the inevitable

here's one of those ten things about me posts. well, i'm tired, and its my blog. plus, i have some things to say that i cant be bothered to "work" into proper posts; i'll probably find some other stuff to inappropriately share in order to fill in the gaps.

1. i spent much of my adolescence nurturing an appalling crush on jeff goldblum.

2. the other week we spent some time with another child and their mother. some things that were said bothered me, but not enough to inform social services. let's just say we have different ways of looking at life. maybe it's a cup half full/ empty thing, but the children had a nice time and surely that was the point. now said mother is avoiding me. so, i can't help but wonder, like some sort of playground carrie bradshaw, and that can't be a good thing, what did she take about me from our meeting? and why do i care when i think she's quite mental?

3. fish oil changed my life.

4. a million years ago, in another life, drunk, i said something really thoughtless and hurtful to alexander mcqueen, simultaneously talking myself out of a studio assistant position, shortly before the rest of my party were removed from the premises by the police for an unrelated offence. i would like to take this opportunity to apologise... but i won't, because there is no way alexander mcqueen is reading this. if any representative of mr. mcqueen would like to make their presence felt in the comments section, hopefully we can move forward from here. thanks.

5. i have a shameful affection for pink kitchen appliances.

6. apparently, i narrowly missed being named "sunshine". formally. given that i have spent much of my life thus far shrouded in SPF30, black hair and anxiety, this represents a heartbreaking missed opportunity to ultimately define irony, and furthermore really stick it to alanis morissette.

7. way back in the mists of time, two months ago, my first post on this here blog concerned the fraught tension and horrific drunken fallout that typifies the shared wedding attendance experience of myself and my young man. in order to avoid yet more nuptial based misery, i proposed wiping the slate clean, perhaps literally, with my flattering but dismal grey £10 go-to frock, replacing it with something joyful from vivienne westwood. in order to illustrate just a tiny part the riotous palette i will be wearing to a wedding this saturday, see the shoe above. unfortunately this shoe is popping up, priced, in advertisements next to most uk fashion and beauty websites. edit- and train information ones. this bothers me, but no matter. hopefully anyone not duly absorbed by the happy events taking place will be dazzled enough by our lustfully fond and clearly fulfilling relationship to notice the obvious high street provenance of my footwear.

8. i refer to my neighbour with an abusive name from which one might infer that he is of scottish heritage (i have no reason to that this is the case) but also not nice. he has never once responded or spoken to me, his language is vile, and he does passive aggressive things with the boundary hedge.

9. in paris over the new year period, i managed to drop my purse full of small denomination uk currency all over the floor of a very busy starbucks. what followed can only be described as breathtaking gallic gallantry and wit regarding the strength of the pound sterling, which i was completely unable to handle. i found myself grinning and batting my eyelashes like some sort of demented miss world contestant with allergies. i would say i died a little death, but that means something quite different in france, and certainly not something starbucks stands for. obviously, i didn't.

10. i would very much like to stay in a treehouse with a dvd player. my ideal holiday might well revolve around a hot tub, greenery, a sopranos box set, rain, and stilton.




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second

...or perhaps third of an occasional series in which a.s. points out the likelihood of an autistic spectrum diagnosis for characters, objects or, indeed, abstract concepts from popular culture-

roald dahl's matilda clearly has hyperlexia.

which, as an aside, is my new gladiator name.



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hey mickey!

so, i just did a search for neuro-typical symtoms. i thought it might be nice.

astoundingly, however, no such comprehensive list appears on the internet. shocking. well, not one that I could find after spending 3 minutes with google, typing with one hand.

but i did find this, and, sadly, i thought, "...righty. well, the extremely poor wording of this might have to serve."

pathology is a powerful word, isn't it? oh, and so is mutation.

i have read before that d.c.d., among other things, is symptomatic of another root problem, but they need to start putting it better. and to be fair, maybe they did in the two years since this was published.

plus, i need more information about how an aspie rodent behaves. does he sit quietly doing sodoku in the corner of the cage? does he freak out when he's in a different place in the queue for the water bottle? does he line up his pieces of cheese in height ascendent order? does he hate the rustling noise of the straw in his bed? we're talking basic information here, scientists.

jeez.



