Apparently isn’t a good way to start this sentence. Or end this one, apparently. There is no quality control. There are no system in place. There is bumbling, and when bumbling is no longer adequate for whatever aqueous reason there is stumbling. There are three am keys in doors that leave scratches on the wood.
There are scratches that need to be explained to the landlord when there is bond money to recover. There is always bond money to recover.
There is drunken head resting in the toilets, the forehead laid on the forehead-height grease stain of all the foreheads that have come before. There is pox in those potato-shaped shapes. There is Hong Kong flu, so called because we resent its dignity.
There are [s]tartlements, to which we are heir, but that startle us regardless. We watch ghost movies so we can practise jumping at being caught unawares. There isn’t much we cannot anticipate but we won’t have anticipated none of it. Not when it counts anyway.
There is dead time and it comes in units that are obscene – days, weeks, months, years. It is unrelenting. There will always be that one person that insists on reminding us that the year that just went went quickly.
There are deadlines. Most of these are self-imposed and bear no resemblance to any virtuous thing. In any case, the clue is in the title. There is the word dead in the word deadlines. This is what I meant.
There is sometimes the need to spell things out a little more clearly even though this is ham-fisted and embarrassing. There are two ars in embarrassing and two esses, too. These are necessary, but only two esses are necessary in necessary.
There are nervous demeanours that stalk around and look at you funny when you look at them funny. This can happen anywhere but you can certainly expect it at train stations and at the movies and in a pub. There are plenty of places to hide and you would do well to hide sometimes. There is an argument for it.
There are some words which usually have a negative connotation but sometimes they can be used in a positive way. There are three ens in connotation but the third en is off by itself there and maybe it doesn't even belong. There isn’t any real reason we can't make it belong because there is an argument for optimism.
Written on Tuesday, 18 February 2014