Watching Gordon Ramsey programme and it just seems the same pattern each episode. He arrives at the restaurant and says that all the food tastes like shit and then watches the inevitable bad nights service. Followed by walking out muttering 'Fuck'. Then he reinvents the place and watches them do it wrong again, before getting his team in to decorate and he walks away with the thanks. 
Whenever they show the restaurant decor before and after, I don't notice a difference. 
I wonder if he would be taken with my crisp sandwiches.

I went with Si to West Riding pub in Leeds where we met with Nicola and Richard to arrange the night when we will do a paid investigation. We tried to do a quick glass divination and them table tipping session with the owner upstairs on the derelict top floor. Surprisingly for us it started immediately. Even when Si and I took our fingers off the glass, it  healthily moved for the clients. The table tipped far over too and they were happy that we did not influence it. It never ceases to amaze me when the glass moves. We had our fingers upside down and our finger nails touching it and still it moved easily. I got  home and listened to the audio but nothing was caught. So that is two locations that we now have as paid venues and we should be in the paper this week too with photo. 

A relaxing bank holiday on the whole. Two trips to the cinema and painted my son at Ilkley park. Ghost hunt plus half of the reviewing done. I don't want to go to bed really but I should. I'm still trying to fit in all the thongs that want to do into each moment but I'm so happy it's criminal. The cold of autumn crept into my house today and I was praying for the heating to kick in on the timer. Darkness is returning earlier in the evenings too so things are changing. I hope my moods stay as high as they have so far.

Last nights investigation was mostly to get us back in the swing of things. We had two new people with us but one of our members had gone on holiday. So the five of us contacted 'David' and 'Luke' who were very friendly. As bizarre as it sounds David has a dog that we kept hearing. Even the newbies saw it scamper in the dark and felt the brush of it against their legs. The dog was called Rosie apparently. The tables wouldn't tip as well as usual but the glass communication went well. I will go through the footage today to see of it took our cue and spoke into our audio recorders. One strange thing was when we asked who was the most like a sensitive Medium amongst us and the glass moved to me. The spirits may be wrong with that. Interestingly I stood alone in the kitchen and held up three fingers. I went upstairs to the group and stood back as I got the rest of them to ask via glass movement how many fingers I had held up. The glass moved only on the count of three, to YES.

Inspired by my Aunt's collection of sketches and paintings, I endeavour to get my finished painting's down on paper. Having a finished piece is an amazing thing. I want to have a body of work to show my son as he gets older. Something to show for what I do with my time. This blog will not be here forever but a picture stands more of a chance. God I'm yawning my head off here. My boy got into bed with me last night. I put him back once and he came a second time. I was too tired to care.
Truth be told I like having him in my bed. It's not a great habit to start though. 
I think a good nights sleep is the correct decision with an investigation at the weekend. 

TIME TRAVEL PART 5
I promised a visit to happy moments. Here is the first one that springs to mind. :
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Summer 1993(ish). 
My weekends were highlighted by a visit to a club called 'Tumblers' in Bradford. My friends would also be there and people who weren't 'Friends' outside of the place but we always hung out in the same crowd. As a crowd we would sit and stare at the girls and have a laugh with the lads. We happy showed our approval on the dance floor if we liked the band being played. I ultimately was always stood hoping the next relationship was about to walk up to me. One weeks kiss and possible date following was the next weeks person to try avoid. If you can imagine the club to be like a fish tank with 100 fish in. Then my fish has a 'thing' with one fish and then onto another a few weeks later. After a year there are a few fish all in one place that make you cringe and some you are desperate to see again. 
So it was in these Walls that I met R. Although at 19 I fancied about 80% of the girls anyway, R was pretty much In the top 5%.
I believe that I had got talking through a girl friend of R's. R was smaller than me which was rare. She had long blond hair past her shoulders and a quiet but happy demeanour. To top this off she had the same type of teeth as Kirsten Dunst(google it). 
In a word she was Beautiful in my eyes. I chatted most of the evening and paid for her drinks as much as I could afford. I didn't want her to wander off to her mates. I had a job and she didn't. 
Even as I spoke to her calmly, and making sure I didn't look at her for too long, I could feel my heart racing like crazy. I managed to convince her to meet me the following day in town. 
My diary was passionately scrawled that night. 
I met R the next day and I simply cannot remember a damn thing about the conversation. All I remember is how she looked. My mind thought "is this the start of the rest of my life?" 
We ran out of things to do fairly quickly and we ended up round the back of somewhere in town centre in huddled in a doorway out of the sudden rain. No doubt I said things out of nervousness that I would regret. Or talked about my feelings too strangely. I pulled her close to me and we kissed and I felt dizzy with the mental image of us cuddled together in this secluded door. I thought that I must remember this moment forever. I did. 
I opened my eyes and the world was blurry as it returned to normality after I had been in an amazing embrace. 
Sounds like utter shit doesn't it? 
Maybe it was. 
But I still cling to that memory like a bench Mark at achieving more than you think you can. 
What became of R? 
I drove to her house where we sat with her family through a film I had seen and didn't like. Then we went upstairs and told me that she didn't want a boyfriend and that was the end of that. I drove home at speeds I don't remember. 
The girl from that memory is still divine. 
The real girl can go fuck herself. 

