We moved into our new flat with minimal problems. We unpacked, froze some ice cubes, and sat down to do some ordering. Pizza, flat pack furniture, a robot mop, and broadband. Since there seems to be no such thing as a good broadband service we went with the devil we knew, or at least the one devil we knew that wasn't TalkTalk. It would be more than two weeks until the router arrived, but we decided we could maybe just about handle that.
Two weeks passed. We had our first house guests. We located nearby supermarkets, pubs, cafes, and the Majestic Wine Warehouse. We planned our housewarming. I made two bedside drawers, a bookcase and a desk from the flat pack. We drank criminally expensive champagne. Patrick had his PhD graduation. I set up my new sewing area and made a skirt. We booked the most ridiculous holiday to St. Lucia. We named the robot mop Steve.
Then came Internet Day.
I had to wait in all day for the guy to turn up with the router, which was quite daunting given my current habit of walking about 10km a day, so I prepared. Patrick bought me a new sewing pattern and some fabric, and I got some puzzle magazines and an old season of Project Runway. I was not going to be driven mad by one day indoors, no sir. At 9.30 I got a message saying the courier was on his way, at 11.30 I was working out fitting adjustments to my new top, and at 1.30 I got another message saying my parcel had been delivered. Except it hadn't. Nobody had rung the doorbell, nothing had been left outside. Using the last dregs of 3G I had for the month, I went into an online livechat with the courier company.
"Yes," they said. "It's been delivered and signed for by someone called Sam."
"There's no Sam here."
"Maybe it's with one of your neighbours?"
Thinking that okay, maybe they just weren't paying attention to the letter after the house number, I went next door to B, where a slightly surly man told me he didn't have it. In a bit of a state now because you promised me internet today, dammit, I phoned Virgin to complain. They told me they would call within two days to tell me if they'd found the parcel and arrange redelivery. The idea of going without internet for another week or more turned me into a rather less controlled version of my mother. I said things like, "that's just not acceptable". I asked to speak to a manager. I told them we would be considering cancelling the service altogether. But they were insistent. Two days for a phone call to arrange redelivery.
Anxiety Jen did not cope very well with this. I spent the rest of the afternoon pacing about, stress-eating crisps, crying embarrassingly, and composing poisonously polite complaint letters in my head. How was it going to take them two days to get back to me? The box was presumably on this road somewhere. Were they planning to retrieve it, take it back to the depot and redeliver it from there? It seemed farcical.
At about 6pm, as I was making plans to wash my face and go and knock on a few doors either side of ours to see if I could find this mysterious Sam, the doorbell rang. Standing there was a young beardy guy holding what was clearly our internet setup kit.
"Hi," he said, "is this yours?"
"I... yes."
"It got delivered this morning," he said. "I work down by the cricket ground, they must have got the road name confused."
"I've been calling people all day trying to find out where this got to, thank you so much." I took the box from him, torn between astonishment that someone would take the time to deliver this thing to our house after work, irritation that a professional courier had delivered thing fifteen minutes away from our house to a street whose name wasn't even remotely similar, and relief that I hadn't gone and knocked on ten people's front doors for no reason.
Patrick got home a few minutes later, also prepared to start knocking on doors and/or cancel the service.
"Internet!"
"Internet!"
"A lovely man brought it to me. It got dropped off at his office in the Oval."
"In the Oval??"
"I know, right? We'd never have found it."
We set up the internet. It didn't work. We called Virgin again, who I think put an "angry customer" note on my account, and they told us everything would be working within half an hour. Half an hour later I went to the registration page to be told "Oops, something's broken." We tried a few more times, but the something continued to be broken. We went to bed.
This morning the something persisted in being broken, so I called them again. The woman on the phone did something to the system, told me I had a lovely voice (which literally nobody has ever said before unless they're about to make a guess at my accent and want to pre-empt any offence I might take) and told me to give it an hour. The thing reset itself a couple of times, and then... there was internet. Shiny, glorious internet, beaming through our flat, glinting in the sunlight.
It's working. I am reconnected. I am going through a cycle: happy and relieved, embarrassment at how large a difference having the internet has made to my wellbeing, remembering that actually the internet is classed as a human right these days, happy and relieved. No more rationing my phone data, freaking out every time the number goes up. No more snapping at customer service representatives, which is an awful thing to do and I hate it. I can just be here, in my lovely new flat, with access to the whole world again.
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
Saturday, 6 August 2016
adventures in housing, part nine
When I originally ended this series in April last year, I was living fairly comfortably in a three-bedroom house share in North London with a couple of flatmates I'd already moved with twice. I'm resurrecting it today because I've just left, and we all know the sorts of things that can happen when I leave somewhere.
We signed on for a second year with the landlord who turned out not to be dead, though it was quite difficult to tell. The house wasn't ideal and there was literally nothing nearby, but we'd done enough moving and there really wasn't any reason for us to uproot ourselves. We complained a bit about it - the constant building work next door, the lack of anywhere to go for a drink, the fact that all the garden furniture was literally rotted through and the comedy pratfalls were going to get a bit less comedic eventually - but we were fine. We watched Bake Off together, hung a mask of Dwayne The Rock Johnson on the wall, and printed my flatmate's face onto fabric and made a bunch of cushions out of it. I was living with friends.
But things change. My boyfriend and I had, by this point, come to the conclusion that we were properly stuck with each other, and decided to move in together once my second year's lease was up. I told the others about ten months in advance, they were pleased for me, everything was still fine. And it continued being fine right up until one of my flatmates got kicked out of the country and sent back to Canada, thus disrupting my two and a half years of Good Flatmate karma.
We had to replace her, money being a thing the other two of us didn't really have, and we replaced her with an acquaintance of mine who had always seemed like a decent sort but took an apparent dislike to me almost as soon as they'd moved in. A strange sort of hostility set in after my first show - two days after the move-in date - and we spent the next four months in perpetual slight discomfort. Much as I knew I'd miss my other flatmate, I started spending less and less time at home.
July came upon us and my boyfriend and I started looking for a flat, having decided that his current place was a) way too small for two people and b) so infused with Essence of Him after five years that I was always going to feel like a guest in someone else's home. His previous flat-hunting karma meant that we found a place we loved on our second day of viewings, with loads of space and a light living room and a goddamn tropical garden, which somehow also managed to be 30 seconds away from a tube station and within budget. My previous flat-hunting karma meant that it wasn't available until several weeks after my lease was up, so I'd have to transport all my stuff to my boyfriend's place, live out of boxes for three weeks, and then move house again in the same month.
We took it. I've had way worse than this.
So as of today, I and all my stuff are packed up small and squished into a living room that wasn't designed to accommodate two people, everything one of those people owns and quite a chunk of the stuff the other person owns as well, waiting for our beautiful new flat. I'm still terrified it won't go through, because I am hyper aware of every tiny alarm bell ringing in my head, but they've taken all the deposit and rent money, which is either a good sign or a horrendously bad one. If all goes well, there will be a short coda coming in a month or so. If it doesn't... hoo, boy.
We signed on for a second year with the landlord who turned out not to be dead, though it was quite difficult to tell. The house wasn't ideal and there was literally nothing nearby, but we'd done enough moving and there really wasn't any reason for us to uproot ourselves. We complained a bit about it - the constant building work next door, the lack of anywhere to go for a drink, the fact that all the garden furniture was literally rotted through and the comedy pratfalls were going to get a bit less comedic eventually - but we were fine. We watched Bake Off together, hung a mask of Dwayne The Rock Johnson on the wall, and printed my flatmate's face onto fabric and made a bunch of cushions out of it. I was living with friends.
But things change. My boyfriend and I had, by this point, come to the conclusion that we were properly stuck with each other, and decided to move in together once my second year's lease was up. I told the others about ten months in advance, they were pleased for me, everything was still fine. And it continued being fine right up until one of my flatmates got kicked out of the country and sent back to Canada, thus disrupting my two and a half years of Good Flatmate karma.
We had to replace her, money being a thing the other two of us didn't really have, and we replaced her with an acquaintance of mine who had always seemed like a decent sort but took an apparent dislike to me almost as soon as they'd moved in. A strange sort of hostility set in after my first show - two days after the move-in date - and we spent the next four months in perpetual slight discomfort. Much as I knew I'd miss my other flatmate, I started spending less and less time at home.
July came upon us and my boyfriend and I started looking for a flat, having decided that his current place was a) way too small for two people and b) so infused with Essence of Him after five years that I was always going to feel like a guest in someone else's home. His previous flat-hunting karma meant that we found a place we loved on our second day of viewings, with loads of space and a light living room and a goddamn tropical garden, which somehow also managed to be 30 seconds away from a tube station and within budget. My previous flat-hunting karma meant that it wasn't available until several weeks after my lease was up, so I'd have to transport all my stuff to my boyfriend's place, live out of boxes for three weeks, and then move house again in the same month.
We took it. I've had way worse than this.
