Atonement (as best I can)

Ok, I've had my say and now, inadequate as an account from me is likely to be, I would like to give airtime to the other side of the story - the good side (as I understand it) because for every mistake there must be a learning and an appreciation.

It begins and ends with my husband.  He has only ever wanted my happiness and has supported everything I tried, failed and re-tried to do here to achieve that.  I cannot and do not for one minute devalue what he has done. Recently we did finally discuss and agreed on the difference between needs and wants and how very subjective those things are.  I will forever be thankful for what he is doing to enable a return to the mothership as a collective.

I am proud and honoured that my daughter is not a stranger to her grandparents; that they have helped shape who she is and will grow up to be, playing as they did, two of the lead roles in her most formative years.  This is not something she will ever make up for with her equivalent family in Madrid - but I do not regret this.  In life there are often difficult choices.  This was one of mine.  Spending potentially the rest of our lives out of Canada is my husband's and for this it will take many reincarnations before my gratitude outweights the need to atone.

Mistakes, I've made a few...

Finally I get to talk openly not only about the fact that I will be returning to the UK before the Ontario snow melts but also about having wanted to go home for so long it had started to physically hurt. Home is London, England.

Lon-don; light of my life, fire of my loins...well maybe not quite that special but definitely so much more special than I ever gave it credit for before moving to 'The Tundra'.

When the idea of coming to Canada emerged, and I really can’t remember how or when exactly that was, I do however remember embracing it with the enthusiasm and openness of a jolly and adventurous type - the person I am but haven't been in contact with since landing here on October 2nd, 2007 (I believe she is still somewhere in the customs hall of Pearson Airport). I saw it as an opportunity to give my daughter something precious - family - extended at that, given that I'm the only Conde left in the UK. But I realise now that one Conde is more than enough and besides - define Family. Define life. Note to self - it's very very subjective.

Did I fail to do the proper research into what moving continents would entail? Yes, I did. Guilty as charged and caught bang to rights. Certainly in that sense I got what I deserved. That's karma for you. And how. And for so much more than just failing to carry out a couple of background searches but I have been duly spanked and more determined than ever to make up for lost time.

Had I really investigated the move I might have anticipated the crippling loneliness of knowing no-one, the perpetual boredom of suburban life and the cultural malnutrition of smallville. See, for someone who had the Victoria & Albert Museum on her doorstep - the Old Post House in Oakville was not really going to cut it for something to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Result: the almost complete loss of social graces and will to live. The 'idyll' of a house on a tree-lined street with a drive and a backyard turned into nothing more than an emotional prison with an anti-recreation yard in which to rock back and forth like a caged animal which I have to admit I found myself doing on more than one occasion.

I should have looked into the possible outcomes of this move but I didn't, but to be honest had I done so and consequently seen what it was going to be like (e.g. stupidly cold country, moving to the isolation of the back of beyond and zero career prospects)... well, let's say not only would I not have come I would have taken Canada off my Christmas card list altogether.

I know there are some who will think me a gargantuan and selfish flake but I beg to differ and ultimately I've suffered enough: I don't care what anyone thinks.

I didn't expect the transition to be a walk in the park - I also didn't expect it to be a vertical hike up the K2 either. In the end, I would say coming to smalltown Canada turned out to be a bit like childbirth in that had I'd known how painful it was all going to be, I wouldn't have dared.

So fast forward to the moment I find myself in an absurd Stepford Wife situation (without the social circle) trapped in a nightmarish cycle of waking up alone, going to bed alone and spending pretty much every minute in-between....that's right alone, I do eventually prise myself out of the jaws of the black dog and set about trying to make the best of an abysmal situation. Not easy. But I decide to find a job and then I get a job, - but we all know what happens there. When you're heart isn't in it - it's going to show and it did.

So now, mutually resentful, my marriage hanging on by a thread's thread, I'm also mad and desperate when I find Yoga...or Yoga finds me. You know the rest. I found myself in the journey that is Yoga and realised - nothing is going to change my world but I first need to make it a world I want to remain unchanged.

As I cogitate over the last 2 plus years here, I do need to call out a few diamonds that kept the path of sanity visible. My mother in law - a true friend; my daughter - my best friend; my editor pal - the soul of discreet compassion - a kindred spirit. I want to also say my husband but I last saw him on the banks of the Mekong River and I'm hoping to bump into him again in the near future - though I do tip my hat at the guy who is standing in for him for persevering - I know it has not been easy.

And now, as is so wisely provided in the world of retail, I would like a refund please.

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas...

...if only Canada were so lucky.

Let me step away for a moment now from the world of mystical union a.k.a Yoga; While it plays a very important part in my search for enlightenment (of which a long and winding road remains) I must now turn my attentions to the very un-Zen world of Christmas shopping for it is that time of year again and the thought of what to get certain family members is nibbling away at my sleep credit.

There are in this world 3 types of people to buy presents for. One: the vapid kind who are overjoyed to the point of nervous collapse at receiving a home baked cookie they will never eat, definitely re-gift and spend the rest of the year silently berating you for it. Two: the sergeant major who starts telling you in January what they like in a way that is obvious they mean for you to buy it for them at Christmas. These people tend to have everything already and you will never ever impress them so don't beat yourself up trying to surprise them because they won't appreciate it, they will simply conclude that you weren't listening and three: angels - the people in your life whose efforts and presence you don't validate anywhere near enough during the year and for whom a present must now represent that recognition you didn't give. So, no pressure.

These invariably are the hardest to buy for. I have at present 2 angels. My mother in law and yes....I have to admit it...my long suffering husband who is this year giving me the most valuable gift of a glimpse at repatriation - of which more later when a clearer picture has formed or not as the case may be.

So the word for today is generosity. I am off to find a gift that best represents my appreciation for these guys. I may be some time. Luckily this year I am not limited to scouring main street/high street name shops in just the one mall as I have become a highway driver extraordinaire and can now allow myself the choice of scouring the same shops in many different malls.

If they made universal ski passes or gift cards for Ontario pubs then I'd be sorted for a present for the other half. Perhaps I could get him a DIY chip that is surgically implanted and transforms sausage-fingered destroyer of all man-made things into Uber repair king...no wait that would be a present for me. So you see, I'm a little at a loss. Must think fast as time is running out. Nothing will ever really represent my gratitude for everything my mother in law has done for me these past two years...it's almost pointless but I will try.

Me? well since you ask ;) - I need a new cistern for the ensuite bathroom as the toilet leaks and it's driving me insane plus new windscreen wipers as I ripped the rubber off one in an attempt to pull it free from the frozen glass beneath it this morning. Thankfully this is the last Canadian winter for me and THAT my dears is the only present I need.

Don't Stand So Close to Me

Imagine my relief last night at yoga school when before starting the anatomy test, which I was very much looking forward to getting out of the way, the studio director spent 45 minutes explaining to us that one of our fellow yogis had been put on suspension pending further investigation. 

I didn't need to know the background to this situation as I have been living it 3 times a week.  The suspendee in question is only one of two men taking this course, the rest comprising 15 women and the remaining man is an absolute diamond geezer.   After unsuspectingly pairing up with said stain of a person and being inappropriately manhandled for the best part of 3 hours, I decided that would be the one and only time I would have anything to do with him.  In retrospect I ought to have voiced my concerns and saved half a dozen other women from the same degradation.  At the very least I should have kicked him in the brick. 

Yoga is a very precise exercise which benefits the practitioner more if poses are properly aligned.  For this it is sometimes necessary to physically manipulate or adjust the person while in the pose in order that person extract from the posture everything it has to offer the mind and body.   Verbal cues are good and I appreciate them too but to be fair I like as much silence as possible during yoga practice as it's the meditative quality that sets it apart from other physical therapy.  And then there are those times when words simply don't make sense...melt the back of your heart to your thighs...I said what?  So of course - by all means prod.

It is very important then, to adjust but equally important to respect the rules of boundary and emotional space when doing so.  Here are a couple of rules of engagement - our code of ethics if you will:  Never adjust from the front; never touch the fleshy parts of the body and use as few appendages as possible when doing so e.g. heels of hands or fingers suffice.  You catch my drift.  So when you have a man pushing his gonads into your neck while adjusting you in triangle, you are free to leave because believe me this is not yoga.

