
Diary, look…
I know…
I know I’ve been bad…. I know I haven’t been in touch in an age, I’m sorry…
It’s just that… whoo! You really would not believe these last two months. I mean really, you would not believe.
I mean, I’ve been busy before… but really it’s just been crazy! Temps fou, ma vieille amie! Días de la locura! الفوضى المطلق!
Where to begin…
Okay, well let’s start with Christmas. Always a busy time of year, of course — not least because I’m usually doing a lot of musical things that require learning Christmas-specific stuff. I basically write off getting anything constructive done from early December to New Year. And this one was a particularly busy one.
Well, the floods hit my little part of town on Christmas Day. And they only went down a couple of weeks ago. And… frankly, they might not be done yet; they might well be back soon.
Not the first time I’ve dealt with flooding. Not even the first time I’ve dealt with flooding over Christmas. But it got so high and stayed there for so long. And the stuff that I didn’t get round to repairing from last year’s floods is now basically totally destroyed, so there’s budgeting and planning and various living space costs to be dealt with. It’s been a little bit full-on.
And then, as that was starting to calm down and I was about to get back to ordinary life, a member of my immediate family had a stroke. Which could have been a lot worse, but still, a stroke is a stroke, and there has been a fair bit of family meetings, siblings coming from overseas, this sort of thing. More of a worry than an actual work thing, but another reason why it’s been hard to concentrate on doing other things.
But of course, as you well know, Diary, there has been another reason for me to be particularly occupied recently!
And yes, of course, I know I should thank you for that.
That last blog, the ‘New Year’s Dissolution’… did that sound too much like a hint? Was it a bit pushy?
I mean, it was a hint, obviously. Blatantly.
But, hey… I mean, I really wasn’t expecting anything! It’s not like trying to arrange my love-life via the medium of blogging has ever worked in the past.
And I don’t know what it was that persuaded you to intervene this time. Perhaps the awful thought of me trying to Errol Flynn my way around Oxford. Perhaps the dread of more long rambling blogs expressed far less eloquently than this: http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/the-crush-feedback-loop-and-news/
But whatever the reason, may I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your exquisite taste.
Seriously. All my buttons pushed, immeasurably beautiful and a Suzanne Vega fan too! More than that, someone prone to quote my own songs and blog posts back at me. And not just the new blog posts, but from way back in the 55 Chapters even! You clearly went right for the vanity — truly, you know me too well.
You’re a diary, of course you know me too well! Or so you’d think. But actually I think not all diaries are so perceptive. Plenty of celebrity diaries and memoirs are clearly so obsessed with hitting the best-seller list, and have clearly taken so little time to get to know their subjects, you really can’t assume that. Some diaries seem like they’ve barely even met them. (And I’m not just talking about footballers and reality tv show stars. Even the belovedly bestselling Diary of Anne Frank seems to have been missing a trick or two: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/02/anne-franks-diary-pornographic-uncomfortable-truth)
Anyway, I saw her face. Now I’m a Belieber.
(There’s a joke that’s going to date really quickly.)
So thank you. You set it all up, and even tied up the loose ends too!
And I intend to show my gratitude with a plethora of posts and news and songs and videos — and above all gigs-a-plenty — throughout 2014. I am going to work and work and work and work.
Obviously there really has been no way I’ve had time to get music stuff done these last couple of months, but I am just itching all over to get out and play. And to get back to promoting Joy & Jealousy, which I’ve basically stalled on since early December. Not to mention a lot of exciting new projects and collaborations on the horizon.
So get your towels ready, it’s about to go down — keep your eyes on the skies and your loins on the joins…
Let’s do this motherfucking 2014 thing.
But first… er…
Justin Bieber:

Miley Cyrus:

It’s not just me, that is weird, right?