Sleepy Day

Couldn't sleep last night, got so sick of it I ended up putting on TV and watching lots of Six Feet Under. Every time I watch it my favourite character changes, according to what mood I am in. At first Ruth was my favourite, for having spent her life trying, doing for her family who she doesn't know how to be herself with, and never giving up on new things and lovers even now. I love her for trying. But last night it was Clare, and David's relationship with Keith that I couldn't take my eyes off.

Today I am seeing everything in that hazy almost flurecent lit sleep deprived state, but on looking at my poems was amazed to find lines I felt was in one of them that isn't. I wrote some more lines, that I hope will help the poem that I know has something wrong with it. The poroblem with it is it is a poem where I have tried to create alot of stillness, silence, and there is probably more unsaid stuff in there than said stuff. The problem with this is knowing when you have put enought things in to convey the unsaid things, and when you just haven't put them in at all, or have said too much. This poem probably didn't give you enough to go on, hoping it does now, have submitted it for feedback so I'll find out in a few weeks.

Now I'm thinking about greeting cards. What the hell do you write in them? Am I the only one who hates writing in the damn things? I think I hate it for lots of reasons

1) The writer thing makes there a huge pressure to write something better than just Happy Birthday, Angela
2) The split between writer and person someone just knows as a friend, daughter, whatever, is there. So although the writer wants to write something writery, this person knows you as just my fat mate, the babysitter, so and so's girlfriend, so there is a huge question about who you are going to be
3) Who is the audience here? Cards are addressed to someone, but since they will be out on their mantelpiece they are in the public domain. What do I wanna write to this person that I am happy with an audience seeing, possibly including old ladies, children and spouses?
4) If you've been writing a birthday card to the same person for 20 years chances are there are no new things to say.

Funny, I like buying cards, looking at the pictures, but hate the other bit. Maybe I should start a new tradition of sending empty cards, help the recycling thing while I'm at it.

What do I write on this card for someone for their 40th birthday?

Congratulations! 40- Only 25 years left till you can retire.
40- All the best, Just 8 years left till the kids leave home and can you do some things just for you.
Your tits aint sagging yet, well done.

What do I say? I ask myself why is it always the women who have to get the presents , do the wrapping and write in the cards? Think I'll stick to just saying Happy Birthday, have a nice day.
40- 6 houses

ne ne ner

There's someone I know reading my blog (most people I know don't bother, which probably aint a bad thing), who only reads it to see if they are mentioned. She'll talk to me and say, "Oh you still haven't posted about when we went to so and so..." (see still not mentioning it)"it's going to be too late soon you know." Makes me think about what makes it to blog and what doesn't. There's a whole other me some other place no doubt blogging lists of what I had to eat, and what so and so said to me, and how much the man undercharged me by at the grocers. Good thing about blogs is you can say things you may be thinking but never say to people, because, well, they never ask. I can't tell if people even ask how how people are less often, or if we've all become so programmed into saying 'fine thankyou' we don't notice it even anymore.

Today I'm feeling great, that first day of energy after a cold, were there are lots of things to do, and moreso you want to do them. One thing I've been doing is sorting out what to tell the arts people. If you've been in the position you'll know, no matter how hard you worked or what you produced this is slightly daunting, and gives you a feeling like when you've spent your mam's change from buying the Gazette. I think the reason it feels this way is partly because arts organisations are a world of forms and doing things officially, even if you try being an artists isn't like that, things develop, evolve, spark off and you can never plan exactly what you'll write- or why would you write at all? Also, because arts organisations don't ask to see any work you have produced it feels as if they might not think you actually did any (or at least that's what I worry about.) You are never sure if you got it right.

I've been very lucky that when I've had time writing I am able to to write during the week, and can have weekends to get on with other things that need to be done to keep writing time seperate. I still have poetry flashbacks though, will be doing something very different and will remember a line from one of my poems. Yesterday I thought of a poem I wrote over a year ago, and finally had the idea that there was something wrong with a line, and what to replace the words with (grooming replaced with 'groomed by.' Sounds so simple, why did it take me so long, and why did it come to me then? I was stripping a chair, the most relaxing and practical thing I've done in a longtime. Just the chair and me in the cold garage, scraper in hand and that line replaying in my head. When I knock off at the end of each day I'll be polishing that chair for the rest of the week. Working towards a feeling you don't often get as a writer of something being finished, complete.

So another entry were I didn't mention the lady who keeps looking to see if she was mentioned. I didn't mention her houses, collection of bowls, her vintage dresses or when we went out (except I'm mentioning her by not mentioning her.) In the way I see fit, ne ne ner! (how do you spell that!?)

