Sexual Seconds! Please Sir, is it wise to have more?

So, this week has been all about moving.  Compiling 32 years of life into cardboard boxes, bags and any random receptacles to shift the shit I can’t bear to part with (and taxes).  Let’s not forget the taxes.  Gadzooks, do I really need to take up valuable space in my 12x15 with boxes full of statements, spreadsheets and receipts?  Seriously? It is area I could free up to learn circus tricks, yoga or contortionism. 

But this blog isn’t about the physical and emotional trauma that was EGJ Moves to Brooklyn.  Because you know what?  Moving is hard.  You have to part with things you love.  You have to grow up, kiss teddy goodbye, and dispense with all those love letters and photographs you have held on to with the vague premature nostalgia of being able to tell your grandchildren that, “Yes, once Grandma was young.  She was relatively pretty and some boys liked her.”  You have to be ruthless.

But you probably know this already.  You have had your own moving trauma and you sure as Scooby Doo snacks don’t need a vicarious dose through me.

So, I’m not writing about moving, but rather moving on.  I was caught reading a tweet whilst innocently noshing on a tuna sandwich.  It read:

Don’t meet your girlfriend’s exes, it’s their shoes you are filling.  And by shoes, I mean vagina.(@Luke Romyn)

It was fortunate, indeed, that my fellow diner was familiar with the vagaries of the Heimlich manoeuvre, but after I had cleaned my computer screen, I thought more about this.

How can you not eventually see on Facebook or hear on the grapevine, or—egads!—meet in public, your exes?  What is the right protocol?  What is the wrong?  And what is the God-awful-Larry-David-type behaviour that will make everyone in your general vicinity cringe with embarrassment and forbid you ever to go out again in any locale that might harbor an ex?

If you are a nice person—and I hope you are—you will consider your ex’s feelings in this.  But it’s bloody difficult to look out for someone else as well as care for yourself.  We are, as humans, ultimately selfish.  The survival-of-the-fittest instinct precludes any altruistic sacrifice, so it is unlikely that we choose a life of enforced celibacy to save the feelings of our exes; but how can we still date in a small gene pool and not stab the sensibilities of those separated from us?  What limits and rules should we apply?  Where does it start, dear Reader?  Where does it stop?  When can you date and not feel guilty?

Oscar Night at Amici, with hosts Mark Masetti & Michaela Moore

Let’s take the example of my beloved adopted home town of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.  It’s a small town.  In my 7 years in the environs, I have met many people.  Every first Friday, the art walk in Scranton brings out the same warm-hearted arts supporters; every Wednesday a great crowd toe-tap to the jazz night at Amici; on warm summer nights, friendly faces congregate under the pagoda at State St.  There is always a guaranteed sighting of someone you know.  It’s like friggin’ Cheers.  Only there is not one bar, there are many.

You’d be hard pushed to find more than one degree of separation in fair ol’ Scrant.  It’s comforting in that way.  Unless you have exes, because then it is a little too close for comfort.

I read somewhere that, when on a date, you should never go somewhere you really like, because if it doesn’t work out, now Unworkoutable knows YOUR place, and imagine you go there and now he/she is cozied up at the bar chatting with your friendly bartender, arms/tongue around someone else!  Not good, dear Reader, not good. 

I confess, once I went on a date with a certain Scrantonite and after dins we went to one of my favourite places.  I perched at the bar, engrossed in the tennis playing on the screen above.  I ordered a glass of my usual and Date order his.  It was about ten minutes before I turned to my left and realized sitting RIGHT BESIDE me was—Oh Gawd, shoot me!—a chap I had dated briefly and become good friends with.  There was no ill-will, but I felt terrible, because I genuinely cared for the non-date to my left—much more than the one to my right.  I glowed puce and drank quickly.  The tennis was, I believe, riveting.  Date vs Gwyn-Jones: 40-Love.

But let’s not get into my dirty laundry.  Let’s return instead to our beloved couple, Daisy and Armando, as introduced by Michael J. Coene in his response to Manopoly and other Bastardly Dicktards: http://www.eleanorgwyn-jones.blogspot.com/

It’s been months, maybe even years, and Daisy and Armando have reached the point of no return.  They finally face their silent disappointment and resignation; or maybe they engage in vocal, vitriolic warfare; either way, their relationship ebbs or explodes and they are left, two halves.  Splittsville. 

No longer ‘Daisy and Armando’, but ‘Just Daisy’ and ‘Just Armando’.  Singledom has branded them a new title.  And whilst they will wear it for a while and spurn talk of ever yinging their yang ever again; whilst Daisy takes a vow of celibacy/ice-cream/commitment to learn a language or maybe ballroom dancing; and while Armando goes out with his boys, peacocking it up at the Hardware Bar, letting the semi-clad Barely Legals straddle him in the dentist chair and swallowing the Jack Daniels poured lasciviously down his gullet, making his Adam’s apple bob eagerly; the chances are that, at some stage—maybe not at the Hardware or at Blue Ribbon Ice Cream Parlour—these two love-lorn halves will find other shapes to fit with.

And that is when the holy shit splatter can really start pelting.  The Oh My God, Run for Cover, Nuclear Flying Fecal Fallout that is going to take Daisy down, and Armando, and all of their friends, and their new halves and the friends of their new halves.

