SUPERLATIVELY RUDE.

Goodbye, Rome.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Dear Rome,

Well bollock me sideways with an extra thin-crust margherita and a rice ball chaser, I’m leaving today. And do you know what? I’M PRETTY FUCKING SAD ABOUT IT.

That doesn’t surprise anyone more than it surprises me. I’ve spent nine months saying terrible, awful, non-retractable things about you to anyone who would listen, and now it’s crunch time and I’ve got one hand in my pocket, the other flicking ‘v’ sign, and tears stinging in my eyes.

(Side note: I’m shit at pretending to be in an Alanis Morissette song.)

The emotions are obviously Virginia’s fault.

When the reason for my banana-in-a-hat-tattoo-being hugged me at 5.59pm Thursday night, as our final lesson drew to a close, and I had the last meeting with her grandmother to say THAT KID. I LOVED THAT KID! suddenly I just broke down. That little Drew-Barrymore-in-E.T.-esque kid wrapped her arms around me so tight and for so long that I had no choice but to accept the love. It felt like she was MAESTRA. I GET IT. I CHANGED YOU. I’M GLAD THIS HAPPENED TOO. GOOD TALK.

I rubbed her back and let tears tickle my cheeks, and she held me tighter and tighter until I was laughing, and then she was laughing, and that little five-year-old Mental touched the tip of her nose to mine AND OHMYGOD I CAN’T EVEN FINISH WRITING THIS SENTENCE BECAUSE NOW I AM CRYING AGAIN SOMEBODY PASS ME ALL THE CARBOHYDRATES AND A PACK OF MENTHOLS STAT.

I guess when you tattoo a part of a kid on your body then you know that love is deep. And slightly delusional.

I think, Rome, if you’ve taught me anything- and blatantly that is the reason for the post, that you’ve taught me shagloads of EVERYTHING- it’s been that people are kind, and also kind of like me.

I spent my final year of university saying to Calum I’M THROUGH PASSING TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME FEEL BAD ABOUT BEING A TRAVELLER. TRAVELLING DOESN’T MAKE ME A BAD PERSON. I JUST LIKE TO SEE ALL THE THINGS. To which Calum was all, YOU KNOW, NOTHING IS MORE DAMAGING TO THE ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT THAN A SECURE FUTURE. And then I was all, FUCK. YOU’RE INSIGHTFUL SOMETIMES and he was all, I CAN’T LIE. THAT’S A CHRISTOPHER MCCANDLESS QUOTATION.

For a second I’d felt kind duped by that, but then I remember when I once said to him, I DON’T WANT ANYBODY TO PLEDGE TO LOVE ME FOREVER, ALL I WANT IS FOR SOMEBODY TO PROMISE ME THEY’LL TRY and Cal had been all impressed until I said, FINE. I STOLE THAT FROM A J.LO. SONG.

Hey, Rome- what’s with all the song references today? I think I’m using pop culture to avoid All The Feelings. Can we just snuggle on the couch and watch reality television on MTV rather than have this awkward goodbye?

No?

Oh.

Okay.

Look, I’ll say this only once. I’m glad we’ve been through all this together, Rome. The bag-stealing, and bus-strikes and poop, and floods and snowstorms and nuns and room-sharing. Because I found my tribe out here. I found a community of awesome people who are what I am: not from ‘round here. And for a girl who has spent 26 years feeling like she isn’t from ‘round here, it’s been incredible to not belong somewhere with a bunch of other people, so that with some slightly bizarre but very welcome twist of fate I belong here more than I’ve felt I’ve ever belonged anywhere.

That last sentence confused me, too.

I’ve never had a job where I have so actively wanted to turn up every day. To swap expat stories with Americans and Romanians and Canadians and Scotsmen and Italians and people from my own country who crave adventure too.

I built a family here.

That’s pretty huge.

And it’s easier to say goodbye to this family because I am about to get on an overnight train to Liguria where I will spend a month with my other family, a family made up of travellers from all over the world just like this one. With this family, though, there is a lot more drinking and waking up in strangers’ beds and seeing the sunrise on the beach, whereas my Roman family are more babies and houses and brunches. (Well. Except when absinthe is involved.)

I’m so lucky I get them both.

I’ll also probably forget to be in touch for the next month, Rome, but that isn’t because I don’t adore you. It’s because I have debauchery to attend to. But then, you’ve read my manuscript and seen that sometimes, that’s just what I need. And you seem to love me all the more for it. That makes me all kinds of fuzzy inside.

To the family here who gave me clothes when I had nothing warm to wear, who riffled through trashcans to find my stolen bag; to the sisters who held me when I cried and told me to put on my big girl pants when I moaned too much. To the brothers who walked me home every night, and the students who made my days go funner and faster. To every single person who corrected my pronunciation, gifted me a part of themselves, and to the ones who haven’t so much as left footprints on my heart as given me a cast-iron mould of their feet. To Rome:

Thank you. You’ve made me something better. Something stronger. Something I am very proud of. It’s all because of you.

And we will meet again.

All my inarticulate and overly verbose love,

Laura Jane Williams

A Mental.

Financing the Hard Stuff.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Goosebumps. I have goosebumps because of magic. What kind of magic, you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

CLASSICAL MUSIC.

I know. It surprised me too.

Recently a student asked to take me to a classical concert as a sort goodbye! You are awesome! I’m so sad you’re leaving! gift.

RELATED: This student had actually only ever had me as her teacher twice in the entire time I’ve been at this job. When she had a mid-course appraisal with my boss to talk about the ongoing successes and problems, if any, with her course, she said to my boss LAURA. I WANT HER AS A TEACHER AGAIN. When my boss asked why she basically said BECAUSE SHE’S BALLIN’. THAT’S WHY.

DISCLAIMER: Except Luisa is actually Italian and in her 50’s, so in reality as opposed to in my imagination, she probably said an approximation thereof. But still. The sentiment is the same.

Anyway, when somebody asks you to the oldest orchestra in Rome, YOU SAY YES. So off I went in my checked shirt and bow-tied scarf and boots and lipstick, to Parco Della Musica, and woah. I wasn’t expecting what went down.

MAGIC. Absolute… magic.

It was a feeling I was totally unprepared for. As the violinist played, each movement of her bow drew me into a story she was trying to communicate with me. But to begin with I was reticent and unsure; I didn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. It was like we were communicating underwater, and the signs were there but they were blurred and unclear. I knew I was supposed to react in a particular way- possibly looking wistful and pensive whilst nodding my head just slightly. That’s how people in the movies do it, right?

It took me a while to relax.

Eventually, I let myself sink into her melody. I thought All The Things and nothing at all; love and life and Rome and things I didn’t realize I knew. All at the same time. It was like a sort of meditation, a reflection. I bathed in the notes she gave me. I was without body and soul but more alive than I had felt in a long time. I was there in the room but my senses were everywhere else. I was peaceful.

It was beautiful. And despite this weekend my friend Anna declaring to me, ‘You say everything changes your life, don’t you?’ to which I replied, ‘Hyperbolic rhetoric should be my middle name,’ INTERNET. This experience changed my life.

And as the violinist stopped playing, and the final peal rang out across the concert hall, I took a moment to be all in one place again, to pull myself together and be what I am used to always being- whatever that is.

But. As I did this, as I suddenly came up from out of the water to gasp for a breath of something more familiar, I realized- slowly- that everybody around me was doing the exact same thing. We were all on our feet and sharing the exact same feeling of FEELINGS WITHOUT WORDS OHMYGOD HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE I THINK I LOVE YOU ALL AND HOW IS THIS STRENGTH OF EMOTION EVEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT PENETRATION?

I looked around the hall and saw tears in eyes and smiles on faces and realized that there were tears in MY eyes and a smile on MY face.

And then I thought about football matches and the way all of those fans feel- what happens on the pitch affects them so strongly and fervently that they would fight for the team they believe in until death (or arrest, whatever comes first) and Internet? I was part of something then. I was part of something bigger than me, with a room of a thousand strangers who felt the same things as I in that moment, and I knew those seconds could never be replicated in that exact way again.

And so I let a tear fall, because that is magic. Something unique and special and particular, a sort of glimpse of God or Buddha or Lady Gaga.

Last week a friend got last-minute tickets to the same symphony and buggar me with a banana in a hat if I didn’t do goosebumpy-magic again. And no, it wasn’t in the same way. I was relaxed form the off, and more familiar with the piece, and I’d just eaten rice balls so I was totes in my happy place.

But as the last note sounded this time, and the audience broke that fourth wall to applaud, I knew something important.

I knew I had a new hobby.

A very expensive new hobby.

And so, in conclusion, then, I suppose what I am trying to say in an overly verbose but typically LJW way is that I really hope my Christian Grey likes a good symphony. Because he is going to have to pay. It ain’t cheap.

(Unlike me.)

Can we file this one under date me if you’re rich?

When Anna Came to Visit.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Tue, 22 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

I've visited Anna where she lives in Paris more times than I can count. This weekend I played hostess in Rome for a change. I'm shit at it. It was still all the fun, though, to periodically exclaim to one another, TEN YEARS AGO WE WERE IN A DRAMA CLASS IN YORKSHIRE TOGETHER. NOW LOOK AT US!

Look at us indeed. Drunk and snap-happy.

"Right. You've been here ten minutes. Prosecco?" I said. "FINALLY!" she replied. "That was the longest ten minutes of my life. Let's go."

Because it was my birthday weekend I did smoking. SORRY I'M NOT SORRY.

"This is where you live?" she asked me. "I'll call myself a smug bitch so you don't have to," I said.

That's the Marilyn moment over with, then.

I made her eat the best gelato outside of the bestest building...

... made all the better because THE HORSE STUCK IT'S TONGUE OUT AT US. That's almost better than a banana in hat.

The bestest building gave the bestest light. That's a whole in the ceiling, in case you were wondering.

Pause for lunch. Right next to us were Spain's most beautiful twentysomethings. It was disgusting.

I got drunk to deal with my feelings.

ALL THE BEST SIGNS!

So, I got a tattoo, and Anna let me hold her hand really, really hard while the nice man did it.

Right after he drew this as the outline I wanted to do throwing up. I just kept saying. I'M TATTOOING A BANANA IN A HAT ON MYSELF. Then the needle went in.

Anna's solution for post-tattoo euphoria was to drink vodka-based cocktails to deal with my emotions. HEY! SPOT THE PATTERN! I DRINK TO DEAL WITH THE INSIDES OF MY HEAD. That's healthy. p.s. hi, ex-roomie!

On the way home we stood on the bridge on the way to my house and Anna said, 'You're a very fortunate lady.' Internet? SHE WAS RIGHT.

It's a banana. In a hat.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:24:00 +0000

At about 6.25 p.m. on Saturday night I got a tattoo of a banana in a hat.

