Thursday 27 January 2000

Pic of the day: "...though there is precious little left..."

My mouth and nose taste/smell faintly of soap, only it is not soap, it is aftershave. Old Spice. Yes, I used that before, a long long time ago. It is a long story, and a short day. It started with the bananas, I think. And the calendar.

I looked at the calendar and saw that the month was nearly over, again. 27 days since the Mother of New Year's Eves. Where did they go? I even have a mail I haven't replied to within the 24 hours guaranteed reply time limit. Ack. Some process in my brain is eating processing power. It may be all the thinking about sex. There's this female journaller that has got me thinking about sex. Eh. Not that way. And anyway, there's the bananas too. They really got me thinking.

The bananas are green now. Yes, there is yellow on them too, but there is green too. And if you let them lie to mature, they will rot instead. They remain green till they die. And I know how bananas taste when they are partly green. They taste like a vegetable with banana flavoring. They don't taste like a real banana. Real bananas shall be yellow, perhaps with small freckles. They shall be easy to peel. Then they shall taste of sun and sweetness, and they shall be mild. This is the true banana. This is the banana of my memory. The bananas of the 1970es.

The seventies were not all that great. The Norwegian government did not allow other broadcasters than the state-owned one, as if we were nazi Germany or stalinist Soviet or something like that. And people did not take to the streets with their torches and flags and ask if this was what our boys died for in 1940. (Actually very few boys died, but it would make a good slogan.) People meekly accepted it, and I and a group of young liberals and a war hero were called nazists for saying that communism was just plain wrong. But we did not live in a communist country so nothing bad happened to us, we were just seen as crazies I guess. The nazists of course did not much like us either. But the bananas were delicious. Yellow, mature and full of sunshine. If I had known that they would be reduced to vegetables in 20 years, I would have used my student loan to buy much more of them.

I had moved out from home when I was 15, to go to high school (or its equivalent in Norway). My aunt and her late husband tried to keep me alive, bless her heart. I had moved to the south-west coast of Norway, far from home. Earlier that year was the first time that a woman had tried to sleep with me. Tried being the operative word here, as I was nearly shitting on myself. I remember the confusion and fear and guilt as I left the car. I never told my parents about any of this. I wasn't very mature for a 15 year old, neither body or soul. Still, I had had wet dreams for over a year. I had a pretty good idea what sex was. (We were animal farmers. Animals are not very bashful.) And if you are family or people from where I lived, just give it up. You don't know who it was and besides it was not like that at all.

The seventies were a wonderful time to grow up. Things were simpler. Education was free and then you were sure to get a job. Only the lazy did not get a job, or the disabled. And then you would borrow money at almost no interest to build your own house, once you were married of course. Some people lived together without being married, but I did not know that then. And I don't think they got those loans from the state-owned House Bank like real couples did. I don't know, but it would sort of surprise me. This was the 70es after all. Another time, a more innocent time. Thought I think homosexuality became legal around that time. I heard about it, but it did not concern me. I had never met a homosexual. I still haven't, btw. Not in real life.

When not eating bananas or fighting for the human right to broadcasting or reading the Holy Scripture or getting reasonable grades at high school, I would sometimes lie naked on my bed and fantasize about Neanderthal women. Or giant spiders. I would be highly aroused, but I did not masturbate. I just lay there, daydreaming. The Neanderthal women of my daydreams were quite hairy. So were the spiders, I guess. It's been a while.

Back home on the farm I had been talking to myself a lot. A lot. I did not just daydream, I told myself stories. The words were essential, they made the stories into stories. When I moved, I was no longer alone much of the time, I could no longer talk to myself aloud. It was hard to control the stories without talking aloud to myself. I borrowed my uncle's typewriter sometimes and wrote stories on it. Not about Neander women, though. I could control my fingers much better than my thoughts. I could control my vocal chords better than my thoughts too. I really missed talking to myself. But over time I learned to internalize my talking. To talk in thoughts. I guess I could do it to some extent before, but it was harder. I got used to it now.

I am pretty sure I was 17 when I actually slept with someone. I remember that it was very cold, it must have been in the winter. Funny that I do not remember exactly what date it was. Because it was the last time. You may conclude from this that it wasn't a great success. You would be right, though you would probably be wrong about almost everything else you concluded.

I did not know anything of this when I left home earlier that day. I did not know that this day would be legendary, a day people would talk about with disbelief decades into the future, long after the fall of the Soviet empire, in a future where bananas would be green. I had looked forward to visiting a friend. I was not in love or anything. Well, not really. I remember when we walked side by side that it did not feel right when someone passed between us. But that was pretty much it. And I am not sure that was then. It could have been another day we were together. The world was full of wonders and having a real friend was one.

Anyway, it wasn't much to write home about. So I never did. I did write to my parents now and then, when I was young. But not about that. I guess according to some religions I was still a virgin. If so, I still am, though hardly fit for ritual sacrifice. But technically I guess I may still pass. Though I hardly fit the criterium for the Bride of the Lamb in Revelation, "those who have not made themselves unclean with women; for they are as virgins". That's OK, I guess. I never really wanted to be anyone's bride. Not really. I just wanted to not go to hell. I thought a lot about that in the 70es. I woke up from dreaming that I was in hell. I guess I deserved it. I guess I still do. But we don't always get what we deserve.

The aftershave that I used years ago reminds me of soft cheeks and shameful secrets and eternal damnation and love that never was. I still have this bottle on the bathroom shelf, though there is precious little left.