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Thoroughly Modern Manners October 16, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff, Writing Bits , 3 comments

As I walked along Broad Street towards the dental surgery, I felt more nervous than I had on my first day there three months ago. Today, though, I wasn’t wearing my stiff blue nurse’s outfit that conveyed my identity all week. Today was the scariest day so far: the Christmas party. I’d been fretting for weeks about what to wear and, as I caught sight of my reflection in a vast shop window, I still wasn’t sure I’d got it right. I felt like a sixteen-year-old impostor on the set of Dallas. I looked ridiculous all dressed up on a rainy Saturday lunchtime, despite having spent almost a whole month’s wages on a cream fitted jacket with silver buttons and a long beige skirt. Was I wearing too much make-up? Were my shoulder pads too big? Did I look common? My mother didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in me.

‘Mind your Ps and Qs,’ she’d said as she dropped me into town. God, how old did she think I was? What did ‘Ps and Qs’ even mean anyway?

Appearing common was my biggest fear. I was also nauseatingly worried about going to the restaurant – I had no idea what would be on the menu, whether there would be rows and rows of cutlery to choose from and even whether anyone would talk to me. I had nothing interesting to say to any of them, how could I? I opened the door and walked, jelly-legged, up the three narrow flights of stairs, aware of the cloying smell of cleanness and mouthwash that hung in the air and seemed to become a part of me more and more every day.

I could hear chatter and laughter as I opened the door. I was the last to arrive.

‘Jennifer, there you are! Come and have a glass of champagne - we’re just getting warmed up,’ brayed Anne Forbes. She had the poshest voice of anyone I’d ever met in real life, like Penelope Keith in To the Manor Born but less like warmed honey gliding off a silver spoon. Anne was the hygienist and married to one of the two dentists in the practice. Her husband Tony was quiet, mumbling in his indecipherable South African accent and smiling that smug ‘look, they’re all my own’ kind of way that dentists always seem to have.

I took the glass of champagne. I probably shouldn’t have, I was only 16 after all, but I thought it would have sounded immature to ask for a glass of water instead. The slender stemmed glass in my hand made me feel even more awkward. Sip or swig? I sneaked a look at Kelly, the other dental nurse, and copied her healthy mouthful. I felt it fizzling down towards my tummy. The second gulp strangely found its way to my cheeks, making me warm and rosy-cheeked. I couldn’t remember the consumption of illicit cider during a school trip in August making me feel so tingly. I felt a different person as I drank champagne with all those grown ups.

The slow taxi ride through the narrow lanes to the Bistro Frère didn’t last nearly long enough. I had no idea what to expect but knew from listening to the conversations of our rich patients that ‘the Frère’ was something special. (more…)

Done (in) October 8, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff, Bits and Pieces, Journal , 3 comments

Well, the ECA was finally submitted at 7.30am on Friday morning before I stumbled off to work after 3 hours sleep. Not until now have I begun to consider the potential folly of submitting a short story about hippies, witchcraft and a potential lesbian vicar. Oh ‘eck.
The children whooped for joy when I finally finished. I think they were waiting for their breakfast.

I suggested that we celebrate in some way after school to mark the joyous event.

“How about some proper nutritious food for a change?” smirked Number One Son. Smartarse.

So… now it’s all over. I can do all the things that have been put on hold for so long. Well, I could do them - if I could remember what they were! So far, I have only come up with the following alluring plans:

Not a great start is it? Needless to say, my brain refuses to stop whirring and I am, at this very moment, still in bed… not relaxing at all but surrounded by books, magazines, notepads, pens, highlighters and The Writers and Artists Yearbook, scribbling ideas about new ideas, stories, markets for my short stories and wondering what I’ll wear on Parky when my (as yet unfinished) novel tops the bestseller list. Well… the washing/ironing/tidying up hasn’t mattered for the last nine months. Seems a shame to start now.

As Quentin Crisp said in The Naked Civil Servant: “After the first four years, the dirt doesn’t get any worse.” Sounds good to me.

The ECA approacheth October 1, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff, Journal, Writing Bits , 1 comment so far

With the A215 final deadline looming, lovely bf and me decided last night that we would have a concerted ’study day’ today. So far, bearing in mind it is now 1.45, we have had a lie-in, talked about writing, spent a considerable amount of time looking for aforementioned lovely bf’s ’special writing hat’, drunk some vodka, discovered a website which mentions a pet radish named after Cliff Richard and perfected the incredibly wonderful but little-known ‘funky chicken dance’ in preparation for the recommencement next Saturday of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.

The vodka has now all been swigged mysteriously run out and lovely bf is scavenging through the emergency miniatures on the pantry floor in search of inspiration. You will be relieved to know, interested reader, that he has not yet resorted to the Grand Marnier method of creative impulse, despite my helpful advice that it would taste ‘just like an alcoholic Jaffa Cake’.

Give it time…

Madness/Hope September 12, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff, Haiku, Journal, Writing Bits , 1 comment so far

Up early to write
eyes heavier than the dark
Story by sunrise?

Silly Cow August 27, 2006

Posted by Spiralskies in : A215 stuff, Bits and Pieces , add a comment

There once lived a cow in the zoo

Who didn’t know how to moo

She thought it a lark

To whistle or bark

Or hum a nice tune in the loo!

Can’t believe I actually submitted this as part of a TMA!

They fuck you up, your mum and dad August 24, 2006

Posted by Spiralskies in : A215 stuff, Journal, Writing Bits , add a comment

On the stage, standing still and looking straight ahead as we’d been told, we were ready to sing our first song, ‘Doing the Lambeth Walk’. In the hall of the small parish primary school, the parents were crammed in, sitting uncomfortably in tiny plastic chairs. They were all dressed up for the occasion, overcoats folded on their laps, proud dads giving a last-minute thumbs-up for luck while the mums chattered, their voices mingling. It was hot. All the different perfumes made the hall smell different to how it usually did. We were doing an Old Tyme Music Hall. Dressed as a Pearly Queen, covered in sequins with my lips and cheeks smeared with red Rimmel lipstick, I felt really excited. Not only was I playing a solo verse on the glockenspiel in ‘Little Donkey’ at the end but I had the lead role in ‘Albert and the Lion’. I was the smallest in the class, perfect to hide behind the lion after he’d ‘swallered the little lad ‘ole!’ We had a new boy in the school from Lancashire who could read the poem in the proper accent. I was so excited, even though I had to wear a horrible flat cap that made my head itchy.

The lights were switched off and we launched into the first song. I couldn’t concentrate. I was still glancing as often as possible at the door at the end of the hall, opposite the huge artificial Christmas tree. The red lights gave just enough light to see that neither of my parents had come. (more…)

Plodding On July 15, 2006

Posted by Spiralskies in : A215 stuff, Bits and Pieces, Writing Bits , add a comment

countryside

gradually more hilly

obstinately uncraggy

A gentle descent

into Warm Springs

It sounded like such a nice place

to pass away

Homemade Happiness July 7, 2006

Posted by Jen in : A215 stuff , add a comment

Hard-wearing but colourful

skin stretched over slender frame 

Long string tangled

it flies ever higher 

Soaring, wheeling, diving

Inevitably a crash.

Dirty and broken 

Something so easy, so free

will always depend on the weather.