Posts by Louisa

The Renaissance Monkey wrote something t’other day about things that make one disproportionately happy. It brought a smile to my face so started adding things:

• Strangers who open doors (the real kind, I’m not talking about opportunistic networking)
• A smile (with no nefarious or obscene intent) from a fellow TFL passenger
• Coming in from the cold to a warm smile and a warmer hug (this goes hand in hand with his wet winter’s day one, with which I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically agree – only I’ll have a nice man, please, to go with my book)
• Chilli Spicy Tuna Maki at Bob San
• When you’ve got your iPod on shuffle and you’re thinking about someone and suddenly a song comes on that always reminds you of that person and you grin like an idiot for a second or ten
• East facing bedroom windows
• A lunchtime visit to see the Dancing Girl
• A freshly sharpened knife for chopping
• Fresh hot ginger tea
• Finding a key on the ground when out for a walk
• The meta-tamarind and similar nonsenses
• Sun on the water
• Exchanging greetings with your favourite vendor in Columbia Road Flower Market
• A compliment when you weren’t trying
• Sleeping with Nelson the Dog or the dear, beautiful, departed Kittenhead

But at one point during the listing (the one about compliments, actually, which began as “Encouragement that comes when you need it more than you’d thought”, I had to stop myself to and ask, “is that really a small thing? Does that qualify?” And this thought is still circling in my head: why do these count as small things? Is it because they might go unnoticed by others, or by ourselves? Or because they don’t cost much? It can’t be based on size or time commitment – a diamond is (hopefully) physically small, but to receive one is (hopefully) not a small deal by anyone’s measure. A kiss might only take a second, but it can change the whole world for the two who are in it.

I’m not trying to be overly pedantic or willfully obtuse, I promise. But this interests me – why should we classify things as small when they clearly mean a lot to us? Some people I know, some things I love, every time I see them my heart does a little leap. Is that a small thing? To me, it’s huge.

Tragic Blind Date #462

I’ve never been good at dating, boyfriend-hunting, whatever you want to call it. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing – I find the concept pretty grim, and as far as I can tell, the only people who are good at it are gold-diggers, socialites and the otherwise terminally boring. Besides, my life is basically good – it’s not like I lie awake at night crying and wondering why me.

Nevertheless, it has occurred to me that I can’t really moan about no dates, no sex, etc. unless I’m actually trying to do something about it. But when I’m out, I’m with friends and therefore have better things to do than scan the crowd for the next likely target – and no matter what Hollywood says, I don’t know anyone who’s met the love of their life at the Tate or in Victoria Park. Or in the greengrocers. You see where I’m going with this. Hell, maybe I need to rethink my standards, too: if I limit my dating pool to those of the calibre of my close friends, I’ll only go out on one date every year or so. All of which has led me back (previous experience notwithstanding) into the dubious world of internet dating. I knew this would be potentially discouraging, but sweet Jesus.

I’d vowed not to give in to my knee-jerk misgivings. But comparison error got the best of me. You know how it is when one candidate is so god-awful, the next one seems much better than they are? Yeah. When Peter (not his real name) sent me a note using both punctuation and capitalisation, it was so much better than the others I’d had that I wrote him back. A few exchanges later (with polysyllabic words! and a mild sense of humour! such bounty!), we agreed to meet. This despite the fact that he is an American expat lawyer doing an MBA in London. Yes, a student. But surely not a starving student, I tell myself. A former lawyer? Pushing 30? He can’t be doing the tinned beans in the bedsit lifestyle, can he? Benefit of the doubt, I told myself. New leaf and all that.

On the day of the date, every time I thought about it I had a little surge of dread. I began to look upon my reasoning as rationalisation. It was Friday the 13th. What if he showed up in a goalie mask? But I told myself I was just being defeatist and, fortified by a pint after work, I went.

It was a mixed start: he had positioned himself with a view of the pub’s door so he could spot me straight away, saving me from standing in the door scanning the crowd. Unfortunately his manners didn’t extend to offering me a drink or procuring a table. So I got one of each. And away we went…

First, the look: I may be shallow, but I am inherently put off by men wearing the standard Preppy Republican Uniform: pleated tapered chinos, open-check shirt, you know the routine… and in his case, boat shoes. Boat shoes. Good god.

