Dublineers

I brought a whirl of snow to town
For when our work was done
But it snowed up instead of down
And caused my nose to run

                      ***

The game’s been fun; Naomi won
Our regimented banter.
But now my patience’s overrun
For fuck’s sake! Yours says Santa

                       ***

You came up for a cup of tea

There wasn't really room for three

So we all played Monopoly 

Capitalism's less awkward.

                       ***

While you're probably less corrupt

A president than Berlusconi

It seems likely he throws slightly

Better gigs with pepperoni.

But only slightly.

                       ***

I hoped that she would fall for me
I knew I’d never make her:
Atop my list was ‘Humanist’
While hers said ‘Liberal Quaker’


— Dusk

             

Stings like a BA Oxons

The other day I was asked if I wanted to fight. My aggressor was a blonde Nordic man. He was at least 6ft 3. I accepted.

It occurred to me that at the age of 23, I’ve never really been in a fight. The only time I’ve ever had to swing for my life was in Year 5, when Charles grabbed my tie and wrapped it round my neck. I swung my arm blindly round and caught him in the eye. My fist blackened his eye and my watch caught his eyebrow and made it gush blood over his white shirt. We’ve been firm friends ever since.

Now that I am out of middle school and have gainful employment, which means that I can afford not to live in ghettos and can choose to take a taxi rather than dark backstreets home from clubs, it’s getting increasingly unlikely that I’ll ever really get into one. This is probably part of the reason I joined the boxing gym. I don’t have the standard martial arts pretext of being prepared with self-defence for if a fight was to occur. I just really wanted to punch someone.

In some ways the gym exactly fulfilled my aesthetic expectations: it’s in a fairly Spartan unit, crammed into the archway of a railway bridge. Everything rattles pleasingly when trains pass overhead. The equipment is shabby and patched with duct tape, the air is perfumed with intermingled sweat and testosterone and the gym-leader is a mysterious man who makes us call him Master Rezza. We all do. On the other hand, thought, the gym is located in Stamford Brook—a leafy, well-to-do suburb— so does lose some of its gritty veneer.

Having pranced around the gym-matt floor for a few weeks, yielding triumph after triumph over first my shadow and then a large back filled with foam pellets, I was flushed with success. My left jab was lightening quick, and my right hook was a sure-fire killer. I was even pretty sure that despite having missed the week that we did ‘footwork’, I was pretty damn nimble. As I stepped through the rope and into the ring, I had the arrogant pride of a boxer. Unfortunately, that’s all I had.

It was like a replayed scene from my youth, sitting in someone’s loft-bedroom, watching the older boys play Tekken on the old playstation, while I busy studied the manual. Dragon punch: up, up, square, circle, left. Tiger kick: square, down, square, right, right, square. Then when I was finally handed the controller, all concept of dragon punch went out the window as my experience opponent kicked 7 shades of shit out of me and while I frantically mashed the keypad and tried to remember which button was ‘block’. That is less a metaphor for my fight than an accurate, scaled down image.

As I reeled back from yet another carefully landed blow to the face I thought to myself “Thank god I’m not doing this in a Texan bar brawl or in prison or something.” The worst thing was: he wasn’t even trying.

Still, I am persevering. The credential of having been part of a boxing gym gives me a gritty edge to my otherwise hopelessly middle class credentials. Like how Will Self gets away with being shamelessly wordy because he did a bit of heroin at some point in the past. And who know? Maybe next time I’ll land a punch.

— Dusk 

we don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time

A word, a whirr and the air is cappuccino scented. You widen your eyes at me over your heavy-rimmed frames (The Female Eunuch under one arm) and say you can’t read me, then ask me to stay for “just one more” cup of tea.

It’s already half past two.

Outside, taxis blaring; inside we sit staring at one another or the wall, stroking this and that of one another, or not at all. We’re sharing thoughts we’ve always wanted to against the black&white flicker of a picture show.

You claim innocence but there’s a blaze of understanding when you look at me and I glance at a coffee stain on your jeans then quickly knock the cup against my teeth and blush as a bitter drop wets my tongue.

You say nothing, making everyone else in this late-night café seem so vanilla.

Your weight shifts and I realize my tea’s gone cold again.

From West to East: a Sunset in Reverse

I don't love you

there will never be a time that

being with you is as good as it always was

and just

talking, hanging out

it means nothing to me

we have too much space and history between us

if people say that

we just seem to work

I just go along with it

I don't care

and you should never think

I'm thinking the same as you are

the best part of it all is that

we get with other people

I don't really care that

we've come this far

and it's kinda unbelievable to think that

we love each other

you must always remember 

there will be a time when we don't think of each other

and you surely can't believe

this is for forever

We look at things another way. Nothing with us is ever quite as it seems; nobody ever sees it the right way. Turn this on its head to get its true meaning.

— Dusk

The Importance of Being Idol

They say you should never meet your idols. This is true in all but two cases.

A few days ago, I had the good fortune to meet a nutjob extraordinaire, the cult director Tommy Wiseau at a screening in the Prince Charles Theatre. While his filmography is brash, honest and highly embarrassing, he is known to be quite secretive, and I was worried that following years of haranguing and critique, the Tommy who screamed “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” might no longer exist.

Thankfully, I was entirely wrong. Tommy’s publicist (if he has one) clearly, and well advisedly, takes a very hands-off approach. Tommy was dressed in teenager black with long, greasy hair. He was creepy. He refused to give a straight answer to pretty much every question asked. A friend who attended a different showing was subjected to the cinematic crotch being thrust towards her face. In short, meeting Tommy was great. Meeting Tommy was fine for the simple reason that Tommy is one of those rare people in the world who is, for most purposes, two dimensional. He can never fall backwards off his pedestal because, frankly, he has no idea what backwards means.

For example, I am not worried by my inevitable introduction to (and seduction by?) the wonder that is Joanna Lumley. My awe of her stems almost entirely from her strip-me-naked-and-take-me-on-your-fox-fur-bed-sheets voice. In this one function she is unlikely to fail me (unless her chain-smoking gets the better of her and following a battle with throat cancer she has to have her voice box replaced by a Steven Hawking contraption. When that day comes I will wall myself up in my room with the complete boxed-sets of Ab Fab).

Aside from Mr. Wiseau, I have only met a few celebrities in my time, and I have picked wisely. Brian Blessed jumped onto the table at the Oxford Union and bellowed, whereas I carefully avoided the later appearance by the unsexy, witticism-free, unarmed prune that is the preserved and decrepit Roger Moore.

