Karma in a Large Bottle of Volvic Water – PART THREE

I’m stranded over fifteen miles away from my house with no food, water or phone battery charge. But that’s not the full extent of my predicament; I’m also stuck with a lethal hangover and haven’t eaten since the night before. What do I do? I just keep on walking. But then the most embarrassing event unfolds…

At around three hours into my journey, about halfway down the main road leading to the bridge that would eventually take me across to my home county, Fife, I pass a school. I hate schools, and I always try my absolute best to avoid them at those awkward times when teenagers flood out. However, with no phone battery or watch to check the time, walking from the capital back to my house was a dangerous game because to put it frankly (gaha!), I had a more solid idea of what type of cement they used for the pavements than what time it was.

By this point in my journey, it would be a terrible understatement to say that I wasn’t in a bad state – my nose was running inexorably, my legs shaking like maracas and my entire body dripping with sweat – so when a blood-curdling bell sounded and around one hundred premature teenagers began pouring out of the exit of the school as I approached its passing, you can probably imagine the trembling shudder that ricocheted down my spine.

As much as I tried to avoid the army of students charging in my direction from the main exit of the school attempting to force my tired legs into turbo mode, it didn’t seem likely that I would be able to escape. Before I knew it, I was surrounded, scraping my legs along a pavement next to a bustling road with a battalion of prepubescent teenagers, all screaming and giggling their way down the the road as they headed to their normal semi-suburban houses. I would have died to have been able to cross the road in order to avoid the agony of looking like I was one of them, but I saw no opportunity as vehicles flew past at startling speeds.

I was trapped – a pack of what looked like thirteen-year-old girls blocked the front while a company of other loud male teenagers blocked my retreat from the rear. I was just waiting for a bottle of anything to slap me on the back of the head followed by a roar of laughter from behind. As embarrassing as it would have been to have been bullied by a group of young teenagers, it probably would have been worth it for a sip of whatever was in the bottle they might throw at me. Instead however, they all just stared at me as if I was some kind of giant hobo. I suppose I sort of was to them. After three prolonged minutes of running sweat, snot and pure embarrassment, I eventually shook myself free from the cluster as one by one they disappeared into unknown streets. Thank…FUCK.

With the relief of no longer looking like a child stalker, my levels of thirst seemed to sky-rocket as I stepped into the final two-hour push towards the bridge that would take me back to Fife. I could only hope that there was just ONE shop that had a bathroom with a water-running tap on the way. I’d already scouted four different shops, including one of the UK’s largest supermarkets, but to no avail. Even a mirage would have been nice as I walked like a lost idiot in the blazing sun. Well, I was a lost idiot.

Prior to thirty minutes of wiping an endless stream of snot from my nose, traffic lights and a lot more pavement, I reached the one thing I really did not want to see: a fucking motorway.

Karma in a Large Bottle of Volvic Water – PART TWO

Subsequent to waking up at girl’s house on a harrowing Sunday morning with a lethal hangover and an empty wallet, I embarked on a journey that even Bear Grylls would have been proud of. With no food, water or phone battery charge, I trudged along the bleak pavements of Edinburgh in the vague direction of which I believed to be my house – merely sixteen miles away. Not only was I forced to walk through the capital and beyond, but the burden of crossing the Firth of Forth (a one and a half mile wide river connected to the sea) was also glued to my mind as I almost slipped of the side of the kerb while crossing yet another gloomy street. My odyssey was one of many obstacles, and I would have died for a McDonald’s cheese burger.

My first dilemma came only thirty minutes into the seven hour journey – unrelenting thirst. The drunk version of myself had spent every penny I had at the pub the night before with the girl so the convenient option of strolling into a shop and buying a bottle wasn’t available. This left me with two really quite shit options – to either find the nearest public bathroom and drink shamefully from one of the germ-ridden taps, or to steal a bottle of water from anywhere and everywhere in the ultimate heist of thirst – I did say both were quite shit.

As the sun blasted its rays onto my dripping forehead, I began to scout for any shop, supermarket or building that I suspected may be in possession of a cold-water tap. Surprisingly enough, I found one after a mere ten minutes of walking. Giant yellow letters spelling out Morrison’s, one of the leading supermarket brands in the United Kingdom, began to emerge from the trees obstructing my view and my face lit up in a way that it never had before – the sort of face you’d pull if you had just found your dog after it had been missing for a week. I stepped inside Morrison’s with a heavy ambition on my shoulders, but turned away just a few seconds later when I read the sign on the men’s bathroom door reading: “Cleaning in progress”.

What are the chances of that?

The woman’s bathroom was more open and free than Gandhi, and I was tempted for a brief moment, but my morals declined the opportunity.

The search continued for the next three hours of the journey, but to no avail. I scoured corner shops, mini-supermarkets, anonymous buildings, restaurants and I even pondered a few houses, but the sight of a tap never came into my dizzy vision for as much as I wanted it to. It got to the stage where when I entered a shop in search of a bathroom, I would actually stop by the cold-water bottle section just to stare in awe at the water for a brief moment before leaving. Sad, I know – I’m sure I could easily have scrounged fifty pence off a generous customer for a small bottle, but my confidence that day was virtually non-existent and I had no courage to speak to anyone, barely even myself after what I’d done to myself. Three hours of walking with no food, water or phone and I honestly felt like I was going to die, but I kept going.

I hate schools and I’m not sure why. There’s probably a high chance that it has something to do with the fact that I was mercilessly bullied from the first year to the last, but I’m still open to other reasons. I tend to avoid schools at all costs, and whenever I’m about to pass one, I glance at the time in order to determine whether or not it’s lunch time and I will get ambushed by a group of studious teenagers. I think there’s around the region of around three schools of different varieties on the path that I led home on my journey. I glided past one with ease, the second with only the sight of a few senior students, and the third, well; it was probably one of the most outrageously humiliating experiences of my life.

Karma in a Large Bottle of Volvic Water – PART ONE

The balance of life on this planet is so unbelievably toxic and frustrating. It seems far too easy for one to get themselves into a shitty situation than it is for one to get out of a shitty situation and this is something I’ve certainly learned the hard way. One moment I was blissfully snogging the face off this girl I’d recently met on Tinder outside one of the most beautifully decorated flats I’d ever set foot in, and just four hours later, I found myself trudging along a closed off pavement next to a bustling motorway while pitifully swigging from a half-empty (it definitely wasn’t half full) bottle of lukewarm Volvic water. I’m undecided whether or not I believe in karma but if it does exist then it definitely doesn’t work in the same way for me as it does for the rest of the human race. For me, it’s been a sort of spontaneous canon that spurts out pleasure and pain in unpredictable sequences at any random time. I digress, but the fact that I ended up trekking sixteen miles from Edinburgh to my house last week definitely helps my case: that life’s a bitch.

It all sparked from the origins of what I believed was going to be an immaculately superb weekend – and it sort of was in many aspects. I set off on the train to the capital to meet up with this girl I’d been flanting (flirtatious banter) with on Tinder for the previous few weeks and we went out into the city for more than a few drinks and a banterful time. The whole night seemed to flow astoundingly smooth and I even ended up staying at the girl’s flat for the night which on its own certainly breached my pessimistic expectations of me stumbling drunk to the train station at midnight with my trousers down at my ankles in a hopeless attempt to catch a train. As fantastic as my time with the girl had been, I still awoke from a deep slumber at her house and somewhat knew that the day ahead of me was going to be tough. A splitting headache accompanied by an unstoppable temptation to throw up all over her beautifully white cotton bed sheets was quite an explicit sign of what was to come – hell on earth.

The most painful thing about a hangover is not necessarily the piercing headache or agonising stomach pains, but the feeling you acquire when you dive into your pockets and find nothing but a measly collection of bronze coins and an empty cigarette packet. Unfortunately for me and my legs, I’d blasted all of my money at the pub the night before and to my own demise, train stations in Scotland don’t accept crumpled cigarette doubts as a valid form of currency to purchase train tickets. My only option: to ask the girl snoring to my left for a fiver so I could catch a train home. I could easily have done this, but I seriously didn’t want to strip myself of the title of ‘cute stud’ she had coined me as the night before and replace it with something of an annoying leech for her cash. So to avoid the shame and embarrassment of asking her for cash for my train, I decided not to – and left her house an hour later having only taken a few sips of water from her bathroom tap. I had eaten nothing.

It was around twelve o’clock in the afternoon and the last blip of joy from the day came from an intensely passionate kiss with the girl who knew little of the impending disaster of which I was about to embark on. Oh, and my phone had also died – not that it was useful anyway given that I had no texts or calls to use. The only useful commodity I had at my disposal was my unrelenting motivation to make it home alive. Edinburgh is sixteen miles away from my house and there are many obstacles in the way inclusive of one of the busiest motorways in Scotland and a gargantuan bridge known as the Forth Road Bridge which connects the capital of Scotland to my home county, Fife.

Upon beginning my trek in the vague direction of which I believed would lead me back to my house, I was only slightly parched and barely hungry; but after a quint half an hour of walking, the thought of H2O and homemade macaroni cheese became torturous in my head. The alcohol in my system had drained every drop of water from my body and the glaring sun overhead seemed to fry my sweaty forehead unforgivingly. It became quite obvious that if I was to make it home alive, I would need to find some source of water; whether it be through the cunning act of theft in the sketchiest corner shop I could find, or through the less than graceful deed of gargling water from the tap of the men’s bathroom in Morrisons or Tesco. You know your life has taken a turn for the worse when these are the only two options of salvation on offer in the inferno of tragicness that I found myself in. I travelled on through the craggy streets of Edinburgh, winding off into unknown lanes and alleys in search of water and the distant house that probably didn’t give a shit about my horrendous ordeal.

