Tuesday 24 February 2015

Milestones

I went to sleep thinking about firsts - all the little firsts that add up to the building of a relationship. The first sighting. The first kiss. The first time to say "I love you". These milestones have been gobbled up at a rate of knots.

Then there are the ones which signify an actual significant relationship - first meeting of the family, for instance (although I don't make it such a big deal with my own father). But the first meal cooked for the panther's mother seemed like a pretty significant milestone (it went well - lovely afternoon and evening).  Living together. (This has always seemed like a massive step with much deliberation required - strangely this time we just did it because we really seemed to not want to sleep apart from the other - to which there was a simple solution - don't).  I used to feel possessive of my space but find I'm not with the panther. 

Last  week we passed the one that is about nursing one another through illness - I was struck down by food poisoning (vomiting, diahrea, and sometimes, sadly, both at the same time), once I felt just about back in the land of the living he came down with it. So we now have experience and knowledge of how to care for the other (neither of us is a hibernator who takes themselves off until they are well again). 

Monday 23 February 2015

50 Shades of Rubbish

Worth avoiding at a cinema near you now: Fifty Shades of Grey. This trilogy should stop believing its own hype.

So I read the first book. It was on the shelf of a lovely house in France where I was staying and we laid by the pool sunbathing for hours and I read all my books before the end of the holiday. So I read this just to see what it was like. I thought the writing was poor, the sex scenes were pretty repetitive and used some irritating terminology over and over. And in essence it was a love story where a virgin falls for a man and they eventually get it together. With some lightweight sado-mascicism thrown in - all be it in a female clichéd fantasy of red velvet 'play-rooms', leather horses and mechanical winching devices. I had no desire to find out what happened next.

We went to see the film. Out of interest. On a recommendation from some much younger people. The panther was the only man in the cinema. I found it somewhat boring. For a film classified as an 18 I didn't expect all the sex scenes to be truncated (never saw below his waist). I'm sure I've seen films with male full frontal before (I'm thinking of Room with a View and a party of naked men running round a bathing pond, or Eyes Wide Shut). I believe there has been female genital on film also (remember the hoopla of Sharon Stone's leg crossing in Basic Instinct). The film purportedly about sex with many sex scenes, turned out to be decidedly untitilating in any way. 

Little on screen chemistry, a totally unbelievable leading man (far too young, not half good looking or striking enough, unconvincing in the extreme) and a sort if rag doll of a leading lady who had little of the vulnerability of a supposed virgin. She was sort of just awkward. 

This had neither sex appeal, titilation (I'm not turned on by yuppy banker sorts and their steel and glass minimalist penthouses), nor the trappings of any fantasy. It reminded me too much of American Pyscho. 

Later in discussion with the youths who recommended it I realised that having seen much more film than them I have too many to compare it to that were more sexually appealing to me. I'm thinking perhaps of the French film The Hairdresser's Husband, scenes from Betty Blue, Daniel Day-Lewis in The Unbearable Lightness of Being or indeed in My Beautiful Launderette, parts of Room with a View. Even the fantasy of Moulin Rouge. I'm forgetting where the real sex appeal in film is perhaps but these come to mind as films that whetted the appetite. 

Too linear. Too little fantasy. No on-screen chemistry.

I'm upset that women are falling into this trap of thinking that its such a risqué fantasy to play a submissive to this powerful rich man. Isn't that just an old rehashed 1950s female desire (marry a man who will look after you, have children, be chained to the kitchen sink). Aren't there any more exciting, nay modern female fantasies we could explore?

Sunday 15 February 2015

Electric shock


I just got an electric shock from my cooker - I had to clean it after our mammoth marmalade making session yesterday. Marmalade is very sticky and it's hard not to get it places it shouldn't be when you are putting it in jars - I washed the cooker buttons and the hob. After this the igniter seemed to be stuck down because all the rings were sparking continuously even when lit. I foolishly pressed the ignighter button to see if I could flick it back out. It wasn't stuck in but I got an electric shock through my finger. In the best "don't know what to do" response that I have I'm going to turn of the cooker and leave it, hoping it will stop that silliness by tomorrow having dried thoroughly...

It turns out that this is indeed one of the perils of cleaning the cooker. Normality restored by morning when it had dried.

Tuesday 10 February 2015

One of those days

Its one of those days, packed into a crowded commuter train with view only of the details of those around you. And I want to advise them and neaten them up. Polish your shoes - they won't give you away then. Cream your hands. Get some cuticle cream and try not to chew them off. Mints will help your smoker's breath. Don't cuddle your cat with your coat on. Look at your face after you have shaved and towelled it dry - get rid of the towel flint. But I keep it to myself. Like the rest of the travelling hoards. 

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Transit

Crushed onto the Victoria line, front side crammed against a huge man's back - he is canoodling with his partner and being her rock, back side is providing support for a short stocky woman with a bag with very sharp corners. I'm holding the pole in the centre of the standing space for no particular purpose since I'm wedged in securely. Listening to the upper notes of a young man's music - he's enjoying it, me not so much. The train lurches to a stop, everyone jiggles about a bit, and big sigh, I can breathe again and stand on my own two legs.