Distracted from distraction

My on and off affair with time wasting has reached an annual high. Since arriving here in Warsaw I’ve managed to wile away many any hour by devouring a small selection of books. This is not something I’d call time wasting. It was about this time last year I complained about not being able to read for pleasure (I had the small matter of writing a 12,000 word dissertation on top of the final semester’s work). I’m enjoying reading. It’s all the shit I do when I’m not reading, spending time with my girlfriend, working or sleeping – that I can deem time wasting. To be honest, that doesn’t leave a great deal of time.

My latest distraction has been (woefully uncultured, I know) a computer game. I’ve spent about a week playing Virtua Tennis 3. It’s a bit addictive. But there in lies its attraction to me. I switch on the computer and compulsively play game after game, after set after set, after match after match, oblivious to the outside world. Oblivious to the damage it is causing to my health and relationships with those around me. It’s very much like an addiction.

Because the thing I’ve noticed recently is that despite all my efforts to piss around on my guitar for hours on end and come up with some cool little sounds, for one reason or another, I’m not. I spent two months missing playing the guitar. Then I bought one. Now two months later, I still miss playing the guitar. I just don’t do it. Maybe it’s because I’ve found a million (three or four) other things to do instead. More likely, I’m inclined to believe, there’s a weird hippie vibe thing going on (or lack there of) getting in my way.

At university, I rarely had the problem of picking up a guitar and making a sound. Numerous afternoons, evenings and early hours into the morning were spent with a wooden box on my crotch. And it made for some interesting sounds. Despite the ever looming pressure of third year university work, there was always time to have a little muck about. Sometimes aided by intoxicants of one form or another, sometimes not. But there was always music.

It’s quite sad now that I think about it, that I’m no longer in that position. I seem to be incapable of recapturing my affinity with the guitar. Is it down to my location?

Where I studied in England, Falmouth, has been a retreat for artists of one sort or another for centuries. Without wanting to sound a little bit thick (or maybe it makes me sound trendy) the university is in all reality an expanded art college (Art School Writer – get it?). A friend of mine, a crusty, as some would call him, told me about Falmouth’s spiritual links. It’s all very complicated and goes over my head, but from what I remember him saying: there’s something to do with lay-lines running through it (?).

Either way, I can’t help but feel I’ve left some part of my ability back in my college town. Perhaps it’s because I’m not surrounded by Guardian reading, line drawing, acoustic beating, spiritual healing liberals. I can’t say I’ve seen many around this city. I’ve got nowhere to play, so why play? I’ve got no one to compete with, so why practice? It’s a bit of a spot I find myself in. And one of reasons I’m missing home so much. It would just help a little if I could write a bloody song about it!