little.red.boat.

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

The little red boat
The beginning of a children's story by anna pickard
Over the ocean, well,
over a little bit of the sea - Over a strip of the sea -
Far away from the city, far away from all their untidy rooms and far far away from school;
Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna went on holiday.

In the middle of summer, and sometimes in spring, and sometimes in autumn too, Big Brother, Middle sister and Little Anna would go on holiday.
To Nana's house. Over a strip of the sea, next to the beach, over the ocean, under the blue, big skies, Nana lived.

And the day they arrived, or the day after the day they arrived, Big Brother, Middle sister, Little Anna and Nana would climb in the car and drive to the lake.

The lake where they sailed their boats.

Everyone had a boat apart from Nana. Nana liked to watch.
But Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna had boats. Beautiful sailing boats, powered by the wind or pulled on string, different colours and different sizes, they all had boats...

Big brother had a boat -
And this was his boat.
As long as his arm, and as tall as his knee with three white cotton sails - rigging and pulleys, a door to the cabin and tiny glass portholes.
A perfect sailing boat - just like a big one, but little instead.
that was Big Brother's boat.
And it was called "Endeavour"

Middle Sister had a boat -
And this was her boat;
As long as her am frrom her fingers to her elbow, as tall as her teddy bear and just as wide - it was blue, with funnels and decks and an anchor, a bridge for the captain and portholes and portholes and portholes for all the happy passengers.
It was a passenger ship. A liner.
This was Middle Sister's Boat.
And it was called 'Mermaid'

Little Anna had a boat.
And this was her boat.
It was a dinghy.
A little boat.
Little and red.
With a seat in the middle.
And her boat was called
"Sinky"

Which was a good name. Because it sank a lot. That's what it did.
Put on the water, Sinky would sit, for a while, held by the thin nylon string connected to the little pink hand, and then, after thinking a little, would sink.
And be pulled, happily, around the boating lake, making a noise like this;
chhhhhhhhhh-rchhhchchchch -kkkkkkkkkkchchchchchhrrrrrrrch
as she crunched along the gravel toward the edge of the pond.

And damn I loved that boat.
I wouldn't accept another boat but Sinky.

No matter how often it sank, no matter how predictably, I refused to stop putting my little red boat out on the water.
Float or not, she was mine. And I loved her. And the putting her on the water was the fun of it.
And that was enough.

So that's it.
That's Sinky.
That's the toy I keep naming things after - Journals and stories and projects and theatre companies.
If you ever wondered, in case you ever wondered - that's the little red boat.

And I only mention it because its a year today that this boat was put on the water.
And in terms of sinking? (insert sucky metaphor here)

Not yet.
And if we do?

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 |

Right, so I'm cleaning cutlery this evening, with a random - very pleasant - woman, staying here this week.
This very-busy-week week.
She asks me what I'm doing when I leave. Which is normal. It happens every week. 50 times.
People ask you what you're doing when you leave.

But the people who ask don't know they're asking for the 50th time. So it's only polite to answer them as if it were the first.

So I tell her that I plan to go ack to university, to do a Masters degree in Drama stuff.
She asks where, I tell her the town. She guesses the course.

Which suprises me, because no-one yet has ever heard of dramaturgy - let alone thought that there may be a course in such.
I tell her I'm really passionate aout the subject, but don't know whether I'll get in.

She says she's the Dean of the Arts and Humanities Graduate School at this university, the school that contains my course.
That she teaches on the course and has an overall view of admissions.
And that there's a fair chance that I may. Get in, that is. Maybe.
She says, if I like, she'll act as an extrra reference on my application.
I think that may be a little cheeky.
But then again, that's fine.

I just think it's amazing.
One minute you're cleaning cutlery neary some random, the next you're cleaning cutlery next to the dean of the very gradute school you want to... oh, i know it's simple... but come on! I'm excitable. ish. That's kind of exciting. Isn't it? It is.

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 |

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Although I'm not going away going away, This is the biggest week of my year.
And I'm going to be very busy.
I'm nervous, in fact, about how busy I'm going to be.
And I have a really sore neck...

So, to all intents and purposes, I'm away for the next week or so.
I'll try and post something on tuesday.
Because it's my little red boat's birthday!
yay.

I don't know why I'm so excited about that. Well I'm not that excited. Just a bit.
Anyway. I'm going away. ish.
Is it the blogathon this weekend? Well I'm kind of doing the anti-that. Spending 24 hours (times some) not posting. For charity.
Ach, it made sense in my head.

I'll be back somewhen.
You know the drill, I have to bugger off a few days, e-mail if you like, guestbook's yonder, use the comments to talk amongst yourselves... there are archives. Go and read those.... lalala.

Saturday, July 27, 2002 |

Last night I dreamt I had somebody elses surname.
It wasn't a bad thing, just a little bit odd.
I used to want to change my surname. In the last year of college, when everyone was trying to find a catchy 'stage name' I made lists and lists, researching old family names, maiden names, names that just sounded good.
My big sister spent the whole year campaining for me to take up the surname 'bisskit', in order that the question "Would you like a cup of tea, Anna Bisskit?" would become funny.
Because Anna sounds like 'and a', you understand.

Or 'And I' in some accents.
I had a friend from the North-West, near manchester, last year. And he would insist upon telling kids that I was his fiancee, because of his surname, and his accent.
Because If we got married, therefore, my name would be "Anna Lovett!"
Which in has accent, sounded great. In mine too, actually.
Shame we didn't fancy each other in the slightest.

Still, all's not lost. His dad's called "I Lovett".

Saturday, July 27, 2002 |

Tell me, why do I let people who've cut hair once before in their lives cut my hair?
My very thick hair?
Very annoying people?
Especially when attractive people may be turning up on the island in just a few days time? (Don't ask me how I know... I can just feel it in my water. It's a rural thing..)

Is it a symptom of tiredity, or am I just really quite stupid?
I am, stupid or no, fucking tired.
I know I keep saying that.
It's because I am.

Damn, I'm sure I had something funny when I came in here. Where did it go?
I probably put it down somewhere. I'm always doing that.
Now where did I last see it? I know I had it on me when I came in...
Damnit. Ah well, it'll turn up.
It's probably down the back of the sofa...

Saturday, July 27, 2002 |

Friday, July 26, 2002

I just wanted to mark this somewhere, because I've forgotten elsewhere.
Tonight, I was wearing my jeans.
My 'incentive jeans'.
Bought in Bakersfield, CA, 6 years ago, they were they kind of jeans, beautiful jeans that I would only ever fit into lying on the bed, tugging at the zip, praying and swearing.

I swore that the first day I managed to fit into them without swearing - or without lying down, holding my breath - or in fact, managed to fit into them at all, I would throw a 'jeans' party.
I would wear my jeans.

So I've been wearing them for a few months now, no ceremony, no celebration, I fit into a pair of trousers (big whoop!) that I didn't fit into before.
But I'm glad.
I only think of this because my friend was talking about her incentive dress this evening. A dress she bought not because it fitted or suited her, but because she knew she'd probably suit it one day. She'll know she's got somewhere with the diet and exercise whatever, apparently, when she fits into that dress.

Incentive Dress?
Pfah!

I have a whole 'incentive' trunk.

And the day I fit into that trunk, I know the diet and excerise books have all been worthwhile.


Only kidding.
I can already fit into the trunk.

I just can't get out again.

Not without a really big shoehorn.

I'm just being silly now. Sorry. There is no really big trunk.
It's a wardrobe.

Sleep now.

Friday, July 26, 2002 |

I was pissed off, for a few minutes, at some point this evening.
I'm not sure whether it's reasonable or not. I mean, I know it's not reasonable on the normal scale, but on my scale, I'm not sure whether it's reasonably unreasonable or unreasonably unreasonable.

Somebody was sick in my toilet.
Not in my toilet, not my toilet at home.
In my toilet in the pub.

Now I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure this one out, is it normal?
Is it normal to have ones own toilet, or to have ones own habitual toilet in the pub, bar, cafe, workplace, university toilet that you frequent?
For me, it's always the same, in the door, straight ahead, first on the right.
Always.
Unless that one's busy. If that one should be busy, the fallback toilet is 'turn right at the door, first on the right'. The other toilet cubicles in there are a closed book to me.
Or a closed toilet cubicle - the metaphor fits better.