I had a letter from my utility provider today asking for an appointment to come and read my meter. "We have to read your meter every now and again so your bills are accurate". Well that sounded fine. I arranged a day for the bloke to come and I was surprised to hear the time frame that I had to stay at home for. "Someone will need to be in the property between the hours of 12pm and 8pm" she said. 8 goddam hours to have a meter reading which is a matter of writing down a five digit number. Thirty seconds maximum after a possibility of and eight our wait. That's ridiculous isn't it?
I should be able to say to them that I too will be in my house between the hours of 12 and 8 and I can't be more specific than that either. Since the invention and rise of the mobile phone surely a better level of communication has been reached. Even if they said "I'll be there in about two hours time", that would be a vast improvement. 
Absolutely mad. 

Five hours of playing Star Wars with my demanding son is now going to be followed by two films at the cinema. I have tickets for 'Cowboys and Aliens' and 'The Inbetweeners Movie'. 
First things first though and it's time for an espresso, which right up until I wrote the word, I pronounced EXpresso. Idiot. 
That should keep me awake long enough to get me to a friends house for an evening of PS3 Golf and Call Of Duty. Aaahhh life is good. It was great seeing my son become consumed with the Star Wars films, books and toys that I have. I tried explaining to him that hopefully one day he will play with these toys with his child. He misunderstood and seems to think that one day he will be my dad and I his kid.  Whatever. 
I've seen a lot of beautiful women walking around the cinema areas and when they walked passed I heard them either moaning about something or seeming disinterested in the films they just witnessed. Yet again I feel exactly where I want to be. Single. 
All I need is to be with my son and I don't need 'Company' for ages.  

