Why does anyone bother?

Boredom is a killer really. Living alone lends itself perfectly. No TV, too early to go to bed and nothing left on the internet. And when the highlights of the week include taking photos of the North Circular at Brent Cross life has really reached the bottom of the barrel. No, there's nothing better to do that I've missed. Friends are thin on the ground, work is the same, and the only places I've gone to are ones where I can take photos. So many times besides my new 48 second pixilated video project the still photos are starting to repeat themselves. And although I can walk through Golders Green it's not the same as I don't really know anyone there any more. NW11 was one of the most fertile areas of social life till this decade when one by one everyone I knew left.

So like the Twilight Zone where you are in the same place but with different people, I pass through Golders Green now like the spirit of a dead person visiting their old haunts on Earth while no one can see them. It looks the same but nothing is happening and you can't interact. Even the two pubs I occasionally went to there are gone, one (a bit rough admittedly) now a clothes shop, and the other (started charging to park there) knocked down 5 years ago. That was actually so decent you could easily spend an evening there and was the only pub I knew besides the awful Spaniards with mainly Jewish customers. They had the civilised ones while the Spaniards the rude ones with money. There was also another in between type opposite in Hendon which is now flats as well.

So my social life and ability to find anywhere to go with it has been reduced to the garden centre over a mile away as unless you walk through the park no road goes there and the entrance instead of being round the corner is on said road over a mile away despite backing on to my estate opposite here. I'm bored with them anyway now. A garden centre, however good the coffee, cannot replace a huge pub with fruit machines and old friends in Golders Green. OK, said people are approaching 50 now and paying for their kids to go to university, while I try and turn the clock back to when I was actually a part of their lives as well. I can't see a solution direct or otherwise. Others suggest returning to places I used up in my teens, organisations which allow you to learn skills a few hours a week and meet women who spend every possible moment talking about their children and grandchildren. None are single at these places as they are never designed for them. Colleges are no better except you meet young marrieds and drug addicts who are equally hopeless if you want to meet new friends or get off with someone. I met all my friends at school, on holiday and through my parents. I did meet a few at discos after some years of seeing the same people but that was 30 years ago.

No solution, freedom is wonderful when you can use it, when you use it to tell people on the internet how useless it has become you are ready to give up all hope. For a while I looked for advice but it's pure chance how life turns in these situations. It only takes one person to change it all, as when one left my life turned into nothing, I then met a woman who kept me busy a couple more months and that was that. From then on it was doing my own thing, making films of the places I now take still photos of, staying in during winter painting so I can put them on the wall, writing articles, watching TV and that's the lot. If this guy in America really can show people how to bend metal then the world will no longer be as I think it is, and may become an interesting place again. Until then I blog.