Let's Get Fizzy Cool

I have never thought of myself as being a person who enjoys exercise. I think this is principally because sport of any description – with the notable exception of horse riding, natch - brings me out in a rash. Hearing about it, watching it, and most especially being forced to play it – ugh. It just makes me shudder… a long, cold shudder that has been pulled up from the very bowels of hell.

Where does my deep-held loathing of sport come from, I wonder? Is it all just sickening secondary school memories of ducking out of the way of netballs, running miles to retrieve tennis balls, and being whacked in the shins with hockey sticks? That would probably be enough, really. Games and PE were up there with maths and physics as being my most loathed subjects ever at school, and the fact that one had to undertake sports in hideously unflattering gym knickers that left unsightly elasticated grip marks where no elasticated grip marks should be puts it, let’s face it, on top of that pile of misery. At least in maths lessons I could attempt to look intelligent and just be re-running dialogue from Moonlighting in my head. I couldn't do this while I was trying to be sporty in the world’s most unflattering outfit.

Games and PE lessons were – and I won’t go on, because I’m telling you something you all already know – an exercise in the popular, shiny-haired girls lording it over the under-confident bookish nerds like me. And really, what closer definition to hell is there than that, especially when you’re in your formative years?

The fact that I literally have less strength than a hamster (I struggle to open envelopes sometimes, let alone jam jars) meant that things like rope climbing and push-ups were especially torturous for me. I HATE to do badly at things. I really hate it. And boy, was I bad at school sports. I can’t run, not for toffee, not even for a delightfully creamy brie. I have no accuracy or aim. I can’t jump over things, I can’t climb things, I can’t… well, do whatever else it is sporty people like to do. When it comes to all that stuff, I am a big fat zero and it makes me loathe myself when I try. I used to say I wasn't competitive, but then I realised I just don't like to compete if there's no chance at all of me winning, and every chance of me looking like a puffed out loser or getting smacked upside the head with a tennis ball.

I cannot get my head round people doing these things for pleasure, but I guess almost anything is fun when you’re good at it, right? Calculus, torture – possibly even badminton?

Added to this, I used to live within spitting distance (don’t tempt me) of a football ground. I think they wear red, I forget which team – apparently that sort of thing matters a great deal to some people? I’ve never quite fathomed out why. I’m a little bit ‘alt’ looking (you’re a little bit rock n roll) (points for who gets the reference…) and at that point in my life, with my crazy waist-length red, orange and yellow plastic dreadlocks and my youthful waist meaning I still wore pretty little outfits on a fairly regular basis, I looked a lot damn weirder than I do even now with my Mohawk which I love so much. The football fans didn’t like this very much and used to shout pretty nasty things at me as I walked down the street to my own house on match day.

This didn’t happen very often, but enough to be another factor in my general sport-hating attitude. Oh, and pubs that show sport – that’s another one. Being old and grumpy, I refuse to go into a pub unless I know I can sit down. Living in London, this can mean I have to go into a *lot* of pubs before I find one that’s acceptable. There is very little more disappointing than realising that, having trudged around 3 billion pubs, getting more and more thirsty, hungry and irritable, like a child that really needs to go to bed, searching for somewhere quiet to sit and imbibe, thinking you’ve found your oasis – and then realising it’s actually got a big screen showing the f**tball at ear bleeding volumes, and that the other patrons, who were all sitting alone and quiet, nursing their pints like good, peaceful little alcoholics when you walked in (naturally during half time), are going to start leaping to their feet and screeching like monkeys as soon as the ‘show’ begins again.

You’ll be glad to hear I’ve found the perfect solution to this last problem. It’s called giving up drinking and never leaving the house again.

Anyway, I should really stop venting about sports and sports fans, as some of my closest fans fit into that latter category, and we all have our sicknesses, don’t we. I shouldn’t judge. The point of this blog is to say that, despite my loathing of sport, I suddenly seem to have become a person who exercises. A lot. I am even finding myself getting up early to do so. Quite frequently. When did this happen to me??

My first foray into exercise probably began around 12 years ago, when I started doing yoga with the friend I’ve had for longest in my life. I can’t really remember what made me decide to start doing yoga, but it was probably because I wanted to be a bit more like Madonna. Let’s face it, I started counselling because I wanted to be more like Frasier, so Occam’s Razor would suggest that that is the forgotten explanation.

My very first yoga class I remember as being the exact incarnation of the seventh circle of Hell. I can’t think where it was held, but it was in a very big, very bright room somewhere, and all I can really recall is a sense of total outraged indignation that no-one had told me it would be anything like that difficult – and if I had known, there was no way I would have been there. That indignation translated itself into hatred for the teacher, a hatred which burnt red and hot within my stomach. My legs trembled throughout the lesson as if they had the worst DTs in history, and I can recall swearing to myself upon leaving that I would never, never do that to myself again.

However, I somehow ended up going to a regular class with my same friend, first once a week and then twice a week, at a class I could walk to from my house, and I soon realised that I actually loved it. The challenge of it. The magic of the poses that the more experienced people could do and I suddenly realised that I wanted to be able to more dearly than I wanted diamonds. Seeing myself improve, inching along, a tiny bit better each week. The feeling of calm when I left. I was addicted, and for a couple of years, I went to yoga twice a week, went on retreats, knew the chants, was a total convert.

There was one thing that made it very frustrating, though – my total lack of strength. There were many poses which seemed as if they would be forever out of my reach because my arms are weak as matchsticks. I know that there’s a lot more to yoga than arm strength, and that some of the poses I couldn’t do also needed core strength and better alignment and all that. But trust me – my puny arms really let me down. And so I decided to do something about them.

I joined my first gym entirely in order to make my arms stronger so that I could be better at yoga. That was my only ambition - there was no other reason. I remember telling my then boyfriend that I was going to have arms like Sarah Connor's in T2 (the only thing I like about that movie is her arms - otherwise it's *such* a let-down compared to the first one) and him being vaguely horrified. He needn't have worried, it never came to be - my arms are still weaker than a three-year-old child's.

