Mainly Trees!

Saturday 9:30 p.m.
There are more trees in London than I thought. Just got back from seeing the kiddo. Being able to sink into the bliss almost as soon as you close you eyes at any time is not a bad thing to be able to do. And not just that. Being able to see emotions like anxiety as things to be observed and not immersed in is also not a bad thing to be able to do, especially when the first thing is not available.


What about the too dumb to meditate who will be able to do neither of the first two things, Hotboy? Well, Jack, Christ said know thyself. He didn't say crucify thyself!
Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness.

And why is it called form, Oh Great One? It is called form, Hotboy, because it is de-formed. It is de-formed by hot. It is de-formed by cold. It is de-formed by wind. It is de-formed by rain. It is de-formed by ice. It is de-formed by snow. It is called form, Hotboy, because it is de-formed. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.

Publisher

Friday 5:14 p.m.
So the publisher asked me what I wanted for the book. I said: How's about a grand? If I only had a grand, I could be a millionaire. A grand and ten percent of sales. He said: I'll give you £750 and 16% of sales. Done.

The Buddha Boy!

Monday 9:20 p.m.
Perchance I came upon some brilliant stuff on youtube. If you're actually interested in this juju, you should go to youtube and search under "Buddha Boy Discovery Channel". There are five parts. The commentary is appallingly flatheided! But if you can look passed that .... Part 2 made me sit up and pay attention because the buddha boy's guru showed up. He's one of us! So the buddha boy is one of us! The guru was a Sakya abbot who looked very like Lama Thebten Yeshe.

Part Four was great! They showed this Indian eighty year old who hadn't eaten since he was twelve, or drank anything. What a guy! If you ever wondered how Jesus Christ managed to spend forty days and nights fasting in the desert, you should see this boy. Funnily enough, he stopped eating when he was twelve and the last stuff about Christ in the bible ... when he was twelve. Then he shows up again at about thirty years old.

I found all this very inspirational.

Is hope a disease? Faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity. We'll translate that as compassion. I'm not doing faith and I'd really like to give up hope. Hope must be about the future. The really good stuff seems to happen to me when I give up hoping. Anyway ... in the best of possible worlds.

I see this young person on Thursday. Although he has no money for moi, this sets in train and is the start of a series of events that means that I can get some money from other sources and give up the jobbie.

So the Buddha and the BBW gets published and then RaBLissBook gets published. This is necessary because in the first one, if I remember right, there's stuff about the basic buddhism, the hinayana. RaBlissBook has stuff about the vajrayana, the juju of jujus. With the money from this, I get to go to visit the caves where Milarepa meditated. I should be much better at meditating by then and I think I will have to do that on my own.

Why is that, Hotboy? I promised myself after the trip which resulted in the BBBW, Jack, that I would not go on a buddhist pilgrimage again with the too dumb to meditate. All my deep, dear friends are too dumb to meditate. The Domestic Bliss otherwise would be perfect, but being too dumb to meditate... anyway, they can't sit still, Jack. They enjoy anxiety. Folk who don't meditate are jumpy basturns!

If Brian Wilson could get his meditations up from two minutes a day to about three hours, I could go with him. If he didn't ... you should have someone with you on these trips because you are liable to get sick. If I went with Brian Wilson to the Himalayas, he would die on the journey and that's not going to make a very interesting book! You see, you write another book ... the third part of the series, or the fourth part if you count in the dirty book, which stylistically is a cousin. You're going to get this one published because of the money you've made some capitalists with the first couple of buddhisty books, so you sit down and write it in longhand seventeen times and make sure it's at least half decent. Then you stop writing and meditate until you die. Hurrah!

