sunfeather

Today I met up with EMLC, who was my first real girlfriend, who I went out with, off and on, from 1992 to 1997, and who I haven't seen for at least five years. I was a little nervous, as you might imagine. But I was a little surprised, and maybe a little disappointed, to see that EMLC hadn't really changed: she's still wearing the same blue suede jacket and carrying the same canvas bag; she's still reading daft anarchist literature and smoking vanilla roll-ups; she's still living in an attic in Hillfields and her armpits still smell. In a way I admire this about her, she obviously hasn't compromised her principles (for instance regarding shaving and using deodorant!) and she certainly seems a lot more politically committed than I am these days. But I was expecting EMLC to be a dynamic medical researcher, and she's still living like a student... Not that there's anything wrong with living like a student, but I tend to feel that I have moved on a little...

But we actually had a pretty nice afternoon. She laughs at my apartment, like I knew she would, but that's OK, I laugh at my apartment too. And she makes me feel a little small when she says that people who think or write a lot about sex don't necessarily have a very happy or fulfilling experience of it (but she's right). And at least she explains to me why the shuffle on iTunes isn't really random (because random isn't actually random: it clusters; when we say randomness, what we really want is uniformity...)

But I am pleased to discover that I no longer really want to sleep with her, despite her touching my knee or lying on the floor with her head in my lap. I am reminded of a remark I once read by Leonard Cohen, who said he was relieved the day he realised he didn't have to have sex with everybody he was attracted to, or liked. I don't mean to suggest that I have had a promiscuous past, on the contrary, but I have felt a kind of obligation towards promiscuity that, who knows, may be loosing its grip. Though I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I was sober today (because driving, and anyway in an abstemious place): had I been drinking, I suspect I may have had rather less resistance to her pointed leanings.