18 November - RCA & much choice

I think I tried this a few years back but had wiped the memory? Which is why I spent a few hours looking through 6000 pictures of the RCA Secret collection, identified the ones I'd like to buy (too many but am assuming by the time I go in most of my selection will have gone to others) and printed a sheet with the favourites and gone to stand outside the RCA at 10.30am on the day. Fat chance. There's a queue sneaking round various buildings and evident detritus from people who must have queued here the night (discarded duvets). Which means that probably only 1 out of my 30 selections remains. And we don't know which one. So a mere 30 minutes see me despatched from this queue and reading saturday magazines at the Wholefoods down the road.

Must remember never to come to this again. When reading about it, must think 'Would eventual little postcard of drawing /painting etc make me happy?'. Answer is no, postcard size is far too small to hang anywhere and granted there are smaller things like miniatures, cameos etc or small canalettos but.. not for me thanks.

I would like the RCA to actually publish a picture of people holding the card they got. that would be fun. Or put up a webcam inside so I can actually see what goes on. That's all I ask for. Keep your cards, even the ones which were easy to attribute and may be valuable, are not that amazing after all. Mr Grayson Perry, Ms Yoko Ono, I mean you for example. Would that stuff get you accepted on a foundation course even?

6 November - Mad therapists

There I was thiking that ageing is changing the geography of my reactions/thoughts pretty comprehensively and that I'm a boring nasty bitch compared to self a mere ten years ago, but hey, am not that bad at all!!! Oh no, am not.

Picture this. Prior to wonderfully scatty genius girl Ms Heap's show at RAH, had arranged to meet D. g/friend I seldom see who had re-located to Krakow and doesn't pass these shores that often. She was also meeting her long time friend J. who I have met several times over the years but always in party situation and do not know well. I arrive at dinner for 3 and as I sit down remark of D. that she looks amazing (42? 43?) as she usually wears jeans and a t-shirt and tonight she's channeling Chanel in a sort of Natalie Portman outfit. She has same flawless skin and alert look. J. cuts me shorts saying no time for pleasantries as our dinner before the show is limited to an hour and we should discuss weightier topics such as.... ta ra.... her absolutely dreadful time on menopause (she's 54?).
So off we go... frightening me a little and D. probably an awful lot. I figure D. knows her well so I go along. She talks about how she was suicidal, with thoughts of absolute worthlessness and other physical symtoms galore. When I try and say that perhaps it doesn't strike everyone the same, she counters that it's like giving birth and most women go along thinking 'ha, the awful experience won't be mine, I'll have the nice one pls' and then wham. strike you down.

She does offer that she refused to use anything but natural remedies and there's me mentally filing away 'You total idiot, take the goddam drugs', you can deal with possible addiction to those as a separate issue later on. She riffs and riffs on this and I say 'Must have been hard on you to keep it steady for your girls (10 and 12? 11 and 13?) if you were feeling so awful' . She replies that no, they know full well about the ghastliness of it all, she believes in letting it all hang out. Jeesus. Yeah my mother is mad. Great to have that. Husband is still around, after 30 years together I guess he could weather this one. I tried to make a bit light weight of it by saying 'hey we were supposed to be dead and buried by 50 so clearly bodies go wild in trying to cope with all this, evolution has not caught up with medical advances' but she was determined to share her experience.

Later when we exit and are talking about a friend's website and I say how she obsessed for days/weeks about the right kind of shade of mauve for her brochure and I lost my patience and told her clients probably care for content/pricing of her services not the frikking shade of mauve that's in her head and printers can't match, J. pipes up that she's a bit like that. She's wondering how much info about herself to put on her website. Forgot to tell you: she's a psychotherapist! She leads workshops! Clearly any mad person is very suitable to give advice to other shaky people. She wasn't alwasy one, had a successful fashion busienss but hit 40 something and change career into caring but lucrative profession, why not.

I say 'Er, the less the better'. Clients will project all sort of shit on you anyway, that if they knew you kind of lost it for a year or two on this menopause stuff they'd run a mile and if they're male they don't care anyway. Christ! Later on we meet further friend L. and I tell her about the dinner talk. She says -and I sort of agree - that such stuff probably highlights aspects of who you are already. She says 'J. is super intense isn't she?' And there you have it. Am not, ergo I won't be attacked by suicidal thoughts. Though some powerlessness and anger related to that plus f uck, only 30 /40 years to DEATH, will leave me pretty pissed off.

I nearly said at interval when J. went out for cigarette 'Er.. I read that if you smoke you make it worse, the sweats you have etc? and er by the way how much wine do you drink?' But I didn't want her to hate me so much.

Gig was great btw... first half with symphony orchestra conducted by Immi to original score. Get that woman a TV show. Rest of gig was her playing the top songs requested by her fans. Nice varied bunch. She has mikes embedded in her wrists. How cool is that? She does however keep up a constant stream of talking to herself throughout. Charming but also... batty. Wonde what her menop. will be like?