It's not just me, is it?
Actually, I know it's not. My friend's toilet is 'right at the door, second right', my other friend's toilet is my fallback.

This happens elsewhere, I've known it at university, at work, in many pubs and bars and theatres and stuff.
People, out of habit, who go to the same stall every time.
I've known some to get quite upset when their toilet was out of order.

And tonight, someone was sick in my toilet. Which pissed me off.
But that's not the point anymore.
The point is 'personal toilets (not at home)'

Come on. Which is your toilet?
Where?
Do you have a fallback?
Or will you cross your legs until your personal toilet is free?
*please god someone comment on this one. Or I'm going to feel like the big toilet freak next time I check this post. The Big Toilet Freak. and it's not that often you get to say the words 'Big Toilet Freak' together. Thank you.*

Friday, July 26, 2002 |

Thursday, July 25, 2002

this is a very, very beautiful thing.
I just can't believe my birthday has already gone by.
Still... maybe next year... maybe then...

Thursday, July 25, 2002 |

My life's flashing before my eyes a little bit.
Not all of it.
Not in a scary orchestral music death-scene way.

Only three years of it in fact.
I keep seeing people I know. On the television.
It's not that suprising I suppose. One of those old adage things 'You pay peanuts, you get monkeys', 'You can't stand the heat, you therefore get out of the kitchen', 'You go to a drama school thingie, people you know will carry on turning up on the television. whether you like it or not.'

Some of them have been good - like Demelza in 'A date with Dr Death', or some such drama about Dr Shipman. Others have just been disquietening.
I watch television to relax before finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning.
Someone I haven't seen or even thought much about suddenly turning up and being - you know - On The Television, is not something that's going to make me sleep well.

This is not me being bitter. Really.
It's a remarkably good impression of someone being bitter, I know.
But I went to drama school - what do you expect?...

But I'm glad people are working. Just because me and Acting broke up a couple of years back and don't talk any more, it doesn't mean I don't want to see other people in relationships with it.
I'm really glad that people are working. Because they're good.
We always would sit around and wonder which of us would 'make it' and which wouldn't.
Which would still be a working actor 3 years hence and which would be making candles on a remote scottish island.
And I think we're all in the right places. The ones of us that I can see, anyway.

One of my friends - actually, not really a friend at all, we bugged the hell out of each other. Someone I knew - last time I heard of her she was doing research for a flannel company.
Being filmed in the shower to see where people wash first.
Still, it's a job. And at least it's something for the showreel... ('available at your local video store - please ask an assistant for help')
Strange profession.

Mind you, I can't really talk.
At that point I was being paid by the local medical school to pretend to be three different types of depressed in order to train people.
While being at least one type of depressed of my own accord.
Lots of money though.

But that's another story. One I might have told before. I can't remember...

Thursday, July 25, 2002 |

About a billion tiny things are nibbling at me today.
And then there are midges.
Over all, they're fraying the edges of my temper.
And my jumper.

But it's alright, I'm thinking if I go on smiling and being patient, everything will be fine and calm right up until the point where I explode and then I'm thinking that that will serve the midges and the nibblers and the christians right and I'm further thinking that it won't matter that much any more as I will have exploded.
Yay to that.

*paf*

Thursday, July 25, 2002 |

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

The candle counter has past 500.
Hands up who's excited.
I can't even pretend.
My hands are safely on the keybaord.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 |

I have a question, and I'm English, so I feel I should know this.
And I know I could try and find out through google, but I'd feel like a fool.

You know, like, in London, we have those men, yeah? The ones in the big fluffy hats, y'know? The ones in coffins stood on their end (the coffins, not the blokes). The ones who just have to stand there and stand there and stand there and can't show emotion or move or anything. You know the ones? Well, what are they called?

Do they have a specific name?
And what is their job? (their 'standing in a box not moving' job.)
Are they doing something specific?
Are they guarding something? Protecting something?

How?

How are they protecting something if they're not allowed to move?
I don't get it.
If something comes along, threatening the thing they're protecting - with, like, a pointy stick or something - how are they going to help or improve that situation?
Glaring? Are they going to glare?
Or will they fart?
Perhaps they have very bad breath, all of them. This is just a guess, obviously.
Perhaps, even, in that circumstance, they'd be allowed to move - the exception that proves the rule, and all that...

I should know these things. I'm English, after all. My national spirit is obviously lacking. I feel bad about that.
But not very much.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 |

I'm aware - and these things do take a while with me, I'm rather slow on blog-politics, mainly because I can't summon up enough energy to care - that there seems to be some kind of conversation or debate going on about the local village fete joint giant-pumpkin/best-british-blog-competitiony-guardianny, thing.
I would like to say, on this matter, that while I agree with you all, on every part of this, I did however, enter.
I have no excuse, apart from the fact that I was really very very drunk, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
And the fact that the one thing I could do with, apart from a damn good shag, is one thousand pounds.

And that - according to my 'never apologise, never explain, never get caught-up in blog-politic debates that you don't really understand' rule, - is all I'm going to say on the matter.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 |

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

How much is too much?

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 |

Too tired to.
And not just an excuse, I promise.
But too tired.
Too many children, too many grown-ups, too many candles, too many banners, too many announcements, too many instructions, too many people, too many conversations, too many goodbyes.
I want to.

But...
Too tired.
work.
sorry.
Hate me?

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 |

Sunday, July 21, 2002

I have to admit, as pointed out by Lyle, I have an even better search engine request today. The eternal question - "Where do I find cats to use in craft?"

For amateur stuffing puposes?
For use as moulds to make papier mache cats (you know, cover them in newpaper and glue and then deflate the cat inside...)
To paint them in acrylic and hang them on your wall?
Live cats? Or dead? Pre-stuffed, or still mewing?

I have to admit, I'm concerned.

Still, it made me laugh a lot, and I needed that today.
I didn't think I was going to laugh at all today, after not sleeping, and then having certain exchanges that left me spitting blood - (not literally, that would be vile. Or bile. bah-boom. no, actually, that was rubbish. sorry.)

but I've laughed and the afternoon's not been too sucky, and now I'm going out to dinner.
I'm going to have a very large, almost raw, slab of cow.
yum.

Sunday, July 21, 2002 |

There are some nights that make you gasp, and stand still, and gaze and say - "I live here". ("I live here". "I live Here".)

Tonight was one of those nights. The clouds looked like they were bursting from particular points on the north and south poles, and then stretched in enormous arcs over the sky, pink at one end, grey at the other. It told you clearly, andsometimes the sky doesn't, exactly how big and what shape it is. It's curvy, and it's huge. It clearly said so. Behind the streaks of cloud, behind the enormous stretching over, the sky was a soft duck-eggy kind of blue, with airbrushed polka-dots of soft white.

Later, when the light had gone almost away, and was sitting right on the rim of the world, as it does in summer, and will do til dawn, the moon came up and shone across the calm sea, making a big shiny moon reflection, and me happy.

It's nights like this when I remember that I live here, and that I love it, and that people would like to do the same, and that I'll miss it.
*sigh*

Sunday, July 21, 2002 |

Top search engine request today - "bear's hard porn"
Hard porn for bears.
God, show me the bear that typed that baby in, and I'm made for life.
A typing bear. Who needs a career?

Sunday, July 21, 2002 |

Saturday, July 20, 2002

I don't get wind.

Sorry, that's not as in 'I don't fart', I do.
I mean, everyone does. Don't they? It's alright to fart.
Not that I want to talk about the fact that I fart. I don't fart that much anyway. I wouldn't say that I fart an 'unreasonable' amount. Just sometimes, like all of us, I fart. Not that much though. Now I'm talking about it so much it sounds like my life is a constant stream of noxious gases, like I walk around all day pumping, rasping and squelching.
I don't. I really, at this point, want to stop talking about farting.
But I want to make clear, at this point, that while I may fart sometimes, which is an entirely natural and human thing to do, I don't do it very much, not very much at all, and when I do, I do it in a very ladylike fashion.
thank you.

I don't understand wind. As a concept. And that's wind as in wind that blows. From the sky. Or across the sky. Or across me, more specifically.

