Day Twenty

I guess if I had done Nanowrimo, I might have 2/3 of a novel sitting in front of me right now. 2/3 of a very bad and completely unpublishable novel, that is. At least my blog amuses me.

Read this article in the Guardian yesterday. I find it hard to believe (but also strangely plausible) that in some parts of child-soccer-playing America, parents and coaches are not allowed to keep score. Nobody wins or loses.

There's also a school district where, in gym class, the children are jumping rope for exercise - but without a rope. They don't want the kids who trip over the rope to feel bad and lose precious self-esteem. By removing the actual rope, kids can simply pretend to jump rope, and no kid gets embarrassed.

Or every kid gets embarrassed.

Dweck found that in America, 85% of parents think that telling your kids "you're so smart" was an important thing to say and did it daily. Unwittingly, they were depriving their children of what really mattered - the conviction that an industrious work ethic will bring them success. Confidence might breed success, but artificial confidence doesn't. It actually lowers ambition.

Of course if every kid in the class gets a gold star, gold stars won't mean anything. And no one is going to feel good about themselves for getting a gold star, not even the kids who have done well. In fact, the kid with the best self esteem in that class might just be the one who got the smiley face sticker when the teacher (omg disaster!) ran out of gold stars. Because she's obviously special. Right? Smiley stickers will be coveted.

How can people start out with the best intentions and get it so wrong? I've been reading this excellent book and I really like the author's take on how we've gone wrong with self-esteem.

Our schools today are full of ... programs that reward kids with everything from gold stars on up for what are really minor or insignificant achievements. Today's parents are cautioned not to be critical of their children under any circumstances; the message is that unconditional love and acceptance build self-esteem. But the flaw in this logic is obvious. True self-esteem requires an accurate appraisal of one's own abilities in comparison to those of others. With a healthy sense of self, you can accept your weaknesses... There are real differences in abilities, which are rewarded differentially by life. Unconditional acceptance seeks to deny those differences and build a phony self-esteem, vulnerable to puncture by life's experiences. (Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.)

Praise our kids, yes. But don't praise them for every little thing and for everything equally so that they never learn the value of their efforts.

From the Guardian article again:

Generation Zero was raised in this culture, with Dr Frankenstein's results. Case in point: today, 94% of high school seniors believe they are going to college. That's their plan, their ambition. But only 63% of them will actually enrol. That gap between their plan and reality has never been wider. And 64% believe they will have a career as a "working professional," when just less than 20% will.

They've been given inflated ambitions, without being taught the necessity of effort. They are unequipped to respond to failure.

Phew, I've never been so glad to be a Generation Xer. My self-esteem might be a little low at times, but it's mostly realistic.

Ever been given the evil eye by a goldfish? Me neither, until today.

I swear I fed him as usual.

Autumn days

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
(Albert Camus)

10 things about me

(From a meme from Adri)

1) I adore stationery shops, expecially the ones with art supplies and myriad colours and textures of paper. I could spend hours, and thousands of pounds, in a good one.

2) I am irritated by and feel sad for people who spend their entire journey on public transport glued to their mobile phones. Serial callers who hang up from one call and immediately dial someone else, as though they cannot bear to be alone (or in public) in silence. I don't have a mobile phone, it would interrupt my reading.

3) The best mobile phone ringtone I have ever heard was the very realistic croaking of a frog. I was sure that guy was going to pull a frog out of his bag.

4) I don't pay enough notice to expiration and best before dates. The poet, however, will hunt for the latest date, but this is not about him.

5) I am perturbed by the fact that we only have one original copy of our marriage certificate. I envision scenes at Heathrow Customs, desperately trying to prove that I am married to a British citizen and entitled to live here, even if they took back my indefinite leave to remain visa.

6) I have a hot water bottle at work. I also used to keep one at work in Brisbane, where the semi-tropical climate made me look a real weirdo.

7) I've only been drunk on gin once and I will never touch the stuff again. Too many tears.

8) I started adding raw garlic slices to my sandwiches a couple of weeks ago to combat a nagging cold. Now I can't stop. Sandwiches taste too bland without it.

9) I don't suffer martyrs gladly.

10) I loved calculus at school. Now all I remember is enough to help me work out exchange rates.

Call me Germaine *

Apparently I have a limp.

One of the girls at work today asked me if my leg was hurting, because she noticed me limping. My leg wasn't hurting, and I didn't know I was limping**, although come to think of it, my thighs felt rather tight. In a not-good way as opposed to lean, toned thighs. I think I used to have some of those.

But then I am the queen of tight muscles - the muscles in the side of my calves are so tight that I can sprain a ligament in my foot just by stretching it the wrong way. Go me! I discovered this a couple of weeks ago after my foot felt a bit funny and 'stuck' one afternoon, and gradually became more and more painful until I couldn't walk on it and almost fainted in the Indian takeaway after I limped there in search of spicy comfort. (Curry, in case you were wondering. As opposed to Asian porn.) One emergency trip to the osteopath that night (thanks to my brother-in-law for driving me), the pain diminishing even in the waiting room, a diagnosis of slightly sprained ligaments***, and by the next morning I could walk again. This was a bonus as the previous night I had resorted to crawling up the stairs and coming down them on my bottom. I had hoped to not have to do that at work.

So, limping. Another friend at work asked me some time ago whether I was limping one day as we walked somewhere together. I hadn't been aware of it, but I sure am now.

Anyway, here's hoping it's only slight, otherwise how have I got to the age of 36 without anyone telling me I have a limp?!

* Germaine Greer has a limp. But then I wouldn't have noticed, considering I didn't even know I have one.

** Limp is a very strange word/part of a word. Especially when it's used as many times as I have used it in this post. Do you get that with words - look at the same word often enough in a short period of time and it just looks all wrong?

*** This year has seen me injure my feet an incredible 4 times. Two 'broken' toes (didn't have xrays but medical opinion seemed to think so), one badly sprained ligament that didn't heal for about 10 weeks (caused by stubbing my toe! wtf?) and now this latest fleeting sprain. Which hurt like hell and had me whimpering and clutching at my foot when I wasn't crawling home from the Indian takeaway. It wasn't agony, like the ovarian cyst pain I've had, but it was intense. And then it wasn't.

