St Patrick’s

Hey ho, home early after a grand celebration, well, not so grand but good, very good, I’m quite happy at the moment…went out out to the Hamilton local, not the Bay Horse which is closer but rough, very rough, no, we walked all the way to ML3, it’s nice, quite nice. It was pouring down rain as we walked there, it came down in sheets across the street lights, lit up golden against the night sky and beautiful, and the wind blew mad against our backs and the trees sang above us and I was happy to be outside, happy to be walking, and I know it’s because I’m crazy, one day I’ll the man who finds that amazing even if I’m a stupid girl, and the world was beautiful and we sang nay, no, never, no never no more, will I be a wild rover…beautiful it was and we arrived in the torrent sopping wet, completely soaked, everyone stared at us and we laughed because life was in the process of being so well lived it was brilliant and I ran to the lady’s toilet and squeezed`the water from my hair so it wouldn’t keep running down my neck and soaking the top of my blouse and ran my fingers through it though fat lot of good it did, I just hoped for the best and figured that perhaps that fresh-out of the shower look was attractive to the occassional bystander because that’s exactly what I looked like, with the backs of my jean legs sopping and clinging lovingly to the backs of my calves and dripping to the floor…

A few drinks, some brilliant indy tunes with a bit of Pink Floyd thrown randomly in, I could have done with a strong dose of the Pogues but it was not to be and it didn’t matter, I don’t know why I’m so happy today but I am, happy. Life is brilliant…

nothing much really

I haven’t written anything for ages. I’ve been busy I suppose but can’t quite find that burning drive to write that hits me at times, I need my own place, want my own place, would do just about anything for my own place…living with relatives you learn quite a bit, mostly about yourself, I discover that I am quite impatient, more antisocial than I thought, not at all domesticated or housebroken, only appreciate dining or high tea formality on very very rare occassions…and of course I am again reminded how good men have it in the world. Why is it that my cousins can get away with letting all the women do the cleaning up so they can watch rugby? I want to watch rugby, and if only my aunt appreciated rugby at all, we would have done the washing up later, or had our lunch on paper plates so there would have been no washing up to do, or sent the boys off to do it, the game was fantastic. I watched the beginning of it as others cleaned around me and was smote mightily by my evil woman’s conscience, I wish that would just go away. Not that I mind cleaning, I just like doing it my own way and when I find it convenient…and the amount of dishes my aunt considers necessary for a meal is astonishing. It astonishes me. The amount of food as well, she loves feeding her boys! I ate more yesterday than I had the entire week before and found it a bit difficult to roll myself out of bed later. And I have not been able to say the word fuck for almost a week now, say what I’m actually thinking, walk around the house in my underwear, listen to music turned up really loudly, leave food on my plate cause I’m full, or fully relax for some time now…

But other than that things are going quite well, I’m meeting more folks, applying to jobs, now understand almost everything I hear unless it is coming from very old men without many teeth…I’m working on a small community online and paper news sort of thing with some folks which is great, and not bad at all for one month in the city, I’m rather proud of myself! And trying to decide how much of an activist I want to be, I’m not sure about that, I think I was actually quite burned out when I left and yet I still love talking politics and getting all fired up over pints in the pub and now have folks to do that with who are brilliant, so I’m happy. Hopefully staying with the brother tmrw, where I can say fuck all I want, and he usually thinks what I’m thinking is really funny and I don’t have to eat everything on my plate…the walking around in the underwear will just have to wait, but I’m not too fussed as it’s just a bit chilly…

Whose sparkling personality?

So I’m trying to figure out if I’ll be earning enough to move out and rent a small room somewhere…it’ll be tight but probably worth it. In the meantime I’ve been amusing myself, I’ve embarked on one mad adventure and I’d tell you all about it but am hoping that everything I write on the subject will be one day copyrighted and sold in newsagents everywhere so you’ll just have to wait for it to be published. I’ve started work on the novel as well, I knew moving was a fucking brilliant idea.

And I’m having so many adventures that some can be shared…yesterday I went into town and walked around with Bob, started at the Gallery of Modern Art which is kind of a cool place and I discovered there’s a library and a cafe in the basement, who knew? I’m going to have to go back and see about getting a card. On the second floor there’s a crazy art piece about the weapons invented by schoolchildren, I quite like it. So after a coffee and some discussion of the common good games, we went off on our walk and Bob’s brilliant to walk with, he knows everything about everything. We passed my new place of work, walked past the old sherrif’s courts and I learned that the building in front used to be an old sweatshop with artist studios on top and Bob had a studio up there and they used to sit out smoking weed while staring down at the sherrif’s bldg, and when the sweatshop workers went on strike in mid winter, they’d come warm up with a quick coffee or tea in the studio before heading back out to the picket line. Passed the Trongate which has a brilliant history: http://www.tron.co.uk/about.asp?page=History, and the Panopticon theatre where Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy made his stage debut http://www.monklands.co.uk/panopticon/index.htm… I love Laurel and Hardy, and I love Glasgow, this town is full of treasures and no one even knows that they’re there. Hope the fucking council doesn’t decide argyll street needs another mall and that it has to knock more cool old buildings down.

Then we headed down to the print shop, I love print shops, met Tom who prints all kinds of radical literature for groups for free, prints the variant paper, and whose door is covered with stickers I assume he printed as well, anti-war, anarchist, punk rock groups, anti poll tax…very cool. Walked past the old anarchist centre which is now a trendy shop selling very expensive industrial looking jewelry. Walked on down to an art centre right next to the 13th note…will have to go back to that pub, plastered with indie rock posters and have bands playing live in the basement, but the art spot was cool as well and I got to go into my first darkroom which was brilliant, made me want to go buy a proper film camera and play with chemicals, I think I’m going to take a class. Heard stories about art under Maggie Thatcher and the beauty of a tube of vermillion paint…fucking beautiful man. I don’t think Bob paints anymore, but I really want to see his canvases which apparently are all huge and piled up in his basement…I’m dead curious to see what kind of things he was painting. After leaving there we met up with someone named Jo who makes documentaries, and the first question out of her mouth was, “well, how was your equinox?” Who knew it was the equinox? Fuck me, can’t believe I let another equinox slide past without proper celebration, which I’d hope involves alcohol, my celebration certainly would at any rate. Found another great pub, cafe, vegie fare place, could end up one of my favourite places here I think…big, relaxed, good music, lighting that’s brilliant cause it has this dome sort of thing…and definitely lefty, bet its one of those places you’re always running into people you know if you’re involved in anything here. Called Mono anyways. So it was a brilliant day, it even snowed! And the wind was calm so the snow just floated down to kiss your face just the way I like it to do, it was beautiful even if it melted as it hit the ground…the hills were all covered in snow and shining white…too bad I started coming down with something yesterday and spent most of today in bed. Reading the Kite Runner, it’s a bit shattering.

Oh, and I think you can tell I haven’t been able to curse freely since last Monday morning…