Coffe shop stories.

A coffee shop. People - who are they? What are they?

A man to my left engrossed in his tablet - is he orchestrating a global conspiracy, choosing a mundane  spot to avoid discovery? His fingers twitch over the screen, downloading apps that will slither into the very workings of society, creating code that will cause our oh so safe lives to wake up to what's really around us. 

The mothers meet further down. They look to each other to find a community  that they feel excluded from - excepting one, she is searching for play dates so that she can have the affair she has always wanted. 

The plumbers next to me revel in their status as the aristocrats of tradesmen, ripping out and rebuilding houses with their words. Their movements are expansive and their voices loud and unencumbered by any anxieties about their place in the world - for no one knows the secrets of their arts. 

An old couple meet in the corner - they have been searching for each other for years, cruelly wrenched from a life they might have has by circumstances beyond their control. His fumbling fingers grasp at the mug saying "Thank you... I found you." She dusts away crumbs to say, "I know." 

Across from me a solitary novelist glares angrily, aware that another uses this space for refelction, and jealously guarding his imaginative space. He sees me tapping on my phone and scornfully returns to his laptop hopeful that this draft will be the one. 

The waitress moves around the tables tidying cups and plates and spoons. She has argued with her child's father this morning - he never seems to move from the table in their pokey kitchen, and she is anxious for him to get out and take control of his life. She is scared for her child, they have come such along way, it cannot be a waste. 

This is the world I live in, or at least my version of it. Inner and outer lives that ghost around the space we inhabit, and open us up to the tragedy and celebration of a life that is at its best when it is bittersweet. Contrast is what is provides sensation, and variation is what keeps us alive. 

I finish the dregs of my espresso  noting the smile in the still crystalline sugar, and go.

A Harry Potter wake up...

The morning light is metallic - steel glinting through the grey as the sun sets fire to the day. Walking to the train this morning the streetlights pop off as I pass - making me feel like I'm in a Harry Potter film, that there is magic In the air and that I am heading towards something. 

In reality I'm up early, and the lights go off now as they are set for winter and the days have got that little bit longer. My mind makes magic out of the ordinary (and apparently has a thing for alliteration today), and gives the day an imaginary gloss.

Yes this is delusional, but it's also quite nice. It turns the just icing rain into glass shards (Though not literally of course, otherwise the plastic surgery and years of therapy I would need would not be a fair trade.), and the dawn into a portent. Of what exactly is hard to say? Though I'm generated a dab of potents - they suggest something is coming, which is generally better than feeling that nothing is happening (although both have there stresses). 

This may be a result of too many fantasy quest epics as a child, teen, and yes okay as an adult - with "Lord of the Rings" taking centre stage here, but by no means being the prime suspect (the above mentioned Harry Potter being another worth questioning). Quest narratives rely on the idea of destiny, or the journey. The action and characters all move inexorably towards something - the object, to self knowledge or understanding of the world, and the reader knows it and is drawn along. Even with the "Game of Thrones" series, which does much to invigorate the genre with violence and unpredictability, the whole saga builds toward looming events - indeed it's skill is to keep extending beyond the immediate climax, making kings, queens, countries and key characters seem small compared to the power of events. 

The reader'a job, if you like, is to draw conclusions from this process of discovery and revelation - to see the implications for the real life thy live. The epic form fixates the reader on an objective, but also serves to show how we are part of a bigger whole. This is heightened by the reassurance of the 'extraordinary ordinary' character - best exemplified by the character of Sam form LOTRs, a characters who transcends his everyday condition and impulses to play a vital part int the destiny of lands and races. 

To see the world as part of this sort of ongoing narrative helps me to step outside a a take a look at the world as a critic a - to evaluate and assess my actions and the workings of society. I can examine the continuing journey provides obstacle sand opportunity a and how this is changing me.

But it is also fun to role play - to step into the quest, to take on a character to immerse your yourself in the magic of the new world.

Lotus eaters... honest.

Friday, running late, but still strangely satisfied - this is a strange experience.

It comes from a productive day yesterday - good art, some efficient writing and plans made for an event in the near future that gives me the illusion of organisation. An illusion I am happy to sink into for the time being. Plus the icing on the cake (or in my opinion the jam as I can take or leave icing - it looks nice sure, but taste?) a very enjoyable meal with my wife. 

My lateness is not so much from a lack of purpose, or from doubt, today - oh no, today it is the fault of Odysseus. Totally. Yup. Oh alright, yes, it might have something to do with playing Tetris late into the night which caused aimlessness and lethargy this morning - but I put that down to the same thing as being stuck on the isle of the Lotus Eaters and being sucked into the haze of unconsciousness. 

