I will write everything down.

I am writing this for myself, ------------------------------------------------------------- but let others and all my judges read it, [if they want to]. This is a confession [a full confession.] I am writing for myself, for my own needs and therefore I will not keep anything a secret.

REGULAR READER - did you enjoy my last Jackie DeShannon page? Wait til you see THIS! Close the window if it FREAKS YOU OUT and don't say I didn't WARN YOU!

Everybody looks the same in those stupid old photos.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 4

Janus was here on Sunday night. When he left it was awful, I pressed my face into the sleeve of his jersey over and over again; we were at the airport, I wanted to leave him anyway because I was desperate to buy a computer and it was my only chance to use the car, but to think that he'd be gone forever, now … I was also confused because his jersey was soft, that sort of synthetic fleece that travellers with a little money often wear, and perhaps I just wanted to feel his jersey over and over again; but no, it was him within the jersey, him animating it, that made me want to hold him like a teddy but over and over again, separating and then being closer …

We had spent the night before drinking. The wine tasted pretty good, like grass, like it always does; at least, Sauvignon Blanc; and I had eaten 'potato gnocchi', little spongy things in tomato sauce, I never felt a texture so good. And what was even better was that the plate was fill only of the gnocchi and tomato sauce, there weren't any vegetables, so that spongy texture was genuinely celebrated, as if it were presented in itself, almost, without any food at all … just the tomato sauce as the velvet cushion upon which it could recline …

Those two things; the soft potato gnocchi and the sleeve of Janus's jersey.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 4

I just - can't - write anything because details make me puke and yet, generalisations are empty. Even though I'm aware that all hard work has a veil of ('coolness') over it, that you're not supposed to look behind the scenes when you're on the ghost train ...

When I used to write, I wrote mechanically and - without thinking - because it was only a - memory prompt - the finished product was a simple AID, as encouraging as an instruction manual. [God, I can hear my brother moving around and I can't bear it; he drops things and says 'shit!'] - anyhow, I might reread my diary and it would mainly consist, to me, of content, the style would be as frank and peaceful as a good boy loping through a field, holding your hand and smiling - but I found at a certain point that the diary would be read, and not only that, read not by vaguely amused or disinterested strangers, but by glaring Dunedinites - so it evapourated slowly - it's not that I want to return because, if anything, that mechanical diary writing seemed to reflect an extraordinary cruelty to myself - but it leaves me bored and vacant. Not that I felt engaged with what I was writing, anyway -

SATURDAY DECEMBER 1

Ugh! Dunedin! Lacker of Storms! With its flat water and still days - I don't know how I could have survived for a moment in a place where the environment refuses to reflect your mood. I went for a walk early this morning and it was so humid, the air was palpably thick; the sky was gloomy and the trees were bending back and forth; everything was pitch silent - muffled. Waiting to push itself onto you - I can't believe I tolerated Dunedin's reticent, paper thin, blue days. And then there is the importance of being lonely ... and to those who complain about the humidity here, I ask, have you seen ME?

An index to old kitty entries, my links page, and my ontological struggles. XX

... and the Rock City Rocker index