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.