In Between Days

Yesterday was a bit of an odd one. I spent the morning in a bit of a daze, not doing much more than eating toasted fruit bread and staring vacantly (it was a Saturday, after all...). Minutes seemed to drag as though they were tired by the effort of passing time.

By afternoon I found myself whisked off to a strange land ("The Countryside") to be surrounded by the bustle and comfortable fuss of family life (-not my family, I hasten to add: my family is so small we are at the point of extinction and the World Wide Fund for Nature may be getting an appeal together any minute). There is something lulling about watching the dynamics of a messily loving family: it is almost as though you see the family shorthand emerge and feel privy to some secret code - you watch the power struggles and yearnings of the youngest members as they try to find their place in it all; you see the adults drift in and out of roles they have created or been given; you see family traits - a smile, a laugh, an intonation - echoing across generations. It probably seems ordinary, mundane, even boring to most people: to me it was welcome respite. I might have looked dazed and out of my depth, but I felt calmed to see something uniquely normal, something brilliantly, exquisitely quotidien.

That all probably makes me sound like some sort of analytical misanthrope detached from the world - but it isn't how I felt, nor was made to feel: I was made to feel welcome and free just to be - and for that I am extraordinarily grateful. The pressure lifted for a while and I felt the sun on my skin. It was good. Just plain good.

The evening saw me back at the flat, however. My chilled mood couldn't last. Before too long another barbed and spitting spat broke out. Ugly things were said - some were meant, some weren't - but I could feel my strength slip away. It did neither myself nor my ex any credit nor favour: I am not proud of how I clawed back like a cornered cat. I slept dreamlessly, restlessly.

Sunday finds me contemplative, uneasy, uncertain. Not uncertain about whether or not I have done the right thing, not even uncertain about what I want, but uncertain as to how I proceed. It feels like an "in between" time - like the moment between jumping and landing, the moment between breathing in and singing out. The landing could go wrong, the note could be missed - it's all to be settled and decided but the action is already begun: I am committed to continue. I know I will have more days like these - I just need to find a way to deal with them.

Every day is different.

I need to be connected to the world again. I feel as though some days I seem to drift further and further away - and then I have to grab myself and haul myself back. It takes effort not to fall off the edge of the world - I haven't made the effort for a while. I need to start again, hand over hand, hefting along my life as though it were some thick rope clinging to a mountain. I need to feel my muscles burn and stretch as I hang on to the world, keeping a tight grip, lifting myself upwards, ever upwards.

Today my hangover has helped connect me with my body - the overcast sky is gentle to my eyes and I could almost kiss it in thanks. I am grateful for running water, clean clothes, clean skin. I just wish I could stick the shower head in my ear and flush out the haziness from my brain. I do have moments of clarity - small and large epiphanies -but I want to focus more and be more focused. It will take time and effort. Small steps.

The Kennel Club

I woke up this morning.

This in itself is remarkable because it means that I slept. I woke up awash in sweat, disoriented and dazed, but I woke up nonetheless.

Yesterday I moved into the boxroom (I'm calling it The Kennel- all new homes deserve a name, surely?). Ironically, it's where Mrs Gripes' Maw always used to think I slept... I do love irony.

I can't say the move wasn't traumatic: the lines of a Sondheim song keep running through my head;

Everything's different
Nothing's changed
Only maybe slightly rearranged

You're sorry-grateful
Regretful-happy
Why look for answers
Where none occur?

You always are
What you always were
Which has nothing to do with
All to do with her

Being back here means I have to face things, face consequences, face myself. I know I stayed away too long, imposing myself on someone else like a needy, greedy cuckoo in a nest, demanding, demanding, demanding so very unfairly - and I am sorry-grateful for that - I was delaying the inevitable and I should learn from it. I shall learn from it. I am learning from it.

Now I am here I need to face-up to the myriad decisions I need to make, the changes that need to occur; that's hard, albeit necessary- inevitable maybe. Maybe a kennel is what I need right now: a roof, food and occasional walkies... find out what kind of animal I really am.

Well, here's hoping...

"When sorrows come they come not single spies but in battalions"

It's a good job new spines are flexible, durable and able to repair - because mine got a kicking yesterday that I am still feeling today.

Worked-up into a frenzy of anxious excitment (tempered with great trepidation) I went to view a flat. Calling it a flat is perhaps generous - a random collection of functional rooms would be more accurate.Not even a collection, maybe a clump. A clot? Anyway...

High in the attic of a Georgian tenement several overseas students and myself prodded and poked our way around the grim property, feigning disinterest. It was functional - nothing more, nothing less - except it had a view across to Berwick Law, the looming presence of Arthur's Seat and the broad expanse of the Firth of Forth that I could feel would calm me when I needed calming and entertain me when all seemed lifeless, the constantly changing vista of the sea acting as some great movie screen. I wanted to stay here, regardless of the hike, the grotty stair, the overwhelming sense of misery that emanated from the hastily painted woodchip walls.

I tried haggling (me! haggling!) with the letting agent - but it was more out of a sense of new-found cockiness and swagger than in any real hope of battering down the price. I took an application form and sauntered down the stair. It would be a doddle.

Sat in a café on the Royal Mile I started to fill in the form. Dubstar were playing on the radio, "Not So Manic Now" - and I took it as an omen - things would be calm, I would have my lofty eerie, my writer's garret, to build my new self and life. A niggling doubt played in the back of my mind however: I needed to check that I would have enough hours' work next session to cover the rent. I phoned the college.

My colleague answered the phone on the third ring. I asked outright about hours and he was evasive, only giving it to me straight when I told him what was going on in my life right now. With an ominous deep inhalation of breath, he informed me that my current post was being amalgamated into a new position, to be advertised this week. I was free to apply of course, but...

In short: no guarantee of work. I folded the application form and put it in my bag, tears of frustration burning my eyes. All the strength I had gathered seemed to swirl away. I walked down to Princes Street Gardens and sat outside the National Gallery, watching the trains pulling out of Waverley Station, heading somewhere timetabled and certain. I closed my eyes and felt the world pull me and sway me for a while, then opened them again to a new world, a new reality. I phoned a voice of calm and understanding, me babbling with new resolve, needing to hear that it would all be OK, all OK... and I did. It touched me like an embrace.

This is a fresh challenge. A new opportunity: so, OK, I won't have my own space just yet.And I won't have a familiar job to escape to: I must skulk back to the home I left - the flat that once was my home, to be more precise - and live kenneled in a spare room until such times as I can escape. I must decide my own direction, take fresh steps rather than rely on old familiar working paths.

Maybe it will be good for me. Maybe I need to repair there, see the devastation I have created, own it, live with it and absorb it into me - a fresh injection of steel into my hardening spine. Maybe I need to face my demons and not run from them.

I'm growing up, I think. I hope, anyway. I always hope...

Being and doing

Being

The details are mine to know and feel. Respect that.
I'm not self-editing, I'm not even preserving the feelings of anyone involved - I'm thinking, processing and concluding.

So, I'm no longer someone's partner (that sounds too passive, like it "just happened" - it didn't: I jumped two-footed, like I always do; I eventually, tortuously made a choice and jumped). I am proud that I was, for a while. I am proud of her - I hope she is proud of herself.

I am, for the first time in a long time, entirely free to do whatever I choose.
Choice is a frightening concept - people choose to do things that harm them, people choose to do things that help and heal them: what choice will I make? Do I know the difference?

