On Decision-Making and a Bit of Practicality

Quick update: I'm staying. For now.

After careful consideration I've decided to ride this one out, if I can. Realistically this means I'll be in London for at least a few more weeks, and most likely until the end of my current tennancy agreement, which runs for another four months (August).

I really wanted to see this through, so in the end the decision was an easy one. There are a handful of logistical problems that will need to be solved in the coming weeks, but for now I'm going to try and not worry about it too much. Work is about to get very busy and with the World Cup drawing ever closer, things aren't looking like cooling down anytime soon.

Four months is ample time to figure out whether I like it here or whether I'd rather go back home, or move onto the next destination. I'll have a chance to expand my social circle a bit (there's a birthday party coming up, at least I'll have that to look forward to) and get more acquainted with the city, two things I'm very much looking forward to.

As for returning home for a visit, I currently have my eyes set on the month of May or early June. Schedule-wise it'll most likely be a two-day visit as I can't afford to stay any longer (I'm always working), unless I work from Belgium for a couple of days. Once the beginning of June has passed the World Cup will make travelling virtually impossible, so unless the Red Devils make the semi-finals or something I won't be coming home to celebrate with you guys. Besides, I have to be in town when the Italians hand the English their asses.

My tennancy will run until mid August, at which point I'll re-evaluate this whole living-in-London-business and go from there.

For the peeps that really wanted to come down here for Easter: go for it. As mentioned, the beginning of April will be quite busy but I do have three days off between April 14-16, so that would be perfect. I have quite a few early shifts in April, and I do not plan on party-hardy if I have to get up at 6 in the morning.

Speaking off, we'll be hitting British Summer Time tonight and I'm not quite sure when the clocks change over on the mainland, so anyone that wants to meet on Skype or whatever, please take notice. I know we'll be restoring the 5-hour gap with the US East Coast, so I'm guessing you guys either change as well or it's temporarily a two-hour gap?

Back to the kids coming to London: I might ask you to take a good look at whether you might have some spare room in the car, as there's a bit of stuff I'd like to have with me here in London. I'm not moving all of my things here for a mere 4 months (I will if I decide to stay after that) but there's a handful of things like a few books and some clothing that I'd like to have here with me. If there's no space in the car it's no biggy, but it'd be awesome if there was.

One of the things I really want to have here is your tea-tray btw. It was far too fragile to move here in a suitcase packed to the brim as it would have never ever survived the trip. But it was still a fantastic parting gift, so if you guys could bring just that, that'd be amazing.

Dad, I'm assuming you've yet to find my pink lunchbox? I'm assuming it's gone forever, which is arguably the worst news I've had all year (believe it or not), but I have to keep hoping it'll resurface one of these days. I would literally kill for that thing, or its contents at least.

Also, bring your own alcohol and cigarettes (for those of you who still smoke) as both are insanely expensive down here. It made giving up smoking a lot easier but I still have to spend at least 4.5 pounds for the cheapest bottle of merlot I can find. You do not want to ask what they'll charge for a bottle of whisky. And there is no way I'm giving up alcohol.

Okay, I think that's all for now. Kind of a break from what I normally write (most of you will be grateful for that) but I just wanted to keep you guys in the loop a bit, and as you may have figured out by now, I'm really looking forward to seeing some of you. My days are mainly filled with work (I'm turning into a bit of a workaholic, as I'm now training two aspiring writers and crafting new sports guides for the company), a new LOST-marathon and playing all of Bioshock again (Burial At Sea Episode Two was so fantastic and connected all of the dots so beautifully I just had to go back to the original and do it all over again). That last bit might explain why I'm once again listening to and posting music from the Interbellum on an exclusive basis. But Bobby Darin's version of Somewhere Beyond The Sea might be my favourite song of all time regardless, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

Take care everyone, and I'll see you all real soon. I'll leave you with two of my heroes:

“Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

― John Steinbeck

Song of the day: Bobby Darin - Somewhere Beyond The Sea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8OlDPqYBLw

On Cake And Not Rowing

They told me... "Son... you're special. You were born to do great things." And you know what? They were right.

