Almost Madness

[monkeyboy]

I’ve got to get Brian some hand cleaner. I went to 2 tool shops yesterday. No luck. The last place gave me an address of a place down on the docks. Not easy to find with no satnav and a miss-behaving Bitch I forgot what i came here for. Was it a lady decorator wearing low cut jeans and a tight T shirt? Oh well I’ll buy a couple anyway. It’s good to have a spare for when one is full

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDA3

No bloody hand cleaner though. And now I have to find my way out to the border form the badlands too. Bugger the hand cleaner. On the outskirts I ride past a scrappy car park with a big old sign saying something like ‘The End of the World shop’. Turn around, go in and sure enough it sells everything from car tyres to body bags to plastic garden animals, food, drugs, guns, knives , and hand cleaner. With grit. Only 2 tubes left though. Turns out that after the apocalypse it’s really important to keep your hands clean.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHN2

Head out towards Poland. It’s wet and cold and I’m hypersensitive. The Bitch is not well. For the last few days she’s been randomly trying to kill me. I’ll go to turn and it feels like the bars are locked solid. She won’t turn or she’ll just barely turn. Scares the shit out of me every single time. If it's what I think it is,I just hope it will hold up a few more days.

Stop at the loneliest petrol station in the world for some cheap fuel and even cheaper cancer sticks for the blokes at work. I was going to buy some sweets, but sweets are bad for you.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHMW

The queue is very short but it’s the same as when as when I was waiting to come in this border a few weeks ago. Cars with german plates but Russian speaking passengers.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDz1

Done inside and hour and on to Poland…

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[monkeyboy]

which takes more than twice as long.. so I decide to get brut force and ignorance out the panniers. I’ve noticed one of the suspension struts is protruding more than the other so I loosen everything off and pull the suspension through to make them the same, as you do.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDwW

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But while The Bitch is on the centre stand I turn the bars and there is a very nasty graunching noise from the head bearings. Sounds like a 90 year old doing the splits. BUGERTY TWAT WANGLES AND FLAPPY FANNY FARTS. That’s all I bloody well need. The front brakes are beginning to pulse again too, and I suspect they’re not releasing properly. That could be something to do with it. Still it’s only really a problem at junctions, roundabouts and slip roads. I’ll have to avoid them. I doubt there are many on the 1000 miles back home. I'll just have to adopt the Clarkson philosophy. I’ll just ride a lot faster. That way I’d have a bigger accident, but I’d have less time to worry about it.

 

[monkeyboy]

Out we go into Poland and my mind is immediately mobbed. It’s overwhelmed and totally consumed. It’s running scared by all the things I’d put to the back of my mind suddenly running to the front. Thoughts I’d run away from all catching up with me at once. FUUUUUUCK OFFFFFFF. I can’t deal with this right now. Take a ticket and I’ll try to deal with you one by one. Tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe. Never put off till tomorrow what you can put off till year is my motto. But I’ll have to face them soon i know.

And this shitting tossing bloody traffic is making me MAD. I’m on the motorway to Gdansk. It all comes to a stop. Fantastic. Just perfect. I filter for a while but the wanky steering has my arse holding its breath and eventually it has to breathe out. I’m paranoid about the bike overheating and i need to stop. There is an exit in a couple of miles but, of course, the Polish have decided to use the emergency lane to get to it and it’s blocked. So I just think bollocks to it. I stop in the fast lane up against the barrier. I put the side stand down, turn the engine off and I read my book. Yes I do because I’m English and I don’t care. At some point recently a robber came in the night and took all my fucks. The cars drive slowly past me and stare but who cares. I read a couple of chapters then I look for an alternative route but Google just says “Don’t bother. Come back tomorrow”. Filter out onto the A road and it’s just fucking chaos. Slow, tortuous and maddening. I stop to check where I am and some people are staring at me. Probably because I just shouted "CUIUUUUUUNT" 20 times at the top of my voice. I am very very very hangry indeed so I stop at a random station and chug a sausage which calms me right down. Has the same effect on my wife now i come to think about it.

Ride the last 100 miles chasing the sun and playing mental dodgeball with all thoughts of my impending mundanity when i get home. I can’t dodge them forever, but I can dodgeball them today.

