Smells Like Teen Spirit

I’m getting old.

I can tell.

Not from the fact that my hair is going grey at the sides (though this is a definite indication of approaching decrepitude). Not from the fact it takes very little these days to give me a bad back. And not even from the fact that if I have to run anywhere I no longer take any pleasure in the sensation of getting there quicker.

I can tell I’m getting old because ‘young people’ annoy the living hell out of me.

Young adults. Youngsters. Teens... OK, OK. To be more exact: students.

I’m now into my last academic year of a part-time English degree that has taken me well over a decade to complete. When I started it back in the nineties I felt I had far more in common with the young full-time students who shared the seminars than the grouchy semi-retired mature part-timers. I felt I was still young and hip and wore my spring chicken-ness with pride along with my indie band t-shirts and my waist-length hair (oh yes, it’s all true).

Now I have short hair, wear sensible boots, clothes that don’t endorse anyone or anything at all and regularly armour myself with an unfashionable waterproof hill-walking jacket (hey, you just never know, right?) – and my trips to Uni make me so grouchy I must surely be walking around with a snarl big enough to make any student’s union rep wet their baggy-arsed trousers through to the gusset.

I can’t help it. They slouch around like they’ve got the whole effing day to waste (which they probably do) – while I’m having to rush around like a maniac to get to my seminars and then high-tail it back to work so that I don’t lose too many hours and therefore too much money. They punctuate every third word with “yeah?” and start every sentence with “Ok right...” They seem proud of the fact that they haven’t done the preparatory reading that I’ve slaved over for the last two days or attended the lecture that I panicked about getting to.

But most, most of all one of them actually complained the other day about getting up “early”. “Yeah, like, I woke up this morning at 8.30, yeah? And it was like, way too early, and I just thought, right, that I only had to be on campus for the New Lits lecture at 11, yeah? And I just thought, right, oh man, I just can’t be bothered, right? 8.30 is way, way too early so, like, I went back to sleep cos, like, I’d had about 7 pints the night before, right, at the union bar and I was totally wasted, it was too much...”

For the last week I’ve been regularly woken up at 5.20am by my eldest boy. I haven’t had a lie-in (i.e. slept past 7.0am) since 2003. Neither Karen nor I stop from the moment we get up until the moment the kids are both in bed in the evening. And we do it day after day after day. It’s no big thing really. It’s just life.

Now I realize I’m probably being unfair and knee-jerk and reactionary and an old fuddy-duddy but I just can’t deny my feelings. And if it makes it sound any better I can honestly say that – hand-on-heart – I didn’t particularly like other teenagers when I was a teenager. They annoyed me then and they annoy me now.

So maybe I’ve always been old?

Or maybe I’m not getting any older at all – I’m just staying the same while the world gets younger?

Who knows? But if these young whipper-snappers don’t learn to get out of my way when I’m walking about in a hurry I shall tan the backs of their hairless little legs with the rough end of my walking stick and no mistake! Harrumph!

A Bigger Grindstone

Define poverty.

Living on the streets?

Starving, having to steal food to survive?

Dying, having to sell your body to live?

Or just not earning enough money to be able to live decently?

Karen and I don’t particularly lead a profligate lifestyle. We’re not out partying every night (in fact although we went out for a meal Wednesday night to celebrate out wedding anniversary it was the first time we’d been out together in over 5 months). We don’t hit the shops every weekend in wild shopping splurges.

And yet, doing some sums and some short range financial forecasts we discovered that we’re pretty close to being in the crap. Karen needs to return to work in September as we simply can’t afford to have only one of us working indefinitely. This means paying for child care for Tom. Even if Karen only works school hours to try and relieve the burden of this we still need to find an extra £400 a month to cover the nursery costs.

We just do not have this money.

It’s ridiculous. We can’t afford to work. But can’t afford not to work. What are we supposed to do?

We only have three options.

1) Give up the rat race, claim benefits and hope we don’t lose our house as a consequence. Neither of us fancies this kind of lifestyle. This option is definitely out.

2) Bite the bullet and accept that over the next 4 years or so until Tom starts school we are going to slide inexorably into debt. Well. Not so much slide as bullet-train into debt.

3) Bite a bigger bullet and do all we can do slow that inexorable slide right down to a more manageable level. This means me getting an extra part-time job to bring in extra money to cover some of the child care costs. A morning or evening cleaning job most likely.

