#Tommiesblog

[tommiematthews]

Every Pocket Has A Lighter

20.08.23

Every pocket has a lighter innit, but not every pocket has something to light something, innit? I’m trying to cut back, on the cigarettes and on the weed, but most of all fucking mead.

See, I love it, but it’s not okay, cause I’m a feen for it, just had a couple gin sharpeners and I’m feeling electric, didn’t feel this way yesterday when I was off it. Every pocket has a lighter, should I ignite the flame of sobriety or spark light of moderation? Whatever it’s done, its led me here, sitting and writing. we just moved to Tasmania and after these 2 weeks, 2 many jobs and 2 many days of trying to get into a routine, we are here for it, for a natural epiphany of one of the last pillars of natural beauty that exist, and a pillar marker in the first day where I should be working on my book; but I’m not… I’m here. That’s okay because it’s the run up of the long jump, it’s the gas in the lighter that is always in my pocket, it’s about to happen… until it doesn’t. But it will and, you won’t, hold me to a missed day or a missed sentence, we are finally here, out of the city distraction and into the country satisfaction. Ever pocket has a lighter, so I will ignite this fire of creativity and discipline, while also igniting this cigarette. For things have changed and stuff has not, but ill siphon what I can, from the mind that I have. Created in a world of insecurities and distractions, fucking distractions, distractions of life, distractions of think drink. So, I’m going to implore you with words when I am not working on my novel, words of quick thought that are in my notes, thoughts in between my tokes… every pocket has a lighter. What’s more is the fact that my laptop is fixed after 6 months in the clink, not completely inoperable, but fucked. So, I have bought a new screen, (the other smashed) and I am ready for my next part, the one before you realise that I am a writer, an author and a fucking person that evaluates life. Now that we have established that every pocket has a lighter, I will watch the waves that continue to come in. through the secret off shore wind tunnel and the entrance to the secret tunnel into my heart… but most importantly, my mind. Welcome, to the start of the past, of thoughts I have thunk, and the revaluations that I will continue to change.

As always, thank you for reading.

[tommiematthews]

HIKING

22/11/22

I have been offline, off the grid and away from technology, I travelled back in time and I am unsure whether or not I liked it. What I do like, is that I am sitting down in front of you, boiling with material to shoot into you… the diary that is. although I may spray my seed of black inked memories onto these blank pages of innocence, I will never be able to incapsulate the memories we made this weekend… and I am happy for it. As I sit back in my cocoon of technological devices, I cannot help but fall back into the habits of scrolling. The trend at the moment, anyone with a phone doing small skits and becoming small social media stars. I don’t know if it’s because I believe it or I am jealous, but I feel like I could make way funnier content than most of these accounts. Although looking through them, after a weekend of nature and friends, it is evident that no matter my bullshit pipe dreams of social media potential talent, I don’t want to exist in that form. That is, I only want to exist, in my physical form, physical actions with small echoes of a picture on a polaroid in someone’s room or a poem or letter that I may have written to someone. To live online is to live in an image where you are waiting for a reply, I have written this phrase before “I want my life to be like a film, with staged dialogue and an expected reply, I want my life to be in full frame, with a soundtrack that will bring the world to tears”. I cannot be in full frame on social media, I can only be a selfie, a selfie in the sense of self-motivated for selfish actions and my self happiness will be decided by not myself, but everyone else, or in fact, no one else. So, I intend like every diary entry, to be better in the technological sense, be removed from this online world, the future and the growing fads, be real.

I have some good news, I have time to write, so I intend to try and be more descriptive in this next part, rather than metaphorical and elusive.

