I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb'ring my good friends

This is how I write – I agonise over every word. I don’t leave a sentence until it conveys just what I want it to. It’s a heart breaking way of working and really stressful and it results in a couple of hundred words every few hours. So I’ve decided to reverse the trend and this blog is to be the opening salvo in my war of attrition with my better nature. After all, hardly anyone reads about us, who wants to hear about the continuing adventures of two lost souls bimbling about the planet, talking too much and inventing funny dances when they get bored? Perhaps three other people.

This site is not, it has to be said, the Disney World of the information super highway, it’s not a tourist trap or a place of historical interest. It’s a forgotten backwater populated by freaks and geeks with hearts of gold. The kind of place that city slickers break down in and slowly come to learn the value of love from the slightly backward townsfolk. In other words it’s a perfect place to experiment. So I’m going to worry less about semantics and more about saying what I mean. I’m going to type at a rate of knots and cover the page with words just to see what happens. It’ll be therapeutic and mixed up and hopefully, hopefully charming.

So what’s on my mind at the moment? Friends. Let me elaborate – at this point in my life I am lucky enough to have made the acquaintance of a number of the best people currently living on planet Earth. They are a eclectic bunch that include (in no particular order) an immigration officer, a theatrical education co-ordinator, a PhD student, several charity workers, a sound technician, an EMA grant manager and an actor/designer/consultant/network engineer … chap. These people are the mystic element that changes the dross of the every day Rumpelstiltskin-like into shiny gold. I have never managed to shake the rather outdated concept of ‘best friends’ but I now find myself in a position where friendships can speak for themselves without recourse to labels and definitions. Some I see once a year, some I see on a weekly basis but suffice to say that I am extremely grateful that each one of them is in my life.

I’ll leave you with this:

“In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion- the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers." 
-Pam Brown

Growing up

I am trying to be a grown up. I am trying to get into the habit of washing my clothes regularly, to keep on top of the problem rather than waiting until I physically can't force any more clothes into the laundry basket before I succumb. I now have a skin care regime, I go to the gym regularly, I clean saucepans before the foodstuff gets welded to the metal through days of neglect. I dust, I clean, I turn my mattress over bi-monthly and moisturise my leather sofa once every six month to prevent cracking. I file away bills between metal dividers and have learned how to iron my shirt.

Half the time I feel great to have entered this hallowed arena of adulthood, to breath the rarefied air reserved for mature lungs. The rest of the time I want to jump over picnic tables, stay up all night watching rubbish 80s horror films, create magazine montages on my walls and cook melted cheese and salsa nachos in the microwave. Because this month I turn 26 and I can no longer pretend I'm nearer 20 than 30. Simple maths will prove me wrong, 2010 looms like a thunder cloud on the horizon and it's so close now I can see the electric blue veins snaking across its underbelly. I mean how did this happen? One minute your dressed as the killer from Scream and filming an alternate version of the music video for B*witched's 'C'est La Vie', the next you've got a staff of three and a stack of appraisals to do. It seems like only yesterday we dressed Milner up as an Egyptian mummy and made him return 'The Mummy Returns' to Blockbuster video.

But you know what the saddest thing on the planet is? Someone trying to regain former glories, people who live in the past rather than the present. I guess I need to look forward to the second half of my twenties and take the decision to make them even better than the first half.

At least my clothes will smell better.