little.red.boat.
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
extremely bored this morning I started thinking about April Fool's Day jokes for next year. I've never been very good at them, see, and I thought if I gave myself several months to think about it, I might be able to come up with something, anything, for once. I usually come up with something great by about april 2nd. And then forget by april third.
So I looked on next year's calendar to see if we'll have guests that day. And blow me down, if it isn't Easter Monday. That's bank holiday monday to the rest of us, but Easter's kind of a big thing around here, although to be brutally honest I'm very sceptical about the whole thing. But the placing of April Fool's day made me think. AFD is a pretty old tradition, right? Lets say BCE old? And Easter moves around each year, right? So lets say there's a chance that what we now call "Easter Sunday", when someone was supposed to rise from the dead (which, lets face it, is quite unlikely and seems to smack of april fool to me), fell on April the first.
Do you follow me?
I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, there's something the theologians might not have taken into account all this time.
Interesting.
When it rains this much, does the island get heavier and therefore sink and get smaller,
Or does it swell with water-retention (a la PMS) and thus get larger?
Incidentally, someone told me that while British ducks say “quack quack”, Polish ducks say “fuk fuk”
True? Possibly. Funny? I think so.
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
By the way, the jury's still out on the alfalfa, the yellow sprouting stuff looks the same, and is apparently used in the same way (ham sandwiches, as far as I could tell from the picture), but some other stuff sent to me via e-mail was blue. Or perhaps that's just what happens when you send cress electronically, I don't know. Thanks for all the pictures though. So many pictures of alfalfa available online, and to think people are cynical about the uses of the interwebnet.
Big sister’s right, we do live in completely different universes;
Here for example, acceptable eveningwear comprises of
a: 15 layers of clothing (ever found the Michelin man attractive? Voila! Lots of single people. Besides, it takes so long to get undressed that you’ve usually lost the impulse anyway…) (not that I’d know, I’m a nun.)
b: anything fleecy – bar an actual sheep. Or should that be ‘‘baa’ an actual sheep’? No, it shouldn’t, it’s not funny…
and c: hiking boots if it’s cold, sandals if the temperature is above 12 degrees Celcius, Or sandals with socks if it’s in-between.
I would like to state here and now that I have never, and will never, wear sandals with socks. The rest, well, I’m as guilty as anyone else is here. I never in my life thought I would have one ‘dress’ pair of hiking boots (for dinner dates and fancy occasions) and one simply for slumming.
We’re in a cloud. It’s nice. I feel like we’re hiding.
Incidentally, having just had a confused conversation with a confused Canadian about cress, which involved a lot of her saying "siscre sasamassalfalfasprou?" and me saying "Ha?", can any-one tell me what an (now, apologies for the spelling) alfalfa sprout is? And whether it's the same thing as cress?
answers on a postcard please.
Monday, October 29, 2001
Someone had asked me to make a massive picture of a Dove for something that they’re doing tonight, and I’d agreed. I’m nice like that. And they asked me a few days ago, which gave me enough time plenty of time to think about it, forget about it, remember that I’m supposed to be doing it and then panic about it, doing it an hour and a half before it needs to be done, as usual.
So she was on day off today, and I went AWOL, so after an hour lying in bed, clutching my stomach and going “gruugh”, I was approached by one of her staff…
“Dulcie says to tell you ‘Dove’”
“Oooh!” as predicted, I’d forgotten. “Thanks, I’ll get onto it.”
Ten minutes later… Someone else… “Anna, Dulcie says ‘Dove’”
Half an hour later “Anna, I was told to remind you about the dove…”
On and on for at least a couple of hours, about nine people, some of whom reminded me while I was actually leaning over a two metre high picture of a dove.
“Anna, I have to say ‘Dove’ to you, I don’t know why…”
“Anna? Dove?”
“Anna… Don’t forget that Dove now will you?”
I’ve less chance of forgetting that dove than I have my own name. Even when riddled with old age and confusion, I’ll wander the corridors of my nursing home saying “Dove, I must remember the Dove, The Dove…” Until someone shoots me.
Well, one of the people that reminded me happens to be the most annoying little Thing in the whole world. Just standing too close to me makes me want to punch her, so the fact that she was the eleventh person to remind me didn’t bode well for her. I didn’t punch her. I didn’t even throw anything at her, which is miraculous, as I was holding a fork at the time.
It was when she chose to remind me again that I realised I should have used the fork. It was when, having been reassured on the Dove front two hours earlier, and me having run around like a mad sort getting it done inbetween, waterprofing it, carrying it half a mile in a gale, as well as doing a workshop of my own and several other things I realised that I should have thrown it when I had the chance. It was when, ten minutes before the Dove was actually needed, when - let's face it - nothing could have been done if I had forgotten, that she walked up to me and with this God Damned Perky look on her face, She said “Anna. Dove?”
Reader, I killed her. With the music stand. In the Chapterhouse.
Part one: The Jetty; appendix a:
The Jetty is;
Where I was very recently and colourfully sick, after an extremely bumpy ferry crossing, during which the emergency lights kept going on and off, and before which I'd had a large ham and Pickle sandwich and a tomato cup-a-soup in the grimiest ferry waiting-room in the western isles.
At least we'd got across at all, we'd been sitting in that grimy hell for two hours fretting that we'd be stuck on Mull all night.
I wouldn't mind, but I only popped over to go to the shops.
And just when I thought I was gaining good sea-legs, they have to go and buckle under me.
Aarrr, matey.
Sunday, October 28, 2001
Iona; a map. Part one: The Jetty.
The Jetty is:
A: A large concrete construction at which the small vehicle-and-foot ferry lands.
B: A bit of an eyesore. Not, unlike the rest of the island, windswept and beautiful. Just big and concrete.
C: The proud owner of the only two street-lights on the Island.
D: Extremely funny to watch in mid-winter, as random tourists run through large sea-spray showers in high wind. Extremely funny in a cruel, Japanese game-show kind of way.
E: Next to the pub.
F: The place from which the people you love, leave. And therefore bad.
G: The jetty is bad. We don’t like the jetty.
Just been down there, saying goodbye. In a loud, American way. I don’t like goodbyes, and I don’t like the jetty. (I’m getting to that point now when I’m not sure whether ‘jetty’ is a word or not. Damn.)
Large hunks of meat, and fine wine. That’s what I need.
And not to be worried that friends will disappear forever. That too.
But steak first, think later.
