I can't really clean my desk at the moment. The laws of the universe forbid it. Well, they make it very difficult. Matter can neither be created or destroyed, you see, whilst important paperwork can be created in vast, immeasurable quantities and yet... still cannot be destroyed. Temporarily lost? Yes. But only at the time, that singular moment, that it is needed most.
My desk sits in the corner of my room, to the left of the window. If it faced out the window I'd do nothing but stare. It's a hexagon. To the right lies a haphazard pile of manila envelopes filled with bank statements, car info, health documents, assorted 'important docs', receipts, demands, final demands and all manner of paper trail. More organised people would file these things. I move the envelopes behind the curtain and occasionally look frantically through them after a phone call from a withheld number.
The slide-out keyboard tray holds no keyboard. Submission chapters scrawled with red and black ink, redrafts and new additions to the final chapters of my novel, early-stage cover letters, more important documents and final demands and the first few sections of a Phd I'm editing sit there. They sit there because they are of immediate concern. If this were an office, they would be labeled 'urgent'.
There are no drawers in my desk, only shelves. One shelf carries several copies of submission chapters so poorly edited that I should just use them as scrap paper. I feel environmental guilt when I think about that shelf. It also holds various spare stationery items - envelopes and the like; Conqueror paper for important letters, printer paper for producing yet more poorly edited print-outs of submission chapters; it is the shelf of dead trees.
Dead laptops adorn the opposite shelf - three of them. Two iBooks and an old PowerBook, with a cylinder of blank CDs to keep them company. I really ought to eBay those sometime soon.
My printer lives on the bottom shelf, scattered spare ink cartridges strewn about and on top of it. I'm not printing much out at the moment, but I should be. Photos, writing, that sort of thing should be printed - pressed into reality from the scattered, fickle electrons on my MacBook.
Six corks lay in various places atop my desk, some from extraordinarily fine wines. I use most of them to prop my keyboard up, as its little feet broke some time ago and those are the kind of spares you never find anywhere. Some of the things here make more sense - my laptop speakers and laptop, my keyboard and mouse, mugs full of pens, staples, thumb tacks, paperclips, and a lollipop with a tequila worm in it. Four notebooks - two moleskin - and two sketchbooks. I've not sketched anything for years and I've only used two of the notebooks thus far. There's a photo of my nephews and assorted pens, a pair of Oakleys, an iPod and a few sets of headphones kicking about. I see another couple of important sheets of paper that I really ought to do something about as well. A quaich full of loose change sits in the corner, occasionally pilfered for the sake of a pint. Some novelty dice also linger amongst things, serving little purpose but to add to the sense of disarray.
And this is my desk reasonably tidy. Not clean or organised, but reasonably tidy.
To the left sits a pile of papers, an odds n' ends shoebox and more incredibly important documents as well as various cables needed to connect various things to my computer and my camera. My specs case is there too, and an unopened packet of drawing pencils. They might explain my unsketched books. I can see my counterpart Driver's License shoved between some untranscribed tasting notes. There's a copy of the lease for my flat underneath. More corks. A disposable camera that's been used but not developed for 5 years.
I cannot imagine what's on there. I'm not sure I want to.
Every time I tidy my desk it's that pile to the left that gets bigger. I tend to just chuck all of it over there.
The detritus on either side, the stuff underneath and the rubbish on top - every once in awhile it gets to me. I sit down to write and find it stunts me. Some people file things for the sake of organisation, for some piece of mind that comes with things being in their proper place, imposing order in a universe that's quite happy with its own order, thank you very much. I need to file things to avoid distraction. Organisation is a luxury, a bonus, but never really a necessity to me. The odd frantic search for a bit of paper doesn't bother me too much. But the odd pointless scrap of bureaucracy can spell disaster. An old tasting note peeking out from under the shoebox will pique my interest and that quickly leads to a wasted 5 minutes, hour, afternoon.
Matter cannot be created, but clutter and endless distractions seem to create, recreate, procreate, duplicate and accumulate without end. Perhaps it's time, finally, after three and a half months, to buy a filing cabinet.
Matter cannot be destroyed.
But it can be hidden.
07 February 2009
05 February 2009
lazy flurry
The winds abate and the clouds rise and a gentle flurry of snow drifts with a lazy abandon, often not bothered with gravity's grip. The sea laps instead of rages. The air has that crisp taste to it that comes with stillness. It pinches the inside of your nostrils, but doesn't hurt. The snowflakes move so slowly you can follow one for a good few seconds. I watch from the window, looking up from my notebook and scrawling script.
I've been thinking about India quite a bit of late.
