A peaceful saturday

I'm sat reading wind-up bird chronicles. Have been doing so for quite some time, a good couple of hours. Yesterday I didn't go to bed until it was today, 5amish, doing the same thing. It is so beautifully written. Everything the literary critcs have said concerning Murakami is true. He is a true original. He must have a facinating mind to be able to come up with the narrative arcs and characters that he does. Despite having read in an interview with him on salon.com (I really must subscribe to that zine some day) that he feels a sense of alienation in his own country, and no doubt this is true and warranted, I get a definately sense of Japan whilst reading his words. Truely breathtaking.

Today has been peaceful. I awoke at around 1PM, had my usual morning coffee, and was approached by my mother as to my plans (or was that last night?). I said I have none, because that was the truth. As such I was roped into helping out with chores, not that I minded, which was strange. I don't usually like menial work, I hate it with all my heart. My room is a choatic mess of books, clothing, CD's and cigarette butts. Two empty bottles of blue nun adorn the floor. The bed remains unmade for days on end. I don't iron my clothes much either, there is a huge pile of them downstairs, on a chair, crumpled. When I need them I either iron only what I need, or I just put them on creased. To be honest, my outward appearence doesn't bother me that much. Not to say I'm not vain, I am, slightly, but not in the same way as most people, I guess. Needless to say I'm not usually forthcoming in offering my assistance when it comes to housework.

Despite this I had no reservations what so ever with helping my mum out today.

She needed to go grocery shopping and I gladly occupanied her. Tescos was packed full as usual with its saturday clientele. busy busy. As we shopped I helped out by suggesting things I knew we needed, as well as ideas for meals and snacks and the such. I'd pursuaded her to purchase the guardian, as it has a weekly tv listings, and it is something I could read during the week as well. Unfortunately, they were sold out. I thought this strange, I'd never seen them sold out and I considered why this could be. Maybe the paper hadn't been delivered that morning.

Before we had entered tescos I'd asked my mother if she'd like to go for a beer, my treat. She jumped at the chance and it was decided that we would once we had completed the task of shopping. This is exactly what we did. After unpacking everything and putting everything in its rightful place we went to the wetherspoon's next to the supermarket. Just before we went in I gave my mother ten pounds, told her to get a round, and that I was just going to go to the nearby conveinance store to get the paper. They too had curiously sold out. I shrugged internally and went to meet my mother in the pub.

We sat and talked, how my life was, how her life was, how things were with her in work, money problems, things like that. Eventually, the conversation turned to Jade. I told her of my plan to get a place with her early next year, after I had settled into university and generally had my shit together. She said it would be hard. It wasn't a discouragement, not in the slightest, it simply seemed that she wanted me to be aware of what it would I would be getting myself into. She gave me advice money, on getting a place near the university, and sharing with other students to keep our costs down. We talked pleasantly about the subject for some 20 minutes. I discussed Jade's family, and the smothering, incapacitating effect they have on her, about how I needed to get her away from them, seperate her entity and spirit from their's a little, so she could find herself. It is something I feel very strongly about.

After we finished our pints she insisted we go home, despite myself offering another round. After we got in she said she was going to take a nap. Whilst she did so I went off in search of the paper. After two more failed attempts to find a copy I found a newsagents that wasn't sold out. After I'd brought one I realised why - The university placement clearing lists were published today, and no doubt many a nervous parent and failed A-Level student had been snatching up copies as quickly as possible, in the hope of securing a placement.

