Me and camera three

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."  Steve Jobs

It's so sad that I only got to read this today because Steve Jobs died.  Why hadn't I read this quotation before?  I am reassured by the fact that someone so successful thought the same as me about work.  I can't come anywhere near his level of success, but maybe I can at least try to match his dedication.

I'm certainly putting in the hours.  Today was supposed to be mostly a day off, but it's not possible when I've got such a full-on day to prepare for tomorrow.  I spent all afternoon, and I mean all afternoon just doing the necessary admin and prep work!  To nesnáším!

At least I managed to post a couple of old songs and videos to the ReverbNation website and had a little reminder of the day I spent in front of old BBC cameras that moved forward and back around me like dancing daleks (with red 'recording' lights instead of plungers).  I remember camera three was the 'close up' camera.  It danced towards me from time to time and then its light came on...  What a strange relationship.  'Me and camera three.'  It even rhymes.

Postal failures and other dramas

"Little things break, circuitry burns, time flies while my little world turns, every day comes, every day goes, a hundred years and nobody shows..."   Happy Rhodes '100 Years'

Another night of strange dreams linked back to places from my childhood and very little sleep left me feeling really tired this morning.  Then I discovered that the meet-ee I was expecting hadn't confirmed and thus wasn't coming, so I needn't have got up quite so early.  I was also stupidly hoping beyond hope for something to arrive in the post from the following list:

1) An emergency tea (and possibly also coffee) parcel.  (Lapsang Souchong tea, I need you now!)

2) A surprise parcel, with surprise things in it, one of two in fact, sent from family

3) A month overdue edition of a monthly magazine

None of which appeared.

The Czech postal system's apparent competition with the UK to win the top prize for Europe's worst postal service is now within reach... 

In other 'news', if complaining at the Czech postal system and then moving on to 'emails I have received' could be deemed 'news', a former drama teacher sent an email to say that she'd left London and moved to LA.  From all the things (very few, actually) I knew about her and from reading her new blog, which can be found HERE , I read between the lines and put two and two together and sensed that she may well have gone through something not entirely dissimilar to what I went through over a year ago.  I could be wrong, and like many moments in acting classes when I was convinced that something I'd performed had come over as wholly inauthentic, but others hadn't 'registered' that at all, I could merely be putting my own biased and entirely unfounded spin on it that isn't true and isn't perceived by others.  Nonetheless, the pain and loss that I read between those lines (real or imagined) had a profound effect on me, especially as, if my hunch is right, she had put a positive and optimistic slant on it that I would never be able to achieve nearly as successfully, nor that perhaps, I would I want to.

It's also strange, to read about someone being able to be spontaneous (something she's an expert at, and I'm only good at on 'good days') about travelling.  I wish I could feel that the world is open to me, that I could travel whenever I needed to.  (Or that I would ever have the option of moving abroad again.)  I suppose it helps if you have friends or family in far-flung places who have somewhere to live so that you could stay there too, if funds do not cover accommodation as well as travel.  (Which is ALWAYS the case for me, and I'm sick to death of that being the problem all the bloody time...) Even so, I still marvel at her bravery, her sheer 'force of nature'-ness.  I just hope she's ok and that she has far more support than I do to get through whatever difficulties she may be facing.

I sat and looked up at the clear blue sky in Prague this morning and even though I was crying, from sheer exhaustion and feeling trapped, I thanked Prague for getting one up on London and being consistently sunny for so many days in a row.  And that made me think, hmm, I can see why Gaby would want to move to LA after years of being in London!  There's only so much rain a girl with a sunny disposition can take, and there are limits even for those of us with no such predilection.

Last call for summery shoes and acts of selflessness

I ended up going out this evening, for what I suspect is the last evening until spring next year, that I'll be able to walk the streets of Prague in summery shoes like these:

It was a sad evening for other reasons too.  I'm sorry that this time it's someone else who's suffering huge bouts of self-doubt and feels that the future's bleak, as that's normally my state of mind, not his.  Have I infected him?  I hope not.  I also wish I could do more.  Preferably magic-wand like so that he never has to feel like this again, because it's been an ongoing battle for him.  

In some cases, I could do a fraction more, (e.g. send more texts/emails, give up more of my limited free time and energy) but I've already gone at least 60% above and beyond the support I get in return and I must pull back, lest I end up the one who's in tatters.  In my position, I think avoiding personal nuclear fall-out needs to be a priority, as I'm not far from that at any one time anyway.  (Though it was this thought above all - that I'm not doing the absolute maximum I could - that made me burst into tears out of sheer anguish at being utterly torn by differing areas of rationale.)  In light of the emotional support give/receive imbalance, I have to reign myself in and stay on the edge of the platform (for now) instead of throwing myself onto the tracks.

