All over for another year

It's that time of year that you see those members of your family whom you only see at Christmas, weddings or funerals.
I haven't seen Auntie J since last Christmas. She is a robust Scottish woman who is not actually a relative, but a friend of my mother's from her college days. She is tough: she survived a botched operation which means she will have dialysis for the rest of her life. As a secondary school teacher in inner city schools, now retired, she regales us with tales of boys masturbating in her lessons, of teachers and their affairs, of pupils attempting to burn the school down and of the manner in which she dealt with these occurrences; she told him if she caught him doing that again, she would cut it off and he wouldn't be able to play with it any more.
Although i tell her that i don't want to be a school teacher, she advises me that if i kiss ass (which she regrets she never could) i will get myself a nice job. I tell her i want to work in Higher Education and she tells me there's not enough of it to go round, and asks me what i do with myself of an evening.
I tell her that i write on my blog and she pauses and looks at me in which time i wonder if she knows what blogging is. Auntie J says that blogging is for lonely people and i do not disagree with her. She tells me i should teach myself music, and that i will never be alone if i can play. I insist that i have no ability for it, and she tells me that i am a talented and intelligent girl. She tells me that i look beautiful, like the madonna or the Mona Lisa. She repeats her many compliments and notes that people may say she has a big mouth, but she said nothing when i looked so terrible last year, and now i look the best she has ever seen me looking, and she just wanted to say it.

Break

I got it.
I got the break.

The phone call was in true X-factor tradition.
"Hello, is that Nina?"
Yes this is Nina.
"Hello Nina, it's ***** from Human Resources at ****."
Oh, hi..... (nervous pause)
"Is this a good time to talk?"
Yes, it is, I just got back from another interview, so yes...
"Yes, well, i didn't want to let you go through the weekend without getting in touch. I'm ringing to tell you that (century pause) well, we would like to offer you the job."

I danced around the whole of the top floor of my house playing Chromeo's Fancy Footwork and singing loudly.
In and around and out of each of the rooms in turn. Rolling up and then rolling right back down to my knees, Punching the air above my head and then punching all the way back down to the horizontal. Doing Abba fingers, and imagining i was Agnetha and her famous ass wiggling dance.
When i had done, i looked down at the swirling patterns that the treads of my trainers had made in the horrible dark blue carpet left by the previous homeowner.

I got the break.

Sex in the Noughties

Apparently (according to Channel 4), no one is ever going to 'do it' like Girl with a One Track Mind.
Wheel in Zoe Williams (she writes for The Guardian so she must be right) to say that a great number of blogs are just dross.
Then to cap the programme off- which had hitherto disguised itself as a celebration of blogging, the freedom of writing anonymously and a sexual revolution for women in the noughties- 'The Publisher'. 'The Publisher' comes on to tell the viewers that 'The Publishing Industry' has become very cynical about blogging. That bloggers who are hoping for a book deal are going to be sadly disappointed.
No Shit! Writing without profit? How dare they?
The proliferation- more than quadrupling the number of blogs written over the last three years- is presented as an inevitable decline in quality, originality or significance.

I beg to fucking differ.

I'd like to say that blogging is a democratisation of writing, and that every individuals story deserves a space, and that I look forward to the time when more than a privileged few (programme makers, publishers, intelligent press) get to describe the world and their view of it.
I don't want to hear what they have to say. They speak the language of the institution safeguarding itself.

I want to hear your voice.

Men and Buses

Interviews are like men and buses. You get nothing for six months and then two come along at once.
So, i'm sitting here squirming. I have to pull a weird face every time i think of some of the answers i gave yesterday. Lets call this my Big Break Job. It's my Big Break Job because it's in exactly the right environment with exactly the right target group, and although it's only a tiny little bit of work, all the other things going on there are right up my street (if only i can get into the street, by whatever means, i must get parked!). I considered it my job as soon as i saw it. I prepared to the max, as none of the agencies had called me this week so i had no work.
They didn't ask me anything that i had prepared for. So i was left with my on the spot skills.
God only knows if i made any sense at all.
Number Two on Friday. Number Two is one of those jobs that are in the right environment and could lead to really interesting things (if not well paid things).
Then again it might not.
I really need them both.
I guess i'll just have to wait and see now, wont I?

Deliverance

After just over 12 months in my 'new' home, i have finally got round to unpacking my books.
A lack of shelving has been my excuse.
I took them out of their boxes and dusted each one off carefully; then i carried them into the house and put them where the shelving will (sometime) be. After i had unpacked around eight boxes, i realised that the piles were not the size that they should have been. Somewhere beneath all that other stuff there was another box languishing, 'a-mouldrin' in the garage.
I pictured the book that i wanted, it was the one that i had used for my masters dissertation.

I rang the bookshop to see if they had anything by Sophie Calle. The lady said that there was little in print of her work at that time. There was one book that was actually a catalogue from a retrospective at the Museum of Tel-Aviv. Amazingly, a copy had been ordered to this store and had never been picked up by the customer. I convinced her to let me have the copy; it was the most i have ever spent on a book.

After much rearranging of heavy boxes i found the culprit, at the bottom of a large pile. I knew as soon as i opened it- that damp smell, the carcasses of woodlice. The box was sooty and soft and the worst affected volume was my precious museum catalogue. I have rescued it though. The damage is mainly to the cover, so it is still readable.

I can feel a change in the air. A vaguely detectable sense that things are soon going to be different. My eyes feel wider open, my senses sharper, and i feel like i am indeed the sum of all my experiences.

There are 592 search results from Google when i try to make up for the fact that i did not know that Dimitri died on the 19th July 2007.

I cannot report the details of his heart attack on the Moscow underground, nor can i report the wake attended by 50 people including some of the Volna performers group.

I discover that Monday would have been his 67th birthday and i try to think of a story to tell that is not news: a detail from the time i knew him that will record something more than the facts.

I think about the cherry blossom- we both noticed it at the same time- walking down a London street in February. It was truly a joy to see the pink petals above a row of scruffy shops.

I thought it was incredible that i met a Russian artist and his family on a tiny north african island last year.

There are some times when you know that, although you cannot say how, something is going to be an important part of your future.

