Bute-iful

So here I am, on Bute. Except I'm not, I'm at Yesh's place. I only got electricity and gas today because the previous tenant had left a big debt on the meter and it needed to be wiped before I could get a new meter key. Yawn. Still, it was relatively painless in the end.

Ok, I'm feeling a bit daunted. I think it'll be better once I'm properly settled in and starting to make a routine for myself, but so far it's been a bit ... up in the air. Plus I have to go back to the east coast for this interview on Monday, and to Edinburgh and Dollar for fun & frolicks next weekend. I'm really looking forward to the fun, but it isn't allowing me time to really get settled. Ach. It'll be grand.

The flat, in fact, is lovely. It's suffered a bit from being empty for a while, but a bit of a spring clean and it'll be grand. Maybe some paint. But it's light and airy and there's a wonderful view over the bay. Alas, no broadband and practically no mobile reception as yet. I'm writing this from my iPhone while Yesh cooks, and it's a bit of a tortuous process. The blogging, not the cooking.

The old digestive troubles are back, alas. It's just the stress. It'll pass as soon as I chill out.

A small blog just to stay up to date. More when cilvilisation comes to Bute.

Movin' On.

Well, it's been a while, eh?

Life moves on at its own pace, and I can't say I really know what's going on all the time. I'm still a bit emotionally fragile and find myself struggling at random times - but I'm moving upwards and onwards. Well, ok - I'm moving. The direction is a little ambiguous.

I've been spending a lot of time on the West coast with Yesh, and now I'm moving to Bute for 3 months. I'll be a lot closer to her, but she's not the only reason I'm going. Firstly there's the fact that, if I want to salvage a relationship with Fisher - and I do - I really don't think living with her is a good idea. Secondly, I want to think about the rest of my life and what I'm going to do with it. I run over and over things, but what I come back to every time is writing. So I'm finding a quiet spot in the world where I can concentrate on finishing a novel, and if I can't manage to get something finished then it's a good sign I never will.

Of course, sod's law strikes at the most inopportune times. Having decided to head to Bute for 3 months I received a letter from Historic Scotland regarding a job I applied for months ago. I'd figured they'd put me on the discard pile ages ago - but no. I've got an interview on the 15th June. It's for a position as a monument manager for St Vigeans up near Arbroath. It would be 4 days a week, still leaving me time to write and massage. But it's over an hour's commute from my house every day ... and then there's the fact I don't really know where things are going with Yesh. I don't fancy the idea of seeing her only at the weekends. But it's only for a year's contract, so I could probably cope. More distressing is the thought they'll want me to start before I've come back from Bute. I really, really want these 3 months. I really want to see if I can live alone, and write a book, and what's happening with Yesh.

Still - no point in panicking over what might be. I need to get the interview under my belt before I even have to worry about what to do if I actually get the job. And I don't really think I will, to be honest. It's not like I've got any experience at managing anything at all - and couple that with how ridiculously far away I live, I don't think I'm the ideal candidate. Never mind. It was nice to get an interview. Makes me feel less unemployable.

Everything's happened fast, hasn't it? Fisher and I are both moving on, physically and emotionally - and the future doesn't seem quite as terrifying. I mean ... it's pretty terrifying. Just not as terrifying as it was.

I hope anyone reading this is feeling happy and wholesome, fulfilled and with bright plans on the horizon.

Short Story: Dysmorphia

Dysmorphia

I’m looking down at myself and coming to an uncomfortable conclusion. Can it be true? Surely it can’t. But no, there’s no doubt about it. I’m dead. My soul is leaving the building. I am in the process of becoming the dearly departed.

It’s deeply disappointing, it really is. I was on my way to a party. I’ve been looking forward to it forever. I even bought myself a new dress. It’s a wrap dress from Monsoon, and I can’t afford it, but it’s been years since I bought new clothes. It’s ruined now. The story of my life. The story of my death.

Janine is throwing the party. I love Janine. She has the telephone next to mine at work, and when she talks down it she sounds like Margaret Thatcher. She’s from Bradford. I don’t know why she thinks sounding like Margaret Thatcher is a good idea, but she always does it. Good arf-ternoon. Might I trouble you for a moment of your time? Thanks awf’ly. She swears people are less likely to put the phone down on her. She does get fewer hang-ups than the rest of us.