- Jack Ryan

It looks like tomorrow I'll be deciding whether I'll be staying in London or not. I've been avoiding this for a while now, but I can no longer postpone it. Tomorrow has to be the cut-off point, and I'll either give in and accept all of this wasn't meant to be or give in and agree to things I'd rather not agree to.

Next week will be the series finale of How I met your Mother. I know what you're thinking, but bear with me for a second.

When you take a step back and think of it, it's quite extraordinary. This show has been on for nine years. During that time, it evolved from a smart, funny comedy show to a complete drag that we keep watching because we need to know how all of this ends. We know Ted gets his girl- now we want to see it happen, and we need to know how.

The point is I've been watching HIMYM for years now. And as terrible as this show has become, I've stuck with it. Next week will see the culmination of nine years worth of TV-making, and I'll be watching. So will a lot of my friends I assume (let me know on Facebook/in the comments). For nine years, this show was a small part of our lives. And in one week, it will be over. Gone forever. Shows end all the time, but I never quite actually gave it some thought. This particular one should have called it a day a long time ago perhaps, but it didn't. 

Nine years. It just flew by. Hell, I still remember when I first sat down to watch it. Ted's goatee. The drink to the face. Barney's odd urinal-introduction. Nine years. Peanuts. I loved HIMYM, and it made me giddy and sad and nostalgic and hopeful and everything. 

I love fiction. From Jim Carrey's Montauk to the City of Rapture over Dickens' London and all the way to Greendale, Colorado, fiction is the one thing I perhaps look forward to the most. The promise of a narrative, and the creation of worlds upon worlds, filled with promises ours could perhaps never keep.

Which brings us to the genius of Mr. Glover: 

We lay out our lives in a narrative we understand, like a movie. But are you enjoying making it or are you wondering: “who’s watching my movie?”

As he would say, "that dude gets it."

A lot has changed in those nine years. I'm pretty sure 16-year-old me would have never guessed I'd have ended up in this place, doing what it is I do. I'm not sure he would have approved. 16-year-old me was a bit of a downer, he might have thought it poetic. God, I can't stand that ass.

I can get so lost in my little worlds of fiction, both the ones I visit and the ones I create for myself, that I often grow sad at the thought other people might never get to experience them, or would choose not to at least give it a try. Billions of people in this world will never understand what "The Cake Is A Lie" means, or what it represents. And they shouldn't, because it doesn't matter. It's not important. But for some reason, it is to me.

This past week brought more frustration, as you might have expected. From anxiously waiting for good news that never came to discovering I have grey hair at the age of 25 and women doing what they do best (blowing you off for suggesting it's weird to talk on Facebook without really knowing each other less than 24 hours after adding you. Seriously) and writing some of the hardest stuff I've ever had to write on a professional level (the 2014 Dubai World Cup. I ******* hate horse racing).

In those moments of unfiltered frustration, it's hard not to flee to the places I have created for myself. But this is where I lied to myself for years, and I've only recently come to realise that. For instance, one of those places was London. A narrative I started laying out from the moment I first imagined its streets, all the historical landmarks you see on television or in magazines and the countless other places only locals know, and you have to dream up in your mind.

I never thought I'd actually move here, and without realising what I was doing I broke a narrative the moment I set foot on the bus that would bring me here. We all have expectations and sometimes expectations go unfulfilled, but this was different. This had nothing to do with expectations. Like I do so very often, I'd created a reality that wasn't there, and the real world started crashing with that reality the moment I got here.

Does that make sense, or does it sound like the ravings of a deranged lunatic? I mean, I realise we constantly set ourselves up for failure. It's in the very fabric of humanity. We will blow up everything we hope for to the point disappointment becomes an inevitability, thus creating a self-fulfulling prophecy. It's called puberty, or being a little b*tch where I'm from.

Boy, this is going to be a long night.

Anyway, if I ever make it out of bed tomorrow I'd like to catch a tube and visit Dickens' London. There's so much I've yet to see, and in the absence of someone to show me around, I might as well do it myself while I still have the chance. After that I'll have a long talk with my dad and we'll see where we go from there.

