'Sup

Hmmm, odd. Don't know what happened there. One minute you couldn't shut me up, the next I totally lose interest. Not that my life's dried up, by any means. Edited highlights of the last few days include:

• Saturday's trip to the ukulele hootenanny, including a run-in with mad Paul who muttered something under his breath about me and, when I asked him to clarify, said, "Nothing, nothing," in a way that meant, "I dream of your death."
• My first ever collection from Freecycle - I have donated many items in the past but never gained anything. What was the object that was so desirable for me that I got up and left my house especially to pick it up from a house under five minutes' walk away? A pair of bowling shoes. Yup. I have enough cupboard space to squeeze in another couple of matchboxes, and I collect free bowling shoes, despite the fact that a) every bowling lane offers shoe hire included in the price; b) that I bowl less than once every two years on average; and c) I am literally crap at it so turning up with my own shoes will be a bit like taking driving lessons in a Mercedes Gullwing. Madness.
• With meditation becoming ever trickier at work, I discovered our office prayer room and have tentatively walked back and forth to it, past the HR department, hating the fact that they all think I am now a Christian or something. Urgh. The prayer room itself is said to be 'laid out in an appropriate way'. I had imagined perhaps some chairs, a little altar, and space for prayer mats. Instead it's just an empty room with a whiteboard on one wall, upon which an arrow, drawn in green pen, indicates the direction of Mecca. In a corner are three or four prayer mats folded into quarters, but they haven't moved since I've been in there. It's definitely a Muslim prayer room, not a multi-faith area. And I'd definitely feel like quite a dick if anyone walked in and caught me sitting on the carpet concentrating on relaxing my neck and shoulders. Beats trying to get zen while sitting next to a shrapnel pooer, though.
• I've read two brilliant books: And When Did You Last See Your Father? and George Orwell's essay collection, Books vs. Cigarettes, a small but immaculate selection of thoughts, ranging from reading to press freedom to school recollections and the snobbishness inherent in children. Both highly recommended.
• I saw a film, Sweet Smell of Success, which was good but not brilliant. I don't get why people fancied Tony Curtis. I think he looks like a waxwork.

That's all for now.

In which I write a lot

So it turns out that even when I'm not trying to meditate in the middle of someone else's intestinal warzone, I find it freaking hard. I actually think I'm getting worse at it. Last night's attempt was so bad that I have lost motivation and now can't be bothered to try at all. Which is sad and actually I will rectify that asap. This week, I have to do a short body scan, when you briefly focus on different parts of your body from toe to head, and then focus on the supposed heaviness of my arms, my legs, and my neck and shoulders. Then I have to repeat that I am at peace three times. Then I have to 'cancel', by opening my eyes and taking a deep breath, and then do the whole thing again.

Problem is, I can't focus on anything at all. I think watching Sherlock just beforehand is probably not helpful, and Sunday evenings are never good for me anyway, in a mental sense, but last night things got so bad that I briefly wondered if I am not, in fact, human, but some rare and supremely gifted yet undervalued uberspecies whose mind can process infinite thoughts per second, trapped in the restrictive body of a thirty two year old woman. Thirty three year old woman. Shit. Anyway, my brain was moving so fast that I decided it might be interesting to try and record its absurd trajectories and discuss them with my therapist on Wednesday. So I switched on iDictaphone, and instead of saying the words in my head, I said them out loud. When I got too distracted I jumped back a stage. I transcribed the recording a moment ago and I sound like a lobotomised amnesiac. This is roughly what came out - the bits in brackets are the thoughts I had accidentally in between the thoughts I was meant to be having:

Feet
(Recording)
Feet
Ankles
(Sports day at school)
Feet
Feet
Ankles
Calves
Shins
Knees
(Brigitte)
Legs
(Period)
Stomach
Chest
Shoulders
(My face is itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Truck outside)
Feet
Ankles
(My stomach's rumbling, I’ve eaten a lot today, my head’s itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Yogatoes)
(My face is itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Eczema [other people’s. I do not have eczema])
(Simon)
(My head’s itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Come on)
Shins
Calves
Knees
Thighs
Stomach
Down my arms
(Skiing)
Elbows
Forearms
Hands
(Massage)
(Fish pedicure [more on this later])
(Grania)
(Robert)
Small of the back
Up the spine
Over the top of my head
(Lorry driver)
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
(Haven’t brushed my teeth)

