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

Monday, October 26, 2009

26 October - X Factor

Have had relatives visiting for a few days, so have had to go out to show them sites and stuff otherwise they'd have gone a bit stir crazy stuck in my home with me. Since have still got impaired mobility post op, a site I took them to was ... Westtfield shopping centre. Yes am ashamed but it is the largest in europe or is it? And they were not up for the V&A Last of the Maharajis exhibition or for Anish Kapoor. Plus they're old and found the Westfield environment sort of safe and I could sit down whilst they wandered. Then there were a reasonable amount of lunches and dinners and friends and family visits which meant that by Saturday evening after a 3 hour round trip to deliver them to Stansted airport, Toph and I were bushed.

And so it was that we were on the sofa with cheeses and salad (no cooking required) and what the heck let's watch X Factor, the rest of the nation does....

As expected I found it of no interest at all. I can sort of see the wheels turning and so can't really fall for any of it. And am not the audience for it either and I cringe too much at the overuse of the same words/sentences. All the endless thanks for the opportunities given to the hopefuls who'll have their life changed for a week or two post show and elimination blah blah.

The surprise was that Toph was engrossed and kept up a running commentary that was frankly irritating. He seemed not to have understood that it's not the one with the best voice who will win and being the best has nothing to with it at all. Nor knowing about music. And that it's for the very old who watch and for the very young who bother to spend money voting. I have no figures but I guess that's what it is.

And sadly even more surprising to me was the fact that he then wanted to watch the Sunday night show. I carried on reading the paper but the intrusion from the show was major. Ok could have gone to anothe room but the one sofa was the one I wanted to be on. So there you have it, my beloved is now officially old because he enjoys such shitty pursuit as to watch/comment on talent shows. Production values my arse, this is a mere step up from some country fair entertainment offering, superior karaoke and so on.

The test will be if he, having realised this is no quick show and will eke out same format till Xmas, will want to watch it next week also. If so, I fear this is one of those relationship defining. It's all very well being a united front against Twitter, but if one of us breaks ranks and starts enjoying x factor or strictly come dancing, the fissure can only go on widening.

Scary.

24 October - le world de bank

Can't go far geographically at the mo, and so it is that lunch is at Daylesford organic in westbourne grove. Have come out in blue velvet trackie bottoms, nice top and totally unrelated green heavy leather burberry bag. And pink leather light coat. So bit of a jam really but since am 'ill' and hair is clean and make up applied, that's all i thought I should bother with. And i have a stick and funny shoes so could have left the mental hopsice with my carer sort of thing.

Unfortunately for me, the place is overrun by ladies who lunch and their prole. To my right some immensely well turned out, model-height brit and an american g/friend. One with hermes kelly bag, couldn't see the other one's bag, both with 2 adorable children each. The women didn't come across as knowing each other too well, and nothing juicy in conversation, in fact, couldn't work out why they bothered except that you gotta eat. Over on the other side an uber posh tall grandma with less good looking daughter and her tiny baby, further on still, other expensive looking people.

I order a vegetable pad thai. What was i thinking. Of course there are no noodles in it and am basically paying a tenner for some shredded carrots and cabbage, though the pad thai side of it must be the chilli which gives it some flavour. ho hum, I tell Toph who's disbelieving of the break in trade description act that I'll have to kid myself that am eating like a supermodel, though am sure one of them would not have had even lemon juice on the veggies but er, nothing at all.

Basically it's not often I think i live amongst aliens but a mere shift of 500 yards from the usual stomping ground of under the westway and golborne road with its moroccan fish lunches of whole seabass and more for 7 quid, is causing me to severely doubt that this location opposite ralph lauren - a shop you never see anyone in, or in smythson for that matter, sorry sam cameron - is the same London i live in. What do these women do ? I mean the ones who don't work or worked long enough to have the banker husband and the beautiful kids? Aren't they utterly bored? I may be institutionalised but not having gone to work for a month is sending me round the twist, but then again i failed to book entire days out to the beauty spa, hairdresser, massage, nails, sort out the nanny and so on. But even if i had tons of money to shop with, what would i buy? you can't just keep going into matches to get one more dress and another and another?

And I don't imagine for a second that all these people lunching here today give a toss about the planet and what the owners of this shop believe in - since they display all their nice mottoes and mission statements etc etc about sustainable this and organic that. I don't want to come across all hippy save the world and i don't lack spondulis either, but what i just spent a tenner on is a total insult to people who have nothing to eat. I ate ten quid's worth of grass. Out of choice. I feel sick somehow. Toph who doesn't have these thoughts since he's never felt so sorry for the world, suggests moving on to nearby Ottolenghi for coffee and cake. I decline. I feel like places like that full of smarmy city assholes should just have their windows smashed in. Clearly am not feeling well, really not feeling well if displays of obscene consumption trouble me this much and let's not talk about the other nearby shop just selling you expensive chocolates, and never let me go near harrods ever again. So Toph has to make do with an apple crumble in daylesford. He searches for the apples in it and finds some. Still, apples in the uk are 20 a pound so what's the mark up on a quarter of apple and some crumble at a fiver or was it six quid? why is this allowed?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

12 October = friends

on the evidence of the many friends who've turned up to visit and wash dishes/help /make food etc, am not at the level of sad old person who dies and nobody finds out for a month. given the toph is around also, i should say am touched by the assiduity of friends checking in on me. to the point that i've wished i could be just left alone with a book (no day time tv for me, can't hack it, seems to be hotwired in my head that i only switch tv on when work is over even when there is no work). how ungrateful can i be i wonder?

Friday, October 09, 2009

9 October = not bored but boring

Well, I did wake up from the anaesthetic which was my main worry and I have no pain so couldn't have gone better. In fact because am not in pain I have already sort of overdone it by walking around too much. Back to bed it is then.

Toph elated as thought he'd have to deal wiht a misereable girlfriend writhing in pain and generally being a pain TV of Shakira doing her she wolf thing, thinks darn why am I not twenty something and able to belly dance and hang upside down from a cage? and in reaction to said frustration, grab the boy and practice a different kind of writhing.

Only a few pages of the Bolano book read, that's the convalescence mission, all 900 of '2666' of them as it' s amazing but not engaging on ploot or characters, it's major showmanship of bizarre introspection of various too well educated people but hardly a page turner, so... back to reading the sunday papers from cover to cover and the freebies and all the rest. Turns out I have finally discovered why Toph is done with the papers so fast and wants to bin them whilst I hang on to them forever, well, he skims them! I keep saying things like, did you read this bit where so and so says blah. and he says no. because he only skimmed the article. ah well. am going to dispense with capital letters btw on these next few posts as have to use a laptop that has some buttons placed in annoying places so that every time i press the shift key i seem to instead hit the one that moves your cursor a page up and it's driving me nuts.

It's nice to have friends calling and visiting but i feel like a broken boring record talking them through my post surgery and it's not that interesting unless you get your own same problem. and the drugs were not that good in the sense that i wasn't out for long enough to come in and out of morphine induced semi consciousness so i had no benefit from that...

on the other hand my friend L was in ny with a famous writer and they went for dinner with jude law after his hamlet. but no gossip there, they probably only talked of ... art.

God this blog is going downhill fast, i have hit the nothing to say phase of my life. oh but
i've been offered a job i think, going to work for some foreign billionaires. that will yeld a few stories i hope except that they made their money on pipes. yes, sadly it's not mr diageo or mr louis vuitton moet hennessy. but i'll find out more soon.