December 2003 Archives
| The path is for one |
| and where once was the lay |
| of waste, want and darkness |
| now lie the tired skeletons of autumn leaves |
| among them, drifting, whispers of a figure |
| soft-skinned, gently gleaming, just out of reach |
| yet radiant, so effecting, and real |
| In whose sleepy eyes |
| naked from the waist down, as above |
| I find hope, comfort, and love |
It's nearly three and I haven't even begun to feel tired; after polishing off half a bottle of Colombier during the afternoon, and spending a rather lengthy period of time over an exquisite dinner, Japanese at a jazzy place called Nobu, before drifting through the met bar (not my thing), I'd expected to feel a little more sleepy than I do. Alas.
In any case, back in the warm and dry; the season's festivities are over, the living space is fairly clean, and almost everything has returned to normal in the Robinson household. The giant redwood in the basement notwithstanding. As usual, a hundred and three photographs to document the proceedings - patchily distributed - and I've finally brought myself around to looking at them. This one I 
liked; it features the huggable monkey-girl responsible for my continued existence, foiling, as she did, one of my many spectacular attempts to nix myself. Sweet guardian of the demented.
And this one, taken earlier today, highlights one of the most novel pairs of socks I've ever received in a Christmas stocking; I don't mean the hallucinogenic coloured stripes or the glitter - lookit, toes! I used to sense something sinister in mittens for their lack of fingers. Well, it works the other way too; I look down and feel like a minion of the underlord. Delighted.
Dhobi ka kutha, na ghar ka na ghat ka
This has been the most productive weekend since forever...Yéh, müch say küch waasta nahin hè... I see that now
...and the mountain of leftover stuffing I've just consumed seals it; I think I'm smiling again.On the Jubilee and Victoria lines today, two different male couples are being themselves; dark fingers absentmindedly tickle the nape of the one with his eyes peaceably closed; the others sit with their fingers interlocked, a conveniently grown knee supporting this gentle union in full public display. Opposite, a young, tough looking bloke sits with his arm about his girlfriend - she sleeps with her cheek buried against his collarbone; he's staring at them.
His expression is unreadable, but it interests me because straight men seem to have the biggest problems when faced with homosexuality, and yet I know so many who don't have issues at all. Not even little ones. I just want to know what he is thinking, staring like that.
One of the chaps looks up, notices the scrutiny, and takes in the gaze impassively. Straight-boy blinks himself out an apparent stupour, and smiles. Gay man smiles back, and both look to themselves.
On the train to Cambridge, a stubbly thirtysomething in a muted blue jumper sleeps against the shoulder of a twentysomething, his own head resting against his companion's, hand hanging languidly over thigh. A pair of black chaps get on at Letchworth. the one walking ahead stops dead in the aisle on seeing the pair, "Woah, check this out!" to his mate. His mate shrugs, "Life is beautiful. C'mon..." and pushes him on down the carriage.
Cambridge is dead; there's nobody here. All the lights are off in all the wrong places; my house is empty; the labs are too; it's a different planet at this time of year. I'll finish my business here before heading back to the Big Smoke, and return to a busier Cambridge in the new year.
Life is beautiful. C'mon?
Huh, it really may seem that, today.
Uh-oh, black clouds are gathering; time to make an escape.
The day is finally ending; it was exhausting. Wonderful, but exhausting. One of these years I'm going to pass the oven-mitts and paring knife over to someone else and exercise my right to a slothful Christmas, though I fear that half the fun, perhaps, is in the flurry of preparation, and subsequently seeing people enjoy the fruits of a grand endeavour.
And while the body is just about ready for an early night, the mind is still racing; it's desperate to go dancing.
Hey Allie, take me dancing!
Alas, everything is shut, and I feel halfway pregnant as it is. Nuh-uh, mind will have to wait for another day.
So much for my promised silence; it's a couple of hours in and I'm just about done wrapping, reading, putting off sleep. Pretty much ready for the laborious food preparation of the late morning; we've strung the string beans, chopped a squillion peppers, sticks of celery, even onions (weeps profusely, but that's really a different story), and baked the rye to perfect crispiness for the massive tray of stuffing we always prepare. Always from scratch, it's the best thing about the Christmas meal for me; the rest is nice too, but this is the one element that I would ever really miss come a Christmas without feasting.
