walk me through this one, don't leave me alone

I have a friend who when asked about her religious beliefs always answers with a rueful smile, "The Lord and I have not been on speaking terms for quite some time, and I do not expect that to change anytime soon."

When I broke up with a long ago ex partner - after finding he had been cheating on me for weeks - it felt as though my heart had been ripped out through my mouth by a long-nailed demon with severe DT's. I remember sitting in a confused and weeping heap on the kitchen floor of my old haunt, The Heights, and trying to find someone, something at which to aim my impotent pain and fury.

I blamed the ex: but he had acted in a completely predictable manner, doing to me what I knew he had done to so many other women before me. I understood why he behaved as he did and whilst I am not sure that to understand is to forgive, to understand certainly makes it harder to bloody judge.

I blamed myself: but I had made a series of choices in good - if foolishly placed - faith, leading with my heart and not my head. It had been very beautiful with him in moments, and the price of intense beauty? Intense pain.

So I turned to the Universe, to God It/Her/Him-self, and I blamed It/Her/Him: but it's hard to maintain a sense of great vengeance and furious anger with a concept you don't believe in. Or a lasting conversation. Try imagining a pink elephant in a bowler hat (yes the bowler is vital to this exercise) sat in the corner and ask it/her/him for counsel and advice - then follow the advice the elephant gives you - and you'll see what I mean.

Gradually, and with many more heartbreaks, large and small, in between, I have come to believe that the point of pain and anger is to experience it, to sit with the emotions and try to do no harm while under their spell, but ultimately to use these feelings to understand better both myself and those around me.

I haven't felt much in the way of heartbreak for a while; I'm still avoiding that line of questioning, and of fire. Yet, the splashbacks that spray so broadly when the shit hits the fan in the lives of those I love finds its way to me anyway, and late last night, it did exactly that - when a friend told me some bad news concerning her family.

This morning, I find myself angry again, shaking my metaphorical fists at the metaphorical heavens and finding not even metaphorical relief for my curses. I may have put barriers around my own heart that no man will penetrate for some time, but my heart holds an open door if pain enters the lives of those I love. And I find myself back at that point of trying to understand why these things happen, and what I am meant to do with this helplessness when they happen.

My NLP trainer - latest t-shirt will read 'Steve Hender Accentuated My Positive' - has lent me a truck load of material that talks about dealing with anger, disappointment and pain. Jack Canfield says that underneath any feeling of anger is fear and that in order to deal with the anger, you have to work through your emotions and find the fear.

So what's the fear beneath my anger?

Maybe my fear is that if the world is this randomly cruel sometimes, then we are never safe; everything we treasure - the very things that we believe define us - can be stripped from us at any time, can leave us shivering and alone in a new reality that we had never dreamed could exist in our deepest nightmares. And all we have as human beings to arm us against that fear is the love we feel in any given moment, the bonds that lie between our fragile hearts, and the responsibility to cherish those bonds, right now, where and when it matters, because right now is all there is. And everything else is just an illusion, fools' gold.

And whilst the poet in me catches a glimpse of the glory of this human existence, this very human condition - our only meaning found in our transience, our appreciation of joy only truly understood against the experience of sorrow, and the inherent loss within love that makes our greatest gift at once our greatest sacrifice - the human in me struggles at these moments when the plans of a God I do not believe in (but talk about a lot, nonetheless) become personal, when its/her/his fingers move the lives of those I love as if they were mere pawns on a board.

I know the Buddhists would say that attachment is 90% of the cause of suffering. One of the reasons I find it hard to be a good Buddhist is that I believe attachment is also 90% of the cause of true joy. The aspiration for me has always been not to reduce my attachment to the world, to people, to beauty or to love, but to increase it, equally, so that I might feel the same compassion and care towards anyone I meet as I do toward those I have come to love.

