dream diary

i walk down the riverside feeling like i'm not feeling. this goes on for a long time. eventually i meet up with my friend s. and we keep wandering down the river. the city looks like brighton/london/montevideo. the sun is shining but everything is gloomy somehow. we get to a corner where there is a grand old building called the 'golden hotel'. it has a big pub downstairs and the hotel is upstairs. there is a grand balcony running all along the hotel's front, clearly the main room. on the balcony there are a bunch of guys walking up and down, chatting and laughing. s and i notice there is an orangutan with them. the orangutan follows them around. they're all laughing, but suddenly we realise they are not cool with the orangutan. he's obviously in their way. one of the guys gets the orangutan to lean on the balcony. suddenly (but i know this is going to happen) the guy puts his arms under the orangutan's armpits, picks him up and throws him from the balcony. the orangutan falls without a fight and lands on the floor, dead. i run into the street shouting murderers, asesinos. the people in the pub are laughing at my hystericism. i get to the phone and call 999. they give me precise instructions, but never ask what happened. after i hang up i feel like maybe the police will be upset with me when they arrive for calling them for a dead monkey. i run out of the pub in floods of tears, but really i'm just using the monkey as an excuse to cry.

graffiti

more stars wanted
if i could count the number of times you disappointed me
red is not your colour
i read it on a steamy window

a-ha moment

one conversation and 14 years later i realise the pattern that was established and entrenched while carelessly giggling atop the shoulders of a swarthy, quite promising young would-be architect, taking pictures of a not particularly interesting house.

this is my life

the internet will provide. a change of life. the internet will provide. a job. the internet will provide. a job. the internet will provide. entertainment. the internet will provide. a second life.

the café in the corner of lincoln's inn fields

i could tell you with precision the exact shade of pink that colours her heart shaped lips. describe to you in extensive detail the angle at which her eyelashes curl exquisitely upwards. expand on the specifics of her imperceptibly disdainful frown. the bored concentration with which she prepares the millionth cappuccino of the morning.

i guess you could say i'm slightly obsessive, but there was no way to avoid going in for a coffee and a bacon roll the morning after the night when the lads in the office had quite generously – but with a vicious glint in their eyes – insisted on buying me drink after drink to celebrate my new promotion. i mean, a bacon roll, as you well know, was the only thing to save me from complete failure on my first day as associate. and of course, after i'd walked into the caff, well, i saw what i saw and there was no way to go back.

the girl and an older woman stood facing each other like furies, rapidly spitting words in a foreign language, which my traditionally english training failed to help me understand, but which my traditionally english holidays' memories helped me identify as spanish. i thought to myself i may collapse both from the impact of seeing this raging beauty and from the throbbing hangover that was eating up my brain.

of course, i stood there like a plonker, failing to even clear my throat. and then that embarrassing "gracias" at the end, who the hell was i going to impress. but the girl smiled and her eyes burned a hole in my heart. and made me bold and ready, and so i went along to the chambers and strutted in and owned my boss and my colleagues and my job.

and now every day i get my fix. and i might, soon, ask her her name and find out what on earth she had been arguing about...

the half-naked man in columbia rd brings order to the chaos

one day, the girl decided to buy some flowers in columbia rd market. as she got to the road she could see the crowd getting scarier and scarier. there were tourists with cameras and smiles. there were mothers with coffees and prams. there were goths hanging out in the pub. there were babies. and artists. and oysters. and flowers. and palm trees. and forests and more.
she hesitated at the corner.

a couple of children stood on a chair repeating hysterically two for a pound. musicians played hyperactive music in the yard. a woman complained of being stepped on while sitting right in the middle of the only path. helen mirren walked by clutching some freesias. a van beeped reversing warnings, driver flirting with bejewelled chicks. caffeine rose up from a hundred cappuccinos. market sellers competed to sell above the din. bouquets seemed like a far away objective.

to rest her eyes, the girl looked up. a neat row of tightly shut windows fringed the market street without fanfare. equally criss-crossed windowpanes, equally spaced. on one of the frames, a man stood half naked, hair wet from the shower, steaming drink in one hand, elbow on the windowsill, calmly observing the madness down below.
the girl stared, the man winked.

eyes locked, the man navigated the girl around the market. lead her to the stall with the black dahlias with his smile. raised his mug to approve her purchase. and finally released her with a wave back to the crowd. out of the street. flowers safe. and one more magical character to add to her personal mythology.

