Capturing a moment

I'm a fraud, and a liar, and a phoney.

In my sidebar "about me", it claims I'm an artist. I've decided recently that I should face that this really isn't true. When is the last time I actually created anything? It's been almost a year since I painted anything -- my one and only picture, and I've been feeling disillusioned with photography.

I describe myself as a photographer, and I even tried to sell my pictures on canvas, but that idea never really got off the ground -- simply because my work was no more remarkable or special or interesting than anyone else's -- and it was less so than a lot of others.

I have mixed feelings about digital photography. I like the ability to instantly see the image, and it's hardly like I'm some kind of analogue purist, since I don't even know how to change a film, but it sometimes feels like with digital cameras everyone fancies themselves as an artist. I feel frustrated that everywhere we can go has already been seen, and now extensively photographed and uploaded to Flickr within hours.

What I used to feel distinguished my work was what I did with pictures -- I like to climb into places or seek out unusual angles, and then digitally manipulate images. Now everything just looks so immediately and unmistakeably Photoshop.

The tag line here attempts to pin down why I blog -- to avoid being that tree falling in a forest -- but sometimes it feels like reality is only what we can record. If you go to a concert, people are clambering over each other to get video and pictures, I know I've been so absorbed sometimes trying to get just the right looking picture that I've realised I was missing the whole reason I was there -- for the music. If a singer comes off the stage to meet the crowd, they must find it difficult to see the people for the forest of cameraphones. Is something only real if you can record it?

I was struck after the G20 protests when you saw photos or images of scenes like the alleged police brutality or the rioters storming the RBS building that in the background there are great swathes of people with their cameras.

Maybe I'm just jealous, and feel like I'm not good enough. I feel like I've stagnated and I can't reasonably call myself an artist any more, even though many would argue I had no right to call myself one to begin with.

I want to upgrade digital cameras, I want to learn to process and develop films and I want to feel like I'm creating again. I hate feeling average and I don't know how to find my way back.

I want to live my life not survive my existence

So here we are, 2009.

It's time to take stock of where I am and where I'm going, but hopefully not so much of the looking back over where I have been.

I start this new year living with an amazing and wonderful girl, in our very own (rented) house -- the first time I have lived away from home since I was a student. I've curbed my impulses to try and turn the house into a mini art gallery of my photography, with the philosophy that less is more and all that -- plus nobody wants to see you endlessly stroking your ego, in the living room.

The house has its good points and bad points, but most important is that it is our space, where we can shut the door and escape the world.

In 2008 I had a bunch of goals -- rather than resolutions, it's what all the cool kids are doing these days. I aimed to get a new job, to move out of home, to travel to Spain and learn to speak Spanish, and I think to learn to snowboard properly. I own my own board, and I can't even turn properly -- so I can carve up a storm downhill and look damn cool with it, but I am in trouble with corners, with bends. That one never happened. I tried to sell the board, and failed -- this happens every year.

I started the new year working in a book shop, and enjoying it -- I loved recommending books and authors to people, enjoyed literally running off up the stairs to find something, and lived for the occasions when someone would ask me for the poetry section. But the money was bad, there weren't enough hours, and it being only a seasonal job I hadn't learned how the novelty would wear off. Furthermore, there was nowhere to "go" with it.

When they called me one day and offered me a permanent job -- incidentally, the day of my aunt's funeral -- I turned them down. Mostly because the hours were bad. But part of me must have hoped for more. So I got that "new job" in fairly rapid order -- I went to see a recruiter, told her to find me a job, any job, went to an interview the following morning and started work right away. I was taken on for a 6 month contract, and was still working there 10 months later. I went four countless interviews for something better, and in the end didn't go any further than the other side of the office -- swapping a dull job in Purchasing for a more creative and interesting one in Marketing & PR.

I think we can safely say I beat that goal into submission.

I tried to learn Spanish, but motivation was lacking and I ended up with a Latin American Spanish course. I write this one off as a half, since I am able to order food and drink in Spanish, say "I speak/understand Spanish" very well, or a little, and the usual greetings and farewells. Needless to say I also went to Spain. The girl and I are regular customers here of the local tapas restaurant, and I long to take her to Spain.

And as mentioned at the start, I did move out of home. It took a new job, a tax rebate and a wonderful girl to help me do it -- but we did it together.

Where do we go from here? 2009 is a year of adventure. Anyone that's been here before or spoken to me for more than a couple of minutes should remember I am going to be hiking the Inca trail in Peru in June, raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support. A couple of years back, I talked to a friend about doing it and doing it for charity -- but they said why bother, just raise the money and go on your own steam. I am glad that I decided to do it for charity after all -- but that's probably because I'm an attention-seeker. I am being healthily sponsored by my company, and have in turn been generating the publicity for them. But the Inca Trail isn't a goal -- it's happening, even if I have to be carried on the back of a llama, stinking of piss. That's either the llama, or me.

But what is a goal is to get fit for it. Properly fit. The fitter I can be for it, the more fun it will be -- completing it just isn't enough for me. If I can look great in a t-shirt while I do it, even better. I've rejoined the gym, and as of time of writing I am still in pain from my personal training session yesterday. My next is Friday morning, and I fear I am going to become one of those crazy people who hits the gym before going to work in the morning.

Speaking the language would be helpful, so I may also have to get that Latin American Spanish course again -- although apparently if you speak Castilian Spanish they understand it just fine, but think you sound all posh like a news-reader.

There is also adventures to be had in Australia, since the girl returns home to apply for a new visa this year -- and I will be joining her out there for fun times, before the two of us return, shivering, to England. Again, something I already plan to do can hardly be a goal, can it? But saving the £700+ for the airfare should be. I also plan to try and wheedle my way into an upgrade, but we shall see how that works out.

I've only been in this job since October, so it's too soon to be considering getting another -- although I am only contracted until October of this year, so I might not have a choice in it.

A year without any incidences of self harm would be good, as I can't remember a year since I was in my mid-teens or younger that there hasn't been an incident or two, though in more recent years it has got a lot better -- to be able to start 2010 saying I didn't deliberately, physically hurt myself the previous year would be good, although a little sad. Perhaps a goal should be to treat myself better? No doubt having rigorous exercise regimes and goals like Peru will certainly help, not to mention the love and support of the people around me.

And in closing, ladies and jellyspoons, my goal in 09 is to be more creative. Last year saw me take up painting -- if only for the one picture. But to conceive of and create a dramatic picture on a canvas, and then to have it exhibited as part of an art show, was a real achievement -- but my creativity is seriously lacking this year. I haven't done open mike poetry in years, let alone written anything new, and that epic zombie apocalypse masterpiece isn't going to write itself. But generally, I need to be more... Actually, no -- that's it, I just need to be more.
I want to live my life, not survive my existence.

The life of the great black bird

Readers may remember how after much blood, sweat and tears (only figuratively, I don't really think of myself as that sort of an artist, although maybe I should), The Great Black Bird was completed.

It was a strange feeling to complete the painting I had put so much time and feeling into, I was left wanting more. Not more from the piece itself, after a couple of days and much thought I became more comfortable with it than I had at first -- the curse of being self critical is I feel like nothing I can do will ever be good enough. Apply this to every area of my life. And yet, it's not always being a perfectionist -- I wish I could say I always strive for greatness, instead I am more often than just dissatisfied. Anyway, I was left wanting more -- wanting to carry on painting -- except I was also back to square one. Wanting to paint, but having no inspiration.

[Unfortunately this lack of inspiration has also been affecting the blogging lately. If anyone still reads this, I apologise for the silence. The words wouldn't come.]