I joined the gym near where I was working at the time and went three times a week at lunchtimes. I would spend the whole morning of every gym day dreading it, but then usually end up quite enjoying it. Aside from anything else, it was the chance to listen to music really loudly for 45 minutes whilst watching aspirational videos on the big screens (I think it's *very* cunning that gyms always seem to show MTV base... no matter how much we all exercise we're never, not having been photo-shopped to fuck, gonna look like those girls, but we keep believing we might one day, so we stick at it), which has always got to be good. In fact, the best thing about that gym was when they got a stash of exercise bikes that let you play Tetris as you cycle. The quicker you pedalled, the quicker the blocks moved. I adore Tetris, I think I probably play an average of 20 games of it every day, so that was an amazing motivator.

I ended up quitting yoga for the gym, something which seems impossible to me now. But no matter how many weights I lifted, my arms never got any stronger, I never got any better at the poses I couldn't do, and it didn't seem cost effective to keep doing both, so I dropped yoga and became a gym bunny. Three times a week of cardio vascular workouts. I shudder at the thought now.

Exercise is a funny thing. It's a bit like cigarettes, or cocaine. No, really, hear me out. You don't necessarily enjoy it while you're doing it, but once you're in the habit, you keep wanting more, and you don't feel quite right if you don't get your fix. I never really loved the gym, but I stuck with it, went to various different ones, even, for a brief insane period, went to spinning classes two or three times a week - if you've never been to a spinning class, don't, you actually think you're going to die the whole way through it - and kept it up until I got made redundant and had to leave due to severe lack of funds.

I was in the habit of exercise by that point and didn't really want to stop, so had a sort of no-man's land period of sometimes going swimming and sometimes riding my bike round the park and sometimes doing nothing at all.

Going to dance classes is actually my all-time favourite way to exercise, and for a brief and wonderous period my DJ life partner and I went to street dance classes that were taught by a French man who looked like Thierry Henry (I might not know about f**tball, but I watch car adverts, alright?) only better looking. And he liked hip hop. I was actually, fully, 100% in love with him which certainly helped, but those classes were ace. They were part of - the only part of, to be fair - the master plan I had that what Twisted Kitten (our DJ duo) really needed to make themselves a professional outfit was not, in fact, learning to work the mixer, but instead learning to body pop. Don't ask me where where I get this stuff... it just comes to me. ;-)

Sadly the classes got cancelled cos mostly we were the only people there, otherwise I'd still be doing them to this day and would probably be dancing onstage with Madonna by now. We tried to find another class, but most street dancing classes seem to be for 13 year olds, or they were on nights when I had uni, so we gave up.

I finally re-joined a gym when I started my PhD. I love my uni gym. It's so cheap it's practically free and it has a pool, which none of the other, much more expensive gyms I've belonged to have. I started off by doing two CV workouts and a swim every week, but somewhere along the line - and again, I can't really remember when or how - I started going to the yoga classes again, and once again got hooked.

This is partly, strangely, the result of my tinnitus. I can't listen to my iPod any more (a lament I could write an entire blog about, oh reader), which really does make the gym interminably boring. True, if I time it right I can watch Gilmore Girls on one of the tellies with the subtitles on, but as soon as I move away from the bikes and onto the cross trainers, I can't really see it any more, so that's not much use. Heaven forbid that I should just concentrate on what I'm doing in the gym. It hurts! You need distraction! As much as is humanly possibly!

Hence, I have pretty much given up on cross trainers and treadmills - my most loathed piece of gym equipment anyway - and am now going to three (count them!) yoga classes a week. As I said earlier, there is something magical about yoga. You watch people do poses that seem to defy possibility. It's like watching Derren Brown, watching a yoga teacher demonstrate a move. And at first you feel like an unfit, lumpen hippo as you attempt to emulate, sincerely believing that they are a shaman employing trickery to fool you and that you will never, ever be able to do what they are doing - which is of course no-one's favourite feeling... but week by week, little by little, you start to improve, until you realise you're doing those formerly impossible things yourself. And that's a pretty awesome feeling. Of course, there's always more impossible things to learn, but isn't that true of life generally?

It was yoga that was responsible for this crazy early morning exercise trend that seems to have sprung up in my life over the past few months. The gym put on a class at 7.45 on a Wednesday morning, which means me leaving my house around 6.45. In the dark and the cold, it was very hard to motivate myself to get there, but now I almost look forward to it. Or at least, I had been until now. To continue the theme of gym-teachers-I-am-in-love-with... I am also, actually, fully, 100% in love with my yoga teacher, Rebecca. My friend P from uni comes with me sometimes to yoga and completely accurately described Rebecca as 'a beautiful angel of perfection.' She's so tiny and bendy and beautiful, I just want to bite her. And she makes me calm and happy. But - the reggae, the reggae - she's leaving! Has, in fact, left! My tiny heart is broken into a million pieces, and I'm convinced the new girl won't be a patch on her. I hope I can continue to get up at 6.45 for this Johnny-come-lately, whoever she may be...

I think it was the fact of all this early morning yoganess that made my first foray into early morning outdoor swimming, as chronicled in this very blog a few posts back, a possibility. I'm swimming in the London Fields Lido every Saturday before work now, and I love it... and I've just started going to the outdoor rooftop pool in Holborn for 8am on a Friday with some of my friends as well. That means almost half of my mornings, I am getting up early to exercise. Twice a week, I get to see sunshine and water doing that beautiful waltz they do with each other and I can kid myself I'm on holiday. I'm sure it can't last. Is this really who I am now?

The thing is, though... it's just so good for me. And I know that sounds stupid because of course it's good for me, that's the whole point. But it's not good for me the way that lentils and broad beans are good for me... things I have to suffer through to get to some benefit which I'm told is there but never really notice until it's taken away...

