Billygean.co.uk

Compulsive Reading

Oct 30

Orangutan-less by choice

by billygean

“Look at my friend’s baby,” I say to MindReader.

“Aaah,” he says.

“Can we have babies?” I say, despite more than half the time not being sure I want them. But that is a whole other blog, but in short, expressed very well here.

“Of course,” MindReader says. “They might be ginger though.”

He turns and the light from the lamp catches his strawberry-blond hair.

“Mmm,” I say.

He wraps his arms around me and abentmindedly strokes my mane of unkempt hair and the downy hair that covers my arms that I was so selfconscious of, until him.

“What will they look like, otherwise?” I say.

“Monkeys,” he sighs.

MindReader To baby or not to baby

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Oct 30

On crappy chick lit!

by billygean

So. National Novel Writing Month starts in two days and I am beginning to wonder what I have signed myself up for.

We are moving to suburbia on NOVEMBER THE FIRST so I will:

1. Pack.
2. Move house.
3. Unpack.
4. Write 1,667 words.

Don’t even get me started on not having the energy to pack/unpack/sit in the car and THE GUILT that MindReader will have to do it all himself.

So. Yes. And also, sometimes I think, well I have a plot, so I will just write it.

And then my inner-angster says WRITING A NOVEL? MAKING THINGS UP AND NOT JUST MOANING ABOUT YOUR LIFE ON YOUR BLOG?

And then I remember that I once wrote a story about a girl who got locked in a room and then remember she had the key. THE END. Yes!

But THEN, I read crap chick lit like this:

“Who the hell knows?”
“Who the hell cares?” and they both smile at one another, somehow each knowing that this is more than just coincidence, that they were somehow fated to meet this afternoon, and that this will be the start of an important friendship.

… And I think, if bloody Jane Green can be published, then so can I.

novel Writing

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Oct 28

We have now taken to spelling out words randomly

by billygean

“Now now, it’s my turn,” MindReader says to me. “You’ve had enough!”

We are rather geekily addicted to Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Yes. I know.

“Oh I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t know about your predilection for moving gems around…”

MindReader stares at me and leans against the radiator.

“I’m sorry?” He says.

I smirk. “It means -”

“I know what it means,” he says.

He continues looking at me.

“Okay,” I say, moving away from the computer. “Yes, before novel writing month I’ve been… using a word a day application on my iphone.”

I hang my head.

“Oh Billygean,” he says and I rest my head on his shoulder. “That’s cute.”

“I feel a bit meek,” I say.

“Did you learn that too today?” He says.

“Meek. M-E-E-K,” I say.

MindReader

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Oct 26

On Audrey Niffenegger’s ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’

by billygean

“I finished that book last night,” I say to MindReader.

“Oh yes?” he says.

“Yeah it was really weird…”

“Mmm,” he says, chopping parsnips.

“Like, it was not of a genre at all. Like she crammed together several different genres and left all of the unpacking to the reader. I feel like I have lots of thinking to do.”

MindReader gives me a Look. One which says, we are very different.

I lean against the counter. “Plus she was writing consciously within a tradition. She set it in Highgate Cemetry so she was following those before her – you know, Dickens – but in doing so she made you expect a ghost story and then she wrote something more approximating to a weird kind of dark rom com!”

MindReader stops chopping. “I’m sorry, I have NO idea what you’re talking about.”

English Nerdery reading

6 Comments »
Oct 21

Plus we move back in ten days!

by billygean

“And how’re you?” WhiteLeggings say.

I wave my hand.

“On balance,” I say, tilting my head, “maybe possibly slightly better.”

He prods my arm, which I find disturbing and gives me an I told you so look.

“Back to work then?” he says.

I blink.

“Erm, no,” I say.

More like, being able to go to the doctor’s without worrying about fall out.

He refers me – not to JayJay as I requested – but to a ” general physician”. I smirk, because I thought that’s what he was.

“Good luck,” he says as I walk out of the door. I have to say, as annoying as he is, it is nice to know he thinks I’m getting better, even if he’s completely uninformed about CFS.

I take a deep breath and walk to the train station. I wait a while, pacing the station and board a train.

I wonder as I ride an escalator up Birmingham New Street whether it will always feel this beautiful to take the first few baby steps to being well. It is no less rewarding because it is the second time.

I walk out into the crisp October air and admire the Christmas decorations that spiral up and down the glittering trees that line corporation street. A big red bus is stationary in front of me and as it pulls off and passes me by, its headlights sweeping across my face, it reveals BathShop.

I freeze, breathing in the smells of jasmine and powdery bathbombs, spicy soaps. The shop window is lit up. I can’t quite see the people inside, and pull my coat closer around me, hoping they can’t see me.

I turn eventually. I am not ready to go in yet, but soon.

