I am, for some yet unknown reason, terrified about going back to Canada. I’ve been very slowly packing over the past couple hours, constantly distracted by thoughts of a variety of things, shaking; a prolonged death rattle. My body is going from cold to hot as I pack a small amount of stuff into a large suitcase in ‘the coldest room in Oxfordshire.’ I’ve began questioning myself enough to ask am I going through menopause!?? that was off…. pardon.

Initially a few days ago I figured I’d have my tickets and fly back to Canada, get a stamp, enjoy myself a bit, reacquaint with people of the past, do my best to be a raconteur for anyone interested in what I have and haven’t accomplished with my time here, saying they even recognise the man I’ve shifted into. Uncertainty. Instead, now I feel a great fear of an immense amount of variables. I’m unsure if getting back into the country will be as easily accomplished as I’m hoping. I have a very suppressed fear of flying too as I’ve come to find, I am fine with the idea until the day of where I end up in a trembling mess of a panic attack as I nearly am now. I’m not sure if it’s the flying itself or the change, either way, I imagine myself fine with both before the actual fact.

I spoke with my mother today, I needed to arrange her to pick me up tomorrow evening when I get back to Edmonton, a place of which I now fear to call home, but I cannot even grant that title to the UK. My mother, who is 95% of the time a incredibly cheery positive (potentially to a maniacal extent), within the first few sentences of our phone conversation, had told me things were quite rough around there. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard her say that as the phone call I made a handful of weeks ago (I’m not sure) had the same situation brought up. The reason this bothers me is because I have an uncanny feeling I’ll get sucked into it all, even though I have absolutely no ability to help her, as I am truly fucked myself. If I have to tell my mom that I’m leaving again and she’s in a terrible state it’ll wreck me: ‘sorry mom, but you’re son’s a bastard. He’ll leave you like he left his father striving the selfish desires like an unsatisfied child. He’s ostracized himself from the faulty concept of family. That parts remained the same, but now its 4200 miles away. Hoping for a difference to be made. Don’t forget the reason you’ve shut the answering machine off, the collection people will fuck off eventually.’

I won’t be surprised if I get a catastrophic slap of depression while I’m back in Edmonton. Hopefully I’ll avoid the wine! Probably not on the plane though… as my iPod is incapacitated I’m going to have to make deals with the seat back teles or handle my own thoughts, of which I believe I’ll finish, or attempt to finish, revising my Paris story. I think this is about all I’m going to write for now, I’m not sure what to put further, and I’m not in a good state to be writing anyway.

Wish the pilot luck if I don’t get back on here before I take off. I’ll leave you with something I wrote when I woke up this morning at 5 after an hour of crap sleep and gave up trying to get back to the crap sleep:

I lie here trying to gather the
Scattering thoughts inside my head.
Shaken up from another sleepless
Shadow. It’s winter, still night, instead.
And for what?
In these early hours where much begins
I struggle still towards yesterday’s finale.
What anxieties protect these revelations?
Is the room not dark enough, the world too loud?
In a short while I’ll find myself upon the empty
breaths of morning’s vacant breast. Beating.
And I will strive to leave. But for what?

-Nov 25 6:43am

I bought a return flight ticket to Canada today. I wish I had some cool story as to how I managed this given my current financial catastrophe, but I can’t.

If I had it my way I’d have been able to say that I’d actually broken (walked) into the Ashmolean museum earlier today under the cover of broad daylight during regular hours, inspiring a certain delusional confusion that would haze everyone just long enough for me cut a priceless piece of art off the wall and make my escape. I’m not sure if there would have been a gun fight as I made my exit from the museum, but we can say that, for the sake of boredom, shit goes wrong. I ran out into the street and ended up confronted by a couple patrol cars pulling up at the end of the street opposite the Randolph hotel. The cops bailed out of the cars and dove behind their doors predictably as in any hollywood movie, I ran towards the danger. You can’t get shot in the back if you don’t run. It certainly confused them, I anticipated the same tactics I’d used on the inside would work on the outside. I made sure to keep the painting under my arm and perpendicular to the police in the event they’d open fire (these particular cops had guns, even though most don’t.. its for shits and giggles so whatever.) so that the chances of a bullet going through my newly acquired painting were lessened. After a few meters of sprinting at the officers, a shot rang off, quickly followed by an echo of several others. Realistically, I probably would’ve just died, but these cops had shit aim so I was able to scramble sideways across the road and I dove into the entrance on the side of the Randolph, tripping over bewildered posh person as I tumbled down the hall into a small cafe/bar room where I hid behind the bar. I regained myself after a moment of panting, checked the painting, all good, had a quick look out the window from behind the bar to see the officers running towards the entrance. I glanced around and saw a large quantity of assorted cups under the bar, I grabbed onto a couple and used them to smash through the window. The initial glass breaking shocked the cops running in and they paused long enough for me to start hurling tea cups at the bastards. I slap one cup into the top of their silly helmet hats and watch it topple off, then I’d follow the first cup up with a second to knock the cop out cold before they’d make it into the Randolph. I successfully took out the team of police staging the raid and, with sirens ringing in the distance, I bailed out the broken window back onto the street with no time to spare. Running up the road now I quickly glance at the painting to make sure it’s still in good shape, and to my satisfied self, it is. I quickly ran up to my harnessed, rare breed getaway gerbil and rode it off to my hideout in wreckless abandon. After the heat had dissipated I went to Sir Richard Bronsan and sold him the painting, the clever fellow bartered me down to just enough for the plane ticket back to Canada so I can’t say I made any profits for my efforts, but that’s usually the case.