Bipolar Life and Facebook – PART TWO

After enduring a train journey to the capital in order to meet an ex-stripper I’d befriended in the summer while working at T.G.I Friday’s, I found myself at the entrance to a place I never thought I’d gaze my eyes upon ever again – T.G.I Friday’s. A fantastic restaurant to many, but a sanctuary of horror for myself and my self-esteem. There are literally hundreds of pubs, bars and other alcohol-selling hotspots in Edinburgh, but by my tragic luck, the ex-stripper had directed me towards the exact place I’d ridiculed myself in just a few months in the past – let’s just say that while working a shift on the busiest night the restaurant had ever seen, the pressure of relentless service slowly emancipated into a hellish purgatory of sobbing tears and shameful tribulation and I stormed out of the restaurant mid-shift with a wet face and minimal dignity.

She must surely have heard of the breakdown I had in the summer at this place, surely! I mean, she still works here to this day for fuck’s sake.

Regardless of the embarrassment that lurked behind the black pine doors of the restaurant, it was the ex-stripper that had kindly offered to pay for all of my drinks so I had little choice but to humour her choice of settlement on that cold night. With a slight pause and a grimace on my reddening face, I opened the heavy doors and advanced straight towards the bar with a burst of adrenaline flowing through my veins. I whipped my phone from my pocket and began meaninglessly browsing Facebook in an attempt to distract myself from the impending doom that awaited me. Waiters and other familiar staff members filled the room, floating from table to table as I hurried towards the bar with my phone plastered to my vision. As much as I was expecting the indefinite looks of horror and disgrace from each and every employee I’d worked with in the summer to shoot daggers through my skull as I darted towards the bar, this was shockingly not the case.

I meandered towards the bar, the ex-stripper following closely behind, my eyes darting in every direction and my ears tuned-in to any murmurs of laughter or gossip that may begin to fill the room. I painfully recognised the bartender as someone I’d regularly exchanged small talk with while working here.

“Hey, can we have two pints please?”, I asked solemnly.

“Sure thing bud’, Tennents yeah?”.

“Yeah…cheers”.

The bartender calmly poured our drinks, without as much as a whisper emerging from his mouth. He clearly didn’t give a flying fuck about my unorthodox presence, and this sort of bothered me. After all the thoughts of horror and apprehension that had flowed through my mind over the previous ten minutes, not a single recognisable person could even bother to give the slightest shit towards my dilemma. Ten minutes flew by and not one ex-colleague of mine had even batted an eye at me, not one. A waiter I shared lunch with a few months ago even accidentally brushed against our table as she glided past, but still, not a single odd look or malicious word was directed towards my shattered ego as I sipped cautiously on my pint. As much as I would have loathed it if my expectations of crude frowning and awkward stares were correct, I was sort of hoping for some kind of bemused reaction from my fellow colleagues. Oh well, life went on.

I enjoyed a pint with the ex-stripper before indulging in some of the more costly beverages displayed on the drinks menu. A few cocktails later and the ex-stripper and I were in delirium. As tragic as this may sound, the two hours that proceeded the clenching awkwardness upon entering the restaurant were probably the most enjoyable two hours I’d had in years. A blissful optimism swept over me as thoughts of sex and other far-fetched fantasies began to conquer my mind. For most nineteen-year-old guys, the notion of taking an ex-stripper out for drinks in the capital is almost certainly a guarantee of some form of sexual contact, but for me, the tragic one, it was almost certainly wishful thinking.

I wanted two things to occur at this point; either that we would venture off to a night club for another two hours of delirious intoxication, hence increasing my chances of waking up at her house the following day, or that we’d take the direct route and head straight to her abode. Either way, the alcohol in my system forced a very strong desire to wake up at her house the following day. Contrary to my own endeavours however, the ex-stripper disappeared onto a bus soon after and I found myself staggering solo back to the train station at eleven o’clock at night with a crinkled cigarette hanging out of my mouth. I was inexplicably fucked and the escalators leading down to the platforms were an immaculate symbolisation of how my night was momentarily about to plummet downhill.

After surpassing the escalators, tipping my head up to the looming electrical boards to identify my train was more than challenging given the state I was in. But it wasn’t long before I was able to identify the correct train, and not much longer after that before I realised it had been cancelled. The last train back to my house had been cancelled due to “someone being hit by the train” and I was therefore trapped in Edinburgh for at least another hour before another train, only stopping at a town close to my house, would arrive.

What a selfish little shit. I busted a gut to get here tonight and you’ve gone and thrown yourself in front of my last chance of not having to walk home tonight. 

After half an hour of perilously waiting for the wrong train to take me three miles from my house, I sort of began to wish that I was the one that had been hit by the train – it certainly would have made my life a lot easier than it currently was and I probably wouldn’t have felt any pain due to the significant amount of alcohol I’d consumed. At this point, I would have died to have called up the ex-stripper and inform her of my horrific situation in the hopes that she’d feel sorry for me and invite me back to her house; but once again, life decided to slap me in the nose and my phone had decided to die on the way to the train station. I sat helplessly drunk on a freezing metal bench amid the bustle of the train station for nearly one and a half hours before my train finally arrived.

I careened aboard the train half-lashed and tumbled onto the nearest seat to a gloriously warm comfort only to be remind myself of the three mile trek that fate had paved for me upon my exit from the train in just over half an hour. It would be a cold, miserable end to my night and I could do nothing to help it.

I hate you, life. 

The Most Exuberant Sunset I’ve Ever Seen in My Entire Life

It’s seemingly rare to stumble upon an above average sunset in these dark months. However, while casually perched on my bed attempting to conjure up another blog post a few nights ago at around half-past five, I noticed a rather intense glow begin to sprawl its way over the side of my wall through my window. Thinking it was merely a street lamp turning on adjacent to my house, I strolled over to my window to witness one of nature’s most riveting shows – a gargantuan sun of orange melting into a muddy red sky.

I wielded my camera with haste.

But upon capturing the first few rays from my window, the battery died, and I found myself engulfed in a hideous state of frustration and anger.

Fuck! The most extravagant sunset I’ve ever seen in my entire life and it’s slowly dying away before my eyes!..FUCK!

I tensely waited, placing my camera battery on charge for five minutes while simultaneously watching in terror as the sun vanished before my eyes. By the time my camera had sufficiently charged for use of three minutes maximum, all that was left of the awe was but a tiring sky of sleepy red and orange. However, to my own surprise, the unrelenting glow of the sky began to seem somewhat more excitable than when the sun was still sinking. I sprinted gallantly outside to the large field behind my garden for a real peak. What I saw was inexorably stunning. The sky roared orange above the city two miles from my house. With at least three minutes of battery left and the sky already beginning to transition into darkness, I snapped as many pictures as I could.

Although my camera may not have done much justice to this explosion of warmth in the sky, I still didn’t see the need to apply any filters or colour boosts to any of these images.

Rocking the Gluteus Maximus

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom” – George S. Patton

Life is one tough cookie. For many people, it resembles that of listening to your favourite song at full blast on a pair of expensive headphones without a care in the world – you’re casually perched in the warmth of your living room listening to that new album by that new band you seem to adore and there’s not a soul to say otherwise. I once wore those expensive headphones, and oh boy would I blare that music. But then one day, quite abruptly, the music stopped. It just stopped. And a huge menacing fist came whirling round the back of my head, slapping me inexorably on the back of my scalp; hence striking the headphones from my head and sending them tumbling to the cold, desolate floor of nothingness, crushing them into a billion one-celled organismic smithereens. The end of the ludicrously expensive headphones, and the end of music.

If that doesn’t strike you as a vivid enough analogy to convey the way my forsaken life has played out over the last few months, then you’re probably too rich, famous or successful to contemplate the life of me, Frank, the bottom feeder of society. To put it simply, I don’t think there’s a single aspect of my life that I could proudly define as ‘successful’ (whatever that means). I yearn for success, but while I spend the majority of my days worrying about where I’m going to acquire my next cigarette, I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to find this ‘success’, if even it exists.

Anyone would say that it’s not a sensible idea to share any segment of your financial details with the rest of the world-wide web, but in all honesty, I would feel far more woeful for the guttersnipe that attempted to hijack my bank details than I would for myself. In fact, I’d be relieved to see someone take possession of my bank account. Perhaps then I could get away with blaming the legacy of ‘financial fuck-ups’ I’ve constructed over the last few months on them rather than myself. Over the last few months, I’ve watched in peril as the cute numbers of my Santander bank account have descended below freezing. As of ten minutes ago, the numbers displayed on my online bank account hold the precise balance (or lack of) of ‘£-71.46’, and it’s not reaching paradisiacal temperatures anytime soon.

Perhaps the most towering of the endless list of worries I face in this glacially cold period of my life is the fact that I’m not employed by anyone, so the lack of coins in my bank account are definitely staying relevant to that of a church mouse’s for a considerable time longer. I’ve drifted from job to job over the last six months in an audacious attempt to locate my passion in life. I haven’t discovered it yet. Well, I have, but I don’t think there’s a booming niche for the one who sits on his scrawny arse from dawn to dusk watching clips of Breaking Bad on YouTube and devouring curry-flavoured pot noodles. That resource, ‘cash’, is the most vital resource on the planet for human order and society, and I currently have minus none.