I go to meet MindReader in Starbucks and, as with last time, it is as if Birmingham’s arms are welcoming me home again.

City life illness

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Oct 21

And I do

by billygean

“I’ve done something naughty,” MindReader says on the phone to me.

I blink. This is, I confess, more the kind of thing I say.

“What?”

“I’ve bought a tie,” he says.

“Oh MindReader, you’ve fallen off the tie wagon!”

“I also went into a shop to see if I could buy a cumberband,” he says. “But they don’t sell them alone.”

“What do they sell them with?” I say, baffled. “Other sausages?”

There is a very long pause.

“Erm, no…” MindReader says. “Look it up.”

“Okay,” I say in a small voice.

“Prepare to feel very silly.”

blonde moments MindReader

7 Comments »
Oct 18

Wherein I express emotions

by billygean

As you know, I wanted to go pumpkin picking. However the nearest place was 30 miles away which MindReader felt was a long way to drive to pick one pumpkin.

So we compromised and went to a GARDEN CENTRE.

I know, how did this happen to me? He said we can do anything else nearby and I picked a GARDEN CENTRE.

In my defence it has a pet’s corner section, a halloween section, a yankee candle section and a walkthrough Christmas experience. What could be better? (apart from the ability to walk through it without feeling ill, of course!)

“You don’t need fairy lights in a jar,” MindReader says, gently tugging my hand.

“Oh but I do,” I say. “Why didn’t I realise before that I needed lights in a jar?”

I walk over to a miniature Christmas tree, pick it up and shake it in MindReader’s face. In my defence I am VERY excited about Christmas.

“Our first Christmas tree in our own place!” I say and stamp my feet a bit.

MindReader pales slightly and looks like he may want to move out.

“Oh, I would like a watering can! Oh and a patio heater!” I say. Our imminent move to suburbia excites me.

MindReader guides me away from those. “I would like a driftwood table though,” he says. “And you know, like photos of the sea in the living room…”

I cannot help but squee and stamp all over again.

living in sin MindReader suburbia

5 Comments »
Oct 16

Love Happens is not a good film by the way!

by billygean

“Eat your dinner!” MindReader says as I open my mouth to tell him even more about why I like Bright Eyes’ lyrics so much.

MindReader and I are going to the cinema. That’s right! Body is not being particularly better behaved – though I think there have been more better days recently – but the other option is going insane.

“Relax,” I say.

MindReader is a Very Early Person. I Am Not.

He spoons another mouthful of curry into his mouth.

“Besides,” I say, “that clock’s fast.” I check my phone. “It’s actually 20:20.”

MindReader looks at me for a moment with a faint smirk on his face. “Gosh,” he says, “no wonder the rice is overdone.”

MindReader

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Oct 15

Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep / And all their tearful words will turn back into steam

by billygean

“Walk?” MadFather says.

I nod and pull my shoes on.

“I think you might need a coat,” MadFather says.

Startled, I look out of the window.

It appears to be October.

We walk down the street, and I can see my breath. Tiny spheres of water hang on every blade of grass and the air is damp and misty around my face.

This is very surreal for somebody who became ill at the end of July; I thought when I emerged again that the world would still be full of barbecues and freshly-cut grass and impromptu football, not drifting leaves and a sky already darkening at 6:30 to a strange pinky grey.

We walk past a house and I breathe in deeply, expecting the usual scent of lavendar from their garden. Instead, I smell sea salt and fish and wet rocks.

I look at MadFather. “Can you smell that?” I say, “or have I finally gone mad?”

He breathes deeply. “No, I can,” he says. “Smells like the ocean.”

We stand still and I close my eyes.

I am taken out of my body, out of Tamworth, for a while, and it as if someone nearby orchestrated just that.

Uncategorized

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Oct 14

Wherein I use an opening line worthy of a (slightly horrible) novel

by billygean

If I had known that contracting glandular fever in January 2008 would have lead to me eating a cholesterol-reducing yoghurt with a picture of a 70 year-old fat man on it, I would have run screaming for the hills.

Without even talking about how I can no longer wear contact lenses, eat wheat flour, do ballet, or indeed, leave the house (much), it seems intent on encroaching into the very small area of my life I still enjoy: gluten-free treats.

WhiteLeggings seems to think that – since I won’t (note the won’t) – go to the gym I have to eat virtually no saturated fat. He doesn’t know WHY I have high cholesterol, although my lack of exercise was cited more than once, and he doesn’t think it is contributing to the fatigue.

So in other words, I have collected another illness.

Life without snacks is very bleak and hungry (and – depriving body of energy, how is this a GOOD IDEA?) and I fear I am going to lose weight if not careful.

But the photo of the man on my yoghurt pot is clutching his chest. And if that isn’t enough to make you pay £6 for four yoghurts, I don’t know what is.

Uncategorized

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