FITS AND STARTS

It’s all about follow-through I’ve decided. And I don’t really have it. That’s OK. Millions don’t. And millions just fumble along in their lives with moments of frenzied inspiration that then gradually dissipate. If you could just hold one idea for long enough Commit to it, it almost wouldn’t matter what it was. I think you’d be successful. This is what I’ll try to do with my latest venture onstage and into the public eye. Not worry about the details of each tiny act, but keep the dream alive. Keep doing it. Get it regular. Then you can hone the performance. Once the commitment feels ‘normal’.

Pearl snake

I had a dream about a little black snake with pearly teeth. Well, actual tiny round pearls for teeth. It was a bit scary. I suppose it’s suggesting I’m paranoid about money at the moment, because I am. It’s a tough city to have even a moderate income in. And I’m probably working in one of the worst places for it too! Have to keep opening my eyes wider to see how gumpy Primrose Hill really is. All those funny little shops that are charging huge prices for their slightly dusty tat. TwentySevenTwelve – the new label by Sienna Miller and her sister (Savannah? Who cares) is available in the shop up the street. It doesn’t seem all that.

Every day I see this one woman at the Russian tea house up the street. I always look at her shoes, which are always very high-heeled. She must live close by because you couldn’t walk far in them. In fact the first time I saw her she was staggering out of a side-street at 10am. Not drunk, just wearing untenable footwear! Now I always see her in the evenings, on her laptop, outside the café. Yesterday I recognised the pumps because I’d been admiring them in the window of that shop that sells the Sienna gear. A cartoon cashregister behind my eyes went: £87.50! Had been considering them myself but somehow once you see them on somebody they do not seem as special. And that IS rather a lot for a pair of uncomfortable heels. Although they do look pretty – black satin with ever so slight rouching around the top.

I’ve seen a few other pairs that I admire round there too but I don’t even want to ask prices.

Feeling Gloomy

I'm working from home this morning. This flat is noisy! No wonder Isco never got much done here. My privacy has been plundered so often by the landlord that I'm also nervous every time I hear someone enter (slammo!) the front door downstairs. I know he's not great with giving notice of swinging by to do minor repairs and stuff. What if he comes barging in to discover me in bed wearing my husbands floppy jumper, tapping away on the lappytop? Gawd, it doesn't bear thinking about!

I have surprised myself somewhat by how
a) Houseproud I am - I hate for others to see my mess
b) Private I am - don't want anyone looking at my stuff!

We went to a club on Saturday night called 'Feeling Gloomy' in Angel Islington. The flyer ticked all the boxes: Smiths, The Cure, Siouxie, etc. etc. and we thought we'd go for just a few hours and a bit of a dance. Got there, paid our £6 entry and were subjected to this godawful band! They were some kind of 80s-wannabe Suede-esque. SO BAD! The lead singer was all skinny jeans and stripy top and kind of writhed and wriggled around onstage in a very unappealing way. On the whole, very dull.

I had to heckle the emcee for laughing as he introduced this band 'His favourite band'. LESS LAUGHING, MORE GLOOMY I demanded. He heard me and went off on some odd spiel about how they weren't really advocating genuine gloominess, would hate anyone to go home and topp themselves after this club night and mentioned something about the Salvation Army?! Freakin' happy hippy amateurs! Why are they even running a club called that? Why didn't they just call it Sad Monday or something. That would have been a better description and geniune gloom-whores like me would have known to stay away!

OK, rant over.

Snippets

I thought of a really great idea for a tiny scene, snippet, vignette in my one-day-I'll-write-it novel the other day as I was walking up Agar Grove. I did not have a notbook with me and tried to keep it in my head as I hurried home. Got home, fiddling around with keys, shopping bags, etc. Totally forgot about gem of an idea until hours later and then I couldn't really recall it. Damn me.

Really must start scribbling as and when these thoughts occur.

I am considering ending this blog and beginning a new one that is more... focused? Or should I just post on, regardless?!

Medication of the nation

So I'm about to join the medicated masses... let's hope it doesn't totally drain my creativity or otherwise you might not hear from me in a while : (

But the main thing is I'm happy(ier), right?

That's what friends are for

I think you have to be a little bit in love, and a little bit in lust, with your friends.

It's just so pleasing to catch a familiar face from a certain angle and get that tiny thrill of desire or affection. To notice they've aged a little but in a good way, maybe it's exhaustion showing because they're too busy to put on makeup.

