Prague and provinciality

I don't know why it is that I keep hitting my head against the same brick wall, but there's no doubt about it:  I'm stuck.  Counsellors call this habit of constantly pondering the same thing (willingly or by way of a kind of "mean-thoughts-invasion") 'ruminating'.  Which is suitably evil-sounding, enough to make you feel ashamed and humiliated, which makes their job easier - more stuff to do for them!  Maybe it's my own fault for watching SATC re-runs.  Maybe it's just that I cannot accept that life will always have to be this dull and meaningless (though I know, Francis Bacon did try to warn me) and I am desperate and determined to fight that inevitability until I get it in some kind of 'lock-down' on the floor, begging for mercy.  Maybe it's just that I need a lobotomy because humans weren't meant to get clever enough to realise the futility of their own lives and the trap of poverty they are most likely to get caught in, because it only leads to self-destruction.  

I was thinking about erasing that last line, but this is something I was discussing today, how women are not allowed to accept and acknowledge a strong quality in themselves because it comes across as aggressive.  It is not acceptable for me as a woman to say, "I'm clever."  However, I feel it's all gone too far, when you've suffered the bullying, the ostracism, the perpetual 'not fitting in' of being intelligent, that you aren't allowed to say, "damn, I'm clever and I know I am".  It's outrageously boastful and uncouth.  Is this just a British trait, or do we all suffer from this necessity for self-deprecation and is it only women who are subjected to it?

I feel compelled to explain that I'm not suggesting I'm extra clever, or remarkably intelligent, just clever enough to notice and analyse the injustices in life, as well as know I've screwed things up and blown all my chances (what few I have had) due to bad timing, ill-health and a lack of awareness equalled only by my lack of support, about how to go about pursuing the kind of career I wanted.  And now, it's too late.  I've got myself caught so far in the pit of failure, there really does appear to be no way out.  I didn't adapt fast enough, I didn't recognise the possibilities that were really there soon enough and I didn't have enough money after moving my piano (which I'd wanted all my life but only got when I was 21, so it was hard to part with) from house to house to be able to afford to do frequent recording or gigs as well.

So, I shall always envy the fictional world of SATC, where even in the bad old early days, when no-one had so much as a decent pair of earrings, let alone shoes, they had their high paying jobs, one of which allowed her to write her opinions in a creative way for a living, and their apartments in Manhattan and their highlighted hair and copies of Vogue and The New Yorker.  I read the New Yorker online today, or at least a couple of articles from it, and looked at the lovely and inspiring illustrations, but I can't afford a regular copy, or subscription.  And I can't afford their delightful desk diaries or book of paintings or drawings of New York which have graced their front covers over the years.  And I don't live anywhere near such a vibrant city.  I know Prague is a regional-seeming little place.  It's not rough around the edges, just dog-earred with neglect (in places).  

What I fear the most, right now, is that Prague and I are almost the same and always will be:  A good idea with lots of potential for inspiration, but too beaten down by the past and a prolonged case of underfunding to ever escape its provincial roots.

Comforts, croissants and Columbo

This may be the last opportunity I have for a while to write and post to my blog, as I'm going on holiday.  Or at least, that's the idea.  It's down to the architect that I can go anywhere at all, but I fear my idea of a holiday really does differ with his so much, and, more importantly, his sensitivity and insecurity about that fact is so acute, that I wonder if we'll both emerge at the end of the week still together.  On the one hand, we need each other really, so it would take a lot to push us apart, but on the other hand, we've both been through hell in our own ways and need some of our 'default comforts' to get us through. 

My default comforts can take the form of any of the following:

1) Reading magazines, newspapers and books that have intriguing things to say, or artistic and creative views on life.

2) Dressing up (which I don't have the time to do as eccentrically as I'd like to most of the time) including wearing stupidly high heels (I WANT to wear my $9 shoes from Delancey in Manhattan, goddammit!) or ridiculous colours of nail polish or provocative lipstick (or just bright pink lipstick when I'm wearing all black, just to scare people off) and strange belts, bags or jackets.  Most of which I won't be able to indulge in on this kind of holiday.  (We're supposed to be climbing up mountains for god's sake...)

3) Singing or playing the piano (well, not so much piano, as keyboard these days of course.  Days since I last played a real piano: 303) and that's certainly not possible on this kind of holiday.  Unless I start singing 'this torturous existence, examine my persistence...' while walking up a mountain.

4) Watching silly comedy programmes, or comedy or action films, or better still, those films that combine the two, such as 'Bad Company'.  (But I'm quite partial to thrillers and the occasional hard-hitting drama too.)

5) Going out for a good but simple meal with a glass of red wine (or two) to wash it down with.  Or even staying in and eating the same in front of the above mentioned kind of home entertainment.

6) Staying in bed till late and having croissants for breakfast and a newspaper by my side.

