Longing

The sun goes down in a clear sky - orange orb with an orange glow. Dipping below the trees across a park's paddock, recently mowed, sparsely populated with a couple of groups of people. In the sky planes cross like comets trailed by their exhaust. I'd like to be on one. Going somewhere. Anywhere exotic would do. With a beach and some sea. No pressures.

Loafing

Three young men hanging out in the Brunswick Centre (it has now lost the centre from its name - probably in a rebranding exercise - calls itself The Brunswick). They chat. One of them ogles the legs of a woman (30ish) wearing short shorts and high heels. Surrepticiously. She may not notice the individuals noticing but I am sure she knows she has the power.

Lunchtime seduction

A man and a woman meet in Costas for lunch. He arrives first and chooses a table, securing it with his suit jacket slung over the seat back. He joins the queue. She arrives, he directs her to their table. She has brought in a sandwich from Pret a Manger. She takes off her jacket and sits down. He brings over hot drinks and moves his chair closer than 180 degrees around the table. They talk. He seems keen. He reaches out a hand and strokes her thigh under the table, comments on her dress, moves his knee into a position where she will feel his heat through their clothing. She doesn't touch him at all. She seems contained. She puts her hands together in her lap. He looks into her eyes while they talk, taking large bites of his sandwich. And all too soon it is time to leave and get back to work. She brushes crumbs from his trouser leg before they get up. And then they go.

Beatroot

Eating small box of food in Beatroot on Berwick Street. It's a pathway. Lots of people passing in both directions between Soho and Oxford Street. Records shop fans, gays and tourists. The fruit and veg men are rearranging their stall.

A couple - bears (big moustaches and bald) each carrying a chiwauwa. An older man in shorts and walking shoes with bare legs telling his companion that you can also buy false eyelashes there (wherever there is). Three youths walk past, double take, walk into Beatroot and come straight out again (probably carnivorous). An old lady in purple and white ankle boots and white fur collared coat.

Yo! Where is everyone?

It's 10 o'clock. Working late. Popped in on the way home to save cooking.

2 cucumber maki
1 vegetable yakisoba
And a pumpkin karaoke

Just me, five staff and 10 sad plates of food going round. They are going to be chucked. 

It's hard eating slippery noodles with chopsticks. But they are hot and freshly made by a very attentive chef (nothing else to do but wait for closing). 

Used to go to the first one in Poland street and after go to yo below which had the added advantage of ashtrays that sucked the smoke inside them - great in the days of smoke filled bars (remember them - coming home stinking of fags and having to wash your hair before bed because the smell coming off it kept you awake).

Saturday

Shopping in town - bumped into the architect who designed the renovation to our building at work with his beautiful wife who was a bit taken aback by our greeting (perhaps a bit warmer than might be expected in Habitat sale room). Walked over to Apple store for a new headset and the assistant gave me one because there weren't any boxed up ones - making it free - nice. Now in the ICA listening to funky jazz with a mixture of arty types, photographers and clients working and stragglers from London Pride which is in coming to a close outside (main event over, peripheral venues overflowing).

Cycling in the wind

At the end of a warm June day cyclists criss cross the intersection where I'm sitting. The wind is blowing up the sleeves of my jacket and chilling my armpits. It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow. With showers.

Yoko Ono Private View, Serpentine Gallery

I've gotten here too early - I'm a guest at the regular old Private View for the plebs and there is still half an hour of the Special Private View (for the Special People) before I can go in. I've persuaded the lady with the list to let me into the compound to sit and get a drink. (Don't want too much mingling of the plebs and the VIPs). I'm trying to see whether I recognise any of the special people, but at the moment I'm not sure that they aren't all plebs waiting for our time... Maybe I should get nearer. They've just relaid the lawn and there are stewards on every corner trying to keep the crowd from spilling onto the grass.

There are rich Knightsbridge people here - you can tell by the clothes and the shoes and the mwah mwahing on air cheeks. There are some fabric designers sitting next to me talking about clients, contracts and designs.

The Work

A film, in real time, of Yoko's eye staring you out. She doesn't blink for a really long time. Finally she closes her eye, slowly. It looks painful to do it. Then it opens again and starts staring once more.

