The art of wrestling

Eddie was supposed to be the bad guy, Edge the good guy. That's the way it works in professional wrestling: there is almost always a goodie and a baddie, a face and a heel. The themes are pretty ancient, though we rarely diverge from them in any other art form. It is basic storytelling, the stuff they explain to you in literature courses when you are 11 years old: there is a protagonist, an antagonist, a building of action, a climax and resolution.

The tradition of pitting two individuals against each other and paying to watch them beat the tar out of each other is ancient, of course. As is the tradition of staging such a thing. In Shakespeare's As You Like It, the plot turns on Orlando's success in the ring. There is no real reason to have the scene but to amuse the crowd, in the same way there is no other reason for the five minutes of fart jokes in Macbeth. Some theatre companies see the connection between the modern and what Shakespeare was doing. Many moons ago, when I was a member of the Guthrie Theater company, I taught the actor playing Charles the wrestler how to strut like Ric Flair.

Professional wrestling as an art form in and of itself, however, is generally attributed as having developed in the carnival sideshows of the early 20th century. And yes, it is an art form. Think of how you would define art -- especially any art that involves movement, such as dance -- and professional wrestling will fall into that definition. It is a violent art; its themes are often simplistic; it still possesses a great deal of its old sideshow feel; but it is an art.

There is beauty and skill: the wrestlers arc and turn and twist their bodies to create forms of action and power and grace. Before and within the match they tell a story of conflict, struggle, triumph and defeat. The easiest comparisons are those to dance or bullfighting, but wrestling is also very much like poetry in that there is quite a lot of it that is awful.

Just about every moody teenager has at one point or another attempted to apply to him- or herself the label of "poet" because he or she has the ability to string together a handful of melodramatic and heavy-handed phrases. I am quite confident in stating that the overwhelming majority of all poetry is shit -- in the way the majority of the planet's surface is water. Similarly, yes, the majority of professional wrestling is embarrassing to watch (for example: anything involving Christopher Daniels). But we live our lives on the land; we pick out the poetry that has beauty and worth. 

This match is the one I often use to support my argument that wrestling is an art. It is a match between Eddie Guerrero and a man known simply as Edge, which took place in November 2002 in San Diego. In a way, it is a strange example to use because its internal story forced a change in the external narrative. It is an example of wrestling's beauty in part because it breaks with wrestling's norm.

In the WWE -- easily the most-recognisable of the literally hundreds of wrestling companies around the world -- the matches are often part of a greater narrative. This is done to build the emotion of the in-ring stories. If you spend weeks learning that Person A dislikes Person B because A used to be B's best friend but became jealous of his success and felt, too, that B had spoiled his chances of finding true love with the woman B now so poorly treats (even though, said woman doesn't see it this way), and so that is why he sabotaged B in front of his family, it adds to the in-ring story. B isn't just fighting to win, as he and every other wrestler does almost nightly, he is fighting for pride and revenge. And on and on. The themes, as I say, are pretty ancient.

Frequently, though, the narrative isn't so complex. In the old days, it was as simple as a good guy fighting a bad guy. In some companies the bad guys all wore black boots, the good guys white boots, so the fans knew whom to boo and whom to cheer. In the match between Eddie Guerrero and Edge things were somewhere in between. Eddie was a bad guy because, well, that's what he was. Edge was a good guy because, well, that's what he was. 

Watching the video, you see that as soon as he steps out from behind the technicolor wall, Eddie is insulting the crowd, lurking toward the ring with his shoulders hunched, occasionally stopping to snarl and insult people. He had been doing this for a while. This is what he did. 

Edge runs out as the good guy. He excitedly cheers the crowd as they cheer him. He climbs all over the ring posts and ropes and poses and encourages the crowd to be a part of the noise and excitement. He had been doing this for a while. This is what he did.

There was no real explanation of why Eddie was bad and Edge good. They just were and had been that way for a while. And as such, they had fought each other a handful of times in the weeks previous. Because bad guys fight good guys. The commentary on the video is misleading, though. It reflects knowledge of the result. Listen with headphones and you can hear clipped audio that was put in after the fact. The announcers try to make more of the animosity between the two than had actually been displayed before the match, because they know it is rare and beautiful and are trying to fulfil their roles of heightening the emotional pull.

I was in the arena that night, sitting roughly 20 feet from the ring. We were all there to see Rey Mysterio Jr. and Kurt Angle and Undertaker and Brock Lesnar. This match between Eddie and Edge we knew was just TV filler. We knew this, in part, because there had been no build-up. There had been no segments showing them speaking to or about each other, no video montage reminding us of their rivalry. It was just a good guy and a bad guy. When Edge came out we all cheered. When Eddie came out, most people booed (I didn't boo because Eddie Guerrero was from El Paso, Texas).

The video clip shows a somewhat altered version of what actually happened. As I say, a certain amount of the commentary was clearly put in after the fact. That reflects the reality of the in-ring story: no one knows how the story is going to go. The end is predetermined, of course, but a great deal of what happens in the wrestling ring is made up in the moment. This is some of the art of it. The wresters read the crowd and piece together sequences and steps along the way. Watch them in headlocks, or when Edge swings his hair down into his face -- the two are communicating, giving quick instructions to one another. Throughout the match there is a hidden conversation about what comes next.

Early in the match, the story goes according to the usual script. We cheered the good guy and chanted, "Eddie sucks," at the bad guy. Eddie tries to cheat on a pin, in Spanish he tells the San Diego crowd (where roughly 40 percent of the population speaks Spanish) that they are a bunch of "goddamn wetbacks;" Edge gets out of a headlock by encouraging the moral support of the crowd.

But somewhere along the way, things shifted. The in-ring story stepped beyond the narrative and you saw instead the flow and movement and line and beauty and story. It became something amazing rather than just a cliché battle between good guy and bad guy. For those of us in the crowd, I think the shift came after a ladder was introduced and then seemingly abandoned as a weapon.

A ladder as a weapon. It's art, but certainly not in the classic sense.

The wrestling fan gets used to looking for a "high spot," a particularly impressive sequence that is often a wrestler's signature. Usually that move leads to the match's end. And in WWE, usually that end comes in about seven to eight minutes. And, indeed, at about seven minutes into the match Eddie sprints up the top ropes and flips Edge over his shoulders and back down to the ring. But no pin. Edge "hotshots" Eddie out of the ring and charges at him with a ladder. But no pin. The match moved back into the ring and Edge delivered his signature move, a "spear." But no pin. The match kept going.

Watch the crowd at about 12:30, after Eddie has again flipped Edge off the top rope. Eddie goes for the pin and many jump up thinking he has won. The metanarrative is being played with; people are cheering the bad guy. A few minutes later, you can hear people chanting his name. I was one of them, though, by that point, you likely would not have heard me. I screamed so much during that match that I actually lost my voice for two days after.

The "sunset flip" is what sealed my voice's doom. With both men atop a ladder, Eddie dives over Edge, grabs him at the waist and brings him into the ground. When Edge kicked out from the inevitable pin you can see that we all went nuts. Not because we cared about the good guy anymore but because we couldn't believe the match was still going on.

"What more can they do?" I remember shouting. "What more can they do?!"

When the match was aired, I found that several minutes had been edited out of the match. Watch it from about 16 minutes and you see the crowd is jumping at everything. This actually carried on for a long time. The two spent a great deal of time soaring through the air at each other -- flipping, turning, twisting. A strange dance to the rhythm of crowd cheers. After each "spot" we would cheer the wrestler's names.

Then, at the end of the match, after Edge has secured the good-guy win, the good guy/bad guy narrative struggles to hold together. The commentators, of course, praise Eddie's effort but the scene you are supposed to see and hear is one of celebration for Edge's hard-fought victory. But that's not actually what happened.