Sweet Little Something Else

"I get a bit understanding, I see my soul's gonna light my fire/will anybody believe seeing sunshining takes me higher/I do believe when ya legalise, I'll no more mind it/So would ya make up your mind even though I can't tell it is worth trying/Sweet little something in my mouth rolling, it's easy/ sweet little something me swallowing, it's easy..."   

Support Lesbiens:  'Sweet Little Something'

I watched the film 'Jumper' today.  A sci-fi film with Samuel L. Jackson in it.  It was a bit rubbish, but it was fun to imagine for a while what joy would be mine if I were able to instantly transport myself to New York when I felt like it, or anywhere else for that matter.  

I missed New York today.  I wished I could be sitting in Central Park overhearing someone's amusing conversation (hard not to, as so many people talk loudly to each other or on mobile phones without a thought for the fact that everyone around can hear them) or else attending the screenwriter/playwright's group I went to a couple of times.  They used to put on rehearsed readings of their plays to a very professional standard to see if they'd be any good or not and got the group to critique them, almost bluntly honestly, so that they could re-write and edit accordingly.  I also miss the blue sky mornings, sitting and reading The New York Times in a cafe on the Lower East side and writing little diary entries.  Ah, if only, if only, if only...

So it was in keeping with my wishful thinking/surrealist's day that I listened quite a few times to the Drum 'n' bass remix of the Support Lesbiens' track, "Sweet Little Something".  I marvelled at their cunning plan of writing a song with totally nonsensical, non-native English lyrics that could be passed off as merely an expression of how 'off-their-heads' on drugs they would be if they were to take a 'sweet little something'.  Clever ploy boys.  I can be won over by drum 'n' bass when it's this good. 

Fashion, freaks and frivolity

"Crazy ideas are better than too normal ideas."  Karl Lagerfeld

I suppose it was inevitable, having watched so much SATC recently, that I would feel drawn to flicking through fashion magazines and adapting what I've been wearing to be at least a little bit more adventurous.  Having a full day off to myself has done wonders.  A day off, on my own, in my little flat.  I almost never thought I'd get to enjoy this kind of delight.  As such, I had time to both catch up on sleep and read, oh my god, read newspapers, magazines and online articles (see THIS  fashion page linked to the Chicago Tribune site.  Picture number 9 is of a girl with a mismatched set of colours and layers, someone after my own heart) - what a revelation!  I feel so much better for it.  I even had time to form a little idea of how to at least try to improve my circumstances, and even play the keyboard, so I feel like I'm getting back to my old self.

Last night I spoke to the architect about how I'd been discussing an article in the Czech version of Elle, on the last page, written by a well-known Czech actress, Ana Geislerová, and I said how funny it is that she gets to write a monthly column.  The architect personally thinks she's nine tenths a prostitute, which, given her recounting numerous lovers in her latest article is perhaps only an exaggeration, rather than an outright character defamation, but he rested his case that of course a well-known actress would get a column in a fashion magazine, because she will help tell women what to wear.  And this, he attested, is what fashion magazines are all about: getting women to feel inadequate and buy more stuff.

I can't say I disagree all that much, except I know that in my case, buying a fashion magazine, if it's any good, gets me to try to adapt what things I already have to wear them in more interesting ways or try a free make-up trick (rare, as actually, I  usually avoid the 'beauty' pages because the word itself puts me off) or keep me up to date on the latest film/music/literature releases.  I simply can't afford to go out and buy anything as a result of what I see in the magazine.  (Quite frankly, the purchase of the magazine in itself usually uses up the last of my disposable income and causes me to re-think another trip to Tesco to get more food, opting to scale down on bread and anything nice and try to live off apples and cereal for a bit longer instead.)

So in light of this, I wondered how guilty I should feel about my terrible fashion magazine addiction.  I don't buy magazines every month, but some months (such as September) I might buy two, so it's the equivalent of one a month I suppose.  I also bought more in August, because I wanted something to read while travelling and I wanted to enjoy a week 'on holiday' so I did holiday things.  Plus, I wanted to buy a couple of Czech magazines to get me to look up and learn some more vocab.  But is the architect right, and I'm merely being caught in a pre-organised industry trap, which seeks to do me out of all my remaining money and make me feel insecure enough to buy more stuff when I can?  Well, largely, no.  Because I simply don't have money for clothes anyway, and I can use some articles from the magazines I've bought as meet-ee fodder, so it's not entirely wasted money.  And when I do have enough time to really look through some interesting pages of fashion, I actually feel inspired to do other things too.

