Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...

Grrr...

I've just woken up with eeeevil period pain. To be fair I haven't exactly "just" woken up - I more or less woke up at 1ish and now can't get back to bastarding sleep. It feels as though I have an anvil crushing my innards and some mad leprechaun things knocking seven shades of shite out of my lumbar regions. I'm not going to mention any other effects in order not to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities...

& I say "get back to... sleep", but really I've been drowsing, tossing and turning for a couple of hours - fun, fun, fun- and my bed now looks like a heap of discarded rags. Most relaxing and appealing. No position I lie in is helping - and the smallest crumb of comfort is that at least I'm not waking anybody up and thus making myself feel guilty. Having said that, having someone to moan to, cling on to and treat as a human hot water bottle would be nice... but that's just selfish.

Recently, I've not been finding it easy to get to sleep anyway - the not having a job thing has been weighing on my mind. It's not just the lack of money, but the total lack of routine that is getting to me. I also have a fear that I'm unemployable and the more I worry about it, the less I sleep and the more my semblance of a routine falls apart. The past few weeks have been chaotic enough without my body being in rebellion too. Bah. Bloodyfannyingbastardshittingfuckfacebollockypisswankinghell.

*sigh*

I don't even have a hot water bottle or heat pad (not that that would do any good: I don't have a microwave to heat it in either) and ibuprofen don't even touch the sides of the "discomfort" (I am refusing to really call it pain - I've had dental surgery where the anaesthetic has worn off before the procedure was finished: that was pain...feeling every last suture and not being able to do a damn thing about it but count from one to ten over and over again *shudder* Happy memories. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch Marathon Man again. Not that I'd want to, but I'm sure you get the point). Camomile tea and lounging about until it subsides seem to be the only options open to me...

Grrr...

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman? No shit, Sherlock. I'm almost looking forward to menopause. No, really...

Running to stand still

I try too hard, sometimes. I try too hard at the wrong things and when it all goes wrong- or not even wrong, just not as I envisaged it- I turn inwards and brood, or outwards to slash and attack. You can call it Quixotic if you want to be Romantic, but really it's just plain misguided. Don't get me wrong, it isn't in trying to compete or being influenced by someone else: I do it to myself, no-one else, nothing else but my own unrealistic expectations and a sense that I should do or be something that I'm not.

Oddly enough, I want to have an slow-paced life, to be able to observe the simple things: to climb a mountain at my own pace, to watch things grow, to grow myself and to watch others grow. I like the idea of allotments, novels, the Slow Food movement, watching children grow up, oil paintings, stalagtites and stalagmites, the lighting of an open fire then watching the coals slowly glow and burn, sitting on a beach and watching the tides, seeing dawn creep over the horizon. How often do I really take time out to look and do and be?

Sometimes I rush at life like it was something you could actually catch: I feel myself becoming a volatile mass of volition, kinetic energy rushing, crashing and breaking like a wave and taking all with me in a mass of destruction. (Remorse comes later, of course... always remorse) I don't see the end result, I don't even take notice of the moments I am living in, I just rush and push.

Other times, I feel the world rush by as I become impassive and rocklike, being ground down by every gentle lapping movement. Again, I do not see outside myself. I don't think about the effect on others I just remain stubbornly rigid, getting worn away bit by bit.

I won't get worn away, of course, I won't let myself. In my moments of clarity-increasingly longer moments, bit by bit- I see the effect it has on me and those I love. But I can feel that unless I either stop running and rushing or stop standing stonily still the gradual grinding will wear me thinner and smaller, or the crashing and wracking will break me apart - if I let it.

And I won't let it. I have too much to lose. I want to see the slow things grow. I want to grow slowly now.

older

...but no wiser. Maybe a bit wiser -wise enough to know I'm not that wise, anyway.

Yesterday, I pivoted my thirties. 35 years old. Mid way through the three score and ten. Horribly grown-up sounding - for someone quite obviously not that grown up: no mortgage, no job, no kids, no lasting legacy...

