People.

People on the computer scare me. They are all sunny and bouncy and larger than life and !!!!lol :)hee hee xxx!!! I go on Facebook and think 'I don't know these people, do I have the right to talk to them?' Plus they're obviously busy having conversations with twenty different people and throwing snowballs at Sam and going sleighriding with Lisa, and being magic mushrooms and fiercely competing at pacman, and having the time of their lives dressed as snowmnen in magenta-painted nightclubs.

But no, Anjali, it's just Bob. You know Bob. You know Frodo. You know Lorna.

So this is how I meet people - I go out onto the street, I cross the road, I say to the man with his cap on the ground 'Do you know a guy called Scott? He used to sell the Big Issue here'. We are humans, are we not? With or without favourite quotes and travel map, pictures of Germander posted by others, and hatching christmas trees.

To the Rajasthani musician at the party in Jaipur - what are your favourite TV shows? Would you rather go barefoot, or do you wear sunglasses because the sun never sets over the British Empire? Do you think Christian guys are hotter? Do you appreciate Kerala Toast?

This goes out to all the human beings that I love - the ones of flesh and blood in their pre-make-up faces, who feel blank sometimes, who smile and who sometimes don't smile, and who sometimes are just there. And to the people who I don't know that well and am happy not to, but am content to just exchange smiles with when I see them, because you are a person and I am a person and isn't that cool?

And to the whole category of people who are special to me who I do not keep in regular contact with: people I've bumped into randomly - all my 'Festival friends' I met flyering on the Royal Mile - Danny and Nimesh, my adopted brother and cousin - Ricky and the guys I hung out with in Granada - Vladimir, who kept me entertained for an evening in Paris - and Scott, who seems to have disappeared.

At the end of Big Fish, the main guy gets carried down to the river, and all the people from his life are standing together, lining the way.
There is a work of art by Douglas Gordon in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which is just a list of the names of everyone he's ever met, stencilled in black on the wall nest to the stairs. I find this mindblowing and beautiful and moving. I often think that I should write a similar list, and I start to,in my head, and am overwhelmed by the sheer volume, and if you do it systematically you could get very bored. You'd be stuck thinking of the names of your year two classmates and wishing you were at the Delhi Trip. I think that what Douglas Gordon did was put them down as he remembered them.
You should do it. Maybe when you are feeling significant, or insignificant, or existential. Get back to me. It might change your life.

But totally, everybody - and this is a different issue - you should write on your walls in black felt tip. Anything that comes into your head.
I think that would be cool.
What you should do is have a 'graffiti room' - maybe two, one for visitors. You should have ( -she's getting excited now -) buckets of paint by the door. 'Thankyou so much for coming, there's paint by the door'. Perfect family activity! Bring all your friends!

I can just imagine the owner of the house wandering in when she's in need of cheering up and thinking....this is so stupid.

Anyway, back to the everyone-you've-ever-met thing. Imagine if, at the end of your life - or why then? Just randomly - everyone you'd ever met was gathered together. I love imagining this. But say this happened once every somebody's life, you'd probably keep getting called to go to these gatherings. You might not even recognise the person, but that would be cool. It would be an interesting experience. You might know other gathered people. You might meet some again and again at these gatherings. Would they all then come to yours, or would this not count as 'life'? Hmm, interesting question. But what you'd do would be to smile at the Main Person, as they walk past you looking amazed. It would be fun. And it would be accepted that no-one could take precedence or claim superiority as to how significant they were to the MP.

Conversely, it could be like a curtain call, with more significant people coming later, in which case there could be possible scraps between, say, wife and first love. No, I don't like that. The Gathered People would only ever look at the Main Person, so he could be utterly happy looking at both first love and wife, separately.

And before I go off to feel hungry: The Coma, by Alex Garland. Very good.

PS All these ideas are copyright! Copyright!