#oneaday, Day 147: Everybody Needs Somebody

Over the last few days, weeks, months, whatever, it's been becoming clear that I'm not the only one having a shit time. Quite a lot of people have been having a shit time, for quite a long time, too. Estimates from several people, given completely independently, place the time of shitness as starting roughly 18 months ago and working from there. And that sounds about right to me. January 2009 is certainly when my downward slope started, though it took a while to pick up speed. Each thing I did that I thought was a positive move ended up being either not enough, or the wrong thing to do. I'm not sorry I took those steps, because I believe that they were positive steps, and the right thing to do at that time, but it's not much consolation when I think about the position I'm in right now.

I know several other people that I've been talking to recently are in similar situations. Not necessarily for the same reasons. But for most of them, around the same time – January 2009 – things started taking a turn for the worse.

Some of these people I didn't know back then. Others I didn't know were suffering at the time. Others I did know were suffering, but didn't know to what degree. Others still were happy to tell me everything. And some lied to make it seem all right when in fact that couldn't be further from the truth.

A problem shared is a problem halved, as they say. And while it's not nice to only ever talk about one's problems with one's friends, there's a feeling of solidarity, camaraderie, whatever you want to call it, of helping each other through a difficult time. Everyone's problems have a relative degree of intensity that is unique to that person. One person's "I want to jump off a bridge" might be another person's "get the fuck over it". But it's every person's prerogative to think whatever they wish about their problems. Different people deal with different things differently. That's what makes us – guess what? Different.

It's all very well saying all this. Sometimes people can't cope at all. I've felt like that before. I've had days when I can barely function. I've had nights where I haven't slept a wink. Even now, now that there's the possibility of things being back on the up, and good people coming into (and in some cases returning to) my life, there are still times when it's so tough I wonder how I've made it this far.

There are people I don't want to let down, though. And everybody needs people like that. Whether they're friends, family, colleagues, whatever. Everybody needs someone looking out for them. Even if they're not aware they're doing it. Sometimes the thing that can draw you out of the darkness is the thought "what would so-and-so think about this?", or "what would they do if they were here?" or "would they want me to do this?" They might never know what you're thinking, what you're doing, what you're feeling. But the very fact they're in your life is enough to give you the strength to do the right thing in many cases.

So, however shit a time you're having at the minute, value your friends. Tell them you care. Let them know that you're there for them. Don't be afraid to let them know what you're thinking, feeling or worrying about. You might not be able to tell everyone you know everything that you're thinking or feeling all the time. But there will be at least one person out there who you will be able to tell, even if it's only when you're off your tits on scary drinks that combine things that should never be combined together like EVER.

So anyway. Profound thoughts on friendship done for the evening. I'll write something funny again soon, I promise. But the last few days have just felt a bit, you know… well, like I want to write this sort of thing.

In other news, 3 days to go until 150. How should I celebrate?

#oneaday, Day 146: Overly Ambitious Interactive Post

This post is interactive. And long. As such, I am using a More tag for the first time ever. To take part in all the fun, read the full post. It's about Persona 4's music, and how I think it can be made relevant to pretty much any situation you might find yourself in in everyday life. I commented on this on Twitter the other day. I thought it might be fun to prove it. Turns out it is fun. And rather time-consuming to prepare. But here it is anyway.

Continue reading "#oneaday, Day 146: Overly Ambitious Interactive Post" →

#oneaday, Day 145: Fear is for the Weak

I had an ambitious and experimental post planned, but time got the better of me so it can wait until tomorrow.

Instead, I am on my way out to my buddy Kalam's birthday bash. There will be drinking involved.

I don't normally go out this late. I usually overthink things and then end up not doing anything at all. But tonight, I thought, fuck it. There are times when it's OK to just do, not think. So my intention for tonight is to follow that philosophy. Hesitation is for the weak. The contented man doesn't regret missed opportunities. And other proverbs that I've just made up.