I hate having arrangements, appointments, engagements. This is partly why I hate Christmas and the New Year, birthdays and anniversaries. I would not have had this meeting with the joe from Glasgow unless someone else had arranged it. I do not want this meeting. I don't want to have a secret agent. I don't want the hope. What I want is a web page where such as Buddha and the BBW and the other stuff about the juju is available for free ... I'll get back to doing that. The meeting on Thursday will lead to nothing. Why have I ended up speaking to someone about getting a book published who has no money? I haven't got any money. I could have published the book myself. The secret agent has not got back to me about the crime book. When the meeting with the young joe from Glasgow leads to nothing, I will ask the secret agent what's happening with the crime book. When I get no reply, I will contact Ursula Mackenzie who is the commanding officer of Little Brown and see if I can persuade her to get an editor to look at the crime book. When she tells me to fung off, that's it. No more hope. No more stupid dreams of freedom. I'll get into the jobbie and do ra bliss.

I really have to tell yous ... there's nothing like ra bliss. Except for the heat and ra bliss. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!

Sunday night!

Sunday 7:52 p.m.
The old, toothless one and I ran from Stockbridge along the McDonald Road, the London Road, then round Arthur's Seat and through the Meadows, up Forrest Road, down the Mound, through the New Town and back to Stockbridge. It took us one hour forty minutes which is very slow, but long, slow distance running is supposed to be slow. The old, toothless one says it was 8.2 miles. We were dead chuffed so we were!

Before that, I was meditating and leant forward and straightened up. It was probably because the sun was shining through the window, but when the bliss flooded up my consciousness (as it does when you bow and straighten up), my visual field (my eyelids) went a beautiful red colour. It was like looking at a picture of the sun on the telly.

I meditated in the hut as it grew dark and have just finished an hour in this bedroom. That's not really much to do on a Sunday, but the run and going the messages took out the whole afternoon really.

I found an almost full bottle of Erdinger in the kitchen this morning. No wonder I was complaining about not being as pissed as I expected!

Sunday Morning!

Sunday 1:17 a.m.
Bliss diary:

Last night I kept company with the Domestic Bliss and watched Trainspotting on Film 4. Perfect example of why you should do nothing, see nothing, be affected by nothing. Because then I went to bed, but being sober and straight and it being Friday/Saturday night, I sat up in bed and meditated. This lasted two hours or so, but a whole lot of it was trying to get Ewan McGregor and such like out of my head. You have to avoid stimulation and have everything still.

Went to sleep about three and wakened up again around eight. Meditated till about ten or so. Then I meditated from about half eleven till luncho. I lay on the couch.

All the time I'd been trying to do stuff. On the couch, I had Football Focus on the telly and was doing the straightforward on the couch bliss. You're not trying to do anything here. Just being in the bliss with sometimes thoughts arising. Maybe usually not. Dozed off. Wakened up and did the lying there totally relaxed under the towel and stayed with the bliss until I had to get up for some reason. Then I started trying again and did my stuff in the lobby by the phone whilst the Domestic Bliss went out with her disease and tried to check that out with the socialising.

She came back about six and by then I'd been out once and read half the newspaper. Nothing else really. Then I meditated in the room, staring at a candle till around eight. Went out for five (FIVE) bottles of Erdinger and drank them from about nine while watching a duff movie in the company of the Domestic BLiss.

Somehow I didn't get properly drunk at all and watched Stephen Fry travelling around the USA in a taxi on various channels till I came in here to do this. While I was doing that, I was doing the vase breathing when not complaining about how sober I was, and having great effects from the vase breathing.

My concentration wasn't so great today and hasn't been for ages probably. Lots of thoughts. Some of the thoughts were very good though. I worked out how the Copenhagen Interpretation applied to the realisations of non-self and emptiness and thought I might blog about that, but it would take trying to write something down which was difficult and too much trying again and way too difficult.

Sometimes my concentration isn't what it should be because I'm tryingto concentrate all the time, and you're bound to get tired and lose the object of concentration. Maybe I should just be giving up and lie on the couch under the towel and be in the bliss. That must be called something. Then maybe get up and do blistering training sessions, head stands, tai chi, and then lie down again, and do the bliss. Space like meditation on the dharmakaya it might be called. But maybe not. So I'll go and lie down in bed now and try that. Just lying there, losing the body, doing the bliss.

It's a hard life, Jack, but somebody's got to live it!

Tonglen

Saturday 3:50 p.m.
I found this story in the kid's section of Stockbridge Library when the kiddo was wee. A favourite.

