Just a couple of days now before Xmas. Went into London this morning to get a couple of last minute things. Place looked fantastic in my eyes; December grey, cold and hundreds and hundreds of years old. Just how I like it. Ended up buying a copy of new Cale/Clapton cd for my dad for Xmas. Played it through once when I got home and it sounded pretty good. Also bought a copy of "Darkness on the Edge of Town" by the Boss. Gradually getting a little bit of Springsteen stuff together within the realms of my cd collection. Boy it has taken me a really long time to get into him. Think I have finally realised just what it is that I like about him and what I have come to value him for. He sings from the heart. Simple as that really. As with all things that appear simple it is in fact not so simple and he is one of a few artists who convincingly pulls it off. Just my thoughts anyway. The Boss. His voice.
Slept a little in the early evening today. Don't know why, just felt completely shattered. Guess I had been doing quite a bit of running around today and also had a late night last night after going over for dinner at Leigh's place. Didn't get back to Woodford till nearly 1 am, or just past 1 am in fact. Eating and talking. Then this morning the day went something like this -
Woken up about 7.30 by a phone call from Tamdin from India.
Got up and spoke to her.
Made coffee, drank it in front of the lap and read the Net papers.
Called my folks to see if my sister, husband and kid were coming down for Xmas to my folks...which led to me trying to sort all that out as there had been some doubt about whether they all could make it because of the weather and travelling conditions. Didn't fancy the prospect of them blowing out though and leaving just me with ma and pa for the festivities. A little bit of arse booting was what was required and it seemed to work.
Took a bunch of stuff to be washed at the launderette, stuff that our nearly clapped out washing machine just can't handle anymore. Arranged to collect it late afternoon.
Came back put a bunch of other stuff in the wachine machine, stuff that wouldn't screw it up. Stuck the machine on.
Toasted a couple of rolls for breakfast and had a cup of tea.
Walked down to the tube and went into town.
Got off at Bank. Put another 20 quid on my Oyester card. Walked through the City to the Museum of London. Bought a couple of squidgy toys from the museum shop to take to the kids in India when I go at the end of the week.
Walked through the Barbican and down into Smithfield where there were a lot of drunken people about who must have been partying all through the night and were now staggering around trying to find another club to go to. They were all out of it and some were getting agressive with each other. One of those strange sights that London can so effortlessly deliver from time to time. So many drunken people at just 11 in the morning. I have walked through Smithfield on many occasions before and never seen a sight like that. Then again sometime in the summer this year I remember walking through Smithfield one Saturday and there was a re-enactment of Bartholomew Fair going on which I thought was pretty cool.
Walked up Greville Street through Hatton Garden and across to Bloomsbury and then through Russell Square and onto the back of Tottenham Court Road. Cut through the back lanes north of Oxford Street and then dived into the HMV and bought the aforementioned CDs.
Made my way across to John Lewis. Bought a Timberland sweatshirt at 30% off. Bought a chopping board then walked back to Oxford Circus and got a tube out of there. Central Line eastbound. Got out at Liverpool Street and went up onto Bishopsgate and bought a large Cornish pasty which I ate in a semi-deserted square not far from the Gerkhin. Bought a pesto quiche kind of thing as a possible for dinner.
Bought some Xmas present tags.
Went back down to the tube and got back out to Woodford.
Got back home and dumped all the stuff I'd bought and had a cup of tea.
Dried the clothes I had put in the washing machine earlier.
Got money and passport together and walked up Snakes Lake West to the Western Union agent on the High Road. Sent a load of money across to India.
Came back and called Tamdin with the Western Union code for her to collect it tomorrow.
Went in the car to pick up the washing from the launderette. Drove down to South Woodford to buy a couple of things including some fish which I decided I would cook tonight with vegetables.
Came back and had a bath.
Had a cup of tea. Tried to watch TV for half and hour but felt wrecked and had to go and lie down. Slept from approx 6.40 - 7.55. Woke feeling out of it. Got myself together and came down and cooked dinner.