We cheered the match, of course. But as Edge is celebrating you can see that most people have, by now, actually stopped making noise. They are standing and staring not at Edge but at the immobile Eddie, hoping he is OK. They are pointing to the blood coming from his forehead, looking at him in concern. As Edge is limping up the ramp, notice that the cheering stops abruptly. It's an audio flub; we weren't cheering. We were all looking at Eddie.

Eddie sat up but stayed pretty still for a long while, far longer than is implied by the video. Indeed, the video becomes incredibly misleading at that point. In real life, Edge's music faded out and all the cameras shifted back to their spots to prep for the next segment. Only then did Eddie finally roll to his feet, which got all of us up and cheering, chanting his name. Clearly the cameras were still rolling and some of that footage was captured and aired. The video makes it seem that Eddie's music played in the arena. It didn't.

There was no music. It was just an exhausted man and thousands of people standing and knowing we had witnessed that rare poetry that can come in something so ridiculous. Edge came back down the ramp and the two hugged and we cheered and chanted both their names. I lost my voice.

I had long been a wrestling fan before then, and long argued that it is some kind of art. But that match is when I felt there truly was something strangely wonderful to be found. There is beauty to be found there.

-----
Eddie died almost exactly three years later, his heart giving out after years of drug and steroid abuse. He was 38 years old.

In April 2011, Edge retired after suffering a number of neck injuries, which have left him suffering numbness and occasional loss of feeling in his limbs. He is 38 years old. 

Eight things I loved about February

~8~ Jenn's birthday: Easily, the highlight of the month was celebrating Jenn's 29th birthday -- not so much for what we did but simply for the fact that Jenn is awesome. It's fun to celebrate the people you care about, even when your method of celebration isn't all that creative. As we did last year, we celebrated Jenn's birthday with a trip to the Thermae Spa in Bath.

Bath's name, of course, comes from the fact that it is home to natural hot springs that have served as a draw since the pre-Roman age. For a while, though, it wasn't actually possible to bathe in said waters because the British people are like that: people come to a place for thousands of years to experience something and then you just sort of close it down for a few decades. It's like not having music in New Orleans -- just a museum where you can look at musicians.

But all is well these days. My favourite part of the Thermae Spa is the rooftop pool. It's a pool on a rooftop, yo. Does anyone know if we have such a thing in Wales? Hell, do we even have any outdoor pools in Wales?

After lounging in the rooftop pool (and mineral pool and steam rooms) until our fingertips were wrinkled, we went to dinner at a Tibetan/Nepali place that is now toward the top of the ever-expanding list of reasons why I love Bath. Someday, Historic Bath, I will make loads of money and live in you. I will have a house near the centre of town and friends will come to visit and tell me that my life is like a film.

The next day, a number of Jenn's friends came over for a birthday lunch that dragged into a birthday afternoon, a birthday dinner and a birthday evening. One of the things I love about Jenn's friends, Clint and Laura, specifically, is they remind me of characters from Hemingway's life.

~8~ Writing: I know I listed writing as a thing I loved about January, but I was still writing in February and still loving it. In February I found a bit more of my stride and the half-term break allowed me a week off teaching to focus on the book that I am now certain will actually become a book. When I wrote The Way Forward (only £1.97?! What a deal!) and Cwrw Am Ddim I had a belief that there existed some magical word-count point of no return: a number of words which, once written, would ensure completion of the project. Because who would write, say, 25,000 words of something and then just walk away?

This guy. I did that with the never-to-be-completed Sgidiau Caerdydd (your loss, Welshies) in 2010. To some extent, I feel that action initiated or, at least, exacerbated my very long stint of writer's block. Each time I would start in on something, some part of me would think: "Hmm, what if I abandon this project, too? Well, in that case, why am I even starting it?"

I seem to have a good head of steam for Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama, however, a clear idea of where it's going, and a relative sense of how long the whole thing will take. Knowing how a book ends and having at least a vague idea of when I'll get there helps in its writing, I think. I write best when I've drawn a good map. I have long said that if I were to ever teach creative writing I would spend a certain amount of time focusing on the task of plotting shit out.

~8~ The good thing I can't tell you about: It's a secret, bitches. I promise to tell you later. Feel free to offer guesses in the comments.

~8~ Masterchef: I'll be honest with you, my brothers and sisters from other mothers and misters: February wasn't the most exciting month. Jenn and I spent the bulk of it fretting about money and I'm pretty sure the sun only came out once. Finding eight things to love about it is a challenge. Writing and celebrating Jenn were enough that I will not have this February eliminated once I become President of Time, but it was not so great that I shall enter it into The Great Book of Awesome Months. I struggle to think of eight actually loveable things. February was a month of muddling through. One way we did so was occasionally losing ourselves in unchallenging television.

Masterchef, for those of you playing along at home, is an example of such television. It is a programme in which a great slough of amateur cooks are whittled down to one, who is then given a kind of trophy that looks very much like that old paperclip fella in Microsoft Word. Each of them insists that cooking is their "passion" and that it "means everything" to them that they win and that they hope to one day open a restaurant. I always find this last part to be especially ridiculous. Do you know anyone who runs a restaurant? They are the picture of stress and woe. And here are a load of people who can't even remember to put their damn panna cotta in the blast chiller on time. Fools, I tell you. Damned fools. 

But Jenn and I enjoyed cuddling up on the sofa and watching it all.

~8~ The long train journey from Penarth to Ebbw Vale: You probably wouldn't identify a five-hour roundtrip commute as something to love. And often it's not. Such as when I'm standing on a cold train platform at 11 p.m., wishing I could just be home with my fiancée and watching bad TV. But there is all that time to read and think, which I have come to really value. I like finding a seat over one of the rattling, inefficient heating vents on the train and simply getting lost in a narrative -- my own or someone else's -- as South Wales blurs past. It is not the sort of luxury or style I envisioned when I thought of myself living in Europe -- Arriva Trains Wales is the Dodge Aries of public transportation -- but it is pleasant in its own rundown way.

~8~ Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey: One of the books read on those long journeys up and down the Ebbw valley was Parrot and Olivier in America, a book about a French aristocrat visiting 1830s America along with his begrudging servant. It is a book I had wanted to read for a while, since I heard it reviewed on an Economist podcast. I am a total mark for the Economist. They sell themselves as being a magazine for intelligent sophisticates and I fall for it like those boneheads who vote Republican because they see it as a party of the rich and they want to be rich. The Economist sells itself as something for the intelligent middle-class, and I buy it because I want to be intelligent middle-class. Well, actually, I don't buy it; I can't afford it. I listen to the free podcasts. And on that podcast I once heard them talking about Parrot and Olivier in America and decided it was a book I wanted to read because people with posh accents were talking about it. A few years later, I finally did read it -- on a Kindle, on a train, in Europe -- and I felt very good about myself. Although, I'm not entirely sure it was all that great a book.

~8~ Blogging just a tiny bit more: I seem to be managing a blog post a week these days. It is not always gold, I'll admit, but I suppose I don't really mind since the number of people reading could fit easily into a Ford Aerostar (two economy car jokes in one blog post! Boom!). As I am happy to be writing a book, I am happy to be producing extraneous stuff. My mind is working, yo, I am alive and not dead. Which is usually a pretty good thing. Unless you are Franco. If you are Franco, you really should be dead -- Spain buried you more than 30 years ago and they aren't all that fond of you anymore. Go back to being dead, sir. It's best for all involved.

(Wouldn't it be funny if my blog was the first point of reference for zombie dictators?) 

~8~ Breathing: I search my memory each month to think of things to put in these Eight Things posts, but there are often simple things left out. Unlike Franco, I am not dead. And I'm sure I'm not thankful enough for this simple fact. I have a body and mind that usually function relatively well; I have a beautiful fiancée; I have food to eat; I have a place to sleep. Air comes in and air goes out -- all the time, never stopping. The other day, the sun was shining and I found myself walking down the street humming the chorus to Brother Ali's "Fresh Air" and thought, too, of the song's first line: "I'm the luckiest son of a bitch that ever lived." In our own ways, many of us are, indeed, pretty lucky. I am, too. The air keeps flowing in and out of my lungs. I watch crappy television and rumble along on outdated trains and dream and read and think and live. What's not to love?

