All change please!

The season is in a transitionary period, an Indian summer Audrey says, the weather jolts from cold, wet and windy nights to hot, muggy days, when I inevietably have to take the metro several times and arrive at my classes all sweaty like I used to in BA.

My work continues thick as ever, lots of courses are finishing though so I'm not sure what work there'll be in a few months. We'll see.

The biggest change is the return to Rueil chez les Rossi and my common struggles to define what kind of future I envision for myself at the moment. I know I'm looking for a career change and I've pretty much set my heart on working internationally, perhaps as an analyst like Dominic but more excitingly I'd love to work as a journalist or as a writer. Only problem being that I don't write..

I just found an advert online for a journalism internship in San Telmo at a "respected BA publication" but they are asking for two notas so I'll have to get on with scribbling down something serious! I've been trying to write a kind o short story about a night out in BA with a few emotional twists and turns but so far it hasn't turned out too well and needs a lot of editing if not a complete re-write. Hopefully Rueil will give me the time to get cracking on that.

Oh, and did I mention I've become a classic love fool? Yep, I may go through life with an armoire of regrets but in this current case I feel that a bold and beautiful redemption could be possible if we're as mad as we say we are!

But that chapter is yet to be written, for now I'm off to the wall and the France match, a pleasure to see other big teams suffering what may be a similar fate as that which we were subjected to after that ignominious night at Wembley all those months ago. I'll gloat at the French, and maybe the Argentines, but deep down I'll be disappointed not to be pitting our re-vamped, thoroughly motivated Capello machine against those perennial giants of the international game. Messi for one deserves his world cup moment an so too Ribery and the exciting young French team.

Let's see how this all works out then, I hope to be writing a lot more very soon indeed!

Be strong red puppy..

Today I've awoken to a new world, a fresh beginning that I long thought impossible. It took a desperate night of jangling nerves and raw fear to make me realise that all is not as guttural as we believe it to be and that our brains, although intimately linked with our hearts and stomachs, can display remarkable clarity in their resolve..

Many cliches came back to me after having been dismissed along the by the wayside, passed over and forgotten. Strength is not only physical and pain is a shared emotion, to be overcome together through maturity and resolve, not heartfelt yammerings, the whimpering yelps of terrified puppies separated from the maternal embrace. Life will throw us many curve balls and sometimes that boomerang we throw will come around and smack us in the face but we get up and we throw it again and again, fearless of physics and the damned biology that hampers our rational minds..

I am again determined and hopeful. There have been daemons inside of me that needed expelling and I hope that now having crudely ejected them in an emotional outburst I can begin to take those steps towards an emotional enlightenment that will liberate us from the pain I've caused.

"Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be."

Is this the life?

So after labouring through a day of what are now fairly bog-standard reaching motions it was out to the bank and of to the metro to entertain friends over glasses of wine and sincere conversation on such typical Parisien topics as women, love and romance and employment, promotion and laboral fuck-ups.

It was hardly the melée of drunken revelry I've become accustomed to enjoying on those regular forays to the bars of odeon, Belleville, and grands boulevards but then some restraint is called for after living a blur of frantic activity the week before around the Latin quarter, Bastille and Montparnasse... Teaching pays the bills but it's the social excitement that gets me flowing, yawping and feeling the intense tension, the groups and challenges of my eternal infiltration quest; Brigitte says I'm a sensitive youth, touched by human kindness and in no need of the harpies, the wretched urchins, but I'm eager to run and skate to some unknown destination, just moving, gazing through the window portals of my eyes alon the way, regarding the fast moving shapes and the constantly changing visages of my friends and acquaintances as I hurl through on my way in one solo direction. Ahead, don't stop or you'll stagnate in your own filthy existence, strive for more, never settle, ever. There's always a new highway or a drunken embrace awaiting around the next corner and that strange intrigue that draws me to the people who hover near my sphere of conscience and they to me in equal measure.

Rape your comfor barrier permanently and never repent your passionate explosions, fly free Icarus, without the sun you would no legend be!

