set the juice loose

I’ve been awake little under an hour, possibly longer, but was determined to deny consciousness for as long as possible. I awake every morning just before 10. This certainly is irksome. I feel like my sleep is being run by some mechanical clock, a monstrous construction made of cogs and brass. A huge monolithic thing that towers over my every waking and sleeping moment. I used to sleep until noon every day, sometimes later. One day something just clicked in my head and now I seem to fall awake at about the same time every single day.

Maybe it’s noise and light that pulls me from slumber. Maybe it’s just because the rest of the world is usually all up by 10, eating breakfast and making beds, commuting to work and knocking out window frames. Someone is knocking out a window frame a couple of houses over, making a terrible noise in the process. Maybe that woke me up. Perhaps I should get thicker, blacker curtains to shut out the light. Maybe I should wear ear plugs and a mask to bed.

Or I could just accept my fate.

I’ve just finished Cain’s book.. It’s very life affirming – if your life consists of being creative, pondering your consciousness and being sickened by the world of work. My life consists of all of those. The next job I get will be the first job I’ve had in over a year and I can’t help but feel proud of that achievement.

Unfortunately, I am now faced with a sickening reality. If I don’t get myself a job then soon I will have no money. If I have no money I cannot get high and commune with friends. If I have no money I cannot pay for electricity and milk. I had an interview on Tuesday for kitchen work in a wetherspoons pub. There’s a follow-up interview with the kitchen manager tomorrow and I can only take this as a very good sign. Hopefully, soon, I will be employed. I’m already scheming to keep the job for as long as possible, even after my student loan arrives, so I can buy myself a miniDV camera. All I ask from it are three visual processing chips (3CCD), full manual control and a focus ring. Second hand would be nice.

Electricity.

We’re on this token scheme instead of a monthly bill. Electricity tokens always remind me of council estates and council estates always make me think of pressure and oppression. It gets you from both sides; coming down on you from the outside, a studious weight to crush your lungs and mind. On top of this you had to deal with the internal shit; pressure and oppression from the people around you, pressured to conform, oppressed if your different. I could never help being different so I was pretty much screwed, and if yr going to school on the estate you can forget about learning much, except how to take your lumps. Thankfully those days be over and gone, except up in my head where I sometimes rerun them for writing or reflection. Actually, aren’t writing and reflection the same thing? Not all writing, but this kind of writing. A lecturer in uni has a maxim; “writing is thinking”. It’s a cute little adage not completely without weight. The important things I’ve learnt in university I already knew.

I have just over £5 in juice left and £15 in my wallet. Zoltan has gone back to Hungry for a bit to visit friends and family so keeping the place in electrons is completely my responsibility. Hopefully, if I get a £5 token, I can tide myself over until his return, but it’s definitely a hit and miss kinda hope.

I don’t know whether to keep writing in this pinball fashion, bouncing around for concept and topic, occasionally returning to where I started to fill in a few blanks, or if I should try and be more structured about things. I’m thinking maybe the best way to proceed is to just look at all this as notes for a novel which can be organised at a later date. Someday I’ll have focus, I’m sure.

Today I think I’ll walk to Caerleon and take back that overdue Anger video, maybe pick up some Stan Brakhage. Once there I can post stuff online and maybe do a bit of surfing. Then, I’ll walk home and make the vegetable soup Jennie gave me the recipe for and continue reading To The Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf is perfect if you like reading sentences you could choke 5 year olds with). I’ve started wearing my fuckedup converse over my fuckedup airwalks, just for variety. At least the converse don’t have gaping holes in the soles that interface your feet directly with the tarmac, wearing through your socks and leaving large dirty patches on your feet.