On Friday, we headed down to Wilson’s Prom for a 3 days hike, or around 45km of hills, valleys, beach and shrub terrain. When I say we, there were 7 of us, Harrison, who is brother to my partner, he is 6’7 and seems unphased by everything, he also has the smallest pack, because he is most likely the smartest. His strides travel further than double ours, higher than the biggest fallen trunk and his head clears the way of any cobwebs as he travels down the trails. His brother and brother to my partner is also present, his name is Jack and he is the only one wearing pants. Jack is the sort of guy that you need to have around for the logical moments, his laugh is big and infectious when bellowed, he is the group photographer and no one is happy about it with 20kg packs squeezing on their mid drift. His partner Kim is present with us, her flesh light water bottle and small stature, she looks like its her first day of school with her giant pack on. Kim is a bit like a kid sometimes, always being silly, saying funny things and never scared to make a fool of herself. Kim makes me feel normal, because most of the time I am the silly one, feels good not to be alone in the mayhem. Kim also is a bit like a kid sometimes because she will go from silliness to deep serious conversations, she is no fool and looks for connection in everything. Alex is here also, she is wearing hiking socks and a chipper attitude which never seems to leave her, she has cooked fresh pesto for dinner on the first night in typical A Mac fashion. Her partner Spike is carrying the world on his shoulders, I say the world, I mean our world, at least our world for the next three days. He is the leader of this expedition and we are all happy to follow his glowing calves. My partner Monique is present, but barely, a week after covid, a few weeks of relentless uni and 170weeks of putting up with me, she is here. Monique is a work horse, strong in will and quiet in complaining, I fear if her covid is hindering her, she will not speak of it. Finally, theres me, never hiked, never overnight, never two nights and never understanding what we are about to experience. But I am an athlete and I will push on. Our first hike lasted around 4 hours, we arrived at ‘roaring meg’ only to find the only thing that was roaring were my bowls. Luckily the drop toilet was clean, but there was no clean water to fill up our bottles, we set up our tents only to find the one we borrowed was the size of two large snails fucking. What made it worse was the 4kg air mattress that I thought would be a good idea to bring, was as flat a smoker that forgot to bring a lighter on this 3-day hike. Relax, I found it, sitting by the stream and cooking around a small flame really gives you the belief that we don’t need all the shit we got… but its fucking nice. The sleep was poor but Jacks’ coffee was good, we had an 8-hour hike today to refuge cove, aptly named after such a trek. About halfway up a hill, Monique couldn’t breathe from getting over covid, so I naturally put a hand on a shoulder, hander her a puffer and then lit a cigarette. I wanted to smoke this trip, more than I usually do, in order to channel my hero, Jim Harrison. I thought maybe if I chain smoke tobacco, sip on whiskey and smoke the odd joint, I would conjure a writing voice that would emulate my spirit. Turns out the only thing I got from trying to be like Jim was a struggle to breath and judgment from my fellow hikers. But I also got a connection, to Jim, to nature and to my friends, he was really right about the beauty of nature, of walking in it and the realisation that cities are the cess pool of the ways we shouldn’t live. I planned to write more, but when we got to the 2nd last stop of our hike to refuge cove, we chose refuge instead at a place called Waterloo, the only thing I wrote was “and we played games around the campfire, while the trees rocked like a mother rock its baby monkey, gently swaying from tree to tree, while the creek gently pushed itself over the humbled rocks, we are laughing and nothing is better”. I planned to be Jim Harrison, I have written shit and I have written literally, both things I hate, Jim would hate me too, but he would know that I am writing and he would love me for that. After swimming in the ocean, we stuck toes in the white sand, if it wasn’t for the 11degree water, you would have thought we were in Fiji. But we weren’t, we were in Australia and more than that, we were in the world, the land, as it should be. We walked back the next day, sore, but giddy, arriving at the top carpark, expecting a marching band and the mayor with a key to the state. Instead, were met with the wind and rain that we had only just beat, as we drove away, swearing for longer trips in the future, it was clear a monumental memory had been made. No matter what, I will look back at my life, these people will always hold a memory, as moment and a bond of the small thing we did together. The beers and food acted like cement to solidify the memories that were just made, and I smoked a final cigarette for Jim, for helping me do this sort of thing and to be in nature, I’m looking forward to the next trip.

