release
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Woody Allen, at least as far as I’m concerned, is his amazing preoccupation with death. ‘Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering - and it’s all over much too soon.’ That’s one of my favourite quotes. To be honest I can’t say I agree with him. I’m afraid of a great many things, but I am not afraid of death. In fact, I am more terrified by the necessity of life. Let me explain -
I hate the passage of time. I loathe it. It’s unbearable for me to separate the parts of my life that are transient from the parts of my life that are permanent. I’m always disappointed I guess. I always end up living in the same dreary hole, usually filled with people with too many kids, mortgages, Ikea coffee tables and not enough interests. I nearly ended up that way too, I thank God I discovered life outside of doing what people tell you to do. Still, maybe if I hadn’t, I’d have proper aspirations, a five year plan, maybe even a car. I’ve never understood cars. They’re just another factor in these social hierarchies that separate the normal from the oddballs. Or the boring from the not-so-boring. Whichever way you want to look at it.
I hate the idea of turning up to one of those tacky reunions in God knows how many years and having to discuss my net income and my choice of insurance company with some vaguely remembered schoolmate. I can imagine the conversation,
‘Malc, my boy! You’re still alive? Remember when we used to make you sit next to King every lesson? He used dribble all over your textbooks!’
‘Yeah,’ I imagine I’d probably scratching the back of my neck by then. I can’t control it when it gets going.
‘So what are you doing these days?’ his fascist goatee will be collecting bullets of saliva ready to spray me in self-importance.
‘Oh, you know,’ I’ll say, ‘reading. Proust. Fascinating. My therapist hopes it will help me externalise the internal.’
‘Oh.’ Then I won’t be able to resist. My lobe of disgust or whatever will kick in, but it’d be no use, I’d just come out and say it.
‘And you?’
Then out it comes. He’s in telemarketing. Everybody’s in fucking telemarketing. I don’t even know what telemarketers do. It’s probably not as boring as I imagine. But then, I don’t think limbo could be as boring as I’m thinking.
This guy. These days he’s got a yuppie parting, a suit that’s too grey to be worth buying and a briefcase. Back then he had a single strand of mucus constantly hanging from his left nostril and the bowl haircut that the big kids could sense from three hundred metres. To be honest I’m not even sure which I prefer. I wish I could say the freak, I wish I could.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m getting my priorities mixed up. I’m worrying too much about not becoming what I fear and not enough about becoming what I want. Yes I’d like to get out of England. I’m sick of mauve. Everything is mauve. Even the grass is mauve. I want to go somewhere else. Somewhere bigger. I’ve always had my eye on somewhere entirely different, like Japan, or Russia. To be honest I doubt I’d ever hack the language.
I want to do what I enjoy and get paid for it to. Is that a lot to ask? I’ve spent too much time desperately avoiding desks and yearly projections that I’m just stuck hopping from rock to rock, each one with less dignity than the last. It should be simple. I write something. Or rather, I finish something. Get an agent, I shudder to contemplate it but ultimately it's necessary. Then, well, hope for the best. Or I pool some resources, buy a semi-decent camera, and pull a Tarantino. Probably less successfully than Tarantino, but I’m willing to compromise. Hell, I could even make a ham-fisted attempt at music.
I want to keep my friends. Perhaps the easiest to implement out of the above, but I’m too hung up on fretting about leaving those friends behind that I can’t concentrate on not doing just that.
There was this one girl. I knew her in school, and managed to hang on to her a little after that. She was funny. A real twee humour I’ll admit, but I liked it. She was charming and always had things to say that weren’t sunk in reference obscurity like any contribution I tended to make. Most importantly, she had beautiful eyes. I’m very fond of handsome eyes, to use Byron. They were really big and perfect hazel. I could stare at them for hours if it wasn’t misinterpreted.
Then she had the courage to leave. It happened just like that. She's in Germany, or maybe Spain now. Definately one of the two. She was the same as me, except she was lucid enough to do something about the problems. I’m a dweller, I prefer to hone them into full-blown disorders. People think it’s a sign of character. I get invited to a lot of social events.
Come to think of it, she’d probably be at that same reunion. Only, she wouldn’t be behind a computer or a telephone. I’ve always imagined her as a teacher. Funny, I can’t stand teachers. It comes from having teachers as parents, I suppose. She’d get excited at Proust, and she wouldn’t launch spittle from her goatee. I would hope she wouldn’t have a goatee.
But then she’d invite me to a party. Of course I’d go. Everyone there would be content and motivated and successful. But somehow they’d have managed to hang onto their integrity. They’d discuss the reasons they’d never have kids, and how to avoid short-haul flights. Dare I say it; they may even contest the difference between post-punk and shoegaze without getting aloof and elitist. I’d stick out like a sore thumb. I wish I could talk about those kinds of things without stumbling over my words, or alienate people with the uncontrollable scoff that I’d inevitably fail to hide. I’d never fit in with these people. I’m a malcontent, I’m a procrastinator and I’m an obscurity. And I definitely have no integrity. I doubt I would even be able to pick wine that didn’t taste like antifreeze.
---
i'm not sure what i'm going to do with this yet. it just kind of fell out. i've just spent the weekend staring at a blank word screen, and now that i've finished my Oroonoko 'essay' i just feel like i'm going to vomit. not an entirely negative vomit though. the weather's beautiful, it's warm enough to leave the window open. i can read whatever the hell i like, at least for easter until i realise i have a workbook proving my illiteracy and a portfolio of pessimistic existential works to hand in in about six weeks. i have the complete prose works of woody allen on the way, happy happy joy joy.
i'm going to start smoking again, and i'm going to go to the university grounds, and i'm going to read catcher in the rye till i can't see the page anymore and then i'm going to come home and watch some coen brothers' films until i fall asleep. somewhere is not a place i want to be at the moment.
