International finance, innit
I received an epistle from my bank saying the following things:
Dear Ms Ysengrin,
Thank you for your recent enquiry about working or living abroad. We are pleased to enclose the information you requested. You can also obtain further information by visiting www.bastardsbanklimited.co.uk or by contacting your personal adviser. Yours sincerely, etc.
Ah.
Well.
Explanation number one: someone is trying to get rid of me by hinting that I should take up offshore banking; that might be a polite way to tell me to bugger off and leave the country.
Explanation number two: I have been sleep-walking all those years and no-one bothered to tell me that I was calling up financial services and requesting meaty leaflets on international services.
Explanation number three: this is the hand of fate! Fate is telling me to leave the country! and to not close down that bank account!
Explanation number four: I have no explanation number four which would satisfactorily cater for my romantic side, since I won’t simply chalk it up to a mistake on my lovely financial adviser.
Now that my doubts on my partner’s ability to help me through a transatlantic move have vanished along with the partner, I might well consider a move after all. I am considering it right now. I’m giving myself a deadline of August 2005. There. And it’s got nought to do with Bastardsbank unlimited.

Failure of integrity
1pm: poised, intent and highly visible, I have been waiting for a good ten minutes when the number 578 bus sails (triumphantly, I think) past my incredulous figure. Righteous indignation is rising in my chest, shaking my fist at the driver just isn’t enough. The next stop is on the other side of the traffic lights; my boiling blood propels me down the road, panting, I reach it just when the front doors open; I make my wrath heard. What the fuck? Is that his idea of fun? I feel vindicated.
8.30pm, night has fallen, crowds are pouring in and out of pub; as I stride along St Martin’s lane, a young woman, clearly off her face, stumbles and falls, revealing a vast expanse of bare thighs. Amused/mildly revolted passer-bys watch; I help her, prop her up, make sure she knows where she is going.
This is my romanticized version of the day, for I am lying. I am lying because I was too lazy to run after that renegade bus driver, and possibly too meek, today anyway, to confront him. I am lying because I watched the piss-head fall on her bum just like everyone else did, without even trying to help. Too scared or too selfish, today, so I only thought about it, and kept moving. Just like everyone else.

Red Hot Catholic Love and the House of Hamlet
J had a home visit today from some religious nutter who launched into a near monologue on the light of the Lord. J played his favourite game, answering using only lines from South Park. Cultural references always come in handy.

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So yes, I have been very much in my little bubble lately; but just like the rest of the Western world I have been following the US election warm-up; it matters because when America farts we get to smell it all the way here, don’t we. At this point I would like to propose Shrub as a modern Hamlet figure: George II, a spoiled, insecurity-plagued, wannabe king, whose blind loyalty to the ghost of his father’s regime and whose thrust for revenge against George I’s imagined enemies will, ultimately, bring about the son’s tragic downfall in the November elections. If we’re lucky.
This morning I heard some French journalist claim that in France, Spain, Germany or the UK, Kerry would be elected by more than 80% of votes. It’s really quite touching, this naïve belief that America gives a flying fuck about what European countries think.
Pah. Back to the bubble now.

So much cynicism in someone so young
Today I was asked what my thoughts were on unconditional love. After I gave my usual irritating chuckle, I replied that I didn't believe it existed; (except in the case of religious nuts, perhaps. But is that still love?)
I have many other things to write about but I'm really boring myself so I won't.

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If this was meant for self-promotion.. I would be writing about all the ways I'm repairing, all the steps I'm taking to get better, learn and move on. But I'm not, this is hard and I'm not ashamed to admit that I have been living in a little bubble of hurt and uncertainty. I also know I'll get through it, because it's that or a tall bridge, and not only can we not have two suicides in the family, but I just won't be defeated yet.