Five things that have happened in the last two days;
1. I have decided that I hate all of my clothes. Every last thread of them. I’d rather go naked than live another day in these trousers.
2. We have entered another ice age. Not only am I having to wear these trousers, – as going naked would mean certain death – but I’m considering setting them alight in order to keep warm.
3. My healthy eating programme was utterly destroyed by the Canadian breakfast we ate yesterday, at which I was pinned down and force-fed many lovely sausages and pancakes and maple syrup and all sorts of other nice things.
4. I then ate 6 of the remaining apple and cinnamon muffins for lunch.
5. I’ve lost my torch, meaning that although there are no longer toads to kill – they’ve all gone to Mauritius for the winter – large stones and bits of wall keep jumping out and biting my shins in the dark. In the dark is now anytime after 6pm.
My shins don’t look very nice.
Which means I now, more than ever, have to cover them with these wretched trousers.
Damn it all.
Saturday, October 27, 2001
I was walking down to the ferry this morning to say yet another goodbye, and watched as rain moved up the sound toward me. I could see the weather coming from at least a mile away, and didn't mind getting drenched as I felt that at least I'd had fair warning. It's constantly wet around here right now, constant drizzle, constant moist clothing and running nose. But also it means that because you can see for miles and miles around, and everywhere you can see has just had rain or is just about to have it, there's permanently a rainbow somewhere on the horizon. Which is just gorgeous. Weather kicks arse.
have big grumpy headache.
gin bad.
anna sick.
bleurgh.
Call it 2 am, call it lots of gin and an overdose of mc hammer (you can do, it is…) but I’ve suddenly got this feeling that everything is going to be okay. For everyone. Yay !
Yes, there are still career issues, yes, there are still debt issues, yes, there are still friend/relationship issues, but everything, nay Everything, is going to be okay… Isn’t that cool?
Oh for this feeling still to exist in the morning, rather than a really big grumpy headache. Still…
Friday, October 26, 2001
I'm better now, and ready to start drinking again. Which is a good thing, because there are multiple parties tonight to celebrate the end of the season. Hurrah! Just been to one, a sedate affair, which never-the-less ended in us dancing around the living room madly to some salsa nonsense. Fantastic. All the guests have gone, I've only three more weeks til I can get back to the mainland to meet more and different people again, and someone's juust lent me a '%100 Rap' CD that includes not only 'Lets talk about sex (baby)' but also, that Vanilla Ice song that I haven't even Thought about for the last ten years. Can the day Get any better?
I'm very happy.
My head feels almost in order again, I've worked out a lot of stuff that I wouldn't dare write about, and I've realised that I'm just writing because I want to write. And I managed to draw a sketch that looked like what I intended to draw. Hoorah!
There's good shit going on right here. Hoorah to that. And cheers to everything.
To celebrate, I'm going to go and give myself another hangover! Woohoo!
We may have put the world to rights, but this morning it's all wrong again.
My head is about twice as big as my neck can reasonably cope with, my brain is on mars and something has urinated in my mouth. My legs are more wobbly than usual, my hands can't grasp anything smaller than a dinner table, and everytime I speak, it comes out as "eurgh. Fluffleeurgh menurgh bugh"
i want to be sick.
We have put the world to rights.
for advice, or hicups, please e-mail.
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
I curled up on the boat on the way home today.
We'd been to Staffa, three of us, with good whisky and warm jumpers and waterproof trousers.
We'd climbed to the back of Fingal's cave, where we listened to the waves and took pictures, and whispered.
We'd scrambled to the top of the basalt cliffs, and leaned over the edge watching the seal cubs a long way down.
We'd talked about next year, and this year, and now.
I curled up on the boat home. Held against the rain.
Tuesday, October 23, 2001
extract from a work in progress...
"from this angle perhaps I love it best, the evening sun, glinting through cracked window panes on its curves and soft hairs, marks in soft gold the gentle dip. Like the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, stone rolled away, light shining from within - empty; but for the tiniest of fluff. At times, the impulse strikes to bejewel, to crown this inward looking edifice with rings of silver or bright gems, and then the moment passes, struck away by adoration of the unbroken, naked whole, the milky skin as on the day born, but now, as all turned inward and with the tiniest bead of sweat,..."
from "gazing at my navel", by Anna Pickard.
incidentally, inner hebrides weather, as at 11.15pm GMT, monday night;
- clear skies
- slight southerly wind
- six degrees celsius
- the most fucking incredible display of Northern Lights I've ever seen. Alright, the only. But still...
Monday, October 22, 2001
ten things I like:
1: Sunny days
2: Haagen Dazs
3: Cats
4: Good movies
5: Spending long evenings blathering with friends
6: snuggling up to someone on a cold evening, in front of a roaring fire
7: being out in little boats at night, on flat seas.
8: climbing big rocks
9: my bed
10: snow
so,
1: it's raining, 2: nowhere sells it, nearest place 4 hours away, and it would melt on the way back. 3: everyone that I live with is allergic and/or phobic, 4: no cinema, 5: fine, but they all leave, the end of the season is coming, and people are dropping away like so much dead skin, 6: hmm. no. 7: too choppy, 8: too slippery, 9: too busy, and 10: it's raining.
Sorry. Not very happy today. Haven't a word in my head that isn't angry, or confused, or sad.
It's raining, that's what it is. It's raining. I'll feel better when it's not raining. Or according to someone else, when mercury has passed out of some house or other. My house. I don't know. Whatever.
But it's raining intermittently, around 9 degrees celsius, with a brisk south-westerly breeze, around force 5.
That's the weather in the western isles. Hope that's okay.
how sweet, people bothering to write in my guestbook, just to abuse me.
Pretentious? That may be so.
Self-absorbed? Fair enough. (You looking at me? Well, I'm the only one here.)
Drivel? So fine, don't read it.
Simple. No loss, I'm only writing here, I'm only talking into thin air.
And now I feel like shite.
Ta.
Sunday, October 21, 2001
This afternoon I was reading books to a four-year-old and a two-year-old in someone else’s flat. A gorgeous and demanding four-year-old and two-year-old, who would thank me for reading one book and then immediately go and pick up another.
This was fine, book followed book followed book followed book, all of which I knew and could read with the required amount of vim and vigour. Until the older kid got up and brought me a book that I'd never seen before…
A horrible, out-dated, twee and nasty book, from somewhere around the forties or fifties called "Jack and Margaret go for jolly holidays in the country" or something shite, and full - at first flicking - of what fun we can all have with just a few bits of wood, a large oak tree, several empty gasoline barrels, half a dozen chickens, a broken bottle, a gun, lashings of ginger beer, four yards of rubber sheeting, some hay and a disused mine shaft.