This was common practice for the blokey who is now sitting at home waiting for sentencing - in denial I might add and very very defiant.  Hmnnn...I thought yoga was about truthfulness and non-violence.  Mahatma Gandhi he ain't! (nor am I but he's less!)

If that were not bad enough I've witnessed full hand placement on waist and chest areas - way too close for comfort.  He refers to chest as the boob area and seat bones as the ass.  Not being funny but do you want one slap or two?  two probably, the dirty dog.

And if that were not unsavoury enough - you really don't want to hear his locker-room talk.  In short, the man is a slimeball.  There to break boundaries not respect them and I for one feel he has been taking liberties of the sexual harrassment kind.  Again, I blame myself for not barking at the moron from the start but I was in a yoga frame of mind and wished to give him the benefit of the miniscule doubt.  Truthfulness is also about honest communication and assertiveness - I failed my fellow women but I have no intention of letting them down twice.

Now we are faced with a situation where we, as a group need to either stage an intervention with the intention of allowing him back into the circle of trust or banish him forever.  I will vote for banishment delivered with a few nuggets of advice.  I will spare you the details as to what my words of wisdom would be.  I'm trying to practice the virtue of non-violence and I'd get a big fat E minus if I let rip now but off and fuck would probably be in there somewhere.  Wanker and piss ant too.

I asked my husband (who would travel the world the long way round, on foot, just to prove me wrong) whether a man could be that unaware.  After long deliberation, because to conceed too quickly would be to lose his place on the leader's board, he admitted that in all honestly a man knows when he is flirting, being obscene and most definitely knows when he is touching women inappropriately.  Of course and that settles it.

In short he was the creepiest thing that ever slid into a place of karmic balance and until he takes responsibility for his actions there is no room for slugs like him anywhere really.  I will give him this - he can clear a room in less than 60 seconds.  Perhaps he should work for the fire department as the world's first human smoke alarm and put that skill to good use for a change.

Oh Crystal Ball Tell Me Life is Beautiful

I've been sleeping extraordinarily well recently.  I attribute the ability to do something that on the outside seemingly requires little to no effort but which has in the past totally eluded me, to yoga and meditation.  That and the comfort of finally having secure knowledge of what the future holds (of which more at a later date).   That said, while I have been sleeping as deeply as if Brunhilda had put a spell on me, I have also been dreaming.   I can remember only snippets which I've been trying to piece together in order that I might know what it is my subconscious thoughts have been trying to tell me. 

First of course, I have to get past the plain odd stuff, remnants of the day, like bearded ladies and melting stairs.  I've had a lot of snakes visit me but I'm beginning to understand what they stand for: transformation - the shedding of the old self. I know what this is alluding to.  I agree and embrace this change in me, though why it has to be represented by my most dreaded phobia and not Nathan Followil, drummer for the Kings of Leon is an injustice I will just have to live with.  It's perverse. Or rather it's not perverse enough.

I've spent too much time setting this up damn it.  The dream has evaporated.  I'll have to get back to you.

On another esoteric subject I read my Tarot cards the other day. Yes, I do have way too much time on my hands but I am using it very wisely I promise you outside of the odd eccentricity.  It always amazed me how accurate the cards can be - though I'm a long way from knowing how to read them like a true professional, I do instantly get a picture.  I got all the cards you sort of don't want to get like Death and the Devil but thankfully (much like the snake in my dreams) they all refer to a change, a rebirth that can only occur with the shedding of the old self, the old situation.  The Devil is slightly more troublesome in that it infers confusion and deceit of some sort - self-made entrapment or perhaps if Tiger Woods had been here, adultery..(allegedly).   But I do sort of know why that card came up.  More importantly than that I didn't pull The Tower....no you don't want to ever really get the Tower.  The Tower is bad.

The thing I like about the Tarot cards is that, much like meditation - they do sort of offer guidance and answers to subliminal questions.  And the cards do not lie.

I know what my future looks like and it ends with the Wheel of Fortune (7pm, CBC)...no just kidding.  The real Wheel of Fortune is a good card to pull...a great one even.  Is my ship finally coming in?

I certainly hope so but for now, I must live in the moment.  Tomorrow isn't here yet and yesterday is long gone.

The 'oh yes I did' list

Hello again.  Fancy meeting you here.  To continue then.  Today I did many many wonderful things.  I did rise with time to give my child a proper breakfast before school, the only meal, I think you will find, where you would eat a fluffy kitten if that were the only thing on offer.  Not today.  Today no food groups were omitted.  Then to my utter amazement I noticed in the sky this round yellow thing.  I checked Wikipedia and decided this must be a thing known as 'the sun'.  It felt warm on the skin - what new sensation is this for Ontarians?  I was jubilous and left the house with clothes thin enough as to allow for a sihouette that didn't look like the michelin man's. 

All around me people stumbled dazed and confused by the un-Tundra-like conditions, in court shoes and flimsy jackets looking like they'd just waddled out of the sea on newly grown limbs.

I did lots of wifely things too like shop and clean - well, I say clean - I made the bed.  Actually, I didn't make the bed.  But I shopped - for food! and I may have achieved more but the burning ball in the sky was too distracting. 

I resisted treats - the ones I tend to eat by the fistful and I didn't have one sarcastic thought today about Toronto; its one way streets, the roadworks, the stupid 2 line underground system (why bother) or the made-up Hydro debt charge that appears on your water bills when it's clear the debt was paid 10 years ago.  No, none of that mattered.   Instead I enjoyed the day with the innocence of a 3 month old child  gurgling and laughing at life's little lessons.  Oh, they can be so rumbunctuous - like baby jackals.

And then I did two classes of Yoga - back to back.  Oh yes I did!

I intend to do similarly ephemeral things tomorrow. I might even squeeze in some Christmas shopping though in this mood, I'm capable of bringing home an orphan.  Perhaps I should wait for a snow day before taking on something as dangerous as Christmas shopping. 

And to think just a few days ago I was trapped by the black dog of depression, lock-jawed in a vicious tussle with the psyche.  Well, tis not my place to question the wonders of hormones and their effects on the brain, tis my place to enjoy the lightness of being while it lasts because I appear, finally to have dug my way out of this cell but for now I shall keep the poster of Raquel Welsh over the hole until the coast is clear.

The 'to don't' list

Here are a few things that didn't happen to me today:  It didn't snow.  This is a good thing (the kind that is too good to be true but I'll take whatever I can at this stage in the way of good news) given we are already into December, more or less (in The Tundra, time stands still) and nothing - not even a single digit minus temperature.   Gratitude abounds.

I didn't feel the usual grip of ennui that I get everyday I look out of my bedroom window onto Edward Scissorhands Close (where I live).  I even noticed a piece of food wrapper swirling along the pavement, in a nihilistic sprint to nowhere.  Swirl paper! I willed it - while you still can before the compulsives and A-types that people this street cut your fun short and recycle you.

I didn't turn off the Christmas tree lights when I left the house this morning and am only thankful they didn't short circuit and burn every last beam to the ground.  My husband will be proud.

I didn't make the bed, or set the dryer so I have no socks again. Luckily, it isn't that cold (see point 1) - I have time. And frankly the bed is about to be slipped into again tonight so who's going to notice?

I didn't go shopping for food - my absolutely favourite pastime of all, after unloading the dishwasher and putting clothes away. 

And finally, I didn't have a glass of wine that turns into 4 but I'm about to do that now in order to kick start my list of things I did do which I hope to expand on in the next blog post, if I can see through the fug of alcohol and despair tomorrow morning.

Here, I'll get a headstart in now.  I did break all my positive thinking rules and  I did dwell on the negative side of everything...as you can see.

Hope really honest to goodness never dies

...not even, I'm sure of it, when you are certified and locked up in a padded room.  I was at the Yoga Studio as is expected from a dedicated Yogi looking to finally commit to seeing one thing through to the very end when I noticed the studio manager, a man of few words - all of them curt and scathing - looking very dapper indeed.

