I'm back baby!

While I am not one hundred percent and my walking can be likened to that of an old fart or a snail or possibly an old snail, I am feeling okay after my operation. Unfortunately, it was more serious than your average appendectomy; my appendix being the size of a foot when it should have been the size of a finger. Add that to the removal of a small part of my bowel and you've got some idea of the scar now trawling its way down from my navel. Not that you needed to know that. Jeez. I really should stop with all the sharing.

My stay in hospital was an eventful one. You would think that the Gods of Fate or whomever ordains our paths in life would have allowed me a quiet convalescence. Oh no. First, there's Evil Nurse. She's the one who doesn't really want to be there. Who sneers at the sound of help-alarms and tells everyone you've been nothing but hassle when really, you've been off your face on meds and not made a sound. Evil Nurse woke me on the first night of recovery by slapping my face. Just to make sure I was alive. The care provided in hospitals is first rate.

Then came Frances. The 69 year old lady in the bed opposite. She liked to talk. A lot. Particularly at 4am when the morphine was crawling through my veins, hypnotic and sleep inducing. Frances was erratic and confused, pulling out IVs and jumping from her bed. I once awoke to find her asking me if I was part of the conspiracy occurring in the ward. My 'yawn' had qualified me to join the 'scheme.'

This all really happened. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

But now normality has returned. I'm back. Kind of. In a half-hearted sort of way. I can't really laugh 'cos it hurts. Sneezing is out too. Plus any kind of bending down and spinning round. Man. This op has really taken all the fun out of life. Whatever will I do now?

The end of an Era

It has come to an end. My relationship with....my appendix. Yes, sadly it is true. For 21 years we had no problems. We co-existed in harmony. I knew he was there, he knew I was here. I thought we'd be together forever. Until...

2005. He decided to be a bastard. I was studying at University, in the midst of deadlines and research when he decided to let himself be known. It started off as an annoying niggle. I brushed him off. He persisted. Before I knew it, he stabbed me constantly in the side. Oh the pain. The pain!

The Doc said he was rumbling, grumbling; that was all. Nothing to worry about. And so I got on with my life. I ignored the annoying niggle, the inconsistent stabs of pain. I turned a blind eye to his pleas for attention. No, I said. No! Leave me alone. Can't we go back to the way we used to be?

Sadly, we could not. And so this afternoon, we will end it. My appendix is being removed. This is why I will not be posting for a while. I need time to come to terms with my loss.

Fear not reader, I will return. Until then my lovelies. Until then...

The Ironic Bandwagon

My dad does it. Every night he reads the paper before stacking it with the rest of the week’s crumpled, old news. He also does this with cardboard. Empty Weetabix, Frosties and PG tips boxes are cut up in a prolonged, time-consuming fashion to be taken on their weekly trip to recycling.

So what is the meaning behind this environmental endeavour? I know my dad didn’t do this for the good of his health, or mine for that matter. It’s possible that we love our planet dearly and want to ensure future generations survival. More cynically, it’s because we’ve jumped on the eco-bandwagon as it catapults our society into an overwhelming sense of eco-panic.

Okay, so my dad may have been first on said bandwagon, but he’s definitely not the last. According to governmental statistics, as a nation, we are getting better at it too. Earlier this month it was reported that recycling rates have increased by 30% in the last year. This comes as no surprise. The idea of ‘green living’ and all that sits under the environmental belt has become one of huge importance over the last few years. Thus changing the odd habit into more eco-friendly ones is never far from our minds. In fact it’s everywhere.

Supermarkets stock ecological or ‘green’ merchandise, ranging from cleaning products to reusable bags for life. Websites pop up on Google searches reminding us to switch off our lights, turn off our TVs and insulate our homes. Adverts by retail giants encourage us to go for electrical products with the Energy Saving Recommended Logo. On TV, politicians claim to be environmental activists. Even the Academy Awards are in on it; the documentary film 'An Inconvenient truth' won an Oscar three years ago for the discussion of its global warming issues.

Even so, behind the ‘save the earth’ campaign, lurks an extreme rampant hypocrisy. Articles do their best to argue for eco issues, exerting their environmental prowess in the form of perplexing words such as ‘CO2 emissions’ and ‘carbon footprint.’ Next to said article is an expensive advert for a well-known airline which, ironically enough, emits the same amount of CO2 as a small country.