Listening to the sounds outside
Back into the room
(Badminton with Sara on Tuesday)

My left arm is heavy
(Chest tightening)
My left arm is heavy
Both arms and both legs are heavy
Both arms…
(My friend Kate)
and both legs are heavy
(My boss)
(Going to work tomorrow)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(That bar in Kennington where I went with Kate)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(Someone giving me a neck massage)
(Japanese hairdressers)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
I am at peace
(My blog entry about not being at peace)
I am at peace
I am at peace
(Heard a noise like a frog, thought about the rockery in Luke’s parents’ garden)
Cancel
(Exhale)

My left arm is heavy
(Thinking of Eva, Kit, photography, the guy at the photography course)
My left arm is heavy
Both arms… (Claire, Henry, Gordon)
Both arms and both legs are heavy
Both arms and both legs are heavy
(That film, Sliding Doors, the end of it, John Hannah on the bridge)
Both arms and both legs are heavy
(Walking through Battersea Park with Kate and Sarah and Simon the morning after that New Year’s Eve)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
I am at peace
(People outside)
I am at peace
(Yoga at the Ayurvedic spa in India with Simon, tea planting, photos, being smeared with red paint)
I am at peace
(Grania)
Cancel

My left arm is heavy
(Denouement of Sherlock Holmes in the pool)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Quite smug that I never thought it was John, I knew straight away that he had the stuff on, it was good though, bad beginning, my eye is itchy, my ear is itchy, you’ve gone right off course, go back)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Rucksacks)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Going to the States)
(Grania, Andrew)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(The School of Life)
(That came out of nowhere)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(What if the dictaphone’s not working?)
I am at peace
(Peace be with you in church)
I am at peace
(The sheet music on Brigitte’s piano)
I am at peace
Cancel

In have no idea if this is normal, if this is along the lines of everyone's head contents, or if it's a total miracle/outrage that I haven't yet been locked up. Either way, you can hopefully understand that my thrice-daily meditation sessions are more exhausting than I'd anticipated, and sandwiching them into my normal life is not easy.

Friday I had a gathering at Charlotte Street Blues, where I drank a mojito and then several litres of white wine, and danced and laughed and received quite literally astonishingly cool presents, not one dud, and I'd for some reason got some business cards printed last week, and started handing them out to all and sundry, feeling like it wasn't quite breaking the boyban if all I was doing was handing out tiny glossy rectangles to virtual strangers. And then we went to The Roxy, where a minging guy basically tried to have sex with me on the dancefloor without a) removing any clothing at all or b) asking, and I was faux disgusted by another guy who was really flirty while wearing a wedding ring, but then he turned out to be an amazing dancer and that was really fun. And then we left and Trace and I walked to Soho Square and my stupid key for the Londikes didn't work AGAIN and I wondered briefly whether there was some hidden breathalyser mechanism because I clearly shouldn't have been allowed on a bike under any circumstances, but then I couldn't remember where my nightbus left from and I ended up walking to Victoria, and pretty much the entire way there I was talking to the woman from Barclays Cycle Hire, chattering away about how annoying it was that my key didn't work and all the while she was probably playing Solitaire and saying, 'Mmmm. Mmmm. Yup.' about every six seconds until I bored myself and hung up. And then I got on the bus and met the guy from Cameroon and then came home.

So Saturday was a bit groggy, but I got dressed up and went over to West London to the Mary Poppins land that is Holland Park to see some friends and then down to Aqua Sheko just off Ken High Street for London's only fish pedicure. Ohmygodohmygod. I found out about this approx. one week ago and immediately knew that even if it was £100 and/or absolutely crap, I still had to try it. Fortunately it was neither. Grania has a photo of me where my leg looks weirdly amazing [now posted], so I will wait until she sends that to me to post it, but basically, you submerge your feet in these tanks and all these little catfish-like brown fish, about an inch long, come and EAT ALL THE DEAD SKIN. They like it. It is like putting a platter of doughnuts in front of me. They can't help themselves. Apparently they gorge and gorge and gorge, and then every now and then they go and sit on the bottom of the tank and have a rest for 5 mins and then they're ready to go again. They are insatiable. For dead skin.

