No Plastic Christmas Please

Ding dong all the way

Every year, Christmas, the Festive Season, the Holidays and the Nightmare Before... trundles around to rear it's be-tinsled, gawping head once again. It is regular, it is clockwork it is family law and order. I am certainly not one to put down or berate Christmas. If you are a hopeless humbug, then that's your problem and so it should remain. Please don't infict your doom and dissatisfaction with the season-to-be-jolly on the rest of us. God knows the happiest time of the year gives us enough to deal with as it is! We know it's a capitalist conspiracy, we know it was an ancient tradition stolen by Christians from the pagan peoples of Britain and we know that the nativity is a loose fit on actual historical events, but otherwise what would fill the You've Been Framed Christmas Special? We want to see Joseph catch fire on stage infront of his or her parents, don't we? Be careful what you wish for. I saw this happen in real life. It was hilarious! Once we'd got over the shock of a ten year old  going up in flames. (She was thankfully, completely unharmed I might add.)

So what's changed over all these years of Christmas tradition? Well precisely nothing, bar the subtle ways in which we like to keep up with the Joyeux Noels in our decorative tastes. A glittery reindeer here, another addition to the numerous sets of shit flashing lights from ubiquitous supermarket here, there and Jesus Christ they're everywhere!

For some years now I have wished for nothing more at this magical time of year, than for square eyes and a heart attack. At least for the instigators of those terrible afflictions. For me it really is about feast not fame. I want to eat my way through a months supply of biscuits and watch telly on a 24 rotational cycle. Perhaps just sleeping for the second half of every Bond film. I am told that it's selfish but I don't want to sit through the pomp and circumstance of dry turkey, mean piles of soggy vegetables, the traditional argument and in my household, the inevitable late night play back of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, in an attempt to smooth over the cracks. We tell the same jokes, at which we all laugh and recite the same old lines from the same old sketch shows, we tell the same old stories and throw the same shapes et cetera, ad nauseum, every year. Because we are polite, we love each other and it's the only way to get along at the homestead. I would imagine it's the same deal for many others, whatever your format is. We just do it.

I do wish that for once I would be let to nurse my Christmas Eve hangover in peace, harmony and good will to all men. I tried to do this for the first time two years ago. I failed. A member of my family arrived at my house and forcibly removed me.

I know it sounds mean but I would love to know how it feels to do Christmas my own way. I suppose we all would. That's something we all have in common. We all have a fantasy Christmas and we all struggle and probably fail to acheive it, once a year, every year.

I am not a humbug. I love Christmas. I love the time off, I love the cheap pre-prepped party treats, I love the surprise of a long lost friend returning home and the warmth of a Christmas card from a new acquaintance. But while I am single, let me to my vodka and chocolate. 

I have other fantasy Christmasses of course. Another fantasy snapshot of Christmas is arriving into the warm arms of a huge, smiling familiy, with a loved one, with whom I have travelled many miles, to greet fantasy familiy. They feed us potent but delicious alcohol and roasted fowl until we burst and then we dance like lunatics to a lively string section in some huge rambley, croft ( I know thats' a contradiction in terms but we're talking fantasy here.) Yes and part of me puts them all in kilts. Mmmm. Yes! There's not a gift in sight more than feast, friendship and festivities. No clinically, crafted consloes, no shrinkwrap, no branding, other than my Armani blazer (fanstasy), no Made in China, no "smellies", no BOGOFs, no knock offs, no credit imbalance, no pressure... just leisure.

Other fantasy Christmasses which occasionally feature in my minds eye are the open fireplace, log cabin and skiing (or snowboarding) getaway, the beach cocktail party and the magical mystery tour.

That's why I would like to do Christmas on my own this year. I want to try something new. Christmas is samey. My best Christmasses so far are those where I have intruded (by invitation) on other peoples'. Other peoples' Christmasses are always jollier, because for the guest it is all new and all shiney. I love variety, I love change and I crave new. I've got a thing for shiney too. I think it is sad when Christmasses all roll into one. It shouldn't be forgettable and disposible like the ever increasing crap consumers' crimbo model we seem to be falling in line with. But fantasies are just that; just fantsaies. They are not collective. They are kindled within one individual and let's face, it other peoples wishes and feelings just don't come into it. Please don't tell me that you want the same things as me ;) Let's all be honest and do the best we can to accommodate each other. Maybe our Christmasses are my parents fantasy. I doubt it. But they seem to enjoy it anyway.

So until the umissable opportunity for a fantasy Christmas compromise arises and for some of these listed here it certainly will one day, but until then I will, as always, show my love for my family, but long for my own company.