Next, the conversation: recaps of the holidays were brief and uninspiring, so after a few awkward pauses I went with the tried and true tell-me-about-yourself gambit. Only he didn’t seem to have anything to tell. Why was he in London? Dunno, seemed like a good idea at the time. What did he want to do with his MBA? Dunno, anything but law. How did he like London? OK, he guessed, for now. Eventually, the capper:

Me: … it’s good to work with people who genuinely care about what they do, you know?
He: Yeah, that’s cool. I guess somebody’s got to care about stuff – I don’t, really.

I laughed. This is a joke, right? Then I caught the look on his face. He looked bewildered. This was not a joke. I began to wonder if he’s a pod person.

5 minutes later, I’m in the toilet texting a friend of mine: ‘OH GOD HELP ME’. Should I have just bolted for the door, shouting TAXI? Maybe, but somehow that seemed unnecessarily harsh. He didn’t seem like a bad person – just… well, just boring. And I couldn’t really think of anything to say by way of an excuse that wasn’t either obviously a lie or “Sorry, but I have to go. I’m losing the will to live.”

Another 5 minutes later, mercifully, a text back: ‘I’ve locked myself out, can you come straight away with my spare keys?’ A stroke of genius, this – just specific enough to be believable, serious enough to make it difficult to argue. Still, guiltily (and because Peter looked a bit suspicious), I concocted a detailed story about how my friend is notorious for losing things – phone, keys, iPods – and how the last time he locked himself out he’d wound up on my sofa because the locksmith charged double on bank holidays. I think in my panicked state I might even have done an impression of the snoring.

Thus was I rescued. I made a beeline for the local, where I met up with the gang and was consoled over many pints. Total date time: just under an hour.

The first word that comes to mind when I think about the whole ordeal is ‘mortifying’. Reading this now, it doesn’t capture the trapped and panicky feel of the moment. It could have been so much worse – one of the first blind dates I ever went on, years ago, turned out to be a heroin addict who did his own tattoos. But see, that’s exactly the problem. This one wasn’t freakish or bizarre. It wasn’t even horrible enough to be hilarious. The thing that’s so depressing is how absolutely banal it was, how perfectly and utterly dull. The thought of doing it again makes me cringe.

But on the other hand, maybe I’d better keep going. Surely the next one will be better – or at least worse. Right?

Right?

self-indulgence is the heart of blogging. right? right? right.

tonight at the pub, rudy can’t fail came on and i told my friend that i now associate that song with the film grosse pointe blank (oddly enough, though we’re both big clash fans, so does he). as i did a lot of my growing up in grosse pointe (and watched that film about 50 times in preparation for my 10 year reunion), this led us into a conversation about the people we used to know and where they’ve gone.

a lot of the best and brightest of my graduating class have wound up back where they started, in grosse pointe or the other surrounding suburbs of detroit. i can’t imagine that this is universally due to a lack of ability – but then, why? mummy and daddy could afford (and did, in most cases) a nice flat on the east coast, plane fare abroad, and tuition at a top-flight university. so what is it about grosse pointe that keeps them coming back, these people with the big plans? perhaps it’s fear. or security. or maybe those two are the same thing, really.

i had a chat to some of the girls a couple of weeks ago, and wound up bringing up an ex of mine from years ago. i told them how brilliant he was, and he’s aging well, and we still get on, etc.. so why did we split up, they wanted to know? there are a lot of answers to that question, and a lot of them are my fault, but the truth is we got scared. when we got together we were both still at university, and in that rarified environment we could be whatever we made of ourselves. when we moved out into the “real world” things got difficult. and as both of us were pretty fiercely independent, and as that waas a big part of what we loved about each other, we couldn’t work out how to ask for comfort, support, help. stupid? sure. but that’s not all of it, either…

when i see him now, i can still see what i used to love, but more of the other stuff. when i bring up things or places that are beyond his experience, he gets fidgety. it’s not that he feels inferior not knowing, exactly – more that he knows he never will. there’s something about the challenge of the unfamiliar that rattles him in ways he can’t cope with. and that, i can see now, in a nutshell, is why we didn’t work. i like rattling myself a little from time to time, seeing what i’m capable of; he’s afraid he won’t be able to hack it. simple as that.

so i was talking to my friend tonight and he was saying that maybe it’s time for him to make another move – life in london is starting to feel too easy and he’s gearing up for the next challenge. most of my friends are like that, i guess, one way or another. which means we don’t have to ask for help; it’s already there, whether we like it or not. and when i think about that i feel so incredibly lucky, having these people in my life. they hold me, and they let me go.

does it ever seem that you keep having the same conversation over and over? i seem to keep having the same one, lately, with a lot of different people. and while the topic is the same, there are countless variations – but in the end, it’s always about what doesn’t get said.

it’s never as easy as it looks in the movies, is it? fortunately it seems it’s also not quite as hard as it sounds. but we manage to make it that way… what if we said what we meant?

