Playing House

Reduce yourself to nothing. Boil yourself down until you are nothing but eyes and ears. And a heart. And then re-assess the importance of things.

Meaning and value are what's important here. They say lessons repeat until they're learned. Well this is my daily lesson:

Here is as good as there.

I've played at being a housewife. A domestic goddess, a grown-up who sweeps the kitchen floor. Living alone allows for this kind of reinvention. I've played at being a well-heeled drunk. Luckily I was only playing. I enjoyed the pose of the lush: sleeping late, staggering up and down the stairs to stock up on Tesco discounted wine. Knocking back 2am mint tea, lukewarm and pointless, missing the yoga sessions which I always miss anyway, sobriety aside.

I flirted with drug abuse. But too many waking hours made me depressed. Being awake when all others are sleeping and I can obsess alone over the missing screw on my mailbox does little for my sense of worth. Couldn't a human hand fit in there? Couldn't they then easily turn the latch? Doesn't the postman know very well that it's loose and know very well that a single white female lives here alone, slightly saner and less tough than Jodie Foster. What's that? Oh, a pigeon fluttering busily on my roof. But what's that? It's the ventilation being rattled by the wind... isn't it? Given enough time in the dark and I will beat myself up so no one else has to.

Give myself a kicking for not renewing my driving licence photograph since it expired in 2009. Trip myself up with my lack of an NHS number. Oh God. Must register with a doctor. Must get a GP to discuss a few things. And what about this definitely-chipped bone in my elbow which should surely be more painful? Look at this stack of unread newspapers, building up along with the tidemark of my own guilt. I really should read up on what's happening in Libya. And what about Japan? Everyone's forgotten about them. And my Amnesty membership has lapsed. Must phone them and donate. And get internet. And fix the fucking washing machine so I can stop hand-washing or just buying new clothes whenever I run out – which I never will because I cant stop buying new clothes on a daily basis. At least the profits are going to charity. So prattles my inner monologue. While the other half goes 'Hmmm another cuppa tea/piece of chocolate/chicken/beer/line/cigarette/shag? Of course'.

Which is why it's better when I'm on a bicycle. Or a dancefloor. Or in a book. I can hypnotise myself with another activity, distract the child in my head for 5 minutes of peace.

Like most 21st century females, I have settled into an uncomfortable obsession with looking 'hot' or 'stylish' or 'cool' or 'clever'. When really, none of those things are related to how I look. I should be spending time nurturing feeling all of those things for good reason – like just having completed a really amazing short story.

So here it is...

The Journey From The Door to the Edge of Sanity.

'A trip of three steps down the palette to tap, at three on the teeth.'

I am continually searching for meaning. Of course I am. Aren't you? And I cannot find it on a screen. Who cares if 'Kylie Goes 3d!' who cares about 'hot girls in tights?'

Too much information. Absolute Information Fucking Overload. My mind freezes like a PC when I just click click click refresh. Anything but refreshed. Click through rates, traffic, but the traffic is actually a sedentary person looking for meaning, sitting frozen in a chair looking for meaning. They will not find it here. Leave! You will not find it here.

Check out my own lack of meaning. Check out my unbridled confusion. I want to return to the 70s when everything was on vinyl and you had to go to a library to look up a fact. Really. I am not joking.

And the fact that this is the first uninterrupted 26 minutes I have spent all day is proof of the scourge of the internet. The erosion of my concentration is proportionate to the amount of windows I have open, multiplied by my number of facebook friends and cubed according to how near a Friday (or Monday) my current situ actually is.

Fucking heck – life with your face in a book and a honeyed tea on your table is so much sweeter. So much slower.

A return. A hark back. I'm off. Off to the country hopefully to slow things down a little.

I wonder what I would have been like if I'd never encountered the internet. Or hair dye. Or rizlas.

If I'd been a 70s child would I have grown my pit hair because it was a political statement?

If I had a clue.

The Things I Lost In The Fire

So I'm back. And life goes on. Untouched, it feels, by the great leaps made by our hearts, our heads as we journeyed around South America.

Typing from a London desk, a place I thought of often, too often, and at this very moment the rawness of the whole four months feels completely absent. Etched nowhere. Why is the grass always greener?

Why do we live our lives in the places we can never venture: the past, and the future?