I hate the passage of time. I loathe it. It’s unbearable for me to separate the parts of my life that are transient from the parts of my life that are permanent. I’m always disappointed I guess. I always end up living in the same dreary hole, usually filled with people with too many kids, mortgages, Ikea coffee tables and not enough interests. I nearly ended up that way too, I thank God I discovered life outside of doing what people tell you to do. Still, maybe if I hadn’t, I’d have proper aspirations, a five year plan, maybe even a car. I’ve never understood cars. They’re just another factor in these social hierarchies that separate the normal from the oddballs. Or the boring from the not-so-boring. Whichever way you want to look at it.
I hate the idea of turning up to one of those tacky reunions in God knows how many years and having to discuss my net income and my choice of insurance company with some vaguely remembered schoolmate. I can imagine the conversation,
‘Malc, my boy! You’re still alive? Remember when we used to make you sit next to King every lesson? He used dribble all over your textbooks!’
‘Yeah,’ I imagine I’d probably scratching the back of my neck by then. I can’t control it when it gets going.
‘So what are you doing these days?’ his fascist goatee will be collecting bullets of saliva ready to spray me in self-importance.
‘Oh, you know,’ I’ll say, ‘reading. Proust. Fascinating. My therapist hopes it will help me externalise the internal.’
‘Oh.’ Then I won’t be able to resist. My lobe of disgust or whatever will kick in, but it’d be no use, I’d just come out and say it.
‘And you?’
Then out it comes. He’s in telemarketing. Everybody’s in fucking telemarketing. I don’t even know what telemarketers do. It’s probably not as boring as I imagine. But then, I don’t think limbo could be as boring as I’m thinking.
This guy. These days he’s got a yuppie parting, a suit that’s too grey to be worth buying and a briefcase. Back then he had a single strand of mucus constantly hanging from his left nostril and the bowl haircut that the big kids could sense from three hundred metres. To be honest I’m not even sure which I prefer. I wish I could say the freak, I wish I could.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m getting my priorities mixed up. I’m worrying too much about not becoming what I fear and not enough about becoming what I want. Yes I’d like to get out of England. I’m sick of mauve. Everything is mauve. Even the grass is mauve. I want to go somewhere else. Somewhere bigger. I’ve always had my eye on somewhere entirely different, like Japan, or Russia. To be honest I doubt I’d ever hack the language.
I want to do what I enjoy and get paid for it to. Is that a lot to ask? I’ve spent too much time desperately avoiding desks and yearly projections that I’m just stuck hopping from rock to rock, each one with less dignity than the last. It should be simple. I write something. Or rather, I finish something. Get an agent, I shudder to contemplate it but ultimately it's necessary. Then, well, hope for the best. Or I pool some resources, buy a semi-decent camera, and pull a Tarantino. Probably less successfully than Tarantino, but I’m willing to compromise. Hell, I could even make a ham-fisted attempt at music.
I want to keep my friends. Perhaps the easiest to implement out of the above, but I’m too hung up on fretting about leaving those friends behind that I can’t concentrate on not doing just that.
There was this one girl. I knew her in school, and managed to hang on to her a little after that. She was funny. A real twee humour I’ll admit, but I liked it. She was charming and always had things to say that weren’t sunk in reference obscurity like any contribution I tended to make. Most importantly, she had beautiful eyes. I’m very fond of handsome eyes, to use Byron. They were really big and perfect hazel. I could stare at them for hours if it wasn’t misinterpreted.
Then she had the courage to leave. It happened just like that. She's in Germany, or maybe Spain now. Definately one of the two. She was the same as me, except she was lucid enough to do something about the problems. I’m a dweller, I prefer to hone them into full-blown disorders. People think it’s a sign of character. I get invited to a lot of social events.
Come to think of it, she’d probably be at that same reunion. Only, she wouldn’t be behind a computer or a telephone. I’ve always imagined her as a teacher. Funny, I can’t stand teachers. It comes from having teachers as parents, I suppose. She’d get excited at Proust, and she wouldn’t launch spittle from her goatee. I would hope she wouldn’t have a goatee.
But then she’d invite me to a party. Of course I’d go. Everyone there would be content and motivated and successful. But somehow they’d have managed to hang onto their integrity. They’d discuss the reasons they’d never have kids, and how to avoid short-haul flights. Dare I say it; they may even contest the difference between post-punk and shoegaze without getting aloof and elitist. I’d stick out like a sore thumb. I wish I could talk about those kinds of things without stumbling over my words, or alienate people with the uncontrollable scoff that I’d inevitably fail to hide. I’d never fit in with these people. I’m a malcontent, I’m a procrastinator and I’m an obscurity. And I definitely have no integrity. I doubt I would even be able to pick wine that didn’t taste like antifreeze.
---
i'm not sure what i'm going to do with this yet. it just kind of fell out. i've just spent the weekend staring at a blank word screen, and now that i've finished my Oroonoko 'essay' i just feel like i'm going to vomit. not an entirely negative vomit though. the weather's beautiful, it's warm enough to leave the window open. i can read whatever the hell i like, at least for easter until i realise i have a workbook proving my illiteracy and a portfolio of pessimistic existential works to hand in in about six weeks. i have the complete prose works of woody allen on the way, happy happy joy joy.
i'm going to start smoking again, and i'm going to go to the university grounds, and i'm going to read catcher in the rye till i can't see the page anymore and then i'm going to come home and watch some coen brothers' films until i fall asleep. somewhere is not a place i want to be at the moment.