5 november - Diwali

Happy Diwali for any readers who are indian or love India. Mera kutta kala hai. Ok not relevant but the only sentence in hindi that I'm able to recollect easily. A g/friend of 24 said recently she wants to study French. I told her get tee to the class tout de suite parce que when you get to 40 odd you can learn but it doesn't stick. I go to hindi classes and makes perfect sense when there, the grammar is dead easy and am certainly not learning devanagiri script yet, but the total surprise for me (and speak 3 languages plus know a 4th I never use (German) and because of 2 of those good other ones (French/Italian), I get a 5th and am not scared of being alone in Mexicoooooooo), is that I can't memorise shit/mierda/cacca/merde/sheise. I walk around counting 1 to 10 in hindi or repeating the names of the week and there are always gaps. The same gaps. number 4 or ... tuesday. WTF? There is a small voice that says 'It doesn't matter, you just concentrate on how the grammar works and then when you'll be there, you'll get the missing words easily, plus you know you say 3 plus one or the day after monday and before wednesday. Think laterally. Draw it on the sand. So I imagine my brain is saying it's overloadeda and please leave it alone, and they all speak English anyway, sort of... But it still bugs me that memory doesn't work. A summer ago I asked the niece of a friend (bored at a family party) to tell me no. 1 to 10 in her jewish language. Must have repeated them several times and even at the time I couldn't retain one. Zero. Why this decay? I know they sell supplements for memory but am increasing of the opinion that the vast vast supplements market is a massive con.

It's like the lovely Ulla, facial therapist at .... who tells it like it is and totally does not believe any cream engineers any collagen production in your face. End of. She believes a bit of IPL laser helps but that's that. You can't make it by ingesting anything or by trying to make it penetrate your own skin. No Jose'. No se puede. Ji nahi.

3 November - Old Age

will not be pretty chez Taylor. Today I gave Toph irritated answers. Goes like this. We all have very precisely shaped characters/personalities/skills. I am one of those who tell you once, expect you've heard me/understood me. You tell me once, and I got it, filed it, acted on it or diarised it to act on it etc. That's why it's super hard to deal with people who repeat or check stuff. By all means, check once but not twice. So whenever a certain friend for example texts me or calls me to double check if I'll be round hers at 6pm as previously arranged... I get the hackles up instantly. Why check? When have I not ever been where I told you I'll be at the right time unless I've given you notice that I can't be etc etc.?
So, poor Toph knows I'll be out at a show with some friends which most likely will end at 10.30 unless I go backstage in which case I'll let him know that I'll be back at whatever time. Himself will be home at 8ish as he has already informed me. So why call me and tell me again?
You can say why get annoyed over such small things but ... I do , you do, we all do.
Perhaps I should be more in a hurry to see him since he's been away for 5/6 days? Perhaps.... But am really looking forward to the show and the friends. Mainly because they're a more rare occasion and with him we're now on year 5. That's the way it goes. Had always read about it and it's true. You just can't keep the same level of excitedness about the routine in your life. Don't want anything else but neither can I treat this like it's more special than it is... So it must mean that going forward ten years I'll be unapprocheable in terms of irritable levels and I'll care not a lot for my relationship. It's possible...

I think Stephen Fry is wrong to say that women want sex less than men, I think they want the same amount but not as they get older... unless women are on HRT or other, then they want it less or they want it renewed that's why people go off with younger lovers all around no? and in some cultures there's an old wife and a few younger models to service the man. One always feels the older wife is to be pitied but I don't think necessarily. She lives in the same nice house, she is who she is, she just doesn't need to have sex just to service him, since she probably doesn't get as much pleasure out of it as she did in her twenties or thirties. Anyone out there with an opinion? Mr Fry also forgets that women can't very well run off to hampsted heath to have it off with strangers, much as they may like to, as the social restrictions on us are much more monumentally crushing than they are on men. Gay or otherwise. Wasn't that long ago we were mere chattels and still are in various parts of the world.

2 November - Woolens

Maybe nobody has as many jumpers, cardigans, polo necks, vests , heartwarmers, as I have but I border on the sick with all the boxes of them (and you know that's a calling card for the moths). But I enjoy sorting them out at the beginning of winter and be reminded of all the brown ones, all the blacks, all the stripey, all the pale ones etc etc.
Only thing is, I work in environments where it's never that cold and go out wearing some only to then think what have I done, am boiling hot now! so when will I wear all of these? and yet I keep acquiring more here and there. Sometimes I buy some heavy ones, like soft chunky cashmere and think 'Will wear round the house, save on the heating - not for money reasons but for eco reasons' but not even my home gets cold, it's well insulated. I'd rather wear those than dressing gowns or some such... never had one and find them somehow offputting, like they belong in some old film. Apart from the fact that everyone gets attached to their 'old' one and so they look yeuuuuu.
I also have some cashmere trackie and never cold enough to wear them. In my head I waft around like a Ralph Lauren girl in her house in Aspen at Xmas but in reality.... no such thing.