Food sex food sex food sex

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Nigella Express absolutely fucking obscene?
Don't get me wrong. I really admire Nigella Lawson. She is obviously excellent at what she does, and i think she is incredibly attractive. I just think maybe she's gone all Madonna or Michael Jackson and she can no longer see/hear herself as other people do.
Obviously she is setting out to make food sexy, and to offer an alternative sexy to 'size zero skinny'. This is all very well. but what i have seen over the past couple of weeks on the show, i think, is obscene.
Last night she was making chocolate cookies in order to 'comfort' a friend. Self-referentially she commented that some people might think that the (obscene) amount of chocolate she had used for six cookies a little over the top. She followed this with the unbelievably outrageous comment, "But I don't think you can't put a price on human suffering"
WHAT? What the fuck? She's not talking about alleviating torture in oppressive political regimes. She's not talking about buying fairtrade chocolate because real human beings die on cocoa plantations in conditions which equate to slavery. No. She's talking about one of her fucking posh friends who's been dumped by some bloke!!!
Jesus Christ! It makes me feel naive, in that i forget that there are people out there who are so over- privileged that they can make a comment like that and not be burned by it's glaring misguided irony. This is what i find obscene.
I also object to the glamorisation of night-time bingeing in the programme. I know Nigella makes it look all sexy, and she 'needs' these fixes because she is a 'busy mum', but surely such advice is against some kind of National Health directive? You wake up, you're worrying about stuff, "you should go down to the fridge and pour sugar down your neck".
Last night she was drenching french toast in icing sugar and then covering it in pureed strawberries. Then she went back and ate left over bolognese sauce and bread. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Here is my objection to this. It's okay for upper-middle class (or whatever she is) rich people to eat whatever they want because A. they can afford really good quality food and B because food is their hobby or living. Fuck off! Food is a means of survival- it's the difference between being alive and being dead for some people. The programme justifies western gluttony for those wealthy enough to copy it.
If Nigella can't sleep, i suggest she has some sex -much better for de-stressing and promoting sleep- and failing the presence of her lovely husband: just have a wank love and leave the nations eating habits alone!

i like my air unconditioned

After three weeks, i have become used to the low hiss of the air conditioning.
I no longer have to tip my head slightly to one side in order to check that my brain/personality is not leaking away slowly through my ears.
The air con also makes me sneeze incessantly. I feel like the caged canary that they used to take down the mines. If i expire, then they will knock the building down: declare it unfit for human habitation.
The job i left in April only just covered my living costs. This job doesn't even do that. Another rejection letter hits the mat.
I try to remember who i am, but the thought is lost in the daily mechanics of the next hour. It gets hot in the office and i'm thinking of all the other things i want to do, and about having time to do them, and i have a flashback to those feelings of twelve months ago and the thought crosses my mind that the fear is still tagging the heels of my memory.

London Fashion Week (or I wish i'd paid more attention to what i was doing ten years ago)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a catwalk photographer?
I had never wondered such a thing, but i ended up doing it once.
It was one of those times when a friend says, " hey, i've got this gig, we get paid, we should do it."
So she and i find ourselves in this hangar-like construction in Pall Mall in 1997. We don't have a clue what we're doing, but there's this chalked 'map' on the floor and it has the names of some major publications kind of drawn into a weird shape. The words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS appear in the centre of this glyph.
We're way too early, but slowly photographers begin to arrive and position themselves at the end of the runway. They all know each other and they're talking about the previous show by Hussein Chalayan where the models appeared in full length black veils getting progressively shorter down the line until the final model had only her face covered.
We look kind of awkward, as the bunch assemble themselves around us into this amazing pyramid, where they're all kind of balancing on top of each other and supporting each others huge lenses. An older Italian guy starts shouting at me, "No, no,no! Not a tripod! It's a monopod! Not tripod, no!" I smile and look apologetic, then ask a really tall guy in front of me with big hair if he would mind moving to the left a bit. He gives me a look i can't decipher.
When the show starts, we just make it up as we go along (although we did have a plan to make sure we backed each other up and didn't miss anything). Towards the end we are staring down our lenses at Helena Christensen- she's obviously the star of the show because she waits at the end of the runway for longer than the other models did. I get some really good pictures of her, and then it's all over. The tower dis-assembles and the words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS have been scrubbed out.

A Girl walks into a bar...

and she meets: a US squadie; a Spanish dentist; an Irish graphic designer; a Columbian student and a school-teacher.
And he tells her that she is the most beautiful woman in the room, and he begs her to come and talk to his friends. He asks her if she would like a glass of champagne and when there is only half a glass to pour he goes to the bar and buys another bottle. He tells her that he wants to fuck her and asks her to come to the toilets with him right now. And when she says, "You are a beautiful boy, but i will not go upstairs with you, no." He says, "I will see you again and I will fuck you . I will see you again and I will fuck you."
And she takes his card, but the next day she doesn't even consider what might have happened if she called him. She takes a crumpled piece of paper out of her bag and throws it away without looking at his number or reminding herself of his name.
And when she is alone she wonders why she does those things. But she knows deep down inside (which is where her reactions come from) that he is not there that evening. And so she waits for him, patiently, to come.

Words v Pictures

I don't know how to say this, but i think we might need to have a break. I mean, i know i was all enthusiastic at our one year anniversary and all, but i'm having doubts about our long term prospects.
I mean we used to be doing it twice a week- and now i'm forcing myself to do once a week. On top of that, i've been spending a lot of time with u-tube recently. When we started out, i purposely restricted myself to words only. I wanted that challenge; to build up a picture without providing one for you. But after all, i 'm a visual person. Maybe i need pictures to keep me turned on.
I also feel our relationship is a little one-sided. What with you all blocking your IP addresses and everything. How can i read you if you won't let me? and if you are reading me you're just not prepared to talk about it. I've been trawling through Site-meter and not getting any joy. I can't see you and i'm losing the buzz that made me want to look.
It's all so cloak and dagger with blogger isn't it? that was the thing that attracted me in the beginning, but now it's the thing that drives me crazy.
I mean with u-tube, you just show each other what you've got, you can say if you dig it or not, and than you can go and find out who does and who doesn't. It's a bit more of a level playing field and the numbers are right there in front of you to keep you going.
After all people are more open to images than words aren't they, access to them is not limited by education, language or by the quantity you have consumed?
Well, that's how i feel, let me know what you think. We can talk later.

Brian-top marks for not trying

Add 16. Brian to win and here's why:
1. His assertion that 'women don't do proper poos. They just do little rabbit poo's, don't they?' was the funniest thing i've seen on television in a long time.
2. For telling Amanda that 'there's nothing worse than women worrying about their weight when there was no need to', and managing to say this without coming across as patronising or pervy.
3. Because he genuinely is so unassuming that he can't even bear the thought of winning (when Kara-Louise suggested it he had to go and cry in the toilet).
4. For dancing at any opportunity especially to My Way (which was cringingly copied by Ziggy- who couldn't really join in because he needed to go to the bathroom to do his hair).
5. For asking the Universe and having his three wishes come true (thanks to Noel Edmunds).

And Carole's finally let her hair down! And she's wearing red! And she looks really nice!

Ahhhh. Another year goes by and my application languishes unfilled.....

