Festive Apathy. The one time of year it's allowed. If not OK

The Beautiful Life....

I've just eaten chocolate for breakfast again...

...and if I hadn't eaten all the chocolate in the house, I'd probably have found room for a little more.

For it's the time of year not only for copious television viewing by women who live alone and own sofas, but equally for those little sponsorship sequences that play before the show starts, or sandwich the ad-breaks. These are the small, softly-shot scenes featuring a beautiful single lady with lovely hair, a roaring fire, a blanket and something nice to eat, be that a Magnum Mini or one exquisitely wrapped Lindor chocolate.


This isn't working effectively in my lone-lady household, as I've already eaten all the chocolate, and thus just feel a bit nauseated by that Magnum Mini Maid creeping in after a hard days work for the one humble treat. God, how empty her life must be, what with all the moderation and hair-brushing that must go on in that cosy cottage of hers - you know, the one on the hillside by the lighthouse. Apart from anything she must be driven wild by the incessant fear of burglary, perhaps even a cliff-collapse, or werewolf attack. I wonder if she does her home insurance on direct debit.

Pies Vs Politics... Currant Buns Vs Current Affairs

I'm utterly overusing the phrase 'at this time of year' (see somewhere above) to excuse the most ridiculous lapses of moral, social engagement.

Isn't it easier to get away with being a dumb, lazy boozer if everyone else is doing the same? I can't honestly say I have a lot of hobbies right now, aside from working, writing study plans for next year, taking baths, shagging, eating and running. And the latter only happens because the former of the former doesn't burn enough calories to balance out the former of the latter.

But, all those delights aside, the most beautiful thing about Christmastime is that everybody seems to be equally indulgent, lazy and disinterested in anything worldly, and nobody expresses guilt about it.

I think I could probably tell you the top news story of the day for the past few weeks, and nothing more. Some of those stories have been pretty rotten too - so much for a slow news month - but perhaps I am not alone in only wanting to hear nice things in December. Perhaps this is cynical, but big stories are often big when they are timely, and so our year seems to have see-sawed between indifference and indignation, in line with the national spirit.

The latter half of this year (post-olympics when everything was great, apparently) has been one of media shift and scandal, when the public engaged in arguments around press independence and moderation, and several big stories put the whole thing in context and made this age-old discourse current. Phone-hacking at the News of the World, it's demise and the launch of the The Sun on Sunday, was followed by the opening of wounds still raw at the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. The Jimmy Saville sex scandal emerged and alongside it, great mistrust of the great BBC. Newsnight's related tarnishing followed, an old man accused wrongly and publicly of child abuse, which was then propagated on Twitter, finally followed by the appointment and resignation of a beeb director general in just months. Indeed, this side of the Olympics, media stories have taken centre stage in media coverage, whether it has been the departure of Chris Moyles from radio 1, farewell to Ceefax or hello to whichever on demand TV provider you favour... no wonder people have been asking, in effect, is the tail wagging the dog?

As an aside, I don't think the tail IS wagging the dog. Sorry, I hate that phrase, I don't know why I just used it twice. Evidently I'm a twat... but anyway, surely the very fact that scandal in the media is so prominently covered by the media just highlights it's own self-awareness. Print and broadcast are democratic mediums that can recognise their own flaws and individual areas of corruption - prevalent (and thus relevant) inevitably as it shall be in any section of society. Perhaps what we have learned this year, is to not disregard and leave unquestioned what takes place before our very eyes. Again, I'd posit that this is the position not merely of the media but of any organisation which has a duty of responsibility and trust. Surely, alerted to great self-reflection, the exposure of malpractice (which by it's nature, only becomes scandalous when exposed) is the greatest safeguarding against further error.

This is a simplified view, for it does not take into account the fact that there are (and always will be) a few genuinely malignantly motivated people in any organisation, and as a part of their democratic privilege, these people will have access to power and influence that may remain unchecked until mass attention recognises it as harmful. All I'm saying is that sometimes we need to remind ourselves where we're going wrong, and think about what's right and wrong. We'll forget again as we eagerly try to get by and do the day to day, but at least, together as a society, we are able to pull each other up and have a good old argument about it. Moderate that and you have one thread of belief governing a whole rainbow of society and opinion.

But back to December, and here many of us are, struggling through the last few days of work before the big 2 days of feasting and family (hopefully), lost in merry cookery shows, heavy drinking, lovely food and lots of sleep. Even the Mayan Apolocalypse seems to have passed with a relative degree of gung-ho affection. This week I overslept and was late for work. My boss just nodded sagely and agreed, we were all just clawing through. That wasn't like me. I must be tired. I nodded. I cannot get enough sleep right now.

Tired from what though? Work is always busy - that's no change. Is it rather the fact that everything is inevitably on the go-slow now. You can't exist in isolation, getting excited about the news and deadlines and being early for work if nobody else is. Frankly, I'd carry this on all year if everyone else was up for it, and bring on the regressions or ultimate downfall of society through sheer laziness, but we know that as soon as January comes we'll be tightening our belts. Cliches are there for a reason, and by the time that comes, we'll be hungry for the vim and vigour of a great news scandal.

Not so much Lindor chocolate, perhaps.

Merry Christmas.

Regressing... and Obsessing... Delirium

Run Yourself Mad… Run Yourself Delirious



This week I've been mostly been flight-fixated, having taken a rather fancy lunch at the Gherkin on Wednesday afternoon, and preceded to spend the evening observing a similar panorama, elevated above Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland, via zip wire, ferris wheel and pretty much anything that doesn't go upside down or make you feel too unwell.

Yesterday's quiet Saturday consisted - aside from some sexy washing and tackling on the in-flat damp issues - in a run lasting approximately 3 hours. Without much of a plan, I set off and ended up staring at the Greenwich cable car in the fading day - a haunting spectacle, quietly and repetitively jittering it's way over the Thames in the evening light. I haven't been on it yet. I'm secretly hoping the boy will go with me and make it romantic as opposed to just pure melancholic. It was, however, entirely, deliciously desolate yesterday, with a snow-muddled sky and a sun just petulant enough to plaster occasional sprinklings of pink and orange across the fading vista.

There's something fascinating about the flat, blasted landscape of the East docklands that captures me, both visually and spiritually. The wide, blasted meeting of earth and river, conquered by a vast, yet desert industry, possessed by an outer silence, yet underpinned by a deep mechanical rumble, the patter of rougher waters, the wind in the soft, lost reeds along the bank. This had me in a state of epiphanic delight as the paltry sun went down. It was, of course, accompanied by the slow, adrenalin-fuelled build of the journey there - from the humble, boring, terraced streets, across the A-something or other, over a winding overpass, and through the overgrown, rusted debris of prior industry - a gasometer, grand and sad and threatening, a trailer, unhinged and rusting in the bushes. All to the strains of some rather faded old music - Radiohead, Ocean Colour Scene, Jeff Buckley… pure histrionic nostalgia, and all of my own, ON my own. Wonderful.