I want to rewind a few weeks here to hang a bit of context onto what follows.  A few weeks ago, I discovered that this man used to be married to the studio director but in true Yogic fashion, there being no judgement and certainly no ignominy when it comes to releasing the mula bandha in front of 25 strangers - I didn't really think too much of it outside of the obvious: "oh, that's interesting? but they are not married anymore?" No. "And they are still civil?"  Oh absolutely in fact weeks after separating  - the defendant signed on to the very same teacher training course you're on, that is, as you know, run by the very same director then as it is now. " How very dignified." I thought.  He has been a partner in the business ever since - this is now a few years on I hasten to add.

And with that I lowered into my Downward Dog and engaged the Ujjayi breath. 

OK, so fast forward a few weeks (from discovering their unusual history) when I noticed a usually very natural studio director (the woman in these proceedings) looking very polished indeed - the kind that required animal testing.  She had dyed her hair a sultry red and was wearing eye shadow!!  - can I just quickly at this point interject and remind everyone this is a hot yoga studio where the rooms are pre-headed to 40 degrees and where no cosmetic makes it past the first stretch - so of course my curiousity was further aroused.  I took a closer look.

Now, I may have lost the will to live many moons ago and along with it any trickle of libido but I know a snog rash when I see it.  (Snog = make-out in English).  Oh joy!  there is hope for me yet!

So now back to the present....said chin rash director takes off on a short sabbatical to do yogic things in exotic places and is due back today.  I know this because the studio manager, the usually grumpy old man who would just as happily turn up to work wearing his pyjamas was gallantly picking her up at the airport looking like Paul McCartney the day he was given the MBE.

So, my conclusion; hope springs eternal.  I say, it's like something out of 50s Hollywood.  I do hope I've got my sums right on this one because I do love happy endings.  Now all I need is a similar story for me and I'll should be ok until Christmas.

Ctrl + Alt + Del

Where do I start with regards the tedium that is my life at the moment? Let's see that would be October 2nd, 2007. Look away now if you are an unfeeling bastard and have no time to read about a person's despair however unfounded (I'm running on gland juice vapours - the bad stuff that is made in the pituitary) and I'm now left with only the desire to moan pointlessly and self-indulgently like a poor little rich girl (without the money, the social standing or the figure).


I'm not in the mood to play ball today and that is supposing there is someone at the other end waiting to catch said proverbial ball, which of course there isn't and there hasn't been for over 2 years. I play against the wall like the immigrant I am. Luckily I'm too arrogant to be a groupie where I could indulge an unhealthy low self-esteem by giving BJs to middle-aged accordion players - the only kind of musician you'll find here in the Superstore land of the Dollarama commuter. And I'm too broken to travel into town plus I fear my tongue would freeze stuck to said appendages in these here Tundra-like conditions.  Though to be honest it's been mild for November in Ontario and that's ME saying this - me, who wouldn't throw Canada a bone if it saved my life - but it is - and I still won't.  Not today in any event.

I feel like that poor sod who it turns out was in fact conscious for 23 years (just paralysed or perhaps he wasn't in the mood to play ball either), and not at all the slightest bit in a coma like those clever doctors said. Can you imagine the conversations he must have been privy too? Actually there is no way my life is as interesting as that.  Can't wait for the film. 
So, what's up? Well, I can't say. Not yet because well...it hasn't happened. I will say that I don't much like revising for exams with a 3 year old in tow. THE HORROR! Nor have I been much enjoying the habit I've developed of clock watching at work....never a good sign. And then I get invited to the FIRST party ever that wasn't through my husband and I can't go.  Still if Coma Man can be optimistic after everything that (didn't) happen to him, surely I can be too.

Roll on anything at all.

Drag

I should know better than to eavesdrop when I’m in a cynical mood. Actually if I were to re-interpret that statement as my true cynical self, what I mean is that I was quietly minding my own business reading my notes for a yoga exam at well known chain of coffee shops, when wide-face ugly blonde biddy man (biddy – because he was all of 30 but sitting, no not sitting, indulging in a round -shouldered natter with his mum and nan; trust me it’s not attractive) getting all hot under what he clearly wished was a pre-menstrual collar and loudly declaring: She could have anyone she wants.


I assume we are referring to Megan Fox. No? Well then I’m thinking you’ve taken a little bit more than your daily allowance of poetic license here. Let’s stop there for a second and think a bit more about this sentence. She could have anyone she wants. Uh huh. Question: Is she related to you? Does she share any of your wide features? Because if she does.... I mean, Angelina Jolie (at a stretch- lots of men just don’t want the drama) can probably have any man or woman she wants. That would be an accurate use of this phrase. Hell, Heidi Spencer from The Hills could probably get any man in the Bible belt (at the very least) that she wanted but apparently not Lauren Conran because she allegedly has fat beef curtains. How unsavoury. My point being that men are quite picky; so I think, in conclusion, my wide-faced knitting jockey – she is probably with the person she currently deserves to be with. I really wish you wouldn’t exaggerate like this when I’m trying to concentrate.

I’m half way through a sentence I’ve had 16 aborted attempts at reading when creepy looking hermaphrodite enters. Grateful for the distraction from wide-face biddy boy, but inwardly irritated at another interruption to my study time, I’m wondering whether I haven’t accidently walked into a oestrogen flashback dream given that I’m so short of it at the moment. Can this person be real? How to describe him/her...Ok – take Dog from Bounty Dog fame, exactly as he is but soften his beard from stubble to fluff; touch of rouge on his cheeks and pretty much you have yourself a police drawing of the suspect.

At that point, I fear I lose my appetite and decide to cut my losses. Honestly, I just can’t be with myself on days like this. Now to study for I must passeth this exam if I’m ever going to get back on the career track again.

Stop Me if You Think You've Heard This Before

I’m having one of those sunny rainy days, emotionally speaking. My mental resolve is crumbling. Tell tale signs include the gnawing of nails to the 2nd layer of the epidermis; craving wine and sweets and coffee and chocolate (all in the same sitting) and the foulest of foul potty mouths when driving. I’m seeing black again and I’m finding it hard not to pin hopes on projected outcomes of events and undertakings that have not yet happened. I’m picking fights and brushing a thick veneer of ‘bad’ onto everything and everyone. I’m also making huge assumptions and I can’t stop myself at the moment. And yet I’m also happy (my version of it anyway).


Truth is I’m short on oestrogen and sinking in the PMS quick sands. Still at least these days this mood only lasts a week, though I count weeks in Roman numerals so actually my week lasts 21 days. I have a friend who is living in his own version of Dante’s Hell in Germany who assures me he’s only ever known me to have one good week every other month. I’m totally expecting to be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder or at least manic depression one day in my 60s during a routine flu vaccination and think...OH so that’s why....

This month’s bout of the blues brings with it disillusionment with the teachings of the Dalai Lama!! (How rational of me). What I’m reading is that happiness comes when you live in a detached bubble of ‘now’. Attach no meaning or emotion to anything and you’ll be fine but at the same time be compassionate and loving. I admit my interpretation might be affected slightly by the fact that I have a very disturbed mind but you know, I’ve been watching life from afar now for quite some time and that just doesn’t add up.

So let me see if I have this straight: sit still, do and feel nothing and get someone to feed you through a nose tube (and don’t forget to be grateful) and you’ll be happier than a vial of blood dangling down Angelina Jolie’s cleavage.

I think I’m going to put today safely away before someone gets offended. Tomorrow is another day, another test. I’m going to have to ride this one out. If you see me in the street – run.

Live Through This to Fly Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I'm in study mode, yoga exams coming at me like Clone Troopers on the Star Destroyer. I'm reciting mantras to open chakras, to set intentions; devotional mantras and Omming for England and that's just the homework. I've also had to perform so many sun salutations I may need to get prosthetic arms and legs by the time I graduate and I'm seeing cobras in my third eye (that's the Chakra found in the forehead area). Oh and then there is the small matter of Egor - my skeleton friend who I've had to become intimately and viscerally involved with.

It's all very esoteric and a little unnerving. Plus to top it all off (as if I needed help in this direction) contrary to feeling peaceful and centred I'm instead feeling very very freaking angry and just a little unhinged. I feel like I've only just graduated from being an angry young woman to become an angry middle-aged one and this time I don't have my youthful looks and firm skin to appease. No I'm just a haggard old harridan to anyone  meeting me for the first time.