Similarly, the United Nations Climate Change Conference is to be held in Denmark for 10 days this December. The aim is to discuss the Kyoto Protocol; a ten year treaty hoping to reduce the harmful greenhouse gases which cause climate change. The annual meeting, however, attracts around 20,000 politicians and environmentalists, as well as the odd celebrity. The environmental cost of transport for all these people? Oh, only a few hundred thousand tonnes of CO2 emissions.

In addition, leaflets on voting for Green Parties are printed, posted and thrown away without so much as a glance or regret for the amount of trees wasted. Trees that could help decrease these harmful greenhouse gases, as well as moderating ground temperatures. Implicated supermarkets may very well produce green products, ban plastic bags and promote their trusty bags for life, but the revenue made on such commodities are pumped back into their already successful multi-billion pound businesses.

Sadly, nothing will change. My dad will carry on with his painstaking recycling methods. I will continue to re-use my bag for life until my baked beans fall out of the hole in the bottom. Eco-warriors will continue to camp in trees, remaining unwashed. But together, while the supposed ‘environmental’ consumerists reap the monetary rewards, we will leave the irony (and mess) of it all for the next generation.

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies

Sigmund Freud thought childhood was a time fraught with oedipal complexities; lots of penis envy and castration anxiety. This coming from a man who believed cocaine wasn't addictive. Hmm...

No offence to Freud but childhood isn't that complex. Sure it's a difficult period of psychological and biological development, as well as a variety of challenges. But does anyone else remember it being fun?

It's the only time in your life when naivety and ignorance is accepted. When innocence isn't something to be ashamed of and responsibility is an enigmatic word only spoken by big people. It's also a time when the word 'enigmatic' evokes a puzzled frown.

Looking back there was something so comfortable about being a child. Everything in the world, even the most mundane, was looked on in wonder. Curiosity ran through the blood. Climbing a hill felt like climbing a mountain. Swimming ten metres felt like ten miles and the discovery of a worm wiggling in the mud was the most amazing find ever.

What happened to that fresh, excited feeling? Why does growing up suddenly make us feel stale? In Western cultures, coming of age is advertised as the best time of life. Which it is, mostly. As adults we gain independence and an invitation to a whole new world. Sex, gambling, smoking, driving, voting, marriage. They seem pretty novel at first but soon that novelty wears off and we're left longing for the innocence and freedom of childhood.

I don't want to go back. Apart from missing all the novelties, I still haven't figured out that whole time-travel conundrum. However, I think we must change our adult perceptions. Occasionally we should act our shoe size. Go outside and splash in puddles, dance in the rain and play on the swings. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Investigate. Discover. Look at the world in wonder again. Maybe the staleness will fade away.

That said, I'm off to look for worms in the garden. Oh dear. Freud would have a field day with that...

Words to Live Your Life By

I am trying to write a play. I have already done this; my first attempt deemed a success. I feel, however, that was pot luck. A fluke. Last year there must have been a magical creative current flowing through the skies above my house that poured its imaginative contents into my brain.

But I stood outside last night, stared into the lifeless sky; the kind of sky that is neither grey nor white. There was no magical current flowing above me. Just grey rain from a dove grey sky.

Sadly, I am suffering with an acute case of ‘inspiration-lackus.’ All writers encounter such problems. It happens. Free-flowing words get tangled up and eventually we trip and stumble upon them. The words stop. The cursor blinks, the pen dries out and we panic. Our thoughts become clichéd and stale.

In this situation, I have to jolt myself from all the wallowing in self-pity. This is where my beloved quotations come in. I take pleasure in finding some pearls of wisdom scattered about the internet, hidden away in the many ‘Os’ of Google like lost treasure. As I am not an evil pirate who hoards her treasure, I thought I would share it with you:

‘Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.’

-Calvin Coolidge

It amazes me that words spoken over eighty years ago still have such resonance. However much we may argue against it, human work ethics have not changed in that time. We have and always will need to work hard at everything we do.

So despite my resentment at my blinking cursor and stale ideas, I must persist with my play. Without a struggle, without any effort, success has no meaning.

Wish me luck! :)

To Me, Love from Me

Hindsight is a powerful thing. Magical some might say. That is probably why we don’t have such ability. The power of it is far too great for us mortals to handle.

Last week I read the God’s letter to his sixteen year old self. By God, I mean Stephen Fry. In it he talks of the difficulties surrounding his sexuality and the repercussions it had growing up. The letter was such an inspired idea that it sparked a mass of replies from regular Joe Bloggs, like you and me; all writing their own letters to their younger selves.

