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!