It was a bit more than six months ago now, though it seems closer. Sometimes much closer. That's not a bad thing, really. I'm still writing it up. I don't know why it's taken so long. It's a peculiar project, writing about India. I can't make that move from pen and paper to the laptop. I'm still scribbling in the Moleskin I bought for the trip - a last minute purchase in Terminal 3 at Heathrow (along with some plug adapters and a couple of pens). I've lost the pens. The plug adapters turned out to be the wrong ones (India has two different plug standards - sometimes more) - I only bought them because I worried adapters I bought earlier might be wrong. Both claimed to be standard in 'Parts of India' and both failed to stipulate which parts.
Anyway, I'm still writing about India. I took notes while I was there, but never really got round to updating the journal during the trip. The notes I tapped into my (then) new iPhone or wrote in block caps on journal pages, marked by asterisks to separate them from my attempt at travel narrative. I have trouble with tense on travel narrative - I slip from past to present often, losing track and often shrugging my shoulders and scribbling onwards. Pen and ink make regret pointless; going back is not an option. It's something I can fix when I type it up, I tell myself.
And I tell myself to keep writing, keep remembering. That's why I cannot abandon my India notebook for the clatter of the keyboard. Something about the pen on paper, something about that curious scratching, keeps my memory sharp, keeps the detail from being lost. The banks of the Gomti in Lucknow, the stench of the Ganges, my constant sense of thrilled unease and total displacement all return as the pen pours.
My tense slips into the past. I'm wary of some of my memories, wondering idly if my mind's eye created a touch of filler for the gaps, writing only the details I'm sure of, leaving the odd question mark. Self-doubt in recollection isn't so uncommon - it gets worse as time goes on, as those brilliant days in July fall further back. Insight's worrisome. Often it's hindsight, something garnered on further reflection as the tense continues to slip. Most of my epiphanies on the trip were simple and probably came to many a traveller before me, if not all of them.
So I keep scribbling. I'm in Lucknow at the moment, touring a school along the banks of the river Gomti. The building amazes me. It seems of no continent: simply a testament to grandeur. It was to be a residence, apparently, but the owner died before completion and willed it to be turned into a school. Bamboo scaffolding adorns one of the wings in some attempt at restoration. There's a permeating damp from the river and the threatening, omnipresent monsoon. The morning began in Delhi and now I'm at the La Martiniere. After that we'll head to the famous Residency, landmark to the Mutiny of 1857. The tour guide drones on and does his best to bore the shit out of me. It's only the second day of the trip and there's so much to do.
I breathe deep and look up from the notebook.
I'm sitting at my table in the flat. It's darker out, but the odd flake drifts by, catching the light. It swirls and twirls and bounces about before disappearing on its course. The flat's empty and my tea's cold. It's not masala chai. I lose India and for a moment all the things of now come back to me and my breath shortens.
Another cup of tea and a glance down at the blue ink scrawled between the thin brown lines. I reread my last page or two.
I've lost track of tense again.
I've been thinking about India quite a bit of late.
It was a bit more than six months ago now, though it seems closer. Sometimes much closer. That's not a bad thing, really. I'm still writing it up. I don't know why it's taken so long. It's a peculiar project, writing about India. I can't make that move from pen and paper to the laptop. I'm still scribbling in the Moleskin I bought for the trip - a last minute purchase in Terminal 3 at Heathrow (along with some plug adapters and a couple of pens). I've lost the pens. The plug adapters turned out to be the wrong ones (India has two different plug standards - sometimes more) - I only bought them because I worried adapters I bought earlier might be wrong. Both claimed to be standard in 'Parts of India' and both failed to stipulate which parts.
Anyway, I'm still writing about India. I took notes while I was there, but never really got round to updating the journal during the trip. The notes I tapped into my (then) new iPhone or wrote in block caps on journal pages, marked by asterisks to separate them from my attempt at travel narrative. I have trouble with tense on travel narrative - I slip from past to present often, losing track and often shrugging my shoulders and scribbling onwards. Pen and ink make regret pointless; going back is not an option. It's something I can fix when I type it up, I tell myself.
And I tell myself to keep writing, keep remembering. That's why I cannot abandon my India notebook for the clatter of the keyboard. Something about the pen on paper, something about that curious scratching, keeps my memory sharp, keeps the detail from being lost. The banks of the Gomti in Lucknow, the stench of the Ganges, my constant sense of thrilled unease and total displacement all return as the pen pours.
My tense slips into the past. I'm wary of some of my memories, wondering idly if my mind's eye created a touch of filler for the gaps, writing only the details I'm sure of, leaving the odd question mark. Self-doubt in recollection isn't so uncommon - it gets worse as time goes on, as those brilliant days in July fall further back. Insight's worrisome. Often it's hindsight, something garnered on further reflection as the tense continues to slip. Most of my epiphanies on the trip were simple and probably came to many a traveller before me, if not all of them.
