The armpit of the year (and other thoughts)....

I heard that quote on a radio show and to my mind it perfectly describes the days between Christmas and New Year.   I think everyone feels the malaise to a certain degree, the anti-climax of the big day, too much time with the family, enforced jollity, too much time to think, lists of chores planned when there was no time are now neglected because who can be bothered due to general mental exhaustion.  I have also been suffering over the last few days from post Madmen (series 5) blues.  If it isn't already, it should be a recognised syndrome.  This series isn't for the faint-hearted and although sharp, sleek, brilliantly well written and executed drama, it is sometimes cynical but compelling (and masochistic) viewing for anyone who has spent their working life in offices. 

Having said that I do want to be Joan when I grow up....  I bet the actress that plays her would like to as well as she gets the best lines and really does try to help in her own way. 

28th Dec - the last episodes of series five were followed by a fitful night after drinking and eating late again, I went for an early morning walk which turned into an even longer walk and I was tired and emotional and feeling the withdrawal effects of the MM world.  However, after a coffee and read of the paper I began to feel better and it was due in no small part to reading my stars.  Instead of the usual fare, the compiler took a holiday and put in a quote from a notable person with the same star sign.  Mine was from Mother Teresa and I felt quite humbled and instantly better after reading it ...

"People are often unreasonable and self-centred.  Forgive them anyway.  If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyway.  If you find happiness, people may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.  The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.  Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.  Give your best anyway."

Then out of interest, and as I suppose if any of this star business has any basis and is responsible for my psyche, I read my Dad's and then my Mum's too - yin & yang but the two sides of my personality are perfectly summed up....

"Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence... you get to take yourself oh so very seriously.  The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe." Tom Robbins

"On planet Earth, man has always assumed he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars etc - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.  Conversely, the dolphins had always believed they were far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons." Douglas Adams

For good measure, I read my beloveds ...

"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and give thanks continuously.  And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.  There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behaviour, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us" Ralph Waldo Emerson

All very sound advice and I want to take heed.  So far I am on day 3 of the new me...... despite it all, I am doing right anyway.  The Mayans might be right and the end of 2012 could indicate a new era.  It is unlikely to be all about me but you never know and perhaps the Universe will give me a hand to think more like a dolphin and get things into the proper proportion!

Run rabbit run....

Now I, like most adults, get the occasional urge to indulge in a little DIY, precision (no fuss-no frills) pleasure.  During these rare interludes, I have a pleasant half hour of me me me time and my pal Roger the Rabbit makes a guest appearance.  He is nothing special to look at but he does have his uses - even sans his AA's. 

I remember the occasion when Roger came into my life for the first time.  I was having lunch for some great gal pals, Amalie, Ellie and Carol and inevitably because of the company I was with, the conversation turned to bedroom gymnastics.  It then transpired that they sometimes employed plastic aids and they were as one, horrified when I told them that not only did I not use them, I had none.  Now I can't recall if my colleagues had imbibed over our repast (I don't think we did) but they all insisted that post-lunch, we go (they practically marched me) to the High Street purveyor of toys and dress ups for big boys and girls.  Well what a selection.  I choose Roger as he was modest in price (and size.....!) had the basic functions and at that time, the very popular TV series featuring Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and of course, Charlotte had recently aired an advert for Roger and his friends - the alternative adventures of Brier Rabbit!  The funniest thing was that after making my selection and going to the counter, the check out chick asked me 1) if I would like some special cleansing wipes for Roger and 2) did I want to super-size it.....  my eyes watered as I politely declined and handed over my credit card.

The girls knew that my partner was away that weekend and warmly congratulated me in anticipation of my introductory session with my new friend (the honeymoon if you will..)  I remember feeling a little uncomfortable (no pun intended) as I opened my present - almost like I was cheating and with trepidation, experimented with the various buttons and speeds.  I recall many minutes of feminine rushes and I was a convert.  Thank you ladies.

