A Lad Insane?

Day 2,450

Among the many that I cherish, there are two quotes that have always stuck in my mind. I’ve always remembered them but never fully taken them in, until now. But with the creaking grind of time, they have taken on a more saddening and darker significance in my brain. The first is by David Bowie:

“I’ve got a library that I keep the ones I really really like. I look around my library some nights and I do these terrible things to myself – I count up the books and think, how long I might have to live and think, ‘F@#%k, I can’t read two-thirds of these books.’ It overwhelms me with sadness.”

The second is by the actor who played (amongst many other roles) the original and definitive Eric Draven character from The Crow, Brandon Lee:

“Because we do not know when we die, we get to think of life as an exhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

I actually heard Brandon Lee saying these words in an interview in the 90s; it was one of the extra features on The Crow DVD. I remember thinking even then, they were extremely wise words for somebody so young. But when your dad is Bruce Lee, wisdom, deep thinking, and talent (and unfortunately, a mysterious and premature death) trickles through the DNA. But it wasn’t until I read his words in black and white that the sentiments resonated so much.

Reading both quotes again at 58 years old, (as Bowie with his books) overwhelms me with sadness. The deep thoughts of two extremely talented human beings whose careers in music, film, and art I followed for a big chunk of my life. Both thinking about their own mortality amidst their successful careers. Both are now gone. Bowie died of cancer at 69 years old. Lee was shot and killed by a dummy bullet during the filming of The Crow – he was only 28 years old. Life is very short.

Fun fact. Did you know that the title and lyrics of David Bowie’s song, The Jean Genie from his album Aladdin Sane, were inspired by one of his literary heroes, the novelist, poet and activist, Jean Genet? No? Now you do.

Before I read the Bowie quote, I was also guilty of working out how many of my books I could possibly read before my breath runs out. No doubt my tiny library of around 300 or so books is nothing compared to Mr Bowie. I plough through them at a rate of approximately 20 to 30 per year. That is nothing compared to other devourers of books, but it’s enough for me. If I do live to a good old age I will reach my goal, but . . .

The problem is, new or second-hand, I buy more books. I’m lessening my chances with every book haul. It could be much worse; I could be spending all my money on alcohol. The irony being that my book problem would no longer be a problem, because it wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t be able to read. I wouldn’t be able to write. You wouldn’t be reading this because it wouldn’t exist and eventually, neither would I. And the cherry to top it all off, I wouldn’t give a flying camel’s fanny about any of it.

But I don’t drink alcohol, and (airborne dromedaries genitalia aside) I do care. Hence the brain wonderings (and wanderings) on mortality. My life is far from perfect but it’s ok. At the moment it’s calm and pain-free enough to do the things I want to do. I try not to worry as much as I once did but it (like my book-grabs) is a hard habit to break. My sleeping patterns are a little haywire, but I do sleep. So, for anything to get in the way of all the things I’m now able to do; medical, financial or otherwise, worries me. I mean, I’m not naïve, it will happen, but at least give me 5 or 10 years of peace. I know it’s a stretch but . . . Please? I don’t believe in a god, so who the hell am I pleading to?

Universe! You’ll do! Give me another 5 to 10 years and I’ll hug all the trees you want and be a good boy. I’ll go vegetarian. I’ll wipe the seat after I pee. But let me do stuff in peace for a few more years. Pretty please!

As I write these words, I’m still waiting for the results of a bowel cancer test. It’s not because I have signs or symptoms, but because I’m of a certain age, I have to (voluntarily) get tested every two years. The results won’t tell me if I do or don’t have cancer. They will either say that further tests are needed, or not. Two years ago, no further tests were needed. But that was two years ago. A lot can change in 730 days.

And it has.

Within those 730 days I’ve been put on blood pressure tablets because my readings were dangerously high (in the 180s). I now have a lovely little umbilical hernia. Tinnitus screams constantly in my ears these days, making simple pleasures such as listening to music, not simple or pleasurable. The pressures in my eyes have become much higher over 730 days, happily winging their way to Glaucoma, macular degeneration, and eventual blindness. The only thing that’s improved over two years is my teeth. No alcohol or cigarettes and having to pay for private dentistry has kept the ones I have left, in pretty good condition, firmly jammed in my gums. No doubt many years of drinking, smoking and loud music have contributed to things wearing out, tearing, blocking, and snapping off. Nothing has actually snapped off, by the way – but give it time, something will.

