Do men like women with beards? I’ve been looking in the magnifying mirror this week and have noticed some dark hairs below my bottom lip, and it has me seriously worried.
We’re not yet talking Brian Blessed here, but I’m more than a little worried by the hint of Cyrano de Bergerac. At least he had the nose to distract from any unwelcome attention onlookers might give to his face, but for me it’s the hairs that seem to stand out.
I think it must be my age. I’ve always had an excess of upper lip hair, which nobody has ever seen, owing to the fact that I whip it off roughly every three hours. Friends have told me that I could get it cosmetically removed and, in Beverly Hills, I am in the best place to get both it, and everything else done, but it would mean growing the hair first. And if there’s one thing that a 90210 postcode definitely doesn’t need, it’s a moustachioed woman in the street, frightening the horses.
But I’m not quite sure how to deal with the chin issue. I’ve been busy plucking away for the last half hour, and when I turn my 7x magnifying mirror round the other way, you can’t see one hair, let alone the forest it has become in my mind.
So, if I can’t see it, it is unlikely that any man will, which is my real worry. It’s not the kind of thing men inspect on a first date (unlike women: I’ve been known not to stay past the hors d’oeuvres if I notice a man hasn’t even been bothered to squeeze the blackheads in his nose before the date); but, still, I don’t want to take the risk.
Not that men are exactly queuing at the door. Honestly, you have to be really quick to nab one between the office and the gym. Once they’re on that treadmill or lifting those weights, women are the last thing on their minds – well, short Welsh birds, anyway; they seem to manage to take a breather when a blonde, 6 foot streak of sinew walks past, so it’s just like being back in the UK in that respect.
Beard aside, there are other imperfections I’ve been looking to correct, and they, too, seem to magnify when I view them alongside the perfect figures and faces of the women I see around me.
I’ve been considering a breast enlargement for some time, but am now worried that with all the exercise I am doing, they might get in the way; I’m going to take two melons with me next time I go and try to negotiate them along with the controls for the machine, TV and my Apple headphones, and see how it goes.
I recently considered a tummy tuck, too, but now that I’ve lost weight might not need one. Maybe I’ll just eat a bit more to justify one.
The weight loss is great in one respect, in that I am healthier and fitter, but it has given me a whole new set of problems. When I was well over nine stone, I had a really great backside: firm, rounded and, though I say it myself, rather appealing. Now it’s tiny, with lots of folds of skin where it meets the top of my legs, like rows of worm hills on the beach, all queuing up to be washed away – by, in this case, liposuction, I think.
My eyelids could do with a tiny lift, but I don’t want to look Korean, as people tend to do after this procedure; and I’m saying no to Botox, too. I’ve seen too many post-Botox, expressionless people to go down that path. I swear that you could go up to all of them, tell them your entire family had been wiped out in a plane crash, and they would not be able to wipe the stunned look of smiling joy from their faces.
I might consider getting the floppy skin removed from my upper arms, although it seems to be tightening up with the weights work I am doing. My teeth, which I started having done in the UK, are nearing completion and have been bleached and partly veneered. I say partly, because I’m having only the front two re-done, and they each came back a different colour, the one now revealing the black behind it that was the whole reason for covering it up in the first place. With my black tooth and beard, I fear mothers will be rushing to shield their small children from me in the park.
I’ve also been reading about an operation in which you can have your legs broken and bits inserted to make yourself taller; that one may be a bit further down the line, too, and I’m going to wait to see how much I shrink in the LA summer sun before resorting to such drastic measures.
But for the moment, I’m just concentrating on my beard and taking lots of natural hormonal supplements to keep it in check. There’s a saying that a man with a beard is a man with a secret (Ha! Show me a bloke who isn’t hiding SOMETHING!), and the antithesis has to be that a woman with a beard is a woman without a razor.
I’m not sure how much longer this plucking can go on, so it might have to be a Gillette job after all. My only comfort is that if and when I finally get to date a bloke, he’ll be so busy trying to unfold my arse, he won’t notice the audition for Captain Hook taking place on my chin.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Anyone for Tennis? No, Thanks 5/9/09
“Do you have lots of friends?” people back home keep asking. “What’s the social life like?” “Where do you go in the evenings?”
I must sound incredibly dull to my UK friends, whose idea of LA is party, party, party, hanging out with the beautiful people and devouring burgers as big as your head.
But the truth is, since my arrival a month ago, I’ve lived a fairly quiet life. I came here to write, and that, apart from daily trips to the gym, is pretty much all I’ve been doing. I’m never in bed beyond 6 am (in fact, 4 or 5 am is generally closer to my rising time) and I usually fall asleep on the sofa in front of another episode of Law and Order (can there be any that I haven’t yet seen? I seriously doubt it) mid-evening, before surrendering to bed at around half 10.
Back home, I was never in bed before midnight, but then I never drank carrot juice by the bucket-load in Cardiff, either, so I am embracing all kinds of new experiences.
Since you ask, yes (I can hear the laughter even from here), I really like carrot juice. I tried to drink it in the UK and bought a top of the range juicer to make my own, but soon lost interest when I quickly discovered that you need to buy four sacks of carrots to extract just one tablespoon of juice. Even as someone who has rearranging my cooking spices in alphabetical order on my list of work-avoidance tasks, this was extreme.
Los Angeles, though, is like one vast convenience store, and I can buy my fresh carrot juice just half a dozen doors away in Wholefoods, even if it doesn’t come with the virtue of burning off 18000 calories a throw in the effort and time it takes to squeeze it.
But there is more to life than work and carrot juice, as everyone keeps reminding me, and so this week I started exploring the possibilities of widening my social circle.
There is, for example, a language school in Canon Drive, the next block along from where I live, and I spent several days drawing up rotas for the various classes I intended to take: furthering my French that I spent seven years in Paris never learning; continuing the Spanish that, in four years half-living in Spain, has given me a vocabulary of “Hola!” and “Agua sin gaz”; and even starting Russian, a language that I love and in which I have acquired the ability to introduce myself and say one four letter word beginning with C in English and P in Russian.
Don’t ask me how I learned it . . . Oh, all right: it was in Spain, chatting to some Russians over lunch. They had no English, Spanish or French; I had all three, in limited quantity; but we found common ground in the C/P word and, incredibly, spent a very enjoyable three hours on the strength of our shared knowledge. I love languages.
However, I spent so long planning my LA lessons, I missed the start of the new term and didn’t see any point in wasting money for something that wasn’t going to be the full whack. I also remembered the last time I attended a language course with Americans, in the Berlitz School in Paris. There were only three of us in the class, and the Americans took two days to understand that the teacher was referring to the past tense.
