POACHED? SCRAMBLED? FRIED? FERTILIZED?

This maybe a huge, great Thelma-and-Louise-off-a-cliff-leap here, but I think best-selling women’s fiction author, Jane Green and I are kindred spirits.  We are British ex-pats living in the north east of America--she in chic Westport, Connecticut, where I nannied for a brief orbit of the sun; me in Brooklyn and Pennsylvania. We’ve both spent considerable time in New York, we are/we have been married to Americans and we like the ritual of cooking: rich stews, fragrant casseroles, warm, farmy, comfort fodder!  The one great fat fly in the ointment is that she mothers arks full of children.  She even cooks for them all.  Whereas I… I’m gestating novels and not much else.

I suppose I have been thinking about this a lot lately as, not only have two girlfriends given birth in the last week, and six that I know about in the last year, but I am listening to Jane Green’s Babyville.  It’s a wee bit dated with pop-culture commentary, the heroines don’t text or tweet or FB at all, they drink lattes like they don’t contain 200+ calories, but the overall story supersedes these flinch-worthy retro references, because to me, it is about early thirties British females discovering the best of NYC food, cock and the unignorable tock of their biological clock. 

In Babyville we meet Sam—happily up the duff; Maeve—ruthlessly career-focused and unhappily up the duff; Julia—desperate to be up the duff, and as mad as a rather mad eye-rolling-cow circa 1998 rural England; and Bella the urban Manhattanite who—thus far—is plagued with neither dictatorial ovaries nor a pregnancy plotline.

I must confess, Julia, at first, was not a character I could really sympathize with.  With a fabulous career in TV production, and not exactly the most enviable relationship, why would she go so bat-shit-crazy that she would drop £200 at Boots Pharmacy (at a time) on pregnancy testing kits?  That’s just not rational.  That’s bonkers!  Think of the nice pair of tan-topped black leather riding boots she could buy with that?  The dress at Karen Millen?  The flight to Paris and back!  This, methought, is just the sort of lunatic that gives sane thirty-somethings a bad name, and makes men sigh and use the condescending phrase “women’s issues.”

Julia is, undoubtedly, held captive by her raging hormones and obsession to conceive, and her whack-job behaviour—picture her in a white sheet make-shift toga and penis-carved candles—loses her the sympathy of her partner, her colleagues and even, just a smidgen, her friends.

I have far, far more empathy with sharp-suited and pointy-toed Maeve.  She has drive, ambition and no time to think of anyone but herself, least of all a baby.

And then it happens.  The unthinkable.  After a few tequilas, there she is, in an unlit alley way, consoling Julia’s now ex-non-baby-daddy, a sympathetic snog, a grope and bing bang, bang, bang, boom, it’s an unwanted embryo.  Within weeks this well-put-together woman becomes the victim of her hormones, a screaming harridan, a chocolate fiend.  (I realised at this point in the story that I really miss English chocolate, particularly Picnic, Lion Bar and Double Decker.  FYI, Christmas Gift Purchasers.)

So I started thinking about the cliché: do women really have a biological clock?  What if some run really slowly, or some women don’t hear theirs because they are focused on something else and then, Brrrrinnnnnnnnnggggg it rings, but the time they hear it, it has been whacked to snooze so many times that now opportunity has passed and it’s too late, and heck, sorry sister, you were too busy la la-ing your own song… what then?  What?

The Duggar Tribe. 19 children and counting...
Seriously, her uterus must be the size of China.

A woman’s biological clock, so I understand, is triggered by the presence of certain hormones.  Some women obviously have more than others.  I’m thinking Ma Duggar and the Octo-mom are the Jose Canseco of the female egg world.  Is this age specific?  Frame specific?  Diet-specific?  Is it something that is influenced by those around you: all close friends spawning, and causing contagious ‘something-in-the-water’ breeding?  Is it affected by circadian rhythms?  The lunar phase?  The day light perceived and timed by magical receptors in our retinas, sending hormones surging and knickers a-plunging?  Or, is it something that is fired off into the stratosphere if you meet the right person?

Unlike men, women do have limited fertility.  Men have little age-related decline in fertility since they have stem cells that can produce semen all day long.  Yeah, thanks!  That’s one in the eye from Oh Great Creator/ Evolution/ Other.  Instead we are born with 2 million eggs and we never produce anymore, they just… DIE.  Like lemmings.  Every month.  There’s some dying right now… “AHHHHHhhhhhh!”  I can hear them.  30 to be precise.  30 a day.  1000 a month.  13,000 eggs a year.  Only 400 eggs get to ovulation in our lifetime, which means, by the time we hit 40ish, the larder is eggless, yolkless. 

