The demise of the lump month,Heart-wrenching Childhood Anecdote #546, and voodoo
It’s the last day of that utterly fizzless, lumpy, stodgy month. February is dead, long may live March!

Now, I have some serious matters for you tonight. Sorry about that.

1. What did you wear as a 2 year old?
Times were hard, money was scarce, baby clothes too came in orange and various shades of brown, and, one day far too early, I was born.
Almost as soon as I’d popped out, my mother had to go back to work to feed us both as well as the cat and the chickens (we had chickens), so she had to arrange daycare. I am told –we joke about it- that one day, she came by to pick me up after her exhilarating shift at the Michelin tyre factory, about an hour earlier than normal; she found me unclean, apparently unfed since morning and passed out on a chair in a corner next to the caged canary. I was also tied up to that chair, to make sure I wouldn’t fall off. She scooped me up, yelled abuse at the ‘nanny’, kicked a few items of furniture for good measure, slammed the door and that was that. In the 70s you didn’t go to the police over this kind of stuff. It was merely unfortunate; at the most, you screamed and kicked and then got over it.

2. I sometimes wonder if this might be the cause of my instinctual distrust of fag smoking mumsie types /birds/strangers/everybody, as well as the overwhelming claustrophobia I feel when I’m in somebody else’s house and I have to wait it out. Wait, for them to look after me, waiting for me to matter but feeling like I won’t, ever. Waiting to be picked up, waiting for the duty to be over and the door to open and the time to leave, leave, be out of here!.
Who knows?

3. Now, try to remember. When you cried as a child, when you hurt yourself, what happened? Did you ever feel you had to apologize for scabby knees, grazed cheeks, broken skin? What words did you hear that day you tumbled down the flight of stairs and burst into tears and hiccups and snot? And the times you fell off the apple tree and fell on your head but no-one believed you because, surely, if you had really fallen on your head, you would have died, so there was no reason to make such a fuss and stop being such a baby? Younger even, a toddler, when you cried, were you distracted, look at the doggie/telly, look and forget right now, hypnosis-like, or did you get picked up and soothed? Or rather, were you ignored or teased or reprimanded for seeking attention? Were your tears dried, was your pain acknowledged? Go on, let it all out.. Big girls don’t cry. you could be more careful, now blow your nose and if you hust yourself again don’t come running back to me.

4. What happens to you when big girls don’t cry? Where does it all go, then, the tears and the pain? What do they need to be careful of, not grazing their knees, really? Or not disturbing/scaring the grown-ups?

5. Years later, I’ve let it all out. I’ve cried and cried and hiccupped and snotted and poked at the bruises and picked the scabs and looked underneath. No-one laughed. No-one distracted me. I have wallowed. for six whole months. Maybe I needed to stay there for that long and feel it, really feel it, instead of getting myself distracted. And I didn’t even apologize.( too much.)

Next time, to lighten up a bit, I’ll post dirty pictures of cartoon characters.

---

Oh well, I had to share this "voodoo" knife rack. They should make custom head-shaped ones with the face of your choice, so you can start your day by stabbing your least favorite person in the world in the face repeatedly as you make breakfast. Oh, that's just mean. I would never do such a thing.

11 very simple and personal reasons for joy and general exhilaration

1. the smell of warm bread straight out of the oven
2. serious life plans involving learning and occasional trips to Paris to take the odd exam
3. I have really cool hair right now
4. going to New York with a lovely friend I haven’t seen in a while
5. I’ve never been to New York and am really excited!
6. hot chai and a cat purring on my lap
7. I wake up every single morning feeling up with life. It might go down after that, but not so much.
8. 6 months down the line, I can think of A and not double up in pain. That took long enough, I know.
9. I’m remembering I have a flexible body and I enjoy using it. I’d forgotten, so wrapped I was in rug-like despondency.
10. ok, I’m slightly ashamed of that one, but the second series of the L word has started and I have episode 1 to watch. Popcorn time.
11. February, that big lump of bleakness, will soon be out and flat on its arse.

That’s all, blogpeople. It’s small, it’s fuzzy, it’s my world.

---

And today's top story, brought to you by a combination of ennui and post-lunch digestion


1. It is illegal in Florida for a widow to …
a) to remarry within six months
b) to wear pink for the rest of the year
c) to parachute on a Sunday

2. It is illegal to wear a fake moustache that
a) causes laughter in church.
b) makes you look like a terrorist
c) makes you look like a hell’s angel

3. It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo
a) because they’re an endangered species
b) from the second story of a hotel
c) without proper warning

The correct answers are c, a and b respectively, which apparently prompted two (bored but rich?) British students to spend next summer travelling from state to state, violating every stupid law they possibly can.
Not quite Bonnie and Clyde, though.
Starting in California, they hope to evade the attention of local police officers when they ride a bike in a swimming pool and curse on a crazy-golf course.
In (landlocked)Utah, they will risk the penitentiary when they hire a boat and attempt to go whale-hunting. If they manage to outwit state troopers, and perhaps federal agents on their trail, they will be able to take a deserved, but nevertheless illegal, rest when they have a nap in a cheese factory in South Dakota.
"There are thousands of stupid laws in the United States, but we are limiting ourselves to breaking about 45 of them," said one of them. He said he got the idea for his transatlantic crime wave while playing a board game called Balderdash. One of the game's questions asks players to complete the phrase: "It is illegal in Florida for a widow to …
"I looked on various websites, one in particular called dumblaws.com, and found loads of stupid laws. Some of them there are outmoded reasons for, others just seem to be ridiculous, like banning whale-hunting in a landlocked state." he said.