So I keep scribbling. I'm in Lucknow at the moment, touring a school along the banks of the river Gomti. The building amazes me. It seems of no continent: simply a testament to grandeur. It was to be a residence, apparently, but the owner died before completion and willed it to be turned into a school. Bamboo scaffolding adorns one of the wings in some attempt at restoration. There's a permeating damp from the river and the threatening, omnipresent monsoon. The morning began in Delhi and now I'm at the La Martiniere. After that we'll head to the famous Residency, landmark to the Mutiny of 1857. The tour guide drones on and does his best to bore the shit out of me. It's only the second day of the trip and there's so much to do.
I breathe deep and look up from the notebook.
I'm sitting at my table in the flat. It's darker out, but the odd flake drifts by, catching the light. It swirls and twirls and bounces about before disappearing on its course. The flat's empty and my tea's cold. It's not masala chai. I lose India and for a moment all the things of now come back to me and my breath shortens.
Another cup of tea and a glance down at the blue ink scrawled between the thin brown lines. I reread my last page or two.
I've lost track of tense again.
04 February 2009
02 February 2009
debates and morning weather updates
There is a small lump of melting snow lying in the bottom right corner of my window. Flurries fly every now and again, but as far as I can tell, that's the only snow that's settled. And it doesn't seem to be settling for long. I find it an outrage that London gets snow and St Andrews, perched on a rock jutting out into the North Sea, 400 miles to the north, gets fuck all.
Ah... nevermind. Since starting the last paragraph a blizzard has appeared, belting hail and snow against my window with an assaulting, though pleasing, rattle. Already the beach is turning white. In the space of 3 minutes. Even the seagulls look a mite unhappy.
There was a point to this post. I was pondering my morning run in the face of yet another north eastern wind. I wake up and every morning the waves loom larger. The howls, whispers and wails from out my window shriek louder.
*weather update* The sun is now trying to break through, the snow/hail has stopped and already the beach is reverting to its desaturated winter tan. It's been about 6 minutes since the blizzard conditions.
The blizzard's started again.
It's mostly hail now. But as soon as I type that, to spite me, it slips back to snow, and the rattle of falling ice is replaced by the hush that snow makes as it falls.
The sun's out, not a flake in the air.
A mist hangs over the beach, rising lazily towards the sun that lifts it. It's barely above freezing and there's a gale blowing. I can't decide if the weather's reached some level of stability, enough for me to go for my run. The sun hides again and the flakes start to fall and I value the comfort of my flat. No one would blame me if I don't go. I've no whip-cracking trainer, no drill sergeant there to demean me should I choose comfort and warmth.
The wind sounds louder than it did 5 minutes ago. And I still haven't decided whether I'm running or not.
Ah... nevermind. Since starting the last paragraph a blizzard has appeared, belting hail and snow against my window with an assaulting, though pleasing, rattle. Already the beach is turning white. In the space of 3 minutes. Even the seagulls look a mite unhappy.
There was a point to this post. I was pondering my morning run in the face of yet another north eastern wind. I wake up and every morning the waves loom larger. The howls, whispers and wails from out my window shriek louder.
*weather update* The sun is now trying to break through, the snow/hail has stopped and already the beach is reverting to its desaturated winter tan. It's been about 6 minutes since the blizzard conditions.
The blizzard's started again.
It's mostly hail now. But as soon as I type that, to spite me, it slips back to snow, and the rattle of falling ice is replaced by the hush that snow makes as it falls.
The sun's out, not a flake in the air.
A mist hangs over the beach, rising lazily towards the sun that lifts it. It's barely above freezing and there's a gale blowing. I can't decide if the weather's reached some level of stability, enough for me to go for my run. The sun hides again and the flakes start to fall and I value the comfort of my flat. No one would blame me if I don't go. I've no whip-cracking trainer, no drill sergeant there to demean me should I choose comfort and warmth.
The wind sounds louder than it did 5 minutes ago. And I still haven't decided whether I'm running or not.
01 February 2009
laughing and hovering
The world looked cold today. A monochrome sketch of a pale, glowering sky met by a slate, ravaged sea. All things de-saturated, the frigid air and bitter wind sucked the colour out of everything. The gulls gave smug looks as they hovered on and with the wind, floating without effort and laughing. Gulls seem to feel no cold. They fly and hover because they can. They spread their wings and the air takes them. They mock the people beneath as they huddle, scrunched against the gale, unable and unwilling to let it carry them.
To add insult to injury, sometimes they shit upon those huddled masses.
I'm surprised it doesn't freeze on the way down. Imagine that: death by frozen seagull shit. You don't get much more ignominious than that.
I write about the weather while I think about all manner of other things. It's always convenient when the elements match the tumult in my head. It gives the illusion of sympathy in nature. If it had been sunny and harmonious today, I may have been grumpier and certainly more resentful. As it was, I found a certain amount of solace in seeing the maelstrom of my thoughts and feelings mirrored by the climatic antics outside.