That’s one sad little breakfast muffin with no eggs, just sausage.  (Make mine a soppressata with provolone, grazie!)

Is it any wonder women in their 30’s can become hob-knob-crackers-woof-and-trail-mix-nuts crazy?  Of course not, they have organs committing hari-kari everyday!  How would you feel?

And now we are living to an older age, and climbing the career ladder, more couples/singles are putting off spawning, but Egads! By mid-thirties 25% of women are infertile.  That's 1 in 4.  1 in fucking 4!  Did I mention lots of my friends have kiddos?  *Gulp*  As we age the number of eggs and the quality of eggs go down.  Infertility is an epidemic.  More western world people are visiting doctors for infertility issues, not heart disease or diabetes.  In.fer.tility.

Shit.  Maybe Julia was not so nutzoid, after all.  Maybe it is just fear that sends our biological clocks a-buzzing.  The urgent, unignorable wake up call that signals, “HOLY CRAP, we’re dying here.  Would you just throw us a bone, you selfish, work-obsessed bitch?”

Maybe the cliché biological clock is merely awareness.   As we age, we become aware of our limited availability to produce the perfect 2.4 pigeon-pair family.  And maybe the conception of this life-altering nugget of knowledge, fused with other factors is what primes the alarm.

I know it’s changed for me.  I know now that three meals a day are better than the one I felt so virtuous about eating.  I know that the less-than-one-hundred-pounds I weighed five years ago would have housed a womb about as welcoming as Wyoming.  I know now, that just because so-and-so has a brat who does not understand “no,” who constantly has a runny nose and sticky fingers—which he generously wipes on me—does not necessarily mean that all children (namely, mine) will be badly behaved; I understand that nurturing and educating a little bundle of cells can be the most miraculous gift one could give and receive.  A bundle I hope to teach compassion, to have passions, integrity and honour; to know French, some Italian, spellings, Capitals, Kings and Queens, inorganic chemistry, horse-riding, swimming; how to make creme brulee and risotto; and to say "lovely, smashing and super!"

Sure, awareness has me staring into the face of the alarm clock, like it is 4.29am and I wish I could sleep a little longer, but I can’t.  I close my eyes, but the anticipation holds me prisoner.  One can never lose consciousness in such circumstances. 

But there is a catalyst: a magical, mystical overriding element that speeds up time and suddenly it is 6am and the little tinny alarm is tolling like the bells in Notre Dame.  “The Bells, Esmeralda, the bells!”

And that, Dear Reader, finally, after years of falling for Non-Compatibles—whose Levis I shouldn’t touch, let alone their chromosomes—is knowing myself better: being more able to identify those I might be compatible with and whose genes I might like to comingle. 

I’m writing this because I’ve found the 180 degree change in me interesting.  I’m not speaking for womankind, just myself.  I understand there are many factors at work determining our instinct to follow our biological imperative.  I am sure those ladies so desperate to mother that they go to sperm banks and sign up for their carefully selected semen, feel their biological clock a-tocking just as strongly as if they had just met the Love-of-their-Life.  But I've needed the latter.

Will I be racing to Babys R Us and signing up for a registry?  Absolutely not.  (Sorry Mum.)  But maybe I’m paying more attention now.  Maybe there is more reason to?  Or maybe I am just some character in a Jane Green novel, who learns that there are some instincts that trump even work ethic.

Maeve: He has become, other than Viv, my most favourite person in the whole world, and I can’t think of a better person to be raising my child with.  I love the idea that my child will be half mine, and half his.  To be honest, I can’t think of a better combination.  Other than Steve McQueen, of course. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable with a person, other than my family.  You know, you’re my best friend.”  --I’m not sure quite what has come over me, because spontaneous outbursts of affection are really not my style, but I don’t think I ever really knew how important it was to have someone before.  And I don’t mean another half.  I just mean someone to share things with, someone like a best friend, or a brother, someone like him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Jane Green, Babyville

It's all gone dark, Mother.

It’s rather curious that I write contemporary women’s fiction.   I have been pondering this a lot lately, since the novels that have influenced me most this year have all been much, MUCH darker.  I wonder if this is an age thing, and now that I am wading into my thirties all things get just that smidgen more serious; or maybe it is a trend in the market, that I am, by chance, following; or maybe it is that I have hit a sink-hole in my life, and by reading about characters whom I would not change shoes with, even if they were Swarovski crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin’s, makes me feel better. 

