haven’t gotten anywhere near enough writing done. but I have reread Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Long Days Journey Into Night am halfway through Moon for the Misbegotten and if I haven’t killed myself will polish of Betrayal tomorrow…
Posted on July 31, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
I am using reading plays as a way to avoid writing one. I am telling myself that it is research. That I am studying form. Structure. Character. Exposition.
Bollocks.
I’m avoiding working.
Guess reading plays is better than watching Big Brother.
Here is another little blurb of what I have… if you’re interested…
ANDREW
What’s your novel about?
TALIA
Ahhhhh. . . It’s hard to talk about.
MAX
So don’t.
ANDREW
Don’t mind him. He was raised by wolves.
SARAH
And orangutans.
TALIA
It’s. Um. complicated. So in Japan, there are these kids that shut themselves in their room when they’re 13, 14, 15, whatever, and they just don’t come out.
SARAH
They just stay in their room?
TALIA
Pretty much. Some stay in there for 15 years. They’re called hikikomori. And their parents just take care of them. Modern life is just too much and they hide.
ANDREW
Your novel takes place in Japan?
TALIA
No. My main character is in San Francisco but he’s a western hikikomori. He’s been hiding in his room for 10 years. And. . . did you read about the German cannibal?
MAX
There are so many joke opportunities here. I simply don’t know where to start.
TALIA
So this guy put out an ad. He wanted to kill and eat someone and he met someone that wanted to be emasculated, killed and then. . . um.. . consumed.
ANDREW
Sorry. . . when, when, when you say emasculated. Do you mean?
MAX
Yes, she does.
ANDREW
Fuck me.
TALIA
So my novel is about this guy in his early 20’s that has shut himself away in a room for ten years and his relationship with a guy he met one the Internet that he’s asked to kill and um. . . eat. Him.
Pause.
MAX
It’s a comedy I take it.
SARAH
How do you think of that sort of stuff?
TALIA
I must admit I have a bit of a twisted mind, but I got it from the paper. If you pick up any paper there are tons of stories right there.
SARAH
I read something the other day that I thought was so amazing. So sad. This Thai woman got on a bus to go shopping in Malaysia and she got on the wrong bus coming back. So she ended up miles and miles away. No one could understand her because of her dialect. She ended up begging and was sent to a homeless shelter. She was there for 25 years. And she would sing this song, no one understood her until these health exchange students came to the shelter. And they heard her sing and they were from her region and they understood her. She told them what happened and 25 years after she was lost, she came home to her family.
TALIA
That’s amazing. See that is a novel or a screenplay right there.
MAX
That’s the saddest story I have ever heard.
SARAH
Isn’t it?
MAX
Your wife is gone for 25 years. You think you’ve gotten rid of her and then she comes back.
The blog where Nicole mocks current fashions and breaks copyright law by posting photos stolen from the TopShop website to prove how hideous their clothing is.
Posted on @ 6:40 pm
Because I did not feel sufficiently suicidal after events I will not blog about, I decided to do a bit of clothes shopping.
I am, in the best of euphemistic times. . . curvy. Currently I am positively zaftig.
Shopping with a UK size 14/16 ass is challenging normally but during The Sales, it just sucks. Sales by definition means most of the good stuff is gone and anything that is decent is not in your size.
It doesn’t help that I also hate most of the High Street fashion that is out there. Even on a slim woman I think the silhouette is hideous. It looks like the worse of the 80’s had a bastard child with the worse of the 60’s. Xanadu meets Twiggy with a Flashdance aesthetic.
Even Jigsaw, which I usually like, had a huge case of the uglies. Is it just me? Am I being grumpy? It’s possible I may be transferring my anger that I look like an East German Olympian onto the clothes.
Here are a few off the offerings from the TopShop website that are not even on sale.
