An Improper Punch in the Face

I’ve just removed a blog from weeks back that was called ‘A Proper Punch in the Face.’ Even though this blog is pure fiction, the bones of the story came from an experience that a friend of mine had. As the person in question lives in Germany and is currently in Africa for three months I haven’t a clue how she’s getting on. But that’s not why I removed it. I removed it because another friend’s ex was pointed to my blog by a work colleague of his, and he decided that the piece was about him. He picked out the parts that he connected with and posted up some vitriolic comments on how the other parts, because they were not true of his particular situation, should be removed – but self centred people can be like that, they only see their own story and don’t understand that there are more than a handful of people occupying the universe at present.

I decided to take down the blog because vitriolic people should have all sharp instruments removed from their reach, as there is likelihood they will use them as weapons. The pen is a mighty weapon; someone once almost gouged my eye out with one. The pencil though, is sharper albeit lighter. Similarly, a blog post is a weapon. Just look how that anonymous blog reader shot himself in the foot with my blog. He read a piece of fiction based on the story of a German woman who is now in Africa, but related so strongly to it that he then wrote a comment telling the world that he had been abusive himself, just not to the extent of the woman in my blog. He outlined and shared his abuse story in the comment. Brave.

I suppose that’s the whole purpose of T.V. Soaps and writing in general though: to create characters that seem so real we can all relate to them.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll blog about an undiscovered and unappreciated genius. I can relate to that…

Keep the Day Job

I’ve just had a rejection letter from another agency to let me know that I should seriously consider keeping the day job that I don’t have. It was the usual: started out telling me how clear the plot is and how great the idea for the book is, but that unfortunately they’ll have to pass on it this time as it is total crap that nobody would ever read (and that, of course, is said in different words, because after all, words are their business).

I can’t say I blame them. The book is crap, but it has taken me a few years to realise how boring, badly written and disjointed it is. The dialogue is weak and the actual story is so twee and corny that it’s almost as bad as something by Cecilia Ahern.

Thing is though, I have to keep trying to get it published because if I don’t I won’t be able to justify my banal life.

There are things that are acceptable for writers to do, like spending two hours at the crossword, drinking too much coffee, going for lunch a lot, blowing social welfare payments on books and wearing silly hats. It’s because ‘I’m a wroiter’.

Luckily I have a lot of charitable friends who tell me that I’m really an undiscovered genius, so I tell myself that I am, and keep writing. They remind me that J.K. Rowling started out where I am, but I remind myself that I don’t have any wizards or dragons or vampires or anything in my books that people like reading about. And one other little incidental is that J.K. Rowling can actually write, and probably does write instead of doing crosswords and coffee and that sort of thing.

My novel goes like this: girl has life set out for her. Goes against plan. Gets into trouble. Wins out in the end. The end.

I’d accept being an undiscovered genius, but I need to get about €300k in order to buy my house, seeing as I’ll never be credit worthy enough to get a mortgage and I don’t want to be homeless. It’s my last hope.

So I’m thinking of a brand new novel. How about this: boy has life set out for him. Goes against plan…

The Big Itch

  

 A friend of mine was telling me all about the time she ran the NY marathon. I was well impressed until she said ‘it was the second best day of my life’. She went on to tell me more about the great run, but I had already switched off. My head was burning with the one question ‘so what was the best day of your life?’ Turns out it was her wedding day. Personally, the idea of spending the day running through the streets of New York with every cell in your body pounding, does appeal to me a tad more than wearing a white dress and confronting family members who I usually spend all year avoiding. Luckily for me, I had fallen out with most of my friends and relatives by the time I got married, and given that wedding dresses are not all that flattering when you are six months pregnant, I went for the modest registry office option, hence, I cannot truly compare notes with my friend who ranks her wedding above running the marathon.

It made me think though: the happiest day in my life? There are certain days that stick. Coming second in the three legged race, aged 5, has stayed with me. But surely that can’t still be my happiest ever day? In fact, if it was, it would be sad which would cancel it out.

There are other kinds of days I can remember though. I’ll never forget the itchiest day in my life. It was a learning experience. I learnt that you should never wear a pair of nylons when teaching for a whole day in a stuffy room with no air conditioning if you have very angry athletes’ foot. I was supposed to be teaching middle managers how to be better middle managers. I was sitting, standing and walking at the top of the room and my foot was so itchy that my whole body began to break out in a sweat and whenever anyone asked me a question I’d make a Freudian slip by saying something like ‘ you need to have a good marketing itch, I mean pitch’.

Eventually I gave them an exercise and made it to the bathroom where I took off my tights and scratched my foot until it bled. One of the legs of my tights had slipped into the toilet during my scratching operation, which actually wasn’t all that bad, as it was a clean toilet bowl and it did have a cooling effect on my bad foot. I’m not sure what my class thought about teacher disappearing and returning with a wet leg, but I was just too itchy to care.

