W. on the phone: ‘So you’re meta-whining now?’ – ‘Well, I’ve run out of things to write, it’s terrible’. – So come on then: what’s your latest line of flight? How are you going to escape this time?’ – ‘I tired of that. I’ve no energy to escape’. – What’s happening, then?’ – ‘Nothing. Still on my ‘lost weekend’; nine months left to go’. – ‘How long’s it been?’ – ‘Since May. Nothing substantial since May’. – ‘It’s always like that with you. Everything or nothing’.
‘Look at Steve’s posts. You’re in one’. – ‘I know. You’re not’. – ‘Ah yes, but I’ve interesting things in store’. – ‘What?’ – ‘I’m going up in the world, you’ll see’. – ‘So what’s going on at work?’ – ‘Nothing. It’s all terrible’. – ‘No it’s not, it’s getting better all the time’. – ‘Oh yes, so it is, everything is getting better all the time’. – ‘Quality’s always improving, you know that’. – ‘It has to get better -‘ Both of us together: ‘or someone’s going to get shot’.
Me: ‘It never gets better though, does it?’ – ‘No. It’s getting worse. It’s going to get a lot lot worse’. – ‘We’re doomed, right?’ – ‘Oh yes, finished’. ‘I’ve seen Bela Tarr’. – ‘Oh yes, that’s more like it. There’s a film where these guys end up at the bottom of a pit, covered in shit, completely miserable. That’s where you’ll be, in the pit’. – ‘But you’re be the other guy in the pit. That’s who you are. Covered in shit’. Laughter.
W.: ‘He’s great, Bela Tarr. Total despair. Shit everywhere. Ontological shit, cosmological shit. It’s your life, isn’t it – ontological shit?’ Laughter. – ‘You’re ontological shit’. – ‘No I’m not. You should see my Spinoza notes. They’re great. So what are you lecturing on?’. – ‘Heidegger’. – ‘Again?’ – ‘How much time have I got? Besides it’s R.A.E.-a-rama here. I’m filling in my esteem indicators’. – ‘Oh yes, what are they? I could do with a laugh’. ‘I can’t think of any’. ‘What about humiliation indicators? What about soiling yourself indicators? ‘Buffoonery indicators? Apishness indicators?’. Laughter.
Me: ‘God, I’m bored. And I’m staying in tonight’. – ‘I thought you were out every night’. – ‘No, not tonight, I’ve had enough. I’m staying in and watching more Bela Tarr’. – ‘So what’s your latest fantasy. Go on – tell me. Does it involve the net?’ – ‘It might do’. – ‘It’s a support device for your fantasies, the net. That’s all it is’. Laughter.
W.: ‘Why do you need to be loved so much? Why do you want to be adored?’ – ‘Come on, it’s the opposite, it’s the other way round – don’t you see it?’ – ‘It’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing’. I am looking out of the window as I talk. ‘Do you think the world’s going to end soon?’ – ‘Yes. And you’ll be the only one left, in your pit’.
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