happy baby

While on the train heading back home, tonight, I was reading Stephen Elliot´s Daily Rumpus email, one of these little pleasures that you are given day by day and that you sometimes stupidly tend to ignore or take for granted. I got home, cooked some pasta (I very rarely do that) and ended up doing something I know it´s not good for your senses, digestion, soul and whatever else: I ate in front of my laptop, watching Stephen Elliott giving an interview about Adderall addiction. I thought that I really like the name Elliot and that, in case I end up having a child, one day, I would like to have a baby Elliot. After all, the name in some country is equally good for girls and boys which is very practical. Unfortunately in my country it would be exotic anyway, so my hypothetical child would end up having one of this tacky names that don´t hook up with any of the cultures I am directly connected to. But whatever: no child in sight, at the moment, so I can let my imagination run riot. After that and a sip of good red wine I thought that I like the simplicity, honesty and integrity with which Elliott writes. For sure it´s not Saul Bellow or Bertrand Russell, but this guy has the ability to grab your attention, tickle you with his words and just keep you there. Even when he talks about his girlfriend coming to the city and beating him up. I doubt I´ll ever be into the things he enjoys, but he puts things in a way that you just think...well...ok! 

And then I listen to this and the evening is just...ahhhhhh!  

“On a side note you can’t love without risk. Sometimes love is a terrible idea, except that it’s not an idea. Sometimes love leaves suddenly and it’s as if you were lying to the other person all this time, or they were lying to you. Sometimes you love someone and they don’t love you back the way you want to be loved back and you think if they’ll just hear your case, if you present the evidence before them as if in a court of law, they will concede to your argument and love you the way you love them, forever even, and then you both get to be happy. But that’s not how it works. You jump from the plane and hope your parachute opens. The other person is that parachute. If you can, jump over water, and from not too great a height. But what am I saying here? As if you had a choice; as if love was a conscious decision. As if, “But it will never work” was some kind of valid argument. I was just thinking about a girl I liked and so I thought I’d say that. I’m stupid with my affection.”

"You think you can't fix anything until you fix yourselves. Well, let me be the first to tell you, you will never fix yourself"

"She said does this make you happy. And I said, is that really the question? Drugs make me happy. I haven´t done ecstasy in 5 years or acid since high school. Does happiness really justify anything?"  

Stephen Elliott - chapeau to you.