Tuesday 3 March 2009

It happened again this morning, from approximately 4AM to 6AM I was in that lucid state of fever dreams once more with today being perhaps the most horrific of the batch so far.

I’m not exactly sure what it says about me at this time if I am experiencing such disruption in both my physical and psychic being but I really would prefer it to cease as the emotions encounter feel very real and very frightening.

This morning’s journey found me back in my first home on Holland Road in Little Clacton where I lived from age zero until eighteen. The time spent here was probably the least happiest of my life as Little Clacton really served up the village/small town mentality in heavy doses. What was occurring behind closed doors and twitching curtains it would appear was truly the stuff of horror. In reality the majority of it was gossip but sickening with it.

In my dream I found myself almost trapped inside with a crazed version of my mother, a version that would act like Livia Soprano acting mad and threaten to commit suicide if I didn’t stick around. There is something horribly grey to the tone of the house and the dream. Needless to say I do not leave the house before I wake up.

Half awake I can feel myself becoming very distressed by this so when I eventually wake up my being feels as if it has taken something of a pounding.

The walk to the station is a struggle this morning. Fortunately it is almost light when I walk to the station now, which genuinely makes a difference.

Early on today I acknowledge that you know you are in trouble when your iPod is playing at full volume but you cannot hear it as you are too engrossed in thoughts as your mind drowns it out.

The reality of the day hits me when it appears that the highlight of it is likely to be the sight of the panicking dwarf/midget running/banging into/onto me at Baker Street as he runs for his train. It would appear my day peaks just after 8.30AM and it is all downhill from here.

At work it turns out to be an OK day where I get a lot done to which there is a certain degree of satisfaction attached.

Beyond work I head down to Victoria to meet up with Germaine to go to the art opening/auction viewing/exhibition. As ever I arrive early so I take my seat and proceed to do some rush hour people watching.

I feel very good today, even to the point of pulling. The sucker punch emails of last week now feel behind/beyond me and I am now moved on. This is almost confirmed when a lady sits next to me at the bench at Victoria and I quiz whether to acknowledge her. In the end her suitor turns up and without doubt I feel I SHOULD have acknowledged her as he fails to impress (me).

Outside the station the rain is pummelling London hard and inside the station the temperature is cold, nippy and the sheet metal bench I am sitting on begins to play havoc with my behind as the ice block affect kicks in and arse turns into a frozen rump steak. The cold brings on the sort of affect that feels like thousands of needles being stuck into at once. A little of this is satisfying, too much is annoying and an extended spell is just plain painful. Sounds like my latest description of being with females (zing!).

Thankfully Germaine turns up only slightly late. With it are a large pair of glasses on her face which I guess is the style. It has now been quite a while since we last saw each other so I am relieved that we actually manage to recognise her (I have to admit to have seeing a couple of girls walk past already that looked slightly like her).

In the rain we waddle over to the gallery space at the Phillips de Pury auction house. The place is amazing, spacious and bright, super maintained and with a staff of beautiful people. The artist on show is Ai Weiwei from China.

Inside the exhibition the art is sparse and minimal, subtle and sleepy. The boxes made out of cheap wood with half moon cut outs look like the stuff he would have used to freight the real art into the country.

Almost immediately we see the man himself being surrounded and courted with big smiles on his face. The guy looks very cool like an old school wrestler in the WWF.

The real deal with the evening however is the fact that free champagne is on tap as a beautiful waitress floats around handing out flutes. I find myself feel very smit with not only her but a number of other people here this evening.

It is great fun to see Germaine again, there is no agenda or baggage at all so as a result there is little restriction on conversation. I open up about Szesze and my American Friend both of whom Germaine tells me sound crackers.

As we begin to lose count of the glasses of champagne we tipple I want to continue the evening but I also want to leave. The reality of the art however is that is didn’t even take five minutes to fully take in and now we are just hovering like barflies without a bar. As we begin to make motions towards knocking the night on its head one of the waiters comes around and hands me one final flute.

When we leave it is still raining outside but being somewhat drunk in mind it doesn’t really notice. Germaine and I head off in similar directions and suddenly there is an open offer to be her “plus one” for the events that her older other half is too long in the tooth for. Both quite drunk we make some kind of provisional plan to meet up for a gig next month (Micachu And The Shapes or something).

By the time I am on the Central Line I am incredibly wobbly. As I join the train at Oxford Circus and I am thoroughly freaked out to find myself being crushed on a train at 8.30 in a cattle truck/Hillsborough manner. How on earth is the carriage so busy at such an hour on a Tuesday night? I has been over a year now since I have felt the agony of a packed Central Line train and it is an experience I certainly have not missed. Seriously, why are their so many people on the train tonight?

Upon arrival at Liverpool Street things do not improve as I rush to get a fast train (a Norwich train) back to Colchester. Instead the 9PM is one of those dinky weird Lowestoft train with orange plastic parts and tinted windows – these trains just do not look right, do not look capable and whenever you board one you know you are in trouble. These are rare trains for rare people heading to the most solemn parts of East Anglia where people play banjos and do not tend to marry outside the family. This is of course AFTER the train has passed through Colchester.

In what should have been a just over 45 minute journey turns into a fucking unendurable almost hour and a half journey as the disabled train eventually pulls into Colchester at 22.22. There is nothing in the way of explanation for such a shit performance once again from National Express, just a hasty “the next stop is Colchester.” Thank god I took a piss when I first boarded the train.

By the time I finally get back to Colchester the rain is teeming down heavier than ever (to add insult to injury) and as I make the long walk from the station to my car parked at my parents’ I begin to wonder just what is it that I have done so bad to deserve this treatment.

All hopes of hearing Danny Baker’s 606 show fade with such a delay and evil stride home. When I finally get home I catch the arse end of his show before coming across two episodes of Family Guy that combine to eventually send me to sleep in a positive coma.