"Sigh. Yeah, that's right. Sigh. Two years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a piece about the world's bizarre insistence on marrying me off..."
Quoth the Brooker on Monday. And may I add: Sigh. That means it was two years ago, almost to the day, that I wrote this post about that piece. Here's what I said in summary back then, to avoid any unpleasant whiplash-type effects from being forcibly dragged two years into the past by your linky-click-finger: Ooh, Charlie Brooker's single! Look at all those internet losers flinging themselves at him. I flung myself at someone off the internet once, and it really bloody hurt. But still, I actually got a response and a soul-destroying total non-relationship out of it, not like you losers. Never catch me doing that again. What losers. What I meant, though, was an entirely different manner. I was, in fact, climbing into my copper suit, moistening up my joints, dragging my metal bucket of water to the top of the highest hill, shaking my fist at the sky, loudly casting aspersions on the sexual proclivities of Thor's mum, and generally willing with all my might that lightning would indeed strike twice.
Although if I really did want that to happen, I probably could have tried a little harder. I wasn't even one of the millions of tiresome indie girls who left oh-so-nonchalant "Yeah, I'll marry you, although of course I'm completely not bothered"-type comments. Only cos I'm completely not bothered, you understand. And, more importantly, because I'm not an idiot, and I realise no-one anywhere in the world could read a 20-word comment and fall head over heels in love, no matter how pithy, witty, and goddamn sexy it might be. Indie girls, take heed: The Brooker will not read the comments. He will not then look at your commenter profile, will not find your blog, will not read it all in an evening, be charmed by your turn of phrase and identify deeply with your cynical view on life's little idiosyncrasies. He will not email you saying that he didn't quite know why he was emailing a stranger but just somehow felt he had to, you will not embark on a hilarious and increasingly flirtatious email exchange, he will not tentatively suggest you meet up, and he will not see you across a crowded pub and be struck dumb by your indie stylings. He will not react, at first, in an angry and defensive way, as he is forced to re-examine all his opinions of love in the face of an unexpected onslaught of emotions he is unable to process. He will not gradually soften up over the course of a number of evenings where you discover a mutual love of various high points of low culture. And most of all, he will not eventually realise that you are the one person who could crack through his hard-bitten hack exterior and when you're there, he can finally sleep at night.
Mostly because he's probably totally married already.
So why did I write this post, then?
Oh...
Showing posts with label reminiscence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reminiscence. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Stone Cold Reminisci-funk
This is a strange time of year for me. The limbo between Christmas and New Year means nothing to a shift worker such as my very excellent self. Life returns to mundane banality and work-work-work with a frosty slap in the face on 27th December precisely, but it's another week before the rest of the world catches up, so you're left in a hazy netherworld where everything seems normal, but the fridge is full of exotic leftovers and chocolate and the TV schedule's gone all weird. Most disconcerting. And on top of all that, New Year is here again, heralding the yearly visit from the Grand Old Duke of Vague Sense of Disappointment With Your Lot in Life. Hey-de ho, though, I am countering the waves of attacks from his soldiers of shame by staying in on New Year's Eve, going to bed before midnight, and generally pretending my name is Nico Bellic and all I need worry about is where to take women on dates so that I will definitely get laid.
And that, my friends, is my first resolution taken care of - more recycling in 2009! Yes, I wrote that last week, but could not work up the energy to think of a cohesive conclusion to my sorry tale, so just went straight on back to the Xbox. I did in the end go to bed early on New Year's Eve, like the crazy muthafucka that I am, but didn't get to smugly snooze through midnight like some kind of emo with a false sense of superiority, because, of course, the rest of the world was celebrating the arrival of the new year with noisy bang-bangs. Oh, and fireworks HONK HONK. So I marked midnight by grumpily rolling over and muttering about how early I had to get up.
Over Christmas, the normal family dinner took a frightening turn when my mother flung down the roast potatoes and announced she had finally had enough of my accumulated crap taking up valuable space in their attic, and that the time had come to clear it the FUCK out. (She didn't say that, but looking in her eye, I knew she meant it deep down in her foul-mouthed heart) This caused both my stomach to fall and my bile to rise, leaving a small black hole in the centre of my being, which collapsed under its own gravity, sucking me, my family, and the whole Christmas spread into an area smaller than a neutron. Or that would have happened, had I had my way. Instead, with a grimace, I mentally adjusted my plans for the rest of the day from hurtling down the motorway in an empty car towards the warm and loving embrace of my Slanket, to crawling around a cold and cobwebby loft, trying to sort through boxes of stuff not quite rubbish enough to count as actual rubbish, but not nearly important enough to be worth carting 80 miles to my already over-stuffed flat-ette. Thankfully, my mother sensed my discomfort at this turn of events, and instead dumped a shoebox full of photos in my arms and toe-punted me out of the door, to distant cheers of approval.