“Je suis . . . “ they kept saying, the present first person that they insisted on using in response to every single question about what they had done the previous day. “Non, no, non, HIER,” the teacher kept repeating, attempting to engage them in the activities of yesterday. In the end, I screamed: “SHE’S TALKING IN THE PAST TENSE, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” which endeared me to no one.
Neither did my own attempts to explain how many bottles of wine I had drunk the previous night: “J’ai bu trois bouteilles Saint Emilion.” The teacher simply thought I did not know the word for glass. “Non, non,” she smiled. “Trois VERRES.”
“Uh, non. Trois bouteilles.”
“Non! C’est impossible!”
Now that I don’t drink, it sounds fairly impossible to moi, too, but the unhappy memories of language classes was clearly the unconscious motive behind my missing the opening week of classes in LA.
Friends back home suggested I try out the private clubs, and so I went to the website of the most famous and one of the closest to me, the LA Country Club.
There is very little information about the Club’s activities on the website, but the hefty section devoted to dress code soon reveals why: by the time you work through what you can and can’t wear, you’d be too exhausted to do anything else.
Let’s take the men’s attire, for starters. Shirts, for example, must have sleeves and collars and be “worn inside one’s trousers” (Eh? The whole shirt? Sleeves and collars, too? Perhaps “tucked in” might have explained things better, or maybe I am missing some very “in” LA fashion statement about stuffing your lunch-box to the seams).
Their slacks must be of “a tailored nature” (they would be, given the way they pack those lunch-boxes) and any caps (although none are allowed indoors) must be worn “with the bill forward”. As I have no desire to meet any man who wears a cap of any sorts, the idea that they might even be hanging around is enough to put me off.
But not as much as the women’s rules regarding attire do. I swear that fighting for my country in Afghanistan would not require so long a list of rules and regulations. The one that immediately put me off was the one about no tops that “expose the midriff” being allowed. Well, that’s it then. I can presume from this that I wouldn’t be allowed to get my tits out for the lads. Cardiff Blues Rugby Club it clearly ain’t.
However, “Formal or evening strapless attire is permitted.” This seems a bit hypocritical to me: no tummies, so no going UP your top for the multitude of groping men that are always a feature of private clubs, but it’s totally acceptable to go DOWN your top, minus the inconvenience of straps, provided it’s after 6pm.
Skirts must be “no shorter than 4 inches above the knee”, which rules out my entire wardrobe going back over 30 years; and slacks “must be tailored and within 6 inches of the ankle.” What on earth does that mean? Six inches in circumference, length, or 6 inches when lying beside you, after you’ve taken not only your top of for the lads, but your trousers, too?
Now, here’s the killer: “Ladies’ (sic) may wear brimmed hats coordinating with their outfits." Well, for starters, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that doesn’t know where to place its apostrophes; and two, where the hell are you going to find a hat to go with the kind of outfit that takes ankle distance into account?
As a general rule, slogans or printed materials unrelated to the manufacturer are not permitted. That’s another killer for me, as it instantly rules out the “Jaci’s Box” T-shirts I had made when I purchased my hospitality box at Cardiff Blues Rugby Club, complete with slogan “I’ve been in Jaci’s Box” emblazoned across the front.
I’ve now turned my attentions to the Beverly Hills Country Club instead. They have invited me for lunch to take a look around, and I also see from their website that they hold Singles evenings. I am shortening my hemlines even as I write.
I must sound incredibly dull to my UK friends, whose idea of LA is party, party, party, hanging out with the beautiful people and devouring burgers as big as your head.
But the truth is, since my arrival a month ago, I’ve lived a fairly quiet life. I came here to write, and that, apart from daily trips to the gym, is pretty much all I’ve been doing. I’m never in bed beyond 6 am (in fact, 4 or 5 am is generally closer to my rising time) and I usually fall asleep on the sofa in front of another episode of Law and Order (can there be any that I haven’t yet seen? I seriously doubt it) mid-evening, before surrendering to bed at around half 10.
Back home, I was never in bed before midnight, but then I never drank carrot juice by the bucket-load in Cardiff, either, so I am embracing all kinds of new experiences.
Since you ask, yes (I can hear the laughter even from here), I really like carrot juice. I tried to drink it in the UK and bought a top of the range juicer to make my own, but soon lost interest when I quickly discovered that you need to buy four sacks of carrots to extract just one tablespoon of juice. Even as someone who has rearranging my cooking spices in alphabetical order on my list of work-avoidance tasks, this was extreme.
Los Angeles, though, is like one vast convenience store, and I can buy my fresh carrot juice just half a dozen doors away in Wholefoods, even if it doesn’t come with the virtue of burning off 18000 calories a throw in the effort and time it takes to squeeze it.
But there is more to life than work and carrot juice, as everyone keeps reminding me, and so this week I started exploring the possibilities of widening my social circle.
There is, for example, a language school in Canon Drive, the next block along from where I live, and I spent several days drawing up rotas for the various classes I intended to take: furthering my French that I spent seven years in Paris never learning; continuing the Spanish that, in four years half-living in Spain, has given me a vocabulary of “Hola!” and “Agua sin gaz”; and even starting Russian, a language that I love and in which I have acquired the ability to introduce myself and say one four letter word beginning with C in English and P in Russian.
Don’t ask me how I learned it . . . Oh, all right: it was in Spain, chatting to some Russians over lunch. They had no English, Spanish or French; I had all three, in limited quantity; but we found common ground in the C/P word and, incredibly, spent a very enjoyable three hours on the strength of our shared knowledge. I love languages.
However, I spent so long planning my LA lessons, I missed the start of the new term and didn’t see any point in wasting money for something that wasn’t going to be the full whack. I also remembered the last time I attended a language course with Americans, in the Berlitz School in Paris. There were only three of us in the class, and the Americans took two days to understand that the teacher was referring to the past tense.
“Je suis . . . “ they kept saying, the present first person that they insisted on using in response to every single question about what they had done the previous day. “Non, no, non, HIER,” the teacher kept repeating, attempting to engage them in the activities of yesterday. In the end, I screamed: “SHE’S TALKING IN THE PAST TENSE, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” which endeared me to no one.
Neither did my own attempts to explain how many bottles of wine I had drunk the previous night: “J’ai bu trois bouteilles Saint Emilion.” The teacher simply thought I did not know the word for glass. “Non, non,” she smiled. “Trois VERRES.”
“Uh, non. Trois bouteilles.”
“Non! C’est impossible!”