Doing

Practically, I need a place to stay, to be myself (that self that has slipped out from time to time, however hard I've tried to suppress it) and to be by myself. Various people have suggested I need to be with others, but how do I re-learn me if I am surrounded by tempting easy influences? I don't want to take the easy route. There is no easy route.

I need to get my ambition back, to focus it and channel it in a way that fulfils me.

Friday I was an energyless messy splatter of raw emotions: today I can feel my spine begin to grow, a new form beginning to take shape. I'm not scared, though: I probably should be, but I'm not. My heart is still beating, my lungs breathe, my mind is running. I am maybe not entire yet, but I am piecing myself back together moment by moment.

I am doing this for myself. For the very first time I am doing something entirely for myself. I don't care if you think me selfish - let me be.

This just seems right...

I'm a person with a lot of faith - but no "Faith" if that makes sense - underneath my pessimism-stained defences lies a bright hopeful heart.

This poem says a lot: it's speaking to me right now... And I hope it's speaking for me, too. I want it to be a comfort, to console and to apologise and to be an olive-branch of hope... (I want a lot from a poem, don't I?)


[Thanks again Carol Ann Duffy: preposterously, humanly talented poet that she is...]

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre

Where to start? ("Heer be dragons")

" The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

I'm not sure what has been going-on, to be honest, except that it isn't what I thought was going on. I am making very little sense these days I find. It's liberating to realise that you don't really make sense and that the sense that you think you've been making is in fact built on a false premise. Liberating - like releasing a caged bird and watching it circle for a while before soaring - and terrifying at the same time.

So where to start? Possibly the best question I could ever ask - and the hardest to answer. Should I start at the present and work back or the past and work forward? (I'm circling, see... I might not be soaring from some time...)

OK. I'll start with the "dramatic" bit. I nearly willingly hurled myself over the edge into a very dark place; bottomless, remorseless and without end. I was saved by a moment of -
actually, I can't really give the moment itself a name. I'm still confused about that bit. Scratching my head, looking in a mirror and muttering, "what the fuck?" Anyhow... I was saved by a moment- a moment of love whatever form it took, of friendship whatever the intention, of simplicity and unthinking - nonetheless.

Tailspin. Freefall. What was it Yeats said,

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."

These lines resonate and ring clear to me, that's for sure. You can't hold on when things spin so fast. You lose your grip. I lost my grip...

For the entirety of May, I have been more chaotic than usual. Reeling, bouncing, glowering and burning icy cold. There is no easy way to say this: it is all to do with grief and anger that I have been (am?) holding in for years. I think I let it out from time to time, but actually I just give it air in order that it is fuelled further. For years I have been growing colder, keeping this angry grief inside and nursing it tenderly as though I would miss it were it gone... I have been taking out on my wife, lover, partner for years. Silently, conspiratorially, secretly, ever increasingly angrily.

Rage and self-hatred have poured out of me in equal measure to tears. (Oh, I'm sure there's still some left, don't worry...) But along with the rage has come honesty. For the first time in years I have been speaking honestly: not hiding, not dulling the sharpness of the words I use, not trying to hold back or resist hurting, too tired to guard the cold angry grief and letting some of it leak away....

Anyhow, having turned away from my wife, lover, partner, having contemplated throwing myself - cage and all - into the dark remorseless place (maybe even selfishly/lovingly taking someone else with me) yesterday I had a sudden realisation: I didn't need to be angry anymore - it wasn't some nameless, amorphous anger: it had a cause - a real cause - and thus, perhaps, a cure. I am starting to turn back: I am starting to come home - I am moving away from the edge: I don't like it there anymore.

I am not fixed, not yet - but I can see that I am broken- more broken than I had thought- and that's a start. I want the cold, angry, burning grief to go away. I can't hold on to it any more. I want to fly again, without this weight dragging me down. I know I will make mistakes, I might not get to soar - I might just flap my wings sitting on top the cage and maybe that would be fine too.

It's liberating to realise that you don't make sense, that you don't have to make sense - and it is terrifying. I am terrified - but still here.

My Way Home

All it took was the time it takes
To smoke a cigarette or jam on the brakes
I nearly had it in my hands and now it's gone
Am I complaining 'bout my luck again?
Well it seems to me I was the one
Stood moaning in the morning sun
And now it doesn't matter much wherever I may roam
I keep feeling, feeling my way home

Now you see me, now you don't
You say you will but I know you won't
You nearly had me in your hands but now I'm gone
But not complaining 'bout my life again
No sirree, and what I've got belongs to me entirely
I look left and I look right and I cross this road alone
'Cos I'm feeling my way
I may go up, I may go down but wherever I may roam
I keep feeling my way home

Shall I explain away my life again?
Well it seems to me it's too far gone
To wonder where it all went wrong
I get up and I get down but I get there on my own
And I'm feeling my way
I look left and I look right and I cross this road alone
'Cos I'm feeling my way home

(Kirsty MacColl - from the album "Electric Landlady")

OK. So I'm back. Well, sort of. Almost, anyway. Soon, perhaps.
Did you honestly think I would be gone forever? Oh, the pointless, needless, needy things I have to tell you, anonymous-reader-type people...
You will laugh. Or maybe cry. Or maybe find another blog to read...
Oh, you probably won't even notice or care much...
-Oh the pointless, needless, needy things I have to tell you...

-But they'll keep.
I'm going nowhere. Not for a while, at least...

That's your lot.

I'm done.

(I was trying to think of something witty and elegant to end with, but I can't so... *drifts off into the ether*)

Valentine's Day is (nearly) Over

(and less truculently, this effort from Mr Stephen William Bragg esquire, sung in typically painful fashion, and yet no less meaningful for it...& no, it isn't the same song as the title of the post. So there.)

Whatever you are doing, Happy VD... Or not, who am I to tell you how to feel?

What's black and white...

... and red all over?

A penguin with sunburn of course. (My Tom Smith's Christmas Cracker of 1978 told me so, so it must be true....)

Not that these fellas have sunburn. Oh, no (even though they do live in California...) - they are far too delightfully penguin-tastic for that...

Oh - and having watched EastEnders may I just say that having Pat do to Patrick what Frank did to her (you know the full frontal flasher thing as a precursor to illicit decrepit shagging *shudder*) is appallingly lazy writing: they should put that one back in the plot cupboard sharpish and not take it out until, oh... ever. *feels queasy at the thought of ever seeing that hoary old device again... and the flashing too*

[Look, I can't do relentless gloom. A fair bit of seemingly endless gloom, I'll admit - but relentless? *Makes strange "thrpppfft" noise* Now that would be a bit much.]

Waiting....

Sometimes it's just like this. *shrug*
I am my own worst enemy.

What is it Billy Bragg says?
"I have all the self-loathing of a wolf in sheep's clothing."
Yeah. Pretty much sums it up.

-Good weekend?
What the fuck do you reckon?


EDIT: It can't rain all the time...
(It's an MP3... possibly. And it might disappear at any moment.*shrug* Jane Siberry, if you were wondering....)

Making up takes time and work. It isn't over yet, I guess. Work and time, not just wishing things better and hoping.
Talking things over and snot certainly go together it would seem, so if you have shares in Kleenex, rub your hands together for a bumper dividend...
I still feel lower than a snake's socks - and full of self-recrimination: I know my faults -you read this, so you know them too- and I really, really need to work on reducing them (removing might be a bit of a tall order).

Doing it for myself is one thing- I've been putting that off for years - but doing it because I love someone worth changing for (and who knows my faults and loves me still) is a mighty incentive. And I do, I truly do.
-So I must.

Coming out (again)

Well, I finally did it.
I came out -

-as a blogger.

