I've started writing this in an absolutely foul mo...
I've started writing this in an absolutely foul mood. If you know me, you might like to click on to another blog.
'Nothing happening here. Time to go home. C'mon, move on please.'
Admittedly I'm in a bad mood for things that don't bear much examination.
1) My desk doesn't feel comfortable - nothing's where I want it to be.
2) Amazon entrust their deliveries to the Italian Post Service in Italy. I got an official note telling me that they had tried to deliver a parcel on Wednesday but hadn't succeeded so they would try again on Thursday. Did they fuck (I was at home). And not on Friday either - or at least, they didn't leave any of their officious notes. In that parcel is the latest Jackie Leven record. Okay, there are other things to listen to (and for your information I was listening to Rachmaninov this afternoon as I put together an offer for Telecom), but I wanted to listen to new songs by Jackie Leven and Poste Italiane can't manage to deliver.
3) I've got a new computer. Normally that new-computer-feeling lasts at least six months. 'Oh wow, I didn't know it could do that! Brilliant!' In this case not even two weeks have seen me through. Why did I say yes to Packard Bell for a second time? God, I feel such a slut. Please advise. No, don't. I wanted something new, and it was available, and my old one just wasn't doing it anymore, so I went for it. And now... Age doesn't make us any wiser.
Computers are okay as long as you don't expect to do anything with them, or anything to happen to them. See why geek-men don't have stable relationships? It takes a long time for sliced bread in a plastic wrapper to become inedible.
How can new computers be slow? How can their glossy screens attract so much dust? Why do external drives make exactly the same amount of noise as old computers' hard drives?
Could it be that writing with a pen is actually a more pleasurable experience? You get to think.
4) Above all, tomorrow we have a family wedding. (I'd started feeling complacent - eh, it only happens in retrospect, Vladimir, you were right - that we hadn't had to go to any for a while; of course now we're having to go to our generation's second weddings - not that I should complain, but at least I invited a different cast to mine.)
Weddings are dreadful wherever they happen (make your own list of reasons on a large piece of paper to the side of your computer now.... you can continue later, drunkenly, if you like).
But family weddings are even worse.
Why do you see people? Because you like them. You call them, you chat, you go out together, you talk, you arrange to do the same thing again.
Why do you only see family at funerals, weddings etc? Because you don't like them. You try not to meet them, ever.
It's the same as meetings. You don't have a meeting just because you want to meet up and have a good time (that's what pubs are for, for god's sake). You don't have a funeral just for the crack.
You don't have a wedding party to 'celebrate the marriage of flurp and flarp', you have it to get presents out of everyone and show off how utterly perfect you are.
Oh dear, I can feel appendicitis coming on. Well, I would if I had the courage. But I think I'd be dragged to this one even if I had cholera.
Of course it's all different in Italy, the land of ultra-happy families. The land where out-and-out fascism has never been seen as that bad a thing (yes, you there at the back, Fini, stand up and declare your position; and you, his friend in the centre - what do you think about it all?)
There'll be no family conflicts tomorrow. Oh no.
I tried working out what the various relatives are called with Valentina earlier on, in an unprecented burst of attempted assimilation. 'That cousin of yours you went to see in London, his wife...? And their children?' She couldn't be bothered; I'll just play with the children (which has resolved the 'which suit' question all of a sudden).
5) We get to go to Camogli in perfect weather but spend the time in suits having a meal instead of in jeans having an aperitivo with people we like, running onto the beach to throw stones into the waves.
So where do Giacomo and Davide come into this tolling of misery? Well, they rise above their father's pettiness for one thing. They're quite happy to go. (But I am working on that aspect of their characters; Davide is coming along quite nicely in cynical terms.)
'An ordinary miracle is all we really need / An ordinary miracle / You and me' (The Blue Nile)
'Life's a miracle', to quote P. McAloon. Cue fanfare. The world is made up of people who know the beginning of 'Faron Young' and those who don't. (Pa-pa - pa-pa-pa-pa - pa-pa-pa-pa... see?) It doesn't change the world but it makes it easier to divide it up.
Giacomo and Davide / Davide and Giacomo have started primary school. They're in different classes. They're happy. They argue about what happened, about who's in whose class. They look for each other, they look for each other's friends. They amaze me. At the same time, it's not that amazing that children of parents who conspicuously love each other are stable and happy. Life isn't that complicated.
I look down to the scratch pad I made the notes for this entry on. What do I want for Giacomo and Davide? I don't know.
To be helped more than I was, I think. (My father wasn't a very supportive figure.) To love each other, like I love Stephen (and I know that isn't up to me, so it really is a hope).
That they can walk into a pub in Newcastle and find it enjoyable. Not be entirely Italian.
