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

Thursday, December 23, 2010

28 December - Tower Bridge & Date

Friend was working at operations centre of a Christmas charity and another volunteer asked her out. She was a bit shocked but said yes. The guy is possibly a professional volunteer ie one that gets paid some salary as he seemed to go round the world doing this here and there and also was working longer hours. She didn't fancy him but nobody asks you out anymore so why not.
He asked her to meet him on the crack of Tower Bridge at 6pm. She was there a bit earlier and had to keep moving as tourists were taking pictures, thus giving him the line 'You're not on the crack!' when he arrived. They moved to it, she said let's go for a drink and he said have one here. Pulling out of rucksack a bottle, some plastic glasses, two of which swiftly blew into the river, and one of those candles in glass holder to fight the wind. He also had an ipod and speakers. The wine was drank and then they moved to a pizza express where they left at 12ish with my friend thinking it was 10pm ie time flew. She still didn't fancy but warmed to him for his inventivness.

Am actually writing this in mid January to post and so it is that I know that he's not got in touch since. Men... he was due to leave the country in a few days so perhaps he thought not worth pursuing or maybe because she didn't go home for coffee with him or whatever. Who knows. She is not that cut up about it as these things, well they happen. I think it's a great sign of progress that one day you're old enough no longer to think 'oh my god he didn't ring, has he been runover by a bus?' My friend cherishes her copy of 'He's just not that into you'. Great book. Solves all the mysteries.
Maybe he always has dates on the crack of TB. Who knows...

23 December - Death & Parties

Nobody died but nobody I know goes to parties. Our only invite this year was from the lovely and hospitable C and his family over in Shep Bush. We see them once a year. So apart from him, his brother, his wife and his lovely tall, tall kids we didn't speak to no one else. How could we? Why would we? It used to be someone caught your eye or you were told so and so would be interesting for you or vice versa and off you went. But when faced with two roomfuls of ageing middle class peeps and some of their teenage children (bribed as staff to dish out the canapes) the effort seems too much. You're not interested in who/what/why they are and neither are they. There's no one you fancy (the other big pull to talk to someone) or can fancy. Verboten. And because you knew how it would be, same as last year, you don't even make much of an effort with a super outfit. No, a middle boring will do. Why stand out?

In fact at some point Toph engaged said kids. He was talking to the youngest daughter who is tall and therefore he thought she was 15 or so but we discovered she was only 13. Clearly one talks as benevolent uncle, but you also feel a bit silly. So two hours later you escape. In the streets you see other revellers all much younger and therefore having tons of fan going out at the time you're getting into the car to go home. Where did it all go? I could cry.

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21 December - Work & Gifts

C. friend with great job in fashion takes me to leaving do for colleagues who're escaping to go design shoes somewhere else. I do vaguely remember the 30 decade as one where it still made sense to me to try and get a better all around situation or one where I could make may mark. I don't know why these people are leaving? Want more money? More power? Fewer artistic restrictions? A faster path to the top? Who knows, but can't be much else. It's all very lively but am astonished that they are all women bar a few gay men. Never worked in that kind of gender mix myself.

C. has been ill and therefore down with the flu which she gets when she stops the manic work travelling. She's asking me how to break away and move into doing my boring kind of job as all she meets is gay men (ie no straight possible partner) and suffer way too much stress because of deadlines etc. wow! A while back she told me she aimed for a more exclusive fashion brand and I applauded but I guess her window of wanting the top job vs quality of life is diminishing year on.
Didn't really manage to give any constructive advice.

As for gifts, I am intolerable of stuff now. Only like what i want not what other people want to give me and very unchristmassy style am inclined to want to say give me the cash I'll get it.
Nobody likes that but as I also go round trying to buy a few well aimed gifts I cannot help but think that if they just told me what they want it would be so much simpler. This is not so much my fault but consumerism. Everyone has everything. I keep saying give it to charity give mine to charity but nobody wants to do that much. But truly it's a great way. Help someone else. that's what we should be doing or am I mad? It should be kept simple.. books, music, things like that. Nobody should want all the novelty shit that comes out, or the handbag they can buy themselves... Any suggestions? You all know by now that I hate bath products being given to me.

