Ruzzle Punx

Late night sat. Waiting for Tamdin to come back from a Tibetan function down in Islington, fund raising for something. I was half expecting to have to go down to Islington to pick her up but as it 'appens she is getting a lift back with our friends Pema and Tashi.

Long w/end this w/end as it is a bank holiday. Been painting most of the day. Painting the upstairs landing, something which has been on the cards for a while. Had a late night meditation where believe it or not I actually felt quite good. Body not too heavy,instead pleasingly light. Mind OK. That don't happen too often I can tell ya that. Stayed pretty focused as I did a 108 breath sit, drifted a bit towards the end. Dunno why. Probably just tired. Thoughts of playing a Quo download from itunes crept into my mind towards the end I have to say. Yeah bought a couple tonight on the cheap. That was after spending the best part of an hour trying to figure how to back up my itunes library onto a portable back up drive. Should have been straight forward but believe me it wasn't. Finally figured it out after mucho frustration which was enough to nearly make my blood boil and send me off into a rage. Dunno what it is with computer stuff but I have to admit I get the willies almost immediately when things don't go right, now it has come to the point where I show almost zero tolerance when things don't happen when they should or do happen when they shouldn't if ya see what I mean.

Tue morn now. Grey day, looks like the hot spell has come to an end. Long w/end was spent painting and sorting stuff out. Simple as that. Yeah but I have to say that sometimes it feels like my life is just one continual round of sorting. Couple beers on Sun and Mon as a reward in the evenings but that was it. Heineken Export. Yeah, getting back into the habit of speaking a bit of Heinekenese. And I have to say when the time is right and ya have a thirst it is a pretty good language to learn. Gluggy gluggy glug...aaahhhh!!!

Site went down yesterday at work so got an agitated phone call from Leigh who sounded off to me on the blower "It's raining, it's a bank holiday and we aint making any fucking money". Classic if wasn't so desperate. Sounded just like Alan Sugar from out of The Apprentice. Looks like it was down for around six hours or so but by four it was up an running again which is better I guess that it still being down right now I as I write this. Frustrating. Just when it look like we are picking up a bit of momentum stuff like this comes along and throws it all sideways. Leigh gets extremely agitated by it I know that for a fact and he comes close to getting violent although I don't think he realises it. The lad just can't help it, irrespective of the fact he works for a company distributing Buddhist books.

Aint much I can say to him really. It's the ruzzle punkin' deal for sure when stuff like that 'appens but we have to get on with it as best we can. Yeah mean, just a load of ruzz puggery sent ta test us. Ya can look to skies an' the heavens if ya wish but that isnae goona change much if ya want the truth 'coz required to fix it don't live in our domain.

Wed now still grey. Kinda lost the track of what it is I have to write about. Dunno why, life goes on I guess and in between sometimes not much can happen. Nah, not much at all. Well that aint strictly true of course 'coz there are always things goin' on, it's more a question of whether ya have the energy to sit down an' notice them. Something like that.

Tamdin goes away on Fri for a week to Stockholm in her capacity as a Tibetan physician where she will see lots of people who will come to her for help. On Sat I will be going out for a meal with Leo Boy from Wisdom to talk business. He's been agitating for it for a long time, just ta see where we are and what avenues of opportunity are possibly gonna be open for us if we wanna continue. Or maybe if we wanna continue is too strong a way of putting it, maybe what I mean is if we can continue given the current economic circumstances of the company and the fact we are havin' to fork out 15 friggin' grand for a boiler an' heating system we don't particularly want.

Dunno what it is but some people can irritate ya more than others an' in my case Leo Boy definitely falls into that category. Dunno why, really dunno why. Guess it must be 'coz of some kinda threat I can't necessarily explain. For example at work if I compare the things that come out of Leo's mouth and the things that come out of Mikel's mouth when we are in the office it is almost certain that even if they are saying exactly the same thing it will be Leo Boy who winds me up. Just his manner, just his tone. I gotta really concentrate, really watch myself to make sure I don't blurt out something really stupid an' disgraceful in relation to whatever it is he might be sayin'. Why is it? Just the certainty of belief he displays maybe, yeah man the belief he has that he is right...something like that. He always has irritated me and I think it is fair to say he always will. Many a time he has sat there and gone on about something and I have just wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up but either out of cowardice or politeness I have not down so. Cowardice probably.

Often tried to analyse these feelings in meditation but it doesn't really seem to have done much help. Or maybe it has. Maybe it is unrealistic to ever expect them to go away, better just to let them sit and do what they have to do with me watching 'em.

