Ghosts of Birthdays Past - Thoughts on my Birthday

Today is my birthday and, at 56, I am closer to 60 than to 50. It feels very strange. In my head, I’m still in my thirties; my body disagrees. Heck, this morning, I had to shave my big toes. When did I get so hairy?

   

I’ve always enjoyed birthdays, apart from one small thing: being born on Guy Fawkes’ Day meant that my childhood parties were dominated by a bonfire and fireworks in the garden. I hated the noise of the fireworks and didn’t like being out in the cold, huddled around flames, so I spent this part of the proceedings hiding under the dining room table while all my guests frolicked outdoors. 

Worse, I lost out on presents as a result of my birth date. While some kids brought me a present and a box of fireworks, many brought just the latter. When you grow up with people bringing you explosives as gifts, it gives you a slightly warped view of the world.

   

My baby book catalogues just my first five birthdays. There are “frou frou pants”, nylon petticoats, shoes, a bonnet and muff, a cookery set, mittens, and money. Lots and lots of money. Every year.  If only that pattern had continued, I might not be in the financial mess I am now. As it is, I am more likely to develop a penchant for blowing things up rather than opening a savings account.

   

I was a great party organiser. As my guests arrived and I recovered from my “sad face” as I unwrapped another box of Standard Fireworks, I would line everyone up in order of height. Quite what this achieved, I have no idea, but it clearly spoke to my need of order that continues to this day.

   

I was very good at party games but, being the host, was never allowed to win. I could never understand this. Having always been very competitive, even on my birthday I needed to prove that I was the best at everything – musical chairs, musical hats, pass the parcel. In retrospect, I think I would have been happier having no guests at all.

   

I recall my ninth birthday very clearly, as my parents had given me a cream plastic tea-set, decorated with brown leaves. I can see me now, taking it out of the box where it sat among the other presents on the green dralon armchair, and wishing that everyone waving sparklers in the garden would hurry up and go home.

   

My 18^th birthday took place in Bridgend, where my parents had moved because of my father’s job. I wore a turquoise pant suit and had my hair whisked up into the kind of bouffant that could cause a total eclipse of the sun. Mum and Dad gave me a gold bracelet, and I thought that life had never been so glamorous.

   

On my 30^th, I was living in London, and my (still) close friend Liz, let me take over the lower floor of her restaurant, Chalk and Cheese. I insisted that everyone play “The Shoe Game”, which involved singing “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go” (passing pairs of shoes one at a time in one direction), and then, at the line “and a walking stick” changing direction. 

Honestly, it’s really easy, but I suppose you have to see it. I threw a shoe at a friend who was chatting up my on/off manic depressive boyfriend (female friends “stealing my men” has been a recurrent theme throughout my life). Then, the journalist I was crazy about and who I hoped would turn up finally arrived at 1am and I was in tears. To top it all, a waiter stole most of my presents.

   

My 40^th was the happiest day of my life. Held in the private members’ club, Soho House, I felt blessed to be surrounded by wonderful friends and family. My mother and brother both made speeches, and I recall cries of “Hear! Hear!” when my mother said how loyal I was to my friends (I was and still am).

My brother tracked down my favourite singer, Ricky Valance, and played a recorded message from him before giving me a framed signed photograph. We struggled with the many bouquets travelling back to my Cardiff home the next morning. “Still, it was a lovely funeral,” I said, getting off the train.

   

I had three birthdays for my 50^th. The first, a dinner for close friends (many of whom had been at my 40^th, and some at my 30^th) was at The Bleeding Heart restaurant in London. 

For the second, I cooked for 60 guests in my Cardiff home. 

The third was at my Paris apartment, where I cooked for 30, and the last guest was taken away, unconscious, by les pompiers (basically, the fire brigade who have to deal with all manner of emergencies). They were not happy and shouted at me. I knew enough French to understand they were saying that taking drunk people away was not their job. Hmph. Don’t go to Cardiff on a Saturday night, I thought of retaliating, but thought better of it.