In living memory, this is perhaps the least cheerful I've ever felt at Christmas time, but I take solace in the fact that come the busyness of the morning, the hordes of loopy guests, the general mood of the rest, that it'll be smiles and good cheer aplenty because that's how it has always been. Lying through your teeth and smiling despite yourself, if not utterly crushing, can often send you the other way. Fickle; I feel cheery already. Have a great one!
Well, the tree is up, she's decorated, and she's bloody nine feet tall. This is her about fifteen minutes ago. I'm not sure whether I'll get the chance to post, come the day, as there'll be plenty to be getting on with - cooking, eating, making idle conversation with people I've probably never met before - you know how it is. So here's wishing you all a pleasant, ecumenical Christmas.
Oh, and then there's that thing... (228 kb)
I started walking across Waterloo Bridge, at about 2115, to see disco lights flashing along a length of the Southbank beneath what looked like a pall of smoke. By the time I got there, all was quiet, no light, no smoke, so I headed into the National Theatre, located alongside the south end of the bridge, to grab their schedule of events, as I'd intended.
Back onto the promenade, and out of nowhere comes ghostly, Gregorian chanting - well, it sounded Gregorian, but for the fact that it was female - I stop, and whammo, I'm spotlit by a pink disco light in the tree above me (cue internal rendition of Twilight Zone music). Then the hi-mist sprinklers turned on.
I'm standing there, eyes screwed shut, wearing a grimace of a smile; it isn't smoke at all, it's artificial piss-from-the-heavens. Novel. I was sure to walk through each cascade of mist in turn, each of them decorated with flashing pink, yellow and green lights; I like artsy installations when they catch me unawares; this one had me smiling right through to my toes.
The pre-Christmas audio-snippet (180 kb). Now, before I come to my senses...
But finding strength, gathering yourself, moving on - that's hard. And harder still if you don't allow yourself time to grieve. There is no weakness in feeling sad, no weakness in being melancholy. Better sadness and melancholy than false cheer and fake mirth.
It isn't about weakness, it isn't about being in control. There's a freedom to curling up and bawling like a newborn babe. Because that's when sadness leaves and the pain really sets in - like lancing a boil before it is infected. I can't even fathom what you're going through, because it is probably different than my own experiences, each one is different.
But I know one thing: pain. Its never the problem, its the warning sign. And to fight it, to ignore it, is to ignore the fact that your body, your brain, your heart is telling you that something is wrong. Pain is not an itch, it doesn't go away if you ignore it, it is a problem that must be dealt with, must be accepted. There is no fighting pain, only acceptance. Fighting merely drives it deeper, makes it worse, festers it in places where it shouldn't. To accept it is to understand that something is wrong, to respond to yourself, "I'm listening", and to find out what your body needs to cure it.
Sometimes all pain needs is that, to be acknowledged.
I don't know what you're going through, and I won't say I understand, but I understand depression in all its forms. I've been there, probably am still there - and I'm not just saying this, my doctor says it too. I'm not saying that you have it, but to show you that I understand melancholy. The pessimism of something deeper, darker and tiny but infinitely black.
I fought it for a long time, but in the end lost. And it was in the losing that the healing could finally begin. Because until you've hit whatever bottom that can be hit, you can't really find the top again. Acceptance is the key to anything. Realizing that there's nothing wrong with you, but that you're just grieving for time lost and energy wasted and stress and life in general.
To move on you must accept. Peacefully at best, going down fighting at worst. But acceptance must always come before any progress can be made.
It's human to breakdown, human to want to just curl up and tell the world to go away for awhile. No one's asking you to be more than human. There is no weakness there.
A young man I met online once told me it wasn't selfish to be happy - to be myself, to choose my way. But it seems to me that this young man seems to think that it's selfish to be unhappy. You may have all the reasons in the world to be happy - fame, fortune, friends. But if that isn't what you need at the moment, then it isn't. Accept that. Don't just understand it. Let yourself touch bottom for awhile, then only bring yourself up for air.
And finally remember that behind every corner, when you need them to be there, there's still someone who cares.
Thank you.
Walking along Upper James, last night, a single tear rolled down my left cheek. I don't know what I was thinking, but things, an entire collection of this and thats, are really starting to get to me right now. I hate losing control, I hate losing it in public even more, and I've been host to this fucking melancholy state all weekend long. Sometimes it irritates me, being human.
I left the National Portrait Gallery and hopped onto the Northern Line at Charing Cross, where I found myself surrounded by a proper troupe of older Indian gentlemen, who really seemed to have turned up in this one spot independently of one another.