I sat down yesterday intending to read a couple of these letters. There’s something quite alluring about having a window into other people’s lives. I never thought I would spend over an hour reading pages and pages, peeking into hundreds of windows. Hundreds of souls. Because that is what it felt like. I had access to years of resentment and heartache. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried that much. I felt like I was bleeding tears.

It got me thinking. What would I write to my sixteen year old self? If I were to have the power of hindsight, what would I do with it? Some people, a bit like the Old Biff in Back to the Future Part II, would tell their younger selves to bet on winning races. Make the future a little bit richer. Other people would warn themselves away from trouble, be it people or otherwise. Make the future a little bit safer. And me? Read on reader and find out:

To me,

The year is 2009. Firstly, there are no aliens here, robots or flying cars. The Fifth Element, Total Recall and all Philip K. Dick books were not predictions as we so thought. I’m sorry. It’s a big let down. There’s more future to come so fingers crossed.

Secondly, I want you to stop. Put down the book, revision card and highlighter pen and breathe. Look out the window. There’s a world out there. Life. Education is important but you’ll waste enough of your future on it for you to make such an issue of it now. So go out. Enjoy yourself a bit more. Remove that scrunchie and let your hair down. Oh and by the way, you will regret ever wearing a scrunchie. I mean Carrie Bradshaw hates them. You will find out about Carrie and Co in about a year. Oh and don’t stress too much; she does ends up with Big.

I also want you to stop worrying what other people think. You are still doing this now and we are growing weary from all the worrying. Paranoia is not healthy. If you get a bitchy look from someone, it does not mean that this person hates you or that you have done something wrong; it just means they are jealous of something or their face is naturally like that. I’m afraid there have been no developments on a bitchiness cure. Yet.

Unfortunately you will meet a few more bastards on top of the ones you feel have already ruined you. I would name names and tell you to steer clear or murder them if murder didn’t result in prison but alas, I will not. I cannot. Because Lou these people, like it or not, will make you. They will be the reason you know when someone is feeling sad, lost and alone because you have felt that way. They will be the reason you can spot/smell/sense a complete arsehole/twat/bully ten miles away; a very good safe quality to have. In spite of all the crap that will naturally happen, you are still here. And you still have your heart. You are a lot stronger than you realise. A lot.

So just remember, everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. (I know how much you love quotations). Good luck Kid.

Love from Me

PS: When you go travelling in a couple of years, watch out for the homeless man hiding in a bush on Hollywood and Highland.

xxx

Playground games

In 1994, I spent the majority of my time in the playground running away from the person trying to 'tag' me. Back then I could hide in the girls toilets or behind a tree. Here in the blogosphere I cannot. There's no tree. There's no toilets. There's just time, space and many people tagging me at once.

Alas, I'm a little slow at response. I apologise. If I haven't responded to one of the kind awards I've been bestowed it doesn't mean they're unappreciated or unacknowledged. It's just that I forget to put them here on the blog. You see, I think too much and this thinking means that other details get pushed out. I'd be a super encyclopedia if it weren't for all the thinking.

Anyways, I was tagged. A few times. You know who you are. This time I have made the effort to participate in our playground's game of tag: 7 things about me:

A) Link to your original tagger and post these rules:

The lovely Alpha Buttonpusher tagged me. You should check out her blog. She always has some very insightful, thoughtful things to say.

B) Share 7 things about yourself:

I'm going to recycle my very first post on this blog. Most of you probably haven't read it so I'm not cheating. I swear.

1) When I was little, I used to bite glass. Seriously. There are loads of glasses in my house with tiny chunks missing from them (illustrating that I was a freakish child who bit glass and that my mum keeps random crap for many, many years).

2) I have a fear of foxes. When I was about five or six, I had nightmares that foxes would climb through my bedroom window and claw at my face. Even to this day whenever we see a fox in our garden, while everyone says ‘aww how cute’ inside my head I’m thinking: ‘die evil fox, die.’

3) My favourite word is 'bollocks.' It's just so expressive. If I could use it in every sentence, I would.

4) I am one of these people who need things to look forward to or else I lose the will to live.

5) I am the most accident prone person ever. If there is something to hit, fall over, fall on, I will do it. Even if there isn’t, I’d fall over myself. Hell, I’ve even caught my foot in my own trouser leg.