There’s another time that it’s appropriate—indeed desirable—to finally meet the wizard behind the curtain: in love. Humans are all hugely flawed individuals. Because of this, it would be nigh-on impossible for two of these dreadful creatures to pick a mate to meet the exacting standards that nature, and Cosmopolitan, demands what with all the glaring flaws and foibles we all exude. Thankfully, nature has conceived of a chemical way to lower the rose-tinted glasses our eyes when we meet someone who might—disregarding the fact that they watch cricket, or leave their dead skin on the floor, or adore Cher—actually work. So we form these lovely idealized forms of people, which we then fall in love with and exchange saliva with to test for genetic compatibility and lots of other ace stuff. Eventually, though it the time comes to peel off the alabaster shell and see what’s underneath. Most of the time, like a Kinder Surprise, the flimsy model doesn’t live up to the rich and delicious casing. Sometimes though, in a few rare occasions what’s underneath is actually better than the cliché you built around what you thought you wanted. And isn’t that nice?

As a young child I also met Mr Motivator who as a Man From TV, was A Big Deal. I’m not sure what affect it had on my later ability to form relationships. Probably not as much as the disappointment of Kinder Egg after fucking Kinder Egg.

— Dusk

When being with someone you hate is still better than being alone.

So on Monday I went to a house party. The theme was "what the fuck?" so I went armed with A Beginner's Guide to Reality and an egg. Oh, and an entire litre of vodka. Which I then proceded to drink because I am socially awkward and even though I'd met most of these people before I found it too difficult to just be my normal, charming, self. I still can't figure out how I managed to be intimidated by a man with bread sellotaped to his face but my non-sensical time-specific inhibitions never cease to amaze. My flatmate drove me out there like a babe but she wasn't drinking so she left early, like at midnight or something, leaving me to my own devices and to work out my homeward journey myself. Under normal circumstances this would have been dubious at best, but in my drunken state it was horrendously ill-judged. But we'll get to that. Up until a point I had been planning on sharing a taxi back with several people from halls but at some point between that and waking up in the morning there must have been a change of plan because I woke up, butt naked, in Rodeo's arms. UGHH.

So, back in September I had a mammoth-crush on him, just because he was literate and British and charming and such. Also I imagine having uprooted myself for the third time and landing myself in a city I knew next to nothing about and where I knew no one else probably played a bit of a role in it too. Anyway, way back then we went out and got fairly tipsy and on the way back decided it would be an excellent idea to hop the gate and sneak into St Stephen's Green. Now this was at like 2AM or something if I remember correctly and it was lovely and dark and a full moon was shining on this wonderfully placid lake and I was walking hand in hand with a really great guy and morning birds were chirping and it just seemed like a movie-moment, you know? So naturally, we ended up having sex on one of the benches. And like, it ended up being one of those stark moments of realisation. Those moments never do bode well, btw. I didn't particularly want to have sex, he didn't particularly turn me on, but I did it anyway, mostly because the moment seemed to demand it. It wasn't good. In fact, it was cold and windy and my knees bruised badly against the bench and it was over too quickly and a massive rat streaked past us whilst I was rearranging my shirt. I cried a bit when I walked home, not about him or the act or whatever, just that...well, this always happens. Dreams always end up being, well, shit. After that we just went back to being friends and we've not really spoken of it since. He's tried to make a few moves on me but they've always been half-hearted and I've always just ignored them. There's your backstory.

So at some point (here's where things start to get a bit fuzzy) I must have told him that I didn't know how to get home and he must have directed me to his bed because I went to sleep for a bit. Later (how much I'm not sure) he came in and woke me up and complained that I was wearing jeans ("who sleeps in jeans?") but I insisted that I keep them on because I knew what would happen if I took them off. None the less, he was persistent, and insistent that nothing would happen if I removed them. I resisted for a while but eventually gave in, if only to shut him up. Then I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. He was having none of that. He started kissing me and I was so drunk I just went with it, but then obviously he went to take it further and I'll not bore you with the gore but he was very persistent despite my obvious dissent but eventually I gave in and just let it happen because it was literally easier to do that than to not.

Now I'm potentially making this sound a little rapey, which it wasn't because I was obviously an active participant and he was probably just as drunk as I was but I can't help but feel that I should probably be angry that he took advantage of me. I'm not really though. Like, I would have rather that it hadn't happened, but it makes no real difference whether it did or not. I guess I should be valuing my body a bit more but what's the point in regretting something that has already happened? In future I shall be more assertive, and less drunk. I feel like I kind of knew that was going to happen as soon as I made the decision to spend the night but I let it happen anyway because I'm lazy. That has got to change. Sometimes I just don't get sex though. Like, even with Pratchett it's never the reason I see him, always an afterthought (although it's probably his forethought). I just don't seem to enjoy it that much, crave it, or miss it when it's not there. Don't get me wrong though, it has been good in the past, I know what it is to have been good and I guess I need to find someone who can do that for me and then have sex with them and only them but until then I'm probably just going to keep having meaningless, shitty, sex because that's easier than explaining to someone that I don't want to do it.

That's skewed, right? I know that I should just sever ties with Pratchett and whoever else but I literally can't summon the effort/will to do it when I know that I'll just be alone when I do.

the importance you attach.

My star upon that billowing azure

was one of celtic twilight, myth

I loved all twelve together, but

just one by which I lived.

Amongst the others

my golden star gleamed,

boasted culture, tradition, history:

my home, an emerald dream.

I would return to it one day, till then

I vowed to write it from abroad, like Joyce,

to be my Ireland’s consciousness
the sean-bhean bhocht's own voice.

To whom should I complain

that I imagined it a different place?

My Wilde-heart dreamt a dreamer’s dream,

more than a land could ideate.

I should have known its absence

and stayed away from truth

and known amongst the high of mind

it rarely has a use.

Neon swallows culture,

last night belches this on streets,

the wrapping’s flown into the wind

this city-sacked completes

But I’ll get out as soon as I can fly

and ignore these next four years,

forget my disillusionment 

and still be buried here.

if only you could lead my heart so well as learning can

am I
necessarily alone
that I can ride that bulging isthmus when it shatters
and sinks deep?
I guess that's what they mean by the third dimension.
One cannot contain us.
Two is happy, but flat.
Three is hard to enter and I must go alone.
Your smile: inimitable;
heart stomping loveliness is but shallow: two.
its loss halts to a dull ache with the ticking
as I know depth

You were me,
ours was the voice of the 2D icon
but shallow bliss cannot compare to the third
though its memories bleed into eternity they will be forgotten
and today I recollect those oozing love-crumbs, marked
as two distinct lands once connected.

