Cessation of service May 7, 2012

On Sunday I told Belle Fierce that there was enough shit in the world we don’t need to go looking for it. In and around the same time I realised I have to stop writing shit too. If only because like Sam Seaborn “I might want to do this for real some day”… And I can’t ask
my would be/ could be audience to take me and my musings seriously if I present myself as less than I could be.

I need to stop bemoaning my life and I need to find the courage I once had to write about the things that matter to me. Why anyone should care about this, or any of my writing, is the type of existential question I’m sick of asking myself and fudging the answer.

So to hangers on ( may only be you GD) thank you: I apologise for wasting your time…

I vow to write again but until the words reach beyond the mind-numbing minutiae of work moans and mundanity: my blog will remain entry.

If I’ve nothing of worth to say I will stay silent.

Days 100-105 April 15, 2012

You would think that someone on Easter holidays would manage to find a moment to blog…but my week has been full of people and places: cramming two weeks worth of ‘catch-up’ into one week, more than took care of the time allowed to me.

The highlights:

100: that coffee became lunch in one of my favourite places, with a friend who makes me laugh and that my Tuesday night was about the friend who visited, the stories told and a drink in my local rather than my continued fascination with the TV characters I usually depend on for Tuesday night company.

101 & 102:
Team D are my therapy. They have the grace and generosity to include me in the daily details of their lives when I come to visit. My friend G apologised that my visit was mundane, trips to Tesco and prescription collection, play parks and feeding the ducks: but he forgets that his company, that of his wonderful wife and his changing with enchantment by the second daughters, make their mundane my privileged special. In the two days I was there, I got: an Irish history lesson, and one on the bombing of Dresden, endless beer, great food, a favourite movie, hooked on a book, the promise of a night in with Matthew McConaghy and too many moments of genuine love and friendship to do them justice to in a continuing list.

103: lunch and a afternoon with a favourite friend in her truly idyllic little corner of a world. There was endless and entertainment from her 4yr old daughter and snuggles from her bubba son; there was wine ( which I managed to knock across the wonderfully pretty dining table and all over my non-drinking friend) … And there was enough sunshine, flowers and calm in her garden to make summer seem a promised thing.

104: I needed a day at home. I’d decided post London et al that school had claimed more than enough of my free time this Easter (and all of my half term) so I cleaned and scrubbed, folded and ironed, tweeted and text.

And I wondered what I’m supposed to be doing with or at the National Theatre. Sometimes a book, a song, a word, a person keeps presenting itself to you; fate or the universe or whoever is on charge demands that you give whatever it is some attention; and rarely, very rarely it’s a place.

I got the same feeling walking into the National as I had when I first stepped on the quad at Queens and into the apartment I now call home. It’s a sense of belonging: a premonition of significance. I dismissed it as my regular desire/ feeling as a wannabe lovey but then I read James Corden’s autobiography, in less than two days.

(an aside: I’m supposed to be reading Religion for Atheists : a book I suggested for book club, in the hope of pleasing my soul sister Belle, igniting discussion and quite possibly continuing on my quest to prove to the others that despite all appearances, I do have a brain. And because part of my whole: join a book club thing was to read things I wouldn’t normally give head or shelf space to…
But I’m hating it, no that’s unfair, I’m just not getting it- at all. It’s become homework. Something I have to do. I am not doing it. And, I stubbornly refused (until M insisted I read James Corden) to allow myself to read any other book until I’m done… So I read magazines, I watch TV, I deny myself the pleasure of ‘real’ writing as a punishment for being too ignorant to appreciate non-fiction. I will read it. I must. But next time, I will pick a page turner piece of popular fiction and enjoy it.)

Back to JC and the NT: he wrote of the theatre and his experiences there with passion. He wrote of its significance to him personally and to British drama. He accepted his role in the award winning ‘One Man, Two Guvnors because of its director and that it was a National Theatre production.

Maybe I’m meant to see something amazing there, and it’s that simple- although it has been fun this past week to imagine, a play I’ve written or am staring in opening there, or a career and/ or a romance there. A girl can dream, especially when given such an inspiring and promising place in which to dream in.

105: and so it’s Sunday night; and school, coursework marking, the exam cram, the AS performance, endless paperwork, the annual timetable battle await. Today, I had coffee and a walk with Mum at Mount Stewart in lieu of dinner at home. I told Mum I’d stuff to do for work and I do. I just knew I wouldn’t do any of it. I tweeted, I blogged and I watched TV: fighting of the Sunday night blues.

