Wish you were here

The day you came home early,
cut short your visit,
phoning me from the station
train tannoys and people
blaring in my ears.

That day in summer
when I was in those
lush fields of green grass
when I was with my own thoughts,
sitting drawing clouds and pylons.

The day that was the next day after
I’d come back from being abroad
and we’d only seen each other
to fall asleep, before you
packed your bags to go.

That day you called me up and said
“I’m back” that you were
going to leave the telling
until you’d reached my
front door. That day-

when I had other plans
when I wasn’t expecting you,
didn’t need you, when every fibre wasn’t
screaming in its nerve to
be with you-

is not today.

Operation Button

The buttons have made it! All in all I gave out 5 necklaces. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like alot-especially considering that initial £45+ investment, but y’know – you’ve got to figure in my whole button angst thing.

After spending so long staring at them, pondering over colour combinations, size ordering, I started to experience real button insecurity. Were they any good, would people actually like them? etc. Consequently, I only risked them on those who like me too much to dislike my emissaries. People who were quirky/kooky in some small way. People, who had it in them to accomodate a necklace made of buttons.

Anyway , So far they seem to have been a success. Three out of five have given enthusiastic feedback and I’m thinking the other two have got to be just mid-text..or something…;)

So, phase one of Operation Button is complete, but I still have a sizeable quantity of them and EVEN a potential outlet to sell in. Time to commence phase 2: Operation Button Take Over World!!!

Oh, Happy Christmas btw;)

Litt List

Well, There’s been a further development on the whole Toby Litt situation. I received another email, clarifying further his current position. Though I doubt very much he can have encountered my previous post, his next email began:

"I hope you don't mind getting this. If you do, just mail back to say so, and I'll take you off my contacts list."

It went on to direct me to a Myspace site. His Myspace site. I now feel humbled. There it is, the very picture that was used to illustrate my article, alongside a veritable entourage of his great and good ‘friend’ list. These people appear to be seriously glamorous. Up and coming writers, sexy looking photos, folks talking about their latest hot nights out. They all seem so ‘it’ .

Whilst thinking that Toby probably doesn’t know how un-it (un-litt?) list I am, I’m suddenly intrigued. Here is this genuinely famous, seriously good author making himself available to his audience. OK, so he probably won’t remember who I am, but still, it is after-all nice to be added.

I like his books and now know when his next (Hospital) is due out. I also get to comment gratuitously and masquerade as Litt-List. Is all so fab! Yay!

Do hope he won’t be offended by my earlier reticence. Girl’s gotta have something to blog about. Life’s not all poetry y’know

Does Toby Litt Want me for a Friend?

I’m confused. A little while back I interviewed Lit Brit writer, Toby Litt for one of my freelances. His nearly latest book (Ghost Story) had just come out in hard back, so the article was half about that, half about his other work and mostly about the business of meeting him.

It was an alright meeting. I put on my special ‘I’m a journalist’ glasses- and my special ‘I’m a really good journalist’ blue velvet jacket. I don’t know which of us was more intimidated. Well, OK it might still have been me, but hey-the guy’s famous and I’d just finished reading all his books.

Anyway, I exchanged a couple of emails with him immediately after publishing; once to ask if I could pass his agents details on to a fan, once to tell him where he could read my finished article. He has a policy of not reading reviews, so declined. The emails were nothing fluffy. About a year ago I got what must have been a press release email about his latest book. This too was entirely understandable. However, yesterday I received another email:

‘Toby has joined Bebo and has requested to add you as a friend’.

This is the source of my confusion: why would Toby Litt want me as a Bebo friend? Is this just another press type thing, with Bebo being used as a mass publicity devise…or, does Toby really want to send me e-card on my Birthday? If I agree to be added to his list-and add him to my Bebo-should I send him a card on his birthday? Would that just be entirely inappropriate and over familiar-or not?-is that what he wants? Has he always remembered me and regretted the cruel circumstance of our not being acquainted? That his famous literati mingling lifestyle must keep him in London, while I, fantastic potential friend that I am, must remain in Leicester. Has this Bebo message just been sent to me accidentally, or Does Toby Litt want me for a friend?!

…I know I’m an angst ridden flower, but I have to have something to chew over. So – what should I do about it?

Answers on a comments box…

The dress that wouldn’t die.