[scene: a man and a woman sit opposite one another in a restaurant. they are drinking coffee and have obviously been here for some time.]

he: can you really see a future for us?

she: sure. [pause] well, actually no.

he: [a bit stricken]

[end scene]

well, when can you ever see a future with anyone? and if you do, is that a good thing? so much of what we tell ourselves we want is predicated on this: is there a future here? can i see how it will turn out? when really the truth is: if it doesn’t happen the way you saw it, you’ll be disappointed. but if it does happen the way you saw it, you’ll be… bored.

just sayin’.

OK, you know how every time I go to the Dolphin I’m in for all sorts of fun with the crazy/unwashed/generally unsavoury folk? Remember the unsolicited lap dance from the sweaty Armenian? The 50-something, 5’6″, leering, grizzled workingman who started spouting his deepest darkest sexual fantasies at me whilst I was waiting for my round at the bar? The toothless Irishman who kept asking, in a slavering sort of way, whether Tinki and I were lesbians? No? Well, ask me sometime. I’ll tell you the stories.

Remember how even in the middle of the West End, in a perfectly ordinary coffee shop, whilst in a meeting with two perfectly innocuous colleagues, the crazy mentally disabled man became convinced that I was a news reader and hovered around our table until someone asked him to leave, at which point he sidled off, blowing kisses?

I keep telling you, crazy people love me. But my friends, I think it’s hit the crisis point. I need an intervention. Or a bodyguard. Or a hockey stick. Something.

This morning at the bus stop, there was a crazy guy. You know how you can spot them at 20 paces, what with the blackish teeth and the lunatic glint in the eye? Then, when you get closer, you can smell them. Anyway, there he was, all crazy with his bad self. I walked past him, enjoying my iPod-sheltered little world. Half a minute later, someone was tugging on my sleeve. As the tune at that moment was fairly quiet, I could hear him: “You listening to music, eh? Listening to music?” I gave him the look one gives crazy people – which is meant to be withering but apparently, when I give it, says: “Please talk to me some more. I find you fascinating and also strangely attractive.” He clarified by pointing at his ears, then at me, then back at his ears. “You listening to music, eh? It’s good, eh?” Erm…. Yeah. Back away slowly.

I let him get on the bus before me, so I could avoid standing close to him – no mean feat, as the bus was rammed. We managed to get almost halfway down to the tube station before I felt someone tapping my arm. This time I couldn’t hear a word, but he was all pressed up against me and there was lots of enthusiastic head bobbing and ear-pointing and toothless grinning and oh my, the halitosis. I somehow managed to extricate myself, nearly knocking over a sleepy-looking media type in the process, and wedged myself into the corner where the door hits your elbow every time it opens. You know the one.

I lost him in the tube station, though not without real effort. I actually caught myself ducking around a corner, all Mission Impossible, and then peeping back ’round to make sure he hadn’t seen me.

I won’t even get into the completely unhinged emails (yes, plural: to me *and* to a friend in the States) sent by the spectacularly insane man I dated (very) briefly 2 years ago and to whom we refer only as KrazyPantz.

So tell me the truth: do I, in fact, have a big fat neon sign over my head, visible to everyone but me, that says “I [HEART] CRAZIES”? And can someone help me turn it off?

Thanks.

This came through during the night from a longstanding and beloved friend, and was too good not to post in its entirety:

I’m so sorry for your loss. It is a frightening thing to say I
remember the day you welcomed Akasha into your home in Des Moines
(need we mention Serge here? I still applaud him [ed. note: Serge was my mad-as-a-box-of-ferrets French landlord when I was at University. In order to convince him I was worthy of my flat, I had to sit on floor of it with him, a very large bottle of wine and no furniture, for several hours, discussing existentialist philosophy. En français.]). It is a testament
both to how long we’ve known each other and the tenacity of a
particularly fine feline. She still had her claws in those days, and
I still have the scars… I particularly remember coming over to your
house on Saturday mornings, full of energy and looking for adventure.