I need to work on relaxing my calves to help with the ligament issues, but apart from incredibly painful massage, there seem to be no exercises that really stretch those muscles. Any ideas?

It's in the bag

... because you all care so much, this is what is in my handbag today.

Various lipsticks
Lipbalm
Body Shop perfume roll-on
Eyeliner x 2
Mascara
Gum and gum wrappers
A post- it note emblazoned with 'Collect Master'
Watch with broken strap
Monthly travelcard
NHS ID
Earplugs!
Sunglasses wallet
Keys with personal alarm keychain that invariably goes off when I yank my key from my bag
Cinema tickets for The Grudge 2 and Scenes of a Sexual Nature
Mirror broken off from a used-up compact - classy
And my purse (wallet), which is a whole other world of junk.

Toilet paper

Sorry, but I need to disagree with H. Champ's toilet paper protocol. The 'tongue' should always be on the outside. Aesthetically this pleases me, because it doesn't look as though the toilet paper is trying to hide. Why is it trying to hide from me?! What evilness lurks behind the roll?! I do not trust my toilet paper, so it must always be in this more visible position. I feel so strongly about this that I take the toilet roll off and put it back on if the poet does it the wrong way. Blame my superstitious nature.

Also, please note that the tags and hems on towels should always be folded inside the towel, when the towel is being stored, or if it is folded on a towel rail. You should dry yourself with the inside of the towel, i.e. the side the tag is sewn into, the side the hems are exposed on. Unless you are just drying your face in passing, in which case it is fine to use the outside of the towel. Teatowels should also be folded with their hems inside. This is very important and the fate of small countries depends on your following the rule correctly. And, it's neater!

(Yes, I have just been flicking through Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch in search of blogspiration. I did not make up the towel bit just to fit in.)

Ha!

I knew I should have gone to an event with free wine on Saturday night rather than one with cups of tea where you have to wash your own cup afterwards!

I missed NaDruWriNi.

(thanks to M. Kennedy at Fussy for pointing to it)

I am dead of brain after a 7am start and a day of sitting on reception at an event organised by our trust. I think eating two danishes this morning may have made things worse.

So, why don't you have a look at Cristina's blog. She's an amazing artist and illustrator.

How do you like them apples?

The best thing about having an apple tree that leans into your back garden so that half of it is on your property, is that you do nothing, and end up with all of these delicious apples for free. Then again, the people who actually own it don’t need to water or fertilise or spray it either. The birds get some, but so what. The tree does all the work and we reap the benefits of crisp, sweet apples for several months a year. If it was on my side of the fence I’d hug it.

Winter is starting to settle in, now that the clocks have gone back and days are shorter. We’ve had mostly bright blue-sky days of late, which is heartening. At this time of year, I’m always trying to hold on to the warmer, brighter weather, in whatever way I can. I try to smell every garden rose I see, ignoring the faint scent of decay that is beginning to creep in, breathing in every particle of fragrance that still lingers in the cold petals. Honeysuckle, one of my favourite flowers since I was a child (mainly because it tastes so good!) is still blooming in a park I pass on my way to work, and each day I pluck a flower. The flowers are, amazingly to me, still sweet.

Last night we went to a local Italian restaurant to celebrate the poet’s mother’s 84^th birthday. She’s the only person I know who will seriously admonish anyone who buys her a gift.

Tonight I’m completing a week of fairly arty social outings – the private view, Rilke reading – with the Perdika Press launch. Perdika was created by a couple of the poet’s literary friends, and the poet, as an independent small poetry press to publish quality poetry. The launch tonight is at Salisbury House in Enfield, a short bus ride from our house. I hope there’s a good turnout, and they sell plenty of books, or rather, pamphlets, which are shorter than books and less expensively produced. But most of all, I hope it lives up to the other events this week and has free wine! When we visited the real Perdika, last year on the Greek island of Aegina, the wine was particularly special.

Oh (she says, prompted by Google's logo), looks like I forgot it was Remembrance Day today. At 11am this morning I was at the hairdresser. I want to say something like 'oops' but what is there that doesn't sound flip and disrespectful?

The Big Bad Book

Remind me not to read any more James Patterson books. When I'm ill (like with this cold that I've struggled against now for over two weeks) I tend to raid the library for easy to read thrillers - my favourites are Patricia Cornwell, and lately Tess Gerritsen. Serial killers, police, FBI, forensics, bring it on. I find Stephen King books quite relaxing too, particularly the older ones.

And yet James Patterson... I seem to forget every time how crap a writer he actually is. Somehow he manages to keep a story going, keep me interested, throw in enough of the vaguely interesting detective work and crime-fighting jargon at the same time as I'm retching at his prose. I mean how are these sentences even published?:

I sat there very quietly, and I held in a primal scream that would have shattered all the glass in the office.

The golden rule of writing, Show, don't tell obviously means nothing to this guy.

I can't find the quote now, but he uses the word 'de-spirited'. The word is dispirited, James.

I noticed that in recent years he's co-written several books (I hesitate to call them novels, although in this month of Nanowrimo I guess anything goes), maybe the quality of those is better?

James Patterson is such a prolific writer, and Alex Cross is such a familiar character, that fans, and those new to this series, are bound to enjoy the latest addition to the Alex Cross/Will Lee novels.

Yeah, because we all know the more prolific a writer, the better. Right?

This review snippet from Amazon's German site says it better than I have:

James Patterson is the literary equivalent to a five-course dinner at your local fast-food restaurant. Meaning: it probably won't kill you, but there are certainly better ways to enjoy yourself. Patterson novels come in small bites. There are 121 chapters in 2nd Chance, each of them rarely more than two pages long. So, the book consists of a surprising amount of empty and half-empty pages. This might agree with readers afflicted with a short attention span. They won't have a problem finding the page where they fell asleep the night before. It is rather irritating to readers who are used to regarding a novel's division into chapters...as part of the story's construction. Between the empty pages there is regrettably a lot of mediocre if not bad writing. " Political correct " cartoon characters and dialogue that seems to come straight from " Writing by Numbers " are quite annoying.