So as of today, I and all my stuff are packed up small and squished into a living room that wasn't designed to accommodate two people, everything one of those people owns and quite a chunk of the stuff the other person owns as well, waiting for our beautiful new flat. I'm still terrified it won't go through, because I am hyper aware of every tiny alarm bell ringing in my head, but they've taken all the deposit and rent money, which is either a good sign or a horrendously bad one. If all goes well, there will be a short coda coming in a month or so. If it doesn't... hoo, boy.
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
scenes
[in my therapist's office]
THERAPIST: But what you don't want to do is be accidentally fighting against each other.
ME: No.
THERAPIST: You see, it's like -
[his face lights up and he digs in a cupboard behind him]
Have you seen one of these? Do you know what it is?
[he hands me a finger trap, looking more animated than I have ever seen him]
ME: ...yes.
THERAPIST: Well, put it on, put it on! People think that they have to pull their fingers apart to get the finger trap off, but that only makes it worse! To get the trap off you have to push your fingers in!
ME: [removing finger trap] Here.
THERAPIST: Oh no, you keep that. I've got a whole drawerful of them. I just love watching people try to get these things off, it's amazing. I could watch it all day.
ME: ...did you become a therapist because of finger traps?
THERAPIST: Aren't they great?
THERAPIST: But what you don't want to do is be accidentally fighting against each other.
ME: No.
THERAPIST: You see, it's like -
[his face lights up and he digs in a cupboard behind him]
Have you seen one of these? Do you know what it is?
[he hands me a finger trap, looking more animated than I have ever seen him]
ME: ...yes.
THERAPIST: Well, put it on, put it on! People think that they have to pull their fingers apart to get the finger trap off, but that only makes it worse! To get the trap off you have to push your fingers in!
ME: [removing finger trap] Here.
THERAPIST: Oh no, you keep that. I've got a whole drawerful of them. I just love watching people try to get these things off, it's amazing. I could watch it all day.
ME: ...did you become a therapist because of finger traps?
THERAPIST: Aren't they great?
Tuesday, 24 May 2016
scenes
[walking along the road]
ME: Oh, look, the protein shop is closing down.
BOYFRIEND: [pulls face]
ME: Are you sad about the protein shop closing down?
BOYFRIEND: Devastated. Now where will I get all my useless chocolate and peanut butter flavoured gunk?
ME: Don't worry. We can order it online from... argh, I need a good protein pun.
BOYFRIEND: You can do it.
ME: From... Where There's a Will There's a Whey dot com!
BOYFRIEND: [looks at me]
ME: I win!
BOYFRIEND: Yes. Yes you do.
ME: Oh, look, the protein shop is closing down.
BOYFRIEND: [pulls face]
ME: Are you sad about the protein shop closing down?
BOYFRIEND: Devastated. Now where will I get all my useless chocolate and peanut butter flavoured gunk?
ME: Don't worry. We can order it online from... argh, I need a good protein pun.
BOYFRIEND: You can do it.
ME: From... Where There's a Will There's a Whey dot com!
BOYFRIEND: [looks at me]
ME: I win!
BOYFRIEND: Yes. Yes you do.
Tuesday, 17 May 2016
scenes
[on the phone to my grandmother]
ME: I just wanted to check you knew that I'm bringing Patrick to your birthday party?
GRAN: Oh yes, your dad told me. That's wonderful, we shall be only too pleased to -
[a thought occurs]
...you have warned him, haven't you?
ME: He knows, don't worry.
GRAN: Just as long as you have. And you'll bring some aspirin for him for afterwards?
ME: I'll pack him a proper emergency family survival kit.
GRAN: Very good. We shall be only too pleased to see him, then.
ME: Thanks, Gran.
ME: I just wanted to check you knew that I'm bringing Patrick to your birthday party?
GRAN: Oh yes, your dad told me. That's wonderful, we shall be only too pleased to -
[a thought occurs]
...you have warned him, haven't you?
ME: He knows, don't worry.
GRAN: Just as long as you have. And you'll bring some aspirin for him for afterwards?
ME: I'll pack him a proper emergency family survival kit.
GRAN: Very good. We shall be only too pleased to see him, then.
ME: Thanks, Gran.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
the unexpectedly helpful, part one
About a month ago, I performed in a burlesque show. I took a course where I learnt some moves and took some general advice from a professional, and then I picked a song, choreographed a routine, made my costume (well, I made the dress. My garment making hasn't progressed to corsets yet) and performed it onstage to a crowd of screaming people at a beautiful cabaret venue I've been to as a spectator several times.
I still can't quite believe I did it, because I was convinced I was going to drop out before the date rolled around. I was terrified. I was terrified of picking the wrong song, the wrong name, the wrong costume, the wrong moves, the wrong level of eventual nudity. I was convinced I would be the only one who was terrible. I did almost nothing but freak out about it for a full month beforehand.
My boyfriend kept saying to me, "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing." Which did not help. Not even a little bit. But what if I'm not amazing? What happens then? What happens if my jerkbrain is right about everything, just like it always tells me it is? Remember all those times when I thought everything was going to be fine and then it wasn't?
It was a week beforehand, when I was weighing up whether it was worse to completely bomb a burlesque routine or to pull out a few days prior, mess up the scheduling and let down all my friends who'd bought tickets, that I responded to "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing" with "No, don't tell me that. Tell me it doesn't matter if I'm a little bit shit."
"It doesn't matter in the slightest if you're a little bit shit," he said, without missing a beat, "it's a graduation show. Everyone who's bought a ticket knows they're there to support you, not to judge you. Especially since all the judgy people will be out of the country this weekend."
I didn't really take it in, though I continued asking him to tell me that instead when he told me it would all be fine. I showed up to tech on the night basically too terrified to speak and having visions of myself shaking so badly that the crowd could see it, wobbling on my heels and losing my balance. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my act would fuck up. I was the second to last act, and I am the WORST at anticipation. I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Then they turned off the main lights and the audience started filing in. My boyfriend offered me a glass of pink champagne. I took it.
"Oh, I'm not going to drink til afterwards," said one of the other performers, "I don't want to run the risk of messing up."
"Who cares about messing up?" said Amber Moon from somewhere inside me, gesturing with her champagne glass. "These people are basically contractually obligated to applaud whatever the hell we do."
"...yeah," she said weakly, and left.
I hadn't known who the hell my burlesque persona was up until that point. I'd picked the name on the day of our final submission deadline by looking at a list of cocktails, and choreographing my routine hadn't really given me any ideas. Who was Amber Moon? Some chick in a red dress and octopus pasties. But as I finished my champagne and dug one of my smuggled-in whisky drams out of my handbag, it became obvious to me who she was. Amber Moon doesn't give a shit. Amber Moon is cheerful and unconcerned and does exactly what she wants. Amber Moon doesn't worry about what other people think because she knows, at her core, that it doesn't matter.
Very shortly before my act, I passed my teacher backstage.
"Don't worry," she said, "it'll be fine. You'll be great."
"I'm quite tipsy!" said Amber Moon happily.
"Oh, me too," said my teacher, looking ever so slightly confused.
Amber Moon performed, and honestly I have no idea if I screwed it up. I changed about 40% of my choreography on the spur of the moment and I'd had two glasses of champagne, a gin cocktail and a glass of whisky. But nobody was filming it, so I can't watch it back and pick it to pieces. All I know is that I took my clothes off in front of a roomful of people and they all cheered. I shook my ass and they whooped. I turned my back, whipped off my bra and held it up in the air and there was a BIG DAMN NOISE of approval. It went well. It went well because Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon did not give a shit because she knew it didn't matter.
I've thought a lot since then about trying to harness Amber Moon in situations that aren't me stripping off on a stage. I know I can't just go "right, now I'm Amber Moon" because it's not always appropriate to drink copiously and shout at near-strangers. But maybe I can work on this as a method of dealing with anxiety. Instead of "let's think of every possible thing that could result from what I'm doing right now no matter how ridiculous" or "let's pretend that NOTHING IS HAPPENING" I could maybe try "so if the major cock-up happens, then what?"
I haven't worked through how this might work in less surreal situations than Burlesque Graduation Show, but I do not have the words to tell you how freeing it was to realise there is nothing my anxiety can say to me here and to ahead and do a really scary thing with no nerves or fear whatsoever. It has to be worth looking for.
I still can't quite believe I did it, because I was convinced I was going to drop out before the date rolled around. I was terrified. I was terrified of picking the wrong song, the wrong name, the wrong costume, the wrong moves, the wrong level of eventual nudity. I was convinced I would be the only one who was terrible. I did almost nothing but freak out about it for a full month beforehand.
My boyfriend kept saying to me, "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing." Which did not help. Not even a little bit. But what if I'm not amazing? What happens then? What happens if my jerkbrain is right about everything, just like it always tells me it is? Remember all those times when I thought everything was going to be fine and then it wasn't?
It was a week beforehand, when I was weighing up whether it was worse to completely bomb a burlesque routine or to pull out a few days prior, mess up the scheduling and let down all my friends who'd bought tickets, that I responded to "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing" with "No, don't tell me that. Tell me it doesn't matter if I'm a little bit shit."
