Potato scones keep on giving back.
Had one on an egg sandwich for lunch and had one on a veggie burger for dinner. Truly living my best life. Well, living these best moments of my life. What’s Marx’s line? Alienated, one becomes at home only in animal functions. Something to that effect. I’m a grazing, lounging animal, I suppose.Today I did a reference by phone for a colleague who is applying for jobs elsewhere. Colleague’s great, I’ll miss them when they go - and from the responses they’re getting on the job market it’s when, not if - and will also be happy for them to get what they want. It’s a strange thing, these cocktail feelings. A little joy with an equal dose of sadness, splash of jealousy, dash of fantasy of a different life. Is that a sipper or one to do as a shot? I don’t know, getting lost in this metaphor, or not so much lost as stuck like a bad driver caught halfway in an unsuccessful attempt at parallel parking. Yeah buddy check this shit out, stacking metaphors on top of metaphors, like a rickety Ikea bookshelf that’s been moved too many times. Speaking of which I need to revisit some of mine, Jesus Christ, a collapse’d be bad, the mess, and might hurt the kids or cats.
After the phone call I was in a zoom meeting about some budget troubles and what will result from them. “And so passed the time given to me on earth.” I did some teaching-related data entry while I was on it. I multitask tedium so I can be bored by my own boredom. Just kidding! That’s why I write this little blog!
I’m in a bit of a mood, apparently. It’s because I was watching a Ken Loach movie while washing the dishes, maybe. I like sad bastard movies, being a sad bastard, but they do bring out the sad bastardry for real for real.
Following my kid’s advice, nothing notable having happened, I’ll make something up.
When I finished the dishes tonight I pulled the plug on the drain and as the soapy water swirled in the bottom of the sink I thought I saw something flicker in the bottom so I leaned over to look in and there were coins down there. I reached my hand in and it was a much longer reach than it should have been, the sides of the sink were brick, a wishing well, I don’t know how, and I leaned down further until I fell in. The splash was huge, soapy water all over the kitchen and up on the dishes I’d washed and rinsed and set out to dry on the countertop. That’s a fucking pain, needing to rerinse those dishes, and I’d have to find a new towel to put under them too cuz it’d no doubt be all soaked. The soapy water stung my eyes fierce too. I looked up and it wasn’t a wishing well anymore and no coins, just a fork in the bottom of the sink, and a mug. Me. I’m the mug. Believing in a flash of hope like that, pathetic. I went to reach for the faucet to rinse my stinging eyes and that’s when I realized I was standing in the sink and the fork was about the size of pitchfork. Dunno how I’m supposed to climb out of this. Fucking typical.
None of that happened, just to be clear, except I did wash the dishes. Oh, other stuff I did do today: I put in a grocery order and picked it up, took the two fifty pound bags of gravel out the trunk and put them in the garage, checked and saw that we apparently do still have some contractor bags which will do me well to wrap the gravel and fill my dufflebag for workouts, and I lifted a little in the garage - dumbbell overhead press and goblet squats. I'd like to get a proper squat rack but they're about a grand, and I also want about a grand's worth of second hand pamphlets. There's that Simpsons joke about how money can be exchanged for goods and services, but really money most be exchanged, and goods and services are not to be exchanged except for money. So anyway then I took the car in to the mechanic's, drove it up there, parked it, dropped the key in the key drop porthole, and walked home. Is that it? Read to my kid for bedtime, that was lovely. They're a joy.
I've been listening to Burial's "South London Boroughs" EP a lot while writing these, it's about 20 minutes long, 4 songs of about 5 minutes each, so it's good for timing these - two songs means time to stop, and if I go over I can tell how much longer I've gone over by the third and fourth song. It reminds me of times in Minneapolis that I'm wistful about, times I was happy and times I was sad but not just happy and not just sad, times I felt both stuck and in motion in opposite ways to how I feel now. I don't know how to put it better. I was paid worse and the future felt more open ended. I was more scared and I was less bored. I was in better shape. I also took the bus more and by that point I had more sense of attraction to place there, I'd grown into Minneapolis, and I think the bus was an active part of that - looking out the window at the place, and placing myself in space mentally, tracing the route of the bus in my mind, where I live is connected to other places. I go fewer places now (and I didn't go many places then!) and I drive, take the bus far, far less, and driving I have less headspace available so I don't root into the mental map in the same way even though I also am clearly drawing on a mental route map from here to work.
Anyway, I used to look out the window on the bus at the lake and the trees while listening to Burial and now listening to Burial reminds me of that. Plus it's music about aftermaths and opportunities past and a kind of contented dwelling in nostalgia - it's not regret music and I don't feel regret, it's contemplation of loss but peacefully, loss accepted, grief become part of life, accepted, lived with, welcomed and practiced in the form of telling stories from the old times, someone else's old times really, family stories.
So yeah, been listening to Burial more. Feels like a security blanket and an old friend I haven't seen in a long while. A musical potato scone.