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max... i think i love you

i must be now overdosing on soy and it's affecting my oestrogen levels, or at least that's my story and i'm sticking to it. lately, i just can't seem to stop tearing up at the slightest thing. this week has seen me bawling over, among other things, jade goody's sons; a particularly cruel support garment that i thought i was going to have to be cut out of in the changing room; the narcissi in the garden; birds that suddenly appear/ every time you are near; and today, the trailer for the new "where the wild things are" film, by spike jonze. i'd have cucumbers on my eyes right now if i could get them to stay on while i type.

i am fully prepared to concede that this trailer might be the best thing about this film. it offers glimpses of potential greatness. but, you know, i know damn well when my buttons are being pushed... take some arcade fire, some lens-flare photography, woods and some labrynth-ine creatures; throw in a breathtakingly raffish and cute little boy, boats o'er the bedclothes and some suggestions that things in said boy's world are not all hunky dory... and finally, combine with one of the most memorable images of my childhood. oh dear god... pass me the tissues/ mogadon/ gin. oh, please be good.

i hope this is going to work for kids too, and not just grown-ups on a mawkish parental nostalgia trip. it looks appropriately dark and this apparently is a concern, but could have a similarly broad appeal, and perhaps subtextual subject matter, as e.t., which views quite differently as an adult. i tried showing the trailer to rudy (familiar with the picture book and we have a few little wild thing soft toys) but he really wasn't interested. there were no visible robotics, so what did i expect. i , of course, interested in the fleshing out of the max character, he is in some ways such a one dimensional character in the story- a naughty boy, and we don't really have naughty boys in the same way anymore- we have sad little boys acting out; wild things.

the film is not out for a while, and until this trailer came out the other day, there were all sorts of rumours that this was going to be bad. speculation abounds as to what sort of struggle the studio is having with spike jonze's vision... so... there is spitting and polishing to do. or, rather, c.g.i. mischief of one kind or another. i've got my fingers crossed under the bedsheets.

p.s. i have just read that initial screenings were not seen as successful, with kids crying and asking to leave, and apparently the max character does not come off as likeable. he slaps his mum. apparently warner brothers are not happy with what they are calling a 75 million dollar art house kids film. i couldn't be more excited about this if they were doing reshoots on my street.

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ceci n'est pas un post

When I'm really, really disappointed in people, and feel completely disillusioned about my whole relationship with them, I don't know whether to give them a hard time, or give myself a hard time for hoping they wouldn't do that to me in the first place, so I go for the latter, because I don't know how to do the former (and because, you know, they might stop liking me or something.) And then it seems that people are queuing up to rub salt into the wound. And as being pissed off takes up an awful lot of my energy and time- like, for example, the entirety of 2005- I have nothing really to say. I fact why I am even writing this.

So, in absense of an actual post, here's a picture of Snoopy..

And look at that- I'm so distracted, I capitalised properly.




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next week, pugsley

helping my daughter out with her homework earlier made me remenisce about learning to write. she jiggles and wriggles and sometimes gasps out loud as she concentrates; her handwriting is beautiful.

when i was 6 to 9 years old we lived in a restored farm building in rural nowhere. to go to school, we had to walk half a mile to get authority provided transport, which then took us yet more miles o'er hill and dale to our little primary. The school had two classrooms, two members of staff, outside toilets, a very dangerous pond and about 28 pupils all told. i am not 80 years old; neither was i wearing clogs.

this school was big on handwriting and silent reading, perhaps because it was something that we could be left alone to do at our desks while the headteacher sat at hers. we also spent an incredible amount of time drawing and painting, probably for similar reasons. we practised so much, in enforced silence, that the standard of literacy and artistic merit was stratospheric, it was like a small pocket of genius surrounded by bright yellow fields of oilseed rape. i was the kind of child from a very early age that always had her head in a book, so my parents weren't too concerned. and why would they be.

when i moved schools, it was found that i was way above my agegroup in reading, and i also became the artistic school mascot. i was completely shocked, because at my previous school i had only ever been mediocre. it was also found that i was a complete numerical ignoramus, and this has remained the case. my learning difficulties went undiagnosed, but my handwriting is often proclaimed remarkable.

to look at the above image is incredibly evocative, calming even. when we were practising in silence i was never scared. i might well frame it.

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in which a.s. fails to find her 4am calling

the insomnia marches on.

i'm wondering if my brain is trying to tell me something, if actually i'm supposed to be using those hours for some special purpose, if this is time in which i should be responding to some higher calling. i am becoming more and more adept at functioning on very little sleep, and in some ways am becoming, all things being relative, an organisational powerhouse.

maybe in these lost hours of frustrated pain i am actually supposed to be writing that novel, or having the big idea that catapults us out of debt. maybe i'm supposed to be changing the world, seeking truth and justice through tireless 4am crusades.

or maybe this way clinical psychosis lies.

"it is a well discussed fact that margaret thatcher only had four fours sleep a night," my boyfriend tells me, driving to his game, "and look what she achieved!"

"shudder," I said, by now well used to having to verbalise horrified tics.

"okay, well, maybe acheived is the wrong word. let's go with caused. look what she caused on four hours sleep a night. insomnia does not mean the end of a... prolific output."

i had to stop gnawing my fist to laugh, and that is the work of a special someone.

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