20 December - Bolano & Franzen

Would my time have been better spent reading 4 other interesting books in the time it took to read 1 Bolano? Granted 2666 will stay with me but largerly only for reason of marvelling at skill of writer at pulling such a monumental feat and for some resonant thoughts expressed here and there by various characters, but certainly not for any of the characters as such (don't care for any except mabye all the dead women in Santa Theresa who are not characters as such). Only the other day I was telling a friend who has yet to tackle the book past page 40 that she should start with the 4th part, and in so doing 'Start with 4, then 5 and then 1 and 2 and 3' . I realisedt that I no longer remembered who /what was in art 2 and 3 read ages ago. So you know, it's hard to recommend a novel you've read in the past 2 years and forgotten so much of it.

As for Franzen I already agree with (the UK) reviewers, great but not all that after all. In other words not a masterpiece. Though Toph asked what do I consider a masterpiece and I couldn't name one, simply because nothing stays with you for long and you'd end up just naming some universally approved book on some top 100 of the western world (always feel have to clarify that the gaps in one's reading are so wide despite reading a lot, that you know entire countries' outputs are missing, some far (never read a south korean writer) and some cose by (never read a greek modern writer apart fro 1 poet, Cavaby).

So, Franzen, well for such an accomplished writer, Patty's voice is not true to the character. It just sounds like Franzen. And that in writing is school boy error non? Both Katz and Walter think she's brilliant /beautiful but why the f ????????? You'd be hard pressed to think that in reading what she has to say. it's only interesting because it's Franzen's voice, Patty wouldn't think half of those thoughts. Then Toph said it's like J. blinded by how brilliant G. is and nobody else can see it. And funnily enough he pursues G. not the other way round so G. is the Patty who maybe one day turns around and thinks 'you'll do' . Though maybe this is normal in all relationships. To think the best of the other otherwise what would you be doing with him/her? and for your friends to largely think nothing of the sort because if they did they'd all be after your partner and that would be well messy?

But yes, very funny novel and very apt for baby boomers, though have not read more than 200 pages (but I am known to skip ahead and read paragraphs /pages here and there, just to check which way the wind blows ahead of my reading).

What I can't get over is this guys' s best friend, David Foster Wallace, one of my other favourite writers though a lot more hard going than Franzen, killing himself. Now my opinions on the killing oneself are variable, alternating between we should all consider doing it at some point and save time/hassle/pain etc or ... we're here for a reason even if that reason is not clear to ourselves and we alll have value even tough we could be said to have hardly any.

But I gather Foster Wallace did it because when he was on medication to feel better against his depression, he could no longer write what he thought was good to write and if he couldn't do that then he was not a writer and therefore did not want to live.

But in Bolano I read the best 2 pages on why sometimes it's best not to bother being a writer of largely minor works which abound whereas the masterpieces are few and far between and i can't currently name you one that seems valid today (sure you know, when it came out War & Peace must have been the best/hardest novel ever) though if all thougth that, then what would I be left reading, this being my one and only favourite passtime and always will be? (noticed I hardly noticed in writing this sentence that I have displaced sex from beinga #1 passtime, when did this happen? bloody hormones gone forever...)
It's all on pages xx and xx (don't have the book at hand, past the misway of part 5 I recollect).

Another thought no school master will ever act upon is , if you wonder how to entice many non readers to read books that appear daunting or have difficult opening pages, slice them in half or in more than 2 parts and select the best bit (someone will have done this for you) and read backwards or forwards, after all our brain can handle it and often the narrative is structured like that deliberately and movies do that now so we're more used to it.

It's true that about 300 pages of count of montecristo right past the middle are totally missable, or chunks of the middle of famished road are equally not advancing the story and could be excised. Not forever but you can tell the reader, go back when you have time to these bits, in the meantime don't just chuck the book out of a window. That way you don't lose readers. Though whose opinion would I trust? And would this be done just for the good books or the skilfully written but pointless stuff I see people reading on the tube? Who am I to banish the jodi picoult?

