Short extract from a Tube conversation

It looks like the Office Junior Party, out of Croydon and on a bender on a Saturday night
Girls, long blond highlighted hair, manicured hands, impossibly high heels; Blokes on the seats opposite, matching outfits from Next.

Girl
-………..she’s engaged, you know.
Bloke
- what’s his name?
Girl
- Bob
Bloke
- Bob. What’s his surname?
Girl
- His real name’s Robert. But, you know, she’s got a 2.4 carat diamond on her finger!!


The train pulls into Leicester Square where bigger and tackier things await.

I have been…

…awaiting the imminent arrival of L, whom I haven’t seen in too whole years. She and I go back a long way, to that pretentious secondary school we attended in some conservative little town somewhere French and remote. She moved to Italy about the time I moved to England. Over those ten years I haven’t met anyone with more grace, integrity and determination, all rolled into 5’5 of blondeness. And she’s coming to see me!!!! For a whole week!!!

….working. Finding stability and recognition in work, which is worrying me. Will I turn into those middle-aged women who become their job when nothing else is left?

….neglecting the housework. I could stuff cushions with the amount of fluff shed by that feline creature I have. I was going to type ‘own’, but we all know who owns whom.

….resorting to lashings of fake tan lotion to try forget the fact that I’m feeling white and flabby and not in any state to go do something more long-lasting or grown-up about it.
I went swimming on Monday, though.

….unable to start reading a book not by Poppy Z Brite.

….thinking that three whole months away from my girlfriend is really too much to bear.

….deciding that I am unable to move to San Francisco as I am useless at making myself stand out in the job market, don’t have white enough teeth or California-developed social and networking skills, and generally little hubris.

…..awaiting that green card with bated breath so that I can plan my move to San Francisco.

….trying to decide if it was ‘baited’ or bated’. Well, it’s ‘bated’, but why does everyone spell it with an ‘i’?

…..having dreams of building houses, moving into houses ; these dreams always involve J – my housemate and friend, my mother, my girlfriend. In the dreams, I always end up living with my mother, and this worries me.

….eating large quantities of chocolate.

Bubble

Today I would like to be unbearably smug and brag about my job performance review. (It's got another name in my line of work, but nevermind.It's the same idea.)

To be honest, I was relieved to not be told that I had delusions of adequacy or that I would be out of my depth in a parking lot puddle.
A part of me always doubts. A part of me always sneers inside, secure in the knowledge that I am nothing but a fraud. An impostor. Some day the truth will be revealed - yes I do have all those degrees and professional qualifications and years of experience - but, really, I'm not very good at all. I just look the part and wear the clothes, I'm only just pretending. Yes, the work gets done, but that's mainly luck, really.

So today I got a healthy dose of the fuel that is unmitigated, glowing praise. Well. I sat there, uncomfortable, flattered, even blushing, I believe.
I'm trying to get the sneering, doubting part of me to just shut the fuck up and enjoy it.
That's all.

A whiff of rebellion?

Following a deeply enlightening telephone conversation with my girlfriend, I am on a quest for a pair of chones that :

- will change her (and me) from her habitual Yfronts.
- Won’t ride up her arse.

Naturally, where to go but the emporium of tasteful lace that is Marks and Spencer. M&S, first port of call for granny knickers in packs of five matching shades. Poor people. They’re trying so, so hard to revamp their style and ditch the oversize diarrhoea-coloured cardigans and the puke-coloured nylon trousers. So they have those new hip and trendy designers do some stuff for them – I loved the vaguely punk theme on one of the dummies: white and lime green mesh, with a slogan that goes: ‘leave me alone’. I guess ‘fuck you’ was a little to much for the place.
If I leave England, I’ll miss Marks and Sparks.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tonight's achievement:

Locate swimsuit.
Locate towel.
Check unsightly features of self in front of mirror in said swimsuit, in harsh lighting.
Decide that if nothing is done soon, all this will get even worse.
Take deep breath, propel myself towards pool, go into building with head down.


Inspection tour:
Number of kids : nought. Perfect.
Number of goggled up backswimmers who think they’re so hot and just drown everybody else in their lane : tolerable.
Number of old ladies with armbands who hold everyone up in the slow lane: acceptable.

Pay my £2.70

(£2 bloody 70!)

Swim.
Float on back.
Swim some more.
Go home aching and happier.

Well, well.I'm one year older today.

