Now would be a good time to hand me a tranquilliser. Many of them.
Life is, apparently, not worth living any longer.
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Behaviour of an Amputee
Listening To: 'Sunshine in a Shotglass,' 500 Miles to Memphis
Reading: Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Eating: Crisps
Drinking: Caramel Latte
It's all Kate Bush's fault, quite frankly, as I'm sure you'll all agree. She'd drive ten year olds to bewail the state of the political world and addict themselves irreparably to rubbish bands like Anathema and HIM.
I find now, as the new year rolls round in my mouth, that I miss Switzerland. This time last year, I had been there less than a month, and it was cold and grey and, somehow, still ravishingly pretty. By the time spring came round, it was like watching everything wake up, gradually and without regard for whether or not I was ready for it. The fields of canola flowers bloomed, casting their sickly smell into the air, but at least they were pretty. I remember six year olds walking to school on their own, holding their schoolfriends' hands, without parents worrying about whether they'd be snatched.
I remember Suicide Hill, and suffering myself to be nicknamed a little Eskimo Boy by a preadolescent Spaniard, trading suggestive looks with a rather older Spaniard, while ice cream melted on my hands and I burnt my toast. I miss eighty-cent 70 % Lindt chocolate bars and a pair of thick white duvets covering my narrow bed. I do not miss sleeping alone.
I miss the Altstadt, with its hidden tea rooms and shops with horrid eighties-throwback fashion in their windows, longing after the bookstore, wishing I knew German so I could read the many, many volumes smelling of old paper and ink.
I miss drinking beer beside Lac Genève, sitting on the parapets of old city walls, and looking down into valleys from 1527 metres above sea level, and lying sprawled over a dark blue velvet settee, watching Manchester United beat the snot out of Liverpool, drinking Feldschlösschen lager and eating Nutella out of the jar with my fingers.
And, of course, you.
Get well soon, and stop running into things on motorbikes. It isn't particularly healthy.
Reading: Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Eating: Crisps
Drinking: Caramel Latte
It's all Kate Bush's fault, quite frankly, as I'm sure you'll all agree. She'd drive ten year olds to bewail the state of the political world and addict themselves irreparably to rubbish bands like Anathema and HIM.
I find now, as the new year rolls round in my mouth, that I miss Switzerland. This time last year, I had been there less than a month, and it was cold and grey and, somehow, still ravishingly pretty. By the time spring came round, it was like watching everything wake up, gradually and without regard for whether or not I was ready for it. The fields of canola flowers bloomed, casting their sickly smell into the air, but at least they were pretty. I remember six year olds walking to school on their own, holding their schoolfriends' hands, without parents worrying about whether they'd be snatched.
I remember Suicide Hill, and suffering myself to be nicknamed a little Eskimo Boy by a preadolescent Spaniard, trading suggestive looks with a rather older Spaniard, while ice cream melted on my hands and I burnt my toast. I miss eighty-cent 70 % Lindt chocolate bars and a pair of thick white duvets covering my narrow bed. I do not miss sleeping alone.
I miss the Altstadt, with its hidden tea rooms and shops with horrid eighties-throwback fashion in their windows, longing after the bookstore, wishing I knew German so I could read the many, many volumes smelling of old paper and ink.
I miss drinking beer beside Lac Genève, sitting on the parapets of old city walls, and looking down into valleys from 1527 metres above sea level, and lying sprawled over a dark blue velvet settee, watching Manchester United beat the snot out of Liverpool, drinking Feldschlösschen lager and eating Nutella out of the jar with my fingers.
And, of course, you.
Get well soon, and stop running into things on motorbikes. It isn't particularly healthy.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Donne Moi l'Encre!
I have found lately that as impatient a writer as I am, the rhythm of typing doesn't seem to pull the ideas out of me as easily as a simple pen and paper. A dip-pen is even better, and a little bottle of sepia ink. Sepia ink has a nice flow to it, and doesn't seem to clot so much as black ink.
Also, I have the best ideas for lyrics while brushing on mascara or washing dishes. It must have something to do with the meditative half-moment, when your hand is either attempting to steady itself so you don't poke yourself in the eye, or engaged, without much aid from your brain, in sloshing warm, soapy water over egg goo on a plate.
I was thinking, last night, of things, memories in my life that I wanted to write about, or insert in a story or novel to give it a level of verisimilitude, or relatability, at least, and I came across a dusty old bit that involved trips back to the north-east to visit rellies.
