18 June- Jam & Jamaica

Have no idea why he came into my head but decided to look up boyfriend ’92 to ’94 or close to those dates by a year or so on facebook. I find one that corresponds to DP and seems to be or have been a (recent) graduate of the University of west indies in Jamaica – which is where we went on holiday in ’92 or ’93. His photo is is too small to see him properly (wish you could enlarge them) but in it, he has two kids attached, one girl definitely mixed race and one smaller boy which seems white like ex boyfriend who and time I looked had met his then g/friend who was caribbean. We sort of stayed in touch through mutual friends for a another couple of years after the split but then I ditched them all. It seemed pointless and I can be casual. Can’t remember name of girlfriend, but the daughter’s I remember as was Spanish spelling of star - Esterella, and rejigged to one of those names that could be written manyfolds, Etreya, Treya– I think.

Yep, must be him. Had cut off all hair already by successive g/friend when whilst previously/with me he had it long, blond and curly and too effeminate even in the 90’s. but he had a good bod, with a nice six pack but … but.. I didn’t love him as much as you should – having broken up previously with someone I loved so much more. These things never go well.

‘I suppose I should ask you to marry me?’ he said one day after break up #1. Er. No, take a hike. Ask properly when you feel it, I think I answered and break up #2 came a shortly after. I wonder if I’d have said yes? Might have done, was not head over heels but was at the right age to ‘settle’, round 30’s and god knows what would have happened. He was interesting to me but boring to my friends, have always wondered why. I think they could see the mismatch and that was a nice way to put it. But nobody said it strongly. Not like my direct Dutch friend dizzy A. who upon meeting a subsequent no good match, the anally retentive but funny W. said to me in the street after meeting him for only ten mins. ‘Lisa no, not him , he’s so not right’. I argued leave me alone type thing but she was emphatic! And she was right, it was over a few months later and bless, she had seen through it.

Er.. where was I? University of Jamaica. I have to wonder if they have relocated there altogether? Just curious. He always liked that culture much more than I did (was half adopted in London by Guayanese family of his best friend) as found it much warmer than his own Cotswold dwelling, tory councellors parents.

16 June - Proxy dating with the young

We;re going out when we see young neighbour BM playing some kind of darts game in his garden with a young maiden, so we say hello and he invites us in for a drink. We oblige. Turns out they've spent part of the afternoon together (second or third time they meet) but she's meant to go elsewhere in the evening although it's 8.30 and she originally was meant to leave him at 5pm. We can only assume it's going well. We invite them out with us and she says oh ok then.

We get to the Cow and meet dour russian S. - who had two dates lined up, one was the fall back one, but they've both let HIM down. We feel like mum and dad though S. is pushing 40. No sign of BM, who arrives half an hour later minust girl because she did after all want/need to go to her mates at bar in Primrose Hill. Both S and BM and my boyfriend, are keeping an eye out for the ladies in the bar/street. Toph says he's doing if for the other two guys but I know better. But i get into the game too.

BM in the meantime has received an email from afternoon girl and replies. Though that’s the spirit, he’s conducting this conversation whilst being instantly in love with stunning blonde at the bar at the Cow. She’s with various Italians but she’s not Italian and I can’t catch her accent. I stand so close to them at the bar (my spying mission) that I end up being stared at by the bloke they’re talking to who must be wondering why I keep looking at them/him. This is embarrassing, but I have a good track record with getting people to talk to people and am trying. But by this point afternoon girl replies in unequivocal fashion to BM. She says 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad would I be if I swang back to where you are?' Blimey! He's panicking about how to reply so I dictate 'Very bad!' He wants to say more but I'm firm, he must leave it at that. He wants to go pick her up too but I say no, she said she'd swing by and if she gets here on her own tod, she must really want this. And so he’s off home to find the emergency condom. He’s a comedy act tonight. Bless. 27 years old and smart, and rich and not bad looking. What would I give.

So we head home, secretly pining for the days when we could do this exciting courting/mating ritual but still considering that when it goes wrong (see dour Russian S. , it feels like shit).