No, I'm feeling positively disruptive. I want to mess things up, knock stuff off shelves and tables and just leave the mess for someone else to deal with. I want to tell the fools around me that winter is not beautiful, it's fucking miserable and cold even when the sun is out. What is the point of sun when it's minus 10 degrees? Who wants to enjoy the sun from a window like a mental patient?

Then bizarrely I have moments of utter clarity and Zen which of course lead to tremendous forgetfulness. I didn't turn up for work last Monday for example and I forgot to put a potato in the oven for my husband who'd just got back from a big day of meetings ravenous and thankful for the sustenance. Toast for dinner again.  But I aced my anatomy tests.

Could this all be part of the detox that Yoga initiates? Or am I finally succumbing to dementia?

In my defence I did find a raw potato in the laundry room which means at some point I did mean to put it in the oven.

This all has to be interrelated (one hopes to goodness) because if it's all coincidence and I am in fact going mad - well, it was nice knowing you. Hopefully see you on the other side.

Full Circle

...as in I've come (full circle) in that I've started a part time job at a well known bookstore as a "customer experience representative' or CER as they like to refer to us over the page system - CER to cash please, CER to cash" - which translates into - can someone on the floor please come to the cash desk before the cashier assassinates the customer holding up the queue with all the annoying questions.

When I was 15 I got my first job (a Saturday job - they were all the rage in London if you were still at school) at a bookshop too - though in those days they called it what it was - a sales assistant.  If you were lucky you got some customer service.  I mean the doors are open, the books are on the shelves what more do you want?

I loved it truth be told not least because I'm a book geek but also because there was no such thing as corporate culture in those days so it was total anarchy.  We made displays up, created whichever atmosphere we felt in the mood for and you were lucky to get served at all.  Not so today.  Corporate culture is coordinated at national level today; it's a big money industry - hell I used to get paid handsomely to help create cultures for brands.  Brands!  that's what you got if you touched an iron while it was still on but today a brand has to align to a culture and  a customer promise.

Back in the day if we fancied a Manga - Erotic window display, we would bloody well have one.  Death metal playing in the background and porn strewn across the floor.  If you wanted to read a book you flipping well bought it - none of this sitting on comfy leather couches, freely leafing through pages whilst sipping coffee malarkey.

I still remember a memo in the staffroom warning us to not flaunt Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses - under threat of Fatwah - so we stacked a whole column of them by the children's section and furtively escorted anyone asking for it, as if they had just asked for a book on beastiality. 

My experience on the shop floor today is a world of etiquette away from my first time around - however the familiar smell of new paper and glossy covers takes me back to those days of youthful insanity and I love it all over again.  Something that hasn't changed is the customer (directly wired to the moon) who comes in asking for a book with a purple cover about something to do with the Knights Templar, by someone who's written lots of similar books but he doesn't know what it's called or who it's by.  Usually at this point I'll lead them to Science Fiction and disappear and by golly they usually find what they are looking for.  Then there are those who want you to find a book that hasn't been written like a lady who asked me for a book on: How to Spot an Arsehole, Lying, Cheating Loser.  Tempting as it is to escort them to the office of the nearest therapist, you do have to entertain a semblance of interest and tap the title into the computer as they tell you their life story and you calculate how long until your break.

Then there are those who are just escorted off the premises. 

So I say this with no irony at all, while I've commanded positions of high (ish) rank and salaries to match (sort of) and now find myself stacking shelves alongside people with very different hobbies to me, I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience life at the granular level again.  I feel the muse tapping on my shoulder.  I feel the urge to write and that is a very difficult urge to coax out.

The job lasts until January at which time I will be let off the studio leash and into the big wide Yoga world and as I look forward to this new chapter in my life, part of me will not want to leave this crazy little world of words and people.

In which I make amends for the last blog post

So, it appears I'm no good at faking it. My husband who came to New York with me read my last post and complained it was boring and not at all representative of the time spent in the Crabby Apple. I admit, I was having a 'lights on but no-one in' day at the time. I was lying back and taking it for England so to speak that day and it simply did not do. No. So today, I make amends in a sheer nightie, soft lighting and anchors away sort of fashion.

I'm going to start with a caveat, to be taken non-prescriptively of course. 'Tis but a humble opinion and strictly for the purposes of setting the scene. Afterall, how can you compare without a reference point? Mine is a little town just outside of Toronto in Southern Ontario - a town I should add that fun forgot and Ontario invented to put all its odd socks in - also where I currently live.

Living in a place like this - I've heard it described as a sleeper town, we call it a commuter village in the UK but I prefer sleeper because that's what it makes me want to become every time I look out of my window at it. It's a lot like drinking a tall glass of water; Refreshing at times, wholesome, restorative even, but there is only so much water one can drink before starting to feel a little bit like a fish in a plastic bag and I gotta tell you the funfair left town a long time ago.

So before you even think it, I can honestly say my feelings about this place do not stem from me being a big city girl; I've been to tiny mountain hamlets in the north of Spain that had more 'cojones' - but I dwell on the negative and I'm trying to kick that habit.

New York then was like a little sip of Absinthe for the eternally bored (that would be me). It's like a little shot of adrenalin to flush out arteries in danger of succumbing to a big attack of the dreary. If I sound ungrateful, well shame on me because in fact I ought to be much more thankful but I dare anyone to spend more than a week in this commuter town without wanting to hit the bottle hard or do drugs. - also hard. I remain strong just very very numb at times.

To expand on the earlier post then. Yes, New York had culture and 'scenes' but more than these things - I loved that there was a bar (the burlesque one with the 40 year old exotic dancers) where a guy dressed as Jesus Christ (who opens the show hanging from a crucifix) can address the audience as cheap mothafuckas and get a laugh.

I have neighbours who would call the police at the thought of living next to someone who derives so much fun from so much irreverence.

The parks, the museums and the flea markets are all worthy of a mention not least because we don't have any where I live (none that don't within 5 minutes of arriving fill you with the eye watering dread of tedium and dismay) so yes, these things matter to me.

More than that even was the depth of the remarkable people we were with; Take the war correspondent - international man of mystery who would slip in and out of broody silences that no-one would dare interrupt, walking around as he did with a leg full of shrapnel - also a subject off limits or the rapper with the smiling eyes that glinted at anything dark and mean. Then there was the talented and delightful picture editor full of mother love and my husband, Genghis Khan he may be by day but by night furry and adorable.

Most of all, I think what I love about weekends or places with balls that like to rock out with their BEEP out, is the feeling it gives of being alive. When your life is in danger of becoming homage to mediocrity - stuff like this matters.

Nothing Crabby about this Big Apple

Just got back from a weekend in New York. It was my second time and I fell in love with it just a little bit more. The outrageous symmetry of streets crossing avenues, teeny churches nestled between glass Art Deco giants and perky parks popping up just when you need them, NYC is truly the planned 2nd child of world class cities though, it is still entirely possible to get just a little bit lost. And thank god for that as the most coveted gems of any city are usually found between the cracks in the pavement.

At the centre lies the respiratory system rising and falling around the craggy corners and luscious lawns of Central Park where a seal lives very contentedly in a zoo petting area, I discovered.

A view from every window, modern history and social commentary at every corner, this is the city that doesn't have to talk about itself any more. I spent Saturday in the company of a war correspondent, a picture editor and a hip hop artist & writer. Was this just a lucky coincidence? Or is it that a city such as New York can't help but create this kind of urban poetry, drawn there from elsewhere in search of nurture.

Intense and funny, intensely funny - that was the leitmotif of my weekend in a city that just keeps on giving. From the oldest, most misogynist bar in town (McSorleys, where wishbones from last chicken suppers of soldiers that never made it back still hang from a dusty chandelier) to a narrow curry house as bright as it was narrow. You won't be disappointed by the food or the waiters (delicious and rude) just as curry should be served.

From the best awful burlesque bar, The Slipper Room, in deepest lower East Side - hosted by Jesus Christ himself - (all C-section, no silicon and full of meaty goodness, it was worth every cent) to old school DJing at a Saki Bar near Tompkins Square Park. And I had a lot more dance in me yet but our hosts had responsibilities and cabs to find that would take them to Brooklyn at 2am. Mission Impossible in a city where taxi drivers don't for the most part actually want you in their cabs at all.