When I got back and my mum had awoken, after a short interval in which she drank tea and played puzzle games on yahoo, and I drank coffee and read the paper, we set about our tasks. I went through her old tapes to find some music we could listen to that I could stand. I picked a few out and offered her the choice, she settled on an old chart tape that consistented mainly of disco. Sheesh. I hoovered throughly whilst she worked in the kitchen, going over the same area a few times to make sure I didn't miss anything and removing any obsticles that got in my way. When 6PM rolled around I told her I was going to the video store to rent a film, Morvern Callar, that had recently been released into the rental domain. I'd wanted to see it in the cinema when it was out last year but never got around to it and I'd read a couple of nights before, in a copy of buzz I'd picked up in the edge, that it was finally available on video. I got the store and eagerly scanned the shelves for it, but to no avail. I did, however, notice that Spider (David Cronenberg, 2002) was out. I grabbed a copy and continued milling around the store looking for my original choice. In the end I asked a clerk if it was in and, sure enough, it was. With deft skill he picked it off the shelf and handed it to me. Now I was faced with a crisis of epic preporsions... Which to get? Both were released in the cinema at the same time, both I'd read about in the same issue of Sight & Sound, both appealed to me greatly. After about 10 agonising minutes I went with my original choice, figuring I could rent Spider during the week.

When I got home I hoovered upstairs. Then I sat reading the paper. My mother was going out for a drink her sister and her husband that evening, and she hadn't left enough time to prepare me dinner. "Big Deal!" I hear you say "Your not an invalid!", and you'd be right. I am, however, Dyspraxic, and performing ordered tasks can be a problem for me. The problem in this case turned out be the fact that the two frozen chilli burgers I was planning on eating wouldn't seperate. This lead to much frustration and after mushing and slashing them up quite a bit trying to get them to come apart I ended up just slapping the disfigured superburger under the grill, flipping it over every couple of minutes, and then cutting the mess in half so I could ensure it was properly cooked. Despite this it was still delicious, in a bun with lettuce, mayonaise and some Heinz exotic sauce. I listened to The Fall for a while whilst eating, but eventually decided to stick the film on.

2 minutes in though the phone rang. It was Jade. I turned the TV and video off and off I went. She was amazingly upbeat and happy. Since failing her AS levels she had decided not to pursue education any further for a while. This worried me because... Well, I'm a naturally concerned person. She'd planned on working on a fulltime basis at her job at Tescos (not the same tescos I had been to previously in the day, I might add, but a huge 24 hour megastore tescos) and had set things up with management that day. For the first time in forever she was no longer anxious. She didn't have to worry about school on Monday, because she'd dropped out. This had brought her peace. I smiled and smiled, inside and out. It made my heart palpertate with joy to hear her so happy. After we'd finished talking I went back to the film feeling a tremendous sense of well-being.

The film was amazing and beautifully shot. It affected me right away. The film opens on the protagonist, Movern Callar, running her hands all over the corpse of her dead boyfriend, tracing her fingers along the open wounds on his wrists, breathing in his scent. There is a suicide note on the computer monitor, as well as instructions on post-humourously publishing a novel he had written. What follows is truely astounding.

After the film I'm so ecstatic that I immediately phone Jade to tell her how much I love her, my face constantly split in a smile. Whilst bubbling randomly, lying on my back on the floor, staring up into the light, a moth suddenly flies too close to the light bulb, gets too hot, and spirals down. I'm staring straight up into the bulb at the time and It seems like the insect is spiraling down straight into me. If I hadn't of moved at the last minute I felt it would of kept going, spiraling down into my body, into my soul. I look at it there on the carpet. It's white with an intricate grey pattern. It's the most beautiful moth I've ever seen. I tell Jade all about it, gushing all the while. I prod it gently to see if it is still alive and it flutters it's wings before climbing onto my finger. It moves about on the back of my hand while I stare at it in wide-eyed wonder, describing my joy over the phone to my no doubt bemused girlfriend, before fluttering away. I laugh to myself, feeling the happiest I'd felt since taking Ecstasy with Sion the previous weekend. But that had been chemically induced, whilst this had been brought about by the randomness of the universe. This was far more special, far more profound. After I'd finished talking to Jade I brought up winamp and played some mp3's, needing to hear music, needing something to interact with this bliss. I danced around like a loon listening to The Beatles, Hefner and Silverchair. Then I sent Jade a text message to assure her that I was not on drugs, for a change, and that I was merely extremely happy and that I loved her. Then I walked the dogs whilst listening to some live radiohead I'd recorded off of radio one.