I could utter all manner of platitudes and metaphors about what ails my head and heart at the moment. It would do me little good. They are not problems unique to me, nor have they been inflicted on me by some nefarious malefactor. For the most part, they're the realities of life, in many cases self-inflicted. Love, loss, passion, purpose and that desperate longing for a pause button.
I looked and I watched the breakers crash, trying to see some manner of symmetry in the waves. It was clear, vivid; I found clarity, if not symmetry.
What I didn't find was answers. More and more I find answers a pointless pursuit, so in that sense it was a bit of a relief. People looking for answers frequently forget the questions. I'll take clarity and good questions over answers any day, even a cold one with a bitter wind-chill, raging seas and gloating gulls.
To add insult to injury, sometimes they shit upon those huddled masses.
I'm surprised it doesn't freeze on the way down. Imagine that: death by frozen seagull shit. You don't get much more ignominious than that.
I write about the weather while I think about all manner of other things. It's always convenient when the elements match the tumult in my head. It gives the illusion of sympathy in nature. If it had been sunny and harmonious today, I may have been grumpier and certainly more resentful. As it was, I found a certain amount of solace in seeing the maelstrom of my thoughts and feelings mirrored by the climatic antics outside.
I could utter all manner of platitudes and metaphors about what ails my head and heart at the moment. It would do me little good. They are not problems unique to me, nor have they been inflicted on me by some nefarious malefactor. For the most part, they're the realities of life, in many cases self-inflicted. Love, loss, passion, purpose and that desperate longing for a pause button.
I looked and I watched the breakers crash, trying to see some manner of symmetry in the waves. It was clear, vivid; I found clarity, if not symmetry.
What I didn't find was answers. More and more I find answers a pointless pursuit, so in that sense it was a bit of a relief. People looking for answers frequently forget the questions. I'll take clarity and good questions over answers any day, even a cold one with a bitter wind-chill, raging seas and gloating gulls.
26 January 2009
ice crystals on pavement
It's too cold to run right now. The sun shines bright on the frost-crusted pavement and I doubt the grip of my feet upon the earth. Silhouettes walk their dogs on the beach, bundled tight. Every silhouette has their personal cloud of mist that trails them like steam on a locomotive. I can imagine the crunch of frozen grass as one of those silhouettes takes their wee Scotty dog along the lawn that runs behind the beach for a couple of hundred yards. The lawn used to be a putting green, though I can't remember if it was 9 or 18 holes. I never used it myself. I tend to use the Himalayas, adorning St Andrews' more famous beach, and most famous golf course. It's about as close to golfing as I intend to get.
Some people are golf people and define themselves as such. It permeates their conversation with other golf people and frequently spills over, inflicting itself upon the silent and weary who don't and never will give a shit about golf. I'm one of those people. Living for so long in a town synonymous with golf has lead me to define myself - to some extent - as not a golf person. This troubles me somewhat, as defining oneself as what they are not seems negative, and vaguely smacks of scientific method. Still, I find it necessary when my own countrymen, visiting to pay homage to this most ancient and adored bastion of golf, stare at me aghast while I explain to them that I don't play their precious game.
It's too cold to play golf anyway. Or even have a leisurely stroll along the putting green. My window has a new frame, an edge of sparkling frost that the heat from my room has as yet been unable to melt. Inside this cocoon of warmth I've meandered through iTunes, putting together a morning playlist: a long overdue endeavour. There are many songs perfect to wake up to though the fuzziness of morning means that often I just hit any old shit. Playlists like this are made on mornings like this. The sunshine cannot but wake you, entice you outside. But the bitter cold halts you in your tracks. Awake and ready but trapped. The playlist is ecclectic, odd even. AC/DC and Nina Simone, Beastie Boys and The Beatles. I'm liking it so far though. Liking the jump from 60's soul to 80's rock to 90's punk rap and back to pop again. I air guitar and sing along while my fingers bang the keys. I'm still in my pj's.
The temperature's risen from -3 to -1. That's celcius. I switch back and forth between celcius and farenheit. When it's cold I feel celcius is more descriptive. 0 is freezing. It's apt. In the summer, however, it falls short. Farenheit must be called on to provide a scale for the warmth. It's hard to think of it as warm when celcius claims it's only 25.
There are more silhouettes wandering the beach now, some with dogs and some without. The frost covers the beach as well, the sand more silver than gold. The lobster boats are all out, checking their traps no doubt. The thought makes me hungry. Munching fresh lobster while looking out over a sun-drenched frozen beach, sipping white burgundy and enjoying the banter of friends.