Two films showing opposite each other. Both called cut piece, one from 1965, the other from 2003. The audience is invited to cut the clothes off Yoko. She is still and deadpan. People snip small bits of fabric off. Until someone goes for it and cuts something big off (in 1965 it's her slip which reveals her brassier, in 2003 it's her skirt which leaves her sitting in bra and pants). These things happen quite far into both films and by that time I was outraged by someone coming up and exposing her so suddenly. Somehow the 60s version felt more exploitative.

Fly on a nipple film - totally freaked me out, and some other woman standing next to me. Close up of bottoms walking - reminded me how I like that bit of a person. Quite like to feel a bottom as it walks along (if someone will let you!)

New Cats

So last weekend, Susanna and I drove up the A1M to Glaisdale in the North York Moors to collect my new kittens (its a long way to go for a cat but they are bred by Susanna's uncle and come from a very good mouser - which considering my most recent affliction at home was important in the decision making).

The kittens were decidedly stand offish while we were staying in Yorkshire. Didn't like being touched much but did play with string. Getting them into the box wasn't as difficult as I expected and they didn't make a peep all the way home (5 hours). Let them out at home and they promptly hid. I'd forgotten from the previous time we got cats that they did that.

For the next 2 days I gradually tempted them out (the girl likes cooked chicken, the boy eats anything) playing with corks on string (excellent simulation of a mouse I think). They still are stand-offish though - its hard not to feel rejected when they hide the minute you come in their general direction and hiss with arched backs if you put a hand in their direction.

Its a week now - I've managed to stroke the boy - his purr is fantastic. The girl is still shy but at least has stopped hissing.

The Most Irritating Laugh In The World

She's sitting very close by with a big group if friends and her laugh rings out loudly like a machine gun. Waaahhahahahaaa. Haahaa. Ah hahahaha. It's like that Billy Connelly routine about the primordial laugh that exists in each of us that comes out when we least, and most embarrassingly, expect it. Only hers is always like it. Gunning for us with laughter.

Two Men Talking

In the pub waiting for the football to start. At the next door table two men are talking.

I like her. She's younger than me. 10 years younger I think but the age gap doesn't seem to matter...

A couple of tiny Latino women are looking for a seat. The men offer them space at their table. Everyone moves seats so they can accommodate a new party at the table.

But that's not just knocking the door mate, that's trying to open back the relationship.

A man slaps two drinks down on my table and sits down without checking if that is ok. It is ok but it's politer to ask. His partner is noticeably drunk.

...should build a house and then sell it.

Kingsland Road

Its just me and the crazies walking in Kingsland Road. I'm walking from Church Street to Shoreditch. The crazies are just walking or hanging in various states of dispair. At the canal end there are lots of arty types on bikes - vintage 40s dress, trouser legs tucked into red socks with black spots, and the rest. It's a funny road with niches of activity around the villages of Stoke Newington and Dalston and then Hoxton and Shoreditch. Long periods of nobody using the pavement. Clearly a weird way to walk!

Legs

As I was walking from home to Wood Green I saw:

• a black laborador in the park with three legs
• a man on crutches with one leg

Coincidences.
(I'm imagining this like that rhyme my mother used to tell us - as I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, seven wives had seven somethings ... how many were going to St Ives - clearly I can't remember all the words).

Running

On the 476 riding to town. At Stamford Hill I noticed a man running with a red knapsack. The bus wasn't going particularly fast and we cat and moused him along to Stoke Newington Station. Then our bus went round the one way system along church street, down Albion Road and round Newington Green. Stopping at the next stop the running man went past. He was listening to music and keeping a steady pace it seemed to me. The bus pulled off and took over him on the corner of the road that turns towards crossing Balls Pond Road. I was surprised he kept up the cat and mouse all the way along Essex Road eventually loosing him as we reached Islington Green. I changed from the 476 at Angel onto a 19 that pulled up behind. Went upstairs and sat down as he ran past again. He switched routes to follow the 19 and I spied him again running past Sadlers Wells. He kept pace with us all along Rosebury Avenue, past Grays Inn and along towards Holborn. He caught up with us again at New Oxford Street and I watched him take off into the distance of Oxford Street proper. Awesome running I thought. Even though he was just running, not competing or anything. Alive. Wish I knew where he was heading for. Something inspiring and sexy about it.