Birthdays are funny. Peculiar, more than laughable, obviously. I woke up oddly contemplative (and in hideous post-dental surgery pain...) at three in the morning. Every birthday since my mum died it has felt as though I've been a phone call and a card short. At three am I felt as though I needed to phone home. I didn't of course. That would have been entirely redundant, but the ache was there. Iwiped my eyes, returned to bed and woke again at a more sensible time, the pain -in both senses- having passed.

I spent my day in the best company I could want -gloriously no pressure on me to do or be anything but myself - and so sofa-snoozing and the watching of DVDs, along with the preparation and consumption of toad in the hole, onion gravy and garlic mash, suited me well. It probably sounds dull as a Barrett flat to most, but there is something to be said for quiet, understated contentment.

I am starting out on my 36th year with something of a purpose: I will be looking into the possibility of a PhD; I will refresh my teaching career, maybe take it more seriously; I will take my health more seriously (and myself far less seriously) and I will love my friends, my family and those closest to my heart like the world is ending - I've seen the news, you know: it very well might be ending, it really jolly bloody very well might...

Pause

I had a lovely holiday, ta. Great company, Garlic Festival, much cake, a Chumbawamba gig and time spent looking at the ocean, walking on sand and feeling the warm wind whip my skin.

It has made me more than a little reflective though - only in a very private, personal and selfish way. As such, I have decided to maybe cut down my blogging- it's not an addiction, but it is a distraction at the moment and I have things I need to do.

Anyhow, if I've gone quiet, I haven't disappeared or come to some tragic end - I'm just doing stuff, thinking stuff and being stuff.

The Wight Stuff

As from tomorrow - at some ungodly hour of the day - I shall be taking a brief vacation to see my sis and bro-in-law in the Isle of Wight. I love my sis and wish that everyone had someone like her in his or her life. She manages to be supportive, non-judgemental, impassioned and interesting without ever seeming egotistical or overbearing. She can be a little intense at times (and please don't get her talking about education, it can trigger apoplexy... having said that, we often do- but then again, it is something we have in common...) but that would appear to be a family trait.

Now, I'm a big fan of the Isle of Wight and I make no excuses for it: great cake, pleasant climate, delightfully quirky, slow-paced, red squirrel-only zone surrounded by sea. Sure, it's old-fashioned, certainly, it isn't trendy or a "must see" destination - indeed many folk mock when I say I like it- but it is a very relaxing, comfortable and indescribably English place to go.

I've been missing England. I can't quite put my finger on it - I love Scotland, midgies, fuck-awful weather and all - but there is an embarrassed shrug of Englishness, a hoppy bitter-beeriness, an inbuilt cringe of England of which I need to get a fix from time to time. Even having been in Scotland for over seven years, apart from the odd "aye", "ken" and "get tae fuck" I still sound and speak like a very English Englishwoman. I could probably live here the rest of my life and still sound as though I have somewhat strangled estuary English with nary a trace of a Scots accent to be heard. Englishness is written through me like a stick of rock and every now and then I need to be taken out of my wrapper and sucked for a while in order that it can be more clearly seen: England sucks - but it makes me easier to read...

Anyhow, changing the subject, I still don't know how my Highers students got on with their exams. Rumour is that one of mine-maybe even two- actually got an A. If so, I am chuffed as a chuffy chaffinch - and can happily stick two veryEnglish fingers up at my former employers for not recognising that I am actually an idiosyncratic, unruly, unorthodox yet effective bloody lecturer who really would have done the college a lot of credit. Bollocks to them for not giving me the job. Their loss.

*ahem* I'll be back after this brief break...

"out of the strong came forth sweetness"

(for explanation see this...)

We can never know what is around the corner. No matter how sure we think the route, there are surprises and epiphanies and revelations. Even the most familiar street can be made new. I am seeing new streets, maps and journeys everywhere I turn.

My life is in revolution. I am doing, being, feeling things that I haven't felt in a long time: unexpected joy, positive anxiety, sheer out-and-out joy, edge-of-the-seat thrill of the unknown -and curiosity, tenderness, grinning longing, smiling silent contentment in the moment...