I love the way people are their own steryotypes. Something so solid about someone reacting or behaving exactly as you'd expect.

There is nothing quite so enjoyable as concocting a plan with an old friend, or a new one. The complicity, the single-mindedness of a pair (or more) devising future delights.

Everyone I know enough to love has particular features that I crave on occasion. And am sated, hopefully, by seeing them. It may not be quite sexual but it can feel a bit that way. I won't deny it.

The calm

Before or after the storm?

O woe is me

So unhappy, even without drinking!

Must make a significant change and wondering if quitting with no other real prospects is self-preservation, brave... or really stupid?

I think the former.

Watch me dive!

Argh

Cannot see any jobs advertised that look particularly great and have stopped trying very hard at mine. This could end up in a mega-disaster!

Alone, exquisite

Some days it feels like a sunny afternoon in Melbourne as the season is turning.

I remember a day with that scent of smoke and winter in the air. I sat hungvoer with a boy no longer mine, playing cards in the sunshine, feeling like I was happy.

Contentment -- achievable only in the certainty of change approaching?

Now I'm alone with the light outside beckoning but nowhere to go.

And I'm wondering if it's possible to wrest my life into a more pleasing direction without it feeling like a task I'm not equal to.

I remember Sunday afternoons by myself in a shitty share house. Music poignant to me as the wind ruffled over the grass and industrial wasteland that was Sydney Park. Clouds throwing shadows on a slightly depressing vista. Waiting for my world to begin.

It's led me here and there's no going back. I feel hesitant about the next step forward though. Seems like it's getting too late to make another wrong decision. Drifting along is not an appealing option either.

Where's that magic switch that makes it happen? Or am I slowly building something that I'm only dimly aware of. I wish I knew...

Garbo

I want to be alone

Tough in a city of millions

And a tiny flat of two

Happiness is...

... a ten-year-old girl thinking you're cool

... being missed by drunken friends on a dancefloor half a world away

... waking up at the perfect temperature and it's raining outside

... finding new ways to laugh at Bono among friends

Song from under the floorboards

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin,
my irritability keeps me alive and kicking

I know the meaning of life
it doesn't help me a bit

I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it
--Magazine
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I don't know whether to leave or to stay. Things change every day. I can see myself becoming free. It's within my grasp but I'm afraid. Should I jump or should I tough it out, hoping something comes to me?
--Claire

On the road again... sort of

Not much to report, but in case anyone has started reading again now I'm writing more often, I'd hate to lose a fan from lack of posting.

Looking for a new job. Considering something quite different like bar work... ?!

Suggestions welcome

Gettin' it regular

Wow, I have been blogging a lot lately... not sure if that is a good thing or it means I'm spending too much time online.

Things are going weird. I really never know what will happen from one day to the next. Which sounds exciting, but is actually a bit hard to take.

Vive la difference, eh?

I have a secret. Secret junket. shhhh

Hello?

I've got another blog, where I'm writing bad poetry of all things! If you want the address, email me, or leave a comment.

In other news, I think I may have reached the end of my tether in terms of being able to work a corporate existence while simultaneously squashing my dreams, hopes and my real self. Or something.

Hopefully this is not a nervous breakdown. What does that feel like? I could cry for a year. Wish I was tougher.

From Bronte to Brighton

There’s a place on my way to and from work that smells, momentarily, like the undergrowth you walk past on the way down to the ocean pool at Bronte on a hot evening as twilight falls. I want to say it floods me with nostalgia, but it’s fainter than that, just a little reminder of a lovely thing that I’m aching for … ah the ocean.

Speaking of – we went to Brighton the other day. The sea there is different. Huge slabs of opaque ‘sea green’ like the colour on a Dulux paint chip chart. Heaving and rattling onto the shale beach. Not welcoming. But impressive. Walk out on the pier and look over and wow, you’re out pretty deep already. It looks a bit dangerous, you can’t see what’s under the surface. There’s no barbed wire or anything but who would jump?

I wanted to go on a ride. It seemed like the ideal place – beachside shabby chic. It’s Brighton Pier, Brighton Rock. But Isco said no. Sometimes I wonder if I married someone who is slightly non-adventurous. Odd to suggest, after Trans-Siberianing it… but there you have it. My brothers would have jumped at the chance for a rollercoaster ride. Even the Log Ride was rejected. The Dodgem Cars were considered but it just seemed like a cop out after that. I think I was secretly hoping that someone would dare me to ride the huge scary upside-downy one with them. I would have. It was that kind of day.