Two days later Toph sees BM in the garden and enquires. Turns out afternoon date did come to his. They got naked but then she said words along the line of 'I don't know if I should really do this....' To which my nice, middle class BM said 'Oh, if you're not comfortable, then maybe, you should think about it.. ' or words to that effect. OH NO! You can see where this is going. Girl wanted renewed permission to be a bad girl but lovely BM didn't get it and gave an earnest answer. Result: girl got in a huff and he called her a cab and off she went into the night. According to him, the window of opportunity has now shut.

What a waste! But allows Toph and I to feel lovely smugness again. Even when the bird is in the hand you can lose it and BM may have to be alone in his tent at Glastonbury. Maybe I should go and be on hand. He should have texted me before going all american college boy scared of the girl who'd cry rape afterwards...

13 June - Fat Pig

Going to see the play tonight. Hasn't had grea reviews but should allow me to feel great as am not that bad a body fascist compared to the sentiments expressed in it.
Let's see what I think and if I get some energy I may write a few posts missing from the first part of this month. But am here... fear not.

11 June - Clothes & Kids

Dealing with clothes – when you have too many - is like dealing with kids, it all takes so much time looking after them. I need a maid as I can’t afford to put them all in a van and offload at a drycleaners to be delivered back to my house. I spent an afternoon surrounded, mired by just cardis, jumpers and tops that I had tipped on the floor in order to see what’s there. I had a system whereby they were in clear plastic boxes and filed by colour so to speak but the system has broken down as I’d need too many boxes (assuming you don’t want to mix winter with summer) and lots of stuff was in nice zipped up bags under beds, on top of wardrobes. I eliminated around 20 items but this is not even 10% I don’t think so it’s hopeless. All the washing, folding and refolding, ironing, all the while lover is doing much more enriching things like reading another two chapters of Thomas Pynchon. He’s on the home stretch, only a few hundred pages left but they’re hard work as there’s yet new characters being introduced. Where’s an editor when you need one. And I could be reading something too instead of hand-washing delicate tops. God this city is dirty, you should see the soapy water. Incidentally, I’ve yet to ruin one single thing that says ‘dry clean only’ on it by… washing and ironing myself. It’s a great con or those labels are there for people who don’t know how to handle these fabrics in the first place and would destroy them in wrong water temperature or iron. Quite satisfying this thing… the my god this silk irons easy and it would have cost £7 to dry clean this. It was also a surprise to iron a couple of things that are synthetic satin style (no, I didn’t buy them, in inherited them) and you could really turn the iron up to high and just glide the darn creases away. I can see how this was meant to revolutionise the sorry lot of housefraus, but … the fabric just doesn’t feel good.

Buy it wouldn't attract moths either. They're the bane of my life. Other people have frozen food in the freezer, I have tops/jackets so I can kill the moths' eggs. Well, some stuff can't be washed at high temperature and that's an accepted other solution. But then they come back.

And how would I cope if I had to do this whole palaver not just for my wardrobe but that of partner and kiddies? I'd have the same high standards of course for their vetiments. Or maybe my standards are not so high. After all I don't perfume my laundry... or even drawers.

Anyway, what was I saying… yeah, a maid. Wish I had one. I got a call from a friend’s cleaner asking if it was ok to wash/change sheets of my guest bed over there in her house. I said naturellement after nearly saying ‘No, don’t worry, I’ll do it myself’. It must be great to have hotel style maiden-ry every day…

9 June - Truths & Self Censoring

Other people’s blogs manage to have more honesty infused in the writing. You may think this is pretty honest considering I write about Toph for example. ‘Doesn’t he mind?’ say some friends who know us both. Answer: he doesn’t have the url, or a way to find out. he was told I write about him and long time ago I gave him selected choice passages, flattering ones perhaps, but he’s hardly read them and profess not to be curious so he can hardly say he minds … Had it been the other way round, I’d have employed FBI style methods to arrive at his url. But yes, I steer clear of totally writing it like it is vis a vis me and him or even too much about thoughts that are outside of this relationship, just in case one day he reads them and gets totally upset by them.

