Diary of Lisa Taylor, reluctantly 42 (and a half)

Or.. 'f.ck me I'm forty.. two.. and a half', though can look 38 on a - not so deluded - good day. Or 'How to reconcile a well experienced mind trapped in a still - but for how long? – youthful body.' Don't have the 30somethings angst/problems, neither have the resigned (?) ageing baby-boomers in safe family territory outlook yet. Here's how I cope, one day all sexy women will get old... but never invisible. © Lisa Taylor 2005/6/7/8/9. Jeez.. so much for the 42 and-a-half delusion

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

31 August - funhouse

I thought it was going to be moderately good, you know, Iggy Pop and the Stooges doing Funhouse. I thought it’d be full of oldies – not the songs, the people. Kind of was but not just oldies. Predominantly male and totally white of course. A paean to the longevity of a body that has taken 40 years of r’n’r beatings and look at him? Healthy, full of energy, defiant, voice sharp. The rest of the band of course didn’t quite look good as Iggy. In fact they looked like daddies in a pub band but … they are the Stooges. I would hazard the following guess: if the drugs are top quality and you do a lot of strenuous exercise (Iggy’s on stage work out would kill a much younger person) you don’t have to die. I think more bands should adopt this concept. Who wants to go and see the Rolling Stones now, traipsing through a best of set at a hundred quid a ticket? But I’d sign up tomorrow if they did ‘Their Satanic Majesties’ in a place the size of the Apollo for say.. £25. What a night that would be.
Because I was with my lover Paul for whom Iggy is god, we went down the front and I moshed about for a while but not enough for my clothes to get thoroughly soaked like Paul’s who nearly made it on stage when Iggy invited an invasion. I was covered in beer, lovely, and came to rue the fact that in order to appear alluring to Paul, my own version of r’n’r clothes included brand new shiny oh super shiny patent leather high heels which got trampled to bits and my feet with them. I had taken the precaution of downing a pain killer so I wouldn’t feel shoe pain but I did! No jumping up and down for me. I had not thought about the earplugs though and couldn’t hear much for most of last night and this morning an ear is still muffled. Age for sure. Years ago I started to ruin my ears by practically embracing the speakers at countless concerts. I remember one by the Orb. Think I wanted to crawl inside the speakers even. Those were the days. Ear damage or not I distinctly remember loverboy saying for the first time unprompted ‘I love you Lisa’. I held back the ‘Please define. Love you or am in love with you ? – two very different things as we know. I should have nights like these more often or perhaps not, but the combination of drink and music followed by more drink, dual ipod listening – I recommend this to all my friends, one ipod, two earphones. You chose some music, then you let your lover chose his and it gets varied and interesting. At least until you find a folder called Miriam on his ipod and well, you don’t want to be doing it to Miriam’s music do you now? A brilliant idea was also to book our very own r’n’r hotel room after the show which led to a v. imaginative night and the best this year for sex content closely followed by another with Paul a couple of months back and a previous one during a w/e in s.w. Ireland.
Mmmmhhh I’ve just realised the enormity of this. If my best nights this year have been with him (he agreed was the same for him – no reason to flatter anyone at this point), if we get on great, if he thanks me for thinking of everything always and if I thank him for being pretty darn the best person I’ve met since last December, then what are we skirting around? I kind of know… and then I don’t understand what I know. It’s the leaps of faith neither of us thinks we can do anymore for a start. For my part I don’t think I have jumped in ... five years. Just can’t do it anymore. Not sure. And add to that the fact that we’d both run a mile if a more regular relationship would automatically forfeit nights like last night. Plus he likes sturm und drang and I don’t give good dramas. Always thought they’d be a waste of energy. Running away, screaming, banging doors, betrayals, there are 3 people in this marriage and all that, though am sure some people are suckers for the separations and reconciliations. Just as well he doesn’t live in London at the moment and I refuse to talk about anything unless it’s face to face. And when I have the opportunity I back down and just go for the hedonistic option. This morning the sun was shining as we skipped out me to work, him to the airport. Why ruin such a good thing?
Also, so much for me feeling smug staying out late – no Iggy aftershow party sadly but a drink elsewhere threw up the only writer whose book made me laugh in the last few years, Howard ‘Mr Nice’ Marks – one of our friends rang this morning at 12 and she still hadn’t gone home. And she’s older than me! Go girl. Then again last week she had a tummy upset at the Edinburgh Festival and missed out on two nights of revelries and I think she had to make up for lost time. In Edinburgh she managed a drink with Aidan Quinn. Swoon or what? I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s endured Legends of the Fall a few times for him rather than for Brad.

