i've been so slack haven't i? it is all the moving house and going to nyc and going on hen weekends. huh my life is so conventional.
but i promise that i will be back soon with lovely tales and lovely news, and maybe even a bit of dark side...
x
Friday, 11 July 2008
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
i love lady day lady day died today
i love lady day, lady day died today
this is something else i discovered in the mires of my usb. again, it was just how it felt. technically, it ain't great. but i remember it clearly.
I get along without you very well, sings Lady Day
So so stupid. How could I be so stupid? I'm so stupid, I can't even think of a word to use instead of that one.
I play the record over again, the one that tells me that I get along without you, both me and the crackling voice telling ourselves that we have forgotten you, so long as we don't think of spring, for that would surely break my heart in two.
It's your eyes you see. You didn't think they could do that. I know that I didn't. I always thought you had pretty eyes. She sings a song about them you know, I fell in love with you the first time I looked into / them there eyes. I danced to it giddily in my room, picturing your eyes dancing above mine as I pull you close to my chest, half closing mine in expressions of bliss.
Eyes. I I I I I can't speak aloud, I can't form the words on my lips, they die away before they reach my throat. Like a bubble, everything clear and perfectly rounded, forming in my stomach. Ready to reach out and tell you in Hollywood terms, tell you all that is in my mind, and suddenly I will be transformed into a blonde Grace Kelly in shimmering silver negligee, and you the matinee idol, clichés will leave my lips but you will kiss them away and look deep into my eyes with our eyes and all will be well again. In our silver screen life, all close ups and lit from below; cliché phrases become excusable because this is life lived through a film. And in there I always know just what to say.
this is something else i discovered in the mires of my usb. again, it was just how it felt. technically, it ain't great. but i remember it clearly.
I get along without you very well, sings Lady Day
So so stupid. How could I be so stupid? I'm so stupid, I can't even think of a word to use instead of that one.
I play the record over again, the one that tells me that I get along without you, both me and the crackling voice telling ourselves that we have forgotten you, so long as we don't think of spring, for that would surely break my heart in two.
It's your eyes you see. You didn't think they could do that. I know that I didn't. I always thought you had pretty eyes. She sings a song about them you know, I fell in love with you the first time I looked into / them there eyes. I danced to it giddily in my room, picturing your eyes dancing above mine as I pull you close to my chest, half closing mine in expressions of bliss.
Eyes. I I I I I can't speak aloud, I can't form the words on my lips, they die away before they reach my throat. Like a bubble, everything clear and perfectly rounded, forming in my stomach. Ready to reach out and tell you in Hollywood terms, tell you all that is in my mind, and suddenly I will be transformed into a blonde Grace Kelly in shimmering silver negligee, and you the matinee idol, clichés will leave my lips but you will kiss them away and look deep into my eyes with our eyes and all will be well again. In our silver screen life, all close ups and lit from below; cliché phrases become excusable because this is life lived through a film. And in there I always know just what to say.
seasonal
seasonal
i’ve been rediscovering old bits and pieces i wrote at uni and this is what i had to say about Xmas 2005, when i was living in finsbury park, and the christamsses i had in dalston and oxford street.
it was just how it felt.
Christmas tales
I don’t feel Christmassy yet, and with just over a week to go, what to do what to do.
Two years ago I lived on Oxford Street. It was easy to feel in the festive season then, everywhere you turned a bombarding with the trimmings of a commercial Christmas. Woken up at some God forbidden early hour by a builder or electrician employed by Westminster council to attach hanging lights from just above my window. Open the curtains to see dangling wires and bang bang bang of the hammer and drill, then Kaboom of the lights coming on and shining through each evening. Standing by the window with my high upon cloud view of the shoppers milling and pushing, the Sinner Winner man screaming, children stumbling and everywhere a sense of stressed buying and looking as the shops play records that will stay with us forever when they should have been buried. Mad World playing over and over as people discussed how it was appropriate for a song reflecting on the mess of things, should be the song we use to define a year where, we all reflected, things had been made a mess of. Woken up another morning, typically hungover, as the Salvation Army play a medley of carols, wondering if it is a really big sin to want to shoot the army of God. Look out the window one Thursday to see the brass band flanked on either side by the Israel Palestine protesters outside Marks and Spencer, free free Palestine, rahdirahdah Marks and Spencer, oh little town of Bethlehem. Spending my last night in London kissing the boy I was sleeping with as he passed out on my bed so I couldn’t get into it.
Sitting in my new room, with no view, wondering who lives in that room that looked out on Christmas and wondering if he/she sees the same sights as I once did, and was woken up so rudely. I wonder if they feel Christmassy yet. Maybe they are more concerned by Hanukkah.
