I teach creative writing, and often what happens is that my students repeat my words back to me and I don't understand that it was me who said them first and it's a headfuck. I love teaching. I love communicating knowledge and I love using my skill with words to package information in a way that lands with the other person. I sort of took it upon myself, at the end of last year, to help one of the girls I used to nanny with her 11+ because I could so clearly identify where her boldest missteps were and part of me thought maybe I am interfering too much and then her mother cancelled her tutor and asked me to come over instead and you know what? She aced the exam and I know I played a part in that. After, when she called me to tell me how good she felt about what she'd done, I cried. She's working on a novel and she FaceTimed me on Easter Sunday from a walk on the Devon coast to show me some goat poo. That child reminds me to be love. Some people have comme...
Pickle, the family rabbit, has died. I found out because Mama emailed me about it. We're going to bury him in the garden tonight, next to Eric, she said. ERIC DIED TOO? I replied. Eric is my auntie's rabbit. She lives across the road from Mama and they used to have rabbit play-dates. Eric died last month, I was told. And then the gravity of Mama's words hit me. They were going to bury my beautiful little lion-haired baby in the ground with Verbose Auntie's overweight, smelly, and not to mention AMOROUS beast of a pet. They were going to be together for all eternity. Mama , I implored back, those rabbits cannot spend the rest of forever together.... Eric was a rapist. And it's true. We'd all been in the garden when, as Verbose Auntie put it, Eric's lipstick came out of the tube. Poor Pickle didn't stand a chance. There was rabbit-on-rabbit penetration, and we all sat by and watched it happen on that sunny afternoon. Hell. We might even have enjoyed it. G...
I shouldn't be let loose in public alone. I just shouldn't. It is a notion that occurred to me when I was at the bank last week. The nice chap looking after me- the obligatory, just-out-of-school, very-bad-skinned, Jesus-why-don't-you-cut-your-nails-for-crying-out-loud new boy with a bad haircut- had just offered me a credit card. Knowing he could see my balance on his screen I laughed at him. Out loud. He stared at me. It dawned on me that he wasn't joking. "I can't have a credit card," I told him. "I have no self control". "Ah, yes madam," he countered, "But you see with the offer we have today you have 56 days interest free to pay back what you borrow". "Ah, yes," I said back to him, "But you see, I won't pay it back. I'll buy a plane ticket somewhere, draw the rest out as cash, and deal with any consequences later. Or never." The chap narrowed his eyes at me. "I'm just being honest,...
I thought it was funny too, and I laughed ...
ReplyDeletesnigger
ReplyDelete*I* would have laughed...
ReplyDeletepinklea- I'm pleased!
ReplyDeleteHeather- Oh! Piggy snigger!
P- Well thank you. I AM funny really!
x