Should be asleep

Can feel the street undulating with sleep, and I should be there. Instead I'm lying in bed going: why am I addicted to the X-factor already, when I know better? Will I get a publisher sorted for the next collection? Will it all be OK? Why are absolutely no relationships in life reciprocal or equal really? How come people say dirty old men but hardly ever dirty old women? And am I one of them? You lie there in bed and think all these things. I remember the film of David Beckham sleeping and think they should sell the DVD of it for sad middle aged women like me to play and fall asleep with. Maybe it would help, or maybe I'd end up watching that video feeling envious- look at the sleep on that, jammy bastard. So I lie there in bed: I think about my dream last night of wilderbeast being washed up by the sea with old beer carts attached, and wonder what it means, and think how come they don't say dirty old women much? I then think maybe I am one, because when I think of real good looking men they are all young. The men my age are..? I dunno, I just don't know any, they disappeared into their wives purses. Actually, the truth isn't that they are young, it is that I haven't thought about anyone like that for so many years they are now young, because it is the memory of who was there that is attractive. What I'm thinking about is this particular guy, my friend and I both loved him, he looked like some sort of pixie man, and never said anything that would shatter the illusion of his perfection (wise, that we only actually met him once.) I have no idea what he actually looks like these days, part of me doesn't want to know- because what then? I think about him though, not obsessing, but times when I can't sleep I'll wonder does it make me a dirty old lady to still fancy a guy who was 21 when my friend and I were into him? I haven't seen him since to like the updated version. We were hooked, we carried around photo's of us with him so that when prying relatives asked if we were courting we could say yes, and whip out the picture as evidence. It always kept people off our backs. Seems he is still fulfilling the same function really. The man who looks so right you can just picture a face to close your eyes to, to welcome you home. (It used to be Morrissey until I loved him so much even such mild thoughts seemed sacreligious.)

It's then I want to go to sleep. Before the questions stampede: if I want to lose 2 stone how many weeks will it take?, And will it even make a difference? Will I ever get to America?, What would make me laugh right now? Could anything wow me?,And if I bumped into that particular guy who could floor me with a smile now, would I just walk right past a man who looks like someone's dad, and would he just move his kids aside to let the nice lady pass?

p.s still in editing mode, still too many pages, and still some that may need to be included in.

I'm the one on the left

Caught the lurgy of a neighbour's child, and thinking if you can pin-point exactly where a cold comes from it probably means you don't have enough friends. It's one of those lingering ones, where you can hear the slow puncture sound in your chest when you are trying to go to sleep, and the sound of coughing gets on your own nerves. This is bad timing, just when I was in the middle of one of those transformations, kept curling round to see if I could feel the angles of wings starting to jut out from my spine. All those teams of people swooping in on TV to make you better- de-clutter your home, lose weight, make you 10 years younger, get a haircut, dress in a way that throws people off the scent of what you do for a living. No one ever looks in the mirror after and just cries, or says I liked it better before, and even when they look better I wonder if they get home,and don't have the confidence to wear their hair down, and revert back to the comfy jeans. (Why is TV now just there to make us feel bad, like we are lazy slobs who have to be told what to eat, do, and live?) The TV fairy folk do it in a comercial break, but the truth is transformation takes time, lots of time, and effort. It's a slow process, but I am in the process, aware that it takes time, the breaking of habits, change of lifestyle, losing things to an editing process, leaving peole on the cutting room floor. Lots of things just have to change. I know I can't make anybodyelse any different, all I can do is set about myself and see if that helps. Was feeling good about it, even with along way to go, when bam!, some random infection comes to make me look and feel like something a giant coughed up again. So it's hard to hold on to the feeling, the goal.

I guess I've been thinking about the few moments of your life when you feel special (the time the teacher handed my story to the class, the way some guy looked at me when I was 17...) It's a shame I can count them on one hand. Everyone wants to feel better in some way, less than just average. Some do it by academic acheivements, some do it by their profession, some accumulate (wealth, things, notches on the bed), some don't need to do anything they just look in the mirror. I suppose some give up on their own aspirations and breed, have a child they want to be better at everything than anyone and no longer have to feel the disappointment in themselves. I wrote, I hoped people would read it, be moved somehow, taken away, and that would make me feel less plain. But it isn't enough, not on it's own. Got to write better, got to open the doors wide for Trinny and Susannah to touch me inappropriately and make me look in the mirror from all sides. Got to just do some things I want to now and then. Say no. Just not be home. Get a metro to the coast and turn off the mobile.

But first to shake this godamn cold...

Last night of the fayre

I've been deep into collection sorting, editing, and wishing I'd written the poems originally on A5 because when you get to that point of formatting them A4 everything looks disturbingly different. I have a horrible hatred of small visual things like a poem going over a page by only one line or two and am having to go through everything to make sure this never happens. Of course a poem should be as long as it needs to be, but the control freak in me, that wants everything neat won't allow for such indulgent thoughts. The collection is alot longer than I realised and I will have to embark on editing like crazy, because there are still a few poems that need to go in there that would explain why I've chosen the subject matter. The poems however work as sets that will chronicle a life, so deciding which ones can or should be ommitted is difficult without losing the narrative. Still sorting that, will be a fair way off I think.