*exhales*

Can't honestly say it was a stress free event.
Can honestly say I see Mrs Gripes' point of view. (Yes, I really should have told her a long time ago. I know. I know...)
Can't blame her for being pissed off with me. Very.*

So, Mrs Gripes now knows I blog and has read much of it - while I have been sat next to her, turning a subtle shade of puce and literally biting my lip.

(Is it OK if I'm a little at a loss for words right now?









Thanks...)
I think I would like a drink now, please.

* Very. Although we are definitely making up. Oh yes. Yes, indeedy do...

Better...Now keep it up.

Mrs Gripes has flu now. Poor, poorly poppet is suffering hellishly (and I am a crap nurse: although I could probably administer a fair bedbath, given half the chance....) and I feel very guilty about having to leave her and go to work. Surely employers should allow people to take "ministering to the sick" days?

But, to focus on the positive, the sun actually is shining. Not just peeking out from behind the clouds and wondering if it should make an appearance, but beaming like a three year old who has just discoved the word "bum"...

And for which I am truly thankful.

In Between Days

February is full of them - days of nothing precise, nothing clear-cut, nothing that can clearly define one thing from another.

From my window at work I can see the great grey expanse of the Firth of Forth, Fife is a smudged mist in the distance, Berwick Law stands like an erect nipple on a cold day. The landscape looks wintered out, exhausted - and all blurs into one greyly indistinct whole.

Pathetic fallacy being what it is, I too feel as though I have had my fill of winter. I crave some sun to soften my winter-roughened edges, something green to lighten my outlook, something budding, fresh and new to make me look hopefully on the world.

I feel as though I am crammed with sighs today and they can't help but leak out. Stuffed full of half-hopes, half-doubts, half-hearted in all things, today is a trudging drudge.

Just as the days are getting longer, I know things will get better, but a little sunlight shouldn't be too much to ask.

Advice for gloomy days

If you're feeling mildly shite,
get yourself a pocket kite.

(good slogan, eh?)

I got a teensy weensy pocket kite from my sister at Christmas. (She knows I've had no bloody luck getting a "proper" kite to fly. Ever. In my entire life.
- There are pictures littering several photo albums of me scowling at tangled kites, kites crashed to the ground, kites that have beheaded passers by etc, etc...
She reckoned the pocket kite would be "fool proof."

It is! I am that fool and it even flies for me! Even in the faintest breath of wind, it eats sky!

(-and that "I can fly a kite, I can! Look! Look!" feeling- that garners the admiration of dogs, small children and old people, is unbeatable. *sigh*)

I realise that this isn't universal advice - and should you live near to overhead powerlines, I really don't think it's for you - but I feel better for it.

Funny Anniversary

Today is the 17th anniversary of the first time I got dumped (well, by a woman who I had actually snogged more than once, anyway.)

She dumped me outside the Co-op on St Stephen's Street in Norwich at 3:42 in the afternoon. It was cold and grey. I'm fairly sure it was a Thursday. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying - but I knew I was dumped. She kept saying sorry and not meaning it.

I was broken-hearted for at least a month. Then I started to seriously fancy her ex-girlfriend, skive school and screw-up my A-levels.
(-But that's another story entirely...)

In retrospect, it actually is a happy anniversary: I started to learn a great deal that day. 

*grits teeth*

[OK. OK. So I know I'm a muppet. I still haven't a clue where the previous 2 posts have gone, though...

Right.

Where was I?

Oh yes...]

This morning I was devilish excited to see my signed copy of Sarah Waters' The Night Watch plop through my door.

On opening the package I was less thrilled.
"It's bloody scuffed" I moaned, "Someone hasn't wrapped it properly, it's all scratched... Bloody customer service... Bloody rip-off, slack-alice Britain.. Bloody [insert rant here]-"

At which point Mrs Gripes looked at the copy held in my white-knuckled grip and paused a moment.
"You know, " she said, without so much as a hint of a smirk, "I think it's supposed to look like that."

I looked again at my much-anticipated copy.

It is. It is designed to look scuffed.

Bloody wanker bastard graphic designers. I mean, who designs a book to look knackered? I mean, really?...

Stinkin'Thinkin'

The Top 10 Types of "Stinkin' Thinkin'"

I'm feeling particularly sensitive and wafty today. I've been brooding for much of the day (in between coughing jags and cups of fennel tea, that is...) I was considering feeling baneful, and maybe trying my hand at some lamenting and rueing too - but, to be honest, I haven't got the energy.

Anyhow.

I read the linky-linked thing above (hoping it would be some Happy Mondays druggy groove "thang".. er... man) and clapped my hands with glee to see that it was internet self-help bollocks. Oh joy! Oh rapture!

Skimming through the list, I am (generally) guilty of all ten. Quite possibly more besides, but they only listed ten...

Just curious, like. But I was wondering if I was indeed the most negative-thinking, self-destructive belly-button analyser in blogdom, or if maybe there might be someone else if not worse, then certainly no better?

Well. Am I?

(Oh, I always am, aren't I... *checks* yep, that's at number 2, I do believe)

Replacing brushes with breasts: when "This Morning with Fern and Phil" gets surreal

Replacing brushes with breasts
(Safe for work, oddly enough)

Er... I thought I was just having another one of those fevered hallucinatory mornings -snoozing comfortably in my duvet-nest, tripping-out on the Sunset Yellow in the Lucozade- when I heard Fern Britton suggesting she might try setting her embonpoint at it this weekend....

*thinks*

Cor...

Long Night

I feel as though I have been trodden upon by a hippopotamus, then gently steamed in a thick, lentil-based soup that I am then forced to breathe.

Yep, I'm off work, actually ill, not just "on the sick". Bah.

I knew something was wrong when I woke myself up dreaming of a carwash. The thick brushes were pounding my back, covering me in wet foam. Unsurprisingly I woke up sweating, my t-shirt clinging to my skin.

Apart from yesterday's sore-throat, I should have known I wasn't feeling too fabulous by my crazy over-reacting to things last night.

For indeed last night Mrs Gripes and I had a brief discussion about the upcoming Civil Partership. Brief mainly because I was swiftly losing lucidity as I tried to express my utter panic at anything even remotely resembling "marriage".

My panic was triggered by catching half of "Gay Vicars" on Channel 4. As joyous as I am sure the wedding of Debbie and Elaine Gaston was, it seemed to be presented as almost everything I wouldn't want when it comes to signing the Civil Partnership register. Everything from matching suits, to three tiered wedding cake, guests, gifts, bottles of Bucks Fizz... I could go on, but I might hyperventilate again.

The panic has been lurking under the surface for some time, if I'm honest. I've never wanted to be married. Maybe it's because I'm the child of twice divorced parents. Maybe it's because I grew up listening to Proper Little Madams (this particular song was a favourite around the house) Maybe it's because most weddings are tacky, uninspired events and I have an aversion to tulle and toasters... I dunno. But the whole "wedding" thing has never appealed. I rejoiced in the fact that as a lesbian I would never have to be faced with it. I dare say I was even smug about it. "Leave marriage to the poor hetties" I would chuckle, with a shake of the head...

My blurting expression of my fears of how our Civil Partnership would be marked pretty much led to a messy row- not a screaming match, more of a frustrated inarticulate grump- that achieved nothing except to upset both myself and Mrs Gripes.

The strange thing is, I'm not afraid of the commitment. It isn't the being bound to and responsible for another person that scares me, it's not the lifelong commitment to love and fidelity - we've promised those things to each other already - it's the ritual bit: the idea of ceremony; of being on show to be "approved"of; sanctioned; incorporated - no-one "approved" us getting together, why should anyone "approve" us signing a bit of paper that shows our intention to stay together?

