Potential Dating Material

'I know someone you might like,' he said.
'Who's that?' I asked.
'A girl in my office.'
'What's she like?'
'Petite, dark, quite attractive...'
'Really? Any bad points?'
'Well, apparently she's also crazy, possessive and filthy.'
'Really? Any bad points?'

What If Someone Set Up A Blog And Nobody Visited?

‘What’s up?’ I asked me.
‘I’m not sleeping,’ I said to me. ‘I just can’t sleep…’
‘Why not? Worried that you can’t get the basics right like a job or a relationship?’
‘Screw you. No, I’m worried that there are no more grand narratives.’
I stared at me. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘You know, that all certainties have now been demolished and we live in rootless culture running out of future.’
‘Drinking cocoa helps you sleep.’
‘That the media bombards us with an endless barrage of parodied emotions eroding our ability to formulate original empathy.’
‘Also Lemsip with honey.’
‘That we will have to create our own narratives on a local scale but we no longer know how.’
‘Or you could try watching a David Lynch film.’
‘I mean, how am I supposed to develop my own sub-plot in the absence of a coherent meta-narrative?’
‘Mulholland Drive has nudity.’
There was a Pinter pause while I stared at me.
‘Or maybe you can't sleep because you're too excited about Prince William getting engaged…?’
‘Actually, I read an interesting article on how many bedrooms there are in her parents’ house.’
‘Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…’

Attacking Consumer Culture Whilst Working In The Gift Shop

The irony isn’t lost on me.
Here I am, trying to see through the fog of modern life, to strip away the distractions used to avoid self-reflection, to not fall for the lie of buying a way to happiness, and to ask myself key existential questions. Yet, meanwhile, to get me out of the house and avoid madness, I’m volunteering in a local museum and not just any museum but, get this, one that chronicles consumer culture and celebrates packaging.
I’m volunteering in the Museum of Brands, Packaging & Advertising.
And it’s actually a really interesting place.
So here I am, searching for content and volunteering in packaging.
The irony isn’t lost on me.

Tuesday Night

My bloody words were coming out of his mouth.
Here was an actor with over 20 years experience and he was reading out the words to a story that I had written.
He stood on the little stage and spoke my words.
I was standing at the back of the room, palms sweaty, squirming at every noun, verb and preposition.
He read on. The audience listened, laughed, nodded.
Then the story was over and they applauded politely.
Wow.
Then I thought about how I would write about it.

Moment Of Gratuitous Self-Publicity

A short story of mine has been chosen for the next Liars’ League event.
Details about the League and the event (Smoke and Mirrors, 9th Nov) can be found here:
www.liarsleague.com
The story will be up on their site after that.
I’ll be available in the hall to sign autographs and kiss babies.

I Don’t Exist

So I’ve been reading about Heidegger and his work Being and Time.
I only exist in a moment between memory and anticipation, between what has been and what will be. But the past no longer exists, and the future doesn’t exist either -yet- so as neither exist in the present moment then I don’t exist. It’s a scary concept which goes beyond explaining why I don’t get served in pubs. The past is what makes us who we are, the future is but our projection there, our hopes of what we may become. So concerns are simply about what will be but they don’t actually exist now.
This begs the question that if I don’t exist and the clocks just changed does that mean I won’t exist for an extra hour?