This is more than a case of Sharks versus Jets, more than a Soprano fracas.  This is where loyalities are tested, solidified or whacked… ‘You’re dead to me.’

So, what is Daisy or Armando to do?

Lady G celibate?  Nunsense! She's virgin' on the ridiculous!

We’ve already taken the celibacy option off the table.  This is the age of Lady Gaga and the Kardashians, after all. 

Daisy and Armando cannot deny their genetic predisposition to couple.  But what is the best way to be kind without being cruel?  How can they stay friends if they have been lovers?  Lord, sounds like a terrible Michael Bolton song, don’t it, eh?

You see, I’m interested, I genuinely am, because I always try to be kind and stay friendly with ex-partner/boyfriends and was quite proud that I boast a healthy wodge of Christmas cards each year from chaps with whom I have, at some stage, exchanged saliva.  It is rather pleasing to think that, in spite of not working out, I can, at least still exchange something with them.

It didn’t occur to me before now, that, perhaps, being friends was the very worst thing one could do.  When Daisy sees Armando enjoying the chaps-wearing and sequin-bra-ed Tiffany gyrating over his crotch, aiming another shot of amber nectar down his throat, how can she just laugh it off and be happy for him?  That was her crotch to gyrate over.  She may not be jealous, but odds are a silent fist hits her right between the solar plexus. 

And what of Armando?  When he looks surreptitiously in Daisy’s direction and sees a  likely suitor swoosh in to the bar stool next to her, engage her in witty banter and offer her a drink; when he watches as she accepts, lowers her head demurely and plays with her hair; he is conflicted.

Daisy and Armando are over, after all.  Haven’t they agreed to be friends?   ‘Heck! What does it matter if we happen to see each other out and about!  It’s a small town.  Forget about it!’

But it does matter, you see.  Daisy cannot forget the little looks and smiles he used to throw at her and now she can see him flicking at others.  She cannot bear to watch him laugh at some random woman’s unfunny joke and casually slip his arm around her, a silent admission of his new ownership.

Armando looks up from his table, where he is trying to fake a smile and appear as if he is concentrating on this groupie—what’s her name again?  Melanie?  Melissa? –and he sees Daisy.  It’s over, he knows it, but seeing this dude sidle up to her in his indigo jeans and button down shirt, and that Daisy--who never liked engaging with strangers anyway—suddenly seems rapt in his presence, is torture.

They know they are not supposed to be together, that it didn’t work out, but they have shared so much with each other, it sucks the air from Daisy's lungs to see Armando with another her, standing in the spot where she used to be.  No one likes to be replaced.  Not at work, or in sport, and definitely not in relationships.

But let’s add another glug of scenario sambuca to make the shituation really flambé!  What happens when Indigo Jeans knows Armando, or when Tiffany, Melanie or Melissa is acquainted with Daisy?  GAH!  I’ll tell you what happens… emotional holocaust. 

When a good friend was matched with my former chap on an internet site, I almost shaved my head.  Freud would have lots to say I am sure.   I was just so desperate to protest in some way, but I was powerless.  What could I say?  Nothing.  He was not mine anymore, and any vocal protestation would have shown me up, not him.  It was so horrid to imagine him with anyone but me.  It still is.

In Clarks Summit, the chances of dating someone none of your friends/acquaintances have ever dated is slim to none.  Seriously, good luck with that.  I’m not paranoid, but everyone knows everyone.  They know where my car is parked, they know how long it’s parked for, and they know exactly where I was and how many cookies I ate while my vehicle was stationary.  Think you can keep any Summit hook up on the QT?  Think again, my friend.

So, what is fair?  What are the rules for sexual second helpings?  Is it okay to ask for more?  Without it, in a small town, one might starve!  I mean think about it, does Daisy have to deny any suitor who knows Armando?  Is Armando forever forbidden the fruits of Daisy’s friends?  Is that practical?  It’s logical certainly, but here’s the thing: passion is not logical.  The heart is the most illogical and non-negotiable organ and we’d be fools not to consult it once in a while.

I suppose, therefore, there is no easy way to move on and be good friends.  That must be why so many halves have to cut the ties and be done, never to speak, nor exchange Crimble cards again; but, forgive me, Readers, I can’t give up that easily.  I have cherished these people and I still want to be friends.  I want them in my life and I want to know that they are okay—perhaps not who they are knobbing or how hard, or how blissfully happy they are without me—I do want them to pine for a decent amount of time—but then they can be happy.  (Preferable when I am deliriously happy too.)

And, hopefully, friendship, true friendship—when two people care about each other, without sexual bullshit fucking it all up—will win the day.  Sure, meeting each others exes is never going to be a hoorah fest of mutual appreciation--you are standing in vagina-shoes--but if you value your friendship at all, you should be able to wish them well. 

Daisy will know that she will always occupy a little space in Armando’s heart, as he will in hers.  And as both pursue other passions, they may forget the aching and become desensitized to the thump that hits them in the guts every time their eyes meet, but their lips can’t.  Maybe. 