"It doesn't matter in the slightest if you're a little bit shit," he said, without missing a beat, "it's a graduation show. Everyone who's bought a ticket knows they're there to support you, not to judge you. Especially since all the judgy people will be out of the country this weekend."
I didn't really take it in, though I continued asking him to tell me that instead when he told me it would all be fine. I showed up to tech on the night basically too terrified to speak and having visions of myself shaking so badly that the crowd could see it, wobbling on my heels and losing my balance. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my act would fuck up. I was the second to last act, and I am the WORST at anticipation. I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Then they turned off the main lights and the audience started filing in. My boyfriend offered me a glass of pink champagne. I took it.
"Oh, I'm not going to drink til afterwards," said one of the other performers, "I don't want to run the risk of messing up."
"Who cares about messing up?" said Amber Moon from somewhere inside me, gesturing with her champagne glass. "These people are basically contractually obligated to applaud whatever the hell we do."
"...yeah," she said weakly, and left.
I hadn't known who the hell my burlesque persona was up until that point. I'd picked the name on the day of our final submission deadline by looking at a list of cocktails, and choreographing my routine hadn't really given me any ideas. Who was Amber Moon? Some chick in a red dress and octopus pasties. But as I finished my champagne and dug one of my smuggled-in whisky drams out of my handbag, it became obvious to me who she was. Amber Moon doesn't give a shit. Amber Moon is cheerful and unconcerned and does exactly what she wants. Amber Moon doesn't worry about what other people think because she knows, at her core, that it doesn't matter.
Very shortly before my act, I passed my teacher backstage.
"Don't worry," she said, "it'll be fine. You'll be great."
"I'm quite tipsy!" said Amber Moon happily.
"Oh, me too," said my teacher, looking ever so slightly confused.
Amber Moon performed, and honestly I have no idea if I screwed it up. I changed about 40% of my choreography on the spur of the moment and I'd had two glasses of champagne, a gin cocktail and a glass of whisky. But nobody was filming it, so I can't watch it back and pick it to pieces. All I know is that I took my clothes off in front of a roomful of people and they all cheered. I shook my ass and they whooped. I turned my back, whipped off my bra and held it up in the air and there was a BIG DAMN NOISE of approval. It went well. It went well because Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon did not give a shit because she knew it didn't matter.
I've thought a lot since then about trying to harness Amber Moon in situations that aren't me stripping off on a stage. I know I can't just go "right, now I'm Amber Moon" because it's not always appropriate to drink copiously and shout at near-strangers. But maybe I can work on this as a method of dealing with anxiety. Instead of "let's think of every possible thing that could result from what I'm doing right now no matter how ridiculous" or "let's pretend that NOTHING IS HAPPENING" I could maybe try "so if the major cock-up happens, then what?"
I haven't worked through how this might work in less surreal situations than Burlesque Graduation Show, but I do not have the words to tell you how freeing it was to realise there is nothing my anxiety can say to me here and to ahead and do a really scary thing with no nerves or fear whatsoever. It has to be worth looking for.
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
scenes
[on the phone]
MUM: And I've got to go to their party this weekend and I'm dreading it.
ME: Aw, I'm sorry.
MUM: Your dad just doesn't think of these things. I don't want to spend time with these horrible people.
ME: It'll be fine. Just take a hip flask. Sneak in your own gin.
MUM: ...now that's an idea. I could take my water bottle!
ME: Yes! Fill it with gin, spend the entire night getting drunk and tell everyone it's your special alkaline water that you have to drink under doctor's orders.
MUM: What a good idea! You have excellent ideas!
ME: Please actually do this now.
MUM: Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to do it!
ME: Secret gin makes everything better.
MUM: You're a good daughter.
MUM: And I've got to go to their party this weekend and I'm dreading it.
ME: Aw, I'm sorry.
MUM: Your dad just doesn't think of these things. I don't want to spend time with these horrible people.
ME: It'll be fine. Just take a hip flask. Sneak in your own gin.
MUM: ...now that's an idea. I could take my water bottle!
ME: Yes! Fill it with gin, spend the entire night getting drunk and tell everyone it's your special alkaline water that you have to drink under doctor's orders.
MUM: What a good idea! You have excellent ideas!
ME: Please actually do this now.
MUM: Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to do it!
ME: Secret gin makes everything better.
MUM: You're a good daughter.
Saturday, 7 May 2016
saturday
(I couldn't think of a title. Writing is hard.)
It's been an odd week. In some ways it's been noticeably much better; it didn't look a lot different but it felt different, and I'm extremely embarrassed to admit that this is largely due to The Rock waking me up in the morning. My day is now starting when it's meant to instead of at 2.30pm or whenever I can scrabble together enough motivation to do something. It's genuinely quite hard to admit that this random ex-wrestler singing at me in the morning is enough to completely change my entire attitude and perspective on the upcoming day, but there it is. Depression responds to the weirdest things.
I went dancing twice in the space of a few days, which hasn't happened for a very long time. The first time I danced, chatted to people I hadn't spoken to in ages and generally felt a bit more like I knew where I was and what I was doing. The second time, although there were still people I was happy to see and talk to, I didn't really dance and I felt like this wasn't my world and these weren't my people anymore. I don't know where the truth is; I'm going to dance again tomorrow and see if that gives me any more information. I miss people, but do I miss these people? I mean, I definitely miss some of those specific people, but the community as a whole is a different aardvark altogether, and that's what I'm questioning. I need things that will help me get better and I just don't know if this is one of them. But if it's not, then I have to go find other people, and that's a whole different type of scary.
I can't overlook the fact that I'm still really quite angry, both in specific and general terms. People who should have been there for me weren't, people who could have done something didn't, and it makes the whole ethos of the thing feel a bit hollow. I might get over this, when I'm happier, but for now it's hard not to feel resentful in dance spaces. I feel like I ought to be thanking my friends for an improvement in my outlook and circumstances and here I am thanking The Rock instead. That's not right. There is a good chance that at least some of this is more my issue than theirs, but it doesn't help me to focus on that. The anger is still good for me, at least for now.
It's been an odd week. In some ways it's been noticeably much better; it didn't look a lot different but it felt different, and I'm extremely embarrassed to admit that this is largely due to The Rock waking me up in the morning. My day is now starting when it's meant to instead of at 2.30pm or whenever I can scrabble together enough motivation to do something. It's genuinely quite hard to admit that this random ex-wrestler singing at me in the morning is enough to completely change my entire attitude and perspective on the upcoming day, but there it is. Depression responds to the weirdest things.
I went dancing twice in the space of a few days, which hasn't happened for a very long time. The first time I danced, chatted to people I hadn't spoken to in ages and generally felt a bit more like I knew where I was and what I was doing. The second time, although there were still people I was happy to see and talk to, I didn't really dance and I felt like this wasn't my world and these weren't my people anymore. I don't know where the truth is; I'm going to dance again tomorrow and see if that gives me any more information. I miss people, but do I miss these people? I mean, I definitely miss some of those specific people, but the community as a whole is a different aardvark altogether, and that's what I'm questioning. I need things that will help me get better and I just don't know if this is one of them. But if it's not, then I have to go find other people, and that's a whole different type of scary.
I can't overlook the fact that I'm still really quite angry, both in specific and general terms. People who should have been there for me weren't, people who could have done something didn't, and it makes the whole ethos of the thing feel a bit hollow. I might get over this, when I'm happier, but for now it's hard not to feel resentful in dance spaces. I feel like I ought to be thanking my friends for an improvement in my outlook and circumstances and here I am thanking The Rock instead. That's not right. There is a good chance that at least some of this is more my issue than theirs, but it doesn't help me to focus on that. The anger is still good for me, at least for now.
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
structure
It's always harder keeping up to date with a blog that doesn't have a defined subject. I've been writing two to three posts a week on sewing for six months without fail, but here where I can write anything? There's too much room to second guess in that. I am going to try, though. I'm going to try writing here twice a week, because that's often enough that posts don't take on unnecessary significance but not overwhelming like trying to write every day would be. Also I've got used to the twice a week rhythm now.
To update from last time: I didn't take a permanent job. I kept it up for two months, but going from eight months off sick (and five years where nobody gave a shit when you turned up for work before that) to a forty-hour 9-6 week whilst still fairly seriously depressed was too much and I had to stop working for a bit. Also after the first couple of weeks they stopped being able to find me enough to do and the last three hours of every day went so slowly that I swear I could actually feel the continental drift.
I still have no idea what I want to do, and the fact that nothing is secure at the moment isn't doing my anxiety a whole lot of good. I have less than no money, I don't really know who my friends are or where my community is, there is a new person in our house, and come August that house won't even be mine anymore. Much as it'll be a change for the better it terrifies me - after all the shit that came before we found this place, the idea of giving up a decent living arrangement voluntarily seems completely insane to me. I find myself haunted by the unknown landlords in my future and suddenly telling the wine-diluting story at the least provocation again.