TIME TRAVEL PART FOUR
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We arrive in 1984 'Duran Duran' have funny hair and make up, 'Frankie..' tells us to 'relax' and I am 10. Fashion gave me a wide berth and my hair has been problematic since I was born. Am I happy child?  I spend nearly all the time alone. I draw and play with my Star Wars toys. Even at 13 I would secretly play with them monthly. But for now I am happy in my own company. For Christmas I ask for 1/ Star Wars toys and 2/ Books about the unexplained (most importantly, the paranormal). 
I'm now 37 and that would still be what I would accept as great presents.
I was happy on the inside but the message never reached my face. Spending so much time alone I didn't develop the need to express facial signs to others to basically put them at their ease. My brothers were six and seven years older than me and at that time of life it may as well have been a million years. I had already been plagued by nightmares at the previous house and carried the repeat of them to the house that we now lived in. I was fed and watered and clothed but I think interaction was something only other kids had. Now I must stress that the adult me actually will admit that there are far far far worse off kids out there, but I am only dissecting my life, and for me I think I would have benefitted from more one on one interaction. But would I have been weaker and even more needy?
I think if you are born a moaner you stay a moaner. 
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Jump back a few years to 1980. The marriage of my parents must be dissolving and there must've been friction but I have no memory of arguments but I still wince at raised voices. I had already started my first ghost team in first school. There were three of us. Meetings were held in the school boys toilets were I would hold there attention by telling them the whole of the boys toilets was actually a time machine. If I fiddled with the radiator knobs then we would be whisked back to prehistoric times ( the only one that I knew the name of, luckily) where we would see dinosaurs when we left the toilets....BUT the real images would appear to be of 1980 because our brain would not be able to cope with the truth of what we might see. That's quite imaginative I think for a six year old. Maybe it's not thinking about it more. Either way I think it was the earliest lie that I can remember formulating for entertainment purposes. One more thing to mention whilst we are here. I liked my first pop star from here on. Adam and the Ants who became Adam Ant, had a few records in the charts and I loved the drums first and foremost but then learnt the lyrics from the album inner sleeve. I asked the teacher if I could perform one of his songs without accompanying music. She agreed and I sang through the song 'Antmusic' (verse, verse chorus verse chorus chorus). The whole thing was music in my head and yet it must've been a drone to the audience who became fidgety by the end. What strokes me Is my confidence in front of those few people. I thought it went so well that I asked to do it again when I had recruited one other lad who also knew the album. I sang 'Stand and Deliver' with the new lad singing the 'dah diddly qua qua's' at the end. This may mean nothing to some of you I now. 
The point is I think this is the same strain of wanting to be noticed in some way that runs right into my life today. For all the locking myself away from the world, I always try and  get some people to hopefully look my way, (HELLO BLOG READERS). There seems to be a need for attention. Or is it more? I will settle for attention but really would like some nice comment off the back of it. I think I was trying tom make up for the lack of attention I got at home. I think the word that best sums up the through thread of my life is 'desperate'. Desperate for acceptance, desperate to be loved and desperate to be noticed. 
So now that we have trawled some of my darkest moments I think we should take a visit to some moments that approach joy and happiness even if they were fleeting so that we can see the contrast. 
See you in the future time travellers.....
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My team met at Parkside Social Club in Haworth. After our break from ghost hunting, it was good to get back together for a meeting. Ideas were thrown around about how to tackle this venue when we return in October with paying guests. This should boost our profile quite a bit. 
Then I watched 'Big Brother' on channel 5. I watched it through my fingers and squirmed and cringed. It's a car crash of a programme and I don't know if I can take it. Jedwood almost tipped me over the edge. But because it's celebrities I like watching them suffer but if it makes me suffer too then wheres's the enjoyment?

TIME TRAVEL PART 3
Welcome back to the past. I would like, if I may, to take us further back. Another five years should do it. To 1990. Surely there, at 15 years old I had not been so self destructive. Well let's see.
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MAY 1990.
It is my last year at school and I am busy not revising for my final exams. The important things for me at this point was not grades, as I knew the would be of no use. It was a discovery of music that I liked as well as friends. There was a scene bubbling. Soon we ourselves would ride the crest of this wave to the record shops and spend our not earned pocket money on these discs. The Madchester scene began, you could argue, the previous summer as record deals were done etc. The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were being played just as our life was going to release us into society to find a job. Friendships were made stronger from us sharing music and it was both exciting and daunting. My mum was with a new man and he took me to my first gig in Leeds to see 'The Fall'. It had filled me with anxiety. Would I have to dance in front of this man? My god would he dance in front of me?. I danced in front of my mirror and squirmed. I was going to look a nob. 
The gig came and I was relieved to find there really was no room to throw some shapes and so I thoroughly enjoyed this first experience. I thank him for that. Depeche Mode released 'Violator' too, arguable their best. This would become 'My Time' and the music would forever imprint images of strong emotions of this time. And best of all I wouldn't have to go to fucking school again. 
This year, I had progressed from small diaries with barely enough room for ten words a day to a schoolbook style home made diary that I had picked up from a stock room. I could fit one hundred words on here. But since some days I had not much to say, I would scrawl girls names, swearing and song lyrics larger than normal on the pages. the obsession with lists was born. A host of names and 'funny' things that happened to them are on these pages. Now I look and can barely them or remotely find the funny things amusing. A child's mind in a child size body. But if I played my cards right I could lose my virginity soon. Yes! I was almost a man! I would make it my life's work to shag every girl in the local area. Surely I had good points. I was interesting! I was a bit weird, which was close enough to be interesting wasn't it? (no).
I was going to make my place in the world...........right after I had watched lots of varying Tv programmes. My friend D and I would walk the street and then sit for hours playing on my games console and we would share a similar thought process. We felt comfortable in each others company. He was the more calming influence for me and I've no idea why he hung around with me. A level headed young man and a brittle fool are a strange mix and yet it worked. 'Vic Reeves' began on TV and we also both watched 'Absolutely'. D got me into these if I'm honest. 
D had decide to go into further education, which left me looking for a job. 
The careers advisor had asked me what I wanted to be.
"I want to be an author and live on an island, maybe in Scotland" I said. 
"Are you good at English?" she asked. 
"No" 
"Then maybe you should try something lower down the spectrum, but still working with books."
"Like what, journalism?"
"No" she said "working in a library". 
It was this kind of thinking that actually got me into printing. Being a librarian must've seemed like a pipe dream. Having the finished books in my hands was something I was just not skilled enough for. 
So I would be in charge of printing the words on paper since I loved drawing and writing. 
My career  plan was to get as much money for as little work as was possible. I kind of succeeded. 
One interview went well and I was given the job. 
I had only recently finished school though so my plans of lounging about were being threatened. 
My new boss asked "When can you start?" 
"Erm... Three weeks time?" that would be some relaxation at least. 
"How about Monday?
"Ok"
That was that. I went home and listened to 'Tangerine Dream' and revelled at having some money coming. That was huge hurdle out of the way. Then the nerves came though. What went on at work?.

