It is impossible to have two blogs

But I will carry on regardless.

I am ploughing through my writing coursework. I directed some of my class to Inky Fingers after I tried to explain that I wrote almost every day blog wise, etc. One of them emailed me and said ‘has anyone ever told you you write really well?’ I feel like standing up at the next class and shouting ‘Am I the only one with any confidence in my ability?!’ Poetry has knocked them all for six because instead of just letting us run off and write whatever the hell we like, the tutor’s actually been getting some knowledge about form and structure into our heads. Maybe it doesn’t freak me out cos I’ve done it once already, but everyone else is in a complete flap. They’ve all tried to do very strict rhyme and meter poems for their coursework, only to have the tutor reveal last session that she feels there’s no place for that sort of work within modern poetry.

I don’t know what I expected from the class, but I know I didn’t expect people to be constantly CONSTANTLY asking ‘is that right?’ ‘have I done that properly?’ ‘Am I allowed to write that like that?’ Maybe it’s cos I’m younger than them and ‘benefited’ from a less rigid education, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s just youthful exuberance and over-confidence. I mean, I don’t think I’m the world’s greatest, but I know I have the foundations to go on and learn more and be pretty damn good. I don’t know, the idea that someone would just sit down and write because they wanted/had to seems to be a complete anathema to them.

Why they are taking the class in the first place is beyond me.

And why I decided to write a damn sestina for my coursework is equally beyond me. It’s getting there, but it isn’t great. I know already she will mark it down for being a little out of control, not making 100% sense and having ideas forced in roughly – but it’s due tomorrow and without it I only have around 30 lines out of the 70 I need. And the other 30 lines are much better. And I think I’ve done well in class, contributing to discussions, etc so fingers crossed it should be okay. I guess I just want a high pass because I’ve enjoyed poetry more than short stories.

Right. Back to it.

The Burning Question

People around me are broody. No, not that person (at least, I don’t think so) but other people. Am I broody? Well…

It is difficult. I remember the first time I ever desperately wanted children. I was about fourteen and it was a real physical desire. It was so strong. I can’t describe it. It was… no, I can’t describe it. If even five per cent of girls that age feel like that no wonder there are (there seem to be) so many teenage mums. I was lucky. I was really lucky because a) no boys would have touched me with a barge pole for various boring reasons and b) there was only one person I wanted to father my children and he was kind of unavailable. *

It sort of wore off. I certainly still kept the idea of children in mind. I thought about having them often, probably more often than I remember now. And then I got pregnant. Even before I knew I was I imposed this weird ‘I must drink at least 3 units of alcohol a day’ plan on myself. So it was never going to work out. But more than that, I really didn’t want it to. I was freaked out by something inside me making me sick (Christ, I was sick – but then I was trying to drink 3 units a day…) that I had no idea where it had come from (okay, who) and was wriggling around and euch, gross. It was a strange time.

But afterwards, after it’d gone I felt so bad. I thought at the time I felt bad because I’d cheated someone out of a chance at life, but I’m not sure that was the cause of my feelings. I’d managed to get myself entangled in a horrible relationship, I was miles from home, I’d lost all my friends, I had no job, I’d left my degree in the middle of my dissertation – there were a lot of things to make me feel terrible, but it was easier to pin it on someone who never existed. And yes, I suppose I felt guilty because I felt so relieved. 

I know that I want to bring up children, but. I also know I can do anything I like with my life now. I want to write, and travel (I still have my mad living in New York fantasy from time to time) and drink and go out and read and lie in the bath for four hours and not tidy up for days and earn enough money for a night out once a week but not much more because those jobs are easy and fun and I want to be able to go round to my friends if they’re upset or if I’m upset and basically I want to be doing this until I’m in my 50s.

And I suppose I am scared of natural childbirth, the way I’m scared of a lot of daft things. I always said I was way too cool to touch drugs, but really I am just convinced that I am so damn special I will be one of the unlucky people who wind up with their corpse on a government poster campaign. For the same reason I have never, and will never use a tampon. Because I’ll get TSS and die, obviously. And I’m scared that although my partnership works really well because we share the same weaknesses as well as the same strengths and can recognize a bad patch and be supportive, if we created a person together that person might not have the healthiest and happiest life. Better by far to adopt and know what you’re getting yourself into!

