Travels in a narrow-bodied airliner

I have just come back from America. It was hot there; it is hot here.

Jet lag. How do you deal with it? I have been sleeping all over the place for these past two days. It is the adjustment, I suppose. Not just in time, but in space too. Location. Another world. Another life.

In the days of sea travel, you would have a week or so to adjust slowly. Now, you are sealed up in a metal tube, shot through the skies, and 7 hours later disgorged, feeling like a piece of chewed string. Your brain, your mind has not had chance to make the adjustments necessary.

Anyway, now I am back in dear old England, with all the memories, kaleidescoping around in my head.

And what a sight greeted me as the car rounded the bend in the drive: the Swedish tart and the lesbian - topless in the pool.
Well, I say 'topless'. That was the only bit I could see. They may have been completely starkers for all I know.

I hurried into the house.

It's here again

The orange Bong Motor reverses down the avenue, bleeping and lights flashing. Stopping outside the house, it tips a bin-full of our lives into its steel jaws and gobbles it up; I half expect it to belch. And I realise that what I am watching, through my double-glazing, is a microcosm of the life-cycle: here today, Bong tomorrow.

Today, a spanking new cornflakes box, all eager and ready to serve, and in a few short days… a piece of sodden cardboard; returned to the collective unconscious of the rubbish dump. And the sad thing is that there is nothing the cornflakes box could have done to make its end any different. Whether is has been a good box: discharging its contents, cleanly and accurately into the bowl, or whether it has been a bad box: always falling off the shelf, and refusing to relinquish its cereal until a vigorous shake disgorges half its contents over the breakfast table – it makes not one jot of difference.

Ah, but what about re-cycling? If I put the box – all neatly pressed flat – into the blue bin, then it will go to the re-cycling plant, and live on, as part of other packaging, yet to be born. Reincarnation!

And that, children, will be our topic for tomorrow: Reincarnation – is it worth coming back for.

So, goodbye boys and girls – be good children, or the Bong Motor will come and gobble you all up.

Food for thought

Hector was telling me - in one of our rare converstions - that the final straw for him was when his wife - old whatsername - told him what she was going to get him for his birthday: a colonic irrigation. Can you believe that: she was going to pay for him to have a good clean-out.
When he protested, she said, "Well, you are an anal-retentive and I thought it might do you a power of good."
The cheek of it, eh! But that's women for you. As I have said before, what a man needs is a good chum.

Nostalgia

I can't sleep. So I wander into Syd's bedroom. He's away with Monica.
I stand inside the door for a couple of minutes and just look around. Only it is not this room that I'm seeing, but a little lad's bedroom: football posters on the wall; a toy cupboard overflowing onto the floor; a crane with a big yellow jib reaching out along the window ledge and, in a corner, Mr Bear.
Mr Bear is here, now, in this room. He has been with Syd since his third birthday. I go over to where he sits, on a cane chair by the bed: Hello Mr Bear. He just looks at me. When Syd was little we used to have long conversations: Syd,Mr Bear and me. No one talks to him now, and you can see the sadness in his bear's face. I feel sad too. Wondering what happened. Where it all went.

I got a cup of tea at Carol's - but no sympathy. She's trying to 'make a go of it' with Gary - whatever that means. When he comes out of 'detox' they'r going to Wales for a week; staying in a caravan.
She gave me my Polaroid camera back.

Cycling home, I stopped at the school crossing and got into conversation with the 'lollipop lady': Brenda. That fluorescent jacket they've given her is much too small, for such a well built lady.
She was telling me she has Broadband. We exchanged e mail addresses.
Well you never know.

Yours hopefully

George

Monday

I slept better last night. No IBS. No alcohol either. I mean what is the point if you cannot have a couple of beers or a glass of wine?

This morning is bright and sunny. Syd and Monica (the perforated pixie) are driving to the coast, and - for some inexplicable reason - have taken Hector with them. I think Monica feels sorry for him. I am going to warn her: my brother is very good at getting women to feel sorry for him.
No one feels sorry for me. I said to the lesbian "We should have a talk about our future. You know, we are not getting any younger, and at least we could acknowedge our different needs and try to come to some amicable agreement."
She replied, "That bedroom needs redecorating; if you spent less time thinking and more time doing you would be a lot happier."
I didn't know how to reply to that, so I said nothing.
This relationship business confuses me, but I don't give up.

I am going over to see Carol this afternoon. I rang her and she said she was 'at a loose end'. She has a lot of loose-ends does Carol. But at least I will get a cup of tea and (hopefully) a bit of sympathy.

With not drinking at the moment, I don't go down to the Jolley Pervert. Just as well, really: that woman has it in for me - ever since I refused to clean out her pipes.

I awoke feeling depressed (or should I say 'clinically fed-up). I am feeling tired all the time and my stomach is 'fragile'. Should I see a doctor? Not yet, I think.

The Art show turned out not so bad after all. I didn't understand most of the pictures. There was one that had 'urine' and 'faeces' on it. I don't mean real, I mean written on, amidst a lot of black and red and a screaming skull. The lesbian said it was a post-modernist response to the facile materialism, so endemic in western bourgois culture.
I said "Fair enough".
Hector spent the whole time trying to engage the Swedish tart in conversation. She was intent on studying the paintings, and eventually (I am happy to say) told him to "piss off" in Spanish. He does not speak the language but he got the message.