After eating sat down and wrote this. Time now nearly 9.30 and now will go and do some meditation.
Sat for about half an hour or so but focus was not great...never a good idea to meditate on a full stomach. Your body is preoccupied with other things. Guess I will have to say it turned out to be not much more than a token effort.
Now going to stop writing this for the day and will go and watch the football.
Post this first. Possibly my last piece of the year. Enjoyed it.
Guru Padmasambhava Invocation Hill
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
Chill Time
Now in the week before Xmas. Really don't feel like it is just around the corner, apart from the fact countless millions of people are out pounding the streets looking to spend money, and in a significant minority of cases to steal it. As the years go by the good old Xmas feeling for me just gets less and less. Must have something to do with the fact that with the climate getting warmer and warmer it seems even more surreal than usual to send and receive cards of landscapes filled with snow, trees with snow falling off their branches and all the rest of it. Those days are long gone and now represent a long lost fantasy. The weather has been so warm this month for example that it is only in the last couple of days that we have had a touch of frost. Other than that temps have been high for this time of year and I think that even the empty ritual of betting on whether or not there is going to be a white Xmas is going to be dropped this year for the blindingly obvious reason that there not going to be a chance in hell of one.
I guess that things might be different in my attitude to this time of year if I was a parent but I'm not and therefore have no little person beside me full of the magic of expectation of a big mad daddy figure dressed in red and white descending through the roof of the house. No, there ain't nuthin' like that going on in my neck of the woods. No siree. Just my plain old adult weariness for company and resignation that it is this time of the year again. Xmas? I would seriously advocate that it be celebrated no more than once every three years, but no one listens to me.
Been going through another phase of interrupted sleep. Maybe it is too much darkness. Inside and outside, if you know what I mean. Short days bookended by a lot of night. Anyway the pattern at the moment seems to be going to sleep around 11.15 pm and then waking up anytime between 2.30 - 3.30 am and staying awake for quite a while. Brain active, thoughts racing. The dead zone as far as any other kind of entertainment goes. Don't know why it is that I keep waking, well if I did then maybe I would be able to do something about it. Correspondingly the meditation sessions I have been having recently are have been stiff and painful. Maybe it is the drop in temperatures. Whatever it is my mindfulness in regard to the meditation object has not quite been fully with it, as if it is spinning just a little off balance...a bit like the earth and it's 23.4 degrees. What is the meditation object ? The breath, my breathing, counting the in and out breaths, the rise and fall of my chest and abdomen.
Weather still chilly, cold in fact. Last couple of days there has also been a dense fog hanging over the city, just to spice things up a bit. Sitting here in the evenings watching the news and all the misery people are having to endure at airports as they try to get away for Xmas but are just confronted instead with cancelled flights. In a way though it is hard to feel sorry for them, after all isn't air traffic supposed to be one of the biggest contributors to global warming ? These days things like that just go with the territory, you just have to take your chances. Same with travelling by car, you could be heading out the door full of excitement over your Xmas break only to head straight into an almighty jam an hour up the road which leaves you boiling over with anger and frustration; cursing the whole lousy stinking deal of jungle bells and all that bullshit.
Better just to lie low if you can. Put your expectations to bed and settle for less. It is all a big con anyway, Xmas - who needs it really ? Just commerce. The shops, the businesses. They are the ones that need it, just to keep the whole capitalist roadshow going. Buy, buy, buy. Continue feeding the illusion that all these material goods are going to make people happy. Whatever happened to the days of simplicity and self-sufficiency? Instead we get the demands of capitalism rammed down our throats at any given opportunity. OK a little is fine, but to have this constant pre-occupation with buying this or that in the vain hope that these things are going to provide answers to the fundamental problems of what it is we are really doing living on planet Earth is just a pathetic waste of precious time.