Last year we lived in a dark house which we tried to brighten with fairy lights and a tree as big as me that I carried for a mile down Essex Road, which started off with festive lights in Angel and disintegrated into no one cares about this end of town dilapidation, as I moved from feeling full of festive cheer, to being broken backed and knackered from lugging the branches and needles back to our house. I put on Fred Astaire as we decorate the tree with what we had found at the pound shop, and someone bought a record of Christmas songs, which I battled over with my copy of Santa Baby. We cooked a huge meal for all our friends and I started peeling the veg at half eleven in the morning, and somehow lost out on much praise. We none of us had much money, but inspired by the song of that year, we donated what we had to the Sudan. Chris Martin droning that it is Christmas time, we had no need to be afraid, we laughed at Joss Stone (’they gotta eat, oh man, they gotta eat!’) as I said look Ms Dynamite! and we cried at the images of dying children. We had every need to be afraid in that house. The darkness was pretty encroaching as we watched the world get drowned under the huge wave and the Sudan became forgotten, whilst we all struggled to keep afloat and left the fairy lights on to keep the blackness of the rooms at bay. I stumbled around the house that was too too cold in a multitude of jumpers, yet the tree made me feel warmer. When we cooked the roast, I squatted next to the oven to absorb some of its heat.
I wonder who lives there now and how they battle the elements.
But I don’t feel Christmassy this year. On this side of Seven Sisters road, we have no lights. They stop at Hornsey Road. My flatmate has lights in her room though, but I don’t seem to have made the effort. My room is pretty lacking in effort all over, been here a while now but still feel only half unpacked. I made some presents and have made all the cards, I’ve been to a Christmas party where they had a tree, I’ve even resurrected my copy of Santa Baby. Maybe it is the lack of a song – what is the Christmas song this year? Rumours are it is the Crazy Frog, oh yes, he is back. Maybe it is because what really defined this year was the presence of that odd looking entity and his blurred penis. What, with bombs and war and the election.
What is the deal with Christmas this year anyway? Apparently it is a forbidden word. But no one has made clear to me why or what the appropriate replacement is, so excuse me if I over use it.
I asked my friend who never feels Christmassy if he did this year. I thought maybe we had swapped roles, and he was pulling the crackers as I moped in my small flat, wondering why the ’winter lights’ stop before they get to my stretch of the road. I swear, I felt more Christmassy in the autumn, when the shop I was working in put up their decorations. September. Middle of.
I had a flick through the TV guide to explore the treats of festive television. All yer favourites are there, Dr Zhivago (I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with Julie Christie, she makes me misty) vying with the Wizard of Oz (watch out for the suicidal munchkin) as someone dies on a soap or two. It kind of made me feel comforted. I may not feel that festive, but at least some things don’t change.
I always try and make Christmas as perfect as I can. Child of divorce rings in my ears as I remember Christmas past and the long discussion of who got to have me on Christmas day and who on New Year’s Eve, even now that I’m twenty one trying to negotiate who buys what present without finding out what is being bought because still after all these years they won’t communicate. Doing this again this year I wondered when things would change, and the static nature of the holidays stopped being so comforting.
I’m only twenty one and yet after the twentieth Christmas I already feel I have to prepare myself for the questions of why I am lonely this Christmas, as around me couples coo and kiss like damn pigeons. The single status rarely bothers me, but when your younger brother insists on asking why I still don’t have anyone, as he gives presents jointly with his lady, it is needed to grit the teeth. Too much work I mumble in reply to the self satisfied expression of contentment and the sighs of the father.
Leading up to the festive season, I’ve been sleeping with a friend of mine. I’ve had a crush on him for years, but we pretend this isn’t the truth. We pretend that it is just sex. We pretend it is just a fling. We pretend that I don’t mind him sleeping with other people, and I pretend to go and flirt with other men and women to pretend to even the score. At night I pretend it was different, then we pretend that we don’t. I don’t mind this pretending. I’m happy that it happens. It is a nice Christmas present. I make him a card and a tape. I picture how his smile will be when I give it to him, as I picture his smile when he laughs at what I say on the phone. Sometimes I feel sad, but this is the way of things. It just doesn’t aid creating a Christmassy mood. Like all holidays, the Christmas one is aided by coupledom and money. Not sitting in a half unpacked room wondering where the next rent cheque is coming from, praying to the overdraft god, listening to Nina Simone. Approaching Christmas like a woman, I think, yet it breaks me like a little girl! Ha!
Go to my parents next week. They are waiting for me before they put up the tree; I always get to make the star. I’ll see my friend and angst over whether he will sleep with me again, and how to explain to the surroundings my situation. I’ll watch the ever repeated Christmas TV on a screen that doesn’t flicker and eat more food than my groaning stomach can take (I eat chocolate now, is this Christmassy?) and ache for a cigarette, dance at New Year and drunkenly reflect, as I do every year, that the next one can’t be as bad as the last one. They are never that bad, not after the one that was truly the worst and conversely, one of the best, never bad enough to warrant such reflection.