I know it's something about high pressure and low pressure and clouds and something and other stuff.
And I know that as wind Quantity goes, there was less in Manchester when I lives there, and there's an awful lot more of it here.
We have a lot of wind.
but that's a wholesome vegetarian diet for you. sorry.

And I don't care to know where wind comes from, actually.
It's another one of those 'magic things' of mine. Like shooting stars and music and water and aeroplanes.
People have tried to explain things, but either it doesn't sink in or I won't let it.
For a reasonably (i think) intelligent woman, I seem to have a block on certain things.

It's almost as if, and I'm trying to figure this out while typing here, so bear with me, the whole concept of , say an aeroplane flying is So Improbable to me, So amazing, So bizarre, that if someone explains to me how it all works, if someone goes through all nuts and bolts and complex technical things that go into making that aeroplane fly, then there's that much more that can go wrong and make the aeroplane not fly.
If the whole "Aeroplane flying" thing is, however, enabled by one thing -"magic"- then there's only one thing that can go wrong and therefore is less likely to.

I have no idea what that has to do with wind.
I started out here with a point.
Damn it.

Co-incidentally, however, I have just farted.


Not really.

Saturday, July 20, 2002 |

Words, Wide Night
by Carol Ann Duffy

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

is what it is like or what it is like in words.

I don't know why I keep thinking about that poem.
But I do.,
It used to mean a lot to me, when I had a boyfriend elsewhere.
In fact, I think it may have meant more to me than the boyfriend did.

I still love the poem, that's for sure.

I don't seem to have any funny for publication right now.
There's some on order, but the post is slow, I'm on an island.
Instead there's poetry, sorry about that.
I've been so busy recently, I've not had time to sit around and read poetry. I've missed that.
We like poems.
I wish I could write them, but I can't.
We've just had a staff concert, with people singing and telling jokes and reciting poems, so I - as the MC of the damn thing - am in a relaxed, sharing mode. I'm not angry about anything. Which is bad for blogging, but good for me.
Anyway.
I wasn't brave enough to read this poem.

at the nape of your neck there's a point
where the hair meets the skin and
last night, finding myself sitting behind you
I spent happy minutes, achingly stretching

into happy half hours, and later, to dreaming,
imagining, knowing in sense, in vision,
what it would be like to slowly lean forward, and,
eyes closed, wait for the moment when my lips, slightly
parted to taste in fullness the salty warmth, and feel the
texture of the tiny soft hairs that grow there, when my
lips
in slow motion,
soft focus,
in climax of orchestra,
would
kiss
you.

forever.

That moment, that touch, that kiss, that taste, the melting
would last for ever. I would like to kiss you. And
slowly, feeling kissed, you would pull away, but my lips, in
the air and in hours and days following would taste the
skin
at the nape of your neck. And you will not know.

I have to sleep now.

Saturday, July 20, 2002 |

Friday, July 19, 2002

One of the things that’s annoyed me most this week – and I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, but you have no choice – is one word.

Broody.

Yes, I’m a twenty-five year old woman holding a baby.
(not a metaphorical baby, you understand, not “Holding The baby”, just holding a baby. A real one, several in fact) (one at a time)
I like holding babies. I think they’re amazing.

Why, however, can people say nothing but “Aw! Broody?”, “Aw, looking forward to one of your own?”, “Aw, that suits you! Broody Anna!” “Broody?”
Just because I have the accessory of a broody person (someone else’s baby, cute as a button), it doesn’t, necessarily follow that I’m desperate for one of my own. It’s partly the social expectation implicit -
You’re twenty-five. If you like babies so much then we all expect you to have your own.
Immediately.

Yes, I do want to have children at some point. I like them.
Just because I’m holding them it doesn’t mean that I’m hungry to start popping them out here and now.

And I hate the word ‘broody’.
It’s a lonely word, a longing word, a sad word.
And I’m none of those things.
And it seems to imply that I’m a chicken.
And I’m not a chicken.
I’m just holding a baby.
A cute baby.
Is that alright?

Friday, July 19, 2002 |

I have the hangover of death, spending the day in meetings of pain.

Friday, July 19, 2002 |

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Not only dull, but not so cute after all.
In fact he seems to be getting shorter by the hour.
I'm sure he is.
And, what's more, I see the definite beginnings of a bald patch. He's 23. I think.
And dull. Really. It doesn't matter he's going away tomorrow.
He's shorty-baldy-dull man.


(alright, yes, I realise, and everyone else realises, I know, that I am, here, just talking myself out of finding someone attractive because it makes it easier, thereby to carry on being here and single and everything. I don't care.)

(He is, actually, dull as well.
That just helps.)

Thursday, July 18, 2002 |

No, I was right, he is dull.

Ah well.

Thursday, July 18, 2002 |

Every time I look around he seems to be there.
And every time I make a joke, he seems to laugh.
And he's dark hair.
And eyes.
Or at least, I think he's got eyes, but I never quite manage to look at him.
That's never a good sign. Shyness - always the sign of impending adolescence in me.

He's outgoing, in personality.
But whenever he talks to a crowd, he seems to be talking to me.
And he's hung about, as if to make more conversation, and I've turned around and switched on full charm on everyone else. And basically ignored him.
He's funny. He's intelligent.
And you know what?
I'm stupid to mentioning this, because I'm not going to be able to do anything constructive about it.

Because I'm rubbish at that sort of thing.

And now I've made such a big deal of it all, I'll probably talk to him and find out that if you scratch the surface of shiny bubbles, you'll find dull dishwater beneath...

Damn it all!
He's cute. I can hardly look at him. What do you do?

Thursday, July 18, 2002 |

Did I mention that it's littleredboat's birthday in two weeks?
Did I mention how excited I am about that?
You don't understand. I did something.
For a whole year. Without getting bored.
That is, like, 3657 times my concentration span.
Does one do something to mark a blog-birth-day (blog-day? anni-journal-day?)?
I wouldn't know, me, the newbie.
It's only my first. Yay!

Thursday, July 18, 2002 |

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

So I'm talking to someone about something flippant, and I realise I'm standing next to a man with a banana in the pocket of his slacks;
"Well well!" I said "Is that a banana in your pocket?...or.."
and finding my way up to his face, I found myself looking into the eyes of a man that could have been my grandfather. I stumbled ...
".... Why yes! Yes it is. Will you look at that. excuse me."

How do you Not make a joke? He was, quite frankly, begging for it.
oh the restraint, the almost inhuman restraint...

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |

Application form and CV in post.
Yay for getting round to doing stuff you really want to do.
I've done it.
Step one.
I rock.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |

We were talking in the pub tonight about unwelcome phone calls.
There were a bunch that we talked about - heavy breathers, phone stalkers, wrong numbers that phoned again and again, convinced you'd done something bad to the person they were trying to phone, sales people that wouldn't give up, ex-partners, etc etc etc.

I can, unfortunately, only share my own. I've never had a heavy breather or anything really bad (Nor want to, she said, knocking on wood, throwing salt over shoulders, touching black cats, trying not to break mirrors)

The first I remembered was when I was six years old. I grew up in a manse - a house owned by the church, and when your dad's a minister, and advertised in the phone book as a minister, you're likely to get at least some crank calls. Which is fine, but not when you're six and have just mastered answering the phone...
anna; "hello!?"
generally unhappy person; "There IS NO GOD! Ahahahhahaha!"
anna; "hello?"
at the other end of the line - click
anna; (gulp, sob)"Muuuummmmmy!...."

It's alright. You can laugh if you like. I'm no longer scarred.
The next unexpected call was years later, at a loud, drunken, house party I was holding;
ringring, ringring.
Anna; "'lo?"
Elderly woman, whose voice I instantly recognised; "Are you from next door?"
Anna; "I don't know. Where do you live?"
Elderly woman; "What?"
Anna; "Hey?"
Elderly woman; "Next to you."
Anna; "How do you know?"
Elderly woman; "What?"
Anna; "I have to go now. You're confusing me. Goodbye"

Yes, I would have called the police on me too.

