well well well, if it isn't me, my biggest distraction

Submitting to Authority.

When I go to an art exhibition and look at the floor. #photography #whowouldn’tnoticethis

The writing life.

Characters doing things I’m afraid to do.

this moment is the truest gift. do not wait for perfect conditions, for they are embedded in the now. it burns, it thrives, it glows. pick it like a common daisy. you are careening through starfields.

Real ale, a blues band, and a perfect sunset. Goddamn.

Friday night, tight af.

Whitby for a blues band.

Is that Occam's Razor in your pocket? It is.

I left my jumper in The Giggling Squid.

Trying to work out the genre of my current favourite albums and it seems to be some mix of house, pop-house, deep house or electronica. This pleases me. I am in my house a lot. (Logic1000, Elkka, Sofia Kourtesis, all perfect to write to.)

On a train that’s leaving the rain behind.

When a meeting isn't going well, I have a cute hedgehog toy that I bring out. I walk it up my belly and let it whisper in my ear. Everyone goes silent. Then it turns slowly, moves close to the camera and speaks the truth. It's a power move. Use it sparingly.

Free Play. Reads differently thirty years on. Books are manuscripts we can play only as well as we are able.

There was a system when I took them off the shelf, but, um, yeah, it’s hazy.

One month on. Weight is the same. Bit more muscle mass, bit less fat. Still look like a dork.

I do love a skilled tradesperson.

Getting a hole in the wall filled today. A gas flue we no longer need. It has to be done before the heat pump install happens so we can get the government grant. Getting a builder who doesn’t mess you around is hard. It’s a small, expensive hole. Practical tweet.

“If you have attempted to fit whatever mold and failed to do so, you are probably lucky. You may be an exile of some sort, but you have sheltered your soul.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

‘the city hums like muffled bees’

They're noisy as hell, but also super polite and they all took their shoes at the door. Somebody brought Twister. The kids are alright. It's a house full of adult-sized eloquent toddlers.

Revamped my website. I’m putting book notes on there too now and reminding people about The Complex (since it’s still in print!). I’m such a website fiddler. It’s a comfort activity. michaelwalters.uk

Reading a book about the art of improvising and being in the moment. To live in that spirit, to be free enough to improvise, requires being comfortable with feelings, and that’s not as common as it should be. We can be conforming monsters. Avoidant. Denying.

Pretty medieval.

Playing guitar. Ignoring the news. Listening to Catatonia. Going out for a drink on a Friday night. It’s 1998.

Had a dream about a horse. I wanted to buy one. It was a beauty, but the handler knew I was out of my depth, and it hit me that I didn’t have a field, a stable, or a way to get it home. I didn’t know how to ride, but I mounted it and it felt natural. It was a relief to give it back. I woke up sad.

A man likes to believe that he is the master of his soul. But as long as he is unable to control his moods and emotions, or to be conscious of the myriad secret ways in which unconscious factors insinuate themselves into his arrangements and decisions, he is certainly not his own master.~CG Jung

You can unleash a piercing, eldritch shriek of complete & utter desolation, as a little treat

‘We have dug a groove with all our sincere practice.’

My advice to anyone in any field is to be faithful to your obsessions.

Another squall of possibilities.

Girl is seventeen. I’ve raised another child to the brink of leaving. This is the last. Another year and then it will just be two of us again. We’ve had at least one child in the house for twenty-four years. Been together for twenty-five. Ha.

Back home, cycling past the funfair as they pack up after their fortnight stay. They’re taking the horses off the merry-go-round! I push my bike up and ask if I can photograph them putting the horses away. “Just get my good side” Lots of photos! am very excited! will post these three to start!

The fair comes, the fair goes. Was it ever even here?

Look, I don't share music or videos, but I'm breaking my rules for this one ice cream recipe and the sheer joy of seeing him make it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnDZ...

Supervillain vibes. Useful.

Saw Michael in the cinema last week and it was a pretty bland and poor music video version of a life, but then I saw the BBC doc about him and now I feel a bit sick.

Shouting, "That's the last straw!" while straws continue to pour down onto me with undiminished fury

let's be weird together

It’s simple. When I ask how your weekend was, I want to hear that you darted across rooftops, leapt onto an awning below, crashed into a pyramid of oranges, and still delivered the microfilm to the stranger in the speedboat

Garden in Nara, Shiro Kasamatsu.

Place the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible.

Just read a novel in a single sitting. Don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

insight

Belated #LastFourWatched #LetterboxdFriday 🍿📽️ I did not like Devil Wears Prada 2 one bit. Mother Mary was stellar. I prefer that Anne Hathaway.

Giving everything a thorough shake in the sunshine.