I have had an emotional week - I have cried harder and snottier than in a long time. I have felt regret and remorse, reprieve and renewal. A line from The Winter's Tale keeps singing to me: "It is required/You do awake your faith."(Act V, Scene III) And I do, Paulina, I so do!

Tactfully, I'll leave things open, indistinct and free to all interpretation. As day follows night, you will doubtless find out more soon. For now, I'll keep it selfishly to myself.

I love my chaos - I'm a mad muppet that way!

Indulge me...

(Sonnet CXVI)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

*ping*

I snapped yesterday. It was over something trivial but sore, I'm not even sure I remember what, but I picked up my coat, stomped out and strode purposefully through the door - only to collapse in tears and slump on the kerb for a moment before struggling my way back home.

I felt foolish before I had even got to my own front door: why couldn't I just block out the negative voices in my head? Why did I have to be so immature, so melodramatic? Why couldn't I say, "look, I'm feeling as though my thick skin has been scraped away by sandpaper and you have just suggested a dip in the North Sea" or even "I just want a hug and to be told it'll all be all right, even if I don't know that I believe it." A simple "just let me be quiet until this feeling passes" would have been better that walking out and making myself look like a petulant fool.

People think that I am "coping" really well, that I am taking to my new life with seamless ease. Fact is, I have some days that I do feel positive and hopeful, that the future is mine for the taking, I rush through those days with with my head down and charge, knocking people flying. Others feel as though I am so trapped and confined by my past that I will never escape, never be entirely myself. I am overwhelmed by some of the new people I am meeting, intimidated by others: I have no idea why they would want to have anything to do with someone so obviously emotionally volatile and self-absorbed. There are times I feel I have nothing to give, that all I am doing is taking - and taking too much and too freely. I get drowned by a feeling of entropy and inertia- and have no real space to get my bearings, not really. Everything is still too strange.

I lurked in my flat for half and hour or so -balling my fists into my eyes and telling myself that it will pass, it will- before slinking back to a place where I received a needless apology, wordless comfort, a cup of tea with a saucer no less, and no reproach. When I returned home again ("home" -I have to keep telling myself that this flat is home, I will believe it soon, I hope) I stroked my fridge goodnight and collapsed into bed.

Some days I just go "ping", others I seem to stretch endlessly. I can't explain it, I can only wish it would stop.

venal pleasures vs spiritual wholeness (part 3)

I have hugged my fridge freezer today. I hugged it yesterday too. I might hug it tomorrow - its silvery doors lead to a world of edible opportunities for me. It stands tall and proud in my kitchen. I need to give it a name - it is my new flatmate and companion. The happy gurglings and hummings remind me of a contented alpaca. Only rectangular. And a fridge. And brand spanking new.

I already have some crumble mix (made myself last night) and ice-cubes sheltering in the freezer compartment. The fridge itself is a little less spartan - inside I have lovingly placed my opened jars, my vegetables and whatever precious ingredients I considered would benefit from being chilled - but I hope to remedy the emptiness soon. I dream of ingredients and my mouth waters, my hands make unconscious chopping and stirring motions... I long to cook properly again.

Blinking at me to my left is an object of strangely crass beauty. Badged with the Ferrari logo, and glinting black and red is my new laptop, made from carbon fibre and very slick. It made me gasp to see its compact technological beauty. It holds the suggestion of speed and power. I'm slightly in awe of it and wonder if my slow fingers are worthy of it. I'm almost afraid to switch it on.

Of course, my drooling over new objects of desire comes at a price. The fridge freezer (oh, I can tell we are going to be friends!) is a "divorce" item - it is bittersweet and, for all the joy it will bring me, still has a hint of sadness. The new laptop is due to an accident with my much loved older one which now cowers in its case, incapable of powering up.