It’s been a great Easter: filled with people and places I love. May my summer be seven weeks that are just like this one.

The Selfish Singleton March 29, 2012

Let me be clear. I am not saying that all single people are selfish: I try to avoid saying ‘all anything are anything‘ as fascist ideals and -ism prejudice stems from generalised thought: I avoid both, instead this is a confession: I’m selfish.

A good friend had a baby six weeks ago, I haven’t seen her, I see my Mum merely once a week and my sister and nephew even less, I last saw one of my best friends for pre-Christmas drinks, which is around the same time I last saw my Goddaughte; and one of my closest friends has been going through hell and I’ve shed little, or no sunlight on her darkness… This is not an exhaustive list.

And yes, we’re all busy: we’ve work commitments and houses to run…but other people manage this and so much more. A quick glance at a family calendar and you realise, some women are managing their job, their house, their relationship/ marriage and the multitudinous tasks of motherhood.
And their time/ daylight hours last exactly the same amount of time as mine.

I’ve let work take over: I love my job: it’s drives me crazy, it frustrates me and I allow it to consume too much of my ‘out of the office’ time (even though I do much less ‘at home’ than I used to). I let the stress of it consume me: I spend hours of conversation moaning, venting or even praising; and maybe that makes my career, my vocation, but it makes me a work bore. I’ve let my work become my life and that ain’t healthy.

I’ve replaced, or rather filled the void in my life where relationships where or should be, with television. I watch for hours: my nights are consumed. I am more in touch with the lives, feelings and challenges experienced by the characters of favoured US drama series than I am
with the real people in my life. That’s terrifying.

My 365 blog that was supposed to be about finding the moments of joy in my day reads like a cheap Tv listings magazine: I bore myself.

I’m single. I live alone. I eat what I want. Sleep when I want. Watch what I want; and deal less and less well when anything encroaches my territory and my routine. I live my life on my terms: there’s an independence and a glory in that, that I enjoy: but there is also a rut: a sense of self service that soon becomes indulgence and has become sheer selfishness.

Too often I’m lonely and do nothing to counter attack such a negative emotion.I chose text, tweets, status updates and blogs over real conversations and while I will never deny the power of the written word: the human connection of the spoken word is incredibly powerful too.

This morning I was watching Dangerous Minds with a class: Ms Pfieffer’s character is, like many of my chosen profession, guilty of allowing her English teaching job to encroach on too much of her personal
life; but she makes a difference. Her sacrifice is worth it, mine is too, but not often enough. And beyond the classroom walls, all too often, I haven’t looked beyond my own needs to see how I can be of service, or of help, or just a friend to somebody else.

As the end of spring term is mere hours away, my thoughts start to stray to the endless months of summer and the time I get to fill. Shouldn’t I be volunteering for The Samaritans or FASA ? Learning sign language? Offering my services to summer schemes or a reading programme? Shouldn’t my value to the world be measured by more than the tv hours I log, the salary I earn or the blog moments I too often struggle to find?

I’m setting myself a challenge: every day I’m going to do something that benefits someone else: it can be at work or beyond, it can be small and understated, and it can have the potential to be much more.

I won’t give up TV or being a cyber whore; I won’t suddenly stop
moaning about work and find the privileges teaching presents in every lesson; but I will do more to look beyond myself. I will reconnect with the people in my life, I will venture beyond the works of televisual fantasy and my daily blog-moan. There is happiness to be found in the service of others: let me find it.

Days 51, 52 and 53… February 22, 2012

“I shared too much. I was emotionally slutty…”

Carrie Bradshaw

I’ve tried writing Days 51, 52 and now 53 quite a few times: but day 50′s entry has made me self conscious…

So I’m taking baby steps, focusing on the good and reaching only for the highlights…

51: Was grateful that today’s commute was tube free…

52: Cooking up a storm at home- admittedly I was avoiding my school work but a girl has gotta eat! And tweets from a friend who knows my tv indulgences too well. She makes me smile!

53: Birthday cake and bubbles at break time for a girl who makes turning 40 (a long way off for me) seem fun and fabulous!

(I did consider giving up blogging for lent: but I realised that was laziness masquerading as sacrifice…instead I vow to write better, think braver, moan less.)