"I don't think this book looks very good" I said, "why don't we read another book?"
"No!" she said. "This book."
"But that other book looks much more fun!" said I, and very convincingly too, I might add.
"No" she said. "This book."
"Alright," I conceded, "lets look at the pictures. What can you see in this picture?"
"The words. Read the words."
"All the words? But there are a lot of words there... do I have to read them all?"
"All the words. You have to read all the words."
I looked at the words printed on the page. They were shite. Not the words by themselves, you understand. Words are words. The words themselves were fine and good and whole words, well spelled and everything. It was the sentences really. They were outdated, sexist, brain-numbing, happy, jolly shite.
So I looked at the pictures and made up the story from there. The worst thing was, I never knew what was on the next page, one minute they were fishing, all of a sudden they were playing Cowboys and Indians or some other crap. And I'm not so good at this improvised story business; it kept going along the lines of
"and off they went, down the river, on their highly unstable raft, Jack and Margaret together, with their little dog 'Dog', until they came to the river bank and got off the raft and did... (page turns, completely unexpected bizarre picture on the other side, of cows and jet planes and how to make a reef knot) ... did some Stuff, with molly the cow, and a bit of string, and a great big aeroplane. Tying stuff. And they waved good bye as molly flew away over the trees. Goodbye Molly!"
Or something. I was categorically rubbish. And they loved it.
Odd.
I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. Some days I want to be a director, some days a writer, some days an acting tutor, some days an actress, some days to sit around and make beautiful things that people will look at and be happy, and sometimes when I have someone else’s child in my arms, I just want to go and live on a farm with ducks and chickens and cats, or in a city with busy-ness and noise and lots of life and things, and have lots and lots of children. Well, a couple anyway. I’ll just keep having them until I get bored.
(I was once coming home from a gig late at night, and just outside Ladbroke Grove Tube station, A man stopped me, from his position on the pavement, and, clutching his bottle of cider in one hand he pointed at me with the other and gave me an incredible piece of advice –
“what you’ve got to do, y’see.
What you’ve got to do, is to live forever.
Or until you get bored.”)
When I was little, I seem to remember, I wanted to be a fairy princess, then a teacher, a mum, a jazz singer, a lawyer, a bassist in a band (I can’t play bass…), a journalist, an actress, and all sorts of other random things. Usually for less than a week did I want to be these things, but they were aspirations all the same…
It would seem, however, that my destiny, planned or no, was to be a paid assassin . I have in my possession, a piece of paper. On one side is a picture of a princess, wearing a pink dress, high heels and a big bow in her (my) hair. On the other side is the following story:
‘One night I dreamed that children ruled the world.
I was the princess of the world.
I said that all the grown-ups had to go to bed early.
I had a very important job.
One fine day, we decided to kill Margaret Thatcher.
So we burned her, and I got 9,000 pounds.’
The end.
I was six at the time.
And the teacher had simply ticked it, and written ‘Good.’ I’d be demanding meetings with the parents. There’s heavy socialism in there somewhere. Can’t be good for a child. You end up a craft-worker on a remote scottish island with that kind of thing.
Anyone got any ideas what a drama trained, artist-employed, not bad at writing amusing shite, barmaid could do when she grows up?
no? me neither.
Saturday, October 20, 2001
I just got up a little while ago. My head hurts.The costume disco was good. Well, as good as can be expected. I always find, at these things, that the beauutiful people always dress up as audrey hepburn, or young elvis, or kittens, and just look all the more beautiful and make everyone else feel like a big dog. Or duck. Or what ever it is they've come as.
So I wore nothing. As in I wore no costume. I did wear clothes. Unlike one of my friends, who wore nothing but a wee strip of tartan and painted all of his body blue. Re-visiting his heritage I suppose. Maybe that's what they did in Minnesota in days of yore. He also carried a large hammer. No-one knows why. However, although my memory is kind of failing me this morning, afternoon, whatever, i realise i must have spent quite a bit of the night talking to him, as i'm kind of touchy-feely when I talk, and my hands this morning are the coulour of an april morning sky. And it won't come off.
There's a big hollow inside me today. I don't know why. I guess because it's raining. Although there may be other things too. Blame it on the rain say I. Blame it on the boogie.
Incidentally. The concerto in the morcombe and wise thing was Griegs Piano concerto. By Grieg. Thankyou dear.
you know what sucks? Deciding not to wear a costume to a costume disco, just getting nicely dressed up instead, and then having several people try and guess what you are on the way out of the building;
"oooh! are you edina from absolutely fabulous?"
"ooh! are you a mortician?"
"ooh! are you a cheap whore?"
grr.
Friday, October 19, 2001
Just one question;
Can vegans give blow-jobs?
there are many things I'm glad of in my life.
one of the main things i'm glad of today is that I didn't come in here and post after the pub last night. I was extremely drunk, and extremely emotional, and would have regretted much this morning.
As it was, the closest I came to writing was a note that I found by my bed this morning, in the script of a four-year old spider, that said "do not forget shot-listing 10 morning, even tho v hungovr", Which I think showed a great amount of foresight.
I also set my alarm, although I did set it for 14.08 instead of 08.14, and was woken by the church bell ringing (approx 4000 decibels) outside instead.
What should I wear? There's a costume party tonight and I haven't a clue. I've got 7 hours to make up my mind...
This must be what the guestbook's there for.... Any ideas much welcome are. I appear to into yoda turned. damn it. Hate that I do.
Thursday, October 18, 2001
There's this fantastic of Morcombe and wise sketch, where, as far as i remember it, this great big orchestra starts playing, brahms or beethoven or some big piano concerto or other, conducted by andre previn, and once they've finished the build up, the space for the piano soloist appears and eric morecombe starts plaing chopsticks, or something, and the orchestra keeps having to stop. Anyway, i think this happens a couple of times, and eventually, Andre Previn turns on Eric:
"What?" says Eric Morecombe ('what?' or some similar snippet of comic genius. He said it better than me. Hold on, i'll get to the point in a minute.)
"What do you mean What? You're playing all the wrong notes!" says Andre Previn. Or something funnier, that's not the point. I'll go and look up a script for this some other time, i'm in a rush right now.
"no" says Eric "I'm playing all the right notes. Just not necessarily in the right order." Boom boom.
Well, that's how i feel about my life. And my face actually.