I started taking pictures and couldn't stop, for the light was changing with every second. I took a short film, to capture the sound of the strange wind in the reeds. It was as if both were unsure of their supremacy in that scene. Nature had been there first, but it is alien now, misplaced. It was great to be sensitive again. When I was younger I was afraid of gasometers, tall buildings, and particularly things that seemed to loom, omnipotent, but essentially heartless. I got over it, obviously, living and working in many a city and became desensitised to the shock of those illogical threats, as you do, but yesterday it was new again. I experienced fear in visceral, logical proportions as I continued my run, away from the sun, through the fading, deserted industrial works.

I ran beyond North Greenwich and the sad, but comical benches, lined up in neat, vacant rows. The culture gave way to ugly, rough industry. A huge ship's engines began to whir somewhere, and I could feel and hear the rumble, the creak of heavy metal, and cold mangling of it's inner mechanics as it pulled away and headed East towards the Thames Barrier, out to sea.

There were mills and vast cylinders, skeletal, metallic frameworks, harsh fences with barbed warnings and long, dusty roads. The air was bitingly cold. I came across a pair of fishermen and ran on. It was so lonely. Looking up, I began to be overcome by this crushing dizziness and fear - the scale of these structures is still somehow incomprehensible to my small, Sussex-bred mind. Panic took over. I had to physically hold myself back from curling into a ball. I clapped my hand over my mouth, the way I'd done on the Ghost Train at Winter Wonderland earlier this week and wanted to call my father, but it was absurd. I thought I might be sick for a moment, but at the same time revelled in that true and real and illogical panic. I was completely safe, and yet I was terrified.

Who needs dodgems now eh?

But Flight?

Oh yes, distracted there. I was running again this morning - a day quite transformed by the bluest skies and tender frost, when I looked up to see a Wood Pigeon beat across the sky above me. I was so struck by it's easiness of motion, and the fragile, purplish-tinted frame of a chest, I was overcome by longing to be with it.

My passion for escape is nothing I've been unaware of lately. Work is busy, social things get busy in the run up to Christmas. There's a lot of things to think about. It's all a bit hectic, and there's only one place I want to be, and that's in bed, or lounging somewhere with the boy. Nowhere else. I said to him this afternoon, that I never understood how people could do that - lie in bed all day with their lovers - until now. I'm in love, like I never have been before, and it's doing strange things to me. I'm regressing, accessing with delight all the tempered and channeled feelings I thought were the territory of idle teenage fancy. Perhaps, they are. Perhaps I'm just very late to the game here? Perhaps it's just a mental, intoxicating combination of hormones? Or here's another theory…

Perhaps I'm so terrified it's not reciprocal, everything has reached the dramatic inner state of apocalyptic insecurity… the kind only experienced by an adolescent emo fan with a passion for 1) sulks and 2) sad music. I revel in his company, but the thought that sooner or later it might be over, renders each day an early, bittersweet twilight. Each soaring morning gives way to day and dusk. Surely this can't be real? Surely he can't feel the same? I don't know. I've never felt this before, and in light of recent events, every day feels precious, and every day I don't see him feels wasted.

Oh god, this is awful isn't it. I'm really screwed here. Eek, eek, eek, and therein lies another revelation that presumably the rest of the world has known for quite some time. Love makes you some sort of willing prisoner, doesn't it?

When I was a teenager I'd get obsessed with things, and melancholy if they were not real. I always felt ashamed of my strange preoccupations - from TV shows to movies to celebrities to… um… the radio. Now I feel horrified that every time I say goodbye for a day or two, I want to run right back and kiss him again. Then, after a few days, I sink into the same malady - afraid that perhaps, like all my other fantasies, it is unreal. Before I know it, I'm applying the same raving obsession to everything else I encounter - the cable car for that matter. I won't shut up about it. Or the damp problem in my flat…. OK, maybe not the same thing there.

Anyway, it's pretty cool. I'm just going to summarise the pathetic following:

1) I'm pretty concerned that, in spite of the recent crap year, I seem to have found something nice, in the form of a boy.
2) Additionally, I can't stop wondering what people did before chap stick was invented.
3) My third mighty issue is how one can have so much tupperware, and yet never in the right shape for whatever you've just baked.
4) And finally, life's great question... why are there only ever train engineering works when you have something heavy to carry?

Which just goes to show, if you don't have a problem, there's always something to worry about.

Thank god for Sundays.

Wake Up, Crack Up, Stuff Up

5.14am on a cold November morning.

Somewhere in a damp, dimly lit flat is the sound of soft, deep breathing. Someone is dreaming, their breath warm amidst the covers, a little, safe cocoon of peace.

5.15am and a soft tinkling precedes the eruption of a white-blue glow. A rectangle is alight in the gloom, and suddenly a simpering, malignant bell pierces the morning. Moments later it is joined in chorus by a hammering analogue stutter, and yet almost before either is ringing, the room is alive with movement, the covers, like dreams, thrust violently aside. There is scrabbling, desperate tapping, and yet the smartphone touch screen still eludes those frantic fingertips. Next, the monster leaps across the room and searches out the missing clock. A hairdryer is kicked and somehow switches on. It's switched off. The alarm is found. It's switched off too.

All this happens in moments and the chaos is followed by a brief stasis - a caffeine tablet fizzing humbly in a glass of stale water.

How did anyone ever get up any other way? This is how I start my day - an undignified, inglorious, almost violent return to the world I departed only a few hours ago.

Still 5.15am...The bathroom light blasts on and there, thrown aside on top of the laundry basket is a magazine. It's one of those women's health magazines, the kind of magazine for women who WIN and for women who GET THINGS DONE and HAVE REGULAR BOWEL MOVEMENTS TOO.

My eyes open just about wide enough to cram in the hard, contact lenses.I scrub the makeup off them with cold water. No wonder my eyesight just gets worse. The lids are never fully open in the week. Then there are the emails. Back to the little blue rectangle in the dark. The light is oddly comforting. I use it as an excuse to sit back on the bed for a moment and knock back my caffeine. It burns my throat. Alas these first world laments.

Then, before I know I'm fully awake, the pavement pounding begins, come rain or shine, but mostly rain, there I am with the grim outward resolve of a wartime mother - all the strength and glory of womanhood unfulfilled and misdirected into the only thing I have to really take care of - myself. God what a burden it is to be so acceptably self-absorbed at this point of life - mortgage free, child-free twenty something female. I search for any other thought as I continue my run…

And perhaps, on some days, as the rain lashes down, I ponder whether I've crossed that line from 'doer' to 'over-doer', because it sure doesn't feel like enough to get up at 5.15 and run before a day at work. It really doesn't feel like enough to be on time for work, or even a mere half an hour early. It doesn't feel enough to work an 8 hour day and still take a lunch break. This is not the world I live in. We must do more than earn our money, we must suffer for it, we must feel guilt, because we must pay for our privileges and the ultimate knowledge that we live a charmed life, when all's said and done.