The third call is probably the most embarassing.
It was early on a sunday morning. Early for someone who'd been out til 5 on saturday night.
The phone rang and I was called to it. I answered. Confused and dopey.
anna; ".... 'lo?...."
woman; "hi. my name's sarah --------- . You don't know me."
anna; "right. ... can i help?"
woman; "I think you slept with my husband. I found your number in his wallet. Did you sleep with my husband?"
anna; "what? erm... hey? I don't... Sorry what was your name?"

I had, of course.

This story was related to that one, one I told a long time ago, from a not particularly glorious period.

I've not had any unexpected phone calls for a couple of years.
I guess that's something to do with no-one knowing where you are. Or what your phone number is. And not being near a phone from 9am til 1am.
It's going to be strange, come November, being in that kind of touch again.
I'm used to not being reachable by phone. But I know, when I get back onto the mainland, I won't be able to resist.
Which is in some ways a good thing. It'll renew some phone-based friendships.
As long as I don't sleep with anybody's husband...
We'll see.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |

Um, there seem to be a bunch of people reading this thing what I write.
And I don't know who you are.
Or where you're coming from.
Who are you people?
I mean, I'm glad you're here but, um, can I help, in any way?

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |

Three things I'm grateful for today.

1; I worked out why I sleep so much on my days off. On work days I drink at least six cups of export-strength coffee.
On days off I can't be arsed to brew up at all.
I have decided to remedy this by keeping instant coffee granules next to my pillow to eat raw on awaking on days off, in order to make the most of my free time.
Boiling water?
Boiling water's for wimps.

2; I remembered how much I like lunch and shandy and playing pool.
As stupid as that sounds, I had a rhythm last year of escaping to the other side of the water to the pub on my day off, taking a whole afternoon to read or to gossip or to play pool, or chess, or connect four, away from work, away from anyone From work, And that was a very healthy thing.
This afternoon was the first time this year I've got around to doing it.
And it's fun. I'm glad that I've realised that again.
Fun, and cheap. Because I'm so bad at pool that one game can stretch for up to an hour...

3. I was amazed yet again how women's menstrual cycles find a common rhythm. We're incredible.

4. I am having a shiny hair day. This is nice.

Sorry. This is interesting to no-one but me.
But these things made me happy.
And I'm glad.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 |

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Got suckered into buying a bagload of candy stick things this afternoon, just by virtue of the name...
Ladies, Gentlemen, I give you, The flick n' lick.
I'm sorry, I mean flic n' lic (currently under investigation by the department of bad spelling and other gross misuse of the English language)

Now. I'm not wrong here, am I?
That does sound rude, doesn't it?
It's not just me, is it?

I mean, perhaps I wouldn't have thought of it at all if the slogan on the box hadn't read "Give someone you love a flic n' lic today! The fastest way to a girl's heart!"


it didn't really. I made that up.
Would have been funnier if it did though. Or Am I wrong?
Perhaps that doesn't sound rude at all...
It's just me.
Sorry.

Anyone fancy a flic n' lic?

It's just that I have a bagful to give away...

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 |

"Where the fuck am I?"

"I've died, now are you sorry?"

"Well, that was worth it..."

"I've changed my mind."

"I always hated soup. I wish I'd said something, now."

Gravestones.
It's a project of mine. For years I've tried to think of the best thing to put on a gravestone.
I don't know why, I mean, personally, I'd rather be burnt.
But, (as in ever conversation ever - and there are many out there that will testify -) I've always got to have the last word.
Always.
So I think of amusing things to put on my gravestone.
How more "last" can the last word get?...

At the moment, I'm fluctuating between "Are we nearly there yet?"
and "Point? Please? Anyone? "

Your last last words. Your headstone. What do they say?

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 |

Thank you very much, German Adolescent strange Porn Surfer, It's thanks to you that I discover that I am only second, second! on the sites listed for "ladies fucking in"+"diving suit", on google.

Now I've made an extensive search of etiquette, and of all the things that ladies should, and shouldn't 'do', 'fucking in a diving suit' wasn't, as far as I remember, specifically mentioned.

Still, these things are constantly evolving...

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 |

1. q... Why do Marxists drink herbal tea?

a... Because all proper tea is theft.


2. Engels; "Marx, mate, how is it, whenever I flush your toilet, I hear a mozart strring concerto?
Marx; "Ah... That'll be the violins inherent in the cistern."

Sometimes you just have to.

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 |

Monday, July 15, 2002

Damn fire Alarm.
Set off by nothing anybody could find, the fire brigade were searching and working for an hour before the damn thing could be turned off. Damn thing.
Still, now I have fixed in my memory forever what damp dawn on Iona, mid July looks like.
And what it sounds like.
It sounds like this;

Wooowooowooowooowooowooo wooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooo wooowooowooowoowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooo chirpchirp peep wooowooowooowooowooowoooo wooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooo wooo wooo wooo wooowooowooo tweet tweet tweet Wooowooowooowooo wooowooo wooo wooo woooowooowooowooowooo wooowooo wooowooowooowooo chirrup chirpchirp peep! Wooowooowooowooowooowooowooo wooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooo

The only things not making any noise were the damn Corncrakes.
The were probably away giggling somewhere - having set the damn thing off.

Wooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooowooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo woowooowooowooowooo

I may not get up tomorrow at all.
We'll see.

Monday, July 15, 2002 |

Removed for reasons too odd to go into. warm.

moist.

close.

It's good weather for toads.

Little fuckers.
I'm tired of treading on them. Sick and tired. I've lost count now, I'm not sure what count I'm up to, still Under Ten dead by my foot, but that's still under ten too many.
Not that I'd like to kill ten more. I meant that the undefined amount of toads I have yet killed (a number 'under ten') is still, by that number, too many.
I think it sounded lie I would like to kill more toads.
I wouldn't.
Im lost.

All I know is, that, in the present climate, walking in the dark is a deathrun.
It's impossible to hold a conversation as you stoop through the drizzle and the mud watching for any movement, a dark greenish shadow hopping across the path, tempting death by squishing, guilt on your part for days to come, the feeling of 'squish' and tiny toady bones cracking under your shoe.
Bent Double, like old beggars in anoraks,
Knock-kneed, coughing from many fags, we cursed through mud,
Til on the cosy pub we turned our backs
And towards our seeming distant rest began to trudge.
We marched afeared...

Toad! Toad! Quick, boys! - An Ecstacy of fumbling,
Skipping out of its way just in time;
But someone was now yelling out and stumbling,
And picking up his feet and going "Euw!" "Oh bollocks!" like a man in fire or lime..." -->
As if within a dream, I saw him 'squishing'.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, gibbering, gagging, grossed out.


Sorry.
I'm sorry,"-->
Anyway, we did wallk home bent double, flinching at every dark patch of mud, every sound, every tremble of grass, trying to hold an important conversation at the same time "Sorry, what were you... bollocks!... no it's all right, it's nothing... You've heard this complaint from...Ah! I see you, little bastard, There! He's there!... Sorry. What? Well, the official channel to take th...Euw! Another! No! Two! Go round! Ick! Fucking hell! ... Sorry, where were we?" etc. -->

Which is very exciting.
I'm going to sleep now." -->

Monday, July 15, 2002 |

Sunday, July 14, 2002

So yes, quite tanned then, thankyouverymuch.
Not the tangerine tan I always wanted from a bottle when I was younger, but a nice healthy, sun-kissed brownity.
And I'm chuffed. Hey, I live in Scotland, off Scotland in fact - I'm amazed at my brownyness.
This just isn't meant to happen...

Yes, sure, it's a Farmer tan, with t-shirt arms and neck, even though I've been wearing sleeveless low-cut tart-tops for two weeks to attempt to remedy the situation.
I now just walk around looking like a tart with a Farmer tan. The already tanned bits just go tanneder(?), while the rest slowly thinks about changing colour. Which means I'm multi-coloured. Milk-white, nice brown, and a fashionable camel/beige shade in the middle bits. If I was a corduroy cushion, I'd certainly buy me.

I spend a lot of time feeling smug about my arms. Especially on days like today, when I forget to put jewellery on, and there are little white stripes where they should go.
And little white patches. There are some small patches on my arm that don't seem to be familiar with the concept - "Tan". And stay resolutely pale.
Or maybe I'm one of the first people with factor-35-producing-pores.
Or maybe that's where my stubborn genes live, and they just don't feel like tanning.

