My original intention was that LLFF would potter on forever. I always imagined writing about being vommed on by my kids, moaning about catheters and using my actual Alzheimer's to excuse the sporadic nature of my posts in decades to come. But lately I've accepted that this particular blog has been about a particular time in my life, charting my course through a particular minefield - a field I think I've now passed through.
As a few of you noted long before I did, LLFF's five year narrative arc finally appears to have touched down. I'm not better, but I'm different, and I've had to admit that, over the past few months, I've started to feel like this blog is just something I used to need.
I still love writing and I will continue blogging, but I think I want to do things a bit differently and so I've decided it's time to lay LLFF to rest. Instead, I'm going to try something a bit more structured and a bit less emotional - a new site, a new name, one blog entry a week, no more, no less. I'll post the link up here when I've written the first entry and found a name that's cool enough (suggestions welcome).
This is my 714th entry of LLFF. Since I started writing in the autumn of 2006, its been a massive and special part of my life. I couldn't (and wouldn't) have done it without you. From the very bottom of my very big heart, I thank you all.
With proper wet tears brimming, this is me, Jane, signing out of Lost Looking For Fish one final time. Sayonara.
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Whatever next
The problem with doing something as accidentally funny as sending your boss to a strip club is that nothing else seems worth writing about. Also I have undergone a substantial, Nietzsche-driven epiphany over the past few weeks, and have become unimaginably calm about existence, which means that my usual ability to ramble on for thirty eight paragraphs detailing my intense self-loathing has evaporated. I'd explain what's changed although I think it might ruin it. Plus I don't think I can say it better than Gary Cox, and wholeheartedly recommend his concise, funny, life-changing book to anyone with a vague interest in a) facing up to reality and b) managing to be pretty happy while accepting the inherent absurdities. Am now whipping through the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, which is so good that I regularly start underlining a pertinent phrase and then, ten lines later, realise I should probably stop if I don't want to be drawing disappointingly wonky lines in black biro over the entire book. And, while the contents are amazing, there is also the added bonus that getting out an oversized cream-coloured tome emblazoned with The Denial of Death while standing on a packed Northern Line train - well, it does give one a bit of a frisson.
So yeah, I'm actually kind of happy. I'm in my own little world but it's the best one I've got. I've been off anti-depressants for several months, I've been through a (minor) break-up without completely breaking down, and following a period of intense vulnerability, I'm now in the process of winding up my therapy. It's been almost exactly a year since I started with my current lady and the journey's been extraordinary (for me), painful (for me, my parents and my friends) and worthwhile. I could obviously find many hours of stuff to blather on to her about each week from now until the end of time, but there's something in me that wants to go it alone for a bit. I guess I feel like it's now a luxury rather than a requirement, and besides, it'll be nice to save the money (read: buy more neon vest tops). I'm positive I'll be back at some point but right now, I'm counting down to Glasto and looking forward to life being a bit simpler for a while.
However, when you take into account the fact that I don't really have much to say about the inside of my head any more and that, post-AV referendum, my interest in politics has fallen like Cheryl Cole out of Air Force One (assuming of course that the Americans had strapped loads of those scuba diving weights onto Cheryl as otherwise she'd just waft gently down to earth like a sycamore seed), then you might begin to wonder (as I have) what in the name of all that is irrelevant or self-absorbed I will find to write about ever again. I know that issues like the NHS and the schools system are still vital, but somehow it's hard to care since the way that parties get elected is so very different to the way they have to govern, and such a small percentage of the country has the power to change anything. It's like getting emotionally involved with a heroin addict - you always end up getting hurt. We get the politicians we deserve, and I think I'm going through a period of educated stropping.
So I'm spending my time not reading the papers, not thinking about myself in particular, not worrying about very much at all, just getting things organised, hoping the sun keeps shining, trying not to eat pizza more than once a day, telling myself that my ganglion operation tomorrow will be fine and wondering whether asking if I can watch is a good idea. It's been inside my hand for so long, though - who can blame me for being curious about its extraction? I think it will be smooth and white, like a baby quail's egg. Ew. The amuse bouche from hell: ganglions with mustard salt.
On that delightful suggestion, I'll let you get on. Not sure when I'll be typing again, or what I will think of to write about given that my two main muses have left me, but perhaps I'll think of something and will be able to dictate to a minion. Alternatively if there's a topic you feel I should be addressing, inspiration is always welcome. Happy Wednesday.
So yeah, I'm actually kind of happy. I'm in my own little world but it's the best one I've got. I've been off anti-depressants for several months, I've been through a (minor) break-up without completely breaking down, and following a period of intense vulnerability, I'm now in the process of winding up my therapy. It's been almost exactly a year since I started with my current lady and the journey's been extraordinary (for me), painful (for me, my parents and my friends) and worthwhile. I could obviously find many hours of stuff to blather on to her about each week from now until the end of time, but there's something in me that wants to go it alone for a bit. I guess I feel like it's now a luxury rather than a requirement, and besides, it'll be nice to save the money (read: buy more neon vest tops). I'm positive I'll be back at some point but right now, I'm counting down to Glasto and looking forward to life being a bit simpler for a while.
However, when you take into account the fact that I don't really have much to say about the inside of my head any more and that, post-AV referendum, my interest in politics has fallen like Cheryl Cole out of Air Force One (assuming of course that the Americans had strapped loads of those scuba diving weights onto Cheryl as otherwise she'd just waft gently down to earth like a sycamore seed), then you might begin to wonder (as I have) what in the name of all that is irrelevant or self-absorbed I will find to write about ever again. I know that issues like the NHS and the schools system are still vital, but somehow it's hard to care since the way that parties get elected is so very different to the way they have to govern, and such a small percentage of the country has the power to change anything. It's like getting emotionally involved with a heroin addict - you always end up getting hurt. We get the politicians we deserve, and I think I'm going through a period of educated stropping.
So I'm spending my time not reading the papers, not thinking about myself in particular, not worrying about very much at all, just getting things organised, hoping the sun keeps shining, trying not to eat pizza more than once a day, telling myself that my ganglion operation tomorrow will be fine and wondering whether asking if I can watch is a good idea. It's been inside my hand for so long, though - who can blame me for being curious about its extraction? I think it will be smooth and white, like a baby quail's egg. Ew. The amuse bouche from hell: ganglions with mustard salt.
On that delightful suggestion, I'll let you get on. Not sure when I'll be typing again, or what I will think of to write about given that my two main muses have left me, but perhaps I'll think of something and will be able to dictate to a minion. Alternatively if there's a topic you feel I should be addressing, inspiration is always welcome. Happy Wednesday.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Staged In Chelsea
I can't really comment on Made In Chelsea as I haven't seen it, but I'm not entirely sure I will ever see it, and if I don't watch it then I think it will be hard for me to review it with any authority (although by no means impossible given that, as a pop journalist, I managed to review several hundred films and albums without ever seeing them or listening to them. I also 'wrote' a lot of interviews without actually speaking to the celebrity in question, and put together countless horoscope and problem pages despite never having been an astrologer or an agony aunt. I don't even have any siblings and was unmarried, so any readers who checked up on my background could have established fairly quickly that the chances of me being an aunt were slim to none. I suppose I do have some experience of agony. But these are stories for another time).
ANYWAY. This is not a review of Made In Chelsea. It is more a series of concerns.
First of all: I do not understand this new genre of programming, which seems to have been spearheaded by, I believe, The Hills in the US, and is now sweeping our weak-willed nation in the form of The Only Way Is Essex and the aforementioned Made In Chelsea. I watched about ten minutes of TOWIE a few months ago, and just couldn't get a grip. Fiction, I get: ideally, some clever people sit around in a room and construct a narrative storyline with which to entertain or educate their audience. Then they turn the storyline into a tightly-woven script. Then actors learn the words and, with the help of a director, interpret them for our viewing pleasure. We are given an elaborately-constructed tale and we are free to enjoy it as we wish. Then there is reality TV. I get that too: at its best, some clever people come up with a format and then invite a selection of the general public to appear in front of the camera for us to watch. Programmes in this genre can entertain and inform (Big Brother, C4's The Family), challenge popular conceptions (Wife Swap), or just feed our obsession to see celebrities humiliate themselves while we use our button-pushing power to decide who has to eat maggots (I'm A Celebrity: Get Me Out Of Here). Like it or not, reality TV has been an extraordinarily successful shift in the way we make and consume television, and it's here to stay.
But TOWIE and MIC aren't fiction. And they're not reality. They're exaggerated versions of real people, in staged situations. It's like a fictional series, but with untrained actors. And I just don't get it. In typical Six Degrees of Private Education fashion, several people in the choir with which I sing have firsthand connections with the poshoes in MIC. One of them has been asked by the production team to supply a list of handsome gay male model types, so that the show's Ollie (who somehow has a girlfriend but is clearly gay) can come out with one of them in a future show. From what I'm told, there is no way his 'girlfriend' seriously believes he's straight, nor that he loves her. It is all just an act. But there's the rub: these people can't act. Watching TOWIE was excruciating - not because of the people or the storylines, but because it was sub-Neighbours. The script was rubbish - because there wasn't one. The acting was rubbish - because they're not acting. But all the oh-my-god, I-can't-believe-he-really-said-that shocks that come from reality TV was missing too, because it's not really real. It seems like the worst of all worlds.
Still, people seem to love watching these over-wealthy twenty-somethings blowing their inheritance in south west London. My friend Lucy last night had tears of laughter in her eyes as she ramped up her posh accent and did an impression of Ollie talking to a group of his friends at a dinner party. "Guys, yah? As you all know, it's my BUTHday next week, yah? And I thought, why don't we all do something CRAZY, yah? Like, let's go skiing?" And I get that that is agonising. I get that these crazy rich young people are jaw-droppingly clueless, and that they live on another planet and that that's possibly funny. But the fake-real issue ruins it for me. Because if the setting is a set-up, then what they're saying's probably fake too, and thus we're laughing at people who are pretending to be bigger idiots than they actually are, because reality's not good enough, and no one would believe it if it was totally acted. Sounds lame to me. Might watch the next one though.
In other news, a glitsch (read: MASSIVE COCK-UP) by Blogger last week appears to have reset every single Show Me You Love Me box at the bottom of my blogs (except those I've posted post-glitsch) to a count of one. This disappoints me. And of course, I can tell you about it now, Faithful, and you might be able to let it slide, but what about all the millions of new visitors I will get in future, who perhaps won't read this particular paragraph, but go instead directly to entries I wrote pre-wipeout? They will think that only one person enjoyed what I wrote enough to depress their index finger on their left mouse button, thus clicking a checkbox and making me unbelievably happy. They will then, naturally, conclude that I am a CRAP WRITER. Which is so annoying. I HATE that a total stranger who I will probably never meet will think that about me. OUTRAGEOUS. HOW DARE S/HE. S/HE MUST LOVE ME.
The only solution I can find that will compensate for this lost data and subsequent negative fallout is for Blogger to give me one million pounds. Failing that, I think Blogger should put a disclaimer at the top of each of my affected posts, saying "At the bottom of this entry by Lost Looking For Fish, you will find a checkbox that allows readers to demonstrate that the words above had bought them some pleasure, or, at the very least, not caused them discomfort. Many hundreds of people had ticked the box. However, due to us being really really bad at our jobs in mid-May 2011, the data was lost, and, by the time you read this, it is likely that the count of people who have ticked the box appears to be a measley 'one'. We humbly inform you that this single box-tick is a technical error and is in no way an accurate reflection of the standard of Lost Looking For Fish. We are well aware that this incident will impact negatively on your reading experience: after all, no sane person wants to read an unpopular blog entry. For this, we apologise unreservedly. Please be assured that Lost Looking For Fish is one of the most entertaining and important blogs in the Blogger canon. We hope you enjoy the rest of your reading experience. Best wishes, the Blogger Support Team." That or a million pounds, Blogger - which is it to be?
ANYWAY. This is not a review of Made In Chelsea. It is more a series of concerns.
First of all: I do not understand this new genre of programming, which seems to have been spearheaded by, I believe, The Hills in the US, and is now sweeping our weak-willed nation in the form of The Only Way Is Essex and the aforementioned Made In Chelsea. I watched about ten minutes of TOWIE a few months ago, and just couldn't get a grip. Fiction, I get: ideally, some clever people sit around in a room and construct a narrative storyline with which to entertain or educate their audience. Then they turn the storyline into a tightly-woven script. Then actors learn the words and, with the help of a director, interpret them for our viewing pleasure. We are given an elaborately-constructed tale and we are free to enjoy it as we wish. Then there is reality TV. I get that too: at its best, some clever people come up with a format and then invite a selection of the general public to appear in front of the camera for us to watch. Programmes in this genre can entertain and inform (Big Brother, C4's The Family), challenge popular conceptions (Wife Swap), or just feed our obsession to see celebrities humiliate themselves while we use our button-pushing power to decide who has to eat maggots (I'm A Celebrity: Get Me Out Of Here). Like it or not, reality TV has been an extraordinarily successful shift in the way we make and consume television, and it's here to stay.
But TOWIE and MIC aren't fiction. And they're not reality. They're exaggerated versions of real people, in staged situations. It's like a fictional series, but with untrained actors. And I just don't get it. In typical Six Degrees of Private Education fashion, several people in the choir with which I sing have firsthand connections with the poshoes in MIC. One of them has been asked by the production team to supply a list of handsome gay male model types, so that the show's Ollie (who somehow has a girlfriend but is clearly gay) can come out with one of them in a future show. From what I'm told, there is no way his 'girlfriend' seriously believes he's straight, nor that he loves her. It is all just an act. But there's the rub: these people can't act. Watching TOWIE was excruciating - not because of the people or the storylines, but because it was sub-Neighbours. The script was rubbish - because there wasn't one. The acting was rubbish - because they're not acting. But all the oh-my-god, I-can't-believe-he-really-said-that shocks that come from reality TV was missing too, because it's not really real. It seems like the worst of all worlds.
Still, people seem to love watching these over-wealthy twenty-somethings blowing their inheritance in south west London. My friend Lucy last night had tears of laughter in her eyes as she ramped up her posh accent and did an impression of Ollie talking to a group of his friends at a dinner party. "Guys, yah? As you all know, it's my BUTHday next week, yah? And I thought, why don't we all do something CRAZY, yah? Like, let's go skiing?" And I get that that is agonising. I get that these crazy rich young people are jaw-droppingly clueless, and that they live on another planet and that that's possibly funny. But the fake-real issue ruins it for me. Because if the setting is a set-up, then what they're saying's probably fake too, and thus we're laughing at people who are pretending to be bigger idiots than they actually are, because reality's not good enough, and no one would believe it if it was totally acted. Sounds lame to me. Might watch the next one though.
In other news, a glitsch (read: MASSIVE COCK-UP) by Blogger last week appears to have reset every single Show Me You Love Me box at the bottom of my blogs (except those I've posted post-glitsch) to a count of one. This disappoints me. And of course, I can tell you about it now, Faithful, and you might be able to let it slide, but what about all the millions of new visitors I will get in future, who perhaps won't read this particular paragraph, but go instead directly to entries I wrote pre-wipeout? They will think that only one person enjoyed what I wrote enough to depress their index finger on their left mouse button, thus clicking a checkbox and making me unbelievably happy. They will then, naturally, conclude that I am a CRAP WRITER. Which is so annoying. I HATE that a total stranger who I will probably never meet will think that about me. OUTRAGEOUS. HOW DARE S/HE. S/HE MUST LOVE ME.
The only solution I can find that will compensate for this lost data and subsequent negative fallout is for Blogger to give me one million pounds. Failing that, I think Blogger should put a disclaimer at the top of each of my affected posts, saying "At the bottom of this entry by Lost Looking For Fish, you will find a checkbox that allows readers to demonstrate that the words above had bought them some pleasure, or, at the very least, not caused them discomfort. Many hundreds of people had ticked the box. However, due to us being really really bad at our jobs in mid-May 2011, the data was lost, and, by the time you read this, it is likely that the count of people who have ticked the box appears to be a measley 'one'. We humbly inform you that this single box-tick is a technical error and is in no way an accurate reflection of the standard of Lost Looking For Fish. We are well aware that this incident will impact negatively on your reading experience: after all, no sane person wants to read an unpopular blog entry. For this, we apologise unreservedly. Please be assured that Lost Looking For Fish is one of the most entertaining and important blogs in the Blogger canon. We hope you enjoy the rest of your reading experience. Best wishes, the Blogger Support Team." That or a million pounds, Blogger - which is it to be?
