Miss Taipei

Goodbye

2012-02-11T20:25:00.002Z

My gran died. It's a cliche, but I'm better for her having been in my life.

Now I'm trying to be better. My grief's coming out as extreme anger towards my mother and my aunt, her daughters. Their behaviour has been outrageously classless and mean. I just want to distance myself without poking their eyes out, because they lost her too.

The worst thing my aunt said was that she talked to a fortune-teller who told her my gran died of cervical cancer, not Alzheimer's and when she went to see her at the funeral home she stank, so it might be true. How can she say that to me about my elegant, clever gran? Ignorant horrible bitches, I hate them.

Odd day

2011-11-30T23:01:00.002Z

More journal-ism.

Today was a non-day. Felt tired, sick, but not too low. Just scrubbed my house which is really the only productive thing to do, in this mood. And baby it's cold outside.

Procrastinating with my studies but then they are just a distraction, I've come to realise, because I'm too sick in the head to tolerate some shitbox EFL job, these days. That's OK. I've got my TV and my pills, as the man said, and I'm planning on going to Spain next year to have babies anyway.

It'll get better. It always does. And then it'll get worse again, because it always does.

My gran is dying (faster than the rest of us). Nobody can help her feel less scared because she has no short term memory so it's like she rediscovers her situation every few minutes. I wish I could have everyone back. I want my grandparents, as they were when I was a child, just for a while. Holding her hand helps, I think. She thinks I'm Isobel, her elder sister. She doesn't really recognise her daughters, but I look like her family, not my parents. My mother looks like her own father, and I got my shortness and my slight bum-chin from mine (erm, and the severe depression). I look like the Sorleys. It's strange that that makes me feel proud: that genetic photocopy on my face can comfort an old lady, then I'm glad my face looks the way it does. Weird, small green eyes, hair not quite black, not quite curly. Small hands with dimples. She's forgotten my name, but sometimes she knows. She asked after my father once, but then it slipped away.

I found a picture of my father recently, and he had 'the look'. I'll explain that another time. It's causing intense pressure at the sides of my head to think about of this.

Tomorrow, I will wake up early and press on with present life instead of processing past life. It's such a bloody effort.

And I miss my friend

2011-11-05T23:24:00.004Z

I had this great friend. I thought he 'got me'. I thought he liked me. I thought he saw me as a friend too. But he didn't, and I feel the same as I always do because I've been letting the same guy in a different body use me for money, sex, validation, whatever, since I first went to Taiwan. He manipulated me into feeling sorry for him, and for mistaking that as a connection.

I think Taiwan was the biggest mistake of my life. My mental health, self-esteem and career went into free-fall the minute the plane touched down. And because of this, I let a succession of guys rape me, cheat on me, give me diseases, get me pregnant, hit me, take money from me, etc, etc, etc.

It tears me up that he's with some ugly bore (aren't they always?) who lets him cheat and believes that he's sorry because she doesn't know how many times he's done it before. It makes me angry that he went on and on and on about how clever I am (don't they always?) before utterly debasing that by choosing some damaged twat whose eyes barely focus.

Does MY obvious damage put a target on my head for these kind of guys? I don't mean to sound victimy, because nothing non-consensual went on, I take full responsibility for my part in it. I just didn't know they were 'together'. I wanted to connect, he had that connection with someone else. I think that's what hurts.

And I don't know why it hurts. Objectively speaking, he's an ugly, ugly person. He's a manipulative liar and a cheat and has been for years, he's not good-looking, he's not clever, he doesn't do anything interesting and can't teach me anything in life other than how to deal with more shit. So why do I want to just shake him until his brains rattle and shout 'Pick me! Pick me! She's awful! I'm great. Just pick me!'

And then there's my boyfriend. I adore him. I really do. He gives me everything I need. Apart from the chance to be treated like a whore by married / attached guys who couldn't care less how I feel as long as I keep my mouth shut. Apart from the blowjobs (it's not cheating if you don't fuck, you know?). He didn't deserve it, and I don't know how I'll ever make it up to him. And to be honest, even though he wants to just let it go and move on, I'm not sure I can. He even agreed to move to China next year with me, because he knows I want to go. I've spoiled it now. I can't look at him, because mostly he's just concerned at how upset I am and wants to make it better for me. I can't deal with that level of unselfish concern.

God, I hope they fucking die in an accident. But they won't, they'll stay together forever and post their freakbag babies on Facebook and everyone will coo over how cool they are, because they've overcome their terrible misfortune. So brave.

Shitheads.

Dreams

2011-11-05T07:48:00.002Z

God knows what I was dreaming about, but I woke up in a very dark place in my mind. I feel so bad. Things I can only express as anger and I still can't express it aloud because the object can't really fight back on any level that gets it out there.

I wish I could tell just one person what this feels like, the colours, the shivers, the feeling locked underwater. No-one's there anymore to try and explain it to. And the 'trying' all the time is tiring. I'm tired. I'm really tired.

Decided to woman up ...

2011-10-30T19:17:00.003Z

... and stop whining. So someone I identified as a knobhead in 2006 acted like a knobhead again. Woopdedoo. We get what we take. Revenge was both funny and hugely satisfying but undignified and more importantly, ultimately fairly Pyrrhic because those marrying-type girls gobble up the pitiful. No pun intended.

Tickertape

2011-10-01T22:58:00.001+01:00

Most people have this tickertape going through their brains that just goes 'MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEM ... MEMEMEMEME ...mememe ...MEMEME'. Yawn.

I'm SHITE,

2011-10-01T00:17:00.003+01:00

, thanks for asking. And no, I don't care whether you 'care about me' or 'want to help' because I don't care how anyone feels apart from ME and I certainly don't care about your perspective on my behaviour or situation which will almost certainly be silly / boring / reflective of your own dramas / transmitted to everyone who knows me. And I'm busy at school.

If you really actually want to help, I'll give you my Paypal details. I need a new computer, next term's tuition, and a house on Lake Como. I do not want to 'talk'.

Now give yourself a punch in the throat from me. I'm glad we had this talk. I feel like a weight has lifted.

I may be a wage slave on Monday, but I am a free man on Sunday!

2011-09-13T14:36:00.004+01:00

In these times of 'protest', I wonder if some of the wee neds that smash up shops have any idea about the dignity of real direct action. OK, so the Kinder Trespass wasn't quite on a par with the Suffragettes' hunger strikes, or the Montgomery bus boycotts, but it was an example of ordinary people with a genuine gripe, taking direct action

Here's an old song about the right to roam from Ewan MacColl.

The Manchester Rambler

The day was just ending as I was descending
By Grindsbrook, just by Upper Tor
When a voice cried, 'Eh you', in the way keepers do
He'd the worst face that ever I saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
Sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

He called me a louse and said, 'Think of the grouse'
Well I thought but I still couldn't see
Why old Kinder Scout and the moors round about
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me
He said, All this land is my master's
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to all mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

It reminds me of a much more modern take on this by Julian Cope.

'I wonder how a man can behave like this?
Behave like he wants to feel the land is his?'

Autogeddon Blues

Violent protests scare the middle mass, and so they hand our right of association and movement over to the police and government on a silver fucking platter. The Criminal Justice Act of 1986 whereby British people can be denied the right of association on public or private land, detention of terrorist suspects, and police practices such as 'kettling' directly contradict the Magna Carta.

'It's a barbed wire fence - which side d'you choose?'

Here comes the sun, doodle doodle

2011-09-05T22:19:00.002+01:00

Metaphorically, of course. It's pissing down. Actually, scratch the 'metaphorical' too. Face like a slapped arse all day.

Well, would YOU want to spend a morning writing student progress reports and then go to a vegan restaurant with your workmates for lunch, followed by having to cover using someone else's turdy boring lesson plan?

And now, my housemate is watching 'Gilmore Girls' at a volume that would be described by goat herders outside Ulaan Bator as 'a bit grating'.

And don't even ask me how my digestive system is. Just don't ask.

No, it never rains, it pours.

Wisdom from my baba

2011-09-02T15:34:00.002+01:00

'Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
Wear your hair long girl you can't go wrong'

'Don't follow leaders and watch those parking meters'

'TWAT IT! THEN HIDE!'

OK, so only one's original but as a collection they illustrate his philosophy and MO fairly well. I miss him in summer.

On the 'tough love' shift

2011-08-25T21:24:00.003+01:00

Lord save me from the self-styled raconteurs. Some guy talked at me for 45 minutes today and when I finally stopped working and fled the office in order to salvage what neurons I could from this chump's earbending, he asked: 'Oh, sorry, what was your name again? I never remember names!', thinking this is but an endearing character quirk and not a sign of extreme stupidity and being too self-involved to listen to anyone else.

I like to listen to interesting people talk. But how rare it is that interesting people like to talk. And that goes for blogs, too. May the Lord in His infinite Grace also save me from any journalling of amusing east meets west anecdotes and ironies replete with pictures of bustling street markets, betel-nut girls or toothless folk on scooters with unfeasibly large loads.

No, the BBC will never hire you as a political correspondent because of your incisive cover of the ah-bian xia tai 'riots' or that time you got within 58 sois of the redshirts. This is because you are stupid and write like a 15 year old. You are not an amateur sinologist. You are a McExpat drone. Hahahahaha.

Excuse me

2011-08-11T18:01:00.004+01:00

I was unable to take part in the riots due to a sore toe. Many's the time I've had the urge to burn down Miss Selfridge and steal a pair of trainer ... hang on, trainers? TRAINERS? Those chavvy white shoes that first world peasants wear? People risk prison / lacerations for a pair of cheap plastic shoes made Vietnamese eight year olds? No wonder those dumb fucks are called the 'underclass'.

If you are going to march past riot police an horseback and smash a shop window while being filmed on CCTV camera, wouldn't you at least attempt to get something expensive to make it worth your while?