Most of the lobsters go to Spain, which is of use to no one, except perhaps the Spanish. So I munch on their manchego, pata negra and chorizo while they crunch our crustaceans. It still doesn't seem quite a fair trade, but maybe that's just me wanting something for nothing.
The frost doesn't seem to be melting, in spite of the sun's best efforts. My ecclectic new playlist just pumped out James Brown, Van Halen and Pulp. My mouth's watering but I don't want to eat just yet. The silhouettes seem to prefer the far end of the beach to the near.
It's too cold for a run, but I'll go anyway.
Some people are golf people and define themselves as such. It permeates their conversation with other golf people and frequently spills over, inflicting itself upon the silent and weary who don't and never will give a shit about golf. I'm one of those people. Living for so long in a town synonymous with golf has lead me to define myself - to some extent - as not a golf person. This troubles me somewhat, as defining oneself as what they are not seems negative, and vaguely smacks of scientific method. Still, I find it necessary when my own countrymen, visiting to pay homage to this most ancient and adored bastion of golf, stare at me aghast while I explain to them that I don't play their precious game.
It's too cold to play golf anyway. Or even have a leisurely stroll along the putting green. My window has a new frame, an edge of sparkling frost that the heat from my room has as yet been unable to melt. Inside this cocoon of warmth I've meandered through iTunes, putting together a morning playlist: a long overdue endeavour. There are many songs perfect to wake up to though the fuzziness of morning means that often I just hit any old shit. Playlists like this are made on mornings like this. The sunshine cannot but wake you, entice you outside. But the bitter cold halts you in your tracks. Awake and ready but trapped. The playlist is ecclectic, odd even. AC/DC and Nina Simone, Beastie Boys and The Beatles. I'm liking it so far though. Liking the jump from 60's soul to 80's rock to 90's punk rap and back to pop again. I air guitar and sing along while my fingers bang the keys. I'm still in my pj's.
The temperature's risen from -3 to -1. That's celcius. I switch back and forth between celcius and farenheit. When it's cold I feel celcius is more descriptive. 0 is freezing. It's apt. In the summer, however, it falls short. Farenheit must be called on to provide a scale for the warmth. It's hard to think of it as warm when celcius claims it's only 25.
There are more silhouettes wandering the beach now, some with dogs and some without. The frost covers the beach as well, the sand more silver than gold. The lobster boats are all out, checking their traps no doubt. The thought makes me hungry. Munching fresh lobster while looking out over a sun-drenched frozen beach, sipping white burgundy and enjoying the banter of friends.
Most of the lobsters go to Spain, which is of use to no one, except perhaps the Spanish. So I munch on their manchego, pata negra and chorizo while they crunch our crustaceans. It still doesn't seem quite a fair trade, but maybe that's just me wanting something for nothing.
The frost doesn't seem to be melting, in spite of the sun's best efforts. My ecclectic new playlist just pumped out James Brown, Van Halen and Pulp. My mouth's watering but I don't want to eat just yet. The silhouettes seem to prefer the far end of the beach to the near.
It's too cold for a run, but I'll go anyway.
02 January 2009
note
I have a hangover and need to go to work in a couple of hours. Ugh. Will post properly soon.
By the way, if I had a choice, I would only drink port from 1927. Wow that was fine.
By the way, if I had a choice, I would only drink port from 1927. Wow that was fine.
23 December 2008
on hangovers and railroads
I've spent a lot of time hungover on trains. Once I had such an awful hangover I jumped on a train in hopes of escaping it.
It didn't work.
I used to be the last to leave the party, the last to bed, sometimes wincing at the morning sun as I lay down my head. I'd make or buy breakfast, pour a bloody mary or a beer for myself and anyone else dumb enough to be welcoming the dawn with me. On more than one occasion it was a bottle of red wine. My favourite wee hours red is Amarone, usually Allegrini or Alighieri. You need something robust for those times.
This morning my alarm was unwelcome. I hit snooze. I thought about making coffee and breakfast. Then I hit snooze again. I erased a little morning luxury with every tap of the snooze button. No time for breakfast, no time for coffee, I shaved and ironed a shirt and showered and closed my eyes as the warm water cleansed. No time to pack, I stumbled workwards.
The restaurant was locked. A kitchen porter waited outside, texting. Stacks of produce sat outside the door. The yellow van full of booze waited as well. I opened up and the phone was ringing. Some kids had chucked rotten eggs at the entry way and thrown our patio furniture into the sea. Our first table was merely an hour away, and there were no chefs to be seen. While the kp fished the furniture from the surf I wondered idly if he could cook.
Last-minute Christmas shoppers kept phoning and popping by the restaurant, demanding vouchers as gifts. Plates and cutlery went unpolished. I wasn't in my suit yet. My brain wasn't on yet. A single chef appeared, then another. Someone could cook something. The diners wouldn't starve.