Exercise, and especially yoga and outdoor swimming, is good for me the way sushi is good for me. I can't believe that sushi is good for me because it's so goddamn delicious it really shouldn't be. And yet I know it is because when I come away from eating sushi, I feel good, not all laden down and guilty, like I do after a Chinese. Yoga and swimming out in the sun iron my brain out. They force me away from the petty little things that I pick at and pick at, the way other people pick at scabs. They are like a magna-doodle for my brain, erasing all the crap and starting afresh. I hope I able to keep this up for a very long time.

Some boys! Some whining!

(NB 1. Keen followers of my blog will note that I have come full circle from the entry of January 2010. I shall try to stop being girly and return to my higher self for the next entry, but for now… indulge me. This is what’s on my mind right now.)

(NB 2. I am in two minds whether or not I will actually publish this blog. The characters are all too real and any relation to actual events isn’t a coincidence at all. The chances are I’ll be too terribly pleased with my wittiness to leave it in the virtual drawer – and if I had, you wouldn’t be reading this paragraph anyway, so it’s a moo point – but still, you know. My finger is hovering with trepidation over the 'publish post' button.

So, in short... if you read this, and you recognise yourself, or think you recognise yourself… you’ll know I fancy you a bit. Don’t go getting too big-headed, though, chances are I’ve changed my mind by now. Ah, Johanna, fickleness is my middle name.) (Well, actually my middle name is something else entirely, but that’s a whole other story.)

I don’t want a boyfriend. I really, really don’t. If I keep telling myself that enough times, sooner or later I’ll believe it, right? No, really – I do mean it. I don’t want a boyfriend, and the reasons for this are as follows:

1. It’s so much less hassle not having to worry about someone else’s opinion of me all the live-long day. I know that if I was a balanced and well-rounded individual, then having a boyfriend wouldn’t need to mean that that was what I ended up doing. But it turns out, I’m not so well-rounded. When it comes to men, as I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit of a mentalist. I don’t think it helps that, for reasons of fate or personality or some crushing combination of the two, I am nearly always sat next to my phone or a computer, so that when someone messages me, I’ll usually reply in about 3 seconds, and I can never *quite* get my head around why other people don’t do the same. So if I’ve, say, texted someone and I’m expecting a reply of some sort, it feels like a very deep and personal rejection if I’ve not had a reply within 15 minutes. Twenty if the recipient having an operation. I know this is unreasonable. I’ve tried to reason with myself. But I never listen and instead, when I’m texting the object of my affection, instead of it being a pleasant and witty exchange of viewpoints, it becomes a nerve-fraught salsa dance along the highest of wires. I might try to delay my own reply, just so I can revel in the feeling of it being my turn, of me having the power for a bit, but I ultimately feel like that’s playing games – and aren’t we all a bit too old of those kind of shenanigans these days?

2. I can sleep so much better alone. I can listen to an audio book without feeling shamed for this slightly nerdy addiction I have and without quibbling over which book to listen to. I don’t need to worry about snoring (mine or the other’s), I can listen to my radio and I can cuddle Joseph Fiennes bear. When I’m sharing a bed with a man, I inevitably sleep badly, get either paranoid or pissed off about snoring and feel that I have to tiptoe around in the mornings when I inevitably wake up four hours before he does, which always royally irritates me.

3. I just don’t get men. I was tempted to write that all men are bastards, but that’s not true, I know that really. There’s at least three of you I can bring to mind of whom I’m reasonably fond, ah ha de ha ha. (Just kidding.) (I hate all of you really.) (No, honestly – I am just joking.) However, I do think John Gray was right. The male population may as well be from Mars as far as I’m concerned. They all seem to think so differently from me, and I’m exhausted from too many years of trying to change my thought patterns to fit in with these alien rhythms. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it is, but I just don’t look at the world in the way that most men I’ve encountered in a romantic setting (and maybe that is the key?) seem to. Myself, I understand. My friends – even my male ones, as long as I’m not trying to kiss them – I understand. Living a life populated by just myself and my friends makes perfect sense to me. If you introduce a man, I start to get confused. I don’t know which way is up any more. Things stop making sense and I don’t like it.

4. I am a pretty independent person and I like doing things the way I like them. I also get very nervous about meeting people I don’t want to meet and spending time with other people’s friends, so not having in-laws and in-friends to deal with is a blessing. I have got loads of lovely friends of my own, and without a boyfriend, I have enough time to actually see them all. And none of them confuse me or disappear on me or keep me awake at night as I try to figure them out.

So – the evidence is clear. I don’t want a boyfriend. And yet, and yet… It’s clearly been long enough that I’m pretty much over the romantic disasters of last year. And it’s spring time, which always helps with these things, and, the ultimate truth about me, which I try with all of my logic to over-ride, is that I am a hopeless romantic and I am constantly looking for someone who will rub my feet at night, and whose feet I can rub in return. None of the logic in the world is ever going to fully defeat that fact.

Let’s look at the possibilities: Suitors One, Two and Three.

Suitor Number One is a delightful fellow. Tall, handsome, kind, reliable. I’ve known him for years and always been pretty sweet on him, ever since the time he came to a party at my house when he didn’t really know me and behaved impeccably. Manners, you see. They’re the equivalent of knee-length fuck-me boots in my book.

I recently made a bit of a ham-fisted attempt to woo him, but discovered in the process that he has zero interest. However, I think I’ve actually made a friend there, so I’ve decided not to mind too much about that one, swoon-worthy as the guy is.

Suitor Number Two… well, there hangs a tale. Suitor Number Two seemed keen, keen, keen and got me to the point where I too, was feeling very keen. We had one date, which was spectacular. We ate, talked, laughed, sat gradually closer and closer to each other. I was smitten, I don’t mind telling you. He kissed me good night and asked if I wanted to go out again. I floated home on cloud ten.

However, I have sensed a distinct lessening of interest on the part of Suitor Number Two since then, which has left me scratching my head a little. I am still feeling pretty baffled about that one, but I suspect a need to face the fact that the Red X of Rejection has been stamped on my papers and move on. Plus, I'm a busy woman, you know? I don't have time for dilly dallying. You're either in, or you're out!