Borsch

Borsch

When I was sixteen

I spent two weeks in Normandie

studying Flaubert

with a scholar.

Her eyes were black and her front tooth was chipped

and all day long we’d look at manuscripts.

She’d squint to decipher blacked out scribbles

and her prune lips would purse and her cheeks would shrivel,

while I watched on, bored.

At night, she snored.

We never got anywhere.
At dinnertime we went downstairs

to eat and eat and eat.

The root in season was the beet.

To start with, we had borsch.

There never was another course.

Under scrutiny of beady eyes

I ate the soup; at least, I tried.

The house was cold.

She was so old.

Borsch was dinner every evening,

the next beet-flavoured day spent grieving

when food had tasted like food,

and waiting till my tastebuds renewed.

Sometimes there’d be a slice of bread

Marooned in the sea, wishing it were dead.

Every night was lost in borsch-blur

Like some ancient form of torture.

The purple devil cursed me till I wept

Mocking me even when I slept:

in my nightmares I held a glowing torch

over a swimming pool filled with fucking borsch

and I didn’t yet know why, I wasn’t any nearer

and Gustave’s writing wasn’t any clearer

it continued to get worse and worse

and I could only borsch and borsch

until one day it was over.

Gymnos and lesbos: a lesson in Greek

I woke up in my bed with aching limbs and a lesbian.

There’s currently a trend of high-flier and executives promoting the ladder-climbing mantra never lunch alone.  The concept of seeking out colleagues and industry-fellows to share the precious hour of freedom my contract grants me for networking purposes makes me physically sick. It is, however, quite lonely pounding the treadmill in the gym day after day with no company, as one of my colleagues is looking for a new gym to join, I suggested he come with me.

The guy in question, Zac, is a little in awe of me, I think. This is probably due to my made knowledge of Fixed Income Bonds and Derivatives, my ability to google his questions and give him the answer quickly enough to seem like I knew it all along, and the fact that he has on several occasions found me doing the times crossword while walking to work. As soon as we donned our vests and slacks¹ and stepped out of the changing room, the whole thing flipped.

Apparently, until yesterday I didn’t know how to ‘do the gym’. I’m a little bit of the mentality that if I’ve managed to muster the willpower to actually go to the gym, then I should at least reward myself by not doing any real exercise. Now, with a second entity watching and judging I had to actually work, and had to finally start doing things the correct way. Under Zac’s tutelage I learned the following things: 

1.  Those pleasant bars of metal which I’ve been enthusiastically pumping are in fact Fisher Price’s My First Dumbbell set.
2.  The comically large ones which I assumed were only there for Samson, The Hulk, and all the other unfeasibly large men who hang out in the weight section and drink protein shakes are actually liftable by mere mortals who are roughly my size (Zac)
3. Attempting to do shoulder presses with the correctly sized weights transforms me from an enthusiastic 80s exercise video into a straining Atlas.
4. There is a small and little known muscle group located somewhere near the bottom of the shoulder-blades whose express purpose is to hurt lots after exercise.

Apparently the endolphins I thought had been careening through my bloodstream after my former pseudo-exercise was just an unjustified sense of self satisfaction. Not that I was flooded with them after this; my pain centres were providing pretty much all my post-workout entertainment.

* * *

As a flat, we are pretty bad at getting parties arranged. Usually what will happen is that someone will tentatively make a bare-bones Facebook event, and then be unable to think of something amusing and witty to right, because apparently sending a straightforward invitation is far too fucking earnest for our hipster sensibilities². It was therefore quite pleasing that despite the fact that we never invited anyone, three independent sets of people descended on our flat with voluminous quantities of alcohol.

I blame my mother for the terrible state I ended up in. She has inculcated me with the crazy idea that a dry martini—effectively just pure gin with a nominal amount of vermouth³—is an appropriate cocktail to drink, and can be downed as fast as normal cocktails where all the ingredients are not 40% alcohol. This inescapably ended up with me flirting inappropriately with the only cute single girl, whom I have now been informed is ‘pretty much a lesbian’. I woke up in bed with her, but we were both far too clothed for sex to have happened. It didn’t seem right to ask her if anything went down, so the dregs of that night are swilled down the plughole of alcoholic amnesia.

Oh, and we very nearly finally went to our local grimy nightclub. We tried really hard. One day, Fez, one day.

— Dusk

¹ Getting naked in the changing room with a colleague – awkward?

² “The residents of [our flat] are all pleased that shades of party are in again this season. To celebrate, we're throwing a party. With a classic twist on the super details, this is the perfect trans-seasonal investment; team your vintage party experiences with fun South London designs for this season's timelessness.”

³ Noël Coward claimed that the perfect martini should be made by “filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy”

never was in love, skipping heart beats with the boys downtown

The first meeting was actually pretty bearable. The Slouch just sort of slouched in on herself as usual and to be honest with you I kind of forgot she was even there, so that was fine in the end. At any rate she never really bothered me much herself, it was more a few unsolicited revelations about her that put me off being able to look at her. A while back I was having dinner at my friend Il Cavaliere's place (whose nickname pretty much sums up that he's probably the most lechy lasciv in the universe) and The Slouch came up in conversation for some reason and he, literally without provocation, said to me "she gives really good head". It is all I can do to hold in the chunder every time I've seen her since.

Anyway, even if she hadn't decided to blend in with the couch, my disdain for her would probably have been eclipsed by Pointless anyway. She just makes me mad. It's like, a few weeks ago I might've imagined that she'd be spending this much time around me as a joke but then it ACTUALLY HAPPENED. She's just such a fucking try-hard. It mightn't be so bad if she would just accept her role in the world and be done with it but she tries to fight the pointlessness in such a pointless way. When I see her I just want to drop-kick her over the rugby pitch or something. Then maybe she'd score a point or something. That joke's probably not funny because I don't understand the rules of rugby but whatever.

I met up with Svenska today; she came over from Edinburgh. I'd forgotten how radiant she was. She's like a freaking comic book character. Like you'd think there's no way on Earth that you'd ever find a beautiful, blonde Swedish girl with a body that would put Adriana Lima's to shame who also happens to be hilarious and genius-level smart. I love that girl. I actually used to have a crush on her, way-back-when, before she started going out with Aladdin (one of my friends from school who's Arab, not Indian, but whatever) but that was so long ago I don't even really remember. I've been all about the boys for ages, well, apart from a brief stint last year but that's a whole other tale of unrequited love for a whole other day.