The Bitch tries two more times to kill me a couple of times on the way into town to my hotel, just for a laugh. The last one she tried to throw me onto a curb. I guess at least this puts a big green tick in the “thank God I didn’t keep going east” argument, but a big red question mark in the “Will the bike get me home” one. Why are things never simple

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As I ponder my fate, I wonder, did anyone ever ask for this as their last meal? I know I would

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDv8

 

[monkeyboy]

Woke up and went for breakfast, whistling “that will be the day that I die” for some reason. Really lovely food. Sunny weather. A good day for it. Is it suicide if you think something bad might happen but do nothing to stop it? Don’t ask me why I didn’t. I just like to trust to fate and let circumstances decide. Otherwise known as the stick your fingers in your ears and cross your fingers approach.

Pack the bike. Check the steering. No notches. Smooth but noisy. Take the callipers off, pump the pistons, inflate the tyres. Feels perfect. Let’s ride. It’s all bat shit boring fast motorway today anyway. 360 miles to run.

If this is all you have to look at, then your mind tends to wander. I’m very quickly into muse control. The bike rides itself, just settles into its stride

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHK6

100 miles down. All fine. No problems. It’s bladder o’clock. Stop for coffee. An ever more impersonal and generic experience on the motorway. Just a function without any pleasure. I hate these places.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHK1

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Back on the road. Another 100 miles and j pull into another motorway services. Bike still feels fine. I’ve been doing about 65. Some big filtering in some sections. All good. But I can’t put myself through the queue for spew experience again so I look up local cafes and find one out in a village about 15 miles away.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDuS

On we go. After this much riding my body is part of my bike. It’s completely wired in. It’s beginning to raise some concerns. Low level. Just monitoring. Get to the exit, take a tight right, ummmm ok. Not perfect but nothing too scary.

Stop. Wiggle the bars. No noise and no sticking. Go a couple more miles and come to a left right chicane up to a junction. Not too fast. Maybe 30-40. Left is fine. Right…. RIIIIIIIGHT. The steering locks straight. I instinctively punch the right of the bar hard to counter steer and it moves but it's too much and the front wheel slides. Fortunately I catch it, get out the slide and make it round and to the junction.

OOOOOOOOO. KKKKKKKKK then. I survived. I don’t think my pants were so lucky though. They ARE Russian though so they took the brunt of it and protected the rest of me. The odd thing is though my pulse is normal, no adrenaline in my mouth, no shaking, just nothing. That can’t be normal. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m about a mile from the cafe. Bike feels 80% so I ride slowly to an old building in a small village that I suspect gets one visitor a day max. Leave the bike in the sun. That will make it better I'm sure.

Go in and it’s a proper old mess. Like a horder’s front room. Shit everywhere. It looks like the local house clearance van discharges directly in this room. Excellent Now I promised myself at breakfast I’d have something savoury for lunch. I promised myself I wouldn’t have cake.

I order cake, with cream. Made with rhubarb out the blokes garden. Given that I only just shit myself 5 minutes ago, the rhubarb is unlikely to push any more poo out in the near future

https://flic.kr/p/2roAvd6

This is exactly what I want. A personal experience. The bloke is German and this building has been in his family since 1896, except when the communists forced them to leave during the war. He lives here with his Hungarian wife. The walls are covered in an eclectic collection of items from all over. Pictures from his family, his handball playing days, boomerangs, camels, chickens. All sorts. But I can’t stay here all day. I wonder if the bike is healed yet?

 

[monkeyboy]

I ride very very carefully about 5 miles to a petrol station. Fill up. Put it on the centre stand and turn the bars. It sounds like it’s eating a sandwich made of bricks. The bottom bearing has collapsed. Take it off the stand and it’s totally fucked. The steering is super stiff and locking.

Saturday afternoon. Perfect. Beam me fucking up snotty. Do it. Do it right now!

But as bad as this is, it’s not nearly as bad as it could be. Google says there is a motorcycle repair place a couple of miles away, and a KTM dealer (closed for the weekend) about 20 minutes further on. I could have been standing at the roadside in Mongolia with this problem. At least I know where Shit and Happens have been waiting for me now. They’ll use the fact it could have been worse for mitigation but those little wankers are due a proper fucking slap.