I remember the upright piano, in a cobwebby basement that smelled, mainly, of old couches. It stood between the pinball machine and a billiard-table, and the bare concrete walls were here and there decorated with games of pin the tail on the donkey, half-scraped and bubbled with water damage. I remember venturing down the creaky steps, turning the lights on at the top, because even now, I'm afraid of the dark, listening for the sounds of my two older brothers playing billiards, the crack of cues hitting balls into one another. Whether they were there or not, it didn't so much matter to me. I sat at the piano, and dusted the cover with my finger-tips, brushing away the dust acquired over weeks of disuse, feeling the sandy grains and silky webs clinging to my hands, before I lifted the cover, and started to play.
I didn't know a thing about music, and I don't well remember why I liked it so much, but producing sounds, so easily, was what drew me first to it. Then, when I found that they neither bent nor squealed, if the keys were gently used, I liked it better. My feet didn't reach the pedals, and my hand scarcely spanned half an octave. Still, it was not the music or sound itself that I enjoyed, it was producing it. Being the conjurer of a thousand discordant notes, and delighting when I found a combination that pleased the ear. For hours at a time, I would press the keys in, gently or harshly, though I could never make much volume with my weak fingers, and hum tunes, words that came to mind, mainly about horses, and Robin Hood, and, occasionally, tragic deaths of lovers like Hero and Leander, of swimming the Hellespont every night, and one night drowning, of the terrifying certainty that if he was not there, he must be dead.
I am sure, if confronted with recorded evidence of the sounds I made, I would now be horrified, embarrassed, or, at least, a little annoyed that my childhood wonder was made a spectacle of, so many years from when it was poignant. Maybe the only thing that would annoy me is that I haven't the courage to do the same now, to make up sad songs in a basement, because I have grown up, and I can't stand sounding bad to myself.
Also, I have the best ideas for lyrics while brushing on mascara or washing dishes. It must have something to do with the meditative half-moment, when your hand is either attempting to steady itself so you don't poke yourself in the eye, or engaged, without much aid from your brain, in sloshing warm, soapy water over egg goo on a plate.
I was thinking, last night, of things, memories in my life that I wanted to write about, or insert in a story or novel to give it a level of verisimilitude, or relatability, at least, and I came across a dusty old bit that involved trips back to the north-east to visit rellies.
I remember the upright piano, in a cobwebby basement that smelled, mainly, of old couches. It stood between the pinball machine and a billiard-table, and the bare concrete walls were here and there decorated with games of pin the tail on the donkey, half-scraped and bubbled with water damage. I remember venturing down the creaky steps, turning the lights on at the top, because even now, I'm afraid of the dark, listening for the sounds of my two older brothers playing billiards, the crack of cues hitting balls into one another. Whether they were there or not, it didn't so much matter to me. I sat at the piano, and dusted the cover with my finger-tips, brushing away the dust acquired over weeks of disuse, feeling the sandy grains and silky webs clinging to my hands, before I lifted the cover, and started to play.
I didn't know a thing about music, and I don't well remember why I liked it so much, but producing sounds, so easily, was what drew me first to it. Then, when I found that they neither bent nor squealed, if the keys were gently used, I liked it better. My feet didn't reach the pedals, and my hand scarcely spanned half an octave. Still, it was not the music or sound itself that I enjoyed, it was producing it. Being the conjurer of a thousand discordant notes, and delighting when I found a combination that pleased the ear. For hours at a time, I would press the keys in, gently or harshly, though I could never make much volume with my weak fingers, and hum tunes, words that came to mind, mainly about horses, and Robin Hood, and, occasionally, tragic deaths of lovers like Hero and Leander, of swimming the Hellespont every night, and one night drowning, of the terrifying certainty that if he was not there, he must be dead.
I am sure, if confronted with recorded evidence of the sounds I made, I would now be horrified, embarrassed, or, at least, a little annoyed that my childhood wonder was made a spectacle of, so many years from when it was poignant. Maybe the only thing that would annoy me is that I haven't the courage to do the same now, to make up sad songs in a basement, because I have grown up, and I can't stand sounding bad to myself.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
We Apologise for the Inconvenience
This is completely a gratuitous compromise to my hormones. *Falls into an ab-induced coma*
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
She Lingers My Desires
So, it's chilly, isn't it? Not nearly, my loves, as it is in Iceland. Which, apparently, is a city in Australia, which really is Burrito-land, in which they speak the language of Burrito.
I did something naughty last night. After forcing myself through another bit of creative writing, which involved Queen Pasiphaë and, peculiarly enough, Diogenes. But only the Diogenes Club inhabited by the most unclubbable men in London, I got on youtube. The great, evil timesucker. And I watched half of Monster by Dylan Moran. And I'm sure I got loads of naughty thoughts about soup with noodles, children's parties, and wine.