Friday, August 26, 2005

22 August - slovaks

Seth phones, a rare call from a much much, missed ex lover - chemistry rules in my world. Tells me he has finally retrieved his old laptop from storage but as it’s as dead as a dodo and a 1999 model it’s not worth repairing it to give to me as discussed a few months back. He asks me how much a laptop is and I reply that for my needs it’s probably a £400 item. He proposes to send me a cheque for half the amount. ‘Why would you do that?’ I ask? ‘Because I promised you and I want you to write’. I accept and am touched by the gesture. In fact I immediately email various girlfriends to share the good news. By the evening I re-evaluate. I know why he didn’t offer to buy me one in toto -that would make him too much of a hero and he no longer needs to impress me that much. It’s still a great gift, but nothing to compare to the amount of money he will start giving shortly to another more recent ex lover who is about to have his first child; nursery decoration is the least of it. I don’t think the lady in question will do a stroke of work from now on and as she currently shares with a bunch of other people, I’d think a new flat is in order.
This brings me back to an evening a couple of months ago or so when I met Seth for a drink after not seeing him for months and he had barely sat down to a glass of wine when he whipped out of his wallet a picture. I assumed it would be of a child he had never mentioned, but was in fact a baby scan. He’d never mentioned a relationship in recent months and in fact it all happened rather quickly ‘And I’m not with the mother, I told her straight away that having the child would not make me carry on the relationship, but I’ll do whatever it takes for it’. Mmmhh. All he told me about her is that she’s beautiful, Slovak and young. Ah well, at least she wasn’t stunning, smart and intelligent. As I controlled my face from the moment he extracted the wallet, I was able to say ‘Congratulations!’ without choking. He remarked on my equanimity which allowed me to say that as he’d previously shown me not an ounce of empathy or sympathy during our break up weekend when I cried all the tears in the Nile, I was done with being upset by anything he subsequently did. I just told him that the funny thing was, that my friend Gabriel had been in a similar situation the year before, with a Polish lady who was also young and beautiful (and v. erratic) and a lovely daughter was born and Gabriel was paying for a flat - he didn't carry on the relationship - and for his child’s mother’s university or flower decorating classes. Gabriel only saw his daughter when she wasn’t held to ransom by the mother and in any case he didn’t seem to be that available or interested. – but he already had other children so the thrill of the first was not there. I came away from all this having a small and no doubt shameful prejudice confirmed (all former Eastern Bloc women are on a mission to find well meaning/paying partners - both Seth and Gabriel happen to be Consultant surgeons - and never mind about the poor kid), a re-inforcement of the ‘All men are led by their dick’ belief. And a very sad feeling for an innocent baby boy who come October will be delivered and acknowledged but won’t have a birth father that is around. Then again, maybe the love of just your mother is enough? Personally, I loved having a dad there too.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