Pratchett swept me off my feet on Friday, sort of. I dubbed him Pratchett pretty much from day one because we've literally never been able to schedule anything at ALL without him flaking by either changing plan, cancelling or being late. Sometimes he just forgets things entirely, so I've kind of come to just never expect anything, our dates mainly happen on the couch in his living room after the day has been and gone and we never really go out or do anything. He's always mentioning how he really wants to take me out to this and that other restaurant, to show me places around Dublin, to take me to Galway, to the zoo...etc. but nothing ever happens. He's all ideas and no action really, which I guess I could be frustrated by, but what's the point? It's just a facet of his personality that I've grown used to, and so now I  just zone out if he starts talking about anything that requires any sort of plan at all. So what happened wasn't really anything big but it was for him, if you know what I mean? I was just sort of sitting up in the litsoc library reading Mr Elton making violent love to Emma and he came up all cute in his woolly jumper and said "we're going for cocktails". And OK, OK I'll admit it was 4 in the afternoon and I had tonnes of work to do but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth so I just let him carry me off. He took me to the exchequer and we drank cocktails, then we (classy as we are) went and bought a load of kopparbergs and danced around the streets before eventually retiring to his to smoke some weed and have some sex. It was nice. Although it did make me late for an event (despite the fact that I told him I had to be there an hour before I actually did) it was probably worth it.

There's something not right though. Actually looking back on that paragraph it's kind of obvious what the problem is. "It was nice", because yeah, it was. "it was probably worth it" But it wasn't particularly special at all. That's the depressing thing about our relationship really. That all the cogs are in the right place and the clock is ticking but the second hand still seems to be a few strokes out. There's just something not quite right about us and I can't put my finger on it. He's good looking. He's cool. He knows lots of people. He's funny. He's useful. We have fun. He likes me. I guess it's just that I don't like him. We can't choose these things I suppose. I just wish that there was someone who I /did/ like, so I'd have a reason to end it with Pratchett and someone to direct all my romantic ideas towards. I imagine it will all work itself out eventually, but for the meantime so long as no one's getting hurt, I might as well just go for the ride, right?

Pointless and The Slouch

In a horrendous turn of events I'm going to end up spending a whole lot more time around Pointless and The Slouch than I had ever ever ever imagined.

Now mostly I manage to avoid the people I don't like. Say if we share lectures I can just avoid eye contact when they're looking for existence-validation; I can have my headphones on if they try to have a voice; I make sure to wear my glasses (and my runners) so I have fair warning and a good head start if they try to approach. In cases like that I can generally claim anonymity amongst the numerous faces of the arts block. Sometimes though, encounters are unavoidable. Like, every Wednesday (today being no exception) I'm forced to spend an hour in a windowless (I'm not being flowery, the room actually has no windows) philosophy tutorial directly facing Barnicle and Greasy McWilde. Woe is me, as you can imagine, but I generally live through it. That particular nightmare has actually been alleviated slightly as I now have someone to share my psychotic murderous impulses with who won't actually think I'm deranged: Shawty actually turned up to something for once.

ANYWAY, my point was that some instances are inevitable. Such it happened that both Pointless AND The Slouch are now at least going to feature weekly in my schedule. If not more. Please God don't let it be more. I will choke on my own vomit.

Wow I'm feeling bitchy today. Who knew I had it in me.

The highbrow lowlife

“Meet me at the pier at midnight” she said.

I think I’m starting to see a pattern.

* * *

For someone very keen on obsessively planning and executing, I sure am a sucker for a girl who rocks up with her own ideas. I guess I just really like surprises. This time, however, it was (unspoken, yet obviously) my turn. 

The thing with creative dates, with out-of-the-box dates (of the ones I’ve been on, Good: arty play; Better: ceilidh) is that they’re fundamentally separate activites. While they allow for you to have a good time together, that’s all it is: the enjoyment of an activity simultaneously felt by two individuals who are ostensibly there together. Frankly, you could probably do that with an ugly person. Maybe that’s appropriate for third or forth date, when you’ve decided that you are probably pretty much okay with seeing them without clothes at some point in the future.  And sure, there is all the discussion and exchange of shared values etc, but they're the kind of things that you’re meant to do between the point of deciding to get into someone’s pants and the point where your marriage has drawn out every possible angle of collision from each of you and you’re both parallel lines, destined to run together forever and never touch (apart from maybe alternate Thursday nights when the children are at swimming club).

 No, there’s something to be said for sitting down in a bar and drinking together, and it’s this: it’s an excuse to look at someone else for a good few hours until you decide that you quite like looking at their face, and are happy with what their mouth does with the words they want to say and are now sufficiently curious to see what it will do with your tongue in there instead. Sure, the alcohol helps, too, but it’s not a fundamental part. Meals out are almost as good—meals in always cast someone as host worrying about whether or not you noticed their soufflés have sagged—but the whole process of ordering and the constant raising of forks to mouths gets in the way of that crucial decision making. I will perhaps grant shisha bars—or even coffee, if drawn out enough—are also ways in which the awkward process of sitting and judging each other can be disguised with a socially acceptable activity. But primarily, alcohol is best, as both lubricant and social cover-up.

So I didn’t really mind that I kinda just planned that we’d go to some bars and see what happened. I do like surprises after all.

Highlife

The internet had advised me that there was a bar in Soho which was open forever. Since Pictionaire arrived at 12:45 am, this was important. We rocked down there to find a strange hybrid bar which looked like it had been a restaurant an hour or two earlier. The sole dancers on the floor (dining tables moved to the side like a school disco) were men in black shirts – surely waiting staff. We ordered two cocktails, they came to £22.50. Mine had a lemon slice, lime twist, maraschino cherry and a cape, but some parts of both of us thought that for the price, we probably could have supplied those ourselves and pocketed the difference. We left soon after.

Lowlife

The only other place open in a Stay-Drunk radius was a metal-themed bar seemingly called called Beer and Whisky Rock and Roll. They served cocktails called things like Charlotte the Harlot which I had to order while leaning over a leather-clad rocker who was doubled over at the only free counter space (sneezing fit, he protested). Smokers asked us to watch their drinks; smokers asked us not to spit in their drinks. We complied. Stayed until closing

Highlife

The only place open after 4am is a charming café at Liverpool Street. We looked in vain for a taxi to whisk us to this well lit, slightly trendy scene.

