Sinister: dreams

[idleberry]

hello sinisterians!

today I passed my theory test. I'm one step away from
buying myself a car to drive to more picnics.

yesterday I bought a thesaurus. When I was little, I
used to pronouce it as "thees- ee-a-saurus". I did til
I was 15 actually. 

I've been experiencing glimpses of inspiration
recently. I experience it on buses, or trains, or when
i go for walks, and then i go to places like work and
it gets killed off. But then it jumps up again. And I
like that. I just wish it would hang about for longer.
I see things, and sometimes I promise to write about
them in my notebook, and sometimes I make a memo to
myself in my head to write to sinister about them. But
then work attacks the imagination. Work is a scam, you
know. Its designed to keep us under control by those
who want to kill our passions, and to make us make
money for them. Thats why its so hard to be a
professional creator of things. Only a few, a lucky
select few, ever break out of the 9-5ing. I think. 
wonder about the people I see sometimes, on the train
to work. Do you suppose that the middle aged men, in
middle management, who prepare endless streams of
reports for their collegues to read, that seem to be
about the most mindless o things, ever really wanted
to be there? I doubt it. What happens to your dreams?
And if your dreams die, what replaces them? And how do
people cope with dead dreams?

I'm lucky. I've acheived a lot of my childhood
ambitions. I never wanted much. It just looked
fascinating when I was little.
My checklist of ambitions:
to work in a shoe shop: I used to get a pair of new
shoes, and I loved it. I'd take it home in the box,
and sell it to my teddy bears, intregued by the
illustraton on the label on the front, or the 13G
size. The idea that there was a magical room, in the
Clarks shoe shop in East Kilbride just filled with
boxes was a hidden cave of childhood desires. All
those boxes! Think of the toys you could devise from
them! you could easily build a fortress from them! And
the shoes! all mint condition, all wrapped up in
tissue paper, all new, without a single crack or
crease in the patent black smoothness. 
They used to have a big image of the magic roundabout
on the wall in that shoe shop too. My mum and dad
always sat us away from it, behind an island of shoes,
so I wouldn't get distracted. And the wonderful little
shoe fitters- I loved that. I always wanted the cool
white band that they pulled over the top to be pulled
tighter. And when you got bigger, they took you to the
machine. You'd put your foot in to this square shaped
hole, and then the assistant would use a control, and
then the sides would come inwards, and it would scroll
across this lit up screen, to tell you your shoe size.


tto work in a cafe: When I went to norway, as a kid, I
used to play a lot on my own. My dad built me this
wonderful play hut. It was amazing. It had a door, and
two windows, and a balcony with little steps, and was
made from wood, and painted red, with white around the
edges of the roof and the door. Its still standing
there. It got too hot to play for long periods of time
in there, but I made it my own. I used a bright
plastic blue crate for a table, and I found this old
rocking chair my uncle made . And I found bits of
embroidered cloth for table linen. I'd line my mums
toys up. My favourite, was this tiny little panda she
had. It must have had metal inside under the lining of
fur- like the toys you see in childhood musuems or on
the Antiques Roadshow from the 1950's, but it was
cool. It had moving limbs like a proper teddy bear,
and a ragged red ribbon round its neck with a plastic
medalion, that once had gold coloured paint on it with
some maker perhaps or manufacturer on it, but only a
few tiny spots of paint were left. And when you moved
its tail from side to side, the head wiggled.
I even had a little rug, one like those rag rugs you
get from shops like Ikea. Although, when it was wet,
and I had my wellington boots on, I used to trail bits
of long grass all over the inside of my hut anyway. 

On nice days, I used to set up a table outside. It
would be made from floats used by fisherman that had
been discarded and washed up on the rock beach. There
were three I needed: two cylinder ones, and a wide,
flat, circular one. And I would place the circular one
ontop of one of the cylinder ones, for a tale, and the
other cylinder one acted as a stool. Then I'd cut out
a paper plate from a sheet of lined A4paper. and I'd
use my mums old doll china tea set. Dandalion leaves
made a salad. As it was summer, I'd go and pick
buttercups. When the buttercups have been pollenated,
or whatever it is that they do, then the middle of
them becomes swollen, and green. And if you pick of
the petals, you're left with this little green sphere.
They made great peas. 
My gran had made a knitted bottle cosy, for a glass
bottle. It was brown and red, and it had a little face
on it, with a pom-pom hat over the neck. I used to
take off the hat and put wild flowers in it. Then, I'd
invite my mum to eat at my cafe, where I served peas
and salad and tea. She was aways a gracious customer,
and paid very well in imaginary money.