Next year I will sit in a different room, with a different set of half unpacked boxes, a different view and maybe a different proximity to lights. We might be allowed to say Christmas by then, there’ll be a good Christmas record, my divorced parents will decide between themselves who buys me what and no one will judge me.
Until then though, I go on a search to feel Christmassy.
Joyeux noel.
i’ve been rediscovering old bits and pieces i wrote at uni and this is what i had to say about Xmas 2005, when i was living in finsbury park, and the christamsses i had in dalston and oxford street.
it was just how it felt.
Christmas tales
I don’t feel Christmassy yet, and with just over a week to go, what to do what to do.
Two years ago I lived on Oxford Street. It was easy to feel in the festive season then, everywhere you turned a bombarding with the trimmings of a commercial Christmas. Woken up at some God forbidden early hour by a builder or electrician employed by Westminster council to attach hanging lights from just above my window. Open the curtains to see dangling wires and bang bang bang of the hammer and drill, then Kaboom of the lights coming on and shining through each evening. Standing by the window with my high upon cloud view of the shoppers milling and pushing, the Sinner Winner man screaming, children stumbling and everywhere a sense of stressed buying and looking as the shops play records that will stay with us forever when they should have been buried. Mad World playing over and over as people discussed how it was appropriate for a song reflecting on the mess of things, should be the song we use to define a year where, we all reflected, things had been made a mess of. Woken up another morning, typically hungover, as the Salvation Army play a medley of carols, wondering if it is a really big sin to want to shoot the army of God. Look out the window one Thursday to see the brass band flanked on either side by the Israel Palestine protesters outside Marks and Spencer, free free Palestine, rahdirahdah Marks and Spencer, oh little town of Bethlehem. Spending my last night in London kissing the boy I was sleeping with as he passed out on my bed so I couldn’t get into it.
Sitting in my new room, with no view, wondering who lives in that room that looked out on Christmas and wondering if he/she sees the same sights as I once did, and was woken up so rudely. I wonder if they feel Christmassy yet. Maybe they are more concerned by Hanukkah.
Last year we lived in a dark house which we tried to brighten with fairy lights and a tree as big as me that I carried for a mile down Essex Road, which started off with festive lights in Angel and disintegrated into no one cares about this end of town dilapidation, as I moved from feeling full of festive cheer, to being broken backed and knackered from lugging the branches and needles back to our house. I put on Fred Astaire as we decorate the tree with what we had found at the pound shop, and someone bought a record of Christmas songs, which I battled over with my copy of Santa Baby. We cooked a huge meal for all our friends and I started peeling the veg at half eleven in the morning, and somehow lost out on much praise. We none of us had much money, but inspired by the song of that year, we donated what we had to the Sudan. Chris Martin droning that it is Christmas time, we had no need to be afraid, we laughed at Joss Stone (’they gotta eat, oh man, they gotta eat!’) as I said look Ms Dynamite! and we cried at the images of dying children. We had every need to be afraid in that house. The darkness was pretty encroaching as we watched the world get drowned under the huge wave and the Sudan became forgotten, whilst we all struggled to keep afloat and left the fairy lights on to keep the blackness of the rooms at bay. I stumbled around the house that was too too cold in a multitude of jumpers, yet the tree made me feel warmer. When we cooked the roast, I squatted next to the oven to absorb some of its heat.
I wonder who lives there now and how they battle the elements.
But I don’t feel Christmassy this year. On this side of Seven Sisters road, we have no lights. They stop at Hornsey Road. My flatmate has lights in her room though, but I don’t seem to have made the effort. My room is pretty lacking in effort all over, been here a while now but still feel only half unpacked. I made some presents and have made all the cards, I’ve been to a Christmas party where they had a tree, I’ve even resurrected my copy of Santa Baby. Maybe it is the lack of a song – what is the Christmas song this year? Rumours are it is the Crazy Frog, oh yes, he is back. Maybe it is because what really defined this year was the presence of that odd looking entity and his blurred penis. What, with bombs and war and the election.
What is the deal with Christmas this year anyway? Apparently it is a forbidden word. But no one has made clear to me why or what the appropriate replacement is, so excuse me if I over use it.
I asked my friend who never feels Christmassy if he did this year. I thought maybe we had swapped roles, and he was pulling the crackers as I moped in my small flat, wondering why the ’winter lights’ stop before they get to my stretch of the road. I swear, I felt more Christmassy in the autumn, when the shop I was working in put up their decorations. September. Middle of.
I had a flick through the TV guide to explore the treats of festive television. All yer favourites are there, Dr Zhivago (I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with Julie Christie, she makes me misty) vying with the Wizard of Oz (watch out for the suicidal munchkin) as someone dies on a soap or two. It kind of made me feel comforted. I may not feel that festive, but at least some things don’t change.