Moving  and moving on.  It’s brutal.  It rips out your innards and wraps them around your neck like an Isadora Duncan scarf.  But, just speed through it, ignore the choking, and, when you can breathe again and sleep again, and not be conscious of the space beside you, it is quite liberating.  You got here.  The wind is blowing through your hair.  You survived, and today is a new adventure.

MANOPOLY and other Bastardly Dicktard Games

After & before.

In 2005, a memoir entitled The Game caused quite the sensation. The author, Neil Strauss, an Average Fucking Chump (AFC), details how he evolves into a self-confident, smooth-talking, lusty lothario, or Pick Up Artist (PUA), peacocking and practising game on womankind.

So, I'm a little behind the times--six or so years to be precise--but why in Jesus Christmas would I want to read boys' book about picking up girls?  Good question.  Because, dear Reader, it was recommended by a good friend, with whom I share other literary likies, and this thirsty mind thought that, at the very least, it would give me a little insight into the boggling black hole of the male psyche.

Little did I realise that I was, with a crack of the spine, a crease of the cover, a turn of the page, opening a literary Pandora's Box.

Forget the stiltonesque, ‘Do you come here oftens,’ Strauss’s game, which he preached via online forums and taught at workshops for the seduction community, was far more evolved.  From hand-writing analysis and magic tricks, to evolution phase shift (a Neanderthal tug and bite sequence that precedes a kiss) to dual induction massage (oily moves to orchestrate a threesome), he used these sophisticated strategies to collect more numbers than the IRS during tax season. 

Whatever the game plan, Strauss always demonstrated value, knowledge and power.  Hence this self-described, ‘skinny Elmer Fudd’ scored hide.  On the Sunset Strip it was open season and Strauss, or ‘Style,’ as he called his arrogant alter-ego, was bringing a bazooka.  Like shooting ducks in a barrel, he was getting fucked like Colin Farrell.

As a single female reading this book, every fibre of me wanted to hate it—like a series of The Bachelor—awful and demeaning, cheap and pitiable, and yet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.  I loathed the daily disposal of nameless vaginas, but I was fascinated by their willing sacrifice. 

So, sure, most women can look beyond the short, balding cartoon, and if I had just read Strauss’ words, I would have imagined a PUA with a voice like molten chocolate, and an contagious energy that made women leap into bed like jumping beans.  But I listened to his voice.  Now, I don’t wish to come across as a complete bee-atch, but he sounded like a weak, hesitant, undersized 12 year old.  Probably with knobbly knees and peach-fuzz.  I just didn't get it.  I would never be seduced by Style.

He seemed the complete antithesis to Ryan Gosling’s PUA character, Jacob, in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  Jacob lavished attention upon the victim, target and made her feel special; Style, however, would ignore, focus on others and ‘neg’ her (give her a negative compliment such as, ‘You have lipstick on your teeth’ or, ‘Haven’t I seen you wear that dress before?’).  His inattention would make her feel vulnerable and would make him seem mysterious.  Once hooked, Style would take her to a new location--isolating her from her friends--whether in the bathroom stalls or his place, and there he would whip out his trusty Trojan.  (Which, can I just say, Strauss, great, you had lots of sex—yay for you—you ‘acted responsibly,’ ermm, well, kind of—you did at least keep the Strip safe from many Elmer Fudd looking spawn—but seriously Dude, you'd leave used ones lying around?  Really?  G.A.G.)

As Strauss reached new, epic heights of douchebaggery, rattling off the names of women he'd 'played,'  my thoughts, in order of appearance, were these:

Wow.  He’s good.

Tricky Little Bastard.

What a wanker!

Ew!  Seriously?

How disrespectful. 

How low. 

How… douchey!  

No one would ever play me like that!  I’m unplayable!  I have defenses like a fucking fort, with a moat, filled with flesh-stripping piranha, trained to chomp to the bone and suck on the marrow of any Bastardly Dicktard, as if their sorry cock carcass were slow-braised and osso bucoed.  I have look out posts at each turret.  I have laser sights trained to pick off unsolicited, unwarranted, opportunistic pick up movement, ready to blow from the castle ramparts, sending Bastardly gizzards into next Tuesday’s Tripe Special.  I have vats of boiling pitch, ready to pour from on high and denature every fucking protein from the tips of Dicktard’s hair follicles to the chalky white of his toenails.  And that’s just me.  My girlfriends, like the longbowmen of Gwent, stand at my shoulder, flaming arrows ready, an impenetrable cock block.  Behold!  Am a veritable Boudicca, (with a manicure, underwire and nice shoes).

And, as empowerment throbbed through every vein and I smugly congratulated Self for being far too aware to fall prey to such knicker-swindling, I remembered the last Dicktard.

Oh.

My smile reeled in.  My hot air hissed out of my lungs like some sad, pink, birthday balloon found withering behind the sofa. 

Those stories of foreign travel; the invitations to exotic climes; those business disappearances, which made him seem so important, so in demand, so exciting; the engrossing mind-fucking word games; the guru-like analysis to make me feel as if he really ‘knew’ me; the touches here and there, just north of inappropriate, but whose hasty removal would suddenly, inexplicably, leave me hungry for more.  And ravenous, I had become.

Then the sudden tug from the rug under my BCBG heels and...