Where's the muse?

A few random thoughts on a Monday morning.

* Where's my muse? What inspired me? Is this (an excuse) why I am not creating?
* Where's my amusement? Why don't I laugh very much anymore? I think my face is stuck in a permanent rictus of stress.
* Met some New Zealanders last night who spent about an hour going on and on about Australia. I never realised some Kiwis were jealous of Oz. These guys had a real chip on their shoulders. Interesting (concept). Boring (to listen to).
* Learning stuff sucks. Sure you should always be educating yourself, but man... feeling like you don't know things, and will never get a handle on it, is really hard.
* Putting a positive spin on stuff is not lying. I am trying to convince myself of this.

That's all for now.

I came to London and all I got...

...Was fucked around until I died of stress

A friend recently emailed me with a 'fake' T-shirt with this message on it. I though it was amusingly apt.

Isco missed out on his latest almost-sure-thing job, and I still despise mine and think they're totally taking the piss... I really don't think they rate me at all. Is it my delivery, or being Australian? Or what? I just want to walk, but while we're still a one-income household for all intents and purposes, it's too risky.

I'm trapped.

Bloody Sundays

Hate mooching around, after reading all the weekend papers, and feeling like what the frick have I achieved? Inevitably, at this point, one's mind turns to the week ahead and starts dreading all the little annoying things that must be got through - awkward conversations, avoiding hangovers and actually working. Yuck.

Give us a go

Another rant about work. Very stressful at the moment. Feel like I'm being pulled in seventeen directions all at once. It is impossible to do everything required and do a good job. It's really one or the other. This upsets me. I'm not a perfectionist, but I like to do things well.

I also HATE when someone sees your work and makes a slightly disparaging comment - not realising the pressure you're under. Yes, I could have done a better job but there was no time, no time, no time.

Feel as though, from my small sample group of two, that people in this country are less willing to 'Give you a go'. So I'm a little untried, but you can see I've got talent - offer the chance, and let me rise to the challenge! But no, it seems like one has to prove oneself three, four, five, maybe just one more time. And then we'll consider hiring/promoting/talking to you. It sucks.

Or maybe I'm just shit.

No one commented on my exhaustive review of Live Earth! I was expecting a few accolades for that. hmm am I sensing a pattern here? Where's my recognition, dammit!

Live Earth: Laughable

Spent most of yesterday afternoon-evening watching Live Earth on the telly. What a farce. Not sure who was worse, the lame acts with their three songs apiece or the ring-in hosts, who were actually big names of UK TV -- Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton and some scottish girl. Hey, how come the guys can be old(er), funny and not particularly handsome but the women can only be young, pretty and inneffectual? I know I'm not the first to say it, but it is still so very apparent that it sometimes rankles anew.

I really hated most of the bits with the hosts. Usually like Ross, but most of the time it was as if they were at a slightly dull dinner party discussing issues that no one really knew anything about. Just chucking round banter: 'so the environment, do we care?' 'well, yes, a little bit.' 'right, good, OK, let's see another band then!'.

And it's fine to "raise awareness" and "not preach" and mention a few things about lightbulbs and not leaving appliances on stand-by, but surely they could have come up with a few more actual practical solutions for people at home? I mean... yeah. Tenous connection with music too, and what were the tickets for? I think it was all just a huge money-making scheme. But at least it all goes to charity, right? The charity of um... global warming.... give money so we can... um... save the world from climate change?... wtf?

Anyway, GENESIS: oh my lord. Were they ever even good? I joked to Isco about 'Invisible touch' and then they played it! Phil Collins is so ugly and his voice is singularly unappealing. Still, I guess it would be worse if they'd subjected us to a bunch of new material. shudder. However, the appearance of Genesis (on some misbegotten reunion tour, sheesh, it's like the 90s never happened) gives me Great Fear, because it means the likelihood of my least-favourite band of all time reforming is perhaps quite high. And this fear has been pricked by me reading the name of that ultimate ginga Mick Hucknall (randomly mentioned in the papers yesterday). I am of course, talking simply of Simply Red. Simply Bad.