After the completion of the painting and the preparation of the gallery, came the gallery opening itself. The First Time Club gallery was part of the BA Fine Art graduate show of Goldsmith's University -- Hannah, the hostess of the First Time Club had turned her final year project into the First Time Club gallery. And in my humble opinion, hers was best of all the installations I saw.

I arrived in New Cross early on the Thursday evening of the private gallery viewing. It was due to open at 6pm, and perhaps naively I thought that this meant everyone should be -- and would be there for 6pm. I was earlier still, but had enough time to find the college, and make my way back to the station where I was due to meet my guests.

First to arrive at the station was The Girl, who had spent many days carefully planning her outfit for the evening, but unfortunately due to personal reasons and a bad week, Dune was unable to attend on the night -- though she sent her kind words and good luck wishes to me. Running slightly late on the evening, but helping to make up the Aussie contingent were Non-Blondie and Jiminy Cricket.

In the lead was Non-Blondie, who was less-than-impressed with the university's lack of signage and unhelpful staff -- but I took it as a testament to her dedication that despite my bad directions and the other obstacles she didn't give up -- and didn't tell Jiminy to save himself and get away before he arrived.

Because I hadn't been around for when the other members of the First Time Club had set up their art works in the gallery, I had only heard about their individual own projects and not seen any of them. The Girl wasn't over thrilled when one of the first art works to greet her was a semi-nude collage portrait of San. In my defence, until I saw it I hadn't known myself what my ex-girlfriend had produced for her own art work, since it was a closely guarded secret.

Maybe I'm biased, but I thought the work produced by the First Time Club was much better than many of the fine art students -- one piece was a series of audio interviews with people, asking about their first times. Their first time what, they would all ask, first time anything he'd tell them -- so there was all kinds, from their first time making a cocktail to the first time they slept with a woman to the first time they smoke a cigarette. Another piece was called "Cleaning Up London" and featured the contents of a hoover bag, presided over by Ken Livingstone. You might roll your eyes at what seemed to be modern art wank, but that was exactly what the artist was doing himself -- a sly dig at unmade beds and exploded sheds (although I am actually a big fan of the latter piece).

Strangely, on seeing the other installations and art works for the first time I was glad not to have been an art student. Many times when I was at university people immediately assumed I was on an art course, and in the years since I've wondered if I might not have been better off doing a Bachelor's degree in photography -- but on the night there were some times when the other galleries represented everything that gives "modern" art a bad name. Non-Blondie herself put it quite eloquently at one point with the immortal words: "I hate art".

The Great Black Bird had a spot on the wall where it was reportedly lit by the afternoon sun through the window. Because I'm vain, I often liked to stand near it when the gallery was busy, just to see what the reactions were on the faces of the people. I wouldn't talk to them or tell them it was mine, I just liked to quietly watch people. As with the responses here, the people I knew who talked to me about it were nice and complimentary -- and Hannah asked me if it wasn't better in the end doing it the way I did, than trying to find some way to paste an image onto the canvas. The nights I spent drawing, and sketching, and painting, experimenting with colours and textures and styles until it lead me to my final piece? Yes, it was all worth it.

The night ended in a somewhat surreal way, in a local pub that was having a (far too loud) ska night and served Thai food.

I've been thinking about my next painting recently, even though there will be no gallery to display it and few adoring fans to admire my Neanderthal-like style of drawing. My next piece I intend to call "Maelstrom", and as the name will suggest it will be some kind of representation of a storm at sea -- with much more colour than before. Expect many more late nights and rainy afternoons spent with sketchbooks and an old NASA mug being used as my brush pot.

Freak on a train

I was talking to a crazy man on the train the other day.

You know how it is; you get on the train and look around for a place to sit. But all the seats are taken and you really don't want to stand. Then you notice one man sitting on his own and several empty seats all around him. And you just know there must be a good reason why nobody wants to sit near this guy, but you aren't going far so figure you can take your chances.
And it all makes good blog fodder.

I sit down and this wild-eyed, toothless madman looks at me. I pretend to be fascinated with something outside the window. Then a girl listening to her iPod sits down next to crazy man. She is listening to her music loudly, so that all you can hear is the tinny, hissing beat. Crazy man says something to me. I don't know what it is, but I figure it's something about personal stereos not being very personal. I make a noise of agreement. "What?" he says "Hm, nothing" I mumble and continue to look out the window. But I've spoken to him now.

He keeps looking at me, and looking at this girl, then he leans towards me
"Is she with you?" he asks
I laugh "No" I tell him. This doesn't seem clear enough to him.
"Is she your girlfriend?"
"No. I only saw her for the first time when she sat down."
"Nice, though, isn't she?"
"Yes, she's very pretty"
"Why don't you ask her out?"
"I don't think my girlfriend would like that very much"
"Fair enough, I'm just trying to help you out, mate"

I thanked him for the thought, but assured him it wasn't necessary. Then crazy man starts complaining how nobody talks on trains any more. It did seem a little strange when he mentioned it, the carriage was full of people, but also completely silent. Except for him. He was telling me how in his day people would all talk to each other on the train. I was tempted to tell him that people are likely to think you're a crazy freak if you talk to them, but figured it best not to call him names, in case he stabbed me for it.

He moves on to the subject of work. I'm dressed in my finest black suit since I'd just been to an interview and he asks me what I do. I think we can see where this is leading. I was tempted to tell him I was an astronaut. But instead I tell him I'm an artist, I was carrying my bird canvas with me, after all. He says "Really?" and makes a drinking gesture with a questioning look. I laugh and tell him, yes, I'm a piss artist. He points out that I said it and not him, so I can't get mad.
"But really," he wants to know, "what sort of thing do you do?"

If you ever seen Spaced you will remember the artist character, Brian, who whenever he was asked that question would reply with "Anger...Pain...Fear...Aggression...". It took a world of restraint not to take the piss and repeat this to crazy man. Instead I talked a bit about photography and a move towards painting. He asked me if there was a lot of money in it. None at all, I told him. I don't make any money out of art. He told me I should be a plumber, like him. How he was earning 35k a year, and when he completes his next course he will be on more like 50k.

You'd think with that sort of money he'd get some false teeth or something, since he had only one or two mangled, discoloured lumps for his gnashers.

Luckily about this point it was my stop, so I was able to bid farewell to the freak and his misguided matchmaking and try to navigate my way from Deptford to Goldsmith's College...

The great black bird comes to life

Further on the black bird

You would not believe how hard I find it to draw a simple, bloody, bird. Or in this case less of a bloody bird and more of a black one.

I met up last night with Hannah, along with other First Time Club people and artists. I didn't particularly want to go, feeling anti-social and like it was a waste of my time -- but of course as these things often go it was nice to meet new and interesting people (one much older guy I remembered, with a shudder, from the life drawing session) and there was talk and debate about our individual works, which I found especially fascinating. A couple of people were current or graduated art students and they tended towards conceptual ideas, and while I have no intention of going all multimedia on my piece, it was surprisingly helpful.

From looking at my small-scale "mock up" of my work I realised that it was way too literal. The text I had more or less filled the page with was almost wholly unnecessary -- which I had been starting to see when the night before I had been sat up, painting all the words on a page with a brush. It's when you spend so long on each letter and each word that you re-evaluate just how much text is needed. Through a discussion with Hannah about it I saw that I was kind of beating the audience round the head with my idea -- rather than letting them work out for themselves the quite obvious interpretations of my picture, I was taking them by the hand and walking them through it all. Very slowly. I also considered how much time I generally pay to large blocks of text in a gallery -- the answer is very little.

The text in the picture is to be reduced to the bare minimum. A brief line or two about being a happy child, but still a child that was plagued with recurring nightmares. Then perhaps a line or two about the dream -- playing in the garden one minute, snatched away by this bird-as-metaphor-for-the-devil the next. C'est fin.

