I don’t look my age. Thank god for good genes.
It’s snowing. I hate snow. One of the houses across the street doesn’t have proper insulation in their roofspace. I suppose they don’t know. Or don’t care. The house is up for sale. Or have they just bought it? There was a removal van there a week or two ago, and there are cards lined up in the front window today. Whatever. Their house is leaking heat through its roof.
So yes, I hate snow, but this morning when I looked out of the kitchen window and saw it blanketing the back garden, it was alright. It’s melting already now, and this is precisely what I don’t like about snow. The mush and melt and wetness that follows the pretty postcard image. Pat who has her washing out at all times, in all weathers, has her washing out today. Blues and maroons and purples. Stiff enough to crack, even just by looking at them.
I wonder if I have enough insulation in my roofspace. If I go out (if I go out, of course I’m going out, I’ve got to tax the car), maybe I’ll look up at the roof. Maybe.
I went to see that film yesterday. Factotum. Matt Dillon pulls off a fair approximation of old Bukowski. Listen to me, talking like I know anything about Bukowski. All I know is that he died of old age and I feel slightly cheated by this ending. He was supposed to die of alcohol poisoning, or being run over by a runaway ice truck, or something. It’s a funny film, though, and I’m glad I went to see it.
I’m annoyed with myself for using a cliché like “blanketing” to describe the snowfall up there. I’m going to leave it, though, to remind myself that I’m no Bukowski.
It’s from Old French, according to the dictionary. Blankete. As in blanc. So maybe it’s the perfect word for snowfall, and not a cliché at all.
Words are crazy. The other day I learned that the bogies we have in our noses are actually bogeys, because the synonym comes from ice hanging down from the underside of train bogeys. I think this is bullshit, but I admire the man who spoke it as truth, because he did it with such conviction.
So, what’s so wonderful? Apart from not looking my age, and having a day off so I can stare out of my window at my neighbour’s roof, of course. Well, everything. It’s some kind of wonderful that I can sit and have coffee with someone (of course, you know I was drinking tea) and talk about what I like and who I am and be silent and nervous and reassured all in the space of an hour, and now sit here wishing I smoked so I would be a real writer, and might even be thought of as cool as a result, and still know that it doesn’t matter if I’m cool or not.
Do you know why else I hate snow? Boys wee in the snow. It covers up dog muck, and it makes my knees hurt. Plus I feel stupid walking in it with an umbrella. Even though it’s nothing more than very cold rain.
I’m thinking about him. Wishing I was in work. Or he was here, smoking the cigarette for me. Being cool.
Funny how you can think about someone, and suddenly they pop up and scare you. Funny how you can think you’re in love with the nice guy, and then the bad guy comes back and makes you smile a different way.
My boots leak.
I’m not going to talk to him.
Funny. Some kind of wonderful is melting like the snow.
© J R Hargreaves 2005