The one thing we do agree on is that we love each other. I wonder if sometimes that gets a little overshadowed by the whole "everything else"? ( Wood? Trees? Anyone....?)

Right now my excuse is I feel like shit and I'm not thinking clearly. In a few days time, I hope I'll have no excuses and all shall make sense.

Work-related brown stuff/whirly thing interface

Good ol' Edvard Munch. So handy that he painted something that so entirely captures how I feel right now...

Anyhow, to cut a long and boring story short (not that it stops it from being any less dull, of course)
I am up past my nipples in work that I should have completed several weeks ago. Entirely my own fault- I am an arch procrastinator and would defer breathing if I had the option- and thus here's where I start paying in sweat (and I don't even want Fame!) trying to play catch-up and keep my slippery grip on the bucking beast that is employment...

To make matters worse, I would appear to have got some sort of lurgy (I had another exceptionally sweaty night over the weekend) and have got rotten earache as well as the voice of Mariella Frostrup after a night on the Romeo y Julietas, so my concentration is ...where was I? Oh, right. Yes.

So (and finally I get to the point) if I seem a bit on the quiet side blogwise, it's because I am actually getting on with some of the things I have been supposed to do for a while...

[Normal service will be resumed as soon as normal means "AAAAAAAAAARGH!"]

*ahem*

Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in 1945. When I think about it, most of the people I love would have been executed or placed in concentration camps for one bitterly spurious reason or another, had we been living under Nazi rule.
A sobering thought.

For many it was reality and not a hypothesis.

We like to think that we live in more enlightened times, and yet holocaust is still a reality for many living today - and not just for the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.

The gradual dehumanising of one group of people or another by those with contrasting ideologies allows for the possibility of persecution, degradation, denial of basic human rights and even genocide -the unsavoury euphemism of"ethnic cleansing" hiding the brutal reality. We think of Bosnia and Serbia. We think of the Kurds. We think of Rwanda.

But where next? Unless we actually start learning these lessons from the past, it is only a matter of time until another group of people are disempowered and degraded. It is our responsibility to ensure that we recognise the shared humanity in all - otherwise we too could be unwitting persecutors, standing by while one part of humanity is crushed out of existence.

Forgot to say...

Firstly, thanks for the cake toasts. Oddly enough, it actually does mean something to me...

Secondly, you may notice some template-type changes going on round here (the grey was even starting to depress me - but I'll be tinkering and fiddling about with this template a bit more, I fear) I'm hoping the mood will be "restrained moaning" rather than "all-out nihilist".

Please let me know of any fresh glitches: I can't promise to fix them, but I promise to swear vociferously at my laptop and stare blankly at a page of html for you.

Birthday

Today would have been my mother's 65th birthday.

She retired at 60, at the earliest possible opportunity, having planned a range of pleasures in which she would indulge once she had the free time. She loathed her work almost as much as I loathe mine - similarly, it was not the work itself she disliked but the incompetent, mindless managers, the penny-pinching petty bureaucracy and the rise and rise of "efficiency and rationalisation" over standards of good service and positive relationships with clients/customers. (She worked as the manager of a local branch library and was renowned for setting "memorable" passwords for the computer system: "w@nker bo55es" being a particular favourite....) Unlike most, she made her displeasure well known - and she was good at her job and popular with customers, so the w@nkers couldn't do a damn thing about it...

Not all were pleasures, as such - she was fierce when it came to the idea of "social justice" - but I'll list a few of her plans, so you can get an idea of how she envisaged her retirement:

• Get involved in a "Pensioners Rights" group, so she could get some very rude chanting going.
  
• Return to doing some voluntary work for the Citizen's Advice Bureaux.
• Rejoin the Labour Party - so she could tear up her membership card and quit... again. (Previously she had quit the party over the dropping of Clause 4 from the party's constitution... There are a million and one other things she would have wanted to quit over since then.)
  
• Go to Unison conferences as a retired member and spend much of the time in the hotel jacuzzi flirting with other retired -or indeed not so retired-members (there was precedent for this - and indeed a fuchsia pink and diamanté swimsuit just for the purpose).
• Continue her work with the local Bookstart charity (she used to get furiously angry when people said they had "never read a book" and believed that you should start kids young to give them the best chance) She wasn't much into "charity" -unless you count charity shops- but books for kids was the exception.
  
• Travel more. She had been to France a couple of times, but really had her eye on the shopping opportunities in NYC . She quite fancied New Zealand, Australia, a tour of Europe... pretty much anywhere except the Norfolk Broads, which she hated with a profound and abiding passion.
• Eat more cake - cake was a passion, as were steamed puddings and custard (she was a connoisseur of custard and, considering she had no sense of smell had a surprisingly sensitive palate...)
• Watch more film - the local independent cinema offered pensioners matinée tickets for a quid. Always with a keen eye for a bargain, she planned every other Wednesday afternoon to be spent watching "arthouse" cinema, even if she didn't actually like it.
• Buy more shoes.

My mother started to get ill a few months into her retirement, but put-off going to the doctor because it didn't fit in with her plans. Eventually it became too much: she was scanned before Christmas and by her 61st birthday she had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas: prognosis - terminal. She died four months later. Ironically, towards the end one of the very few meals she could eat was custard, so at least she could fulfil one of her plans, albeit with no pleasure whatsoever.

Now, I'll admit that I get a bit "low" around this time of year, but one positive thing of which my mother's birthday serves to remind me is that tomorrow is never guaranteed; plans can never be certain; today is all that counts. So I make an account of all the things I like in my life and all the things I want to change and I try my hardest to either enjoy them more or change them - and to not put things off until it is convenient, but to start doing something now. Both my sister and myself have already changed our lives for the better, learning from this experience and neither of us "plan" retirement: it just might never happen. It isn't easy, but it is necessary.

In addition -and on a somewhat lighter note- out of respect for the memory of a woman with a passion for patisserie, I resolve today to eat a cake. I would be honoured if you would join me...

Slainte!

Politics, whales and dyspepsia: a weekend

So, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Mark Oaten enjoys the company of men "Brokeback Mountain" style...

So what?

I'm completely unconcerned with whether or not Mr Oaten enjoys the pleasures of rimming, watersports, fisting - whatever- with young chaps/constituents of the pay-per-hour variety. (although I am deeply amused that he backs "Trade Justice". Oh, how unfortunate...) I'm not even particularly bothered that he's a "married father of two." Tough luck, wifey - you marry a career politician, you should expect a certain amount of deceit, and hey, the kids will love their dad, whatever (after all, Cordelia Gummer got fed spinal cord in a bap and she hasn't hacked her father to pieces yet, has she? Has she?).

No, my main concern is the sheer stupid arrogance of a man who pays for sex with men, hypocritically condemns someone else for being caught in a similarly compromising position and still stands for the rather high-profile job of being leader of his national party, fully expecting his "little secret" to remain hidden.

Now that sort of arrogance shows a degree of delusion that really is beyond the pale. He paid men for sex and expected them to keep quiet about it, knowing that the tabloid press would be waving bundles of used notes at anyone who might just have the faintest hint of scandal...
What was he expecting?I mean, really?

Oh yes, and the whale died. Somehow I had a feeling it might: it was being lined up for a guest appearance on Celebrity Big Brother and it died of shame...

