Nothings

What is it, this attraction? This brain fuzziness that makes you act unlike yourself, makes you regress to just ego, the need to satisfy a desire?

I tell myself that we won’t meet again. He seems like a pseudo-liberal, entitled bigot (I am sure!), not even attractive, but my stomach is churning, churning, churning the whole day, and Anu finds me mooning on the wall-encompassing bathroom mirror, and I wasn’t even saying things aloud this time.

I tell myself that it’s nothing, that it does not matter. That he won’t message, I won’t message, that I will forget.

But knowing this won’t make it hurt any less when it happens, when the time comes, and I won’t ask, he won’t ask. I won’t confirm a meeting, and he won’t.

Only the longing, longing, longing, at the end of long days,

When I come home, unslept, lay down my tired body, and watch myself give over to sleep. But before that, there will remembering, of imagined kisses and love bites, and oh, hello! I liked this and this too.

There will be texting, to another someone I have not even met, but her north Indian casual nothings, her good mornings, her bad English make me feel warm and wanted. I wonder what she is using me for, but I am happy to be a part of it as long as it lasts.

Until that too goes away, and the days resume their usual, sassy appeal – of knowing that I can kick ass, that I will get the job done, that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

No more doubting, wondering if I am good enough, thinking whether he liked me, whether I was boring, why he did not call.

This is not a paean to anybody, definitely not to a man I don’t even know. It’s just a moment, and that it happened is no less real because it was fleeting, and because feeling this way is not particularly rational of me.

Similarities between Weekend and Looking, and ultimately with the auteur:

Chris New’s Glenn is very much the central figure, even though it is Tom Cullen’s character we are supposed to follow. Tom often becomes the foil against which Glenn’s antics stand out. Glenn has obvious similarities with Looking’s Agustin: the art project about sex and the uncertainty about its artistic value or even what to do with the idea, though Glenn’s is apologetic about what he thinks is narcissistic and the tendency to act precious. Agustin in season 1 is the cunt that Glenn could have been. Both he and Glenn share that energy contained in pint-sized bodies. Because Andrew Haigh has spoken earlier about how sex holds up a mirror to a person in many ways, and his preoccupation with sex in his works, I wonder if these characters are not born out of some aspect of Haigh himself. There is a scene where Glenn talks of coming out to his parents at 16: ‘Nature or nurture, it’s your fault. So get over it.’ I could imagine Haigh saying it to his own parents. It’s projection of the most facile sort.

I think there is a certain amount of artistic development from Weekend to Looking. There are similar preoccupations in both works, and you can see how the exploration in Looking is, well, more engaging.

I also think of similarities between Haigh and Patrick. Haigh speaks of Patrick’s self-humiliation at his own Halloween party: he ends up screaming from a chair. We’ve all had those moments.’ Cut to Michael Lannan: ‘I haven’t done that. I hope not.’

I wonder if Haigh was not unlike Glenn: barely contained energy and a lot of anger, and the artistic maturing from Greek Pete (a rent boy’s coming of age!) to Looking and now, 45 Years. It makes one very curious to see where he is at artistically (2 Silver Bears must mean something), and how he is exploring those same preoccupations.

I watched Weekend in its entirety today. And a bit personal, the ending. Where I am today, I don’t expect or really want to be tossed by pangs of love. Of course one wants them, but not to the extent that you go seeking it out. The ending, which is all of that, is a bit of a shock, and very life-affirming. That older people also get wound up over feelings, over love, but that it does not demand as much of a sacrifice of control, reason. Glenn’s heart might be breaking, but he will go about his daily business.

When I read about Looking getting cancelled day before, I was surprised at how much it hit me. It was as if a world I craved, wanted like a drug, was snuffed out and taken away. I was shocked at how much I wanted it: Andrew Haigh’s world, his sun-leeched Instagram-filtered San Francisco. In my head, it had become a place I could vicariously inhabit, and now I don’t know where to direct all that feeling.

She had always known home as the place of conflict, as the thing you put a calm face to when you went to work or sat in class. She had found herself being surprised as a young girl, when she found that for a lot of people, it was a place of comfort, happiness and welcome. She did not really believe it.

Today, she realised that she had managed to recreate that mental space of distress as an adult.

But it could not be her fault. It was her mother, not a husband.

Today, she wanted to break down and cry, because she thought she could not take the stress anymore. She wanted to put down her burden and feel light. The weight felt hard and solid, no shooting pains that came and went. This weight would bear down on you, grim, unrelenting, and bring you down on your hands and knees, no mistake.

She could not put it down, no more than Atlas could put down the sky, not to sound too full of oneself.

So she knotted herself, and knotted herself, round and round and round. Cursed her own guts, died of guilt again and again, and dropped off to sleep when she could not do it anymore.

A most unsavoury state of affairs it was. But she now knew herself to be compulsive, knew that breaking out would not be easy, as the clock moved slowly towards 12.30, and then 1.30, closer and closer to the magical hour, when tiredness vanished. It was like Cinderella's transformation. Born again and again every night, before wilting away for another day.

We're lost in music, caught in a trap
No turnin' back, were lost in music
Were lost in music, feel so alive
I quit my 9 to 5, we're lost in music.

Have you ever seen some people lose everything?
First to go is their mind, huh
Responsibility to me is a tragedy
I'll get a job some other time, uh, huh...

I want to join a band and play in front of crazy fans
Yes, I call that temptation
Give me the melody, that's all that I ever need
The music is my salvation

We're lost in music, caught in a trap
No turnin' back, were lost in music
We're lost in music, feel so alive
I quit my 9 to 5, we're lost in music

Mmm, hmm, in spotlight the band plays so very tight
Each and every night, uh, huh
It's not vanity to me, it's my sanity
I could never survive

Some people ask me, what are you gonna be?
Why don't you go get a job? Uh, uh
All that I could say, I won't give up my music
Not me, not now, no way, no how, oh, oh

We're lost in music, caught in a trap, caught up in our music
No turnin' back, ooh, ooh, ooh, we're lost in music

We're lost in music, don't take our away our music
Feel so alive, feel

I quit, I quit my 9 to 5, yeah
We're lost in music

We're lost in music, melody is good to me
Caught in a trap, I'm caught up in it

No turnin' back, no, no, no
We're lost in music, ooh, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
We're lost in music, da, da, da, da, da, da, da

Jaydeep, you asshole. This is the joy you gave up on. I'll never forgive you.