I was greeted by Portrait of Medusa, with cat. I honestly can’t
remember who did the spitting and hissing, but it all worked out in
the end…

Akasha instinctively knew of my allergies to members of her species,
and took every opportunity to jump, rub and lick on me in ways that
were guaranteed to keep me sneezing and wiping my eyes. She
exemplified Evil (the exact science of being precisely, correctly
wrong) in so many ways, and for that I admire her deeply.

I offer these words in condolence, in my own geek fashion (altered
from the original):

Felis Cattus, is your taxonomic nomenclature,
an endothermic quadruped carnivorous by nature?
Your visual, olfactory and auditory senses
contribute to your hunting skills, and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
a singular development of cat communications
that obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
for a rhythmic stroking of your fur, to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aide in locomotion,
it often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Akasha, the complex levels of behaviour you display
connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Akasha, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

Data, “Schisms”

Many thanks, Greg.

Dear readers, I am sorry to report that it is the end of an era. The dearly loved and feared Kittenhead (aka Akasha) has passed on. She shuffled off the mortal coil on Friday 12th August, just four days after her 15th birthday. A good run of it by anyone’s standards, I’d say.

So I’d like to have a little in memoriam for the departed creature. I invite you to send me your memories and I’ll post them here. Pictures, tales, dreams, nightmares – all are welcome. Here’s the first, just to get you started, from the lovely Tinki:

So sorry to hear of your loss. Akasha was a beautiful wee thing, but frightened the shit out of me! I still have nightmares about the morning I woke up on your sofa bed, only to find her sitting on my chest staring at me, nose to nose. You said she was curious, I didn’t believe a word of it and knew she was intimidating me on purpose. I was frozen with fear and was quietly calling to you and Mike to rescue me. For even though she had been de-clawed she still had her teggies! And they fuckin’ hurt!

Remember the night of…………….’don’t shave the cat’ visions of her shaved and bald and really pissed off, putting her head in the gas oven to end it all! That was the funniest.

May she rest in kitty heaven, where she will be reunited with her claws!

Thanks, Tink. And thanks to all of you who’ve sent your warm wishes and condolences. Now make with the stories, wouldja?

Photos to come…

Sorry, everyone, for not posting yesterday… I am still OK, and getting the hell out of here for the weekend – booked a trip to Paris last night at 10. I leave straight after work. I’ll post again when I’m back… in the meantime, thanks so much for your calls and emails and for those whom I haven’t contacted yet, please don’t worry. We’re trying not to, over here.

Oh yeah, and I still refuse to be blown up. Categorically.

The proverb goes, “If you haven’t anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, however, said, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”

OK, Alice. Here we go.

I’ve seen a lot of good theatre in my life, and a fair bit of terrible theatre as well. Some of this wasn’t all that surprising – mothers and partners will drag one to see Starlight Express or Sunset Boulevard or (heaven help me) Blood Brothers, and sometimes you just can’t say no. But, see, that’s stuff that you know is going to be awful – you can prepare. Down a gin & tonic or three, steel yourself for the worst and hope for some good production design. It may be awful, but it’s fairly guileless (not to say mindless), and hell, some people really seem to like it. There’s something truly horrifying, though, about seeing a great play with a lot of potential done so badly it makes you shake. People, let me tell you: the production of The Philadelphia Story currently on at the Old Vic is exactly that kind of awful. It may be the worst production of a good thing that I’ve ever, ever seen. Ever.

How do I begin to explain the atrocities we witnessed? I’ve directed The Philadelphia Story, in whole or in part, four times and can tell you unequivocally that it’s both charming and funny. Really, really funny. So effortlessly well written and funny, in fact, it’s a great way for young actors to learn comic timing. It’s easy: just listen to the other guy, say your line, and people will laugh. It can’t fail.

Except it did.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I did laugh a few times, but with very few exceptions, I was laughing at a line I knew and loved and not the delivery. Which probably had a lot to do with the fact that the delivery was uniformly wooden. Wooden and monotone. Wooden and monotone with really appallingly bad American accents. Wooden and monotone and – are you getting the picture yet? Good.

It does bear mentioning that the set was lovely – a traditional approach with a fine eye for detail and much attention paid to appropriate props and expert faux finishing. It’s a shame, really, that only the front three feet of it were used. A fellow victim audience member remarked that he’d begun to suspect the actors were all just being dragged back and forth on a track like those duck-shaped cutouts you throw softballs at in the carnival stall. Which, judging by their emotive prowess, seems entirely possible.