Lots of the right notes. Just in the wrong order.
Then of course comes the slightly more thorny issue of not being able to divide dream from reality.
A few sundays ago, sitting out on the grass with coffee, nicotine and a book, I looked up to see one of my favourite people approaching. Immediately I felt myself grow prickly and defensive, and as he came and sat down next to me and started to chat, I was cold, sulky and monosyllabic. I didn't know why, I just knew that I had damned good reason to hate this person that I'd been so fond of previously. Conversation didn't go well, but he marched ahead admirably, chatting away, trying to get any response he could from me. Not terribly successfully.
It was only when he mentioned a dream he'd had a few nights previous that it all came rushing back to me, all at once... He'd been there, in my dream the night before. He'd been there, marching all over my dreamworld with big heavy boots. He'd been there, and he had been a complete and utter bastard to me.
As soon as i realised, everything was suddenly fine, I was glad to see him, and happy to be in conversation, I tried to explain, but he looked at me funny. This has appened before, usually the opposite, that I have nice or heated dreams about people, and when I see them next I feel all well-disposed toward them, or come over all tingly. But this was the first time I'd ever hated so vehemently for such little reason. I can't even remember what he did to me in the dream. I just remember it was particularly c**ty.
Poor lamb. Being tortured for what an imagined him did to an imagined other, all in someone else's head.
Last night was the first time, and possibly the last, that I've ever been afraid of sheep. Finding my way down the road by torchlight, they suddenly loomed toward me on the road, or mysteriously appeared on the grass by my side. Sitting. Staring. Watching. Waiting. Chewing. I had that moment of panic that you get when all you can see is what you point your torch at. The rest was pitch. So if i had a feeling that the flock might be gaining on me from behind, I'd swing round only to realise that they were now probably going to ambush from the front. I realised that if they charged me, I'd no-where to run. They're fast - sheep. And who would believe me in the morning? And if, pray God no, but if, by chance, they killed, it would surely be the perfect crime. Who's going to suspect the sheep?
So that's how it's done. Ever wondered about the perfect murder? Sheep's clothing. Better still, be a sheep.
If i disappear, tell the world that I cried "sheep", and no-one believed me.
On another note, birdwell was continuing the sleep talk theme with 'working in your sleep'. The amount of crappy telephone sales jobs I've done mean that many, many times, i have been suddenly woken, and reeled off "Good morning, The Lyceum Theatre, My name's Anna, How can I help?" To my alarm clock.
I can't sleep.
And I can't read either. I've run out of books.
The only things i have in my room are last weekend's newspaper and a billion books i've read before.
grrr.
This is why i hate days off. I've not done enough that would exhaust me sufficiently to sleep.
On the way to the shop I found myself a sick american, and returned to him half an hour later with satsumas and juice and water and menthol things. For someone that swore it was an incredible mystery and escalating bug, rather than a hangover, it was certainly beautiful to watch the fever, sweats and general death disease lift with the hours passed since last drink consumed.
Probably exhaustion. Poor lamb. It's his own fault.
So i passed the afternoon and the evening bimbling, and loafing, and building a nice big fire in my living room (we do have a fireplace. I didn't just torch the sofa.) And kicking back with a bunch of popcorn and a couple of fabulous movies.
And now i can't sleep. Ach well. Every silver lining has a cloud.
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
My flat is too loud for lie-ins, it's situated right above a busy office, with the loudest fax machine in the world, and an answer machine beep that drills through your teeth. My windows open on to the cloisters, supposedly a place of quiet reflection and meditation, but actually the place where people go for their first coffee and cigarette of the morning and to shout at one another in a happy fashion. Then the tours start coming round, and i lie in bed listening to the tour guides yelling at crowds of people in many different languages about how the 'cloisters are a place of quiet reflection and meditation'. Joy.
One morning i was woken up at 6.15, around dawn at that time of season, by some lonely minstrel playing 'wild mountain thyme' - a haunting scottish melody - on the tin whistle in the cloisters. It must have seemed a beautiful, wistful and romantic thing to do. Well, it must have seemed like that up to the point of me yelling "shut the f- (and luckily here i did actually censor myself, i'm good like that...) up! I'm trying to sleep here!" And slamming the window shut.
So this morning I woke myself up at 6.15 (far pre-dawn now) and made my sleepy way to my mum's flat which although just at the other end of the building, is comparitively the quietest place in the world (apart from the wind sounding like a diesel train coming down the chimney), i went into her spare room, made the futon up and slept. And slept. And slept some more. I didn't realise how much sleep I must have needed, but when i next woke up it was 1.55pm.
I probably wouldn't have woken up even then, but the futon decided it was way past time for me to be active. The futon is lovely, a bit hard - but aren't they all -, and unfortunately, with one person on it and thus no sense of balance, it's not very stable. I rolled over in my sleep and the whole thing tipped over, depositing me (and half the bedding that I'd clawed out of place on my way off the bed) on to the floor, before righting itself and looking all smug.
But at least, before that, I'd dreamt that i went to the moon in a big space rocket wit not much oxygen. It was cool. But what does it all mean?
interesting. Right, I might go and have a nap. But first I'm going to the shop. Anyone want anything?
Big sister was writing about sleep-talking. At present, I’ve no idea whether this happens with me much. But in the past, Oh lord, in the past.
Big sister, whom I love very much, was staying at my flat, a gorgeous, tiny little place I stayed in while at uni. She slept in my big double bed, under my fairy lights and ‘student irony’ record covers on the walls, with me lying next to her. In the middle of the night, she was woken by a persistent tap on her shoulder. Now, this is the worst thing. I don’t Sleep-talk so much as half-asleep talk. I wake up, tap them on the shoulder, say stuff, go back to sleep still talking and have no recollection whatsoever of it in the morning. (Was that a split infinitive? I really never know…) So I’m tapping her madly on the shoulder, she turns over:
Meg; What?
Me; You know I hate you, don’t you?
Meg; no…
Me; well, I do.
I turn over, go back to sleep.
The end.
Except she’s still worrying about it in the morning. Aw. bless. Sorry.
My favourite time, out of many, many with the boyfriend of five years (we don’t like him much any more…) was the fabulous…
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
He: What?!
Me: You know, if we had enough money, we could get that goat.
He: What goat?
Me: The one with the red saddle, so that the children could ride it.
He: What?
Me: (bleats like a goat) heeheeheeheehee.
(bleats like a goat again) heeheeheeheehee
(bleats) giggles
for ten minutes, apparently.
