GAY PRIDE GLASGOW

APOLOGIES

Holy Blog Of Doom, Batman! I just returned from my daily swim on the beautiful Fijian beach and realised I have not updated this since petrol was cheaper than a bottle of Chateau de Neuf! You would not believe that I'd been abducted by aliens, but I'm sorry you'll just have to take my word for it. I am swilling chardonnay, discovering time doesn't stand still, watching Dexter and just generally being an embarrassment to the servants. My day seems to involve the authorities from beach break to running out of alcohol. I am avoiding recapture - can't they see I am blogging? I declare solemnly I will write something that makes sense soon. What? Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!

One of the best from the... Lazy Blog Post Generator another pinch from Bettejo.

POSITIVE THINKING

I’ve been thinking on the positive wavelength for a couple of months now, more fiercely since I watched the movie The Secret – and it’s working; I am attracting all sorts of great stuff to me! People I hardly know are offering me things; two lovely women who have recently started work beside me have offered furniture, a microwave, coffee-maker – one has presented me with beautiful baking trays, signed by Antony Worrall Thompson himself! Before that another workmate brought me in shoes that she couldn’t wear, then a lovely blouse and then a pair of lined curtains for my new flat!

Yes, I’ve even got a flat out of all this positivism, oh The Universe has definitely got me in its sights – I hope I’m not looking too needy. But I do need a lot of stuff. I don’t think I’ll ever remember all I lost in that fire; I had the cupboard packed full of all kinds of arty-farty bits n pieces, photographic equipment and everything that comes out of that. I know that I’ve lost all the black n white negatives along with the enlarger. A few little accoutrements survive for my new darkroom but I’ll need to visit ebay for another bargain enlarger. I can’t wait to have my own kitchen again – so I can black it out and play.

The Artist’s Way is written with The Secret in mind, which was working on me long before I saw the movie, but I stopped doing my morning pages and working on the book when I found the collaborative writing site Protagonise; I always go off on a bender when I find something new. So, I’m heading back The Artist’s Way and will pick up where I left off. I’ve promised myself that I’ll keep the TV turned off this weekend, and hopefully every weekend – with the odd exception of particular programmes. I’ll be good. I’ve given myself a 10,000 word task to be done by Tuesday so let’s see if I can make it.

RECOGNITION

Just wanted to mention that I found the first cat cartoon on this blog, or blogs; bettejo has several blogs here and all worth a browse - she posts a beautiful pic every day on one of them and shows off her wonderful jewellery on another. She's got interesting blogs on her blogroll too. Here's to ya bettejo!

ANOTHER CAT STORY

CAT STORY

TWITTERING IN CYBERSPACE

So, where is all this going? Is it because I want to be a legend in my family way down the line? I would be reaching back at them through eons; imagine something from a space movie, kids doing biography projects or some kind of social history through the ages like The Flip-side of Dominic Hide. Actually, I just caught a repeat of that last week…must look for the second part on BBCi before it’s gone, but it might’ve been on another channel, in which case I’ve probably missed it. That character’s reason for going back in time to 70s London is to study bus routes!

All my witterings travelling in time; I can just see future scholars trying to understand my choice of similes in the race to avoid clichés – it’s like a complete second language in idiom. I will not be explained; I want to be different, unusual and absolutely unexplainable; I want to be indecipherable by future literary historians; I want to make them laugh with a quizzical smile on their faces. What would they make of my Ode to Chocolate?

Right now, I’m doing this for me, and just like Everest, it’s there to be climbed; this mountain of Ethernet and the blogging world is the melting pot we were promised in the 60s – pop songs can be prophetic! I must find a YouTube link for that song so you can listen to it here. It’s an added bonus that my heirs will be able to investigate this for whatever reason – I should do a rant about the price of everything then they’d have that information at their fingertips. I remember searching for prices of food and cigarettes in the 70s; it was for a project (probably a novel) I was working on in the late 80s that proved very difficult.