Me and Tetris go way back:- a puzzle game that is infuriating and yet oddly satisfying in its arrangement of shapes; a game that is mathematical yet mindless - as once you imbibe the principles it is about continuing the pattern as long as you can; a game that always offers a pay off in the completion of the 'Tetris', so through success becomes addictive and thus completely echoes the qualities of Lotus Leaf; and one I recently and stupidly downloaded. Then played. And played. And then played one more, then just wanted to beat that last score because that shape wasn't suppose to go there and it's just 'cos I  mis-touched the screen, so that last go doesn't count anyway. And then, well it's late now so one more won't hurt... will it?

The answer my morning self screams back is YES! It will make you groggy and less able to function. But unfortunately my morning self is still to be born, and anyway can't go back and tell me as it would create a time paradox that would rip apart the fabric of the universe, and stop me getting my high score, ahem. 

Fortunately I am insulated from my normal sense of recrimination and reproach by the sense of accomplishment yesterday - and the fact that my lateness has not made me late for the day, and the weekend offers new potential for catch up. 

As long as I don't touch the Lotus... 

Wooden spoon dictatorship.

I've just tried to plan a menu and found a massive problem. I am a completely selfish cook. I am only able to consider and devise meals that appeal to me - that I want to eat. 

In other words I am not nearly as interested in what other people will want, or how they would like to have something cooked. Oh no, my approach is that this is what I like and how I like it, and if there are any objections - well they just need to be educated. Taste it, then they'll come around. 

Naively people have suggested that I try to cook properly - you know, for money and that. Despite the obvious issue - I'm not qualified, there are other obstacles: I cook like a trench war, I get very passionate about everything being to my standards and I have no knowledge of safety and hygiene regulations; however I think my biggest issue would be the fact that the food would be completely to my standards and opinions and the customers would have to lump it - wait come back, where are you going - you'll like it, I'm telling you... oh.

This extends to the way I behave in the kitchen - one of my loves of Christmas comes from me being left in the kitchen with alcohol to sustain me and knives to defend my position - offer to help at you peril! I am literally king of my castle. 

It does occur to me that I am a monarch of the Canute variety - steadfastly commanding the sea not to come it and denying the inevitable. In my case this is the fact that other people like and dislike foods differently to me - an inevitable truth that I consider unacceptable. Which begs the question, is mine the instinct of a chef, or a poisoner? 

I must admit I get a perverse pleasure from sneaking in food that people profess to dislike into their food without them noticing. Old favourites like chilli, olives, mushrooms and herbs and spices - spices especially when someone says they don't like curry or spicy food and they mean heat (spicy means thousands of different flavours and not a generic terms for 'a bit hot' - pah! ). I also love finding ways to get people to eat veggies they don't like - again especially children (I think I have a subconscious belief that if you let kids get away with not trying stuff they'll be crippled gastronomically for the rest of their lives, and I can't let that happen! Or maybe again it's the poisoning thing?).

Fortunately I seem to get away with most of my choices of flavours and meals. But then again I do have the knives... 

Human mechanics.

People are hedgehogs. Any social gathering is like Lego, but with hedgehogs. That is to say bits and pieces stick together (or in), but there are many more random spines that prick and stick out making the structure more complicated than before (Imagine the model of the double helix, but instead of the balls they used for the element you have hedgehogs - now not so elegant and twisty, more anarchic and disjointed.).

I like hedgehogs - they like to sleep, are insanely drawn to motor vehicles and roads, forage where they can and are spikey. Much like humans. I like Lego. You can build it to plan, but it's much more fun and expressive if you build from instinct and experience and create the solutions to your own problems (Rather than waiting for a new set that has a piece that solves the problem for you. Pah!). Much like social gatherings. Still, I'm not sure the two go coherently together. Though that could be half the fun? 

After all social gatherings are opportunities to be social, and by definition that runs the gamut from polite tea party to an EastEnders style drunken slanging match - and many's the time they begin as one and finish as the other (often through a well placed hip flask). Organising them requires forethought, patience, skill, organisation and delegation as well as, often, a group or committee. Criteria designed to bring out the control freak in anyone - especially me.

Hello, this is my control freak - I keep him in the cupboard under the stairs, but he will get out. My control freak likes to see to the end step by step and will become unruly when uncertain - although he has been known to hibernate when threatened, as a silent protest... or sulk. Quite frankly my control freak is a pain, he is often so concerned with the exact running of a gathering, that he is unable to enjoy the damn thing (though in adulthood I have found alcohol can subdue him for a time, however this generally results in memory loss and being sick somewhere.).

So is there a secret, an answer? I'm not sure, but I think I should start with an acceptance of what can be achieved, and a happiness to do that without a sense that it's not as good as it should've been. And then I need to settle into an enjoyment of watching the hedgehogs build their new structure - it many be glorious, or it might be a huge sticky bur clump; either way it should be fun.

Now if I can just get those hedgehogs to keep still, I just need to put in the final piec... Ow!