Now that I don’t drink, it sounds fairly impossible to moi, too, but the unhappy memories of language classes was clearly the unconscious motive behind my missing the opening week of classes in LA.
Friends back home suggested I try out the private clubs, and so I went to the website of the most famous and one of the closest to me, the LA Country Club.
There is very little information about the Club’s activities on the website, but the hefty section devoted to dress code soon reveals why: by the time you work through what you can and can’t wear, you’d be too exhausted to do anything else.
Let’s take the men’s attire, for starters. Shirts, for example, must have sleeves and collars and be “worn inside one’s trousers” (Eh? The whole shirt? Sleeves and collars, too? Perhaps “tucked in” might have explained things better, or maybe I am missing some very “in” LA fashion statement about stuffing your lunch-box to the seams).
Their slacks must be of “a tailored nature” (they would be, given the way they pack those lunch-boxes) and any caps (although none are allowed indoors) must be worn “with the bill forward”. As I have no desire to meet any man who wears a cap of any sorts, the idea that they might even be hanging around is enough to put me off.
But not as much as the women’s rules regarding attire do. I swear that fighting for my country in Afghanistan would not require so long a list of rules and regulations. The one that immediately put me off was the one about no tops that “expose the midriff” being allowed. Well, that’s it then. I can presume from this that I wouldn’t be allowed to get my tits out for the lads. Cardiff Blues Rugby Club it clearly ain’t.
However, “Formal or evening strapless attire is permitted.” This seems a bit hypocritical to me: no tummies, so no going UP your top for the multitude of groping men that are always a feature of private clubs, but it’s totally acceptable to go DOWN your top, minus the inconvenience of straps, provided it’s after 6pm.
Skirts must be “no shorter than 4 inches above the knee”, which rules out my entire wardrobe going back over 30 years; and slacks “must be tailored and within 6 inches of the ankle.” What on earth does that mean? Six inches in circumference, length, or 6 inches when lying beside you, after you’ve taken not only your top of for the lads, but your trousers, too?
Now, here’s the killer: “Ladies’ (sic) may wear brimmed hats coordinating with their outfits." Well, for starters, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that doesn’t know where to place its apostrophes; and two, where the hell are you going to find a hat to go with the kind of outfit that takes ankle distance into account?
As a general rule, slogans or printed materials unrelated to the manufacturer are not permitted. That’s another killer for me, as it instantly rules out the “Jaci’s Box” T-shirts I had made when I purchased my hospitality box at Cardiff Blues Rugby Club, complete with slogan “I’ve been in Jaci’s Box” emblazoned across the front.
I’ve now turned my attentions to the Beverly Hills Country Club instead. They have invited me for lunch to take a look around, and I also see from their website that they hold Singles evenings. I am shortening my hemlines even as I write.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Home Alone 5/5/09
I’ve just returned from the UK after my first visit there since de-camping to LA at the beginning of April. I get very emotional when I fly. For nine years, fear of terrorist attack stopped me from going near a plane, and then, ironically, along came September 11th 2001 and I thought: what the hell.
Now, I love flying, especially long haul between the UK and LA, where I am guaranteed 11 hours without my phone ringing and where, yesterday, I managed to get 5000 words written of my new book that I am convinced will make me very rich indeed.
I had the idea on the treadmill at the Marriott Hotel in Swiss Cottage (or the Regent’s Park Marriott, as they cleverly call it – trust me, there’s a difference). Most of my good ideas come on the treadmill these days, in pretty much the same way that they used to come to me in bars, when I was drinking. The difference is that when I leave the treadmill, I can remember them.
I was in London for Blake Snyder’s fantastic Beats course (any budding screenwriter should take it – you will leave a different person from the one who went in, I guarantee it), which I had taken in LA, albeit in a different form. In LA, a group of 12 worked on their individual projects; in London we worked in groups and, by the end of the two days, had five workable screenplays between us.
It’s a long time since I worked in any sort of group, and they are fascinating: a place where everyone exposes their strengths and weaknesses in unison; and what usually happens is that you see that people’s weaknesses are their strengths pushed to the extreme. My strength, for instance, is that I have loads of ideas; my weakness is my passion for them and, as a result, my reluctance to let them go (or, heaven forbid, allow other people to develop them and try to claim half the credit).
I loved meeting Kim, a fiction editor with Mills and Boon, who, I think, will be a lifelong friend. As I am 20 years older than her, “life” won’t be quite as long in her case, but at least it’s someone else who can say nice things about me at my funeral. I was revealing my innermost secrets to her by the end of Sunday afternoon and, as happens among women, we were soon laughing hysterically about rather painful issues of the heart.
Of course, I don’t want my funeral to take place for a long time and, God willing, it won’t. I don’t think much about dying these days, whereas when I was drinking it was on my mind pretty much every minute of every day. I suspect that was because I knew, deep down, that every drop of alcohol propels you two steps towards the grave, and one is already too quick in my book.
It may be a tiny drop you imbibe (and I am not critical of anyone who chooses to drink – it’s your funeral, as they say); it may be a lot; and, of course, many people are able to drink in moderation. But it’s still a poison and, while life is often undoubtedly more difficult without it, it’s better – or, if not always better, different, and exciting for being so.
But I’ve been thinking about drinking a lot the past few days: not because I want to revert to it, but because of all the places you expect to be able to avoid it – ie on a plane, over the Atlantic – this proved to the place where I was most exposed to it.
On the way to the UK, I flew Air New Zealand Business Class, where if I had been given a pound for every time I was offered a glass of wine, I could have paid for another return flight. It was the same on Virgin on the way back. Luckily, I detest New Zealand wines, and Mr Branson’s selection, as I learned last year, is no better, so temptation was never an option. But even had they had a Petrus, I would still have been able to say no.
I have gone from someone who says “I’m not drinking at the moment” to someone who says “I don’t drink”, and I genuinely don’t think about it – most of the time. But when someone is waving a bottle of champagne in your face and saying “Are you sure you don’t want a glass”, it’s hard to avoid the subject.
What not drinking does is leave you more time: thinking time, and because exercise has replaced the time I used to spend chatting in bars, I do a lot more thinking these days. The Marriott pool at Swiss Cottage has to be the most stupidly designed of any in the world. At its deepest, it is one metre; the shallow end is 0.5 metres. What they don’t tell you is how dangerous this can be when you’re swimming a length and suddenly your arm goes over in a crawl in the deep end, only to crash down on the bottom of the pool in the shallow end.
Luckily, I am a bad swimmer and keep my head above water, so I always know what’s coming, be it a shark or the shallow end; my friend was not so lucky and, with head below the surface, first knew of the change when he cracked his skull.
