M.I.A.

Over the last more than little while, my family, friends, and yes even you (are you still with me?), could have been forgiven for thinking I'd fallen off the planet. In fact, trying to think back, I'm not really 100 percent sure where it is exactly I have been. Well no, naturally I've been in New York - where else? But "being" in New York is quite a different thing to being anywhere else. I may have mentioned before that I think NYC is built on magic rocks. They're the rocks that give this city that crazy, heady gas cloud of wow energy that hangs in the air. But now I have an addition to the theory. I now have a hunch as to where those rocks get the energy from. It's from us. The fevered worker ants teeming the streets, jerking nervily from workplace to watering hole, saturating zizzy stress vibes with blurring wines and whiskeys, clambering home in some gangle-limbed fashion, then landing in bed to grasp at wispy tufts of sleep and elusive dreams before it all begins again. Those rocks fill us with excitement, spur us on with the promise of big things, then laughingly suck every gasp of useable energy back out of us in return. And if they're feeling a little nasty, they belch a puff of exhaust and pollution for us to gulp down as we clamour for air. So, if you were wondering, that's where I've been. Galloping wildly along some treadmill that doesn't make you thin or healthy, but instead drives you to drink, delirium, and various foods containing melted cheese. The melted cheese is awesome. The drink and crazy thoughts not so much. Now of course, it's not all bad. I've met and continue to meet some top-notch, interesting and hilarious characters. And I seem to have become almost complacent about the absolutely everything that is on offer here in terms of world class entertainment, art, events, minds etc - but my complacency doesn't make it any less totally cool. Only I have a sense at the moment that there is a crucial change I need to make to truly come alive here. I know I'm on the right track, but maybe I got off at the wrong station. The good thing with that of course, as one discovers here, is that a wrong station stop isn't too hard to fix. You just get on the next train and you'll soon be where you need to go. So I'll be working on that. And I may be wandering around in the wilderness for a small time. But that's okay. It may be wild and crazy and taxing as hell out here, but last time I checked, adventures were all pretty much built that way. And until I find out why I had to come on this one, you definitely won't catch me running away.