Hide

It was a funny sort of day. The weather was unpredictable, but she had decided to make the trip anyhow. She was wearing a dark blue wind-cheater and a pair of stout galoshes. At the age of eighty -four she noted that it took her roughly 11 minutes longer to get round the lake than it had last year. The steps of the hide were also quite treacherous, especially as they were currently damp. She held onto the handrail and made her way carefully towards the wooden door where she paused, listening for sounds.
There were none.
Inside the hut her eyes had to adjust to the dark. The slightly damp indoors/outdoors smell was familiar and comforting. She put out her hand to where she knew the wooden catch would be and lifted the plank which made the viewing slat. It clipped into pace and she took her time, sitting first the wrong way around on the bench and then carefully lifting one leg at a time over it. The bench was covered in some old carpet but she needed to be careful nonetheless.
Her favourite part was taking out the binoculars that had been a birthday present fifteen long years before. They fitted into her hands so well, although she had to keep a handkerchief to wipe her eyes, as the combination of the breeze and the closeness of the eyepiece made her eyes water somewhat.
She had been watching quietly for about fifteen minutes when she heard footsteps on the wooden steps outside, accompanied by whispers.
"There's someone in there."
"Shhh"
The latch lifted and a young woman entered behind a small boy who may have been about eight years old. They said hello, which was preferable to silence in such a small and intimate space. She noted that the woman's shoes were completely unsuitable: those very low but narrow heels which would sink straight into an inch of mud. She let them settle, noting that the woman watched for a while and then handed the binoculars to the boy, whispering, did he want to look? Every time she did so, he shook his head and pushed them back toward her in an odd reversal of the parent child roles.
"Can you see the Flycatcher up there in the willow to the left?"
The woman turned her binoculars in that direction, but it was obvious that she had not seen the bird, as her gaze remained unsettled.
"He's just between the branch that forks left and the next tree. Oh, I haven't seen a Flycatcher for many years. See how he swoops, there! Did you see him?"
But the woman seemed distracted.
The boy did not want to look and the woman got up to leave. The boy closed the slat and they left silently.

WANTED: Confidence at crucial moments.

i bumped into my Indian prince again yesterday. This time it was in the shop at the end of Hysteria Lane. I can't work out what it is about these encounters that really freak me out. It could be that he is so astoundingly beautiful. I couldn't even think of anything to say this time apart from, 'Hi, how are you?'
When am i going to grow up and turn into the kind of woman who seizes every opportunity to make herself fabulous and desirable no matter what her intentions toward the male in question?
I'm really annoying myself. At crucial moments i seem to become frozen, my personality drains away through my toes and i am consumed by a ridiculous level of self consciousness. I mean i can sit here now and say i am an intelligent attractive female who's friends enjoy my company, but i'm damned if i don't turn into some goofy 11 year old when i really need to pull it out of the bag.
I'm also past the age where this could come across as cute or endearing. I think it probably just comes across as disinterest or even worse-disdain.
I suffer similar symptoms at job interviews, in fact in many situations where it's absolutely imperative that i perform on the spot.
I suppose, what i really think is (deep down) that if anything is a genuine opportunity, that really could be important in your life, you'll get another shot (or two or three or four).
Am i right?

Heckler

Went to see some live comedy on Saturday night. Now i'm the kind of obtuse person who finds the fact that someone is in front of me actively trying to make me laugh inherently not funny.
However, my sister likes live comedy so off we went. We arrived at the venue just in time to see that every single seat was taken except a nice table for two right in front of the stage which had clearly not been chosen due to it's proximity to the currently empty mic stand. After a short discussion about the likelyhood of being picked on by the comics, we weighed it up, and decided that standing up all the way through would be far more uncomfortable.
The compere lighted on us immediately.
"So, are you two 'together' then?"
Not that old chestnut: two girls together - must be lesbians!
We motioned back and forth between ourselves, "Sisters...."
"Ah, sisters, I see. So where are your fellas then?"
We looked at each other silently understanding that the truth was not an option- Well, she's married and i'm.....well ....SINGLE.
I love it when these kind of complex messages go back and forth between people and yet nothing is said. My sister instinctively knew that i would have no desire to announce my status to this guy (or indeed to the whole audience). I haven't got a boyfriend! Okay, everyone?? Just in case there are any spare drunks hanging around who need someone to talk to ....
Anyway, she said, "They're not with us tonight."
Suitably neutral answer. Not quite lying, not giving too much information away. There was something about the use of the words "with us" that i just couldn't resist adding,
"You know, passed over- gone to the other side...."
We both started laughing hysterically at the comic timing, i mean it just came out- the way it would if we were at home or something. I wasn't meaning to be a heckler- it just came out! The compere just looked at us laughing and i could see him weighing up whether we could possibly be joking about such a thing: should we genuinely have experienced a tragic double bereavement.
He was kind of covering up the awkwardness and doing these quiet, under the breath, nervous filling noises.
After an indeterminable length of time where he admitted "I don't know what to say to that," still thinking that he'd better watch what he said just in case it was true and we were either demented with grief or just really weird, he cracked a gag about us getting mixed up and thinking it was a seance. By this point we were hysterical with laughter, tears rolling down our faces: as were the rest of the audience.
After that he moved onto the table next to us.

Another chance

This Sunday (15th) was our one year anniversary.
Who knew our relationship would make it to this milestone? And the best thing about reaching this point? We can start reminiscing!
So, here we go:
One year ago i wrote my first post. I was stuck in a job which just about paid the bills but ultimately made me miserable. I had no time and no energy to do anything but work and go out (to try and forget about work).
One year on, i'm completely broke, almost maxed out on borrowing power- but happy. Not only have i found an outlet for my thoughts here, but i have brought one of my other projects to stage one of it's life.
At this point, i still have no definite idea about how i am going to earn from now on. But i needed this space.
I'm even talking to people about collaborations! Me! Me who has always worked away on her own and thought that working with other people meant losing that all important control. I'm going to do a project with a friend who is a dancer, choreographer and writer. I'm also talking to a friend who is a DJ about making a film. Watch this space for further details.
It's bizarre. Even though i'm in the least stable position I've been in a long time i feel strangely assured that everything is going to be fine.
I also realised something massive about my emotional/relationship life. I have realised that everything i have done in this area in the last thirteen years has been a form of self-punishment. This seems incredible (how could i have been doing this for so long?)
Thirteen years ago i terminated a pregnancy to a totally unsuitable partner. I absolutely knew i could not have a child with that person. Not a shadow of a doubt, that would have been a disastrous move at that point in my life - just finished university, substituting my first part time teaching job by working in retail. He treated my pregnancy like an occupational hazard. There was no need for debate.
I ditched him, he was angry, it was ugly, but worst of all, i felt as though i had killed someone. Depending which way you look at it, maybe i had. My friends that didn't go to university were getting married and having children. I consequently embarked on a single-minded quest to pursue relationships with men who either could not or would not be with me in any real way.
This revelation, the common factor in my messy history has only come to me in the last month or so.
I want to say, not for anybody else's sake but my my own, that i forgive myself. I forgive myself for the decision i made in those circumstances. That impossible decision that lurks somewhere in women's minds if not directly then through our friends, our mothers, our sisters lives.
I'm not a bad person. The reason i have not manged a relationship in the last thirteen years is because i have forgotten how to be nice to myself. i do remember what it feels like to be loved and i acknowledge that it scares me. I love passionately but most of all i deserve and look forward to being loved in return.

