Ennui

I am restless. My mind is considering a great variety of things and moving between them sporadically.

Times like this often see me at my most creative, and my most angsty too. Though this time the angst seems to have established itself as something else- a rocky frustration. Without willing cynicism to completely turn my heart into a cold solid lump, I am slightly concerned about my progressively unaffected nature. There is a great virtue lost in wisdom, and that is the sweet unadulterated naivety that forgoes experience.

Having no regular employment to occupy (or infact distract) my mind from greater awareness, I feel compelled more than ever to seek some gratifying meaning-pursue a sort of quest. I can't help but feel that a bigger something has to be unveiled, and so my subconscious has arrived at over-active questioning- and a thirsty want.

It seems to me that the majority of a country's population are working slaves to a system- encouraged only by a taste for holidays, the upkeep of a home, and a decent car. Since I abscond from these desires (but do not take any of the amenities for granted), and am happy to sleep between varietable accommodation, divide time amid an array of interesting artisans and intellectuals for the time- my eyes are very much looking forward. Though quite completely unsure when my ennui can be settled, and what kind of a situation that would imply; mind and fingers should be kept busy indefinitely.

The restlessness spurs words, creates music, and indulges in art, film and reading and is never prayed for to cease- but I cannot settle in it's waves. And sleep seems a guilty luxury.

Art.

Purchase a painting?
Or suggest an idea? Edie Sedgwick

Pete Doherty


Alison Mosshart

Rod Stewart/Chrissie Hynde


Jack White


Jim Morrison

Budgie love.

As I type this, Lucy's budgie Charlie has learnt to sit on my shoulder after some training this morning. He wanders around my back and nibbles at my hair. I do believe he is trying to clean me!



I just think it's amazing that I can sit here and type away and be graced by the presence of this now tame beautiful bird gently pecking away at my shoulder and hair.

I hope that I will be able to write many more entries with Charlie sitting on my shoulder :-)

all for now.

Tom.x

Today's to do list:

Gather:

Enough elderflowers to make 5 gallons of wine
More elderflowers to make pontack sauce
More pears
Fairy Ring Champingons

Make:
5 Gallons Elderberry wine
Pontack Sauce
Start sparkling perry from pears

Take:
Cider & opiates

Eat:
A dish make with Fairy Ring Champingons

Fight or Flight

The tired mind will not allow itself to rest.

Many an exciting idea in the right hands creates an oppurtunity to do something beautiful. Amidst the manic thought and obsession which goes into the drive to better ones self with the aim of making something truly beatiful and inspiring, you freqeuntly let go of all the inhibitions you held yourself and jump of through your window with the hope of finding something resembling to your senses an effortless and exhilirating flight. Hoping to carry others with you often feel it is the only way you know to break those close to your heart out of whatever state of insecurity and self pity they are in. But as of yet, it appears they are more content to push their own insecurities on others to absolve themselves. Nothing gained nothing learnt.

My mind constantly occupies itself with the needs of the unwilling and my heart breaks repeatedly at the sadness of others - and this empathy only flows one way. How else could it be - people are just full of their own trials and lack of assurance. Who else would understand the weight I feel and the sense of connection to all or nothing.

Papal Slander

Today we see the pope link atheism to the Nazi regime, on a visit to the country which stood up to it. Has he forgotten all of the Catholic priests supporting or ignoring the Nazi party during it's reign, and a how a blind eye was turned on the holocaust. So this religion they are so judgemental for us to ignore, what would this offer us? They will sexually abuse (i.e. molest, rape and tar for life) our children and then cover it up when it becomes apparent? The Catholic Church I was told in a documentary has acknowledged that 5% of its priests have been implicated in child abuse. Their response was to withhold all details from the legal authorities worldwide and in some cases the priests involved had simply been transferred to a different locality.