just moved in to broke walk

black cat sits on top of the old convertible car every night. every night she arrives later and later. the street is quiet. the cat ignores her. the streetlight glares at her. the cameras turn round to watch. households mysteriously silent hide muffled children, drunken good sorts, free-running luminaries. tiptoeing up the stairs she sees the fox zoom past, doing his round of the first-floor walkway. a door bangs far away. cursing the wine she tries the keys on her new door, still unlearned. the door magically opens. the flat envelops her with its new paint smell. boxes clutter round the edges. heels echo on the wooden steps. up the room everest-hard. shoes off, clothes off, hair-clips off, glasses off. under the duvet she hears her heart and the occasional police siren. a couple walk by, laughing too loud on this serious street. sleep comes visiting with broken wings.

black cat races up the fence in the balcony every morning. every morning she wakes up earlier and earlier. the street is quiet. the cat a fleeting sound. the morning sun bursts in. households sleepy get on with their own business. a shadow flies over the rooftops. stretching out on the terrace she sips on a too-hot coffee and counts the trails of planes gone by. daydreaming of buenos aires. a cyclist zooms past hunting for shortcuts. she chooses a record and plays it quietly so as not to wake up ‘azel from next door who’s on a night shift. shower, glasses on, hair-clips on, clothes on, shoes on. no, not those. shoes off. other shoes on. a quick look round her new flat. a promise to finish painting the hall. to stop escaping in wine glasses. to put some pictures on the walls. to make a house a home.

on the need for explanations

i did it because...
i didn't do it because...
if it wasn't because...
because he said...
it wasn't because...
it was because...

hungry

i think i have a worm in my tummy, she said.
he looked at her and said, but darling, you ARE a worm.
she checked, and it was true.
so she went an sucked on some lonely bay leaves that were lying around after the storm.

beautiful

recount

quixotic unrealists
clueless antipodeans
random sociopaths
selfish narcissists
skint troubadours
fast-moving quimeras

trans-atlantic

in the shimmering sun, over the waves, a seagull is reflected. the seagull watches its reflection on the ocean and a memory of skipping cascabeles jolts it out of its serene trajectory. a pebble skims over the surface barely touching. sand shifts under the weightlessness of magic footsteps. the sun blushes at the sight of the horizon, always welcoming. a knock on a door goes unheeded. a cow wanders into a lonely kitchen, still reminiscing of the scent of fresh baked cake. in the pine trees, on the coastline, oven birds find a bit of string or two, to add to the growing nest, children needs must. and the frogs, ancient troubadours of seashores, sleepily lull my dreams away.

useless

"make sure you remember that that's what you want"
yeah, as if i could do anything about it, thanks for the tip...

new years resolution

no chickening out
no crying wolf
no kissing of frogs

dream diary

my family and i are swimming along the regent's canal (which is not really the regent's canal, but a much wider, turquoise-transparent waterway). in the canal there are seals, which sometimes swim along you and sometimes bump into you, although quite friendly. the swim involves getting in and out of the water to avoid the locks. it's not cold and we're having a great time. during one of the stops, we come to a place with a high system of bridges that separate the water. one of the group and i go to investigate whether we need tickets or not (at this point i realise this is one of the guys that came on the tour with us) he decides to keep going and jumps into the water, but i go back to catch up with the family. when i come back they are at a slow swirling pool where they are watching a couple of seals playing in the water by spinning wildly. i jump in to play with the seals and start spinning in the water myself. one of the seals gets closer and closer, and suddenly i notice it's not a seal but a bear. the bear tries to attack me, so i jump out of the water and run back up the bridge, with the bear in hot pursuit. i take off a furry coat that i was wearing hoping that this is what the bear is after, but he pushes it away and keeps coming after me, making it quite clear that his intentions towards me are less than honorable. i keep running and running and jump into the water on the other side. by this time i'm in full bolivian-woman style dress, huge skirt, etc, so my chances in the water are not good.

and it will read

there was a lot of promise there, but after an unexpected turn of events the player left the game for just long enough to never be able to get back on track. the player will always be remembered as an unrewarded optimist. a shrivelled little monkey with a lot of laughs and no meaning at all.

great strides

PC190236.JPG
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

and in the great tradition of explorers through the ages, although we didn't leave behind any graffiti proclaiming the date of discovery, we did, indeed, take a bunch of silly pictures. ironically, of course. just to make a point, you understand.