[we haunt living dreams]
Ian was telling me about his brother. He would be cracking open another can, would be already drunk at two in the afternoon. Ian said that his brother did that all the time; just lazed around the house all day getting drunk. I said it sounded pretty bad, but not as bad as when I saw what Steph had drawn on the cover of her Math book. She drew an arm and a syringe and wrote: ‘this is what Tom does.’ I asked her what she meant and she said that her 18 year old brother shot up heroin in her bedroom. Steph is eleven.
So Ian was talking about his brother, and he said that when Jo got back at the end of the month she’d yell at him and give him hell. Ian smiled when he said this, laughed that Jo did that to all of them, telling them how they were wasting all their time just lazing around doing nothing.
As he said this, as he simply mentioned her name, a depth charge went off inside my heart. A flashlight went off and for a fraction of time it was six years ago. Chris was standing at my side, his paleness a comfort, nodding in time saying ‘nothing is secret, nothing is real.’
Then Alan came in and said ‘hey Ian, remember when Jo threw a potato at my head?’ and they both laughed. Alan looked at me then and said ‘Jo and me have a love-hate relationship’. I looked up and said ‘you mean she hates you and…’
He just looked at me, smiling like he knew this exchange meant so much more, like he knew this was about more than him and Jo. Was instead me talking about us. Jo and me. Me and Jo.
Not that there was ever an us.
Didn’t Nietzsche write that we are doomed to repeat all of our mistakes throughout our lives? I didn’t read that in Nietzsche though, I read it in a Ross Macdonald novel. Sleeping Beauty. It’s still true though, regardless of where I read it. We revisit our lives, or have them revisit us in inevitable loops of loss, pain, love, death, whatever…
How can just hearing a name gouge open scars you thought were healed?
posted by duke harringay at 9:50 PM
Hurrah! It appears to be working. Or maybe it’s just that I switched to the new version of Mozilla instead of Camino or Safari… whatever. Time to switch my bookmarks over one more time.
Actually using Mozilla is like finding an old friend. Running with the ‘classic’ skin it reminds me of times gone by, from when I first went online and was a devout Netscape fan. I don’t rightly remember when or why I stopped using Netscape and moved to IE. I’m sure I had a good reason.
I heard that the Hidden Cameras album got a nine out of ten in the NME. I can’t decide if this is great or awful news.
posted by duke harringay at 8:18 PM
So here I am testing the ‘pro’ version of blogger, to see if this solves my woes with formatting. I’m starting to lose patience…
posted by duke harringay at 8:10 PM
I broke my bike. Actually that's not true. I fixed the chain (man, you should see how much it had stretched. You don't think that metal things like that can stretch, it's kind of freaky. But I suppose it had done around 4000 miles or something, so... uh...) and forgot that I needed to change the cassette too, so when I tried to go for a ride Saturday afternoon (in shorts no less! In March!!) it all went haywire and jumped to buggery and hey ho I got all upset and decided it was time for a service anyway so took it down to the bike shop and said 'fix this!' and they said 'end of next week. Argh! Oh well. I felt really strange leaving it there, and it feels odd going through the hallway of the house now and not seeing it there. I miss my bike. I really am that sad.
I don't have a printer either. All the printers I have are pretty old and are all parallel connections. I'm not sure if I can share one on a windows machine on the network. I haven't tried... I think I'll just bite the bullet and get myself a shiny new one. Then I'll have an ever expanding pile of unused printers cluttering up the place. Like scanners. I was tidying at the weekend and discovered four (count 'em, FOUR) old scanners in a pile in the attic cubbyhole. I think only one of them works but I am loathe to bin them because I think, well one day they might be cool for ripping apart or for making into part of some kind of art installation piece. Or something.
The reality is of course that like Andy I am just a hoarder. I find it difficult to throw some things away, except sometimes in binges when I chuck away just about everything and then instantly regret it. So not like Andy at all. But if I could afford it I would also out things into boxes and put them in storage, so... whatever. For example I still find myself wishing I had all those crap poems and daft books I wrote in 1983/84. I have no idea why I want the poems really, except to maybe see if they really were as awful as I suspect they were. The daft books on the other hand are another matter entirely. I know they were stupid and crap, but ah, still... You know we used to have parties and great sections of those books would be read out and everyone would laugh and say how great they were. Of course we were all drunk and stoned but what the hell. We all crave acclaim.
I also wish I had my 1983 diary.
Don't ask why.
Actually, you know that part in 'Breathe on it' by Hidden Cameras that goes, ah, well as it launches into the last chorus bit after the second 'bop bop bop' bit, and there's this falsetto that 'woo-woos' atop it all, well... well, that moment, that instant moment of Pop Perfection is the summer of 1983.
And if you don't know the bit I'm on about, well, I dare say you soon will, 'Breathe On It' being the kind of infectious GospelPop that will have you shimmying in the aisles and that could, nay should, blow apart any chart you care to mention; is the kind of joyous upbeat hymn that the world needs now more than ever before. All of which means of course it'll never reach the airwaves it deserves to, will instead live out its existence in our little parallel universes, but hey, I guess that's okay too.
posted by duke harringay at 7:37 AM 