I poured my heart about my frustrations with the bird image -- or at least kept banging on about being frustrated and unable to draw. I have been encouraged to stop taking everything so literally, that although the bird image I found was all very nice, why does it have to be that one? Why does what I draw actually have to be a faithful picture of a bird? Now I'm not suggesting I glue a half-empty yogart pot to a canvas and claim that it "represents" a bird, but more that I can try a more abstract or surreal image. After all, it's about a dream.

I've been searching some more, and leaving behind google image search found some very interesting and inspiring images on Etsy and Flickr. This latter bird, by an extremely talented young lady by the name of Sherri Burhoe, is perhaps more along the lines I should be thinking. It has that dramatic feeling to it, and it gives me that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The Etsy artist -- Pamelam -- has a much more surreal approach to her bird pictures which again I love, and it makes me very jealous. You might look at those pictures and think "How hard can that be?" The outlines are surely nothing too taxing, but even those seem to be eluding me. I have been sat with my sketch book using crayons and pencils for what feels like hours. I'm beginning to think I should maybe have nightmares about parrots instead, since that seems to be the closest I come to anything resembling a bird.

I'm hoping that swimming tomorrow and Saturday spent with my paints and sketch book will afford me some progress... and maybe when I manage to draw the bird right, I will scan in all the rubbish ones, so everyone can see I'm not making it up how rubbish I really am.

The great black bird

As a child, I was troubled with a recurring nightmare. I would be on my own, in our back garden, happily playing. And I would be carried off by a black bird.

I have no idea where the idea came from, but I can remember no other dream I have ever had that recurred like this one. I wish I could be more dramatic about it, and could describe the feel of the warm sun on my skin, or a feeling of simple, innocent happiness, before being snatched by the claws of this shrieking bird. But it wouldn't be true, for myself -- in my mind's eye the image is so clear, of playing quietly and of the bird carrying me away, but I can't flesh it out with horror story detail.

Some older readers -- or kind visitors who have been curious enough to read through my archives -- may remember a post about the First Time Club. A group of people I discovered entirely at random one day, who meet in London about once a month and as a collective do things for the first time. Activities they have joined in have included Morris Dancing, poetry readings and going to the dog racing. Where I got involved was with an art class. I said sign me up, and the next thing I knew I was posing for a life drawing class with a bunch of strangers.

There's been other opportunities to meet them that have passed by for one reason or another -- but usually a combination of having to work and not having the money to travel into London on top of whatever else we would do. I might have gone to the Christmas ball at torture garden, if it hadn't been for the cost of the ticket, hiring a costume, drinks, a travelcard, cab fare home... I say to myself there's always next time.

This time I could hardly turn down. The first time is taking part in a gallery show, Hannah who organises these things has for her own personal reasons arranged for us volunteers to display our artistic skills. At first, I said no sweat, I can get a photo on canvas printed to order, and at the end of the show take it home and put it on my wall.

Except that was kind of cheating. In discussion with Hannah about it, she said that didn't really count -- it wasn't really doing something for the first time if I already produced these pictures. She went on to tell me about the other artists taking part, how one man is a life model who draws figuratively, but he is making a sculpture out of sweet tins. It got me thinking, don't I always say I want to paint?

Except I kind of stalled there. Any time Hannah wanted to meet was always inconvenient (yet another reason for me to move to London) and I was just drawing a blank with ideas. I don't get "visual" ideas. I don't wake up one day with a great idea for a photograph (or drawing, painting, whatever) -- unlike how I might get a sudden sentence or turn of phrase strike me that I want to write down. I can't draw so it isn't like I sketch idly in my free time. For weeks I had nothing. I tried asking the universe for inspiration, but much like asking it to deliver me a quid for the coke machine and the parking space at work I wanted, still nothing was coming.

Eventually I managed to arrange a meeting with Hannah, and in a dramatic break with tradition it seemed the universe delivered. I remembered having recently told Dune about this childhood nightmare, and it suddenly seemed like this would be the perfect picture -- something deeply personal and meaningful to me. A dramatic and dark picture of this black bird from my childhood dreams, and drawing on my background as a writer, the bird would be partially obscuring a block of text, explaining about the dream.

Hannah was politely supportive of the idea -- I couldn't tell you if she thought it was any good or not, as I don't think she would have told me if she didn't like it. And that doesn't matter anyway, it's not for her or for anyone else. By way of encouragement, she suggested looking into folklore associations with black birds -- although sticking mainly to English culture, so as not to get too wanky about it (I might be paraphrasing there).

In my research, I've found the usual stories of a crow circling house being an omen of death, and of the legends surrounding the ravens of the Tower of London. What I didn't expect to find was a reference to traditional folklore from Yorkshire, where apparently children are told if they don't behave, they will be taken away by a great, black bird. The idea is obviously very Christian in nature, with the bird being the devil taking away sinners -- and of course, this would tie in with my own Catholic childhood. I'm wondering now what relative would have told me about this great, black bird -- because I am sure I didn't come to the idea entirely on my own.

The art itself is making slow progress. I forced myself to sit down the other day and look up bird images -- since I would need some kind of template to work with, being unable to draw. After what felt like hours -- the more specific I tried to be with my search terms, the less relevant they became -- I found the image I wanted, and with some work put together a kind of mock up in word of what I wanted. I have the text more or less how I want it, and the bird over the top -- although in this version the bird doesn't obscure the text.

What I need now is a canvas block, or several. I need to feel the canvas to know what size it should be; I am thinking something large like an A2 size at the moment. I also need to work out how I am going to paint or print this text onto the canvas, and most troubling of all how I am going to get the bird image onto the page. Suggestions are welcome, particularly suggestions as to what kind of paint would be good to use, where I can buy canvas blocks and how I might be able to get what is essentially a digital image painted onto my canvas...

The universe should be my supermarket -- so why isn't it?

I read a book on Cosmic Ordering last week. The concept of it seems quite simple -- to ask the universe clearly and politely for what you want, give it a time frame for the delivery, and then away it goes. Apparently, you don't even have to necessarily believe the universe will deliver -- the author of the book I read said she placed her first "order" as a sceptic, to settle an argument with a friend who believed it. It also says that being tempted to reconfirm your orders or give them an extra "push" of energy from time to time is counter-productive. I'm not sure if these two ideas contradict one another -- the latter suggests you lack confidence in your order, but what does it matter if you don't even have to believe it?

I started out with a couple of small orders at first. I ordered "some interesting post" to arrive by the end of the week. I thought that was ambiguous enough -- it could be a surprise from a friend or a postcard or a letter or any number of things. I also requested an email from a particular friend within 24 hours.

At first, I thought it hadn't come through -- I went to bed without the email I had ordered. But the next morning, there it was waiting for me -- it had been delivered while I slept, so it still came through within the time period I specified. This left the interesting post. A day or two went past with nothing, but I had said by the end of the week -- and before the week was out, not one but two unexpected postcards from postcrossing arrived (I'll scan them another day for postcard porn).

Now, both of these could be considered a coincidence. I was owed an email by my friend, it wasn't completely out of the blue. I also probably was owed postcards from Postcrossing, too, since one I sent had just arrived -- although I can never work out Postcrossing, sometimes I am about five cards in credit compared to what I have sent, and sometimes it goes the other way. It rarely seems to be exactly equal -- like how with two cards turning up on exactly the same day. The book had an amusing analogy about thinking these things are coincidence -- imagine you order a sweater by mail order. The sweater arrives. You then call the mail order company and tell them that you don't believe the sweater you have received is the one you ordered and is in fact a sweater you already had -- furthermore you also believe that they still owe you the one you ordered. So I could choose to believe I ordered these things and they arrived, or I could believe they would have arrived anyway. One way makes you happy, the other doesn't.