So I've got little white patches, a white stripe across my wrist where the bracelet goes, and a white band around my wedding finger.

I don't know how long I've been wearing a ring on my wedding-ring finger.
About ten years, I think.
And there's no big motive, no big reason. That's just where I wear a ring, and it's comfortable, and now if I don't it feels uncomfortable, and I don't like it. So I always wear a ring there.

Apparently, it's bad luck. Someone told me that today.
I don't really care.
Luck, Schmuck. (Now there's a rational argument for you. Well, about as rational as 'Luck' itself...)

It does, however, lead to people thinking I'm married. Which I'm not.
I was standing and talking to my mother once when a man interrupted us with an urgent question...
"Excuse me", he said, "I simply have to ask, It's just that you, Mrs Pickard, and your daughter here are obviously such strong, independent, lively, powerful outspoken women, I hope you don't mind my asking but..." (and here he nodded at the ring on my finger) "... you both are working here alone. Where Are Your Husbands?"

I was stuck dumb, confused - and looked to my mother.
Jan's reply?-
"Them?" she said, "We Ate Them."

If it's only men like that that assume me married, and it seems to be, then good.
Vive la ring.

Sunday, July 14, 2002 |

Saturday, July 13, 2002

It was a very still night, last night.
The Sea between us and Mull was like a mirror, there was a ceilidh in the village hall, and boatloads of people came over to dance.

At 1am, I sat on by bench by the post office, by the sea, by the jetty, and looked at the stars and talked about leaving.
There was a Pipe band at the ceilidh, over from Mull for the evening, and although we'd not gone in to see them (Bagpipes - not an instrument for confined spaces...) we could hear the drone and the drums and the whooping and clapping from where we sat.

At just after one, as is tradition, the Pipe band left the hall and marched down the road, playing "Scotland the Brave" at full volume, with everyone walking behind them.

We watched as they came past, and then took the shortcut home, up through the sheep field to the Abbey.
The air was so still and the water so calm that as the boat set off, with the band still playing, the music was amplified and carried us all the way home.

My contract finishes in November. Although I know it'll be time to leave, things like this make me sad.
And happy.
I'm glad to be here now.

Saturday, July 13, 2002 |

I'm being stalked

By a woman. And that's ok. I don't mind the woman bit.
I mind that she has a lawnmower.

I wake up, and I'm fine, and the world is bright and gorgeous and just as it should be, and then I go somewhere.
Somewhere outside the building.
And whatever time I wake up, she knows.
Half an hour later, she's standing outside the Abbey, with a lawnmower.
Waiting for me.

And the world turns to red-eyed, sneezing hell.
I mean, I quite enjoy sneezing, in islolation, but 27 in a row is almost taking the piss.
Damn Hayfever.

Speaking of hayfever - in a good way - I got flowers. Pretty flowers. In a box.
Pink and Red and Yellow and White and Orange ones. All good colours. And pretty.
Gosh.
You mention once that you've never recieved flowers, and some random lovely person sends you some.

Thank you, Adrian.

I would just like to mention, at this point, that no-one, in my life, has ever sent me a live polar bear.

bring it on...

Saturday, July 13, 2002 |

Friday, July 12, 2002

7 good things about life right now.

1. The sun is shining. Not right now, like, it's 2am. That would be stupid. But during the day. Which is a good thing. Sunshine = happy anna.
2. I've had a really good week. Bunch of candles, paint everywhere, 40 or so happy kids. (Happy in a swearing kind of way)
3. I don't have dandruff. In fact I haven't had dandruff in about eight years. Yay!
4. Neither do I have Thrush. Damn. There really are more good things to life at the moment. Apart from all the uncomfortable diseases I don't have. I just can't think of them right now. Oooh. I know...
5. I now have in my possession enough knowledge of Glasgow and its accent to feel comfortable thinking I might move there when my contract ends. Enough to make me think I wouldn't get into too much trouble. The only thing today was when a small boy asked me if he could use my "Taap" to clean his hands, and when told he could (Anna thinks; 'well yes, there's nothing in the sink, of course he can use the tap...') found myself with my clean 'top' being used as a wetwipe. Fair enough. I did Say he could...
6. Singing. It's good.
7. It's nearly bedtime. That's when I get to go to sleep.

7 Bad things about life right now.

1. I'm the tiredest person in the world. But my mind is racing.
2. The corncrakes haven't shut up yet. Isn't that supposed to be a mating call? Have they not got any yet? Granted, I wouldn't have sex with anything making that kind of noise, but you'd think other corncrakes would at least find it attractive. Is that not the point?
3. I'm running out of trousers. It's going to be skirt-ville until I can be arsed to launder. Or hot-waxy-splattered-trouser-ville, but how comfortable does that sound to you? (Any one who reached this post on a search engine request, please say nothing here, I don't want to know...)
4. It's going to rain soon. I just know it. Not predictive weather skills, just long, damp experience.
5. My Video Recorder hates me. A lot.
6. I'm tired. I said that already. Well I am. Which, although not in front of the kids, makes me grumpy. I'm grumpy. That's a bad thing. So's being tired, n' aa.
7. Much as I love making candles (and, honestly that's not all I do... really...), taking out of the plastic moulds has, again, bruised my knuckles and completely wrecked my nails. I have no nails left. Boo hoo. Ah, Christ, I'm sounding like a big whiny girl again.
8. I sound like a big whiny Girl. But that's just a side-effect of 1-7, honest...

There are other things, don't get me wrong, that are bad in life... The ongoing situation in the Middle East, for example. Global Warming, health crises, social ignorance and general apathy. I could put these on a chart to measure their significance in comparison to such problems as 'rain' and 'nails' but I, ah, I haven't the, erm, I've got to do this other, ahm, Thing and I, I'm very tired now.
Goodnight.

Friday, July 12, 2002 |

You know what makes me really cross?

People that go into a conversation with someone expecting to be disappointed.
Someone that goes into an encounter ready to be made angry.
A person that faces a group of people with expectations so low that anything those people say or do cannot make their time together better.

If you treat people like second-class citizens, and make it clear that your opinion can't be shifted, why should they feel the need to try to prove you wrong?
If you go into a conversation on the high defensive thinking that all conversation is going to be abuse, that people are capable of nothing more, then quite frankly you deserve to be abused.
I'd abuse you.

If you, instead, would treat people like people, with an open mind and all that clichéd shite, you'd be suprised.
You'd find people.
Nice people.

Sorry.
This was not meant to be a lecture.
I'm just a little cross.
Not with you.
With somebody else.
I'm practising.

Friday, July 12, 2002 |

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Candle-tastic.
It's only been 45 over the last 24 hours, but it feels like 5,978,675.
It wouoldn't have felt like so many if it hadn't been a constant barrage of tiny glasweigian squeals; "Anna! Can I make a candle? Why not now? You said I could!" or rather, and you'll pardon the phonetics "Aaaana! Cannna meka thungmy? aCandaw? How naw? Ye sed!" over and over and over again.

I swear, if there's any accent I could put on my acting CV now, it's 'small whining Glasweigian child.' Whether there'd ever be any call for me to play one, however, I doubt.
Jeanette Krankie's kind of got that one covered.

Apologies to any readers in the US. This post has been extremely non-inclusive. I'll get onto that.

Right I'm supposed to be singing in a bit. I have to warm up.
Y'naw. caffee n'a'fag n' aa.

Excuse me. Coffee, and a cigarette and that...

Thursday, July 11, 2002 |

Why do I wash my hair so much when washing it only makes me look, and feel like a big fuzzy fluff-ball?
(that's not actually a thing, I don't think. I thought a fuzzy fluff-ball was a thing when I typed it, but now I don't think it is. Like a poodle, then. I feel and look like a poodle. But bigger, and fuzzier. And fluffier. Like a poodle that looks like a big fuzzy fluff-ball, then)
Why do I put on make up when it only gets washed off in the rain?
Why do I pluck my eyebrows, only for the fuckers to grow back?
Why do I change my clothes so much, when I know that the next set will be covered in paint or clay or wax just as quick?
Why wax the legs when they're never going to escape from paint-splattered jeans?
Why even try to smell nice when all around smells of sheep poo?