But I avoid all sort of topics for fear of offending some friends who read or may read in future and sure I could write about just me, but just me is never in isolation and is always intertwined with them. So it’s sort of difficult. I say this because I was dipping in and out of another woman’s blog and she seemed to reveal a lot more about the past and the present and I was wondering at the candour. But is it? She’s after traditional publication so I have to conclude that she’s not ever going to be that honest either as it will never disappear from the waves so to speak.

But it presents all sorts of self censoring opportunities, like when you want to write about 2 friends who may both read this regularly having a tiff but you can’t. Your writing would give away whose side you’re on for example.

It’s all relative. For A. the boiler is about to explode and central heating and hot water has to be turned off till fixed by B. For B. the boiler is easily fixed (eventually, after A. has vacated the premises) and the problem was down to over using by party A in any case. Do you see what I mean? Imagine if I was talking about their relationships and so on.

It may not be dissimilar to when you want to call G’s ex girlfriend to tell her that his new /prospective squeeze has already commented about how she’d ALSO like to change his wardrobe which is on occasions so cringingly ultra gay as to leave you er… worried.

This would provide ex girlfriend with many needed giggles, but it’s not fair to G for example. But if I could write it like I want, possibly exaggerating in order to get a good sketch. Well, I would not be as good as Peep Show but … sort of, and you wouldn’t be bored by my moral dilemmas. Maybe I need to start another blog, just for me to really let rip when I want to…

7 June - DVDs & Near disasters

I don't know much but I probably know a little bit more than some clean living girlfriends, so am going to write this post to offer useful information becuse when I told this anecdote to another 2 friends, they both said er.. they didn't know how to take 'it' either.

That's strange, to read the papers the whole country is on cocaine. Gosh, this must make me some kind of dark horse in their eyes but am not .. god I remember that time I was asked to receive a huge amount in a hotel in Denmark where I had arrived with an artist who had graduated to industrial quantities. It sort of burnt in my pocket. He asked if I wanted some and I said no, I had to work. What an idiot! The next day they couldn’t have taken it anywhere with them, it was a straight fly in/fly out gig, so you can imagine the party… whilst conscientious flunkey here was asleep at
2am. Idiot, I'll say it again. Do the drugs, have fun, get sensible later.


So, last week a clean living g/friend, L. says she's been increasingly wanting to be bad, she's over 40 and there's only so much cleansing and detox diets one can be on. And that she wanted to have a wild night at home with the (equally clean living boyfriend) and did I have any porn dvds to lend her and could I get hold of some cocaine. I think my jaw had hit the floor by this point. I said yes to the first request and no to the second one. Or rather, of course I know how to get hold of some but I wouldn't. She said fine she'd ask Billy.

So Friday comes and I go over with the vids (hilarious in itself as they're not mien and had not seen them, in fact, took them without persmission from a friend's small stash, relatively secure in the knowledge he wouldn't miss them).

L. is waiting and tells me when she asked Billy if she could buy a few lines, he laughed and said no, she had to buy a gram. Which is where I came in as turns out L. diddn't know how one takes it. Jeesus! Where has she been for the past twenty years. So she gives me the packet and I get a card and start mashing into powder as it was bit lumpy. She wanted to know about quantities so I should her a conservative line and a fat one. She said she'd only take half of a conservative one. I said you may as well not bother and just drink coffee. She didn't want the boyfriend to know and could she just put it in his drink? Jeesus. No, you can't, and it tastes really bitter so you can't expect him not to taste it. You takes it a note like this and you snort it like you've seen in the movies. Oh no she says, I don't want to do that, I'll just lick it. Suit yourself I said but that's not really the best way. What if I take it she says and kiss him? I said no, he'll taste it in your mouth, you just have to come clean (ha ha!) that you have class A. She's not convinced. I tell her alternatively they can play a game and she can put it on her bits and he can lick it off and so on and so forth. I feel like I'm some kind of porn video director myself or that I'm corrupting my friend but I figure she's old enough to handle it.