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi yng Nglyn Ebwy

It is St. David's Day in Ebbw Vale. The feeling of life, though, comes more from the sun -- far rarer on this island than the days of its myriad patron saints.

Along the row of houses opposite the train station there is a church I had thought abandoned. Today a man stands precariously at the end of a ladder, stretching to scrub clean one of its windows.

"What's the best way to Tredegar," a girl asks me. 

"Not sure," I say. "I usually walk into town. From there, I guess I'd look for a bus."

"Oh. Close, is it?" she asks.

"About two miles."

She communicates inaudibly that two miles is not close. I point toward a bus stand and let her know a service will be along in about 40 minutes that can take her up the hill. Probably to Tredegar, too.

The sun is shining as I walk along Festival Drive. Behind me the last of the morning fog blends with blinding sunshine so the valley is radiant in soft white, as if a Glamour Shots photo. As I near town, the once-beautiful buildings have a new feel to them. Each defect is clearer. It is hard to say when Ebbw Vale looks most sad: in the rain, when misery soaks into the stone; or in the sunshine, when there is no greater misery to disappear into.

On Church Street I can hear the call of a rag-and-bone man, singing out over a megaphone as he drives along. You might have to look up what a rag-and-bone man is. They are things of the past, but they exist still in this valley where many other jobs don't. Atop one of the buildings a group of men sit on scaffolding, listening to the radio and hammering at something. I suspect they do not really know what they are doing. I suspect it does not really matter. It is one of a whole row of abandoned buildings. 

Further up, a county worker, in shining high-vis jacket, swings into a handrail with a large, splintered chunk of wood. A car has run into it and he is trying to put it back into place.

There are more people to be seen as I near the Seven Arches. Phlegmy smoker's coughs echo down the street. All around is the hollow clink of cheap NHS crutches -- fashion accessories of the South Wales Valleys, worn to assist in the pursuit of state benefits. The sun shines as I reach the wide stretches of pavement along Bethcar Street and I am struck by the colour-drained, well-worn nature of the coats and jackets shuffling here and there. Faded brown, weary black and the occasional dirty pink.

"For fuck's sake, mun, no," shouts a girl down a phone. "I don' fuckin' wan' tha' does I? Jus' pu'my fuckin' 'hings whe' I cahn fuckin' fin' 'em an' fuckin' go, like."

No one notices her. An old woman with tree-trunk legs stands at the edge of the road and darts her head around like a bird before crossing. 

A wide group of wild-eyed skinny men flank each other and stretch across the whole of the space before me. They walk with that mad drunk-drugged strut. I wonder when they last spent 48 hours sober. Three are walking down the middle of the actual road and as a car pulls up behind them, one looks over his shoulder and seems to taunt the driver before slowly drifting to the pavement. He ends up being right in front of me. In an instant, he sees me then pretends he doesn't -- because these guys are tough only when they don't look you in the eye. I stop walking, stand and let the group part around me. As they do, I breathe in the cider and cigarette smoke so strong I can taste it.

Large women stand in groups chatting, smoking, scolding their children. Simply shouting, "Rhys, fuckin' stop it!" causes four different boys to snap to attention. When there are just two women, they stand face to face, their meaty arms folded across their wide chests. Outside the Wetherspoons, two bent-over old men hold to each others' shoulders and gesture with cigarettes as they talk.

My classroom sits on the second floor of the LAC, or the first floor, depending on which country you're from. From its window I look out past town to the soft, old hills that rise up on either side of the town. Old stone walls divide it up like a children's drawing. Sheep and horses graze. Jackdaws circle and dive and soar across both worlds, seemingly the only connection between the two.

"Sorry I wasn' here las' week, Chris," says one of my students. "But I finally had a chance at gettin' a flat, you see. I been waitin' almos' a year, I have."

My head processes that she has been on a waiting list for a council flat. Some part of me tries to form an opinion about welfare housing. It seems that's the sort of issue on which a person should have an opinion. But I don't really.

"Canolfan means centre, don't it Chris?" she says.

"Yes. Da iawn," I say.

"Yeah, I saw it the other day when I was signin' on," she says. "Always learnin' I am."

Another student shows up with Welsh cakes for the class. They all get lost in a discussion of how awful the English are. Wisps of cloud stretch across the low blue sky. Arrow-straigt contrails seem to stretch the horizon. Two horses chase each other on the hill in the distance. Along Market Street a tall transvestite walks with a dirty, wooly dog strapped to his waist. 

21,291 words

I've mentioned a few times before that I am writing a book at the moment. I should probably clarify and say that I am actually writing it now. Well, not right now. This is a blog post. So, in fact, I am not writing a book at the moment. Or, maybe I am. You can take as assurance that this blog post is no longer being written by the fact you are now reading it. So, perhaps I am, indeed, writing my book right now, at this very second. Or perhaps I'm not. Such is the mystery and wonder of life.

What I mean, of course, is that in the present stretch of days and weeks and months I am occasionally writing, and, more often than not, those occasions are directed toward the accumulation of words and paragraphs that will one day comprise a book, which, hopefully, one day you will buy. When I say that I am actually writing it, what I mean is that I am not just saying that I'm writing a book. The latter activity seems to be an important part of my writing process. Before writing a book, I must spend roughly a year or more telling people that I am writing a book.

Now, though, I've moved beyond that stage to the utterly exciting part in which I sit in front of my laptop for hours and hours, feeling my shoulders and neck go all tight, tapping out word after word that I will later probably hate and end up deleting. Another requisite facet of my writing process is that I must be unhappy with everything I do.

Really, when you think about it, writing is a terrible career choice. I earn almost no money off it and it makes me want to throw myself in front of buses. Not really, though, because buses hurt. Sitting in front of a laptop all the time makes me rather fragile; the last thing I want is sweet release via bus. Unless it's a bus made of pillows.

A bus made of pillows would be awesome. I would totally throw myself in front of that. It probably wouldn't kill me, though. It'd just pick me up, and aboard would be Boris Johnson serving pancakes and it would be a really great time. Then I would return home and become blindingly angry at myself for having wasted the day eating pancakes with the mayor of London on a pillow bus when I should have been writing my damned book.

It's been more than two years since I last completed a book (I wrote 20,000 words of a Welsh-language novel in 2010, deleted them all, wrote 20,000 more and then decided I didn't really want to write in Welsh anymore) and that space of time seems to annoy the hell out of me. I wake up frustrated at the fact that, although, I am writing a book at the moment I am not writing a book at that moment. I slip into highly unproductive rages at the fact I have been so unproductive.

In an effort to make myself feel just a tiny bit better I like to keep track of how things are going. Ah, the good ol' word count: I assuage my self-doubt by equalling quantity with quality. So, right now I've managed to string together 21,291 words for my book -- those in addition to all the words in its title: Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama: How the Tiny Nation of Wales Crushed My Dreams and Robbed Me of My Will to Live.

I can't decide whether 21,000 is a lot of words. Before the start of the year I had roughly 5,000 words lingering on my laptop. I had slapped those together for the sake of being able to apply for a writing grant, back in October (I didn't get it). My goal is something in the 70,000 range. At this rate, that would mean completing a rough draft some time in September/October of this year. I find that to be a disappointing rate of progress.

In truth, I want the book to have been written already. I am upset at all I have not done since a stretch in 2009-2010 when I was, I feel, writing pretty well. And I am frustrated that I have nothing to put forward to try to sell. I mentioned before that I, ridiculously, feel more likely to publish a book than get a job.