Hang-ups. I had plenty of those in life. Body dysmorphia, Janine calls it. I see fat everywhere: face, tits, belly, arse, thighs. Look at me, lying there. There isn’t a part of me that isn’t covered in a thick layer of blubber, like a beached whale.

I wonder when they’ll find me? I wonder if they’ll find me? They must do. I’m not particularly well hidden, here behind the Maharaja of India. And when they do, I guess they’ll take me to the hospital morgue and lay me out on a slab and take off my Monsoon dress and wash the blood off. I won’t be clean. My dirt is too deeply ingrained. You’d need more than a bit of soap and water. What is it they do to whales? Flensing. I should be flensed. Peel off layers of skin until I’m as clean and white as a fresh maggot. All the marks and bruises gone, left on the foul old skins that are dropped in the corner like a wrinkled pile of used condoms.

It wasn’t only body dysmorphia. You could say I have – had – mind dysmorphia, too. Too stupid, too slow, too ignorant. Couldn’t even learn how to fold laundry, or lay a table, or cook a blue steak. Thirty seconds each side, was that so hard? But every time I lose count and it’s not right. It’s always overdone and Michael has to show me again. He likes showing me what a stupid tart I am. Stupid tart, he’ll say, and show me. Show me how to fold laundry, cook a steak, wash dishes. How to take it, how to give it, how to suck, blow, come, go. Very controlling. Very controlling indeed, come to think of it.

Never mind. It’s all over now. It doesn’t matter that I’m lying with my legs spread like slabs of beef, my eyes glazed, unmoving. Frigid as a nun. As exciting as a tax return. A dead horse, a useless lump, enough to turn anyone off, like touching an iceberg, fat cow, dog, minger, troll, stupid piece of shit, not fit for the gutter. He was wrong about that. I look quite at home in the gutter; quite peaceful, actually, with my hair spread out in a chestnut halo and my palms raised in surrender.

Life dysmorphia. Is there such a thing? Shouldn’t I know, now I’m dead? Shouldn’t there be a blinding flash of enlightenment? It seems unfair that I’m still confused. Still, since when did fairness have anything to do with anything?

Christ, maybe that was it. Maybe that was my blinding flash of enlightenment. I really hope not. I really hope there’s more to the meaning of life than what my mother used to tell me: Life’s not fair. Get over it.

Look at me. Look how small I am. What endless misery there was, bound up in so small a vessel. My misery seemed like a world in itself: vast and inescapable. And there I dwelt. There I wallowed. There I rotted. And in the end I’m just a little thing, taking up barely any space at all behind the blue skip full of wasted Indian food. My feet and hands are especially small. When we first met, Michael used to kiss my fingers; light kisses, like butterfly wings. He called them ‘delicate’. He said I smelled of petals. That’s what he called me. Petal. He didn’t specify which petals. He wouldn’t know anything about flowers. He ripped up my Sea Holly and composted it. I cried to see it all uprooted, rotting away. He told me it made sense I’d like something that ugly and prickly. I did like it because of its prickliness, but I don’t understand how he could think it ugly. At dusk, it glows. It’s jagged and rough, but nothing dims that luminescence.

I don’t know when Michael kissed my fingers for the last time. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision, or if he just gradually lost the desire. Probably, one day, he went to take my hand and saw fingers like fat grubs, wriggling and reaching and wanting. It would put anyone off. I was so greedy. I wanted things all the time. I learned not to ask after I went dress shopping and Michael slammed my fingers in the car door. He was sweet afterwards; sat with me in the hospital waiting room, held my other hand. He even said I could keep the dress, but it made me look fat so I took it back. It didn’t make me look fat. Fat made me look fat.

Of course! That was the last time. We were sitting in the waiting room and he lifted my broken hand to his lips. He kissed the fingers, even though they were all twisted and blue and had blood under the nails. He didn’t say it, but I knew he was sorry. I don’t know what was wrong with me when I was alive. I don’t know why I couldn’t learn how not to make him angry. Then again, I couldn’t even count to thirty. I couldn’t do anything, really. I couldn’t cook, clean, or lose weight. How hard is it to lose weight? It’s just laziness and greed. Better off dead.