I let the AA's wear down over the following months and Roger came out to play less and less but nonetheless he stays on my Christmas card list.  We had a visit just recently when the stars aligned and after his post session cleanse I went to put him back in his downtime space but must have got distracted by something and rather than putting him back, I just put him nearby.  I then promptly forgot all about it and Roger stood upon the shelf loud & proud and was no doubt enjoying his freedom for a few hours.   Fast forward to that evening when my partner returned from work and I was sitting watching telly with the cat on my lap having a brush.  He went into Roger's room to alight his work accouterments and then turned around to put some loose change into the container and some Kerr-ching cash into this slush fund which was on the same shelving unit as Roger, who was no doubt winking at him, sending out a silent Ha-Ha - channelling Nelson in the Simpsons.  I do wonder what went through my partner's mind but I had admitted to owning Roger previously but I guess it was a case of our of sight out of mind.  So he picked Roger up and brought him out to me to ask why he was on display...... I think I kept a straight face and said I was clearing out my drawers (whoop whoop) and had thought to throw him away.  So little loyalty on my part!  I said he could have Roger if he wanted to and I got a no thanks in response and he put Roger back where he found him.  As I type Roger is still standing loud and proud on the shelving unit but it has been a few days of freedom and I think he should go back in his box now.  Nite nite Roger, I don't plan to throw you away like that kid in Toy Story but I cannot say when I will get you out to play again, you may be in hibernation for a while. 

Thats all folks but do treat yourself to some new AA's soon!

 

Bread and Circuses

Here I am again,4.40am and awake once more because of over-indulgence, this time wine and bread (linseed and soy toast spread thick with butter) as I was on the red and 2/3rds into the bottle, I couldn't be bothered to cook.  In fact I had earmarked a main course salad but that was not appealing once I had started boozing and so I think I had about four-rounds, and fairly late at night....

I have eaten bread as far back as I can remember, the fresher, the better and I love it, but along with wine it is becoming a dangerous and increasing indigestible combo.  I do crave carbs though when drinking - the two substances seem to go hand in hand but as I type, I feel pretty horrible again and why..... they both have to go. 

REMEMBER THIS FEELING

Let's talk about ...

... I can't complete that song title as someone typing in that 3-letter word would no doubt be extremely disappointed by the search result should they be tempted to click on this page, particularly as I plan to unburden myself about my feelings earlier today and I wouldn't want to burst any young person's bubble, either if they are in the first flushes of lust with a partner or worst still, yearning for an adult life they expect will be theirs at some point (surely) based on the evidence of their immediate surroundings but mostly because of the brainwashing by society - the media.  I particularly loved music growing up, I also love to sing and so was especially attracted to female singers from Suzi Q, the gals in a very famous Swedish outfit to music in the films my mum loved to watch - Doris and certainly, like your average sponge I was searching for clues and picked up a heap of mixed messages in my formative years - mostly 1940's, 50's & 60's American mix of aspiration and social engineering from the telly and British post-Victorian peasant values from my modern nuclear family.

However I think the musical touchstones in my 'yearning days' were of their (my) time,  Amoureuse by Kiki (74) and Seventeen by Janis (75) as I was fast approaching puberty.  I wonder if I would have the same attitude to this subject if I hadn't been so profoundly effected by these songs at such a tender age?  I remember the first time I heard Amoureuse, we lived in a small block of flats and I heard it coming from an open window in the block opposite, the net curtain was blowing in the breeze and it was played a few times in a row and loud enough for me to make out the words.  I wondered if the girl has just broken up with her boyfriend or just - yearniing - I know for the first time I was.  A strong memory, within a year, was on a hot summer's day when my family were at the beach and they were driving my crazy (as usual) and I wanted to be alone. I managed to get permission to go home alone, it wasn't far, because I wanted to play my new record and fantasize about being older and in control of my life - I played Summer Love Sensation over and over again and wondered when I would get to be a bleach blond surf bum's girl, like the ones I saw frolicing (without their parents) at every beach we went to.  The members of the band singing were almost the exact physical opposites but at the time I didn't see the irony or care - it held great promise that song and I couldn't wait!!!


In fact that word has always struck me as extremely powerful, so small a container for such huge and mixed emotions.  Out of interest I typed it into Google images to see what might come up, surprise surprise it is mainly represented by illustrations of naked women, realistic and abstract - a reward for any stray reader who was expecting a little flesh!  The definition is equally strong but mixed:

Have an intense feeling of loss or lack and longing for something. A persistent, often wistful or melancholy desire; a longing. Be filled with compassion or warm feeling.  Is yearning the same as passion (I dare not type that word into Google images!!!)

