November99

10 November 1999

This one's just for us, you and me - I'll probably not put it on the main site. Today I got the light box out again - still standing on the floor from February when I last used it. Would it work again this year? Is this the restart of the electric dependence?

Nervously I clicked the switch down and sat and waited and prayed. There are four horse-shoe tubes, and the third one down was the slowest to kick in, but yes - within seconds they were all ablaze, and man was I glad.

Gazing, staring, gaping at the light, there was an indescribable "relief" right inside my head - a lifting and releasing like a shot of a favourite drug after years of abstinence. It was glorious, and I hardly shifted my eyes for 35 minutes.

You're not supposed to stare. Rather you should read, or glance away at the telly or summat, but there was no stopping me!! When I'd done my 30 minutes, it was still only 6pm however, with 14 hours to go until daybreak and the return of function. What to do? It's just not possible to sleep that much, tempting though it is to try. Anyway, I dozed for a bit, sleeping off the afternoon's beer, then woke and watched telly for a couple of hours.

Stuart and I had a walk in the sun this afternoon. It was low and red in the sky even before 1pm, but still I loved it. We skipped and danced along the sea wall, and watched the scummy waves lapping on the bedraggled brown weed. Birds cawed, and circled above our heads, keen as ever for a hand-out. But we had nothing except our joy.

We turned inland then, along a railway path. Lush evergreen plants hung to our left and right, and a magpie landed noisily in front of us. "One for sorrow," Stuart whispered. Further on, past a deserted station house, there was a tunnel. Straight, long and laced with vegetation front and back. Awesome. We stood silent at its beauty.

Half way through I pointed to the wet green slime thickly lining the tunnel walls. "Fancy rubbing your face in that?" I asked him. "Might be cures for thngs not discovered yet" So I started to sing then, noisily, happily, revelling in the tunnel reverberations.

"The taxman's taken all my dough
Left me in this stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon..."

Stuart was attacked last night. In the pub. By a prostitute. I think she was annoyed at him offering free what she could ask good money for. But it was just a spat. Handbags at forty paces. They both have scratched faces and arm, but nothing worse.

"Save me save me save me from this squeeeeeeze
I got a big fat momma
Tryin to please meeeeeeeee."

Stuart looked beautiful when I called at his house. Unshaven, haggard and with his normally shooshed hair completely awry. I would have put him at about 55. It was a wondrous sight. So I challenged him to "faces in the mirror" but he didn't dare. Well, he did, just a little bit, just enough to show who was winning the race against time and gravity. Me! But then he backed off and called me a cow. Hee hee. Such moments are precious and life-enhancing.

"Lazin on a sunny afternoooooon...
In the summertime..."

Before the dark. The completely obscene dark we get up here at 57 degrees - the latitude of Moscow. More tomorrow, or when I can be bothered. Sweet dreams. I will.