Friday, 11 March 2011
Gang(lions) warfare
OH I SEE. I write regularly for months, pouring my heart out, letting you in to the deepest pits of my despair, allowing you to witness my heartrending battles with the huge intellectual and philosophical questions that we all must face as part of the human condition, desperately clutching on to sanity with shredded fingertips, begging for your advice and respect, and you just sit there silently scrolling down the paragraphs, only very occasionally clicking the box at the bottom to say, 'That wasn't shit,' before returning to your normal lives and silently thanking some higher power that you don't overthink things like that nutcase on LLFF.
And then I write flippantly about a CYST and I am OVERRUN with feedback. People I've not spoken to in years, true friends, distant colleagues, an ex-lover: all have risen to this occasion and clamoured to give me their thoughts and advice on the chickpea-sized lump on my left hand. Clearly I have found your level.
The advice I've been offered has been pretty unanimously in the 'don't bash' category, which, from a dramatic point of view, I've found disappointing. And I am still hurt that it was this that inspired such a flood of correspondence. Nonetheless, I am putting aside my petty concerns and, for the benefit of all my fellow gang(lion) members, I've pasted a selection of the feedback below:
"now i had a ganglion. and it did just disappear. not much use to you that is it."
No. No it isn't. How perceptive of you, reader. I've had mine since I was about ten. If it hasn't disappeared in over two decades, sadly I don't think it's going to start disappearing now.
"My sister had one, and someone bashed it and it was *horrifically* painful and she screamed. And it didn’t work. And she ended up having surgery. Don’t do it."
Being a glutton for punishment, the pain thing didn't put me off. "And it didn't work" was pretty persuasive, but there's a part of me that thinks that maybe they just didn't get the right bashing technique...
"Use a hot tea bag and apply to it for as long as you can possibly stand it. Never drop a book on it. If it doesn't start improving in 2 days go to the doctor, could be a staph infection. Not something you want to mess with."
Ooh, this person sounds like they now what they're talking about because they use the word 'staph'. In my case, if it's a staph infection, it's a 23 year old staph infection, so I'm thinking it's probably not that. I'm going to try the teabag thing though (not a sentence I ever thought I'd type). Tesco's Online sent me lemon tea by accident about three years ago so I can use the bags for my cyst. I will report back.
"My bro had one of these so i just asked him what he did about it.. he said he had an operation to remove it.. I asked if he had ever just "bashed it".. he said he had on many occasions but it just made it worse.. helpful?"
Yes. Many thanks.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica. Or maybe War and Peace. I'd offer to do it, but I'm in the wrong country."
Excellent suggestions, both, but I think the pleasures of cyst bashing are looking increasingly unlikely. :(
"just read your blog on ganglions... join the club!! i've had one in my right wrist ever since i started working so that's err over 10y ago now... i'm sure it's 100% correlated with computer/mouse use.... mine inflates/deflates according to how much i'm working.. i had it drained once (v painful) which helped temporarily but that's it... i keep asking about other options but the surgery route as you say is not permanent.. and you get a big scar on the wrist... great! it bugs me doing stuff like yoga - am never going to be able to do a hand stand!!! and would also stop me being any good at racquet sports but other than that i live with it... think it will go once i become a lady of leisure!!!! i actually think i have bashed mine accidentally and again it helps a bit but has always come back..."
DING DING DING! We have a winner. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the evidence is clear: I am working too hard and my body is in revolt. If I do not resign immediately, I will never be able to do a handstand, and I'm sure we can all agree that that is not a sacrifice anyone should have to make. I am off to write a last email to my boss. Then I will go home, sit on my sofa, stroke my cyst and wonder what I have done.
And then I write flippantly about a CYST and I am OVERRUN with feedback. People I've not spoken to in years, true friends, distant colleagues, an ex-lover: all have risen to this occasion and clamoured to give me their thoughts and advice on the chickpea-sized lump on my left hand. Clearly I have found your level.
The advice I've been offered has been pretty unanimously in the 'don't bash' category, which, from a dramatic point of view, I've found disappointing. And I am still hurt that it was this that inspired such a flood of correspondence. Nonetheless, I am putting aside my petty concerns and, for the benefit of all my fellow gang(lion) members, I've pasted a selection of the feedback below:
"now i had a ganglion. and it did just disappear. not much use to you that is it."
No. No it isn't. How perceptive of you, reader. I've had mine since I was about ten. If it hasn't disappeared in over two decades, sadly I don't think it's going to start disappearing now.
"My sister had one, and someone bashed it and it was *horrifically* painful and she screamed. And it didn’t work. And she ended up having surgery. Don’t do it."
Being a glutton for punishment, the pain thing didn't put me off. "And it didn't work" was pretty persuasive, but there's a part of me that thinks that maybe they just didn't get the right bashing technique...
"Use a hot tea bag and apply to it for as long as you can possibly stand it. Never drop a book on it. If it doesn't start improving in 2 days go to the doctor, could be a staph infection. Not something you want to mess with."
Ooh, this person sounds like they now what they're talking about because they use the word 'staph'. In my case, if it's a staph infection, it's a 23 year old staph infection, so I'm thinking it's probably not that. I'm going to try the teabag thing though (not a sentence I ever thought I'd type). Tesco's Online sent me lemon tea by accident about three years ago so I can use the bags for my cyst. I will report back.
"My bro had one of these so i just asked him what he did about it.. he said he had an operation to remove it.. I asked if he had ever just "bashed it".. he said he had on many occasions but it just made it worse.. helpful?"
Yes. Many thanks.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica. Or maybe War and Peace. I'd offer to do it, but I'm in the wrong country."
Excellent suggestions, both, but I think the pleasures of cyst bashing are looking increasingly unlikely. :(
"just read your blog on ganglions... join the club!! i've had one in my right wrist ever since i started working so that's err over 10y ago now... i'm sure it's 100% correlated with computer/mouse use.... mine inflates/deflates according to how much i'm working.. i had it drained once (v painful) which helped temporarily but that's it... i keep asking about other options but the surgery route as you say is not permanent.. and you get a big scar on the wrist... great! it bugs me doing stuff like yoga - am never going to be able to do a hand stand!!! and would also stop me being any good at racquet sports but other than that i live with it... think it will go once i become a lady of leisure!!!! i actually think i have bashed mine accidentally and again it helps a bit but has always come back..."
DING DING DING! We have a winner. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the evidence is clear: I am working too hard and my body is in revolt. If I do not resign immediately, I will never be able to do a handstand, and I'm sure we can all agree that that is not a sacrifice anyone should have to make. I am off to write a last email to my boss. Then I will go home, sit on my sofa, stroke my cyst and wonder what I have done.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Envy, needles, walking, fat, Egypt, patience
So like I said, I don't read other blogs very often because I feel lame and unsuccessful in comparison, and yesterday I discovered this one and I know my parents wouldn't approve but I have been laughing like a drain at her brilliant writing and it's made me think 'Meh, why do I even bother?' because there is SO much fantastic stuff out there. But then, it's fun to write. Even if she gets a gazillion readers and I get nine. And actually, I'm being a bit hard on myself, I haven't had a day with only nine readers for a long time. Years. Usually I at least get into double figures.
The fact is, this blog could definitely be a lot funnier if I decided to write only about funny stuff. But I like the mix. Life is a mix. We can't all be hilarious all the time. Well, Becky can, but she's a rare case. Besides, she has pets and a brother and sister and a mother, all of whom make regularly funny appearances. I would be much funnier if I had a pet or siblings, or a funny mother. As it is, I have a regular mother who only occasionally provides me with material. We have to play the cards we're dealt.
So, where were we? Acupuncture. It was un-fucking-believable. Its effects have faded now, but I swear, for about 36 hours, my new shoulders were a smooth river rather than their usual gnarled bit of driftwood. They don't half give you the hard sell, though, trying to get me to sign up for a course of ten and telling me I absolutely had to start coming weekly to feel the full benefits. I resisted because I am spending my money on other vital things like BOOZE and MORE CLOTHES. It doesn't hurt when they put the needles in, although it doesn't feel great. There's a little fumble, a bit like when your mum's doing the breaking-an-egg-on-your-head thing and is trying to get her nails to flick against each other to simulate the shell cracking, and then the needle goes in. It hurts 1/10, where getting your finger pricked pre-blood-donation is 4/10 and stubbing your little toe on the corner of your bed, unexpectedly first thing on a Monday morning, is an 8. And then you lie there, face down on the bed, and it's freaking weird because you know you've got twenty long needles sticking out of your back and neck, but you can't rise up and twist round to have a look because you think that any wiggle might drive the ones in your neck so far in that you might die, or maybe they'll just fall out and you'll have to lie there getting reduced benefit, so you stay completely and utterly still for thirty minutes, with a heat lamp pointed at the uncovered area, and it's freaking pleasant just lying like a beached whale and having an excuse to do so. And then she comes back in and quickly pulls out the needles and then gives you an acupressure massage, which is amazing, and then you go home and even the whole of the next day, all the muscles feel as new. For £15 on a Groupon voucher I thought it was unparalleled. For the regular price of £50, I'd never justify it unless something was seriously wrong, like I was so cramped up that I looked like a sexy hunchback. Gurgle. God it was nice.
24 hours later it was Tuesday evening and I went on a walking tour with a handsome friend round St. James' and we had a really seriously lovely evening, nattering and drinking and eating and laughing, until he decided to be a bit mental, but what was great is that Old Jane might have blamed herself and been like, 'Eeek, he's being mental, but if he thought I was amazing, he'd never risk our friendship by being mental, so clearly he thinks I am FAT and doesn't care about my opinion and so isn't bothered about coming across as a nutcase.' But on Tuesday I thought 'He is mental. I am a goddess, the little-known Goddess of Cellulite and High Priestess of Egos That Oscillate Between Over-Confidence and Crippling Insecurity. Bow down at my altar and weep, ye minions!
So after Tuesday night's mysterious shenanigans, I woke up yesterday feeling exhausted and ropey, and once I'd agreed with Emily that Erfan would take her to the restaurant instead of me last night, I then decided to use my day's fat allocation on a hangover lunch at Pret. I bought the following: a smoked salmon sandwich and a Pret Choc Bar, which, for the uninitiated, is a rectangular slice of what looks like chocolate biscuit cake, about the size of a Crunchie. I went back to my desk knowing that these heavenly items would be enjoyed and over all too soon. I swallowed them. Interested in the damage I'd just caused my weightloss intentions, I looked up the value of these items on the Weight Watchers website. The sandwich was worth nine points, the same as half a bottle of wine, and just under a third of my daily allocation of 29 points. That was a little galling. I'd definitely rather have had half a bottle of hair of the dog than a stupid sandwich. Then I checked the Choc Bar. Bear in mind that a Mars bar is eight points. The Choc Bar contained sixteen points. SIXTEEN. The total point count for my lunch was 25. I could have had a bottle of wine and a Twix for that. I'd have probably got fired for drinking that much during working hours, but at least I would have consumed some fat that made things fun, rather than fat that makes you feel guilty.
Meanwhile, Egypt is FASCINATING. Well actually, the whole Middle East is getting pretty feisty. I am following developments on Twitter and staring in awe at Jon Snow's feed, not merely because it is very interesting, but because I will never fail to find it amazing that some people are prepared to risk everything and go to these places and report on things, and yes, Jon Snow has fame and fortune and respect, but for every Jon Snow, there are hundreds of others who are taking the same risks but in a much lower-profile capacity, all doing their bit for global democracy, while I sit here eating fresh baby figs imported from South Africa and wondering whether to wear the aqua or grass-green eyeliner to the party tonight.
Yesterday afternoon, I had a gripping therapy session where I updated her on Tuesday night's weirdnesses, a couple of other ongoing sagas and my weekend in t'country. I told her how impressed I'd been with Lucy's mothering patience.
"I just could not have done it," I said, and explained how I'd have been more inclined to say 'Pull yourself together' than be endlessly supportive. My therapist was quiet for a bit and then suggested that I saw the Three Year Old Jane in Lucy's daughter, and that I had been told to pull myself together when I was being needy or unfun as a toddler. I thought that was possible. Later on, I checked with my mum, who said that it was more than possible, and was in fact extremely likely. And I think it's what I'd do in the same situation. Oh, I'd be a shit parent. Later on, the daughter had said to Lucy,
"Are we going to get out of the car when we get to the train station?"
"Yes, darling," replied Lucy.
"Will you look after me?" she asked.
"Darling, it's my job to look after you. I will always look after you, for ever and ever and ever."
The daughter sat in contented silence, swinging her be-tighted legs and silver glitter Mary-Janes from the safety of her carseat. I told this to my mum later, adding that I thought what Lucy had said had been just right, that every three year old wants to hear their parent say they'll always be there for them.
"What would you have said in her position?" asked Mum.
"I dunno. Probably something like, 'Look, I'll do my best to look after you, nutcase, but if you jump onto the tracks, you're on your own.'"
She laughed. I laughed. It's what my parents would have said to me. And look how I turned out. Shit. I should be sterilized.
The fact is, this blog could definitely be a lot funnier if I decided to write only about funny stuff. But I like the mix. Life is a mix. We can't all be hilarious all the time. Well, Becky can, but she's a rare case. Besides, she has pets and a brother and sister and a mother, all of whom make regularly funny appearances. I would be much funnier if I had a pet or siblings, or a funny mother. As it is, I have a regular mother who only occasionally provides me with material. We have to play the cards we're dealt.
So, where were we? Acupuncture. It was un-fucking-believable. Its effects have faded now, but I swear, for about 36 hours, my new shoulders were a smooth river rather than their usual gnarled bit of driftwood. They don't half give you the hard sell, though, trying to get me to sign up for a course of ten and telling me I absolutely had to start coming weekly to feel the full benefits. I resisted because I am spending my money on other vital things like BOOZE and MORE CLOTHES. It doesn't hurt when they put the needles in, although it doesn't feel great. There's a little fumble, a bit like when your mum's doing the breaking-an-egg-on-your-head thing and is trying to get her nails to flick against each other to simulate the shell cracking, and then the needle goes in. It hurts 1/10, where getting your finger pricked pre-blood-donation is 4/10 and stubbing your little toe on the corner of your bed, unexpectedly first thing on a Monday morning, is an 8. And then you lie there, face down on the bed, and it's freaking weird because you know you've got twenty long needles sticking out of your back and neck, but you can't rise up and twist round to have a look because you think that any wiggle might drive the ones in your neck so far in that you might die, or maybe they'll just fall out and you'll have to lie there getting reduced benefit, so you stay completely and utterly still for thirty minutes, with a heat lamp pointed at the uncovered area, and it's freaking pleasant just lying like a beached whale and having an excuse to do so. And then she comes back in and quickly pulls out the needles and then gives you an acupressure massage, which is amazing, and then you go home and even the whole of the next day, all the muscles feel as new. For £15 on a Groupon voucher I thought it was unparalleled. For the regular price of £50, I'd never justify it unless something was seriously wrong, like I was so cramped up that I looked like a sexy hunchback. Gurgle. God it was nice.
24 hours later it was Tuesday evening and I went on a walking tour with a handsome friend round St. James' and we had a really seriously lovely evening, nattering and drinking and eating and laughing, until he decided to be a bit mental, but what was great is that Old Jane might have blamed herself and been like, 'Eeek, he's being mental, but if he thought I was amazing, he'd never risk our friendship by being mental, so clearly he thinks I am FAT and doesn't care about my opinion and so isn't bothered about coming across as a nutcase.' But on Tuesday I thought 'He is mental. I am a goddess, the little-known Goddess of Cellulite and High Priestess of Egos That Oscillate Between Over-Confidence and Crippling Insecurity. Bow down at my altar and weep, ye minions!
So after Tuesday night's mysterious shenanigans, I woke up yesterday feeling exhausted and ropey, and once I'd agreed with Emily that Erfan would take her to the restaurant instead of me last night, I then decided to use my day's fat allocation on a hangover lunch at Pret. I bought the following: a smoked salmon sandwich and a Pret Choc Bar, which, for the uninitiated, is a rectangular slice of what looks like chocolate biscuit cake, about the size of a Crunchie. I went back to my desk knowing that these heavenly items would be enjoyed and over all too soon. I swallowed them. Interested in the damage I'd just caused my weightloss intentions, I looked up the value of these items on the Weight Watchers website. The sandwich was worth nine points, the same as half a bottle of wine, and just under a third of my daily allocation of 29 points. That was a little galling. I'd definitely rather have had half a bottle of hair of the dog than a stupid sandwich. Then I checked the Choc Bar. Bear in mind that a Mars bar is eight points. The Choc Bar contained sixteen points. SIXTEEN. The total point count for my lunch was 25. I could have had a bottle of wine and a Twix for that. I'd have probably got fired for drinking that much during working hours, but at least I would have consumed some fat that made things fun, rather than fat that makes you feel guilty.