I wonder if they’ll go dildo-smuggling in Texas or will be indulging in anal sex in whichever state that considers this fun activity illegal between consenting adults.
I really, really hope so.

Lazy day today.

Serious questions

-Now, in yoga, why do they feel they have to name every pose after something in nature? asks J.
-That’s a totally rhetorical question, isn’t it, I answer.
-Tree pose, camel, cow pose, all the farm animals. Bo-ring.
-Since when are camels farm animals? Do you think they should have picked things having to do with food or something? The doughnut pose? The caramel flan pose? The chocolate éclair?
-I think they should have picked names of jobs, so that the poses match what people do in their job. That’d make more sense.
-Ah, I see. Like Lollipop lady pose, one arm stretched out in front of you, the other all the way up?
-Yeah! He enthuses.
-And the Plumber pose, designed to make the most of your bum crack? That’d be a classic.

I try to picture what pose my job would entail. Probably one where you frown a lot.


the well-known Doughnut pose

Vicariousness part two
Thank you for the thought-provoking comments, blogfellows. I have just a wee bit more:

1.When I read a sad story I may cry, but once I’ve shut the book the vicarious distress has had little impact on my mood or well-being. When I read about and visualise a blood-on-the-wall, evisceration crime scene, I might feel queasy, but I won’t actually retch. And where do love stories leave us but in a limbo of longing for our own?

2.As well as a processing manual, perhaps fiction can a kind of rehearsal, too. Hopefully, not in the cases of crime scenes.

3. But I wouldn’t swap the hardest, most painful times of my own life, when I did suffer and retch and feel the exhilaration of love and the heart-wrenching pain of loss. Because each time it was mine.

Finally, if thrillers had as much of an impact as real lived life, there’d be even more coronaries. (And we’d have more wrinkles and white hair, too.)

Oh, and now I'm waiting for Watherhot's 37° le matin story...

Taking vicariousness just a tad too far
The most deeply exciting moments of my life were all lived through books; literature is the most powerful thing that can ever happen to us., said writer Philippe Djan in a radio interview this morning.

1. I don’t like his stuff much (he’s the one that wrote Betty blue, which is really titled 37°le matin, and that Celsius, not Fahrenheit)
2. He’s a predictable, cliché-spouting interviewee with an irritatingly grating voice.
3. I instantly felt sorry for him. This morning only the final pages of ‘the time traveller’s wife’ had me in floods of tears. I can’t read thrillers at night if I’m alone in the house. But.. but…as powerful as fiction may be, how can anyone owe it their deepest emotions? I’ve always considered (good) fiction as a processing manual; events and feelings that would be stored up in my head and, sooner and later, mirror and help me through my own. A toolbox rather than a construction in itself; a means rather than an end.
I’m day dreaming and losing my thread, so I’ll give up, blogpeople. I don’t think I really had a point. Be well, thank you for stopping by..

Olfactory assault

[honey] [office]
[daffodils] [stationary cupboard]
[oats] [street]
[walnut oil] [boss’ office]
[liquorice] [general staff room]

Today I kept smelling the most unexpected smells in the most unexpected places. It just didn’t make sense. Delusory smelling.
Now I know about hallucinations (more than I would like), and I wonder -can the sense of smell go warped in the same way? Is it yet another symptom of my impending, irresistible descent into dysfunction?
That’s all, people of blogland. I wish snow was still coming down thick and fast and I could sit at the window and stare. Melancholia has stricken yet again.

>The Superbutch chronicles, Part deux - G’wan have a Guess

The first date

1.What did we have for dinner?
a. foie gras on toasted rye bread, a green salad and a Gewurtz 2000, followed by a home made raspberry pavlova.
b. Steak and chips with a full-bodied red wine.
c. Tesco’s Best value pasta with Tesco’s Best value tomato sauce.

2. What was playing in the background?
a. Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 In D Minor
b. Timeless Kiss: The Best Romantic Piano Music
c. The Very Best of Céline Dion

3. During dinner, we:
a. talked about the Nikkei index
b. had a light hearted chat full of delicious flirting
c. watched telly

4. After dinner:
a. we retired to her boudoir and shut the door on the world
b. we did the dishes in close complicity
c. she went out to smoke a fag.

5. I felt:
a. wooed
b. Intrigued
c. Like I was watching an experiment.

6. at night:
a. we laid in a perfect embrace
b. snored in unison
c. her dog crept under the duvet and fell asleep on my leg.

7. In the morning:
a. it was all hot coffee, hot croissants and a beautiful sunset on Sarf Lunun.*
b. she went out for a fag
c. it was cold, so she had a fag in bed.

Oh, there’s more, you know.
[*:for the ‘mericans and other foreigners: that’s South London with the local accent.Try it.]

Thank you for stopping by and playing with me, people of blogland. Aren’t relationships fun?
No I’m off to bed with a whiskey book and extra blanket because I’m all wiped out and Lunun has decided to go freezing on us.