When worlds collide

A strange feeling of distance from reality, an intertwined perception of the trillions of realities that we hold true in their existence has washed across me in a night of philosophy and history, a classic blend of entertainment for weary souls still damned to walk this once paradise.

After indulging in some high-brow but youthful banter at Les Etages with my colleagues; discussing human nature, positive attraction, and the practice of wearing a one-piece on Bondi beach, Australia, I returned to my pleasant little garret slipping away on my new blades to therein find an e-mail from my Father in my sparse hotmail inbox.

In the mail he had attached his discoveries from a family geneology trip that he and my mother had taken to the far northern reaches of Scotland, even in his humble pensmanship a bleak and depressing sounding place. There they had travelled the Lochs and Glens in search of the remaining traces of our family's past, the cottages still standing and the records and censuses that with such basic information prove to so unveil the histories of our ancestry and create a vision of where we come from.

In the bar, legs shaking from my short trip, we discussed the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next and F's idea that ambition is an unneccessary hindrance to true human expression. It seemed to me to be an enthusiastic but early theory that lead me to think once again, but while watching these young philosophers debating earnestly on the rain spattered sidewalk I could not help but think back to my Kerouac essay that revealed to me so much of the suffering of the post-war generations. L seemed to have had experience of the changing perspectives of parents and children, the tensions that family life seems almost destined to carry in a world that perhaps systematically denies us the nourishing childhood that we so need, the familial rifts that separate us from our elders, the folly of youth versus the weary cautiousness of old age and the desire to see our children grow strong and proud but coupled with an oft crippling fear to dominate and unwittingly stiffle the development, or by alienating the youth from a prescribed path, drive them to greater advancement through a difficult struggle for independence.

The realisation that our family has risen from the humblest of origins, highland shepherds and local constables, to become professors at the country's most respected universities, computer engineers and international citizens of the world's great capitals was for me an awesome moment of revelation. The short expanse of 200 years has taken the blood of this mountain dwelling clan across the globe, and perhaps it was indeed that dreary existence on the fells of the extreme north that provoked our inherent wanderlust.

Whatever the pessimism of modern adolescents and weary travellers trying to pen memoirs and struggling to make teacher's salaries meet on an international budget I cannot be turned from the pursuit of something as yet unattained, a drive within me that is yet to realise it's full potential. As the Ted talk declared there are perhaps invisible forces that surround us, inhabiting the nooks and crevices of this Earth providing us with inspiration for our creativity, daemons to the Greeks, Genii to the Romans... How will mine be manifested?

"Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them?"

Was it a delicious meal or a lonely memory of you lying across my pillows??

It's 5:50 am and I don't know if it's my imminent seminar that's hanging over today like a slow dead or memories of you that lie next to me in this bed as I clutch my pillows tightly, but my stomach is knotted, an unsettling pain that can only be worried away over time. It's a sleepless night worthy of remembrance, I spent the prior evening happy with Amaury and then upon returning home beat myself against the empty vacuum where you used to sit online, faint traces of you to be found on Facebook and I'm leaving MSN running only to tempt a message from you when I know that you're trying to forget me and that window may never appear again.

Were you here I would hold you close as you loved me to, it would be all I know how to do; enveloping you in my arms as if telling you feel safe!, be confident in my love and melt your back into my chest, your buttocks into my groin and we would interlace legs like so many knots that we tied ourselves into, the warmth of our bodies provoking a leger sweat to form between us. You wriggling backwards to reach that perfect corporal harmony, eyes closed to lock out forever and stretch this dream into our own, personal, tender infinity...

The creation of my own myth...

It was a strange moment to be feeling Mexico, the temperature and the number of glasses on the table being probably the only similarities in the physical environment around us but all the same it was a cogent sense of deja vu that permeated the experience. The excited tension that builds before the eruption of a storm and the collision of groups of friends always sends shivers along my spine and tonight was to be no exception as, drinking with my work colleagues, the other members of my rag-tag band of amis turned up to Les Etages after various long days of work, swimming and sleeping (in the case of some lucky individuals!).