Meanwhile, Egypt is FASCINATING. Well actually, the whole Middle East is getting pretty feisty. I am following developments on Twitter and staring in awe at Jon Snow's feed, not merely because it is very interesting, but because I will never fail to find it amazing that some people are prepared to risk everything and go to these places and report on things, and yes, Jon Snow has fame and fortune and respect, but for every Jon Snow, there are hundreds of others who are taking the same risks but in a much lower-profile capacity, all doing their bit for global democracy, while I sit here eating fresh baby figs imported from South Africa and wondering whether to wear the aqua or grass-green eyeliner to the party tonight.
Yesterday afternoon, I had a gripping therapy session where I updated her on Tuesday night's weirdnesses, a couple of other ongoing sagas and my weekend in t'country. I told her how impressed I'd been with Lucy's mothering patience.
"I just could not have done it," I said, and explained how I'd have been more inclined to say 'Pull yourself together' than be endlessly supportive. My therapist was quiet for a bit and then suggested that I saw the Three Year Old Jane in Lucy's daughter, and that I had been told to pull myself together when I was being needy or unfun as a toddler. I thought that was possible. Later on, I checked with my mum, who said that it was more than possible, and was in fact extremely likely. And I think it's what I'd do in the same situation. Oh, I'd be a shit parent. Later on, the daughter had said to Lucy,
"Are we going to get out of the car when we get to the train station?"
"Yes, darling," replied Lucy.
"Will you look after me?" she asked.
"Darling, it's my job to look after you. I will always look after you, for ever and ever and ever."
The daughter sat in contented silence, swinging her be-tighted legs and silver glitter Mary-Janes from the safety of her carseat. I told this to my mum later, adding that I thought what Lucy had said had been just right, that every three year old wants to hear their parent say they'll always be there for them.
"What would you have said in her position?" asked Mum.
"I dunno. Probably something like, 'Look, I'll do my best to look after you, nutcase, but if you jump onto the tracks, you're on your own.'"
She laughed. I laughed. It's what my parents would have said to me. And look how I turned out. Shit. I should be sterilized.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Grass: getting greener
I don't read many other blogs. Most of the blogs I stumble across seem to be written by attractive, articulate, funny single women in their thirties, and I don't need to be reminded quite how average and unremarkable I am. Occasionally I find blogs written by miserable, articulate, single men in their thirties: these are slightly better because they make me feel like, however bad things get, at least I'm not them. Miserable single men seem to have a really tough time of it as they can't seem to shake off their negative self-image. Not that it's a breeze for us lasses - we just seem to find it easier to admit we need help. If it were up to me, I'd round up every thirty year old in the UK and book them in to a compulsory twelve month stint of psychodynamic therapy.
My session last night wasn't the easiest, but it was certainly enlightening. As a paragraph-length recap of approximately twenty hours of counselling, this whole thing started because I was miserable. I was miserable because I'd felt left out of my parents' relationship, and by hanging out with unattainables and doggedly offering my worship to anyone who'd look in my direction only to find them boring and unworthy when they reciprocated, I just repeated and reconfirmed this hunch over and over again for 33 years. Somehow I needed to find some inner strength, a feeling that I am good enough, that I don't need to replicate my parents' happiness to be a success, that my life's goal is my own and my own alone.
Thus began my search for inner peace. I reasoned that, if I found inner peace, I'd feel happy with the status quo and stop constantly feeling like I am not good enough and that I need a partner in my life to validate my existence. And, after months of therapy and meditation, it seemed to be working: around the beginning of this year, I suddenly realised that, somewhere along the line, I'd stopped feeling like a failure. The Greek chorus who'd stood at my side my entire life and criticised my every move had shut up, at last. I stopped feeling so ugly, I stopped feeling so undesirable, I stopped feeling like I had to prove myself every minute of every day.
Initially I was elated, but in the past fortnight, I've noticed that my old ways have started to creep back - I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future, planning holidays and trips, forgetting about my life, the present, which is just slipping by unnoticed. I've meticulously planned lots of events (a busy girl = a successful girl), and had a few conversations about Grania's new love that left me feeling like she preferred him to me, as though her love was finite, that he'd taken my share, that we were in a competition and I'd lost. Turned out I wasn't so happy with the status quo after all.
Yesterday I said I felt like I was at a Y junction. One fork was a path where I choose inner peace, and I relinquish all need for anything. I become totally zen. But I was worried that that option sucks: if you don't crave anything, you never get the rush of getting what you've always craved. So you're kind of placidly happy, which is fine, but I looked at Grania and her Cloud Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine and I think, if I go totally zen, I'll never have that. Which seemed sad. The other fork is where I don't have inner peace, but still have needs and desires that get met and/or thwarted, and along the way there's a lot of pain and occasional pleasure. That's where I was before and it hurt a lot. In short, both paths suck.
But, said my therapist, you're still talking like there are paths. Trodden paths. And I said, oh. You're right. OK, there are no paths. But I'm still walking purposefully in one direction. And she said Mmmm. And I said, shit, I should be meandering, shouldn't I? She said nothing. I shouldn't really be going anywhere much, I said.
About this inner peace, she said. That was what you were trying to aim for? Yes, I said. And that means acceptance, right? Right, I said - accepting and loving myself, warts and all. [NB I don't have warts]. Doesn't that mean, she said, that you have to be at peace with every part of you? Yes, I said. Even, she asked, the parts that need a relationship? And I said, oh. I thought it was going to be a transaction. I thought I'd get inner peace and then I'd be complete and I would no longer need a relationship. I don't know if it's that simple, she said. I suppose, I said, the crucial difference is that one is at peace with oneself, and perhaps a relationship comes along that makes one a bit happier, rather than that one is unhappy, and searches for a relationship to solve their problems. She nodded. OK, I said. I think I can get my head round that.
And so the Y junction became overgrown with long grass.
At the moment, I am in the weird position of knowing that I'd love to meet someone who would join me in the meadow, but if you said 'I've got the ideal man for you, just click your fingers and you'll be madly in love' I'd be too terrified to do it. What's that about? Why would I not want the thing that I really want? Well, because I've been hurt. Badly. And I don't much fancy that happening again. One day I'll dip a toe. But right now it's fun working on this inner peace malarkey and spending time in the meadow on my tod. The flowers are lovely. It's like the Alpujarras.
Plus I don't know when I'd have time for this fictional boyfriend, anyway. Last night was our first uke band practice. My new bandmates seem extremely friendly and a talented lot, and it's hard to imagine that we will all want to bite out each others' jugulars in a few short weeks, although I know that's inevitable. We whittled our first songlist down to ten possibles - now I have a fortnight to learn how to play them. Terrified but excited: terrified about memorising songs, excited about getting dressed up in retro outfits and performing on stage. I'd love to do a lot more lying around but it just doesn't seem to be possible.
My session last night wasn't the easiest, but it was certainly enlightening. As a paragraph-length recap of approximately twenty hours of counselling, this whole thing started because I was miserable. I was miserable because I'd felt left out of my parents' relationship, and by hanging out with unattainables and doggedly offering my worship to anyone who'd look in my direction only to find them boring and unworthy when they reciprocated, I just repeated and reconfirmed this hunch over and over again for 33 years. Somehow I needed to find some inner strength, a feeling that I am good enough, that I don't need to replicate my parents' happiness to be a success, that my life's goal is my own and my own alone.
Thus began my search for inner peace. I reasoned that, if I found inner peace, I'd feel happy with the status quo and stop constantly feeling like I am not good enough and that I need a partner in my life to validate my existence. And, after months of therapy and meditation, it seemed to be working: around the beginning of this year, I suddenly realised that, somewhere along the line, I'd stopped feeling like a failure. The Greek chorus who'd stood at my side my entire life and criticised my every move had shut up, at last. I stopped feeling so ugly, I stopped feeling so undesirable, I stopped feeling like I had to prove myself every minute of every day.
Initially I was elated, but in the past fortnight, I've noticed that my old ways have started to creep back - I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future, planning holidays and trips, forgetting about my life, the present, which is just slipping by unnoticed. I've meticulously planned lots of events (a busy girl = a successful girl), and had a few conversations about Grania's new love that left me feeling like she preferred him to me, as though her love was finite, that he'd taken my share, that we were in a competition and I'd lost. Turned out I wasn't so happy with the status quo after all.
Yesterday I said I felt like I was at a Y junction. One fork was a path where I choose inner peace, and I relinquish all need for anything. I become totally zen. But I was worried that that option sucks: if you don't crave anything, you never get the rush of getting what you've always craved. So you're kind of placidly happy, which is fine, but I looked at Grania and her Cloud Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine and I think, if I go totally zen, I'll never have that. Which seemed sad. The other fork is where I don't have inner peace, but still have needs and desires that get met and/or thwarted, and along the way there's a lot of pain and occasional pleasure. That's where I was before and it hurt a lot. In short, both paths suck.
But, said my therapist, you're still talking like there are paths. Trodden paths. And I said, oh. You're right. OK, there are no paths. But I'm still walking purposefully in one direction. And she said Mmmm. And I said, shit, I should be meandering, shouldn't I? She said nothing. I shouldn't really be going anywhere much, I said.
About this inner peace, she said. That was what you were trying to aim for? Yes, I said. And that means acceptance, right? Right, I said - accepting and loving myself, warts and all. [NB I don't have warts]. Doesn't that mean, she said, that you have to be at peace with every part of you? Yes, I said. Even, she asked, the parts that need a relationship? And I said, oh. I thought it was going to be a transaction. I thought I'd get inner peace and then I'd be complete and I would no longer need a relationship. I don't know if it's that simple, she said. I suppose, I said, the crucial difference is that one is at peace with oneself, and perhaps a relationship comes along that makes one a bit happier, rather than that one is unhappy, and searches for a relationship to solve their problems. She nodded. OK, I said. I think I can get my head round that.
And so the Y junction became overgrown with long grass.
At the moment, I am in the weird position of knowing that I'd love to meet someone who would join me in the meadow, but if you said 'I've got the ideal man for you, just click your fingers and you'll be madly in love' I'd be too terrified to do it. What's that about? Why would I not want the thing that I really want? Well, because I've been hurt. Badly. And I don't much fancy that happening again. One day I'll dip a toe. But right now it's fun working on this inner peace malarkey and spending time in the meadow on my tod. The flowers are lovely. It's like the Alpujarras.
Plus I don't know when I'd have time for this fictional boyfriend, anyway. Last night was our first uke band practice. My new bandmates seem extremely friendly and a talented lot, and it's hard to imagine that we will all want to bite out each others' jugulars in a few short weeks, although I know that's inevitable. We whittled our first songlist down to ten possibles - now I have a fortnight to learn how to play them. Terrified but excited: terrified about memorising songs, excited about getting dressed up in retro outfits and performing on stage. I'd love to do a lot more lying around but it just doesn't seem to be possible.
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
More moans
As the Faithful will know, after someone described LLFF as 'about mental health' I became a bit unsure. I'm happy to be honest about the rubbish that goes on in my noodle, but I didn't really want this blog to be labeled as single-topic when I've tried quite hard to make it fairly broad.
If I'm to be truly open, though, there's another reason I quash the compulsion to share my deepest thoughts. I know deep down that this is utterly absurd but that's hardly a rarity among my observations... and... well, OK, out with it: I worried that some handsome (or bearable) young man could be reading, and that my admitting to being a divider short of a lever arch file might deter him from, one day, tentatively emailing me to ask me on a date. Yes, I know: absurd. I cringe even to admit it. I mean, a) Fictional Bearable Man has four years of LLFF to read back on, so only writing about HILARIOUS antics from now on will hardly cancel out 650 entries of questionably certifiable content. b) In four years, I've only ever had one person get in touch with me flirtatiously as a result of what they've read here, and let's just say that didn't end well. c) I AM MEANT TO BE ON A FREAKING BOYBAN so any worrying about Fictional Bearable Men is absolutely against orders, and should be ceased IMMEDIATELY.
So with all that in mind, here's a description of my mental state over the past few days. You can read about it as long as you allow me to apply the caveat that I really don't think I'm THAT much more mental than anyone else, just fractionally more open about it. Allow me that indulgence, I prithee.
Last Monday I thought I felt the symptoms of PMT. I'm not sure what our problem is, but it seems like, despite menstruating more or less monthly for around two decades, the women I know tend to greet each new period with irritated surprise. You'd have thought we'd know exactly when it was going to happen, but no - the last one finishes and we just bury our heads in the sand and forget about it until the next one creeps up like an unwelcome drunk houseguest and ruins an otherwise perfectly good week. For the record, my PMT symptoms tend to include: body temperature always being wrong; near-constant exhaustion; physical sense of having ingested around ten pints of thick soup or porridge that has oozed through my intestine and is now filling up legs and arms et cetera; a perpetual feeling of foreboding. It is not unbearable, but equally it is not rib-ticklingly good fun. After about five days of this, I become convinced that the PMT is about to end and that good ol' MT should surely be about to begin. But no - I had a fairly over-sensitive weekend feeling anti-social and quiet, and then yesterday, day eight, I metaphorically hit the fan.
It started when Chris came into my office at around 11am for a chat. We nattered harmlessly for a few minutes and then he made some very light-hearted but unarguably derogatory comment about the Welsh, and then the Scots. I told him not to be racist, he (quite sensibly) told me to lighten up, I refused, and he (entirely reasonably) swore at me and stropped off. I sat there wondering what to do. I knew I was being insufferable and deserved to be firmly mocked. Equally, I do think that people should stick to their principles, and that 'harmless' prejudiced jokes between friends, even friends who know the other isn't really racist, aren't ideal. I get miffed when people use 'gay' as a derogatory term too. It's boringly puritanical, but I'd feel really awful if I went the other way. There's loads of ways to slag people off without relying on their nationality or their sexuality. (As an aside, I'm not even sure he was theoretically being racist. I don't think Welsh is a race, is it?) Either way, I didn't like him being prejudiced, but I should have let it go.
So I was a bit upset about that, annoyed at myself for being a dick, but I went off to Boots at lunch and got a few things sorted out, and the nice lady at the Benefit counter gave me 'dramatic eyes' (think Twiggy in the Sixties rather than this) and I went back to the office feeling slightly better. And then I got a phonecall from a very chipper friend, who told me I should be being more positive about something that I was being negative about, and for some reason I was so determined to persuade her that I was right to feel negative about it that I started crying. Fortunately my colleagues weren't in their offices so no one could see me as the decidedly-non-waterproof Benefit products coursed down my cheeks but I still worried that someone might come in and ask me something, so I thought it best to hide. I ducked under my desk and sat there, cross legged and sobbing, for about an hour. Then I got up, not really very sure at all why I had been crying for quite so long, wiped off as much of the sediment as I could, sat back on my posture stool and stared into space for another hour, unable to decide what to do. I didn't want to go to my non-negotiable evening engagement that I'd been excited about for AGES because I felt antisocial and ugly and boring and I knew I'd be expected to be loud and opinionated and hilarious. But I didn't want to go home to an empty flat. And I didn't want to see anyone else because I felt rubbish.
Then I realised that I had presents for two of the people at the non-negotiable evening engagement and I accepted that I had to go, but I couldn't shake off this weird under-confident paralysis. In the end I had to ask Chris to come and get me out of my office, which he did (after he'd emailed me to tell me he wasn't a racist). And he gave me a hug and I cried again and FUCKING HELL his dad is recovering from a stroke but will be paralysed for the rest of his life, and I know Chris must look at me like 'SHUT UP with your insignificant issues' but these freaking hormones are just so powerful - half the time you don't know why you're crying, you just feel so utterly negative and fed up. I wish boys could experience it just once because there is nothing more frustrating about knowing something isn't real but still not being able to ignore it. I imagine it's a bit like having a bad trip. And there's part of me that thinks we should all keep schtum about how it feels, that it's blog entries like these that spread the idea that women are mental and difficult and that boys are straightforward and superior. Perhaps it'd be better for women if people didn't come out and say 'Yes, I'm irrational. Yes, I cry when very little seems wrong. Yes, it sucks to be me sometimes' and instead, for the sake of equality, acted like all the other ladettes and said 'We're just like you but with bigger boobs!' Anyway. It's too late now. I write, therefore I press 'Publish Post'.
