i don't think i ever mentioned this book, house of leaves, by a mark z danielewski, presents us with a maze of a novel, possibly one of the best ever written as far as i am concerned, it's the equivalent of moby dick in terms of literary weight, yet it's unconventional and confronting. a complex novel that expresses itself in the most non conventional typeset, layout and narrative.
each narrator of the book has their own style but as we reach further into the depths we uncover a horror novel that is articulate and existentialist. this book is a vast undertaking, reading it requires dedication and a certain amount of detective skills, for some of the most shocking aspects of the story are in a code that you can work out, if your creative enough. other parts of the novel are grungy and hard edged, and then there's the nucleus, the book within the book within the book within, 'the navidson record.'
for here we learn of the documentary film maker who moves his family into a new home only to discover a strange anomaly in one of the rooms. 
then there's the analysis of the record by investigators, and here we begin an innovative structural esher painting as the very reading of the book starts to edge its way into your own perceptions. trust me, this book is brilliant, get a copy, they float around in second hand shops and a lot of people give up on it far to early, read the book, don't peek ahead, just saviour this one, page by innovative page. it's the book i wish i had written.

down days, empty days, non days as we slide into decline, you see it everywhere, i guess people are awakening to the truth, everything is fucked, everywhere, even sun drenched beach life in australia has got it's drawbacks, politically we are being governed by thugs mismanaged and democracy is stolen from under our feet. it's sad to watch a country with so much potential being flushed away. never mind, it all has the inevitable hand of fate pulling things away, a thin veil of curtain reveals the truth. europe crippled, america not far behind, china rules the world now, well it owns it, i guess all they really have to do to win any point is stop manufacturing anything. ha, that would teach the consumer west.
okay what's cooking down mission way, i have found my mojo, gotta get behind snuff music and push it out, gotta write some stories for my people who are getting demanding, gotta earn some cash to, that stuff is really in short supply as i cannibalise my environment to sustain myself. i spend my time in the ocean, i read three books which i will share with you.

the last four things was the sequel to 'left hand of god' and i have to say was nowhere near as engaging, for this was dense with factional warfare, over descriptive battle scenes and from my point of view needed another edit. i know it's the standard point for a middle book in a trilogy to generally be the weaker one but in here is a great story, it just felt cluttered and cumbersome, let's hope the last book pulls it all together.

brilliantly conceived and executed we are thrown into the mayan 2012 end of times calendars as the central character attempts to avert a major disaster. this is very authentic and researched well, it balances game theory, statistics and probability science, time travel and conciousness with the mayan culture and the protagonist jed has a great gonzo style of narration that makes the complex plot easier to grasp as we are privy to his inner mind. this again is the first part of a trilogy, and i must say i'm looking forwards to the next.

mark steyns companion piece to america alone is after america which looks at some of the other side of obamas america, it's really funny but also quite revealing and i think essential for people who embrace obama blindly. basically it shows how america has transformed from a nation of producers to a nation of borrowers and let's face it australia is following. his style will irritate people, it's designed to, his humour is offensive, it has to be, and his insights into what's really going down are pretty on the money. while i may not consider his side of politics any better than the other i do think people should remain critical equally of both and styen addresses the blinding left's myopic approach to control and power by bureaucracy and political correctness. 
either way, it's an important book and should be read despite the challenge one may face when encountering some of the antidotes he writes about. big government is the big bad wolf people, look out.


down on the beach i swim the ocean electric, cut through wild chop, turbulence, exhausting myself, falling out of the blue rooms, i head for the pool where it's slightly safer, do some laps, stretch a little, sit in the sun, feeling the saltwater dry over my skin suit, all is good, all is peace. 

surfing the last few days, summers back for a few days, surfing is healing, it's the bees knees as far as getting balanced goes, it gives perspective and sorts you out. some say its negative ions, some say its the wave, some say it's just the breathing, i dunno, for me it's everything, it's zen, everything shatters and there's only the wave. it's a zone of reality i can deal with. it's like a yoga. everything comes together, union.

