2001-08-14 - 1:39 p.m.
An inarticulate mess
I love the way the summer exists solely through the hours at which I am in an air conditioned office. I almost miss the old building with no climate control - at least you knew what time of year it was meant to be.Sandwich: Avocado, Parmesan and Roquette from Pret - nice and summery and of course laden with their trademark pine kernels.
Reading: Just finished Sam the Cat which I picked up free at work - rest assured I wouldn't have picked it up according to this cover. But it was really good. A collection of short stories invariably told from the point of view of a 20something affluent man-boy in a long term relationship. It's American too. American men are something interesting, I think. Leaving aside the macho big-muscled clichéd American man, they are much less laddish than British men tend to be. They have really been affected by the emancipation of women - not that British men haven't, but things always happen on a bigger scale in America. But the protagonist in all these stories seems to be locked in an eternal quandry, swirling between loving his girlfriend yet occasionally hating her, being sensitive but manish, being supportive and taking the blame for everything going wrong in the relationship, including pregnancies - all his fault. In the end, I didn't find it dark that frequently the protagonists would cheat on their girlfriends, but just a fascinating insight to the myriad feelings men do have (sometimes it's easy to forget that they have any - sorry, but it is).
Oh - the card I sent to my 30 year old friend went down very well. He particularly liked the lyric from Hazey Jane 2 that I put in. I don't know why I wrote it; it's not anything to do with getting older or being male, but clearly it was the right thing to put because he said it's such a pretty lyric it brings a lump to his throat.
Right, I'm off to a) do some work b) look at improving my LomoLife.