First Green Of Spring

There’s a full moon tonight, large and yellow sitting above the horizon. I went and saw the Smashing Pumpkins on Tuesday night, it was horrible, new album called oceans played at full volume, and for some reason he imagined a cosmic ocean so as we know in space there is noise, background radiation and all that, which he had accompanying the early tracks, competing with the music, fucking static competing with the music, honestly, if I hadn’t brought along Fumi I would’ve left, there is no merit to noise, nobody ever thinks, damn, I want to listen to some noise, nobody turns on a radio so they can listen to the static full blast. I just, I mean, I found the pumpkins about 6 months after they broke up, and I adored them, I figured I’d never get to see them live, so this is something I’ve been wanting since the year 2000, 12 years, to listen to static for an hour and a half, and then for him to begrudgingly play some fucking music, which was nice but I think it was as much relief as enjoyment that at least this music didn’t have to compete with the noise left from the explosing of the early universe. Christ almighty I’m angry about that.

I don’t want to be one of those ‘we like your old stuff better’ people, but it’s not much of a competition, noise or music.

It hasn’t occured to me to write in a while, to anyone really, about anything, what are you supposed to do when you’re busy with something you don’t want to talk about? What do you talk about then?

Things are getting a bit samey, James and I go out, get some food, drive around, talk about things from the past. I go to the gym, sit on a bicycle for an hour and listen to music and laugh at all the men doing weights in front of the big mirror, I know it’s intended to ensure good posture but anybody with a bit of sense knows that’s not why the guys are watching themselves so intently. I sit and study at the computer and rewrite entire text books because the only way I can really remember things involves a stupidly slow process. I watch the azaleas come out into bloom whilst it’s still Winter and wonder whether we’re experiencing a false Spring or whether they’re just like that. I even go on dates, with lovely people, interesting and intelligent people, whom I feel absolutely nothing for, and even though I have a fun time eventually I tell them they’re just wasting their time with me, since I don’t see a future with them. Nicholas and I go out and talk frankly about everything and complain about how terribly uptight people are as soon as you stray away from the accepted conversations. People ask me what I do and I think to myself, out of all the things you could ask, or more than that, things you could say at all, you’re asking about my work? What the fuck is the matter with people? Honestly.

Then I see things that depress me as much as they annoy me, I was eating with Nicholas at a restaurant and there was a couple next to us on their first date, the guy spent the whole time talking about his job, how he’s responsible for so many things and how he’s the only competent one there, and the poor girl sitting across from him just listened, doing whatever she could to care about what he was saying as he went on and on. Christ. Nobody has ever fallen in love listening to someone talk about how much their boss trusts their judgement and nobody ever will.

Then I go back to the real world where I have to watch what I say lest someone takes offence because we’re all prepared to hide ourselves and our thoughts and feelings but genuine understanding, reconciliation, is just asking too much. I laugh a bit when someone says they’re open minded, what they mean is they don’t discriminate based on religion, nationality, gender and sexual preference, which is as limited a list one can have and still call it a list. Being open minded requires so much more of a person than that little list.

One shouldn’t have to give up big parts of who you are so that another person will like you, but that is what people expect, it is genuinely sad that compromise is so rarely achieved through mutual growth, whilst most frequently through individual regression or forfeit.

It’s become obvious to me that I’m depressed, which I don’t experience often, so it’s a bit of a challenge, especially when it hangs around. It’s difficult to deal with something vague and general, it’s not like there’s something I can just go and do and that’s the end of it, especially when I’m so busy. I always thought that was a weak excuse people older than myself used, that they just don’t have the time to do the things they want, but it turns out I was just thinking that things would never change for me, that I’d always be the same person, with the same people, living the same way. How naive can you get. Still, if you live one way for long enough, it’s hard to comprehend how or why you’d live another.

At the very least though I’ve put some time aside for myself in early Spring, I’m going to drive up north, with new music, see some friends that I haven’t seen for much too long, and watch as the landscape turns to a brilliant green. I’m looking forward to that. So that’s something.