Journal Entries
RITA
Posted Aug 12, 2005
I woke up suddenly at just gone 2am. I was standing in the living room, in front of the phone, which was ringing. So I answered it.
"Rita?" said a sweet-voiced foreign-sounding woman at the other end.
Summoning my powers of speech from beyond the realms of sleep, I told her she'd got the wrong number. She didn't understand. I explained slowly that there was no Rita living here.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
I said I was certain: there had never been a Rita at this phone number. The woman burst into tears and cried, "oh, Rita! What am I going to do? It has been so very long since I last spoke to Rita! Can't you go and get her for me? I need to speak to her!"
I asked what number she'd (thought she had) phoned. She didn't want to tell me at first, and I sure as hell wasn't going to give her *my* number first. In the end she told me. It was this number alright, and I said so.
"Are you Rita?" she asked.
"No."
"Are you lying to me? You sound like Rita."
"No. My name is [Snailrind]."
"[Snailrind]?"
"Yes."
Even in my quarter-awake state, I was amazed: nobody ever gets my name right on the phone. It's a simple enough name but, being made up, people always translate it into some other name they're more used to. This lady got it in one.
She started crying harder, and calling on Rita repeatedly. I thought she must be in some kind of terrible trouble.
"Is there anything I can do?" I asked her.
"You can bring me a chocolate bar," she replied, and laughed, and hung up.
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Latest reply: Aug 12, 2005
CHAVS IN HOODIES
Posted Aug 6, 2005
For those who don't live in Britain, our current demons are teenage boys who hang around street corners wearing hoodies and baseball caps. The sight of such beings tends to instill dread into passers-by, who assume anyone who wears such clothes must be out to cause trouble. This is rather a problem for teenage boys, because hoodies and baseball caps are the height of fashion amongst their age group. My local shopping centre, whose shops sell both hoodies and baseball caps, have banned wearers of said items from ever darkening their doors again.
That said, it can be intimidating when you're walking along some lonely lane to be confronted by a gang of eight or so teenage lads, hoodies or no hoodies. Which is what happened to me today. I knew it was customary to feel nervous, but they all looked so rosy-cheeked and wholesome under their hoods that I just smiled at them. The biggest one spoke to me, and we had the following exchange, which has shocked me so much I'm considering writing to the papers.
CHAV: You a Jew?
SR: Nah.
CHAV: Wha' are you, then? Do you believe in them flaming devils and that?
SR: I'm an atheist.
CHAV: A wha'
SR: An atheist.
CHAV: Atheist?
SR: Yeah.
CHAV: Wossat?
SR: I don't believe in God. That's an atheist.
CHAV: Oh. What *do* you believe in, then?
SR: Er... evolution?
CHAV: Wossat?
SR: You don't know what evolution is?
CHAV: No.
SR (stunned): What do they *teach* in schools these days?
CHAV: 
SR: Well, have you heard of Darwin?
CHAV: No.
Tactful pause while I didn't ask him if he was aware that the Earth is round.
CHAV: Do you believe in, like, Hell and devils and things?
SR: No.
CHAV: Oh.
The worst thing about it was that he came across as really interested, and keen to learn something new. He must have been at least 17 years old. How can people get to that age without ever having heard of atheism and evolution? This is the UK, not the American Bible Belt. I'm shocked. Really shocked.
Discuss this Journal entry [35]
Latest reply: Aug 6, 2005
BUSSING IT
Posted Aug 4, 2005
The front and middle seats of the bus today were occupied by elderly gentlemen, so I sat near the back and gazed absently at the backs of their heads all the way to town. And I wondered: do people's ears grow as they get older, or is it that their heads shrink?
Discuss this Journal entry [53]
Latest reply: Aug 4, 2005
CFS: LATEST RESEARCH
Posted Jul 31, 2005
I tell you what, it's about bloody time somebody looked at mitochondrial action in relation to CFS.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4702515.stm
One thing bothers me: if they do develop a blood test for this illness (and I so hope they do), what about those sufferers whose tests come back as 'normal'? Will all those years of fighting to be believed be for nothing? Will they / we have our benefits stopped? Will we be told once again by doctors that our condition is imaginary?
Discuss this Journal entry [15]
Latest reply: Jul 31, 2005
DYLAN'S
Posted Jul 31, 2005
The bookshop where I once worked is now an Internet cafe and takeaway. Gothly and I decided to go there for lunch, to see how it has changed. It felt odd to stand inside that building again, having worked in it for so many years, and it was sad to see the books all gone. My old office is now a kitchen; the stockroom's a collection of pizza ovens and fridges; the music department is a smoking room; the upstairs office is now a toilet. The counters are still where they used to be, but now they are stacked with snack food rather than book-related frivolity.