The fog changes things though I have to say. Makes driving a lot more interesting with strange shapes appearing on the roads from the reflected beams of the headlights of the traffic. Makes you feel slightly disorientated as well. In a pleasant kind of way. But I guess the trick is not to end up driving too fast and crashing your motor. Just like some poor soul had done on the opporsite side of the North Circular on my way back home this evening. A bunch of fireman were grouped around the car, after just having cut someone out of the wreckage and a stretcher had a figure on it, under a load of blankets. A sobering sight. Everyone on my side of the road slowed down to a crawl as we passed the accident scene, me included. Just so that we could all get a good eye full. That is the thing. The warning. Will we heed signs like that or just carry on as usual ? As for me I don't think I can answer as I know that often I drive too fast and could very well one day end up in a decidely sticky situation. That's what happens when you bomb around in a Toyota Avensis with either U2 or Led Zep on the car sound system. At volume. Better go.
I guess that things might be different in my attitude to this time of year if I was a parent but I'm not and therefore have no little person beside me full of the magic of expectation of a big mad daddy figure dressed in red and white descending through the roof of the house. No, there ain't nuthin' like that going on in my neck of the woods. No siree. Just my plain old adult weariness for company and resignation that it is this time of the year again. Xmas? I would seriously advocate that it be celebrated no more than once every three years, but no one listens to me.
Been going through another phase of interrupted sleep. Maybe it is too much darkness. Inside and outside, if you know what I mean. Short days bookended by a lot of night. Anyway the pattern at the moment seems to be going to sleep around 11.15 pm and then waking up anytime between 2.30 - 3.30 am and staying awake for quite a while. Brain active, thoughts racing. The dead zone as far as any other kind of entertainment goes. Don't know why it is that I keep waking, well if I did then maybe I would be able to do something about it. Correspondingly the meditation sessions I have been having recently are have been stiff and painful. Maybe it is the drop in temperatures. Whatever it is my mindfulness in regard to the meditation object has not quite been fully with it, as if it is spinning just a little off balance...a bit like the earth and it's 23.4 degrees. What is the meditation object ? The breath, my breathing, counting the in and out breaths, the rise and fall of my chest and abdomen.
Weather still chilly, cold in fact. Last couple of days there has also been a dense fog hanging over the city, just to spice things up a bit. Sitting here in the evenings watching the news and all the misery people are having to endure at airports as they try to get away for Xmas but are just confronted instead with cancelled flights. In a way though it is hard to feel sorry for them, after all isn't air traffic supposed to be one of the biggest contributors to global warming ? These days things like that just go with the territory, you just have to take your chances. Same with travelling by car, you could be heading out the door full of excitement over your Xmas break only to head straight into an almighty jam an hour up the road which leaves you boiling over with anger and frustration; cursing the whole lousy stinking deal of jungle bells and all that bullshit.
Better just to lie low if you can. Put your expectations to bed and settle for less. It is all a big con anyway, Xmas - who needs it really ? Just commerce. The shops, the businesses. They are the ones that need it, just to keep the whole capitalist roadshow going. Buy, buy, buy. Continue feeding the illusion that all these material goods are going to make people happy. Whatever happened to the days of simplicity and self-sufficiency? Instead we get the demands of capitalism rammed down our throats at any given opportunity. OK a little is fine, but to have this constant pre-occupation with buying this or that in the vain hope that these things are going to provide answers to the fundamental problems of what it is we are really doing living on planet Earth is just a pathetic waste of precious time.
The fog changes things though I have to say. Makes driving a lot more interesting with strange shapes appearing on the roads from the reflected beams of the headlights of the traffic. Makes you feel slightly disorientated as well. In a pleasant kind of way. But I guess the trick is not to end up driving too fast and crashing your motor. Just like some poor soul had done on the opporsite side of the North Circular on my way back home this evening. A bunch of fireman were grouped around the car, after just having cut someone out of the wreckage and a stretcher had a figure on it, under a load of blankets. A sobering sight. Everyone on my side of the road slowed down to a crawl as we passed the accident scene, me included. Just so that we could all get a good eye full. That is the thing. The warning. Will we heed signs like that or just carry on as usual ? As for me I don't think I can answer as I know that often I drive too fast and could very well one day end up in a decidely sticky situation. That's what happens when you bomb around in a Toyota Avensis with either U2 or Led Zep on the car sound system. At volume. Better go.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Praying
Sometimes I think to pray but I don't know if I will ever be able to pray hard enough. Pray for all the people I love, for all the people I know.