swimming through a deep blue ocean, the space wind flow, rise upon a solar flare, valhalla behind me, glory nights, glorious days, i said my goodbyes and walked the bridge, the guardians of the galaxy all came to wish me well and it was with heavy heart i said goodbye. i kissed my wife, the beautiful and proud ariel, her lips pressed into mine and we whispered our promises to one another, tears floated away.
the nimrod craft carried me afar, from home to asgard, from asgard to earth, from earth to....nowhere, it all really stops on earth but every moment i carried ariels kiss in my memory and her whisper filled space itself with a light.
earth, the beautiful blue planet, third from this sun, grand and magnificent, diverse life, vital spark of life force, from a distance envy of all the universes in creation, from out past the red planet earth looks perfect, like a pearl upon a bed of satin, we all watched it grow in space in time, in an empty void it represented the divine. i surfed the orbit, above and beyond, skimming the stratosphere out of sight from their instruments, shielded by technology of mind, i interfaced with the unity, with the one they call gaia, a wondrous entity, the cosmic scale of beauty and harmony measured in grace, it was truly a magnificent presence, my neural net ware caressed it's wisdom, and allowed it to enter my mind. overwhelmed with such beauty even i, battle hardened, weary and heart broken could not help but be healed, i could not help but feel life reaching out, reaching out and in and touching me.
but there was a shockwave of truth in the information, i could feel the cancerous growth that had grown out of control in the surface, gaia's greatest achievement was now killing it's host.
i recoiled as i felt the treachery, the species had separated itself, divorced from reality it had fabricated great lies, it had exploited the oceans, and the lands, it had decimated diversity, it had murdered life itself and it was never ceasing, waring with it's own like, poisoning it's oceans, in a mere 100 years it had taken the very course of nature and turned it into something terrible, an anti nature, the exact opposite of life, it had become death.
i plunged myself into the heart of the planet, faster than sound, faster than light, the speed of love is the fastest of all, the cure for the disease, i came as the earths child, i arrive as the  to teach a lesson, to shine a light, to show the way, to liberate from illusion and falsehood, a son of the universe. i will die many times, and incarnate again, i will be hung, burnt at the stake and discredited, judged and many terrible things done in my name, but my message will survive and conquer, for there is only love and it will endure humanities folly.
once they destroy my body the message will live, it will reach into the depths of the species, it will transgress time. you know it is true, you know resistance is futile, the more you fight the more you loose control, the more you obscure the more truth becomes obvious, light reaches into darkness and illuminates. that's the holy calling all life, is one. and the proof is found in the riding zen moment of a wave, ask any surfer to describe the ride, and therein lies a truth of ariels kiss, a whispered word, a tear cried from love.

they put me in a pentagram cube, five sides of love, one for the love you have for your self, one for the love you have for the god, one for the love you have for your fellows, one for the love you have for all living creatures and the other for the love you have for the enemy. inside the dimensions you seek the boundary, for escape is hardwired, you run in all directions, find your space, explore the limits, test the situation, you have to do this, establish the truth of the situation, it's part of your life, as you tear it apart, define the abstracts, what is left?


yes last year battered me, i lost my mind slightly, i was disappointed by people and knocked into a torture zone of no sleep, but that period has ended, i'm free. 
the morning starts with a fantastic surf, big waves as i catch the crest and body surf like a flying dolphin, soaring through blue. this is baptism, the new life starts now, yes it does, i put the past behind me, it's gone. future calls me, hear it, in my five sided cage i became free.

