Takes a lot of effort to stay connected

A portrait of a third rate artist as a young man turned old prematurely but still fairly happy with his lot in life.

Every so often you find yourself siting on a rocky outcrop in Ibiza thinking deep, meaningful and positive thoughts. You design complex bass lines, line draw time machines, write short stories about petty crime, plan some kind of major (or petty) crime or fraud, come up with off the cuff recipes for tasty but unusual food combinations that would shock TV chefs, have a fantasy about a lost lottery ticket, complete one of the crucial conversations that  you never quite finished and write the prologue to a book about the vacuous and wasteful nature of modern conceptual art. You do these things in what seems like a few seconds but in actual fact is an entire lifetime; that's odd but it'd all fit on a Post-It note in Pittman Shorthand. Then before you know it you're back in West Lothian wondering about the life span of varieties of overgrown lettuce, the dirt damage done to rhubarb by incessant rain and the prospect of a warm but strangely cloudy weekend in the North East. As you do this you remember that there are eight slices of Pastrami in the fridge just waiting for you but the mustard is running low and you're not sure how fresh the bread is. You feel anxiety for a moment but it passes as the gamekeeper whistles to the young peasants somewhere in the distance and your mind goes blank again. It is at this precise point you realise that you can't quite remember the title of the Joni Mitchell song that is by now running backwards in your head but you rather like the rhythmic sound of the tumble dryer in the other room (the one we seldom mention) but you never did get yourself educated at Eton or Oxford despite that elaborate South Sea Bubble  related scam carried out in England and now you must get back and check on Twitter because...you never really know.