Actually, it’s either that one, or the other favourite;
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
He: What?!
Me: A pen! I need a pen!
He (thinking I’d remembered something vital and important for work the next day, or something else – couldn’t find one next to the bed, ran downstairs to the kitchen, the living room and apparently, eventually, came back, fully penned up and panting): Here.
Me: thanks. (and clutching pen to bosom, I happily fell back to sleep. It’s a wonder I’ve never been smothered.)
I'm sleep talking now. To bed. I've a day off tomorrow and everything.
The day is finally over.
And it was such a fuck of a day, as well.
Tuesday, October 16, 2001
For "being physically incapable of saying no" reasons, i found myself today doing not one, not two, but three seperate workshops, all at the same time, with twice the number of people i would ever usually have in the craft room at once, and in the full knowledge that the workshop i have to lead tonight is not yet planned.
Two girls, five years old, cute as buttons, were being very enthusiastic. All day. at my heels. not a great feeling when you're carrying two jugs of scalding hot wax and trying to shout instructions of three different crafts to four different people. Having managed not to explode earlier in the afternoon, i was almost at critical point again when one of the girls asked me to cut her a wee square of paper.
I cut her one, but apparently, it was too wee. I cut her another, again, still too small. I asked her what size, exactly, she was thinking of. "Oh, you know.." said she, "like a regular square. But middle-sized."
argh.
bang.
(i need to calm down. I really do. Maybe caffiene? no. Nicotine, sugar, finish work around ten, then pub. Hurrah.)
A friend of mine has a breathing exercise for moments like this, possible also through gritted teeth.
you simply repeat, over and over, on the appropriate breath -
"In with anger, Out with love."
I've been doing it for the last fifteen minutes, and not only has it not made me any calmer, I now feel like a tit as well.
why, when I take ten minutes to explain to anyone that might care, that I'm going to spend the morning in the office typing, definitely not in the craft room making stuff, as i've paperwork, important stuff that has to be done today coming out of my nose, why, please tell me, because i'm really intruiged to know, why, as soon as i step into said office, do i get a phone call telling me that there are three families with small children coming up to spend the morning with me, and can i please think of something to entertain them as they'll be up in five minutes. Why is this? Is everybody stupid? everybody in the world? or just everybody that i work with?
i'll be fine in a bit. Just scrape me off the walls and melt me down for candle-wax. It's for the best.
I'm extremely angry. I may explode. You know that question - if tree falls over in forest, with no one around to hear it, does it make any noise? - if a craft worker exploded in the inner hebriedes, would anyone notice? Unless they desperately wanted to make candles, would anyone notice? Argh.
bang.
I have a tiny wee spot on my chin, one on my back, i'm emotionally unpredictable and sometimes sulky, and my hair looks limp and rubbish today. Am I entering another wave of puberty (the mid-twenties version) or is it just S.A.D?
just had a very interesting conversation with my mother, a committed Christian. I asked her what I've wanted to ask her this many years:
Whether she, as an intelligent, rational woman, with knowledge of literature, poetry and myth, actually believed in the literal resurrection of Jesus. I got a long conversation and a fuzzy answer out of it. Faithful people are good at that. She's amazing, and the strength of her faith leads her to do many good things, which it's why it's impossible to tell her she's ever wrong, but i still don't understand how someone so sensible can go for the 'piffpaffpoof!' magic stuff. Virgin birth,resurrection and that.. hmmm. another day...
I was amused at the end of the conversation. We thanked each other for a nice evening, and somehow that worked its way round to the fact that i am, of course, single.
"oh, that's only because I'm fat" said I...
"you're not" she said "you've only a fat arse, that could be solved with,... um ... er..."
"high kicks?" said I, demonstrating.
Because they are one of my strengths. (woohoo. It's on my CV, I can tell you...)
(Not actually, of course.)
"Yes" she said "that would show them What's what..."
"Becuase I get to show them my knickers?" said I...
"No! Because it's easier to kick them the face when they do something bad!"
I love my mum.
Oh my Gosh! I am so excited. I have archives! Now every-one can read the mundanity of life in the Inner Hebrides from July til now. And I can remember what I was doing, those many drunken nights. Hurrah! Thank you Meg. You’re amazing.
Monday, October 15, 2001
A long evening in the pub, with lots of beautiful couple couples, and a beautiful man staring at me from the bar as he sat and talked not to his girlfriend. Been there, done that, too many times. Not going there again.
I don’t think I’ve been so melancholy in a while. If any one wants to e-mail or guest-book, I’d be cheered.
So, story from ago.
I was eighteen, and had to have two of my wisdom teeth ripped out, a matter of necessity. I’d been offered Local anaesthetic, general anaesthetic or sedation, and being scared of general at the time (and generally scared of dentistry) I went for sedation. It sounded like fun. It was.
My dentist had told me that I should take some music for the operating room, and I spent a good couple of hours at home, trying to decide between Wagner (rousing, “get those teeth out Now!” music) and soft soft (“let us be gentle to this young English rose”) jazz. In the end, of course, I forgot. The day came, the very hour, and I lay down on the table, as the anaesthetist placed a needle in my hand and asked me to count back from ten…
10… 9 … 8 … 7.. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
“Anna? Do you drink much?”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
She seemed to double the dose and stick the needle back into my hand…
“Now count again…”
10 … 9 …
“Incidentally, did you bring any music”
“8 … no, I forgot… 7”
“It’s alright, we’ve some Meatloaf here, is that ok?…”
“5 … No! Ffffffff…”
And I was away. The next thing I remember is being taken to a private room, having a heart monitor placed on my finger and being told not to touch it, as all the doctors would come running, thinking I’d died, and this would be a Bad Thing. And I remember being as high as the sky, and thinking that the funny noise that the heart monitor made when pulled half off my finger and then slammed back on again was a Good Thing. It was, contrary to advice, A Very Funny thing indeed. As far as I remember, it kept me giggling for around an hour. Even if the nurse did keep coming in and telling me off… This also, I remember, was very funny.
My mother was there, and had decided I probably wasn’t fit to take the three buses home, and we should spend some extra money on a taxi. My loving boyfriend, as was, had come to meet me, and he sat between me and my mother all the way home, tactfully fielding questions from me about ‘whether we could have sex when we get home? please? could we? I really wanted to…’, and eventually giving up trying to hush me by simply agreeing to my intense sexual demands.