Untold Stories! New- with sound!

Ewww! I've finally got round to putting music with my posts!
The joys of unlimited free time!
This has made my week. I've gone back through all my posts and put in soundtracks for some of them.
Not all the songs that i wanted were available. Nonetheless, i am a happy woman!
If you've got time to scroll back you can hear all kinds of Nina Tunes.
There's one addition in particular that has an important function.
If i haven't mentioned my love-life lately that's because there has been a hiatus. I need to say googdbye to someone and that track is my goodbye. I usually have to force myself to cut off from people when a relationship ends, "Now you really need to stop thinking about x, y, z. It's not going to do any good to think about it any longer." etc.
But this has been different- which is odd considering i just spent the last eighteen months (?) thinking about that situation far too much.
I've just stopped. I have no plan, no strategy in place, it's just gone. It's not even vaguely there in the back of my mind. It pops up now and again, but i don't have the desire to go into it any further.
So, this is it. I did not get a chance to say a lot of the things that i wanted to: so this is my goodbye.

To my future husband:
i know what you're thinking.....
You're thinking, " Is she going to write about me like that? Is our relationship going to be the subject of the love of my life's on-line ramblings?"
Although you will deny it, you are the coolest guy in the universe. Our life/relationship will not be documented here, because it will be swirling and whirling around us; wrapping us up and keeping us warm and happy. It will be too real to be pinned down, consigned to words and then history. It will be now, not then. And when we get together; i will just have to find something else to write about.

A Girl walks into a bar...

and it reeks of toilet cleaner!!!!!!
So, we all had our first outing this weekend in 'Smoke Free Britain". And we've all heard what smokers think about it. But what about those of us who don't smoke (anymore). I mean, i've always known i've been inhaling carcinogens every time i enter a bar (whether first or second-hand) but i didn't realise i was also inhaling noxious industrial strength toilet cleaner. It's revolting! I much prefer the smell of smoke! A couple of bars were burning incense but good lord, as if that's going to mask whatever it is they use to do whatever they have to do to clean up after us. I found it most disturbing/off-putting- i certainly wouldn't eat in a place that smelled like that....
And then, you're standing there having the usual backward and forward mixture of gossip, stupidness and lahdy lah lah when suddenly your companions all look at each other and say, "Okay, we going outside then?"
Not only is this inevitably at some crucial point in the conversation, but then to cap it all, the non-smoker has to 'look after the drinks!!!!!' I need a strategy here otherwise i'm going to be doomed to be drinks-looker-afterer for ever more. i think i need to make a badge that says, As a non-smoker i abdicate all responsibility for any drinks or their contents, whether known to me or otherwise tampered with, left in my (drunken) charge.
Although this is clearly weather dependent, the conversations outside take far too long for my liking. Of course, they're all standing there talking to other smokers about how awful it is!
So the smokers are out there making 'new friends' while the non-smoker is guarding the bloody drinks.
I even went with them on the fifth or sixth trip out.
There's only one thing for it.
I'll have to start smoking again.

For Fifi

I didn't go back to show that woman my portfolio for the photography job. I figure that the only reason she would be so unbelievably disdainful towards another woman whom she had never met, would be because she was in love with the previous post-holder.
I bet he was a man in his forties (or maybe a bit older) but who seemed fairly hot to a woman in her fifties (or maybe a bit older). I can see him in his leather jacket- probably brown- one of those weather-beaten ones that looks like it's been everywhere with you "and boy, have i been everywhere". I bet he was the kind of guy who made women attracted to him, not because he was especially attractive or even a good person to be with, but just because he believed himself to have that power.
A communal darkroom is a space that is bursting with awkward moments that lend themselves to interpretation. That red or amber light that you work under, the silence of people concentrating on their own calculations, the repeated and rhythmic movements from enlarger to chemicals. The swish swish of the liquids and the tapping of the prints at the ends of the tray.
His pupils will have admired him- such a contrast to their suburban experience. He hints of previous lives that involve travelling, dedicating himself to his work and make for interesting anecdotes during the class.
But she had a different relationship with him. As centre manager, it was she who gave him the work. She was impressed by his confidence, and with the stories that were attached to his photographs of places he had visited and of the things he had chosen to record. Of course she said he would be perfect for the job. He made jokes with her and made her feel as though she were not as angry as she usually was. She looked forward to Tuesday evenings more than she should. She found herself thinking about what she was wearing on those days, and undoubtedly making a little more effort. Just a touch more make-up, an extra piece of jewellery.
At closing-up time there was always something in the air. There was a hesitation when it came to leaving that she felt was mutual. It would be unprofessional of her to initiate anything, but if he were to ask her: that would be a completely different matter. She tried to communicate this with her voice, her manner and her actions but perhaps she was being too subtle. In the two years that he worked for her, she came to be attached to this ritual. It was comfortingly familiar and she never ceased to give up hope that one day he would ask her.
Then he announced the news that he had been offered a full time post in one of the colleges. It was as though the desk behind which she sat had lurched backward straight into her stomach. He was pacing around in obvious excitement and it took all she could muster to think of an appropriate response. She couldn't even remember what she had said afterwards, but it was of no consequence to him, such was his triumph that he had finally received his just desserts. She would have liked to have stood and shook his hand, but she could not.
When he finally left the room to begin the lesson, she was numb. She was at once numb and destroyed. She could not narrate her feelings, but knew that without this there was only a huge gaping hole. The only way that she could fill this hole, was to begin, angrily and immediately, to advertise the vacant post.

WANTED: Gig Buddy

Being at home during the day has it's advantages.
I got to listen to the White Stripes do their live tracks on radio 1 this lunchtime.
Downside is, i can't afford to go and see them on Friday. Also, none of my friends want to go! I've got a bone to pick with Icky Thump though: it's 'Ecky Thump' (as in 'Eck' being short for 'Heck'); being a comedy Yorkshire exclamation. Unless they have some reason for changing it to an 'I'. If anyone has an explanation I'd be glad to hear it.
We went to see Massive Attack last year. There was a moment during Unfinished Sympathy where we all looked at each other and said, "Soundtrack of our lives".
Bit of a corporate affair that festival though. Lots of big fancy cars and couples in matching denim outfits wearing expensive jewellry. As soon as they went off stage, everyone piled out. No vibe there (man).

