There is a girl that I nicknamed Dreads, for want of her real name. She works at a small shop, down by the canal, which allows you to make pots and paint them. She is tall and quite thin. She has dark brown hair and dark eyes that look sad. Her hair is in dreadlocks, which she wears up, so that the top of her head looks like an explosion of adders.
Most of the time I see her she is in the Porter struggling with the day’s crosswords, a well-chewed pen between her teeth. I want to tell her the joke about the crossword I have just started, the one where the clue is; ‘Overloaded Postman.’
She’d probably smile politely and ask, knowingly; ‘Any Letters?’
July 18, 2006 • 6:28 pm 0
Dreads
• 6:27 pm 0
Clara
I met a girl today called Clara. She is the same height as me and has short blonde hair that is feathered and light, so that the faintest movement sends it rustling.
I met her in the library while we queued up. She had taken out a load of travel guides and I told her that I’d go with her to Prague. She had no idea I was deadly serious.
She waited at the exit until I was done, to say goodbye. I think she wanted me to ask for her number, but I’m not really looking at the moment.
July 17, 2006 • 6:12 pm 0
Statistics
They’re strange things. 3% of the population are homosexual, apparently, but to me there seem to be a lot more people than that.
Someone said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. I think they were right, but it doesn’t stop me reading them and thinking about them anyway.
There are apparently 10999999 single people in the UK, and me – 11million is a lot. So why can’t I find someone nice to settle down with? Maybe they are all at home wondering the same thing.
• 6:09 pm 0
Wallflower
I always imagine myself ending up with a complete wallflower. The kind with inch-thick specs and all the social grace of a cockroach. I don’t want it to be like that, but readers tend to develop the need for glasses at some stage and readers tend to be reserved. I always saw myself with a reader, so it goes with the territory.
I see her having cats and long straight dark brown hair with split ends. She’d be eager in the bedroom and often quite over-enthused. Our kids would be bullied because she’d make them banana sandwiches and call them Kingsly and Star. I wouldn’t be able to stop her and would probably be the first to die; with a full head of grey hair and inch-thick glasses.
I don’t want to be with a wallflower, but it seems realistic. Beautiful women like bad guys, and I’m never going to be a bad guy, I’m just nice. Nice guys finish last, get wallflowers and live in the suburbs, gardening at the weekends and reading the Times.
• 6:08 pm 0
Meal
I don’t eat all that much. I used to, quite a lot in fact, but not so much now.
I have maybe one meal a day. I don’t cook in my house because I’m not comfortable in it yet.
When you stop eating you don’t lose as much energy as you’d think. I’ve been running on empty for a year now and have dropped to 9 stone. I haven’t slowed, just lost a lot of strength, but that will be back; most likely when I get a girlfriend and she trains me to eat three square meals and snacks and we balloon in our early forties.
• 6:07 pm 0
Broody
I’m quite a broody person and I want kinds as soon as possible. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so honest with women?
The majority of them dismiss me quietly, either as lying or simply as being ridiculous. Some have point-blank refused to talk about kids, which I find rather distressing but respect their opinions.
I’ve a hard time explaining why I want children; all I can say is that the need is there. Perhaps it joins hands with my loneliness and it is because I want someone who will be there, constant and unconditional. Maybe it is because I don’t want to die and see them as a legacy.
All I really want is a partner who I can love and respect and write poetry about and a small child of our own to look up to me with love in their eyes and a smile on their face.
• 6:06 pm 0
Bracelets
Having few close friends I tend to like to treat the ones that I do have. I’ll pay for drinks, meals, most of an evening out. One of my favourite, and most personal, treats is to give them bracelets. I like to wear them for a while before I give them, so that they absorb some of my energy. Then I pass them to them when the time feels right.
Each bracelet is bought for each person, and if I decide against giving one, then I usually throw them away.
Filed under: Friends
• 6:06 pm 0
Postcards
When I was younger I used to write poetry and leave it in books in the library. I did it for ages and never heard a breath of response to it from any of the librarians.
It was some years later that I found someone else who had done the same, then another, then another. Pretty soon I realised it was one of the most unoriginal things you can do.
Nowadays I write random words on blank postcards and hand them out at train stations and airports.
• 6:05 pm 0
View
I stand about a lot in work. When I do, I tend to gaze out of the windows at the people walking past. I like to make up lives for them, or picture going out with the girls, and being friends with the guys. Although I only see them for a few moments I’m almost sure of them being exactly as I imagine by the time they round the corner and disappear out of sight. It gives me a tiny sense of loss each time. And then another walks into view.
