Crept Long

So aye, the latter part of Sunday was ok, I think. After I left the land of the Interweb I drifted along to the Cowgate to see SM's new band playing at a metal all-dayer thing. It was freezing cold outside but oddly appeared to be even colder inside the Subway. This didn't rectify itself quickly either. Even the presence of 75 or so metallers didn't raise the temp to any great degree. Not sure that this is biologically possible. Maybe the pliss was populated entirely by the undead. The book of heavy metal does indeed draw the appropriate audience. SM's combo were giddily + hugely entertaining. This is not meant in the patronising stylee either. They were great fun. Total 'death' wig outs complete with some storming crunch and surging choruses. Sometimes the metal and punky fraternity tend to enjoy the generic elements of their music and get bemused when something is presented to them that doesn't quite beat the trod path. Under Thorns manage to rampage along this path and to not veer from it but also to retain their own brand of, as I have heard it described, 'paste', to a bone shattering nth degree. Gav, the singer and a man I have a fair amount of respect for due to his endeavours in the rather great In Decades Decline, seemed to be having the absolute time of his life. This involved grunty song intros, blood capsules and adoption of a splendidly OTT heavier than thou persona. I feel that too few folk tend to come away from too few gigs saying that they had a great time and that they enjoyed themselves. I can honestly say that I was entertained and had fun. I remind you too that this was their first gig. I think the potential for major heaviosity as well as high camp is there plain to see. Really did feel envigorated by this. If I wanted contrast, I found it in the world of commerce. I then headed oot o' town tae the Asda enormo store to buy another fat bastard shirt and some kitchen ephemera. Started thinking a wee bit more of DT and his funeral tomorrow. To counter this I phoned KB and had a guid chat on the usual subjects. This helped. Having a voice to talk to has become essential to me over the last wee while in particular. Not sure this is a good sign but I've tried to restore some perspective at most times. Expected to feel down once I got back to the shithole. Not sure that I did really. This gave me a reasonable feeling for the morn. Also while out at the Asda store I saw one of the biggest people I have ever seen. In a sicko style this cheered me up. Christ I am undoubtedly a fat bastard but some folk are way way bigger than me. I think this says something pretty shan re my character and I felt shit for thinking it. Add sizeism to my portfolio. 20-stone behemoth in 'I hate 30 stone men outburst'. Late on I had a wee MSN chat wi' A-W. We confirmed plans for meeting on Tuesday night. This made me very happy. Of course I'm already getting para re 'stuff'. I have to work on that.. even later I had a bit of a farcical exchange wi' another lass frae the land of contrived dating. We spoke once, a while back. I kinda left off talking to her online again as I wasn't sure we had owt in common...and other cliches... She messaged me and we chatted in a stilted manner for a while. We got friendlier and she started talking about 'her new photo'. I've had this situ before on Interweb dating things. These 'I'll show you mine etc etc' exchanges are something I don't know how to handle. What are you supposed to say if someone tells you they hae a new pic? Aye hen you look awfy nice?/ you looked better in the last one?/ where did you have yer hair done?... I feel like it's impossible to avoid being a sleazy mofo. I spoke wi' one person once who ended up emailing me a pic of her bosoms. This was not something I was keen on and certainly did not request it. It cooled things between us somewhat. Anyway, the inevitable exchange ensued and I sent her a new pic of me. I think she maybe wanted to make a 'final decision' on me via seeing a pic. I sent it after expressing some only slightly feigned reluctance. The general vibes with our 'chats' just seemed 'wrong' tho. Her initial reply to the photae was 'what's wrong with that?'. I sought clarification. I mentioned that I thought I may have sent her a tiny thumbnail thing. She replied with 'no it was ok here'. This was followed by total silence. I think my saturnine good looks left her somewhat nonplussed. The silence continued. Strangely enough I didn't mind. It's true. Anyway, I think I managed to keep certain feelings re DT and tomorrow sufficiently at bay....woke up on Monday. Felt shattered as if the weight o' the day had already started to descend. But practicalities managed to kick in and I got suited up. Not a natural thing at all for me. I genuinely detest suits. In all honesty and seriousness I would ban them. I'm not a fan of gestures of uniformity or of buying into a notion of importance or normality. To me all the suit does is signify compliance/ obedience and assorted class struggle crap that is probably too tiresome to bother outlining. By 'selling out' (fucking hell, the vacuity of that phrase defies belief) and wearing 'the suit' today I made a wee gesture for DT as he was a 'man of a certain age' who would have appreciated looking 'nice' and 'neat and tidy' etc. It don't mean that I intend to look for work with Deloitte Touche ok?..Managed to make it to my current work. Got carried along on the preparatory train. Got a taxi to the 'Crem' with a coupla the other clients. Forced jolity in the back seat. 