I decided if I write anything today I will have broken the curse of inaction once again. My wife was loaned (passive tense) a copy of Ann Lamott's bird by bird and an impressive piece of work it is.
I am now all afire again to get rid of the great portrush novel (gpn) out of its current occupation of dictating an existence in daydreams.
I'm starting (positive note) at the railway station. I thought to myself that the introductory setting of a station throws up images of connections, missed connections, arrivals, departures ... all that kind of stuff. Oh holy God, am I thinking of the Enigma of Arrival? So? What if I am?
Today is New Year's Eve aka ne'erday if I believe the Sunday Post, a much favoured paper in our house on a Sunday. My mother always bought the Sunday Papers from McNicholl's after church. She claimed she was nervous about the minister seeing us or anybody else for that matter buying the papers. if this was the case why did she persist? The paper shop was only fifty yards (hey, let's see that's uh, just trying to do metres here, that's uh - fuck it I can't do it without a calculator) from our church and we all seemed to arrive at once. By all I mean the various congregations. The Presbyterians and the Church of Ireland and the Methodists (us) all were released from worship at around the same time. I think the Catholics got out of mass earlier just to spite us.
McNicholl's, The Gift Shop, was a great place to buy albums from at Christmas. The Beano, The Dandy ... If one was missing from my Christmas stocking I could count on buying it from Jim McNicholl. I hope I'm not mixing this memory of early consumerism with Brown's shop. I know we got my comics in Brown's - 'You mean comic magazines, Macmillan', said Mr Wallace, our Latin Teacher, when he asked about my reading material outside of school.
Do modern teachers humiliate their charges today? I nearly said I hope not, but maybe that kind of vicious treatment helps you to grow a spine or if you're lucky it doesn't and you have to become a writer.
That's enough. I've busted the hoodoo.
Happy New Year everybody.
I am now all afire again to get rid of the great portrush novel (gpn) out of its current occupation of dictating an existence in daydreams.
I'm starting (positive note) at the railway station. I thought to myself that the introductory setting of a station throws up images of connections, missed connections, arrivals, departures ... all that kind of stuff. Oh holy God, am I thinking of the Enigma of Arrival? So? What if I am?
Today is New Year's Eve aka ne'erday if I believe the Sunday Post, a much favoured paper in our house on a Sunday. My mother always bought the Sunday Papers from McNicholl's after church. She claimed she was nervous about the minister seeing us or anybody else for that matter buying the papers. if this was the case why did she persist? The paper shop was only fifty yards (hey, let's see that's uh, just trying to do metres here, that's uh - fuck it I can't do it without a calculator) from our church and we all seemed to arrive at once. By all I mean the various congregations. The Presbyterians and the Church of Ireland and the Methodists (us) all were released from worship at around the same time. I think the Catholics got out of mass earlier just to spite us.
McNicholl's, The Gift Shop, was a great place to buy albums from at Christmas. The Beano, The Dandy ... If one was missing from my Christmas stocking I could count on buying it from Jim McNicholl. I hope I'm not mixing this memory of early consumerism with Brown's shop. I know we got my comics in Brown's - 'You mean comic magazines, Macmillan', said Mr Wallace, our Latin Teacher, when he asked about my reading material outside of school.
Do modern teachers humiliate their charges today? I nearly said I hope not, but maybe that kind of vicious treatment helps you to grow a spine or if you're lucky it doesn't and you have to become a writer.
That's enough. I've busted the hoodoo.
Happy New Year everybody.
2 comments:
How do that hoodoo now do?
Sorry Vanda, didn't see your comment. been away in my mind - which is no bad place for a putative writer.
I'd better stop telling myself that ... soon, now, tomorrow, today oh god oh god oh god (you're on your own son, God)
Post a Comment