Tonight, my intention is to try and go more with gut instinct. Hesitation and lack of confidence holds mr back to a ridiculous degree and the only way to fix that is to do something about it for yourself.

I have no idea if it will actually work. But this, at least, is the intention. There will doubtless be Twitter updates throughout the evening depending on whether things go swimmingly or are a disastrous failure that make me never want to show my face in public again.

But I've got to try, at least. So here goes.

#oneaday, Day 144: Another Multimedia Extravaganza

More pictures with sound for your delectation tonight. This time I thought I'd experiment with some black and white photos. I hadn't originally intended to take the photos with a particular theme in mind, other than that I knew I wanted to try doing some black and white ones. When I loaded the pics onto my computer, though, it became apparent that I had managed to take pictures with almost no people in them whatsoever. This wasn't intentional, but it provided a theme for the set anyway. I shouldn't have told you that, you weren't to know, were you? Let's start again.

This is a set based on the theme of being alone.

Whew, got away with that, I think.

I can assure you that Southampton is just fine and has not suffered a 28 Days Later-style zombie apocalypse which emptied the streets. Some may say that's a shame. But there are a few nice people here, so I don't wish a zombie apocalypse on the whole place just yet. A few areas, perhaps.

The music for this particular slideshow is "Living with Determination" from Persona 3. It seemed a fittingly melancholy piece for the moody nature of the photos.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how these pictures came out, and with the overall effect of the slideshow as a whole. It was an interesting day to take photos, actually. You can probably see how the weather changed as my journey progressed – it started dull and cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. The clouds stuck around, though, making for some dramatic, stormy skies. Hence the many pictures of clouds!

I'm definitely going to do more of these, as they're fun and reasonably easy to put together. Plus it's yet another means of self-expression, which is always good.

I've always enjoyed photography over the years. I remember getting a bit bewildered by an old film-based SLR camera back home with my parents, and later getting my own point-and shoot cameras, taking bajillions of photos and often being complimented for my good composition. Obviously I'm no pro and haven't had any proper training, so I'm sure there's all sorts of things technically wrong with them that I can do better. But as I used to tell people who came in wanting to learn about iPhoto and Aperture – if you're not being paid for the pictures you take, whether or not you like them is the only important thing.

So true – for so many things besides photography, too. Sums up the whole idea of #oneaday, in fact, not to mention the photography-based variant #365. People are doing these things for themselves as a means to express themselves, develop their own skills and perhaps show off just a little bit. When other people end up appreciating your work, it's always a pleasant surprise. And if they don't like it, it's the old artist's defense – "it wasn't for them anyway".

So anyway. I hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the slideshow. There will be more to come in the future as soon as I get back out there with my camera and get all snap-happy.

#oneaday, Day 143: Formspring Durch Technik

I'm not sure what it is that appeals to me about question-based-sort-of-social-networking-web-2.0-nonsense Formspring, but I find it hugely addictive. I'm not the only one, either. High-profile online figures such as Leigh Alexander and Jeff Green seem to be having a blast with it, too, as are plenty of others.

The concept is simple. Anyone can ask you a question, either with their username attached or anonymously. Most people choose to ask anonymously. And it's actually more fun that way, because you then have the sort of metagame of working out who asked you what. And if you get a slightly questionable, err, question, it becomes all the more exciting to answer – was it one of your hairy male friends asking sarcastically, or was it asked by that hot chica you've got your eye on?

I think the most fun thing about it is that in coming up with creative answers to the very creative questions people come up with, you get the opportunity to talk about yourself. This is the very worst sort of narcissism that Web 2.0 brings out, of course, but it also gives you the opportunity to share things about your past, your personality, your hopes, your dreams, your tastes… all sorts of things that might not come up in conversation unless you blurted them out randomly like some sort of Fact-Tourette's sufferer.