I wish I had written to my future self, posted a few notes for use at a later date. For reference when I was on the road. It could have prevented me dreaming of home when I was exactly where I needed to be. The notes I write to my current self, pointlessly, are 'You wanted all this. You came back. You missed your life. You pined for the missing life...' And now that I am indeed back, I can't negate the returning desperation to escape.

It is not quenched. It has not abated. Does everyone feel this??????

So, when people say 'how does it feel to be back?' And I smile and say 'good' it is not really a lie...but it felt better not to be back. Or at least it does right now. As i sit and dream and try to recall just how it FELT to be so far away, and I find I can only conjure the London me. Deskbound, dutybound. Being home feels normal. I feel abnormal. I have returned to my reality. And the trip was a complete unreality. Like hitting dry sand at speed. It feels like I need to lie in a room with the windows open to breathe and relive everything. Instead of banking more memories, more time, more life; I just need things to STOP for a second.

Seven Days Seven Nights

Riding the Buenos Aires rollarcoaster: hold on, or get the hell off.

Miguel reclines idly on the Sunday morning sofa, smoke falling from his lips. Sunday is San Telmo´s day. The day when the whole of Avenida Dispensa brims with market traders, musicians, tango dancers, BA´s feather and leather crew. The sun shines on the busy cobbled streets which cobweb away from Plaza Dorrego. The vibe is ostensibly chilled. Over in Palermo it´s much the same thing. Market buzz, yuppies drinking Quilmes and cafe con leche, shopping, flirting. It´s very ´Brick Lane on a Sunday´ over there.

Miguel has been our nominal party catalyst during our week long stay at Hostel Tango. The first thing we did when we arrived in Buenos Aires was get robbed. The fury is dispersing, evaporating, leaving nothing but a bitter smile and a pile of fresh lessons to sift through. Everything of value was taken. Including our passports. It has taught us many things. The umimportance of possessions, the vitality of love. Resiliance and positivity are more valuable than MP3 players and laptops, travel light - or it will be forced upon you. (The first lesson was that if you get covered in white paint in South America, DO NOT STOP.) So, with only our clothes and our marbles, we have taken the Buenos Aires bull by the horns and given it a shake down.

The way of things here is to eat at midnight. Don´t even think of going to a club until 2am. Club 69 may well be perfect(except, of course, the name). Not too hot, not too cold, the beats massage your ribcage at just the right volume. It is, to me, what a movie club scene would look like when the hero wants to let loose. These heroes need to let their hair down. The boys spinning and flipping on stage are hot, the girls shaking their asses at them are hot. Everyone is hot and happy and drinking well-made 25 pesos cocktails. Miguel - a random Spaniard who has made it his mission to provide us night-life assistance - pushes us towards the VIP area, bottle of champagne in hand. The broad-shouldered bouncer nods sternly. ´Buenos chica´. The guys here look at me like they´ve never seen freckles before. One of the first phrases i have learnt is ´el esta mi novio´. That is my boyfriend. This doesn´t actually deter any of them.

Tango, the most smouldering, romantic dance I have ever seen, is everywhere. We see a 16 strong troup in a posh part of town. They finish the show by singing ´Don´t cry for me Argentina´. Cheesy and perfect. We went to the Recoleta Cemetary. We saw the crowds by Evita´s grave and sang her songs all the way round the labyrinth of spires and mausoleums.

We have learnt to love Buenos Aires again, despite her flaws. Maybe the flaws were ours, and we were being rough-hewed, moulded so that we fit rather than sticking out like the sore thumbs we really are. Today we cut loose the bowlines and head to Patagonia. Breeding whales and welsh speakers await us. Da Iawn.

Onwards and upwards.

No Fate But What We Make

There has been a seismic shift somewhere. A pebble has become dislodged, throwing huge rock faces into freefall. Tectonic plates are grinding, groaning as they move towards new destinies. The way the dice will fall is completely uncertain.

After lots of talk, most of it typed and hurriedly read between getting on with our real lives, we have been told that the leaving date still stands. 'Proceed' is the message from the top. Get out. So this leaves us in a bit of a jam. We have a factory full of stuff, a gleaming factory i might add, and 9 people with no where to go. And that's just our place. Including the other warehouses there is a total of 23 people being displaced. All with mountains of stuff strewn across the massive spaces we have gotten so used to calling home.

