Julie and Julia

 

I got this DVD in the supermarket yesterday, or maybe the day before – the days seems to blur one into the other for me.  It was an impulse buy, £7, but I think it’s a really lovely film.  I watched it with my Mum, it’s that kind of whimsical tale that suits mother/daughter viewing i.e. no embarrassing sex scenes with huffing and panting and sweaty bodies writhing around.  Oh no.  Here sex is merely alluded to, which is actually more satisfying.

As you can see, Meryl Streep stars.  The film is actually based on two true stories that have been woven together. 

The first is the story of Julia Child (Streep’s character), who had a very successful French cookery book published; her story, starting in 1949, shows how her passion for cooking led her to pursue a qualification and then to write a book. 

The second story is of Julie (Adams’ character), a young woman living in slightly dour conditions in post-9/11 New York.  She doesn’t like her job or her friends, but she is also passionate about food, and passionate about Julia Child’s cookbook.  In 2002 she decides that she is going to start a blog and challenges herself to cook every one of Julia’s recipes (over 500 in the book) in 365 days.  I don’t know if the blog still exists, probably not since Julie subsequently got a book deal, and from there someone had the idea of combining the two womens’ stories.

The other element that comes off well in the film is passion.  The two women, in different eras, are contrasting in many ways, but the film is held together by shared passion.  Passion for food, but also passion generally.  Julia has a strong bond with her husband in the film, as does Julie.

It also spoke to me because Julie is also a just-turned-30 woman, so it suits my current mid-life crisis mentality that she was going through something too.

I’m bored

 

I’m so bored I can’t even be bothered to attempt a better title for this post.  Its been raining pretty much all day.  I’m going away next week, to a Spanish resort, so I should be psyched, but I’m just sort of blah.  I know.  Holidays are good things.  I’m not not looking forward to it.  I just haven’t really got into the holiday spirit yet.  I’m going with two other girls so maybe once we’re together I’ll get giddy.

What to do now though?  Packing?  Can’t be arsed.  It feels as though I’ve lost my social life somewhere.  There are people who I used to see that I no longer do, for one reason or another.  Mostly a case of moving on, life taking them away on a tide, softly, slowly, away.  This is what life is about, isn’t it?  Changes.  Things change, good ways and bad, and I can’t stop that. 

My friend, M, mentioned in the previous post, isn’t one of those things, by the way.  I was mad, still am (a bit) mad, at him, but I said my bit on the phone and I went round to see him during the week.  I was nice.  I was friendly.  I was guarded.  I can’t just switch back into best friend mode, it will take time for the warmth to come back.

I don’t know.  Shall I go to the shop?  I could watch a film?  I just can’t make my mind up.

Fury

 

I am furious.

I feel furious.

I don’t know which phrasing is correct for what I’m feeling.  I usually temper my phrasing with feel rather than am.  This owes more to my background in psychology, as a receiver of therapy and as a reader of books on the subject.  I’ve conditioned myself to create a separation between an emotion and self.  Substitute “I am useless” with “Right now I feel like I’m useless”, you know the drill.  The first is absolute, the second allows for reflection, can be dismantled by a few logical back-steps.  “Why do I think I’m useless” [write all the reasons]  “Did something trigger this thought/feeling?”

I am going to forget all that for now.  I want to explore this intensity of emotion.

I AM FURIOUS.

That feels right.  It looks right.  It is equivalent to the clenching in my jaw, the stiffness in my shoulders, my tight forearms and hard stomach.  I’m angry.  I want to vent my fury.  I want to kill someone.  I want to get revenge.

Even as I write some of the intensity has abated.  I don’t know if I want it to.  As a hard white light burns through my core, a nuclear rod, I am Fury.  I don’t have to be anything else.  There is an awareness that strong emotion is a finite resource, so I don’t want to burn out and be left with whatever comes next.  From experience it will be apathy, maybe depressed spirits.