   

Last year, I was with friends in Los Angeles; this year, I am in New York, where I will again be celebrating with friends – all of them new ones. It’s hard to believe that when I came to the city in April, I knew no one; but on a daily basis, in the most friendly city in the world (don’t believe the myths about horrid New Yorkers), I widen my social circle.

   

It’s a long way from Bridgend, and there won’t be any fireworks, but far from feeling depressed about my age, I feel grateful to have lived a life that has involved so much travel, adventure, great friends and family, and work that I love. There has never been one day I have woken up and not felt incredibly lucky that I have been able to do not only what I do best, but retain a passion for: writing.

   

Well into my sixth decade, I continue to make many mistakes. But I learn from them – and then I make different mistakes. But that’s the way it should be: none of us gets it all right. So, on another birthday, I’m going to celebrate simply being human. Because, for all its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, there is still so much, so very, very much, to feel happy about. 

Other humans, being top of that list.

Wang Hamm, Thank You Ma'am

One of the great hypocrisies of our age is that while men who talk about women’s breasts, or ogle them from near or afar, are criticised for being sexist, women do not suffer the same treatment when it comes to talking about penises (or should that be penii? Anyway, that’s another linguistic discussion altogether).

   

I have never made any secret of my fascination for the male organ, whether I have been writing about it in print, admiring it close up, or even groping it when my hands should have been better employed elsewhere. Despite growing up in a sexually repressed country, the reticence that should have been inbred somehow passed me by. I suspect I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.

   

I think about penises a lot. And I mean a lot. I suspect I think about some of my male friends’ penises more than they do, which, for someone who has never had one, nor is ever likely to, is probably a bit strange.

   

If I go to a concert, poetry reading or lecture, I am listening to the music or words, but all the time I am wondering what lurks behind the flies of the men on stage. Is it circumcised or uncircumcised? How active is it? Is it large or small, thin or thick? Is it any good? Does its owner like what it sees in the mirror? Where has it been? Where might it be going? Does it fear death?

   

I’m not sure if this is penis envy or penis admiration, but I wish I had a penis just to know what it felt like. Actually, I have double penis envy, because, in reality, I would like two: a circumcised one and an uncircumcised one. Is that being greedy?

   

This week, at Michael Sheen’s brilliant recording of Under Milk Wood in New York, one of many events to celebrate the centenary of the poet’s birth, Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper in Mad Men, was in the audience. Everyone who recognised him underneath his cap and glasses was desperately excited; he is a fine actor. But much of the whispering was about one thing: “Do you think it’s true?”

   

Because, you see, a piece published online in May this year, headlined “Jon Hamm’s Wang” revealed that the actor likes to go commando (without underpants, for the innocent out there). It was accompanied by a picture of said wang, albeit behind a zipper, that appeared to reveal that Mr Hamm was a gentleman of considerable substance. And I mean considerable. It became the talk of Los Angeles, where, it is now believed, he holds the curious accolade of being the grand owner of the biggest wang in Hollywood.

   

Now, I confess to not having worn any underwear for over 20 years, but nothing in my external attire would ever give an indication of what mysteries or horrors lie beneath my clothing. Not so, with Mr Hamm, whose nether regions are a veritable sweet shop of delights to which the door is always ajar.

   

I can’t decide whether this knowledge has improved or lessened the impact of Mad Men. On the one hand, when the show’s story gets a bit slow, I can always think “Yes, but it has Jon Hamm’s wang in it” and distract myself, or I can . . . No, I lie; I really can’t and don’t think of anything else now.

   

I think the real reason I would like a penis is because it is so much easier a tool to navigate than the Google Earth that is the female anatomy. I mean, you could probably multi-task with a penis in the morning, cleaning your teeth at the same time as you are doing whatever you are doing with it (What would I know? I don’t have one. Did I mention that?). 

As a woman, you have to schedule appointments with yourself, because you never know what mood your bits and pieces are going to be in. A penis, by comparison, is pretty much always up for it, and that’s another reason I would like one.

