Muses

I'm not a great believer in most mumbo-jumbo, but I think I had my first experience of being around a muse over the past week.

The Muse, or M for short, is the daughter of one Tim's 'crowd' from his Kansas City days. Biologically, she's young, a mere twenty-five years old. Tim remembers her as a child, precocious and fun, soaking up the energy from the eclectic bunch of people she grew up with. Despite her age, the catalogue of her life experiences to date seems endless. Right now, she's doing the rounds in Europe and we were lucky enough to spend time with her during her first visit to London.

It wasn't the first time I'd met her. That was last year, close to midnight on Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras, baby. New Orleans. Strangely, it was the same time I'd been given my 'lucky' transit token. That story is here.

Anywho, whilst living in LA it seems she was in the right place at the right time to rub shoulders with all the right people from the music industry. So much so that she's currently dating the drummer from one of my favourite songwriter's new band. It seems that if I want to meet him and hang out with the band I just need to make it to any of the shows on their upcoming tour.

NEED MONEY!!!!

Maybe I should start a PayPal fund...

Long story short, just having her around was incredibly inspirational. During her visit I was almost constantly jotting down lyric ideas and had a constant melody stream running through my brain.

Now she's gone. I need to turn my random scribblings into something cohesive.

If I Didn't Need Them...

...I'd take 'em out.

Once again, my eyes are screwed. This time it's not just one, but both. No, it's not a flare-up of the old trouble I had last year. This time it's conjunctivitis. The doctor wasn't sure whether it was viral or bacterial, but it's certainly one of the contagious ones. I went to the doctor on Tuesday morning. They said to be really careful as it could spread to the other eye. I woke up on Wednesday with both eyes glued shut.

D'Oh!

Ironically, despite being in both eyes, this isn't as bad as when I kept getting an infection in my left eye. This is annoying and uncomfortable, but not debilitating. I even went to the gym last night! It's demotivating, though. The constant scratchiness drives me mad. Working with computer screens all day doesn't help. Nothing helps, actually, except for the occasional cold compress between cups of coffee and ritual hand-washings. I want to be off work, but I can't afford it. I want to sit in a dark room with an ice-pack over my eyes, but I can't.

As usual, I just have to get on with it and hope that it clears up sooner rather than later. It's a contractor's lot. No sick pay means I can't be sick... even when I am.

Park Life

On Saturday I left the house.

The sun was shining and, well, our house stank of dank plasterboard, so I grabbed my old electric, assorted gizmos including an amplug (headphone amp) and headed into town. The plan was to sit in one of London's many parks, avoid the police and the homeless, and jam for a bit. Maybe I'd even hit upon a song idea or two.

In truth, the session wasn't very productive. First off I was bothered by a hoarde of screaming kids who took every opportunity to fuss around me, sucking on stones, eating dirt etc (as kids do). Where were the parents? Who can say. After they left (presumably kidnapped or shaken to death by a roaming nanny assassin squad, I got about ten minutes peace before a gaggle of SLR numpties decided I'd make an interesting subject for their photo-lesson. The annoying thing was that they were clearly trying to be sneaky about it, so they'd take turns standing next to me so that each of them could innocently shoot their friend... guys... your friend is standing 4 feet to the side...

SNAP.

Grrr...

Okay, so if you're doing something unusual in the pubic domain you're fair game, but c'mon, take a picture and move on. Don't try to be coy about it, spending half an hour hovering.

I did achieve two things. First off, I escaped from the house. Second off, I started in writing a song in The Black Keys stylee.

I don't know whether it's going to be any good, but I made a quick recording whilst it was fresh in my mind and I'll work on it later.

Rain Stops Play

So what have I been up to lately?

Mostly shouting at idiots.

The neighbour's flat upstairs sprung a leak. It started raining in our bedroom. We told the owner about it. He said the leak wasn't coming from him. We said, "Yes it is". He said, "No it isn't".

He lives in Paris and rents it out.

Can you see where this is going.

He said that he wanted to wait until his mate was free to come around and look at it.

When would that be?

A week on Tuesday!

But it's raining... IN OUR BEDROOM!

Nothing to do with him.

But it's coming from YOUR FLAT!

No it isn't.

Okay, so you say it's not coming from your flat. Can we take a look?

Yep.

But there are no access panels in your bathroom. You TILED IN all the pipes and connections!

That's why he doesn't want to do anything. It'd mean punching a hole in the wall.

Fair enough. BUT IT'S RAINING IN OUR BEDROOM.

Fast forward 5 days. We finally got access to the flat by lobbying the management company and they made a hole.

Quelle surprise (a verbal nod to the owner's current location) there was a swimming pool behind the tiles. The leak was from a tap that his father-in-law had tried to descale as it was sticking. Leak fixed, water stopped pouring through our ceiling... after nearly a week of battle.

Y'know, I like the rain. I really do, especially warm summer showers. Call me fickle. I prefer it when it's outside.