I'm not bitter. I might be slightly disappointed, but that has become a perennial thing for me. A Perpetual State Of Bummer, if you will (genius). But it's mainly directed at myself, and in this case I'm 95% at fault anyway.

And yeah, I'm sick of the narratives. Some of the worlds I've been creating as of late have been pretty dark, I'm not going to lie. When it's all said and done, everything seems to go to hell anyway. Why would anyone want any more of that? 

We all have our reasons. And oddly enough, it's one of my narratives that pulls me through. The most unlikely of worlds, and the smallest I've ever created. I've never been there, not even once. But it sits there, in the back of my mind, waiting.

In the end, 16-year-old me would have been content with being a writer, and he would have loved the concept of living in London. No, I didn't realise any of the dreams I've had in the past nine years. But most of us never do. They get replaced by more realistic goals we gather along the way, and we gradually evolve into a mature, normalised form of ourselves. Surprisingly, I may have ended up closer to what 16-year-old me would have wanted than any version that has come since.

So, how is it going to end? Does Ted tell his kids "that's how he met their mother?" Personally, I'm a big fan of the classics. We may have seen this one before, but it works. And if you have to go, you may as well go with a salute.

It'll be legen - wait for it -

Song Of The Day: Billie Holliday - I'll Be Seeing You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDlKb2cBAqU

On Moments and Enjoying The Little Things

Sometimes, we lose track of things.

People live at different speeds. We all have our expectations, the goals we wish to achieve and a certain direction we have chosen in life. Some of us dream big, some of us choose the simple life. Some people set out to find the ultimate rush, and some of us are just looking for someone to share the burden with.

I surf, or at least I used to. Surfing is all about the moment. It's just you and the ocean, and this fleeting sense of weightlessness, as if you're walking on water. One moment it's there, and it's there for you and only you. And then it's gone, and you're left with this unique sense of wonder. Every wave is different, and every wave stays with you for the rest of your days.

Somewhere along the way I lost track of the fact I'm a moments guy. I've never achieved an ultimate sense of happiness through the fulfillment of a lifelong goal, or by working at something for a very long time. Those things have given me a certain amount of satisfaction, but they never even compared to those precious few perfect moments I revisit every day.

That one perfect wave. That particular sunset. That band, at the right place and the right time. That one look, that precious smile and the promise that right there and then, the whole world makes sense.

And then it's gone.

There's no sadness. Sure, years later we'll revisit some of these moments and realise we will never be able to recreate the raw emotions we felt in that magic instance outside reality. Some of it's just gone, never to return. But that's the point. The beauty of life is supposed to be that it's fleeting, that eventually everything will pass and one day we will close our eyes for the final time.

I've been in London for six weeks now, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that I completely lost sight of the things that used to make me happy. I don't make plans. I'm not a schemer. Things just happen, and I was blessed with the mind of a five-year old. I might do more dumb stuff than I care to admit, but I also have the ability to be amazed by the simplest things.

It's how I can spend weeks being excited about something as lame as March Madness. How I can watch a horrible episode of How I Met Your Mother only to tear-up at a final montage. How I somehow manage to read all of Eloise and Abelard in three freaking days.

No, London hasn't been great to me. It's been an unmitigated disaster, and barring some kind of divine intervention, it will all be over very, very soon. I love my job, but that is truly the only positive I can take from the experience so far. I really hope I get the opportunity to make this last because six weeks is far too short, but as of right now, let's just say it's not likely.

But I'm starting to wonder whether it might not be for the best, because I'm not quite sure this is who I am. Actually, I know this is not who I am. But it might also not be who I want to be. I mean, for 25 years I've had the feeling I didn't belong, like I wasn't supposed to be here. Except for those moments.

Maybe things will change. I've yet to make friends in this place, and for all I know I might meet the most amazing people tomorrow. As much as I might enjoy my solitude, humans dig the herd. We like telling ourselves we don't, but we do.

