| Why I'm not a Christmas Spirit. |
[Dec. 21st, 2004|05:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grumpy | ] |
Well folks... because someone told me that I should keep doing this blog thing... I shall... but the whole "story of my life thing" may be a bit egocentric and as such I'll just ramble here and post musings and other ... crud I suppose.
Now I am not a fan of Christmas.. or Xmas.. or Consumermas.. whatever you wish to call it. I don't begrudge anyone for liking it... I do begrudge them not letting me not like it. It's not a crime (yet) to dislike Xmas.. so leave me in grumpy peace I say. Please don't sing carols at my door... please don't pray for my soul... and please don't kill trees to send me cards. Yes yes yes.. I know... scrooge... I don't mind. I am happy in my dislike of the holiday... why? you ask... ok.. you didn't ask.. but I'm telling you anyway, so there.
Long ago back when I lived in the US. We were poor.. nothing wrong with that. We however lived in a Christian suburb where the poor were something you only paid attention to at Xmas... and thus.. this is where my story begins. We were voted the "poorest family" by kids at my high school. This in itself was enough to want to make me crawl into a small dark hole and hibernate the cold months away... but this was not enough for the preppies and meaning-wells of the town. They made a collection of canned goods and old clothes. Then came round our house (unannounced) and presented these items of goodwill to us. Now this might have been a good thing... but like all these well meaning acts it was well thought of.. and poorly executed.
They got the high schools head jock and head cheerleader to lead the presentation... now I knew both of these people well. The head jock had made my life fairly hellish throughout high school by generally mocking my lack of designer clothes, lack of my own car, and the fact we lived in the only rented accommodation in the area. He had on numerous occasions beaten me up... or put me down in front of anyone he figured might like a "laugh" at my expense. The beauty queen was a typical WASP sort and we, in her opinion, were akin to the illegal immigrants they had cleaning up after their dogs.
So... in they march into our house... with boxes of creamed corn and tinned salmon... old jeans in sizes so big we could have used them as sleeping bags... and used socks. I could have been grateful... had it not been for the fact that they made audible comments about how poor we were in such a derogatory tone as to make my very hard working (single female parent... 3 jobs) mother cry. This was.. unforgivable. They sang a Christmas carols in our living room and put all the presents on the door set on some breeze blocks we were using as a table. Then left.. all smiling because they made themselves feel better.
When the season was over... I was forced to stand up in front of my classmates and "thank" them for the leftovers (I was in fact given "guidance" on what I was supposed to say). It was possibly the most humiliating experience of my life. It also made me fair game for every jock and asshole in the high school. This includes the supposedly "friendly" ones who came to deliver these presents... who became even more intent on making me feel second class. This includes making me take off the coat I was given in the batch because the kid who used to own it was upset that it had been given to me... and seemed to want to make sure I was aware of his displeasure.
So now.. I'm not a fan of Xmas... I don't have a problem with people celebrating... I do however have a problem with hypocrisy. If you want to do good deeds... help the poor, work for a charity, befriend the elderly... but do it all year round.. and do it because you WANT to do it... not because the seasonal guilt has built up and you feel your karma can be rebalanced by an act of seeming goodwill. Charity is just that... it's an act which is done without strings... it's done because you feel you are helping others.. not because a hallmark card tells you to do so. You do it because it makes someone else as happy as it makes you... not because you couldn't face the guilt. And you do it because it's something that's in your nature... not because it's that time of year again.
If you like Christmas... I'm happy for you.. but don't begrudge me my grumpiness because it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Here is wishing everyone, of all faiths and all nations, a better future.
Tom |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 19th, 2004|05:52 pm] |
I'd like to take a moment to stop from my seemingly random entries related to my so called book to talk about something that is more heated than even politics. That is.... Socks an Sandals. This topic has the abilty to turn rational and quiet individuals into rabid screaming fashion nazi's. Not since the Mullet has a fashion made such zealots of everyday people.
I don't wear socks and Sandals. I would however like to state that one day when I am very old and the cold chills my bones to the very core, I would like to reserve the right to throw fashion sense to the wind and wear sandals and socks.
The question begs itself... Which is worse.. the sandal.. or the sock? At what point does this faux pas reach it's peak? The romans wore socks with sandals... but then again thier empire crumbled. Was it in fact because the armies they faced laughed so hard the romans were shamed into going home and putting on different footwear?
