More fear
Monday, June 28, 2004 , 12:40 PM
It’s funny that I’m afraid of writing short stories but I’m comfortable writing whole books. I went to The Elephant House again last night, drank wine, and wrote nothing at all. Instead, I planned out my life ahead. I want to live on a cargo ship at some point in my life, just for a couple of months, and do my work from there. Anyone know how I can do that? I also want to self-publish my second book in some dirt-cheap way. So if you know of any print shops in India or someplace, let me know.
I’m in the library near my house, just getting into my work for the day. I’m having a very late start because I was out kicking up my heels with friends last night. We had a great time, dancing, drinking, and generally being irresponsible. I’ve got responsibility nailed; it’s the other that’s the challenge for me.
There were so many types of social connections there last night: old friends, new friends, cute friends-of-friends to be a little bit inappropriate with.
Last night, I also ran into the guy I’d dated for a few days. It was a bit awkward, but you know, I don’t want to talk about that stuff here. Doesn’t seem right.
Dating, I find, is finally getting easier as I get older. I don’t need anyone. The only one who can save me is me, and I’m on it. I’ve had several important people pass through my life, and I accept now that love is not a perennial flower, but an annual one, beautiful, but just for a season. You can’t fight a rose.
Right, now into work. I’m committed to really showing up on the page today, so it’s time to turn on and bring my whole self to what I’m working on.
Cute librarian. Good Lord, will this never end? It must be summer.
Fear and desire
Saturday, June 26, 2004 , 10:21 PM
I’m sitting in The Elephant House, enjoying my second glass of red wine. I had a light supper here, and the wine was two-for-one when I ordered. I couldn’t refuse.
On Thursday night, I went to a neat event called “Place”. It was a discussion that went live to air on the BBC, discussing how architecture forms our sense of space and our sense of ourselves. It was held in the Old St. Paul’s church, a wonderfully dark and black old kirk underneath the bridge that stretches from the Old Town to the New Town. The presentation was in conjunction with an art exhibit at the Fruitmarket Gallery across the road, which features 286 scale cardboard models of the churches around Edinburgh that are listed in the Yellow Pages. It’s quite amazing, these little brown building-block-like structures all around your feet in the white gallery space. Even the cardboard smell added something to the exhibit’s impact.
When I heard about this talk, I knew I had to go, even though it was a tenner — a bit steep for a one-hour talk. This is exactly what Idea in Stone was about, our cities as concretised thoughts, reflections of ourselves, co-creators of our experience and sense of ourselves. The panelists were the artist who created the cardboard exhibit, an architect who designed the few modern buildings in Edinburgh that I actually admire, and two commentators on architecture. The talk was really engaging, taking place in that rarified academic sort of air that I’d been longing for earlier in the week when thinking about taking a university course online, full of terms and concepts about architecture that I’d never heard or considered before. All the while, though, the discussion stayed lively, passionate, and relevant, as any conversation about architecture in this incredible city is.
Before the event started, I stood in the church hall (which I’d surveyed as a possible space for my reading series a while back), thinking about how much time I spend so much time on my own. I’m interested in these sorts of events and ideas, I thought, but I don’t know many other people who are. Because the universe is showing a particularly sharp sense of humour lately, in the next instant I spotted a friend of mine, Wendy, with her shaven head and small, pretty face, in a black outfit that flared out into a skirt and made contact with the ground through big, angular boots.
Wendy lights me up. Her thoughts are challenging, encouraging, and inspiring. Our talk about the things discussed in the program/dialogue continued to the wine and hors d’oeurves party afterward at the gallery, then back to her house, where she made me a lovely pasta and we talked until it was suddenly late.
Strangely, though, the panelists didn’t the quite address things I pointed to in my book. While I felt like an ignoramus during the talk for not having any education in architecture or having explored any of the existing thought on the subject, I did feel glad that I hit on something that I think is a very important question for this city, and that I hadn’t made any horrible, obvious mistakes in approaching it.
Last night, I had another experience of the city that reinforced my love for it. After work, I met up with my friend Karen. (I hadn’t heard anything from any of the rest of the Friday gang.) We bought Czech beer and sat in Greyfriars Cemetery on the grass, talking about everything under the sun — that is, while sitting under the sun.