I got (in chronological order):

-lemon cake, 1
- biro scribble on my hand to inform people of the wondrous occurrence, 1 (2 words)
- cards, 3
- hand-made card on folded A4 paper, written in biro , 13
- 'Happy birthday' shouted at maximum volume, about 150 (from different people.)
- developing arthritis in right hip, 1. A long slippery slope from here onwards, then.
- text messages with good wishes, 5
- text messages about entirely different things, 2
- emails from friends, 4
- email from dad that made me cry, 1

And the latest Poppy Z Brite from my girlfriend, whom I'd very much like to hug in gratitude. I didn't even know Poppy had a new one out! And it's signed and everything!

I wonder when I'll be able to perform that grateful hug.
- wistful thoughts, millions.

Things that my mother does

She talks. A lot. She leaves the room we’re both in, and carries on talking to me, even though I can’t hear her. Invariably.
When she talks, both her hands flutter constantly.
She turns into a whirlwind and sorts out the garden single-handed in one afternoon.
She brings me a bottle of wine, opens it on the first night; I’m ill, I can’t drink; by the third night, the wine is gone and she says: if I’d known you wouldn’t have any, I wouldn’t have bothered.
She has great plans of flying over to Colorado. Or California. Then we can all go backpacking to the Grand Canyon – ‘we’ would be she, and I, and my girlfriend, whom she hasn’t met. She doesn’t understand my lack of enthusiasm.
She has discovered the joys of unlimited Internet connection and ASDL. Apparently, right this minute it’s 42°C in New Delhi and in Laos it’s raining again.
She talks to my neighbours more in one afternoon than I do in a year. Mainly because she thinks they need gardening advice.
She questions my sartorial purchases: don’t you have ten just like it? I hope you didn’t pay too much for this. Do you really like it? She wants to go shopping and buy me some clothes.
She gets angry at car drivers who won’t stop to let her cross the street.
Most things she says are accompanied with a slight laugh, as if distancing herself from what she is saying.
She talks to the plants.
She laughs at the things I have to wear for work.
When relating a past incident that made her mad, she gets mad.
She wants to take pictures of me with the cat.
She wears expensive, designer labels that look cheaper than they are.
She thinks that if I had ‘a husband with a good job, who could teach [me] things, a nice house and two kids, [I] wouldn’t ask so many questions.’
I can tell she, just like the rest of the world, wonders what lesbians do in bed, but she won’t ask.
She loves me.

Reminiscing

Today, with my brain on stand-by, Michel Foucault and the birth of queer theory proved too much for me; so I lolled about in my pyjamas, talked to the cat, daydreamed, reminisced.
Last year at this time, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my girlfriend. It would have been five more days to go, and counting. Yes, I am the type who counts hours; I lay the line at minutes.
I don’t really know if she was my girlfriend yet, we’d only shared a drunken kiss at that point. But there was no doubt in our minds that girlfriendom was looming large, though.
Well, it was exciting. I am reminiscing with little nostalgia, since bigger and better things have happened since then, bigger than just waiting for a plane to land, even though our relationship has so far been relying on planes to do just that. Land. My own mythology is full of travelling and arriving, of the build-up to seeing my lover’s face in the crowd of anonymous passengers.
I think I was nervous, I must have been. I flew out of work, danced onto the first bus home, attended to last minute details. I pretended to myself I was just throwing on any old clothes. I left for the airport far too early and, on the tube, grinned at fellow passengers. I wanted to whisk her off in my own car, but I do not own a car.
The look on her face when she, finally! walked out of the terminal : eyes downcast, find me! I took her home, nervous and intent. I waited in the living room while she was bathing, pretending to listen to music; she emerged in a red tshirt. My bedroom is white and close, a setting for things to come. Who kissed whom first, I don’t remember, but all took off that evening. All seemed to make sense.
It isn’t really nostalgia; I am just missing her, that’s all. It’s time that this relationship was made of something other than a succession of airport moments, arriving, leaving, especially leaving; I’ve had enough of all the leaving, it doesn’t get any easier. This segmenting of living can only last so long, really. Counting weeks is exhausting.

Today's menu so far

- Lemsip: one
- soluble vitamin C: two tablets
- lemon juice: as much as can be sqeezed out that old lemon that's been in the fridge for 4 days.
- honey: two spoonfuls
- whiskey: a wee dram (officially), 100ml (officiously)
- Otrivine decongestant: two squirts up each nostril every so often.
- sympathy from friends (1) and family (1): occasional
- sympathy from feline (1) : non-existant
- self-pity and general whining: liberal amounts.

