Not funny.

1.Blogfolk, don't you find that Christmas is just like PMT? I do.

2. Consider how it builds up, and with it a deep-seated, gut-churning anxiety; you know something is going to happen, you know the date even. You get more anxious, grumpier by the day, yet your forget why the suicidal feelings, the sudden bouts of despair, the snapping at family members and kicking of small pets. And then..

3. ..and then it's over! The tension suddenly eases. Ah, the relief. PMT, Christmas day, same thing. This year, I killed two birds with one stone; I'm exhausted.

*that'll be Pre-menstrual tension. Read your Cosmo already.

Shrinking, in more ways than one

Blogfolks, it feels like I'm disappearing, and not just because yesterday I bought a skirt one size smaller than I usually need. In so many ways I'm disappearing: because I was tempted to lie and write 'trousers' because skirts are what my job requires and I can't condone that and that is swallowing me. I'm disappearing because for the past month I haven't been eating my normal amount, hence the dropping a size. In a perverse way, I celebrate this by looking in the mirror several times a day. Hello, size 10 ass, I hadn't seen you in a few years. I'm disappearing on this blog, because all I post about is not eating and the odd comments are about how good mash is. What? Perhaps disappearing too the same way i am with this therapist I have, trying to break up but he won't let me, saying I am not taking responsibility for ending this process, and I get annoyed because it's true, and just not going anymore will be disappearing, too. I'm disappearing from friends' lives because I don't want to do what they do or have fun and they don't want to know about that. I'm disappearing from my relationship with my girlfriend because she's busy and rightly so, and I'm not very good at being her girlfriend anyway, because I'm shrinking.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself, just looking at things and realising what's happening: spending time vicariously – Ugly Betty is really very good, I saw all 16 episodes- and I had to put down 'Traité d'athéologie' because I feel dumb. Today I listened to a friend tell me about her sex stories, and asking for advice, and I couldn't admit I didn't care. I like to blame it on winter but perhaps there is in me a mechanism, do you know? I've come to care very little about what is not little.

Gloop

Potatomashwithoniongravytomatosoupporridgepotatomashwithmeltedcheesecarrotsoupporridge.

And repeat.

I can't eat solids. At lunch, my workmates look at me funny. I'm turning into a grumpy cow. I'm constantly, constantly thinking about food, because I'm constantly, constantly hungry. Gloop digests too quickly.

Thankfully, I have something left to see me through these hard times.

Riojagewurtztraminnerbrandybeerroséd'anjoumartinamarettobourgognechianticôesdurhône.

And repeat.

W is for…

1.Bloggers, strangely, I don’t even mind it’s nearly Christmas. I’m in such low spirits that all it means to me is the end of work and the warm womb of my mother’s house to stay in, silent, for a week.

2. There will be a three-coloured, big-pawed cat for company and a pile of logs for the fireplace, woolly socks and old books from my teenager years to read again. In the early evenings, my mother will appear out of her ‘painting studio’ with a bottle of Alsatian wine and say: let’s not let it get us down.

3. It is everything, it’s Christmas that we don’t celebrate, it’s the sum of losses and anxieties about what remains. It is what we face everyday and the fact that it could be worse. It is the loneliness that we both live in; she because she feels she has failed to build a proper family, I because I have been so afraid to fail too that I chose to not have one at all.

4. We’ll drink by the fire, wishing it could be colder and that it would snow, or if it is, that it would snow harder, for the whole night; for added womb effect. It’s so satisfying when the airport has to close down and the buses no longer run! The best times are when cars can’t drive up our road, then it gets truly quiet.

5. One morning, clad like the Michelin man, we’ll walk up a mountain. It’ll hurt my lungs because I’m not used to it anymore. I’ll want to enjoy the scenery and be moved to tears but I’ll be so worried about not enjoying it enough that I won’t, really.

