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 25, 2010

24 August - movies?

Don't go to the cimema much. Wish I went more often as it does kill time nicely but never find the time. Just for the record saw Inception and I know you're meant to want to go twice but no thanks. Ginsburg, yeah funny but shame about the music, really frenchies you can say what ou want it doesn't stand up. Baaria, as they all said far too long but beautiful to watch and quite fancied the lead. Toph wondered what you'd make of it if you didn't know much about the local politics. Have no idea since i do get hat history. The Leopard, just because of restored print and about to go to Sicily and Toph had never seen it. Yes too long as I remembered but brilliant.

Friday, August 20, 2010

20 August - Holidays are for ....

Last night L. was saying how in ayurveda, summer is for holidays, you should not work, you should enjoy life, recuperate some energy to store up for winter when we work/don't go out as much. I had to ask if ayurveda was a system for the rich or a system for people who are governed by monsoons and the like so that really in summer they don't work simply because of rains or impractical conditions and not just you know for idleness' sake. Bonkers.

Then I rang a friend in Italy who was on holiday at her flat by the seaside but of course all her summers since eldest daughter started going to school (she's 18 now), have been blighted by the fact that said daughter is a dunce and so all holidays have been subjugated to 'A. has to revise for 1, 2, 3 subjects on which she did not achieve a pass'. That's on top of sorry autumns/spring/winters where every day is /was a battle with school work and results. Honest.. she's had years of this. So A. has exams to catch up next week. I wish her luck but would probably be best to repeat the year, she doesn't seem to find that so shameful.

I refrained from highlighting to her mother the pictures of various mildly wild bbqs by the pool with a large bunch of friends which her daughter has posted on FB and which don't seem to tally with any restrictions applied in the 'You have to study, or....' regime. I suspect there is no such regime, there never was, just a gigantic co-dependency parents/daughter (one is bad cop/dad, one is good cop/mum). The other daughter is also set back this year, in Latin, but she's got more of a brain (and pride) and should rise to the challenge. They excitedly tell me that mum is taking them to the Maldives at Xmas. It's mum's 50th so it's her gift to herself. And another proof that she's always undermining the tough 'You've got to study' stance she tries to project. I could say something about middle class parents, or rich parents where it's a given that the kids don't have to try so hard because a job for them will always be found through contacts, but I won't... or I just did....

Thursday, August 19, 2010

19 August - Air & weather

It's time to wave goodbye finally to the wretched canary wharf commute that has sucked so much of my time in the past however long. I was thinking about what I shall miss and could only come up with the following: as an ageing lady I find the temperature on the underground a degree or two too much. But when you emerge from CW station you're always met by a breeze, bit like around Centrepoint. I will miss that breeze.

18 August - Dating & Mating

By some route found myself on Indians abroad website. Fascinating. Lots of advice re. finding a wife/husband and tons of ads. The mind boggles if I had to search these sites for wltm. But more to the point how do you keep track of all this info if you have dual heritage? It's bad enough to be from UK trying to find UK husband. But you're from UK but brought up in Indian traditions and trying to find Indian husband brought up always over there, how much do you really have in common aside from mother's cooking?


On another note went to meet the kind of ex colleague I meet 2 or 3 times a year, sometimes only 1. Meaning I don't know much about their inner life despite having once been in their work proximity for months or ears. So, stone me, when I hear that this (in my mind) confirmed bachelorette of 49 who holidays with 70 something mother had had a relationship drama. She commutes in from 90 mins away (how people move themselves to small towns to buy a house and then have to live alone, spend hours on trains, spend tons on trains and parking for car at statione etc, I'll never know. On said commute she met train friend, let's call him John, a banker at Jp Morgan, who had first been based in london ,then abu dhabi then Brussels. The friendship was chaste on her side though she liked him and had escalated though to coffee at some other station till the day he stole a kiss and threw her in turmoil since the reason why she'd been single all the time I knew her, was to safeguard heart from being trampled on. Maybe some cutting old experience. So what to do? The heart as we know grows back and she was plunged into desire and hopefulness. Till one of her pretty innocent texts (but they never are) was read by his wife on surprise visit to Brussels. Ah yes, the wife. There was one. Since then he's written to say best to go quiet for a while and has gone totally silent. So far so good. I argued that unless you're a serial well versed cad in which case you can come up with fast and furious excuses for anything (Don Draper anyone?) and are instead the kind who finally got drawn into acting on fancying someone other than the wife, when this happens you get totally scared out of your wits at the thought of losing the house/the kids etc so of course you cut contact.

