Wednesday January 8th, 2025
It was so cold the back of my head throbbed and ached for almost an hour after I got home. I wanted to cry (but I did not cry).
Thursday January 9th, 2025
I bought this diary yesterday and already it scares me a little, every page so huge and empty as I sit here before bed at my ever lonely desk.
Friday 10th January, 2025
-8° this morning. Fields white with frost all the way to Colchester. Paving slabs glittering like diamonds. Breath crystallising the air.
The near full moon rose slowly over the church before the film, shone brightly in a sea of stars after.
Saturday 11th January, 2025
A fox runs across the street, over the green, only finally evading the glare of my headlights by hiding under a car.
I feel guilty for the terror I’ve caused it.
I feel happy simply to have seen it.
Sunday 12th January, 2025
Sunday has to be squeezed in tight
so small here on the page
so unimportant
to the world of work
No need to make any note of events
that have transpired
outside of office hours
Monday 13th January, 2025
A heron flying overhead
a mile from the river
and getting further away
with every flap of its prehistoric wings
Tuesday 14th January, 2025
I didn’t feel very well today
but didn’t feel bad enough
to complain
Wednesday 15th January, 2025
NOTE: What tense to use when writing diary entries a day or two late?
I hurt my back at about 7pm. Sat down and watched the football without moving in the hope it’d fix itself.
It didn’t.
So I went to bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark, pain and worry preventing any hope of sleep.
In the morning it was mostly okay. Well enough to sit down and write this entry out, at least.
Thursday 16th January, 2025
Flicked between the snooker and the tennis all afternoon, which meant I ended up feeling like I’d watched neither rather than both.
Had tickets to the cinema but did not go, With bad backs the terror of recurrence lingers on longer than any physical discomfort.
Friday 17th January, 2025
The page is too near to see with my glasses on, too far away to properly write on with them off.
Which is not so bad at my desk, where I can lean in until I’m an inch away. But outside, when I try to write in my notebook, while sitting on a bench, or in the car, or at the pub, all I can do is hope my approximation of letters are legible enough for when I go back to them later and try to find something worthwhile there in whatever I wrote.
Saturday 18th January, 2025
Shivered all afternoon. It wasn’t even that cold.
Sunday 19th January, 2025
Tonight I know I’ll be unable to sleep
Because tomorrow I have to get up early
Monday 20th January, 2025
Went to Cornwall
Tuesday 21st January, 2025
Today I got attacked by seagulls. Lost an entire doughnut to the horde.
Wednesday 22nd January, 2025
The sea’s so huge
(and I’m so small)
Thursday 23rd January, 2025
The wind
the wind
At times today I genuinely thought
we might all be blown away
into the night
into the sea
Friday 24th January, 2025
Waves
hitting rocks
hitting waves
hitting rocks
forever
Monday 27th January, 2025
Long car journeys always instill in me
the deepest melancholy
Or perhaps its not the journey
but coming home
Wednesday 29th January, 2025
I still haven’t found my voice here.
Who am I writing for
or to
Who is going to read this
and when
What purpose is there to it
and why
(although I suppose that last questions applies to everything)
Thursday 30th January, 2025
Charles Bukowski here
writing a poem about terrible computer software
in 1986
The world is on repeat
anguished howls
of unending
frustration
Friday 31st January, 2025
The weeks go by
the month’s gone by
and nothing changes
Yet still I hope that out of the repetition
and the emptiness
some meaning might emerge
__________
Notes:
1. Written in January 2025
2. Unsurprisingly