Mental As Anything / Remembrance of Things Past

 

RTomens, 2019

Hello! Good to see you again! How are you? 

Last night I dreamt about an ex-girlfriend (1979-82) all because I'd played Elvis Costello that afternoon and she was a big fan of his. She was quite the literary girl, you know, hence the Attraction(s) of Costello's lyrical skills. She read Andre Gide and quoted him in letters to me. She loved Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In fact, at one point I think she even convinced herself that we were the contemporary equivalent - ha-ha! - despite her writing nothing and me just being a poet who'd made a few fanzines. Well, we can all indulge in fantasies, can't we? I probably played along, although such lofty aspirations were never openly stated.

Recently I lie in bed at night (or morning) getting all nostalgic...memories of specific people pour into the frontal awareness zone of my noodle from way back in the seemingly infinite box of marked 'biography'. Um, does that make sense? No matter. Thinking of this former girlfriend I recalled that we'd meet in the Wimpy Bar at Piccadilly Circus every Saturday morning. This was before I lived in London. How romantic, eh? I can't recall what we drank but I can still see us sat at a table window looking down on the people and traffic. I think we looked down on a lot of people. 

What made us so special? Absolutely nothing, but sometimes the armour of self-belief comes in handy. I needed it, especially since I worked in a factory. Trouble is, the armour wasn't wearable when I spent all day concocting what would become frozen food dishes. I was too weak to even lift it, metaphorically-speaking. But come the week-end, I was off to London! I wore what I thought was the hippest clothes. We went to see the hippest bands! We danced in clubs! We listened to Art Blakey LPs on her stereo. 

Three years later I was secretly seeing someone else. And so was she. Huh. That's life (and love). It didn't end well, as you can imagine. I burnt all her letters and rarely saw her again. She moved to Paris (typical!). She became a lesbian, which I tell myself was because after me she could never hope to find a better male lover....ha-ha-ha!

Today I listened to a lot of Kraftwerk, but never having dated a girl who was into them, I can't dream about one.

TTFN