Back from Belfast, relaxed and cheery. Went to Bushmills. Am now drinking fine single malt that cannot be purchased anywhere but the Bushmills distillery. Two of my best friends have just celebrated their one-year anniversary, which is a Very Good Thing. Life is doing well.

More when I’ve got my notes of the handheld.

In the meantime, here’s Grant Morrison to entertain you. Look happy.

Tangent to previous post: “I don’t meet people I’m interested in very often”.

This is one of the things that reall pisses me off about shit like Bridget Jones and the ilk. The whinging about how it’s impossible to find a nice man, because all the good ones are taken. Leaving aside the dull, PC (but probably true nonetheless) rhetoric about women not needing a man, etc. what really pisses me off about this is that no-one ever thinks that the reverse might be true as well – that men have the same problem. It just seems like a double standard to me – women are allowed to be choosy, and good men are rare, but men aren’t supposed to be choosy, because all they’re after is one thing, or something. Just weird and a little irritating, I guess.

(Yeah, I give Nick shit about being choosy, but then, that’s because he’s forever going on about how he hates being single, and then throws away chances, which just blows my mind. Yeah, if I’m honest, there’s probably a bit of jealousy in there.)

Later addition: the other thing that irks me: if a book came out featuring a man decrying most women as either slappers or bitches, and complaining that he just couldn’t find a nice girl, how d’you think it would go down? I mean, it’d be as accurate…

(And yes, I accept that books like Bridget Jones are written from a woman’s POV, and thus obviously can’t really make these point – I’m not faulting them for it, mind. I’d just like to see some representation of the flipside, that’s all. Knowing me, it’s probably out there, and I’ve just missed it entirely, or something…)

Right: back to self-obsessed introspection.

I’m single. I’ve been single for a few years, and knowing me, I’ll be single for at least a few more – I don’t meet people I’m interested in very often, and I have serious problems getting the nerve up to say anything about it, for a variety of reasons. This doesn’t bother me overly. I’m sure I’ve said that on here before. There are times I watch the sun set and think things like “the only way this could be better is if there were someone share it with”, or wish I had someone to confide in in a way I can’t in my friends – not through any fault of theirs, simply that a relationship with a lover is very different to one with a friend. But for the most part, I’m content to be single.

But over the last few days, I’ve never regretted it more. Not in the way you might think – yes it’d be nice to have someone to turn to, but to be honest, I’m as well equipped to deal with this sort of thing as anyone can be. Not even to have someone I can help, exactly – I’m not good at helping people with this sort of thing. It’s just at times like this that I miss being able to do stupid things with a partner in crime. Deciding to blow off work and go shopping together. Staying up all night for the sake of it. Something to remind us both that the fun hasn’t gone out of the world. Dealing with this together.

I’m sure I’m not alone if feeling like this. I just thought it was worth noting.

I was reading the Warren Ellis Forum, when I came across this, about what we can do to help, in the aftermath of the disaster. The thread in question had been closed for posting, just as part of an effort to keep the forum readable, but I just wanted to say how much it impressed me, and in the absence of the ability to do it there, I’ll do it here. The guy in question is running for mayor of New York, oddly enough. Find out more here. But here’s what he said:

“Here’s something else you can do.

Be nice.

Get the door.

Pick up the dropped book.

Say “excuse me.”

Give directions.

Carry the heavy bag.

Give up the cab.

Give up the seat.

Give up the pocket change.

Smile.

Say “I love you.”

Mean it.

Sing.

Dance.

Play.

Eat.

Drink.

Live.

Because THAT’S the best way to fight terrorism.”

There’s a man with his head screwed on straight. I’d vote for him.

Electricana. I appear to have generated interest with this one. So, a short explanation. Electricana is my new web project – a supplement to Ink Stains, in a very, very different vein. I’m still planning the whole thing out, but at the moment, it’ll house two seperate fiction projects.

There are two things beyond that that make me excited about this: one if the fact that the entire site (barring admin work) will be run from my Visor. All the content will be generated and uploaded “on the road” as it were. This has been an ambition of mine for the last couple of years. Yes, I am a geek.

The second one, well, that’s the scope of the fiction projects. That, you’ll find out about as they progress. One of them is, well, interesting. The other, if I pull it off, will blow my mind, at least.

Saturday evening, from my notes:

Kingston Hill is gorgeous in the late summer evening. This is how I remember it, when I think of it, and I think of it more often than you might expect. This is the point when the world reminded me it was out there, in so many ways and on so many levels. Not only had I just left school, full of notions of my own grown-up-ness, with the all the confidence and arrogance of a teenager, but I knew what I wanted and how to get it.

God, it makes me laugh, looking back. And it looks like you can go back again, but only to look around. There’s not a lot different more security, but there are still squirrels everywhere, and the air has that early autumn chill to it. The need to smoke Marlboro reds and listen to Alanis Morisette is suddenly very strong indeed. It’s time to wander away, but there’s part of me left thinking “what if…?”

What if I’d never gone to Edinburgh? What if I’d never met the people I did after leaving Kingston? What if I was still in touch with the people I knew at Kingston. Aside from sporadic e-mail exchanges with Claire, there’s no-one I’m still in contact with from Kingston. It’s a dead part of my life. The only person I still see that I first met during that phase of my life is Andrew, and I met him totally separately from the rest of it…

God knows how I’d have turned out. But still, it’s interesting to come here, and surround myself with the ghosts of what might have been.

Back to the real world. The barbeque is calling me. My friends are there, and there’s only so long you can spend in self-induglent imaginings of your other selves. Here’s to yesterday, and to all the tomorrows that never happened. I hope they’re doing well.