venerdì, novembre 10, 2006

I've been to Paradise AND to me. Hah.

Good Friday morning, doves. Not Good Friday in the sense of not eating meat today like the shining example of chaste Catholicism I am, but Good Friday in the sense of me not being able to fucking believe it's Friday when every day has felt like it should be Friday, all fucking week. I like Daylight Savings because it gives me more morning time, and I'm endlessly productive in the mornings, but it screws me blue when it comes to my perception of temporal reality.

Jiri, this is a shout-out to you. I just put on the mixed CD you gave me a few years back when we met up in Vienna and went off together. I miss you! The first track was that sort of theme from Velvet Goldmine, that Rhys Meyers lip-synchs and Thom Yorke tarts it all up on. And it's the strangest thing, but the opening chords brought me right back to leaving Prague on the bus and listening to the CD for the first time, and then back to second-year university when my mind was blown by the idea of Jonathon Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor getting it on while Thom Yorke sang.

I haven't had the most dramatic life ever, like, I haven't discovered a new country or ridden a camel or got nailed by two guys at once. But since I left home everything has been an exciting mess and I've never spent more than two years or so in any given city at a time (although it looks like I'll hit an even three in Toronto, or come close to it, by the time we leave. Or have I already? Fucking temporal distortions) and I've liked it that way. I think we'll look for a place to settle - but it'll be a place with alot of things around it.

However, it's left me feeling kind of schizo, having a hard time reconciling all these bits of life to each other. Friends help. It never feels unreal because I'm still close to people from all these bits of my life, and have got to know them in other bits of my life.

But without iconic music and, oddly enough, the occasional iconic smell - a waft of fabric softener that reminds me of an old sweetheart, high altitude snow, pastries being deep-fried, and of course reefer - I think there are parts of my life that would retreat into unreality. The risk is already there; it's why Jiri's CD can give my brain such a pleasant tug, re-acquaint it with lovely things that have happened before, and give it an appetite for more.

Sorry for the navel gaze. Next week I'll be rigorously reportive. Kisses.

14 commenti:

Melbine ha detto...

Thank you for reminding me of Velvet Goldmine! I rented that in third year and watched it about 20 times before taking it back!

It's funny that you mention Jiri's CD, I just had someone get in touch to tell me they found a mixed tape I made for them and how fab it still was.

Imagine if you were someone that didn't stay in touch with people from different parts of your life. I think that must create a huge disconnect..

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Or else be a symptom of a disconnect that's already there. There are lots of people I wish I'd kept in touch with, but I was too fucked up or stoned or whatever to remember. I'm lucky lots of my friends were patient with me during some nasty moods in my life!

Anonimo ha detto...

Jiri gave me a rocking cd back when I was in Japan and there is one song that he put on it (an arabic tune) that reminds me of the guy who was running the house I was staying in for one month and it was such a screwed up situation and he was such an ass to us - everyone was SO money grubbing and needed some reefer to get some perspective. The situation was bad but the dude and I were deliriously happy.

I lost touch with the one friend that I was keeping in touch with from Finland - the more time we spent writing the less we felt we knew each other and had little to say - the same is happening with a friend I met in Japan. The same thing happened years earlier when I went to Scotland with a group of kids when we were 16. At some point it all seems so useless. You don't know that person - you've both changed so much that the only thing you have in common was that you spent two weeks (Scotland) or nine months (Finland) in one place far from home and had a marvelous time. We weren't able to visit but if we had, would we have had anything to say to each other?

I still have memories of those places. I don't need to keep up a hollow friendship to think back fondly on those times. And they are so fundamental in forming who I am and how I see the world.

This isn't a comment - this is a post!

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

I've been lucky that I've been able to visit them, or vice versa. You need that occasional shock of feeling "oh, it feels like I saw you yesterday, how about that" for the friendship to survive, I think.

Melbine ha detto...

We all have those people that we wish we had stayed in touch with..and Sugarplum's right, there's no point keeping up with a hollow friendship..that's actually something I've had to learn over the years. I like to collect people. :)

Anyway, I know who my true friends are because of that exact 'it feels like I saw you yesterday' feeling. That's such a clue to your relatonship..

Anonimo ha detto...

I agree. I'll be seeing the friend from Washington at the wedding, I hope.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

The wedding will be crazy. I can't wait!

Anonimo ha detto...

Hmmm. I hope it is crazy good and not crazy - my family is nuts! I'm afraid it will be a little bit of both.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

I think I'm your biggest bridesmaid, so I'll be a bouncer, if you want.

Anonimo ha detto...

Hey Misstress, thanks for the shout! I miss you too... I miss everybody, actually. Maybe slipping into unreality is an everpresent danger. But then again, when are our lives completely real? Friends are important, eh?

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Friends are the anchors that stop our heads from floating right off. Or else our necks are. I'm never sure which.

I find my life is most completely real at the moments of greatest pain or pleasure. That's probably not a healthy way to live so I'm going to do something about it . . . what, I don't know.

Anonimo ha detto...

I think everybody is like that. I don't think there's anything strange about that, but maybe we make the ordinary moments of our life more unreal and blurry than they normally would be because we're always so busy doing so many things at once.

The Outer Church ha detto...

Hey!!! I wanna make you a mix CD!!! It's a great way to relax.

Maybe I should look into this podcasting shiznit...

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Jiri, I think we've been trained a little bit to ignore ordinary moments on the assumption they're just filler until the climax of the two-hour after school special slams in. And then we die. Oops.

Mess, you TOTALLY should! The mixed CD lists you post make me jealous.

Sigh . . . I haven't made mixed CDs since last Christmas. I should get on that for this Christmas. It is a good way to relax. Like anti-entropy that's fun.