First World Problems

Yesterday, I went for lunch at the Gherkin, a three course and champagne delight, with my family and my (now-retired) father's generous boss. My boss gave me the afternoon off. On my way there, horrified at my early departure at 11.45am, scuttling along the Charing Cross Road, I was once again beset by the most epic sense of humour fail. I was thinking to myself, how much a resented this lifestyle and the ownership everyone else is the world seems to have over me, and my own paltry exercising of free will. I cannot resist any more than the residual level of guilt that comes with being a modern, middle-class, western woman, and am incessantly saying yes to things I will struggle to carry through.

Like some sort of whirling dervish, my head spins. I've been faint quite a bit lately and passed out on the train a few weeks ago. It feels that time is speeding up, and I'm whirling faster, getting older rapidly and I just…. want… things…. to…. stay….. still.

Just for a moment. Maybe a little more than a weekend. Maybe long enough to do the washing AND put it away?!



On Being a Media Douchebag

Working the media makes for a particularly warped perspective on work-life balance. More specifically, there isn't one, not if you're anyone. You've got to love your job and that's got to be enough, because this is what happens when you take the leap from creatively frustrated child to savvy media douche. The reality is that 5 days a week, I'm going at 100 mph and about as streamlined as a fridge in a bathtub. This means, in physical terms, I don't quite have the knack of opening the company laptop yet. It's a graceful thing, for graceful people, and yet when I get my sticky, cumbersome hands on it, I always end up prizing it open with all the panache of a toddler playing with a smartphone. I galumph through life like a Shetland pony amongst Thoroughbreds. Far above me the puffing, graceful nostrils steam, manes fly and ripple in the wind, whilst I, below, obediently follow, plucky, stocky, with my hair in my eyes. Ever faithful. Ever a Shetland pony.

So who's in charge? The latest Thoroughbred. At least down here I'm less likely to be in the big race, where one most likely risks falling at a steeple and being unceremoniously evacuated from this life, to be replaced by some other, unfortunate quadruped. The Thoroughbreds are fiery, feisty characters, as prone to brilliance as they are prone to great fuckeries of power. I think of the latest Newsnight scandal (which one? It's our fave scandal bed of late) and cannot help but shrug. They put someone new in charge. They fucked it up. It was only going to go one of two ways.

By the way, that's fuck up now or fuck up later.

But, the fact of the matter is, all of this IS accepted if you work in the media. It's not just accepted, it's a badge worn with pride, passion and self-worth. We suffer for doing something we like. We are expendable, we are sociable and we are all, essentially, going to be wrong sooner or later, so just enjoy it and try to keep out of trouble for now. You will fuck up, you're human (don't forget it or you're on your way to the top). At least when you do tumble back down, it's got to be more of a relief, knowing that you've been ejected, because you could NEVER, NEVER stand leaving of your own accord. Could you?

Off to bed now. Alarm's going off at 5.15am.

Learrned Neurotics, Giving a Shit, Having a Change and being a bit bad and a bit good... all at once

The Well-Adjusted Modern Neurotic

Is this a fire in my belly? No, it's a huge burger. A HUGE burger, and I'm just about comfortable enough to sit still and look at this page without sweating. Overeating is a friend of mine (the real reason I run so much) and yet it makes me so anxious. It's like the end of the world every time I reach the point of not wanting any more of something.

Actually, that's what it feels like being hungover. Or depressed. When you're not hungry for life, when you're not seeking stimulation or sensation, nothing has that same old shine. Nothing feels like it will ever have shine.

Only I know that 24 hours after that pack of biscuits / entire cow / pint of vodka has wriggled it's way through my sorrowful twentysomething system, I'll be eyeing up my next great nemesis, most likely in M&S food. Because I deserve a posh treat, yes?

No, actually. I can't afford it.

Nor can I afford to, as your average twentysomething woman, take too seriously the heady 'you can change' promises of my ladyhealth magazines. I'm not a glamour girl, full stop. I struggle to pronounce Estee Lauder, could barely tell you whether a Laboutin goes on your foot or somewhere rude, and think that Touche Elcat sounds far too much like a sex toy for it's own good. However, when it comes to healthy eating, lifestyle advice and bogus, faddy vitamins, I'm prime real estate and just begging for development.

Here I propose, dawns the latest era of learned neuroticism. Eat well, they tell us, sleep lots, fiddle with your hair, work out and have lots of orgasms. You're worth it. You're WORTH something if you do these things.

If you don't, like the majority of people, the implication is that you're probably not. And suddenly, well-to-do, successful meaningful women are consigned to the same domain of self-regard as the naughty schoolboy who was told he was bad and just acted badder.

If the framework of how we see ourselves is so focused around the goals we must aim for in their entirety, it is very easy to think little or nothing of our assets as they already exist. In better terms, we're getting far too ambitious for our own good. People aren't meant to be perfect, after all. Who ever finds their idol is truly as content as we project them to be?

I'm not saying anything new here, but my thought was that in our tacit understanding of this, and the voice of knowing complicity that bonds us to our favourite magazines and influential mediums, is the most dangerous thing. The instant we take for granted what we know, don't we begin to forget it a little? You're smart and successful and you take 'me time', suggests the magazine. You accept this. You disregard this. Being smart and successful and taking time out is a level playing field. It's no longer an achievement. Instead, you've got to try the latest superfood, join a sports club full of other wretched women like yourself, or just make sure you have the most mind-blowing out of body experience sort of holiday that you deserve. If you don't, well you're just letting yourself down aren't you.

Isn't that the worst thing anyone can say to you? That you're worth more than you can achieve? Yet I think this ethos might just have become so acceptable that neuroticism is something that's par for the course now.

I write radio scripts myself. How many times have I said something along the lines of "we all have busy lifestyles, so don't you deserve XYZ?" I've implied your busy lifestyle is unmovable. I've told you you're missing something. I'm telling you this so you will enter the competition. Today, Starbucks put their wretched Christmas red cups on sale. I went out and got a round for everyone. Red cup day is here. Hurray! What the hell is red cup day? What does that mean? What on earth am I doing?

It strikes me that if we're the people making this bunkum up, how on earth is someone who trusts a publication going to react? I'm not saying that readers and radio listeners don't have minds of their own. In fact, they're probably much more aware of marketing spin than the people working in this strange bubble of an industry can imagine. However, I strongly believe that after a while, if something becomes repeated, it becomes a habit, it becomes desensitised and then before you know it, it's a culture.

I must not overeat. I must have a red cup. I must eat this entire box of chocolate.Then  I must diet myself back in control. Joy, penance, joy, penance.

I think the same applies, not only to our bodies, but to our view of all things personnal. Finance is another prime example of this pendulum of control and frivolity.

I wonder if it's because the middle zone, the indecisive, moderate area between plenty and empty is a boring place, a frightening place, a pointless place? We are told that ambition leads to success. We are told we are successful, or we are told we can be successful. Ambitious people want more from life and they take more. When there is nothing left, they reach the point of completion, where one must either seek out a new goal, another truer goal, or else accept their failure to achieve contentment, and accept themselves as unsuccessful.

I wonder how much of this was always present in the psyche of the well-to-do Westerner? It seems not war, nor loss, nor disaster can shake our drive to move fowards, to be more, to have more. It is perhaps just that our means to move forwards, be more and have more are much more powerful.