I love that drinking in public isn’t illegal here. Being disruptive in public, sure that should be an issue. But I think it’s so civilised that people are trusted to be able to drink responsibly (even though folks here have a bit of a hard time keeping from urinating and vomiting on things when under the influence).
From the park, we moved to The Meadows, where we had another while watching some students play football. After that, we went to Karen’s amazing flat, where we sat on her roof, a huge expanse of slate with lead seams punctuated with chimney-pots and skylights. We looked out over Edinburgh’s roofs, those skyward points, and at the crags beyond. The clouds overhead were broken and white in front of a sky that faded from blue to yellow to pink. When I say I love this city, I mean it. The feeling I have for the place is nothing short of romantic.
Today I faffed about, doing next to nothing for the whole day. It was nice to have a “Free Day”, as we say at work. Well, except for one thing: I hate them. I fear them. I finally had to flee the house, and I walked, almost panicked, for an hour. Then I remembered something Wendy said on Thursday night. We were talking about sacred spaces, tranquility, and stillness. She told me that she’s developed a habit when she finds herself in this kind of a panic of stopping and asking herself “What is the fear? What is the desire?” So tonight I came here to The Elephant House to have a bite to eat and to scribble out some thoughts on paper.
I asked myself what the fear was. It was about having days that don’t amount to anything, that don’t move my life forward. Every day must have a point, right? Of course, I know this is silly, but still I feel this constant urge to do things that have purpose. Creating, that feels purposeful, and always brings rest to my soul. So the desire was clearly to use my time to the hilt, to make it count, to do something that would move things forward. There’s something else under there about belonging, about not being alone, but I figure that’s just the background noise of being human.
When I finished this navel-gazing and my panino and two glasses of wine arrived, I unfolded a fresh piece of paper from my pocket and spent the next hour outlining a short story. It’s been in my head for a while, but something has been intimidating me, keeping me from getting started on any non-novel-related work. But I soon found myself caught up in creating a unique character and set of circumstances that I could get behind. Now I’ve got this spider-web of ink on the page in front of me, and I think the story is fucking brilliant.
Time to guzzle my wine and get out of here.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004 , 4:55 PM
This is a fun website, though I’ve hardly got the money to go and buy all their recommendations:
http://www.cdbaby.com
They use unusual categories to help you find your way through the sea of independent musicians, like:
“Naked on CD cover”
“Road trips”
“Depressed? Stay depressed!”
“To drink a pint to”
“Sick of all normal music”
“Unrequited lovesongs”
Film soundtracks for imaginary movies”
…and so on.
Great categories! I wish I could just download a whole section at a time.
Instead, since I’m doing some more research into the music industry for my editor, I’m downloading a bunch of free stuff from independent artists on other websites. Here’s one of them:
Peoplesound.com
http://www.peoplesound.com/index.htm
I wish I could have nothing but legal music loaded into my iPAQ, but the sad truth is that most of the free stuff is crap. It can’t ALL be, though, right? I believe in self-publishing, and don’t think it always means “Can’t get published elsewhere”, so surely there are some good musicians who are consciously choosing to avoid an industry that’s overrun with payolas and uncreative, market-driven thinking.
I’ll let you know if I find them.
Poetry
, 10:37 AM
You remember how I was saying the other day that everyone you get involved with romantically leaves a little piece of themselves in your character? (Or, perhaps, that we adopt bits of everyone we’re touched by that way.) The guy I saw over the weekend (my Lord, how silly that sounds) wrote me a poem to express his feelings about losing the possibility of an “us”.
Now, when people say “Oh, I write poetry,” I feel a sense of dread, sure that in the next moment they’re going to show it to me. I believe everyone’s life is full of poetry, and that everyone has the right to claim words for themselves to capture their experience. But that doesn’t make it poetry — even if it is presented on broken lines. In other words, a lot of people write bad poetry. Like me: I’m very happy with my prose, but I wouldn’t dare call myself a poet. I just don’t have that gift.
The wonderful thing about the poem this lad sent me is…it was good! The lines contained little internal rhymes and catches, a cleverness that took me by the hand and showed me things. Of course, I had a moment of wondering if I’d made a mistake. But appreciating someone’s cleverness and originality is not the same as us having compatible lives.
