Open your heart to the ways of Ripley. Follow her path and she will guide you through the toughest of times.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Guiding Light
Open your heart to the ways of Ripley. Follow her path and she will guide you through the toughest of times.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Own Goal
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
On my wavelength
"For anyone who’s ever tried to make someone fall in love with them by making a compilation CD."
Now I’m showing my age here: in my day we made tapes. On everyone’s eighteenth birthday wish list, right at the top, was radio cassette player. This was back at the time when bigger was better when it came to technology, so if your boom-box had detachable speakers, and was heavy enough to pull your arm out of its socket when you carried it around, you were cool. (In today’s topsy turvy world, you’d have your music on something as small and light as possible, and you’d be hot). In order to make compilations you needed an additional feature: tape-to-tape. If you didn’t have this, you had to tape your music from the radio. We listened mostly to Laser 558. My tapes are probably a valuable archive of this long-sunk pirate.
I still have all my tapes. I don’t listen to them, the quality is unbearable. But I do look at them, and think about the tracks and the memories they hold. Inevitably it will prompt me to put a CD on. I was conscientious and wrote on the card sleeve - gave them all titles, too. Party (1-8, although seven is unaccountably missing). Dancing. Romantic. Sad. The sad ones feature Phil Collins a lot. The romantic ones major on Sade. Music to screw to. Your love is king, baby.
I reckon people are divided into two groups: music matters or it doesn’t. For me, everything has a soundtrack. There are songs playing in my head the whole time. I’m not welded to my iPod when I’m out and about (well, only sometimes) but in the car, in the house, music is always playing. Selection of the CD is just as important as selection of the wine, sometimes more so.
I don’t like buying downloads, I prefer to have the CD. It’s a hangover from vinyl (yes, still got that too, still played) I like to see the covers. I like the process of choosing, looking across the neat spines (CDs are so tidy, I love that about them) choosing for mood, vibe, time of day. Sometimes I’m thinking all the way home about what to put on when I get home, an anticipatory buzz. Often I’ll sit in the car outside the house, waiting for a song to finish on the radio before I go in.
All my CDs are in alphabetical order by band or artist. Then there are separate sections beyond the main collection: smaller sections for jazz, classical, Christmas. All the compilations are together, but I’ve sorted them by theme. There should by rights be a couple of hundred more classicals, but I let the ex-husband have all the CDs because I felt guilty about leaving. Big mistake: I missed the CDs more than I missed him. Still now, I will go to put something on, and realise with a pang I don’t have it any more. I’m replacing every time I do this, but it’s taking me a while.
The house is usually very untidy, but never the CDs. Alphabetising has thrown up some interesting dilemmas. The Cure, The Cult, The Strokes, The Thrills, The Killers, The Kaisers, The Fratellis, The Police, I’m disregarding “the”. Van Morrison, Def Leppard, Led Zep, Bon Jovi, I’m not sure. I probably need expert professional advice from my librarian posse. I have such an eclectic selection, whatever you fancy will be in there somewhere. The only music I don’t like is gospel, rap, country & western, folk (although I can edge quite close to C&W, at times). The records, I decided to do them the Nick Hornby way, the way that only I can do them: in the order that I got them. That means my records are not allowed to be mixed with his records. (And believe me, another time guilty or not, I would be taking my CDs with me).
I think the people that wrote the film poster don’t understand what they’re messing with there. Making the right mix-tape can have enormous significance. I’ve definitely fallen in love with people based on their ability to make up a compilation that pressed my buttons.
My friend Katy and I, we reckoned that the quality of a boy's mix-tape told you everything you needed to know about whether they'd be any good with you in bed. Either you get me or you don't. Get the soundtrack right and everything else is easy. Music is a sure-fire way to my heart - and other parts of me too.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Wire
Count to ten. Count to twenty. Count to ten thousand. Count for ten years until they've gone to college. That's a long time to be counting. Don't count on me making it that long. Something's got to give.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
What lies beneath
I feel that I live my life behind a plate glass window a lot of the time. Like the Truman Show in reverse - everyone else is really getting on with things, and I'm just watching. Meaningful connections have been forged with people I can count on the fingers of one hand. Beyond that it's automatic.
