THE WAR OF THE LOO ROLLS

So anyway, I've actually been the one to purchase toilet tissue, at least last time, if not the time before as well. Not a really huge deal. But we were getting low in the bathroom, and not that this matters too terribly much, but Peter had a houseguest for a while. So I just figured it was his turn to buy.

It soon became evident that he was actively not buying the toilet paper. That is to say, there was one roll left, and he was going shopping every day, and coming home without toilet paper. I was wondering how long he would do this.

Finally yesterday we walked to the tube station at the same time, and he said, "Oh, would you mind doing me a favor today? I'll be busy all day, and I was wondering if you would buy loo rolls."

I find this hilarious.

Anyway.

You know, I know that my last post was full of me saying I wanted things, but I guess...I don't know, I feel like I don't really want anything. I mean, I look at sort of normal life in the way I look at winning the lottery. There were times when I was younger when I would sit back and think of all of the things I'd do if I ever suddenly won a few million dollars. I know a lot of poor people--and to be honest, this includes myself--who at some point had almost desperate wishes for that sort of thing. Oh, to only be out of this poverty, and can you imagine? I'd be able to go anywhere and do anything, and I'd be able to help other people, and I'd have a nice car and I'd open a charity. Sort of half wanting nice things for yourself, but also thinking that if you had all of those things, you'd have enough to make at least one other person's dreams come true as well.

It's probably hard for someone who has never been poor to really understand what life has been like for someone who has. I'm not really complaining about this, because I don't feel particularly sad or persecuted over it at the moment. There are just some realities that people who have never been in the position I'm the most used to don't really know about.

Some of it is...well, the first time you get a job, for example. If you come from a poor background, you don't have an outfit to interview in. You manage to scrape something together, and then if you get the job, you try to figure out how you're going to fake it in the clothing department until you earn enough to buy a couple of outfits. You don't have this basic wardrobe that your parents provided for you growing up. You adapt to the fact that people think you have bad taste in clothing. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, as long as it's appropriate. So you think I have bad taste. Hey, I'm wearing work-type trousers even if they're ugly, unfashionable, and saggy. You just have to accept that kind of...lack of pride, or whatever you'd call it.

Matthew once told me that one of the reasons he goes on living is that there's always something wonderful around the corner. Small things, like the new Prince album coming out, or going to see David Bowie. When you're accustomed to poverty, you can't allow yourself to listen to music too often, because if you do, you might want something. You might start dreaming about getting that new album. There are little, kind of silly things, that never really happen. I really wanted to see About a Boy. I really wanted to see Brian Wilson.

But I've kind of adjusted again, remembered that this is the kind of life I'm used to.

A year ago, it seemed inconceivable to me that someone with the experience I have on my resume would be unable to find work, especially since I have good references and am actually quite talented and tend to be liked by interviewers. But I know that staying in London, getting a job here, getting my own apartment, well, it's all starting to sound like that lottery dream. In a way I really want a new pair of shoes, and I really want to see the new Lord of the Rings movie, but in another way they just seem like they're things I want like I wanted to be a doctor and I wanted to travel all over the world and I wanted to open a homeless shelter and I wanted someday to own a Jaguar.

But I'm warm and I'm safe, and I'm relatively healthy, although admittedly this flu/cold/bubonic plague is getting old. And all right, I was eating rice for a while, but Michael sent me some money, and the silly thing is that what I really want to do with it is get Christmas presents for other people and keep eating rice myself, and that's probably what I'm going to do. Because it turns out that shoes and movies don't really make me happy.