Cracked

I know this could be woefully premature, but do I dare say that lately (as in, in the last few days) things have been... better? There has been laughter in this house, including my own and I don't remember the last time that happened...

Now, don't get me wrong. THINGS are still happening and screwing my life up. THINGS are bringing me down and causing tears when I'm alone (which happens quite a lot, actually, though possibly not much in the immediate future with my dad arriving TOMORROW (GAH) for 9 (NINE!) days) and I am, of course, still totally freaked out about money.

BUT. The girls and I have been fighting less, snuggling more (even though I feel like I see them less than ever), laughing more.

Easter has been pretty much OK, to be honest. OK, I didn't see them much: they spent all Saturday afternoon and evening either with friends (separately) or with D (together), not getting home till 10 pm, and then they spent last evening and night (all night) with D, till lunchtime today. But we had a lovely Easter Sunday lunch, in the morning they did an egg hunt in the house and then we went to the Jardin des Plantes yesterday afternoon and it was delightful.

The Jardin des Plantes really is my favourite place in Montpellier, without a doubt (OK, that and IKEA, but that's hardly "typical" of Montpellier...). There were flowers in blossom, frogs, turtles, fish, peace and quiet. It's a magical place, a haven of tranquillity.

This evening we played board games and managed to avoid any sore-loser-ness from anyone. Yes, they went to bed far too late again, but at least there was good humour for once...

L's birthday is getting closer and closer, and of course D is making things complicated: he's organising a party for her on Saturday with his friend M. I'm fine with that, there's no problem. But I've already told him I'll be doing a party in collaboration with one of L's friends who has her birthday a week later and that we'll be inviting school friends. So of course he, D, has invited 2 friends from school - and only 2. And he seems to be incapable of understanding how stupid that is, how awkward, how idiotic. I swear, étiquette and social graces just seem to pass him by...

But I'm really going to try and not let his dumb ass behaviour spoil L's day. Last year was pretty much hideous (obviously), and the day of the party even worse (he walked out THE DAY BEFORE. What a star! What a hero! Will I ever stop being angry about his insane behaviour? And no, I no longer care that he's probably reading this - I WANT him to know how fucking angry I am with him, how much he now bugs the shit out of me. NAH.), so I want this year to be fun, even for me if possible.

I'm still pretty much down in the dumps, but this is the first string of more than a couple of hours in which I've felt any kind of positive feelings since last year, so I'm taking that as a positive.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Slipping

I can feel them slipping away, gradually, and it's breaking my heart. I feel like I almost never see my girls any more and, even though I know it's not exactly true and that C's trip to Paris is partly to blame, there is some truth in it.

C left last Monday (11/4) at 5.30 am. I picked her up at the station on Thursday at 7.30 pm, we had dinner at McDonald's and the girls were both in bed by 9.45. D took them to school the next morning, but I brought them home, though I had to take C to her circus class almost at once. And I didn't see her again till Sunday evening. D picked up L at 7.30 pm and I didn't see her again till Saturday afternoon, when we went to see "Winnie the Pooh" (though I have to confess I fell asleep halfway through and somewhat "lost the plot" so to speak). L was out all day Sunday too.

Yesterday (Monday), I had to invigilate an exam, so I asked D to pick the girls up from school, except he couldn't, so it was his friend, Magali. And she didn't bring them home till 8.30 pm, by which time the mushroom pie I'd prepared (ie cooked from frozen) was inedible - burnt on top and cold. I swear, it was like I never see my girls at all, and I was miserable last night, I can tell you!

Hopefully, I'll have some time with C on Wednesday afternoon, but it's difficult. I don't have any money, and there aren't many free things to do that still appeal to the girls now. I know it's classic for dads to be the "fun" parents, but when you're no longer a couple, the injustice of that is even more obvious. I get to do all the boring stuff - laundry, homework, checking school bags, making sure everything's ready, etc. As I don't drive (totally my own fault, I know, but a fact nevertheless) I can't easily take them anywhere and oh, I don't know, I just feel that they're both slipping out of my grasp.

These two little girls mean sooooo much to me, yet we never seem to do anything fun together any more... And that's why I'm hoping that I can find enough money to take them away this summer. Right now, it seems impossible to imagine, but I'm hoping that things will have started to change and that I'll manage to do it somehow.

