Toddling

You know when you see a small child, one who's only just learned to walk, and they start trundling along and they pick up speed and you realize the only thing that's preventing them from falling over is the momentum itself? Rather like the force that allows a rollercoaster to go upside down, too. That's what my life is like right now. I wake up and accelerate into the day with a bundle of things to do before that evening's call with the clients in Korea, none of which I've been able to start beforehand because yesterday it was the same story on something else, and I list dangerously through the day, get it done just in time, present it to the client, leave the office at 11pm, come home and go to bed. And for as long as this loose and maddening ritual is repeated, as long as the momentum is kept up, I don't have to think about the things that are really bothering me. I can just write creative briefs and presentations about brand positionings and go to meetings and tell people what to do and the more I do it, the more I get good at it and get paid a lot of money to do it, the more I realize how it is that so many people get completely absorbed into this sort of life, of perpetual forward motion, except they aren't going anywhere, they're just standing still, and suddenly they're old.

Disorder

I was going to take a photo of my apartment and post it here but it's more embarrassing than funny. When I got back last weekend I decided to get my winter clothes out, but instead of unpacking them properly, I just exploded them all over the floor, where they remain, the top layer changing daily as I dig around for something to wear.

I was supposed to get stuff done this weekend, but I failed to convert the energy of the week into doing laundry or paying bills. Friday I went for drinks with friends, then to David's, inexplicable insomnia in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets, inactive exhaustion yesterday, 12 hours of sleep last night, brunch and a trundle with Jamie today, now it's Sunday night again. I haven't written much at all, just odd pencil scribbles in my notebook but no verse or proper scenes for a month or so. I've been distracted and ill-disposed; it's bad. Sent a friend some finished chapters this week, and she was overwhelmingly lovely about it, but now I've shown a handful of people my writing I've realized it doesn't get me anywhere. And that's not a bad thing, it's a relief: I've come to see that the approval or even enjoyment of others doesn't matter to me. Of course I'm glad if they like it and I hope it's published one day and I'm not silly enough to believe that the first time someone admits they hate it or think it's weak I won't be crushed, but the only person I want or need to satisfy with it is myself and that's the biggest challenge but also the biggest comfort. I think, or hope, that's healthy.

"I have seen so much blood and guts, so much suffering, sadness and sacrifice. For what?"

I guess a lot of people have seen this by now, but I thought I'd post it here on the off-chance you haven't. Because of who he is, his age and his background and his majestic achievements and his personal family story - his American-ness - you get something here you don't often get when people speak up for gay equality. You get to see the purity of the argument: defending the rights of gay people isn't liberalism gone rife, isn't a mockery of religion, doesn't create a cancer in the nation's values. It is the nation's values; it's American.

mood shift

It's perplexing to track my mental state as it careens wildly from morose to merry. Yesterday I felt like shit and everything was wrong. Today I feel skippy-good, and it's tough to know why. It may be that I'm insane. It may be that I'm becoming a victim of the female hormone rushes that never plagued me in the past. It may be that sometimes a string of superficial but positive events through a day can shoo out what seemed like unliftably low spirits more easily than I'd like to admit. I had a good meeting with my clients today, they agreed with me, I got what I wanted. My colleague, a woman I really like, drove us back to the city in her battered car, smoking a cigarette with the windows down and the sun shining and the wind messing up our hair. I was very, very busy but on my game for some reason. I felt capable rather than demotivated; I got stuff done. When I walked out of work it was a perfect Autumn night, there was steam rising from a pipe in the middle of the street, I had one of those 'shiiiit, I live in New York, that's awesome' moments. A photographer putting together a fashion piece on animal print clothing stopped me to take my photo. Or maybe he was a fetishist and wanted a photo of my seamed stockings - he took a sneaky picture as I turned away. I guess I'll never know. Yesterday's pickle is a little less pickly today, not resolved, but I feel like I've said and done the right thing and can't do any more and for now the anxiety has abated. Hoping this continues tomorrow. Need this sort of mood to propel me through the demands of the week.

Natural history

David Attenborough makes everything a little bit better, doesn't he? That wonderful voice, that gentleness. Here he is with the lyre bird.

