Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I’ve been really moody lately. Extremely moody. Almost on an emotional level.

Another post-breakup phase. I go through this for a few months after breaking up with someone, but it only started to hit me recently. Funny how I’ve only now had enough relationships to actually realize this. I look at my monthly archives from the beginning of the blog and most of them begin with some emotional, confused line. In fact, this entire blog started as a way to vent these post break-up thoughts and feelings, until it became something more than that. Now I’m falling back into that trap. I’m starting to do stupid shit again, things I wish I didn’t do, afterwards.

Every day, in my head, I plan out my entries for the next week. Yet, every time I sit down to type, I’m never in the mood to write. It’s just the same shit, over and over again.

The difference is that this time I know what to do. I’ve been looking for too much meaning in too little.

I want to get out. For the first time in my life, I’m sick of this winter. I want to sit in the sun. I want to be amongst others.

I want to lay on the track, feel hot steel screaming at me
Expose the bones on my back, let me show you what I mean.

Ugh. I feel tainted. Moody. It feels like no one likes me. For the first time in a very long time, I feel alone.

I just started three different entries, but didn’t finish any of them. I’m not even in the mood to write this. I’m just sitting here with the lights out, two Candellas perched on top of my desk, and the first volume of Buddha Bar resounding in the room. My head is numb, my throat dry, my cat uninterested.

This has become so bland. The same things over and over again. Where did my humour go? When did things stop changing? Maybe I need a break from this.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish this tomorrow. This is just a mood. I’ll explain when I’m not as tired. I’ll go to bed with this music on, dreaming of quaint European architecture and parties I could host to this sound.

Maybe I’ll feel better when I hit, “Publish”.

I wrote this on the bus this morning:

I wrote this on the bus this morning. I generally hate writing on the bus because it always seems so pompous. I don’t like to come off as someone who thinks he’s an important writer, or as someone who’s looking for attention. Then I try to tell myself not to care what other people think, because the fact is that all I’m doing is writing in a notebook. And then I pull out my notebook.

The notebook itself, however, may be the important detail. I bought a new ruled, pocket Moleskine to keep track of my ideas. It cost me a pretty penny, but I’m hoping it’ll last me a while. What I used to do was use a text file saved on my desktop when at my computer, or my Dominion Blueline A9 (coming in at a hefty 9 1/4″ x 7 1/4″) when travelling. The Moleskine is perfect because it’s small enough to carry on the bus, and too small (a pocket-filling 3.5 x 5.5 inches) for other people to read over my shoulder. I can’t stand it when other passengers nosily glance at my words.

It has a ribbon to keep track of the current page, a small pocket in the back to keep loose items, an elastic to keep the pages together and prevent damage, and some of the smoothest uncoated paper I’ve ever used. Perfectly, all of the things I look for in a notebook. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to leave my A9 in desuetude; I’ve relegated it to keeping track of miscellaneous notes, lists, songs, etc., recently the only task I have been using it for. The Moleskines also come with a little card in the back explaining an interesting history:

It is two centuries now that Moleskine has been the legendary notebook of European artists and intellectuals, from Van Gogh to Henri Matisse, from the exponents of the historical avant-garde movements to Ernest Hemingway. Many are the sketches and notes, ideas and emotions that have been jotted down and harboured in this trustworthy pocket-size travel companion before being turned into famous pictures or the pages of beloved books.

This long-standing tradition was continued by writer-traveller Bruce Chatwin who used to buy his Moleskines at a Paris stationery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne Comedie where he would always stock up before embarking on one of his journeys. Over the years he had developed a veritable ritual. Before using them he would in fact number the pages, writing on the inside his name and at least two addresses across the world, and a message promising a reward for anyone finding and returning the notebook in case of it being lost.

He even suggested this method to his friend Luis Sepulveda, when he gave him a precious Moleskine as a present for a journey they were planning to undertake together in Patagonia. And there was no doubt as to how precious it was, given that at the time even the last Moleskine manufacturer, a small family-run firm of Tours, had discontinued production in 1986. “Le vrai moleskine n’est plus” was the short and curt statement of the owner of the stationery shop where Chatwin had ordered one hundred before leaving for Australia. Despite having literally swept up all the moleskines he could find, they were not enough.

Now, the Moleskine is back again. This silent and discreet keeper of an extraordinary tradition which has been missing for years has set out again on its journey. A witness to contemporary nomadism, it can once again pass from one pocket to another to continue the adventure.

The sequel still waits to be written and its blank pages are ready to tell the story.

Now I feel free to do this. Write what I want, when I want, where I want. I love writing in this thing.

I’m back.

Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.

I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.

And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.

One of my greatest fears is that this will fall into desuetude. I doubt it’ll happen though, because I’d try my best to keep this in practice, but one never knows. I’ve been too tired or busy lately to really write something. Writing is an effort for me, something I need to concentrate and focus on. I don’t like to publish haphazard material. I’m considering a break actually, until things settle down a bit, but I think I’d start to get a nagging feeling about not posting anything for two consecutive days.

As long as there is something to learn, there is something to write about.