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more snow [belated]
February 19th, 2007Just thought I’d drop these pics in here from about a week and a half ago - the second time it snowed this winter.
the snow grump pt. 1
Here’s me looking grumpy…
the snow grump pt. 2
…and here’s the reason why.
A fifteen minute walk to the tube and I was covered in ice. The fun didn’t stop there though, oh no, it took an hour and 40 minutes, and FIVE tube trains to get to work. It takes me an hour and 30 minutes to walk to work (theoretically).
Admittedly, it was pretty.
Trinity
February 18th, 2007There’s an idea, an understanding, or notion, that’s been becoming clearer to me in the last two months and it’s that of the trinity.
Not the religious type, because I don’t go in for that, but the idea that in a relationship there are three entities - me, you and the relationship. It’s not a particularly original concept. In fact I believe I picked it up from an episode of the Simpsons when Marge and Homer go away to a christian marriage counseling camp.
A couple of weeks ago I was out having lunch with Abby and I brought it up. We discussed the concepts and I went on about how it applied to the perfect relationship etc… - y’know, quite theoretical and all-knowing bluster - and how I understood what it meant and wanted to apply it to the relationship I believed I was in at the time.
Over the last two to three weeks since that lunch the concept has been banging around in my skull like a blowfly in a beer bottle. Personal things, that I’m unwilling to go into, have changed as well and that’s led me to consider this trinity notion with more depth. Sure I can talk the talk, but have I walked the walk?
No.
Not once, not in any relationship I’ve ever been in.
I’ve definitely felt real love for my partners over the years. That’s not the issue, it’s not a single issue. The issues are: have I loved the relationship; have I spent the time to nurture the democracy of decision making that comes out of this relationship triumvirate; have I ever built a relationship where I worked to give it a future; have I ever conceded what I wanted because it would damage my partner and the relationship?
Sure I’ve wanted to continue seeing someone because I’ve been in love with them, or I’ve discussed marriage or children… and have twice lived with my partner of the time but not once have I given up the big things I wanted for the sake of the relationship. I’ve hurt myself and others rather than give up what I felt I needed (not “wanted” mind you, but things I felt I needed) and it all made sense at the time. The model of thought I had then, that’s it’s me and them and “I know it’s going to hurt them but it’s going to hurt the fuck out of me too so it’s even” - that there were just two of us to consider - that model worked for me. Most recently it’s been “How could you leave someone for a job, to live in another country for a job?”, “you must love the job more than the person”… I can write books on why that’s a false supposition. I have left three people at airports with a sense of right because it fitted into that framework of belief. It made sense to do that.
And now it doesn’t. It’s a rude and depressive awakening. Oddly I have no interest in feeling regret. Perhaps that’s the only way to deal with the magnitude of the damage, perhaps it’s because I do enjoy the life I currently have, even though it’s all the poorer for being out of the love I have felt. Perhaps it’s just going to take a while to sink in.
Neither am I interested in going back and trying to right old wrongs, to reignite past flames. These people have their lives now and if I can make one faltering step towards respecting these past relationships, it’s to wish them well in their future relationships.
Drought breaker
January 25th, 2007
Queen’s Park
Well hasn’t this been a while, eh?
Much to say, too little time to say about it. In the last 36 hours alone, I’ve been to a Hollywood premiere (hi again Leo), woken to a snow covered landscape and bought a bike.
Here’s a pic of the snow - there’s more on my Flickr site
Letters
November 6th, 2006Some excerpts of emails sent home to loved ones from teens on their gap year.
My fav is this one: “In Quito, I went on a crazy party bus which was quite an experience. Everyone dances on the roof with a band, but the bus is too tall and you have to duck for bridges and cables. Me, being too chilled out, forgot to do this. I have since been to a witch doctor, which was scary. She was a complete nutter and made me strip so she could beat me with flowers, and then spat all over my torso. (I was a little freaked out by how much she knew of my fetishes.) Penultimately I visited the equator, which was just a line.”
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/gapyears/story/0,,1940601,00.html
Hair
November 6th, 2006Well, that was a bit of a break in transmission now wasn’t it?
Might write about what went on, but then again maybe I’ll just let it fall into history.
But back to the topic at hand. Hair - specifically, my hair and the upsurge in the public’s interest with it. If I go back to the 2nd post in this blog, and primarily back to this image
there seems to be a bit of a theme going on. It’s not a new interest, but it seems to have hit a peak recently.