I predict a riot.

2011-08-10T23:12:00.001+01:00

Oh yes.

Friends

2011-08-06T10:33:00.001+01:00

I like to read DAN.

http://blog.besetbynothing.com/2011/01/note-for-intellectuals-and-artists.html

My room

2011-06-08T17:21:00.002+01:00

This is MY ROOM, and anyone can come in except THE CHIEF who is a bloody GIRL sometimes.

eflreader.com

2011-06-07T09:03:00.003+01:00

I have a sample answer for IELTS Writing Task 2, April 2011. If you are study for or teaching IELTS prep, have a look. http://eflreader.com

A Suitable Boy

2011-06-05T15:59:00.003+01:00

I rarely recommend books, as tastes in these things are so subjective, but GO AND BUY THIS NOW.

Just finished reading this wonderful book. It's immense at 1500 pages, but you barely notice and just don't want it to finish. It's an epic exploration of the personal and the political and social problems of a few families in 'Brahmpur' in India in the '50s. I learned so much about India. Fascinating. I'd love to go there.

Wikipedia tells me that the sequel, 'A Suitable Girl' is coming in 2013. Oooh!

Oh yes.

2011-05-31T21:49:00.002+01:00

'influence to the wealthy guy and accept by the trendy gang' Just one clause in one sentence in one paragraph in the 18 pages of PURE JOY that I am editing right now. Obviously not right now: I'm here, procrastinating.

eflreader.com

2011-05-30T22:41:00.003+01:00

My new blog is eflreader.com. The purpose of the blog is to help my students who are studying for exams such as IELTS develop their reading skills and academic English vocabulary, based on Averil Coxhead's Academic Wordlist. If you are an English student or teacher, have a look.

Hmm.

2011-05-24T12:32:00.001+01:00

Gosh, wasn't I a gloomy little button, last year? Key variable being another shitty boring job with shitty boring people. Things are a bit different, now.

Padua Floods

2010-11-17T22:03:00.003Z

Hisself has been MIA for a week. Do floods stop the internet working? Do the lolcats all drown in the waters? Do the girls in my area who want to meet me TONITE get waterlogged? Do all the people who are WRONG on the internet just wash away into the lagoon with the first hint of acqua alta? The bloated corpses of sneezing baby pandas washing up on the banks of the Sile?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coghDWQL124

Psychlo-path

2010-11-17T21:55:00.001Z

Some little bitch of a cycle commuter smashed right into my bike, on the way home. Dark, raining, going 400mph along the right-hand-side of a semi-pedestrianised road, preparing to go through a red light. What I really hate about those guys is that they are all kitted out like the Tour de France, with reflective clothing, helmet and everything, yet they still wear headphones. Not sure what the helmets are supposed to protect, to be honest.

Then, the cheeky old shit rolled his eyes at me, so I kicked his wheel spokes really hard, grabbed hold of his arm and got northern on his arse. Then I realised there were children and CCTV cameras everywhere, and stopped being a psycho

Didn't get an apology, though.

Not been blogging

2010-07-24T11:49:00.001+01:00

Mainly because my blog is STUPID.

Just want to say JG hearts HLR, IDST.

;)

Time to post again

2010-01-26T17:59:00.002Z

Been away. Been tired.

My liver and kidneys are not doing so well, and I've been depressed in general. Pills, and short days, and snow, and tired. No energy over winter. Discovered Farmville. Oh dear.

Not much news. Lots of nice stuff has been happening, but I'm kind of ill, so it doesn't really register much. Bad stuff too, but again, it's not really on my radar. Not much is.

At least I'm me. Although I'm struggling a bit, I wouldn't want anyone else's life.

My second favourite Venetian

2009-10-31T20:48:00.004Z

have my tickets for la traviata! Of course, I procrastinated until the last possible moment and got the last ticket in the house which is behind a pillar, but it's right next to the £80 seats. Yay! Yes, I'm going to the opera alone. I like doing that. I possibly could have press-ganged a pal into coming with me, but I hate sharing. I want to sit by myself, hugging my knees, enjoying it all the more because i have't seen an opera with full orchestra since I went to Scottish Opera, back in my Glasgow days.

Back at university, we realised that second year was going to be considerably more expensive than first year, and jobs needed to be found. Myself and Miss Emily, my superbest friend, of course realised we were far too pretty and important to work in supermarkets, or whatnot, and decided to get glamourous interesting jobs. So we did. Um, sort of. She worked front-of-house at the theatre which was home to Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet, and I worked for Scottish Youth Theatre front-of-house for performances, and as a drama teacher. She got comp tickets for performances, and she gave me a ticket, sometimes.

The comps were great - the cheap seats sell out first, so comps are always in the first three rows of the stalls. Spoiled! People who say 'I don't like classical music', have never sat ten feet away from a full orchestra while the physics of the whole thing make your heart move in your chest. If you can sit next to an orchestra pit while 'Ride of the Valkyrie' or Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet play, and not care at all, you really are a vegetable ...

Anyway, I'm hopping with anticipation.

'WILLKOMMEN, BIENVENUE, WEEELLLLCCCCOOOME, snufflesnuffle.

2009-10-16T23:17:00.008+01:00

I will have my all-rabbit cast of Cabaret dancing and singing in perfect time before I will get my grandparents (I have had a step-grandfather for nigh on 20 years, only she won't marry him, and he's always been her employee. How funny is that?) to use anti-virus software effectively on their geriatric Dells. And I swear I've had more fruitful conversations about how to use a webcam to talk to Great Uncle Stuart's Rosemary in Melbourne with my 'Sally Bowles' than with my DNA buddies.

I submit cheerfully to every idiocy they throw at me, and have since forever, because I love them. At the age of 35, they still tell me to pick my feet up and to wear bright colours when I go to the dancing. But not the grown up stuff, like 'Why do we need to lock the door when we're in the house? The burglars will know we're in!' or the stuff they come out with about the computer, or banking PINs, etc. I have to assume grownup-hood.

*Edit* it occurred to me that comparing my gps to a chorus line of sexually promiscuous German rabbits in bowler hats is not kind. Wasn't really meant to be mean. They made Thai curry for me! OK, so it was the worst thing I've ever eaten since I lived for the last three days of term on a 'casserole' made from Campbell's celery soup and frozen sprouts with chilli powder when I was at university, but they actually did that for me because I lived in Thailand for ten years! They are not Thai curry kind of folk.

2009-10-11T23:20:00.005+01:00

Loving my kendo class, which is really keeping me on the straight and narrow. I want to be a ninja, not a book editor. Why do students think publishing is 'cool'? I was at this thing the other day and some kid asked how I got my 'break'. 'Well, sweetie, I underachieved, chased unsuitable men and took drugs all through university, then I drifted around Asia, chased some more unsuitable men and took prescription drugs. Got fat. Lots of moping about men. Lost will to go on. Finally cracked and ran back to my mammy (who hates me) in an epic mistake / return to England. drifted arou ... OK, you get the picture. That's about it. I'm 35 and planning on taking 'arrested development' to a whole new level. Of course, she didn't mean it as 'How did you get to be such a stupid lazy failure that you wear Converse shoes to work at your age?' And the thing is everyone thinks I'm lucky! Which I guess means - 'god - we expected so much worse ...'.

Sometimes this stuff depresses me. Hell, I could have been a senior editor with my own one bedroomed flat now, or even - dare to dream - my starter marriage divorce house and the kids off to dad's at the weekend.

To be honest, although I bitterly, bitterly regret some things that have happened, I wouldn't change the bulk of it.

I just wish I wasn't so poor. I know, I know, it doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you your own bathroom.

Impossible wish number 2 (number 1 is the 'Pet Sematary' shit) is that I could really learn to live in the moment and not just read about it in books. And live in a house where there is always toilet paper.

The Stone Roses

2009-10-11T18:55:00.004+01:00

Noble truths:

1. I need a Classic iPod for ambient noise blocking, and brain restarting.
2. They last two-three years, tops.
3. They cost best part of 200 quid. This hurts for someone as fundamentally tight as me.
4. It is not a selfish purchase. A happy me is a happy everyone else.

MP3 files are shit. I will have arrived in this life when I can listen to the music I want, at the volume I want, on decent equipment. But an iPod with Sennheisers on full vol is not too shabby.

This is a totally banal statement, but I love music.

Stuff on the go right now:

Yet another Stone Roses revival. It's twenty years since the eponymous album came out! It's just perfect and I never get bored, and I've been listening to it for twenty years. I went through a childish stage of disliking ian Brown's vocals :D but when you listen carefully and see how it all layers up and harmonises with Mani's vocals - perfection - although I still love the long guitar bits at the end of the songs most. Waterfall which then segues into don't Stop and I am the resurrection. Made of Stone, lest you forget.

Verdi's Requiem. Ok, so everyone knows the Dies Irae. but keep going until about twenty mins in. Did you know jazz was invented in Venice in the 1800s?

On an Italian note, i'm off to see Welsh national Opera's la traviata in November, and a couple of days before, The Fall, which should be a super aces double good week.

Trying to learn some 伍伯 for the sole purpose of showing off at KTV.

Also, this deeply uncool (apparently) artist's song has been following me around. I think that's definitely indicative of my spending far much time slurping Americanos in coffee shops, in front of a laptop, pretending to do stuff. It's evocative, somehow. I haaaate that kind of guitar, at the beginning, though. Not sure why.

Oases

2009-10-08T13:12:00.010+01:00

My boyfriend, even though he's only here by email for the time being, is one, a couple of friends. Amazingly my skanky ex-boyfriend even seems to have my back, these days. V, JJW&T, and H, my Taiwan girls, of course.

I just want to be with secure, happy people who don't constantly feel the need to fling shit at me to look good. I don't want to argue, or debate anything with someone who won't ever teach me anything (although I accept that you have to give and take). It makes me edgy and bored and like life is always on reruns.

