"Falling in love is glamorous hell" ('You', Carol Ann Duffy)

Three nights in a row I have woken up in the very early hours of morning thirsty and slightly numb. Each time I smiled to myself remembering the weight of his body. Today I actually pined for him - confused by his absence. Because I already know his touch so well and because we didn't leave each other's sight for nearly three days (after a quite frankly ridiculous acquaintanceship) the ache is all the more acute. I long to exercise some discipline on the anticipation - end the giddy lull of want.



I'm pleased this long weekend is nearly over. It's been monumental and at times unbearable, caught up in strange vibes and uncertain outcomes. The future is becoming more and more mysterious.

True faith

Last night we argued about religion and science again over their rum and my green tea. Today I baited a catholic nun with the tale of orpheus and the underworld after having detected the irksome scent of the moral & sexual high ground in her mention of Lot's wife and the pillar of salt. She'd informed the Traveller women that their story of an old woman who turned to stone after heedlessly trafficking with Satan was a reworking of the biblical tale, but was nonetheless dismissive of the greek legends, full as they are of 'monsters with two heads like that minotaur'.

I sat there in a room full of Irish Catholics feeling in turn vaguely guilty then glad I'd issued the challenge, before hearing the priest's tale about a Traveller man saving his life when he was being beaten by a gang of drug dealers. A bit of a fighter, the priest fought back for a while after they cornered him ... until he heard the approaching voices of the young people in whom he'd been instilling the confidence to tell the dealers to fuck off out of Gorton...

'If Jesus our saviour was crucified on the cross to redeem our sins, by God I can take a beating. These children can't see me fighting.'

A little while later he looked up from the pavement, through a river of blood in his eyes he said, to see the feet of Travelling man Jimmy Reynolds next to his face, pointing away from him as the man and his brothers formed a human shield repelling the attackers: pushing them away bodily as they came at him, again and again; saving his life he said.

The priest, a man large in stature and charisma, humour and irreverence, cried as he finished the parable, having learned of Jimmy Reynolds' death. He hung himself a year ago, the final desperate act in a lifetime of depression. I watched and listened as the story banished and absolved the anger and guilt of the women in the room, who still blame themselves for not listening to his appeals, assuming he still cried wolf when the pack was finally at his door.

The moment contained a palpable magic, healing and transformative.
Ho hum... and maybe I could learn a thing or two from Lot's wife and all; a woman frozen, looking back over her shoulder to what long ago turned to dust, lol

heart shaped box

It occurred to me as I was telling him about the box i'd had to make to put Irreversible in, that I was meant to be putting him in one; as per a friend's wise advice.

Putting it out of the way on top of the wardrobe or something until i've moved on; maybe getting it out occasionally to peek in when things are getting boring and i feel the need to pure myself out.

Irreversible is the only movie that ever kept me awake afterward, horrified, spinning... but what a good film.

Well thus far i have only a couple of pieces of mangy one ply and a positive frame of mind with which to try to erect some form of shoddy enclosure...