IkoStar

I found this picture on a forum over thair ——->

reminds me of this girl who I almost used to know a while back.

She didn’t look exactly like this of course… different hat, not actually a cat etc, but it’s a similar sort of vibe if memory serves. She turned up at a friend’s gig once and I was totally knocked sideways. I’d never seen anything quite like her in my life - and I spent the next YEAR (I kid you not) driving from where ever I was (Oxford/London) over to Reading (which was where she was) to hang around in the places where she might be and then be either too shy (or drunk) to actually talk to her. A hovering shipwreck waiting to happen… but never happening. I was so in love I couldn’t see straight.

In the end (and it was fairly early on), the only time we were actually introduced, I’d just taken a massive hit of amyl nitrate and was spinning out all over the place - managed to say something like “mmmererrrf….”, and that was it.

I don’t think I made much of an impression. She made a huge impression on me though - and as a result I’ve spent more nights sleeping in the carpark of The Reading Arts Centre than any other human alive. Word to the wise kiddie-winkies : if you’re going to sleep in your car whilst pissed, always “lose” your carkeys outside somewhere so if you do get questioned by the cops, they can’t do you for being drunk in charge of a vehicle.

Anway, I also managed to shag two of her friends, which (looking back) was less of a mistake than I’d thought at the time - and kindof indicates that I was not in fact the desperately lonely stalker that I might appear (at first) to be. I was just a kid, and kids do batty things etc. They’re supposed to, particularly kids like me.

I still occaisionally stalk her over the internet etc - and I suspect very strongly that she’s moved to Cornwall and became Cornwall Media Woman of Achievement Of The Year Award Winner etc… a bit like that Caroline Catz who used to hang out in the Falcon in Camden back in the day. She also moved to Cornwall. I think she turned into a school teacher and wound up with the one with the ears off Men Behaving Badly, who became a doctor.

Caroline, with the beginnings (or the end) of an icecream

Anyway, I was on the rebound from Susan at the time… a period frought with “incidents” because she wound up with the guitar-player in my band, and I reacted fairly badly. I took the law into my own hands and threw his watch into the canal after turning up drunk one night and leaving one of those pub football tables in Susan’s flat. And I stole a candle and slept in the car… and when I woke up the next day I felt guilty and tried to replace it - but it had melted in my jacket pocket (which was in the sun) so I molded it into more or less the same shape that it was before and put it back where I found it, hoping no one would notice.

So if anyone did, and is still (20 years later) wondering what happened (get over it FFS, it was only a candle), that’s what happened.

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this is that I saw that Ghost World (which is actually pretty good) last night and the blonde one looks exactly like Genevra as well… only I also kindof remember her like this:

Although she didn’t actually look like that at all - but she looked more like that than the cat at the beginning - if you fuse those two together in your mind - along with the blonde one off Ghost World, you’ll start to build up a picture etc.

Genevra, if you’re possessed of a sufficient level of vanity to google yourself and find this… that line from the Elliott Smith song that goes:

I’m never gonna know you now
but I’m gonna love you anyhow

is from me, to you, by someone else and 20 years too late. To be fair you’re not the only one I’ve ever fallen in love (by any means) with but you were probably the best. Reality never managed to intrude, and from here, now, it’s a mixture of beautiful, stupid and funny, which isn’t a bad mix.

Hope you’re having fun.