Prententious Jargon I Grin and Bear

Here follows a list of buzzy, blue chip words that are used in unpleasant ways to create spin and piss me off.

Underpin
Definition: Descriptive of something that is important, like really, really important, you need it, trust me you do. Buy my thing, I've put so much effort into making it sound important so that you will buy it, that I have now come to believe in the gumph I've just up-chucked at you and will be offended and will perceive it as a personal violation if you don't agree with me. Like me, like me!

Sounds like: Painfully underwired bra

Outcome
Definition: The outcome is the whole point. It's so important to outline the outcome because we have spent so much of our budget generating really big ideas, that our company has forgotten why it exists at all. We hope for the best possible outcomes. We don't know why they happen, but we'll take the credit if people like them anyway. We'll also pledge to evaluate them, until we come up with some new ones, before we've finished working out what the hell these ones are.

Sounds like: Bodily spew

Ping
Definition: Send. I'll bloody send you an email. It's just as quick and easy as it is to "ping!" Which is what my microwave says to me when it's dinnertime. I mean honestly, who can rightly feel like they are functioning on a professional adult level when half the office is prone to a spontaneous "ping!" half the time.

Sounds like: Microwaves and Ping Pong

It's got legs
Definition: Potential. A runaway idea.You will go far with this one young Luke. However if it's got more than two legs, it probably shouldn't be in the office.

Sounds like: Centipede

Customer focussed
Definition: Of course you are. If you do not have customers/consumers/clients/service-users then you are not a business. If you are not focussed on these elusive beings then you are a coconut and you deserve to go into receivership. So stop patronising me, stating the obvious and get on with doing a good job.

Opposite to: Call centres

A Heroes Quest

Wish you were where?

I had a fascinating conversation with a particularly lovable, stripey friend just a few years ago. It was around 2007. It was about how utterly fabulous it is to be a grown-up. Some people lament the passing of their carefree childhoods. But we, having arranged to meet for a grown-up dinner on the flap of her horsebox, in which she lives, were commending ourselves for being highly excellent and well adjusted grown-ups and we simply had to celebrate the fact.

I am reminded of this right now... Porquoi?

As I frantically and repeatedly stab this keyboard in cold blood, oh odious, fluff-ridden, enemy that it is, little flashbacks of azure seas and afternoons of careless floating in balmy, salt water intrude noisily. It's all backwards. These "peaceful" memories manage to skid across the path of my mind's eye at such an alarming rate that they make my head spin. They're like skud missiles. I think it is because they are images of paradise lost. They are somebody elses' reality. Even whilst I was there, I was undergoing terrible crises of conscious trying to decide whether I believed in destiny or parallel universes, because surely not both of these theoretical realities can co-exist. The result at the time, was having the smallest component of the known universe compared to my bottom, over breakfast.

When I left England I was leaving behind a career into which I had been stockpiling my dreams. Little ideas and connections for later. It was merely Duplo blocks in the grand scheme of things, but these were strong foundations and I was proud. I was afraid of leaving all this groundwork behind and of loosing my identity as a result. Fears like this can become a self-prophecising fate. The notion of drawing to you that which you most fear, is a common philosophical concept in all the most fascinating ancient cultures. But every stage of life is an incubation period for the next. We know deep down we should choose the path which meanders, although we cannot see what lies beyond it's boughs, nor imagine what we might encounter along it. This is known as the Heroes Quest. If you take the Bullet train direct to success without passing the word go, then what will you do after that? Or even worse, what will you do if you have reached the top without ever learning how to fail?

So although the setting from which I have been recently extruded was idyllic. My Caribbean dream was fraught with disatisfaction. There was a nagging doubt hanging over the whole affair like a big black cloud in otherwise perfect skies and all because alternate realities simply cannot co-exist, at least not in the same body at the same time. All the while, as my trajectory took a wild leap off course, some tiny glimmer of myself remained. This fragile hope was recognised by the unlikely but careful and nurturing friends I made on that unlikely atoll.

But still, something just didn't fit. This misfit feeling sat on my shoulder for all those months. It's presence made my soul quake; like the malnourished dogs which I would smuggle biscuits into, whilst shop keepers would repel them in an amusing type of joust with an array of ubiquitous furnishings, most commonly an upturned chair.

So the images of paradise lost haunt me, not because they are lost but because they are a glimpse of a future, a beautiful but unwanted and unsuitable future for me. They were of someone else's reality and not my own. I will again experience those physical things, as and when it suits me to. I have already laid and strengthened the groundwork for my own future, my career, my reality as subtley and slowly as our skin lays out the lines which describe our physical history. We will always become the people we are meant to be. We don't always need to fight and indeed we shouldn't. Although I cannot know what surprises will bound up to greet me next, I am writing the story now. My story comes from within me and I hope it will never again unfold without me. I pledge to be present from now on. 

