The Resident Guttersnipe.

You slip out the back door in the winter. No one can find you; where you gone to? And down at the cafe on a wet day they laugh at your jokes now, but you can't tell. I feel like I ain't got nobody. Feels like I ain't got nobody else...

It is probably remiss of me to be writing at twelve minutes past five in the morning. Being awake at this hour when you're fully sober and not in some clumsy fumble with an inebriated cohort in a cold room is the domain of strange folk; or maybe it is just usually the domain of strangers to me. But here I am. Insomniac. Insomnia. Insolence.

I have been missing my writing lately. I needed rest from the day-to-day-to-day drudgery of my linguistic-mind. I needed to plumb the shallow depths of my musical well, and tap into my lyrical potential. I taught myself to play the guitar, and I feel good for having gained the skill. I'm no guitar virtuoso, but I know a couple chords now. I can re-hash a few songs, and tinker away with ones I wrote myself. I'm a Renaissance man.

Spent my Saturday playing Roadie for '80s pop legend Billy Ocean. Un-packed and re-packed his needlessly elaborate stage gear. Lights, rigs, drapes, cords, PA, yada yada fucking yada. The man puts on a slick show, I gotta say. Still got a great voice; plays to his strengths; doesn't deviate too far from the classics. And the dude can shimmy, man. Got to get me some moves like that for my own shows. If it's good enough for unfulfilled middle-aged divorcees, it's good enough for me.

Or so I surmise.

I have kept it low-key, but I'm off the Venlafaxine. So far, so steady. The come-down period coincided with my annual winter sickness, which lessened my attention to it. So now I wake each day without drugs coursing through me. I am nervous, but the script in my glove-box whispers to me - tells me if things get out of hand, help is only a trip to the chemist away. I'm fighting to be myself, poppies. I'm hewing and scrapping and clawing my way back up. The weather keeps on keeping me frozen, and I feel happier cold than hot. My moods reflect my taste in thermo-dynamic preferences. This is getting to be half-five-in-the-morning farcical; but we persevere.

The winter has been cold and harsh this year. Perhaps the coldest I have experienced in my hometown, though much of that may be put down to my poor standard of housing. Also, it is the first winter in 6 years that I haven't had a love to keep an eye on me. Someone cherished that I can cuddle up with and lend body-heat to. I am wintering for the first time without her. I miss her cold hands and red nose. I miss her North American aversion to a southern winter. I miss her need for me.

We all want to be needed, or to be wanted. Which would you rather be, soft stars? Needed intently, or wanted profusely? I used to be both. I used to be this and I used to be that. I used to smile and laugh daily. I used to be on the brink of achieving my childhood dream. We get quixotic in the dawn-time. We get neurotic penning old rhymes. And the world don't flinch when you feel the pinch. Nah, the world just assumes you got a love to lynch.

Smitten by a tom-boyish songbird. Sing me heartbreaking folksie tales to put me to sleep. Tenderfoot above the ground; heavy steps below.

There used to be someone. Just one. Who was it?