Money is arriving soon, it always does. And that will be the end of my problems, right? I can continue my less than extravagant life of drugs, alcohol and paid Netflix and grow old with those commodities. However, there is one other critical issue that may jeopardise that perfect life plan – I’m not in possession of a bank card…or a wallet…or any form of identification. By some miracle, I managed to lose all three of these essentials within the space of one night due to unforseen levels of alcohol and marijuana invading my system. An entire wallet of cards that gave me credibility as a human being on this bedeviled Earth, and they’re all gone, sitting comfortably on the shelf of another thieving societal bottom feeder that probably has higher digits in his bank account than I. Of course, the entire armoury of cards that sat contempt in the emptiness of my wallet, waiting for their turn, is fully replaceable – at the expense of the money I don’t currently have.

As a final stab at the wound of problems bleeding out my life at the moment, all of my monthly bills are beyond overdue and I recently received a threatening text from the company that allowed me to send SOS texts to my mum at three o’clock in the morning on a Saturday night stating that if I don’t pay the ancient cob-webbed bills within the next few days, then they’ll be forced to delete my phone number from their system and ask for the rest of the bills on the contract to be paid up front, which I thinks mounts to around one big one. The sudden deletion of my number would be both a tragedy for me and the abundance of girls on Tinder that I feel would definitely have wanted my phone number.

However, with every down, there’s an up and this has genuinely been the case over the last few months. With the absence of money and success, I’ve found my eyes opening up to things that I never thought were as important before – books have been read, family members bonded with and I’ve seen my appreciation of the vital things in life surge past my appreciation towards the materialistic items that I used to spend most of my time around. Now, the three most important commodities in my life consist of the roof that protects me from the maelstrom of wind and rain overhead, the wood-burning stove that blisters in the living room, and my mother, whom I’ve learnt a lot about over the previous months. And perhaps the most invaluable possession that I’ve come to welcome the most is this blog; it seems to be my only way forward in this dark period of my life. I do miss Netflix though, I really do.

Returning Home With the Wrong Jacket – PART TWO

Stepping into old man Gordon’s house was like entering into a temple of zealous relief. Protected from the maelstrom of rain and wind that battered the creaky walls of his house, I wheeled around for a few seconds before sitting down on a sofa that seemed to absorb the bottom half of my body, and all of my problems. Gordon pranced around for a few minutes, meandering in and out of rooms doing things I couldn’t even imagine. My brain was fried, and I could barely string a sentence together. Gordon’s living room seemed like the only important room in the house, with every other doorway barricaded with heaps of unwashed clothes, vinyl records and other undefinable clutter. It dawned on me that this exact room was where Gordon had spent most of his days – a sleeping bag and an electric blanket lay sprawled out over the other sofa and a mountain of greasy plates and cutlery sat stacked on a small wooden table adjacent to his make-do bed. The only other noticeable items in the room were the old-school TV in the corner, a stained mirror on the wall and a cabinet full of crockery that hadn’t been used in decades. All of these items seemed to freeze in time as I sat stoned and motionless on the sofa, awaiting the perfect moment to beckon Gordon’s armoury of drugs.

‘Do you not have a bed upstairs Gordon?’, I asked, confused about Gordon’s absurd sleeping arrangements. Gordon’s head sank slightly. ‘Aye ehhh, I don’t sleep upstairs anymore, too many bad memories’. Feeling slightly shameful that I’d asked, I nodded my head briefly and proceeded to pose the question that surrounded the real reason I was there. ‘Got any pollen, Gordon?’ Without a word, Gordon whirled away into the kitchen and returned with a chipped bowl full of crumbled up pollen. ‘Thanks Gordon, I really appreciate it, honestly’, I said, trying my best to justify my unexpected presence. ‘No problem at all like, really, it’s no problem at all’, Gordon replied with a noticeable sincerity in his tone, making me feel slightly less paranoid than before. Gordon pleasantly handed me a pipe and I began to load up it’s ashy chamber with pollen. ‘Do you use that old record player over in the corner there much?’, I asked. ‘Ehhhh aye, every night’. Without another word, Gordon took a few large steps over to the record player, pressed and twisted a few buttons and nozzles, and sat down on the opposite sofa to the magnetic sound of David Gilmour’s electric guitar.

My head still spinning, I felt a blanket of nausea creep over me as I pressed the pipe up to my lips and ignited the end with a lighter. Taking more drugs while you’re high is generally a terrible idea; you seem to lose touch with your senses and drinking and smoking becomes harmless in your own mind. You could be sitting there smoking cigarette after cigarette, joint after joint, one per minute, and you wouldn’t feel the effects until long after. As the pollen buried in the pipe’s chamber began to glow a deep muddy orange, I began to inhale the thick husky pollen through the thin brass tunnel of the pipe. Usually I’d only draw smoke from a pipe for less than two seconds, but the formidable effects of the drugs I’d had earlier rendered the senses in my mouth and throat useless and I drew on for more than seven seconds, stuffing my capacious lungs with drugs to the max. An amusing dizziness cascaded down through my body as I shakily passed the pipe over to the hands of Gordon for his turn on the draw.

It wasn’t long before the room was plunged into a thicket of silver smoke and the conversation between Gordon and I descended into an animalisitc notion of trash-talk, every sentence stumbling out of our mouths and blasting off all four walls of the room before finally hitting home. The harmonious sound of Pink Floyd glided dreamily through the background of our indechiperable antics as I slowly faded away from the reality of Gordon’s lethargic chatter and slipped into a magnificent trance conducted by the incredible symphonies echoing through the room.

This is a farce. A total fucking farce. Is there anybody in there? 

My thoughts rapidly began to circulate around a few wild conspiring theories before my head sank slowly into the smooth fabric of the abyss of Gordon’s sofa. I fell asleep, totally isolated from the whispers and threats of the outside world.

I awoke only a few times throughout the night to the abrupt sound of Gordon’s brutish snoring, the loudest I’d ever heard in my entire life. His lungs and vocal cords at full throttle, his heavy breathing would gradually emancipate into an unnatural wheezing similar to that of someone frenetically sawing dark, heavy timber. I would look over to the sofa where Gordon slumbered every time I awoke and would see nothing of him except the pathetic tuft of grey hair that stuck out the top of his sleeping bag, glowing in the shine of the street lamp outside his house. At times I was convinced he wasn’t there, but once the snoring began again, I wouldn’t question his presence. The wind and rain relentlessly thrashed against the window throughout the night but it seemed somewhat feeble in comparison to the noises Gordon was producing.

A crack of light attacking the gap in Gordon’s blinds awoke me at ten o’clock in the morning. It seemed early, Gordon still wrapped up like a burrito in his cocoon of endless sheets and blankets. Apprehensive about waking him, I rose from the sofa and crept over to the door, thriving to avoid the crunchy debris scattered unpredictably across the rough carpet of the room. I pulled down delicately on the rusty handle of the front door, one millimetre a second, audaciously trying to avoid disturbing the sleeping beast. Just before the door was ready to slide away from it’s stubborn frame, Gordon’s croaky voice frighteningly emerged from the room I thought I’d seen and heard enough of for the last 24 hours.

‘That you off, Frankie?’

‘Yeah, need to get home before my parents start wondering where I am!’, I proclaimed, trying my best to sound calm and unworried by his sudden awakening.

‘Ok, ehhh, do you want a jacket?’

‘Yes, yes I would, thanks Gordon.’

I flung on the large Russian jacket that Gordon had bestowed upon me and left without another whisper.

Returning Home With the Wrong Jacket – PART ONE

Last night was more eccentric than the two occasions of Christmas and New Year combined, and I’m still unsure of how that’s even possible given the fact that I was planning to get mortal on both of those bitter nights. I’m the type of person that wanders on out into the world in anticipation of a quiet night in the pub or a subtle movie night with a close friend and then somehow ends up outside in the freezing cold trudging along an unknown pavement, stoned out of my face at three o’clock in the morning with someone else’s clothing on. Everything seems to spiral out of control by twelve at the latest, and nothing ever goes to plan. Drugs, alcohol and snoring old men have unexpectedly devoured the last 24 hours of my life, and oh boy have I learnt a lot about myself.

I’d been grinding the same video game for most of the day, occasionally taking a break to smoke the odd cigarette in the garden, and I was slowly growing anxious of what the night ahead held in stock. Once plans begin to swirl in the air, it’s all I can think about until the plans eventually transition into reality – anxiety really is a bitch. Jimmy and I were planning on indulging in a quick smoke after he had finished work later on in the night and I was more than game given that I hadn’t inhaled a Jamaican roll-up since Christmas eve.

Impatiently meandering around the warm floor boards of my parent’s house, seeing the word ‘Jimmy’ suddenly appear on my phone as it vibrated to the sound of Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog, I hastily answered the call and proceeded to stuff an old pair of shoes onto my restless feet and scrunched an extra jumper over my frazzled hair as I did. Despite all of the morbid fears I’d had previously that Jimmy would cancel the meeting – the fear that Jimmy’s mum’s hamster would spontaneously die that night and he’d have to stay in and comfort her, a shower of relief trickled over my head as soon as I heard the words “Meet at the tire at eleven” zoom through the phone from Jimmy’s mouth. Just as I trundled out of the front door and onto the sparkling frosty pavements to leave however, I had a peculiar thought – I’m probably addicted to drugs. Wearing nothing but two cheap jumpers and a crinkled pair of jeans, I began my odyssey towards the tire.

