Ink Polaroids
Euphemistically speaking
If I could have any job at all, it would be obituary writer. I love the idea of crafting a written full-stop to someone’s life; a creative, glorious celebration that revels in all that they were and did and could have been. The most successful writers are the ones who can pack ninety years into a handful of paragraphs. The very best obits slip past like poetry, like this one singled out by the Guardian: confirmed bachelor (gay as sticks); fun-loving bachelor (serial shagger) colourful storyteller (liar) unequivocal ladies’ man (borderline rapist) there are no known survivors (she was a lesbian) lively conversationalist (crashing bore) “vintage lawyer” – about to retire/die “boutique firm” – teeny office staffed by one man and a dog every other Tuesday “passionate communicator” – talks and talks and talks and talks…. “aggressive” – note: this is a good thing to be “hands-on” – interfering “less vocal than its rivals in shouting about its talents” – who are they? “clients expressed doubts as to the strength of the team below senior level” – aside from one old bloke nearing retirement, the rest of the group needn’t bother turning up in the morning
“Graham Mason cooked Mediterranean food well, liked Piero della Francesca and Fidelio, choral evensong on the Third Programme and fireworks. With almost all his friends dead, he sat imprisoned by emphysema in his flat, with a cylinder of oxygen by his armchair and bottles of white wine by his elbow, looking out over the Thames, still very angry.”
What I love most, however, are the euphemisms. These are fading away in lieu of a new honesty, a willingness to present someone flaws and all and not gloss over the fact they were friendless/dull/a fascist. Some of the classics, however, include:
convivial (alcoholic)
My job involves writing about lawyers and law firms and, in an effort to make it more entertaining, we all throw in some euphemisms of our own. Some from my latest editorial are:
And my favourite, dreamt up by a colleague: “Lawyer X is untroubled by the need to be loved.” Beautiful.
We also try to work in dictionary.com’s word of the day. Friday’s was avoirdupois and I did not let the fact I only vaguely know what it means hold me back. Law firm Y now “boast an environmental department of great avoirdupois.”
I’ll hand in my work on Monday morning and I know I’ll get an email from a subeditor by lunchtime. He’ll tell me to tone down my more fanciful leanings, that my writing is a little too colourful, that perhaps I could adopt a more straightforward approach? This is a euphemism for “shape up and fly right, Fox.”
Meat is Murder….sweet, delicious murder
I have been a vegetarian since I was 8, when I threw up after eating chicken nuggets and refused to eat them ever again. This removed the only source of meat from my diet. I didn’t realise the significance of this until some time later when I went to a friend’s house for tea. Her mum asked what I wanted to eat and my friend chipped in “ooh, mum, she’s a vegetarian!” Mother looked horrified as I nodded solemnly, rolling this new word around my head. “Vegetarian” meant a huge swathe of foodstuffs were immediately out of bounds. As a fussy eater, this was perfect.
This wasn’t like not eating cabbage or Jammy Dodgers or quiche – this was a decision I could claim was made on moral grounds that would mean no more painful teatimes in other people’s houses. I would wait until dinner was being cooked, then look regretful and say “oh, I’m sorry, I don’t eat meat” while reassuring them that potato waffles would be fine. I love my carbs.
The only break to my meat-free existence was on a French exchange in 1997 when my feeble “mais…je suis vegetarienne?” was ignored and I was served a nightly meat feast with the family. I chopped my meal into tiny pieces and pushed it round the plate, hopelessly mumbling “mmm, c’est délicieux!”. The worst one was rabbit wrapped in bacon. I ate a tiny piece because of the hunger but couldn’t physically manage any more. I filled up on bread, again. I refer to this period as ‘the dark time’ and prefer not to think about it.
I have always been ultra-picky when it comes to eating, often ruling out foods (or even food groups – goodbye protein!) on the basis of odd textures or colours. This has started to change only recently. I had my first satsuma last year and almost had to lie down after the first segment. It was the way the skin gently burst in my mouth and released an incredible rush of flavoursome orange juice – but you know this, dear reader. You are not a freak. Just to let you know: other things I haven’t eaten include pears, broccoli, lasagne and risotto. I’m seriously considering eating a pear soon. Soon.
Recently, I’ve been wondering why I’m vegetarian. I am embarrassed when people ask because I can’t say it’s because I care about the poor ickle piggy-wigs / it’s better for the environment / I feel healthier as a result. My reasons are vague and based in childhood wilfulness. So now, I’m thinking perhaps I should have a MEAT PARTY, to try all the things I’ve missed in one big, carnivorous binge. The 20six House is taking shape so perhaps we’ll throw a meat-tastic housewarming (your thoughts, Olivia Joules ?). It will either be something I Never Speak Of Again or usher me into a whole new world of omnivorism.
My question is: where should I start? Is bacon, the perennial vegetarian tempter, too obvious? After 18 years of getting protein from nuts and chick peas, how should I break into the world of meat?