It doesn't sit well with me that these objects, these things, these mere possessions make me so happy. I struggle to accept that I am as swayed by simple goods and chattels as everybody else. I try to kid myself that they are means for me to become more creative: a resource for devloping new epicurean delights; a tool for writing and expressing. Who am I trying to kid? They are simply lovely, lovely things! Ooh! Things! Stuff! Possessions! My possessions... It would seem that the "new" me has a more than a touch of the acquisitional. Probably the old me did too, I just didn't notice.

Until I have overcome my slight distaste at my own materialism, you will find me hugging my fridge and planning meals for friends. And occasionally stroking my new laptop and wondering where my Ferrari will take me...

Vroooooooom! *belch* Oh, the adventures we are going to have...

The Great British Workman

Being able to look at something, suck your teeth and scratch an intimate part of your anatomy before delivering the verdict, "Well, it isn't working properly" is a skill taught to all tradesmen when faced with the blindingly obvious. (When was the last time you called a tradesman in just to look at something fully functioning and admire its successful operation, by the way?) Along with all workmen's tea/coffee requiring two sugars or more, teeth-sucking, scratching and stating the obvious are clichés concerning workmen that are disconcertingly true...

6'4" of lanky, aging hippy, complete with Grateful Dead bandana, arrived this morning to fix my shower door. Since I arrived at my new abode, every joyous ablution has been sullied by a pool of water making its egress from the bottom of the shower, to form a slippery pool that spreads across the bathroom floor. Oddly, he removed his shoes before entering the flat - I'm fairly sure it has never been a temple or mosque at any time so I was curious as to why, but decided it was probably best not to mention it...

After a good few minutes of looking at the shower door - no actual touching of it (perhaps they hadn't been formally introduced, or it maybe seemed shy?) he sprang into action, "I'll go get my gun..." He left me standing by the door feeling more than a little perplexed and alarmed.

Some strange images flitted through my head: are lanky hippies licensed to bear arms? Doesn't it go against some great karmic code to inflict harm? Would threatening the shower door make it
behave itself better? My mind - and not for the first time - boggled. I was of course relieved to see him return with nothing more threatening than a tube of silicone - with which he set-to in a fashion best described as an enthusiastic bodge.

For more than fifteen minutes he prodded, poked and squeezed at my shower door while sitting cross-legged on my damp floor. Without so much as a trickle of water to test it, he sprang from the ground in one smooth motion and declared it fixed. Stopping only to slip his feet into his shoes, he left with unnerving rapidity.

As yet, I am unable to tell whether or not the shower door is now fully functioning and admirable - the silicone needs at least another hour to set before I can risk running water over it. Thankfully the weather is now less oppressively hot and so my simple lust to be washed clean isn't as urgent as it might have been were it warmer. Nevertheless, I am still keen to discover if the holistic diagnosis of the fault and it's enthusiastic siliconing as remedy has worked.

However interestingly presented, the aging hippy was indeed still very much a British tradesman - as such, my faith in his ability to successfully administer a repair is therefore subject to some skepticism. It certainly made for an interesting morning. Well, interesting-ish. You'd certainly find it interesting if it were your shower door, I'm sure...

Umm.

I think I need to get out more...

Night turns into morning eventually

I have things running through my mind.
I can't sleep.
It is now nearly five in the morning and the sky is already light.
I have- not to put to fine a point on it- cooked, fretted, fussed, snapped, paced, drunk and smoked in order to try to dull the ache of... conscience? Hmmm. Maybe that's the word I am looking for. No, I think it's integrity. My integrity is aching - I have a dilemma, maybe more than one.

I am making no sense - but I'll try to write it out.

I am appetite and hunger: physical longing - specific and precise, buoyed by emotion and a newly won sense of myself. I am not just a mind trapped in a body, I am an integral whole. But I am still appetite and hunger - it is there, it is a part.

I am spirit and soul: heartfelt yearning - expansive and expressive, steadied by a corporeal reality and an image of myself. I am not just a body governed by the mind, I am complete. Even so, I am spirit and soul - and meaningless without the physical form.