And I'm bored and pissed off with work. I want the money and security, though. Same old story. Drawn to China or Japan, or even a high school in Laos or something, on one level, yet repelled by the thought of teaching. My phobia about that is still galloping on.

Focus on the little things and get my shit done, until I'm beyond this irritatedness.

Holiday next week! Going to my gran's (my ultimate oasis!). I love where she lives. Lots of rainy walks to Bracelet Bay and coffees at Verdi's and ice cream at Joe's. Yay!

Birthdays

2009-09-29T22:56:00.004+01:00

My birthday last year was totally grim. No cards, presents, nobody talked to me for the entire day, apart from a bus driver - it really drove home that all my friends were on the other side of the world. My landlady blanked me and pretended I wasn't there, for no reason. It really felt like Oxford was a huge mistake.

This time was better - went out for a drink with people from work. Cake, cards, SMILES!

I always tend to feel lonely and anxious on my birthday. Performance anxiety? The need to feel like I am surrounded by loved ones and be 'arrived'; like new year only personal. There were some crackers in Taipei. Those 48 hour stinkers would probably finish me off, at my current advanced age. Spaceman with H and P. That was so, so grim!

I didn't tell my boy that it was my birthday and then felt shitty all day because he didn't get in touch but that's my own fault.

And a huge THANK YOU to the one who spent all day back and forthing and making me feel connected and less awful than usual on my 'special day'. Appreciated, noted, and all that.

Rhythm, scansion

2009-09-22T21:47:00.004+01:00

I love this song right now

I've been trying to figure out why I like it so much. It's partly the guy's thin, odd voice - I don't like the original half as much. It's also the rhythm he adds to the words. I could get all English lit like I'm explaining John Donne to A-level kids - but hell, who wants to have to check wikipedia for stuff they used to know effortlessly, on their own blog? :)

I want to write like this and I'm very aware that I'm not yet there. I focus on describing things and saying what happened, and not creating a cinematic world like this song does. The part at 1:30 - 1:58 is the best, the rhyme, the 123, 123.

I also read 'Chasemeladies' blog and note that I am not funny. It's a long journey down a narrow tunnel, for sure.

Hmm. Thoughts on boys and kendo

2009-09-13T22:52:00.003+01:00

OK, so maybe I didn't get dumped, I got sidelined until July 2011 because of the global economy and male pride.

Oh for fuck's sake.

I am going to listen to gangster rap and hit stuff with sticks, which is my antidote to Mr-sodding-Yang-in-all-the wrong-places. I love you, my dear, but I am always going to be the 'grown up' and if you can't accept that just because I wear the trousers, it doesn't mean I think you wear a skirt, then what?

Is it un-ki to pic out Chanel nail polish (My new one is called 'Gondola' - no connection, but it's the same colour as the lanterns outside Florian's) because they go with my hakama?

God, I love shouting and fighting. I love getting good at something physical, other than blowjobs and vomiting up carbs. I love doing the 'stares through mountain' eyes and being aggressive and attempting to be intimidating, even though I'm about as intimidating as Bambi. I love my daft Japanese uniform with all the complicated knots. I love learning Japanese from the three year old who goes with his mum. I even love being hit on the head and getting pains in my left forearms from swinging a heavy wooden thing for two hours. I love being able to cycle up a hill with my kit and swords on my back, when a year ago I used to get out of breath just walking up it.

Please don't ever manage to google this, my sweet. I just wish you could be less of a girl sometimes, yet at the same time, less of a 'man'. It's boring. We are too old for this.

Oh, watch me now

2009-09-12T21:03:00.007+01:00

All sorts of cliches abound (that collocation is even a cliche) about getting through something you never wanted to happen. One day at a time, and so on. 'One day at a time'?

One thing about being depressed is that I hurt myself a lot. Not cutting or self-harm - apart from a couple of unfortunate and embarrassing incidents that's largely in the past - but minor accidents. I keep falling over and having bike wipeouts and also failing to defend myself fast enough in kendo. I get drowsy and my attention slips. i've even broken fingers and toes due to depression: anyone who says it isn't a physical illness and you can exercise your way out of it generally misunderstands the reality, or is not your friend :D

One day at a time ... A method for mindful living in the present-ness, or an exercise in repression and denial? Not sure. It is what it is, and I don't mind feeling sad. Not even sad, just disappointed. I can't really talk about what it is, but it's something I can't really control yet has huge consequences for me, compounded by a sad break-up with the nicest guy I've ever met, because he wants to work somewhere far away. And a girl like me would never stamp her feet and stand in the way of that.

So I guess I'm not going to think, I'm just going to try and keep my base level mood up enough so I don't get drowsy. No big picture stuff, I'm just going to concentrate on not falling off my bike, scalding myself with coffee or dropping heavy stuff on my toes.

I have no-one to talk to and anyway I don't want to make all my friends to think of me as the tiring, draining, boring depressed girl who whines about her mother. I'm sick of it myself. I'm just tired of the latest installment, tired and bored of myself. So I'm not doing it. Fuck my mother, really, fuck her. Fuck my sister. And fuck him, too. You all come to me, now, not the other way round, and if you don't, well, I lived on the other side of the world by myself without any of you. 'No man is an island'? - Taiwan is, ya *******s. :)

I'm going to get up every day, eat good food, exercise, do my curls, wear mascara and earrings and be nice to that irritating twat I live with who cannot sort her recycling because it's not her fault she's fucking retarded. I will not; fall asleep at work, cry in the street, listen to Nick Cave at 4am, construct elaborate Final Destination-esque revenge fantasies, make complex travel arrangements, phone in sick, give in my notice, start buying The Guardian on Tuesday to look at chain school jobs in Japan, do anything to my hair that takes three years to grow out.

The trick is feeling sad and not repressing it without wallowing and giving in, and feeling angry without being aggressive and spiteful. My life's mission, I guess. Despite my woes, at least I can differentiate plastics and cardboard.

Ach, it'll all be OK! There, I feel better now. See, it is good to talk to yourself, if you can call journal-blogging that.

Some words for today:

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour, drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine, dont think
You knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor
And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I miss you, you're beautiful...

Five years, David Bowie, but google up Placebo's version on yootoob

Her against the wheel me against the wheel
Oh the in-speed-o slow motion inspection is drivin me insane
In steel next to Dot Hook -- oh we may look the same--
Shoulder to shoulder sweatin 110 degrees
But I will never faint, I will never faint
They laugh and they expect me to faint but I will never faint
I refuse to lose, I refuse to fall down
Because you see its the monotony thats got to me
Every afternoon like the last one
Every afternoon like a rerun next to Dot Hook
And yeah we look the same
Both pumpin steel, both sweatin
But you know she got nothin to hide
And I got something to hide here called desire
I got something to hide here called desire
And I will get out of here--
You know the fiery potion is just about to come
In my nose is the taste of sugar
And I got nothin to hide here save desire
And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna get out of here
I'm gonna get out of here, I'm gonna get on that train,
I'm gonna go on that train and go to New York City
I'm gonna be somebody, I'm gonna get on that train, go to New York City,
I'm gonna be so big, I'm gonna be a big star and I will never return,
Never return, no, never return, to burn at this Piss Factory
And I will travel light.
Oh, watch me now.

Piss Factory, Patti Smith

Lust

2009-09-11T15:16:00.005+01:00

I spend slightly longer than is normal, lusting over this delicious piece of Appley goodness. Yes, I know it's more useful to buy a laptop for when I inevitable flee from this place. Yes, I know PCs are cheaper and better. I DON'T CARE. For the same reason I always choose the pretty boy with the tiny processor who costs too much, I want this computer - not the generic, cheap, silver box.

And, I will have it, my pretties, oh yes, beautiful will be mine, my lovely lovely, I will take you home and nobody will ever take you from me, my be... OK, I'd better step away from the keyboard and get some fresh air.

Momentum

2009-09-10T13:01:00.002+01:00

is the key to everything. But what's the key to momentum?

It annoyed me when I first started to ride my bicycle to work that I couldn't ride up the two slopes of the footbridge ramp over the river. I started at the bottom, and pumped my little leg, but usually ended up crashing into the barrier, impaling my bad self or scaring a child/duck. The key to getting up and over is to go at it in a low gear, not to make too sharp a turn on approach and to steadily keep moving. If you start at the bottom from stasis, and try like hell in a high gear, you are destined to humiliation. Those daily commuters on their slick mountain bikes know this already, as they sail by.

Momentum comes from effort - turning the pedals - but also from preparation and proper understanding.

A parable for our time, or simply a slightly cheesy self-help analogy?

Retrospective

2009-09-01T20:44:00.001+01:00

It’s a year since I arrived in Oxford. It’s been a strange one.

I’ve been fighting with solitude.
I started martial arts.
I left my family, probably forever, with all the ramifications that has.
I fell in love for the third time. It really was ‘lucky’.
Went to Italy.
Was visited by T, D&K and H. Love you. Met JP again!
I started a career that doesn’t set me on fire, but doesn’t make me die inside.
Been managing my depression and eating disorders naturally, with varying success.
Wrote most of a novel, a first draft, anyway.
Learned to ride a bicycle.
Learned Chinese characters, with diligence and application, so that I can actually read systematically, not with random luck ☺

Next year I will:

Visit Taiwan
Get better at kendo and overcome some of my psychological barriers.
Finish the novel so it’s readable by the people that encouraged me.
Pass HSK at advanced level.
Apply for my MA. Organise the cash.

Ouch

2009-09-01T12:50:00.002+01:00

I got dumped for a job.

And I fell off my bike, dropped a wooden sword on my foot and burned my hand.

And my sister and mother have completely cut me off.

Anything else, universe? I mean, I know I've been a total cunt a lot of the time, but can't we let up on the tacky pop-karma stuff a bit?