Not that I'm necessarily opposed to a bit of bad but strangely engaging fiction once in a while. I've read a fair number of Patterson's books, each time wondering why. As opposed to all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer books I read a couple of years ago when I was anxious and depressed. Literary valium. Highly recommended.

So who else is married to a poet?

I decided to google ‘married to a poet’, to see what other people might be writing on the subject and get some ideas for posts.

The first hit was http://baconandehs.blogspot.com/2004/08/im-married-to-poet.html. An ode to a stye. Interesting, but not compelling, and obviously not particularly representative of that particular blog. Onwards to Sylvia Plath, that most famous (among feminists at least) of poet’s wives, a phenomenal poet herself - an unsurprising find. Plath and her husband Ted Hughes make many appearances in my little google-trawl. Alice Notley married a poet. When he died, she married another poet. She also wrote poetry, and one of her collections is titled Waltzing Matilda, which endears her to this Australian blogger immediately.

Maybe ‘how to marry a poet’ might yield more interesting results? Yes, we have a news article from 2004 about some woman planning to marry a dead French poet, a poem (what else) entitled I think that I shall marry a poet, and a ballet, La Esmeralda, where Esmeralda consents to marry the poet Gringoire to save him from death. Much like my situation really.

And finally, the definitive site I was looking for - Yahoo Answers on ‘would you marry a mathematician or a poet?’ (I managed a physicist and a poet, in the same marriage). I wonder if these people (12 year olds no doubt) actually know any real poets?

Poet, they tend to be more gentle, and caring

i would marry the poet, because well he would be writing me poetry

in my opinion poet. it means he's romantic and has a softer side

From their answers, I’m thinking not. Not that I haven’t had poems written for me, but these answers just scream of poet clichés – romantic, caring, gentle. Poets are people. They’re angry, cheerful, sad, jealous, bitchy, loving, sullen, funny and sometimes boring, just like the rest of us.

Rilke

I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.

When I first started reading poetry, long before I met the poet, this line by Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, caught at my heart. During a particularly melancholy period I decided on this line as my epitaph. These days I’m not so focused on the grave all the time!

Tonight we went to a reading and launch for one of the poet’s friends who has just published a translation of Rilke’s The Duino Elegies. The reading was held in a wonderful independent bookshop, Crockatt and Powell, near Waterloo station, a bookseller of the kind that is sadly becoming increasingly rare thanks to the empires of Borders, Waterstones and Amazon. My favourite quirky touch was the assortment of intriguing and beautiful bookmarks scattered through the shelves and tables of books. And they have a blog!

We read in the tube and the bus on the way home, delving into the very accessible introduction by a German scholar, becoming absorbed in the elegies, and I wondered why I had never really followed up that first Rilke moment, why I had read bits and pieces over the years but never a whole book. This is changing as I write, I’ll be carrying this book around with me for some time. Rilke’s poetry is breathtaking, and this is a fine translation, as you might expect from a fine poet like Martyn. Even though my knowledge of German is fairly rudimentary, having the German text facing means I can both entertain myself and get a sense of the rhythm the poet intended, reading aloud on the bus like your average German-speaking literate London loony.

And how bewildered is any creature
that is womb-born and yet has to fly.
As if frightened of itself, it must hurtle
through the air the way a crack goes
through a tea-cup – so a bat’s track
streaks through the porcelain of evening. (Eighth Elegy)

Spent tonight at a private view of a new show by Suzanne Treister in Chelsea. I have an artist friend from Australia who's staying in London for a few months thanks to winning an residency from the Australia Council. Suzanne is a friend of a friend of this friend so we all went along together, had some free wine and ate good Cypriot food afterwards.

In 1995 Suzanne Treister created the fictional alter ego Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveller who believes herself to be working at the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality (IMATI) in the twenty-first century.

HEXEN2039 charts Brodsky's scientific research towards the development of new mind control technologies for the British Military. This work uncovers or constructs links between conspiracy theories, occult groups, Chernobyl, witchcraft, the US film industry, British Intelligence agencies, Soviet brainwashing, behaviour control experiments of the US Army and recent practices of its Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (PSYOP), in light of alarming new research in contemporary neuroscience...

Lots of intricate and interconnecting drawings and sketches, tiny handwriting and the overwhelming sense that this was just the tip of the iceberg of a really quite interesting and involved conspiracy theory about the involvement of the occult in the military. There must be some kind of written thesis somewhere, because the detail is phenomenal. Or maybe a whole library of theses.

(ok, I didn't actually post this until Wed morning, which is bad and wrong, but I swear it was written in my head and I didn't get the chance to physically post until the morning after)

I read recently that Amazon are selling a book by Jim Crace which he hasn't actually written. Nor is he planning to write it, although if he chose to, they could tell him how many pages to aim for (224). He's ordered a copy and is eagerly awaiting what arrives in the post. And oh look - you can buy it too. Might be a rather long wait for that particular pre-order.

After a couple of mind-numbing hours poring over tiny complicated figures in Excel spreadsheets we can no longer pretend to understand, helping the poet prepare his tax for his accountant, I've got nothing for you but relief that we didn't argue like we usually do when using the computer (he doesn't get multi-tasking).

Also, my feet are frozen. When I first came to the UK from semi-tropical Queensland I believed the myth that central heating means you wear skimpy clothes all year round, because it's warm! Inside! But no, not for you the eternal indoor sunshine, not unless you can afford huge gas bills. So it's sexy thick socks and hot water bottles for me when I'm on the net, and now time to have a bath. With a shower afterwards, because it is impossible for me to be clean when I am sitting in the water my dirt has washed off in. Not that I'm dirty. But I'm all for the rinsing.

When Harry met Matthew

My favourite little boy in the world met his new cousin (and my new nephew, born last Sunday) today. As always, I wish I could have been there as I'm not going to see either of the little blighters until May.

The poet and I are going slightly mad under the exploding skies, and after having seen Borat this afternoon we're heading back to the cinema, freshly roasted chestnuts in our pockets, to watch The Grudge 2. I expect nothing wonderful, just the presence of Sarah Michelle Gellar is enough to render it worthy of my attention.