Also... are socks and sandlas a purely male affair? Do women ever wear socks and sandals? I did try putting forward the arguement that women in fact wear strappy shoes and tights or other leg coverings, which whilst sheer, could be constitued as sock-ish. This got me lambasted as some form of cross dressing freak as well as closet sock and sandal wearer. I repeat however I have not, to date, ever worn this combination of foot apparel.
So if your reading this and you have an opinion on the "sock and sandal debacle" please feel free to congregate here... we make no judgements... your secret is safe with me.
Tom |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 12th, 2004|03:41 pm] |
I am often asked "Where are you from?" which is a question that can have a different answer depending on who I speak with. If I think the person is trying to determine if in fact I'm a Canadian (and I'm not pretending to be one) then a simple "from the US" will suffice. However more often than not they want to know what part of the US I am from. This has always perplexed me, if only because if I get specific enough to be precise in American terms, the British person in front of me will be clueless. Mainly they want to know what state I hail from and this is a razor's edge question. The answer will either spark a debate or raise more questions which lead to a downward spiral of ranting and general low grade animosity. When I say "California", I look at the person, waiting, to see where this leads. If their eyes widen and they look at me like I am mad then I know I am dealing with a misinformed zealot. Their first response will be "What on earth made you come to this place?" usually referring to somewhere I am actually quite fond of. I say "I wasn't overly fond of it." and this goads them into some arm flailing response about how I MUST be mad to leave. The reason they think this is because they have a skewed view of the world, and rather than point this out to them like a pompous ass I generally try and justify my comments, however it's often a lost cause. They think that everyone in California is tanned, healthy, wealthy, stress free, with a life time supply of Disneyland tickets who have famous a-list stars round for tea every other Thursday. The reality for me is that large areas of California are like a hollow pie shell. The outside appears warm and inviting with promises of delights within, an aroma of warmth and love and caring, on the inside however there is nothing, it's a hollow shell full of empty promise, invisible morals, hollow platitudes with the shell crumbling around you as you delve deeper looking for what it was you sought in the first place. Radiohead's song "Fake Plastic Trees" fairly much sums up my home town of Los Angeles fairly well. In the end however people will believe what they already believe so my explanations fall on deaf ears. Those that do go and come back sometimes tip their hats to my deeper meanings but unless they are there for a length of time they tend to be caught in the headlights of the glitter and glamour and forget that real people have to make their way there too.
Not all of California is bad, just like not all of the UK is good, but for me I prefer the greens and haphazard layout of the countryside to the shades of brown and linear format so often found in US cities. I still have family that live on the west coast as well as other members scattered around the states but each time a story is relayed back to me of the madness of certain aspects of life on the west coast I am vindicated. Before loads of emails flood in about madness being part of every culture, I know you don't have to remind me, but some things go deeper than others. For those that live there and love it, more power to them, but it's not for me. Rant over.
It does however worry me that a growing number of people in the UK are succumbing to the "Cult of the Insidious Rat" as I like to refer to it. The Disney Empire, similar to the "Empire" found in star wars if you want to be particularly nerdy about it, has the ability to turn perfectly rational human beings into comedy ear wearing freaks. I know of people who have gone to Florida to the Rat's second home to get married. Who on earth would want goofy or some other sugary sweet naff icon in your wedding photo's? They scare me, these people, who seemingly give up all rational thought to go headlong into a fake world were nothing bad ever happens and everyone is happy, all the time, no matter what, it's like a Prozac World. Roll up! Roll up! See the happy workers, see the happy patrons, escapism is just a mere wallet full of money away. If it weren't incorporated, the FBI would be surrounding it telling the people dressed liked drugged up rats to move away from the children and come out with their hands up. I lied earlier, about the rant being over, it wasn't. I have a sister who works for the Cult of the Insidious Rat, she designed a dessert for them, one which did exceptionally well. So instead of giving her a pay rise, or even a slice of the first years profits from her artistic endeavours, they made her sign over all the rights and gave her... a plate. Yes, that's right, they gave her plate with a picture of one of the Rat's disciples. Wow, gee, thanks, a plate. Something that will collect dust, that was made in some far-away land, and probably cost less than a days wages. I know it's the thought that counts, and that is exactly my point, how much thought went into this?