Everyone talks about passion in terms of what drives them, I have noted mostly in connexion with food related businesses.  I can't honestly say I feel it towards anything - I feel as though my life has a low libido.  I feel another definition coming on, just to be sure:  the psychic energy or instinctual drive associated with sexual desire, pleasure, or creativity.; (in psychoanalysis) the instinctual drives of the id; and lustful desire or striving.  Yeah - I was pretty much right!

When looking at the Y word images, I came across Maslow's famous diagram, but when I clicked on the picture to remind myself of the actual words, it was part of a site called Work the System and his post was titled 'The Yearning', this is the crux for me:

Everyone yearns for something better yet very few follow a focused plan to get there. Truth is, the majority of people just ride along and take what comes, hoping for the best. They forgo methodical efforts to create a better life and instead, fritter away their inner passion with immediate-gratification diversions.

Of course I already know that this frustration is the root cause of my lack of self-esteem, over indulging and so not being the best that I can be.  I heard something else profound fairly recently when went along the lines of - gain satisfaction from what you do or achieve and not merely from what you put in your mouth.  I paraphrase but it is the same as the other guy's rap.  I keep getting sent such messages, an esoteric acquaintance of mine would say it was the Universe sending me help.  Perhaps she is right.

Of course the above conluding message had to be in pink!!! This is not the missive I set out to write but then they rarely are.  To bed as - to quote Scarlet "... tomorrow is another day!"

Farewell fries and garlic mayo!

Oh now, as usual I was trying to think of a title to sum up how I feel and so begin my post (at 4.17am on a Saturday morning wide awake again) and by calling it garlic mayo and not aioli, I am immediately taken back to my old stomping ground of the mid-late 1990's, coming out of a suburban nightclub with friends, staggering to the kebab shop up the road - all in various states of intoxication and myself and a great fellow non-meat eating mate, getting not a donor or burger but chips and garlic sauce...... then we would all slowly make our way up a fairly steep hill to our shared house - which sober would have taken 15 minutes but in this state, sometimes the best part of an hour.  In the process we all no doubt got up to all manner of 3am shenanigans (not least dropping half said chips) - our regular arrival time may have indeed been 4.17am!  I am sure the hangovers must have been fairly epic on occasion but I have fond memories of that nightclub, the kebab shop (that hideous neon light that made people who had looked great in the dim club lighting only ten minutes earlier transformed into discombobulated zombies - not least the gals with their grey faces, make-up sliding due south...)

I don't often eat chips and garlic sauce anymore - indeed not even garlic mayo as where I live now it is a sophisticated food obsessed city and one only consumes Aioli which it transpires, is Spanish and not of French origin and is traditionally an accompaniment to seafood - much like the British Tartare which it turns out is French and was developed to be one of the piquant (great word) sauces to accompany Steak Tartare when it was first fashionable in 19th century France but then further research shows that it was a Roman dish and a recipe appears in an Elizabethan cookbook - "Sauce for hens or Pullets to prepare them to roast...Then for the sauce take the yolks of six hard eggs minced small, put to them white-wine, or wine vinegar, butter, and the gravy the of the hen, juice of orange, pepper, salt, and if you please add thereto mustard." - Accomplist Cook, Robert May [1685] although that was actually published in the last year of Charles' II reign. 

Blimey - how did I get here in my musings!  Frankly when I woke up after a few hours fitful sleep around 4am, I still felt like I was digesting and reflected on my diet today and how it made me feel:

Breakfast 8.45am - roll oats porridge, made with water, almond milk and salt - I felt full and fairly uncomfortable until at least noon

12.45am - black coffee followed by two spinach, feta and parsley Boreks.  These come out of the oven fresh and delicious, a fairly simple Turkish street food that is very reasonable and I enjoy every time I allow myself (always two although one is probably enough!) but you have to let them cool down as they can be nuclear on the first bite out of the oven - although not in the vicinity of the Mc Apple Turnover!  So ate these around 1.45pm but had no indigestion.

2.45pm - another black coffee followed by a couple of litres of water.