This chinaman had a horse that he used to pull the plough for his field. One day the horse ran away. Everybody said: What a shame! A wee while later, the horse came back with another horse in tow. Everybody said: Hurrah! Now that he had two horses, the chinaman used one to plough his field and let his son ride about on the other one. The son fell off the horse and broke his leg, and because they didn't have the National Health Service, the son was left with a permanent limp. Everyone said: What a shame! Then the government called up all the able bodied young men and took them away to the war, but had no use for the son with the limp, so he never got killed.

The point is that you cannot tell the difference between good and bad fortune.

Because only me and Jack and few other spam robots come to this blog, I won't have to reiterate my views on tonglen or dedicating merit from meditations to folk. Anyway, I've been dedicating the merit to three folk recently, all of whom had the black spot. Two of them have just had the all clear. Hurrah! One of them is a very nice person and the other a complete rascal.

This is something to do with oncology and the National Health Service and bugger all to do with moi!

The one that's left over would require a miracle.

This boy from Easterhouse was in the terminal stages of stomach cancer one day and the next day he was fine. The Scottish catholics got someone canonised on the strength of that one.

I visited Lourdes twice as a teenager. They have a museum with before and after photies in it. There's a particularly impressive one of this boy with cancer on his tongue ... not something you'd want to see in the mirror every morning ... and then no cancer on his tongue. Voila!

So weird, inexplicable stuff does happen.

The 16th Karmapa died of cancer before he was my age. I used to wonder why he didn't live till he was 84, which a lot of the big shots in this juju tend to do.

If you were a Tibetan buddhist, you'd say that the mind and body are different kinds of thing. Like, the mind has a body and not the other way around. So to them there is a continuum there and who wants to be old anyway?

The 17th Karmapa will probably be in his forties by the time the Dalai Lama passes away. At least, he'll be grown up and will probably become the main man. So the previous one dying when he did might not be such a bad thing after all.

Nobody gets cured of their mortality. You might get cured of one disease and then be stricken by something a lot more horrible, like a brain cancer that causes you to feel totally terrified all the time.

When I was a wee boy, I prayed a lot for two of my family members to get healthy. I was told that God would answer my prayers. Both of them died. Maybe if you are going to pray for someone, you should pray that they are going to achieve equanimity, peace of mind and calmness.

But not many folk are fortunate enough to welcome death.

Anyway, doing tonglen and/or dedicating merit shouldn't do any harm. As I've said before, it will almost certainly help the person doing it.

Today, I was thinking I'd like to start praying or whatever to Saint Teresa of Avila for this. Catholicism seems to fit this stuff better.

This is no Saint Teresa of Avila, Hotboy. I know that, Jack. Even if there was a Saint Teresa of Avila, she's been deid for hundreds of years. Even if she could cure folk when she was alive, she's gone, gone, gone beyond and all that blah blah.

Still, it might not do any harm. Motivation is everything of course. Bound to do me some good to think less about moi anyway!

I've been getting revelations today. When you get revelations what you should do is keep them to yourself because they are bound to be rubbish. Speculation is fun though. When I've finished the next meditation, I may come back and tell the spam robots about The Theory of Everything. But I might not!

Friday Night!

Friday 10:30 p.m.
There won't be any photies on this bloggy till I get paid on the 27th. Just to let you know, Jack. Apart from the spam robots on the Five Point Plan to Get Out of Your Face on Air, the blog gets about eleven or twelve unique visitors and about five or six returning visitors every day. I guess about six folk come here regularly and that's fine. I'm really using this as a kind of diary these days, so it should be fairly monotonous and boring to most folk. Too bad.

Today I got to Bellshill for the first time since before Christmas. The auld maw was in great form. The pavements are still thick in ice there.

I did the five hills run this evening and despite going to Bellshill, doing the run and lying for an hour in the bath, I managed about five hours sitting meditations. And I'll do some more before sleepybys.

I feel now away from the horrors of Christmas and New Year and into having more control now that the diseases and addictions have diminished, and I'm back into a new jobbie situation, and I can now concentrate on keeping everything nice and settled so I can accelerate progress with the juju.

