Flaming Zinc

Let’s get serious for a moment – who stole October from me, in particularly this week? I have looked down the back of the sofa and in the pockets of my old trousers but I can’t seem to locate where it could have got to. Apart from the zillion things I still have to do at home (especially filling out the shipping forms before Alex D I V O R C E S me), I also have many a fine post up my sleeve. Half a dozen films to bore you with (including a sneak peek at the new Bridget Jones flick), the results of a slightly ubiquitous book quiz and an epic diatribe about this seasons telly. Might have to set aside some quality time between my blog and I this weekend.

To me there is something intensely personal about listening to the radio, it can become my heart beat, teacher and inspiration. Maybe it is being left alone with just human voices and the barest sound effects for company. With just their timbre and inflections, you create an entity for those faceless echos. Their chatter can fill a room as background noise or solely hold your attention. There are no gimmicks, special effects or funny faces to pull to keep you. The writing has to be solid, sharp and engaging. The mobility of the medium leaves the world open to exploration, either a look into modern day harems or two guys with bus passes exploring London. It can be raw and real, or bring adaptations of classics and modern writing to you. And of course keep you up to date with the tales of everyday country folk.

When I first moved to the US, it was a crutch that saved me from going potty. It was winter 2003, bitterly cold and this Dorothy was most definitely not in Kanas any more. Alex’s semi-spacious studio was now cramped as it housed two adults and I was trying to feel at ‘home’. Though I was surrounded by unfamiliar furniture and a few suitcases of possessions. The heating was on the blink and I’d sit in bed, wrapped up, knitting and let myself me transported to different worlds and times. I could lay in bed on a Saturday morning and listen to the re-play of Home Truths, knowing that in London my mum had done the same things a few hours earlier. Except she’d have been pottering around her house, reading the paper and figuring out her plans for the rest of the day. But it was, and is, a strong connection.

It is very sad, that today I read that John Peel has suddenly passed away. It goes without saying that he will be much missed on the airwaves. I don’t know of any other presenter that has championed the unknown band, so much in this era of manufactured music and had such catholic tastes. His ease at weaving together the stories and snippets of other people’s lives on Home Truths will leave us with a void. Who else could seamlessly move from long lost siblings or a parrot that mimics Elvis.

It is far too early to be typing let alone thinking but needs must. I have so many documentaries on TiVo, damn Thirteen, to watch and revision notes to transpose. I figured I might has well wake up early and get on with them otherwise they are going to turn into an EU mountain similar to our current laundry situation.

On Thursday nights ER, Abby is convinced that one of her fellow interns suffers from a slight case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and Neela responds is that something you can suffer a bit from (paraphrasing). Are there degrees to which we are all obsessive? One way I like to describe myself is I have mild OCD and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which makes for short lived obsessions!

Boom, boom.

I have just got back from book group, yet another evening when I haven’t contributed enough.

Why am I rendered mute in group situations? It can be friendly, family or formal. The results are the same, if there are greater than six people present I turn into the eternal observer. It is not that I have nothing to say, I always having a passionate internal monologue going. Stop calling Mary Shelley a teenager you fool, when she wrote Frankenstein the concept wasn’t invented – 19 really was old then. It’s nature versus nurture. Did he become a monster, or reanimated organic entity (Roe), because he only encountered vicious hostility and therefore evolved into a murdering fiend rather than being born one? Isn’t it interesting the way in which Roe becomes fascinated by the every day lives of the family adjacent to his hovel – rather like a soap opera. And god forbid that you would think that I don’t like the sound of my own voice and I am nothing but a chatterbox in familiar company.

Then why do I dry up and nerves get the better of me??? Of course I have a theory – I partly attribute it to my mild dyslexia, a fear of looking stupid and a particularly insensitive foreign language assistant that I happen to cross paths with when I was fourteen.

