A Hand in the Road

This morning whilst driving to work I saw what looked like a severed hand on the road. I started imagining that it had been, and then felt quite delighted because things like that never happen. I remember being a kid and really thinking that anything was possible, and that all things I could possibly imagine existed somewhere in the world. There are so many things that do exist, and yet there are more that don't. There was no severed hand on the road this morning, because as an event or occurance in my life it doesn't exist. Imagine Kyle McLaughlin's fright when he discovered the severed ear on the ground in Blue Velvet.

On my way to work this morning I was thinking about the idea of falling in love. Perhaps it is simply an idea, and such an event never exists. Often I feel silly when I think about it happening because I begin to think about need. Is it about what people need? It doesn't seem to be that all encompassing transcendental thing that we are shown in films. But then in films everything that occurs is stuck in a particular moment, whereas we know that our lives are continuous, messy, enormous, overgrown. And so perhaps those 'in love' moments don't really exist, because they can only exist in a contextless moment. Perhaps what I really want to say today is that nothing exists? Then again, it is only Monday and I'm not quite ready to fall into an existential hole so early in the week.

I had to go to a Laundromat last night to dry some sheets, because the day hadn't done it sufficiently. AM came with me and we sat waiting whilst looking at the things on the walls and talking about our respective 'love' lives. We laughed about how 'young' it all seemed. I like laundromats though, they remind me of the people I have lived with at times when we haven't owned a washing machine. They remind me of WK's antics in the one on Goulburn St in Hobart, close to where we used to live. He put himself in a dryer one day and tried to make it spin. And MM, who I used to force to come with me or he would never have washed his clothes. And the time TR washed his discman with his clothes. When I remember these things it is summer, and sunny. There was a Saturday evening after an election when I watched the results in the laudromat, and wanted to shout at people passing by because I was so angry with them for voting Liberal. Although it was Goulburn St, so they probably all voted Labor anyway, or didn't vote at all. There were all the strange old toothless folk in that street, who shouted inappropriately and stank of the Dog House (which no longer exists).