Friday

Many films sorted today at John's Film Library. Skipped lunch. an avalanche of dvd's a to w. Some I noted, but all forgotten now. Elbow playing Lippy kids. Cups to Ben's teacher and the principals. Last day of school. Zooming over town hall. 


Did it. All the boring stuff. the bank, the payment for playscheme, the wire transfer. What's not done is to close out the home insurance. What a waste. Waiting for the claim to go through for the stolen toolbox, paintings, and suitcases. John needs to send the receipts. I'll have to remind him.
I'd like to be out listening to Fragment head tonight in Dalston, but Lawrence was not in to work the dvd player at Tony's, so Ben came running home early before I popped out. Say la vee. Parenthood. We had a board game with the multi-coloured balls like checkers but with four colours. And one page of the big storybook about naff haircuts. A phone call to Ike in Brooklyn. He gardens more than he goes out. I'm too tired anyway. Tomorrow is ...should be fun...the wedding picnic. Dress in wild west attire. I did some grocery shopping and got some pate...pheasant pate and wild mushroom. Some juices. One new one...rhubarb and apple. Tony took us for sushi and Mc and took it away to the park. So a long productive day. So glad I got that playscheme thing sorted out. Today was the deadline. I also gave some nice cups as presents at the school but really feel I'd like to give one to Sue. She has been very good during this recent hard time. And...I sent in the form for his afterschool clubs. Drama, gardening, science, football. That should keep him busy. A few days of playscheme. It is most likely ending in April after being open since the fifties. I want to make a difference if I can. everyone's voice feels so small. This government is like some kind of Thatcher replay. They have different priorities and they don't put the people first or even second. It is as if they want to cut people to the quick. A polarised society. Deaf ears for those who go unaffected like the asshole in the bank. 

Sleep Vertically

HOme is becoming more cosy, more sweet.
Home is ME. My third skin. Second skin being clothes.
too many clothes I have and many of them not fitting or not used often enough to merit hanging space.
Marinating tofu in soy sauce and orange peel with coriander.
Fussing in the kitchen over the right cracker to go with mushroom pate.
Thinking of making my own.
Gelatin, pureed mushroom, mayonnaise, cream cheese, chives, olives, garlic, paprika, tumeric.
I will make my own pate.
I have a new jar of rose petal jelly. It is sweet.
I can get some rose essence from the shop on Chalton street and make my own. or try.
I thought I was on an Asian kick, but no I'm into fresh basil pesto, cheese, tomato and ham lately.
grilled cheese sandwiches with a cup of buildre's tea.
I need some red and white checkered curtains for the kitchen to make it feel like France and lock all the herbs in. The curtain in the living room has come out of the wall. I thought of making a new curtain rod out of some heavy red tubing I found. The curtains would have to be bold. If we had an extra bedroom, we could stay here forever, but this place, despite the view, is not forever. We will have to move. Or get a bed that pulls out of the wall. Or cut the kitchen in half and have a bed that comes down from the ceiling --electronically rises up from the floor. Think how the Japanese live. Tatami mate. Go Zen. Get rid of the sofabed. Sleep horizontal and close to the floor. Or be modern and sleep vertically. that would save space. Or just stay up all night and don't sleep. That saves even more space and time. 

The moon and pets

3:42 Why try to sleep when it's not working?
HOurs ago I noticed the moon out the kitchen window.
It was yellow and half full. Birds
were gliding by except they were clouds looking like birds
flying south for the winter and then like lips kissing out puffs
of more clouds
smokey grey
moonlight and city glow
a bed and nowhere to go
but pace the  tiles and put dishes away
til they clink and the cupboard clothes.

a sigh and a pressing need to search for the papers I need to sort out the paperwork.
the jig in the saw. watch mechanisms. one piece missing and you can't tell the time.
sitting at the church assembly counting the holes in the ceiling where there used to be
a chandelier. You can tell by the holes. Sharply cut holes made in the fifties.
a gigantic light fixture probably hanging while Sylvia and Ted walked down the aisle.
Same church, different poet.

The tao of tobacco. If it's in the house, I smoke it. If it's not, I go and get it.
If it's in the house, I stay up smoking. If it's not, I lie awake needing it.
I think of all the days I have tomorrow and the hours snooze by.
I'm wired at night as if I'm in communion with owls or living in another time zone.
LA time. Pacific, not Greenwich Mean.
But I'm realising I live in HOlborn. Hobgoblin Holborn pronounced without the L.
Midnight mudlark. a cold beer on the beach. A collection of stones.
Most of them are plain. Some have patterns. A few are keepers.
Untwisting the workings of the Iphone.
A metal tablet already ancient by it's weight.
HOw it will be in a hundred years. things we can't imagine
As ten years ago, couldn't imagine communication the way it is now.
So easy to connect even to people from the past
People you haven't seen since you were a teenager.
And still see them through those eyes and you see
through the hairline and the greys, the same smile, different tie.
Some people are lucky enough to be surrounded by people they've known all their lives.
I only see people who remind me of other people from the past.
They walk by and I think of writing or phoning.
staying in touch.
touch.
scratch. dismount. behave. slave. slow down. tick tock.
listen to the gurgle of the old computer. the crackles.
the fridge has no smell and no buzz. the odd sound of a possible rodent.
the choice of a pet. a lop eared bunny rabbit from out west.
a cacti. easier to take care of a cacti. no litter change.
a dead rat. equally easy, but smelling and possible low gain from low investment.
a live hamster. too busy at night.
a fish. had a fish. it died.
the temperature has to be just right.
they don't like candles held under their bowls to produce aquatic shadows.
if left unattended, shadow puppetry begins to float
upside down.
other fish again, it was a terminant weekend away in hot weather.
came back to upside down fish.
buried it in the neighbors potted palm.
a shallow grave.
and the chinchilla. he got tossed over the cemetary fence
as it was midwinter and the earth too hard to dig.
enough of remeniscing about pets.
reality: pay for playscheme tomorrow.
Check if wire if through
Sign up for afterschool clubs
organise the dvd sections at JOhn's
drop into the china shop
go to a gig in Hackney if you are awake.