The happy hour blended these random souls into an interwoven mesh of human warmth and kindness and earnest intellectual discussion in English and French while our guards and inhibitions were stripped away by the alcohol flooding our systems. Nine o'clock and the night was already well underway, the less keen drinkers making their excuses and slipping away to quiet, homely evenings and prior social engagements while everyone present, feeling jovial and cajoling, finished up their pints and mojitos and caipiroshkas and grabbed their work satchels to march forth into the night towards the metro and Bastille, the promised land of madness and alcoholic freedom!

The journey was short enough but looking around the carriage at my companions I could tell that tonight was to be a great social success. It was this anticipation of the diversion to come and the stories to be written which reminded me of those chaotic, brilliant nights in Xalapa, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, New York and San Jose, the movement and desire to enjoy the bonheur of all present to mix and spread love and happiness amongst friends new and old that built a kind of elated buzz in all on hand. I personally was eager for these before distant souls to become one, one ensemble of free, young individuals coming together to leave the working week well behind and dive into the boozy excesses of the evening ahead, to throw my friends into a melting pot of dancing and flirting and watch with pride as all unfolded before my contented eyes!

Arriving at Trucmush after a mediocre street crepe it was time to fling open our senses and gorge on the mania that so often only a bar packed with amiable strangers can permit, a place of music and dancing, much more consumption and unforseen rendez-vous that thrilled all the onlookers with their erotic indulgences. Some went to extremes of sudden passion and clawed each other like beasts, reverting to a primal sexuality in the midst of the throbbing energy of the crowds, others pushed their bodies to new heights of drunkeness, dizzying for their anatomies and fell like Icarus into a swoon of vomit and violent convulsions.

I flitted between these raging scenes inside and the calm of the smokers in the street where the grizzly bouncer fought against the rising tide of excitement, just trying to do his job and spare the voisinage the soundtrack of shouts and laughter that hurried forth from our fun and inebriation. Jovial moments shared with klop in hand I threw my butt into the street and plunged back into the melee, barely holding onto my balance and coherence, eager to return to the entertainment within and the joie de vivre exuberantly splattered over the walls and floors of the bar.

It was not long before we had worked up the energy to move on, back out into the street sauntering like a swarm of happy bees towards the next nightspot, picking up people along the way, attracted by our ravenous energy, and losing those who could not take anymore madness and who sought out the comforts of their beds.

Le Furieux was the after-hours bar we chose and therein met more funky souls with whom to continue the soiree but by this point things were drifting into a sour tasting blur for me. Conversation no longer came easily and my image must have seemed tortured and unsanitary to those who now avoided my presence, I cared not and awaited the arrival of another best mate but I knew that the evening had gone as far as my body would allow and upon his arrival I explained that I had reached that aforementioned peak of inebriation and would be making my way homewards to revel in a great experience, a new memory burnt into my brain forevermore that would bring a smile to my face with its contemplation. Leaving my friends kissing and stumbling around the facade of the bar a friend and I started out into the night and took bicycles over taxis, parading our happiness around the streets of Paris crossing a large expanse of the city and arriving en route in front of Notre Dame, the normally over-crowded tourist plaza now emtpy, not a breath of life present except for the rodents and our good selves.

We bawled at the church and ran in circles, exploiting the space for our childish delights before remounting the bikes and slipping along the now so familiar banks of the Seine through sleepy Saint Michel and back to my garret where we could finally rest and laugh over one last glass of wine. But before dropping off the bikes my friend turned to me, lidded eyes and off balance, and mumbled in an embarrassed tone that he had lost his precious satchel of three years containing many important things. I could barely believe his words but my instinct took over to I sent him, tail between his legs to wait for me on the steps while I turned round the Velib and darted madcap back along the avenues and streets we had just passed by, circling the fountains and dodging the sparse traffic all the way to Notre Dame where right in the middle of the plaza lay his bag, unstolen and serene, a relic of a crazy evening like ancient artifacts discovered under desert sands by European explorers. It was to bring him one last moment of great joy to see me riding towards him, bag raised high in triumph, picking him out of his doldrums and giving us one last laughter-filled trek up the 7 flights of stairs to chuckle our way to sleep and to dream of the adventures we had lived this one liquid night in Paris.