What's the damn point in being a Girl 'girl'?
It wouldn't make any difference to the world if I wandered around in a hat and a binbag, with things growing behind my ears, bodily hair so long it would all be plaited and a beard.
Hereby, I give up.

Not give up the washing things, like, that would make life unpleasant. For me.
But I give up trying to be girly.
It doesn't work.
I'm going to be 'womanly' instead.
And do all the same things, but feel more detatched and mature about them.

There's a point in there somewhere, I just don't know what it is.
Sorry.
I'm going to go and watch er now.
And cry. In a 'womanly' way.

Thursday, July 11, 2002 |

Mad dog (a story).

If I had to take bets on how my day would go today, on what would have happened by the end of it, the odds on my ending up best mates with a speccy 13-year-old Glaswiegian hardnut called MadDog would have been pretty long.

In fact, the chances of that ever happening would have been very long.
Infinity long.

But no. The day started, and MadDog was walking around the centre with his teeth clenched and his hands all in fists, looking like he was about to create kebabs with a snooker cue, and you were going to be the meat.
MadDog's slightly unpredictable.
MadDog doesn't like people in authority much.
I like MadDog.
I like MadDog even though MadDog is called MadDog because he pushed a cat down a Garbage chute.
From the 17th floor.

I still like MadDog.
MadDog likes me. I curse a fair bit. He respects that. I showed him how to make a candle, and when he was bored with everything else he came and sat with me in the craftroom, and drew pictures. First just graffiti. Tags on every piece of paper, black and white cartoons and stick figures, and then, after a while, a picture of the sea, in coloured crayon,
with hills in the background.
And white fluffy clouds in the sky.
And, co-incidentally enough, a little red boat bobbing around in the foreground.

MadDog likes me, even though I'm English.
I'm very proud of that.
I like MadDog. And not because I should, or I have to, or because I'd be scared not to, but because I just do.
He's one of the sweetest kids I've met in a time, and that's saying much.
And because now I can say I've got a friend called 'MadDog' (that's even what it said on the booking form, he may well have been christened that. Who can tell...)
And that, in itself, rocks.

Thursday, July 11, 2002 |

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

July 2000- Present The Abbey, Isle of Iona
Craft Worker
Responsible for planning and holding creative sessions in different arts media, managing budget, working with individuals and with groups of between 3 and 90 people, leading sessions and guided conversations, chairing meetings, planning and directing dramatic events. Working with different age groups, with people of different abilities, from various socio-economic backgrounds.

Bullshit. It's a marvellous substance, it really is...

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 |

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

I had a fight with an 83-year-old woman today.
Not a fist fight, although she was spoiling for it.
Why is it some people take their age as a license to be rude? And to patronise and demean anything, anything that moves.
And anything that doesn't.
Spoiling for a fight for an hour she was. Slagging me, my way of doing things and complaining about the fact that the 150 other people on the led walk that she was holding up wouldn't wait for her.
Apparently, most of it is down to 'young people' and their lack of manners.

Bullshit.
I've never met anyody with less manners in my life.
And I told her so, (very politely).
I don't care much if she was somebody's grandma, that's certainly no reason to behave as you like.
Just because you're approaching death it doesn't give you free rein to abuse and look down upon anybody that isn't.
Proximity to the grave does not, in my opinion, place you outside the rules of social interaction and common decency.

And if it does, you can't expect everyone to stand around and accept you as you are.
They may well fight back.
Not with fists, like.
Although by 'eck they'll be tempted.

Tuesday, July 09, 2002 |

How - exactly - is "don't use the wheelchairs to chase sheep" an ambiguous suggestion?
We all see what that means.
Why, therefore, is there need to re-state it?..

I admit, the first time I asked the qusetion, I asked "So, do you think it would be possible for the boys to stop chasing the sheep in wheelchairs?"
You ask a question like that, you're begging for the answer, "possible? Why yes. probable? no."
incidentally, when I say "The boy were chasing sheep in wheelchairs", I don't mean the sheep were in wheelchairs.
The boys were.
They may be chasing them, fair enough, only natural and that...
As long as they're not doing it in company wheelchairs..

Tuesday, July 09, 2002 |

Monday, July 08, 2002

Carrot stuffing. Obviously.

Don't talk to me.
If it's before 9.30 in the morning, don't talk to me. I don't like it.
Unless we're talking 'before 9.30' as in '7 hours before', in which case it's fine.
I'm awake then.
I'm awake in the night but don't like mornings. Admittedly this is cramping my career path, which is now down to theatre, late-night radio, night-watchmaning(?) or prostitution.
All of which seem to be over-subscribed. Apart from being a Night-WatchMan. And I don't want to be a night watchman.
I don't even want to be a man.

I want a job where mornings don't exist.

Or at least, if they do, nobody talks to you in them.
Ever.

Or if they do, it's a brief "good morning".
None of this "Oooh! you look like shit!" shit.
None of this "What would you say to a bowl of muesli?" rubbish, mainly because the punchline's all too obvious. ("fuck off, muesli. come back in four hours.", sorry, it was obvious, but sometimes it's funny to say obvious things...)
And certainly not "Why are these carrots stuffed behind the hot water pipes?! Is this you?"

That's what woke me up this morning.
Why are these carrots stuffed behind the hot water pipes. Is this you.
No.
It's 7.30am, and I don't care for the carrot-stuffing situation right now.
But, as we're awake anyway, let's think through this logically.
You'll notice that in front of the hot-water-pipe-stuffed-carrots, if you look, there is a small table. The kind of table where I put things to go down into the kitchen.

It is possible, you might think, that the carrots have been knocked from that table, coming to rest - a short time later, perhaps a couple of seconds or so - behind the hot water pipes, where they are not especially obvious to your casual bystander.
And therefore unmoved.

However - you could be right.
I may, in a fit of pique, for no apparent reason that either of us can see, have 'stuffed' these carrots behind the water pipes.
I may have had a sudden fear of carrots, and restrained them for fear of biting.
I may have hidden them from myself, in order to perpetuate the myth of my diet. ("I can't see them! I must have eaten them! Aren't I virtuous?! Yay me!"
I may just like stuffing vegetables into warm cracks.
I may have been trying to feed mice, and breed a scuttle-culture in my own house.
I may have been keeping them safe, in case of nuclear war, or Viking invasion. ("For God's sake! What about the carrots? Won't somebody think of the carrots!")

Or they may have fallen off the small table there.
You decide.
Think it through.
And while you think it through, I'll be in here. Asleep.
Thank you.

Don't talk to me in the mornings.
It takes a good couple of hours to dilute the concentrated sarcasm. With coffee.
Thank you.

Monday, July 08, 2002 |

If I owe you an e-mail and you are cross about it, I apologise sincerely.
I am very tired and my brain is about to fall out of my nose.
I swear I'll get around to e-mail things one day.
I swear.
I swear on my brain. And my nose.

Monday, July 08, 2002 |

When someone I've known for a while is all surprised and shocked at how long it is since I've kissed a boy, I know he intends that to be a flattering shock and surprise.

When he's shocked and suprised for two hours however - flattery gets a little tired.
And goes home.

It's a lovely sentiment - I think - but after a whole evening of shock and suprise, I don't actually feel a whole lot better.
But thank you all the same.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Ta...

Monday, July 08, 2002 |

dreaming of crisps.
The cycle is always the same.

I work lots because I like working. And then I'm tired. But I go out to the pub. And then I come home, do this littleredboat thing, and then go to bed.
And then I get up and work some lots more. And be more tired.
And then go to the pub. And be tireder more.
And then come home, do this thing, then go to bed.
And then I get up, and work, and then go to the pub, come home and post and I'm tireder still. And I go to bed.
And then I get up, and work, and then go to the pub, and then the disco, and then come home and post and then go to bed and I'm tired and tired and tired and sleep and will not wake up for days.

And I know. I know on so many levels.
I know that If I left some of those things out of the equation I'd be fine.
I know that if 'work' consisted of working in single figures, I'd be fine.
I know that if I'm going to work this hard, I should sleep more, and then I'd be fine.
But if work and sleep were all to life - I'd go insane.
I refuse to "dream of crisps".