I don't think it's likely though. Most of the people I've met so far are pretentious idiots. And I'm quite pretentious myself, so imagine what these folk must be like.

So I just keep plugging away. I keep on working, writing article upon article hoping I might have a future here. I'm absolutely terrified, but it has nothing to do with me losing my job or having to leave the country (it's a backwards piece of **** anyway). I'm just scared of what'll come next. How things will be different. Things changed so drastically last year, and sometimes we need a bit of continuity, something we know. Something to hold on to.

I know I'll be fine. In the grand scheme of things, my problems aren't so bad. I have food, and clothes, and people that care about me. Whatever comes next, I'll probably end up on my feet. I just don't know where, or how, or when. Or even if, but that's an entirely different conversation and not one I'm willing to have on a piece of digital paper my parents will most definitely be reading.

This is what it's like in my head. I worry, constantly. There's no shutting down this constant maelstrom of thoughts and its effect on my mental state. People sometimes tell me I'm crazy, and they're probably right. Everybody needs a bit of craziness in their life, but there are lines we shouldn't cross. And I feel like the drunk driver at 5 in the morning, forced to somehow follow said line to the very end. Always swaying one way or the other. Unless I'm surfing, or having one of my moments I guess.

If I can leave you with some final thoughts, it's these two:

1) Hold onto your friends. For some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to spend most of my time travelling and teaching surfing and kind off abandoning the people closest to me, and the results were predictable. I know it's corny, but you really don't realise what it is you have until you lose it. Little Brother, if you're reading this: Stop looking up to me. I'm not your hero. You have to do better. Maybe that's why we have older brothers; so we can watch them and avoid making the same mistakes. You have friends, you have family. Keep them close.

2) Watch Searching For Sugar Man. It's so good. The music, the story: I nearly cry every time I watch the grand finale. Seriously, watch it.


See? Mind of a five-year old. Of all the skills you'll pick up along the way, there is no greater tool than childlike wonder. Unless it's the formula to picking up girls. Because I'm really crappy at that.

I miss you guys.

Adios.

Song of the day: Sixto Rodriguez-Sugar Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyE9vFGKogs

On Mediocrity and a General Lack of Inspiration

Hey guys.

It's been a week since I last updated this blog, and some of you are apparently getting impatient. My apologies if you were expecting more updates- perhaps you should re-read my first post. Truth is, there's not that much to write about. I could fill these pages with pointless muzing, but who'd want to read that?

I saw a fox yesterday, right in the centre of London. The tiniest creature, crossing the road in front of a Tesco. He looked so out of place and no one seemed to care.

The British government is still scr*wing around with me, so to all the friends who were planning on visiting in a couple of weeks: I'd hold off on booking anything for the time being. 

Honestly, this last week has mainly been one of frustration. Perhaps London is starting to lose its new-car smell or something, but I'm starting to get really frustrated. I prefer frustration to indifference, personally, but i'd still rather be in a different place mentally right now.

I wrote on a dogshow. The article was mainly an educational moment, and I liked it. Going out of your way to write is how you learn new things. I have a new block of heavy days coming up and I have the feeling I'll find out more on what my future will look like before the end of the week. It's all good, really. I've worked at this and fought for it, and that's all you can do. I thought I really wanted this and I had convinced myself I deserved every bit of it, but that's not how this world works. 

I'm already thinking of what comes next, you know? Looking past London and what the hell I'm going to do next. I haven't got the faintest, I really don't. 

Goodness, this is really turning out to be one horrible bit of writing. And to say I made people wait a full week for this. 

Maybe this will have to do for now. I'm sorry about uploading this giant steaming pile of nothing but I don't have it in me to put anything else on paper. I bought a giant chocolate fudge cake on sale, want to do another LOST marathon because **** it, English bureaucracy makes me want to shoot stuff and I'm facing a bit of an identity crisis. I visited the British Library because I was supposed to go there last time and I bought a copy of Albom's The Time Keeper, because it was only half a pound and I've been drinking tapwater ever since I got here and buying words makes me almost as happy as buying things that make me look pretty.