The pope and his entourage dare to enter this country, compare it to a third world country because of it's lack of faith and then link godless Nazism with anyone who does not believe their fairy tales or live under their control?! Has pope Benedict the whatever never noticed that tyranny has predominantly be carried out in the name of one religion or another. Has he forgotten the Crusades where any 'infidels' were killed mercilessly in the name of God whether man, woman or child. I have no idea why this fraud of a man representing a religion tarnished with inumerous crimes throughout the present day and history, is given a state welcome in this country to further spread his misguidance and deceit.

Unrequited.

I’ve been thinking about love, and connection… reminiscing almost, looking back on what I have learnt so far. The journey of understanding only really started little more than a year ago, and before that I suppose I was searching without ever having evidence.

I’m musing on the subject, almost as though I have reached the end of my life and now try to make sense of each fragment of feeling. They came like blades of grass in the wind at the time, and often I never quite grasped them whilst they were there. Though I’m hardly old, and a future without potential suitors is highly improbable, but I always find that the emphasis falls on feeling that connection.

Certainly I am lucky, not to be looking for exclusive companionship at all costs. The world is full of unfussed settlers- that’s what marriage is mostly about. No, I cannot let a man in physically or emotionally if I do not sense a deep compatibility from him almost upon immediate impression, and still nothing is confirmed. The luxury- or often the curse- is a rarity, to meet someone with unlimited interest and a different kind of intelligence perhaps to that of myself. What use is a significant other if they are not a little bit challenging, or do not open my eyes to something?

These thoughts are closer to the surface presently, because it’s the first time in a long while where I have not had an affection in waiting. Nobody to rightfully muse about, no two-way possibility, no one waiting, no one to wait for.

Through all of the trial runs which alerted me of the grey depression settling induces, I remember the first time I awoke next to another, and felt completely right atop the harmonious bed- in a room long christened by cigarette butts and cans of larger. And looking back over my writings at the time, I was standing at the stem of naivety with no conception of the giant awaiting at the top. If I have ever been in love, it was with him. There was no more thinking beyond my immediate intimacy, and eventually the need to exchange my company was lacking. What I loved the most was at first the unique instances of affection, the squeezes of my hand and how he entered my space without invading it- but instead bearing a warm feeling of protection. Then how I could sense the trapped lonely person, struggling on the inside against the problems he could never quite confront. I understand him now- I am like him. We are almost boy and girl, unconventional and defiant of who we’re supposed to be. Of course we differ in many ways, and whereas he takes the conflict inwardly, I disperse it creatively- into songs, or poems, letters, journals- pure unadulterated honesty. Which so far has brought me to one main conclusion… Each moment is passing, most affections are temporary, and the compatibility found in love’s sweet potential is only there then, at that time. Enamoration is likely to intoxicate again, but every beloved is not without their own special detail- and that is the person you will never match in a million years. Those blades of grass in the wind should be seized as soon as you feel the breeze send tingles across your skin.

Since the first, there has been only one other creature of divine comfort- who was again a misshape to convention. Although not a child of the arts or literature, he was instead a scholar of life with great interest- and interested in my deeper, and often darker creative side. Though I feel he felt inept amidst my canvasses and poetry, and even further out of place from his own past love. The latter I understand, and reluctantly accept if we can never be. If he spoke to me about how he feels, I would empathise of course and even try to relieve some of the confusion in his mind.

But the whole affair confirms to me that feelings likely to lurk near to the heart- and perhaps even closer to gut instinct- is indeed a sincerity absent from most. And this regards all kinds of emotion. I can but try to access them with words and expression, out of my own construed version of actuality. Yet I fear others are fearful of such an act in modern-day tradition, and cannot handle what is really a sweet and complimentary admission. Once again I find myself lost, and alone in the wrong time.

So now the creative dwells devoid of muse- whoever the responsibility may anoint at the point of infatuation. Though this gives me the capacity to look backward and assess everything that initiates my besotted misadventures, and probably still enforce the compulsion to write letters and poems bereft of final gratification. But I believe wholesomely in a bigger affinity, and will try to remain outside of the easy cynicism regarding it’s potential.

Disdain.

It seems the last of my British sterling pounds reside in my purse, and out of them I can afford a small pot of luxury for an hour with a journal.

My financial situation is practically dire, and in actual fact akin to that of a 15 year old. The only way forward in this country seems to mean working away like a slave to the State with a high degree of job disatisfaction. The job centre doles out the most meagre of amounts to the average person who has not had five children at a 4:5 father ratio, nor fiddled the system in some way. It just means another phone call at this time, to figure out why there's another stopper on the money owed to my account... and they're also due a call for failing to take notice of the actual amount of hours accountable.

I would like to live on what I can provide to the world. There are paintings to my name, songs vocally stamped and their lyrics, and thousands of words channelled in all sorts of directions- all very sellable if only an outlet or profile would accept them. I am a poor old contemporary, but I am starving for another reason.

A national support system that works, I would embrace with the widest arms! For the artists and intellects, slack is very much absent in Arcadia. There are a great many countries in Europe with tax exemption for creatives, to encourage culture and to make lives more about the individual. Britain is simple 'tax everything' and 'rip-off far and wide'.

My mind so active toward the bohemian cause, surely there can be some credit found to fuel my imagination to fire into project and compulsion. But even after being a reliable employee at my part-time job for several years now, do I find myself unappreciated and tarred as a regular chancer. I know where my loyalties lie, and the world may reject them for now, but I'll follow them regardless for as long as I know how...

4.38am Journal Extract

To have awoken at this hour, craving tea and sugar, may mean a serious caffeine addiction- or perhaps the affliction of a cold.

Well, I'm chasing up my sneezes with Tetley and a gingernut, absconding from sleep and trying to alter my inner body temperature by waking and writing in an upright manner. It's not highly surprising that I'm here awake- for one week now my body has yielded relentless energy, walking and reading amidst many out of social nature... With less food than sometimes, and more alcohol than most times.

It has been the most over-active week, perhaps completed so resourcefully thanks to an interior battle- against viral attack. I win over the enemy during the first stages of invasion, and seize the opportunity to overdo. I leave myself yearning for more hours, within which I don't need to eat or sleep to function, yet where I can act or create in a tireless fashion.

I have to be up before three hours, prepare for a drive to Wolverhampton to attend a meeting of the journalist minds- and then follow it up with the rest of the day.

The days themselves are a ferocious balancing act in which several balls course continuously like a ferris wheel, to be tossed and juggled. There are mostly always social arrangements to be orchestrated- meetings, discussions, bonds, therapy, coffee, lunch... These are to oblige requests and to balance the rest of the day's activities. They often include interviews, ready for the next pending article.

So then there are also the pending articles- which I resent ever having to be seen as a chore! They are my choice, my future- how can writing about music ever possibly present itself as a tedious responsibility? Usually when it's a task slotted aside other weekly endeavors.

Reading, writing, and indulging works of art contribute other compulsions... embedded beneath the timely interruptions of having to prepare for a birthday, or some other necessary event. And to stay as thin as I am with the omission of daily exercise regime, simply leaves no capacity to be ill.

I have not used my exercise bike or completed a single sit-up for over a week now- willingly exempting myself from the regiment of it, since about the age of 16 (although I have ensured to walk and attend aquafit in this last week). Firstly, there's the fact that it's become too regimented, and secdonly too much of a drain on the minutes- leaving me with less energy to donate to dividing between socialite, and serious artist of language, music and creation. And of course my band sits in there with leading priority- involving composition, practise, and performance. Something occasionally has to give, and it's a shame that I have to do restaurant work as well- out of monetary necessity (for living and the rest of lifestyle), and responsibility. The wish to have a State to fund me adequately whilst I seek creative accomplishment, dipped in to Bohemia- is forever recurring.

I want to live like the greats- like Modigliani, or Baudelaire, or Wilde. Creating masterpieces through inebriated bursts, living humbly in bohemian beauty, and earning cheap passage to Paris. Interspersing my days with romance and good red wine, fascinating conversation with like-minded contemporaries! My droog and I must travel this journey together, lightening it with music and film- bask in the glory of success, sooner rather than later.

