Sunday, January 13, 2008

My ipod wouldn't play the title game, it gave me Dylan Thomas reading Paradise Lost.


The blinds in both rooms bang bang out of synch with each other. With the wind comes a hint of addictive sniffable chemicals. A day like this should smell of exhausted foliage and far off bushfires not of an over-heated factory. But the breeze is cooling and that alone makes up for the bang bang headache. Such pain could be caused by dehydration anyway and, on a day such as this, it is quite likely. I should drink more water but it’s unappealing. Had I a tub I would be lying in it, thinking, rather than sitting here, typing. Neither is productive but the bath would certainly make me happier on a day like today.

Neglect followed by a period of excessive interest and devotion and then laughter as the fish chases his tail round and round. He is determined to catch it, see, and maybe bite it or something. There is something disturbing in watching a creature make tight, fretful little circles. A hint of stress where there ought not be one. I am concerned about the fish. Did I remember to feed it? Have I fed it breakfast twice because I forgot? Has he enough room, that tank seems awfully small sometimes and he can’t exactly get out to stretch his fins, the internet tells me no but he seems mostly all right. During the week I’ll mostly forget all about him locked, as he is, in an overly warm and sometimes quite airless flat. The cycles of care and neglect worry me slightly, they say things about me that I’d rather forget. Worse, they encourage me to think of future and context and really I’m not sure. Some things, though, become obvious as I get older and I don’t know what to do about them. Maybe I should just accept.

I drank bad milk last night. A couple of gulps of tea that tasted of yoghurt before I worked it out and sighed for my lost cup. It was late and I was too hot and too lazy to dress and prowl the streets looking for a milk vendor. So I stayed unclothed and drank lime juice cordial which was neither tea-like nor champagne-like and therefore disappointing. I fretted a little about the spoiled milk. The sickest I’ve ever been was because of spoiled milk and I am usually very wary.

I haven’t made up my mind about today at all. Probably I shall do the same things I always do though I am enjoying it less and less. Even fun things become monotonous when you do them all the time. I wish for something other than this energy sapping heat. Lying on the couch beneath the banging blind letting the breeze waft over me and daydreaming seems almost like a plan. Oh how my daydreams are becoming unsustainable and how awful reality insists on intruding, it’s such a damn shame. But then, what’s the point of a daydream if not to take you far from the monotony of your days. Today, whatever it is, it will include air-conditioning. Oh I know it’s bad but I ache to sleep in an air-conditioned room all comfy and snuggled under a quilt. I should sleep well then and not be so constantly and rudely awaken by the beige boringness of the infants next door with their loud happy drink-drink-merriness and their dull conversation littered with silly and barely intelligible phrases. They know not what they speak and less still after a few bevvies. If it’s not them then it’s the sun. That sun is a cranky bitch who wakes up aggressively and wants to wake everyone with her. She pushes and nudges and burns until you crawl from your bed into the quiet cool of the shower. Once out she attacks you again and you spend the days running for cover before the burn prickle burn eats away at your skin again. With the sun come the birds, the less said the better. Things that wake early are inevitably annoying about wanting to share. I shall end now before I fall into a pit of annoyance. There is lazing to be done after all.

6 comments:

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

I used to live with a cat and three gels. Max would entreat every single housemate for breakfast, with such success that he'd sometimes get three breakfasts (each of us thinking he'd had none) and we had to institute a record keeping system - a book filled with "Max fed Tues a.m.", etc. Maybe that's what Fish needs.

Sorry about headache. Hope it's gone soon.

Shelley said...

Cats are such good actors and such greedy little pigs. If I had a cat I would probably overfeed it because it would probably encourage me too. I do with my aunt's cat when I look after him. For the purrs and the love he gets whatever he wants.

Beer has (temporarily, presumably) healed the head but the heat is back despite the rain. Damn summer. There must be a better way.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

"Cats are ... such greedy little pigs" has to be one of the best sentences I've seen this year.

Good for beer.

Shelley said...

I am now worried.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Don't you worry. I'm the one with the image of the cat-pig transgenic success story that I have to explain to everyone.

Shelley said...

Your average DSH tabby type of kitty is a perfect example.