Anyway, so you put your feet in and these fish swarm around and between your toes, and it's tickly and initially very freaky and Grania said she was going to be sick and I was so worried that she was going to vomit into the tank that I was completely distracted from the fact that I, too, thought I might vomit into the tank. But after about two minutes, it's fine, and then after five minutes it just becomes really nice and relaxing. And you sit there for thirty minutes and then your feet feel amazingly soft and then you get an incredible foot massage for fifteen minutes. I won't lie. It's not the most incredible pedicure on earth. I could have had the fish chowing down for another hour or so. But it was an experience. Possibly don't go when you have a whopping hangover. Other than that, I'd recommend it.

Then we went to a charity shop and I bought a red jacket and then we went to Waterstones and I decided to buy The Slap on Amazon, and then we went to Bethnal Green, to Bistrotheque which was great, and to the Working Men's Club, where a guy was dancing and then chatting to us, and I realised that I don't like going out dancing with one other girl because if I meet someone nice, I feel really guilty about abandoning them for even one second, and sad for them that they aren't being chatted up by someone. Even if she has a boyfriend, I still feel sad for her that no one is chatting her up, and I realise that is probably ridiculous, but on reflection yesterday I realised that I still have clear memories of being the fun girl at teenage parties who was always making sure there was an amazing song on the stereo and who knew all the words to everything and who was funny and confident, while all the pretty ones were outside in the foliage snogging Anna's brother's friends. And I may have looked like I didn't mind but fucking hell I did. And I guess that's why I now would feel so uncomfortable ever putting anyone else through that. Which means that really the only time I feel comfortable meeting someone is on a date, because everyone present is involved and no one feels left out. Because there's nothing worse than going out with someone, a platonic friend of either sex, and realising that while you thought you were meeting up to have a chat, they were meeting up with you as a platform to meeting someone else - someone they've never met before, someone they can kiss - and they want you to stand there and talk to them until they meet that person, and then once they've met them, you can go away please, and hopefully find your own person, but if you don't, then that's just your tough shit slightly.

ANYWAY. So I wasn't particularly friendly to the really quite attractive guy who came up to me at the Working Men's Club, in fact when he accidentally spat while he was talking to me I said, 'I asked for the news not the weather,' which I haven't said for about thirteen years, but Grania said she laughed so much internally that she slightly did a wee. But then I felt bad, so I was a bit nicer to him and danced with him for a bit and then these beautiful girls came on stage and started doing an amazing routine, and we were all agog, and I said to him, 'You need to go for that one on the right, she's amazing,' and he said, 'I'm not sure my girlfriend would be too happy about that,' and I was thinking inside, 'Girlfriend?! Things that make you go hmmmm.' I mean, of course, he did nothing wrong, he just danced with me, but why are two guys going out and doing sixties dancing with strangers except if to pull? And later I spotted him bumping and grinding with someone else, and I tell you what, on paper he was behaving himself, but I'm pretty sure his girlfriend wouldn't have been too happy with pretty much anything he was up to that night.

Eventually it all caught up with us and Grania and I called it a day and started the trek home via nightbus, and met an adorable blond South African guy who seemed so sweet and gentle, who told us that he worked in a salsa bar and then told us that he'd got the deep cut on his knuckle because he pushed his ex-housemate's head through a window during a fight, which all seemed rather extraordinary, and eventually I got home and slept and then woke up and cooked and mum and dad came over for DIY and eating, and my flat is at a new level of amazingness, and then I watched Orchestra United and Sherlock, and then I couldn't meditate and couldn't sleep and then it was time to get up.

It's all excellent.