METALLICA: Isco thought they were good but I had a small shudder of embarassment watching them. I don't know why. Maybe it was Hetfield's scraggly grey beard? Or slightly lame wooden guitar? Hopefully they were better live.

FOO FIGHTERS: Actually really enjoyed them and started thinking that maybe the Grohl is hot. I must have been in this country, subjected to its runty, tight-jeaned, and artful short haircutted rock stars, for too long! Sudddenly the sight of a strapping American muso type, with that slight, almost-Canadian innocence seemed like the sort of boy you'd like to snuggle up to the man-boobs of, maybe. heh

PUSSYCAT DOLLS: Hilarious.

BEASTIE BOYS: Look scarily old while still sounding young. A bit afraid they would break or dislocate a knee while throwing themselves around stage. Relieved to hear them speak after. They're keepin it real.

CROWDED HOUSE IN SYDNEY: A nice little aside. Power gone out at the Sydney concert and everyone looks perishing cold, but they struggle bravely on, for world... um... what was the message here again?

SHAKIRA IN HAMBURG: Weird.

MADONNA: Fantastic. The dress, the shoes, the guitar, the stage show. All prima! The songs were an odd mixed bag of chuck-it-all-in-there. Messages? Yeah, I'm on message, any old message you got! Here's my Roma gypsy friends (from NYC) to sing a spanish song in the centre of London! If that don't make a point about world... um... yeah... then I don't know what does! Hung Up is still one of my faves, actually made me think it may be worth going to an actual Madge concert. She's still got it. And where did she get those shoes?

I'm not Nifty!

Got an email from a former colleague today who said they'd appreciated my "nifty emails" while I was travelling. At first I thought nothing of it, but now I've dwelled on it, stewed over it and mulled the thought, I think I'm offended!

Nifty? moi? I thought I was fun, exciting, interesting, edgy. OK maybe a little unstable at times, unfriendly, judgemental, still wearing black in a way that COULD be construed as emo... but nifty? Nifty is naff.

Doesn't help it was from someone I always quite admired. You know those people who you kinda think 'if only I were a little more *insert positive characteristic you lack here* I would be JUST like them, and just as *insert notion of success*. And now to realise they just think I'm a bit of a nigel. Quite depressing!

This is the sort of thing that I could really rake over until it gives me a complex. Nifty? I mean... NIFTY? Freakin' hell.

Work sux and then you... lie?

Job is not going that well. Or rather, it's totally schizophrenic.

One day I think it's a great opportunity to progress in my career, learn stuff and really go somewhere.

The next day it feels like they're totally exploiting me, I've been lied to and they make me feel like I'm not even good at the stuff I have chosen to make a living out of.

Not much fun.

They asked us to start a work blog. Ridiculous! I said to my colleague, if I read anything you've written on there, I'll know you're not spending enough time doing the stuff I need done. I mean WTF? There is a huge divide between the management 'ideas and hot air' and the few who actually do the work. I think my main failing is actually just rolling up my sleeves and getting stuff done, instead of blustering around and delegating. What a fool I've been!

Have realised what a rare and beautiful thing GT was - a great team with nary a dud, where everyone fit nicely into the structure (or so it seemed), wanted to be there, and pretty much adequate resources. I don't regret leaving, and I don't want to end up subbing again, but I sure do miss working somewhere like that.

I b*tch too much about work, and half the time put a brave face on things (well, let's face it, half the time I feel like I can bravely face up to it!). Anyway... liking to think that wingeing about it here, actually writing it out and sending it off into cyberspace might stop my upsetting poor Isco with my nightly rants.

"Women in Love" on telly. It's weird... a story from a different time. I haven't read the book and not sure I quite get what's going on. Will have to read the book.

On Brand

I saw Russell Bland, ahem, Brand on telly the other night. I think I'm over him. Shameless self-promoter who has become a little, just a teeny-tiny bit fat... not that I'd mind in real life, but when we're talking celebrity crush here, he should really be perfecto!

But what to do when one's suddenly lacking an onscreen idol? Hm, it seems I am always posing these questions here.

Who else is there? Can't be bothered with the not-so-glossies. Nothing decent in the office. Disappointing!

Thoughts on a sober Wednesday

Thoughts? Twenty minutes to say what is right. Twenty minutes not to say something wrong. Time to write. London, inspiring and all that. Annoyed by the constant messages from my computer. It takes three minutes just to get to the screen of Word so I can begin – whatever happened to picking up and putting pen to paper? Fuck. But this is easier, the words flow. Sort of.

