Made Good Food, Sat up Talking Late Into the Night, La Bella Vita!
Good evening one and all. Or, as my activity log tells me, one. Hmm. I hope someone starts to read this blog soon: it gives one a sense that one isn't truly reaching out.
Right, to matters in hand. Am quite tired and low-energy today and have only managed an hour of doodling in my beautiful leather moleskine notebook, and made no substantive effect on the progress of my novel. I have on the other hand sat in cafés all day drinking coffee, which is a quite delightful activity in itself.
The reason I am so tired and, therefore, so uninspired, is that I spent a lovely evening last night, the large percentage of it being without sleep and with that uncomfortable feeling of being awake when the hangover sets in. (Better, I suppose, than waking up with it.)
As a mark of my thanks to the set who are letting me stay on the sofa in their house I cooked dinner which consisted of my simply exquisite spaghetti bolgonaise (my secret is I add capers - you think its crazy? try it yourself...) and some garlic italian flat bread which I pounded into its flatness with my the strength of my own fair hands (although whether the extra effort was worth it, considering the floury mess I made, is somewhat of a moot point). Work in a restaurant, apart from the fact that it nearly destroyed my soul entirely, had its postive aspects.
After dinner we sat in the living room with a couple of bottles of wine between us; a couple, in this instance, averaging out at approximately 1.75 bottles each. Everyone, particularly James, was on excellent form. Darren, who up to now I have considered a rather moody, sombre figure - something of the brooding artist de rigueur sans, thankfully, the beret - opened up a good deal, and actually condescended to smile once or twice! I am getting to the point with these three people that we can talk quickly and irreverently, picking up on each others wavelengths, taking up each other's thoughts and running with them a long all kinds of heltering skeltering routes of conversation. This, in my opinion, is one of the highest signs of friendship - not the ability to talk about your deepest secrets with someone (lord, those who are so emotionally inept that they need to outpour their 'feelings' can usually do so to anyone who has ears and an inability to escape), when you can 'jam' when talking, busk conversation safe in the knowledge that those around you are understanding not just what you are saying but appreciate the way you are saying it. It is a proof and demonstration of connection. And I feel that I've connected with these people very quickly. I've been very lucky.
After James and Darren had gone to their (respective) beds, Carly and I sat up until late into the night/morning (I went to bed at five for a couple of hours), talking about all kinds of things, mainly art. She's a funny mixture, Carly. She seemed, when I first met her to be quiet, a little distantly cold, demure even, in her own way. Yet, when she starts to talk about things she cares about she gets extremely passionate - and she's very passionate, as well as extremly knowledgeable about visual art in its multitude of guises. Many of the names she mentioned I said I hadn't heard of, and she very ecitedly traced out their place in the pantheon of art history for me. I nodded, pretended I understood what she was talking about, and sipped more wine.
Since I've been living in the house I haven't seen any of her pictures; she has said that she's very protective of them. But last night she led me by the hand up to the top of her house (she sleeps in an attic room which doubles as a makeshift studio) and showed me some of her works-in-progress. It may have been the wine, or my lack of knowledge about art in general, but I thought they were really very good. The nearest thing I can think of (in my limited artists vocabulary) is that they're a bit Lucien Freud; very fleshy, whist being a bit more reserved than the Freud works I've seen. I'm no art critic, but, as I say, I really liked them. Usually I'm a bit suspicous about any attempt to link the artist to his work - try and read back from art something about the character of he or she who created it - but I think the pictures seemed to suggest hidden depths; depths of more open, fluid emotion that the buttoned-up outer her image might immediately lead you to believe.
As the night drew on we sat next to each other on the sofa and Carly leaned her head on my shoulder whilst I stroked the inward curve of her hair. There was preemptorily sexual in the gesture, I'm quite sure of that, but neither was it the false intimacy nothing of two drunkards pawing to pretend away their solitude. I think Carly, like all the people in this house, and unlike so many people I've met in the past, is worth knowing; I think she has something special about her.