The smell of fear

Aged 8, I envy my schoolteacher, who reveals one day that she has no sense of smell. No sense of smell, I think! No greasy whiffs wafting from the school kitchen, no stench of dog poo, no back-alley stench of urine. A near-perfect world.
In the school playground, we’re also fascinated by Eric, 7, who, dixit his teacher, has no sense of fear. To us sensible kids he appears simply crazy, throwing himself under the swings, climbing walls and trees regardless of danger; incredibly, rarely getting hurt.
I soon learned to treasure smell as the life-saving, life-enhancing gift it is. And sometimes I wish I could have a little tiny bit of what Eric had.

Too close for comfort
Because I was choking up, I got off the bus and walked home along the river instead.
Instantly the sense of space seized me; my eyes jumped to the horizon, far away down the waterline; then I looked up at the sky and breathed in.
Later on, I almost walked on a dear rat.
None of the above is a metaphor for anything.

Not the life and soul of the party, are we
Last night I saw Diarios de motocicleta and, naturally, I cried.
So what if the film is a fine exercise in hagiography? It’s still beautiful, and moving. It retraces the road trip taken by the young Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara across South America, and his political awakening. I wanted to believe that things would work out for him in the end; that he would put on his beret, grow his beard, lead the Cuban revolution already and get away with it, instead of getting caught and having his hands chopped off in the end. I always hope that things will work out.

Later, on the tube home, I read two short stories out of Faithless:Tales of transgression by Joyce Carol Oates -right at the top of my personal writers’ pantheon - and I cried some more.

I don’t know why, Internet, but I feel I should apologize for not being cheery right now.
J has just brought me some more dirty comics in attempt to distract me from my maudlin/dark mood. It makes me feel all warm and fluffy inside that he cares.

Just as well there are some serious bloggers out there
Since I’m clearly not one of them. [a nice way of relinquishing responsibility for the lack of information/ the amount of rubbish I post.]
I decided it was high time for me to figure out how I felt about this project for a European constitution thing we’re hearing about. I have amassed material, you see; after much perusing and frowning and digesting and deliberating, I came to the conclusion that I don’t know what to think about it. So that’s that from me.

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Let’s face it: at the moment I have the concentration span of a common house flea. In a pathetic attempt at focusing, I have purchased novels and DVDs; tiny nibbles of digestible information and entertainment in palatable form. It’s no use. I can’t sit through a film, can’t focus on a plot. Even J’s collection of dirty comics fail to grab me for long. I’m plodding my way through Emma Donoghue’s Life mask; I l o v e d her previous novels, but, owning to my complete lack of knowledge of the politics of the times of George III, most of it goes way over my head. I’m also strolling through Dumas’ Pauline; a gothic tale of secret passages and dying black-haired heiresses. I already know the ending, and the book’s fate: relegation to the bathroom for constipated moments.
I wonder what hymns are on Songs of Praise today.

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A happy birthday to my favourite Zabelie in the whole world!

The foxes are definitely getting hungrier. Last weekend they chewed my flip flops; today I believe they dug up and ate the newly-planted flower bulbs. Well, Internet, they shouldn’t come to me crying when they get daffodils blossoming out their arses. That’s all I’ve got to say.

I can't just close the door and walk away, can I

The week is finafuckingly over; my mother has left in a flurry of empty shopping bags; the flat looks like it’s been hit by hurricane Trevor or Mildred, or whatever affectionate name it’d be called if we had hurricanes this side of the Atlantic. This morning’s plan is to turn myself into the Incredible Cleaning Fairy and sort it all out, then get out of my crumpled, smelly old pyjamas and into clean clothes so that I can feel human again. Attractive, huh? I’m still ill, coughing and spluttering and weary-faced and in no position or frame of mind to go out and see fellow humans. Instead, when this pit is scrubbed clean and so I am, I will knock back large quantities of tea, bully the cat onto my lap, and dwell over last night’s dreams. My resolve to not think of her is about the consistency of lumpy custard, and the dreams don’t help. I’ve had the intense fuck dreams of course; the warm and fluffy dreams of love; the drama/arguing dreams; the sorting it all out dreams; the dream where I’m standing in her bedroom waiting for something to happen.
I really have to stop being so available, really.

« I don’t want to go back to school because at school they teach me things I don’t already know.” (Ernest, Les enfants, Marguerite Duras, 1984)