Let’s examine the evidence:

It was in 2009/2010 that the then local indie bookstore manager, and great chum, Andrea, recommended Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale.  Weird title, thought I.  Doesn’t exactly look riveting.  But Andrea’s wise, doe-eyes lit up when she described it to me: “It’s the best book I have read all year.”  Now, I don’t get to read as much as I would like, so if I am going to commit to a 300+ page novel and invest my time in it, dang right I’m going with Andrea’s recommendation.

So I bought it.  I wish I had bought more books at Anthology.  I wish all Scrantonites had.  Then maybe the urban loft with red brick walls would still be filled with books, and the perpetual cough of the coffee machine and milk frother spluttering musically downstairs, rather than echoing with emptiness.  But I digress.

The book lay by my bedside.  Many times I crawled under the covers and managed a page before my roller blind eyelids would give up the fight.  So there it remained, within an arm's reach, to be buried alive by the incoming detritus of my life.

It wasn’t until this year, February 2011, I remembered I even had it.  I had traveled to Ind-ja with Indra, and there, at our hostess’s beautiful accommodations in Kerala, lay The Thirteenth Tale, well-thumbed with the spine almost calcified with use.  I was finishing a Jodi Picoult, Mum had insisted I read and I thought would be easy aeroplane material, so Indra sensed the latent possibilities of the book and got her mitts on it first.  She opened the cover and disappeared into its pages for days.

I popcorned through the rest of my novel, but every few pages I couldn’t resist peeking to my right to monitor the ever-more rapt-gaze of my friend beside me.  I finished my Picoult, but I didn’t start another.  I knew that I had to wait until Indra had finished so, finally, I could delve into the lauded literary fiction for myself.

And into the rabbit hole I fell, and was sucked under into the beautifully charted, appallingly hideous world of Vida Winter.   The first person narrative is not from Vida, however, but a bookshop owner’s daughter, Margaret, selected by Vida to write her biography.  The unbelievably believable tale of inbred identical twins born to the sister and brother of a country estate just begins the twisted saga that is to infect, fester, and bloom like gangrene. 

I turned the pages rapidly, eyes-filled and repelled with these unnatural visions, yet bulging hungrily for more.   Yes, I was in India.  Yes, the tea gardens, the tiger preserve, the chaotic squeeze of the city were fascinating, but all I wanted was to sit on the veranda overlooking the mountains, and think about what kind of Crazy would possibly cut through flesh and carve initials on his own living bone?  Gruesome, huh?  And I’m the type of person who can’t even watch the ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs!

The trend continued with Audrey Niffenneger’s Her Fearful Symmetry.  This book didn’t seem to reach the acclaim of her previous novel, The Time Traveller’s Wife, but I was spellbound, enraptured, indivisible from each thick cream hardback page.  This is a haunting tale of identical twins (yes, twins, again.  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice), who, following their aunt’s untimely death, travel to Highgate, London, to receive her estate.  Robert downstairs, the deceased’s fiancé, looks after the younger versions of his much-missed Love. 

It is a beautifully-written and conceived story.  I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I never thought I was ‘into’ ghost stories.  The idea of gaggles of invisible dead people watching me as I shower, as I exercise, as I eat peanut butter from the jar in front of Facebook at 1am?  No thank you.  But this is Blithe Spirit-post-anesthetic-trippy-woo-eye-opening-conscious-altering!  Yup, that’s an adjective.

Lastly, the voice of Susie Salmon, “as in the fish,” is the one that is currently haunting me.  Okay, so I am just a tad late to the party with Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, but GAH!  Holy gollywonkers!  Alice Sebold is the Queen of Dark.  Not in a self-conscious, overly grandiose way.  She does not spill the guts in a gratuitous style.  Her frank writing delivered by Susie's forever-fourteen year old voice has me gripping the steering wheel--the knuckles and valleys of my clenched fists tight and bone white, even at 30 mph.  Yes, I am listening to this one.  My ears have sucked up eight CDs in two days.  I have three left in which I hope Susie Salmon’s killer will be found and her family patched together, but knowing Sebold, she’s bound to twist the knife right in my cochlea.

This descent in darkness has me unraveling, deconstructing my writing and plotting novels I know cannot end happily ever after.  Is it age?  Is it just a trend?  No.  I think it is just the effect of great writing, and how it influences a receptive mind.  So buckle up, Dear Readers, I think it’s going to get pretty gritty.

IRON TEETH

Both Orpheus and Eurydice

She runs, but must look back.

Her limbs flounder incapable,

As she trips over the track. 

Whack!

Her face strikes the railing,

But its marble doesn’t crack,

The skin itself submits

To this cold and rusty rack.