Unfortunately my positive tales of orders received seems to end there. I have tried ordering a parking space I want at work -- but it never comes. I don't understand why. The other day I also wanted a pound coin for the coke machine, since I didn't have one. That didn't come either. I wasn't asking for a large sum of cash to magically appear, it seemed perfectly reasonable to find a pound coin just lying on the floor somewhere, or in a forgotten pocket. Why the hell did these things not work? I didn't put any more or less emphasis on them than my other options -- my consistent lack of the parking space I want doesn't ruin my day. So why one thing and not another?

I have asked the universe for the right job. I don't want to leave my current job quite yet, but it would be good if the universe could at least show me where I should go, so I can know what I am aiming towards. The trouble is, I don't know if the random ideas I get should be entertained or if it just seems like the grass is greener. Work is a blog post for another day right now. I've also thought it can't hurt to ask the universe to deliver the right person into my life. Like with the interesting post request, I trust the universe to know what is best for me -- better than I can. But I am also confident there that if this mystical bag of wonderful doesn't materialise out of thin air -- or better yet be a person already actively in my life in whatever way -- it's because I am not ready for it.

I am unsure about the mechanics of this ordering business. As I've said, I spend long afternoons pondering how it works if you can 'order' something without believing in it -- since this can't be the reason for not getting the things I order. I am almost certain that the power of positive thinking doesn't create some kind of magnet, rather you subconsciously create what you require and notice what is already around you. I like being thankful for the things in my life, but sometimes it feels just a little bit too much like I've gone full circle, and am back to praying and believing the things in my life have been given to me by some invisible, mystical force.

I don't accept that the universe doesn't deliver to me the things I secretly don't think I deserve -- while that might apply to work, girls, even success, it doesn't adequately cover why I don't get the trivial, little things either. I need to read more, I need to read around the subject perhaps -- I need to read it as it appears as Neural-Linguistic Programming, as well as in such contexts as Comsic Ordering, The Secret and Conversations With God -- all of which I believe talk about the same sort of intention-manifestation idea. I also clearly need to get right back to basics and return to my reading of the 20 Greatest Philosophy Books (helpfully contained in one, small, easy-to-read book).

In the meantime, I'd like to place a cosmic order for more money -- best of all in the form of a steady flow of people wanting to buy my artwork for a small profit.
Then, later on, monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Take a different way home

There was a quote I read once from Sid Vicious, who said "You just pick a chord, go 'twang', and you've got music". That's sort of how I approach photography.

Some of what I consider my best pictures have been taken on disposable or cheap cameras. I don't have any expensive kit, I don't monitor light levels or have any sort of training. I think it just has to come from passion. As is probably obvious, I'm generally more a literary than visual person, I'd love to paint, but I just don't seem to 'think' in terms of pictures. Most of my pictures are from wandering about, just to 'dig' stuff, or just snapping things because I like them -- rather than because it's art. It can annoy me that wherever you go there is someone trying to be artistic -- you're trying to walk up the escalator and someone is there, crouched down with their digital SLR, getting a shot at ankle-height... Or maybe I'm just jealous because they thought of it first?

I try to always be open to something that might make a good picture (although I never have my camera) and will pull the car over, or go back to the spot later if necessary, just so I can take pictures. Sometimes it looks rubbish, but I just shrug and that's that.

Last night I drove a different way home -- I just felt like it. I was so bored of the same dual carriageway that I decided I'd get off an exit early and try to find my way home from there. As we all know, I have a terrible, absolutely awful, sense of direction -- but I knew I couldn't go far wrong, and something inside me just said to do it. So I did. I did actually get a bit lost and didn't really find a different way home so much as a very convoluted and circular way back to the same dual carriageway. But then I went a different way again -- where I sort of knew the way but I think I missed my turning, so I just carried on. What made it all worthwhile though was passing one of those old World War 2 lookout posts -- the old concrete things you see in the middle of fields. There's a few near here, and I always want to take a picture of one I see, but can't figure out a way to get near it. This one tonight was right by the side of the road, and even better there was several places opposite where I can park.

I considered getting my camera from home then driving back there -- but I didn't in the end. The camera's memory was mostly full, since I hadn't yet uploaded my pictures from Seville -- my camera has been sat on my desk for weeks -- so it would have involved uploading everything off it (once my computer was finally booted up) then driving back there again, but the light wasn't great. I convinced myself that the pictures probably wouldn't even be worthwhile -- it often frustrates me that what looks good to look at doesn't necessarily translate to a good photograph.

This evening I went my normal way home. It was bright and sunny, and I decided yes, yes, I would get my camera and go back tonight. I would just go and see what happens...

I had a very nasty surprise getting the pictures off my camera. Half of what I remember taking isn't on there. Pictures of the streets, many pictures from the Cathedral, pictures taken on the boat trip -- just plain missing. Even worse, the morning of the parade, Dune had asked me to use my camera's video setting to capture the music of the parade, and we had been lucky enough to catch a mournful saeta. I am sure I remember checking the video after I recorded it -- and yet it seems everything I saved to the internal memory on my camera is absent. I hoped at the time this was just some glitch I could work out later -- but I've looked since and it's just not there. No doubt it is due to some unfathomable stupidity on my part. I could just break something.

Anyway off I went this evening, and snapped my pictures of this old war relic. I haven't reviewed them properly yet, but I expect I will post some of them later. First, they need to be cropped and edited, and before that I am going swimming. It's Friday night, and I'd normally be down the pub, but tonight I just feel like quietly swimming laps for an hour or so, and coming home.

In a heap round their breakfasts in yesterday's clothes

This has to be the worst-timed post ever. I spend all day bored out of my mind, but it's only when I want to have been asleep half an hour ago that I actually get around to writing an update. I might not have internet access or the time to blog at work, but I'm in one of those annoying places where sitting in front of a computer when I get home from work isn't so appealing.

It's no surprise that I miss working in the bookshop. In fairness, I don't think I did the job for anywhere near long enough to appreciate how mind numbing it would get -- I wasn't full time, and didn't stay more than a couple of months, I think 40 hours a week and working weekends (as would inevitably have happened) would have done much to take the shine off it. But right now, I can dream and reminisce about recommending books to customers and talking to cute girls who wanted to know what books of Robert Frost's poetry we had. I don't miss dusting the shelves, or being restricted to only one 20 minute break a day.

I've been avoiding updating lately because my frame of mind or emotional well being took a distinct turn for the worst. I made reference a few weeks back to a shaky state of affairs and despite some occasional patches of sullen sun, things deteriorated. I don't much like talking about how I'm feeling, and so was shutting people out emotionally and writing about it felt just a tiny bit too much like talking about it. Much better to remain quiet with my thoughts of self harm. My powers of hypocrisy know no bounds, it would seem.

It took Dune to make me realise what a complete arse I was being. She gave me a good talking to and told me in no uncertain terms to sort myself out, which got me to pull myself together a bit. It's not like someone has waved a magic wand and made everything all better, but it's got me to stop being so self pitying and actually try and feel a bit more alive. I know perfectly well that the power to be happy is well within my grasp, and that I expend huge emotional effort on feeling shit, and so for the time being I am trying to make an effort to the contrary. It has also been brought to my attention that if I want to move out, I need to make it happen -- rather than sitting around and waiting for my friends to want to move out with me, and if I actually took the time to work out a budget it's more than feasible.