But my argument doesn't stand. people are not scared of large books like I am. Their heart does not sink when they see 800 pages plus. Otherwise who'd have read all those harry potters, twilight and you name it? But those are 'easy' prose right? Page turners... Bolano certainly isn't, so my argument is only for literary books but Bolano is hard going (you know re-read sentences, work out if they make sense or not) but not literary per se. Ok, am tied up in knots, I don't care, I now simply have to read Savage Detectives though, can't be harder than 2666. I 'll give myself a year for this one....

18 December - Egypt & Dead

Hey back from egypt and avoided lots of airport snow chaos. Lucky for once.

It was pretty darn interesting there, I recommend it, but you can save it for when you're a pensioner as doesn't require any stress to visit what Luxor/Aswan/Abu Simbel have to offer. Though somehow I never feel totally comfortable in countries where they don't drink. Now, as you know, I hardly do (hence lack of great stories from mad nights out), so am not actually missing the alcohol itself, but I miss the easy going nature of bars and people who are out having fun. In muslim countries even when the locals are nice to you (and they were in Egypt), very smiley and soooo good looking some of the men, you just feel an edge. I can't describe it, but the fact that you don't see a woman drive a car (no way, remember we were not in Cairo) or a woman serving you in a shop, and conversely all you see is tons of blokes milling about and all they do for recreation is smoke a pipe in a café' where only men are milling about having a pipe ... I don't know... It makes you walk past fast, because you feell like a gawker if you linger and look, whereas in any other place you'd stop, have a coffee, chill and mingle with them but clearly it's not encouraged in muslim countries so you feel conspicuous for being johnny foreigner and as a girl you think 'what do you think of me? Should I be at home where your wife is?' and you can't kiss your boyfriend in the street as it would seem rubbing it in somehow so you feel... circumspect at all times. You end up missing advertising billboards even!

Been to precious few places like this, Zanzibar comes to mind or Morocco, but Toph tells me how much he hated being in Saudi Arabia for work once. There the difference you feel in the air is to the max. Egypt is quite liberal by comparison but maybe more so in Cairo. In sleepy Luxor and Aswan is a bit like Greece or Sicily in 1935 I guess, blokes out and about and women at home with the kitchen/kids. No feminism evident at all, though am sure there are women doctors and so on. But they'd make more money by selling drinks to the locals via levy/taxes and could plow it back since it seems still a pretty poor country. It would take a few decades before it turns in to a problem and you get girls falling about in the street or kids knifing each other in housing estates no?

But the history/architecture is amazing - I loved that most old temples have roofs - in seismic Italy nothing is left with a roof fore example - though there's an element of spare/spartan theme park. What's real and what is not? It all kind of looks like Vegas in a sense. I kept touching surfaces of temples and thinking ok this is 4,000 years old that I'm touching. But you don't feel any connections. What it must be like for the locals I don't know. If you're in Rome, in a temple or a catacomb or other, there's still a link to a current religion, whereas here, none of the current Egyptians can link to people who believed in gods with bird heads or that the sun went under the flat earth west of the Nile and came back out of the flat earth east of the Nile.

Anyway, apparently we missed Camilla visiting lady Mubarak the day before and we missed Naomi Campbell's wedding to russian billionaire at the nearby Hilton though quick internet search reveals nothing of the latter nuptials.

Hotel good, heated outdoor pool definitely the winning trick there since sun is only warm 10 to 3pm. Only one minor celeb spied and he's not really, Dr Brian Cox who does those science programs on TV. Yeah ok, that's not much.

One recommendation: don't pick interconnecting rooms in a hotel if on holiday with boyf and his mother. Means boyf thinks his mother can hear every word and sound so er... yeah.. get my drift...? Though I had as stinking cold throughout and he should have just worried my nose sounds were going to disturb her and not much else.

14 December - Off to Egypt

Forever linked to that wonderful 80's Joanism Riverism... (I think it's her, the river connection) 'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt'.

