If You Can't Join Them

24.08.14 (Day 245)

09.42

I learned a lot at grammar school, and primary school in fact; joined-up writing was one. I've learned a lot more in the last eight months about life. Something I've been capable of throughout is joined-up thinking. 

Among the many imaginary labels hung on my door at the squat was "THERAPIST": thank fuck I learned joined-up writing at primary school. Were it not for the omission of that space, I might have been mistaken for someone who fucked people against their will. That's something which is going on now, with the division of the old family: The Pink Hearts are breaking but I'm out of it. I'll always be the one who started it though.

Allegiances change; colours change: pink to black in some cases; to green in others.

I've moved on. I used to give a fuck. I still do but I don't. I've got the new life all planned: the home, the job, the wife and so on. All works in progress. The only one who can fuck it is me. And I will (the wife).

The old lives and the people in them? I'll beat them.

I finally found what I was looking for.

A few hurdles to jump over, hoops to jump through, stepping stones to cross and walls to bang my head against or climb. But I climb the walls wherever I am if I'm in any way restricted, dictated to, patronised or prevented from doing as I please. Pin me to a wall and I'll kick out and run away. I will not submit. But for one person.

Before the next stepping stone, I remain in self-imposed exile within the safe haven. Only one week left here, by prior agreement. On Monday week, I must move on. Hopefully Colebrook House will become available, otherwise it's Plan B. Hopefully Colebrook House will become available as there is no Plan B. 

I've been distributing and donating worldly belongings of sentimental value before this latest move, as I have in the past. If I don't give them away, they'll only get stolen or lost in the move. Most items of value are with my wife and best friend.

I'd like to say I'll be missed here. I just did. As with everywhere I go though, I can be difficult.

And as with everywhere I stay, I've not worn the trousers here but have worn the apron whenever I can and been tolerated in the kitchen. As well as dinners (home-made southern fried chicken with potato wedges and volcanic baked beans, pasta bakes, barbecue pork chops, roast dinners and my usual make-it-up-as-you-go fayre (no, you can't have the recipes as there are none)), service extends to lunch and the latest offering was my prawn cocktail surprise sandwich filling: home-made Marie Rose sauce, cucumber, lettuce, seasoning and paprika for heat. And eggs. The surprise in my prawn cocktail surprise is that it contains no prawns.

I'm hoping to work in the kitchen at Colebrook House, where I'll be for up to six months (Colebrook House as a whole and not just the kitchen). There are lots of things I'll miss. There'll be no wi-fi where I'm going and although there's a communal entertainment room, the other residents there are probably not the types to watch the sort of TV that I do. I'll have to watch lowest common denominator TV or endless repeats. There'll still be electricity though and running water. Some things won't change. TVs and other personal luxuries are allowed in individual rooms but the basic room comes furnished with a table, chair and bed. So I'll write. I'll finish the novel that I've written the first three chapters of and which I have a plot outline for; the other one which this blog will form a basis of is very much still an ongoing project. I'll write to my kids. I'll fill in the gaps I've deliberately left in this blog for those who can't do joined-up thinking and read between the lines to realise that all of the thinly veiled hatred and vitriol was aimed at them but it went over their thick skulls. 

Finances are proving challenging as ever. But I'll find a way; I always do. As long as I have the means to see the person most important to me. Lack of wi-fi will mean that I'm limited for contact with the wife. But I know that she'll wait for me. 

I wish I could get all of my things from the flat in Sidcup, where my love of once upon a time is still looking after everything. But Colebrook is a means to an end and a foot up onto more permanent housing, where I can set up base and finally get my stuff back around me: the hifi, TV, leather sofa, books, CDs and DVDs. Then eventually I move the new wife in. We won't watch shit on our TV, once let alone over and over again. She doesn't do soaps. Yup, she's dirty.

Talking of soap operas, there seem to still be some divisions within The Pink Hearts. Although it looked for a while as though there might be a family reunion, the rumor mill is still churning, Apparently I've said something to Her about Him and They are taking things at face value. I'm out of it and have not said anything detrimental. I have proof on Little Blue, my phone which I deliberately never delete anything from for exactly these situations and if someone doubts the integrity of that practice, we can take Little Blue to the network provider and ask them to unlock any deleted messages. There are none. Given how my texts and data were being used up so quickly a month or two ago, given that there were a load of messages supposedly sent by me but which were subsequently proven to not be from me from my phone and given that no-one else has my phone, I suspect it may have been cloned but I've got that sorted: something else, the details of which I'll reveal when I get to fill in the gaps and join things up.

Then there'll probably be a few wars of words: I'm good at those. Probably some scratches, cuts, bites and bruises too: some things never change and I wouldn't want them to.

The marks on me are so numerous that I'm like a dot-to-dot: look at the dots and to get the full picture, join them.