I shall expand. My impediment manifests itself in wonky spelling, an inability grasp phonetics and a fear of pronouncing an unknown word or a familiar word that I can’t verbilise. In my world a word is whole, it has no beginning, middle or end. In class I dreaded being called to read aloud, already an outsider to the ‘normal’ peer groups (wouldn’t have had it any other way), I like everyone else didn’t wish to appear the fool as well. In hindsight of course I should have realised that since my classmates didn’t listen to the teacher they wouldn’t pay any attentions to my slaughtering of Shakespeare. When anyone spells a word out to me it takes more than one attempt for me to copy it down. A shout out to my mum, it frustrated me as much as you and I think it is down to my internal wiring. A little family trivia, my mother being the star family speller and all rounder when it comes to general knowledge used to dread when ever a crossword would appear in either my or my father’s hands. Let us not even touch family games of Scrabble, if we got a word over five letters then a victory lap was called for. Poor mum, must have been operating in the lowest gear to give us a chance. I think her room 101 fear would be an army of dyslexics equiped with an arsenal of word games. Then there was the incident with the young and impatient language assistant . Who when spelt out new words, used the French pronunciation of the alphabet, stumped me and angered her. At my young age it felt like a brutal humiliation in front of my friends. Though it did not bruise my ego for long, after all I muster the courage to appear in countless school production and of course I gave the sole speech at my our wedding. Off the cuff no less, see my ego really is fine So I guess it isn’t quite as clear cut as I’d have hoped.

Well, my two years off – so to speak – will be over in January and I guess it is time to re-enter the grown up world. Have I figured out what I want to do with myself for the next thirty years, have I bugger. What have i learnt/done in the past two years, other than I am very happy to be back living full time with Alex, read a lot of books, watched weeks worth of films and stretched myself into some very odd shapes during yoga. I am definitely saner for the break and discovered that my brain has not gone to mush.

It dawned on me that I am never going to go back into office tempting unless I quit the cafe, it’s a safety net and some of the people I work with are intellectually stimulating. Good conversation can be had. That’s all well and good but since I have decided to do the online Classical Studies BA with the University of London, I need a better job so I can save to pay for it. Plus, if I got something cushy in a cubical I can study whilst I am at work! So my plan, the great leap forward, my manifesto for change or an alternate universe written on the back of an envelope:

Firstly, quit cafe by the end of the year. Nothing quite like starting the new year as an unemployed sponger. Perfect timing really, since in January I’m coming back to London to sit some more exams and see friends and family. So February hit them tempting agencies again, except this time I will have my smart suits from London and slightly more sensible hair. By June I will be in need of a holiday and luck would have it I have the final exams for my A Levels, a huge family party (the aged grandparents 60th Wedding Anniversary) in Berwick and a friends wedding – so pencil in Blighty. Come July I will be kissing the Manhattan pavement with joy that I have returned and will either be tempting &/or looking for permie work.

Now, Baldrick that all sounds like a cunning plan to me

It’s Sunday morning, I am sat in bed listening to the Archers (avec earphones as there is a sleeping Alex lying next to me) and it is cold. Six degrees according to my weather icon. In twenty minutes or so I need to *brave* the chill and head out to get provisions.

In the meantime I shall keep myself warm by typing about seeing Stage Beauty on Friday. It is a very enchanting and melancholy production, one I’ll be definitely getting on DVD. I’ll have to wait till the Oracle of Plumstead (aka the mother) views it, to see to what degree it is historically inaccurate. As it turned out I had prepared myself in advance by watching Oliver Parker’s charged Othello, which features heavily in the film, earlier in the week. Set in the 17th Century it concerns itself with the transition from from female roles in the theatre being solely portrayed by actors to the introduction of actresses. Billy Crudup plays Edward Kynaston the finest Desdemona on the London stage, who’s dresser Maria (Claire Danes) copies his every action and dreams of acting herself. When she gets her chance, the novelty of a woman playing a woman turns her into an overnight sensation and a star. The question of whether she is any good is sidelined. Kynaston obviously doesn’t take to his forced retirement and battle ensues. The leads and supporting cast are wonderful. Crudup is particularly magnificent, as the hauntingly repressed actor and thankfully doesn’t push his performance over the top. The story crescendos with a make or break production of Othello and the final scene involving Desdemona’s murder. No spoilers here, but I was on the edge of my seat and it is quite the best thing I have seen in a long time.

Right bagels and coffee, me thinks.

Tomorrow I have an early start, 5am, as I am opening up the store. It’s quite solitary start to the day, but since I feel this blog needs an injection of humour here is what, predictably, will happen.

04:50 Bleep, bleep, bleep, snooze

04:59 Bleep, bleep, snooze

05:08 Bleep, snooze

05:12 Lie in bed in a fluctuating state between sleeping and conciseness. But, tense because I know the alarm will go off again.

05:17 Bleary eyed, stumble through to living room to check emailed and surf.

05:36 Bugger, realise time. Need to shower, dress in the clothes that I haven’t laid out the night before. Ditto scrambling about for for bag.

05:50 Where are my keys?

05:51 Retrace steps from previous day and multi task by kissing a sleeping Alex good bye. Strangely his body has now totally filled the bed – he must be a gas.