I guess I am thinking about this a lot lately because I am getting hitched, and because there is a little baby in the family I’m joining. I know there is plenty of time. I guess I used to hear my clock ticking and now it seems to have stopped. Most people would rejoice at that.

So, all things considered I suppose I am saying I would like to adopt children when I am in my 50s. My man will be in his 60s. Do they let you do things like that?

 

* John Lennon. Kind of unavailable.

To confuse you, I also posted this at 20six.

(Sorry, I won’t do it again.) 

Anyway, The Healing Properties of Sweet, Sweet Booze: 

Well yesterday I got my knickers in a right old twist at work, due to an ongoing and rather boring saga that I can’t really be arsed to go into here. Suffice to say the library are cunts and the IT team are patronising fucking gits. And I have been made to look goddam foolish, which is my most hated thing ever. Because I am no fool. Oh no.

Anyway.

Out last night for pizza and beers. I don’t care what The Chauncemeister says about The Waterfront (he says: “it’s soulless!! How can you like it?!”) I like it. The food is lavish, and although the service might be a little tardy, it’s never mardy, which is the most important thing.

Then onto The Earl Ferrers which IS THE BEST PUB IN STREATHAM. No-one in there at all last night, so the pool table was all mine. I can’t understand why it’s not packed out every night. It is the best pub in Streatham. I wonder if I keep saying The Earl Ferrers is the best pub in Streatham whether google will pick it up next time someone wants to go for a drink in the best pub in Streatham, ie. The Earl Ferrers. It is the best pub in Streatham. Should you find yourself in Streatham and in need of a beer you should go to The Earl Ferrers because it’s the best pub in SW16.

There.

And then onto Taylors which was quite busy, but we managed to get a seat on the sofas which was great. I was quite proud of Streatham last night. It definitely impressed The Hannahaha and she lives in Clapham so it was no mean feat. Well done, SW16. You did good.

She text me this morning to say she was still drunk. I think I might be too because I am feeling great. Although the great feeling might be because I’ve realised what the cause of my abysmal mood was (sorry Diva, I don’t think I am due on after all…) It’s that since I’ve gone permanent I’ve started to believe people when they say mine is ‘the most important job in The Centre’ and I should stop putting myself down and saying I’m only the receptionist because without me the whole place will fall apart.

People, people listen up – I took the job, not for the money or the status (ha ha! money / status in this job = 0) but because of the lack of responsibility. I love love love sitting here listening to The Smiths, drinking my lucozade with my feet on the desk (okay, I don’t do that all the time, but I could if I liked.) I don’t have the power to progress a student, or access their accounts or find out why they show as a debtor. I don’t even have the power (contrary to popular belief and let’s keep it that way) to decide whether or not to take in late coursework. Sure, sometimes I make a show of throwing it in the bin to frighten them into line, but it’s down to the tutor’s discretion if they mark it or not (once they’ve fished it out of the bin.) (I joke, of course.)

I am but the conduit (at school I once had a piece of work returned to me marked with ‘you run the risk of becoming inebriated by the wit and skill of your own verbosity.’ I have only just got the joke. Twelve years on. Anyway, but a conduit -) between the students and the people actually in administrative power. They decide how to deal with situations, I merely highlight the situations as they arise. The biggest decision I can possibly make regarding students is whether to give them three pieces of graph paper or four. I am not in Sales Admin, I am not something lowly in The City, I am not managing my own start-up company. I am a receptionist! All I need worry about are the photocopiers, answering the phone and looking pleasant. How on earth I let myself get wound up by work is utterly beyond me. It can’t even have been displacement because I was having a great week emotionally (seriously, the greatest week) until all this business with the library kicked off. Which made me upset. Which fucked up my great week. Bah!

