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Monday, November 5, 2007

* 11 February 1981

I’ve had the most agonising pain in my right eye. For days now. And, lord, have I been irritable. These new contact lenses. They’re brilliant vision-wise, but merciless if you fall asleep in them…

Again, we return to the distant past …

*

My nerve endings are raw. This heroin thing is a real nuisance. Still waiting. Still going over every so often. I hope it comes before I have to go to the studio.

All day. Whole day wasted. [And how many to come?] I was pottering again, between walks at hour intervals – in the kitchen, the bathroom – I’m getting into some extraordinary detail. I cleaned the art nouveau tiles in the living room with excessive care. Didn’t Lenny Bruce, before he died, go paranoid on speed and wind up spending so much time on detail he made no progress at all?

I’m really anxious. Can’t control it. Will go again soon. My need is building. Why? I’ll dwell upon it later – when I have some clarity of mind.

Seven minutes to go before my next trip. They are stringently timed.

There’s a nice looking man waiting there too, on the step, reading a paper, eating a pizza, each time I call around …

Since then, events have transpired to make it seem to my mind unlikely … I don’t care now, anyway… Thank God I’ve got the recording studio tonight – and Mark to take me there in a taxi.

We are mixing down Scarecrow,

*

I actually remember the house I was visiting. It was around the corner in Tennyson St. A beautiful wooden mansion with gables and trellises, painted in gay colours and set back from the street. Today it would be worth a fortune, back then it was in charming disrepair and populated by hippies. My connection with the occupants was extremely tenuous, through Leigh Hooper I believe, and it wasn’t until they’d seen me drain every last drop of gear from a spoon that they fully trusted me.

“No cop would ever do that,” I heard one of them say.

If only it was still that hard to get your hands on drugs.

Diary of 1981 - index

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any pics from those recording sessions?
Hope that eye feels better Sam, don't want anything to get in the way of your great writing, look after yourself ok!
Love Amanda

lily was here said...

Maybe theres an anaesthetic type eye drop you can get from your GP to help the eye pain? Im trying to exercise my eyes regularly to see better, every day for 20 min or so but Im really bad at discipline. Im also trying to train my ears to hear better by turning the volume down gradually & it seems to be working! I believe that if blind people can fine-tune their other senses then maybe we can improve ours too?

By the way, how and why specifically did you stringently time your trips? Speaking as one whos only danced around the edges.

Unknown said...

I've suffered long and hard with contact lens related eye-pain and there's nothing effective available over the counter. Optometrists, however, do have access - as I learned when I had my eye pressure taken recently. With a needle. In my eyes... Anyway, I alright now and ta for the concern.

Unknown said...

Re: the stringent timing. I guess I'd decided on a period long enough not to annoy the people at the other end, and brief enough not to drive myself mad with impatience.