18 August - work for blogs

There’s nothing ever to do with work on this blog whereas some others are all to do with the blogger’s work (policeman, medic, TEFL teacher in Venezuela, waiter and so on). Maybe if I still was working in an interesting industry – music – I’d have stories to tell relating to work, but no longer and it’s all a bit less interesting than 80’s 90’s, you can’t even spend money on lunches/dinners/ other artists’ records when you can’t swap them. I remember my excuse that in order to market your artist you have to listen/know who the others are out there etc and here’s my receipt from shopping spree at HMV. And that’s nothing compared to other people’s largesse with their expenses. Or it’s an age thing, I mean, my growing disinterest in my former field. Who can honestly say they fall in love with a new artist in their 40s? you just don’t fall that hard and if you did, you’d look like an idiot following the Kaiser Chiefs around every gig they do here and abroad. Effectively you have to fancy the band as well as the music they make. Plus Alex K -oops wrong band, Franz Ferdinand, could presumably look at you in horror, male or female that you are, and think there’s something unhinged in a person his parents’ age being a fan. So there you go. I’m not saying I’ll ever pay £100 to go and see the Rolling Stones, I’m not that old! but I can’t be down the Waterats often either. Anyway, that was top employment back then, it wasn’t work in fact. At least some days I was waking up eager to go to my office and see if we were no. 1 that week. This now is work . In one of those places where I only know the people who occupy the nearest 30 yard radius from my desk. The other acres may as well be a different company. Sometimes I walk to the North lifts (I’m by the South ones) and try to retain some of the names off the name tags I see on top of people’s computers but it’s hopeless. Not one sticks and on those occasions where a stray visitor comes out by my lifts and says he’s meeting so and so and where are they located? I have to pick up the phone and call the person to come and rescue their visitor as I don’t know where they are/who they are. There are 6 identical floors to mine in this building alone plus several other buildings occupying a chunk of the City but we could be Canary Wharf, downtown Hong Kong or LA for that matter. I’m near a window but the view is non descript.
So I would not use this place as a source of diary entries. I couldn’t even make fun of my co workers, they do their job, they mind their own business, they’re polite and helpful. What else do you want? Sure some are tossers (male, clearly), sure there’s no diversity, the only black person here is the daily shoe shine guy, and it’s a pressured environment, but not for me. The moment you step away from a career ladder and you’re no longer required to participate/initiate/follow up on meetings, it’s basically freedom, you do take your lunch hour and work to live rather than vice versa. Job satisfaction definitely starts to pale by this midpoint in life and if you don't have school fees to pay(yayee!!), voila' no pressure.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

15 August - gigi

Gigi rang late last night and slightly in shock as had received a call from an ex dating back 7 years. ‘Do you remember Carl? He was so handsome but was married. He rang to apologise for being a shit.’
‘Oh wait’, I interrupted, he’s on one of those 12 steps programmes where you have indeed to get in touch w. everyone you behaved badly towards and make amends!’
‘How do you know?’
‘I got one of those calls twice already. Whatever you do, don’t get sucked into going to their meetings and then you end up making it all nice and easy for them, who do they think you are? Father Tony from the catholic church down the road offering absolution?’
‘What should I do?’
No talk on phone for a start, ask him to book most expensive restaurant in London and he can cry over his dinner then whilst you eat yours. Then just say apologies accepted and move on’.
When did I become this cynical? But Gigi said she was worried to meet him as she may fall in love with him all over again. I despair.

8 August - shoes

Shoe list. The Englishwoman who blogs from Paris lists owning only about ten pairs of which most are flatties and she only has one or two pairs suitable for parties etc. I am surprised her kid is allowed to play with other Parisian children and not ostracised. I have two friends who cannot wear heels because of foot problems (flat arches or some sort of arthritic pain but they still have a selection. One in particular has many pairs) but woman from Paris does not say this is her problem.

So really, much is made of women who have ‘too many’ pairs but is it legit for me to think there’s something wrong with someone who doesn’t have enough? Petite anglaise sounds like she never did care for shoes and I am aware that half the female world or more than half the population period just wears flipflops and they can’t even afford a new pair sometimes even with them being possibly the cheapest piece of rubber you can think of. Though if it says Nike or diesel on the side… prepare to pay 100 times more. But I digress. My main reason for not becoming a num (as if!) would have been having to just wear flat lace ups all my life. Interestingly my mother, who is religious and counts the Virgin Mary as a personal friend, once said she’d have been most upset if I decided to become a nun. But I think that was in the days when she still thought I’d become a mother. No such thing. I plan to give her ‘We Must Talk about Kevin’ by Lionel Shriver this Xmas. A very good novel about what would have happened to me. I digress again but I will digress some more. Back to the shoes.

I can’t even think in terms of shoes I have, but in terms of shoes I buy probably. The haul this month (sales still on) is 2 pairs from Whistles, 1 pair from Jones – the most shiny patent leather mary janes, 1 pair inherited and 2 pairs from second hand shops. None are flat. Those are for driving. As you can see my shoes don't come from Laboutin though I have a pair, nor from Manolo. I happen to do easy calculations: 1 x manolos equals 5 x great non designer shoes. Simple. I actually feel proud not to have capitulated to one or two more pairs that really were so cheap and perfect recently. But I said ‘No’. But they don't do stop buying shoes patches unfortunately so I'll carry on. I think I did lose a lover over this though... he said how could I possibly want to go out with him, who mostly wore one of several trekking boots type shoes. I said I make exceptions for men and had no doubt I could get him into exquisite Guccis for our wedding and in the meantime I worshipped his motorbike boots. But clearly the word wedding was the mistake there.