But would you believe it, my friend/acquaintance has been sick over this for months and is on anti depressants! For a non consumed or hardly consumed non-relationship! I've always thought you have to stay available to the knocks of relationships because if you hide from them, a simple story book one can come bite you on the ass this badly at 49! I had to make an effort not to laugh which is so wrong as I do care for her and I know how real that pain is even if to me hearing the story it sounds like an over-reaction. That man would be horrified if he knew he unleashed this much grief. As far as he's concerned he was only toying with her. Ok, nobody needs my advice but don't you go talking to strangers on trains, it ends in tears.




Baaria and more proms.

14 August - S & P - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend.

Somewhere by Harrods we've gone to meet S. who is in town with the second woman with whom he's having a baby and has announced it this time by forwarding an article from the New Yorker about said woman (a docu director, daughter of famous american lawyer). He has a habit of doing this (I should link to the post a couple of years or is it 3 ago when at xmas we were introduced to the mother of first child, that was never a relationship but this one is).

The thing is that at some point at dinner he says to me that his mother is finding it very hard to come round the idea (of new relationship/new baby). I said well, would she find it so hard if you got married? He says I don't want to get married for my mother. Fair enough, though am sure that mother (and father) fund him to a high degree since his own oeuvre has not made him any money I'm sure. But then he mentions that his grandma gave him an engagement ring to give to the one and he can't just give it to anyone. It has to be right. That sort of sentiment. I think I looked up to lovely E. with the 6 months bump and thought 'Oh... if it’s not good enough for current soon to be mother of his second child (not to be confused with babymother #1) you have to wonder what does this guy feel heart wise. But I didn't say. Have to say though that I had noticed that apart from showing courtesy and proection to her, he hadn't made any gestures that spelt 'We're in love'. Granted, they were off a plane from NY that morning but still... Where's a bit of jubilation? Especially as he told me he'd met her a few years ago when her mother had held a fundraiser for him and wanted to go out with her but she was with someone else and now .. tara'! she was free to be his.

M. the laywer and hubby D the musician. She is a force of nature, my god! the work she's done prosecuting war criminals, puts me too shame. I don't right any wrongs. They were very well matched to meet E. as could talk about defending the undefendables. D. and I instead discovered some mutual music past figures and we were off. Who names their kid Sheherezade though? Would she be Shazza at school? or Shezzie?

Next evening was for a b'day. P. who's been out with various g/friends drinking all afternoon turned them into Francis Bacon figures. That may be too unkind but drink will make you ugly past the age of 40. As in obscene ugly, your face just deforms and blotches up. Being fat and boringly dressed doesn’t help either.

Toph waking up thinking I don’t want to spend time anymore with people I don’t like and you have to say but we didn’t know it would turn into a diatribe over tapas re. the muslims outside Regent's Park's mosque with N. the shrieking J. american going blah blah ‘I speak Hebrew and so I understand Arabic and I know they were dissing me'. They may well have been but you know, move a hundred yards, the park is quite large.

Poor N. got the brunt of it (friend of Toph, single, stunningly handsome, clearly thinking who are these harpies?) who grew up in a commune and his father died at 30 when N. was 5 of a heart attack due to cocaine abuse! Mother was with someone else for a while who left her to have baby with younger woman eventually. Whenever I hear this plot, I instantly get mad, mad, mad. I hate men for it. I have always hated men for it. E. from the night before, her father had done similar thing, left family #1 when he was nearly 60 and had E. and sister S. with a 30 year old he'd got to know whilst working with her. By all accounts a happy second family but what about the first wife. Women can't just frikking go out get a young stud and start again when they've been left in their dishrag years. I hate nature. I want it reversed, I want the shoe on the other foot. If Toph ever dares do this to me he'll be dead and I'll be in prison. Like you often read these stories of madness but each to their own boiling points. I swear to god. He'd (unfortunately) be punished for all the other assholes who simply switch life midway and get fresh pussy when old women simply can't get fresh cock.