Salt

2009-08-27T21:02:00.000+01:00

Eating salt is eating rocks.

'Teenage angst has paid off well - now I'm bored and old'

2009-08-17T18:45:00.003+01:00

I'm so bored and old. I'm a virtual vegan, with no mental/substance issues who has developed into a job she sort of enjoys, and exercises and writes/practices Chinese every day and has an adorable, though long-distance, boyfriend. Maybe it's because my old pal from the 'wan visited (she is also a lot more sensible and grown up, these days too), but why do I keep thinking back to some of the shameful episodes of yore with a wistfulness that just doesn't quite square with the new regime?

My drunken sluttery-pokery was not without its pleasures, for sure.

Love Top Ten

2009-08-12T22:36:00.002+01:00

1. Visits from my clever, talented, fun friend.
2. Music: Bob Dylan singing House of the Rising Sun. Stina Nordenstam. The medley from side 2 of Abbey Road.
3. Emails from my best boy.
4. Jean Rhys Good Morning, Midnight
5. My bike. The canal and river paths, ducks, geese, trees after the rain.
6. Plans. I'm getting myself edjewkated!
7. Enthusiasm instead of discipline.
8. Personal stuff I can't share with even you, my sweets.
9. I think I grew out of alcohol. White wine is Kryptonite for me.
10. I'm feeling myself (not flicking myself off, ye filthers) for the first time since 2001-2.

Typhoon Morakot

2009-08-10T22:17:00.002+01:00

I've experienced dozens of typhoons, but always from the safety of a concrete and steel apartment in the relatively sheltered Taipei river basin. Sadly, the most vulnerable are those living in small mountain villages in the central mountains. It's easy to get complacent about typhoons in the 'safe' north because genearlly though always, typhoons come from the south-east, over the Phillipines and then break up and lose strength over the central mountains. In northern Taipei, with everybody seeing typhoon days as an unplanned holiday, where everyone heads to the malls, cinemas and restaurants, it's easy to forget that these tropical storms claim hundreds of lives a year.

Up to 600 people are currently missing after a landslide buried a village. The volcanic mountains are prone to landslides, due to natural reasons and also over-development and deforestation, and a lack of drainage due to dodgy agricultural practices (so I'm told; I'm not an expert)

I hope they manage to rescue as many people as possible. Only cliches spring to mind at a time like this, but my heart goes out to them all and their families.

Good stuff!

2009-08-07T09:31:00.003+01:00

You know, there are those people you just root for because they're fab and they actually do deserve the world on a plate? Life dealt this one a couple of tough hands but she took it on the chin and fought her way back up to the surface, to mix dem metaphors.

I've got one of those as a friend (lucked out) and she's finally got what she wants and has been working so hard for! Totally proud of her and glad to know her.

I should also mention she's a single mother who has done her little guy proud. Have been a teacher, I seldom respect parents, but this one is amazing. A good person. :)

Got a gardener!

2009-08-05T22:28:00.003+01:00

He's only coming once a month, but this is good news indeed. Spider infestations due to the amount of bugs, due to the triffid stamping ground out back. Rrr, spiders not good. The bugs are also attracting geese which make a hell of a racket in the a.m.

New tyres for my bike too. Happy days for the easily amused!

Married with retard.

2009-08-04T16:04:00.003+01:00

Ever noticed how all the real shitheads in your life are always married or in those creepy living together 'serial monogamy' set-ups? They're never single for any length of time. Because they need validation about their shitheadedness? Because they need to breed/fuck their way to friendship because other people don't want to spend time with them? That's not to say that everyone married or with a 'partner' (there's no non-twee way to say it - wonder why?) is a shithead; of course not. The test is to imagine that person single. Telling his/her stupid boring anecdotes with only an audience of non-believers, sceptical or otherwise. If you can't do it, he's/she's one of those.

Xmas in the 'wan

2009-08-04T15:15:00.005+01:00

Ah yes, and I've pretty much decided to go to Taiwan for Christmas, unless it's crazy expensive for the flight. Sidesteps the Christmas thing which was not cool last year.

Looking forward to hanging out with my snake shop gang, heading up to Ilan for the hotsprings in the car with the kids :)

Hotpotting with my best Taiwan girl who has abandoned the vile wasteland of Shanghai.

Playing with the new babies; Guan-Ting is already 10(?) months old and Bao-Yuan will be two. And of course catching up with their mamas.

Will also catch up with some waiguo pals, although I don't really miss them as much because they keep in touch through the intrawebs more.

Also want to head south, hopefully by myself, to check out the south a bit more. I hardly travelled when I was actually in Taiwan because I was too tired and beaten up by horror-job or stuck indoors watching telly with the boring ex. Looking forward to going back to my first year in Taiwan where I got about a lot. :)

Update; about £1000 with multiple stops as opposed to £600 with just HK change in October. Hmmm.

This little refusenik's feeling jolly

2009-08-04T13:41:00.011+01:00

Not sure why. Probably ovulating. Yes, I'm just a female mammal.

For the last couple of months, shit has been crowding in and stomping on my brains. Too much clutter in my life, in every sense of the word.

Clearing out my house a little; recycling, freecycling, plain old throwing stuff out.

Books, clothes, too much stuffs. Maybe I should figure out eBay?

Dumped some people when I realised they bring nothing good to me (or anyone else, but hey, that's serial killer talk), so am enjoying that mental space. If you aren't nice, supportive, knowledgeable, interesting, kind, or or displaying any other behaviours that families and friends traditionally do, then, really, how is this a 'relationship'? What do I get? (Deleted some snidey fun-poking which was beneath my dignity.)

Doing the health stuff which is starting to pay off in terms of sleep, concentration, and overall snaps. Lifting weights and swinging swords in the garden, although I did have a Newton moment when I swung and hit a tree branch causing an apple to land on my head.

Staying away from the Internet, at least the more time-wasting crap I get up to. TV consumption is going up, though (You'd tell me if this was a little too Bridget Jones, wouldn't you?).

Doing my stuff.

Listening to loads of new music, which I'm loving.

I think it's good to document these things. Good for me, obviously, not the wider world, which does not really need to be privy to my private journal. But hey, I've always been an exhibitionist.

'Mood Board'

2009-08-02T13:26:00.012+01:00

This is a collage which designers use to corral their energies and display (to themselves?) where they are. My mind is not integrated enough for narratives, right now. Yes, that sounds pretentious, but what sane person cares about that?

Colours

Venetian glass violet-purple
English summer leafy-green/fairy grotto colour, in a nod to hisself ;)

Music

O Mio Babbino Caro
Anything Jack White

Weather

Cool, rainy, windy summer which is my second favourite kind. I like the freshness and having super-curly hair, though.

Attitude

I wasn't born with enough middle fingers
Tunnel vision
Too busy for this

Activities

Spring cleaning
Writing
Being crap at kendo but doing it anyway
Cycling
Anki-ing; HSK L9 WILL be mine!
NOT mooning over a boy. He knows where I am. I think.

Good hobbits

Evening primrose oil, fish oil, iron, B12, no meat, no sugar, no dairy; you made yourself sick, now unmake yourself.

People

Reading but not really understanding D's website: ouch, intellectual vanity is my middle name, besides 'Elizabeth' and 'Spite'.

Honouring my family but remembering that some of them are congenitally mentally ill substance abusing shits who openly admit they wish I'd never been born and that I don't have to join in.
People come and go; clinging to the idea that some are good and some are bad is in no-one's best interests.

Some people just know how to push your buttons. The people that do and still push 'em simply cease to exist for me. It's better that way. For me, at least. Byebye, and enjoy your ridiculous life. I've stopped holding grudges. Haven't figured out how to continue to engage with people after they cross the line, though. I guess I'll just grow into that one. No point forcing it. I feel lighter for having asserted some of my boundaries, recently.

Preoccupations

I think I broke the lawnmower, in last month's dada-ist corn-circle experiment. Unsure as to how to rectify this state of affairs. The garden is not OK, bug central, and all other suburban wildlife in profusion.

Clothes. I don't really have any. My impossibly hip friend is visiting soon. I don't need to be fashionable, I just need to not look like I escaped from an Austrian cellar.

Swansea...

Why the crap can my housemates not understand that the munificent City Council do not recycle ALL plastics. Not all plastics are equal, in the eyes of the good burgher meisters, and that it is not for a 老外 geisha to re-sort the bloody recycling every week due to their lack of discrimination over plastics. Just because it's recyclable, it doesn't mean that it is recycled in this town. :) Just my luck to live with the world's only two 中國人 who wish to save the planet.

On the verge of getting it on

2009-07-18T10:25:00.003+01:00

Not sure who said that. George Clinton? I like it. I wonder if he meant that feeling of excitement you get before getting your shit together?

Unfortunately that feeling is addictive; far more than actually doing your shit because it requires no commitment or work.

Loving this website right now: How to learn Japanese. A kid in America, who had never been to Japan decided it was imperative that he learned Japanese so he could get a job in a Japanese electronics company. And so he taught himself in 18 months. I don't mean my taxi Thai, or my can just about read the paper with a dictionary Chinese or French, but absolute, functional high-level literacy. I salute you!

Because I was a language teacher, I KNOW categorically that the 900-1000 hour model of tuition that language publishers and schools propound is at best wasteful and ineffective, at worst, a cynical money-making scam. I LOVE that this kid saw through it and empowered himself, excuse the cringey self-help language.

I justify my complete inability to move forward with anything by the lie that I have too many goals and things to do. I want to improve my Chinese, learn Italian and Japanese, learn kendo, finish the same novel I've been working on for 3-4 years now, get fitter and stronger, keep my home tidy, advance in my career, ETC. Maybe it's time to bin all that crap and just do one at a time, with absolute focus.

Excuses.

Late for brunch. Yeahyeah, I know.

Closing the blog?