Trousers of doom!

Disaster struck yesterday.

Standing in the toilets at work, having just relieved myself, I tugged to pull up the zip on my flies. It moved up with no resistance which started alarm bells ringing. I looked down and there was the link hanging forlornly on one side. It must've snapped out from the other side - but there was no obvious break in the hooks where I could replace it.

After several minutes struggling to re-attach the errant side in varying degrees of cubical contortion - involving yoga tricks of old, I was stuck with the fact I was going to be left with a gaping hole in my trousers for the rest of the day. An unsavoury, and hardly professional situation - made worse by the fact I had no blazer that might conceal it. 

Fortunately lunch was imminent - an opportunity to dig myself out of this horrible social mortification. Ensuring my coat was done up low enough, and reasoning that confidence was the best social disguise, I marched purposefully out of the toilet and through the foyer. I needed to by new trousers - stat! 

Crossing the road with a curious breeze ventilating around my lower half was unsettling at first, though there was also a strange sense of freedom. This was coupled with my buttoned up appearance which suggested normality, whilst my mind screamed 'MY FLIES ARE OPEN!' Shaking off the enjoyment of flaunting the social norm I made a beeline for the retail park nearby. 

On reaching the chain store I was faced with a moment of panic when I saw the range of clothes seemed aimed at the leisure market - or at the least those more able to pull off fashion than myself. Then tucked away in a dusty corner I saw three types of trousers that could fit the bill. 

I quickly selected the one most like my existing trousers and headed to the changing room. They fitted, so I marched up to the counter and asked for them 'to go'. The assisant was nonplussed, so I was forced to give a brief and jovially embarrassed account of my predicament, at which she removed the tags and took payment agreeing to dispose of the unwanted trousers. I changed again, and left - noting her mirth. 

Walking back it occurred to me how disaster and humiliation made a choice much quicker, and brought out my decisive side - normally I would need affirmation by others for a situation of this magnitude. Yet the level of embarrassment involved made me have to draw on my own resources. I felt like I had just achieved a secret mission and walked back in - prepared to have to explain my change of attire and formulating the scenes of most drama for an anecdote as I did. 

Alas no one seemed to notice the change if trousers. A fact that on reflection I am exceedingly grateful for. 

But it's a shame to waste a good anecdote, right. 

Dab of disaster.

So a new painting on the site - plus some I had to keep quiet over Xmas, and this one brought me to battle with my old enemy - the dab of confidence!

This nefarious being appears only when a painting nears it's apex and the ending can be completely discerned. For it is now that small imperfections send out signals like lighthouse beams across the blackest sea, catching and dragging me - paintbrush in hand to just. make. one. little. dab. 

This is disaster - and I know it. I know I should just walk away - come back tomorrow when the brushes will be cleaner, when my concentration will be surer and my mind less addled. But I don't. Instead I catch up a little dab on the brush, breath and then stab. 

Inevitably this leads to a pause, a whimper, then a cry of anguish as I realise this small dab has muddied the colour, gone out of the line, created a peak or worse slipped and created a new line along the canvas. 

Why has this happened now, when throughout the rest of the painting such actions have flowed freely, steadily and without over-thought? The answer is of course the possiblity of completing my idea; the moment of certainty now becomes the most dangerous moment, the one where you know what disaster will look like - anything not what it now should be!

And though I know all this I am caught in the same trap each time - Charlie Brown to the painting's Lucy (apologies to Peanuts and The West Wing), believing that one simple little touch will remove the offending element, only to find that little touch requires me to redo whole sections of the painting. I stand looking at what I have done and murmur "good grief". 

These wobbles are the ripples of insecurity, the tide of self doubt and the gentle lapping that ebbs away self belief. For it is at this stage that the mechanics of painting, that have taken over since the original sketch, become subsumed by the existential angst of aesthetic merit, and everything that I do is full of doublethink and hesitation.  

The dab of confidence thus needs to be hunted down through persistence and zen. Breathe again, clear the mind of nay-saying voices, steady the stance, relax the shoulders and stand further back (by now I realise my face is millimeters from the canvas), look... and release. 

Right, now for the signature... bugger. 

To sleep, perchance to...

Ah Friday! A day imbued with the sweet trickling of the gathering weekend. Rivulets and tributaries of rest and sleep and time swell together throughout the day to begin winding their journey downriver to the ocean of next week.

Today's light has a soporific quality making the sky feel closer - like a blanket that is snuggling arpund the day. The houses seem to yawn as we pass, rubbing the specks of perpetual sleep from widows and doors. So too the passengers on the train, they sink that bit further into their seats and have their eyes in the middle distance, seeking the coming freedom.