We went upstairs and sat by the window overlooking the balcony ledge, in the corner where the anatomy books used to stand. There were huge pictures of Wales's favourite poet Dylan Thomas all over the place (and not one book by him). They brought sharply to mind a colleague of mine from about five years ago: not only did he look like Dylan Thomas, but he was a poet as well. A very good poet, as it happens. The man lived and breathed poetry, and during our acquaintanceship he introduced me to new forms of writing, and to the work of exciting new poets I'd never heard of. He was the only person I knew who loved words like I love words--their special sounds, their histories, the shapes they make when written down, the inexplicable pleasure that can be derived from seeing or hearing them grouped together in certain ways. He tended the shop's poetry section like it was a garden plot, ordering obscure tomes to plant among the popular staples, and daily turning different ones face-out for the eyes of passers-by to light on. Sometimes, in the evenings, he'd do a public reading of his own work, and when I could, I'd go and listen to him spellbinding his audiences with his poetic narratives, his Welsh accent rrrolling the RRR's, his tongue caressing each syllable as though it were made of chocolate.
Like me, Dylan sampled the stock in the bookshop indiscriminately, so conversation with him was always wide-ranging; but most of all, I enjoyed our chats about poetry. It was a marvel to me that here was somebody else who not only valued versification, but had read all the same poets as I had, and more. He got me writing copiously, and I came to look forward to my days at work with him. I liked the way he'd sit cross-legged on the counter-top when the shop was empty of customers; I liked the way he smoked pensively out of the upstairs window; I liked the anarchic streak that caused him to climb out of the upstairs window with me and sit on the balcony-ledge to watch the world go by. Because we took turns to do the daily accounts, we began to leave poems for each other in a drawer of the accounting desk: poems about echinoderms, corsets, cadavers, anything.
And then, one day, my Dylan said he was leaving: he was off to seek a better living in London. And it dawned on me that I loved him. And how! This was bad news: I was very much with Gothly.
The last day we spent together was on a staff day-trip to Dublin. Dylan pointed out to me a place where Yeats had once slept rough. I showed him the place where Oscar Wilde had once graffitoed a window-sill. We wandered through green parks and arty parts of the city. He bought himself a silver keychain whose links stood out against the black of his trousers. On the ferry back, he went on deck for a smoke, and I joined him. I wanted to kiss him, but instead I shared his cigarette and we gazed together at the long white wake that stretched behind the boat into the gathering dusk. Reluctant to hurry back to the others in the bar, we mucked about with the samples at the duty free perfume counter. He sprayed his throat with scent, and my mouth was almost close enough to kiss it as I leaned in to smell it; and when I sprayed my wrist, he took my hand in his and touched his lower lip to my pulse. I burned for him.
He was due to leave Wales the following day, but said he'd drop by our house one last time to say goodbye. Back home, I was beside myself. I knew I had to tell Gothly how I felt, but I couldn't. So I hid in the bedroom and wrote one last poem for Dylan: a fatalistic love poem, this time, ostensibly about his favourite artist, and written in a way only he would understand. I handed it to him when he called to say goodbye, there at the front door, with Gothly sitting feet away in the living room.
Then I wrote a letter to Gothly, explaining that I was contemplating ending our relationship and following Dylan to London. And I sat and watched Gothly read this letter. In the trembling of that hand, in the sudden hot smell of tears that didn't fall--in that moment, I realised what a terrible arse I had been: I love Gothly dearly; we are together, and that's that. So I stayed with Gothly--or Gothly let me stay.
There was only one thing I could do in recompense for my utter stupidity: I cut all ties with Dylan. Completely lost contact with him. I'll never see him again, never speak with him; never read another of his poems. And every day I kick myself for ruining what was once a beautiful friendship by getting all calf-eyed over the man.
So. There we were, Gothly and I, sitting by the window overlooking the balcony ledge, in the corner where the anatomy books used to stand. And there were all those great big pictures of Dylan Thomas (and not one book by him). I was struck by one picture in particular, of Dylan smoking pensively and gazing out of the frame. It was a little like this one: http://www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/english/education/packs.html.
I don't think I'll be going back to that cafe.
Before committing suicide, Rothko
Had formed a meaningful relationship
Between colour and emotion.
Yet,
Had he streaked his White
In foamy swathes across the deepening Blue;
Had he reckoned on strung Silver
Linking Black & Black & Black;
Wantonly daubed moodscapes
With proximities of throat and lips,
Of lip & naked wrist
In reams of monochrome;
Had he burgeoned lawns of Green & Green
With rich potential harmonies, perhaps--
Perhaps he'd still have smeared his Red:
He'd still be Blue & Green & Gold, & dead.
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Latest reply: Jul 31, 2005
Snailrind
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