Skyfire

Tonight the cold skies over London are a battlefield - explosions, whizzing, shrieking coloured lights. Guy Fawkes night. And over all a pall of thick grey smoke. That's the worst thing about being out on a night like this, not the noise, or the threat of marauding teens brandishing firecrackers, but the chemical soup that passes for air. It's a clear night, but there are no stars.

The poet's mother was a refugee in wartime Italy, her village and the surrounding countryside decimated by the Allies and the Germans, who holed up in the monastery at Montecassino. One day a shell exploded in a cooking pot next to her, and she saw too many civilians blown to pieces. On nights like these I wonder whether, holed up in her cosy living room, she's taken back to that time, if the explosions in the sky frighten her the way they freak the neighbourhood cats and dogs. Even our goldfish is hiding in his glass jar within the aquarium.

I much prefer fireworks in Australia, where you have to have a permit, and so generally the only fireworks you see are big organised, orchestrated extravaganzas like Brisbane's Riverfire. Amazing spectacles, the best fireworks set to music and handled by experts. Safely. Here, anyone over a certain age can legally buy as many fireworks as they like, and so you get kids throwing firecrackers at each other and passersby, little raggedy 'displays' in every second back garden, and as far as I can see, there's no real excitement about the wonder of these beautiful explosions. They're so readily available (new shops open up at this time every year just to sell fireworks and then close down once the season's over) that they're not special. People start with the fireworks some time in August (Diwali?) and you're not guaranteed a quiet night until after New Year's Eve. And then there's the safety issue - people are injured and blinded by fireworks every year.

As a child at Brisbane's Ekka (the yearly Royal National Show), I was awed by the sparkling, fizzing lights in the nightly firework show. I still feel that way when I see a good fireworks display. I look up into tonight's sky, with the occasional unfolding sparkling flower, or glittering tower of light, but mostly just a lot of bangs and nothing to see through the smoke, and all I feel is irritation at the pollution and annoyance at the noise. Bah humbug!

Two sugars, optional 'please'

I work as a personal assistant in the NHS (National Health Service). Without a doubt it's the busiest job I've ever had, but I also work with some incredibly caring people, many of whom are nurses, and overall they're the best group of people I've ever worked with.

I've been unwell for the last week and a bit, culminating in my taking yesterday off work as a virus wreaked its worst on me. I was back in my office today, croaky-voiced and coughing, One of the directors I work for popped her head in to say sympathetically how terrible I looked.

I was caught completely unaware when, in the same breath, she asked "any chance of a cup of tea?" So much for sympathy.

Sophie who?

Those generally sensible people at The Guardian have, in their infinite journalistic wisdom, seen fit to give over a quarter of a page each week in the Weekend magazine to a 'story' from Sophie Dahl.

You may know of Miss Dahl as the British model most famous for being rather larger than the average fashion model, size 14 or something and rightly praised for her curves. Until of course she decided to become rather skinny after all and now just looks like any model.

But wait, all is not lost for the girl who apparently inspired the character of Sophie (the giant's helper) in her grandfather Roald Dahl's book The BFG. She published a novella in 2003, which I have not read, and it seems that this, and having a grandfather who was a good writer is reason enough for the Guardian to commission her to fill a quarter page each week with frankly average prose. Or could I be cynical enough to think that the reason her novella found a publisher was due to, I don't know, her name? I don't know whether these 'stories' have been cut for length and that is why they are not actually stories but scenes, but I am disappointed that despite the wealth of good short prose writers in Britain, many of them unknown to the general public, The Guardian has spotlighted the writing of someone seemingly for who they are rather than how they write.

Indeed, why publish the same writer each week? - why not give us a taste of someone different in every issue. There is certainly no shortage of writers out there. Many of whom could come up with a better, cliche-free sentence than "James and Bee ran to the front door, eliciting a volley of laughter from the doorman of the next-door building." Or "Lola looked down, feigning shyness, but in her bones she already felt Fortune's smile."

She's not a bad writer. She's just not very good. Like any writer, she needs to work hard to become good. Unfortunately for her, with a grandfather like Roald Dahl, she's always going to have her work judged against his. Except, it seems, by The Guardian.

Viral nostalgia

Well, my blog's not on the list over at NaBloPoMo yet, but I promise I emailed last week.

I have been fighting an evil cold since last Thursday and am currently drugged up on paracetamol, sudafed, vitamin c and garlic. I'll be safe from vampires, if they even wanted my virus-laden blood. I've been missing my hometown over the last few days, as my sister gave birth to her first baby and my second nephew there on Sunday, but I'm thinking they wouldn't let me near a newborn baby anyway so it's just as well I'm safely thousands of miles away.

I like to eat garlic sandwiches when I have a cold (not at work, even I have a modicum of sense); I need something with a strong taste to power through my sluggish tastebuds as well as giving my immune system a boost. But I only realised my garlic consumption (even sans virus) was impressive when the poet's Italian mother, when given home-grown garlic by a friend, said 'I'll give most of this to (the poet), his girlfriend really likes garlic.' For an Italian to say that.... Strangely, I haven't noticed garlic breath the way I used to when I didn't eat much. Maybe my body's become better at processing it, or, more likely, my olfactory gland was overloaded and I stink. Whatever. I still manage a social life and a marriage.

Saw 'The History Boys' last night and thoroughly enjoyed it - the 80's music, the scenes in Hector's classroom, and most of all the educational nostalgia. Sure, I used to make myself sick over exams and had a persistent mild bully, but otherwise it was just so easy - all we needed to do well was to work hard. Everything was mapped out for us and there was just so much to learn, so many wonderful books and new experiences. I don't know that I've since matched the satisfaction of working out a complex mathematical proof (not that I was great at maths, just methodical). It was all so safe.

Time is a great one for rose-coloured glasses.

Fiendish

The really scary thing about The Devil Wears Prada?

There are people out there who empathise more with the character of Emily than with Andy.

I think I sat next to one in the cinema.