It wasn’t until about two minutes before the second interval that I realised what it was that was so dreadful about the acting: nobody on the stage was listening to anybody else on the stage. They could have been in different theatres for all the interaction and banter I saw – everyone was perpetually just waiting to say their next line. As an actor, I’m all for running lines on one’s own, but that’s normally the sort of thing that’s best confined to, oh, say the dressing room. It certainly shouldn’t be brought onto the stage, unless one is going for a more postmodern effect. Maybe that’s it – maybe they got confused and thought they were doing Waiting for Godot or No Exit and not an elegant little 1930s romantic farce.

I am told that when Kevin Spacey was a member of the cast, the production was enjoyable, if not exactly spectacular. I believe the Guardian referred to it as “decent enough”. But it seems to me that any production which suffers so grievously from the exchange of a single cast member is seriously flawed to begin with, and really I had expected much more from Mr. Spacey as a director in the way of things like… direction. You know, blocking. And tone. And pace. And… oh, never mind.

We escaped, most of us, at the second interval. I can only imagine how the third part went. By the time my drink arrived at the pub across the road I was visibly shaking, so I imagine if I’d attempted to stay I would have had a grand mal seizure if not a stroke.

So, dear readers, I urge you to learn from my misfortune: do not, under any circumstances, see this show. I leave you with a fine description of the experience, courtesy of the Third Geneva Convention (Chapter 3, Section 1):

“Collective punishment for individual acts, corporal punishment, imprisonment in premises without daylight and, in general, any form of torture or cruelty, are forbidden.”

‘Nuff said. Rent this instead.

it’s The Morning After, and we all seem to be feeling, predictably, a lot better. yesterday pretty much hit me like a truck – i felt like i was walking around in sort of a venn-diagram-style intersection of the present and 4 years back, and was accordingly all confused and emotional and generally glad to not be in the office where i would have had to at least pretend to cope.

but i seem to have slept that off, and am fully back to the present (my fingers started typing ‘back to the future’ there all on their own – do you think that’s cause for concern?), and have decided to leave the tv off and the tunes on this morning as i work from home. those who are watching tell me the news keeps talking about the resilience of the london people. about which another friend of mine said, yesterday:

“who would you *not* say that about?

“the icelanders are a rigid, not very resilient people. this terror attack will destroy their society. put a fork in them.

“there’s much talk in the news today about what will happen to all the icelanders, now that their society has been destroyed. many plan to join a more resilient nation, like the british. or, really, anyone but iceland.”

[it should be noted that neither of us have anything against iceland or the icelandic people, and that both of us are really rather fond of reykjavik and think icelandic is a lovely, if fiendishly difficult, language.]

this morning, though, the resilience of the british people was once again brought home to me, through the following IM conversation:

me: mmmmm……caffelicious.

si: it may have a bomb in it. be caffareful

me: don’t worry, i’m following the instructions of my friend phin in chicago who says that no amount of me being blown up will be tolerated.

si: not even a limb or two?

me: he says no. demanding.

si: goodness

me: i know.

si: what about if your reflection got blown up?

me: he still might be pissed. pissed off as in angry

si: I know. am able to translate your quaint colonial tongue

me: see, i’m such a walkover i just do whatever they say.

can’t even get blown up if i want to
[sigh]

si: I think we should organise a pan BBC ‘no blowing up’ day
‘No blowing up at the BBC’
and picket the tube

me: lol

si: “hell no, we won’t blow’
up
I refuse to be blown up.

me: a good attitude.

si: let them just try and make me blown up
I’ll sit down on the street and refuse to be blown up.

me: oh yeah? i’ll LIE DOWN in the street and refuse to be blown up.
i was saying to a friend yesterday that you know, i go through liverpool street every morning, and sometimes i take the hammersmith + city line, and the bus that was blown up was a #30 from hackney

si: I’m going to start a leaflet campaign

me: i was thinking it could just as easily have been one of my more psychotic exes.

si: hmm Where was [name of most recent insane ex] yesterday morning?
Was he blowing anyone up?
I refuse to blown up by [name] also.

[…]

si: I refuse to [be] blown up.
blown out – can’t really do much about. blown down – well that’s just bad weather. Blown around – I should be decisive.
This is all ok. Blown up – no.

me: i see your point
very solid.

si: well you’ve gotta stand up for what you stand for I think.

me: or lie down for it, whichever.

si: you can’t take it sitting down when it comes to what you stand for.

me: i have a perverse desire to post large portions of this conversation on my blog

si: I think you should. It’s an important message for the world.

so there you have it. hell no, we won’t blow. up.