…I wanted some music while I read a friends play that I had promised to finish this weekend. Some music to fill the quiet. I go to soundtracks when I feel this way usually. Our modern equivalent to classical music. Elmer Bernstein’s score for To Kill A Mockingbird is especially gorgeous.
But I didn’t put that in.
I put in the soundtrack for Il Postino.Il Postino is a fictional story about a fisherman who meets the poet Pablo Nerudo and how the friendship changed his life.
In 1995 my ex gave me the CD that I popped into my computer this evening. I had just moved to Seattle and we weren’t together and never would be, but it would take us another five-six years to fully realise that.
The first 15 tracks are Neruda poems read with varying success by celebrities. My favorite has always been ‘Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines’. Click here to hear it read by Andy Garcia.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tries to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
It’s been really warm here in London, which has been fantastic to get at least a few weeks of summer. It’s been like Los Angeles in June. Really warm, but not too painful. At night, it’s stuffy, but if you open a window you’re probably going to be comfortable enough. A fan would be best, but our fan is being used in the office.
As part of his plan for Global World Domination, Stuart bought a Drobo.
“Honey why do you have a fan running in the office at night when it’s 30 degrees? Can we use it in the bedroom?”
I finally have a keyboard for the mini mac thanks to Stuart who popped out into a shop on the Strand for me. I have a space bar, I can now write contractions. All of the numbers are once again available to me. Dashes ——””’ 64736430-09 —
This is a beautiful thing…
I have a next week and Monday the 4th off so I don’t have to go to work for 10 whole days. This is the first break I have taken of 08 and I’m really needing it. Had the time off because my nephew Grey was supposed to be visiting us, but the trip fell through… Boo. So I decided to take a week off anyway and just relax here in London. For a bit it looked like I would need to go to Seattle first week of August so I made plans to go to LA Wednesday but no dice… I am disappointed about that because I really miss a few people there so next work trip I will need to swing by. But I must admit, I am happy that I don’t have to get on a plane. I have been work traveling so much the last 9 months, I am a bit at saturation.
What am I going to do this week? I am going to write. I am not as near on this play as I want to be. I am going to do touristy things… like I wrote my MP asking for a tour of Parliament so I am going to do that. Museums, read, relax. . .
Another year that against all odds I have managed to survive without killing or maiming myself beyond any recognition. It’s not been without lack of trying. Stuart bought me a lovely black pearl ring when he was in China which I can’t put on because I managed to burn the ring finger of my right hand Sunday night on an oven rack.
I’ve got skills.
It’s a good thing I’m not a hand model. Between the scar from when I bit it on a bicycle when I was 18, random burns and the scar that is developing from when I tried to cut my finger off a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t get a lot of work.
Is going to be a quiet day. I’m aa-ahem. . . working from home, getting my hair cut and coloured, conference call at 5 and dinner with Stuart at a little French bistro just off our high street for dinner.
It’s fun to reflect on the people you share your birthday with. . . a few from Wikipedia:
1888 - Raymond Chandler, American-born author (d. 1959)
1920 - Amalia Rodrigues, Portuguese fado singer (d. 1999)
1940 - Don Imus, American talk radio host
1957 - Theo van Gogh, Dutch film director (d. 2004)
1961 - Woody Harrelson, American actor
1965 - Slash, American guitarist (ex-Guns N’ Roses)
1967 - Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor
1971 - Alison Krauss, American singer and fiddler
1973 - Monica Lewinsky, American White House intern
1989 - Daniel Radcliffe, English actor
And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Yazid I, Sixth caliph of Islam (b. 645 d. 683)
I leave you with a classic bit of Sesame Street from when I was nine.
Not the easiest thing in the world to do. For example for ‘Your ex’ What I really wanted to say was, ‘The psycotic cocksucker still owes me 3 G’s,’ but that was a bit over the one word limit.
The rules are simple: one word answers to 40 questions.
Where is your cell phone? Bag
Your significant other? Lashed
Your hair? Long!