Wrote the above a few days ago, haven't had much inclination to write much at the moment. Had some weird red swellings that have appeared on my body and don't know what they are. Got a patch above my right side ribs and one on my back which is difficult to see. They have been hot and itchy and at times painful. Thought it might be shingles but I am not too sure about that as they are supposed to cause great pain and although these swellings are uncomfortable at times they are not as bad as that. Also might have another patch developing beneath my right nipple but it is early days yet. Must some physical manifestation of mental stress or something like that. Left me feeling a bit knackered as well and I am always grateful of the opportunity these days to have a lie down for 1/2 hour or so. Wonder what they are? Wonder why they have appeared?
Wrote the stuff above, those two paras, over a month ago now. Time has moved on so what's been the buzz? Well I guess that is hard to say. The rash that I mentioned has long gone, don't know what the fuck that was all about. Bit worried about the fact that I am currently hooked on playing a cd of Tupac's Greatest Hits in the car at the moment. So many bas ass muthafuckers and bad ass niggas it is simply unbelievable. Will have to make damn sure my wife doesn't find out that I'm listening to it as I cruise along the streets of East London. There is something delightfully forbidden about it though, not that I would ever be able to say that I have a clue about Tupac's world...Only reason I bought it really was because I recently read Michael Connelly's book the Lincoln Lawyer where the main character - the Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller - listens to Tupac a lot and speaks extremely highly of him. Since Michael Connelly is a writer I rate I took note and then lo and behold there I was the other day in HMV in Beckton when I came across his Greatest Hits on 2cds for a very reasonable £9.99. Well, since then it has been Tupac all the way as far as the sound system in the car - a Toyota Avensis - is concerned. This has come after a fairly long period during the main music of choice in the motor for me has been late period Steely Dan, namely "Two Against Nature", "Everything Must Go" and Donald Fagen's solo masterpiece "Morph the Cat". Shit hot stuff and it is interesting to compare the sound of Dan when it is Fagen and Walter Becker and the sound of Fagen solo. Somehow Dan are more West Coast, more illicit, more sunny. For me that is clearly down to Becker and the fact that he is a genius bassist, genius gutarist and overall master arranger. Steely Dan. Citizen Dan. Boy oh boy when I get into them I play them non-stop. Don't think that will be the case the Tupac however but all the same I am getting into it in a way I never thought I would. Tupac is dead now of course and there is a strong sense of premonition running through a lot of his material that he was going to end up getting shot.
Carrying on from yesterday. Must now be in a writing phase. Gone weeks without writing a thing and now, two days in a row, I am back on the Blog. Not that I really have that much to say. Guess I've been feeling the pressure of work a bit these last couple of days. Maybe writing is a bit of a distraction, a chance to escape thinking about it for a while. Unless that is I write about it. There ain't that much to write about however when all is said and done. Simple fact of the matter is that business could be better. Orders are slow but the bills keep piling up and bit by bit we are running out of money. What happens when we can't keep the whole thing afloat ? We sink. Simple as that. Curtains. Thanks and goodnight. 20 years of working in the East End of London all over and some may say... thank god for that.
And so it goes, this is now a continuation of what I wrote the day before which just happened to be the above paragraph. Writing this with "Modern Times" on the sound system. There ain't no doubt that it is right up there in top 2 or 3 Bob Dylan albums as far as I'm concerned. Mind you, contary to what has been written, the lyrics in "Rollin' and Tumbling" read "hurly doom" and not "early doom", likewise at the end it is "think I must be babblin' on" and not "think I must be travellin' on". Just little things I guess, these corrections, but to me they are in fact quite important as they change the direction in which the song has taken.