I see that in my diary in 1990 I had these three pages,
GIRLS WHO I FANCY (13 names)
GIRLS WHO FANCY ME (7, fat, ugly and desperate to name but three)
GIRLS WHO I'VE BEEN OUT WITH (5). As many as 5 you say?
Well the time scales were written after each entry. They ranged from 2 minutes ( at a school disco, before she said she changed her mind), to two weeks. Two weeks of just 'saying' that were you going out with a girl was what it amounted to. But it all counted at the time. The obsession with relationships and the status that they represented was under way , and my down fall in that area had begun.
But I was mostly a blank canvas. I deeply wanted to make people laugh. I would have sold my soul to make people love me. The more acceptance the better. I needed to be loved. There were no hugs at home. I didn't come from that kind of family. I shut myself in my room and felt alone even then. But I had D and another mate S who would keep me in line, probably unknowingly. 
There was already a dark side though. The divorce that my mum and dad had  was never discussed. When I asked a question I was told "I'll tell you when you are older". My mum had been trying to meet other men over the previous years. I didn't like it though. Who were these men? I was the man of the house now that my brothers had moved out. I was the protector. I slept on the bottom bunk bed. I kept three knives to hand. I didn't feel entirely safe. If my mum was attacked I would have to help. I heard shouting matches at tomes and I would squeeze the knife so hard that it hurt. Luckily nothing came of that. Insecurities were there but who didn't have them? I guess what I never really had was someone to tell me it was all going to be ok. Everybody just got on with their business. 
So to summarise, I was starting work, talking about hopes and dreams and was going through puberty. I think we should go back further one more time before we look at some good times. We will go back to 1980.
See you there.  
 

Far too busy today to write a blog. I will be playing super heroes with my son and feeding him. Then my step son and I are going to watch 'Rise of the Apes' of whatever at Cineworld. That is the film by the way not just an observation of the kids in the arcade next door. There's quite a lot of organising being done with ghost event now fully ready to go in October. I've been writing articles to put on two websites and that all takes time. Plus there are films to be watched and then reviewed. Ofcourse there is Time Travel part 3 to write and post too. So no, there will be no time to write a blog today..... oh. 