So we parted on a high with much gratitude and shaky hugs and wants that will have to wait for the next trip - the best way to leave.

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You!

I had a most enlightening (as befits the course) yoga lesson last night. As you know I'm studying to become a Hatha Yoga teacher. The course is made up of 3 main parts: Anatomy, Philosophy and Practical. I knew I'd love Anatomy (secretly always fancied myself as an ER surgeon but I suck at maths and the repercussions of calculating the wrong amount of adrenalin is best left for the TV version) - to wit - I've aced all my anatomy tests so far. The practical - well it went without saying that I would enjoy this being the front desk of the profession so to speak. I was however sceptical about Philosophy, being naturally cynical and hugely sensitized to the bullshit of indoctrination - I was brought up Roman Catholic and we'll leave it at that.

So it was with a 7 foot Hollywood-style perimeter fence that I approached last night's philosophy lesson and it wasn't long before the first alarm bell went off. When someone (the teacher in this case) who looks 12 introduces themselves as a Shaman and Reiki master...unless you are the next Dalai Lama or Dr. Mikao Usui (the founder of Reiki) - I'm likely going to take a bite of my apple, sit back on my haunches and enjoy the show. Which is what I did.

But conscious that one of the principles of Yoga is to not judge but observe, I decided to at least try and take that approach. And as I listened and we all talked about Karma and Dharma and the Yamas and Niyamas and the role of ego - I realised that these were all fancy words for finding inner peace and being happy today because yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn't here yet. Easier said than done. Or is it?

Have you ever found yourself asking - Who am I? What is my true purpose? That's Dharma and it isn't always about the destination. Hell - in a way you don't want to arrive because then the journey is over and it's time to start the tiresome process from scratch in another lifetime. Simpler than that is Karma - did you know you can reincarnate in the same lifetime? No smoke and mirrors - it merely refers to life changing decisions. E.g. I am not the same girl I was 5 years ago in fact funnily enough I'm beginning to relate more to my teenage self ( I think it's called a mid life crisis). Joking apart - total fulfilment comes from being in the moment. Don't take my word for it. Think about the last time you had a freaking good time - say like at a concert - that's mine. I was at a Pearl Jam concert and for that hour or so - that's all I was doing and it felt great.

What is more if you can let go of the emotions attached to outcome - you’re basically sorted. Luckily this is so incredibly difficult most of us will need a few more miserable years on earth to get this and thank god because I'm not ready to die. This one confused the class - we were like: But how can you not get pissed off with public transport if the outcome means you miss an important meeting? Answer: (the hippies and jazz heads will love this) Nothing starts until you get there. And while it won't get you promoted, it is sort of true. Not a great example but it kind of gets the point across and made me feel a lot better about having arrived half an hour late to the lesson.

Better still was this question: What would we (the students) all do if we were told that we would not be graduating from this course in January - that we would all fail? A collective gasp of panic spread among the new Yogis. That's unthinkable! We all want to get on with our lives! So....by that rationale what you are doing now, this course of study means nothing at this moment?

Well when you put it like that...

What about this one: What is the difference between destiny and fate? Yep that one caused a few silent headaches. Ok - I'll tell you - destiny is what you choose and it's a fearless choice e.g. I'm walking out of my job today because it sucks donkey balls and I'm unhappy as shit while fate is sitting at your desk in a job that sucks donkey balls unhappy as shit until one fine day your boss calls you into his office and fires your arse.

Both wonderful outcomes arrived at in slightly different ways. Fate however means that not having made that conscious choice some doors that might otherwise have been open for you, had you taken that decision proactively might now be closed. But don't worry because if you then decide to get all Destiny's Child about it - all you have to do is knock and they will open if they are meant to.

And you know what? This observing thing really worked because by the end of it all I decided that if the teacher wants to call herself a Shaman and Reiki master - more power to her.

Get a Room

I'm having a very 'reality TV' morning -  full of minutiae; triffling matters of the human condition.   It started with the nipper singing 'Winnie the Pooh' (massive emphasis on POOH) and the 'I Love You' song from Barney the Dinosaur, 'cept she changed the lyrics to: I hate Barney -  such mordant wit and so young.  I guess I'm doing something right.

Anyway, after dropping The Lish off at daycare I went for my morning coffee.  It's instinctual - like breathing.  Before anything else gets done, this must occur otherwise almost anything at all could happen and I don't believe it would be pretty.  Standing in the queue at the usual coffee shop, looking at the familiar rows of baked goods (...baked, deep fried -  let's be honest and all the more delicious for it) observing the usual suspects behind the counter, awaiting my turn to ask for the same thing I always get - a large with milk which I'll admit given the elephantine selection of coffees in this country is the most unimaginative selection of all - aside from the fact that I don't ask for sugar.  That always elicits a double take - What? No sugar?  But this is North America!!  Please note, in this country coffee with sugar is called a 'regular'.  Enough said.

But I run the risk of sounding contemptuous which for a woman who shovelled a mint chocolate chip ice-cream down her gullet at 11pm last night is asking for the forcible seizure of credibility.

So, there I am in the queue looking at 'Coral' - smiling and serving the stimulant-deprived locals their caffeine fixes with the dedication and commitment of a 'Medecin Sans Frontiers'; the personification of 'bubbly' when all of a sudden I notice a palpable change in energy.  It's almost cloying, dripping with abashment.  What's up with Coral?  I'll tell you what's up - Libido.

I've never really noticed this in real life - but there it was - the instinctual manifestation of the sexual drive. How odd that it makes you do the opposite of what is considered personable. But then again, I guess you're not fishing for a handshake.  I look at the object of her desires -  not unhandsome -   a rugged blue collar worker about to start a shift on a building site, I think, from the looks of things.  Meanwhile she's turned into a filleted fish - it's embarrassing to watch - I can't.  I almost cover my eyes.  GET A ROOM already. 

Not one second of eye contact and yet, this approach will almost certainly lead to rumpy pumpy, eventually, hopefully before they both retire.  Oddities of the human kind.  I know I've been there...or have I?  I'm subtle but direct though I don't know, perhaps you should ask my hubby.  He didn't for a second suspect that I liked him when we met on a dusty evening in Vientiane, Laos.  I walked away mildly confused. It was an act of gallantry and UFOs that later brought us together in Koh Chang, Thailand - but that  story is for another day.

I leave the coffee shop with a coffee I now no longer want to drink - sullied as it is with sex vibes of the parent kind - EEEWW! still, I drink it just the same as I would eat chocolate cake out of the garbage if I really had to. 

Human behaviour - in the words of that paragon of mental stability: Bjork - "there's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic".  True that.

The Scrapbook of 'Cringe'

It would be criminal not to share this with you.  I'm sure you've had your fill of maudlin this week - I know I have. For every low, a high must be found.  And this is mine: I laughed like a drain at this article in The Times Newspaper. 

An American author and one time teenage diarist, Sarah Brown (weren't we all) decided to host a spoken word night called "Cringe" in which friends and strangers volunteered to read aloud from their teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas and other representations of the misery of their adolescence.  Her advice to people who were unsure as to what to read?  Pick the excerpt that physically makes you cringe, preferably the one that makes you think, “I can’t read that part”.

Cheaper and better than therapy, below are a selection of thoughts committed to paper on "toe-curling crushes, youthful angst, feuds with parents, and all manner of secrets entrusted to a teenager’s best friend: a diary". Enjoy these most cringe-worthy excerpts of some brave, brave individuals.

Alex Frith (16) Wednesday, March 27

I just saw myself in the mirror & thought I looked like Jesus. That’s just going too far. It’s this loose sweatshirt I’m wearing. Too white + comfortable + of course my rather dismal chin hair.

Pip Hawkes (14) Wednesday, October 19, 1988

I’ve made a real mess of my hair! On Thursday (nearly 2 weeks ago) I shaved a HUGE patch behind and above my ear – also I cut a VERY big chunk off the top of my head so I now have a short, spiky tuft! I also cut off the other ear lots of short bits and the most noticeable thing is this chunk out of the back. When you walk past people — they sometimes stare! Although I quite enjoy the attention — I want people to think I’m strange! And to respect me for it — most people in my class respect me for it — in fact they wholly encourage it! I wish to be a mongrel — a mix between these 4 groups, a punk, goths, trendies and my normally weird self. By ‘trendy’ I mean cycling shorts etc. I deeply admire punks and goths! I like the punk image but a gothic personality.