Russell Brand – what a distraction and a disappointment. When will I, will I be famous? I couldn’t believe all the slick websiteage and forums and stuff that were up and running on this guy. No one’s a discovery anymore. You see someone on telly – he’s a babe, schawing – and then you look him up online and everyone already knows and has had all the fantasies before you even knew he existed. He’s the town bike of celebrity crushdom.

Ideas about Kings in deserts or slinky Art Deco women reading Virginia Woolf on the edge of an emerald green field with a suicide river running through it. What to write about – 19 minutes to say something profound. The clock glows on, its numbers increasing minute by minute.

Websitage, kinkage, wattage. They sound so much better said aloud than look when you read them. Looks like website. Age. Stupid.

Accidentally bought Mature Skin moisturiser instead of the one I wanted. The pots all looked the same and so I grabbed one from the back that didn’t have a dent in its lid. Imagine my dismay to find I’d got the old lady goop by accident! But cynically I wonder if there’s any goddam difference at all. I suppose someone in a factory or laboratory somewhere worked hard to perfect those specific formulas. They must have some different ingredients in them, or different levels of liposomes or whatever. But whether they actually make a difference… well, I guess that depends on the individual anyway. So should I take it back? Have to weigh up the hassle of returnage (heh!) with potential ill-effects ‘face-lift formula for mature heads’ may have on my precious 29-year-old skin.

It’s a blog! Whatever… have recently had confirmation that at least two people are reading it. It’s only a matter of time until ‘they’ discover my talents, offer me lots of money and an introduction to a certain Mr Brand.

AND I still have 10 minutes left to sort out my stupid blog. They have made me upgrade to ‘new blogger’ but I liked the old one, wah.

PS: OK maybe 'new' blog not so bad... found all these unpublished comments that I have just put up, which means I have, like, FIVE readers - amazing - if that don't beat all.

The dangers of not doing...

I'm excited, as Big Kev used to say before he died of obesity-related causes.

Excited to be living in London, the first time I have 'set up' on my own, away from (most) friends, family and familiarity. And it's cool here, cool as. It's the London of gritty movies, frosted lipstick girls and hair-combed-forward boys. The population is diverse, there's estates round every second corner, a pub on every first.

So why do I feel I'm still hovering, uncertain, on the edges? How to plunge into society, take it by the scruff and claim it as mine? I'm here, I'm Claire, I'm in London, I'm... a Londoner?

Finding work has been relatively easy for me. But I'm scared of how awful I felt when I wasn't working. All the plans I'd made about taking time to potter around and do creative 'stuff' seemed to vanish in a puff of sick-smelling desolation. Without a routine to hang my life around, the rest of it collapsed like last season's dresses without adequate coathangerage. You could still discern the patterns in the puddle of clothes on the ground, but they seemed flatter, less beautiful, and perhaps not something I would actually wear.

Now I have the employment bit sorted, and yet a new fear emerges - the rut. I love the place I'm living in, am enjoying the commute to work because it's new, and feels so quintessentially "London", but I work each day, come home at night, Isco cooks, we drink wine, I bitch about work, we watch TV, then go to bed. Hmm, sounds almost EXACTLY like our life in Marrickville! It's OK for a bit, but where is the tipping point between 'settling in' and having settled back in to a slightly dull groove of what I've come to realise is my typical modus operandi?

I'll keep you posted. Not that anyone's reading, I don't think, heh.

Peaks and troughs

It's a sad thing about travelling that eventually you get a bit tired of it, the money has been spent, the plans fulfilled and so you have to stop.

Unfortunately I don't find I can 'dine out' on my recent travel highs for very long, the depression of real life sets in all too quickly.

That's not to say I won't recount my journey, in various states of inebriation and sobriety, over many years to come, to whoever happens to spark a memory. But for all intents and purposes, the great person I was 'en route' has pretty much shrivelled back into just plain ol' me. With the same insecurities, the familiar niggling worries and annoying bad habits.

Or is this true? I must say, whenever I stuff up, I tend to think "Didn't I learn anything? Isn't the first rule of travel check with the driver if his destination encompasses mine? Or ask how much it costs, before committing to pay?"

So perhaps the issue is more one of implementing the lessons learned rather than denying I've changed or progressed at all. If only I could find the 'apply' button for my brain!