armageddon garden.

well things are going well so far, day 9 in the new squat armageddon garden – or the nest, as i like to call it – straw and pigeon shit still claiming the top floors – but our first floor sanctuary looking well now that we have lecky and lights – but no water, still no water, no plumbing, no pipes, big job, get a T bar and a garden hose and find some way out – i have marypoppined the hall and dug it out from the two-feet deep of old mail and circulars that had accumulated there over the years – wearing a dust mask and blinking repeatedly as clouds of godknowswhat powder flies up all around me – cleaning the stairs was like one step forwards two back as debris falls from above onto a finalclean surface – the lift is stuck on the first floor – and Blue has done a mammoth job getting the electricity to flow and wiring sockets everywhere – salvaged from upstairs, when they came to strip the building they didnt take everything – he gives me a plank of wood as he stands there in thick rubber gloves and a pliers wrapped in inner tube – now if i start to be electrocuted hit me out of the way with the plank – i m on orange alert – there arent even any fuseboxes left, just an intimidating metal box that looks like its right out of a nuclear submarine – but the live wire slips in without a sound – too quiet, deathly quiet, too clean, we re fucked, there should have been a spark – the building is dead – but all of a sudden a light comes on and we have power, high fives – the sockets get wired in upside down and even the kettle is weird you flick the switch up to turn it on – all upsydaisy – the corner house that we used to live in has donated two electric hobs but we dont have any pots or pans – so we cook tomatoes straight in the can with a bit of sugar and the coffee is percolated on the gas camping stove – lush – nobody has been skipping though so for lunch and dinner a few days running i have tomato ketchup and mustard sandwiches – treat myself to 2egg 2toast and the Tea of Salvation in the greasy spoon up the road one rainy wet day when i finally manage to get away from guardianship of the place – so far, theres only 3 of us holding the fort – people waiting on the sidelines to claim a space after we ve done all the hard work probably, thats the way it always freakin happens – and yet looking down their noses at us having to shit in bags or stink out the tiny pub toilets 5 doors down – i went in there last night to have vodka cola and chat to a scottish greybeard about water – uisce –

the first floor now sealed (broken windows boarded, replaced, the missing wall rebuilt!!) and we have a Glen the Heater chugging away with some reticent energy (Glen the Heater! we had a Glen in Maury road, used to cluster round him, too, the squats campfire)- just as well, its getting colder and colder – means its getting cosy, almost a home – a home around piles of timber in the living room, Mam would have a heart attack, Homes and Gardens would have a field day – but Blue isnt moving in after all, he wants a gaff with a fireplace – and a working toilet, no doubt – and he doesnt want to leave the piano behind, and who can blame him, i will have to go visit to explore e flat with him – the mirror in the kitchen confronts us with our dirty faces as we get the first cup of tea going in the morning – today was a late start, I slept fitfully even with valerian in my system and my dreams have run away from me –

i finish doctor sax and secretly wish i could remember my childhood so well – sometimes its a pain that i have decided to deny my history – and begin the electric kool-aid acid test – maybe this weekend i can bring a touch a psychedelia to this household – i read the first few pages of camus’ the rebel but easily my eyebrows raise – sasha is reading banville and we have been swapping neologisms from our crinkly pages – velliated – fucklace (Kerouac s invention, I love it, new favourite word) – i am wondering whether to kiss or keep to myself –

the family in the flats across the road are still throwing nappies into our backyard – there are hundreds of them there, in various states of decay – admittedly the expanse of the back is a scrapheap of old tyres, virulent buddleia, sand dust rubble piss and its hard to take it seriously or treat it as anything other than a dump – but we work with potential, and the aul gal has got it – potential measured on a voltmeter as a spike in the right direction – alex wants to construct a stepsystem out of the tyres so that her cat can get down to the garden – and stanley is interested in gardening – I found the missing stanley knife yesterday before his arrival – I ponder which room I like the best – the brightness of the front room (but above the bus stop, and noisynoise) or the relative quietness and soundproof of the more secluded side room (darker, but with a window, at least, an improvement on the last few months) – soon I will have my own room again – this is so exciting –