I very very very carefully and extremely slowly ride the bike round to the repair shop. It looks an odd setup. Maybe even some sort of collective thing. I dunno. A bloke comes out and declares the bearings deceased but it’s too late to do anything today. We have a chat and I’ll talk to the Ktm dealer Monday and see if they have bearings, otherwise he will order some for Tuesday. I can disassemble my bike outside and borrow a few tools and they can help press the bearings out and back in.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDtz

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There ia a hotel about 15 mins walk away. By the time I get there in my leathers carrying my luggage in 30 degrees heat I can’t even sign the paperwork without dripping all over the counter and the form. But I’m safe. I’m alive. And I have a plan. The holy trinity I live by

https://flic.kr/p/2rowgzD

 

[monkeyboy]

I need some liquid. My dick is a dog end again and my neck has gone full on chicken gizzard. There is a supermarket just up the road. Walk in.. WTAF This is by far the biggest supermarket I have ever been into in my entire life. 2 stories. Shit absolutely everywhere. It’s soooooo fucking big that they have trollies with fucking GPS like terminals on to help you find anything I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s too much. It’s completely overwhelming. I almost have a panic attack.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHJe

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But, as you know, my tracking skills are legendairy, and I can find what I want wherever they hide it

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDtp

 

[Mongoose]

Muse control nicking that!

 

[geotim]

Travel broadens the mind and slims the wallet. I’d much rather have a fat mind than a fat wallet though.

A very insightful commentary…. Brilliantly put.

Coffee and cake. As good if not better than at home. Russia mostly imports coffee from Brazil and Vietnam. Probably not the finest beans good enough for me. Remember there are 105 rubles to the pound. Coffee and 2 cakes. £3. Makes you think doesn’t it. We’re so used to being screwed we lost contact with any value for money years ago.

The more we travel outside of the UK, the more we realise how we are screwed over in the UK.


Brilliant write up, I’ve really enjoyed reading through this. I spent some time in Russia in the very early 2000’s, work trips to the far east, offices in Moscow and odd places in between (Yekaterinburg was an interesting place 20 years ago!).
Thanks for taking the time, some great reading there - you should publish!

 

[monkeyboy]

As much as I’m fucked off and frustrated and feeling hard done by today I know deep down inside that the situation I find myself in today is really why I do these trips. Yesterday I didn’t plan to nor expect to be where I am today. Yesterday I didn’t know anything about the nearest Ktm dealer or bald bloke at the repair shop or the world’s biggest supermarket. And as much as I ever very loosely plan the next few days, the actual future is only ever as far as I can see. Anything can happen and everything can change at any time. And that’s the joy. I can plan to do the things I want but quite often fate will plan things I will enjoy a lot more. It’s sometimes like it knows me better than I do. My wife would absolutely hate every single second of a journey like this. And I know plenty of others that would feel the same way. Nothing wrong with that. But I love it. I like the chaotic and unpredictable. I like having to constantly negotiate and navigate my way through. I like to quickly make plans A, B and C and moving from one problem to the next. It gives me some sense of achievement. I love the ever changing galleries I ride through. Whether I’m walking, riding, sitting and eating, on a train, a platform, a bridge or having a piss in the woods my eyes are constantly scanning, looking for photos. Looking for angles, watching and waiting for exactly the right moment, for the clouds to pass, for the car to move, for the fat ugly bastard in a bright yellow shirt to fuck stop taking selfies and get the fuck out my shot, for the long hair of the woman with the backless dress to blow and reveal her skin, for everything to just come together and ‘click’. I’m a sniper photographer. I watch. I wait. And if I get a perfect hit I smile. I print the pictures out and put them all on the walls in my escape capsules. Each one a bookmark into memory I can wander through at will.

These trips give me the ammunition I need to survive. And that’s why I do it. It’s cheaper than therapy. It’s not optional. Same with the blogs. I can talk to you and turn myself inside out in a way I would never ever do to your face. I’d flatly deny all knowledge of these written words because they’re from a different time and place when a very different persona was in charge. By the time we meet that persona will be safely locked away, totally separated from my other life. You’ll just see the facade persona. The wrapper. Unless you try very hard and dig very deep that is. Just be careful. You might not like what you see.