I rubbed my eyes and face, scratched the back of my head, massaged my temples and drank water. Anything to remind me that my body and head were still attached. The chefs and I compared notes on the evening. When did we get home? Why were all the girls crying? Was X really trying to pull Y? If so, why? Did I go to the after party?
I didn't go to the after party. I don't remember what time I left, but it was late. All the fast food dives in town had shut their doors for the night. I looked everywhere. I wandered the cold night, drunk and hungry, and everywhere was bolted tight. Somehow I forgot the all-night garage. I walked the long way home and ate leftover apple and pear crumble. I passed out in my boxers and woke up and hit snooze on the alarm.
The head chef arrived and looked like death. Some of the afterparty goers trickled in with bruises on their faces. Drunken weight-lifting. The restaurant manager walked in, slowly, with an egg in the middle of his forehead, turning slowly purple during the course of service. A dumbell accident.
Dumbell accident? Drunken weight-lifting? The afterparty host arrived with a cut on his eye. Another dumbell accident.
The head chef and one of the sous drank whisky & soda and smoked cigarettes outside while I changed. Not my preferred hair of the dog and from the look of them, it didn't do them any good. Customers arrived early, wanting lunch. We served them with a smile. I starved, having slept through breakfast. Every pause and every face drooped with the weight of the night before. We drank water and coffee. A chef passed some spare risotto my way. Redemption.
Diners left happy.
I changed out of my suit and went home to pack. I remembered the presents and my train tickets and running shoes. I made the slow voyage from hungover to tired.
I missed the afterparty and wasn't drinking expensive Italian red while watching the sun rise. I'm sure it will happen again. But not this morning. And now I sit on the final stretch of the train journey to London and can smile that I've no bruises from drunken dumbell juggling or whatever the fuck they were doing. I eat a tasteless sandwich and sip some better-than-average white Burgundy. I read Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I wonder if the Yankees really have signed Teixeira. I didn't miss out on anything last night, except perhaps a meal.
Drunken weight-lifting... what the fuck were they thinking?
It didn't work.
I used to be the last to leave the party, the last to bed, sometimes wincing at the morning sun as I lay down my head. I'd make or buy breakfast, pour a bloody mary or a beer for myself and anyone else dumb enough to be welcoming the dawn with me. On more than one occasion it was a bottle of red wine. My favourite wee hours red is Amarone, usually Allegrini or Alighieri. You need something robust for those times.
This morning my alarm was unwelcome. I hit snooze. I thought about making coffee and breakfast. Then I hit snooze again. I erased a little morning luxury with every tap of the snooze button. No time for breakfast, no time for coffee, I shaved and ironed a shirt and showered and closed my eyes as the warm water cleansed. No time to pack, I stumbled workwards.
The restaurant was locked. A kitchen porter waited outside, texting. Stacks of produce sat outside the door. The yellow van full of booze waited as well. I opened up and the phone was ringing. Some kids had chucked rotten eggs at the entry way and thrown our patio furniture into the sea. Our first table was merely an hour away, and there were no chefs to be seen. While the kp fished the furniture from the surf I wondered idly if he could cook.
Last-minute Christmas shoppers kept phoning and popping by the restaurant, demanding vouchers as gifts. Plates and cutlery went unpolished. I wasn't in my suit yet. My brain wasn't on yet. A single chef appeared, then another. Someone could cook something. The diners wouldn't starve.
I rubbed my eyes and face, scratched the back of my head, massaged my temples and drank water. Anything to remind me that my body and head were still attached. The chefs and I compared notes on the evening. When did we get home? Why were all the girls crying? Was X really trying to pull Y? If so, why? Did I go to the after party?
I didn't go to the after party. I don't remember what time I left, but it was late. All the fast food dives in town had shut their doors for the night. I looked everywhere. I wandered the cold night, drunk and hungry, and everywhere was bolted tight. Somehow I forgot the all-night garage. I walked the long way home and ate leftover apple and pear crumble. I passed out in my boxers and woke up and hit snooze on the alarm.
The head chef arrived and looked like death. Some of the afterparty goers trickled in with bruises on their faces. Drunken weight-lifting. The restaurant manager walked in, slowly, with an egg in the middle of his forehead, turning slowly purple during the course of service. A dumbell accident.
Dumbell accident? Drunken weight-lifting? The afterparty host arrived with a cut on his eye. Another dumbell accident.
The head chef and one of the sous drank whisky & soda and smoked cigarettes outside while I changed. Not my preferred hair of the dog and from the look of them, it didn't do them any good. Customers arrived early, wanting lunch. We served them with a smile. I starved, having slept through breakfast. Every pause and every face drooped with the weight of the night before. We drank water and coffee. A chef passed some spare risotto my way. Redemption.
Diners left happy.