What a shame everything in this life of any sort of establishment, pertains to money. It's all capital gain, but at least I've discovered that happiness is very separate from measurable success. It is of a greater importance to gain credibility based upon merit and respect- not record deals and billboards. Although they would also be nice. But Coventry is both big enough and small enough to gain good reputation, based on well-executed acheivements of a creative nature- within the right circles.

A degree of covcest if you will...

Cider & Forays

I spent a whole afternoon this afternoon making cider from scrumped apples, to end up with only ONE gallon to ferment.

Therefore - please never attempt to make cider using a juicer, it will not work. Only a cider press will do and now I must find one. There are still plenty of apples to be scrumped and now I must create a cider press.

Plans being made for both an a apple pulper and press on the way. I must get at least 5 gallons of scrumpy made this year. I've seen plenty of apple trees around we need to charm the apples off. Unlike previous years these will not fall and rot and be wasted, they will fuel our intoxication and titillate our taste buds.

Also on the way - five gallons of elderberry wine. I expect this will need to age for about a year before tasting decent. But why not - all it will cost is a few bags of sugar and some well spend time picking the magical and antiviral elderberries from natures medicine cabinet - the elder tree.

Also - mushroom forays are looking up. I am confident we now find edible species which are unmistakeable. We will soon enjoy the succulent flesh of many a delightful fungus fried in tempurah with fresh herbs.

Foxfire - Adventures in Bioluminescence

Was once used on the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin as the source of light for the early submarine "The Turtle". It has been used in Scandinavia to track through forests in the dark. So what is it? Mushrooms that glow in the dark!

Something like the edible Honey Fungus (genus - Armillaria) is known for its bioluminescent properties.

Looking something like this during the day.



and this at night.



So, my quest: to find and photograph some foxfire for myself. How magical would it be to see these magical biolumescent beautys glowing in the woods. Next: to obtain or cultivate some for use in my own dwelling. What more aesthetic form of night light could there be, or surely this calls out loudly for an enchanted wood themed party.

Other bioluminescent research to come - this is soemthing that has very much captured my imagination. Could you imagine serving delicious glowing mushrooms as a starter with the lights down? I can. I bet Heston could too.

Lost Art of Love

I have often felt one of life's spectators, standing on the outside and looking in at the obvious, the erroneous- and the systematic way that the human race attempt to mangle, confuse and pillage the very vein of their existence. It's not always their fault of course... Overwhelming feelings, often irrartional or nonesensical to the spectator, can mar their better judgement and therefore deface beauty's potential. The dimly premature duckling has rarely the chance to adopt the divine, and wholesome qualities recognised by the Queen and her subjects, as the fully-developed swan.



The above can be applied to many realities of human existence. It could be of war, of the covetious greed that consumes all who fix their eyes adamantly on the prize, of a painting- of the need to overdo. In this case I am casting your mind back to a time where you became, in a mere instant, completely emerged in the idea that you had suddenly been divided into two. Standing agape, looking into your mirror image in the heavy realisation that life was no longer a self-centred, ego-driven race to the finish. Instead you saw the rapturous beauty in another- touched upon the gates of eden with the knowledge that you no longer give to get. I speak of course of the endlessly indefinable state of... Liebe, gra, amor, amour! The universally binding inebriation with the power to both unite and divide that is love.



Love's true connection perceivably only touches upon an individual two, maybe three times in a lifetime if they're lucky. The rest of the time is spent cowaring away from possibility, licking the wounds of dolor, and scarring others in a closed quest for replacement or perhaps fulfilment.



Aside from the few sociopaths of this world- I included as the occasional claimant- there is not one person who in their strongest frame of mind, will not deter true love. They cannot. But in as simple as one statement can deduce, there are ultimately a million difficulties of why it can never usually come to be. I came to be what I call a 'romantic' long after there was male interest or adolescent maturity- arriving in to an almost incestuous sea, as a blissfully naive antecedent in contrast to my current scholarly self. A few lessons learnt, for each tender burn. And I still have somewhat of a journey before me... I seem to have spent much of my time remorsefully in reception of my beloved's rejection- yet yielding the same foible possibly twice as much as it is received. And for my minutes passed in exile, it seems I have been condemned with the idea that I am not welcome to love. I may not even deserve it, and I surely can't express it! This is almost received like a satanic ritual at a Baptism. But I am far from ceasing to handwrite the letters of tender admission, or to shower my affection poetically with my strongest and most heartfelt affirmation. As I can't possibly believe that there isn't one inamorato who may change his mind, or settle for unconditionality rather than second best.