I’ve just decided —– well — not decided — but found out — I’m nihilistic! God – Dad’s just come in and told me to tidy my room — it is BLOODY TIDY!! He must have had a bad day at work — WANKER.

Jo Wickham (15) August 20, 1997

I hate Mum. She said I can’t have a coat as I still fit in my old one. I’m gonna feel like a prick if I wear a coat everyone was wearing last year. She’s such a bitch. It doesn’t cost that much and I need a coat. She’s such a slapper. She’s only doing it coz I get most things I want so she wants to say no, so I’m not spoilt. She’s such a bitch. And I’ve lost my keys and she’ll have an eppy if she finds out. Oh I hate her and I hate myself for losing them. God I’m pissed off — I know it’s only keys but if I’ve lost them I’ll go mad — I hate losing things but I do a lot. Oh I’m soo mad.

Stuart Bridgett (sixth former) July 14, 1997

OK. The evening started well. I had too much to drink…Dave asked me the question, “who do you fancy?” I said, to quote, “Well, up until two or three weeks ago I fancied Juliette Sharpe like crazy,” (True.) “Then I went away to Loughborough and fancied Julia Middleton.” (True.) “And I attained her” (False.) “Honestly, I was amazing that night. You know your counting ability is severely reduced in the hours of the morning – I lost count of the amount of orgasms she had.” (FALSER THAN A GROUCHO MARX MOUSTACHE AND GLASSES DISGUISE). Conversation slowly got started again. Uhnh. Ugh. AAAAAGH! OK – soon time to go – catch bus. Vomit. Get home. Vomit again. Go upstairs. Vomit again. (Probably embarrassment, not alcohol, induced.) Sleep. Wake up without a hangover, thank god.

Nathan Gunter (15) Sunday, March 17, 1996

I know it seems like regression, or simple confusion, but I’m starting to feel more than acquaintance for Jarrett. I don’t know what it is – homosexual attraction? All I know is that: 1.) I’m not feeling it much for Ashlee any more, and 2.) I really like Jarrett, in more ways than one. I am very confused. Extremely. “Every time I look at you I Go Blind” I’ve been listening to the Friends soundtrack, and in songs like “I Go Blind,” by Hootie and the Blowfish, “Good Intentions” by Toad the Wet Sprocket, and especially “Sexuality” by KD Lang I find my feelings about Jarrett and homosexuality in general mirrored. I wish one of these damn markers was a question mark. I’d decorate the whole damn page with it.

Helena Burton (15) January 15, 1991

By the way, Lucy is a bigger slag than I am. She got 17 votes for slag of the year. I only got 16. My Dad normally gives me a lift to school in the car, but he makes me sit in the back which is really embarrassing. So I told him I needed a change and I’d rather walk. Now he’s going to walk with me! So I’m going to try and get up before he gets up and go without him. I don’t expect Mum will let me though.

. . . Mark said I had big knockers today, which isn’t strictly true, but is a lovely compliment anyway.

March 2, 1991

I didn’t get to school in time this morning so I didn’t bother turning up. I really hate my parents, I honestly wish I was an orphan. Maybe I’ll murder them. I want some ice cream.

Alice Green (15) June 11, 1990

Reasons i hate my life
Home: Not allowed to use phone for 1 week. Parents virtually chain me to my room. Keep having massive arguments. Everyone picks on me all the time. No freedom. No harmony. Everyone hates everyone else (bad undercurrents). Not allowed to stay out late. Not allowed to use phone after 9.30pm. Work – Tiring and boring. Keep getting in trouble. Badly paid.

Friends: Paranoid about Tom In love with Barry (huge mistake). Not allowed to see Andy hardly ever. Vast numbers of people don’t like me. Haven’t seen anyone but Tom + Lee-Anne for weeks Louise has moved to Australia leaving me best-friend-less.

Church: Don’t want to get confirmed. Don’t like people much anymore. Don’t ENJOY going at all now.

Other: Work experience is such a pain. Parents are so unreasonable. Life is disorganized. I’m far too immature. I’m too fat! Keep being called a goth. Never got any money. Tired all the time. Bunk a lot now. Smoke quite a lot. Started drinking regularly. Keep on crying all the time.

Solution = Commit suicide

Andy Foster (15) Sunday, February 23 [after church youth club]

There was no push away when I put my arm around her. But ahhhh I didn’t get a kiss off Gemma at the end because I was on bicycle and couldn’t get off in time before she’d disappeared

Extracted from Cringe: Toe-Curlingly Embarrassing Teenage Diaries, Letters and Bad Poetry by Sarah Brown

Heart of Darkness

I've been thinking a lot about how 'cold' I've become towards the suffering of others.  I say this in the context of my aunt's obvious agony over her son's death.  Clearly traumatised and only just into the cycle of bereavement; (I think she is at the disbelief stage) a long way from acceptance in any event, I found  her pain easy to witness (not in an enjoyable way, golly no, don't get me wrong) but I was comfortable and didn't feel the need to fill the awkward gaps created by the hysterical sobbing of a grown person - an elder and figure of authority no less - with corner shop philosophy. But the fact that I wasn't sobbing right along with her signalled to me what I have for a long time suspected;  My heart has long turned to stone.  My husband would put money on it.   

Obviously I care, the point of my trip to Europe was to spend time with her at this most god-awful of times but I was not overly emotional about it and while I do wonder whether she will live long enough to see the cycle through to 'acceptance' (she's 70) and then what? the dreary and tiresome "living with the hole' for the rest of your life, I kind of felt the whole death thing is just part of the great unknown and there it shall remain.  Of course you could spend your life asking yourself: Why her? Why him? Why any of us? It's futile, serves no purpose and will never garner an answer in all the lifetimes that you may live.

I remember the time when Patrick Duffy's (Bobby Ewing from Dallas) parents were killed by gunmen who stormed their rural restaurant in search of what? Ewing Oil  - God knows why they felt they needed pump action guns to rob a small family restaurant - the point is that Duffy himself when asked about it in an interview not 6 months later said quite calmly that though he was obviously devastated, he felt it was just the way of the world - a divine order.  And apparently he'd been as calm from the day it happened.   I want what he's on.

Now, I won't go as far as to say that I agree with Bobby because I do think about my cousin and how unjust the timing of his passing was, and not a day goes by when I don't think about my mum with yearning and sadness at what could have been, but in a terribly harsh way I'm of the school now that says, "the sooner you get used to it, the sooner you can start living again" and in that sense I am unmoveable - Life is most definitely for the living.  This is why in the end, I didn't go to visit my mum's grave in Spain as originally planned because it meant that I would have had less time with my aunt, who needed me more than I guess I needed to stand by a headstone.  Anyone who knows loss knows that the dead live on in hearts, not on headstones, though I must say a visit to a family grave is oddly comforting and definitely cathartic.  But again - who are we really doing it for?

I know I wouldn't be this calm if I lost my husband or child - and believe me I never want to find out, but I know this much, I have a lot less time for mourning than I did. 

It's interesting because I'm very much on a path to the spiritual - more about that soon - patience mes enfants! and in this new guise I will most definitely come up against a lot of untapped pain and fear.  I need this heart of stone to cope and in that sense maybe things do happen for a reason in the long run.  I wouldn't be who I am or where I am or in training to do what I'm about to do had I not lost my family the way I did.

A medium - the same one I went to for a giggle - that said I was on the path to a life less ordinary also said that I am the sum of all my experiences - we all are and I suppose life is about being 'ok' with it.

Namaste everybody!

A Tale of Two Cities: The Bullfight Leg

Feet having barely hit the ground in London, I traversed the border into the wilds of Kent to replenish the heart centre with a visit to a dear old friend who recently had a very much needed, wanted and loved baby.  The sweetest cherub with whom my husband imprinted "Twilight-style" on sight.  Have a word!!  Ending with dinner at a 16th century pub - only in Enlgand! - we readied ourselves for the more visceral environment of the Spanish capital - Madrid.  Seething with red passion - my cousin-in-law is a card carrying communist -we decided to keep the fact we are both partial to MacDonald's Happy Meals to ourselves and partisanned our way into the Bullfight leg of this trip.

