"Bless me Father for I have sinned. It's been a month since my last confession."
And here we are; confessions of a teenage male, desperate in his attempt to grab your attention with the perfect opening line, yearning for you to read and understand his clumsy way. Does my openness shock you? Are you puzzled by my honesty and seeming WYSIWYG appearance? You say, NO? Clichéd you say? Finding my overuse of question marks irksome? It's only an attempt to draw you in closer. Close enough for you to see how much I need other people to think I am worthwhile. But it's not working at all. I know this. I know because I always try too hard, and no matter how much I try to be myself and to seem interesting, it backfires. I end up sounding like a friend who once sarcastically exclaimed (in a forlorn voice):
"I *sob* just don't *sob* know what's wrong with me, *whimper*,*sniff*, I just keep looking for sympathy.....*expectant face*"
So I come to analyse what all this forthcoming 'honesty' means. Is it just attention seeking? Is it yet another carefully constructed persona for me to display in order to make friends and influence people? Or maybe it is (and obviously this is the option I'd favour because it actually allows me a modicum of integrity) that I feel undefined, and need to for once and for all, set the record straight about who I am. What it boils down to is this: I need reassurance and friendship and fuck.....
I can't write this any more, I thought I could reveal my heart, I reckoned I was strong enough to leave myself open and vulnerable. But I'm not. I'll have to do things the old fashioned way, win people over by hard work. Jokes and tomfoolery like the old days. I'll pretend to be confident, I'll act the clown. That way people don't victimise you, you don't get downtrodden for looking downtrodden. I'm not actually bursting with self-confidence though. And I don't have the self control to write a perfectly measured article about it on a public website. I realise that the above breakdown in coherence probably seems well rehearsed and suitably timed, but it wasn't, I'm writing off the top of my head now, instead of trying to seem rational and thought out. Trying to look like I could analyse my reasons for wanting people to like me so that people would like me. It's all a trick! Ignore me please, I'm just looking for sympathy.
So I find myself yet again on the 23rd of the month writing my heart and soul into a piece that no-one will read. The 23rd is good, it's poignant and it makes me want to talk. 7 months. 7 fucking months. I don't know how I got this far, but it's a miracle that I did. I'm not sure how balanced I am, how far ahead or behind, everyone else that was affected by his death, I am. It doesn't matter I suppose, because I am a new person. (My mother just came in there talking about University and the coming week, but I'll get back to that in a minute.) It's weird how emotional upheaval affects your creative processes, so many of the songs I have written were written or completed after his death, while I was completely FUCTUP. Some of the ones I began before his death obviously have two parts. A pre-Feb23rd01 part and a post-Feb23rd01 part.
I wonder if I'll continue to write these day logs every month, it'd be a strange experiment. I originally hadn't intended ever writing day logs, they seemed silly. But I've begun to warm to them, I can see their benefits. I get to vent, and anyone who cares gets to see my innards. I hope that everyone reading this is well intentioned, I'm sure few have read this far. (look more sympathy grabbing!). I think it might also be useful for people to see how much a person (me) is affected by the death of a close friend. It's not something that goes away after three months just because people stop giving you the special Handle-With-Care treatment. I'm still very much affected by Phil's death, particularly the circumstances.
I remember reading one of the Read-This-If-You-Know-What's-Good-For-You nodes, when I arrived here first. It said that I should be comfortable for ANYONE to read my writing on E2, and the thing I remembered was that it said I should imagine my children reading my words. Well as of now I think that if my children read this they would realise what all children must eventually realise about their parents, that they are not infallible. That they are flawed, and scared and that like most people they haven't a fucking clue what is going on. So this is ME, confused, confusing and wondering if honesty really is the best policy after all.
I had intended this to be easy to read.
Ha.
I realise it isn't. Mostly because I abandoned preplanning somewhere around the collapse of the second paragraph. Random train-of-thought type writing might be fun for me, but I doubt that it is good to read. If it is let me know. This is honest though. A better sort of honest than the pre-pondered type I was planning. I suppose I'm trying to justify the fact that I'm treating this like a diary, which apparently is a bad thing to do. I'm sorry. E2 is not a therapist. E2 is not a therapist. E2 is not.....
So if you know me, I'm sorry if I surprised you. If you don't (yet), please stay tuned and follow the exciting adventures of Emmanuel Stone every month, right here. (I'm hoping for a cult following).
"We apologise for the lapse in transmission we will shortly return to scheduled programming:
And now for the news in brief: "
I move to Dublin in less than a week.
I have been working for a month and I am well adjusted, I have saved IR£300. I spent my first paycheque of IR£400 on a ticket to see Eels on October 14th at the Olympia and on a bill from Trinity College Dublin for IR£365. I may earn up to another £190 depending on how this week goes. My father was due to go to Cyprus today you see, but what with all this stuff going on at the moment with aeroplanes, he decided to stay at home rather than risk getting stranded there, 20 miles from a British army base during an attack on Afghanistan. So to compensate for his lost (and well deserved holiday), I may accompany him on a trip somewhere local. I'm not suggesting that I'm any substitute for a beautiful beach, but I suggested that I finish work early in order to have a break myself, and not to leave him on his own.
Even a break will only delay the inevitable fact that I must move to Dublin, and start a new life. Shit, I'm scared.