   

Because, at the end of the day, I have a penis mind, but a woman’s body. 

And that’s really, really not fair, God. It just isn’t. 

I want a refund. Or, better, an exchange.

   

  

      

  

      

Hollywood to Hudson

This week, I learned more about Dylan Thomas than I did throughout my whole school and university careers.

   

Celebrating the centenary of the poet’s birth, the Welsh gathered at various venues throughout New York City, where Dylan died on November 9^th 1953, at just 39.

   

In Wales, we grew up in the knowledge that Dylan was a drunk, and often not a pleasant one. While I admired his prose style, I was less of a fan of his poetry, which I thought to be verbose and rather immature in its excessive use of alliteration.

   

This week, a poetry reading by the brilliant Michael Sheen at Bauman Rare Books on Madison Avenue, reminded me of the richness and depth of some of Dylan’s better work; likewise, Sheen’s participation in Under Milk Wood, from the stage where Dylan first performed it. I felt privileged to be there.

   

Also in the audience were writer and director Richard Curtis and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm. The latter caused a particular flurry of excitement among the ladies, and I could barely contain myself having my picture taken with him.

   

Visiting the White Horse Tavern, where Dylan used to drink, was also an uplifting experience, and I did the utmost sentimental act by putting Tom Jones’s Green Green Grass of Home on the jukebox while filming the surroundings on my iPhone. Call me an old softie. Call me Welsh. I also bumped into two holidaymakers who know me from the pub quiz in the Butcher’s Arms in my village in Cardiff. Weird.

   

It’s taken me a while to find my feet in New York; it’s the same with every big city. It helps that it is the most friendly city I have ever visited; it also helps that it is very easy to get around, either on the subway or on foot. I have my local haunts, there is a great food truck on the corner of my street, and an excellent wine store.

   

Unlike LA, where drinks are snatched out of your hand come 2am, loads of hostelries stay open until 4am (although still too early, in my book). So far, I’m not missing the LA weather, because it was a perfect, mild summer here, and autumn is dry and warm with just that little bit of crispness in the air that to me is always a hint of Christmas.

   

I miss the quiet of LA – yes, really. They really like their sirens and car horns in New York. When I watch Law and Order: SVU, which is filmed in the city, I marvel at how any of the actors manage to make themselves heard above the constant racket. It’s not even worth attempting to sleep beyond 7am, when work on construction sites begins, and sleep comes with difficulty owing to the warning beeps of the UPS vans reversing into their lot throughout the night (warning to everyone: never rent an apartment overlooking a UPS car-park).

   

I miss being able to walk the streets without bumping into somebody dressed as the Empire State Building, but then as I chose to live near Times Square to be close to the theatres, I have only myself to blame.

   

I miss the showbiz vibe of LA: the huge billboards of Hollywood and the surrounding areas shouting about a new TV series or film; the showbiz bollocks you hear in every restaurant and bar (as I’ve always said: it may be bollocks, but it’s still the best bollocks in the world); the out of work actors, all filled with such hope (having said that, there are enough of them in New York, too, although there seem to be a lot more in work here).

   

I miss my LA friends, although I seem to acquire several new ones on a daily basis. In fact, I have made so many, I am already having to start sacking some of them.

   

It’s very easy to be a 50-something woman in New York, something I couldn’t say about LA (where men want to talk only to hookers or stick insect young women) or London (where women of my age are deemed eligible for the scrapheap of life). Here, everyone talks to everyone, irrespective of age. The waiters are not patronising and it is not unusual to see a whole row of single women sitting at a bar. If you tip well, you also get complimentary drinks. That happened to me just twice in five years in LA.

   

If I manage to sell my house in Wales, I would still like to reside on both the East and West coasts. I can’t see me making it through a New York winter, and although I could head south to Florida for some sun, it’s the rigor mortis state for me. Miami is more lively, but definitely not a place for women of my age; last time I went, I felt like everyone’s granny.

