Filed under: Xmas 2006
Can you believe it: I didn’t used to like London?*
I lived in Italy. I lived in Spain. I had studied French and art history; and even though the first boy I ever kissed was an English boy (named Giles! really!) the ‘romantics’ were far more romantic in my pre-England naivitee. I wanted to live in Europe — but in a part of Europe where a different language was spoken; a part of Europe more pictoresque.
Sure London has funny looking taxis and double decker buses, but other than that it’s flat and ordinary and gray to boot.
What a complete dumbass. It took me exactly 9 days to fall in love with this flat, ordinary, gray city filled with ‘unromantic’ men (I’ve not met a Giles since I’ve been here) and pints of foreign lager.
*A sentence construction that causes me to question mny high priced education. Should it be as so: “Can you believe it? I didn’t used to like London!” Or does the original construction hold equal weight? I’d like to know, but not enough to really think about it. Truly, I don’t give a toss, but am vain enough to worry that you’d think I thought I had it right … I’m smart enough to know that I might have gotten it wrong, but not bothered enough to do anything about it.
As Petunia and I rushed to the liquor store yesterday afternoon in a fit of last minute, we’re-going-to-usher-in-the-New-Year-with-aplomb-and-grand-style-come-hell-or-highwater enthusiasm, she commented, “Is this not the warmest New Year ever?” To which I nodded in agreement. It’s been warm in the Smoke this year.
This makes me pause when formulating my New Year’s greeting (which this post intends to be). The first words that come to mind are: A warm and happy New Year to one and all. But should I really be wishing continued warmth in the New Year? Would that not be applauding (thereby encouraging) our rampant expulsion of green house gases?
This year I resolve to better manage my time. I will not flounder about with such time-wasting questions like “Should I wish the world a warm New Year? Does a ‘warm’ New Year wish encourage global warming? Will they understand I mean warmth as in cheerfulness not as in increased temperature?”
No, I will not waste time eating my own brain*.
Nor will I waste time trying to conclude each published sentence with elegance and verve.
Instead, I will spend my time figuring out how to upgrade a personalised template into ‘new blogger.’
I will waste some time in January on devising and monitoring a couple of New Year’s Resolutions.
I won’t spend time making my resolutions public, with the exception of the couple of hints I’ve given above.
I will continue to be fickle and inconsistent.
But this isn’t about me. It’s about you and your New Year. May it be cheerfully warm and happy. And not too hung over, if you’re into that type of thing. And, if you are into that type of thing, I recommend a ‘Silver Lining’**: a flute of champagne with a shot of vodka poured in. Use a good vodka. I like Gray Goose. It’s tastey.
May 2007 bring you many Silver Linings and laughs and good tv programmes and books and good health and friends and loads of comments if you are a blogger and puppies and kittens and sunrises and sunsets and all sorts of good things that could make you happy.
In short: Happy New Year!
*Direct from the Spanish expression, ‘comer el coco’, which signifies unnecessary, almost paranoid over thinking of some subject or another.
**Introduced to me by my mother who coincidentally called just after Petunia and I returned home from the liquor store with 2 bottles of champagne and a bottle of Gray Goose.
Filed under: Xmas 2006
I missed the Christmas lights on Regent Street this year. And on Oxford Street. And the festively lit Burlington Arcade. I was around for the Christmas build-up, but on the 18th I traded in one Smoke for another. This holiday season I breathed in the smoke of a 3rd world*, Caribbean island. The mixture of fumes from unregulated second-hand cars, the burning of rubbish in abandoned fields, the aroma of the local Christmas delicacy: roasted pork. Available along the side of highways and side streets alike, entire pig carcasses, skewered on what must be tree branches, contribute to the unique bouquet of Christmas in the tropics.
It’s warm. Sometimes hot. Despite frequent and copious applications of sunscreen, my nose is pink.