I want to be impulsive and spontaneous - and yet I fight my impulses, I try to conform, to not offend, to be safe and tame. I want to be emotionally open, free and brave - but I keep coming across barriers of fear and convention that I am wary to cross, some physical, some spiritual and emotional.

I have stopped living a life in my head and now live it in my body. This is new for me. I look at the back of my hands for comfort. I have seen them countless times, I would recognise my hands were they photographed and their picture laid out before me amongst thousands - and yet I cannot describe them, I can't even picture them should I close my eyes. So many things I take for granted - I should look closer, I should remark more, question more, seek more.

But where is the line drawn? What barrier is it that halts me in my tracks, that gives me pause, that makes me reflective and scuttle back to my safe interior world? I need to test out boundaries, to not be afraid of travelling too far that I cannot come back.

-And there is the fear.

I can't simply not be afraid- fear is an emotion and I need to be open to emotion - but I can battle my fears. I can take them on. I can overcome fears - I already have faced so many. But what if by facing my fears I lose something of myself - the self that I have fought so hard to regain and keep? Can I be simply physical and lose nothing of my soul? Can I be merely spiritual and not neglect my physical wants? Should I even try?

I have friends who have faith that I can do and be whatever I want. That I can do and be hard things, things that threaten my body and my soul, and come out stronger, better, more. I'm not sure I share their faith.

This is the abstracted truth a sleepless night brings me: more questions that I can only answer by testing and trying. -More questions to which only I can find my answer...

Of sutures and seething...

I woke up this morning.

No, not a blues song, just a sign that I actually slept. The pain in my jaw that made me wake up every time I turned over in my sleep and placed the right hand side of my face on the pillow has subsided enough to allow me not to wake up every couple of hours or so. Even better, the dissolving sutures holding my gums together are finally beginning to soften and break down. Soon I might even be able to clean my teeth properly, rather than relying on industrial strength mouthwash, delicious dreamy codeine and very ginger brushing of my butchered gingiva.

This is the good news.

The bad news is that I received my final pay cheque from the college. I looked at my online bank statement in disbelief. The sum was paltry. I'm not sure what sort of redundancy settlement they think it is, but pathetic and insulting spring to mind. Were I relying on it to pay my rent this month I would be fucked over a barrel with a very long pole indeed. As it is, I am merely seething that for all the effort and dedication I showed I am remunerated with something that looks like the tip a group of lecturers out on the piss would leave for the impoverished waiting staff. I've probably given more to charity over the past year.

-Tant pis, as the French might put it - it's no use fretting over it now - better it is in my account than elsewhere I suppose, but a five minute peevish seethe has helped me realise that I really do need to do something that rewards me better. Not just in terms of hard cash, but something that makes me feel as though I am doing something that is recognised and rewarded in a way that makes me feel as though I am doing some good and can feel good about myself. (Not that I don't feel good about myself, but you know what I mean...)

In other news, I have added to my collection of bruises. Over the past fortnight, my legs - my shins in particular - have looked as though I have been hacked down by marauding shinty players... Bruises have variously been described as resembling a map of Leeds, Manchester and London (particularly around the Isle of Dogs, now located five inches below my knee...) have taken on the colours of Norwich City FC and West Ham, and even been compared to the spotted coats of giraffes. My newest bruise is not on my legs, however. It sits, barely discernable, in my scalp from where I cracked my head somewhat stiffly on a hand basin. Worse still, I was sober as a Mormon. I did get to see tweety birds and stars and sat dazedly watching Big Brother thinking it fine entertainment... so it wasn't all bad.

Needing a storm....

When I come through the door of my new flat I feel an immediate sense of calm. This is space that I control, that I influence and change. From the smell of the air to the placing of furniture my space reflects me and supports me. I think other people find it calm too. Maybe I am a calm person, underneath the angst and turmoil? I'll find out, I suppose.

I have needed my space and calm - the past few days or so have been challenging, to say the least. You read this blog, so you know that I fell in love with my very dear, very inspiring, very much cherished friend - and I've been struggling with that, along with everything else. We have been trying to sort things out - to recognise, acknowledge and accept some of the blurriness that has occurred between us- to explain and listen and give ourselves some way to refine and redefine who and what we are, to ourselves and each other.