Well, that was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Maybe I need to be a little more positive and show some gratitude.

My blood pressure is now at normal levels thanks to the medication. My hernia is tiny and painless at the moment; not significant enough to warrant surgery. But if it grows and tears through my stomach, forcing my guts plop onto the floor into a steaming, bloody mess, surgery may apparently be considered. The tinnitus is annoying and maybe badly affecting my hearing but I can still hear. Eh, what? Obviously, I’ve taken no action to get my hearing looked at, diagnosed, and possibly treated. Maybe do that eh? What? Instead of complaining. My eyes are monitored every year and my eyesight is pretty decent. I read 30 books last year without any problems so I’m not doing too bad. I have teeth in my mouth and I can eat without pain. I don’t deserve them after years of abuse, but there they are like a little enamel graveyard in my mouth. And as far as I’m aware, nothing on my body has actually snapped off. I’m pretty sure of that.

There, that sounds a little better. A bit of gratitude and positivity never hurts anyone. Unless you happen to be ungrateful and negative, then being a miserable little shit is quite normal.

I’ve actually forgotten what the point of this post was. Ah, mortality!

Universe? You ain’t off the hook! Trees/good boy/pee-free seats. Don’t forget!

Serendipity (or the universe) is bizarre. As I was writing all the above, a letter from the hospital has just (right now) been handed to me by my dad. It will be the results of my test because I’m not expecting anything else. I haven’t opened it yet. It could go either way. Here goes.

‘No further tests are needed at this time.’ Phew! Two years until the next. 730 days to do stuff. Knowing my luck, on my morning bus, the driver will have to slam his, or her brakes on and I’ll go merrily flying down the stairs from the top deck; hernia exploding, teeth smashed, my glasses slicing into my eyes as sombody’s umbrella stabs into my ear, piercing my brain. But happy thoughts, eh?

“Dear Universe. Two years grace in the space of one post ain’t too shabby. Keep that up and we’ll both be ok. Many thanks my swirly, gassy, black-hole friend. By the way, just in case; if God really did create you, please can you give me a head’s-up. I don’t want to be rooting for the wrong team and hugging trees for no reason. Cheers.

P.S. I’m not entirely sure I can forgive you for taking away David Lynch from us this month. But I’ll try.”

This post didn’t go the way I planned. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. If you spent precious time getting this far when you could have been doing something else more constructive – thanks. You did good.

Take care everyone x

Small Holdings, by Nicola Barker

A book review this week.

I’m working on my next addiction/recovery/whatever-it-may-be post for next week. I’ll probably keep alternating like this for a while. It seems to work – for me anyway.

Nicola Barker is a bit nuts. She is also funny, insightful, engaging, philosophical, and probably (maybe definitely) a genius. Maybe. But she is nuts. Small Holdings is her second novel and was published in 1995.

The park is not only their workplace, it’s the heart and pulse of their lives. But something isn’t right. It’s coming up to Friday and the very important meeting with the council.

Douglas is in charge of the park and wants to show the council his big idea. But something is wrong with Douglas. Driving a tractor into a greenhouse and destroying it, maybe a bit of a red flag.

Saleem used to work at the park until she lost one of her legs. She’s still there, she shouldn’t be, but she is. She’s terrorising the workforce (such as it is), especially Phil. Saleem wants Douglas out of the way so he doesn’t screw up Friday’s big meeting. She wants Phil to go in his place. Saleem does not work there anymore. But there she is, hassling poor Phil.

Phil doesn’t do meetings, or responsibility, or anything involving pain or responsibility. Phil does plants, trees, flowers, soil, and grass. He is beaten-up, drugged, terrorised, abused, and worst of all, shaved. Phil isn’t happy.

Nancy is the park’s glamorous driver. She has been crashing the van too often lately and Douglas isn’t happy about it. He doesn’t know about her eye, or the gun she keeps in her glove compartment, just in case. Doug wants her gone.
Ray hasn’t many thoughts on anything much. He’s not big on thinking.