A colourless cheek hugs the iron

Impressed upon her skin,

As the desperation drains out

So does the fight to win.

In an iron grate,

She waits, numbed for

Her fatal Fate.

She hears it.

The slow, soporific chug

And rocking vibration,

A lullaby in her iron cradle.

The hooded executioner,

With rotating steely blades,

Approaches, head down, charging,

To Him she must obey.

Her eyes close, catatonic.

All is noise – pneumatic, mechanic

Movement up and down,

Pistons driving the motion,

Towards her sacrificial devolution.

Round and round,

Louder and Louder,

Closer, closer, closer….

The metal screech that curdles,

Brakes applied, but it still hurtles

Towards murder, it is certain.

Her eyes flash wide and frozen,

As she looks into its face

She gasps at the sheer waste,

Why didn’t she just race

Towards him keeping wits about?

Why did she have to look back?

But the blades lick the track,

And it’s too late to stop ‘em,

She’s nods at her fate--

It’s the countdown conundrum.

Out of time, she is sliced and swallowed whole,

And the armoured train just surges on.

I'm WAITINGGGGGGGGGGG!

On Sunday, someone, somewhere wasted my time.  My valuable time.  I'm not saying it was any more valuable than yours--well, to me it was--but it was my Sunday time.  Time that I could have remained at brunch with mes amigas.  Not only did I cut short this pleasant Sabbath rendez-vous, but I held back; declining the mimosa, bloody Mary, and bellini, because I am professional and wanted to be on time for my appointment. 

Instead, I gulped down gulletsful of inextravagant, bitter coffee.  I listened with half an ear, checking my phone for the time, letting the conversation fog my hearing, as Brain rehearsed the lines I would have to recall later.  I barely participated in the fast-paced chat, the camaraderie of four friends starved of each others’ company.  I gasped monosyllables between mouthfuls of omelet and small pauses for breath.  I nodded like a dashboard dolly, and retreated tortoise-like into my work-world.

The feta, red pepper and spinach omelet hardly hit the sides and was devoured at record, unsavoured, speed.  I kissed cheeks, left money and ricocheted out of the door.  I drove through the rain, unpacked the hefty cases from the car, tottered up the stairs to the front door, rang the doorbell and…

No one was there.

I had left messages confirming the appointment, had stood on the pavement a week before, shaking the woman’s hand, agreeing, with beaming smiles, the date, the time, the specifics.  And yet, she was not there.  My cell phone held no garbled excuses.  She simply had not shown up.

Days later and the bile still bubbles.   I’m pissed.  I’m really pissed.  I’m as pissed as a cow left standing in a cramped stall, knee-deep in shit, unable to walk away because its udder is caught in the milker.  It’s not that it hurts exactly, it’s just feckin’ annoying and DISRESPECTFUL.

Dad—he Who Shall Not Be Named, because the internet is E-ville and, he’s not paranoid, but everyone is out to get him, and me, and any information I volunteer on the web will surely lead to my being raped and murdered and my thin and frail body torn limb from limb, (probably left by railway tracks)—has a military background.  (Please E-ville internet, don't prove him right.) He plans with military precision.  He is always early, never late, and, according to Dad, if you are on time, then you are late. 

So Dad instilled this Dickensian credo into my head from a very early age, and I learned that if I was late, I better be bleeding from some unstaunchable wound, preferably, my eyes or femoral artery.  It’s just the way it goes. 

But times change.  I used to be five minutes early.  Always.  Now?  Not so much.  In fact, as I have aged, so has my timing.  It could even be described as a little on the vintage side, BUT here’s the difference: we have mobile phones now, so if, when, I know I am going to be late, I phone and I apologise, and I tell the waiting party when I will arrive.  I feel that this is a common courtesy.

Hello! Yes, running late. I seem to have lost my trousers.

Sure, would it better practice to stick to Dad’s rule?  Absolutely!  But, I’m not Dad, and I am inconveniently side-tracked as often as British Rail.  So hurrah for the modern cellular device!  I should have “I’m on my way. Be with you in 5 mins,” saved to my favourites!

Crikey, we even have email, text, pager, twitter, FB…blah, blah, etc., etc., THERE IS NO NEED TO LEAVE SOMEONE DANGLING.  Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if you fib and tell me your alarm didn’t go off, or you couldn’t find your car keys, or you forgot you had a dental appointment.  I don’t care!  Just text me! 