And so, Suitor Number Three. The suitor who doesn’t even realise he’s a suitor. Mind you, neither does number one for that matter. But I’ve made my peace with that – many of my greatest love affairs have been played out entirely in my head. This guy is tall and so bone-shakingly handsome he should be in the movies. I have recently discovered that he has the coolest job in the entire universe – I can’t tell you what it is in case reads this, and then I’m rumbled - but I can tell you it makes me think he must be as fascinating as he is gorgeous. We’ve had some Facebook contact, but I’m holding out on making too much of an advance because… (keep telling yourself, Johanna) I don’t want a boyfriend. Remember?

I think perhaps what that actually means is that I don’t want to get hurt again. After years of blind, trusting stupidity, I’m finally learning to be a bit scared. I’m not sure this is a good thing. But I also know I’m sick of being one of Konrad Lorenz’s ducklings, following the first man I see blindly to the ends of the earth, without thinking it through first.

I have no idea if I stand a chance with Suitor Number Three. And I’m attempting to keep a lid on even trying to find out at the moment. Only time will tell, I guess…

It's a Lido Out There (aka So I See you Swimming off with Someone New, I'm like... Haiku)

I've been swimming outside first thing in the morning three times on a Saturday now, and pretty bloody pleased with myself I am truly feeling. Here are three Japanese style poems written about my experiences: two haikus and a tanka. I'll get off the poetry and write some proper blog entries again soon, I promise. Try not to wither away from the disappointment. ;-)

Screwed up insides crunch.

Streams of gold kiss water tips;

My soul smoothing out.

An army of arms

crawl in copycat clockwork.

Breath flows in and out.

Blue above is ironed smooth;

fluid mountain range below.

Swim pool politics.

A punchy whale spouts off.

I clench my eyes shut.

A new poem

This is the first poem I've written without a specific reason (mostly, to be Christmas presents for people) for several years. I'm quite pleased with it. It's quite short, so don't be scared to read it. I hope you like it. I'm not sure what to call it yet.

I want to be as small as possible.

Creep through the cracks between the painting and the frame,

sleep in between the spaces of my ribcage,

a hand of golden sand that waterfalls right through your fingers.

I want to live inside the pocket of my jeans,

pass underneath your radar like a stealthy size six ninja.

I want to be as big as I can possibly be.

My shadow casts its shade over your soul,

when my fingers click, your ears will chime like church bells,

my eyes will burn a migraine in your mind.

Your memory so full of me it creaks and winces,

my voice a siren song you can’t ignore.

I want to be as small as possible.

Disappear in a blink onto the brink of the horizon,

pass through the fabled eyes of pins and needles,

become a ball that falls between the cobble stones.

I want to fill the floorboard gaps when I lie down.

I want to be as small as I can force myself to be.

Ink

As some of you may have seen, I had a new tattoo done last week. My biggest, most expensive, most painful – and probably best loved – tattoo to date. I wonder if pain, size and money will always work in inverse proportion to fondness like that? My guess is it will do; after all, the more we humans invest in things, the more we feel like we should have got out of them. Even if I hated it, I would never be able to see it that way, having been in pain for so many hours and having shelled out so much money that my wallet actually wouldn’t shut before I handed the wodge of cash over. Not that I do, in any way, hate it – I am entranced with it, enraptured. I’m in love with my hips, just as Roger Taylor was in love with his car.

This is my third tattoo that means something. Given that I have (I think, I keep losing count – numbers are really not my strong suit) 24 tattoos, I think this is a level of shallow of which to be proud. That’s a lot of meaningless prettiness, and let’s face it – that’s the best kind.

The first tattoo I had that meant anything in terms of having some significance more than me liking the way it looks is the fairly crappy dragon I’ve got on my stomach, which is now looking so faded and shabby compared to the brilliant black of the new one. It’s not the greatest tattoo in the world and was picked randomly from a piece of flash on the wall of the shop I frequented in Crewe, where I lived in the third year of my first degree. Would I say I regretted it? No, I don’t think so. I clearly could have put something better in that space, but it does mean something and so I do love it.

NB - I only have one tattoo I actively regret, and that’s the big fairy-with-an-kaleshnikov on my right leg. I had that one done really quickly after the genuinely brilliant fairy-with-an-AK on my left leg and this fairy is just trying to catch that one’s vapours. It’s also the only I tried to draw, and given that I can’t draw, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s not very good. Plus she looks like she’s sunburnt. It’s a shame it’s so very big, but regretting a tattoo really isn’t the ‘my life is over’ disaster that one would think it is. It’s actually more on a par with a hang nail that keeps catching on your jumper. Irritating, but you’ll live. I have vague plans to have a couple of laser sessions on it and have something better put over it, but there’s no massive rush.

So, back to the dragon. I had it done at the end of my first real relationship. My first true love, for whom I fell so hard. I really thought we were forever, and I still think wistfully of him from time to time today, even though he’s now as good as married with two kids. There are times when he looms so large in my subconscious that I can’t quite believe we were only together for a year or so. Our relationship was all fireworks and magic tricks, it was one of the greatest times of my life, but it fell apart for reasons I can’t even really remember now – something to do with his band and me having totally unrealistic expectations, like the foolish 19 year old that I was. It was my first taste of real, grown-up love. In all my memories of that time, the sun seems to be shining. Clearly, this was not the case – but why ruin a good bit of nostalgic mooning with something as tedious as the facts?

What I do remember clearly, though, is getting that dragon done to mark the end of the relationship, to have something on my body that he didn’t know about, so that I was mine again, and not his. Not quite so daft, my 20 year old self, it’s actually quite a canny idea I think. And it means new ink, which is always a winner.

The second tattoo I have that means something – and I only even realised that it does mean something as I started typing this blog – is my trio of Madonna heads, on the inside of my left arm, which I took from a book called Madonna in Art that a different ex boyfriend gave me. I love those Madonna heads.