Communing with Yorkshire

We went camping and i turned into a kind of nature-driven maniac. We camped at the base of Goredale Scar. The sides of the Scar rise up above the site and naturally you'd want to run up there, wouldn't you?
In fact, i was the only person who wanted to run up there. The sun went down behind the top and i realised that there would be a fantastic sunset up there. Having failed to convince my fellow campers, i strode off at a pace (in case the sun beat me to it). It was harder going than i thought. About a third of the way up my heart was pounding so much that i felt slightly sick. i turned round to sit down and the drop /view of the bottom made me glad i was not standing. I waited till my heart rate slowed a bit and breathed through it, tried to enjoy it rather than be scared. The rest of the way was pretty much a hands and knees kind of scramble. I reached the peak that was the highest point visible from the ground, and lo and behold, this was not the top!
I thought about going back down (because i would not be visible from this point on). The sun was creeping further down. I tried to imagine where explorers get that desire to keep going and then thought how disappointing it would be if i didn't see the sun set. What if there was another bit after this one?
There wasn't. I reached the top and a limestone shelf spread out before me. The sun was about ten minutes away from setting and i sat down and watched it drop gradually. I thought about masturbating but didn't.
Later on, after i got back down (which was equally scary) i had a really bad attack of the giggles. I was crying with laughter. Every time someone said something i thought of something else which was vaguely connected but ridiculously funny - to me anyway.
One of my friends said, "God help the next man that you have sex with."

This is one of the most difficult things i've had to write about to date.

Those of you who read carefully will be aware of my thoughts on being copied. So, imagine my surprise when an anonymous commenter on my Limewire dating post told me that someone has been copying my posts and passing them off as their own.
It was more than weird, reading my own words through someone else's site. I mean, i know our online selves are not our true selves. These fragments can never tell the whole story, and they're not meant to. Not for me anyway. As my title suggests - for me it's as much about what you don't say. I'm really interested in the stuff between the lines - the stuff you decide really doesn't need to be broadcast on the Internet (and conversely how the hell we choose the stuff that does). But I realised that as soon as i publish something, it's subject to change by it's readers. But i don't want to control that, i want it to be out there and become a developing, changing document.
However, this has been a reality check for me, i'm looking into intellectual copyright. I'm going to make sure that despite my desire to make links with people and put stuff out there, if anyone is going to get credit for my ideas and indeed if anyone is going to make money from my writing or from SOUNDTRACK or any associated projects, it will be me.
So Bloggers beware: it happens. And if you want see it with your own eyes -look for the post dated 19th May 2007 (at the bottom of the front page).

Can't sleep

My mum hugged me and said, "You're an immensely talented person. This is last minute nerves."

I installed SOUNDTRACK, my current story-telling project, in the bar seven days ago. The festival runs for another week but so far the project has exceeded my expectations (can't remember what my expectations were now). People have been coming out of the woodwork with all sorts of gems. I've been taking them away and editing them, and adding them in the next day. I can't leave the thing alone. I've been sitting there nearly every day to see how people are reacting to it, i've called everyone i know (who couldn't make it to the private view) and insisted that they come down for a listen. I couldn't go today or yesterday, and i've really missed it! Like a friend who might be having fun while i'm not there.
As boxes go, this one is good.

Truth is....

I want to run around a huge empty field screaming. I don't want anyone to be around to ask me what's wrong, or to look at me like i'm a mad woman.
When i've finished screaming i want to lay down in the sun and go to sleep.
When i wake up, i want my life to be different. I want to be a person who makes a living from something that she is good at and she loves. I want to come home to someone who loves me and looks after me and i want to have more time for other people because my life is running pretty smoothly.
I don't want to be sitting here obsessing about my storytelling project and wishing i'd never started it. I don't want to be a person who doubts everything thing they do to the point where nothing ever gets finished. I shouldn't be doing this.
I should be looking for a job- since i left the one that was making me miserable and now only have two weeks savings left.
I don't want to work for that woman i met yesterday who, when i bounced in all friendly and enthusiastic about teaching photography again, gave me a limp handshake and talked to me in that way that only bitter post-menopausal women can talk to younger women ( i could tell she thought i was younger than i am). "You haven't got much experience, have you?"
But am i going to do any of this? Or am i just going to send her my cv and show her some prints (as if she'd know fine art printing from a picture in the local fucking newspaper) and will i try and make her like me so she'll give me the job, and then make myself miserable all over again.
Or maybe i shouldn't do any of the above and try and start up a garden design business. Forget about being a fucking artist, take that risk of self-employment -maybe it'll be easier second time around......
I kind of thought i could do all of the above, but maybe that's where i'm going wrong.

What are we going to do when there are no more record shops?

Okay, iv'e just fallen in love with someone on Limewire.
I hardly ever use the 'browse host' button, but tonight i was downloading Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime' and i thought i'd see what kind of cat would have such a tune in his library.

I love this person! I mean this host has a virtually faultless music taste! He's got everything: all the obvious stuff like the Beatles, Beachboys, the few best Stones songs, Stevie Wonder etc. But then he's got Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Mamas and the Papas, Isley Brothers
without being ashamed to have a bit of Abba, ACE OF BASE!, the themes from Grease and Saturday Night Fever in there too. Then he's got 70's folk: Cat Stevens, Credence Clearwater Revival, America, Rod Stewart AND 70's disco- Sister Sledge, Jacksons etc.
Bit of Weezer, Fugees 'Ready or Not'; the (Dirty) version of 'Don Cha' by the Pussycat Dolls.
The only track that grated was a Shania Twain song, but i'm not above being won over if the right person had an argument for that being good.
He's also got TV themes including the theme tune from Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Bart and Michael Jackson sing Happy Birthday Lisa!!!!! GSOH, no need to overstate it.
I expect by this point that the astute among you may be saying to yourselves " But how'd you even know this host is male? Huh? Eh?"
Lean over so i can whisper in your ear.

There were some WWF theme tunes in there.

But i can overlook that!

Anyway, how cool would it be if Limewire started a dating service? (Someone's going to nick this idea now, aren't they?) So you could contact those file sharers that wanted to be identified and what a great basis for a possible relationship... My idea that one! You heard it here first.

Boxes

I've scraped a MASSIVE dent in the side of my car.
I keep eating a whole packet of fig rolls in one go
and my storytelling project is due to be installed in eleven days time.
It's going to be an archive in progress, that is, it will be all the stories so far on a listening post (possibly with music). I'm expecting that more people will want to tell stories once they've heard the one's i've got so far. I want people to know that any story they want to tell is a good one. I'm interested in all of it, every seemingly trivial little bit, that for some reason lodges in your head. It's really frustrating sometimes when i ask people if they will contribute and they start telling me their story but they think it has to be something else or more, and i want to just whip out a mic and say, "thanks, that was it!"
It's a delicate process of negotiation you know: but it's a great feeling once you get it down on tape. It makes me feel high, like i've managed to slow down time or change it's pace. I'm an archivist. I need to put things in boxes. It's like blogging: it's the new photography.