Why does Phil keep seeing an old Chinese man stealing onions and dancing in the park? One day, Phil gets a bit too close. Way too close.

This is such a fantastic little novel (or novella, whatever). Nicola Barker writes about loners, eccentrics, and marginalised people in ways that are compelling, witty, and philosophical. This is the best of her work that I’ve read so far. Her style is wonderfully odd and unconventional which adds to her skewed characters and their strange lives.

If you need to engage your brain about the big stuff whilst smiling at the same time, this will help it all happen. Nicola Barker is the mad scientist of British literature. She is brilliant. But nuts.

I wish this review was better, but it’s not. I wish I was hung like a stallion instead of a hamster, but I’m not. I wish I was an extraordinarily talented, mad genius like Nicola Barker, but I’m not. There ya go, them’s the breaks.

This fabulous author has written 13 novels and 2 collections of short stories. Her novel Darkmans was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2007. She has a brand-new novel out this year, Tony Interrupter. I’ll be waiting.

The Floorboards Creak and Break

Day 2,429

Although addiction and recovery were the catalysts for this blog ever existing way back in 2018, I want to try and vary things this year and attempt to write about other things. It may or may not happen.

But today is not that day. This one was inspired by something thought-provoking that I found recently in a box at home. It got me thinking, as interesting things do. Especially when you start snooping around on yourself.

As I was tidying out some drawers last month, I found something that I’d completely forgotten about. It was a black, hardback A5 notebook from the end of February 2018. I vaguely recall writing in it, but I can definitely remember being unbearably cold. I was taking shelter in the local library to get warm. I had ridiculous amounts of clothing layers on, and a huge, thick coat. But the icy air had already gripped my bones and I couldn’t get warm. Remnants from a storm called, The Beast from the East was whipping everything around outside. This particular storm and it’s after-effects seemed to be going on forever.

I had only been out of rehab for around two months, after twelve weeks of intense, recovery-filled days there. I think I was doing some course or another at the time.

My mind was still a cocktail of excited, proud, overconfident, and terrified, which when mixed together produces its own version of brain fog. This is probably why my memory of writing in this notebook is very unclear, but I can remember the weather, what I was wearing, and the place I was defrosting myself in. It’s akin (I guess) to some form of alcoholic dementia, which of course is self-inflicted.

Anyway.

This notebook was thick with lined pages inside but unfortunately for me, only one page (both sides) was filled in. It was strange seeing my old handwriting again from that period. It was still pretty neat considering the recent past chaos of my life, and the arctic pandemonium outside the library. Apart from that one page, the only other words written are on the inside cover. It reads:

Novels, short stories, non-fiction, etc. Anything goes. Don’t stress. It’s not that important. It really isn’t.

Don’t stress. It’s not that important. It really isn’t. When it comes to writing again after so many years of being away from it, that’s actually good advice. It takes the pressure off those daunting blank pages. Perhaps the reason that the rest of the notebook was blank is because I didn’t take my own advice.

Or was it?

I did some snooping on myself in the 2018 part of my journal, in which I’ve been writing doggedly since 2005. It told me exactly why all those pages were blank. Did my pen run out? Did some part of my body freeze and snap off? Did God tell me ‘not’ to do it?

Read what was written in the notebook first, and I’ll spill what my informant (me) unearthed. I’ve copied-out the writing and kept the punctuation as it is. No changes. Good luck.

* * *

28-2-18

My finger wipes a lens into the steam on the window. The world flickers by, as it always has. In the time I’ve been away, nothing and everything has changed within the blink of an eye. The death and life game, as always, remain in constant flux. People, traffic, and coffee – wired people turn red for a second. I’ve bitten my nails too close again as I gulp at the bloody taste. The world comes to a halt as the bus doors open and the sick, malty smell of beer hits me. It’s seven-thirty in the morning, but nothing surprises me anymore. Or so I thought.

Rock-bottom.

A place you read about, look-up or hear about. Even when you think you are there and other people look down on you, and tell you to pull yourself together – the floorboards creak and break, and you fall further downwards into the darkness.