These past few days have been brutal in every possible sense. Trying to shake off a cold and manifest an appetite and sleep for more than two hours at a time. Work, always a little silly, has become absurd. I simply cannot bring myself to care about my pointless job, but the ever-increasing, unrewarded workload begins to distress me. A beloved family member is horribly sick and the prognosis is very bad. Every time I think about it my insides go hollow. And I'm in a messy little pickle and don't know how to unpickle it without some help.

Oh, sweet America. A decent cup of coffee

after 17 days in the caffeine wilderness.

So, I've been away for ages. First I went to Scotland. Well, Newcastle first, to see my family and be given birthday presents. I'M 28. JESUS. Then a long car ride up to Oban, a ferry port on the West coast of Scotland, then a ferry over to Colonsay. The ferry ride was ridiculously rough. My dad and I loved it, my mam got sick, lots of deep breathing exercises. Colonsay was overwhelming the first couple of days, so very, very quiet - if we stopped chattering and walking for a moment and just listened the absolute quiet flooded our ears - and the sky is so big, and the quality of the light so unmistakably Scottish, exposingly clear. You can watch the weather approach you and move over you, and the clouds are the most beautiful I've ever seen. Here are some of my favorite photos:

It was almost constant sunshine, I got a faceful of freckles. I think it was also the odd feeling of being in a regular, peaceful routine that knocked me. It was the same every day: Woken from deep sleep at 9am by parents, eat big breakfast (I discovered vegetarian haggis on this trip), out for long walk over hills and along empty beaches, collecting shells and watching buzzards and looking for otters, back home late afternoon, snooze and read, make dinner, read some more, early to bed. Over the week my brain just emptied and I forgot what I'd been doing at work the week before, couldn't have told someone if they asked.

I read a ton. Mostly semi-trashy airport fiction that was in the cottage because I hadn't brought enough of my own books, but I took The Human Stain and The Magus with me. I much preferred The Magus. I inhaled it greedily. The genius is you're kept absolutely in the dark just like the protagonist and it's impossible to know what's going to happen. It covers so much ground; it's simply a big, big book from an astonishingly learned and crafty mind. Many times, while reading it, I had to remind myself that someone had actually written all of this, that it was the work of one man. It's almost Biblical, or at the very least Shakespearean, in that respect. I think it goes on a little at the end. The multiple endings become tedious rather than engaging. I was also saddened by the fact that you don't end up liking a single character. I know some people prefer that sort of so-called realism but I need to feel empathy, and everyone comes out of it looking pretty unpleasant. And the same goes for The Human Stain. Every character is just horrid. I found it engaging and generally well-written (although not as well as I'd expected - it's my first Roth and I thought I'd be blown away) but not emotionally engaging in the least. The only part that really moved me was that final chapter when the narrator talks to Les on the frozen lake. In the end, the murderer was the only character who managed to warm my cockles for a moment.

On the return ferry I got the dreaded 'you probably have to go to Seoul' email, which was distressing because, as is well-documented here, I loathe Seoul. So I got back to Newcastle and saw my old pal Andrea and my family again. Everyone came over on Saturday night for dinner. As they were leaving, Brad, my five-year-old nephew, produced the most spectacular vomit show I've ever seen. He was in Craig's arms, being held out for kisses, moaning that he felt ill, then suddenly there was vomit hurtling across the room, up the walls, over and under the furniture, in everyone's hair and on their clothes. Mercifully, I was standing behind him.

Then to Korea via Paris, although not a long enough layover to go into Paris, sadly. Seoul was bad, largely because I was there alone and horribly jetlagged, watching unfathomable Korean television until the early hours of the morning. There were clear skies the last couple of days instead of the usual smog, which improved matters. I think it's the culinary misery that really makes my trips there so unpleasant. Even when I order something explicitly vegetarian, it comes wrapped in ham or with raw beef piled on top.

And now I am, blessedly, back in NYC. It's so cold - Autumn moved in while I was away. My radiators are on for the first time.

Returned

I've been on Colonsay for the past week. It's difficult to describe just how remote it is; it's perfectly normal to see no one else all day. Got back late last night. I'll update later with a tediously enthusiastic post about how beautiful it was. Tonight I'm hanging out with my family and then my oldest friends. Desperately want to get back to New York and see the people I've missed but it's looking increasingly likely I'll be flying direct to Seoul for a few days instead, taking me over 100,000 miles flown this year.