6. As usual I’ll get back to London the day before New Year’s eve, with neither plans, nor wanting to make any, and I’ll relish letting myself into an empty house. The candy of feeling sorry for myself! It is my tradition. This year, the Special Lady Friend situation isn’t looking too good, you see. It’s likely to be my fault. Added sweet bitterness to the candy.

7. I’m still young, have four limbs, eyes that see, a job and a place to live, and five different sets of bed linen, damnit.

Today







Pale blue: time spent working in a grumpy, tired mood.

Grey: time spent looking forward to going home and collapsing.

Dark blue: time spent wishing I could have five minutes off to go out and get myself a cup of coffee.

Green: time spent sitting on the staircase back home, contemplating sleeping with my boots on just because it’s such a fuss to take them off. But then if I did that I would not be wearing clean socks tomorrow, which is simply unthinkable.

Oh well

1. At 7am this morning as I was striding along Hammersmith road, my head still full of dreams of Frida Khalo (deep green and reds), I heard a horse neighing. A horse, in Hammersmith, I thought, shaking off the remains of the dream and looking around. But then I realised it must have been somebody’s ring tone; that was rather sad.

2. The rest of the day was spent trying to cram a week’s work into 11 hours, and having no time to pee. As I put my coat on to leave at 7pm, I did wonder if this was what life is all about; dreams of vivid colours, disappointment, and water retention.

3. Got home, got a cuddle out of the cutest kitten in the whole world, a glass of wine out of a bottle of rioja; good night, blogfolks. Do have colourful dreams. I know I will.

Chavo, March 14 1999- November 22 2005

1. It’s been a tough day, people of blogland, and the mantra ‘it was only a cat’ hasn’t helped none.

2. He was a wee fluff ball when he got him as a kitten. On the train back from Wimbledon, he was poised; poised but cold. I took him out of the cat carrier and held him inside my jumper. He stopped shaking then.

3. ‘What’s his name?’ a couple of blondes asked. ‘Gustave’, we replied. ‘Good stuff?’ they guffawed. ‘Can we have some?’ It was Gustave -later nicknamed Chavo- because J and I agreed on Flaubert and Malher.

4. Chavo had a good cat’s life. Six and a half years of it. He had a few fisticuffs with the moggy from next door -the one we call Sid because he’s vicious; he also had to move house once, a traumatising event after which he hid behind the washing machine for 24 hours. Not bad.

5. Over the last week, Chavo grew a fat belly. So fat that he was getting stuck between the bars on the staircase. We grew worried. I told him I’d take him to the nice vet lady and forgave him in advance for getting explosive diarrhoea (his favourite vet surgery trick.)

6. Gustave was dying of congenital cysts wrapped around his liver. They had been causing his liver to bleed, which was filling up his belly. I had a choice of taking him home post-surgery and watch him die within days, or two weeks at most, or not letting him wake up after the op. I didn’t think it fair on him to have to be in pain just for the sake of us saying good-bye. So we never did.

7. It was only a cat gorgeous, sweet, lazy fluffball.

8. Sorry about the mood, bloglanders. But this really sucks donkey balls. Hairy ones.

1. am·biv·a·lence .
Pronunciation: am-'biv-&-l&n(t)s
Function: noun
simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action -a heightened ambivalence which is expressed in behaviour by alternating obedience and rebellion, followed by self-reproach —am·biv·a·lent /-l&nt/ adjective —am·biv·a·lent·ly adverb
Latin ambi-valentia

2. March 2005 :
It’s not a comfortable place to be, is it, he says with a knowing smile. It’s a bit like chemotherapy: you bombard the bad cells and in the process kill the good ones too. Doesn’t your ambivalence stop you from enjoying the good sides?

I think: I’m not sure I understand.

3. August 2004:
The problem I have with you is that you’re so.. inconsistent, and I don’t want to deal with it anymore, she nearly screams, trying to keep her voice down. She can’t take the risk to shout. I won’t listen to shouts. If she manages not to shout, she’ll be right.