All the Strauss styling I had thought I was immune to had been used upon... me!  I had been played, like Human Manopoly, circling the track, rolling the dice, enjoying the hotels, the ritzy avenues and then--shit balls of fire--I had pulled the Chance card and was sent directly to jail, forbidden to pass go or collect 200 pounds. 

Up until now, I had thought it was just sheer bad luck, a case of unfortunate timing.  I made up plausible excuses for Bastardly Dicktard.  But now I knew.  Now, it was clear.  I had been sucked in and I hadn’t even realised.

And now, consigned to the oubliette, I have digested this renewed disappointment.  I have taken some time to ruminate on Game Play, the different approaches of Strauss’s Style, Gosling’s Jacob and Bastardly Dicktard, and have isolated the uniting trait all three have in common.  What is it that makes women forget themselves, and apparently, their knickers?

No, not alcohol--although that does, of course, help--but the attribute the PUAs and B.Dtards have, is power.  It’s why women have fallen for Trump, Clinton and David Fucking Mellor.  (Yes, Brits, I still remember, it fascinated me that a man that unattractive could have an affair with the de Sancha woman.  I was only about 10, but that’s how well the scandal burned into my memory.)  Ew, ew, ew.

And yet… powerful women: do they have men frothing at the mouth, eager to pack a weekend bag, rent a car and drive off east for a weekend sojourn in the Hamptons?  Nein danke.

I know a shit tonne of self-assured, beautiful, independent, go-getting, powerful women and yet… *mass generalization alert* from their stories of disappointing dates and game play atrocities, men do not find powerful women as attractive as women find powerful men.  In fact, damsels in distress seem fair more alluring to men.   Maybe they are just easier to please, like women who don’t read.  http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/dont-date-a-girl-who-reads/2/

So maybe, I just need to act like Paris Hilton: get myself into trouble (check), say asinine things (can do!), pout (I'll work on it), shrink to a far cuter 5ft 1 (I'm screwed), be adorable (more screwed), and think that Belgium is a small state in Russia.  (Has Damien Samways invented that mind eraser yet?)

Maybe I’ll use a pair of rusty pliers to extract all my teeth, sans anaesthetic, and I will make Halloween necklaces for the neighbourhood children.

Or maybe, I’ll just wait for someone grown up.  Someone I can call or message without worrying if it is 'my turn' or not; someone whom I can ask out somewhere without fear that I might be surrendering my power.  (So, okay, no woman actually wants to ask a chap out.  But wouldn’t it be nice to have the emotional freedom to be able to?)

In last week’s blogette, Crazy, Stupid, Oh Dear God just TELL her, http://www.eleanorgwyn-jones.blogspot.com/ I wrote how men should MAN UP!  After reading The Game, I realize women need to do this too.  Not necessarily become a braless Boudicca, or shave our heads and visit the island of Lesbos, but POWER UP to withstand game play.  Know the rules so that the game can identified and called what it is—a crock of fetid, reptilian shit. 

I don’t wish to sound like an embittered bovine, am quite the happy-go-lucky gal.  I like men.  C'est vrai, mes amies!  I like games, I do.  I think there are times games can be utterly necessary: like Twister at a university house party.  This innocent game of human pretzeling has been the icebreaker for many a nervous whipper snapper. And, it’s okay, because everyone knows the rules.  A casual grope is expected.  It’s a downright travesty if, after various mysterious green cocktails, left hand red doesn’t accidently-on-purpose glide against right hand boob.

It’s the rules.  Fair play.   But playing The Game?  Being shifty, tricky and caring more about a score than the person?   Well, enjoy the kudos.  You are officially a Dicktard.

So what say you?  Have you taken a turn on the manopoly board, and been left holding your lead, mini-tophat in hand? Have innocent games of Twister gone wrong?  I won't judge you.  (Other readers might, but I won't.  Promise.) 

Crazy, Stupid...Oh dear God, just TELL her!

Each time I watch the trailer for Crazy, Stupid, Love  I am, by the time Steve Carell turns to the beautiful Julianne Moore and whispers in cracking voice, “I should have fought for you,” a thickly-lidded, glistening-red-eyed trout.

So, maybe this line resonates with me for mucky reasons I won’t go into, but set against the crescendo of Muse’s pleading "I just wanted to hold you in my arms…" as Carell looks longingly at the wife he lost and didn’t fight for, it creases me.  Creases me, I tells ya!  (The movie did not have this soundtrack playing in the actual film, so I was able to retain some emotional restraint.  Good job too, as I never have a hankie when I need one.)

“I should have fought for you.”

Do men fight anymore?   Do they go for what they want?   I’m not talking about another slice of pizza, or Stoli when they could have Grey Goose.   I’m talking about putting in the effort, real effort to earn, retain, and nurture love.  Or is a relationship more of a convenience item nowadays, a microwave ready meal, satisfying for five minutes, but then thrown away and out with the rubbish she goes?  Is marriage such a ‘convenience’ that men shrug their collective shoulders and wait for something easier to come along?  Someone you don’t actually have to engage in conversation, but who you can contentedly live along side, passionlessly, without conflict, but for leaving the goopey ice-cream scoop out on the kitchen side, sticking to the surface in its pool of congealed cream.

