Headbutted by Hope.

How could you?! Haven't you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain Whatshisname? We live in a society of laws! Why do you think I took you to all those Police Academy movies? For fun? Well, I didn't hear anybody laughing, did you? Except at that guy who made sound effects. (Makes sound effects and laughs). Where was I? Oh yeah! Stay out of my booze.

~Homer Simpson.

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Shifting the foundations of the card-house of my existence. A little cross-breeze will be enough to send each one careering away from me, at the whim of the winds. But once I've shifted 'em a little, I'll dig 'em deep down; put my roots so far into the earth here that nothing will rock the solidity of my life. I'll be reinforced. Roots to shame the largest trees; anchors to make fishing vessels blush. Words to make your jaws drop, you soft-lipped beauties. But pick that lip up off the floor, we've got places to go, adventures to conjure from the dust. We've got conquests and conversations to have. We've got hands to hold, bodies to clutch close, stories to whisper into one anothers' ears.

We've got lives to lead.

And we have words to write. There are hearts connected to this paltry output of lamentations. There are souls to stroke, and faces in need of reasons to smile. We've a responsibility to you wraiths, who waft into the Shire of my stories in search of that elusive one power. Indeed, we do. We are the bearers of good news and bad, and report it we must.

So to that end, I can confirm that today was a good one. Wrote songs with my older brother, laughed about the world, and discussed what sets musicians with consciences apart from the black-hole of modern commercial music. Yesterday I met with the head shrinker, who increased my doses again, now up to 300ml per day. That is a large dose by anyones' standards. He has also trusted me to take a tranquiliser to get some much-needed sleep. Ho ho, the clammy breath of faith is blowing down the back of my neck. Maybe this is a challenge. But which way to take it? A challenge to show some responsibility, some self-restraint, some sanity? Or to go off the deep-end and push the boundaries? It is a predicament that will no doubt come to a head in time. But I'm in no hurry to see the outcome. No, that will come about when it feels the time is right.

Green Fairy and friends last night. Good fun, though that will be enough for a long while now. My body, and especially my drug-addled brain, can't handle too much of a good thing. I tend to lose my grip on the wheel, so to speak, too easily these days. And with all this shifting of the goalposts in terms of my meds, it is probably a wise idea to just take a step back for a wee while. It is all the same people, the same venues, the same laughs and dramas, in town these days. I can see the safety in the netting of drinking establishments for alcoholics. A family who asks no questions other than, "You got enough money for the next round, mate?"

I have slept already tonight, for a short while, and woke again. My mind is beginning to degenerate into a sink of dirty dish-water. Murky, cloudy, filthy. And thick with crap. Oh, I have so many stupid things to say, but this is not the place for them. I have voiced already, tonight, the results of my sleep-deprived mind. They are no doubt amusing, and maybe confusing also. Don't ask me, I have no say in what comes out when I'm in a state like that.

Well, the rolling hills of sleep are calling me like a farm does to a country-bred kid. We don't choose where we lay our roots down, life chooses that for us. And so I will lay mine down, for now, in the depths of a long and fruitful sleep. No bad dreams, I implore you. If the sandman sprinkles me with some of that magic dust he's got, I'll buy him a beer some day in the pub. I bet he likes a nice, cold draught as much as the next man.

Who is the best teacher you ever had?