[tommiematthews]

Sisyphus

10/11/2022

Do you want to know what really gets me going? Like what revs my engine and puts a bit of grunt in the cunt. It’s the idea of a rabbit hole, it’s a following Alice to a place that pushes the edges, just for the fucking hell of it; its Thursday, its been, another, bad, day. I’m drinking a shandy, well not in the conventional sense, I call it a Bourdain bomber, but the cynical just call it a bottle of stella with a double margarita in it. I call it therapeutic grounding, connecting with the ones that feel frustrated like me, a goblet of understanding rather than a drink of desperation… they are both the same. There’s an attitude that comes with a drink like this, it’s not an attitude of being defeated, but an attitude of heroism; world, today, I am going to fuck you right back. It is clear and obvious, that good people stay fucked and the shit ones, that think they aren’t fucked, I'm telling you,  you are. My brother said to me recently that, empathic people laugh, smile and engage with you in a conversation, regardless of what is said, they want to make you feel comfortable. I like that, reminds me of all the good people that may not know how to communicate in a conventional way, but we resort back to imitation, smile when you smile, laugh when you laugh and yawn when you yawn… a fellow human. I am trying to understand what I am saying and it has dawned on me, I am asking for compassion. Its dark sometimes, realising that in my daily thoughts, it always seems to come back to feeling alone, inadequate and not connected. But that’s not true, I feel connected to Monique, my brother and my dog. My dog was walking around the backyard and let out a whine, he ran back inside with a clear limp. He has officially torn his crucial ligament in his knee, unlike humans or the insurance company that we pay on a monthly basis, he does not get the full ride on this one. $5500 for the operation, so we are left counting our stuff, what to sell, how fast we can sell it and if it’s worth going further and further into debt. The Stella Artois beers I just purchased is worth the debt, the many beautiful memories we have made this year, is worth the debt. But I can’t help but feel that we have had a tough run this year, Monique is currently battling covid, I’m battling my sanity and Bigbsy is battling being a 16month year old pup with a major leg injury. Mind you, that’s just this week, it all amounts from the previous 10months of this year, I can’t help but wonder if I am a poison to a person. I seem to bring people down, rather than lift them up. oooffff, I had to sit on that for a bit, that hurts, it’s like I ruin everyone, their financial status, their demeaner and their whole life. Oooof, I’ve got to sit on that again and make another Bourdain bomber, I’m squeezing between my eyes like a stressful character in the movies, I am okay with that, as long as it’s a feel-good film and I am the protagonist with a happy ending. I’m working tonight, but I am not driving, so I feel fine drinking a little more, like I said, no one is winning in this house, I have been sick, Monique has covid and Bigbsy has lost his balls and soon his leg. I just had to stop and comfort my furry son, my rottweiler of protection, the one the I cannot even protect. If I can write one beautiful sentence, that maybe I can envisage a positive image for the coming hours and maybe weeks. What do I know is true? I know the emotions of love that I feel is pure and real, I know that I am trying my best, I know that I haven’t given up and as long as I have Monique and Bigbsy that I won’t. So let me know be confused about interactions that are blurred by jobs, by money and by personal challenges. Let me be a person that can rise above it all, no matter my current situation, let me confess, that I am alive and even then, I have a fighting chance. A chance to simplify, a chance to continue to love and a chance to be better than the person that I may blame sometimes. I just feel like Sisyphus, I’m pushing, I’m pushing that rock, up the hill that impossible hill. Every strain I feel through my knees, every chaotic pessimistic view that I may feel, gets washed away in my tears. I am a fighter and I will continue every day, even on the days that I just wish, this big old rock, would crush me, squeeze me. Squeeze out my effort, squeeze out the emotions, the love and compassion that I feel for so many, that I am too scared to say. i do you know, pretend… that I am dying most days, I send texts of love, for the ones that I feel connected to and that believe it or not, I feel like I am the one going astray. With every piece of love in our relationship with any friend, I can’t help but think it’s another notch that stretches the belt of connection further apart, but stronger in a way. Every confession of love, is a confession of separation, an ode to a goodbye, that I feel is inevitable. I do not want to die, knowing I didn’t say that I loved you, all of you, in so many ways. I feel so cooped up in a room, with emotions as big as the world and a vulnerability that is still yet to be evident. I am, reaching out, too you. to all of you. selling all of my possessions just to live another day, selling all of me, just to survive every day, pushing that boulder up hill, just to survive another day.