Trying to give my life some sort of structure, which I know it needs, is proving difficult when I don't really have anything going on. My blog has structure, my life does not. I have a bunch of to-do lists, a pile of sewing projects and some slightly unrealistic plans for getting rid of 40% of my stuff by August, but that's not really enough. My next thing to try is using The Rock Clock to actually get up in the morning, because I'm quite unlikely to sleepily unset my alarm and roll over if I know it means missing out on The Rock singing Good Morning Sunshine and telling me to get my candy ass out of bed. But even that, Best Thing Ever though it might be and I will not hear otherwise, isn't really enough.
What I really need is to be seeing people, talking to people, feeling like my social feet are on something a bit more concrete, but that's the toughest thing to do right now. The idea of spending time with people is exhausting, much more so than the actual spending time with people, and I've been so absent from everything lately that it would be up to me to get in touch with people I used to see and get interaction going again. And it feels like too much, because I feel forgotten. With most people I feel that popping back up and demanding to be remembered is too presumptuous. With a couple of people I feel that the demand to be remembered should come in the form of a solid punch on the nose, and that's not helpful right now. Soon, maybe.
There is probably a way around this. I'm looking out for it.
To update from last time: I didn't take a permanent job. I kept it up for two months, but going from eight months off sick (and five years where nobody gave a shit when you turned up for work before that) to a forty-hour 9-6 week whilst still fairly seriously depressed was too much and I had to stop working for a bit. Also after the first couple of weeks they stopped being able to find me enough to do and the last three hours of every day went so slowly that I swear I could actually feel the continental drift.
I still have no idea what I want to do, and the fact that nothing is secure at the moment isn't doing my anxiety a whole lot of good. I have less than no money, I don't really know who my friends are or where my community is, there is a new person in our house, and come August that house won't even be mine anymore. Much as it'll be a change for the better it terrifies me - after all the shit that came before we found this place, the idea of giving up a decent living arrangement voluntarily seems completely insane to me. I find myself haunted by the unknown landlords in my future and suddenly telling the wine-diluting story at the least provocation again.
Trying to give my life some sort of structure, which I know it needs, is proving difficult when I don't really have anything going on. My blog has structure, my life does not. I have a bunch of to-do lists, a pile of sewing projects and some slightly unrealistic plans for getting rid of 40% of my stuff by August, but that's not really enough. My next thing to try is using The Rock Clock to actually get up in the morning, because I'm quite unlikely to sleepily unset my alarm and roll over if I know it means missing out on The Rock singing Good Morning Sunshine and telling me to get my candy ass out of bed. But even that, Best Thing Ever though it might be and I will not hear otherwise, isn't really enough.
What I really need is to be seeing people, talking to people, feeling like my social feet are on something a bit more concrete, but that's the toughest thing to do right now. The idea of spending time with people is exhausting, much more so than the actual spending time with people, and I've been so absent from everything lately that it would be up to me to get in touch with people I used to see and get interaction going again. And it feels like too much, because I feel forgotten. With most people I feel that popping back up and demanding to be remembered is too presumptuous. With a couple of people I feel that the demand to be remembered should come in the form of a solid punch on the nose, and that's not helpful right now. Soon, maybe.
There is probably a way around this. I'm looking out for it.
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
decisions
(I got a new laptop. Personal pronouns are a thing again.)
For the last week and a half, I've been working. I haven't worked for nearly a year, and if you're talking about actual work it's been a lot longer. The idea of having to get into work for 9am was terrifying, and having spent at least half of every working day ever on the internet (even when I was super busy and productive) I didn't know how I'd cope with a company that expected more of me. But the money I'd saved to support myself for a couple of months ran out, and when the agency called to tell me they had some work for me I was incredibly grateful.
Turns out I'm actually excellent at it. I am the world's fastest temp. They've had to farm me out to other departments to find enough work to keep me occupied. Backlogs have been cleared, disorganised messes have been transformed into Not Messes. I have organised meetings, reconfigured archives, edited websites, and renewed a passport for the COO's daughter. I'm versatile.
All of which is to say, this is my very first placement and they want to keep me. For a few months at least, if not permanently. And I'm not sure what to do.
When I quit my last job, it was not to pursue my dream of working in HR at a mid-size jewellery company. I don't even like HR. But at the same time, I don't know what my dream is yet, and the uncertainty of waiting for another temp role is not something I'm relishing. Also, I like money. I like holidays and cocktails and new fabric and the ability to replace my electronics when they break (and I can't lie, I also like the idea of a 75% discount on fancy jewellery). I would rather know exactly how my rent is getting paid, and that I can buy myself treats if I want them.
I don't even have a gut feeling. Well, not a single gut feeling. I have several equally strong gut feelings, mostly in opposition with each other. My pro and con lists look a little bit like this:
Pro
Money
Easy commute
Heavily discounted pretty things
Hard work is expected, but everyone leaves at quitting time on the dot
Enough work to keep me busy is actually provided
Working in HR without any actual HR people might not be that bad
They really like me
Con
Taking an HR job won't put me on any kind of path I'm keen to be on
Would prefer to be somewhere a bit friendlier
Possibly too soon for health to cope with permanent full time work
Am I only considering this because I'm terrified of not having money?
and my analysis of these points is so far inconclusive. Last week I told them I wasn't interested in a permanent HR job, and this week I'm considering going back and saying "...maaaaybe". After so many years of stupid civil service bollocks, it's so nice to go somewhere and be noticed and appreciated for what I can do, but is that enough?
For the last week and a half, I've been working. I haven't worked for nearly a year, and if you're talking about actual work it's been a lot longer. The idea of having to get into work for 9am was terrifying, and having spent at least half of every working day ever on the internet (even when I was super busy and productive) I didn't know how I'd cope with a company that expected more of me. But the money I'd saved to support myself for a couple of months ran out, and when the agency called to tell me they had some work for me I was incredibly grateful.
Turns out I'm actually excellent at it. I am the world's fastest temp. They've had to farm me out to other departments to find enough work to keep me occupied. Backlogs have been cleared, disorganised messes have been transformed into Not Messes. I have organised meetings, reconfigured archives, edited websites, and renewed a passport for the COO's daughter. I'm versatile.
All of which is to say, this is my very first placement and they want to keep me. For a few months at least, if not permanently. And I'm not sure what to do.
When I quit my last job, it was not to pursue my dream of working in HR at a mid-size jewellery company. I don't even like HR. But at the same time, I don't know what my dream is yet, and the uncertainty of waiting for another temp role is not something I'm relishing. Also, I like money. I like holidays and cocktails and new fabric and the ability to replace my electronics when they break (and I can't lie, I also like the idea of a 75% discount on fancy jewellery). I would rather know exactly how my rent is getting paid, and that I can buy myself treats if I want them.
I don't even have a gut feeling. Well, not a single gut feeling. I have several equally strong gut feelings, mostly in opposition with each other. My pro and con lists look a little bit like this:
Pro
Money
Easy commute
Heavily discounted pretty things
Hard work is expected, but everyone leaves at quitting time on the dot
Enough work to keep me busy is actually provided
Working in HR without any actual HR people might not be that bad
They really like me
Con
Taking an HR job won't put me on any kind of path I'm keen to be on
Would prefer to be somewhere a bit friendlier
Possibly too soon for health to cope with permanent full time work
Am I only considering this because I'm terrified of not having money?
and my analysis of these points is so far inconclusive. Last week I told them I wasn't interested in a permanent HR job, and this week I'm considering going back and saying "...maaaaybe". After so many years of stupid civil service bollocks, it's so nice to go somewhere and be noticed and appreciated for what I can do, but is that enough?
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
a challenge
Several days' worth of posts have been passed by. Not on purpose. My temp agency found me a placement and why blog when my days could be full of sleep?
Please note the strange sentence structure and word usage. My laptop has been on the outs for months (my new laptop at least. My old laptop has been on the outs for years) and now we have reached a stage where several rather necessary letters on the type-words part are no longer usable. Haven't a clue what's happened but my laptop has chosen to deny me access to the personal pronoun and the letter below (more useful than one may suppose). And commas. No more commas for me.
A new laptop proves necessary. One that ten or eleven days at my current temp placement won't pay for. But the new laptop hasn't come home yet and there are just these two useless ones that don't do what they're supposed to do. One won't type necessary letters. One has a screen that's alternately dead or totally blue and shuts down the second someone else attempts to connect to the same router. TWO laptops. You'd assume that would be enough and you ought to be correct. But here we are.
So here's a post that uses none of those letters (or commas. That's almost the hardest one) because why not? When a challenge shows up you should leap upon that challenge no matter how useless. No matter how daft. No matter how flat-out dumb-ass.
Hmmm.
Perhaps we've all wasted valuable seconds here. Sorry.
Please note the strange sentence structure and word usage. My laptop has been on the outs for months (my new laptop at least. My old laptop has been on the outs for years) and now we have reached a stage where several rather necessary letters on the type-words part are no longer usable. Haven't a clue what's happened but my laptop has chosen to deny me access to the personal pronoun and the letter below (more useful than one may suppose). And commas. No more commas for me.