i forget everything, in an ocean of quanta, simple things float, dense things sink, information games played out by an army of slaves in combat with an enemy that looks like you, hostile takeovers disguised in friendly fires. generals and majors, sitting up high on the mountain tops, looking down at their armies, pawns, knights and some dumb looser in a tee shirt singing the military blues, 'i'm just a foot solider in the army of love.'
i forget the forgotten days, the remembered nights where victory had the same taste as defeat, almost.
some one speaks, asking you your rank, 'i'm just a foot solider, in the army of love.'
later in the trenches you're checking your artillery, you have enough ammo to sink a battleship, but your people have no enthusiasm, they have vacant looks in their eyes, like afflicted, shell shocked, already defeated, they have seen it all and just want a soft exit.
it's night time when the fear comes, you're already frozen but now there's a cold fever sweat, a horror, creeping its way up your spine, nerves are shot to pieces. when the enemy comes it comes hard, that training kicks in, over rides fear, you been here before, it's second nature, war, hardwired into the first brain. the enemy has your face, it's easy to get confused, you have to transcend your attachments to yourself, learn to love your enemy.
magnificent explosions light up the skies, yellow flares, orange flames, short bursts off trails, some deep blue plasma flash. you watch them fall, one by one, in their strange suits, chameleon skin, you see your own fear in their eyes, you taste it but its bitter and leaves you feeling nauseous. the same nausea you had as a civilian, the one camus wrote about, it's deeply entrenched in your guts, deep in your bones where the culture gestates.
some one falls over you, you scramble out from the trench, a splatter of blood hits your chest, s body collides into you, it's a comrade, you pick him up and point him forwards for a date with a plasma bomb, bits of flesh fly across the sky. that was some one, once. they use conventional weapons, ones you are familiar with, but they have an array of non lethal ones that you and your comrades fear, you have seen the eyes of those who are under the influence, you have gazed into the abyss itself. you do not fear death but the alternative terrifies you.
running, there's no way out, just gotta keep going, get away, find a place to hide, i zig zag my way through the darkness, short bursts of illumination guide me to a few good intermittent dug outs, a pile of bodies makes good cover, a burnt out shell from a tank, a small supply pod, a ditch filled with mud and the dead, a trench and a small bunker where i grab some pulse grenades and a pair of night vision goggles, which prove invaluable. as i move i encounter individuals, some naked, they look lost and tranquil, they mumble to themselves and i see they have succumb to the phycological weaponry, the hallucinatory and mind altering gas, the aztec bombs, mayan cluster missiles, dante inferno blast, the ignoble end of many a solder, to be forever lost in the forest dark, some have said there is no return.
my legs ache, my arm burns, and i can feel my heart beating far to fast, the thirst to stay alive keeps me moving forwards although i am disorientated, not sure if i'm heading further into enemy lines or am i getting further away, it's hard to tell as carnage is everywhere, there's no release. 
keep moving, that's how you stay alive, i clamber up out from the bunker and before i can get my legs out someone runs straight into me, throwing me back, i flay outwards, falling backwards. the body on top is screaming, i punch it hard in the face and then there's a scuffle but we are both frightened and disorientated. we realise we are on the same side, ironic, sides don't mean much anymore, when you're on the front line all sides contract to one line, the line that keeps you alive, its stay alive or die, thats the choice.
the kids crying, he''s lost, he just wants to get away, i offer him some stim gum and water. he nods gratefully and i tell him to stick by my side, 'we will get out of here kid, just stay close.'
once again we clamber up, our faces are covered in mud, i can't see anything, it's pitch black, no lights, fires must have burnt out now, not even a trace gun. the goggles help us move out of the war zone, it's far to quiet, my sensory system is screaming at me, it's unnatural, we run outwards, seeing the start of some woodland, i move towards the trees, suddenly a huge explosion, some sort of negative bomb implodes, light is sucked into the darkness, the young solider flies past me into the void, swallowed by the darkness. i grab the ground as i feel the pull, my left hand grabs onto a twisted piece of metal that seems embedded in the ground, it's the landing skid from a helicopter. debris flies past me, a few bodies and some crates. i hang on until the tiny black hole is extinguished, my body crashes down as gravity takes control as the dominant force. 
i'm on my own now, running into the woods, i run and run deeper, until there's no more running left, until my legs are spent and my heart feels like it will explode, i am on my knees hyperventilating, the ground seems to spin, the stars, i can see stars there, through the treetops, i can fucking see stars. 
i lay on my back, breathing heavily looking at the stars, i can see andromeda seven, i laugh but end up spluttering, i regulate my breathing, i can smell fresh air, the air here is clean, i suck it down filling my lungs. sparkles appear, shimmering shapes, i see them come out of the night, is this the enemy, i'm defeated, i surrender to the future, i can't remember anything, who is the enemy, who am i. what was i fighting for, why am i on my back staring at these shapes, i can't remember even having a memory.

playing god

the corridor of uncertainty awaits all who flow, like the landscape of the symbol, you feel but never know. the hollow vessel of eternity, the void is filled with zero, the empty zone of infinity, fragility is found as above below.
the yellow disc contains, with its prism life
the neon jellyfish obtuse, and all of natures ghosts
be mindful of the road less travelled
and don't insult our host.

