this chapter starts at the beginning...

But I’m not sure why you’d care. Too much noise and static already to be clogging up this place with more. And text — especially with text. Not sure if our too-short attention spans can process text any more in a world made up of pictures. Of porn, mostly. But you’re still reading so maybe there’s people who still care yet.

Not even sure why I’m writing — I’m no writer — but I spose I’ve got things to say. No different from anyone else, but maybe similar enough to some to make them think. That and for most of my life my family’s talked of me writing. It’s a funny thing to have your fate mapped out on a random whim. Been so long now no-one’s sure how it started and long enough it doesn’t matter. “When you’ve written your first novel…”, “When are you starting your book?”

Today it seems. I bought a Moleskine and started a Tumblr. Vignettes, and flotsam. Seemed whimsy enough and modern enough and not too full of itself and the feeling you get when you know something is right. Reminds me of youth and adventure, scavenging all salty and sandy and full of joy about the little things that sadly you lose when you get older. The idea that something common and discarded can go into the sea unloved, gets rolled around and comes out a treasure.

But alright and enough, let’s not test the friendship so early. More to write but another time.

florence

From Pisa we travel east and north to Florence. Circle the city then we're storming the walls, caught in grotesque mockery of a long-past siege. Built once to keep barbarian hordes outside, now keep tourists trapped within. Each turn we’re mocked by statues, whose shrivelled endowment I taunt in feeble retribution. One bronze effigy scowls upwards — a pigeon perched upon noble brow and impotent against such indignities. But the lardy, sweating crowd pay no notice — they snap their postcards. They shoot to remember the moment they just missed. Faces covered with insidious blinkers that rob the senses, reducing each potential experience to light through a lens and moments into ones and zeros. Art requires the artist to absorb and distill and experience, and even shoeboxes leave a physical legacy.

And always the heat as my constant companion. The crowd pushes forward again, just me and 1000 of my dearest friends, caught in a torrent of human flotsam raging through cobbled streets. There! A white cathedral. And look! Crumbling edifice. Then swept onwards towards the next monument of some import. We pause a moment for breath, midway along the Ponte Vecchio. The angry flow eddies, momentarily confused before sweeping onwards around us as unconcerned as if we were but a rock, and of as little consequence — an inconvenience to be eroded over time. Here, a glint and I spy a silver boar and ask a shop girl for a price. She disappears to the waist within the window, regurgitated a moment later bearing my treasure and a thin smile. Veiled hostility directed at any seeking refuge in the relative peace of her domain. The craftsmanship is incomparable, and so is the price so I mumble my excuses and step backwards to be taken by the fleshy river and this time happy to escape into it's anonymous embrace.

We make our escape then to the hills to mix with a better class of rapist. Wine replaces lager and gritty alley with sweeping vista. I feel lighter. Free from the confines of the walls. This is the way to enjoy the city I think. Looking down from vaulted terraces the whole of Florence is visible and it is beautiful. From here you see only the grand domes, no neon signs nor gaudy trinkets. The Arno shimmers. Florence is a caricature, and us the artist. Erase the foul details and embellish the good! There is flattery in distance, but also cruelty — its abstraction denies the senses. We eat lavish meals to try to capture nights in restaurants with friends, and surround ourselves in manicured gardens to replace the myriad of smells. We drink to recreate the happiness we felt. It's better up here we tell ourselves. But soon I long to return. And so we descend.

barcelona (part i)

And so we arrive in Barcelona. It's Rome again but so much better — oozing cool from every concrete pore. The people! The sights! The shops! Drop off our bags and straight for the streets. Slathering hounds baying for the Barcelona experience. We wander the labyrinth, intoxicated by adventure and growing bolder with each unexpected discovery. We seek out salons to verify our discoveries. A suburb can be summarised by its salons. The burbs harbour the barbers, hawking ten euro trims and five euro shaves — no excitement here. But the chic salons, the edgy salons, seek only the grittiest outposts. The forward guard of gentrification! Brave pioneers bringing fashion to the great unwashed (at one hundred and twenty euro a trim, and extra with colour).

