BMXing in cyberspace

Waking groggily and it's very bright outside, breezy blue sky with some tormented cloud. Perfect weather to open doors and windows and air the cigaretty smell out of here. Timetabling a plan of action got me out of bed at lunchtime even though I didn't get in it till dawn, that and the bullying sun cheating its way around my bedroom curtains.

Up, down, fire up coffee machine, turn on computer, random tidying in kitchen, switch on browser and mail, pour (delicious) coffee, roll cigarette, read some news, read e-mail from a guy I haven't spoken to for 23 years who I left a message for on an "old school friends" website, start imagining trying to explain my unconventional existence, go for a dump, read a page from my dump-reading about renaissance art in Florence, return to roll-up and coffee, read his mail again, write this.

God I love my Balinese windchimes, just inside the backdoor hanging from the ceiling. The odd ripple of understated reverberating notes riding little gusts of the breeze coming through the house. I also love this coffee, I added an extra spoonful as a special treat. Lavazza espresso, it was the cheapest in the shop if you bought a twin-pack. Why can't I bring myself to buy the ethically traded stuff? I paid with my credit card so it's not as if I would've noticed the difference. Just symptomatic of my neurosis about not having a decent income, having taken several paths of least resistance and maximum sloth in getting to where I am today, thereby neatly by-passing the possibility of having a career. I remember buying the windchimes, real high quality ones, on a whim in 1992 and paid for courtesy of having an overdraft and a chequebook. Madness compared to how most people behave but I have no regrets about being a bit spontaneous. I'm not a drug addict (except for the coffee and tobacco) or a criminal, I've never hurt anybody (except emotionally), I've always worked (except for times when I jacked everything in to go travelling), I've never cheated anybody and have also often felt compelled to be generous to unfortunate souls whose path I cross. Still feels like a mid-life crisis.

My old school friend lives just a few miles from here, which is why I left him a message on that website. I couldn't not leave him a message seeing as we live so close to eachother, in a different country from where we grew up. I still have a memory of him punching me in the mouth one time, quite without justification, he threw a bit of chewed up paper at me and I threw it back. Blam. I didn't fight back (I never did). A couple of years later and I get an abscess in the tooth that he connected with. That was nearly 30 years ago and a domino effect means that that part of my dentistry is still not quite right and one of my front teeth had to have root canal and is dead and very slowly turning brown. So for 25 or so years I have thought of him punching my tooth every other time I've looked in the mirror or felt that tooth twinge. I honestly never imagined meeting up with him again, due to the general diaspora after school - we all went off to college and beyond. Still he was a mate, that was just one incident in a school life years ago, I'd bet he has no recollection of it as it only lasted for 30 seconds, we all grow up, he is married with two small children. Maybe too much of my dreamy existence is spent seeking memories instead of thinking about possible futures, and what exactly the fuck I'm going to do to improve my earning ability. Just let me win the lottery and I can arse about trying to write a book and reading lots of others instead of wasting my time working. Bollocks. If I had had kids I too could also be skilled in IT and work for a company that puts things in boxes. A good steady job and a total waste of my time. No, no regrets. A feeling of relief actually, that I have quite a bit of freedom if not much money. OK one regret but it is a catch-22: I would love to be able to travel more and for that I'd have to have a better income than just a part time job, but then if I worked hard to have that income I wouldn't get to do my travelling until I retired. Balls, at least I'm off to Italy soon for ten days, which is probably the same as I'd have if I had a career, only with cheaper hotels.

I'm a newbie in cyberworld and I must say it really is amazing but it does take a bit of thinking about. I'll meet up with my old school friend and I'm sure we'll renew our friendship. At least I'm not a fourteen year old kid happily going down to the shopping centre to meet a crazed fifty year old psychotic paedophile who I imagine to be "Mikey the 13 year old who's into bmxing and the same computer games as me". If I were a parent I'd be paranoid about my kids using the internet. But I'm not so I've just got to figure out my reply to my old friend and meet up with him for a few beers. If he's "allowed" to go out for a few beers seeing as he has a proper job, a wife and kids. I'll let him pick a date.

And my teeth are, for the time being at least, fine.