Anyway. Enough of that bollocks. How am I going to waste another day of my life without hurting or insulting anyone or getting arrested for taking a picture with a skin content of more than 20%? There are days when I like to have a few, select people around me and there are days like today when I think I need a separate planet just to myself.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDsC

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[monkeyboy]

I take a tram into Potsdam. It’s Sunday though and vertically everywhere is shut. Lazy bastards. I’m sure these two were on a tool shop website I was looking at. I NEED SOME TOOLS. GET BACK TO WORK YOU FECKLESS WANKERS.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHGf

And this is another of my pet hates. Buildings seem to be like people nowadays. They’re not allowed to age gracefully. They’re not allowed to settle and lean a bit, maybe have a few scars and wrinkles, they have to have cosmetic surgery and it makes them look like pert tits on a pensioner. Just completely wrong. The whole world is going fucking Disney

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDs2

I need a leg fix. Yep... That would definitely fix it

https://flic.kr/p/2roBHFy

A few hours killed I get back to my room to face a grim reality. Last night bought 2 litres of milk, a litre of cold latte and some juice. And now I’ve got about a glass of milk left to last me the next 12 hours. I may have to phone a help line.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDrv

 

[monkeyboy]

Today’s the day. Let’s see if I can mend my friend. I approach the day thinking I’m just going to have to go through the motions. I’m sure shit and happens have been up all night making plans and dropping turds in my diary so I might as well go tread on them and get it over with.

Now I must give a big up to Google here. They have got travel down to a fine art. I say where I want to go and it gives me everything I need from A to B, tracks me and updates me enroute, and leaves me with 2% battery to get home again. Get on a bloody bus. I haven’t been on one of those since I wore a school uniform. And then another. I do find putting myself at the mercy of other forms of transport over which I have no control very difficult. I just want to run t the front, jump into the driving seat and stand on the LOUD pedal.

https://flic.kr/p/2roAv8G

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I’m at the Potsdam dealer for 9. I’m sure I can smell shit. Or is that happens? Anyway.. “we would need to order it”. Of course you would. And I’m sure it would have to be delivered on the back of bees all the way from Austria. “But the Berlin dealer has one”. Ohhhh.. ok then. Could you phone them and reserve it please? Which he does. The repair place shuts at 6 I think, maybe 5 but it’s going to be tight and now I’m in a proper hurry. Get 2 buses back to the hotel to extend the room. “Yes… but you’ll have to change rooms”. Of course I will. I’VE GOT ALL THE FUCKING TIME IN THE WORLD LOVE.

Another bus, then a train, and another train right across Berlin. The trains are all delayed and running slow My mind is making plans again. I speed walk down to the dealers. Obviously there is no crushing need to get this done today. It could easily wait until tomorrow but this is one of my inherent failings. I rush. I move far too quickly through life and spend a lot of time, sitting down bored out my skull wishing I could have just relaxed and taken my time. Memories are priceless and I've got an absolute shit tonne of them I can run to but just stopping sometimes and breathing something in properly is just as important and I often miss that step out. It's just more infighting in my head that does it, trying to keep everyone satisfied and fit the absolute maximum into every day. I can be a real curse though, and I know it.

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[monkeyboy]

Get to the dealers, they can’t remember any phone call. The lady tap tap taps on the computer. “We have only one” .

Now I’m sure I spot a family resemblance here in the way she smiles as she says it. "I know you. You’re Mrs Shit aren’t you. Did your little twat of a son put you up to this?"

She just keeps smiling and sends someone out back while I contemplate buying the fastest bike in the shop and riding it into the nearest bridge. He comes back out and he has 2 bearings. Maybe these two are a double act. Germans are known for their sense of humour after all. TWATS. Pay the money, turn and run.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDpB

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It’s gone 1. Probably 3 pm before I get to the repair place. The window is closing. It’s going to be another day I just know it. The trains are all delayed. They are all waiting on the tracks and in stations for ages and ages. I hear an announcement. “We are sorry for the delay. The person responsible is being taken to the woods to be shot”. Well good, but this is really fucking with my swede. I could fix the bike in an hour at home but I don’t have all the tools I need with me. I’ll probably have to do it tomorrow. Fucky soapy suddy tit wanks .. which doesn't sound like a bad option just at this moment ..

