Mystery and dark sides. Wanted.

Some good dust on the horse track between Tooting Bec and Streatham this morning. Kicking your feet to get up a good cloud, the suns glare, already hot, shining in my face. All I needed was some good boots and a guitar slung over my shoulder. Or a rifle.

It's good for the mystery, a man out early, appearing form a cloud of grey dirt, with bed head and a glint in his eye. Lot of glint on those there paths. It's important to have a dark side, or at least look like you have one. I don't, so this all helps. Dark sides are brewed in silence and ferment in the souls of people who don't talk. I talk to much, give too much away, so have lost my darkness. If you're still with me at this point, thanks for hanging on.

I do have one slight dark side, more a shadow really. My perception of some people is twisted. A fear of pretension has seen me barking bile on random strangers. Nothing out loud, that would be pretentious, no, just an inward poison directed at acts most people, quite rightly, deem normal.

What are these acts? Well, writing in public is one. Forget that I'm typing this in a bar for a second. I've always found public writing a problem. But I should also point out that I've decided I need to change. I'm looking for the cure. I can beat this.

I have trouble with the "writer" tag, which has connotations for me that being seen to be a "writer" is far more important than actually writing. It took me a while to get paid to write this nonsense. It's hard work. It's not supposed to be easy for people like me. Hence a random dislike for people who do this. Notebook open, often a moleskin (I have one too), jotting down random thoughts, holding the end of a pen against their lips, and "watching life drift by as the muse pays a visit."

I have a problem with "muse" too. In fact that would be what the rifle would be for. There's an excuse not to write - waiting for that cunning bastard to show up. He will never come.

Jees, listen to this stuff. Someone, call the medics.

This is why I'm fighting off these demons and am going to Borders to set up my laptop to work. I will buy a large coffee, perhaps even a "latte", a word I still can't say out loud, and then leave a big red copy of the Writers year book on the table. If I'm lucky I'll find one of the sofas to sit on. Well if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right. Yes, the time has come to take this step, for my better angels who have been threatened with lighted cigarettes for so long. Yes, smoking. That's pretentious too.