Vapid, Condescending Platitudes and Emotionally Devoid Expressions

On top of everything else, I have had to cope with a series of patronising and upsetting emails from Anne-Marie in the last 24 hours. Why contact me to let me know that she no longer loves me? Why indulge in pointless revisionism that would not be out of place in the Stalin era USSR? Why twist ‘we agree to be exclusive and try’ into some version of reality where her telling me we were over when she came back from holiday with Alex is not dumping me? It’s not as if I forget what she said, I remember very clearly as I was trying to explain about how ill I was whilst she dropped this bombshell.

She has agreed not to contact me in future. Knowing we will never speak again breaks my heart, but if all she has to say is vapid, condescending platitudes and emotionally devoid expressions such as ‘Hope you recover soon’ there is no point. If all you can say to someone after more than seven years are those four words, why bother putting them in email?

So yet again, I spend hours crying and not writing. I’m sure that anything I write under the influence of tears and this emotional bleeding would be close to shit anyway, but now I’m not cranking out the words because of being so bloody hurt over her instead of not writing because all I can see is the yellow and black of my insides.

Today I am Crying and I Cannot Stop

I don’t know how to write today. All I can see when I sit here at the screen is flashbacks to those shots of my insides; yellow and black, a failing mess of corruption. I try and focus on the United Bamboo Gang, but today, I cannot get passed what I’ve seen. It all seems so much worse having viewed those photos, so much more real. I am glad to be out of hospital, but today I am crying and I cannot stop. Everything is so wrong.

All the Fun of the Fear

I have done 50,000 words. This means that if I can no longer write the book after today I should get half the fee and my name mentioned somewhere on the book. I have no idea how the material I have produced will go down with the publisher. At least one person who has seen it has described it as ‘flaky’ and that is hardly a good sign. It is certainly an idiosyncratic crime book. Aside from the libertarianism and socialism riffs, some of my Leif motifs are smeared across like bloody handprints on a glass table. No other organized crime book would feature mentions of The Avengers, Tonton Macoutes and Margaret Thatcher.

If my bowels still worked in a normal fashion, I could say I was shitting myself about the return to hospital today. As they don’t, it is all the fun of the fear without the trips to the toilet.

The Only Thing They Did Was Kill Superman

Today I spent a lot of time talking to FBI agents. I guess this should be considered as exciting or at least unusual given that it’s not the sort of thing I do every day. I discovered a couple things. One, that even talking to a FBI agent telling tales of Mafia busts will not take your mind of a lost a love and two, that some FBI agents are far too talkative.

I’m nearing the end of the Cosa Nostra section of the book. I never dreamt that this bit of history would see me writing the words: “The only thing they did was kill Superman,” or quoting an FBI agent as saying: “That’s when they hit you in the ass.”

Venetian Murder Scene

If I stay well enough and sane enough to finish it, the cover for Organized Crime is going to the ‘Mad Dog’ Coll line-up that I’ve been using on MSN Messenger for the last couple few weeks. Given that the publisher had vetoed my suggestion of the Venetian murder scene with streetlights reflecting of rain-soaked cobbles as unsuitable (“Dead bodies are a no-no for the sales team”) I’m not too displeased.

Coll was an Irish mobster and whilst its still classic suits and fedoras, at least it’s a step away from the Sicilian stereotype I was worried about if they had gone for a Luciano image. I also think it might work as there’s a look in Coll’s eyes in the pictures that's somewhere between a 10,000-yard stare and pure menace. This look hits you every time you see it. I still prefer the Venetian murder scene, but at least it's not totally cuddly and fluffy.

Laughing on the Lisburn Road

So weird to write entry for book today and write about Belfast. So strange to have to refer to AM in the entry as ‘an ex-partner’. It broke my heart. All the memories of us laughing on the Lisburn Road, all the memories of walking by Connolly House. All the pain of losing her. Crushing. All the time I just feel my heart is being crushed.

I am so close to just giving up on this book. Taking Stephen’s advice to just say: ‘Fuck the book.’ He is right. It is killing me. Yet at the same time, if I hadn’t been doing it I don’t know if I could have survived all the hurt and hell I’ve already through. With so much more pain ahead, I just don't know what to do.

Victim of a Midnight Pixie Peroxide Attack

I had a bad night. Severe AM nightmares and a lot of physical pain. I couldn’t sleep between 3-6am, but after that I was eventually tired enough to doze again. When I got up at 8:30, I had something of a shock.

Overnight my beard has turned white. Or more accurately, there’s a v-shaped patch of white beard around my chin that makes it look like I’m the victim of a midnight pixie peroxide attack. It gives me the appearance of a bad cartoon character and the whole beard now just has go. The fact that this happened overnight staggers me. It seems as if all those ghost stories telling how shock and nightmare can turn you white were not total bunk as I’ve always believed.

No Fireworks on the Beach

With no fireworks on the beach on New Year’s Eve and more importantly no AM, yesterday was tough. Today seems even tougher as it is her birthday tomorrow