Like, for instance, today, I had already leafed through pages of shoes, and found some delightful piano-print ones in Paris Vogue, but that didn't influence what I wore.  I nonetheless felt inspired to dress more eccentrically and put on some purply pink things because I was in the mood for colour and something non-classic today.  A couple of weeks ago I got a surprise package from the Russian Countess with two pairs of earrings in it, so I've been wearing one pair on and off most of the time, but decided to try the super-big purply ones today. 

It worked.  I felt so much better.  And that in turn, lead me to play the keyboard and sing a few made up little bits of nonsense that also made me feel more alive.

A month or so ago, I watched this video from Harper's Bazaar (see it HERE) and felt comforted and reassured, because all the famous designers in it seemed like such freaks (with one or two exceptions) and I laughed at the strange little fantasy world they get to live in and how they are allowed to live like a crazy person and it's ok.  So my being an eccentrically dressed nobody in Prague is hardly the crime of the century, right?  It's good to know that there are indeed even weirder people than me out there. 

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.

Scenes from September

It's been a tough month.  No doubt about it.  And it all started with the end of August being a tough time to go through, what with returning to London and the anniversary of my moving to the Czech Republic.  Somehow everything decided to come back at me and haunt me over and over and expose me to all my flaws and all my failures in stark contrast to the successes and happiness of others.  It's an atrociously cruel world when you're alone and unsupported and all around you are people being given support and care and attention, even love.

I can look at things two ways, of course.  I could lament the fact that I'm still doing the same job a year on, one that demands my time and energy and attention to support other people but barely pays me enough to support myself.  And all the while I'm in a relationship where hearing the words, "I love you" are a scarcity, and match the rarity of those words during the very endgame of my previous relationship.  And that's, sadly, no exaggeration.  It feels as though no-one will ever say, "I'm proud of you", or, "you've done really well" in the same way I so readily say it to others, including friends, and even meet-ees.  I have no such rallying words to accompany my walk through life.  But I suppose that is par for the course if you are a non-conformist of some kind.

The other way of looking at it, is that I have left employment, now work only for myself and can dictate (as finances allow) when I want to take time off, as well as decide my asking fee (within reason) and that's a whole lot better than the pittance I started on, being at people's beck and call right across town at 7.30 in the morning.  And I do have someone who cares enough about me to want me to accompany him to his new holiday home flat to help with the painting and cleaning of it.  And when he felt low, it was me he turned to for support.  And when I had period pain, it was him who drove, while I had a much needed nap on the back seat.  So we have worked as a team, to some degree, and that feels comforting.  But I know it's nothing in comparison to what I had, nor what I am capable of giving and there should be an equality there, but there isn't.

So here are a few snippets of my life over the last month or so, as an apology for my absence and an indication of the ups and downs I've been going through, if it matters at all to anyone.  And if it doesn't matter, then maybe we should all be sitting snuggled up in bed with a cup of cocoa and a good book instead, and I want to be first in line for that queue.

Pre-September:

In a cafe in Notting Hill, on sampling their gazpacho:

"...rather disappointing to say the least, though the waitress has tried her best to be as helpful as possible. Which is probably more effort than you would ever get out of a Czech equivalent.  It still doesn't justify not getting much change from a £10 note though.  And I can't stay long.  Apart from anything else, the downside of "dining" alone is that once you have to get up to go to the loo, you have to leave...."

The delights of reading German newspapers:

"...in ,,Die Zeit" there is a very interesting article by Wolfgang Tillmans about how he views London, now his home, compared to other major cities.  He makes the point that London is such a multicultural society, which is far more integrated than most.  "Even New York is more segregated", he says.  He goes on to say that, as such, London is a success story and he interestingly uses a mixed language word - "Erfolgsstory".  So it's not just us British who feel steal from other languages right, left and centre then..."

My last full day in London, when it was cold and drizzly 

and I spent all day 'out-and-about', meeting up with friends and comparing their lives to mine:

Friday 26th August:

Pet Shop Boys' 'King's Cross':  "[...] I've been hurt and we've been had.  You leave home and you don't go back [...]  So I went looking out today for the one who got away.  But I'm walking round the block, ending up in King's Cross.  Good luck, bad luck, waiting in a line.  It takes more than a matter of time.  Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday, wait until tomorrow and there's still no way.  Read it in a book. or write it in a letter, wait until the morning and there's still no guarantee. [...] Only last night I found myself lost at the station called King's Cross..."

I have managed to survive a last full day here, catching up with a couple of old friends and one relatively new friend.  I nonetheless feel bereft.  I don't live here.  This is not my home.  Nor am I staying somewhere on my own.  And as such, I feel homeless.  I'm sitting in an old 'thinking spot' in King's Cross, with my back to an electronic notice board of train times to places near where ex-partner used to live and it all just hurts.  It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

How did things 'work out in the end' for other people?  Was it because they never lost absolutely everything (home, job, relationship) at the same time?  Or lost the remaining good things (relationship) when the other things weren't even in place anyway?  Is there no rescue, no hope for a future for those who got knocked right off the edge?  Will I ever fully recover or will I always be stuck on the edge of the platform, knowing there is no 'home' destination awaiting me?  Will London always taunt me by reminding me I failed to make a viable, bearable, non-painful life for myself there?  Is Neil Tennant right when he sings, "it takes more than a matter of time"?  And if he is, what exactly DOES it take for this searing sadness and desperate sense of being a perpetual 'outsider' to go away?