TIME TRAVEL PART 2
We ended our first visit in the year 2000 where I lived alone and was on an obvious downward spiral. But let's travel back to May again but five years previous and see what we can learn. 
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It's May 1995. 
I am 20 years old and living in my mums new house. All my belongings are in boxes because I will soon be getting the keys to my first house. I work as I always have and still do as a printer. Because of the new start approaching I decide it's time to grow up. I will soon be 21 after all. 
I take acid for the last time, one for luck, if you will. 
But I will record the event by writing whilst under the influence so that I can read it back after and see if anything can be understood about the nature of being under the influence. 21 scrawled pages later I have finished. Most of the pages are not written straight. First the word 'circle' is written over and over and then just a drawing. The drug pauses for me later to have me write a sentence that I can never finish but I can understand the point. Basically I am trying to say that by the time you have had a thought to write down, another one has started and then another on top. Spiralling thoughts go round and round and repeat. I keep trying to finish the sentence explaining this but then lose my thread until it comes again and so I write the sentence again. It's because of the writing it down  experiment that I can now remember what it was like and my conclusion. The answer to the universe is 'a circle'. 
At the heart of our existence is a rotation of events forever. We are born and grow, have children and they take over, have their children who grow, who have children and take over....etc
Then there's the planets in the sky, all circles. The earth is one one of those circles. Everything is about repetition. We are a chain link (a circle) in a large chain that we are just a tiny part of. 
Anyway, you get the idea. Now I think this shows me as a little bit more than just a waster. I like examining thoughts. I write them down to be studied. 
However with one old vice gone I had started to drink whole bottles of Southern Comfort on an evening which roused my brain in slightly different way. Where my thoughts on drugs were always positive and about loving the universe, drink always brought out my demons. I frequented the local pub too often. I worked and lived with my mum so therefore wasted rime and money in there. After one such day of drinking I was alone again to listen to the negative thoughts and I cut the word BROKEN into my left arm with a scalpel. Not deep enough to tear flesh, just surface damage and blood seepage. It hurt. And yet it let a certain sort of pressure out. Afterwards I would be calm. Was that adrenaline? 
Here started the process that five years later would become overpowering. 
My diary reads:
"I FEEL LIKE SHITE
I NEED A GIRLFRIEND
NO NOT, I want A GIRLFRIEND! 
I NEED A GIRLFRIEND
I WANT MY OWN SANCTUARY
DO I WANT ATTENTION? WELL NOT FROM MANY, JUST FROM ONE.
AM I REALLY A LOSER WHO CAN'T ADMIT IT?
OR HAVE I SOME HIDDEN TALENT?
PAIN MAKES YOU ALIVE

WHY DO I ANALYSE?
I AM HOPELESS. I DON'T FEEL SUICIDAL, I JUST DON'T FEEL OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE."

Well there you go. A lonely child really getting thrust out onto his own, to fend for himself. Yet I was not ready. Infact I was already cutting myself. Was this a cry for help saying "I'm scared to move out?"
I was really looking forward to moving out though. But I did fear the loneliness. 
May 15th
I got the keys to my first house. I was chuffed at the having the keys but I looked at the former old persons home and didn't warm to it. My house was a very odd corner terrace that looked creepy from the outside. Inside was also oddly laid out. So cosmetically it never really felt like home but it was to be a foot in the door. I planned to stay here for four or five years and sell and move to nicer. I was there more like 13 years. On that first day, all I had for seating was a tall White stool. But that was enough to start with as my brothers chipped in to decorate the lounge. I slowly moved in over the next week and yet still taxied my way back and forth to the old local pub because I knew people. The barmaids there who I will refer to as L apparently liked the look of me. This girl looked to me like she was older by a handful of years and should know better. But hey if she was interested then I would develop an interest. She was not my 'type' and yet she was pretty. The flirting lasted for the course of about a month and ultimately nothing but a date or two came from it. I always seemed to be after someone to think about, I just knew that I didn't have anything to back it up. Inside I felt broken. But I didn't know what was missing. I only thought that i would meet a person who had the missing element and all would be rosey. 
I still had my humour though as I copied something I had read intao my diary which made me laugh and still does. 
"TAKE THE TRAUMA OUT OF A SERIOUS ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT BY REPLACING THE AIRBAGS WITH A HUGE WHOOPEE CUSHION.
YOU WILL STILL BE LAUGHING AS THEY CUT YOU FREE"

...to be continued...