The autobiography is great fun; I love searching for just the right movie clips and music to create the atmosphere of the late 50s; it’s keeping me focussed on one particular time, seeking out the memories, those early and vague glimpses of my life then before I slip back farther to who my parents were and where they came from, though now that everyone is gone my memory is more than a little hazy but I don’t want to dig deeper – someone else can do that. I am forcing myself to stand still in that period until there is nothing left, before I go on to the fun and naughty tales of my older childhood.

And blogging now; all this twittering filling cyberspace can only get better; I have read some younger bloggers and been astonished at their wonderful writing which I’m sure is because blogging exists and is cool in their world. Blogging is doing education a favour in that its encouraging reading and writing, thinking and commenting in many ways and forms that might not have happened.

CONFESSION

My name is Irene and I am a blogaholic! There, I’ve said it. Oh, the loneliness of the serial blogger. I switch on in the mornings, check email, wonder why no-one has left me any comments, then swing right on over there to the blogs; checking stats is also becoming addictive – when I first got a site-counter at Blogger I was all over that map and it was soooo exciting, but I got bored with the non-readers, all those searchers looking for granny-sex.

I set up a new blog with Wordpress last week, BUBBLES IN TIME; working on compiling an autobiography, and it’s great fun – especially the YouTube searching for just the right music and film clips. So, a few days in and I’m twitching, looking at stats, and wondering what to do next – set up another blog! And suddenly the name Fatty McSlob arrives in my head…and within minutes there it is, FATTY McSLOB in the flesh; ten minutes later it has a post and I’m satisfied, for now.

Wordpress is a whole new world of blogs calling to be read; they come to me from tags, I can pop next door, just like at Blogger, and then there is the blog networks in Facebook. OMG I wish I was unemployed or retired or rich – possibly in reverse order! I spent hours in Facebook blog networks yesterday, reading about full-time bloggers and how they make money. I think I want to be a full-time blogger when I grow up. Maybe I’ll just create ebooks and sell them on the blogs! Just think of all those tangents!

So, going off on that tangent, I should do a little ebook research just for the fun of it; I suppose it’s the next step from reading blogs, isn’t it? Mmmmm, and I’d have to blog about the experience and spout opinion, yes, good idea. Maybe I should get a dongle and take the laptop into work – I’ve been thinking of that anyway, taking it with me to work then I can write properly between calls instead of using a pen and notebook. I could stock-pile blog posts instead of the bulk-crocheting I’m doing now; it would be tidier than the craft work; no glitter all over the phone or glue gumming up my desk.

I really want one of those little laptops; it would sit very nicely on the side. This is small but an even smaller one would be much lighter and I’m all about if you don’t need it then get it out of your bag.

Some people can’t read off the screen but I seem perfectly comfortable with it; I know I’d be too miserable to print stuff out. I think the laptop has become my security blanket, and if I got a smaller one I could take it everywhere with me – not that I actually go anywhere these days, but it sounds good. And reading blogs is a bit like having a huge collection of short stories or serials, for free.

SHIFT YOUR AWARENESS

Whatever you're thinking and feeling today is your future!

BOOKSHELF DETAILS

A PEEK AT MY SHELVES

My excuse for the apparent messy bookshelves is that I am still kindof in transit; I'm camping in my son's flat, but at least some things have a home - you should see the rest of the room. I am definitely not posting that picture!
Some of these books have been saved from the fire and are pretty smoke-damaged; look at the state of Wild Swans, but I haven't read it yet so I wasn't about to throw it out, yet.

This was an idea from Nik's blog, and a good one, in that you can learn a lot about someone from prowling their shelves; one glance at mine tells you that I'm untidy and lazy but eclectic in my interests - the little anonymous blocks under Ann Rice are tarot cards, and my newest, the Klimt set are inside the silky yellow bag.