Advertise yourself - get your own slogan.

Type in your name and sloganize:

'Have you had your Ysengrin today?'
'Does the hard Ysengrin, so you don't have to.'
'Four out of five dentists recommend Ysengrin'
'Ysengrin: it does a body good.'
'Do you remember what Ysengrin tastes like?'
but my favourite has to be : 'There's more than one way to eat an Ysengrin'

Strangely, very strangely indeed, it did something for my ego.

'Ysengrin with the less fattening centres' did not, though.

It's a wonder I managed to pull myself away from that site.

Low levels of melatonin, then

A Pacs is France's answer to the decline of marriage — a legally binding partnership between couples of any sexual orientation. It may soon be here for the emotionally untethered. Our Correspondent finds it alarming.
Once again, The Times chooses to miss the point.

I have no other event to report. From the outside, my life is starting to look like the dullest blog in the world. From where I sit, it feels more like this mixed with this. It's all too common, I know. Often I find myself wondering which of my shoes are the heaviest, cos once you jump off the bridge you really don't want to come back up. Then I shake myself up and have a chocolate soufflé. I'm aware that none of those two things are very reasonable.

Psychoanalysis 101

1)PLEASURE-PRINCIPLE AND REALITY-PRINCIPLE : Respectively, the desire for immediate gratification vs. the deferral of that gratification. Quite simply, the pleasure-principle drives one to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. However, as one grows up, one begins to learn the need sometimes to endure pain and to defer gratification because of the exigencies and obstacles of reality: An ego thus educated has become 'reasonable'; it no longer lets itself be governed by the pleasure principle, but obeys the reality principle, which also at bottom seeks to obtain pleasure, but pleasure which is assured through taking account of reality, even though it is pleasure postponed and diminished.

2)Saucisson + chocolate / green beans + yoghurt
Book + sofa / pay gas bill + tidy up squat
Hot bath /swimming pool

I know which principle I’ll be following tonight, then.

The final word.

Simply hectic

Today I watched the entire First Series of Twin Peaks that J gave me last April, for Christmas.
That's seven episodes, plus the pilot.
It's even more addictive than I remember it, fourteen years later.
Fourteen years!!

Today I also stretched out on the carpet to the sound of Ravi Shankar.
All my joints cracked rather delightfully.
Some years ago my mum decided to take up yoga. She only went twice. She said the mats smelled and that some people were so relaxed they farted. I can still picture her face perfectly when she said that.

I haven't been dumped yet.
I thought I was going to be.
I feel like I've been rescued from drowning.

Where to start..

Bad dreams.
Woke up crying.
Cold.
Rain.
PMT.
Broke.
Nothing for breakfast.
Mother coming to visit next week. That being a good thing in itself, but.. long story.
Did I mention PMT?
Girlfriend is mad at me.
Work is stressful and I dream about it too much.
I'll be a year older in 2 weeks.
I seem to have developed arthritis in my right hip.
It hurts. It feels silly, too.
A hip replacement? At my young and still tender age?
I'm supposed to go out and be merry tonight, but I'm not even sure I want to.
Girlfriend hasn't really talked to me since Monday.

I might just go back to bed.

A possible answer to social anxiety

Our new service

Supposing your are a lady and so completely dumb that dogs on the streets do not think you are worth of growling at. Ring us and explain your trouble.
You'll be instructed to be in attendance at the foyer of the Gate Theatre that evening, and to look for a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman attired in immaculate evening dress.
You go. You meet him. He advances towards you smiling and in an instant his moustaches are brushing your lips.

'I trust I have not kept you waiting, Lady Charlotte', he says pleasantly. What a delightfully low, manly voice!
'Not at all, Count, you answer, your voice being the tinkle of silver bells. ' And what a night it is for Ibsen. One is in the mood, somehow. Yet a translation can never be quite the same. Do you remember that night, in Stockholm... long ago?'

The secret

The fact of the matter is, of course, that you have taken good care to say nothing. Your only worry throughout the evening is to shut up and to shut up completely. The trained escort is a ventriloquist, and he answers his own manly questions in a voice far pleasanter than your own unfeminine quack, and gives answers that will astonish the people behind for their brilliance and sparkle.

There are escorts and escorts according to the number of potatoes you're prepared to pay. Would you like to score off your escort in a literary argument during an interlude? Look out for further information on this absorbing new service.

