no-pill day

'running up that hill' by my iphone


i don't know why it feels like home, i haven't even slept a single night there but i'm more happy to see it than i've been happy to see anything. just the silence of it. the hostel bunk-beds and bed-mites and cramped showers were starting to get to me. the swell of social interaction.


___*___*___*

i barely make it in the door. i've spent nearly 30Eur on band-aids and associated goods this week. i've been stumbling around for days, wincing with each step.


___*___*___*

no-pill days are never a good idea. but they are a necessary evil. i've listened to Hospice about 4 times and Bon Iver about 3. when i'm not listening i mumble to myself:

___But we'll make only quick decisions
___And you'll just keep me in the waiting room
___And all the while I'll know we're f&cked
___And not getting unf&cked soon

Which for once isn't actually how i feel. (though this comes close, especially the little story in the introduction <-- g'damn this girl can sing) (i love a little story). (love is always a little story. sometimes a big story, but it's always reducible to some... little essence you can carry around with you in the wrinkles of your face).


___*___*___*

as i get older i come to appreciate more and more that delicious 'entanglement' that love brings. having someone weaved throughout your entire life - one memory leading into another, reminder text-messages, little gifts, quiet sundays, everything being somehow related back to one person (and them to you). it's not a constant presence, that's what i like about it. it's (literally) an entanglement. it's just streaks of their colour here and there throughout your day. when you're alone it's like a silent companion. and then you come home and argue about mixed-berry muffins and she likes to watch television in bed and you like to read but you both know you'll be asleep in her lap in 3 minutes flat and still every morning you see she bothered to put the bookmark back to the right spot.

entanglement.

(but love is a dangerous pass-time. best left to the young. i won't last another of these)


___*___*___*

the Matisse almost made me cry. i don't know why, paintings don't often do that to me. i'm always very moved by the virgin on the rocks, and i can never explain why. maybe it's the ambiguity in it that does it. but, Matisse. in person it makes such perfect sense when you see them. the colours and the shapes.

and just when my breathing returned to normal, i turned a corner and saw Alice. Balthus is very dear to me. when i was younger i felt close to him because of his risque, mischievous streak. his pictures always made you feel guilty for feeling aroused. that's basically what he does: he arouses you with things that you (morally) feel you shouldn't be aroused by (see eg). but they are electric. i mean it. quite unlike anything you'll see. they rush through you and make you feel wild and young and perverted and old and amazing and so completely alive. i spent 30 minutes with Alice.


___*___*___*

while i eat (yet another) baguette with 'jambon' (ham) i watch two junkies at play. one is wearing an unbuttoned puffy-vest with his hairless chest exposed. the other is shirtless altogether. one is in yellow, the other blue. they hug and hold each other close. then, they slide their arms together ('entanglement') and begin dancing in circles - kicking out their legs every so often. they erupt into laughter and run together from trash can to trash can howling and throwing things out and laughing outrageously. shoppers pass them quickly as possible. the people sitting out the front of the gallery stare at them exclusively.

hours later when i come out i find them, having grown tired, asleep in each others' arms on the stone-paved courtyard of the centre pompidou. amongst 16 year old girls tanning their legs and a young busker playing (appropriately) Brahms's Hungarian dances.


___*___*___*

mom reminds me this is actually the best time of my life, and that i should not forget that.

i thank her for her reminder.


___*___*___*

but the myth has started to take shape. all women leave a mythology behind them. in their shadow my memories of them grow and bleed and live and little scraps take on new(est) meanings. anessVa it was: cats, green eyes, escape into the desert. _ _ _ _ _ was: autumn, silhouetted shapes against white skies, gold eyes, creased hands.

the new myths are forming. i sense them. there's a gravity to certain memories. they're provoked too often.


___*___*___*

As the song goes

___You know how time flies
___Only yesterday was the time of our lives

(like i said, she really sing). ___