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

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

7 October - cancer & adoption

Mother found clear of possible colon cancer cells. She was understandably worried as her own mother died of it. My sister’s GP wants to send her for some tests too, given the family history. I feel exempt as my DNA most closely resembles my father’s and as prostate cancer doesn’t apply to women, I could be scot free if I avoid too much cheese and red wine and cured meats which are his overindulged foods and likely to give him more than an increasing girth. As the only member of my family with no bad levels of cholesterol, I feel healthier than most and look forward to being run over perhaps as I smugly clutch some all negative results while exiting a clinic. I never said I write clear sentences and the above certainly is convoluted. Hey, one thing adopted kids who never find their birth parents don’t appreciate is that they don’t know what brings/brought down their parents to an early or not so early grave, so they can be unaware of whatever medical conditions they are likely to develop. See, I can find optimism everywhere I look!

5 October - obsession 1

Obsessions: 1
The deepest, blackest black. I can never find it in a cardigan/trousers/skirt.
Or rather… I know Armani and D&G and Versace do a good black but I can’t afford it. So I find myself in lifts, on escalators, meeting rooms, shops, admiring some woman’s top and thinking but how come I can’t find that black? What do they do? Apart from not buying anything manufactured in countries where they can’t fix their dyes properly, or earning twice my salary…

Thursday, October 13, 2005

3 October -ipod death

What do you do when a well meaning friend in the process of adding a few songs to your ipod accidentally wipes forever and ever and ever its existing memory of the 4,500 odd songs you love to death (ok at least half that amount)? An interesting insight was that I thought I'd have been less upset if my wardrobe had gone up in flames. Even the shoes. Remember when you had your handbag stolen and in subsequent days you keep remember which lipstick was in there or what c/card you have yet to cancel? Well, try and do that with 4,500 songs. I seriously need to go join a meditation class to quieten the clamour of titles going round in my head. And no, I do not own half the cds the ipod library was made up of. Gutted.

30 September - teenage girls & jealous mothers

One that I missed out a while back but as the family in question may be visiting London and possibly staying with me soon, I want to remind myself… Was away back in July. Friend’s house in Cote d’Azur. Us singles are not ideally well placed to share holidays with families but so it goes that I did (was also expecting a visit from a previous lover from Italy and looking forward to meeting up with another house guest flown in from LA). As it came to pass, time spent with the other singles was almost nil and I found myself part of a very unhealthy dynamic between my friend Jackie and her daughter Alyne who is 11 and a half but looks about 13, a 5’7” lovely blonde girl who acts shy around adults, but who is probably very different around other teenagers (couldn’t really follow her around). The other daughter, Millie 9, is v. confident, still mother’s preferred one it seems because she’s not yet giving her any teenage mouthing back. The father, a handsome nearly 50 Swiss man, definitely super laid back compared to Jackie, who amongst other things seems to miss her London life and 11 years of being a mother have left her with just that vocabulary: do this, turn that off, pick that up, come here, listen to me when I talk to you, look at me when I tell you something and where do you think you’re going, you haven’t done your homework, John you tell her and so on. Increasing voice volume as she gets ignored..

I was caught in the cross fire mum/daughter, dad reluctantly drawn in and I don’t think it was just because it may have reminded me of the restrictions imposed by my mother in my teenage years but I found it very distressing. Though my mother never called me stupid. Couldn’t because I most certainly wasn’t and had top marks at school to prove it. It was just a major power struggle that slightly traumatised by younger sister too. She recently reminded me of an abusive episode I don’t remember and in which little sister was a spectator paralysed by the fact she wanted to help but couldn’t. To bring it up 36 years after the event is something. I was able at least to give her my assurances that she could stop blaming herself for being unable to help. A 5 year old can’t do much. Anyway, we all have the power struggles and it’s amazing how we end up being the same parents that ours were. Jackie certainly is very clear about how she suffered at the hands of her mother. Most bizarre.
It ended with me in the car to the airport replying to Jackie’s nice invite to come back next year that I wouldn’t unless she went to a therapist (ok she does, so er, increase the frequency of sessions) and sorted out her behaviour towards her eldest. Pick, pick, undermine, undermine. Not healthy.

I then was reading Elfriede Jelinek’s – sorry can’t remember title, but was not her most famous, The Piano Player or Piano Teacher? and she has some passages that are v. cutting about mothers wanting their daughters not to have any better lives than they had, presumably because by the time the daughters are teenagers the mother is sick to death of having been duped into this role which is pretty thankless (fathers still get away with not doing much of what’s needed). Jelinek is a most cruel writer, to the point I felt sick agreeing with her, and she knows how to twist the knife. It may well be fiction but if you relate it to her age and when she may have been young in very conservative, possibly rural, Austria she definitely carries some nasty baggage. Not sure if she’s got kids, she’s possibly in that v. small category of women who never had any because they knew they’d be cruel to them.
But am straying into conjectures and that’s bad.