There has been an incident

Right. I have had three therapy sessions with my latest woman, and it's all ticking along nicely, thank you. The surface has been scratched and I am enjoying the process. But there is a problem. One of the things she has suggested I try is meditation. She is by no means the first person who has told me I might benefit from chilling the fuck out. My last therapist, who I saw a year or two ago, likened me to a "beautiful acquiline Arab horse charging across a deserted beach, rushing headlong to nothing." Horses are unquestionably attractive creatures, but nonetheless, I wasn't sure the analogy was a compliment. Learning to switch off would be great: I quite enjoy being full of beans, so I don't think I'd do it all the time, but it'd be fun to know how.

As a result, this new woman's got me doing a thing called Autogenic Training, which is a kind of Western, secular meditation. Each week, she gives me new things to do. At the moment, I have to do mental exercises three times a day, each stint lasting around 5-10 minutes. So far, so manageable. When I wake up in the morning, I give it a go. When I get home at night, I rarely manage to get through the session without falling asleep, which I reckon is a positive. But it's the weekday lunchtime element that is causing issues.

Thus far, I have been retreating to the ladies' facilities for these few minutes every day, hoping to catch them at a downtime. Inevitably, however, while I'm focusing on relaxing the muscles in my neck and shoulders, someone walks in, sits down loudly in the next door cubicle and starts weeing. I try to focus on my own energy but in a 'don't think of pink elephants' moment, the 'don't think of the person weeing next door' concept results in me accidentally amplifying the noises until it seems as though my fellow visitor is urinating in a steel bucket perched atop my head. At times like these, meditation is somewhat tricky. I'd challenge the Dalai Lama to remain zen.

In typical self-castigatory style, however, I have been telling myself that I should be able to block these things out. One should not need total silence to meditate - that would be impractical. So I have persevered through the weeks. Right up until ten minutes ago, when a nadir was reached. I declare myself beaten.

I was seated in the cubicle, body and head relaxed, glasses in lap, noticing and not judging the thoughts of tonight's belated birthday gathering that were popping uninvited into my head, (alongside the thoughts of Sherbet Dib-dabs and bad posture concerns and gym dread and last night's dream about swimming in the Thames) when a person, presumably female, entered the room and chose the adjacent stall to mine. I increased the pressure on myself to remain focused. She started to wee. I clenched my eardrums. Suddenly, there was an explosion. I was unsure whether to duck for cover or check myself for shrapnel. I opened my eyes and was surprised to see the walls still upright. Surely something so powerful would have blown the power supply? But no; there was another, and another. I am fairly sure that the methane quantities this girl produced are single-arsedly responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. Pint after pint of liquid faeces erupted onto the ceramic just a few inches and a thin layer of MDF from where I was seated, trying hard not to weep or be sick while repeating silently to myself 'I am at peace', as I had been instructed.

Finally, the attack seemed to pass. No all clear siren rang out, but there was a new kind of movement next door. I assessed my options. I still wasn't sure if the bomber knew I was there. From the time she'd arrived, I'd been absolutely noiseless. Yes, my door was locked, but unless she got down on her hands and knees, she wouldn't be sure someone was inside. Despite feeling aggrieved beyond compare at the aural onslaught I'd had to withstand, I felt that the kindest thing to do to someone who'd just suffered such an indignity was to pretend I had heard nothing. And the easiest way to do that was to stay still. More than ready to leave, I nonetheless resolved to lay low.

Eventually, she emerged from her cubicle and washed her hands with an admirable yet slightly emetic thoroughness. But she didn't vacate the sink area. I wasn't sure what she was doing, but after a minute or two, it occurred to me that perhaps she was waiting for me. Perhaps, I reasoned, she was so embarrassed that someone had heard her emissions that she had decided to kill me. I was briefly scared until I remembered that I am an office worker and not in an episode of Sunset Beach. I waited a bit longer. And then a little longer still. Finally, I became bored of this bizarre stand-off. I also admitted to myself that there was a strange part of me that wanted to see who had been responsible for the violent anal eruptions, so powerful that they would surely have made anyone who grew up on a faultline instinctively take refuge under a doorframe. I decided to stand up and declare my presence, but at the instant that I slid back the lock, she made a break for it, tearing out of the bathroom and into the small anteroom. All I glimpsed was her unfamiliar rear view, long dark hair, slim hips, fitted trousers and an understandably purposeful walk.

I washed my hands and left, unseen.

I am not at peace.