On March 29th 1989, I was eighteen and in the middle of studying for my A-Levels. In the days leading up to the 29th I had been working a couple of very busy days in the kitchens of a local restaurant and pining after one of the waitresses. I bought “True Blue” by Madonna on cassette from Woolworths for the princely sum of £5.99 and wrote about how impressed I was with the album in general and specifically with the tracks she collaborated on with Prince. I was besotted with Madonna at the time.
I read the diary entry from the 29th with the blatant intent of doing a bit of a ‘filler’ post as I don’t have much to write about at the moment but think I should keep my oar in. It’s funny how coincidences happen sometimes; my diary entry reads as follows:
No work today. Got up at about 10 + went to Midland Bank + paid in £5 and then Yorkshire Building Society + paid in £10 there – it’s a start. After dinner + N’s, I did physics catching up and revision. Before dinner I did some pure maths. After tea I did physics and watched TV. Before tea I got a phone call and went to the library and got “Carrie” by King that I’d ordered…
Kind of spooky given what I have been doing all week leading up to my previous blog post.
‘N’ by the way refers to my grandmother on my dad’s side who we referred to as Nan. She was a lovely lady who lived to the ripe old age of 99 and sadly passed away just before hitting the magic 100. Also just to clarify, where I come from we referred to the afternoon meal as ‘tea’ and lunch was a.k.a. ‘dinner’. We used to regularly have tea on a Sunday at Nan’s blue bungalow. She made excellent cakes and used to suspend mandarin segments or banana slices in jelly for pudding, I used to help out with preparing the salad when I wasn’t being a moody teenager.
A couple of weeks after getting “Carrie” from the library, I wrote this poem using a typewriter ‘that came to get fixed’ – I presume that my dad was fixing it for someone and let me test it out:
I guess this might have been influenced by reading Stephen King’s novel and it certainly reflects the existentialist angst and ennui I remember feeling at the time.
couchmagpie 