19/10/2007

Copied from my paper journal:

Friday, October 19
[bookshop] staff room.

Yesterday, I had to fill out various forms -- tax forms and the like -- and sign copies of my temporary contract. I noticed under the forms that I was leaning on a copy of my original cover letter that I sent in with my CV -- and written on the top of the letter was the phrase "Alien Boy Next Door!".

I can't help but wonder if that is a comment about me, and if so, what it means.

"Boy next door" is fairly neutral. It tends to mean wholeseome, clean cut -- although to me that can also can suggest dull, or unremarkable. It's like how Patrick Bateman is teased with that phrase in Brett Easton Ellis' book American Psycho -- "Patrick's the boy next door, aren't you Patrick" "No, I'm not, I'm a fucking evil psycopath". Whether Patrick actually was a serial killer or just fantasised about it is not the point. He's good-naturedly teased with the phrase by his girlfriend, but he resents it.

But what about "alien", then? Literally it means foreign, different -- strange. It also means extraterrestrial. And the boy next door -- if the boy next door was an alien? What does that mean?

It might be code for something -- or it might not even be about me.