I went to the evening engagement for half an hour and handed over the presents. And it was weird - I'd felt so withdrawn, so utterly shy and gross, but then I got there and we were carol singing outside the Southbank Centre, and this crowd had gathered to listen to us, even though it was really flipping cold, and people were filming us on their phones and it was all sounding lovely, and I realised we didn't have a hat down to collect any money, and I put my furry hat down and everyone laughed, and then Christina said we weren't allowed to collect money and she picked up my hat. But what I thought was odd was how, even when I'm feeling utterly awful, I still can't quash my instinct to show off or get attention or put a stamp on things, to walk into the middle of the semi-circle and ask strangers to give us money, when thirty minutes earlier I couldn't even get the strength to re-don my Moon Boots. And I hate that. I wish I'd just be consistent and stay quiet rather than act up like some seal with a compulsion to bark. As soon as the singing had finished and a few people came up to say hello to me, I panicked again and went straight home. I watched the final of The Apprentice, which was long enough to take my mind off things, and then I went to bed.
No tears today but haven't managed to leave the house yet. I dunno. I'm off to the doctor in a minute. It's not remotely life threatening but I'd rather not hang round waiting for this to happen all over again in 28 days. And if the NHS don't have any answers I'm going to have to get me some waterproof mascara. To all the women out there: I love you. To all the men: love your women. We need you.
If I'm to be truly open, though, there's another reason I quash the compulsion to share my deepest thoughts. I know deep down that this is utterly absurd but that's hardly a rarity among my observations... and... well, OK, out with it: I worried that some handsome (or bearable) young man could be reading, and that my admitting to being a divider short of a lever arch file might deter him from, one day, tentatively emailing me to ask me on a date. Yes, I know: absurd. I cringe even to admit it. I mean, a) Fictional Bearable Man has four years of LLFF to read back on, so only writing about HILARIOUS antics from now on will hardly cancel out 650 entries of questionably certifiable content. b) In four years, I've only ever had one person get in touch with me flirtatiously as a result of what they've read here, and let's just say that didn't end well. c) I AM MEANT TO BE ON A FREAKING BOYBAN so any worrying about Fictional Bearable Men is absolutely against orders, and should be ceased IMMEDIATELY.
So with all that in mind, here's a description of my mental state over the past few days. You can read about it as long as you allow me to apply the caveat that I really don't think I'm THAT much more mental than anyone else, just fractionally more open about it. Allow me that indulgence, I prithee.
Last Monday I thought I felt the symptoms of PMT. I'm not sure what our problem is, but it seems like, despite menstruating more or less monthly for around two decades, the women I know tend to greet each new period with irritated surprise. You'd have thought we'd know exactly when it was going to happen, but no - the last one finishes and we just bury our heads in the sand and forget about it until the next one creeps up like an unwelcome drunk houseguest and ruins an otherwise perfectly good week. For the record, my PMT symptoms tend to include: body temperature always being wrong; near-constant exhaustion; physical sense of having ingested around ten pints of thick soup or porridge that has oozed through my intestine and is now filling up legs and arms et cetera; a perpetual feeling of foreboding. It is not unbearable, but equally it is not rib-ticklingly good fun. After about five days of this, I become convinced that the PMT is about to end and that good ol' MT should surely be about to begin. But no - I had a fairly over-sensitive weekend feeling anti-social and quiet, and then yesterday, day eight, I metaphorically hit the fan.
It started when Chris came into my office at around 11am for a chat. We nattered harmlessly for a few minutes and then he made some very light-hearted but unarguably derogatory comment about the Welsh, and then the Scots. I told him not to be racist, he (quite sensibly) told me to lighten up, I refused, and he (entirely reasonably) swore at me and stropped off. I sat there wondering what to do. I knew I was being insufferable and deserved to be firmly mocked. Equally, I do think that people should stick to their principles, and that 'harmless' prejudiced jokes between friends, even friends who know the other isn't really racist, aren't ideal. I get miffed when people use 'gay' as a derogatory term too. It's boringly puritanical, but I'd feel really awful if I went the other way. There's loads of ways to slag people off without relying on their nationality or their sexuality. (As an aside, I'm not even sure he was theoretically being racist. I don't think Welsh is a race, is it?) Either way, I didn't like him being prejudiced, but I should have let it go.
So I was a bit upset about that, annoyed at myself for being a dick, but I went off to Boots at lunch and got a few things sorted out, and the nice lady at the Benefit counter gave me 'dramatic eyes' (think Twiggy in the Sixties rather than this) and I went back to the office feeling slightly better. And then I got a phonecall from a very chipper friend, who told me I should be being more positive about something that I was being negative about, and for some reason I was so determined to persuade her that I was right to feel negative about it that I started crying. Fortunately my colleagues weren't in their offices so no one could see me as the decidedly-non-waterproof Benefit products coursed down my cheeks but I still worried that someone might come in and ask me something, so I thought it best to hide. I ducked under my desk and sat there, cross legged and sobbing, for about an hour. Then I got up, not really very sure at all why I had been crying for quite so long, wiped off as much of the sediment as I could, sat back on my posture stool and stared into space for another hour, unable to decide what to do. I didn't want to go to my non-negotiable evening engagement that I'd been excited about for AGES because I felt antisocial and ugly and boring and I knew I'd be expected to be loud and opinionated and hilarious. But I didn't want to go home to an empty flat. And I didn't want to see anyone else because I felt rubbish.
Then I realised that I had presents for two of the people at the non-negotiable evening engagement and I accepted that I had to go, but I couldn't shake off this weird under-confident paralysis. In the end I had to ask Chris to come and get me out of my office, which he did (after he'd emailed me to tell me he wasn't a racist). And he gave me a hug and I cried again and FUCKING HELL his dad is recovering from a stroke but will be paralysed for the rest of his life, and I know Chris must look at me like 'SHUT UP with your insignificant issues' but these freaking hormones are just so powerful - half the time you don't know why you're crying, you just feel so utterly negative and fed up. I wish boys could experience it just once because there is nothing more frustrating about knowing something isn't real but still not being able to ignore it. I imagine it's a bit like having a bad trip. And there's part of me that thinks we should all keep schtum about how it feels, that it's blog entries like these that spread the idea that women are mental and difficult and that boys are straightforward and superior. Perhaps it'd be better for women if people didn't come out and say 'Yes, I'm irrational. Yes, I cry when very little seems wrong. Yes, it sucks to be me sometimes' and instead, for the sake of equality, acted like all the other ladettes and said 'We're just like you but with bigger boobs!' Anyway. It's too late now. I write, therefore I press 'Publish Post'.
I went to the evening engagement for half an hour and handed over the presents. And it was weird - I'd felt so withdrawn, so utterly shy and gross, but then I got there and we were carol singing outside the Southbank Centre, and this crowd had gathered to listen to us, even though it was really flipping cold, and people were filming us on their phones and it was all sounding lovely, and I realised we didn't have a hat down to collect any money, and I put my furry hat down and everyone laughed, and then Christina said we weren't allowed to collect money and she picked up my hat. But what I thought was odd was how, even when I'm feeling utterly awful, I still can't quash my instinct to show off or get attention or put a stamp on things, to walk into the middle of the semi-circle and ask strangers to give us money, when thirty minutes earlier I couldn't even get the strength to re-don my Moon Boots. And I hate that. I wish I'd just be consistent and stay quiet rather than act up like some seal with a compulsion to bark. As soon as the singing had finished and a few people came up to say hello to me, I panicked again and went straight home. I watched the final of The Apprentice, which was long enough to take my mind off things, and then I went to bed.
No tears today but haven't managed to leave the house yet. I dunno. I'm off to the doctor in a minute. It's not remotely life threatening but I'd rather not hang round waiting for this to happen all over again in 28 days. And if the NHS don't have any answers I'm going to have to get me some waterproof mascara. To all the women out there: I love you. To all the men: love your women. We need you.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Miss me?
Heave an hours-long sigh of relief, my Faithful, for I am not dead, nor am I unable to type for your amusement and continued edification. I have been abroad, often without phone reception or access to the internet, and my enforced separation from these facilities has been strange and wonderful. And at times slightly unpleasant.
Even before my travels began, however, I was aware that my desire to blog has been sluggish at best, and over the past weeks I have spent some not insignificant time musing over my writing. Not to get too spiritual at this early stage of what promises to be a scroll-heavy edition of LLFF, but my psychological goal has long been to become as self-sufficient as possible. Like most people, I need and thrive on human contact, and have a deeply-held belief that love is all we need. I am not aiming for some sort of hermetic existence atop a girthy Tibetan telegraph pole. However, true love is truly selfless, and doesn’t work too well if one half of the partnership is constantly craving attention, affection or none-too-subtley pointing out that the other person owes them a present because she bought them that T-shirt last week and you haven’t even worn it yet, and for fuck’s sake how many times have I asked you to please phone me if you’re going to be late?
And release.
So. Yeah. I know that love should be unconditional, and, like millions of others, I know that in the past I’ve sometimes struggled with that. After much thought over the years, I've reasoned that the best way to be able to give unconditional love, whether to friends, family or lovers, is to need them as little as possible. I am about six tons of cherished possessions away from being a Buddhist, but ideally, I’d like to be fairly zen about this whole life malarkey, and work towards needing less, not more, the idea being that the less you need, the more you are free to give.
Which is where the blog comes in. Is it right to write? If it is informative – yes. If it brings pleasure – yes. Clearly I don’t blog for money, but I still receive two rewards: the immense satisfaction and flow I gain from the act of writing, the decision to structure a sentence like this (and not like that), the clarity and stability I feel having recounted an incident in black and white. And secondly, the flush of gratification I receive when I discover that my efforts have brought others pleasure or support.
BUT.
If I'm going to be serious about self-sufficiency, shouldn't I fight this urge for third party approval, and take the decision not to write at all? Shouldn't I conclude that the very nature of blogging cultivates a needy side of me from which I should be moving away? I thought that I should.
But then I thought of all the wonderful stuff we'd never have witnessed if a desire for appreciation was unacceptable. All the plays and paintings, poems, programmes, companies, children, families, restaurants, songs and pizzas that might not have come into existence if financial remuneration was the only possible reward for effort, if humanity's enjoyment of recognition vanished altogether.
The experience of choral singing is meditative, transformative, but the surge that follows when the audience appreciates your sound is another rush altogether - not more pleasurable than the performance itself, but nonetheless a huge part of singing, one which makes the night of a concert so strikingly different to a rehearsal. Would I still go to choir practice if I could never sing in front of an audience again? Probably not, but not many people would think that's weird. You join a choir to sing - and to be heard singing. Only a few people would, on learning that you are in a choir, conclude that you're an attention-seeking spotlight-whore. But choose to write and publish your work on the internet, and the implication is that you think you've created something worth others' valuable time. There is a question that's asked when any creative output is put in the public domain: 'Do you think this is good?' And if that question is left unanswered, it hurts. Some performers say they don't care what others think. I think they're talking out of their asses. Anyone who puts work out there, hangs it in a gallery, plays it onstage, creates and shapes a young mind, offers themselves to the lives of strangers - if you do that, you care. You need.
Before I went to Morocco, I went on a one-day travel writing course, which was immaculately structured and very helpful, in that it made me decide that I do not under any circumstances want to be a travel writer. The hardest thing about it was that we had to do four short written exercises throughout the day. After the group of around 25 people had finished the first written exercise, I sat, heart in mouth, as the course leader selected who would read – and I wasn’t picked. No one heard my astonishingly original and hilarious efforts. I was livid. Mystifyingly – or rather, demonstrating vast social intelligence – others seemed to feel remorse when they were picked and, like true Englishmen and women, they carefully indicated that they were embarrassed or uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I did my level best to seem relieved not to have had to share, but as my second and third efforts also went unwitnessed, I became more and more desperate to be heard. I was finally selected to share my attempt for the fourth and final exercise, the last person out of the entire group to read aloud, only a couple of minutes before the workshop’s end. After hours of anticipation, the hoped-for laughs I received for my work were gratifying and immediately internal order was restored, the butterflies went back to their locker and my heart rate returned to its un-attention-seeking-nightmare levels.
That night I went to stay with my mother, and read her the three exercises I’d written that hadn’t been heard. She said I was brilliant. I was fully aware that a) she is not objective and b) I have my moments, and it was all OK.
I will be frank: I want to write and I want to be read. Does that make me needy? Yes, but no more than anyone else who puts their time and effort into a project, a baby, that doesn't give them financial reward. And in my defense: I could be needier. I could be trying to be famous, writing bad chick-lit and living on a permanent diet. That's not what I want. I want to carry on trying to put words together in an order that makes me proud, and I want to receive recognition for any pleasure my hard work brings to others.
To conclude this absurdly overlong and introspective introduction: Lost Looking For Fish will go on. I've missed it while I've been away – not just the praise, but the process. And if one or two of you are still this side of comatose and are kind enough to tell me I rock every now and then, I’ll be happy as a lamb in a field full of tussocks on a sunny day.
On to where the hell I’ve been. Morocco has been a fantastic break. I flew out two Fridays ago, and went to an unexpectedly swanky hotel about 45 minutes south of Marrakech, where I felt like I should wear floaty dresses, light candles and be filmed by Zeffirelli singing songs about love in a plaintive but effortlessly beautiful folk voice while playing some sort of north African lute. Instead I wore floaty dresses, did yoga, read books, ate my own bodyweight in couscous and discovered an hitherto unknown penchant for Moroccan rosé.
My true Faithful may remember that I went on a yoga holiday last June to Dahab in Egypt, where I discovered upon my arrival that no one else had had the foresight to sign up for the same holiday, and that I was thus going to have around four hours’ private yoga tuition each day, just me and the lovely instructor. In between classes, I was left to my own devices, and spent my time lounging, reading, snorkelling, scubaing, horse-riding, shopping, battling with local internet cafés and climbing Mount Sinai by night.
This year was somewhat different, and for ‘somewhat’, read ‘a bit meh’ and for ‘different’, read ‘by comparison’. I meeeeeaaaannnn, the people were nice, the yoga was stretchy, the pool was glorious, the hotel was far better than I deserve, my books were fantastic but… it turns out that I am not one for set meals with 24 people split up into three groups of eight, seated round one of three rectangular tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, plus four hours of yoga together, plus nowhere to go outside the hotel, no sea to swim in, no horses to ride along the beach, no internet cafés, no internet, no cafés. I slept a lot, I relaxed, I even think some people may have enjoyed my company, and I feel rested and grateful, but I won’t be rushing back. The routine made me rebellious and by the end I had lost interest in mealtimes and yoga, desperate to assert my independence by doing the only thing I could think of: not joining in.
Oh but it wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t. The sun shone, I went brown, there were some absolute gems of people there – 22 women and 2 men with an age-range spanning five decades from twenties to seventies, a male/female ratio which inevitably descended into discussions about the topics women so often discuss when left to their own devices: periods, the menopause, tanning, biological clocks, raising children and the mirena coil. I spent some time imagining how the holiday would shift if five or six single, heterosexual men arrived, and envisaged games of waterpolo ruining Margaret’s laps in the pools, cheers from makeshift boules games upsetting the meditation sessions on the sun terrace, late night drinking games distracting many of the group’s less committed members from their 7am yoga practice the next morning. As it was, one of my principal bonding conversations involved a chat with a mother and daughter about how the woman with the world’s longest fingernails wipes her bottom.
Most people were very well behaved, and it was often left to one fantastic character called Kay to provide the hilarity. In her late forties, vocally somewhere between Frances De La Tour and Roseanne Barr, she was sorted and straightforward during the day, but a few glasses of wine down and she transformed into one of the most fantastically belligerent women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“I don’t mean to make a scene,” she slurred gently on our second night, having made a mid-dinner trip to another table, “but everyone else is very dry. I know it's awful, but we definitely have the best table,” she emphasised, her voice rising an octave or so. “And I think we would do very well if we could just do a little wee, go on, everyone in their chairs now. Mark your spot and then no one else can sit here tomorrow. Go on. Just a few drops – you’ll thank me later, I promise you.” I never want to party without her again.
Then after a week, a short taxi ride into Marrakech, the pink city, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time, a place I’m glad I’ve now seen, a place I won’t be hurrying to visit again. Wow I’m sounding like a grump. I had a great time. It was fascinating, very different to expectations and I could have stayed longer. But did I like it? Not exactly. The divide between touristville and normalville was so harsh – the souks were 3% functioning market and 97% get-your-hands-on-the-Western-dollar desperation – Times Square without New Yorkers, Leicester Square without the cinemas. I felt guilty for perpetuating it, but not so guilty that I wasn’t able to select so many of their wares that I had to buy another suitcase to get them all home. We had a great trip through the new town, Gueliz, where the real Marrakechis live, the ones who have a life other than that portrayed in SATC2. But the expensive restaurants are all full of white faces, sweating men from Bournemouth stuff dirhams into the bra tops of bellydancers in swanky bars that serve pink Champagne at £50 a bottle, while a few minutes down the road, veiled women sit outside tourist attractions using their cute kids as bait. I guess there’s the same mix of wealth and abject poverty in any other city, but the tourist market is one huge whopping part of their economy and it felt a bit gross, like holidaying in a theme park, escaping to my luxury air conditioned riad every night while the ride's staff just carry on living in the Pink Kingdom, never able to take off their uniforms.
