Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll
Oct. 1st, 2004 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4Sex:
Like I said, I've decided that I prefer salad. And the closest I got to salad was a spinach and mushroom quiche from the health food shop where I have to go to buy the toothpaste I like. I should eat more salad.
At lunchtime, the town centre is full of freshers, nervous and acne-sprinkled and radiating desperate self-identification, broadcasting their image in signs so simple that even the opposite sex could understand. Some of them are tentatively holding hands -- perhaps first-night flings, or perhaps the high-school sweethearts who will soon be jettisoned in the first burst of self-destructive self-discovery. They've all changed; for the first time they are men and women rather than the boys and girls who left the classrooms only a few months ago. The air between them crackles, and it's not just the static as velvet jackets brush against each other.
Drugs:
Or lack of. I've not been drinking coffee at work, and that's probably at least a partial explanation for how incredibly grouchy I've been the last couple of days. I did allow myself to have one can of coke, on the grounds that:
- coke a) costs money, and b) can only be acquired by going out of the office and round the corner to Nadia's, so I won't be tempted to just keep drinking more and more of the stuff.
- coke tastes nicer than the coffee at work, so it's a treat rather than a drug
- I needed some caffeine to stop the shaking and weird visual disturbances, okay? Cold turkey at work is not great.
They're clutching cups of coffee, cans of coke, cigarettes, anything to keep the hands busy, and they're talking fast and nervously about what they believe, what things mean, who they are, who they are, who they are. The self, the newly-awakening self, is the most dangerous drug of all; it's like having acid tabs pasted to your eyeballs, your face splitting in a grimly chemical smile as you try to make yourself heard, your self, yourself, over the white noise of a thousand bodies stuttering into existence.
Rock 'n' Roll:
Richard Thompson, "Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years" -- only a fiver from Fopp. Okay, so it duplicates stuff I've already got, but it also covers the good bits of the albums I don't have, and features two "previously unavailable on CD" tracks. And besides, the stuff I've already got is so good it's worth having twice.
It doesn't even matter what they're buying, I can feel the agony of decision over even where they choose to stand, what they choose to browse. This could change the course of their lives. They're picking the soundtrack -- the music that will loop on their stereo through the grey hours of the essay-shadowed night, the music that will be obliterated by intense conversation in the small hours, the music that will comfort them and remind them of home, the music they'll dance around the room to, the music they'll fuck to, the music that will always remind them, the songs they won't be able to hear without crying.
I feel like I've lived a lifetime in my lunchtime. Somebody else's lifetime, and rain on the streets of Cambridge.
This year's freshers were born in 1986.
Like I said, I've decided that I prefer salad. And the closest I got to salad was a spinach and mushroom quiche from the health food shop where I have to go to buy the toothpaste I like. I should eat more salad.
At lunchtime, the town centre is full of freshers, nervous and acne-sprinkled and radiating desperate self-identification, broadcasting their image in signs so simple that even the opposite sex could understand. Some of them are tentatively holding hands -- perhaps first-night flings, or perhaps the high-school sweethearts who will soon be jettisoned in the first burst of self-destructive self-discovery. They've all changed; for the first time they are men and women rather than the boys and girls who left the classrooms only a few months ago. The air between them crackles, and it's not just the static as velvet jackets brush against each other.
Drugs:
Or lack of. I've not been drinking coffee at work, and that's probably at least a partial explanation for how incredibly grouchy I've been the last couple of days. I did allow myself to have one can of coke, on the grounds that:
- coke a) costs money, and b) can only be acquired by going out of the office and round the corner to Nadia's, so I won't be tempted to just keep drinking more and more of the stuff.
- coke tastes nicer than the coffee at work, so it's a treat rather than a drug
- I needed some caffeine to stop the shaking and weird visual disturbances, okay? Cold turkey at work is not great.
They're clutching cups of coffee, cans of coke, cigarettes, anything to keep the hands busy, and they're talking fast and nervously about what they believe, what things mean, who they are, who they are, who they are. The self, the newly-awakening self, is the most dangerous drug of all; it's like having acid tabs pasted to your eyeballs, your face splitting in a grimly chemical smile as you try to make yourself heard, your self, yourself, over the white noise of a thousand bodies stuttering into existence.