It strikes me that some of these things are rather anti-social, so I will simply have to try and fit them in to my time when I return and have to slowly ease myself back into proper work again.  So I will do my usual trick of probably annoying the architect by dressing up too much (but I feel certain he secretly likes it, it's just it makes him uncomfortable that I look like I belong at an artists and musicians' dinner party, not in a mountain town in the south of the Czech Republic.)  But I keep reminding him, "No, I don't belong ANYWHERE.  That's the point."  I never have, and I think I'm old enough to know now, I never will.

Oh, and I am saddened to read that Peter Falk has died.  Watching re-runs of Columbo was another 'default comfort' of mine when I was back in Blighty.  I even read his book, a sort of memoir with his own illustrations.  Fascinating man.  It's just so horrid that he got struck down with the evil Alzheimer's.  He just seemed to be one of those incredibly sweet, avuncular types who is not only kind, but very intelligent.

So anyway, I must gather my things into some bags and head off into the day hoping the architect and I can find some reasonable compromise for both of us about what to do with our time.  I'm running out of time now and I really want to be a little more organised today than I was yesterday.  Yesterday seems too complicated and stressful to even go into now.  

A brief summary would be: 

Repulsive meet-ee continues to be arrogant to the point of hilarity, other meet-ees all later attest to my being the best at the job they'd ever had.  Then printer ink runs out, traipse across town for replacement cartridge, come back with only possible available ink cartridges, only to find that despite filing the damned thing down, convinced that would foil the scam of overpriced replacement cartridges, even when it physically fits, the printer says, "no".  30 quid down the drain.  Then end of evening round-up and appraisal of work with boss at institution I've now left.  Managed to be convincing enough, despite gaps in quality of work at times, which I feel were in accordance with lack of adequate appreciation and indeed, salary.  All conducted under absolutely necessary influence of small glass of wine and garlic-tastic salad.  (I did try to lean back away from her as I talked...) Culminating in accounting skills of admin girl inadvertently giving me a small pay rise.  Decided not to alert her to that fact.  End of evening splendid chat with the Faerie godmother trainee (who, incidentally is responsible for the fact that I can now post photos again) and subsequent chat with a very ill sounding architect, who revealed we would indeed be staying in a hotel tonight.

Right, that's it.  I'm off.  Onwards and upwards....

Concorde and other marvels

I put up my old poster of Concorde flying past Manhattan in my bedroom today and somehow I've cheered right up.  It's probably superimposed and it's certainly a bit of a cliché, but there is something pure about the idea behind Concorde, however capitalist a symbol it is to have a picture of it flying over a very 80s-looking Manhattan.  The innovation that was Concorde shouldn't be forgotten.  Who'd have predicted a step backwards in aviation such as losing the possibility of getting from London to New York in 5 hours?  Progress is never constant.

Not that I would ever have been able to afford to fly in it though.  It was horrifically elitist, but I'm still glad that it existed; that some people were able to use it.  I wouldn't begrudge anyone that privilege.  It was just reassuring to know that it was something you could do, travel from London to New York so quickly.  You wouldn't lose anytime at all, flying in that direction.  New York is five hours behind London, so you'd get there at the same time that you left.  That must've felt like a kind of space-age time-travel in itself.

The fuel consumption was pretty astronomical though and I suppose one or two people in high places realised that there were more efficient ways of making money.  A Boeing 747 to name just one.  Get a few people to fly first class on that, and you're making a killing, surely?  This doesn't seem right in this day and age of climate change and global warming, but I've got a soft spot for aeroplanes.  They are undoubtedly extraordinary feats of engineering and harmony with the laws of physics.  Of which I know absolutely nothing, but that doesn't stop me from marvelling at them.  (And reminiscing fondly of the time I once got to fly a small one.  Not for long, and only at a safe height when the plane was virtually flying itself, but that's the point, really.  Get a plane to the right altitude and speed and it really is quite happy to fly itself.  That's what it's built to do.)

New Yorku, Miluji Tě

I got so desperate today, that I found myself not only listening to Limp Bizkit and making rash decisions, but I also ended up drawing a rough map of New York and told a couple of meet-ees about where things were.  Mostly the airports.  Which is kind of stupid.  But it made me feel closer to it somehow, as though it isn't unimaginable that I could go back there one day.  It's rather sad that I've been fantasising about the place so much lately.  I think it's just the spring weather that brings it on and makes me think of what a good time of year it is to go there.

I also miss the idea of that kind of creative holiday of wandering around museums and the park and buying coffees (or iced coffees in warm spring weather) and reading newspapers and magazines, and above all, indulging in some people-watching.  I would kill for that right now.

Instead, I shall have to face the demands of the strait-jacketers around me and keep my fantasies to myself.

But just for old time's sake, here are a few fond corners of New York I wouldn't have wanted to miss, not least for the daily diary-writing at the cafe, which culminated in a typical New Yorker, "Good luck with the writing" comment from a random fellow coffee-drinker:

Where else would you get blue sky in EVERY picture?  I even miss travelling on the  rather 'ghetto' JMZ train.  The view as it ambled across to Manhattan from Williamsburg was truly a delight in itself.  I just hope they haven't done a 'Northern Line' kind of re-vamp on it or something awful like that.  I don't think New York can take any more 'disney-fying', quite honestly.  It's just not her style.