And on that subject, a friend has offered to come and de-rail my wardrobe of excess clothes. Her term not mine. She's confessed to having run out of things to do to keep away from a bottle of wine in the evening. Twenty years of photos are now arranged in photo albums for example. So am busy wearing stuff I’ve not worn for ages so that I to the determining question ‘If you haven’t worn this in 1 year, it has to go’. I can answer truthfully ‘Oh no, I wear this, only last week I was wearing it’.
The other determining question is usually ‘Don’t keep something in the hope you’ll slim into it again’ and wow, check this out! I found a summer Whistles tight black sleeveless shift dress and some linen skirts from circa 1980/81 (I can prove this dating myself by looking at old photos) and I can still wear them. Don’t you just hate me? In fact the dress came to work yesterday. Was a bit short for my current older person status – should have really paired with some classic white trousers underneath for example, but it’s a sort of Audrey dress so I hope I can persuade Deborah to let me keep it.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

3 August - molly's cheats

Molly shows me some text exchanges with her ex much loved lover. Who aside from cheating on his wife with her, found the time to also cheat on my friend, and his now with second wife but still not averse to casting his net further. Molly does this a few feet away from her current live-in boyfriend who is ignoring us and wisely watching the cricket. The texts are nothing major and v. short. Just a quick shorthand reminder of having meant something to each other. It amazes me that these few words can still represent a world of possibilities or at least nourishment for my friend, as am sure the person who wrote them fired them off w/o meaning that much. But I also have extracted whole hours and days of fulfilment from similar exchanges which to anyone but me would seem as inconsequential as a hair on the surface of a swimming pool (this being a good moment to mention I am a substantial texter ie. I don’t engage in backwards and forward one liners but write long ones and don’t go on for more than 2 or 3 exchanges in one go). I think however logic your mind is and however in charge it is at all times, it deliberately likes to suspend all this ‘science’ occasionally to just buy into delusions for a while. Delusions are fantastic stuff, the cousins of dreams surely.
Why would a one line text from an ex lover mean more than the first text my sister finally sends after two weeks incommunicado in Burma? I was very happy to receive it, proof she was alive and well in some inhospitable territory, but not ecstatic, not clicking to see the message time and time again to re-create with each read the same beatific sensation, the smile that spreads on your face as you sit on the tube to work. Is this because there is no surprise in being reminded that she loves me, I love her, we always did, we’ll always will? Whereas lovers words are transient? Another friend, who’s the mistress of romantic fantasies calls this ‘Making wedding cake out of crumbs’.

1 August - blogs not deep

A v. good friend has finally read this blog and commented it’s not very deep. She says that I use self-irony as a way to not allow for any real feelings to show. It’s sort of like journalism or a column. She is v. perceptive in the sense that despite purporting to be a diary much is held back. I never mentioned for example how nice it was to have young lover here, how worried I was to have made him come visit on a 'thursday possible more bombs' day and how I couldn't wait to get out of Euston Station fast enough and ruined his long, face sucking embrace, and how sensibly we decided to stay in for 48 hours approx - ok that was not just for fear of bombs.

As to feelings, it’s strange, nothing much seems to have upset me since I started writing this. It’s a positive time which can could be the result of years of practicing distancing from events and no longer knowing what hurts or doesn’t. A lowering of expectations and a placing of such expectations not in the hands of god but in the hands of the great unknown who doesn’t much care for what we want/wish for /wish to avoid etc. I was watching a documentary about how people in the regions affected by the tsunami are coping and whether their religion is of comfort to them. It appears that the westerners are faring badly as are much more unable to just accept what happened. The fatalistic eastern religion followers are much more matter of fact. It’s god’s will and no point trying to explain (this is not to say their pain is less real but it seems less evident in the way they list who they lost: father, mother, wife, kids, brothers etc. By contrast a westerner who’s lost their only daughter is marooned on a sea of grief that will never let him have peace. They want to understand when there’s nothing to understand. All this to say that I naturally tend towards that view of the world and if my diary comes across as having a certain insouciance, then it could be a result of treasuring only one basic lesson obtained from a brief meditation experiment/course. Ok, ten days is not brief but I have never managed the daily stuff. The message is ‘Everything arises, and passes away’. You just have to wait for the next wave. As usual it doesn’t mean that you just let life happen to you, but you don’t get too down about setbacks and when you look at it even death is just a setback. Fear of dying or fear in general is always much much worse than actual death. Or am I being too glib?