(As for my dodgy tum: much better thanks. I might brave some soup later. I'll spare you any further details, but let's just say all is "quieter")

Laurel Hester Update: VICTORY! LAUREL WINS!

The Big Gay Picture || Laurel Hester Update: VICTORY! LAUREL WINS!

About bloody time.

*plink plink fizz*

Feeling much better, thanks.

..even if I will be eating nothing more challenging than porridge for a day or two.

-and isn't "Armitage Shanks" strange sounding ?

*goes back to drinking peppermint tea*

Seeing an old friend...

Or to be more precise, a former meal.

Oh dear.

Last night Mrs Gripes and I succumbed to laziness and had a takeaway from one of Edinburgh's many fast food outlets- for the first time in pretty much a year.

Initially all seemed well... Delicious, even.

Today, about 24 hours later, all seems less than well.

I have a concrete mixer for a stomach and as for the rest of my alimentary canal... Well, let's just leave it at, "unquiet".

Bleurgh. Lovely start to the weekend...

Quick off the mark...

LEWIS PR - WHALE WATCH

Earlier today a whale is spotted doing the tourist thing in the Thames (probably didn't fancy the London Eye much and thought the Natural History Museum a bit macabre) and within minutes, some smart-alec hasn't just blogged it, but has set up an entire blog about it.

Now, I could be cynical here and point out that it has been set up by a Public Relations firm, ergo it's a bit of self-reflexive PR puff... but the other part of me - the marshmallowy-still-believes-in-truth-peace-and-happiness-yadda-yadda-yadda piece of me- is marvelling at how flexible, reactive and accommodating the blog world is-

-and of course wondering where the whale keeps his (wait for it....) Oystercard!

*harpoons self to save further embarrassment*

++UPDATE++

-Whale has now decided to return to the sea: obviously had bought a cheap-day return and needs to make the return journey before rush hour...

Good Fake, Bad Fake

AlterNet: MediaCulture: Good Fake, Bad Fake

I'm not usually much of a direct-linker, but I particularly enjoyed this. No fakin'...

*nods*

Me Me Meme...

Oh cobblers. I got tagged. I'm ambivalent towards memes, to be honest (and possibly too polite to ever decline a tag...) -they seem so samey... Or maybe that's just because I have such a limited range of answers... *shrug*. Anyhow... This would appear to be a "four things" meme. Bear with me...Oh, you might learn something. Probably that I'm a curmudgeon (and now very late for work. Damn!)

Four jobs you've had in your life: Market trader, Theatre in Education "performer", dramaturg, Photo-processing gimp

Four movies you could watch over and over: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Naked, Some Like It Hot, Best In Show

Four places you've lived: Norwich, Leamington Spa, Stratford on Avon, Leicester

Four TV shows you love to watch: EastEnders, News 24, (I'm struggling now...TV just doesn't do it for me anymore...) BBC Dramas/Serials... er....Black Books (back in the day....)

Four places you've been on vacation: Hopton Holimarine (near Gt Yarmouth: I was five! I had no choice!) NYC, Amsterdam (and I didn't so much as touch a spliff), the Isle of Wight

Four websites you visit daily: BBC News, PopBitch!, work e-mail portal (yawn) The Guardian online

Four of your favorite foods: organic carrots, bitter black chocolate, toasted marzipan, ripe brie

Four places you'd rather be: I'm happy here, thanks. It's a World Heritage Site with stunning architecture, a coastline, a parliament, the biggest cultural festival in Europe- maybe the world- every year....Fer gawd's sake, what more could I want?

Four albums you can't live without: There's no one single album or even four albums, that I couldn't live without. There are artists that I enjoy (Ani DiFranco, Kate Rusby, Kirsty MacColl, Billy Bragg) but no particular albums...

Four to pass this meme along to:
Heh. Ok...

Random, Sassie, WWDD and 30something...

Nyahhhhh! (and/or anyone else that fancies it...) Now, go play...

*shudder*

Oh. And is it just me that finds something very frightening indeed about the fact that Lidl are selling "Special Burns' Night Haggis" for 44p?

I know what goes into haggis, I even like haggis, but the thought of what goes into a 44p haggis scares me...

(Jamie Oliver has a lot to answer for...)

Buy Buy Baby, Baby Buy Buy....

(-by the eBay City Rollers, of course... *groan* S'OK - you may throw things at the screen for that one; perfectly permissible...)

eBay should have its own wing at the The Priory or the Betty Ford or something; it is both addictive and destructive. You think I exaggerate? Oh, let me tell you stories....

A (fairly long) while ago, I first dipped my toe into the sharky waters of eBay in order to buy a handy-dandy pair of noise-cancelling earphones. I researched them, I even went to a real music shop to try them out (they were asking over £100 for a pair though, and I wasn't prepared to pay quite that much) and then I tracked them down on eBay - for half the price, even including shipping from the US: a deal was born. I was very happy. My ears were happy, certainly. (Of course, if I'd waited a couple of months I could have bought a similar pair for half the price I shelled out, but I wanted them NOW - eBay eased the deal and made me think I was getting a bargain. Clever eBay.)

Not so long ago I was looking for a signed box-set of books. Having water-skiied around the 'Bay a few times, I was confident that I would get a bargain there - and so I was fairly taken aback when I saw that the books I wanted had price tags of £60-£70 ...£60?!! Fucking hell? What were they printed on? Vellum produced from the bellies of baby guinea pigs? Even so, I contemplated it... I even prepared a bid, using a cunning "sniper" eBay tool. Lucky for me I did...

I'd forgotten the golden rule of eBay: research your item first. A very quick search on Amazon revealed that - bloody hell - I could buy the exact item for half the price on eBay. But people were paying £70? I was confused. Confused but not stupid, I cancelled my snipe/bid before it was actually placed and waved my plastic in the direction of the other e-tail megalith. Chastened, I decided that maybe I should lay-off the eBay habit for a bit.

And then I saw a total anorak collector's item. A signed piece of publishing ephemera, never actually released to general retailers. My Gollum-like heart gave a little jump of joy. "Oh my preciousssssss. I'll haves you. Yesss..." Forgetting my promise to myself to give eBay a break I lined-up my snipe. I hovered over my "watch" list. I waited...

Disaster! Someone had placed a bid. Someone I actually knew had placed a bid. Someone who I knew wanted it at least as much as me had placed a bid. Bugger.

For a good ten minutes I held an internal debate on issues of morality surrounding Bay:

• people are out there to make money;
• money has no morality;
• an auction is open to the highest bidder;
• I could easily place the highest bid;
  
• eBay is the free market in its purest sense;
• I have as much right as anyone else to make the highest bid;
• I want it, I have the means to buy it, ergo I can buy it
  
• .... But it's a friend who wants it!;
• could I look the aforementioned friend in the eye knowing that I had sneakily outbid them?;
• does friendship have a monetary value?;
• if yes, what price and does this bid come close to it?;
• if no, how could I admit to having snatched something from them?;
• would it be the equivalent of stealing?;
• would I steal from a friend?...

Yes. Quite.

So, I removed my sniping bid. There'll be other items - friends can't be bought and sold, however.

*wail*

Firef**ed

I am sort-of a fan of Mozilla's Firefox browser: I like its tabbed browsing, its handy extensions, its cute furry logo ... er....

I am not so big a fan of how its Firefoxy gremlins manage to lose all your saved extensions data should, for completely-hypothetical-oh-yes example, your laptop become unplugged and lose power unexpectedly, crashing your machine and thus your open browser....

*wail*

Now some of my handy tools (for cookie handling, log-ins and the like) have disappeared and I can't get them back!

