gather, miserablists

 

Dear Living,

I think I may have mentioned here, once, the kind of bolt you get sometimes, a sort of jolt of joy, out of nowhere; you might even be taking out the trash.  It's a feeling I might call happiness, but with extra euphoria sauce and a cherry on top.  In any case, one day I may write more on this frisson thing that sometimes happens.  I know for certain that I have mentioned my new best friend Viv Albertine?  I put 19 post-it notes into To Throw Away Unopened, and one of them was stuck on a Jenny Diski quote.  Now, Jenny is a gal I am not yet very familiar with.  I tried to read (I really did try!) The Golden Notebooks, and I swear to you on a stack of fifty unread books, I will try again!  Anyhoo, Doris Lessing was a sort of mother/(tor)mentor to Jenny Diski, who, in whatever it was I read, was said to be a difficult woman.  Jenny D., I mean, and yes, Doris L. was fabulously difficult too.  And I want to know them, as role models for my own emergent (dormant? latent?  consistent? continual?) difficultness. 

All this horizontal & lateral introduction and introspection, just to get you to here, a little thing that Jenny Diski wrote on happiness.

PS

If you want a song for today, a 'happy' song, you can choose one from here, if you like.  I don't think I want to tell you how to get happy.  Although, I will give you Get Happy, side A, and side B.

four

 

Dear Whomever is Listening,

That greeting isn't meant to be pert, I just sometimes don't know who all is out there, you know?  It's been a lot of years of writing you here, of calling that lonely phone booth on Mars, and I know you are busy with other things, and you don't always have time to write and reassure me that you care.  It's okay; I know that the wheels are turning, that atoms are zipping all over, willy-nilly, and who knows where they land or what they might mean to a person.  I don't want to be one of these humans who needs endless validation, but still, occasionally I wonder who is in this big electronic void that I am whispering/yelling into on the regular.

Anyhow, what I wanted to tell you is that it takes just FOUR pages for me to fall in love with another beautiful memoir!  Four!  I have always been impulsive and lightening fast to crush on people and things;  I was Boy Crazy and a Clothes Horse when I was younger; I chased boys day and night, it embarrasses me now to think on it- worse, the few times I managed to corner a hapless boy, I had no idea what to do with him- I didn't see the right kind of movies, you see?  I was raised on all these films where the boy leans over to kiss the girl; the boy edges closer on the sofa, the boy puts his arm over the back of the theatre seat.  I would get them in range, and then freeze, dumbly, waiting for a move from them.  Waiting.  All through the picture.  All through the drive.  All through the night.  

Of course now, I think what a little idiot I was, just to stand there looking at the fruit and never trying any, but that was a long time ago, and riding my bike past your house late at night just to see if you'll notice me seems shamefully stupid now; so don't bother to go to your window; I won't be there.

I was very poor reader of boys and men in any case; I always thought their hungry, starving eyes were for me alone, when actually, half of them were high, with unseeing eyes, and the other half were hungry for any attention, from anyone.

Now, the beautiful love I have for this book, though, it is quite another thing!  It is pure, unspoiled by my insecurities, it is Real.  Also, who the hell is Viv Albertine, anyway, and why, why, why didn't anyone tell me to ride my bike by her window???  How did I miss this powerful life force up until now??  I feel sure that if I had listened to the Slits I would have known what to do with these cornered boys, or better even, I might not have chased them in the first place.

PS  I know, I know!  I loved it before it arrived in the mailbox; I loved it when I saw the title; and who in this entire world would not love a book titled To Throw Away Unopened?