Little Man

Sometimes, when I have a really big poo to do, I remember giving birth. Just on the cusp of plopping, it teeters, and you wish once it came out, that someone would have told you to push harder in the beginning while you still had the strength. Just like life. Push til you think you'll rip. It saves lots of pain.
Ben wasn't a plop. He shot out with a whoosh. After those nurses showed me the hedgetrimmers, I made the decision. The Little Man wasn't going to get cut out. Blue, he was. A minute of wondering if he was going to live or die, until the doctor suctioned the mucous out. I didn't breathe either until he gave his first cry.
Seven years later. A lovely boy; a little man.

I Have found a large thick cardboard box to use as a plaything or treasure chest. I was struggling with it and found a nice lady to help me home with it. She was chuffed when she realised I was the person who did the Cochrane wall message. We were talking about the cuts as she had just lost her position in the NHS as a chef in the mental health facility. She said she was even afraid to go on marches. I am not afraid to go on marches. I do not throw bricks through windows. I just paint signs and have found all the people I have met only decent people students, workers, teachers, people living their lives in a normal basic way now having their nails cut beyond the quick. And if this playscheme closes, that will effect me severely and shorten my day severely and shut down a blossoming part of my son's social life that is important to him. 80 million over three years to be saved by cutting 2000 child places in Camden alone. That is mincemeat compared to what they spend on war or the olympics or the royal wedding.
She will tell me more about the health service cuts from the inside. Also a good chef, doing the potato wedges and the fruit kebabs for Ben's party. Delegating this year.
The meeting was good. Good reports on Ben's attendance and grades and general attitude towards school and how he handled himself while I was away. All good, but falls on the deaf ears of Bushra. I find it hard to have someone who doesn't have a child judging my parenting skills and having so much power and so little experience. If she is going to knit pick with me, I can knit pick back. Most people would complain about her competence. Phoning at 11am to say....oh, we have a meeting at 4, did I tell you? No. Phoning at 215 and leaving a message to cancel the second meeting we had and then not phoning again for a few days. Crap in my book. Having a private conversation with my son. Telling me she will speak to me the next day about the contents and not calling for days until I phone and leave a message. Then she talks to my mother instead and tells her my son says we are fighting. He is six. He doesn't know what discussion is between two adults. Misinterpretation. Incompetence. It's enough. All the other people in the meeting were on my side. But I do not get that feeling about her and I find her incredibly disorganised!

Daze

ieri 10-4 dorm. oggi 2 to 4 dorm. Troppo meds. Last mtg with Lucy. Miss. Cheam. A good report on B. Terrapins. M. Jackson, gargoyles. reduce dosage. Whittington lunch. Jorge. Tile grout for asps. Window boxes. Herbs chives basil. Steak tonight. Asfoetida. Sonja dropped the leaflet. Lisa, Diana, Rieko, Kim, Veronique, Marcia, Vanita. Pizzeria will be open for Sunday. Icco. Goodge st.

Chinatown

Ben We stopped in a square by St. Pauls Cathedral. The bells were ringing and two ladies with two year olds stopped to admire my bike. One lady with a South African accent was an education consultant. We got talking about house swaps somehow. She has been wanting to do it. We had enough time to ride to Rich Mix, so we left on our bikes. Ben clasped his ears and said it was giving him a headache, the bells. A sunny day. Slight torture to sit inside with a movie on a sunny morning, so the riding there made up for it. A parrot film called Rio. Some popcorn costing the price of two  tickets. Some ham and cheese from the Brick Lane cheeseman who knows the leatherlane cheeseman. They all know each other. Years of selling cheese, I suspect you would.
A plastic miniature beetle that vibrates. A 2011 Dr. Who calendar for fifty pence. Some sanding blocks...six for a pound. Some ten pound notes that are actually napkins. A bracelet, a hamburger, a cabbie that swears by the stall. Liba's mum knows the person who wrote Brick Lane. I had dinner with her and Brindisi from Armenia and Liba's son in Chinatown. It was a mellow evening with very hot food that required some soy milk on the side. the Malbec was good. Happy time.
Time away from Ben. A few hours doing something myself without Ben. Every mother knows that melting point when you need to get away to redefine yourself before you lose your name. But things are cool between me and Ben. And Liba says that the cycle 7 to 11 is an easier one, the child more independent. Her son is 16 now. He is nice with floppy hair and headphones.