   

People who have lived here for years tell me that New York is a hard place, but I really haven’t found it so. Having lived in London for over 25 years, I am used to big city life. And far from finding the enormity of the buildings intimidating, I am struck at every turn by their beauty. There is such variety: shapes, glass, angles. It is proud architecture that, as with so much else, feels ever strong and hopeful, having endured so much.

   

And I love the openness of New Yorkers. While I enjoy showbiz bollocks, I also love non-bullshit, and you get it by the bucket-load here. What New Yorkers say is what they mean, and I am always stunned by the number of men talking openly in bars about the state of their current relationships. Where Angelinos dream of fame, New Yorkers dream of love.

   

At the end of the Dylan Thomas celebrations, I am excited to have met so many new people and been introduced to many more aspects of the rich cultural life here. It’s a very different place from the New York I visited 30 years ago – and which I hated. I was in my twenties, had never travelled, and was terrified.

   

It’s my birthday on Wednesday, and I’m 56. I can’t believe it. But as I watch the exquisite sunsets over the Hudson River at dusk, I’m grateful that even though it’s late in the day, I made it here: at least, literally. 

Making it here in the other sense will hopefully be the next chapter.

  

     

   

Nobody Died, Nobody Got Pregnant

How honest should one be on social networking sites?

   

It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about during the past 24 hours after I posted a comment about my feelings of failure in life. A friend said that it is never a good idea to expose oneself in this way and, I know, he is not alone in thinking this. I have friends who don’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account, which, to be honest, I find WEIRD! 

   

But, the truth is, the responses I have had from people is the only thing that is getting me through a very tough period in my life. And it’s not the first time that people on social networking sites (many of whom I have never met in person) have done that for me. My wonderful mum is there among the comments, too (nobody understands you like a mother. Truly. NOBODY), and my brother Nigel and dearest friend Leisha were first on the phone when I texted them about the latest disaster. The outpouring of love has been truly overwhelming, and my tears of frustration and anger have turned to ones of gratitude for the people I have in my life who love me for who I am. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to every single one of you.

   

Here’s the thing. And I really have given this a lot of thought before sharing it. I am losing my house. There. At the end of the day, it’s only 16 letters of the alphabet. But I’ve said it now. And I’ve decided to share that piece of information because people have been worried and, without saying why I am so distressed, they are thinking the worst. But, at the end of the day, nobody died, nobody got pregnant. Sorry if I alarmed any of you on either front.

   

Financially, it’s been a struggle for some time. Losing a job, pay cuts, the recession – I know I’m not alone in having a hard time; most people I know are, in varying degrees, suffering. The house is already on the market, but the stupid bank (I SO hate you, Barclays) can’t wait for a sale or hang on for five months when, with the new pension laws, everything can be sorted. I chatted to a very lovely person for half an hour, but, at the end of the day, it really was a case of, in the words of Little Britain, CSN, “Computer Says No”.

   

So, I am returning to the UK to clear my house and handing over the keys to CSN. I have spent the past day venting my fury, screaming What’s it all about? What have I worked so hard for all my life? and several other things that I cannot put into print.

   

Then, I turned to Facebook, where family, friends and complete strangers were there to offer support. Privately, others have reached out in phone calls, text messages and e-mails, and it has made me re-evaluate the nature of what a life actually is.

   

Because, at the end of the day, what has actually changed? I still have my family, who, I know, would be there for me were I to turn serial killer. I still have my friends who, I know, never judged me by my bank balance. And I still have me who, for all the tears I have shed during the past 24 hours, is still pretty happy with what I see when I look in the mirror, both literally and metaphorically.

   

Very few people in, say, Paris (where I lived for six years) or New York (where I currently spend a lot of time) owns a property. In the UK, however, ownership of bricks has always been equable with status. I recall a taxi driver in Cardiff dropping me off at my house (soon to be the property of CSN – did I mention that?) and commenting “You must have married well”. I was very proud to tell him that everything I had was as a result of me alone.