 

[monkeyboy]

Get back gone 3, jump into my leathers and walk round to the repair place about 3:45. The bloke I spoke to on Saturday isn’t there. They say they’re leaving in an hour. My heart sinks. I gave it my best shot. But then he phones his mate I saw at the weekend, then tells me he will lend me some tools and I can get on with it. I hear singing. I hear a gospel choir. I hear fucking HALLELUJA. And I’m away on the Ktm speed changing olympics. 15 minutes and she’s gutted. I’ve got the yoke off and can see the bearings. Fuck me. That looks … serious. My brain immediately starts to think that I was on the autobahn with it like that, and then it starts looking at a few “what if” scenarios. Before I know it I see a blue screen of death and my brain reboots. It can’t go there. I’m going to designate that particular wormhole as “Chernobyl” and stay the fuck away from it.

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The bloke helps me twat off the broken bearing and it falls apart. He’s never seen one do that before apparently. That’s good to know. My mate reckons that they look overtightened but these have been in over 20k now so I think its more likely the absolute twatting they took on the Pamir last year is more likely the culprit. They've been fine until the last couple of days too.

 

[monkeyboy]

The top bearing is fine and in the name of expediency I leave it in for now. We take the (very heavily marked) shell out and replace that too then it’s blur mechanics again for 15 minutes and she all dressed ready to go. I give them all the cash I have and ride off back to the hotel with a massive fuck off smile on my face

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[monkeyboy]

I’ll go and buy myself some cock slippers from the local sex shop to celebrate. And some latex too. That looks very practical actually. Wipe clean and stain proof. I bet it makes an excellent noise with you go down a slide at the park in it too.

https://flic.kr/p/2roAv3S

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Is it me, or is there a manufacturing fault with this?

https://flic.kr/p/2roCowR

Now. Before I go tonight I want you all to make me a promise. I want you to never mention any potential scenarios that could have unfolded had the bearings given out at any other point than they did. Can we all agree on that? I’ve had a word with shit and happens. I’ve showed them the pictures and I’ve explained that they went way too far this time. If they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives with me pulling them along by choke collars round their cocks then they’re going to have to calm down.

Get the bike out the garage and ride out into the soft yellow light. The rest of the spectrum will come later but for now yellow is perfect. The Bitch feels flighty and loose and ready to dance. It feels like someone has swapped her heavy black boots to ballet shoes overnight. I’m slightly nervous of throwing her around too much though, mainly because she was in bits a few hours ago and I was in a hurry

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDk8

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[monkeyboy]

It’s about 420 dull motorway miles to my brother’s in Holland for the night. Then back to via the tunnel.

Out we go to follow the fat black strip home. Chore to door. 800 miles in autopilot, mind back in muse control. Now is the golden hour. The Bitch is relaxed and happy. She’s not threatening to eject me any time soon. My mind can stand down the emergency team and allow itself a little time to indulge in some introspection To have an honest word with itself before its invaded with the everyday. Food shopping. Worming the sink and unblocking the dog. Brushing the lawn and watering the cat. The usual bollocks we all fill our days with.

And this is where is gets tricky. How can you really be honest with yourself? It’s a very difficult thing to do. Honesty often involves being critical. Opening wounds and not just stopping as soon as your brain tells you stuff you don’t want to hear. Fuck I spend half my time on these trips ripping off old scabs and picking at them till they bleed. I drive myself to tears looking at what an absolute cu*t I’ve been at times in my life. I really don't know why my mind does this to me. Perhaps wearing a helmet stops these thoughts from just evaporating as they normally would. Perhaps it's guilt and this is penance from all this selfish pleasure I get to experience when I'm away. I can, without any doubt be a quite monumental prick at times though and I can often be completely dismissive of pretty well the rest of humanity too. I’m a complicated concoction of conflicting, often non complimentary characteristics. Parts of me are running about in my brain telling me to just stop typing. Nobody wants to hear this shit. And part of me doesn’t want anyone to know anyway. Part of me would love to go to a psychiatrist and get some sort of analysis, but another part of me would be extremely disappointed with myself if I did. I should delete all that. Or maybe not. Sometimes I feel like I just say ‘help me’, but only in an extremely quiet whisper. Fuck I don’t know. Just get me the dog and a plunger and let me get back to normal.

