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.
