Rear Window

Well, I can't even call this morning. It's lunchtime, and I've been at my computer for almost three hours. I've reached stalemate with the story I'm writing, which always happens around about now. If I'm not careful, I'll be propelled into a round of meaningless www.nonsense, and then it'll be five o clock before I've blinked an eye.

     
And I need to be at least halfway through my story by the time it's dark tonight, and the man with the black hair in the posh flat across the road has closed his laptop lid on the day and left the room.

I'm somewhat annoyed with him right now. From time to time I waft about my flat, eat lunch, sift through papers and not once does he look up and acknowledge me. He's been working at that window for a year now, and nothing stirs him from his work. I figured I'd strip naked in front of my window to see what happens, but I've worked out he's probably gay (he lives with a man who irons a lot... flimsy evidence, I know).

     
I feel comforted when my man across the road is at his laptop working. Sometimes he talks on the phone, but mainly, he perches over it, the screen lighting up his glasses. I'd like to think that perhaps he's writing a novel or a screenplay (hey, we could swap stories!), or is on his way to becoming the next Danny Boyle (he looks a bit like him).

     
But I strongly suspect it's work of a rather more mundane nature he's doing. After all, he doesn't strut and fret his living room, hand to forehead, looking like inspiration's just about to strike. He doesn't toss page after page to the floor, lips quivering with rage. No, he sits and he types and he stares at his screen. He doesn't even drink tea or coffee (I never see a mug beside him).

     
Actually, he probably IS a writer. Because that's what proper writers do nowadays. In olden times, it was okay to spend your life speeded up to the eyeballs, reeling about your flat (if you had a flat), trying to find your way to your cup of coffee through the heaps of papers mounting up on the threadbare carpet, waiting for mystical vision (or the drugs) to kick in. Nowadays, it's work, work, work; tap tap tapping into your Imac, sticking to routines, deadlines, structuring your sentences. No one roll of paper and a line of charlie for my man across the road. He's got it sussed. Hard work and a clear head gets you there.

     
I'm going to make another cuppa. Wait for the hot water to turn to brown syrup in my teapot. That's how I'll get through today. Mine isn't always a healthy life, I have to admit, and I don't think I can even excuse it by calling myself a writer yet without sounding hopelessly pompous.

    
 But are we so different: him with his Habitat lampshade, me in my stupid furry slippers? I bet he's too posh even for Waitrose, and that he never cries at Eastenders. But if my man over the road can do it, then so can I, even if he never lifts his head and look at me. What would I do if he did? Would I really wave? Hold up a piece of A4 with a crayoned thumb upturned on it? Show him my new hula-hooping trick? Maybe. Or perhaps I'd scuttle off to the kitchen, caught out, and throw peas at my bin for a while.

     
It's a funny thing, this writing business, and we all need allies, don't we? Even if they are too preoccupied or shortsighted to acknowledge our genius, or just our fantastic leopard skin dressing gown.

Saturday, 21st April

It's my last day.
Chall left last night at about eleven pm to pick up his car in New Jersey and then begin the twelve hour drive back to Asheville through the night (crazy motherfucker). So we ride the subway back from possibly one of the best restaurants I've ever had the delight to be in, and he gets off suddenly at 14th to make his connection, hugging me briefly before jumping off, disappearing with the closing subway doors. I stay on, making my way up to Emily's place, jumping out at Times Square to make the connection...and there's this black guy with a voice like diamonds singing Otis Redding on the platform and everyone is joining in, singing along, swaying in time to "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay". I love subway riding. I take the C train uptown, get off, and walk back to Convent Avenue. New York is feeling like it is becoming mine.