As the train pulled into the Embankment, an old woman, tiny in stature and of kind face, pushed through them to get to the door. The train lurched, she stumbled, tripped over the feet of one of the sedentary gents, and fell forward; for one who lacks real coordination, I was surprised that my reflex movement to catch her met with success, seizing her left arm in a steady sailor's grip with my right, and sweeping my left up beneath her back in order to take her weight. The movement - and she reciprocated my grip like she'd anticipated it - was fluid, and for the briefest instant we were, freeze frame, the unlikely finish to some undanced tango.
I set her upright, she smoothed her jacket and, not looking to me for even a moment, took her leave of the carriage with the vaguest suggestion of a smile on her face. It was like a dignified, quiet thank you between friends. I felt that she expected me to be there, to catch her, and that made me feel useful. And warm.
As the train, in turn, pulled into Waterloo, I stepped out and, wouldn't you know, tripped. I would have fallen but for the saving grip of a middle-aged, handsome-of-the-moment, Jason Patric type who was waiting to board the train. Embarrassed, I met his amused grin with a blushing expession of my appreciation and walked off up the platform. It seems that my good turn was met with another.
The train was leaving as I started to turn off toward the exit; a glance back saw him still standing there... without train, looking my way. I chose not to notice, feeling, if anything, a hint of fear, and made away.
| science | :: | fiction |
| sex | :: | chocolate |
| flower | :: | power |
| death | :: | peace |
| funny | :: | girl |
| forever | :: | friends |
| sorrow | :: | grief |
| life | :: | death |
| love | :: | hate |
| saddam captured | :: | fuck, George Bush just won the election |
Remind me to register for an absentee vote.
Luxembourg made for a really lovely trip, last weekend; I didn't post any of my pictures of the city because I'm an unhelpful philistine - what are you doing here anyway? - but having come home to London from Cambridge, I did get to see a virtual pile of digipix from my mother's camera, including some of those she took on the filmset for the upcoming adaptation of Shakespeare's Verchant of Menice.
Why use the real thing when you can build it at cost? Film folk really do create entire Universes, or at least entire city districts, on call. To their credit, this set already existed, so its use probably saved some money.
On entry... one holiday destination turns into two.
Cornetto anyone?
The winter darkness isn't friendly, but to say that it lacked atmosphere would be way off the mark. And it's only really in winter that the waters of the Thames seem to get as angry as I like to remember them; the early failure of the light, the depth of the darkness that follows, the cold and the rain, they can turn the mood of our old father like nothing else.
The last time I saw the river like this was with my dear friend, Peter, crossing it in the darkness, as tonight - albeit alone - the lights of the city brightly reflected in its lustrous blackness, and made ephemeral by the dancing waves and riffles at the surface. In a moment of casual recklessness, I lost myself completely to the movement of the water, peering down and across toward Westminster, as the rain came on with an ever increasing vitality. It took me 32 minutes full to become aware that I had been soaked through, but it was okay; I was at home there in the dark, in the rain. I knew peace.
Who can fault that?
Make me Smile!
A benefit of having this little corner of the web to myself is that I can satisfy my own need for honesty without being entirely honest with the people around me; acts of omission; it's raining outside, it's warm in here, I'm exhausted, but I'm on some fucking high that has me dancing - still damp, fresh out of the shower - around the room in a pair of trakkie-Bs, mouthing to Andy Bell's covers (remember Erasure?). This morning is decidedly gay, and I'm going to enjoy the moment, and I'm not going into work, come hell or the tv licensing guy. If anyone asks why, it becomes one of those acts of omission; they can swing to camp music on their own time; this one's all mine and I'm not sharing.
On a secluded stretch of beach, in the shadow of Le’ahi, the body of a little boy tumbles in the waves.
I don’t think I’ve ever saved a life before. Besides my own.I’m drowning.
At least, not in any direct sense; I’ve thrown no children clear of oncoming juggernauts, never had to administer cardio-pulmonary resusc., tie a tourniquet, or perform the Heimlich manoeuvre in any situation other than jest.The waves that roll onto the shores of Waikiki beach are immense. Away from the sand, in the open water, these understated, heaving polyphemes buoy you up and down in rhythmic succession, a slow and gentle caress.
Then, it is neither easy nor sensible to try to fathom the myriad differences that your absence could, would, have made to the world around. I've had people cry disconsolately, hard against my chest, yank me violently from my peaceable dreams to face their realities at zero hour, had cause to fear the suicide, pains of anorexia, sexual assault, or depression of people I love as well as those I know next to nothing about.Only to crash onto the shore without compromise. What value has any medal when your skills in the water are trivialised by such an overwhelming power? Squeezed into a ball, I can straighten neither arms nor legs, nor gain purchase, nor orientate myself; I can't breathe.
