Wednesday, 17 January 1996  12:30pm

S,

Hi.  More Fun with J on the Trams.  Sat across from some bloke with a scar on his neck this morning that nearly went from one ear to the other, it was huge.  I wonder how he got it.  I couldn’t help sneaking looks over my book, I kept thinking what it would be like to have your neck-bits all hanging out, and whether he did it to himself or if it was from a car accident or something.  It looked a bit messy for a surgical scar.  He was about fifty-five, in a brown suit with squarish glasses and smooth grey hair.   He looked like a bit of a Momma’s boy to tell the truth. I dunno, it’s weird sometimes to think of what people actually endure.  Imagine having your neck sliced open like that.  I think of some TV scene where a clear plastic bag holding a goldfish in some water is slit along the side and all the water flows out and the fish just keeps swimming until it’s water’s gone, unable to even look worried.

Thursday, 18 January 1996  1:34pm

Hey Sis.  Another lunch-break, another whinge.  No-one interesting on the tram this morning.  I’m supposed to get a new desk today, a larger one.  It’s only taken me four years.  Wish I was at home on my couch, watching Hal Hartley films and eating Cheezels.

That Sartre book “The Reprieve” is good, I’m getting into it now.  It’s set in the eight days leading up to France’s declaration of war against Germany.  At first it was hard because the book is about twenty characters in different plot lines in different places (Africa, Marseilles, Paris) all going simultaneously.  Sometimes it will switch from one character’s story line to another without even saying something like “In Paris, Boris blah blah blah….”  It just changes, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. But now I know who all the characters are, and can follow changes pretty easily.  It’s an interesting effect, it’s like flicking through TV channels, makes you realize that there’s stuff going on everywhere, at every moment.  You know, hearts broken, lives won and lost, destinies met and all that.  It drives home the feeling of confusion and turbulence that the dawn of war must bring.  Some of the translation from French seems a bit dodgy though, just the order of words occasionally makes you look twice, interrupts the flow.  I’m so picky.

Friday, 19 January 1996  11:57am

Tessa’s (the bride-to-be whose wedding I’m attending next week) “Stag Night”tonight.  Don’t know if I’m up to it really.  Slept in this morning and still feel kinda groggy.  I hate having to leap out of bed like that.  Maybe I’ll take it easy tonight at the drinks table.  Just lean back in my seat, grow a pencil moustache under droopy eyelids and morph into Bryan Ferry. Then I could wear scarves and suits, say things like “Baby” and attract girls in leopard-skin cat-suits.  Jerry Scooby-Doo, where are yoooou?

J x

Scribble by S