Madonna means a lot to me. I don’t love everything she does – adopting 12 million kids whose parents, it turns out, are still alive, isn’t really top of my list of Good Things To Do – but nonetheless she is the closest I’ve got to a God, I think. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, and most importantly, the music. Yeah, she’s got it wrong a couple of times, but mostly, she’s got it right, and got it right again and again and again. The longevity of the woman deserves your respect even if, for some odd reason (maybe some kind of childhood accident?) you don’t like her music. I mean, come on – name me one other musician who has been so relevant throughout the 80s, 90s, 2000s and on into this decade… and Kylie doesn’t count! (I don’t really get it with Kylie. She’s got about three brilliant tunes (Come Into My World, It’s In Your Eyes, Confide in Me, oh, and Can’t Get Your Out of my Head… ok, four) and is clearly quite perky and sweet, but other than that, she’s stunningly underwhelming, no?)

The second reason I love Madonna so is that I think she’s beautiful. Her arms look a bit odd these days, but I still definitely would. Have you seen how bendy she is???

The third reason is that, strange baby adopting ways aside, she is a proper inspiration to me on a daily basis. She pulled herself up from nothing and is so totally in charge of everything she does – and everything she does (apart from the babies) (oh, and quite a lot of the movies, I’m not a total idiot) is spectacular. She’s clever and thorough and she’s got balls. We need more women like her in this world. She’s not perfect – she’s got gappy teeth and she gets things wrong sometimes and that song she did with Prince was a massive let-down – but we get so many seemingly perfect women shoved in our faces from all angles that a bit of hard work and grit and imperfection is exactly what we all need.

So yes – that is why my Madonna tattoos mean something to me.

This new tattoo is the third one that has a meaning – and I guess that meaning ties up with what I have just been saying about imperfections.

If I was clever enough, I would now draw a Venn Diagram and insert it into this blog, but it’s late and I’m tired and I’m not sure how I’d go about it. This Venn Diagram would be all the people in the world who have Madonna tattoos, and all the people in the world who have Leonard Cohen tattoos, and where they intersect. If any blog readers fit, like me, into the middle of that diagram, please come round to my house at once so I can marry you.

I didn’t think I liked Leonard Cohen for many years when I was a young, idiot child. This was a time when I thought Derek B (anyone remember his Good Groove?) was god’s greatest gift to hip hop, so plainly, I was not to be trusted. My father is a massive Leonard Cohen fan, a fact that has informed one of the oft-told stories of my heritage. My nan, on hearing this piece of information, warned my mum not to marry him as she thought no man who liked that kind of racket would ever be happy.

I chuckle, but it’s something I don’t really understand. I know the myth is that Leonard Cohen is really miserable – just as the myth is that Morrissey is really miserable – but I don’t really see it. Yeah, both of them have some sad songs, but which decent musical act doesn’t? Bands who only have happy songs end up being like D:Ream, and funny as Brian Cox is, that's not something to be aimed for. Moz n Len also have funny songs, uplifting songs, beautiful songs, fast songs, slow songs… anyone who was just miserable would be the kind of one-trick pony who would get tiresome pretty damn quickly and no mistake.

I realised my error re Laughin’ Len, as I like to call him, around the age of 14. I’m not sure what it was that showed me I was wrong – probably my brother making the same realisation and pointing out my wrong-doing to me. I basically liked anything he told me to like back in those days – apart from the Wedding Present. Never, ever the Wedding Present. I do not approve of Dave Gedge and his dreadful lumpish moaning. But I have loved Leonard Cohen with a love that runs deep and true ever since.

Anthem, the song from which my latest tattoo comes, is my favourite Leonard Cohen song (probably) and it’s a beauty. I had a birthday party a couple of years back which I didn’t enjoy at all – I was ill, and starting to realise that the party lifestyle I was leading wasn’t for me – and I got all a bit overcome at one point and started sobbing. A fairly common occurrence for me. I don’t think it’s really a party unless I’ve spent AT LEAST ten minutes crying somewhere on the premises.

My DJ life partner knew what I needed. She lay me on a soft mattress, stuck some headphones in my ears, and played me Len singing Anthem from his Live in London album. Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in. Listening to that tune at that moment will remain one of my favourite memories forever, I think. I won’t expound upon the greatness of the lyrics for you, as there would be nothing I could say that would add it to. If you don’t know it, go and buy it from iTunes (yes, BUY IT, I said, give Len your money!) and educate yourself for the better.

I used to have the above line from the song as my ‘something about yourself’ on Facebook, but then the buggers went and changed the profile page, and I knew I needed to rectify the lack of this quote in my life.

I had the idea to have it tattooed somewhere on my person on boxing day. I originally wanted it on my head – which was actually why I got my Mohican – but quickly realised it wouldn’t fit. I pondered on it for a month or so, came up with the idea of having it snaking round my hips a few weeks ago, and got it done as quickly as I could because it seemed such a genius idea I felt that if I left it any longer, someone else would get there first. And it is, I think, my favourite tattoo. There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in. What could be more perfect?

It hurt a hell of a lot, especially directly over my hip bones, and took ruddy hours, but it was worth it. I’m not sure how I’m going to top it. Any ideas? Answers on a postcard, please…

Give Up

(NB – the title of this blog is, in case you didn't know, a reference to the marvellous Postal Service album of the same name. Not only is that album beautiful, clever and well-crafted, but I think it deserves props alone for its stupendously miserable name.

Allow me an anecdote before we begin, if you will... I spent many long hours puzzling over the name of the album, loving it, but wondering if it might possibly have a double meaning which I was missing as it just seemed so unabashedly negative. Ben Gibbard, singer and genius lyricist of the Postal Service, is known for his love of words which have double meanings, so it seemed odd to me that the album title should only seem to mean one thing; a thing which, for me, brings Homer Simpson to mind – ‘You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is… never try.’ It took a rather more positive person than I am to point out to me that it could also mean surrender, in a positive sense, as in surrender to the music. Try as I might, I would never have seen that more positive meaning by myself, which tells you just about all you need to know about me. That more positive meaning of 'give up' is not, however, the theme of this blog. You will be shocked to learn.)