Worse still, I can't actually remember some of my passwords.... (which shouldn't come as any surprise: I can't remember my mobile phone number either)

Which makes me wonder: are people's memories worsening these days, seeing as we have a plethora of technology to "do it for us" or is it just me showing the first signs of vCJD? *sigh*

(-back to the guesswork for me... Gah...)

OK, OK... I'll stop this relentless gloom...

That Pete Burns is to be potentially jailed for possessing a gorilla fur coat has been tickling at the lurking corner of my mind that deals with useless information (which, to be fair, is the biggest bit of it...)

Then it came to me, while I was scrubbing at my pearly-whites and wondering why my skin was looking so yellow...

*tada*

(as Bart says, it's catchy! - Catchier than You Spin Me Right Round Baby , anyway...)

And if that doesn't leave you with some horrid songs playing in your Internal JukeBox, then nothing will!

* evil cackle*

Meh...

I thought I'd avoided the "first day back at work blues" really well...

I'd prepared as much as I could (and for one particular class, their lessons are now planned-out until the edge of doom...) I thought positive thoughts, I adopted a wryly amused persona, put my head down and charged through the day. I chatted amiably with colleagues - even gave some advice about a shared class. Normal.

I survived.

Then I got home.

By about 8:30 I was agitated and distracted. By 10:30 I was in a foetal position on the bed, snivelling. By half past midnight I was in full "lock me in a cellar and feed me with pins" mode, feeling bleak, useless, overwhelmed...

Mrs Gripes did and said all the right things (bless) - we even had a one o' clock in the morning camomile tea-party- and I did eventually get to sleep, although the dreams I had were far from restful, filled as they were with images of my incompetence and panic, peppered with memories of all my failures, disappointments and vacillations and populated with the sneering, accusing faces of everyone who has ever told me I'm worthless, everyone who's ever trodden on me, made me feel like shit...

This morning, as the sun rises and spreads its thin, cold light through the clouds, I am feeling pretty hopeless. I know I will get through the days/weeks/months (- & I've got a lot of work to get through, what with one thing and another) - and I'll suppress the feeling pathetic, stupid and feeble as much as I can- but right now, getting dressed, slapping on a fake smile and facing a class is about the last thing I want to do.

So much for avoiding the "back to work" blues...

There's always room for one more soul down in the Human Zoo*

* from "Wishing the Days Away" Billy Bragg, on Talking With The Taxman About Poetry

Sometimes it's the small things -the accidental things- that make you stop and think. It could be the glimpse of a headline on a newspaper, a certain colour of sky, a perfume of someone half-remembered as you walk through a crowd, a passing word or phrase, anything.

During a civilized afternoon of drinking delicious liquids and indulging in idle yet meaningful chatter, Fuzzy made the comment that I saw my relationship with Mrs Gripes as being like some sort of welcomed "cage"- and at the time I think I probably nodded, sipped my Thé Saint Géran and- being me- changed the subject.

But it has troubled me; caught me full square in my soft underbelly and winded me; made me close in on myself and wonder several things: is she right and -regardless- is it a cage protecting the world from me, or me from the world?

(I'll wilfully ignore the question of accuracy for now- perception is never reliable, after all- but the implications of being caged in some way have stuck in my mind like a burr in the pelt of a thick-furred beast.)

-If the latter, how fragile and damaged must I seem that I need to hide behind someone else, how mealy-mouthed and timorous, how cowardly? If the former, what hazard could I present, what force or storm could I stir up, what appetites could I need sated?

-Worse still, if she is right (and I'm not sure a metaphorical cage is something I want to live in) what does it say about me that I choose to live encaged? How long can I survive in captivity? What would I be if let loose?

Celebrity Big Brother?

Generally speaking, reality TV shows drift past me; I watch the occasional five or ten minutes here or there (to keep up with my students, if nothing else) but apart from that I tend to like my entertainment scripted, performed by professionals an/or crafted by cinematographers. I'm funny like that.

Celebrity Big Brother is my weak spot, however. It's not just that I am suckered into the "cult of celebrity" (although I probably am - even though I stopped reading Heat magazine years ago I regularly find myself hanging around the PopBitch! site like a mackerel around a sewage pipe, hoovering scandal) it's the scary combinations of famous folk-often renowned for vast egos- scrabbling around to resurrect/start a career, fighting to seem the most... something (cool, mad, reasonable, versatile, normal, employable...etc) it's fascinating.

This series of CBB however is unnerving. Taking the Barrymore issue out of the equation, it seems an odder than usual barrel-scraping of housemates: a tall, cross-dressing sportman and his ex-Baywatch ex, some minor musicians, someone famous for shagging famous people, someone famous for having been in a documentary once and then getting her norks out, an actress who peaked thirty years ago, an acid-tongued one-hit-wonder cosmetic surgery addict, a narcissistic MP and an "ordinary" lass, having to pass herself off as a minor-musician/one-hit-wonder. The whiff of desperation emanating from some of these people can almost be tasted through the TV screen.

But you can't take Barrymore out of the equation. Whatever you think of him, whatever you think has gone on, whatever take you have on his life, he remains a figure who is as infamous as famous - and who the producers must be counting on to bring some kind of dangerous notoriety to the show, maybe even to break down in front of millions. This makes me very uneasy.

- I'm not sure I want to be part of such a vicious intended manipulation. I'm not sure I can watch...(-and I'm fairly sure that's not what the producers are hoping for).

*spingle*

Rather than actually prepare for the the return of my classes *shudder*(I have been putting it off and putting it off... and now I have a sack of essays to mark, three different courses requiring the creation of fresh schemes of work... and I've just discovered a rotten-to-the-point-of-melting banana in my work bag - I'd been blaming the rank smell on one of Mrs Gripes' cats. Oops) I have been tinkering with my blog template.

Look at it. Horrible, isn't it. Barely a *spingle* in sight. And as for that calendar over there... What does it do? I know it's January - but will it tell me any more than that? Nope... *sigh*

Makes my blood run... well, not cold exactly, more tepid -which is probably as it should be... But at least it works. Well, sort of...
Doubtless I'll fiddle with it some more sometime. * deep sigh*

*deeper sigh*

Everyone else seems to be making all these profound statements about self improvement and introspection and all I can do is fiddle about with the window dressing. (Which probably says as much about me as it needs to, come to think about it...) I'm sure 2006 will bring about some major changes in me and and my little world - but I'll be buggered blue with a bargepole if I'm going to pre-empt them: I'll change as and when necessary, not because a calendar tells me I should. The blog needed fiddling with (no tittering at the back there...) so I fiddled. Should my life require the same, I shall do likewise.

If it seems uncharacteristically bullish of me to swerve at the chance of some sanctioned introspection, I would point out that it does fit rather well as part of my scarcely suppressed truculent iconoclast nature. So *blows raspberry*.

(-Less grouchily - any suggestions as to how I could gussy-up this blog template still further, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm all, er... eyes.*shakes head* Oh, darn my head today - it just ain't workin' right, I tells ya...)

If things have already gone pear-shaped, resolution-wise....

... remember, you have 28 more days until Chinese New Year (so you can re-resolve then, should you feel the need...)

Happy etc... blah blah blah...

In Case of Emergencies...

Honestly, I'm fine.

(I've got my own Christmas grumbles but, much like the Christmas turkey, they'll stew and stew and be served up ad infinitum at a later date...)

But not everyone has problems that can be talked over with friends, family, partners....
Sometimes you just don't want to bother them, even if you do. Sometimes things are just desperate - and the period between Christmas and New Year can seem bleakest of all.

