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But still, if they ever catch on fire—which, with any luck, they might
I had a nice day when I was not expecting to. The MBTA had quasi-fallen down, as is honestly its norm these days (and I don't want it privatized, I want it properly funded by the state), but a frequently stressful appointment went well, I had a pleasant conversation with a total stranger over a bagel on my part and a package of muffins on his, and there was a brilliant low sunset flare behind the Citgo sign as I was coming back across the Longfellow Bridge, that winter-red sun that attracts mythological similes. I am reading Derek Jarman's Smiling in Slow Motion (2000).
I don't know what to do about the fact that my favorite overshirt is falling apart. Our sharp-clawed and snuggling cats have contributed a little, but the real problem is that I looked at the label ("M (15–15½) Fieldmaster Made in U.S.A. Perma-Prest 100% Cotton") and then I looked at the internet and this shirt may be older than I am. Fieldmaster is an extinct label of Sears. I find shirts of this style advertised as vintage on eBay. It is a dark slate blue and fits my shoulders perfectly. In really cold weather, I can wear it over a T-shirt and under a sweater and not overheat while walking at my normal pace outdoors. I understand that I am hard on clothes because when I find something I like, I wear it until it wears out, but I really feel I shouldn't be losing this one. The overall cloth and most of the major seams are sturdy. It's never lost any buttons and I can mend buttonholes. The issue is that the cuffs unraveled some time ago and the edge of the placket is going the same way and one of the pockets is tearing out at the corner, which makes no sense to me because I don't keep anything in the breast pockets of my shirts; the collar is also looking a little shabby. There are fraying hems. These are things I have no idea how to fix.
Reading Derek Jarman makes me think about the fact that I was not part of the queer culture of my youth, but the straight culture of my youth was incredibly alienating, and either way I couldn't tell if people were interested in me unless they said so. It's not my first mode of interaction with other people; it is never my first assumption of someone else's motivations with me. I miss a lot of cues. I taught myself to recognize a variety of courtship behaviors over the years, mostly because things went badly if I didn't, but almost all of them are yet another of the alien languages that I have had to learn in order to exist. I think of the way books could be handed like code; maybe that works better for people who don't recommend books all the time, because when the high school friend I thought was not interested in me gave me a copy of Mary Renault's The Persian Boy (1972), I missed the signal. There is no moral here except the one I have already drawn about talking to people. And that I never again agreed to date a person to whom I felt no physical attraction just because we were friends and I thought that was how it worked.
I have just learned courtesy of a friend who is not on Dreamwidth that Noël Coward's "The Stately Homes of England" is a parody. This makes me happier than is probably reasonable.
I don't know what to do about the fact that my favorite overshirt is falling apart. Our sharp-clawed and snuggling cats have contributed a little, but the real problem is that I looked at the label ("M (15–15½) Fieldmaster Made in U.S.A. Perma-Prest 100% Cotton") and then I looked at the internet and this shirt may be older than I am. Fieldmaster is an extinct label of Sears. I find shirts of this style advertised as vintage on eBay. It is a dark slate blue and fits my shoulders perfectly. In really cold weather, I can wear it over a T-shirt and under a sweater and not overheat while walking at my normal pace outdoors. I understand that I am hard on clothes because when I find something I like, I wear it until it wears out, but I really feel I shouldn't be losing this one. The overall cloth and most of the major seams are sturdy. It's never lost any buttons and I can mend buttonholes. The issue is that the cuffs unraveled some time ago and the edge of the placket is going the same way and one of the pockets is tearing out at the corner, which makes no sense to me because I don't keep anything in the breast pockets of my shirts; the collar is also looking a little shabby. There are fraying hems. These are things I have no idea how to fix.
Reading Derek Jarman makes me think about the fact that I was not part of the queer culture of my youth, but the straight culture of my youth was incredibly alienating, and either way I couldn't tell if people were interested in me unless they said so. It's not my first mode of interaction with other people; it is never my first assumption of someone else's motivations with me. I miss a lot of cues. I taught myself to recognize a variety of courtship behaviors over the years, mostly because things went badly if I didn't, but almost all of them are yet another of the alien languages that I have had to learn in order to exist. I think of the way books could be handed like code; maybe that works better for people who don't recommend books all the time, because when the high school friend I thought was not interested in me gave me a copy of Mary Renault's The Persian Boy (1972), I missed the signal. There is no moral here except the one I have already drawn about talking to people. And that I never again agreed to date a person to whom I felt no physical attraction just because we were friends and I thought that was how it worked.
I have just learned courtesy of a friend who is not on Dreamwidth that Noël Coward's "The Stately Homes of England" is a parody. This makes me happier than is probably reasonable.
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I suspect it can be both: a sounding-out and a recommendation. It's a lot of people's favorite Renault. Mine just already happened to be The Mask of Apollo. I have never been able to decide if it would have been more effective to hand me a copy of The Charioteer or if it would have continued not to cross my mind that somebody could be interested in me without saying it outright. We watched Becket (1964) together. I don't know what either of us took from the church-and-state politics, but the night of the twenty-four-hour relay for a charity cause I no longer remember, the temperature plunged below zero in late May and everyone's parents rushed to the field with hot cocoa and blankets; we walked the track in circles underneath summer stars with our breath fogging and curled shivering into the pup tent our friend group had pitched assuming we wouldn't need it and I imagined her saying to me, I'm cold, Thomas—I would have known what she meant by that. But she thought I wasn't interested, either, even though the smell of her hair made my brain short out, and that is why I am happy for people with working gaydar, but I still think conversation is essential.