We have 15 days until that date. And in between now and then we have a small matter of Glastonbury festival to contend with. Some of us are building and running venues. Others are project managing areas. All of us are going. And working on many other projects in between. It's masochistic in its ridiculousness. No one is making steps to move just yet - as we have nowhere to go. It's almost hilarious. Except that it's not.

I am frozen by the immensity of all we have to do. I should set to and start packing, except that I can't. The urgency still isn't there. Why? Maybe it will take a gang of shadowy, suited figures to be looming. There remains a small part of me that suspects it will come to nothing. Will it even seem real when we are lifting boxes? Will it take glimpsing another security firm wandering around the yard, sitting on our decks-chairs, to fully absorb the loss of our home of three years?

Birthdays are Brilliant

29. 29. It's only the beginning says my mum.

Sugar House Gang

Dreams have been coming true left, right and centre for the people of Bow. This small and unlikely pocket of young creatives who have infested a dark corner of industrial East London have been allowed (somehow - thanks to a great loophole in the fabric of The Way Things Are) the freedom to do as they please, have been bestowed space and time and each other. And the results are simply wonderful to see.

But with the onset of another year came news that we may have to relocate. Will we won't we? Does this mean the Sugar House Chapter closes or can we replicate, or develop, the community we have created elsewhere?

Answers on a postcard please.

The Unemployment Files

My employment history is pretty much a disgrace. The common thread running between the brief stints of loathing and plotting of revolt I have been paid to contribute to various establishments over the years is that most of them cottoned on pretty quickly to what a distinctly awful choice had been made - or I could take it no more - and the whole sorry agreement was kicked to the curb (cue drinking and reassertion of my euphoric unemployment status).

The speediest example of this process was my regrettable employment by Spar. Now I don't even know if Spar are still going or have been engulfed by the advancing rash of Tesco Express', but back in 1996 I needed fast cash to buy awful, tyre-laden hash and the foolhardy manager at Spar believed me when I said I'd make 'an excellent addition to her team'. Pity the fool.

One Sunday I was idly plotting revolt and scribbling away the hours as I 'manned' the till, writing a letter to my best friend Ruth about a boy who had just been in to visit. The letter was peppered with casual insults about my bitter and decrepit co-workers and denigrated the company in general, contrasting its impotence with my greatness and absolute zero potential to give a fuck about what happened to it or any of its contents.

My shift grindingly finished and real time commenced as I skipped out the door to spend my wages on terrible hash and strongbow. A few days later, my boss called me in for 'a chat'. I experienced a smidgen of the sense of foreboding felt by a shoplifter who is just about to be caught or the sinking feeling you get when you realise the person you've been shouting about is actually behind you.

As I walked into the office I saw the dried up old she-demon was holding what looked like a photocopy of my letter. 'Is this your writing?' Not waiting for an answer she pushed on: 'I had to read this to the area manager THREE TIMES'. Steam was rising, I could smell sulpher. 'He just couldn't believe it was written by an employee of ours' she spat as I hovered by the door.

Turns out I'd penned my letter whilst leaning on the credit card notes, forever immortalizing it about 500 times onto the waiting sheets below... Everything happens for a reason.

I wish I'd had the courage to tell her to get fucked after she'd thoroughly digested the contents of my wittily scribed note but I said nothing. 'GET OUT.' She screamed 'And NEVER come back'.

Easier said than done when your town has one shop. 12 years on and she still recognizes me as I skulkingly pop in each Christmas to pick up my gran's Daily Mail, my parent's Observer. She still knows who I am. And when I'm there I'm a guilty 16 year old all over again.

The End Of Our Home Is Nigh...

OK. So we discovered last Monday that the building we call home, the Sugar Factory which has been pimped beyond recognition and houses a deviant and incessant repertoire of rolling parties, has been repossessed by the eminently popular and rabid maintainer of morals and business sense that is the Royal Bank Of Scotland.

A couple of cronies came round, handed my housemate a thick wadge of typed declarations, asked him who, what, why, where, when and were promptly thrown out after a flat refusal by said mate to tell them anything. It was conducted very courteously by both parties fortunately - the last thing they want to do is alienate us and force us into a Section 6 situation.