I envy those of the moderate disposition, who see the world in a measured light, live their days with the calm assurance that there will be another, and that all things will get done if we just trust to time. But I do doubt very much that those people see themselves in the same manner I do. For don't we all find stillness.... just a little.... boring?

Who are you? I'm the End of the World

I went to a Halloween house party on Saturday. The outfits were fabulous. Or rather, most other people's outfits were fabulous. I bought a witches hat for 50p and a bottle of wine for 8.99. I was drinking it by the fridge when a ghouslish mime artist in a cape approached.

He wasn't actually meant to be a mime artist. He may have been just a regular zombie vampire, who just loooked very much like a mime artists, because he spoke, which I'm pretty sure is off the cards for official mime arists. Anyway, it was pretty groundbreaking stuff, for he said "Hi, I'm X" and shook my hand. I answered "I'm the end of the world... witch"

We both paused for a moment, unsure what that meant or how to proceed, before I recovered and told him my actual name.

Why did this happen? Why did that particular combination of words in that particular order come from my (half-heartedly) blood-soaked mouth? Probably because there would have been some sort of joke there, had I actually been in the practise of partygoing in recent weeks (which I haven't. The last party I went to was a funeral)

Now, I'm jaded enough by these situations not to be too fussed if I royally humiliate myself. It's been done before and it will probably happen again, either before or after someone else does something equally pathetic, and yet I did feel a little sting of disapointment at my performance here.

It got me wondering just how far the 'ce la vie' really can go, when you are essentially dependent on other people's good opinions to secure your future, ultimately financially, through employment (never be famously shit) and even more ultimately having money for food to eat and a roof above your head and maybe even an odd visit to Waitrose, just for something special.

In the current context of my job, which appears to be provoking me to daily frustration (i.e. walking calmly into the studio, crying, shouting fuck and throwing small, unfolded scripts about which do not have the desired destructive effect because they are essentially, weightless pieces of paper, then coming out and returning calmly to work) this thought is occuring frequently.

This morning I walked across St. Martin's in the cold, snow-glazed sunlight and could think of nothing but how angry I was over an email i'd just read on the train. I wanted dearly, once again, to throw in my notice and storm away without a backwards glance.

Of course this didn't happen. Instead I stormed into the office, cleared my desk (a network presenter had just had some toast and left me their plate and crumbs) and cracked on with a good day's work. Why?

What do you mean why? I'm not retarded.

I've worked for years to get into this position. I've worked my butt off to race past the men in my position and achieve this mild position of lowly middle-management and minor status. And I have a flat to pay for. And a journalism degree. And I like shopping at M&S food now and then. And frankly, I do really love working for the radio. Even if the brouhaha and egotistical, group wank element leaves me cold. It would be a shame for a few people to put me off, I say.

Plus, it's quite possible I'm grieving and not in my right mind.

So there's a limit to the 'fuck it all' philosophy, and one I find consistently hilarious. Why are there few things funnier than the collapse of high-minded principles? Is it because this is tragic and voyeuristically cruel.... or is it rather that there is nothing more pleasurable than being reminded of your common vulnerabilities as human beings.

When I calm down and put my face back on, there really is nothing funnier than refelcting on my silly behaviour. I am at one with myself again, at one with all these other idiots, and at the end of the day I have food and a roof over my head, not to mention a job I (on the whole) can still enjoy.

So this is how I found myself listening to Andrea Bocelli so loudly that I thought I blew my speakers (I'd just turned the fader down to have a swear, it transpires) and racing home for a bloody nice bath, to a bloody nice bit of Mozart on Classic FM.

A Change is Just As Good As a Rest

There's no underestimating the lease of life afforded by doing something so everyday in a novel way.

It's been a year since i moved to this flat. Nearly a year since I bought the plush new sofa. Nearly a year since I arranged my bookcases (temporarily) in a most chaotic order.

Yet this is how the bookcases have remained. Save for the odd impulse plunge into an old favourite (I pick books up and put them down. Who has time to read when you don't even have time to take a wee?) they have remained in the temporary state of disorder I KNEW would evolve to be permanent. So too, for my attitude to the new sofa. I bought it on interest free credit - a horrifying foray into the world of 'is this really ok' finance, and even long after it is fully paid off, I don't sit on it, except for special occasions.

My default sofa - one of the bright, red old sofas the radio station no longer wanted, is big enough for a comfortable night's sleep. It's beaten, unpretentious and always welcoming. I read on it, doze on it, check emails on it, eat off it... hell, I even had some great sex on it... and yet there, just feet away, the most grand and fancypants purchase I have made awaits, longingly the same level of usage, habitation and love. I can barely sit on it for 5 minutes, lest I crease it's beautifully plumped cushions.

The same applies to new clothes. I can't bear to buy them in case I make them all sort of... me-ish and ruined. My little sister's cast-off clothes are the best. They're unwanted but always lovely. They're always my best things.

So when those occasional, transitory phases capture you, like a new wind, it's great to go with the flow. Last week I watched an entire film on that damn sofa. I saw my living room from a different perspective. A couple of weeks ago I filed away my old bank statements. Small revolutions indeed, but these are the things that give me energy for life. Isn't it just the sense of joy in life that we seek to reignite each day? Novelty stirs exciement and unpredicability. It makes the world electric, surprising and inviting in a way that is harder and harder to find with age and time and experience.

I think of my late brother-in-law and his unchecked fascination with the world and it's workings and I cannot believe he has died. There was a man who knew everythinng, and yet dedicated the smallest hours of the morning to the acquirement of yet more infomration (and a huge amount of bookcase space, mind space and time and space to the mulling of this information). He must have found the world too much. They say the more you know, the less you know, which is perhaps why he took refuge in the numbing alcohol habit that led to his heart attack and death at 36. But at the same time, I don't think knowing less, or being surprised by the world could ever have been a horror to him until the end, when my sister was diagnosed with cancer and their future took a perspective (in his mind) that could not be resolved, not even tempered through learning or wisdom.

To return to my original point, before this lighthearted blog becomes maudlin, I think that surprise and wonder is the main motivator for all the great things in this world. Curiosity killed the cat, but it also made the cat very happy, because the cat was learning things and unlearning things, and sometimes it is the nicest thing to be proven wrong, or to see that there is another way of doing the everyday

I know knowledge - the acquirement of, and particuarly the sharing of through a thousand regailing and unforgettable stories, was my brother-in-law's great joy. The surprise and delight of learning is what puts a glimmer in the child's eye, and in the eye of the grown man who approaches the world with energy, effort and curiosity... and hope.

This is why, in a small way, if I don't have time to read a book, laugh at a podcast, or take a different train, I can at least put a little surprise in today by having a sit on that new sofa today and see the world, in a very small way, through new eyes.

We've got to work at reinvention every day, and reap it's delights, for if there are some things beyond our control, surely we can at least enjoy the brighter side of intentional unpredictability?

This Horrifying World

Having noted the glories of helplessness above, I now must proceed to, as usual, undermine what has just been said.

