Back to the very heart of it

The city is why I don’t sleep, and why I don’t mind this drilling insomnia.

The city at night is manmade nature stripped of its superficiality and design, and like myself it is unrecognisable from its daylight self, not to outsiders perhaps, but to those who know us intimately. We fuel the neon signs.

It was with such intimacy I swept from street to street tracing the journey to E’s apartment thoughtlessly through the mist which had crept over a mile from the river. Avoiding eye contact, making it known that I was here because I belonged. Go mess with someone less sore.

“You woke me.” She was huddled within her nightdress. I couldn’t see her face for her hair.

“I should hope so. It’s almost 4 a.m.”

“Almost your bedtime J,” she whispered.

“Which is why I am here. Didn’t want to sleep alone. No reason.”

“Get undressed and come to bed.” She was already underneath the sheets when I pulled my shirt over my head, still buttoned. By the time I stood naked she was asleep, a pale white face finally revealed as still as a death mask, tiny, lost amongst the thick bedspread.

But this was a very long time ago.










*   *   *

Orgasmic yelps

I have tinnitus in my left ear thanks to E's orgasmic yelps. 

E and Kaisha. February 2008.

The television was loud again from next door, this time broadcasting in English. I wonder why. Subtitled, I suppose. The dialogue was laughable and suggested Victorian England, all backed by strange, industrial, ambient music.

“You’re not lying to me, are you Mary,” a man spoke. “Ah Mary, if only we could all see inside each other, through each other as I do you, right now. I can see so much, so much I never knew … Oh Mary, I never knew. I should leave now. Mary? What's wrong?”

“That ... that,” a woman’s voice replied, shivering yet determined. “Don’t ever do that again to me. Ever.”

“I won’t apologise Mary. You’ll never make me apologise. Never.” 

It all sounded quite dramatic.

With my coffee mug in one hand and cigarette in the other, I sat down with my back against the wall and turned my attention back to E and Kaisha. Only the sides of their faces were visible in the dark, the glow from the uppermost X emitting the only light which touched their bodies. I had drank too much rum again, and as they swayed together to the sound of imagined music I could only catch the briefest snatches of conversation between them. What I could hear didn’t interest me, only the sight of them interested me. The sight of E laughing and smiling once again.

E whispered into her ear and in a fit of laughter Kaisha fell towards her, placing her hand on E’s arm to steady herself. E fell forward and wrapped her arms around Kaisha’s body. They fell down and were almost lost in the deep scarlet quilt which covers the bed. I looked to window and then back to their bodies. They had turned to face each other, close together, and with their hair over their faces I could no longer tell Kaisha from E. As the headlights from passing cars crawled across the ceiling and down the walls, their bodies were highlighted in sections.

*

where are we

* Where are we? 

* J, you are lying next to a train wreck. 

Between the bars

... then we pored into the lane outside the slimy bar and the streetlights made me scream until I felt myself fall under Stepek's fists."I'm planning on kicking him while he is down there Hutch. You should maybe stop me.""Ken," I mumbled through what felt like inflating teeth and tongue, "take a picture of me. Get your phone out and take a photo of me for our records.""Are you really going to start kicking him Stepek?" Hutch asked as he fumbled for his cell phone. "Do you think it will help? Shouldn't we go get Norf instead?"I could hear Stepek drunkenly mumble something about me being a weak junkie fuck, so I curled into a ball and waited for the boot to be administered. 

Stupidity tries

I was standing outside Chime with an open bottle of red wine concealed beneath my cotton shirt, waiting for Ken and Stepek. It was cold, I should have worn a coat, but damn it, it was sunny this afternoon when I woke. I got that March/sun confusion thing - the long months of winter, any winter, erased themselves from my mind like a snowflake in the path a blowtorch. I scrambled around the apartment, hunting down morsels of food, wasting time, tripping over laces and by the time I got outside the sun had dropped out of sight. The wine had smelled fine and tasted divine, and so, with a flash, beneath my shirt it had gone. The guys arrived, my wine Ken spied, we finished it off. We went inside. Stepek began to berate me for my stupid drunken rhyming. He said, "Jonas, please stop fucking rhyming. Its embarrassing."