It always comes back to the same thing: we are friends. I would-and will- defend her blindly (and still be gently frank enough to tell her privately, to her face, if I think she is doing something wrong) and I have absolute faith that she would (and has, and will) do the same for me; I would - and will - continue to tell her of all the amazing, fantastic, enviable, unique qualities and gifts she has and of the potential - and actual - greatness (of soul, strength, character, creativity, compassion, love, integrity, loyalty, empathy, energy, vision, expression, passion...) she possesses. She has inspired me to be more than I am or seem, to be braver than I think I can be, to be confident that I have something to offer and that I should not be afraid of success -nor should I listen to the mocking voices of ghosts from the past. I admire her dedication to doing the right thing, rather than the easy one- even when I see it ties her in knots and feel her agony in trying. I respect her morality, values and philosophy. I accept her flaws as she accepts mine: I love my friend.

Selfishly, I mourn that we cannot be lovers and yet I can still celebrate that we have a friendship built on love: this is not some weak consolation prize - this is a unique prize in itself.

We have said a lot to each other - things I will keep close to my heart and not share here or anywhere- and much of it I will probably think and reflect upon for a long time to come. This sullen heat the summer has brought seems like an apt pathetic fallacy. I tend to overdramatize, I know - but the weather is turning the world I am in into some kind of crucible, burning and combining and making something new. All that is needed is a storm to clear the air, to temper what has been formed - I think we've had our own personal storm, but a meteorological one would seem fitting.

"I'm gonna make you an offer you cannot refuse..."

Yesterday I had some nasty periodontal surgery. (I will spare you the details - but it was nastier than I had anticipated. The bits of blood and gum hoovered up by the aspirator blocked the pipe and caused the engine to whine like spoilt brat and eventually pack up...Nice...) Today I have woken up and the right side of my face looks like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, or maybe as though I have a single mump, possibly I have hamster ancestry, Pete Doherty's fatter twin sister... You get the picture...

One of the things that makes it bearable is the liberal use of codeine as a painkiller. The precioussssss caplets were given to me liberally at the dental hospital as I was advised that "post-operative pain is 100% likely" - I do love a dentist that doesn't mince his words: not " a wee bit of discomfort" nor, "a bit of an ache" but "pain.. 100% likely." Anyhow, the codeine makes the world floaty-light and I slept for over 9 hours last night, which is a miracle in itself. I'd even had a very lovely snooze earlier in the evening...*sigh* Very lovely indeed.

My next surgery is in August - I look forward to it (only because I can't look back on it....) and hope that the codeine lasts....

Boxed Up

Well, I'm down to the last three or so boxes to unpack - and thanks to the most delightful dyke to ever wield an allen key, even my books are displayed on reasonably sturdy shelves and my voluminous underwear safely hidden in a chest of drawers.

Oh yes, and I am back online. Which is a relief...

I will blog more, more comprehensively and more reflectively once I have had time to reflect: as much as the flat looks relatively settled and homely, I am still in a state of "Woooooooooaaaaaaaaaaah!" (-to be said in the best Keanu-in-Bill-and-Ted voice). I can't really express it any more clearly than that.

Today brings the joy of oral surgery: two hours with my mouth open while a dental surgeon does something unspeakable with my gums... to be repeated a further three times later in the year. What fun! no, really! I've never had it before: it's a new experience!


So, in short - I am well, I am settling in and down, my head is clearer. I am optimistic, hopeful, eager to seek new challenges, meet new people, be a new person, just "be" - and I am boxed up, tidy, safe, sorted.

Ah - and next year I am going to be climbing Ben Nevis. Bring it on!

Change

I won't be blogging much in the next week or so.

Right now I am packing my life into boxes and figuring out how to "be". (Not who to be - I'm not going to be on Stars In Their Eyes - but simply how.)

