The Streetlight Renaissance

I'm jumping,
A spring breeze is blowing
Though the dusty regions of my heart
Left to rot from the very start

Of this new-found age of skepticism
That's left me blind, to the joyous wonder
Of sunshine dreams, moonlit fantasies
A soul to yearn for, and grow ever fonder

I had no reason to believe
Fed up of exhausted reprieves
The suffocating acid of naked obsession
And the crush of being no more than a possession

That left me shattered, lifeless on the floor
Sitting, watching emotion trickle down the drain
Questioning own existence under the stars
And vowing: To Never Fall In Love Again.

Easier said than done,
And so, as the setting sun
Bathes the cornfields in fire and light
And ushers in another one of those cool summer nights,

I let my mind wander, and it settles on you
With an unsurprising lack of hesitation.
You have a real knack of infiltrating my mind, you know
Not that I'm complaining - it's a beautiful sensation

When your eyes grab my gaze and hold it to rapt attention
And fills my heart with new and powerful energy
That threatens to drive me to sheer delirium
Unless I relent, and allow it to break free

And smash negativity to kingdom come,
This smile on my face is real, and true
I just have one question left for you to answer:
I still believe in love; do you?

Movement in Transit

Where did all the time go?
We lost it when we were free to roam,
Letting all the good times roll,
Away, to a place, far away from here,

Oh, where did all the love go?
Words sting with barbed suspicion
Come, let's free our minds from this old grey nightmare
And learn the lost art of escapism.

Small-Town Big Brother

There's a prying eye
And a watchful stare
A rigid look
Unfeeling glare
A feeling of constant watch,
Unsympathetic force to dodge,
Emotionless eyes attempt to analyse,
The crimes I've yet to commit,
And never will.

Rational thoughts
Never crossed their minds
So why should I
Freely surrender mine?
Caught by over-zealous suspicion,
Trapped in a power-hungry condition,
Condemned by a thought, not an action,
Stand by, everybody!
It's the public execution.

30 Days Challenge - Day 20

Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future.

Very difficult one. I have quite a few friends, and a select few who mean a great deal to me, but - and this is nothing against them - I really don't know whether they will stick with me for a long time into the future. You can never tell, can you? I think the only one I can say with any confidence I could remain friends with for a long time would be Mike, simply because we are so strong and very tight as friends, and I trust him more than anyone. The thought of not having him around even in a mild capacity frightens me, and I fear I would end up rudderless without him to confide in. He is a fantastic friend to me, and I can see ourselves, no matter where our lives take us, never loosing that friendship.

Funnily enough, I'm going to sort of mirror Emily's sentiments from her blog, as if Mike stays in my life, then it just goes without saying to me that Emily will be there as well. I've never known it any other way, and I can't see it being any other way, and quite frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way - Emily is a lovely person and I count her as one of my good friends :)

Again, this is no disrespect to any of my other friends, who all mean a lot to me, and I certainly HOPE they remain in my life for a long time yet, but who can say if they will or not? Time will tell.

As for marriage? I wish! That's still a long way away yet. There's hardly anyone I can see myself being with as lovers, let alone husband and wife. I'm getting better at dealing with this though - for years I was just so desperate to find a lover and enjoy a relationship because I feared I was somehow running out of time, and my life was whittling away the worse for it. It lead to quite a few mistakes on my part, regrets and even some moments I quite frankly cringe about now, and I'm now realising that there is no time limit, no rush. What happens will happen, and I'm much more content for it.

30 Days Challenge - Day 19

Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them.

I have multiple, to be fair! Or have had, should I say.

Let's start with the various affectionate ones I've had from my own parents, and that are still used to this day, bless 'em! The two main ones were Cub/Cubbie and Monkey Man. Cub was used earlier on in my life, then as I got older and more mischievous (so they say - I was an angel, honest! :P) I was christened Monkey Man. Both nicknames are still used today, and will continue to be used for a long time yet :) In fact, my parents have a pretty neat tradition on my birthday relating to my nickname. There is a song by a great old reggae band called Toots and the Maytals that is actually called 'Monkey Man', and its a great song! Really happy and bouncy. When ska band Reel Big Fish did a cover of it, Dad got it on CD, and ever since then has blasted it out loud at least once every year on my birthday! The one I remember most was for my 17th, a year ago - I was still asleep and dozing, and Dad put the song on his phone, and snuck into my room and set up the phone and a pair of phone speakers for it. It couldn't have been timed better - as I finally sleepily open my eyes, I see him press the Play button and grin at me, and the opening chords blast out. I remember, despite being very sleepy, cracking a large smile at the time - great fun :)



As for friend nicknames, I was stuck with Ad through primary school - how they could find a way to shorten Adam, I don't know, but they did! - and in secondary school I was happy to be called AJ, and for nearly five years that was all I was known as! Sadly there were times where it became used as a derogatory term, so when I moved schools for sixth form, I sort of wanted to be known by my real name again, but after a while I relaxed about it and I'm happy with AJ again, mainly because I know it's lost the negative connotations. Plus it sounds kinda cool :)

30 Days Challenge - Day 18

Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have.

Well where do I start? As I outlined in an earlier post, I many different goals of mine, spread over various timeframes and such. I supposed I've already covered the short-term ones, so time to look at the bigger picture.

