Sinister: Many of our festivals celebrate moments of light or darkness

[Will Salt]

This post is for *you*

I can never think of subject lines.  Dimitra picked this one for me.  
She spotted it in an art gallery in Sheffield, on a board explaining 
vision and shape and form and sight, trying to explain to everybody 
that artists can see the world in different ways to everyone else.  I'm 
not sure if they can really.  I mean: I'm not sure if they are 
*different* to everyone else; they are just better trained.  More 
practised.

We are having a Sinister Christmas this year.  Greek Dimitra is 
visiting, from Greece, and we have taken over the stereo and made my 
parents listen to all sorts of music they have never heard before.  "A 
lot of these songs seem to be about cigarettes," said my mother, 
listening to the Tindersticks.

Dimitra arrived in Britain a long long time ago now.  It was over a 
fortnight ago, in fact.  I met her off of the train, and we went to the 
pub.  I told her lots of exciting things, and showed her the large 
variety of fried food which can be obtained in a Scottish chip shop.  
"Don't you die if you eat all that stuff?" she said.

On Christmas Eve I went out to dinner with some old friends.  We ate 
and drank, and went into the town centre.  I realised that last year, I 
did the very same thing and came home and posted about it.  Looking 
back, it feels like *that* was the start of the last year, and 
Christmas Day last week was the start of the new year, not tonight.  
Time to tear up all the calendars and start writing in the new ones.

Before Christmas, I went to Dundee for the weekend to visit Dimitra and 
Rachel and Danny.  Rachel was feeling bossy, and arranged a weekend of 
"educational fun" for all of us.  We went to the cinema, made our own 
CD, and cooked some rather spicy food.  Belle the Kissing Dog was very 
licky, and kept barking at the hamster when the rest of us were trying 
to concentrate.

If you want to reread the post I wrote last Christmas, you could go and 
look it up in the archives.  I would tell you the address, but the 
archives don't seem to like me right now, so I can't find it.  The same 
happened this Christmas as the last one, except that this year I sat 
talking to a girl I used to be in love with.  We didn't talk about much 
important.  But we talked, and that was nice.  She looked like anyone 
else from that town does.  Me and Dimitra looked like Sinister people, 
rather out of place.  We weren't comfortable in the noisy, hot, cramped 
bars; but I stayed and talked anyhow.

I did lots of other things with Dimitra whilst she was here.  We went 
to a Belle and Sebastian gig, which was good, and then I stayed up all 
night with Danny and Matt and Calumn and Ken in an expensive-but-cosy 
cafe.  The cafe had a bathtub in it, filled with water and with fish 
swimming around.  Midway through the night, a group of men came in.  
One by one, they walked up to the bathtub and dipped the tops of their 
heads in it before being shown out by the doorman.  I'm not sure what 
they were doing, or why.  I hope the fish aren't poisoned now by cheap 
hair gel.  They didn't look too healthy to start with.

Also, I took Dimitra to the beach and she spun round in circles.  We 
went to Sheffield and met John from Leicester.  We sat around in my 
parents' house and drank vodka.  On Christmas night, when all was dark, 
we sat leant back in my parents' big leather armchairs, listening to 
B&S on the stereo, and I told Dimitra about the girl she had just met.  
Who she was in my life story.  I fetched down from my bedroom the box 
of letters I keep from her, from when I was younger, and we read 
through some of them.  They touched me, greatly.

If this is the new year, then I should start making resolutions.  I 
resolve to change things this year.  I resolve to change myself.  All 
the changes I've made in the past year were on the inside, hidden under 
my clothes.  Well, some of them were hidden out in the open, but they 
were still hidden.  This year I want to change the things on the 
outside.  Maybe I should wear my hair in pigtails more often, and be 
proud of it.  Maybe I should change my voice.  I've never liked the 
sound of my voice.

I want to get back in touch with the girl I wrote letters to back when 
I was in school.  [in case you haven't been to the archives, I loved 
this girl.  we wrote letters to each other every week even though we 
saw each other every day but hardly spoke.  then she got a boyfriend 
and stopped.]  I want to get in touch with her just because I want to 
know what she is doing and thinking now, and I want her to know what I 
am thinking now.  I told her nearly everything about myself back then.  
Maybe if I write to her again, I can tell her the rest of it.

Tonight I am going to go out, and tomorrow I am going to rest.  The day 
after, I want to go out and buy a notebook, so I can start writing 
things down.  If I start writing things down, I will get better at 
putting things into words.  If I start putting things into words, I 
might be able to explain things a little better.  If I can do that, I 
will be able to do anything.  Maybe even have plaited hair in public a 
bit more often.

lots of love to all of you.  it's wintertime, so stand round a bonfire, 
look up at the stars, and hug each other whilst thinking how far away 
and beautiful they are.


xxxxx
will


-- 
Will Salt
ICQ 66321009
http://www.btinternet.com/~wpsalt/
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