The sink is pink
candy over metal faces
sides of stainless steel
where lines engraved
all run in veins of
raspberry, all is pink.

Rough patches of chrome
are pink. The yellow sponge
is pink. The spoon used
to stir the dye, the sealants
white, the rubber gloves,
the skin behind-

everything is dead
and deader dyed
pink.
Except the dress,
I’m trying to dye.
The dream remains cream.

Buttons, part 2.

The button necklaces are coming slowly, a situation not helped by my inability to be anything other than slightly self centred when it comes to pretty things. It’s been going something like this:

There, after an hour of fussing colour order, an hour of breaking wiring and an hour of actual making, I have in front of me a fairly attractive, slightly gothic and completely strung arrangement of large, black buttons. How clever of me to have had a person in mind when making this (my slightly gothic friend Niki) and to have completed something that I think she might like. Hmm, and isn’t it nice…very…shiny…glittery…I’ll just try it on…make sure it fits. Maybe I should just wear it to work tomorrow, see how it works out. Hmm. Maybe I should just keep this one and make my slightly gothic friend, Niki another one…

So far something like this has happened 4 times. I have made 1 button necklace to give as Xmas present. I have made 4 button necklaces to keep. I have also ended up with a load of buttons that don’t go with each other…resulting in me having to buy even MORE buttons that don’t go with them. Oh dear, dear, dear.

Right now, I am sitting in my tiny flat, peering over a laminate table top, strewn with buttons. I wonder, if I stare at them for long enough, would I be able to see them on my white plaster wall? Maybe, I could just leave all the buttons on the table and try passing them off as table decorations. I think I may be going a little mad.

Angry Bear

Angry bear,
growl in head
clawing at the
synapses

I left you to it.

Untidy Flats and Thieving Leicester Scum

Damo’s had his bike stolen. This is expensive, uninsured stolen bike number 2 . Which brings him in line with me in a scarily exact way.

Each of us foolishly left one of our expensive bikes unlocked-just prior to them being stolen. Each of us has carefully locked (with the kind of locking devise usually reserved for murders on day release) the other of our expensive and soon to be stolen bikes, just prior to them being stolen. In total this means we have now had 4 bikes nicked in the space of 6 months. Thieving Leicester Scum.

Damo said that he would chase in a rabid manner, the next hoody wearing kid he found loitering around our bike stands. I told him that not all hoody wearing youngsters were potental bike thieves.

The other night I observed 2 hoody wearing youngsters loitering around the cars in our car park, looking like they were about to try and spring one of the locks. Later the guard also told me that he recently had to chase a group of hoody wearing youngsters away from the bike rack I keep my own expensive, not yet stolen, bike number 3 in. Hmmm.

So, Damo has gone off to buy his expensive bike number 3. Neither of us drive, so our bikes are as important to us as cars are to other people. I have elected to stay here and tidy the flat. As you may like to observe, I am not tidying the flat. I am typing this blog post. Later Damo will come back and observe that the flat looks exactly the same as before he left. He will then read this blog post and understand. He may not even have to read this blog post to understand. Still, better he thinks I’m blogging than shopping on ebay.

Anyway, just off to do some shopping on ebay:)

Where have all the spiders gone?

They’re not extinct-
I’m on the second floor
and they can’t climb,
or not as well
as we thought
they could.

It’s been one year,
2 months, 12 days-
still nothing.
Even the summer
saw only crane flies,
falling out of air-vents,

tangled. The black blur
at the edge of my vision
is not a spider.
The blue shadow,
bleeding beneath the door-
is not a spider.

The dull ache
beneath my hairline.
The shudder trapped
inside my shin.
The glass for keeping
spiders in-

is always empty.
Too small. Too thin
to keep the things now
slowly taking over.
Not spiders.

No Title.

Why can’t you just go away?
I’m bored of writing about you. Bored of
scratching these words in secret,
carving them into the spaces
behind my heavy objects,
the insides of frayed nerves,
the pale skin beneath my feet.
I’ve been pushing away these
mirror plated nouns with teeth,
tying the lines in bubble-wrap,
but still my words keep breaking on you:
I hate you. I want you.
Please - stay with me.
Go. Don’t go. Leave -
I’m dropping them into silence.
Breathing them onto frozen steam.
Mostly: I love you.
Did you hear that?
Did you see?