The Superbutch chronicles, or Yes I really do wear those boots, by the way

1. Foreplay
The night I met Superbutch, I was wearing my leatheriest outfit and my friend O had, quite simply, left her underwear at home.
Forget the now obsolete needles and haystack, there should be a saying: ‘as impossible to find as a seedy lesbian S&M club in Vauxhall.’ We got lost, were too scared to ask, teetering on ridiculous heels, tightly wrapped in our coats so as to not display too much flesh to the loiterers. Finally we found the place.
It was a seriously schizophrenic type of club; we made our way though the ground floor, populated by a hiphop crowd, all baggy trousers, sullen faces and 2 carat gold jewellery, and climbed up to where the real shit took place. Quite a drastic change of décor: gilded mirrors, heavy red velvet drapes, deep sofas, very 1930s’ German brothel, but then again I admit I’m a bit of a romantic that way. At the top of the stairs, we caught a glimpse of the main room and its implements, and O, although not a shrinking violet, immediately locked herself in the toilet.

2. never enough foreplay
After some coaxing, O emerged from the cubicle with suspiciously white nostrils, but greatly more assured. Although… Can we stay at the bar for some time, please? she pleaded. Oh no, as much as voyeurism is fun, we have to stride in and be noticed. In we go, girl. How confident; it must be the heels. So in we strode.

3. Climax
A semi-naked form bent over a bench was enjoying a public flogging, whilst on a big wheel another woman was tied, arms stretched out. We tried to count all the clothes pins on her but lost count. Above our heads on a sort of suspended bed, three shapes were letting out moans and grunts. A couple offered us to join them in the adjacent fuckroom, but we politely declined and drank ourselves silly instead. More offers, when suddenly I felt very capable of taking this complete stranger’s cat-o-nine-tails and flog her raw, thank you very much. All eyes on me. What if I missed, what if I didn’t aim right, would they laugh? I bet they would. Shouldn’t have drunk so fucking much. Con-cen-trate. Take that, you, complete stranger that I’ve never seen before!
And that is how I met Superbutch, all leathered up, shaved head, fag dangling from her lips, who later confessed that as soon as she saw me, decided she had to ‘have’ me.


4. Wooing
You like classical music? I like classical music too, she said. She moved closer so that I was literally cornered. Come over to my house. I ‘ll make you dinner. I can cook real good.
Next time, people of Blogland, if I decide to continue with the Superbutch series, I’ll tell you what we had for dinner and what was playing in the background. Oh yeah.

I can’t think of a title today

9 am at the bus stop, I have company: a youngish mother and her 5 or 6-year-old son.

”Mummy, what vices do you have? Pleaaase tell me, what vices-do-you-have? Mummy? What VICES do you haaaave???”

Damn that boy is insistent.

Because I suspect the kid doesn’t mean

1.A clamping device, usually consisting of two jaws closed or opened by a screw or lever, used in carpentry or metalworking to hold a piece in position.

but rather

2. An evil, degrading, or immoral practice or habit. A serious moral failing. Sexual immorality, especially prostitution ,

and because I’m in a good mood and willing to bond with my fellow human beings, I smile a complicit smile; but the mother looks away.
The boy gets no answer but ‘ Shhhh now, Justin..

Maybe she’s being eaten away by guilt. Maybe she’s thinking about reforming. Or maybe she doesn’t want a complete stranger to overhear what vices she does have. Some things are better kept in the family.

---

People of blogland, I’m being all high on life these days. Almost bouncy. I know I mainly come on here to whine, and I enjoy every minute of it; but, really, I think I might be recovering from whatever it was that crushed me down for the past 8 or 9 months. So: yay! and thank you for stopping by.

This post, the second part especially, however lacking, is dedicated to Waterhot. It seemed to make sense when I wrote it; now I'm finding myself scratching my head in perplexity, and I cant even blame it on drugs. Oh well.

1.No man steps into the same river twice. (Heraclitus on a normal day)

a. Outside my window there is a tree. It’s bare, for it’s winter. In the Spring, assuming no crazy chainsaw neighbour cuts it down and Spring does come to England, it’ll still be there, and still I’ll call it a tree, although it’ll be different; and again with every season. Same word, different object. Are there any languages that rename the tree according to the season?

b. Language flatters and hides our indecisions and our fluctuations with its stability. Although the world changes minute by minute around us and within us, we give it an illusory fixity.

c. In love with a woman, how much of that flux is expressed in the words I’m in love? How do these words carry all the nuances and conflicts and ambivalence and apparent contradictions that were woven into this love?

d. So I take the dominant feature and proceed by abbreviation. As soon as a moment is narrated, described, possibly even remembered, it loses its complexity, its multiplicity. The present becomes degraded, first into memory, then into nostalgia.

e. I loved/love A – how simple that sounds, just like saying I like pineapple juice or beef stroganoff. And yet how much more complex the reality of that was/ is, so complex that I struggle against saying anything conclusive of any one moment.
Then for a period of time I hated her; again, how simple that sounds. Another abbreviation.

2. no woman either steps into the same river twice. (Ysengrin on a coffee day)

a. Possibly because I’m only too aware of the complexity of the relationship that’s ended, (and, trust me, it was even more complex than most. Put two tortured souls in a room….) I keep the river in mind, and this time, not for suicidal purposes.

b. This is where the bit about giving relationships a second chance comes in, you see. When enough water has passed under the bridge, will the river you'll step in this time be any different? Muddier, perhaps..


c. Contemplating the idea itself is a contradictory flux, look: I never believed in trying again with anyone. I think it might be a good, brave idea to try again with some people. Once it’s over it’s over. I think it might work out. There is absolutely no point since it’ll never work out. It’s not worth it. Nothing else is worth it. Things change, lessons are learned, people grow. There is such a thing as a bad match, and that’s that. Harmony between two people is never a given, but must be conquered, over and over and over.

d. I’m a really good swimmer.