Another post has gone by and I still have written next to nothing about my novel; ah well, I haven't written any novel yet either.
Til Tomorrow, then.
Right, to matters in hand. Am quite tired and low-energy today and have only managed an hour of doodling in my beautiful leather moleskine notebook, and made no substantive effect on the progress of my novel. I have on the other hand sat in cafés all day drinking coffee, which is a quite delightful activity in itself.
The reason I am so tired and, therefore, so uninspired, is that I spent a lovely evening last night, the large percentage of it being without sleep and with that uncomfortable feeling of being awake when the hangover sets in. (Better, I suppose, than waking up with it.)
As a mark of my thanks to the set who are letting me stay on the sofa in their house I cooked dinner which consisted of my simply exquisite spaghetti bolgonaise (my secret is I add capers - you think its crazy? try it yourself...) and some garlic italian flat bread which I pounded into its flatness with my the strength of my own fair hands (although whether the extra effort was worth it, considering the floury mess I made, is somewhat of a moot point). Work in a restaurant, apart from the fact that it nearly destroyed my soul entirely, had its postive aspects.
After dinner we sat in the living room with a couple of bottles of wine between us; a couple, in this instance, averaging out at approximately 1.75 bottles each. Everyone, particularly James, was on excellent form. Darren, who up to now I have considered a rather moody, sombre figure - something of the brooding artist de rigueur sans, thankfully, the beret - opened up a good deal, and actually condescended to smile once or twice! I am getting to the point with these three people that we can talk quickly and irreverently, picking up on each others wavelengths, taking up each other's thoughts and running with them a long all kinds of heltering skeltering routes of conversation. This, in my opinion, is one of the highest signs of friendship - not the ability to talk about your deepest secrets with someone (lord, those who are so emotionally inept that they need to outpour their 'feelings' can usually do so to anyone who has ears and an inability to escape), when you can 'jam' when talking, busk conversation safe in the knowledge that those around you are understanding not just what you are saying but appreciate the way you are saying it. It is a proof and demonstration of connection. And I feel that I've connected with these people very quickly. I've been very lucky.
After James and Darren had gone to their (respective) beds, Carly and I sat up until late into the night/morning (I went to bed at five for a couple of hours), talking about all kinds of things, mainly art. She's a funny mixture, Carly. She seemed, when I first met her to be quiet, a little distantly cold, demure even, in her own way. Yet, when she starts to talk about things she cares about she gets extremely passionate - and she's very passionate, as well as extremly knowledgeable about visual art in its multitude of guises. Many of the names she mentioned I said I hadn't heard of, and she very ecitedly traced out their place in the pantheon of art history for me. I nodded, pretended I understood what she was talking about, and sipped more wine.
Since I've been living in the house I haven't seen any of her pictures; she has said that she's very protective of them. But last night she led me by the hand up to the top of her house (she sleeps in an attic room which doubles as a makeshift studio) and showed me some of her works-in-progress. It may have been the wine, or my lack of knowledge about art in general, but I thought they were really very good. The nearest thing I can think of (in my limited artists vocabulary) is that they're a bit Lucien Freud; very fleshy, whist being a bit more reserved than the Freud works I've seen. I'm no art critic, but, as I say, I really liked them. Usually I'm a bit suspicous about any attempt to link the artist to his work - try and read back from art something about the character of he or she who created it - but I think the pictures seemed to suggest hidden depths; depths of more open, fluid emotion that the buttoned-up outer her image might immediately lead you to believe.
As the night drew on we sat next to each other on the sofa and Carly leaned her head on my shoulder whilst I stroked the inward curve of her hair. There was preemptorily sexual in the gesture, I'm quite sure of that, but neither was it the false intimacy nothing of two drunkards pawing to pretend away their solitude. I think Carly, like all the people in this house, and unlike so many people I've met in the past, is worth knowing; I think she has something special about her.
Another post has gone by and I still have written next to nothing about my novel; ah well, I haven't written any novel yet either.
Til Tomorrow, then.
posted by The Wandering Novelist at 9:17 PM
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