32 days after ditching Prozac

and i feel okay, in fact, i'm basking in the glow of surviving without them. I realise this could be a false independence as my serotonin levels will remain elevated for a while yet, but who knows i may be able to keep them up all by myself! I'm thinking of taking up running, and if my external circumstances improve that may be enough to keep me going (this has happened before). I just need a few breaks in my creative-life/career/ love-life, or any one of those would do actually.
I am no longer twitching. I am not waking up in the middle of the night. I'm still having some of that numerical dyslexia. That dark colouring around my eyes has gone-other people have commented on this. I think i may have put my half a stone back on. i am not plagued by disproportionate fears about my health or my future in general. I am showing an incredible ability to think about today and maybe tomorrow but not much further than that. I have realised that i am most happy when i am NOT 'multi-tasking'. Does anyone have a word for just focusing on one thing at a time? For doing it and doing it well, and for feeling unequivocally satisfied with that activity, both for it's own sake and for the end or on-going product?
I think it's time that we start inventing our own words to replace that corporate bullshit that is invading the minds of ordinary people and distracting them from free thought.
Any more words or phrases that the world would be better without? Lets have a bonfire....

Paper

Have you missed me?
Or is that too much pressure on the relationship at this point?
Anyway.
Iv'e been decorating my beautiful house on Hysteria Lane. To describe my activities more correctly, i've been scraping, filling, sanding, stripping many layers of wallpaper, clearing up whole planets of plaster dust, putting on at least three coats of everything (danish oil, undercoat, emulsion, gloss) and generally grafting like a labourer. I no longer need sandpaper as the surface of my very own hands will now suffice for removing old varnish/paintwork. I've been so unsexy; when i sat down on the toilet, plaster fell out of my pants.
However, i said i wouldn't moan about 'getting work done' because it's middle class and boring to do so. I keep reminding myself that i am lucky, and a little surprised to be in this position. It is, after all, only eight years ago that i found myself unemployed, in a council house with neither dog nor man to protect me. But that's another story...
So yes, i have removed all the traces of the daily activity of the previous owner. All those scuff marks and kiddy scribbles have gone. Weird that isn't it? How we all make those tracks of our movements on our home. Like drawing the same thing over and over again.
There's lots of other stuff to catch up on (a backblog in fact). But i don't know if i've lost it for now so lets leave it at that.

Andy Goldsworthy

Went to see his latest installations at YSP.
Wow.
I'm already a big fan, so predisposed, but check this out it's really good.
Four rooms, each with a different sculpture, not so much in the room, but making the room. The first space is dominated by this ceiling high cairn made of logs, left in their natural shape but differing in length and width to make that classic Goldsworthy egg shape- and you can touch this one! I touched it carefully, not because it looks unstable (it looks incredibly solid), but with respect for the system and care that holds this shape together. We all know the thing about an egg being 'uncrushable' from top to bottom, well this piece takes that apprehensive application of imaginary force to another level.
The second space has walls of dried, cracked clay in this beautiful pattern that looks contrived almost in it's repetition of the fissures (although at the same time you know it can't be contrived). This is echoed nicely in the final space where hangs another motif of his: a curtain of leaf stalks that are held together by blackthorns. The curtain is suspended horizontally across the room from the ceiling to the floor and features the hole motif that appears so often in his work. He has put a hole in something that is hardly there already; a delicate curtain of something and nothing like a spiders web.
But finally, my favourite piece. It was almost too amazing to be around. I wanted everyone else to go away, it felt like a private moment as soon as i went in there. Goldsworthy has constructed a dome inside the room from inter-laced chestnut branches. The result is this incredible 'home' that is so warm and living (i'm resisting the description 'womb-like' here because it wasn't like that). The heat generated was totally unexpected for me; you can feel and smell the combination of sap and heat in a way that is almost like sex - or maybe that's just me. We all said, "I could live here." It was an odd sensation, and i like the way you can't see when you first enter, there is no light so you have to wait till your eyes get used to the dark before you can appreciate the intricacies of the top of the dome for instance.
Hats of Mr. Goldsworthy, hats off.

you know those cliches about 30-something women? They're all true (in my case)

Okay, I got really mad.
I stopped taking my anti-depressants on Friday (against my doctors advice). I figure if i start feeling like shite then i can always start taking them again. They work on a very slow-release basis, so nothing dramatic is going to happen. I've still got the twitching, the numerical dyslexia and the inability to concentrate/ believe that anything is of much consequence really. However i can feel my sex-drive creeping back. I didn't even notice it had gone to be honest (or didn't much care) until the last couple of days. It's really been making me laugh, i've been revelling in it. It's really funny.
Other shifts have taken place -mostly yesterday actually- both inside and outside my body. The mucus blockage in my head started to move on down (a little too much information perhaps?). I could hardly breath in the morning but then it all started to come out (gross!) and by the evening my voice had almost returned to normal. My eyeballs are no longer squeaking and if i take paracetamol i feel almost human. Fuck Prozac, paracetamol's where it's at. It's been relaxing me to a frightening degree. I have slept through the day for hours on end- i was too scared to do this before because i thought i was depressed.
Yoga helped too.
The other thing is that my old yoga teacher is coming back! It's ridiculous, but when she left i cried a river. I cried when someone told me she was leaving; i cried when she announced it in class; i cried all through her last class and when i read her goodbye letter. I'm crying now just thinking about it. At the time i thought that was perhaps an unhealthy attachment to someone who is not after all a friend. But her voice was encrypted in my mind, it gave instructions when she was not there and was one of the few constants in the previous seven years of my life.
Anyway.
Today i had a massive gorgeous sleep and when i woke up i did two things that have been eluding me - both technical and related to my story-telling project.
I feel like i'm unfolding and i know i am not depressed.

Mrs Angry

I'm so angry.
I'm so angry i could go around screaming and shouting and hitting things if there were anyone here to listen.
I'm angry with every fucking arsehole who's ever trampled all over my feelings; i'm angry for every job i didn't get that i know i could have done; i'm angry that i always blame myself and that any lack of achievement in my life is only really down to me; i'm angry that i'm taking drugs to make me deal with things more in the way that other people do; i'm angry that my head is full of snot, i feel like shit and i've felt like this intermittently over the last two years; i'm angry that i can't breath like every body else does and i have to breath into a fucking tube to check how badly my lungs are performing; i'm angry that there's no one to look after me when things get like this.
I sat here and i thought i wasn't even going to be able to cry. I sat here thinking that my eyes are dry and nothing's going to come out. My feelings have been plastered over, smoothed out so that they look nice, so they can be painted on, and no one will have to look at those cracks and lines any more.
You're not supposed to look into the cracks are you: because you might fall in.

