It’s in the name. I think four is far too young to be at school. You barely know your own name, your hands aren’t developed enough to hold a pen, and it isn’t fair to expect you to play nicely or sit still. Frankly I don’t know why we even try at that age. I’m moving to Sweden, or Denmark, or Norway.
I have no idea what’s going to happen. I have no idea, either, what I’m going to want, and whether what I want this time next year is going to be the same as what I want now or somehow entirely different. And so it doesn’t matter that I don’t know what’s going to happen, because I also don’t know how I’m going to feel about it, so I basically have to assume that whatever it is it’ll be fine; because even if you could tell me what’s going to happen, how I feel about it now and how I will actually feel about it could well be two entirely different things.
So actually, yes, it’s all OK. Even though sometimes I would like someone to drop out of the sky and whisper in my ear, tell me about my future, promise me it contains Nobel prizes and a real-life Daniel Craig/Mr Darcy hybrid and a car that drives like an Aston and runs on solar power or the breath of fairies or something. It’s not going to happen (the sky person thing, I mean, not the Aston thing, that’s a definite). I don’t know what’s around the corner and, if I’m honest, I’d rather not find out too soon. It’s like reading the last page of the novel when you’re still only just getting up to the dramatic bit. You really don’t want to spoil the ending or know about twists in the tail, they’ll surprise you soon enough.
Two people for whom I have more respect than I know how to put into words (really, I don’t) are getting married. In some ways I barely know either of them but, well, we follow one another’s fortunes and misfortunes and I can honestly say that their news has made me a very happy woman.
Now I’m going to go and swim in a millpond. A very good day, I think.
I have fat thighs, am completely mad, and only look pretty if I hunch my shoulders, turning my knees in, and the person looking at me is on the sofa two feet below my eye level with her head hanging off the edge of the seat.
These are all things which my sister has told me about myself today. Of everything else, she says: “There’s a mad person with eyes on top of the bookshelves. But I have baked bread”.
…I swam in a river, went to a spectacular pub I was not old enough to appreciate when I was there last, watched the football, did some useful work, and fell asleep unobtrusively in corners. The Budget featured lots in the news and I’m still making up my mind about what I think about it. Reactionary leftie self objects, sensible middle-of-road self approves cautiously, Tory incubus is grinning in a dark corner somewhere. I need to know more, first.
Home now – building works. A three-storey tent (C and I both independently coined this description so it must be true). A loo in the attic, cold tap in the kitchen three floors below, brick dust everywhere, shoes on all the time, cats traumatised, tempers fraying, and a vanful – all my wordly goods – on the front room floor, no route to the piano even, until they’ve put my new skylight in and me and my room are left in relative peace.
Shadowing researchers round the university. Labs, day old mice pups, killed quickly though I won’t tell you how in case it makes you squirm. Microscopes, centrifuges, familiar technology, techniques (Western blotting, cell culturing) heard about and now to be seen and learned, Nanotechnology, collaborations across all kinds of fields of expertise, building condemned though to my eyes stunning. Showers (and thank goodness – options at home = washing-up bowl, kettle, what a performance) in the basement, splashy, motion-sensitive timer-switch controlled and a little chilly but heaven as far as I’m concerned), day flashed past. Sister, tears, tension, fear, homecoming, guilt; I never tell her how proud I am of her, how I tell all my friends about all the things she does, how much I love her – but I never say these things to her, it’s not my way, I suppose.
American quilts, trains, buses, food, drink, pubs and friends and plans and hopes and sunshine which I am rarely able to go out in. New year, I feel, every summer, not winter – I mean, here it all is, being new.
I’m mainly just glad to have clean hair.
…have some of the Notes I found on my phone.
Nine:
Rob says: “PESSAMIST: DIFFICULT IN EVERY OPPORTUNITY.
OPTOMIST: OPPORTUNITY IN EVERY DIFFICULTY”
(I love him but he can’t spell).
Six:
I wonder what of the music being made now will stand the test of time:? I have a theory that by and large the music that hits the charts now from less popular genres has broken through that particular barrier so maybe they will last?
(As you might have guessed the time stamp on this one is definitively the wee hours).