My friend also pointed out, again correctly, that if you don’t supply real feelings, depth, vulnerability, it’s difficult to care for a person or character. In my case I also offer a variety of names that get mentioned in passing and often only once and this is confusing. But at the moment this diary is a random experiment and doesn’t record really all that goes on. I realise no one is reading it, well, I told preciously few about it, but I still try to protect identities as if anyone on the web would know who they are. Mmhhh how to overcome this?

It’s quiet at work so have read many other blogs recently and vow once again to never have a computer at home as don’t want to get sucked into this for hours on end. I have a life! I must confess to blog envy. Not so much the contents but the layouts/designs, the links, the indexes or the entries that are not just a date but a witty title. And yes, maybe also the fact that some blogs have tons of comments, though the moment you get drawn into reading these it’s really the end. Probably like chat rooms which I have never ever entered. And some blogs even win awards! Blimey. Yes, zillions of TV hours are also dedicated to the confessional and who hasn’t watched the life of people in an airport, garden centre, police station or whatever thinking but why would I care? What a monumental waste of time! So I read housewives, mothers blogs to feel that in the end my choices in that department are still entirely justified. Say no to babytalk is still valid for me. Why teach a baby to speak when you can read a book? Etc. Anyway, as with authors, it’s better perhaps not to know much at all about a blogger’s reality. I was reading this guy's, an ambulance medic in London, was mentioned in a Sunday paper. I liked it, interesting, funny, entertaining. Then I read the guy’s profile and he’s thirty something, lives alone or in shared accommodation, never has/had girlfriends, is not attractive, is very unhealthy, loves a band which I find dismal and suddenly not being able to imagine him as a Dr. Jack in Lost or even a medic on ER, his writings though still real, become sadder somehow. This is a man who’s not that happy after all and his sarcasm becomes bitter rantings. But he’s more real than me for example. I’d be tempted to enhance my traits rather than be brutally honest. Bloogers seem to write to vent in general. Is this what I’m also doing? It probably only gets really interesting if it is the blog of Francis Ford Coppola etc but again, this would be mediated, it would never be the truth ‘My daughter’s films are captivating but inconsequential’, ‘My former son in law did at least make some good music videos for Fatboyslim, but when she went out with that Quentin! I was worried, my wife can’t stand him too’. You simply can’t do that. Anyway, a blog is no more real sometimes than The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.....

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

25 July - bruises

I don’t have to touch it to feel it. The weal on my sitting bone, very close to my labia. This time it’s not one of the usual shaving disasters - should always do bottom legs first to get reaquainted with razor. I am going to write down random suggestions a bit like, if you want to get rid of ink stains from clothes, soak in milk, lots of milk. Laura told me this one but it didn’t work on an expensive scarf ruined by a stupid lose Bic in my bag. Think it has to be a fresh stain rather than a few months old one. Anyway. So here's the one for today: if you go riding horses they always tell you to make sure you wear riding trousers and not for example jeans, however comfortable they may be because the seams can chafe etc. I don’t remember ever reading that you should also watch what u/wear you sport but beware because the same thing can happen there. Think the overall rule is cotton instead of synthetic of course but style matters also. Big pants better than g-strings overall. I knew it yesterday that there was something annoying me but there was never a chance to adjust the fit discreetly and I wasn’t to know we would do a lot of sitting trot work or feet out of stirrups which amounts to lots and lots of bouncing for ‘despite 30 lessons or so still’ beginners status like mine. So bounce on a tiny scratch or irritated skin and bounce again and again and you go home with a minor injury in a very delicate area. Not that I imagine I ever need to cover up scratches left by a previous lover on my body (to, say, a new one) but should remember that you can use this excuse and say some item of your clothes was rubbing you the wrong way at riding/exercise class/cycling! They may well buy it.