But I have seen the ultimate balance at play. Karma ensures that love is given as often as love is taken, and within the relationship itself is where the balance continues to falter. Have you noticed how in a couple, one side will generally be more besotted than the other, and the other will then naturally slip into control and steer themself toward a greater sense of independence...? I am usually the latter- a hugely individual counterpart, escaping just as the suffocation creeps in and preys upon my last breath. This has never exceeded three months, and I have never been in love with who is descriptively, my partner.



But I have touched upon love's sweet divinity... I have found it to exist in the shortest amount of time, and to remain for an unlimited amount of time- believing almost wholeheartedly that such a potent form of human emotion can indeed occur in a month, a week, or potentially even in an instant; though often temporarily, and even less so indefinately.



The problem lies in the conflict between my non-conformist, strictly divergent inclination- and the rigid conventions of society. Whether lawfully placed or not; people have a tendency to look for a defined common understanding- a safe order upon which everyone is agreed. Therefore to enter what society has dictated to be a 'relationship': an institition whereby the subjects are subjected to a set amount of time they are to spend together, what is allowed or disallowed for the other half in their own time, the time in which a text message has to be replied, obligatory sex, jealously, and ultimately a form of possessive imprisonment. And this may not be any of what people want or expect upon entering the institition- they just slip into it in a swoop of not-so-blissful ignorance, or in the manner of 'settling'. And I'll avoid either fate at any cost.



Most couples I encounter seem a sad state of affairs- complaining about their inamorata or inamorato, falling into a sadly uninspiring regime, losing friends, becoming no fun for anyone to know, and ultimately becoming a lot less happy than when they were on their own. Therefore it seems far better to run a coupling on want and desire- contacting the other when they occur to you, appeal to you. Sharing time when it is sacred and unaverted. Giving with no ulterior means of getting. And pure selflessness for the small price of sublime felicity. I remember each captivating uniquity of every beauteous sweetheart, and the close detail of their rapturous allure.



Considering love's ambrosial reward, I don't necessarily seek out my soul mate actively- but perhaps rather instinctively. Then in terms of being a poet, a writer and a musician... I don't indubitably experience a whole other realm of feeling from those less outwardly expressive. But I am more likely to reach out in a bid to encounter the full spectrum of human state and emotion. Push the boundaries of experience as far as they will go in the name of creativity, and exploration.


And so often witness to the peril of my spirits and the investment in another, the instinctive search becomes an addiction. And I a parasite of each Muse must never cease to pause. For as long as there is the capacity to love, there is the capacity to forage, falter, and inevitably to fall...

Tales from the Deep

This blog is to exist as something of a journal and outlet for my various ventures. The plan is that others will join me in some sort of circle.

The last few weeks have been unusual. Being signed off work is a first. Being constantly overwhelmed by a network of hyperactive senses all conjoined in forces in abstract by the involuntary linking of senses that is called synaesthesia. I've known for a long time that I see abstract shapes and colours all around me when I hear sounds, but It has taken me a long time to realise just how linked my senses are or how smells can be stimulated from any other sense. Abstract visuals occur from touch. Tactile sense are stimulated by any other sense. The bad thing is how touch or other senses seem to be able to result in pain and a hypersensitive digestive system.

This extreme combining of the senses is not something that will ever change. Though it feels like I am no longer able to deal with how it pulls my moods around.
Stimulation at first inspirational turns in the end to a sense of unease turning into a faster beat beat heart beat and an overwhelming anxiousness that turns into a tingling pain across my skin and a pining for something missing.
I've only just grown to realise just how much this has all affected my life.

Darker days.

They won't last for ever. Doc might give me something nice.