---

Next time, blogpeople, if I'm still in a good mood I'll tell you about Superbutch, because for some strange reason I've been thinking about her recently. And not because that's a relationship I'd like to re-visit.

Hello people,
a) Today I'll sound like I'm in a bad mood although I'm not but it's sometimes fun to pretend.
b) Tomorrow, if I'm feeling up to it, I'll contemplate the fairly romantic idea of giving relationships second chances or what.

But now, the bad mood bit; I'd like to title it

colgate monkeys

1. I’m not a smiler. When I do smile, it’s not a dazzling display of orthodontics. I have the right number of teeth and they’re in a somewhat straight line, although my mother was too much of a hippie to get me braces; but teeth I do have. Teeth have nothing to do with the fact that I’ not a smiler.

2. As a result, I’m often told that I look sad. Does it have to be one or the other? I used to be fascinated by the chilling paradox that was my boss’ right smile and cold eyes.

3. Nothing – ok, few things- irritate me more than strangers telling me to smile. Why should I? Because I’ve just passed you on the street and you think you’re so irresistible I should beam at you? ‘Smile, luv!’ they say; all they’ll get from me is a glare. What a stuck up bitch.

4. the quote bit: One key element of "niceness" is smiling at others during social interactions--a response that is more common in girls and women than in their male counterparts. Women have also been found to commonly display "inappropriate smiling," for example, while asking a question or making a serious point. Smiling conveys a reassuring message of accommodation to others; it is the facial equivalent of speaking softly and tentatively in order to appear pliant. Animal ethnography has raised the startling possibility that frequent smiling may actually serve as a stereotyped gesture of subordination. Studies of rhesus monkeys found that when nondominant monkeys worry about an attack by a dominant animal, they convey their nonthreatening, subordinate status by lowering their bodies to appear shorter and smiling--an expression known as the "fear grin."*

5. c’mon girls, smile for the nice construction workers!

*Anna Fel's Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives

Commercial break

1.the setting:
..is the Palais royal gardens in Paris, tucked away between the Opera and the Louvre. It’s a solemn place; it’s a place to walk through on a cold winter morning, wrapped up in a cloak.

2. the protagonists:
…are a young couple, well-off Parisians in elegant clothes, walking hand in hand, seemingly deep in conversation.

3. Suddenly the young woman seems to be taken over by a childish urge to play hide and seek: she darts forward and hides behind one the pillars.

4. her companion walks on, a bit puzzled – why should she run off like that, is it anything he said? But she comes back, they carry on walking.

5. ..and again. She darts forward and hides behind another pillar. Ok, says the expression on her boyfriend’s face, this time she’s lost her shit. What else can I do but walk on.

6. but this time the camera follows her; close up on her back, as both her hands move down, seize the edges of her knickers and pull them vigorously out of her arse crack. At best I think chronic wedgie, at worst, I don't want to think about the worst. Glue. Something.

7. Voice over:
The silly, silly, silly! girl is wearing ordinary pantyliners! The end.

8. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I tried to picture the team of admen who came up with this carefully crafted piece of humiliation. Nice work, guys.

1. Tonight I went to see Jude Law and that other guy with the weird mouth have a pissing contest in Closer. Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ that was irritating.

2. I also bought some vague coloured clothes in soft, cuddly fabrics, for the Comfort Factor. Every little helps, just like Tesco says.

3. I turned down an invitation to the Candy Bar. Get thee before me, candy bar. Bad, bad place. I don't even feel like explaining why.

4. And finally, for a short personal anouncement:
...anyway: Valentine's day sucks donkey balls, so happy birthday to Jeffrey-of-the-city-of-hills instead. I miss you.

Fine, here’s the predictable Valentine Disaster Post.

1. The inevitable Retrospective
Last year, on February 14, I was on a plane heading west. There was no better place for me to be than that plane. Enough said, and see previous post. I believe there was sex involved after landing. The amazing, I-haven’t-seen-you-for-over-a-month kind of sex.

Two years ago, on the same day, I received a badly spelt card with sexual innuendo from Superbutch. Later on that day, I put the last eyelet on my outfit, breathed in and squeezed my pale flesh into a tightly laced black and pink dress, then pranced and sweated and spanked the night away at the Torture Garden. Superbutch agonised over her outfit too, couldn’t chose between two identical tops, then finally decided to go topless. Tit flashing gets you in quicker, you see. I flirted with glistening naked gay men, playfully whipped friends and got my finger caught in one of the fire doors. All in all, a little pain was had by all. I believe there must have been some real sex involved after Superbutch dragged me back to her lair. The designated-roles kind of sex. All in all with Superbutch, things were quite fun when she wasn’t talking.

2. Tomorrow, I believe there will be no plane, no pain, and no sex of any kind. Oh well.
In the late afternoon, I will most likely park myself in a café and watch straight guys with bouquets walk past, and be sort of glad I’m not one of them.