‘You want this?’ the guy behind the desk said, raising his eyebrows. My forearm was flung out in front of his face, where a friend had scrawled on me in bic biro three days ago. On half the length of the underside of my forearm, starting just below the wrist, was a semi-peeled banana wearing a top hat. Obviously, therefore, the banana was smiling.

‘It’s the funniest tattoo I have ever seen,’ the guy said.

I said, ‘What, today?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Ever.’

I nodded solemnly.

I turned to my friend and said, ‘Do I really want to get a tattoo of a banana in a hat?’

‘Yes.’ She nudged me further into the studio. ‘You do.’

And it’s true; I did really want it. It’s just that when the guy with the face art tells you you’re weird, you can naturally be helpless to momentary reassessment. But for the three days I had walked around with the biro drawing on my arm after I demanded a friend help me out, and I liked it. I was committed. I looked at the bic drawing. Yes.

I’d knocked on my friend’s classroom door that week to say, ‘Lianne. Please make sure I speak with you before you leave today. Thank you.’

Sometimes it’s fun to use my professional voice.

(Related: guys. I’VE ACTED LIKE A TEACHER FOR LIKE, A WHOLE YEAR NOW. I’m pretty sure I’m about to get found out. )

She’d raced to me after her lesson, all, I’M HERE. WHAT’S UP? DID SOMEBODY DIE? I ALWAYS THINK SOMEBODY DIED WHEN YOU’RE SERIOUS. To which I was like IF SOMEBODY HAD DIED, WOULD I WAIT FOR YOU TO FINISH TEACHING THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS BEFORE I TOLD YOU? And she was all, WELL, HE TAKES HIS EXAM NEXT WEEK! WE HAVE A LOT TO COVER BEFORE THEN! And then I said IS THAT THE KIND OF PERSON YOU THINK I AM? THE KIND OF PERSON WHO WOULD EXPECT YOU TO SEE OUT YOUR LESSON BEFORE I TOLD YOU THERE HAD BEEN A DEATH? THAT SOMEHOW I THINK DEATH ISN’T AS IMPORTANT AS THE CAMBRIDGE FIRST CERTIFICATE? IS THIS HOW THINGS ARE, LIANNE? BECAUSE THAT HURTS MY FEELINGS YOU KNOW. I THINK IT REALLY BLOWS IF YOU THINK SO LITTLE OF ME THAT I WOULD HANDLE DEATH IN SUCH A COLD, HARD MANNER. TELL ME IF THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK. COME ON! TELL ME!

And then Lianne furrowed her brow, shook her head, and said, ‘So, what exactly is the problem, again?'

‘Oh,’ I replied, remembering to be excited once more. ‘I just need you to draw this banana in a hat on my wrist please.’ I jabbed my arm and a crappy sketch I'd designed in her face.

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and obliged.

As I showed off the biro drawing, everyone I know tried to tell me two things:
1. What was drawn on me in biro was far too large and I should get it done teeny-tiny small.
2. Probably, I shouldn’t get I done at all.

The receptionist at work said, ‘What about when you are a 60 year-old woman? What then?'

The answer to me was obvious. ‘Dude,’ I said to her. ‘If a 60 year-old woman dressed in neon and red hair came to our front desk with a question, you’d be all, “THE SIXTY YEAR-OLD WOMAN HAS A TATTOO OF A BANANA IN HAT! SHE MUST’VE HAD SOME LIFE!”’

The receptionist shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d say, “Why didn’t she have friends kind enough to stop her from getting a tattoo of a banana in a hat?”’

‘Miserable cow,’ I said.

‘Mental,’ she said.

But you see, the thing is, the more people around me who questioned the validity of my proposed tattoo plan, the more it cemented my desire to get it.

I don’t know if you remember, Internet, but the whole banana in a hat thing came from little 5 year-old Virginia. She was so certain of something she had created, even when everyone around her told her it was shit, she laughed and danced round the classroom in celebration of the thing she had made. It didn’t matter what everybody else thought- she knew something to be true, and so that is all that mattered. GUYS. IT’S A BANANA IN HAT! COME ON!

To Virgina, the ones who didn’t see it were the mentals.

And that's just it. If my keyword this year is potential, then my byline should feature the words banana and hat because no. Life doesn’t have an instruction manual, or a guide, or a map most of the time, and so when you accidentally move to Rome and struggle and want to move home but you don’t know what home is, you must always try to remember that no matter how sad you feel, no matter how hard growing up may be, sometimes all you need to remind you which way is up is a banana in a hat because GUYS. THE ANSWER IS OBVIOUS.

Even if it is only obvious to you.

Bollocks to the rest of ‘em.

It worked for Virginia. And now, Internet. It works for me.

IT'S A BANANA IN A HAT!

(And uh-huh. It hurt like a bitch.)

Week in Books. (I want my life back now please.)

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:47:00 +0000

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Freed.

Fucking Tourists*

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 16 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

*not fucking tourists like sexy time with the buggars. FUCKING TOURISTS as in SHUT.THE.EFF.UP.AND.MOVE.OUT.OF.MY.WAY.

Look, in the same way that when an old acquaintance emails me on Facebook to say, ‘Hey, long time no speak. What you up to these days?’ and I respond with the dick-like words, ‘I’m living in Rome. Are you still working at Tesco?’ there is no way for me to write the following post without embodying the epitome of pretentiousness.

I know that.

Sorry I’m not sorry.

TOURISTS. Let’s talk about tourists.

I know how to spot you. I know that you are a tourist because your shoulders are pink. You wear clothes too skimpy for dry land- that white Primark Lycra halter-neck shouldn’t be worn to pound the Roman pavements just because it’s 30 degrees. That outfit is for the beach, not the restaurant. And I know you are walking with the limp because the new sandals you got to look trendy for your trip rub, and your thighs have started to chafe when you walk.

I have fat thighs too, so you know what? I do everyone a favour AND COVER THEM THE HELL UP.

You think talking louder means Italians will suddenly understand you, and you don’t understand that if your stop is next on the bus you should already be stood by the exit doors so that you don’t hold the rest of us up half-hanging out of the bus and saying, ‘PAUL. IS THIS THE RIGHT ONE? PAUL!’

Urgh.

It’s not like I have magically morphed into an Italian- bloody hell. I wouldn’t want to. Last week, the man at the flower shop said to me, ‘So, are you a student here?’

I said, ‘No. I work here.’ He looked me up and down- not subtly, it was totally a head whip from toes to top knot bun- and took in my green skirt, sheer pink blouse, orange boob tube and red lipstick. He smiled, wryly. ‘I teach children,’ I added, and he nodded his head, suddenly understanding. Those crazy-dressing bimbi teachers, I could hear him think. As if anywhere else would employ her looking like that.

And yes, my outfit was Primark too. It’s not the origin of the clothes I object to. I’m just saying: an ill-fitting cotton maxi dress does not la dolce vita make. It marks you out as not being from here in all the wrong ways because IT’S UGLY.

Generally, I ignore tourists. I’m always tempted to say do you want a picture with both of you in it? to the people stood in St. Peter’s, or to tap the line of people outside of the shit gelateria on the shoulder, one by one, to tell them the Nutella ice cream is better at the place up the street. But I don’t. When I travel, I hate when people start telling me where I should go, what I should do… I like to figure it out alone. So I keep my mouth shut.

It surprised me, then, when I was at the rice ball shop, and in came a family of eleventy thousand. They all stood blocking the entire counter to look at the deliciousness on sale, saying loudly, ‘EWWWW. WHAT ARE THOSE, THEN?’ I piped up, ‘Rice balls. You should try it. I recommend them- I’m here all the time.’

The family reminded me of my mum’s. Mama Janie is one of five girls, and they cause too much noise and trouble wherever they go. This family was way more embarrassing though, all wearing their ‘best clothes’ for their Roman adventure (read: Marks and Spencer’s crochet scarves and lots of floral) with burnt noses and bad shoes.

‘Oh yeah?’ said one of the overweight women. ‘What’s that one you’ve got?’

‘It’s called Stromboli- it’s mozzarella and tomato. Total heaven.’

They all did some standing around and talking loudly to the guy serving, confusing him and saying things like NO! THE OTHER ONE! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS ONE? A WHAT? I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! DOES IT HAVE HAM IN IT?

I let them get on with it.

As I cleared my little self-service tray away, though, I ended up at the trashcan right by them.

‘How was that?’ I said.

‘Terrible,’ the chubby one in orange said.

I furrowed my brow. I must’ve misunderstood. ‘You… you didn’t like it?’

The other fat, burned one said, ‘It was horrible. Like a soggy potato.’

I pointed at another woman. ‘Did you hate it too?’

‘Mine was alright, I suppose,’ said one of the men.

I was dumbfounded. I mean, to not like it is one thing, but to be so blunt about it with somebody who was genuinely just trying to help is quite another.

‘Oh. I’m sorry I recommended it with such enthusiasm,’ I said.

‘Well. At least we gave it a go,’ said Fatty.

‘It’s traditional Sicilian fare,’ I said.

The mean woman said, ‘Well. I don’t like Sicilian food then.’

I smiled. ‘Nobody has ever said that in the history of Italy.’

‘As long as I don’t get shot for it,’ she said.

AS LONG AS SHE DOESN’T GET SHOT FOR IT? SHE WAS STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF A SICILIAN TAKE AWAY CALLING THE FOOD SHIT, TO THE CHICK THAT RECOMMENDED IT TO HER AND SURROUNDED BY ALL THE STAFF WHO COOKED IT!

I shook my head in disbelief.

‘There’s a restaurant on the corner that does omelette and chips,’ my imagination said.

‘Goodbye then,’ I said.

‘SEE YA,’ they chorused.

Total rude fuckers.

I walked out of the shop with my Calabrese friend, shaking my head. ‘I was just trying to help,’ I said. ‘Who doesn’t like Sicilian food?’

‘I know sweetie, they were just dumb British tourists. That’s is why we ignore them,’ she replied. ‘Eat your fried chocolate and ricotta sandwich and you’ll feel better.’

‘Ok,’ I said. ‘Ok.’ And then, ‘I hope their thighs chafe to bleeding on the way home.’

‘They will,’ my friend said. ‘They always do, remember? Now eat. Eat your Sicilian goodness.’

I ate. It was good.

Fifty Shades Darker

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:31:00 +0000

‘How is it possible that you are eating a smoked salmon sandwich again?’ asked my boss. ‘That’s been every day for what? Maybe four weeks now?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m a creature of habit,’ I said. ‘I get little obsessions, and just do that one thing over and over and over again until I get bored and ditch it for something else.’

‘Any chance of ditching the panini for a salad obsession?’ she said.

‘Fuck off,’ I replied.