(NB 2 – oh, and also, I now have Lost by Nine Inch Nails, a similarly cheery sentiment, stuck in my head. Gave up trying to figure it out, but my head got lost along the way… Come on! If you know it, sing along!)

The last 18 months have seen me give up a hell of a lot of things. Cigarettes. The Other Thing (forgive me for slight crypticness, reader, the walls have ears). Sex. Watching telly and being on my computer in bed. Alcohol. Wheat. And now, it seems like dairy might have to be next. I have withstood the previous six, but I fear the seventh might be the end of me. A life without cheese is surely no kind of life at all. Plus, I fear that if I have to give one more thing up, I will have to spend the rest of my life sitting still in my room and waiting to die.

I have given up smoking three times in my life now – three times of note, anyway. I started smoking when I was 15, for exactly the same reason, I imagine, that everyone starts smoking… to impress my friends. Of course, I would rather have died than admit that at the time. I had new friends, friends that were higher up the social strata than me, friends that, I felt, needed impressing. I had risen up from the ranks of the unremarkable to suddenly join the forces of the louder, more stylised, more in trouble kids, and I knew that I needed a stronger passport than just my encyclopaedic knowledge of Smiths lyrics to be properly accepted. Cigarettes seemed like the easiest way in.

I didn’t really like smoking at first – who does? It tasted like hot, dirty smoke. Obviously, in hindsight, since that’s what it is, but I suppose I, in my innocence, thought it would taste like mournful French movies and delicate Victorian poetry, not like the muck scraped from the bottom of a gutter. However, I choked my way through it and grimly clung on, until someone gave me my first menthol cigarette (I feel like those things should come from Fisher Price – My First Cigarette, they could be called, so lethal and kiddie and tempting that they are) and all my smoking-related woes sailed away on that cool, mountain stream.

Ahhh, Consulate cigarettes. Even now, after giving up attempt no. 3, the one that I hope will stick, I feel tempted when I see that packaging - which, fortunately, isn't very often. Those are MY cigarettes – if anyone else has a pack, it’s just because they’re holding them for me. Oh, the power of the brand… and I’m not talking about Russell, for once.

I smoked menthol cigarettes like they were going out of fashion for the next – blimey – six years, until I was in the third year at university, when my friend Petra and I gave up together, mid-way through the year. That lasted a year and a half, I think – a good long time, so that I felt that I would never go back.

The thing that made me go back in the end was getting a job and living in my own flat. I had spent so many years smoking out hanging out the window at my parents house, and waiting til I was round the corner before I lit up (how I *ever* thought I was fooling them, I really don’t know) that once I was living somewhere where I could smoke whenever I wanted without fear of reprisal, it made me want to smoke like crazy, even though I’d given up some 18 months before. So I gave it, and started again.

That lasted for a year, and then I gave up again… this time for seven long years.

I started smoking for the third and final time for the world’s most stupid reason – I’d heard that my old boyfriend had a new girlfriend (are we spotting a pattern, here, readers?) – he’d rung up to tell me, something boys seem to keep feeling the need to do to me (for future reference, boys – please don’t do this, no matter how well meaning you’re being, I’d so much prefer to hear it from someone else so I can cry and get mad and do all those things any human would do, rather than having to pretend it's fine cos I want to look cool in front of you… I mean, seriously)… so I decided that the surest way to show him that he’d lost out on the prize of a lifetime was to take up smoking again. Don’t ask me why, it wasn’t very logical.

I continued for about 4 or 5 months, I think, maybe longer, before realising that what had started as a joke was beginning to catch hold and I’d better get a handle on it before it all went wrong again, so I took myself in hand and gave up again. That was 18 months ago now, and this has been the easiest of the things I've given up. It’s a vile habit and one I don’t miss at all.

The next one was the Other Thing. I have waxed lyrical about that a few blogs ago, so I won't bore you all again. I'll just say that it's been nearly a year now and it's not a decision I've regretted for one moment since I made it. It hasn't meant that my life is perfect now - I certainly don't wake up every day with a six inch smile on my face - I don't think I'll ever do that, no matter how many things I give up and how much therapy I have - but when I think back to the way I used to have to struggle through the week, I'm pretty sure I'm never going to want to go back there. It hasn't been a fix for my life. I don't regret a moment of those times either. But it is a chapter of my life that is finished for now. There might be a sequel - there might not be. But as far as that whole saga goes, the taking part and the ducking out... I genuinely have no regrets. And there's not many areas of my life I can say that about.

So... sex. Again, I won't harp on. But the longer I'm being single, the less interested I'm finding myself in men. I am currently toying with a vague and curiously attractive fantasy that I'm going to stay celebate forever and become re-virginised, and life is going to become simple and easy and lovely, a bit like something out of Anne of Green Gables. Of course, it has only been a few months, I'm sure I'll tire of it pretty quickly. But seriously... the sulking, the whining, the needing to explain every little thing, the arguments, the pettiness, the heartache, the having to share your bed... who needs it? Currently, and happily... not me. I'll start missing the nicer things soon, but hopefully not for a good long while yet.

And while I take my hats off to the girls who can have sex outside of relationships, I'm really not a person that works for. I get waaaay too attached, waaaaaay too quick. I only need to lock eyes with someone before I'm thinking about china patterns and picking out a dress. I say this as a warning to any would-be interested men reading this (of which I'm sure there are thousands, natch); seriously. Leave me alone. I'm mental.

I think the most surprising thing I've given up, out of everything, is alcohol. I've been drunk on one occasion in 2011... which means I've only drunk alcohol on one occasion in 2011, cos everyone knows the only reason you'd ever drink booze is to get drunk... right? Right??

