I just looked out of my window at work to see a group of office workers in the street, wearing santa hats and breakdancing on pogo sticks to Jump Around. You couldn't! Make! It! Up!
What are Sunday afternoons for if not mooching around complaining I'm bored, taking photos of the cat looking grumpy, lying on the floor listening to Nick Drake and finally attempting to tidy my room? I've dumped the contents of my cupboard all over the floor but have got distracted by my Big Box Of Paraphernalia. "Inspired" by LemonSquash, I thought I'd blog what I found within:
-Quentin Crisp’s film reviews, one of which includes the line “Now we know what Mr Travolta has been up to. Mr Travolta has been eating”; - a local paper story about a springer spaniel who had 12 large stones removed from his stomach. There is a photo of him looking ashamed, captioned “You could shake him around him and he sounded like a bag of marbles”; - Lioness Adopts Another Antelope. “Theories to explain the phenomenon include: Kamuniak is colour-blind; Kamuniak wants to be a vegetarian; Kamuniak wants to be loved.”
-mobile phone bingo, devised on a train to Coventry. Points are awarded for “I’m on a train”, “I’m outside Milton fucking Keynes” and “Is Dave there?”
- letters from a friend in an eating disorder clinic, with increasingly insistent demands to send train times so she could run away. They stop suddenly;
- a card saying goodbye, a card so devastatingly sad it makes me weep if I even glance at the words. I have blue-tacked it shut;
-rules written on a train on the way to an Elliott Smith gig with a boy, all of them gleefully broken and danced on within the month, all except the last which we both agreed was most important;
-recipes my mum wrote for me before I went to uni, including “Omelette” and “Rice”
-a book of newspaper clippings that amuse me. Among them:
There is just no way I can have a second blog. Although... it is mighty fine over here...
If I could have any job at all, it would be obituary writer. I love the idea of crafting a written full-stop to someone’s life; a creative, glorious celebration that revels in all that they were and did and could have been. The most successful writers are the ones who can pack ninety years into a handful of paragraphs. The very best obits slip past like poetry, like this one singled out by the Guardian:
“Graham Mason cooked Mediterranean food well, liked Piero della Francesca and Fidelio, choral evensong on the Third Programme and fireworks. With almost all his friends dead, he sat imprisoned by emphysema in his flat, with a cylinder of oxygen by his armchair and bottles of white wine by his elbow, looking out over the Thames, still very angry.”
What I love most, however, are the euphemisms. These are fading away in lieu of a new honesty, a willingness to present someone flaws and all and not gloss over the fact they were friendless/dull/a fascist. Some of the classics, however, include:
convivial (alcoholic)
confirmed bachelor (gay as sticks); fun-loving bachelor (serial shagger)
colourful storyteller (liar)
unequivocal ladies’ man (borderline rapist)
there are no known survivors (she was a lesbian)
lively conversationalist (crashing bore)
My job involves writing about lawyers and law firms and, in an effort to make it more entertaining, we all throw in some euphemisms of our own. Some from my latest editorial are:
“vintage lawyer” – about to retire/die
“boutique firm” – teeny office staffed by one man and a dog every other Tuesday
“passionate communicator” – talks and talks and talks and talks….
“aggressive” – note: this is a good thing to be
“hands-on” – interfering
“less vocal than its rivals in shouting about its talents” – who are they?
“clients expressed doubts as to the strength of the team below senior level” – aside from one old bloke nearing retirement, the rest of the group needn’t bother turning up in the morning
And my favourite, dreamt up by a colleague: “Lawyer X is untroubled by the need to be loved.” Beautiful.
We also try to work in dictionary.com’s word of the day. Friday’s was avoirdupois and I did not let the fact I only vaguely know what it means hold me back. Law firm Y now “boast an environmental department of great avoirdupois.”
I’ll hand in my work on Monday morning and I know I’ll get an email from a subeditor by lunchtime. He’ll tell me to tone down my more fanciful leanings, that my writing is a little too colourful, that perhaps I could adopt a more straightforward approach? This is a euphemism for “shape up and fly right, Fox.”
