ALL BETTS ARE OFF

Okay so what’s been happening, it’s been ages since I posted anything, I’ve been really busy with a project… Top secret of course, but as you may know I throw myself into things and can only focus on one thing at a time so the last thing I threw myself into must take a more of back seat from now on. Sorry.

Well it’s 2009 and we are all one year closer to death.In Thailand it’s the year 2552 which makes you 543 years closer to death.

So Happy New Year, unless you are Chinese and reading this in March.

What a year 2008 was, eh?

Travelling the world, falling in love (twice), climbing volcanoes, selling my house, not selling my house, living like a king, living like a pauper, leaving my job, desertion, desperation, credit crunch, counselling, companionship, co-dependency, love, loneliness, laughter, ecstasy and homelessness.
Highlights include: climbing Krakatoa, sunrise on Mount Bromo, writing, sunshine, living like a king in Thailand and spending three months with Natalie.

Lowlights include: locked in a hotel room hallucinating, nearly dying in quik-mud, Full Moon Party, having no money, my motorbike crash and spending three months with Natalie.

Just before Christmas I moved into Tim’s room in Newtown in Sydney while he holidays in Thailand with my mate Tom. I was so glad to have a base especially over Chrimbo else homelessness beckoned; Half my belongings are scattered round friend’s houses in Sydney but it goes to show that the less possessions you have the freer you are. Perhaps that’s why they are called trappings?

In my last but one home, my girlfriend and I cooked with one of four £100 saucepans.
What the hell is that all about? I can now see what I had become. London life essentially means buying shit you don’t need to convince yourself of contentment. I’m not talking in any existential hippie way, just practical logic. Nor am I climbing onto some moral soapbox, nor am I about to cast aside my earthly possessions to don an orange robe… its just something I’ve come to realise. I don’t need this shit. I like nice things, and some may even call me a snob for the clothes I used to wear or the accompanying accessories.

Save for my 5.1 surround sound, my decks, mixer and vinyl, my DVD collection, my books and a few other things safely ensconced in Somerset, I can do without everything else. For I have now learnt to live on the cost of just one of those saucepans for three weeks, double that in Asia. So the one thing I have learnt recently is how to live frugally, thinking on your feet like The Artful Dodger taught me to watching Oliver! The Musical as a child.

So long as I’ve got my laptop, my hard drive, a camera, a phone and my speakers, I’m happy.I haven’t used my backpack in a month, its still at Bec’s house, in my mind acting as makeshift collateral, I just need my bag of clothes, my electronics, toiletries bag, some food, a roof over my head and a companion else a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. It don’t make no difference who the guy is, long as he’s with you. I tell ya. I tell ya…a guy gets too lonely and he gets sick.

I’ve read other people’s blogs and they all read like primary school diaries.“Tuesday the 23rd, I got up and met up with (insert random name of Irish girl, Dutch boy, coattail-hanging English male and Vietnamese prostitute here) and we went to Irish Mick’s Bar for karaoke. It was good.”
After a few weeks in South East Asia they have learnt the same things.I think I should script doctor them, replacing:

“Travelling in Asia has opened my eyes to so many things”
with
“Travelling in Asia has taught me seven new words”

“I’ve met so many lifelong friends”
with
“I’ve got drunk with so many people that I’ll probably never see again”

and
“I’ve learnt so much about the world, myself and have grown as a human being”
with
“yeah, yeah, blah blah bullshit blah”

It seems people under 25 may be travelling for the experience, but over that age and you travel for one of two reasons; to run away from a relationship gone sour or you have come into some money, in my case both. Then these people convince themselves that they are not running away but are in fact, as planned all along, on a journey of self discovery. They read The Beach, smoke some pot, listen to some reggae, get a tattoo and they think they’re a member of the long-lost Hong hill tribe.
I’m not saying that my trip is any more worthy, it ain’t but I’m not pretending to have had my eyes opened by what I’ve seen…

What have I learnt about myself?

Nothing I didn’t know already and could have told you months ago…

I drink and smoke too much, I don’t like being deserted or on my own, that I need constant love and attention and what was that other one?
Oh yes, I fall in love way too easily, and always with the wrong girl.

The proof?

Well I’m single aren’t I? If I had ever chosen the right girl, just once, she’d be at my side now.
You see, a heart only has four chambers and mine are full to the brim.

Like outside an NCB multi-storey car park on Christmas Eve, there is a sign on my right aorta reading:

NO SPACES

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know who the four owners of those chambers are…

One has gone. Forever.

The last is just not an option.

One has disappeared off the face of the earth since we last spoke… I hope you are okay D

And this little piggy has picked the best of times, the worst of times to walk back into my life. We chat for hours on skype and we’re both ecstatic that we’re back in touch. When the internet connection fails and one or other of us goes offline, its like being branded with irons… its getting pretty intense with each of us saying things like I wish you were next to me now and obviously catching up on sixteen years of flirting. But that’s easy when you’re on separate sides of the world, we hardly know each other so lets not get ahead of ourselves. For once, I’m not going to allow myself to - I‘ve no idea what might happen but never say never…

All I know is that we’re definitely meeting up when I get back home, whenever that is, wherever that is…

When most people come out of a relationship they lock away their heart and hide the key…
For a while anyway. Not me, I run around offering it to the most unsuitable types.

Well I’m pleased to report that those days are over, playing out a scene from Casino Royale in reverse I have got my armour back on and its gonna take something pretty fucking special to pierce it again.

More than the aforementioned four put together.

That fucking special.