No. Don’t think I’m glad I’m dead. I’m not. I’m truly, deeply pissed off about it, because it’s all been for nothing. I’ve done nothing. My life is nothing. There it is, splayed out in the gutter amongst the blood and filth, and there’s nothing more I can do about it. All that sorrow and struggle, all that desperation over such a little thing. What does it matter? Does anything matter? Why don’t I know? Where’s my enlightenment? This really isn’t fair.

And now everything’s getting a little hazy. Nothing’s been made clear to me and now it’s all disappearing. I’m still looking at my body, looking at the scarlet mess of my chest and the whiteness of my skin, but I’m starting to change. To separate. To dysmorph. I’m becoming something else. I don’t know what. I don’t know whether I want to, but I don’t suppose it has anything to do with me.

God, is this it? Is this really all I’m leaving the world: a shattered body and a bloody Monsoon dress? I should never have said I’d go to Janine’s party. Michael was right. In the end, I couldn’t survive on my own. The streets are dangerous for women like me. There are maniacs on the loose. Maniacs with kitchen knives you bought them for Christmas. That fucker. I’d be furious if I wasn’t dysmorphing.

I wonder what they’ll say at my funeral? Dearly departed, we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses to celebrate the death of

I think I’m confused.

I’m floating. Light as a feather at last.

I’m going. This is really it. I’m getting thinner and thinner. Departing. And I can see, I can see everything: the sloppy Indian food in the skip and the body behind the skip and the blood running and mixing with the dirt and rain water and the young Indian waiter in the white shirt opening the door and his cigarette and his beautiful hand and the curling white smoke as soft and insubstantial as me, as me, as whatever I am, and the turn of his head, and it doesn’t matter if he sees because it’s beautiful it’s all so beautifully pointless and I was alive and that’s enough and I’m leaving and I’m clean. I’m clean. I’m so clean.

Merry Meribel

Greetings all. I'm in Meribel. I'm here with Phid, Wheeler, Castor, Epona, and two of Wheeler's pals. I shall call them Fiddler and Biker. We arrived on Saturday, after flying into Geneva and then transferring by minibus. All went smoothly. The chalet is basic, with small bedrooms, but with everything we could possibly need. There are chalet girls who cook and clean for us, which feels ridiculously decadent, and even if the snow isn't great it's not so bad there isn't a lot of fun to be had.

First morning, I skied mostly on my own. Fiddler and Biker went off together, Wheeler and Castor faffed about with Castor's new ski boots and then skied together, and Epona took Phid for some gentle runs and a lesson. I was very happy to be pootling about, finding my feet again, and by the time I met everyone for a little break at noon, I was starting to feel a bit more confident. I do love skiing: the mountains, all sharp and jagged; the snow so white; the sky so clear blue; the sun so warm and yet the air so cold. And then the speed, slipping smoothly over the ground as the wind bites your skin. Of course, that's only when it all goes right. When you fall on your arse like a tit, everything's a bit frustrating - but I managed to only fall over once yesterday. On a green run. Quite embarrassing.

In the afternoon, Phid, Fiddler and I did a few fun runs and then Phid had a lesson. Fiddler and I did lots of the runs I'd done in the morning, then a few more a bit lower down where the snow was slushy and totally knackering. We were all done in by 3pm, but we started at about 10, so it was a pretty good stint for our first day. Especially as I'd drunk too much whisky with Wheeler the night before, and he'd scolded me roundly for being such a fuck-up and made me cry, and I felt a bit drained the next morning. Luckily his hangover was much worse. Karma's a bitch, Wheeler. Heh heh.

This morning I went off with Phid and Epona. We did a couple of easy runs for an hour or so, and then Phid decided to head back to the chalet and rest before our afternoon lesson. I went off with Epona, and we went to the top of the mountain and skied some reds and blues. It was great. Snow's much better today, after a very light snowfall to soften the ice, but still quite hard. My legs are holding up - a bit tired, but not too bad. Epona's a very good skier - much, much better than me. But as I said, we're having a lesson this afternoon and I plan on being absolutely brilliant by the end of it. Brilliant, I tells ya.

I daresay I'll blog again. This is a lazy holiday, with lots of down time as well as skiing, so I've plenty of time on my hands. Catch you later, dudes.

Big News

Things move apace. Today, Fisher and I were in Edinburgh looking at a flat she'd spotted. Actually, I think Koi saw it in a paper and passed it on. Anyway, I was away at the time, and when I came back I was sort of sideswiped by the news that she'd not only found a flat she liked, but was hoping to put an offer in.