hardcore technology, wrapped up in spades on the outer perimeter alone. did you ever think you would see isolation unbound, from all possible futures chosen you chose this one, permutations have come to a sudden stop and the area is no longer black or white but grey.
the butterfly kingdoms, the veil of glamours, the elfish queens and their proxy's dance around a wreckage from a future past, a burnt out shell from a helicopter war, an army of metal machines and beasts. the landscape is filled with terror and treason but the flutter of wings is louder.
the sayer reads entrails the astronomer the stars, a golden orb of flame sends out heat and light to a dark frozen universe and a small pocket of life somewhere out in spiral arms, a swirl of colour and breath. the futures meet the past now.
some say we were monsters some say just men, some say we absurd and others precise philosophical thinkers gone mad with burden. i'll leave it for historian schoolers and researchers to determine the truth of it all, i care not for labels and judges. here in the realm of the dragon and unicorn the three eyed man is king, here in the domain of the heart sits a mind where in the empire of intellect the throne is empty. only a fool would dare claim it, an idiot and jester and joker in the pack.
over the edge, into ravine, the cliff face below our feet, for infinity does not scare the man with the dog at his heel. it is elf and pixie and the fey folk guiding the dreamer. come away, come away, they whisper and breath, you're the stolen child and it took many years for you to know this.
dabbling in the ways of men, looking and learning their ways, reaching out to understand, only being burnt at the stake, what can one learn from such beasts? 

watching the story of henry the eighth, the tudors, amazing. i learnt so much about the reformation and english society, europe was a different place back then but you can see the phase shift side effects the shadow of time has cast to this day, how strange the ways of man, such awful deeds were committed in the name of religion, one can only hope we learn but alas, we don't.

i watched the church of england's birth, the way individuals manipulated their agendas, the way good folk were tortured and burnt as heretics, the way innocent subjects believed the king a divine individual, a god amongst men, the way wealth was poured into whims and wars. for what?

really nothing has changed, power and control are still the main focus of those who rule, fear is the control tool, we are manipulated and led to believe in false gods and i despair as the planets resources are thrown at useless big governments and their need to dominate the individual with laws and regulations and tax.

i liked the guy playing henry, at first he irritated me, but then he grew into the role and his character became complex and slightly insane it would seem. he was subjected to influence from a number of twisted sources and it was his poor wives who suffered. 

i never much cared for history, it's built on the ashes of mankind's folly, it teaches us the cycles of self inflicted suffering, we learn very little by reflection, repeating the same mistakes. life is suffering, life IS suffering. 

history should teach us the future but as karl popper said, 'there is no history of mankind only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of human life.'

my new global perspective on politics forms, the agendas of the good and the bad polarities are the same. the elites, whatever you wish to call them, exist manipulating both extremes against one another. divide and conquer has always been the best strategy, as opposed to outright conquer. this way confusion can be sewn amongst the populations and the illusions of sides can be taken. the black lodge and the white lodge share the same goals because once chaos reigns they can carve up the remains. this is the lesson we must learn from history but never do. innocent people on both sides are just caught in the tides and invariably suffer or die. the individual always takes sides, this is because minds are conditioned by duality. what appears as the good side to one can appear as the bad to another, it's all perspective and information, inevitably we as individuals have very little information to make good decisions about these so called sides. (there are occasional exceptions where one must name an evil for what it is)

one must look at who profits from conflict, the media and arms dealers, to a lesser extent the people who finance wars. 

these peoples are not a race or specific country, they are not a religion or specific ideology, they are just power brokers for the global elites. 

for example the russian people never wanted to be in a cold war with the americans, it was a generated political lever created by both the ruling parties of both east and west to spar against in a stage managed clash of ideologies. when it served one side to collapse they did and who profited, the ruling parties on both sides.

all political events on the global stage are stage managed and constructed to invoke fear, there must always be an enemy. often the enemy is the barbarian from the wests perspective. often the barbarian has an agenda that is destructive. take islamic fundamentalists who want to install a caliphate again. while this is considered very dangerous it is no less dangerous than a one world government which the west would like to install, one admittedly is more tolerant of gays, jews, and rock music but then they have been through a reformation of sorts. many years ago they were not so tolerant, just ask any gay jewish witch from that period.