Today, I witness my own pain (I miss you, Kate, I miss you) at the suffering of just a small number of people I care about and I wonder how anyone's heart could stretch to love the whole world that way, and how anyone's mind could carry the weight of living with the sort of sorrow we experience when someone we love is hurt, multiplied by, well, just about everyone.

I'm nowhere near that kind of nirvana yet. I'll spend the day working myself into a frenzy to avoid my feelings and I don't doubt I'll spend tonight in a wine-induced coma to do the same. I've got a long way to go on my Buddhist journey.

And the good Lord and I? Well, we've never so much as occupied the same room. I doubt we'll start speaking now.

You look like a photograph of yourself taken from far far away

Check out the attitude of Micheal Phelan here

First things first, as Steve Covey recommends. You have got to, got to, GOT TO and did I mention, you've got to - check out the interpipe phenomenon that is Jimmy Bastard. Seriously. Click on the link of the brooding rugged guy in my Followers list.

Hard men are good to find and good friends are indispensable. Last night G allowed me to howl like a rabid wolf in his room (oo-er) for ten minutes, while he giggled at me from the other side of the room, shouting occasional encouragement, such as 'Yeah! Get it out of your system!!'

Then he introduced me to this, allowing us to set aside my pseudo sorrows for the rest of night and laugh ourselves silly on Damson Gin while speculating on the who's and how's that we would sing Lily Allen's latest to. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did, but I doubt it.

if they were me and I was you

I had a ridiculous amount of fun tonight with the fizzlingly ( I know, I made it up, I'm particularly proud of it), talking interpersonal behaviour, best friends and the joys and perils of love and fake breasts.

I love that our conversations are wide-ranging and eclectic, moving easily and effortlessly from questions of practical philosophy to frivolous gossip and girlish speculation. One of my favourite conversations concerned one of the obscenely good looking young barmen at the Slug and Lettuce, toward whom I traditionally begin the evening with polite respect and end with somewhat salivating flirtation:

The young man in question was collecting glasses at an adjacent table towards the end of the night as I turned and glanced toward him, then double-took.

I turned swiftly to Sally with what, in hindsight, I hope was a hushed whisper.

"Would you look at his arse? How can it be so simultaneously plump and yet tight?"

Sally rolled her eyes, grinning, and checked him out. She frowned as she stared.

"Yes," she answered thoughtfully, "I see what you mean. It's lovely."

We gazed in the same direction for a moment in silence.

"I think he's on the other bus," she declared, with a soft smile to me.

"Hmmmm," I replied, not shifting my stare.

A minute or so passed in silence before I met Sally's eyes again and asked with intensity, "Do you think that means he would mind if I asked to touch his bum?"

Sally nodded, thinking it through.

"No," she answered finally, "Definitely not. I mean, it's a compliment, isn't it?"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE,
THE ONLY,
THE TRULY GORGEOUS,
XXX SALLY JONES XXX

Back in the days when I made my home in the marrow of your bones

I found this picture by Naomi Skarsinski and urge you to spend some time with her work, at once...

I've had a beautiful friendship couple of days, the sweet touch of serendipity into my life. I spent the evening in the Kings Tavern last night, after bumping into Southsea's own charismatic Lothario, DC, whilst I was smoking in the street reading Barack Obama's 'The Audacity of Hope'. He was with his friend J and they invited me to the pub. I invited Lynda and James and James invited Vinnie. We just happened to bump into Gareth, then Steve and then a handful of other people in the pub. We smoked in the garden while I drank a little too much wine and talked a little too much politics, walked home with Lynda and fell onto the couch and into unconsciousness.

Lynda stayed at mine and we went for a long breakfast, the morning papers, some more politics and some serious munchies. We took a long walk along the seafront and had a gently flowing, rambling conversation about life, the Universe and everything (including a bit more politics). It turns out Paul was right, and the greatest of these is love.

I dropped Lynda off at the Peace Cafe, bumped into the infinitely knowledgable, almost qualifies as cheating if you have him on your team in a pub quiz, Steve Hyde, and left Lynda to book herself a slot with the sparklingly magical Pixie herself, Sue George (book your slot at the cafe on 9283 0544 for her next appearance in March), had a quick chat with her gorgeous starman of a husband, Dixie, and headed off to the office for a few hours work.