I’ve had a scariest day, which involved being stuck up a gorge at dusk while hiking in Corsica, there’s also been a most embarrassing day in which I sent a very inappropriate text message to the wrong person. I’m hopefully through with the most painful day in my life which ended by passing a stone through my kidney. Then there’s the most worrying day, the most tumultuous day and the day I made the best dinner ever.

Thinking about the happiest day makes me realise something brilliant though: I haven’t had it yet!

Homophobia Is Gay!

Homophobia is a complex thing. And believe me; I know this all too well being a homophobe myself. It started when I realised that I might be gay. I was still a teenager and being gay was something that other people did. Normal kids, and I was normal, tried to find out who was gay and write so and so is a lezzer on the toilet walls. Usually the girl in question wasn’t gay at all, she probably had short hair and Dr. Marten boots, but that was enough back then.

So I left the country and went to London to be gay in secret. I knew that I couldn’t possibly be a lezzer myself; I liked Laura Ashley skirts and white court shoes. I had a Farah Fawcett Major hair style and I wore make-up. I convinced myself that I definitely wasn’t one of those abnormal people who committed abominable sex crimes, all I wanted to do was to try it out once, and after that I could go back home and get married to a nice boy.

I was less than an hour in London when I bumped into some friends from home, so the plan died there. Then I went to Germany. I could get it out of my system over there. I didn’t bump into anyone from home until I finally ventured into a gay disco. It was in Berlin, but there he was on the dance floor: a guy from the street I’d grown up on. I couldn’t understand how he realised that I’d be there, but I knew I was caught. He didn’t spend the evening stalking me and taking photos of me to send to my mother, he was busy dancing and showing off his pierced nipples. But I knew he could only be there to spy on me (because I was the only gay in the village!) so I left.

Eventually I did meet a woman, but I couldn’t really connect, because after all, she was a lezzer, so she had to be slightly strange. We had fun, but I slipped out before breakfast in case I’d have to talk to her. It wasn’t long before I came back home and married one of those nice boys like nice girls do.

A few years later, when the really nice boy I married had run away with a lap dancer, a terrible thing happened: I fell in love with a lezzer. That means I didn’t score or get lucky or have a secret night of sordid sex (because isn’t that the only thing that gay people do?) No, I fell in love with someone who didn’t even love me back. In fact she thought I was a pathetic and patronizing homophobe. I became a political gay activist to try and win her heart. I didn’t get the girl but I became enlightened.

Last week one of my kids punched a guy for making homophobic comments. I’m not a friend of punches myself and luckily never received any during my years of delusion. I like the attitude of the new generation though, and I’m proud of my kids whoever they are. I’ll even accept them if any of them turn out to be heterosexuals…

I Blame The Parents

I’ve been getting a bit of hate mail recently from a person by the name of anonymous.

Apparently my blog is neither funny, nor original, and I must say that I do very much agree with Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous because rereading my posts they are definitely non original sad person kind of blogs. Thing is, that’s what a lot of people get a laugh from.

Well on the subject of something not very original – having kids, it’s been a bad day.

What I just can’t stand are the tantrums. So I went down to the shop and grabbed a book called something like ‘teens and tantrums’. I’ve flicked through the whole thing but not a word of advice on how to stop having tantrums. It seems to be about families where the children have the tantrums and not the parents. I think that would be easy to deal with: just give them a clip across the ear and send them to their rooms. What I need is advice on how not to scream things like ‘you stupid imbecile’ at a child, while flinging various items to the floor before storming out and driving around the neighbourhood until I calm down.

See the one thing about having kids is that if I’d never had any I wouldn’t know all the things I’ve learnt from them that points to why I should never have had them. I’d never have known that I’m scab, clueless, a loser, a poohead, mean, unfair, and generally incompetent of any parenting related tasks. I also would not know that I am so fat, ugly and embarrassingly badly dressed that I should not park anywhere in the vicinity of my kids when picking them up. And thanks to my kids I now know that I know nothing, and even a genius like Socrates took years to find that out.

In a way I feel sorry for people who don’t have kids because think of all the things they don’t know about themselves…

What Respectable People Do

I’m just back from the last meeting of the Parents’ Committee for this year. The end of year meeting is not only good because it’s over until September, but also because   school principal treats us to finger food and wine in the school’s ‘parlour’. It would be a lie to say I don’t enjoy being one of the parent committee ladies. I feel that I have what it takes to be a committee kind of woman. I may not wear fancy heels and golden strappy sandals, but I love organising garden fetes and that sort of thing. So I can’t work out why there seems to be an unspoken assumption that I’m ‘different’ to the rest of the nice men and women on the committee. There’s no evidence whatsoever.

The school principal attends every meeting. She’s great, but she’s a school principal so I just can’t help feeling nervous in her presence. I can’t help worrying that my  mobile phone is about to be confiscated or that I’m in trouble for not sitting up straight or forgetting something or not having the minutes from the last meeting on hand. It’s about thirty years since I was at school, but sitting in a classroom still evokes the fear of lines, detention or my mother being phoned.