SO is there anything good about California? Yes, plenty! For me most of it lies up in the mountains. Places like Kings Canyon and to the north where the Redwood trees and the Sequoia's reach for the heavens. A recent trip there did however remind me of the madness of humanity when I discovered that had it not been for the fact that both these trees don't make very good lumber, the whole forest may well have been logged to make decking. Finding this out along with discovering that some madmen once thought the Grand Canyon would make a nice landfill... it all harkens back to the advert with the crying Indian on the side of the road years ago. He must be on Prozac by now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 3rd, 2004|05:56 pm] |
So... why am I here at all you may be asking? Good question. To be honest to start with I was unsure myself. I was by all definitions a tear-away, ok I admit I was a hooligan to be honest. I did all sorts of things most of which ranged from mildly rogue-ish to downright illegal. At the time I felt these acts to be reasonable, I was a kid, everything is reasonable. I would in fact jump over that cliff if my friends did, for no other reason than it might be a laugh, and who wants to be alone at the top of the cliff saying "guys... guys... um... can I come too?". I had recently been arrested for theft... this was worse than shoplifting by a mere 1 cent. You see there is a monetary limit on shoplifting and I crossed it, by a single penny. If only there had been a sale on. Life may have been different. What I did then is another story altogether, but I had also been suspended from school for running a loan sharking "business" and loaning other kids sums of money (no questions asked of course) with rather large interest rates and had another larger kid who would extract it if repayment was late. At the time I considered this reasonable, because most of the time I was loaning the money to kids who either were going to use it for illegal activities or deserved the penalties associated. This however is also another story for later and diverts from the track of why I am in the UK. "You were deported!" I hear you scream, sorry to disappoint but I was dragged kicking and screaming to the UK at that point and you can't be deported from your own country, at least I don't think you could, then, I make no promises about the current state of US law. My mother had recently married a man called Brock. Brock is a nice guy who, while not always the most patient of people, did take on myself and my hellion sisters and for that he deserves a medal... or at least a stiff drink and a pat on the back. He had recently been promoted within his large company and was asked to head a European section which was going to take him to.. you guessed it.. the UK.
At the time I thought, because TV made me think that way, that I could of course live in the US, on my own, and have my mother send lumps of money while I made an adult of myself. Having already proved that I couldn't be trusted she was reluctant, even adamant, that I would never see this plan to fruition. I was given a choice. A simple two option choice.
Plan A. Come to the UK with the rest of the family.
Plan B. Be enlisted in a military academy in the wilds of the Southern US states.
Plan A was not to my liking. I however being a somewhat egotistical child figured that Plan B was in fact a ruse, set by my mother to scare me into liking Plan A more and more. I resisted. In fact I was going to call her bluff on this one. So I fought and kicked and screamed. Then it arrived one day in a plain brown envelope addressed to me. It was my enrolment papers to the military academy. I almost pissed my pants. Seriously I have never been that frightened of mail before. The fact that a single brown envelope could bring about such fear still amuses me. I actually dropped the papers on the floor and stepped away from them as if they might jump up and bite me. In a way they had. My mother to whom I had always given the "soft touch" label to had suddenly pulled out the big guns and was about to slap me to the floor metaphorically speaking. I took the papers into her and tried hard to pretend I wasn't bricking it. She could smell the fear and was enjoying it. Never give your mother the upper hand, she WILL enjoy every moment of it and making you squirm will see her to her dying day and bring a smile to her lips as she recalls the moment you realise that you've been trumped. This was my last chance I was told. Come to the UK with the rest of the family and behave and act like a civilised person, or be shipped off and live until I was released from, or grew old in, the military academy.
I signed up for Plan A. It was 5 days to leaving day and as such I had to go around and say goodbye to all the people I knew within the last week of being in the US. I had to swallow my pride and tell them all my original "Grand Plan", the one where I magically live on my own at 15 and get sent wads of cash to do with as I pleased, was not to be. Some laughed, others cried, some said I would be back soon enough, and some others claimed they would never let me in anyway. Almost none of them actually got what would really happen right. Most assumed that I would stick it out for as long as I had to then come back and become a redneck. It's 21 years since then and I don't own a pick-up truck... however I wouldn't mind owning a pick-up truck. Some aspects of redneckdom never fade. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 29th, 2004|03:46 pm] |
I was asked to write a poem for a e-group I am part of that had something to do with the colour Yellow... don't ask me why but this flowed out:
A poem for the "Yellow Things" List.. by Tom Roberts 29/7/04
I once met a man of an inquistive nature,
he would question all things and ponder the future.
