the future’s so bright,

| terriblysorryprod

With a numbed hand I grasp at my cards and smile as I just remembered I forgot the rules. It’s something to do with dice right? The peaked crackle of my voice is sincere and I make my peace with Tyche. Perhaps what is heading towards me is validation – something shunned, but desperately needed.

Today I acquired the knowledge that I have skills. Skills I, without notice mind you, bred gently until an expected but nonetheless unwelcome plateau. The latter being from a direct cause of hysteria, panic and lethargy; a cocktail I’m fond of. I learned that I – as I do – coming from a place of no qualifications, no way of truly fitting into the puzzle and holding on to a desperate need to do something creative under my own rules (I was shit at P.E.) I began terrorising myself for all that I wasn’t. Leading to what I never could be; happy.

Don’t be plight, I’m not happy – far from it. The meaning of the word is too easy a target for my brain to pick apart mercilessly like a wolf and a carcass. Though, Alan Watts’ Black/White Problem springs to mind. The absence of “sad” is not happy, though it is thrilled just be included (“sad” was also shit at P.E.)

No, rather I’m so excited for the bright future ahead that I’ve very much been blinded by my present.

clown (i of little substance)

| terriblysorryprod

The clown downstairs does not take his job as a Clown very seriously. Whilst I am always keen to ask how his unicycle tribute act is shaping up. He mutters his stutters and lately I have grown tired of asking, soon I will stop asking.

Today, I stopped asking.

I don’t see him as much now, though I hear him all the same. Last I heard he was removed from Clown College on the basis of unorthodox protest, followed by misconduct in the Balloon Animals Module. Little is understood about the balloon animal incident but when I asked our shared neighbour what he was protesting the lady simply replied “Love”. What a pompous clown, I thought.

You get the sense he’s not without an internal struggle, I’m not one for psychoanalysis but I believe he’s allowing ones loneliness to produce a fascistic anger. His passion has wained, and his unicycle laughably rusty. He who has much to say, but whose mouth has fallen from their face and into their soup. He whose words have pontification but very little meaning. Social media may give him a platform but the distancing of his relatives say more than he ever could.

After I found him swinging I took it upon myself to learn as much as possible before the police ask the difficult questions. The questions that bring the precious day to a dull standstill. A diary entry – of course he keeps a diary; what a pompous clown, I thought. A diary entry talks of stardust and other earthly matters: “I feel the calm of stardust” he writes. “I lay down admiration for the days where reason arrives, the mornings that allow mourning. I hate that line; but I’m not a coward.” Oh, he has much to say! – an eagerness rivalled only by impulse. What a pompous clown! I retched.

The last page reads:

“Beautiful is an ostentatious word,
one that lies above the tarnish of reality;
yet says absolutely nothing!
I would be offended if someone said my work was “Beautiful”
But “pulchritudinous” is just far too excessive and sought out.
Like most things that trouble me,
I neglect the in-between.
I hide from the excessive
I rely on ostentatious.
This quiet falls upon happier times,
And the pens ink is left to dry.“

This, I actually quite like. Perhaps I should look into clown school.

regarding the fame of others.

| terriblysorryprod

If you do decide to do your business with the skeptic, know beforehand that a cynical lover has an extraordinary potential within themselves to taint your heart with recurring motif – it’s hard to forget your newly theatrical life is just the matinee. The trick of their venom is that it’s hallucinatory; delirium. After its strike you spend years trying to remember one key thing: who was I?

The timer rings; ‘who was I‘ becomes ‘when was that‘ becomes ‘what was that‘ as the memory melts to haze and all you remember is that you could if you tried.

Now you exist in chance of proposition, a land of cold commission; icicles fall from your nose. You wake up to that buzz which despite your lawyers’ best efforts is just chimeric. After a few rounds of flagellation in the form of aggressive masturbation you decide a cup of tea and some off brand cereal will save the waining day – or rather you spend so much time convincing you forget to be convinced.

You’re left with nothing as you’re told your words have “weight” but that’s not something you want. You’d rather be able to speak light and free as the very breeze of blue – not the slug that dissolves at the mere sound of pronunciation.

The trick is to kill your darlings – kill me for saying it. Once you separate horse from man a minotaur is nothing but a bloody mess; a pile of guts. Simply put, you fly; you create. You find out which of your guts twinge for more once you get your photos back, or when the sculpture sets.

If nothing else and regarding the fame of others, you may hold on to that buzz that caught your attention not ten minutes ago – but realise you just never reset the timer.

Thank you for reading. This post was inspired by my recent decision to create all the things I was too afraid to start once the minotaur stood in my way (this blog being part of that). If you’re interested in subjecting yourself to more, you can check out my first photography portfolio online for the whole world to see: ‘Wasteland’.

play it as it lays

| terriblysorryprod

Just as the golfer must continue playing no matter where his strike lands, we must play it as it lays. I believe that’s where the saying came from; I’m neither a golfer nor middle class – I just have access to Google.

Blog introductory posts are hideous. Often filled with brisk optimism that’s only laughed at by the author not three months later. The laugh meaning many things; it could be one of regret – why was I so overtly serious there? or perhaps why was I so naive there? the laugh could even come from a wider regret, a non-diegetic regret framed outside the walls of WordPress and instead a quick thought briskly racing through your head asking you “why didn’t you ever carry on with that blog?”

I’m not sure I like blogging. I don’t like blogging the same way I don’t like keeping my life together – in that, I actually do; but I don’t.

Amy lives in London already. I on the other hand made the inspired choice to live in Derby. I hold no angst for the place but neither do I find myself holding any torches for it either. No no, I’ve romanticised the idea of a big, creative, hustling and/or bustling city for far too long now to believe would submit to the warranty on my rose tinted glasses.

I’ve been struggling to express myself lately – Is what I would have said three months ago. Now I’ll tell you that I have numerous ways of expressing myself . None of them fully formed and only substantial in that they perpetuate the myth that I have a developed personality.

Come July I’ll be moving to London. I’ve packed nothing but snake oil and a small napkin with my goals poorly inscribed onto it.

This is where I would show you the napkin.

This is where I confess I lost the napkin.

Play it as it lays.