When does this relation erosion happen?  When do you stop really caring about the minutia of your loved ones’ day.  When do we stop asking questions?  When does it get boring?  And why do we allow it to happen?

Oh Lordy, has Eleanor been Chardonnay-blogging again?  Nope, am in complete control of my faculties—just not my tears, apparently.

But back to the flick… the movie begins with a realistic enough premise: endearing 40-something Cal Weaver (Carell) is told by his teary, not unkind wife, Emily (Moore), she thinks they ought to get a divorce.   And that she slept with another man.  As she steers the Volvo and their relationship, she asks him, “When did you stop trying?”  GAH!  Gouge out my eyes!

Without much fuss, but rolling from their moving vehicle, he accepts it, moves out, and so begins the *jazz hands* comedy section of the movie.  Enter tailored, trimmed, and groomed Ryan Gosling, or as I shall now refer to him, Ryan Oggling.  Oh I oogled alright.  It was hard not to.  The movie makers milked that particular feature of the film.  (Enjoy the gratuitous semi-clad photo.)

He is a Pick Up Artist, or, as I am learning from the fascinating, if not rather horrifying The Game by Neil Strauss, a ‘PUA.’  He has his routines: buy drink for The Mark, don’t reveal personal information, and make her talk about herself; interestingly, very different tactics from the ‘Neg’ (negative compliment), general neglect and alpha dominance employed by Style, Mystery and the PUA’s in The Game, but we’ll talk of that another time.

Jacob (Oogling) takes Cal under his wing, tailoring him without mercy.  The clothes are a great disguise, as a well-put together Cal learns the tricks of the Pricks and tries to forget his wife of over 20 years.  But it’s not that easy (Scarlett).  Jacob encourages him to move on, to schmooze women, and fuck ‘em to oblivion.    And like a Lemming, he goes along with it. 

We all know someone who has been broken by divorce.  Some of us know the couples, some of us pick sides—ouch—and some of us just want to smash the couple’s heads together.  It’s hard to watch our friends flounder.   It’s hard to feel ourselves fade as the unsaid slowly poisons us.  In Cal we see this accepting, fading dolt and he is relatable, he is human and we love him and want him to find happiness (hopefully with Emily.)

But, what isn’t relatable is the onesidedness.   We see very little of Emily Weaver’s internal struggle, bar a short phone call she makes just to hear Cal’s voice, her son commenting that he heard her crying and her confession of going to see Twilight on her own.  We can, at least, feel for her about that.  Without those brief nods to conscience, she would appear a hard-nosed slut.  That is certainly how the children’s sweet babysitter sees her. 

But I’d like this to be apology for Emily, because what the male screenwriter or perhaps brutal editor misses is her deep conflict, her certain doubts, her regrets and her emotional crippledom.  She cannot tell him that she loves him, that she misses him and wishes he would fucking buck up his ideas and take her on a date and make her feel desired again. He alone has to come to that realization and risk it.  Because if she takes his sweet goblin little face in her hands and tells him herself, then nothing would have really changed—she would just have been forcing it.  And it’s back to the everyday complacent couplet.  He has to be the one who not only admits that he should have fought for her, but he has to actually do it. 

Really, Emily is pole-axed by her own courage, hopeful and yet hopeless by the way she has just sabotaged her cozy family vignette.  Yet, from the movie, I didn’t pick up on much of that.  I just know that that is how she would have felt. 

No wonder she dresses like Daphne from Scooby Doo.  She needs to scour for clues to find any grain of character justification.

Sound like diatribe?  Well maybe it’s hit a nerve.  Maybe I am mad (in the American sense, not the English—shit, who am I kidding, maybe both), but I finished reading David Nicholls One Day this week, I’m reading The Game, I watched C.S.L. and there’s a theme.  Yes, reader.  It’s people being too casual, too convenient, and not saying what they really mean.  People not taking risks.  Sure, if we always said what we meant, where would the mystery be?  Wouldn’t we hurt people?  Goodbye to the thrill of the chase!  Yeah, piffle.  You want mystery, read some Grisham—there are enough of them out there to keep you well suspended.  If you are truly meant to be with someone, if you do really care for someone, oh dear God, man up (or woman up, as appropriate) and tell them!  If they don’t feel the same at least you can get on with life, move to Brooklyn, and torture yourself thinking of the effort you should have made and how you will rectify this in the future.  Because, *spoiler alert* like Emma Morley (One Day), you might be speeding into the arms of your beloved after 20 years of not saying what we readers have been waiting for, for 300 pages, and a wreckless lorry driver might slam into you and send you flying through the air as if you are playing a game of quidditch. 

So there.  That’s my non-chardonnayed take away.  Don’t be casual.  Be truthful, be honourable, be noble, be kind.  

Take risks. 

Fight for it.

BigamE. Evie's bite of the apple

And so it is.

I have finally lent the dulcet tones (or not, you decide) to the first chapter of BigamE.  My, I give so much credit to those actors who record audio books!  I won't blather on, Evie will speak for herself.

 

BigamE isn't one of those Joe Dever books where you get to decide what the heroine does next, but I would be interested to know what you think she *should* do. 

 

Who votes for the Lorena Bobbit or Catherine Becker plan of attack? 

Wordsmithery! Helping geeks get laid since...



