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Sunday, November 21, 2004

Painted From Memory 

Sunday, October 10, 2004

So the journal thing fizzled somewhat.
I’ve got stacks of photos so if I can be arsed I should be able to piece things together and Girlfriend will obviously remember things much better than me.
I’m not sure if I should blog about this, whether it will seem like gloating. On the other hand, I really do have shit for brains and if I don’t write it down, it’ll be gone in ten, twenty years, all but the briefest of outlines. And that’s a good reason for doing it.

Right now we’re sat on a bench near a bandstand on Boston Common. It’s 3:15pm. I feel sad because we’re leaving today.
It’s another beautiful Boston day - surely it can’t always be so lovely? - and people are strolling, cycling, talking, pushing prams. Children keep trying to feed the squirrels, but have yet to learn that you should not go to them, let them come to you.

On the bench to the left of us is homeless guy. He’s been going round checking the bins for returnable bottles. He’s collected a big bag full, but now he’s taking a break.
Girlfriend made a point of putting all our empties in the bins in the street rather than in the cafes. That way homeless dudes could collect them and return them for however much you get for returned bottles. She’s smart like that.

Behind us is a couple lying on the grass under a blanket, their sleeping heads resting on an old tatty suitcase. They look like they fell asleep at a rock festival that finished months ago, and stayed put after everyone else had packed up and gone home.

There was a couple of ex-film students talking about future projects and stuff on the next bench, but I missed it all because I was listening to Fountains of Wayne, my latest musical obsession, and writing this in my notebook. Girlfriend was eavesdropping on them though, and that’s how I know.

This morning we wandered down Newbury St. which is full of those preposterous expensive shops like Chanel, Ralph Lauren and so on. We were looking for a photography gallery I’d read about.
When we eventually found it, you had to go up in a gold plated lift to the fourth floor.
The lift wouldn’t work, presumably because it was too heavy, being gold plated and all. I pressed the button a couple of times but the doors wouldn’t close. We got out and the doors closed. We went back in again and the doors wouldn’t close. Eventually we lost our nerve - it would be just our luck to get trapped in a gold plated lift and miss the flight.

We passed an hour in an internet café, checking the football results, the news, and blogworld.
JB’s been Easyjetting. Jamie’s been buying shoes. Andre’s a different man since he got back from Belgium. Jezebel has lost her job and has had to suspend activity due to heartbreak.
I can hear children laughing in several languages and church bells ringing. The BBC says they’re having services throughout the country for that poor guy who got beheaded.

We’re off now for our last donut and coffee before we go back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and catch the shuttle bus to the airport.
It’s weird to think that at any time, somewhere in the world, there are people riding through the night in aeroplanes, squashed up together in a big metal tube hurtling across the black sky, going somewhere or coming back home.
Wish us luck.

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