"...if that makes a difference"

It was my friend's thirtieth birthday party and i had decided to get really dressed up.
I wore this fabulous dress that i got in Chinatown in Soho ages ago. It's a full length dark green satin Cheongsam with a thigh high split at each side and a peacock embroidered in red and white thread on the front. It's tail feathers are not on display but curve down the skirt of the dress behind the bird. I wore red heels and far more make-up than i normally do. I was looking hot.
First of all he asked one of my friends, "who's the fox in the green dress?
Now i've met this guy lots of times before over the years, so i wasn't impressed that he had only just noticed me after all that time. Then he came and sat next to me and said, "Can just say that you look absolutely gorgeous. You're so burlesque."
Never been called that before; but it was unmistakably a compliment.
But he didn't overdo it, which is always a point-scorer in my book, he just let me get on with my night.
At the end of the night the birthday girl thanked him for DJing. Within my earshot he said, "No problem, i'll DJ for you any time, as long as she's there," and pointed in my direction.
Now this particular friend has a way of convincing me to do things in my love-life that i would not normally do. (I don't know why she has that effect on me- i could give you other examples but perhaps another time.) A few days later she's telling me that i should phone him and go for a drink with him. She gives me the low-down on his personal history and it all seems fine. I argue and say that i don't ask other people, they ask me. She gives me his number and i convince myself i should do it because i never do things like this, and everybody else does it and thinks nothing of it, and that's possibly why i'm the only single person i know.
So, i text him and ask him if he wants to go out....
The next day i get a reply which says that, sure we can go for a drink, but he's been seeing someone since the start of the year (NB. it was February) if that makes a difference.

How utterly perfect a message is that? The ultimate in ambiguous textual intercourse.

So, could be read as "we can go for a drink if you want to be friends" or equally "we can go for a drink if you are happy to proceed knowing that i have a girlfriend".

Am i being too obvious by spelling this out?

OMG!

This is the first time ever that i have had to force myself to write a post.
What's going on?
I don't know what to write about. Nothing seems exciting enough to put down. This is really weird, i don't like it.
I've really been enjoying your comments recently, maybe you could help me out. I could tell you a tale about my love-life; or i could tell you what i got up to in London a couple of weeks ago; my experience of the recent lunar eclipse or erm, struggling here.....it's all me, me, me isn't it?

I've labelled all my posts! This is not because i would like to tell you exactly what each post is about- then you might not even feel the need to read it!! No, i just like labels and boxes, they make me feel organazised. In fact i love it when you get a comment and you don't really understand what it means because the person who wrote it was thinking about something entirely different (or related in their mind). It's great when that happens. For the love of ambiguity, i invented the label 'miscellaneous'. These are the posts which resist being pinned down. These can be about anything you want them to be about. Indeed they will be better for it.
So, i didn't plan this post. It's the nearest to free-association that i'm going to get. "Can you tell what it is yet?"

Dig this

There's a knock at the door.
"Flowers or something for you, love."
It's not flowers, not yet anyway.
It's a magnolia stellata that i ordered for myself on valentines day. It will be the second thing to flower in my new garden (after the crocus's).
I run some water into the sink (not too cold) and stand the pot there whilst i get my boots on. I'm going to plant it in the circular bed in front of the apple tree, but first i have to dig out all the clumps of grass that are in the bed, otherwise it just won't be right.
I love doing this. I love getting weeds out too. I love it when you have a patch of ground that needs clearing and you fork it over and pull out all those couch grass roots and green bits (with your fingers) so it's soil only. I love digging and breaking up great big lumps of clodding sods. I love the smell of soil and i love the way you can look back on your work and say, "I did that and it looks just how i wanted it to. Next year it will be beautiful, and for years after that if i look after it."

Scooters, vacation, fall

So, these are my symptoms at present. (that's what you want to know, isn't it?)
My memory and concentration have continued to get worse over the past few weeks. In November i felt out of it, but i needed to feel that. I needed to feel the opposite of that disproportionate amount of anxiety -which was verging on hypochondria and was full blown paranoia- to get through that time. But now: it's just massively inconvenient.
I can't remember more than one thing at once. So, if i've got three things to do upstairs, i'll go up, do one of them, come down and then remember the other two. Similarly when talking on the phone, i have a list of things i need to tell the person in question. I will tell them one thing and then consider myself done. Then i have to ring them back.
I've also got this weird kind of dyslexia. It's especially bad with numbers. I look at the number (time,date, amount, whatever) and when i look away from it, it's not that i've forgotten it, it's more that it's been replaced by some other bogus, random figure.
The reason i hate this, is that it is the polar opposite of my actual personality. I am not vague, inaccurate or inefficient. So, as the Doc pointed out, these are the symptoms of depression as well as the side-effects of anti-depressants. So i figure, to find out if i am depressed, i need to stop taking them. If the symptoms improve then i know that stopping is the right thing to do. If the symptoms continue i'm depressed and i'm fucked.
But on a more positive note. Two things: i've started dreaming again and i'm starving. [My mum would say, 'You're not starving. You don't know the meaning of the word.']
Ok, so i'm hungry. Really, really hungry. I'm hungry in between meals, i'm hungry before bed, i'm waking up before dawn feeling really, really hungry. But this is good, and i'm enjoying the dreams.
And finally- i had that thing again last night where i wake myself up running. This time it was a bit different. It was more like stopping myself from slipping down. It was more like scrabbling upwards (horizontally- if you know what i mean). And i'm still twitching, but it hasn't got any worse. So, there it is.

Twitching the night Away

I've had a slight twitch since January. I don't think anyone else can see it. It's just small muscular spasm, like the ones you get when you're just about to fall asleep. It only happens when i'm sitting or lying down. I asked the doctor if it's a side effect of the medication. She said it's more likely to be a side effect of the anxiety.
I haven't put my half a stone back on either.
Come on! Who's got my half a stone?? I need it back!
I also woke up running in the middle of the night last Sunday. I was peddling like mad. Like when you're at the bottom of a pool and you know you're running out of air.

Anyway, I'm finally going to London to see N and Dimitri. Back on Tuesday. Let you know if there's anything to report.

