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because
I'm not here. Well I am, strictly speaking, or else I wouldn't be writing this would I.
My mind has basically been left in Rio de Janeiro though. Now rated my favourite city on this planet. So in a bid to keep the holiday spirit alive (Happy New Year by the way), I am reliving my experience.
The red Moleskine that has scribblings, tickets and my memories, at least when I hadn't had too many caipirinha's the night before, holds my holiday.
(Was niiice to catch up with Ches yesterday though...)
14 December, 2008.
This is the travel diary of Peas On Toast. Running away from Christmas back home. Inspired by colonial latino architecture,latino's I have a boyfriend now, so I will behave, may lose mind to father but all will be recorded until dementia occurs.
Arrive in Buenos Aires. Dad remarks, “They've stolen all our bloody trees.” He thinks Argentina looks like Cape Town. I reminded him we hadn't left the airport yet.
Went to the waterfront area of Puerto Madero in hunt of a fuck off steak and a cold beer. You get what you ask for. They loaded a cow the size of a Lexus onto our plates.
Knife slid through it like butter, but I'm so full if you dropped me in the Rio Plata right now, I'd surely drown.
Buenos Aires is no doubt beautiful. Colonial architecture mixed in with modern buildings, it's like a slightly more downmarket Paris. Sun goes down at 11:00pm.
The only Spanish I know is the get-by-basics, and they say 'll' as a 'sh' not a 'y'. So a quesidilla is a kaysideesha, for example. I also know how to say “You are a steak.” Which is how I ordered from the perplexed looking waiter who was dressed up like a gaucho. Everyone loves an Argentinian cowboy.
Eva Peron has saint status here. They hate that Madonna played her in the film, but they love Evita.
Staying on Corrientes Avenida. The main street through the centre, filled with theatres. These people eat, sleep and drink live shows. Some are live naked monkey porn – I could relive Amsterdam.
Walked to the Congress buildings. Where all the shit happens. Argentina has a hectic political history involving embarrassing and bloody wars (The Falklands), 30 000 people disappearing under dictatorship, and Evita, the power hungry first wife. The nation is also still recovering from an economic collapse cum meltdown in 2001. You cannot find change anywhere. Coins are a high commodity. And yet it's all the bus will accept annoyingly.
(Which is why Dad and I walked this place flat. I did about 10-15 km's a day in BA. That's right.)
15 December, 2008
Made some mates in our hostel pub last night. A Canadian from Winnipeg who'd just done a three day bus journey, a Brit who was studying Spanish for 6 months, and 'Dangerous Dave,' a dude on his gap year and coming right in each South American city he visits. Dad thinks he's from Dorset ('Dave from Dorset'), when he's actually from Staines.
I haven't backpacked in so long – all my recent trips have involved good hotels and work, I am remembering what it's like to be 18 again.
Shooting the breeze with random travellers, God I have to do this more often.
But so far, my impression of Buenos Aires is good – the people are friendly, the girls and boys are hot and poised, they all HATE a bit of football.
How to start a conversation in a youth hostel pub:
Chilean dude: Did someone put on Bryan Adams?
Brit: Fuck. He's a nightmare.
Chilean: I hate Bryan Adams.
Peas: Hi. I love Bryan Adams.
[silence]
Peas:...um, well I do.
Brit: I suppose he's so bad he's good. I personally like Bonnie Tyler. She's all wo-man.
My mind has basically been left in Rio de Janeiro though. Now rated my favourite city on this planet. So in a bid to keep the holiday spirit alive (Happy New Year by the way), I am reliving my experience.
The red Moleskine that has scribblings, tickets and my memories, at least when I hadn't had too many caipirinha's the night before, holds my holiday.
(Was niiice to catch up with Ches yesterday though...)
14 December, 2008.
This is the travel diary of Peas On Toast. Running away from Christmas back home. Inspired by colonial latino architecture,latino's I have a boyfriend now, so I will behave, may lose mind to father but all will be recorded until dementia occurs.
Arrive in Buenos Aires. Dad remarks, “They've stolen all our bloody trees.” He thinks Argentina looks like Cape Town. I reminded him we hadn't left the airport yet.
Went to the waterfront area of Puerto Madero in hunt of a fuck off steak and a cold beer. You get what you ask for. They loaded a cow the size of a Lexus onto our plates.
Knife slid through it like butter, but I'm so full if you dropped me in the Rio Plata right now, I'd surely drown.
Buenos Aires is no doubt beautiful. Colonial architecture mixed in with modern buildings, it's like a slightly more downmarket Paris. Sun goes down at 11:00pm.
The only Spanish I know is the get-by-basics, and they say 'll' as a 'sh' not a 'y'. So a quesidilla is a kaysideesha, for example. I also know how to say “You are a steak.” Which is how I ordered from the perplexed looking waiter who was dressed up like a gaucho. Everyone loves an Argentinian cowboy.
Eva Peron has saint status here. They hate that Madonna played her in the film, but they love Evita.
Staying on Corrientes Avenida. The main street through the centre, filled with theatres. These people eat, sleep and drink live shows. Some are live naked monkey porn – I could relive Amsterdam.
Walked to the Congress buildings. Where all the shit happens. Argentina has a hectic political history involving embarrassing and bloody wars (The Falklands), 30 000 people disappearing under dictatorship, and Evita, the power hungry first wife. The nation is also still recovering from an economic collapse cum meltdown in 2001. You cannot find change anywhere. Coins are a high commodity. And yet it's all the bus will accept annoyingly.
(Which is why Dad and I walked this place flat. I did about 10-15 km's a day in BA. That's right.)
15 December, 2008
Made some mates in our hostel pub last night. A Canadian from Winnipeg who'd just done a three day bus journey, a Brit who was studying Spanish for 6 months, and 'Dangerous Dave,' a dude on his gap year and coming right in each South American city he visits. Dad thinks he's from Dorset ('Dave from Dorset'), when he's actually from Staines.
I haven't backpacked in so long – all my recent trips have involved good hotels and work, I am remembering what it's like to be 18 again.
Shooting the breeze with random travellers, God I have to do this more often.
But so far, my impression of Buenos Aires is good – the people are friendly, the girls and boys are hot and poised, they all HATE a bit of football.
How to start a conversation in a youth hostel pub:
Chilean dude: Did someone put on Bryan Adams?
Brit: Fuck. He's a nightmare.
Chilean: I hate Bryan Adams.
Peas: Hi. I love Bryan Adams.
[silence]
Peas:...um, well I do.
Brit: I suppose he's so bad he's good. I personally like Bonnie Tyler. She's all wo-man.
Seconds Out :: Year Two
Someone said to me the other day, ‘How on earth are you going to follow 2008?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, 2009?’ I replied, hilariously.
‘No, but blog-wise,’ they insisted, wilfully unamused, ‘what are you going to do? You’ve found a woman, you’ve got a book deal, you lost most of the weight you were trying to lose. You stopped smoking. Mostly. It’s like, what’s left to do? What’s left to blog about? And the answer has to be – as far as I can see: nothing. What’s the point? There’s no point.’
I pooh-poohed the pointlessness. After all, most of what I blogged in 2008 was just ordinary stuff that happened to me: relationships I was having, things I was getting up to, stories from the past. And despite the fact that I won’t be speed dating or whoring myself online in ’09 – fingers crossed – I’ll still be getting up to stuff. I’ll still be having ridiculous conversations with idiots. I’ll still be doing and saying idiotic things myself. So I don’t think things round here will change so radically. Not really.
But still, something worrisome lingered like a foul smell. Maybe it was all that pooh-poohing, maybe it was the fact that in 2008, there’s no denying that this blog did have a hook. An angle. Something that made it a bit special, and gave me a raison d’etre. In 2009 however – unless I come up with something a bit special – it’ll just be another run-of-the-mill blog, and I’ll just be another navel-gazing cyber-diarist, regurgitating an unspectacular existence like a shouty old man in a train station with stuff in his beard.