Eight:
I have actually developed a minor crush on that last guy becuase he takes photos of his pets and flowers :S !
Renegade Brass Band.
(talking to H at photosoc one night. Well, writing her a note, anyway).
Four:
Some kind of emotional dive bar I crank out the same feelings like cheap spirits or piss-weak beer in seedy profligacy. Discounts and doubling up so you get twice as much cliche for your cash and could drown your wretched face in the brine spilling from my eyes.
I imagine my heart skittering across a tiled marble floor – black and white, Italian, leaving a trail of shining scarlet blood, gappy, clotted, lumps and gouts and thin translucent trails between, and the toe of your shoe as you walk away, red on brown leather, pointed, shining.
(Jenny goes all emo ‘n’ ting).
Three:
‘Course you’re not, you’re not scared of anything. Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of box, man eats fish custard!’
(The first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who. As if you didn’t know).
Ten:
“…and every time we did it, it was destroying me inside…”. X’s testimony. Sex. Guilt. Oh, help.
Five:
Stressed is Desserts spelled backwards.
Seven:
Random Man At Bus Stop: What he’s looking at is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, yet he can’t quite believe it and however much he loves it it hurts his eyes as it – she? – and now (if I ever wasn’t) I am extrapolating wildly, from my mute seat here in this bus in the slowly waking springtime heart of the city – walks towards him. The end. The beginning. Chapter One.
(Please tell me I’m not the only one that makes up stories about the people I see waiting for buses/on trains/on other journeys?)
Two:
You are the person that I love most that I’ve ever met. Shofolk sandals, £125.
(No, I don’t know either. I think one’s a quote from what is quite unreasonably one of my favourite books, and one is, well, shoes).
The rest of my notes are excruciatingly dull, the end.
As inspired by Fi’s post here on friendship and being accepted for all your idiosyncrasies (as well as the wonders of hairspray, vodka in the park and affectionate boob-squishing), and further prompted by my comment on her post which made me get thinking, I have had some thoughts. The first of these thoughts is that that was a pretty appalling sentence, let alone a first sentence to a whole new blog entry, but never mind. That sentence wasn’t much better.
Start again, assuming the reader has already got the gist. For some reason I’ve been gradually realising this one for a while and I should have got there much sooner. On my blog I will gladly admit that I listen to Radio 4, especially the Archers, that I like books and classical music and (shock horror) even folk music! And ceilidhs! I like knitting badly, I play the cello, I wake up at 7am at parties when everyone else is still pretty much unconscious, I wear sensible shoes these days, and I’m not afraid to talk about sex, boobs, the practicalities of wearing or not wearing underwear with certain dresses, PMT, depression, obscure family members and why, apparently, helicopters have no business being able to fly (I will need that explained to me again, but it’s the kind of thing that excites me. Ooh baby).
Obviously I can also be entirely and completely myself around my friends, but actually, well, that’s taken a while. I realised the other day when saying something completely random and a bit off-the-wall to someone that actually a few weeks back, to those same people, I wouldn’t have had the same daring, not that it even is particularly daring. I’ve spent the past few months pushing boundaries and envelopes and barriers by just making myself say whatever comes out of my mouth, to whoever I’m talking to, just as if it was A or my sister or whoever. It’s hardest to do that both around new acquaintances and around people who you have met previously but around whom you’ve previously at least tried to keep a check on the odder and dustier corners of your mind, but actually, it’s worked quite well. The cards are out on the table. Hello, New Person, I am aware that I don’t conform to a given stereotype, we both know that, being a human being, you don’t either, so let’s just cut to the chase and admit it by having a conversation about pretending to be a turtle, or your favourite childhood story book, or really odd English films.
I swear I used to be more confident. I swear that at my second sixth form I was more honest about who I was than I was a year later at university. The last time I exhibited that sort of mental independence for a long while was probably in introducing myself to A. Well, I didn’t introduce myself actually, I just sort of insulted him. He was moving into his room, next door to mine, carrying a box which had obviously been sold as the packaging to a shredder, and I just sort of assumed it still had the shredder in it, and demanded, ‘you brought a shredder to university?’. No name, nothing. And from that impertinent and random statement was born the greatest friendship I think I will ever know. I don’t think we learnt one another’s names for a couple of hours; it’s equally possible that I backtracked within a couple of seconds and went in for the firm manly handshake, ’sorry, my names Jenny, and you are…?’. Apparently I can be quite intimidating.
