Of Sausages and Swoonery August 18, 2010
Posted by Jen in : General Shame, Journal , 22 commentsSon 1 is, this morning, sporting a black eye. He also keeps lurching about more than usual, talking manically about sausages. I am envious. I wish I was a little bit delirious. Perhaps I should take up rugby and get my block knocked off ? Sounds a bit drastic though. Besides, I am already tough. I have a new status: Bad Ass ASBO Mum. Oh yeah, check me out.
‘Oh good Lord, you’re nothing but a common criminal,’ announced No. 1, brandishing A Letter from the Rozzers.
He’s sadly quite correct. I was caught, fair and square, speeding through life. I know. In my defense, your honour, I was not being very boy racery at all. I did not have my gangsta rap booming; none of my teeth were gold; my trousers were pulled up firmly over my pants. I was, in fact, pootling along at 39mph. On my way to the Northiam Conservation Society garden party, where I was to play a selection of English chamber music with The Orchestra of the Undead. How middle class a criminal am I? And – and! – not only do I have to go on a speed awareness course, I have to take the course in Maidstone where they’re all proper ‘ard. I am a little bit scared.
Apart from all this, I have been very quiet. I’ve been giving myself a break. I’ve walked instead of run; read instead of beating myself up about not writing; cooked instead of considering carb content. I’ve – ahem – been flown to the Isle of Wight for a lobster lunch high on a sun-soaked clifftop; been whisked away to a romantic hideaway deep in the New Forest where real life ceased to exist for days. I have, I confess, fallen in love. I know. This was even more unlikely than my becoming a hardened villain. But despite my best resistance tactics, I have been hopelessly swoonified. Oddly, though the princessy treats were dreamy, it was a field of lavender wot dunnit. Who knew plants could be so persuasive?
I’ve loved being removed from reality these past few months but now I’m ready to get back in the groove. I feel less manic but more determined. I want to make The Man proud of me. How sappy is that? Sappy, swirly and feeling sick. Ooh ‘eck. It’s good when a man makes you feel sick, yes? Oh dear. Whatever next? Oh yes… a sausage sarnie. Since I’m now so easily swayed. *Sigh* Have I made you feel nauseous too? Soz. (I’m not really. Double soz.)
Of Dodgy Domino Effects July 7, 2010
Posted by Jen in : Allergic to Children, General Shame , 23 commentsSon 1’s new scootery motorbike was delivered last week. ‘Ooooh,’ he cooed manfully down the phone, ‘now that it’s here I hardly know what to do with it. I’m just going to look at it for a bit.’
Half an hour later, he phoned again to let me know he was going out on his maiden voyage. Ten minutes after that, he phoned again.
‘Yeah, it’s me again. Er… I was just wondering if you could get some plasters? And maybe some bandages? Quite a lot of bandages, yeah?’
The bike has, for the last week, been parked in the garden. Its rear view mirror thingy is all deformed. The indicator lies shattered on the ground. Its body is gouged and split in despair. I know just how it feels.
Lurching about bad-temperedly in the cupboard under the stairs looking for my first aid box, I hit my face on an upturned chair leg. I have a hint of black eye – not enough to make me look proper tough though. The other eye, after an immensely dusty, dirty day at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed on Saturday is splendidly swollen and bloodshot as if I’m sporting a removable eyeball following a rock bit of grit vs. contact lens incident. Also, in my bid to get thin, I have stepped up the running and am now hobbling about like an old crone. I swear to God, I burn more calories wrestling myself into my sports bra than I do *actually* running. Nevertheless, I hurt everywhere but my hair.
To top things off, as I groped blindly about the house with my falling-out eyes, I happened upon a beautiful piece of modern art.
‘OI!!’ I bellowed in a ladylike fashion befitting a bird with black eyes. ‘What’s happened to my specs?’
‘Ah. Yes. Um… I’m afraid they’ve accidentally been baked in the oven,’ explained Son 2.
Plastic framed specs should not be cooked at 200 degrees for 20 mins. At least I wasn’t wearing them at the time, I s’pose.
Do excuse me. I’m off to bandage myself up from top to toe like the invisible man. I shall smoke a pipe so that people know it’s me. Hmmm. Actually, perhaps sticking plasters over my mouth would help in the dieting department. Why did I agree to go on a beach holiday with a beautiful, blue-eyed body-building beach bum? WHY?
