The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I was buying meat at the market when I saw a beautiful woman. She was waiting at the counter, smiling. It was a grateful smile as if the everyday experience of buying food at a market was a source of joy to her instead of a chore. She wore an oversized wool cardigan and a long flowing skirt. Her cardigan was coloured with rainbow stripes. I imagined she lived on a canal boat and owned hundreds of unusual books that she read while drinking tea. I imagined that to her, life was like a TV show for small children where bakers wear white hats, policemen rescue teddies, and every day ends with a song about friendship and kindness. She was different from everyone else. I didn't approach her of course. It would be like polluting a clean stream with a bottle of black ink.

This evening I tried to contact some old friends. I've been a bit of a loner all my life. I've tried to avoid people. Not because I don't like people but just because I'm bad at social skills. So this year, I've decided this year I'll make an effort to meet people.

Just now I sent messages to three old friends from school. The first message was to Dominic, a lanky Jewish kid I used to draw comics about. I found his email address by googling his name: Dominic Corbett. Google led me to a webpage of Durham University. Apparently, Dominic is a "Student Doctor of Philosophy" there. The webpage gave me his email: dominic.b.corbett@durham.ac.uk. So I sent him an email asking how he was. I received an instantaneous reply: "Undeliverable. Your message couldn't be delivered. No such user."

My second message was to another old friend from school, Sam Cobley. He was one of my best friends at school. Maybe that doesn't mean much because I didn't have many friends at school. My friend group was Dominic Corbett, Sam Cobley, Michael Whitehouse, Robert Millington, and Raza Al-Mustafa. Cobley was the fat one in our group. We all used to joke he was fat, even though he probably wasn't.

I sent Sam ths message over Facebook:

Hello Sam a.k.a. Cobley,

It's been a while since Vesey - only sixteen years now - so I thought I'd drop you this line. It'd be great to hear your memories of Vesey. I suspect you remember a lot of stuff I've forgotten. Send me a message if you ever want to catch up.

He hasn't seen the message yet. Neither has he seen the message I sent him seven years ago.

My third message was to Raza Al-Mustafa. He's a Muslim. I used to sit next to him in GCSE Biology and English. These were the same lessons in which I was bullied by a kid called Michael Cotton. I had social anxiety at school but Raza was one of the few people I felt comfortable with.

He seems he's still a nice guy now: from his Facebook page, I see that last year he raised money for refugees in Syria by cutting off his shoulder-length hair, and this year he's supporting the Free Palestine movement.

Raza is the only one who's replied to my messages. He's written, "Hey just driving mate ill message later"

In other news, my head is itchy from all the scabs that have formed since the hair transplant. I've got all these itchy crusts on the back of my head where the hair doctor took hair from. I try rubbing them off with my fingers but most of the scabs are still stuck to my head.