3. I will wonder how many people bought this straitjacket-wearing teddy bear, this year’s valentine special, allegedly meant to convey how ‘someone might feel about their sweetie on Valentine's Day’. The ‘Crazy for you’ teddy comes with commitment papers – ‘simulations of legal documents used to force a mentally ill person into involuntary treatment’.

4. Hey, it’s not nice to make fun of crazy people. And anyway,“Mental health is very serious. We should not stigmatise it further with these marketing efforts.", said some spokesperson or another. I think they’re starting to think it was a bad, bad idea.

5. All in all, Valentine’s Disaster sucks almost as bad as Christmas this year. Please send medication.

Accrochée à la colline*


1. It’s been ten years since the first time I went to the little city of hills by the bay.
My grandmother had warned me about the place. She’d never been there; in fact she’d never left Europe, but she read the newspapers a lot, and she knew of the possible and highly probable dangers to a young girl:
a. earthquakes
b. guns
c. prostitution.
How could I argue? I too knew about the schizophrenic tectonic plates; but bridges that collapse onto peak hour traffic only happen to other people. I promised to stay away from gun-totting pimps and packed my bags for three months.
The earth didn’t tremble that much and I didn’t have to swap sexual favours for meals.
I can’t say I made the most of my time there; I didn’t explore the city as well as I should. I’m always thinking that I never explore things and places as well as I could. Mostly because I’m scared, and lazy. Still, I made a real, an important friend there, and I knew I’d be back. And I was. Every time I breathed in the air and thought – it feels so right here, could I live here? It wasn’t a real question, it wasn’t a plan. It was just a romantic notion of finding the right place for me, the place where I would fit.

2. Years later, I met A and travelled back and forth for a while. I was starting to feel I had two poles in my life; almost two homes. And she gave me the keys to her appartment.

I have asked myself –what if she didn’t live there?
It just happened that the appeal of a London-San Francisco plane ticket multiplied.
I loved the city already, and after I met her I loved it more, because it was hers. I wish I could hit myself over the head with the notion that I only loved her because that was where she lived.
But even I am not that opportunistic. It was a simple sum of love+love.

3. So now it’s like I’ve been banned. Exiled, almost. I have friends over there, but the city’s changed. The places I know and love are hers, were ours for some time.

4. I miss the city that was ours, because I miss her. And I miss the city that was mine before I knew her. And I miss my friends.

5. It’s a painful fall. Should I get back onto the horse as soon as possible?

6. There is in me the temptation to go back and haunt those places. Make myself hurt. Prod the bruises to see just how much they can hurt. Dwell on it, milk the pain with more acuity than I do 6000 miles away. I don’t know if that’d be the right thing to do. Empty the abscess?

7. Perhaps when I next have the chance, I won’t feel the need so much.

8. The last time we talked she said :‘you used to come here before you knew me. You can still come.’ I felt like she was giving me permission, being patronising. I know it’s probably unfair of me.

9. I hate it when doors are closing in my face.

*this is a line from a 70s French song about San Francisco. It’s a cliché and I love it.

Action figure

1. definition
Main Entry: ac·tion noun
Etymology: Latin actio legal proceeding, from agere to do, carry out, initiate legal proceedings
a : a judicial proceeding for the enforcement or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offence
b : an act or decision by an executive or legislative body of a government of an organization
c : a voluntary act of will that manifests itself externally : a mode of conduct.

I’m not satisfied with any of those definitions. Where’s the one that allows for the connotation of excitement?

2. state of affairs
Up early, I’ve rearranged my cupboards and coaxed the big furry leggy spider off the kitchen ceiling and into the garden. Now I’m restless. I’m feeling the need for some of that action business, the (c) kind+excitement, the kind of act of will that propels me out of my house and into the world, the wonderful polluted world of London town.
It might involve other human beings.
I think of those kids who were told that ‘verbs are “doing words”’ and therefore believe that ‘to sleep’ or ‘to read’ are not verbs, since in their mind sleeping is not something you do and reading doesn’t qualify as action.
As if.
Still, today I seem to agree. Reading just won’t cut it.

3. the plan
…is to go shopliftingping with a friend. Is she a friend? I suppose so, since she tells me all about her tribulations and doubts, in a wide circle of questions that hasn’t changed much since we first met, four years ago. She’ll turn up, announce that she can only stay for an hour and that she can’t afford to buy anything, then drag me into every possible shop for the rest of the afternoon and try on things I wouldn’t even glance at. At 28, she can wear rags designed for slutty twelve year olds and still look good, in a punky, dyky kind of way. She will prance nearly naked outside the fitting rooms and ask what I think of her body. I will laugh and be patient and keep up my stance of the slightly jaded, superior, wiser, older friend. I’m not that much older, yet it seems to be my part, and I play it well. When I’m not up to it, we just don’t see each other. Then we’ll go sit in a smoky bar and she will tell me about the last time she called her fucked up ex and I’ll pretend to scold her.

I can’t wait.