That's where this course last weekend was hard. It asked the questions I try to ignore. I guess that's why I went. And now they won't go away as easily, they are clamouring for answers. I guess that's why I went.....
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Dog's Dinner
Friday, 23 October 2009
Gemini
We are fascinated by these Funny Twins, and in fact now by identical twins in a more general way. Our au pair is one-of-a-pair, and there is a set at school. Not to mention the Funny Lady Twins With The Big Hair, often to be seen in our favourite coffee shop of a Saturday morning. Guess who we think they should be hooking up with?!
We wonder about twins. If one gets a freckle, does the other one? If one has a headache, does the other one? Do they dream the same dreams? If they both eat the same dinner, would they both fart at the same time? And then do the same poo? (I don't wonder so much about that myself, I'm just reporting...) Would they both get cancer?
We worry a lot about the Funny Twins getting older. What would happen if one of them was killed in a freak accident, space-junk falling from the sky or suchlike, and the other one was left alone? Sometimes we don't see them, and we have to remind ourselves that they might have taken a day off, or gone on a course, or booked fillings at the dentist, identical fillings in the same tooth, caused by eating the identical number of toffees, chewed on the same side.
After half term we are going to start waving to them - to see if they wave back at the same time, in the same way. Everyone knows who they are, but the Funny Twins don't seem to have a lot of friends.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
New Possibilities
My small but select group of dear and lovely friends are all the same as me. So busy that we barely have time to spend with each other, even though we know it makes a huge difference to the rest of life. And then there are other people who are more significant than they think. People where I skate across the surface and don't allow myself to connect with them. I was going to say, we both skate across the surface, but actually I have no idea whether they are doing that or not; we're not close enough for me to know.
I have had quite a lot of relationships like this, when I think about it. I'm so desperately worried about saying the wrong thing, looking like a fool, seeming weird, I don't like to say. Why would a kitten choose to spend her life in a submarine? Why do I do this? Another thing that occurs to me is that my few close friends have done all the running to make that connection. They have fought their way into the submarine by really going out on a limb to tell me how much I meant to them. I can think of particular moments with each of them where they told me, meaningfully, that I was important to them in their lives and they wanted me to understand how much they valued and loved me. And I was moved and things were different between us, the barriers had gone and we could be close.
I have been racking my brains and I can't think of a single time where I have done the same in reverse.
I'm so afraid of being rejected and looking stupid that I can't even make friends properly; it's all superficiality and not really saying what I think. Why would I do that? I can think of occasions, more than I'm comfortable with, where I haven't really said what I felt. And not because I was being polite and didn't want to appear rude. Quite the opposite. These were situations where I was touched, where something was said that was meaningful and important for me - and I didn't say a word. Play cool at all times (in case anyone finds me out, finds out I'm not cool).
What a strange way to behave. No wonder I feel lonely. I'm considering the possibility of doing things differently, of being authentic.
How terrifying.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Kitten Caboodles
I learned a lot on the weekend's course. Practical tools to improve my life and my interactions with other people. [I also learned a lot about how cults function, but that's another story].
Now I need to start putting the lessons into practice. But one thing I have realised is that fretting about the past, and worrying about the future, can distract me from enjoying the moment. That's got to stop. Let the frolics begin!
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Toiling Upward
A woman I had never met 48 hours ago said to me: "it sounds as if you have climbed to the top of your ladder, but now you're realising it's up against the wrong wall".
..............
I am hoping that the commanding view will help me to see the right wall.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Back Story
I started to read, but I didn't get far, as I had signed up for a three day intense course which kicked off today. I had imagined that I would from my blogging some progression, a development, a learning coming through from the posts over those years.
The course was talking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves, that then define the things we do to support those stories and keep on making them true.
I have lots of different ways of telling the same story...... I see that now, looking back. I'm trapped in a story of my own making, putting myself in a place I don't want to be. I don't know whether blogging those old entries will carry on reinforcing something that perhaps I should be working to shake off?
Looking myself in the eye is never pleasant, as I don't like what I see. And if I don't like myself, I guess that might be why I accept other people sharing my view..... me me me blah blah blah zzzz
This course is already holding up some uncomfortable home truths. I'm having to force myself to go back tomorrow and take some more medicine. There's a song I'm reaching for here....
