Weary but not unprofitable

Oof.  I am tired and I have backache.

I love bank holiday weekends; three days off instead of two, yea!  So despite going out last night and eating far too many tapas, and drinking far too much sangria, on top of far too many cocktails, and consequently feeling pretty wiped out today, I have still got two days off after this.

Party last night was the one I was worry-warting about a few days ago, the posh one in the smart bar uptown.  I really don't run to much moderately dressy clothing (I have one summer dress and a few really evening-y things) so I compromised on one of my new blouses and my turquoise green linen slacks, and my big gesture towards being dressy was to wear (gasp) make-up.  I never usually wear more than a dab of lippy at most.  Looking in the mirror at myself in lip-liner and lipstick and mascara and sparkly highlighter and concealer was rather odd, and I confess my first thought was that I looked like a cartoon version of myself.  So when I got to the party and overheard one guest saying to another "Is that Imogen over there?" I wasn't sure whether to be gratified or thoroughly embarrassed. 

 It was a good party though; the cocktails were amazing and the tapas were plentiful and tasty, and the company was good.  There came a point though at about 10.30 or 10.45 when the music was cranked up, and I suddenly couldn't hear a thing anyone was saying to me.  Not being able to have a conversation rather takes the pleasure out of a party if one isn't young and lovely and partying in order to flirt (there were plenty of attractive interesting people there, so partying to flirt would have been a thoroughly enjoyable activity had I been 28 instead of 48!).  And it wasn't my kind of music anyway.  I'd entertained hopes of something Latin, as it was a Spanish club; I can still pull off a passable salsa and merengue, though I no longer remember the footwork of the chachacha.  But thumping-bass "dance" music isn't my cup of tea.  So I snuck off home, and slept abominably, probably on account of all those cocktails, and managed to lie in an odd position and give myself backache...

What else?  The National Theatre "King Lear" was even better than I expected/hoped/feared.  I can now say I have finally seen a production that really, utterly worked.  It was cold and clear-headed and lucid, and terrifying, and heart-rending.  Talk about being purged with pity and terror; my God, was I gutwrenched.  Simon Russell Beale was tremendous. Not a Lear with any kind of comfort in him, but a harsh, desperate man with dementia, battling his own slow descent, and failing. Stephen Boxer was a phenomenally good Gloucester, too - the embodiment of that poem about realising the man being tortured in the next room is the bureaucrat you thought would save you (it's by Margaret Atwood, I think, but I can't find the bally book in the muddle of my shelves at the moment). 

I came out and stood at the bus stop in the torrential rain feeling as though I were a speck of dust to be trodden underfoot and ground to nothing.  Hardly a comfortable feeling; but it was a powerful and a kathartic evening, and sometimes, when one is strong enough, these are worth all the grief and pain they evoke.

It did leave me teribly aware though of how much I miss seeing my old mate Alan; he's pretty much house-bound these days and I don't think he's been to the theatre for a couple of years.  He is 84, in fairness, so he's entitled to take things more quietly if he wants to.  But I would have loved to discuss this production with him; the details, the way no-one was "verse-speaking" and so the verse became like powerful, slightly cadenced but perfectly real speech, the stage design and the fantastic sound design, the casting decisions...  I do have theatre and opera and ballet-going buddies, but few of them are as knowledgeable, or as up for a hearty debate on the director's intentions and the political connotations of the blocking of Act one Scene one, and all the rest of it, as dear old Alan. 

What elose, what else?  I booked a holiday yesterday.  I'm going back to lovely Kefalonia for a week at the end of the month; back to the same place I've been to for the last two years, Katelios.  This time I'm going to be staying right in the heart of the village, in studios built above one of the harbourfront tavernas.  I've tended to be in quiet places in the middle of fields, lately, so this is a bit of a departure for me - the last time I had accommodation in the middle of a town was staying on Poros, way back before I went to college. 