Clearing
A whole week off.
Starting now.
Fuck yeah.
The plan is to do the following things:
· get up early most days, have breakfast, go back to bed and sleep late between linen sheets. The feeling of going back to bed surpasses mere lie-ins.
· Read ‘Anxiety status’, ‘After Delores’, ‘How to be alone’, ‘L’homme aux cercles bleus’ and ‘Petit manuel de manipulation à l’usage des honnêtes gens’, and if I’m feeling brave, ‘el maestro de esgrima’. Probably all at the same time, because I can’t choose.
· Consider a more active social life.
· Consider who to meet up with and where.
· Shrug the idea off and read some more.
· Go to the cinema in the middle of the afternoon. By myself.
· weather permitting, sit on a bench in Soho square and watch the pretty gay boys cruise each other.
· Try not to think that if A hadn’t broken up with me, that’s where I’d be now. There with her. Talking, agreeing, disagreeing, fighting, fucking, playing, eating, hoping. I know, I need some sense slapped into me.
· Improve on the tree pose and the toe-touching, the breathing in and out.
· Ignore Valentine’s Disaster.
· Bake cakes.

Early afternoon drink : slide, 10/02/05

1. Conversation
“so, what’s your motivation?”, she asks, abrupt.
“what do you mean? I reply to give myself time to think.
“why do you live?”
“err.. some weeks, because I don’t want a stranger, let alone a friend, to find me dead. That’d be a shitty thing to do, so I live on. Some days because I think it might actually be worth it. It depends.”
“but what’s the meaning of it?”
I laugh. Flip. It’s that clichéd phrase, it’ll make me laugh. It’s an automatic response.
“well, why should I know. I don’t know, do I.”
“what’s the point of ..beeeep..being alive?” she prods.
“hey, stop pushing buttons on your phone. It depends.. I think.. well if you have religious faith or political ideology to carry you, then you’re more or less set. For the rest of us, nothing, I guess.”
“sorry, I slipped…but why do you even bother?” I hear ice cubes click in a glass.
“because I accepted a long time ago that even though there was no reason to be here, it didn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. Sometimes, it’s worth it.”
“…beeeep….t’s your motivation?”
“stop pushing buttons on your phone, I can’t hear you. I told you: it depends.” I hear a liquid being poured and stirred.
“sorry, I shlipped. But why do you bother?”
“because, however fucking hard it is right now, perhaps in ten years’ time I’ll look back and think it was worth it. Because there are some people I love, because although there’s shit and fear and desperation, there is also exhilaration, because there is beauty and there is hope. Because I can finally do the Tree pose, and also touch my toes. Because I’m a bit of a hedonist.. I don’t know what else to say.” I’m not proud of my answer, because I know she has no idea what hedonist means, and she’s getting too angry and too drunk to ask.
“touch your toes, that’s really.. that’s really sad.”
“maybe. It’s only a way to say that the way you live your life is a matter of perspective. Art, or faith, or yoga can be your perspective. It’s not all empty. It just looks that way sometimes, you have to adjust your perspective, take a step back, breathe in, I don’t know.”
“I think I should find a guy to get me pregnant and then have a kid, so I’ll never need anyone else.” More clicking of ice. More pouring and stirring.
“err..no. Sorry. Having kids because you need love is the shittiest thing you can do.” I could add, but I don’t, that and with her drinking and smoking habit, she has what, a ten, fifteen-year life expectancy? and that’s assuming that her body could cope with pregnancy.
I don’t think she needs to hear that from me. Let’s shut up the moralist inside.
“Will you come and visit me?” she asks.

2. I hesitate. I say I’ll think about it.
I foresee evenings lost in smoke, too much alcohol, more endless, naïve questions that I can’t answer, since I can’t give her a Meaning of Life on a plate, complete with instructions. I foresee desperate attempts at dark humour, bitter sallies, and me like a plum sitting there with no way to soothe, no solution save my fucking two pence philosophy on accepting the absurdity of it all and trying to squeeze good things out of the smallness of everyday life, and always hoping. I’m no messiah.

3. She tells me she’s wasted and can’t talk any more. It’s no surprise, her drinking, although considerably better, was already an issue when we were together. I’m not sure how to react. All I feel I can offer is the promise that I’ll ring her again soon.

4. I don’t think I’ll go see her. Is that selfish?


5. Strangely, as I get off the phone, I think of A. Suddenly I want to talk to her – every hurdle we met in our relationship seems so trivial compared to that dark opaque vortex of alcohol and self-hatred.

6. I’m off to do a tree pose and touch my toes.

Pamper your arse, or The beauty of cartoon blasphemy

The predictability of doughnut shops
Sunday was muggy.
I took my vitamins and minerals and dragged my sorry ass out for a day of socialising. I came back home mentally paralysed by trite, predictable chit-chat and physically bloated with hot chocolate and doughnuts.
Dougnuts. I’ve tried to quit.
I was nearing Leicester square when I felt a sudden wave of anxiety coming, the type that wants me to sit down in a corner and hug my knees. Now I know that a good antidote is usually food, preferably deep fried and covered in sugar, so I dove into The FuckingRude DoughnutShop. It’s one of my favourite places ever; the second you walk in, you feel under attack. I believe the guys who work there have a competition going: who’ll be the rudest to customers, and who’ll be the fastest at it.
‘whatcha want.’, one of them barks with an upward tilt of the chin.
‘Good morning to you too! Well, I don’t know yet. But give me ten seconds and I’ll decide’, I answer with a smile.
‘huh?’
‘Precisely. Cinnamon and apple, please.’
‘ninety nine p. I have no change.’
It always makes my day. So after that friendly exchange I sat in smoky cafés and drank sweet goo, and listened and nodded and asked questions.

I’m so tired, internet people. Those serial killer dreams are really taking it out of me. Perhaps I should stop reading those detective novels and go back to fairy tales. I have more navel-gazing anecdotes in store, people of the Republic of blogland, but I’m dramatically underslept so I’m going to keep those simmering on the back burner for now. Good night.