Be creative!  Tell me you were too busy frolicking in bed with Ryan Gosling, who just so happened to knock on your door last night for a cup of milky Ovaltine, and held you captive ever since.  Message me that you were single-handedly damming a river and saving a drowning beaver!  Leave me a voicemail that the Ellen Show just called and they are flying you out to California to appear in a contest because you possess the cartoonishly horrifying 'skill' of opening metal cans with your teeth.  I’d just be happy to know that you respect me enough to make up a great lie so I am not left waiting.

When someone doesn’t text/call/send up smoke signals, they are clearly not thinking of you and believe their shit is more important than yours. 

I have a special name for this type of person who thinks the world revolves around them, and is too rude to take a second out of their busy schedules to text/call you and tell you that they are not coming/ will be late… a WANKER.

Yes, a Wanker.  There’s some regular Anglo-Saxon for you.

After a spoiled Sunday Brunch, sans mimosa, I got thinking about all the many and varied ways my time had been wasted and I had been left waiting, and how crappy, unwanted and unvalued this had made me feel.

Time Wankers, when you don’t show up, when you don’t call to say you are running late, do you realise you have an impact?  Do you understand the ramifications of your inactions?  I’m not being over the top, you have an effect.  As I turned from the unopened door on Sunday, heaving my heavy bags down the perilous apartment stairs, as I schlepped the cases back in the boot of the car and drove down the road, a frustrated tear breached my defences.  I didn’t crash, but I could have. 

I know, not everyone who is late deserves the TW title.  There are different degrees of Time Wankerage.  I’ve narrowed it down to these basic categories:

Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW-Offenders

Sub-genre: Blatant-Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW-Offenders

Random-You-are-taking-the-Piss-TW-Offenders

And then, the Major-League-Bastard-Face-Slow-Death-Son-Of-A-Bitch-TW-Offenders.

I know quite a few Serial-and-thus-Expected-TW’s.  It’s annoying, but you learn pretty quickly to antipicate their lateness.  I have even made it rewarding and placed bets on their tardy timekeeping. They will blow in, 15 minutes late, gasping for breath, “having a bad hair day,” or complaining about the traffic.  Really, it amounts to bad planning.  Serial TW, you should have got up 15 minutes earlier, or you should have not taken that last phone call just as you were leaving. 

I probably—alas—I definitely, fall into this category, so I’m not being a sanctimonious dickshit.  However, I do text/call ahead, so no one is dangling.  I like to believe this saves me from complete, irredeemable Time Wankerage.

Maybe, I'm the virtuous version.  I know, I try to pack too much in, and there’s my downfall.  However, there are Blatant Serial TW’s.  For example: people who say, “Honey, we’ll go after the game. There’s only 10 minutes left of the quarter.”

Listen, Chump, you are blatantly lying!  10 minutes in any sport, especially American Football, is NEVER 10 minutes.  You are just leaving your poor partner dangling because you want to sit your idle arse on the sofa, and you don’t want to shop.  You are probably secretly hoping for overtime, aren’t you?   You have your fingers crossed--hidden down your trousers--that she will sigh, shrug, shoulder her handbag and go without you.  You may be in touch, giving constant commentary on the state of the game and the minutes and seconds left, but if you know 10 minutes really means a whole feckin’ hour, please respect her time.  She could be doing something interesting.  Like licking the windows.

You-Are-Taking-The-Piss-TW-Offender

Funnily enough, ma amiga told a tale at brunch, that illustrates this type of oblivious disrespect, wonderfully.  Picture the scene: a lush, green animal-rescue haven nestled between creek and hillside somewhere in the wilds of northeast PA.  The farm is home to ma amiga and her menagerie of animals she has saved from perilous fates.  Let’s not mince words: death.  She has saved them from death, often nasty, painful, slow, neglectful death.   So here she is, this one-woman band, grateful for volunteers and donations for her non-profit. 

Out of the blue she was contacted by someone, somewhere, who wanted to come and see the animals.  The someone, somewhere, it turned out was traveling quite a distance to visit, so ma amiga kindly offered her the guest bedroom.  She’s a nice lass, ma amiga.

The guest bed was made up, dinner was prepared, wine was bought--the nearest State Liquor Store being over an hour away--and other guests were invited to welcome this visitor.  All was ready and waiting.  Waiting being the inoperative word.  Ma amiga, grew red-faced for her guest, as the minutes ticked by, accompanied by the sounds of hungry stomachs gargling.  An hour passed.  Another hour passed.  At what hour the visitor telephoned, I don’t recall--I was gulping coffee and omelet as the story flowed—but she did call, several times, to say “I’m coming, be there soon.”  Fine, fair enough.  If it were true.  But IT WASN’T!