Hopefully it won't be too noisy (after all, Katelios is hardly Ayia Napa; the worst I'm likely to get is some music and buzz from the tavernas).  But it will be lovely to be back there.  Katelios is small and rather scruffy, with a lovely but relatively undeveloped beach, and some good walking in the area, and it has just enough in the way of touristic infrastructure that one can get a good meal or an ice-cream, and a peaceful drink before supper, and book a boat trip...

I can hardly wait. 

The last six months have been hectic at work.  It seemed to take forever to shake off that horrible bug I had at my birthday.  I seem to be permanently tired at the moment, and there's no sign of any let-up for the forseeable future.  Even the writing is stalled at present, apart from this sudden attack of poetry. 

The western I've been working on is stuck, at a stage where I know what I've written isn't right and needa a full rewrite, and the next part doesn't gel yet.  But once I get past that problem, I've got the next two chapters written out in long-hand already. So all I need to do is join up the gap.  It ought to be easy; I'm going to have another bash at pushing on through the pain barrier this afternoon.  It's going to take me to the point of killing off a minor character who I don't feel I've done justice to (he's the bit that needs to be rewritten) and that feels oddly mean and wrong when he's not been got down on the page right to begin with. 

Ugh, I went all through this with Jamie Weston in "Gold hawk" and I'm doing it again?  Why do I kill characters off at all if it's so hard to do?  Maybe I should settle for writing nice cuddly fluffy stuff where everyone is happy and no-one is ever troubled or untruthful or unfaithful or wrong-headed, and nobody ever gets hurt or dies; where all misunderstandings are righted and all love is true. 

The problem is, that would be crap.  I write what comes to me, I can do no other; and sometimes it's a mess, and sometimes people die.  Torstein Riis is going to die.  I'm a-gonna kill you, Sheriff, so watch out!  Then Wood will be free to go about the countryside being miserable and avenging people he feels he's betrayed for a while (this is the part that exists in long-hand).  In my long-hand notebook I started writing the denouement a couple of days ago. 

Maybe I should skip the part that isn't working altogether and type up my long-hand sections, and then come back and fill the gap?  "Gabriel Yeats" was written in lumps and bumps and raggedy chunks like that, after all.  It's not my best work but I think its weaknesses are due to other factors than the eccentric way I wrote it.  I managed to kill of Thomas Rosenau easily enough, come to think of it, and I adored Thomas.  Maybe I'm getting lily-livered with my old age...

Hmmph; and maybe I should get on with the writing, instead of with the writing-about-writing...

No, I must not think like this; I must not sit here telling myself I'm feeble and awful and am getting nowhere.  It isn't true.  I am making progress.  It may not be tidy progress but it is progress nonetheless.  I am weary, yes, but not stale, or flat, or unprofitable. 

There have been some big pluses to the last six months.  Several new friends, for starters.  I have met some really lovely kindred spirits online lately (hello, Kath, if you're reading this!).  And work has thrown me recently into the company of someone I've always been curious about, who has turned out to be interesting, witty, immensely likeable, and possessed of that undervalued quality, great kindness. 

Things like this are huge blessings.  Friends are sweetness and salt, after all; the essential seasoning of even the most quiet and enclosed life.

The writing is progressing; and poems are not to be sniffed-at when they pop up in the interstices.  The Muse is random in her gifts sometimes, but she is still my first and greatest love, and her presence in my life remains another huge blessing.

Life has always been challenging from time to time.  And I've always hated the times when it was not, so I have no business complaining now when it is. A great many things, including pressure, struggle and frustration, are better than the soul-sapping effects of being bored.

So - I suppose that means, onwards and upwards for the remainder of today.  With maybe a session in the kitchen to start with, since I've promised to make gluten-free chocolate and raspberry cake for tomorrow...

Busy busy bee

...that'll be me, next week.

There's work, for starters.  I think all the issues I outlined in my last long post are ongoing, so yes, pretty busy at work. Progress is being made, and on all fronts, too; but at this time of year there are more tasks coming in every day, so "progress" does not mean "let-up".  No rest for the wicked, ect ect (Molesworth he sa).