TIME TRAVEL PART 1
Come with me, on a trip back through the years to May 2000. I hope that we can learn something about ourselves. Time travel is possible if you have as many well kept diaries as I do. The story will be dark in places and I'm going to be honest through out. I would not be able to do this experiment if I was not of a steady mind frame. Over a month of sobriety has brought me here.
 Well the first place that we will visit is into the heart of a war with myself that I nearly lost. I will include fragments of real diary writings that I will put in CAPITAL LETTERS to distinguish from current analysis. 
Strap your selves in.
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May 2000
I CAME HOME AND WATCHED 'MANSUN' (Marilyn manson)
I CUT MY ARMS AND STOMACH SEVERAL TIMES.
Yes I had returned from disappearing from drinks with friends to my house where I lived alone to cut myself yet again. This secret performance was escalating and I both wanted to do it and wanted to be stopped. 
I think I wanted to do it so that then I could wallow in the fact that I had done it and I had a reason to accompany the daily feeling of depressive thoughts. 
One moment my mind was optimistic in my diaries and the next I was cutting myself. Looking back it was like being schizophrenic but being completely aware of both halves. The following day I wrote this,
WENT TO IKEA AND BOUGHT TWO COUCH THROWS AND THEN A 12" STAR WARS BATTLE DROID
I mean one minute I was being an adult and getting throws for the house and yet still buying toys like they were a necessity. 
I AM GOING TO NEED TO COVER MY SCARRED ARMS FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS. 
So I knew that upon doing it I was then having to wear long sleeves regardless of the hot summer weather. 
At the same time as this I was obviously single. However I had my sister (age 11) to thank for setting me up with a girl where she went to be looked after in the school holidays. I now that sounds bizarre but that is how this girls number fell into my lap. I shall refer to this girl as N. Secondly there was a girl in the village pub where I frequented that also was in text talks to arrange a date with. I shall refer to her as A. I spent money I did not have and debts were spiralling at home. Credit cards were juggled terribly but I had no one to stop me. I just thought, hey I'm 26 now and I will pay it back later when I no longer have my youth. What would be the point of staying in and saving every penny at 26, only to have money at 40 and then missed out on the possibility of meeting the love of my life or vital experiences? Basically I burnt the candle at both ends and dripped the hot wax on my arms when I was alone. 
So self destruction was done every couple of weeks after partying. I use the word partying soooooo loosely. 
On the other hand I had borrowed a friends bicycle and enjoyed pushing my body into fitness each day. I drank lots of water too whilst at work. Again with the two personalities. One water for one lager.
Because money was of no concern I booked a weekend holiday to Dublin with some workmates. This would involve drinking heavily and would indeed lead to more cutting when alone. Enjoyment was kept in check by the dark clouds that followed. Almost as if I punished myself for enjoying myself, which because I didn't really have the money for it, I kinda deserved (but in a more constructive manner). 
I would spend empty evenings writing my diaries but mostly doing something very much like I am doing here, MY LIFE STORY.
I had reached the second book of MY LIFE STORY which was inspired by my Grandmas book about her life. 
It also played to my self indulgence (again, just as I'm doing now). 
I MUST WRITE MORE was a common phrase written as I signed goodnight in my diary each night. 
To further pull myself in too many directions I also agreed to go to TENERIFE with a group of friends. Fuck the money. 
(What an idiot).
So the dates with A and N came around. To cut a long story short, A didn't really get started but she looked nice enough to give me some sort of confidence boost and yet then look at my arms and tell myself that I was a fuck up inside, damaged goods who a nice girl would be quick to throw away. 
The blind date with N was like being in a film. I was stood waiting in a pub porch for my blind date to arrive when I had to step aside for a beautiful girl to walk in to the pub. As I moved out of the way the girl said "are you Chris?"
To say that N was beautiful is not really doing it justice. Obviously that is objective and down to your opinion but in my eyes she was 'an angel'. Infect I would say that I only found her so easy to talk to because I didn't tell myself I had the remotest chance of ever seeing her again. This girl would see the night out and tell her mates that I was a fuck up. 
Both N and A had the same story. They were living with boyfriends but unhappy at heart and looking for a get out. (is this a common lie that they perpetrate or just a coincidence? Also this shows that this went on)
N eventually text me a few days later saying she would like to be friends. 
BASICALLY THAT MEANS FUCK OFF I wrote.

So looking back i was embracing life where I could. But behind closed doors I was battling myself. How could I get on in life if I was a mess inside and in debt? Who the hell would have me? Alcohol played a vital part. The initial beer buzz signified life being enjoyed and yet the last pint made my skin itch and the only way to stop it was to cut the surface until the shock levelled me out and the regret of doing it came to the fore followed by the self loathing.
 
Well there is piece one of the jigsaw. Let's move to another May.

I went to a private household with a friend in my ghost team. There were four of us in his attic and we managed to contact a past on relative with the glass and also with the table which moved in a whole new way to what I have previously witnessed. The family father and son were amazed at what they were seeing and that made me feel good. I came home and listened to the audio and I think we caught a couple of good responses but the words were hard to make out for sure. 
I watched The Bill Hicks Story and it inspired me to be myself for myself. I think when you see anyone's life packed together inside an hour or so it seems more meaningful. I am on the right path now as I have said, so I am no longer under the sticky thumb of regret at wasted time. I am doing things that I hope will make my son proud. Proud that I followed my own path no matter what got in my way. As long as he is happy with me then I have no other target. Somedays I feel less in touch with the world than others. I wondered this afternoon whether I had any feelings between taking things as being hurtful or not caring at all. In other words, do I only gave two extreme opposite emotions, being too teary and soft or having a Fuck You attitude. I still have not started the latest blog project that I said I would be keep on reading and by next week I will have. I have decide to skip into the past in five year jumps but around the same date. I look forward to having you at my side as we reflect on a single meaningless life that has gone from nearly being the end of me to being the making of me and seeing exactly the path that was chosen. 