The night drew in, the heavens opened, the fire was lit, the dinner got burned, the dinner got cold, the dinner was eaten, and FIVE HOURS after the appointed time, the visitor walked in.  No apology.  No seeming embarrassment, just an 11pm energy and hunger to demolish everything in sight, including a whole bottle of wine.

To add her already alarming Time Wankerage, the visitor tried her best to completely shanghai ma amiga and make her complicit in her TW shenanigans.  In the morning, the laggard would not get out of bed, in spite of the fact that the whole point of her retarded trip was to visit the animals!  Ma amiga had specifically told the visitor that she needed to leave to get to her appointment on time, but Visitor’s inert and then slow-moving oblivion, made ma amiga’s well-planned morning, a trying one.  That’s TW 1-0-1.

Major-League-Bastard-Face-Slow-Death-Son-Of-A-Bitch-Time-Wankerage-Offenders.

Wow, that’s quite some title you have to earn there.   What do you expect?  We are out of the Minors here.  This is full-frontal effrontery.  Someone who disrespects you to your face.  Who smiles and says they will be somewhere or do something without any intention of it ever being so. 

I hear of many of these TW's in the workplace.  Bonuses dangled and held ransom.  The end prize held captive by an inefficient, nonchalant party, happy to just let you hop from foot to foot like a constipated pigeon.

MLBFSDSOBTW is not reserved for bosses and obstructive co-workers, but it can rear its retarded head in relationships too: to the friend who has been dating her chap for ten years and he STILL won’t commit… he’s a Wanker; to ma amiga who has had to serve papers twice, because he STILL won’t sign… he’s a Wanker; to the girl, struck dumb with disappointment, waiting for something to change, but he never notices… you are the Wanker, because you have to make the change, or say or do something!

It is an over-used expression nowadays, but the phrase, “He’s just not that into you,” can fit most TW scenarios.  Whether dating or not, when you enter into a relationship with someone, be it business, friendship, marriage, there are rules of engagement.  These are unstated, but generally the rule is that, if you want to retain the services/good feeling/ sexual favours in said relationship, then you treat the person with respect.  You don’t leave them dangling, penis or pencil in hand.  If you are late, or busy, or aren’t interested, TELL THEM.  Then time can be spent more productively working/socializing/shagging someone else.

I’m probably being just a smidgen hypocritical here.  Have I left people dangling?  Err… Jeremy Paxman “Yesssss,” but, my time management, or lack thereof, is never meant maliciously.  And funnily enough, it is often those I care most about who see the Ennie McLatekins, because I know/I hope that they know, I am doing my headless poultry thing, trying to catch rain with my fingers splayed, whilst juggling ten feral, rabid cats. 

Mum and Dad, when you phone me and I bark down the phone, “I’M VERY BUSY,” I am sorry.  Please don’t take it personally, it’s just … I am trying so very hard to get things done, to meet deadlines and people, to be on time and not let anyone down, to not be a Time Wanker, that I end up being Barky the Bitch.  I’m really trying to do what you taught me and be respectful of everyone else.

We are all busy.  I understand that.  But next time you know that someone, somewhere is waiting for you, be kind and tell them straight.  Don’t be a Time Wanker.  Daddy wouldn’t like it.

MEG RYAN, YOU BEEN LYIN'! In which I discuss the Performing Seal School of Orgasms

I have always been fascinated by the “Yes, Yes, Yes!” scene in When Harry Met Sally.  You know the one I mean: the 80’s tousled, curly-haired, non-plastically-puckered duckie, Meg Ryan, claims that women can fake an orgasm and no man would ever know; where she, in the middle of the restaurant, throws her head back and exclaims wails of delight for the delectation of Katz’s diner.

It’s a fun scene.  But, you know what, it’s a lie.  A big, fat, cream-cheese-slathered, lox-layered, pumpernickel bagel of a lie, that sets up man and womankind for disappointment.  Man, since he expects his cohorts to warble arias of ecstasy; and we ladies, because we see Ryan’s over-zealous display and wonder… “Are we missing something?”

So, it’s time to eat bagel!  I want to break it down and to discuss why it’s hard for me to swallow.  (No, it’s not because I picked pumpernickel.)  And chaps, since this dating punditry is supposed to be educational, please sharpen your pencil and take note.

Women can orgasm without a murmur.  FACT.  The electrical impulses catapulting across neurones can make us watery-eyed and breathless, perhaps even groan, but most highly-satisfied women don’t NEED to howl and/ or give a running commentary.

Of course, if you look down (or up!) to see your mate gazing out of the window, or perhaps at the TV behind your head, or—Heaven forfend—texting, then chances are, they are not really giving you their all.  But, generally, if you pay attention and listen to them breathing, you’ll know.