I didn’t find God but then I wasn’t really looking
I’m not sure how to write this entry, or how I’ll come across, but hey – I can always delete it if it’s too angsty or navel-gazing or self-satisfied, because I’m not feeling any of those things. I’d like to try to express this if I can, if only so I can look back in a few months and see where I was at.
Paths are leading me to stillness and silence. This is happening in two distinct ways. Firstly: over the last few months, I’ve started training to be a Samaritan. Samaritans don’t offer advice or say “I know how you feel” or try to fix people. They actively listen, which can mean being quiet for minutes at a time.
It’s incredible how powerful it is to be still and silent with someone, to be comfortable without saying anything. You listen to the silence beyond words, to that which words are inadequate to express. You listen to the spaces in between and don’t offer advice or anecdotes. You just sit with someone, and wait for the moment they decide to speak. This is new, and scary, and amazing.
I have also started going to occasional Quaker meetings without really knowing why. They’re not held in a church and a man in a dress doesn’t talk about Jesus. This is why I like them. It’s silent worship, or“expectant waiting”, where everyone sits in a circle in an ordinary room and only speaks if they feel somehow moved to do so. I do not go expecting a divine epiphany; the nearest I’ve come to a religious experience was at Glastonbury ’98 but that’s a whole other blog entry. I’m slightly concerned about finding God by stealth but have been reassured that you can be an atheist Quaker. But anyway, the experience is less like going to church and more like group therapy, only without having to stand up and share uncomfortable truths. The silence is strangely healing.
In both places, the sense of acceptance is staggering. I walk in and feel it is genuinely ok for me to just be myself. The Samaritan leaders stress how important this is; that a caller will tell instantly if we aren’t sincere and hang up. Both places have gone a long way to quieting the static in my head and the anger of my body. I am asked to just be. I am told that this is fine. I am overwhelmed by how this makes me feel.
My life has been timidly wandering this way for a while. Part of my Masters dissertation was on the inadequacy of language in expressing deep trauma (for the psychoanalysts among you, it was on the Lacanian Real: the state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language. Yes, I am a poncey English student). I am more at home when asked to listen rather than speak. The motto of Sussex University was “Be still and learn.” I loved that.
I’m not sure if I’m incredibly happy or incredibly sad right now. I’m poised on the brink of something, anyway, and I’m thrilled and terrified. I will be still, and silent, and wait.
London Loves: the aftermath
So, I bet you’re all dying to know how London Loves was, those of you foolish enough not to attend, right? In brief: it was fabulous, one of the best in a long time, and ended at 4am with us dancing to swing music. At length:
My mum was confused by the concept of me DJing. “So…is everyone DJing? How long are you playing for – 10 minutes? Do they have the CDs there? Do you say things like ‘this ones going out to all the ladies’ between songs?” I steered my mum onto less complex conversation topics (i.e. the cat) and started packing CDs. Realising rapidly that most of my favourite songs are three minutes long and that this allowed little time for faffing/drinking/weeing, I packed a secret weapon: a New Order Best Of. You will dance to all 18 minutes of Temptation and you will enjoy it.
About to leave, I wasn’t feeling brilliantly confident so texted the other guest DJ for advice. Her reply: “Heh, don’t worry, I’m fucking rubbish! I played 3 songs by the same band in an hour last time.” Clearly, indie DJing doesn’t require high levels of professionalism. As I was to learn, gaps between songs / playing the same song twice / starting songs halfway through were not cardinal sins.
Arriving at the club for a crash course in what to do, I was confronted by a terrifying array of buttons and dials in the DJ booth. I focused on just one: PLAY. By pressing this on alternate decks, music flowed. Simple. Once I stopped making basic errors – like, oops, ejecting the CD that was playing – I started enjoying myself. When people started dancing, I felt like an amazing ego-tripping puppet-master. When someone made a request and I deigned to play it and they thanked me, I felt like God. When I finished my ‘set’ (heh, look at me with the fancy jargon), a proper DJ came over and told me he liked my enthusiastic style, which must have referred to how I danced continually in the booth and grinned like a lunatic. (I have always shamelessly danced on my own; when I worked in HMV I was told off by my boss for dancing behind the till when I was meant to be, I don’t know, working.)
The rest of the night in flashbacks: “Do you have any Pink Floyd?”, stealing communist cake, “I really shouldn’t be telling you this but…”, hats, handing over my wallet for people to rummage through, “why aren’t you my wife?”, M&S support stockings, “you’ve never given ME a scratched Squeeze album!”, blog crush!, the mighty Girls Aloud, posing with headphones, “you’ve definitely got smaller since the last time I assessed you”, emo child refugees, Moroccan prostitutes.
Oh, and: “the only thing to do is lie down on the pavement and die. If we do it here we’ll be on the front page of the Surrey Comet.”
London Loves!