September:

"...Early mornings are a killer and today wasn't even that early a start!  I just didn't sleep well due to the noise (that's what you get for living on a main road leading to a motorway) and the heat."

"Every meet-ee has come to my flat and said, "you live here?" Or, "do you like living here?" because of the traffic noise outside.  Most Czechs think somewhere so lacking in "nature" as they put it, must be a kind of hell.  To me however, this flat was close to a dream scenario: "Hurrah!  Somewhere vibrant!  Not residential!"  After the posh and polite suburbs of Harrow and Balham respectively, both of which I kind of hated, especially Harrow, this was a godsend."

On the finer details of my life:

"...the delicately positioned, up-turned spoon perched on my table, left over from this morning's meet-ee..."

And back to today, sitting in my old haunt, the bookshop cafe, having perused a couple of magazines and some art and fashion books I can't afford:

Thursday 29th September:

I hope I'm coming out of the torture period now.  I feel haunted by what happened over a year ago and I'm still not sure if I'm free of all the teasing and mocking dreams I've been having.  I feel bereft, but slowly regaining some strength since having a week-long break from the day job.  I don't know if I'll be able to sustain it, but I want to try to cut down on the meet-ees and planning and all the academic stuff I do.  I'm so tired of supporting other people and having no support myself.

I've been soothed and wooed into wanting to do music again by listening to "Support Lesbiens" (listen to one of their best tracks, though the lyrics are slightly dodgy, as in, non-native English, HERE) even though they often make me laugh.  Hats off to them for being brave enough to write lyrics in English.  I am quite enamoured with their little misuses of English (check out the pronunciation of 'oasis') and how their lead singer seems to oscillate between fine English pronunciation and standard American 'rock god' fare...  Their music is so good and, across their albums so varied, that I must admit I've been won over.  (And the lead singer's voice is so seductive though I can't for the life of me pinpoint why...)  And yet, at the same time, they feel a little bit provincial, as does Prague, really.

Prague is strangely cocooned from the harsh realities of civilised living, though the cynicism and pessimism out-do even my own, and it's been a revelation to find myself having to put forward the optimist's view.  Who would have predicted that?  So as I stare down the bleak outlook and taunting thoughts of the past that have plagued me over the last month, I can only find a way forward in the frivolity of dressing strangely and using colours and patterns that don't go together to help me be more ME somehow.  It makes me stand out more as a foreigner, but then, that happens wherever I go.  Sex and the City's Carrie sometimes used to inspire me or reflect the kind of nonsensical array of clothes I would wear to feel more at home, but the films have taken everything to a kind of 'grown up' otherworldliness that is so far removed from the original characters and their first intentions, that I feel saddened that everyone seems to lose their principles in the end.  Or people move on to the next logical stage of life and I somehow cannot find a place for myself there.  

I don't belong in the grown-up world of dressing sensibly or looking like I've finally 'made it', so much so that I can afford a stylist (god forbid) and a family.  I never wanted that stuff, I always knew I'd be contented with the creative work and flat of my own in a capital city (I'd be on cloud nine if it were in Manhattan, but we all know only movie stars can afford to live there these days) and that would thrill me.  To have three great friends who backed me up would be the icing on the cake.  To have a relationship as well?  An unnecessary extra, but wonderful bonus nonetheless.  But I am the prime example of what happens when you don't have any of those.  Friends have moved on, achieved at least some degree of success (i.e. don't have to do the shitty day job anymore), are having or contemplating having a family and therefore cannot imagine what it feels like to have ticked none of the boxes they had hoped to tick by their mid-thirties.  Though music still feels like where I belong, at the same time, I feel like I was never allowed more than a visitor's pass into the 'house of music' and I still don't quite know why.  I must find a way back in.  Or maybe a way in, that I never had.  Perhaps there simply is no way forward, except the 'road less travelled' and that's a lovely road, I'm sure, but it's a deserted and painfully lonely one.  The only way to carry on is to try to enjoy the beautiful sunsets and the gorgeous autumnal coloured leaves on the trees and survey the mountainous area and breathe in the beauty on this perpetually difficult, painful and deserted road that no-one else I know has ever seen, because they all made it to the end and could come home.  I suppose I just have to get used to (and better at) being a nomad.