Company, Without, With again.

Why I live in Essex over London. 

Went out with a girl the other night right. Bit out of the ordinary I know, but yeah, anyway it was well
shit. She was actually pretty (believe it or not), well pretty and it became apparent real quickly that I was out of my league here. She enjoyed chatting and well I was mainly enjoying the cocktails. I felt a little like I had to lie if I was any shot at making this work. I was not up to the level of stories clearly. Jean shopping with Rhys Darby, lines off of fire extinguishers, hanging out with Bon Iver, getting on it with Tiki Taane, just applied for a job as Hugh Grants nanny etc. It was going in one ear and continuing on through the other despite my best efforts to concentrate. It was some Jazz bar we were at and they had a portrait of Louie Armstrong on the wall behind her head. I couldn't help but keep diverting my attention to Louies fully inflated cheeks and wondering how much air he could direct with those two fleshy parachutes on the sides of his face. I even pointed her attention to it. She seemed a little less interested in Louies lips than I was. I had thoughts such as to how many cheese burgers Louie could house at once in there, or how long it would take him to blow up a ly-lo at the beach. My thoughts had run wild, our conversation had gone to absolute shit and I was feeling like just going home. We talked about money and when she heard how much I make at the pub, she asked why I worked there? and why I lived in Essex? then on to my rent?, which finally lead to me sleeping on a couch. And of course why? She made me feel like I needed to sort myself out. I didn't feel I did, but it made me feel shit. Discussing me as If I was some fucking charity case. I even felt a touch of anger at that point. I knew it was going to be shit all along. Like I'm pretty sure I met her because she was looking for drugs and I had a sort of an unkempt columbian look going on at the time. I was feeling kind of lonesome and shit that day. A weekend off and everyone else working. Well it was shit. I hugged her, punching the window in the process by accident, after forking out 25 of my hard earned. I was broke as well at the time and it really depressed me to be cutting my life savings in half for such a lousy time. She will find some musician blower, which she can power snort blow off of fire retarding aids, but I'm really not like that. I thought back to conversations with other girls I'd had, I remember talking to a girl once about the origins of the saying "Happy as Larry" and we laughed and had a time. The gag I made was that surely Larry felt down at some point and, boy was a I feeling like larry when that time hit. I decided to take the underground to work, where I knew I would be able to feast on some complimentary beverages to drown the sorrows. I stopped at Euston, having to walk about a half a mile to Kings Cross to ride a metropolitan. I told you i was feeling lousy and then the rain came down and all the amber lights reflecting off shiny red buses and all the guys out on the town for a friday night holding their gals and all the puddles splashed with the traffic and a siren went off in the distance and I kind of wondered why I was in this place. A crushing place, where the rain makes you feel 10 times heavier than when you're at home. I felt shit. This hair gel I used ran into my eyes from the downpour and I decided to sit for a moment outside the sheltered front of a library. On the railing there was this bum smoking a cigarette, looking sullen and terminally hungered. I sat away from him and decided to have a cigarette myself. I had a pouch because I knew that the girl i was seeing that night smoked from memory and at risk of looking like square I got one too. Should of grabbed a few scores aswell in hindsight, would have been a real hit. It came in handy as I sat there rolling in the dark with a wet old face and a blank old stare. I enjoyed the concentration of rolling rather than the smoking to be honest. My mind was on the job and empty with the steps of bending the paper just so as to catch the filter and trap the tobacco, tunneling it just loose enough to burn. I smoked it and seeing that bum getting up, I decided to rocket off before I had to hand him half my tabbachi supplies. I stopped at a pub less than a stones throw away called O'neills and I naturally ordered a Guinness. I sat there on my own in a packed pub and I just looked out the dripping window and sort of fiddled with a coaster and sipped my pint, and rolled cigarettes. It made me feel better. I ordered another and I enjoyed just sitting there by myself. A packed pub on your own is lonelier than an empty one because you can see all the other people in their groups drinking wine and whisky and other luxury end-of-the-working-week drinks as they laugh and hoot and spit. I liked it though, I regathered some composure in there. I left in decent spirits. I made it to my pub, because sometimes you have to go where everybody knows your name and I drank and laughed with ray and steve and Danny my housemate knocked off and we had a few and all was redeemed and I never remember just once how shit I was feeling an hour prior. I felt good and tried it on with a bird who laughed at my drunkness I guess and my over blown rant at how much I loathed fabric, and how easy it is to fall down the stairs there. Put some goddam rails up I ordered. She was from liverpool or manchester and I asked her about 5 times how long she was staying and she explained every time that she worked here and was living in London, and then we'd chat for a bit and I would forget and ask again haha. I sure was smashed. She left me with a kiss on the cheek. haha she was like 30 but she was nice and looked way younger. I talked about a zombie book with ray. I'm now reading it like and it's alright I guess. I had to because ray was so damn excited about this book and how the trailer for the box office movie in production starring brad pitt looked amazing and he asked who I would rather date out of brad pitt and david beckham and I said Johnny Depp and we were off laughing and of course drinking. haha I had such an odd night with such a friendly and fantastic finish. I can see what kept Norm and cliffy coming back to the bar everynight for some pints, some pointless conversation and the ensuring laughs that follow.