Anyway, the realisation I had on reading Fi’s post was actually, I think, that finding people who accept you for who you are is far more likely to happen if you aren’t afraid to be exactly whoever you are, with all your ‘foibles, …inadequacies, [and] idiosyncrasies’. Because people will warm to that and perhaps they will discover not only how much they like you for those things, but also some new likes, dislikes, foibles and madnesses of their own, because after all, no-one is exactly the same person to friend A as they are to friends B and C, we all have different facets, but if you’re nothing but a blank canvas until you feel a bit braver when are you going to get anywhere with new people?
So watch out, new housemates. Although I think you may have got the measure of me already. There will be bad detective drama on ITV3 when you give me the remote. There will be Radio 4, and butter icing eaten in the middle of the night, and highly obscene comments after a couple of drinks. There will be long walks and weird shoes and eclectic music and good whisky and strange herbal teas. I sometimes like to dress up as Simone de Beauvoir (all in black, you’ll have to imagine the beret) or a german peasant (well, alright, but I own a skirt that’s a bit like a dirndl, it’s an approximation) or something when I’m going to be chained to my desk for the day, just because. And I expect no less of you. Not on the dirndl-wearing so much, but, well, yeah.
I don’t know, it’s a silly title, I couldn’t think of something better or relevant. I have been away for a while, I know. I have spent the week manically touring the UK. Firstly there was H’s chinese and films night, which was a late one with a lot of whisky and two very good films and a few good giggles and a hideously early start (apparently these days I am incapable of sleeping past seven unless I go to bed so tired I can hardly see, so I only actually got three horus sleep in the end). From there I was given a lift to a city part way to my next destination, but ended up going back to T’s for a cuppa after missing the train due to a herd of cows on the road (well, this is the New Forest we’re talking about) and a very slow vehicle of some kind somewhere in Dorset. So I eventually got on my train two hours late and got into a lot of trouble with H and as usual my next few trains were all delayed firstly because one broke down, and then because someone was arrested on board the next train.
Still, I landed up in Devon as planned and had a beautiful two nights there, in a stunning villa beside a river. We went for a bit of a walk on my full day there and I got drunk with H’s parents in the evening, which was a bit of a new one on me because I was by no means the most drunk out of the gathering (which also included some family friends). There was a lot of stupid dancing and laughing and a few very embarassing videos were recorded which will hopefully never see the light of day.
Then onto my aunt’s new house in Somerset where I met up with my parents. Again, good walking, good meals, relaxing conversation, and no internet. A room called a snug which was all fire and sofas and rich red walls and the perfect place to while away a few hours with a good book (shame about the lack of cats). A castle which has been turned into a beautiful holiday cottage with ruins in the garden (if I was a child I couldn’t imagine anything more fun).
Birmingham, to see my grandmother, and a walk with ice-creams and no frog spawn and a conga fronted by my gran in her wheelchair (it was a very steep hill and hard work pushing the wheelchair alone so I pushed the chair, my mother pushed me, and my sister…tagged along at the back? Pushed too? Hard to tell).
Finally three nights in Newcastle with my grandfather and aunt, uncle, and second-youngest cousin. I also saw the cousin closest to me in age and we had a long and lovely chat, and I was introduced to that most Geordie of things, Boddington’s beer, in tinnies. I taught my youngest cousin to climb rocks and stroke anenomes in rock pools on the beach, brought him out of his shell a bit, and ran races with him in which (despite my best efforts, seriously) he beat me fair and square. We went to a fantastic museum where I could perhaps have spent hours longer, we went to a planetarium, and on Monday night we went to a football match.