We got home. With my best comely gaze, pupils the size of dinner plates, I told him I’d be waiting upstairs.
When he arrived upstairs, after a calming cup of tea with my mother, he found me fully clothed, fallen face forward on top of the duvet.
I didn’t wake up for 26 hours.
Sedation sounds good right now.
I give up.
melancholy.
Saturday, October 13, 2001
So, there I am, eating my lunch (popcorn) in front of saturday television, and reading my usual saturday paper, stolen from the guest's lounge (my reasoning is, they don't arrive til' this afternoon, and if they don't know that they ever were meant to have it, it isn't really stolen. Right?) And there in the jobs and courses and post-grad bit of the paper, is the sign. The sign that's to tell me what to do with the rest of my life. I have to go and be a theatre director. Granted, there were a lot of other careers discussed in the same article, and to be honest I have always had a secret yen to be a director anyway, but that's beside the point. A sign's a sign, as far as I'm concerned.
I get like that about little good-luck charms and signs. I don't believe in them really, but I try not to get on the wrong sideof them -just in case...- a little like religion, I guess. For example about three months ago, someone gave me a wishing stone. A pretty little stone, with an unbroken ring around it, that someone had found on a beach. The idea was that you gave it to someone, they made a wish on the stone, kept it near them, and when it come true they gave it to someone else, who made a wish on it, and when it came true, passed it on, and so on and so on til the end of the world.
Well, bad luck everyone else, the rock's got stuck on me.
And the worst thing is, every time something good happens when I'm wearing it, i will give some credit to the pebble around my neck. And everytime something good doesn't happen, I somehow end up not wearing it for a couple of days. And if something good happens to me while wearing another necklace, then - Blimey Charlie, what a big shock - suddenly *that* necklace is a lucky charm, and i want to wear *that* one next time I'm out. Until something bad happens.
I try and pretend that I don't do these things, I really do. I don't want to be supertitious, and I've no problem with umbrellas indoors, or passing on stairs, or even saying 'Macbeth'. I know that tarot reading and horoscopes simply reinforce what you already know or want to believe, and I know there's no such thing as *'signs'* in saturday newspaper articles.
But still I vere toward it. I guess i still need to believe things aren't in my hands, in some way. Maybe I should make that the case, know that the things i want are all in my hands, or within my reach, but that's terrifying. Too scary.
Besides, I like my lucky stone necklace. It's pretty.
And If it happens to bring me what I want, well that's just a bonus.
Isn't it?
Friday, October 12, 2001
Two extremely random, bizzare, searches that have landed two extremely random, bizzare, surfers at my site in the last 24 hours.
a: 'my love is a red,red rose metaphor picture'.
I only hope It's not a disappointment when he finds it. How exactly does one make a picture of a metaphor? Of that metaphor in particular? Is that a metaphor? I suppose it is. A picture of one's boy/girl-friend with an enormous red, red, rose where their head should be? The perfect Valentines day gift. But then, it wasn't even "my love is Like a red red rose" as the man originally said, but actually, this surfer's love *is* a red red rose. I've heard of summer loving, but I've a feeling that relationship won't last the winter. It could get prickly.
b: 'girl armpit sweat pictures'
mmm.
Friends. They’re lovely, I agree with them in theory entirely. They love you; this is good. They support you; this is good. They want you to be in happy and fruitful long-term relationships; this is good. In theory. Hell, Communism works in theory. But how, how on earth, you’re supposed to find a happy relationship, when they don’t approve of anyone, any man in the whole world, I have absolutely no idea.
Call me an ingrate – you can do, I am – but how am I supposed to progress in life when every time a potential man comes onto the scene (and here I mean a potential man as in “a potential man for me” not as in “some one who has the potential to be male if they work hard enough at it”) I flutter my eyelashes and then get told by five different people within two days that they’re no way good enough for me and I should wait until someone perfect comes along? How long am I supposed to wait, exactly, for this example of perfection? As far as I know, no date has been set for the second coming of Christ as yet, and if there has, I think he may have bigger things on his mind than a romantic dinner for two.
I read an extract from an interview with Macy Gray the other day, which ran something along the lines of… ‘Women have high expectations now, they’re waiting for Jesus, for Ghandi, for the ultimate… Then he turns up and he’s called Steve…’ Me? I’m fine with Steve, or Dave, or Barry, or whatever. Granted, my standards are pretty f***ing high within that, but it’s everyone around me that seems to expect me to give myself over only to the king himself.
Elvis is dead, I tell them… But still, according to everyone, I must wait.
Everyone, except, it seems, my mother.
An almost transcript of a conversation I had with my mother last night:
(Context: we’re talking about whether it would be weird if I shared a flat with her again next year, seeing as how we haven’t lived in the same house for 6 years. We both agree that it would be a generally okay thing…)
Me: But you’d have to understand that I might bring people into the living room for toast after the disco at 2am
My mother: Yes, You would. And you’d have to understand if I got a bit Mumsy about all your mad passionate affairs.
Me: What mad passionate affairs? I have no mad passionate affairs!
My mother: I know. It’s a real disappointment to me. What are you doing with yourself? You’re almost thirty!
Now, understand that most of this conversation was in jest but when you strip it down to the bare bones, you have to think about two things:
a: my mother – Mother mind you – would seem to be expressing disappointment that I am Not sleeping around. This is not, and cannot be the case, but that would be how it would seem.
b: I’m 24.
Thursday, October 11, 2001
My world is full of very Glaswegian children playing very bad songs very loudly. It's very annoying. I'm very tired. I'd like to go home now please. Very much. Can I have my ball back?
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
What is your favourite food group? My favourite food group is popcorn. Thankyou for listening. Goodnight.
Apologies. Brain dulled by something. Possibly drank too much tonic water last night.
Or it could be this ear-worm problem I have. I was told by jana a couple of weeks ago that when you get a song stuck in your head, in Germany this is called an ear worm. As in "oh Bother! I have a really big earworm! I cannot stop singing Take my Breath Away!" (doodoodoo, doodeedoo,doodeedoo) I get so many of these earworms, it seems a possibility that they may well have turned to brain-worms, and this is what is dulling my senses today. Or it could have been the tonic water I drank last night. Or perhaps the ice in it. I may have frozen my brain.
The only thing that successfully removes earworms, as far as I have discovered, is to replace them with huge socking ear-snakes. Can't stop singing that last song you heard on the radio this morning? beginning to piss you off? Easy!....