A friend commented that the whole thing smacked of the sort of questions you get on dating sites. That's sometimes true, of course, but the difference here is that it all depends on what people choose to ask you. If people choose to ask you dating site-type questions, that's what'll happen. If people choose to ask you a series of increasingly-outrageous "what if?" scenarios, then that's what you'll get. Or in my case, you get a mixture of both until it becomes very confusing and you have no idea who asked what any more. Largely because for the most part you didn't know in the first place.

It's a service dependent on interaction, of course. If your friends are the sort of people who baulk at typing anything into text boxes, whether or not they have to bother signing up for a service beforehand, then you won't get much out of Formspring. If, however, you have creative friends who enjoy coming up with ridiculous things for you to answer, then you'll have a hell of a lot of fun with it. And your friends might even learn something about you that they didn't know before. You might even learn something about yourself that you didn't know before. Deep, huh?

If you want to ask me a stupid question, I have a list of the last few ones I've been asked somewhere to your right in the sidebar that you can click on to see my responses. Or you can just go here. You don't have to sign up for the site to take part, but if you do sign up then you get email notifications when someone asks you a question or when someone answers your question, whether or not it was anonymous.

#oneaday, Day 142: Erraticism

Things haven't been sorted back at my place yet. A letter came through the door today informing me that the electricity would be off, and the water would probably be going off at some point too. Joy! This means I pretty much have to live like a hobo for the next few days.

I'd be less embittered about the whole thing if I hadn't looked out of the window this morning and seen the big hole which the electric company had dug and no-one in it at all. I would have thought in what probably qualifies as an "emergency" (albeit not one which is directly threatening lives) that the people in charge of fixing it might be a bit more interested in, you know, fixing it.

The letter also mentioned that there would be police patrolling around the site. So I was heartened to see two children playing inside the hole that the electric company had dug, obviously unsupervised by both their parents and the conspicuously absent police.

So that's all good. I've not slept in my own bed for the last two nights. But I don't mind, really. Of course I don't.

Of course I fucking do. I'd like to be able to, you know, do stuff in the place that is supposed to be my home but which day by day is feeling less and less like it. I know I'm going to have to get out there at some point but being jobless at the moment I really don't have anywhere to go just yet. It's not through lack of trying, either.

Today was "one of those days" when everything feels like it goes badly. I got up early as I was sleeping on a friend's floor and he had to go out to work. This wasn't a "bad thing", I knew it was going to happen. But when I got outside, it started raining, always a bad omen. I wandered into town to find some breakfast, and it was still raining. I spoke to a friend who was also having a terrible morning, and it quickly became apparent that today was not going to be a good day.

So I was unsurprised when I wandered back to my flat to check on things that the electricity was still off. More to the point, the people in charge had not had the foresight to remember that electronic door locks don't work when there is no electricity. Fortunately, a chav who had had the foresight to break the basement door had left a way into the building, fortunately.

I went out again, took some photos, wandered around aimlessly, came back. Still no power. Then the power came back for a minute. Then it went away again. Now here I am.

Forgive me for the not-very-interesting posts. But I'm pissed off. Hopefully normal business will soon resume.

#oneaday, Day 141: Wet Feet

I was just about to settle down to write a blog earlier tonight when I was unceremoniously informed that it would probably be for the best if I vacated my flat.

Let's rewind an hour or two here. I was about to settle in for a d… to have some alone time in the bathroom when I realised I was out of toilet paper. So a trip to the shop was on the cards. I gathered the universal "going outside kit" of money, keys and phone and went outside my flat.

When I got into the lobby area I could hear gushing water. I figured it was just the rain outside intensifying, but I needed a dump and no thunderstorm was going to stop me in acquiring the appropriate equipment for said activity.

I opened the door and noticed it wasn't raining. Not only that, but I couldn't hear the gushing water outside.

"That's odd," I thought. I headed back inside and followed the source of the sound. It was coming from the basement of my block.

At the bottom of the stairs, the floor was ankle-deep in water, and said water appeared to be gushing out from behind a white, locked door which, it later became clear, is an electrical cupboard.