Sydney and Monica were kissing and canoodling, although Monica did extract her tongue from Syd's mouth long enough to take a couple of polaroids.
I liked the cafeteria best though: blueberry muffin, I had, and coffee. Hector was going on about this book her is writing... about his childhood. I said "hang on - you have only got that idea because of my autobiography" He ignored me and began whispering in Monica's ear. You could see Syd didn't like it.

The lesbian and the Swedish tart left to go to some gay club or other, and I was on my own again - so what's new.

When I got home, I went for a ride on my bike.

Sunday morning

The electricity in my head affects the bedside radio. While I have been sleeping in the attic I have been using my battery portable radio, and I have noticed that when I put my head nearer, to catch the news, the reception goes all funny; when I take it away, it improves. This confirms, for me, that we are all electricity and chemicals. But I still think we have a soul.

The lesbian caught me at the computer this morning, "Still blogging" she sneered, making it sound like a deviant sexual practice - well, she knows all about those.

It is 'Down Syndrome Awareness' Week. Could I make a plea for an 'Ups and Downs' week. Manic depressives of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your marbles.

Another thought occurred to me: I wonder why all the poverty happens in hot countries?

It is that Feminist Art thing tommorrow. I am going to go; we all are: the lesbian, the Swedish tart, my brother - even Syd. He's bringing his new girlfriend: Monica. She teaches down the local comprehensive. I haven't met her yet, but I've seen a photo: she is into tattoes - and piercings. I refer to her as 'the perforated pixie'. I said to my son: and do they allow her to teach, looking like that? He told me that she teaches Art and Drama - say no more.

I'll let you know about the Art thing.

Saturday

I lay in bed this morning, running the projector in my head: highlights from the film of my life. Only they weren't highlights - they were more like lowlights: the missed goal; the lost opportunity; the thoughtless remark that brought tears; the misunderstandings; the petty jealousies; the imagined slight; the silly anxieties that don't even qualify as fears; the tragi-comedy of relationships that worked for a bit, then ran out of steam; the dreams that didn't happen.
And I thought - why bother? I saw, as if from way above, us humans, running around like so many ants in our own little ant-hill; thinking that what we do has purpose, meaning. When all the time we are just following a 'computer-programme', hard wired into our genes.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps I was just depressed. But does what we call 'being depressed' simply mean that a veil has been lifted, and the so- called 'depressive' is seeing things more clearly?

As I pondered this, I heard the Swedish tart doing her yoga on my ceiling. And I thought - Sod it! I am still alive. This is a new morning. Carpe Diem - seize the day.

A bit depressed

I sit here, looking out my attic window, a curtain of rain blurring the colours of the trees and rooftops in the valley below.
Yes, I am sleeping in the attic. I have let Hector have my bedroom. I know I said I wouldn't but he dropped a bombshell at dinner last night: he's left Patricia. I said, but why? you have been married for 40 years. He said, that's just it - 40 years! I said to her (Pat, that is) "You've had 40 years of my life." She replied, "Well, you have had 40 years of mine" I said, "Exactly - don't you think we should call it quits?" And without waiting for an answer I picked up my car keys and walked out.
There was dead silence around the dining table - except for the lesbian, who farted suddenly. I felt sorry for old Hector, so I let him have my room. I know I shall regret it.
They have all gone out for the day. I said they could take my car. Well, I am still feeling a bit iffy, what with the IBS and the menthol stuff as well. But I do feel a bit 'left out' if you know what I mean.
I can see the council estate from up here, and, if I re-focus the field-glasses... yes the orange and blue curtains of Carol's bedroom. How well I remember that room, I........ oh she's just opened the curtains.

Excuse me but there is something I have to do.

From the throne room

Now listen here, Montcrief, you whinging Gallic symbol – If you bought my book I will eat my hat (a particularly hairy Harris-Tweed – with a feather). Stolen, more like. You are well known to the security staff at Waterstones, Borders and Barnes & Noble.
Still sponging off my sister, I see. I don’t know why Erica did not chuck you out years ago. Then you could have gone back home and voted ‘Non’ in your silly referendum. You didn’t vote ‘Non’ back in 1940, did you?

Well, I feel better having got that off my chest. Actually, I do not feel all that good: the old IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is back. And I am typing this on my laptop, sitting on the lavatory.
I don’t know what causes it. A gastro-enterologist) told me that I had a bowel like a greyhound. Some folk, he said, have a bowel like a bulldog: it just squats there. Others, like myself, have a bowel like a greyhound: all twitchy and raring to go. And boy, have I ‘been’.

Of course, I get no sympathy from the lesbian. Strangely though, the Swedish tart seemed a bit concerned. She came down into the kitchen at 2 am., humming The Beatles' tune ' Norwegian Wood' – that girl’s got an identity crisis - when I was having a drop of brandy. Said she couldn’t sleep, and got a glass of milk out of the fridge to take two Ibuprofen. Anyway she sat by me at the kitchen table and we talked for half an hour. She was quite sympathetic, and I started to fancy her again. But what with the bowel playing up, and everything, I thought I had better leave it for the moment. Still, the omens are good.

I must have a lie down