Last night Spencer was telling me about the lyrics to How do you sleep? * by John Lennon, we agreed that sometimes John Lennon was a small man while we drank tea and ate cup cakes fresh from the oven. Last night there was nothing above us save bats, stars and darkness but today I discovered how easy it is to be small, how anger writes my emails for me while my head thinks calmly of washing dishes. I'm listening to McCartney's Fireman album Electric Arguments online as punishment.
I prefer the false intimacy of madness to those plodding people, backyards planted thick with Sunday afternoons, this as always has been my downfall.
I had a terrible time when I went to Queensland with Superman. Early on in the trip Superman ceased all the usual modes of expressing friendship, such as acknowledging my presence or consenting to conversation and abandoned me almost entirely to his beige ** and ever present relatives who eyed me suspiciously and talked quietly about the way Superman was not talking to me. The house itself had some potential but was decorated so hideously and situated so firmly in that particular kind of Queensland suburban isolation that the building itself bred oppression. The people were not unkind but I drifted through days bored, ignored, isolated and trapped. Having lost my wallet and broken my phone I was unable to plan any kind of independent escape. I watched the heavy hours pass, unwilling or unable to talk to Superman and risk his unreasonable anger in response.
When I returned to The Peach, after twelve stretched days of extreme politeness and a constant biting of my tongue, I determined to irrevocably terminate my friendship with Superman. My friends dissuaded me, counseled me with caution, begged me to take some time to think it over, the lovely Rita being a watchful guardian against impulsive action. So I did and I was until Superman messaged me out of the blue about Bill Callahan tickets and I replied in my sleep. If I had been fully conscious I would not have gone. I sat on the train opposite Superman thinking well I might as well see what kind of a time I have, and in the end it was not bad so I invited him to my birthday dinner, eventually, as instructed by friends.
I invited him to my birthday dinner but received no reply, not even Grizelda who was in charge of booking the table received a reply to her kind text message. I received no reply until almost the night itself, I did not expect him to attend but attend he did. He attended without so much as a scrawled message of happy birthday on the back of an envelope but with a battery of narkiness, a determination not to enter into conversation with me or anybody except a baffled Grizelda and then he left, straight after dinner, leaving me shrugging my shoulders on a street corner.
I thought I might try and talk to Superman about this business and to ask him to return some albums he had borrowed, but he would not take my calls, I sent an email asking if it was me he was avoiding or just people in general, thinking I would approach the issue with an enquiry instead of an assumption. Most often I have avoided writing anything of consequence about Superman, to avoid having one of his great and petulant misunderstandings, but right about now I don't really give a damn, I am quite certain that no matter what I do or say he will alter every meaning of every syllable until it sounds like the ringing in his head and he ticks off another box on his list of always being right.
A week passed before I received any reply but such a reply I most certainly did not expect to receive. I am shocked at his arrogance, petulance, selfishness and general ability to shove his head so far up his own arse whilst still uttering audible insults. I am shocked despite my knowledge of his character and temperament, I am shocked despite all of my past tongue bitings during his interminable lectures on How Superman Sees The World And Why He Is Correct And Also Why You Would Be Stupid If You Disagreed (or dared to believe in love). I once again find myself more angry than you can imagine, or at least I was until I felt embarrassed and humiliated for allowing myself to imagine that Superman and I were friends. I feel embarrassed and humiliated for all my bendings to his will, for my silences when I disagreed, for my defence of his character to all and sundry, for holding off the official Superman Is A Prick ceremony that some others attempted to invoke some time ago and for batting away my idle wonderings that such a good man has so paltry a circle of friends, that he hardly ever has any contact with.
Hold the phone I just received an email reply, the single word "fine". So fine it is, here ends the brief but eventful friendship of Dale Slamma and Superman, during which Dale Slamma lost her job, her car, her wallet, her phone, her confidence and for a short time, her backbone. Pass me my hatchet I've some work to do.
* How do you sleep?
by John Lennon - about Paul McCartney
So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
** Superman's sister Ol' Mon Mon is not a beige person, she is an ideal person.
I prefer the false intimacy of madness to those plodding people, backyards planted thick with Sunday afternoons, this as always has been my downfall.
I had a terrible time when I went to Queensland with Superman. Early on in the trip Superman ceased all the usual modes of expressing friendship, such as acknowledging my presence or consenting to conversation and abandoned me almost entirely to his beige ** and ever present relatives who eyed me suspiciously and talked quietly about the way Superman was not talking to me. The house itself had some potential but was decorated so hideously and situated so firmly in that particular kind of Queensland suburban isolation that the building itself bred oppression. The people were not unkind but I drifted through days bored, ignored, isolated and trapped. Having lost my wallet and broken my phone I was unable to plan any kind of independent escape. I watched the heavy hours pass, unwilling or unable to talk to Superman and risk his unreasonable anger in response.
When I returned to The Peach, after twelve stretched days of extreme politeness and a constant biting of my tongue, I determined to irrevocably terminate my friendship with Superman. My friends dissuaded me, counseled me with caution, begged me to take some time to think it over, the lovely Rita being a watchful guardian against impulsive action. So I did and I was until Superman messaged me out of the blue about Bill Callahan tickets and I replied in my sleep. If I had been fully conscious I would not have gone. I sat on the train opposite Superman thinking well I might as well see what kind of a time I have, and in the end it was not bad so I invited him to my birthday dinner, eventually, as instructed by friends.
I invited him to my birthday dinner but received no reply, not even Grizelda who was in charge of booking the table received a reply to her kind text message. I received no reply until almost the night itself, I did not expect him to attend but attend he did. He attended without so much as a scrawled message of happy birthday on the back of an envelope but with a battery of narkiness, a determination not to enter into conversation with me or anybody except a baffled Grizelda and then he left, straight after dinner, leaving me shrugging my shoulders on a street corner.
I thought I might try and talk to Superman about this business and to ask him to return some albums he had borrowed, but he would not take my calls, I sent an email asking if it was me he was avoiding or just people in general, thinking I would approach the issue with an enquiry instead of an assumption. Most often I have avoided writing anything of consequence about Superman, to avoid having one of his great and petulant misunderstandings, but right about now I don't really give a damn, I am quite certain that no matter what I do or say he will alter every meaning of every syllable until it sounds like the ringing in his head and he ticks off another box on his list of always being right.
A week passed before I received any reply but such a reply I most certainly did not expect to receive. I am shocked at his arrogance, petulance, selfishness and general ability to shove his head so far up his own arse whilst still uttering audible insults. I am shocked despite my knowledge of his character and temperament, I am shocked despite all of my past tongue bitings during his interminable lectures on How Superman Sees The World And Why He Is Correct And Also Why You Would Be Stupid If You Disagreed (or dared to believe in love). I once again find myself more angry than you can imagine, or at least I was until I felt embarrassed and humiliated for allowing myself to imagine that Superman and I were friends. I feel embarrassed and humiliated for all my bendings to his will, for my silences when I disagreed, for my defence of his character to all and sundry, for holding off the official Superman Is A Prick ceremony that some others attempted to invoke some time ago and for batting away my idle wonderings that such a good man has so paltry a circle of friends, that he hardly ever has any contact with.
Hold the phone I just received an email reply, the single word "fine". So fine it is, here ends the brief but eventful friendship of Dale Slamma and Superman, during which Dale Slamma lost her job, her car, her wallet, her phone, her confidence and for a short time, her backbone. Pass me my hatchet I've some work to do.
* How do you sleep?
by John Lennon - about Paul McCartney
So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
** Superman's sister Ol' Mon Mon is not a beige person, she is an ideal person.
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