Magnum opus

Yes, there's shite on TV again, so despite having nothing to report I have opened myself to the free space of the screen and see what happens.
I think looking back on 2006 the theme has been creation, as whatever wasn't happening outside I made sure I was able to create as much as I possibly could. If you think of your own talents, and look at other people with them who you like to see produce more, I've made sure I produced as much as I possibly could while I could. And so it will continue. If everything goes the way it has already I can imagine an auction after I die, when a bright relative who hasn't even been born yet collects all my pictures together and finds a way to market them for a fortune, making sure I get no recognition or money until it's too late. I wonder if there's a woman I used to like out there who will come across an old phone book and search me out on the web, wanting to catch up on all we missed together, the day after I die. If there's a boat to miss in life I've missed it. Even when I succeed it's almost always been at half the complete level- missing out on a master's degree, chartered profession and every woman I've fancied since my first girlfriend. My house is my only true success, having recycled my initial outlay in 1988 to a house valued three times what I paid plus the extra for the loft conversion. But it's a start not a finish as apart from me it's empty. Like an extremely comfortable open prison, where I can have visitors and go out when I please but come back to my own company.

So even that's only half the job done. TV work has been the same so far, on but not (yet) on terrestrial. My writing is published but not paid (though the article I just wrote on aliens was rejected as the magazine won't take anything pro-supernatural regardless of evidence). My paintings are the only exception, with number 2 awaiting acceptance and number 1 already sold. But I am only on the edge of full success there and only in the foothills in the other areas I've even begun. As for women I'm still applying to get on a course, let alone pass it.

Reviewing your life from time to time isn't a bad thing as long as it doesn't depress you. All in all as long as you're reasonably happy and can pay the bills it should be OK. How I pay the bills is a miracle at times (I try not to think about it) and though I have learnt the lesson of the value of other people haven't managed to make it a reality. Patience is fine as a teenager but at 46 how long should you have to wait to get anywhere? So I control anything I can, paint one picture after another, take lots of photos, write endless articles and study whatever I can. But that's my side covered. I refuse to do what others do to me and pester old friends who aren't interested any more and join every club around hoping to meet new ones. I've joined many groups for activities, and because I want to do them. If you meet a new friend there as well it's a bonus, and apart from the odd Jewish club years ago I've never met any new friends at an activity group. Plenty of weirdos, bores, old ladies (nothing wrong with them, but I don't need to hear about other people's grandchildren for 2 hours a week), and reformed addicts, but no new friends, the most I managed were a few visits or parties but it didn't last long.

The closest to an exception was a situation which belonged in a short film. One which should only have become as twisted as it was in fiction rather than my reality. In my world few things succeed tidily, but this failed so perfectly you'd wonder if there was a God and he had arranged it all as a sick joke. No, I'm not laughing.

Sarah. Two in fact. I went to a psychic weekend group every month or so, and began when I was sort of going out with Sarah, the best looking woman I've ever met before or since, but no heart. She was Iraqi (is that a factor?) and two timing me from start to finish, which basically nullified the whole relationship in practice. I took her there once, and there was another Sarah there who was one of the nicest and most interesting people I'd met, and wished my Sarah had the personality to go with the looks like the other one. Sarah 2 was average looking, but had a nose few would have seen elsewhere. It was a cartoon Cyrano de Bergerac stick on version, but real. It took a hot summers day for her to wear shorts for me to finally get used to the appendage when her legs took over the focal point of attention. Then Sarah 1 left me for her true love and I was free to ask Sarah 2 out, one of the few women I've ever picked up vibes from and been correct. If a man fancies someone, turn up with a girlfriend, fake or real, and if you've got a chance at all you'll swing it with that. Female psychology. The subconscious tells them if you're good enough for her you're good enough for me.

So I was free to make my move on S2 at last, and easily arranged a date that weekend. But the fly had already entered the ointment, when S1 had an argument with her mother and asked if she could rent my spare room. Rather than rent to strangers I thought whatever I felt about her she was honest and accepted her money as a compromise of head and heart. She had been bitching more and more and it was such a relief to spend time with a woman who didn't watch my every move and run it down I sort of took it out on S2. I drove about 25 miles to take her out for the afternoon, and after struggling through country lanes to find the damn place we were heading for, proceeded to complain about the prices as soon as we arrived. Then after my defences were truly down I started going on about the other Sarah, saying how awful she was. Some time in the afternoon I picked up the much more familiar vibe I always feel accurately, the point where she snapped and went off the whole idea. When we got home I've never seen anyone get out of the house and into the car so quickly unless the place had been on fire.

I rang to apologise, crawl, creep and bribe my way out of the hole I'd dug, but she kept her phone off the hook for weeks. Can you imagine someone deliberately not answering the phone in case it's one person? Am I that impossible people have to close down to avoid me? Apparently so. Of course, she'd built me up into some non-existent wise man only to find this stingy moaning nutter who was clearly still into another woman. Now if I'd played that one properly, I could now be the proud owner of a sensible level headed woman (besides the nose of course, which may have needed a surgically implanted counterweight to stop her head drooping) with great legs and a good heart. I bet she's still single at about 45 and having made a few tentative investigations, still hates me as much as the day she left my lounge with the speed of a gazelle.

Just another nail in the coffin of finishing a job. More later in the week.