Dear July, seven // from the cutting room floor

Because it's been a while, I thought I'd type out some recent 'noticings' from my writing-notebook. (I've written about keeping an observational notebook a few times before on this blog, but specifically: here. Basically, I am a bit nosy but use the excuse of ‘I’m a writer’ to legitimise writing down interesting things strangers are doing in a little notebook. 'For the novel. It's for the novel'):

One // as seen from the library window

Two bald business men in lilac shirts are eating fish and chips in the company car. They’ve opened the doors – wide. And rolled down the windows – all the way. They’ve flicked their ties and lanyards over their shoulders. The larger of the two men smooths a white napkin across the lap of his black suit trousers before tucking in. And so it goes: the rain coming down outside, and the two of them - the air con blowing goose-bumps up their arms - eating chips on a Wednesday afternoon. Life is good.

Update 10 minutes later: It looks as though the larger gentleman also has a packed lunch with him, because he’s just finished eating a banana and a yogurt – the carton of which he’s just crushed in his fist – and there are crusts (from a recently consumed sandwich, one can only assume) sitting in little right-angles in the Tupperware dish he’s just put up on the dashboard. I suspect he’s eating this second lunch to smother suspicion when he returns home because he is, after all, meant to be on that diet ('Did you eat your fruit, Arnold?'). That’s why the windows are open, why the AC is causing an autumnal gust inside. (‘We can get chips if you like, Graham. But Marjorie must never find out...’

♥

Two // trying to describe a man I keep seeing about town

He’s the kind of man who tuts to himself while going about life. Tutting at the laptop screen, rolling his eyes at emails, mentally shaking a fist at the heavens whenever the rain comes on. He’s the kind of man who wears a blazer with his blue plaid shirts (always those plaid shirts. ‘Every day the plaid shirts’). The blazer and the plaid shirt and the jeans, and that hair on top of head like Fezzik from the Princess Bride. 

♥

Three // on the baristas in a coffee shop one morning

I’m writing in a coffee shop today, sitting beside the door to the kitchen marked ‘private’. Staff members keep walking in and out with cups and mugs, so the dishwasher must be in there too. The girl with the messy ponytail who served me peppermint tea has just walked past with a tray full of dirty saucers. 

‘It’s a busy day,’ she’d said earlier, her eyes tired. ‘I'm feeling a bit stressed.’ 

As she got closer to the door – ‘Private’ in gold letters – her colleague – bearded, happy eyes – bounded up the stairs towards her, almost skipping. 

‘Hey!’ he said, coming towards her. 

‘Hi,’ she’d said, her voice quiet, shifting her arms under the tray to balance the weight. 

She leant against the door with her back to push it open and at the same moment he reached out to help her – his hand on the door so near her head that his arm was almost touching her cheek – following her round with the movement of it. She breathed in. As the door swung closed and I heard the clatter of the tray being put down, and I did wonder whether he was going to kiss her in there. She came back out about 10 seconds later, her fingers touching her lips...

♥

(Pictures from an evening walk along the canal last week with a nice friend...) 

Dear July, three // uncharacteristic

The other night, I had a dream in which I was about to perform a sort of free-style-rap* slash Dr-Seuss-type-ditty to a circle full of strangers. I don’t remember why, in the context of the dream, I felt the need to do this. Nor why I felt certain that I should give my performance in a country-twanged American accent. Very unlike me (when I actually find myself in a big crowd of strangers – unless I have a clear ‘role’ to play – I tend to spend a lot of time “looking for things in my bag”, wandering round the perimeter of the room trying to give off the impression that I'm headed somewhere, or hiding in the bathroom, wondering whether it’s rude to leave yet).

In the dream, I was convinced that what I was about to say/rap was pretty knee-slapping-ly hilarious and it was definitely going to get some loud laughs from the people gathered around. I was sleeping, but I was also conscious enough to think: ‘Goodness me. I’ll need to write some of these rhymes down when I wake up, because this stuff is golden.’ 

Thankfully, I woke up before the actual outburst. I doubt it would have gone to plan. As often happens with dreams, the moment I opened my eyes: the whole thing disappeared out my head like dishwater whirl-pooling down an unplugged sink. So I wasn't able to write any of those hilarious rhymes down on paper to share with you. What a shame. 

All I really remember is that the rap had something to do with sweetcorn*.

//

In other news: today, after writing some of the novel/PhD to give myself a head-start on the week, I baked 17 cookies on a whim (banana, oatmeal, chocolate-chip, coconut, pecan). They filled the flat with a delicious warm scent (fyi, I took that first picture by putting my camera on a timer, and then holding the phone between my chin and neck. Such elegance).

Also: thank you to everyone who has been reading these ‘letters to July’* so far. I’m never sure who is reading this blog, so I have been surprised and moved by some really beautiful comments the past few days: thank you. 

//

Notes.)

*On free-styling, you should watch the Flight of the Conchords' 'Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros'. 

*On sweetcorn: Who knows... sleeping-me is a strange being that I don't pretend to understand.   