   

The downside of that aloneness is that you have to live the bad times by yourself, too. But that’s where social networking comes in. Within the space of a day, I have gone from being a wreck to feeling that I am about to embark on a whole new chapter; I am shedding skins. I will not be defined by the weight of a mortgage that, if I am honest, was running me, not the other way around.

   

Close friends have been worried for some time about the effect that financial stress has been having on my life. They have seen me constantly disappointed when people who appeared to be offering a lifeline in terms of work let me down. They have seen me try everything to get back on track – even moving continents. They have seen me exhausted and, some weeks, have no money for food (last week’s toilet roll famine was especially bad).

   

But I am resilient. I still have my writing ability. I still have my family and friends. I just won’t have the bricks and mortar in which to entertain them anymore. 

I await your Christmas invitations.

And if you could all buy my book, Broke: A Life of Small Change, when I put it on Amazon, that would help enormously.

Only the Lonely

I have been lonely all my life. 

I was writing that to a friend of 30 years standing the other night and found myself weeping uncontrollably.

   

Loneliness is not depression. I have had my fair share of the latter and written about it extensively. Depression is an illness that is out of one’s control. Yes, you can have therapy, you can take drugs to try to control it, but, at the end of the day, the despair that is the heart of the sickness is a beast that chooses you. Any time. Any place. You don’t get to decide when it is going to be unleashed.

   

But loneliness. That’s different.

   

Let me say at the outset that I have a wonderful family and a ton load of amazing friends, many of whom I know are there for me 24/7. Some of those friends have known me for 30 plus years, and, in the case of my closest school friends, 40 plus. I am truly blessed in my relationships.

   

This isn’t a great place to be right now, though. Mid-fifties, single, female, pretty much broke, and always feeling on the periphery of everyone else’s circle. Everyone has a partner, children, grandchildren, dogs, and there are days when life feels like a conspiracy of togetherness holding up a NO ENTRY sign to you alone.

   

Aloneness is something I have chosen. I have a solitary job, am totally at ease in my own company, and love the freedom that not being married or being a parent brings. I am extremely close to my friends’ children, who, I am sure, would soon go off me if I were their real parent. They would soon see that what they currently regard as the epitome of cool and the “I wish Jaci was my mother” syndrome would transform in an instant into “I didn’t ask to be born!” reaction in response to my “What time d’you call this?!” if they had sprung from my loins.

   

Loneliness is different, though, and, it might be a cliché, but you can be lonely in a relationship, too; given the choice, I would rather be single and lonely than married and lonely.

   

Something happened this week that suddenly made the pain of loneliness so tangible, I just wanted to try to define what it is. It feels self-indulgent to do so, because, after all, it’s not a life-threatening illness, and people go through far worse. But, as a society, we are not good at recognising emotional pain, which is why, when people commit suicide, so many remain baffled as to what could have been the reasons behind it.

   

I have written elsewhere in my blogs about that kind of despair, but loneliness is harder to categorise. When I was in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), my therapist (Martin Weaver – check him out, he’s great) noted my physical movements when I was describing emotional pain. So, this week, I watched it. Loneliness, for me, is two clenched hands pressed against a tide of sadness in my chest. But maybe that’s every kind of sadness. It’s the heart. And the heart is the spring of everything. Good and bad.

   

This has been a bad week. I don’t want to go into detail, but this is the lowest. It really is. And it’s only Tuesday. Blake Snyder, whose screenwriting book Save the Cat, first brought me to the US, would call it the “All Is Lost” moment on page 75 of a screenplay, followed by “Dark Night of the Soul”. But, ten pages later, there’s the “Break Into Three” – the solution. Oh, Blake. I miss you so much. But you’re still there. Talking me through the loneliness.

   

I don’t have a solution to anything I’m going through at the moment, but I am blessed in my friends who get me through the darkness and who, despite their busy lives, are there for me. 

Someday soon, I hope I’ll break into Act Three. 

Synthesis. I’ll get there, Blake. 