The why? of my fury is not relevant to me whilst I’m in it.  Already it is passing.  Soon I will have to reconnect to my thoughts and the power of the emotion will be a memory.

Back to rationality

I’m furious because several things combined to piss me off at the wrong time.

1. I’m hormonal – day 2 of my period, plays absolute havoc with my emotions.

2. My friend, whom I’ve talked about on here, FINALLY got back in touch with me, after a two month hiatus, and lots of effort on my part to find out if he was okay, with a breezy text.  BIG mistake. 

3. I feel as though  people are in my business all the time.  I can’t stand a lack of privacy.  I get a delivery and people (my Dad, mainly) will do everything but open the damn thing to try to work out what it is.

4. Along the same lines as above, my sister knocks and enters my room; the knock precedes the entering by barely a millisecond. 

5. She also uses my stuff without asking.  She’s done this all my life, and it was the reason I nagged for a lock for my door when I was a teenager.  Now I have personal things in here, diaries and whatever, and I don’t want to have to keep things constantly ‘hidden’.

Those things are the main points that have resulted in my furious aspect.  I’m so sick of it.  And I guess I’m resentful that I can’t get true privacy by being out of this house.

I’ve locked my door from the inside now, while I’ve been writing.  A locked door is even more enticing to a would-be enterer, but I don’t care because if she had barged in again tonight I’d probably have committed sistercide; instead she is still breathing and I’m not prison-bound.  Best all round, I think.

I vented some frustration at my friend, M, over the phone.  I knew he wasn’t feeling good these past few weeks (has his own issues) so I tried to be patient.  He’s been okay enough to meet up with other friends, go out and do stuff, yet he’s only just texting me?  The emotions I’ve been through have been complex.  I’ve felt worried, then annoyed (when I’ve found out he’s been okay enough to go do things with other people),  then rejected (“why am I doing all the texting/calling?”), and it’s been like that for two months.  Despite having a decent conversation tonight, all these weeks of mixed emotions have taken their toll.  A few weeks ago I decided to stop doing all the running and said I’d be waiting for him to get in touch when he felt ready to/wanted to.

I didn’t mind being put on hold if he was ill.  I’m more aggravated by not having a simple communication back to let me know he was okay; I veered between anxiety that he wasn’t okay and anger that he was, but hadn’t thought to check if I was okay (which I haven’t been, at times).  It’s complicated.  Hard to explain on here.  It’s just been a lot of little things.  One of my pet hates is when people talk a big talk about how they regard you as one of their best friends and then act the opposite.

I wrote this post last night.  I’m not so furious now.  Be not afraid.

Acknowledging Success – York

  

Tonight I am melting.  I’m shit at this heat stuff.  

Right, I am really not very good at self-promotion.  I baulk at the thought of contacting people, for example, with samples of my writing, and saying “I’m good at this.  I want to do this for your magazine/newsletter/website”.  It is easy for me to list my faults, to use dry humour to deflect my insecurities and stay exactly where I am mentally. 

I am going to do this post about when I went to York a few weeks ago.  I haven’t done it so far because I don’t feel comfortable patting myself on the back, especially in public. 

But, now, on a warm, clammy Saturday night (see previous post), I find my options for things to do boil down to 

a) sport-watching with my Dad (in the side room) 

b) finals of Over The Rainbow find-a-Dorothy competition with my Mum (in the other room) 

c) sulking 

a) is just not my cup of tea, b) is, frankly, torture and c) is pointless. 

So, WELL DONE ME!! 

Pushed on by increasingly itchy feet, displaced by the angst of my recent birthday, I found myself with a strong desire to, in my vernacular, “just fuck off somewhere”. 

York is a nice town, or city, I’m not actually sure which.  It was a very rainy couple of days, so I didn’t actually do much sight-seeing.  It didn’t matter.  The point was to be somewhere different.  The first night I got there late with bad weather and traffic, so I was tired and stayed indoors.  The second day I went for several mooches.  A mooch, for those not from my neck of the woods, is a short walk to find out what is around you, get your bearings etc. 