That said, who am I to say their life isn’t fun? Maybe they’re having a whale of a time. I guess I often felt pretty uncomfortable – the women wouldn’t look us in the eye, while the men muttered obscenities under their breath while we walked by, desperate to woo us into their shops, angry when we ignored them, unbearably obsequious when we didn’t. I can't blame the girls for being pissed off - I'd be livid if London was 95% full of gorgeous women that all the men leer over while ignoring me. Oh.
Anyway. I can’t deny I found the attention fun for the first hour, my daily experience in Marrakech being the exact opposite of my life in London: I was getting so much male attention it was almost embarrassing, but when their hands started brushing against my ass, I quickly began to feel a bit sick about the whole thing. I’d been warned about this by other visitors, and wore my (blonde) hair back and up so as to stand out a bit less, but no matter what I did with my hair, my ass was, as always, shall we say, a ‘feature’, and on my final night as Trace and I wandered round the main square I was almost in tears, as every few seconds, a complete stranger would violate my dance space and lightly touch my buttocks as he walked by and disappeared into the crowd. Arguably, I should have chucked on a birka and been done with it, but there was a part of me that felt that would have been a capitulation that'd assist those people who say rape victims who wore short skirts were asking for it. Long sentence. Sorry. It's late and I'm out of practice.
Anyway. It was interesting. Other points of note:
Now leave me alone as I have a ton of X Factor to catch up on.
Even before my travels began, however, I was aware that my desire to blog has been sluggish at best, and over the past weeks I have spent some not insignificant time musing over my writing. Not to get too spiritual at this early stage of what promises to be a scroll-heavy edition of LLFF, but my psychological goal has long been to become as self-sufficient as possible. Like most people, I need and thrive on human contact, and have a deeply-held belief that love is all we need. I am not aiming for some sort of hermetic existence atop a girthy Tibetan telegraph pole. However, true love is truly selfless, and doesn’t work too well if one half of the partnership is constantly craving attention, affection or none-too-subtley pointing out that the other person owes them a present because she bought them that T-shirt last week and you haven’t even worn it yet, and for fuck’s sake how many times have I asked you to please phone me if you’re going to be late?
And release.
So. Yeah. I know that love should be unconditional, and, like millions of others, I know that in the past I’ve sometimes struggled with that. After much thought over the years, I've reasoned that the best way to be able to give unconditional love, whether to friends, family or lovers, is to need them as little as possible. I am about six tons of cherished possessions away from being a Buddhist, but ideally, I’d like to be fairly zen about this whole life malarkey, and work towards needing less, not more, the idea being that the less you need, the more you are free to give.
Which is where the blog comes in. Is it right to write? If it is informative – yes. If it brings pleasure – yes. Clearly I don’t blog for money, but I still receive two rewards: the immense satisfaction and flow I gain from the act of writing, the decision to structure a sentence like this (and not like that), the clarity and stability I feel having recounted an incident in black and white. And secondly, the flush of gratification I receive when I discover that my efforts have brought others pleasure or support.
BUT.
If I'm going to be serious about self-sufficiency, shouldn't I fight this urge for third party approval, and take the decision not to write at all? Shouldn't I conclude that the very nature of blogging cultivates a needy side of me from which I should be moving away? I thought that I should.
But then I thought of all the wonderful stuff we'd never have witnessed if a desire for appreciation was unacceptable. All the plays and paintings, poems, programmes, companies, children, families, restaurants, songs and pizzas that might not have come into existence if financial remuneration was the only possible reward for effort, if humanity's enjoyment of recognition vanished altogether.
The experience of choral singing is meditative, transformative, but the surge that follows when the audience appreciates your sound is another rush altogether - not more pleasurable than the performance itself, but nonetheless a huge part of singing, one which makes the night of a concert so strikingly different to a rehearsal. Would I still go to choir practice if I could never sing in front of an audience again? Probably not, but not many people would think that's weird. You join a choir to sing - and to be heard singing. Only a few people would, on learning that you are in a choir, conclude that you're an attention-seeking spotlight-whore. But choose to write and publish your work on the internet, and the implication is that you think you've created something worth others' valuable time. There is a question that's asked when any creative output is put in the public domain: 'Do you think this is good?' And if that question is left unanswered, it hurts. Some performers say they don't care what others think. I think they're talking out of their asses. Anyone who puts work out there, hangs it in a gallery, plays it onstage, creates and shapes a young mind, offers themselves to the lives of strangers - if you do that, you care. You need.
Before I went to Morocco, I went on a one-day travel writing course, which was immaculately structured and very helpful, in that it made me decide that I do not under any circumstances want to be a travel writer. The hardest thing about it was that we had to do four short written exercises throughout the day. After the group of around 25 people had finished the first written exercise, I sat, heart in mouth, as the course leader selected who would read – and I wasn’t picked. No one heard my astonishingly original and hilarious efforts. I was livid. Mystifyingly – or rather, demonstrating vast social intelligence – others seemed to feel remorse when they were picked and, like true Englishmen and women, they carefully indicated that they were embarrassed or uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I did my level best to seem relieved not to have had to share, but as my second and third efforts also went unwitnessed, I became more and more desperate to be heard. I was finally selected to share my attempt for the fourth and final exercise, the last person out of the entire group to read aloud, only a couple of minutes before the workshop’s end. After hours of anticipation, the hoped-for laughs I received for my work were gratifying and immediately internal order was restored, the butterflies went back to their locker and my heart rate returned to its un-attention-seeking-nightmare levels.
That night I went to stay with my mother, and read her the three exercises I’d written that hadn’t been heard. She said I was brilliant. I was fully aware that a) she is not objective and b) I have my moments, and it was all OK.
I will be frank: I want to write and I want to be read. Does that make me needy? Yes, but no more than anyone else who puts their time and effort into a project, a baby, that doesn't give them financial reward. And in my defense: I could be needier. I could be trying to be famous, writing bad chick-lit and living on a permanent diet. That's not what I want. I want to carry on trying to put words together in an order that makes me proud, and I want to receive recognition for any pleasure my hard work brings to others.
To conclude this absurdly overlong and introspective introduction: Lost Looking For Fish will go on. I've missed it while I've been away – not just the praise, but the process. And if one or two of you are still this side of comatose and are kind enough to tell me I rock every now and then, I’ll be happy as a lamb in a field full of tussocks on a sunny day.
On to where the hell I’ve been. Morocco has been a fantastic break. I flew out two Fridays ago, and went to an unexpectedly swanky hotel about 45 minutes south of Marrakech, where I felt like I should wear floaty dresses, light candles and be filmed by Zeffirelli singing songs about love in a plaintive but effortlessly beautiful folk voice while playing some sort of north African lute. Instead I wore floaty dresses, did yoga, read books, ate my own bodyweight in couscous and discovered an hitherto unknown penchant for Moroccan rosé.
My true Faithful may remember that I went on a yoga holiday last June to Dahab in Egypt, where I discovered upon my arrival that no one else had had the foresight to sign up for the same holiday, and that I was thus going to have around four hours’ private yoga tuition each day, just me and the lovely instructor. In between classes, I was left to my own devices, and spent my time lounging, reading, snorkelling, scubaing, horse-riding, shopping, battling with local internet cafés and climbing Mount Sinai by night.
This year was somewhat different, and for ‘somewhat’, read ‘a bit meh’ and for ‘different’, read ‘by comparison’. I meeeeeaaaannnn, the people were nice, the yoga was stretchy, the pool was glorious, the hotel was far better than I deserve, my books were fantastic but… it turns out that I am not one for set meals with 24 people split up into three groups of eight, seated round one of three rectangular tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, plus four hours of yoga together, plus nowhere to go outside the hotel, no sea to swim in, no horses to ride along the beach, no internet cafés, no internet, no cafés. I slept a lot, I relaxed, I even think some people may have enjoyed my company, and I feel rested and grateful, but I won’t be rushing back. The routine made me rebellious and by the end I had lost interest in mealtimes and yoga, desperate to assert my independence by doing the only thing I could think of: not joining in.
Oh but it wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t. The sun shone, I went brown, there were some absolute gems of people there – 22 women and 2 men with an age-range spanning five decades from twenties to seventies, a male/female ratio which inevitably descended into discussions about the topics women so often discuss when left to their own devices: periods, the menopause, tanning, biological clocks, raising children and the mirena coil. I spent some time imagining how the holiday would shift if five or six single, heterosexual men arrived, and envisaged games of waterpolo ruining Margaret’s laps in the pools, cheers from makeshift boules games upsetting the meditation sessions on the sun terrace, late night drinking games distracting many of the group’s less committed members from their 7am yoga practice the next morning. As it was, one of my principal bonding conversations involved a chat with a mother and daughter about how the woman with the world’s longest fingernails wipes her bottom.
Most people were very well behaved, and it was often left to one fantastic character called Kay to provide the hilarity. In her late forties, vocally somewhere between Frances De La Tour and Roseanne Barr, she was sorted and straightforward during the day, but a few glasses of wine down and she transformed into one of the most fantastically belligerent women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“I don’t mean to make a scene,” she slurred gently on our second night, having made a mid-dinner trip to another table, “but everyone else is very dry. I know it's awful, but we definitely have the best table,” she emphasised, her voice rising an octave or so. “And I think we would do very well if we could just do a little wee, go on, everyone in their chairs now. Mark your spot and then no one else can sit here tomorrow. Go on. Just a few drops – you’ll thank me later, I promise you.” I never want to party without her again.
Then after a week, a short taxi ride into Marrakech, the pink city, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time, a place I’m glad I’ve now seen, a place I won’t be hurrying to visit again. Wow I’m sounding like a grump. I had a great time. It was fascinating, very different to expectations and I could have stayed longer. But did I like it? Not exactly. The divide between touristville and normalville was so harsh – the souks were 3% functioning market and 97% get-your-hands-on-the-Western-dollar desperation – Times Square without New Yorkers, Leicester Square without the cinemas. I felt guilty for perpetuating it, but not so guilty that I wasn’t able to select so many of their wares that I had to buy another suitcase to get them all home. We had a great trip through the new town, Gueliz, where the real Marrakechis live, the ones who have a life other than that portrayed in SATC2. But the expensive restaurants are all full of white faces, sweating men from Bournemouth stuff dirhams into the bra tops of bellydancers in swanky bars that serve pink Champagne at £50 a bottle, while a few minutes down the road, veiled women sit outside tourist attractions using their cute kids as bait. I guess there’s the same mix of wealth and abject poverty in any other city, but the tourist market is one huge whopping part of their economy and it felt a bit gross, like holidaying in a theme park, escaping to my luxury air conditioned riad every night while the ride's staff just carry on living in the Pink Kingdom, never able to take off their uniforms.
That said, who am I to say their life isn’t fun? Maybe they’re having a whale of a time. I guess I often felt pretty uncomfortable – the women wouldn’t look us in the eye, while the men muttered obscenities under their breath while we walked by, desperate to woo us into their shops, angry when we ignored them, unbearably obsequious when we didn’t. I can't blame the girls for being pissed off - I'd be livid if London was 95% full of gorgeous women that all the men leer over while ignoring me. Oh.
Anyway. I can’t deny I found the attention fun for the first hour, my daily experience in Marrakech being the exact opposite of my life in London: I was getting so much male attention it was almost embarrassing, but when their hands started brushing against my ass, I quickly began to feel a bit sick about the whole thing. I’d been warned about this by other visitors, and wore my (blonde) hair back and up so as to stand out a bit less, but no matter what I did with my hair, my ass was, as always, shall we say, a ‘feature’, and on my final night as Trace and I wandered round the main square I was almost in tears, as every few seconds, a complete stranger would violate my dance space and lightly touch my buttocks as he walked by and disappeared into the crowd. Arguably, I should have chucked on a birka and been done with it, but there was a part of me that felt that would have been a capitulation that'd assist those people who say rape victims who wore short skirts were asking for it. Long sentence. Sorry. It's late and I'm out of practice.
Anyway. It was interesting. Other points of note:
- Within a few hours of arriving in the city, Trace and I were in a local spa having a reflexology foot treatment, and I was amused to notice that the pan pipes were playing ‘Speed Bonny Boat’. You can take the girl out of Scotland…
- Moroccan horses stop at “Woah” too. I noticed no other Arabic/English convergences.
- Another day, another spa experience – Tracey and I went to a hammam for a steam and scrub, and were sitting semi awkwardly in our bikinis in the treatment room, waiting for further instructions, when a brusque woman with limited English came in, pointed at my boobs and said, “Off.” Clearly it was to be a topless treatment. We complied, lay down on an L-shaped bench, Trace along one wall, my head perpendicular to her feet. Another woman came in and started to rub black soap oil into Tracey’s front. “Tournez,” she barked. Trace slithered over onto her belly. I tipped my head back over my right shoulder to see what was going on, precisely at the moment that the lady gripped the lower hems of Tracey’s bikini bottoms and firmly jerked them up, giving a professional but unexpected wedgie that sent my friend giggling for some time to come.
- Moroccans aren’t without a sense of humour although their favourite joke is fairly simple: you ask a fairly innocent question, e.g. “Can I have a bottle of water?”, “Please can we have some lunch here?”, “Can we check out?” and they look you square in the eyes and say, “No.” And you say, “Really?” and they say, “No! Not really! It is fine! Of course you can have water/lunch/check out.” And they laugh as if it is a brilliant ruse. It is a bit funny the first time it happens. After that not so much.
- I did laugh one night though, when we were at the uber-swanky Western restaurant Foundouk, seated on the first floor mezzanine, overlooking a huge chandelier which hung deep down over the ground floor diners. The chandelier held twenty or thirty creamy wax orbs containing tea light candles, which any fool knows have a burning time of around four hours. How, I wondered, were these new candles replaced and lit every evening, when the chandelier was a good distance from any table or platform. I asked the waiter. “Nous avons un singe,” he said. “A monkey?” I said. “Oui,” he said, straightfaced. Then he laughed and showed us how the wrought iron panels in the balcony of the mezzanine slide to one side so someone can reach out and change the lights. I’m not a massive fan of animal cruelty but I’m afraid on that occasion the reality was a little disappointing.
Now leave me alone as I have a ton of X Factor to catch up on.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Meh.
So no one tells you that when you come home a bit late after a few glasses of wine and decide to change the wording - only the wording, mind - of the bit at the bottom of your blog posts that allows friends and strangers to show their approval by merely twitching their hand a fraction of an inch and applying an infinitesimal unit of pressure with their index finger, thereby putting a virtual tick in a virtual box, which translates to me as genuine psychological payment for the work I put in on these pages, NOT THAT I ONLY DO IT FOR YOU, but hey, I'd be lying if I said your praise and feedback were meaningless - so anyway, no one tells you that if you JUST CHANGE THE WORDING of that function, then it wipes all previous records of any box ticking, and you're back to zero on every single blog post since the dawn of time, with no visual sign of third party appreciation on any posts, and even if you change the wording back to how it was, the data is still lost forever and you're right back to being a loser with no boxes ticked at all, which is really quite annoying, even though only about, well, way less than one percent of the people who read this blog ever tick the boxes, which means there are either a lot of people who visit the site, read the blogs, enjoy them and then skulk off without ticking, which I think exhibits a level of laziness at which even I would balk, or there are a lot of people who do not enjoy the blogs but yet still read them, which displays a degree of stupidity and a lack of judgment that, well, I find depressing. It's not a flattering stat, but it must be true: most of you are either lazy or stupid.
Prove me wrong. Tick the damn box. Not this one in particular, but all the ones you've enjoyed over the past four years. Maybe a total change of mentality is needed. Here are your instructions: basically, tick the box unless you thought it was absolute rubbish, unless you finished it weeping with relief that it was over, unless it was the text equivalent of ocular rape. Don't view the tick as a treat. A treat would be a comment. The tick is just to say, 'Yup, read it. Well done for trying.' If you want to say something more meaningful, then comment. If you don't know what all the fuss is about, check out other people's blogs (there's a list down to the right if you need help). They're bloody littered with comments. Some of the blogs out there are so self-indulgent and miserable, they make LLFF look like... what's the opposite of self-indulgent and miserable...? Open-minded and chipper? They make LLFF look like... a Montessori teacher? But still, these people are inundated with supportive comments. I pour my heart out to you, I lay myself BARE and what do I get? Three ticks if I'm lucky. WHICH HAVE NOW BEEN DELETED. By me.