2009-07-14T22:04:00.003+01:00

I don't Miss Taipei at all, any more. It just evaporated. I doubt I'll ever go there, again.

I'm tired. I'm at a crossroads and I just want to sit down and curl up. Hecate. A man told me that a crossroads has only three options, in Greek custom/religion and he laughed when I insisted there were four. I should pray to Hecate, or Mary, the modern day Hecate for strength, if not guidance.

She'll probably tell me to go to the supermarket.

Art saves

2009-07-08T12:24:00.012+01:00

Significantly revitalised after a couple of days in London with good friends I haven't seen in a while.

The National Gallery blew me away (I'm sleep deficient, I'm defaulting to American TV-speak for the time being) as usual. The best part was when my friend figured out the skull changes shape on Holbein's The Ambassadors, if you move around. Unfortunately, you don't get the full effect on the screen or a page. I love that picture; it's so Tudor-weird.

Me, I loved the Canalettos (yes, I'm still there), the Arnolfini portrait, and all the Italian madonnas, although I was disappointed that the Madonna of the Rocks was away for restoration.

I'm so lucky to be able to see that stuff easily. Chinese art is wonderful too, but to be honest, you see one Song vase or Ming running grass scroll, you've seen 'em all because like Greek art, the art is in following the form, not in difference, as it is in Italian and Dutch art.

Hot

2009-07-03T17:45:00.005+01:00

It's been hot, 33 degrees. Mei guanxi, la, bu tai re ... It's different here, though, because nowhere is airconditioned and there aren't drink stands and taxis everywhere. Britain is not used to heat and a couple of people have died already. Me, I have a major heat rash on my throat and arms which I always get if I don't have aircon. I'm a northern europeeeun, m'kay? My body is designed to retain heat (and calories; it ain't all cake abuse. Most of it is, I admit, but some of it is Viking/Celt genes), not get rid of it.

Global warming gallops on.

Feel antsy and tired and stressed. The thing I don't want to talk about (I want to talk about how I feel about it, not it, ok?) is getting closer to resolution, one way or the other and I just feel increasingly drained. Whatever happens, I can take it, but life will be a silent movie for a while, not HD. Taking my vitamins. Here we go again.

Friends from Taiwan here!

2009-06-30T16:08:00.004+01:00

Still in the office with broken aircon in a heatwave while they are out sightseeing but I'm still mentally singing* that song Tequila. Friends are ace.

*Meaning quietly, in my mind, not out loud, like the guy with the deformed dog who fire-juggles on St Giles and thinks I'm going to give him money to continue.

Michael Jackson's death

2009-06-26T23:20:00.003+01:00

is freaking me out. My father died suddenly of a heart attack, when he was MJ's age, almost five years ago. And it's fucking weird to associate the dead king of pop with your dead pop. His poor children will miss him. His poor child misses him. They say it's hard to watch a parent live in pain and watch them fade away. I don't know. Mine just disappeared, one day.

People who say they have no regrets are either very young, or haven't lost anyone. I don't mean to disrespect my father, but he was a strange man with significant mental health issues. He heard voices all his life, was severely bipolar and drank like a fish. We didn't have a good relationship because he simply wasn't there; even when he was there, he wasn't. When I was with him, we got on well. I even lived with him for a year or so, in my teens. He didn't take care of me at all and barely even spoke to me, but it helped my own teen problems to have a safe refuge, even though I had to find my own food. I'll always appreciate that space.

At other times, he was great fun. He turned up at my flat in Glasgow, unannounced, with a four vehicle convoy of hippy friends and took me to Loch Lomond for a few days, where we camped out and we went canoeing and hoisted a Union Jack on an island in the middle, much to the annoyance of the locals. He gave me two hundred unmarked tins, so me and my flatmates lived on macaroni cheese or tuna pasta from cans for a good while.

He was an amazing cook, although he never really bothered cooking, much. We liked a lot of the same music.

The sad thing was, he never seemed to be able to fight his way out of his problems. I don't know if it was poor genes or mental health or lifestyle, or stress hormones/depression, but he had the first of many heart attacks at 42 but the truth was, there was a point where he just gave up. My mother divorced him in his twenties, he never really met anyone else. He lost the heart to be with his daughters, although he enjoyed being with his young nieces and nephews and their kids. He thought the world of his brothers and sister, three of whom have also passed away in recent years. The last time I saw him, I was angry at him because he was being vague so he didn't have to give me his home address (something I sort of understand because I can be the same, sometimes). I lost patience with chasing after him and left the country the next day. We never saw each other again.

I got a letter from him, six months after he died and a year after he sent it. It had arrived at my former office where I'd worked a few years before and someone held onto it for me. In it, he wrote that he felt very ill and he wished he could see me.

Without getting too Oprah, I wish with all my heart that I'd received that letter a little earlier although I doubt I'd have said what I wanted which is that although I'll always be angry and hurt at what little effort he made to protect and take care of me, I understand why he didn't. That I couldn't presume to know how he felt, but that I recognise more than most the urge to hide away and not engage with anyone or try to do anything and now I'm grown up, maybe we could be friends. It's hard to do this stuff and I still haven't learned my lesson. I have another parent still living that I can barely even look at.

So, bless you or curse you, Jackson, but I think I cried my first real tear for my father, today.

The Walkabouts

2009-06-26T23:19:00.001+01:00

Found this while hitting a ten for nerdility on secondhandsongs.com

They apparently dun an English cover of 'Ces Gens-là' which is my obsession song at the moment, along with Verdi's Requiem (yes, I'm regressing to the fourteen year-old me, without the thinness or the cool hair)

Email from my sister

2009-06-16T11:47:00.001+01:00

Hello

I wish to discuss with you your purchase of a bicycle. Whilst I do not wish to belittle your many skills I do not believe that bicycle riding is amongst them. It concerns me that someone who lacks the necessary co-ordination to successfully consume a yoghurt would think of taking to the busy streets on such a contraption when they will in all likelihood be a danger to themselves and others.

Please don't buy a bike, you might die or become disabled and have to live with mum.

M

'Do you like teaching?'

2009-06-13T09:04:00.002+01:00

Another post written on a chat site I contribute to, but felt it was a bit personal to publish there. The question was about teacher/Taiwan burnout.

'I did it for 10 years, and quit about a year ago. I knew I didn't enjoy it after a few months, but it was easy and required no intellectual or emotional input and allowed me to live where I liked. For me it's like waitressing or something: it's what I needed to do to pay the rent and get a work permit. The more I did it, the more I started to feel 'on show' and uncomfortable. I worked in a very competitive school, with no help or support and politics and a culture where everyone was on the make. There was a period in 2007 (look up some of my posts from then: search 'Buttercup', 'depression', 'insomnia' ...) where I started having severe mental health problems as a result of work stress and unresolved grief issues (I know, it sounds like therapy-speak, but there's no appropriate socially acceptable way to say 'I wanted my daddy and my babies back' - which I guess is half the problem), which was merely treated as a sign of weakness and an inconvenience by the least pleasant of my co-workers, so I quit while I still had a shred of self-esteem.

It would be easy for me to feel negative about wasting time in my twenties and I do, sometimes, but as you said in your OP, a lot of people get a 'good job' after graduating and burn out and quit in their thirties. Really it wasn't wasted time. It paid for what I wanted to do and as I said, it allowed me to work and live abroad independently and support myself. Also, what I do now (educational publishing) wouldn't really have been possible without all the teaching experience.

Since coming back, my life has been fun, although there have been low points; giving up my beautiful apartment and sharing with my sister was hard, my grandmother's been ill and my aunt died. I re-established connections with my family, I got a job which while it doesn't transport me to the marshmallow fields of green, doesn't involve 50 hours of being bullied and exploited for a crap salary with no security. I met a man I like lot. I started a hobby that I've wanted to do for a long time, which I love. I'm fit and healthy because I eat good food and have the time and inclination to exercise. I went to Venice! My sleep problems and depression just evaporated within 2-3 months of being back. I've also started writing and that is going well.

So why did I stay in Taiwan, when it was making a mess out of me? There's no easy answer but part of me was happy with so much there. I still miss people on a daily basis. But work just wasn't worth it. Getting married is the difference, I think. I was never really going to married a Taiwanese guy and in the long term, it's just too hard to get through everything without a family. You can't usually bring yer own, and if you aren't going to make a new one, there are choices you have to make, as a woman, also. Most of the long, long termers have long term relationships which helps support them. It's not easy to be completely alone to that extent, year in, year out. I've been low in Taiwan, really low, and it worried me to think about what would happen long-term, if I got sick.

If you want to go back, just go. You can always return to Taiwan, if you want. It's a flight, not a space mission away.

[quote]But going back to a western country is expensive and job markets are competitive. It's hard to take that first step and give up what has become an easy way of living overseas.[/quote]

Well, it was pretty easy for me, but I got back before the economy went tits up. If you are into teaching and are in Europe, the industry is booming this year because the pound is on the floor so lots of study tours are here from Italy and Spain. ESOL and Skills For Life are being funded to the eyeballs, although no-one knows how long that will last.

Would I teach again? Probably not, unless I really wanted to move location. I'd probably try to freelance at what I do now though, tbh. The stress and the low pay aren't worth it to me.

And what the fuck is wrong with these people?

2009-06-12T22:57:00.001+01:00

Post pub fish, chips and gravy. After communicating that I did indeed want gravy on my fish (bloody southerners), when I got home, I realised the gravy had dried herbs in it!

Anti-climaxing

2009-06-11T21:31:00.008+01:00

Venice was perfect, I spent a week floating and having a vacation in the true sense of the word; I vacated my life and everything for a week.

I've been back more than two weeks now. He's busy so the emails have thinned out slightly, my tan's gone, the washing machine is broken and I'm so bored I'm permanently drowsy. I stopped cleaning and brushing my hair and stuff and my house is foul. Not a good sign: I'm pining for something and it's not just the man.