My main dream has always been to live a comfortable life, where I'll have no problem with taxes and such - not rich, though. Rich would be excessive, and would just lead to an unsatisfying and probably tedious life. I don't want everything, but I want enough money to live comfortably and not have to worry about finances.

I also want to see the world, especially America, and perhaps settle there one day, as well as visit and experience Japan, a country that just seems like such a fascinating place to be, with a culture that almost appears to be a perfect mix of native tradition spanning thousands of years and modern Western contemporary culture. Obviously people will point to the whaling deal, and as Emily pointed out at her blog, the awful massacre of dolphins, but I'm certain that, though they are appalling acts, they are not indicative of the nation and its psyche as a whole. Just the same as the most ardent, jingoistic rednecks are not representative of America as a whole, see? I could perhaps also see myself visiting Spain and other European nations, as well as spending time down in Australia, funnily enough! That would be mainly for the fantastic weather, as well as the fact they are a nation big on rugby and motor racing, which links into my next point.

Being an unashamed petrolhead and motorsport fan, one thing I'd love to do is to visit and watch many famous motor races around the world - the Le Mans 24 Hours in France is very high on that list, as are the Isle of Man TT motorbike races, the endurance races at the Nurburgring (24 hours) and Sebring in America (12 hours), and atop that lists sits any kind of NASCAR (America) or V8 Supercar (Australia) race you can think of. They are my two favourite motor racing series in the world by far, and their flagship events - the Daytona 500 for NASCAR, and the Bathurst 1000 for V8 Supercars - are spectacular occasions; and that's just from me watching it on the telly! I'll have to settle for video for now, but one day I would love to experience this in the flesh:








Coming back around to the dream I started this post off with, relating to the kind of life I have; I've been pretty explicit in saying I don't want to get stuck where I am for the rest of my life. The regular life, with a wife and some kids, and a nice steady job in something you probably have no interest in whatsoever, doesn't appeal to me at all. Forgive me for being a dreamer, I'm aware I probably have very unrealistic expectations, but if I believe somethings achievable I'll go for it. The last place I want to spend the entirety of my life is Swanley and to waste my life away doing nothing in particular or of any satisfaction to me. The only two ways I can really see myself getting out of here and getting to the life I want are via either putting a band together and writing music, or writing poetry and novels for a living.

Isn't that what everyone wants, really? The ability to be paid and make a living by doing something you adore and love. There are opportunities to make my living by doing something creative, and writing and music are two of the most important things in life for me. I'm leaning more towards writing as I go along, but as music burns so strongly, I can't discount the idea of that at all. Writing is probably my strongest creative skill and the one I love doing the most - you can't beat the feeling of the creative process in action, and reading back something I've written that I'm particularly proud of is a fantastic feeling. Not in an arrogant way, simply in an "I made that, and I'm proud of that" type way. I love the feeling. I know friends of mine who are exactly the same, and they operate in other areas, such as photography, filmmaking, art, etc. I would love to see these people make a living out of that as well, simply because I can see that they are like me in that they get such a huge kick out of the creative process and realising something, but also - not to inflate anyone's egos here - but they are damn good at what they do, and I believe it would be a great shame if that sort of got swept under the rug as life went on and wasn't realised as much as it could. Plus, another thing about making a career out of these things - you can be freelance! Of course, say in writing, there is a publisher who would like you to write stuff for them to publish, but there is no formal boss like a traditional career - nobody saying "right, be here at x time and work for y hours and get paid z wages". There is a freedom and flexibility there, which would allow you to enjoy the little things in life a little more, something I feel too many people don't get the chance to in whatever they end up doing in life.

The only 'traditional' choice of career, as in, get up, go to work, come home x days a week type career, I can see myself doing is journalism - again, writing, but this time in a non-fictional aspect. It's what I'm hoping to do at university/college (with any luck, fingers crossed!) and it strikes me as a nice career choice as it still has a degree of flexibility, there are so many branches of it. The only thing is, it has a real stigma of snideness and secrecy about it - how many times do we see a person's secrets splashed over newspapers like nobody's business and a snide journalist just saying "well, it's what THEY want to read, don't blame me...". My conscience wouldn't allow me to be like that, and I hope I'm not placed in a position to do that by a future employer.

In a nutshell then, here are my plans and dreams for my life:

• Get out of Swanley as fast as possible.
  
• Work hard to try and make a living out of being a writer, with music and journalism being the other two options there.
• See the world.
  
• Have financial security.

Too much to ask? Probably - ain't gonna stop me from trying though! :)

30 Days Challenge - Day 17

Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why.

Man this is tricky! It's difficult to actually visualise someone else's life and if I'd want to experiance it, but there are a couple that, based on what they seem to be, I would be fascinated to experiance a day of their lives. The two musical choices for me are Greg Graffin, singer for the band Bad Religion, and solo artist Nell Bryden.

Graffin is everything you wouldn't expect from a punk rock band frontman - well-spoken and incredibly intelligent, and I'd love to live a day of his life to gain more of an insight on his views on religion, atheism, existance and such things, as well as a day on tour with one of my favourite bands :D

Nell Bryden would be similar, but for different reasons - she has that whole Americana feel in everything she does, music included, and she tours in such a renegade fashion, with a random selection of musicians in her backing band each time, and tours just so so much - would be pretty mind-blowing to get a taste of all that just for a day.