Last year I made a conjecture; told a friend this man she liked and with whom nothing had happened with yet and subsequently never did, seemed to me like “someone who’s not comfortable in his own skin”. Ok not a conjecture, just a first impression but would you believe it she hasn’t forgiven me apparently for being so negative about someone I don’t know. I said first impressions are exactly that, and can be changed following gaining more information, facts etc, but I seem to have committed a big hurtful thing. Have apologised but if we can’t express impressions which are not even that critical then why have friends?

26 September - vegas girls

A mixed bag of facts and impressions. Vegas was a see-saw of 'I hate this place/ I wish I could come every month' but ultimately I don't need to visit for years to come. But can I go next w/e? (see, here I go with the ambivalence that place inspires). It's truly too much of a waste of everything from water to electricity to sit well with my 'I care about the world' stance. The fountains of the Bellagio could drain a dam on the Yangtse river and even filling my stone deep bath took half a swimming pool amount of water. As for the neons… an alien landing from the dark side of the moon would die from the supercharge of lights.

It's certainly been great to learn how it all works and become a video poker addict. Plus have been to a poker night two days after my return because I liked it so much but played chips, not money! Jeez, I’d have left £2,00o n the table! Silly me didn’t know that with poker you can’t just leave the table when you’re chips up but you have to stay till the bitter end and bluff it out with just one person. Winner takes it all. Marvellous for memory improvement though, all those quick calculations I’m not used to doing. Have also started watching it on late night TV. Surely this decade’s equivalent of darts or snooker. Another sign I’ve aged? Do people in their twenties buy into the gaming craze? Young Andrew does but he also works in the industry so not sure. In Vegas my g/friends all won lots of dollars so someone does beat the system in small amounts and can rush out to the Marc Jacobs store and buy this year’s handbag followed by the best massage they ever had at the hotel spa and so on. My enthusiasm for the roulette cooled down after an ill advised bet of my winnings placed all on red… produced black and that was it. However, hours can be spent happily on the 1c or 5c machines so I’ll have fun as a pensioner in Blackpool. As for the famed free drinks served whilst you play, they are basically the mixer with a trace of alcohol so infinitesimal that even a non drinker such as myself could not get merry after 5 vodka and tonics devoid of vodka. No sightings of exciting men by the Bellagio pool though. That has to be a disappointment especially as the whirlpools by the private cabanas were to die for. But as we know George Clooney spends his time near the real Bellagio on Lake Como so he’s got more sense.

A precious moment was Molly asking a taxi driver for cocaine, after i had asked if he knew where the gun range was and Annick had also asked for recommendations for pole dancing clubs. The driver was Lithuanian so god knows what he thought of these crazy 'english' girls. Ok, yes, it’s in the papers all over the western world that all strata of society buy and consume drugs. My personal take on this shall remain private but you know, the Tory party do it, celebs do it and cleaners, drivers, office workers etc. So really, the cab driver in Vegas should have known better. I run mostly on natural energy so was quite pleased to see I outlasted the girls. One night after they retired after 1am, I went out again on my own and returned at 4am. I could have stayed out longer, the Green Door was a cool place, but was worried Suze may wake up at 6am to resume video poker and catch me out as the misbehaved memeber of the party. They all have partners so I guess no need to cruise. Suze, an aside... was strip searched on arrival - the whole works, fingers up etc. - as some chemical on her skin made the machine or whatever bling. The woman uses creme de la mer body and face lotion. You have been warned. In case you also are in the habit of spending several hundred pounds on moisturisers.

My favourite time , aside for a horse ride in the ‘desert’ and pumping 38 x 9mm bullets out of 50 into a target, excellent first time result and next time we try the Uzis, was possibly when we went to the old vegas on Fairmont. When any music video gets shot in Vegas they are always based there, because it has all the neon tubes. I can't remember the title but an old Marc Almond comes to mind...We went to a casino called Fitzgeralds and there was a black guy singing classic tunes, and a small dance-floor and couples dancing totally into each other though the lighting was dazzling, only a few feet away from a Krispy Creme outlet! I thought it was an excellent combination: dance, machines and sugar. And the old casinos are smaller and you don’t walk miles to get around the gaming areas or back to your room either. You have to be fit to do Vegas unless you stick to the machines nearest to your elevator.

We then went to watch a few pole dancers at some famous downtown joint, but realised that when the pole is on the bar counter, they can't do many moves/tricks at all or they'd take the punters' heads off with their legs/shoes! Shame. it was sobering to realise that guys will be mesmerised by the girl dancing whatever her shape or size. There were some huge girls there and not everyone had silicone tits. it's all in the moves .... or the fact that they see just ass and tits and little of the rest. Not sure anyone was looking away from g/string area. The girls were trying to keep firm eye contact so the bloke just thinks it's all for him alone. darn easy if you ask me. Shame couldn't take photos there or at the Gospel lunch which was hysterical. Molly went to the loo when the guys on stage asked for audience to join them. I nearly managed to persuade Annick to go with me . so we could see our Jewish friend’s face coming back, table empty and we are up there shooping and singing along to Jesus songs? I should point out that for years I thought most songs where love songs. I mean they are but I didn’t think the lover was Jesus!