Yeah man, at the end of the day it is the same old situation between us. Irritation on my part over stuff that comes out of his mouth, wanting ta shoot him down but not knowing how. Totally unfair I know. Guess he plays on insecurities I have. Whether consciously or not I really dunno, but I feel it, I feel it. Leo Boy's comments about work and things happening in relation to the biz can really wind me up at times, lead me up the path of thinking whether what I'm doing is correct or not, whether or not I could be doing more or could be doing things different. Stuff like that. All the time. In some it is good to have that kinda check but in other ways it is not when I'm finding myself in a position of having to bite my lip.

Definitely plays on my insecurities. Makes me think I'm not proactive enough as far as work is concerned. That is things on the one hand. On the other I just kinda think that sometimes Leo Boy is too interested in business and making money. That there is an air of desperation about things sometimes because he is so obsessed with things that he sees should be done in a particular way. It's dangerous, after all at the end of the day what we are doing is dealing with books on Buddhism and there is an argument that is no doubt made by some that Buddhism should never be sold at all, in any way whatsoever. Yet there we are, selling it.

Often the both of us run on emotion and that can lead to both of us movin' too fast, then if we collide there can be a clash. Yeah man, makes me think I am not doing enough as far as work is concerned, which might be fair comment I guess in some regards. After all I am only there 3 and half days a week and Leo Boy by contrast is there all the time, Mon-Fri 9 ta 5, or more like 8.15 ta 5.30 with hardly any break. I guess that does mean to a certain extent he sees a fuller picture than me.

Important I guess to just accept work is always gonna be unsatisfactory. There are always gonna many things about it that just aint quite right and you have to live with it an' just do the best you can. In the case of Wisdom Books we also have to do the best we can within the constraints of what out budget will allow. Things are sometimes decided for when we aint got the money. Main thing is just to keep it all together enough so that we don't end up going bust. But as for it being a vehicle to realise your dreams...well as far as that goes I really aint so sure.

Guess from my side there is a bit of jealousy there as well as far as Leo is concerned. Sometimes he is very busy in the office, he has managed to cultivate a good base of contacts that he uses on a frequent basis. When I look at myself in comparison I see that I am almost a hermit and it is as much as I can do to raise my head from the behind the screen of my computer. Bottom line is I just don't find it easy to get on the phone and talk to people. Not that I necessarily prefer to work in silence, just that I get locked away in my own thoughts. Introverted maybe. Leo Boy is not like that at all, there is a constant stream of noise coming from his corner of the office and even when he aint on the blower to other people he is talking to either me or Mikel or to himself. I like to keep my mouth shut if I can at all help it. Sometimes it feels like it is such an effort to say things to people, it can almost physically hurt. In comparison to me Leo Boy is really chatty little chappy.

Fri now. End of the week. Short kinda week this week as far as Wisdom goes aint no doubt about that. Mon was a holiday, Wed I was with Tamdin and today I am off as I am taking Tamdin to Heathrow in the middle of the day and then going into town to do some shopping. Looking to get the new deluxe version of Don't Look Back on DVD. Bob Dylan circa 1965 in case you're wondering...

Sleep been kinda so so this week. Couple of middle of the night wake ups but nothing for too long. With Tamdin going away for a week to Sweden I hope I can use the time to get down to some meditation. Need to find the spark again. Going off the boil. It was going well for a little while but tiredness took over a coupla weeks ago and it has been as much as I can do to get near the cushion since, in fact more often than not I just haven't managed it. Mental wall in front of me, high and wide.

May weather more like May now after a hot an' steamy April. Things just keep goin'. All this bullshit talk about carbon awareness and stuff like that is senseless when at the same time it is announced there are now more flights being taken in the world than ever before. Fuckin' millions of 'em. Just don't stack up do it? People have gotta realise things will just keep on going in the way they are until we are all forced to stop because circumstances in some shape or form will have become so goddam extreme that we just can't go on further down the line without some kinda radical change in our behaviour. Until then, forget it.

All this crap about limiting industrial production and trying to keep within certain self-imposed limits are never ever gonna be fully adhered to. We are not masters of our own destiny when there is such an unholy scramble to try to get along the road of capitalist consumerism. We are just a race, the human race, on a tiny planet in the depths of space tryin' to survive, trying to get along and in all honesty not really having much of a clue about the bigger picture. We're small. Life is vast, too fast for us to really sit back and think of future generations an' holding back a bit of beauty for them. OK a few comfortable white middle class folks deep in the comfortable West might give themselves the luxury of thinking they can do it, thinking that they really can make a difference. But that just don't take into account the billions in places like Asia on the other side of the world where the race is very much on. Depressing? Nah, it's life an' life only.