The weekend comes and goes and she meets me to return the dvds'. Soooooo??????? You should have seen her smile. Wide as her face. She said that the dvd called Fever was pretty good, the other one less so. Sooooooooooo? I ask her again and she said they had a fab night. Clean living boyfriend didn't question any part of it and went along happily and putting it here worked a treat. It kept her in a state of arousal for ages before coming. What about him? Ah, she says, he was so excited he didn't last long. How come? Impossible, on the stuff you stay hard for ages, in fact annoyingly so. Turns out they did so little that they will try that next time and they'll probably have 6 weekends'worth.

Am having lots of vicarious fun at this point (can't believe she did go into a bit more description, glad to hear her take on fantasy, basically she was the real girl and the ones on the dvd were somewhere over there on the other sofa).

It's only when I get home that something makes me check the dvd's before I put them back. Fever is not in its sleeve. She's given me back her Pilates exercise video. Thank god I noticed, would have been hard (ha ha! again) to explain at a later date.

. Gosh, this must make me some kind of dark horse in their eyes but am not .. god I remember that time I was asked to receive a huge amount in a hotel in DK where I had arrived with an artist. It sort of burnt in my pocket. He asked if I wanted some and I said no, I had to work. What an idiot. The next day they couldn’t take it anywhere with so you can imagine the party…

4 June - Kids & Parents

Back for a visit in the hometown. This entails a Saturday night dinner with the friends I grew up with. Some are my original friends, the others are the partners they acquired, often after I'd left home to go study/work, but in most cases back when they were teenagers (you know, small towns breed those kinds of relationships) only we probably never went out together as a group this much.

Over the years they've instituted a sort of tradition whereby, besides meeting regularly here and there, they go out for dinner at the weekend. This is usually at a great restaurant on the edge of town, owned by the cousin of one and the brother in law of another so it's extended family anyway. The tradition further states that they're in a separate room when possible so as to talk louder, be more free to deal with the kids and also that the adults sit at one table and their children at another (obviously not when they were infants and would be on parents laps). This was further subdivided with men at one end and women at other end of table. It's still possible to converse across the divide, as the group would be 5/6 couples at the most. It's kind of a good way when you think about it as you never have to worry about your partner being deep in conversation with one of your friends and giving rise to unncessary jealousy. And the kids only bothering you for requests (have finished, can I go out and play?) meant that you can have some adult conversations. These restaurants are always on the edge of town and kids can play outside in courtyards etc. plus there's always a smoker or two to keep an eye on them. The system also works well when a husband or a wife is away on business and the alone partner can still avail themselves of the group/ease the tension of minding the kids.
The tradition further dictates that the wife alone, gets her dinner paid for by the group. Over the years I've attended with boyfriends and also solo, in which case i was the guest. ahhh.

This is not for everyone though. I introduced a good friend to the group and she married one of them, but coming from the city, she found the sex divide very annoying and not a bit macho. She wanted to talk to the boys too, not be relegated to the women. I had to explain that there was freedom in the separation, a bit like when you were in same sex school and did much better as a result. Plus 50% of the guys conversation is about football/sports and you can live without that.

However, the women only exchange real personal info away from this table, there are friendships within friendships and no one wants to air dirty linen in this public as it's still a small town and they're all business owners (sometimes in same field cometitive environment) and some gossip would be detrimental to business, but there's support in the opinions expressed and examples given. And all are equal despite being rich and... very rich. If you exclude me, but as the one who lives far away, I'm excused as having chosen city/fun over personal wealth improvement.

These as I've said, I’ve known all my life. The change this time is that none of their kids are at dinner. Finally after all these years, they’ve flown the coop. They're 16 downwards, and the youngest is 8 or 9 and at granny for the evening.
My visit coincides with schools' out for the year and the kids are out thronging the pizzerias to celebrate and/or at other kids' parties. The mothers express good feelings vis a vis now being back to the adults except for my local best friend. A woman obsessed by her kids and who in answer to the 'how are you?' question has always steered the conversation to her daughers. She would like her two (16 and nearly 13) to stay kids as long as possible. I have no idea how she's going to cope when the youngest will also get a boyfriend and starts hanging out elsewhere. I predict bad adjustment as she has no major interests outside the family.

