Read about Josephine's vist to The Moth HQ in NYC over at Dumbo Feather (and then get the Stitcher podcast). Yeah that's a lot of links, shut up about it and just listen.
Just listen
Josephine Rowe, one of my favourite writers, has introduced me to The Moth and now I can't do anything except listen.
Damp towel brings joy to undisturbed woman who sits contemplating doing a crime
Everyone is talking about love, who loves them, or doesn't, or should, did or could or who they love or don't, or want to, will do or could. I'm not listening to them because as usual I am thinking about myself. I used to love and it was terrible.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
I don't know
A man I didn't really know died recently, I'd met him once or twice at events hosted by one of those not-for-profits that invade every aspect of everything ever thought of. The not-for-profit decided to sell memorabilia at one of their events and the man, the now-dead man, trembled his way over to the table to inspect the goods.
He took a while moving between his seat and the merch table at the back of the hall, you could see his navigation systems were having some trouble and his legs, though willing, bowed and angled like they were bearing the weight of an eight-tonne truck and not the birdlike body of an elderly man. He fingered some of the merchandise, letting it slide between his fingers before putting it down again. He opened his wallet but came up a little short, I offered, because I was working the merch table, to let him pay the balance later, but he declined. Angling his head and taking a last look he went to walk away but his wife spotted him and came over. He politely enquired as to whether she might have some money about her person and pointed shyly to the merch.
The wife, elderly and impeccably groomed, gushed, "Of course you must have one my darling" and immediately produced a large amount of cash, in hundreds, from thin air. She might have been pompous if it wasn't for the tender glance she shot in her husband's direction. He fingered the merch once more before reverently choosing one and carefully stashing it in his battered old briefcase. Earlier in the proceedings he had introduced himself to me and proudly stated that he was back in action and ready to be of service once again. I had eyed him warily wondering if he wasn't a crackpot who'd wandered in from the street but was soon sure of his status in the group when The Captain of the not-for-profit made a show of shaking his hand.
At the time of the showy handshake I felt a shiver of disgust, not for the man but for the closed in world of not-for-profits. I found myself in a state of involuntary reverie about community marching bands and pony clubs. Those places seemed haunted by elderly people who did nothing but yell at children like me to sit up straighter on my pony or hold my clarinet at different angle. Back then I wondered why these elderly yelling people were tolerated when all they did was wear the club tie and yell and complain about things. I know better these days but at the moment of the showy handshake I felt a childlike urge to gallop off or deliberately play in the wrong key.
During the speeches, and the reading of the minutes and the chugging through of the agenda I watched the old man from my perch at the back of the room. I felt my own small tenderness for his dear old head as it bent over his shaky notes. I wondered what he was writing and why. The secretary was taking official minutes and the room was packed with emeritus academics who surely must have one or two memory cells between them. He persisted with his intense concentration and note-taking right through to the end of the proceedings.
When all the other academics and assorted official people were braying loudly over full cups of expensive wines and rocking back and forth on their heels in a mildly demented manner the old man was sitting lightly on a plastic chair in the corner. Every so often he would take a peek in his briefcase and stare fondly at his merchandise. I made a note to post him a receipt with a kind note, something simple about how the not-for-profit was terribly glad he was "back in action".
I never saw the man again, he died before I had a chance to make up for the insolence of my youth, all those times I rode off at pony club with my nose in the air, or declared at band practice that someone was 'not the boss of me'. There's probably something I should think of to tie this little anecdote up, finish it up with a concluding sentence but I just can't think what it is. Perhaps it is enough that I noticed him, that outside of his family and friends and the official mourning accompanying anyone who has achieved great things there is someone else who will remember him. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling sentimental and in five minutes I will have forgotten all about everything.
He took a while moving between his seat and the merch table at the back of the hall, you could see his navigation systems were having some trouble and his legs, though willing, bowed and angled like they were bearing the weight of an eight-tonne truck and not the birdlike body of an elderly man. He fingered some of the merchandise, letting it slide between his fingers before putting it down again. He opened his wallet but came up a little short, I offered, because I was working the merch table, to let him pay the balance later, but he declined. Angling his head and taking a last look he went to walk away but his wife spotted him and came over. He politely enquired as to whether she might have some money about her person and pointed shyly to the merch.
