Sex, and the city
Sex, and the citySex And The City. Aidan turns over in bed, puts his arm around Carrie, and she turns over to settle her head on his chest, putting her arm around him in return. Although ostensibly a romantic moment, it is, as with so many emotional climaxes in this sublimely glossy show, sterile. But it suits my purposes beautifully. Thinking about that precise movement, in life, I know every split-second of it by heart; by sight and touch and the almost tangible feel of each atom bursting at the seams with joy. But there, it looks so natural and unremarkable, so mundane, precisely because millions of people have done it, that I feel cheated. Cheated that it feels unique to me and that perhaps it’s not (well, it isn’t, because I know there’s at least one other person who experiences the same thing), that it’s taken away from me. Particularly cheated that waking up alone, so natural to me for so many years – to anyone, until they begin a relationship – is no longer comforting, but a reminder of his absence, a wrench so violent it’s a presence. (Derridean sous rature – the presence of an idea, even undramatised, strongly suggesting the extent to which it should be absent). Katie will remember Embrace; “and the awful weight spread across me when I wake; is your loving arm around me?” (‘New Adam New Eve’). And cheated by whom? Chaucer’s God of Love, or his modern agents, the media propagating the sop that love is all you need? I declared war on that idea long ago. I swore not to fall for it. I also knew that I would.
Once again, the sheer arbitrariness of it all. There being no ‘why’.
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves
The way I feel today - 10 July 2004
Just seventeen - 17 March 2004
Roads to freedom - 25 February 2004
Confessions of a failed self-harmer - 25 February 2004
Manchester, united - 25 February 2004