I really do feel as if this year will be wonderful whether anybody publishes books or not. Who cares? I know what makes me happy! And I am indeed a fortunate creature!

157 Pounds!

Wednesday 11:20 p.m.
The old, toothless one and I did the five hills run this afternoon, and then added another hill. Since I had not been running for some weeks due to the Christmas InSanity Basturns and the evil weather conditions, I expected to die on the hills, but not so. When I got home I weighed in before the bath and I was a measly eleven stone three pounds. Not for four or five years have I been so skinny, not since I started blogging, not since so long ago I can't remember when.

I lose another half stone and then I will be prepared to take my shirt off in the company of members of the opposite sex. Schoolgirls. Appreciative mature matrons who know what they know, notwithstanding being a bit on the slide. Bouncing and squealing members of the Australian Ladies Volleyball Squad. Give me the hydraulic pills and the uppers and I'll be standing there glaring at you, babes.

I do not have any diseases just now. The Nicotine Dragon? I spit in the face of the Nicotine Dragon! I have had no tobacco for about ten days or so. I did not like it for the first few days, but I did not feel as crabbit as I expected to feel. I do not understand this.

Tell the spam robots about the bliss, Hotboy! Tell us about the bliss! There is nothing you can say about the bliss, Jack! You have to experience the bliss! Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss! Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!

In Haste!

Monday 7:40 p.m.
Brian Wilson got an extract of The Buddha and the BBW published by a magazine called Instant in 2000. It didn't do any harm. I didn't get any money. Brian Wilson and I got invited to a magazine relaunch on the back of this extract and we got a few free drinks, and had quite a nice time as I recall.I'd forgotten all about that until right now.

After checking out Fargo Publishing this evening, this might be much the same kind of a thing. The guy behind the venture seems to be trying to organise a writing scene in Glasgow and that's very positive. People need to do stuff like that or nothing ever happens. Tom McGrath would have approved. When Kevin Williamson was doing his thing here in Edinburgh, there were events. It was fun. Irvine Welsh got launched on the back of a piece in the magazine Kevin Williamson launched, Rebel Inc.

Last night I'd had four bottles of Erdinger when I got the phone call from my friend who got the email from the folk in Glasgow. Nice of him to like the book enough to send email it to anyone. Nice that two folk on the other end seemed to like it. I think I was somewhat over-enthused by the Erdinger or I wouldn't have put in the last post. If I ever see paper between covers, I'll be surprised. But one never knows. Chatting to the boy from Instant with Brian Wilson was a good laugh. As long as you don't expect anything, there's no harm done! I've just looked a the piece in the Instant magazine. Quite liked it!!

The BBW and Moi!

Dear Joe,

I write to follow up your submission of Hotboy's The Buddha and the BBW' in November. Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the delay in getting back to you, but November/December were really busy so we're catching up on everything now.

I read a few chapters of Hotboy's submission and enjoyed it immensely (I did indeed find it very funny and hard to put down!), and I forwarded it onto Bark Fungland, the Director of Fargo Publishing. He also thinks it's fantastic. Therefore, we would be very keen to meet with Hotboy to discuss the potential publication' of The BBBW'. Bark is Glasgow-based but would be more than happy to travel to meet with Hotboy, if this could be arranged? Please do let me know your thoughts on whether this might be possible - we very much hope that it might be.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Bill


Reconciled?


I haven't read that book since such a while ago. A friend of mine liked it and said he'd hustle it to these folk. He phoned me about an hour ago (ten thirty this evening) and got me to look at the email. How weird! Of course, they won't have any money. But if I could get three books published which bore little resemblance to one another ... well, it's not about the money, Jack! It's not about the money!

Dorje Chang, Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa, Gompopa ... It's not about the money. It's about the juju!! Allah Akbar!

Sunday night

Sunday 8:20 p.m.
Just poured the first beer!

Right after I'd read the first thirty pages of the novel I sent to the agent just before Christmas. Really enjoyed it. It does what it's supposed to do!