At some point, I was going out with someone. A boy, to be exact. And we were students, and it was summer, and we were broke and needed money.
So we worked at the biggest factory in town - sure bet, always hiring -
The Crisp factory.

They made Crisps ("Chips").
Billions of packets of Crisps, 24/7. I still can't believe that this many crisps get eaten. It's not possible.
We may well be building another planet somewhere, out of crisps.
I worked in the factory. I know.

To cut a long story relatively shorter - and it's been far too long already... - we had to get up at 5.30am, walk an hour and a bit to the factory, work a 12 hour shift, walk home again, shower, and were asleep by 8pm.
Same the next day. 5.30am - walk - work crisps - walk - shower - sleep.
wake - walk - work - walk - wash - sleep - dream.
wake - walk - work - walk - wash - sleep - dream.
wake - walk - work - walk - wash - sleep - dream.

(gosh this sounds like a Northern sob-story... "In my day, lass..." It isn't... Ach, fair enough, it is...)

But when we'd sleep, we'd dream.
Of crisps.
We'd dream of packing crisps, or eating crisps, or stuffing crisps where crisps just shouldn't go.
But mainly of packing the fucking things. Box after box after box, and the 12-hour-shift in the day slipped seamlessly into an 8-hour shift in the night.

And that's the thing.
When work become sleep becomes work, I see no point in any of it.

And so I jam other things in the middle there.
Drinking, dancing, social behaviour, television, walking, moving around generally, eating, laughter, life.
I will, goddamnit, have more to my life than sleep and work. And if these things bring exhaustion, then fuck it.
I like exhaustion.

I like exhaustion more than I like 'dreaming of crisps'.

Monday, July 08, 2002 |

Best search request of the day - after "Wallpapering with tissue paper", obviously - is the old chestnut, "small men shagging big woman".

Anyone else getting a picture of Rosanne Barr getting it on with the seven dwarfs?

Anyone else want that picture to just go away?
Now?
Please?

Monday, July 08, 2002 |

Sunday, July 07, 2002

Do you believe, sister?
I never realised that agnosticism was so far-reaching.
I knew that I was agnostic about some things. (Well, one thing - the thing that people are usually agnostic about. That whole 'God' thing.) I just didn't realise that once you were agnostic about one thing, you started to be able to be agnostic about a whole bunch of other things as well. That agnosticism could creep into your life like a big vague "maybe/maybenot/perhaps..." cloud over everything else.

Or it might not be a cloud. It might be mist. Or smoke. Yet some people would definitely call it a cloud.
And I respect and admire their blind faith and narrow view in doing so.

Anyway. I've realised that I'm agnostic not only about the concept of a 'God', but also about the concept of a 'boyfriend'.
(Not that the two are in any way similar).

I believe that there may possibly exist such a being as 'boyfriend',
I understand the concept and philosophical reasoning behind the idea of 'boyfriend',
I accept and affirm the fact that other people fully believe in a personal understanding of 'boyfriend', and may, in fact call their belief in 'boyfriend' absolute.
They may, indeed, have personal experience of 'boyfriend'.

I just can't believe in 'boyfriend' myself.
Although historically I may have, at some point, accepted the concept of 'boyfriend' as truth (as, perhaps, once, I accepted the concept of 'god'), I cannot see, at the moment, how the idea of 'boyfriend' as anything but happy delusion could exist in my life.

I need to move away from this island.

But the agnosticism remains.
And spreads.
It's easy not quite to believe in anything when you put your mind to it.
You can apply it to the concepts of 'believable weather report', 'bank balance in credit' or perhaps even 'life without beer'.

I used to be truly agnostic about the concept of 'happy'.
But I'm not any more.
Now I believe.
Well, sometimes, anyway.

Sunday, July 07, 2002 |

Saturday, July 06, 2002

In the middle of a stressful mouse-hunting and cv-writing day, this made me laugh. Quite a lot.
Ta.

Saturday, July 06, 2002 |

How the hell do you write a CV when you've done fuck-all.
Shit. Wank. Bollocks.
Excuse me.

Saturday, July 06, 2002 |

"Oooh! Fiiiiiiiight!"
There were fights all the time in the pub I worked at in Manchester.
Every weekend. One every weekend night, sometimes two if you were lucky... (or unlucky, depending...)

There were fights in the pub I used to work in in Leicester.
About football, and short, but fights all the same.

There were even, middle-class-suit-and-pearls Mecca as it was, a couple of fights in the theatre bar I worked in.

But never, never before, or never to my knowledge, has there been a fist fight in the pub on Iona before.

That's just not supposed to happen. Not with fists and blood and shouting and everything. We're a peace-loving tribe. Or - if not - too drunk to care to fight.

But it happened tonight. Fists, and blood, and shouting.
This is not a good story.
But F***, it will be by tomorrow morning.
If you walked into the village shop tomorrow morning, you'd probably hear about Gang warfare and Air Ambulances...

Small community gossip makes little life so much bigger, it's amazing. By tomorrow afternoon I'll be living vicariously through something I actually witnessed tonight.
Except tomorrow, it'll be better...

Saturday, July 06, 2002 |

glastonbury memory three - toilets.
I'll always remember the toilets.
I've certainly more fondness now for my friend's compost toilets, now that I've actually experienced the toilets at Glastonbury.

I'd heard about them before. And God only knows how many times, while I was there, I heard people boast "Well, they're better then they used to be, these toilets..."
Sod off. That's just your way of saying that you've been here more times than me.

But, no matter how many times you've heard this;
There's still nothing to compare with the experience of shitting in a pit at the same time as 20 other people.

Thank F***.

Because if there were an experience to compare with that, I'm thinking it would be a rather undersubscribed activity.

I know it's a sentimental thing for some people ("Ah! - Do you remember that year that the raw silage overflowed into all the tents? My, Happy memories!...") But I just can't bring myself to see it that way. To me it just seems, y'know, kind of shitty.

The first night I was there I couldn't bring myself to it at all.
Having experimented with emptying my bladder on the way in, I tried to avoid it at all costs after that.
Even after 4 pints of pear Cider, I told myself I'd sleep and be fine in the morning. When the smell might have dissipated, with the dew.
All night, I dreamt of toilets. People showing me around their house and saying "Incidentally, here's the toilet!", or myself walking around a mansion, finding that behind every door was a toilet. Or just walking, in the wilderness, and finding in a forest glade, by a waterfall, a toilet.
Every half hour my bladder tapped me on the inside and asked me whether 'we were nearly there yet?' and, until dawn, I had to tell her no. 'No, darling, just a little while longer'.
Until the dawn came. And I - sorry <>we - went to the toilet; me and my bladder.
I've never, in my life enjoyed anything more. In the world. Ever.

Obviously, for the next three days, I had to make it so.
I had to go, with all these other people at once, and sit over a large pit, and help to fill it up.
I decided to answer lay in Cider.
And certainly cider helped.

Cider made me drunk, and yes, being drunk may have made me need the toilet more, but that was fine, since I decided I could only face the toilet drunk.

Not as in Face the Toilet. Not as in 'With my Face'. As in, I could only 'bear to go in there, Drunk'.

I would never face that toilet.
Not even to be sick.
I'd rather be sick on myself than face a pit full of poo.
I'd rather be sick on my favourite dress.
No, in fact, I'd rather be sick on somebody else, a large burly person, and so be punched repeatedly in the face until I was sick again, on myself, than be sick into that pit.

I love my flush.

Saturday, July 06, 2002 |

In 24 days time my Little red boat has a birthday.
I'm so impressed with that.

Saturday, July 06, 2002 |

Friday, July 05, 2002

How do you sit in a pub with a monk without asking him if "religious life still inspires him?
Or has it just become a Habit?"

"Do you think you'd be able to work with people in a secular setting too? Or is it important that you do it in a Monk-ey type way?"

to one part anti-establishment, anti religious-life girl, add one part Monk.
Pour slowly, and evenly into the mix 5 pints of beer, distributed equally between the dry ingredients.
Shake well.

Friday, July 05, 2002 |

scuttle-phobia
I've tracked it down.
I think I've got it. The root of the scuttle-phobia.
I was seventeen, and trapped in bed, with a particularly hideous flu.
Hideous, Fever-bad.
Big fat fuck-off-fever bad. Hallucination-fever-bad.
Lying in bed, tossing, and sweating, and not enjoying it at all.