Sandwiches called Wonderwoman aside (yes. Really. Everyday I say, “I’ll take a small Wonderwoman, please. And that cream cake.’) it will come as, oh, I don’t know, ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE AT ALL that my current obsession continues to be the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. It’s hot and sexy. BUT, as much as I’ve threatened the men of Rome, I refuse to break my promise to myself. I’m not going to go on some raging sex spree just because I have read a particularly saucy book.

Probably. Maybe. OH GOD HOWEVER WILL I NOT JUST START HUMPING THIS TABLE LEG?

I’ve been so obsessed with these books that I’ve done actual research on their origin, the writer, and, apparently, the knock-on effect these manuscripts are having on the fire of many a woman’s loin. Reading about other people doing sexy time appears to be a substitute for doing my own sexy time.

Wow. I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever typed.

Also:

Do women have loins?

Am I a pervert?

Should I even be writing about this on the Internet?

That’s all beside the point.

Apparently the press are calling it ‘mommy porn’, because before last month when it was finally published in pretty paperback form, it was only available on download to an (YUCK!) eReader. Thus, many a bored housewife could happily consume the tales of Ana Steele and Christian Grey at the bus stop, or waiting for Clementine to finish ballet, or in the coffee shop with a cappuccino after noon, because nobody could tell that they were learning how to use Chinese love balls, discreet as an eReader is.

Related: CAPPUCCINO IS A BREAKFAST DRINK INTERNET. Let’s at least get that right, please. It really is upsetting me.

Anywoohoo, apparently all these stay-at-home mums and wives and girlfriends are reading this trilogy, feeling a bit naughty, and as a result there’s a wave of very surprised but very satisfied gentlemen across the globe who are now lay panting and purple and wondering what the fuck happened whilst they were at work, because women across the globe are getting their fantasies on, and the boys are reaping the benefit.

(At this point in my reverie I’d like to point you in the direction of this particular Simpson’s episode, wherein Marge writes similarly effective prose. Is there anything in life that can happen that hasn’t already been parodied by Matt Groening?)

The effect of these books knows no age limit. The audience is not just single twentysomethings, as one would expect. Oh no. Seeing my pregnant thritysomething friend at the weekend, one of the first things I whispered to her was OHMYGOD I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THIS BOOK I’M READING, and she was all, FIFTY SHADES? BEAT YOU TO IT. So then we burst out laughing, because there is nothing quite like knowing that somebody you love is also reading about a man who is so confident in his total possession of his woman that he can reduce her to orgasm simply by FUCKING BLOWING ON HER LADY GARDEN.

And then my friend did a funny leg cross movement and said BOY OH BOY DID IT GET TO ME which was weird, because OH HI PREGNANT WOMEN WHO STILL THINK ABOUT SEX. But then she said something really disappointing about the sex parts getting boring after a bit, so she kept skimming them to concentrate on the narrative. I was all, SKIPPING THE SEX TO READ THE ACTUAL STORY? I SKIPPED THE STORY TO JUST READ THE SEX.

And then we did an awkward silence.

I say these books know no age limit because not long after this conversation her mother Skyped us from America. Two minutes in she said, ‘GIRLS. I’ve got a book for you.’

I held my breath, because it’s a phrase I’ve said myself so many times this week as I’ve slipped my paperback across table or lap to suggest to the receptionist at work, or a student in my classroom, or old friends at breakfast that they need in on this secret sex society. I held my breath. My Pregnant Friend’s mum is 65. I kind of didn’t want those next words to leave her mouth. Then she said it.

‘FIFTY SHADES OF GREY.’

OMFG. She went there. It was inevitable.

My Pregnant Friend and I burst out laughing, because it turns out we’re all sodding at it- we’re all turning into dirty little porn pushers, licking our lips and telling our friends to go have some special alone time with these naughty poorly-written tales.

And the reason I keep talking about this out loud is because if the straight males of this world do not wise-up to what is happening right now, with this mood of sexual revolution amongst women who otherwise would go their whole lives thinking vanilla is the only flavour to be tasted, then well. There is a huge injustice going on.

BOYS. GO BUY A COPY AND LEARN HOW TO BE CHRISTIAN GREY. Urm, minus the stalking bit though. But totally with the dominant bit, please.

Honestly. I’m telling you all this for your own good.

And possibly, in another 30 weeks time, mine. Because yes. I’m counting the days. Get your practise on.

THANKS E.L. JAMES.

Week in Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:01:00 +0000

So then she went and got all kinds of pregnant, THAT CUOT.

We celebrated the baby coming with carrot cake...

... And awkward dancing in the street.

I drowned my sorrows in girls' night beer.

But I will never be so drunk as to confess to having eaten more than one pizza. Shit. Wait.

What's that Laura? ANOTHER HEADSCARF?

Then I was all, 48 HOURS IN DERBY? YESSSSSS. @calummcswiggan is the bestest.

I chose the wine. "The red kind," I said.

Calum chose the cheese. "The melted kind," he said.

I bullied my nana into a photograph. Mum optimistically yelled, "BECAUSE WE MIGHT NEVER BE TOGETHER EVER AGAIN SO SHUT UP AND SMILE." You feel her love.

Auntie Barbara needed no such encouragement. "Just make it a good one," she instructed.

Afternoon tea in a country cottage. That's what I call home.

"Do you like my stripy trousers?" I asked Uncle David. "No, duck," he said, unapologetically.

I wore them to see my Favourite Cousin and my Favourite Godmother anyway. They said, "WELL HEY, NEON!"

Before I flew back to Rome everybody sang happy birthday to me. I love cake three weeks early. I just love cake, actually. HAPPY PREMATURE BIRTHDAY TO ME.

Bollocks to the Celibacy.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Ohmygod! Penis!

I totally came to the Fifty Shades of Grey party a little later than the thousands of people who put it on the New York Times bestseller list, I know. But GODDAMN IT even if everyone else has already pulled and is locked in the bathroom bumping drunken uglies, I'm glad I came.

Oh! I just accidentally punned! Do you know why ‘I’m glad I came’ is funny, Internet? BECAUSE SHADES OF GRAY IS EROTIC FICTION AND MAKES ME HOT AS HELL.

I did an orgasm joke.

…

Let’s move on.

I first read about this book a few weeks ago, and promptly forgot about it because I pursue highbrow fiction that expands my mind over fiction that expands my vagina BULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHIT. Also: GROSS.

Then, at the airport at stupid o’clock on Monday morning, I picked it up off the shelf, opened it to a random page, saw the use of the word ‘besieged’ twice in one tiny paragraph and thought, nope. Definitely not for me. And then, please buy a thesaurus for your next book E.L. James.

BUT THEN. Waiting for some friends yesterday I wandered around the bookstore in the piazza (I LEAVE IN TWO WEEKS. I’M SAYING PRETENTIOUS ITALIAN WORDS AS MUCH AS I CAN UNTIL THEN, OKAY?) and accidentally found myself picking it up off the shelf once more. And the page I opened to this time had the words fisting, butt plugs and hot wax in the same tiny paragraph.

As a girl on a yearlong celibacy mission, I couldn’t not buy that.

I started the first few pages as I waited for my (really very tardy) friends. They arrived, asked me what I was reading, and I was all ummmmm, well, you see, it’s… porn. And they were like, LAURA READING SEXY TIME BOOKS. WHAT A SURPRISE, to which I was a bit like, SCREW YOU! BUT YES! IT’S MORE IN CHARACTER THAN I CARE TO ADMIT! And then they were all Let’s have a look then, and within minutes I found myself saying JESUS GUYS! CAN WE NOT USE THE WORDS ‘BINDING WITH A SPREADBAR’ AND ‘NIPPLE CLAMPS’ BEFORE I’VE HAD MY COFFEE?

That interaction pretty much sums up the tone of the book. It’s badly written and as sexy as a young college graduate being taken to the Red Room of Danger with a pack of butter and a riding crop for the first time. Incidentally, that’s exactly what happens.

Well, possibly I invented the butter part. But then also I’m only 100 pages in, so who knows what could happen?

Aaaaaanywoohoo, over breakfast I found myself thinking about the book, and wondering about the book, and really wanting to read the book, to the point where after forty-five minutes I said something like, ‘Okay! Great breakfast guys! Do it again soon! Work to do! So busy! Crazy busy! BANANA IN A HAT! CIAO!’

I went and sat in the café and read it over another three breakfasts until it was time to go to work, and about that, to my friends, I say, sorry I’m not sorry.

I read it in the ten minutes I had before my shift after I arrived at work.

I told my boss I needed another hour off as I was supposed to start, and I read it with a large piece of Red Velvet cake in the staff room until she finally came in and said DO SOME WORK WILLIAMS. AND GET YOUR HAND OUT OF YOUR KNICKERS.

I found myself writing my student reports whilst listening loudly to Rihanna. If you have never heard this song then you won’t understand just how much this fact is of an indication as to the state of my mental whereabouts, so I implore you: listen to Rihanna. I reserve her for my most dirty dancing of days, and my colleague who later walked into the room heard what I was playing and said, ‘You look a little red-faced and flustered. Are you okay?’

My most immediate thought to that was ewwww. I must look really gross when I’m trying to do sexy time for realises.

Then- I really need some sexy time for realises to see.

I announced that I didn’t think I could complete Fifty Shades of Gray without getting laid. I wanted to go home, fix my lady garden, and head out to the bar to say THAT ONE. I CHOSE THAT ONE. And I’m not even kidding. I have no shame in doing that. (Also: I know that you know that already.)

Another colleague said GO HOME TO YOUR KING-DING-A-LING INSTEAD which I think meant vibrator, but to be honest I don’t care what it meant because EVERYONE ON A DIET ALLOWS THEMSLEVES AT LEAST A TASTE OF CHOCOLATE OCCASIONALLY. My diet is just a sex diet, that’s all. Thus, my square of chocolate is a penis.

See you at the bar then, Rome. And bring your bondage tape.

NIPPLES.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:30:00 +0000

‘How was your weekend away?’ my colleague said to me on Monday morning.

I sighed. ‘I haven’t laughed that hard, and for that long, since- well. Since the last time I was at mum and dad’s,’ I replied.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That says a lot about how you feel about us lot then, doesn’t it?’

Which isn’t quite what I meant except maybe it was, because I was totally pissed off that day that nobody at work was Mum or Dad or Calum or even just from Derby. Which is something I never thought I’d say.

I wanted My Pregnant Friend at work beside me, but life was made eleventy times worse by the fact that she left last week. Apparently she didn’t want to actually have the baby AT work and then get back to grading entrance tests, and doing burping competitions with me. Selfishly, she’s like, I don’t know, nesting and shit, because only three weeks til she comes out! BLAHBLAHBLAH and so I was all alone with my feelings. I’d had the bestest weekend ever and now it was over, and there wasn’t a vagina joke in sight.