So yes, no warning words needed re. sharks etc as not going near Red Sea at all, Luxor and Aswan for us. The mother in law is coming as suprise advance xmas gift from caring son (she's had a shit few years past stuck in this country to look after ailing relatives, so she deserves a break). I don't think of her as a shark at all, but will she sink me somehow? Have been told my sniping at Toph is fine when it's just me and him, but am to refrain from bossying him about in front of his ma. Mmmmhhh, ingrained habit am afraid, justified by the fact that withough a bit of bossying of jollying along, Toph is a dreamy kid and drives you mad. Though he can also organise stuff and will want to be his mother's best guide ever.

Never mind, it's going to be warmer than here and not work so rejoice for me.

10 December - More Marmite & Memories

I didn't go to a dinner, didn't have the balls. But went to Ms Marmite's xmas market at her flat. Was pretty glorious. Love the flat, 's huge and huge garden, and was just choka with people selling and buying. Got to admire self promotion. Recognised many of the b/w prints round the living room, from her old portfolio. Was pleased to see in the front garden a caravan/taxi branded in the livery of GMT beer which friends of mine own. Woo hooo, this is the second time in a week that I see them sponsoring events and for all I know they were at all the Summer festivals I no longer attend.

Anyway, bought a few bits, thought about how much work has had to go into this (and the subsequent clear out of all 'stuff'), tried to calculate earnings from visitors and stall holders, as you do), saw KR rushing about and she's not changed a bit, just a bit larger but hey she's a cook so stands to reason. Didn't feel wanted to talk to her after all and was not the place anyway but at some point as I was standing on some steps by the kitchen entrance, I saw her looking my way and take a picture or two in my direction. Maybe she saw me and wondered (I also have not changed much since those days apart from hair colour perhaps), also because if she goes through the email list of who bought tickets, there, that's my name indeed. Funny thing the past.

4 December - Doctor & Advice

I meet an ex lover before who has relocated to some small town near Brisbane and is in town briefly to collect partner and child and bring them to the large house on stilts surrounded by nature ie insects and snakes but he won't care, he'll be at some nerve centre of a hospital directing helicopters into the bush and so on.

I talk about some recent loss of libido as you do, he's a doctor, and the fact that I believe that if you stop having sex at a fairly frequent pace, you may as well watch your relationship die. Doctor reminds me that men are visual creatures, you just have to wear blah and blah happens. Which is not what my GP had said, he was more along the lines of us being ahead of our actual evolution and having to do stuff when in fact a mere few hundred years ago we'd be dead and buried at the age this starts to happen. Thanks!

S. mentions 'the little tartan skirt' I wore on occasions of our trysts and gets an erection! We're in a 'soup for you' type cafe, so he just smiles and says Down boy down as they say so I start asking him about crocs in rivers and we move on. But he's right. Never admit to the possible problem rearing its head, just go out and buy the usual mini club dance outfit for Toph and make him happy. Happy to share.

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Friday, December 03, 2010

2 December - Marmite & Memories

So, the other day I picked up a British Airways/Standard sponsored magazine which featured the 100 most influential people in London in arts/media/finance you know the type. As Toph says ‘You read every page, no wonder it takes you so long to read Sunday papers etc’. and my stock answer is always ‘That’s why I know so much more stuff than you do’. So am reading most of these peeps, and in the food section which is not that relevant to me as I don’t chase around the latest restaurant usually, it says that Ms Marmite Lover is ‘a guerrilla cook who pioneered the underground/pop up restaurant scene from her flat in Kilburn.. blah blah former rock photographer KR.’ Fell off my chair!

Back in the mid 80’s I was a good friend of Kerstin, she was a photographer covering music and her best friend was Clare Muller, another photographer and sister of the soon to be more famous Sophie Muller who did plenty of vids for Eurythmics and practically all of Sade’s up to the most recent output of the not so prolific singer. Try as I May, and I’ve exchanged emails with other friends of that period and nobody remembers introducing me to KR or knowing her though they remember me mentioning her. Maybe it was through my dead ex M. or maybe CM who did some work for Euryth when I knew them? and then Kerstin? My mind is simply not throwing up the info at all. Incidentally a friend now in Switzerland asked me in return if I remembered her gay friend N. who helped out at most/all her parties. Not, a, clue. I said was he tall? She said no, very short. Not, a, clue. She said he was at all her parties and so was I, and they were meals or Sunday lunches or bbqs in the garden, not a druggy crowd and pouf! No, this friend did not leave a trace in my memory.