At least by the end of the week there may be more information about the restructure.  Even if the news is alarming, it will at least mean being out of the limbo of waiting, and into a place where one knows what is happening and can start to plan accordingly.

Monday evening I'm going out with the Dipgeek and another friend to the Curzon in Richmond, to the cinema relay of Christopher Wheeldon's new ballet of "The Winter's Tale"; hopefully with supper beforehand. Given Dip's dietary issues this will probably mean that nice Persian restaurant on the little pedestrain square just off Sheen Road, since they do lots of gluten-free things.  Mmm chicken with pomegranate seeds mmmm...  Looking forward to seeing my dear Dip again as we haven't met up for several months.

Thursday I'm off to another cinema relay after work, this one at Westfield; the National Theatre "King Lear" with the brilliant Simon Russell Beale, one of my big-time acting heroes, playing Lear.  I've been trying to ages to get a ticket to see this in the theatre, but tickets are like the proverbial gold dust and in the end I gave up and said a short prayer of thanks to the gods of live broadcast, and accepted that I will have to spend an evening on board the good ship Axiom...  At least I can have gambas al ajillo and patatas bravas and a glass of Mahou at Tapas Revolucion first.  I suspect I will need to be fortified with garlic and beer; if Mr Beale is not a harrowingly good Lear I will be very, very surprised indeed.  He was easily the best Hamlet I've seen, when he did that some (good grief) fourteen years ago.  Somehow every familiar line and speech and scene in the play seemed to come fresh, with him, as fresh as if never experienced before, so that it was almost painful to watch events unfold.  For the first time since I was twelve I wanted the ending not to be what I knew it was going to be.  It was like seeing one of my brothers going through Hamlet's torments and miseries.  Perhaps that's a bad metaphor (neither of them has any inclination to the stage, after all!) - but it all felt so real, so immediate, so like the struggle of a real man.  An actor who can do that earns a small piece of my heart, and I don't think I've ever seen Mr Beale give a duff performance; so I am, in a slightly "brace for impact" way, looking forward to his Lear.

Then next Saturday I'm going to an engagement party.  TCI and her other half the Lovely G got engaged at Christmas and are now having a proper bash to celebrate.  Looking forward to catching up with them, too.  I expect that will be a fairly lively evening.  Cor-lumme, it's in a posh bar up in the west end and all.  I think I need to try and be smart for this one (scurries around trying to think of something dressier than my usual jeans-and-blouse combo).  Not that my hair will ever let me be truly smart; it has a disreputable tendency to look messy at any and all occasions. But I can try, anyway.

So, I imagine that by this time next week I may be crashing out and spending my Sunday vegetating under a tree at Kew, or if it's raining then slummocking at home in front of the dvd player watching soppy movies, drinking tea and eating fudge.

I've managed to book some time off, hurrah; a week at the very end of May (hopefully taking me to somewhere in Greece), a long weekend for WOMAD in July, a fortnight in late September (hopefully Greece again) and the week of my birthday (hopefully not having gastroenteritis again!).  Having annual leave booked and being able to contemplate the possibility of a holiday is tremendously cheering when one is feeling under pressure.  Of course, if (God forbid) I do find myself out of a job then annual leave arrangements become academic...  Oh well, one can only wait and see, hope for the best; and have an up-to-date CV just in case.  Maybe I should get an actual trip booked for one of those spells of leave; booked and paid-for, so that I can't very easily get out of it if life turns pear-shaped.

But I hope it will not.  I hope very much it will not.

What else to report?  Bills are stopping making Garlic Pachadi, drat them!  It's become a staple in my cooking since I discovered it.  I've cleared the nearest store out of their last supplies (four jars) so I'm good for a couple of months, but then...  Harrumph harrumph, not fair.  I protest, I refuse.  I wonder if I can learn to make my own? 