Character

An elderly male character in the book I'm reading was talking about his recently deceased wife saying, "I did pretty damn well, I'll tell you that. You snag a woman like that, you don't ask what you did to deserve it. You just hope she never wises up and changes her mind." (The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson)

It made me smile - is that the key to longevity in a relationship - to think everyday how lucky you are to have bagged your partner?

Change

So I've been talking to anyone who will listen about my mid-life crisis. Haven't managed to buy a flashy sports car yet but have been advised to go to a agency and get placed in a better job with more, different challenges. I have taken every opportunity to go out - drank cocktails at Browns made by a funny Irish barman and watched the sunbathers on Islington Green who stayed until the dark was truly fallen, next day went with the ceramics crowd to our favourite place and sat outside in the balmy evening pretending we were in some exotic neighbourhood abroad. Been persuaded by some tres cute pictures to get two kittens who will be great mousers (can get them at 10 weeks when their mother will have trained them up fully). So there's some inkling of change - not sure it's dramatic enough yet...

Sun's Out

Sun is out
Park is full
Office workers and tourists stretch out to catch some rays
Dog walkers can't play ball and stand on the pavement bemused
Hippy yoga guy isn't out
Doesn't feel quite hot enough for strapless maxi dresses but that hasn't stopped anyone

Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern

Started with paintings that were like deep voids - I liked them - reminded me of some drawings I did once where the blackness is space. Then some works om paper. Intricate and obsessional paintings using small identical brushstrokes built up. Beautiful. Almost like optical illusions. A sign on the wall warned that the film inside had some explicit content. Inside Self Obliteration was showing - towards the end, hippy soundtrack, images overlaid, orgy of naked people painting dots on each other and smearing paint in a disco with flashing lights, mad expressionist dancing like some kind of explicit roll-in-the-mud festival. Hands everywhere but no hard-ons. A simulation of sex? Guess which was the most crowded gallery...

Installations came next. Shoes, clothes, boats, chairs, rooms covered in sewn phalluses. Then the room of fluorescent dots with ultraviolet light making them and anyone wearing white shine. I tried not to smile - remembering clubs where you look freaky with your white teeth catching the ultraviolet. And everyone has white dust. And finally some amazingly zingy paintings with eyes and faces, followed by the fabulous Infinity Mirrored Room filled with the brilliance of life - which was us and lots a coloured lights reflected back through the mirrors and the floor. Hippy trippy. Makes me want to embrace the altered mind-state...

Friday night

Gigging with Bails and Paul in Camden Town. Reminiscent of our youth. Crowded into Barfly with a stamp on your hand so you can come and go but doesn't wash off for a couple of days. Jayce Lewis leapt around the stage flinging his hair around singing loudly to loud electronic music played at slightly less than ear splitting volume. There were a load of Belgian teenagers on who didn't seem to get it as much as the ageing rockers who seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. There was one goth exhibitionist wearing only pants and a basque. Reminds me of the days in the late 80s when I liked those kind of boys with dyed black hair cut sharply with shaven sides and there would be drag queens in the ladies loo. And there would be one night bus an hour which would get greatly overcrowded with a raucous party atmosphere upstairs.

Itchy Feet

I've suddenly noticed that it is light at 9pm. Summer evenings are creeping up on us. I'm having a serious case of itchy feet - it started about 2 weeks ago - need for change that is driving me to distraction. It's only getting worse. It's transferring itself to a need for perpetual motion - can't sit still and focus for too long, concentration span is decreasing and boredom threshold has shrunk to minuscule proportions. I'm currently sitting in the pub trying to take the edge off with some hard liquor. I'm reading the paper, listening to a new playlist very loudly to drown out the pub's sounds, and writing this post. I wonder if I'm having a mid-life crisis. Maybe I should buy a fast car and exercise the need for speed. I could realise my ambition of being a jerk in a Merc.