Me demonstrating the 'What the fuck? Where is she from?' expression



People strain to hear my voice.  Not because I am quiet—Lordy no!—and not, largely, because they are deaf or constipated; but, when out and about, ordering a cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches (white, no crusts), I see brows crumple like deflated accordions.  The fold of frown makes the eyes smaller, shrewder, but more sparkly, powered by the cogs behind them spinning wildly, frantic to discern: is she English? Irish?  Maybe  Australian?  Those are the top three—although I have also been South African and, oddly, German.  Ja ja. 

I find this Pygmalion pigeon-holing quite fun.  It makes the world a smaller place because I know that, on the heels of explaining from whence I hail, they will know someone who lived there or perhaps visited.  (Maybe a hundred years ago.)

Sometimes I like to fuck with people and tell them I am Welsh.  (This is only half true.  Although I can hold a tune and I do like rugby, which surely makes me more three-quarters.)    Welsh?  This often draws blank stares, but since the fame of Sir Anthony Hopkins (now American) and Catherine Zeta Spartacus Douglas Jones (occasional American, with conveniently waivering Welsh accent), the Taffs are better known.

I cannot claim to have the Welshy Valley drawl—the rolling ‘r’ and the phlegmy double ‘l’—unless surrounded by the contagious sound and/or drunk.  In real life, my...'dulcets' couldn’t really get more Hermione Granger Home Counties. 

However, what seems to intrigue more than the way I pronunciate, are the words I choose to annunciate: a self-indulgent compendium of polysyllabic words woven together intricately, splaying in many different directions as if I were a verbacious spider—with mild ADD—casting out my web of words.    I do like words.  I love the raised eyebrows a string of Britishisms elicits.  I’m a ham.  I know.   I shamelessly drop my 'vitamins'--emphasis on the 'vit'--with an unapologetic cheeky smile.

How we express ourselves is important on an evolutionary level too.  According to Baba Brinkman’s The Rap Guide to Evolution, currently playing off-Broadway at the Soho Playhouse (you should go, it is phenomenal), whilst word choice does not prevent us from being mauled to death by an angry predator, the more slick-tongued of us can use linguistic skill to charm a mate into consenting.  Ergo, language effects sexual selection!  I know!  Think about that the next time you lamely type ‘lol.’

So I started thinking of some of my favourite words.  Not every day words like 'lovely' or 'bloody' or 'arse'--the Close Personals will tell you I use them more often than Brittney says 'me,' but words that I savour saying; words I feel a little audacious thrill as their vibrations blow through my lips; words that reverberate through my inner ear, titillating the spiral-shaped cochlea with every ripple of sound that crosses the cilia-haired membrane. 

Some of my favourite words are delightful, not by sensation, but by reaction or association.  So this is the abridged, and by no means complete, list of words and phrases that I knowingly trill the living Brit out of:

Numpty

Bastardly

Plonker

Piffle

Chin-wag

Dawdle

Drip (“Don’t be such a drip!”)

Gargantuan

Meander

Aluminium

Milksop

Sort the wheat from the chaff

Discombobulated

See you anon

Behemoth

Viscous

The cut of his jib

Cheek to jowl

Queue

What would Freud say?   Well, don’t judge me on the words’ meaning; say them out loud and enjoy the sounds.  Aren’t they fun to say?

 Doesn’t 'gargantuan' stretch your lips as if you have a runny nose and no tissue?  Doesn’t the ‘p’ of ‘numpty’ pop nicely?  Don’t you love the sibilant ‘s’ of ‘viscous,’ (I also love lascivious, mischievous and luscious, so maybe I have a thing for the ‘s’s.)  I do most enjoy saying them with a lisp.  But this can often get messy, so if trying this out whilst on a date—why wouldn’t you dazzle your dinner partner with your speech impediment showcase?—be warned: it can get messy.  You might want to check your teeth for stray lettuce or other debris before you unceremonious spray it in your date's face. *dating tips from Eleanor*  OOH, there’s a blog to behold!

So there you go!  Do Brits hold sole rights to this random collection?  Not a jot!  This is no private collection!  Get the tip of your tongue, your teeth and your lips around these suckers and unleash them loudly the next time you are in Price Chopper.  I guarantee you some furrowed brows.  (NB: this may be because they are concerned as to your mental health, but just ride it out.)

 In fact, let’s do this shit!  When you next shop on a Saturday morning and slalom your uncooperative trolley through the crowd, running the wheels into as many backs of heels as possible, mowing down indecisive geriatrics in the soup aisle, or crying toddlers who have just been told 'no' and are so red-faced and snot-slicked that they don’t see you coming, do try the following:

“Lordy, Moses!  Hells Bells!  Is that the queue for the sliced luncheon meats?”

So are we on?  Will there be an upsurge in plummy-toned people confusing the little cotton socks off the Deli Counter man?  Oh goody! 

Here’s a little battle of words, from the indomitable Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman and true blue Brit Professor Elemental wrapping their native accents around the intricacies of the mother tongue.  Guess which camp I'm in?  Ah, it's elementary, dear Blogger. 

Redefining Chick lit the Jennifer Weiner Way

Last month, bestselling author, screenwriter for ABC Family’s new hit show State of Georgia and influential tweeter, Jennifer Weiner, celebrated the 10 year anniversary since her break through novel Good In Bed. 