I know they're growing up - even my littlest hobo will be 7 in just over two weeks - and that increasing distance is normal, but this is different. This is yet more horrible fallout from separating from D: when they're with him, that means they're not with me. It's not just that they're making their own friends, it's also that they're making friends through him, so there are whole areas of their lives where I have no idea what they're doing. Yet I'm still the one who has to prepare everything, organise sleepover bags, make sure everything comes home, remember about homework etc. I'm still the one who has to "manage". And it kills me.

I want them to grow up remembering me for things other than yelling and ordering them to do things. I don't want all their memories of me to be either screeching or crying (or often both). I try so hard, I have ideas and plans, yet I never seem to get round to doing anything. Or nothing right, anyway.

Being single sucks, being a single mother sucks, being so angry and frustrated sucks. My life sucks, except for those all-too-brief and all-too-rare moments of complicity with my sweet little girls. They - and their love - make it all bearable, and worthwhile. And if I lose that, I don't know what will become of me.

As you were

I don't really have much inspiration tonight. It's late (2.20 am, I have to be up at 7.30 to take L to school...), I'm tired, I feel kind of sick (not sure why) and I just want to drift away to someplace else.

But this has been a strange week. On the one hand, C has been away since fuck-me-o'clock on Monday morning (I had to GET UP at 4.30 am to make her picnic, then get her up at 4.50 so she could leave with D at 5.30 for the station), on a school trip to Paris. She'll be home - exhausted beyond belief I should imagine - tomorrow evening at about 7 pm. They've done some wonderful things, and I know she'll have had a great time, but it really has been strange here without her. She suddenly seems so big these days, so "grown-up"...

On the other, in just under 2 weeks, my little L will be turning 7, whilst my daddy turns 80 today (14th) and my sweet cat Tom will be 14 on Friday. It's all a bit much to take in, to be honest. L can read pretty well now, she's gaining in independence, gaining in confidence, gaining in stroppiness too (WON'T GO TO SLEEP - Gaaaaaaahhhhh), but she's my littlest hobo and she'll be 7 in a fortnight. Blows my mind, actually.

At the same time, my dear daddy will be coming to visit at the end of the month, arriving just before L's birthday and staying till 5 May (which seems like a helluva long time to me - 9 nights on the sofa bed will kill my back). That means he'll also be here on the anniversary of that horrible, horrible day when D finally went totally insane and walked out, insulting me on the street, badmouthing me to our closest friends and ruining L's birthday party (for me, anyway) the next day. In some ways, it's good someone will be here because it means I won't be able to mope all day. On the other, it's a pain in the butt because - heh - I won't be able to mope all day.

Still.

That's all really, except that I'm back to listening to Train again - their more rock'n'roll first album this time though - because L has me all Glee-d out (she plays the one Glee CD we have INCESSANTLY) and, as usual, the lyrics speak to me: "they call me free, but I call me a fool...". Yeah. That sounds about right.

Obsession

I'm starting to believe that I have an obsessive personality - probably not in a clinically definable way (at least I hope not), but there really are things that grab hold of me and take up my time...

My latest obsession is PostCrossing. The principle is simple: you sign up, you get sent the name and address of a random stranger somewhere in the world and you send them a postcard. As soon as your card has been received (and the ID code you must put on it entered on the site), your name and address get sent to someone and then you receive a card from a random stranger in turn. It sounds kind of pointless, I know, but seriously - I have already had such fun choosing pretty cards, writing a little message on them and sending them to "exotic" destinations (so far: 3 to the USA, 2 to Finland, 2 to Russian, 1 to the Netherlands and 1 to Australia), not to mention the excitement rush I get every time a new card arrives in my letter box: so far, I've received 6: 2 from Finland, 1 each from India, Germany, the USA and Russia).

I can't really explain why I enjoy it so much - but I do at least know I'm not alone in this (there are thousands of members according to the site). And I've already decided I'm going to have to pace myself - it could become a pretty expensive habit if I don't control myself. I'm going to try and limit myself to no more than 10 cards a month (which is already 10-15 € in total).