Last Sunday night I was standing at the counter of the local chippie, ordering some culinary abomination when this little round woman comes up and stands about a foot from my side and just stares. After a short while I thought it best to at least acknowledge her, as we were the only customers in there and, I’m mean really, it’s a big shop and there was a lot of spare floor tileage for her to be casting a shadow over rather than the particular grubby ones within my personal space. So I turn and smile. At which point she slowly raises her hand and stares gazingly at the top and side of my barnet - the flat of her palm wavering mere centimetres from me ‘ead - and says in a West Indian patter “You’ve go’ beau’iful ‘air”. Aw bless her and her mangled consonants I thought. But the hand, it just held there. Flattened palm and the slow, tidal wave of her fingers.
“I’m having a good hair day” I anxiously splutter. The lady behind the chippies’ counter makes ever-widening eye contact with me and edges back towards the relative safety of the bubbling deep fryers. But the acknowledgment of the good state of my hair, the fact that we share an opinion and gee-couldn’t-that-just-be-enough-to-make-this-discomfort-go-away is not enough to dissuade the little woman, not enough to make her put away her hand - the hand that still wavers in a “praise be! hallelujah!” salute. So I tilt my head down within reach and her little chubby fingers tweak and gently tease at the curls on the side and top of my head. She pulls them out and then pats them back into shape again, and then teases and… and all the while she’s praising my hair with “It’s lovely!”; “Such beau’iful ‘air”; etc and this goes on for way too long for my liking so after about five looooooooong seconds I stand upright again. I titter a handsome appreciative manly giggle and drizzle some salt and vinegar on my cod and chips before getting the fuck out of there.
I walked the three minutes back to mine with a dopey incredulous grin slapped across my mug. Wait until I blog that one I thought! And bloody wait you did.
But…
then…
Friday night!
I’m out with some friends having a drink. Earlier in the evening I’d recounted the story of the chip shop stalker to them and was told by one of them “Whenever your name comes up my mum always says ‘Adam, he’s like a Greek statue!’”. Presumably she doesn’t mean that I’m an icy to the touch, bloodless, stone-hearted slab with a crumbling physique, rather, she was referring to the spiral-type curls that the old masters would carve into the marble heads of their statuary, so I took that with a puff of the chest and an embarrassed grin.
By about 11 the assorted gentry are well into their fourth or fifth bucket of booze for the evening (OK, British drinkers, it’d be seventh or eighth…) when a young woman standing near my chair starts looking at me whilst talking to some guy, and as soon as there is eye contact between us she goes and says it “I love your hair!”. My first reaction was to turn to my friends and say “SEE!!!!” and then I turned back and started talking to this woman who’d shown such deep interest in who I am as a human being.
Again, out came the hand, but she was much more flirtatious (and not at all round), touching my cheek then quickly cupping her hand under my jaw, which startled me to tell the truth, then back up to the hair. The jaw touch seemed akin to a man accidently brushing the back of his hand against a woman’s breast or arse. So we chatted and according to her she had the same type of hair as me, but had hers chemically straightened. And she’s Iranian. Now c’mon, when was the last time you saw an Iranian with a ‘fro? Was it just a line? I did get to touch her hair though, nice bit of reciprocity.
Oooh and I did get some chips on the way home. Spooky.
—Edit—
I must admit that when you consider the 100s->1000s of women I pass each week who neither comment on (or run their fingers through) my hair, the response to my “do” is not exactly Earth-shattering. But it is odd.
Technorati test
October 6th, 2006Good advice
October 6th, 2006A post on NeeNaw about what to do when you need to call an ambulance. Very good advice that should be taught in schools.
http://www.neenaw.co.uk/index.php/ambulances/139/the-10-commandments-of-dialling-999/trackback/
Fulham view 1998
October 1st, 2006
Found these negs the other day. This was the view from my window in the fourth floor flat I shared with an Australian and two South Africans back in 1998. True new Antipodean style. In fact, I shared the room with the Aussie who, when pissed, used to snore like a mofo.
Ahhh, happy days.
Unfortunately it’s an incomplete panorama made up of 4 neg scans but I think you get a sense of what the view was like. Click the picture above for the full version.
Buckley at Glasto 1995
October 1st, 2006I saw Jeff Buckley twice.
It’s some 9 and a bit years since he died, but this video is from around the time when I saw him. In fact this track is one of my faves and was the opening number on the night I saw him at The Lounge. He came on stage and lit a number of those tea-light candles and began with the vocal gymnastics you see in the video.
The venue had the doors to its balcony open and each time the song (Mojo Pin) built, curled and then crashed down upon us, freakishly a gust of cool evening air would enter the room, salving the 200 or so of us assembled there, before Jeff Buckley would begin the refrain again.
This is a track that shows a few of the guises he wore as performer - from crooning balladeer to raging rock god. Something that struck me when seeing him live was how much heavier his sound was. I do wonder how happy he was with the produced gentility of “Grace”, his one studio album.
Clinton interview op ed
September 29th, 2006Keith Olbermann again offering an incisive critique of the news media’s handling of Fox’s interview with Bill Clinton.
via Warren Ellis