It was the first Weiner I read and it left a marked impression on me.  Mainly, that a so-called "chick lit" novel could have a darker side.  No, am not getting all Vader on you, Cannie did not unleash her light sabre and castrate the bastardly ex-boyfriend for writing about her in his newspaper article "Loving a Larger Woman."  Instead, she lets his opinion define her happiness and is plunged into a spiral of sadness and self-doubt.  And you thought chick lit was all about Christian Louboutin’s, calories and credit card bills.  Oh you! 

Chick lit,--ahem—I mean, "contemporary women’s fiction" *insert winning Colgate smile here* can be substantial.  It can be meaty.  The literary lamb shank over a risotto Milanese, that is so rich and satisfying you can’t eat anything else for a week.  The genre, or menu if you will, is so wide, it can also be light and pappy.  There’s a place for both, I guess, but I have a hearty appetite.

 Jennifer Weiner, Jane Green and Emily Giffin are three of the top selling writers in this genre and, believe me, none of them focus on fluffy light fare.  They write stories that are all meat: satisfying, juicy, tender; sometimes, they give me heartburn and chronic indigestion, but I’m there with their endearing heroines, enduring infidelity, infamy, cancer, chronic depression, etc... 

Sounds a laugh a minute, I know, but really, these characters react to these shit-uations in a way that leaves you cheering for more.   I have just finished reading Giffin's Heart of the Matter and it creased me, CREASED ME, that I could empathize with both the wife and the mistress; that both couldn't 'win.'  It's a testament to Giffin's writing that she took a black and white--ehem--affair like cheating and made it so grey, so human, so compelling, so ... relatable.

That's me with Emily in the photograph.  Uh huh, yeah.  She's the beautiful blonde.   I'm the one looking expensively cheap.

Jennifer Weiner’s new novel, Then Came You—which I am itching to read— was inspired by an article she had read in the New York Times, about an affluent woman paying an educated, yet less wealthy, woman to be her surrogate.  Jen wrote in a recent email to her readers, “I wanted to look at how larger questions of financial inequities inform the process of having a baby by surrogate – how it’s always women of means hiring less-well-off women to perform a physical task; how it is, at its core, a transactional relationship that sometimes morphs into a friendly or even familial one. I’m interested in questions of how people treat each other, and how money, and guilt over having it, or resentment over not having more, comes into play.”  Meaty!  Nom nom.

So why am I telling you all this?  Stick with me!  Well, to mark the occasion of Good In Bed’s anniversary Jen launched a competition. The challenge:  in more than 125 words, but no more than 175, write about the most memorable thing that has occurred to you in the last ten years. 

Ten years is about eight photo albums for me, ACTUAL albums, like scrapbooks, not digitally stored, but albums with photo corners and page protectors—I know, ain’t it wild?; then there are the photos stored on my computer and the random ones available for the Facebook Nation.  Am not boasting that I am some photo hog or sad scrapbooking fiend, merely that there are a darn rootin’ tootin’ megatonne of memories.  Think about it, TEN YEARS, TEN FRIGGIN’ YEARS!   Roll photo montage and Beatles accompaniment: “There are places I remember…”

So I thought long and hard about what, through the cabernet clouded fog, I remembered most.  “Rhett!  Rhett!  But what’ll I say?  What’ll I do?  What’s to become of me?”  Agh.  No. Hang about, here we go: my memories, not Scarlett’s.  What did I remember most?  Was it my happiest memory? 

No.  But the microfiche that was notable, crammed with infinitesimal detail, is the memory when time slowed; when every second, of every minute, of every hour burned my consciousness.  There were no idle thoughts.  No internal discussion about what I might cobble together from the refrigerator for the evening’s repast, no casual flick through the memorized TV schedule to plan my night’s viewing.  It was hours of unadulterated awareness; waiting for the cocked trigger to fire, terrified that I might have ruined it all and I’d shot Self in the foot, or face, or heart.

This was my most memorable moment:

I was ushered into the Embassy-approved Physician, leeched of blood and was left, hanging.  This was the day I had prepared for with the focus of an Olympian and the anticipation of a newly-lingeried third date; the last cause and impediment that would separate me from the burly American who had confessed—rather inconveniently, since I was ravenously disposing of a molten chocolate bomb and happened to be spoon-licking at the time—“I don’t want to wake up another morning without you here.”

I waited.  For hours.  Would-be Emigrants came, bled and went, yet I was... 'quarantined?'   I flicked through the mental roladex of sexual indiscretion.  Of course!  The night England had actually won a sporting event and I celebrated drunkenly with some touring rugby player between my thighs! 

The Embassy would banish me. 

Oh God! 

I’d never be with the man who accepted me without medical, signed affidavit or detailed exposition of why I loved him.

I thought my heart would burst through my chest. 

“Miss Gwyn-Jones?  You’re all clear.”

Confusion, relief, joy, Visa.

Keeping to 175 words was harder than you’d think.  I hope, in spite of the brevity, the subject matter was not too gristly for you.  If so, tough.  It’s my meat. 