I always try and make Christmas as perfect as I can. Child of divorce rings in my ears as I remember Christmas past and the long discussion of who got to have me on Christmas day and who on New Year’s Eve, even now that I’m twenty one trying to negotiate who buys what present without finding out what is being bought because still after all these years they won’t communicate. Doing this again this year I wondered when things would change, and the static nature of the holidays stopped being so comforting.
I’m only twenty one and yet after the twentieth Christmas I already feel I have to prepare myself for the questions of why I am lonely this Christmas, as around me couples coo and kiss like damn pigeons. The single status rarely bothers me, but when your younger brother insists on asking why I still don’t have anyone, as he gives presents jointly with his lady, it is needed to grit the teeth. Too much work I mumble in reply to the self satisfied expression of contentment and the sighs of the father.
Leading up to the festive season, I’ve been sleeping with a friend of mine. I’ve had a crush on him for years, but we pretend this isn’t the truth. We pretend that it is just sex. We pretend it is just a fling. We pretend that I don’t mind him sleeping with other people, and I pretend to go and flirt with other men and women to pretend to even the score. At night I pretend it was different, then we pretend that we don’t. I don’t mind this pretending. I’m happy that it happens. It is a nice Christmas present. I make him a card and a tape. I picture how his smile will be when I give it to him, as I picture his smile when he laughs at what I say on the phone. Sometimes I feel sad, but this is the way of things. It just doesn’t aid creating a Christmassy mood. Like all holidays, the Christmas one is aided by coupledom and money. Not sitting in a half unpacked room wondering where the next rent cheque is coming from, praying to the overdraft god, listening to Nina Simone. Approaching Christmas like a woman, I think, yet it breaks me like a little girl! Ha!
Go to my parents next week. They are waiting for me before they put up the tree; I always get to make the star. I’ll see my friend and angst over whether he will sleep with me again, and how to explain to the surroundings my situation. I’ll watch the ever repeated Christmas TV on a screen that doesn’t flicker and eat more food than my groaning stomach can take (I eat chocolate now, is this Christmassy?) and ache for a cigarette, dance at New Year and drunkenly reflect, as I do every year, that the next one can’t be as bad as the last one. They are never that bad, not after the one that was truly the worst and conversely, one of the best, never bad enough to warrant such reflection.
Next year I will sit in a different room, with a different set of half unpacked boxes, a different view and maybe a different proximity to lights. We might be allowed to say Christmas by then, there’ll be a good Christmas record, my divorced parents will decide between themselves who buys me what and no one will judge me.
Until then though, I go on a search to feel Christmassy.
Joyeux noel.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Modernity
This is about the past, and how things were, written in the present:
Modernity
Sometimes I think I do these things just so I have something funny to tell you guys in the morning," I giggle nervously, as I walk in to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, wearing last night's clothes, to be greeted by raised eyebrows and slaps on the shoulders from my housemates.
Is that true? I ask myself. Is it all to the contribution of the great overriding project, the novel, the persona, the bohemian dream? Or is it just boredom, the boredom of liking the wrong one, the boredom of trying to fill the fucking void left by the wrong one, by the endless stream of laughing about it with my housemates when I get home in the morning.
Fuelled by jealousy and anger and a desire to be seen as full of a mysterious existential glamour, needing no one, needing nothing, so bruised already under the fresh cheeks and bright eyes as to click clack forward in my heeled pumps and take what I want to get my morning tale, delivered with yawns and black circles under my no longer quite so bright eyes, sipping on black coffee and sucking on a roll up. existentialist. glamour.
I see myself, not as I am. I see myself with a mouth slashed with red lipstick that doesn't slip off as the night wears on. I see heels pointed and sharp, pointed and sharp as I see my nails that I want to scratch down the backs that have slammed a door against me as I stand, not as I see myself, but as I am myself, crumpled, with one sock missing.
A dirty flow of karma moves me forward on this journey of clawing for the look, clawing for the aura. Hurt once, driven to hurt someone myself. Where does this leave you? Kicked out of bed one morning, sock missing, to slamming the door carelessly on the next one, in my heels, to being left to cry in my own bed by the wrong one, again. curled up against my cat, sobbing until he picks me up again and leaves me somewhere else, curled up, sobbing. where do you take revenge? on the willing and grateful mouths that take your lipstick off, play the revenge out on them. too scaredy cat to face the truth. to scaredy cat to avenge yourself on the ones who strum the hurt. too scaredy cat to fight them.
Modernity. the weight of it behind you in the mirror. clasp the bracelet to my arm and zip up the vintage dress - the vintage dress that makes me oh so modern and full of my modernity, in my confidence in adopting the past as part of the persona. bind the necklace through my neck and pull the hairbrush through my knotted hair, worn and torn from yesterday's pillows. modernity and its disposability.