Yup, that’s right. I’ve been to the football once before, to see Southampton play Middlesborough (I think) when I was about ten, because a friend’s family had season tickets and her brother wasn’t going to that game so she took me instead. I don’t really remember that one. Monday night, though, was exciting. Newcastle were relegated last season and this season the fight has been on to get back into the Premiership. It mainly hung on the game I saw, and also the result in a game that was happening earlier that day – Nottingham Forest being the main condenders for promotion (or something?) and therefore if they lost their game Newcastle would be promoted after all. Or perhaps Notts Forest were heading down and their getting relegated meant Newcastle would definitely be up. I’m afraid I just don’t know. So we knew when we arrived that Newcastle were definitely going to be promoted, which I guess made the players on the pitch relax just a little bit too much. Their defence was a bit shambolic and Sheffield got their first goal in and panicked everyone. There is such a great atmosphere at a game like that, where your a home fan and you’re surrounded by all these Geordie men singing things like the Blaydon Races and all sorts, most of which are set to familiar tunes and their lyrics basically consist of words like ‘Newcastle’ and ‘going up’. My dad, normally a sensible, quiet academic, with only a trace of a northern accent in words like ‘laugh’ and ‘grass’, started to sound very Geordie and was constantly calling out abuse and encouragement. I got very into the whole game and was soon yelling at the lads like the best of them, we were in and out of our seats like jacks-in-boxes (no, I can’t think of a more sensible plural, can you?), and when I went home my voice was hoarse. Thankfully by the end of the first half we had equalised and by the end of the game we were up 2-1 but it was tense, at least for me. Dad tells me it was actually quite a boring match, there’s usually more to play for and each goal is harder work, this was quite low-key. But it was exciting enough for me!
And then, on Wednesday morning, I got on a megabus, stupidly early, and sat on it for what felt like a few centuries, until I finally reached London, where, after a couple of trains, I reached Twickenham where M and H, and P, met me, and we drove back down south for a cocktail party at which I wore a beautiful dress, didn’t drink too much, got bullied mercilessly for one or two things, and got almost no sleep. A beautiful morning, long and tired and with bacon sandwiches and proper sunny sunlight, a very late lunch, tea and hot cross buns, and off to C’s for a lovely if tearfully tired evening with Doctor Who and Thai green curry.
And as I write, I am hosting a party tonight. Just a small one, mind. So I had better get out of bed and do something about the state of this house, find mattresses, set up futons, buy eggs and bread and bacon, all of that. Hopefully we can even have our first few drinks in the garden if the weather continues as it is. Hopefully I’ll get the time to do a few hours work before the first few people arrive.
Frankly I feel ugly and old and spotty and my hair looks shit and half my shoes are broken and the other half are way too summery for this weather we’ve been having and although it’s sunny right now I can’t trust it not to rain, sleet or snow later, or indeed all three.
I don’t feel particularly clever or interesting or witty and I don’t feel massively settled here. I am accepted easily within different groups – different church groups and with people involved in things like Oxfam and the various music things I do – but I don’t feel at home in those groups myself. I am far more comfortable with my housemates for this year – and, I think, next – or at least some of them; and I feel best when surrounded by H and M and A, although then you have to contend with H and M’s beaming couply happiness (I’m OK with the fact that they’re so happy together they practically glow, of course Im glad that theyre happy, but do they constantly have to be quite so all over each other? They’ve been together a year now, they practically live together, you’d've thought they could hold off in Starbucks or, y’know, when me and A are the only other people in the room, or indeed, in general…yes?) and A’s distant adulation of his distant girlfriend, although that said, him moping is worse, so although I adore them to bits sometimes it all gets a bit too much, you know.
I’m sorry but sometimes it all comes out and I feel just a bit accursed, just once in a while. Unhappy at school, I screw up and screw around in sixth-form, I go to university and things only get worse, and they start to get better but it takes so fucking long, you know? I’m given a new chance with this year but it’s like a tanker turning around, it doesn’t mean that this year is actually enjoyable, because I’m still trying to claw back so much and so many things and fuck it hurts sometimes and I get all self-pitying and weirdly enough I would rather tell all of you on the internet, despite knowing who will be reading this, I would rather talk about this here than whine at any of my friends in the real world. Right now I don’t even want to go home, specifically. I just want to cry.
So, fuck the lot of you, I’m going to cry. Fuck you, PMS. Oh no, wait, I have to leave for my lecture. Keys, phone, notepad, blank expression: check, check, check…check.
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