No explanation °17





I placed three bottles outside of my window four weeks ago. Two of them are now quarter full of rainwater and melted snowflakes, the other is empty. I haven't touched them. I am on the third floor and you can't reach my window ledge from anywhere outside. Weird yeah? It's unlikely, but not entirely impossible, that chance is at play here. Imagine that. My friends think I am trying to fuck with them, and have suggested I start going outside again. I'll think about it.

Insert (inspiring town) name here





I could sum up my own side of the story with this one sentence: It begins one afternoon when I kill a cat and discover a Rose and then twists and turns its way around the unlikely and the impossible before ending tragically as I drown beneath the waters of the river which flows next to my hometown, (insert inspiring town name here). Telling the story may take a little longer.











This post is an explanation for the lack of recent posting.




I am trying to avoid sitting down right now, which isn't as easy as you might think. Oh and there is nothing wrong with my ass either, before you ask (or assume) its just that I have fucked my back ... I mean, what next? Thanks to life's general brilliance I was riding the crest of a wave so to speak and then a week ago I slid off my sofa to change the DVD (a Curb afternoon) and BLAM! something happened to my back. I say something, because - and I guess there are plenty of you who at one time or another have experienced this - it's completely indescribable. So I gave it a day or two and then went to the Doc's and tried to explain the unexplainable in a language I haven't quite mastered yet, never mind learning vocabulary about unexplainable bodily happenings. The Doc gave me a ton of drugs, which I was hoping to avoid, and sent me to an osteopath, who broke me into pieces and then stuck me back together again using powers that only osteopaths have. 

Yeah, well it's all good now, unless I decide to sit down. Which is where we came in, I believe.

This post was apparently an explanation for the lack of recent posting, but on reflection it was only a gap of three days so .... well, thats prescription drugs for you.

Zap that van.




This photo sums it all up perfectly. 

I am in full-on rewrite mode just now, which means my coffee intake is off the scale, my swearing has hit Malcolm Tucker levels and my eyes look like partially sucked M&Ms. 

Rewriting is a funny business as I am sure some of you know. I can never imagine how I will get it done, but it never ceases to amaze me, after a few hours at it, how awful the original actually was. Quite terrifying really.

Ok, its valentines day, right? And we all know what that means ...

I better be quiet now.








I have found myself in a situation, which, if someone had told me was happening to them I would have given them some very precise advice which I myself am unable to follow. For someone who is pretty much always loaded with spectacularly graphic advice this has come as a terribly depressing surprise.

Anyway, as a result of all that my swearing has gone over the top today, way into the nineties. That's almost off the chart, but not quite. Later, E bought me a ton of things I love to eat, and soon I had stopped swearing and begun to enjoy (biscuits) life again.

Tomorrow is Thursday though. I was born on a Thursday, so technically it's my birthday tomorrow, which should mean more biscuits and maybe poulet roti for lunch.



Darker skies than I expected at this time of day.





I am not here right now, and to put it as simply as I can ... it sucks not to be here right now. Soon I will be here again, and it will suck less, until I try to navigate Châtelet at rush hour. That really sucks. Trying to navigate Châtelet at rush hour sucks ass big time, (to quote my niece)