She Skyped me at lunch. ‘Is it shitty without me?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I left you a Babybel and some Sprite in the fridge in case you felt sad today.’

I pulled out the food from the staff room cool-box. ‘Thanks,’ I said with my mouth full with cheese and gratitude.

‘Hey,’ she reminded me. ‘Remember that time you saw my nipples?’

I laughed and felt better.

My Pregnant Friend had told me for the past nine months about how her nipples were getting bigger and bigger, and darker and darker, and that she felt like an African from a Live Aid video. We agreed that she would show them to me on the day she left, because she really wanted to share them with somebody who wasn’t her husband, and last Friday she was saying her goodbyes so I knew that after months of threatening it, the show was imminent.

‘Now’s the time,’ she’d said in the staff room.

My other friend had said, ‘Time for what?’

‘Time for my African nipples,’ she’d said, and before I knew it nipples the size of actual espresso saucers and dark as the mole I have in the palm of my left hand were like, RIGHT THERE. In my face. Winking.

‘Fuuuuuuuck,’ I’d said.

My other friend had turned around to see if she was in danger of exposing herself to more than planned and said, ‘Compare those to mine, mine are SO pink and tiny!’

And then there were more boobs and nipples IN THE STAFF ROOM AT WORK WHERE THE WALLS ARE GLASS AND EVERYONE CAN SEE! And for the first time in my life I was embarrassed, and didn’t know where to look. Suddenly four boobs were out at the same time, and one pair were tiny, and shiny, and pink, and the others were full of milk, with a low swing, and SPACESHIPS OF BROWN, and WHY CAN’T WORK BE THIS FUN EVERY DAY?

I almost wanted to whip out my own puppies, sat in the staff room Monday afternoon, suddenly more alone than I had felt in a long time- moody, and sad, and pathetic.

I tried to tell people at work the funny stories about why mum and dad are fun, and how we did laughing, and how just when I thought there couldn’t be more fun there was- and OHMYGOD WHY AREN’T YOU LAUGHING AT WHAT I AM TELLING YOU? Mum says words wrong! Dad can’t hear properly! My brother did a joke! THE DOG FARTED!

When nobody understood, I sat in that staff room all alone, and I thought about jokes and nipples and I took a breath and did it. I took a little peek at my own boobs under my top. It felt naughty. I smiled a little bit.

Just a little bit.

And I felt better for it. All The Feelings ebbed millimetres back. The fog of my happiness hangover lifted slightly. I took another peek.

My boobs cheered me up.

And yes, that is the end of my story.

Darby and Joan: May 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:26:00 +0000

Darby & Joan are the quintessential middle-aged British couple, characterised by knitwear, hours of scrabble, and a penchant for staying in on Saturday nights. Darby and Joan are, in fact, @calummcswiggan and me.

Dear Darby.

Three weeks ago I was all, MY LIFE SUCKS! I NEED TO SEE YOU! And you were like, I KNOW! HOW DO WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN? And I was like, FUCK! RYANAIR HAS A RETURN FLIGHT TO EAST MIDLANDS FOR FIFTY EUROS! And you said, WHY ARE YOU EVEN STILL TALKING TO ME? BOOK IT!

So I did, and then I called Mama to tell her I was coming home, and she cried. I got so excited I couldn’t focus my eyes properly. You made reservations at our favourite French restaurant, basically the whole reason I wanted to come home anyway: the salted butter on that crusty baguette that they serve. We love that restaurant. When I told dad I’d be home after lunch because PUT ALL THE BUTTER IN MY MOUTH RIGHT NOW OKAY THANKS BYE he said, ‘Oh what, you’re going there for a change?’

Hey. We like what we like, don’t we? Fizzy Sainsbury’s water, and pic n’ mix from the Indian man on the corner, and the prix fixe menu at Bistrot Pierre. See also: Saturday Night Bollocks, Dominoes 2-4-1 pizza offer and making conversation with strangers.

My favourite bit was when you met me at the station, and as we hugged- the only time we would make physical contact, since we tend to avoid that in real life (but this was a special occasion, so that was ok)- and the old woman passing us said, ‘Now that’s a greeting! Young people just don’t hug enough, do they?’ She carried on walking and we said, CUPS.

I don’t even remember why we say CUPS when we don’t understand something. I just know that the only person who understands it when I say it is you, and I only do it when I am with you. I told you about my favourite student (‘They’re all your favourites,’ you said) who is five years old and the spitting image of Drew Barrymore in E.T. except dark-haired and spunkier.

Last week we played Pictionary on the smartboard, and her turn went over the allotted minute. She kept drawing and drawing, and nobody in the class could figure out what it was, and as she stood back and looked at it with pride, and still nobody understood it, she flung out her arms and pointed at what, to her, was the most obvious thing in the world. She said impatiently, GUYS. COME ON! IT’S A BANANA IN A HAT.

So then we spent all afternoon not understanding things and randomly saying IT’S A BANANA IN A HAT and I love how that now might be a new thing, because I have an idea. I think I want a banana in a hat tattooed on my left wrist. I’m totally serious. A sort of metaphor that how even though to us the answer is like, totally obvious, often other people just don’t understand. And when they don’t I’ll just shrug and say CUPS. And then, IT’S A BANANA IN HAT.

Total awesome plan, right?

Related thought: maybe I should get a tattoo of some cups?

Thank you for being so patient with me this weekend, too. I know I said we only had to walk through the shopping centre to get to the bureau de change- which you insisted on saying in a shit French accent- but by the time I said, ‘We’ll just pop into Topshop for like, A SECOND’ shopping fever had hit, and as I picked up t-shirt after t-shirt and said on repeat, ‘Do you hate me? Do you hate me because we’ve not hung out since January and now I am making you carry my shopping?’ you just said, CUPS. When I got to Mum and Dad’s Mama said, ‘Why have you spent all your money on 24 neon t-shirts? Why didn’t Calum stop you?’ and I said, BANANA. HAT.

Then we went for our French food and the woman apologized that the haddock risotto had no haddock in it, which was exciting, and you made me choose the wine and it stained your teeth a bit, and when I got cross that the next table ordered cappuccinos after their lunch you told me, CALM THE FUCK DOWN, LAURA. IN ITALY CAPPUCINO MIGHT ONLY BE DRUNK BEFORE 10 A.M. BUT YOUR’E NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE TOTO. THIS IS DERBY. AND IN DERBY WE DRINK MILKY COFFEE WHENEVER WE WANT. HAVE A WORD WITH YOURSELF YOU UPPETY BITCH.

It’s really hard for me not to be pretentious sometimes, and I love that you know how to keep that in check. Ta.

We talked about moving to London together- and not even in 2014 like we said originally, but like, soon- and how we should set up an online magazine together. Something for the gals and the gays, for the fags and their hags. The we said we’d live together in a tiny little studio and just MAKE SHIT all day long, but by the time pudding came we let the feeling pass because neither of us like people very much and living together would probably make us hate each one another so you know. Maybe see you in London. Maybe not. But probably. Hopefully. Let me know how it works out for you.

Forever you hat-wearing banana, oh cuppy-one.

Joan x

Pictorial.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:30:00 +0000

(a week in pictures.)

Old friends.

Cake.

Too much cake.

Brunch love.

Neighbourhood memories.

Beautify.

Come/Go.

Don't wanna say goodbye.

Bedroom light.

Home.

Brunch, man. Fucking brunch.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:30:00 +0000

My favourite thing in the world is breakfast. Specifically, my favourite thing in the world is hotel breakfast.

In a hotel, the options are endless. Pastries, cakes, full English spreads, omelettes, toast, orange juice, fruit salads… Everything a Fat Bitch could possibly want to choose from. Or, you know. Not choose from, because Fat Bitches often just try ALL THE THINGS.

In a hotel, the night staff who just have to get through to 9 a.m. before they can go home are sleeping whilst standing, and the guests haven’t yet shaken off their forty winks, so I- she who has been up since 6 a.m. planning what exactly she will lead with first, and phoning reception to make sure there are indeed both cream- and nutella-filled brioche- am free to hop from buffet stand to buffet stand without fear of judgement or retribution, since everyone is too tired to notice I’m on plate number six.

The Unbearable Lightness of Celibacy.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:34:00 +0000

I believe in the serendipitous nature of books. They come to you when you are ripe for their offers, like secrets looking for understanding ears, or eyes searching out the good in a very bad man. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera came to me four months into a yearlong vow of celibacy, and it came to me for a reason. Because yes. You read that right. The Vagina Girl ain’t having sex this year.

I didn’t want to tell you, Internet, because I know that the moment I say ‘Look ma! No hands!’ Mr. Wonderful will present himself to me and I will have to cross my legs and eat another cream cake instead of shamelessly pursuing him as per my modus operandi. And I promise it isn’t a trick I’ve told the universe so that said bloke presents himself and then I can say ‘sod it’ and proceed to climb him like a tree like, huh? What vow?

No.

I decided to opt-out of the game for a bit to do thinking about the decisions I have been making with boys for, oh, I don’t know. THE PAST TEN YEARS. Writing a book about one’s vaj-ay-jay lays out one’s repeated mistakes with upsetting clarity. And so, this book illustrates my decision with an almost painful obviousness.

The story focuses on a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanising. One of his mistresses in turn has another faithful lover, and the narrative of the two couples highlights how our individual worlds are shaped by chance and fortuitous events, and ultimately how often we just fuck it all up because we don’t know how to love. EVERYONE SUCKS AT EVERYTHING AND SO WHAT IS THE POINT THERE ISN’T ONE THE END.

Related: the final chapter is the one that had me in tears. And I mean fully blown ugly crying, where I was in bed curled into the foetal position and physically couldn’t take down enough air to stop the hiccups. The last time this happened was when I watched We Bought A Zoo, and hi. This is the reason I endeavour to consume art alone: my reactions can be tempestuous at best, and embarrassingly repulsive at worst.

My brain did turning and spinning and thinking the whole time I was reading this book, and what I concluded is this: Sex is easy. Love is hard. Neither one is much fun without the other.

GROWN WOMAN EPIPHANY.

I know.

It’s no coincidence then that my favourite film is Closer, where similarly everybody hurts everybody else. That’s what most romantic relationships seem to be to me- varying degrees of betrayal, and so for a long time I chose emotion-free sex over emotionally draining love. When I read the book I felt justified, vilified, that somebody else felt the same as me- same enough to make a whole captivating story from it. Same enough to put into words how screwed up we make it, how we colour every day with lies because the truth is inconvenient, how we say forsaking all others actually mean forsaking all others… for now.

And then I felt sad, because if somebody else has the same thoughts on boys and girls and men and women and all the things they do to each other whilst being those things, then it must be true. We must all be incapable of loving selflessly, and so every relationship we have will be a version of failure and so really, what is the point?