So, in an effort to push myself more I am putting my word count on my blog. I don't actually understand how this helps, but it does. It makes it official: I am writing a book -- 21,291 words of which are already written -- and I intend to keep doing so.

The constant slow

A return ticket to Ebbw Vale costs £7 (US$11) from Penarth. A ticket to Newport is £5.80 ($9.12) return and then an additional £2.75 ($4.32) to get the bus out to Caerleon. I go to Ebbw Vale twice a week, Caerleon once. Total weekly travel cost: £22.55 ($35.44).

The distance between Penarth and Ebbw Vale is roughly 24 miles as the crow flies. I'm not a crow, so I have to take the train on outdated rail up through worn, post-industrial mountain valleys. The journey takes almost exactly an hour and a half, assuming no cows or drunken teenagers get loose onto the tracks. Once there, I have to walk an additional two miles to the LAC, where I teach. On Mondays I have one lesson, on Thursdays I have two. Afterward, I walk the two miles back to the station and do the whole journey in reverse. In the evening it takes a little longer to get home. In total, I spend 10 hours a week commuting to and from Ebbw Vale. I teach there six hours a week.

The back and forth to Caerleon isn't quite as bad. The distance between is about 16 miles and travel via train and bus only takes an hour and a quarter. The walking is not so much that I really notice; I'd guess I cover about a mile overall. The journey back is more of a pain because unlucky timing can dramatically increase how long it takes. If I do everything right, I'm home in a 1 hour and 15 minutes; if I do everything wrong, it can take two and a half hours. On average, it takes an hour and a half. I teach two hours a week there.

Of the two commutes, I prefer the one to Ebbw Vale. It takes longer but the time on the train allows opportunity to read; being guaranteed eight miles of walking each week keeps me healthy. And there is less stress. On the trip to Caerleon, I switch from train to bus in Newport, which is not exactly world-renown for its safety. At night I have to walk through a series of pedestrian subways, which strike me as ideal places to be attacked. The alternative, though, would be running across a mesh of roads where people are driving upward of 50 mph. I think constantly of how I will respond if attacked; I fill my head with violence.

"Kill them," I tell myself. "If someone comes at you, fight back with intent to kill. They will probably be stronger than you, probably be tougher, probably be on drugs and more impervious to pain. Your only hope is ferocity. Simple defence won't be enough. You must try to kill them. Hopefully, that will be enough to make them run away."

I think often of buying a hatchet to carry with me on that walk. Because if some dude pulls a hatchet on you, that's just nuts. It sends the right message: whatever this guy in a second-hand coat may or may not have on his person isn't worth the hassle. But I've yet to buy one because: a) I'm guessing such a thing would be difficult to explain to a police officer, should one see me walking down the street with a hatchet; b) I don't really have the money for such a thing; c) I'd be doing all this just for the sake of teaching Welsh.

All in all, I earn £162.60 ($255.54) a week, before taxes. That is only slightly more than what I'd get from Jobseeker's Allowance, but as an immigrant I am not eligible for any assistance from the state. I've been out of full-time employment for some years now. Technically, I've not held a full-time job since 2006, but four of the past years were spent earning my bachelor's and master's -- degrees that have proven to be utterly useless.

Unemployment affects your brain, distorts it in some way that I can't ever fully describe. I am reminded slightly of my rugby-playing days and the feeling of an accepting confusion that comes after being kicked in the head.

We were once playing against Metropolis RFC and it had started to snow. We were getting killed and I had spent the match on the sidelines. As time wound down, I knew I wasn't going to be brought in because my captain had a deep personal vendetta against Metropolis and very little faith in me. So, I wandered around and drew little patterns in the snow with my cleats. Then, suddenly, my captain was screaming for me. A third flanker had been injured; I ran onto the field cold in every sense.

In my first play, I got the ball, made a few yards and was trampled in the ruck. I still have the cleat marks in my upper back, almost eight years later. Getting to my feet, I reached back to gently prod the ripped flesh and then looked at my hand, covered in blood. Everything felt out of step. My timing was wrong. My cold muscles wouldn't respond as I wanted them to. But my captain's rage drove us all on.

There was a quick fight and my captain got even hotter. A few phases after, the fly-half popped the ball to me and my captain swung in behind as support. He screamed, "Crash! Crash!" and I put my head down to simply drive into the defense -- no finesse, just throwing a body full-speed into a wall. His calling the play had tipped off the defense and I was driven down by three forwards. But using three defenders on a single player had created a gap.

My captain was desperate to capitalise. He was in full sprint behind me and decided, as I was being thrown to the ground, to kick the ball forward rather than bend down and form a ruck, rather than rely on anyone else on the team. So, he kicked the ball. The ball that I was holding. The ball that I was protecting by curling up into the fetal position. The ball I was clutching so tightly that it went nowhere. The force of his kick slipped his boot off the ball, to my forehead.

I don't know what happened. And then I was being pulled to my feet by one of the Metropolis players. All the action had moved a good 20 yards beyond, and it felt that he and I were the only ones on the field.

"You alright, bud?" he asked.

"Yeah. I think so," I said.

He slapped me on the back and we jogged forward to join our respective teams in beating the crap out of each other. My team lost, 27-17.

Obviously, there is no physical pain caused by long-term unemployment. But what I feel is that from-the-soul deep mix of confusion, sadness, exhaustion and betrayal. That feeling of thinking, "What am I doing? What is the point of this? Why have I been left alone?" of wanting to sit down and cry from all of it, but instead just carrying on running halfheartedly forward.

I apply for jobs constantly. When there are no jobs to apply for, I write to companies and organisations telling them of my skills and asking if there's any chance they could find a place for me. I cast a wide net: everything from Google to Prince Charles. Rejections trickle in at a slower rate than my applications -- most companies don't even bother getting in touch to say no.

I try to keep busy. Often you hear stories of the unemployed and they are listless, dislikeable people who spend their days watching television and drinking cold tea from dirty mugs. I read, I tidy the flat, I apply for jobs, I try to stay healthy. I also spend time working on another book. This will be my third. The other two sold only enough copies to cover a week's travel expenses. But I feel that this book is the best of my options. Two years of constant rejection has driven me to believe that my best hope, my only hope lies down the twice-unsuccessful path of being an author.

I try to tell myself things will get better. But in my heart I know they won't.

Mr. Holt's first time

"And... uh... OK... uhm... Do you, do you... I'm trying to think if... Uhm. Oh. Mae'n flin 'da fi. Dwi newydd golli fy lle. Pawb yn deall? Na? No... I'm... I'm not..."

Mr. Holt was lost. Totally. Whoever had been sent forward, wherever he had come from, he didn't have a clue. He didn't shout, "Hey-hey now!" He didn't step back to the podium to check his notes. He didn't wave his hand across the room, randomly pick a student and say: "Atgoffwch fi: ble 'dyn ni?" He didn't even look at his wrist.

His reaction to the episodes was the best part of Mr. Holt's class for most people, I think. I mean, what the hell were so many people going to do with the Welsh language? Mid-sentence, he would rock over and to the side, his head moving in semi-circle, then he'd right himself, and his eyes would refocus onto a roomful of people sat up and eager to see who had been brought forward this time. Probably the best episodes were the ones that brought forward a Mr. Holt who knew all the routines, one who had already had several episodes and had learned to easily deal with them.

Sometimes, thinking we'd not noticed, he would slyly look at his wrist and try to play it all off as if nothing had happened. Other times, he'd run to the window like a little boy to see what kind of day he'd been given. Often, he would smile and joke. I remember his coming out of an episode once, staring quietly at Callum Johnson for about half a minute, then leaning forward and putting his hand on Callum's shoulder.

"I have grave news for you, my boy," he said. "Your haircut makes you look an absolute fool, and I'm pretty sure everyone in here knows it."

This episode, though, was obviously different. This Mr. Holt didn't know what to do. Instead of being fun or joking he looked sad and almost terrified. His shoulders slouched down. He touched the right side of his head, looked at his hand. And in his being lost we were all lost, too. We just stared back until finally Marilyn tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Hey, you're supposed to help him out."