Lowlife

Got bored of waiting and wandered into Occupy LSX. Got into the library tent. Sat on half a couch and ignored the old men in their sleeping bags. Started to get cold and were offered a precious blanket by one. Gladly accepted. We finally made out, in an unlit library tent, on a slightly damp couch under a slightly smelly blanked, with the dulcet tones of an insane eastern European woman wailing from a few tents along.

Beats the highlife any day.  Come and Occupy my face.

— Dusk

p.s. We did meet at platform 9¾. Sometimes you need a small amount of magical fanboyism to offset the harsh reality of bars and protests.

p.p.s As dawn broke, I went from Occupy via my flat, to my job with an Asset Management company. Mind-body dualism, man.

Goodbye Composure

Happy Birthday, get up” she said. 

“Whynaa?” I replied groggily, partly because it wasn’t my birthday and partly because it was 9am on a Saturday.  

“We’re going to see a play. And some coffins. Meet me at the Southbank at 10. Oh, and wear a shirt”. 

There goes my weekend lie-in.

As fräulein is perpetually late for her life in general (this time she had fallen asleep between calling me and getting up herself), I had to negotiate collecting the tickets on my own, armed only with the time the performance was starting and a vague knowledge of where it was being held. After interrogating a pimply youth for several minutes, I was told that the only play at that time was called Goodbye Mr Muffin.

“That’s a kids’ play, though,” he warned me.  

This somehow confirmed it in my head. 

Fraülein turned up a flurry of second-hand-shop fleece (I suspect an old woman may have died in it while waiting for her winter fuel allowance cheque to cash) and boyish shirts. Standing in the queue it was conspicuous that we were the only ones who hadn’t been either in, or pushing a pram in the past 4 years. We considered standing next to one of the stray kids but decided that, on balance, this made the whole thing even creepier. Despite my wishes, we avoided the low benches at the front, and instead attempted to mingle inconspicuously with the adults at the back.

As the lights went down and the front row stopped wriggling, the woman on stage started plucking a cello in a sweet child-like melody and I started worrying that this was going to be one of those patronizing Tweenies-esque affairs. Thankfully, it was nothing of the sort. The man with the charming Danish accent and the 1960s children’s presenter manner started off by calling Mr Muffin (guinea pig, puppet) out of his house and reading him a letter. 

“Dear Mr Muffin. I am so sad because my dad says that when a guinea pig gets old, it can suddenly die”

Within 20 minutes I was telling myself that it was probably inappropriate for a 23-year-old well up at a kids play, and that I would pull myself together an start watching this academically. Three minutes later, the nice Danish man was burying the puppet in a hole in the AstroTurf scenery and with the sole cellist bowing back and forth on my heartstrings. I’m not a rock, damnit.

Of course, when the lights went up and fraülein and I sat in a sombre silence, all the kids ran forward to take an almond (Mr Muffin’s favourite, sniff). I heard one of them say, quite casually, “That was quite sad, wasn’t it Mum?” Curse you kids and your carefree understanding of the ways of the world.

* * *

Thankfully to brighten our spirits, next on the agenda was an exhibition of coffins, ranging from the weird (an egg, to house an adult in foetal position, symbolizing rebirth or a deep love for kinder eggs) to the downright creepy (a custom made coffin in the shape of a train, along with the (living) gent for whom it was built). I made a mental note to ask (demand) to be buried in a ship-in-a-bottle arrangement. The real joy of that would be the circular nature of having my friends standing in front of my coffin asking the same question that my father must have asked standing before my newly pregnant mother’s stomach. How the fuck did he get in there?

 — Dusk

poetry

is composed
                     up there

and ought only to be

  written down

---as an afterthought.

pangaea

land amassed between us

our being split in two

all I can do is trust the tide

to bring me back to you.

I did not sleep last night at all

I try to say in eye contact
what I cannot say in words
but mine can't share that great perhaps
when all you see
are hers.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

SO many posts today. But I don't care, It's my blo-og and I'll post if I want to, post if I want to...

I have had lots of short-term boyfriends, and love-interests and crushes in my life and about 8 of them were serious/long-term. Here is where I describe them and what became of them and try to spot the patterns. Here is where some of my mystery is unpacked, and you maybe understand why I'm so ambiguous all the time. Here is where you're maybe a little disillusioned with me. NB-numbers are entirely unrelated to any previous series of numbers written, ever.

1. combat pants.My first love. 2 years plus and I was probably too young to start a lot of the serious adult relationship stuff. I lost my virginity to him, he wasn't a virgin. He was...into punk rock and smoking, and smoking weed, and drugs and motorbikes. It was good for a very long time until my naivety kind of wore away, I saw his interest in other girls, his lack of interest in anything academic, the effect of the drugs... but it was too painful for me to let go so the relationship drew out longer until he eventually broke it off. By text, no less. Every time I get my heart broken I revisit this moment because it seemed like the end of the world and I went a little nuts for a while but in the end it all turned out OK. What happened to him? Dropped out of school to pursue his music.

2. Lippy Broadhurst. A year and a half? He was different. Hyper-intelligent but also hyper-depressed. We got on really well because we shared this half-life in an non-existent third space, both tortured artistic souls too smart for the world around us. We became so involved in each other that the world around us sort of ceased to exist. It was perfect for a while. I was his first girlfriend, he lost his virginity to me, he was all about big romantic expensive gestures, part of the reason I guess that my romantic expectations are spoilt today...eventually he became very clingy, perhaps as in my way I was sort of half-engaged with dusk (a factor that's kind of spilled into all of my relationships ever since) and he could tell I was drifting away. Perhaps it was just depression, a disease that kicked up. He became reserved and reclusive, stopped seeing any of his friends, stopped going to school, didn't listen to his parents/teachers/anyone...but me. I was his sole activity and I did well with it for a while, looking after him, trying to get him to keep going to school, taking him out, he became all I did with my time...but eventually I couldn't do it anymore, I couldn't shed anymore tears forcing someone to live a life they didn't want to live, I couldn't keep letting him suck the life out of me as well, I couldn't be his mother for him. I broke up with him, as kindly as I could. No one ever saw him again. Well, his family did, but literally none of us, or his friends ever did. He dropped out of school and he still hasn't gone back. I blamed myself for the longest of times, and even now I still dream about him...feeling guilty for destroying him.