So, what I’ll have to do – obviously – is come up with something a bit special.
Hmmm. That may take some time.
In the meantime, here are my general intentions, in the traditional, timely manner.
New Year’s Resolutions :: 2009
1. First and foremost I resolve to write the best book I can possibly write. It has to be good enough so that anyone looking forward to reading it is not disappointed. It also has to be good enough to afford me the possibility of writing another one. In fact, ideally, it’ll spawn a career which takes in novels and screenplays and this time in 2010, I’ll be poolside in Malibu, sipping margaritas with Charlie Kaufman and Audrey Tautou. It’ll be purely platonic between Audrey and me however, despite her best efforts and leechlike attentions.
2. Secondly, I resolve to ensure that this blog remains readable. The last thing I want to do is become one of those bloggers who get lucky and then turn their back on their blog. I’d rather jack it in altogether than let it fester and ossify, and I have no intention of doing that.
3. Thirdly, I resolve to purchase or otherwise procure for myself a kitten. I recently saw some pictures of Bengal kittens and I resolved to have one of those.
But then I thought, no. They’re too pretty. I would get one, fall in love with the little thing and then some evil swine would take it away, torture and skin it. You know what human beings are like. And I would never recover. So I resolve instead to get an ordinary moggy. This makes more sense. I’m more of a moggy man really.
4. Fourthly, I resolve to grow my own vegetables and make the healthiest soup known to man. The garden is a bald mess at the moment so the transformation I intend to visit upon it will probably make for some exciting blog posts too. No, really.
5. Fifthly, I resolve to love well and with ecstasy aforethought. (This should maybe have been further up the list.) (Oops.)
6. Sixthly, I resolve to learn a foreign language. Maybe French. Maybe Mandarin Chinese. (Probably French.)
7. Finally, I resolve to carry on in my attempts to become healthy. This means eating well, attending a new gym regularly and generally doing as much as possible to compensate for my increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Ideally I’d like to get down to around twelve or twelve and a half stone by the end of this year.
Then I’d be happy.
But as it is, I’m pretty happy anyway, and I can’t wait to get going on all of the above just as soon as I’m back from Bonnie Scotland.
So all that remains to be said is a gargantuan thank you for reading this year, all of you, even the evil stalker. It’s been a fantastic year and it genuinely would have been nothing without all of the feedback I've received from all of you. And I hope you all have a fantastic 2009.
See you next week.
x
Feel free to leave your own resolutions in the comments. I’d love to hear them.
‘Oh, I don’t know, 2009?’ I replied, hilariously.
‘No, but blog-wise,’ they insisted, wilfully unamused, ‘what are you going to do? You’ve found a woman, you’ve got a book deal, you lost most of the weight you were trying to lose. You stopped smoking. Mostly. It’s like, what’s left to do? What’s left to blog about? And the answer has to be – as far as I can see: nothing. What’s the point? There’s no point.’
I pooh-poohed the pointlessness. After all, most of what I blogged in 2008 was just ordinary stuff that happened to me: relationships I was having, things I was getting up to, stories from the past. And despite the fact that I won’t be speed dating or whoring myself online in ’09 – fingers crossed – I’ll still be getting up to stuff. I’ll still be having ridiculous conversations with idiots. I’ll still be doing and saying idiotic things myself. So I don’t think things round here will change so radically. Not really.
But still, something worrisome lingered like a foul smell. Maybe it was all that pooh-poohing, maybe it was the fact that in 2008, there’s no denying that this blog did have a hook. An angle. Something that made it a bit special, and gave me a raison d’etre. In 2009 however – unless I come up with something a bit special – it’ll just be another run-of-the-mill blog, and I’ll just be another navel-gazing cyber-diarist, regurgitating an unspectacular existence like a shouty old man in a train station with stuff in his beard.
So, what I’ll have to do – obviously – is come up with something a bit special.
Hmmm. That may take some time.
In the meantime, here are my general intentions, in the traditional, timely manner.
New Year’s Resolutions :: 2009
1. First and foremost I resolve to write the best book I can possibly write. It has to be good enough so that anyone looking forward to reading it is not disappointed. It also has to be good enough to afford me the possibility of writing another one. In fact, ideally, it’ll spawn a career which takes in novels and screenplays and this time in 2010, I’ll be poolside in Malibu, sipping margaritas with Charlie Kaufman and Audrey Tautou. It’ll be purely platonic between Audrey and me however, despite her best efforts and leechlike attentions.
2. Secondly, I resolve to ensure that this blog remains readable. The last thing I want to do is become one of those bloggers who get lucky and then turn their back on their blog. I’d rather jack it in altogether than let it fester and ossify, and I have no intention of doing that.
3. Thirdly, I resolve to purchase or otherwise procure for myself a kitten. I recently saw some pictures of Bengal kittens and I resolved to have one of those.
But then I thought, no. They’re too pretty. I would get one, fall in love with the little thing and then some evil swine would take it away, torture and skin it. You know what human beings are like. And I would never recover. So I resolve instead to get an ordinary moggy. This makes more sense. I’m more of a moggy man really.
4. Fourthly, I resolve to grow my own vegetables and make the healthiest soup known to man. The garden is a bald mess at the moment so the transformation I intend to visit upon it will probably make for some exciting blog posts too. No, really.
5. Fifthly, I resolve to love well and with ecstasy aforethought. (This should maybe have been further up the list.) (Oops.)
6. Sixthly, I resolve to learn a foreign language. Maybe French. Maybe Mandarin Chinese. (Probably French.)
7. Finally, I resolve to carry on in my attempts to become healthy. This means eating well, attending a new gym regularly and generally doing as much as possible to compensate for my increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Ideally I’d like to get down to around twelve or twelve and a half stone by the end of this year.
Then I’d be happy.
But as it is, I’m pretty happy anyway, and I can’t wait to get going on all of the above just as soon as I’m back from Bonnie Scotland.
So all that remains to be said is a gargantuan thank you for reading this year, all of you, even the evil stalker. It’s been a fantastic year and it genuinely would have been nothing without all of the feedback I've received from all of you. And I hope you all have a fantastic 2009.
See you next week.
x
Feel free to leave your own resolutions in the comments. I’d love to hear them.
Holiday season out-of-towners: Terence bitches.
God, its that time of year again. What some call 'the silly season'. There are other names for it, but if I write them here, proxy servers the world over will block my site and I'll get an earful next time I'm at a braai.
At this point, you may say things like "Ooh, Terence is just bitter", because while you're sitting by the pool, suntanning and getting drunk on a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, I'm sitting in my office. But frankly, that doesn't bother me in the slightest and that's not why I'm bitching. Yes, for a change I'm going to have a go at out-of-towners.
You see them everywhere, crowding the fast lanes at 70km/h, 9 people on the back seat, hanging out the windows, fluffy toys piled so high on the rear parcel shelf, that there is no way in hell Mr. Out-of-his-element could possibly see the 2 kilometer trail of angry drivers stuck behind him with nowhere to pass. An Apache gunship could be looming up his arse, and he'd only notice it when there was a Hellfire missle halfway up his exhaust pipe. Occasionally, he will make what looks like a move towards the slow lane, but after straddling the centre line for a few moments, he'll swerve back into the fast lane, oblivious to the near catastrophe he causes as the guy trying to pass suddenly has to perform a realworld test of his cars' electronic acronyms.
The reason for this lack of situational awareness? Mr. Out-of-towner comes from a small town with a population of about 20 people, half of whom are currently in his car. He probably drives about 500km a year, comprising of 25km to and from his local church, and the remainder spent on his (and half his towns') annual holiday to Slaapstad.
So whats the solution? Well for many years, come holidays, everyone in Cape Town makes a beeline for anywhere-but-here, which usually means some small coastal town, like Stilbaai, or Knysna. But then you spend your entire holiday queuing for beer and petrol with 10000 other Capetonians in a small town that usually supports a population of 1000. But this is crap, because normally the Vaalies come down with their 35 foot powerboats with V8 inboards and tear up whatever body of water happens to be nearest. Then of course there's 200km traffic jam at the end of the holidays, when everyone returns home.
