Sinister: Monday morning wake up knowing that you've got to go to school

[idleberry]

Hello Sinister.

Today I hooked up my old pc (the one with MS outlook and therefore my 
Sinister subscription) to life again. I found a post from a few weeks back, 
from Sam Walton. And it made me feel a little nostalgic in the head. So I 
thought I'd write.

Writing to you now, is a bit like finding an old letter from a pen friend, 
and then following up the address and thinking "maybe they still live 
there". At the very least, should you ever try that approach then remember 
to put a senders return address, in the even that the letter gets there and 
they can reply, or the new resident can write Elvis lyrics on them. (By 
which, I mean "return to sender", NOT "in the ghetto").

So this is what Sam Walton did. He made me want to put cyber pen to web 
paper and write to an old friend.

How are you? What are you doing these days?

Traditionally, I suppose this is the bit where I tell you about what I'm 
doing, I guess. I started out, back in 2000, writing to sinister as a rather 
bored student. I had ideas about the world back then. Not wrong ideas, but 
naive ones, perhaps, and there was something more energetic about me then. 
Impatient, certainly and while not angry, maybe a little more challenging. I 
had ideas, and the world was going to hear about them, whether it liked them 
or not. The world of course, being anyone within earshot, either on the web 
or in the pub, or my then boyfriend who kind of just had to listen as I put 
the world to rights.

I think I'm a bit different now. I'm a student though, again, although a 
much more dedicated one this time.

I still feel very much though, in my heart, like the girl who signed up to 
Sinister eight years back. Still awkward, still very uncool, still very 
capable of putting my foot in my mouth (and as such, I have tried to retire 
from being a loudmouth, to varying results depending on alcoholic content 
and or nerves). Still feeling very much like that when I try to be slightly 
fashionable, I am more Dot Cotton than Fearne Cotton. Albeit, minus the 
ciggies these days. I dress like your mum would approve. I stopped dressing 
in a way that fitted my circles, because I found they didn't fit my wobbles. 
Plus, I could never do it justice, and I'm ok with that. I prefer to look 
now, rather than to be.

I was talking to my boyfriend the other day about music. We were sitting at 
his kitchen table, and I was working on a suduko and we were having coffee. 
I asked him about his favourite song. And I decided that mine is probably 
still the same one it was eight years ago. I've never found a song that 
makes me feel the same. It's Expectations by Belle and Sebastian, you know. 
We discussed their recent albums, and I have to confess, I'm no longer a 
fan. They're no longer my "favourite" band. And that's ok. But if people ask 
what I'm into, and I have a sneaking suspicion they won't know necessarily 
the bands I might suggest, then B&S still make an appearance in my 
conversations.

But that song, it's still good. It makes me think of when I was a student. I 
used to listen to it, in particular, in my final year, walking along to 
university in Norwich, on my CD player. First thing in the morning (usually 
late) and walking along, past the houses and across the meadows; with 
morning dew on the ground, a bit of a cool spring air, lots of bright 
sunshine and trees casting dark morning shadows and cars queuing along the 
roads as people drive to work in rush hour. You can almost imagine them now, 
back in 2001, sitting in mondeos and listening to Virgin radio or Radio One 
with Chris Evans or Sara Cox. Everyone's dads and uncles drooling over 
Charlie Dimmock in Ground Force, and her undecked features. The question of 
the day on everyone's lips was who let the dogs out? And that song playing, 
just to me. It's a song, I think, which is for summer mornings. Not the sort 
of summer morning where you sit out on a patio, with a hot coffee and orange 
juice. I mean, an average, dewy mid-week sunny summer morning. That's what 
that song was made for.

When I think about other songs I've liked since then, I've liked lots of 
different ones over the years. But that one. It's like looking back through 
an old photo album, and seeing that cute, shy, bookish boy at school who you 
fancied, and seeing a photo of him, and realising he was actually quite good 
looking, and that even time and fashion hasn't changed your opinion.

And that's what happens, I suppose.

idles
xxx






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