SATC

前几天和单位的几个女同志一起去看Sex and the City。怎么说呢，都是不大可能成为朋友的同事。一群衣貌朴素而心态狡黠的理工科女博士。

还是说说电影本身吧。一如以往，华衣美服，钟鸣鼎食，纸醉金迷，红尘妖雾。故事还是有不少细节令人很有共鸣的。最喜欢的是，剧中女流均年逾四旬，而风光风流不减；可见青春其实是一种心态。皱纹、斑点嘛，涂点脂粉，大不了弄个botox就是了。还有一处，Carrie说Big你好坏耶不给我写情书耶；后来Big给她发了N封冗长电邮，内容为名人情信电子版，最后第N＋1封是原创，合共两句话。当时我想，哈，那时候Paul给我写的长篇电邮都是精彩原创啵！他是挺有文采的，行文酣畅，而带有一种老派的幽默。最重要的是，现在想来这些基本都是真心拳拳的（我可不敢说全部；这年头，谁信谁呢，说到底他也不是好鸟）。可惜那时候先是对他不感冒，后来脸都撕破了，为求解脱把他的所有电子墨宝都永久删除了。现在轻舟已过万重山的时候看看，有点可惜；这些文字，也可以是自恋的材料嘛！哈哈，都没所谓了。

走出影院的时候，周围的办公楼灯火通明。想起那年有一次和Arnoud到同一个地方听音乐会，散场后走在路上，他对着华灯感叹说：这些人这么晚还在卖命，这楼里一定是银行啊！要是所有人都像这些银行里的人那么勤奋，欧洲经济就少了很多问题了。哎，他就是这样宏大叙事，即使我们单独在一起的时候，还是政治啊经济啊金融啊社会啊宗教啊，我唯有默默的色心蠢动。呵呵，现在想来这种一本正经实在有点闷，不过此时彼时，不一样啦。

穿过City的办公区，街上空空荡荡，却灯光灿灿，像鬼域一样。快到地铁站，一对酣醉的少男少女在拌嘴。车站里面，一个歌手在唱Radiohead在OKComputer里的一首歌，歌名我忘了。这小同志也许累了，也许醉了，反正唱得有气无力，却一直坚持。挣个钱真不容易。

最近终于买了房子，现在刚开始走法律程序，办理贷款等，计划8月前入伙。有房子的女人有力量！

Trainspotting

Just watched this again, after 12 eventful years. Just got an email from my friend, who is now on an exchange programme in Aussieland, whom I watched the movie with (pirate version on video tape with appalling quality - only in Guangzhou). I remember we laughed out really loud at the scene when Ewan McGregor swam down the toilet, and we didn't understand the Scottish accent at all. Most of my best teenage memories are shared with her. Those years.

Now listen to this iconic starting line:

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. "

It now sounds like an oracle! More worryingly still, London was where Mark Renton chose to start his new life. Then what? Choose a life, a job, a starter home, dental insurance...

Note on a Beautiful British Summer Morning

It was like a long feared nightmare suddenly come true - it rained, after all these fleeting bliss of English sunshine, which, in hindsight, feels more like a dream.

For the first time since I received my iPod Nano as a leaving gift from my old colleagues, in the true London commuter fashion I put on my iPod this morning, loaded with songs freshly synced from my knackered old laptop. It's Lady A (Arvanataki, for the precision minded), it's Madredeus - the sweeter images of the sunny Mediterranean. The sea - in the sun.

In the rythem of a rocking boat I rode on the DLR, sealed off from my fellow commuters with the layer of music. Then came the alarm: someone pulled the emergency handle midway between Shadwell and Bank. All stopped - except my song. The driver went about normalising things, in the air of silent impatience among all onboard. It's all grey and wet outside; a very possible signal for the end of summer. So short that one ponders whether it really existed. How can it end so abruptly, when I still dearly remember the lovely Saturday afternoon spent strolling in Bushy Park and Hampton Court, the warm touches of sun, the swing of bushes in the summer breeze, my new dress?

My perfect solution then, is tuning to Sous le Ciel de Paris.

In that imagined spring sun I sprinted through the crowd, emerged in the rain, then my ears were drowned in the noises from the construction sites by the street. The delightful music persisted, all the way to my desk.

Then a truck drove by, said "oranjeboom pilsner". I said to myself: that would be very nice, for such a beautiful British summer morning.

Spring Sprout

I saw the first sprouts on the trees, those on Cabot Square and lining West India Avenue. I am positive that I didn't see them even last week - not even yesterday - then again last night I came back to London tired, exhausted and mortified by all the varieties of measures British Railway has to screw up my journey (this time I got a new one, unavailability of driver - they are probably also running out of imagination).

It's already unclear when I adopted the most important motto of my life, which is to allow oneself excited over the most trivial details of life. It has to be after my intentionally dark years of teenage illusions, when I only allowed Existential philosophy, gloomy rock and Trip Hop, as decorations of those days. Surely, on the subtropical banks of the Pearl River, where faceless seasons flow by, a spring is hardly an excitement. I was only annoyed by the impossible humidity of those Aprils.

Now I am amazed by the richness and innocence of all these angelic greens. These tiny leaves, dancing in the spring breeze like flash lights in a most sweet dream.

And now I have a new chapter to start. A new spring.