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Wishful Thinking
A man that can write you a song like this.....
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Working Girl
Having always had to give out an award in the past has saved me from myself: couldn't start drinking too early, as I needed to be able to walk across a dance floor, onto a stage, give out a trophy, have my picture taken in full view of 1000 of my peers.
This year I didn't have to do the trophy thing, I just trolled along as a regular punter, and boy what a difference it made.
I started warming up early, so I was in the party frame of mind before the drinks had even started. I haven't done a list on this new blog yet, so I think now is the time.
Things I lost last night/yesterday:
- the plot
- my composure
- my best Chanel lipgloss
- my cool (too drunk to be cool)
- £100 cash (duh)
- all the business cards I collected earlier
- my inhibitions (within acceptable limits)
- my liver function (probably)
- the ability to string together cogent sentences
- reassurance that I can still party hard till 5am and do a teleconference at 8
Things I gained as a result of last night:
- a shocking hangover
- some new friends
- some reassurance that I would be eminently employable
- a possible enormous new chunk of work
- brand reinforcement (get me, dressed in the corporate colours...)
- a series of creepy texts from a little engineer guy that looked like a mini Salman Rushdie
- a big smile
Someone needs to telling that little fella I was only chatting to him because no one else was, and he was on my table, and I was trying to be the consummate guest. I figure with my cleavage at eye level, he became distracted.
You know what? I had a blast.
Monday, 12 October 2009
What Not To Wear
- Twirly frock - check.
- FM shoes - check (and aren't we lucky we can have the double-meaning? only one other sector gets that).
- R&P lingerie - check (and underneath my clothes, I'm alway naked).
- Nice hair - check (courtesy of the Demi-God of Hairdressing, as the God himself was away doing a magazine shoot; Although the colour still leaves something to be desired).
- Good jewellery - check.
- Smell nice - check (Frond - from the Burren perfumery, so heaven knows how I'll replace that when it runs out, unless I have a trip to west of Ireland just to buy body lotion.....hey that's a good idea...)
- Fab make up - check (Bobbi Brown will never let you down - all colour co-ordinated).
I wonder whether any of this will disguise the fact that my eyes are red and swollen and bloodshot and tired? Can't work out why that would be. Possibly spending nearly the whole of yesterday crying, howling that I couldn't cope, that might have been a factor.
I was lucky that I had Jo to howl to, as no one else was taking a damn bit of notice (rugby on TV, and the trampoline has been reassembled). I do find being told I'm "acting like a loser" doesn't really help when I'm sobbing and rending garments because I'm feeling like a loser. I did get a "mummy you look really awful today, you should go to the spa" but this did not help, as we were supposed to be going to the spa and had to cancel due to shitty shitty work. Jo, having been an oasis of healing calm and common sense, then had a phone call to say her grandfather had died and slipped down to join me at the bottom of the "I Can't Cope" pit.
Realising I must gird my loins and go do the corporate-success-everything-is-wonderful thing, I know exactly how to get myself into the zone by 7pm this evening for the dinner.
But what about the eyes? I look about 75. So I'm going to wear a blindfold, then no one will notice. Or maybe I could get everyone else to wear blindfolds so they can't see me? Hard to organise but would probably be a lot of fun....
I feel alcohol coming on.
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Putting The Band Back Together
I seem to recall we had to layer up the tracks to get it all on, and this recording-in-relays over the top might be one reason why it's so loose, when we used to think we played so tight. Or maybe we really were that crap -there's every likelihood. Nowadays, pop-star is apparently the number one career ambition for children of ten, jointly equal with sports-star. But by the time we knocked together our band, we were all living our Bright Young Things Oxbridge life, and had career ambitions to become high flying suits.
One main reason we can't get the band back together is me.
At the time, I was going out with A the guitarist. At one point I thought I might marry him. I loved his guitar playing; and his sisters; and his house with the power shower and the American fridge with ice-dispenser and the hall so lofty they had a 15 foot Christmas tree every December; and their maison de maitre in a bastide town in the Dordogne. After we left uni, we came to live up round here, oddly enough. And I realised that when you took away all our friends, and all the cool stuff there was to do, and it was just the two of us, going to work and coming home, I loved all those other things but I didn't really love him. At the time, I'm sure I must have uttered the immortal "it's not you, it's me" line, being too nice to point out that his dislike of sex would render me extremely unlikely to stick it for the next 50 years. I started going out with someone I met at the gym.