Photos: 

It was wet, rainy and I saw a LOT of ducks

 

I tried to do some sightseeing: unfortunately, your roving reporter could find only this castle, and proceed to state the obvious, that it was, in fact, a castle, more times than was necessary.  You discerning people are more than capable of recognizing a castle when you see one. 

 

There was something about the ducks that day.  They were out in force: 

I didn't go looking for ducks, but...

 

 

The last part of the second day I found out my friend (and her friend) had taken me up on my offer to come over for the evening.  It was a long-shot, so I was surprised when I got a text later that afternoon saying they were coming.  So, my trip to York ended with a nice meal and drinks with my friend, her friend, and another girl (friend of my friend’s friend - a Yorkian dweller). 

Once I got the “Go!” message from my friend it was already pretty late, so I had plenty of time to amuse myself (and try to stay alert) in my room by taking random pictures until they got there.  This one (edited for anonymity) I liked because with the camera flash sort of looked like I was throwing a ball of light, like one of the X-Men or something. 

I will burn you with my ball of light

Pale and Proud

 

I don’t really know where I’m going.  I look down for the next stepping stone, glistening at me with come hither reflections, and I see only water.  I know where I am.  Sort of.  I just don’t know where I’m supposed to be going.

It’s bloody warm today.  I’ve been in my room a lot, clammy, window open, letting in traffic noise on still air.  I am grateful it’s not shit weather, but I need to acclimatize to this new wet-heat.  I smile when I see people running into the arms of the sun.  Hotter the better.  Whip your tops off, men.  Get your skimpy skirts and vests out, girls.  Get out there.  It’s frantic. 

The sun and I have a somewhat cooler relationship.  I appreciate your light, sun.  I appreciate your encouragement of growth in our gardens.  I appreciate that you offer a kind glow to even the greyest of streets.  I appreciate you, but I do not worship you.

I do not wish to succumb to the cooked red neck and back that so many of my fellow Brits embrace.  I do not want to pursue you, practically begging “shine on me, shine on me.  Me! Me!  Choose me, dammit!  Leave these other pretenders in the shade.  Only I love and worship you totally, without barrier.  Look – No SPF!  I love you the mostest”.

Sunburn makes me quake.  I feel the pain when I see it, even on a stranger’s burly back. 

I am pale.  I do not tan.  I deal with it.

When I say that I do not tan, that my skin actually is incapable of tanning, people sometimes scoff.  And they assume that I mean I don’t want to tan.  When I was younger and people weren’t so worried about the health risks, people would sometimes suggest possible ways I could get a tan.  “Have you tried…”

My personal favourite was “I’m sure you could get a tan.  If you went to the sunbed three times a week and built it up slowly.  Everyone can tan.” – my sister, circa. 2002.

The funny part is the implicit suggestion that I was just too lazy to tan.  Like I was failing at school or something.  Okay, this is what happens when I go on sunbeds/out in the sun without protection (which I haven’t done for years, for obvious reasons).  First, I feel the heat.  Then my skin goes pink.  If repeated over a few days, my skin stays pink, gets pinker and hurts like hell when I shower, put on or take off clothes.  A few days later, when less pale people start to develop the brownish pigment, I merely retain ‘colour’.  It is just that.  It is not pale anymore, nor tan, nor bright pink.  It is just something in-between.  I guess it might make me less ill-looking in the mornings, but if I want brown legs I need to apply a brown tan cream. 

I do not have enough pigment to tan.  I get more freckles.  That’s it.

I wanted to scream this at people who consistently refused to believe me.  And, genuinely, I don’t care.  I’ve flirted with the idea of tanning it up with creams, but when it comes down to it, I just can’t be arsed with that maintenance.  The look of a fake tan flaking off your chest after seven days (roughly the time it takes for skin cell renewal to start shedding the St. Tropez dye) is ugly.

I will admit to something, though.  I don’t mind using the new generation moisturisers with a bit of self-tan in them.  It is nice to avoid my radioactive white complexion with a bit of something.  They’ve sold me because they are no more trouble than applying a moisturiser after a bath – which I’d be doing anyway – and they don’t require excessive rubbing in to keep it even.

That said, I honestly don’t mind being pale.  As long as my skin is even, I’m okay with it.  I love how people think I am secretly hiding a desire to bronze.  It gets a bit harder when I’m around people who are constantly on the browning mission.  A few times I have had to fake interest in fake tan just because the group of girls I’m conversing with seem to be fascinated with the tan-talk: “what do you use?”  “I’ve got [this on]“  “You look lovely, that’s really natural”  “Oh, thank you, it’s not too much then?”  “Oh, no.  So where did you get it?  Bet it was expensive.”  “Well, No! actually…”  A conspiratorial girly conversation ensues.

p.s. if you want to read another person’s perspective from the milk end of the spectrum, this was among the automatically generated posts that appear when you publish a new post, it made me smile – Tips on Interacting with Pale People, on the blog, Thug Life.

My Dentist (phobia?)- part 2

 

So, after the botch-up on Wednesday (described in the last post) I was given an appointment for this week to go back to get a new inlay fitted on my root canal treated tooth.

Just because I love the visual, please welcome back, *American talk show host accent*

“Misterrrr Drill and Fill”

The reason I made a part 2 to this post is that something happened on Friday.  The something that happened is my temporary filling remained true to its calling.  It turned out, not only to be temporary, but also temperamental, refusing to last until my next appointment.  Couldn’t last seven days.

It is a different kind of filling to last time, which was also a temp, but this new one doesn’t have to be drilled out.  According to Dentist he ‘just flicks this one out’ – no drilling – YAY.  Except…

it suffers from premature ejection.  A very embarrassing condition for any filling.

I was eating a salad.  I thought an olive pip had found its way past the pitting machine, as I bit something hard.  Retrieving the object I realise with horror it is my ‘just flicks out’ filling.  Thank God I was at home.  I still had a freak-out, though. 

The prematurely-ejecting filling is white, hard, and rather large.  It looks and feels quite toothy, probably because there’s not much of my original molar left above the gum line, so the position the temp was filling in for was a central, executive position.  Lots of stress.  Like filling in for Richard Branson, maybe, while he’s pissing about in a hot air balloon.

Anyhoo, I get a bit stressed, “ohmygod,ohmygod,ohmygod”, holding the temp in my shaking hand.  I swear I didn’t used to be phobic about dental stuff.  I’ve had two dubious dentists, a few bad experiences, and now I’m a mess around them all.

My molar without the filling resembles a castle ruin.  I’ve got my next appointment tomorrow morning – eeeeeeek!!!

I’m sweating right now.  I feel sick.  I’m so bloody anxious and my stomach is turning over.  Occasionally the rational side of my brain hazards a know-it-all comment, “there’s nothing to be this scared about”, “get a grip”, “maybe you should just think exactly what it is that’s making you anxious and work from there”.

I’m anxious because I associate him with pain, discomfort and dodgy technique.  I’m also annoyed because every time I have to do something that is anxiety-provoking, it knackers me afterwards.

Anyway, as a side dish, I was thinking about whether I have “dental phobia”.  I don’t think I do, you know.  For me, a phobia involves a few things:

• avoidance of the feared situation
• disproportionate fear about the situation/thing
• physical and/or psychological disturbance around the object of ones phobia.

I don’t avoid going to the dentist – I may have been guilty of postponing in the past, but if necessary I go.

I do have a disproportionate fear about going.  I mean, my fight or flight response is in full-swing, and really this much adrenalin should only be released if one is in imminent danger of being hit by a bus.  BUT, although disproportionate, the fear isn’t totally unfounded.  I have had several reasons to be wary of my dentist, and he has caused me discomfort and made dubious decisions (for instance, he waited until I was in agony before doing an emergency root canal treatment, rather than reacting to the increasing pain I’d told him about).  So, although my anxiety is excessive, I think some anxiety would be rational.

I do, obviously, have butt-loads of psychological and physical disturbance both in anticipation of my dental procedure and whilst having anything done.

So, I hit two out of three for the phobia criteria (of my own devising, not DSM or anything).  I think I have a huge fear about being treated by this particular dentist.  But, I think that if I had a good experience with my next dentist (I’m definitely changing practices after this gets sorted) my fear would markedly diminish.

This is all drivel in terms of it wasn’t really necessary for me to write or analyze it, but I’m SHIT-SCARED so I suppose writing it down is my way of coping with/dispersing the fear.

Diary

 

Dear Diary,

today has been odd.  Anxiety this morning because I had to phone the dentist and thought I might be called in two days early, instead of my allotted appointment (I’ll explain in another post).  I didn’t have to go in, so anxiety-moment over.

But…I hadn’t really thought past making the phonecall. 

When anxiety builds and then is suddenly over, it’s weird.  It’s like running as fast as you can and stopping suddenly.  Emergency break.  But you’re body still has momentum, even if your feet have stopped, and the only place it could move to is face-forward on the ground.

I haven’t done anything today.  The anxiety has dropped, which is great.  Its replacement has been a lack of direction for the rest of the day.  I’m bored, tense, irritated, apathetic and fine, one after the other.

I am a believer in the power of positive thinking and positive action and taking responsibility for my own life.  I say this because it’s related to the above description of my day.  I’ve not pulled my finger out to do something positive, to turn my day around.  That’s my bad.  I could have done something, pushed through the barrier.

I feel like it’s important that I acknowledge this stuff.  A behaviour on one day impacts that day and maybe then the next, and the next, and the next…

I haven’t just been reading a self-help book.  Promise.  These are my honest feelings, gleaned from past experiments, such as forcing myself out for a walk when I feel like ‘I can’t be bothered and it won’t help’, such as going out to a meditation class when I really don’t feel like it etc. 

I am not disgusted with myself for not doing anything with my day today.  I am just aware that I had a choice.  When people are in deep depressions, or deep into any illness, physical or mental, they don’t always have a choice.  For example, with my CFS, when it’s bad, I have to stay in bed sometimes.  Similarly, if I get a bad depressive attack, I don’t always have the choice to step out of it with a brisk walk, a warm bath, or whatever else is theoretically open to me.

Today, I had the choice.  I’m lucky when I can say that.  I had the choice.  And it’s on me to use any opening to make good decisions, to make my life better.  Like anyone, I fuck it up sometimes.  But I can’t allow that to be a recurring pattern, because my personal consequences (potential slide into depressions) are too devastating.

 

My Dentist – part 1

  

This written after my last appointment on Wednesday: 

I just have to get this out of my system.  I’m so angry right now.  Angry, agitated, I’m not even sure exactly what. 

There’s no point going into details of all the little things I don’t like about the treatment I’ve had from this dentist, it would be laborious to write and boring to read.  I’ll try to be concise, here, though I’m not promising anything… 

Root Canal Treatment 

I started this treatment months ago following agonising pain.  I posted about it.  Anyway, the end of this saga was meant to be over today [edit - last Wednesday].  I was informed I’d be going in to have the temporary filling removed and, FINALLY, the permanent inlay/crown fitted.  I was not looking forward to today’s appointment as my dentist is a wanker unskilled in the gentle touch.  I’m reliably informed that some dentists realise that the mouthful of teeth in front of them are attached to an actual live person.  They realise the mouth, whilst undeniably squishy in places, is not to be confused with a lump of Play-D0h. 

"Dr. Drill and Fill" child's toy/dentist school alternative

  

The idea is to mold white teeth out of Play-Doh, press them into the gums of the “patient,” and then play dentist. Teeth can be drilled with the plastic pretend drill and then filled with the silver Play-Doh compound – editorial review 

  

I don’t think he’s incompetent (though he may be).  He’s heavy-handed though.  He’s also crap to talk to.  He talks way too fast, occasionally contradicts himself and, despite promising to stop if anything hurts, I’ve realised he’s just not very good at recognising that ramming things with sharp edges against my gum line (like the x-ray thing, and the mould thing for inlay impressions) is going to be uncomfortable. 

Fuck that.  I’m not even bothered about the discomfort anymore.  After this root job had been finished I was planning on moving practices anyway.  Too many irksome experiences. 

The issue now is that the inlay that he ordered, that the last impression had been taken for a few weeks back, couldn’t be fitted today.  I know these things happen.  But the anxious build-up to the appointment was considerable: hoping and thinking that this would be the final part of what has been a long, at times agonising, treatment.  

He is such a fuckwit.  I am assuming anyone reading this has the sense to know it’s not written in a calm frame of mind, with the benefit of a few days’ perspective.  It’s fresh.  I fucking hate him right now. 

He tried to fit the inlay and it was the wrong size.  He drilled a bit more, messed around for ages in my mouth with one implement and another, presumably aiming to make the damn thing fit.  Then he had a go at altering the white inlay itself.  Several times I ventured queries, “what’s wrong?” “is it not going to work?” etc etc.  He just went on with it.  

But nothing was really confirmed “this is why it didn’t work…”.  He’s infuriating that way, he talks fast, says a lot, and you just can’t be arsed to try to pin him down on anything that isn’t fundamentally important to the task at hand.  Fundamentally important to me, in this case, was withstanding a bit of discomfort in order to leave with a finished product.  

The appointment ended, 40 minutes later, when, in his final attempt to press the inlay into the glue, he instead, flicked the inlay (a hard object, ridged like a tooth) out of position, and 

it flew to the back of my throat.

Where I gagged on it.

I coughed, shocked.  By closing my gullet, hawking hard, and holding my breath, I was able to sit up and spit it out onto my hand. 

“What the HELL IS THAT?” 

Of course, I had a good idea what it was, but I was trying to convey my ire.  He seemed pleased I had retrieved it and took it from my hand.  I’m usually not one for public shows of anger, so even me saying “hell” in an irate tone is testament to how much this dude had pressed on my patience. 

At this stage we called it a day with the round peg in the square hole scenario.  I was shaken and stirred.  He took fresh impressions, is sending off for ANOTHER inlay.  Meanwhile he put a temporary filling in again with orders to come back in a week, when hopefully the new inlay will have arrived and be the right size. 

In the meantime, my dentist continues to play with his “Play-Doh Dr. Drill and Fill”.

I’ve started so I’ll fini-

 

I don’t seem able to finish things of late.  Generally, but also posting stuff here.  I have such a big pile of drafts, but my mind wanders from one topic to another before the last one is finished.

Surely I’ll be able to finish this – a post about not finishing posts?  That has to be within my reach.  LOUISE.  PRESS.  PUBLISH.  NOW.  NO, NOT AFTER THE NEXT GLASS OF WINE/CUP OF TEA/KIT-KAT.  NOW.  DO IT.  NOW.

PUSH.

THE.

BUTTON.

 

 

I’M AWAKE!!!

 

AWAKE!!!  And have been since quarter to six.  IN THE MORNING.  I’m flabbergasted.  I’m hurt.  I’m wondering which fuckwit sleep fairy in the sky messed up the sleepy dust sprinkles.  I am sure there is, RIGHT NOW, as we speak, some incredibly potent power-dressing kick ass career woman - this woman who has never been less than bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by 6am - who is now in bed, sleeping, drooling a little into the right side of her pillow.

Here I am, thinking, shit! I have enough trouble finding suitable activities to get me through my 10am-10pm day without the added stress of 6am wide-awakeness.

I am, of course, not pissed off really.  Who cares if I’m awake a little earlier than I need to be?  Just don’t expect to find me brewing coffee whilst whistling and opening the pages of a crease-free broadsheet.  That ain’t me, babe.