change

There's a row of pictures with the lilies in the background.

Completely to the left, pink tincture of flower I can smell them now.

The face changes, the lilies stay.

All flowers wilt.

Sleeping the other way round hasn't helped either.

20/11/2009

It's the rampage of thoughts

dripping down

the liner

mascara

wet and damp

and trickling

down

ow

And the nakedness

the exposure

the robe covers what

seems to be so

sexual
it can be fragile

not always what

we seem to be we are

all human after

all the same

to an extent

and the pain

the pain

the howl

the shriek the sound of glass smashing on the wall and the pain of voice and the lullaby of sleep

they creep in the head in the throat in the nose they staccato on my forehead and bounce off the

cries the cries i hate it don't speak don't talk keep it in the pain take a picture make it sexy take a picture but it's sad

Zut la femme

I sit here reading "Marriage", a poem by a female Victorian writer, Coleridge's great-grandniece or something like that, that's how she's defined they share the last name so clearly there must be made some sort of clarification - wow she's of Coleridge's bloodline let's have a look at that.

I don't know what I believe about women writing about women. Looking back now, with the consciousness and burden of feminism weighing above our fashionably styled heads I really want to be sick with how pretentious it all sounds. Marriage results in "a matron walking sedately" as opposed to a maiden "Wantonly free." Okay okay we know what you feminists think let's all take our bras off Germaine Greer-style and grow a moustache (believe me it's feasible) and maybe some armpit hair. Problem is, I love my bras. I ain't givin' them up.

But then I think again. I think pre-60s, pre-suffragettes, before women like me took every possibility in the world for granted; and I think about what a typical day in the life of a pre-Victorian or Victorian woman was like. Wake up, take hours to get dressed appropriately, sit around all day, write loads of letters, maybe read?, have tea, wait for husband/guests/kids, have an atrociously long and formal dinner, retire to the drawing room etc. Again. and AGAIN.

So when Ms. Mary E. Coleridge imagines the return of her married sister describing her as 'walking sedately', I can now see why this is such a great statement to make. The wildness of the female spirit, everything instinctive is actively suppressed. Is it sex that does it? Is the fact that the girl is no longer a 'maiden', that she has been defiled that sedates her? Is it a slow process or an overnight thing? Is she sedated like a patient, in order to control some sort of mania? And why is a single woman, an 'untouched' woman, such a threat? When she is "Flashing with laughter" is she a danger? Is her radiance in fact too hard to handle? Are her hopeful expectations intolerable and in need to be thwarted?

I hate myself for raising such issues, issues that have been branded the now horrifying term "feminist", that's been conflated with other irrelevant stuff like hatred for men, lesbian love etc etc. This is just a reminder that it wasn't always like that, and that it actually took some balls for Ms. Coleridge to write what she did.

Marriage

BY MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE

No more alone sleeping, no more alone waking,

Thy dreams divided, thy prayers in twain;

Thy merry sisters tonight forsaking,

Never shall we see, maiden, again.

Never shall we see thee, thine eyes glancing.

Flashing with laughter and wild in glee,

Under the mistletoe kissing and dancing,

Wantonly free.

There shall come a matron walking sedately,

Low-voiced, gentle, wise in reply.

Tell me, O tell me, can I love her greatly?

All for her sake must the maiden die!

I wish I had...

these Marc Jacobs boots.

And the legs to go with.

I remember walking in Great Court last year thinking how lucky I was

Evita.

With the pyjama bottoms and tops occasionally and the loveliness the black long hair and thick eyebrows shaped now in an arch, an inverted smile reflected on her mouth.

objection

gosh you looked so handsome even from that seat behind you when you were fixing your collar not propping it up like expected but tucking it in and your bitten fingers funny and familiar now estranged smell of blue musk.

gosh you looked so handsome without even seeing your face because i don't need to to know what you look like when you're fidgety when you're shy

maybe i don't know you that well i didn't have the chance really but gosh you look so handsome in my brain it's hard to contain the feeling but it's my pride.

eh i was cruel but you deserved it.

now vicariously i want you

i miss you with my eyes

but i won't give in

no texts

no call

stop

no

no more

i miss you

Two of my favorite people in the world.

Thalia and baby Nearchos.

I remember the morning we christened him.

I was so hyped - the excitement of being a godmother and three coffees in a row just because a certain someone decided to wake me up at 4am the night before.

I had the best time.

Babies are possibly the saddest thing on earth, for us, when looking at them I mean, every possibility of what we could've been crawls before us, while pushing a toy-car along the floor. And drooling laughingly.

obsession

I find it in the constant sitcom laughter

the 'next' button of a next comfort

purposeless as it is to settle

the real thing, the actual one.

It's fine that he's so close

It's worse that he is near

Obsess obsess obsess

Oh dear.

Come

On

Enough.

Now.

Stop.

Ah

I have decided that it is time this blog included some visual material. I love faces and portraits, so I'll aim to put up as many interesting photographs of weird/cool/pretty/lovely/distressed/joyful anything faces...

This was taken by my friend Rebecca last night while I was trying NOT to obsess over a recent incident. It's such a shame x