I think: I have failed again.

4. Look at me.
I thought ambi-valence could actually be a good thing. Valuing both sides. Being able to weight pros and cons, making balanced decisions, understanding other people’s diverging opinions. I thought it could be a strength, an asset, and extra something that would lend me clarity of vision. I thought it would always guard me from believing in greener grass. I thought it was both sides of the coin, the reasoning to my dreaming, the sensible to my silliness, the ‘I love you with al my soul’ to my ‘there’s no such thing as forever.’

5. Why does this word have such negative connotation anyway? Again – to value both.

6. So, if being ambivalent is such a bad thing, where do I go from here? And do I really want both sides to reach symmetry? Will people like me better?

---

I’m tired, people of blogland. I’m also cold, so,,automatically, eating too much.
Last night I had a dream about A’s friends. I liked her friends and the way they obviously cared about her. Maybe it was in my job description to hear her complain about them and criticise them, but I rarely felt she gave them enough credit. I don’t know why I’m even writing this. That dream, strange day, stream of consciousness. I don’t know. Thank you for stopping by. Be well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

With all my love,
Your faithful goddaughter

In the series 'you thought it was over but let's scrape the bottom of the barrel together', I give you: c-l-o-s-u-r-e

1. Finally!
People of blogland, those of you who have been reading for some time and thinking -Jesus tap-dancing Christ, can't the girl stop whining and get over it already?, I think that I might finally have reached closure.
I might also add that this is my blog, and I'll whine if I want to.
But still: Yay!
Such a lovely, lovely word, Closure, that it deserves a capital letter.
So, I don't know yet if This is It, only hindsight will tell, but it's been five months, and, I couldn't but agree with y'all, it's starting to get ridiculous. Time to get the process started; who knows when it'll end.

2. Scenery
Today I spent the best part of the afternoon staring out of the living room window; the sky was leaden, the trees bare, a gentle breeze was playfully teasing my elderly neighbour's gigantic pants on the washing line. I was sprawled out on the sofa with a fat moggy on my stomach; J was in his lair either playing with his Lego / inventing new mathematical theorems / changing the face of audio synthesis as you know it. I was fomenting a cruel and bloody end for the drilling and sanding DIY freaks that live above us. All in all, a typical winter Sunday afternoon. Good times, people of blogland. I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this; an old fashioned urge to set the scene, probably. Or just digression. I might also add that this is my blog, so I digress if I want to.

3. Retrospective
So after I had gazed at the giant knickers blowing in the wind to my heart's content, I thought of the past five months, and of the eighteen ones before that.

4. warning signs
I wish I could recall what my horoscope said before it all began: 'Those born under the sign of the curly-pubed locust will experience wealth, self-satisfaction and regular bowel movement, whilst the unfortunates born under the sign of the cross-eyed newt are about to enter a thoroughly sucky period when they'll want to pull out their nose hair and scream or possibly pace around tall bridges wearing their heaviest shoes and a backpack containing a dictionary or two. For extra weight.' I'm sure it said that. (note to self : consider writing horoscopes as my next career choice.)

5. Estoy tranquila, estoy tranquila
And then today I realised that for the past two weeks I've been zen. There are signs: I thought of possible places to go on holiday. I brushed and flossed every day Like I intended to live beyond Easter. I also ripped up my will and binned it.
It might be closure because I have no more this tearing urge to be in contact/see/know about the ex-object of my affections. I can now balance it out with the notion that I don't want or need that much potential conflict or drama. The urge is mostly gone. It feels so good. I hope she's not eating so much deep-fried cheese and that she's being nice to her friends, and that's about it. No more fuck dreams with her in them. No more 'I'm running into A at the supermarket checkout and she gives me another chance' fantasies.
It might be the start of something like closure because I can finally look back and see what I was when with her: a puppy. Begging for attention, always scared of pooping outside my tray, scared of not being liked; because other puppies around were better looking (she's so sexy), cleverer (she really knows how to take care of herself), better suited (she's so my type), more assertive and able to deliver (c'mon, pretend you're the plumber coming in to fix my pipes.) An accessory of a puppy (your friend only cares about you because he cares about me) A cute, exotic puppy; but not the one she wanted. No what she wanted me to grow into. And now, I finally don't care if she likes me or not. She probably doesn't. Oh well.
Naturally, the past five months have been inordinately hard for me because this image of myself stuck. I hated myself for my shortcomings, my weaknesses, my tears. I thought there was little to salvage. Up til recently I was still putting her on a pedestal; I would never find anyone better, funnier, brighter.
What a snivelling idiot I was, people of blogland.

