool was too big for the box, unable to close the casket, they had had to cut a hole in the lid for his feet to point through, and now they poked out the height of a small child. Even after they filled in the grave they still stuck out. In the end we painted them grey, and everyone said it was a very good job, that no-one would notice, and besides no-one had the money for a gravestone anyway. Afterwards we went back to his mother's for tea, she gave us all custard pies and squirted soda water in our mouths. As I left, one of his old friends came up to me and shook my hand, a shock passed through me and I looked at him. He shrugged his shoulders and waddled back inside, slapping his big shoes as he went. I took my coat and closed the door softly behind me.

Those three clumsy words

Sometimes I think it's me, sometimes I think it's bigger than me, but whatever the cause, I have never been out with a girl on Valentines. Last year was the closest, so close it hurts, on V-Day last year I was lying on a bed with my one true love... Sadly it happened to be in hospital and when I say I was lying, really I was floating somewhere near the flourescents in a haze of fuzzy drugs. But c'est la vie, at least physically we occupied the same space, and that's something. Before that it's always been a no-score draw, unless you count the time I was twenty one and my girlfriend was in America at the time, but the flowers I sent never showed up so she certainly didn't. See I either break-up just before, or meet someone just after; it's uncanny. And bleakness. This year I set a new low point for bleakness: apart as we speak from the one I love, I spent the night doing card tricks for couples lost in each others' eyes. They needed to find a room, not the seven of spades. I gave up after three rejections and bought a steak dinner. Sometimes you just need a big plate of thick juicy meat.

Eating Habits

The mid-meal check: I hate it. There you are, eating out, munching through your payday, you get to that point of the meal where you've got a bit lazy, a bit tired, you're not cutting the food into quite small enough forkfuls, and you shove a too-big-bite into your mouth. Hey-ho, a waiter comes running up- is everything ok sir? -'mhmfh?' -with your food sir, everything ok? -'wyne fthwankooo.' Why do they do this?! I'm eating! I have a mouthful of food! It's rude to talk with your mouth full! And damnit my chips are cold!!! That's the burn you see, they wait 'til you're disabled and have no comeback. Chips too cold, ice-cream lukewarm? Too bad, your cakehole is shut fast and by the time you can speak they've gone. Soon I'll break baby, oh soon baby soon. I'll spit my food on the floor, on the plate, on my hands and say 'I'm terribly sorry, I was in the middle of something, but this is just too important to wait.'

Praylist

My iPod can shuffle songs; clever iPod. It can also play songs in a random order, it's slight, but there's a distinction; clever iPod. One day I dream I shall shuffle my songs, select random play, and bam! they'll return to their previously ordered state. It's a long shot, a one in 4236! chance, but that's about the chance of the other hope I live my life in, so let's hang in there shall we?

A Lesson

God loves a trier, but fate loves a liar.

Night Out

I wish I was more drunk. At the parties I go to everyone is so tall. Outside in the grey daylight the poor and downtrodden hunch and shuffle, but not in the neon lit darkness of the places I inhabit. Here they are all long limbs and suspended posture, uplifted as if by the bubbles of their champagne. I think the tall are generally more successful, tall men meeting tall women, breeding taller children who perpetuate the spiral ever upwards. No place for the small. Sometimes I wonder what use a dictionary would be if you understood no words. Sometimes I think I would like to meet someone who doesn't disappoint me. Try looking that up. A guy leans over to me and says, my dad died in his sleep eight hours ago. I look at my drink. I'm just killing time now, he says. I look at my drink. He walks away. I wish I was less drunk.

holding hands is optional

On the bus a guy sits smoking, blasting tinny white rap from the speaker of his tinny white phone. We sit there in toleration, in silent meekness as he inflicts this aural violation on us. This is violence, an act of out and out aggression, a call to confrontation if any one should consider themselves worthy. But this will not be risen to, not here, no-one wants their story to end like this, on a W3 to Finsbury Park, who wants to die fighting over the volume of faux hip-hop? So we crumble, yield and demur, we live with inaction, paralysed in this deep, creeping sense of paranoia.

Self Discovery

I find leopard-print dresses quite sexy.
But I can't say the same for leopards.

Rush Hour Life

When doors hiss open bodies unfold and expand like foam from the carriage, they pour around me, surge before me, spill out of tunnels in a tide of scuttling people, hurrying past on skinny insect legs, clipping the backs of heels, and spitting rage at each other. A new river streams onto the platform, the two currents colliding and tangling together, the new flock swarms onto the carriage, filling it with more than before and clothing is crushed and pressed together, limbs lose their owners, bags are shoved and torn asunder. The doors slide shut, severing the weak who blink weeping on the platform as they are left outside to contemplate the consequences of being late. Inside they stick to the glass like flies, a crush of perfectly tailored contortionists, victorious at the addition of three precious minutes to their blackberry driven lives. I'll get the next one, I think, I can wait that slow three minutes, it is a luxury I allow myself. I walk at a medium pace, in no rush, I know what time I should be there and left accordingly, scheduling a hobby of mine. I feel neither the pressure to keep up nor the pressure to slow down.