A Starbucks scene and my brain.

haha man, I'm at starbucks right and I was free shaking a few teaspoons worth of sugar granules into my cap right, when I'm bumped from behind by a lady so large I could make an infinite amount of jokes about as I'm at the starbucks on cowcross street (guessing she was meeting some friends, maybe a few hundred head of them) sending the entire sugar shaker into my coffee. I panicked, envisioned by flashes of humiliation and redness so I put my hand in the scolding hot beverage and pulled the ship wrecked sugar vessel out of it's brewed sea of beans and milk. As soon as i had it in my hand I panicked even further, more reaction then decision, like I was holding a fucking live snake or something threw it straight in the bin. I stared down at it for a millisecond and wiped the froth on my hand on my pants and headed for the exit, except I didn't have a takeaway cup and the risk of being chased down the street for the mug I veered down to the additional seating area. Holy fuck in the space of 5 seconds it happened. And when I saw my coffee down stairs, about half of it's original quantity, I burst out laughing. I then thought fuck I'm by myself so I grabbed my phone (Yes I have one now) and pretended to be laughing at a gag on the line. woah, was I red. I completely avoided detection for it and it didn't taste too bad, I mean it was a little sweet, but it could have been a lot worse considering it housed the whole sugar servings of starbucks at one point in it's life. I'm pretty indifferent about the whole situation as it happened in snap, but you need to take everything that makes you laugh and smile so I was glad that pillow women gave me that shove. Something I wasn't indifferent about was losing to Danny last night in Fifa. He was as baked a batch of betty crockers and shaking a bottle of glennfidich 'saying not bad barney' (Wednesday night standard) and still managed to beat me. I couldn't sleep, I think my sleep patterns were being tangled by terror encoded potentials of Gervinho slotting dribblers at the 90th. I haven't really spoken too much about my housemates. Danny has become one of my best mates and Emma (who we call mum) is the greatest. I can't explain things like this too well. Like how much I appreciate others. All I can say is I love them both and I know I will be at one of the saddest times I've had saying goodbye to them. Mum (Em) cooked us a mean roast on sunday night to conclude lads day, (beer and football) which was great. Was a pretty strong bird. She really cooks a homely meal that girl, and she is the reason solely why I haven't yet gotten scurvy over here. I really appreciate it when Em cooks me a meal. yep we love ol' Em too bits. On another note I'm meeting up for a drink tomorrow with a girl, which I'm looking forward to. She seemed really nice when I met her and I hope I don't drop any shakers in my drink haha. Anyway I have to do my old sign off which is I have to go to work and all. I'm not too worried about it to be honest. Lukas is in today, and Lukas is the dude, and it's his shout tonight so I will have a couple and it will be all gravy as Patty Nix would say. ahh I shouldn't say that, now I'm going to be missing Patty Nix all night. Alright see ya, over and out.

As I cannot afford to get my films developed right now. I made a film look pic. Not the same. But cool I think. But not the same. 

One of my favourites (w/ f 1.8 50mm )

Edinburgh. 

Sneaky rainbow. 

Edinburgh.

Just shit from my brain.