I am bracing myself to launch into the last day of the week, and had to force myself to do some touching up on my painting this morning to avoid sleeping away the day. Touching up in this state is a dangerous decision, as the small controlled movements that are needed for this stage require mental and physical alertness, and a lapse of concentration can mean  one stroke turns to thousands as a whole segment is reworked. So really precise elements I have left  for tomorrow; but sharpness was sharpened, shadow thickened and crockery destroyed and thus the painting has progressed - and I only had a couple of "Why God, hast thou forsaken me!" moments. He hadn't, I was fine, the cat was sarcastic. The cat is always sarcastic.

I feel happy that I pushed myself to do this - especially as sleep has me in an arm lock today. Soon I will need the skeleton keys of caffeine and juice to release myself - for I fear my Houdinni impression would be futile against such a foe (a shark infested tank and a straight jacket I think I could take though).

My drowsiness, that is only momentarily diminished as I look up to greet the refreshing sky, leads me to navigate more than usual typos on my touch screen pad. Between the wonders of modern technology and a malicious, if not malevolent prediction software I have to check each line to ensure tenses, gender consistency, that accuracy of verbs and a general resistance to the Cyrillian alphabet.

my frustration is aliveated by the soft dance and gurgle of the weekend I hear. Although I do seem to need the toilet.

Natural architecture.

Daylight is reviving. A good varnish to the day can make even the worst news glow with depth and promise, whilst a damp canopy can turn a skip of excitement into a wallow waist deep in a puddle.

Fortunately today is the former: beginning with a painting session that made progress unevenly, but ultimately did more good than harm; then was spiked with a twist of disappointment that was sharp and acrid, but washed down with a coffee that built up my resolve to try again. It strikes me that the warm glare of the sun has helped dissolve the taste quicker than might have been the case otherwise. (You may have noticed that I have managed to get some sleep since my last post.) 

I look out at the flickering houses that move from light to shade with the train's rhythm, using the shadows and highlight to create depth lines and geometry that overlay the structures of everyday life, and give the patterns of Mondrian to the terraces of the 30s and 50s. I see the aspirations of the social realist and the modernist alike awakening under the piecing glare of the day's sun.  

Now shapes reveal themselves against the landscape, structures stand out and of their setting, crevices contrast with reliefs and the real reveals an imaginary in our understanding of the world.  Perspective gives us the essence of the buildings and streets - standing prouder and more defiant, shoulders squared and chins raised; yet it also brings another dimension that perhaps they too are unaware of; formed from the shadows of street lamps, washing lines and satellite dishes, then tied together with the reflections of power lines and fences - this is a world of pattern and potential - the imagination buried in our back pockets.

The sun sees the world with a 'magic eye' revealing hidden images if you squint and turn your head just so. I don't know whether to see signs of a higher cause, or to indulge in oxymoron and prove the workings of a totalizing ideology in this; so I settle for the wry smile of a private joke that is between me and the sun - where different ages and philosophies are juxtaposed to allow my imagination to be refreshed, and my spirits to rise again. 

Pins

The 3 am corridor. The moment when sleep and consciousness stretch apart equidistant and light takes on the surreal quality of half sleep. The eye creates shadows in the dark, which dances in twisted forms and spike the mind with pins.

I lie, with a tsunami of thoughts battering my imagination; images roll up inside each other as scenarios play out, before being distracted by a new growing idea that seeks to push itself towards the break of morning, while sleep looks to cocoon the lot with a quieting - or smothering blanket.

My head aches with a distant throb, my eyes blink - wearied, yet  unable to still and give into oblivion. I thrust my head deeper into the pillow in an attempt to cut off the noise from the outside world - only to realise those noises are inside my head and the chatter has turned to argument. 

My limbs grow heavy - any attempt to relax them only serves to intensify the weight, and an ache descends over me - any give in the mattress seems to flare pain in my thoughts. 

This is where Hieronymus Bosch went to find his visions of hell, where Francis Bacon found his portrait of the pope. Images distorting - dragging features apart with the pressure of thought; strange combinations of people and creatures, twisting and knotting with rage. This is where my thoughts take me in the black - bursts of morbid colours bleeding and separating in a danse macabre, where conclusions are tantalisingly out of reach, and pitfalls lead to incarceration. 

The adrenalin is tinny in my mouth, the acid boils along my digestive track, and my conscious appeals to my unconscious to take control: "Aha" it replies, "now you need me! Now you need sleep to flush your mind of the day's detritus, and your subliminal self to give logic coherence and shape." My subsconscious is a smart arse too!

Yet it is right. These nightmarish preoccupations are but the remnant of idle speculations and ruminations that have mutated into what ifs and maybes that turn the present into an uncertain plain, and send quakes along its fault lines to shake my contentment. It would be wrong to dwell on wishes, illusions and emnities, so with bags under the eyes I shake myself through another day, until I can release a flood in tomorrow's sleep.