I woudl genuinely like to smack the world round the head sometimes. In fact, if I was the firey Irish housewife of the world, I would DEFINITELY throw a few plates at it. Maybe run at it with a red hot poker, just to give it a scare....

... because god dammit world you need to sort out your priorities. The order is all fucky and wrong.

I got on the train at London Bridge earlier tonight and was joined by a man, snot-ridden, who blew his nose on a tissue and carefully, purposefully, placed it on the floor at my feet.

Fine, he's just a scummy man, I accepted, glaring at his brazen, returned stare. Only to discover that moments later, he had whipped a ipad out of his laptop bag and started tapping away at it.

No! I told myself. This is all wrong. Steve Jobs, are you seeing this in heaven? This man has an Apple product and he is really not the right demographic. Look what he just did with the tissue. That's not aspirational, Jobbo. That's just disgusting!

Steve Jobs didn't get back to me on that one, so I just pretended to read my book for 14 minutes until the offensive man dragged his overprivileged, night-nurse tanked self off at Forest Hill (and left the tissue behind)

Oh, and if you weren't quite convinced things have gone a bit fucky with the world order, may I also remind you that  my sister is now a 35 year old widow with cancer, where not 9 months ago she was a happily married woman just starting a family.

ALRIGHT... my first reaction to my own damn self is to say that she won't be 35 years old, or have cancer forever. Heck, there will be someone else who loves her. Maybe one day she'll even marry again, although it feels horrid to say that now. Realistically, she will be loved. She is loved. She will be OK.

But it's wrong now. No two ways about it.

ONCE AGAIN, moving my morose self away from the irrevocable, I genuinely wonder whether I have a right to complain about the man with the snotty tissue, havnig not said a word to him about it.

It's easy to stand on a soap box, particularly on an anonymous blog and decry all of South East London, but frankly I'm no better than the next person if I can't make a stand and say it to someone who can make a change.

I think of all the people who have gone out on a limb for me - to stand up for me, back me up, speak up or just generally step in when I'm in a stitch, and risk their own position for my benefit. These are the people who have a right to a soapbox. My older sister is one of them, funnily enough. And yet she is one of the most forgiving people I know.

Perhaps true strength is just the ability to make a stand when you think something isn't right, have a confrontation and stand by what you say, even if it means accepting your own subjectivity against another's. I suppose when you recognise you might be wrong, as much as the other person, it's a level playing field - therein lies your choice - to do something about it or not?

I said nothing to the man on the train, and yet often when I go running, if I pass a helpless worm washed up on the pavement by the rain, I'll stop, run back, pick it up and put it somewhere safe and earthy. Simliarly, this paranoia saw me chase a man down Blackheath last weekend just because I thought he looked a bit heart attacky, and I ought to be there, as that's what I woudl have wanted for my family.

To be fair, chasing people with disabilities around Blackheath is a bit of a 'wake-up' moment for most sane people, hence I was just about appropriately shocked at my behaviour to recall it. The only thing is, when I passed a worm on the pavement this morning, rushing for my train to work, I left it.

I left the worm and it's been bothering me. I guess I won't do that next time.

So I suppose what I'm getting to is that everyone's pattern of behaviour, and balance of right and wrong, is in continuous flux. We are learning, unlearning, relearning and readjusting every day as experience shapes us into better or worse beasts.

Perfect example of the good and bad rolled into one confusing mess. The couple who brought my sister's husband a blanket and called the ambulance came to her a week or so later and asked her, as a widow they'd met once, to be the guarnator on their house, whcih they were in danger of losing.

My brother was there. He stepped in and made sure she wansn't, as an emotionally vulnerable, recently bereaved woman, signing away the little bit of everything she hadn't lost to a near stranger. She would have done it otherwise. My brother always steps in for family. Our family always step in for each other.

At work currently, I have the sneaking suspicion that I am being used as a pawn in some particular politics. I was let into a secret and sworn to silence by my boss the other night. I've seen her do this with people and they always feel flattered and will jump through hoops to play along and not let her down. And although her tactics are well-planned and effective, I fail to see how people really cannot see what is happening before their eyes or how they are being manipulated.

This paints my boss in bad light, which I must now seek to undo, for she on the other hand is one of the most privately kind and compassionate people I have had the fortune to work with. That's why she's so good at working people - she understands their motivations. It's just perhaps that sometimes, in order to make the motivation of one achieve fruition, she needs to take advantage of another's nature.

And so it rotates, that some must get ahead whilst others take the hit, and sooner or later the ones taking the hit will get their chance... (or perhaps this is what I believe and hence why I play along). It also serves as evidence to me that no one is truly all bad or all good. We're just trying to do our best for those that really matter to us.

I wasn't happy this morning because I felt pressurised to make someone else feel bad, when personally I'd rather have let it go and moved on. But I got on with my day and did as I was told, and really, I stopped feeling so bad when the other person apologised. Suddenly I didn't look like such a bad little henchwoman.

And yet, I too could have stopped this morning, put that worm somewhere safe, and said to my boss that I didn't think it was right, the way this person was being treated.

Because I didn't, i will overcompensate tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will be a better person.

Sorry about today.

The World's Best People

It's hard to write a blog when you're not sure who you're talking to.

Although I know nobody reads this, it's been my little exercise in formalising thought. In the back of my mind, though, I know who I'm speaking to, and I can suspend reality long enough to pretend they're listening. I know who I'm trying to impress, to express to. There's a group of people I like and respect in my little segment of the world, and although they'll never read this, I'm still talking to them. This is who I want them to know.

In the last month one of those people died.

This is intended without melodrama. The honesty of this situation is the single most tragic thing about it. My big sister, who has cancer, is now a widow too. A year ago the happiest, most loving couple I have ever known, and who any have ever known, had none of this on their horizon. They planned to start a family, then she had the diagnosis. Quietly, her loving, brilliant husband hid his fears and drank himself to a heart attack. The day it happened, she'd left him at home for the morning. He'd got dressed that day, having agreed to commit himself to hospital care that afternoon. She was in the hospital having her chemo when they came to tell her. He'd slipped out for one last drink and had a heart attack returning, with two cheap bottles of vodka in a blue bag. Not dignified enough for a great man. Not appropriate by far for a loved man. Not right for a wonderful man. But this was how it happened.

Nobody could have made this up. How could such a beautiful, loving relationship between two of the world's most smart and incredible people have come to such an unfitting conclusion? There isn't any sense why someone's life should end, like this, abruptly at 36, or why the hundreds of people that loved him so dearly should be left wondering how the hell they didn't see it coming. Or what they could or should have done.

I woke up crying two nights before it happened, worrying about them. I didn't know why. Even if I'd done something then, I might have prevented it, but I didn't know what was coming. None of us did. When she was in hospital with a bad infection recently, he told me on the bus home that he'd never been so tired. I told him to rest, to sleep in. That was about as honest as he ever was to me, so why didn't I do more? His parents were supposed to come down, but they didn't. I just thought he was sick too.

He went into hospital the week later. I thought he was sick and sent him a card. My sister was down and she sent me a picture of a dead pigeon that was caught in some netting near his window. I told her it meant nothing.