He walked to the coast to see the sea,
he looked confused, and asked of me;
"Does the sea love the coast or are they at war?"
"Is the sand part of them or simply the floor?"
"What makes the waves, and where do they go?"
"These are the answers that I need to know."
"How far is the horizon, and where does it end?"
"when is today, yesterday, and what makes the wind?"
I looked at him hard and smiled a big grin,
for I had no answers nor where to begin.
But I liked the questions and the thoughts they created.
I wondered if we have choice, or are we just fated.
I pondered time, and the universe endless,
I thought of infinity, and nearly went mindless.
Could I touch a man's soul or visualise music?
Where do we go when we die and is there a trick?
I thanked this man, for the quesitons he asked,
and asked him his name, if once again we passed.
He smiled at me, this wonderous fellow,
and said they just call me, "Curious Yellow".
What a fabulous name I exclaimed with some glee
"What answers do you have, that you can give me?"
He shook his shoulders and hung his head
as enlightenment he said this instead;
"I have none to give you." was his only reply.
"your quest begins with one word, and that is ....why?"
I liked it... so it's here for posterity... tommorow... "Why the hell are you in the UK anyway?" gets answered. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 22nd, 2004|03:24 pm] |
We don't need no educashun!
After 10 days of "getting used to England" I was finally enrolled in the local school. This would also be the start of a hate/hate relationship between me, the colonial, as I was called by the teachers, and the "Old Boys" academy of teaching. The head of the school was a tall and oddly shaped man by the name of Henry Fone, or Sir Henry Fone as he would become later, when Lady Thatcher handed out awards for warping youth. He was from a different time, one where the empire still covered half the globe and people like me knew their place in the class system, in both school and in society. Our first meeting was not one that set the right tone. I was a rebellious teen who was one step away from being in a young offenders institute (we will gloss over this for now, but we will come back to it) and I didn't so much as have a chip on my shoulder, as half a tree with a sign that read "no trespassing" nailed to it. He explained to me and my mother that the American school system was "lacking" and that I would be too far behind to be with "young people" of my own age and it was in the best interest for all concerned that I be put back a year so that I would "at least stand a fighting chance" of passing any form of English exams. This didn't endear him to me as I felt it was slight to both my country and more importantly to my intelligence. My opinions however were of little importance in this school system. One thing Fone did notice however was that since I was a regular swimmer in the states I was broad shouldered and fairly well built for my age. I could easily pass for eighteen or older in comparison to my fellow classmates, he smelled trouble, and he was right on this occasion. The next piece of information was even more of a blow, I had to go from what I was used to in terms of wearing almost anything within reason to school, to wearing a uniform. The problem was not about the wearing of what was effectively a suit, but having to wear a polyester suit, which wasn't in any way designed to take someone with wide shoulders, and a tie that should only be worn by used car salesmen or people who fashion sense stopped in the 1930's. I hated everything about this new conformist style of attire and so being the type of person I am (and we shall learn a lot more about that soon enough), I altered the uniform in a few small ways. None of which endeared me to the teachers or the school. I didn't do anything except buy versions of the tie that to me looked "about the same" but nice, The suit was "almost the right colour" but made from cotton and not plastic. And I refused to wear the silly badge... which I mounted to a bit of card and would draw like some naff detective when asked where it was. I was chided for my lack of school spirit, but I didn't have any issues with that. it was SCHOOL! who the hell wanted to be enthusiastic about school. I had enough of "pep rallies" and cheerleaders.. ok I didn't have enough of cheerleaders.. I just had enough of what cheerleaders stood for... but the uniforms could stay. What really irritated them was that I didn't have the "fear". When the teachers would yell "You boy!" I would turn and without any hint of amusement say "yes, old dude!". They just didn't know how to take me, and to be honest, I didn't have the foggiest clue how to take them. I was used to teachers who attempted to connect by coming down to the students level, these guys worked on an Us and Them principle and I wasn't a Them, and I really didn't liek the Us. I had become, very quickly a "fugee", a person without an identity. I realised that keeping up the American identity was never gonna win me friends and piers, but I didn't want to be a Brit either. My accent altered and more and more people mistook me for a Canadian. At the time this annoyed me... later I would use it to my advantage. |
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| Stand And Deliver |
[Jul. 15th, 2004|10:32 am] |