But mainly, I'm frustrated. And I'm starting to get a little angry. 

Take care everyone. I hope you're all great, wherever you are.

Song of the day: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall - The Ink Spots ft. Ella Fitzgerald

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayGkA-vxrMc


Edit: I feel like I need to make up for the general futility of today's entry. Here's a comic about Monopoly and Philosophy:

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/19

Edit 2:
It's the middle of the night now and I'm having difficulties falling asleep, which is probably why I'm sitting behind my computer right now. This entry was rubbish in its entirety, but it also felt unfinished, and I hate it when things go unfinished. Somehow, it doesn't work for me. My mind will keep racing and I get all anxious, and I become incapable of doing anything else until I find a way to finish what I had started.

This might be the scariest thought I have in life, the one thing that keeps me up at night: what if we remain forever unfinished? Scr*w the next chapter or the final pages to a story that has been told a million times already. What if the story is already over and we never got the chance to read those final pages?

All of this reminds me of a stupid quote by a certain traveler:

"I always rip out the last page of a book, then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings."

What an idiot. Things need endings. Without them, we're left with this gaping hole and no explanation on how to fill them. We need those final pages, or at least I do. I need those final pages.

On Old Friends and The Places We Have Come to Fear The Most

Today's entry will be slightly different. I'm about to go out with a collegue of mine for drinks and amusement, but before I do there's something I'd like to share with you. Some of you might know bits and pieces, but I don't think I've ever told anyone all of this in full. So please, sit back, and let me tell you a story.

This past week was filled with photo's and messages from friends I made on my trip to Trinidad and Tobago years ago, as they celebrated their famous carnival. Just like it does every year, the constant stream of colourful images and entertaining stories made me think of my short time on that small island, and the journey that was supposed to change my life. It did, perhaps, but not in a way I would have foreseen.

My time in the Carribean was brief for a myriad of reasons, but they all boiled down to the simple fact I was still a kid and I couldn't cope with feeling bad and not really having anyone to share it with. I had just been dumped by my then-girlfriend and left without any form of closure, and I ended up on a beautiful paradise island that had a strong case of small-island mentality. The combination was too much for me to handle, and I ended up returning home well before the supposed end of my journey.

Tobago was a wonderful place though, an island where the majority of people were incredibly nice and people handled their business with respect for each other and the things around them. The locals didn't race around but took their time to enjoy the moment, and to be immersed in such an environment was refreshing while it lasted.

I stayed at a simple B&B and shared a room with Dominic, the owner of the local surf school I was working for. Dominic looked the part: always smiling, enjoying life to the fullest no matter what he did. I spent every second of my time there with Dom, and I never fully grasped how fond I had grown of him until I returned home. It was hard not to like Dominic, with his continious enthousiasm and his beautiful smile. No matter where we went, people always greeted him or stopped to have a chat, and through Dom I was quickly accepted by the local community of surfers and fishermen. I'm not sure what I would have done without him at the time, and the impact he made on me was quite astonishing.

After I returned home we stayed in touch, and even though we didn't speak as often as I would have liked, I greatly enjoyed our conversations. Dom always had time for me, and as I grew older I started to appreciate him and what he had done for me more and more. Dom wasn't perfect, and he had made mistakes like all of us, but he had things figured out. He was happy with what he was given and didn't ask for more. He worked for everything he had and he enjoyed every single day to the max. I was jealous at him for my inability to do the same thing, and I told myself on countless occasions that I would try to be more like Dom.

Tragically, Dom was taken from us six months ago. His body was found in the waters of the Mt Irvine region, the one place he enjoyed being more than anywhere else in this world. The circumstances surrounding his death were murky and will most likely never become clear, and his passing was accompanied by much pain and anger.

I choose to remember Dom differently. I remember the roommate that would wake me up every morning at five, share a couple of peanut-butter-jelly-sandwiches and a cup of coffee with me, strap his Rusty and my Byrne to the roof of his crappy car and drive the both of us down to the Bay to check on the surf. He never once during my time there missed a session. Dom wasn't a great surfer by any means, but he loved being in the water and his drive and passion were inspiring.