A new laptop proves necessary. One that ten or eleven days at my current temp placement won't pay for. But the new laptop hasn't come home yet and there are just these two useless ones that don't do what they're supposed to do. One won't type necessary letters. One has a screen that's alternately dead or totally blue and shuts down the second someone else attempts to connect to the same router. TWO laptops. You'd assume that would be enough and you ought to be correct. But here we are.
So here's a post that uses none of those letters (or commas. That's almost the hardest one) because why not? When a challenge shows up you should leap upon that challenge no matter how useless. No matter how daft. No matter how flat-out dumb-ass.
Hmmm.
Perhaps we've all wasted valuable seconds here. Sorry.
Friday, 19 February 2016
inside out
Inside Out came out last year so it's not exactly topical right now, but I'm still seeing people talk about it on a fairly regular basis. People whose opinions I respect and value very highly write and speak about what an incredible film this is, how it's one of the best portrayals of depression they've ever seen, everyone must see it, it will make you cry buckets, it will make you re-evaluate every single thing that's ever happened to you, what a fantastic piece of storytelling and characterisation this was.
I didn't like Inside Out, and I'm so confused.
Inside Out is exactly the kind of film I should have liked. It's an interesting premise, the characterisation of emotions is something I've thought about a lot, and Pixar writers are gifted storytellers. I was fully prepared to like it. Actually, I was fully prepared to overidentify with it massively and struggle to communicate for the next two days. Bearing in mind my experience watching Up (where I cried so hard that I really frightened the guy I was on a second date with, and not all of that can be attributed to its being the last film in an all-night marathon), I bought a box of tissues from the newsagent on the way to the cinema. When we left, I hadn't even opened it, and I cry at everything.
The fact that I didn't like it makes me a bit sad. So many people seem to have found things in this film - lightbulb moments, new ways of looking at and explaining things, minor religious experiences - and I want them too, but I couldn't find them. I've read and watched detailed reviews of this film and I still couldn't find them. Where's my moment of enlightenment, Pixar?
I will say that the animation is excellent and the film is beautifully designed, there are a lot of clever ideas within the script and especially within the smaller jokes and details, and the end sequence with all the different sets of emotions in different heads is genius. But that's not quite enough.
Some of it is definitely my own personal stuff. I'd heard that one of the emotions was Fear, and I went in assuming that that would be what got me. So many times I've felt like fear was driving me from the inside, making me say and do things I didn't like, and I thought it would be a powerful thing for me to see that represented. But then Fear was just a jittery dweeb who was basically superfluous to the entire story and didn't do or say one memorable thing. I feel like Fear has been my core emotion for large parts of my life, and this snivelling powerless nothing character is the complete opposite of my personal experience. But that's just me, and it's a nitpick. More important is that I didn't think the story was very good.
The story for the characters inside Riley's head is that Sadness and Joy are trying to get back to headquarters. And they almost do, and then suddenly whatever they're standing on falls over somehow. You can pull this trick once, but it keeps happening, and somewhere around the time of the Bullshit Rocket I just stopped caring. The journey wasn't compelling enough, and I believe I may have let out a quiet "oh, for fuck's sake" somewhere around the penultimate random obstacle. It didn't help that I didn't like Joy or Sadness (or Fear, as I said, and I still have no idea why they chose "Disgust" as the fifth emotion. I liked Anger) as characters and wanted them both to just shut up.
I could tell where I was meant to cry. I always cry at the places I'm meant to cry, and usually at several places I'm not, but not this time. I didn't care about the characters, I didn't care about their journey. Pixar usually knows how to make me care, but this time I could feel the writers constructing a thing around stuff that usually makes people care. Let's have a heroic sacrifice! Heroic sacrifices are moving, right? (No, I didn't like Bing Bong either, and it's been made clear that this makes me a monster.) And it's weird for me to feel like this, because I always care. I can find a way to care even when the filmmakers haven't put a shred of effort into making me care, because I over-empathise horribly with everything, and I'm so confused by how this film managed to override all of my normal impulses and turn me into that person I've always hated. The "oh, everyone said I would cry, but I just didn't cry" person. Why am I that person now? Stupid film.
The short at the beginning with the sad volcano? That got me.
My partner didn't like Inside Out either, but other than him I've heard maybe one other person mention in passing (before I saw it) that they didn't really like it. I even searched for "I didn't like Inside Out" and only found four things written by people who didn't like Inside Out. Two of them mentioned similar problems to the ones I had, but I still feel very alone on this. Everyone thinks it was brilliant and moving and possibly life-changing, and I wish I'd got to see the film they all saw.
Tell me I'm rubbish. Go on.
Thursday, 18 February 2016
sleep
To celebrate turning 31, I decided to try and adopt a vaguely human schedule. Six months of being sick followed by three months of unemployment leads to a lot of waking up only just on the right side of midday and not a lot of consequences for doing so, and that's not so compatible with my new desire to actually work and make myself useful.
I've been suffering from mostly mouse-related insomnia for about a year at this point. During our first winter in this house, a mouse started paying intermittent visits to my room, scurrying and rustling and attempting to get at any food that might happen to be in my room except the stuff with the poison in it (it was an upsettingly smart mouse). If I could hear it in my room, I couldn't sleep. At first putting all the lights on would send it back to wherever it was coming in, but soon it learned not to be bothered by that and it would be in and out all the time. It finally left me alone when I got a sonic repeller and the traps downstairs have turned up a couple of mice since, so I'm pretty sure it's gone now. However, from this months-long experience, my insomnia learned a great new game called Was That A Mouse?
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was the plastic bag I put stuff in just before I got into bed.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was something outside.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that is just what it sounds like inside my ears.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was literally nothing at all.
Insomnia: We should listen extra hard with our whole body on full alert in case that nothing develops into a mouse.
It got to the point that I could only get to sleep by waiting until I was so tired I could cry, and then plugging in headphones and playing something on Netflix. Then Netflix started doing this thing where if I was actually watching a show it would continue to judge me by asking if I wanted to carry on after two episodes, but not bothering to do that if I'd fallen asleep, so it would just play an entire series straight and wake me up a few hours later when my brain tuned back into it. I have no idea what the Netflix logic behind this is, so I've no idea if I can change it. What I did know is that I was getting very little sleep but spent all day feeling like I was about to drop down where I was. If I tried to go to bed early, Insomnia Voice would pop right back up. I tried to get some sleeping pills that had worked for me before, but the doctor would only concede (and then very reluctantly) to give me a quarter of the dose I used to take, which is too weak to actually do anything.
My recently-implemented plan is called Schedule Shit at 9.30am and Hope Things Adjust. Right now I have a massive sleep deprivation headache, but I have plans to be out of the house at 9.30am tomorrow regardless. I will be able to exist in the normal world with the normal people, dammit.
I've been suffering from mostly mouse-related insomnia for about a year at this point. During our first winter in this house, a mouse started paying intermittent visits to my room, scurrying and rustling and attempting to get at any food that might happen to be in my room except the stuff with the poison in it (it was an upsettingly smart mouse). If I could hear it in my room, I couldn't sleep. At first putting all the lights on would send it back to wherever it was coming in, but soon it learned not to be bothered by that and it would be in and out all the time. It finally left me alone when I got a sonic repeller and the traps downstairs have turned up a couple of mice since, so I'm pretty sure it's gone now. However, from this months-long experience, my insomnia learned a great new game called Was That A Mouse?
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was the plastic bag I put stuff in just before I got into bed.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was something outside.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that is just what it sounds like inside my ears.
Insomnia: Was that a mouse?
Me: No, that was literally nothing at all.
Insomnia: We should listen extra hard with our whole body on full alert in case that nothing develops into a mouse.
It got to the point that I could only get to sleep by waiting until I was so tired I could cry, and then plugging in headphones and playing something on Netflix. Then Netflix started doing this thing where if I was actually watching a show it would continue to judge me by asking if I wanted to carry on after two episodes, but not bothering to do that if I'd fallen asleep, so it would just play an entire series straight and wake me up a few hours later when my brain tuned back into it. I have no idea what the Netflix logic behind this is, so I've no idea if I can change it. What I did know is that I was getting very little sleep but spent all day feeling like I was about to drop down where I was. If I tried to go to bed early, Insomnia Voice would pop right back up. I tried to get some sleeping pills that had worked for me before, but the doctor would only concede (and then very reluctantly) to give me a quarter of the dose I used to take, which is too weak to actually do anything.
My recently-implemented plan is called Schedule Shit at 9.30am and Hope Things Adjust. Right now I have a massive sleep deprivation headache, but I have plans to be out of the house at 9.30am tomorrow regardless. I will be able to exist in the normal world with the normal people, dammit.
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
cheese
I am not going to write anything interesting today. I am on a flying visit back home and have been provided with a selection of fine cheeses and single malt whiskies, so I am writing this solely because I said I would.