Talking of which… my pole dancing friend Alison warns about the high incidence of bruising. Again, till you get good you’re going to be shit and hurt yourself repeatedly by hitting the pole instead of gracefully swinging away from it with a lot of muscle control. Two days after class no. 2 she wore a skirt to work having not looked at her shin bones and knees that morning and a colleague noticed the bluish/red patchwork of size 3” upward marks. Not wishing to reveal her new pass-time (it’s still a bit red light isn’t it? Who wants to spend ages explaining it’s just for fitness when people think Stringfellows) she said she fell off her bicycle. To the puzzled look of concern re. details of the accident, she said it happened from stationary – too complicated to come up with an instant tale of taxi cutting her up, falling on the path of another cyclist etc. Must have been one hell of a fight with the chassis and the pedals clearly. But the implausibility did not elicit more questions. No wonder it’s so easy to get away with bashing your wife’s face in, if you can just say she walked into a cupboard door etc and nobody probes further.

22 July - young lovers do they run free

Today have come to work wearing young lover’s work shirt, a lovely pale blue drip dry shirt with a BPB logo on it (Blackpool Pleasure Beach). It’s very 50’s American college and I had to resist the impulse to put my hair up in pigtails. Could have done if I worked in a diner but I don’t. He’s probably at his work wearing my surfer watch: a £5 buy on a website, dead cute stuff, basically a plastic LCD face on an elasticated tube, waterproof to a few metres. He did complain a fair bit because the rubber tube/strap is pink but hey… he wanted something of mine and we are not about to exchange expensive presents. Just the other day I read that Pete Docherty gave Kate Moss a €70 ring saying he was a bit short of cash. Am sure she wears it as proudly as if it was the biggest rock from the Natural History Museum current diamond exhibition. In fact, wasn’t she burgled a while back and all her jewellery stolen? See not worth getting attached to the valuable stuff. Cheap presents in any case are what you do when you are having young love. You go straight back to the teenage you and are perfectly happy with stuff from Clare’s accessories, wish that had existed back then. Young lover also bought me a top from a shop in Camden Market. I resisted several of his previous choices as, despite being immensely flattered that according to him I can wear this miniskirt and that boob tube combo, it simply cannot be done at this point in my life. His eventual choice is very lovely, cream coloured with red Chinese silk insert showing through the artful tears in the fabric and it has a little marsupial pocket at the front and … a hood! Weather turned cloudy so I put the hood up. Must say to Mr Blair and ASBO campaigners that a hood instantly makes you feel safe yourself, like those little hats you wore in the pram. Never mind appearing threatening to others, kids do hoodies for their own comfort. I wore the top immediately paired with my Diesels, I hardly ever wear jeans, and platform cork shoes to a picnic where one of my friends remarked ‘Are you wearing your young clothes?’ And indeed they were young clothes in more ways than one, as am sure I have some photo from 1973 where I’m similarly attired. Another acquaintance instead, herself a mother of a 22 year old, simply admired the top and asked where was it from. Obviously she is a disco mummy. I asked her if she would mind a 42 year old going out with her son and she said yes but wouldn’t have any moral objections if the 22 year old was somebody else’s son. I was relieved. The picnic was the 18th b’day of a daughter’s friend. All her friends were 18 too. My 24 year old declared they were too young for him and had no personalities but I suspect only by 2 years or so. I had to point out that personalities do accrue with time and Iggy Pop was 22 when the first Stooges album was released. Ok exceptions to rules perhaps. A couple of the 18 year olds were sucking face pretty much throughout the afternoon – only been going out with each other 2 months. All say ahhhh. It was hard to look away, and I guess we were all jealous of that lack of self awareness, or at least I was, though drank champagne instead of snogging my lover. It was mostly the boy who couldn’t leave his prize possession new g/friend alone. I simply couldn’t remember what that was ever like. I asked 24 year old as it can’t have been that long ago for him, but he declined to comment. Not sure if to spare my feelings. I think sometimes he feels he’s part of some anthropological experiment on my part. I thought he’d be upset later on the train back to find my lovingly wrapped steak sandwich – perfectly seasoned - and assorted chocolates smuggled in his bag in amongst the cans of beer but he sent a text to thank me. I had also smuggled in new socks short of booking him a pedi – he has to wear horrid shoes for work that have given him lots of callouses. Can’t help myself. Lover/mother. Fine line.