I changed out of my suit and went home to pack. I remembered the presents and my train tickets and running shoes. I made the slow voyage from hungover to tired.
I missed the afterparty and wasn't drinking expensive Italian red while watching the sun rise. I'm sure it will happen again. But not this morning. And now I sit on the final stretch of the train journey to London and can smile that I've no bruises from drunken dumbell juggling or whatever the fuck they were doing. I eat a tasteless sandwich and sip some better-than-average white Burgundy. I read Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I wonder if the Yankees really have signed Teixeira. I didn't miss out on anything last night, except perhaps a meal.
Drunken weight-lifting... what the fuck were they thinking?
19 December 2008
newspapers
Sometimes it was Charles St, sometimes it was Park St. It depended on what walk I felt like. It depended on whether I'd lost my 'T' pass yet. It usually took a week to lose the pass. Taxpayers' money to waste. The guy at Charles St knew me. He kindly let me through, knowing I wasn't selling my pass on the black market for drug money or tricks. We got them for each month. Multi-coloured plastic, kind of like a credit card, the month in bold Helvetica, or some sans serif clone thereof, and the 'T' symbol in the top-left corner. Some people put a hole punch in it and slid it on to their keychain. I think I tried that a couple of times. I still lost it. I'm not entirely sure how I made it to thirteen with all my limbs to be honest.
I liked Park St best. I had to walk through the Common to get there, and that took me close to the little league fields. It would be fitting and nostalgic to recall taking a minute to wander over to the diamonds and think of Spring, but I never did. And as much as I liked the walk, I liked Dunkin' Donuts better (back when coffee was only an afterthought - an accompaniment to their doughnuts). With whatever quarters I had, plus the odd dollar, I'd buy a honey -glazed, a copy of The Globe and a copy of The Herald.
The Green Line's a tram, really, not a train. I trudged up the steps and found a seat and read the funnies. That's why I bought the papers. If there were no seats, I'd stuff them in my backpack and wait until a quiet moment at school. Garfield had moved to The Herald. It was huge news at the time. That's why I bought The Herald. My parents bought The Times. And for some reason I didn't want them to know I bought newspapers. My secrecy made sense at the time. I was just that age. Pretty dorky form of rebellion, really.
As an aside, that was also the age where I realised Garfield wasn't really funny and Calvin and Hobbes was. And is. And probably always will be. Maybe that's why I still love that memory so much. Because it's fairly Calvin-like.
Aside aside, as it were, I wound up reading the papers. It's a lot of newsprint to carry around, just to read the funnies. So I read some of the rest.
I only remember one story from that year. It ran through the week, whatever the week that was. It was about Carl Yastrzemski, or Yaz, and his road to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I read it meticulously, though I don't remember who wrote it. I remember reading it and wondering whether someday Wade Boggs would make the same trip. I remember reading it and looking forward to going to school the next morning just to pick up the next part of the story.
I never looked foward to going to school. Not that year. It was the wrong school, I was the wrong student. But I liked the commute. At the age of 12, I liked the commute. I liked the honey-glazed doughnut and losing myself in the papers.
I remember one of my teachers commenting on them. As bitter and cynical as could be, there was no joy but the smart arse comment, the bitterness itself, his delight in the sarcasm with which he rejected every excuse. His name was Mr Donovan. White hair with a bald patch, short cut, not too tall and an almost perpetual sneer. No one misbehaved. Well, they did, and he enjoyed it. He smiled at misfortune and punishment. He laughed at the troublemakers. He mocked my newspapers.
'The school doesn't want you to have those.'
'Scared you'll read what the press writes about them.'
He never confiscated them though. A snort of derision, a shake of the head and a mutter under the breath, but never a confiscation.
I didn't misbehave at that school. Well, twice. Once smart arse and once stupid, but never the siren-wailing lunacy of the years before. I fought in the school yard, during gym, but teachers didn't get involved in things like that. But I had to see the vice-principal every day. Every day she checked my bag, checked my homework. There were 1200 kids in 7th grade that year, and every day she checked to see if I'd done my work. She worried about me, encouraged me, helped me. I wasn't going to be there the next year. I was moving to London and she wrote exceptional recommendations to schools throughout Britain, overwhelming the blight that was my transcript.
I hadn't done my work. She would shout and swear at me, send me class, telling me to come back the next day, same time, with my homework finished.
I was getting D's and F's. I was at constant war with my parents. I had three friends, only one whose name I still remember.
I remember one day at home, during a quiet time, my mother asking me when I started reading the papers. My dad was in the room. I said I didn't know. I just started reading them for the funnies. She told me Mrs. Edwards noticed. Noticed that I read The Herald and The Globe. She noticed and it gave her some sort of hope. Ever-combative, I muttered again that I bought them just for the funnies, refusing to admit that I read anything else. I went to my room. The one with the red curtains.
