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12 December 2001 (Day 88)

Spent the day with my brother who arrived on the coach from Birmingham late last night. Spent most of it talking. There's an easiness about seeing each other for the first time again; an ability to just pick up conversation where things were left – as there is with nearly all of my friends. To be born on the same day; to spend sixteen years growing up together, not one day apart from each other in all that time: the bond between us overwhelms me. I miss him a lot. I think we handle each other with a concerned sort of 'fragility', each of us desperate to protect and provide for the other, though both of us are strong. So strong. Maybe it stems from when we were young.

Pete reminded me of the time when we were playing football in the playground during school break. I was wearing grey, plastic slip-on shoes, that were a size too big for me. I kicked the ball upfield and my shoe followed and fell at the feet of Andrew Morris. He picked it up, waved it at me and ran. I chased him hard, desperate to retrieve the shoe, not for the benefit of covering my foot once more, but to prevent him from noticing the cardboard insert that shielded the sole of my foot from the cold playground floor. I remember hating that Pete would have to share in my embarrassment if the hole in my shoe was discovered. I think I got my shoe back without too much fuss. I suspect that there was a lot of good in Andrew Morris really.

I could write another half-dozen anecdotes concerning holes in shoes during school years. I never thought they would be, but they are now such beautiful reminders of childhood.

11 December 2001 (Day 87)

Changed my mind, regarding lunch, halfway between the office and the delicatessen. Opted instead to get sandwiches. Less expensive. About-turned and watched my reflection rush past me clean and then dirty in the windows of a passing bus.

10 December 2001 (Day 86)

Watched television whilst eating breakfast. A baby goat was being washed by some Indian children in a stream. I was captivated for the time it took me to eat two rounds of toast.

Later, the buzzer sounds and I press the door-release expecting it to be Charlotte, since I spotted that she'd not taken her keys this morning. After a few seconds of silence from downstairs I hear a shouted 'Hello?'. I go out to the landing and down the first flight of stairs where there's a guy in an anorak stood smiling at me. He tells me that he's not used to people opening their doors to him. He holds a leaflet, billboard-like for me to view, and tells me that he and his colleague are visiting people to see if they believe in the chances of 'A Peaceful New World'. 'Do you think that there's a chance of a peaceful world one day?' he asks. 'No,' I reply – and then, because I know I'm about to put an end to this conversation and don't want this solitary nihilistic response to be the total dividend for his day – 'not for a long while.' He's unsure as to my ambivalence, but my fixed position on the stairs is enough to persuade him that I'm not interested. 'Right. Like I say, most people don't even open their doors. I'll just leave a leaflet here, if I may?' I come down the remaining few stairs and tell him that that will be fine, and I offer my hand, take the leaflet and rest it on top of the mailboxes in the entrance hall. 'We're Jehovah's Witnesses you see.' he adds, almost by way of an apology. 'Right. I'm busy working upstairs, I'm afraid.' comes my reply; equally apologetic and abstract from the truth. I say goodbye. He says goodbye and his colleague, who has remained outside the door and has not spoken in all that time and who I only noticed in offering my apology, also says goodbye. I close the door behind them and pause and dwell on the fact that I've wasted the morning with domestic chores and have managed to complete not the slightest bit of work. I grab the leaflet.

The leaflet is just... just so false. Worth a separate explanation. Worth critcising in-depth, because it is just full of crap.

9 December 2001 (Day 85)

Pains. Actually, something more like nausea. I dwell on time: it's boundlessness. It's a clichéd philosophical problem, commonplace amongst most people's thoughts, and because I can't explain it, either in intellectual or laymen's terms, it's one that terrifies me.

8 December 2001 (Day 84)

Friends came around for dinner. Enjoyed conversation, drinking, games and, rather perversely, an hour's worth of washing-up.

7 December 2001 (Day 83)

Up late, taking far too much time and pride in the typography for the cover of a CD compilation, and now entering this at 3:13 in the morning of 8 December, a few minutes after a nose bleed.