In other news, Dune and I go to Seville on Thursday evening for the long Easter weekend -- to check out the 'Santa Semana', or Holy Week, festival. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if she was trying to save my soul, since this is the same girl who invited me to go on a pilgrimage last year. Really, I think it's the appeal of Spain and the history and the idea of doing something different. This also means that I am taking half day at work on Thursday, and am making up for it (or making it up in my wages) by starting an hour earlier every day.

The whole issue of work is a particularly sore spot for me right now. Today I was training my newest colleague -- who started just over a week ago and is already looking to leave as soon as she possibly can -- and I noticed on her desk a copy of What Colour Is Your Parachute?, a multi-bestselling guide to job hunting and career changes. I flicked through it a bit, and on noticing some parts on finding out what jobs suit your personality, my colleague mentioned to me the idea that what job one might do could, possibly, not be the best fit. I laughed and said I had little illusions that what I do is something I am well suited to -- it requires no creativity and offers no intellectual stimulation at all, and one of the few things that keeps from insanity is the opportunity to talk to various suppliers on the phone. However, I recognise that 99% of the population of the planet feel the same way about what they do. "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."

I struggle between feeling like I have sold out, that I have given up, that I am one of the people who would have liked to be a writer or an artist or whatever -- but gave up on it, rather than one of the people didn't stop believing and made it happen. If nothing else, at least I have the temperament of the artist.

Adventures continue in London with Dune. We met up with Jiminy and Non-Blondie again, and took again in the sights and smells of East London -- wandering down Brick Lane, before ending up again in the local pub we like, and playing darts. The darts game was made more exciting when Non-Blondie's celebration dance looked like it might send her through the trapdoor into the cellar, but although I would have liked to have won, I don't think that would have been the way to achieve it. And perhaps it was made abundantly clear to all involved that I am not kidding about my coordination or spatial awareness, but I think they were fortunate that nobody accidentally got a dart in the side of the head.

Last weekend, Jon and I returned to Camden with Dune -- and made it further than the pub this time, exploring Camden Lock market, having lunch in a Mexican place in Covent Garden and ending the evening in a pub in Charing Cross. There also as a result of that evening needs to be a whole post now devoted to film and cinema, as it has become a subject so weighty it needs its own space to breathe.

All in all, I've pulled my head out my arse a bit, work sucks, bites and blows -- and never in any good ways, but I have started looking for a new place to live. I stress only started at this point. Oh and I can now speak very rudimentary Spanish -- albeit Latin American Spanish (since it was the only short course the library had left), and with a charming Essex accent.

I am thinking of changing the name of my blog to "Hey man, now you're really living" after the Eels song that makes me happy...

Tell a tall tale

I was very cheekily forwarded an email promoting the latest chick-lit release. It was a cheeky email, since it was sent to everyone on the First Time Club mailing list without first having asked permission from the admin, and that just wasn't on. Anyway, the book sounds like the usual dull and uninteresting tripe that is aimed at people who don't like to read or have no imaginations. But what was interesting was how they are promoting it. With a PR background, the promoting of a product interests me more than the product itself a lot of the time.

To promote the book, a competition is being run to win a weekend away -- the prize going to the person who submits the best story of a lie they have told.

I submitted a true story dating back to the Christmas of 2006, when some friends and I were at a very bad Christmas disco held at a boat club in the middle of nowhere and DJ'd by the half-deaf and slightly retarded older brother of a guy we had gone to school with and didn't really like. Sounds like the recipe for a great night, doesn't it?

The main point of my story -- both here where I first told and on the entry from -- was fairly simple, At the party I had got talking to a woman who was the Mum of a girl I had gone to school with. Her daughter was now a successful lawyer, living in LA. I thought what did I do for a living? I worked in a call centre and felt like a loser.

That's more or less where the real story parts ways with the version I submitted. Like the charming British Government's reports on WMD in Iraq, I wanted to sex it up a bit. In my submitted version of the story, I decided I should have told the woman I was an artist/sculptor (I don't think she ever asked), what's more that I was flirting with this girl's Mum, and that at the end of the night I gave her my phone number on the pretence of her giving it to her daughter but knowing she'd keep it.

One story wasn't enough though. So from a different email address I submitted the story of my imaginary girlfriend -- but again it wasn't quite good enough, so I tacked onto the end of the story being offered the job, but later breaking up with my imaginary girlfriend while she was teaching English abroad.

I think I should get extra credit for not only telling (to my mind) entertaining stories about lies I told, but actually lying about it.

Interestingly, the website for the book and the competition no longer loads, so I wonder if someone got into trouble for the spamming of the link...

Etsy UK Meet Up

Saturday was once again one of those unplanned, entirely random days that I seem to enjoy so much -- or at least seem to stumble into so often.

It all started on Friday night, when at a loose end for a short while, I thought I'd stick my head into the forums on Etsy and say to people -- I've been buying gifts on Etsy lately and my friends there have complained about not seeing me. I read a couple of pages of the UK team thread, and found a link to the Friday night chat room. The forums and chat rooms on Etsy are why I don't visit as often as I used to now -- you log in and, before you know it, you've lost hours of your life.

In the chat room I picked up on some mentions of a meet up planned for Saturday. I jokingly mentioned crashing the party, and was told there'd be no need, since everyone was welcome. I then started to seriously consider it, and was encouraged -- at great length -- particularly by Miss Bunny, whose work I love. I figured what the hell, it would be a laugh -- and yes, completely random. So I contacted Bunny to ask if I could have her phone number, in case of getting lost or being late. She suggested that we met at Waterloo station and turn up together -- since she was nervous about meeting people. That was it, then -- once I agreed to meet Bunny, I knew I was committed to going as I'd be letting her down if I chickened out.

I had only a very vague idea of who was going to be at this meet, and an even more vague idea of what anyone's real name was or what they looked like. Several Etsy people participate on Flickr in a "Self Portrait Thursday" group, but I couldn't remember who I would be meeting that I'd already seen. I did know in advance though that I was likely to be the only male there, and probably also the youngest attendee -- although even among the UK sellers as a whole I am not the youngest, nor the only male.

I got to Waterloo station before Bunny -- she'd warned me she might be late -- and was in a queue for a cash machine when she called me. Even though she'd told me her real name the night before, I still answered the phone with "Hello, Bunny". We arranged to meet, and then set off together to find wherever it was we were supposed to meet the others. I recognised Miss Bunny from her self-portrait Thursday pictures and she was easy to get along with. We talked about random stuff as we walked along the South Bank -- her dogs, her boyfriend, people that were going to be there -- but it wasn't too long before Bunny admitted that she didn't know any more where we were going. I'd assumed she knew where we going, and she'd assumed where we were going would be obvious when she saw it...

A quick phonecall to her boyfriend at home later she'd got the number for Reform -- whom I think she might have met before. The call started with the words "I'm a lost Bunny!" and apparently the others were laughing at her for being lost, and two of them set off to meet us and take us to the Riverside Terrace cafe.

I was no less nervous when I was introduced to the Etsians already assembled, drinking their coffees and hot chocolates, feeling very self conscious -- although it was clear who I was, I didn't get formal introductions to everyone, and some people I still wasn't even sure who they were online much later in the day and only worked out by a process of elimination. Unfortunately, although people took lots of pictures on the day there isn't one definitive picture of the group.

After sitting around the cafe for a bit, we all tramped off down the South Bank to see the Frost Fair. Frosty is the word for it, Saturday was far too cold a day to be outside for any length of time... Although it was interesting, it was largely a craft fair -- something that seemed a bit redundant to me, as most stalls I saw I thought "I could get that better off someone I know on Etsy". Giving craft to Etsy people is like giving crazy to Britney Spears -- she already has plenty.