I've finished this in a very good mood. Thank you, Paddy. (Hey, that's another story between my brother and me!)
'Nothing happening here. Time to go home. C'mon, move on please.'
Admittedly I'm in a bad mood for things that don't bear much examination.
1) My desk doesn't feel comfortable - nothing's where I want it to be.
2) Amazon entrust their deliveries to the Italian Post Service in Italy. I got an official note telling me that they had tried to deliver a parcel on Wednesday but hadn't succeeded so they would try again on Thursday. Did they fuck (I was at home). And not on Friday either - or at least, they didn't leave any of their officious notes. In that parcel is the latest Jackie Leven record. Okay, there are other things to listen to (and for your information I was listening to Rachmaninov this afternoon as I put together an offer for Telecom), but I wanted to listen to new songs by Jackie Leven and Poste Italiane can't manage to deliver.
3) I've got a new computer. Normally that new-computer-feeling lasts at least six months. 'Oh wow, I didn't know it could do that! Brilliant!' In this case not even two weeks have seen me through. Why did I say yes to Packard Bell for a second time? God, I feel such a slut. Please advise. No, don't. I wanted something new, and it was available, and my old one just wasn't doing it anymore, so I went for it. And now... Age doesn't make us any wiser.
Computers are okay as long as you don't expect to do anything with them, or anything to happen to them. See why geek-men don't have stable relationships? It takes a long time for sliced bread in a plastic wrapper to become inedible.
How can new computers be slow? How can their glossy screens attract so much dust? Why do external drives make exactly the same amount of noise as old computers' hard drives?
Could it be that writing with a pen is actually a more pleasurable experience? You get to think.
4) Above all, tomorrow we have a family wedding. (I'd started feeling complacent - eh, it only happens in retrospect, Vladimir, you were right - that we hadn't had to go to any for a while; of course now we're having to go to our generation's second weddings - not that I should complain, but at least I invited a different cast to mine.)
Weddings are dreadful wherever they happen (make your own list of reasons on a large piece of paper to the side of your computer now.... you can continue later, drunkenly, if you like).
But family weddings are even worse.
Why do you see people? Because you like them. You call them, you chat, you go out together, you talk, you arrange to do the same thing again.
Why do you only see family at funerals, weddings etc? Because you don't like them. You try not to meet them, ever.
It's the same as meetings. You don't have a meeting just because you want to meet up and have a good time (that's what pubs are for, for god's sake). You don't have a funeral just for the crack.
You don't have a wedding party to 'celebrate the marriage of flurp and flarp', you have it to get presents out of everyone and show off how utterly perfect you are.
Oh dear, I can feel appendicitis coming on. Well, I would if I had the courage. But I think I'd be dragged to this one even if I had cholera.
Of course it's all different in Italy, the land of ultra-happy families. The land where out-and-out fascism has never been seen as that bad a thing (yes, you there at the back, Fini, stand up and declare your position; and you, his friend in the centre - what do you think about it all?)
There'll be no family conflicts tomorrow. Oh no.
I tried working out what the various relatives are called with Valentina earlier on, in an unprecented burst of attempted assimilation. 'That cousin of yours you went to see in London, his wife...? And their children?' She couldn't be bothered; I'll just play with the children (which has resolved the 'which suit' question all of a sudden).
5) We get to go to Camogli in perfect weather but spend the time in suits having a meal instead of in jeans having an aperitivo with people we like, running onto the beach to throw stones into the waves.
So where do Giacomo and Davide come into this tolling of misery? Well, they rise above their father's pettiness for one thing. They're quite happy to go. (But I am working on that aspect of their characters; Davide is coming along quite nicely in cynical terms.)
'An ordinary miracle is all we really need / An ordinary miracle / You and me' (The Blue Nile)
'Life's a miracle', to quote P. McAloon. Cue fanfare. The world is made up of people who know the beginning of 'Faron Young' and those who don't. (Pa-pa - pa-pa-pa-pa - pa-pa-pa-pa... see?) It doesn't change the world but it makes it easier to divide it up.
Giacomo and Davide / Davide and Giacomo have started primary school. They're in different classes. They're happy. They argue about what happened, about who's in whose class. They look for each other, they look for each other's friends. They amaze me. At the same time, it's not that amazing that children of parents who conspicuously love each other are stable and happy. Life isn't that complicated.
I look down to the scratch pad I made the notes for this entry on. What do I want for Giacomo and Davide? I don't know.
To be helped more than I was, I think. (My father wasn't a very supportive figure.) To love each other, like I love Stephen (and I know that isn't up to me, so it really is a hope).
That they can walk into a pub in Newcastle and find it enjoyable. Not be entirely Italian.
I've finished this in a very good mood. Thank you, Paddy. (Hey, that's another story between my brother and me!)