My family, every single member of, is a Spaniard thoroughbred.  Half hail from the celtic north (Galicia) and half from the very centre of the archipielago (Madrid).  I also have blood relatives in Catalonia, The Basque Country and The Canary Islands.  Tempting as it was to disappear to the islands, it was Madrid we committed to this time. Arriving in 39 degree heat, I was at home, my husband was in hell (why are we not in the Canaries?oh he was mad) and the nipper just very very confused.

My cousin - the communist - had vacated his appartment for us - bless his red socks and had moved with his wife to my aunt's house a few streets away for the week.  Actually it sort of served a dual purpose.  See, my aunt has just lost her son -  another cousin, my favourite - everyone's favourite - who had died in his sleep a few months earlier at the age of 49.  She is beside herself with grief and the company will have done her the world of good, all things considered. 

This recently deceased cousin was a recovering heroin addict, fact is, it was a wonder he'd made it this long.  But he had finally kicked the habit only to kick the bucket.  It's odd and tragic and at once utterly expected that he should die on one of the first nights out in 20 years.  An agoraphobic, obsessive-compulsive, manic depressive finally musters the energy and courage to visit a friend and stay over - to not wake up.  It's like he knew and wanted to spare his mother the horror of finding him dead.  (Of course he lived at home.)

Unluckiest man in Madrid, he never really found his stride and told me once he simply didn't feel like he was of this world.  Very interesting fellow.  He's now in an urn nestled among his mother's prized china in the living room.  Where else? Apparently he was also claustrophic so a casket and ground burial was out of the question.

So it was that kind of week. Tea and sympathy.  Suffocating heat and Himalayan treks across the city to visit Goya and Velazquez at El Prado museum; Picasso and Miro at Reina Sofia; Burlesque street performers in El Retiro park and tapas, tapas and more tapas.  Late nights and free porn on TV.  Delightful.

And visits to a childhood open air pool in south Madrid.  My favourite.

Though I retain and very much honour my Spanish roots, I felt very foreign this time round,  like I have drifted too far from my ancestry and yet it seems very natural.  I'm a nomad - not by design - this was decided by my parents who chose to immigrate to the UK where I was born half human, half Vulcan.  I've always been a foreigner in this sense - in the UK, here in Canada and now again in Spain - it's normal for me now. 

Coming back to Canada then didn't really feel that awful.  I realise that home is where the heart is and the heart is where happiness is.  Happiness is what I make it.  Don't get me wrong - my heart isn't in Canada but I know now that if I can carve a little happiness then I'll always be home. 

A Tale of Two Cities - The Bulldog Leg

Got back to Toronto last night after a two week holiday, split as fairly as I could between UK and Spain given it was my family in Spain to whom I owed a real visit. Yet - like a love affair - I was unable to let the opportunity to visit London pass. Stealing an illicit 3 days in London I wasted no time on foreplay.

Minutes after checking into the Holiday Inn, Camden Lock- despite 10 hours of travel and with jet lag pulling ever more forcefully at my eye lids; tempted as I was to drop like a rock onto the bed, scissor kick the cramp out of my body and surrender consciousness to the cool fresh white linen, I showered the smell of airline off and took my ragged body onto the familiar grey slabs of London's pavements - gloriously bathed in the warm sunlight of a balmy late summer's day.

Camden having been the urban setting for much of my teenage life, provided the stimulus my haggard mind needed (and so much more) with memories stepping out from every corner ranging from the real to the ethereal.


Meandering past The Electric Ballroom, I remembered countless Indie/rock nights and 3am kebabs. Less salubrious were the thoughts that came to me as I browsed the old book and antique stalls of The Stables and Courtyard areas of this vast unique market. Eventually I twisted my way through the back streets of Chalk Farm up Primrose Hill to take the best seat in the house.




Medicine for the soul



There isn't a part of London that doesn't hold an important significance for me. I miss it terribly but I need to be careful not to let nostalgia cloud my mind. It was for a reason I left. That reason would so easily creep back if a return were not to be managed properly. Perhaps this is the way it has to be. Like a ferociously passionate relationship between two people who are just too similar - the only way to be friends is to stay apart. Perhaps that is what London has to be for now - until I can reconcile my wants with my needs and become better at being 'me'. I owe it to myself and all those around me who have ever invested time in 'me'.



I didn't squander the little time I had in town on being maudlin however much I obviously enjoy this state of mind. I met up with all my friends and this time they did see me wave. I satiated my need for culture by visiting the Tate Britain and the Hayward Gallery whilst savouring both the conversation and the wine. I've given up alcohol as of yesterday. It's part of the requisites for achieving this so-called 'life less ordinary'. I have to practice what I'm about to preach.


The next day, we went in for the kill and spent the day by the Thames and all the gems that area has to offer and as the time to say farewell both to the friends and the city I love and miss so much approached, with the pitiless step of a Greek Tragedy, I decided to do that most un-British of all things and openly cry. To my astonishment, my friends cried too.


I felt indescribably better for a person who wanted to do nothing but stay and carry on like I'd never left but I had other responsibilities - this time to the family. And so the Bullfight leg of the trip began: Madrid.

A tale in two parts

PART 1
No, I'm not in Europe yet as I start this post though I'm likely going to have to finish it retrospectively when I get back from my two week break as the taxi to the airport arrives in a few minutes.

I'm surprisingly calm considering I've built the trip up so much. I guess that is what happens when you've been out the night before with work. Calm or hungover? I highly recommend a night of heavy drinking before a taxing day of travel . Especially if you also have a boisterous 3 year old in tow. Ultimately you're in so much pain, figuratively you don't sweat the small or in fact the big stuff. Literally I'm sweating like a fat man on a treadmill.

'The Firm' that takes its pound of flesh from me every day turned 13 this year and the Bar Mitzvah was held on the 6th floor of a venerable old ex rag trade warehouse. Glorious fun. Much as I have decided to expedite the finite rule on my corporate life (more about that later), I do love the crap out of my colleagues who are so much fun. I laughed like a drain at the accountant - a young Jamaican who it turns out dances like everyone's dad at a wedding. I believe he is the only known one to do so in the world. Fascinating boy.

Ok - the taxi is here. I have to go.

Back in two weeks.

PART 2
................Ok so I'm back to finish what I started before I blog about the holiday I've just returned from. I left for a two week break after attending a work function celebrating its 13 years in business. Hungover after drinking irresponsibly at said function and pissed off as I was at receiving possibly the most nonconstructive performance appraisal in the history of deconstructive criticism which possibly led to the extent of aforementioned irresponsible drinking, I was in the mood for a holiday. Which I've now had, thank you very much.

I had I realised much to consider while away though I put in place a deadline after which all thoughts of work would be pushed off an imaginary cliff. I was extraordinarily successful at this.

I found myself more and more comfortable with the thought of quitting the corporate world but I was conscious of the need to project 20 years into the future and be mindful that the decision I make today will not end in my having to tincup for a pension outside a railway station tomorrow - though it is my firm belief most pensions in the future will have to be procured in this way.

And it is this thought that leads me to put strategy and planning behind a career move of the sort I have in mind.

In an earlier post I talk about a life less ordinary where I refer to re-training in something that will allow me to do a job that 'matters'. For the next 4 months I will be but a vapour in my house so intensive is the course I'm taking. For now I'll call it my move towards a life less ordinary and when I'm done I will tell you all about where I plan to take my professional self next.

I will say this - if you want something badly enough you will find a way. I'm banking on it...literally.

Make yourself at 'home'

I'm off to London and Madrid at the end of next week to catch up with friends and family - drink from the fountain of familiarity and friendship - and as always I put myself under enormous pressure to squeeze as much or I should say, many (people) into my time there as possible. So much so, I might have to contact Stephen Hawkins and ask if there is such a thing as a space-time shoehorn. At this rate I won't need a place to stay because I haven't actually factored sleeping into the equation.

It's always a bitter sweet experience returning somewhere where you used to own property but now rely either on the kindness of friends or horror of all horrors - hotels; a stranger in the only land I know (and love). I feel this most in London - the connection is too deep for this set up to to feel anything but...odd. My mum used to have a little holiday home on the east coast of Spain where many a crazy rite of passage and fun fun holiday was had but that house is no more and I feel it there too on occasion.