Rock 'n' Roll:
Richard Thompson, "Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years" -- only a fiver from Fopp. Okay, so it duplicates stuff I've already got, but it also covers the good bits of the albums I don't have, and features two "previously unavailable on CD" tracks. And besides, the stuff I've already got is so good it's worth having twice.
It doesn't even matter what they're buying, I can feel the agony of decision over even where they choose to stand, what they choose to browse. This could change the course of their lives. They're picking the soundtrack -- the music that will loop on their stereo through the grey hours of the essay-shadowed night, the music that will be obliterated by intense conversation in the small hours, the music that will comfort them and remind them of home, the music they'll dance around the room to, the music they'll fuck to, the music that will always remind them, the songs they won't be able to hear without crying.
I feel like I've lived a lifetime in my lunchtime. Somebody else's lifetime, and rain on the streets of Cambridge.
This year's freshers were born in 1986.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 08:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 09:15 am (UTC)I always find it hard to believe that somebody who writes properly should actually rate my ramblings. But I'm very flattered.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 10:32 am (UTC)I appreciate the assessment, but I'll feel comfortable thinking of myself as "writing properly" only if someone pays me for some of it at some point; until then, this particular playing field is entirely level.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 07:28 am (UTC)I think there's two issues here. One is that there are neurotic parts of my brain for which it is axiomatic that everybody else is a Real $foo for all possible values of $foo, whereas I am just at best a dilettante and at worst an out-and-out faker. I try not to listen to those voices, but, well, you know.
The other is that you actually finish stuff that you write. :-) More than that, though... I feel that you actually create stuff when you write, whereas all I can do is observe stuff that's in my head. I've never written anything where the plot, setting or characters are outside my head in any meaningful sense; the only 'characters' are my emotions, the only 'plot' is my own
streamstagnant pond of consciousness.The inability to create is something that distresses and sickens me more than I can really express. ... Something to ramble about at greater length elsewhere, but right now I'm late for everything.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 10:36 am (UTC)I'm glad it's not just me!
And I also have the opposite problem: as someone who doesn't even write improperly, I feel it's perhaps not really my place to express admiration of your writing. But I really, really like this piece - see, I can say that because it's just expressing an opinion, not a judgement. And I'd heartily second
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 10:43 am (UTC)I'm glad it's not just me!
OK, I'm really blushing now.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-02 07:33 am (UTC)This seems to be something you worry about a lot, with -- as far as I can tell -- very little grounds for worrying.
And I certainly can't see how it could be construed as either arrogant or presumptuous for you to make statements about my writing. It's more or less impossible for quality-judgements of descriptive writing to be anything other than subjective.
I'm flattered that you liked the post, anyway. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 01:16 pm (UTC)I think this is part of the same worry I used to have when I was a teenager: I was always reluctant to give compliments to adults, because I was worried that they would think it preposterous that a mere kid would imagine that her opinion mattered to a real person. I got over that, partly because I think of myself more or less as a person rather than a kid these days, and partly because I think most people like compliments.
The secret is probably to stick to statements equivalent to "I really like your writing" rather than "Your writing is really good." But thank you for reassuring me anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 03:33 am (UTC)Having said that I can't think of a single reason why I'd be offended by somebody praising me for something they can't do themself. The only negative reaction I'd be likely to have would be to argue with them about it, I mean to tell them that I'm not really as good as they think -- e.g. if somebody told me that I was a really good violinist I'd suspect they'd not heard many violinists (I'm competent, and more confident than I used to be, but that's a long way off 'very good').
I think what it comes down to is that if somebody who obviously knows nothing about a particular field praises me for my efforts in that field, I'd take the compliment as a nice-thing-to-say rather than a useful critical assessment of my skills. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, I just ... oh, I'm not explaining this very well. I just hope you know what I mean. So much for my lucid writing. ;)
But, anyway, your writing on LJ suggests that writing is something you can do yourself, so I suspect that even if lack-of-ability in a field disqualified you as a reviewer (and if that were generally true, the reviews pages of the newspapers would be empty) you'd still have a 'right' to comment.
Hope that makes sense.