I stopped drinking to make my sleep better. And it's working. It's not always perfect, but I am sleeping so much better than I ever used to. And I was only trying to sleep better in order to make me less miserable, and - don't laugh - I actually think that's working too. Yes, I've spent a good portion of this month boo-hooing about The Couple That Shall Not Be Mentioned, but I think it would have been a whole hell of a lot worse if alcohol and - hence - a lack of sleep were still in the picture.

When I first stopped drinking, it was hard, I won't deny it. But even then, it was a lot less hard than I thought it would be. The first couple of social occasions I went to, I spent the week beforehand worrying about... but then only the first ten minutes of being there worrying. Once I was past those first ten minutes, it was easy. I think there are three tricks to not drinking: one, getting through that first ten minutes. Two, taking a really nice soft drink that you actually want to drink with you - I recommend an unusual fruit juice and a bottle of fizzy water to mix together. Three, knowing for yourself that this is what you want to do, and not worrying about what other people say. This third one is the hardest.

For me, the fact that I need to not drink in order to sleep - and this was bought home to me with a startlingly bright spotlight on the one occasion this year where I did drink, when I PINGED awake at 4am and lay in bed feeling anxious and hating myself until I finally got up some five hours later - makes it easier. There are times when I am tempted, but at the end of the day, I know that I would always (at the moment) rather sleep than get drunk. And plus, I can drive to places now, which is much nicer than getting the fecking bus or having to sleep (or not) on other people's uncomfortable sofas.

I only ever meant to give up for a month, but it's approaching two now (if you don't count that one night) and I'm not sure I'll ever go back. I'm going on holiday soon... I don't know what I'm going to do about that... but the rules are - there are no rules, as Chandler once said. So we'll see what transpires.

NB no. 3 - I do hope I'm not coming across as the kind of self-righteous prig you all want to beat to death upon reading this. I love drinking. I love to get drunk. I am deeply jealous of those of you out there who can drink and sleep. But I'm not one of those people, and I got so bored of lying awake feeling anxious and hating myself, something had to be done about it. At least now all my anxiety and self-hatred is confined to the daylight hours, where it's much more manageable, ho ho.

Giving up watching TV and surfing the net in bed is a Paul McKenna related thing. It has sucked - I have conquered it now. It's not massively interesting, so I shall only say this - I may even be getting rid of the massive telly in my bedroom and buying a zebra-print chaise longue to go in its place. Watch this space.

And so, to the ever-fashionable food intolerances which I seem to have suddenly acquired. You would think, that with giving every fun in the world ever up, I would be a blooming blossom of health, wouldn't you? Sadly, you would be wrong. Stomach aches have been the bain of my life for about a year now. Perhaps longer - in fact, when I properly think about it, almost certainly longer. What I am realising is that giving everything else up has given me a clear enough head to do that thing that hippies are always banging on about - listening to my body, maaaaan. Oh, the shame.

And what does my body seem to be telling me? That it really doesn't like wheat. Oh, the humanity! Couldn't my reward for this seeming preparation for nunnery be, I dunno, a Pulitzer, or a pony, or at the very least a plate of toast? No, even this last has been grabbed away from me. I'm not going to go into the exact details of what wheat seems to be doing to me, because it isn't really seemly. But I want it to stop. And so I am shopping in the Free From aisles now and suddenly feeling a lot more empathy for my several coeliac friends. It's a bloody good job I've given up drinking as, with wheat-free pasta being something crazy like £25 a packet, I wouldn't be able to afford any gin anyway.

The results have been almost depressingly instant. On stopping eating wheat, my stomach aches stopped like that - *clicks imaginary fingers*. Why, you might ask, is that depressing? Because it means I'm most probably right and am having to give up bread and crackers and biscuits and couscous and barley and even, I have just discovered, my beloved squash!

However, it really isn't so bad. Who cares about the crackers, I have been stoically telling myself, as long as I can have the cheese? I can put cheese on my hand and eat it right off that, like I am my own pony. Everyone wins! The crackers can live to fight another day - they're only a fancy plate anyway. But... the other day, I had a dinner which contained a large amount of cheese. I've not been eating a lot of cheese lately as I've been on a diet, trying to lose all the love-makes-you-fat directly followed by miserable-Christmas-alone weight I put on in 2010, but I was cooking for a friend and made something that involved some Philadelphia light. And oh GOD, the stomach ache it gave me was horrendously horrific, as a charming girl on Come Dine with Me recently said.

I had had no wheat in that meal, that day, that week. Nothing else was awry. I can only conclude it was the cheese.

Of course, I have been wrong before. I remember it clearly, it was a Tuesday. (Sorry, old joke, but I love it so.) And here's hoping I am wrong again. But only time will tell. And if I am right... well, I really might as well go sit still in my room and wait for death to take me.

Swimming in the Rain

Well, what a morning I’ve had! I’m not sure any close friends of mine who are reading this – or, indeed, anyone who has spoken to me for more than about 15 minutes – will quite believe that this blog is based in reality rather than being a slightly damp fairy tale, but let me assure you… every word is true. Well, actually, I can’t make that assurance as this is the first paragraph and I’ve not written every word yet – I may edit some bits out or exaggerate others for effect, a skill I have honed finely over 34 years on this planet and don’t see why I should give up now – but the bare bones of the story, at least, are true.

Last weekend my DJ life partner and I had a gig. As is my wont in these nunnery-like days, I left at around 1am as was way too tired to keep my eyes open much longer. However, in the brief time that I was there between finishing DJing and hurrying off home, I got chatting to a friend of mine – a guy I have known and thought very well of for some years, but never got to know that well. He happened to mention to me that he goes swimming in a lido near where we both live, and that it's heated.

I love swimming, and I love swimming outside, and I love heated things - and the all-new teetotal Johanna is all about the exercise, so I decided I wanted some of that action and messaged said fella to see if I could come with him some time. I was suggesting after work on a Saturday but, alas, due to the shortness of the days, the pool closes before I finish. So he suggested BEFORE work, and I figured, what the hell, I get up at 6.30 for yoga once a week, I'm good at getting up... why not?

