The Fruitless Fantasy of the Female Form

Well, as my time at the Boathouse draws to a close, I feel like there's so much I want to say, but my thoughts are so ill-ordered on the subject and my priorities hardly allow me time to think about it.

Misunderstand - Incorrectly understood or interpreted. Not appreciated or given sympathetic understanding. Attach a wrong meaning to.

In my last installment I may have spoken of instincts which illustrate the fact that we are all animals. Not just animals, but ANIMALS with instincts which can sometimes get "out of control".

This electronic collection of notes is sub-titled Step IV - Step four - Taking the fearless moral inventory.
Step Four in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step programme,  is meant, of course, to illustrate when our instincts are out of equilibrium and to catalogue where our original problems might manifest into unreasonably strong desires.

So many instincts... to eat, to rest, to nest, to procreate, to be stimulated... and so on, which can all get out of control. We can be drug addicts, sex addicts, alcoholics, over-eaters, the list goes on.

Now of course, anyone than truly knows me, knows that I am a terrible drug addict, an alcoholic of many years standing and a pervert who cannot let any female, of any shape or size, pass me by without looking at their arse.
However, there is one arse I cannot and would never dream of looking at. And that is Jo's.
And I certainly can't sign off without speaking about Jo, my bestest boathouse buddy in the world.

I had a dream last night.
I dreamt that I had made a beautiful cake. I had baked the cake with love and so much due care and attention, but then iced it perfectly with rolled Royal Icing and it was flawless.

I showed this cake to Jo, in my dream, and said, "Look, look what I have made Jo, isn't it beautiful?"
She looked at me, then at the cake, and then silently dug her thumb deep, right into the middle of the icing.
What was more disturbing, was the silence which followed while she stared at me, emotionless, remorseless, while my jaw dropped open and I wept.

I told Jo about this dream and how much it upset me.
She listened and then threw a frozen pea at me derisively.
"You are a pathetic bum Craig, you're not complicated, you're a dick."

You see, I believe that my understanding with Jo is, well, that we share the same pain.
I know.
I know because I was there when it happened.
You see Jo know me, I know Jo.
We layers like onions.
No peel back to the sad. The sad we don't mention.
But Jo. Well Jo know me. The sad. The sad we don't mention.
Jo throw pea at me Jo cos we know what we don't mention. We know, no-one much else know. We kn...
...nd that's enough of that.

Of course, it has been my duty, as a writer, to attempt to engage the reader by painting an interesting picture in words of  the environment I discuss, and in doing so, I could quite rightly be accused of  portraying said working environment as some sort of glamorous place where fuckwittery is scarce and efficient adults combine their skills to achieve common goals.

I would like to dispel this myth now.

The fuckwittery I have experienced in this kitchen (as is the case every single other place I have been gainfully employed) is up there with the fuckwittery taking place in the current political cabinet.
Unfortunately, people are human.

Which brings me to the point when I originally started writing the first Cleaning Down notes - that I had the idea that I would not stoop to character-assassination for cheap laughs, but neither did I realise the risk I might run of developing some sort of subservient love-in within the realms of the large granite mutual-appreciation society building.

Yeah, well, whatever.

We know, Jo and I, about The Lost, the Hopeless and the Disparate.
That's what you find in the hospitality trade.

A fake smile.
A liar.
The Lost, the Hopeless, the Disparate and the Degenerate.
The almost good, almost bad and the almost ugly.

People who didn't decide quick enough or people who simply couldn't decide.
People who haven't reached their goal yet.
People who didn't work hard enough.
People who are "in-between".
Transients, drug addicts, degenerates, miscreants, alcoholics, the deluded, the Lost.
We are the best of them.
Jo and I.
Because we are professionals when it counts.
Just me and Jo - We Da Bes

Lost - unable to find one's way, gone astray, a lost child.
Hopeless - having no hope, bleak, despairing, having no possibility of solution.
Deviant - departing from the norm.
The Truth - that which is in accordance with fact or reality.

*******************

And the metaphor/moral/philosophy of this story - well, it's fuck off and work it out for yourself you lazy bastards, except Allan, who's my best friend, who I haven't spoken to for too long a time, who's on the left there, with the neckerchief... while that's me in the middle, with a fag, and all my best mates...

{NB: the answer to the metaphor is = PERSONAL FREEDOM}