5.45pm - the first of about 5 red wines. I was conscious that I had to eat to soak up the booze as I was determined not to have a full-on [Christmas/end of work for 2012] session and wake up tomorrow with a hideous hangover.... and so I ordered the first of our pub (although well cooked) junk food - you guessed it chips with aioli man, I can still taste them and they seem to be lodged in my gullet!  This was then followed by another order some 30 minutes later (there were three of us, Sonya and her friend Natasha drinking) they arrived a fair while after S had ordered them and so when ordering the next round of wines, she chased the order up and meanwhile the waitress bought not just portion two of the chippies but also had a delicious looking, fresh from the oven thin crust cheese and tomato pizza - I don't think we actually ordered it but the pub was packed and she seemed convinced it was ordered against our number and so being the greedy guts I am, accepted it - Sonya may have conceivably ordered it - so we gobbled it down very quickly and it was also delicious.   Followed by eat another basket of chips and aioli, we were doing extremely well for freebies and of course - no question - we accepted and ate them. 

So the triology of delights - red wine, chips with aioli and pizza Margarita.  Food of the Gods - what is it about these substances....... what a loaded question - when I was fifteen this would have been my choice of meal every night if I had earned any money - except the red wine would have been swapped for chocolate milkshake!

However when I extracted myself from the party, got on a train and went home (relatively sober).  All I could smell was aioli it must have repulsed the guy in the seat next to me - oh well I have sat next to worse I suppose - but when I got home I didn't carry on drinking or eating I just had pints of soda water and lime cordial over ice as I had terrific indigestion looming.  I managed to get to sleep but now here I am at almost 6am and still digesting.  I am not sure I can say goodbye to pizza forever - as it is just such a classic and I am hoping to visit Italy next year..... but I really do think that I have overdosed on garlic mayo aka aioli and fries for a good long while.  BURP....

Your Ego is writing cheques your body cannot cash!

I read this quote on Saturday whilst browsing through the movie guide of a weekend 'lifestyle' section.  Apparently it is a quote from Top Gun.... I have seen the movie a few times over the years (but not for a dogs age) and I remember it being quintessentially 80's - like shoulder pads, Filofax diaries, Perrier water and Thatcher, the very popular theme tune by Berlin (where are they now) even makes me cringe a little.  Here is a little taste of Top Gun, not Perrier! 

I love the way my mind works when I see or hear something that resonates and then that coupled with not sleeping or having a particularly vexing day, I am compelled to spin my next missive here to relieve the pressure of the endless internal dialogue.

From 4.45am musings and anxieties now to memories of Top Gun, 1986 (blimey I was 22) and a one night stand at a party, circa 1992, with a Tom Cruise looky-likely.  Didn't fancy a second night stand (probably because he lived in the back end of beyond, dullsville place - I think it was Northampton and although I like some of his films, I have never found Tommy C sexy - but that bloke's features I can recall vividly and he probably got off with a lot of gals on the strength of his boatrace, sadly though in the mists of time, his name has not been retained.  In a nutshell, it was an OK encounter at a friend of a friends mediocre party when nothing better was on offer, but he failed to - wait for it - TAKE MY BREATH AWAY.  l expect the guy probably had a motorbike and pair of Ray Ban Aviators though, no doubt influenced by aforesaid movie and a Honda 125cc and pair of replica sunnies would have been easier to acquire than a fighter jet to complete his image and satisfy the ladies of Northampton's TC fantasies.  Come to think of it, I recall liking Kelly's image in the movie and although not directly inspired by her look, my hair would have been very similar in those days - although without the truckload of volumizing mousse!   I do however recall seeing or reading the behind the scenes making of Top Gun, it struck me as much more interesting than then actual film and again, typified the 80's.

As usual I digress, the point is I am becoming much more self-aware - as the evidence is forever mounting and so even I must accept - that my ego is and has been, no doubt for quite some time (perhaps since birth), issuing more than a few duds.  So what to do.  Just looked at a Top Gun 'then and now' image file and for all his issues, out of that line up, he looks by far in the best nick.  Poor, once beautiful, Val is bloated (and by all accounts very dull during interviews), Meg went on to feel very insecure in middle-age and had a famous face lift - although I can understand the pressure she must have been under and after her performance in When Harry Met Sally we forgive her everything.  Kelly and Tim look authentic.  But then I should give them all a break - I looked a hell of a lot better in 1986 - wow I have just done the math, it was made 26 years ago and I have squeezed in one hell of a lot of living between then and now myself and we all get the face (and body) we deserve.  So despite all of TC's subsequent highs and lows, he still works and looks damned fine for his age but I suspect he really works at it and with his pile can afford a little help here and there but still.... .  Is that the secret, should I channel TC, but without the Scientology, errr, input!