Somewhere in chapter 18




I was spinning in circles, unable to eat, unable to sleep even, since Clem’s disappearance. Once the sadness had worn off, anger took its place, followed by a seemingly depthless depression and finally hysterical paranoia combined with a desperate need to sort this all out. How dare he just leave like that when everything was just beginning to make sense? How dare he bail out on me? I shoved my head through the hole and into Rose’s apartment, grabbed the telephone from her desk and pulled it back into my room and sat in the middle of the floor. I took a deep breath and dialled Clem’s number, my finger shaking at the thought of dialling into some kind of nothingness, wherever he was. It was making me sweat. I had visions of cables disappearing through dusty holes behind walls, down inside toilet bowls, down throats, into bleeding wounds, into ... God alone knows where. I shook my head, shooing away these ghastly scenes.
            I dialled, it rang. Shockingly, he answered after three rings, the unlikely sound of his voice booming from the receiver forced me to pull it away from my ear and stare at it with scepticism.
            The conversation went something, but not exactly, like this:
            I began by shouting, “Clem, you moron! Where are you? What’s going on?”
            “What!?” he yelled back. There was a lot of background noise, people talking, shouting, music. “Who’s that?”
            “Who’s tha ... it’s me! Henri! Henri Merle! Now listen, tell me where you are and I will come and get you. It sounds like you are in a deal of trouble.”
            “What? Hold on a minute, I can’t hear you. Maurice?” he yelled, before speaking to someone else in the background for what felt like an age. Eventually the music dropped and his voice came back again, talking at a more normal volume, “Ok, right-o. Who’s that?”
            “Clem it’s me, Henri. I miss you.”
            “Henri?”
            “Yes! I have so many things I want to talk to you about Clem, things that are happening, things we never got around to saying, I still really, really need your help. I think I am beginning to spin out of control Clem, I am dying and confused and I don’t know what is real anymore. I don’t know if I am writing things that happen or if I am writing things that happened or even if perhaps these are my own ideas after all. I have some conclusions that I want to share with you. I’ve made notes. If you ...” I stopped as he interrupted.
            “Wait. Henri who?” he asked just as the music went back to its original volume and someone began singing along, revoltingly out of tune. “Hello?” he shouted.
            “Clem!” I yelled.
            “I’m hanging up now,” he screamed, “can’t hear a damn thing in here.” Crack! Silence.

bath time






Still in the bath it seems. I reach to the side of my head and turn the tap. It screeches in my ear and I jump with fright and yell out, hurting my throat. I haven’t spoken for two days. The cold water splutters out and I drink down what I can get into my mouth, Jonas you have a train to catch, the rest soaks my tee-shirt and darkens my jeans. The water hits my stomach like gasoline. I slither and slide in the tub as I try to get out. Tears sting my eyes.



An award and a sigh



The sigh is because one year ago I was in Rome, (see picture) and I had great plans to go back there again at the same time this year. But obviously I haven't. I'm not even in Paris right now, which I think explains the normalness of the recent posts. Paris inspires, and often creates, madness. Woah, this was supposed to be about Rome and I am already off track. I think I have mentioned before my love/hate relationship with Italy ... hate is too strong a word, its just the goddamned mental driving I can't cope with. It makes driving round the Parisian peripheral road seem fun by comparison. Everything else about Italy is great though. Uh, well ... let's not start about Italian politics. (Did you notice Paris got squeezed in there again a couple of sentences ago though) Sigh.

Almost forgot the real point of this post. I was thinking about blog awards the other day after spotting a few blogs which declare themselves award-free, which is fair enough. Let's not get into the whys and why nots here though. I'm just going to invent an award and some rules and hand it out ... I seriously dont know where this is going.

brb

Ah well, its the fish again.


I'm handing it out to five people, because more than five is a waste. Of time perhaps.

So here they are ......

Scarlet over at Scarlet On The Couch because she seems to be fairly new to all this but posts like crazy. The photos are few, but if you like to read a lot, shoot over there right now. 

Phoenix over at res ipsa loquitur because she writes long posts which don't feel like long posts. Like this.

Jasmine over at an experiment in poverty for various reasons, especially this post.

De'May over at De'May Plush for this and this.

Actually, I have just discovered that the last blog I was going to nominate has disappeared, which has kind of ruined my night. Why? So I am going to leave it at four for now, but there will be more in the future I suspect. It's kind of difficult doing this kind of thing, what with all the good stuff out there. Whatever. Ah yeah, rules for the award. There are none. No, there are a couple. Give it to someone else. Five MAXIMUM. But you have to mention a specific post when you do. Or of course, if you are award-free, then you can store it in the attic ... no worries!

Be nice




Be nice to people. Its not hard. Unless the people in question are fucking assholes who speak to you like shit, then it is not so easy is it? Ah well. This has a relevance in my life right now, but not one that is worth talking about here. I just don't get people sometimes.


I have a load more stuff to write, but I think this post should end here. It's snowing again though.