J'ai SUPERFROID

Right now I'm wearing this t-shirt. It translates "I'm super chilled" though I guess it could also be read "I'm super cold", and I guess different people may have different takes on that. I bought it when I was in fact quite chilled in the French Alps a day or two ago, though I'm about to be wearing it in Rio. Does that make it a whole different class of chilled? I don't care. On the flight here I finished the first book I've read in years, "exit through the wound" by North Morgan, who I know as London Preppy. In the back of the book the publisher, Glasshouse Books, states "Glasshouse books has a simple mission statement. To publish books for people who don't read."

I tick that box.

When I started the book I was unimpressed. Not only was the main character straight rather than gay, yet the same character from london preppy's blog. Some of the work was pure cut and paste from the blog, and there was so much drug use I felt I was at work. But it grew on me. Certain bits have been updated for current consumption, which disappoints, but despite this I enjoyed it and in the end I was just burning through the pages under a narrow beam from my reading light as everyone else on my flight slept.

And on this Iberia flight from Madrid to Rio there are pieces of tape holding together the mirror and ventilation filter in the one toilet I've visited. I hope the engines and fuselage are more convincingly held together, but then this is a Spanish plane and we are deep in GFC2.

The reason I referred to the book is that it reinforces an opinion I've developed recently that I need to stop caring what people think. I have no reason to be self conscious and if people don't understand me they can ask. I don't need or want to explain myself. I'm calling it self respect. And I'm going to be more demanding with it in future.

Which brings me to an issue I've been grappling with for a few years now. A good friend disowned me for personal reasons, his not mine, some time back. A friendship I enjoyed greatly and have missed, and the demise of which I do not and will probably not ever truly understand, though I am certain there is miscommunication, misunderstanding and a deal of emotional content that's difficult to decipher. My mistake then was to allow it to happen and not enforce a face to face discussion, even if the end result were to be the same.

But now I'm giving transparency the flick. If you want to know what I'm thinking, deserve to know it first, then ask. I'm taking no prisoners, jumping into 2012 and running with it, not waiting for anyone to catch up. Keep up or make your own way. Be sure to have fun though. I certainly will.