'Avoidance' of talking re DT. An atmosphere that was simply 'wrong'. Finally made it there. A long taxi ride which took us past 2 'shunts'. The 'crem' in question was like a fucking plantation of death and mourning. Mammoth crematorium area complete with multiple chapels of various sizes and a huge cemetary quadrant as well. The sheer scale of it all was genuinely overwhelming. I felt like I was in Vegas. I thought an Elvis impersonator would appear and dish out a mean eulogy. My mind went way way off somewhere. I thought of DT telling me about Anthony Perkins and how he didn't like him very much. I recalled how he told me he used to work in a hotel...DT not Anthony Perkins... He liked the size of the place. He liked how he could hide in all the empty rooms. I thought of him telling me how he 'wasn't too bad. Not top of the form but ok'. I remembered him liking the fact I knew about modern films. He thought we were a good double act. He knew everything about anything which came out before the 70's. I knew most things after that. I remembered him asking me 'who are the only group who could play at The Royal Edinburgh Hospital? or 'what group could go in the REH and come out the same way?' My mind drifted on to TLK. I couldn't think of anything other than her telling me re going on a bender for a week. I remember her telling me she'd fallen while pissed and had a black eye. I was worried but I knew she would never accept me worrying about her. This thought hurt me again. I'm not 'over her'...more vacuity.... The reality of this brought me down even further. I was thinking all this when I saw her complete with black eye. She looked fried. She said 'alright?' to me without looking. She was walking away from me as she said it. I'm not sure I replied. Inside the chapel. Odd, chatty and 'inappropriate' comments from clients. Religious bullshit in spades and spades. The minister was a patronising streak of piss who seemed fixated on the fact that DT 'had a mental health problem'. This was what defined him in certain eyes. He was 'mad'. He was 'blighted'. In god's eyes he was probably 'an unfortunate' or someone to be cured by a random act along the lines of turning piss into Pernod. The combo of old shits in dog collars, the fact that every single person attending the funeral trotted out the line 'it was a lovely service', the fact that DT was dead and was rotting away inside a box in front of me, the fact that I couldn't allow myself to look in TLK's direction and the feeling I had that I was starting to get ill just about blew my mind. The feeling of being asleep that I'd felt on the day he died drifted back in. I was somewhere watching the events taking a certain shape. I was watching a scruffy fat man, scrubbed up, fidgeting in a big suit on the fringes of a group of people, most of them seemed to be laughing, none of them were talking to the fat man. Some of them were wearing suits. The suit wearers were talking less than the others. The others were chatting. They looked happier. They had 'got over' DT's death. The suited ones were weighed down by it. They couldn't get DT out of their minds. The fat man couldn't get DT or one of the non suit wearers out of his mind. He thought of them over and over. The thoughts came like a flood. A flood of rusty water from the 'red pond' near the Alcan plant in Burntisland to be precise. Red. Ginger hair. Blood. Coughing it up. Covering your feelings. Your pain. Blocking up your thoughts. Choking the fat man. The fat man almost gave in to this attack but realised he was being foolish. He snapped out of 'it' a little. He talked to the other people in suits and got in a taxi with them like he was supposed to. He didn't acknowledge anyone...anyway, I've got fed up of talking of masel in the third person or however many it is..maybe you get the message, maybe you don't..Not sure where the rest of the afternoon went but it did. I think I finally realised DT was dead when I got back to the work and we had a cup of tea and a sandwich for the sake of tradition. 3 people were there apart from me and the depute boss. I nearly choked on a cheese sandwich. I had to clean crushed egg off the carpet. TLK wasn't there. Neither was DT. I thought so much of him. He didn't realise. His life held little for him outside of pain and suffering. He genuinely wanted to die. Some would say 'He's at peace now' well, I know he can't think and feel anymore. He's nothing but bones and rotting flesh. There's nothing physical that made him him.He's gone. There's nothing there to generate more of the madness and turmoil and pain and delusion and strife which ran through the DT I knew. Maybe he is at peace. All there is is his wee black bag of clothes and photos and glasses and books ready for the charity shop. The thought of this sitting in his flat fucking destroys me. You too can buy the detritus of a life for a quid. It's not right...