Once again, unfortunately that didn’t happen. What had happened was after sifting through bills and bank accounts I found a credit card account that I had 95% paid off when I first arrived here back in June that I had available funds on, so I used them and got the ticket. So that was rather boring.. I was kind of interested in seeing what I’d do by December 9th if I hadn’t the money to get a flight back. But that endeavour will have to stay undone for now, as there will probably be another opportunity for shear desperation. For now I’ll sit tight until I head back to Canada for a week and then come back and carry on as per usual. That was boring.

Ahhh! god damnit. I’m losing my head for sure now.. I’ve been trying to sleep and have failed miserably over the past few hours. Today was another addition to the shit pile as I should have had some track time in a Caterham R300 at Brands Hatch. That would’ve been the first time in a race car in the UK and the first time on track in over a year and a month. Things of the racing nature have always fallen through in my time here, countless plans of test days and meetings with race teams and sponsors have been canceled or at the last minute made unobtainable in my current financial situation. It’s the constant view that things are looking up then the impending let down that is fucking wrecking me. I’m fucking close to calling off my stint as a racer (at least until I have made the money I need to do it some other way) just so that I can take racing off of my list of current potential let downs, one less thing to fret about. Either way though, people have started telling me to put racing on my long-term goal list which really annoys me, as if they know how long the past two and a half years of my life have been because of this damned task. Two and a half years ago I felt like your average worse-for-wear eighteen year old, now I feel like I’m fifty, with countless unidentified ailments. Failure is not an option at this point, not after everything this shit has got me into, not after all the people I’ve had to stop speaking with to keep my head down and progress (if you can call it that) this dream further. This really bothers me when I look at where I am now: My social skills are practically gone, I’m broke as fuck in a foreign country where I can’t work, I need £1400 for a plane ticket to Canada to fulfill my visitor visa laws within the next 18 days plus £30 for the mobile bill, £96 for insurance, and £92 to clear an overdraft I have on my account, I have made no progress on racing to this date since last October, if I go back to Canada I’ll be chased by debt collectors living in a house with the remnants of an insane family, I’m alone.

I was out last night as the driver for some drunkard friends as I had agreed to do so, however I had a midnight curfew as I was supposed to go do some track time today. We all went out with a handful of ladies from the women’s cricket team and it really made me worry about my social skills as I’d been able to bore off any of the ladies that started talking to me; I’d share a few sentences, then I’d probably not be able to hear them, then I’d just accidentally give a one word response that kills the conversation, there would be a bit of a momentary pause and then they’d usually walk away. I did do a satisfactory amount of talking for being the only sober person within our group of ten or so throughout the night on split up occasions, I didn’t particularly enjoy it though, it was very forced conversation and it was more of a chore to me than not. I could’ve just stood there and have been comfortable, but given the views of the people I was with that would’ve been saying something’s wrong, or that I was being anti-social. It was a lose-lose situation, although I did enjoy myself just out and about so that was alright. I was offered a phone number from one of the girls on the team, but did my best to kindly reject the offer. The girl couldn’t actually ask me herself and told her friend to pass it along after she’d left, I found the gesture kind of endearing, but that didn’t particularly matter as I couldn’t hold a desirable conversation with the girl anyway.