"Mr. Holt?" I said, raising my hand. "Hi, it's me, Minnesota. Look at your wrist, Mr. Holt. The band on your left wrist."

"Moorhead. 23.09.24," he read.

He stared at it, blank. The wristband didn't even make sense to him!

"Where you are, and the date," I explained. "The wristbands help you get your bearings. You like to write the date like that. You know, September 23rd, 2024. That's today."

Probably the easiest way to think of it is to say that Mr. Holt was a time traveller. Except that he never actually went anywhere. Mr. Holt sometimes compared it to an old TV show, "Quantum Leap," which I've never seen. Apparently, though, the main character would travel through time and find himself in the bodies of different people. But in this case it was always just Mr. Holt in the body of Mr. Holt. It was mental illness rather than science fiction. Various things would cause him to have flashbacks, the same things that cause flashbacks in all of us, I would guess: the weather, a smell, lighting, someone's clothes or voice, whatever. It happens all the time.

Like, I'll be in the grocery store and suddenly think of being 6 years old and singing old Lady Gaga songs in my underwear. But where it's different is that I'm still in the grocery store and I'm still 20. Mr. Holt's mind sends him back and finds that person he was, then, as quickly as the mind works, it sends that older version of himself forward, intact. He has an episode and suddenly there's a younger version of Mr. Holt standing in front of you. Or, at least there is as far as he's concerned. Sometimes he's a few years younger, sometimes only a few days.

His condition made him famous for a while all across the country. He was on all kinds of shows. He's still a celebrity up here. His classes fill up every year, despite the fact that they are hard, and in a subject no one cares about. He suffers about two or three episodes a month and usually they wear off within an hour or so -- sometimes before the end of class. That's the funny thing about him: he always just rolls with it and keeps teaching. Nothing will stop Mr. Holt from making us conjugate all the forms of "bod."

"I'm sorry. It's the year 2024?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And I'm in Moorhead?"

"Yes."

"Moorhead, Minnesota?"

"Yes."

"This, uhm, iPad thing in my hand... I'm up here teaching Welsh, it would seem. I'm teaching Welsh in Moorhead, Minnesota?"

"It's called a tablet. And, yes, you teach Welsh at MSU Moorhead."

"How the fuck did that happen?"

The class laughed. Partly in relief.

"You say that a lot," I said.

"I do, huh? I'm sorry, please don't be offended, but do I know you?"

"Yes," I said. "It's me, Minnesota. Remember?"

"Your name is Minnesota?"

"Yes."

"Ah. It's a very pretty name. Unique. Beautiful, actually."

"Well, I guess you'd think that. You're the one who came up with it," I said.

Light chuckling through the classroom.

"What, I named you?"

"Yes. I'm Pete Ericson's daughter."

"Pete? My best friend, Pete?" he rubbed his face, doing that man thing of trying to rub away tears. "What? After Alia and... the boy... he's not even born yet."

There was that mystery solved. This Mr. Holt had come from a time before my older brother had even been born. That put him about 22 years or so from the present -- the youngest version of Mr. Holt I had ever met. From his confusion, this was the first time he had ever experienced an episode.

"Pete let me name one of his daughters?" asked Mr. Holt. "Why on Earth did he let me do that? Was your mother in on it? She let me do that?"

"Well, I guess maybe it was their way of saying thanks for the house you bought them."

"I bought your parents a house?! How the hell did that happen? I don't even have money for new shoes, love!"

Laughter. This was why people showed up to Mr. Holt's classes -- the joy of getting to watch someone see himself with fresh eyes. Our lives are so much more than we usually realize. We get lost in the immediate, in the day to day, and lose grasp of how amazing is the whole.

"I guess things get better for you," I said.

"I guess they do. That's very comforting. And I'm very glad to see, Minnesota, that you've not inherited your father's looks."

He was starting to warm, more aware of the fact he had an audience. He grinned and did a little dance of shifting his weight from one to another. His eyes wandered out the window, to the autumn leaves and ivy on the walls of MacLean Hall.

"Minnesota, I'm afraid I've got a lot of questions I'd like to ask you," he said. "For example, this wedding ring on my finger. I'm looking forward to finding out who's on the other end of it. I hope she's hot. Well, I'm sure she is; I've always had very good taste. I'm also eager to find out where I live. And this whole Moorhead thing -- that's really intriguing. But, first, I see by the clock that it is 11:10. I am guessing that, bare minimum, this class does not end until noon..."

"Yeah, class goes 'til 12."

"Fifty minutes. Cool. Good," he said, grabbing pieces of paper from the podium. "And I'm guessing these are my notes. Hey-hey now, da iawn. This looks like the lesson I was just about to teach, actually. I was in Newport just now, setting up for a night course. I had been attacked whilst walking to the class but hadn't called the police because it would have meant missing the lesson. And I needed the money, see?"

When we get to cheat

John Thompson had his arms ripped off by a piece of farm machinery when he was 18 years old.

That sort of thing happens in North Dakota. Go to the diners and bars and churches of the Peace Garden State, look at the worn hands of old men and you will see fingers missing. Sometimes the whole hand. Sometimes more. The fabric of the universe is woven together with unfairness and sometimes the simple act of trying to feed your family will cost a piece of you.

John's arms were ripped off just below the shoulder and he was knocked unconscious. His dog brought him back, licking his face, whining and barking. Confused, blood pouring from his body, John rocked himself up and onto his feet. 

"I didn't want to lay there and die," he later told a newspaper.

He dizzily made his way 150 yards to the house and managed to open the door with a series of kicks. He fell inside, found a pencil with which to clench in his teeth and dialled 911. He calmly explained to the person on the other end what had happened, asked if they wouldn't mind sending an ambulance, then went to sit in the bathtub, so he wouldn't get blood on his mother's new carpet.

It was January, which is a bitterly cold and awful time to be in North Dakota, unless, perhaps, you've just had your arms ripped off. The cold and snow helped to preserve his arms. Because of it, all three items -- John, his left arm, and his right arm -- arrived the hospital in about the best condition one could expect for things which shouldn't ever be separated.

The state of North Dakota, of course, is conveniently located next to the state of Minnesota, which, fortunately for John, is home to all kinds of amazing medical research. John and his arms were quickly transported there and it was collectively decided by family and doctors: Hey, what the hell -- let's try strapping these things back on and see what happens.

The story made national news. I was 13 years old at the time, living in a Minneapolis suburb, and John's story was to be found on every newscast, every night, for several days. Over and over they'd show an airbrushed high school yearbook photo of a pimple-faced, scrawny boy with one of the most embarrassing mullets you've ever seen, posing next to his dog. A local daytime talk show promised to have an expert on to discuss John's case and I faked illness to be able to stay home and watch it.

Eventually, he was there in front of the cameras, painfully shy and awkward, his arms in slings and his hands purple and puffy, but amazingly and miraculously intact. He quietly apologised to his mother for getting any blood on the carpet and promised to clean it up as soon as he could, and smiled a quiet little smile while the whole room laughed and cheered and cameras clicked and whirred.

Several months later, he was asked to sing the National Anthem at a Twins baseball game. He came and stood in front of thousands of people and the shyness on his face suggested he might have preferred to just have his arms ripped off again rather than suffer all this attention. He warbled through the anthem and I found myself crying as I watched. 

That was 20 years ago. His story has stuck with me ever since. I found myself thinking about him again this morning.

I am a cynical person. I often blame my years working in journalism, but I don't know if that's actually true. Maybe I am just a miserable person. And when I look at the world around me, I see running through it, as I say, unfairness and cruelty. These things are constants -- they are inevitabilities. Bad stuff is going to happen. When another baby is mauled to death by a pit bull, when another child drowns, when another young mother is brutally murdered, when another father is killed by a drunken driver, when another grandmother dies of neglect, I find myself frustratingly unaffected. It is sad, but not surprising. Terrible things are waiting for all of us.