Before long it was decided that food was definitely needed, and Bunny suggested the nearby pub. It seemed like a great idea to me -- food, warmth and of course alcohol. About a thousand other people had already had this same idea at the same pub, though, and it was full. But -- haha -- only full inside. There were plenty of benches outside, and we could all share the same table! What's more, the pub had a supply of blankets for people (presumably smokers) to help themselves to. And so we sat, huddled in our blankets, looking like hobos.

After a incredibly cold lunch we wandered further along -- to the Globe Theatre, which was opening for free. This time there really was warmth to be found, although of course the Globe was so packed full of people getting out of the cold that you couldn't actually really take the time to look at anything. It was like a free trial to get you just interested enough to know it would be worth paying money for some other time when it's quiet.

The day ended back in the cafe, where I had a very interesting chat with Tiinateaspoon -- whom I had never heard of before, and was relieved to find the feeling was mutual. Since I only joined Etsy in around October, she has been less active in the forums since then. She was added to my favourite sellers list as soon as I got in, because she's not only a great person but also very talented.

Other highlights of such a random day were everyone talking to Kezz on the phone (who couldn't make it, since she lives in Aberdeen) -- and then remarking how we were surprised she sounded Scottish, but how lovely she is. Also, talking to debsmuddle about local things -- since she lives in a town less than 10 minutes from me, and feeling like this meet-up made up for not going to a Christmas ball at Torture Garden with the First Time Club.

A week's too long not to ring

Forgive me, readers, it's been a week since my last post. It's hard to believe that it's been a whole week since I last wrote anything, but it just goes to show how little is going on in my life that is worth writing about.

I have registered with a temp agency to find some admin/office work -- and despite excelling in my tests, there has been no work, so far. I also met with a new recruitment consultant and similarly impressed him with my mad admin skillz. He put me forward for a job he thought I'd be "perfect" for, and almost immediately they were inviting me in for an interview.

The interesting thing with this one was that he said I didn't exactly look like the consumer PR type. It was a bit of a strange remark to my mind, since we were meeting in a professional context and it was unlikely I'd be wearing designer jeans and the like -- but it did make me wonder if I'm just not cool enough. He made another similar remark later when confirming my interview -- he asked me if the suit I had was "stylish". When I said it was a decent, smart suit he said to make sure I wore a stylish shirt in that case.

When an interviewer makes a decision on you based on first impressions in the initial 90 seconds or whatever, it's almost frightening to think that after all these interviews perhaps I just haven't looked the part. Either way, on Friday afternoon I looked very sharp in my stylish new suit. But on Monday morning I got a phone call to say that I didn't get the job. They were apparently meeting several people, and so by my calculations they must have decided before they even met me who they were going to hire. Clearly they couln't have seen anyone else after me in that time.

Yesterday I met a contact from the agency I interned with last year -- although I never worked with him directly, he's become a kind of mentor for me now, and as deputy CEO of the company he's a good person to have on my side. We met for lunch and I discussed with him my work since I left his place last November, and my increasing frustrations. The reassuring thing was he thinks I should continue with what I am doing, that I am clearly passionate about it and good at what I do -- and it's just a matter of luck to find the right agency.

I'm going on a one-man roadtrip to Bristol on Thursday for another job interview -- this time it's for a copywriter position, so I am keeping all fingers and toes crossed on that one. I also had an interview today for a Christmas temp job in a book shop. I figure if I can combine two jobs -- like working in a book shop and evenings in a bar -- I might just be able to make enough money to live on. The interview seemed to go well, they were very casual and informal and liked my experience, background and attitude to customer service. I liked that they seemed to enjoy working there.

I've been reading a book this week called "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion". I figured it would be relevant to almost all areas of my life -- from interpersonal relationships, to working in marketing, to selling my art and even getting that damned elusive first permanent job I need so much. I read an anecdote about how one person was having trouble selling some turquoise jewellery until they accidentally doubled the price, rather than halving it. The result was that with things of this nature, when there is no objective definition for what something is "worth", people will use the old "you get what you pay for" adage to equate expensive with good.
Similar comments I remember were made after my unsuccessful attempt to auction one of my pictures on ebay.

So inspired, I started listing more canvas prints on my Etsy page, and increased some of the original prices. Within minutes of listing one of my pictures, I got an email that I had just made a sale, and the buyer would be sending payment via Paypal. I emailed the buyer to thank them for their purchase and to check their address, and was a little perturbed when they didn't respond. After all, they were clearly online in the first place to buy it. I just felt uneasy about it. A couple of days pass, no payment, no reply to my message. I send another trying to be breezy, mentioning their lack of response and highlighting I needed payment before I sent the canvas. The terms under Etsy are that buyers must make payment within three days, or else in the case of sending a cheque they should have despatched it within this time. It has now been five days, and it seems now they were just a time-waster. I wouldn't mind if they were paying by money order, or if they had just responded to any of my messages -- but the total silence suggests to me they never had any intention of buying it.

I'm particularly annoyed at myself, since in the excitement of making a sale and anticipating payment via Paypal, I ordered the canvas from the printer -- and now will be footing the bill myself. I'm proud of all of my work, so I will be pleased to have something of my own actually on display at home -- but now was not the best of times.

summer. green and red

After the non-event that was my ebay auction for my art -- which I ended early, so as to avoid any winning bidders of £1 -- I have taken DelightfulJen's advice and listed it on Etsy instead. The advantages of Etsy being that it's not an auction, and the item will be listed until someone sees fit to buy it. Naturally, there hasn't been any interest yet and I'm not optimistic that anyone will stumble onto it and decide they want it -- any more than they did on Ebay.

I have also returned to the Britart to try and promote my art. I ran into some confusion first of all trying to make sure my selected images for submission were all 72dpi and 400 pixels. I don't know if that's meant to be 400pixels in height or width, I'm still not convinced I have it right, either. I also spoke some time ago of having to write a brief biography for the site. They require a short paragraph about [my] art practice along with a brief CV or biography. Considering I work in marketing and enjoy few things more than being left alone to write, I've found it quite difficult to write some kind of bio about myself. I include what I have so far, but am troubled that what I have written to date might just be considered as the "short paragraph". There's not much you can write about my photography "practice".

[Jay] is a fiercely independent photographer whose work spans from the Essex coast to the Moab desert.
Having studied photography at the University of Utah, [Jay] later trained as a journalist, before moving into public relations. Contrastingly, [Jay]'s work commonly features people as incidental to the places, if at all.
Often shot on quite basic equipment, the pictures approach scenes simply, and are remarkable for features like light, contrast or just a captured moment.

Clearly it needs more to it -- but at this point, I don't know what -- so feedback/suggestions are encouraged. There isn't really anything else to say by way of biography. I'm not expecting anything to come from this either, they will be overrun by real artists wanting to promote their work, but all I can do is try. I never expect to make a living out of this -- I was considering for a moment saying I wouldn't want to, but on second thoughts if I could make a living just by travelling and taking pictures, I think I'd take that over commuting into the city.

Thinking about promoting myself -- in a vaguely related way -- it occurred to me the other day that I haven't had a date in so long. I'm trying to think of the last one, and I think it might have been taking Luisa the mullet-haired Italian hottie to the ski&snowboard show in London. Last October. Has that really been it? Even that I don't think was really a date. I almost went on a date with Electro Girl, but I think I had a lucky escape with that one. Fairly recently, I was vaguely corresponding with a young lady who told me she was an artist -- but something didn't sit right with me about her. She claimed to be away in Benin, in Africa, at the time -- I didn't ever clarify whether she was talking about the Benin region of Nigeria or the Republic of Benin. Her emails always seemed very stunted, and hardly conversational however hard I tried -- I wondered if English might not be her first language, but in the end I decided I didn't like her attitude. She seemed to demand I be on instant messenger at a certain time each day, and didn't seem to get that I had to work. In the end, I set up gmail to automatically trash her messages unread. Maybe I was too hasty, but I was expecting any day some story about how she needed someone to look after her parents' fortune...