I'm so tired. Must go to bed. Anyway. I'd love to be so self-sufficient that I didn't care whether anyone was reading, but I'm not. Tick the mofoing boxes or I'll stop writing. Well, I won't. But I'll start only writing about politics. That'd learn you.
Prove me wrong. Tick the damn box. Not this one in particular, but all the ones you've enjoyed over the past four years. Maybe a total change of mentality is needed. Here are your instructions: basically, tick the box unless you thought it was absolute rubbish, unless you finished it weeping with relief that it was over, unless it was the text equivalent of ocular rape. Don't view the tick as a treat. A treat would be a comment. The tick is just to say, 'Yup, read it. Well done for trying.' If you want to say something more meaningful, then comment. If you don't know what all the fuss is about, check out other people's blogs (there's a list down to the right if you need help). They're bloody littered with comments. Some of the blogs out there are so self-indulgent and miserable, they make LLFF look like... what's the opposite of self-indulgent and miserable...? Open-minded and chipper? They make LLFF look like... a Montessori teacher? But still, these people are inundated with supportive comments. I pour my heart out to you, I lay myself BARE and what do I get? Three ticks if I'm lucky. WHICH HAVE NOW BEEN DELETED. By me.
I'm so tired. Must go to bed. Anyway. I'd love to be so self-sufficient that I didn't care whether anyone was reading, but I'm not. Tick the mofoing boxes or I'll stop writing. Well, I won't. But I'll start only writing about politics. That'd learn you.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Cheese alert
Two weeks on and I'm still thinking about Glastonbury. There's something so extraordinary about standing in a field with 80,000 other people, all united by a common purpose, listening to songs that make your hairs stand up on end - that crowd mentality that explains football obsession the world over, but which, I would argue, reaches a higher level when there are musicians onstage rather than players on the pitch, because of the lack of competition - we are all bound by one shared goal, there's only one team playing and we all want them to win. It's an enormously uplifting experience, often literally as you're lifted off your feet by the force of the heaving crowd. "Some people think I'm bonkers, but I just think I'm free, man I'm just living my life, there's nothing crazy 'bout meeeeee." Gotta love Dizzee.
And then there's the other extreme, standing in an empty chapel at 8pm on a Monday night, knackered from the weekend, rehearsing heavenly music by Monteverdi or Pergolesi, hopefully doing it some sort of justice, concentrating properly, no room for thoughts of men or motors while you're reading notes, singing and watching the conductor simultaneously, a meditative space in the maelstrom.
And there's my burgeoning ukulele addiction, my growing opera buffery, Chopin, Elgar, Rachmaninov, West Side Story, some lesser musicals, dancing to blues on Charlotte Street or indie at The Roxy. All are forms of release, all are heady, luxurious and emotional, all are necessary. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy the full spectrum. Spain just won the World Cup but for us music lovers, well... we're all winners every time a good song comes on the radio.
Ick.
In fringe news: it's actually OK. I wore it back in some sort of makeshift turban thing on Friday (odd decision, I'll admit) and he didn't seem to mind. Since then, I've found that, provided I spend six or seven hours styling it each morning, it actually looks OK. This would be unmanageable except I still have a skin-rippingly annoying cough which wakes me up with agonising frequency every night, so there's plenty of time to do hairstyling. Or read past entries of my own blog. Which is obviously more fun.
And then there's the other extreme, standing in an empty chapel at 8pm on a Monday night, knackered from the weekend, rehearsing heavenly music by Monteverdi or Pergolesi, hopefully doing it some sort of justice, concentrating properly, no room for thoughts of men or motors while you're reading notes, singing and watching the conductor simultaneously, a meditative space in the maelstrom.
And there's my burgeoning ukulele addiction, my growing opera buffery, Chopin, Elgar, Rachmaninov, West Side Story, some lesser musicals, dancing to blues on Charlotte Street or indie at The Roxy. All are forms of release, all are heady, luxurious and emotional, all are necessary. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy the full spectrum. Spain just won the World Cup but for us music lovers, well... we're all winners every time a good song comes on the radio.
Ick.
In fringe news: it's actually OK. I wore it back in some sort of makeshift turban thing on Friday (odd decision, I'll admit) and he didn't seem to mind. Since then, I've found that, provided I spend six or seven hours styling it each morning, it actually looks OK. This would be unmanageable except I still have a skin-rippingly annoying cough which wakes me up with agonising frequency every night, so there's plenty of time to do hairstyling. Or read past entries of my own blog. Which is obviously more fun.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Filler
I have nothing to say. Sorry. But tonight I'm going on a date, and, given past form, I'm sure there'll be some new material tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some things you can do in the absence of LLFF:
- Take a moment to appreciate the wonders of existence.
- Be thankful that you are not five stone heavier than you are now.
- Stare out of the window for a bit.
- Eat some malt loaf.
- If you've been to China, Vietnam and/or Cambodia, jot down some helpful bullet points for me to consider as I try to decide where I'm going.
- Write my first award-winning novel/non-fiction work of unquestionable brilliance for me and send it to me as a Word document so that I can adapt it into my own unique style for submission to publishers and agents the world over.
- Have a really good stretch.
- Memorise the names and faces of everyone in the new cabinet for future pub quiz victory/dinner party smuggery.
- Make my day: tell a friend about LLFF.
- Drink some water. You know you should.
- Write a thank-you letter. I'm sure there's one you owe.
- Phone your mum and tell her you love her. If you don't have a mum, tell your dad. I don't mean tell your dad that you don't have a mum. I'm presuming he knows that. Tell him you love him, you fool. If you don't have a dad or a mum, then give yourself a big hug. Parents are amazing; not having them must suck. I high five you.
- Do some pelvic floor exercises.
- List three things about yourself that you think are amazing. Then bask in your own brilliance.
- Love me always.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Poor me, I've had it too easy
I've been delaying writing this because I felt like there was so much to tell. But then, as always happens, with a bit of objectivity, it becomes clear that none of the stuff I thought was important was actually very interesting at all. Nonetheless, for the sake of completeness, I'll record that, on Thursday I went to see Pixar's Up, in 3-D at the IMAX, and it really was as wonderful as everyone else has said. I have nothing to add to the thousands of other reviews, except that I want a talking dog. I cried within about three minutes of it starting and again at the end, and laughed my highly unflattering glasses off in between. Go. See. It is good. I defy you not to giggle uncontrollably at the Rotweiller.
On Friday I was all nervous because I was filming a thing for a thing. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the past week writing the thing for the thing, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love writing LLFF, but this was a bit different, there was a strict brief, and it was fun. So I went and read out the thing in front of the camera, standing on a green background, and there was a bit of laughter, which was gratifying. Then Justin and I went to Stephen Fry's book launch, and then on to a party given by the stars of the popular Channel 4 programme, Peep Show. I was so excited about this that I could barely contain myself. And I met the stars and that was fun. But what was awful was that, in addition to my friend Justin being invited to this party (as he knows one of the stars professionally), I also, unexpectedly, bumped into two other people I knew there. This was deeply depressing. It is a cool party. I know I am only one degree of separation away from the party, but that one degree is a gulf three times the size of the known universe. One of the people I knew was a guy from Uni, who now edits the Comment section of The Guardian. And the other was my friend Ben who works with Charlie Brooker. And so Charlie Brooker was there too, and Caitlin Moran, two people whose columns in national newspapers make me laugh with irritating regularity. And there I was. A PA in a bank. I USED to be an entertainment writer. And I'm sure in future I'll be something else. But right now, I'm a PA in a City bank, and when anyone asks me what job I do, I say, "I'm not telling you."
And it's so annoying, because my job has lots of perks. The salary, for one. The fact that, without it, I wouldn't have my flat, the purchase of which is probably the single most life-changing thing I've ever done. The fact that I get to arrive at 9 and leave at 5, on the dot, every single day. The fact that I never, ever think about work after 17:01. The fact that my boss is really very funny and easy to work for. And the fact that I have lots of time to trawl the internet looking for all the fun cultural stuff that I cram into my plentiful time off. Basically, my job rocks.
Except it doesn't, because it's not intellectually challenging and I'm assisting corporate greed, and there are no possibilities for promotion. And I want to be invited to the Peep Show party, not as Justin's plus one, but on my own merits. So I have to do something extraordinary. I can't just write any old book, or any old column. It has to be way more unusual, way more authoritative, way more cutting edge than even this blog. I know. And it pains me to face up to this, but I'm about as cutting edge as a sofa. My life is mainstream. I grew up in the mainstream. I loved chart pop - and still do. I like hanging out in pubs and nice restaurants. I like linen sheets and my iPhone and The X Factor. But, as I've grown older, I've also been aware of the dangers of the mainstream. My MA taught me a lot about consumerism and the way that culture can be co-opted as a means of control. There was never any danger of me turning into a genuine Marxist, but I found it interesting, and I gained an appreciation of the counter-culture. I stopped liking pop music quite so much. I bought more vintage clothing, partly because I really like it, partly because the synthetic fabrics don't require ironing, partly because I wanted to look individual, and partly because it's a way of recycling, cutting out the sweatshops. I moved out of South West London and now I go out in Hoxton with all the other hipsters, to bars that are strip joints Mon-Fri and turn into happening fifties venues at the weekends.
So far, so normal. But my problem is, most people I seem to be dancing with in Hackney are in their early 20s. They rejected the mainstream in their teens. I look at my competition on The Guardian's dating site and there are girls on there aged 23 who have a favourite South Korean film director, and list obscure Serbian photographers as among their most powerful influences. How the hell did they get to be so quirky so young? At their age, I was still going to see Britney Spears at Wembley Arena. OK, the tickets were free, but I can't deny I was excited. Always similarly gobsmacking were the number of people who were really very politically engaged when I was doing my BA. I could barely have explained what government did; they were up in London campaigning against atrocities in the third world while I was getting annoyed not to be invited to Jamie Double-Barrelled's party at Wedgie's. And of course, by the time they're my age, their tastes, their opinions are all so much more established. These are the people who are running the media and the think tanks while I'm write about make-up and boys and wishing I was less vacuous and more worthwhile without actually knowing what I can do about it. I am trying to fly the nest, I feel like I'm just about to burst out, but my little wings just aren't quite strong enough yet. If I'm very lucky, I'll be about 40% as good as Charlie Brooker by the time I die.
So what's left for me in the meantime? My old guilty pleasure: the mainstream. I could write a popular chick lit novel, surely? Or try to get a column in a major women's mag, and write about 69 Sexual Positions You NEED To Try Tonight! I could even attempt to get this blog published. But... whimper... it's not what I want to be known for. I don't WANT to be mainstream. I want to make a DIFFERENCE. Stamps foot. And that kind of middle-of-the-road activity certainly won't get me invited to the Peep Show party. So for now, I'll carry on revising, try to get as clever as possible. Maybe one day I'll have the editorial authority, the time and the talent that means I'm able to write about clever things like the recent super-injunction in a pithy, irreverant fashion. But in the meantime, you'll have to make do with me whining on about my absurdly fortunate life and telling you what films to see. Soz.
On Friday I was all nervous because I was filming a thing for a thing. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the past week writing the thing for the thing, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love writing LLFF, but this was a bit different, there was a strict brief, and it was fun. So I went and read out the thing in front of the camera, standing on a green background, and there was a bit of laughter, which was gratifying. Then Justin and I went to Stephen Fry's book launch, and then on to a party given by the stars of the popular Channel 4 programme, Peep Show. I was so excited about this that I could barely contain myself. And I met the stars and that was fun. But what was awful was that, in addition to my friend Justin being invited to this party (as he knows one of the stars professionally), I also, unexpectedly, bumped into two other people I knew there. This was deeply depressing. It is a cool party. I know I am only one degree of separation away from the party, but that one degree is a gulf three times the size of the known universe. One of the people I knew was a guy from Uni, who now edits the Comment section of The Guardian. And the other was my friend Ben who works with Charlie Brooker. And so Charlie Brooker was there too, and Caitlin Moran, two people whose columns in national newspapers make me laugh with irritating regularity. And there I was. A PA in a bank. I USED to be an entertainment writer. And I'm sure in future I'll be something else. But right now, I'm a PA in a City bank, and when anyone asks me what job I do, I say, "I'm not telling you."
And it's so annoying, because my job has lots of perks. The salary, for one. The fact that, without it, I wouldn't have my flat, the purchase of which is probably the single most life-changing thing I've ever done. The fact that I get to arrive at 9 and leave at 5, on the dot, every single day. The fact that I never, ever think about work after 17:01. The fact that my boss is really very funny and easy to work for. And the fact that I have lots of time to trawl the internet looking for all the fun cultural stuff that I cram into my plentiful time off. Basically, my job rocks.
Except it doesn't, because it's not intellectually challenging and I'm assisting corporate greed, and there are no possibilities for promotion. And I want to be invited to the Peep Show party, not as Justin's plus one, but on my own merits. So I have to do something extraordinary. I can't just write any old book, or any old column. It has to be way more unusual, way more authoritative, way more cutting edge than even this blog. I know. And it pains me to face up to this, but I'm about as cutting edge as a sofa. My life is mainstream. I grew up in the mainstream. I loved chart pop - and still do. I like hanging out in pubs and nice restaurants. I like linen sheets and my iPhone and The X Factor. But, as I've grown older, I've also been aware of the dangers of the mainstream. My MA taught me a lot about consumerism and the way that culture can be co-opted as a means of control. There was never any danger of me turning into a genuine Marxist, but I found it interesting, and I gained an appreciation of the counter-culture. I stopped liking pop music quite so much. I bought more vintage clothing, partly because I really like it, partly because the synthetic fabrics don't require ironing, partly because I wanted to look individual, and partly because it's a way of recycling, cutting out the sweatshops. I moved out of South West London and now I go out in Hoxton with all the other hipsters, to bars that are strip joints Mon-Fri and turn into happening fifties venues at the weekends.
So far, so normal. But my problem is, most people I seem to be dancing with in Hackney are in their early 20s. They rejected the mainstream in their teens. I look at my competition on The Guardian's dating site and there are girls on there aged 23 who have a favourite South Korean film director, and list obscure Serbian photographers as among their most powerful influences. How the hell did they get to be so quirky so young? At their age, I was still going to see Britney Spears at Wembley Arena. OK, the tickets were free, but I can't deny I was excited. Always similarly gobsmacking were the number of people who were really very politically engaged when I was doing my BA. I could barely have explained what government did; they were up in London campaigning against atrocities in the third world while I was getting annoyed not to be invited to Jamie Double-Barrelled's party at Wedgie's. And of course, by the time they're my age, their tastes, their opinions are all so much more established. These are the people who are running the media and the think tanks while I'm write about make-up and boys and wishing I was less vacuous and more worthwhile without actually knowing what I can do about it. I am trying to fly the nest, I feel like I'm just about to burst out, but my little wings just aren't quite strong enough yet. If I'm very lucky, I'll be about 40% as good as Charlie Brooker by the time I die.
So what's left for me in the meantime? My old guilty pleasure: the mainstream. I could write a popular chick lit novel, surely? Or try to get a column in a major women's mag, and write about 69 Sexual Positions You NEED To Try Tonight! I could even attempt to get this blog published. But... whimper... it's not what I want to be known for. I don't WANT to be mainstream. I want to make a DIFFERENCE. Stamps foot. And that kind of middle-of-the-road activity certainly won't get me invited to the Peep Show party. So for now, I'll carry on revising, try to get as clever as possible. Maybe one day I'll have the editorial authority, the time and the talent that means I'm able to write about clever things like the recent super-injunction in a pithy, irreverant fashion. But in the meantime, you'll have to make do with me whining on about my absurdly fortunate life and telling you what films to see. Soz.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Anal. Ytics.
As is the norm for someone who writes a blog and takes an interest in such things, I follow the action on these pages with Google Analytics. This tool allows me to see, for example, how many visitors I get, the city in which they live, how long they viewed a particular page and how they found my site. Many of my regular readers access the site directly, either through a bookmark or through typing the name into their address bar. But a fair few access LLFF through Google's search engine - and another of the things that Analytics allows me to monitor is which search terms people are using to find this site.
The most popular, fairly unsurprisingly, is 'lost looking for fish', closely followed by 'lostlookingforfish'. I must say, however, that I was disappointed by the number of my Faithful who are clearly unreliable spellers or inaccurate typists. Typing 'lost' and 'looking' don't seem to present too many problems, but in the last month alone there have been attempts to locate lost looking for 'fih', 'fiah' and 'fsih' so in future I will remember that our piscean friends represent a dexterity challenge. These Googlers, though, are at least on the right tracks and I am fairly confident that, when someone types those terms and then clicks through to this blog, they'll have come to the right place.