I chuck away the razor that clears my legs and tut as I realise my 2 year old phone is going to need replacing any day now, now that the batery only lasts 6 hours. I look at the discarded tights on the floor and think they need chucking, before they ladder any further. it's so easy to throw things away! its fucking modernity. nothing lasts. we've got the weight of history on our shoulders, and what has it taught us? nothing lasts?
I let myself be taken home by the boy I know has had a crush on me. I kiss him in front of a friend I have a crush on, having the day before seen the wrong one with whom I'm in love kissing his ex girlfriend. I let myself be lowered on to the bed, giggling from the beer and from the absurdity of the theatre of it all. it's a French farce, it's a rhinoceros, and I want to laugh at the journey I have made to get here, until the boredom hits home again. the boredom of feeling someone crawling over me just so I can extract a revenge that won't even be recognised. even
my revenge is disposable.
does it matter, anyway? is it really hurting anyone? I think this as he kisses me, my brain telling my body what to do whilst it focuses herself on her musings. is it hurting anyone? I'm responsible for myself, and he seems to be enjoying himself. what does it matter. its disposable, its modernity. nothing lasts?
I get to the pub, wearing last night's clothes, circles under my eyes, ordering a pint. "Where were you last night?" laughs my housemate, mimicking concern.
I groan and take a sip of my pint. "Sometimes I think I just do these things so I have a funny story to tell you guys in the morning," I giggle, nervously. We sit in the sun, as more friends join us, I pose in my sunglasses and we remember times we have seen one another naked, a disposable nudity, now to be revealed to others, and it is hilarious and it is loving, because from there was born a beauty of this honest and frank love of friends. and as the sun beats down I think, what does it matter, anyway. it is a moment of beautiful revelation, as I recognise that right here is my happiness. here is my home.
When he calls I say I'm busy, when we see each other I flirt prettily, one eye on him, one eye on the friend, one thought with the wrong one and his ex. I stroll round a charity bookshop and buy a copy of Tess and in my summer dress and flip flops I feel happy, and I treasure the moments I have of this purity, taking as my own what was thrown away, a private revolution against the disposable.
where was it born, then? when yes stopped meaning yes. when no stopped meaning no. when everything in between got lost. the first awareness of being watched. the first waiting for the call that didn't come. the first stutter. the first secret. the first frightening obsession when you are cornered. how many times can you take that? how many times until you turn it into a funny story to be thrown away with last week's Heat and Guardian.
I wield the high heeled and red lip sticked power on another, exacting an unnoticed revenge and I feel so tired. my mind wanders to the charity bookshop, to the sunny exterior of the pub, as a clammy hand grips my breast and a wet tongue slides over my lips.
"What's the point anyway," a girl friend sighs to me, when she realises she has been left alone. "Is it just so you don't have to do things alone? But what is wrong with doing things alone?"
I sigh in recognition. I try and pinpoint romantic moments, sitting and walking in the park with the girl who later got obsessive and when once more, yes didn't mean yes. kissing behind the door with the wrong one and soaring over my own head as I realised with ecstasy that he didn't need the existentialist glamour, only to crash down again when I was curled up next to my cat. They're bodies and it is contact. what is important? Is it bodies? I remember all the happy moments, the sunny exterior of the pub, eating take away and play fights with my friends. All the city walks taken alone, with the loneliness a liberation as I saw sights I never expected and sipped cocktails I never tasted before, all done in solitude, all done with a sense of beautiful freedom. Were all the frightening nights an aid to destroy that space I cherished?
If modernity teaches us that nothing lasts, it also teaches us to cling tight so we aren't alone when the bomb comes. We aren't free from all the disposable things we buy.
Whilst I was busy wielding revenge, the friend I have a crush on at last nervously kisses my hand. from hand it isn't long until my legs are wrapped around him and we are lying, exhausted, on the bed. I wonder about our mutual friend who had a crush on me who I left breathless. I wonder if one will ever know about the other. I wonder if this story will be swapped between them, as I have just been.
this time, the heels are left behind. the bold and brave slash of lipstick across my mouth is a dirty smudge. it is all crumpled with one sock missing. a secret, he says. I should have expected. I knew what this was. I knew who was at home. But it leaves me confused. Who do I avenge this one on? I'm already half way through an avengment. My head is swimming! Has it gone too far?
what does it matter, anyway? he seemed to enjoy himself. I'm responsible for myself. its disposable. its modernity. but this one won't be funny story. this one will be avenged on some one else. the spectre of the wrong one with his ex hangs over me still.
I take myself out for lunch. I relish the solitude. I don't care if the waitress looks at me strangely. I would rather enjoy every mouthful of this salmon alone, then have to share it with someone with a big wallet that pays for it all. All. It is here that I am content, I realise. Here and on the sunny exterior of the pub. It doesn't need bodies.