NaBloPoMo

Thanks to Eden over at Fussy, I've signed up for NaBloPoMo (well, I've emailed saying I want in). It makes more sense to me to commit to posting once every day in November than it does to attempt to write an entire novel over the same time period. Must be the perfectionist in me, but I don't want to write a novel unless it's good, and it won't be good if I write it in four weeks.

Say what?

Ah, the intelligence of our local discount retailers. Maybe they're targeting the very niche market of Mary and Joseph?

Xenophobic christmas cake

Favourite things for autumn

A.M. Homes' novels.
Green Wing - funniest television show ever! This year.*
Winter-weight duvets.
Secretly planting masses of tulip bulbs, hoping to surprise the poet, who warned that tulips are difficult to grow. **

Not so favourite:

* Against my better judgement, I have a slight crush on Guy.
** Fending off bulb-nibbling squirrels.

Cutest slightly gross photo ever

Complete with hardworking green finger.

Not remotely interested

I just realised that the poet and I do not have a single remote control in our house. We don't have a television - we watch DVDs on my pc, and the tv's usually on when we visit his family, so we don't totally escape - and our several stereos are all remote-free. I'm not sure what other appliances even have remote controls.

And just to make us seem too completely out of touch with the modern world to be real, neither of us have mobile phones either. This was a choice, we don't actually need them, and someone's got to keep BT's payphones in business. Also, I am slightly paranoid about the whole radiation-brain thing.

The no television though, that was a bone of contention when the poet first asked me to move in with him. I didn't think I could handle not having a television, even just for 'company' when I was reading or writing, and I did miss Buffy intensely for about the first year. My mother encouraged me to buy a small set and keep it hidden in a cupboard when he was around. My mother! The women who rationed my siblings' and my viewing so fiercely when we were youngsters and wouldn't let us watch The Goodies.

Since then, though, I love not having a television in the house. I love that the focal points in our living room are (a) the aquarium and (b) a well-stocked bookcase. I really enjoy reading rather than sinking in front of the set and turning my brain off. Also, and this is probably the reason for the ban in the first place - the poet is a bit of a television junkie in that his eyes glaze over and he becomes deaf if he's watching it. I like him better when he's not like that. Actually, we can thank his choice of profession for our lack of domestic television - he said that when you put down a book and start writing, you're coming from a completely different, and more useful for his kind of writing, place than if you've just switched off the box after a hard session of Eastenders or Coronation Street. Speaking of which, what is it about British soaps that they have to be so grim and dreary and everyone is so unattractive? Learn from Australia, chaps, Neighbours and Home & Away might have the same crappy storylines, but the characters are young (mostly)! And good looking (mostly)! And there are beaches! They leave you with a good feeling, whereas a dose of British soap, leaves me wondering why I ever thought I could be happy in the UK when clearly no one else is.

Besides, watching television series on DVD is far more satisfying. When everyone else was complaining that Lost was boring and frustrating because nothing ever happens, I was quite content because if you're watching one episode after another in a short space of time, LOTS of things happen.

Fall, so called

If you happen to be in North London and you see a female someone in pigtails (or not) meandering crazily but with purpose down the footpath, it's probably me. Not drunk, not stoned, not having balance issues, just indulging my love of stomping on dry brown crunchy autumn leaves. Set me free to run down the Mall to dear old Buckingham Palace on a sunny day in October and I am in heaven.

And the drunken yet purposeful look? Autumn leaves don't tend to fall in straight lines where I live.

Not falling on my head

England, I am liking you at the moment.

This new thing you're doing with the weather, where it rains hard and thunderstorms at night, and then doesn't rain during the daytime? Is kind of warm and sometimes even sunny during the daytime? In autumn?

Why haven't you thought of this before?

Missing

I've spent about four days with the poet in the last month. All but one was a work day, so that would be four brief mornings while I scrambled to get ready for work and he tried to pretend it wasn't time to get up, and three evenings (me being otherwise engaged in therapeutic matters on Thursdays). Ah, and the sleeping time - remind me not to get too used to having the bed to myself next time he goes away. All those elbows and knees in my space, dammit!

Add to these brief interludes the fact that his usual poet workaholic-busyness was at a peak due to the time away from his desk (I should mention that the poet doesn't only write poetry, he also writes articles and essays and does a lot of teaching, so a desk is necessary for some of those activities), and you get a slightly disgruntled new wife who misses her new husband. It is of course completely irrelevant that we lived together for 6 years before we got married...

His mercy dash to Italy where his mum was taken ill (she's fine now after surgery for a hernia) took him away for two weeks and a day, not that I was counting, and then a few days later he headed off to Spain for seven days, teaching on a residential creative writing workshop. To be fair, it's harder on him than on me, he's putting the finishing touches to his latest book and it all keeps getting delayed further. Poor thing, and now he's having to put up with all that sun and sangria.

I have rediscovered the wimpy, unreconstructed needy chick in me though. Seriously, two days of not hearing from him due to phones not being available at the right time, my calling just after he left for somewhere etc etc and I am verging on weepy. One little call, one dose of his voice, and things are rosy again. I am so ashamed.

Still, there have been laughs. Like the time I called his aunt's house (the poet's family's house does not have a phone as it's only occupied a couple of weeks a year) to speak with him and the only person home was his (curiously attractive) 70-odd-year-old uncle. Who does not speak English. Not one word. And while I did do a night course in Italian a while back, it didn't really take. Thank goodness 'ok' seems to be universally understood.

And I did love the way the poet answered the phone (when he knew it was me) with 'hello'. In an Italian accent.

Come home soon poet. And stay a while. I promise not to kick you too many times when I'm trying to get comfortable and you are taking up the entire bed...

Lucky

We Western types may find more than enough to gripe and moan about on our little internet soapboxes, but I'll be so bold as to venture that we're not likely to see a headline reading

Torture fear for blogger

about an American, British or Commonwealth web writer any time soon.

Unlike the poor souls in Syria.

You learn something new every day

Found outside Tesco today. I wasn't aware there was a precious metals aisle?

Evil?

The tabloid press in this country disgust me.