*The original idea for the series last year was sparked by Emily Diana Ruth's beautiful video blogs. You should watch them.

Dear July, twenty one to three: linking.

Dear July,

I’m trying to finish up a chapter of the novel today. I always feel slightly self-conscious calling it that. ‘The novel’. It feels a bit presumptuous on my part. ‘Whadda you think you’re doing, bozo? You think you can just “write a novel”? Get real. Go do something your own size.’ (Because apparently my inner-critic sounds like Danny DeVito.) But: that is what I’m writing, I guess. A novel. So I should call it what it is.

Anyway – I mention this because today (and yesterday and the day before) I've been focused on writing the chapter. Thus the quietness on here. I don't have a thought-filled letter today. But in the absence of that, I will direct you to three things I’ve been enjoying the past three days:

[One.] The light-filled photographs in the 'My Month of Sundays' project on Netherleigh’s blog: here. Bit of context: two bloggers (with very beautiful Instagram feeds here and here) have started up a hashtag for people to capture and share Sunday moments. I kind of came upon it by accident (as I do most things on the internet...) and the pictures made me quite happy, so I might try and take part in the project, should any of my Sundays in the coming weeks be spent doing things other than typing away at my laptop.

[Two.] This article by Hallie Cantor in the New Yorker: ‘Everything I’m Afraid Might Happen If I Ask New Acquaintances to Get Coffee’. It made me laugh. (The trials of being an over-thinker.)

[Three.] This song by The Oh Hello's, found over the weekend. I’m always looking for new music, so if you have any recommendations, send ‘em my way.

Enjoy.

♥

(Oh, and also two poems from recently: 'Mirrors at 4am' by Charles Simic and Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy.

The pictures: from recently. The view from my train window, a feather on the street, blogging about the sun on the train in the rain.)

Dear July, twelve & thirteen: one paragraph at a time.

Dear July,

Some days it can feel like I’m writing this novel with a pen inked with molasses. Words and ideas come out slow and sticky and I have to drag the pen across the page to get anything half-decent down. Yesterday was one of those days. Everything came out as: cliché, or ‘too introspective’, or ‘telling too much’, or ‘too many adjectives’ or sentences kept getting cluttered with excessive use of the word ‘I’ (one of the pitfalls of a first-person narrator).

For the chapter I'm working on, I was trying to write about the feeling of waking up after falling asleep, exhausted, in the middle of the day. That foggy space – between sleeping and being properly awake – when you open your eyes, lying completely still, vaguely aware that something has happened, something is wrong, something big – but you’re not quite conscious enough yet to remember what that is. All you have is the physical feeling - a heaviness behind your eyes, a dryness in your throat - of a half-remembered sadness. 

I was trying to capture that feeling without being heavy-handed (because the feeling itself is subtle. Like the intake of breath before a plate smashes...). I don't think I quite managed it though (and that description up there doesn't really capture it either). I wrote all day – about this, and other things – and at the end of the day, out of all the words, all there was one good paragraph.

The thing about writing a novel – and writing a novel for your job (and I think I can call it my job just now, can’t I? I’m doing it as part of my PhD, full-time. I’m getting a scholarship to do it. I even have a kind of office space that I work in) – the thing about it is you can’t just sit about waiting to be inspired if you’re going to get anywhere. And you can’t just pack it in when the ideas aren’t coming easily. You need to keep sitting down and ‘keep showing up’. Good days and bad days. Some days lots of words come. Other days: molasses.

But one good paragraph. Even if the rest goes in the bin, I wrote one good paragraph. (Remember that. ‘It is enough’.) I can build on that today.

♥

Notes. 

Sunday's poem: 'What the Dog Perhaps Hears' by Lisel Mueller

Monday's poem: three poems about walking on the moon by Clarissa Pinkola Estes that I can't find online (but they're in the talks: 'Theatre of the Imagination')

Pictures by: Marc Johns (because it's been a while).

a day at the festival.

I had the weekend off work, so on Saturday decided to take a trip through to Edinburgh with my parents for the Fringe festival. There's such an amazing carnival-like atmosphere in the city just now (much helped on Saturday by the sun who graced us with her gleaming presence)! 

With all the colour and excitement, it seemed a good excuse to bring out my ‘proper’ camera. I’m still at a loss how to work all the buttons so I have the settings at ‘auto’ most of the time. But the pictures turned out quite good nevertheless so I thought I'd pop a few on here.

We went to see three plays (one: The Seussification of a Midsummer Night’s Dream which was just what it sounds like: Shakespeare as told through Dr. Seuss language. I laughed quite a lot. Two: Starchild: the Little Prince Reborn – an original adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. Also really good, and quite beautiful in parts. It just took a moment to get over my surprise that the story was told via interpretive dance...

And three: The Great Gatsby – it was an impulse decision to go and see this after we were handed a flyer by a girl in 20’s costume who was perched on the shoulders of a guy in a suit. It turned out to be quite spectacular). My favourite parts of the day were probably the in-between bits when we walked around the streets – especially up and down the Royal Mile – seeing and taking pictures of (and with*) the street performers. 