'Well, well, Godfrey, how awfully wizard being at the theatre with you!
'Yes, it is fun'
'What have you been doing with yourself?'
'Been trying to catch up on my reading, actually.'
'Ow, good'.
'Yes, I've been studying a lot of books on Bali.You know?'
'Ballet is terribly bewitching, isn't it? Do you like Petipa?'
'I'm not terribly sure that I do, but they seem to have developed a complete art of their own, you know. Their sense of décor and their general feeling for the plastic is quite marvelous.'
'Yes, Derain did some frightfully good work for them; Sort of grisaille, you know..'
'But their feeling is so.. profound, one thinks of Courbet.'
'Yes, or Ingres.'
'Or Delacroix, don't you think?''Definitely. Have you read Karsavina?'
'Of course';
'of course, how stupid of me. I sa her, you know.'
'Ow, hadn't't realised she was Balinesese.'
'Balinese? what are you driving at?'
'But...'
'But...'


Borrowed from Flann O'Brien, the best of Myles

Fifth Wheel

When I was eleven I had two best friends. Both were very pretty, in different ways, both tall and popular in a giggly kind of way. All three of us were in the same class for our first year of secondary school. We started a newspaper together and handed it out to the class. We had sleepovers and we fancied the same boys. We practiced kissing together. We did.
Whenever pairing up was called for, it always seemed to be the two of them, and me. They sat together in class. During the 12-hour coach journey to London we took at the end of term, they sat side by side, whispering about that blue-eyed boy who looked just like that actor whose name I don’t remember now. They swapped clothes; not with me, though, because I was clearly shorter and skinnier.
I was doing better in class than either of them, but they both got to wear a bra much earlier than I did.

When I was thirteen, I had two best friends.. not as pretty as the ones I’d had previously, but trying hard. We were not as creative as we’d been; some phenomenon had happened to us all and we were way past writing newspapers. We fancied the same boys, ferociously so. Whenever some pairing up was called for, however, it always seemed to be the two to them. I understood. After all they were so much more grown up than I. They’d started their Period. That was fine, I was doing better in class than the both of them combined.

When I was 15, I had two best friends. Pretty. Clever. Well-stacked. Whenever the situation called for some pairing up…
I was fine. In the space of three months, I got a first boyfriend, then a second one, and I was the first in the class to have sex. Then we didn’t talk so much anymore, as their parents disapproved of me for some reason.

When I was 19, I had a best friend. Seriously stacked. We compared university grades, made Goth clothes and went to Goth clubs. We lived in different cities, though, so she had to get herself another best friend; it was too lonely otherwise. I think she’s married with two kids, now. She called me from Ireland three years ago, but I never returned her phone call.

Was T-Rex a scavenger? You decide!

The Natural History Museum is really not what I remembered. I have (dim) memories of dark and dusty rooms, things floating in jars, crumbling dinosaurs skeletons. Or maybe those memories are only what I would like the museum to be, collective consciousness-style. Well, no mad scientists' lair in there now. The whole thing is now targeted at bright 8-year- olds. There are buttons to push and phones to listen into and screens to gawk at and all kinds of clever, state-of-the-art, pretty, flashy stuff. And also stuffed armadillos. (Soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, Armadillos!)
On the way out, I saw:
- a tall, lanky black teenage boy in sportswear and gold jewellery, carrying a spongebob squarepants plastic lunch box.
- a five-year-old whose trousers fell down to her ankles as she ran after a pigeon.

All in all, a day well spent.

Beef
In the 19th century, London was the suicide capital of Europe. As early as the 14th Century,though, Froissart described the English as ' a very sad race', which description applied principally to Londoners. The French considered that the London vogue for suicide was owing to 'the affectation of singularity', or maybe, 'from a contempt of death and a disgust of life.' One Frenchman described a London family ' that had not laughed for three generations' , and observed that its citizens committed suicide in the autumn, 'to escape the weather.' Another visitor remarked that self-slaughter was 'no doubt owing to the fog.' He also suggested that beef was another essential cause, since 'its viscous heaviness conveys only bilious and melancholic vapour to the brain'; his diagnosis can be linked to the London superstition that to dream of beef 'denotes the death of a friend or relation.'It was also remarked by Grosley that 'melancholy prevails in London in very familly, in circles, in assemblies, at public and private entertainments..The merry meetings, even of the lowest sort, are dashed with this gloom.' Everything was blamedfor this constant gloom, except, perhaps, for the onerous and exhausting condition of the city itself.

Peter Ackroyd, London.

This afternoon I've discovered a way of playing with dolls I was not aware even existed - not to this extent anyway.
And there's a whole site of it!