There is nothing quite like running or swimming to give you thinking time (squash, for example, doesn’t work on this front), and on Sunday morning, I sat in the shallow end of the pool (it was good for some things) and just cried and cried. Tears like I haven’t shed in years (although had I been in Cardiff on Saturday and watched my team the Blues lose out in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup on the first ever penalty kick-off against Leicester, I think I would have cried then).
The intensity of the creative process on a writing weekend inevitably brings things to the surface (a bit like the Marriott pool, really) – good and bad – and resurrects old wounds, alongside the formation of new friendships and ties. And, flying across continents, I think I was crying not for home, but because I’m not sure where home is anymore.
Having spent the last few years between the UK, Paris and Spain, and now being based in the States, there is nothing like sitting alone in the middle of an empty pool to reinforce the metaphor of aloneness.
Feeling a bit vulnerable, before boarding I became terrified again that I would never land and started texting my friends. Now, one of the pieces of advice everyone gives you when you’re pissed is: Don’t drink and text. I think that one of the biggest surprises to me when I gave up is that being sober doesn’t stop you. It’s not alcohol that drives you to bare your soul on your mobile; it’s just you!
It’s another reason why I, and my friends, are happy when I embark on another 11 hour flight. In space, nobody can hear me text.
Now, I love flying, especially long haul between the UK and LA, where I am guaranteed 11 hours without my phone ringing and where, yesterday, I managed to get 5000 words written of my new book that I am convinced will make me very rich indeed.
I had the idea on the treadmill at the Marriott Hotel in Swiss Cottage (or the Regent’s Park Marriott, as they cleverly call it – trust me, there’s a difference). Most of my good ideas come on the treadmill these days, in pretty much the same way that they used to come to me in bars, when I was drinking. The difference is that when I leave the treadmill, I can remember them.
I was in London for Blake Snyder’s fantastic Beats course (any budding screenwriter should take it – you will leave a different person from the one who went in, I guarantee it), which I had taken in LA, albeit in a different form. In LA, a group of 12 worked on their individual projects; in London we worked in groups and, by the end of the two days, had five workable screenplays between us.
It’s a long time since I worked in any sort of group, and they are fascinating: a place where everyone exposes their strengths and weaknesses in unison; and what usually happens is that you see that people’s weaknesses are their strengths pushed to the extreme. My strength, for instance, is that I have loads of ideas; my weakness is my passion for them and, as a result, my reluctance to let them go (or, heaven forbid, allow other people to develop them and try to claim half the credit).
I loved meeting Kim, a fiction editor with Mills and Boon, who, I think, will be a lifelong friend. As I am 20 years older than her, “life” won’t be quite as long in her case, but at least it’s someone else who can say nice things about me at my funeral. I was revealing my innermost secrets to her by the end of Sunday afternoon and, as happens among women, we were soon laughing hysterically about rather painful issues of the heart.
Of course, I don’t want my funeral to take place for a long time and, God willing, it won’t. I don’t think much about dying these days, whereas when I was drinking it was on my mind pretty much every minute of every day. I suspect that was because I knew, deep down, that every drop of alcohol propels you two steps towards the grave, and one is already too quick in my book.
It may be a tiny drop you imbibe (and I am not critical of anyone who chooses to drink – it’s your funeral, as they say); it may be a lot; and, of course, many people are able to drink in moderation. But it’s still a poison and, while life is often undoubtedly more difficult without it, it’s better – or, if not always better, different, and exciting for being so.
But I’ve been thinking about drinking a lot the past few days: not because I want to revert to it, but because of all the places you expect to be able to avoid it – ie on a plane, over the Atlantic – this proved to the place where I was most exposed to it.
On the way to the UK, I flew Air New Zealand Business Class, where if I had been given a pound for every time I was offered a glass of wine, I could have paid for another return flight. It was the same on Virgin on the way back. Luckily, I detest New Zealand wines, and Mr Branson’s selection, as I learned last year, is no better, so temptation was never an option. But even had they had a Petrus, I would still have been able to say no.
I have gone from someone who says “I’m not drinking at the moment” to someone who says “I don’t drink”, and I genuinely don’t think about it – most of the time. But when someone is waving a bottle of champagne in your face and saying “Are you sure you don’t want a glass”, it’s hard to avoid the subject.
What not drinking does is leave you more time: thinking time, and because exercise has replaced the time I used to spend chatting in bars, I do a lot more thinking these days. The Marriott pool at Swiss Cottage has to be the most stupidly designed of any in the world. At its deepest, it is one metre; the shallow end is 0.5 metres. What they don’t tell you is how dangerous this can be when you’re swimming a length and suddenly your arm goes over in a crawl in the deep end, only to crash down on the bottom of the pool in the shallow end.
Luckily, I am a bad swimmer and keep my head above water, so I always know what’s coming, be it a shark or the shallow end; my friend was not so lucky and, with head below the surface, first knew of the change when he cracked his skull.
There is nothing quite like running or swimming to give you thinking time (squash, for example, doesn’t work on this front), and on Sunday morning, I sat in the shallow end of the pool (it was good for some things) and just cried and cried. Tears like I haven’t shed in years (although had I been in Cardiff on Saturday and watched my team the Blues lose out in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup on the first ever penalty kick-off against Leicester, I think I would have cried then).
The intensity of the creative process on a writing weekend inevitably brings things to the surface (a bit like the Marriott pool, really) – good and bad – and resurrects old wounds, alongside the formation of new friendships and ties. And, flying across continents, I think I was crying not for home, but because I’m not sure where home is anymore.
Having spent the last few years between the UK, Paris and Spain, and now being based in the States, there is nothing like sitting alone in the middle of an empty pool to reinforce the metaphor of aloneness.
Feeling a bit vulnerable, before boarding I became terrified again that I would never land and started texting my friends. Now, one of the pieces of advice everyone gives you when you’re pissed is: Don’t drink and text. I think that one of the biggest surprises to me when I gave up is that being sober doesn’t stop you. It’s not alcohol that drives you to bare your soul on your mobile; it’s just you!
It’s another reason why I, and my friends, are happy when I embark on another 11 hour flight. In space, nobody can hear me text.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Wake Me When the Earth Moves 4/25/09
One of the many things they don't tell you when you start dating is that if you are hoping for the earth to move, your best chance is to move over 5000 miles east across the Atlantic.
It looks as if this much awaited experience might finally happen for me, as I get my act together for what the posters in Beverly Hills call "Earthquake Preparedness Month." I am slightly panicky, as EPM is billed as April and, although I arrived on the 1st of the month, my earthquake cupboard is somewhat bare.