Sometimes we pause to look up. Up there laundry flaps like giant coloured bats, fluttering between balconies on sour puffs of breeze. Triumphant banners signalling Catalan occupation. We search for Space Invaders and find instead a 2000 year old relic. Some shrine or whatnot, plaque obscured beneath 20 years of chewing gum. No match for modern science yet a consolation prize for leaving the beaten path. We share a moment in quiet homage to the Column — but too soon disappointed as a tour group puffs up. No secrets in this city no more, all long since plundered. Gargoyles leering down at the crowd leering up and somewhere in between centuries-old brick and mortar crumbles relentless. The guide whispers — reverent tones — as if the Column cares. They've been here longer than us and have heard it all. But History is serious business. Significance assigned to the unassuming to justify its continuance. Guide archly ignoring a set of stained briefs that droops forlorn from balcony adjacent. A sure sign that these legacies are the norm, and the norm has drawbacks. A mere inconvenience to city planners and developers. So disheartened we move on as narrow lanes burst into open squares.

We're desperate now to suck in all we can of their culture. And hungry. Markets beckon us with promises of untold delights. Breathe in deep and almost retch. Fish, meat, and the unknown mix unfriendly. As God intended fish and beef were never meant to mingle, their place on earth determines that. Below the sea, on the ground — and above it, separate in life and should be also in death. The scent of blood is in the air and the crowd like sharks. Dragged inwards and through on currents of smell, and regurgitated onto the sidewalk hungrier still.

on cats, and ketamine

Such an odd and unnatural thing to witness a cat on Ketamine. Came home from the vet today not the same as he left. Brought out of his sleep to soon, or dosed up too strong — now experiencing the same drug ecstasies (and horrors) as if he were human. The shivering tics and hallucinations. Watch him sit — found a safe tile — too scared to move lest his world end. Lifting a paw every so often to swat at that which isn't there. I pity him. Each hour choosing a different tile, still as a sphinx. Eyes unblinking — seen this look before. Mouth open slightly in silent protest of this terrible affliction. He'll have to come through this himself, poor bastard.

But then the joys! Newfound sense of taste giving unimagined pleasure. Grinding jaw and licking surfaces. Loved-up and purring fit to burst. And in one moment unleashed in wild abandon. Under tables and over chairs in celebration of motion. Limbs not quite in service (nor in time) with brain and nerves. Wouldn't land on his feet if falling tonight, and one of nine lives poorer.

life aspiring/expiring

We lie under the same roof night after night, sleeping our lives away.  Why don't we do something amazing. Experience the new, the different. Experience anything. Experience everything. Instead spending the night on Facebook living other peoples lives but not really living. Living assumes more than just being alive. Living assumes adventure and wild abandon, not TV dinners.

Drift through life breezey. Not sure if I've ever really steered the course of my life. Suggestions and nudges but never really grabbed life and wrestled it writhing to meet my whims. Not that it's been bad. Far from. just can't help wondering, always. What else? Where else? And why. Could the route most easy ever lead anywhere more than beige. Does a life of light and colour demand being taken forcefully and without reserve. And what of the sacrifices? Surely disruption and abandon throws shadows and stirs cruel vortexes. Sucked into pursuit rather than pleasure.

I think too much. Of the strange whimsy, the intangible, and an inexplicable joy at light. Haze and warm breeze sets me soaring. Millions of small explosions inside my mind reminding me of youth and living. I live for these moments. Selfish because they can't be shared, nor felt, not seen, nor described. Senseless sentences, like madness - yet if madness were these ecstasies replayed over and over I would lose my mind gladly. To be caught in these seconds stretched eternal would be heaven. No greater happiness, except maybe to share them.