But seeing Han last night and having a good ol’ booze has made me see things so much clearer. The clarity of hangovers amazes me sometimes. And the relaxing properties of booze. I was going to give it up for lent but now I’m not too sure. Everyone’s addicted to something - work, sex, love, drugs, hot chocolates from Costa (my god, what do they put in that stuff? crack? *), their children, the internet, etc. I lean on booze. So what? As long as I don’t lean too hard and I can still stand up without it, who cares? I feel great, and it’s all down to a bottle of Pinot Grigio and a pint of San Miguel. And my beautiful friend and a lot of gossip, I concede. And the sunshine. And friday. And my boy hefting boxes around for me.

I will leave you with the thing I was going to blog about in the first place, before I got sidetracked by work/drink.

Why oh why oh why do shopkeepers put the vanilla yazoo right next to the banana yazoo? I have bought the banana one in error twice now, TWICE.

Mistasteful!

* okay, I know, marshmallows. But marshmallows laced with crack.

I’ll be grumpy here instead.

I didn’t go to college last night because I saw my uni friend and it kicked off a learned response (see Saz, drink beer, skip lecture) so I wound up home by half seven.

I fell asleep and had two mental dreams. First I dreamed I was in Prison Break and was escaping by unscrewing the panel behind my loo to the wall. Only I wasn’t in a jail cell, I was in uni halls. Of course. It was very very disconcerting and fraught. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to get out and I was scared I would get caught.

Then I woke up cos there was a fox giving it some outside.

I fell back asleep and dreamed my recurring dream about trying to get somewhere but constantly getting on the worng train / not having the right ticket / getting off at the wrong station / misunderstanding the timetable / etc. I’ve only really been having this dream since I moved to Streatham and lived alone. Before that my recurring travel dream was all to do with driving.

When I was very young (and I blame Danny, Champion of the World for the onset of the driving dreams) I would dream I was in the passenger seat of the fmaily car with one of my parents, who would then become somehow incapacitated and I would have to take the wheel. This was pretty tough because I’d have to either lean across them or try and clamber onto their lap whilst the car was in motion. It’s pretty clear that I was dreaming about my fear of one day having to take control of my own life, tied into my panic that I would lose one of my parents.

This dream ‘grew up’ as I did, and I would wind up in the car alone in later years, struggling to reach the peddles (I was still a child) and trying to work out how to brake. I think that one points more towards me realising I was in control of my own life, but I wasn’t doing the world’s greatest job and I desperately, desperately wanted to s-l-o-o-w down. If only I’d figured out I could have used the handbrake, rather than just skidding off the road / into other cars until I woke up.

I have dreamed that one since I left home, but I’m always in a car I don’t recognise (generally a 4×4 – more powerful, I guess) rather than the family car and almost always with my sister. I guess because she can drive and I think of her as being more grown-up than me, and much more in control of her life (even though she really isn’t!)

So last night my subconscious seemed to be saying I was feeling trapped, I was too scared to make a good job of escaping, I was heading in the wrong direction, and I would never reach my desired destination. But my conscious mind is very smug about life right now and thinks it’s great.

Could it be – cue Carrie Bradshaw – could it be that my subconscious is wrong?

(How interesting that I chose ‘is wrong’ rather than ‘is right’ without really thinking about it. I think that’s my subconscious saying I’m watching too much American drama and I should stop over-analysing shit. But I must cheer up. The dreams have put me in a foul mood.)

Ah, here’s something I still can’t really say on 20six

Today, my esteemed colleague is doing something that means so much to me I can barely believe it’s happening. I don’t think he’s got any idea how gobsmacked I am. More than the ring, more than the sex*, more than late night conversations about dogs and children and houses, more than all of that – he is applying for a job that he hates (and that totally sucks) because if he once he gets it that’ll be two of us in permanent work and good to go with the rest of our lives.

Admittedly he did point out that he’d never taken (or indeed, found) a job he really enjoyed, so it’s not any different from usual, but I am over the goddam moon about it. It’s not a difficult job (well, mentally it’s not) so it’s the ideal base for doing other fun stuff. Like getting on with his writing, for instance.

A column in The Guardian?

Give him 5 or 6 years.

I can see it.

 

* actually now I come to think of it, not that much more than the sex.