Email from the Edge Part I

Hello.

How are you?

I don't know where this is going...

I'm going to sit here and let the words flow and see what appears on my screen. This could be a very personal entry, so if that's not your thing, go and take a walk and when you return I'll be gone.

I'm sitting in York library - my bum has graced this seat many a time - and I'm writing to you on a warm and sunny afternoon.

Life is a bizarre thing, man.

I often marvel at people who manage to breeze through life, hardly a care in the world, meeting all of the challenges that confront them on a daily basis and accepting and adapting to this crazy little world which human beings have shaped and conquered.

Life for me, and many of us, is not that easy. My heart was broken a few days ago, as it has been broken many times before, and now I am trying to recover the fragments and piece them back together.

I guess it's this that I want to write about today.

I'm aware that my entries sometimes have an air of tragedy to them, and I really try my best not to be self-absorbed, but despair and heartache confront me on quite a regular basis and an outlet is needed for the emotions that often threaten to overwhelm me.

If that outlet is a library, a computer screen, a keyboard and oodles of electronic space, then so be it. I don't know anyone I can talk to about my trials and tribulations, and so that's where you come in.

But before we go into that and before I tell you about Kimberley Dryden - the girl who is the cause of my latest troubles - let me tell you how things have been going in my increasingly bizarre and surreal life since I managed to get away from that damn hospital.

So, I visited London recently. I bought myself a nice Versace coat. It cost the equivalent of almost two thousand dollars. It 's covered in distinctive patches. I think - and hope - it's cool.

While I was in London, I bumped into Michael Portillo. He thought I was stalking him. (Michael Portillo is a high-profile ex-politician). It happened when I was travelling around London by tube. I noticed Michael Portillo standing opposite me. He was immaculately dressed, wearing a suit, with his hair gelled; frozen in perfection.

He was looking at me, because I'm wearing a mad coat covered in patches, and I was looking at him, because he's Michael Portillo.

This went on for a while - him looking at me, me looking at him - in a non-sexual way, you understand - and then the tube pulled into a station and he got off. This was also my stop, and amongst dozens of people, I ended up walking right behind him as he left the train and made his way across the platform.

I unintentionally followed Michael Portillo as he walked and suddenly he became aware that I was just a few feet away from him.

I'm sure that the poor guy thought I was some sort of nut. Maybe it was the fact that I was blasting Sting's Don't Stand So Close To Me through my personal CD Player. (Perhaps Mad About You would have been a better choice).

As soon as he got through the turnstile, he was off, faster than a race horse. He veered to the side, took a right turn, went in the opposite direction of the exit and disappeared.

As for Sting and I, we went on our merry way and thought how funny it was that we'd managed to spook Michael Portillo.

So the moral of this story is that you don't need a degree or wealthy parents to make a difference in politics - all you need is a two thousand dollar Versace coat!

So that was my first bizarre trip to London. My second strange visit to London happened about two weeks ago when I visited my nation's capital with the intention of purchasing a pair of Versace trousers.

I arrived at London Victoria coach station and joined a queue to purchase a ticket for the tube. I noticed that somebody had left a white envelope lying on the counter in front of me. Thinking it was empty, I took a look inside anyway and, to my amazement, I found that it was stuffed with crisp, unused bank notes!

My heart skipped a beat or ten and I looked around. There was a guy behind me but he seemed unaware that the envelope was there.

I contemplated leaving the envelope on the counter but thought that if I did the guy behind me would probably take the money. I considered handing the envelope to the ticket-seller but he was rude and I thought that he might keep it as well.

So I took the envelope and the money. I counted the money on the tube and there was one hundred and forty pounds there. And yes, I did rather guilty about it later, but it did pay for the Versace shirt that I'm wearing right now as I write this blog entry!

So that was my second bizarre trip to London.

There's a lot more to write about it. I want to tell you about my brief visit to Paris last week. I want, too, to tell you the Princess Diana obsessive and possible serial killer that I'm about to share a house with in York. I also would like to share a thought or ten with you about the whole Iraq situation.

And, of course, I want to tell you about Kimberley Dryden. She is the reason that I'm writing this entry and the reason that I'm in York. She's also the reason that my heart is in pieces...

Until next time, thank you for reading my words.

Bye.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.