There's one particular session I remember, at a spot called Crazies. Dom got hammered and didn't catch a single decent ride (it was called Crazies for a reason) but he never let up, and he left the water smiling. He was smiling every time he took me to Airports, a beautiful spot that never once worked during my time in Tobago. And he was smiling when he dropped me off at the airport and told me I could come back any time.

He invited me back at least 50 times over the years, as did others. I've even been invited back a couple of times since his passing, and even as recently as last week. But I never returned to that place, and I don't think I ever will. There are some places that are marked in our minds, places that are irreversibly connected to a set of memories. They can be some of the most wonderful places in the world, places we return to hundreds of times in our lifetime and even more in our minds. But there are also the places we can never return to. The places that haunt us, the ones we see with our waking eye. Knowing we are in a place we will never be again is an odd feeling, and I wish I would have felt it as I boarded the plane.

Tobago didn't change me as I would have hoped. You always hear these stories of how people came back from trips a "changed man", but that never happened to me.

When Dom died six months ago, I was already going through hell. My parents had just boarded a plane and wouldn't be back for another week and I had no one to tell me things would be okay when I was told he was gone. I had just spoken to him and the realization that would have been the last time, the power of the last words he would ever say to me hit me like a brick to the face. It was the final drop, the final push I needed to put me over the edge.

Dom had his regrets. Hell, he had plenty of them. But at one point, we either allow our regrets to define who we are or we choose to learn from the mistakes we made and carry on. Too often I had done the former, and if there was one thing Dom tried to teach me, it would be the power of the latter. The way he lived and the manner in which he died made me want to be a better man, a different man from the one I had become. I won't tell you I was entirely successful as people are probably still able to read my regrets off my forehead, but ultimately, it was Dominic that led me here, today. Living in London, in an attempt to do something with my life before it's too late.

And it's not because he was taken from us far too soon. Dom didn't teach me anything the day he died- he taught me in living. His death wasn't a stark reminder that life can be over in a second: the story of his life was a painful reality check, the realization I was going absolutely nowhere, and nowhere fast.

I made Dom several promises, and I tried keeping all of them. In some I was successful, others I'm still fighting to keep. But every morning, when I turn on the computer to get to work and Skype opens, Dom's face greets me. I never had the heart to delete his profile, and I'm glad I didn't. Because it reminds me of the man who did more for me than he ever knew, and the man I'm hoping I can be. I have failed at numerous things and I have countles regrets, just like Dom did. But he found a way to be happy, and judging by the enormous support on his Facebook page and the almost daily messages from people missing him to this day, he found a way to make the ones around him happy as well.

You were an inspiration Dom, and every day I fight to make you proud. I'm sorry I haven't been in the water since, but I promise I'll keep trying. I love you man, and I miss you like hell.

Mahalo Dom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNowU63PF5E

On Integration and Working For The Man

I must apologise to some of you as it would appear putting this entry together took longer than I had anticipated and some you were already starting to get impatient. To my great surprise, people are actually reading this. This was meant as a sort-of day-to-day account of my life here in the big city with perhaps a handful of readers (parents, siblings and a few friends perhaps) but the response has been quite overwhelming, to be honest. Nothing compared to the short stories and poetry I write as my 'alter ego' (roughly 3.000 readers) or my actual job (400.000 readers and counting) but still, it's always nice to feel appreciated. The virtues of a smart title I suppose.

Anyway, I just finished my third day as an official member of Bleacher Report's Breaking News team. During those three days I've shouted obscenities at my laptop, watched far too much cricket, completely ruined my back (more on that later) and nearly broke the screen with my copy of Our Mutual Friend. Breaking news is hard.

It's also incredibly fun. Frankly, I absolutely love my job. I love creating a piece from scratch, playing around with the words and crafting a smart, thought-out bit of writing that resonates with people. It's why I gave up being a surf coach (who in their right mind would do that?!) and became a writer for hire.