This is why I am so ready to celebrate my grown-up-ness. I am responsible for my own destiny. I have a choice all of the time. Even if it is as simple as chosing how to feel about a new situation. For now and forever more I can take myself where ever I wish and I have learned that I can change anything I want, with a little bit of healthy perception.

I am also starting to understand that soul mates come into your life for a short time, fill you with love and light and then they move on to fulfill their own destinies whilst giving you the freedom to fulfill your own. These paths cannot be guarunteed to run parallel forever. We would be cruel to try to cage a bird. Yet we can be grateful to have encountered it at all. And many more may I hope to meet.

So can parellel universes exist at all? Well they absolutely do. That dark entity shaking me by the shoulders was my personal destiny, or possibly the hole there-in, which was painfully missing me and my presence within myself. I was sightseeing in an alternative reality, while my soul reflected. During that time other marvellous things were being lined up somewhere out there for me to encounter when I will be good and ready. My ex had already stepped into his own parellel universe, to where I would never again speak to his heart. The translation filter between our worlds had already warped our words so far beyond recoginition. We could not hope to ever possibly understand each other deeply again. We belonged in different futures, since far in the past.

These days I am always in the right place at the right time. Lucky me you may be thinking. But it is truth. It is my mantra and my belief. This holds me fast in the here and now, secure in the knowledge that things are and will always be just so. I have never lived in the moment so much as I do now and I have never been as close to contented.

The amazing thing is that we are always subtley changing. Moving always towards ourselves and not away. At the moment I like this metaphor; as though I am a-fixed to one coloured square of a Rubix cube which is enormous compared to me. Every so often it shifts and twists to place me next to a completely different square, which only moments ago it's mere existence I could have only wondered at.

This blog is dedicated to Jungle Jim.

On Board the Dying Slowly Bus

Anyone seen the keys?

It is the morning after the night before and the night before today was our office Christmas party. The Golden Oldies wisely booked this day off well ahead of time, fearing the repercussions of a late night on genteel sensibilities. I on the other hand, am on the Dying Slowly Bus!

This is the term used for the one way trip to Central Hangover. The etymology of this beautiful turn of phrase originates from one cold, dark and ominous night in Croyden, just a few years in my past.

I had boarded a late night bus after a gig. It was close to Christmas, probably as close as it is to Christmas right now. It was bitterly cold, the ground was sheer and sparkley and the lights on this so called bus were very, very low. I sat myself close to the front and cosyed down as much as you can on a stiff and threadbare, ergonomically challenging resting place.

After a short time, a Goth loomed, glowered and plonked himself next to me. I say plonked, he floated toward me as Goths appear to do, even on buses and then landed heavily next to me, as they do, weighed down with all those chains and piercings. 

The night in question took place just moments before the Emo emerged in the evolutionary calendar of mankind and succeeded the enduring Gothic subculture and killed them off like Homo Sapiens killed off the Neanderthals. Or did they? Some, I am convinced, are alive and well and living on my road.

This gloomy glowering Goth smiled a warm and caring smile from a juxtaposed, wan and pale face. He offered me a cigarette, which I politely declined. But he wouldn't take no for an answer, this Goth. He persisted to lean in close to me and emplored me to accept, as if my life depended on it. Perhaps, I wondered, it did. By way of conviction he mysteriously said, with a sideways glance all about the misfit passengers of this doomed and dingy carriage, "Look around you." In my memory the wind howled, tumbleweed tumbled and distant church bells tolled at this point in the story, but that didn't really happen. Surprisingly, everything else is completely true.

"Do you recognise anybody?" He said. I was forced to admit that I didn't, but why should I? I was in Goddamn Croyden! Then he announced to me that "this is the Dying Slowly bus!"

Dying Slowly was one of the bands which had played at the venue that night. I was supposed to be on the Threefortenpound Fun Bus. But before my fate was sealed and I was whisked to hell on a handcart, sorry, I mean Milton Keynes, which is a long way from where I reside, this good samaritan of a Goth, one of the last of his species, not only picked up on my perilous and potentially disastrous and irrevocable error, but he elected to explain to me what a gaff I had made in a manner that would cause me the least amount of pain, shame and embarrassment. "Step outside with me" he encouraged, "and then you can pretend you have just gone for a cigarette and that everything else is on purpose." He saved my face and he narrowly everted my ending up in Milton Keynes, not long before dawn, in a few minus degrees. I might add that I was, at the time, clad in not much more than a very short skirt indeed.