Of course, I avoid these kinds of holidays, in the same way that the ANC avoids public debates about service delivery. Instead I'll be staying in Cape Town and scowling at people with CFG and CK number plates.
At this point, you may say things like "Ooh, Terence is just bitter", because while you're sitting by the pool, suntanning and getting drunk on a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, I'm sitting in my office. But frankly, that doesn't bother me in the slightest and that's not why I'm bitching. Yes, for a change I'm going to have a go at out-of-towners.
You see them everywhere, crowding the fast lanes at 70km/h, 9 people on the back seat, hanging out the windows, fluffy toys piled so high on the rear parcel shelf, that there is no way in hell Mr. Out-of-his-element could possibly see the 2 kilometer trail of angry drivers stuck behind him with nowhere to pass. An Apache gunship could be looming up his arse, and he'd only notice it when there was a Hellfire missle halfway up his exhaust pipe. Occasionally, he will make what looks like a move towards the slow lane, but after straddling the centre line for a few moments, he'll swerve back into the fast lane, oblivious to the near catastrophe he causes as the guy trying to pass suddenly has to perform a realworld test of his cars' electronic acronyms.
The reason for this lack of situational awareness? Mr. Out-of-towner comes from a small town with a population of about 20 people, half of whom are currently in his car. He probably drives about 500km a year, comprising of 25km to and from his local church, and the remainder spent on his (and half his towns') annual holiday to Slaapstad.
So whats the solution? Well for many years, come holidays, everyone in Cape Town makes a beeline for anywhere-but-here, which usually means some small coastal town, like Stilbaai, or Knysna. But then you spend your entire holiday queuing for beer and petrol with 10000 other Capetonians in a small town that usually supports a population of 1000. But this is crap, because normally the Vaalies come down with their 35 foot powerboats with V8 inboards and tear up whatever body of water happens to be nearest. Then of course there's 200km traffic jam at the end of the holidays, when everyone returns home.
Of course, I avoid these kinds of holidays, in the same way that the ANC avoids public debates about service delivery. Instead I'll be staying in Cape Town and scowling at people with CFG and CK number plates.
Bitch incessantly and thou shalt receive
Ok, so apparently there are a great many disgruntled souls out there waiting (rather impatiently) for me to resume my blogging activities. I can't go anywhere nowadays without someone piping up with a "hey, are you still blogging or what?" or my personal favorite "have you run out of stuff to rant about?"
Seems that starting a new job is a crap excuse for taking a sabbatical from blogging.
Speaking of which, the new job is going rather well, I've been pretty busy with marketing and learning the ropes (of which there are several). Its closer to home and I get to finish at 16h30.
In week 2, I succeeded in dropping my fancy schmancy company phone into the harbour, and the subsequent mission involved in getting a new sim card from MTN left me thinking whether a quick dive in after it wouldn't have saved me from the stress of dealing with arguably one of the most bureaucratic systems ever devised. I'm pretty sure that MTN recruits its staff from Telkom, or perhaps they both use the same training centre.
Sure, I would have dived in after it, surfaced with phone in hand, covered in bunker oil, with a few dead fish clinging to me and some chinese fishermans' flipflop in my shirt pocket, but at least I wouldn't have had to unnecessarily deal with large scale incompetence. It would probably have been worth it.
Seems that starting a new job is a crap excuse for taking a sabbatical from blogging.
Speaking of which, the new job is going rather well, I've been pretty busy with marketing and learning the ropes (of which there are several). Its closer to home and I get to finish at 16h30.
In week 2, I succeeded in dropping my fancy schmancy company phone into the harbour, and the subsequent mission involved in getting a new sim card from MTN left me thinking whether a quick dive in after it wouldn't have saved me from the stress of dealing with arguably one of the most bureaucratic systems ever devised. I'm pretty sure that MTN recruits its staff from Telkom, or perhaps they both use the same training centre.
Sure, I would have dived in after it, surfaced with phone in hand, covered in bunker oil, with a few dead fish clinging to me and some chinese fishermans' flipflop in my shirt pocket, but at least I wouldn't have had to unnecessarily deal with large scale incompetence. It would probably have been worth it.
Mr. Charlie
Yesterday I heard a story which had me in stitches. I literally mean rolling on the floor laughing out loud. This is the story of Mr. Charlie!
Mr. Charlie was the Crazy One's best friend on those lonely nights. On one particular night, the Crazy One decided to get a little kinky with Mr. Charlie, and in a manuevre involving The Crazy One, Mr. Charlie and a wall, Mr. Charlie broke (I don't have Masonge Ngcabahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03980678858829295631noreply@blogger.com0
Christmas Feedback :: Oiling The Festive Perineum
bulk :: nah, let’s not get into that just now. It’s really not relevant. This is a time of hedonism and self-indulgence, not asceticism and abstention. Really. Don't even think of it.
alcohol units :: really, let’s just skip the rest of this, eh? Yeah, we can start this again next year, maybe. We’ll see.
This blog post comes to you direct from deep within the puckered folds of the Festive Perineum, that tender temporal crease which ties Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve. A strangely timeless time in which normal rules of engagement don’t really apply and all flesh seems of its own accord to expand miraculously. The Festive Perineum is enjoyed to its fullest of course, when massaged gently with the languorous tongue of Free Time and, ideally, intermittently prodded with the well-lubricated fingertip of Sybaritic Indulgence.
I think I’ve probably stretched the perineum metaphor far enough there. Stretch it too far of course, and it snaps, and that’s something you don’t want to happen, for when the Festive Perineum snaps, the guts of the entire year spill out onto the floor, making a terrible, untimely mess. Then you have to suffer the hideous indignity of having the whole year stuffed back in the year hole and the year hole stitched up again. It’s extremely uncomfortable I hear, and you have to spend the first few months of the next year learning how to walk again.
So be careful. But not so careful that you don’t enjoy it, as it’s probably the freest you’ll ever feel without leaving the country.
Speaking of which, in a couple of days, I’ll be leaving the country. Nothing drastic or permanent – not even a place where I have to take a phrase book. I’m off to Scotland! To spend a few days and see in the new year with Morag’s dad, stepmum and three half-brothers. I have to admit, it’s kind of daunting, but then I’ve been daunted a lot recently, and the fact that I’ve managed to get to the other side intact gives me hope that this will be OK too. I’m not entirely sure what the plan is yet, but there have been rumblings of some kind of road trip. I’m assured it will be ‘gey braw’ and that I oughtn’t ‘girn’ or ‘greet’. I think I might get hold of a phrase book anyway, just to be on the safe side.
Finally, Morag and I received an unexpected late Christmas gift this morning. I’m not going to say what it was because it’s a little raw and personal, but it made me shed a little tear. Still, no harm done. And now I know what I want for next Christmas.
So, I hope you’re all enjoying the Festive Perineum as much as I am and that you’re all giving it proper laldy.
x
PS. Whatever you do, do not do a Google image search for the word 'perineum'. Now I must go and cleanse my mind.
remember rio
...and get down.
OK so after Mendoza and Bariloche - still trying to decide whether I like Mendoza - diary will follow later on - but for now, all I care about is that I am in Rio. The moment I saw the meandering rivers on landing, and the moment I literally stepped foot in this amazing city, I have been in love.
I am in love with Rio de Janeiro.
Now look, I have had two caipirinhas on Copacabana Beach. I am staying a block away from the beach, and they serve them in little stalls alongside a setting resplendent of mountains filled with, like, lush jungle and favelas or slums dotting these mountains, but seriously, I am absolutely struck by this place. I have always wanted to go to Brazil, and especially Rio. And now am in a caipirinha´d awe-struck daze, whistling to myself The Girl From Ipanema.
You talk to yourself a lot when travelling alone. I miss Dad, but this is an experience I tell ya.