the innocent are the victims of these power plays, we are pawns on a chess set and we are puppets on a stage who can't see the strings that manipulate our actions and words. 

what can we do, what is right and wrong, i struggle with these issues all the time, i try not to take sides, i try to see the hidden agendas, i try to take a cosmic view, i try to feign indifference, i try to be a good hearted person, i try not to get to involved and remained detached from these things, but it's impossible to do so. 

what can one do?

fight the fear. i think this is essential. i can't change anyone else but i can change my own self, the way i am, my inner conflicts, my inner alchemy, my negative thoughts, my own fear. this is an ongoing process and i often have to remind myself that the universe is intelligent, it has a plan, and it loves us all in it's unfathomable way, it gave us a certain amount of freedom to liberate our own minds, it's provided us with a planet that is beautiful and unique, it has given us spirituality and art. the least we can do is reciprocate, which is why the poets on the planet are the bearers of beauty and although i am not a poet i have admiration and respect for their art and contribution to life and sometimes the way they perceive reality is attuned to my own inarticulate way of making sense of my intuitions and feelings in general. poets should be given noble status in any civilised society, we should value their work and reward it. 

i recently read this, dante's inferno, it's epic in scope but i continue to read it, and see how metaphorical a language it is, and how it appeals to something inside my own nature for his opening is especially significant.

dantes inferno cantos one

midway upon the journey of our life

i found myself within a forest dark

for the straightforwards path had been lost.

ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

what was this forest, savage, rough and stern

which in the very thought renews the fear.

so bitter is it, death is little more,

but of the good to treat, which there i found 

speak will i of the other things i saw there.

i cannot well speak of how i entered 

so full was i of slumber at the moment 

in which i had abandoned the true way

sometimes i think i should have called my blog captain missions inferno. maybe that would be far to linear in process and there's not that much linear about me. 

anyways here i am. still alive after the terrible few months of graveyard existence and self disintegration. i understand the terrible power in that word now, having experienced it fully, never again will i push my body like that again, my need for speed is no where near important enough that i should ever risk loosing my license again. in fact i will replace speed with the pleasures of endorphin highs, bush walking and surfing, deep dreaming and power hammock reading. my speed demon is banished and cast out. 

last night took me into the city on a spontaneous whim to see a guilty pleasure from the eighties, and i know i risk being incredibly unfashionable but i have actually followed thomas dolby from the first time i heard hyperactive, which was my childhood skool anthem, to his recent work on map of the floating city, but it was his cd 'aliens ate my buik' which i loved mostly, for it is the dirtiest funkiest cleverest cd ever made, out classing prince, beck and i would say george clinton but clinton plays on one track. 

anyways he played at notes last night and i went to see it. small venue, small but enthusiastic crowd who really gave him everything a performer could ask for as he told stories and went through his tunes, we got all the hits including hyperactive, one of our submarines, she blinded me with science, and airhead plus some tracks from the new cd. he was brilliant and promised to return with a band. i guess thomas dolby is a kind of geek's musician, a man who disappeared for twenty years to invent ring tones with a small tech company he owns, a man who comes from a scientific background, who as a child took apart synthesisers and remade them and champion of the sydney invented keyboard that kate bush and peter gabriel made famous the fairlight, you've seen him more on TED talks than gigs over the last twenty years but he's come back with quite a sophisticated return. anyway's he was very witty and told quite a few good yarns, he's a great keyboard man and his songs transcribe very well live, samples and all, and if you don't believe me, pick one from these and see what you think.

