The life and adventures of Jonathan Mercer, Esq

Lets be frank, for once.

I was in a bad place for a while. Lets not go into much detail in that, but lets say that it was just a low point. The past two months have been shaky to say the least, but they’re over. Now I am here. Hello.

I made a conscious decision on Tuesday. It happened when I woke up at six-thirty instead of eight and I had almost two hours to do nothing. I decided that I don’t really want to be fucked up anymore. It’s a good image I’ll admit; sitting in bars with friends having drink after drink and looking all the more haggered because you did the same the night before. And then the night before. But image isn’t everything. Last weekend I had so little sleep and so much alcohol that most of my memories of it are gone. I can pick bits and pieces, but they’re hazy at best. I felt like I was destroying myself a little bit. Maybe I did, I don’t know, but I decided to stop.

And that’s what Tuesday was about. Tuesday was about setting things right, with everything. And it worked to an extent. Of course not everything was fixed and who knows maybe more problems have arisen, but things felt a hell of a lot better. I think it had something to do with caring. I never used to care about things. I’m failing university at the moment (by the way), and I didn’t care. I didn’t care if my writing was shit or worthless because to me it was brilliance (i still read my own work for entertainment). I didn’t care that I was practically pushing away my best friend and the people close to me. I would just get so angry at all of it. I would be furious at my laziness, enraged at everyone for not appreciating my work and just pissed off at the people around me for not realising what I was going through. And not many people did, but I didn’t tell them. I’m not one to broadcast my emotions really.

So writing this is hard for me. I used to have a group of friends who would compete with each other in their conversations. No one would really listen, we’d just wait until it was our turn to top their story. After a while I began to hate them for that. I hated that when my camera, my car and my girlfriend were stolen from me on – near enough – the same day, no one turned round and asked “How’re you today Jonathan?” No one asked about me or my day, they just launched into a rant. No one knew until about three weeks later, when someone else had heard from a source other than me. So I don’t share my emotions. I feel like it’s making something public that should be private. Anyway, my emotions are my own and you would be bored by them. Maybe like this entry? Maybe like this entry.

Anyway, I thought I’d break with the tradition of my usual veiled entries and just come out and say it; I am alright. I’m not over ecstatic and I’m not down and out. I’m doing fine. This means that you don’t have to leave me alone anymore or shower me with protection, but it doesn’t mean you can abandon me or stifle me with affection. I am OK.

So there we go, lets resume regular programming.

On this day

Four years ago I was having problems with a camera and swearing far too much. Really.

Three years ago I bought a Bible (and gave it away about a month after). I wanted to read it and make an informed decision. I don’t think I got much further than Exodus.

Two years ago I was sacrificing sleep to tell everyone about my ex-girlfriend. We met up and returned our belongings, and then she gave me seventy pounds that she owed me. I spent the next weekend drinking myself to death because I couldn’t deal with it.

One year ago I was annoyed that lighters came with instructions incase people didn’t know how to use them.

Today? Hmm. I’ll tell you about it next year.

oh man I was totally wasted last night and there was like this whole thing with cards and drinking and people and DUUUUDE

Oh dear. Oh dear.

I realise I’m I’m going to be late for work because of this post.

It’s been a while since I told a real story on this, so I thought I’d tell you the epic journey of my notebook.

To set the scene for this story, I feel that I must confess my fetish with notebooks. There are many tales of me walking innocently into a book store and exiting with a leather bound beauty under my arm and a desperate flurry of thoughts of what to write in it. There’s the famous case of a tanned leather notebook with soft beige pages that’s been sitting in my bookshelf for over two years because I can’t bring myself to write in it. It looks too good. It’s a good weight, a good size, and I know if I write on it I’ll just foul it up. Along side the infamous notebook stands seven other notebooks and sketch books. With one sole exception, none of them are finished. I just like having them. A lot. Hence the fetish.

(When asked what my top three things were in sex, I replied lacy lingerie, mild bondage, and notebooks. If they were ever combined I wouldn’t know what to do)

But there’s this one moleskin notebook I have that’s always kept in the right inside breast pocket of my leather jacket. It was given to me as a present on my trip to Norway a year and a half ago, and now it’s almost finished. I’ve budgeted in it and noted conversations down, observations, some private thoughts, and now it’s four pages to go.