There’s something quite frightening about walking through the frost-bitten streets with the desire to smoke illegal drugs at an old tire behind a local rugby club at eleven o’clock at night. Four miles of walking in the stagnant wintry air would certainly not be worth it for anything but drugs and I found myself strutting along the pavement at turbo speeds just to ensure that I was at the tire before Jimmy. That walk to the tire was certainly the most intentional walk I’d ever done in my entire life. Accompanied by two cigarettes and half of a bottle of red wine I’d found in the fridge from Christmas however, and the the four mile trek was over before I knew it.

After Jimmy’s silhouette slowly emancipated into a real person through the thick fog of the night, everything seemed to flow considerably smoother than on previous encounters. Aside from a dodgy lighter deciding not to function of a couple of occasions and Jimmy thinking he’d forgotten the skins for a brief moment, I couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable hour of smoking marijuana at a rugged old tire on a Sunday evening. I sat contempt for the entire hour with my arse half-stuck to the ice polished rubber before Jimmy lumbered back to his house only half-stoned. I however, after just a couple of joints, was inexplicably wasted, my mind flickering through a million fiery thoughts at once.

I can never have enough. Every time I remove myself from the warmth of my house, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing or who I’m with, I’m always thinking ahead to conjure up exciting plans for after. I hate going home, because going home late at night always represents the end of an enjoyable time, a transition into a dark, dull house of nothingness – I can’t put the TV on, I can’t venture out into the back garden for a smoke and I can’t even flick any lights on in fear that I’ll wake up the likes of my boring family members. If I’m at the pub enjoying a few pints of Scotland’s finest beer (Tennent’s Lager), then I’ll constantly be battling away on my phone or to a friend beside me for an action plan afterwards, whether it be going to another pub or intoxicating ourselves further with drugs. As I stood lone wolf at the tire, vacant of any form of rational thinking, it dawned on me that I could probably get away with a late night visit to my unorthodox friend Gordon’s house and enjoy a harsher smoke from the discomfort of his garbage-engulfed sofa.

Gordon is one of the more dodgy characters in my life. A rusty old man worn down by society, Gordon lives a quiet, solemn life in a decayed apartment swallowed by the past. He’s played quite an important part of my life for at least six months now, having been a regular at my local pub for most of his days. Of course, Gordon’s cave would never have been my first choice of dwelling for the night, but I always knew him to consistently be in the possession of drugs so the plan was essentially set in stone in my head as I perilously began to walk up the street towards his apartment.

Passing through Gordon’s large black steel gate and descending the cold bulky steps leading to his front door injected me with a familiar buzz. The only thing that frightened me as my clumsy feet clanged thunderously off the rusty clutter that lay scattered throughout his garden was the possibility of him not answering the door and having to perform the walk of shame back to the darkness of my house in the glacial conditions that clung to the air like thick glue. Standing at Gordon’s chipped white door, I realised there was not as much as a trace of a doorbell or any other form of sounding equipment. If there’s one thing you should probably avoid doing at midnight on a Saturday, it’s knocking on the doors of people who least expect it – there’s a high chance that Gordon thought the DEA were ready to raid his house of drugs the moment I battered the blurry white glass with my clenched iron fist. To my own surprise however, the door popped open with a loud thud just six seconds after I’d knocked and Gordon cheerfully beckoned me into his humble abode for a standard night of smoking cannabis and woeful banter.

The Writer’s Block: A Writer’s Worst Nightmare

“I’ll write it at noon and if not, then I’ll write it tomorrow!” – one very unsuccessful writer

Every morning I find myself perilously rummaging through endless quantities of Google searched landscape photographs, motivational videos and other miscellaneous crap scattered around the web in the belief that if I search long enough, I’ll eventually stumble upon the catalyst of inspiration for my next article of writing – but this doesn’t always seem to do the trick, and it’s often the case that I’m left sitting stagnant at my keyboard at six o’clock in the evening watching an unspecified episode of Friends. Finding suitable inspiration to fuel the pen towards the paper (the fingers towards the keys) is the most frightening hurdle for any writer, and to overcome it requires strong motivation, perseverance, and a bundle of wasted time.

Procrastination is the most destructive human trait. It clings to us like that hand thing out of Harry Potter in Diagon Alley, wreaking havoc among every creative individual. Lack of inspiration is the direct cause of this harbinger of writer’s death, manipulating the writer into thinking that if they just watch one (or ten) more episodes of Breaking Bad and indulge in a hot cup of coffee (or five), then they’ll easily be able to at least start the next piece of writing that they’ve likely been planning on doing for weeks now. But the more it waits, the more the writer slowly begins to distance themselves from the final goal, lose momentum and fall into that bottomless pit of failure.

There’s one piece of advice I can offer to counter this anti-productive disease. In the words of a non-procrastinating bloke at Nike: “Just do it”. Three simple words with a very powerful meaning – don’t speak, run, walk, talk, watch or snore – just feckin’ dae it! And dae it well! I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t scrolled over to Facebook and/or YouTube at least a few times during the production of this article. However, as much as your phone is only a foot adrift from the prizing fingers tapping away on your keyboard, it’s crucial for any writer to persevere through the task at hand and win the battle against the temptations of Netflix and other related allurements that seem to taunt your frazzled brain while you fiercely try to complete that first paragraph.

Ideas are infinite, but sparking them is difficult. I guess the most common cause of the absence of a writer’s content is due to the writer simply not possessing any ideas worthy of writing about. This morning I woke up thunderously, hopped into a warm shower of ambition, devoured a bowl of sugary white porridge and then settled down on my bed for what I imagined to be a quick and easy writing session. It wasn’t until I’d opened up WordPress that it dawned on me, there wasn’t a single blip of an idea in my mind worth putting on the screen, not one. This can be fixed.

YouTube is the most powerful tool accessible to any human being lucky enough to be born into this new age of rising technology. A gargantuan library of infinite ideas and thought-provoking anecdotes will almost certainly bring an inspired pen to paper with over 100 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute. If you can’t harness some form of inspiration from this magnificent stream of endless multimedia content then you should probably seek some form of professional psychological help. YouTube is the ultimate inspirational learning tool. Vimeo is also fun.

If you can’t seem to provoke inspiration from YouTube and can’t afford a psychiatrist, then your best bet would be to stick in a pair of earphones, initiate a hasty exit from your house and take your idea-less body for a short walk in the woods, park, or even just through the streets. This will clear your mind and possibly ignite a few ideas that you never thought existed before, triggered by the crisp surroundings that put your monotonous bedroom wall and computer screen to shame. This genuinely works. Your bedroom probably isn’t too inspirational unless you have some kind of magical wardrobe that transports you to Narnia in an instant. The world is beautiful, enlighten yourself with its endless surprises.

I’m sure the words ‘never give up’ have been instilled into your cosmic brain on many occasions. The post-powerful phrase has unfortunately fallen into the same category as the words ‘sorry’ or ‘I love you’ – a category of words and phrases that have lost their original values due to the creation of Facebook and the ’emoticon’ which have diluted their impacting meanings. But the phrase ‘never give up’ is the most supreme advice for anyone yearning for success in any aspect of life. It’s simple, quitters never win and winners never quit. If you don’t find a way to muster up the inspiration to write and stop procrastinating, then you’ll fail. If you do however, then you’ll win. You could be a terrible writer with no ideas and the mind of a sea cucumber, but if you persevere, and relentlessly strive towards success, then you’ll win. If you don’t, then you’ll lose. Now get out there and write the next Hobbit.

How to Become a Warehouse-smoking Junkie

“Happiness is the truth”