3.Dusk I can't really give a timespan for this one, because it sort of overlapped everything else, and to an extent is still going on today. It was never really a relationship, either. No Terms were ever set, no lines ever very clearly drawn. What happened between us is as close as I've ever got to love at first sight. It might have played out as a normal relationship if we'd lived in the same place but after we met we lived on different land-masses (hint, hint), which is why there was a blurry-overlap with my other relationships. I can't describe our relationship because it's not as paltry as all the others because it's real friendship, something transcendental that I literally could not describe. It confuses our close friends and family. It never began, it never ended. He was very smart, very fun, very interesting/interested. It goes here because it went into the sexual but romantic relationships are, as ever, doomed to fail. And it did, and it took us a long time to get over that and go back to being friends. It's hard not to be physical together sometimes but I genuinely feel that it's better to deny ourselves a part in order to preserve the whole. He doesn't feel that way, which makes things...hard. He is definitely a huge reason why my romantic expectations are so skewed.

4. ARJ. About a year. Because of dusk, the circumstances of entering in to this one were...bad. Hard. The Reason 3 sort of ended. I regret the manner in which it happened. Deeply. But I can't regret that it happened. He was a hyper-intelligent, hyper-depressed recluse. I was attracted to him because I could see I got on with him so well on an intellectual level and wanted to draw him out on a social level, show him how fun life could be. In a way I suppose I gave him hope; our relationship brought him out of a crippling depression. I'm not sure if part of me was trying to atone for Lippy. in the beginning but the relationship grew to be mutually beneficial. We both had radical viewpoints (mine very liberal, his verging on sociopathic) but we shared our thoughts and learned so much from each other, both smashing the other's naivety in so many ways. It was not a passionate relationship. It was very critical and very hard at times but eventually moulded me in a positive way. It ended for many reasons. I guess one of the main ones was that its continued existence was keeping dusk. from my life. However, the break up was mutual; no passionate end for the passionless. I think we felt we had taken enough from one another and were ready to move on.

5. Le Noof. This one wasn't going to be put in, because again, it was never a relationship. It was from here I think that all my relationships with men became frivolous; I became unable to commit. We would have been together (I think this was something he desperately wanted) but I just couldn't. Having been through too much heart-ache, having known such Great Minds and thought such Deep Things I couldn't bear another relationship. I was more attractive and more intelligent than him. He was blindly obsessed with me, but I had out-grown his type. I treated him quite badly I suppose, I strung him along for the ego-boost/companionship and had sex with him but I couldn't offer him more. I think I broke his heart. I didn't feel responsible, because I had been Honest about my feelings from the start. Really though, I did care.

6. Not wanting a repeat of le Noof (desperate to be hurt and not to hurt?) 6. is a whole series of men who I couldn't be serious enough with to even count them as separate entities as they all overlap/ didn't go on for long enough/didn't shape me in any way other than to shatter my naivety about pick-up lines and found my post-coital feeling of rejection/ depression.

7. Shawty went on alongside Pratchett for a while. but ended before it so goes here. A tough one to explain. I may have been drawn to him at first through boredom, perhaps I was sick of number 6s and wanted another taste of something le noofy? Maybe I was just ready for something/anything non-frivolous. Of course he had a girlfriend (although I wasn't actually aware of that at first) so perhaps part of me saw it as a bit of a challenge. Also I think I may have spotted the reclusive traits of Lippy&ARJ that for some reason I've been so attracted to trying to change. HOWEVER, that stuff is all probably subconscious and was only really why it started. It only went on for like a month, but I think I mini-fell in love with him. He was funny and fun and good chat and I thought he shared that special third space with me. But perhaps I was delusional. It ended because I ended up caring more about him than he about me, and we both agreed that this was probably bad. He didn't fight for me. I imagine I saw more to him than was actually there and he's kind of why I'm conducting this study, trying to figure out how I possibly got everything so skewed. In one of the first conversations we ever had he said something like "I bet you've met loads of people like me before, but I've never met anyone like you". Maybe that's why I see smacks of Lippy, ARJ & le Noof in him and maybe that's why I fell for him? But hey maybe I'm just RIDICULOUSLY OVER-THINKING THINGS (as per) and actually he was just pretty cool and I should just be happy I met someone like that.

8. This is Pratchett, btw I've been seeing/screwing him for about 2 months. He's pretty fun, into music, into drugs (OH HELLO COMBAT PANTS NICE TO SEE YOU THERE). I'm not sure why I'm with him, like he's quite good as a friend for fun and bants, and he's good for sex but he's so not interesting enough to be my boyfriend. He's also not smart enough. I guess that's why we're in this limbo-friends-with-benefits thing. Perhaps he feels the same way about me. Like, he doesn't even know me, really. He knows the superficial laughing part of me but we've never had a real conversation, you know? It works, I guess. It's just so...boring. It makes me feel kinda shitty when I think about it because there's surely someone out there who gets me, but maybe that's just because I suffered mini-heartbreak from mini-love with mini-7.
AMENDMENT: we had a chat and I expressed these feelings. Turns out he actually mega-likes me and has only been playing. So maybe the reason I find it so difficult to break with him because he gives me noof-ego boost? I NEED TO STOP

Perhaps I need to take a break from men in general. Wait until I find someone who is a) really smart, b) really good looking, c) really romantic, d) really rich. Phyeah. Because that's going to happen. FML.

Apologies to Kike, ATM Guy, Gabriel, Tennis. You didn't make the cut.

what?

i am

cracked? I'm not cracked

like that vase in the kitchen that was too expensive to throw out but not expensive enough to get fixed

like the neighbour's window after last thursday night

like Noel fielding's fox

like ted hughes' wife

cracked.com

cracked. I'm not cracked

like the two crowns of the egg that drowned

or ophelia's goodbye song

***byebye, ***byebye

an aubade from 90s daytime television

a sun grown up to be a woman

still glowing

cracked

like the cobblestones 

or my ankles after walking on them in heels

cracked

like 

cracked.

like a melody, in my head...

i never wanted to fall asleep

until i found the morning

love-sprung from a beam in the roof

where time stopped for us

and then, to see you in the cold light of day

was not a disappointment, but a reward

my heart, whispering poetry 

paused its beats and the tic-toc of the day 

resumed only

when we let it

CONSIDER ALL THE THINGS

OK so here's the deal, I lost my alphabet sheet from the open letters c.2009-10 sooo I'm starting again=> for posterity's sake so I don't get confused, new letters= new people. EXCEPT FOR GOOD OLD O

Dear A,
I'm sorry for flipping out on you about 'us'. I tend to get intense when something confuses me. I'm not used to it, see. I appreciate that you've given me The Space to get over the whole ordeal. Or, well, to realise that there really was no ordeal to get over in the first place. Like, I tried being mad at you for hurting me, and being sad for being rejected, but then I realised both of those sentiments were pointless because a) you didn't hurt me, and b) this was MY IDEA. I just get all up in my head sometimes because, you know...that place is pretty cool (think of what it and I could accomplish if we work together?!)
The Space is confusing me though because I have no idea what you're feeling about everything, or whether you're feeling anything at all. Like, I don't know whether you're doing it for me, or if you just got bored, or if you're not conscious of avoiding me, or if you're purposely ignoring my messages or what. and I literally cannot ask you these stupid questions because you'll think I'm an obsessive psycho. I wish things could go back to how they were, or that we could just be friends because I see shit I think you'd enjoy and then don't want to say anything about it because of this whole mess.