A LITTLE BIT OF MEMOIR

In my safe childhood I was allowed to play outside, by myself, unsupervised, all day; hours and hours spent catching frogs, climbing monkey-puzzle trees, killing water rats and boiling dead bees.

Life in Carnwadric was quiet but interesting; right across the road from us was an old internment camp that used to house Italian prisoners of war. In it there was a big empty house on the hill, a forest, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, rose bushes and tall daisies, wild onions and, according to my little brother, dead Germans! There was also a row of little brick buildings that we called ‘The Zig-zags’, we thought they were probably dog kennels. We played house in them; they were just the right size for us. We’d sweep them out, and using spare bricks we found lying around, build furniture; little armchairs and sofas, with a table. Suburban Glasgow rocked; I had mystery and adventure inside and outside – the inner provided by Enid Blyton with The Secret Seven, and The Famous Five. I was so envious of the lives dealt out to these characters and always frustrated that I couldn’t re-create them in my own; my mother wouldn’t have a shed built at the bottom of our garden, nor would she buy enough ginger beer to serve to me and my friends; lemonade had to be good enough for us.

I went to stay with a friend in Stirling for a week and returned with the knowledge of how to build a den; so my friends and I began to dig a hole in the back garden, stacking up the clods of earth – they would be the walls, then we would lay a piece of corrugated iron across the top for the roof.

‘GET THAT CONTRAPTION OUT OF HERE!’ old-bag-upstairs shouted.

She always spoilt our fun, or complained whenever we did the slightest little thing. The den was finished and we were just about to have our first meeting of The Secret Four when she screamed. My father rapped on the window for us to come in. So, that was the end of that. Being seven in 1961 was very difficult; adults were the enemy and something to avoid at all costs – or play tricks on to get revenge. We leaned milk bottles full of water against her door, knocked and ran back into our house, back to the jigsaw in the big bedroom table. On Saturdays my father watched horse racing on the TV, with the sound up; he always took our side when Mrs Ratbag came complaining, but he told us off for annoying an old woman, even though she was a pest.

WHY I WRITE

I have thought about it, a lot, and have probably spouted the age-old answer: ‘I write because I want to.’ But, what does that mean? Scribble? Or do I mean some kind of continuous stream that will eventually attract someone’s attention? Am I really planning to be a novelist? Or do I fancy myself in the trade of public observation, like in a regular column? Yes, I’d like to live in that description. I want to describe, sum-up and comment on people, places & stuff; but I also want to create and lie for a living.

Living to lie; that sounds just the right slant to me – I want to be that! One of the blogs I regularly read, Every Day I Lie a Little is pretty hysterical. Lying is fun. I remember people coming to me for lies in the 70s, when they’d taken time off work or been late; I was a great liar and could come up with the most outrageous stuff that was so out-there that they could only be the truth!

I don’t know why I was drawn into the world of writing but I think it might mostly be the fault of Margaret Atwood; I fell after I’d read her for the first time – The Handmaid’s Tale did me in. That was probably about 1988; I’d spent the years before that at some party or another and seemed to have drank my adult life away – I really don’t remember much about 1985 or 6 or Chernobyl because I was mostly drunk!

I thought I was happy then. We had the time of our lives, Carrie and me: me and Carrie tripping from party to party, men to men – cool was our middle name. When I stopped it all and started college Carrie found it very difficult, propping up bars by herself…and it took me two years to get her to leave me alone; to stop trying to drag me out to pubs. I’d discovered further education and Writing; a new drug – it took me over completely and I haven’t been the same since. Carrie eventually forgave me.

So why do I write? I don’t know; this stuff just falls out of my head and there it is, on the paper, on the screen – it swims around me like a feeding shark, nipping at my heels and sometimes (well mostly) there is so much of it. Then it needs filing and remembered, and then editing begins and never stops, but then a shiny new thing comes in and distracts me and I see the end of the road taking a turn, twisting into all those zed-bends. Navigation is murder.