I have been a vegetarian since I was 8, when I threw up after eating chicken nuggets and refused to eat them ever again. This removed the only source of meat from my diet. I didn’t realise the significance of this until some time later when I went to a friend’s house for tea. Her mum asked what I wanted to eat and my friend chipped in “ooh, mum, she’s a vegetarian!” Mother looked horrified as I nodded solemnly, rolling this new word around my head. “Vegetarian” meant a huge swathe of foodstuffs were immediately out of bounds. As a fussy eater, this was perfect.
This wasn’t like not eating cabbage or Jammy Dodgers or quiche – this was a decision I could claim was made on moral grounds that would mean no more painful teatimes in other people’s houses. I would wait until dinner was being cooked, then look regretful and say “oh, I’m sorry, I don’t eat meat” while reassuring them that potato waffles would be fine. I love my carbs.
The only break to my meat-free existence was on a French exchange in 1997 when my feeble “mais…je suis vegetarienne?” was ignored and I was served a nightly meat feast with the family. I chopped my meal into tiny pieces and pushed it round the plate, hopelessly mumbling “mmm, c’est délicieux!”. The worst one was rabbit wrapped in bacon. I ate a tiny piece because of the hunger but couldn’t physically manage any more. I filled up on bread, again. I refer to this period as ‘the dark time’ and prefer not to think about it.
I have always been ultra-picky when it comes to eating, often ruling out foods (or even food groups – goodbye protein!) on the basis of odd textures or colours. This has started to change only recently. I had my first satsuma last year and almost had to lie down after the first segment. It was the way the skin gently burst in my mouth and released an incredible rush of flavoursome orange juice – but you know this, dear reader. You are not a freak. Just to let you know: other things I haven’t eaten include pears, broccoli, lasagne and risotto. I’m seriously considering eating a pear soon. Soon.
Recently, I’ve been wondering why I’m vegetarian. I am embarrassed when people ask because I can’t say it’s because I care about the poor ickle piggy-wigs / it’s better for the environment / I feel healthier as a result. My reasons are vague and based in childhood wilfulness. So now, I’m thinking perhaps I should have a MEAT PARTY, to try all the things I’ve missed in one big, carnivorous binge. It will either be something I Never Speak Of Again or usher me into a whole new world of omnivorism.
My question is: where should I start? Is bacon, the perennial vegetarian tempter, too obvious? After 18 years of getting protein from nuts and chick peas, how should I break into the world of meat?
I’m not sure how to write this entry, or how I’ll come across, but hey – I can always delete it if it’s too angsty or navel-gazing or self-satisfied, because I’m not feeling any of those things. I’d like to try to express this if I can, if only so I can look back in a few months and see where I was at.
Paths are leading me to stillness and silence. This is happening in two distinct ways. Firstly: over the last few months, I’ve started training to be a Samaritan. Samaritans don’t offer advice or say "I know how you feel" or try to fix people. They actively listen, which can mean being quiet for minutes at a time.
It’s incredible how powerful it is to be still and silent with someone, to be comfortable without saying anything. You listen to the silence beyond words, to that which words are inadequate to express. You listen to the spaces in between and don’t offer advice or anecdotes. You just sit with someone, and wait for the moment they decide to speak. This is new, and scary, and amazing.
I have also started going to occasional Quaker meetings without really knowing why. They’re not held in a church and a man in a dress doesn’t talk about Jesus. This is why I like them. It’s silent worship, or"expectant waiting", where everyone sits in a circle in an ordinary room and only speaks if they feel somehow moved to do so. I do not go expecting a divine epiphany; the nearest I’ve come to a religious experience was at Glastonbury ’98 but that’s a whole other blog entry. I’m slightly concerned about finding God by stealth but have been reassured that you can be an atheist Quaker. But anyway, the experience is less like going to church and more like group therapy, only without having to stand up and share uncomfortable truths. The silence is strangely healing.