Each night spent wondering if the next day is what I want my life to be. Each second, spent shunting pixels, vanished. Wasted. Every Hour spent unblinking, labotomised by endless clicks. Breathing, but barely alive. More present in a parallel of ones and zeros. Always producing, but creating nothing. Contributing nothing. A tiny, insignificant cog created by a self supporting system built on the superfluous. Spinning frantic, inertia generated by those around. Built for this purpose, and thus invisible. What if it could fail. Glorious and complete failure causing shockwaves catastrophic. So much easier to just spin, but my heart screams to fail.

barcelona (part ii)

In Barcelona gravity shifts. Spins sideways like a river pulling always towards Gaudi. Just fall into Las Ramblas and let the current take you where it wants. Adrift on a sea of pilgrims, this strange tide washes us in and upwards to Park Guell where disappointment is embodied by a small patch of dirt littered with vendors. Wind blows, stirring dust devils. Sweeps cool through the heat raising hairs on my neck — Gaudi's ghost? Covers gaudy trinkets in a layer of dust in posthumous disdain.

More tourists and a million Facebook profiles created before our eyes. Just buy the postcard and savour the moment — a bargain at only one euro per memory. Then sucked downwards where more cheap baubles cheapen gothic vaults above. I hear nothing, see nothing, but a silent alarm tears through the vendors. Police? Before our eyes they transform — a flock of seagulls disturbed from picnic blankets. A second of chaos, they mill for a moment before a false alarm is decided. Then swooping as one to bicker over the best perches. We've seen enough and gravity can't be denied.

Spinning faster in the vortex now, almost at the centre. From a distance we see cranes before spires — a promise of granduer untold. The Segrada Familia. What can words say that art has not. Unfinished still, but still like nothing I've ever seen. Joyfully shattering every rigid line of Roman Catholicism in resounding celebration. It cascades from the sky and takes root in the earth on columns borne by all God's creatures. Concrete melting sand castles from above as I melt from within.

Everything slows, then stops. We float suspended in the void as light streams from above through dust particles and awe. The staunchest atheist, the most hardened skeptic could not deny there is something in this place beyond steel and concrete that defies reason or logic.

barcelona (part iii)

Numbed by days of western indulgence we turn eastwards for dinner. Chinese in the heart of Spain, a regrettable betrayal. Inside, waiters jostle around a single screen while customers go unnoticed. An atmosphere of anticipation and intoxication. A game in progress. Barcelona and Real Madrid — old and terrible enemies. A single waiter serves us, drawer of the shortest straw and resentful of our intrusion.

We eat and eat till we can't eat more, and then we drink. Buoyed by wine and unseen magic — adventure beckons. Stumble onto the curb and spinning towards Les Ramblas. Past police with hard faces and a dog in Barcelona colours. Turn the corner to a world gone mad. Flags slash the air. Men dangle from trees and lamp posts. Youthful exuberance expressed through climbing. So primitive these urges. The noise is deafening. Explosions and choppers overhead. Flares, smoke and the smell of cordite below. A bad night for veterans.

We leap around, the excitement contagious. Eyes burn with mad fervour. Chanting and bodies embrace. How passionate these Cattelans. If this is victory, what of defeat? Better here than Madrid tonight. The only certainty that sleep is a long way off. Not for Barcelona and not for Nick — a glint in his eye, wine in his blood and fire in his belly.

Off down Las Ramblas in search of a man called Jesus. Follow the black rabbit. Falling, falling and a series of strange and inexplicable snapshots:

A shoe with no foot;
Nick: "Pull your man scarf up and hide your sensitive eyes...";
The man in the eye mask;
Nick: "14 Israelis walk into a bar...";
Jen rising like Moby from the depths of a hammock, then darkness descends.

But too soon awake. Head too small for the size of this hangover. Banging relentless to get out of my sorry skull in a private and unwinnable war. Everything too loud, too bright, too much. No choice but to rally, Barcelona awaits.