Yesterday's Daily Mirror headline: Living Dead: Ian Huntley looks out at the world, dazed and drugged but still with evil in his eyes.

[Ian Huntley is the killer of two little girls in the 'Soham murders', who recently made a second suicide bid in jail]

Evil in his eyes? Oh yeah? If he was evil, why would he try to kill himself - surely he'd just be sitting in his cell going Mu-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, My evil shall not be foiled by mere prison walls... He did a terrible thing, and I'm all for his incarceration for life, but I don't purport to be able to see evil in someone's eyes, particularly in a photograph. Yet the Daily Mirror does. I find it insulting that readers are meant to look at this picture, read the headline and go ooh, yeah, look how evil. And that so many of them will.

It's beyond frightening that so many people buy these papers as an actual source of news, and seem incapable of thinking for themselves. Witness: this and of course the ever-growing Islamophobia.

And where was The Sun in all of this, I hear you ask. Far more civilised, of course. Short and sweet: Better Luck Next Time.

Overheard

One London Underground employee to another:

That's what I'm trying to tell you - no two trains are the same. Not even the same train stays the same.

Big up my biscuit!

We take snacks to their limit! boasts Pimp That Snack. Take your average everyday chocolate bar or biscuit and pump up the volume. Not to mention the heart disease.

Current pimping projects include the Scone Fit for Elton John (take the ingredients for 160 normal scones..... add jam and cream), and The Mother of All [blue] Smarties, weighing in at 2kg.

Or maybe you're more of an Oreo type?

R.I.P.

It’s not often that the death of a public figure really hits me. I remember where I was when I heard about River Phoenix, and Kurt Cobain (the bathroom, both times). And of course Princess Diana (at a picnic at Brisbane's Southbank). Somehow, when it’s an Australian, it hits harder. This morning I received an email from my mother saying that Steve Irwin died today.

Steve found fame as the Crocodile Hunter, in the television series of the same name, and ran Australia Zoo on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, where the poet and I shared an enormous ‘Crikey’ sundae and patted wallabies three years ago

I thought he was great, not afraid to be a bit of a dag (caring more about what he did than how he looked), passionate about the animals he helped, and totally in love with his wife and kids. A really decent guy. And bloody funny on television.

And the irony of the way he died, not wrestling a crocodile or teasing a snake, but a freak accident while snorkelling - he got a bit too close to a normally docile stingray and its barb went straight into his heart. He was apparently taking a break from his own filming to get some footage for his little daughter’s show.

Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the kinds of risks he did when he had small children, and maybe he has toned it down since he became a father. That’s his and his wife’s business. He could have retired from the hands-on conservation work and died in a car accident.

Someone else from Brisbane said it all: It's very sad and we are very upset. Australia just lost a bloody good bloke.

Kids these days

I forgot to mention that one of my nephews also has a webpage.

In case you were wondering, it’s the five year old.

Visual evidence

The poet took my adaptor for my (Australian) battery recharger to use with his electric razor in Italy. The power in my digital camera is running scarily low, but I’ve managed to eke out a few more pictures.

(the apples in our garden are almost ready)

(and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas)

Bad birdie!

Autumn is edging ever closer here in the UK, and the chill in the air will no doubt remind the media to start panicking us again about avian influenza.

The autumn migration period, during which wild birds move from their northerly breeding grounds to wintering sites, will soon begin and migratory birds are expected in mainland Europe any time now. Experts advise that during the autumn migration period there will be a greater likelihood of avian influenza (H5N1) in wild birds in Europe.

The international alert level for pandemic influenza, advised by the World Health Organisation, remains at alert level 3: human infections with a new sub-type but no new human-to-human spread, or at most rare instances of spread to a close contact, but anyone want to place bets as to the first ‘It’s on its way, prepare to die’ tabloid headline?

London would have to be the worst place to be if a pandemic hits the UK. We’re crammed together on tubes, buses and trains, too many people somehow think it’s ok to spit in the streets, sneeze and cough without attempting to cover their nose/mouth and, my personal favourite, sneeze into their hand (1/2 a point for effort) and then grab the pole they were holding on to with their snotty infectious hand.

We are doomed.

Blogradio

Listening to James Whale on TalkSport last night – rather a bizarre choice of radio station for the poet and I to have as our default nighttime listening I always think, given our lack of interest (mostly) in sport, but we do love the Whale. His show often has interesting topics, and amusing callers – I was struck by the thought that radio talk shows and blogs have a lot in common.

Both tend to have a mix of current events mixed with the opinion of the presenter/blogger, which can make for controversial listening/reading. Radio shows and blogs both tend to attract more attention the more controversial they are. Both give a mouthpiece to the presenter/blogger, with a relatively unlimited audience – although radio probably has the edge in terms of the number of shows/blogs with a large audience, given the thousands of blogs that exist, and blogs have the potential to reach far more people (live) than a radio broadcast (as opposed to listening to the radio via the web).

Radio shows have callers, blogs have comments. Hosts can hang up on or ban callers, bloggers can delete comments and ban commenters. Some people become serial callers, some commenters comment on every blog post (well, I’m hoping….) Radio hosts have a 5 second delay before anything goes to air, bloggers can delay hitting the publish button as long as they like.

Have I missed anything?

So, welcome to MarriedtoaPoet, the radio show. Do call in, but it might take me a minute to get to the microphone as I'll be in bed listening to James Whale. I think it's aliens tonight. Hope Phil the trucker calls in.

Post of the day

The other day, while breastfeeding, I made a decision not to pluck the long hairs growing from my nipples because I liked the way they curled around my baby’s nose and made him look like Salvador Dali.

(from L'eggs Up And Laughing)

Do I blog pretty yet?

This arrived today and I read most of it on the train this morning. Here’s hoping some of the Mighty Girl magic rubs off. For your sake.

Hey

You. Yes, you. You with the mud-and-sand-coloured striped jumper. Standing there oblivious. You who are in the way of the people getting off the tube, and the people trying to get on the tube, and the people walking down the platform. In the way of me. You the unperturbed man-island that the commuter waves are flowing around, jostling each other and squeezing past you, how can you be so unaware and so in the way?