I'm bored in Oxford. I should be happy; everything's going well. I went on a course last week where I learned about literary editing, something I should love. The course was expensive and cost maybe £1000 and they sent me. I should be grateful but I just don't care. I'd dump it tomorrow if something else came up. Why can't I focus and be grateful for the opportunities that I have? I have managed to make a decent enough career while not bothering even for a second to disguise my complete lack of interest in anything. If I had a job four hours a week testing ice-cream flavours, I'd still be tired, bored, and unfulfilled.

Am I just a brat or is there something wrong? Give me everything I've ever wanted, lay it at my feet and I'll still be bored. If I were just a whining idiot, I wouldn't care that I felt like this, but I'm not. I'm not affecting boredom like a spoiled teenager: I hatehatehate that attitude:

'Alors s'il te faut l'ennui
Pour te sembler profond
Et le bruit des villes
Pour saouler tes remords
Et puis des faiblesses
Pour te paraître bon
Et puis des colères
Pour te paraître fort
Alors alors
Tu n'as rien compris' .

What's the way forward? Religion? Yoga? Counting your blessings and not being such a selfish lazy twat?

Rrrrrr, everything itches. Stop listening to Kristin Hersh...

Does my sloth know no bounds?

2009-06-09T22:41:00.001+01:00

Rhetorical question.

More packing

2009-06-01T22:52:00.005+01:00

Have to go to London tomorrow. Haven't packed yet and my two outfits (I don't shop, shopping in England is vile) are unlikely to be clean.

Travelodge. Secretarial fuck-up. Nowhere else available. Had I been slightly more senior and commanded a larger accommodation budget, I suspect something less horrifically English would have made itself available. This will be like living in a bank lobby for three days.

Rather than pissed off, I feel a creeping dread. No-one will hear me scream, down there, somewhere near Clapham Junction.

So. a.m. packing, work, train, Travelodge. Every day is a gift, every day is a gift, every day is a gift.

At least it will stop me gazing at my Flickr account like a loon. It's a week since I got back. Now there's an example to explain time/relativity. A three day training course in London and a week in Venice with my (fill in corny/cheesy/cringy adjective of choice) boyfriend. Which passes in the blissful blinking of an eye, which feels how Alec Guinness must have felt when he was locked in the tin shed in the Thai jungle as a punishment by the sadistic Japanese prison guardin 'Bridge over the River Kwai', even though it will be good for my 'career' and I am very grateful to be sent on it oh yes I am, not that I am trivialising wartime atrocities?

God, why can't I get Stillnox here? Peaches frigging Geldof managed to OD on the stuff, lord knows how in this bloody country. That's the real class divide in modern Britain. The ability to enjoy psych drugs, 'recreationally'.

Venice

2009-05-31T18:09:00.001+01:00

Wordless, for once.

Happy.

Have a look at my flickr account, if you're interested. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30879538@N03/

Packing

2009-05-18T22:36:00.003+01:00

I am mentally incaple of packing a bag. I need some jeans, underwear, t-shirts and toilet items in a bag, and I need to schlep to Gloucester Green by 8.15 tomorrow morning. This is the hardest art of the trip and whenever I go anywhere, it causes inordinate stress.

Obviously, and this may be predictable to regular readers, but this would be simple in Taiwan. Step out of my house at any hour of the day or night, choose the most beat-up taxi (Faster, more likely to be driven by an ex-con who doesn't want to 'Ah Miss, you Chinese speak is very good, where are you come from?', in English, in the am) out of the ten that would be in my eyeline, chuck em a 1000 (15-20 quid) and arrive at the international airport 45 mins later.

No. England is not like this. No parallels. I will get a taxi which will cost 7-8 quid for ten mins down the street. The smelly horrible airport bus will cost £35 (not £1.50 as in Taiwan) and be unspeakably unpleasant. Then I get to go to Gatwick!

I really hate this country, 越來越懶. 收不了！

(Sorry, I start muttering in Chinese when I'm pissed off. Probably written wrong as well, now that I am officially lazy and stupid.)

Jeesus, the washine machine will be another hour and the drier 2.5 and it's nearly 11.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAA.

Boring!

2009-05-14T11:30:00.004+01:00

My blog's so boring, but then again, so is my life at the moment. I'll have to seriously raise my game. I am moss on a standing stone, the watched pot, the lonely cloud. Zzz. Hoping to find inspiration, or at least movement, in Venice.

As a side issue, what book should I take?

Je Suis Une Dolly

2009-05-08T22:25:00.000+01:00

Going to Venice!

2009-05-04T22:52:00.003+01:00

Zippedy doodah!

Nothing much to say. Bank holiday weekend, but it was cold and crappy so stayed home. Made a curry and have a big red lump on my eyelid where I touched it with chilli hands.

Two weeks in stinking Oxford to wait, and filming this week too so that will involve me trekking around and getting bored and trying to be helpful. Bah. gets me away from my stinking desk, anyway, which has to be good.

Can't explain

2009-05-01T13:44:00.003+01:00

but my brain is itchy. I don't know what that means, but I get this way sometimes. Can't sleep, can't sit still, can't concentrate. Feel drained and dissatisfied yet unable to act about anything.

A tourist in Taiwan

2009-05-01T13:35:00.003+01:00

I can't wait to visit Taiwan in the autumn.

It's going to be so much fun to bop around the 'wan on my hols. I was too busy and ill to actually ever travel much, when I actually lived there.

Why can't we all just live forever?

2009-04-28T12:48:00.004+01:00

Seriously, the biggest dealbreaker in friendship is if a person says 'I'd be bored if I were here indefinitely'. Three score years and ten isn't enough to even start to scratch the surface of life on earth and human potential. It's not FAIR! I want to know everything, see everything. I don't want to die and I don't want my friends and family to die. Biology isn't enough.

I've wasted so much time being ill and unhappy and small. If we could just rewind things a little. Just go back ten years?

A little discipline

2009-04-22T14:15:00.006+01:00

I got hit three times as a child. Once for running into the street; my grandfather went apeshit and whacked me about five times on the back of the legs. Another time, my grandmother slapped the back of my legs because I was riding my bicycle in the house and making Woody the Woodpecker noises. The third time was by a stepfather, in my teens. He only did it once.

The master was my uncle, though. He is my cousins' stepfather. When about fourteen years old, my cousin was involved in a non-remunerative acquisition of certain cosmetic items from Boots. AFAIK, he never raised a hand to my cousins, but my cousin told me that she'd been ten times more afraid when he arrived at the office of the store than when the police showed up. Her punishment was fairly severe and involved some pretty major sanctions but her life of crime was nipped in the bud very effectively. His four kids, and many many foster kids grew up into good people. He would kill rebellion and shitty behaviour with boredom by making us stand in the corner, even on weekends. He would never ever back down for an easy life. Good behaviour was rewarded with attention, fun and games. He played computer games and built models with the lads, taught us girls to play tennis, took all of us camping and fishing and hiking and motorbiking on wasteland. I used to wish he were my dad all the time.

Having taught hundreds of kids, and being the eldest of dozens of cousins, I'm fairly on the fence about whether it is better to use corporal punishment or not. A 'threat' has to exist, and reasoning with your kids assumes that you are smarter than them, and can effect sanctions that are effective. Through teaching, I've seen that rewards and removal of rewards creates an 'easy come, easy go' attitude towards things and is unlikely to lead to internalisation of your values.

You want to get pragmatic kids with their own values, who behave the same when you are not there as when you are, not kids who parrot your values in order to manipulate rewards or non-punishment from you.

'Reasoning' doesn't help as it's too close to negotiation. My mother would sit and argue with me 'til the cows came home, and so I always got my own way because I am more stubborn than she is and better at winning arguments. He would just roar at me 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'WHY?' YA CHEEKY WEE MADAM! MOVE! WHEN I SAY JUMP, YOU ASK 'HOW HIGH?', JESUSMARYNJOSEPH!'

We all adore him and his wife. They were the centre of our family.

Thinking about Taiwan

2009-04-21T17:08:00.005+01:00

I wrote this on another website then realised it would be better here.

'I sort of understand what you mean about not missing Taiwan. My environment and personal circumstances are just light years ahead of what I had in Taiwan (not dissing the 'wan, I'm talking about my job, my lifestyle, and not general stuff) and it would be stupid for me to hanker after being poorer, with no career prospects and residence status tied to some bollocks teaching job as I was years away from PARC. I have this huge sense of freedom and possibility here that I never had in Taiwan and because I can do what I want to, I like myself a lot more. I don't go into work everyday and hate myself for tolerating something I can't stand for money and a visa.

Also, the time I'm spending with my ill grandmother is absolutely precious and irreplaceable. To be honest, there's not much I wouldn't suck up to have this time with her, while she's 'here'. She has Alzheimer's, and I know it makes her happy to see me. I owe her a bit of my time, at least.

But there are many aspects that I miss. Sometimes, when I'm sitting on the bus, in the dreary morning light, my mind will wander back to markets, temples, hot weather, typhoons, earthquakes, taxis, night markets, hot pot, drink stalls, fruit, movie theatres, teashops, misty mountains, the coast, tiny seaside towns, MY WONDERFUL FRIENDS, 8am funerals, parks, swimming outdoors, and a million other things I've forgotten.

In an ideal world I'd be able to travel to my second home often.'

Coffee in Taiwan

2009-04-21T10:06:00.006+01:00

Taiwan has great coffee! there are loads of little gourmet coffee shops, serving top quality stuff, to my non-gourmet taste buds, etc. I feel like I haven't had a decent cup of coffee for ages.