John's story has stuck with me because it feels as if he cheated. His arms were ripped off, but then someone put them back on so he could wave his middle finger in the face of fate. And when one of us somehow gets away with such a thing -- even just one of us -- it gives you hope. It makes me think: Maybe I, too, could win that lottery, could somehow pull off a stunning upset against the incontrovertibility of misery. Chilean miners, Ernest Shackleton walking 32 miles over mountains, and John Thompson getting his arms back are things that help me get out of bed in the morning.

But when good things happen to me, I get worried. I think: maybe that was it; maybe that was my last triumph; maybe I won't get to cheat again.

Eight things I loved about January

~8~ Reading: I mentioned in a previous post that I've been reading quite a bit more lately, thanks to the fact my parents gave me a Kindle for Christmas. There's something silly about the fact I wrote a book for Kindle more than a year ago but did not actually own one of the devices until just recently. After initially thinking e-readers were an awful idea (when my mother first asked me about them roughly a decade ago) I have now become so in their favour that I feel exasperated by those who express opposition to the technology.

I'm not one to think that the beloved old paper-bound book will ever cease to exist, but I don't hold any ridiculous emotional attachment to a book's smell or feel or taste or whatever the hell it is that e-book detractors lament the absence of. To me, a book is not a physical experience. If I want to touch and feel something, I prefer it to be a lady. The words are all that really matter to me, so I am happy for them to exist on a small device that fits easily into my backpack. I realise I may be in a minority on this in particular, but I have always thoroughly disliked the actual feel of books.
"Turning pages has always felt creepy," I mentioned to Jenn recently.
She just laughed at me.
Like a lot of people with e-readers, I find myself now reading more as a result of owning one. I don't quite understand why this is. I suppose one reason is that I am able to prop the reader up and continue reading whilst eating a meal. I had never figured a good way to eat whilst reading a physical book. I had trouble keeping the book on the right page without the assistance of some sort of weight, then, once I balanced everything perfectly, turning the page would require putting down the sandwich/barbecue rib/fried dolphin/etc. I was eating, wiping my hands, turning the page, and re-positioning everything all over again.
Now I need only keep a pinky clean to be able to advance the story. Hooray progress.
Admittedly, there are some drawbacks: an e-reader will come out worse if thrown from the top of a house or if left in the polar regions; an e-reader makes a less functional place marker at a coffee shop (a thief is unlikely to take your physical copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna, but would be happy to walk off with a Kindle); and some vane, self-involved part of me laments that I am not able to put the books I've read onto a shelf so as to impress house guests. But perhaps rows and rows of books written by professional wrestlers wouldn't be all that impressive anyway.

~8~ Writing: My recent increase in literary input seems to have had a positive effect on my output. In January, slowly -- frustratingly slowly -- I found myself tapping out more words. I have begun to work in earnest on a book titled Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama. You may have noticed, as well, a slight uptick in the number of blog posts.
I am frustrated by my slowness, though -- frustrated by the fact I am not as prolific as I used to be (nor, I feel, as witty).
But it is something.
I've suffered a kind of on-off comfortable writer's block since summer 2010, so it is not surprising I am this out of practise, that the ideas and phrases don't form as quickly as I know they can, and as I feel they should. In the moments I am honest with myself, I can admit I am still trying to pull my feet from that swamp. But in all other moments I feel frustrated; I get afraid I've lost my talent.
Still, it is something.
I am writing, and that is more like the person I want myself to be.

~8~ 'Rithmetic: I'm having to use some old-school misspelling to stick to the alliterative theme of this post. And by "arithmetic" what I actually mean is "finance." And it's not really something that I'm loving. But, January was a month in which I started to get a slight grasp on my currently woeful financial situation. The biggest step toward that was scrapping my car. That means I no longer have access to most of Wales, but it also means no longer carrying the burden of insurance, tax, MOT, maintenance and petrol. As I write this, I have just £6 in my current account but it is still early in the month -- my pittance from Welsh teaching has yet to arrive. So, I am assuming, hoping, that eventually this course of action will be of some benefit. In particular, I am hoping to see some kind of benefit in time to get Jenn a birthday present.

~8~ Resume: The reason I am in such financial dire straits, of course, is that I remain without full-time employment. The effect of this is overwhelming; I am being suffocated by a sense of uselessness, which makes me in turns despondent and bitterly angry. Frustratingly, I know the only way to break loose of all this misery is to get work, and the best way to get work is to not allow myself to be consumed by the misery.
Actually, let me clarify: It is not work that I want, but money. If I had money, there are plenty of things I could and would do to keep my mind, body and spirit busy. But I don't have money, so I need work. The fact that I cannot find work -- that I am able-bodied, quick-minded, hard-working, possess two university degrees and nigh 20 years experience, but am still unemployed -- is like an emotional cancer.
I will be honest with you that I have lost faith in myself. But, unfortunately, a lack of self-belief does nothing to stave hunger. I still need to eat; I still get cold when exposed to Britain's predictably shitty climate. And since repeated attempts to will myself to death have failed I am left with only the option of continuing to try. In January, then, I have pushed myself additionally to find work. I am applying for jobs across a large geographic swathe, stretching from Swansea to Bath, and have set a rule for myself that I must apply for at least one job a week.
Thus far it has accomplished nothing and with each week that passes I feel more despondent. So, to say that this is something I loved about January is a lie. But I have, at least, the hollow pride of knowing that I'm trying.

~8~ Wrestling: Amid my seemingly constant state of depression I find myself finding solace in the world of professional wrestling. Particularly, I enjoy listening to Colt Cabana's weekly podcast. Colt is a wrestler who has long been a staple of the independent circuit, bouncing around from city to city, country to country, performing in anything from arenas to barrooms. It's something you can't help but admire. This is what he wants to do and he is pushing and pushing to make it happen.
The career of professional wrestling is a strange one, to say the least. In his book, A Lion's Tale, WWE wrestler Chris Jericho points out that professional wrestling was borne of carnival sideshows in the 1800s and, despite all the world's progress and all the changes in how the performances are done, it still holds to that tradition. It does so especially in business dealings. Wrestlers are constantly lied to to by promoters -- swindled, used and overworked. But even when things go right, the wrestler's job is to get the crap beaten out of him. Yes, the outcome is pre-determined, but there's no way to throw yourself to the ground over and over and have it not hurt.
So, physically, emotionally and financially Colt (and any other wrestler) has to struggle endlessly. The only way you can avoid struggle in wrestling is to quit wrestling. I admire that.
I mentioned in my previous post that I've emotionally divorced myself from the Welsh-language experience. Having accepted that coming to Wales was a major fuck up, I can't now help but feel a certain level of frustration as I try to build my life toward something that I can actually appreciate. But in following the tales of wrestlers I feel a kind of comfort and kinship. Surely, Colt must find himself at times thinking: "What the hell is the point of this?" I can relate to that: the sense of deep anger and frustration at one's "dream" turning out badly. But, additionally, I can compare the two situations and think: "Well, at least I'm not getting the shit beat out of me."

~8~ Ridgeways walk: One of the reasons it upsets me so much to be sans car is that accessing many of the parts of Britain that are worth seeing, the parts that are open and "natural" and allow me to not feel so sick with confinement, is really hard. That challenge is exacerbated by the fact Jenn rarely ever has a day off. So, the trains and buses one would suggest as an alternative are nugatory because using them would eat up all the time we have for any given activity. It all feels sickeningly unfair, but it is the situation that exists.
We are doing our best to combat it, though -- investing time into staring at maps and trying to work out walks that could be done with minimal travelling. One of the best ones so far has been a walk we did across the northern edge of Cardiff's city limits. We were able to take the train from Penarth to Lisvane and Thornhill station then stumble our way through mud and forest down to the station at Taff's Well. It was not exactly trekking in Colorado, but I enjoyed it.

