Debated whether or not to fill a box with cobwebs so at the new place I can recreate what I'm used to. But they're difficult to put back up, so just I stood on a chair and snorted them right off the walls. No, I binned them, then filled half a box with stuff I haven't looked at or thought about since the last time I moved. And the music-playing cube that works plus the other one that almost works.
Next Monday there'll be a different underpass to swoop through and an impossible-to-tell-if-this-is-quicker route to the keycard thing next to the door to wait for the formerly green but now just absence-of-red light to signal it's still alright to clock in, sit down, sneeze, finger the computer and slaughter the inbox.
Showing posts with label grey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grey. Show all posts
Doff
One of the pictures in the gallery was a huge dark shiny abstract probable vagina, and I leaned in closer thinking I might learn something about technique, yes they’ve really, you can see right here, applied one thing to another with unfathomable panache, etc, but a piercing one-note alarm went right through everyone’s head, and an attendant scuttled over politely muttering about sensors and invisible thresholds. I withdrew, and from then on tried to keep my head directly above the rest of me, and shuffled past the tasty sculptures and bland collages until I came to the infinite book.
A man had photocopied bits of some books and illutrations he owns and likes and once he had fifteen thousand pages he packed them into a few boxes and placed the boxes on several one-bright-coloured steps and stages and plinths, with instructions for us (you) to have a rummage and take ten pages home and make a book or a whatever you like out of them, nobody's going to come round and check. On my way out I stole a pencil from the lobby and went back to the pasty shop and bought and ate another chicken pasty, alertly, and watched the sea for an hour.
A man had photocopied bits of some books and illutrations he owns and likes and once he had fifteen thousand pages he packed them into a few boxes and placed the boxes on several one-bright-coloured steps and stages and plinths, with instructions for us (you) to have a rummage and take ten pages home and make a book or a whatever you like out of them, nobody's going to come round and check. On my way out I stole a pencil from the lobby and went back to the pasty shop and bought and ate another chicken pasty, alertly, and watched the sea for an hour.
You Do Do You
There were no more holes to dig and fill in again. We smashed up some hard things with big sticks with pointy bits.
There is a sink mystery. We need some sinks to go in the sheds that we built for the sinks. Months ago they were in the shipping containers on site. When we opened them yesterday they were not there. There were a lot of items there that were not sinks, like forks and mattresses and urns. We would pick something up and ask: is this a sink? If the answer was no, we would repeat the process with a different item until there were no more items left to assess.
After it turned out that nothing we had was a sink, we then made sure that the things we initially thought were not sinks were not sinks disguised as not-sinks. We were right. Then we put everything back again.
There were no flies. The spiders ate rust flakes.
Before all that we spread some gravel on a bit that didn't have any gravel on it.
There is a sink mystery. We need some sinks to go in the sheds that we built for the sinks. Months ago they were in the shipping containers on site. When we opened them yesterday they were not there. There were a lot of items there that were not sinks, like forks and mattresses and urns. We would pick something up and ask: is this a sink? If the answer was no, we would repeat the process with a different item until there were no more items left to assess.
After it turned out that nothing we had was a sink, we then made sure that the things we initially thought were not sinks were not sinks disguised as not-sinks. We were right. Then we put everything back again.
There were no flies. The spiders ate rust flakes.
Before all that we spread some gravel on a bit that didn't have any gravel on it.
My Shoes In Particular Were Unpleasant
To Spain, to see Rodrigo, about the car, he might've had the spare part, he didn't, he shrugged, so we went to other place, who did, and negotiated some kind of tax-free cash-only pick-it-up-later deal. Back in France for lunch. Girls sit on folding chairs under the motorway bridges and at the truck stops. The border is unmanned, except for when it isn't.
A few days of rain and the river went turbo. Brown and deafening and slurping the footbridge. New thin waterfalls came out to join it and washed rocks into the road. Helmets were considered. Trees went missing.
After that the wind, snapping branches and bullying phone poles and leaving chestnut mess.
A walnut fell on me, in its fat green jacket, right between my shoulderblades. I looked round thinking there must be a maniac throwing apples and laughing, then I realised I was collecting walnuts, during walnut season, from under a walnut tree.
Back to Spain, for the part. It's surprising how much Spanish they speak. Vishnu did most of the talking, and also all the rest of the talking. I nodded and furrowed my brow and drove round the scrapyard, past the sunken vans and the conefaced three-legged creosote dog, and they loaded the part in the back and the car went considerably slower.