I moved to London (partly to escape the meathead gym boyfriend and his ability to accept he was chucked) and lived in my cousin's flat, near C the sax player. He'd spent too much time acting like a rock star, failed his exams and got sent down. He came and temped for a while at the place I worked, as I tried interminably to build a database of about 2,000 records that I could create in about an hour on my phone nowadays. He was back living with his parents - a wiser choice than it might first sound, as they had a massive old house overlooking Blackheath, and were always away travelling so we had the run of it most of the time. We spent our evenings loafing outside the pub on the heath, smoking weed and listening to CDs on his dad's Walkman, one earpiece each. Just mates.
J the drummer, another linguist like me, had just come back from his year abroad. His brother, working for a funky new-style US investment firm in the very immediate aftermath of Big Bang, had a house on the other side of the heath, so J would often also appear at weekends to join in with the smokes. His brother was convinced that hotel Gideon Bibles made for better papers than Rizlas, so I knew from the age of 21 I was going to burn in hell. That probably explains a lot.
L the other (better) singer had dropped away before her finals. Partly the volume of work on her hard, hard course, partly she was so much cooler and trendier than the rest of us and had better things to do.
M the keyboard player we never liked all that much anyway. He was a pretty shit keyboard player (although he had some really nice kit) and we even considered at one point calling the band One Too Many in his honour. He hung in doggedly, believing we were his mates and thinking we were the cool people. To our secret derision, he used to call A's room, where we practised, "The Factory". After we left, we never gave him another thought.
So that left J the bass player. He had a brain the size of planet and was doing a PhD. He started coming down weekends, I had a spare room in my flat. The first ever Comic Relief we got trollied on cheap beer and the heating was broken, so I ended up in bed with him. Lovely guy. Never really fancied him and still didn't - and his intellect might have been massive but he had a cock the size of an acorn. Which makes it hard to explain why we ended being married for seven years. Band reunions would have been awkward, after all that.
Where are we now? Well none of us ended up in jail, or frying chickens (or making plain white toast, for that matter).
A the guitarist still lives in the town he moved to when we graduated, working for the same company, although that's not as boring as it sounds: after all this time he has reached a stratospheric level of management and it's one of the biggest companies in the world. He lives with another man.
C the sax player, the one who didn't do the Oxbridge thing in the end, works in a groovy job in the music industry. His smart, funny, vibrant, extremely successful parents just this summer had a little mini break together at the Dignitas Clinic and didn't come back.
J has lived in places you only hear about on the news, working for the World Food Programme. He's not married, which is surprising as he's an all round lovely guy. I'd have imagined him with a family.
L qualified as a vet. I just Googled her and she's back in Cambridge training up the baby vets and publishing obscure learned papers. I wonder if she's still funky?
M is a Reader in the chemistry department at a good university in the north. His CV lists 152 publications, all of them incomprehensible. I went for a coffee with him a few years ago, when I was working up there. He had already lost most of his hair, and still hadn't sorted out his protruding teeth. His stammer, however, had improved a lot. He's not married.
J the bass player and I had an amicable, civilised divorce - rather like our marriage. When he met someone else afterwards, and became a bit bitter and angry and shouted down the phone about some money in a shared account, I wondered whether a bit more shouting and throwing things around might have been one of the key missing ingredients. A relationship needs a bit of passion to keep it alive, I think. Although the sex was always rubbish, even after my extensive tutoring. He's a professor, has his own top-ranking department, an acknowledged world expert who has written the seminal textbook in his pet subject. His second wife must be irked that his PhD thesis is dedicated to me. I used to bitch about her for freeloading her way into a house/car/lifestyle that I'd paid for (you can't get much on a university salary) but now I hear she's going blind and I feel sad for any mum who won't see her children growing up.
Which leaves me. Sometime singer, sometime manager. Living in Smallville, a working mum of two. A Suit, of all things. Although I do have a house with a powershower, an American fridge that makes ice, and space for a 15 foot Christmas tree in the hall.