J. and her food weirdness, has to be cubed and from M&S meals! I didn't know so kept proffering my patatas bravas, my pimientos del padron and saying 'But you're not eating anything, please take some'. No wonder she’s fat with all the butter/salt/sugar in ready meals and she eats alone. Clearly it's an illness so I have to understand but it seems to me that psychosomatic illnessess can be cured perhaps by some good therapy, some hypnosis and off you go. Why let food ruin your life to this extent?

Friday, August 13, 2010

13 August - 35 & 49 & 65 - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend.


Somewhere in Covent Garden
separated, ciliac, helicobacter. various double whammys for giada. Sounds like the marriage went ahead with various close players doubting these two had much in common.

carla who must have said 6 times 'menopause has robbed me of any energy' . Each time I've looked at her boyf , 65 , and he didn't seem to react. I wonder if he's had to hear it a zillion times and is resigned? still, she's sexy and 14 years younger than him... they only met 3 years ago. Do all italian men of a certain age who've rightly accepted the white hair, have to compensate by wearing those blue tinted glasses that Briatore sports?

Am not used to having my praises sang. It's nice but peculiar. C. keeps saying to partner/step daughter 'Isn't she great, what had I told you', a' propos of moi and I want to hide. I sort of don't know if I can reciprocate. C. seems nice and normal to me. We met when we were 20 or 21, don't particularly keep in touch. It's just one of those things.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

11 August - Dinner/rain - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend .

Somewhere in Chiswick near where Independiente used to have office, now long since gone.
Table next to ours with 15 or more assorted 20/21 years old. Loud, happy to see each other, lots of hugging of girls in short dresses/skirts which rose up in getting hugged. They all look like they have parents who foot their bills. Regulation english preppy look for the boys (by which I mean Prince Harry) and wannabe posh wagsies.
Our dinner spent with 3 people reminiscing about trips/work/people they knew. Small percentage known to me and only 2 well enough to care. Much 'have you heard from...?' and surprise that someone who may have been best friend in your thirties has not returned your call since Jan/Feb. Not out of malice you think but they're busy. The reality is that nobody needs friends that much anymore. You sort out own shit by and large without burdening anyone with it. If you do, you actually lose friends who may be having a decent time and don't feel like having to cheer you up or mask own good time so as not to upset you by comparison.

wake up next day with memories of inxs since M. had asked me if I knew someone whose name was familiar but not quite. 8 hours later my subconscious throws up the name of inxs manager who is not the person M. meant and who I didn't know apart from in passing anyway and when I go look things up as usual they're much further back in time than i thought. ie early 80's.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

10 August - New Yorker g/friends

An evening to go meet the TV friend who lives in NY and who has a habit of sending emails out of the blue about going to meet some new g/friend who's about to have his child. Ok this is only the second time he springs this one but it's always done with some news event sort of slant. New g/friend comes preceded by a profile of hers in the New Yorker since she's also a film maker and daughter of a very famous and controverial lawyer who defended some people nobody wanted to defend (Black Panthers that sort of stuff).

E. is very very nice, and her boyf has invited his top friend the Amnesty lawyer as a sort of proof he has friends who totally understand the cause. The two women happily chat. I chat with woman's husband D. who has a career in ad music (they all do after the pop careers end) and knows some people I know. I like the lawyer a lot, MP -I have to start really using people's initials as sometimes I read back and have no idea what anyone is called) . Wish she was my friend but have nothing to offer in her field. I read her CV online and am scared about the high achievments there to which i have none to compare. And she's manage to have two young dauthers as well. Where do these people find the time? I bet she also manages to write a legal blog every day. She was totally young when she was involved in a major trial for crimes against humanity. Was not Pinochet or Saddam, the other one. Bastard died before they reached the end so I gather all gets dropped. Shame.