In Britain, coffee is a low grade commodity, to be cut corners with and overcharged for, like everything else. So many Brits just don't have that interest in paying a little more for good quality. We are happy to pay £2.50 (125NT?) for a bucket of milky, gritty crap in a dirty, noisy, overcrowded 'coffee shop'. Starbucks really is the only place to get a half decent cup here, but not in summer, because the tourists make it a 20 minute wait (More staff? Don't be stupid! the plebs can wait!). My Italian boy flat refuses to buy coffee in England yet has this inexplicable love affair with PG Tips.

I miss that really hot, rich taste and smell. No idea why Taiwan gets it so right with the coffee and the UK gets it so wrong. Both our countries import the stuff. I guess it's just a different attitude towards both food and leisure time? The paradox is; Taiwanese supermarkets are filthy and have nothing good in them, whereas British supermarkets have a wealth of international ingredients.

The difference is in our attitude towards cooked food, when we are out and about. We will pay for any old shit, but Taiwanese people are quite discerning, generally speaking. It's a real mystery to me. We can buy really wonderful European cheeses, organic meat, vegetables and fruits from around the globe, as well as our indigenous food, yet we live on tuna mayo sandwiches, jacket potatoes and bad coffee.

Nowhere is perfect, I guess. I want to live in ths beautiful hybrid land of Manchester architecture, culture and people, Taiwanese food, mountains, temples and friends, Bangkok food and culture and Oxford gardens.

Weird guy

2009-04-21T09:56:00.010+01:00

Some weird guy I used to know started a shitfight with me online and has even contacted my friends. A little confused, a little bored, as creeped out as ever. Eric Cartman without the brains. The thing is, it's his pal's website. There's no way to respond that doesn't degrade me more than he, and he lies, so ... OK la.

Clue: DEMANDING that a huge group of people respect your authoritaaa doesn't make them respect you more. Far from it.

You should never pretend to empathise with these people for an easy life. That's how the world turns bad.

Life is sweet

2009-04-15T15:19:00.011+01:00

Despite my mother being annoying (the 8th May IS a Saturday, despite your personal feelings on the matter), the two most ridiculous men in Taiwan picking fights with me (Harp off, you pissy old hor!), and the irritations of housemates (the day where I clean a grown man's urine from a toilet seat will never dawn), life is just great at the moment. Sometimes things just click and stride.

I'm writing this to remind myself that I did NOTHING to feel this happy. The usual suspects are as cunty, irritating and deeply depressing as ever, nothing external has changed. The sun is not shining. I did not get a pay rise. My boy is still in Italy.

Who was it that said* that when good things happen, we take all the credit and when bad things happen, we look for someone to blame? Happiness is generally as unearned as misfortune, however much we fool ourselves we control our destiny. If I posited that I deserve this rush of contentment, doesn't it follow that I deserve the creeping depression of losing my wonderful aunt and missing my boy while he's away?

To be honest, it's probably all just hormones. Just got to keep on trucking, I guess, and put your trust in karma, which is just a hippy way of saying 'cause and effect'. Please excuse the facile nature of these thoughts. I'm new to thinking about things.

*Paul Abbott, the genius-like TV writer, I just remembered. I'm sure it's not a new or original sentiment, though. Bit 'o the Schopenhauer about it.

Family

2009-04-14T10:54:00.003+01:00

'I'm writing to let you know your gran has lost your address. Which train do I need to take to Oxford? Mum'

Only the absolute knowledge that no-one would let my parents adopt a goldfish let alone a human child convinces me that we are connected.

Another post about music from the past

2009-04-13T22:59:00.003+01:00

I know it's lame-o to ret-ro, but mmm, wasn't 'Goo' lovely?

Mote, with the yummy Neil Young-ishness.

Kool Thing. Overt. Sublety is for people who are unsure of whether they are saying the 'right thing'.

Slacking for England

2009-04-13T09:05:00.005+01:00

A sweet four day weekend, courtesy of our Lord!

Had many plans to exercise, clean, write, study and generally move forward. Pretty boring as everyone I know seems to have left Oxford. I just couldn't face getting on a train (I'm a bit torn: I really want to go to Taiwan on holiday but that will decimate the car fund. God, I want more money! I'm not greedy, I just can't get about on BR. It's just unholy-grim.) .

I've really been sleeping eating and watching American TV shows, although there has been kendo and a pretty half-hearted jog to the lake and I vacuumed the whole house, for the first time, I think. I would have bought food if those communist fucks at Marks and Spencers weren't lazing around at home. No wonder this country is in an economic shambles. What use is a food store that opens from 9-6 and not on holidays?

Kendo... Always too fast or too slow. Goldilocks keeps getting her wrists whacked with sticks.

Noir Désir?

2009-04-09T23:51:00.006+01:00

I love this band.

I've felt fairly conflicted since I found out he beat the shit out of his girlfriend and put her unconscious, into bed until morning. When she finally reached the hospital, she had already slipped into a coma and died a few days later. He served three years. She was a mother of four.

If artists are conspicuously 'bad', does that mean anything for the art? Does it spoil it? I remember reading that 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' was written to try and convince Brel's mistress to come back to him, after he forced her to get a backstreet abortion. I remember hearing that as a teenager: it's the most beautiful love song. He actually cries as he sings it. What a twattish, hypocritical thing to do. Yet the writer of songs such as 'Ces Gens Là' must have good there? I suppose, like all of us, he compartmentalises aspects of himself and can be an angel as well as a devil.

It's coincidence that both of these examples are French, I guess. I read recently that Carl Orff turned in his friend to the Nazis and then after the war, told everyone he was part of an underground resistance movement.

I'm definitely going to think about this.

Did Douglas Coupland peak in the late 90s?

2009-04-08T23:09:00.002+01:00

I know I did.

And whoever never returned my copy of 'Miss Wyoming', you're a bastard.

Thinks a-brewing

2009-04-08T17:37:00.001+01:00

Mebbe heading to the 'wan for my birthday...

Damn you and your damned elves, Bill Gates!

2009-04-07T12:23:00.011+01:00

Ouch, I thought I got dumped because he ignored me for a fortnight. He thought he got dumped because I blocked his email account. Thankfully, I have no pride and he has more brains than I do.

These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server:blahrowr@live.com; Failed; 5.3.0 (other or undefined mail system status) Remote MTA mx2.hotmail.com: network error - SMTP protocol diagnostic: 550 SC-004 Mail rejected by Windows LiveHotmail for policy reasons. A block has been placed against your IPaddress because we have received complaints concerning mail comingfrom that IP address. If you are not an email/network admin pleasecontact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/networkadmins, we recommend enrolling in our Junk E-Mail Reporting Program(JMRP), a free program intended to help senders remove unwantedrecipients from their e-mail list: http://postmaster.live.com

Really, I have no idea how this happened. Could it have been when I dropped a bagel on my keyboard? I still haven't got all the sesame seeds out. Clicked on the 'postmaster' site, but I could feel it doing to my brain what sunbathing in Algeria would do to your skin.

This is one of the only boys I've ever had a thing with who isn't married (afaik), doesn't treat me like he hates me and while is far from perfect, didn't disappoint me within 30 seconds of opening his mouth. Hotmail can NOT fuck me up, here!

I'm not very techy, despite being the on-call technical advisor for my entire extended clan-maternal branch (but that's another post). He's not very techy either. We are both introspective obsessive brooders who take things like not receiving replies to emails far more personally than we should. We communicate entirely through these white fold-in-half machines with apples on. Although there's a part of us that enjoys that, it's not without its pitfalls.

Sad

2009-04-06T22:37:00.001+01:00

So sad tonight because I made the mistake of looking through pics of my friend's kids. I miss them so much.

Computer Hobbit

2009-04-06T15:49:00.004+01:00

I'm at a computer for most of my work day, although I do get to slope off to the quad, coffee shop or library with manuscripts, sometimes.

I'm writing like a crazy thing, the rest of the time, and practicing kendo cuts. My shoulders permanently feel like they've been hit with spades.

I love my Eee PC: it's light and the battery lasts for five hours, but it's turning me into Richard 3rd. My kingdom for a Logitech wireless keyboard and a 22" monitor!

Kendo Queen and How to produce healthy daughters.

2009-04-04T21:30:00.009+01:00

Kendo click! I finally performed kata 1-3, both utedachi and shidachi, and a full kirikaeshi without laughing, going the wrong way, hitting anyone's face or falling over. Only took seven months. Lord, I'm crap at remembering sequences of movement.

I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd done kendo as a kid instead of ballet? If I ever have daughters (It's just about physically possible I'll get drunk, knocked up and gestate to full term), I'll make sure they have healthy, fun hobbies if it kills me: horses, martial arts and flying gliders. I'll also throw all their stupid journals in the river and won't send them to girl-schools. I'll also teach them how to do their curls properly; no to henna, straightening or highlights, yes to silicone-based serum, air-drying and regular trims. They'll thank me for it.

Sons? No idea. Hopefully they'd find fathers, somehow.

NEWSFLASH: got Durutti Column tickets at the Manchester Festival, oh joys. See 'I'm Listening To...' below.

Danielle!

2009-04-03T12:16:00.002+01:00

Oh no, that was a horrorshow episode. So sad.

I need to stop watching TV. Stuff like that could send me over the edge!

On my desk

2009-03-28T00:03:00.017Z

'A Lover Spurned' the weird loungey video and the smoothest Valium-voice ever.

Kata sequences.

Letters not sent to the HM Customs and Revenue and the SLC: they would probably be passed to the police and I'd end up getting bum-searched at the airport, each time.

Blake pictures, cut out of the biography I bought. (Hahaha, D, books are not sacred relics).

Ditto Taiwan guide book.

Scribbled lyrics from 'Intimate Secretary' by The Raconteurs. 'Are you part of this cackistocracy?' This album is full of layers. Or maybe it isn't, maybe I just don't concentrate?

Pics of ibeji dolls, canopic jars and mizuko kuyo statues.

A card from Debra and a couple of other good luck cards.

My GuanYin jade.