I just finished ‘catcher in the rye and I think it is hands down the best book I have ever read. As soon as I put the book down I began making plans to make a log cabin in the woods and fill stupid cars up with stupid oil and gas to pay for it. I would obviously be contacted only through pen and paper, as I would to be a deaf mute and all. It’s a great read and I can see it being one that sits on my shelf for the rest of my life, and I will let my son read it when he turned 16, and then I will tell the story of how I bought it when I was in London one day after getting a hair cut and searching for something to read over a coffee. I will say how I only ever read the book in a coffee shop and always with a coffee, and that I was stuck on page 208 for a week because I couldn’t get in the right mood to finish it. There were too many people talking, or I was too tired, or I felt like writing myself, or I couldn’t get the caffeine dosage right to take in every last bit of Holden’s incredibly thought narration. I have a hunting hat as well, which I bought two weeks prior to purchasing the book and every time I even look at it now I think of “turning the peak around to the back, just the way I like it”. I do wear it like that and I had been two weeks prior as well. I was wearing it in Edinburgh when I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and I said to Mitch “Fuck I look stupid in this thing” and he said, “I could have told you that 2 weeks ago” and I laughed and wore it for the rest of the day. I probably wouldn’t have if I weren’t feeling a bit like Holden. I think Holden and the way he wears it is a sign of his distancing ideals towards people, because he is beginning to lose faith in society the further he mulls it over in his mind. I just wear it and I don’t want to think too much about it other than I just like it. I think it’s a book that everyone should read. I might build a book shelf when I get back to put in on, I’ll have some time and I think I need something to rest my books on, so I don’t lose them. I have already lost quite a few this trip. I have upped my reading to maybe 2 hours a day, which is quite absurd to think that considering a year ago I wouldn’t of even thought of 10 minutes a week if it weren't in a Text book entitled "Understanding Health". The last thing I read that really did it for me (other then Catcher in the Rye of course) was a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called the “euphio question” which is really good and I suggest that you read it because you would enjoy it. Probably. (I sound like Holden Caulfield there). I have mentioned how I usually read in coffee shops. Coffee shops are a great love of mine. I find some harmony in them that I don’t get at home, because home is too goddam distracting. I probably spend an hour or two in one per day these days. I think about my old mans view on coffee and how it doesn’t extend too much further than beneath the lid of a Nescafe gold tin and drank over his school reports, but I see it as so much more. He sees it as a right waste of money to have a real espresso made coffee at $4.50 a pop, but I will buy him one from have ya bean, and we’ll sit down and talk about a book or something. I like having a chat at a coffee shop, probably more so than having a chat over a beer I reckon. That’s why I do not get too annoyed when people are having a concentration interrupting discussion when I’m trying to read or something. I see them as place were my usually unproductive day turns to something more worthwhile. I will do more uni work in coffee shops I reckon. They’ll make something of me yet. I got to go to work once again. I don’t really mind though because I’m feeling pretty good. I didn’t last shift and other than shooting some shit, with the old guys at the pub I felt quite miserable. I was made more miserable when the girl at work asked if I was ‘alright’. Mitch knows well enough to know I’m fine and was having a down day, maybe unconsciously missing home and worrying about my friends. But it annoyed me. I don’t know. Haha. Anyway read Catcher in the Rye and add me on skype because I really would love to chat. Tom.barnard92 (do it, it’s pretty regularly on). 

Edinburgh.

Edinburgh.

(Remember you don’t have to read this shit. Just look at the photos!!)