Kew Gardens is looking beautiful; it's odd to look back and see that this time last year the snowdrops had only just finished and most trees were still in tight bud.  Now we have horse chestnuts in glorious bloom, all the hawthorn family coming out everywhere, rhododendrons in flower and even the earliest roses, like the lovely yellow single-flowered Rosa hugonis...  The Rock Garden is an absolute picture, full of asphodels and peonies and alpine tulips...  For all its quirks, I work in paradise.  Please don't let me have to leave paradise.

Now I must go and get on with some writing.  This was going to be a writing day but as always I have got distracted.  By thoroughly frivolous things like painting my toenails blue and writing this.  Come on, Ims, get a shoofty on!

Triggers, sad memories, and robots with guns

It’s funny how sometimes a thing can take you back.  I don’t mean take you back in the violent sense, trigger words and flashbacks; just vivid memories of things past and put behind one, suddenly evoked again.

An online friend has just had a massive upset in her life, one that has thrown all her plans into disarray, and she’s been left feeling pretty discombobulated by it.   I feel awful for her and I'm worried that she is having a f*cking hard time in several areas of her life at once.  I wish there were something I could do to help. Because I know how that feels.  I’ve been there.  I don't mean the exact same things have happened to me; but things have happened that left me in that same situation - the ground cut from under my feet, all my dreams in shreds and tatters and my life-plan collapsing around me.  

It’s absolutely years ago, now, and it’s rather extraordinary to realise just how strongly those memories can be brought back, by my trying to offer support and sympathy to someone else in a similar position.

I was living and working in Canterbury at the time, and to cut a long story short, I teamed up with a friend from college, who was planning to move to London.  I was going to become her lodger, and move back to London too, something I had wanted to do for ages.

I was very, very fond of this friend; we'd seen each other through some tough times.  She was going through a pretty sticky marriage break-up, and I thought this latest battle of hers had brought us closer still.

Eventually we were right on the point of making the move.  She’d left her husband, and given the tenants in her old home notice to leave, and they’d moved out.  I’d quit my job, and was about 75% of the way to being packed.  Our moving date was six days away.  Then I discovered, pretty much by chance, that my friend was planning to commit a crime when she got to London, and that she expected me to give her my tacit assistance by covering for her.  And I thought, WTF??

Given the amount of stress she had just been through I was astonished and horrified that she was casually preparing to do something which could, if discovered, put her in very deep shit indeed.  I knew it was technically none of my business how she chose to live her new life – but then, she was expecting me to aid and abet her, so actually it was my business.  After a lot of careful thought, I just couldn’t get past the fact that I felt very strongly she should stop and think twice and twice more before she took a step like this. 

So I told her so.  I wrote a long and carefully-worded email trying to say "I'm really very concerned about this, I really don't think it's a good idea, have you realised the implications? please understand I say this because I'm seriously worried about the risks you're taking, & please, won't you think again?"

I hope I was polite about it.  I think I was.  I’m not a very combative person to begin with; and she was one of my closest friends, and I knew she had been under a heck of a lot of strain in recent months.  I really didn’t want to appear pushy or rude, or as if I thought my opinions superior to hers.  I actually thought it was possible she might never have realised the implications of what she was doing.  I honestly was trying to help, I thought it was my duty as a friend to say what perhaps no-one else had bothered to; "this is not a good move, and it's also illegal; please don't do it."  I think there are times when it's a friend's job to say the thing they know you will be uncomfortable hearing, because no-one else will (& gods know, my friends have done it to me on occasion, so I do know what it feels like!).

We had a very, very difficult telephone conversation the next day, during which she told me I had no right to have an opinion about anything she did, yelled at me about my arrogance and my appalling betrayal, and demanded an immediate apology.  I tried to reason with her, to no end, and then I pleaded.  I just seemed to make her more angry and more hurt with every word, and in the end I gave up.  The conversation was making one thing very clear that I'd never realised until then; namely, that even if this had not happened, this good friend of seven years' standing and I would never have been able to share a house peaceably.  I simply can't live with someone who expects me to say "Yes, of course, you are right in everything you do, and I have no opinion and no right to one, my only role is to support you unquestioningly."  

This is one of the major reasons I'm single.  I will not, I cannot, live like that. 

