oh a writer’s life for me yo ho!

Is this it?

Okay, time to write a new post. It’s really coming to something when you start getting get blog block. Last week was such a whirlwind, time to slow down and regroup. the terrible news of Craig Arnold is old now; Derek Walcott is old news, Ruth Padel is old news, Oxford University is very old news. Carol Ann Duffy is old news, the news of who Padel sent her famous email to (an old friend of mine) is old news, Salt Publishing’s Just One Book campaign is not old news but it is bedded in… time for a breather. Or something.

I was given a late birthday present yesterday, by the way – preceded by a long, sheepish preamble. It was a themed present with someone else’s, and the giver said: “Once you’ve opened it it’ll probably start another conversation…” Even that clue didn’t tip me off and when I opened the present it made me burst out laughing: Darwin. By… Ruth Padel. Excellent. Very well done.

Plus the rest. Your correspondent is very tired. The house is a shitheap, sorry to tell you. It happens, even here in the Mansions of Baroque. The weater heater is playing up strangely, the broadband is driving my nuts, the cleaner hasn’t been for three weeks and I have no idea when is a good time for her to come, but I shouldn’t be spending the money. The RSI seems a bit better, but I should probably be wearing one of those bandages to be on the safe side. The blood test results should be in this week, but when and how will I get to the doctor. I’ll lose half a day’s pay. Maybe I should try to combine it with the boiler man and the broadband technician. But if I’m at the GP how can I be waiting in…?

Still, I slept much better last night.That’s good and notwithstanding the fact that I could quite happily go back to sleep right now.

Work tomorrow. That’s the thing. And I’m also out the next three nights, unavoidably, so I have to make sure the place is okay and there’s at least some milk & bread here that isn’t off. (This morning I’ve been having sugar in my tea; the milk was a little off.)

There are five piles of books on my desk that need dealing with, i.e., reading, note-taking, reviewing, essay-writing – and just for the love of it. Not for a fee, though it is one thing to reflect that the Urban Warrior has now finally submitted his Housing Benefit application, along with signing on – so at least that particular extra expense may soon go away.

Along with my temp job.

I mean, if we’re so goddamned smart, why do we work so flipping hard for no money all the time?

And then there’s all the rest of it – !

Life is just surreal at the moment, I don’t even recognise it. Nothing is the way it seemed like it was, or might be, or was going to be, even a few months ago. Every single thing is different.

I can’t even change direction and focus on something else. I’ve changed direction so many times that now I’m just spinning around. Soon I’ll just turn to butter.

Then I read this morning that they say anxiety disorders are up with the recession. No kidding.

Though I would dispute that it’s just the recession. Unless the recession itself is maybe an objective correlative…? I mean, it exists only as an external manifestation of the exposure of the inner conflicts, the baseless foundations, the pointlessness of… I mean, this is a time when everything is just gone the shape of the pear, nothing is predictable, no news is good news. I think I was right. This is the quintessential Beckettian moment.

Of course I’m supposed to be writing about that. There’s the pile of books to prove it. Only yesterday morning the postman kindly delivered a packet containing several of Faber’s beautiful new Beckett editions.

As for writing. The question is what. How. When. “Among the many questions…” But I do know one thing. I know who I wish I was. Martina Cole, that’s who. My new hero.

Her and Beckett.

That’s some novel I want to write.

In the fourth dimension.

And that’s without even thinking about the Oscar Wilde project. (Oscar has sort of taken over from Henry at the moment.) (Surprisingly.)

So now I will throw some clothes on, get down the cashpoint and give some money to Mlle B (it is her father’s birthday tomorrow), equally sort out the Tall Blond Rock God with his money for their dad’s birthday, oh and plus I said I’d ‘lend’ the Urban One £40 more to last till his benefits come through; and then go down the road, get a coffee, and see if they sell any novels by Martina Cole in the bookshop. Maybe not; I’ll have to hit Smith’s tomorrow. Then I should get some (cheap) groceries, trudge up the hiill with them, come home and put away the washing, remake my bed, water the windowboxes, tidy up, clean the kitchen, and at some point maybe I will have a chance to continue with Worstword Ho!

And I ache all over because I fell over quite badly the other night and bashed up my knee. Along with the rest.

Hmm.

Editing in: just went to the Stoke Newington Bookshop and of course they don’t have Martina Cole! Vainly seeking in between all the dreary Coes, Couplands, Cusks. The one time in my life I ever wanted a trashy novel and I don’t even know how to do it. I’m like Emma Goldman the time she went on the game to try and raise money for Alexander Berkman’s bomb… Her first punter took her to a soda fountain, in the frilly knickers she’d made specially (come to think of it, maybe a clue), and talked her out of it.

So I’ve made do with Pessoa:

“The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognises as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is sterile, and to apply certain norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought that he considers utterly inconsequential.”

That, and my All Saints scarf.