CAKE DAY! WAYHAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
And a fine day for it; summer came back. ZaZa baked again, in honour of my birthday. We began with home-made ice-cream in brandy baskets with strawberries and sauce….mmmmmmmm!



Look at the beautiful china, and real napkins! There was silver sugar tongs too.



Then a gateaux arrived bearing a single candle for me to blow out – I stopped to take a photo first, of course, and they sung happy birthday to you, of course. You don’t really expect stuff like this when you’re 54 do you? I forgot to mention the white wine cocktail we had on arrival, and the beautiful bottle of bubbly blackcurrant & cassis I was presented with. I thought I was just going over for some cake, but I brought ZaZa one of my blankets for her knees in her old age as a thanks-for-feeding-me-gift. Tilly told jokes but I’ve forgotten them now



Sandwiches of home-made bread and salmon just blew me away; this is the most fabulous bread in the world – I think I’m going to move in with ZaZa and May; it’s the only sensible thing to do…and then again, perhaps not; not a cake or biscuit has passed these lips for a fortnight, nor chocolate (except for Aero mouse) and I was well on my way to normal breakfasts that don’t consist of a packet of chocolate-chip cookies. I had cornflakes twice, and Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut for supper once in work. And then came the scones and butter and jam and cream (no I don’t think she milked the cow and churned the butter), and then there was the meringues! Oh dear God, what is this life if not full of cake?


 
So, how does Money Oil fit into all this? An earlier post covers the beginning, but back to the present; ZaZa presents me with a scroll which is a spell to bring your money back to you, and a little bottle of Money Oil in a tiny pink and sparkly bag. Outstanding! Fantabulosa! and Fandabidozi! What a brilliant and wonderful afternoon with beautiful friends (I'm hurrying now to tell you what happens with the money oil).

I went straight to work, loaded down with birthday cake and merringues and of course a couple of sandwiches for my break. I couldn't wait to tell Angel about the money oil - see original and earlier post. We had an hysterical first hour and everyone had a bit of the beautiful gateaux and praised the skills of ZaZa, which I went on and on about. Then when we got our wages (cash) we did as instructed in the scroll; we oiled our fingertips and rubbed our money with the oil, all the while imagining it returning to us! All that was left to do was to put the money in a special little bag and sleep with it under our pillows for it to work. So here's hoping!

And please give a round of applause to the Samsung phone for capturing the lovely pics, though close-ups are not its forte. Today is the actual birthday and summer seems to have gone again; I can hear the wind roaring behind me as I type. Merringues for breakfast then it's off to the bank to lay my magic money down so it can be whipped away and, hopefully, spirited back.

Amazon and PowerRanger just showed up with a bagful of lovely goodies and now I'm sitting (still in my nightdress) stinking of ROUGE by Christian Lacroix - let's face it, I am Ab Fab!

CHRYSALIS

I’ve found a fantastic site for procrastinating called, Protagonize. Collaborate to your heart’s content. I’ve tried to get my fellow writers at WF in Writewords to play with this kind of thing but they never do, or keep anything up I begin. So I’m in clover; I’ve only been a member there for two days and I’ve got two stories running and have joined in a couple of others – now this could be very addictive but at least it is actual writing!

And the bad news is, I didn’t write my morning pages today! No reason other than I was writing and polishing old stuff for Protagonize. I thought I’d use old bits of work that I know I don’t want to continue; there are loads of scraps filed away, and I was already trying to tidy the fiction file – so this is just perfect, isn’t it?

The thought of other people creating a continued life with my characters is very exciting; I really hope people are stimulated enough to write some of these threads I’ve suggested; they have what they call branches, where you choose titles for three tangents or new chapter beginnings for other writers to investigate. God, the very idea just makes me high as a dragon chasing an addict!

I confess to addiction; I am addicted to new projects – I wonder if there is a name for this. I’m not afraid to finish them: I just kind of slope off in other directions but I do pop back eventually, hopefully to finish. Womag blogged some info that peaked my interest the other day about Woman’s Weekly looking for new submissions; I’m thinking of having a go at short fiction for that market, so have already rescued a few neglected pieces. Let’s all send a prayer up to the universe that I finish something.