Although the earthquake is not a dead cert, everyone assures me that after last year's 25 second quake in central LA, and the promise of a monster one in 2010, I can expect something over the coming months and should Be Prepared.
My local hardware store, Pioneer, offers computer repairs (including Apple), handymen, knife sharpening and, I noticed, "earthquake kits". When I went in to see one, I was told that I could put together my own, although I was in such a state at having to have one at all, I didn't really listen to what I might need and came away with a Le Creuset casserole dish.
One friend, who grew up with the threat of earthquakes since he was a child, has been instructing me as to where I should head, if the seemingly inevitable happens. He says it is good that I live just one floor from the top of my building, so that the other floors will not come crashing down on me, and that in an emergency I should on no account leave the building, where I will undoubtedly be hit by low-flying rooftops.
My best bet, he says, is to head for the door-frame; failing that, I should take refuge under a table. I have a better idea: as he is well over six foot, how about HE stands under the door frame or goes under the table, and I take refuge under HIM? I have yet to put this idea to him.
I have become mildly obsessed with the earthquake problem and today, when I checked out the sister gym of the one I go to in Beverly Hills, the floor was shaking so badly in the Ladies, I thought my big moment had come. When I went to reception, she explained that the trembling was as a result of the various cardio-vascular machines operating on the floor above; I just pray that I am not in the gym when the earthquake strikes and be subjected to a double whammy of terror.
It was a bit of a nerve-racking day all round at the new gym. Shortly after the non-earthquake in the Ladies, there was the most almighty roar of an alarm that sent me reeling from the treadmill. Thinking that it must be an earthquake warning (I told you I was obsessed), I ran to the other side of the building, only to find three lots of men playing basketball in the Magic Johnson gym.
The hooter was sounding for reasons I have yet to work out, and related to timings that flashed on a board above the court; it all meant nothing to me. But if you want to die among fit men (in both senses of the word) when the earthquake strikes, then the Magic Johnson basketball court is your place; well, it'll be my place.
As if the hooter was not terrifying enough, a man on the step machine next to my treadmill made me think that all my earthquakes had come at once. "AAAAAAGGGHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO! PLEASE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHAT'S HAPPENING . . . !" He wasn't just sweating, he was a geyser of open pores, all of them spraying in my direction. "What is it? What is it?" I squealed, frantically looking for the nearest door-frame. "Baseball," he panted. "Sport. It's important."
The television screen above his machine was showing a baseball match (at the moment it appears to be both basketball and baseball season - as well as earthquake season! Aren't I the lucky one), and someone on the team he was supporting had apparently just done something incredibly stupid.
He told me he was rooting for the Boston Stranglers (or some such ridiculous name - I could hardly hear through the downpour), and that their opponents the Yankees were evil. Half an hour later, he was still on the machine, but a lot calmer. "I was getting worried for you," I said. "Hey!" he replied. "You should see my marm." Blimey. What does he do to her when his team is losing? Knife her?
On my way back to Beverly Hills in the bus (just $1.25 to go just about anywhere, incredible), a man opposite smiled and said "How ya doin'?" He was in conversation with a young man who had just moved to LA, but really wanted to be in New York. "Yeah," said my new friend. "You can't fault the weather here; just the people."
He didn't want to be in LA either, he said, but was on "high risk parole", so he had to stay. Something told me he wasn't talking about the department he worked for in CSI on the telly. "I have to get me a woman to sort myself out," he continued. Oh, no. Why me. I averted his eyes and kept them fixed on Wilshire Boulevard, where the earthquake posters en route had suddenly developed an enormous fascination for me.
Yes, I still dream of the earth one day moving; I just don't want it to be with someone booking our honeymoon on Death Row.
It looks as if this much awaited experience might finally happen for me, as I get my act together for what the posters in Beverly Hills call "Earthquake Preparedness Month." I am slightly panicky, as EPM is billed as April and, although I arrived on the 1st of the month, my earthquake cupboard is somewhat bare.
Although the earthquake is not a dead cert, everyone assures me that after last year's 25 second quake in central LA, and the promise of a monster one in 2010, I can expect something over the coming months and should Be Prepared.
My local hardware store, Pioneer, offers computer repairs (including Apple), handymen, knife sharpening and, I noticed, "earthquake kits". When I went in to see one, I was told that I could put together my own, although I was in such a state at having to have one at all, I didn't really listen to what I might need and came away with a Le Creuset casserole dish.
One friend, who grew up with the threat of earthquakes since he was a child, has been instructing me as to where I should head, if the seemingly inevitable happens. He says it is good that I live just one floor from the top of my building, so that the other floors will not come crashing down on me, and that in an emergency I should on no account leave the building, where I will undoubtedly be hit by low-flying rooftops.
My best bet, he says, is to head for the door-frame; failing that, I should take refuge under a table. I have a better idea: as he is well over six foot, how about HE stands under the door frame or goes under the table, and I take refuge under HIM? I have yet to put this idea to him.
I have become mildly obsessed with the earthquake problem and today, when I checked out the sister gym of the one I go to in Beverly Hills, the floor was shaking so badly in the Ladies, I thought my big moment had come. When I went to reception, she explained that the trembling was as a result of the various cardio-vascular machines operating on the floor above; I just pray that I am not in the gym when the earthquake strikes and be subjected to a double whammy of terror.
It was a bit of a nerve-racking day all round at the new gym. Shortly after the non-earthquake in the Ladies, there was the most almighty roar of an alarm that sent me reeling from the treadmill. Thinking that it must be an earthquake warning (I told you I was obsessed), I ran to the other side of the building, only to find three lots of men playing basketball in the Magic Johnson gym.
The hooter was sounding for reasons I have yet to work out, and related to timings that flashed on a board above the court; it all meant nothing to me. But if you want to die among fit men (in both senses of the word) when the earthquake strikes, then the Magic Johnson basketball court is your place; well, it'll be my place.
As if the hooter was not terrifying enough, a man on the step machine next to my treadmill made me think that all my earthquakes had come at once. "AAAAAAGGGHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO! PLEASE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHAT'S HAPPENING . . . !" He wasn't just sweating, he was a geyser of open pores, all of them spraying in my direction. "What is it? What is it?" I squealed, frantically looking for the nearest door-frame. "Baseball," he panted. "Sport. It's important."
The television screen above his machine was showing a baseball match (at the moment it appears to be both basketball and baseball season - as well as earthquake season! Aren't I the lucky one), and someone on the team he was supporting had apparently just done something incredibly stupid.
