20 June 2011

a dog named lucas, lucas phoneless, weekend larks

I've met a dog with the same name I have; a grey 'scotty' dog, big whiskers. More than almost anything else, he seems to love licking my feet - I'm reminded of an approximation my dad's words: "dogs have a delightful disrespect for the disgusting".

Last weekend's blur started with friday night of tense but amusing Hitchcock, in 3D! 'dial M for murder' a thriller/mystery delight; carefully unfolding plot, pulling me to and from a grim murder-minded character. It all ends happily, but I'm still a staggering zombie stunned walking out the cinema. Recovered by way of drinks at an enthusiastic music mad and ball-guided frenchman's loft-like apartment. Saturday rolls on and I make my way to a cheeze-party in Central Park. Cheese, wine and a random guy who makes a mean mojito cocktail throws the party into a slurring, happy, basking in the sun til the afternoon ends and I loose my phone. Amazingly I feel no loss for the phone; a little worry about someone using my phone, but I call up and cancel it and it's like I never had one again.

So I'm thrown back to my days before telephone; even more so perhaps now that I have no home phone either. It's a strange sense, loosing the power of instant communication. But I've ordered a swanky and new smart machine that looks like an Ian Banks spacecraft. It'll take some days to arrive, and then I'll finally arrive into the universe of my work-peers. So, until then, I'm email and silences.

Sunday I dance in Union square. There's a man in a bin watching everyone, and there's another man watching the man in a bin too. I dance on.

11 June 2011

return of the ceiling, my gnome, on a hot hot day

It's been getting hot; the kind of heat that tickles you all over as little droplets of sweat magic themselves all over you, as if you are melting, your body slowly trickling its way home, back to the ocean.

My flat feels like it is haunted by little gnomes. When I'm at work, the sneak in; sometimes they break things: a blind here, a light-bulb there; they stomp about in big boots and leave dusty prints too. But I feel strangely fond of them as they, bit by bit, also magic a bathroom a new ceiling. To be honest it looked more interesting before with the wood and pipes. Just the light is missing now on the white ceiling.

At work, I feel like a gnome, trialing away at bits and pieces, enjoying it more as I find a good pace, and find myself able to contribute. This week has been paper reading, reviewing, and come 5pm, I go to practice Aikido in the furnace, land of foot smells. Then back to work for a little longer, perhaps having some food there. It's been a social time recently too; parties on roof-tops, barbeques, conceptual art in the form of rent-a-burka, and indulgent luxurious lie-ins.

3 June 2011

Zombie rabbits and bathroom ceilings

There's a shop around the corner that, as far as I can tell, caters to the desires of killer-zombie-rabbits...

It's a curios thing, a bathroom ceiling. Mine had developed a bulbous shape which I told the 'superintendent' of our building about. One day a crowd of men came to look at it, "water!" they exclaimed and ran away. A week later, I find I have no bathroom ceiling at all. All I can see now is a network of pipes - big think lead-looking ones, and wires - thin and creeping things. The rest of my flat blossomed in broken glass, blue gaffer tape, and finally a myst of nose-twitching grey dust.

Outside a motorbike with a deep booming motor drums by, and all the cars start a-woooping-and gleeful honking. I'm sitting on my dusty stool, looking up the blinds I've just fitted, and considering spending my evening waving a mop.

Today I got to speak to one of the gods about saving the world. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was keen - I once wondered if the gods of my new world might not actually care for the lands of everyone else, but anyway, they do! Seeds of rationality bumble into a garden of gods.

Now I hear a ding-dong of a door, mine? Cautiously, I open my door to find a waft of perfumes. No; it is not my door they wait at, but the one opposite... where's that mop?