Maybe it is all a colossal amount of self pity. When do we grow up? Hurt once, twice too many times and then, bam! I have to have revenge. But it isn't revenge, not really. It's carelessness.
Whose carelessness? Mine?
Modernity
Sometimes I think I do these things just so I have something funny to tell you guys in the morning," I giggle nervously, as I walk in to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, wearing last night's clothes, to be greeted by raised eyebrows and slaps on the shoulders from my housemates.
Is that true? I ask myself. Is it all to the contribution of the great overriding project, the novel, the persona, the bohemian dream? Or is it just boredom, the boredom of liking the wrong one, the boredom of trying to fill the fucking void left by the wrong one, by the endless stream of laughing about it with my housemates when I get home in the morning.
Fuelled by jealousy and anger and a desire to be seen as full of a mysterious existential glamour, needing no one, needing nothing, so bruised already under the fresh cheeks and bright eyes as to click clack forward in my heeled pumps and take what I want to get my morning tale, delivered with yawns and black circles under my no longer quite so bright eyes, sipping on black coffee and sucking on a roll up. existentialist. glamour.
I see myself, not as I am. I see myself with a mouth slashed with red lipstick that doesn't slip off as the night wears on. I see heels pointed and sharp, pointed and sharp as I see my nails that I want to scratch down the backs that have slammed a door against me as I stand, not as I see myself, but as I am myself, crumpled, with one sock missing.
A dirty flow of karma moves me forward on this journey of clawing for the look, clawing for the aura. Hurt once, driven to hurt someone myself. Where does this leave you? Kicked out of bed one morning, sock missing, to slamming the door carelessly on the next one, in my heels, to being left to cry in my own bed by the wrong one, again. curled up against my cat, sobbing until he picks me up again and leaves me somewhere else, curled up, sobbing. where do you take revenge? on the willing and grateful mouths that take your lipstick off, play the revenge out on them. too scaredy cat to face the truth. to scaredy cat to avenge yourself on the ones who strum the hurt. too scaredy cat to fight them.
Modernity. the weight of it behind you in the mirror. clasp the bracelet to my arm and zip up the vintage dress - the vintage dress that makes me oh so modern and full of my modernity, in my confidence in adopting the past as part of the persona. bind the necklace through my neck and pull the hairbrush through my knotted hair, worn and torn from yesterday's pillows. modernity and its disposability.
I chuck away the razor that clears my legs and tut as I realise my 2 year old phone is going to need replacing any day now, now that the batery only lasts 6 hours. I look at the discarded tights on the floor and think they need chucking, before they ladder any further. it's so easy to throw things away! its fucking modernity. nothing lasts. we've got the weight of history on our shoulders, and what has it taught us? nothing lasts?
I let myself be taken home by the boy I know has had a crush on me. I kiss him in front of a friend I have a crush on, having the day before seen the wrong one with whom I'm in love kissing his ex girlfriend. I let myself be lowered on to the bed, giggling from the beer and from the absurdity of the theatre of it all. it's a French farce, it's a rhinoceros, and I want to laugh at the journey I have made to get here, until the boredom hits home again. the boredom of feeling someone crawling over me just so I can extract a revenge that won't even be recognised. even
my revenge is disposable.
does it matter, anyway? is it really hurting anyone? I think this as he kisses me, my brain telling my body what to do whilst it focuses herself on her musings. is it hurting anyone? I'm responsible for myself, and he seems to be enjoying himself. what does it matter. its disposable, its modernity. nothing lasts?
I get to the pub, wearing last night's clothes, circles under my eyes, ordering a pint. "Where were you last night?" laughs my housemate, mimicking concern.
I groan and take a sip of my pint. "Sometimes I think I just do these things so I have a funny story to tell you guys in the morning," I giggle, nervously. We sit in the sun, as more friends join us, I pose in my sunglasses and we remember times we have seen one another naked, a disposable nudity, now to be revealed to others, and it is hilarious and it is loving, because from there was born a beauty of this honest and frank love of friends. and as the sun beats down I think, what does it matter, anyway. it is a moment of beautiful revelation, as I recognise that right here is my happiness. here is my home.
When he calls I say I'm busy, when we see each other I flirt prettily, one eye on him, one eye on the friend, one thought with the wrong one and his ex. I stroll round a charity bookshop and buy a copy of Tess and in my summer dress and flip flops I feel happy, and I treasure the moments I have of this purity, taking as my own what was thrown away, a private revolution against the disposable.
where was it born, then? when yes stopped meaning yes. when no stopped meaning no. when everything in between got lost. the first awareness of being watched. the first waiting for the call that didn't come. the first stutter. the first secret. the first frightening obsession when you are cornered. how many times can you take that? how many times until you turn it into a funny story to be thrown away with last week's Heat and Guardian.