Dear B,
I JUST WANT TO BE FRIENDS. I literally can't deal with this head-messing thing that is our relationship. Like...I'm sick of being in limbo and I don't think I like you enough to be devoted to you seriously. But you're cool, and we laugh and everything is good apart from the fact that I overthink it all.

Dear C,
I know you're attracted to me. Hah.

LOVE
day

Swim, or Sink.

A shark has got to keep swimming, no matter what. From the moment it is born until its very last breath, swimming is imperative to its survival. That much had been drilled into Milly her entire life, as if Nature hadn't programmed her to work that out the second she burst through her amniotic sac. It was something about the mechanics of a shark--water had to constantly be pumped through their gills for oxygen to keep them breathing or something. There was something about floating, too, something not unlike the mechanics of an airplane meant that if they stopped moving not only would they cease to breathe, but they would also sink. It was simple really: swim, or sink/drown. And Milly had never before felt the urge to drown.

But she felt like she was drowning now. Something about the conditions of that day, perhaps the dim light shining through the water, perhaps the high tide, or perhaps a lack of company had her thinking heavy thoughts. Drowning, ultimately, as Milly saw it, was the final state. Whenever she didn't feel like she was drowning she was merely being distracted by superficial pleasures brought to her by friends, family or entertainment and generally occupying herself with banal activities that were all considered light. Funny that word 'light', she thought. It was positive, the opposite of darkness, but it was also the opposite of weight. Sharks like Milly were forever encouraged to stay light; to keep swimming. For Milly though, weight was synonymous with meaning, and she couldn't give that up just to be light. Sure, she would be the first to admit that darkness was no bed of eels, but weight, now, if she didn't have weight surely she would just float away? Milly knew that the other sharks were too preoccupied with playing, hunting, and, well, swimming, to notice any of this. They didn't ask questions, or if they did, they had already realised that the alternative to their lightness was drowning and so had decided to push it to the back of their minds. Perhaps, they had convinced themselves that to think about the heavy things was futile, that there was perhaps some sort of higher being that had sorted all that meaning business out, and, after all, they were only sharks and could hardly be expected to understand something so complex[1]. They were wrong though. Milly could see that the life she was leading, however miserable and dark, had weight and for that was it was more honest, and more likely to lead her to the Truth. Now, what that Truth was, Milly didn’t know, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to find it out tending to her own fucking garden[2] now, was she?

Having tried to discuss her feelings with other sharks her age and finding their attention spans lacking; their concerns entirely too far from meaningful conversation, Milly resolved to look elsewhere for her answers. She went to visit the Elder sharks—a confab of wizened, toothless creatures who had dedicated their lives to thinking about these things as they swam perpetually in circles. To join them, all Milly had to do was pass a simple test that involved, as legend told, answering a riddle. Watching them, she felt less alone and made a bid to join their high society. However, before she got close enough to be tested, the oldest and wisest of the congregation, referred to by the others as The First, or The One briefly dissociated from their ring and bellowed,

“YOU SHALL NOT PASS[3], child! I will not allow it! Return to your friends, while you still can, unless you wish to spend your life swimming in endless circles, drowning in the obscure and uncertain. At some point in our lives we must all face a choice: to go on breathing, or to drown. To swim, or to sink. Do you want wisdom? Ontological certainty? I will share with you what I know. Your peers who choose life are the wise ones and we, we are just old fools. A shark is not meant to understand.[4] That much is clear to me now.”

But he didn’t understand. Drowning, for Milly, hadn’t been a choice. It had just happened, and she was obliged to confront her thoughts; to go on living in ignorant bliss just wasn’t an option. But if what the Elder One had said was true, that there was no hope of ever coming to an answer—to what? She thought bitterly, she didn’t even know the question—what was she meant to do? Suddenly, a thought occurred to Milly. Struck her like lightning[5], actually. The answer had always been there, really, niggling in the back of her head, gnawing at the mantra that was always running just keep swimming just keep swimming. No, Milly hadn’t chosen to drown. But she could.

She had to try, of course. It wasn’t easy to go against your instincts, your autopilot that’s been running for you your entire life. Ultimately though, it wasn’t that hard. About as hard as it is for a human child to swallow a lump of chewing gum[6]. And just like that, Milly stopped swimming. Drowning, ultimately, was the final state. Living had just been putting it off.

---

[1] This is sometimes referred to in theology as the argument from limited perspective, and is used in an attempt to justify the existence of a god in the face of the problem of evil in our world. 

[2] Here, Milly makes a reference to Voltaire’s Candide and the eponymous hero’s final mysterious precept that we must “tend our own garden”. One interpretation of this statement is that following a series of unfortunate events, Candide has become disillusioned with an indoctrinated Leibnizian optimism (care of his beloved mentor, Pangloss) but rather than rejecting it outright, resolves to keep busy and avoid thinking about the problem of evil… It is, however, an inadvertent reference, because Milly is a shark and knows nothing of books or reading.

[3] This is a reference to popular culture, a remark that Gandalf makes in the cinematic adaptation of J.R.R Tolkein’s fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. The Elder shark of course, was unaware that this coincidence might distract the readers of Milly’s story from the very serious point at hand. If he had been, the Editor is almost positive he would have revised his exclamation.

[4] While this again seems to refer to the limited perspective argument, The Editor does not, however, believe that Milly’s intentions in telling her tale were in any way theological, and therefore discourages the reading of it as a theodicy.

[5] Benjamin Franklin, to prove that lightning was electrical, conducted (excuse the pun) an experiment in 1752 using a kite to collect some electric charge from a storm cloud. This later led to his invention of the lightning rod.

