Being alone

In Sideways, there is a genius of a scene, where Miles (Paul Giamatti) ends up drinking his precious, carefully saved wine by himself out of a paper cup at a greasy, grimy, non-descript fast-food joint. I won't go into any detailed analysis here - there is far too much out there on the web anyway - but I thought it was a miraculous touch: tragedy that is both determinedly neurotic and comic yet heart-stoppingly wretched; a point to which we instinctively feel as for a friend, because it is only after we have accompanied Miles throughout the film can we understand that scene. It is, I felt, simply such a magnificent image of being alone - not just that he was alone (cos, of course, he was) - but (at the end of a long story) drinking a hideously expensive 61 Cheval Blanc out of a paper cup, washing down a burger in a fast-food restaurant. What a scene, and all achieved with completely no dialogue and in just a shot lasting, what, 10 seconds.

It's hard being alone (and don't bring up Sondheim's "No One Is Alone" - it's sung by Cinderella - hell, what does she know). I don't care how cliche that comes out. I don't care how weak it sounds. My unabashed Bridget Jones moment hit me tonight, when the stupid shower ran out of hot water, which means the water in the geezer had to be topped up. So there I was, freezing half to death having just stood for 5 minutes in a shower with cold running water, shivering in a bathrobe, balancing uneasily on a S$12 IKEA assembled chair (the only other chair in the house has wheels under it - I'll rather trust the IKEA screws, thanks), laboriously climbing up and down said tremulously assembled chair five or six times as I refilled the water jug. Then it hit me: if I were to lose my balance now and break my neck......

I'm growing old - I'd never been afraid of being alone, ever. Now the next thing to do surely is to start keeping cats, followed by doily-crocheting.