Daily blogging, everybody! It's a wild, wild ride.
Daily blogging, everybody! It's a wild, wild ride.
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
assorted thoughts I had while watching Spice World alone at midnight
(I saw Spice World in the cinema when I was twelve, and never again in nineteen years until last night, when I was looking for a suitably stupid way to see out my 31st birthday. It is a terrible, terrible film, but up until it started trying to have a plot at the end, I quite enjoyed myself.)
The Spice Girls appear to be having trouble lip syncing. Surely that's one thing they should have learned to do by now?
Is Jools Holland meant to be Jools Holland here or is he actually trying to act? I genuinely can't tell. Jools Holland always seems like someone who's playing Jools Holland unconvincingly.
Oh, they're playing chess now, are they. Explain chess to me, Geri, go on.
So. Many. Spiral. Wipes. Whose idea was this?
A fake sock penis! I did not remember there being a fake sock penis in this film!
Richard O'Brien played the baddie in this (well, a baddie in this)? Jesus.
...is this a Gary Glitter cover?? Oh, apparently it's a huge set-piece Gary Glitter cover. I thought we didn't do that? With Gary Glitter being such a fucking awful human being and all? Had we not realised that in 1997?
Aaaand now there's a spaceship. And aliens. Who want autographs. And all the Spice Girls speak alien now.
Oh dear, Michael Barrymore is in this. This is uncomfortable.
Richard O'Brien has emerged from inside a toilet and then turned to photograph said toilet for some reason. I bet Richard O'Brien thought this was great fun.
The Baby Spice thing actually is a bit creepy, in retrospect.
Seriously, what am I meant to think about Alan Cumming here? What is his purpose? Is he a bad guy or comic relief? I am so confused.
Meat Loaf is a bus driver, Elvis Costello is a deeply unconvincing bartender, Peter Sissons is Peter Sissons, and Geri is Bob Hoskins. Got it.
The entire film is soundtracked by the Spice Girls, except at this one point where it's My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small. But they're lipsyncing to it anyway, and not doing any better than they have with their own songs.
These are seriously the shittest news stories they could possibly have come up with. "Boat drama", really? When you could have gone with "Spice Girls attempt to drown fans"?
God, Geri is TERRIBLE at this.
God, Emma is TERRIBLE at this.
Is there meant to be some kind of Emma/Mel C subtext here, or am I just spending too much time on The Toast?
Ah, a flashback to the Spice Girls and their friend I keep forgetting about in their local working-class caff in their pre-fame days. This is possibly the least believable thing yet. Oh God, and they're going to do an entire song here, lip syncing to the purposely shitty boom box.
Oh God, that was meant to be an emotional moment and I completely didn't realise.
MORE FUCKING SPIRAL WIPES.
OK, Stephen Fry has turned up and made me laugh on purpose. Well done, Stephen Fry.
They're taking their way-past-her-due-date friend to a rave? And now they've left her on her own to go and dance? To their own song?? What shitty friends.
Now all the Spice Girls are in the delivery room? WHY are they all in the delivery room?? Why is Geri directly between her friend's legs? Why did she get to hold the baby before its mother?
What, so now the whole photographer thing was a story being told by the movie people? And they've wrapped up the whole evil-newspaper-guy plot with a nonspecific headline? I thought he was pitching a film, but apparently he was narrating actual events? The fuck?
Oh, I remember the model bus thing! And them trying to scream convincingly at a bomb!
EWWWWW I am upgrading the Baby Spice thing from "a bit creepy" to "really fucking creepy". I didn't notice this at all when I was twelve.
Seriously, what am I supposed to think about Alan Cumming?? Why is he even here?
The Spice Girls are performing at the Royal Albert Hall and it is the worst lip syncing yet. Either that or worst editing yet. Plus I really don't like Spice Up Your Life.
That was the end of the film? Really? Huh.
Oh yay, fake outtakes. And then they pretended to be able to see the audience! And then the bus exploded. Good times.
The Spice Girls appear to be having trouble lip syncing. Surely that's one thing they should have learned to do by now?
Is Jools Holland meant to be Jools Holland here or is he actually trying to act? I genuinely can't tell. Jools Holland always seems like someone who's playing Jools Holland unconvincingly.
Oh, they're playing chess now, are they. Explain chess to me, Geri, go on.
So. Many. Spiral. Wipes. Whose idea was this?
A fake sock penis! I did not remember there being a fake sock penis in this film!
Richard O'Brien played the baddie in this (well, a baddie in this)? Jesus.
...is this a Gary Glitter cover?? Oh, apparently it's a huge set-piece Gary Glitter cover. I thought we didn't do that? With Gary Glitter being such a fucking awful human being and all? Had we not realised that in 1997?
Aaaand now there's a spaceship. And aliens. Who want autographs. And all the Spice Girls speak alien now.
Oh dear, Michael Barrymore is in this. This is uncomfortable.
Richard O'Brien has emerged from inside a toilet and then turned to photograph said toilet for some reason. I bet Richard O'Brien thought this was great fun.
The Baby Spice thing actually is a bit creepy, in retrospect.
Seriously, what am I meant to think about Alan Cumming here? What is his purpose? Is he a bad guy or comic relief? I am so confused.
Meat Loaf is a bus driver, Elvis Costello is a deeply unconvincing bartender, Peter Sissons is Peter Sissons, and Geri is Bob Hoskins. Got it.
The entire film is soundtracked by the Spice Girls, except at this one point where it's My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small. But they're lipsyncing to it anyway, and not doing any better than they have with their own songs.
These are seriously the shittest news stories they could possibly have come up with. "Boat drama", really? When you could have gone with "Spice Girls attempt to drown fans"?
God, Geri is TERRIBLE at this.
God, Emma is TERRIBLE at this.
Is there meant to be some kind of Emma/Mel C subtext here, or am I just spending too much time on The Toast?
Ah, a flashback to the Spice Girls and their friend I keep forgetting about in their local working-class caff in their pre-fame days. This is possibly the least believable thing yet. Oh God, and they're going to do an entire song here, lip syncing to the purposely shitty boom box.
Oh God, that was meant to be an emotional moment and I completely didn't realise.
MORE FUCKING SPIRAL WIPES.
OK, Stephen Fry has turned up and made me laugh on purpose. Well done, Stephen Fry.
They're taking their way-past-her-due-date friend to a rave? And now they've left her on her own to go and dance? To their own song?? What shitty friends.
Now all the Spice Girls are in the delivery room? WHY are they all in the delivery room?? Why is Geri directly between her friend's legs? Why did she get to hold the baby before its mother?
What, so now the whole photographer thing was a story being told by the movie people? And they've wrapped up the whole evil-newspaper-guy plot with a nonspecific headline? I thought he was pitching a film, but apparently he was narrating actual events? The fuck?
Oh, I remember the model bus thing! And them trying to scream convincingly at a bomb!
EWWWWW I am upgrading the Baby Spice thing from "a bit creepy" to "really fucking creepy". I didn't notice this at all when I was twelve.
Seriously, what am I supposed to think about Alan Cumming?? Why is he even here?
The Spice Girls are performing at the Royal Albert Hall and it is the worst lip syncing yet. Either that or worst editing yet. Plus I really don't like Spice Up Your Life.
That was the end of the film? Really? Huh.
Oh yay, fake outtakes. And then they pretended to be able to see the audience! And then the bus exploded. Good times.
Monday, 15 February 2016
thirty one
It's birthday time again.
Last year I wrote what was in retrospect an unnecessarily harsh post to mark my birthday, about how the year to come was going to be hard and I was going to have to do unpleasant and difficult things for my own good. I'm not going to write that kind of post again.
This is going to be an odd year where everything changes, but what that means is that I have choice. I get to choose where to work, I can choose where I want to live. I can choose what to do with my weeknights without feeling like I've let anyone down. I have obligations to my partner and my family and a few of my friends, but none to jobs I dislike, houses that are slowly disintegrating, or entire groups of loose acquaintances. This year I can do what I like.
For the first time in a very long time, I actually want to be working. I want to have a job and an office and vaguely annoying co-workers, and I want to be showing people that I'm smart and good at lots of things. For the last few years of my working life I spent every morning battling the dread in my stomach and wondering if there was any way I could get out of it, and this feeling of actively wanting to be employed and useful is so foreign to me that it's taken a couple of weeks to work out that that's what it is.
I'm remembering what it's like to want to learn. I've been taking pride in my dressmaking skills recently, beginner though I might be, and I've been excited about getting better. I've been thinking about new dance classes, singing lessons, ways to improve my Italian. I've wanted to start cooking again. I've thought about learning something completely outside my normal wheelhouse; getting an A level in a science, learning indoor plumbing or some other extraordinarily practical domestic skill. I've thought about learning illustration, to see if I can teach myself to draw something that doesn't look like an inebriated ghost. I've thought about performing, doing something fun that will silence at least one of the voices in my head telling me you can't. More than anything else depression took from me, I've missed curiosity.
