Sinister: How I LearNed to USe Capital LetTers

[Ianjames]

One never knows what one shall find in an attic.
Jane Eyre said that.

Actually, no she didn't.  Its a long time since I read it, and it seemed 
eaiser to make something up.  I'd imagine she would have said something 
less whimsical...more practical, being good at that sort of thing.  She 
wasn't even fazed when she found out her chap had another wife, locked 
in a secret room.  Well, perhaps a little...but, y'know, she was very 
down to earth about it.

Were they more grounded times?  I am imagining the reaction of her 
facebook chums now ("OMG!  Just met Eddie's first wife!  What a fucking 
MENTALIST!  So glad he's met someone fabby and hot this time lol" 
(Blanche Ingram, Jean Rhys and 3 others LIKE your post)).  Perhaps a 
more modern Jane wouldn't have tried to hard to get so know the 
misogynistic fucker, and would have contented herself with an Etsy 
account selling hand-woven egg cups. Probably a better outcome, 
long-term.  People will always eat eggs.  Except vegans.  And even they 
can find joy in the graceful curve of the bowl, the subtle 
suggestiveness of a thin-necked stem, and the pleasing solidity of the 
base.  I know vegans that can spend months, years even, staring at a 
kitchen implement.

Yeah, Jane would have stayed focussed.  She kept her attic clean. After 
all, she never knew when she might end up living there.

Perhaps the sinister attic looks like Jane Eyre's.  I imagine it might 
be a little different though.  Lots of half-forgotten memories, 
mementos...trunks of random shite... What's in this one?  T-shirts..  
Did these things ever fit?  Were we really so svelte, or did we fool 
ourselves that our youthful insouciance, devil-may-care frippery and air 
of wild abandon would allow us to decorate our torsos in any way we saw 
fit?  Neither of the above, perhaps.  Wild abandon could be too much 
like hard work.  It can be difficult to be spontaneous when you're 
staring at your feet.
What else is there up here?  So many photographs.  I'm sure we had some 
ink polaroids around here somewhere?  Maybe later.  I'll need my glasses 
for those.  Can we save them somewhere where no fucker can stick them on 
Instagram?
Anything else?  Badges, hair-grips, hair-dye, Hello Kitty, Goodbye 
Kitty, Yknow I've moved on and I don't think its still appropriate that 
you contact me Kitty, GLO STICKS...(wow - I'll keep these.  I still love 
glo sticks.  Though I notice I'm fighting the urge to spell it with a 
"w"), old worn out suits and shoes, half-digested lyrics, cassettes 
stretched to breaking point, compilation tapes, corduroy, corduroy and 
more corduroy.  How these hugged our hips. I remember how this pair 
flared at the heel.  And that, for some reason, I saw that as a good 
thing.  Concert tickets.  Hopes, dreams, changes, memories.

Will you come and visit?  Its a little dusty, but there's space for a 
blanket, a few bottles of wine, maybe there's a box of beer up here...
Actually, nope, there's no beer... I can find baby milk, immodium, moist 
toilet tissue and Regaine.  I'm sure at least one of them doesn't belong 
to me.

-----------
So - I sat at the traffic lights this morning, and I thought about 
Sinister.  I know that sounds like the mailing list equivalent of "oh 
wow, how nice to hear from you! I was just about to call YOU!", but I'm 
sticking to my story here...  I felt a shift towards a happier mental 
state, and attributed it to a weekend spent with friends, watching 
bands, being a bit more selective (smug?) about it than I would have 
been once upon a time, but even so feeling lucky to be around people who 
would do something as thoughtful as organising such an event.   I drove 
away from Glasgow Green and reflected, as I often do, how strange and 
unexpected it was that I ended up here...and subsequently wondered, as I 
often subsequently wonder, if there was something inevitable about it 
all along.
I followed a dream up to Glasgow - love, change, a new life, a grown-up 
life in a big exciting city (apparently Birmingham wasn't big enough - 
although 2 million inhabitants might claim otherwise).  What a joy a 
dream can be.  What a fucker a dream can be.  Who knows how a dream will 
flow, and change?  I hear some dream lucidly - they step into these 
flights of whimsy, and manage to control them with their Special Clever 
Minds.  Maybe I'll learn that trick one day.

Errr...where was I going with that?  I'm not sure... Jane Eyre would 
have stayed focussed.  I've never been very good at that. But maybe 
there are other things I can do that she couldn't. Frankly, I'm a bit 
sick of Jane Fucking Eyre being so self-congratulatory.  If he'd liked 
you THAT MUCH, HE WOULDN'T HAVE WAITED UNTIL HE COULDN'T SEE YOU, FUCKER!!
Oh yes, there was maybe some point to the above...and it seems the point 
was that there might have been more than one fantasy involved in coming 
here.  Glasgow - home of the aah, the tra-la-la, the "I would like to 
climb high in a tree, I could be happy.  I COULD BE HAPPY!".  There are 
so many stories of this city - set out in songs, whispered at picnics, 
danced from Minehead to Moseley.  I knew much of it was myth.  But myths 
are what we need, sometimes - what's more captivating than a tall tale?  
And Glasgow is full of them.  Sometimes a little too full. I think some 
of the first that really caught my attenion involved being happy, for a 
day, in 1975.  Or a parrot, on your shoulder, saying everything when you 
talk.
In less mythical stories, as I slump into Easterhouse Health Centre on a 
Wednesday afternoon, trying my best to look energised, professional, and 
like somebody who has some idea of how to help others, I ponder on a 
song about someone coming to Easterhouse because they like the sound of 
it.  My God, what sort of person goes somewhere just because they like 
the sound of it?  Oh...hang on...
-------

Back to the attic, then.  I'm so pleased we can still get in.  I'm 
wondering who, or what will come through this door.
And...  Its nice looking at all these memories, but we don't have to 
stay hidden up here, do we?  The dust only irritates my asthma, and I'm 
careful with that, these days.  I reckon a lot of this old stuff still 
works - we can brush off the cobwebs, take it out into the light.  
Rumour has it there's a way out of this attic that doesn't involve 
burning down the mansion and climbing onto the roof.  Maybe a question 
on facebook - "does anyone know how to get out of an attic?"....  "If 
enough people sign this petition, the government will build a 
staircase.  And a few of us will start using capital letters - at the 
START of sentences.  Sometimes."

Will you help me get these wicker chairs downstairs?  We shall take tea 
on the lawn, and dream of a time when we are free from all the trouble 
we're in.  Shall that ever happen, my old friend?

Can you bring elevenses?  Oh, my favourite cheese is a Jarlsberg. It 
seems that much has remained the same.  But how kind of you to ask.

Ta
Ian

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