because you asked me politely...

i hadn't intended on writing tonight... in fact, it was far from being anywhere near the top of my list of things to do but the bathroom's busy which prevents me from a tidy wrist-slitting and i was asked nicely so i figured fuck it, strapped my headphones on and cranked some Fallout Boy for variety - i've had speed-metal on high rotation lately so it was time for a change. what i will do, however, is avoid talking about what's really worrying me at the monent and simply hope that when Lou wakes up with a hangover tomorrow she doesn't regret whoever she did or didn't do tonight.

i'm being pulled in too many different directions at the moment to make any sense - tired but not able to sleep regularly, depressed beyond tears but cheered mightily by a long chat on IM earlier this evening, employed for the moment but pay-day's a long way away, horny enough to climb the walls using my teeth and nails but... um... actually, there's no mitigation for that one. shit. i'm so far from my centre that my only hope at the moment is to spin faster and try to keep all the different forces balanced so i don't wobble myself off the table and smash on the tiles.

why is this? well, i've been doing a lot of soul-searching of late - i've spent enough time alone and undisturbed in the last week or so that there's been little else to distract me - and i've come up with a number of answers. the problem here is that now i know that there are people reading this thing it gets a little hard to work out how to say enough to give an impression without giving it all away. i don't keep a whole lot of secrets to myself, but right now there's shit floating around the septic-tank of my brain that you couldn't get out with a crowbar and a flame-thrower. this, also, can make it difficult to say anything of interest. instead, i've been spending a huge amount of my mental energy trying to run like fuckery from the monkey on my back because every time i turn and look behind me he smiles, waves, and bites another chunk of my face off. one thing's for sure, i've jumping at any and every distraction that stops me from putting forehead-shaped dents in the plaster.

one thing that hasn't been classified "Sex & Travel" (aka "Fuck Off") is that i can't shake the feeling that i've turned into a fucking doormat of late, greeting visitors with an invitation of "Welcome! Please use my nose to wipe that shit off your boots and remember to take some of my dignity as you leave!" maybe it's a desire to not rock the boat, i don't know, but somehow it feels like i've been letting a mate dump me with baby-sitting his kids, then asking if he'd like to borrow my girlfriend for the threeway she'd never agree to have with me while i do it. sure i get to enjoy the moral high-ground, but i'm still coming home to the smell of someone else's Old Spice and cold post-orgy pizza. i'm not sure how this happened - have i always had "thankyou, please come again" tattooed on my arse-cheeks or is this new? i'm pretty sure i wasn't always a whiny loser... no... wait, that's not true... i was just better paid back then and i had a bike i could escape on when i had to get the fuck out. my self-loathing's getting to the point that when i self-combust the smoking glass crater will stretch to Vauxhall - all i need to do is embrace the hatred then watch it all burn.

otherwise i can't complain... or at least i shouldn't. Moonbug's managed to score me an invite to entertainment for the 24th/25th, so i might actually be able to have something of and anti-xmas party after all... even if it's just me sitting outside with a grouchy look on my face while the rest of them eat tofurkey inside where it's warm. seriously though, the London Vegan/Animal Lib mob has invited me, an admitted omnivore, to join them for their version of an Xmas-orphans bash and i'm grateful for it. they're a good, friendly mob, and it means that i'll not drink alone for those days... although on New Year's Eve it's increasingly likely that i'll wind up sitting alone on the steps at Trafalgar Square drinking bad scotch out of a bottle in a brown paper bag while people who are in better moods step over and around me and i wish a plague upon them and their happy optimism. we'll see - something might come up. i might get hit by a bus and spend the evening in hospital instead. the world's looking brighter already!

last saturday i spent most of my waking hours talking to people - i must have been on Skype with Sandra for 2 hours, then another half an hour or so with my mum. Yunyu caught me on IM from Singapore late in the evening, after i'd already spoken to Simon who's in Perth. i spent a while talking to Laura in there somewhere, there were emails, and on Sunday morning my mobile rang with Shadow on the other end of it - the only good fucking thing that happened to me that day and no, i'm not kidding. it was nice though - reaching out through my dodgy broadband connection and touching with ethereal fingertips the well-missed voices of my old life and while i know full-well that it's not gone anywhere it's great to be reminded of it sometimes.

meanwhile, i've got myself a couple of new books to read so i'm going to do what i can to lose myself in them while other angry-young-men-who-say-fuck-a-lot whisper screams in my ear and i consider my options in the cold, sober light shining through an empty pint-glass while i try to remember what it was like when i was carved from granite and nothing could touch me so that i can get back to hardening the fuck up. odds are that my liver and i will survive the next week and the trail of destruction will be minor, but as with all things due to happen more than 5 seconds from right now we'll just have to see.