Hello, gorgeous bloggers,
It’s time for a shameless plug: it’s London Loves this Saturday and anyone who’s anyone will be there. It’s every 20sixer’s favourite night out – and that’s a fact. Playing indie, soul and rock ‘n’ roll from 8pm til late, all we ask is that you stumble along to the Push Bar on Dean Street and pay £2 (before 9.30pm, £4 afterwards) to dance your blogging feet off.
You’ve noticed the “we” in the last sentence, haven’t you? Well, it’s the virgin performance of DJ Inky P. I have never DJed before but apparently you play one record, wait til it’s finished, and then play the next one. Hopefully I’ll be on early so you’ll all be watching Strictly Come Ballroom while I have a strop because I CAN’T DO IT.
Let me know if you’re not coming. I expect you all to be there, unless you’re not in the country, which only rules out Heather and AcidicIce. We’ll also be celebrating AwesomeLies ’s birthday – he’s the 74-year-old Communist who will be ranting about the youth of today and hitting people with his stick.
So – any requests? I will obviously be sneaking some Girls Aloud onto the playlist. Also, all my Britpop albums are on tape (except Gene, who were deemed worthy of a vinyl purchase) so my remit might be limited to girly pop and Motown. List your ludicrous musical preferences below, if you please.
Abort Mission:Hair
"So, what are we doing today?"
I flap my hands vaguely, gesticulating in a manner that I hope indicates "stylish and super sexy" in the international language of waving.
“Short.”
He raises an eyebrow. More information is needed.
“Like, erm, Shami Chakrabarti.”
“Sorry, I don’t know –”
“Ok, Natalie Portman then. She has lovely short hair.”
“Oh! I’ve just seen her in V For Vendetta.”
“Erm…”
In the end, I manage to convey that - the hair? It should be reduced. Essentially, I would very much like the volume of hair to be less. However: great care must be taken to ensure I don’t look like a Borstal boy.
He gets to work and somehow our excruciating small talk stumbles into blogging.
“You should start one of those blogs, you know,” he says. “I’ve read a few and there are some really good ones out there. It’s a good route into journalism, you know?”
I shrug noncommittally, grinning to myself as he trims the back of my hair. “Yeah, maybe, that’s not a bad idea.”
He puts his scissors down as he starts to laugh, so amusing is the thought that’s just occurred to him:
“You know, I bet some people would even blog about getting their hair cut!”
“Yeah! God. Some people are such losers.”
Some people really are.
On temping, and how much it sucks
When I finished my Masters, I joined a temping agency. I won’t name names (let’s just say it was OFF!CE @NGELS on W£ST STR<ET in BR1GHT0N – there, that’s subtle enough) and while there are some lovely agencies out there, my experience was not a happy one.
Temping will crush you if you let it. It is soul-destroying to be paid minimum wage and be expected to be enthusiastic about it. Louise, my agency contact, would ring and giddily announce “I’ve got a really interesting new job for you!” and I would have to say “ooh, what is it, I bet it’s great!”, knowing it would be yet another paper pushing task that a blind three-legged dog could do. There was one genuine interesting job – working as a bouncer at a casino – that I had to turn down because (a) I am too easy to kick to death to be a bouncer and (b) I’d have to have walked home at 3am every night.
Then there were the jobs that miraculously stopped existing – Louise would leave voicemails about them but have no recollection of this when I phoned minutes later. And the ones where the workplaces cancelled the day before I was due to start, which was agency code for “we found someone cheaper.” I ended up doing cold-calling by stealth. Louise was vague about the details when she sent me to a health club – turned out I had to call ex-members to persuade them to rejoin. Turned out I was so good at it I was offered a permanent job there. This was probably because I didn’t stick to the script (which featured lines like “I bet you miss our pool – it’s fantastic!” and other euphemisms for “you fat bastard, you must be a real bloater now you’re not exercising” ) but instead chatted to callers about how shit the gym was and then casually mentioned they could now join for free. Apparently my success rate was outstanding. I felt like scum.
The last straw came when working for a water company. The office was in a warehouse that smelled of petrol, meaning I spent each day making endless peppermint tea so I could inhale it and avoid puking. I was meant to be doing the catch-all task of “admin”, but the job mutated into lugging heavy boxes around while the office alpha males watched and laughed but didn’t offer to help. I ached every night. I hated it so much that having my wisdom teeth removed was a relief as I got a week off.
I had my teeth out on the Monday. That evening, still high on general anaesthetic, I emailed my agency. I can’t remember what I said; something between “I cordially extend my immediate resignation” and “sayanora, motherfuckers!” It was a huge and scary relief. I turned my phone off, stopped checking my emails and went to Hastings. When I dared log into my Yahoo account, I found two missives from my agency:
As you can see, I was not brave enough to read them. I presume they were pissed off I’d abandoned a job and didn’t feel up to reading their rantings. Today, it is one whole year since I got those emails.
So happy birthday, mystery messages of doom. You will remain forever unopened, making me look permanently popular as ‘Inbox (2)’ shows on my screen when ‘You have no new messages’ would be closer to the truth. I might read you one day. But I doubt it.