parasme.com

It surprises me how a single sentence can provide the impetus to strive towards finishing laid plans. My friend Nick reminded me that last year I had vowed not to spend my time or money wasted in a cafés, “You said you’d stop going to cafés”. I’ve done cafés. Boy, have I done cafés. They have been a second home for the past 27 years. We found solace in each other, sometimes it was good; dark, shabby, smoking, newspapers, books, jazz, chess, beauty, London, Paris, Brighton, an instant brew. I worked in a cafe overlooking the sea. My job was scribbling down ideas in a book. I was looking for the young bohemians but only found prams and suits. And recently the quality of the brew has slipped so far under the bar I could get more joy out of a cup of saccharine pond water. Onto something new, unfamiliar and better.

Removing one routine out of my life makes room to remove other routines that drag me into the same inanimate place, more mentally than physically. I am selling my music equipment. Not everything, but enough to make my room lighter. I won’t list here what those things are but trust me, its a lot of dear things to me. These are the things that dreams are made of. Potentially they could take me to new places if I were to write a best selling album using them, but I don’t see that happening until I resolve creativity issues.

It is raining outside and for the first time in many months I have moved my laptop to my desk, away from the window and offbeat syncopated rain playing off something plastic.

Behind me is an array of boxes that have been vaguely sorted into things to take to charity shops or put into a cupboard (when I find one I’d like to buy). I find that they are tugging at my attention. Perhaps I have some condition that could be placed in the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Whenever I own something I feel that it not only exists in the tangible world but I also create space for it inside my ‘mind space’. The more items I own the less free space I have in my ‘mind space’. Everything becomes tainted with the feeling that I should be putting my physically owned objects to good use. I carry the weight of them around in my head. And when I own something that has a cable that doesn’t reach another object and I have to move everything around until the cables fit and then the power points don’t reach so I move everything and aesthetically it looks a mess so I carry the stellar super mass around in my head. Anyway, to cut to the short of it I’m de-cluttering to the nth degree.

A clear desk and some ideas for lunch. I found a Nepalese cookery book in the kitchen, so today I’m learning about rice cooking (I’ve cooked a lot of rice but I doubt I cook it properly), Joys of Nepalese cooking by Indra Majupuria. “Chiura prepared by soaking paddy in hot water overnight.” I looked up ‘paddy’ and it is harvested rice kernels, or rough rice. I should wash rice more than I currently do. I have some potatoes left from yesterday so I will mash them, mix with rice add some onion and mixed spices and lightly fry.

I have a goal and must therefore establish where I am at in preparing to reach my target.

I MUST find and save £1,166.67p each month for the next 5 years. My current household bills are £120 paid by standing order so whatever I earn above £1,287, aside from income tax, will be used for food and entertainment. I currently subscribe to lovefilm.com and have started to enjoy the occasional bottle of red wine. My other current entertainments are reading, cycling, music, listening to radio around the world.. and thinking. Luckily these hobbies don’t require much financial resources. I live in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight and as much as I think I would like to travel around the world I have decided to restrict my travels mostly to the Isle of Wight (but that depends on financial resources). It is a relatively small place but without a car it is beautiful enough to discover something new on the microcosmic level.

Much of my time will be spent investigating and discovering on the internet. This is something I have been doing for as long the internet has been in existence but I usually look up things I am already interested in, i.e. people I know, places I want to go to, music, gadgets, computer coding, etc. And now I plan to find out things I missed out on during my sketchy schooling and to discover things that I didn’t even know existed.

I remain inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall TV programs of eating from hedgerows, cooking nettle soup, eating wild mushrooms. I remain uninspired by the ‘next step’. I don’t want to own acres of land and look after animals. I want to walk freely along common land, eating blackberries as I go. And I did that last year, south of the Isle of Wight, and if all I do this year is more of the same.. but more… then I will be very happy indeed. So much of this blog will be dedicated to discovering things to take with me on my short bicycle / train / bus trips on the Isle of Wight. There are wild mushrooms out there to be had. And perhaps some fish to be caught (sideline: I only like the idea of fishing if it involves casting off and catching something edible within 5 minutes. I have nightmares about reeling in something grotesque that will not remove itself from the line. This probably stems back to a trip my father took his three sons on where he left a rod with us whilst he fished further up river. A large thrashing fish ensnared itself onto the cast hook and refused to give it up. After some rather unsuccessful poking into its mouth with hook retrieval equipment and pocket knives we three stood above it not knowing what to do whilst the sad bloody half-mutilated creature suffocated before us in the long grass, on such an otherwise quite sunny, beautiful day. I cannot remember how the story ends so it comes to haunt me in my dreams and since then I have refrained from serious fishing. I also fell into the river. I have since then cast off without bait and been nervous when given a rod to dabble with in a river).

And whilst I am at it, I might get into the frame of mind where a bit of meditation might be fruitful. But then there is so much that I could do… if god spares (sideline: A quote from Frank Cotolo, or more accurately from his mother. Do listen to his radio show. More about him later). I have hardly covered ‘the ground work’. Perhaps I should keep my initial plan to something simple, as Jerome K. Jerome’s doctor would subscribe:

“1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer

every 6 hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning.

1 bed at 11 sharp every night. And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.”

And so, not for the first, and probably not the last time, parasme.com becomes a blog. The purpose I am giving to this virtual space is to help me unravel my feeling of unease with my world and to open myself up to things that I will find interesting and fulfilling. So I wont waste another moment, onto the task at hand.

I live in a terraced house. I share side walls. Sometimes the people who I share the other side of the wall with are quite pleasant. Other times I find them wretched and petty. Nicholas Barbon, you have a lot to answer for. I believe that this current situation of domestic distraction is something I will overcome in the next 4-5 years with the help of these scribblings. I will find the solution to being at peace with even the most contentious humans I come into contact with, and because I chose to work from home (as I have for the past 12 years), I may find that a terraced house is not only bearable, but quite enough for me and my girlfriend to exist harmoniously.

I have the uncanny knack of picking up skills that I think would benefit me in the short term. As a keen guitar strummer in my teens I decided that my umpteenth career move would to be a composer. But what a struggle it has been. After an enjoyable 6 months creating simple tunes on a laptop I went for the ‘perfect home studio’ concept and lost myself in a carousel of unboxing musical equipment, tinkering unsuccessfully, boxing and selling the items. I have though had some success with my musical efforts. And at this stage I need a vocation from trying to be something I naturally am not.

As I unravel my cluttered mind I expect I will unintentionally frustrate the reader along the way. I sincerely hope that my blog improves with time and my early scribblings will become lost in the annals of cyberspace. So thank you for coming, my little journey begins… again.