interruption, number 2 of 6

This one was a long time in coming. Waffle weather is almost over, certainly 'round these parts, but not over for good. They'll be back, along with a sprinkling of sugar. These ones were a little light on the chocolate sauce for my liking. It was pointed out to me last night that I have almost made the "year" mark with this blog, which I am quite pleased about, because making even a week was never likely. But here we are. Almost. I'll try and think of something interesting to say nearer the time, but for now ... let's just leave it at that I think...Ah yeah, you can find an incredibly short guest post I did over here, if that suits you.

interruption, number 1 of 6

I know what you're thinking. Where's today's photo? Jmarls80 left a comment yesterday asking me if that had been my photo attached to the post ... which it was. I think (although I cant be bothered looking) that all the photos on the blog are mine, I'm sure would have said if they weren't (oh, obviously not the Cindy Sherman photo way back at the start) . Where was I going with this? I'm drinking tea right now, which is useless. It makes me drowsy and forgetful .
The shark! That's right. No photo, just a shark. The shark was drawn by Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, a blog which must be viewed. I love it. There is something ... well, it's just brilliantly fucking nuts. Its either a work of artistic insanity or just genius. I cant decide. 
Also, ages ago ... this has no relevance to anything else I was saying by the way ... I decided to switch to Wordpress instead of Blogger, because, if you believe everything that seems to be written all over the place, Wordpress is a "grown up" "real" "professional" blogging system for "real" "professional" "grown up" people ... but I am here to tell you that it's not. It's terrible. It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever come across and seriously, if you are one of these people who think, "gee, I wish I had chosen Wordpress in the first place" then don't bother. It's awful. Choose any other blogging platform BUT wordpress.
What else ... 
*   *   *

Spurious lightning ...

It was Norf who developed and tuned that phrase. He said it often enough. One day he announced that it was his phrase, only to be used to describe those certain moments. 
We lay in a haze for what could have been days. 
I concluded that it couldn't be a phrase because it wasn't long enough. He assured me it was. There was no point in arguing and there was no desire to begin arguing because the bliss had yet to dim, the numbness was still a few hours off.
Those two words come back to me a lot though. I never did fully understand what he meant at the time - nothing we said meant much - but now I think that his phrase was perhaps a signal he was planting in my consciousness, a signal which would awake in my mind when I least expected it, to remind me of those days, to try to direct me back again.

I can't get it together

I cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together ic ant get it together i cant get it together ic ant eir it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it together ic ant get it togerthter i cant get it together ic ant get it gotgether i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant get it toger why i gcat get it togeterht i cant ger it together i cant get it together i cant get it together i cant gwt it together i cant get it together ic ant goet it togvdne

To explain why Hutch makes me want to leave my own apartment °8

° What's that? Its circular.

* It's goat's cheese

° Can I taste?

* Sure.

° Christ almighty Jonas, how can you eat this shit?

* I can't. I hate it. It's E's.

° How can she eat it?

* Well, she's foreign to us for a start. That means she can do loads of stuff we can't. Especially here in Paris.

° But ... Rachel is foreign to us as well, and she eats what I eat.

* Yes but she's foreign in a different way Ken. They're more like us. Can you get out of my refrigerator now please.

° Hang on. What's this?

* That's cheese as well.

° Christ Jonas, how many differ ... wait! Is this cheese too?

* Yep.

° Oh I'm not sure I can cope with all this, J. What's wrong with these people? I don't think I can deal with life abroad Jonas. This isn't going nearly as well as I'd foreseen. Never mind the cheese, have you seen how many people smoke? And I still can't find anywhere that sells cigarettes ... and people ask you for cigarettes on the street! People with cigarettes, while I have none. They actually ask me for cigarettes. J? Jonas? Where are you going? Come back!  

Zap that can

This was meant to be a photograph of my Zap Book, but the battery is dead in my camera, and its kinda late so the photo is random. Not that that's unusual, yeah? The one below was scavenged from the internet, which in fact marks a first for this blog. mHmm.

My Zap Book contains notes I have been scribbling down every now and then for the last couple of years. Its cover is yellow and black (such contrasting colors ... as soon as I saw it in the shop I could do nothing but buy the damn thing) Well, its full now, soft and crammed with weirdness, and so I am on the lookout for a notebook with the word Zoom on the cover.
This is the first thing I ever wrote in that Zap Book. I was flying from Paris to NYC at the time and it was the first time I decided to blend fiction and fact. This piece is the beginning of the novel I am working on .... right .... now!!
If you are here every so often you may remember this. Well, I finally took my own advice. It feels tremendous.
Ok, thats it .... Be nice now, y'hear????