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Being a modest hotel the rooms were not large enough to accommodate our entire family. Hell, what am I saying, there aren’t many hotels modest or otherwise that could accommodate an entire family. Three rooms were obtained, one for my parents one for my sisters and one just for me. At first like all new things the thought of actually living in a hotel was a pure exhilaration. For the time being I would not have to clean my room. I had a room that was my own with my own TV. I could effectively come and go as I pleased without anyone knowing. I was 15 and I could do anything, or so it seemed. My first problem was of course, the TV. Having been weaned on the boob tube I had come to expect at least 10 channels. I actually went to the front desk when I only found 4 channels and one of those seemed to be showing some badly presented pages of just words and lousy music called “ceefax”. I was reliably informed this was all there was, at this point I began to wonder what kind of country could only have four television channels, what was I supposed to do? What would I do with my time? How would my brain function without regular commercial breaks? I came to learn much later that the lack of television was in fact one of the better things about the UK. It made me do things, like go out and deal with real people, or take walks, or get on with stuff that needed to be done. This small but life altering fact was one of the things that changed my life. It wasn’t one of those “I have seen the lord, and he told me to buy a Cadillac!” type of changes, or even one those thoughtful moments where you stop and think deeply “hmm, maybe this one small thing will be the making of me.” In fact the lack of channels was one thing I actually put on a list entitled “Why I hate England”. The list also included: “Driving on the wrong side of the road”, this I thought, was an abomination and would make driving much more dangerous for all concerned, the list also included “Stupidly named towns”. I laugh now because I had just come from a place called Snellville and I was thinking that somewhere called Leighton Buzzard was stupid, and last on the list at that point in time was “Odd money.”. The last point is something to this day I wonder about. I am an intelligent person, or at least I am NOW. I was very good at mathematics, I could recognise shapes and colours and could read everything on the notes, but for some reason I, like many of my fellow countrymen and women have some form of mental blank when it comes to bank notes and coinage that are not all perfectly round and the same colour. In fact thinking about it now, it makes even less sense. There is more to be confused about with American notes than with most other countries money. I mean in the US all the money is green, it all the same size, no one calls the coins by “real” names. People don’t say 5 cents, they say nickel, we have dimes and quarters which represent monetary values whose meanings were lost in history (ok, so quarter makes sense… but why the hell would anyone ever make the connection that a “dime” is ten cents?). In the UK it’s all so simple, it’s 5 pence, 10 pence 50 pence, what the hell could be confusing about that? For some reason however, for the first month I lived in fear that I would be discovered that my lack of monetary understanding made me easy prey for shopkeepers or street vendors. I would always pay in notes so that I wouldn’t have the embarrassment of not knowing what the pocketful of change I had was actually worth. This lead to me having pockets full of change most of the time. I was not alone, I noticed that my mother was suffering from the same affliction. She constantly complained about her purse being weighed down by coinage, she wouldn’t admit it either, but she was also having trouble. Trying to rationalise it now I think it’s the odd shapes of the coins, we are conditioned as youths to think that coins, are round, when we are faced with a non round coin it therefore is picked up by the brain as “just a bit of metal”. You end up thinking that this pocketful of shrapnel is in fact worthless because your brain refuses to believe it is money. This is my excuse and I am sticking with it. This lead to me having containers of change in my hotel room where I stored my guilty secret. |
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| In the beginning |
[Jul. 14th, 2004|01:43 pm] |
The Life and Times of No One In Particular
1. In the beginning (well not quite)
I was once told that all good stories begin at the beginning. Having said that, I am going to start this on in the middle. The reasoning behind this is that it’s this stories middle is where it all begins.
My name is Tom, more than that would be unimportant at this time. I am an American and that has some relevance, but I currently reside in the United Kingdom, and how that came to pass is where we shall commence. I was 15 when I arrived having lived in the auspiciously named town of Snellville. We, that is myself and the rest of my immediate family, had come from the airport in Atlanta. At the time Atlanta airport was the pinnacle of what modern airports were all about. This being my first outing outside the US, it was also were I got my expectations of things to come. This was a naïve misconception, but I was 15 and in no way worldly wise. Actually that’s an understatement, I didn’t have the slightest clue. We arrived in Gatwick airport in mid January and having left an airport where you were transported by a modern electric train from terminal to terminal, I sort of expected this to be the norm, so when I stepped off the plan in London I was confused by the fact that instead of the airport we were being let off in what looked like a concrete wilderness in the middle of no-where. Instead of the modern electric railway, there, waiting to slowly take us as far away from our luggage as possible, was a somewhat old and noticeably unheated bus. I immediately came to the conclusion that something must have gone wrong. This was the beginning a learning curve that would span the next several years.