To go to university: I was seven, and I designed a
pciture of a house. I remember it was a sunny sunday
afternoon, and I sat in the channel of a beam of
sunlight, with a new A4 refill pad. I sat drawing
cafefully, a plan of a house. When I showed this to my
dad, he sat on the sofa, and smiled, raising his
eyebrows as he puffed his ever present pipe. He told
me it was like an architects drawing. I asked what an
architect was. He explained to me. Noticing my fathers
impressed face, I wanted t become an architect. My dad
said I'd have to go to university for seven years.
After that, all my jobs that I wanted to do involved
university at some point. The idea of being a scholar,
of being someone, so clever and wise and surrounded by
books, with leather bindings, and feeling somehow
special.. it became part of the requirement for my
jobs.

I never became an architect, but I did go to
university.

car driving: I wanted to drive a car. I had two to
cars when I was three. Two matchbox toy cars. They
went everywhere with me. Them and my bean bag little
ted.
I had a brown porche, and a yellow ryder van. 
In the summer, I usedto wait for my dad to come home.
And I would run to the end of the street. Some days,
he'd let me climb in on his knee, and steer the car
into the driveway. I used to wave at my friends, who
were mostly older than I, standing there on thhe
pavement dismounting their bikes to watch.
On saturdays, I used to play at ice cream vans. We had
this big White chrysler avenger estate, so it sort of
looked like an ice cream van, from my eye. I'd make
ice cream cones from more of that A4 lined paper,
stuffed with cotton wool. Or if I'd run out of cotton
wool, pink toilet paper. And then I'd scream out the
open window, and allthe nieghbours kids would come
running, and pretend to buy an ice cream from me.
Sometimes, they didn't quite get it, and gave me real
money. Which my dad would find in the ashtray.

flying: I used to want to fly. I use to ask my mum,
why jumping off a chair with a teatowel round my neck
didn't make me fly. It worked for superman, afterall.
I'd run up and down the livingroom, trying to build up

speed to lift me off the ground. My mum explained I
couldn't fly, and birds could, becuase birds have
smaller bottoms than us. Well, I still can't fly
properly, although I tried fr years. But I've flown in
plenty of aeroplanes, so that has to count.

chocolate: the whole point of growing up, is that you
can do whatever you want to do. When I was about ten,
the one thing I wanted to do in the whole world was
take some chocolate ice cream sauce, and EAT it, just
on its own, without having to wait for dessert. 
You used to be able to buy a sauce called "ice magic"
in the UK. It was in a chocolate brown shaped plastic
bottle, with a brown cap that was perhaps supposed to
resemble a snow covered peak, dripping down the sides
of the "mountain" shaped bottle. You would pour this
stuff over your ice cream, and it would harden to a
crisp, if you left it for a few minutes. You'd have to
shake the bottle hard though beforehand, or it would
come out watery and oily, like when you don't shake
tomato ketchup before you squeeze it out, and you get
this runny, watery stuff with a tint of red in it. 
Well, ice magic.
I used to want to pour it and devour it by the
tablespoonful. but i had to ait til dessert time at
the weekends. 
My friend wanted to as well. squeeze it into a spoon,
and let it harden and form the shape of the spoon. 
Sometimes, I'd mix the ice magic in with my ice cream,
making it all thick and creamy, and sometimes, i'd let
it harden, then crack it with my spoon and mix it in,
so i'd get little bits of chocolate. 
Well, I've not see ice magic for years, but as an
adult, I've certainly eaten as much chocolate as I
can. And theres nobody to stop me. Only my stomach.


thats all the ambitions i can recall having achieved
as an adult. 
Some I'll never acheive. 

I'll never become a unicorn, despite all the times I
tied paper cones to my head and sellotaped tassles
made from paper and string to my bottom.
I'll never be a horse either.
Nor a magician who can change form, into a cat, or
dog.
I'll never be a guest presenter on jackanory. I hated
the programme- it was far too educational for after
school, but I  wanted to be on it, telling people
stories I made up. 
But there are still some dreams I might accomplish
yet. Not telling you what, they are my special dreams.

I had so much moreto say really, but I'm getting tired
now. so I'll just try and remember to tell you some
other time.

Never going to dream of middle management.

love
idles
xxxx







=====
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/corduroysmoke/ starting playground gossip and passing notes

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