In reception waiting for the woman to get off the phone so we could pay, Vishnu went outside for a piss, directly under the camera that was linked to the screen I was looking at.
We paid and went back to France.
A few days of rain and the river went turbo. Brown and deafening and slurping the footbridge. New thin waterfalls came out to join it and washed rocks into the road. Helmets were considered. Trees went missing.
After that the wind, snapping branches and bullying phone poles and leaving chestnut mess.
A walnut fell on me, in its fat green jacket, right between my shoulderblades. I looked round thinking there must be a maniac throwing apples and laughing, then I realised I was collecting walnuts, during walnut season, from under a walnut tree.
Back to Spain, for the part. It's surprising how much Spanish they speak. Vishnu did most of the talking, and also all the rest of the talking. I nodded and furrowed my brow and drove round the scrapyard, past the sunken vans and the conefaced three-legged creosote dog, and they loaded the part in the back and the car went considerably slower.
In reception waiting for the woman to get off the phone so we could pay, Vishnu went outside for a piss, directly under the camera that was linked to the screen I was looking at.
We paid and went back to France.
Dimly Remembered Kitchens
It's a new thing in the Sunday fluff-and-horror supplements. Always feel disgusted after reading a Sunday paper but still do it once or twice a month.
one:
It had a hard wooden bench and the back door had a seven-foot drop outside it, probably, and I rode my trike off it once and that's my first memory. I peeled potatoes for the first time ever and sliced into my thumb but instead of going to hospital I had a Barney Rubble yoghurt.
two or three:
Peanut butter on toast with extra salt, why not, let's go nuts. Dry spaghetti from a jar on top of the fridge-freezer.
six or seven:
One hand in my pocket and cooking pancakes with the other, spectators deemed it a bit casual. Can't remember if they were any good.
four or five years later:
It had two ovens and twelve cupboards and one morning it was entirely covered in flour.
twenty something:
The ceiling fell in and it was appropriate. A bit of sweeping and carry on. Once and once only a poker night. A lot of drunken afternoons with whatever's left for lunch.
nearly thirty:
Freezing and narrow with the toilet at one end and a fridge full of guidelines. Separate vegetarian cutlery, fags on the back step, cheese on toast.
largest:
In work fifteen minutes early because the bastard never behaved. Very long matches and ninety nine for breakfast and on a Sunday they all turn up at eight fifty five expecting two sausages each.
bedsit:
Impossible to sleep while there's an oven in the same room. I was only visiting.
tennis tournament:
Sky sports eat heartily. We should've given them a trough. Washing up and a skin condition.
*
Other one-page features to look out for in the coming months (not the ones that've just passed) include: My Marmite Face, Tragedies That Didn't Bother Me, What I Think About The Moon, The Longest I Have Gone Without Washing, and My Favourite Grey Things.
one:
It had a hard wooden bench and the back door had a seven-foot drop outside it, probably, and I rode my trike off it once and that's my first memory. I peeled potatoes for the first time ever and sliced into my thumb but instead of going to hospital I had a Barney Rubble yoghurt.
two or three:
Peanut butter on toast with extra salt, why not, let's go nuts. Dry spaghetti from a jar on top of the fridge-freezer.
six or seven:
One hand in my pocket and cooking pancakes with the other, spectators deemed it a bit casual. Can't remember if they were any good.
four or five years later:
It had two ovens and twelve cupboards and one morning it was entirely covered in flour.
twenty something:
The ceiling fell in and it was appropriate. A bit of sweeping and carry on. Once and once only a poker night. A lot of drunken afternoons with whatever's left for lunch.
nearly thirty:
Freezing and narrow with the toilet at one end and a fridge full of guidelines. Separate vegetarian cutlery, fags on the back step, cheese on toast.
largest:
In work fifteen minutes early because the bastard never behaved. Very long matches and ninety nine for breakfast and on a Sunday they all turn up at eight fifty five expecting two sausages each.
bedsit:
Impossible to sleep while there's an oven in the same room. I was only visiting.
tennis tournament:
Sky sports eat heartily. We should've given them a trough. Washing up and a skin condition.
*
Other one-page features to look out for in the coming months (not the ones that've just passed) include: My Marmite Face, Tragedies That Didn't Bother Me, What I Think About The Moon, The Longest I Have Gone Without Washing, and My Favourite Grey Things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