Later in the night after everything died off I was told at 1 in the morning my plans of driving at Brands Hatch have been called off, which wasn’t the greatest news if I’m honest. I went back to sleep and then eventually realized that I’d forgotten to switch off my 5:30am alarm… so I got up to shut it off and then of course couldn’t get back to sleep, after making a cup of coffee and wandering around the kitchen aimlessly, checking the fridge every few moments to see if something had changed and some good food had snuck itself in. I was in a bit of a haze for a while and then decided I should try to do something productive. Of all the things I could have done, for some ridiculous morning scorned reason, I sent Hannah an email. Luckily though she hasn’t wrote back, so that could mean a few things: she got the message and deleted it passing me off as a mad man (probably for the best), she hasn’t yet had a chance to look at it/write back, or it never made the cyberspace journey (ideal). I am such a jackass! I should rid myself of any form of electrical device between the hours of midnight and 9am I think. Whatever though, it doesn’t really matter, I was probably just rather pissed off that god damned Brands fell through and I felt like communicating with one of the few other good occurrences I know in the UK. I’m trying to sort out what happened to the nice, friendly, easy to get along with guy I was a little more than a year ago. I’ve turned into something of an asshole I think, and somehow, subconsciously I believe, on purpose. I think I’ve just thrown up walls that have an initial persona on them until I know a person well enough to relax a little. Maybe I’m adapting. I don’t know.

I think I need help. I’m writing this dead sober. I’ve stopped drinking as I self-destruct when I do; the couple times I’ve drank in the past 2 weeks have ended in terrifying break downs. I’m feeling my mind change on me, which worries me for my own mental health and for my ability to race. I’m having issues trying to forget about Hannah as well of course. I’m troubled wondering if I could’ve done something more to have kept her, or wondering if I should’ve tried harder to get her to spend some time with me. Maybe I just couldn’t speak well enough or let her know me, I no longer know myself as well as I should which wasn’t very helpful. I’m actually worried about how the other guy is, why she picked him, if he’s honest, if he’s decent, or if it was only because she could see him on a routine basis given they cheerlead together. What’s worse though is that I hope she hadn’t asked around for help with the decision between him and I, simply because I’m damned sure her friends would say ‘He’s a racing driver, he gets more women than plausible, and he’s probably a dick anyway and has been with at least a few others since he’s seen you last.’ which is about as far from the truth as possible, even the racing driver bit is fallacy right now. Endlessly, these thoughts have been annoying the fuck out of me for the past week. I’m pissed off that I played the whole ordeal off so casually being as choked as I was, that probably didn’t make her think twice about the entire situation. Perhaps my changing mind led to her departure in the first place, or at least my attempts at disguising it did the damage.

I wish that I was the same person from less than a year ago, when racing seemed reasonable, my creativity was half decent and not just uncomfortable absolute madness. I was a nice pleasant chap, I could hold a half decent conversation and I wasn’t afraid of saying anything that would make me look insane. My situation here in Britain has deteriorated nearly beyond relief. I have a job’s trial shift illegally lined up for next Wednesday at a village pub working under a friend’s identity, so that’s a small start, but completely negligible given the state of everything else. Hannah was the one thing that made me feel like this was all worth it, that not all has been lost. Unfortunately now that that is, I have to figure out how me and Hannah can be friends or something, which would be better than nothing given how much common ground we share, and the sense I’ll have someone more than a few fellow mad men to spend some time with. At least I’ll be able to get to know her a little more and then hopefully discover she’s a real bitch and have the ability to look back and laugh at how stupid I was (am)… Oh optimism! Otherwise I’ll just get to know her and win her back! (I am insane.) Damn you optimism!! I’ll get her back and end up clueless again you know. Doesn’t matter though, I have to sort myself out first. Hell, if I won’t get help for racing’s sake I’ll do it so I can make moderate sense around her.

Initially, I’ve been against any kind of therapy since the last time I was in it when I was sixteen and diagnosed with nothing more than an anxiety issue and a psychosis, for which I should stay the FUCK away from drugs so I don’t set it off (which I have, hopefully I haven’t set it off some other way). I was told this was caused because I’m literally the sanest person in my family, a comforting bitch she was. After a handful of sessions I just stopped, despite the slight pleasure I took in counter-analyzing her in some bastardly sense of arrogance, I felt the therapy was unnecessary. But now I think things have developed a little more and my anxieties have progressed for the worse over the past five years, I should probably swallow my pride. Unfortunately over the past two days, my friend has suspected that I’m a schizophrenic, which was the first time I’ve been thought that. I denied that given his reasoning was that I think too much, which, from a basic knowledge of the disease, isn’t quite one of its symptoms. I’ve suspected myself to have some kind of manic depressive traits given a constant inconvenient battle between anxiety (which I usually write good things to) and serious depression (which I usually write terribly to, to say the least) that goes on day to day. The depression can usually be countered with good things happening so I’m not sure how solid the whole suspicion is.