It took me a week with this book to decide that as it turns out, I’ve been looking for somebody to convince me not to believe this madness this all along.

I think the point is, that we can’t not try to love, even though it hurts. If we don’t at least try, then we really are bollocksed.

So, Milan Kundera. Now you have some explaining to do. Your book solidified my decision to change from dick-hopping, good-time girl to somebody who might be willing to experiment with that biggest perversion of them all.

Love.

And now I don’t know what is worse- deciding love isn’t for me because it all ends in tears anyway, even if you are married for 100 years and have eleventy thousand babies, Or deciding that love has to be for me because even when the tears come, it’s better than the alternative.

The alternative is basically staring down the never-ending abyss of not knowing.

Okay, here’s what we’ll do, Universe. I’ll refrain from Sexy Time Bone Jumping for another eight months in order to truly understand myself and my relationship to the opposite sex, and you can find me a 38-year old poet who already has children and promises to never ask me to marry him.

Someone who lets his lady do overwritten blog posts in public about her vagina, and sometimes her heart.

Because I nearly forgot that I had one. Nearly.

THE PROMISE.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Live on purpose.

Promise yourself. Promise yourself you’ll try. Promise yourself you’ll conquer your kingdom.

Conquer being the fun-est, conquer being the alive-est, conquer being the verbose-est, and conquer being the ENGAGED WITH FUCKING LIFE-est you can possibly be. The basic stuff of the universe is a pure energy that is malleable to human intention, so don’t be a pussy: declare your intentions.

Find the door marked Apprentices Welcome Here and be a beginner. Start anywhere. As long as you start.

Pay attention. Follow your heart and heed the omens. If we are always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we don’t see the brilliant glory of the sky. The best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, and shifts you into new territory.

Allow yourself the privilege of change.

Sometimes you have to be really bored before you can be really brilliant, but you must refuse to die whilst washing a teacup.

Find your tribe. You become like the people you spend your time with. In conversation we come away stronger, or we come away weaker. Choose your friends carefully. Build a support system of other people who are creating their dreams. Drink their courage. Face your fear head on and know that you are not alone.

Flip the middle finger bird at failure when you screw up. Because you will screw up: that’s what being brave is, making mistakes and carrying on regardless. Just because it ended when you became afraid doesn’t negate its importance.

Our brain isn’t something that dictates who we are from birth. It’s a cultural engine, whose function is to absorb new information from its surroundings and learn new skills and ideas and have thoughts and be sad and happy and mental and inspired. Take responsibility. Shoulder the burden of your own happiness and know that only you are the creation of your own destiny. Don’t believe that you are weak. All power is within you; you can do anything, and everything.

Curiosity did not kill the cat.

We have more than one self. Be loyal to them all.

Believeth all things. Hopeth all things. You do not know what good or bad you are capable of; you do not know what a body or mind can do in a given encounter, any given arrangement, any given combination. You know all of those things you’ve always wanted to do? You should go do them. Then you’ll find out what your values really are. Once you know your values it’s really hard not to make decisions. Find out who and what makes you happy, and do it.

Don’t only live. Be alive.

Learn everything you can from whomever you can. Everyone has something they can teach you.

Remember that it is easy to forget what it is like not to know.

If you aren’t getting the answer, you are asking the wrong question.

Live on purpose.

Total irrational fears about aliens and the death of everybody I know.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:23:00 +0000

In my whole life, the one thing I have never had a problem with is sleep. Fallen out with a lover? I’m not the one who lays awake looking at the ceiling for resolution. Big meeting tomorrow? It’s going to happen whether I allow myself those eight hours or not. Flight delayed by eleventy thousand years? Well this patch of floor by the bins looks like a great place to lay my weary head. Wake me when we’re ready to go.

Nothing gets in the way of my z’s and me.

Except last week. Last Wednesday night I tossed and turned and worried for most of the wee hours. And when my alarm rang, it felt like I had only just dropped off; it seemed an otherworldly impossibility that it was time to get up. I groaned loudly, and then was cross at myself because I have this thing about not having my first thought on opening my eyes be I WISH I WAS DEAD SO THAT I’D NEVER HAVE TO DO MORNINGS. I try to start with something a bit less final. On Thursday, my first thought was FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKSHITTITSARSEANDBOLLOCKS.

I thought the bad thoughts and then was sad and really REALLY tired. I knew that theoretically I could just go back to bed, but if I have learnt anything about working in a job I hate, it is that if I don’t go for my twelve breakfasts and do some writing at the café before work, I want to cause bodily harm to children when AT work.

Related: hi, students!

I peeled myself from around the duvet and did some stretches and brushed my teeth and played with my new fringe in the mirror. I want Mama, I thought to myself, and realising that 8 a.m. my time is 7 a.m. GMT, I knew she’d answer if I called.

I Skyped them. It rang, and rang, and rang. That’s weird, I thought. They have the computer upstairs, and the iPad downstairs, and The Forge is so small they can hear the ringing from anywhere… Generally, if the Skype rings off Mama calls me right back with some tale about letting the dog out or being on the toilet or how she was on the phone to her own mother.

I waited.

Nothing.

I rang them five times at five-minute intervals.

Still nothing.

I’m not very comfortable with this, I thought. My parents have a routine. 6.30 a.m. they wake up. 6.45 a.m. Dad makes a cup of tea. 6.50 a.m. They lie in bed laughing and watching the sun over the hills. 7.15 a.m. Dad does his first poo of the day. Honestly, at any given point in the day I can tell you exactly where they both are with a 96% rate of accuracy. Therefore, THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANSWERING THE TELEPHONE.

This is the moment at which I acknowledge my somewhat irrational behaviour, because I possibly should have shrugged, told myself to put on my big girl pants, left a voicemail to say, hey, is everything okay? Call me! and then gone off to write.

Instead, I invented a factually unfounded and absolutely groundless narrative in my mind about all the reasons that my parents were not answering a 7 a.m. Skype call from their only daughter in Rome, and it involved blood and heart attacks and robbers and divorces and alien abductions and the episode of Emmerdale where they found a baby on the doorstep.

I tried Dad’s cell, and then Mum’s cell, and with every unanswered call my imaginary suspicions were confirmed that ALL THE BAD THINGS HAD HAPPENED AND I WAS TOO MANY MILES AWAY AND IT IS ALL MY FAULT BECAUSE IF I WASN’T IN ANOTHER COUNTRY EVERYONE WOULD BE OKAY HOW WILL I EXPLAIN THIS AT THE FUNERAL EVERYONE WILL HATE ME FUCK.

And yes. I’m aware of how uncensored my narcissism gets when I haven’t slept.

So by 7.30 a.m. British time and I was dialing and dialing and eventually decided to call my Nanna. Mum sees her mum every day and Nanna is a bit like the head of our own version of the Mafia, so if any shit was going down and if any abductions needed noting, Nanna was my woman.

I think I woke her up. What is it with Derbyshire? IS 7.30 A.M. NOT A REASONABLE TIME TO BE AWAKE AND MAKING HYSTERICAL PHONE CALLS? HUH? HUUUUH?!

Thing is, my Nanna is an emotionally sensitive soul, so I knew the importance of not being A Mental on the phone. So she was all, Laura, I can’t hear you! And I was all, Just calling to check in! And she was like, At 7.30 in the morning? And I was all, SO LISTEN. TALK TO ME ABOUT ANYTHING UNUSUAL THAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT. SOAP OPERAS, LIGHTS IN THE SKY, THAT SORT OF THING.

Nanna told me she loved me, and that she’d seen mum and dad yesterday and had a lovely time with them, so I got all, Oh. Okay. Awesome. And then forgot anyone on the rest of the plant existed because it was time to go and write about my vagina and eat all the pastries.

I swear, without those pastries, my book would not have been written.

By the time I arrived at work six hours later, and thus to an Internet connection, I had a gazillion emails and Facebook messages from my mother best surmised as, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK LAURA? WHAT IS GOING ON? And then my phone started beeping with texts from them both, which hadn’t come through in the café because there is no signal there. That’s why I write where I do: no signal for my phone, no Internet connection for distraction, just me and my mind.

Which is pretty scary.

So then Mama was all hysterical saying her sister had called her to say I had rung Nana from Rome, and then everyone in the world knew I had been trying to not be A Mental, and in the six hours I had been writing about all the cute boys I met when I lived in America Mum thought that maybe I had died, or been abducted by aliens, or fired, or SOMETHING REALLY TERRIBLE AND WHY WOULD ANYONE LEAVE SO MANY MISSED CALLS WHEN THEY WEREN’T EVEN AWAKE YET?

‘Wait,’ I said to Mum when a Skype call finally connected. ‘You were asleep?’

‘Yes Laura. It was seven in the morning. We were asleep.’

To which I said, ‘Urm. Woops?’ And then Mum was like You’ve given me six of the worst hours of my life for a woooops? And I said, Hey, I had a pretty scary twenty minutes myself, you know, and she was all THAT ISN’T THE SAME! and so I took control of the situation by bringing it back to what we both needed to remember.

Let’s keep this in perspective, I said. NO ALIENS! YAY!

And then she hung up.

Just a little reflection on MY VAGINA.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:41:00 +0000

INTERNET. Five weeks today I leave Rome. Five! 35 days. I’m not even sure how that happened, except that maybe I am because evidently the time has flown in a mass of crying in public over books, and eating all the things, and dating inappropriate men because that is the story of my life, and oh hey! Tradgi-comedy! I’M OVER HERE!

The time also flew by doing things like farting in my Pilates instructor’s face. Some of you have asked if I went back. The answer is no. No, I didn’t.

It’s probably for the best that I am going, since students are rapidly finding this blog. The first time I walked into class and an adult student said, “And so, what about your website?’ I turned purple and swallowed hard and said, ‘My website?’ I think my reaction was indicative of a guilty conscience, but it turned out that she had merely remembered that I had talked about writing online at a Media Group my friend ran. She was just being polite.

Two weeks ago another grown-up student said, ‘I have been reading your stories.’ Only this time the student had actually been reading about my vagina and poo and loathing of their home city, and two days later another student told me the same thing. I think I’ve got about 5 weeks before my boss tells me it is game over because I am predominantly the face of the Children’s Department and it might make parents uncomfortable to know, well, pretty much everything about me, BUT HA! By that time I’ll be on a train north to go spend the summer teaching people how to be teachers and so see ya, ROME!

Related side-note: when teaching teachers how to be exactly that, I must cover the following-

Rule one: don’t let students add you on Facebook.

Rule two: Because like, d’uh.

When I first moved here it is unthinkable to me that I stopped blogging in case what I wrote would affect my position as a teacher. And then, even when I resumed sharing stories about THIS FUCKING CITY I blocked any trace of it from colleagues on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and whenever somebody asked me about the book I am working on I would wave a hand dismissively and vaguely say, ‘A comedy.’