Your mother? Chatterbox
Your father? Schmuck
Your favorite time of day? Sunset
Your dream last night? None
Your favourite drink? Coffee
Your dream goal? Pulitzer
The room you’re in? Lounge
Your ex? Certifiable
Your fear? Sick
Where do you want to be in six years? Writing
What are you not? Rich
Your favourite meal? Sushi
One of your wish list items? Kelly (Hermès)
The last thing you did? surf
Where you grew up? Vegas
What are you wearing? comfortable
Your TV is? Off
Your pets? Adopted
Your computer? Necessary
Your life? Train
Your mood? Resigned
Missing someone? Yes
Your car? Sold
Something you’re not wearing? Socks
Favorite store? Borders
Your summer? Summer?
Your favourite colour? Red
When is the last time you laughed? Today
When is the last time you cried? Today
Your health? Okay
Your children? Unborn
Your future? Dunno
Your beliefs? Muppets
Young or old? Young
Your image? Reactionary
Your appearance? Sloppy
Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? Definitely
I want to volunteer for a once a week gig at Amnesty International. I’ve long respected Amnesty and even considered doing some volunteer work for them when I first arrived here, but they were asking for more hours than I could give. This position however would be perfect as it would be blogging events and would be on average one evening a week. They are asking for a writing sample in a blog style describing an event.
I’ve been looking at old entries to see if I have a jumping off place that I can use. I have tons of blogs where I get up on my high horse. All you know I have that. I don’t have so many that are talking about an event and the ones I do have are usually about how drunk I was.
Flipping through my archives has been an interesting experience.
1. Some of what I wrote doesn’t suck.
2. Some of what I wrote really sucks
3. My weight has shot up big time since I moved here and I’ve lost and gained the same ten pounds over the last couple of years.
4. I fall down, get stepped on, cut myself and cause general injury to myself a lot.
5. I whinge about not writing or that I am writing or wanting to write. A lot.
6. It seems that I lost a few readers that I had in the early days. Either that or they are lurking. I’m guessing they got a bit tired of the entries that really sucked or me talking about trying to lose weight or how I hurt myself or getting pissed or writing about all of the writing I’m not doing.
7. The moments where I could kill Stuart are very funny on paper.
8. I need to work on my 100 things about Nicole category and my blog roll.
9. I need to clean up the entries that came over from blogger because there are all these strange characters in them that make it difficult to read.
10. I blog a lot about things I need to do that I never get around to.
I’ve mentioned before that I would like to be Dame Helen Mirren when I grow up.
Damn Helen. Zowie. Not only is she clever, talented and beautiful. . . check out those abs of steel.
The woman is 25 years older than me and if I may quote Heather of Go Fug Yourself fame:
Never mind that it’s deeply unfair that Helen, who is twice my age at least, looks better in a bikini than I have done, currently do, or ever will. Because I can’t hate her for it. I can only gape. My girl-crush is now full-fledged love. While we all knew she had a great figure and a timeless rack that she’d whip out during awards season, I don’t think any of us were aware just HOW much her bod is — as the kids these days call it — bangin’. AND her bathing suit is cute. How do you DO it, Helen? With whose blood are you flavoring your morning tea? How much did Satan pay you for your soul, and may I have his number? Or does he read Craigslist?
Seriously, this makes me feel infinitely better about aging. I might even go do a sit-up.
I’m with Heather. My girl crush is also full-fledged love.
Not that I think that anyone would be silly enough to steal my ramblings, but in case you may be thinking about it. . . the very act of my writing this means that I own the copyright. Really. Look it up.
So, please don't plagiarize. It just ain't cool. And what I say just isn't that interesting. Trust me. Most of my friends don't even read this.
That being said, I do subscribe to the T.S. Eliot philosophy of "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." There is a difference between Stealing and stealing. . . This is not to say that I am mature. If anything. . . I'm rambling aren't I? That's what I do. I ramble. So, yeah. I'll shut up now.