I am in love.
OK so after Mendoza and Bariloche - still trying to decide whether I like Mendoza - diary will follow later on - but for now, all I care about is that I am in Rio. The moment I saw the meandering rivers on landing, and the moment I literally stepped foot in this amazing city, I have been in love.
I am in love with Rio de Janeiro.
Now look, I have had two caipirinhas on Copacabana Beach. I am staying a block away from the beach, and they serve them in little stalls alongside a setting resplendent of mountains filled with, like, lush jungle and favelas or slums dotting these mountains, but seriously, I am absolutely struck by this place. I have always wanted to go to Brazil, and especially Rio. And now am in a caipirinha´d awe-struck daze, whistling to myself The Girl From Ipanema.
You talk to yourself a lot when travelling alone. I miss Dad, but this is an experience I tell ya.
I am in love.
What Uncle Did Next
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, and of the comments – which, let’s face it, are often the best bits – then you have almost certainly on occasion read the remarks of the one who calls himself ‘Uncle Did’. Maybe you are him. Well, if you are, good, because I want to talk to you. Nothing weird, nothing important, although I did dream about you last night. Go on, drop me a line.
And that’s that.
It’s Christmas!
And to celebrate, my disturbed friend Keith has made a festive image, which I reproduce without permission here (click to make big)…
Have fun, everyone.
And that’s that.
It’s Christmas!
And to celebrate, my disturbed friend Keith has made a festive image, which I reproduce without permission here (click to make big)…
Have fun, everyone.
Bah, hambug!
Believe it or not, I woke up feeling pretty full of "Christmas cheer" this morning. Then I got out of bed and realised I have to get to work. Yes, I'm one of very few individuals who are at work today. In fact, our office, out of eight others, is the only occupied one. But at least being here is keeping out of trouble and a little entertained. I wore this funky hat I stole off Beskarig to work, Masonge Ngcabahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03980678858829295631noreply@blogger.com0
Christmas Present :: Bye, Humbug!
If I knew then what I know now, I’m not sure it would have made much difference, but it would have made some, and that would have been the difference between feeling ashamed and self-pitiful, and feeling self-pitiful and somehow immune. But I didn’t know then what I know now. All I knew then was that Christmas was a time that other people seemed to love but that I really hated.
Humbug.
I hated Christmas because my parents would use it as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.
I hated Christmas because I had to go to midnight mass and pretend that I believed in the concepts which I invariably heard expressed there, concepts such as love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace and compassion. Concepts such as God and the family. I hated church. I hated church because my parents would also be pretending, and they would put on a show for the people they knew at church, the people they called friends, and then when we got home they would revert to the scowling, cursing, ruthless vulgarians that deep inside they truly were.
I hated Christmas because I was a child like any other and I wanted Sonic the Hedgehog and a PC and I wanted videos, hundreds and hundreds of videos, but unfortunately Christmas gifts that were anything other than absolutely necessary were in our house deemed frivolous and irrelevant. One year I received a new school blazer. Another year I received a new carpet for my bedroom. Sometimes however, if I was lucky and my parents were feeling particularly festive, one of them would bung twenty quid in an envelope. We never had a tree.
I hated Christmas because I had to stay at home for most of it and pretend.
I hated Christmas because the only bit of Christmas I loved was spending time round Keith’s house. This caused a real schism within me. On the one hand, it was wonderful to be given the opportunity to be able to understand what Christmas was all about and to see why other people enjoyed it so much; on the other hand, it brought home everything that was lacking in my own family. On the whole though, I cherished the time I spent at Keith’s house, or – as I came to know it – The Great Escape.
And then I escaped for good, and was miserable to discover that I had begun to hate Christmas for new reasons.
Primarily, I hated it because I was scarred, and because hating it had become a habit.
As an adult, I spent quite a few Christmases alone, despite protests from people who knew me – to some people there is no greater crime against nature than spending Christmas alone. For the most part I never minded those Christmases though. I’d tell myself I was going to write, then I’d watch six films back to back instead. It was fun, but yeah, kind of sad fun. One Christmas I had a tin of meatballs for Christmas lunch. That was quite sad actually. I remember feeling rather unhappy at that point.
Then last year there was change and I had excellent fun. Christmas with kids is a a whole new kettle of fish and I hope to spend many more Christmases in future with children. Inshallah. Last Christmas seems like a long time ago now, and indeed it was. It was almost a year. It marked the beginning though, of a turning point.
This year promises to be even better, and this is the first time I can actually remember actively looking forward to Christmas.
This feels like the first Christmas of the rest of my life.
I can’t wait. I'm going to go mental this year.
The particularly great thing about this Christmas is that I already have everything I could possibly want, so everything else is a bonus.
Awww.
And what about you? What do you want for Christmas?
Whatever it is, I really hope you get it.
Humbug.
I hated Christmas because my parents would use it as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.
I hated Christmas because I had to go to midnight mass and pretend that I believed in the concepts which I invariably heard expressed there, concepts such as love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace and compassion. Concepts such as God and the family. I hated church. I hated church because my parents would also be pretending, and they would put on a show for the people they knew at church, the people they called friends, and then when we got home they would revert to the scowling, cursing, ruthless vulgarians that deep inside they truly were.
I hated Christmas because I was a child like any other and I wanted Sonic the Hedgehog and a PC and I wanted videos, hundreds and hundreds of videos, but unfortunately Christmas gifts that were anything other than absolutely necessary were in our house deemed frivolous and irrelevant. One year I received a new school blazer. Another year I received a new carpet for my bedroom. Sometimes however, if I was lucky and my parents were feeling particularly festive, one of them would bung twenty quid in an envelope. We never had a tree.
I hated Christmas because I had to stay at home for most of it and pretend.
I hated Christmas because the only bit of Christmas I loved was spending time round Keith’s house. This caused a real schism within me. On the one hand, it was wonderful to be given the opportunity to be able to understand what Christmas was all about and to see why other people enjoyed it so much; on the other hand, it brought home everything that was lacking in my own family. On the whole though, I cherished the time I spent at Keith’s house, or – as I came to know it – The Great Escape.
And then I escaped for good, and was miserable to discover that I had begun to hate Christmas for new reasons.
Primarily, I hated it because I was scarred, and because hating it had become a habit.
As an adult, I spent quite a few Christmases alone, despite protests from people who knew me – to some people there is no greater crime against nature than spending Christmas alone. For the most part I never minded those Christmases though. I’d tell myself I was going to write, then I’d watch six films back to back instead. It was fun, but yeah, kind of sad fun. One Christmas I had a tin of meatballs for Christmas lunch. That was quite sad actually. I remember feeling rather unhappy at that point.
Then last year there was change and I had excellent fun. Christmas with kids is a a whole new kettle of fish and I hope to spend many more Christmases in future with children. Inshallah. Last Christmas seems like a long time ago now, and indeed it was. It was almost a year. It marked the beginning though, of a turning point.
This year promises to be even better, and this is the first time I can actually remember actively looking forward to Christmas.
This feels like the first Christmas of the rest of my life.
I can’t wait. I'm going to go mental this year.
The particularly great thing about this Christmas is that I already have everything I could possibly want, so everything else is a bonus.
Awww.
And what about you? What do you want for Christmas?
Whatever it is, I really hope you get it.
patagonia
It´s Chile here. (¿Geddit? Chile. Although I´m not actually in Chile, but I´m close enough.)
It´s a little cold here in the Andes. Bariloche is a little ski town, and although mid-summer, there is still snow on the mountains, and one fuck off lake, amongst many.
It feels like Switzerland, but a little more decrepit. Although decrepit may be the wrong word, more sort of chilled and things don´t run here like in Switzerland. Staying a a hippie place, where people hang in hammocks and do a lot of hiking.