Miracle [mirөkl]
n 1: any amazing or wonderful occurrence 2: a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of God
1. Apparently a bunch of (subversive, obviously subversive) papist officials are agitating to relax the miracle requirement for sainthood.
It seems miracles are harder to come by these days, people of blogland. John Paul II has already eased the path to sainthood by reducing the number of required miracles down to two: one for beatification, a second miracle for canonization. Only two measly little miracles, that’s all it takes nowadays to become a saint. Shouldn’t be too difficult to be responsible for two ‘amazing or wonderful occurrences’. Personally, I make things disappear. Socks, mostly, and stuff from the fridge. Where do I go from here? Is there an application form to fill in? Do I have to prove my miracles with pictures? How will they know they haven’t been photoshopped? Or can I just quote my witnesses?

(On second thought: John Paul, don’t you know that fiddling with the rules brings unwanted attention to the matter of infallibility?)

2. In truth, people of blogland, I find myself constantly, secretly, yearning for miracles. If I could pray, I would.
I’m a strange blend of fierce atheist and closet superstitious. See:

At age 5: if I can run to the gate before I hear mom call me for lunch, there will be apple pie for dessert.
At age 9: if I can do thirteen cartwheels in a row without bumping into the wall, my step dad won’t be home for lunch. Or at least there won’t be a row. Or at least he won’t shout too much.
At age 16: if I close my eyes and hold my breath for 87 seconds, Loic will sit down with me at lunch. Damn, failed again, got to train harder. Maybe if I hold my breath for long enough I’ll pass out and then maybe he’ll notice me.
At age 21: if a squirrel jumps onto that tree, He will take me out to dinner. I’m not talking about the squirrel, silly.
At age 24: if I can spot three sparrows in the next five minutes, we’ll get to skip dinner and go to bed instead.
Now: if I see a duck-shaped cloud, well, anything is possible, isn’t it. A duck-shaped cloud, especially if followed by a black cat on the garden fence, will undoubtedly signify great things. A second chance at love. Strife digested, changed attitudes, plans and vows renewed.

I can be a fuzzy ball of superstition, people of blogland.
So, miracles – bring’em. I won’t question them. Too much.

Dear Fairy God Mother,
It’s me again. I hope you’re well and that you’re not too exhausted by the post christmas and new year Trauma Interventions. I am well aware that the needy are numerous and that your schedule is hectic, but I was wondering if your P.A actually let you know that I wrote last September.
Literally begging for an appointment, I was.
No? Thought not.
Well, it doesn’t matter now, Fairy God Mother. I’ve more or less pulled through, and that’s without the 50mg capsules of Hubris I’d asked for. I also sat myself down and gave myself that stern lecture on falling in love with people six thousand miles away. I sat myself down quite a lot, I fact. I even made lists and took resolutions. Don’t worry about not doing your job, really, it’s ok. I know you’re busy. I’ll be alright now, I’ve ripped up my will and I’m flossing, which is always an encouraging sign. I know, I know, perhaps I am overestimating my recovery, since I have after all turned down a date for tonight and I plan to sit at home instead and read a book. In fact, this is what I am writing to you about, FGM – the state of today’s literature. Being a discreet yet pivotal element of a certain genre of traditional fiction, I know that you can only be sensitive to what I’m going to say.

Fairy God Mother, you know my attachment to old fairytales, don’t you. Sexist and traditionalist as they may be, I like their simple formula, their predictability and their intentions: reassurance and empowerment. I like their rationale, which is to provide a satisfyingly strict pattern: the hero(in) suffers but grows through her ordeal, and all is well in the end, and then I can sleep at night because the virgin-eating giant’s been rightfully emasculated and the evil, scheming stepmother pushed warts first into the barrel of acid, and after that Snow White shags her prince and the simple people of the forest and the bunny rabbits live happily ever after. Violence, scheming, revenge and sex. Good stuff.

After I did some growing up, since I couldn’t get enough of that simple, gratifying pattern but was no longer in awe of virgin-eating giants, I graduated to detective novels, where spunky high cheek-boned female detectives track down murderers and instead of emasculating them send them to jail for life and then probably live happily ever after, and then I could sleep at night because justice had been done. Violence, suspense and revenge. Excellent stuff, if lived vicariously. Mostly.
And now this is all coming to an end, FGM. There is this whole new trend of detective novels I’m reading, and the spunky detectives get there just a tad too late, never catch the serial killer, lose out. The homicidal bastard’s vanished, and all the detective can do is pick up the gory remains of the victim and go home and make a cup of tea to recover. Not so good stuff. The pattern is being broken, the reassuring rationale is gone, and sometimes I have to look under my bed before I can get some sleep. Do you think that’s right, Fairy God Mother? Do you?

What am I supposed to do for predictable reassurance? Where’s my bubble gone? These days, reading escapist fiction is just as bad as watching the news.

So, dear FGM, you see my predicament. I just wanted to vent a little.
I hope to see you soon. I could always do with an Intervention, you know. Or just pop in some day, you owe me a game of poker.

With all my love,
Your faithful goddaughter

The Wobbly Yogi and that bitch Sheila

1. ‘Inhale, and on your next breath out, stretch all the way to the left’, she says.