Fact is we’re all many things. We all have different faces, some more than others. Even my forever patient and understanding wife only knows a few me’s. There are many many me’s that she will never ever meet. We all walk a very fine line and jump from one person to another to make our passage through life as smooth as possible.

https://flic.kr/p/2roAv36

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[monkeyboy]

Part of the lure of these trips is the fact that I take off that pressure to conform and do what I think is expected of me all the time. If I get up and the absolute c*nt personality won the fight to inhabit me for the day then I just let it knock itself out. This isn’t real life. I don’t have relationships to maintain. I just have to live with myself. On this trip I’ve had a LOT of spectacularly happy days when I’ve just twisted the wrist and watched the world go by. Where opening the door in a hotel or a cafe has been like unwrapping a present. When laugher has just erupted for no reason. When just a look has made me well up inside. I’ve had grey days when I’ve felt completely vacant. I’ve had days where my head has felt fit to burst with the pressure of trying to work a way out of a problem. I’ve had days I’ve wanted to be anywhere else but where I am, and other days I just wanted to go on forever. I’ve had everything I want and more

And as much as Shit and Happens have driven me to distraction at times, these trips would not be the same without those little tosspots. They have exercised all my ingenuity and patience and have taken me right right down to the bottom but the high that comes with the climb back out has always been more than worth the trouble. They’ve scared the fucking bejesus out of me on a few occasions too. I remember mentally checking out once or twice, convinced it was all over, only for the chaos to choose to open a gap rather than close tight right in front of me. They also seem to have completely screwed my attitude to danger. Like they’ve gone into a secret room in my head, found a big red switch and just flicked it off. It’s really not healthy. You wouldn’t want me to do a risk assessment for you, you can be sure of that

Anyway, time for a stop at a place that inspires absolutely no emotional response. None at all. Fuck, I thought that persona had been deleted years ago. That one has got me into trouble on more than one occasion. I don’t want the wife to know its still in there somewhere either.

Then another. A spanking new bakery that’s had a woman called ’sunflower’ come in as a consultant and wave her arms about shouting about trends and vibes and instagram stories but managed to create a lifeless, soulless and completely anodyne experience. Why can’t these people just leave these buildings the fuck alone. The buildings have far more character than the vacuous oxygen thieves that come in to ‘transform’ them. Grips my shit!

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDgL

Its getting bloody hot and my tongue has swollen up to a big round lump giving me two options. I either hire myself out for extreme cunnilingus or I call the emergency dairy hotline. My call is answered immediately and I’m told to meet them at the nearest Lidl ASAP for treatment. The dairy dealer meets me, goes and grabs a cold cow from the fridge and holds it over my head, squeezing the teats into my mouth until milk starts coming out my ears. When I walk to the bike I make a sound like feet in wellington boots full of water. Absolutely perfect.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDgR

 

[monkeyboy]

Get into Holland, land of the ‘saddle sniffers’. Apparently this is slang for cyclists who have a habit of cleaning or inspecting their saddles. I’ve always thought it was about an all together different activity. Hey. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Get to my brothers place and meet reality again. Not the full-on reality, but an essential part of the rehabilitation process for me.

Get The Bitch out the garage and get out on the road to Calais. I do love . I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, and as much as I love to travel there is no way I could do it forever.

https://flic.kr/p/2roBDgA

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https://flic.kr/p/2roCotu

Before I know it I’m back outside my house. Back where I started, all done and dusted. At some point in the future it will be the very last time, but not this time. I’m not done yet. And neither is The Bitch.

This trip has been an unusual one. In some ways the worst, but in other ways the best, but ultimately it's been a bust and I'm going to have to come to terms with that as the nights draw in and I hibernate in front of a roaring fire. When this persona roams around in the winter darkness of my head, never being allowed near any of the controls. Never been taken out for any exercise. Never been allowed near a keyboard. Never answering any questions. Never have anybody take any interest in it at all. This persona finds writing a cathartic exercise and an outlet for thoughts and emotions that are never expressed to any real live humans. You're not real. You're all just letters and emojis on a screen. You don't actually stand in front of me and turn these words into any sort of reality. You don't call my bluff. And that all helps me survive. So thanks for that. I really appreciate it.

https://flic.kr/p/2rowgoS

So now the door is closing until the next time. Thanks for listening. Next time you see my normal everyday persona checking out, my stare going out to 1000 yards, my mind going into standby mode, and you hear the sound of faint footsteps running into the distance, you’ll have a good idea of just where I’ve gone

 

[GSian]

Brilliant! Thank You!!

 

[walkingpictures]

One of the best threads I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Thankyou for creating it

Kimbo