When I put the phone down, I knew that our plans were over.  I was not going to move to London with her, and she was no longer my friend.  I was shaking.  

I rang my Dad; and he was a rock.  God rest his soul, he really saved my sorry ass that day.  I had just ripped my entire future apart on what was, essentially, a matter of principle, and I was sitting in a heap on the floor crying my eyes out as the enormity of what I'd done really hit me.

I'm trying very hard to be careful about what I say here, incidentally.  I'm not going to name my erstwhile friend, and all I will say about the things she was proposing to do, and expecting me to abet her in, is that they were fairly serious pieces of fraud.  Honestly; I wasn't being petty about something unimportant like her weed-smoking.  We're not talking about a police caution or a point on a driving licence; we're talking about tens of thousands in fines, and the possibility of prison.

Since we've never spoken again, I have no idea how things worked out for her.  I really hope she didn't get caught; but I'm not sure I want ever to find out.  I don't need friends who need me to be their ronin when they decide they're entitled to commit a crime.

Anyway, that left me, just under a week before I was due to move, with no future, no job, nowhere to go and live, my plans and dreams in shreds and one of my closest friends suddenly gone from my life.  I had a lot of self-doubt and a lot of grieving to do, and a heck of a lot of work to get my life back onto some sort of an even track.

But I did get it back on track, and eventually I did move back to London, under my own steam and not on anyone else's coat-tails.  And I've never looked back with regret on that earlier plan.

I want to be able to say to my online friend, now; look, it will happen, you will get there.  I want to hope that it would help her, to know this story.  Life can kick you flying sometimes and fuck up everything you've got planned.  But the human heart is resilient and the human mind solves problems if given half a chance.  Sometimes the post-disaster solution is better than the original plan.  

You will get back on track, and you will begin to make progress again towards your dreams.  I cannot promise you or anyone else much in life, but I can promise you this, my friend.  Because you are already looking for ways forward, I can say to you with confidence, you will find a way.  "Where there's life, there's hope" became a cliché precisely because it is true.

 

On to more cheerful things.  How about a movie review?

I went to the flicks last night, and I can report that “Pacific Rim” is great fun.  You won’t need all of your brain to enjoy it, as it doesn’t have the world’s most intellectual script.  But it’s viscerally exciting, the production design and special effects are tremendous, the plot is pretty coherent, and Idris Elba seems to be having a terrific time playing the courageous and world-weary commanding officer.  Otherwise, it just does exactly what it says on the tin; this is a smash-em-up movie about giant robots battling giant sea monsters.  Bam!  Wallop!  Crash!  And all in spectacular 3D.

I’m being a bit unfair here, actually; it isn’t lacking in subtlety by any means.  For once a film that announces right at the beginning “The world came together to try and solve the problem...” does then go on to have a moderately international cast of characters - well, developed-world international, anyway, no-one’s from Bangladesh or Zambia or the Windward Islands – but still, they aren’t all WASPs, and the climactic “last stand” defence is of Hong Kong, not a US city.  So for once it isn’t “America saves the world!” but “America, Australia, Japan, China, Russia and the UK save the world by working together!”   It’s like a subliminal echo of a more innocent age, when it was World War 2 movies that told these “goodies beat baddies” stories, and the mere use of the term “the Allies” instantly implied an international force for good.

 The two scientists are written as classic clichés (nutty-professor mathematician with a limp, excitable geeky biologist in specs), but they’re also written as by far the bravest people in the film, which goes some way to compensate for that. And it’s good to see Burn Gorman getting a decent role in a big budget film; he’s a lovely actor blessed with an extremely quirky face, and makes for a splendid bonkers scientist.   

Another thing that pleases me is that the scriptwriters have the guts to kill off several major characters.  I know it’s a bit silly to grumble about a sci-fi action movie being unrealistic (after all, giant robots and sea monsters...), but the ones where only minor characters ever die do irritate me vastly.   