It’s kind of impressive, actually.

GP update

So anyway, thanks to a bit of googling, I found out that my GP was ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF MANSLAUGHTER! In January!

Police began a manslaughter investigation after ambulance staff complained that a doctor had not attempted to resuscitate a pensioner...

Edit: She's still allowed to practice, but she's already been replaced at the surgery. There are some conditions on her working as a doctor until July 2007, but nothing major.

I didn't realise that CPR skills are recommended for but not required by UK doctors in general practice. It would be interesting to know how many GPs have the skills. We might actually be 'safer' having our heart attacks on the street rather than in a doctor's surgery (while acknowledging that it's not as easy to save someone through CPR as it looks on TV).

Neenah

There are two people who call me Auntie. One is five years old, the other is twenty-two and my nephew by virtue of marriage to my poet.

When my nephew H was born in Australia in 2001, I was overwhelmed by the strangest feeling – suddenly there was someone in this world who I hadn’t met yet, didn’t know, and yet I loved him, intensely.

Meeting him, when he was almost two, was wonderful but meeting him the second time, Christmas 2003, when he remembered me and led me out of the airport chattering away, was very special. He’d bought me a present, a Christmas tree ornament that matched one he’d bought for his own tree, apparently in the shop he was very insistent that his parents buy two, one for me and one for him. That year he could talk a little bit, and he had a special word he only used with me – neenah. He would come up to me (or climb up on me) and look right in my face, ‘Anne, neenah. Neenah.’ When we asked him what ‘neenah’ meant, he wouldn’t answer, until right at the end of my visit, literally at the airport, when I asked him again. ‘H, what does neenah mean?’ ‘Mmmm…….happy’, came the reply. I think he also bit me on the shoulder, but that was later. And I was leaving, so it was justified assault.

The postage I’ve spent on that child – letters and parcels and kids’ magazines and postcards so he doesn’t forget he has an auntie who lives pretty far away but loves him a lot – could probably sort out my overdraft, but that’s another post.

Last year my mother asked him if he remembered ‘neenah’ and he looked blank. When I was there, again for Christmas, I said ‘neenah’ to him one day, to see if there was a reaction. ‘Neenah’, he repeated, a huge grin lighting up his face.

You could say we have a bond.

Postscript: I have a new Australian niece or nephew due in November, and I won’t meet him/her until next year (hopefully once the squally red newborn stage is over). I’m looking forward to being an aunt again.

Kiddie torture, or art?

Photographer Jill Greenberg is in the news for her latest exhibition, End Times, which illustrates her political views by showing distraught naked children.

The children I photographed were not harmed in any way. And, as a mother, I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can cry. Storms of grief sweep across their features without warning; a joyful smile can dissolve into a grimace of despair. The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation. The most dangerous fundamentalists aren’t just waging war in Iraq; they’re attacking evolution, blocking medical research and ignoring the environment. It’s as if they believe the apocalyptic End Time is near, therefore protecting the earth and future of our children is futile. As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of what is to come.

To get the images she says she had the children's mothers give them a lollipop, then the mother took it away and Jill snapped their reaction. A bit cruel, maybe, but how long does it take to take a photograph, and how quickly did those kids forget once the lollipop was back in their grubby little paws. Then again, I don't know if I could volunteer my hypothetical child to take part in such a shoot. And maybe if I had a child, my reaction to this would be completely different. But comparing it to child abuse, as some misguided souls have done, is ridiculous, and offensive to those who have survived real child abuse.

If you want a rather different take on the photos, check out Thomas Hawk's blog. And here you can see the minor internet furore discussion of Jill's tactics has engendered.

In other news, it's the last night of a four-day weekend and the prospect of work is not looking too good just now. However, with the poet still away (8 days and counting) looking after his mother who was taken ill on holiday in Italy, it's probably just as well I have something constructive with which to occupy myself. I'm very independent, but come on, we just got married!

The sweetest pea

I'm still blown away by the fact that I put some little brown balls in the ground, watered them a bit, and this is what happened.

I like it when people collapse - it gives me something to draw

I'm really not sure whether this woman is for real or not. I'm hoping for not.

An interview in the Guardian quoted her:

'When there's a murder or something terrible happens it just makes my day. I have a cosseted lifestyle outside my job... so to be connected to the underbelly makes me feel more grounded and whole.'

She's got real power too, when she doesn't like the person she's drawing she 'add[s] a stronger line or a brighter colour or put[s] a slash of red in the background.' That'll show 'em!

Fruited

Although it's definitely feeling like autumn, the garden is not ready to give up its bounty just yet.

Meat spirits

I've never eaten a great deal of meat, and as a teenager I actively disliked steak, but you certainly couldn't call me a vegetarian. This, however, this is pretty convincing:

'those fierce, revengeful spirits that proceed from the Creature, when the painful agonies of death are upon it... fail not to accompany the flesh, and especially the blood, and have their internal operation, and have their impression on those that eat it'. (Thomas Tryon)

Gives a whole new spin to black pudding...

Turns out

that it pays to chat with phlebotomists while they're drawing your blood.

I've had issues with my GP surgery since moving in with the poet. If you want to see an NHS GP (i.e. not pay) you are restricted to a number of surgeries near where you live. I dream of the days in Brisbane when I could register with a GP close to my place of work. Now I have to practically take half a day off work for an appointment, when you factor in the waiting times. British GPs are supposed to allow 10 minutes per patient - apparently the average appointment is only 7 minutes. Not ideal. But I realise that the NHS has to cater for a huge, and growing, population.

The receptionists were often rude and impatient, although they have someone new there now who seems ok. My actual GP is nice enough but has several times given me conficting advice (you should just stay on your antidepressants always vs you shouldn't stay on them too long, and the particularly helpful, time-honoured advice to someone who was depressed, and had severe endometriosis and might encounter problems conceiving - 'you should have a baby.' Uh. Thanks.

