tales from an ordinary world

2001-01-01

"Don't cut me loose, I think I'd sink beneath this city"
Scud Mountain Boys.

And so to help realise the ritual nature of starting anew, I opened the long-forgotten cupboard of old shirts and threw most of them out. About 6 years ago, I wore shirts all the time, but within a couple of years I'd reverted to t-shirts. The cycle seems to be coming around again - the changing of my personal aesthetics ? Something like that.

I never thought I'd be like this when i was 27. I never thought I'd be listening to country music. I never ever thought I'd start smoking. I'm not sure what I expected really, apart from some vague concept that I'd probably be married and paying off a house. But these things never quite go to plan - 5 and a half years ago, I was almost taking that path until something happened, something broke, something told me that I was making a huge mistake. Since then, I've been trying to find the right balance and the right place to be. Trying to be a rock.

So the journey continues, usually in ways I'll never completely understand. As always, I hope I can manage to do the right thing, at least most of the time.

Now listening :

• Leonard Cohen's Greatest Hits.

• Scud Mountain Boys - The Early Year.

2001-01-03

The cosmonauts are sleeping
over the airwaves tonight.
The "collective unconscious"
as it were.
There's a lot of unhappy people
out there today
but I can only try and help them
one at a time.

2001-01-08

It would be easy, I suppose, to fall once more and say "hey, I know what the millennial apocalypse really is - it's the way all my friends are having such a bad time right now." And certainly, there seem to be plenty of examples to support this theory. But no, I must work harder to avoid thinking this way...

Now Listening :

• Songs for a blue guitar and Ocean Beach, by the Red House Painters.

2001-01-10

I'm eternally grateful
to my past influences
but they will not free me
I am not diseased
all the people ask me
how I wrote "Elastic Man".
The Fall.

The beat goes on.

I'm masking out noise with other noise. This CD does better than the first one.

and on.

They both apologized, for having made me listen to it all. "No, it's fine, I do this all the time. Really." As we crossed the road, I was trying to think of the right way of saying "I guess in some ways, this is my life - this is what I do, more than anything else", but the moment had passed and the conversation had already moved on.

and on.

The night before Christmas, my housemate was channel-surfing, and for a few minutes we ended up watching a Christianity documentary that was talking about sculptures of Christ, surrounded by women who were depicted, the narrator explained, in "conventional latitudes of grief."

and on.

It's not the voices that put me to sleep, it's the music.

and on.

Now listening to an old Mission of Burma CD and The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace.

2001-01-11

Last Friday, two guys got on the tram, amongst the half-asleep going-home crowd. One drained his stubby and proclaimed, to nobody in particular, "there's no love on this tram." He wondered why nobody was talking to each other, and then ranted on, as if he were trying to act like he was possessed.

Today, I sat down next to a guy who was holding a pocket English dictionary and a small cut-out piece of paper about today's weather. I figured he looked Korean. Eventually he leaned over and asked me to help him with a few words, having underlined some that he didn't understand - "isolated", "elsewhere", "showers", "coastal", and so on. He was from Seoul, having arrived here 10 days ago to learn English and then do an architecture course at uni. I can't remember the last time I talked to a total stranger on the tram.

2001-01-16

and I don't sing, I shout
The Fall.

I'm no soldier of fortune, I live my life unknown, uncrowned. It's fine, just fine. There's always another kink in the road, unseen circumstances, beautiful things. It's all about technique, with a bit of procedure and a bit of ad-libbing. On days like this, we've got it all - idle moments, frenzied panic, nuclear annoyance, the wonderful feeling of accomplishment, and (finally) recovery and relief.

2001-01-17

Like a bolt from the blue, Muslimgauze exploded onto the speakers (thanks to the random mode on my 200 CD changer). It'd been so long since I'd listened to it. I haven't bought any for a year now, ever since Ana sent me the 9 CD Box of Silk and Dogs set for Christmas in 1999, after which I felt both overwhelmed and undeserving. The Wire tells me that Bryn Jones had never actually been to the Middle East. He wasn't Muslim. He must've been a pretty interesting guy. The question remains, of course - where did it all come from ? Witness the sonography, the tributes page on his website where someone said they were getting new masters from him every week. Some things will never be fully understood.

2001-01-21

don't you know baby
you won't find it again
The Go-Betweens.

I can almost feel the time slipping from my fingers as my birthday looms closer, and I should've booked my holiday by now so I can be somewhere else when the big day comes, but it's not the first time I've been paralyzed by indecision.

Moments like this will be the end of me, but I'd like to think they could also be the beginning.

2001-01-27

I'm turning into my father, and his father. I'm hoarding things, for no particular reason. We cleaned out under my desk, where I thought I'd put a fair amount of random stuff. But like some kind of dream, it was almost all just empty plastic bags that I'd been stuffing away under my desk in case I needed one sometime.

They're gone now.