Clean

I was going to write about Skins (last night on E4) but i think i'll give it another chance and watch it again next week.
I've just come back from the Turkish Baths. It's two years since i last went- which is far too long. This time i went in the plunge pool twice. Normally i'm a complete wuss when it comes to being cold, but this time i loved the shock and the exhilaration of going from really hot to really cold. As i laid on a recliner in the first dry heat room, i felt the buzz my body reacting to the extremes. I found myself thinking that this was better than any buzz from alcohol, nicotine or other drugs (how thirty-something am I?)
When the buzz subsided i need the heat of the second dry heat room.
However liberated i like to think i am, i cannot help being disturbed by the nakedness of strangers. I kept my bikini on (until my final shower) but of course many women (mainly older women) are naturally naked. I wonder what the age is when you cease to give a fuck about other people seeing your snatch?
The next dry chamber is the hottest of all. I need to lay down on the stone which is covered by a towel. I put my head on the amazingly comfortable block of wood and give in to the heat below me. I remember the thing about living in the moment and i think about the intense heat located at the base of my spine and the relaxing effect it is having on my lower body. There's a similar but less intense feeling in the shoulders.
I repeated the whole process and drank lots of water.
For my final shower i used a lime and lavender body wash which smells fantastic. Then in the rest room, i used a complementary moisturiser which is pretty intoxicating. I reveled in the thought that i was almost certainly the best smelling woman in the room. Feeling heady with my own gorgeousness and the level of relaxation i don't move for about fifteen minutes (except to drink a smoothie).
I finally get dressed really, really slowly, toweling my hair and putting back each item of clothing carefully. I'm so clean, cleaner than i have been for the past two and a half years. I think about the last time i visited: November 2004.
I just bumped into him in the bar, it was my birthday celebration and i was enthusing drunkenly about how wonderful the Turkish Bath had been. Of course i said,
'You have to go, it's amazing'. To which he replied,
'Well someone would have to invite me, wouldn't they?'

I have steamed the last two and a half years out of my body and i'm ready to start again. Im clean, the cleanest i've been (Depeche Mode).
I drive home, and although i am all soft on the inside, i am bouncy and i do not feel the January cold, in fact i welcome it, and i listen to "The Second Coming" all the way home.

Latest news from Hysteria Lane

There is a bird stuck in my window frame.
I could hear some scrabbling and naturally thought it must be a mouse. I went over to the area where the sound was coming from to see if there was any 'evidence'. A hole in the floor boards.
As i put my head down towards the hole i realise that the scrabbling sound is not coming from down under the boards but is directly in my left ear.
Could a mouse be stuck in the window frame?
The scrabbling noise is quite frantic. I thought i heard something the other day, but it wasn't as insistent as this.
I try and work out how this could happen, but can't. Then i see some brick dust or something on the window sill. Aha! I go outside to look for a possible entry point and put my head towards the corner where the sound is coming from. I peer towards a small gap in between the frame and the sill and out pops a tiny frantic claw. I jump back thinking, 'What kind of creature is that??'
On second look i see a glimpse of blue and yellow stuff. It's a bird, and there's no way i can get it out of there. So i'm sitting here typing and listening to periodic attempts by the poor thing to get free. It keeps tapping (presumably with it's beak) as though there might be some way out through the PVC frame. I try and think of someone to call who might be able to do something but i can't think of anyone who might know what to do.
So i write this, and wonder if that will make me feel better.

Tumbleweed

Before the vote is cast......
Anyone who knows me would know that i am a massive fan of Big Brother.
At the moment it's got everything, including the tumbleweed moments with Davina on stage. It's such excellent theatre!!!!
And this stuff is really important. The innate racism of Britain exposed to the world. It's got tragedy- Danielle and Jo and the hapless Jack and Jade (like the couple who tumble down the hill with the pail of water)- when they get out they won't even understand the concept of 'innate racism', and in a way it's not even fair that they should be paraded as examples of this tendency.
At the moment Jade is crying and saying she wants to walk out to no-one (as opposed to a crowd baying for her 'racist blood'). She is writing her own story here. She's crying because she has been exposed. But it's also not fair to compare her words with the composure and grace that has been shown by Shilpa Shetti. Who's fault is this? The housemates have commented that Jade can't be a racist because she is 'mixed race'. She told Shilpa that she would never judge anyone on the colour of their skin- after all, we are all 'mixed race', are we not? Totally missing the fact that racism is about the misunderstanding between one culture and another.

Frankensteins Monster

I went to an all girls high school. When i was about thirteen, i created a fantasy boyfriend. I drew him in my exercise book and showed him off proudly to all my friends. He was made up of the different body parts of several different boys that i knew - so and so's hands; such and such's head etc.
It didn't occur to me that i had created a monster.
I have come to realise that i am still doing that now (twenty years or so on), cobbling together this weird creature that fits with all the different aspects of my life. I've got one who provides reliable sex; one who provides the kind of love and romance that i crave and one who kind of fits in with my domestic/social life.
I haven't done this consciously, and have hated it in the past when people have not been exclusive with me. They seem satisfied with the part that they've got, but i'm not. I do want exclusivity, so what am i doing?
I think i'm reflecting my own schizophrenia. My domestic, social, work and creative lives are four different countries.
What i really want is all that in one person. One person who can cope with all those things and bring something else to the party.
I even know now (just as i'm writing) what i need to do. It's high time all those parts joined back together-then my monster will become my soul mate.

20 Q

Anyway, 20 Q.
You think of something and 20 Q guesses what you are thinking of within 20 questions (plus another five if it gets it wrong first time). It uses a set of deductive questions- which in themselves are genius.
So i'm thinking "this is genius, but what's it going to say if i think of something rude". I really wanted to see if it would get all confused and come up with some random unrelated object like TORTILLA CHIP.
So of course i'm thinking - 'cock' , and laughing away at my own childishness whilst getting comfy on the sofa. The first questions are always
IS IT ANIMAL/VEGETABLE/MINERAL/OTHER?
You can only press buttons that answer Yes, No, Sometimes, Rarely or Unknown. We had already worked out that if you say animal vegetable or mineral, it's definitions within these categories are pretty narrow. So, i go for 'other' and make my way through the now more familiar list of eliminators, IS IT BROWN? DOES IT FIT IN AN ENVELOPE? ETC.
I answer with the affirmative when it asks DOES IT BRING PEOPLE JOY? And DO MOST PEOPLE USE IT EVERY DAY? (Well they do don't they?)
We're getting close to question 20 and i'm convinced it's not going to get it, "I'm going to beat 20 Q by thinking of something that not in it's vocabulary, i'm so smart !"
Question 20 is answered.
I'M THINKING....
YOU WERE THINKING OF A MUSCLE
I feel a mixture of disappointment and vague embarrassment. I sit there thinking, "Is a penis a muscle?" My Biology is as bad as my geography.
I decide to answer No.
I'LL TRY AGAIN
I'M GOING TO WIN
Five more questions. DOES IT CONTAIN LIQUID?
Well kind of.
YOU WERE THINKING OF A GLAND
Again, faint embarrassment. Is it a fucking gland?
I'm pissed off. This isn't funny.
It knows what i was thinking, it was just too polite to say it.