Scared Straight

I love the Long Winters. They make very good walking music, and have lovely artwork. John Roderick has a funny beard which makes me smile, and it makes me sad when I see pictures of him without it. So I'm looking forward to this new album of theirs. If only I was in America this summer, I could see one of their couple of gigs before they go into the studio. 

I saw two dead birds on the same stretch of path (outside the Perse) yesterday. A pigeon and a sparrow. Today they were gone. I wonder who moves dead birds and dead deer from Trumpington Road. I wouldn't like that job. 

(i definitely picked the right title, this song is awesome)

I got a passport form this morning. I had my photo taken at work. I stared at myself for a little while and wondered what I'd be thinking when I look at that picture in 10 years, about to turn 29 and having to accept that I'm getting older. I wonder where I'll be then. Somewhere else hopefully. 

I stared into people's cars, trying to work out what their lives were like as they drove past. This amounts to a 5 second judgement, where I basically managed to decide whether they had a family or not. I was trying to push myself outside of that one assumption, and ask myself other questions about these people driving past, who I'd probably never see again. It didn't really work. I saw couples driving past, and I wondered if they'd had affairs, and never told each other about it, whether they really loved each other, or were happy, or were just staying together for their child sitting in the back. 

I want to know these things. Not specifically, but outside of my own life, and the people I know, I wish it was easier to know what other people's lives are like, what they go home to, who they really are. They'll only ever be faces in crowds though. I'm not sure why that bothers me. 

It's like, I was watching this programme last night about where clothes are made in India, and the conditions workers live in, and how they still have child labour. Those things upset me. But I don't have a link in my brain where I walk into H&M and suddenly think of those children. Maybe if I did I'd never buy any clothes. Not that I buy so many nowadays. But I'll never know what those people's lives are like, how they survive. We can watch it on TV screens, but it never really exists. 

I just want more than a vague picture.

(one of my dad's - it looks better in focus)