I can see a future for this year the way I couldn't for previous years. 2013 was completely about the present, 2014 was confusing, and in 2015 I couldn't see anything at all. This year I can feel opportunities for something better. I want to feel more like myself while growing with another person, to let out some of the things I've always hidden because of a nonspecific fear. I've got high hopes for this weird-ass uncertain year.
30-year-old Jen had a miserable time of it. 31-year-old Jen is going to have fun.
Last year I wrote what was in retrospect an unnecessarily harsh post to mark my birthday, about how the year to come was going to be hard and I was going to have to do unpleasant and difficult things for my own good. I'm not going to write that kind of post again.
This is going to be an odd year where everything changes, but what that means is that I have choice. I get to choose where to work, I can choose where I want to live. I can choose what to do with my weeknights without feeling like I've let anyone down. I have obligations to my partner and my family and a few of my friends, but none to jobs I dislike, houses that are slowly disintegrating, or entire groups of loose acquaintances. This year I can do what I like.
For the first time in a very long time, I actually want to be working. I want to have a job and an office and vaguely annoying co-workers, and I want to be showing people that I'm smart and good at lots of things. For the last few years of my working life I spent every morning battling the dread in my stomach and wondering if there was any way I could get out of it, and this feeling of actively wanting to be employed and useful is so foreign to me that it's taken a couple of weeks to work out that that's what it is.
I'm remembering what it's like to want to learn. I've been taking pride in my dressmaking skills recently, beginner though I might be, and I've been excited about getting better. I've been thinking about new dance classes, singing lessons, ways to improve my Italian. I've wanted to start cooking again. I've thought about learning something completely outside my normal wheelhouse; getting an A level in a science, learning indoor plumbing or some other extraordinarily practical domestic skill. I've thought about learning illustration, to see if I can teach myself to draw something that doesn't look like an inebriated ghost. I've thought about performing, doing something fun that will silence at least one of the voices in my head telling me you can't. More than anything else depression took from me, I've missed curiosity.
I can see a future for this year the way I couldn't for previous years. 2013 was completely about the present, 2014 was confusing, and in 2015 I couldn't see anything at all. This year I can feel opportunities for something better. I want to feel more like myself while growing with another person, to let out some of the things I've always hidden because of a nonspecific fear. I've got high hopes for this weird-ass uncertain year.
30-year-old Jen had a miserable time of it. 31-year-old Jen is going to have fun.
Sunday, 14 February 2016
the worst
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader is following me.
It's no exaggeration to say that I hate this song. I hate this song more than any other song I've ever heard. It infuriates me to the point that I will leave a shop if their in-store radio starts playing the song, and if it comes on when I can't just leave (because I'm in a restaurant or whatever) then I will stop the conversation and put headphones in, or sit there with my fingers in my ears like a small child. I have developed such an antagonistic relationship with this song that I cannot listen to it all the way through without having a minor but genuine breakdown.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader is the worst song ever written. The plinky intro hits at just the right frequency to make me twitch, the guy sings as though someone is trying to shove a Pot Noodle up his nose, and every single line rhymes with every single other fucking line. Light rhymes with bright rhymes with might rhymes with fight rhymes with delight until I start gouging bits of flesh out of my palm to stuff up my ears with. I don't often hate things, but when I do, I hate them.
Once my friends and I were at a free local music festival, hanging around by the artists' entrance, and Toploader rocked up. They were rude to the autograph hunters. I shouted at them that I hope their record company dropped them, and after that it was years before I heard anything of Toploader again. The story of "Jen is an actual witch who put a curse on Toploader and it actually worked" made the rounds a fair few times at my school.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader seems to be having a resurgence, and for the life of me I can't understand why. In the last two weeks I've heard it in shops, cafes, and even in my therapist's office.
"Oh God, I hate this song, I hate this song, I hate this song," I said through clenched teeth as the opening plink started up. My therapist chuckled and went to fetch water. The closest I can get to describing how I felt when I realised that he wasn't going to switch it off despite being right next to it is that I possibly astral-projected out of my body in order to smack him across the top of the head. When he came back in and I begged him, almost at the point of tears, to please just turn the radio off, he looked confused. It's apparently not really normal to hate this song this much.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader genuinely interferes with my well-being and mental health. If I'm ever kidnapped and brainwashed, this will be the song they use to trigger me into doing whatever nefarious deeds they kidnapped me for. Hearing even part of this song can honestly ruin my day. And now it's following me. That song must be at least fifteen years old by now, there is no reason for anywhere to be playing it. It's not a classic that needs to be kept in rotation, it's a festering pile of plinky, nasal, twee, irritating shit, and it must be stopped. Maybe I should curse them again.
It's no exaggeration to say that I hate this song. I hate this song more than any other song I've ever heard. It infuriates me to the point that I will leave a shop if their in-store radio starts playing the song, and if it comes on when I can't just leave (because I'm in a restaurant or whatever) then I will stop the conversation and put headphones in, or sit there with my fingers in my ears like a small child. I have developed such an antagonistic relationship with this song that I cannot listen to it all the way through without having a minor but genuine breakdown.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader is the worst song ever written. The plinky intro hits at just the right frequency to make me twitch, the guy sings as though someone is trying to shove a Pot Noodle up his nose, and every single line rhymes with every single other fucking line. Light rhymes with bright rhymes with might rhymes with fight rhymes with delight until I start gouging bits of flesh out of my palm to stuff up my ears with. I don't often hate things, but when I do, I hate them.
Once my friends and I were at a free local music festival, hanging around by the artists' entrance, and Toploader rocked up. They were rude to the autograph hunters. I shouted at them that I hope their record company dropped them, and after that it was years before I heard anything of Toploader again. The story of "Jen is an actual witch who put a curse on Toploader and it actually worked" made the rounds a fair few times at my school.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader seems to be having a resurgence, and for the life of me I can't understand why. In the last two weeks I've heard it in shops, cafes, and even in my therapist's office.
"Oh God, I hate this song, I hate this song, I hate this song," I said through clenched teeth as the opening plink started up. My therapist chuckled and went to fetch water. The closest I can get to describing how I felt when I realised that he wasn't going to switch it off despite being right next to it is that I possibly astral-projected out of my body in order to smack him across the top of the head. When he came back in and I begged him, almost at the point of tears, to please just turn the radio off, he looked confused. It's apparently not really normal to hate this song this much.
Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader genuinely interferes with my well-being and mental health. If I'm ever kidnapped and brainwashed, this will be the song they use to trigger me into doing whatever nefarious deeds they kidnapped me for. Hearing even part of this song can honestly ruin my day. And now it's following me. That song must be at least fifteen years old by now, there is no reason for anywhere to be playing it. It's not a classic that needs to be kept in rotation, it's a festering pile of plinky, nasal, twee, irritating shit, and it must be stopped. Maybe I should curse them again.
Saturday, 13 February 2016
with no face
Story time!
When I was four or five, we had an infestation of slugs in our back garden. My parents were trying to grow some vegetables, and to keep the slugs away from the plants they decided to put out shallow dishes full of beer. Of course, that's not what they told me.
"Why are you putting beer in the garden?" I asked.
"It's for the Tomato Man," said my father instantly, in the same genial tone he uses for ninety-eight per cent of everything he ever says. "The Tomato Man and his Four Hippopotami."
"Why are you leaving him beer?"
"Because otherwise he won't make the tomatoes grow. We have to leave beer for the hippopotami."
"But if there are four hippopotami, why are there only three dishes?"
"One hippo has to keep watch."
This all sounds ridiculous and adorable, except that the more I thought about this story the more terrified I was. I would lie in bed at night, listening for them. My immediate reference for hippos was a set of brightly-coloured ones that had been strung across my pram when I was smaller and had now been passed down to my baby brother. I pictured three hippos, each in a different jaunty primary colour, drinking beer from the dishes in the garden under the cover of night, while the fourth one stared unblinkingly up at my window, waiting for any sign of movement. And if he saw anything, I imagined, he would alert the Tomato Man.
(This sounds SO RIDICULOUS. But this is what it was like being Baby Jen.)
Some nights I couldn't sleep for thoughts of what might be on the other side of my window if I ever dared to pull the curtain back before the sun came up. I'd decided what he looked like; a large tomato head with vines for body, arms, and legs, large flat leaves for hands and feet. I would picture it over and over again (with the same horrified fascination as Supposedly Adult Jen reading the Wikipedia pages of films too frightening to actually watch and then feeling sick for weeks). I could see myself tripping over to the window and pulling back the curtain. The slightest twitch would have alerted the hippo on watch, and by the time the curtain was fully drawn he'd be there, huge tomato head millimetres from the glass, staring at me with his featureless face.