It's pathetic that you have to reassure yourself like that, Hotboy. I know, Jack! One bad review from a geriatric computer geek and you want to top yourself. Dearie, dearie me! Now that I'm reconciled to working till I'm sixty five whatever happens with the novel doesn't bloody matter anyway.

This has not been the best of times and being under the weather does piss you off. It's got to be bad when you actually want to go to your jobbie tomorrow. Only six years and a couple of weeks to go! Hurrah!

Bliss diary: Before I read the thirty pages, I meditated for about two hours, or so. This is the bliss! This is the bliss! And opening, and heat as well! 2010 will be a wonderful year if I just remember to stick with the juju and try not to want or expect anything.

I gave a thought to the sensei and reverend's crime book as I was finishing reading the first thirty pages of mine. If the sensei, who is quite cute at this kind of thing, cannot get his crime book published, there's precious little chance of mine going anywhere. I think I'll start buying lottery tickets.

When I win the lottery, here's what I'm going to do.
1) Go and visit Milarepa's caves.
2) Give pots to the kiddo for a kiln and whatnot.
3) Give pots to the Samye Ling.
4) Go and see the sensei in Phoenix.
5) Give tons to the Domestic Bliss, but only in very small doses lest she pass away in complete amazement.
6) Get a web page set up ....

Actually, I think that's what I'll do when the agent says he doesn't fancy the crime book. Back to square one. I'll have time on my hands since I'll need to think about the Traffic Wardens for months and months, getting a chapter by chapter synopsis completed before I'm ready to write it. Yes, set up a webpage so you can download all the books for free. Hurrah!

The tree photie and the photie of Cambusnethan Church were taken from the good mother's back garden in Newmains today. The other two were yesterday's from up the park.

Thoughts

Saturday 11:53 p.m.
There is a frame for the thoughts to arise in. You may believe or disbelieve in the thoughts, but the important thing is surely the frame that the thoughts arise in. If you have a good frame, you may have good thoughts. If your mother has just dropped dead at your feet, this might not be a good frame and the thoughts that arise will probably be not very good thoughts. They will not make you happy.

In the Disbelieving Congregation, of course, we don't believe in thoughts, do we, Jack? Certainly not, Hotboy! We don't believe in thoughts because they do not exist in the manner of their appearance. They lie. They appear as separate things when they are interconnected, for instance. The main characteristic about thoughts is that they are lying basturns every one.

However, we have to have thoughts whether we want them or not, so it would be good if we could have a good frame to have them in. If you could just get the frame right, we could have good thoughts and be happy. If we are somehow in the wrong frame, the thoughts that arise will be moody, unhappiness thoughts, and these are really not worth having, given that they are all lying basturns anyway.

I've had two diseases this week; a queasy stomach disease and a coughing and spluttering disease. Even a cheerful joe or josephine is going to have a hard time having happy thoughts arising in the midst of these diseases. So what can you do about that?

I was lying on the couch this evening. I'd been mooching around in that kind of depressed way you get with whatever minor disease you have, and then I lay on the couch. Normally, I lie on the couch when I come in from the jobbie and do the flat out couch bliss before dozing off. Today, I was just knackered by the disease and lay down there. And the bliss arose. You have to be able to concentrate a bit, so you need a frame you can at least do that in. If you were delirious, you couldn't do it. But even well pissed off, you should be able to get something if you can just concentrate a bit. Concentration and focusing is what the mind game is all about. So the bliss came on and I snoozed and wakened in the bliss and snoozed and ... I really hope I can do that when I'm succumbing to the black spot. On the couch, watching the David Attenborough shows, dozing, coming in and going out of the bliss.

What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!

Friday Night!

Friday 9:55 p.m.
The Scottish government stopped off-licenses selling booze after 10 p.m. recently. Brilliant law!! I've had nothing to drink since Monday and nothing to smoke since a couple of wee roll ups with the McDucks on Sunday.

Both the Dom Bliss and I are now whacked with colds. Give up everything and get a disease. Brilliant! The meditations made more progress today though. That's all that matters!

12:34 a.m.
Bliss dairy: Been watching a DVD called Hairspray with my eyes closed, but without the noise blockers. How sociable! Great effects from the vase breathing.