I just might have to re-visit Act Two to sort it all out.

  

   

Going, Going, Gone Girl - Here's Hoping

Before this week, the last film I saw in a large public cinema (or movie theater as I am now wont to call it – and yes, spelt that way, too; I am SO American these days) was The Hangover (the first one) in Century City in LA.

   

I bought the biggest burger and drink from the enormous Food Court and relaxed in a seat that was the size of my apartment’s living room.

   

I then laughed non-stop for the whole movie, as did everyone else. I could not remember a time I had laughed quite so much (well, not unless I counted reading my own columns, anyway). For days afterwards, I was still laughing.

  

Although, as a member of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), I receive all movies free for voting purposes, I decided this week to go to the real thing once more. The hype surrounding Girl Gone had been huge, as were the opening weekend sales, and, having loved director David Fincher’s The Social Network, was prepared to be massively impressed.

   

Just as I did in The Hangover, I cried throughout: not tears of joy, however, but tears of boredom. And then tears of fear – had I been kidnapped and was I being held against my will and, as in Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, being subjected to something I would never be able to escape? In Waugh, the victim is the character Tony being held by a Mr Todd, who forces him to read Dickens to him – FOR EVER! In Gone Girl, it is . . . well, what is it? I’ll come to that shortly, but let’s say that my third batch of tears were ones of joy as I finally escaped the darkness, both literally and metaphorically and emerged into the light outside the Lowes movie theatre. 

Never has real life looked or felt so good. I went to Whole Foods and spent half an hour working out what I could have bought there for the $15 I had just wasted at the movies (only three things, as it happened, but still preferable).

   

For those who have yet to see Gone Girl (and who, heaven forbid, will still want to after reading this?), and who haven’t read the book, I won’t reveal the essentials, but will talk in generalities.

   

Leaving aside my feeling that Ben Affleck in one of the leads, Nick, is about as underwhelming (to me) as a frozen kipper, it’s a mess of a movie. Rosamund Pike, the other lead, Amy (no fish comparisons intended, by the way), is very good, but it’s impossible to empathise with either character, and if you don’t know who you’re rooting for in a movie, for me it’s over before it’s begun.

   

The catalyst of the movie, the moment that changes everything and leads it in a different direction, is even more underwhelming than Mr Affleck. It should be a real “WOW! I didn’t see that coming” movie moment, but I’ve had more excitement brushing my teeth, to be honest.

   

Then there is the issue of Ms Pike’s weight gain within minutes; the cat that never gets fed (yet never loses weight); the reactions of all the key characters to the central plot i.e. the girl that is gone (although, hardly a girl, quite frankly).

   

The police at the heart of the operation are hopeless; the Sesame Street Cops would have delved more deeply into the evidence. There is way too much repetition, during which we receive the same information, either visually or verbally several times over. The ending is incomprehensible on one essential fact that is supposed to be the other WOW! moment that winds the whole thing up after a staggering 149 minutes. There is not a jot of it that is remotely believable – neither was E.T. literally, but I believed it emotionally – either in terms of plot, characters, or human behaviour. It’s tosh for the masses.

   

It is as if they changed directors (and, at times, writers) every 15 minutes, never quite getting to grips with what kind of movie they wanted it to be (apart from one that made a lot of money by pulling the wool over the general public’s eyes). The hype surrounding it really is a case of Emperor’s new clothes, and its popularity can only be down to the problem of there being so little out there at the moment – and, in Hollywood, there hasn’t been for some time (though I absolutely LOVED The Hundred-Foot Journey, which I saw in a small private cinema). 

Critics who try to analyse Gone Girl in terms of its post modernism and insight into coupledom are, quite frankly, too fearful of shouting out “The King is in the all together!”

   Ms Pike will doubtless receive an Oscar nomination, and the film will make it onto the Best Adapted Screenplay list; but Best Movie? Dear lord, I hope not.

   

It is, alas, 149 minutes I will never get back. Gone Girl? 

Going, going, gone girl - forever, I hope.