I don’t get into trouble though. There is a lot of back patting at this meeting. Apparently we’ve all done a great job fundraising this year. The bag packing was a huge success and the car boot sale was riveting. I mention that I’m glad I didn’t win the hideous lamp we raffled, and realise I should not have said that, especially as the person who donated it, along with the person who won it, were both present.  I’m good at that though; saying things I later regret.  The meeting ends and we retire to our cocktail sausages and cheese on a cocktail stick. I mention that there’s a lot of cock on offer tonight, but nobody seems to get the joke and I enjoy a slice of smoked salmon in the uncomfortable silence of my little joke.

Luckily there’s wine. I’m so determined to be one of this clique that I try to adopt to the behaviour of the committee and nurse one little glass of wine all evening, but it just doesn’t work. I drink about three or four glasses and grab one last top-up as the evening winds up with everything being tidied away except for the remainder of a bottle of wine. Despite my many glasses of wine and me raising my voice making stupid comments about how I think a certain female politician should get her roots done, I do still feel totally part of the committee.

A member of staff insists that I take the rest of the bottle home with me, and I say ‘ah no, I’ve had enough’, while stuffing it quickly into my shoulder bag.

I suggest we should have a sing-song to bring our Trojan year of fundraising to an end, but sadly, I am ushered into the car of one of the nice committee members who doesn’t drink, so I take a swig out of the wine bottle as I leave the building.

At home I polish off the rest of the wine and have the sing-song on my own. I suppose the one thing I love about being a lady on a committee is that it really reinforces being a pillar of society. It’s great being respectable.

I Should Be Committed

I think I may be suffering from a rare mental disease that only affects my good self. I call it commitment-phobia. I’ve had it for almost thirty years but I’m really only coming to terms with it now. What it is is a hormone or gland or chemical imbalance or something, that causes delusionary emotions of falling madly in love and then falling madly out of love just as quickly. The falling out of love is usually triggered by the other person falling in love with me. Hence, I probably have enough ex-lovers at this stage to fill a theatre for one of my story telling nights (if they were speaking to me, that is).

And believe me, it’s not as if I have a lot of choice. There are plenty of people with whom I would love the opportunity to prove I wouldn’t be happy with. No, I am only referring to those who are desperate enough to fall for me, and whom, similarly, I am deluded enough to be taken in by.

I remember my first boyfriend. I was a seventeen year old school girl and he was a student of twenty one. I was well impressed. He was tall, blonde and he wore a black polo neck sweater. We kissed and fumbled. I stole an ashtray from the pub and he gave me a crossbar home on his bike. It was pure adventure. Even the next day when I was sober I still thought he was the sexiest man on the planet. We spent a few weeks talking about every single thing under the sun, and then we tried out every single thing under a blanket. He told me that I was the only woman he had ever loved. My heart skipped a beat and I was so much in love that I, yes, even I, could not eat. Soon after that, he himself got some sort of disease, whereby instead of still talking about everything under the sun, his conversation became limited to: ‘I love you’ or ‘you’re amazing’ or some similar kind of rubbish talk. Although I could still talk coherently, whenever I did try to engage in conversation he would gaze into my eyes sending out the message ‘whatever you say is wonderful, but I’m not listening, I’m just waiting to kiss you.’ Looking back, that’s where my own disease probably began to kick in. Unfortunately, the more he gazed lovingly at me, the more he began to look like a duck. I’d feel uneasy and decide to take a breather, so I’d say something like ‘I’m just popping up to the shops for the newspaper.’ ‘I’ll come with you’, he’d say, and then hang out of my arm all the way there and back. My disease then entered stage two, which was similar to a complicated form of claustrophobia. When I wasn’t with him, I was still madly in love, but as soon as we met up I began to panic and plan my escape. This then developed into crisis mode. I knew it was over, not only did I not love him, I hated him. He had nothing to say, he looked like a duck and that sweater from the first night had belonged to his flatmate because on the night I met him all of his horrible cream coloured shirts had been in the wash. Being seventeen it was easy to run. I just got one of my school friends to call up to his house and say ‘my friend says she’s breaking it off.’

Unfortunately, despite having tried every possible combo there is, the pattern persists: I meet someone. They are the most amazing person in the world. Then they are not. Then I am in trouble for breaking their heart. Then I do something stupid to escape, such as shag their friend. Then they hate me. At this stage their hate can at times cause me to have second thoughts and go for a reunion, but once they love me again, I’m off again. I celebrate my freedom and remind myself that I am not suited to relationships. Then I meet someone else and truly believe that they are ‘the one’. Then the whole thing starts again.

I suppose I’d be much better off just concentrating on one night stands. Thing is though, I’ve recently fallen madly in love…