Youthful Discretion

I don't know why I've been having trouble writing things here lately. I suppose I haven't had as much time for one reason or another. There's no reason I couldn't just post a dialogue between two random objects. That's easy.

(Flannel: Hey

Egg-cup: What's up?

Flannel: Nothing much.

Egg-cup: Plans for today?

Flannel: I thought I might absorb some water. You?

Egg-cup: Well, I'd like to cup an egg. But some NIMROD keeps putting kiwi fruit in here.)

But I've been reluctant to launch into one of those. I suppose I want to write something interesting and profound. Like an essay about the Middle East. But I can't quite generate the momentum.

Yesterday I thought I had come up with something profound. It was about dying in dreams. You usually wake up after dying, as your brain can't deal with it. You've called reality's bluff. It shows there's an innate understanding that there is nothing outside of life.

But that's probably not that interesting. And probably false.

It would be ok if I had some anecdotes to fall back on. As I've mentioned before, I have no anecdotes. It's not really a complaint. I have a great time doing nothing. And I'd probably be annoyed if I met a lunatic in the street or was drawn into a hunt for a missing grandfather clock.

But maybe I should spend one day per month wandering around an unfamiliar city, dressed as a flamingo, just to have something to write about.

I've pondered talking about some incidents from when I was a child. I walked on a glacier in Canada. I got my finger stuck in a wooden toy railway track. I seem to recollect having a magic torch of some kind.

Maybe that will be something to think about for future posts. I'm sure I got into all kinds of japes and hijinx. It was like something from an Enid Blyton book - perpetual summer, building boats, shunning ethnics, eating picnics, evading paedophiles, playing Centipede on the Atari 5200, sleeping in treehouses, drinking ginger beer, watching Why Don't You?, drinking alcopops, catching smugglers.

In many ways they were the happiest days of my life.

My favourite Enid Blyton series was The Birmingham Six. Together with their dog, Scamper, they solved all kinds of problems. Mostly prison-based, as I recall.

I might write a series of children's books based around my own childhood. It could be called The Lonely One. Each book could deal with my attempts to solve the mystery of my own isolation. With my invisible dog: Scamper (who has since been put to sleep).

Wow, that got quite dark! None of that is true! (Except the glacier and train-track stories).

I had a very happy childhood. Blissfully eventless. Just like my life now.

I'd rather have a nap than an adventure.

Also, aren't the best adventures the ones that occur within your own consciousness? Aren't the greatest mysteries the ones concerning the very nature of existence? Isn't my realisation about death dreams a more exciting treasure than any amount of smugglers' gold?

Well?

Isn't it?