I had a plan for this notebook. I was going to write in it and complete it on the very day that I started it a year before. But then, something happened. I lost it. Sadly. It fell out of jacket pocket during a lecture and I spent three days hiking round campus and asking anyone I could if they had it. I got a few strange looks from unwary students, but that was all I found. I resigned the loss of my precious notebook and started another one, one that a good friend had given my for a birthday or christmas (they’re so close that the memories mingle, I can’t tell the difference). I set out with this new notebook and grew fond of it with every nonsensical page that I wrote in it. There’s even a section where I compare a random man walking by to a walking sun for his yellowness. My old notebook was gone, lost, mourned, and then practically forgotten.

And then I got it back through the door. With a note.

Apparently a man named Stewie had found it in the lecture hall after I left and decided to keep it for himself (despite my name and address emblazoned on the first page). He had had this book for roughly four months, probably reading it and rereading it and learning all its contents. At first I felt slightly violated at someone reading my thoughts and knowing how much I earn/spend every month, but then I felt disappointed. This man, this Stewie, whoever he is, did not write a single thing within the notebook. Not one. There wasn’t even a score that a pen might have left from hovering too close to the page. The book was returned in its immaculate, somewhat battered condition.

So here’s my message to all you notebook finders out there. Please write something within the pages. It doesn’t matter if it’s stupid or nonsensical or even midly threatening, just make it memorable. Otherwise the sotry of losing a notebook and finding it again will just turn into a long, boring, pointless blog entry. Much like this one.

And the slow sodden sinking feeling slips in as I give up yet another essay. This is the third instance that I’ve given up on writing an essay and decided to hand it in a day late and take the percentage hit, and it’s the third time I’ve thought seriously on giving all this up and returning to a full time job. It wasn’t bad where I worked, just horribly horribly boring. I’d hike in for 9am everyday with blood filling my shoes to sit for seven and a half hours (thirty minutes for lunch, not a minute more or a minute less) and blog. That’s right, I’d earn £6 an hour with bonuses by sitting back at my computer and blogging. Sure, I’d occasionally have to do some work – I’d click here and there, type in a few numbers, send an email or two, and I was done. My workload for the day consisted of a cumulative amount of about two hours work. The rest of the time I was free to do what I pleased. And blogging pleased me.

Which is probably why I’m, right now, neglecting my paper and typing this. There’s three minutes left before the midnight deadline hits and there’s no way I can get it done. I blame myself really, since I am the only person to blame. Bad time management. Not starting it sooner. Going away for the weekend. Spending my entire day yesterday drinking and blogging (on my various other blogs, oh ho ho how I’m mysterious). Same old stuff. Even today I spent about half an hour watching Kings of Power and Dead Fantasy II when I should’ve been doing what I was supposed to hand in five minutes ago. But they were both awesome movies. Like, really awesome.

But now I get to sleep. I get to kick myself. And I get to work on this thing tomorrow before taking a big wopping 10% slam for being late. I love the subjects, and I love what they’re teaching me, but goddammit if I just wished I was good enough in my writing to live off it.

The blind vagrant calls and screams but no one hears. Those higher up only in their minds take no heed and on this day the cold steel of betrayal sinks into their exposed and fleshy red backs. There’s no anger, no hate – not yet – only the most devastating feeling of surprise. And the last flutter of thought behind those royally wronged eyelids is one of foreshadowing, one of someone told you so. Some poor guy knew this would happen, and it has.

Beware the Ides of March, the vagrant yelled. Beware the mother fucking Ides of March.

Today is Monday. It is two days after Saturday and one day before Tuesday. On Mondays I have approximately three hours to kill between doing things. On Tuesdays I also have three. Wednesdays are mine until four in the afternoon. Thursdays I have five, Fridays I have another three (if I can care). Saturdays and Sundays are open ended horizons. Each day consists of roughly two hours traveling, of which I read books in, and thirty minutes eating, in which I also read books in. I work for five hours a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at a job where I would write if it weren’t for the obsessively lonely girl sitting next to me.

All this accumulates to roughly fifty hours worth of free time per week in which I must;
write essays
read books
continue social activity
play videogames
write
do the washing up
clean my clothes
buy food
manage budget
phone people
keep up to date with the world
listen to music (and I mean really listen)
think

If I allocate roughly four hours to each task (fifty-two hours) per week then I can equally manage each task, with each task falling short of its required amount I will have about five hours per week to myself. This can be spent in any which way I want.

I want to learn to play saxophone, but that has the added expenditure of money which also is the case with learning to drive. Each of these tasks would be perfectly suited to fit my five free hours a week, but unfortunately my financial status is nothing to brag about.