We're none of us quite so rock'n'roll these days.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Wasp Factory
The Secret History
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Which Is The Age Of The Train?
Something that scares me even more than my first-thing trip to worship at the altar of the God Of Hairdressing, and hear what he's got to say about my rather nasty home-colouring episode.
Thing One, at the grand old age of nearly-eleven, has been recalled to a third audition for a very cool role. This is impressive as she only registered with the agency on 1 September and this is her first attempt. However.
And boy oh boy it's a really big however. M can't bring her down to London, as he has to go Oop North in the afternoon to see the Overlord. I can't bring her down, as I'm already down. So the plan is that he puts her on the train in Smallville, and I meet her at the barriers at the other end. All she has to do is STAY ON THE TRAIN.
The furthest Thing One has been on her own so far is - let me think - nowhere. She hasn't even been to the corner shop without Thing Two for moral support. Life isn't like that these days, is it? At her age I could stay out all day on my bike till the street lights came on. Didn't have a watch, never mind a mobile phone.
So, spare a thought for me between 1329 and 1501, as time will stand still.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Help Is At Hand
Having a man around the house whose career is not going well can be like living with an angry toddler. Worse actually - you can't smack them and send them to their room. (Cue Political Correctness Death Squad). Well, I guess you could smack them, but you're running the risk that they might smack you back harder. And they're already in their room, sulking and watching football or Dave or Red Hot Teenagers or whatever.
Don't be fooled into thinking he is watching TV and deliberately ignoring you. That's impossible, because then he'd be doing two things at once, and everyone knows men can't multitask.
Women, on the other hand, we like to pride ourselves on doing lots of things at once. Let me ask you this though. Do you know anyone who doesn't find that multitasking just engenders enormous amounts of stress due to not doing anything properly? (Properly. Oh god how I love that word).
So today when I received an email promising A Working Mum's Top Tips On Multitasking, I was excited. I and the other Scummy Mummies so badly need to know how to get more done in less time.
I've just re-read the Top Tips, and I'm still not sure whether this article is a joke. It's certainly a route map to a fast-track nervous breakdown. So if you'd like something a little more helpful, here's my current favourite cocktail recipe.
1 x tin of Red Bull (gives you wings, if you don't already have them on your panty-liners).
2 x generous measures of vodka (you know it makes sense).
1 x capsule of evening primrose oil (for the PMT..)
2 x soluble Solpadeine Extra (to numb the pain).
2 x finely crushed antidepressants (Prozac, if you like brand names in your cocktails)
Serve over ice in a martini glass, and sip through a dark chocolate straw.
There, that's better.
Monday, 5 October 2009
This is not flying
Friday, 2 October 2009
Are You Sitting Comfortably?
I worked out that I haven't been to a writing group since 1985. As I have spent a significant amount of the intervening time whining on endlessly about wanting to be a writer, it's a shame I haven't applied myself more assiduously to learning the craft. Obviously I kid myself that reading a lot is part of my research. This can include reading about writing, but not actually doing many of the practical exercises that unsurprisingly tend to form a major part of How To Write books.
I write lots of other things. Reports. Proposals. Training manuals. Trade press articles. Birthday cards. Shopping lists. Drivelling self-indulgent teenage bedtime diaries that can reliably track my hormone cycle for the last thirty years or so. But proper creative writing? Published pieces (any sort): nul. Completed novels and short stories: zero. Shards and scraps: a lifetime's worth.
Sometimes I toy with the idea that I could piece them all together to create a whole. I picture an amazing creative meisterwerk, a Gaudi mosaic. When I've tried this, though, the results are redolent of Scrapheap Challenge or the hideous mutant dolls-head-on-spider-legs the evil boy next door cobbles together in Toy Story.
I harbour the urge to create something new and pure. If only to quieten somewhat the maelstrom of characters, events and snatches of conversation that circle eternally through my head, imploring me to sow them in a suitable spot and see how they might grow.
Audio drama is therefore appealing. Having given this medium never a moment's thought before today, the freshness of the challenge enthused me with the energy to make a fresh start.
Me being me, I am now of course avoiding writing a new radio play by setting up a new blog instead.
Must try harder.