6 December 2001 (Day 82)

Watching 11:59 turn into 0:00. These moments are the ones where time and its passing become all too lucid and awfully real. These liquid crystal figures: standing still, fifty-nine seconds, changing; standing still, fifty-nine seconds, changing.

5 December 2001 (Day 81)

'The muscial canon is not decided by majority opinion but by enthusiasm and passion, and a work that ten people love passionately is more important than one that ten thousand do not mind hearing.' Charles Rosen

4 December 2001 (Day 80)

Dumbstruck by coincidence. Life is rich with them. Last week I recall being twice affected by twin occurences within the same day. The repetition of a phrase, that had come new to me earlier that day and then also the mentioning of a story with an author that was replayed on the radio later on. Today, the surprise receiving of a CD, from a friend, that contained music unknown. Unknown, except for one piece. And the name of this band; the name too I knew. This name and this one piece of music then; this one piece of music that I have listened to more times than I can remember, which suddenly arrives duplicated but with nine other pieces of music by a band called The Workhouse. This music is wonderful and today felt special for it.

3 December 2001 (Day 79)

Generosity is a confirmation of status. One's power or authority to give can sometimes be lacking in sensibility and the generous act can lose all of its grace.

2 December 2001 (Day 78)

Yesterday and today spent decorating and improving and the result, today, is a new space to work and live in.

1 December 2001 (Day 77)

This entered posthumously. Carpets torn from floors and everything, absolutely everything, out of place. Desperate to write, to work, and hating this blockade.

30 December 2001 (Day 76)

Picked up The Gap Between and started writing, working on it for the first time in months. Named a first chapter and re-read and shaped a little and it felt good. Charlotte returned home late, with a friend. We walked Louise back to her flat and returned home ourselves shortly afterwards, and this cold, amber-lit A.M. hour was beautiful.

29 November 2001 (Day 75)

It's nice to spend time away from work that is creative. I could quite happily spend the next few days gaffa-taping cardboard boxes, filling them with books and labelling them with addresses peeled off an A4 sheet. It's the most stimulating few hours of work I've had in a long time.

28 November 2001 (Day 46) November 2001 (Day 74)

This day entered long after its passing. So many things remembered that now, here, fleet from my thoughts. Scribbled notes; sentences asterixed in books. Strategically placed bookmarks. Devices that seek to capture something of the day. They'll perhaps resurface next week; next year maybe. Their absence, their migration in itself becomes a point for conjecture.

27 November 2001 (Day 73)

I don't find it diffcult to write. It's easy; I'm doing it now. It's more difficult to make this writing interesting. It's further difficult to go beyond that: to create something that moves someone. And if that becomes a stumbling block then it is impossible to punch keys, impossible to spell words. Just impossible. I'm struggling with what to put onto page here. This sterile page. I don't want to write about the events of a day when those events have not affected me in any significant way. I don't want to mention football or decorating or reading the obituary of Mary Whitehouse because I cower when I think that I will have forgotten them tomorrow by their vey insignificance. Hours of insignificance. I should be asking myself awkward questions. I should be ill or excited or in despair or exultation but instead I'm dissatisfied. It's easy to write but for now I do so under this dreary apathetic shadow.

26 November 2001 (Day 72)

Watched a documentary about the lives of children being held in various prisons across the world. The wisdom and insight that some of these young children had – that they could articulate the conditions of their circumstances, their futures, so clearly and so philosophically astounded me. I guess that with the commodity of freedom restricted (not 'gone' – I think back to Camus' explanation of how the slave can still hold onto freedom whilst being ruled by his master) then the commodity of time – minute after arid minute – pushes the mind towards these advanced patterns of thinking. Deprivation and suffering leads these children to dwell over the conditions of their lives in this sombre and profound way.

25 November 2001 (Day 71)

Enjoyed my own company for a few hours. Watched football. Read newspapers. Talked to strangers. Dreamt that life was a network of underlined text links.

24 November 2001 (Day 70)

Next to no-one visits this site. I'm not sure why I bother with it.

23 November 2001 (Day 69)

Typing; listening to Barber's Adagio for Strings. I remember a recording that used to feature on one of the in-store tapes we had at the shop I worked in years ago; walking into the store room once and re-winding the tape back, and then back again, until someone complained over the morbidity of what we were subjecting the customers to. It was, I recall, around the time of Princess Diana's death.

22 November 2001 (Day 68)

Today I see again the man that I saw on Monday and gave mention to in this journal, wearing the same dirty grey fleece; still limping. Nothing extraordinary about this, but incredible that words can memorialise a glance at a complete stranger; that etched into my memory at present is a moment that daily passes as so insignificant.

21 November 2001 (Day 67)

Listening to the Sings Reign Rebuilder album. A regimented, compact day, brimming with so many little things. All done, all tidy come the day's end.

Unshaven – have been for days – and dwelling, each time I walk back home from the office in the dark, over how my new woollen overcoat, worn over my hooded top, gives me the image of some stereotyped homeless.

20 November 2001 (Day 66)

Tuesday. Nothing that sticks in the mind.

An idea came to me some while ago: that these 'blank' days be left from this journal – moving from 19 to 21 with no regard for the 24 in-between hours. Had I chosen to adopt the idea, 20 would most certainly be missing from these November entries.

19 November 2001 (Day 65)

A snatch of conversation: 'She's out on fuckin' custody in'it and the kid's wi' her now.' A snatched glance: a man limping across the road wearing a dirty grey fleece. The day seemed to fill with so many disparate events such as these. It almost didn't feel like I was a part of this day, more a part of someone else's day.

18 November 2001 (Day 64)

A hangover that I temporarily mistook for all-over paralysis.

17 November 2001 (Day 63)

Yesterday was a day off, spent writing and working on some website design. Enjoying the activity, rather than the day off from work itself, left me somewhat resentful to not be able to indulge myself in a similar fashion today.

16 November 2001 (Day 62)

Transfixed for several seconds on a truck carrying scaffolding poles with yellow-and-purple markings.

15 November 2001 (Day 61)

Went back to finish Sartre's Modern Times. Opened the book where I'd left it and found the train ticket that was being used for makeshift bookmark, with the word 'striation' scribbled over it in pencil. It was a return ticket to London, and in recapturing one memory, another came: of sitting on the last tube train with a friend, discussing an up-and-coming band called Ultrasound, who came eventually and were terrible.

14 November 2001 (Day 60)

Bitterly cold today.

Reviewing the statistics for usage of the site and discovered that one of the search strings that led someone to these pages was 'unhappiness'.

13 November 2001 (Day 59)

Re-reading old notes from Camus' The Rebel:

'To be recognised by another consciousness, man should be ready to risk his life and to accept the chance of death. Fundamental human relations are thus relations of pure prestige, a perpetual struggle, to the death, for recognition of one human being by another.'

'Thought which is derived from history alone, like thought which rejects history completely, deprives man of the means and the reason for living.'

12 November 2001 (Day 58)

Flicking idly through the channels, in much the same fashion as I had done two months ago, I came across the breaking news of 'plane crashed in New York'. Frozen with a sudden fear that this could be a next wave of terrorist attacks, I stood, with remote in hands, taking in detail after elaborative detail until the story (its terrifying ramifications at least) deflated somewhat. Later I went to piss and I remember standing over the toilet momentarily crippled with thoughts of inaction; thoughts of time wasted; of being an individual under history's amnesic gaze. History will not remember us individuals, it will remember only our actions and their values. And I have done nothing.

11 November 2001 (Day 57)

Watched the sun moving into position ready to set over a tranquil sea. It was stunning.

Returning home from Brighton and, for the last ten minutes of our journey, sat opposite a train spotter fascinated by statistics of train numbers and lottery ball sequences. Charlotte managed to tangle herself in conversation with him and he was able to tell us exactly how many times the number 13 ball had been drawn, and also, that each ball should have been drawn exactly 87.7 times to date, a conclusion which made a nonsense of his methodology.