I know this is all my idea, but the sudden overwhelming fear this inspired was almost breathtaking. I saw myself in this house without her and it became so real, so unbelievably solitary, that I went cold. And she kept talking about it, and I just shrank into myself, all the while knowing I had no right to feel this way. She wanted me to come and see the place with her, give my opinion, and I just nodded and kept saying 'yes'. I'm not sure I heard most of it. But after a while the feeling sort of solidified into a little section of my mind and I was able to cope.

So, today, bright and early, we headed into Reekie and looked at the flat. It's grand. Spacious, full of potential for development, and with a view of Arthur's Seat. There's a park for Baffie, who's going to live with Fisher, and room for Fisher's work space as well as a 3rd bedroom, after development. Perfect. So out in the car, she put her offer in, and all that was left was to wait.

We were pretty starving, so we went to Urban Angels off Broughton Street. See Scran for details.

After that, I wanted to visit Waterstones and get a book on Leonardo da Vinci, with whom I am recently enamoured. Thence to the National Gallery, where I gazed on the self portrait of Rembrandt with genuine awe.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait Aged 51
The moment I saw it, I said to Fisher how sad he looked. And she told me how he'd been suffering great personal and financial loss at the time. This is what I love about Rembrandt. All his people speak. You can hear them. Their faces are full of words. Upstairs in the Italian section I looked at Raphael and was just left cold. His faces don't seem real at all; they're like air-brushed models posing with expressions of grace and tranquility, but feeling nothing. Still, I'm not going to base any sort of opinion of Raphael on the couple of paintings hanging in the National Galleries in Edinburgh. I'll just have to go to Florence and see more.

Fisher, by this time, was wandering around with her phone in front of her face, desperate not to miss any call from her solicitor. But it wasn't until we were on the way home that the call came.

She got the flat.

I was really, genuinely happy for her. It's such an exciting prospect, and so good that she's moving on. Of course it will be hard, and of course it will take adjustment - but it's progress. We must both remember that. And I must remember that I chose this, and I think it's right, and that the first priority with me is to sort my life out. For me. For no other reason, and in light of no other people - relationships or not. My loch-swimmer is so far from a safe bet I can't even think of more than the next time I see her. I fully expect to end up with my heart ripped in two - but if that's the case, then I'll put it back together with duct tape and go on enjoying the life I've made.

Now I just have to make a life. I'm thinking a job would be a good idea. Maybe just 2 or 3 days a week to start with. Maybe something in the food world - host at a restaurant, perhaps? Anyway - I'll wait and see what's out there. Considering my criteria of 2/3 days a week, I'm thinking I'll have to take what I can get!

That's all from me for now. Hope all are well.

2010. The Year That Sucked.

Location: In the library, on my lonesome.
Mood: Fucking depressed.
Listening to: Won't Lie
Reading: Beyond Good and Evil

Right, so, this is tricky.

Unfortunately, Fisher and I are no longer a couple. It seems harsh to post this on the blogosphere, but it's fact. I'm not going to go into details, and everything is extremely raw and painful, but things are progressing. I don't know whether they're progressing for better or worse, but they go on - as does life. Which is a shame, as I'd quite like it to take a break for a while, then wake up and have all this shit over with. I'm to blame. Fisher did nothing. All things changed in me.

At the moment, Fisher is in a mysterious location, leaving me alone at home. This is only right and proper. I've been doing enough darting about, so it's her turn to try and get some perspective. Of course, the problem of what to do next is first and foremost in our minds. How do we live? Together, in a platonic relationship? Or separately? What about the house? The dogs? Fisher's workshop?

So hard. Fuck. So, so hard.

I will keep blogging. I shouldn't have stopped, really. It's such a help in organising my thoughts, and I can write without getting too personal. So look out for more blogs coming this way.

Love to all.

Officially. Never. Drinking. Again.

Urrrrrrhh.

Had a lovely night with the neighbours last night. I asked Fisher to help stop me drinking too much - which she did not do in any way. We drank until 3am, including me and Kai consuming a bottle of whisky between us. This was not big or clever. I am still unwell and it's 9.30pm the next day. Officially and completely, I am OFF THE BOOZE.

Great night. Horrid day after.