Made more friends yesterday over copious bottles of Malbec tinto, and Dad woke up again, in his underpants and exclaimed, ´Fuck. I´ve lost my keys, MP3 player and my bus ticket out of here,´to a very-alarmed looking Ozzie girl who was in our dowm. While dad was packing his johnson in his underpants right in front of her face. Dad you also lost your dignity last night, but whatever.
It´s been heavy going being with Dad 24-7, I won´t lie.
We got shitfaced last night with the dudes here, and ended up in some biloche or pub, where everyone picked up an instrument and started a makeshift hostel band on the stage.
It´s beautiful here, and tomorrow I´ll be climbing two fucken mountains. With amazing views.
For now, I´m just hungover.
God there are a lot of gnomes in this town. With fankly, scary-looking faces man. I´m bringing back gnomes for everyone, lucky bastards.
It´s a little cold here in the Andes. Bariloche is a little ski town, and although mid-summer, there is still snow on the mountains, and one fuck off lake, amongst many.
It feels like Switzerland, but a little more decrepit. Although decrepit may be the wrong word, more sort of chilled and things don´t run here like in Switzerland. Staying a a hippie place, where people hang in hammocks and do a lot of hiking.
Made more friends yesterday over copious bottles of Malbec tinto, and Dad woke up again, in his underpants and exclaimed, ´Fuck. I´ve lost my keys, MP3 player and my bus ticket out of here,´to a very-alarmed looking Ozzie girl who was in our dowm. While dad was packing his johnson in his underpants right in front of her face. Dad you also lost your dignity last night, but whatever.
It´s been heavy going being with Dad 24-7, I won´t lie.
We got shitfaced last night with the dudes here, and ended up in some biloche or pub, where everyone picked up an instrument and started a makeshift hostel band on the stage.
It´s beautiful here, and tomorrow I´ll be climbing two fucken mountains. With amazing views.
For now, I´m just hungover.
God there are a lot of gnomes in this town. With fankly, scary-looking faces man. I´m bringing back gnomes for everyone, lucky bastards.
Feedback Friday :: Life Is Other People
bulk :: 15st 5 (Meh. Maybe this is how much I’m supposed to weigh. Everybody has to weigh something. Fifteen and a half stone is not so bad. I can live with it… Hold on a moment, what am I saying? NOOOOoooooo! Jesus, I nearly convinced myself there. No, no, no, no, no. I’ll take on a little Winterspeck in the traditional manner, then it’s time to join a new gym. I promise. Phew.)
cigarettes smoked :: 0
alcohol units imbibed :: 12
other intoxicants taken :: 0
carrots :: 7
sticks :: 1
government jobs concluded :: 1
medical moments :: 2
tests lined up :: 4
So I made an appointment to have my pains checked out yesterday and I must say, I was completely blown away by the wonderfulness of the doctor I saw. Let’s call her Dr Fine. Dr Fine was lovely. Every bit as lovely as Dr Lovely in fact. Equally as willing to talk and to listen, perhaps even a little more humorous. Especially when we were joking about cancer and stool samples and twisted testicles. Oh, how we laughed.
The upshot is that I have to have a bunch of new tests. So, fingers crossed I’m not dying. How tedious that would be. Typically, the pains seem to have disappeared. I have this terrible fear that I’m just wasting everyone’s time. If I am, at least it isn’t deliberate.
This morning I wrapped up the work I was doing for the government. As I left the office and boarded the tube, I felt a sense of euphoria that I haven’t felt for a very long time. Ever in fact. The fact of the book suddenly seems real. Having talked about it here and tied up all my other responsibilities, it’s now sitting there, in front of me, like a happy ghost at the bottom of my bed poking me with its fleshy fingers. ‘Go on then,’ it says. ‘Let’s see what you can do.’ Also, the bookmakers are not messing around. They’re already got going on trying to sell the thing, long, long before it’s written.
All of which has got me thinking. About life. About writing. About getting what you want.
The best thing about writing a blog is that you have complete control and can write whatever the hell you please. For example, if I wish to declare that in my opinion, Sebastian Horsley is an impotent bore, then I can, without fear of reprisal, and without fear of dissent.
Alternatively, if I feel the need to start a fan site for Robert Mugabe, then start a fan site for Robert Mugabe I jolly well will, just so long as I'm not seen to incite racial hatred along the way. Incidentally, I recently heard Mugabe described as 'an African Rupert Murdoch', which although just a little bit silly, made me titter. Oh, hold on – maybe it the other way around. Yes, it was. Murdoch was a Western Mugabe. That was it. Actually, that makes much more sense.
By the way, I feel I should point out, just in case there’s any doubt, I do not feel any need to start a Robert Mugabe fan site. Still less a fan site for Rupert Murdoch. But, the point is, if I wanted to, I could.
Also, importantly, if I choose to discuss the possibility of starting a Robert Mugabe fansite merely in order that I can then poke a peck of harmless fun at Rupert Murdoch (the Western Robert Mugabe), then I can do that also. Because this is my blog and I’m responsible to no one but myself.
Or at least that was the case until I agreed to write a book. Now I have to be careful. After all, what if Harper Collins also published Sebastian Horsley? Would I not then be morally or professionally obliged to big up my impotent dullard of a stablemate? And what if Rupert Murdoch were involved somehow, somewhere along the line? God, that would be awful.
The fact is, the moment you enter into a partnership with another person or group of people, things begin to change. Even if this is a partnership that you’ve been willing with every fibre of your being, it will still bring change, and that change will inevitably cause tension.
This applies to all aspects of life of course, to relationships as well as to work.
Morag, for example, is already making noises about me getting rid of some of my ‘junk’ – as she sees it – when she moves in with her ‘not junk’ next month. This has me feeling rather defensive and anxious, and I can already see that it’s going to call for some skilful and diplomatic compromise. Or, if you will, ‘backing down’. (I shan’t say on whose behalf, however, although my testicles are beginning to sing again just thinking about it.)
My instinct tells me that the way to get through the challenges of collaboration is to carry on being yourself. After all, these people wanted to associate themselves with you in the first place, because of who you are, so if they’re genuine about their feelings, then they’ll stick with you. At least until their feelings change.
So, being myself, I have to say, the spelling mistake in this cover is hilarious.
Now, this afternoon, I need to buy and decorate a tree. I also need to unpack the rest of my stuff, sample my stool and take it to the hospital. Ich. How horrifically undignified.
Then it’s the last weekend before Christmas! Huzzah! It's probably time to do a bit of shopping. Christ, I used to hate Christmas, but in truth I’m rather looking forward to this one. What a pleasant change.
What are you up to this weekend? Anything nice?
x
cigarettes smoked :: 0
alcohol units imbibed :: 12
other intoxicants taken :: 0
carrots :: 7
sticks :: 1
government jobs concluded :: 1
medical moments :: 2
tests lined up :: 4
So I made an appointment to have my pains checked out yesterday and I must say, I was completely blown away by the wonderfulness of the doctor I saw. Let’s call her Dr Fine. Dr Fine was lovely. Every bit as lovely as Dr Lovely in fact. Equally as willing to talk and to listen, perhaps even a little more humorous. Especially when we were joking about cancer and stool samples and twisted testicles. Oh, how we laughed.
The upshot is that I have to have a bunch of new tests. So, fingers crossed I’m not dying. How tedious that would be. Typically, the pains seem to have disappeared. I have this terrible fear that I’m just wasting everyone’s time. If I am, at least it isn’t deliberate.
This morning I wrapped up the work I was doing for the government. As I left the office and boarded the tube, I felt a sense of euphoria that I haven’t felt for a very long time. Ever in fact. The fact of the book suddenly seems real. Having talked about it here and tied up all my other responsibilities, it’s now sitting there, in front of me, like a happy ghost at the bottom of my bed poking me with its fleshy fingers. ‘Go on then,’ it says. ‘Let’s see what you can do.’ Also, the bookmakers are not messing around. They’re already got going on trying to sell the thing, long, long before it’s written.
All of which has got me thinking. About life. About writing. About getting what you want.