Karen isn’t happy about it (and I’m not exactly ecstatic) as she doesn’t want to see me flogging myself along the rocky road to a heart attack. But the alternative is a sizable debt that could totally destabilize us and take us decades to pay off. With the economy so shaky at the moment it seems to me some extra money coming into the house would not be a bad thing at all.

So. I am now officially looking for work. Even though I already have plenty. Full-time job. Part-time web design business. Novel on the go. One more year at University. Maintaining a wonderful home life.

Busy busy busy.

Sigh.

So does all this mean that I’m poor? Or just not poor enough?

Who knows? But at least I’m not sewing Nikes in a Kolkata sweat shop... or selling my body in an Essex lay-by.

On The HP

The definition of a good book: you don’t want it ever to end but you’re unable to stop yourself racing through at breakneck speed to the final page...

I completed Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows over the weekend and I feel quite bereft now that it’s all over.

It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? It’s just a kid’s book for Christ’s sake! And years ago I was one of those people who steered myself away from the HP books with an avidity that now seems ridiculous. There’s too much hype, I thought. Too much hysteria. Too many people rave about it therefore the books can’t possibly be any good.

That kind of thing.

Then I got into the movies.

I confess, I love them. They get better and better and I’m already excited about the new one that is currently in production. I’m a HP movie devotee.

But even up until the last film – The Order Of The Phoenix – I still refused to read the books. In fact on this here very blog I proudly pronounced that I would not read the books until the film franchise was fully completed.

What rot!

Once I spied the books on Amazon – the complete 7 in a nice embossed boxed set – I had to own them. And once I owned them... well. What’s the point of having books sitting around the house and not reading them?

So a number of weeks ago I pitched in with the first and kept at it until the final page of the final book...

And it’s been great. It’s been wonderful. Yes, they’re kid’s books but they’re not just kid’s books. They work on many different levels. I’m amazed at how deeply I was sucked into them. How intense the journey has been. Maybe I need to get out more but a series of books hasn’t gripped me like this since I was a teenager. I gave myself willingly to the entire HP world and was happy to lose myself there.

My respect for J.K. Rowling is immense. Speaking as someone who is three quarters of their way through their first novel I take my hat off to someone who can plot 7 so deftly and so completely and still keep the reader hanging on until the very end. It might not be Shakespeare. It might not be Rushdie. It might not be the stuff of a lot of “worthier”, more intellectual writers but you know what? I don’t care. There’s a lot to be said for a good story written so well that you actually wish it were real. For characters that you become emotionally attached to.

Harry Potter for kids? Pah! Why should kids get all the good stuff? It’s too good for ‘em I say.

For those of you who are still cynically resisting the lure of HP... give it a go. You will be surprised. For those of you who are already in the know. Well, just say hi and smile.

As for what I do now... well, I need to start prepping for my final Uni module next academic year. Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” is next on my reading list. Karen tells me it is excellent.

And I’m sure it is.

But my heart is still at Hogwarts...

Backlog And Block

Words, words everywhere and not a word to write.

Or something like that.

I can't even come up with anything remotely clever or "literary" today.

It's been a frustrating week. I haven't been able to do as much writing as I would have liked. The blog has suffered. My novel has suffered. I feel stretched in far too many different directions. I suspect the main reason is I have an essay to write for University and it's hanging over me like the sword of Damocles. In itself it's not too onerous a task to accomplish. 4000 words is pretty meagre by my wordy standards. A couple of days and it'll be done.

However, we've got to come up with our own essay titles.

Sounds a wonderful opportunity doesn't it?

But I'll be blowed if I can come up with a title that doesn't sound limp, lame or just plain lobotomized. I know what I want to write about but I just can't bring it all together into a neat, academically satisfying little package.

Not a global disaster by any means but I'm one of those sadsacks who cannot relax until a set task is completed. I hate having something hanging over me. Absolutely loathe it. Karen on the other hand is happy to leave things to the very last minute. How do people do this? I almost envy her the ability.

Anyway. I feel like I just can't relax and write anything properly or with any kind of enjoyment until the essay is completed... and I'm stumbling at the first hurdle: the title. It doesn't bode well.

As for the picture of Keeley Hawes...

Well. Eye candy. A spoonful of sugar and all that.

Completely unjustified and all the sweeter for it. Enjoy.