[6] The difficulty there being, of course, the multitude of myths concerning the horrible, sometimes gory deaths you will suffer if you swallow gum.

and into ashes all my lust

fuckin

why am I like this? Like, I always let this happen.

I always feel the same way, and so I know it gets better, and that in the end of the day I don't really care as much as I thought I did. That doesn't change the fact that my stupid illogical girl-brain is itself.

The world is a game of Poker, and I'd be extremely good at it, if I weren't playing with fucking idiots. And I'm not talking about how I'm smarter than everyone else, it's just that when you're playing poker with someone who doesn't know how to play poker you're overthinking everything they do, when really, they've no strategy at all. Really, you're not even playing the same game.

If not speaking to me was a double bluff, playing the game, I'd allow it. But there is no fucking game, it's literally all in my head and I'm the only one playing.

it doesn't even make sense. it's like some cruel mind-trick that makes me want someone for the sole reason that they don't want me. it's literally not like there's anything else there that i couldn't get the same of, or better, elsewhere. So why does my life feel like it's revolving around STUPID CUNT COW FUCK SHIT WANG. I've never said wang before. new low.s

I expect too much of people, maybe because of you, michael, for raising my hopes and intensifying my belief in romance

Conor's infiltrated my subconscious now as well, so aside from seeing his phantom apparition literally EVERYWHERE I FUCKING GO, there's not a night that goes by without me dreaming of him, too. 

AGH SO FRUSTRATED

and miserable

like, why, even? This always happens to me. It's like a side effect of ... something. 

Subject: Quit my head. Date: 13.01.09

It actually isn't jealousy
(you probably think it is)
It's really more as if I see
—as we pass hand
  in hand by glass—
There, not my face 
                           but his.

disillusionment is what reality is made of

I'm so freaking tired, and I can't get the heating to work, and I read the fault in our stars, then I read Hamlet because I'm just that girl but I cannot seem to fall aslee

--

I fell asleep. But at some point in my night-time rambles I wrote a...thing. It's not a real thing, but hey I don't have anything else to do with it

if I could live in tinseltown

i'd still be warm in winter

their skyline nightly changes round

and romance is coated in glitter
if I could live in tinseltown

I wouldn't be disillusioned

I'd neon waltz upon the sound

closed off to all intrusions

here routinely rundown walkways

and steeples that stay the same

drive the drudgery of days

as predictable as the rain

eyes don't dazzle, instead they're dull

i've always felt disjointed

and every time I meet someone cool

I'm always disappointed

If I could live in tinseltown

you would not have dashed my hopes

the place itself is made of dreams

so I wouldn't have had to wake up 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Whenever I walk into a bookstore or a library and take in the infinity of books lining the walls, I am overwhelmed by my own insufficiency. The image puts squarely in focus the thousands of thoughts and the millions of lines I have yet to read. There is not time enough. Reading things is a huge part of me. The ideas put forth - sometimes radical and iconoclastic, sometimes modest observations - cause me to question my assumptions and to think more deeply about myself and my opinions. e.g. Zamyatin pushed me to clarify my conception of liberty; Nietzsche to question the Apollonian category of thought foisted upon me from birth; sure even Faustus, rather violently, helped me to realise the virtue of concentrating on my goals (however sedentary they may be) instead of letting distractions soak up my time.

Reading has always been my chosen form of escapism, a haven from the trillion little bits of distracting noise that rain on me daily. I read because I can associate with fictional characters, characters that have helped guide and support me. I was tormented alongside Stephen Daedalus in a nationalistic and religious Ireland and I struggled with him to find a cultural identity. In Brussels, I found I could relate just as easily with the existential begaiements of Vladimir and Estragon; I struggled with Don Quijote de La Mancha to understand the many inconsistencies in our belief-systems and I suffered the absurdity of the human condition alongside Camus’ Mersault. I was always an outsider, too. In my childhood I was the one un-baptised heretic, my dual nationality two halves that mutually excluded one another. In Brussels I was always an ex-pat, even after I grew to think of it as my home. In my late teens I have been a foreigner, a Belgian, a European. (in the least angsty way you can read this) I have never belonged anywhere real. It’s not that the real world is bad, or that I don’t love a lot of people in it, it’s just that I’ve never seen myself as inhabiting a space of my own for enough time that I could ever make an impact in (and I'm almost certain I'd feel the same way even if I'd spent all my life in one place).

My mother once told me that I was born in the wrong era, and that resonated quite deeply with me. When I used to listen to punk rock music, I wished I could go back to the 70s and kick it with Sid vicious; when I read Austen I could just as well picture myself waltzing off into the sunset with Mr. Knightley. When I think about it though, it’s more than just living in the wrong era; when I read contemporary literature I still find myself placing Me in the environment of the characters I identify with and, hell, when I watch Gossip Girl I’m positive I belong in the Upper East Side. Actually, the realm I belong in is probably outside of the scope of time and space altogether so I can be unlimited by boring reality. Fictional, sure, but I’m not crazy, It’s not like I run off into my head because reality sucks, I mean I do have friends and family and fun. It’s just that I am an incorrigible romantic.

Today I read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, because I’ll probably keep reading young adult fiction for as long as I can still read (whoever said Rowling and Pushkin don’t mix?), and one particular thing the protagonist thought (besides, like, a million actually deep things) was when she was on the phone to her boyfriend: "...even though I was in bed and he was in his basement, it really felt like we were back in that uncreated third space, which was a place I really liked visiting with him." It’s that uncreated third space that I belong in, I think. It makes me feel really weird and uncomfortable when someone else articulates something that I’ve always thought was my own personal revelation. I hate to be predictable but I guess that’s the rub of the human condition. No matter how deep your private discoveries seem to be, it is unlikely that you will ever have an original thought in your life. Which, obviously, makes the whole dream of doing something Great or Important sink away into oblivion. But I guess it’s comforting too, because it means that I’ll probably find someone who wants to share a bed with me in that third space. Most people want to Mean Something in this world, and even if like Shakespeare or Rachmaninoff, etc. you create a temporary legacy in your words or music or whatever it is still just that: temporary. Human existence, and memory, is temporary and you know, what are we quintessence of dust and all that? No matter how much we strive to achieve the infinite I am, it’s all bound for oblivion anyway.

I guess that’s why the uncreated third space is my chosen home. I’m still living my day to day life in the real world like a normal human being, realistic and unencumbered by impossible dreams, but when I want to go to my mind palace it’s there for me. There indeed there will be time place, and meaning enough for me. So let us go then, you and I?