Plus she was quite slow and difficult to understand because she turned away from you when she spoke which did no favours to her fairly soft voice and 'Indian' accent. I didn't have a lot of faith in her ability to look after my medical care. The poet could not believe how dopey she was the time he accompanied me for an appointment. I had to basically tell her what blood test to do to find out why I was so tired all the time - my haemoglobin levels were normal but my serum ferritin was low. She did refer me quickly when there was actually something serious wrong though.

I considered changing surgeries several times, but was always put off by that fact that that surgeries I heard good things about were not taking on new patients, and the fear that I might change surgeries, only to find I had a GP who was just as useless, but not nice as well. At least she was pleasant, and I am an informed enough patient to be able to do my own research and ask for the right tests etc.

Anyway, turns out, according to the phlebotomist, that she is no longer at the surgery (last time I had an appointment I asked for the other doctor as I couldn't be bothered dealing with her) due to a 'spot of bother' of which he was not in a position to reveal details. And she won't be coming back.

I shall be writing to the local primary care trust (her employer) post haste, because I really want to know what happened.

Garden produce

So the photos of the luscious gleaming blackberries and faintly golden (and delicately perfumed, but you wouldn't have been able to tell that from the photo) plums have mysteriously disappeared from the memory stick in my camera (I suspect Tesco), but I can tell you: they were there and they were good.

Carrying that young plum tree all the way home from Crews Hill three years ago may have temporarily done for the poet's back, but what an awesome decision.

Moley

I recently had a mole removed from my side. The doctor thought it was fine, but what does a Bangladeshi-English doctor know about skin cancer compared to an Australian whose parents have had more skin cancers burnt off than he has had bad curries? (ok, facetious outburst over). When I reiterated my concern over the uneven colour, the irregular shape, the fact that it has CHANGED COLOUR over the last year and other silly potential danger-indicating factors, he said he could remove it but there would be a scar. Fair enough, I don’t expect someone to cut a piece out of me without leaving a mark.

The poet, however, was not pleased. A scar?!! he exclaimed. No! We shall send you to the finest surgeon and pay many thousands of pounds for the finest scar-free removal. When he calmed down and saw sense, he accompanied me for the minor operation which just happened to be on the hottest London day for 10 years. Love my timing. Oh, and Dr K? Thank you for the trendy blue stitches but a clean, hair-free pillowcase on your ‘operating table’ pillow and a less grungy looking towel would be very cool. Especially if you’re telling me I can’t have a shower for 36 hours.

Cost cutting in the NHS is really quite amusing. As we had lunch after my appointment, I lifted my shirt to show the poet’s niece what I assumed was my relatively impressive bandage. How embarrassed was I later that night to see that the nurse had put a flimsy little plaster (bandaid) over the site!

5 weeks on, my doctor still hasn’t received the histology results, so I’m unable to either jump up and down in my rightness and say ‘Ha, told you it was cancer’ or quietly accept that I had a perfectly good chunk of flesh removed for no reason.

Pills

Currently a daily intake of:

1 x contraceptive pill – useful but grudgingly taken as prescribed for endometriosis
¼ of a popular antidepressant tablet– and the weaning-off period is going very nicely, thank you for asking
1 x multivitamin
2 x 1000mg evening primrose oil – again with the endometriosis
2 x 1000mg fish oil - brain food
4 x garlic tablets – garlic is GOOD
1 x co-enzyme Q10 – supposed to help with metabolism and tiredness
1 x peppermint oil capsule – you don’t want to know but again I blame the endo

When I remember and can afford to buy them, I also take milk thistle (for my antidepressant-battered liver). And sometimes valerian/lemon balm tablets at night if sleep is elusive.

Then there’s the 3-monthly B12 injection for my mysterious B12 deficiency, diagnosed last year flummoxing the haematologist when tests (go the radioactive B12 and collecting all my urine for 24 hours test!) refused to reveal any reason. I have a sneaking suspicion this is related to my intestines and endometriosis but, as the NHS have usefully given up at the first hurdle, will need to pursue this privately when I have the funds.

The poet used to be bewildered by the number of pills I take. Refreshingly, he now takes far more pills daily than I ever have: a daily regimen of more vitamins, antioxidants and herbal ‘things’ than you could imagine, courtesy of an anti-cancer, metabolic-boosting regimen he’s been on since some dodgy blood tests.

We have a lot of small bottles in our house.

Of tubes and elbows and flying pelvises (pelvii?)

Long before I met the poet, I’d been inducted into the unwritten code of travelling on the London Underground (the tube). You only make eye contact if there’s a weirdo/beggar/amusing or abusive drunk person in or moving through the carriage and you’re joining in the general carriage reaction. You don’t eat anything that’s going to stink up the carriage. You don’t bring your two giant, shedding dogs on the underground at peak hour. You don’t, unlike the man on my very first tube journey, sprawl across two seats drinking your 2 litre bottle of cider and allow your dog to lie across three more.

But most importantly, you don’t use another person’s portion of the armrest i.e. you use only the half of the armrest that is on your side. You get half an arm rest on the left and half an arm rest on the right, making one arm rest in total. Couldn’t be fairer? In reality, using just half an armrest is impossible, because the arm rests are so narrow that to comfortably rest any part of your arm on them means impinging on the seat next to you. And touching the person in that seat. London people don’t like to touch or be touched – and in summer, with the sweating and the stench and the sticky flesh, I do not blame them. And when you have a rather large person (tall, wide, whatever) sitting next to you, just the mere fact of their occupying the seat means that their elbows are in your space, however polite they are. It’s a complicated dance. Unless you have managed to nab a seat at the end of the row - this means you can lean against the ‘wall’ and spread out infinitesimally without needing an armrest at all. It’s the little things…

And then there are the ‘official’ rules, the ones on billboards and broadcast on board. Don’t put your feet on the seats? Let the passengers off first before attempting to board the train? Move right down inside the carriages? And that old Tshirt staple – Mind the gap!

But where’s the rule about keeping your legs closed? What is with those men who need to sit with their legs spread wide apart as though their pelvises are about to take flight? No, I do not need a full frontal view of your crotch, nor do I want my legs pinned to the seat by your knee.

And the ipods! I’m thinking of printing some natty little cards to hand out to the volume-challenged.