I’d shake my head in woeful despair but suspect another bit of me may drop off. I shall simply sigh instead whilst embracing my inner spaz. Clumsy? Useless? Me? Hell yeah. You betcha.
Of Defiant but Definite Deadlines October 28, 2009
Posted by Jen in : A210, General Shame , 19 commentsI can see into the future. Did you know that? I foresee that Friday will find my back aching, mainly after the exertions of limbo-ing manically under Thursday’s deadline for my first A210 essay. The thing I love about deadlines is the focus they generate. Focus, mainly, on doing anything other than the job in hand. I’ve taken the day off today. The plan of action? That I spend last night ploughing through the rest of Pride and Prejudice before devoting today to writing a fascinating essay about narrative voice & dialogue. This will be completed before I whizz in circles like WonderWoman, emerging with style and polish before heading off, with a sense of accomplishment, to be entertained by Simon Amstell.
In reality? I was accosted, as I frequently am, by a dose of the Rampant Randoms. I ended up discussing furniture with a friend, decorating long distance before being treated, by phone, to a live double bass and voice rendition of Fly Me to the Moon. I then fell asleep with Jane Austen in my lap and forgot to make the bread. So far, so bad. But sofa, so good for recipient of furniture-buying advice. This morning, I’ve done two loads of washing, swigged plentiful tea, made bread and contemplated, if one professes to live in a higgledy piggledy teeny tiny cottage, as I do, just how much higgle and piggle can be crammed in at any one time. The answer, after some nifty quadratic formula and a little rubbing of my academic beard brought forward the response: quite a bit really.
You may deduce from this, dear reader, that I shall be having a little cry quite soon. So I’m going to get on with it. Once I’ve worked out how long it would take to ride to Brighton on the back of a tortoise, in the rain, whilst wearing a bowler hat. Procrastination? Me?? Get away with you. I’m not even blogging. See?
Of Creative Claptrap September 22, 2009
Posted by Jen in : General Shame, Journal, Novel , 26 commentsCrumbs, I’ve been ever so busy lately. Busy sleeping; busy becoming friends with new people; busy not writing short stories. I have, however, started writing my second novel. I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t. But there you go, I’m fickle like that. You wouldn’t think anyone in their right mind would leap out of bed with a novel title and whole new genre based on a random, early-morning text about porridge, would you? I scribbled down the first few hundred words which somehow completely grabbed the essence, the feel, of how it might be. ‘Breakfast Under the Bodhi Tree’ will be on the shelves under… um… philosophical comedy. Nope, it’s not a genre. Not yet. But you get the idea. Of course, after the first morning’s wheeeeeeeeeee I kind of ground to a halt and put the whole thing down to a hangover. But no. It bubbled away, fermenting. And those always turn out to be the best ideas, don’t they, the ones that won’t go away. Unlike my usual dive-right-in tactic I assume for everything in life, I’m actually plotting, making notes; ploughing through Plot & Structure which is the best book I’ve found so far on such things. It’s rather exciting, having fun with possibilities and character sketches before the actual writing begins. I wish I’d done this with the first novel.
I must confess, this philosophical flim-flammery is not quite a direct result of the Mindful Living/Creative Writing course I signed up to. The class is… um… different. There are only 6 of us and the teacher man is very calm, very quiet. Sometimes he’s quite funny, even though he is An American. The writing exercises we do are basically freewriting – taking the prompt and scribbling mindlessly mindfully for 15 mins with whatever comes. No right or wrong. Just going with the flow (man). Easy, yes? Oh, yes, very easy until it transpires that you have to read the piffle out loud to the others. With your mouth. *Sigh*
Sitting around the pushed-together tables, we went painfully round the circle. I listened to the others’ words, in which we had to introduce ourselves in a way we wouldn’t usually. They were all quite normal. Needless to say, I had to go last. All the better to make a mockery of myself. The lady before me explained how she had battled and conquered cancer with homeopathy rather than chemo so that she could conceive a child. Cue all eyes to the super-cute kid in the corner, playing angelically. And me?
‘I am not a lion-tamer,’ I announced, trying to make this sound like a revelation. Spiritual. Trying to think that I should make something up instead of reading the utter tripe that included the tragic ‘I am photographer of weeds and commenter on bendy biscuits’ not to mention the cringeworthy ‘I am the invisible sea spray that leaves a taste on your lips’… Oh, God, the utter, utter shame. I didn’t go to the second class. I pretended I’d been eaten whole by the untamed lion.