I repeatedly assert that I don't think online is going to be any kind of constructive way to meet someone -- placing personal ads is going to have very limited success when there's a thousand others just like it. I guess my freelance work is a good way to meet people -- I meet lots of new people, but aren't necessarily tied down to staying at one workplace so there's no worry about constantly having to see each other at work every day. Volunteering is also good, although I am wondering if it might not be a deliberate action on the part of the group not to put girls alone in cars with men they don't know.

It's not keeping me awake nights, but it would be nice to have someone to take to the open air theatre in Regent's Park on a summer's night or to talk on the phone to or show her my favourite bars and any number of other things. It would probably come easier if I was getting to just travel and take pictures...

Art goes up for auction

I decided to see if it would be possible to sell my art on ebay. I figured from the feedback I get from you kids here it should be fairly popular. A little under a week ago, I started the auction with bidding at £1 for one of my favourite pictures printed on an A3 canvas. This will cost me somewhere in the region of £50 to produce, but I don't have to actually get it made until the auction ends -- and I've listed a turnaround time of 10 days, which should be ample.
I also set up the auction so that 10% of the final selling price would be donated to Cancer research.

Sounds reasonable, right? I'm starting bidding ridiculously low for an awesome looking picture on canvas, and even donating money to charity. In an effort to help cross-promote it I added an ebay auction application to my facebook, so I can leave comments on my auction reminding people it's there and encouraging them to bid.

I had no idea just how popular it would be! And by popular I mean completely ignored. Bidding is yet to get as far as one single bid for £1. I apparently have one person "watching", who might be planning a last-minute bid of a quid, but I think it's unlikely. Maybe people don't go to ebay when they want something like this, I don't know. Sure, I could use all of the premium promotional features ebay offers -- but is it worth spending £10 on some extra features when I don't know if bidding will make it into double figures? I figure at this rate I'd be better off ending the auction early and abandoning that idea than letting it possibly sell for a couple of quid.


San Francisco

The art of giving up

The picture taken on a beach, celebrating Australia Day, apparently captures simmultaneously fireworks, lightning and the McNaught comet. I don't care that the picture isn't entirely as it appears*, it's beautiful to look at.

This post today started with no real focus to it, other than to "share" some items I have found, or have been sent -- like this article, lovingly sent by a friend following the last post. However, along the way writing it -- as is often the case -- it's become something more.

The art of giving up: for those among you with short attention spans, or who just don't like following links in case they lead to goatse, the piece can be summarised with a few choice, inspiring and easy-to-digest quotes that will hopefully serve as appetisers, for the rest of the piece.

"life is a process of letting go of your own ego, or letting go of your attachments...When the idea of self (ego) is attached to the object of enjoyment, you lose the ability to see it for what it is.

"It is also common to see aspiring artists, musicians, and actors entirely drop their activities once they come to a conclusion that they are not going to make it. At that point, it becomes clear that the driving force behind their creative pursuits was not their enthusiasm or passion, but their attachment to the idea of becoming someone. Or, it is also possible that whatever enthusiasm they had was overwhelmed by their fear of failure. Ironically, I believe that, if you can give up the idea of “making it,” you would have a better chance of actually making it."

I had never realised it, but what I was expressing in my last post and what I have expressed in so many posts without knowing, is I have a kind of addiction to attachment.

I develop strong attachments to all sorts of things, and all manner of issues can suddenly be explained by this -- particularly my illogical reactions. I develop attachments to items of clothing, hence when I lost my "favourite" jacket last year I was upset (and when I thought I lost the coat my brother gave me earlier this year). I also have favourite t-shirts, favourite items of jewellery and favourite pairs of jeans. I wrote about death a few posts ago, and I wrote about how for years as a child I remained distraught over the death of our pet cats. Again, an almost-irrational attachment. It would be no surprise to anyone that I appear to harbour attachments to people -- I remain close friends with my exes and remain attached to past crushes. I also develop attachments to jobs, or workplaces -- to the point where I find myself crying with disappointment when I don't get a permanent job.

There's the more destructive things I have got attached to, as well -- alcohol, self harm, depression, buying new things and even the emotional and chemical cocktail of love and sex. And aren't we all? If not those exactly, then at least attached to our identities -- as writers, or whatever -- or attached to individuals, to blog comments, or just to attention.

My fear of failure, my drive to consider myself an artist to assign myself an identity, are an attachment to the self. And this is where the article really sparks my interest:

"Zen Buddhism is a process of detachment. It is so concerned with attachment that, one is discouraged from being attached to the very idea of detachment, and I can see why; because attachment actually has positive, useful functions. In this sense, Zen is not a process of detachment, but simply an understanding of what attachment is."

Zen teaches us that the self is an illusion, and in some parts a cause of suffering -- the erroneous belief that we are all separate, perhaps in a way the belief that we are all beautiful and unique snowflakes. What this tells me is my attachment to my "self", my identity becomes too attached to my ego and through the fear of not making it, and so not being "someone", I risk it all.

I feel inspired.

*if you can't be arsed to follow the link it is described as a "three-photograph panorama".

I lost my faith in the summer time

I really wanted to paint yesterday, it was weird. We all know I don't paint because I can't paint, and I guess I can't paint because I can't draw. Even if I had the talent, though, I had no inspiration. But just the same, I just really felt like painting. I got up reasonably early (early for a day off) and outside it was already pouring with rain. I knew it was going to rain on Monday, they had been saying so on the weather forecast all week, but I hadn't been expecting great sheets of torrential rain. It made me think of you Aussie bloggers, and how much you'd like some rain like that.

I don't think I'd been up long before I got a text from Nick asking if anyone was about and wanted to do anything. I told him I was about, and had been thinking maybe of sunbathing, or having a barbecue or maybe sitting in a pub beer garden in the sun. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the draw, he replied to tell me it was raining on his side of town. Like maybe I hadn't noticed perhaps? I think I replied with something along the lines of "That's strange" and then the conversation degenerated into his complaining I was in a funny mood again, and responding I am always in a funny mood. Although I am beginning to wonder if, like how people have problems with drink or food, I might have a problem with sarcasm.

For her birthday last week, my Dad bought my Mum an MP3 player. Not just a small MP3 player though, no, he decided what she needed was a 30GB video player. The options were limited to begin with, since what she really wanted it for was listening to the radio -- but there were smaller, simpler (cheaper) options. He had his heart set on one particular price range, and that was that. I tried having a discussion with my parents months ago about MP3 players, if they really understood what they did, if they had ever downloaded music in the past and if they would be able to work one. I didn't get very far with it, which is more or less self-explanatory since they bought one anyway.

Having ripped and uploaded all the CDs my Mum wanted, and then donated half of my own music collection, I think barely 5GB have been used. Of course, there was yesterday afternoon the usual frustration when -- surprisingly -- my parents couldn't work out how to use it and kept asking me. I had to keep telling them I'd never used that (or any, as it happens) mp3 player before and had no more idea than they did. They would forget this 5 minutes later and be whining at me again. My 2-year-old nephew can use the DVD player better than my Dad, at least my nephew knows to put discs away in their cases.