Anyway, chances are we won't hear from friend till the next child with the next woman may come along? For some reason their body language did not spell love to me but merely, this happend and we're happy about it. Or maybe they were just jet lagged. I did try and caution against them using both surnames as they plan to do. They're an incredible mouthful and do not alliterate or sound good whichever order you put them in. First son already has a name that is
constantly misheard, misunderstood. Some americans think his kid is called Awsome. I rest my case.

He did say an extraordinary thing re the ring his grandma gave him. If it’s not good enough for current soon to be mother of his second child (not to be confused with babymother #1) you have to wonder what does this guy feel heart wise.

9 August - Iraqi proms

Fee sad for a lot of people a lot of the time. This is one such occasion. A room full of Iraquis, a large room since it's the RAH, and they're listenign to a mixture of old /traditional songs and some new arrangemetns born of a collaboration between the established star and a protegee. The songs sound sad, the people are nicely dressed, probably your longterm London Iraqui and maybe not just the ones who had to leave and can't go back. By now they probably can go back but who would want to since it universally looks like hell and you could die in some mistake cross fire etc etc.
Anyway, I feel sad for anyone who has songs that mean nothing to someone else like me. Not my culture though it's very reminiscent of many others, certainly in melody style or singing style.

7 August - More English coastline - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend.

somewhere near rye
J s-p story.

the shore house on sea. also seen west/east london people in dorset. then again had been Camp Bestival w/end. food is almost london prices so not sure how often people can have it (during the week it can't be as packed as on a sunday?) but will the proles just bring thermos flasks and sandwhiches?

Around Camber Sands it looked a bit more downmarket.

Dungeness/the cottages bunched together. with all that space, why build right up next to another i wonder? Toph goes exploring the mini pampas towards the sea and reports on architetural designed houses. i stay in the car reading whatever i find, old Douglas Coupland. had enough of barren empty spaces in iceland.



disussingn boys' names. talk about I's one and the fall out with mother in law Eden vs Keanu/Jay sounds required by spiritual guide?

Windy on the front, sheltered down below. sunny when london was dark. Peaceful night sleep.

Little boy repeats all the words. very charming. mummy gorgeous is reading scripts.

We stop to buy guinea fowl but when Toph discovers it's from last season's deep frieze he changes his mind. Dressed crab it is.

Friday, August 06, 2010

6 August - Old PR peeps - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend

dog noodle, cinema polish rebel songs from under communism era, buddhism LF but talk of synagogues etc. Was a time I'd have killed to get a job with her.

H.'s book on berlioz

C. at bbk /distinction. those were the days.

M's 2 /3rds rewrite. I'd kill myself

Still toothless jerry dammers but now very fat , with hat and bad suit looks like a troll out of lord of the rings. benevolent look. is he high or on medication. must remember people who are fat may be on steroids or anti cancer or anti depression cures so can't really just go yeeewww.

2 August - Marketing & over 50 - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend .

Friend turend 50. A month later she gets the offers of insurance /save per month etc to build up a pot. Helpfully illustrated with a graph asking 'do you know the costs of funerals across UK'?

Personally iIthink we should be thrown into an unmarked grave and left to rot. £4k is the average cost since you ask. And cremation half of that.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

1 August - Grass & Greener - partial

from now on anything that says 'partial' means that I haven't finished writing it but that if I sit on it forever, you'll think this blog is defunct so am publishing and later on will amend.

Double excursion to two sets of friends in Dorset plus nudie beache thrown in.

From a small but perfectly formed cottage to a brand newly refurbished giant vicarage where litres of Farrow and Ball have been used on the triple height walls and ceilings. Wow.

Looking at their house then upon return at house of their friends (have met them) which is bigger/better and so on on Dartmoor.

C. wistful about life she's left behind, just being mum/interior designer whilst B writes. Her small daughter question hurts.

Her bro forging ahead in Hollywood shooting massive budget film. Seems yesterday we went to see his last movie which was in 2 London cinemas for no longer than a week. The sort of shotgun wedding.