I went back into my flat and phoned the useless estate management company who are in charge of the development. I was put on the phone with a spectacularly chavvy-sounding gentleman who offered that he could either get someone to come down tomorrow ("It's flooding," I pointed out.) or tonight, and that there "might be a charge" for an "emergency callout".

Fortunately, as it transpired, there was a representative of this festival of incompetence already on site for some reason. He came and knocked on everyone's door and informed us that they were going to turn the electricity off as the water was getting at the fuses and that was bad. He also helpfully informed us that he had absolutely no idea how long the work to fix it was going to take.

Well, thanks for that.

That, then, dear reader, is why I am lying on the floor of my friend Sam's house blogging on my phone. Because Trinity Estates, who think "fixing a pipe" means "putting some duct tape on it" have outdone themselves.

I guess I should be grateful that they are at least fixing it. But to not be able to do stuff in my own home for an unspecified amount of time is not exactly what I need right now.

#oneaday, Day 139: Multimedia Extravaganza

It is indeed a multimedia extravaganza for you today as I share with you both pictures and sound! I even share them both at the same time! That's pretty exciting, isn't it. Admit it. You're a little excited right now at the prospect of pictures and sound at the same time. If you're not, you're either lying, or dead inside.

Err, anyway. Today was another one of those beautiful sunny days so, not having anything better to do and not having anyone to share it with, I decided to head out into the sunshine with my camera and take some pictures around the city. Turns out Southampton is actually not a bad-looking city in the sunshine. The city centre has an awful lot of green space, with about five parks all right next to each other. One of them was hosting some sort of arts festival today – there was live music, craft stalls and somewhere, apparently, workshops on things like drawing and making things.

I always find it interesting how wandering around with a camera makes you notice little things more. A flower with a bee on it, for example. If I didn't have a camera in my hand, I wouldn't have given that a second thought. But because "ooh, that makes a good photo", it gets noticed. It's also immensely annoying if you spot something that will make a good photo and you then miss the opportunity. I didn't have this problem much today. I even managed to get the bee.

I present to you, then, a YouTube video of some pictures from around Southampton. They're a fairly random selection, to be honest, and not necessarily particularly characteristic of the city itself. But they're things that my eye was drawn to today and thus up came the camera, click click, boom. Wait, not "boom". That's something else. The music in the video is the theme from Final Fantasy VII, played by me. Oh yes indeedy.

Yes, as well as taking those pictures, I also recorded a few more pieces for your delectation. Four today, in fact. Here they are. As usual, iPhone users should tap on the titles to hear them, while everyone else can use the Flash player and be smug twats about it.

Alone from Persona 4

Living with Determination from Persona 3

Final Fantasy VII Theme

Eyes on Me from Final Fantasy VIII

That's not quite my normal 500 words, I know. But I gave you multimedia. So I think you can let me off 80 words or so. Except by the time I've finished justifying my lack of words I'll probably have hit 500 words anyway. So I may as well keep going. I hope you all had a pleasant day. I did, although it was rather quiet. Still, it's nice to have quiet days sometimes, isn't it? Means you don't have to fill them with meaningless conversations and attempts to fill spaces that words should go in. Like this one that I'm filling right now. Oh yes. There's 500 words. Time to go.

Hope you enjoy the slideshow and music. Let me know what you think in the comments.

#oneaday, Day 138: Days in the Sun

It was another gloriously sunny day today. It's easy to forget that England gets nice weather sometimes when an estimated 85% of our days are overcast.

Everyone is in a better mood in the sunshine. And, judging by the number of people in town, everyone skips work in the sunshine, too. I went to the park and sat in the sun for a bit and there were people from all walks of life all around. There was the chav in the open shirt who kept stroking his chest. There were the noisy, screechy girls. There were excited little kids on their half-term break headed for the playpark. And there was me.

