Dear Raymi, (this didn’t start as a letter to you but it is now),

One of my friends, Brownlee the elder, is a bit of a fucked up

prophet. I always wanted to be the man of whom he prophesies, but, he

walks his own path; and I am walking in a darkness into which his

sight does not reach.

Sometimes I think there must be a way to connect with all the peoples,

so mundane a phrase for such a grandiose notion. Now I write manic,

like Raymitheminx, and unfortunately for me she has done something to

my mind. The grip, the ever so tenuous grip I always exert on my

reality dissolves upon reading her blog. I wonder why I am

channelling something drunken and obese and horribly self-loathing and

sick and sad, a fat, bald alcoholic lusting after a perfectly rounded

ass and tit shots on a web page. Yet, I am a being stuck in a

relatively healthy, and may I say so myself, charming and attractive

body. Sometimes I wonder if I am just squandering this body because

it is pretty. At least a pretty that something decides is pretty. I

write letters to Raymi and I wonder whether she would think I am a

nutjob or a kindred spirit. Of course I hope, somewhere she would see

me as an avatar – a symbiotic individual sharing the same path of

madness. Sometimes I just know she would think of me as a wanker

wanting to see more tit shots because “I study art”.

Maybe this is the letter I will send to Raymi, but maybe not because I

(was) writing longhand in “The Only”. That is so cheesy (and

infinitely more so because now I am typing) too because then I am in

the act of becoming a chintzbot who writes: “I am not sure I am going

to send this letter to you because . . .” Capital “L” Loser.

So I write anyway because it is an excuse to drink by myself and be

absorbed in my thinking, which really is just wanking without having

the hassle and mess of having to wipe my belly later.

I met a girl the other day and she took me by the hand, took me home,

and fucked me. And she said she wanted to see me again – “I would

like that.” she said, and I said, “I would like that too.” I called

her but she hasn’t called back and I somehow doubt she will. The

funny thing is I called her into being; that is, the magic of the

ethers made her appear and I received exactly as I wished; but still,

I am like a puppy whining at my phone, checking my messages enough

times to know that I am being obsessive but not so many times that I

am being crazy.

I scanned an article that I thought Raymi would find amusing, it was

about quiffing, but it turned out poorly and “Arthur” is not online

properly so I can’t just download it and send it as a neat little

package, and that is the whole problem with my madness – it just

doesn’t like neat little packages. That brings me quite easily back

to Brownlee the elder who links to Raymi and who I blame unrepentantly

for leading me to her blog. He put her on his link list after I spoke

to him even with the London time drag and all that.

We believe in the synchronicity highway but I believe in a different

way than he does because he travels light and me, well I am looking at

a different picture of the world. And an empty page is all I have, a

trinity, the pen, the page and I. To quote him, quoting me?

So now, this is a letter to Raymi and it has gone on for way too long.

That is – to edit it into little bite size pieces that would make

good web-reading is a fruitless task that I couldn’t do and she won’t

bother.

that’s me in the middle on pajama day and as you can plainly see, i amthe only one with “school spirit” enough to wear pajamas. though i am wearing my regular clothes underneath them.

This is just another email (once in my head, now horrifyingly

real) that appeared on the lined page of a “Hilroy” red-margined, blue

stripped page that is so much a part of me, the perpetual student.

So, Raymi – I guess I want to say that I am always already knowing a

part of the person you put online. The little bit that you describe

when you talk about your drinking and the irony of “the diet starts

Monday” mentality that you often mention. The knowing that you are

capable of becoming but cannot (will not?) do. The “I will do sit-ups

tomorrow”. The one that promises a liberation of my idolatry of the

bottle, the messianic always forever now and always already future,

the promise of liberation (oh joyous freedom) if only I can figure out

how to get off my ass.

So I am going to go back to my office to type this – go and gmail you

a note, (Which, because I am now doing, is oddly temporally

disconcerting) to try to describe to you a feeling I have – that we

might know each other – even though I know you are just words on an

ethereal page and I am just another pretty boy who is probably stark

raving mad. To think that I could possibly connect with a woman who

just so happens to live relatively near to me (which makes it so much

more insidious) because she has decided to share the titillating or

routine parts of her existence with the world.

I guess what I am trying to say is thanks. Thanks for being alive,

because it makes me feel less lonely. Thanks for being such a

productive BITCH, because it gives me a small sparkle of hope. Thanks

for being a wide-awake drunkard because it jogs my memory, it makes me

remember me, even though you are, well, you, and I am just little old

me and really I can never know you.

That brings me full circle; back to Brownlee the elder, the prophet.

He didn’t say these words but this is what I decided to take. –

“Isn’t it interesting that I would find Raymi’s blog out of all the

blogs to find in the nearly infinite blogs to find? How did you find

a blog that speaks to you – because I know you are mad, but you are

not crazy.” – And that is what I took and I started thinking a bit

about it and started to wonder if my synchronicity highway had become

a lot more heavily travelled because of the internet. Some years ago,

I would never have even considered the possibility that a woman I

would never meet could speak my language. One who could quickly

mutter about the difficulties and exaltations of being manic and

wholly cognisant of self-medicating addictive personalities – even

though AA taught me that I wasn’t alone (and an awful lot more). Even

though I can materialize others and myself into being in the right

place at the right time – and knowing that small magic is a minor

aspect of the marvellous power of mania, depression, addiction and

yearning and art.

So I am waving at you – across from a parallel track and sending you a

great big HELLO! And a How’s the Battle? And “keep on trucking” and

every other meaningless (in this real instant) cliché I can think of.

And a small encouragement, a little power if you want to think of it

that way, even though I am absolutely sure it would be cheaper to

send you cash. I guess I just want to throw a token into the well for

you. A little “and get the next car behind me” on the toll bridge.

Only because if I am so stubbornly, optimistically correct, and, Oh

Raymi, I hope I am, then the highway is bringing us all together and

we might be living in interesting times. And the fruition of my (our,

THE?) odd empty that needs to be filled is coming closer to

gratification.

I remain, A rambling idiot, – pf.