6) I love New York to the point of obsession. Can one have too many black and white photographs of the same NY skyline? The ‘official’ answer is yes. My answer is no.

7) I get so angry at books and movies with sad endings. They lead you on with their happy beginnings and happy middles and then the ending appears where the lead character dies and I’m left feeling like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. If I wanted to feel that way, I’d go out and get stabbed. And don’t give me all that ‘well, real life is like that…real life is tough’ bullshit. Books and films are about escapism. I don’t read books and watch movies for reality bollocks. I leave that to Big Brother.

C) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs:

Here goes people. Watch out. You may get tagged!

Godlessmonkey

365Letters

SerendipitousFreelanceWriter

Life's Happenings

Confessions of a Bookworm

Frances Writes

Afternoon Tea Break

D) Let them know they've been tagged:

Meh. I'll get round to that later!

So there it is. I've run ragged around the blogosphere. I've had my fun. Now it's over to you my friends. TAG! You're it!

When the music stops

Silence. There is something quite melodic about silence; the lull of breath, the dull roar of blood in ears and the faint thud of hearts as they beat.

In a world where noise is like our shadow; trailing behind us, never ceasing until the sun falls and our bodies rest in a room of quiet darkness, silence is often desired, hoped for, wished upon. Everyone wants a bit of silence. Time to collect their thoughts and clear their minds.

Not me. I fill my days with noise. I love the sound of people chatting and laughing, phones ringing. And when those days are over, I fill my nights with music. Song after song, every beat, every voice, every melody makes me happy and I settle into a rhythmic ease.

Yesterday the music stopped. I was sitting in my room writing, the sound of my iPod playing happily in the background when suddenly, nothing. The noise of the house filled my room which all at once seemed too large, too hollow. Cold. But the truth was, there was no noise. The house was vacant. There was nothing but empty rooms, empty air. Silence.

And so I realised. I hate silence. Sitting there in the cold of my room, the slight hum of my computer my only company, my mind went haywire. I was alone. And with that realisation, my thoughts trailed to more depressing places; the fact that I've felt alone for a long time now and I didn't want to be. And so in my enforced rumination, I understood that my continual desire for all things loud, this thrist for music playing 24/7 was just a lie. If I filled in the silence, I drowned out my thoughts and the truth; the truth being how unhappy I was.

Of course, I am not completely unhappy. I actually feel quite at home being on my own, more so that anyone else I know. (Plus, this is what being a writer is all about; enforced alone time). But it was in that instant of stark silence, in all of its harshness, that I grasped at a minor flaw in my life and became aware of its implications. I tell you, realisation is a powerful thing.

As is silence.

Barbie is a Bigot

For the past week I have been lost in slumber. This doesn't mean I have been asleep for seven days. I'm not that lucky. I've just been kind of numb. Vague. Life seemed a bit blurry around the edges. I've been on a drug trip, without the drugs. I have no idea what bought it on. It must have been time for a funny five minutes. Or perhaps a silly seven days.

It is not often that something can anger me so much that it jolts me from my own numb little world, where life (in my head) is equal and just. But this weekend it did. I was watching the news when a barbie-doll-type creature appeared. Her dress was so sparkly I feared I might be blind as the light reflected off the silver gems and burned my eyes. She was so plastic she looked close to melting point under the harsh studio lights.

I'm talking about Miss California. This past weekend was the Miss USA pageant; a disgusting form of 'entertainment' that thrives on the idea that women are objects and beauty is paramount. I never thought of myself as a staunch feminist but catching a glimpse of the contestants in their bathing suits with their fake tans and perfect white teeth, parading their bodies like show-ponies, I have to admit that I am.

However, it wasn't the whole beauty-objectifying aspect of the Miss USA that became world news this weekend. It was gay marriage. When celebrity blogger Perez Hilton asked whether she believed in same-sex marriage, Miss California Carrie Prejean, a.k.a Barbie, replied:

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

This was the moment that jolted me from my numbness. Can you believe I actually forgot that people like her still exist? She's not the only stupid one.

And you know why Barbie is so stupid? Because she makes her own belief sound ridiculously outdated. She points out that she lives in a country with the right to choose but basically states that the right to choose is wrong. Furthermore, she bases her whole argument on the way she was raised when actually her sister is a gay rights activist. Surely her sibling was nurtured by the same parents and yet she never turned out a homophobe.