There are many levels to this rock-bottom, the hell that never ends. Some people keep falling, never to be seen again, most find a floor and crawl away, into the light like Lazarus. Rock-bottom is an open house, anyone is welcome. There are two ways to vacate your room – in a body bag or on your hands and knees. I’m not sure what level I’m on, but the floorboards are creaking again and something snaps.

* * *

There you go! Not a bad start for a bit of raw, rough, stream of conscious type scribbling. It shows a little bit of promise. Book idea? Short story? Flash fiction? Who knows! The most probable thing going on here is I was scraping the cobwebs from the inside of my creative brain to kickstart it again, to get some ideas going. Learning how to write again.

Or maybe I was planning something.

It’s such a shame I didn’t fill those empty pages. It could have led to something productive and soul-filling. But the words already written in there, did lead to something. It definitely was not soul-filling or productive. My snitching journal told me so. Here’s what it told me:

* * *

19 May 2018

I drank. I did 233 days. Was I sitting on my laurels after all? Thinking I was invincible? As of the 14th May, I’m now six days sober. Back to the drawing board. Back to rehab.

The only way I can describe it is that my head went into hell-mode, then I fell through the floorboards into Hell’s basement. Everything went black and went into chaos! But are they all excuses. Probably. When it comes down to it – I drank! Simple.

It started last Wednesday and went on until Sunday. On the Monday I woke up with every intention of carrying on drinking. But something clicked in my head and I got myself to the rehab where I was welcomed with open arms. It was hell, but at least I was in a safe place with safe people. They are letting me attend every day. I can’t write much more yet. Hopefully I’ll be here (in the journal) later. My head’s an absolute mess. But one positive – six days sober now. Rehab again tomorrow.

* * *

There you go! That was my second relapse (or lapse, as it were). It has never happened again. I hope it never will. It was the first time I had ever stopped myself. Usually, it was because I’d run out of money, my job was on the line, or some friends had swooped in. But I had never stopped myself before. It was a first. God knows where I would be now if I hadn’t.

So, I was writing completely sober in the notebook on Wednesday, February 28th 2018. I fell off the wagon on Wednesday, May 9th 2018. Just over two months gap in-between. My notebook and my journal seem to agree; the floorboards were very much creaking, and through them I fell.

And yes, it was all my fault, there were no excuses. Thankfully, the lapse only went on for four days. I had enough recovery tools in my head to stop myself and have the sense get back to rehab again.

If only I had carried on writing in those notebook pages. Maybe I could have worked things through in my head by continuing with something productive. Writing was one of the weapons I could always shoot the screaming demons down with, and carry on. Instead, after reading those words again and again, it looks as if I was planning my downfall. I mention rock-bottom three times but there are no positives to offset them. And . . . There are two ways to vacate your room – in a body bag or on your hands and knees. I’m not sure what level I’m on, but the floorboards are creaking again and something snaps. There’s a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy in there, which doesn’t help matters when you’re newly sober. Thankfully the body bag option didn’t happen. I probably frightened myself, writing words that were revealing too much of what was going on inside. No doubt I didn’t want to carry on confronting myself in black and white, not wanting to admit I was planning my own downfall.

Eventually I got back on track again: volunteer, part-time recovery worker, full-time recovery worker, learning support assistant. Not long after that lapse, I began this blog; that really helped. I read, I write, I listen to music, I do some art – I live.

It was interesting going to the 2018 part of my journal and seeing what was going on, and how it tied into that notebook. What if I went back to 2005? Now that would be interesting. That would be me, documenting my full-blown alcoholism in real-time. Maybe that could be something I could share snippets of here bit by bit? Maybe. Who knows.

Again, I often wonder what would have happened if I would have carried on writing in that old notebook.

Well. There are actually fewer blank pages now. Why? Because I’ve begun writing in it again. Novels, short stories, non-fiction, etc? Well, anything goes. I won’t stress, because as we know, it’s not that important. It really isn’t. The only thing I’ll be confronting, working out and planning this time – is my writing.

I hope you all had a great and safe Christmas. I also hope 2025 is kind to you all.

Take care everyone x