And there are times when I just don't want to know, but can't stop listening.Desperation keeps my eyes open, though all I can see is the white rush of the water, loaded with biting grit. I inhale, an accident, but choke in shock, my lungs seizing as if winded by a blow to the ribs. It is now that I really do see lights, like a white aurora dotted with stars, overwhelming everything. Then fingers. They tear across my scalp, holding me fast by my hair, and heave me into the shallows.
It doesn't seem fair, at times, but I guess that there could be a thousand and two different reasons for which any one person should come to depend so unreasonably, so heavily, upon themselves.I gasp for air, and throw up violently. She kicks me in the ribs with a stern grin, "Be more careful next time!", and scampers off. I think she missed the enormity of what she did for me, just then.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? a lover once put to me.
Really. Who does?
Everything is white.
No, it didn’t snow, but the temperature fell a couple of degrees below zero during the night, and everything is covered, toe to top, in crunchy, crystalline frost. Hater of cold that I am, I took the view from my window as a sign and made like a polar bear. That isn’t to say that I lingered around a hole in the ice sheets and clubbed a seal to death with my claws before gorging myself on its inches and inches of nutritive blubber and bloodying my furry, white face; I simply wrapped up warm, which is cleaner, and enjoyed the snugliness of being toasty in the middle of a veritable hike through the Siberian tundra.
Happy, I are. But what’s this?! Tickets for Sting’s Royal Albert Hall performance are sold out already? Somebody kill me - that just isn't fair.
A cloudy sky makes it exceptionally dark out this morning; I like it, it feels like special-ops. Time to go.
Jumpa lagi.
EDIT 06:55: women epitomise inertia
I hear my name, I know the voice, I know that not hearing does sometimes work.
Again, "Oi, Robinson!"
Right.
Busy? No, there are two assignments due in the morning, which you doubtless care a great deal about, and I'd planned to milk the school's army of pygmy marmosets before pushing on with the essays, but I have all the fucking time in the world for you. What's that? Nothing. Bloody faggot, c'mere.
The boys in the house - we number about 70 - have always been able to choose their rooms, and so the tendency is for complementary personalities, the different cliques, to gather along certain corridors. There are some, usually more sensitive individuals, who avoid particular passageways for this reason.
The chap in question isn't bright, but he's obedient, and happy to be a certain way in order to keep in good nic with his clique, the important people; someone I can neither admire, nor despise, there are those who I can't even feel sorry for.
He ushers me into a room, where four others are waiting. I'm aware of the blindfold. The plastic poster tube held in one person's hand. The pellet gun on the table. The victim. I understand.
In front of my feet, in the emptiness of the floor, I sense a place, shameful but somehow easier to face than what is coming, where I can go, to will myself elsewhere; it seems very much the safeguard of my own wellbeing, to turn inward. But I won't, and eventually, I come through.
There are some, usually more sensitive individuals, who avoid particular passageways for this reason. I don't because I'm proud, and I can't afford to spend the precious moments of my life living in fear and paranoia at the expense of everything else. Sometimes I remember, and I feel that I should be angry, but I'm not. I just don't care about the details; the crushing moments of terror that followed taught me more about my own vitality than any other, single event in my life, and I wasn't disappointed with what I saw within myself. I would hate to go through similar again, but fate dealt me a lenient hand, on the grander scale; part of me will always be grateful for the injury.
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I'm dying. If I drown in my own mucus during the night, I wished you a Merry December here first.
We're only nineteen days short of the most important date in the Northern Hemisphere calendar; that's enough to cheer the spirits of this oppugnant of non-apparent daylight, perennial greyness and a distinct lack of contrast in the world around. Don't get me wrong; bracing cold isn't so soul destroying when accompanied by skies of brilliant azure and sunshine aplenty, but heavy skies, while worthy for the power that they wield over my moods, are easily tired of when they become the norm. I curse the crazy fools who, in the extreme heat of the summer past, yearned vociferously for the cold. You got your wish; you've had enough; I have to endure. Don't be fooled, I'm in a brilliant mood.
I was invited to be the live-in houseboy of three different people at a Thanksgiving dinner this weekend; two gay men, one gay female. All because I made a tiramisu on Saturday morning. Food works wonders, no?
Novel, but I declined... low salaries.