But hey, it's over. No more bullying; no more overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. Better bowel movement. Maybe I have curly-pubed locust as a rising sign.

[Insert powerpuff girls motto here.]


This cross-eyed newt in the preliminary stage of closure is off to yoga. Thank you for stopping by.

Rewind to the pipe fixin’
Ok, she says, imagine you’re the plumber, and you’re coming over to fix my pipes.
We both laugh, because that’s what people do. Don’t you?
But she’s intent.
- I’m a bored housewife, and you’re a big buff Black plumber guy..
- I am? I say, tentative, before taking a sip of my tea.
-Yeah, and you ring the bell, and you’re wearing your big tool belt. C’mon. What do you do next?
I smile, not sure she’s serious.
-C’mon. Just make it up. Tell me what you do. Tell me what you do to me, big beefy plumber man.
I look down at the table. It’s elaborately painted with swirls of yellow and bright pink and green. With my forefinger I play with the crumbs.
- you can do this; right? Make me a story. C’mon, how do you start? What do you say to me? Or do you just bend me over the table and fuck me?
- can’t this wait? I mean, it’s.. I mean.. I don’t know what I mean.
-c’mon, don’t be such a killjoy.
- sorry. It’s just that, I have to think about it.
- No you don’t. You have tons of imagination.

I stay silent for too long.
She was intent, she is now getting angry with me.
I can’t deliver. I’m being such a killjoy, such a let down.
I try to meet her eyes with a half apologetic, half amused glance, to try and not lose face completely. I try to make light of it. Too late, I won’t play the game, I’ve blown it. I’m such a disappointment. Again. As she stands up and piles up the breakfast plates, I wonder how I can make up for it later.

Popular wisdom, my white arse.
I know that you weren’t born in 1933, Internet. Neither was I, I hasten to add, just to balance out the times when I do sound like a grumpy old fart.
But we both know this: when Adolph H was triumphantly elected in 1933, it was what the people wanted. Don’t we have footage documenting the delirium? His election was greeted positively in most European countries, and even in the US; and many conservative commentators argued that it just wasn’t democratic to question the people’s choice. We know where the people's choice led us.

Do y’all have bunkers in the US?

---

homophobia, garden variety
About once a year I get political and write to some mayor. Remember? I forgot to add that Monsieur le Maire answered me. So that made me feel all fluffy inside, even though it was probably penned by some perky PA whose job description is ‘answer all the mail that doesn’t contain bits of bog roll or smeared dog shit.’ Because that’s what poor Noel Mamère got: a torrent of hatred, over 4000 epistles of stinking concentrate of homophobia.
Different registers are explored: nostalgic (if Hitler was still around he’s have you and that scum burned up), martial, and scatological, like those literally dipped in shit, just to, oh so subtly, illustrate the fact that’s what the gays really enjoy about being gay. You know.
But the scariest thing about it is that most of those letters are signed; in most people’s mind, being homophobic is still something to be proud of.
Because rugby players are less likely to be called faggots, one of them collected all those letters and made a book. It’s called, duh!, ‘Homophobie France 2004’, by Serge Simon, and it’s published by Editions Le bord de l’eau. I say yay!

---

It’s Saturday, therefore I’m off to socialise and buy something orange.