So, when a stranger –obviously straight out of Charm School—asked me,

“Hey Cutie,”—yes ‘Cutie!’ The Dicktard alert already started to clang—“are you a moaner or a screamer?” I realized that the When Harry Met Sally or WHMS fallacy had, indeed, been far-reaching.  I also realized that any stranger who would open with such a question was quite, quite deserving of my derision, my filthiest glare, my lean in and my, “You can be assured that you will never know, Dicktard.”  (I held my glass of wine close; it really was far too good to waste on him.)

So, in search of the truth, and eager to right the wrongs of the relationshipworld, I conducted sophisticated and scientifically insignificant research!  Namely, I polled my girlfriends!  It was quite the Pandora's Box.

I selected at random, a panel of ten 30-42 year old professionals, some in committed relationships, some dating, some committed to the asylum.  I asked the following:

1)      When having an orgasm—A REAL orgasm—do you: stonewall/breath loudly/ murmur appreciatively/exclaim at the important bits/exclaim throughout/wail like a Banshee? Honey and lemon for you, m’lady!

2)      On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Martha Mute and 10 being Wailing Wendy, and you can’t pick 5, how loud do you think you are?

3)      When a chap asks for verbal instructions—I know, typical!  The one time you don’t want a guy to ask for directions!—do you: enjoy giving full colourful commentary as to when, where, how and how much, using expletives, adjectives and maybe even an ode to his Trouser Truncheon?; or, do you cringe, inwardly die a bit, and proceed with the Marcel Marceau guide; or, do you flame with embarrassment, swallow your tongue, eye-bulge in manner of a rutting deer caught misguidedly following lunar inclination to the median of I-81, because he should be able to tell what you like; like he should your coffee (strong, but milky), or what type of pasta you like, (angel hair, regardless of the sauce) and engagement rings, (cushion cut emerald, F.Y.I).

I put the survey to the panel, worried about asking friends such personal questions, and then I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  It seems ladies, unsurprising, don’t holler out about their personal mating habits.  Other than the fact, “yes, I’m getting fucked. Quite regularly as it happens,” we don’t really discuss the nitty gritty.  “You are?  That’s wonderful!  Is it good?  Are you happy?” is really about as far as we go, in spite of what Sex And The City would have you believe.  But some brave ladies did come forward and results were recorded. 

Oh please bludgeon me.

Okay, so a bit of laundry here.  I am not a performing seal.  I was, once, for a children’s theatre company.  It was generally humiliating and demeaning.  I wore a seal costume, a pink tutu and bounced balls off my head, whilst “arfing” and clapping my fins together.

This is what I think of when women do the WHMS Performing Seal School of Orgasms.  And I think that this is what men have come to expect: a raise-the-roof, volley of superlatives, squeals, shrieks and general displays of delirium, but what say the panel...

The consensus was that there was no consensus!   In fact, in spite of giving multiple choice answers, the women who polled wrote their own!  Which just goes to show what complex creatures we are. Some are quiet, the lowest vocal score being 3, and some are vocal, the top score being a 9 out of 10 on the audio cues; but, the amplitude can be subject and situation specific.  For instance, if the kiddos are tucked in bed it’s going to be more of Marcel Marceau kind of evening; a tent in the woods surrounded by festival goers, likewise; a well-insulated chalet  in the Alps, with roaring fireplaces, fur rugs and cheese fondue avec l'homme dans les reves, it’s safe for wild abandon. 

Often it comes down to comfort level.  The greater the comfort, the louder the display.  (And by comfort, I mean trust, familiarity and connection.  Okay, the Southern kind can come into it too!)  However, even the shyer Lesser Vocalists stated their quietness was not dissatisfaction.  Au contraire, it was a sign of them concentrating, clenching their muscles, trembling, surfing waves of delight.  “When I am close, I can’t actually say a thing, my brain isn’t in that place, I just have to remember to keep breathing.”

Getting some tips. Yes, I know, it's a sea lion. Same difference.

Being a Biologist-actress-writer, I need to understand the wailing seals more clearly.  My brain wanders to the evolutionary significance; the actress ponders, “What’s my motivation here?”  Are the squeals a manifestation of frustrated teenage cheerleading pyramid dreams?  Are they genuinely the sounds that bubble from the pit of one’s pleasure-making factories to aid reproduction in some way?  Is it all a show to encourage the mate, so the whole process will be quickly dispatched in time for tea and a cookie and the results of Dancing With The Stars?  OR, is it just an attention-grabbing advertisement to inform anyone with hearing that yes, you are having sex, that, bully-for-you, someone finds you desirable.  Is there some sexual selection advantage garnered by advertising desirability?  I suppose so, but then surely that would make virgins undesirable and that’s clearly a crock-of-shit. 