The first time I told a colleague it was actually about my vagina she shrugged and said, ‘I’m about as unsurprised as I was when Ricky Martin came out as gay.’

Compare this secretive I-just-got-a-proper-job behaviour to Tuesday afternoon, wherein I had three colleagues reading through the first chapters of that manuscript about my vagina, openly discussing the merits various synonyms I have adapted for the purpose of variation, and laughing out loud about stories of burning my minge in a tancab and seducing near-on minors for sport.

You could say I’ve come a long way in terms of what I reveal about myself to the world.

And that’s the funny thing. I’m happy for strangers to read about me on the internet, and people I already know to read me on the internet, and what I write on the internet is exactly what I say and do and as behave in actual day-to-day reality (I KNOW.) But there is a gap with people I meet offline for the first-time and telling them about what I do.

We had a new teacher at school start yesterday, and she overheard a conversation about my manuscript and she said, ‘Oh! You write! Wonderful. What is your book about?’

And I smiled, and the colleagues around me laughed, and I said, whilst waving my hand dismissively, ‘It’s a comedy.’

Then I took a breath and declared, right there in the staff room, ‘It’s a sex memoir.’

And after I said that I knew: I totally have to leave before I get fired. I’m a kid’s teacher, for GaGa’s sake.

35 days.

Living most predominantly in my imagination. Again.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:30:00 +0000

I’m sat in the café reading a collection of essays by Zadie Smith, and I just cried. Out loud. In public. Actual tears. Down my face.x

I hit ‘send’ on the text to Calum. I don’t know what it was, but on that day I cried three times. I wasn’t even pre-menstrual or anything.

Hours later he emailed me:

I gave my number to a cute boy five minutes before you text me, and when I got your message I thought it was him- I was all like “Hmmm, it’s great that he is mad for Zadie and reads and stuff but crying in public at a book? And telling me about it?” I decided I didn’t want to sleep with him anymore. And then I realised it was you and so I changed my mind again so that is the end of my story.

And then I was all, Calum! Hi! Remember me! Your friend who is obviously unhinged since she cries over academic essays in front of old men she has adopted in her imagination as her grandparents?

And he was all, I saw a book yesterday called The Power of Yes and laughed at what a shit title is was and wondered who would buy a book like that. Then I thought of you and realised that you would buy it because it is aimed at the mentally unhinged as a whole. You are not alone.

To which I just said, THANKS, FRIEND.

The first time I cried was in the café at Zadie. Because I’m A Mental, when I read something about her creative practices and writing and oh I don’t know just BEING ZADIE SMITH it is so beautiful and magical to me that I shed tears without even wanting to, meaning to; totally helplessly I sob. I’ve done it four times at Changing My Mind, because I feel like she is talking directly to me, and it makes my heart do somersault-y leaps into my throat.

That bitch.

The second time I cried that day was when I arrived at work. There was a package waiting for me from home. Dad had sent me my iPod Shuffle, and slipped in a letter. As soon as I saw it- his heavy loopy scrawl on more than a post-it-sized piece of paper, I gasped out loud.

“Oh!” I said, and the receptionist said, “Is it from Calum?” I didn’t reply I just pulled it from amongst the iPod and the MaltEasters and the Chomp Bars and sat down with my back to the door and within seconds was letting out big galumphing sobs because DAD HAD WRITTEN ME A LETTER.

He has only ever written to me once before, when I spent the summer in France years ago. He did it because he really, really missed me, and I knew that because I haven’t been home since January and that because the only time I know he had really missed me was when he sent the last letter, he must miss me now. So I was crying before I had even opened the goddamn thing because I just knew and sometimes, the one thing worse than missing somebody is knowing you are missed because well. There is nothing you can do about that one.

After five minutes I became aware that somebody has closed the door behind me and I was breathing in cosmos-sized gulps of salty air and I had to go and teach a lesson. I stuffed a Chomp in my mouth to replace the sadness, swallowed hard, and wiped the mascara from under my eyes.

That bastard.

Two hours later I had a meeting with a parent. I had to explain to him that his son is obviously very creative, very gifted, but that every week we go through the same routine. He comes into the class, acts stupid, I ask him not to, he ignores me, and so he sits in the corner for the next twenty minutes to think about what respect means. Then he joins the class again, is as good as gold, reveals his genius, and when he leaves I think, “Now he understands, next week he’ll be like that for the entire lesson.”

And he never is; every week we go through the same routine.

I told his father this, and his father knew. And then he started to talk about his son, how special he is, how he doesn’t like football but theatre, doesn’t want to watch TV but pulls out the encyclopedia, won’t do Math but will sit for hours writing stories.

I thought about the letter from my own father, about how I love him and he loves me, and about Zadie Smith and her essays on creating things, and about the kid and his crazy way of making sense of his world, and I had to excuse myself before the father decided I wasn’t stable enough emotionally to take care of his kid because ISN’T LIFE BEAUTIFUL? And then I cried again.

That evening I wrote another email to Calum: thousands of words critiquing Bathes, and Nabokov, and Zadie Smith, and Kundra, and I did all of it just FOR FUN because life! Emotions! Philosophy! All the things!

I wrote a dissertation to pass a Tuesday evening because I had things to say and I needed somebody bound to me by the laws of best-friendship to listen and who would be forced to respond.

He asked if I was okay. Should I be worried?

And the answer is that yes, maybe he should be. Because I don’t have a bloody clue what’s happening. I’m so bored and tired of being here in Rome (BLAH BLAH BLAH) but at the same time I can’t even walk down the street without stopping and staring at a ladybird on the wall because LOOK. IT’S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL. WHAT IF I WERE A LADYBIRD? WHAT WOULD I BE THINKING? And basically what would I be thinking? I don’t even know what I’m thinking now. Except that everything is so beautiful and poetic and full of possibility that I might cry again.

Yup. Definitely crying now.

See how this is? Beautiful and mental. Mental and beautiful.

But mainly mental.

When food replaces sex.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:02:00 +0000

“You know what I want?”

“What?”

“A sandwich.”

“A sandwich?”

“Yeah. Made with that white bread that doesn’t have the crusts.”

“Tramezzini?”

“Hmmmm. With pesto. And cream cheese.”

“In the same sandwich? Mixing it all up like that?”

“Yeah. Mixing it up real good. Maybe get a little avocado up in there too.”

“Oh. I like your imagination.”

“It’d be so good. I’d take it all down.”

“Then what…?”

“Then what?”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want… tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And on those tomatoes, I want a little sea salt.”

“You do?”

“Oh yeah. If I had cheery tomatoes, I’d take ‘em-“

“-I bet you would-“

“And I’d lay ‘em down…”

“… Uh-huh…?”

“And I’d slice ‘em open, one by one…”

“God, that sounds good.”

“Then I’d take a little sprinkle of that salt,”

“Mmmmm…”

“And I’d throw it all over. All. Fucking. Over. And then I’d open my mouth, and do you know what I’d do? I’d put them in. Put them all in. And I’d swallow them all.”

“That’s so bad.”

“So bad it’s good. And you know what else? I’d take an egg, too.”

“Hard… boiled?”

“Chocolate. A chocolate Kinder egg. And not some in-in-one piddley thing, either. I want it big. A big, chocolate egg. White on one side, milk on the other. And… oh yeah… I’d take a bite of the sandwich, then a bite of the egg, and then the sandwich again…”

“God, that sounds so good.”

“Maybe some fries, too. Salted and dripping in Mayonnaise. Or Mozzarella balls. Hot out of the oven. And I’d take those balls, and I’d dip them in the good stuff, and once I’d done the ball I’d do the egg, then the sandwich, then some more of the balls…”

“A food orgy.”

“A fucking food orgy.”

“Everybody just eating what they wanted, no rules, no guilt?”

“Just pleasure.”

“God. I’m just so hungry.”

“Me too.”

“Damn.”

Italy did nothing to disprove their men are idiots.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:33:00 +0000

“Laura. Do you believe in God?”

“No.”

Do you go to church?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in heaven?”

“No.”

He sighed, and My Pregnant Friend said, “Laura. If you are going to meet my very Italian father-in-law, we’re going to have to try this again.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Are you sure he won’t just love me anyway, Britishness and all?” I asked.

My Pregnant friend and her husband looked at each other.

“No.”

And so, as I downed the last of my strawberry Prosecco in the Easter Sunday sunshine, I was schooled on How To Be Amenable To Somebody Else’s Family. Somebody else’s Italian family. Somebody else’s Italian, traditional, conservative family.

The rules?

“Don’t tell him you aren’t Catholic.”

“Don’t mention feminism.”

“Don’t get into vegetarianism.”

“Don’t talk about politics.”

“DON’T SAY VAGINA.”

Like I’ve never mixed in polite company before guys.

Okay fine. I’ve never mixed in polite company before guys.

We did introductions- Grandma, who makes the best fried eggplant in the universe, and Granddad, who one has to shout at to be heard and who stared at me a lot. Auntie and Uncle, the comic relief. Mum and Dad, who sat at opposite sides of the table as one played The Woman and one played The Man. My pregnant friend and her Italian husband, and then me and my Boss/Friend- two single gals at a family gathering.

“So, Laura,” Father-in-Law said to me. “What is the crisis like in England?”

I turned to the table and repeated the word he had used for ‘crisis’ in Italian, which sound a lot like ‘Christ’.

“Did he just ask me if we have Christianity in England?” I asked.

The entire English-speaking contingent of the table all at once yelled, “NO!”

He was asking about the economy, I was told.

My Boss/Friend elbowed my ribs. “Don’t start that,” she said through gritted teeth.

On responding, I was lectured on the merits of an Italy gone by, where taxes were low and honesty was paramount. He meant under Berlusconi, the same politician of whom the Queen of England said, “Oh, who is that bothersome man?” He of bunga-bunga party fame. He of no morals, and much illegal tax evasion.

“Angela merkel” he said to me. “Saying we are just like Spain and Greece! We’re nothing like Spain and Greece! You understand that, don't you?”

Internet, having worked here for almost a year I can categorically say: Italy’s economy is up shit creek and is missing the proverbial paddle. They might be worse than Spain and Greece, precisely because they are so deluded about their place in the European economy.

“We have more money saved per person than anywhere else in Europe!”

A claim which I don’t think is quite true.

“Yes, but it isn’t saving that stimulates economy, is it?” I began to tell him, and then my Italian was gone so I had my friend translate. I turned to her, “Can you tell him that savings don’t mean anything for an economy- people need to spend. Compare what happened to England post World War 2 and what happened in America. He can’t have that attitude!”

My Boss/Friend smiled and translated, “She says you are right.” Then she smiled sweetly at me.

“Are you married?” he asked me later.

“Nope.” I replied. “Don’t want to be, either.”