"There is universal substance which is divine substance because where else can it be?"

Nobody reads this...

I should rename this blog my journal for that is really the purpose for which it serves.

Thus I shall feel free to scribe my latest, and simultaneously my oldest, dogma for the coming months. Less of this, less staring at what is far too often meaningless internet chatter and banal drivel, repeated from those far too numerous visits to the same monotonous sites. This is not the way to be a better person, if that truly is what I wish to be, and I believe it is.

So a restriction on access is in order and the best way to do this is to keep myself occupied with other things. For this reason, but not this one alone, tomorrow I shall be aux Invalides with my skates and Florian and I'm trying to organise a trip to the cinema for thursday.

I've mourned long enough, I still feel sad and lonely in her absence but I refuse to be a broken man once again, I've the experience of picking myself up to give me strength in these trying times. Today for example I was socially inactive but instead went to the pool after work and then managed to cook and study french in between playing my guitar, as usual producing the odd pleasant melody but nothing worthy of much interest (but then I've only ever played for myself!). I was happy to have contributed to my learning once again, perhaps inspired by Dom's comments about doing a masters course next year at Kings college in London, a new bold plan to suddenly launch my life in a radically different direction once again but at least in another capital city (is it that I'm destined to live in the greatest capitals of the planet one day?).

And so the plan is not set but the path to mental contentment seems to be at last revealed to me, now all that remains is to test my discipline in instigating these common goals of learning and physical activity intertwined in my own peculiar way.

As for women I have no need of them for the moment, I've let myself scar emotionally once more in the hell holes of nightclubs (why can't I be content with dancing?!) but shied away from the challenge once more, and thus it's time to withdraw myself from female company and to concentrate on my more pressing needs, a little self-improvement that so often leads me down enriching paths. Hopefully the removal of this malicious obsession of mine will cure my gaping, sensitive wounds and who knows, actually help me blossom once again into someone I'd like to know myself!

Back to the classics, I've not bought Moliere for nothing you know!

"Que ne me jurez-vous que vous etes toujours dans les memes sentiments pour moi, que vous m'aimez toujours avec une ardeur sans egale, et que rien n'est capable de vous detacher de moi que la mort!"

The real end of everything.

And so it had to end like this, both parties drawing away from each other, losing touch with who they once were and can now never return to being again. It's not something I could control anymore, I've been thinking for a while now that because I was the instigator I had no right to the sadness that has touched us both and that at the same time I have been denied the right to sympathise because it would seem patronising and hurtful.

And so it ends, I shant make anymore contact, it's not doing anyone any good to be running through these labyrinths of acceptable topics anymore and I'm clearly not sensitive enough to better pick and choose my phrases. Time to actually move on with our lives, but, sadly for me, alone. Friend, confidant, lover she can no longer be and I must respect her wishes and turn my back to walk away for good.

I've loved you. I won't hurt you anymore.

Adieu

Bored with strangers...

It's depressing after having passed such a lovely day with Romaric and having had such high hopes for a funky soirée that I unfortunately find myself sat distantly at the end of the table watching the conversation pass me by, picking at the remains of my cassoulet de tortellinis au 4 fromages and staring intermittently into the middle distance... Nul...

I can't justify this experience in any way, I've never been so excluded in social company as I am tonight and however much I'm not trying it has still shocked me how much these three young ladies have completely ignored me... Ni importa, I know I'm not some insignificant loser who deserves to be relegated to the level o interest of the table cloth but this is a bit much.

I find solace in my iPhone and pretending that by ignoring them I'm taking control of the situation but if they'd talke to me I'd probably be lapping up the attention and thinking not at all of posting blog posts. I wonder if they're actually becoming unaware that I'm sat at the same table at them as they don't even refill my glass when passing round the wine. Perhaps I've somehow dissolved into the furniture and the waiters will stack me away at the end of the night. Bah, whatever, I'll pay my food and take a walk to clear my head. I can join up with Romaric afterwards when it's time to meet Eva (someone with some decorum at least).