Two days ago I watched Mike solve a rubix cube within ten minutes. Two months ago I saw him pick up a keyboard and play it. A day ago I watched two guitarists jam to the Alton Towers theme and then become scared shitless by a videogame. Tomorrow I will watch a girl craft a story out of thin air then slide her feet on a polished dance floor. Twenty-one years ago a man was on board a naval ship in far and hostile waters. Five years later he married his mistress. Between now and then he learned to juggle, to excel in accounting, and to make the world his enemy. Two years ago a boy learned to juggle in two days. Four years ago I learned to see the world; two years ago I learned to see it differently.

I want to run in my five hours. Not to make myself fit or to increase my stamina, but just to have the sensation of running. There are locked doors that I want to kick open; there are strangers I want to talk to. Six months ago there was a stranger sitting on some steps crying her eyes out, and I talked to her. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, watching her cry and putting a friendly arm round her shoulder as she bubbled incoherently into her chipped fingernails. Five months later I did the same thing, but this time there was no trail of mascara etching its way into their cheek.

In my five hours I want to make a difference. Not a save the world difference. I want to make someone see something. The world is human, I will tell them, you are not alone in your solitude. I want them to stop and take stock of everything they’ve ever known, or if I can’t do that then I just want to jar their thinking for ten minutes. Ten singular minutes in my five hours per week I want to stop someone in their tracks and show them.

I have all this free time to free the world. If I wasn’t such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch I might just do that.

Maybe I’ll just learn to play the saxophone instead.

Sharkey and George crime busters of the sea do doo do do doo doo dooo, whirls round and round in the demented merry-go-round of memories that sing soprano purrs and lick with velcro tongues. Cancer runs in their family, winning first place with her as it hit the heart that thundered every time my fingers touched the electric skin of her nubile body. There was rasping and breathing and starving as I stood far away holding a roll of selotape and laughing they’re over his eyes, he can’t see hearing i’m going to kill you when you get this off me replying then i won’t help you take it off then will i? and she was falling on a needle with eyes fluttering with the beginnings of a dream suddenly silenced. Her sister went many years ago and I sat on the couch and cried my sorry little heart out but this time I put my feet up on the balcony and toast silently to the night before downing the whisky in one. She was the one who liked Felix cat food i hear a friend say I used to lift her up and spin her around when I was a kid I replied and all the while my brother is stumbling around with his hands selotaped over his eyes yelling over our laughter as we held each other up straight. She used to run behind the washing machine and once fell into the bin, the swing top spinning comically as a gentle mewing erupted from the base. And now she’s asleep in ashes and cooling away in the wind.

And that’s how it goes.

And so, as pointed out many times in this essay, Scotland’s general health is in a dire state. The current life expectancy for the average man and woman is criminally low, and the only way to have an effect on these statistics is to change Scottish life-style and fix the socio-economic factors that force such a life-style upon it. If the gap between the rich and poor were to be reduced, less people would turn to unhealthy (yet tasty) pleasures in life or would be forced to moving into a home surrounded by air pollution. Or, if all else fails, Scotland can just wait until another plague hits main-land Europe. Soon their life expectancy would go down and make Scotland’s look better, with little to no effort. Except finding rats.

Oh man, I used to be such a smart ass in that class.

“Hello there, is this the proprietor of the flat?”

I shuffled the phone from my hand to my shoulder as I picked up my computer. “I’m close enough. What can I do for you?”

“Hi there, I’m Lucy from BT. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your phone service.”

Ah. A phone salesman. I always had fun with these guys. I used to hang up on them whenever they had the inclining to phone me up, but after one poor man who seemed to be on the end of his tether, I learned to listen to them. We had a good conversation about the price of videogames before he went on with the nasty business of selling me car insurance. After him I began talking to the salesmen who had the poor luck to call me, and if I didn’t like them, I played with them.

“Shoot.”

“Now you are currently renting your line from BT, but using a different service for your calls?”

“Affirmative.”

She paused. I can almost hear the frown on her face. Yeah, this was going to be fun.

“Are you happy with your service?”

“I wouldn’t say happy. I’d say… content. Yes, I am content with the service.”

“Ok then, can I ask which service you’re with?”

I told her.

“Can you tell me why you went with this service? A better price than BT?”

“Oh no no no, nothing like that. They just seemed like nice people over the phone.”

Another pause.

“How about benefits? Do you have cheap daytime calls?”

“I sleep in the day time.”

“Free local calls?”

“All my friends live in India, I’m afraid.”

“Ah!” She said, and I imagined the glint in her smile as she said it. “Do you have free evening and weekend calls?”

“Ah!” I replied, lifting one finger into the air. “Yes I do!”

There was a pause, a quick noise, then the dial tone. I put the phone down, content with my work.