In both places, the sense of acceptance is staggering. I walk in and feel it is genuinely ok for me to just be myself. The Samaritan leaders stress how important this is; that a caller will tell instantly if we aren’t sincere and hang up. Both places have gone a long way to quieting the static in my head and the anger of my body. I am asked to just be. I am told that this is fine. I am overwhelmed by how this makes me feel.
My life has been timidly wandering this way for a while. Part of my Masters dissertation was on the inadequacy of language in expressing deep trauma (for the psychoanalysts among you, it was on the Lacanian Real: the state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Yes, I am a poncey English student). I am more at home when asked to listen rather than speak. The motto of Sussex University was "Be still and learn." I loved that.
I’m not sure if I’m incredibly happy or incredibly sad right now. I’m poised on the brink of something, anyway, and I’m thrilled and terrified. I will be still, and silent, and wait.
"So, what are we doing today?"
I flap my hands vaguely, gesticulating in a manner that I hope indicates "stylish and super sexy" in the international language of waving.
“Short.”
He raises an eyebrow. More information is needed.
“Like, erm, Shami Chakrabarti.”
“Sorry, I don’t know –”
“Ok, Natalie Portman then. She has lovely short hair.”
“Oh! I’ve just seen her in V For Vendetta.”
“Erm…”
In the end, I manage to convey that - the hair? It should be reduced. Essentially, I would very much like the volume of hair to be less. However: great care must be taken to ensure I don’t look like a Borstal boy.
He gets to work and somehow our excruciating small talk stumbles into blogging.
“You should start one of those blogs, you know,” he says. “I’ve read a few and there are some really good ones out there. It’s a good route into journalism, you know?”
I shrug noncommittally, grinning to myself as he trims the back of my hair. “Yeah, maybe, that’s not a bad idea.”
He puts his scissors down as he starts to laugh, so amusing is the thought that’s just occurred to him:
“You know, I bet some people would even blog about getting their hair cut!”
“Yeah! God. Some people are such losers.”
Some people really are.
When I finished my Masters, I joined a temping agency. I won’t name names (let’s just say it was OFF!CE @NGELS on W£ST STR<ET in BR1GHT0N – there, that’s subtle enough) and while there are some lovely agencies out there, my experience was not a happy one.
Temping will crush you if you let it. It is soul-destroying to be paid minimum wage and be expected to be enthusiastic about it. Louise, my agency contact, would ring and giddily announce “I’ve got a really interesting new job for you!” and I would have to say “ooh, what is it, I bet it’s great!”, knowing it would be yet another paper pushing task that a blind three-legged dog could do. There was one genuine interesting job – working as a bouncer at a casino – that I had to turn down because (a) I am too easy to kick to death to be a bouncer and (b) I’d have to have walked home at 3am every night.
Then there were the jobs that miraculously stopped existing – Louise would leave voicemails about them but have no recollection of this when I phoned minutes later. And the ones where the workplaces cancelled the day before I was due to start, which was agency code for “we found someone cheaper.” I ended up doing cold-calling by stealth. Louise was vague about the details when she sent me to a health club – turned out I had to call ex-members to persuade them to rejoin. Turned out I was so good at it I was offered a permanent job there. This was probably because I didn’t stick to the script (which featured lines like “I bet you miss our pool – it’s fantastic!” and other euphemisms for “you fat bastard, you must be a real bloater now you’re not exercising” ) but instead chatted to callers about how shit the gym was and then casually mentioned they could now join for free. Apparently my success rate was outstanding. I felt like scum.
The last straw came when working for a water company. The office was in a warehouse that smelled of petrol, meaning I spent each day making endless peppermint tea so I could inhale it and avoid puking. I was meant to be doing the catch-all task of “admin”, but the job mutated into lugging heavy boxes around while the office alpha males watched and laughed but didn’t offer to help. I ached every night. I hated it so much that having my wisdom teeth removed was a relief as I got a week off.