However, last night was the worst night's sleep I've had in months, the worst I've had since I joined the Great Cult of McKenna. I listened to the CD one and a half times (I reached my hand out to get my drink half way through the first time and, in the newly pitch black bedroom, did what I keep doing now and knocked something off the bedside table onto the CD player, stopping the CD in its tracks... and so back to the beginning, sigh), read the book for a bit, tried to sleep some more and must eventually have succeeded, but woke up (by my calculations) about 4 hours later and didn't get back to sleep at all, but instead was afforded the joy of lying awake being unable to get the image of my ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, currently on a charming little screensaver in my brain, out of my mind (you know the kind of thing... oh look, here they are, laughing at the things you two used to laugh at! Remember that cafe you thought was yours and his? Oh, it's theirs now. That look he used to give you? Yup, hers now... I'm not sure he could even pick you out of a line-up any more, etc etc, add your own little twist, they're endless, as I'm sure you well know). So that was a delightful way to pass a few hours. I kept trying to turn my brain to higher thoughts, but it turned out there aren't any higher thoughts at 4am and I just gave in in the end.

So I got up at 6.45 and went into the bathroom. Hmm, I thought to myself. What could that noise be? Sounds like loads of rifles going off... or loads of tap dancers... or someone popping a never-ending roll of bubble wrap... OH! It's armageddon, in the form of rain. Awesome!

I had a shower and got dressed, thinking perhaps it wasn't as bad as it sounded... but then after getting dressed stood, looking out the window, for really quite a while, as if hoping that the rain would respond to my Devil Stare and go away.

I'm not sure if I've ever explained my deep down, gut wrenching, misery inducing hatred - it's the only word that will do - of rain. I loathe it with a deadly loathing, and I think anyone who says they think otherwise needs their head examined. It makes everything soggy! And grey! And cold! And muddy! And SOGGY! It ruins festivals! And holidays! And otherwise perfectly decent Mondays! What other reasons do you need? Why on earth would you want to be wet and cold when you could be hot and dry? It's logic!

Of course, I know that, on an intellectual, Al Gore kinda level, the world needs rain, but if it could just always rain while I'm asleep and, since that's usually by about 9.30 these days, all the crazy people who say they like it can go jump in puddles all night long if they like, and then the sun can come back out when I wake up again. Sound good? Yes, thank you please!

Anyway, sorry, got distracted there for a moment. Of course, every logical fibre of my being was telling me to get back into bed and forget this crazy, madcap plan - after all, why go and swim in the rain when I could lie and torture myself with crazy jealous thoughts in my nice warm bed for hours instead? But... I didn't have the phone number of the lovely guy I was meeting. And to stand someone up at an ordinary time of day isn't something I could ever conceive of doing. To do so at 7.46am (the time we were meeting) would be unconscionable. So I girded my loins and set out in the rain.

Sadly, it turned out I had spent too long gazing out the window trying to commune with the sky through the power of my mind (oh, and posting on Facebook before I left the house, natch), and I missed the train by about 2 seconds. I must confess - standing on that train platform in the downpour, realising I was going to be late (which I hate nearly as much as rain) to go and swim in the rain, and that I had to sit in the rain, reading soggy PhD related papers cos I'm busy at the moment to observe my 'fun books are allowed at the weekend' plan, at 7.30am on a Saturday morning, when... well, I think I've made my point about this already, but when other people were in places I would much rather be... I did experience a bit of a low point. I said 'fuck' quite a bit and kicked things. Being a nice kind of person, I didn't want the rain to feel left out, so my face joined in.

However, time passed, as it inevitably does, and I got on the train and met my friend, who was fortunately still waiting for me and didn't mind me being late. Are we really doing this? I asked, indicating the rain. Of course, he said... it hadn't occured to him that we wouldn't.

And so, off we set, walking across the green towards the pool. I told him about how the last time I had gone swimming, there had been a fire alarm and I was made to go and stand outside on the street in my pants. He told me about a comedy night he had been to the night before in which one of the audience members delivered the ultimate heckle by attempting to start a fight with a comedian.

We arrived. I got changed, a little unable to believe I was really doing this. And then I went outside, and got into the pool... and do you know what...

It was pretty nice.

I've not gone completely crazy, don't worry - it would have been a hell of a lot nicer in the blazing sunshine, as every single thing in the world is... but it wasn't half bad. The water was heated, which helped a lot. But there was something so surreal about being outside, in hot water, with loads of other people, on such a cold and rainy morning, it felt like it must have been a dream. All the steam rising off the water helped with that - you literally couldn't see one end of the pool from the other.

I couldn't really feel the rain. At times I thought it must have stopped, but I could still see drops of it hitting the water and making those little circles in the water, like the rings of clay on a pottery wheel that are so innately pleasing.

The pool itself was charming. More of an actual swimming pool than the lake I was picturing, Hamsptead Heath style - and with pictures at either end of crazy English people standing in the snow, in their swimmers, which struck me as so fitting that I giggled each time I reached the end of the pool, usually meaning I inhaled a bunch of chlorinated water and ended up choking. Mmm, graceful.

There was something about being in that water while the rest of London slept all around us. No-one said much to each other, but it felt like we were all in a secret club. I will definitely be going back.

However, the rainy fun had to end some time, and eventually, I had to get out of the pool so that I wouldn't be late for work. You really are going to think I'm making this bit up, but I'm not... as I was getting out of the pool, a fire alarm started. I kid you not. Having learnt last time about hanging around hoping it wasn't real (and hence getting ushered out in my pants instead of having time to grab a towel), I made an immeadiate bolt for the changing rooms, where I managed to get dressed without burning to death. However, I apparently did miss a fight between a swimmer and a lifeguard, which I can't help feeling a little sad about. Clearly, though, fire alarms and fights follow me and my new friend around, so hopefully I'll get to watch the next one. Maybe if I'm lucky it'll be raining.