Lines

Dad and I went up to Moxthorpe Common Countryside Centre. The heat was intense and it was like a furnace on the Common, not a breath of wind for relief.

Dad took a half-dozen newtlings in a plastic container. Mrs. Russell, the manager, was absorbed in showing a party of school kids around; a quarter of an hour later she greeted us and enthused over the efts, which she put in a large, crystal clear tank. She wearily said she felt like jacking the whole thing in.

I didn’t do much else other than go down to Farnshaw to sit on a wall in the sun in the Market Square eating a scotch egg. I walked home feeling hot and bothered and that was it for the rest of the afternoon.

Grant called round this evening and we spent the time playing records and indulging ourselves in bored lunacy. He left after dark: my warning to watch out for gangs of armed televisions sent him fleeing up the road.

I bought a book on diaries in Farnshaw, and even after the briefest glance I’m beginning to rethink the whole idea of this journal. I’m wondering about using a book with blank pages instead of lined. To a certain extent, the lines across the page arbitrarily inhibit me and constrict the form this could take (doodling and drawing?). I feel contrived, strained and cramped in my writing, and I’m always half-aware of the lines on the page.

I feel fucked off with the way this has gone tonight; no good at all, so I’ll shut up and try again tomorrow.