I asked a question once in the temple after a chat from the lama, probably the first time I saw him giving a talk in the temple. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking ... I asked him if meditating before you went to bed might stop you from sleeping. In those days, meditating used to really give me a lot of energy and I've sometimes had a slight problem with the sleepybys anyway. He didn't look happy with this question. He said: When we were in Tibet, we were told that sleep is useless.

I've just had two desert spoonfuls of Benylin and I'm going to bed now ... sober, straight, and diseased!

Reconciled!

Friday 6:40 p.m.
Whilst meditating in the secret garden ....

I'll be 59 next month. The reason why I went back after the summer and hacked about in an old novel was partly to do with this. I would like not to have a jobbie despite the fact that I've got a really good one. I've got too much to do to waste whatever time I have left in gainful employment. So I went back to hacking about in the old novel because I could get something out of it pretty fast. Even if the agent decides to represent it (by no means certain), it probably won't get published. Even if it gets published, I'd probably still have keep working.

So I decided that I'd just as well settle for what I've got and be reconciled to going to the jobbie till I am 65.

My old man was a brickie. One of my grandfathers worked down the pits and my other grandfather was a blacksmith in the steelworks. Compared to what these folk had to put up with, I haven't done a day's work in my life!

It's time to give up striving for what I'm not going to get. I'm going to keep working on the Traffic Wardens book, but only as a diverting sideline, not with any hope of salvation. It would take me a couple of years to complete even if I worked like hell on it, and by that time I'll nearly be retired anyway.

I've worked as a full time writer for three months out of the last thirty years, but I've had about eight plays produced and a couple of novels (out of about eight or so) published, so I'm not complaining. But I'm not expecting anything else to happen in that line. Nice to have had some hope from the agent in the last three years, but it's too late now to make much of a difference either way.

What would you have done if you'd made some money and got some time, Hotboy? I would have gone to the Himalayas and visited some of the caves Milarepa meditated in and I would have had more time to meditate myself. But c'est la vie!

In any case, who can tell what the future holds?

Walking photies!

Friday 6:35 p.m.
Bliss diary:
Glorious day again. Meditated for an hour in the secret garden in the Botanics, and them did half an hour in the hut.

Catch up!

1:10 p.m.
Bliss diary:
Just finished my first meditation of the day, which is a bit of a disgrace. Do you want to hear my excuses, Jack? No. Okay then, I've been having problems with my sleep cycle. Apart from Tuesday night, I've been having problems getting to sleep; having light sleeps and not getting up till about ten. This is no use! I don't know why this is. At the start of the week, I had a queasy gut and then I got a bit of the sneezing and coughing stuff, but that doesn't explain it. Don't really know what's going on here, but I wish I was getting up at six.

The Dalai Lama starts meditating at four in the morning, I think. That's the ideal. Before noon is when you should be hammering it.

The Domestic Bliss has been off work today with the head cold stuff, a much worse dose than mine.

I'm tired a lot of the time and don't feel like doing any hard physical jerks. So I'm not quite right.

Despite everything, the meditations continue to progress. Heat in the last one though I was late starting and it didn't last more than an hour.

I'd be able to do this juju much better if I didn't have a body, so I would!

Walk Photies

Thursday 3:50 p.m.
Bliss diary: I sat in the hut for an hour between feeding the birds. It's good to sit in the hut in the sub-zeros because it makes you realise that it's not too cold to sit in the hut when you're wrapped up. It's colder walking about outside, particularly on your face, although there is no wind. Also, it makes you realise that you are nowhere near being able to raise inner heat properly. However, it was a fabulous meditation. My mood has been getting better the longer the day has gone on.

10:50 p.m.
Bliss diary: Probably only did about five hours today, but the day started late and the Domestic Bliss did not go singing and dancing this evening. We're both coming down with colds, I think. Anyway, the last meditation finished about nine. Everything goes great, except my concentration could be much better. The nicotine withdrawals have been non-existent today. Hmmm? Wasn't expecting that so soon. After Skye I think I was crabbit for about two weeks!! Still, this is the third night of going to bed sober and straight! Hurrah!