One month has passed since two pints of alcohol passed my 
Iips. I have struggled two or three times to stop drinking for one month. This however has come about by my situation with living alone alone again and needing to save money where possible to provide for my son when I have him. Yes I worked over and bought an ipad2 but that is the final piece in the puzzle to keep me on the straight and narrow. The month off the booze so far has shown I am on the right path. I am stable minded and happy so why spoil it with the demon drink. What do I do to unwind? Nothing because I am not wound in the first place. I look forward to this year being over so that I can draw a line under the events which got me here. Things with my ex are very pleasant though and I  have been really very lucky. Six months in and it was still the absolute correct thing to do for all concerned. It's not the life I would have chosen but as it goes it's too good for what you would expect a break up to leave you with. Hopefully I will be telling you that I have not drank have two months but we will see. I don't want to predict the future and spoil it. 
After squeezing a flannel in my hands I woke up with a hand like a claw of a bird. I think I must have just pulled it but I wondered if it was the start of arthritis. Hairy eyebrows, a bad shoulder and weak knees and White hairs atop my head and then a claw hand is a good description of my body.  I think it's safe to say that at 37 my best days are over. If my body was a car I would have traded it In for scrap. ok I'm off to bed for some beauty sleep during which I will pull my shoulder and piss three times and the awake before the alarm anyway. I suppose I could always look forward to the best years of my life (since life begins at forties). 

Over the past few weeks I have had to apologise to someone for being in a Ghost team that uses a Ouija board, had psychics just decide they weren't going to be in my team and not tell us, had a crazy woman barrage me with both sides of her split personality, had a psychic artist be horrible to each of my team in my own front room, had my wrist slapped for heading my posts with the name of my ghost team and then had a person messages to say call us inexperienced. Outside of my life there are riots over nothing across broken Britain. Is it really any wonder that I am a partial recluse who loses himself amongst the inner workings of his mind? All I ever learn is that in general my fellow humans are shit. One human gets on with what makes them happy but two humans clash. More humans riot and put one others down just to benefit themselves. Now I preach just making yourself happy but I don't mean piss everyone else off while you do that. 

I have decided that my next blog feature will be a look at eleven years ago. I have chosen the date 29th May 2000 to start with and then I shall see what has happened near that date over various years and see what can be learnt, if anything. But for today...I spent more time than expected talking to my ex at her house. I was asking about my step kids and if they are causing trouble since they're teenagers. It seems that there is a
sense of loss of family with one of them. My ex said that one of them lamented the loss of my side of the family and blamed me leaving one evening for his sudden unruliness. It's mostly talk but I admit some truth will be buried in his explanation of dropping standards at school etc. I need to make more of an effort to see them. I do have the time and feel a responsibility. It's difficult being an adult when inside you are just a child that's been around for a long time. I told my ex that I had finished with drink and she was amazed. Infact I think that she thought I was lying. I feel like a different person even in the short time since we split....but actually by that I mean I can recognise the real me nowadays when I look in a mirror and not some fake lookalike with a personality that was created for me.  

Another brilliant twenty four hours passed whilst playing with my darling son. He really makes me laugh at times and is the source of such pleasure. Prior to him coming I had focused myself enough to paint some more and created a piece that I was proud of. It is so therapeutic for me to paint and to like the end result is quite brilliant. I took a trip to the cinema to watch 'Super 8'. A great Spielberg retread and another class act from J J Abrams. 
There have been times this weekend when I have embraced moments of quiet. These times make me feel safe and happy as it means there are no people about to piss me off. I am happy in my new house and with my son coming round to play. 
I haven't had alcohol for 28 days when I had two cans of bitter. in the past I have struggled to go 21 days without. When I talk about it I do get the urge, but I will continue to take one day at a time. it is just so much cheaper and makes my life less complicated. I think alcohol consumption would also not have done me any favours in these past months with the split. I think soon I need to once again delve into the stories of my past so I need to think which ones. 