10 November 2001 (Day 56)

A palindromic date, that, perhaps in deference, finished as groggily as it began: asleep on the floor.

9 November 2001 (Day 55)

A long day and what felt like a long journey to see friends, one of whom I hadn't seen in years.

Away from the means to enter into this journal I find it difficult to remember the things which lend these days their significance. I have no interest in repeating the day's course of events per se, no particular interest in giving these friends names or explaining the circumstances and contexts of meetings and absences. But, each day, there will be a light of some sort, as lingering perhaps as the spit of sulphur from a struck match – a moment of clarity – that merits mention here or, contrarily, a sequence of events that is worth reworking as a larger picture.

8 November 2001 (Day 54)

I still don't quite understand how it is that the music of a group of friends that I came to know through mere contingency affects me in the way that it does. After the gig, Florida thank myself and friends for lending support. I suspect they have little idea that I am so much more grateful than they are.

7 November 2001 (Day 53)

Remember a man on a bike whizzing past me and giving me a long, hard look as if he had found fault with something. I shrugged my eyebrows upwards as if to ask 'what?', but then began to fear that he was about to crash through fault of his misplaced concentration. He didn't. The rest of the day was largely uneventful by comparison.

6 November 2001 (Day 52)

Played football – which I enjoyed – but returned home and sat sloth-like in front of the television for hours, watching nothing of any real interest. Indeed, did not even bother to update this journal. A quote that has surfaced often since September 11 was repeated once more last night: Edmund Burke's 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing'. Whilst not totally pertinent, some of its relevance was not lost on me.

5 November 2001 (Day 51)

A wasteful day at work, yet so much accomplished tonight, which brings the day back into balance. I feel empowered by various things at the moment and now I'm wary of the hour (as I record this entry two hours into 6 November) because I don't want to deprive myself of sleep: I want to wake refreshed, with the day ahead of me as a distinct possibility.

4 November 2001 (Day 50)

A weekend in Birmingham and, finally, time with my mother; time with my brothers. It only dawns on me now that I so often leave that city with a sense of unease, yet not today. I don't know what was accomplished there: my mother's life is still dirty and cracked and she neglects to make it better for herself. A bomb exploded in the city centre, but the detonator does not trigger the explosives that would undoubtebly have taken life. I don't know what it is then, that has brought me back home feeling so much happier than when I left.

3 November 2001 (Day 49)

Found myself staring at my reflection, in the train window, often today (and, since I'm writing this entry retrospectively, the same was true of my return journey – moreso, since that journey was at night time and the windows made for more capable mirrors). Just staring, though, not checking or seeking to adjust some mirrored detail, but just staring, into my own eyes, with each reflection affirming the simple truth of my existence.

2 November 2001 (Day 48)

Spent the whole day feeling tired, as though hung over. One of those days when everything felt like a tremendous effort; when leaving the office for lunch felt like assiduity defined; when answering the phone was repulsive; when writing down words for this page, for the first time since I began, felt like a chore.

A new month so quickly. One that is already mapped out. So little time to do anything extra.

31 October 2001 (Day 46)

The first thing that stuck today was an image of a dog defochating, that I passed on my way to work. Not the highlight of my day, but the details that we hold onto seldom are.

Later on, I went over to Bristol, with friends, for the Mercury Rev gig at the university. Particularly enjoyed 'Chasing a Bee' and 'The Dark is Rising' and the nowhere-near similarity between Grasshopper and one of the friends we play football with.

30 October 2001 (Day 45)

An elderly man tripped and fell down to the ground in front of me this evening. He had managed to pick himself up by the time I'd quickened my stride to get to him. I asked if he was okay and he looked straight through me, as though mine had been the foot that had hooked underneath him. He rubbed his right knee through his trouser leg and hobbled off in the opposite direction, with both our vulnerabilities troubled.