So first off, let me say it's a good thing my room is so icy that I can't lie warmly in bed while typing because my arms just get too cold, and that my bed is hideously spikey and there's no real way to sit underneath the light without getting a cramped neck, because if any of these wasn't the case I might lie in bed reading and writing for days . I want to. So much. But it's that uncomfortable here, and at the strangely positioned desk, that to do that I'd at least have to open the curtains, get dressed and head to the busy bustle of the library with their heating and cosy chairs. In fact I might. But it's not the same.
One of the great things about solitude, is how you become the designer of the tiny space that is your world. I mean... I choose what mediums are filtered in, what music is playing, what billboards aren't visible, what glaring lights can't permeate my curtains or bedlight dimness. While doing a puzzle on the floor to Miles Davis, who's to know where or when I am? While eating eggs and reading a book written years ago, any country and any decade could be just outside my window.If it weren't for the brandname products lying around and the fact that a list of fairly modern to-dos keeps involuntarily running through my head, I'd say I could be in any era I chose right about now. But that's the case in so many situations. History really does repeat itself. Or rather, human beings seem to be the same, and just things around them changes.
This morning I was reading (well, re-reading. But I mustn't have been paying attention the first time because I remember nothing except liking it) the Great Gatsby and have only just now successfully put it down (mainly because I really need to shower and head out to the real world. Although during the holidays there's not that much compulsion to do that. So my plan is to do it much less often. ) because it's writing amazes me, both it's descriptions and the fact that the descriptions , while dated, match things I've seen and thought years later. I guess that's the appeal of a lot of books. This morning I was reading a section about a party of the richest, the 'classy', refined, affected people gathering at the house of someone they didn't even know to float around and talk to people they'd forget, flatter women they hated on their dresses, down fancy snacks and cocktails until conversation became slurring and people dressed expensively passed out in the grass or crashed their cars on the way home, while arguing with cheating husbands and planning to sleep the whole next day then repeat the process. Actually, my description sounds sort of damning, it's not at all. I've spent a lot of time at parties like that, met more people than I'll ever remember, lived through chunks of time where night was all there was because days were hangovers in between events that blurred together anyway. Labelled people with names like "Owl face" or "Green Shorts" to keep track of them through the evening, knowing I'd never see them again, watched things degrade until expensive schooling was lost in sentences that made no sense. And it's wonderful, and hilarious, and easy. 3am seems early and usually there's a warm summer breeze blowing the whole time. The thing is though ... it doesn't stay enough. Parties where you meet people you'll never see again but where the conversations teach you things, or parties involving fewer or more real people, continue, but the epic anonymous drunken bashes have been phased out. There's a very clear difference. I... ok. I could harp on for a long time. Clearly. But the point of putting the book down was to make myself get up (I'm really not tired, just warmer here. Made coffee and toast and then any need to leave sheets dissolved after that) . Perhaps I'll just melt into my little cabin and stay here forever. Or perhaps I'll trap things in my head, sort of like an oxygen diving tank, and head out into the world and continue seeing it this way(what I could argue was a rational way untainted by all the things that bombard you out there these days). Or perhaps I'll just leave and hope that when I come back I can think clearly again rather than about the matters of 'importance' outside my door.