Simply Start singing the most annoying song you know... "barbie girl" for example, "everything i do (i do it for you)", that crystal waters song that goes "ladadee, la doo dow, la da dee, la doo dow" forever, "Snooker loopy", "High on a hill lived a lonely goatherd (laee-yodelayee- yodelay-hee-hoo)" or anything first sung by Julie Andrews...
And soon you'll find that the original annoyance is blocked out, in favour of this new, much greater one!... Easy as pie, the brain will soon tire of such mundanity and frustration, and will short-circuit, blocking out the song completely!
Or you'll shoot yourself!
Either way, no more annoying earworms. Magic.
Yes, something's dulling me today. It's either the Tonic Water. Or the Ice. Or perhaps the Gin. Who can possibly know?
After several days being extremely self-consciously Good, and avoiding the pub, and avoiding any form of alcohol (apart from the red wine on Sunday night and port at that party on Friday, but these don’t count as they come in bottles and are therefore limited supply and not real alcohol at all. Work with me here, I’m trying to rationalise) I had to give in last night out of sheer guilt.
I hadn’t seen my loud American friend in a couple of days, so I phoned him at the hotel where he works, we talked for a while and I checked if he wanted a pint.
“yeah, that would be great, I’ve had a really nice day…”
“have you? Good.”
“Yeah, my dad just phoned”
me, knowing this rarely happens - “really?”
“mm-hmm – and my mom.”
“wow! What’s the occasion?”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Oh.” Damn.
How is it I’ve the best memory in the world for rubbish, I can remember random facts from third year geography class, I can remember the theme tunes to every TV show I’ve ever seen, I can remember what I had for dinner a week last Thursday (popcorn), and yet even though he’s been jumping up and down for a week shouting "it's my birthday on tuesday! It's my birthday on tuesday!" when it gets to tuesday, as far as my brain is concerned, it's everything in the world but his birthday.
However I rose to the occasion and created a beautiful and unique card, before rushing down to meet him at the hotel's kitchen door. Some would call it minimalist, others would call it knocked up in five minutes. the intention was all good. the sentiment was all there. and lots of it. It always is, whether the occasion merits it or no. Call it pointless - it is - but sentimentalism is my forte.
Some people have independence as a forte, some leadership, some creative powers, some, mediation skills. Me? I'm a walking MGM musical. Big whoop.
Tuesday, October 09, 2001
Today the sun is shining and i'm coming out of hiding. When the wind whistles and the rain comes down in sheets, it's all too tempting just to curl up in a duvet and never be seen again til spring. Maybe I should be a bear when i leave here. A bear with a duvet.
I miss Autumn. Autumn in a city is beautiful, you have the slow dying of the light, the gradual temperature change and the smell of leaves turning to mulch beneath ten thousand hurrying feet. And then November comes and the air nips and the wind smells like gun powder and you know that winter is coming closer and Christmas is just around the next corner.
Here, you get to the beginning of October, wake up one morning and - Bang! - it's winter, no warning, no respite, just months and months of being solidly really, really, cold. You're still wearing the same items of clothing you were wearing last week, but suddenly you're wearing them all at once, and you're still freezing.
Does any-one know of a way of keeping the nose warm? Apart from a full-face balaclava, which itches and isn't terribly flattering, I can't think of a thing. I lie in bed at night, fantasising about little knitted squares with straps that could ward off frosbite through the night. Or tiny little clip on hot water bottles for the nose. That would be quite sweet.
Not that i wouldn't mind losing a bit of my nose. I'm sure it's still growing, in fact. It seems to get bigger by the day. But i'm not sure frostbite would be the best way of dealing with that. I don't think I realy would be happy if I woke up in the morning and it just fell off. I don't know though...
Monday, October 08, 2001
good thing - we had lots of weather on saturday, meaning that all our guests were storm bound over the water and we had a nice quiet night.
bad thing - the weather went away on sunday. the guests came.
good thing - i had a simply lovely evening in front of a roaring fire and the usual suspects, with the usual suspects (The american, flatmate, musician, Verbal abuse, popcorn, red wine)
bad thing - the fire alarm went of at 4.30 in the morning (it wasn't our fault, it really wasn't...) leaving me - barefoot - and aforementioned 50 guests standing in the dark and the weather, being blown at and soaked for half an hour until we were allowed, grudgingly, indoors. Indoors into an extremely draughty 13th century infirmary until they could confirm after another 15 minutes that it was a false alarm and we could go back to bed/go and hack off the ice blocks connected to our ankles.
i think i may have a cold. i am extremely grumpy. I don't want to go to the ceilidh, i don't want to go to the pub, i don't want to watch tv, i want to sit here and grump and anyone that thinks that's a bad idea will feel the full force of my rage. Alright then, the full force of my tantrum. I'll stamp my foot and tremble my lower lip. That'll show'm.
Fuck it all, i'm going to bed, going to listen to the wind whistle through and in and out of the cracks in my door, in my window, behind my walls, in the chimney above me and the corridor below me. Going to listen to the rain beat down on the roof of the cloisters outside, and the laughter of guests rolling in from the pub. Going to curl up tight with a book and a hot water bottle and - damn it all - a teddy bear.
Sunday, October 07, 2001
The storm clouds are rolling in again.
some-one has just come in and given me what they think they've just heard on the news.
i have to go and find a t.v.
A few months ago i walked past an advertisement in Edinburgh (can't remember what it was for, obviously not that great an advertising campaign) that read:
When you are angry with someone you should walk a mile in their shoes
and then you'll be a mile away from them and you'll have their shoes.
this i like.
(incedentally, excuse my writing several vague, unrelated passages and posting them all at once, as i said a few days ago, i'm being sneaky... don't ask.)
Last year I worked with a girl from mars. It was a beautiful experience. You never Quite knew what colour the sky was around her, but she floated, encased in a warm aura, from room to room ineffectually sticking at small tasks for less than a few seconds before the universe called to her to be in another place and she floated away again. It isn’t really that true to say that I worked with her. I worked in the same place where she was. Or where most of her was.
If she listened to a word said, she certainly didn’t show it, she barely ever communicated directly, and when she did it was with such directness and immediacy it was terrifying. As if, even though she’d been sitting at dinner for 20 minutes, she’d suddenly entered the room. Perhaps she was channelling. Who can know?
I remember one afternoon we were sitting in the lounge, I and another housekeeper, reading books and being generally quiet, when she walked in, and conducted the whole following conversation with no replies, encouragement, nods or facial expression from either of us. We were too shocked. She’d barely spoken in two days.