the juice fast has a serious down side, this seems to be a period of down sides, maybe all my down sides have arrived at once. it appears that if you detox seriously your body goes into some sort of toxin discharge, which mine proceeded to do with most enthusiasm and vigour. oh my, after about 6 hours of feeling vital and energetic i suddenly went into a cold sweat, i got the shakes and my head started to throb, my body started an epic evacuation which i will spare you with and i don't think i have ever felt so weak. 
i've been told this is quite normal if one is fasting or detoxing correctly, the body discharges itself of all toxins and poisons in all manner of ways. i found myself unable to do anything in this state, it was like a crazy junk sickness. from thursday evening to monday morning i slept and did my night shifts in this weird state, i did not eat or even drink anything except water. on tuesday morning i woke up early after my first sleep at home, i had been through a night of dreaming, all of which i can't recall details but it felt as though they were more nightmares. my sheets were soaking wet from sweat. my phone was ringing, it was my attorney tim asking if i wanted to come on a bush walk. outside it was pouring with rain, miserable and damp everywhere, the last thing i felt like was hiking through the bush but he insisted and then told me he was outside.
north head in the rain is like i imagine tasmania to be, it's wilderness enough for a city dweller like me, it's wild and covered in a fine mist and the australian bush even at 7am still has an air of menace despite it's beauty, i must admit i was not enthused. we drove further into the bush until we could not travel further and then in the pouring rain we started our walk, i counted seven different types of rain, from misty fine particles almost invisible to the naked eye right up to huge downpours like a tropical storm. my tee shirt was soaking and my feet were wet and covered in mud as i trailed behind tim who was wearing a bright yellow shirt. the wildlife was there, you could hear it, and when we travelled deep inside the bush far from all recognisable signs of human existence i saw a wild kangaroo, although tim said it was just a big wallaby. he stared at us from a few meters away, his big eyes not trusting us enough to come nearer, i can't blame him, i'm sure his type have been hunted for years in their genetic code by the bipeds, and recently by the death machines on wheels. up until now the only wild kangaroo i had ever seen was roadkill on carnage highways.
we moved onwards, as i must admit i felt the serenity, the peace descended upon me, and i understood the bush a little better. we followed a trail downhill, muddy and treacherous, the dark greens of shrubs and swampland now dotted with rich black shapes and huge boulders, a few trees stood like burnt sentinels, remains from the bush fires that swept through this area twenty ago.
tim points out an aboriginal burial ground, and we both pay our respects. you would have to be a fool not to, you can sense the change in energy in this area until we pass through. 
down we go, into the valley, walking, covered in mud and sand, soaking wet, and then back up for the return. i find i breakthrough some point, energy returns, i feel vital and strong, i become indifferent to the discomfort and my senses begin to experience the delight of the moment, being alive, living in life. depressions are lifted, clarity is unveiled, we wander back to the car and drive to the lookout.
yonder palm beach peninsular, i can see my house, i look out at the ocean soft and still like a dark glass surface, the skies grey and blackened by rainfall, everything looks perfect, all is well. there is an upside to downsides it seems.

somedays the sky meets the ocean in a paintbrush stroke, washed out palm beach looking harder than usual, ocean choppy, sand whisked up by a strange arabian wind, dark seas hurl themselves over an ocean pool that somehow maintains it's tranquility. i swim a few laps, push my body a little, shake away the ghosts, clean up the fracture in my aura, heal the vortex that has attached itself to me, it begins to feel better. this may take a few weeks of hard discipline but i guess when you hit a wall there's only one direction left to go in.
later i drink some green stuff, i am on a raw food diet now, with three graveyard shifts left to get through, my body has to get through this bottleneck and then revive itself. the green juice tastes amazing, it's having an instantaneous effect, i can feel my mood lighten, my eyes come alive. yes, food is medicine. 
energy flows through my body, i tell you now, the raw food diet is the way to healing the body, intuition tells me this but now my cells are actively communicating this as i tune in to their bandwidth. this is the fountain of youth, it grows wild and free, it's natural and tastes great, no kidding, turn on to raw food. 


okay here's what you do. stop eating wheat, sugar, cooked food, stop eating anything non organic, stick to raw organic vegetables mixed with a little fresh fruit. pack it in the juicer and drink fresh, feel the vitality, feel the body rejoice as it nourishes the vitamins it's been missing for years. 
raw food all the way, add some spirilina, some dates, some very good water, chai seeds. drink as much as you can. continue for three days minimum, beat the cravings, sleep through them if you have to. swim a little, walk or yoga, make space for meditation. three days of this then continue but in the evenings have a salad or a nutritious healthy soup. raw food is all you need.