How to be single
How to be happy
How to be a friend
How to be independent
How to be open
How to be restrained
How to be responsible
How to be able to make mistakes
How to be able grieve
How to be able to repair myself
How to be able to forgive
How to be able to forgive myself
How to be hopeful
How to be me.

I'm sure there are more things that I need to figure out how, but these will do for starters.

I'll blog when I've moved/when I feel like it.

Hair today...

In a fit of madness, I've had my hair cut. I say madness, but actually I was just maddened by my sweaty mop falling into my eyes and my looking as though a dishevelled Yorkshire Terrier was sitting atop my head. The recent muggy weather has been playing hell, trichologically speaking - and along with an anti-depressant induced tendency to sweat at the mildest exertion, my hair has been a wild indicator of my physical and mental state.

I have a curious relationship with hairdressers: once, I wanted to be one (but school wouldn't supply me with a reference - they insisted I sit my A-levels. Bastards...) now I shy away from them, fearful of what their mighty scissors might do. When I was a young teen I was visited by a young dykey hairdresser, who would cut my hair in the lounge while gossiping to me about the exploits of her gardener girlfriend. (I didn't stand a chance of heterosexuality, did I?) My hair has never been cut better. Alas, she disappeared one day - after her girlfriend had been discovered to have been doing more than simply trimming a neighbour's bush - and was last heard of in Brighton...

In the past, hairdressers have done some fairly dreadful things to me- the "very nearly a mullet, but not quite" , the "Princess Diana (after she died)", the "football player manqué"... and then there's just the, "too short, too bloody short". Luckily, my current hairdresser - a Scots-Italian socialist whose small talk was today mainly focused on the World Cup - errs just on the right side of sensible when he wields the scissors. I don't have much to complain about - and I haven't been asked about my holidays once - I have been grilled on what I thought about eco-tourism, but it's not the same thing.

Today's 'do is a little on the short side, but not hat-wearingly so. Give it a couple of weeks and it will be fine-I have to keep telling myself that: it's my post- haircut mantra to deal with the rising panic every time I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror.

-Bet the weather changes, now I'm prepared for the heat...

Huntin'

There is an art to flathunting in Edinburgh. It is an art I would appear to lack...
I have been stood-up by one particular letting agency twice, arrived at another place only to find it was never to let in the first place (don't ask...) and been given excuse after excuse as to why a broom cupboard is actually a really sensible place to put a shower and why an airing cupboard makes a great toilet. (Actually, I had a flatmate who thought the same thing: trouble was there was no plumbing in the particular airing cupboard he favoured... dirty, pissed bastard).

Any large-ish space that can have a stud-wall partition -to separate normal rooms into teensy weensy ickle rooms -can be considered a "one bedroom flat" and therefore cost an arm and at least the lower half of a leg per month to rent. Seriously, if you have money to invest, some plasterboard and no morals at all you could do worse than invest in the property letting market in Edinburgh. Indeed, you could probably turn an ordinary one bedroom flat into a dwelling for at least three or four people, given a creative flair with "cabin beds" and a total disregard of health and safety legistlation.

Thankfully-references and non-bouncy cheques notwithstanding - I won't have to participate in this particular pastime any longer: I've hunted myself a flat! It's a bit crummy, the bathroom is scarily bleak, but I've been promised (ha!) a new shower at the very least and a fresh coat of paint, even some new furniture. It even has a newish kitchen and double glazing (which seeing as it's on a main road should prove handy...) I should be moved-in by the end of the month.

Now, if only I could sort out the job thing... Hmmm...

Le Crépuscule du matin

La diane chantait dans les cours des casernes,
Et le vent du matin soufflait sur les lanternes.

C'était l'heure où l'essaim des rêves malfaisants
Tord sur leurs oreillers les bruns adolescents;
Où, comme un oeil sanglant qui palpite et qui bouge,
La lampe sur le jour fait une tache rouge;
Où l'âme, sous le poids du corps revêche et lourd,
Imite les combats de la lampe et du jour.
Comme un visage en pleurs que les brises essuient,
L'air est plein du frisson des choses qui s'enfuient,
Et l'homme est las d'écrire et la femme d'aimer.