“You don’t want to be married?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Never say never,” he said, and all of the women around the table laughed when I said, “Why?” They knew. It’s funny- married women seldom question my choice, yet married men always do. I can’t begin to imagine why.

EXCEPT THAT I CAN, WANKY HUSBANDS OF THE WORLD WHO ARE CHARMED BY A WOMAN’S OPINION AS LONG AS IT IS THE RIGHT ONE AND OKAY SWEETIE BE QUIET NOW THE FOOTBALL IS ON.

“Never seen a marriage I want to emulate,” I told him. “It’s always the woman who looks after the man, and the man who works, and nothing is equal,” I said.

“You’re immature,” he told me. “You’ll grow out of that opinion.”

“I don’t think I will,” I responded.

“You will.”

“Won’t”

“Will.”

I asked my friend to translate. “Can you tell him I am a feminist and this attitude toward women- men having to have the final word- is exactly why I have no interest in perpetuating this patriarchal society view in the modern world?”

My Boss/Friend smiled and translated, “She says you are right.” Then she smiled sweetly at me.

“Lamb?” he offered, as THE FOURTH COURSE was wheeled out.

“I’m vegetarian,” I explained.

“What about some ham then?” he asked.

Who knew The Royale Family translated into Italian?

“Any dead animal is out for me,” I explained.

“So no lamb?”

“No lamb”

“Why are you vegetarian, that’s stupid,” he said.

My patience was wearing thin. “Can you explain to him,” I asked my friend, “That I don’t want to contribute to the production processes of meat, particularly in the U.K.? That frying bacon and seeing water leak out is not natural, and the steaks we pick up from supermarket shelves have been pumped of oxygenated blood to be made to look more appealing?”

My Boss/Friend smiled and translated, “She says you are right.” Then she smiled sweetly at me.

We chewed through dead animal and opened Easter eggs and had coffee. Finally, the question came, “Laura. Are you Catholic?”

All eyes were on me. “No.”

“Christian?”

“No.”

“Muslim?”

“No.”

“But everybody must choose a religion,” he told me.

“Tell him,” I instructed my Shit-At-Translating-Boss/Friend, “That I believe in people. And I believe people vibrate with energy, and the more positive energy and love and happiness we have, the higher our vibrations, and ultimately, when we vibrate at an absolute pure level our actual body mass alters to the point of invisibility. Tell I believe that this is what happened to Jesus on the day of his resurrection- how he got out of the sealed cave. Tell him that, please.”

My friend smiled and translated, “She says you are right.” Then she smiled sweetly at me.

And that is how my Easter Sunday went.

Backwards Banks.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:00:00 +0000

It should have been a simple morning, a pre-café trip to the bank to explain that bizarrely, my bankcard doesn’t seem to be working at the ATM. In a restaurant, no problem. At the bookstore, a-okay. But as soon as I need cold, hard cash the machine refuses to accept my card. Won’t even read it. Turns it down like Roger Sterling and any woman over 20 years old.

It’s probably entirely my fault. Since my bag got stolen I haven’t purchased a new wallet- I keep my change in a small coin purse and so, on the odd occasion that I’ve needed to take my card out with me, it sits loosely in the side-pocket of my bag wrapped in a piece of paper with the PIN written on it. It is scratched and pummelled, and thus apparently no longer works- so I figured I’d do three things:

1. Get a new card from the nice people at the bank.

2. Buy a wallet to protect the new card from the nice people at the bank.

3. Memorise my PIN.

INTERNET, I AM GROWING UP. Look at me go, resolving to improve my life and stop being a domestic slut. NEXT I’LL BE WRITING MY NAME IN MY BOOKS AND HANGING OUT MY CLOTHES THE SAME DAY AS I WASH THEM.

It’s amazing, really, that I even have a bankcard- going 8 months without an Italian bank account really was no problem. Well, at least until Ryanair tried to have sex with my bum and I had to cry at a stranger to use their card to buy me a flight.

“So, what exactly do you do with all your money, then?” my friend Alma asked me. “Just keep it in a big pile under your bed?”

My silence was her answer.

“Ohmygod, you are so bohemian.”

Bohemian, no. Distrustful of the entire economy Italy is founded on? Yes.

After Berlusconi was ousted and Super Mario changed the economic game by demanding all financial transactions become more transparent, my job now pays half my pay check into a bank account- at a bank where my boss is friends with the manager, of course.

The other half of my paycheck gets given to me cash-in-hand, and I get two different ‘official’ pay slips, too. This is common practise is this country, and it irritates me- and most Italians- when the fall of the Euro is blamed on their faulty processes because hey! IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY.

Don’t act like these systems are news to you, Angela Merkel. You can’t sleep with the guitar-playing lead singer of a heavy-metal band when you are friends with his girlfriend and then get cross when he gives both of you herpes.

At the bank, the woman was all, Oh? How strange. I can’t imagine what the problem might be. We were speaking in Italian, which as you know I CAN’T DO, and so I simply nodded sagely as if to say, Absolutely- you are so wise.

Can I see it? she asked me, and I handed it to her. I explained the situation once more and she shook her head in confusion. She thought about what I had said, and I presumed the answer would be, Hey, let me order you a new card then, shall I?

Instead, she held my existing card in the palm of her hands, looked at it closely, AND THEN WIPED IT ON HER JUMPER.

Let’s try it now, she said.

Oh! Wiping it on my jumper! WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?

We traipsed outside to the ATM to try the card again. One of us was unsurprised when the card wasn’t accepted. The other one said, Well, I don’t know what we should do next, then.

Then she suggested I go for a coffee, and come back to try it again in 5 minutes- the equivalent to unplugging the TV before realising the reason it doesn’t work is because it is on fire.

She seemed shocked when, five minutes later, I returned. She was irritated at me, put out, and said, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

WHAT DO I WANT YOU DO? WHAT DO I WANT YOU TO DO? I want you to fix it, you dumb, lazy, Italian-fucking-whore-for-brains. Stop being such a brother-bonking tit, put your big girl pants on and your cappuccino down, and DO SOMETHING.

See also: Are we really playing the game where I tell you how to do your job?

I explained, calmly, that I needed a new card, and since this one wasn’t working I’d also need to withdraw cash to tide me over in the meantime. She told me there’d be a five Euro charge for each manual transaction. I told her to go and eat a bag of dicks with ranch dressing on the side.

I left with my money and an appointment to come back next week to pick everything up. She was left with the an entire destiny to be played out in this backwards hell-hole of ineffective management, in which even my Italian friends agree with me when I say, “Rome is lovely- it’s just no place to live when you actually want to achieve something.”

They laugh and hold up their hands in surrender and shrug. “We know,” they say. “What do you want us to do?”

The most disgusting blog you’ll read all day.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:53:00 +0000

This week I farted in my Pilates instructor’s face.

My bum was raised on a foam cylinder, my shoulders on the floor with arms splayed either side of me, and my legs horizontal up in the air. We were told to raise our arses off of the foam cylinder by contracting our lower stomach muscles to propel ‘up’. Alessandro made it look easy. It wasn’t.

He watched me for a moment, laughed, and then came to assist.

The instructor stood at my raised legs, holding on to my feet and helping me move ‘up’. Once, twice, three times, and then he pushed me to lift higher with more force. As my legs went up and my stomach muscles contracted, and I was exhaling and inhaling and translating, the biggest- and loudest- flurry of air ever to have flurried anywhere in the history of flurrying exited from my bottom, approximately six inches from his nose.

Embarrassed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Embarrassing doesn’t surmise with enough zeal the exact level of mortification, humiliation and SHAME, that farting so purposefully in somebody’s face provides.

I thought he was going to throw up, or throw me out.

But you see, it isn’t my fault. It’s the soup. The delicious, nutritious soup I have been eating of a lunchtime. The soup with all the vegetables and beans and lentils and HOW CAN SOMETHING SO GOOD FOR YOU TASTE SO DELICIOUS. I’m sure that goes against all the rules.

The first time I tried the soup, I ate the whole thing- designed as it is for two, you don’t know an appetite until you have to run around with somebody else’s kids all day. I had ten minutes between finishing lunch and starting my shift, so I took a brisk walk around the block with my colleague to take some air before being locked away for six hours.

Halfway round I could feel a rumble in the depths of my bowels. YES I JUST SAID BOWELS. It was an ache, a sort of deep yawn. Uh-oh, I thought. As we circled back around to school I was breathing heavier, and by the time we reached reception on the first floor I quietly whispered to my friend ‘Oh. I don’t feel so well.’

I silently took the key to the downstairs kids department that stays locked until regular school gets out and private English school commences. I slipped in through the door and flicked on the lights for the bathroom down there. Then, to make it look like nobody was around, I turned out the lights in the corridor again. I didn’t want to get interrupted.

I looked in the mirror. My face was pale and covered with a thin veil of sweat that beaded in messy clumps above my eyebrows. I gripped the sink and bent over slightly, breathing heavily. I closed my eyes. You got this, I said to myself. Just breathe.

I sat on the loo and waited. And OH DEAR GAGA was it a good job I wasn’t in the public bathroom upstairs next to the waiting area.

I think just about everything I had in me was released into that toilet, in quick succession and followed by a splash-back that meant I had to wipe both my bum and the cheeks when I was finished.

It was… cathartic?

Ten minutes, three flushes and a pep talk in the mirror later, I returned upstairs. Colour was back in my cheeks and I felt 10 pounds lighter than I did before.

“Are you okay?” my pregnant friend asked me.

“I thought I was going to die in there,” I replied. “I’m sure it isn’t natural that that soup can tear through one’s system like that in less than the time it took to eat it in the first place.”

“Did you use the toilet brush?”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t liquidy- it was quite solid. But is skidded on the way down and was so heavy it cracked the toilet bowl. It was a good one- the kind your doctor tells you about.”

“Laura?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s gross.”

And so after a week on such soup I suppose I had accumulated some air. And then there were muscle contractions and lifting and squeezing and basically now I don’t know if I have to find a new Pilates studio because I PRACTICALLY SHAT ON HIS FACE.

Hey- remember when I used to have dignity?

No.

Me neither.

Fucking hippy shit.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:35:00 +0000

I realised I hadn’t fully understood the core objectives- the ones underpinning the self-scribed methodology of my invented Wellness Camp- when I wanted to vomit.

I felt sick because after finishing a Pilates class I dashed to the store to pick up a new pencil case- hey! I like pretty things!- arrived at the café two and half hours later than the optimum, and then downed a cappuccino, orange juice and croissant so fast that I ended up with the first sentence of this post because I dribbled down my front and knew I needed to tell the Internet about it.

My ‘wellness’ checklist for the morning went something like this:

- Exercise. Check.

- Purchase fancy pencil case for fancy writing pen. Check.

