Absent Father

I forgot my blog's birthday this year. It was on July 2nd. That was ages ago.

Never mind. It's not like a child. It won't resent me for my forgetfulness. I hope.

It was four. Four years. It seems older. It seems longer.

I wonder how many words I've written in that time. I wonder if I could have employed those words on a more worthy project.

I don't really wonder that. What could be more worthy than this? I can't think of anything.

***

I can't think of anything.

My brain is empty. I'm not angry at anything. I'm not excited about anything. I'm not amused by anything.

I can't think of anything.

I'd better get some coffee and we'll see where we are after that.

***

I'm back, but my coffee's too hot to drink.

Where was I?

Oh yes: inside a vacuum, inside a beige dome, in the middle of the Gobi desert, inside another beige dome, in the middle of the emptiest section of deep space.

Actually, that sounds quite fun.

What shall we discuss whilst my coffee cools?

Dum-de-dum-de-dum. (I'm twiddling my thumbs etc)

Keep in mind, I can't think of anything.

Oh! Hey!

Do you ever do that thing, right, where you're all like "I'd better answer the phone", right, because the phone is ringing, yeah? And you go and pick up the phone and press the green phone key or 'accept call' or whatever, and you're all "Hello?" and then the person on the other end of the phone is like "Is this Roxy?" and you're all "Umm, does this sound like Roxy?", and they're all "Is this Roxy?" and you have to go "No, mate. I'm a man." and they're all like "Oh, sorry", and then you're all Roxy?

Do you ever do that thing?

My coffee is now so cold, I could eat my dinner off it.

***

A lot of people would say: "If your head is empty - if you have NOTHING to say - then why write a blog post?"

A lot of people would say that if a lot of people read this.

Well, having nothing to say is the cornerstone of all good blogs. That's what a blog is. It houses nothing. It stretches nothing all flat like pizza dough and covers it in sparkly .gifs and headers and links to other bits of nothing elsewhere.

Where would be without nothing? Nowhere. There's something to be said for not saying anything. And a blog allows you to say it in bold.

***

Three reasons why I'd never throttle a dog:

1) I like dogs, and dislike cruelty to animals
2) If I was going to kill a dog - and I'm not (see reason 1 above) - I'd use a more foolproof method, i.e. luring it into the path of a tram or drowning
3) There's something inaccessible about the neck of a quadruped. Do they even have necks?

***

I haven't been to a child's birthday party at Wimpy since I was myself a child.

***

Sometimes, writing a blog (and forgive me if I, with my meagre four years of blogging experience, am patronising the many blog veterans that comb my writing for gold dust) is a case of typing. Not writing, but typing. You're not looking for meaning. You want meaning to come to you.

Type. Type, by God! Don't think. Don't write. TYPE.

If an infinite number of monkeys sat at an infinite number of typewriters, ink demand would be high. You'd need to ship in an infinite number of octopuses. Then there'd be tentacle/typewriter jamming situations. The catering would be a logistical nightmare.

But you'd get the Complete Woks of Shokespeare.

So some experiments yield diamonds.

The end justifies the self-indulgent means. (And we all know what self-indulgent means! I know I - Paul - certainly do(es).)

***

You see?

This whole thing began with me typing. But look at the fruit it has... yielded? Is that right? It can't be "yeld", can it?

The octopus thing, the evocation of Roxy, the un-proofread rawness and intimacy of the whole thing.

Always leap before you look at yourself in the mirror. Pride doesn't come from accomplishment, it comes from taking risks and dragging unwilling companions into a cave for no reason. Because that glint - the glint that could easily be a hungry crocodile's eager eye - could just as easily be a diamond.

A crocodile's diamond.