So, The Samaritans really can help. Even if it's just a friendly voice. Even if you don't think anyone can help.

I know.

A few Christmases ago, they helped me...

Gripes' Christmas Message

The Wicked Fairy at the Manger (by U.A. Fanthorpe)

My gift for the child:

No wife, kids, home;
No money sense. Unemployable.
Friends, yes. But the wrong sort –
The workshy, women, wogs,
Petty infringers of the law, persons
With notifiable diseases,
Poll tax collectors, tarts;
The bottom rung.
His end?
I think we’ll make it
Public, prolonged, painful.

Right, said the baby. That was roughly
What we had in mind.


Chez Gripes this year, Christmas is a secondary event. Far more important than this mere quasi-religious consumerist trifle is my sister’s birthday. This year she is coming to Edinburgh (yay!) and we are going en famille to the zoo. [In case you were wondering she has no kids and will be 44 this year. She is, however, a hard-core Primary teacher…thus the zoo trip, I suspect.] I wanna see the polar bear! Is it still green I wonder…?

Before this, of course, we have to get through Christmas. Blah blah, gifts, blah blah, food, blah blah, bloody awful episodes of Eastenders… And before we even get to that, we have to grit our teeth and visit She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named: Mrs Gripes’ Maw.

As “the lodger”™ -of almost seven years standing- I am met with quizzical looks and a degree of circumspection whenever I visit Mrs Gripes’ Maw. She saves her venom for her daughter. Sneers, swipes, and passive-aggressive snipes (along with gleeful tellings of the most recent deaths) are delivered and endured for the duration of the visit. The journey home is always fast- and the air in the car is always filled with Mrs Gripes making the air as blue as that from the exhaust of a M8 Motorvator Coach: ho ho ho-ly living fucking Christ on a bike, that woman is a cu.… (Oh you get the picture…)

And even before we get to enjoy the festivity of Mrs Gripes’ Maw, we have The Christmas Shop: Tesco Super-Duper Megalithic Warehouse of Everything Ever (except that one thing you need…), a list and an army of frustrated, sharp-elbowed shoppers, desperate for the last bag of sprouts (or else their entire identity and Christmas happiness will be but nothing- nothing -and life shall have no meaning and darkness shall descend upon the world…) to be followed by drinks with the Stupidest Neighbour in the World Ever! Could my life get any better?

Actually, I’m looking forward to it.

So -happy, merry, safe, loving Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Yule, Saturnalia, Tirupavai, Tohji-Taisai, Festivus …Christmas even, whatever - and (unless I cannot resist the urge to blog meaningless drivel over the next week/fortnight) I shall return to full Gripey glory in the New Year.

Love to you all! (has someone drugged me? Have I succumbed to Christmas cheer? Oh lawks a lordy…Nurse! More tinsel!)

Sleeping with me...

Last night, in my snot-filled insomniac way, I was thinking about all the women I have ever slept with. Not just the (poor) women with whom I have pawed, nibbled and frotted (although I was thinking about that too... *sigh* So few, so very few…comparatively) but those with whom I have simply shared a bed while making zzzzeds... Most of them were very accommodating; a few kicked me out of bed within and hour. And rightly so.

I have come to the terrible conclusion: I am a horrible person to sleep with.

Firstly, I can’t stand being cramped: I cling to the side of the bed like a mountaineer clings to the side of a cliff if I feel my space is being invaded. This is fine, but if you sleep with a cuddler –and most people I have shared sheets with have been cuddling types- it seems a little stand-offish to say the least. Should you invade my space still further and make me risk tumbling to the floor, my response is an assertive shove, some profound whining and if all else fails, to get up moaning, waking my sleeping partner and thus ensuring grumpiness all round...

Secondly, I am hot. Not in a "phwaor, you are irresistible" sort of way (*listens for voices of demurral and is deafened by the silence*) but in a "-Are you ill? Do you have a fever? Jesus, you’re on fire you sweaty bastard!" sort of way. This means that I quite often kick off the bedcovers (ensuring that sleeping partner gets a quick draught to the kidneys at best, a light bruise at worst) huff and puff, noisily... and worse: feel tacky and damp with sweat. After a particularly burny spell, I have been known to have to change the sheets several mornings in a row, they’ve been that damp... This is an all year round phenomenon, worsened when I am ill or drunk, noontheless... Alas.

I also have an ability to sleep with my eyes open, a sleep-talking/shouting habit and very vivid dreams/nightmares that often wake me up - the knock-on effect of which is to waken the neighbourhood… All this on top of the persistent bouts and battles with insomnia. An awake me is a mobile me and that just isn’t easy to sleep next to

Mrs Gripes grinds her teeth, snores and has devil claw toenails. Otherwise, she’s fine... It’s a miracle we even share a house, let alone a bed...

That aside, today will probably be the last blogging effort from me for a while. Apparently, it’s Christmas. Who knew?

(Christmassy blog-effort to follow. Oh you lucky people...)

The year is nearly Donne...

A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,BEING THE SHORTEST DAY by John Donne


‘Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.


Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.


All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know ; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love ; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am none ; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.



[Sod Christmas for a moment and indulge me: this is one of my favourite poems -and one only gets a chance to really feel it once a year… ]

"...you can stick your ' ology, Beattie"

I am on holiday.
I am still in my PJs, unwashed and barely breakfasted.
I am watching pish on TV, thinking about maybe - just maybe- switching it off and listening to some music or reading a book instead.Nibbling on a couple of satsumas... A nice relaxing bath, maybe...Indulging in a soapy fantasy of being lathered-up dexterously by a firm-handed...*drifts off*

I have been interrupted by work-folk phoning and asking me for completely daft information about nothing in particular five times already this morning! FIVE TIMES!
-Things they could have asked me last week, the week before... Even things they could ask me in three weeks time: it's not that urgent, folks! It's education, not brain surgery...

PISS OFF! LEAVE ME ALONE! I AM ON HOLIDAY! (I want to say...)

Naturally, I don't.

Information duly supplied, I can't quite get myself back into restful fantasy mode again. So much for holidays...

BAH bah humbug.

I Want to Vanish...

I Want to Vanish (Written: Elvis Costello)

I want to vanish
This is my fondest wish
To go where I cannot be captured
Laid on a decorated dish
Even in splendour this curious fate
Is more than I care to surrender
Now it's too late

Whether in wonder or indecent haste
You arrange the mirrors and the spools
To snare the rare and precious jewels
That were only made of paste

If you should stumble upon my last remark
I'm crying in the wilderness
I'm trying my best to make it dark
How can I tell you I'm rarer than most
I'm certain as a lost dog
Pondering a sign post

I want to vanish
This is my fondest wish
To go where I cannot be captured
Laid on a decorated dish
Even in splendour this curious fate
Is more than I care to surrender
Now it's too late

I want to vanish
This is my last request
I've given you the awful truth
Now give me my rest

(For a RealPlayer audio clip of June Tabor singing this, click here )

I do. I really do… Cause?

One more teaching day to go.
A weekend spent bickering with Mrs Gripes.
Bloody Christmas looming.
Realising that I have thrown out several hundred quids worth of videos/teaching materials.
The beginnings of my annual festive cold/laryngitis.
Homesickness (for a home that never existed)

Bah humbug.

"-But... But.. didn't Phidippides* die?"

*Europe’s “The Final Countdown” plays in the background*

Two more days of teaching to go.
Two.
More.
Days.

*sigh*

Seems like a marathon… And a long marathon at that.