But that's not the naughty thing I did. The naughty thing I did was to stay up past bedtime, and subsequently to wake at four the next morning. This means, of course, that my next piece of creative writing is going to involve twelve year old boys struggling through a sudden bizarre streak of divinatory brilliance, strawberries, a cruciform sword as opposed to the rapier, and the significance of Daniel Craig as a lust object.
Obviously, I'm going to be more interested in someone like Nic Cester, but notwithstanding.
I wanted to say something, but the first paragraph of A Midsummer Night's Dream keeps rushing through my mind. Maybe it's just the fault of the cat looking so dreadfully comfy curled up by the fire, or maybe it's that I'm for some reason mind-numbingly happy despite the ache in my veins that is the absence of coffee (I'm soh healthy). Or, perhaps, it's that I'm craving Les Misérables. You choose. But eat this nonsense. I'm getting back into insightful imagery, at least.
O, Ariadne, with your moon-calf eyes,
Enmeshed in Dionysius' everlasting arms,
You grew vine-twigs in your rumpled hair,
Your ravishment a thing of beauty,
Weave your sister's widow's weeds,
Hephaestus will illumine her grave.
I did something naughty last night. After forcing myself through another bit of creative writing, which involved Queen Pasiphaë and, peculiarly enough, Diogenes. But only the Diogenes Club inhabited by the most unclubbable men in London, I got on youtube. The great, evil timesucker. And I watched half of Monster by Dylan Moran. And I'm sure I got loads of naughty thoughts about soup with noodles, children's parties, and wine.
But that's not the naughty thing I did. The naughty thing I did was to stay up past bedtime, and subsequently to wake at four the next morning. This means, of course, that my next piece of creative writing is going to involve twelve year old boys struggling through a sudden bizarre streak of divinatory brilliance, strawberries, a cruciform sword as opposed to the rapier, and the significance of Daniel Craig as a lust object.
Obviously, I'm going to be more interested in someone like Nic Cester, but notwithstanding.
I wanted to say something, but the first paragraph of A Midsummer Night's Dream keeps rushing through my mind. Maybe it's just the fault of the cat looking so dreadfully comfy curled up by the fire, or maybe it's that I'm for some reason mind-numbingly happy despite the ache in my veins that is the absence of coffee (I'm soh healthy). Or, perhaps, it's that I'm craving Les Misérables. You choose. But eat this nonsense. I'm getting back into insightful imagery, at least.
O, Ariadne, with your moon-calf eyes,
Enmeshed in Dionysius' everlasting arms,
You grew vine-twigs in your rumpled hair,
Your ravishment a thing of beauty,
Weave your sister's widow's weeds,
Hephaestus will illumine her grave.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Oh, Gerald!
He is the SEX.
He is IT.
He is BROM.
Observe the hawtness of his many, many muscles!
In other news, who brought this goat in here? You know...that yellow goat I ate?
Osch. I have been watching that clip, and it kills me. Really, really...kills me.
Anyhow, about BROM.
Who is SEX.
And AWESOME beyond ALL THINGS...and whom I am NOT SICK for ADORING...I love him so much.
I could write novels about each of his pieces. Long, loving, deeply psychotic novels, about pretty glass men and whip-bearing angels named Sarafiel and Enguerrand. Oh, yes, there will be naughtiness. And pale men with deeply shadowed eyes and long, dark hair. With mysterious rubies round their throats.
Oh, man. I'm so much more talented than bloody Salvatore. I only wish I had his money, so I could have book covers by lovely, lovely Brom. Sigh.
He is IT.
He is BROM.Observe the hawtness of his many, many muscles!
In other news, who brought this goat in here? You know...that yellow goat I ate?
Osch. I have been watching that clip, and it kills me. Really, really...kills me.
Anyhow, about BROM.
Who is SEX.
And AWESOME beyond ALL THINGS...and whom I am NOT SICK for ADORING...I love him so much.
I could write novels about each of his pieces. Long, loving, deeply psychotic novels, about pretty glass men and whip-bearing angels named Sarafiel and Enguerrand. Oh, yes, there will be naughtiness. And pale men with deeply shadowed eyes and long, dark hair. With mysterious rubies round their throats.
Oh, man. I'm so much more talented than bloody Salvatore. I only wish I had his money, so I could have book covers by lovely, lovely Brom. Sigh.
Friday, 18 January 2008
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