carrying my moon powered zap gun i found myself downloading some data into the server i had recently installed, just basic zeroes and ones, some holographic imprints and corrupted feedback loops. i'd been out in the sun for most of the day and looked slightly bronzed, i'd even shed some skin and looked healthy although my teeth were playing up and i needed glasses every time i wanted to read. there was my dodgy knee and the broken bones that had never mended correctly but worst of all was the strange and sudden accumulation of wax in my ear. i'd suddenly find one of my ears blocked, my right one, it would happen in a matter of seconds, a strange filling would just manifest itself within the drum. it would feel awfully uncomfortable and i'd hobble to the bathroom to grab some cotton buds to rid myself of this uncomfortable sensation. yes i was getting old and out here i was alone, not sure what to expect, slightly nervous about the sudden way the body rebels and not knowing anything about this part of life.
but today as i sat down in front of the server i felt reasonably healthy and watched the transfer complete, it felt good to have more random access memory. 
it was the phone that interrupted me, i'd turned the volume down so it was no longer intrusive, just a nice tone quite pleasant and ambient.
it was eagle always without fail finding me right in the middle of something.
'hello,' he would say, all happy that i answered the phone.
in my usual disoriented way i would enter into some sort of awkward social greeting. i don't like telephones much, i use them infrequently and tend to keep my chatter short and to the point.
we would chat a little about family business and gradually as i found myself becoming familiar with the telephone process i'd loosen up and get engaged in some sort of exchange of information.
tonight he explained about my birthday in the mayan calendar. apparently it was last saturday, and i share it with roger waters from pink floyd, interesting i thought.
we chatted about a number of other snippets, babies, girls, conspiracy theories, music, this and that but i found myself slowing down, unable to finish sentences, i'd sometimes interrupt eagle and have to ask who i was talking to, and once i even seemed to wonder what this strange object i was holding to my ear was.
mission control began to look unfamiliar, the pile of books on the floor were strange and as i read the titles they all seemed unfamiliar. the voice at the end of the telephone kept asking me if i was okay, eventually i put the phone down and just sat there wondering what i was doing. then i looked at the screen, and watched the server lights flash, a flicker of recognition, i had left the download process running, my information was almost completely stored in the server. i'd gone to far. 
i dragged and dropped some essential packets of information, put them back in and carried on my conversation with eagle. 
that was a close one.
i was getting more absent minded everyday.    

alastair reynolds is one of my favourite science fiction writers, an astrophysicist by trade, his books balance the fiction with the science but above all else he is a story teller.
blue remembered earth is the first of what could be a series, slightly more optimistic than his other books and set in a world where africa is the dominant space faring nation. all war and violence and crime is obsolete through an artificial construct called the mechanism. 
after the death of the family matriarch eunice, grandchildren geoffrey (an elephant researcher) and sunday (a sculptress who lives on mars) are sent on a quest to uncover a mystery left behind by eunice that will change the course of human history. 
essentially the novel takes us on this journey through various environments and cultures, as the siblings solve the mystery they are sent off earth and under the ocean and eventually space itself. 
like all reynolds books it's fantastic, well written and very imaginative. i loved reading this, took me a week or two but it was worth the effort and i couldn't turn the pages fast enough towards the end as the puzzle seemed to converge. i was particularly struck by the panspermists who gene splice their bodies and have an underwater empire and technology that is in harmony with nature. i also liked the elephant human mind link in amboseli national park, a place i travelled through a few years back and have very fond memories of.

it's the early hours, travelling on a train, falling out of sleep, slipping out of fractured dreams, fading out memories, looking out the window at the raindrops exploding on glass, beads of water form trails that move out towards the edges, the wet city awakens, sydney's summer washed out, everything outwards bound, thoughts and people, colours and shapes, skim outwards. 
that's the name of the game this morning, the general theme. my centrifugal force sends everything away, i'm so worn out and jaded  my vain attempts to reach out fail and i clasp at thin air. passengers refuse to sit with me, or if they do in a matter of moments they move away, far away, people disembark as my repulsion drive kicks in, even the street dwellers i pass each morning and night, at central station avoid me, hiding under blankets, ignoring me, i'm without a place now, a refuge, a man who cannot touch another warm creature, even the dog sense my failure when i climb up the balcony steps. 
my back bone is broken in three places, i can feel the bad joints, sharp pains and tensions, even breathing seems strained as i wheeze and groan my way through my responsibilities. it's not until a hot shower that i begin to feel like i was once human.  can't sleep through the day, theres to much noise, to much light, to much intrusion so i find myself being driven to manly where i trawl the old book shops and wait for my friend to get their tarot cards read. he comes out all weeping and emotional, the future can do that sometimes. i chose not to have a reading, i'm vulnerable enough, don't need some whisperings up the timeline to unsettle me, just a few hours of sleep will restore my fragile aura.
home again i fall asleep fast, like a spent force, uselessly outliving it's need, the void swallows me up and i am grateful to follow the rest of the day... out.