I have been known to judge potential friendships in large part over whether they understand the terror of being stared at by a man with no face. I've now moved past this as an appropriate test, but it's still interesting to ask people. Is the stare in the eyes, or in the intent? If it's in the eyes, then you have nothing to fear from the goddamn Tomato Man, but if it's in the intent? You are never getting away from that stare. He can't blink, he can't turn his attention elsewhere. You can't distract him. You can't break his gaze, because it isn't there. I've been afraid of being watched since then, but fear of being watched by a person, a monster, whatever, has never been more intense for me than the fear of being stared at by something with no face at all. Yes, I'm still aware it was a tomato.
I kept this completely to myself for years, because to say something aloud gives it power. I got so used to keeping it quiet that it stayed a secret long after he lost his grip on me. It must have been at least a decade if not more before I told my dad about my childhood fear of the Tomato Man.
"What?!" he said, in the exact same tone as he'd told the story in the first place. "It was just some nonsense about tomatoes and hippos!"
"You know about my imagination, Dad."
"Well, yes, but hippos and tomatoes?"
"Anything can be scary."
"I didn't mean to scare you! I was talking nonsense."
"Man with no face, Dad. You conjured up a staring man with no face."
"...good grief."
When I was four or five, we had an infestation of slugs in our back garden. My parents were trying to grow some vegetables, and to keep the slugs away from the plants they decided to put out shallow dishes full of beer. Of course, that's not what they told me.
"Why are you putting beer in the garden?" I asked.
"It's for the Tomato Man," said my father instantly, in the same genial tone he uses for ninety-eight per cent of everything he ever says. "The Tomato Man and his Four Hippopotami."
"Why are you leaving him beer?"
"Because otherwise he won't make the tomatoes grow. We have to leave beer for the hippopotami."
"But if there are four hippopotami, why are there only three dishes?"
"One hippo has to keep watch."
This all sounds ridiculous and adorable, except that the more I thought about this story the more terrified I was. I would lie in bed at night, listening for them. My immediate reference for hippos was a set of brightly-coloured ones that had been strung across my pram when I was smaller and had now been passed down to my baby brother. I pictured three hippos, each in a different jaunty primary colour, drinking beer from the dishes in the garden under the cover of night, while the fourth one stared unblinkingly up at my window, waiting for any sign of movement. And if he saw anything, I imagined, he would alert the Tomato Man.
(This sounds SO RIDICULOUS. But this is what it was like being Baby Jen.)
Some nights I couldn't sleep for thoughts of what might be on the other side of my window if I ever dared to pull the curtain back before the sun came up. I'd decided what he looked like; a large tomato head with vines for body, arms, and legs, large flat leaves for hands and feet. I would picture it over and over again (with the same horrified fascination as Supposedly Adult Jen reading the Wikipedia pages of films too frightening to actually watch and then feeling sick for weeks). I could see myself tripping over to the window and pulling back the curtain. The slightest twitch would have alerted the hippo on watch, and by the time the curtain was fully drawn he'd be there, huge tomato head millimetres from the glass, staring at me with his featureless face.
I have been known to judge potential friendships in large part over whether they understand the terror of being stared at by a man with no face. I've now moved past this as an appropriate test, but it's still interesting to ask people. Is the stare in the eyes, or in the intent? If it's in the eyes, then you have nothing to fear from the goddamn Tomato Man, but if it's in the intent? You are never getting away from that stare. He can't blink, he can't turn his attention elsewhere. You can't distract him. You can't break his gaze, because it isn't there. I've been afraid of being watched since then, but fear of being watched by a person, a monster, whatever, has never been more intense for me than the fear of being stared at by something with no face at all. Yes, I'm still aware it was a tomato.
I kept this completely to myself for years, because to say something aloud gives it power. I got so used to keeping it quiet that it stayed a secret long after he lost his grip on me. It must have been at least a decade if not more before I told my dad about my childhood fear of the Tomato Man.
"What?!" he said, in the exact same tone as he'd told the story in the first place. "It was just some nonsense about tomatoes and hippos!"
"You know about my imagination, Dad."
"Well, yes, but hippos and tomatoes?"
"Anything can be scary."
"I didn't mean to scare you! I was talking nonsense."
"Man with no face, Dad. You conjured up a staring man with no face."
"...good grief."
Friday, 12 February 2016
visible
I've done that thing where I haven't written for so long that any attempt at a new post takes on a disproportionate level of importance, and I continue not to write because I can't think of anything inspired enough to restart with. This is silly, and so I'm going to do daily blogging again for the next month.
This year's been okay, so far. I've danced, I've seen shows, I've made clothes. I spent New Year in Sicily, though that's really not as much of a brag as it sounds. My friend had a baby and I managed to persuade her not to name him Oakley. I'm taking a burlesque course and seem to have agreed to do a performance at the end. I'm signed up with a temping agency, I'm going to Paris next month, and in August I'm moving in with my boyfriend. Life's alright.
It's going to be an odd year. So far I've spent quite a lot of it being angry. I know, I just said that life was alright, and it is. But I've been angry, and being angry on my own behalf is something I'm completely unused to. When I've been mistreated in the past I've always responded with sadness, or fear, or a compulsion to rationalise the other person's actions until it looks like everything is fine, and this hot feeling of how fucking dare you is new and weird, and it has to be said, not entirely unpleasant.
I'm angry at the extended family members who are treating me like a pariah. I'm angry at the friend who abandoned me and is now sulking and pouting as though he's the one that's been hard done by. Having spent my whole life reacting to bad behaviour by assuming I'd caused it and trying to disappear, it's a very sharp kind of relief to know without any hint of a question that this is not my fault, this is your fault. I've been lacking that kind of certainty for a long time, and while I've got no interest in staying angry forever, right now it's giving me back some of the energy I lost last year and I'm grateful for it. Not that I know what to do with it, mind you. I'm still working on getting my activity levels back up to normal, so all my restlessness is getting channelled into sewing; I've made ten garments in two weeks. Which is bonkers. I need to slow down, but I think I'm worried about directing that energy to the places it really belongs.
If step one is realising that this is not okay, then step two is telling people that this is not okay. I've made it my business to be as unobtrusive as possible, to not fight and not complain and not start drama, and the idea of stepping out of that is terrifying. I have an astonishing imagination, and yet I can't hear myself saying "that thing you did was incredibly rude" or "you've been acting like a massive knob and you owe me an apology" or "you are a fucking adult who won't speak to me because I don't want to run around in a circle trying to steal hats off people's heads and that is pathetic" (I have some very specific complaints) without adding something into the scenario to make it clear that it's not real. Like everyone is wearing snakes or it's all taking place inside an orange. I can't imagine any version of me inviting conflict and demanding to be noticed like that. But at the same time, if all the anger stays on the inside, it's going to do me no good whatsoever. I've always wanted to be seen, but I've never wanted to be looked at. One way or the other, that needs to change this year.
This year's been okay, so far. I've danced, I've seen shows, I've made clothes. I spent New Year in Sicily, though that's really not as much of a brag as it sounds. My friend had a baby and I managed to persuade her not to name him Oakley. I'm taking a burlesque course and seem to have agreed to do a performance at the end. I'm signed up with a temping agency, I'm going to Paris next month, and in August I'm moving in with my boyfriend. Life's alright.
It's going to be an odd year. So far I've spent quite a lot of it being angry. I know, I just said that life was alright, and it is. But I've been angry, and being angry on my own behalf is something I'm completely unused to. When I've been mistreated in the past I've always responded with sadness, or fear, or a compulsion to rationalise the other person's actions until it looks like everything is fine, and this hot feeling of how fucking dare you is new and weird, and it has to be said, not entirely unpleasant.
I'm angry at the extended family members who are treating me like a pariah. I'm angry at the friend who abandoned me and is now sulking and pouting as though he's the one that's been hard done by. Having spent my whole life reacting to bad behaviour by assuming I'd caused it and trying to disappear, it's a very sharp kind of relief to know without any hint of a question that this is not my fault, this is your fault. I've been lacking that kind of certainty for a long time, and while I've got no interest in staying angry forever, right now it's giving me back some of the energy I lost last year and I'm grateful for it. Not that I know what to do with it, mind you. I'm still working on getting my activity levels back up to normal, so all my restlessness is getting channelled into sewing; I've made ten garments in two weeks. Which is bonkers. I need to slow down, but I think I'm worried about directing that energy to the places it really belongs.
If step one is realising that this is not okay, then step two is telling people that this is not okay. I've made it my business to be as unobtrusive as possible, to not fight and not complain and not start drama, and the idea of stepping out of that is terrifying. I have an astonishing imagination, and yet I can't hear myself saying "that thing you did was incredibly rude" or "you've been acting like a massive knob and you owe me an apology" or "you are a fucking adult who won't speak to me because I don't want to run around in a circle trying to steal hats off people's heads and that is pathetic" (I have some very specific complaints) without adding something into the scenario to make it clear that it's not real. Like everyone is wearing snakes or it's all taking place inside an orange. I can't imagine any version of me inviting conflict and demanding to be noticed like that. But at the same time, if all the anger stays on the inside, it's going to do me no good whatsoever. I've always wanted to be seen, but I've never wanted to be looked at. One way or the other, that needs to change this year.
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