This post is getting long. I think the point of it was to try to be honest and say that, after researching schizophrenia a bit, I may actually have a few symptoms of it. In particular, my current thought patterns and disastrous social abilities are some half decent flags. Also considering both of these diseases can have genetic links is of little comfort when my dad suffered from both of them. So I figure I should see a professional (not sure how yet) that can at least give me some peace of mind and the knowledge of whether I have anything similar to these ailments and help me get rid of them or cope better. Whatever is going on upstairs is destroying me, I’d like it to go away. The fact these things aren’t very socially acceptable isn’t much of a comfort either: I can’t exactly say ‘sorry, I’m crazy.’ if something goes wrong because of it. If I had it my way, I wouldn’t ever want to feel how I feel by choice. These things are fucking diseases, I think it’d be easier to say that I have cancer. The act of putting this out there is also helping a little, I’ll stop hiding for a moment.

I’ll leave you cats off with a thing I wrote last night at this time of night last night, I was trying to sleep but couldn’t and was inspired to write something on the shadows on the wall.

I’m drawing shadows on my wall. Can you tell them to hold still? I was going to title them all with time, but then realized that its night outside. There is no movement sun. These are the products of the street lights. -Nov 19 4:48am

I’m finished.

Damned near at least. Adam’s fucked now, I’m out of money entirely, in fact I’ve established a deficit and will be soon indebted to Vodafone as well as HSBC. Good start, not to mention I currently have no guaranteed way of securing funds for a flight home, which is about £650 if I can get a flight for after next weekend, otherwise going up to £1400+ so I’m in deep shit. I don’t have money for rent, I don’t have money for a plane ticket, I don’t have money to drive my car… however I have just been interrupted as I’ve been writing by calling up a potential pub job to start some work in using Adam’s identity. It’s only Friday/Saturday nights and Sunday lunches for £6/hr +tips so it certainly won’t be solving all my issues, but it’ll help if I get it after the interview I’ve arranged on Tuesday and they don’t ask for photo ID and stuff.

Regardless of that things are still fucking down. I’ve yet to step foot in a race car, which reminds me that I may have a free 20 min test in a Caterham next weekend but I’ve heard nothing so that will probably fall through following the trend of everything since I got here over five months ago. Hopefully I’ll get a hold of the funds I need to get a return flight to Canada, go back for a few days, sort some stuff out, try to sell my race car, get an international driving license so I can stop carrying around my passport everywhere, and even try to work out a visa for thousandth time on home soil. Hopefully everything will work out, but the worst part of all this is the strange fact I’m most pissed off at how Hannah’s disappeared. The good ones always disappear. I’m still acquiring the skill, once I do though I’ll be lethal.

Death in Paris.

Searching for these simpler pleasures,
Living through the arduous gestures,
Steal the concept; self-possession,
Peaceful thirst led retrogression.
These days grow dark and old.
Nov 13

The excuse has the eyes
To seal these mistakes,
Absorbed by these flies.
Your face in abandoned state,
Lost losing the sight of myself,
Organs teething the wine on its shelf.
Taken shape this mannequin last,
Silhouette turned the vagrant’s past.
Well I’ve been worried about you.
And everything’s alright.
You’ve beat me to it, beautiful.
That distant incandescent
Silhouette running rampant.
And I’ve found my answers,
Besides my fear myself,
Riddled with these cancers,
And that awkward dusty console.
You, the excuse, cut through me.
And everything’s alright.
Tonight, for once,
I’ve seen myself falling off the planet
I’ve been myself falling off the planet
And I’m not here alone.

The monster, folded into a pinch,
The knees have turned to ears,
A mirror surrounds the toes, the tears.
Abstract picture in a palm,
Cradled, the sun light gone.
Vacant substance seen clean through,
Holding limbs with limbs ain’t true.
Can’t be seen to know just how,
How these days have come to now.
Wishing you could hold on too,
Wishing you could hold on true.