God knows where the restaurant we went to was, somewhere around St Marks. We were taken there by Gelsinger after roaming the Metropolitan Museum Of Art for hours until we couldn't take any more in. What an incredible place, the highest ceilings, blossoms in the foyer. In the modern art section, I came across one of Yves Klein's Blue paintings, enormous, across a whole wall. It was startling, and a loud "fuck" escaped from my mouth before I could do anything about it. The rest of the Museum faded into silence, the Picassos and the O'Keefes disappeared into fine dust. I have never seen colour like that, an all enveloping blue, so beautiful, angels singing out from the resin and the pigment.

That's the trouble for me with art galleries and poetry readings (cinema and gigs are slightly better, your face is more easily hidden) - if I don't like what I see/hear then it's pretty tedious, but if I do like it then I want to be able to respond accordingly, and that sometimes is tears, laughter, the odd yelp, a bit of screaming. At the 'Howl' reading the other night I got a surprise bout of hysterical laughter and longed to climb out of my seat and roll around on the floor behind the back row to the sound of Ginsberg's gorgeous voice speaking of watches and alarm clocks, anal sex and opening antique shops. Instead, Chall and I sniggered like Beavis and Butthead while the man beside us pretended to be engrossed, but was snoring lightly. Outside, the Underground Literary Alliance got ready for a wig wearing/mouse trap waving hijacking of the Howl reading, in the name of the true rock and roll spirit of Ginsberg's poetry. Fantastic. Thank god they were there, (even if they were a bit silly). But I digress, and that is another story...so I stand there in front of this painting, and of course I cry.. it is like the embodiment of every line from Rilke, truly terrifying in its beauty. And it shocks me that in a world such as art or a land such as poetry, that, let's face it are full of eccentrics and crazy people, that I feel so self conscious about having a strong response to something that I presume is meant for, well, having a strong response to. And somehow the polititude of artistic appreciation feels alienating, wrong. Even so, I stifle my tears, turn my back quickly on the Rothko (just to be on the safe side), and try to give the semblance of an impression of a concrete human being.

So when Gelsinger said he knew a great Indian restaurant, but wanted to just check neither of us were claustrophobic, I did feel a slight wave of trepidation. When we arrived there, I could see this was no ordinary Indian restaurant. In fact, as we climbed the steps and looked through the front door, it became clear that it was totally insane. Gold and red decorations hung from every single space of ceiling, as well as strings of plastic chillies, beach balls, happy birthday banners, merry christmas banners, globes of the world, lanterns. As we entered, it was like going into a crazy gypsy caravan that was about to start rolling down the hill. We got seated at a very small, very cramped table by an Indian guy in a wide American flag tie, and the music was some fusion mix of Bhangra/funk/electro/gay-beat (!), and it was LOUD. Chall went off to the shop to get some beer, and the second after he left, all the lights went out (actually pulled out at the wall by one of the waiters), and this strange Indian camp version of "Happy Birthday" came on loudly over the stereo, everyone in the place began cheering and singing and clapping wildly, like some insane camped up dionysian rite complete with tinsel and drunkenness. And then, just as suddenly, the lights came back on and all proceeded exactly as before. We ate shrimp puri and samosas before being requested to move to another, even smaller table..

So today I am waiting for Emily to arrive back home as I have her key, and then I'm off to the American Museum Of Natural History to look at dinosaurs . I fly home tomorrow. But there's still time for more adventures before my plane takes off high into the sky. Fuck, there's been too many so far to begin to tell.

Unknowns and Knowns

Well its nearly two a.m. and I'm almost done packing. In a few hours I will be winging my way to the airport, and some hours after that I will be landing in Newark airport. And then, I know I will be setting eyes on New York City for the first time ever, alone, quite alone. And I know the buildings will be tall, and I know it will be beautiful.
The music on my stereo sounds so plaintive, so cuttingly, achingly beautiful. Meetings and partings. I leave those here for an unknown, unseen future. And I can't deny the wrench, the tear on my heart. But then I will be meeting my own future, as it comes into the present, and I will be meeting a certain Chall Gray, in some back room, somewhere in the city. And from there, the story will unfold.