Who Is Andrew Beattie?

Ahoy there,

It’s Sunday, I’m here, you’re there and so there that is, done, dusted and out the way.

The weekend has been and is nearly gone and my lofty plans and ambitions were on the receiving end of a small kick in the nether regions courtesy of a wasted Saturday spent nursing a headache, the result of several pint measures of foggy European beer chased down with pint measures of Japanese whiskey. If I had been last year’s Andrew Beattie, sans filofax and a plan to take over a small section of the world, the resulting panic attack would have been a biggie, but I’m not and so, it isn’t.

I have however been left with one question this week which has been bugging me all day today as I’ve poured over my plans for the year; a mixture of dates in my diary and scribbles in my notepad. What the hell am I actually doing? I have plans alright, trips almost booked, next week’s tattoo, a book to write to name but a few but what is the end goal? Does there even have to be an end goal? What will I achieve as a result of the plans that I make, of the stuff that I will/will not do? So it’s actually several questions isn’t it? Shit. Now follows a small moment for reflection.

A small moment for reflection.

Right, so fuck the questions, the doing will be enough for now and wherever I am at the end of the year so long as I’ve done the stuff I’ve set out to do I’ll be happy with it. Thank Christ for that as the resolution to my questions because I have no answers, I have no God damn answers.

Love, it’s a very strong word. I have been guilty of falling deeply in Love at the drop of a hat in my time. There have been times when I have thought that I was deeply, deeply in Love for it to turn out to be something totally different, infatuation maybe, a small crush most likely. You see the problem I have is that I don’t have a very good handle on my feelings; they almost always get the better of me. This also isn’t helped by the fact that I tend to over think situations, I worry pretty much constantly about the things that I say and do and so whenever challenged by what appears to be strong feelings of love or even on rare occasions hate, I am turned into a gibbering wreck of nerves, huge awkward movements, heavy sweating and am generally left looking like a bit of a tit in all honesty. So have I been a little premature in looking for Love on my list of things that I desire to do this year? How will I react when faced with real, all consuming, Love? I’m totally fucked aren’t I? Or am I? Who knows? Who fucking cares?

But why should Love concern me so much now? I’ve no idea where that even came from and so I’ll leave it there for now to see, with intrigue, just how fucked I truly am when and if it manifests itself this year, or any other year for that matter. Exciting hey? No, no its not.

I’ll leave you now, on that rather obscure note of Love, undefined and terrifying. Next week promises to be an interesting one, I’ll be getting a tattoo, going to a magazine launch in Liverpool, going to the theatre with my dad and doing a little writing in between. I only know this because my filofax states quite clearly that this is what I have to do, the worrying thing is that I don’t remember writing any of it. I am Andrew Beattie?

Until next time,

Take good care and please don’t write in my filofax again.

Bye for now,

Andrew Beattie