The unfinished novels sit in the back of my mind and mock my attempts at forming routines; they know that I’m a lazy bitch and that they could be neglected for years! But, I am a new woman now; I know this – still a baby in this persona, a youngling. I feel a rebellion coming on, so watch out!

BUMBLE BEE & BOY SCOUT

I couldn't resist this when I found it: I am the bee and Carrie is the scout. See my sting! This was probably around 1985/6 when we spent a lot of time on fancy-dress-pub-crawls for charity; this might even have been the one we did three-legged! It was very difficult going to the toilet tied to someone else and hauling a bucket full of money too! Not to mention drunk.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

My God is the universe and all its mystery; its coincidences, synchronicity and magic – I live for happy accidents. I absolutely do not believe that there is a man up there with a great white beard surrounded by blooming cherubs. So what does God look like to me? A ghost of a smile like the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland perhaps; or a wisp of a breeze that flips things into movement in my peripheral vision; or an eternal computer that has every permutation programmed into it…and we live in a world where magical realism is alive and very well.

My God provides beautiful scrambled eggs with cheese, directs me in and out of danger to learn lessons; I am capable of enormous feats of strength and courage because I am open to all eventualities. This world has always been cruel and magical; there are just many more instances displayed in an international arena that make us think it’s escalating – we are myriad and dangerous entities with only self-control to guard against the dark side.

My God plays me like the Greek gods in the movies played with their pet mortals, and I am set on a multitude of paths according to my own choices. We all get to choose: left or right; up or down; in or out; on or off. I am observed and judged – the path I need most in certain times will appear before me, but always with a choice.

My God will eventually lay down the knowledge I need to navigate my way to the success I hope for. All those years ago I chose to go to Manchester – I could have picked three other cities. I also chose to have babies and actively set about making it happen. I selected all the paths that have led me here; one day I will spend time imagining the ones I rejected.

My God does not lay a hand on me, either in anger or love; existence does not mean preponderance in menial and domestic notions – I, and I alone am responsible for my emotions and perceptions, without influence. My lethargy is mine; it comes from my experiences and feelings – I own it. I am to blame for not doing what I really want to do, and I am happy to confess. All the while I am in learning mode I move an inch or two in a positive direction.

My God has a thousand possibilities for my future and has put me in control of my destiny – I accept that and hope that the choices I make take me as far as I am allowed, within the confines of this body. My body is nature and therefore deteriorates in time.

My God spreads a wealth across the universe, where possibilities depend upon imagination and creativity – it is ever-expanding into infinity.

My God does not need: worship; gender assignment; race or creed attached; hymns written or sung; churches built and laid with gold; prayers or punishment; marches or pilgrimages; politics or pontificating. All that is assumed is kindness and generosity; is that too much? For many humans it apparently is!

My God does not have apartments in the name of Heaven and Hell; they were invented by us, men, and humans. Heaven and Hell are a control feature for the invented church to have power over the common masses – to frighten the hell out of them! Heaven and Hell are abominations and absolutely do not exist in my universe.

My God knows the way of the world and the limitations of Earth. There is no use in speculation because that’s all it could ever be; the only good outcome of speculation is education and learning. I am ready to accept my place in the way of things and already have an image in my mind of my end here; I see myself flying into the black universe, back to where I belong – home.

MORE PHOTOCHROM PICS

GIVING CREDIT

Thanks must be paid to ebay seller kodi987 for the beautiful photos below, and above; I will be posting more.  I bought two CDs for 99p each, entitled: 1000 Vintage Photochrom Photographs 1& 2 and they are an astounding collection of views from around the world, possibly taken or inked, over a hundred years ago...and there's more than 1000! I can use them to make cards, for scrapbooking and of course, blogging. Enjoy!

SIX RETREATS