After that, I took the guy I'm seeing to meet them at Somerset house and we saw The Birds. He was singing Bond themes (he was very musically talented) but he looked so ill. I was surprised they weren't drinking, but too stupid to figure it out, even then. I told the boy he was out of sorts, said how poorly he'd been. I really wanted him to meet my usual brother-in-law and said he wasn't normally like that. He said he seemed very tired.

Eventually, my sister told me about how she was weaning him off. He was signed off work and that hit him pretty hard. I spoke to her the Wednesday night before it happened on the phone and she was so tired and the chemo was giving her blisters. I took a day off work to spend with them. We spent some time out of the house though. She was caring for him and was exhausted. We went back there and he even mentioned the alcohol problem to me.

He showed me how to season the skillet he'd given me for Christmas, as he was the best cook and always made wonderful things for people. Every time I made a cake for them I was worried about what he would think as I so wanted to impress him. He was my top recommender for comedy too. If he said it was funny, it was worth watching or listening to. He was always one step ahead of those trends too. He sent a video around of the number 1 single weeks before he died. But then he was always up at 3am sending around funny things from the internet, which he read all of, I'm reliably informed.

Then when I went home I wanted to hug him goodbye, but he was so uncomfortable. I climbed on the sofa and did it anyway. He text my sister to tell me sorry he was grotty, but he was in pain. I didn't think he had been grotty. I thought he had been polite because he always was so gentlemanly. He had even sat up and played me a podcast when we brought lunch back, even though he had already listened to it. He really liked podcasts. My sister says he always needed input (like Johnny 5).

She is sad she won't pick him up from the station after work and he won't still have one earphone in. She'd just ordered him some new ones. We'd been to the post office the week before to send off the faulty ones and they came back the week he died. He liked information and just picked it up like a sponge. My sister used to get wound up that he would have the computer and the TV and maybe a podcast on all at the same time. He had an answer for everything. He was very good when she had the biopsy and he was talking about the prognosis to my parents. He was a good doctor. Although he had been a bit sad since some problem with filling in some forms on time meant he couldn't get his consultancy. Something very little had ruined that.

The next day he was too ill to come to the day out we'd had arranged for months. All his friends were going, my sister had arranged it. It was all paid for. I came to her house and we all went out for the day. She must have felt torn, but she was so tired and low with the chemo and caring for him, she needed the day out and it did her good. I made a picnic. She dropped me home and got back late. I feel guilty. She always puts others first, and that day she had to decide.

I know she will always regret taking that day out, because they argued when she got home and on the Monday he had the heart attack. He was just on machines for a couple of days, but she and his best friend saw the CT scans and his brain was gone and all his organs. They switched off the machines on the Wednesday and we were there when he went. His parents and sisters said goodbye first, so it was just my parents, my sister, one of his best friends and me when he went. The sun came out when they switched off the machine and I think he was looking over her then.

I felt sad for his best friend because he lost his parents and he was his family. He said he just missed his mother when I asked him how he felt. I'm glad he and my sister have each other too, because she will need her friends to get on with things. You can't only have your family, you need to get on with things.

I think I'm going over things to grieve here, because that's not something you can do with other people either, and I certainly don't want to be in floods of tears around my sister, because we need to be strong and there for her. They had 8 embryos fertilsed and she is still going to have the babies with a surrogate. The doctor said she may even be able to carry them herself in a couple of years but we will have to see, because the cancer is quite related to female hormones and we don't want it coming back. Her husband's sister is pregnant. His mother told my mother at the funeral, which upset my mother, because his mother is an alcoholic too and wouldn't come when he needed her and wanted her too and my sister is very angry about that.

This is fracas I don't need to share. It's all tangled up. I just wanted to say this stuff, because who can I say it to otherwise?

I want to come back to what I started with in this entry, that I have lost one of the people I am writing to. But then, maybe he can read it better where he is now. I don't think this entry would impress him, but i have talked about the end here, and his end was not indicative of his life.

Well, at least the funeral was, because it was filled with music and people who were queuing outside the crematorium and upstairs too. Then we all went to the pub and stayed there until 1am. I think his closest friends ended it with shots and were late for their cab, so that was very much his style.

I expect this is the case for many people. There's a format you follow for funerals and whatnot, even if you are only 36. The difference is the person, though, and I could spend twice as long telling you that he was a better, kinder, cleverer and more talented person than any memorial could do justice. He made my sister so, so happy. He loved her so, so much. He always bought her little presents and made her nice things to eat. He taught her things and looked after her and had an answer for everything, and she looked after him back. Simply, the pair of them were meant to be together for much, much longer than this.

He was something different and something special to everyone he met. There truly are a few people like that in the world. He was a hero of mine, someone I was always trying to impress, someone I would like to be like, if only I were smarter, funnier, more resourceful, kinder. He was always laughing - that was his default setting, just bubbling away with this distinctive chuckle. It made me feel confident because he was appreciating, encouraging with that chuckle. My ex got in touch and said he loved him and liked his laugh. They'd got on so well. He got on well with everyone, though. The neighbours said they could hear him chuckling through the walls. That is pretty much everyone's sentiment. Now he is gone. I have got a ukelele and tried to play it. I already broke one of the strings, but I think he'd be impressed if I could learn a tune.

I'm going to send a letter to his family now, telling them as much, telling him he was as much loved by our family. They should be so proud of him. That's the sort of stuff that should be shared, not blogged anonymously.

The thing that makes me saddest is that my sister will go on and live a happy life and see and do things she things are brilliant or funny or clever. I feel sad for him that he won't be there to share them. I hope she can share them with his children. I hope the cancer stays away for good, because it has ruined everything so far. It broke his heart when he thought he might lose her, and that is where the drinking got bad. He was so brave and strong to everyone else and yet to himself he was weak and couldn't stay away from the drink. That was how he saw himself.

We have just got to help her put things back together now.

A month ago, I might have changed all this, if only I'd known. I could have taken the burden off her shoulders and stepped in. They are two strong-willed people, but I could have done something. I'll keep thinking this. You can't do anything about regret.

Those two have been my barometer for a happy and good life. I will always look for the things I think he'd recommend. I will always aim to see my sister happy in the way he made her happy.

We'll still talk to him.

Once Upon a Time I thought this...

Going through my old notebooks, typing up the novel, I came across the following:

• A Newspaper clipping on Balcombe Vidaduct 
• A to-do list from the days when I used to have lunch breaks 
• A spider-diagram from the days when I used to have ideas
• A game of hangman starring my friend Laelia
• A list of birthday presents to be acquired for an ex-boyfriend
• The following weird snippets, which sentimentality and loyalty to a former identity drove me to type up and retain... they felt sort of relevant to this time of year.

NATURE. THE WILDERNESS

Always present in a capacity of strangeness, of non-urbanity. When we are far from it, it is delivery, or abandon. When we are amongst it, it is honesty, or a distanct forgotten something - to be connected with, defined, related to.

We lose ourselves in the city, as unnumbered, writhing lost-things. We can dissolve our minds here. On being suddenly lost amongst nature a strangeness comes - the upshot of such learned, conditioned infacility.