I'm guessing that I enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy Twitter and Facebook - it's all about connecting with people, getting out of the rut I'm in here at home. OK, so these people aren't friends (PostCrossing in particular, but Twitter too - even if there is more sustained contact), but it's contact, it's a little glimpse into the lives of others, and I love it.

Of course, I've always loved postcards (I have hundreds of them - every time I visit a country, a city, a museum, etc. I buy postcards), so I guess this PostCrossing thing was more or less made for me. But if you like getting mail, if you enjoy choosing pretty cards, if you get a thrill from "meeting" new people, it's a great hobby. Though probably not a great thing to put on your CV - it might come over as being a bit "lame" I guess!

Friends

You have to understand that I'm not a big TV watcher. I changed service provider back in October, meaning I have a new "box" for the telephone, internet and TV - and I haven't even installed the TV part yet. So I haven't watched TV AT ALL since early October.

It's always been the same - or at least, since I first arrived in France anyway (which was a LOOOOOONG time ago, believe me). This might be because I find much of French TV to be utter crap (an odd blend of totally dated variety show type things, reality TV and endless detective series, mixed with 3 or 4-hour pretentious chit-chat shows with eggheads and philosophers and bla, bla, bla, meh). I don't watch much TV, is what I'm trying to say.

For a while, way back in the late 90s (like, 97, 98 or perhaps 98 and 99, I don't remember), D and I had cable TV, so we were able to watch certain TV shows actually in English. We watched Seinfeld, and Dream On, and we kind of got into the "Friends" thing. We "joined" the series half-way through (probably series 3 or 4 I should think). But when we stopped paying for cable, we stopped watching Friends, even though it was on French TV because OMG - it's sooooo not funny dubbed into French. Lame, lame, lame. Absolutely not the same. So there are a lot of episodes - whole series, in fact - that I've never seen.

So. Back to the point of this disjointed post that's been rumbling round my brain all day (and, apparently, half the night too because it's now after 4 am. AGAIN.). A couple of days ago, I got this sudden urge to start watching Friends. I bought seasons 1 and 2 (which I'd never seen) earlier this year and found them pretty funny. And I've been watching them for the second time in the last few days. I've just got to the part where Monica hooks up with Richard Burke-Tom Selleck (that's for those of you who are fans - for the rest, it's about half-way through season 2).

I couldn't figure out what exactly was making me watch these episodes so compulsively. They focus quite a bit on the Ross-Rachel saga, and they are the two characters I've always liked the least. So that's not the reason.

And then, this evening, it finally hit me. It's the theme song. That chirpy, brain-wormy theme song; not the chorus so much, as the verse:

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way; your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A. It's like you're always stuck in second gear - when it hasn't been your day, your week, your month or even your year..."

THAT GODDAM SONG IS MY FUCKING LIFE, people. OK, my job isn't a "joke", but the fact that I end up working ridiculous hours, every damn day of the year, and am still broke makes it pretty close to one (oh, plus the fact that there's no possible promotion and I'll never be able to afford to retire...).

These 6 characters are living the kind of life I should have lived when I was their age (but didn't because I was such a freak), and would like to live again (but can't because it's too late). I would love to start over, go back to when I first arrived in France and just do things totally differently. I would love to be young, and free and single-dating-falling in and out of love, instead of the pathetic creature I was back then, and the hopeless future old-maid I've become. I would love to hang out with friends, drink coffee, share meals together and have fun, like I used to back in university, but now can't. Don't get me wrong - there isn't one nanogram of regret concerning my beautiful little girls, I wouldn't change a thing about them, but the rest? Meh. Total waste of time.

I now feel like I'm living vicariously through the characters in Friends. Ross bugs the shit out of me, and Rachel has much the same effect (she's less annoying than he is, but still. Grrrr). Phoebe makes me laugh and Joey's cute, but the ones I like best - now and when I watched them on TV way back when - are still Monica and Chandler. They crack me up. I want to slip into their lives, become part of the Central Perk scene, BE SOMEONE ELSE.

My "real" life is such a fuck-up that these ridiculous fantasies are all that get me through. If I could just walk away from the shit storm blustering around me, believe me, I would. But I can't, and I won't. But I still feel like I'm being eaten up with worries and anger and frustration and loneliness. Lots of anger, actually.

