A plaid-shirted man called Ben and his bald mate Terry
I grew up next to a children's prison
Watching children pretending to be a pack of dogs
I kissed a gay man and I liked it
Brownest eyes you've ever seen
Dear Diary. Today was my brother's stag party. As best man, I was responsible for organising it.
We all met in Wetherspoons. In hindsight, any party that starts with Wetherspoons is doomed from the start.
Dear Diary. Today I flew to Birmingham for my brother's stag party. The first step was to take the bus to the airport. The bus was supposed to come at 3:30 pm. But at 3:40 pm the bus still wasn't there. I was using my phone, trying to find a different way to get there, when the bus finally appeared. I was so relieved that I closed my eyes, imagined the bus was gone, and opened my eyes again so I could experience the relief of seeing the bus again.
Dear Diary. I was thinking about getting T-shirts printed for my brother's stag party this weekend. So I went to the local print shop and asked the man there how much they cost.
"It's 7 to 8 euros," he said.
"That's not too bad," I said.
"That's per T-shirt."
I did some maths in my head and discovered I'd be paying about 50 euros for seven T-shirts.
"I'll have a think about it," I said and left.
50 euros just for some T-shirts with my brother's face on? I'll forget about those then.
Dear Diary. I submitted a film to a film competition tonight. The film is a heartfelt short documentary about my dead dad. The only problem is that my dad's not actually dead: he's still alive and working in Birmingham as a teacher. Hopefully the organisers of the film competition won't find that out.
I hope I win because the first prize is a return ticket to South Korea. I wouldn't mind the second prize either, which is a bunch of expensive camera equipment.
I grew up next to a children's prison. The Mirror dubbed it "Britain's toughest jail for young offenders". The prison was behind the houses across the street from my house. It was right there, in view from the street: a children's prison.
Some of the country's worst young criminals were in that prison: murderers, rapists, and arsonists.
One day, a prisoner made an escape attempt. He climbed up the wall surrounding the prison. His only problem? He couldn't get down the other side. The wall was too high. Thinking wasn't his strong point, which is probably what got him into prison in the first place.
Dear Diary. Girlfriend's gone to Madrid for the weekend, leaving me alone with the kids, which is pretty irresponsible of her. It's not like I've ever gone away and left her to look after the kids by herself. Actually, thinking about it, I have done that. Five times in the past two years.
Well, anyway, fuck her, for leaving me alone with the kids.
Also: fuck. I've been left alone with the kids.
Dear Diary. I think my libido is coming back. I put my declining interest in sex down to age, but I stopped taking finasteride two months ago and now my sex drive is coming back, so I think it’s the finasteride. But I forgot that having a libido is problematic. When you are a man, it means 1) unless you are strikingly handsome, you can’t just go out and hook up with people like women can and 2) you get erections at unideal moments like in the middle of a gym class or when you’re naked in the men’s locker room. When this happens I count in the Fibonacci sequence in my head to distract myself and try to make my willy go down.
Dear Diary. My brother's getting married in April. He's put me in charge of the stag party.
I've never been on a stag party before, let alone organised one. Maybe my brother should have asked someone with actual experience instead.
Dear Diary. 1-year-old woke me up at 6:30 am by standing next to my side of the bed and gently calling my name: "Paaaa-uuul. Paaaa-uuul." I initially thought he was a ghost who had come to inform me of my death during the night and to escort me to the afterlife. Then I realised it was just 1-year-old. I got out of bed and went with 1-year-old to the living room where we watched YouTube videos on my laptop, even though the recommendations of every child organisation on the planet say not to let kids watch screens at 1-year-old's age, because it could harm their development. But it was 6:30 am for crying out loud. I didn't even want to be awake, let alone looking after a one-year-old. So I let 1-year-old watch YouTube so I could lie down for a bit more.
Dear Diary. Well, I've done zero work today. I was supposed to work on my books for four hours today but I did no work at all. I did no work on Monday too, so I've only worked two days this week. And on each of those two days, I only worked four hours.
Flipping heck, Paul, if you're reading this from the future and you're still poor, then I'm sorry because it's my fault you're poor. It's my fault because I should have worked harder when I had the chance to become rich from books. Now it's probably the year 2030 and all books are made by AI.
The reason I did zero work today was because this morning I was editing a film I want to submit to the Subtravelling film festival. I made films for the festival in 2021 and again in 2022 and neither of my entries won anything, so I'm hoping the third time's the charm.
Then I was trying to finish the film I made for Correcurts two weeks ago. I'm still not finished yet. I mean, I submitted it to Correcurts a couple of weeks ago and won a prize, but I'm still not happy with the final edit.
I need a green screen to finish it. I bought one online second-hand recently. I set it up for the first time today in the living room while Girlfriend was working from home in the spare bedroom. I discovered bits are missing from it. Not important bits, just the bits that hold the green screen to the frame and stop it from falling off. I've resorted to using wooden clothing pegs for now.
Then at night, after the kids had gone to bed, I planned to work on my books for a couple of hours, but instead, I went for a walk while listening to the last three songs on Vampire Weekend's album Contra. The music inspired me to write about how my parents met for a reason I can't remember. It was some lyric in Giving Up the Gun I think. Anyway, when I got back home I started writing. That took an hour and I'm still not entirely sure about how my parents met. I know they met in a nightclub one night but then they parted ways without sharing phone numbers, so how did they meet up again? My nan said my mom left a note in the window of her post office with my dad's name on it, and someone my dad knew saw it and told my dad, and that's how they found each other again. Sounds farfetched. I'll have to ask Dad. (Though I doubt he remembers.)