Notes #2

Said by Ally, late one night: "When we all tell you to stop living in the future and live in the here and now, maybe you should just tell us all to fuck off cos you're not happy in the present, you belong in the future!"

This was after I stopped planning ahead and manically trying to Get Somewhere and just sat around reading books for a while instead, and it made me much more miserable. That's the thing, you see: I enjoy making plans.

Still, and this is not a new observation, but that's because it rings true: Human beings really aren't very good at happiness. It's not just me that regularly fails to be happy, even when conditions are apparently conducive. And one of the things we're really bad at is knowing what will make us happy. Money is the obvious one, but there's also other things, like career progression, children, bigger houses, all those things we strive towards and then whinge about once we have them.

I've been saying for ages that I wanted to be a full time writer. And now I am, and do nothing but complain about it. What's that all about? Huh? I despair of me, I do.

Well, anyway. On this same piece of note paper I've written: "Ally having gleeful messy fun making pancakes."

It was last Wednesday, I think: After I'd collapsed in sobs for an hour, and Ally diverted all resources to cheering me up. We invited our new neighbour Viv round, drank beer, smoked, and talked nonsense. And then it was late at night and I had the munchies very specifically: a sudden craving for pancakes. But there was no way I was going to make any.

"I could make some," said Ally.

I looked at him with disbelief. Traditionally it's me who does the whole making-things-from-scratch thing. Pancake batter, pastry, pizza dough, jam: it's my preserve (ho ho).

"Nah," said I. "You don't know how."

"Tell me then," said he.

Ten minutes later I walked past the kitchen on my way to the loo, and there he was, covered in flour and grinning happily.

And the pancakes were delicious.


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