Friends was hugely successful and I pretty much missed the boat on that one - I kind of know what happens, who ends up with whom etc., but I haven't seen the episodes yet. I will, though, I will. And I'll continue to live my life vicariously through them, trying to get through the real stuff the best I can. I'm not eloquent or good with words like Avitable, but I'm definitely feeling the same depression, the same funk. I know I'm strong, and I know I'll find a way through this, but right now, like him, I don't feel it. Till then, I'll watch Friends, and Mad Men and Glee, and get sucked into these alternative universes where I can feel, for just a short while, that I don't suck quite so much.

Books Part 2

OK, enough of films (though I could bang on about films I've loved/hated all day, despite having rarely been in a cinema since my elder daughter was born in December 2001), and back to books.

One of my very, very favourite current, living authors (though admittedly there aren't many DEAD ones I like to be honest) is Jasper Fforde.

But where to start if you don't know his work? It sounds ghastly and pretentious and silly and, while it most definitely IS the last of those adjectives, it most vehemently ISN'T the first two. In a nutshell (if you've ever read through any of my previous posts, you'll know this "nutshell" idea isn't going to end well), his heroine is a detective called Thursday Next. She lives in a town in England - Swindon - in a sort of parallel 1980s - by parallel I mean that it's not science fiction (I hate science fiction apart from The Hitchhikers's Guide, strangely enough by a dead author, disproving my previous point) but that it's a 1980s Swindon that only partially existed. In Thursday's Swindon, people commonly have dodos as pets, the Crimean War is still raging, England and Wales are also at loggerheads, croquet is a national sport, etc.

Thursday works for Spec Ops 27, which is the literary detectives branch. She deals with bogus original manuscripts, etc. The main event in this book is Thursday's battle with the evil Acheron, who kidnaps Jane Eyre (I knew this was going to be difficult to describe). Forays inside the plot are necessary to save Jane and the national treasure that the book represents. This first book (The Eyre Affair) is hilarious and clever at the same time. There are so many details that catch your eye...

Subsequent adventures see Thursday have her husband's existence eradicated from everyone's memory, be employed by Jurisfiction (INSIDE book world - her mentor is Miss Havisham who is a great fan of motor car racing. You will learn all about how books are REALLY written (none of this "author" rubbish!) and meet a wealth of amazing, sometimes vaguely familiar, characters...) and oh, so much more (did you know that in Bookworld all the characters in Wuthering Heights are forced to go to anger management counselling, with sessions held in one of the rooms not mentioned in the novel? Or that Jurisfiction have a headquarters set up in the ballroom of Northanger Abbey?...).

I have loved every book in the series and can only recommend that you dig in... I would recommend that you read the books in order: it's hard enough as it is to keep track of who's who! I particularly liked Something Rotten, the 4th book in the series - in which, amongst other things, Hamlet is revealed to be a Mel Gibson fan and Ophelia mounts a coup to take over the play... but truly enjoyed them all and am eagerly awaiting my birthday (18 May if anyone's interested) when my dad has promised to buy me the newest one, One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing.

So go on, get out there and start reading Jasper Fforde!

By the way, he has also written other novels, though I've only read the two "Nursery Crimes" novels: The Big Over Easy (about Humpty Dumpty: did he fall or WAS HE PUSHED?) and The Fourth Bear, featuring a unique villain in the shape of the Gingerbread Man - "psychopath, sadist, convicted murderer and cake/biscuit". Both were good, and definitely amusing, but not as good as the Thursday Next series...

This must be the biggest nutshell in history...

Top Five Films

I picked up this idea from I Like To Fish and just had to give it a go (you KNOW how much I like memes...), especially as Travis' choices were so normal - nothing pretentious or arthouse or (in my opinion) unwatchable... that's not to say I agree with his choices (none of his 5 are on my list), but they're almost all films I've seen and enjoyed enough, whereas the what I call pretentious stuff I can't even sit through...

Anyway, enough of that. On to my Top Five Films Ever (or at least so far).