Hence forth, for reasons I have barely explained, a state if inertia caused by rampant intoxication has ever since been referred to as Getting on the Dying Slowly Bus, and that is exactly where I am now.

There is no friendly Goth to save my face right here right now... but a Full Monty Breakfast Baguette has just come to berth on my desk and my god it's enormous!

Hallelujah!

Today I became an Alpaca Specialist

Most alpacas do not like being grabbed. No shit.

I have recently returned to an Arctic UK having been away diving around a small, tiny, sweaty island in the Caribbean. I went with the love of my life to follow his dream of becoming a diving instructor and mine of marrying him and having his diving instructor babies. Everything was going swimmingly, if you'll excuse the pun, until he told me that on second thoughts, he was backing out of the dream-plan. I spent six tense and melencholic months living with this man, who didn't want to be with me any longer. When I jetted away with wanton abandon on the crazy-dream-plan-trip, I was already seriously in debt, which meant that hell would have to freeze over... (which it is, right here, right now in Britain's Big Freeze, but at the time it was showing no signs of doing so...) before I could afford a ticket from a friendly airline to take me and my tearful episodes home. To deliver me back to my long suffering parents and the life in which I had already committed professional suicide. Yes I considered another type of suicide but I am no Jacques Cousteau wannabe and desceding into the deep dark blue never to resurface just didn't feel right.

So having arrived back in Britain just in time for one of the harshest winters in living history, my sturdy, reliable and loving friends have found me somewhere to live. A huge bedroom in a small house close to the centre of a small pictureque town in the South-ish of England. And a job which pays me reasonably well, to do things which also make me want to commit suicide most of the time. But none-the-less, while my dream-life-plan careens out of control I remain remarkably chipper about the whole damn mess, which of course I blame entirely on the Ex.

My new office is attached to a factory which manufactures plastic products for the agricultural industry and we sell them to farmers over the phone. My job requires me to perform what I would term extensive, hardcore data entry, interfacing with an unwieldy and inherantly flawed database, to sit still for hours at a time and possess the patience of the Virgin Mary. I think I have finally discovered, to my surprise, that these are my biggest weaknesses, which are not in fact related to chocolate or that I have an overwhelming urge to put cheese on all of my food.

In the Age of Austerity which we have discovered is our generation's latest curse, I am grateful to have a job at all. Although if you choose to follow my blog further, you will realise that I'm not so sure I should be. But for now it takes up a hefty percentage of my abnormally lean attention span.

Today my bosses have chosen to elevate me to the lofty excesses of Alpaca Specialist. So far it is nothing more than a crafty case of promotion by up-titling and requires no more of me than to simply hold the title. But if the prospect of being a so called Alpaca Specialist staves off the creeping dread that at nearly 30, I said nearly, I still have an unhealthy relationship with each alcohol, food and men. My relationship status has an automated function to spontaneously switch to 'it's complicated' whenever I encounter two or more of those things in the same room at the same time! And in addition to this, the one reliable salt-of-the-earth type person whom I contiunually ignore, degrade and genearlly turn my back on, is myself. So if specialising in alpacas can keep my mind off all that, just for a bit, in my search for life, the happiness and everything, then hand me my poncho and my pan pipes while I learn to spit up.
 
A little FYI
Wikipedia has this gem for us concerning physical contact with alpacas:
Most alpacas do not like being grabbed. Some alpacas tolerate being stroked or petted anywhere on their bodies, although many do not like their feet, lower legs, and especially their abdomen touched or handled.
We have so much in common already!

Hello everybody

Welcome to my new blog. I will be documenting my meteoric rise to success, happiness and well-being. Or falling flat on my face and trying to Keep Calm and Carry On. Whichever the case may be. Anyhow, these postings will be my honest and undiluted observations of everyday occurances which we should all be laughing at a lot more. I am the populace Meerkat. I always hold my head high in the face of adversity, which has many faces. All of them are ugly. I perceive everything, unless I'm drunk, at which times I forget everything. One of my most frequent questions to my often bemused housemate is, in these very words, "was I drunk?" 

I am what is known as a Trophy Housemate. That's what they call me on the street where I live, which 200 hundred years before I moved in, was well frequented for it's brothels. It's nothing more sinister that the fact that my community co-habitors think I am young, gorgeous and vital. Which is nice. Oh and I share a house with an older man. He is known as BiG Bear. So actually we live in a Bear Pit.

My so called life frequently lurches between the sublime and the ridiculous. I think you should read about it, you might learn something. Or more to the point, perhaps I will. Who knows. Follow me and we'll see what happens. I am a social barometer, fearless trend-setter and comic genius. You don't have to like me, but I do hope you like my blog. Read on, at your own risk, to find out why. Good luck and enjoy ;) x