Sadly, however, there are a few people who search for issues with which I don't think I'll be much assistance. Unsurprisingly, I get a fair few (presumably disappointed) visits from people with fish-related queries. Someone simply searched for 'lost looking fish' which made me feel a bit sad. Someone else was interested 'how to tell what fish just had a baby' while a third clicker was simply 'looking for nice fish' which seems slightly vague but charming all the same.
Another search was more specific, asking for 'astrid "finsbury park" drunk', which sounds like it could be a story worth hearing, while someone else was clearly with me on the pedantry of the lower-case 'i' problem, as they searched for 'gmail inbox capitalisation lost'. I doubt that I was much help.
This one tugged at my heartstrings: 'how to shrink my massive bottom lip without makeup'. I simply couldn't imagine how these terms threw up my blog as a result, so I performed the same Google search myself - and sure enough, half way down page four, there was LLFF:
"I was reading a gripping article this morning about the massive figures that are ... I now have full sensation back on the right side of my chin and lip, .... over a week since my operation and I still can't feel my chin or my bottom lip. ... in The Guardian "Amazon could shrink by 85%" and panicked that my regular ..."
Clearly my wisdom teeth and my tendency to be hyperbolic were mostly to blame in that instance. I hope our swollen friend found more practical advice elsewhere. In a similar vein, a slighly paranoid Googler enquired 'is 5"10 small for a male?' and was directed to these pages for the answer. In the interests of generosity, I'll assume he meant 5' 10", in which case I'll say "No, it's about average in the UK, but personally I probably wouldn't date you." I suppose there's always the chance he (I'm assuming it was a man) was referring to another body part and meant 5 inches and 10/16ths, in which case I'm afraid I'd need more information to make a judgment call. There, ladies in gentlemen, is proof - should it be needed - of the importance of proper punctuation.
Right. I'm off to Get A Life. Well, for a few minutes, anyway.
The most popular, fairly unsurprisingly, is 'lost looking for fish', closely followed by 'lostlookingforfish'. I must say, however, that I was disappointed by the number of my Faithful who are clearly unreliable spellers or inaccurate typists. Typing 'lost' and 'looking' don't seem to present too many problems, but in the last month alone there have been attempts to locate lost looking for 'fih', 'fiah' and 'fsih' so in future I will remember that our piscean friends represent a dexterity challenge. These Googlers, though, are at least on the right tracks and I am fairly confident that, when someone types those terms and then clicks through to this blog, they'll have come to the right place.
Sadly, however, there are a few people who search for issues with which I don't think I'll be much assistance. Unsurprisingly, I get a fair few (presumably disappointed) visits from people with fish-related queries. Someone simply searched for 'lost looking fish' which made me feel a bit sad. Someone else was interested 'how to tell what fish just had a baby' while a third clicker was simply 'looking for nice fish' which seems slightly vague but charming all the same.
Another search was more specific, asking for 'astrid "finsbury park" drunk', which sounds like it could be a story worth hearing, while someone else was clearly with me on the pedantry of the lower-case 'i' problem, as they searched for 'gmail inbox capitalisation lost'. I doubt that I was much help.
This one tugged at my heartstrings: 'how to shrink my massive bottom lip without makeup'. I simply couldn't imagine how these terms threw up my blog as a result, so I performed the same Google search myself - and sure enough, half way down page four, there was LLFF:
"I was reading a gripping article this morning about the massive figures that are ... I now have full sensation back on the right side of my chin and lip, .... over a week since my operation and I still can't feel my chin or my bottom lip. ... in The Guardian "Amazon could shrink by 85%" and panicked that my regular ..."
Clearly my wisdom teeth and my tendency to be hyperbolic were mostly to blame in that instance. I hope our swollen friend found more practical advice elsewhere. In a similar vein, a slighly paranoid Googler enquired 'is 5"10 small for a male?' and was directed to these pages for the answer. In the interests of generosity, I'll assume he meant 5' 10", in which case I'll say "No, it's about average in the UK, but personally I probably wouldn't date you." I suppose there's always the chance he (I'm assuming it was a man) was referring to another body part and meant 5 inches and 10/16ths, in which case I'm afraid I'd need more information to make a judgment call. There, ladies in gentlemen, is proof - should it be needed - of the importance of proper punctuation.
Right. I'm off to Get A Life. Well, for a few minutes, anyway.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Happy New Year, LLFF-style
Better late than never...? I'm sorry, I really am. There probably isn't even a Faithful any more. I'm sure you must have given up on me by now and found other fun blogs that get updated hourly. And I wouldn't blame you, really I wouldn't.
The problem with blogging is that it's a habit. And I've got out of it. I'll try and become addicted again, honest guv'nor, but as I've said so many times before, my desire to blog is in direct proportion to my happiness. If I'm feeling miserable, if my life is a bit shit, I love to blog. It allows me to vent my frustrations and it makes me feel heard, even important, just for a few seconds. But when I'm happy, I don't need the reassurance that someone, somewhere, cares about my life. Because when I'm happy, I think my life is great. So really, with me, no news is good news. That said, I miss my blog when it's not there. On the (naturally rare) occasions that I'm feeling self-indulgent, I like to check back and see what I've been up to. And when I realise there's been no entry for days on end, I do share your miffedness. I will try and be better, starting today.
So, what is there to say, after all this time? New Year was hilarious. I was lunged at by a man in a Mr Incredible costume, who got caught leaning in to me by his girlfriend. I don't think their start to 2009 was too harmonious... My New Year's Resolution, for the third year running, is to do a parachute jump. I was going to write 'I'll get that sorted in 2009 if it kills me' but perhaps that's inappropriate. Of course, that phrase actually means 'If the effort of getting it sorted kills me' but it's easily misunderstood and I wouldn't want the Fates to get muddled and organise for me to die on the way down... Oh god. Maybe I'll leave it for a while.
I went to see Oedipus at the National and it was genuinely crap. Ralph Fiennes is more wooden than a densely packed, very tall, very large expanse of forestry land, surrounded by tightly-constructed oak fences and several full-scale replicas of the Ark. I simply cannot believe that he is considered to be such a good actor. He even made one of those long, gutteral groans that last about fifteen seconds to indicate some sort of internal turmoil. I got the giggles. And the actor playing Jocasta, his wife-mother, was no better - a grumpy, frumpy old fag-hag with bra bulges and a clompy walk whose inexplicable, unjustifiable denial of the situation as it unfurled was not made even remotely convincing. Crap. It was literally crap, I tell you.
At the cinema, I've seen Gomorrah, Burn After Reading and The Reader. Gomorrah was interesting - about the mafia in contemporary Italy cities. Compelling and enlightening, but not much fun, and quite long. Burn After Reading was massively disappointing and, I think, marks the end of my relationship with the Coens. I loved loved loved the two guys in the US secret service who were trying to make sense of what was going on, but everything else seemed hammy, self-aware, smug and irritating. I can't believe I'm criticising a movie that features Frances McDormand, but there it is. The Reader was good although a bit schmaltzy in places, and bloody Ralph Fiennes was in it (although a fraction more bearable in this role than in Oedipus) but it was good story, the young actor was fantastic and I'd recommend it. Can't WAIT to see Revolutionary Road. I almost cried in the trailer on Sunday, but then again, if you put Nina Simone in the soundtrack, it's pretty much a shoe-in. It's all go at the cinema at the moment.
In TV, I am currently obsessed with high-brow masterworks such as Celebrity Big Brother, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Celebrity Come Dine With Me. There has been quite a lot of giggling going on. You may scoff, but I defy anyone to watch Ulrika Johnnson and Verne Troyer dressed up as Lionel and Diana, singing a lens-shattering version of Endless Love, and not break into a giggle.
Outside the culture millieu, I've been eating less and exercising more, which has been good. I am feeling fitter and pretty perky. I've been on approximately a gazillion dates, all of which have been funny or hopeless or terrible or interesting in some way, but none of which have given me even the remotest hint of butterflies. But I am not really that bothered at the moment. No rush innit. Every time I see a baby I get the fear, I'm afraid. I love them, don't get me wrong. But I'm not ready to be a parent just yet. That said, I always say that when I'm single. As soon as I fall for someone, my biological clock seems to spring into action, brush the dust off itself briskly and start to tick with a volume that feels as though it must be audible to unsuspecting passers-by.
Right. That's enough from me for one day. No need to go into overdrive. And anyway, I need to guard my strength as I've just given blood. Aren't I a good girl?
The problem with blogging is that it's a habit. And I've got out of it. I'll try and become addicted again, honest guv'nor, but as I've said so many times before, my desire to blog is in direct proportion to my happiness. If I'm feeling miserable, if my life is a bit shit, I love to blog. It allows me to vent my frustrations and it makes me feel heard, even important, just for a few seconds. But when I'm happy, I don't need the reassurance that someone, somewhere, cares about my life. Because when I'm happy, I think my life is great. So really, with me, no news is good news. That said, I miss my blog when it's not there. On the (naturally rare) occasions that I'm feeling self-indulgent, I like to check back and see what I've been up to. And when I realise there's been no entry for days on end, I do share your miffedness. I will try and be better, starting today.
So, what is there to say, after all this time? New Year was hilarious. I was lunged at by a man in a Mr Incredible costume, who got caught leaning in to me by his girlfriend. I don't think their start to 2009 was too harmonious... My New Year's Resolution, for the third year running, is to do a parachute jump. I was going to write 'I'll get that sorted in 2009 if it kills me' but perhaps that's inappropriate. Of course, that phrase actually means 'If the effort of getting it sorted kills me' but it's easily misunderstood and I wouldn't want the Fates to get muddled and organise for me to die on the way down... Oh god. Maybe I'll leave it for a while.
I went to see Oedipus at the National and it was genuinely crap. Ralph Fiennes is more wooden than a densely packed, very tall, very large expanse of forestry land, surrounded by tightly-constructed oak fences and several full-scale replicas of the Ark. I simply cannot believe that he is considered to be such a good actor. He even made one of those long, gutteral groans that last about fifteen seconds to indicate some sort of internal turmoil. I got the giggles. And the actor playing Jocasta, his wife-mother, was no better - a grumpy, frumpy old fag-hag with bra bulges and a clompy walk whose inexplicable, unjustifiable denial of the situation as it unfurled was not made even remotely convincing. Crap. It was literally crap, I tell you.
At the cinema, I've seen Gomorrah, Burn After Reading and The Reader. Gomorrah was interesting - about the mafia in contemporary Italy cities. Compelling and enlightening, but not much fun, and quite long. Burn After Reading was massively disappointing and, I think, marks the end of my relationship with the Coens. I loved loved loved the two guys in the US secret service who were trying to make sense of what was going on, but everything else seemed hammy, self-aware, smug and irritating. I can't believe I'm criticising a movie that features Frances McDormand, but there it is. The Reader was good although a bit schmaltzy in places, and bloody Ralph Fiennes was in it (although a fraction more bearable in this role than in Oedipus) but it was good story, the young actor was fantastic and I'd recommend it. Can't WAIT to see Revolutionary Road. I almost cried in the trailer on Sunday, but then again, if you put Nina Simone in the soundtrack, it's pretty much a shoe-in. It's all go at the cinema at the moment.
In TV, I am currently obsessed with high-brow masterworks such as Celebrity Big Brother, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Celebrity Come Dine With Me. There has been quite a lot of giggling going on. You may scoff, but I defy anyone to watch Ulrika Johnnson and Verne Troyer dressed up as Lionel and Diana, singing a lens-shattering version of Endless Love, and not break into a giggle.
Outside the culture millieu, I've been eating less and exercising more, which has been good. I am feeling fitter and pretty perky. I've been on approximately a gazillion dates, all of which have been funny or hopeless or terrible or interesting in some way, but none of which have given me even the remotest hint of butterflies. But I am not really that bothered at the moment. No rush innit. Every time I see a baby I get the fear, I'm afraid. I love them, don't get me wrong. But I'm not ready to be a parent just yet. That said, I always say that when I'm single. As soon as I fall for someone, my biological clock seems to spring into action, brush the dust off itself briskly and start to tick with a volume that feels as though it must be audible to unsuspecting passers-by.
Right. That's enough from me for one day. No need to go into overdrive. And anyway, I need to guard my strength as I've just given blood. Aren't I a good girl?
Monday, 15 December 2008
Celebrate good times, come on
So the big news is that this is LLFF's 300th posting. Yup. In the 25 months since I started this blog, I've recorded random, disconnected stuff precisely 300 times. I've been unemployed, I've been busy, I've been bored, I've had two boyfriends and two break-ups, been on holiday to Dubrovnik and the States and Paris, work trips to Amsterdam and New York, minibreaks to Cambridge and Brighton, Bath, Northern Ireland, Devon, Penzance, York, Riga, Edinburgh and Suffolk, and walked from the source of the Thames in Gloucestershire to Oxford. I've seen Mark Ronson and Alistair Campbell, Tony Benn and Rufus Wainwright, The Clientele, Ray LaMontagne, Camera Obscura, Amy Winehouse and a zillion others at Live Earth and Live Eight. I've learned a fair bit about wine tasting and house buying, banking and varicose veins, and a little bit about men and exercise.
I took a look at the tags I've given posts over the years, and I guess it's quite telling. Books, my father, food, friends and the media have all had nine entries. Commuting, geekery, relationships and money are joint with ten. Alcohol, self-obsession, movies and property all scored 11. Music and choir are fittingly joint at 12, along with travel. Boredom and TV are tied together with 13 entries apiece. Office life, a phenomenon which still feels unusual, is alone with 14 entries. Celebrities and London, both subjects close to my heart, have 15 each. DIY sits alone with 16, politics with 19, and my bête-noir, public transport, has 20. Fat and jobs have 21 entries each. The internet has 22. Then things jump forward with my oh-so-common tag, Jane=idiot, having 28 posts, men with 31 and modern life with 35.
So here's to LLFF - written by a man-obsessed, yo-yo dieting mentalist who cares more about DIY than alcohol, more about the internet than money and more about public transport than music. Or maybe that's just what strikes me as interesting at the time.
Anyway, apologies to Tabitha and others for the most recent delay - I was busy and then I became traumatically ill (read: have a cold). Last Wednesday was our book club Christmas party - we'd read Portrait of a Marriage which was fascinating, but unfortunately we were all far too distracted by each other and the Secret Santa that we found very little time to discuss the book as clearly presents and gossip are far more important than intellectual discussion. I went out on Friday night too, to a party full of people I met on an online forum for London lovers, which was crazy and odd and fascinating. I had a delicious portion of microwaved apple and blackberry crumble, which probably shouldn't have been a highlight and perhaps suggests more about my evening than it should. Annoyingly, I caught a cough from some generous individual along the way, as I awoke spluttering on Saturday morning, just a few small hours before our choir's sell-out Christmas extravaganza in Mayfair. Fortunately, the symptoms stayed in check thanks to a few spoonfuls of Benylin (I tried sugar and it did nothing. Practically perfect in every way? Ha! Mary Poppins was just a feeder) and the concert went really well.
Afterwards, the aching and the sweating started in earnest, so rather boringly I ditched the jam-packed pub and headed home with Ed to watch the X Factor final. As with all reality shows, which reliably become less interesting the closer they get to the last moments, it was a fairly unexciting night, the highlight of which was Beyonce's performance of Listen with Alexandra, a moment that felt briefly goosebump-inducing - or perhaps that was just my fever. Hilariously, my V+ timer had issues and the recording cut out in the pause between Dermot saying 'And the winner is...' and making the announcement but I managed to witness the winner's hysteria in full the following morning and cringed into a bent-neck, full-body wince at the full extent of the sobbing and breathlessness. I wish it wouldn't mean so much to them, I really do. Sigh.
Yesterday I lay around with Ed watching TV, making CDs and eating on a continuous sweet/savoury loop, missing out on two very fun-sounding parties in an effort to shake off the bug and not infect anyone else. Now it's Monday evening and I've watched the gripping Sicko by Michael Moore, thanked my lucky stars (again) that I don't live in America, laughed a LOT at Bush having shoes thrown at him in Iraq, sighed at reading about all the midnight laws he's sneaking through before Obama's inauguration, winced to see that Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars, and am now semi-comatose on the sofa after wolfing a gargantuan Thai takeaway in front of University Challenge, barking out the answers I knew through mouthfuls of tempura and noodles. There's another busy week ahead so I'm hoping my batteries will feel semi-charged by tomorrow morning.
So, this is me, 300 entries old, still largely lost, still occasionally looking for fish, but mostly very happy about it, wishing you all excellent health and hoping that you stick with me for the next century. It's going to be great.