[tommiematthews]

Another day, another unhappy customer

9/11/22

Well, it’s happened. My diary has influenced my decision to escape and run away, today, I quit my job. This is not the first time and won’t be the last time, for I am working again tonight, out of guilt and frustration at my current position. I want to vent; I want to elaborate the reasons for my frustrations and at a certain person. But if I condemn them here, they will be frozen and if I’m being honest, I’m not feeling confident that I was in the right. All I can say is, working in a family business suck, it especially sucks when everyone is driving so hard to have things work out, but they don’t. I honestly cannot understand why anyone would ever work for themselves, unless they easily charged too much and made money incredibly easy; this shit is hard work. Watching shitloads of employees, do the bare minimum, get paid and not give a fuck, really, really is heartbreaking. Not being one of those employees that can’t not give a fuck, is even worse. I just want to go to a job, do what is assigned to me and go the fuck home. No emotional bribery, no guilt from knowing too much, just clock in and clock out. clock in, clock out. glock in, glock out. bullet in, bullet out. Fuck me I want to kill myself sometimes, maybe not in the conventional way like I use to, but there are other ways to kill yourself without having to die. I want to take out as many loans as I can, buy a boat and sail away, living on the run and living without a past. Find me on an island, with skin the same colour and complexion as your grandfathers old leather shoes, my hair stiff with gel made of salt water and eyes that still pierce blue, blue like the water they stare into, the same water that I am too afraid to cross back to. For I will be caught eventually, running from the big banks to a world that I don’t understand, just so I can say I was free from the way I currently live, if only for a little while. Reading this back, it seems like I’m stuck, unable to pawn or sell my many surfboards, music instruments, motorbikes or cars; I guess I’m full of shit. But the rents gotta get paid and the loan shark has to get laid, so maybe my goal of escapism can come at the end of my lease. Aahhhhh, another heading, another dream. Maybe if I just change my job, all of these problems will go away, a new lead on life, a new life to lead. At the end of the day, somethings gotta change… the blessing and curse is, it’s all up to me.

Another day, another unhappy customer

[tommiematthews]

Fuck Inflation

8/11/22

Oops, it’s been three days since my last confession, please father, let me get away with but a butt bare spanking, please. I confess, that writing a daily diary is for two types of people, the ones that have too much time on their hands and the other kind who have a good relationship with their drug dealer. I fall into neither category and if you say ‘you can make time’ or that ‘real writers write’, then fuck you. I think, what we forget is about the old school writers, the Hemmingway’s, the Fitzgerald’s and the Thompson’s is this. They were all men who sat down and wrote with the full belief and intention, that they were curing cancer with their words, while their wives/mistresses went and bought them whiskey for $2.50 a bottle and cigarettes for 70c. So, fuck inflation and fuck misogyny, in their day, you could tell a bank manager or a publisher that you have a book idea and they would give you $40,000 which would last you about 2 crazy years in the 50s. These days, they look up my credit score and I can feel their buttholes itch, like how is someone so young, so fucked. Well, I’ve lived a lot, I’ve travelled the world, I have said yes for short term game, resulting in long term mistakes. I, my dear friends, am a moron. A moron because I do not remember half the things I did, and well, now I am just trying to get back on track. I work, walk the dog, go to university, spend time with my lover, catch up with friends sometimes, go to the gym and try and do any of my hobbies. Truth be told, there ain’t much time left in the week, let alone the fucking year. I want to simplify, but to minimise my hobbies and ambitions, is to control my mental state, to a position of focus and purpose that I have never been able to do, I’ve never been that mentally strong.  I hope in small ways, I can buy take out less, maybe not buy that extra $20 bottle of wine and in my drunken state say fuck it to a $200 meal late on a Saturday night. But also, that ain’t me, so I will continue my dream of a quick fix lottery ticket and hope those numbers fly in and sail me into the open sea with my lover, our dog and all the financial stability of a famous writer in the 50s, jotting in their diary every day, in a hope of fixing climate change.

If you have been, thank you for reading.

[tommiematthews]

Remember, Remember the 5th of November.