I stretch a little bit to the right, then realise it’s the other right and adjust my position accordingly.

now return to centre position

With only a slight delay, I return to a wobbly but centre position.

'Finally, we’re going to do the Rabid Newt Pose: stretch out, put your palms together, place your left foot behind your right ear and your chin behind your right calf; don’t forget to breathe in and out.'*

I expect her to add ' Just kidding, possums!' but she’s as serious as she’s contortioned.

At the words ' Now in a sitting position, bend forward and hug your knees', the hug I give myself is a desperate plea for foetal position and general surrender. I’m crap. I’m crap! My Tree pose looks like it deserves to be chopped down; my eagle pose sends me crashing to the floor; my camel pose is insulting to ruminant mammals everywhere. I’m a wobbly yogi. So, when the time comes to hug my knees, I hug for longer than was meant and try not to cry.

2. I don’t cry, of course. Much. It’s a battle against that high pitched, raucous voice in my head that repeats: ’crap, utter crap. No point, why bother; futile; if you can’t stand on one foot without toppling over what CAN you do, child? You’ll never be good. Crap.

3. Oooh, self-esteem issues, how very 2005. Or is it?

4. No exactly. Only partly.
The life story bit:
I grew up with little encouragement. I’m not trying to get pity; nothing of the kind.
Always top of the class, if I succeeded at something, and I invariably did, it was never thanks to my efforts. It was just a gift I had for academic studies. I passed every exam with as little revision as I could. No need for encouragement, if success was the only outcome. As a result I don’t know what it is to try harder. If I don’t succeed at first, I give up, because I don’t know what it is to truly work towards a long-term goal. I don’t know what I’m capable of and I believe in genius, instant inspiration, rather than hard work, tears and sweat.

5. This is why I’m so mediocre today. I am not artistic because I won’t be Frida Kalho as soon as I pick up a paint brush; I won’t play an instrument because it takes work to be Rod Stewart Phil Collins Haydn*. I won’t write a novel because I’m not Françoise Sagan.

6. So after I calm down and relax my knees from the vice-like hug, I do what I do best: ignore the people around me and start rationalising my crap.

7. This voice, can it be isolated? Can/should it be made into an entity? And could we call that entity Sheila? Every time Sheila starts with her diatribe, I’ll tell her to shut the fuck up. See where we are after that.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress, people of blogland.
Cos there will be progress.
Fuck Sheila.

* Footnote1: People, I totally made that one up. There’s no such thing as the Rabid Newt Pose. Please don’t try this at home. Or at least don’t send me the chiropractor bills.
* Footnote 2 Ok, Don’t start. I know I don’t need to justify my dislike of Phil Collins, do I, As to Rod Stewart, I don’t know. The man just fills me with repulsion. I don’t know if he’s a good musician.

Afterthought: I can do a wickedly good bridge pose, though. G’night.

Sometimes, I wish…

…..I weren’t so rude.
Example: a sterile conversation this afternoon with an extremely posh specimen who thought his name-dropping would impress me. So, he’s had hot water and crumbs with Charles and Camilla and bowed to other members of the Royal family. Well, I said, where I come from, we cut their head off. We all have our own brand of snobbism; mine’s called République.
I concede that I was insufferably rude; but he’d started it.
(Self important tosser.)

…..that the people in charge of motorway security in France would just stop it already.
Story : car manufacturers make increasingly comfortable and powerful cars that go increasingly fast; but sometimes cars drive into the trees that line up the motorway. One solution to that would be education, lowering the speed limit, tougher legislation, a combination thereof.
Instead, they cut down the trees.
(Myopic idiots.)

…..I could smother this lurking little fascist guy that lives deep inside of me.
Sample: ‘Official: it’s ok to kill burglar’ announced the Standard this morning. I was appalled at my gut reaction of ‘too fucking right it is’. I gave myself a stern talking to: what next? Take the law into your own hands crap? Suburban militia? The NRA? My gut, like an old, easily scared pensioner, can be so incredibly self-righteous. Note that the headline wasn’t simply implying that self-defence was acceptable in case of burglary, but that killing was ‘ok’.
(Shrunken git.)

… . I could tell A that I never want to hear from her again and that I hate her with all my might. Her and her entire family, including her ancestors going back to the thirteenth generation and their dog. (Not her friends, though; I liked her friends.) Perhaps for an infinitesimal amount of time, it’d feel good to hurt her. Not longer, though. And I would be lying. I don't like to lie.
(Lapsing twit.)

…..I knew what other job I could do. But that’s for another time.
(Procrastinating dreamer..)

Ah, if only all break ups could be conducted with such clarity...

Today’s questions:

1. Should I feel bad about calling in sick this morning?
2. Was the Armageddon in my head caused by overwork, general anxiety and or just by overwork and anxiety?
3. Is it really productive to snuggle bundled up on the sofa all day reading detective novels and eating tiramisu?
4. Isn’t it ironic that right after deciding that I’ve reached closure, I have Dreams?
5. Is there a checklist for ‘closure stages’ somewhere, and does it come with a time line?
6. Can someone please check in Cosmo and send me a copy?
7. How big a slap do I deserve for lapsing again and again?
8. How can I miss so much someone who was half the time toxic to me?
9. Is the fact that I never order take away for delivery because the doorbell makes me jump a further sign of a deep-seated neurosis?
10. What could I do for my next holidays?

That’s all. Good night.