Describing the thrill of pressing 'publish' and watching the read-counter go up is almost impossible. Thousands of complete strangers reading your words, your message, all of them just a couple of keystrokes away (and trust me, folks are quite keen on venturing into comment sections these days). There truly isn't anything like it. I take pride in my work, my creations, as essentially that is what every single article boils down to. With every word, I'm creating something.

In fact, I should be doing my tax forms right now, but I felt like writing some more. Hey mum, hey dad. Hey there little brother. I hope you're all doing great and that you know how deeply I care about all of you, and how badly I miss you. Things have gone a bit quiet, but they always do when I leave. I know you still think of me and you're just a single phone-call away.

Ah yes, my back. As the search for a flat turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated and I was running out of time I ended up moving into the first available flat that wasn't a complete dump (I like it here btw, so no worries. Shepherd's Bush is just central and lively enough for me) and the place happened not to have a desk. I was planning on getting one immediately but as it became more and more likely that I would be leaving London without working a single day I kept putting it off, and as a result I was left without a desk when the assignments started coming in.

I ended up working from my floor/bed for two days, which I do not recommend to anyone. As I left my masseuse back home, my back is still trying to recover (quite unsuccessfully I'm afraid).

London is treating me just fine. I'll be meeting a few more collegues later this week and we're currently in the midst of trying to organise a get-together for St Patrick's Day (my dear friend Sam, who is part Irish, has told me saying 'St Patties' is quite offensive. Because he's a poofter) although I have been invited to spend St Paddy's in Cornwall with some of my surfing friends. I haven't surfed since the summer as I couldn't bring myself to it after everything that happened, but as none of you actually know what happened, that might be a story better left for some other time. Or not. Probably not.

Someone crafted me a list of things to do before you can officially think of yourself as a Londoner (I don't think I ever will) and I'm coming along quite nicely. I've shouted abuse at complete strangers, complained about the bloody tourists in Picadily Circus (not a pleasant experience, but our headquarters happen to be on Marlboro Street) and have looked at a can of beans and some fishfingers and considered that to be a good meal. Good for me.

Other than that, not much has changed. I'm still not sure about my outlook here and the dark clouds are still hovering firmly above my head (figuratively speaking, the weather has been excellent down here). One could say I am yet to be immersed in the true London experience, but I'm quite certain that may yet be a while. As of right now, my days pretty much consist of working, writing short stories, reading and eating yoghurt and fruit salad. And television, obviously, it's me after all (that last HIMYM was sh*te). I found a decent, surprisingly cheap gym just around the corner, so I have that going for me.

I'm not quite sure all of this is progress, to be honest. They say life only has one speed, and one direction. Life moves forward. But does it, really? Do we not spend most of our time standing in place? Is the illusion of progress simply a fantasy, a lie we tell ourselves in a pathetic attempt to justify our daily routine?

And if so, is that really such a bad thing? The only tangible difference I can see between my current life and the one I was leading a month ago is the fact that I'm currently trying to spend my day doing something I love, and something I want to do.

People seem desperate for explanations and solid reasoning behind their every move, their very existence. Afraid of doing something pointless or spending a day in which they did nothing to advance themselves in this world. But there's a certain beauty in pointlessness. There's 7.5 million people living on this little piece of land we call London, and they're all convinced they're going somewhere. Some of them are bound to be wrong.

Maybe I'm being crazy, or me again (possibly worse). Not sure I'm making any sense, and I'm probably wasting your time. And I wouldn't want to do something as pointless as making you think about the pointlessness of it all, right?

Is that even a word? And if not, squirrel/shotgun/coining it. Streets ahead.

Goodnight y'all.

(PS: I really hope you took my advice on Friday Night Lights. Since my last update, I've started watching again. All of it. Possibly because I was out of episodes of White Collar/Modern Family/Parks and Recreation. But that's not the point. Best. Sountrack. Ever. I could hit this blog with post-rock songs all day. But I won't. Still, if you liked Explosions in the Sky, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1L1rQYGatw ).

Song of the day: The Head and the Heart- Rivers and Roads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J-0EtsCpo