The best thing about writing a blog is that you have complete control and can write whatever the hell you please. For example, if I wish to declare that in my opinion, Sebastian Horsley is an impotent bore, then I can, without fear of reprisal, and without fear of dissent.
Alternatively, if I feel the need to start a fan site for Robert Mugabe, then start a fan site for Robert Mugabe I jolly well will, just so long as I'm not seen to incite racial hatred along the way. Incidentally, I recently heard Mugabe described as 'an African Rupert Murdoch', which although just a little bit silly, made me titter. Oh, hold on – maybe it the other way around. Yes, it was. Murdoch was a Western Mugabe. That was it. Actually, that makes much more sense.
By the way, I feel I should point out, just in case there’s any doubt, I do not feel any need to start a Robert Mugabe fan site. Still less a fan site for Rupert Murdoch. But, the point is, if I wanted to, I could.
Also, importantly, if I choose to discuss the possibility of starting a Robert Mugabe fansite merely in order that I can then poke a peck of harmless fun at Rupert Murdoch (the Western Robert Mugabe), then I can do that also. Because this is my blog and I’m responsible to no one but myself.
Or at least that was the case until I agreed to write a book. Now I have to be careful. After all, what if Harper Collins also published Sebastian Horsley? Would I not then be morally or professionally obliged to big up my impotent dullard of a stablemate? And what if Rupert Murdoch were involved somehow, somewhere along the line? God, that would be awful.
The fact is, the moment you enter into a partnership with another person or group of people, things begin to change. Even if this is a partnership that you’ve been willing with every fibre of your being, it will still bring change, and that change will inevitably cause tension.
This applies to all aspects of life of course, to relationships as well as to work.
Morag, for example, is already making noises about me getting rid of some of my ‘junk’ – as she sees it – when she moves in with her ‘not junk’ next month. This has me feeling rather defensive and anxious, and I can already see that it’s going to call for some skilful and diplomatic compromise. Or, if you will, ‘backing down’. (I shan’t say on whose behalf, however, although my testicles are beginning to sing again just thinking about it.)
My instinct tells me that the way to get through the challenges of collaboration is to carry on being yourself. After all, these people wanted to associate themselves with you in the first place, because of who you are, so if they’re genuine about their feelings, then they’ll stick with you. At least until their feelings change.
So, being myself, I have to say, the spelling mistake in this cover is hilarious.
Now, this afternoon, I need to buy and decorate a tree. I also need to unpack the rest of my stuff, sample my stool and take it to the hospital. Ich. How horrifically undignified.
Then it’s the last weekend before Christmas! Huzzah! It's probably time to do a bit of shopping. Christ, I used to hate Christmas, but in truth I’m rather looking forward to this one. What a pleasant change.
What are you up to this weekend? Anything nice?
x
Rage, Rage
One of the very few reasonably significant things we can say we know with any degree of absolute certainty - about life, I mean - is that it ends. One of the others is that until it ends for you personally, it goes on, no matter what. And the third is that when the end comes, often it will scream with so much poignancy, passion and terror that it will seem as if it’s been engineered by a particularly malicious god, or a particularly heavy-handed, washed-up sit-com writer.
In my fairly limited experience, death and suffering always come mired in layer after layer of suffocatingly cruel irony or coincidence. It’s as if God doesn’t just want us to die, He wants us to die laughing – Him laughing that is, whilst we shake our heads, baffled by the unfairness of it all, incredulous at the bad taste timing. But then, I imagine, there’s probably never a good time to die.
There are a couple of people I know reasonably well who are going through some terrible things at the moment. Things which are pretty much as terrible as it’s possible for things to get. Life and death things. You know the kind of thing. And there are a couple more whom I know only virtually, living through similarly terrifying times.
When I think about these people, I shake my head. I can’t get my head round it. I’m baffled, incredulous and scared.
It isn’t right.
And it’s everywhere. Every which way I turn at the moment, someone has died, or been diagnosed with something scary or been rushed to hospital. It’s like there’s an epidemic of bad news out there and it’s taking all my concentration not to panic or take it personally. What I try very hard to do instead is to force into my head some sense of perspective; I try to use this litany of personal tragedy to reinforce awareness of infinite possibility and actual reality, and to feel gratitude for my own good fortune and determination to make the most of it. Or – if you prefer – I count my blessings. Because of course, as I mentioned yesterday, at the moment I’m the lucky exception that proves the bad news rule. At the moment everything is going swimmingly for me.
Which is precisely why I found myself on the verge of panic earlier today.
It's like, how long can it last?
How many times can a coin turn up heads?
In general, I like to think of myself as realistic rather than particularly pessimistic or cynical. I observe life, and I draw what I like to think of as fairly even-handed, reasonable conclusions. Therefore I am frightened. I am frightened because my observations have led me to conclude that life could not be any more cruel, or any more unlikely, even if it were written by the most world-weary, sensationalist hack imaginable. Therefore, when things start going exceptionally well for someone, I fully expect them to turn on their head and start going exceptionally badly. I expect that lucky someone to come a cropper. Because that’s what would happen in fiction, because fiction is emotional manipulation brought on by unexpected and often cruelly unfair or ironic happenstance, and life is nothing more than live three-dimensional fiction, author unknown.
So I’m paranoid. For the last three days I’ve been getting a pain in my left testicle, increasingly regular, increasingly sharp. I know, I know, I know. I’ve been trying to get it seen to, I honestly have. Along with the pain in my gut which I was complaining about a couple of weeks ago. That too. But I have reasons for not having done it as yet, including work, moving house, new doctor waiting lists and old doctor bizarre appointment systems ruled out by work.
I mention it now because it’s got to such a stage whereby I am pulling out all the stops to get seen. As in pushing back work. I’m scared. It’s painful. I’m paranoid.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Lately when I’m out and about, I’m alert, I’m waiting, watching, expecting the unexpected. I’m paranoid. I know it’s going to come now, because things are going well, and if we know anything about Death, we know that it strives for irony, even irony on a very base level, hardly irony at all in fact, just the worst imaginable luck or nasty poetic injustice.
So I’m ready, and even as I’m knocked into the path of the hurtling full Circle Line train, I compose haunting tributes on your behalf. ‘It just doesn’t seem fair. He was so close to getting everything he ever wanted.’ ‘He was just about to finally show the world what he was made of.’ ‘He was on the very meniscus of excellence. He could have been the next Tommy Steele.’ ‘Life is impossibly cruel.’ ‘Not only was he a great writer, but he was also really good at sex. I was blessed to have known him. In that way.’
Then I drift for a second and drive into the side of a bus or a train in the rain or I step out - distracted by some nonsense playing out in my head, some worry or fear or death scenario, I step out into the path of a taxi, a motorbike or an ambulance. John Lennon’s mum was killed by a drunken policeman. Thousands of people are killed every year by emergency vehicles in a hurry. And sometimes they're not even drunk. Sometimes it's my own fault.
Then I hear the screech, crunch and whistle of cold steel contorting, tearing and exploding at 100 miles an hour. Seconds later I’m torn to pieces myself, my body popped and pasted between concrete, metal and plastic. I never discover whether it’s an arbitrary engineering catastrophe, a single bolt for example, coming loose in the train or the track at exactly the wrong time; or something mucked up in the fabric of society, a single screw for example, coming loose in the head of some loon. It doesn't really matter.
On my way home, late, walking down unfamiliar streets, walking back from an internet café, I am stabbed in the gut, in the heart, in the face, every night without fail. Sometimes there is real irony and the knife cuts out the cancer in my belly, inadvertently saving my life. Sometimes it misses my heart by a millimetre. Sometimes the blade is dragged deep from my crotch to my neck like a giant zip and my insides flop to the floor in a wet heap. Sometimes I stop the blade with seconds to spare and disarm the villain with my lightning reflexes. Sometimes I sit on him till the police turn up. Sometimes I turn the knife and take furious, disproportionate revenge. Sometimes I even go on a rampage myself.