Sitting in the sun is nice. There's something extremely pleasant about the weather being good enough for you to be able to sit (or indeed lie) on the grass and just relax. If it's been raining or snowing, or if it's cold, you'd never even think about lying down on the ground and dozing for a bit. But as soon as it gets a little bit sunny? Everyone seems to come down with narcolepsy. Well, except those people playing frisbee.

Lying in the grass is one of those things that triggers memories, particularly of being very young. I can remember lying on the grass at primary school on hot sunny days. Sometimes my friends and I would just lie there. Other times we'd talk. Other times still we'd attempt to do those stupid moves from P.E. that no-one ever does in real life. And on one memorable occasion, a friend became convinced that by doing a shoulderstand and "squeezing a bit", he could make himself fart at will. (He couldn't.)

Besides school, other grassy memories are mostly picnic-related. I have oddly strong memories of visiting the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and sitting in the grass having a picnic as we watched the planes take off, land and do various pieces of death-defying aerobatics. Thinking about it, I don't think we were actually sitting on the grass, more hanging around the car in deckchairs eating sandwiches. But sandwiches always taste better outside, as everyone well knows.

So it's been a nice day. A very nice day in fact. Even the fact that I clearly got a bit burnt judging by the tingling on my ears right now (either that or someone's talking about me) didn't detract from the niceness of the day. So that's good. Nice days are good. Nice days are much-needed. Nice days have been away for a long time, so it's, well, nice to see them again.

Let's hope this lovely summery weather continues for some time, and that we see more in the way of girls in tiny shorts and less in the way of shirtless bald chavs staggering through parks with cans of Tennents Extra clutched in their desperate sweaty gorilla-hands. And maybe some English people can get a proper tan instead of feeling the need to pointlessly slather themselves with orange paint.

#oneaday, Day 137: Flower Girl

I am almost falling asleep on my keyboard here, so I'll keep this brief to prevent falling asleep with all the letters of the keyboard printed backwards across my face. I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm not sure why I'm so tired, though I have had people over this evening and I spent the first part of my day cleaning up in preparation for said visitors. We had a lovely evening, by the way, thanks for asking.

Earlier in the day I did get a moment to record one more piano piece. I posted it on Tumblr earlier but I'm not sure who got the chance to hear it. A few people did, I guess, and it even got a couple of reblogs. But I thought for those people who don't "do" Tumblr, I'd post it here too.

The song in question is Aerith, or Aeris, or Flower Girl or whatever you want to call it. It's the piece from Final Fantasy VII that makes everyone cry. There are two reasons for this – one, it's a beautiful piece of music, and two, the most memorable point of the game in which this piece of music is heard is where Aerith/s dies. (Oh come ON! Surely everyone who is ever going to play Final Fantasy VII knows that by now.) This scene is widely regarded by many as one of the first times where computer games genuinely started to encourage emotional investment in their narratives – at least on consoles. Developers of adventure games on PC had been trying this for a long time already, but Final Fantasy VII was the first mainstream console game which people admitted crying to.

It's a cliché and a bit of a joke these days, of course, but it was my brother telling me about the sheer emotion in the game that made me originally want to pick up Final Fantasy VII. I'd never touched an RPG prior to that point and had no idea what HP, MP and Limit Breaks were. My life was shortly to change forever.

The piece of music itself, though; it's always held a peculiarly personal meaning to me, and I can't pin down why that is. I think it possibly may be something to with the fact that the older Final Fantasy games allowed you to rename your characters, so in my game, it wasn't "Aerith" dying, it was someone I knew. This made it all the more traumatic.

When I play the piece nowadays, I don't necessarily think of someone dying. But I do always find myself thinking of someone. I always feel that the character of the piece represents gentle, total, unconditional love and/or affection towards someone. So inevitably while playing it I find myself thinking of someone special to me in some way. The exact person who comes to mind has changed many times over the years, but the reason for my thinking of them hasn't. They are important.

iPhone users, click here to hear the track. Everyone else, use the Flash player below.