I swang in a hammock in the Caribbean breeze. I drank a Coco Loco and ate plantains and fried cheese. I swam in crystal clear blue water and walked on white sand. I found a big orange starfish and a little purple one. I exchanged gifts with extended family.
Now I’m looking foward to my return to the more familar smoke. See you tomorrow, gray London.
*I know it’s not ‘au current’ to refer to ‘developing countries’ as 3rd World, but old habits die hard; and, sometimes, I like to be a bit contentious.
Filed under: Xmas 2006
And then it arrives.
An oversized envelope with an 84ยข stamp addressed to Clarissa*.
Like so:
Clarissa
My Address
London, Postal Code
United Kingdom
No surname. You see, when you’re the blogger of a spouse who suffers from a heightened sense of privacy, you only share so much of yourself with the cyber community. And the Mista is right: it’s only smart to take precautions. From what you hear there are all sorts of hoodlums lurking about; paedophiles and the like (though truth be told, I’m far past my paedophilic sell-by-date.)
It takes a leap of faith, a jump in the ocean, to build trust with the (mostly) faceless loiterers of this thing called the Internet. It’s one thing to blog, it’s another to meet up with bloggers (in the real world? dare I?) and swap private correspondance! A dubious line to draw!
I learned something in 2006: When smartly and safely taken, a jump in the ocean can result in the most surprising of life’s little joys**. Even the Mista and his streetsmart cynacism were struck dumb by the gesture: the arrival of a handmade Christmas card sent from across the waters from a woman who in the conventional sense is a stranger, but who in this odd new world is one of my oddly new, oddly ethereal friends.
Now, snuggled into the hallway mirror, next to a postcard of the pyramids and another of some central American beach, I have my very own (Clarissa has her very own) 2007 Christmas card. Thanks Maritza!
*Truth be told, Clarissa isn’t even my real name! Can you believe it!
**Why, even this very angry man has admitted surprise (of the good kind) to opening himself to the hugs of strange women who frequent the internet.
Filed under: Xmas 2006
‘Tis the season to expect great things from the letterbox; a seasonal variation from the norm, which generally constitutes spam of the old fashion kind: business cards from local mini-cab drivers; menus from competing cuisines (Indian, Italian and Chinese fare); water, electricity and gas bills; Inland Revenue’s self-assessment forms; and the occasional postcard from Selfridges offering me an “exclusive” X% discount on Origin’s products because years ago I signed up for a promotional free sample scheme*.
But, now, in December, the postman’s load should jingle and jangle with Christmas tidings, tinsel and cheer and greetings commemorating the birth of the little baby Jesus who later is promoted to Our Saviour**. I should have cards to deck my halls with seasonal joy; Christmas cards from family and friends and acquaintances who take such things as Yuletide greetings as serious gestures of reaching out.
Where are they?
*Was it worth it? Free samples for ongoing postal clutter?
**Was it worth it? Crucifixion …. for what, exactly?
I have one of those moments of ecstatic uncertainty when I don’t know whether London belongs to me or I belong to London.
Turning down the alleyway called Little Turnstile (which runs parallel between New Turnstile and Great Turnstile), I slide into the single-file line of office workers recently released for the evening. Wherever our respective paths take us (a Christmas fete, the gym, a date with our spouse, a tryst with a lover, or just plain home) for the moment we are coordinated, heading in a northerly direction confined by building walls that are close enough to be touched with outstretched arms.
Out of the little alleyway we emerge, and our formation disintegrates. Some to the left, others to the right. I go straight ahead, continuing my northerly course. I am off to have a workout before supposedly revelling at the company Christmas party.
Neither pumping iron nor seasonal cheer inspires me. Paradoxically, I feel in a funk (directionless, lonely, a not-unmanageable shade of blue) yet my insides feel as if they are going to joyfully explode all over the Smoke, explode all over the city that I am privileged to call home.
I don’t know what it is about this very moment, but as I put foot to pavement I feel it:
I own this city!
Followed by:
Oh. Wait. Is it possible this city owns me?