05:52 Where is work tee? Three places to look; on floor, in washing machine still wet or in tumble drier hopefully dry.

05:54 Catch glimpse of self in mirror, am wearing said misplaced tee.

05:55 Leave flat. Already late. But when on solo shift I subscribe to Schrodinger’s cat theory – unless boss looks in store I may or may not be there even though I am actually else where.

05:58 Walk past all the people that I saw every morning when I did this shift through out the summer; homeless man, woman in Mickey Mouse tee and owner of 24hr deli who will be smoking outside (will eye me suspiciously incase I wish to purchase something which means stubbing out fag).

06:00 Walk past store and head to Starbucks. Depending on bank balance either a tea or latte and a scone.

06:05 Finally at work. Plug in ipod and kick off with my 6am Disco Mix. The next 40 minutes are terribly dull as I have a set routine for getting things ready and mentally noting what prep needs to be done.

07:00 Throw open the doors to the great and the good. Can never tell how busy we’ll be. Some mornings it can appear as if were invisible and others as if there is a flashing sign screaming ‘Come in and bother us’.

At some point the owner will breeze in and then the rest of the crew trickle in. And that as they say is that.

I have been running around for the past few weeks like the proverbial blue-arsed fly. It has all caught up with me. I’ve gotten a bit run down and haven’t been able to shake the sinuously cold that’s been dogging me for over a week – in short I am a bit ‘under the weather’ so to speak. So I gave in, took yesterday off work and did nothing more stressful than due diligence on our sock draw. Then today instead of rushing straight from my shift to yoga, I have returned home to sit in bed and listen to the wireless. Bliss.

I am one of those people that takes on more than they can handle, but juggles and some how manages to get them all done (in the end). All be it at some mental or physical cost. Back in the days of yore when I, briefly, was an assistant for an web enabled recruitment search firm (they loathed the term internet start-up, though if they got as much press as lastminute.com then I think they would have happily accepted the term) I got myself seriously over stretched. Alex had just left for the bright lights and yellow taxi cabs, so you could say that there was a certain void that needed filling. Initially I’d been taken on to assist the office and customer service manager and to handle the accounts (no-one had touched the invoices for months, bar to hastily write cheques). After two weeks, my manager left. Someone else got customer services and I got the office management. Which really wasn’t that much of a change in work load as she had been grooming me to take over since day one. Everyone in the office was over stretched and long hours were the norm. Slowly odds and sods started floating my way. A rather full but varied plate was now in front of me. Then disaster struck and we went into liquidation. The ones with more sense left and I, who always loves a challenge and a bit of excitement, decided to give it a month. In my short time there I’d grown from being a small cog, who when I’d been originally interviewed by the MD he’d shown me all the interest of something unpleasant he had step on, to the point gal running the day to day show. Customer service, admin, promotional brochures, accounts, web stats, blah, blah, blah. I was their girl Friday.

It was fantastic. I loved it. Then it all ended, we got new backers and the old staff returned. Then it was not so much fun. I still had the same workload but people were loathed to reward my loyalty with a more interesting position. I guess to promote me they would have needed to replace me with two or more people. Needless to say, much to their amazement, I left shortly afterwards.

My point, what was my point – other than to try and remind myself that I once was a semi-professional – I still haven’t learnt to stop grabbing at every opportunity that comes my way. So, note to self, I must start practising a little restraint.

Well, I just don’t know where to start.

I have been home from work for half an hour and all I have achieved is catching up with two episodes of the Archers and supping on my delicious pumpkin spice latte (which makes me feel very wizard like when I ask for it). I was about to listen to Woman’s Hour but I think I need something more up beat to get me going. So I now have Space’s Greatest Hits blearing out and it will shortly be followed by Scissor Sister.

I gotta list as long as my arm of things to do, study, watch and read. Aargghh. I think what we need is an extra day, squeeze it in between Wednesday and Thursday. A chance to breath and catch up. Now why can’t the politicians add that to their manifestos – it would get my vote!

BTW, quite a few of my friends have commented that they are disappointed by Kerry’s performance in the debates. Seeing him as the lesser of two evils and the new broom for a regime change. Whilst I am becoming even more enamoured by him and feel his controlled stance is to appeal to moderate Republicans. I was blown away by his answer on the abortion question. Not difficult to understand, just not a sound bite. Well, life is one big grey area that shouldn’t be boil down to a phrase that can be emblazoned on a tee shirt.