Diesel fumes and jasmine

I couldn’t sleep last night. I get insomniac once every 2 or 3 months, but last night it was much worse. I went to bed at 1. Having read 10-15 pages of Manhattan Transfer, I lay in the dark, eyes wide open, seething with rage, my brain firing away in a brutal and beastly way, nothing like the elaborate gossamer what we call ‘the mind’ knits. Initially I did not even pretend I would go to sleep by trying turning to the side and closing my eyes. I once more raged against, well, you know what, my faithful readers. I suddenly got tired of being the strong one, the stable one, the indomitable one, the reliable one. I had the abrupt and piercing realisation that, no matter how ready I am to give my best to helping here and making a difference, as I would do and have done everywhere, I no longer care about their ‘Problem’ or their problems here. I felt in a very clear but indescribably bitter way that I will continue doing my best — but without caring about Outpost ‘problems’. Outpost has no problems, Outpost has certainties to die for and idiotic sensitivities. Now, Iraq has problems, Palestine has problems, (South) Africa has problems, poor forgotten Western Balkans has problems, Chechnya even more so. The US poor have problems: not these whining, narrow-minded, chauvinistic Outposters and the mess they have made of their country. I will serve you, mesdames et messieurs, I will give you my work and my life (until I am out of here) — but expect me to sympathise with you no more.

I eventually got up and tried the soporific powers of late-night web surfing. To no avail. I went back to bed and decided, for the first time after all those years, to follow Jod’s advice to wake her up should I ever have trouble going to sleep. She was indescribably correct in calming me down and partially quenching the angry flames of insomnia in her sweet and understated way. She went back to sleep waking up every five minutes to check up on me. In the meantime, I started another book and read half of it. At around 4 am, I turned off the lights and tried to lull myself to sleep, trying to replicate this falling sensation one sometimes experiences before falling asleep. The last time I looked at my watch’s crooked phosphorescent smile it was 4:20 am.

I got up late for work (but remained nonchalant) and I shaved. It was overcast (or maybe just hovering Sahara dust), which immediately lifted my spirits: clouds or dust, it nevertheless meant no sun. I had an extremely productive day, after weeks of metaphorically trudging slowly over wet sand. I had a dismal lunch with my hint-dropping colleagues at the cafeteria but six hours later I have no symptoms of salmonella. I did more work. I got in touch with KaaJ the Lucky again after months. I thought of Hyperborean Hunter, who I heard from after more than a year a couple of days ago (he has abandoned Greenland for good). I had a good day.

After work I walked to the insurance company agent’s, he’s got an ancient office and a pair of gilded-rimmed glasses with broken arms that somehow manage to stay put on his nose. I walked back, having this sense of unreal true insomniacs get in much larger doses than I did. The town smelled of diesel fumes and jasmine.

Support your fellow blogger

Devious Diva, a political blogger in Greece, is under attack. Via a post by Sly Civilian.

Special K

“I only want him to be happy here”, said Special K’s wife while he was in the toilet.
“But he cannot be happy here. The best you can hope for him is that he may be allowed to do his job, to help develop his field here, to make a difference here despite being here and the powers that be here.
But he cannot be happy. The culture here is so anti-intellectual, so differently oriented to what he is into… See the local intellectuals, film-makers, artists, scholars — the lot — most of them eventually fleeing here. This is a great place to have kids, to buy cars, to eat lots of meat, to be able to afford a flat twice the size of what one needs (as I do).
This is not a place where someone wanting to educate and to cultivate and to change attitudes and mindsets can be happy in. It is a place where they can fight the good fight. So, don’t expect Special K to be happy, more than a camel can be happy in Greenland. Help him fight, instead.”

In the meantime, Special K had come back from the toilet. I thought of the pictures I uploaded to flickr yesterday, testimonies to the stifling provincialism and boredom of elsewhere, you can see them below. Who knows what Special K thought. Or his wife.

Jesus and Mary Chain – Cracking up

I was humming this song, one of my favourite, in the gym today.

Moments of assent and the necessity of fortitude

“Oh, you must see Manhattan before you die”, said G52. “We went there to shop and ended up looking at the people. Wow.”

We nodded in assent.

Then we saw the news on the TGV breaking the speed record.

“Oh, let us get out of here!”, said Jod. “Trains race at 575 km/h while here they are still trying to get buses on the road.”

I nodded in assent. Tiocfaidh ár lá.