So this throws us into rather a puzzling quandary.

The economy's fucked, so no one will be doing any developing anytime soon. And RBS will have the same needs as our former landlords regarding building protection...won't they? Fricking hope so or it's all over kids, it's ALL over.

Today Is

Butterflies are flying round a big, echoey, fluttery expanse of bubbling excitement.

Quite nervous today as well as being mega-excited.

It's my 28th birthday. This day everyone must unsurely recount what has gone before? Chart the incline away from youth...

(It must be said before you continue reading that this post is of a vastly personal nature and you will not know WTF I'm talking about unless you know me. If you don't then I rejoice, for someone who does not know me has had the immense good fortune to stumble across my blog. If you do, then lucky you, you've been chosen as one of the few who I let in to the secrets of Foxy Loxy.)

Onwards with the quest to remember....Last year, The Boy and The Cubs cooked me dinner. Then I had a big dinner party with some of my favourite friends.

The year before it was a beach party in that weird bar on Boscombe front followed by an after-party in a big, empty house. Before that, there was a BIG ol' beach party followed by mini-golf.

Previous to that, a garden party at the beautiful Chine, a Summer Ball, followed by a beach party and sunny sex in an ants nest on the edge of a cliff. No jokes.

The year before that was The Bays in Consortium I think....hundreds of frisbies on the beach, Hawaiian blues from King Bong. Uh-oh.

Before that I've lost count. Can't think of any besides a garden party BBQ in Wales, and before that (my 17th) a drunken, 2 day free party near Shrewsbury with Brendan by my side.

For the record, I realise that all of them have been completely and utterly debauched. That, as I've come to say far too regularly, is evidently how I roll...

Maybe this year will be the last year of lashing myself quite so heavily. Who knows? Something in me is vaguely twitching for change, or at least a cleaner way of life. But the excitable techno-loving dancefloor part - which will always be alive and kicking it somewhere - keeps me wanting more and more.

As I approach 30 I'm getting more jittery. Less stable? There is nothing calm about the life I lead. And there is certainly a craving going on deep down to retreat to the country, to a house with a big garden and ivy on the walls and wild roses and maybe a baby or two....

Live in the now has always been my motto - so why can't I take my own advice?

Tomorrow Maybe, Today IS.

Buzz

Today the vibrator arrived at Spoonfed HQ – my place of work. An anonymous package that was delivered straight to my desk with a hand-written note: ‘Because everyone knows you love a massive cock’. All of my girlfriends laughed and then asked who it was from. My male friends laughed and said they wish they’d thought of it. My boyfriend is ‘worried’. I’m amused, perplexed, secretly flattered and now slightly worried also.

Pain Pain Pain

I have to confess to thoroughly looking forward to my visit to A & E this week. I always see something morbidly interesting and, as previously discovered, it has a tendency to reaffirm how easy and painless my life is - or was pre-accident.

This week it's a rasta whose metal plate has broken inside his wrist. *Toes curl, face adopts position of fear and lemon sucking qualities* Double ouch.

The poor guy is holding his misshapen looking arm out to the stony faced receptionist going: 'I can't work maaan. Me hand is totally useless maaan'.

When it is my turn to be seen I am told that the bone has healed. This is as I'd expected - for the past two weeks friends have had to prevent me from cutting the damn thing off myself. I inadvertently soaked it in the shower and since then it's been cloying and stinking, my peeling skin flaking off in scales and scattering over my keyboard.

The doc tells me it's time to be free of the plaster and cuts it off. This is the moment I've been waiting for. Excitedly, like an eager young virgin, I tear at the bandage, fingers fumbling to hastily liberate my wasted little arm.

And as soon as it's free I feel like it should be back in. It's so SMALL and frail - it feels like if I lifted a tea cup it may just break off.

I gingerly uncurl my wrist from it's limp-handed position...it crunchingly opens joint by joint, reluctant to the last.

The Doc asks me to open my hand as if to receive a low five, keeping my elbow firmly tucked to my side. Oh fuckety ow. He makes the prayer position and bids me to imitate. Fucking hell.

I cannot do much with this so called hand. It hurts to lie in bed. I still cannot properly make the prayer position, and any high fives which come my may have to be received with a grimace.

It's totally fucking useless maan.