I painted my room. It took me five hours. I took three breaks. One for tea. One for dinner. One for watching the first fifteen minutes of a documentary about the big bang. I need to rewatch those before I can continue on. All of a sudden, I can't help but have an interest in physics. Science has escaped me for too long. I can't be about art anymore. I don't know what I'm about, but it's not art. Not now. Painting made me tired. More tired than I care to admit. I feel old. I've been sick and it's made me feel old. My bones creak and my memory doesn't lend itself to what it used to be. I chose green this time. A heavy, moss green. I didn't pick it from a book. I didn't pick it from a chart. I picked it from my mind and my memory, only I'm not sure where I know it from. It makes me feel comfortable. It makes me feel old.
It's Rachel's birthday soon. Rachel's half Irish and half Korean and she's been one of my best friends since I was twelve. Before that, I'd see her walking home from school and wonder who she was and where she was going. Home, I was sure. But I was always curious about where home was and why she never wore a uniform like we did. She had such long, black hair back then. When I met her, she used to shoplift and kissed girls and I still hadn't even kissed a boy. I disapproved of so much, but I look back now, and I can't begin to fathom why. I think it's sad that our parents give us so many opinions that we don't want or need and that we don't even realise it until the cold sting of retrospect pulls us backwards. She left almost two years ago now. She was too thin. Her family'd gone to Korea. I saw her, and she was too thin. Too, too thin. She was beautiful. I can't remember speaking as honestly and openly about anything as I did in the days before she left. She was supposed to be back one, then two, then twelve months later. She's not coming back. Sometimes she writes me e-mails and tells me that she's going to marry an Englishman by the name of Duncan and it makes me feel regretful and happy and proud all at the same time. I want to buy her something nice because I love her and I miss her and it's her birthday soon. I'll send it in the post because I can't send myself. I've missed her so long that I can't even think of one thing that she'd really, really appreciate. All I know is that I'll gift wrap it, and I'll feel that funny sort of regretful that comes with missing her when I bring it to the post office.