Generally though, Spain is a different kettle of fish - never having lived there (within recent memory - I know I was there for a couple of years before the age of 5) I don't mind hotels and in fact have a special fondness for a family run inn near the train staition Atocha. But there will be no need for hotels in Madrid this year. The family is falling over itself to accommodate. My cousins are moving out of their flat for the week we're there so that I, the other half and the nipper feel properly at home. I'm eternally grateful that despite the miles of separation - there is nothing to fake in Spain.

It's a wonderful feeling.

London, well, that's a different head case altogether. My friends have mostly escaped to the country and those that remain live in tidy little flats - hardly the place for a gargantuan Canadian and vivacious 3 year old...not to mention the slattern of a wife (that's me). So this time, it's a hotel for us - in Camden - my old stomping ground. It's not all bad and yet...as Coldplay says: "Home is where I wanted to go....home." Ah, one day.

For now, I have pubs landlords to check in with who will wonder why sales have been down for the last 18 months, streets and parks of my youth to saunter through & up & down, shop windows to peer longingly into, markets to float about in and a strong craving to visit The Natural History Museum to satiate. Been reading The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum and HAVE to take a closer look now - despite visiting it weekly for most of my teens - mostly to gawp at the exchange student from Sweden. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2008/january/the-secret-life-of-the-natural-history-museum.html

Cheerio for now my little blogettes. Will send a postcard.

The Beautiful Ones

I went to a fashion show Wednesday night at Uber Toronto scenester mecca – Ultra. What? you haven’t heard of it? It’s only the centre of the universe where the beautiful peeps meet to look pretty on the outside - though I must admit it took me quite some time to locate.

It started with the fiasco that is parking in Toronto. I ended up emotionally blackmailing a kitchen porter into lending me his parking space for a couple of hours or face the wrath of god on judgement day should I be raped and killed looking for a space in one of those god awful municipal 10 storey car parks. What? It was late – like after dark late! and I was tottering about on ridiculous heels.

Turns out I’d have been safer negotiating the slopes of a high rise car park building in those heels than I was clacking up and down Queen Street in unforgiving 4 inch Calvin Klein strappy (slappy) sandals searching for a door so dark and small, professor Dumbledore wouldn’t have fared much better.

I took styling tips from the gossip mags that told me clingy and neon plus heels and gold accessories is how the youth of today ‘be rolling’. Turns out looking like Demi Moore isn't that simple. I settled for Roger Moore in drag and was only glad the lighting was dim enough to put my flaws in soft focus. In any event, I figured people would soon be sporting their vodka goggles - either way I'd be off the hook.

Oh but what Moroccanesque delights awaited me inside! Well worth the permanent lower back damage. Dark, sultry and seductive; a wonderful setting for dinner - had I actually made it to dinner. So now I'm ravenous, my feet are starting to look and feel like beef jerky and the fashion show wasn't starting for at least an hour. Nothing left to do but dance and drink and party.

After locating my friends, a couple of saucy Brits, I spent the night shifting my weight from one foot to the other - much like a horse does in its sleep - exchanging laughs and loves from back home - nothing too cultured and almost all irreverent. The Fat Slags, Buster Gonads and Terry Fuckwit to name a few childhood comedy heroes from the comic book Viz dominated the conversation. If you don't know it...and you think you're hard enough you can find these ground-to-air walking disasters at http://www.viz.co.uk/.

Finally, not that the chit chat wasn't riveting, rumblings of the start of the cat walk show filtered through. Midnight I believe it was. I was on my third vodka red bull for sustenance and suddenly the irritating thought of a 6am start the following day began filtering through the fug of alcohol and leg ache. Shoo!

I watched these waif like creatures, floating down the runway curious as to what a gust of wind would do to them. I imagined them floating down to earth as softly as a duck feather into the path of a car. No! Mean woman - mean jealous woman!!

I wouldn't be able to get a wrist through any one of the trouser legs on stage, notwithstanding (may I be struck dumb with ingratitude) it was a delightful show and a wonderful night out.

I had a sobering thought on the way home - did I really miss London that much or the social life afforded me there by having this sort of night on tap - as I had once had? and if that was the case - perhaps the social life, under the right circumstances can be interchanged.

After a ferocious struggle in the bathroom with my Spanx and the most inconsequential of ablutions, I fat-footed it to bed with all the finesse of a wrestler. Somewhere between a sigh and a turn, I had a sparky little thought that I might be onto something with this socialising malarkey. Maybe it's not Canada and it wasn't London...maybe it's just always been me? At the risk of spending half the night wondering how to solve a problem like me...I let sleep take me. Afterall, tomorrow is another day.

In which rain is cheaper than counselling and just as effective

Say what you like about washout weather such as the stuff we've been getting here in Southern Ontario where it has rained so much recently, Seattle was on the phone to congratulate us - say what you like - crap weather doesn't half make you a) inventive b) personable towards family members who find themselves in the same 'boat'.

I was talking to my immediate family in whole sentences; hell I was talking full stop.

I had planned on a weekend weaving in and out of Niagara vineyards with my other half and nipper, lost in a hazy soft focus ever-so-slightly wine induced buzz followed perhaps by a leisurely and uninterrupted newspaper foray in the backyard the following morning and the most precious of commodities - having hopefully tired the nipper out the day before: a lie-in.

But instead, Monsieur Climate Change, the finicky so & so was having none of it. How dare the human become so smug and complacent as to think that warm weather is the only side effect of the Green House effect? For faffing about on the Kyoto Agreement, North America will be punished in Old Testament style - ungrateful wastrels!

Meanwhile back at pajama centrale, the family sat down for a big breakfast when it might otherwise have been fastening bicycle clips. This was followed by hours of - I believe the technical term is - conversation as we watch animals dash past the window - 2 by 2 on their way to Noah's Ark, or perhaps that was just the effects of too many Strawberry Daiquiris and cabin fever combined.

One brave soul then ventured out, armed with flesh shaved off the buttock area of a sodden corpse, to Blockbusters. Thus started the DVD-a-thon that lasted into the wee hours of the next day.

The following day took pretty much the same format with a wise swap-out of Daquiris for family puzzles, the after effects of which one is still suffering from 5 days later.

All in all, though we lived in the same clothes for 48 hours, it was a thoroughly civil and bonding affair. So rain all you like Ontario.

Ok, maybe not but you get my drift. Off to Spain next. Let's see what the effects of constant sun will be.

Jacked up at The Kool Haus

The Kool Haus http://www.theguvernment.com/ was true to its name last night as Jack White (White Stripes and The Raconteurs frontman) and Allison Mosshart (Singer for the Kills) brought their supergroup side project, The Dead Weather to Toronto.

This time on drums, White's latest blues-punk-rock outfit, which also features guitarist-keyboardist Dean Fertita from Queens Of The Stone Age and Raconteur's bassist Jack Lawrence collectively rocked out like only a supergroup can.

To call it a performance would be to do it a great injustice. This was an experience - the sort that stays with you for posterity. A packed venue on a flat floor (the only criticism - slope the floors please!) usually spells an early departure for a 5 footer like me as after a while I just can't see the stage - but that didn't matter last night. I squeezed every last drop of elixir out of this vessel; glimpses of Mosshart or White felt like what I imagine seeing a panther in the wild would.

Mosshart's sultry disenfranchisement put me in mind of Jeanne Moreau - obliviously self involved against an eery backdrop of tangled tree limps and voodoo imagery, a sense of hopelessness prevailed; doomed to fall under her spell there was no point in trying to fight the inevitable; Her dark and guttural voice permeating to the bone.

Lest you should forget to whom she sold her soul, Jack White steps out from behind the drums seamlessly moving from drums to guitar and insanely talented on both. To me there is nothing more attractive. I don't know what he is like as a person, but I like to imagine he's moody and socially awkward, insecure for sure - where else do you find the substance for art if not gouged out of your personal flaws? But apparently not. Apparently the man is nice. And perfect. It's heartbreaking.

And then as if in mid sentence, it stopped. No-one wanted it to but that is the nature of desire. As I made my way out into the street debating whether to walk or take a cab to the train station, the heavens opened and more dead weather arrived.