Brass Buddha, Thai, possibly?

The same hairbrush I've had all my life.

Crappy Sennheisers. Bought the wrong ones. Bah.

My Starbucks Beijing mug. Sorry Taipei, you know I love you more. I just wanted to see what it would be like.

A printout of some stuff I have written this week.

*EDIT* Realised I selectively wrote down things. Nobody who has actually met me is going to buy the above.

8 Mr Men tissues, used.

An empty muesli bowl, unwashed.

A giant mirror

A make-up bag with a 'Little Red Riding Hood' pattern, complimented by Tasha. Filled with many expensive yet almost identically coloured sheer plum lipsticks and pale powder.

Three broken mice

IPod dock

John Frieda hair products

Car-shaped box with Winnie the Pooh characters given by Jeffrey, filled with treasure (such as broken bracelets, old boarding passes, little dolls, polaroids, fossils, an antique ivory hairpin)

A box of floss

USB hub thing with five little cable tails

A file of papers

A bag with sixteen odd socks in it

Que ces gens-la, Monsieur...

2009-03-27T23:34:00.007Z

'Les autres ils disent comme ça
Qu'elle est trop belle pour moi
Que je suis tout juste bon
A écorcher les chats
J'ai jamais tué de chats
Ou alors y a longtemps
Ou bien j'ai oublié
Ou ils sentaient pas bon
Enfin ils ne veulent pas
Enfin ils ne veulent pas'

Jai quinze ans, cette chanson j'aimais bien. Francais, j'oublié, mais ces chansons de Jacques Brel je n'oublié rien de tout ...

(Tenses all wrong!)

Bit Slack

2009-03-26T08:49:00.003Z

on the blogging front recently. Been busy. Stuffs upcoming!

Earthquake!

2009-03-16T22:32:00.003Z

Here in Oxford!

Taiwan flashback. OK, so it was about 3.0. The kind of tremor you wouldn't even notice in Taiwan. But hey. Good to know I'm still standing on the earth!

streetbacon.com

2009-03-16T21:01:00.007Z

http://www.streetbacon.com/ is a new classified site for Taiwan, started by a well-known Taipei scenester. There's a real gap in the market for a good classified ads site: the others, such as tealit.com are either shite or never work properly.

It's also a great name. Totally stupid yet memorable.

Taiwan's expat scene needs this kind of diversity. Chances are, the sidewalkswine.com forums won't take off: all the traffic goes to forumosa.com Forumosa has its good points, such as lots of traffic so that questions are answered and there can be a real sense of community. It has its bad points too, such as the fact that it is largely run by a hateful shower of bastards and is very intolerant and non-inclusive of non-retarded viewpoints/people. Hopefully, roadpig.com can provide a friendly, supportive, caring environment for the Taiwan expat. To that end, I will not be registering, but I wish them all the very best...

The Sexiest Man In Taipei

2009-03-13T20:37:00.011Z

There is a new king*! It's true, he is 'The sexiest man in Taipei'. Google it if you don't believe me.

Chris, the teaching ninja, motivational speaker, expert navigator and all round hot bitch has a site. A website, not just a building site in Hsintien. Despite having a disturbing wardrobe and OCD-ish tendencies related to fried eggs, he's a top bloke and I'm happy we were such good pals back in the 'wan. I miss him a lot.

It's an odd site. You may ask yourself why the crap is Tony the Tiger embedded in a strawberry with feet? You maybe ponder the point of Passionquest? You may ask yourself why he's such a stinking cheerful hippy with so much energy? But its purpose is partly to get teaching gigs and other freelance work and despite a poor economy and dwindling demand for Engrish teechurs, this guy chooses his students, not the other way around.

Basically, Chris has decided he's going to be in Taiwan, for the foreseeable. Unlike me, who loved the place but was years away from permanent residency, and getting increasingly burned out, tired and depressed by the EFL industry in the 'wan, he has taken the bull by the horns, and within incredibly narrow parameters, has tried to shape life in Taiwan in his image. And it's generally orange. He refuses to give up on himself and others and always thinks the best of people, without being a Pollyanna or a retard. He's a person who doesn't moan and then do nothing, just taking it, he's a doer. A mover. A shaker, even. Although bricks are his Kryptonite.

I like Chris because he's full of energy, kind, clever and fun**. He helps a children's charity, despite being incredibly busy, and rescued a gorgeous dog. And if that's not sexy, I don't know what is. Now if he got rid of that bum-bag thing, he'd be a contender for 'sexiest man in Asia'.

*So, the former sexiest man in Taipei turned into a tubby scooter-driving looser. It happens. We move on. But let's just say future scientists will be confused if that mofo's body gets preserved in peat. I'm not saying any more, only that it'll be one up for the creationists and one down for the intelligent design/evolution chaps.

**He also has a nice arse.

Reading

2009-03-11T22:05:00.002Z

This week I've been reading Self Reliance by Emerson.

Asian drapery

2009-03-09T20:59:00.012Z

Thank you, internet!

I have a yummy new kendogi and hakama (indigo blue kendo uniform) and a bag full of weapons.

This makes me happy.

Traditional Asian clothes are cool. Japanese, Korean and Chinese outfits are far more forgiving to the slightly 'heavy' woman. Okay, so those girls had to deal with some serious footwear. Wooden flipflops for the Japanese girls and 5 inch long high heeled satin shoes for the Chinese girls (Okay, so they had to smash them with bricks and bind them forever more to achieve this. See the first chapter of Jung Chang's Wild Swans for a description of that particular anti-female bastardry), but no Victorian deformity such as teenage girl's bones being 'shaped' by corsets designed to produce an eighteen inch waist. Sorry, but I have to get intestines, a uterus and ten years of cake abuse into that space...

I'll wear wooden flipflops if you let me dress like Gong Li. Kimono, layering, the elegant and very sexy nape of the neck as the erogenous zone, rather than the mammalian udder as the focal point.

'Xiu He!' Late Qing chicks. This was the style before the utility of the republic and the urban qipao swept away the rich colour, ornamentation and drapery of the late Qing. Wide legged pants, designed to make a girl's bound feet look even smaller, with a loose jacket. Very little skin showing, with white faces, oiled, decorated black hair and reddened lips being the most prized styles. Women flirted through the symbolism of embroidered animals and flowers.

Hanbok hottie. I don't know much about Korean dress, but I like the hanboks. They are often pink, which isn't so great, but still have potential.

But my favourites are, of course the Tang ladies. Slightly tubby ladies with big hair and low-cut drapery who rode horses without sidesaddles, smoked and played games. In the first picture, note the skinny guy at the back, dressed in black. Not unsurprising that the Tang dynasty was a golden age, culturally, artistically and politically. I like to think that this is not unconnected to the veneration of fat lasses dressed in red. I'm hoping for a resurgence of that aesthetic.

Writing - when to move on?

2009-03-08T20:15:00.006Z

I've been writing the same insano novel for three (?) or more years, now. It's nowhere near finished. I love it, but only from an intellectual angle. I'm not in that frame of mind, any more and have very little emotional pull to the subject matter. It seems in a different time and place.

It was possibly a way of working out a kind of grief that I could barely even talk about, let alone acknowledge and own. If that makes sense.

I've always believed that art should be about creation and decoration, not lazy self-expression. But that may not be possible or desirable. If you silence yourself, you become a mere aesthete, making Wildean quips. Being a smartarse comes easy to me. That's a paradigm shift greater than the realisation that my favourite Patti Smith album is Trampin' and no longer Radio Ethiopia. I ain't using winky smilies in my own blog ...

Time. Should you lock yourself up and BLAST through it, while you're in the middle of it all, or should you allow the stories to brew, along with the other strands of your life? Alasdair Gray spent thirty years on Lanark. The danger is I'll get fixated by something that doesn't move or grow. Need to be stricter about keeping my journals.

Actually, I didn't even get to the end of Ain't it Strange? to realise that Radio Ethiopia is the better album, even though My Blakean Year is transcendentally beautiful.

Books

2009-03-08T18:54:00.005Z

'In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.' Emerson

One earth month

2009-03-08T15:08:00.005Z

since I updated this nonsense. Three people have commented! I assumed no-one was reading it but me.

The silence was because my boyfriend went back to Italy last weekend and I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible before he left. He's going to try to get work in Oxford, but who knows what will happen? I miss him a lot, though. I think it hit me this weekend. Last weekend I tried really hard to keep busy and not think about it, but as I always do when I go into denial/distraction mode, I made myself sick with psychosomatic illnesses to the point where I've been virtually bedridden... I miss him a lot and I don't know if he'll come back. There's nothing more to say, really. It's out of my hands.

Been trying to get my flickr up and running. I only take pictures on my own, which is dumb. I have no pics of any of my friends, or the Italian boy, just scenery. Must change my ways. Maybe I need a smaller camera?

It's sort-of spring, now.

Magazine

2009-02-09T20:34:00.003Z

Going to see the reformed Magazine tomorrow. I loved this when I was at university. Pretty things are boring.

Whenever I'm moaning about missing the 'wan, I remember that I love (aspects of) my culture and that I was alienated from 'my people' over there...

'This is SAIIIINSBURY'S!'

2009-01-26T22:10:00.001Z

'It will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy it. This is not City Super.'

Whitmanesque?

2009-01-26T09:15:00.001Z

God, I am an arse sometimes.

Whitmanesque blah

2009-01-24T23:10:00.006Z

would be all I could come up with today. So just the basic facts.

Frozen pizza is disgusting.

Back at kendo after a month's skiving and excuse making. Bokken kata! Eek!

Sister just texted from a kebab shop in town where she is dressed as an American airforce pilot (lesbian costume party) and feeling uneasy. She's a dick at times. I suggested Cheetham Hill in a Luftwaffe get up, or a curry in Rusholme in Israeli gunner togs next week, for laughs.