~8~ Running: Can you tell that I'm angry? My deep and increasing bitterness can't even be held back for a simple blog post in which I am supposed to be highlighting the positives of my life. I was worse before January. In December I allowed my swingy-uppy-downy broken brain to get the best of me to such an extent that I stopped working out. Which, of course, only served to increase my sadness exponentially. In January, however, I managed to get myself out of the house a few times and go running. I still have not really found a route that I enjoy in P-Town, one where I can simply shut off my brain and not feel nervous about people or cars, and I think that makes it difficult for me to build motivation. In running literally I like to feel that I am running metaphorically, that I am getting away from the weirdness and the cruelty. Doing that is tricky in Penarth. You have to keep your brain constantly on as you dodge cars and teenagers and self-involved dog owners and uneven surfaces.
But annoyances of not running are far worse, so I've been making myself do it.
Additionally, I've switched gyms, which is kind of fun. Without the car my previous gym had become frustratingly inconvenient. I did not manage to visit it at all in the month of January. On the last day of the month, I cancelled my old membership and enrolled at a gym that I can walk to.

~8~ Reichenbach Fall: The second series of "Sherlock" came and went in January. I enjoyed two out of the three movie-length episodes, feeling the one about H.O.U.N.D. was a bit weak. Ammends were made, however, with the cliffhanger mystery of how Sherlock had managed to fake his own death. Additionally there is the question of what happened to Moriarty; did he, too, fake his death? There was no mention of him in the aftermath of events.

Resolute

My resolutions for 2011 were to read 20 books, write one book, get a full-time job and visit Scotland. I accomplished none of these things. In a majority of categories, 2011 was a failure for me. Thankfully, the categories of life of not weighted equally, so the areas in which I succeeded -- relationships, primarily -- easily covered for the deficiencies of others. I don't tend to remember specific years, nor to measure my life by them, but I suppose that if I did 2011 would be the year in which I fell in love and not much else.

There aren't so many days left in January, so I feel it may be a bit late to be talking about my resolutions for 2012, but, hey, each moment is new. So, I don't really need to hit a specific day to set myself toward a goal. Besides, maybe I'm going by the Chinese calendar, in which case these resolutions are timely; Chinese New Year was Monday and, traditionally, celebrations for the event last eight days.

Apparently, this is a year of the dragon. I was born in the year of the dragon that was 1976, so am hoping this will bode well for my 2012. This is my year, bitches. And in it I am hoping to read 12 books, write one book, get a full-time job and visit Scotland.

Twelve books:
My failure to meet even 1/5 of my target last year resulted in my lowering my literature expectations for 2012. I honestly don't know what went wrong with me. Off the top of my head I can only remember reading three books -- Pigs in Heaven, by Barbara Kingsolver; A Hole in Texas, by Herman Wouk; and The Rembrandt Bomb, by James Moore -- but I'm pretty sure there was a fourth. I think perhaps I can blame my lack of external input on the shifts occurring internally. Slowly, and in such a way I can't really identify yet beyond simple awareness of its having occurred, I underwent a kind of foundational shift in 2011. The most obvious example I can give is the way in which I effectively divorced myself from the Welsh-language world. Two days after my birthday, I made a conscious decision: "I don't really care about this stuff anymore."
I don't know. This idea of flux causing me not to read may be bullshit. I am the one positing the theory and I struggle to make it connect.
Regardless of why it happened, I read very little in 2011 and in looking at 2012, I decided I should try not to set myself up for disappointment and therefore lowered the bar. Already this year, however, I am en route to achieving my goal. Whereas four books were read in the whole of last year, I am now reading my fifth book of 2012. Long train journeys to work, and a Kindle from Mom and Dad, have served as catalyst.
By the way, did you also get a Kindle for Christmas? You did? Then, why not get my novel: The Way Forward.

One book:
I can't remember when I started to seriously formulate Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama, the book I am working on presently. A year ago, I was intending to complete Sgidiau Caerdydd, a Welsh-language novel about an Iraq War veteran who sells his car to God. I had already written roughly 30,000 words of the novel for my masters degree. But whereas the Cardiff University School of Welsh referred to it as fresh, well-structured and wholly new, Welsh-language publishers Y Lolfa referred to it as too edgy to sell. Welsh-language publishers Gwasg Gomer, who had published my book Cwrw am Ddim, simply refused to respond to my correspondence.
The thing is, I am not an edgy writer. I'd like to think that I am able to approach themes in a fresh way, but by and large I don't think I have ever written something that could honestly be described as edgy, let alone too edgy. The Welsh-language world is lost, so badly killing itself with refusal to glance forward that a guy who draws most of his inspiration from Dave Barry is deemed too edgy. It is comically sad.
And, yes, I am bitter.
But, any hoosiers, the project was dropped. I've had a handful of people suggest to me that the reasons for rejection are exactly why I should push forward with the novel -- fighting to get the book published so that something new exists in a field full of literature that repels all but the most nationalist of Welsh speakers with its torpidity. But, honestly, why?
I am not a Welsh nationalist; Welsh is not my language; Wales is not my country; the Welsh are not my people. Why should I expend so much energy on such a project? If I am going to burn myself up in trying, it is wiser and more profitable (emotionally and financially) to do so attempting to find foothold in the saturated English world.
I managed to draw up a rough outline of Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama, and a few thousand words, by October, but for the most part whatever it was that kept me from reading was also keeping me from writing. I languished until late December, when my agent on The Way Forward got in touch and asked if I was up to anything new. That and my first Christmas home since 2005 have served as a push and I am now, slowly, getting up to speed with Tales. I am hoping to have a solid first draft completed by May, though I have no idea whether this is a realistic timeline, nor why I would choose May as a due date.

A full-time job:
Part of my problem is that for a certain portion of 2011 I was limiting my job search to those where I could make daily use of the Welsh language. In Welsh-language teaching we always claim that Welsh will help you get a job, but I have found this to be bullshit. Unless the job you want is that of a ragged, underpaid, drowned-in-idiot-paperwork Welsh tutor. Even after mentally divorcing myself from the Welsh language I was still trying to play friends with privileges with her, so it was not until the later stages of 2011 that I started to really expand my search beyond Welsh-language opportunities.
Now, I have expanded my search beyond Wales -- to Bristol, Bath, etc. -- and set a rule for myself that, bare minimum, I must apply for one job a week. If I find myself a year from now still without full employment I will at least be able to comfort myself in a blanket of 52 rejections.

Visit Scotland:
How long have I lived in Britain? It is sad and ridiculous that I have never been to Scotland. It is right and logical that I've never been to Scunthorpe, but Scotland? What's wrong with me? Partially, I'm going to lay the blame on the above employment situation. I ain't gots no money, bitches, and that makes travel particularly tricky. On top of this, homesickness seems to consume me at an alarming rate, so any time there is money at hand it is spent on trips to the United States.
I am forced to concede that this resolution is this year again dependent upon the fulfilment of another; I have not yet taken any steps toward planning a Scottish venture. I am hopeful that this dragon year will be my year, that work and money will be found, and that this and all the other resolutions will be met. The next 11 months will tell the story.

-----
(I can't help but be aware of a grumpiness running through this post. As I was writing it I heard a builder working on the café across the street scream, "Oh! Fuck!" and the sound of power tools suddenly stop. I looked out the window to see him, gripping his arm, run to a van with a co-worker and be sped off, their tools still lying in the road. Whatever my laments, I can probably be thankful I am not that guy.)

Eight things I loved about December

I can't remember whether I did an eight things post for November. Let me check... Nope. No, I did not. That's a shame because November had some good bits in it. Thanksgiving, for example; Jenn and I travelled out to London to see my old friends Jen and Dave, and we had a great time.