Day 50 February 19, 2012

(How can there have been 50 days of this year already? Where does time go? Or rather what do I do, to use it with any purpose?)

I’d forgotten the catharsis I find in writing. Yes, I’ve spent the day feeling restless and deflated about a London dream that has never been further away and yet I also get to feel a real reconnection with a fabulous friend and the love of a brother I adore.

My Mum told me there is much happiness to be found in the place you’re standing in: make the very best of what you’ve got when you’ve got so much.

I promised I’d try.

Days 46, 47, 48 and 49: a country girl and the city February 19, 2012

The problem with the 365 is that occasionally my life is too busy to find the time to write about it; and this makes it too easy to feel negative about those endless days when the time is too plentiful.

I started to write my ideas for this blog catch up as I wasted a day in Heathrow, and I realised that my writing fears, first verbalised to Belle Fierce some time ago, had come to fruition. I have lost my mojo. Who wants to read a minute by minute account of someone else’s weekend away?

Do I want to write the pithy, witty, tongue in cheek account of my half term in London? Or do I want to share the self indulgent, no doubt, flawed psychoanalysis such trips seem to force me into?

I guess I try to capture my moments and my thoughts to help my understanding of them; some how my day has worth, if I value it enough to capture its essence in print: but I question it’s value to any reader that’s not me. And yet a small band of followers do read…maybe with perseverance and time; confidence and inspiration.

Until then, I will make do with some half hearted account of the highlights and low lights of the last few days.

#46
Despite the high production values and the strengths of the direction of the performance itself: a very stressful theatre trip set the wrong tone for what was always going to be a fraught few days away.

#47
I was the asshole in central London during Thursday morning’s rush hour with the oversized luggage.Walking the itinerary for the school trip in April is a necessary evil: complicated further by my poor, poor sense of direction, the money I was spending that I can’t actually spare, and the feeling that I was yet again sacrificing myself at the altar of work and no one gives a damn.

Made it till the lunch on Thursday: day one of the trip was in place, I hadn’t paid too much for my West End matinee ticket and I was already for the reclaiming of my afternoon.
I couldn’t find the theatre. I lunched on what was essentially a traffic island with a statue: it was that or faint.

The Novello was footsteps away from where I’d first started looking and Crazy for You deserves its many accolades. A musical with a vintage charm and talent to spare.
My phone died before the standing O and I now needed to be in a very different part of London, having collected my case at Charing Cross, checked in to the hotel and reached Angel for dinner with my bro all within the hour.

Instead I had a meltdown. Got the case but couldn’t find the hotel; I circled the streets of Covent Garden reminding myself how to breath. Found it eventually (hostel is more apt phrase) to be told I was in the wrong building and was first given a room that had neither lights nor bed linen. Back to reception: apologies were made, keys were given, I rang my bro in tears; he ignored my commotion and changed the reservation.

I realised that my pipe dream, of taking on London on a permanent basis, Ms Independence, in a city she loves would be a disaster. Mum and T are right: the stress, the loneliness, the sheer force of that place would kill me within the first fortnight. I would fail where T and B had so excelled: I felt weak and provincial and trapped by my reality.

Dinner, when we got there, was the perfect anti-dote to my crazy afternoon. London most definitely agrees with B and his part of the city was calm with an enigmatic sense of style.
We enjoyed food I’d never tried before, good wine, great and easy conversation. I glimpsed his new place and London began to make sense to me again.

#48
Less tired and with a greater sense of calm and poise I spent Friday morning ‘walking’ days two and three of the school trip itinerary. I was pleased to have face the little hell that is Oxford Street and to have found, with the help of a charged phone, the much sought Abercrombie&Fitch. I lunched in a park and headed back to the hotel to consider my options.
I spent the next two hours making notes about the trip and chilling in the rather vacant hotel room. My feet were aching and I just didn’t have the energy to use my afternoon in a more fruitful way.

I met B at Bank, after a bedlam tube journey. I’d never been in ‘The City’ part of London before. Never had I seen so many purposeful looking twenty and thirty somethings in such obviously expensive suits. I was shocked by the electronic display boards in the streets, to allow the prices of shares to be forever any instantaneously accessible.

Our getting lost in the myriad of streets, phased the ‘now in London’ lad not even a little. B followed his map, stayed calm and I questioned again how we could both belong to the same gene pool.

Dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s BreadStreet Kitchenwas divine: low key but elegant, good food without the need of pretension.
While I awaited the arrival of an old friend, B kept me company in the type of bar he typically avoids. He was my knight in stylish armour this weekend; a familiar port in the storm of an unknown city and my means of decoding the city’s confusion.

EC and I go back a long way: all the way to Washington DC and our intern summer. And without sounding sentimental, we’re kindred spirits. I tell this accomplished girl, who I see so very infrequently, the things I never tell those that populate my every day.

Strangers in the city, we couldn’t find the type of bar we so seeked and instead drank bad wine in the cheap hotel I couldn’t quite believe I’d thought would in any way meet E’s standards.

But it was so very good to see her: both soothing and unsettling to share hidden truths.

#49
There was no hot water for a shower I didn’t make breakfast. E looking a million dollars, my feeling around 99p and looking worse, had time for a rushed coffee before she headed of to meet her friend J and the luxury of a spa, shopping and dinner in Chelsea.

The hangover and the exhaustion made melancholy, I headed to Heathrow rather than drag a suitcase through a busy London Saturday.
I was too, too early for my flight and felt I’d wasted yet another Opportunity in a city demanding I take it on, even though it continued to whip my ass.

The flight was delayed and it was to a sleeting Belfast that I returned. My beloved coastal town seemed to mock me with its provinciality.
London: frustrating and fabulous, tempting and terrifying both lonely and love filled, has left me feeling discontent with life as it is and intimidated by the life if offers: I occupy an uncomfortable restless, purgatory in the frustration that lies between.

Day 36 and an apology and an oversight February 6, 2012

There was one moment of fleeting brightness in my day of melancholic blues.Belle Fierce
shared a poem on her blog, Beannacht is a thing of great beauty, as is the blog and the lady herself.

I apologise that I didn’t include it before now…may she forgive me, like times of old…

Day 33 (for the second time) February 2, 2012

Nick Carraway, the narrator of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby comments that either he or those he stands in judgement of are,

“wasting the most poignant moments of night and life”

I wasted too much time tonight writing a rather pointless blog about sleeping. But the mighty iPhone failed, or the app did and it disappeared. I refuse to rewrite it.

time is our more precious resource: we should not waste it

There are moments of infuriated clarity when I realise this blog, my writing, is simply self-indulgent drivel…

I’m taking my temper and heading to bed.

Day 31 January 31, 2012

So maybe it was less about his arriving rather late to rehearsal with an attitude and more about my grumpy, pain filled mood…And maybe I should have laughed off his tardiness, been grateful he was there at all and put him to work; rather than lose my temper and give him the push he was looking for to make his dramatic exit.

Tomorrow morning I will apologise to the leading man of my GCSE play: I will be sincere. I will be humble. He is talented and charming; and a teenage boy. I am a grown up: I’m meant to know better. Let’s hope he’s gracious too.

In other news, I’ve been back at the blog face for a month: my mission is to try to find happiness / joy in my day. My progress report: ‘moans too much for any mission to gain momentum’. So let’s try this. I finished a book I really enjoyed, reading too late on a weeknight to prolong the time I spent in Rob Lowe’s company, a long text conversation last night really made me smile ( and even dream a little) and when the rehearsal recovered from my tantrum today much was accomplished…

NYE/ 365: The (bitter) Sequel December 31, 2011

A soul friend who knows me too well has recently returned to this, the strange and one time much visited realm of blogging…
She encouraged my attendance and I tried, I have various scribblings, jottings, introductions maybe but I’ve lost the mojo, or the confidence or the maybe just the nerve…
But I’ve decided, sitting in on New Year’s Eve, to write again: and not yet managing my defending polemic of the public sector; my angst filled battle cry against suffering and the God who ‘allows’ it or any more pondering on the almighty Zsa Zsa Zsu… I’m instead going back to the simplicity of finding a happy moment in my day.
When I 365ed before I was seeking grace: religious, romantic: however it would present itself; and now…?
Well, now, I’m older and a sigh, rant and a tantrum away from being bitter: actually cynically, poison shooting, to hell in a handbag bitter.
So my writing is my raging against the dying of my inner light; I will strive to find a blessing or a moment of happiness in each day(and write about it); and hope to stumble upon inspiration along the way.