July 27

 Queasiness has been ghosting with me every day. Not as bad as it has been, but, enough. Enough to kill appetite, stomp on motivation to do shit all except feel ill and do little.

Meh.

Mentally I am just about holding the line. Some days are better. Some days are worse. 

All in all I am above water.

Had a hella long walk on Monday, 7km with the Athena. With plenty of water dips along the route. It was too long really. Too long for her. Definitely too long for me. Afterwards I had a lot of real bruised up muscles in all sorts of funny places ( one on my hip bizarrely ), but eh, I was out walking with friends.

Me and Athena both limped around in the afternoon, but she was fine by the evening. Me. I'm still carrying the aches more than 2 days later.

Hazel pinged me this week. Not doing good. Altercations with her neighbours. Isolated. Hot. Miserable. So we went out for a walk this evening. Or rather a visit to the dog park. She likes going there and meeting all the other dogs. Not super my kind of thing. Dog parks seem so boring to me ( and exploratory dogs ). I prefer seeing mutts explore nature and get into things and blah. But eh.

She chatted on animatedly. I just listened. At one point she noted I was quiet. Yeah. Quiet all round of late I said. And left it at that. I struggled to keep up with her conversation, even just listening as I was. I was half not there.

After the dog park I took her for a drive thru burger. And then to Asda whilst I waited in the car.

Not for the first time recently I pondered that I felt better as the hours wore on. 9pm. Sitting in the Asda car park, the mutts keeping me company. Watching an advanced dusk turn to night. I felt ok. At peace. Not ill. A cool evening with a nice breeze. This. Is me. I've always felt much more at home when the light fades. I don't know why. It's peaceful. The buzz and the must do and hurry and bullshit of the day fades. People go home. The brutishness of modern living and urban sprawl gets airbrushed into shadows. Lights glitter in the distance. Faded to pretty stars from a long way off.

I've always felt at peace at such times. Dusk. Til the early hours. Too late and it gets weird. Stretched. Exhausted. And then dawn. Is sickly. And awful. And with each minute the beast roars to life. The traffic. The must do. The world wakes up. Lights go out. And the shit descends into the horrorscape of the modern bullshit world.

Just me of course.

Back in the day I would get a high from such peak times. A thrill of excitement and possibility. Where could you go. What could you do. Everything alive and possible. A real electricity.

These days of course I am just about dead.

But this evening. Just for a moment. A flicker of excitement traced through me. A perfect sky with just enough over the horizon sun the backlight the clouds. A perfect cool breeze blowing through the window. The glittering lights. The radio on low, it's tunes and DJ a soothing bass of old school noise. Sitting quietly. Letting the world pass by. A little bit of magic.

I was glad to be alive. In that moment. Perfect.

I don't need money or praise. Fame or things. Just a beautiful evening with a cool breeze.

Roads become magical places of dotted light and shadow that could find you.. anywhere... in hours. Water becomes dark and mysterious, the sea a place you could float out into to somewhere else, somewhere different, amazing. Cities become jewels. Motorways mesmerising ribbons of lights.

Even when I was a small child I would stare up and out of the window at the motorway lights at night. They seemed wondrous. I would watch them all the way home. And in winter. I would lay huddled beneath a blanket. And watch the lights go by.

It's been quite a while since I talked to my night time side. It's been dormant for a good few years. I used to get touches of it when I walked both my mutts in the early hours of the morning. But not really the same. That was mostly stalking woods at night. And that itself is now years in the rear view mirror. Time passes so fast.

I think on reflection I am definitely a night person. Not a night owl as such. Perhaps it's more than that. Perhaps my rhythms do come up at night and make me feel all round better, which makes me light that time even more and blah. Dawns are the worst. Either staying up to see them. Or getting up for them. Shitty. And their wearing into morning and then midday. I can't think of a worse thing.

Give me dusk everytime, followed by a young night. Finished by 3am at most. Close the lid before the sun even thinks about coming back. 

I toyed with the fantastical story idea a few years ago, of a permanently travelling night club. That always stayed on the night time side of the earth. Always moving, never stopping, never seeing a dawn, always forever capturing that perfect moment of dusk and early evening.

The physics failed me. You'd need to travel so fast, for so long. It would be nigh on impossible. For easy sake of argument the earth is approximately 24,000 miles around ( a little more, but, go with it ). So you'd need to do 24,000 miles in 24 hours. 1,000 mile an hour. On average. So probably double that. For time to make stops to take on supplies and fuel and yada.

But still. The idea seems amazing to me. Imagine being on a vast train that always travelled at night. Stopping in all sorts of countries. Crossing oceans. At stupid speeds. Always a low down, lazy, laid back, night club kind of night.

Anywho. Just me projecting where I would be most at peace.

This evening. For a moment. I was zen. Not ill. Not tired. At peace. Content. In a beautiful world. And glad to be alive. Just for a moment.

It was amazing.

Hazel returned from shopping. Dropped her off home. The Verve came on the radio on the way home. The drugs don't work.

And a massive melancholy set in that twisted my stomach in that so familiar very upset kind of way.

Ha.

Jeez.

I reflected what a massive fucking headcase I am. Lost in the clouds somewhere. Mostly in hell.