But I suppose it's not surprising that I didn't manage an eight things post for that month because at roughly the same time my writer's block was reaching its peak and a depression that would hold me until Christmas was starting to settle in.

I have been struggling with words a lot lately. Sometimes I think the vlog is to blame, allowing me an opportunity to more immediately express my thoughts rather than leaving me to ruminate on things. Stories and the desire to tell them are built of sitting and thinking and thinking; it's possible the vlog steps on that somewhat. That said, I like doing the vlog -- for the most part -- so, I'm unwilling to stop. I would rather train myself to do both things.

Each new year I, like almost everyone else, start out with a head full of steam as to what I hope to accomplish in the coming months. And as with years previous, one of my goals is to push myself to write more. I can't help but approach this goal with a certain amount of cynicism because I have lost count of the number of "I'm back"-type posts I've written.

But carrying around cynicism toward my own ideas hasn't gotten me very far; it has produced no books. So, I will take whatever optimism this new year gives me and see what I can make of it. Optimism is the point of an eight things post, to identify at least eight good things that happened to me during the past month. December, admittedly, was an easy one:

~ 8 ~ Getting engaged: As mentioned before, Jenn and I got engaged over the Christmas break. If I were to tell you that I don't now feel just a twinge of nervousness, I would be lying. What if I mess things up? But as Shawn Michaels once advised Chris Jericho about doing a backflip off the top rope: "You just have to go up there and do it, brother."

OK, perhaps it's best not to ween marital advice from professional wrestlers. And perhaps it's additionally unproductive to worry too much about what might happen well beyond my current scope. Right now I know that I love Jenn and am excited about the idea of being able to call myself her husband, and there's no reason to sit and try to force myself to second-guess that.

At the moment, we are thinking the wedding will take place in spring 2013. We've not gotten so far as to nail down any real timeframe other than the fact it would be less of a hassle if the wedding occurs sometime before May 2013, when my visa expires. Ah, such fun. Other couples lament over how many guests to invite and what colour the napkins should be, we have the additional worry of not having one of the wedding participants be tossed from the country.

~ 8 ~ Christmas with my family: I proposed to Jenn in Minnesota. It was her first time to visit my adopted home state and my first time home at Christmas since 2005. I had spent five Christmases away from family, yo. No wonder I was beginning to dislike the Yuletide.
In my absence, my family had forgotten all the traditions that it had always been my responsibility to uphold: "No, we do things such and such way, remember?"
They don't remember because in addition to being the one to keep holiday traditions I am generally the one to have created them. I have always been thankful for the fact I come from a family that doesn't stick to traditions. And having lived in Wales has taught me that traditions are a load of nonsense that can restrict you intellectually and creatively. But all this time living away from family has shown me their value, as well. They are reliable ways to connect.
But, of course, the best moments are those that simply can't be set up. I ensured that we delivered presents in a certain order, and had our big breakfast and so on, but the very best moments came at the end of our trip when my family went to dinner and afterward found ourselves just sitting around talking and telling stories. I think my father and I are the most prolific storytellers, but my brother, Jon, the best.

~ 8 ~ Visiting Minnesota: I can't adequately express how terribly I miss Minnesota at times; I will feel physically sick. Recently I wrote an article for Barn that simply referenced visiting Eric and Kristin's cabin and found myself weeping as I wrote. I miss the extreme seasons most: summer and winter. There are no such things here on the Island of Rain. It gets cold enough to make you miserable in this country but never enough to make you happy. There is no skiing (cross-country or downhill) or skating on frozen lakes. And only rarely does it get warm enough to wear a short-sleeve shirt in the evening; the last time it was hot enough for me to actually want to go swimming was 2006.
Britain is the climate version of being on medication for depression: no extreme lows and no extreme highs. And perhaps that's OK for some but it leaves me feeling that I am missing out. The climate is too mild for autumn to force an explosion of colour, for winter to bury you in snow, for summer to push you into rivers or the sea.
Frustratingly, all that said, Minnesota was not nearly as cold as I had expected/hoped. There was no snow on the ground but for our last few days and at one point it was too warm for us to skating at Centennial Lakes.
Still, I was happy to see it -- happy to be able to wander down into forest, happy to squint my eyes against blinding winter sunshine, to see eagles nesting in the trees and hear coyotes yipping in the night.

~ 8 ~ Seeing my friends: I will admit there may be places more naturally beautiful than Minnesota. The reason I love it so dearly, of course, is the people there. I have no close friends within a 50-mile radius and the majority live even further away, most in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. As I get older and realise more the importance of good friendships I find it ever harder to be so far away from them. Getting back to Minnesota is like finally reaching the water's surface and being able to breathe again after diving too deep. I wonder if my friends realise how much it means to me to just be able to sit around at their houses, drinking beer and talking about nothing. At Eric and Kristin's we ordered Mexican food and sat on the sofa; at Dan and Johanna's we ate Sloppy Joes and sat around outside. Who the hell travels 5,000 miles just for that?
I do.

~ 8 ~ Hearing from my agent: Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? If you did, remember that you can get my novel, The Way Forward. You might already know that before being effectively self-published that book was shopped around to a few big editors in New York. The person doing that groundwork was a super-nice lady named Rebecca. Not too long ago she contacted me and asked if I was up to anything. To be honest, I was spinning my wheels at that point because I had lost a lot of faith in myself as a writer. I still haven't really recovered from that but the fact that she saw enough potential in me to ask what I was up to despite a previous lack of success has lit a fire under me recently.
Unless she suggests altering my course, I have begun working on a book tentatively called: Tales of a Toffee-Covered Llama: How the Tiny Nation of Wales Crushed My Dreams and Robbed Me of My Will to Live. It is effectively an updated English-language version of Cwrw am Ddim, with the focus switched so that it (hopefully) appeals to a wider audience than just those who are Welsh-speaking or particularly keen on Wales. I'll keep you posted on its progress.

~ 8 ~ The final Mince Pie Monday: One of the highlights of autumn was Jenn and I coming up with the whole Mince Pie Monday nonsense for the sake of our daily vlog. It was an amusing (to us, at least) little feature that involved us forcing ourselves to eat mince pies late at night. I had a lot of fun doing it and am now just a bit sad that we've not thought of anything to replace it. For the last Mince Pie Monday (in which we taste-tested Duchy Originals mince pies) we even got dressed up. This sort of thing is at the heart of why I love Jenn: she is ridiculous. Just like me.

~ 8 ~ Visiting Devon: In addition to visiting my (adopted) home territory in December we visited Jenn's homeland as well. Ostensibly the purpose of the visit was to celebrate Jenn's grandparents' 60th anniversary (they received a card from the Queen!) but it was also a chance to deliver Christmas gifts and visit with the family that Jenn sees about as often as she sees mine. Time and travel challenges make a visit across the Bristol Channel almost as tricky as a visit across the Atlantic Ocean.
I was insufferably grumpy on my first day there because my moneytrap of a car developed a new issue: the electric window would not roll back up, thus allowing in the rain and misery for which this island is famed. But the problem created a kind of opportunity for me to bond with my future father-in-law as the two of us hovered over the door, mumbling and pointing for several hours. Eventually we disconnected the window from its lifting apparatus and wired it shut.
I knew already at that time that I was going to propose to Jenn, so throughout the visit I found myself thinking: "These people are going to be my family." And I am quite happy with that.

~ 8 ~ Waterfalls: The aforementioned moneytrap car has since been sold for scrap. But one of our last adventures in the Honda was a day trip to the Neath valley, where there are a number of waterfalls. You will no doubt pick up in the tone of this blog post a certain greyness-induced cynicism toward Wales -- it is something I have been struggling with a lot -- but getting a chance to see its natural beauty helps to alleviate that condition. It was dark and rainy the day we went out but I had a good time; I am happiest when my feet are moving, there is a pretty girl beside me and there is no concrete to be seen.