Last night, I found myself tripping through the web, asking it to send me some more good poetry. I stumbled into MIT’s OpenCourseware project, which lays out — for free — a complete curriculum for subjects spanning from science to art. I contemplated for a moment going back to school on my own, doing all the course readings and writing the essays for a literature or creative writing class. But when I read the assignments, I realised that they were designed for beginning university students, unfamiliar with their voice, to them them how to think on the page. I know that Hemingway said of writing “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master,” but my learning-about-writing is at a different level than that now. Also, I know I’m worried about the airy silence coming from my creative cave lately. It’s far, far too easy to hide in the echoey halls of academia instead of doing my own work. The challenge right now is that I think it’s not time for me to be writing. I’m supposed to be ingesting stories and living for myself.
One website I did find, though, which satisfied my hunger for more poetry, is this one at The University of Toronto Libraries.
It’s an enormous electronic bookshelf full of eminent English poets and their poems. Some of them are dusty, like colourless, brittle old flowers. Some of them, though, are like bulls running down a street with wild animal blood pumping through their veins. They may be old enough to be in the public domain, but they can still knock you down and give you a bloody nose. It’s inspiring to hear that passion as it’s preserved in twists and folds of perfect words, to be shown new ways of thinking by people who aren’t even alive anymore. Writing is truly a miracle.
So I have some reading to do, and yet another person to thank for their contribution to my life.
P.S. Ooh! I found something else that I think is great, too: an RSS feed (a kind of electronic news clipping service) of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Each day, they send one page from the book. Yeah, it’ll take forever, but that’s how I got through the Bible years and years ago (creation, all those begats, all the vengeful wars, the traipsing through the desert, the locusts and honey, the end of time, etc).
I started my subscription yesterday, and I’m enjoying it so far. The only way to approach it, I figure, is as a story. I have to forget all the things people have said to me about it through the years (like “It’s impossible to read!”).
Monday, June 21, 2004 , 6:45 PM
I dumped someone today, someone perfectly nice. What a foolish thing to do, yet it made sense. Makes sense. He’s 14 years younger than me, which I suppose isridiculous. (Your distant laughter seconds that motion.) Is that why I broke up with him? That is, if it could even be called “breaking up” after only four days. I don’t know. In these situations, my heart just tells me what’s so. In this case, it told me I had nothing to give, much as I liked his company.
I bunked off work for a few hours this afternoon (which I have to make up now) to find him in town and have “The Talk” with him. I hated doing it, and felt like crap about it, but all I know with this dating thing is that I have to be honest. It’s the only way to be, for me and for the other guy. He took it very well, though he confessed in a text message later that he felt gutted. And he doubted that we’d be friends. Fair enough: that so seldom happens anyway, despite our insistences at the time.
I really shouldn’t go out on the scene, and I really shouldn’t engage other people if I don’t know what my intentions are. It’s not fair.
My mother jokingly called me a slut when we spoke on the weekend. There’s really no describing the gay life to anyone. I went through to Glasgow on the weekend and went out on the town with two friends, and the whole thing felt completely alien to me, too. I hated it, and wanted nothing to do with it. Pride Scotia was on — a bunch of tents in a muddy field — and the crowd spilling out from that into the club we were at just intensified all the worst bits of the scene. Silly music, foolish people — like a fashion show in the shallow end of the pool of life.
Simplicity. That’s what I want for the next little while. Nothing but simplicity.
Thursday, June 17, 2004 , 4:32 PM
I have an inverse-Arthurian microwave: the buttons work for everyone but me.
Defenestration
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 , 10:33 PM
Every person I’ve been romantically involved with has left me a gift. Not a physical gift, but a piece of themselves that I’ve taken on quite unconsciously. I read once that we do this in an attempt to become the whole relationship unto ourselves when we can no longer be with someone.
David taught me to stick my head and shoulders out the window and enjoy the view. I’ve learned to ‘be’ with my neighbourhood. In fact, because it’s warmer now and my flat isn’t freezing all the time, I’ve taken to leaving the window open and enjoying the cool touch of the air.