And so, back in the big smoke, and coincidentally in a cloud of big smoke, I found myself in the titular SCR-F. They were all pictures from around my university days, bringing back floods of mostly unpleasant memories, contrasted with a small amount of pleasure that my 18-year-old self looks very similar to my 28-year-old self (I have been labouring under the illusion that I have spent the intervening years gradually getting more repulsive, but happily, I started off with a healthy level of repulsiveness! Heh, that's maybe a little bit too self-consciously self-hating, even for me. Apologies) Anyway, I have singularly failed to keep in touch with anyone from uni, mostly because I am terrible at replying to emails, but also because there were never many emails to reply to to begin with; I did a quite magnificent complete job of isolating myself actually physically inside a bottle of Southern Comfort, mooning over various men. So where are they all now, these beautiful young things I have captured forever on shiny photo paper? Who knows. A bit of googling revealed almost nothing, so my reminisci-funk continues on unfettered.
Where are you, class of 1998 Fitzwilliam College Cambridge (I know, I know)?? Any information gratefully recieved. So my reminisc-funk can be reminisci-sunk!
Oh, yeah. I'm back, baby!
And that, my friends, is my first resolution taken care of - more recycling in 2009! Yes, I wrote that last week, but could not work up the energy to think of a cohesive conclusion to my sorry tale, so just went straight on back to the Xbox. I did in the end go to bed early on New Year's Eve, like the crazy muthafucka that I am, but didn't get to smugly snooze through midnight like some kind of emo with a false sense of superiority, because, of course, the rest of the world was celebrating the arrival of the new year with noisy bang-bangs. Oh, and fireworks HONK HONK. So I marked midnight by grumpily rolling over and muttering about how early I had to get up.
Over Christmas, the normal family dinner took a frightening turn when my mother flung down the roast potatoes and announced she had finally had enough of my accumulated crap taking up valuable space in their attic, and that the time had come to clear it the FUCK out. (She didn't say that, but looking in her eye, I knew she meant it deep down in her foul-mouthed heart) This caused both my stomach to fall and my bile to rise, leaving a small black hole in the centre of my being, which collapsed under its own gravity, sucking me, my family, and the whole Christmas spread into an area smaller than a neutron. Or that would have happened, had I had my way. Instead, with a grimace, I mentally adjusted my plans for the rest of the day from hurtling down the motorway in an empty car towards the warm and loving embrace of my Slanket, to crawling around a cold and cobwebby loft, trying to sort through boxes of stuff not quite rubbish enough to count as actual rubbish, but not nearly important enough to be worth carting 80 miles to my already over-stuffed flat-ette. Thankfully, my mother sensed my discomfort at this turn of events, and instead dumped a shoebox full of photos in my arms and toe-punted me out of the door, to distant cheers of approval.
And so, back in the big smoke, and coincidentally in a cloud of big smoke, I found myself in the titular SCR-F. They were all pictures from around my university days, bringing back floods of mostly unpleasant memories, contrasted with a small amount of pleasure that my 18-year-old self looks very similar to my 28-year-old self (I have been labouring under the illusion that I have spent the intervening years gradually getting more repulsive, but happily, I started off with a healthy level of repulsiveness! Heh, that's maybe a little bit too self-consciously self-hating, even for me. Apologies) Anyway, I have singularly failed to keep in touch with anyone from uni, mostly because I am terrible at replying to emails, but also because there were never many emails to reply to to begin with; I did a quite magnificent complete job of isolating myself actually physically inside a bottle of Southern Comfort, mooning over various men. So where are they all now, these beautiful young things I have captured forever on shiny photo paper? Who knows. A bit of googling revealed almost nothing, so my reminisci-funk continues on unfettered.
Where are you, class of 1998 Fitzwilliam College Cambridge (I know, I know)?? Any information gratefully recieved. So my reminisc-funk can be reminisci-sunk!
Oh, yeah. I'm back, baby!
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