- Breakfast of caffeine, vitamin C, and unadulterated Nutella pleasure. Check.

- Mind-enhancing literature. Check.

But did I enjoy any of those things? Nope. Because I forgot, in undertaking my checklist of Good Things For My Soul, to take the subscribed pleasure in any of them, so intent was I to tell myself I had done them- like the doing was more pertinent than the feeling of experiencing them, appreciating them.

Isn’t that fucked up?

I caught myself, mid-bite of the pastry. I was struggling to chew and swallow and hold my pencil to make notes of all the important bits in my book; I couldn’t quite manage Doing All The Things. I wasn’t enjoying and feeling and being.

I’d mentally concocted an itemised plan that covered all the well being bases for the morning, but HELLO REVELATION. That wasn’t the point. I wasn’t supposed to wizz my way through them to be able to say I had done exactly that. I was supposed to relish them. And I’m forever doing that: Always thinking, but never paying attention.

Naughty, naughty Laura.

Enter Teach Us To Sit Still by Tim Parks, a man with exactly the same problem.

Blurbed as A Skeptic’s Search for Health and Healing it’s a book that a friend bullied me into buying when he visited Rome, and has been on my bookshelf for many months. I don’t know why I picked it up off of the shelf that evening- I had committed myself to ignore its presence at the foot of my bed, and had resigned to silently slip it into the books to give away pile when I leave next month.

As I held it in my hand and remembered the farce of that morning, I knew I was supposed to read it. And it’s funny- Parks says at one point, ‘Any discoveries would present themselves when they wanted, when I was ripe for them.’ SNAP, TIM PARKS.

Teach Us To Sit Still is about a seemingly incurable urinary problem that Parks self-cures through meditation. He learns some Very Important Things:

1. DOING cancels out BEING like noise swamps silence. See also: Doing All The Things and Experiencing None Of Them.

And:

2. The best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, and shifts your view to new territory. See also: Passing A Year In A City You Hate.

To say this book Changed Everything is a minor understatement.

Suddenly, I can see major things in my life that need to be corrected. I walk with my head down, lost in thought, watching my feet as a sort of meditation as I go places. I don’t look around and see the journey.

I behave as though my body is only a vessel for my mind- an inconvenience, a chore to maintain. I don’t recognise that body is mind is soul and that I am the whole of these parts. I must take care of all of these things- not out of necessity for one over the other, but for the good of them all. It’s no good having a perfect engine in your car if the tyres have no tread.

Or something.

I treat life as a task, first and foremost, like Parks describes. I only take pleasure in it when I am striving for something. We have do as the title suggests and learn simply how to sit still. And not to do it in order to relax, but just to do it.

It’s pretty intense stuff, really. But OHMYDEAR GOD IF I HAVE TO SAY THIS TO MYSELF ONE MORE TIME! I’m supposed to be expanding my mind this year, aren’t I? The dreaded ‘p’ word. And so, I’ve tried to let him teach me.

Which means, I’m afraid, more of this hippy bullshit.

There's the good, then there's the bad.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Last week was a difficult one in general, because I was all off-kilter after missing my Monday by being in Milan. Being a day behind meant that the rest of the week felt funny; playing catch-up for All Of The Times gave me a major case of the sads, because 'Being Tired and a Bit Grumpy' wasn't on my list for any of the days and yet featured in them all.

See also: oh, boo-fucking-hoo that my weekend to the fashion capital of the world upset my self-made schedule for 5 days. OH THE TRAUMA.

Anyway, my landlady was away last week too, and so as it was my turn to host the weekly Girls Night I have inadvertently become part of- sorority life having never been my thing- I played hostess for a dinner at home after work, even though my wet dream for the week boiled down to one thing and one thing only: sleep.

And a meal salad. I'm really into meal salads right now. But I prefer it when somebody else makes it for me.

It was just supposed to be a casual girly supper for three, actually a most pleasurable endeavour, but then a colleague got some bad news so I invited him over too. Then to balance out the girl-boy numbers my friend's boyfriend came- and I learnt that cooking for five is not cooking for one.

When we'd walked into the apartment my friend said to me, “Ewwww. It smells like garbage in here.” This was worrying for two reasons: one, I could not smell said garbage. If it was so repulsive, what other disgusting smells was I blissfully unaware of day-to-day and OHMYGOD what if I smelt and everyone was talking about me behind my back or WORSE those silent and odourless farts I sometimes do on the stairs at work- what if they actually stank to everybody but me?

Two: I am under strict instruction to keep the apartment pristine in the owner's absence. Fuck.

We poured beer and chatted and waited for the boys to show up, all the while with my girlfriend occasionally saying, “I still smell it.” So then all the windows were opened and scented candles lit, and by the time it got to 10 p.m. my other girlfriend said, “So. Urm. Should we like, start cooking now?” and I realised my guests were starving and because 10 p.m. is a normal supper time for me I was fine, but they were on floor famished.

“GOD! I'm so sorry!” I cried, and started to pull ingredients out of the cupboard.

We were just having pasta- lightly tossed in pesto, with cheery tomatoes. Light, fun, simple. Of course the boys were a bit like, “Just pasta?” because NOTE TO SELF men like meat, but as a vegetarian the thought that it wasn't balanced enough never even occurred to me.

As I threw in the pasta to the pot my friend asked if there was anything she could do, and since I can pretty much boil water unaccompanied I told her if she wanted to hunt out where the smell was coming from she could be my guest.

I often call my friend Rainman, because she has a sort of autistic dedication and literal translation of any task at hand. So she got right to it, taking out the (empty) trash and rifling through the fridge.

“What's this?” she asked, holding up a tub of sliced cooked mushrooms that my landlady had left behind before she went away for the week.

“They're my landlady's,” I said. “I don't really like to touch her stuff in case I get into trouble.” Then in slow motion my friend removed the corner of lid, screamed “OHMYGOD IT IS LIKE WET DIRTY DIAPERS UP IN HERE!” and then we all nearly died from the grossness of those stinking mushrooms which was overpowering in a way I have no words for, only a repeated gagging sound that goes something like this:

“JKGADFLKJAGFLJKASGFLJSDFGLjsbf”

The boys arrived just as I was removing dirty baby diaper smell from the apartment, to a freezing room with all the windows open and pasta that had been boiling for too long and was at best soggy, and at worst almost inedible.

There wasn't enough limp pasta for a suitable portion each, because I don't ever make pasta for five people so I didn't know how much to use. Evidently, not enough. And yet when I cook for just myself it is always too much. So we all had a first course of pasta with pesto and cherry tomatoes, and then I boiled up some more water to make the second course: pasta with pesto and cherry tomatoes.

The thing is, I didn't have enough pesto left over from the fancy stuff I had bought, so I used up the pesto that had been opened in the fridge for... well. I don't exactly know.

As I was mixing up the old pesto into the newly boiled pasta somebody said, “Oh. I thought this was Parmesan, I didn't realise it was actually blue cheese,” to which I replied, “It isn't,” and then everybody understood that we had accompanied our insufficient pasta portions with mouldy cheese.

And THEN the second course was worse than the first because in addition to the mouldy cheese we now had old pesto that tasted like vinegar and basically, by midnight, I essentially just had to say, YES. JUST GO. LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

For our next girls night, we're going to a restaurant.

Blame mercury.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Jane Williams) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Internet, you know how on Monday I was all, I went to visit my friend in Milan and, she taught me all sorts of awesome things and, when I told her she was teaching me all sorts of awesome things she was like, “D'uh. That's what friends do.” Remember how then I was a bit like, OH. HI NEW RULES FOR FRIENDSHIPS.

Well, as is increasingly common in my oddball and obsessive existence, this has birthed many an important thought which is now officially snowballing and snowballing fast. The lists are breeding lists and contracts with myself are being adhered to and an inability to say words without flailing my hands around for dramatic emphasis is prominent.

I emailed Calum.

Look. I'm your favourite person and you're my favourite person and we live apart and maybe right now things are happening that mean all of our grad school plans might change. And we're acting like that is the end of the world. But what if for serious this is the universe offering us an amazing opportunity to do something together? We should pay attention to what we are being told because it says in The Celestine Prophecy that everything happens for a reason and that we must heed the omens and maybe I'm getting mixed up with The Alchemist but the sentiment is the same.

And then I officially gave him a business proposal, but I told him not to make a decision right now because Mercury is in retrograde.

WHAT? He said.

The day before I had been at work, and during a lull found myself at the reception desk with the secretaries, my boss, and another teacher. We were talking about the woes of many people we know. I thought about my friend Olivia, who when I complain to about Shit Things waves a hand and says, “It'll be Mercury at work.”

“You know,” I said to the assembled staff. “I'll bet Mercury is in retrograde.”

I was met with blank stares.

“For serious. Mercury is the planet of communication- actually, it's my ruling planet as a Gemini. It's responsible for effective understanding and fluid activity and other good stuff.”

More blank stares.

“But a few times a year, because of the position of Earth and Mercury and... well. I don't know what else. That isn't important. What's important is that Mercury can appear to be moving backwards in the sky, what we call being in retrograde.”

Blankness.

“When Mercury appears to be moving backwards, it signifies back steps and set-backs and backwardness on earth.” I started to get excited, warming to my theme. “And I'll bet, what with all of these sad things happening within a few short days of each other to all the people we love, Mercury is in retrograde right now.” I threw my hands up in the air. “That explains it!”

Blank, blank, blank.

And then: “PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's not a thing!” they cried.

“It's totally a thing!”

“What a load of tosh,” somebody said.

So I got all sassy and offended because I enjoy being laughed at when I am trying to be funny but when I'm doing stuff For Serious I don't like to be ridiculed because I am human and have feelings and stuff, and so I was all, GOOGLE IT! And so we did, and it turns out Mercury is totally in retrograde right now and so the moral of the story is that I win at life. THE END.

In response to Calum being all like, I'm sorry Mercury? Retrograde? What? I told him my story about what happened at work and then was all, Accept what I am saying and let's not do decisions until after April 4^th when Mercury's retrograde spell ends and then he was like, LAURA. Did you just give me a serious business proposal within the context of an astrology lesson? And I was all like, URM. YES. OF COURSE. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? And he was all like, AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM, THAT YOU ARE ASKING ME TO GO INTO BUSINESS WITH YOU AND YOUR PLANETARY ALIGNMENTS AND YET YOU DO NOT SEE THE PROBLEM WITH IT, and then it was my turn to do blank staring, because really, what?

And then I remembered, d'uh, he won't fully understand what I am trying to communicate because MERCURY IS IN RETROGRADE and so I've given him a week to let it marinade and then our Facebook communications will be much more efficient without the troubles of the planets crossing our wires.

YOU, MERCURY! YOU AND YOUR TRICKS!

It's a good job that I am on top of all this. Honestly.