I spent the evening eating pizza with Pixie and Dixie and giggling in delight with the beautiful GJ, who's on a flying stop over from Spain. All in all, priceless. I sigh contentedly and leave you with this.

I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you

I love this picture, check out Pucky Learns to Fly on Flickr

Had a couple of glasses of whiskey last night, after a few glasses of wine and ended up staying up til the early hours with my friend, talking about life, love and our fragile, thirsty hearts. It's been ages since I stayed up til 4am or later. I'm blaming the whiskey, but I liked it. I've decided that tomorrow I'm going to buy myself a bottle. Of course, I know nothing of whiskey, so know nothing of which breed to buy. I wonder if I can persuade Waitrose to do me a series of tasters.

In my afternoon of recovery, I managed to watch most of series 2 of The West Wing. Is it me, or is Sam unbearably cute and does every girl like me (make of that idea what you will) want to grow up to be CJ Craig?

In other news, my cat has a personality disorder, which makes us the most officially suited couple of cats in Southsea.

Start Wearing Purple

Image by Djuna Barnes, make sure you check out her art and poetry here

After the excitement of a friend's birthday last night and a three way textathon that went well into the early hours of this morning (the crucial word for avoiding misunderstanding in that sentence is textathon), I was somewhat relieved when, at 10.30 this morning my 11 o'clock apppointment was postponed til midday. Particularly as I had not long been awake.

To celebrate my surprise hour of free time, I head to the Greenhouse Kitchen, my new local haunt. I love this place. It's a good size, the upstairs is always flooded with light (and in the mornings often completely abandoned, but for me) and the food and staff are fab. In addition, for a girl who has just discovered that her portfolio career is based on a mobile office (I love the novelty of unfamiliar jargon), there is a free wifi connection that the owners are happy for you to use for hours on end, providing you allow them to refresh your coffee every so often. Bliss.

On arrival today, I pass the time of day with the co-owner, before heading upstairs.

"There's one table left up there," he says, smiling," Have you heard of the Red Hats?"

I stare at him, polite smile on my face, assuming I've misheard.

"Sorry? The what-hats?"

"The Red Hats?" I shake my head. "They're through the back," he grins, "Sneak through and have a look!"

So I do.

In the back room, approximately 20 women of middle age or more are sat in a circle, talking and laughing at full volume. The energy in the room immediately makes me smile. I have a theory that a group of women (do women have a collective noun? Do men?! Should we invent them if not, or even so?) who are well and positively bonded can achieve just about anything due to this magical energy they exude. Just a theory, but the Red Hats have this energy in full amounts.

And have I mentioned that they are wearing purple dresses or trouser suits, and all of them are crowned with a different flamboyant red hat? I kid you not.

A quick Google search reveals that the Red Hat Society was started in 1998 in the USA and was partly inspired by the poem by Jenny Joseph, '"When I am Old." The members are women aged over 50 who regularly meet for tea and frivolity, and wear, you've guessed it, purple outfits with red hats. I find myself urging the years to pass so that I can join them. In fact, I catch myself imagining a Junior Red Hats Society for younger women who also want to defy society's expectations in the interests of having fun. Women are great.

When I take my seat, they are trying to work our who in the group has paid their subscriptions twice. Everyone is cooing loudly with their neighbours or across the table. Purses are being checked and amounts being calculated.

"Ooooh! It's me!" Comes a voice, from a lady looking bashful. A loud hoot of collective joy ensues. It turns out the woman who has overpaid is the treasurer.

"Well, it's lucky we found out," says another, "She needs the money now she's retired!"

Another wave of laughter sweeps the room. I cannot help but start giggling myself, attracting a couple of winks and smiles.

Needless to say, I'm so taken with them, I don't get around to reading my paper.