Anyway I was in and out of her tiny flat in Kentish Town and have various pictures of KR including at a b’day dinner at Pollo in Old Compton St with her in a sari having recently returned from a trek in India/Nepal where she had met her husband to be, the lovely but not quite as frantic as she was, Alain. KB had a horrible relationship with her parents. Dad owned a famous agency and had cash and she was always feeling a) not as good as he was and b) that of course he would be the one to give her work when there was none and therefore resented him/mother. Think she also a had better (according to the parents) behaved sister. So her role was quite rightly the rebel daughter. She was fun and an aquarian but also very outspoken/direct/mouthy (clearly between her and HP and FS I must have been the quiet friend? Is that possible? I am direct but those 3 could kill you). Part of the reason may have been that KR was /is shorter than me by a bit and as they say small people sometime develop this bully behaviour to be heard /stand out. She also had the biggest tits ever for that height and I seem to remember she had a breast reduction. Anyway.. I have no idea exactly why we fell out, not the dimmest. All I remember is going to visit after she had her daughter and bringing a gift. She was then staying at her parents who had a gigantic open plan amazing flat in one of the wharves near the Times /Tower Bridge. Daughter had a suitably hippy name like Saffron but not Saffron, maybe Sienna and things were not looking well with A. who could never get a decent paying job (can’t remember what he did? Chef??). And that’s that. Back in the days one had so many friends that forgetting a few for decades didn’t seem to leave you missing them that much.

So have been reading bits and bobs from KRs blogs, and it would appear that she's doing very well indeed which is nice, she was/is involved with various anarchist/protest movements, (makes perfect sense) but that she is also a great cook and has a book coming out based on her blog and am always jealous of people who manage to monetise their blogs since mine is reasonably crap and not worth a book. She seems to be mentioned even in the Daily Beast etc. which just goes to show how media stories can now really travel round the globe. I bet as we speak there are north Koreans wondering if they can go find/eat at her flat. She appears to still have a confrontational outlook on life, which now, on paper, makes me laugh. Fight on sister.

However, despite being majorly interested in catching up in tons of years of someone I used to know, and there being a blog to help me, I found that I just couldn’t go through it all and dipped in and out. Which must mean that my long cherished thought that when I die, Toph can finally read all about me/us here or some other friend will want to do the same, well it just won’t happen. You’d have to be mad!!It seems all the restaurant/soirees etc are hosted in her flat in Kilburn (which has a yurt in the garden occasionally) so am toying with the idea of dropping into one (have to buy ticket first) and see reaction from there.

Am slightly puzzled as to the daughter (there’s plenty of mention of KR being a single mother so Alain er. .. went) but daughter is 16 or so and that cannot be right. The latest she could have had her was 1990 and so either she’s a few years out or I am memory wise. Got to be me. So if we did fall out in 1994… instead of 1990 it means I was already not going out with M. he was dead by then and I don’t remember KR being someone who was there to support me through the pain? And I vaguely remember where I was working but why didn’t we stay friends? Only thing I can imagine is that maybe she moved out of London for a few years? This being prior to email/ easy link? Or that she as a new mother and me still gallivanting to clubs and wine bars maybe I was no longer well placed to be a good mate? This is going to puzzle me for some time.

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1 December - Shops & Snow

Some days I seem to deal with children at work. The amount of questions posed in a 'mummy now, now, I want to know now' tone I get are so many I just have to go to the loo and do my silent screams. Wish we were near a high speed train line and I'd go out scream for real at top of lungs. In the meantime I watch Brett from the Conchords on youtube doing his 'angry dance, in a very 80's style.

But could be worse. I could be working in a shop where I'd have aural torture for a month with all those crappy xmas tunes on a loop. Would send me postal in no time.

Ah, see, what a great start of the month.