He told me he was rooting for the Boston Stranglers (or some such ridiculous name - I could hardly hear through the downpour), and that their opponents the Yankees were evil. Half an hour later, he was still on the machine, but a lot calmer. "I was getting worried for you," I said. "Hey!" he replied. "You should see my marm." Blimey. What does he do to her when his team is losing? Knife her?
On my way back to Beverly Hills in the bus (just $1.25 to go just about anywhere, incredible), a man opposite smiled and said "How ya doin'?" He was in conversation with a young man who had just moved to LA, but really wanted to be in New York. "Yeah," said my new friend. "You can't fault the weather here; just the people."
He didn't want to be in LA either, he said, but was on "high risk parole", so he had to stay. Something told me he wasn't talking about the department he worked for in CSI on the telly. "I have to get me a woman to sort myself out," he continued. Oh, no. Why me. I averted his eyes and kept them fixed on Wilshire Boulevard, where the earthquake posters en route had suddenly developed an enormous fascination for me.
Yes, I still dream of the earth one day moving; I just don't want it to be with someone booking our honeymoon on Death Row.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
US vs UK 4/24/09
Having been here for just over three weeks now, I feel safe to start comparing life here compared with life back in the UK. It's a time when the honeymoon period is pretty much over, life has settled into some semblance of normality, and I can read UK newspapers online and watch UK TV on Slingbox on my computer without feeling as if I have left another planet.
They certainly have better mayors here - well, if the LA Mayor is anything to go by. I met Antonio Villaraigosa at the opening of Britweek (a celebration of the Brits' contribution to southern California) on Tuesday night and thought he was a bit special. Not only did he speak eloquently and with passion (it's his Latino nature, I suspect), he looked like a film idol. In the UK, our mayors tend to be at least three stone overweight and waddle around like those sweaty women who make it to the final of the annual Crufts dog show, trying to keep up with their Chihuahuas.
Antonio is rumoured to be running for governor of California in 2010, and I will be right there behind him (oh, okay: hanging on to his coat tails for grim death, but you get the general idea). I have started re-watching all of Brothers and Sisters, just to see exactly what Kittie did in her support of Jack in his race to be governor and finally pull him. It certainly wasn't down to her family, and although I suspect Antonio has much bigger female fish to fry, I will be happy to be a minnow in my new pond.
Tony Blair was also speaking at the dinner, although it was hard to listen to his declaration of the humanitarianism we need to express in relation to the world's malaria problem, given his history on Iraq. Tony received not just one, but two ovations: they went wild, and I mean really, really wild, for him. There was a queue to shake his hand and be photographed with him. I resisted, having met him on a number of occasions, when he was perfectly charming and very enthusiastic about my keeping in touch (I didn't; you know where I live, Tony). He spoke well, though not as well as my new best friend the Mayor, and he is nowhere near as good looking (his suit wasn't as nice, either, but now I'm being picky).
If the Mayor is streets ahead of our own specimens in terms of high public office (sorry, Boris, but Antonio beats you hands down), the post office workers are right down there with our own levels of slowness. I swear I had three birthdays standing in a queue to buy one stamp this week. Just when you think you are getting to the front, a sign goes up saying "CLOSED", just like it does in the UK. Always, there is someone in front of me (do they get them from Central Casting, I wonder, just to annoy me?), packing a parcel with the kind of precision needed when constructing a very complex bomb.
Throughout the whole laborious procedure, they have to chat. Endlessly. I live near what we unceremoniously in the UK call an old people's home (I think they call it something like Very Nice But Very Slow People in the 5 Star Last Chance Saloon here), and everyone, everywhere, likes to make the residents feel as if they are very special to the community. Which they are, of course. Except when I want to buy just one bloody stamp to send a letter to the UK.
Outside of post office hours, it is refreshing to be in a place where the service industry is so revered and which places so much emphasis on customer care. Initially, it took some getting used to, as I thought everyone was joking when they approached me in the store to see if there was anything they could help me with. The first time an assistant loomed up behind me when I was pondering the vitamin shelves in Wholefoods, I screamed.
In addition to great service, there is so much that I love here: the clean streets, the choice of food, the fact that restaurant meals arrive hot at the table (something that Europeans did away with sometime back in 1983), the airmail that arrives more punctually than any of my post in Cardiff (although heaven knows how, given the rigor mortis in the post office), the choice of teas, so much great telly (and so many amazing drama series, all fantastically well written and produced).
But there are things I don't like, too: the cost of stock cubes, the lack of Heinz baked beans, the time it takes for the white illuminated man to appear on the roadside, telling you it's safe to cross, the red numbers that count down too quickly when you are halfway across the damned road.
Then there are the men. British women keep asking me whether American men are any different from those in the UK. Well, no. They are nuts here, too. All except the lovely Antonio, naturally.
They certainly have better mayors here - well, if the LA Mayor is anything to go by. I met Antonio Villaraigosa at the opening of Britweek (a celebration of the Brits' contribution to southern California) on Tuesday night and thought he was a bit special. Not only did he speak eloquently and with passion (it's his Latino nature, I suspect), he looked like a film idol. In the UK, our mayors tend to be at least three stone overweight and waddle around like those sweaty women who make it to the final of the annual Crufts dog show, trying to keep up with their Chihuahuas.
Antonio is rumoured to be running for governor of California in 2010, and I will be right there behind him (oh, okay: hanging on to his coat tails for grim death, but you get the general idea). I have started re-watching all of Brothers and Sisters, just to see exactly what Kittie did in her support of Jack in his race to be governor and finally pull him. It certainly wasn't down to her family, and although I suspect Antonio has much bigger female fish to fry, I will be happy to be a minnow in my new pond.
Tony Blair was also speaking at the dinner, although it was hard to listen to his declaration of the humanitarianism we need to express in relation to the world's malaria problem, given his history on Iraq. Tony received not just one, but two ovations: they went wild, and I mean really, really wild, for him. There was a queue to shake his hand and be photographed with him. I resisted, having met him on a number of occasions, when he was perfectly charming and very enthusiastic about my keeping in touch (I didn't; you know where I live, Tony). He spoke well, though not as well as my new best friend the Mayor, and he is nowhere near as good looking (his suit wasn't as nice, either, but now I'm being picky).
If the Mayor is streets ahead of our own specimens in terms of high public office (sorry, Boris, but Antonio beats you hands down), the post office workers are right down there with our own levels of slowness. I swear I had three birthdays standing in a queue to buy one stamp this week. Just when you think you are getting to the front, a sign goes up saying "CLOSED", just like it does in the UK. Always, there is someone in front of me (do they get them from Central Casting, I wonder, just to annoy me?), packing a parcel with the kind of precision needed when constructing a very complex bomb.