Perhaps I am being unfair. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and in a twisted way, it's refreshing that someone had the courage to voice theirs in a world rife with political correctness. But everyone should have EQUAL rights. If people can't marry because they are the same sex, we are endorsing the idea that gay people are second-class citizens. Why do so many insist in moving backwards when society has struggled with a ferocious determination to move forwards?

Consider me truly baffled. Reader, what do you think?

The Lone Voice

Now I sit on Bond Street,
incarcerated in stone,
leaning towards Roosevelt
sitting casually to my right
and I wonder;
was it worth the fight?

I think back
to 1940s Britain, where
Chamberlain had failed us
and I offered nothing
but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

As Hitler beat his iron fist
against my nations heart,
families huddled in sodden shelters
that offered themselves
like watery graves,
hidden in the depths
of the underground-
where children forced
trembling palms onto aching ears,
and mothers clutched love,
memories and hope,
wrapped in brown envelopes;
the faded string fastened
tightly around their past.

Whilst hands lost their grip
on life, in streets and homes,
darkened by black-taped
windows,
boots trailed muddy
footprints through fields,
lightened by orange flames
of bomb-wrecked planes-
where the dust of men
lingered in metal crevices
and charred remains
of their static two-way radios.

I think back
to May 8th 1945, where
a mass of relief gathered
in Whitehall, waving victory
with flags of red, white and blue.

And I wonder,
as our nations
fight once more
in this endless struggle for power,
do men still say this
was our finest hour?

There's no business like show business...

So. I saw my play. Yep, you read that right. My very own play. That I wrote and everything. You wouldn't think I could manage to write a whole play considering the way I'm writing at the moment. Short sentences. Incomprehension. But this I can put down to the shock of seeing my words performed before my very eyes!

It was a strange experience. I wasn't sure what to expect. It was my first play and its first production. I sat there as the lights dimmed above the audience and the song 'there's no business like show business' started playing. (You see what I did with the title of this post. I'm so clever.)

My heart flipped, an erratic beat in my chest. Blood roared in my ears. I swallowed down my stomach that had somehow found its way into my throat. My hands gripped the paper programme so tightly that the creases in my fingers turned white. I was suddenly nervous. Why? I wasn't the one acting. I was never very good at that type of thing. I'm more the drama queen and we drama queens have the tendency to over-act.

The actors appeared and a hush fell around me. People were actually there to watch my play. Then it hit me. I had written a comedy. What if no one laughed? Can you imagine it? Lines that you had struggled over, re-written, deleted and then re-re-written and no one even laughs. My palms began to sweat. I squirmed in my seat. Breath held, I watched as the actors arrived on stage and the first lines were uttered. Two more lines passed and there was silence. Oh dear. Where did it all go wrong?

I slumped into my seat, felt the shame grow like fungus around me. More lines passed. Three minutes felt like an hour and I wanted to crawl under the row of seats and disappear out the door. Then it happened. It sounded like angels singing and harps playing. No, wait, I can't in all honesty type that without laughing. It didn't sound that cheesy. It sounded like relief. And you know what relief sounds like? Laughter. That's what.

They laughed. The audience laughed. After that I relaxed. I went with the flow. I smiled and watched the actors make the parts their own, watched them faff up their lines and recover with perfect professionalism.

As the lights brightened and my family congratulated me and I heard about the good review I had received from the previous week, I felt kind of proud. And now I'm like a little proud bunny. (I thought the bunny would be appropriate considering it's Easter. Again, I'm so clever.)

I never imagined I would feel this way. As well as putting an overdue smile on my face, the play has given me a bit of a morale boost. Maybe I can do this writing thing after all. It wouldn't hurt to try would it? And you know what else? All of a sudden I'm feeling inspired.

Inspiration. I'll take that from anywhere.

Don't be late...

I wake up
It’s on my mind,
So I walk around it
I waste some time.
I’ll be working on something
In the middle of the day,
When it will land before me
And take my breath away.
I’ll put it aside
Do the task in hand,
Then it’s there in my face
In the lie of the land.
Its fingers seize my neck
The pulse in my throat
Tightening its grip
I cough, I bleed, I choke.
It’s like it’s telling me
To deal with it,
Think it through
To know what I want with it;
I have no clue.
Then it’s above me
Pushing me down;
A weight of solemn pressure
Under which I’ll surely drown.
I try to get to sleep
But it blinds me with its light,
I try to switch it off
But it’s not giving up the night.
This is how it goes
Morning till day break;
My future
Giving me a hard time
Reminding me;
Don’t be late.