It takes longer than you think

My original plan was to have a huge and weird story for today, but rather predictably transcribing handwritten story notes and rewriting on the fly takes far longer than you would think. Such rewriting very much like life itself, as all your plans gets revised down to more manageable or realistic ideas as you go. It takes much longer than you think, as it should, but you end up with something reasonable. Something marvelous would be nicer.

So, instead of that pre-ordained content, it's time to write about whatever comes to mind This is a week that includes the dreaded clearing of the office, and the requisite trip to Aberystwyth to do that, which will be both a relief and another curtain call in the odd relationship I have with that place. Aberystwyth is the second home, the first place I ever stayed away from the parental home, and the place where I fell in love with the sea. It is also the place I have left most often, which is vexing indeed. At least this time there were porpoises, and last year there were dolphins. The first time I left there were neither, just an anti-climactic final exam and then an anti-climactic graduation.

Leaving places takes longer than you think, the physical departure being extremely abrupt and the mental departure lengthy indeed. Little tendrils of your person remain behind long after you've been gone for ages, or even for years, those formative experiences being amongst the most important ever. Perhaps it is all romantic drivel, on the other hand, but sometimes it's romantic drivel that makes the world go around.

There's a movie playing as I type, the Gene Wilder film 'Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx' from 1970, and I just can't tell if it's going to end up as romantic drivel or not. It's hard to judge. Looking through Wilder's filmography it seemed like a good idea to check out something little seen in his purple patch between 'The Producers' and 'Young Frankenstein'/'Blazing Saddles', the road less travelled so to speak. It's a fascinating and odd little film, a new experience at least in a world of endless days of unemployment. What is it trying to be? Is it right for me? Quackser's life is changing, but again it takes longer than you think.

So, soon the office will be cleared and room will have to be made for even more stuff in the parental home. There may be more washing up sponges than specks of dust soon, as befits someone with paranoia in his blood. There can never be too many washing up sponges, never.

O.