I arrived home after work in a good mood only to have a message from Living Spirits website slapping my wrists. I always head my ghost writings with the name of my group and it was made clear that WYPG are the only team that can do that. I am a visitor and other visiting teams stay anonymous. So I apologised for what feels like the seventh week running that I have had to. I feel like I am walking through syrup. I tried to put a poster in Springfield Mills and found that they have decided not to have us do a charity event for them now. Most notably because crazy Anne who bombarded me with phone calls after the ghost walk had also been shouting crazily down the phone at them. 
I dislike human society....I'm sure I may have mentioned it since I feel like it every week. If I don't actually speak to another human for days, I find no problems arise. As someone who knew once said..."Hell, is other people".

I made some necessary phone calls this afternoon which were like two looming hurdles on the horizon. They were not of importance and yet that is still how phone calls feel to me. I don't enjoy talking on the phone because it is purely yourself having to talk. Talking is communicating and i struggle with communicating. I was almost nervous ringing someone I already know but it was over in four minutes anyway with an agreement to just ring when there is something more to say. The second phone call was drawn out for about eight minutes. I paced the front room and then upstairs and them each room. I wandered in some sort need to keep moving so that my conversation would be better. It was like a nervous tension. Very odd. Then I walked to the co-op to buy my son some sweets for the weekend. I would not give up my 'Home time' so readily for anyone else. It was also liberating to walk the streets with no hair product and spaghetti stains on my Star Wars T-shirt. Ahhh the pleasures of being a single lad with no interest in pursuing a relationship. 
I gave up reading a Sci-Fi book which was doing my head in and started reading a book about particle physics. Fascinating stuff if you can follow the explanation. I see this book as a follow up to my reading 'A Brief History Of Time'. 
I am watching 'Atonement', which is causing me pain with it's plum English accents making us look like a nation of upperclass tossers.

My early nights to bed had finally culminated too far the other way meaning that at 4:30am I realised I was too awake to sleep. So I watched 'Dragon's Den' on Iplayer. Then it was time to get up anyway so I had a shower to start the day. At work there was a strange occurrence. My scalpel was on the middle of my paper table while I was setting a job in position on the paper. I put the knife back to the right where it stays. I walked to the far end of the machine and returned to find the knife back out of place. This can happen when a colleague borrows it and doesn't put it back precisely where I would. I moved it a second time and carried on positioning my job. On the third return I was noticeably annoyed at my colleagues for not putting my stuff back and therefore me having to. I asked if one of them keeps using my knife but they said no. Then a third colleague said that he had seen his bag roll off a chair and go underneath it after six hours of it being left alone. They all know that I have investigated at my workplace and I think it worried them briefly. Nothing else moved once we had noticed. I am starting to get used to this.
My evening was spent watching 'Black Swan' which I enjoyed but won't watch again. Then I followed that with 'Easy A' which was not great. I did some writing and then played Mafia 2 and watched 'Haunted Collector. 

Even as the day began for work, the heat of the day snuck upon you as soon as you moved. I had a steady days work though and remained on the right side of over heating. I took my boy for tea at his Grandmas and we played as well as watching Peter Pan on video. He has picked up how to operate the video quickly which is encouraging. I itemised the things I would do this evening and that entailed playing another chapter on Mafia 2 and then watching another episode of 'Haunted Collector'. 
After three early nights I am feeling more balanced sleep wise. There was a talk about night terrors on the radio today. I've never suffered with that but it did make me think about my relationship with sleep. I go to bed and write my diary generally, then I lay down and within ten minutes of that I'm out. That is every night unless I've been knocking back the coffees. I always need the toilet twice or more a night but other than that it's just a case of sleeping on one arm and then turning over to sleep on the other. Although I go to sleep quickly, I hurt each arm in turn and to watch it back on fast forward on video, it would appear as if I was swimming in bed. Within the last two years I damaged one shoulder and it hurts in my sleeping position. So 50% of the evening I am struggling with the pain waking me up to move. Then the toilet breaks. Ultimately I am not sure that I am getting a great nights sleep after all. However it seems to be enough at about seven hours of intermittent rest. I guess I don't actually have a tough, hard days manual labour either so that helps. 
Although I started to push midnight every night once I had split from my wife, now I am levelling out at going to bed at half past ten most times. 
Plus I dream every night I think and it's the stuff of computer game fantasy mostly, well that and the paranormal.