W. wants to understand me. He’s decided to list my affects. ‘It’s like the tick in Deleuze’, he says. ‘It responds to heat and warmth. It’s a very simple being. Like you. You’re simple.’
‘We’ll start with the living room’, he says. ‘Are you taking notes?’ I’m writing on a post-it pad. ‘It’s cold’, he says. ‘Write that down. I’m freezing. How can you live like this? And it’s dark’, he says. ‘There’s no light. I can’t see anything. And it’s damp. That’s another affect.’ I’ve got the dehumidifier on, I tell him. ‘It’s still damp’, says W.
And why am I always putting vaseline on my lips? ‘Vaseline, he says, that’s another of your affects. The internet. You like writing on the internet, don’t you? How can you go on writing that bilge? You’ve got no honour. No shame. No goodness. And looking out of the window. That’s your other affect, isn’t it? Look at it out there. It’s shit. How can you live like this?’
W. is still listing my affects. He’s delineating the basic categories, he says. ‘Television. You like TV, don’t you?’, says W. I tell him I don’t watch it that much. ‘I’m not surprised. The remote is broken. How can you watch anything? So what else do you do? Are there any affects for you in the bathroom?’ I’m indifferent to the bathroom, I tell him. ‘What do you think about when you’re in there?’ Nothing, I tell him. You, I tell him, and he laughs.
‘Well then, your bedroom. Is that where you do your reading? You don’t really read anything, do you? You don’t read. And what about the kitchen? Stacks of tins of fish. You eat the same thing every day, don’t you? Exactly the same thing! Tinned fish! For his part, W. is a believer in a varied diet. ‘I try to vary what I eat. Not like you.’
W. has a larger range of affects than me. ‘I live with someone. That’s what does it. Otherwise I’d be a sad fucker like you.’ Of course W.’s house is much nicer, he says. It’s not cold, for one thing. Or dark. Or damp.
W.’s tired of listing my affects. How many have we got? Eight general categories, I tell him. He looks around. ‘Oh fuck it, that will do.’
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