I wield the high heeled and red lip sticked power on another, exacting an unnoticed revenge and I feel so tired. my mind wanders to the charity bookshop, to the sunny exterior of the pub, as a clammy hand grips my breast and a wet tongue slides over my lips.
"What's the point anyway," a girl friend sighs to me, when she realises she has been left alone. "Is it just so you don't have to do things alone? But what is wrong with doing things alone?"
I sigh in recognition. I try and pinpoint romantic moments, sitting and walking in the park with the girl who later got obsessive and when once more, yes didn't mean yes. kissing behind the door with the wrong one and soaring over my own head as I realised with ecstasy that he didn't need the existentialist glamour, only to crash down again when I was curled up next to my cat. They're bodies and it is contact. what is important? Is it bodies? I remember all the happy moments, the sunny exterior of the pub, eating take away and play fights with my friends. All the city walks taken alone, with the loneliness a liberation as I saw sights I never expected and sipped cocktails I never tasted before, all done in solitude, all done with a sense of beautiful freedom. Were all the frightening nights an aid to destroy that space I cherished?
If modernity teaches us that nothing lasts, it also teaches us to cling tight so we aren't alone when the bomb comes. We aren't free from all the disposable things we buy.
Whilst I was busy wielding revenge, the friend I have a crush on at last nervously kisses my hand. from hand it isn't long until my legs are wrapped around him and we are lying, exhausted, on the bed. I wonder about our mutual friend who had a crush on me who I left breathless. I wonder if one will ever know about the other. I wonder if this story will be swapped between them, as I have just been.
this time, the heels are left behind. the bold and brave slash of lipstick across my mouth is a dirty smudge. it is all crumpled with one sock missing. a secret, he says. I should have expected. I knew what this was. I knew who was at home. But it leaves me confused. Who do I avenge this one on? I'm already half way through an avengment. My head is swimming! Has it gone too far?
what does it matter, anyway? he seemed to enjoy himself. I'm responsible for myself. its disposable. its modernity. but this one won't be funny story. this one will be avenged on some one else. the spectre of the wrong one with his ex hangs over me still.
I take myself out for lunch. I relish the solitude. I don't care if the waitress looks at me strangely. I would rather enjoy every mouthful of this salmon alone, then have to share it with someone with a big wallet that pays for it all. All. It is here that I am content, I realise. Here and on the sunny exterior of the pub. It doesn't need bodies.
Maybe it is all a colossal amount of self pity. When do we grow up? Hurt once, twice too many times and then, bam! I have to have revenge. But it isn't revenge, not really. It's carelessness.
Whose carelessness? Mine?
the watchers
It is only now, now that it is over, that I recognise the eyes that have followed me my life long day. from every angle, on every street, the watchers have followed me, until I was so used to their presence, that the performance became natural. what other way could there have been to behave.
It starts early, for us all. It starts with the first consciousness of self, with that, the arrival of the watchers. the first recognition in a pane of glass, the first hint of a reflection in a polished surface, the first time Eve saw her face in the pool in Eden, and the path for her was set. you start to watch. others start to watch. behind your eyes, staring back at you back to front, from the glass, the pool, the surface, gather the other eyes. you look back at them, you look past them. you block the eyes out of your consciousness, pretend they aren't looking. but you know they are there. from that first beginning
The watchers. they made me nervous, yet it was unconscious. so used I was to all their stares. I didn't realise or remember any other way. tightropes and precipices, were the only walkways open. so I learnt to walk them, until it was easy, the only way to walk. twirling on my toes, kicking out my heels behind me, putting my best foot forward. you absorb the eyes.
watched from every corner.
it is only now, now that it is over, that I recognise the eyes that have followed me my life long day. now that I have ended the performance. something has settled, in eyes that look back in to their double of mine with a frank honesty that breaks through the layers of watchers. play me songs on the stereo that I haven't heard, songs by girls who sound from the sixties and boys who sound from space, and my stomach settles. lift me down from the ropes and precipices and offer me an open stare that never watches.
It starts early, for us all. It starts with the first consciousness of self, with that, the arrival of the watchers. the first recognition in a pane of glass, the first hint of a reflection in a polished surface, the first time Eve saw her face in the pool in Eden, and the path for her was set. you start to watch. others start to watch. behind your eyes, staring back at you back to front, from the glass, the pool, the surface, gather the other eyes. you look back at them, you look past them. you block the eyes out of your consciousness, pretend they aren't looking. but you know they are there. from that first beginning
The watchers. they made me nervous, yet it was unconscious. so used I was to all their stares. I didn't realise or remember any other way. tightropes and precipices, were the only walkways open. so I learnt to walk them, until it was easy, the only way to walk. twirling on my toes, kicking out my heels behind me, putting my best foot forward. you absorb the eyes.
watched from every corner.
it is only now, now that it is over, that I recognise the eyes that have followed me my life long day. now that I have ended the performance. something has settled, in eyes that look back in to their double of mine with a frank honesty that breaks through the layers of watchers. play me songs on the stereo that I haven't heard, songs by girls who sound from the sixties and boys who sound from space, and my stomach settles. lift me down from the ropes and precipices and offer me an open stare that never watches.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Murders
I'm just watching the Channel 4 news about Steve Wright being found guilty of the murder of the women in Ipswich.