Came out of the fog for a while later in the day I think. Told the depute I would be quitting my job as soon as I had something else. I was going for 'personal and financial' reasons. In reality I'm going exclusively for TLK reasons. I need more money, aye, but I can't handle being around her, particularly if she's going to give me the cold shoulder. I think I know her. She doesn't particularly like reflecting on things. She tends to just cut you off if she thinks you might hassle her or cause her angst or get in the way of anything. I know that now. Think she might start to be 'difficult' at work too. Maybe I'm not thinking straight. Maybe I am. Who knows? Anyway..got away frae work.. Met AM. Great chat and company. Felt as if I was ok. Went home to the shithole. Felt ravaged by paranoia. Remembered a msg TLK left in the diary at work. It was petty. A needless dig at me. She's out to annoy me and hurt me. She hates me. Everyone does. She'll turn me against KS. She'll drive me out as soon as she can. She'll hurt me even more. I'm alone. I can't take it. It'll always be like this. Felt my head going out the window. Phoned mother, of all people. She loves me. I've never doubted that. I needed to feel that. Of course the reality is I tell her too much and she gets so wrried about me that she gets ill too. I fuck everything up etc etc. Think she did bring me round a bit tho'. Managed to sleep on Mon night, fairly well in fact but still fucking knackered on Tue. Got into work late. Thoughts still there but buried in fatigue. Met KS. She was the same as ever. A Fifer. Friendly. Real. Open. I told her I was leaving. She said 'I hope you change your mind'. She meant it. I felt better. She said ' Don't leave because of one person. One member of staff'. I mumbled something unconvincing I can't remember. She knew the score. This made me feel way way better. Had a bit of a compassionate interrogation from the area manager at the work later. He was dying to find out why I was leaving. I repeated the personal and financial thing. He said 'we would rather you stayed with us'. Somehow he seemed to know why I was leaving too. I didn't know how he could tell this from what I said. This didn't make mne feel quite as good. It seemed as if he'll give TLK and me shit at one point for the fact she came down to the hospice on the day DT died. She wasn't on duty. I was. She wanted to be involved. To do something for DT. I wished it was because she wanted to support me. She didn't do it for this reason. I have been very stupid of late. Apparently the fact she came down created 'operational issues'. I really couldn't give a rat's ass...The day finished wi' another client emergency...hospitalisation...piss and shit everywhere...ambulance called...another sick person...conveyer belt of misery...Didn't seem able to dwell on all of this. I just washed my hands and went on a date with A-W. Jeez, I like A-W a great deal. It's taken me 2 dates to realise this. She is a lovely person. Kind. Passionate. A bit bruised. Uncertain at times. Funny. Warm. I will say now that I predict I will fall in love with her before long. I know I shouldn't make predictions but in this case part of me wants to. As to whether she 'likes' me. Of course I'm not sure. We clearly get on well. We're going on a 3rd 'date' next week. This makes me happy. I'll keep you briefed....Wed so far has been 'an average day' for me. Flurries of activity and frustration at work. Some good thoughts whenever A-W comes to mind. Some TLK paranoia. Some feelings of worthlessness. Some hopelessness re debt. The odd thought of 'ending it'. The odd thought of places I might go one day. Uncertainty of where I'm going, what I am etc...I have the odd moment where I feel as if I just soak it all up like an old sponge. These aren't bad feelings by any means. Post work, I ended up here in Interweb land yet again. Chloe Sevigny is on shift tonight. She looks incredible. I feel like nothing but the embodiment of hetero scum. Earlier she had a rather amazing sesh of flirting wi the Spanish guy who works here. He had just flipped his lid over some 'staffing issues'. The way he pronounced 'motherfucker' and 'shit' were simply magnificent. CS likes him a great deal. I really hope they get it together. CS's pal arrived later. They have great French accents...hetero scum again...it's all quite exhilerating...ain't it just....

PS The answer to both of DT's two questions was....Madness...he really was a great man...