Weather still mild. Not as sunny recently as it has been, but still pretty good. Some people don't like it and think that it is another sign that it will soon be the end of the world. Well I think that is pretty unlikely. Man might disappear but the world? Not until the sun expands into a red giant and that is ages away in the future, approx 3 billion years. Still I know where it is that people are coming from. It makes me feel uneasy when it is mid-October and there are still people walking the streets in little more than t-shirt and shorts. It's gonna come down to simple evelotion in the end. The survival of the fittest in the sense that whoever adapts and just gets on with it are gonna be the ones who will do OK out of it. If you sit around freaking out that you can't walk out in the bracing winds of autumn you are falling into the trap of believing in the permanence of things, in this case elemental forces. But the world keeps spinning and rolling through space at a fair old lick. Tremendously quick in fact and it is only because we are goddam tiny that we don't realise how fast it is moving. Something like 130 km per second if I am not mistaken.
Friday now, getting to the end of the week. Quite a busy week, quite a stressful week as far as work is concerned. Not busy enough as far as orders coming in through the door, that has been the problem. What do I do ? Work for a small, very small, book distribution company, more like a wholesaler really. We have a mail order list and we have a website. We specialise in books on Buddhism. Went live with our newly designed website nearly a month ago and it has been a testing time since that. Testing in the sense of whether people like it or not, and testing in the sense of whether it works. Anyway, anyway. All we can do is try. And I guess that is what we have always done with varying shades of success as a result.
Writing this at work , a few days after the paragraph was wrote above. Ain't it funny, when I'm away from this thing I can think of thousands that I wanna write about, get off my chest, but when it comes down to sitting in front of it then it becomes difficult to come up with much to say. That seems to be the way. Maybe it simply requires more attention, the willingness to grind away for hours until I reach of state of fluency. Whatever it is, I ain't got it right now.
Gotta remember to write
Aint wrote nuthin' on the blog
For the last few weeks...
Dunno why 'coz it aint like I aint got nuthin' to say
Guess it just goes that way -
Speeding life
That's it, this blog entry has gotta live now, been too long hangin' round in draft lands...
Wrote the above a few days ago, haven't had much inclination to write much at the moment. Had some weird red swellings that have appeared on my body and don't know what they are. Got a patch above my right side ribs and one on my back which is difficult to see. They have been hot and itchy and at times painful. Thought it might be shingles but I am not too sure about that as they are supposed to cause great pain and although these swellings are uncomfortable at times they are not as bad as that. Also might have another patch developing beneath my right nipple but it is early days yet. Must some physical manifestation of mental stress or something like that. Left me feeling a bit knackered as well and I am always grateful of the opportunity these days to have a lie down for 1/2 hour or so. Wonder what they are? Wonder why they have appeared?
Wrote the stuff above, those two paras, over a month ago now. Time has moved on so what's been the buzz? Well I guess that is hard to say. The rash that I mentioned has long gone, don't know what the fuck that was all about. Bit worried about the fact that I am currently hooked on playing a cd of Tupac's Greatest Hits in the car at the moment. So many bas ass muthafuckers and bad ass niggas it is simply unbelievable. Will have to make damn sure my wife doesn't find out that I'm listening to it as I cruise along the streets of East London. There is something delightfully forbidden about it though, not that I would ever be able to say that I have a clue about Tupac's world...Only reason I bought it really was because I recently read Michael Connelly's book the Lincoln Lawyer where the main character - the Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller - listens to Tupac a lot and speaks extremely highly of him. Since Michael Connelly is a writer I rate I took note and then lo and behold there I was the other day in HMV in Beckton when I came across his Greatest Hits on 2cds for a very reasonable £9.99. Well, since then it has been Tupac all the way as far as the sound system in the car - a Toyota Avensis - is concerned. This has come after a fairly long period during the main music of choice in the motor for me has been late period Steely Dan, namely "Two Against Nature", "Everything Must Go" and Donald Fagen's solo masterpiece "Morph the Cat". Shit hot stuff and it is interesting to compare the sound of Dan when it is Fagen and Walter Becker and the sound of Fagen solo. Somehow Dan are more West Coast, more illicit, more sunny. For me that is clearly down to Becker and the fact that he is a genius bassist, genius gutarist and overall master arranger. Steely Dan. Citizen Dan. Boy oh boy when I get into them I play them non-stop. Don't think that will be the case the Tupac however but all the same I am getting into it in a way I never thought I would. Tupac is dead now of course and there is a strong sense of premonition running through a lot of his material that he was going to end up getting shot.