There were mice underneath the floorboards, around the pipes, where it was warm and nestable.
(nestable? nesty? neither of those are words, are they? They're not. I can just sense it.)

In a fevered dream, half-awake, or in a fevered hallucination, half-asleep, the mice escaped from under the floor.
They ran all over me. Across the duvet. Under the sheet. Up the walls, down the curtains, all over the floor and all over the ceiling, sometimes falling on me, on my face, my arms, my hair.

Since then, I've hated the scuttling. The noise.
The noise - and I can feel my flesh crawling with a thousand tiny feet, and tiny claws, tickly whiskers, snuffly noses.
I'm not sure, but I think That's where the scuttle-phobia may have come from.
That's supposed to be theraputic, isn't it?
Isn't it?
I don't feel that much better...

Friday, July 05, 2002 |

Thursday, July 04, 2002

I have a secret.
I probably shouldn't tell you.
I know something that it's dangerous to know.

I know how to raise the dead. I know how to raise zombies.
My friend heard from a friend of hers how to do it.

Well, when I say "A friend of hers", I mean of course, some guy who spent a lot of time squatting next to a bus-stop near her house, talking to a coke can.
Well, he told her, this 'friend of hers', let's call him Bob (Because that's a name, and we're guessing that he had one. "Coke-Can-Bob" It has a ring to it, anyway...) gave her blow by blow instructions of 'how to make a zombie'.
But you have to promise, don't tell anyone else, becuase with instructions like this, we could be overrun in a couple of weeks...

You promise?
Right. So, to make zombies:

1. chew at least 6 pieces of bubble gum, standing by a newly filled grave.
2. Blow one bubble, with bubble-gum, at least 15 times the size of your head.
3. filled with marajuana smoke.
4. With a sharpened Samurai Sword, pierce the bubble from bottom to top.
5. *important* Your bubble should not, by this point, have burst, otherwise the dead will not rise.
6. voila. one zombie.

So now you know.
Be careful now, people.
Now you've all the instrtuctions you could want, there's nothing stopping you.
(Actually, I'm not sure if the flavour's important. If anyone has any problems with particular flavours, let us know. We'll take you zombie-raising consumer complaint straight back to Coke-Can-Bob...)

Thursday, July 04, 2002 |

Wednesday, July 03, 2002

The unbearable murmur of squeaking - or 'My life as a cliche'

I don't know. You go away for five days, and when you come back everything's gone all mice.

Just to check that everyone caught that, although everything is 'nice', and we're all very pleased about that, everything - well - everything at work, has gone all 'mice'. You know. Scuttle scuttle. Nibble nibble. Squeak.
And we're not at all pleased about that.

I heard a rattling. A panicky scuttle and a rattling.
In my studio. In my workspace. A clearly mousey, clearly vermine (that's a word, right? Well I say that's a word. That's good enough for me.) noise, coming from behind the candle-table.
Scuttle. Rattle. Squeak.
I don't like mice. I've mentioned this before.

In fact, I hate the fuckers. Not in themselves. They're cute enough, and they're only doing their job, it's just the scuttling that gets me.
The scuttling. And the way they creep up on you. And their scuttling. And the whole zipping across floors thing.
The unpredicable nature of their movements, the scuttling, and the whole vampire mouse blood-sucking phenomena.
I don't like them.
Or more accurately, I don't like them anywhere near me.
Scuttling.
*shudder*

I would like to be brave. And I am, in other cases, with other things.
I'd like to be able to handle the situtation in a reasonable and mature manner.
But I don't. In no way do I do those things.
What do I do instead?
Do you remember Tom's owner in the Tom & Jerry cartoons?

That's right.
I'm not ashamed.
I stand on a chair. And scream. Like a girl. Like a great, big, girl.
And I plead with whoever else is standing in the room - "mouse? mouse! do ... something?", and, depending on who it is in the room, they will either attack the corner full-frontally, think rationally and fetch a tub and/or a humane mousetrap, or grab themselves a chair and join me up in the air, hoping - the both of us - that someone turns up before teatime.

Yesterday we caught three. Three mice.
Well, I say caught, you can't catch something that's already dead, can you?
And another one had had a little accident and had fallen into a bucket, so it's fairer to say he caught himself.

But we caught one. And ended up with a total of three. We took them away, and we released them in the wild. Even the dead one. We took them a fair distance, but I know better than to underestimate them.
They'll find their way back.

Well, perhaps not the dead one.
Although you never know. Clever little blighters.

An hour after we'd released them, I saw another. Or perhaps two more, I couldn't tell.
And now I won't go into my own studio on my own.

And when I do go in, I spend most of my time standing on a chair.
Cliche? Why thank you, yes.
But wisely so. If they catch you unawares, they can have most of your lower legs off before you realise you're being nibbled.

It's true.

Wednesday, July 03, 2002 |

glastonbury memory - two
Boy of twelve walking through a crowd of people, wearing a t-shirt with a speech bubble on it that reads "It's only Porn, Mum."
He walks past, without blinking, a fat man in a lacy basque rugby tackling his friend. The fat man is holding his nuts. The basque is practically backless, and the string between the fat man's buttocks looks like piano wire slicing through brie.

Wednesday, July 03, 2002 |

Monday, July 01, 2002

glastonbury memory - one
I have never, in my life, met so many people offering vegetables to strangers.

I don't think an hour went by without my being offered the chance to buy mushrooms. By several different - and, if I may be frank, not the most sanitary-of-looking - vendors.
Don't get me wrong, I like mushrooms, I like mushrooms a lot (particularly with pasta), and I'm willing to pay for quality fungi, but I would call the prices they were asking truly extortionate.

I can only assume they were organic.

Actually, thinking of wandering vendors, there was another hairy man that approached me - actually there were several, but that's another story, most of them just wanted to talk about my aura (one-track minds...) - shaking a small medicine bag and saying, in a semi-secretive manner; "Cash for poetry! Would you like some gelatin?"
Or at least I think that's what he was saying.
I don't know if the gelatin question Was the poetry... I didn't think of that.
I didn't give him any money. Not at his performance rates.
If that was the poem, I'd say he was over-charging.

Then again, he might just have been trying to sell me drugs.
In which case I missed out.

That always used to happen in Manchester, there was a man that would wander around the pub we went to, week after week coming up to us, and hoarsely wispering "'Ey! Have you got any wool? Would you like some?" I spent two years shooing him away and looking at him like he was nuts before I realised he was a drug dealer.
And then he shot me.

He didn't really.
I just didn't know how else to end that story.

Monday, July 01, 2002 |

Of all the things I was expecting from the Glastonbury festival, I wasn't expecting to fall in love.

I wasn't expecting to fall in love, I wasn't expecting kisses, I wasn't expecting gazing and shy but happy smiles.
I wasn't expecting eyes meeting across crowded fields, I wasn't expecting fireworks in the chest, butterflies in the stomach, I wasn't expecting to fall in love.

I wasn't expecting to fall in love at Glastonbury. I wasn't expecting moments of sudden and beautiful revelation, empathy, kinship.

I wasn't expecting the ideal man to just wander into my arms, I wasn't expecting my knight in armour, I wasn't expecting my seeming soulmate.
Of all the things I was expecting from the festival, I wasn't expecting to fall in love.

And you know? I think that's a good thing.
I think it's a good thing I wasn't expecting those things to happen.



Because I would have come back very disappointed.
And I do hate to be disappointed. Although after all this time, I admit, I've come to expect it...

Monday, July 01, 2002 |

I smell.
But I'm happy.
I'm happy, but I do smell.
I'm happy in a smelly kind of way.
Or smelly in a happy kind of way.
I'm not sure if I'm happy to be back, right enough.

I wish I could state with conviction that being back is the happy thing.
I really wish I could.
But no. Being away was the happy thing. And the smelly thing. And now I'm back, and I'm worried that I might lose all that. Not the smell, like, I'm quite pleased to lose that, the happy....oh fuck it, I'll go and have a shower.

Then We'll see if the 'happy' is held in the smell...

Monday, July 01, 2002 |