But nature always yields connection. Through fear, desperation or desire, ultimately we find union in the manner it chooses for us, not one we chose for it. Seasons, climates, droughts and plenty - to be reminded of what we do not control is a step from our surrender to it.

Surrender can be found in an hour, found in a weekend, found in a year. This is the internal inclination that distances the natural world from the honed predictability of the urban landscape, the singularity of which cultivates on a lack of necessity. In the city we function. In nature, we relent from habit, release persona and connect. In connection your purpose is another's. Another's purpose is yours.

AUTUMN

Autumn comes first with one cool morning. The sun naps another 5 minutes and I suddenly notice the breeze - a novel movement of air and I ask myself, was it there yesterday?

Consciousness seems more abrupt on waking. I'm warm in bed, but the air slices through the cracks in the duvet, and I recoil at its touch. Outside, in the half-hearted light, beneath a white, forgotten sky, everything is damp and somehow darker.

The dew lingers, the air thins, and when it whips through me - on a station platform, round a street corner - it whispers ' come away'

Change is here. An awakening less fevered than passion, more an instinct of history spurs me into movement, to find a new place. 

Another movement and my heart migrates and the change is within, a pain, an unpointed yearning - just a clear beginning and end. Every year it comes, and every year I follow.

Gigs, Work-Addiction, Seasonal Shifts.. and Being a Secret Slob

GRANDADDY FANS AND FANS OF GRANDADDY

This week was weird. I think I made it weird, actually.

There I was, sitting in the sweatiest, hottest, gig in London, swooning from a big glass of wine, completely and contentedly solo amongst the crowd and awaiting my favourite band, ever, in the world, just staring at people.

These are people I have something in common with. They’re fans of the band too. A band that unformed and reformed and unformed again at the end of the night – a band that unformed and reformed my adolescent soul and entire adult musical predilection (Wham! being the exception).

There we all were, eagerly awaiting a moment we thought we’d never see – the band back together – and all I could see were twatty specs.

Please, someone, tell me when it became the mode for all regular glasses to look like you were lining up at the IMAX about to visit some 3D screening of the latest Hollywood  blockbuster. Whatever happened to a nice, rounded pair of tortoiseshell frames?

Oh.

And there it was. That moment when you realise you’re a type. Right now I’m sitting here, stood up by a friend that frankly, I’m a little worried about, in a Clapham North pub on Friday night (eugh) drinking red wine and blogging about what? Glasses?

Holy crap. It’s like a little egocentric freezeframe just happened. If this were a movie then it would probably start moving again as I get over myself. However, it isn’t, and I’m just a tad drunk already.

Anyway, back to the point of this, which believe it or not, was NOT twatty ‘I work in media’ glasses. It was rather, on how I got to thinking how very, very important the band Grandaddy have been in my emotional formation, and how very important they had been in the emotional formation of almost every other sweaty little bumpkin at that gig.

I couldn’t quite understand how people look so very different – some ordinary, some very good-looking, none downright odd - outwardly and yet share such fundamental good stuff on the inside. It was warming, really! And even if they just liked the band a little, or just went along for a bit of fun, or were dragged, it still felt nice to be reminded of how much  you can have in common with the person you least expect.

  

THE NIGHTHAWKS

Later, on the journey home, I stared ruefully at the various slumbering victims of night-tubing. Where was their stop? Would they make it home? Or would it be the night bus from the middle of nowhere?

I found myself noisily trying to stir them at various stops (socially demographing all the while… it’s amazing how telling that pashmina can be) I know I’d appreciate the same, having ended up in Colliers Wood a multitude of times when I lived in Tooting. It’s not far on the tube. It’s a bitch on the night bus, especially when you’re worried you’ll fall asleep again.

But the night bus isn’t all bad though. When I moved to Sydenham last year, I stubbornly continued with my social life around Clapham, Balham, Tooting and their environs, which entailed the late bus to Elephant & Castle, and a late bus back out of town to get home.

I do not enjoy this bus. Especially not in the middle of winter, but it was here that I met Eddie. Eddie was wearing a puffa jacket, I wasn’t wearing enough. We fell asleep on each other, on that long, toe-numbing trundle to suburban London. It was just before Forest Hill when we both awoke, sedated by booze to discover we were sharing body heat on one of those intimate two-seaters on the top deck.

Now, I’ve no idea what Eddie was talking about, really, but we talked. I told him about being a radio producer and excitedly, he told me about what he does. Everything. Everything? I asked. Everything. He replied. Somehow, I took this to mean music, and told him I was always looking for new and custom stuff to use in trails and competition beds, if he had a PRS registration.

And that’s how I ended up with ‘Eddie Does Everything’ in my purse, and a mobile number. Why I’ve kept it these all these months, I’m not quite sure. It’s just funny to open your purse and be reminded that if you really want to you’ll find some random, stupid connection with anyone. Even if you just invent it. Heartwarming a la my Grandaddy gig experience.

Whilst we’re on the subject of late nights, let’s extend this to early mornings. I’ve decided that there are some benefits to being that douchebag at work – the one who’s in before everyone else, the one’s who’s there after everyone else, the one that just generally trumps the lot when it comes to hardcore work-based dedication. It’s just generally not quite as good as the benefits of NOT being in work all the time.

The douchebag is usually me. There are lot of pathologically pathetic people in my company who also feel inadequate should they start work at 9am / leave at 5.30pm / take a lunch break. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that people care so much about doing the perfect job, but let’s face it…. There’s a point where it becomes more about your self-opinion than the work you’re getting done.

In the scheme of things, I’m all for integrity and high personal standards, but when you’ve been flat out on adrenalin, deadlines and resolving unpredictable, last-minute problems for 14 hours, everyone else has come to work, finished work and gone to the pub, and you still don’t feel quite content with things… YOU HAVE GOT TO FUCK IT OFF FOR THE NIGHT.

Frankly, it’s easier said than done, but worth doing anyway. The empowerment of just resuming your own goddam life heavily outweighs the benefits of the moral high ground, the late-night reduced section of the Co-op, AND even the promise of pouncing upon some M&S Food goodies after the sticker man has been round.

This week, I’ve rolled in at 9am every day. I’ve felt guilty, I’ve felt out of control, but basically nobody has given a crap, and I’ve got the work done. A LOT of work. I’ve been waking at 5am, switching the alarm off, waking at 6am, switching the alarm off, then waking at 7am by sheer chance. Exercise has been off the table. I think I must be a bit ill.

It’s either that, or frank awareness that however much I love my job, there are more important things in my life right now. My sister, our family, my friends, namely. Perhaps, also the rather wonderful man I appear to be seeing. Yes, a real man.

THE SUMMER THAT NEVER CAME

Come with me now…

…. You’ll have to imagine the birdsong.

This picture was taken on Thursday. I’ve taken my sister’s post-chemo days off for the rest of the treatment in case she wants some company or whatnot, but in the morning I went running at a nearby Ash plantation at Beckenham Place Park.

There I was, galloping along, a little hypnotized by the album I was listening to, when I was struck by the feeling I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been waiting for it for a long time.