From my disaster to my destruction.
Disemboweled rats began construction.
Nov 10

I’ve lost sight of myself.
Weather’s bitterness close.
Where is it that I’ve gone?
Hidden lonely man lows.
Sweeping the trees dissent,
Become.
Wreck the empty sky sights,
This light has indeed unspun.
The unbecomed.
Foreclosure towards the future,
Leading the empty fractions,
Into the deep dark, but all unassured.
Success.
Mirrored shards, discordant
Edges envisioned beyond me.
Sideways, gravity’s disguise
Is spelt foreign and unknown
To see.
Nov 4

Once again, I’m not surprised to say, I’ve dropped beneath the surface. I’ve ran out of money and still haven’t found a job. I’ve established a significant list of potential money making, visa free options and have currently started up what has become known as Leach Munsie Enterprises. Inconveniently enough, despite our wide range of potential assets, I’m still broke and Adam’s leaning towards it as well. I have had no luck finding work by any means, legitimate or fraudulent. Leach Munsie Enterprises consists of translucent ideas and propositions, currently on the list are trading stocks, online poker, creating and selling art, and buying massively under priced books from charity shops and selling them for extra on eBay. Currently, the only profits made have been from gambling, I believe that is the testament to an honest living in a crooked world. I’ve been working on becoming a freelance writer, however I am currently distracting myself from writing a couple sample articles by writing on here, cheating myself has become a habit, damnit I’m a bastard. I’ve recently looked into plane tickets back to Canada as well to satisfy my current visitor visa obligations and unfortunately came to the conclusion that I’m seriously fucked for those, considering an economy return ticket is between £1400-£1600.

In an odd conversation Adam and I had, he brought up the idea of the simple life in sarcastic surrender. I mentioned that plan was constantly advised to me when I’d detail my grandeur dreams of racing cars to curious co-workers and questioning friends. ‘Go to school’ and ‘Work for a living’ were the main suggestions. The thought that they were absolutely right has started to nudge my thoughts, not entirely though, I don’t believe I’d ever be suitable to a more typical life. I’d get bored of whatever typical job I have: being the slave, dressed up like a monkey, serving the monkeys that believe they’re kings. My idea of the simple life is less simple, but somehow even less original than the simple life: I’d move to Paris. I would move to Paris and die a failed poet who had wished he was an artist, disguised as a discordant musician. That is my simple life. Death in Paris.

I guess I’ve distracted myself long enough, now how the hell do I write a good article?

Matthew Good’s Life Beyond the Minimum Safe Distance

Monster,
monster feeding
Like a climber
lost in the mountains
I dream
only of sleeping

Ain’t it something?
Ain’t this something?
Ain’t we something?

Nothing to move
nothing in here to explain
Just pillow clouds of poison gas
and moving on somewhere
that always stays
miles away
miles away
miles away
miles away
miles away
miles away
miles away

And you’re miles away

Initially, I wasn’t going to write anything until I had something particular to write, but perhaps out of boredom, or habit, I have pondered long enough to decide it would be time to question my sleeping habits. Now, given that its nearly quarter past 3 in the morning and I have to be up in less than 5 hours for a job interview, I should be in bed sleeping. I used to make agreements with myself on nights like these, in the distant and recent past, that I should get to bed and spare myself at the least 8 hours of a pleasant slumber. The difficulty, however, is that this causes is a certain bit of anxiety to well up while I lie in my bed, resting my eyes, trying to relax my body, decommissioning my brain. The anxiety grows out of particular thoughts of what I should be doing with my time spent lying there awake, how I could be doing something constructive, rather than chasing fucking fast sheep around an endlessly bizarre and twisted sheep. This anxiety typically lasts for a while, and I know the first rule of the insomniac trade never check the clock, but the fact is that after a certain amount of time I end up having a look at the time. This is usually the breaking point of the night and I realize I have a long night or a less-than-anticipated morning ahead of me, or more often than not, typically both. The next thing I know, my alarm clock is going off. Cheers Mr Clock.

If I was to have gone to bed at a more reasonable time a few hours ago, I’d imagine I’d currently still be awake pondering about whatever strays into this moderately irritating head on top of my shoulders. I may be mistaking myself, but I’d rather know for sure that I’ll fall asleep as I lie down rather than fall into the trap of putting myself to rest a little off-beat.

Perhaps, I simply just enjoy the state of sleeping when I have no particular reason to be awake, mostly when the sun is up, but also conveniently when people are up. This flow is also the best way to ensure I’ll grant myself the pensive solitude of the night to come.

Hopefully by tomorrow’s night, I’ll have a job, and I’ll have a reason.