It’s night. The sky is the darkest navy before black. The sun goes down late and comes up early now. A streetlight pokes out from the side of a building across the street, right over the sauna (which I presume is a euphemism for “whorehouse”, but I’ll never know). The long, stone walls of the tenements are covered in windows. A pack of twentysomethings are walking up the middle of the street with carry-bags that probably contain drink, and one of them has a guitar. The asphalt is wet from a rain shower that’s over, and the street looks soft, like chocolate cake with a white divider-line.
I’m going back to my window for a while…
, 6:40 PM
I was looking for reference photos for a series of illustrations I’m doing for work, and I came across this:
http://www.kynn.com/photos/2003/05/hello-dolly/
I’ve no idea who this woman is (such is the strange sort of relationship we humans have to each other over the ‘net), but someone has compiled all the photographs from her life — right up to the end! — in one place. What a simple grace there is in the span of of human life. She’s no one; it doesn’t matter at all. But to see her face in each of these photographs, her changing outfits, her hairdos, the family friends, the children, the graduations, the marriages — it’s life, whole and entire, right there, and it means everything.
, 12:00 PM
Stuff has been breaking this week. My portable keyboard broke, so I’ve been stuck working at home — EEK! And my glasses broke, again. So I bought a new keyboard, and yesterday after work I went out to shop for glasses. It’s pretty frustrating, ’cause I’ve just finished paying off the others. Sure enough, the new ones are damned expensive, too. I seem to have a big head, ’cause all the cheap ones look really squinty on me. Most designs don’t work with my face, too: they either commandeer my face and look ridiculous, or else they just vanish. Happily, I did find some that work, a return to my old, heavy “author glasses” look (which is a bit scary since I’ve been away from it for a while). I also got a different pair for sunglasses. Yellow sunglasses. When I used to do multimedia work, I always looked forward to the time when I was just a writer, and didn’t have to have glasses that worked for doing colour correction and matching. Now I’m a writer, and I can whatever I want. There’s some stuff I can wear that I call “Famous Hamish” style — the look I’d have if I’d ‘made it’. I figure it’s more fun to live as that guy now.
I liked the man who gave me my eye test last night. Notliked-liked him; I just enjoyed that he really knew what he was doing and was thorough. It’s always fun to talk to people about things they do well and enjoy doing. He reviewed my prescription, and knew about a filter he could add that would keep me from having that cross-eyed feeling whenever I first put on my specs. Smart people are cool.
I don’t leave for Canada until next month, yet I feel like I’m there already. I left a big life behind there, and it’s calling to me. There’s already a party planned for the day after I arrive, which is sweet. I walked home last night after doing dinner and a movie with a friend of mine, looking at buildings with round stone walls, turrets, and pointy peaks, then out at the silhouette of Arthur’s Seat, that volcanic cliff that sits beside the city like a huge, trusty dog. All the while, I had a feeling like I was getting to visit Europe, only there was no rush. So there’s no way I’m not coming back here. But I’m looking forward to walking through the streets of my memories and hanging out with my old friends.
Sunday, June 13, 2004 , 9:26 PM
Last night I went out to a club and had an awful time.
It’s bad when you go out and you really want to meet someone — either to win the lusty attraction game and ‘pull’, or to go for the big stuffed panda at the fair: true love — and you fail to do either.
I wonder if it’s worse, though, to be where I was last night: not wanting anyone and having other people want me. I suppose it sounds terribly arrogant to even address this, but it was pointed out to me by a friend I was out with. “I hate going out with you, because everyone looks at you.” Now, I’m not so sure about this, because when I’m out in places like this, these big gay-life-a-go-go affairs, I feel like a different form of life from everyone else there. Everyone gets excited when Madonna or Brittney comes on, their hands float up into the air, and they start mouthing the words, each taking centre stage in their imaginary feature act. Next to their expensive clothes and two-toned, gravity-defying coiffs, I feel plain and sensible — and kinda like it! How could I be what they want?
It started early in the evening, with a fellow making a surprised “Wow!” face and pointing at me. This was the one who, out of his head the last time I was at a club, slurred to me “I know who you are. You’re a writer. I’ve read your work!” He used this as an excuse to paw me whilst making the observation. He was out of his head again last night. I wonder if he’d recognise me sober.