The wife, elderly and impeccably groomed, gushed, "Of course you must have one my darling" and immediately produced a large amount of cash, in hundreds, from thin air. She might have been pompous if it wasn't for the tender glance she shot in her husband's direction. He fingered the merch once more before reverently choosing one and carefully stashing it in his battered old briefcase. Earlier in the proceedings he had introduced himself to me and proudly stated that he was back in action and ready to be of service once again. I had eyed him warily wondering if he wasn't a crackpot who'd wandered in from the street but was soon sure of his status in the group when The Captain of the not-for-profit made a show of shaking his hand.
At the time of the showy handshake I felt a shiver of disgust, not for the man but for the closed in world of not-for-profits. I found myself in a state of involuntary reverie about community marching bands and pony clubs. Those places seemed haunted by elderly people who did nothing but yell at children like me to sit up straighter on my pony or hold my clarinet at different angle. Back then I wondered why these elderly yelling people were tolerated when all they did was wear the club tie and yell and complain about things. I know better these days but at the moment of the showy handshake I felt a childlike urge to gallop off or deliberately play in the wrong key.
During the speeches, and the reading of the minutes and the chugging through of the agenda I watched the old man from my perch at the back of the room. I felt my own small tenderness for his dear old head as it bent over his shaky notes. I wondered what he was writing and why. The secretary was taking official minutes and the room was packed with emeritus academics who surely must have one or two memory cells between them. He persisted with his intense concentration and note-taking right through to the end of the proceedings.
When all the other academics and assorted official people were braying loudly over full cups of expensive wines and rocking back and forth on their heels in a mildly demented manner the old man was sitting lightly on a plastic chair in the corner. Every so often he would take a peek in his briefcase and stare fondly at his merchandise. I made a note to post him a receipt with a kind note, something simple about how the not-for-profit was terribly glad he was "back in action".
I never saw the man again, he died before I had a chance to make up for the insolence of my youth, all those times I rode off at pony club with my nose in the air, or declared at band practice that someone was 'not the boss of me'. There's probably something I should think of to tie this little anecdote up, finish it up with a concluding sentence but I just can't think what it is. Perhaps it is enough that I noticed him, that outside of his family and friends and the official mourning accompanying anyone who has achieved great things there is someone else who will remember him. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling sentimental and in five minutes I will have forgotten all about everything.
Number nine
Recurring dream of giving speech of thanks at dinner party on The Peach Deck. During the speech it feels important to explain to all ten guests how I first met each one of them, as though joining dots in invisible puzzles. The dream repeats itself, sometimes two or three times a night, every night, without respite.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
In the dream I am making a speech to friends, giving thanks for making known the possibility of joy, sketching lightly old histories of sorrow and how I arrived here in the city like a refugee clutching wildly at any shred of will to live and continue on into tomorrow. I remember I used to vomit on the way to work, every day, less than half way to the train station, I was so tightly wound and simultaneously undone I could barely breathe. And then there is now.
The speech is disturbing my sleep. I lay awake before dawn reciting it like an elongated mantra. At first I dismissed it as yet another folly of the unconscious mind but instead of forming a long-winded aphasia its meaning daily increases. Perhaps it is my ode to joy.
So this is thirty five
Too preoccupied to be bothered with pondering about significance of age. You see there are at least ten plates losing momentum rapidly and my motivation was at least partially depleted in that glorious moment when friends were drunk and shouting from The Peach Deck and I was dancing in the hallway with a bucket on my head. There's that letter to Mr Goldblum I'm still working on, a forty centimetre stack of submissions to PAN, the manuscript to be dealt with and nobody has realigned the coloured dots in the hall for at least a week. Bob was right about times. Changing so much it has become clear that joy is a very real possibility.
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