Last night was the final Hydrogen Jukebox. It was a great night, and a sad night. The place was packed, too packed in a way for the evening to be that enjoyable, since the room was too full to ever reach so and so over there you'd quite like to say hi to, etc, but a great night of entertainment.This was one hell of a gathering of North east poets, most of which read a poem or two. Paul Summers started the evening reading a full set from his new book Bela's Dirty Cafe, which is a collection I have been waiting for for a very long time, and amazingly wasn't disappointed in. It is always a pleasure to see Summers read, he reads with such energy and passion to the North east as a cause he supports. The set, like the book, was a mixture of explorations of masculinity and it's meaning in everyday life, and a more haunting lyrical journey into places, people and mortality. The people in his book are somehow fossils, beautiful, neglected , a product of time and place. We can see their spines but never touch the world of pressure that has gone before. The poems made me feel awed, reverant, sad because it all seemed so true. The poems make me feel that is is a poet who never lies, colours the truth, not even a dash- that what is there is just what there is, presented in a breathtaking way.

Following Mr Summers were poems from Jo Colley, Andy Willoughby, Kevin Cadwallender,
Bob Beagrie, Andy Croft, Jeff Price, and a whole host of others I only know the first name of. A complete smorgasboard of poets and poetic style, including shamanic journeys into Siberia from Willoughby (accompanied by didj maestro Kevin Howard.) There is so much to say about this night I can hardly say anything. The most surprising performance of the evening was Bob Beagrie's new poem Nice Hat- a poem about a man in Finland admiring the narrator's hat. Such a simple idea, that elaborated became really funny and energetic as the admirers conspire against him

"Hey, nice fucking hat...
Him in the hat he thinks he is inwincible"

This poem really creased me, and I was surprised because when I have seen Bob Beagrie read before I have seen him be many things: shamanic, soulful, spiritual, introspective ,even manic, but never side-splittingly funny, and it was real joy to see.

As for me, I was thrown by lack of a musician, as I really wanted to Sex with Elvis to love me tender, which seemed perfect for last HJ, so i had to do somethingelse last minute. Surrounded by great poets and all these testosterone filled performers I decided not to try and do any of the poems that would require trying to compete (and failing), and opted to do two quiet little poems (Undertaking Elvis, and Swallows.) Very forgettable really, but not as bad as it could have been since I haven't read since February. Lots of people I might never see again, so much growth by so many performers, and so much opportunity provided by one event for poets to push their work into new directions. . I just hope I won't return to that void I was deeply entrecnched when I first was invited to HJ. I was writing, but had given up finishing things -without any feedback, never seeing other poets, no place to share work and knew no poets to talk to. It was difficult to have faith in my work and push myself into new directions without some feeling of community, example and encouragement to feed on. I think to keep going under such circumstances you need alot of faith in yourself and your work, perhaps more than I will ever have.

Here's to the Hydrogen Jukebox. The end of an era. So what now?

7 Years

Somedays it's best to say nowt. When it's another anniversary, and he hasn't said a word, and you don't want to be one of those women who makes a fuss. And you know it's not that he's bad, it's just one of those things. So you move his shoes from the foot of the stairs, change the bog roll you didn't use the last of (and make a mental note that this is the 52nd time you've done this this year.) Tomorrow will be better, because the fact is there isn't much different about today, other than today is the day it bugs you. Today you can't help but think of those guys who noticed you existed when you were young and 4 stone smaller, the ones you dumped for having breath like toffee apples or always having a faint aroma of maths books. And you can't help thinking when did I lose it? When did I become a woman who picks up the shoes? Is this karma? What's so wrong with toffee apples anyway?

so scratch your name on my arm with a fountain pen

I was amazed at how clean the Shields ferry was. Being transported anywhere on water is a comforting process, I looked up at the little box and saw a middle-aged man, with a face that forgot how to be anything but eyes, in the little box upstairs with captain stripes on his sleeves. I wondered if he realised how comforting it was to be on his ferry, if he loved his job going back and forth with people feeling excited at no more than the knowledge of water, or always longed to turn around from that river and sail away into the sea. Did he always think he had that in him, and wanted to go a little further? It was nice to borrow tourists eyes to see Newcastle, to really look, and be surprised, and wonder does anyone else know?

Thinking about mothers and daughters I am no wiser. I wonder what is it mother's want for their children and what do they want from them? So few know, but it would be smoother sailing if we did, if we had little contracts and could refer back to check.

One thing that used to be on my list was get a tattoo, I always had in my head the tat I wanted, but I told this to a friend, who has now got the same tat (so I feel a bit of Charlie now if I get that tat everyone will think I copied. ) What I'm thinking about tats is something with wings (though Clare Raynor ruined that word), and wondering if there is a part of my body I won't object to enough to decorate. I always thought about that place where your trousers and top sometimes don't meet for my tat, but my mate said it was so '94. Is that true? Is my arse really so horrendously out of date? : /