I took a look at the tags I've given posts over the years, and I guess it's quite telling. Books, my father, food, friends and the media have all had nine entries. Commuting, geekery, relationships and money are joint with ten. Alcohol, self-obsession, movies and property all scored 11. Music and choir are fittingly joint at 12, along with travel. Boredom and TV are tied together with 13 entries apiece. Office life, a phenomenon which still feels unusual, is alone with 14 entries. Celebrities and London, both subjects close to my heart, have 15 each. DIY sits alone with 16, politics with 19, and my bête-noir, public transport, has 20. Fat and jobs have 21 entries each. The internet has 22. Then things jump forward with my oh-so-common tag, Jane=idiot, having 28 posts, men with 31 and modern life with 35.
So here's to LLFF - written by a man-obsessed, yo-yo dieting mentalist who cares more about DIY than alcohol, more about the internet than money and more about public transport than music. Or maybe that's just what strikes me as interesting at the time.
Anyway, apologies to Tabitha and others for the most recent delay - I was busy and then I became traumatically ill (read: have a cold). Last Wednesday was our book club Christmas party - we'd read Portrait of a Marriage which was fascinating, but unfortunately we were all far too distracted by each other and the Secret Santa that we found very little time to discuss the book as clearly presents and gossip are far more important than intellectual discussion. I went out on Friday night too, to a party full of people I met on an online forum for London lovers, which was crazy and odd and fascinating. I had a delicious portion of microwaved apple and blackberry crumble, which probably shouldn't have been a highlight and perhaps suggests more about my evening than it should. Annoyingly, I caught a cough from some generous individual along the way, as I awoke spluttering on Saturday morning, just a few small hours before our choir's sell-out Christmas extravaganza in Mayfair. Fortunately, the symptoms stayed in check thanks to a few spoonfuls of Benylin (I tried sugar and it did nothing. Practically perfect in every way? Ha! Mary Poppins was just a feeder) and the concert went really well.
Afterwards, the aching and the sweating started in earnest, so rather boringly I ditched the jam-packed pub and headed home with Ed to watch the X Factor final. As with all reality shows, which reliably become less interesting the closer they get to the last moments, it was a fairly unexciting night, the highlight of which was Beyonce's performance of Listen with Alexandra, a moment that felt briefly goosebump-inducing - or perhaps that was just my fever. Hilariously, my V+ timer had issues and the recording cut out in the pause between Dermot saying 'And the winner is...' and making the announcement but I managed to witness the winner's hysteria in full the following morning and cringed into a bent-neck, full-body wince at the full extent of the sobbing and breathlessness. I wish it wouldn't mean so much to them, I really do. Sigh.Yesterday I lay around with Ed watching TV, making CDs and eating on a continuous sweet/savoury loop, missing out on two very fun-sounding parties in an effort to shake off the bug and not infect anyone else. Now it's Monday evening and I've watched the gripping Sicko by Michael Moore, thanked my lucky stars (again) that I don't live in America, laughed a LOT at Bush having shoes thrown at him in Iraq, sighed at reading about all the midnight laws he's sneaking through before Obama's inauguration, winced to see that Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars, and am now semi-comatose on the sofa after wolfing a gargantuan Thai takeaway in front of University Challenge, barking out the answers I knew through mouthfuls of tempura and noodles. There's another busy week ahead so I'm hoping my batteries will feel semi-charged by tomorrow morning.
So, this is me, 300 entries old, still largely lost, still occasionally looking for fish, but mostly very happy about it, wishing you all excellent health and hoping that you stick with me for the next century. It's going to be great.
Friday, 3 October 2008
26 hours later
It's been an interesting few hours in my head. No change externally, you understand - still the same unstyled blonde hair, glasses, eyeliner, Chanel No. 5 lass you know and possibly love (virtually or actually) - but my mind's been a-whirring like a spinning jenny on crack.
As I wrote yesterday, me and the guy I dated on Wednesday night exchanged a few emails; nothing much, you understand, just a bit of light-hearted banter. We were talking (harmlessly, I believed) about Googling people you've met, to see what comes up. And then, suddenly, around lunchtime yesterday, he vanished - and I haven't heard from him since. No big deal, I thought - maybe he's working, or maybe he's just not interested and wants to draw a line under it quickly. Meanwhile, I wrote my blog, confidently believing that, unless I had given him the address, or the name, or my Facebook account, the guy I'd dated wouldn't be able to find his way here.
But this morning, just to be certain, I Googled myself - first name, surname. And it turns out that a link to my blog is about fifth down on the list. Call me stupid, but I simply had no idea that this was the case. And, although there's a chance that he hasn't found it, I'm pretty sure that explains why he did a Houdini.
Part of me is fairly pragmatic about it - if he can't handle my honesty/candour, then it was never going to work out anyway. Part of me is aware that not everyone is as up front as I am. I'm pretty sure that if things were the other way round, for example, and I'd read something similar about myself, I'd be flattered: clearly I'm a lot less private than some people, and I can't deny that I would enjoy the spotlight of another's attention.
But all this has thrown up a fair bit of thinking about the nature of this blog. What is it for, exactly? Why do I write it? How honest do I need to be? I certainly don't want it to be attached to my name any longer on Google - for professional reasons if nothing else, I need to be able to complain about being coma-inducingly bored at work without worrying that a colleague can read about it and then report me to some higher power. So clearly it's time to go completely anonymous.
But, even with no names mentioned, is it wrong to write about my personal life? Perhaps I need to be more understanding of other people's need for privacy. My bare-all approach is clearly one of the things that I (and, I've been told, others) enjoy about this blog, and I know that previous boyfriends have enjoyed receiving coverage on these pages - but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. Well, Mr South Africa, if I offended you, I'm sincerely sorry, that was never my intention. And to others in the past, if I've written something I shouldn't have about you, I apologise. Perhaps I screwed up - I'm still not sure. But this is me: I've blustered through 31 years on this planet, speaking loudly, sometimes without thinking, making mistakes, putting my size ten feet in it, but all the while, trying my absolute hardest at life, learning from errors, laughing when I can, attempting above all to have fun with this one life that I have been given, and not take things too seriously. Somehow I don't think I'm going to change any time soon.
Right - now that's off my chest, what else has been happening? I had a lovely dinner with Ness last night, lovely in the conversation and company department, less lovely in the nourishment department as I overcooked the poached eggs (disappointing), although I redeemed myself with dessert. My ankle is on the mend but is still painful, the Thai green curry at Pod is the most delicious thing in the history of takeaway lunches and I cannot WAIT for this weekend, when I'm off to the countryside to visit Nicole. The last time I saw her she had a two week old daughter - now she has three children in total, who arrived in such quick succession that I'm finding the whole thing rather confusing. Although possibly not as confusing as she is, I'll warrant. I am taking three bottles of Cava to celebrate the arrival of each of the offspring so that should lubricate us on our way down Memory Lane.
As I wrote yesterday, me and the guy I dated on Wednesday night exchanged a few emails; nothing much, you understand, just a bit of light-hearted banter. We were talking (harmlessly, I believed) about Googling people you've met, to see what comes up. And then, suddenly, around lunchtime yesterday, he vanished - and I haven't heard from him since. No big deal, I thought - maybe he's working, or maybe he's just not interested and wants to draw a line under it quickly. Meanwhile, I wrote my blog, confidently believing that, unless I had given him the address, or the name, or my Facebook account, the guy I'd dated wouldn't be able to find his way here.
But this morning, just to be certain, I Googled myself - first name, surname. And it turns out that a link to my blog is about fifth down on the list. Call me stupid, but I simply had no idea that this was the case. And, although there's a chance that he hasn't found it, I'm pretty sure that explains why he did a Houdini.
Part of me is fairly pragmatic about it - if he can't handle my honesty/candour, then it was never going to work out anyway. Part of me is aware that not everyone is as up front as I am. I'm pretty sure that if things were the other way round, for example, and I'd read something similar about myself, I'd be flattered: clearly I'm a lot less private than some people, and I can't deny that I would enjoy the spotlight of another's attention.
But all this has thrown up a fair bit of thinking about the nature of this blog. What is it for, exactly? Why do I write it? How honest do I need to be? I certainly don't want it to be attached to my name any longer on Google - for professional reasons if nothing else, I need to be able to complain about being coma-inducingly bored at work without worrying that a colleague can read about it and then report me to some higher power. So clearly it's time to go completely anonymous.
But, even with no names mentioned, is it wrong to write about my personal life? Perhaps I need to be more understanding of other people's need for privacy. My bare-all approach is clearly one of the things that I (and, I've been told, others) enjoy about this blog, and I know that previous boyfriends have enjoyed receiving coverage on these pages - but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. Well, Mr South Africa, if I offended you, I'm sincerely sorry, that was never my intention. And to others in the past, if I've written something I shouldn't have about you, I apologise. Perhaps I screwed up - I'm still not sure. But this is me: I've blustered through 31 years on this planet, speaking loudly, sometimes without thinking, making mistakes, putting my size ten feet in it, but all the while, trying my absolute hardest at life, learning from errors, laughing when I can, attempting above all to have fun with this one life that I have been given, and not take things too seriously. Somehow I don't think I'm going to change any time soon.
Right - now that's off my chest, what else has been happening? I had a lovely dinner with Ness last night, lovely in the conversation and company department, less lovely in the nourishment department as I overcooked the poached eggs (disappointing), although I redeemed myself with dessert. My ankle is on the mend but is still painful, the Thai green curry at Pod is the most delicious thing in the history of takeaway lunches and I cannot WAIT for this weekend, when I'm off to the countryside to visit Nicole. The last time I saw her she had a two week old daughter - now she has three children in total, who arrived in such quick succession that I'm finding the whole thing rather confusing. Although possibly not as confusing as she is, I'll warrant. I am taking three bottles of Cava to celebrate the arrival of each of the offspring so that should lubricate us on our way down Memory Lane.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Lo siento
Shortly after 7.30am on Monday, I received a panicked call from my father, to alert me to the fact that my recent blog entries had disappeared. Since then, a few other people have commented on the mysteriously vanishing account of the past few days.
Readers, allow me to explain.
The past fortnight has been pretty tricky for me, and although the way I described it on this page was both accurate and valid, I now understand that it was also possibly slightly too open. It's one thing to talk about my skirt getting stuck to the back of my legs when I'm too sweaty after the gym; it's quite another to discuss personal matters that affect a third party. I may be suffering mentally and want to offload for international sympathy and concern, but this time, it wasn't just my own pain that I was sharing with the global Faithful.
Plus, as a concerned friend commented earlier in the week, it was painfully obvious that I was using my blog entries to communicate my feelings to Paul. I was stunned to learn that my cunning plan had been rumbled so easily, but it was hard to disagree that if this is my primary method of communication with someone, there's trouble afoot.
Thus it was that, at 5am last Monday, during a fit of REM pique, I stumbled through to the sitting room, grabbed my laptop and deleted the latest posts, a first for me and an act of dishonesty of which I am not proud. After all, flippant or not, this blog is meant to be an accurate record of my thoughts; I've always banned myself from sub-editing more than one or two hours after the post goes live - deleting it altogether, several days after the event, is an act of Orwellian proportions, deliberately reshaping history for future readers.
But hey, that's what I did. So suck it up.
Thus, if you're only here for a Paul update, I'm afraid I must disappoint you - not to protect his feelings, but because I have, quite simply, no clue what's going on. If I learn any more, you'll be the first to hear. Probably.
In other news, I ran 9.07 kilometers yesterday. It took me 1 hour and 7 minutes, which means that running 10 km in under one hour at the end of September is looking pretty impossible. So I think my new goal is to do it in under 1 hour 10 mins. That will still involve a pretty sizeable increase in my pace. But hey, at least on race day I won't be jogging past the London Aquarium, where some sort of Truman Show director figure seemed to have plucked the city's most irritating, misguided, wafty tourists and commanded them to meander in the most haphazard fashion in my vicinity, all with gargantuan pushchairs and tearaway offspring who cannoned back and forth between their family members at unpredictable speeds designed solely to make it impossible to navigate any sort of smooth path between them all. I took to clapping loudly in front of me as I ran along, barking 'Watch where you're going!' to anyone who struck me as particularly idiotic.
This morning I had to disembark the Northern Line at Elephant & Castle because I was overcome by nausea. I sat on a seat at the edge of the platform for several minutes, wondering if I should press the button for Assistance and ask for some water, but then the wave passed and I was able to continue my journey. So that was a bit weird.
What else can I tell you? I bought a new hairbrush. I'm currently loving green tea. I can't get Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade out of my head. I had a free make-up consultation at the Clarins counter in Boots this evening which was really fun although ultimately expensive. I am loving my subscription to Prospect magazine, although am possibly taking geekdom to new levels by underlining and highlighting vital passages and sticking in Post-It tabs on relevant pages. I'm just about to start reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. The same fly has been buzzing around my flat for what seems like an eternity; I think it nipped in through the front door at the weekend and it's becoming progressively more drowsy as its inevitable doomsday approaches, but is managing to stir me to new heights of irritation nonetheless. I've run out of Eve Lom cleanser and am dreading forking out for another pot, but I've had that one since December last year so really it's not a bad deal. I had dinner with EmRob in Spitalfields which was great but fattening. My eyes are slightly stinging. I want Darnell to win Big Brother. I wish I could get two Burmese kittens. I miss having a Vespa. It's time for bed.
Readers, allow me to explain.
The past fortnight has been pretty tricky for me, and although the way I described it on this page was both accurate and valid, I now understand that it was also possibly slightly too open. It's one thing to talk about my skirt getting stuck to the back of my legs when I'm too sweaty after the gym; it's quite another to discuss personal matters that affect a third party. I may be suffering mentally and want to offload for international sympathy and concern, but this time, it wasn't just my own pain that I was sharing with the global Faithful.
Plus, as a concerned friend commented earlier in the week, it was painfully obvious that I was using my blog entries to communicate my feelings to Paul. I was stunned to learn that my cunning plan had been rumbled so easily, but it was hard to disagree that if this is my primary method of communication with someone, there's trouble afoot.
Thus it was that, at 5am last Monday, during a fit of REM pique, I stumbled through to the sitting room, grabbed my laptop and deleted the latest posts, a first for me and an act of dishonesty of which I am not proud. After all, flippant or not, this blog is meant to be an accurate record of my thoughts; I've always banned myself from sub-editing more than one or two hours after the post goes live - deleting it altogether, several days after the event, is an act of Orwellian proportions, deliberately reshaping history for future readers.
But hey, that's what I did. So suck it up.
Thus, if you're only here for a Paul update, I'm afraid I must disappoint you - not to protect his feelings, but because I have, quite simply, no clue what's going on. If I learn any more, you'll be the first to hear. Probably.
In other news, I ran 9.07 kilometers yesterday. It took me 1 hour and 7 minutes, which means that running 10 km in under one hour at the end of September is looking pretty impossible. So I think my new goal is to do it in under 1 hour 10 mins. That will still involve a pretty sizeable increase in my pace. But hey, at least on race day I won't be jogging past the London Aquarium, where some sort of Truman Show director figure seemed to have plucked the city's most irritating, misguided, wafty tourists and commanded them to meander in the most haphazard fashion in my vicinity, all with gargantuan pushchairs and tearaway offspring who cannoned back and forth between their family members at unpredictable speeds designed solely to make it impossible to navigate any sort of smooth path between them all. I took to clapping loudly in front of me as I ran along, barking 'Watch where you're going!' to anyone who struck me as particularly idiotic.
This morning I had to disembark the Northern Line at Elephant & Castle because I was overcome by nausea. I sat on a seat at the edge of the platform for several minutes, wondering if I should press the button for Assistance and ask for some water, but then the wave passed and I was able to continue my journey. So that was a bit weird.
What else can I tell you? I bought a new hairbrush. I'm currently loving green tea. I can't get Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade out of my head. I had a free make-up consultation at the Clarins counter in Boots this evening which was really fun although ultimately expensive. I am loving my subscription to Prospect magazine, although am possibly taking geekdom to new levels by underlining and highlighting vital passages and sticking in Post-It tabs on relevant pages. I'm just about to start reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. The same fly has been buzzing around my flat for what seems like an eternity; I think it nipped in through the front door at the weekend and it's becoming progressively more drowsy as its inevitable doomsday approaches, but is managing to stir me to new heights of irritation nonetheless. I've run out of Eve Lom cleanser and am dreading forking out for another pot, but I've had that one since December last year so really it's not a bad deal. I had dinner with EmRob in Spitalfields which was great but fattening. My eyes are slightly stinging. I want Darnell to win Big Brother. I wish I could get two Burmese kittens. I miss having a Vespa. It's time for bed.
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