Throughout the whole laborious procedure, they have to chat. Endlessly. I live near what we unceremoniously in the UK call an old people's home (I think they call it something like Very Nice But Very Slow People in the 5 Star Last Chance Saloon here), and everyone, everywhere, likes to make the residents feel as if they are very special to the community. Which they are, of course. Except when I want to buy just one bloody stamp to send a letter to the UK.
Outside of post office hours, it is refreshing to be in a place where the service industry is so revered and which places so much emphasis on customer care. Initially, it took some getting used to, as I thought everyone was joking when they approached me in the store to see if there was anything they could help me with. The first time an assistant loomed up behind me when I was pondering the vitamin shelves in Wholefoods, I screamed.
In addition to great service, there is so much that I love here: the clean streets, the choice of food, the fact that restaurant meals arrive hot at the table (something that Europeans did away with sometime back in 1983), the airmail that arrives more punctually than any of my post in Cardiff (although heaven knows how, given the rigor mortis in the post office), the choice of teas, so much great telly (and so many amazing drama series, all fantastically well written and produced).
But there are things I don't like, too: the cost of stock cubes, the lack of Heinz baked beans, the time it takes for the white illuminated man to appear on the roadside, telling you it's safe to cross, the red numbers that count down too quickly when you are halfway across the damned road.
Then there are the men. British women keep asking me whether American men are any different from those in the UK. Well, no. They are nuts here, too. All except the lovely Antonio, naturally.
The American (Wet) Dream 4/20/09
Of all the things I was expecting upon arriving in what I have traditionally come to believe is the Land of Plenty - steaks the size of three Welsh cows, saturated fat by the pint - the American obsession with BWH (Below the Waist Hygiene) was not among them. Already, my writing about furnishing my small vaginal house from the pharmacist Rite-Aid, has attracted a lot of attention from women in the UK, whose complaints about their shortcomings in the downstairs flora and fauna department have been met with dumbfounded astonishment by the UK's National Health Service.
If you don't have an infection and all your tests come back negative, the NHS basically doesn't know what to do with you, short of offering you a peg to place on your nose every time you go to the bathroom. Now, thanks to Rite-Aid, I am receiving e-mails from my friends in the UK, asking for advice, and I have become a sort of one-woman show for feminine hygiene.
But it's not just women who can benefit from the BWH obsession. This morning, in my gym, there I was happily watching Las Vegas on the TV as I hit my fourth mile (Tom Selleck has taken over the casino, by the way; he smokes fat cigars and has yet to get his kit off), when a commercial caught my attention and instantly threatened to usurp problems of the female kind for one of a more general nature and which I might also be able to share with men.
Overactivebladder.com was really the wrong ad for me, as I generally have to leave the treadmill every half mile to relieve myself of the three cups of tea I have before leaving for the gym in the morning. Having always claimed to suffer from a "weak bladder" and constantly been told that, no, I just have a small one, maybe this problem (Over-Active Bladder - it sounds so much better in American), like so many others, was also about to be miraculously solved by my moving continents (or incontinents, whichever way you like to look at it).
I learned from the website that people with OAB rush to the bathroom a lot (yes, that's me), and get up to go to the bathroom in the night. When I was drinking, I never used to get up in the night, as I was generally comatose ten minutes after arriving home; if I did get up, it was only to check out the other side of the bed to assess the kind of monstrosity I might have brought home with me. These days, though, I do get up, but that is generally because for every glass of wine I used to drink, I now have three mugs of tea before going to bed.
I took the test on overactivebladder.com (something tells me that title is never going to make a movie), and, apart from my having to leave the treadmill and Tom Selleck every ten minutes, don't think I have the condition. Something that did interest me, though, was the news that, in terms of discomfort, men scored 6 and women scored 8, meaning that men have a higher threshold for bother.
Really? Go to a rugby international, stand behind the beer tents and see how high their bother threshold is there.
But at least I am assured that there are some products I don't have to buy from Rite-Aid, and that, in my continued pursuit of the American Dream, it doesn't necessarily have to be a wet one.
If you don't have an infection and all your tests come back negative, the NHS basically doesn't know what to do with you, short of offering you a peg to place on your nose every time you go to the bathroom. Now, thanks to Rite-Aid, I am receiving e-mails from my friends in the UK, asking for advice, and I have become a sort of one-woman show for feminine hygiene.
But it's not just women who can benefit from the BWH obsession. This morning, in my gym, there I was happily watching Las Vegas on the TV as I hit my fourth mile (Tom Selleck has taken over the casino, by the way; he smokes fat cigars and has yet to get his kit off), when a commercial caught my attention and instantly threatened to usurp problems of the female kind for one of a more general nature and which I might also be able to share with men.
Overactivebladder.com was really the wrong ad for me, as I generally have to leave the treadmill every half mile to relieve myself of the three cups of tea I have before leaving for the gym in the morning. Having always claimed to suffer from a "weak bladder" and constantly been told that, no, I just have a small one, maybe this problem (Over-Active Bladder - it sounds so much better in American), like so many others, was also about to be miraculously solved by my moving continents (or incontinents, whichever way you like to look at it).
I learned from the website that people with OAB rush to the bathroom a lot (yes, that's me), and get up to go to the bathroom in the night. When I was drinking, I never used to get up in the night, as I was generally comatose ten minutes after arriving home; if I did get up, it was only to check out the other side of the bed to assess the kind of monstrosity I might have brought home with me. These days, though, I do get up, but that is generally because for every glass of wine I used to drink, I now have three mugs of tea before going to bed.
I took the test on overactivebladder.com (something tells me that title is never going to make a movie), and, apart from my having to leave the treadmill and Tom Selleck every ten minutes, don't think I have the condition. Something that did interest me, though, was the news that, in terms of discomfort, men scored 6 and women scored 8, meaning that men have a higher threshold for bother.
Really? Go to a rugby international, stand behind the beer tents and see how high their bother threshold is there.
But at least I am assured that there are some products I don't have to buy from Rite-Aid, and that, in my continued pursuit of the American Dream, it doesn't necessarily have to be a wet one.
Groundhog Sunday 4/19/09
Today was the hottest April 19th in Downtown LA since 1914. In all other local areas, bar one, it was the hottest April 19th for over 50 years. The Americans are just as obsessed with the weather as the Brits, and apparently there is more heat to come tomorrow, but rain on Tuesday, and cooler weather mid-week. You see? You can take the girl out of the UK, but . . .