We had moved to Britain as part of new job opportunity that my stepfather, Brock, had taken. I was unhappy with this decision, as it had taken me from a life that I had begun to enjoy. I had discovered cars, girls, parties, girls, alcohol, drugs and girls, these things had become dear to me and for some reason I figured that a life in the UK would end all that. My misconceptions of life in England were defined by TV and from heavily stereotyped jokes as well as misguided people we shall henceforth refer to as Yanks (as opposed to Americans). I believed that all single males over the age of 21 were gay, this fact I had learned from not one, but two separate teachers. I also believed that people walked around in bowler hats and that it rained 360 days of the year. I was misguided into believing that British girls were cold, frigid and prudish and that no one had any “real” fun except of course Benny Hill who had ALL the fun. I was also of the opinion that no one in the whole of the British Isles had any sense of humour. Like I said, I was naïve. I would learn later that all, of my pre conceived ideas, were in fact as the British would put it …“rubbish”.
We had arrived taking with us every article of clothing we possessed. This was no small pile, my mother and twin sisters alone had between them 8 suitcases. We realised that we had nowhere to live at the moment and that it might take a few weeks to find a house suitable. Thus we had packed for every eventuality, this was good because we also soon came to realise that every day the weather could in fact bring every possible eventuality. The old postman’s refrain, which went something like “through rain, hail, sleet or snow, through blizzard, monsoon or the sun’s red glow”, was in fact referring to your average bank holiday Monday. To truly prepare for British weather means only two things really, learn to live with it and learn to talk about it. The sooner you get to grips with the first point the more content you will be, why fight what you can’t change. The second point will come in handy when meeting new people, if you have nothing else in common you share your common defencelessness at the hands of mother nature, and you can talk about it, and when all else fails and the conversation is at a lull, you can always rely on a sentence starting “What about this weather…” will be guaranteed to start a lively debate and get things going again. Whatever the weather had been doing is irrelevant because who knows what it might do next.
Having hired the largest car available and realising that we either had to make two trips or spilt up into two groups we opted for the latter and my mother and sisters went off in search of a cab and Brock and I were left to navigate our way from Gatwick to the town of Dunstable. In between us and our goal was London, we purchased a map of the whole of the UK, thinking that since the whole country is not that big how much of a map do you need? Surely being a city of it’s size it would having multiple lanes of freeway and well posted signs guiding us to our eventual destination. I told you… naive.
I found our starting position and being of a mathematical mind I surmised that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line I was going to navigate us through the middle of London, how hard could it be? The first bit was easy, that is, leaving the airport was easy. From that point onward, and I use the term onward very loosely, we tried to figure out where we were. I eventually after a couple of hours guided us to Piccadilly Circus, during rush hour (rush hour is every hour). On the good side, we were travelling at such a pace that reading the signs was easy, on the bad side, the map we had purchased only marked main roads and thus “next left” would often lead us into one way streets or down residential roads. Eventually we would have to stop, regain our bearings, realise that we had taken a wrong turn… again, and then start again. Eventually after a trip of almost 8 hours we had traversed London and had come to Dunstable. We pulled up outside a modest hotel which was to be our home for the next 3 months. |
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| The begining of the middle |
[Jul. 14th, 2004|01:37 pm] |
This Journal was supposed to be just a place to use for an on-line RPG thing... but I have decided to live up to the requests I get from people saying "you really should write a book"... well I sorta did... and here is where it shall live in anonymity. It serves a few purposes... it gets it out of my system and when people next say "you should write..." I can say "I did, thanks" and smile to myself. Read it if you like... don't if you don't like. I'm fairly free and easy about it. I take any all comments/criticism as long as it's not of a personal attack nature. All that you will read here is true... but not everyone's name is the same as it was in reality... some of it mundane... other bits salacious... and some of it is just to remind why/how I got "here" in the first place.
The book is titled "The life and times of no one in particular" I will write chapters/paragraphs/musings as time permits.
Tom |
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