What’s your most memorable …er…memory from the last ten years?   Go on, I've aired my laundry--and it was found to be impeccable clean--so I'd love to read about yours.  Or, if you have any flavoursome chick-lit to recommend, please do!

Gluttony, Bon Amie and Renewed Appetites

I like to think I’m a bit of a foodie.  Not that you would know it from the contents of my refrigerator—it has been referred to as:

 “the abyss,” Mother;

 “worse than a frat house fridge,” hungry friends who should have eaten before they descended;

“concentration camp canteen,” Anon.

I dispute that though.   I always, always, have a healthy stock of salad dressings, Branston pickle and week-old milk.  My pantry is adorned with my favourite unused tea towel.  Oh yes, it’s classy décor at Chez Eleanor.  The pristine white cotton emblazon with vermillion lettering reads: “I had a really nice dream last night about Daniel Craig.”  Mmm.  Let’s think about that for a moment……

Okay, yes.  Whilst that maybe the most exciting thing about the pantry, I do have some rather interesting relics from the cooking days: aged balsamic vinegar, par example, vanilla beans pods from my trip to India, Birds custard powder brought by Mother mule, when I claimed homesickness and that Americans having ice-cream with rhubarb crumble was just wrong, wrong, wrong!   

The lack of actual real food is just for waist and waste preservation.   I am a glutton.  A food whore.  A gourmand just busting to have a tastetastic party and suck the marrow with Anthony Bourdain.

Look at my book shelves.  Scans those spines, Baby!  Those cracked ones, with little white flecks.  That’s not advanced calcification; those books have been thumbed, bent backwards and thrown down on every kitchen surface imaginable.

I have lusted and drooled over the pages of Nigella’s eggplant involtini, her chicken soup and kneidlach, her chocolate fudge cake; I have salivated and swallowed at the thought of Jamie Oliver’s spatchcock chicken, warm bread salad of crispy pancetta, parmesan and poached egg, his many and varied lip-smacking “pukka” pastas; of Sophie Dahl’s whimsy, of Delia Smith’s practicality, of Claire MacDonald’s seasonality… the rapturous menu goes on.

Time was once when this food rapture would keep me up at night.  The cogs would turn through the roladex of culinary clippings; I would torture and tantalize myself by Taste Imagining.  (I blame Roald Dahl and Willy Wonka for this, by the way.)

And then I supposed I starved my brain.  I piled my books in boxes.  I threw the clippings away and made it focus on important things like Theatricks and BigamE and financial independence.  I suppose I rather forgot how much I loved stirring a creamy bacon and brie risotto with my silicon spatula, folding the arborio rice in from the sides and round and round my satin blue paella pan.  I disremembered how I used to delight in caramelizing the brown sugar on the top of the velveteen crème brulee.  I fooled myself with Jedi mind tricks: “Special K is nutritious and delicious.  It has real strawberries in it!  Oh, 9g of sugar, that’s not bad, surely?”

But this weekend, I got hungry again.  Ravenous.  My taste buds woke up, rasped against my hard palette and railed for more. 

It was Memorial Day weekend and I came face to face with myself—well, a younger, prettier, leggier, blonder version—who spent the weekend pouring over food magazines, clipping articles, Googling menus, trawling the non-farmers market market for the freshest ingredients.  She was a thing of beauty to watch as she chopped her heirloom tomatoes, whisked together a dash of lemon juice with a glug of extra virgin olive oil, a grind of freshly-milled black pepper and a crack of sel de fleur.

“Try this!  Try this!” she flapped with joy, proffering a hunk of fresh bread, be-daubed and glistening with her newest epicurean delight, $20 fig jam.  Her enthusiasm was infectious, her ideas were nothing short of inspired, and she brought a smile to my face and a pang to my stomach as I remembered what fun I used to have “creating.”

 My favourite repast was her casually thrown together lunch of treasures from the afore-mentioned non-farmers market market: fresh, pillowy-soft baguette sandwiching thick slabs of mozzarella, ribbons of delicate prosciutto, finished with a drizzle of fig preserve; heirloom, grape and cherry tomatoes in yellows, purples, green and red, mingling like jewels beside giant milky pearls of mozzarella and emerald green basil, swimming in the lemony olive oil elixir complimented with crisp, grilled bread for dipping.  She had thought of everything. 

The platters and bowls gleamed with fresh goodness; the air hummed with lemon and basil and it brought a table of hungry professionals, some known to each other—none known to me—together.  By the end of our "Gourmorial" weekend, I hope they considered this wide-eyed and tongue-tied outsider a friend.  Food does that, doesn't it?  It is the gastromic glue that binds us.

Today, I trudged down to the dark, forgotten basement.  I wiped the dust from the boxes and found the heaviest one.  With all the joy of a kidlet at Christmas, I rendered off the packing tape and gasped at the contents, clasping each shiny cover to my chest as if I were reuniting with an old friend.  I fondly stroked the cracked spines and restored my gastro-porn to its pride of place on the bookshelves.  Yes, look at them now!  Back where they belong. (Roll  1983 Joe Cocker.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpYxZ-1PnlA&feature=related   Pour yourself a glass of cabernet, bite down on a wedge of apricot stilton and enjoy!)

 Cheers to gluttony, bon amie and renewed appetites. 

Bourdain, I’m coming to the party.