Monday, April 9, 2007

Blank verse

I cleaned up 'my office' yesterday.* It's never a good sign. It usually means I imagine I'm going somewhere. Or that my housemate's cat, Miss Sin Sin - who is wandering dazed and confused through the advanced stages of both pussy dementia and renal failure - has managed to find what can only be the tiniest piece of carpet (beneath the plastic storage boxes, cardboard storage boxes and veritable pyramids of papers, yet-to-be-reconciled receipts, yet-to-be-filed file notes, newspapers, books, plastic bags, paper bags, sleeping bag, poster tubes, production samples, incense burners, spiral-bound notepads, yoga mat (!), first proofs, corrected proofs, second proofs, corrected second proofs, envelopes, million dollar ideas scribbled on the back of said - now takeaway coffee cup and cigarette ash stained - proofs, books, CDs, video tapes, shoe-boxes, photos - framed and unframed, press clippings, finished and unfinished scripts, unopened mail, pieces of no-longer-spiral-bound notepad paper, and ring-binders) on which to shit.

I respect her opinion. She's a cat. What choice do I have? That, and the fact that I think I'd have no choice but to respect even a human who, in the advanced stages of both dementia and renal failure, could manage to pull off a feat like that!

And I couldn't write. Oh no, it's not going to be one of those pieces is it? Well, I could ... BORING! ... but not about anything very interesting. Just words ... and writing is? ... Starved of comprehension. Well, it had to happen.

Where's the through-line, I asked myself. Oh dear. What's the point? It was all going so swimmingly! What's the reason? Here we go! Where's the irony? What's the difference? Humourless. Witless. Artless. Shit. Stop taking yourself so seriously! ... too seriously ... don't get too carried away ... don't be so self-indulgent! ... don't self-edit ... wanker! ... stop doubting yourself! ... unless you're right to ... judging yourself ... someone's got to ... why such high expectations? ... think of the reader, your audience ... they don't want to read about how fucking complex it all is ... they want ... who cares what 'they' want? ... I'm not doing this for them ... of course you are! ... it's a journal ... you're a fucking show-off ... a record of my time ... wow! how thrilling! ... so that this time next year ... too optimistic ... I will be able to look back ... not with all those melanomas .... at all I have written ... rivetting as it is ... and not have to wonder ... did I mention 'verbose'? ... what I did ... or didn't do ... all year. Where I was ... and where was that ... what it meant ... here we go ... how it felt ... "meaning" something all the time ... finally comprehending why, all those years ago, you and I stopped writing in the first place.

I beg your pardon?

Fuck off!

Because it's too hard.

Sometimes.

Exhausting.

You literary genius you.

Questions.

Answers.

Thief.

Liar.

Borrowed observations.

It's all been said before.

Possibly.

By people better than you.

Possibly.

Much better than you.

Definitely.

You are a fraud.

Yes.

A liar.

No.

And ultimately, no-one cares.

I know.

So?

So just how responsible should I be feeling for what hasn't become of this little boy's dreams, plans and ambitions?




*See: The Encyclopedia of Distraction, pp 48-56.

5 comments:

Every Sailor said...

Well, I for one would certainly like to hear more about those "dreams, plans and ambitions." I can't help but wonder whether you're having your mid-life crisis. They come early for poofs, dear, and it seems yours involves regrets and your marvellous blog. I note with considerable interest your almost overlooked self-description as "Homosexual, unfortunately ... sadly even" in you piece entitled 'Established distraction'. I'd like to read a great deal more about the subject of your homosexuality and the regret and sadness it brings you, in some considerable detail, if I might be so bold as to ask.

This would be fascinating reading and, I posit, a way for you to pursue the requisite catharsis to move, not so much ON with your life, as UP. Surely you grow weary of obscurity?

Unknown said...

Every blog must have its "why do I blog" entry. Although yours has headed off in another direction there. The only answer to the first bit is "because I do" and the answer to the last bit is that you are not completely responsible, the whole world is, and children are horrible anyway.

Geoffrey said...

Hello my faithful friends!

Snidley, yes ... it's in progress ... and if I can stop spending so much time reading your magnificent blog, it will actually exist!

Metal ... we 'do' don't we? How's your book coming along?

Anonymous said...

... you wanted to become a cricketer?

Geoffrey said...

Not judging by the angle of the bat.