Field Notes #3
Snippets of conversation, questions and other random thoughts written in the notebook I carry in my bag.
For a few weeks at a time, I develop a regular habit of writing down snippets of conversation I hear, stories on the radio and various scenarios I see when I'm out and about.
And then I fall out of the habit, which seems to be the way of habits. For some hopeful reason, I think I will remember whatever it is of interest and I stop writing anything down.
Inevitably I don't remember which is why I try to write them down in the first place.
And around and around I go.
I hope you enjoy this selection of random notes from one of the two small red notebooks I have. Some of these notes I remember writing but most of them I don't. Which makes me think, I need to pay more attention.
Notes from 2018
Olive tries to eat the pile of cigarette butts that are lying in the road by the kerb. (Olive is the sister of our dog Kiki - at this point, they were five months old.)
The workmen left a pile of popcorn in the driveway for the birds. It's still there three days later.
Doppelgänger
I was the last one on the plane and there was someone in my seat, so I asked the guy to move. He turned around and he had my face. The whole plane looked at us and laughed. And that's when I took the selfie.
From the BBC - A man meets his lookalike
Fenella Fielding - the actor dies.
As a toddler, she seemed to speak in gibberish. Her mother and father worried she was failing to develop normal language skills until they chanced upon her in animated conversation with a doll.
"I suppose," she later wrote, "I just didn't want to speak to my parents."
So many decisions. My brother needs to have his leg amputated - he's trying to decide the right time.
A woman places a device on her leg, hard plastic, red, like a frame with a hinge at the knee. I say it's brilliant - like the Terminator. She laughs and says she tore a ligament in her knee a long time ago but didn't know there was a problem until she was 42 and started playing soccer.
I walk past a man who says to his friend, "Never trust a bald man to cut your hair."
From BBC: A woman out cycling collides with another cyclist. The woman suffers a major brain injury. She wakes up unable to speak English only German the language she grew up speaking. Three years later she speaks English in the morning but by the afternoon she can only speak German.
Do starfish have legs or arms?
I'm waiting to board a flight: A man talks for a full five minutes to his girlfriend about the Nobel people of Europe who all wore purple. He was definitely boring her.
The father needs a priest at his daughter's non-religious funeral. He can't do Wednesday as the plumber's coming or Thursday as the man with the sit-on-mower is mowing the lawn - oh, and the lady that does his ironing is coming. Can't do Fridays. No explanation. Service for burial is on Friday.
Notes from 2019
On the front of a magazine called Female Health (or something like that), is a picture of a young female actor dressed in tight clothing and a big smile with the tagline - HOT, HAPPY and HILARIOUS!
A regional Starbucks manager with two new employees discussing people using the washrooms to shoot up because they know they're clean.
"We shouldn't become desensitised to this. It's a terrible thing. But as employees, you must protect yourselves. If you suspect a biohazard, shut the washroom and lock it and order a hazmat clean."
A senior couple comes into the waiting room. He wears shorts, trainers, and a casual jacket, very suntanned. She wears all pink. Pink trainers, pink cropped trousers, pink and white striped t-shirt, pink denim jacket and pink framed glasses in a cat-eye style.
The doctor tells me about a patient who died recently. When he'd had a heart attack and was in the hospital, his wife emptied the house and took the kids. She left him while he lay dying in a hospital bed.
A woman washes cling film and pegs it out on the clothesline to dry - a friend of my mum's from a long time ago.
A woman is found dead in a bag in Brighton station. He tells us this at breakfast.
A NO PARKING sign has fallen into the ivy that's taken over the ground. Fallen or was it pushed?
A Very Short Story
In the half-light, he didn't look like himself. His eyes ached from the sunlight. He was relieved to be sitting in the dim light of the diner. Through the blinds, the blue sky sliced into thin beautiful turquoise slivers. His eyes blinked and watered behind sunglasses.
He sipped on coffee. Too soon. His lips touched the cup. It was hot. Too hot.
He rubbed his thumb along the rim wiping the lipstick mark away. Not even clean.
He ripped off the lid from a tiny carton of milk and tipped it into the cup. He pushed his sunglasses up and back off his face, his hair gathered up in a hairband. The skin around his fingertips was rough and peeling, his knuckles red and bruised. He drank down the coffee in one ignoring the burn down his throat.
Without speaking the server poured more into the dirty cup.
When he looked up he saw a woman with a dog in her bag. A small dog, its head dressed with a satin pink bow. The woman was feeding the dog sugar cubes from the dish on the table. Aware of his look she turned to him and smiled in a way that was unsure of what or who she was looking at.
The man didn't smile. He stared. The woman blinked and rubbed her hands together. Something about the man made her nervous.