– Pharrel Williams

Blue cheese and Scrumpy Jack cider – an interesting combination of items that offers a night of unprecedented pleasure, tearful laughter and broken lighters. If you’re familiar with this combination then you’re likely on the same boat as me; a boat that is of a very old age, in dire need of a paint job, and possesses a gaping hole in the hull that’s causing the boat to sink rather expeditiously. However, if you’re not familiar with the two commodities above, and have no idea how these two items could possibly decipher a blissful Tuesday night in an abandoned warehouse with a friend, then you’re not only missing out, but you’re also probably not a junkie. Tuesday is the day of the week in which nothing significant ever seems to happen. It’s the day of the week that just seems to float by in the calendar without as much as a glint of purpose . Even Monday and Wednesday uphold more crucial purposes than Tuesday whereby Monday represents the beginning of another riveting week ahead and Wednesday signifies that there’s only half of the week left to endure before the next. But Tuesday however, only holds the purpose of informing everyone that there’s only three days left until Friday, nothing more. This is likely the reason that Jimmy and I received a lot of concerned looks last night in Asda as we where shockingly spotted by late-night shoppers attempting to drag two crates of Scrumpy Jack cider over to the check-out in the hopes that our Tuesday night would be considerably more eventful than that of any of the frowning onlookers. Perhaps another reason for the bewildered looks of passing shoppers was due to the fact that stuffed in Jimmy’s pocket was two grams of the most pungent, formidable blue cheese cannabis I’d ever had the pleasure of inhaling in my entire life. It’s eight o’clock on a Tuesday night, and Jimmy and I have decided to meet up at our usual spot in anticipation of our first smoke together in over a month. The rain is pathetically drizzling down and the crisp glacial air is fighting its way through the multiple layers of clothing that I had squeezed on just an hour before. Jimmy also looked the part. His shaggy brown cotton hat in partnership with his untamed patchy beard made him look like a drug-addicted serial killer, while I just appeared chubbier than usual due to the three jumpers and two pairs of trousers that I decided model upon meeting him. Due to not having a house to smoke in that night, we decided to rendezvous at the all too familiar abandoned warehouse just five minutes away from my house. After hastily dragging two crates of premium Scrumpy Jack cider we’d purchased just ten minutes before from our local superstore over to the entrance (gaping hole in the wall) of the derelict factory, we slowly began to trudge our way in. Directing ourselves through a pitch black warehouse on a Tuesday night in an ambitious attempt to the find the seating area we’d conjured up with a few planks of rotten wood and an ancient crate of beer the previous time we had smoked in there, was not a challenge for the faint of heart. The whole warehouse had been trashed by our junkie predecessors. Every inch of the floor was hidden by some form of rotten debris and the structure of the ceiling was bare and open. Sharp elements of splintered wood, shattered glass and twisted metal posed as common obstacles as we stumbled our way through the eerie corridors and rooms of the darkness. After taking a few frustrating wrong turns, we eventually managed to reach the pitch black room which we planned to reside in for the rest of the night. The room was stuffed with familiar aromas of corrosion, waste and smoked cannabis but our make-do seats still sat in the corner in immaculate condition, touched only by a few droplets of moisture since we’d last seen them. However, it was at this point that we realised a new challenge awaited us; the rolling of the joint. Of course, Jimmy had been rolling joints since his prepubescent days and had done so in almost every environment imaginable, but the ice-cold consistency of the night was clinging relentlessly to our numb fingers and the room lay in a thick blanket of darkness that not even a bat could survive in. The fiddly job of rolling the joint seemed impossible, even for the masterful joint-rolling abilities of Jimmy. There are three components required to roll a joint of cannabis: paper skins, marijuana (or pollen) and some form of ignition. Unfortunately, it came to light at this moment that not one us had remembered to bring any skins, adding to the impossible problem that faced us while we stood motionless in the centre of the visionless room. ‘Fuck! How did not one us remember to bring the skins!?’, Jimmy blared, enraged by our complacency. We began to recklessly hunt through the abundance of pockets that hung from our endless layers of clothing, digging up a Narnia’s worth of ancient receipts, empty cigarette packets and other pointless miscellaneous items that not even a homeless person could find a purpose for. To our own terror, not one of us had bothered to bring the first most essential item for any cannabis joint, the skins. A return to the superstore abruptly appeared back on the cards. One (or both) of us would have to trek all the back to Asda and purchase skins from the same woman who had reluctantly just sold us the cans of cider and cigarettes just twenty minutes previous to this dilemma. Jimmy hesitantly volunteered for the mission and I sat like a duck on the two corroding planks of wood, sipping away at a freezing can of Scrumpy Jack cider while he was destined to embarrass himself asking for one single packet of skins in the superstore at half past eight on a Tuesday night. I had an eternity to contemplate my life over the fifteen minutes that Jimmy was away. It was then that I stumbled upon a surprising revelation; that the only problems I really faced at this point in my life was the petty issues caused by a lack of money, such as that our lighter wasn’t working too well, or that we only had half a cigarette left to roll the last joint with, or that Jimmy didn’t have enough money for his taxi home. These are only problems fought by people who sit at the bottom of the chain of society, the bottom feeders. For normal people, if a lighter stops working or they lose a few cigarettes, the problem is swiftly resolved with a casual five-minute drive to the nearest store for a few cigarettes and a new lighter, but for Jimmy and I, it’s a night ruining experience that involves a panicked walk to Jimmy’s gran’s house in the hope that she’ll have a lighter that can be smuggled from the counter of her kitchen. Every time we venture out together, there’s always an issue, and it’s usually derived from some for financial trouble. This caused me to ponder about what the future holds, and if I’ll still be craving this lifestyle in the years to come. Jimmy returned with a full packet of skins and a look of despair on his face. He’d been questioned over the purpose of buying the skins and asked to present formal proof of age before being allowed to make the purchase. ‘I’m never doing that again you wee fuckin’ dick!’, Jimmy cursed, the embarrassment still evident on his blood-red cheeks. ‘Got asked loads of questions and the woman looked at me like I’m some kinda fuckin’ drug addict or something!’, he continued, fuming by what he’d just had to do. All I could do was apologise and excite over the fact that in five minutes, we would be igniting the strongest joint of weed I’d smoked in over a month. To our own amazement, the joint rolled beautifully, with the skins unwrapping smoother than a babies bottom into an immaculate rectangular shape and the miniscule beads of cannabis crumbling delicately into the bed of nicotine and paper which proceeded to roll elegantly into an impeccable cylinder. The joint was ready and all that awaited was ignition. Jimmy proceeded to pluck a lighter from his jacket pocket and held the mighty joint up to his frozen lips. Click, click, click–silence. Click, click, click–silence.  Not a single spark flew from the dark grey metals of the lighter, not a single hiss of flame. ‘Fuck! What we gonna do now!?’, Jimmy spurted, still incessantly trying to force any form of fire from the forsaken lighter. Subsequent to around ten minutes of frustration and discussion of our next move, Jimmy furiously asked me if I had any money so he could march all the way back to the store once again to purchase another lighter. We both began scouring through our pockets, digging out crumbs of nicotine and cannabis from the depths of our clothing until eventually Jimmy stumbled upon the skins he thought he never had before and I discovered just enough loose change to buy the cheapest plastic lighter. Jimmy snatched the money from my brisk dry palms and stormed off through the engulfing darkness of the warehouse, clattering into metal objects hanging down from the ceiling like bats as he did. Once again, I sat in the stingy room of the warehouse, contemplating the future and what it may hold. Jimmy returned with even more rage in his voice than when he’d left ten minutes ago. Jimmy returned with even more rage in his voice than when he’d left ten minutes ago. ‘I didn’t have enough fuckin’ money so I had to pay the rest with my card!’, Jimmy ranted. I couldn’t believe it, Jimmy had actually had to whip out his debit card in front of the woman he had already seen three times in the previous hour and pay for the rest of the lighter with the crummy change he had left over on his card. ‘How tragic is that?’, I whispered him nervously, to which I received a look of disgust from the ashamed man. Nevertheless, the only thing left to do now was pop open another can, and inflame the fetid joint that seemed to be crying out to be lit. We lit the joint, and the euphoric sensations and emotions commenced. After a couple of cans of cider and the first joint, I couldn’t even engage in human conversation – Jimmy would toss invoking conversations of deep meaning and sincerity towards me and I’d just laugh hysterically in his face or stare at him as if he’d just spoken to me in Mandarin. My altered brain could only concentrate on the tunes of happiness and truth echoing through the murky corridors and halls from the rusty speakers of my phone. It might sound crazy what I’m about to say, but what I felt at that moment was genuinely the most euphoric sensation I’d ever felt in my entire life. Feelings of absolute relaxation and elation slowly began to shiver down my addicted spine, alleviating every burden of stress and pressure as it did, leaving me in a floating state, away from the corruption and exploitation of Earth, placing me in a nirvana of freedom, truth and paradise. I think it’s safe to say I was quite out of it, untouchable by any external forces and unable to even think about the walk home. We triumphantly demolished both crates of cider, and that’s all my memory permits me to remember. I was awoken abruptly the next morning to the loud thud of my laptop crashing from my bed into a heap of dirty clothing, cigarette packets and crushed cider cans. I love my life. The only thing that seems to frighten me at this stage is the uncertainty of the future – but that’s everyone’s worry, right? I can only hope that in the years to come these will be the sort of tales that I can enlighten my grand children with on some cold Tuesday night in a hospital bed attached to a feeding tube while I ferociously battle my late eighties. Youth is what defines you as a person. Youth is your one opportunity as a human being to indulge in the sort of lifestyle you choose – whether it be studying every night for a business degree that will eventually see you work in an office run by some sanctimonious bitch that treats you like a scrunched up piece of paper, or whether it be taking a gamble every night and doing something that will ultimately lead you to crawling home in the freezing cold of the night praying that your has mum left the front door open so you can raid the fridges and tumble into your bed. Life is short, and I plan to make everyday as joyful an experience as possible. Even if I am junkie, I still love my life, and everything that it entails.

It’s a Wonderful Life

Life couldn’t be any more perfect right now and I’ve traveled such a long way since failing all of my exams at high school two years ago. Boasting a delightful job as chef at an Italian restaurant with imminent future promotional prospects, I’ve got oodles of money, an abundance of loyal friends and a life destitute of problems and worries. I just can’t get enough of this wonderful thing called life.

Taking a large step back into reality however, life couldn’t get any more tragic. I’ve quite exceptionally regressed since leaving high school, I’ve lost my most recent job, I currently have one friend who I’m fairly certain is a killer, and I’m haunted by the sad fact that my bank account holds minus fifty pounds. The phrase ‘rock bottom’ is often shallowly thrown around in modern times by the common Starbucks coffee drinker that couldn’t connect to Twitter for ten minutes, or by the mother who’s son’s hamster just passed away, but I for one, as an enemy of caffeine and an owner of a live hamster (with a pulse), believe that the rock has genuinely struck the bottom – even perhaps crumbling the foundations as it came flying down at thunderous speeds.

Today was a solemn day for me and the future that I was so perilously trying to pave into a path of success. This morning, I was let go from my chef position at the Italian restaurant I had been working at for two months, and for one harsh but simple reason, I just wasn’t good enough. After dragging myself out of bed at five o’clock this morning, I forced myself to walk five miles as a zombie in the bitter cold for the best part of two hours in order to make it into work for 6.30 AM in time for breakfast service. All of this painfully cold walking was due to the ridiculous ‘Sunday service’  bus policy that some rich successful man probably implemented in a villainous attempt to make my life harder by running less buses on a Sunday.