5/11/22

Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot, I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. Ahhhh, what a film, V for Vendetta, todays date will forever remind me of that menacing film, an anarchic post dystopian world that is not far from our own reality. In spirit, I too have a shaved head today, like my dear Natalie Portman, I am committed to being trained and influenced by any person with charisma and whit, but hides behind a mask of what who they really are. I think the reason for the mask, is to put a human face to grand ideas, will change the attitude towards the fact that merely another human is operating these thoughts and in some sad way, I cannot fathom that. I must put people on a godly pedestal and praise from below, I cannot comprehend that fellow humans can make mistakes or have faults. Blame it on film, blame it on parenting or blame it on the boogie, but put blame on anyone that is not perfect. Ahhh, back here again, realising how sad and embarrassing my thoughts are, how immature and shameful my viewpoint of others is. This is, after all, a diary; so, let myself ramble and rumble to come to conclusions that are slowly thought-out without a filter. So let my thoughts unravel with a smack of the gavel and I shall hereby sentence myself to be better. To look at people with understanding and for good in them, how reflective would the mirror be, if I were to see faults in others.

If you have been, thank you for reading.

[tommiematthews]

4/11/22

4/11/22

So, I have sat down to continue writing my novel, but I cannot find the paper version that I have written so far, MORE FOOL ME. Instead of digging around the house and further putting off the fact that my goal of writing a novel by the time I was 30, has now finished, I am past the point of a young person’s goals. The new goal, is to write more, in hope that one day soon, I will have a story that to some degree, makes sense. The problem is, I have been trying to write it for 7 years, and I need the massacred tree versions of the manuscript in order to limit my procrastinating self, to scrolling up and down like a yo-yo. A yo-yo is a lame description, to stop myself going up and down like a person who has just discovered that they can sit on a coke can in quick repetitive squats and it brings joy and orgasms to their throbbing head. Lame again, but if I continue down this road, I will be back saying that like a yo-yo was the perfect cliché, and any sort of originality that I may muster, is usually sexualised and a bit much. But if the hat fits, then cum in it, or however it goes. I have been sick as a dog the past week, nearly admitted into hospital because my oxygen levels were 91% which I was told is not good. Any score above 50% in my opinion is good enough, but I suppose like my university assessments, only half the essay is functioning and its as though you passed out half way through the semester; BUT C’s get degrees motherfucker. At this point in time, I am very much close to getting my degree, only one subject left and if I may say so myself, I have fookin’ chanced it lad. Found the complete knifes edge of doing the bare minimum and although my degree may not have the quality score as others, the ink will dry the same on that glistening laminated paper. After all, I am thirty, I dropped out of school 15 years ago, and after much fucking around, I will be university educated; which is mainly knowing as little as anyone else, but maybe how to operate a computer and submit bullshit. Or maybe that’s just the tradespersons chip on his shoulder viewpoint. As I’m writing this, my dog is sitting next to me, he, unfortunately, has just had his knackers off. We were assured he would need 2 weeks recovery, housebound and monitored for depression and in case he goes walk-about trying to find the ball...s. but he has awoken as chipper as ever, hating his cone, which really concerns me as he may not be from my seed, because I indeed, love a cone. I would love one now, but responsibilities restrict me from the daily want to get drunk and high. I guess that’s why I love old writers, Jim Harrison, Anthony Bourdain and William Burroughs, it’s their lack of a need to drive. The only thing that stops me from drinking and drugging every day is the need to drive to work, so I don’t go bankrupt. Writing it out like that, I appear to be a very sensible and restrained man, as I hope that others, such as the ones I idolise, are like me and what to be tipsy every day. Although in my current asthma and chest infection, a joint or a cigarette may just put me away to an early grape, I apologise, I was thinking about vapes. We are living in the future, we smoke through computers, we listen to music from headphones with no chords and we surf in ponds that create perfect waves. If it wasn’t for inflation, capitalistic demands and an unhealthy relationship with technology and social media, we would be living it up boys, LIVING IT UP. My daily journal used to be a nice creative way to write without the need of the intensity of working on my book. So, I think I’m going to start a blog, 2006 here we come, it’s a great way to exercise my bad grammar and I may take selfie of my asshole every day. If you follow, then follow.