Yesterday a couple of my colleagues went into such a vituperative rant that even I was silenced momentarily (and I can be histrionically vicious with the best of them). The most amusing part was hearing the plans they had for the dismembered head of Managerzilla. Usually they show a tad more professionalism *cough* Well, OK, not much more professionalism, but they are usually more covert. The venting stopped briefly when Managerzilla walked past – but continued as soon as she was barely out of earshot. Oh, happy times… Christmas spirit and all that.

Anyhow. Like I said, two more teaching days.

Most office based folk have no comprehension of the sheer scale of knackerdom teaching at the arse-end of term creates and so I receive scant sympathy from my nearest and dearest (although my lovely sis shares my pain as she has a herd of excitable first year of primary school kiddiwinks under her charge. *shudder*) My students switched off some time last week and those that do still turn up have that loathful look in their eyes, as if to say , “Do we have to?...” or even “Can’t you just die?…” It makes the teaching bit require that little bit more effort and I am sucking the dregs from the bottom of the tank as it is (-which may well bugger my carburettor, should this metaphor be taken to its conclusion…) My response to their apathy has been to warn of impending exams and glower. Veiled threats are traditional, I believe. Ho-ho-ho…

Two more days to go.

*sigh*


(* Phidippides... just in case you weren't sure )

"Dream a little dream of me..."

I’m starting to think my subconscious doesn’t like me.

Last night I dreamt I was Carol Thatcher’s secret lover.*shudder*
To be fair, she was very nice to me; took me out to fancy restaurants, booked us into bijou hotels, never mentioned her mother… And she was strangely vulnerable and insecure in private (insecurities which I naturally tried to assuage…) -But… But… Carol Thatcher?!
Aw, c’mon subconscious! Can’t you do better than that? Please?

My dream life is often a very troubled affair. Apart from the mundane re-workings of daily life (-all day I’m at work, then all night I dream about it. How very restful…) and the usual panic/insecurity dreams, I have periods where I have very lucid, very realistic, very odd dreams.

Other dreams have included clubbing Charlotte Church to oblivion with her own artificial leg; spending all night up to my chin in a pond of mud, waiting for “the king of the frogs”; eating a mandolin to music as a cabaret artiste; working as a stripper, but never taking off more than my duffel coat and, recurrently, that the wallpaper is trying to send me messages - but I can’t quite figure out what it’s saying until I rip it off the wall and it dies. Er… Yes.

I’m not sure analysis is helpful at this point. Strong sedation maybe, but analysis? No…
But if anyone has any suggestions as to how I could have more pleasurable or even restful dreams, I’m all ears.*




*I’m rather hoping that that particular image won’t trigger a horribly literal dream, but if it does, you’ll be the first to hear about it, medication permitting.

What a Dumbo...

I did a foolish thing today.

While drying myself after a shower I took a long look at myself in the mirror. (I've lost almost six stones this year - at least I fit in the mirror these days...)

Oh dear.

My arse now resembles that of a somewhat hard-living elephant, albeit slightly less grey.

Bum...

Whip Crack Away...

Hmm. Well, I survived.

Actually, I was so well prepared I think I surprised her, and thus defused her ire somewhat (nothing more irritating than someone actually having reasonable answers to every accusation you can level, is there?)I even got to throw in a few barbed comments of my own.

The downside however is that I was have been so worked-up and adrenaline fuelled that last night I barely slept (and when I did, I was troubled by some very unsettling dreams...)which means that today I am... jumpy.

-I still reckon I've got it coming to me at some point, so I'll take heed of the words of Ani DiFranco, "smile pretty and watch your back"...

*smiles*

"Do not forsake me , oh my darlin'...."

*tips hat*
My evil line-manager has called a meeting for today - with all the high heid-yins and me - and as yet she has not disclosed the full agenda.

I've been receiving clippy e-mails for days, sniping at minor procedural things I (in common with the rest of the staff, I might add) have overlooked -and worse, heard about other swipes and stabs secondhand from people who seemed to think I deserved a "heads up" that Managerzilla was on the rampage...

As far as I am aware, I have done nothing wrong. Nothing worth a full meeting, anyway. Nothing really worth an e-mail, truth to tell...

So why does it feel as though I am facing a shoot-out?
*polishes guns*




* Should I not survive, tell Mrs Gripes I love her - and bury me with my boots on...

Love Resurrection

Jodie Foster was easily my first proper crush. Whether it was from seeing her first in"Freaky Friday" or "Bugsy Malone" I can't remember, but Jodie has been tattooed on my lesbian heart for years. She was even, in a roundabout way, my excuse for liking the works of Stephen Sondheim (althoughI don't advocate attempted assassination as a means of attracting the attentions of anyone, frankly... )

Growing sophisticated and blasé over the years, I had dismissed my crush on Ms Foster as being little more than a dykey "rite of passage" - much like the listening to kd lang CDs/playing pool/pretending to find Rhona Cameron funny. Oh, how wrong I was...

I've just seen Flightplan (or Panic Room in the sky, as I prefer to think of it...) and my lust for the dimunitive Oscar-polisher has been thoroughly rekindled: all that athletic searching, relentless singlemindedness and close-ups of wriggling through confined spaces has made me come over all peculiar... She even wears a graze beautifully... Where was I? Oh yes...

The film itself is OK, albeit so utterly contrived that the suspension of disbelief is nigh on impossible in parts ( & Sean Bean pretending to be "posh" is particularly funny!) but Jodie? *quiver* oh, she's something else - and thoroughly wasted in such tosh. I really do wish she'd make better movies (and get her kit off in them, naturally) *sigh*

I'm now fearful that my other teenage crushes might be re-awakened: I'm not sure I'm ready to lust over the memory of Lindsay Wagner -well, not without building up some stamina first: she was bionic, after all...

Work is the Devil

I am probably about three nosebleeds away from quitting my job, I feel that stressed. This week I’ve been in tears on at least three occasions just thinking about having to make the journey to work. I can’t sleep, I can barely crack a smile. Mrs Gripes has a semi-constant look of consternation. (I’ve been getting the shakes when talking about my work… not a good sign). Things are grim at Gripes Mansions.

Part of my job involves working with a group of “vulnerable” students, many of whom have issues that touch a little too closely on those that I have had to deal with myself. This has created more than a few problems for me, making me rake over my own past, sift through the wreckage and salvage something positive from it all (and the positive that has been salvaged? – at least it’s all in the past. Oh, marvellous…)

Another part of my job involves working with people who are “learning resistant”. Joyous, I’m sure you’ll agree. I get very little support in this – the college approach to teaching and learning is probably the least “teamly” I’ve ever encountered- and yet am expected to “meet team targets” – if I’d ever been told what they were, I might be able to comply, but communication isn’t an institutional strength.

And then there’s my line manager. The woman is without a doubt the most devious bully I have ever met. She is a mean spirited, petty, mendacious, vicious, gossiping harridan (and those are good points…) currently she has set her vitriolic sights on me. Everyone gets a turn; it is my misfortune to be the current quarry. Her favoured modus operandi is to be very selective about the passing-on of vital information – then disproportionately crowing and reprimanding in turn when things go wrong. This week she changed both the staffing and timetabling of an event less than half an hour before it was due to happen. Naturally, things went wrong. Apparently, that things didn’t go smoothly is my fault…

On top of the usual pains and displeasures of teaching (and of being at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to decision making…) this has all served to make me feel lower than a slug’s slidy bits. Like I said, I am seriously thinking of quitting – or at least of looking for a very different job.

Any offers?