as well as being unable to display comments i've now somehow lost a weeks worth of posts somewhere in bloggers black hole and a technical issue at mission control has severed me from internet access, which may or may not be a blessing in disguise.
i must say the last few weeks have been poor, i'm not really in good form and probably need a break from everything, an endless period of working night shifts plus my two and a half hours public transport journeying each way every night / morning is taking it's toll, left me really exhausted and extremely jet lagged, i have been doing this for three months now. my body is falling apart and my mind is somewhat stretched trying to just do the basic things one needs to do like work out what day it is. i crave a good nights sleep the way a vampyre craves scarlet johanson's neck, it's out of reach. it's my own fault for loosing my license, never again will i speed, from now on it's life in the very slow lane.  
i'm probably going to have to take some time off soon, i can't continue like this and yesterday morning on the bus ride home i had some weird stress induced attack that left me very shocked although i'm sure it was nothing to serious. my friend tried to take me to a doctor but i managed to loose him outside the medical centre and return to mission control alone. i have a great aversion to doctors and their goods.
in and out of erratic sleep, grabbing hours here and there, power naps leave me powerless, i'm grabbing food on the run, i'm an intravenous coffee hound, i'm a fiend for sleep, a trader in bad dreams and nightmares, i'm in REM deficit, i'm loosing my grip, my paranoia will annoy you, my nervous disposition is an imposition, i drive people away, i'm a magnetic repulsion field, i'm a hostile takeover bid gone nasty, i'm an h bomb baby, i'm the theory of irrelativity, i'm stone cold in my sobriety, the joints are not jumping, i'd kill for one right now, it's been a long time, just to take away the pain and numb the whole sorry mess. 
tonight i haul my sorry ass to the bus where i ride head buried in      
alastair reynolds new book blue earth remembered which is brilliant so far, i've nearly finished it and will post a little review later but i keep my head down, keep myself to myself as my fellow passengers all shout into mobile phones, they sneeze and cough, they are tanked up on beer and the girls shriek at the boys across the bus, i bite my lip and read about a society of machines left to scavenge on mars, as they slowly form some kind of society, some kind of intelligence but the noisy bus keeps intruding. 
i close my eyes, make it all go away and perhaps i sleep a little. later on the train i pass epping and look at the big dark sky, the spitting rain, the strange outline of trees, some random lights from offices and homes, suburbs pass us by. this is my life at the moment, in transit, an exhausted passenger on a journey without end, coming apart from the inside out.    

compassion fatigued and slightly bereft of guilt about it i gave myself to charity this morning and assisted a beggar find shelter in central station, i know all the good spots being an observer of these things. i don't know how long mr. trick will hold out, he may stay there a few days or just a few hours for he is whimsical and transient, he is made of flesh and bone and blood but he only inhabits these slightly, for his mind drifts into other realms he cannot quite bring himself to describe, but they are not here. when these windows of opportunity present themselves in a lucid wave he will nod at me, acknowledging i am not his enemy but never quite available to think of me as a friend. i set him up in the corner, he has access to his beloved streets and i leave him watching heavy rain through the stone portal doorways as the umbrella heads pass through into their own personal private madnesses. i grab him a coffee and a donut from the fast food joint, it's not a healthy breakfast but i don't think mr. trick is watching his weight. when i get back he's made a base camp, wrapped in blankets with his sleeping bags between the stone floor and himself. he's already waving a five dollar bill around that generous commuter must have given him, probably some other worn out cynical bastard who's just like me, trying to reach out, connect, not through some altruistic purpose but desperation and despair. i have to laugh, my own pathetic-ness sometimes can amuse me. i feel like sitting down with trick and just seeing what the fuck happens but i've a dog waiting for me to walk and feed it, so i hand him breakfast and wish him a good day, he smiles and mutters something which could have sounded like a 'thank you for your help' but was probably something like, 'i wanted a whiskey and didn't they have any chocolate covered donuts.'