At one point in the afternoon, my mum and I were stopped by a leaflet-hander-outer who tried to encourage us to come along to her 'very funny play about sex-education in schools'. After speaking to us for a moment, she glanced at me, and then leaned closer to my mum to reassure her, 

'It'll be suitable for your daughter. Don't worry.' 

I did feel the need to tell her I am 23 ('actually'). Ha! My shortness and baby-face continually lead to people thinking I'm about 14 years old. It's supposedly a good thing (so people keep telling me. Being on the receiving end of a lot of semi-patronising remarks though, I'm not so sure). 

Later on I decided to embrace my 'youthfulness' and buy a wreath of flowers for my hair from a lady who had loads of them hooped up her arms. Why not, eh? Might as well.

*At another point, this girl (with the gloves) swept past me in the street. Following close behind were seven others laughing and dressed in elegant gowns and suits. Curiosity sparked, I decided to follow them, pushing through the crowd to see what they were advertising. A few moments later, they stopped in the middle of the street to get their picture taken. I still don't know what show they were in (it was their last day anyway, apparently)... but they looked beautiful. And when they said: 'Who wants to come in the picture?' I thought again: 'Hey, why not?' So that's how I ended up photo-bombing their picture.  

Love this. Only in Edinburgh...

Mm, a jolly nice day. For visitors to Scotland, the last few weeks must have been pretty amazing. It’s been wonderfully sunny. And warm – I’ve gone without my coat for almost a full month (currently sitting with a hot water bottle though. The chilliness is back). And so much has been happening: the Fringe, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow (which I didn’t watch too much of, not being sporty in the least. But the happenings on the streets while I was walking to university were fun to see: magicians, face-painters, swing dancing, jazz bands, etc.). 

Ah, it is a pretty cool place to live. Just a pity that most of the time it’s still represented (and represents itself) as Tartan, Haggis and Bagpipes ‘r’ Us.

♥

I smiled.

The other morning in the cafe, while I was wiping a table clean, I overheard a customer saying the word shenanigans to his son. 

‘He’s been up to his usual shenanigans...’

Shenanigans is a good enough word in itself (in fact, I’d forgotten all about it till I heard him using it. I want to try and slip it into a sentence soon). What made the word even better was the customer’s accent. 

He’s got a voice that sounds a little like Sean Connery (in that he prnounshesh hish wordsh like thish – by way of an exshplanashion). So the word actually came out like: she-nani-ginsshhh.

I smiled.

♥

[These pictures are from my birthday earlier this month. While I wasn’t completely excited about turning 23 (I don’t feel tall enough to merit the age), I was glad about saying goodbye to being 22 (my least favourite year so far). And it was such a lovely day. 

Going to a Play, a Pie and a Pint at the Oran Mor, wandering round the Botanic Gardens, hearing the rain hissing on the glass roof (for just a few minutes), eating a delicious picnic that my Mum had wrapped in brown paper and string (Salad Niçoise tiger-bread baguettes; goats’ cheese, pecan and roast pepper sandwiches; hummus, tomato and avocado thins; Italian lemonade; Kettle crisps; strawberries...) 

...catching sight of a black butterfly with whispering wings, sitting on a picnic rug in the park watching wedding photographers, enjoying a big fried breakfast-for-dinner back at home (why not?). A day full of eating: my favourite sort.]

(Listening to Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day while writing this today.)

the dream I dreamed.

I was looking through an old journal recently – looking for a description of something to go in another piece of writing – and while I was skimming through the entries I found this:

‘(13.05.12) I had a dream the other night. I was in ASDA with J. While we were in there, she found out that the man she’s been going out with is, in fact, married. She had no idea. As well as being a man, somehow or other (in the absurd nature of dreams) this guy she’s been dating was also a banana. This is not a euphemism. He was literally a piece of fruit.

Later in the dream, J and I got separated. I wandered about for a bit and ended up running into Mum and E somewhere around the bakery aisle. I told them about what had happened to J, and then E left us “to go buy some crisps”. The two of us looked after her as she walked away.

“She’s upset,” Mum told me, “because she’s been going out with that man too and didn’t realise.”

I pushed the shopping trolley along and thought for a moment. Then I said,

“How can she be sure it was the same banana?”’

♥

I seem to remember this dream ending with my Mum and I standing there in ASDA, bent over in stitches, absolutely killing ourselves laughing. And I woke up grinning.

Dreams are odd things.

(Pictures are the quite hauntingly lovely illustrations of Emily Winfield Martin. Her website is: here)

these made me laugh...

What's this? Two funny-picture posts in a row? Goodness. These pictures - by the very funny Gemma Correll - have made me laugh today while I've been taking a small (Earl Grey) tea break from studying. May they cause similar merriment in you.

♥

I moustache you a question

I came across this picture the other day, with the caption: 'New Techniques for a Beautiful Moustache'.

It made me smile. (And then reminded me of a moustache I've written about before: here.)

♥

(I'm not sure where the original picture is from, but you can follow the trail: here)