Les maisons çà et là commençaient à fumer.
Les femmes de plaisir, la paupière livide,
Bouche ouverte, dormaient de leur sommeil stupide;
Les pauvresses, traînant leurs seins maigres et froids,
Soufflaient sur leurs tisons et soufflaient sur leurs doigts.
C'était l'heure où parmi le froid et la lésine
S'aggravent les douleurs des femmes en gésine;
Comme un sanglot coupé par un sang écumeux
Le chant du coq au loin déchirait l'air brumeux
Une mer de brouillards baignait les édifices,
Et les agonisants dans le fond des hospices
Poussaient leur dernier râle en hoquets inégaux.
Les débauchés rentraient, brisés par leurs travaux.

L'aurore grelottante en robe rose et verte
S'avançait lentement sur la Seine déserte,
Et le sombre Paris, en se frottant les yeux
Empoignait ses outils, vieillard laborieux.

— Charles Baudelaire

Dawn

Outside the barracks now the bugle called, and woke
The morning wind, which rose, making the lanterns smoke.

It was that hour when tortured dreams of stealthy joys
Twist in their beds the thin brown bodies of growing boys;
When, like a blood-shot eye that blinks and looks away,
The lamp still burns, and casts a red stain on the day;
When the soul, pinned beneath the body's weight and brawn,
Strives, as the lamplight strives to overcome the dawn;
The air, like a sad face whose tears the breezes dry,
Is tremulous with countless things about to die;
And men grow tired of writing, and women of making love.

Blue smoke was curling now from the cold chimneys of
A house or two; with heavy lids, mouths open wide,
Prostitutes slept their slumber dull and stupefied;
While laborers' wives got up, with sucked-out breasts, and stood
Blowing first on their hands, then on the flickering wood.
It was that hour when cold, and lack of things they need,
Combine, and women in childbirth have it hard indeed.

Like a sob choked by frothy hemorrhage, somewhere
Far-off a sudden cock-crow tore the misty air;
A sea of fog rolled in, effacing roofs and walls;
The dying, that all night in the bare hospitals
Had fought for life, grew weaker, rattled, and fell dead;
And gentlemen, debauched and drunk, swayed home to bed.

Aurora now in a thin dress of green and rose,
With chattering teeth advanced. Old somber Paris rose,
Picked up its tools, and, over the deserted Seine,
Yawning, rubbing its eyes, slouched forth to work again.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

I was awake at dawn this morning. A grey light smeared itself across the wall and I could hear the birds begin their vicious territorial chatter. Rimed in a cold sweat and struggling with half remembered nightmares, I stared at the ceiling. Some days time catches up with you: some days you catch up with time.

Last week was hard in many ways: so many things still unresolved; so many others resolved, but not as I would want them. I keep learning things about myself, dredging up strengths and frailties from the past and re-incorporating them -or looking at them with a surgical eye and considering them for amputation.

The darkest time for me is the dawn: when the first light wakes me, I feel disoriented and have to piece myself together bit by bit. My body feels strange to me, on this unfamiliar mattress. I look at my hands for comfort: they are still the same, still the hands I have used to feel the world, to gesture, to shield, to make love, to make fists, to write, to rip apart, to grab, to let go. Maybe I try to handle too much? I don't know, but I made this bed and I shall lie in it...

A few short thoughts on beer. *

• Beer dissolves money.
• Beer causes strange bruises to appear on one's body - for which there is no explanation.
• Beer can alter the geography of a city and make pavements very uneven indeed.
• Beer makes one's bladder shrink to that of a small child.
• Beer alters the dimensions of time so that when you speak there is a time-lag between what you are thinking and what comes out of your mouth.
• Beer makes a packet of crisps into a satisfying three course meal.
• Beer alters the dimension of space making the floor both simultaneously nearer and further away.

That is pretty much all I have to say about beer, at the present time. Oh yes, apart from the age-old beer dictum: "never again."

* the exception is Alice Beer: she is merely irritating.