I ate Thai for the first time, recently. When I told people in work I'd not eaten Thai before they literally looked at me with wide-eyed and open-mouthed amazement. Where have you been? they would ask me, and I'd shrug. Last summer, Philippa the cute Kiwi girl, said she and I should go out for Thai -- but I never saw her a second time, and that was the end of it. There aren't any Thai restaurants in my neck of the woods, in fact I don't even know where the nearest one to me would be outside of London. I think it's not living in London that's the key to this, nobody has ever offered because it's not been something obvious to suggest. My friends sometimes go out for curry, but my requests that sometimes we might be able to go out for Chinese instead has always been refused.

But yes, the Thai. To tell the truth, I was a bit worried about it. Another reason why I probably haven't tried it before is sometimes I just get a bit weird about trying new things. It's weird, ask me if I want to go on holiday on my own, to a place I've never been before, where I can't speak the language, to stay with total strangers and try to learn to surf or something, and I'll readily agree. Yet, I get nervous about food. It wasn't just the food though -- it was the fact I had been in this job a week and a half, and I still wanted to make a good impression.

In the end, I ate pad Thai which turned out to be just a bowl of chicken and noodles and although it tasted different to Chinese food, it was good, and I didn't make a tit of myself. Speaking of such things, though, I wanted to share this story to reassure Steph she's not the only fucktard.

It was an ordinary afternoon in the office, I was minding my own business. A colleague came over to ask people around me if anyone had a light, he was going out for a fag break. One girl said yes, she had a lighter, in fact she also had matches -- and she didn't even smoke herself. She said she'd just found the matches. Taking my cue from all of this, I piped up with:
"Charley says that if ever you see a box of matches lying around tell mummy because they can hurt you."

Imagine an absolute silence. People stop what they are doing and quietly just stare.
"What?" I say, and then: "Mrrowrrowrrow!"
Hoping to prompt their memories by impersonating Kenny Everett's Charley did nothing for me, I incredulously asked them if they had never seen any of the "Charley says" public information films. It seems they hadn't. I emailed them this link to show them I really wasn't crazy. I don't know if they bought it. My friends tell me that only I would do something like that, but it seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time...

Art Day

I see this picture every day. I find it both strange and fascinating. Today I finally had to stop and look at it more closely, and because of this I thought I would share it.

This is Call of the Wild by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, the model is Natalia Vodianova.

There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air

This will have to be a two-part post, because one post alone isn't big enough to hold my ego sometimes. Yes, indeed; ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages: I bring you Jay, the artist.

Last night, driving home, I was a bit distracted and managed to take a wrong turn. Twice. Luckily, so long as I am still heading in the right direction I can't go too far wrong so I didn't feel the need to turn around. Okay, I admit, I almost never turn around, call it stubbornness, call it blind optimist, but I usually think if I keep going in the same direction it will somehow work out. Last night, I found this water tower. It wasn't exactly a surprise, I've known about this water tower for something like ten years -- and I once took pictures of it for a photography course I was doing.

Those pictures are lost now, but with my recent inspiration I wanted to go back. Every day, driving home from work I'll see it in the distance somewhere and try and work out where it is. Then last night I found it by accident.

I'm not entirely happy with this picture, as yet. For a start, I had to take it using my camera phone (I must start keeping my camera in the glove compartment of my car), and then there was the damn fence. Plus, I was going home so didn't have a lot of time. However, I like this picture and I have deliberately left the fence in it -- I think it frames the shot and gives it a militarised feel to the picture.

I might make this picture and the last one part of a "random places in Essex" series. On the way out of town is an old abandoned petrol station -- the station itself is all long gone, all that remains is the concrete forecourt and a couple of old disused pumps like this. I've been looking at it for ages and thinking how it would make a good post-apocalypse scene, a kind of nod to Mad Max or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The unfortunate thing has been that every time I go past, there is always a bunch of cars and other vehicles parked around -- since there is a business operating just behind the forecourt.

Once I got it in my head that I had to take pictures of the place, I have been going out of my way to drive past and different times of the day to see how busy it looked. Thursday was my first attempt at capturing it -- but someone had parked a blue van right behind one of the pumps, meaning I couldn't get any pictures of a whole scene, and only pictures of one pump. The pictures I got were good, but I wasn't quite satisfied.

In this one, I like the detail of the corrosion on the pump and I liked the colours -- however, I have edited the hue and the saturation for a kind of washed-out feeling to it, like it's not really there. I wasn't happy that I couldn't get both pumps in the same picture.

So Saturday early evening I go back, and I'm shouting excitedly in my car as I pull up and see the whole place is deserted. I can kneel in the dirt, I can take pictures this way, that way, of a whole scene or one pump alone. Passing chavs would beep their horns or shout at me, but who cares what chavs think. So long as my car was nearby for a quick getaway if it came to that -- chavs are prone to inexplicable and unpredictable violent behaviour.



Here I've managed to more or less get the shot I was after, but it's not as good as I wanted. It needs to be taken with quite a wide angle to get both pumps in one picture, and I feel the building behind does spoil the atmosphere a little. However, I was pleased with the lighting -- not that it matters in monochrome, but it does for the next picture.

This was the partner of the pump in the first picture -- I like this one better, since it's more complete. Also the evening sun I think has added a richness to the colour. Again, not entirely comfortable with the background, but it will do.

Satisfied with my gas station pictures and aware that I was losing the light, I set off back to find my water tower -- with determination not to let a fence get in the way of my picture. I found my way back, parked up by the gate -- and noticed a footpath in the neighbouring field. A couple of paces further up the footpath, I found that merely pushing through the hedge and not minding some tree branches to the face, I could be past the first gate entirely.

The shot isn't so very different to the first -- but there's no fence, and I think the light and resolution is better, giving it a crisper black and white edge. I'm not entirely sure if I think it is better with or without the fence, and I'm not a great fan of the phone masts on the tower -- but I can't do a whole lot about them.

The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before

It's been almost a week since my last post -- San left -- and things are exactly as normal. The last time San moved to another country she had dumped me shortly beforehand and it seemed all the more lonely -- going from a relationship, to the other person leaving altogether. I wrote it off as karma, just what I get for breaking Fiona's heart when I went off to study in Utah. That was six years ago. San last left, I don't know, maybe three years ago? And the world is a different place.

I don't miss her like before because we haven't been a couple in a long time. I no longer pine for our relationship, because I know I can read through my archives and see things were rarely roses and rainbows for us. It could be that I only felt compelled to write about things when I was troubled, and it could be we were mostly happy together, but either way -- I don't miss it any more. Though, I admit, it's a little strange knowing that I won't be getting any text messages from her.

I mentioned a few posts ago -- in my post about trying to break into the world of dating boys -- that I had struck up a conversation with a girl instead, and things seemed interesting. The update is, nothing happened. We exchanged a few emails, a few casual compliments, even exchanged numbers in a round-about sort of way -- and then just nothing. One day it had been about a week since I'd heard anything from her, and she sent me a text message to say hi and apologise for it. She never responded to my reply, and even several days later there was no response to a breezy, just saying hey, text message. I contemplated if maybe she was playing hard to get. Perhaps she wanted me to chase her. But screw that, I'm not into games -- not those kind of games, anyway. So it ended there, I never bothered to text her again if she couldn't be bothered to reply -- and likewise email. I feel only vaguely rejected.

Work continues the same as ever, neither getting more interesting nor less bareable. I've attended a couple of job interviews, and been rejected -- pretty much without any reason given -- for at least one, so far.

Aurore Sandeau is helping me to realise my dream of being a bona fide artist, by having the honour of being my very first buyer. Just as soon as I receive it from the printer, a picture of mine taken underneath a jetty, on a canvas measuring 297 x 420 millimetres will become my first-ever commissioned piece of work. It's quite an honour for us both. Anyone else wanting to buy unique works from this up-and-coming British photographer is welcome to contact me in the usual way.

But really, nothing ever happens.