A final nice touch; there’s an obvious attraction and growing bond between the two leads (brave & handsome American chap, brave & beautiful Japanese woman) but there’s only the smallest inference of outright romance, and all the clichés here - the desperate last clinch, the death-bed confession of love - are completely ignored; it could just as easily be simply an intense friendship, and that is all one ever actually sees.  Hurrah; ship them all you like (& I do) but they don’t kiss on-screen, folks!

And by gum, it looks fantastic.  The jaeger-robots and the monsters look amazing, and so do all the gritty details; clothes and accommodation look lived-in, walls look dirty, metalwork looks rusty, and so on.

So all in all, rollicking good fun, and a perfect relax-and-eat-popcorn movie.

Grateful Monday

I seem to have done a lot of grumbling lately. My arm hurts, it’s cold, my gnocchi are mouldy, I’m afraid of falling over… Wah wah wah. What a whinger.

So I am declaring this to be Grateful Monday, and am not going to moan. Surely I can manage that, for one day at least? Here instead are some things I am thankful for.

I have some very lovely colleagues, and even lovelier friends, and a bloody wonderful family, all of whom have been unfailingly kind and patient with me since early December. They have helped me, carried things for me, given me lifts, made me tea, cooked me supper, plied me with alcohol, commiserated with me, encouraged me, and just let me know I’m not alone. I know some great people. I love them all, and I am so blessed that they all love, or at least genuinely like, me. I’m a lucky dog.

Thinking of which, I met a truly gorgeous dog this morning, on my way to the bus stop. Schnauzer cross, perhaps? – short and wiry and particoloured, with chestnut chin whiskers and a “What’s in there? Who’s this? What’s that? Look sharp!” expression on his bright little face. His owner looked as tired and bored as he looked alert and alive - I hope she grows into being like her dog and not the other way around (with the exception of the hefty ‘tache, which probably suits him better than it would her). He was so full of beans, bounding along on a Monday morning, interested in everything; just being eyed up by him gave me a boost.

Another thing I am grateful for, besides my dear circle of friends and family (and the delight of watching other people’s dogs) is my dvd player. That was a good buy; one of those expensive purchases that really do make life better, rather than it rapidly becoming clear that they were a waste of money (my omelette pan is another; and the blender; and the electric blanket; and the radio). Thanks to the dvd player I have been able to spend the evenings when I was not out (ie, most of them) with quality entertainment in the form of movies, ballet, contemporary dance, opera, and the odd tv series. Too tired to type one-handed all evening, unable to draw, paint or sew, frustrated by the difficulty of holding a book and turning the pages, I have instead been entertained, enlightened, moved, scared and delighted by my dvd collection. I’ve cried over Christopher Bruce’s “Swansong”, flinched at “The Devil’s Backbone”, thrilled to a glorious production of “Aida” and marvelled at the wonder that is “Some like it Hot”. I’ve letched after Brendan Fraser in “Blast from the Past”, worshipped Miyako Yoshida’s Sugar Plum Fairy, cried over the understated brilliance of “Shane”, wallowed in a compilation of past winners of the Cardiff Singers Competition, enjoyed the switch-off-your-brain sheer fun of “Viva la Diva!”, and discovered “Firefly”. Yep, pretty good stuff, all things considered.

I am also enormously grateful for living in a country with a free-at-point-of-demand national health service, and a hospital within half an hour of my home.

And on Friday I was able to get to Covent Garden to see MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet”; hurrah. It was an evening of slip-ups, actually; a weird squalling noise from one of the oboes, a mobile ‘phone going off somewhere; then Leanne Benjamin came down awkwardly from a lift in the Balcony Scene and put a hand down on the stage to keep from falling; and during Act Two Edward Watson landed badly from a jump and was visibly in trouble for several minutes. I couldn’t see exactly what had happened; it may be that his shoe was loose, rather than an injury, as he slipped offstage for a few minutes during one of the crowd dances and was fine when he came back. Despite all these little whoopses, however, it was an excellent evening out - and I was in tears by the end, which is surely the mark of a good “Romeo and Juliet”.