Weekend

I stretched out on the couch to write this and my feet touched something. Don't worry though. I know this sounds like the beginning of one of the very bad things you have to tolerate being told about here in order to play bazlotto, but it's actually good: my feet touched a book, one I had been looking for earlier. This is still not a house it which it is possible to lose things or even to not be entirely certain where they are. The book had not been in either of the two places I'd expected it to be: not inside my bed and not on the shelf where I keep library books. So I'd been a bit puzzled and also, stupidly, sort of pleased at not being able to find something. When I got up in the morning I had sat down to do something that involved using a ruler. You and I have known each other for a long time, haven't we, blog, and so you will appreciate that I'm not just saying this in a crude attempt to create an effect, but I was actually a little depressed this morning that I knew exactly where in the house to go to find all three of the rulers in it. One clear plastic, one wood, one steel, like in a fairytale: I was a bit sad and also a bit sad at myself for being sad.

So the book, The Disaster Artist, was, as they say, 'on the wrong side of the blanket', ie underneath the couch blanket, where it couldn't be seen.* I was going to write about what happened yesterday but I think I may have missed the moment now. It's all so long ago, over and done with, why rake it up all over again?

I woke up early, and felt strangely healthy and energetic given that I had drunk far too much the night before, got home very late and gone to bed without cleaning my teeth or washing my face. I have no memory of doing it but before I went to sleep (or at some point after, possibly) I seem to have videoed a vein pulsing in my throat. I do remember getting into bed and crossly thinking 'I'm going to sleep in this necklace and I don't care if it chokes me.' Quotation marks there signify that I actually thought out that sentence in words, as opposed to the half-formed fragments that make up the ordinary inner stream of consciousness. The best person I've ever worked alongside of finished up on Friday and while that's no excuse for getting drunk, I have felt a bit reckless and aggravated and work tomorrow is going to be dismal.

What I have to say about this pulsing vein thing is the entire reason for writing today. When I saw it in my phone I was almost afraid. I went a bit cold. The not remembering element is partly why: I always remember everything, always, even things that I want to forget, even tiny meaningless things, things that went down in a fog of exhaustion or of consciousness-altering substances, things that are boring. So that's strange. Also the content of the video was instantly troubling; it reminded me irresistibly of the ending of Beau Travail. And then of a vein I saw pulsing in someone else's shoulder about a month ago, a very small memory with unfathomable associations. Just by itself that dissonance would be disconcerting enough. Not remembering when or why I did this is even more so. I've buried the description of this episode in the middle of what is otherwise a very boring and badly written post. I just want to have it recorded. I am not going to try to understand what happened. And I really did wake up feeling physically lively and vital and that feeling lasted all the rest of the day.

Well, when I got up I went and ate breakfast around the corner with S & V. The bakery does this smooth gingery rice and seaweed congee with an egg in it which is just the most delicious food medicine type dish ever created. They gave me a lift up to Sydney Rd where I collected my bike from the repair shop; the essential work that was done on it came to $245 and there is another $150 or so of work needs to be done soon. When that's happened, everything on the bike will have been replaced other than the actual frame and the wheels.  I have done nearly twenty thousand kilometres on that bicycle. I wandered round Savers for a bit, wanting to buy a whole lot of drinking glasses with gold rims, but I didn't. I looked at a stack of tempered glass mixing bowls and thought I could really use some more of those, but I was too bored to actually pick one up and carry it to the till. I looked at the egg cups and as usual I didn't see even one that met my high and stringent egg cup standards. I did buy The Moroccan Soup Bar cookbook. I didn't have any cookbooks at all before buying that one.

I did a little bit of food shopping and went home and cleaned the floor and the bathroom, then S came around and we drank tea and knitted and talked for a couple of hours. I finished a pair of vermilion fingerless gloves I've had on the needles for two months. Then I did the last step in this fermented lime pickle recipe that takes weeks to get good and gloopy.  It smells utterly excellent. Then I got out the sewing machine and did some more of that liquorice allsorts dress. It's almost finished - just needs to be taken in a bit down the centre back and properly hemmed.  Then I changed my clothes and walked up the road to a wine bar where I was going to meet a man I know slightly for a drink.  He did not arrive at the agreed time so I waited a while then texted him, and he said he'd had it in his diary for Sunday. So I drank a glass of wine on my own and went home. Then he called and said he felt bad and wanted to buy me dinner. So I went out for dinner with him, despite being halfway through cooking a very nice smelling spinach and eggplant curry which is still half-cooked in the fridge, and the dinner was OK, but only OK. I was home in bed by 9:30, reading Emma and wondering again how Jane Austen got to be the way she was.

Today I feel tired and flat, like I might be coming down with something. Frankly, I wouldn't mind getting sick if it meant I could hang about at home quietly for a few days, although if i do get sick of course I will whine about it like there's no tomorrow. I don't know why everything I write is coming out fully formed into cliches today.  I still did the regular weekly cleaning and washing; I drew for a couple of hours in the morning and rode my bike down to Edgar's Creek for a bit of air and sunlight; I've made pizza dough and an apple crumble and written part of a job application. Lenny will be here in half an hour.


* Give me some fucking credit.