I’d met up with friends to go out for the night, and another friend showed up at the first bar we went to (you know, the one you do your early drinking at). Okay, the ‘friend’ was someone with whom I’d been on a date once that culminated in our sleeping together. I knew from the second I saw him last night and he squinted his eyes at me that he thought it was a foregone conclusion that we’d end up in bed together again.
He was wrong.
I won’t criticise him. It wasn’t about that. In fact, the whole evening turned into an avoidance-of-cruelty act. My friends and I went to a shag tag night (where everyone wears a number, and strangers can leave messages for each other on a board). For starters, it was overpriced — five quid for its launch night. The numbers were hand-written peel-off stickers, the board was a bunch of slapped-up sticky notes, and my pint of (blyeech) full-priced Carlsberg came in a plastic glass. (Even the words show how wrong this is: it can’t be a plastic glass.) For the launch of a new club night, it was — well, it was exactly the same as every other night I’d been to at this venue.
So what was I doing there, being out with a bunch of people under the premise of being a number to be courted by other numbers, when I had no interest in sleeping with or falling in love with anyone?
Gay people are masochists. We want what we can’t have. Like straight boys. In being uninterested, I guess I sent off “I’m not available” vibes, instantly rendering me abnormally attractive.
Perhaps it’s a Canadian thing, or maybe it’s just me, but I can’t be willingly mean to people. I spent the night out with friends, two of whom wanted to be with me. From the get-go, I was conscious of not wanting to show interest in anyone else and hurt their feelings. Then there were the numbered strangers (one of whom sent me a lovely note saying “I fancy you rotton” — sic). The one friend already knew where I was standing, so I had to get out the rifle of honesty and let the other one know, too: “I don’t want to have sex with anyone tonight.” (Okay, I substituted rock-salt for buckshot in saying “anyone” instead of saying “you”, but both were true.)
I suppose there was one guy there I was moderately attracted to, someone older, because I’m dead tired of crazy twentysomethings. Two of my friends sent him a note on my behalf, that old junior high tactic. (“No! You didn’t! What did he say?”) Apparently he was watching me after that. This would have been good, except that the date-shag friend chose that moment to lay a lingering kiss on me to see if I really didn’t want to sleep with him. I couldn’t stiffen my lips or pull away before Mr Maybe saw. So that was that. Just as well, too, because I didn’t really want to play the courting game.
I did spot Johnny “Rotton” just before leaving. I felt like I should be polite to him and say thanks for the sweet note — since my night was about being polite to everyone — except I didn’t fancy him, and talking to him would be a prelude to… Well, something I didn’t want.
The music was also utter shite. I’d suffered through that DJ’s work on Tuesday, and I knew just from listening — later confirmed by seeing his name on a poster — that it was the same guy last night. He played The Gay Songbook cover to cover, repeating the choice bits of pop-diva saccharine twice. I hate all that crap. He did play the one song that’s on the radio right now that I like, except he played a sped-up, club version of it in which they kill the natural beat of the song with a bunny-on-speed disco beat.
We’re supposed to go after love. But why? What’s it do? What’s it for? Is it not the world’s biggest distraction, so we don’t create, so we don’t notice injustice, so we spend everything on clothes and drinks and beauty products and never take a moment to find peace within ourselves? Why would we do that? Who does that benefit?
“Oh, but love is so…” Whatever. I’ve already had it. It’s nice. But it wears off, then people bitch to me about the people they’re seeing, the ones they swooned over three weeks before. Or the people I like get distracted and take off, or I show too much of myself — God forbid — and that ends it.
There’s a big space opens up when I take my attention off the pursuit of love. It’s freeing, and feels good. Now what am I going to build in that space?
P.S. Friday night, on the other hand, was a good night out. I don’t normally like going to comedy clubs, but Liz suggested it, and I was in exactly the right mood for it. Three of the acts were just great, really entertaining. One was frightening; we the audience were put in the position of being concerned for him, which is never good. Liz did an excellent job of summarising the evening in her blog.
