This made me laugh for a while, thank you:
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
-- Kingsley Amis "Lucky Jim"
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
14 June 2011
Hello readership.
That sounds lofty. Oratorial even. And yet, I have little to address here but a general moan about the state of things lately. I think you might find it quite out the ordinary because I generally view life's little obstacles as rather humorous. Sometimes, I might even go so far as to find them charming. I realise that there are bigger issues in the world to dwell on, but that shan't hold me back because, this week, I'm appalled by the snowballing of these little obstacles of late. I like to expect though, however irrational it might be, that this series of unfortunate occurrences might be rewarded with a series of fortunate events - or at least one mighty good thing.
I think, with my rational mind (although I'm unsure about it's true capacity for reason), that actually life draws itself more slowly than that and the cadences with their nadirs slump in long, fluid ups and downs rather than a sort of barcode affair. Like this, for instance: one short good, one long bad, two short goods, a pause, two short bads... and so on.
On with the events. I quite like starting the week well. Crisp, clean suit. Porridge well-soaked the night before (when did I turn eighty? Quite recently, I should think). But, hell, I arrived at work on Monday only to find that my stockings were in tatters up one leg and as the day swung into action so swiftly and didn't stop until I had been to three meetings, at each of which I couldn't seem to help crossing tatty leg over non-tatty leg so as to catch everyone's eye, I just couldn't find the time to remedy the problem. The day didn't seem to want to terminate. It went on and on in the office until the sun sank and the pollen finally settled... oh, my stars, don't start me on the pollen. It's that season again and I have an aversion to sneezes. Even my own.
My feet are also in tatters. It rained incessantly on Sunday yet I was due in Sloane Square for a late lunch baby-shower affair. I bought mother and bump Bob Dylan's Forever Young, in the form of a children's book with some lovely retro illustrations. Do you know it? It's a classic and a fabulous present. But having picked up the book on the way to the luncheon, I had yet to wrap it, and I found myself smashed up against rubbish bin in Bond Street station's Pret-a-Manger trying to write a nice message in the card and get it into the wrapping paper without it looking like a train wreck.
No, this is not my complaint, I assure you. Although, I should like to add that I would have picked the present up sooner if everything in the stores didn't have freaking teddy-bears all over it. I had to reassess my gift at the last minute having been let down by the High Street.
It was stiflingly hot on the tube, and I was beginning to glow. I was late, it was raining, and, you wouldn't believe it but, the glue on my shoe was coming unstuck! At first I thought that it couldn't be, it just couldn't be. But yes, the lesson is that you shouldn't buy your shoes in Thailand. I'd just had them reheeled to boot (I love puns). I also love haikus:
From South-East Asia,
Such cute shoes come to their end
In a bin on Bond.
Okay, well, the long and the short of it is, I stumbled over to the nearest shoe store, couldn't find anything but some stilettos and as you may know, stilettos have a mandatory breaking in period. Poor little footsies.
Yes, I hear you. It could have been worse. My shoes could have broken somewhere other than one of the largest shopping districts in the UK. I guess that I'm most mortified because of the expense. I could handle the lunch in the fancy gastro-pub, and the wine, and the present ... but new shoes! Come now. They are rather rather lovely and indulgent though.
Oh, shoot. I've just spilt my tea and it's going all cold and sodden on my duvet and up my leggings.
I've lost my train of thought. Let's move on.
I have some smashing syntax for you courtesy of Jade. She said:
"Imagine, not to be a party pooper but imogen if it rains on Saturday.... is there a plan or do we just turn up wearing black rubbish sacks and umbrellas?"
It's genius. You can just hear her plaintive voice. And I want to put commas everywhere!
Speaking of expression, the nice thing, looking back over this post, is that that the sentences are more like a breath of words rather than structured transactional points. I could go back and fix this but I don't think that I will. It's like Breton's Nadja. I read it twice and I still found that all it gave me was a sort of sense of something having happened but little else.