The weather didn't stop Sunday from being the usual kind of day that it has always been back home: waking late (after a dream about Ian Lavender, who played Pauline Fowler's lodger in EastEnders - where on earth did that one come from?), drinking four mugs of tea, reading (Alice Munro at the moment - she really is wonderful), doing the washing, and debating whether to go to the gym or eat a plate of spaghetti (the pasta won, at least for a few hours).
At home, I would normally trek down to the Cameo Club in Pontcanna at this point and have a couple of glasses of Rose with friends, but as I am not drinking, I tend to avoid bars. Instead, I downloaded some software to sync my i-Phone's contacts with my Blackberry and then decided to do some work on my screenplay.
Well, I say work: I unwrapped a lot of cards (some lined, some plain, and three different sizes) I bought in Staples, laid them out in piles and rows, rearranged them, decided which colour pens to use for different characters' stories, changed my mind, decided that Post-Its are hopeless, ripped them up, positioned my storyboard on a chair, stuck in four rows of coloured pins in preparation for the 40 scenes Blake Snyder's Save the Cat recommends, rearranged the four rows of coloured pins . . . It was the most productive writing afternoon I have had in years. I was so exhausted, I had to have a carrot juice.
I finally got to writing some things on the cards and, by early evening, had turned the board into a sort of mobile Staples store. I decided that I really didn't like one character, and on page 85 she is therefore gone. Terminee. Exterminated. Banished, Falstaff-like, from the lead character's life. What was it Henry IV said when he decided that it was time to put away such foolish things as his friendship with old Fatso. "I can; I will", I think it was, as Falstaff begged him, bewildered, not to let him go. I haven't quite decided how Miss Green Ink (for it is she) will meet her end, although in the library, with the lead piping, seems as good a place as any.
Finally, I made it to the gym, only to find that it was closed (funny, that) and so went to the Beverly Wilshire for a "regular water" (cheap). The music was too loud, so I checked out the new Thompson Hotel at the bottom of my road. Dark? You need a miner's lamp just to find the staircase. You can use the bar at the top of the hotel only if you are a resident, but that may be because no one coming in from street level would be able to adjust their eyesight sufficiently in order to find it.
I suspect that should you be so lucky as to find the bar in the first place, the only way you could successfully orchestrate your way out would be to abseil down the side of the building - certainly it would be safer than trying to navigate yourself back to the foyer in an environment that has clearly been designed with bat conventions in mind.
I always feel a bit sorry for myself when conducting the repetitiveness of Sunday life, but at least it's only one day a week, and at least in the US there is great telly on all day, every day. Today, I tried to resist watching any House or Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but the gym was open in my apartment block when I returned from the hotel, and so I watched a couple of episodes then, feeling less guilty about my TV addiction as I was burning calories at the same time. I also learned that the gym is open 24 hours a day, so envisage my new size zero jeans hanging off me by Friday.
Incredibly, I also managed a whole day without going to Wholefoods and spending about 80$ on little more than a pint of milk and a packet of beansprouts (my supper for the next month).
Gradually, I am getting the hang of things, albeit slowly, in my new life, although I feel like a child starting school: trying to stick to a routine, feeling proud of every new achievement, getting a bit weepy when it all seems a bit overwhelming, finding out who the real friends are, and, of course, playing with coloured pens and sticking pins into bits of paper, all in the name of creativity.
The weather didn't stop Sunday from being the usual kind of day that it has always been back home: waking late (after a dream about Ian Lavender, who played Pauline Fowler's lodger in EastEnders - where on earth did that one come from?), drinking four mugs of tea, reading (Alice Munro at the moment - she really is wonderful), doing the washing, and debating whether to go to the gym or eat a plate of spaghetti (the pasta won, at least for a few hours).
At home, I would normally trek down to the Cameo Club in Pontcanna at this point and have a couple of glasses of Rose with friends, but as I am not drinking, I tend to avoid bars. Instead, I downloaded some software to sync my i-Phone's contacts with my Blackberry and then decided to do some work on my screenplay.
Well, I say work: I unwrapped a lot of cards (some lined, some plain, and three different sizes) I bought in Staples, laid them out in piles and rows, rearranged them, decided which colour pens to use for different characters' stories, changed my mind, decided that Post-Its are hopeless, ripped them up, positioned my storyboard on a chair, stuck in four rows of coloured pins in preparation for the 40 scenes Blake Snyder's Save the Cat recommends, rearranged the four rows of coloured pins . . . It was the most productive writing afternoon I have had in years. I was so exhausted, I had to have a carrot juice.
I finally got to writing some things on the cards and, by early evening, had turned the board into a sort of mobile Staples store. I decided that I really didn't like one character, and on page 85 she is therefore gone. Terminee. Exterminated. Banished, Falstaff-like, from the lead character's life. What was it Henry IV said when he decided that it was time to put away such foolish things as his friendship with old Fatso. "I can; I will", I think it was, as Falstaff begged him, bewildered, not to let him go. I haven't quite decided how Miss Green Ink (for it is she) will meet her end, although in the library, with the lead piping, seems as good a place as any.
Finally, I made it to the gym, only to find that it was closed (funny, that) and so went to the Beverly Wilshire for a "regular water" (cheap). The music was too loud, so I checked out the new Thompson Hotel at the bottom of my road. Dark? You need a miner's lamp just to find the staircase. You can use the bar at the top of the hotel only if you are a resident, but that may be because no one coming in from street level would be able to adjust their eyesight sufficiently in order to find it.
I suspect that should you be so lucky as to find the bar in the first place, the only way you could successfully orchestrate your way out would be to abseil down the side of the building - certainly it would be safer than trying to navigate yourself back to the foyer in an environment that has clearly been designed with bat conventions in mind.
I always feel a bit sorry for myself when conducting the repetitiveness of Sunday life, but at least it's only one day a week, and at least in the US there is great telly on all day, every day. Today, I tried to resist watching any House or Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but the gym was open in my apartment block when I returned from the hotel, and so I watched a couple of episodes then, feeling less guilty about my TV addiction as I was burning calories at the same time. I also learned that the gym is open 24 hours a day, so envisage my new size zero jeans hanging off me by Friday.
Incredibly, I also managed a whole day without going to Wholefoods and spending about 80$ on little more than a pint of milk and a packet of beansprouts (my supper for the next month).
Gradually, I am getting the hang of things, albeit slowly, in my new life, although I feel like a child starting school: trying to stick to a routine, feeling proud of every new achievement, getting a bit weepy when it all seems a bit overwhelming, finding out who the real friends are, and, of course, playing with coloured pens and sticking pins into bits of paper, all in the name of creativity.
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