The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Spoke to my brother Adam today by video call. He's been a dad now for two weeks. I asked him, "How is it going?" I hoped he'd say, "It's so bad, I can't cope anymore," so I could laugh evilly and say, "I warned you but you didn't listen."

Instead, he said, "We're doing really well, the first week was hard but now we've settled into a routine."

I felt annoyed. I was hoping he'd suffer the same I did when my first child was born. That way, at least someone else would understand what I went through.

"Paul, this morning I looked out my window, and do you know what I saw?"

How am I supposed to know. A naked clown juggling dildos?

"A dead body," he said. "It was pretty cool."

"Sounds cool, yeah," I said.

"There were three police cars, two fire trucks, and six ambulances," said Adam. "An air ambulance landing in the Sainsbury's car park. The police were putting up red and white police tape and I googled it and it says red and white means there's been a murder. Red and white tap is murder tape. A silver Mercedes turned up and a detective got out. There was a blue tarp on the ground in the park. They lift the tarp up and underneath is a body. It was a man they found dead in the river. And out the window I can see a jumper that's been left on a bollard so I'm thinking that's a clue."

Just then the baby woke up. I could hear it crying.

"Oh, hello baby," said Adam, his voice suddenly going up an octave. "Are you awake? You're very active." For some reason, he was talking to the baby in a faux posh voice like a thespian actor.

He showed me the baby. It looked like all newborns do: bald head, eyes scrunched up, uncoordinated arms slowly stretching up. An expression that changes from curiosity to confusion to bewilderment to terror, then back to curiosity again.

"This is baby's first video phone call," said Adam

Adam gave the baby to Emma to feed. Then I told Adam about my week. I told him about the witch I met yesterday who keeps a human skull in her house. I told him about the autistic woman called Bee who plans to live in the mountains far away from everyone. I told him about playing pool last week and sinking sick shots while bystanders shook their heads in disbelief and muttered things like "he's a genious" and "it's a miracle".

"Wow, you've gone from having no friends to having loads of friends," said Adam. "You've metamorphosised from a reclusive caterpillar to a social butterfly. You've gone from being Cinderella sweeping floors to Cinderella dancing at the ball."

I asked him what thought about my idea to get a full sleeve arm tattoo.

"I reckon you should do it," he said. "I've seen some cool tattoos on people even in their fifties."

Anyway, we said goodbye and hung up.

I don't know how to end this pointless diary entry, so I guess goodbye to you too, reader.