In the photie of me feeding the birds, I'm standing on Inverleith Pond.

Sweet Thursday!

12:50 a.m.
Bliss diary:
I have wakened up feeling happy. I've even wakened up feeling blissful. But not for some time, it seems! There's been an underlying not-quite-rightness about things today.

I read once that Milarepa was able to sit in caves half way up Everest because his "channels" were fully open.

What does that mean, Jack? Buggered if I know, Hotboy!

How long is a piece of string? How much bliss can you actually experience? How fully open can your "channels" get? Surely, this malarkey could just go on forever.

Though certainly feeling of dissatisfaction underlay it, the first meditation of the day (just finished).... the effects of vase breathing are just going off the scale. Then you stop and there is still that mild feeling of dissatisfaction. At least, it's lessened. Time to feed the ducks!

Twelth Night

Wednesday 11.26 p.m.
Bliss diary.

The nicotine withdrawals have been hardly any bother today. My concentration is a wee bit better, but there has been a big effect on the meditations, the vase breathing particularly. Purification always does it!I have got a slight bug, but it's not bothering me though I do feel tired. This is only my second day sober and straight. God knows what I'll feel like by Monday when I have to go back to the jobbie. Between now and then I have nothing in front of me. The auld maw phoned today and said not to come on Friday due to the inclement weather problems with the transportation. I'm feeling quite happy all things considered. Didn't do much meditating this evening as I wanted to enjoy my partner's company. Tomorrow evening I'll be on my own again. This is going to be some year for the juju!! Right now I don't want to see another bottle of beer, or a joint, or any of the Unfortunate Ones at all.

Alexandra David-Neel talks about the wonderful feeling when the passes in the Himalayas became blocked and she could look forward to a whole winter of peace and quiet, and meditation. Who can tell? Maybe one of these lifetimes.

The Santa posters were done by the kiddo when she was about seven. The red one with the grumpy, crumpled face is one of my favourite things at this time of year, or anytime. They get put up at opposite ends of the lobby. Tonight they come down for another year.

The Prologue

Can you spot any punctuation mistakes in this?

It doesn't copy properly, so I've had to fiddle with it a bit. Can't get the paragraphs to indent. Also, I can't remember if uppers dilate your pupils or not. Why would anyone expect me to know something like that?

PROLOGUE


The walls of the Saracen’s Head hadn’t been repainted in over forty years. The double doors were straight across from the bar and the only patrons, apart from the man asleep with his head on a formica tabletop, were sitting in the corner, more or less facing the doors. The barman had just slipped through the back.

The detective was wearing a dark suit with an overcoat more expensive than you might expect and he was flanked on either side by two other men of slightly smaller stature. None of the three men seemed seriously intent on their drinks and gave the impression of waiting for someone, or something.

The double doors burst open and a traffic warden came running into the bar then stopped. He wore a beard, which seemed on the point of falling off, and his face underneath was reddened, his eyes like saucers on stocks, the pupils hugely dilated. The massive dose of multifarious stimulants on top of the whisky had the sweat bursting, pounding out of him. Pulling a gun from inside his tunic, he started quickly towards the table where the three men sat, firing as he went.

Bullets went into the throat and head of the men on either side of the detective, and he was shot in the shoulder, but then the gun jammed and the man dropped it. He pulled a sharpened chisel with a custom made hand guard from inside his tunic and he grabbed the detective by the hair, knocking over the table as he dragged him onto the floor, stabbing him on the head and neck as he went.

A furious madness gleamed out of the face of the man doing the stabbing, his lips pulled back, the gnashing teeth bared. He held the head down by the hair and the detective came to rest on his back as he was stabbed in the throat, then many times in his face, then several times through both eyes. He was dead by the time his forehead was stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and the stabbing didn’t seem to ever be going to end. The skull collapsed there and the traffic warden didn’t stop stabbing then. There was blood all over the traffic warden, the corpse and the floor by the time he finally stopped stabbing and scooped out a handful of the detective’s brains. He stood up and threw the brains, still in a mad fury, at the wall. Then he stretched out his arms, one hand still holding the chisel, and shouted in exultation.

"Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass!"

Two other traffic wardens came running through the door then, one with a red blanket which he threw over the killer’s shoulders. The other picked up the gun and the beard, and then all three traffic wardens rushed out.

The drunken man asleep with his head on the formica topped table claimed later that he never heard a thing and neither he did.


Why would a thirty year old woman want to read that on the bus? Dearie me!

Start to the Day!

Wednesday 2:00 p.m.
Slept for a full ten hours last night!! That never happens.

I started getting up at six in the morning nearly twenty years ago now to meditate before going to work. At first, I used to do some of Mr Iyengar's sun salutations before sitting, but realised in this climate that's a good way to get into hospital before breakfast. Then I just sat.

When things are going well these days, I usually pause for a while flat on my back and get into the bliss by doing yoga nidra. Then I sit up for a bit before moving out of the bed. This is a good way to start the day!

Today because I wasn't going to the jobbie, blah de blah .... I got up and was going to go for a paper first off. So there's a pile of book tapes the Domestic Bliss asked me to return to Stockbridge library. I didn't want to go out twice today then so I took the tapes and went to the library first. Still baltic out there. And I'm a bit crabbit since ... well, I just am! Dodging the Bulgarian gangster who's selling the Big Issue outside Scotmid, I got down to the library. It's closed. So I'll have to go back later, I think. None to pleased by any of this now. Turning away, I thought the basturns must have a letter box and I turn back to stuff the book tapes into the opening. With the last one in, the flap clamped shut like a mousetrap and got the middle finger of my left hand. We're talking blood here. I'll definitely lose the nail. So I'm dripping blood in the chemist shop and get elastoplast. £2:50 the basturns charged me for a roll of elastoplast!! £2:50. Basturns!

When I finally started meditating at half eleven, it went like a dream really. Nearly two hours straight off. A terrific meditation. I should have done that first of all.

Why didn't you do that first of all then, Hotboy? Stupid basturn lying thoughts, Jack!! It's really hard not to believe anything you're thinking first thing in the day!

For the last half hour I've been trying to get connected to the computery thing in the living room so I can start working on my new blockbuster.

Actually, I don't read blockbusters. The Dom Bliss bought one yesterday. If I was going to write blockbusters, I should try reading one sometime. But is life not too short to start with that sensible malarkey now?

I still have heard nothing from the agent about the last blockbuster. The only person who's got back to me about it is some old guy who likes nothing better than reading computer manuals. The folk who read most popular fiction are women of about thirty, I believe. So I can discount the first reaction. But if you're one of the women I sent this book to and you don't like it, don't tell me about it, please. Just keep mum.

I've been reading Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. In three months I've got jsut over half way through it. Really good bit of writing. I think the sensei and reverend must have recommended it to me. Pop 1920 by Jim Thompson, also recommended by the sensei and reverend, was superb. Maybe the answer is just to write really well, but that takes a lot more time than I have right now. Even writing crap takes too much time. Anyway, I'm going to read what I've got of the new blockbuster now with a certain amount of despair in my heart. In an hour and a half I'll start meditating again. Hurrah!

Ice Warrior Photies Again!

Tuesday 9:30 p.m.
Waitrose sells bread flour for £1 a kilo, the cheapest anywhere hereabouts. Unfortunately, it aint stoneground 100% wholemeal and the loaves are not nutritious enough for a joe who, when there is no soup, lives on bread alone. I made a loaf with the stuff that comes in at £1:45 and took what was left of the first loaf up the park for the birds.

Feeding the birds up by Inverleith pond was one of the joys of having a toddler. Practically every day, I was up there throwing bits of bread into the air for the wee gulls to swoop on.

I got up today with a mild disease and decided not to go to the jobbie. Hurrah! I stayed in until it was getting dusky around about four and went to the pond and walked round the pond. That's where the photies came from. There were three geese maybe who got most of the bread. Anybody know what a goose with a red bill might be called?

Sometimes today I was a bit antsy with the nicotine withdrawals and clenched my teeth a wee bit. Allah Akbar.