A woman they interviewed said:
"Supporting prostitution is supporting violence and hatred of women. There is no place for it in a civilised society."
She was a former prostitute who left after being raped and beaten so badly she was in hospital and couldn't walk for days.
At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, i hope all those people who thought Billie Piper looked like she was having loads of fun in that TV show, and that prostitution is about consent, and not about sheer misogyny and power, feel sick with themselves.
A woman they interviewed said:
"Supporting prostitution is supporting violence and hatred of women. There is no place for it in a civilised society."
She was a former prostitute who left after being raped and beaten so badly she was in hospital and couldn't walk for days.
At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, i hope all those people who thought Billie Piper looked like she was having loads of fun in that TV show, and that prostitution is about consent, and not about sheer misogyny and power, feel sick with themselves.
Monday, 21 January 2008
mariana clarifications
hello readers
i typed p 'mariana' in a real hurry and didn't tell what the story is about, so am just going to give a quick background/context.
regular readers will remember "bianca" - a story or monologue that told the story of bianca in Othello, a marginal character who plays Cassio's lover, and a prostitute. I liked the idea of writing about silent women in Shakespeare, so thought I'd test it again on Mariana, a character in Measure for Measure. If ever there was a plot device, then Mariana is IT!
IN Measure for Measure, the Duke of Venice decides the sexy rough and tumble of the city has gotten well out of hand, and decides to leave it in the hands of Angelo, an austere sexual puritan, to see how he will deal with controllng the excesses of the city. Angelo was once engaged to Mariana, but dumped her when she lost her brother and her dowry, and she retired to the moated grange to weep. (im simplifying here folks). One of the first things Angelo does in power is condemn a man named Claudio to death for having got his lady, Juliet, pregnant, before marrying her. Claudio asks his nun sister, Isabella, to plead for his life, and the cold and chaste Angelo immediately falls in lust with her. He promises Isabella her brother will be freed, if she has sex with him.
She's a nun so this suggestion isn't great for her. But, the Duke has meanwhile disguised himself as a monk, and advises Isabella to ask Mariana to disguise herself with a veil, and have sex with Angelo in her place.
So, you can see what i mean when i say Mariana is a plot device. Her body is the solution to the plays problem. (in a way, it gets more complicated still later on). Shakespeare uses her sex as a means to an end, and she is used. horribly.
i wanted to see what mariana thought of it all. whether she is as helpless and compliant as the play may suggest. she begs for angelo's life at the end. but did she have her own reasons?
hope that clears up the background to her monologue.
i typed p 'mariana' in a real hurry and didn't tell what the story is about, so am just going to give a quick background/context.
regular readers will remember "bianca" - a story or monologue that told the story of bianca in Othello, a marginal character who plays Cassio's lover, and a prostitute. I liked the idea of writing about silent women in Shakespeare, so thought I'd test it again on Mariana, a character in Measure for Measure. If ever there was a plot device, then Mariana is IT!
IN Measure for Measure, the Duke of Venice decides the sexy rough and tumble of the city has gotten well out of hand, and decides to leave it in the hands of Angelo, an austere sexual puritan, to see how he will deal with controllng the excesses of the city. Angelo was once engaged to Mariana, but dumped her when she lost her brother and her dowry, and she retired to the moated grange to weep. (im simplifying here folks). One of the first things Angelo does in power is condemn a man named Claudio to death for having got his lady, Juliet, pregnant, before marrying her. Claudio asks his nun sister, Isabella, to plead for his life, and the cold and chaste Angelo immediately falls in lust with her. He promises Isabella her brother will be freed, if she has sex with him.
She's a nun so this suggestion isn't great for her. But, the Duke has meanwhile disguised himself as a monk, and advises Isabella to ask Mariana to disguise herself with a veil, and have sex with Angelo in her place.
So, you can see what i mean when i say Mariana is a plot device. Her body is the solution to the plays problem. (in a way, it gets more complicated still later on). Shakespeare uses her sex as a means to an end, and she is used. horribly.
i wanted to see what mariana thought of it all. whether she is as helpless and compliant as the play may suggest. she begs for angelo's life at the end. but did she have her own reasons?
hope that clears up the background to her monologue.
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