Monday, June 07, 2004 , 10:18 AM
I had the loveliest Sunday yesterday, playing with friends on one of the hills in Holyrood Park. It was the kind of fun I used to have during the summer break from school, where the day just organises itself and your friends are all the entertainment you need.
The outing was Liz’s brainchild, and she’s posted pictures of it.
Saturday, June 05, 2004 , 9:05 PM
Well, I ended the romance today. It was more of a referee call than a decision: the fella did a vanishing act again this week, so that, as far as I’m concerned, is that. I said it was fun, thanks, he’s a great guy, I wish him the best. I did this by text message — not very personal, but it’s not like I’m going to see the guy. I’d rather be on my own and happy than on my own and wondering where the hell some guy is or what he’s thinking.
I realise that this might have gone on longer, that there might have been a chance for it if I’d just left it to simmer. But I don’t operate that way. That isn’t how I’d want to do this, visiting it from time to time. Not that I want to be attached at the hip with someone — that would bug me — but anything worth doing is worth doing in a committed way. Call me crazy, but I thought being interested in someone meant that you’re actually interested in them.
I didn’t plan for it to be like this, for me to spend my life on my own this way. But this is how it’s turned out. I’m okay. I’m happy that I’m still willing to leap when the opportunity presents itself. I just keep finding that I’ve jumped and my parachute is open, but the other guy stayed on the plane. So I land, pack up my chute, and get on with what I’m supposed to be doing.
~
Last weekend I sent out two manuscript submissions — a query letter, synopsis of the book, and the first three chapters. Yesterday I got word back from one of the publishers, the Scottish one, that they wanted to see the rest of the manuscript. It really only means that; there’s no guarantee at this point that they’ll want to publish the book. But it’s still a triumph for me as a writer to even get this far in the process.
I feel like I shouldn’t talk about this, but, as my buddy Cosgrove said the other day, “To hell with being superstitious. If our words had that much power, I’d be a millionaire with a ten-inch dick.”
…Though having an editor like my chapters kinda feels like that.
~
I walked around the city and did some shopping this afternoon after doing more research on publishers and markets. I was in a great mood, listening to music, enjoying the warm air. A few musicians were playing along narrow Rose Street.
Life is good, even if it doesn’t look like the pictures.
Speaking of which, I had to get more passport photos for my application to have my passport updated with a “Right of Abode” certificate. This is the most recent photograph of me.
Sneaks
Wednesday, June 02, 2004 , 2:41 PM
I bought new sneakers yesterday (trainers, runners, tennis shoes — whatever you call them). For a while now I’ve been feeling like I don’t want to wear sensible shoes. I want shoes that make me bounce, that express the fact that I have a kooky lifestyle and am allowed to wear whatever I want. So I was thrilled when I went out yesterday and found exactly the kind of shoes I wanted, and they were half the price I expected to pay. (I’m cheap when it comes to clothing; I want it plain, no brand names. Clothes are supposed to highlight me, not turn me into a billboard.) I bounced over to supper with my friend Sheila at Palmyra Pizza (who serve great Lebanese food), bounced to a movie (Harry Potter — skip it; you’ve already seen it), then bounced home to bed.
My shoes gave me nightmares.
It wasn’t just any nightmare I had this morning, but an Actor’s Nightmare. I was at my grade school, surrounded by friends from my current life and a huge audience of people, and my theatre school class was set to put on a production of a play we had never rehearsed. We were also supposed to supply our own costume, which I didn’t know. It was a drawing-room comedy sort of show, and I was to wear a suit. All I had to wear on my feet, though, were these balloony skateboarder shoes I bought. My first-year acting professor flitted into the room, frolicking despite his size and roundness, making witty remarks to introduce the show that the audience laughed at, not knowing what a tyrant he was. He hadn’t seen my shoes yet. This was the man who admonished us all to wear “grown-up” shoes, since we aspired to playing grown-up parts. He was headed my way…
~
<
p>This weekend, my mum told me that our family dog died. The dog was old, and was growing deaf, lumpy, and smelly. Still, though, I found it sad and had a cry for him. He’s been like a mascot, a feature in all our family photos for the last thirteen years. I don’t know how my dad is going to fill his time, now that he won’t have to take the dog for regular walks starting at 5AM.