Square One

The smell of stale disinfectant in the foyer, the glum faces of everybody I meet, the mouldy hum of my office computer all tell me that Christmas is well and truly over. I’m back at work. Back earning the crust that allows me to maintain my precarious chocolate and Lego lifestyle. Back up to my hips in leaky pipes, malfunctioning machinery and air conditioning that patently cannot or will not air condition.

And am I glad to be here? Am I f***.

I’m quite shocked at how easily I dropped all thought of work over the last 10 days. It was like it never existed. I let go of all thought of university too, my web design business, even my novel... and just wallowed in relaxation and pleasure. So easy.

And so difficult to pick it all up again this morning. Demotivated. Not a good way to start the New Year but, in a way, really quite traditional.

And I suppose it could be worse. Work has its down points certainly but it does have a few pluses too. Mainly that it allows me the time and (just) enough energy to do other creative things – like my novel and university for example; the things that keep me relatively sane when the conservators are sobbing on my shoulder about a painting that has been doused in rain water due to a leaky roof...

Normally this compromise is enough. Normally this molecularly precise balance between the good things in my life and the crud is enough to keep me on an even keel. Enough to keep me content and satisfied and functioning.

But after a long break where the crud has largely been expunged it’s hard to accept it back into my life again now that the holiday period has drawn to a close.

Why should I compromise? Why should I accept any of life’s drudgery and trash?

Because it pays the bills. It pays the bills. It pays the bills.

This is the New Year song that kick-starts every new year for every single one of us I’m sure.

And as for resolutions...

Well, I’m not a believer in compiling a foot long list of things that I know I will never accomplish.

Last year I seem to remember I kept things simple: start a novel.

I did and am now 96,000 words through it. Mission accomplished.

This year my resolution will be to finish the novel.

Mission accepted.

And in the background, the bills will all, every single one of them, get paid...

Pipped At The Post

No, not news of Tom's early arrival but something even more miraculous...

Mr CM has actually paid up! He left a voice message on my mobile phone while I was at Uni (excellent session by the way - think I'm really going to enjoy this course) to say he'd just put the cheque through my letterbox.

And sure enough when I arrived home there it was. The full amount, signed by his own (un)fair hand.

My gob is well and truly smacked. I didn't think this day would ever arrive.

I shall be rushing urgently to the bank tomorrow morning to get it paid in before it turns into a puff of pink smoke blasted from a goofy pixie's bottom pipe. Ker-ching!

Exam Over!

And boy am I glad.

In the end it wasn’t too bad though having it at 2.00 yesterday afternoon effectively meant the entire day was wiped out: a whole morning of pre-exam stress and then the actual 3 hour exam in the afternoon. After which I was good for nothing at all but food and Doctor Who.

Thankfully I’d been lucky with what I’d selected to revise – there were questions available that covered all the topics I felt most comfortable with so I at least managed to write something fairly sensible for the three hours.

Well. At least I think it was fairly sensible.

I’m now undertaking the traditional post exam post mortem… analysing what I wrote and coming to the conclusion that, actually, the majority of it was an absolute pile of twaddle.

Still, there’s nowt I can do about it now. It’s just a matter of waiting for the results…

Watch this space.

Degree

Oh God Oh God Oh God.

It’s exam time again.

I’ve been doing a part time English degree at nearby Warwick University for the last decade (I kid you not) and am facing yet another exam this weekend. Yes. All plans to disappear somewhere green and hilly over the Bank Holiday weekend break have gone boobs up as they’ve placed my exam smack back in the middle of Saturday afternoon. Gits.

3 hours of 18th Century Literature.

Oh goody. Swift, Pope and Johnson. And oodles of Samuel Richardson’s interminable "Pamela".

And do you think I can get my head around the revision?

Uh uh.

No matter how hard I try I just cannot summon up any enthusiasm for any of the works on this year’s module. I’ve found the year to be very heavy going, back breakingly dry and chokingly dusty.

Still. I shouldn’t complain really. Doing the course part time, I only have 1 module to revise for as opposed to 4 like the poor full timers. And in another 2 years I’ll be completely done and (hopefully) degree'd up like a good ‘un.

Next year I’ve got "Poetry: 1945 to the Present". Much more up my street.

Until then, in lieu of a weekend away, it’s back to Gulliver’s Travels...