This is in contrast to her husband who has always travelled far afield for work and who's busy telling Toph of his preoccupations with age. He looks good A. mainly because he's as thin as a rake and runs a lot so he's fit. I think he tries too hard but the contrast with the non runners at the table is vast. They're bursting out of their shirts and not turning 50 very well. But he tells Toph that earlier in the evening, 16 year old daugher's 17 year old boyfriend came to collect her and that he, father, had on exaclty the same clothes as teenage boyfriend and surely it's time to look one's age but he's not ready. He likes his Brad Pitt style outide the office. I am positioned on the edge of the male side of the table so I can eavesdrop more. He moves on to feeling a little dejected that now it's dawned on him that he would not be getting a shag from a 25 year old if he tried, or maybe he'd just get one out of pity/sympathy. I'm about to interrupt and say he'd get one out of cash as he's loaded but I stop just in time as his wife is opposite me and there's no reason to offend her.

I personally think it's rude on his part to discuss these kind of things however implausible or hypotetical, when your wife is in earshot. But I also think that I've more in common with his attitude to life than hers, as she plans one last holiday with her daughers alone (no dad) on some seychelles style island. I mean, that's her fantasy, there's nothing to do for a teenager in such a place.

3 June - Counting back the years

Well, there is a god and it means that my concerns with ageing can be shared with more than the blog. I don’t wish to dispel any mystique I have with/over the lover, so he’s certainly not getting all of my reflections (sorry, whinges) about the ghastly process, but it’s good to know that Toph is feeling the years too. Says if he had a newspaper column he’d be writing about it. HA! Where has he been? Of course there already are male columnists chartering their journey to middle age, plus comedians and other writers. But who knows, maybe he has a unique view of it. After all we’re both slightly peter pan-ish in looks that don’t reflect the actual years (yet).

I told him he should start a blog or that I’ll give him his own guest spot on mine, but then I’d have to know exactly how bad he feels about it all and that may be detrimental to his mystique. I mean, there will be a point where instead of letting me cut off the white hairs on his chest, it will be a losing battle because they’ll outweigh the black ones and we’ll just give up (you didn’t know he was vain that way did you? But the poor ‘boy’ has to disrobe often enough at his yoga babes sessions)… I mean, he’s already using the Strivectin face cream I told him to get in the States, but now he’s adding it to his neck as he says he wakes up with these diagonal lines on it. I didn’t have the heart to say I’ve noticed the lines long ago.. and yes, don’t just do the face, extend moisturizer to neck, rule no… 6 of taking care of skin. I could go further and mention that there’s a little wobble appearing under his chin, and what with being so skinny he has more of a chicken rubber neck than I’ll ever will. But that would be cruel and unnecessary. Wonder what else troubles him about the process. Will let you know. In the meantime I should borrow some library books about cultures where male ageing is less of a problem. Don't know.. native american indians perhaps? They looked pretty foxy all grey haired and sinewy...

1 June - Wrong Trousers & Libido

I bought a size 6 american DKNY cotton trousers in a second hand shop – without trying them, they were a bargain so I just grabbed them as you do, and got confused as am an American 4. So when I got home they hung low on my hips and were extra long. I was considering who I could pass them on to amongst friends/colleagues as even shortening them would take time, and then I thought, no I’ll keep them for when I get bigger due to not too far away menopause.

It seems none of my older friends have avoided the horrible thickening of waist and protruding belly associated with the ‘change’ (what a farce, you’re past releasing eggs that make you pregnant and you end up with a permanent 4/5 months pregnant type belly, it’s a joke no?), and am assuming that I’ll be plenty punished for my years as a body fascist and will get the mother of all stomachs. Uhm, which would I rather have? Huge stomach and increase in waist up to two sizes but libido left intact or the other way round? Bloody hard call. I’d rather do the De Niro roulette in Deer Hunter than decide on this hypothetical quandary. But in fact I don't have to do anything, family dna will do its worst, though aunts not too badly shaped now they're... 70!

So that’s it, my subconscious is already preparing for the inevitable in my usual practical way. Other people buy smaller sizes for when they’ll lose weight and return to the dreamlike size of themselves as 18 year olds, and instead I’m beginning to stockpile clothes for when I’ll have to let it all hang out. Is this … deranged?