It's been quite a while since I put pen to paper and wrote a Personal Ramblings column for the old TSR website, and with WWE Raw playing in the background, and with nothing else to do, now seemed like a good time.
For the first time in months, I feel on top of the world. It finally feels like I'm getting that demon off my back. It's been a long, hard journey, but with the support of a whole bunch of people, I'm finally coming out on top.
Okay, I'm still on the mirtazapine, and my back and neck are sort of screwed at the moment, and I seem to be on painkillers constantly, and I've got no job, and fuck all money, but from a personal viewpoint, things are really starting to fall into place for yours truly.
Let's start off with the events of Wednesday of last week. A few weeks back, I'd sent off my writing portfolio to Power Slam, Total Wrestling, and even the mighty WWE Magazine in America. To be honest with you, I hadn't expected to hear anything. So after a few weeks passed, I e-mailed Steve Ganfield and Bill Apter, the editors of Total Wrestling, thinking that it would be another few weeks before I heard anything again.
It was just a few hours later when Steve replied to my e-mail. Bingo! Steve offered me a freelance spot in Total Wrestling. Okay, it wouldn't pay much at first. Hell, it wouldn't pay anything at all at first, but I had a foot in the door.
I had actually e-mailed Bill Apter separately, and when Bill replied, and said he thought I was a good writer, I was buzzing. When a guy like Apter, a guy who is a sort of god in the industry you're trying to get into, tells you that he thinks you're good, it kind of makes your day.
Let's skip forward to the following Sunday. At the Harford Community Centre in Norwich, I collected my WAW Employee of the Year award, for my work in promoting the World Association of Wrestling on the Internet and beyond. I actually won the award by a considerable margin.
The fact that the fans of the company, and the people working for it, thought that I did a great job, even thought throughout 2002 I was suffering a hell of a lot, means the world to me. When the chips were down, everyone connected with WAW came through for me, made sure I was okay. Each and every person in that company supported me and my family when we needed it the most, at a time when it seemed like the majority of my family didn't give a rat's arse about me.
Let's skip forward another couple of days. Power Slam editor Fin Martin emailed me, offering me a shot at Power Slam, writing a quick review of Wrestlemania, which will be put with the reviews of a few of PS's regular writers. I have no idea how much PS is paying me, but the fact that the two big wrestling magazines in Britain wanted me on their team meant the world to me. After all the shit I had gone through, things were definitely starting to look up for me.
Six months ago none of this would have happened to me. Six months ago, I was in no condition to make this happen to me.
This past Sunday, I made an agreement with Paul and Julia not to mention Mark Edwards again. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break this agreement. However, this will be the only time I break this agreement.
On the main menu page of this section of my website, you'll notice that my article, "Mark Edwards", is no longer here. The reason for this is simple. A few months ago, Mark finally gained Internet access, and if my powers of deduction are correct, someone in his family put the name Mark Edwards in the Google search engine, and found my article.
Mark was none too pleased, so much so that he asked the Police to arrest me because of what I said in that article. The Police refused, and Mark decided to take the law into his own hands as it were. One Thursday night as me and Paul were walking into Cromer, Mark pulled out in front of me, jumped out of his car, and lunged at me. As Paul pulled him away, his wife, Diane, got out of the car and started hitting me in the back.
Mark's reason for attacking me; because of what I had said about him on my website.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again, but I honestly believe that Mark Edwards is not a stupid man. In fact, I think he's quite an intelligent fellow. But the fact that he decided to settle our little dispute with physical violence says a lot about the man. If he had simply picked up the phone, called me, and asked me, in a polite way, to remove the article from my website then I would have done it. There was no need for Mark to do what he did.
I placed the matter in the hands of the police, but seeing as I've heard nothing for months about the case, it seems obvious that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to proceed with it. Which is why I've decided to write about it here.
The strange thing is, I hold no ill will towards Mark and his family. Julia even put forward the idea a few weeks ago of going over to the garden centre, offering the hand of friendship, and letting bygones be bygones. The sad thing is though, that Mark would probably slap my hand away.
I had seven good years work at the Overstrand Cottage Garden Centre. Seven years in which I made a multitude of friends, some of these friendships which will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. From now on, I will try to focus on the positives of my time there, and try to forget the three months or so where life at that place was a pile of shit.
This is the last time you will see me mention Mark Edwards on my website. Last Sunday, I made an agreement to my brother, and to my best friend, that I will never mention him again. From this moment forth, I will never mention him again. I made a promise to those guys that I will keep forever.
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