I couldn’t believe the beauty of the Scotland landscape as we drove the timeless countryside. It depressed me a little that I was heading back to London as we winded along the edge of lush green cliffs, accommodating the blessed white dots grazing and dozily overlooking a blue blanket ocean that makes the sky look a little too red and a little too beautiful for someone to bare, who knows they will back, broke in the big London bustle. I wanted the bus to drop me off a couple of times, on the high vantages with sitting rocks where I would lay and drink beer and soak in the cold rays of light by myself or with anyone else who deemed it as necessary as me. It is something else out there. It made me feel lousy to be leaving it. I have never been so aware of the earths domed shape until being on this plain road splitting the paddocks with equally distant clear land and grass to my left and right and maybe a hay shed or a small beaten silo probably holding not much more than some rain water and a story. The clouds were perfectly enclosing us in this domed earth, where the red seemed to dance as much on the rain made lakes as between the dark grey clouds. I felt like the windows were ever so slightly tinted yellow, creating this sepia tone that accentuated the hills and the sky and the red tinges of cloud. It didn’t look like it could snow and if I didn’t know any better I would have said it looked warm outside. I like the cold weather I think. I was born in summer on the 7^th of February, which according to untried pseudo theories passed on by stupid mothers to stupid children in the playground I should like the heat. I like the heat but I think I like it most when it’s cold and there’s a fire and I get that sudden ripple of relief. Maybe that is just my recent feeling formed from being here. I found this quaint little traditional Scottish pub called the ‘Jolly Judge’, which I really liked for the reason I just stated. It could be raining buckets outside and as soon as you duck your head through the low-trussed doorway you get the greatest feeling of heat and atmosphere you would ever find. The beer is tasty and the conversations are interesting. There is no music in there, no Nicky Minaj or some other piece of processed cheese coming through the speakers and when I looked to the old boys in the corner wearing bland old button farm shirts, packing wood-grain pipes of tobacco and drinking neat scotch you can easily forget that it’s the 21^st century. I liked that place a lot. I liked the Beer McEwen 80. A hearty strong Scottish brew that Mitch and I may have over did. I headed to Edinburgh castle by myself the next day. I like doing those sorts of things by myself. I like being able to go at my own pace and read an info panel or not, or take 200 photos of something or not or listen to the audiotape with my headphones or not. I took my camera out with Georgie and Jess the other day and kept getting left behind, I like to stop and take a photo if I see something unfolding or some angle of interest. I think I always look for those angles or lines of perspective now, regardless of whether I have my camera or not. A place I was glad to of left my camera at home was the Hogmany street party. That thing was crazy. It was an amazing, great, crazy day in fact. I kicked it off by purchasing a double pint of cider for mitch and I at a pub called ‘The Three Sisters’ on cowgate street under King George the IV, where they were reigning the Australian new years’ in. I didn’t care too much about the count downs I was more interested in having some good conversations and drinking a gut full with some of the people from the hostel. There were these two odd dudes, one who studied particle physics and another one that had a degree in animal gentics. They were smart, but socially a little inept in my honesty. They were nice enough though, but I was rather enjoying the banter with Lily and Joe from the room. Mitch and I were riffing off our unique style of wit and they were just as up to it as we were. We joked everything from the bonehead Australians wearing donning flag capes and thongs to the controversy in the world darts championship with the much televised push from the Phil ‘The Power Taylor’ Taylor on his defeated opponent. I never thought I would ever have interesting conversations about darts (or even watch it for that matter), but we were having one and they agreed to come watch the finals the next day. The double pints were getting to get a little low, so I sent Mitch to get another couple while I chatted with Joe for a while. Joe is the kind of girl I would loved to of gotten to know better, she interesting, a little shy, likes photography, has an amazing smile and above all she is incredibly intelligent. She really did it for me. Too bad I left her and Lily hanging on new years night because I was vodka drunk in some uni apartment on the other side of Edinburgh. I felt awful and came up with a scheme to say I was passed out and that’s why I missed the pick up, but I didn’t feel at all like lying to them. Plus I didn’t really feel I could because they were so goddam smart. I was really getting drunk on the otherside of town with some crazy American girls that our crazy New Zealand girls knew. I got really drunk and was having the best conversations with them. I think I can be kind of funny when I get into a half pissed state. I told them the story of how I had kissed a girl once when I was younger and passed out in a bush at a party and then the next time I heard her name mentioned she was a full blown lesbian. They loved it, while I took a few large swigs of my apple and vodka mix. I topped my mix up and took it to the party. Fast forwarding abit I got talking with this girl in the line to take a piss. I can’t remember how we got talking but she was really beautiful and what not and she seemed to kind of be interested in me. I some how got talking music and she said one of her favourite band was Bon Iver, which interested me no end. There is nothing I like more than the high tones of Justin Vernon and his solemn acoustic (for emma, forever ago album) on the tube. I got her number and we danced a little and held hands for a while. I gave her a little new years smooch, and the had to leave her. I’m half tempted to give her a call and what not as she lives in Camden and I live kind of near Camden and she is beautiful and I really want to go on a date for some reason. Probably because I have never really been on a proper one. I’m broke, so maybe I won’t. I would rather go on one with Joe, because she seemed like the kind of girl that would understand my destitution, not that she’s poor or anything, but because she so nice. I also don’t own a phone. Anyway I got really wasted that night. I kissed or was kissed by Georgie on the new years countdown. Haha we had a great laugh about it in the morning, it felt really weird actually. I hate cutting things short but I have to go to work, for my meager pay, which I won’t get in time to do anything worth while, like buy a phone and call the girl or call Joe. She lives in Nottingham though and I think that she sees me as a bit of a fool. It’s hard to convince people sometimes that I’m actually not stupid. Well I don’t think I am, but the continual  act of having to prove that I’m not probably is evidence enough that I am. Catch you next time boys and girls for my next installment. I’d love to thank Georgie and Jess for the amazing New Years. My best ever and I thanks those two buddy ol’ pals for it. They are the greatest.