What could I be doing instead? That's an intersting question to pose myself at a time like this. As I mentioned before I would almost certainly have bitten your hand off if you'd offered me this situation earlier, but now find myself wallowing in the pits of loneliness, some horrific social limbo that I can't seem to escape!

Walk time, time to get away from this bullshit.

Sunny days, dream away...

It's high time I returned my mind to the beatiful grime that stains my life.

It's a slow start to a fast skate dream of passing cars and scared pedestrians. Swooping through gaps and leaping over cats and dogs and vegetable sellers I'm gonna speed up again at last in this sweaty summer heat and burning Paris streets. Back to being juvenile doesn't concern me at all as the world's too serious, no time to wallow in constrictions and constraints like the victims of a social boa squeezing the life from our flowers. Instead to be like Christophe and get on never get off, get up and not down and spin around and around, like a record on a turntable making his existence a fable of high times'n'flourishes enjoying that which nourrishes and burn, burn, burn like roman candles going pop like spiders stretching across the stars.

Conservar tu fuego, dejar de fumar.

How can the US government ask soldiers on the battlefield to give up nicotine? It's a 21st century obscenity, further proof that we're losing our collective sanity in a world that shares a collective inanity, an ongoing insanity of desperately unhappy seekers lost in the desert of our citiesto drink and drugs while the world divides around us letting those less fortunate drop limp and lifeless into the chasm that opens up therein; a social limbo lived out under bridges and outside churches that close their doors as they criticise others yet offer not the warm sanctuaries of the chapels, he who throws the first stone will be free from critisicm, a messenger to illuminate the people or a cynical manipulator of images and opinions, the beast that drains the blood from the world's poorest communities by their own free will and coerced mental slavery... The hope massacre. Popes in palaces...

Boys of the night dash around drinking on street corners and arguing their books away late into the dark hours, not until the sun goes down can we really feel free to sense and express our innermost energies, our throbbing mind-flows. Stunted in the daytime we long to release ourselves from the chains of office chair tortures and underground rat tubes, to run free and naked across the parks and bridges, stumbling in the heady night air, supping from the cups profered by smiling bar-folk and mumbling about the essence of existence and nature as if there in out concrete dungeons we were to be liberated from the stench of the sewers .

The book I'm reading is technology and porno blended into an overly active nightmare that is ultimately unnecessary and overly extreme yet enticing, tempting our own currents of paranoia and sexuality to be combined and considered in an unhealthy light. Come back from the brink and realise that all is not lost and this is not the Watchmen but exactly what we make of it. Does anyone read these tracts on modern living and go home with an axe to smash open their PCs and automobiles, buying a horse to prevent more large scale erosion of the environment, writing with pencils to save our retinas from searing pale lights, cracking our wrists on a mountain trek rather than sat infront of a dozen digital conversations with other ghosts of the web.

There is no truth, trillions of perspectives experiencing each other at the same time cannot agree and yet we pretend that there is a way that is acceptable, a proper behaviour for every situation. It's a series of experimental compromises and determined thrusts of unexpectedness that provide character to our passage through our short time on this world.

Don't let the man get you down.

Everything that comes must pass...

It's not the morning after the night before, technically I'm still asleep, or at least that's what my schedule tells me.

Environmental Tracking presses ahead across the channel while here my own projects lie dormant, biding their time before my inevitable, tri-annual phoenix resurrection launches them back into motion and hopeful fruition.

Nicolai has his blog up and running and is producing podcasts about way out music. I'm proud to see my friends and acquaintances bringing these ideas and interests into the field of reality, using the internet to make things happen, searching out nooks of online joy where to lay their heads and lay seeds in the dewey shadows...

Is it a seasonal thing that I have become ginger again? Time for a trim methinks, a summery cut, but not while everyone is full of compliments and praise...

Things tick along and time complys with our will to order and direction, it's time to jump onto that rolling bandwagon and put down the bottle of inadequacy.

Into the dawn bold youths, your hour draws nearer with each waking hour!