Carrying on from yesterday. Must now be in a writing phase. Gone weeks without writing a thing and now, two days in a row, I am back on the Blog. Not that I really have that much to say. Guess I've been feeling the pressure of work a bit these last couple of days. Maybe writing is a bit of a distraction, a chance to escape thinking about it for a while. Unless that is I write about it. There ain't that much to write about however when all is said and done. Simple fact of the matter is that business could be better. Orders are slow but the bills keep piling up and bit by bit we are running out of money. What happens when we can't keep the whole thing afloat ? We sink. Simple as that. Curtains. Thanks and goodnight. 20 years of working in the East End of London all over and some may say... thank god for that.
And so it goes, this is now a continuation of what I wrote the day before which just happened to be the above paragraph. Writing this with "Modern Times" on the sound system. There ain't no doubt that it is right up there in top 2 or 3 Bob Dylan albums as far as I'm concerned. Mind you, contary to what has been written, the lyrics in "Rollin' and Tumbling" read "hurly doom" and not "early doom", likewise at the end it is "think I must be babblin' on" and not "think I must be travellin' on". Just little things I guess, these corrections, but to me they are in fact quite important as they change the direction in which the song has taken.
Weather still mild. Not as sunny recently as it has been, but still pretty good. Some people don't like it and think that it is another sign that it will soon be the end of the world. Well I think that is pretty unlikely. Man might disappear but the world? Not until the sun expands into a red giant and that is ages away in the future, approx 3 billion years. Still I know where it is that people are coming from. It makes me feel uneasy when it is mid-October and there are still people walking the streets in little more than t-shirt and shorts. It's gonna come down to simple evelotion in the end. The survival of the fittest in the sense that whoever adapts and just gets on with it are gonna be the ones who will do OK out of it. If you sit around freaking out that you can't walk out in the bracing winds of autumn you are falling into the trap of believing in the permanence of things, in this case elemental forces. But the world keeps spinning and rolling through space at a fair old lick. Tremendously quick in fact and it is only because we are goddam tiny that we don't realise how fast it is moving. Something like 130 km per second if I am not mistaken.
Friday now, getting to the end of the week. Quite a busy week, quite a stressful week as far as work is concerned. Not busy enough as far as orders coming in through the door, that has been the problem. What do I do ? Work for a small, very small, book distribution company, more like a wholesaler really. We have a mail order list and we have a website. We specialise in books on Buddhism. Went live with our newly designed website nearly a month ago and it has been a testing time since that. Testing in the sense of whether people like it or not, and testing in the sense of whether it works. Anyway, anyway. All we can do is try. And I guess that is what we have always done with varying shades of success as a result.
Writing this at work , a few days after the paragraph was wrote above. Ain't it funny, when I'm away from this thing I can think of thousands that I wanna write about, get off my chest, but when it comes down to sitting in front of it then it becomes difficult to come up with much to say. That seems to be the way. Maybe it simply requires more attention, the willingness to grind away for hours until I reach of state of fluency. Whatever it is, I ain't got it right now.
Gotta remember to write
Aint wrote nuthin' on the blog
For the last few weeks...
Dunno why 'coz it aint like I aint got nuthin' to say
Guess it just goes that way -
Speeding life
That's it, this blog entry has gotta live now, been too long hangin' round in draft lands...
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