She said, with no preamble:
“I keep hitting my head on that shelf. That one in the dining room. That one above the toaster. That one with the tv on it. I keep hitting my head on that shelf. Does that happen to anyone else?
No, just me then.
I keep doing it. I’ve done it loads. At least twice a week, sometimes more. Some times harder than others.
I was thinking, maybe I should put a sticker on it, to remind people it’s there;
but then, if it’s only me, I suppose I don’t need to.”
And she turned slowly in mid-air and floated out of the room again.
We’d been lucky enough witness to an entire thinking process. Which was nice to know, for I had had no idea that she thought at all.
Bless.
Saturday, October 06, 2001
My hair's at that terrible "not quite" stage. Where it's not quite short enough to look short and not quite long enough to be long. It's also not quite long enough to be in bunches, but i've still put it there in order to keep it out of my face, resulting on my having two apologetic tufty items right at the nape of my neck. Like paintbrushes.
It's simply a continuation of a long life full of bad hair.
when I was young, lets say 10 or so, we would go to a tiny salon on North Pole Road (was it really called that? or is it just my imagination?) And have by hair brutally hacked by a greek child-hater named Glenn, who would then tell me that i looked "a million dollars! - plus the change!" A statement which makes absolutely fuck-all sense, and also was completely untrue, since I looked not a little like Bart Simpson, less the Gel and the over-bite. Unless he meant that i looked like the change one would get from a million dollars if one bought something for $999,999.97, which would have been fine and true. Although i don't know if i would have paid a single penny for that haircut, in retrospect. People used to tell their children off in parks saying "come on now, give the ball back to the little boy" while i stood there, pale and sad, trying for all the world to flutter my eyelashes and look demure, like a little girl, hard when you're gritting your teeth and trying not to cry.
So now when i get my hair cut, i don't mind paying what i would consider a reasonably large amount, because the way i figure it, i'm still probably paying the same amount for the haircut - somewhere around £3.50 or so - what value can one possibly put on some girl 5 years younger than you and 15 times prettier waving sharp objects around your head?
The other fifty or sixty quid of it is protection money. I pay them to be nice to me.
And God help them if they're not.
I'll cry.
That'll teach'm
Friday, October 05, 2001
Living here, eating with some of the same but mainly different people every day, it’s possible to get more than a little sick of the question ‘So what’s your real job?” – like the job I do here is make-believe, or just plain silly – or better “what do you do in the Real World?….” – like the island is removed from their dimension, magical, something not for life, just for Christmas, (or any other calendar week, you get the idea…)
It’s like being asked constantly, “so, what do You want to be when you grow up, little girl?”
When you’re 24.
So in answer to that question, this week I have, at different times, said that when I leave here – when I grow up, if the ‘real world’ will have me back –
I want to be
a) an astronaut
b) a fairy princess
c) a train driver
d) a mountain goat
e) a tractor
I wouldn’t mind being Isabella Rossellini either, but apparently you can’t become someone that someone already is.
Apart from Elvis, I think.
Thursday, October 04, 2001
my computer’s insides are still casserole. I was pining for my blog, so I’m being sneaky. Don’t tell.Twenty things that have happened since last I blogged.
I must go and work. I don’t know when I can next post. but I pine for my blog. I’m all tingly and buzzing simply having my fingers on the keyboard once more. Or it could just be that faulty wiring again.
- I have had porridge for the first time in about fifteen years. It was this morning, and was very nice. I had it with milk and a little brown sugar.
- I have drunk around 4000 cups of coffee
- We have had lots of weather. Storm bound for three days at the beginning of this week, I was reminded that I live in one of the draughtiest places in the world (13th century Benedictine Abbey) while flossing. Getting thoroughly stuck into my front teeth, I found myself staring at the green tile-effect linoleum floor. At first I thought it was my imagination, but the more I stared the more I realised that the floor was slowly inflating and deflating with the wind coming under the door. Mesmerised, the longer I stared the more I was able to imagine myself standing on the back of a giant lizard, rising and falling as it in- and exhaled. Granted, a giant lizard with a peach bathroom suite on its back, but you get the idea. The metaphor kind of falls down at that point. Still.
- My lovely sister, and her lovely boyfriend, and my lovely brother all came to stay. It was lovely.
- I have had two candle-free weeks. Hoorah!
- I learnt some words of Swedish. I have forgotten them.
- I have realised that I must be a Nun. When you look at the evidence, it’s actually rather obvious:
a: I live in an Abbey.
b: Am to all intents and purposes celibate
c: and have several bad habits. (boom boom. sorry.)- I got to demonstrate my favourite waltz in the world (the Pride of Erin) with one of my favourite people and dancing partners (loud American boy) to a room of Swedish people and Canadians. It was very good.
- Someone told me a very funny joke about a Nun, a taxi driver, and an orange. I have forgotten the punchline.
- Everybody round here seems to be already in love, or busy falling into it.
- Except me.
- Actually, this is fine.
- removed for reasons of sexual deviance. not mine - I add.
- Yesterday I read ‘The Great Gatsby’ for the first time. It was very good. I cried. Which was embarrassing as I was sitting in a busy pub at the time.
- I have had lunch at the nice pub on the other side of the Sound (just 7 minutes away by ferry!) about 9 times. Every time it was lovely. I recommend it highly.
- I have had a couple of extremely hormonal and emotional couple of days. On Tuesday alone I cried because:
a: I couldn’t tune the radio.
b: the radiator was too hot
c: I got paint on my nose
d: a lady on the television was unhappy with her regular brand of fabric conditioner.
Actually, this time, the last is a lie, but it has happened in the past. I get very Involved at certain times. I think it’s cute. Not sure whether anyone else does.- I got several nice e-mails from people I don’t know. I like that. I like that a lot.
- A very good friend left the island a couple of days ago. In my usual haphazard way, I didn’t accept it was really happening until the night before, when we sat up until silly o’clock in the morning, trying not to kiss. I slept through my alarm next morning, and didn’t get down to the jetty in time to wave goodbye to him. Unsurprisingly, this made me cry.
- My friend Anja scalded three of her toes when she accidentally put them in a cup of tea.
- I have eaten a lot of popcorn. I don’t know why.
Wednesday, October 03, 2001
[update from the edge of the country: anna's computer has been out of order for a couple of weeks - the insides have turned to mush (technical term) but she vows to be back and posting again as soon as humanly possible!]
a weblog by anna pickard
(adrift in a sea of commuters)
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