5. Face Off. I'm absolutely not afraid to admit to having a "thing" about Nic Cage. Yeah, he's made some dud films, but I suspect I haven't seen most of them - I don't go much to the cinema, so I haven't seen any of his recent offerings and they are the ones I suspect of being the least good. But this one, oh, I loved it! Not only does it have Nic Cage, but also John Travolta (who was, as you'll see below, my first ever actor crush!). I loved the plot, however improbable it was, and just thought it was a great action film.

4. Stand By Me. I am most definitely not a Stephen King fan, so the fact that this is based on one of his short stories is quite unusual. But I just loved this film (and not just because River Phoenix was so damned cute in it). I've used it as a teaching aid (read: pretext to watch it), I find it unbelievably moving. The ending, when the narrator talks about what happens to his friends as they grow up makes me cry every time - it's particularly bittersweet when you know what happened to River Phoenix in real life. The story is simple (OK, a little macabre, it's true - it IS Stephen King, after all) but so sweet, so charming at the same time, I can't imagine anyone not being pulled in a little bit. It's like every kid's ideal childhood adventure, a childhood from another time, another age. The actors are great, the music's great, and Kiefer Sutherland snarls his way into classic mean kid status.

3. A Room With A View. Total change of style and pace. This film conjures up such good memories for me - my friend J and I went InterRailing "round Europe" waaaaay back in 1989. We didn't actually visit that many countries or places, but that was a deliberate choice: we decided we'd much rather spend a few days in each place than whizz through a city a day and only have blurred memories. We planned much of our trip during our "Classical Civilization" lectures, and we decided on France, Italy, Austria and Germany. For Italy, we were very much influenced by this wonderful film - and indeed watched it on video the night before we left. This film always, always makes me think of J, who is still one of my very, very best friends. The fact that the film also stars a whole slew of my favourite actors and actresses (Helena Bonham-Carter, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliot, Julian Sands (veeerrrry sexy), Rupert Graves, Simon Callow...) is most certainly no coincidence...

2. Don Juan DeMarco. Ah, Johnny Depp... *sigh*... I've had a crush on Johnny Depp since I first saw him in Arizona Dream, way back when I was first living in Lyon. I actually - unlike most people it would seem - find him LESS appealing as Jack Sparrow, and much prefer him in the slightly kooky characters pre-Pirates of the Caribbean: Gilbert Grape, Benny and Joon, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands (all great films that I've very much enjoyed). But this film, oh, it's just adorable. Truly adorable. JD is soooo cute, with his sexy accent, his overblown tales of adventure and love, his whole persona. Brando is excellent as his shrink, Faye Dunaway delightfully flaky as Brando's wife and the whole film is delicious. I don't have it on DVD (yet!) but back when I had a video-player, I watched this A LOT. Another feel-good go-to film!

1. Grease. The first film I remember begging to be taken to see at the cinema. The year it came out. So, yeah, I'm old. But I was very young back then and my mother was dead against me seeing it, probably worried about some of the "language" or "scenes", all of which went straight over my naive little brain. I ADORED this film and developed a huge crush (as only an 8-year-old can) on John Travolta. The very first single (on vinyl!) I ever bought was "Summer Nights". One long, lonely summer during my university years, I watched this film on DVD every. single. day. I know it by heart. Yet I still love it... It's still one of my guaranteed mood-picker-uppers, a go-to "happy" film... Fanstastic stuff!


Almost-made-the-lists: Breaking the Waves: probably one of the most devastating films I've ever seen, it turns me to mush every time, a sobbing heap of misery on the sofa. Yet I love it too. Must be the masochist lurking within. The Sound of Music: what can I say? A classic among classics, a much-loved childhood standard, Julie-freaking-Andrews, all those SONGS... Wonderful. Dead Man Walking: sober and serious, moving and masterful, a great film that really got me thinking about my position regarding the death penalty. Sean Penn is AMAZING in this. Leaving Las Vegas: another devastating film, and Nic Cage at his absolute, absolute best (this film didn't make the Top Five simply because it's not a film I would watch over, and over again - too heartbreaking, too tough). He got an Oscar for this and totally deserved it.

I could probably go on and on, but this is already way too long, so I'm going to stop now. But I've really enjoyed doing this, even if I doubt that anyone will read as far as this...