Mr Donovan sneered at my papers and I shrugged. He supervised, and never taught. A prison warden.
I remember going home on the Green Line. A thousand school kids, fighting for standing room, the gossip and excited chat at the end of the day, filling in slam books, eyeing each other with curiosity and confusion. I took the papers out again until I got to Park St. Sometimes I'd walk home, sometimes I'd switch to the Red Line and head to Charles St. Sometimes I'd grab a doughnut. I never understood why the trip home was so much more crowded.
There's a lot there. But as a reflex, all I remember is the morning papers on the morning train. Commuting to school, reading about the baseball and eating a doughnut.
Honey-glazed.
I liked Park St best. I had to walk through the Common to get there, and that took me close to the little league fields. It would be fitting and nostalgic to recall taking a minute to wander over to the diamonds and think of Spring, but I never did. And as much as I liked the walk, I liked Dunkin' Donuts better (back when coffee was only an afterthought - an accompaniment to their doughnuts). With whatever quarters I had, plus the odd dollar, I'd buy a honey -glazed, a copy of The Globe and a copy of The Herald.
The Green Line's a tram, really, not a train. I trudged up the steps and found a seat and read the funnies. That's why I bought the papers. If there were no seats, I'd stuff them in my backpack and wait until a quiet moment at school. Garfield had moved to The Herald. It was huge news at the time. That's why I bought The Herald. My parents bought The Times. And for some reason I didn't want them to know I bought newspapers. My secrecy made sense at the time. I was just that age. Pretty dorky form of rebellion, really.
As an aside, that was also the age where I realised Garfield wasn't really funny and Calvin and Hobbes was. And is. And probably always will be. Maybe that's why I still love that memory so much. Because it's fairly Calvin-like.
Aside aside, as it were, I wound up reading the papers. It's a lot of newsprint to carry around, just to read the funnies. So I read some of the rest.
I only remember one story from that year. It ran through the week, whatever the week that was. It was about Carl Yastrzemski, or Yaz, and his road to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I read it meticulously, though I don't remember who wrote it. I remember reading it and wondering whether someday Wade Boggs would make the same trip. I remember reading it and looking forward to going to school the next morning just to pick up the next part of the story.
I never looked foward to going to school. Not that year. It was the wrong school, I was the wrong student. But I liked the commute. At the age of 12, I liked the commute. I liked the honey-glazed doughnut and losing myself in the papers.
I remember one of my teachers commenting on them. As bitter and cynical as could be, there was no joy but the smart arse comment, the bitterness itself, his delight in the sarcasm with which he rejected every excuse. His name was Mr Donovan. White hair with a bald patch, short cut, not too tall and an almost perpetual sneer. No one misbehaved. Well, they did, and he enjoyed it. He smiled at misfortune and punishment. He laughed at the troublemakers. He mocked my newspapers.
'The school doesn't want you to have those.'
'Scared you'll read what the press writes about them.'
He never confiscated them though. A snort of derision, a shake of the head and a mutter under the breath, but never a confiscation.
I didn't misbehave at that school. Well, twice. Once smart arse and once stupid, but never the siren-wailing lunacy of the years before. I fought in the school yard, during gym, but teachers didn't get involved in things like that. But I had to see the vice-principal every day. Every day she checked my bag, checked my homework. There were 1200 kids in 7th grade that year, and every day she checked to see if I'd done my work. She worried about me, encouraged me, helped me. I wasn't going to be there the next year. I was moving to London and she wrote exceptional recommendations to schools throughout Britain, overwhelming the blight that was my transcript.
I hadn't done my work. She would shout and swear at me, send me class, telling me to come back the next day, same time, with my homework finished.
I was getting D's and F's. I was at constant war with my parents. I had three friends, only one whose name I still remember.
I remember one day at home, during a quiet time, my mother asking me when I started reading the papers. My dad was in the room. I said I didn't know. I just started reading them for the funnies. She told me Mrs. Edwards noticed. Noticed that I read The Herald and The Globe. She noticed and it gave her some sort of hope. Ever-combative, I muttered again that I bought them just for the funnies, refusing to admit that I read anything else. I went to my room. The one with the red curtains.
Mr Donovan sneered at my papers and I shrugged. He supervised, and never taught. A prison warden.
I remember going home on the Green Line. A thousand school kids, fighting for standing room, the gossip and excited chat at the end of the day, filling in slam books, eyeing each other with curiosity and confusion. I took the papers out again until I got to Park St. Sometimes I'd walk home, sometimes I'd switch to the Red Line and head to Charles St. Sometimes I'd grab a doughnut. I never understood why the trip home was so much more crowded.
There's a lot there. But as a reflex, all I remember is the morning papers on the morning train. Commuting to school, reading about the baseball and eating a doughnut.
Honey-glazed.
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