It was then, proceeding a surprisingly successful solo breakfast shift, that I was sacked by a waitress who had received orders from the manager to release me from my position as a chef at the restaurant. Apparently, my attitude to work wasn’t satisfactory and I just wasn’t grasping the technique that was required. Voraciously holding back my tears of anguish, I tried to make the conversation as short and painless as possible and soon left to catch the bus that incidentally, I missed. Midway through my harrowing walk of shame home, a frightening thought emerged from the saddened shadows of my mind, that my rock had just smashed against the foundations of my path to success.

I’ve hit rock bottom for a number of reasons. For one, I’ve got a laughable amount of money and a questionable number of friends. I left my previous job on a mere ten hours a week and became unemployed for a few weeks, tumbling into significant financial turbulence. I only received a crummy two weeks worth of pay from the company I’ve just been fired from, which almost lasted November, and I now possess only enough money for a small bag of Space Raiders from my local corner shop – which I’m considering doing now as a numb to the pain of the tragedy I’m currently living.

Scrolling down my Facebook feed is painful business for me. Watching the fly, popular university guys and girls that I used to know from school post countless pictures of driving test pass certificates and relationship status updates is a soul-destroying task as I sit unemployed in front of a 22-inch TV watching Mean Girls on Netflix. I literally only have one friend, that’s not counting halves. I find it tough to find friends courtesy of my unique personality and after shifting from high school to college to the working world in such a hasty transition has left any friends that I did miraculously manage to make, left behind doing other (likely more successful) things. I can only hope that when/if I find a new job, I can finally establish that group of friends that I’ve been aching to have for years now.

Perhaps a more minor problem to add to the avalanche of dilemmas I’m facing at the moment, is the fact that I literally don’t have a single girl in my life right now. I was taking great pleasure in texting a girl who I’d met on Tinder about a week ago, but unfortunately, that turned into a frantic disaster after she accused me of being a ‘chronic liar’ after I sent her a quote from a video I saw on YouTube. She claimed that I had not seen the video on YouTube and that I had definitely seen the video via a link that was posted on her Facebook page about a week ago, deeming me indefinitely as a ‘stalker’. Looking back, it was probably the most brainless argument I’d ever fought in my life. Needless to say, I think it’s safe to say that no female’s beds will be seeing any action from me in the near future.

Life can only get better, right? I’m 19-years-old and I feel as if I’m wasting these ‘golden years’. This is the final episode in the saga of my ‘free’ teenage years and the perfect time to take advantage of the liberties that come with being young – like partying, socialising, meeting girls and not lounging around the house with a teaspoon of Asda price Nutella hanging out of your mouth. I’m never going to look as magnificently beautiful as I do now given the fact that I smoke like a chimney and devour food like an overweight horse. These are the critical years of my life for shaping my own destiny and securing a decent future for myself, and as far as my teenage years have gone so far, I’m definitely zooming towards a life of selling magazines on the street and smoking second-hand cigarette butts.

I can say this though – life goes on, friends come and go, the perfect girl will arrive (hopefully) and no matter what, I’ll stay relentless in my pursuit of success. I’ll always look on the bright side of life…doo doo…doo doo doo doo.

How Not to Text a Girl (or anyone for that matter)

I’m the worst girl texter in the world. This is one of a series of negative revelations I’ve had over the last week, one of the others being that I can’t talk to girls in real life either. I had an undying hope that maybe talking to girls in real life just wasn’t my thing and that I compensated for it with my inconceivably amazing texting skills. But to my own dismay, I suck at both. Like seriously, I am genuinely in full belief that I am some form of anti-female that automatically sends anti-girl repellents with every text I send.

I’ve been using Tinder and I began my journey with an armoury of confidence and an ambition to elope with some of the hottest university girls in Scotland, and now I’m currently debating with myself whether or not I should open up my criteria to men as well as woman in order to increase my chances of getting matches. I guess you could say it’s not going too well. However, I have had a couple of small slices of success in that I’ve managed to obtain a few girls numbers. Granted, most of these prospects went south after a few days of trying to lure them out for a coffee.

So, the first significant chance I’ve had with actually meeting a girl from Tinder, was with this cute English girl from Devon that was studying at some posh university in Edinburgh. Her texting style was fashionably unique to me – dirty. That’s right, an incredibly good-looking girl from Devon was talking dirty to me and I had no idea how to deal with it. But, being the beacon of confidence that I was at the time (this was a few weeks ago), I knew I was wise enough handle it, and believe it or not, we eventually progressed on to exchange a few suggestive pictures. Admittedly, a small piece of me was a tad apprehensive about this but I’m sure it was just due to the fact that I’d never sent or received explicit images before. After a few days of the most seductive exhchange of pictures Facebook has ever seen, we planned a ‘meet & greet’ session at her house the following Friday.

This was a golden opportunity for me, and a rare one at that. I was ACTUALLY going to a girl’s flat and WAS going to have sexual intercourse with her. As much as I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, I prepared for the singular event comprehensively, laying out the exact outfit I was going to model three days before the event. Thursday swung around like a sharp axe and I blew all of my money expecting to get paid the next day. Waking up on Friday morning poorer than a church mouse was definitely not a riveting start to my day and I ended up having to tell her that I had been kept on at work and couldn’t make it. She never spoke to me again.

The second girl I somehow managed to ruse into exchanging numbers with from Tinder, was this small under-age 17-year-old with a broad Scottish accent – I only know that because I plucked up the courage to actually call her on the phone one night. When I first started texting her, everything was perfect. I wasn’t portraying myself as desperate, and she had a promising personality. My fingers seamlessly flowed from flirtatious letter to letter as every text I sent was triumphantly crowned with an equally fantastic text back. However, last night everything seemed to cave in and I’m quite certain I’m not the one to blame for it. In a matter of days, we went from casually chatting about meeting up for a coffee, to arguing ferociously over a YouTube video that she claimed I saw on her Facebook page due to me being a relentless stalker.

I sent her a text message with a quote from one of PewDiePie’s videos (never again), in the hope that she had seen the video, laugh and then ask me to marry her in Hawaii or something, but, by sheer coincidence, the same video had been posted on her Facebook a few days before and she viciously accused me of stalking her page. Enraged and baffled that she had called me a liar, I told her not to talk to me again. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

These are two prime examples of why I’m definitely the worst person at texting girls on the planet. I must have texted over 100 girls in my time, and from that I’ve had a mere two relationships, one of which lasting for four meager days and the other for around two weeks. Most girls I’ve had the privilege of texting in the past either think I’m too weird, a creep or a strong combination of the two. I like to think that I’m neither of those things and that it’s just the girl I’m texting isn’t smart enough to understand my clever jokes and cunning wit, but this is probably just me being a pretentious moron. I’ve tried going for the monotonous “Hey, how’re you?” form of chat enterprised by the “cool, normal guys” but it’s a challenge for me to keep my explosive personality in its cocoon.

The thing that bothers me most about this affront to texting, is that I’ve never actually had the grandeur of being with a girl that I actually fancy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been with girls that I like and that I find attractive – well, one girl out of the two I’ve been with, but when you take into consideration how many girls I’ve had heart pains over, I’ve not been successful with one. Not one. I think I’ll stick to my marijuana for now. Love is worth waiting for.

Marijuana, Valium, and The Sign

Over the past few months, and since becoming strongly acquainted with my best friend Jimmy, I’ve become quite accustomed to a combination of things that certainly doesn’t guarantee a night of premium comfort, sophistication and royal banter. When Jimmy first introduced me to cannabis, sitting on top of a giant metal sign in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But heck, we were only ever half a Valium tablet away from having a dreamily fantastic time on top of a traffic control sign.

How do I get myself into these situations? It doesn’t matter who I’m with or what I’m planning on doing, I always seem to end up in situations that no one else on my Facebook friend list could ever possibly get themselves into. This has advantages and disadvantages though because it means that it regardless of how monotonous I predict the night is going to be, I’m always aware deep down that a major plot twist is inbound and I’ll end up doing something crazy, like climbing a giant 20 foot tall traffic control sign next to a busy dual-carriage way.

Marijuana is the best thing that’s happened to me since my discovery of masturbation. Yes, it’s that good. The sudden injection of euphoric joy and comfort are sublime, and it hasn’t affected my everyday life in any noticeable way whatsoever. I can now officially call myself an apprentice ‘toker’, having been smoking at least 3-4 times a week for the last couple of months, a title I’m not sure if I can be proud of yet. The only thing that marginally concerns me about my newly found love for weed, is the idea that it’s a gateway drug – that it’s a drug that will lead me onto consuming other, more harmful drugs, like Valium for example. It’s also painfully expensive.

For those of you lucky individuals out there that haven’t got a clue what Valium is, it’s a small (often blue) anti-anxiety tablet prescribed by the doctor for people who struggle to sleep or for people (junkies) that require strong pain relief. I may or may not have devoured a full blue tablet last week due to an uprising of curiosity regarding the drug. Needless to say, after thirty minutes after taking the pill and a couple of joints, I was positively ‘rekd’ and could barely walk. It was a novel experience though, and as much as I try to stay away from tablets (because I know they could be genuinely harmful to my life) I’m sure it will happen again. I’m just not sure when, or where.

Jimmy and I have a very odd tradition. Every time we meet up, I always seem to end up manipulated into walking him half way back to his house, and en route, we pass this large metal traffic control sign – the ones with the big orange writing that warn drivers about traffic and weather. By the time we approach the sign, we’re usually in our own dreamy worlds and about a month ago, while passing, we decided to climb the 20ft. giant for the sheer purpose of feeding the unrelenting curiosity that was slowly chewing up our insides. We usually pass the sign at around midnight, when there is little traffic, but scrambling our half-zombified bodies up the freezing cold ladders (which only start halfway up the sign in order to prevent idiots from climbing it) and perching our cold skinny arses on the small metal platform where workers do all the electrical maintenance, is no mission for the faint of heart. Once you’ve committed to the climb, there’s no going back. And, you’re in plain sight of any oncoming traffic.

After reaching the top for the first time, hearts racing, we knew it was totally worth the risk of being caught and arrested. I mean, the view was nothing short of crap and it was achingly cold and damp at the top but the feeling that we’d actually just climbed a 20ft. sign and the world didn’t give a single fuck, was a feeling I’ll never forget.  We laughed hysterically the entire time we were up there, without a thought about how we would get back down again. That was the first thing in my life I had committed to that could genuinely have gotten me into a lot of trouble, and the thought of that gave me an authentic buzz I’d never experienced before.

One might have thought that after the first, second and third time of the pointless ascension up the sign, that the curiosity of the whole ordeal would have deceased. To our own surprise every time we pass that sign, a peculiar instinct kicks in and we’re off and up, trying our worst not to get spotted by the bustling traffic of the night.

A certain procedure is now unknowingly executed whenever Jimmy and I decide to meet up. To kick things off, we rendezvous at the grit bin located at the end of my street. Then, we head of to the stuffy old abandoned factory to smoke our blissful indulgences and talk about ISIS and other conspiring theories. And after that, we walk towards my local petrol station for munchies (sandwiches), trying to avoid eye contact with any sane human beings as we do. After this, Jimmy usually doesn’t have enough money left for a bus or a taxi (likely due to the petrol station’s extortionate sandwich prices) and therefore manipulates me into walking him half way back to his house, to which, I usually do. Halfway back to his house stands the sign. We then climb the sign, laugh, eat and smoke. These have been some of the best nights of my life.

I’m trying to enjoy every second of this crude lifestyle while it lasts.

I Can’t See any Future Vision of Myself

I’m a man of many dreams and ambitions, yet somehow I’m absolutely clueless to where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in the years to come. This genuinely scares me. However, it’s a very exciting thought that opens up the idea that anything can happen and at anytime. Since my future hasn’t already been fully determined, it’s up to me right now (the present Frank) to shape my own destiny, and take my life in whatever direction I see fit – at the cost of time, money, effort and motivation, of which I only have time. I’m currently working to obtain the other three.

Since leaving school at the age of seventeen, any hopes or dreams of progressing onto further education in a soggy pursuit of wealth and fame was expeditiously eliminated. I left school having failed every single exam in the last year due to an unforeseen interest in the opposite sex and ended up studying low-level engineering in a college department down at an old World War Two dockyard. Believe it or not, I failed that too, but it wasn’t by virtue of girls…trust me on that one. Currently, and by some miracle, I’m a chef at an Italian restaurant cooking all sorts of pastas, pizzas and breaded mozzarella dippers. I never aspired to be a chef, but after applying to become part of the bar team at TGI Friday’s in Edinburgh, I was offered a job as a line chef in the kitchen. To this day, I have no idea if obtaining that job was a crude mistake or just some form of sick joke designed to make me struggle at life even more than I currently did. Either way, I got my foot in the door and I’m now working as a chef at a bog standard Italian restaurant. Even just a year ago, the thought of being a chef would have caused a caused my head to shake in chronic disbelief. Yet, here I am, rolling pizza dough ‘n’ trying to not to plateau – like a mad boss.

This proves my point though, anything can happen and it can happen fast. Who knows where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in 2015. I could be a metropolitan traffic warden in Peru or a sandbox supervisor in Denmark, the possibilities seem endless. There’s probably a higher chance that I’ll end up fucking up the job that I currently have and become unemployed and poor, following a common past tradition.

I have an unrelenting appetite for ambition. For one, I’m  inexorably desperate to travel. I’ve never been out of Scotland and therefore longing to go on life-changing adventures in countries that I’ve never set foot in before. More specifically, I am very keen to ascend the Great Wall of China. But not the seductively refurbished tourist ridden parts. The real adventures lay within the derelict sections of the wall where one slip or trip would result in plunging face first into a grimace of ancient rock. All I need is £5000, a toothbrush and a camera that doesn’t resemble the video capabilities of a broken toaster.

I also possess this unwavering desire to get rich, and maybe famous. I’m always thinking about money, and can never have enough of it. This is likely the reason why I used to gamble so much (I don’t now because I have nothing to gamble with). I’m constantly finding new methods of making money. Last year, while jobless, I set up a an affiliate marketing account online and started generating £150 a week with only two assets: time, and a half-broken netbook with a painfully limited CPU speed. It’s the little things in life that make me happy, but if I was rich, oh ya bandit, would I make a life for me and others around me. Fame isn’t such an essential to me but it’s not something I’d complain about if I had it.

People at my work don’t believe me when I tell them that one of my ultimate dreams in life is to wield the pen as a writer. I suppose it is quite ironic that while I hold down one of the most hands-on jobs positions on the planet, I yearn to do a job that ultimately uses 100% brain power and very minimal muscle power. I’ve always thought of myself as preferring physical work over work that exclusively involves the mind, which was certainly reflected in my school years, but after struggling as a chef for a few months, I’ve quickly realised that my brain is a lot more athletic than my arms and hands! Let’s just say that being a chef has certainly been a convincing learning curve for me, and not something I feel I could locate success and passion in.

With all of these chimeras floating around fantastically in my head, there doesn’t seem to be an strikingly obvious avenue for me to walk down that will lead me to any of these dreams. I have very little money, terrible spending habits and only enough qualifications to weasel my way into another stuffy college. I understand that if a person is to convert a life ambition into a reality then there are a cascade of challenges to be overcome, and many sacrifices to be made – it requires a maelstrom of time, money and effort.

I’m still thriving to obtain all three of these life essentials before embarking on my mission to become rich by writing the first ever novel on top of the Great Wall of China. But until then, it’s life in the kitchen for me.

I Love Smoking Cigarettes, but is it Worth it?

Cigarettes are amazing little things…to nicotine addicts. I’m trying to outweigh the seemingly limitless con’s of smoking with the rare pro’s but I’m not sure if it’s possible yet – it’s certainly an ongoing project of mine. I love smoking, but there are so many things associated with smoking that scare the hell out of me, such as the fact that the tar will eventually turn my teeth and lungs black and I’ll die by heart implosion by the time I’m thirty. I’ve been puffing away regularly for around five months now, with a combination of fear and pleasure running through my veins simultaneously. With my five months experience with the cancer sticks, I think I’ve obtained the warrant to share the riveting facts about smoking and what it entails.

Smoking feels fabulous (most of the time). After a long and hard days work, a blissful glass of wine and a cigarette is the premium combination for anyone that’s not rich. If you are rich however, then the addition of a cigarette while you immerse into a steamy pool of bubbles and a bottle of brandy is also dangerously deluxe. Cigarettes do pose as an effective method of relieving stress, there’s no question about – nicotine physically relaxes the body and the mind. The euphoric feeling of a morning cigarette is something I also highly recommend you stay away from, because it’s heavenly to say the least.

It does reek though, and your left with a taste in your mouth that’s nothing short of repugnant for a good hour afterwards. This is the most obvious con of smoking and the risk that frightens me the most. After smoking a cigarette, your fingers will also resemble the smell of lingering smoke if you don’t thoroughly scrub them with soap and hot water. Your clothes may also transform into a bouquet of smoke if you don’t spray enough Lynx Africa in the morning. This is the most burdened part of smoking for me but at the moment I’m half-willing to make the sacrifice.

I’m not rich (did I fool you?) and smoking is an extortionately expensive habit that will swiftly deprive you from the finances you receive from your minimum wage job. It might not seem like a lot of money when you first embark on your journey to lung cancer, but after a couple of months (when you start buying them more often) you’ll probably realise that you’re actually spending £10-£15 a day on these smokey treats. Due to small pockets of financial turbulence riddling my life at the moment, I’m currently smoking my mum’s cigarettes – that’s if she’s actually bothered to leave any butts next to the compost bin at the back of the garden. Smoking is expensive, and it will cost you a fortune in the long run.

Here’s the most obvious association of smoking and the risk that repels people the most – allegedly, there’s a high chance that you’ll die younger than people who don’t smoke. Unlike a lot of people, this really doesn’t bother me. I’d rather live a shorter life doing things that I enjoy rather than a longer life hiding in the shadows, away from the things that I know I want. To an extent, life’s far too short to be worrying about calories and cancer. Obviously, cigarettes do physically drain the nutrients from your body over a significant  period of time and they are destined to affect your health, but until the day comes that I can’t rake the compost bin for my mum’s cigarette butts because I don’t have enough stamina, then I’ll keep doing it.

Let’s just agree on one thing here, smoking is cool, but only exclusively to the people that were cool before they started smoking. If you’re standing at the front of the job centre with your left leg up against the wall in Umbro cottons and a shiny red Adidas track suit top, then you probably don’t squeeze into the category of being a ‘cool smoker’, and you should probably find a job. However, a leather jacket in partnership with a delicately slicked back hair-do will take you right back to the 80’s and you’ll look far more wicked than any of the schmucks from Grease.