Sometimes, when I’m finally opened up after months of grumbling, the tumour in my belly has spread into my groin. Sometimes it's gone up into my lungs and I’m given six months. Sometimes I arrived just in time and I'm successfully exorcised. Sometimes my pains are passing trifles, niggling innocuous nothings of less than no import. Sometimes they’re stress bubbles, physical manifestations of fear and insecurity. And sometimes they’re self-fulfilling prophecies somewhere down the worried line, tumours within tumours within tumours within tumours...
I have been going mental with this stuff lately. Morag tells me again I will worry myself sick, which is a horrible thing to tell a hypochondriac.
But I’m being seen tomorrow. Finally. The testicle ache has today reached touching point, which is to say I have become a very sombre Michael Jackson, two gloves, surreptitiously checking myself out, giving myself a little squeeze, consoling, it’ll be alright, wincing.
But soon at least, eventually, I’ll know one way or the other, then I can get to work on the fatal freak occurrence fixation. Because I’m beginning to think it isn’t healthy.
But even now I’m not entirely sure. I mean, a certain amount of awareness of how fragile and precarious it all is, of how sheer and frangible is the thread by which we all hang is, I think, definitely a good thing. It encourages you to live more acutely, to appreciate more keenly. I personally also feel naturally drawn to death. Not in a morbid way, I don’t feel. Just in a fascinated, shocked and awed way. But when does that become unhealthy? I don’t know. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to talk about it here. Plus the fact that it’s been weighing on my mind of late. Increasingly.
Like a shadow.
Creeping. Encroaching. Imminent.
I know, I know, but the thing is, other people’s bad luck keeps knocking the stuffing out of me, and although I accept that my life will end, I just don’t want to be taken by surprise by it. I want to see it coming. I want to pre-empt Death, not in order to avoid it, just to show it that I was onto it, that I was intelligent enough to predict it.
Maybe that’s what it comes down to.
I don’t want Death to make a fool of me.
But of course it will. Just like Life.
Aaaah, Death.
It’s absolutely everywhere. Just like Life.
It lurks in the dark and leaps out when you least expect it. Just like life. Or else it squats in your peripheries, expressionless, for weeks, months, years. Forever.
Just like Life.
They have a lot in common.
In fact, the only reasonably significant distinction to be made is that unlike Death, Life goes on. Right up until it stops, the fucker goes on.
And Life is never more acutely appreciated, and Death never more acutely feared, than when the latter slips out of your peripheries and into the foreground, edging toward centre-stage, creeping toward the camera. That's when we have to fight. Or as Dylan Thomas put it:
'Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
I like that.
If you are sick, or scared or scarred, or just feeling battered by the cruelty of life and death, my thoughts and hopes for the absolute best are with you.
x
In my fairly limited experience, death and suffering always come mired in layer after layer of suffocatingly cruel irony or coincidence. It’s as if God doesn’t just want us to die, He wants us to die laughing – Him laughing that is, whilst we shake our heads, baffled by the unfairness of it all, incredulous at the bad taste timing. But then, I imagine, there’s probably never a good time to die.
There are a couple of people I know reasonably well who are going through some terrible things at the moment. Things which are pretty much as terrible as it’s possible for things to get. Life and death things. You know the kind of thing. And there are a couple more whom I know only virtually, living through similarly terrifying times.
When I think about these people, I shake my head. I can’t get my head round it. I’m baffled, incredulous and scared.
It isn’t right.
And it’s everywhere. Every which way I turn at the moment, someone has died, or been diagnosed with something scary or been rushed to hospital. It’s like there’s an epidemic of bad news out there and it’s taking all my concentration not to panic or take it personally. What I try very hard to do instead is to force into my head some sense of perspective; I try to use this litany of personal tragedy to reinforce awareness of infinite possibility and actual reality, and to feel gratitude for my own good fortune and determination to make the most of it. Or – if you prefer – I count my blessings. Because of course, as I mentioned yesterday, at the moment I’m the lucky exception that proves the bad news rule. At the moment everything is going swimmingly for me.
Which is precisely why I found myself on the verge of panic earlier today.
It's like, how long can it last?
How many times can a coin turn up heads?
In general, I like to think of myself as realistic rather than particularly pessimistic or cynical. I observe life, and I draw what I like to think of as fairly even-handed, reasonable conclusions. Therefore I am frightened. I am frightened because my observations have led me to conclude that life could not be any more cruel, or any more unlikely, even if it were written by the most world-weary, sensationalist hack imaginable. Therefore, when things start going exceptionally well for someone, I fully expect them to turn on their head and start going exceptionally badly. I expect that lucky someone to come a cropper. Because that’s what would happen in fiction, because fiction is emotional manipulation brought on by unexpected and often cruelly unfair or ironic happenstance, and life is nothing more than live three-dimensional fiction, author unknown.
So I’m paranoid. For the last three days I’ve been getting a pain in my left testicle, increasingly regular, increasingly sharp. I know, I know, I know. I’ve been trying to get it seen to, I honestly have. Along with the pain in my gut which I was complaining about a couple of weeks ago. That too. But I have reasons for not having done it as yet, including work, moving house, new doctor waiting lists and old doctor bizarre appointment systems ruled out by work.
I mention it now because it’s got to such a stage whereby I am pulling out all the stops to get seen. As in pushing back work. I’m scared. It’s painful. I’m paranoid.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Lately when I’m out and about, I’m alert, I’m waiting, watching, expecting the unexpected. I’m paranoid. I know it’s going to come now, because things are going well, and if we know anything about Death, we know that it strives for irony, even irony on a very base level, hardly irony at all in fact, just the worst imaginable luck or nasty poetic injustice.
So I’m ready, and even as I’m knocked into the path of the hurtling full Circle Line train, I compose haunting tributes on your behalf. ‘It just doesn’t seem fair. He was so close to getting everything he ever wanted.’ ‘He was just about to finally show the world what he was made of.’ ‘He was on the very meniscus of excellence. He could have been the next Tommy Steele.’ ‘Life is impossibly cruel.’ ‘Not only was he a great writer, but he was also really good at sex. I was blessed to have known him. In that way.’
Then I drift for a second and drive into the side of a bus or a train in the rain or I step out - distracted by some nonsense playing out in my head, some worry or fear or death scenario, I step out into the path of a taxi, a motorbike or an ambulance. John Lennon’s mum was killed by a drunken policeman. Thousands of people are killed every year by emergency vehicles in a hurry. And sometimes they're not even drunk. Sometimes it's my own fault.
Then I hear the screech, crunch and whistle of cold steel contorting, tearing and exploding at 100 miles an hour. Seconds later I’m torn to pieces myself, my body popped and pasted between concrete, metal and plastic. I never discover whether it’s an arbitrary engineering catastrophe, a single bolt for example, coming loose in the train or the track at exactly the wrong time; or something mucked up in the fabric of society, a single screw for example, coming loose in the head of some loon. It doesn't really matter.
On my way home, late, walking down unfamiliar streets, walking back from an internet café, I am stabbed in the gut, in the heart, in the face, every night without fail. Sometimes there is real irony and the knife cuts out the cancer in my belly, inadvertently saving my life. Sometimes it misses my heart by a millimetre. Sometimes the blade is dragged deep from my crotch to my neck like a giant zip and my insides flop to the floor in a wet heap. Sometimes I stop the blade with seconds to spare and disarm the villain with my lightning reflexes. Sometimes I sit on him till the police turn up. Sometimes I turn the knife and take furious, disproportionate revenge. Sometimes I even go on a rampage myself.
Sometimes, when I’m finally opened up after months of grumbling, the tumour in my belly has spread into my groin. Sometimes it's gone up into my lungs and I’m given six months. Sometimes I arrived just in time and I'm successfully exorcised. Sometimes my pains are passing trifles, niggling innocuous nothings of less than no import. Sometimes they’re stress bubbles, physical manifestations of fear and insecurity. And sometimes they’re self-fulfilling prophecies somewhere down the worried line, tumours within tumours within tumours within tumours...
