Enigmatism

I've just given up on Enigma, still going on in the other room, despite M's charming assertion at its outset that when he grows up he wants to be Kate Winslet.

I gave up on it because I didn't understand the plot. Is that ironic?

Seeing as it's Easter, I shall share a moment of borderline-relevant private shame. When I was 17 I went out with A. Kind of by accident, but that's another story. He was essentially a good person, I think, but he was absolutely no match for me, burning with fury at the injustice of the world while curling my eyelashes, reading Spare Rib with one eye and Cosmopolitan with the other. They were confusing times, but at least I *knew* I didn't make sense.

Anyway. A ended up in hospital for six weeks, also another story. His mother loathed me, and I can kind of see her point, though her love for him was not, in my opinion, of the healthiest kind. I went to visit him every day -- no small effort, as the hospital was a bus or train journey away -- and sometimes, to our mutual great delight and the horror of everyone else on the ward, we drew the curtains round the bed and did rude things. I was however confused by the strange elation I felt at having a boyfriend who was stuck in hospital while I could go wherever I wanted, and I would occasionally turn up at his bedside all dressed up to go out clubbing once visiting was over.

Once he said to me... Jo, why don't I understand you? Ah, I said, because I'm an enigma.

What's an enigma? he said.

I hadn't anticipated that. I thought for a moment and said, well, it's when they stick a tube up your bum and wash it all out. I was shaking with laughter inside at my own cleverness.

I don't think you're an enigma, he said.

What I learnt from that particular relationship was that you should always pick on someone your own size. And with that vaguely Christian moral conclusion, I shall take myself to bed.

joella