It’s September – it’s a chill in the air, a moisture and however warm that sun is, it’s perceptible. It feels like a lifting of something heavy just above the eyes. It’s change, it’s movement, it’s relief.

I was racing along with the sun in my eyes and it felt like I was dancing through the patchy woodland light. My heart was soaring, my feet barely seemed to touch the ground. I was just running outdoors, free as a lark in the September sunshine, and it felt AMAZING.

It made me realise that such an everyday delight had been gone from my life for so many months! It’s just the simple joy of being alive.

I may have mentioned before that August, perennially, is my depressed month. It’s no big deal, but I feel as gloomy as sin at the end of August – numb of mind and spirit – so that when the change comes – usually with one lot of rainfall, and the air changes, I’m elated and alive again in September. It’s my most creative month. I come to life in the Autumn. I write prolifically, run, draw, talk, revel in music, enjoy all the things that have slowly ebbed away from me over the hot, confusing summer months.

This year has been different. Spring is my other opus-time, but the natural pattern of things has been scattered throughout 2012.

This is how it has gloomily been, on reflection:

January… heartache, writing escape, further heartache. Small dramas about money, friends etc.

Easter… Heartache pales in comparison to cancer. Realisation that the most important people in our lives are NOT invincible.

June… The whole world has changed and will never be the same. But we are doing OK, together and we will not take each other for granted ever again. Heartbreak: The finale.

August…Falling in love. Quite unexpectedly.

September…Waking up. A little more bad news so far. Not going to share it. Can’t really, as it’s not my news to share. But I’m going to do everything I can to make it OK.

And here we are, thick with resolve, brazening emotions high and low, swooping like migrating birds into the season. This feels like the summer that never came, for there has been more than a hole in the year, this year. There has been no summer, no season, for although they took that cancer out of my sister and she is strong and fighting, it has changed everything.

It has been like one world ended, and another has begun. In this new one, my eyes are open and I know, every day, with a nagging fear and swelling love, how lucky we are, how fragile life is and how we must cherish each other. That is a big, stinking cliché, no doubt. But that is what cancer does to families. It is clear as day and true and real as any stinking cliché. That’s WHY a cliché’s a cliché and not a platitude.

So I’m calling this the summer that never came, because the shift has taken place. This feels like a brand new world and this month of change, always so bright, beautiful and poignant, makes it all the fresher. The blackberries are beginning to ripen – I already saw a woman out picking. The shadows are longer, making everything look like a picture postcard. I ran into a field and came across ten dogs being walked in a group. It was a little dog-party and it made me feel so happy. But then, dogs do. It’s just their sunshine outlook.

OH. THAT HAPPENED FAST

That was my sister’s measured comment on the phone, when a clump of newly grown hair made the jump from head to hand.

Later, I knocked on the front door and received no answer. Letting myself in, I followed a steady thudding through her sun-dappled kitchen to peer into the garden. There she was, the day after some pretty hardcore chemo drugs, pumped on steroids, swinging a mallet and steadily breaking up the remainder of some concrete slabs. I think she’s channeling Ripley from Alien.

At any rate it was the most wonderful thing I’d seen in a while. For some reason, that matter of fact disregard for any sort of victim behavior made my heart soar. She was Scarlett O’Hara ploughing Tara. My sister, playing the good old “Fuck Cancer” card. What a bloody legend.

And the link here isn’t too tenuous to talk about ‘Jing’ the Chinese energy I have learned about this week. From what I can glean, it’s the life-force that brings vitality to body and mind. I know this only because the man I’m doing sex with told me… and he knows Kung Fu. He went away on a 2 and a half week trip and left me with the challenge of making some serious novel-writing progress. He also told me that men can give the ladies their Jing with a bit of how’s your father, so I’ve taken his parting gift to heart and been super-creative all week (even if it hasn’t applied to getting into work on time)

Actually, it’s quite possible my creativity is the only damn thing I can do to stop myself thinking about him, not that I’d dream of letting him know that of course. Novel-writing is a great distraction, it turns out.

POSH AND STINKY

This week I ran past this charming canal… along to the parcel delivery office to pick up what I thought was a letter. It was a massive course starter kit from the NCTJ on this Distance Journalism course I’ve decided to do.

It was a hot day, and had been a hot run, but I was short on time and need to get some things from the Co op, so I braved it on the way back, and just tried to stay away from the few other customers in there at that time of day.

It was a quiet, but as I was queuing at the till, I’m SURE a retarded man told me I smelt bad. I DID smell bad, by the way. I’d been running for an hour in 25 degree sunshine and was now carrying a giant box of books. I just chortled away and agreed, good-naturedly. I had definitely gone beyond a ladylike glowing at any rate.

But whether or not he genuinely was addressing me, or the moon, is sort of irrelevant to my point.  The fact is I moved to Sydenham just because I feel comfortable doing this here, and nobody knows who I am (except the guy in Costcutter. And the staff of Penge Food Centre).

My flat has a group of tattooed drunks lying on the steps every day. There’s rubbish down every alleyway and my flat – in spite of my Glade Sense n’ Spray Air Fresheners that fart out musk at every movement – always just smells a little bit damp. I can let the side go, and let myself go a bit, because nobody looks fancy in Sydenham. Everyone is just a bit normal and scrappy. Loads of people have hygiene issues, alcohol issues, debt issues, asylum issues, literacy issues… but it’s a nice, friendly place and I don’t have to tart around like a media bitch when I’m here. THAT is why I love it. That, and the many trees.

So, back home in the shower, it sort of amused me that I was scrubbing down and buffing myself up for that Classical BRITS that evening. One of the stations I work at was going, obviously, and I was heading along to loiter in the corners and get to know my colleagues a bit better whilst they inappropriate and unguarded.

I imagine most people make this transition in a day  - from slob to shiny and back again. I think this is the most tiring part of any day. I would get so much more done if I could just shave my head and wander into work wearing jeans and a T-shirt. No undies. Cave lady, wurgh…. And yet, I’ll never quite let myself. When it matters, I am impeccably presented. And it DOES matter. A lot. As my mother will tell you I’m sure, when she’s hassling you to put some earrings in / lipstick on / show off your waist. She is completely right, of course.

AND ANOTHER THING MY MOTHER KNOWS…

Oh… and she was right about something else this week… just quickly. Vice Versas anyone? They’re like giant white and brown Smarties – some sort of chocolate in a sugar shell – the reverse on the inside to the outside. Clever. Anyway, they’re back, and I’m sure my Mum used to love them, so I got some.

Just thought it was worth noting amongst all the other mental crap of this week. I genuinely, genuinely wanted to call home about it.

IN SUMMARY…

In summary? I think I have joined the world of strange people trying to tie everything together neatly when the only true connection is my addled mind. 

It’s been a weird blog post this week, but in loose rhyme form I’ve learned the following:

You CAN make a connection, in spite of twatty specs,

You have to leave your work at work  - make time for love & sex

Change is always poignant on lovely Autumn treks

A sunny outlook changes all, just keep your Jing in check.

Oh.. and maybe....

And there’s something quite affirming, about being a total wreck.