I have been going mental with this stuff lately. Morag tells me again I will worry myself sick, which is a horrible thing to tell a hypochondriac.
But I’m being seen tomorrow. Finally. The testicle ache has today reached touching point, which is to say I have become a very sombre Michael Jackson, two gloves, surreptitiously checking myself out, giving myself a little squeeze, consoling, it’ll be alright, wincing.
But soon at least, eventually, I’ll know one way or the other, then I can get to work on the fatal freak occurrence fixation. Because I’m beginning to think it isn’t healthy.
But even now I’m not entirely sure. I mean, a certain amount of awareness of how fragile and precarious it all is, of how sheer and frangible is the thread by which we all hang is, I think, definitely a good thing. It encourages you to live more acutely, to appreciate more keenly. I personally also feel naturally drawn to death. Not in a morbid way, I don’t feel. Just in a fascinated, shocked and awed way. But when does that become unhealthy? I don’t know. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to talk about it here. Plus the fact that it’s been weighing on my mind of late. Increasingly.
Like a shadow.
Creeping. Encroaching. Imminent.
I know, I know, but the thing is, other people’s bad luck keeps knocking the stuffing out of me, and although I accept that my life will end, I just don’t want to be taken by surprise by it. I want to see it coming. I want to pre-empt Death, not in order to avoid it, just to show it that I was onto it, that I was intelligent enough to predict it.
Maybe that’s what it comes down to.
I don’t want Death to make a fool of me.
But of course it will. Just like Life.
Aaaah, Death.
It’s absolutely everywhere. Just like Life.
It lurks in the dark and leaps out when you least expect it. Just like life. Or else it squats in your peripheries, expressionless, for weeks, months, years. Forever.
Just like Life.
They have a lot in common.
In fact, the only reasonably significant distinction to be made is that unlike Death, Life goes on. Right up until it stops, the fucker goes on.
And Life is never more acutely appreciated, and Death never more acutely feared, than when the latter slips out of your peripheries and into the foreground, edging toward centre-stage, creeping toward the camera. That's when we have to fight. Or as Dylan Thomas put it:
'Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
I like that.
If you are sick, or scared or scarred, or just feeling battered by the cruelty of life and death, my thoughts and hopes for the absolute best are with you.
x
la cuidad de buenos aires
Someone told me, amongst the plethora of people I know who have come here before, that Buenos Aires has this way of getting under your skin, and you{re not quite certain exactly what it is that does this.
He was quite right.
It has been four days of craziness. And I absolutely love this city. It's a wonderful fusion of old and new, where parts of it remind me of Paris, and other suburbs like Boca I feel like I'm in Cuba, what with the brightly coloured buildings. The old buildings are so grand, all with big shutters and balconies, and Art Deco is the flavour of architecture wherever you look.
Our hostel is in the Microcentro, or middle of town, a great vibey sort of place to hang, the sun is only down in this place 6 hours a day. I have been getting to bed at 2.30am every night, and Dad has been especially ripping the ring out of it, finding mates and crawling in at 4.30 in his underpants like this morning. That was great.
So much history here too, I walked across this city twice and have seen pretty much everything it has to offer. My legs are aching. Eva Peron has saint status here, her museum has her original clothes therein and amazing footage of her life as an actress, before she married the president and found fans in the middle working class.
I have the soundtrack from the movie ensconced in my head. All day. It's getting intense.
Made a couple of friends in our hostel too. A great girl from the UK who is living here and studying Spañish, and like last night, a whole bunch of Brazilians and a Canadian chap who has been here for months and has shown me the ropes and local spots.
So much of this place cannot even be explianed with mere words. But it's hot and beautiful to be precise. Can't mention the Dirty War apparently. Argentines, who are so friendly and poised and fashion concious, will not speak of it. 30 000 people just disappeared during the disctatorship, missing, kidnapped, tortured etc. And they're still looking for some of these missing people.
Sounds a bit like South Africa's past.
We go on that fucking bus to Bariloche tonihgt. But buses here are muchos buen, I hear. They serve whisky and hot food and you can recline your seat right back. Most of the trip will be over the Pampas, or plains. It's going to be heavy going.
What with only the odd tumbleweed to see.
But Bariloche will be a backwater change to this crazy city, right on the edge of the Andes and in the lake district.
With shitloads of chocolate and ...gnomes apparently. Gnomes in whop windows are the vibe.
Interesting.
PS: I wonder if 'Que sa jorra' which means 'Go fuck yourself' in Catalan would be understood here¿ No particular reason, but I always liked using it with gusto in Spain.
He was quite right.
It has been four days of craziness. And I absolutely love this city. It's a wonderful fusion of old and new, where parts of it remind me of Paris, and other suburbs like Boca I feel like I'm in Cuba, what with the brightly coloured buildings. The old buildings are so grand, all with big shutters and balconies, and Art Deco is the flavour of architecture wherever you look.
Our hostel is in the Microcentro, or middle of town, a great vibey sort of place to hang, the sun is only down in this place 6 hours a day. I have been getting to bed at 2.30am every night, and Dad has been especially ripping the ring out of it, finding mates and crawling in at 4.30 in his underpants like this morning. That was great.
So much history here too, I walked across this city twice and have seen pretty much everything it has to offer. My legs are aching. Eva Peron has saint status here, her museum has her original clothes therein and amazing footage of her life as an actress, before she married the president and found fans in the middle working class.
I have the soundtrack from the movie ensconced in my head. All day. It's getting intense.
Made a couple of friends in our hostel too. A great girl from the UK who is living here and studying Spañish, and like last night, a whole bunch of Brazilians and a Canadian chap who has been here for months and has shown me the ropes and local spots.
So much of this place cannot even be explianed with mere words. But it's hot and beautiful to be precise. Can't mention the Dirty War apparently. Argentines, who are so friendly and poised and fashion concious, will not speak of it. 30 000 people just disappeared during the disctatorship, missing, kidnapped, tortured etc. And they're still looking for some of these missing people.
Sounds a bit like South Africa's past.
We go on that fucking bus to Bariloche tonihgt. But buses here are muchos buen, I hear. They serve whisky and hot food and you can recline your seat right back. Most of the trip will be over the Pampas, or plains. It's going to be heavy going.
What with only the odd tumbleweed to see.
But Bariloche will be a backwater change to this crazy city, right on the edge of the Andes and in the lake district.
With shitloads of chocolate and ...gnomes apparently. Gnomes in whop windows are the vibe.
Interesting.
PS: I wonder if 'Que sa jorra' which means 'Go fuck yourself' in Catalan would be understood here¿ No particular reason, but I always liked using it with gusto in Spain.
cruel senses of humor
Whoever came up with the word 'lisp' has a cruel sense of humor. It only occurred to me now that I have developed a temporary lisp, thanks to my "accident". I'm sporting the classic Cape Flats look after chipping my two front ones. There was a surprising lack of pain, all things considered. That was until I actually went to the dentist, and the pillock prodded at them for a full five minutes, Masonge Ngcabahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03980678858829295631noreply@blogger.com0
cruel senses of humor
Whoever came up with the word 'lisp' has a cruel sense of humor. It only occurred to me now that I have developed a temporary lisp, thanks to my "accident". I'm sporting the classic Cape Flats look after chipping my two front ones. There was a surprising lack of pain, all things considered. That was until I actually went to the dentist, and the pillock prodded at them for a full five minutes, Masonge Ngcabahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03980678858829295631noreply@blogger.com0
cruel senses of humor
Whoever came up with the word 'lisp' has a cruel sense of humor. It only occurred to me now that I have developed a temporary lisp, thanks to my "accident". I'm sporting the classic Cape Flats look after chipping my two front ones. There was a surprising lack of pain, all things considered. That was until I actually went to the dentist, and the pillock prodded at them for a full five minutes, Masonge Ngcabahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03980678858829295631noreply@blogger.com0
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