I’ve only had my own experiences, and my Hollywood brainwashing to compare before, but from the Panel's feedback--and they had a lot to say on the subject, ironically--in bed, full sentences and coherent words are a ph-allacy; loud gasps, breathing and random, incoherent words, that’s the sweet spot.

Do animals have orgasms?  Dolphin, Bonobos and Homo Sapiens have sex recreationally.  I don’t mean in parks—although, wait, they do have sex in parks, well, not dolphins, unless you count Sea World—but I mean for fun, not necessarily for procreation.  I wonder, does Flipper make those weirdy little clicks as she comes?

I remember visiting the Animal Kingdom at Disney when I was about 14.  I watched amazed to see two giant turtles getting jiggy with it and them being so vocal in the process.  The groans went on for ages and climaxed to quite the crescendo of turtle tantra.  At that age, the concept of sex was fascinating to me—I’d seen Dirty Dancing and Top Gun; I was quite, quite in love with the England Rugby team and certain that I would, someday, meet and marry my hero, the 6ft 6 Gargantuan, Tim Rodber.  (Erm, I did meet him, in fact, but the whole marriage proposal thing flew off the table I believe when, giddy with excitement and chardonnay, I vomited over my shoes and his somewhere in Fulham.) 

I went to a girls’ school—a school sans boys!—so rainy breaks would often be spent, wide-eyed as we read passages from Jilly Cooper’s Riders or Polo, smuggled in from someone’s mum’s bookshelf.  We salivated over the Bastardly "Rupert Campbell Black" and hoped, someday, we would meet our own RCB and then this new magical world would be revealed to us: one that would set off fireworks, rocket launchers, that would blast us into the sensation stratosphere.  I had high hopes that future me would actually be desirable, that I might—oh please, dear God make it so—fill a bra, and that I would be fabulous at this strange, sweaty, tangle of limbs.

And I hoped that when this new adult pleasuredome opened to me, that it would be with someone who knew what they were doing.  Maybe this is my true blue repressed Brit bit rearing its prudish head, but “No thank you!  I don’t not want to tell you what to do, and I most certainly do not want to ‘talk dirty to you.’”  It’s scary and exposing, and quite frankly, the idea of conjuring amusing adjectives and analogies is my idea of awkward and embarrassing.

But, as the Panel pointed out, I should make a distinction between “giving helpful instruction—otherwise you could be waiting around all day and really that helps no one,” and “making a porno.”  It seems the Panel encourage instruction-- if the poor guy is too dumb to pick up on your breathing/gasping/writhing cues—but it should be done after the fun and games.  Perhaps during pillow talk. 

Am imagining a little post performance review here, like giving acting notes, “Well, George, I love that thing you did with your tongue, but just as I was starting to really get into the groove, you kept changing it up.  Not cool, George, not cool.  This only leaves both of us frustrated.  If you really want me to be Mrs Clooney, I definitely need more tongue and patience.”  Helpful advice, surely saving time and effort.   

A panelist, let’s call her “Rodericka,” answered that she finds men who ask for instructions during sex “EXTREMELY ANNOYING!  Unless,” she added, “he has had an epic fail and then you have to do something to rescue the situation and raise his spirits.  But ONLY in emergencies.  When absolutely necessary.”

“Now, as for ‘dirty talk’ if he wants to express his appreciation, then that can be nice.  As long as it is well worded.”  No pressure, guys.  Another fabulous female wrote “sex should be dirty, but it doesn’t have to be theatrical and certainly not pornographic.  I'm also not willing to coo and purr and name things that already have names.”  I couldn’t agree more.  Cringeville. 

Most of my girlfriends know the words to “Talk Dirty To Me” and can sing the song with gusto after a shotski or two, but really, when it comes down to it, the majority say, "please don’t."  A simple whispered “I love you,” is all most need to seal the deal.

So, you might be thinking, “wow, the Brit’s are really stiff” (or not, as the case may be,) but when confronted with Drunky McCharming’s question it really annoyed me that a) he deigned to ask me and b) that he was assuming I would act in a certain way.  My little scientific survey proved, if not statistically, that women do react differently, and, just to complicate matters, we react differently with the same person in a different situation, at different times of the month.  We don’t all toss our heads back and cry, “Yes, YES, YES!” But you never know when we might howl at the moon.