I am generally intolerant of heat. I am of Northern heritage, and consider the perfect day a dry pale grey with strong gusts of wind, or gently covered with a layer of pure white snow. I don't feel the cold in a conventional sense, but rather feel more alive with the sensations it brings. Heat on the other hand simply makes me feel unwell, restless, constantly exhausted, and sweaty. I despise the current trend in the UK of hotter summers each year, to the point where I'm thinking I might have to migrate North for the summer, because laying flat on my back in the nude all day, surrounded by fans blasting warm air at me and only moving to get drinks that instantly re-emerge in the form of perspiration doesn't allow for very much of a more practical or even merely entertaining nature. I had gradually been getting myself out of the habit of staying up all night and sleeping, if ever, in the day. This heat has turned me nocturnal once more, as I am simply unable to cope and function fully in the day when the temperatures are at their zenith. Even in the ever shorter nights the warmth is distracting.

An especially unfortunate effect of the heat is that it makes me even more introspective than usual. I sleep even less than usual, and since I can't do much else either, I invariably wind up spending the time in thought. I've had constant moments of deja vu recently, and a strangely deep-set sensation bordering on almost prescient knowledge of death. It's more ambiguous than simply dying from sunstroke or kidney failure (I'm drinking 2 pints nearly every hour, and I'm still not going to the bathroom - the only pissing I've done lately is from my pores) or any other kind of physical demise. It's a strong feeling of ennui. Perhaps my life is become so dull, unfulfilled, repetitive and meaningless that I genuinely have done the exact same thing at the same time, and thought the same thoughts and felt the same things. My perception of time has always been... unique. But a part of me feels that something is going to change irrevocably. Maybe it is a premonition of actual physical end. I suspect however that it refers to a more subtle state of death; change of how I live on a grand scale. What, given my inactivity, I cannot discern right now. Maybe the heat is just playing tricks on my mind...

For all of the things that go wrong in my life, this has been an especially strange year so far. My sister got pregnant, and subsequently had a miscarriage. My best friend got married, and in the process forced me to realise that some things I took for granted were never really so, as well as meaning that I don't see him very much now, soon to be at all when he moves away to pursue his new married life and start a home not only away from our home town, but away from our home county. Indeed, the opposite end of the country. And finally, I have been rejected once again by a certain lady. I had a feeling that would happen, but as last time, I allowed myself to be optimistic, foolishly so, and opened myself up to be vulnerable. I should be angry about what happened, but I cannot bring myself to be so. Instead I am merely very sad. Perhaps this is where the sensation of death comes from; I have always known that I will die alone. And I have never been so lonely as I am now. I am entirely lacking any kind of social contact, virtual or otherwise. My dissatisfaction with my home situation, and the natural differences in intelligence, taste, and personality leave me even more disconnected and excommunicated from my family than ever. And I have to deal with a love that requires me to not know the close companionship of a single equal with whom I can entrust everything of me. It could be suggested that the latter is self-inflicted, torturing myself needlessly. The object of my affections would almost certainly believe it to be the case that I am being unrealistic, but for the first time in my life I am certain about what I am feeling. I am in love, and far from being unrealistic, I realise it may mean that I can never fall in love again with any other partner. It's just that there is nothing I can do about it. That is not self-pity, or depression, but simply a plain statement of frustrated conviction. If I could change things, I think I probably would. I have rarely felt so pained as I did yesterday when I took a package for her into her college reception for her to receive indirectly, without having to come into contact with me in person. When I tried to describe the circumstances that required me to leave it with them, I felt as though the two women there were judging me as somehow a coward, inadequate, lacking honour or nobility or grace. Perhaps they believed that I had dumped her and was taking the easy way out depositing the package with a third party. I do not think of myself as a particularly good man. I have done many things I am deeply ashamed of, and made many mistakes, and missed many chances through neurosis or being stubborn. But knowing that I was being looked upon in that light by a stranger made me feel extremely low, at a time when I was already upset with the circumstances that required me to be there.

Whatever this change is that I believe I can perceive, it cannot come soon enough, though I expect that I will come to regret this desire for haste in time and with hindsight... unless it should truly be a journey to the undiscovered country, for which I can find no reason not to welcome a final, much delayed adventure. There is nothing to recommend over it in my life. Part of me wishes I was just being melodramatic in believing that to be so.