« Black angel | I leave my family's Christmas presents on a train » |
Not for the first time, I find someone's wife attractive
Me and Mel got the lergy at the same time I think.
Her Aussie friends were over two Saturdays ago. Kev had procured these cannabis sweets which mimic, at least in flavour and appearance, those bittersweet rubbery snakes of English childhood.
I was in a giddy mood soon after we arrived down the Suffolk Arms. At one point I had to correct myself when I started finding Kev's wife attractive: her dry, funny comments, her sandy, untrammelled hair and her slender "figure", to use a word one only ever hears from women and art critics. I wished Kev and Mel could disappear for a minute so that we could have had an inconsequential snog.
The young people behind us seemed to be bemused by these dancing oldies, perhaps wondering what we were on. Me and Mel made a complete hash of trying to use the juke box, poking inconsequentially on illuminated buttons for so long that the machine took the matter into its own hands, playing its own choices.
On the Monday, Mel said she felt a bit rough and had tested positive for the lergy. Just to placate her, I took a test. To my astonishment, it came out positive. Scenting an opportunity to get out of work, as I took a pillow and suffocated the other voice in my head which was asking me about who is going to pay for such indolence, I took another test a few hours later with the same result.
We've spent seven full days with each other at hers, where she's been feeding me delicious food, beating me at Scrabble and Gin Rummy and us watching an incomprehensible State of Play on dvd, the resolution of which I found confusing. I was surprised at how little I resented being holed up with her (although we stretched the meaning of the word "isolation" a little, with walks down the disused railway line and trips to the shop).
To my disappointment, I got my second negative test on Monday so told work I'm out of purdah and went down the pub, had a few pints and did some speed, and had the lovely experience of a swervy, windswept scooter ride home. Some cunt in an Audi came a bit close, irritated perhaps at his imminent loss of dominance as the balance of power shifts away from cars, but also some gracious nods from more considerate drivers letting me go first round an ambiguous roundabout.
I rang Kirsty to share my pleasure that our twice-postponed family holiday in Brittany might go ahead this year following France's decision to let the be-poxed British back in. The conversation meandered into me telling her about a book I'd asked for from my mum for my Christmas present. Never heard of the author, it just got a good review in the LRB. Annie Ernaux's Exteriors.
"Is it intellectual wank?" she said.
Feedback awaiting moderation
This post has 8 feedbacks awaiting moderation...
Form is loading...
looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person
M / 60 / Bristol, "the most beautiful, interesting and distinguished city in England" -- John Betjeman [1961, source eludes me].
"Looby is a left-wing intellectual who is obsessed with a) women's clothes and b) tits." -- Joy of Bex.
WLTM literate woman, 40-65. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.
There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic
I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008
The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek
Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a beautiful evening, or a conversation in agreeable company, it all seems no more than a hint of some infinite felicity existing apart somewhere, rather than actual happiness – such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess?
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon.
Jeremy Wagner
La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes
Using words well is a social virtue. Use 'fortuitous' once more to
mean 'fortunate' and you move an English word another step towards
the dustbin. If your mistake took hold, no-one who valued clarity
would be able to use the word again.
John Whale
One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010
The working man is a fucking loser.
Mick, The Golden Lion, Lancaster, 21 Mar 2011
Rummage in my drawers
The Comfort of Strangers
23.1.16: Big clearout of the defunct and dormant and dull
16.1.19: Further pruning
If your comment box looks like this, I'm afraid I sometimes can't be bothered with all that palarver just to leave a comment.
63 mago
Another Angry Voice
the asshat lounge
Clutter From The Gutter
Crinklybee
Eryl Shields Ink
Exile on Pain Street
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll
George Szirtes ditto
Infomaniac [NSFW]
Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
The Most Difficult Thing Ever
Quillette
Strange Flowers
Wonky Words
"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006
5:4Bristol New Music
Desiring Progress Collection of links only
NewMusicBox
The Rambler
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained