Cutting a dash

 

Yes, BHB, same here. Questionmarks.

In fact it would make a good subject for Jean over at her Stress to Power: “If you were a piece of punctuation which one would best describe you?” Ramana might make a useful full stop. Fullstops are full of importance. If we didn’t have them what would stop us? Can you imagine going on and on and on only interrupted by the odd semi-colon? Yes, so can I. I like semi colons. Though am aware that they are half way houses. Neither a fullstop, nor a comma. Semi-colons are for people who can’t commit to an end. And then there are exclamation marks. Trouble with them: They are noisy. They are the punctuation equivalent of being kicked in the shin: Listen to me, listen to me! Yes, I am listening. For god’s sake turn down the volume. That’s why it’s so soothing to talk to David. His voice is velvet. Being of a practical bend I like commas. They are no-nonsense, have a purpose in life which they will – unstintingly – serve. Conrad is difficult to place: Maybe he’d be best suited to being “ein Doppelpunkt”, ie : Two for one key’s click. Also, where there is a Doppelpunkt there is hope. Ein Doppelpunkt leads you down a winding path towards yet another gate, into delights hidden from first view. Beware, BHB, any moment now, I’ll be back to keys. When I obsess about something bad news follow. At least I have now largely forgotten red Bambi, though new Bambi is still in its packaging.

By his own admission, Magpie is fond of ellipsisses (what a plural) … The ellipsis too leads you up a  path, never knowing what to expect. One of the reasons I suspect Magpie to be a Libran (Apple of my Eye is)). Remember: Never give a libran a choice. They are hopeless at making a decision. And once they have made one they’ll agonize over whether it was the right one. Quite a spectacle. I am now inching my way away from punctuation and on to the subject most hated by father of my son – apart from religion – ie astrology, I suspect Conrad to either be a Virgo or a Leo. Even if neither is his sun sign, one of them will feature large in his chart. The intricacies of which I will explain if so desired. Yes, astrology. Father of son has most amazing aversion to the subject. We are talking an extremely polite public school educated gentleman (my mother still has not forgiven me that I divorced him some 15 years ago) yet bring up that subject and he will leave the table – abruptly. Quite shocking really. Last time – since there were many guests who took to the subject like the proverbial – I had to fashion Son into peace delegation with mission to coax his father out of the bathroom; leverage being my promise that by the time he came down I’d have managed to change the subject.

At least there is one certainty in my life and that is that you, BHB, are a piscean. And I won’t gut you.

What about GM – apart from the fact that she too is a Piscean. Isn’t it amazing that water runs through your fingers as elusive as quicksilver? Which reminds me, Jean: PB (plumbum) being my favourite element on account of its name (PB also my sister’s initials). Yes, GM; am now running out of appropriate punctuation symbols. She is not a hyphen. Dear God in heaven, by Jove I’ve got it. Forget what I said upstairs: GM is the fullstop, Ramana is the quotation marks, either end.

Dear sweet gaelikaa; I think of her and immediately emit an audible sigh. I thank my stars that she isn’t my sister (not because of the phone bill since I have one of those deals that allow me to phone round the world without it costing me a penny) but because she causes me great concern. So many conflicts of interest. How she copes with that live-in-family-in-law I do not know. More than one woman in the kitchen is one woman too many. The kitchen is the heart of a home, it’s the powerhouse, it’s the command centre, it’s where people look for you first (second, as long as your kids are still little, is the toilet). Talking of which, my youngest sister, the one who looks like gaelikaa, put her foot down when it came to toiletting. In fact we came to blows because she’d shut (and lock) the loo door leaving her daughter Charlotte wailing outside. Cornelia asserted her right to go to the loo in peace; I asserted that children couldn’t give a shit other than that they don’t like to be separated from their mother. That tells you all you need to know, and also why my son is the most even tempered and sanest human being I have ever come across. He didn’t even cry when he was born. Can you imagine being born to a woman whose first words you hear are: “Why is he not crying? Why is he not crying?” Because, he is a Libran. That’s why. Fool.

One of you will be a hyphen. Decide for yourself. Maybe Jean, since she likes to connect. I myself would be flattered to be considered a dash (defined as a pause) and of course it’s straight which so appeals to both my sense of beauty and the aesthetic.

What a waste of space.

We need an apostrophe. Any volunteers?

U

PS To be continued

In the dark

Boy oh boy oh boy. Have just read most savage review. Both the subject of the review and the reviewer bear some semblance to me. Both women. My god. Am I empty of admiration or full of disgust – for either? Disgust I guess. Names do not matter since they won’t mean anything to my last 1.5 remaining American readers; and my one loyal follower of English descent will only shake his head at such folly; India ticking to its own beat.

Can’t say I particularly like the reviewed. Have “known” her for years. Feel ambiguous about her. As I do about the feisty reviewer.  Though do bow before the latter. She is good. No doubt about it.

There are people you do not wish to meet in a dark alley after midnight (the reviewer being one of them). That’s why it’s most important to carry your key in a strategically important position. I will tell you more next time you attend class I hold in self defense: Be prepared at all times. Paranoia is vital in this context.The gift of the gab usually more important than the power of muscle. I have proven this several times in my life. However a key - and I can’t emphasise this enough – is even more vital for survival, particularly when you have laryngitis and CAN’T talk even if apple of your eye’s life depended on it. Keys also assume importance when you have to break back into your own abode with your landlord swinging it across the Pacific.

I have a truly magnificent dead old key in my possession. Why I keep it – considering that I am a straight descendent of the De Clutteurs I do not know. It serves no purpose other than that I like the look of it and wonder where the bloody door is it might unlock.

Have you noticed the role keys play in fairy tales? Next time you read the 1001 nights, Brothers Grimm and/or Christian Andersen watch out. You might need it [the key that is].

Good night.

U

HA HA HA

Oh joy. Ramana is back – he even “offers an apology”. Why not just apologize, Ramana? You might see it as just so much semantics; it isn’t. Anyway, hardly matters: Manners maketh the man. Yours have let you down big time. So you may sit and stew in an apology which you don’t even mean. “ONE reader” – don’t be so coy, Ramana: I do have a name. It’s Ursula, remember?

You may edit as much as you like – the original meaning shines through: Loud, clear and shouting.

That paragraph of yours in “Trial and Retribution II” is something else: Oh, Ramana, did no one ever teach you to think first and answer second? Bit late in the day now, but try it some time. Here goes the mighty Ramana: “I understand that there is real aversion to the quip on rape. Fair enough. In the rough and tumble crowd that I orbit in, this quip is unlikely to raise any flak, as it will be perceived to be what it is – an analogy – a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects. Obviously, it offends others, more sensitive to the word/process etc. I also realize that it is not politically correct among some of my readers, to make such jokes .” Ramana, you “understand” nothing. What’s” fair” about it? Such an empty no-hoper of an expression. Then you try a Conrad – all intellectual, alas in your case scrambled, undecipherable verbal garbage : “An analogy”? For what? “A form of reasoning …” Dear god in heaven, Ramana. Still, recognition where it’s due: You do “realise that it’s not politically correct, …”. That is so generous of you, Ramana. “Politically correct”? Are you feeling ok? Since when does the disdainful use of the phrase ”politically correct” come into the reasoning on violence and slaughter? I am all ear. If you live in an “orbit” that makes light of rape and its likes maybe you should consider moving back to civilization. Do not use your surroundings as an excuse to make questionable ‘jokes’. So most unbecoming someone your age. Please do refer back to Frankl for guidance.

Was charmed – and I mean it – by GM’s diplomatic answer. So there, Ramana, is a friend you haven’t lost. Someone who can square her conscience with her feelings for a friend. Count yourself lucky.

U

Nil by mouth

If a man of over sixty years old, preening himself on his wisdom, can make rape into a joke I should shut up; I should give up.

Alas neither did I ask my son, my father, my bestest (male) friend of over 40 years (all three of supreme intellect and feeling) how to go about exorcising the bad taste Ramana has left in my mouth (don’t get off on this one). Let’s rephrase: The turmoil he has caused me since his post. A large part of my lifelyhood is obtained by my being able to digest and interpret that which I read. The last 24 hrs or so since R’s brilliant joke have been a complete waste of my life. I cannot concentrate on printed matter far more important than the deficit displayed by one person somewhere in India. But then, as my father says about me: I care too much; not by quoting not so clever people called Frankl but actually “CARE”. Son, friend, not least father of my son, despair that I even take opinions of “the great unwashed” (British man’s words not mine) into account in my thinking. I take into account that which - in my heart and brain –  makes its nest. There is now someone called Ramana who I will despise to the end of my days.

Ramana makes the pedestrian’s common mistake of mistaking “a bit of rough” for sex. RAPE, Ramana, is violation, VIOLENCE. Sex WITHOUT consent.  The stronger muscle, the knife, the hands round your neck. Fun isn’t it? Oh yes. So happy to come away ‘unharmed’ still alive. And then there is hot water and soap. Plenty, unless you live in a country without hot running water. How do you wash it off then? Scrub it down with sand till you bleed even more? Never to be touched again by your “husband”. A shame to your family?

Do you actually have any idea whatsoever what VIOLENCE is? When all choice is taken away from you? When you are at the mercy of someone depraved? Someone who doesn’t understand humanity? Who can’t remember his own mother? A beloved sister, a friend, a cousin? I grant you: A penis – on the whole – does less damage than a gun or a knife.

And that’s just the women. Let’s forget women. They ask for what’s coming their way. How about young men? How about the brother of two friends of mine who (age 12) crawled home on his baby knees, happy to be still alive, bleeding out of his ripped arse, pissed on, semen dripping out of his mouth because a threesome couldn’t keep their dicks zipped up. Funny? Sure. If only his mother had had the presence of mind to tell him beforehand that rape – should it come his way – is something to be enjoyed.

Then, just to stick with the boys, there are prisons. An eighteen year old – qualifying in the eyes of the law as an adult – sent into the hell hole of sex starved (straight, not gay) men. Oh, yes. Where there is a hole there is a way. FUNNY? Titillating? Sure. Absolutely FUCKING hilarious.

Rarely in my life, if ever, Ramana, is someone beyond the pale. You are. Strange, don’t you think? One little remark, no doubt meant ‘innocently’ in your confined world, having such repercussions.

I note, with interest, responses to your post. gaelikaa being the only one who voices disapproval. I am very fond of Magpie – luckily he doesn’t appear to comment on your blog so, with a bit of luck, I will be spared the disappointment of another lukewarm response (Nick is good at those – but then he is a pretty lukewarm person anyway; don’t dismiss this comment, Nick. Think about it. A bit of passions goes a long way; you have potential). The one person’s comment I miss, and I mean miss, is GM’s. Typical that her machinery goes down when it counts. There is a conflict of interest for her: She is a no-nonsense person. Therefore she will not appreciate Ramana’s joke. On the other hand she likes Ramana – a lot; she also likes to hold the peace. Now what? Grannymar, I am so glad I am not in your position.

Jean, you like to be the peace maker. You aren’t. You stir. Did you really have to ask what, if I call Ramana’s doctor a “jerk” , makes that him [Ramana]? A jerk, I guess; even your powers of deduction must reach that far.

Ever the optimist, and I will, before I press send, check R’s comment section once more, Conrad will have the grace to not say a word on the subject. Such trust, don’t you think? I like the guy. He has grown on me big time.

Don’t know what I am going to do with this blog addressed – with feeling – to a handful of people.

So very very very disappointed,

U

Doolally

Brief update:

Despite your assurances and my total and utter character defect of not knowing when to give up I can now confirm that red Bambi has gone to the big wide heaven where all staplers meet their forestaplers. On the upside I have found pages 489 to 490 of my Paperback Oxford English which will now allow me to look up and use words like monocolyledon, mop, mood and mother country. Mountain ash being a rowan tree.

Magpie being a continuing source of disappointment to me denies all promises he made to translate wisdom of Graf Herr von und zu Klutter, Monsigneur de Clutteur – the most noble of many a ghost in the loft. As I neither have a loft nor a cellar (not even a broom cupboard) I have now turned into my father’s daughter and am so organised, sorted and recylced I have just started tackling the last bastion of anyone staring their last will and testament in the face: Old letters and photographs. Oh dear. Phoned my mother this afternoon, inquiring whether it really was necessary to send THREE congratulatory cards on occasion of arrival of her grandson no.  3 (Apple of my Eye). Her being in grip of acute tooth ache I was not able to extract coherent answer. Did you know (how would you) that my maternal grandmother was one of the first female dentists in this country? Oddly, and my four year old self was baffled by this, when that ghastly drill went the way of her own mouth she immediately needed to go to the loo. It was my first introduction into the – to me – fascinating subject of how soma (body) and psyche connect and use each other to express mal content.

U

Lost

I don’t want to steal Magpie’s thunder: We are to be treated by him to a session in decluttering.

Despite appearances to the opposite I like order, at least as interludes in between chaos, and my mind suffers if I don’t know where to find things. The last few days have been turmoil. Nearly thirty years ago I bought a Bambi; no, not the little orphaned deer but a tiny stapler. It’s red (I refuse to refer to it in the past). It is now nowhere to be found. Unfortunately I have tendency to become obsessive and will not give up – though I know full well that whilst wading through three years’ worth of paper cuttings in the last few weeks little Bambi will – no doubt – have fallen into waste paper basket – contents now disposed of. Can I leave it be? Is it possible to go and buy, at 2.99, another Bambi (different shape and grey)? No, I can’t and yes it is. Instead of which I have turned our flat inside out; I even took the sofa apart (which made me vacuum the hidden parts). I found many things alas no Bambi. Let’s assume – for sake of argument – that I (since I don’t like my LARGE stapler) go and buy a new, if grey, Bambi and I bet my bottom Dollar that no sooner will I have ripped package open (red) Bambi will reappear.

One can build a whole philosophy and outlook on life on the above if one were so inclined. Instead of which I keep looking and decluttering as I go along.

Other than that am in stinking foul mood as to the obscene idiocy of my fellow human beings. There is not a bucket large enough to catch my tears. Am now in two minds what to do. Shall I turn my worst critical self towards the uncomprehending or enjoy the hermit’s nest? This is where you have to hand to teachers: Hope over the elusive. Let’s leave it there lest I make further enemies.

That’s why I love our den (top floor with a view).

U

Slip sliding away

Had long telephone conversation with my father yesterday afternoon. The guy is a miracle. Few in my life have the gift of enchanting and enfuriating me with their intellect – in equal measure – as he does. I shall miss him. Not that he is in any hurry to go anywhere soon – considering I am his eldest and my parents started very young he might still be dancing on my grave. AND I WON’T BE ABLE TO ANSWER BACK. And if he says so much as utter an appreciative word in an obituary kind of way I shall have to raise from the dead.

Why am I talking about my father? No idea. I could talk about my mother. She is like BHB minus a computer. Like Jean, she only has so much patience with your woes: “Haven’t you got any GOOD news?” Gee, thanks. I just gave them to you.

Anyway, easily side tracked today’s stunning insights are related to forthcoming Chinese New Year: Since I only know my own birth year and that of BHB and none of your others I can only speculate. Is there a Dragon amongst you? A rabbit? A snake? A horse? Ah, I know who the horse is. A swine, a swindler, a fake? A saint? A car mechanic?

Be that as it may and please do not let vanity stay in the way of honesty by fessing up I give you the ideal companion to Conrad’s dung beetle as interpreted by Wrong Feng Shui: Remember dung beetles are NOT popular and whilst I am undecided whether we prefer equals or opposites to complement our set I give you: “No one likes earwigs. Even other earwigs avoid the company of an earwig. They are wriggly characters who scurry about scaring small children. They are also very good at spreading rumours. If gossip (remember, gaelikaa?) is a perennial problem at your workplace, find out if any of your colleagues are earwigs and confront them with your suspicions. Earwigs should be watched carefully at all times . They should never be left alone with cake. The plus points of earwigs are that they are good at hiding and will survive after a nuclear war.” So that’s anyone born in 1925 , 1937, 1945, 1957, 1969.  Start looking for your dung beetle now and live in moist companionship here and thereafter. I’ll give you directions to the dung heap. Just remember I easily confuse right and left.

I sincerely hope that we have a Cutlery Tray Insert in our midst, and I quote: “People born in the year of the cutlery tray insert tend to be anally retentive. For them everything has a place, and everything should be in its place. Leave even a hair out of place in the environs of a cutlery tray insert and they’ll be down on you like a ton of bricks. An exceedingly neatly stacked ton of bricks. These people tend to be vociferous defenders of the status quo. They also keep gloves in the glove department of their cars. Never marry a cutlery tray insert. Your life will be intolerable. And any children you have will grow up to be serial killers.” (1935, 1947,1959, 1971)

Condolences if you were born in the year of the grout: “Grouts are even more unappealing to look at than shrubs. They are the least exciting people you could hope to meet. Having said that, groutings serve a vital purpose in society. They help to stick things together. They are the people who work unobtrusively behind the scenes to bind diverse humanity into a coherent (w)hole. For this reason grouts make good interpreters, marriage guidance counsellors and waiters”.

I wish I were an Artichoke, alas I am not: “Artichokes are odd characters. They don’t fit in. They also tend to worry the rest of the world. Not many people know how to deal with them. For this reason artichokes are often ignored. However, if you can find a way through an artichoke’s spiky exterior, you will find a surprisingly tender heart. Eeyore was an artichoke. Artichokes are afraid of melted butter.” (1928, 1940, 1952, 1964)

Yeah, well, in your quest of ‘know thyself’ more on application.

I subscribe to Feng Shui’s unstable table of life stating that tables with even lengths legs create a false sense of security. Shortening one leg  and watching your dinner slowly sliding into your lap will provide you with a most instructive metaphor about the mess life is.

Charmed, I am sure,

U

Dinner is served

The Artist at work

Don’t say I don’t do pretty. And no, I will not give step by step instructions of how to fillet  a sardine.

U

Something old, something new, nothing bitter, nothing blue

Little surpasses the relief, the joy, the happiness one feels when restored to former health, energy and fitness. To be able to experience such quiet exuberance compensates for a week of influenza from hell. I still have to rest quite a lot but by golly life is good. I feel purged, ready to wrestle with 2011.

Thank you for your replies to my last post which proved the last straw on my road to fevered halluzinatory oblivion. This blog being one of the best kept secrets in the world started with a handful of people in mind. Each one of you - getting to know you through your own blogs and/or comments – have brought a new dimension to my life. May be, when in either a soppy or a stroppy frame of mind, I might analyze each one in detail some other time  (naturally as humoUrously as possible). I am glad I found you. And that includes GM whose steadfastness and blogging timetable is as reliable as holding onto a bannister.  Please don’t burst into tears but I’d like to mention that I am touched by Conrad’s willingness to leave doors open.  A sentiment most befitting when reflecting on it at Christmas time.

Other than that my blog is a disgrace. I had no idea what a wasteland it’s become till I looked more closely.  Looney waxing lyrical on Aristotle over at his blog, gaelikaa tying herself into knots with her various self imposed blogging schedules,  Magpie keeping me in loons, David Attenborough and other treasure, Ramana soldiering on, Jean asking pertinent questions twice a week, Conrad ripening his leverage, BHB keeping everyone in comments and filling my inbox with much laughter, and where am I? Take the nozzle off the bitch, that’s all I can say.

U

PS Not that the above is a cocktail but Shackman and Mike might like to add their flavour occasionally. Anyone I have not mentioned forgive me:  This is an open house which is not the same as saying that I am indiscriminate.