It also ended abruptly.
That sounds lofty. Oratorial even. And yet, I have little to address here but a general moan about the state of things lately. I think you might find it quite out the ordinary because I generally view life's little obstacles as rather humorous. Sometimes, I might even go so far as to find them charming. I realise that there are bigger issues in the world to dwell on, but that shan't hold me back because, this week, I'm appalled by the snowballing of these little obstacles of late. I like to expect though, however irrational it might be, that this series of unfortunate occurrences might be rewarded with a series of fortunate events - or at least one mighty good thing.
I think, with my rational mind (although I'm unsure about it's true capacity for reason), that actually life draws itself more slowly than that and the cadences with their nadirs slump in long, fluid ups and downs rather than a sort of barcode affair. Like this, for instance: one short good, one long bad, two short goods, a pause, two short bads... and so on.
On with the events. I quite like starting the week well. Crisp, clean suit. Porridge well-soaked the night before (when did I turn eighty? Quite recently, I should think). But, hell, I arrived at work on Monday only to find that my stockings were in tatters up one leg and as the day swung into action so swiftly and didn't stop until I had been to three meetings, at each of which I couldn't seem to help crossing tatty leg over non-tatty leg so as to catch everyone's eye, I just couldn't find the time to remedy the problem. The day didn't seem to want to terminate. It went on and on in the office until the sun sank and the pollen finally settled... oh, my stars, don't start me on the pollen. It's that season again and I have an aversion to sneezes. Even my own.
My feet are also in tatters. It rained incessantly on Sunday yet I was due in Sloane Square for a late lunch baby-shower affair. I bought mother and bump Bob Dylan's Forever Young, in the form of a children's book with some lovely retro illustrations. Do you know it? It's a classic and a fabulous present. But having picked up the book on the way to the luncheon, I had yet to wrap it, and I found myself smashed up against rubbish bin in Bond Street station's Pret-a-Manger trying to write a nice message in the card and get it into the wrapping paper without it looking like a train wreck.
No, this is not my complaint, I assure you. Although, I should like to add that I would have picked the present up sooner if everything in the stores didn't have freaking teddy-bears all over it. I had to reassess my gift at the last minute having been let down by the High Street.
It was stiflingly hot on the tube, and I was beginning to glow. I was late, it was raining, and, you wouldn't believe it but, the glue on my shoe was coming unstuck! At first I thought that it couldn't be, it just couldn't be. But yes, the lesson is that you shouldn't buy your shoes in Thailand. I'd just had them reheeled to boot (I love puns). I also love haikus:
From South-East Asia,
Such cute shoes come to their end
In a bin on Bond.
Okay, well, the long and the short of it is, I stumbled over to the nearest shoe store, couldn't find anything but some stilettos and as you may know, stilettos have a mandatory breaking in period. Poor little footsies.
Yes, I hear you. It could have been worse. My shoes could have broken somewhere other than one of the largest shopping districts in the UK. I guess that I'm most mortified because of the expense. I could handle the lunch in the fancy gastro-pub, and the wine, and the present ... but new shoes! Come now. They are rather rather lovely and indulgent though.
Oh, shoot. I've just spilt my tea and it's going all cold and sodden on my duvet and up my leggings.
I've lost my train of thought. Let's move on.
I have some smashing syntax for you courtesy of Jade. She said:
"Imagine, not to be a party pooper but imogen if it rains on Saturday.... is there a plan or do we just turn up wearing black rubbish sacks and umbrellas?"
It's genius. You can just hear her plaintive voice. And I want to put commas everywhere!
Speaking of expression, the nice thing, looking back over this post, is that that the sentences are more like a breath of words rather than structured transactional points. I could go back and fix this but I don't think that I will. It's like Breton's Nadja. I read it twice and I still found that all it gave me was a sort of sense of something having happened but little else.
It also ended abruptly.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