To put all of my points to bed, I smoke cigarettes because I enjoy it, not because I need to quench the endless cravings. I could stop if I wanted to, but why would anyone stop doing something that they enjoy? Life’s short, and I plan on indulging in as many valuable experiences as I can, within reason, with the life I’ve been gifted with. If you’re a non-smoker however, then avoiding the glory of the nic sticks is probably the wisest idea – it’s not worth your time, money or lavish clothes. Cigarettes are like Pringle’s, once you open that packet and take one, you won’t stop. Nobody in the history of mankind has ever just eaten one Pringle.

I Have No Money and I Think it’s Due to Sandwiches

I’m almost certain there’s a large quantity of people of there that share this exact same problem…but for the right reasons. I’d love to be able to boast that I’m skint due to taxes, or rent, or other righteous monthly expenses. But no, I’m just poor – and for no excusable reason.

I live with my parents (is that really a surprise?) and I possess the great privilege of not having to pay for any monthly rent, food, or anything of the sort. I live for free and work full-time. The only commodities I have to pay for are my bus fare to my work, and of course, my £30 monthly phone bill. So why am I poor?

The title of this post is a vicious lie may I just hasten to add, I do actually have money. I believe my online bank account holds a very precise £2.67, which should allow me one more trek to my local shop to buy a small quantity of chocolate and fizzy juice.

I don’t even know what I buy that seems to drain my finances so extortionately. I spend like a rich man and save like Iker Casillas at the world cup. The only items that spring to mind that I can definitely say I purchase on a regular basis are cigarettes, marijuana, cider, sandwiches and gambling coupons. I know, I really do live life to its absolute fullest. However, I never seem to go shopping, I rarely get my hair cut and I barely ever splurge money on expensive gadgets like new TVs, computers or mobile phones. So why the small numbers?

Last Friday, I got paid a total sum of £305, and by some miracle, even though it had to scrim me the entire month, I ended up with fizzy juice value money by the Sunday. Now, it may partly be due to the fact that I decided to place £100 on the Bulgarian under nineteen woman’s netball team to beat the Japanese under nineteen woman’s netball team on Bet365 (they drew), but I still haven’t got the slightest clue to where the other £200 ran off to. Of course, I went to my local pub on the Friday and Saturday (which I’m now banned from) but I only ever have a maximum of three-four pints depending on how strong my legs are feeling. I only bought a cheap new jumper and a new pair of shoes from Primark, got my haircut, bought a sandwich (or two), and paid for my bus fare, and yet still, by Sunday I had only two bolts to my name. I never even bought any drugs.

And this has been dragging on for months now. I take my average working class £200 weekly wage, and it’s almost certainly gone by the next Friday payday. Except for that one time where I miraculously managed to save £50, which I’m still extremely proud of to this day. It’s actually one of my few achievements to date in my tragic life.

One thing is obvious though, having no money sucks. It can genuinely screw you over. I met this very ‘forward’ girl on Tinder about a month ago. We didn’t really talk much about each others interests or our lifestyles, in fact we didn’t really talk much at all. We communicated in this strange pictorial way that’s exclusive to the new generation of teenagers – is that subtle enough? Basically, I was going to visit her flat on the upcoming Friday and we agreed that we were going to have a lot of fun. The only items I required money for was wine, pizza and train fare. THAT IS IT. Just a mere £30. I had £50 in my bank on the Thursday, which I coined as ‘Shagmas eve’ due to my eagerness for the next day and everything seemed to perfectly set up for the grand occasion. I was working the next day but I had already set out my blue print for the entire night including train times, what kind of wine I was going to purchase and my opening line for when she greeted me in her sexy see-through underwear at her flat door. This was destined to be the best night I’d had in a long time. But…the next morning I tragically awoke to just a measly handful of change, a pounding hangover and a bad hair day. Expecting to get paid the next day, I squandered all my £50 on marijuana and woke up the next day to an empty bank account and a stiff erection. My work had changed it’s payment plan to monthly and I had totally forgot about this. Devastated, I couldn’t go due to lack of finances. No finances. I had been screwed by myself – which I also did multiple times that day while crying into a pillow in an attempt to numb the pain. After calling her and informing her that I couldn’t come because ‘I had been kept on at work’ (the classic excuse), she never really showed interest in me again. ‘Shagmas’ only comes once a year I’d missed it.

Money is a precious and powerful necessity, spend it wisely or acquire big balls.

How to Get Banned from Your Neighbours House

For a nineteen year old male teenager, being banned from your own local pub is probably the worst thing that can happen. I wish my goldfish had died instead. This is genuinely how I feel. ‘The Tavern’ was a big part of my life. Four nights a week after work I would scramble to the bus stop, hop on a bus, bolt to my house, throw on a shirt and any kind of cheap Christmas gift standard aftershave, and then bomb it to the tavern (all three metres next door).

Major tragedy inbound: Due to my best friend deciding to carry what he called, the ‘dankest stinky stink green’ (weed) he had ever obtained, into the pub, and then roll it inside the tiny bathroom located directly behind the bar, we both faced a permanent ban stating that we could never step through the glorious black pine doors into The Tavern ever again. Just like that, my social life was obliterated into a million small pieces and thrown to the dogs.

The Tavern was a delightful wee pub located right next door to my house – that’s right, my own neighbours have banned me from their house. Everyone in the Tavern knew everyone, it was a very diverse family of learned drinkers. The jukebox was cheap (free Mon-Tues) and the banter was as sweet as the cider. The owners even had a small dog named ‘Stella’ that would pleasantly weave in and out the vintage furniture greeting all the regulars to a belly-rub invitation and a lick on the foot. Honestly, this pub is (was) the best thing since Gangnam Style.

I later found out what type of marijuana my friend was carrying, and it turned out to be the premium ‘tangerine dream’. Research told me that this dry and crispy weed is one of the most pungent type available on the market which likely explains why the bartender scouted the toilets instantly after my friend came out. Admittedly however, after smoking the ‘dank stuff’ at a bench in the woods the same night I was banned, it did bring me an abundance of salvation which brought with it a temporary blanket of comfort (or forgetfulness) over the horrific events of the previous hour that would almost certainly hit me like a torpedo in the morning upon my awakening to a killer hangover.

That last sip of Blackthorn cider at The Tavern will stay with me for eternity. Sure, I could just go to my local Asda and buy a large plastic bottle of the stuff for a cheaper price, but the junkie-like, wholesale essence to the taste will never match the ice-cold taste of a pint of cider in the place that existed as a major component of my life for just over a year. Now the closest I’ll ever get to that beautifully varnished wooden bar is through sticking my head into the fireplace and listening eagerly to the classic jokes and fables of some of the more ‘experienced’ drinkers at The Tavern.

It wasn’t even the alcohol that most attracted me to the The Tavern. On a good night I would only be able to skirt around the region of 3-4 pints before falling into a great pit of drunkeness. To be quite honest, I’m more surprised that I didn’t get barred the night I stepped into the dangerous territory of having six pints and broke the bathroom door off it’s hinges. At least I actually had something to do with that, unlike the current reason for my ban – I never possessed the drugs nor did I try to roll them into a joint in the bathroom. But, if you fly with the crows, you get shot with the crows, fair enough.

My legacy at The Tavern has now deceased and my social drinking life has entered into frantic turbulence.

‘But Frank, there are plenty of other pubs out there?’, they say. ‘Fuck off’, is what I say.

Welcome to My Life

Over the space of the last ten minutes, I’ve been contemplating my own life and where I stand as a human being on this strange planet. Basically, I’ve just judged myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that my life is nothing short of tragic (but in a sort of enjoyable way). I feel as though I could do a lot more, see a lot more and meet a lot more people. I like to think that I’m a very bright teenager that’s capable of doing a lot more than what I’m currently doing (sitting on my arse letting Netflix slowly devour my life). However, here’s the problem. Well, here’s a list of ALL the problems that have seemingly snaked their way into my life since I turned the age of eighteen last year…

In no particular order, here is a list of problems that range from serious (from my perspective) to possibly laughable (in your perspective) – don’t you dare. I can only hope that there are people out there that can relate to these:

1. I gamble too much (£100 gone last night)

2. I only have one and a half friends

3. I can’t seem to hold a job down for any longer than two months

4. I have been smoking marijuana for the last two months on a regular basis, and last night for the first time, I took a tablet of valium.

5. I have no money

6. I can’t see any future vision of myself

7. I’m fairly sure my best friend is a killer

8. I am a love/hate kind of guy, but it usually turns into hate after a sufficient amount of time

9. I have one ear bigger than the other

10. I smoke cigarettes, which bothers me (I still do it though)

11. Last night I got banned from the pub I live next door to because my friend rolled a joint in the bathroom

12. I have no girls in my life right now

13. I am not close to my step-dad, whom I’ve known since I was five years old

I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but those are all the only issues my mind can conjure up at this moment in time. The list will more than likely take pleasure in hitting the triple digits by Christmas at the latest.

Over the months to come, I am going to discuss these problems in more embarrassing detail and on the way, share some of the most mortifying stories that I force my face to wince upon even just thinking about them – there’s a considerable amount of roasters in there somewhere.

Before I go and smoke the cigarette doubt that I may or may not find near the compost bin at the back of my garden, I would just like to point out that I am in no way a depressed or even suicidal person. I love life and the sheer excitement that anything can happen at any time. I am a very positive and motivated (Well, I’m motivated to become motivated) individual. The reason behind the creation of this blog is to investigate whether or not there are other people out there that can relate to a lifestyle that is similar to my own.