Monday, September 23, 2013

First blog of the season.

Felt like Autumn when I got up this morning and I felt guilty.
Because, despite claiming I'd be writing weekly or even regularly, I haven't written a blog all Summer.
In my defense, it has been quite a Summer.

Firstly I got ridiculously sick with sinusitis and the drugs they gave me to combat it, not only didn't cure my sinusitis,  but also gave me tendonitis and gum abscesses to boot.
All that wheeziness and shuffling made it impossible to write a blog. OK, so it didn't affect my hands but...
"Dear blog, I feel crap. That is all"
No, you are welcome. For the sake of everybody, I shut up.

Anyway, it has given me new respect for people suffering long term illnesses. Not just the illness itself, not just the relentlessness of it all, but for not being able to tell people EXACTLY how you really feel, whenever they ask. (because it's generally not 'fine').

I don't mean to be a conventional health batterer, but what six weeks of fearsome antibiotics couldn't cure,  was suddenly and most spectacularly cleared up by just two sessions of acupuncture. I've taken this as a sign that, in future,  maybe I'll head in an alternative direction first and the conventional second. And if neither of those work, I'm going to tell people how I really feel whenever they ask , and pretty soon one of them will be forced to put me out of my misery.

On the up side, because I was too sick to fly we went on family vacations where we could drive. Big Bear - adorable. (Lady Gaga has a house there, which makes me believe she's not really crazy after all)
Las Vegas - where my 10 year old, immediately alarmed, said we had to escape from, because "everyone around us was secretly really unhappy." and to Utah - a place both boys loved, though my youngest informed me was "full of Normans"

There were times of incredible ups, for example I became  involved with the Moth  - delectable people who tell stories. I saw my friend Kemp's first play being performed.  I loved it because it's a great piece, about an amazing moment in history, and because it was brilliant to watch a stage full of real-life black actors doing real, proper acting without any of them having to say  "Massa." We are, all of us, infinitely more interesting than our skin says we are.

I went to New York and had a home-cooked meal with my Auntie Susan and Uncle James, and it made me remember how much I miss my Mum and Dad and how grateful I am for what they left behind.

I watched my friends Colette and Diane deal with the loss of a, much loved, husband and son respectively with agonizing practicality and dignity.
And how friends Cherie and Todd proved, that for a baby to become part of a family, it really doesn't matter who gives birth.

This was the year too, when my eldest started 5th grade - the year before middle school - and my youngest Kindergarten. Watching them both go off to school on that first morning,  I had to remind myself that 'the end of Summer' was not a metaphor,

My youngest loves homework - it's early days obviously, but he relishes it, saying, "I have a lot to learn Mom. I know a lot already, but I have a lot to go." (sadly one of the things he'll learn, no doubt, is that nobody really loves homework)
My fifth grader has a ton of reports to do this year, one of which is to write four things that happen to him each month and how he felt. It made me think of the Summer when I was 10 and how, weirdly, that doesn't seem so long ago.

We discovered as a family, that: pancakes on a Sunday morning, work. Nobody likes getting up for school. Flies in America are a lot more persistent than those in the UK.  Grilled cheese is the same as 'toast and cheese' but 'toast and cheese' sounds better,  and the best way to have dinner is Chinese take out in the living room, whilst Doctor Who is on tv.

The Summer is over, but the sun's still high in the sky.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Raccoon Tennis


It rained in LA today. Just for a minute or two but it rained nevertheless and the feeling was brilliant.Don't get me wrong, I am Scottish and fully in the camp that when it rains all the time it's a nightmare. Even now, the smell of wet dog takes me right back to Cumbernauld in the 70s and the long walk to Muirfield primary school, wearing a dufflecoat.
But a little bit of rain is fantastically refreshing.

Similarly, I was refreshed by the BBC apology about commentator John Inverdale this week. 
Refreshed? Why? Wasn't it the same old, "We're terribly sorry blah blah blah, in no way reflects the opinions of blah blah blah". Well, yes it was. But this time the BBC was apologising for on-air comments made by an employee, rather than for him being a pedophile. 
(I've had sinusitis for ages now and I'm looking for positivity where I can find it - so I found that a refreshing change.)

Anyway, John Inverdale, who is he? He's a British sports commentator who was reporting on BBC radio, live from the Wimbledon Women's finals. 
Here's what he said before the match, about the winner, Marion Bartoli.


"You think Bartoli's dad told her when she was little '...You're never going to be a looker, you'll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight'?"


Maybe John. Maybe. 
In the same way your mother may have said, 

"Try your hardest to get a job on radio son. That way nobody will see what you look like, and it'll make it that much harder when you say something completely stupid and they want to seek you out to laugh in your face."

Here's a picture of John for reference....just in case.
Johninverdale.jpg

Look at that. What a prime example of manhood. Why Bartoli's poor, little, French heart must be all broken up inside,  thinking that even though she's won her place in history, and a pretty solid income stream, she'll never win the attentions of such a manly prize.

Anyway, the BBC apologised and now Inverdale's apologized too apparently. Seems he thinks. "She is an incredible role model for people who aren't born with all the attributes of natural athletes."

Ah John. Some sentences you might find yourself thinking, but really shouldn't say. But, thank you for making me feel so much better about myself this week. And for not being a pedophile. (Like I say, sinusitis)

Bartoli is completely over it - and why wouldn't she be? She's young, talented and gorgeous. What does she care about the comments of a frustrated (just guessing) middle-aged, man?

But people are annoyed and I get that. 

It annoys me too when someone who's employed to do one thing, seem inclined to do something else. 
Like when the guy who comes to rid you of your  "Raccoon issue" wants to assure you that your accent sounds much more Irish than Scots.
 "I know where I come from Raccoon guy. Just set the traps and shut your face."  
is what I thought, but didn't actually say - On account of I wanted him to deal with my "Raccoon issue,"  and if you've ever had raccoons setting up home under your home, you'll know why.
(and I've had sinusitis)

Inverdale was at Wimbledon to report on the sport of tennis, not to open his great big mouth and make Homer Simpson sound like a genius.
Just as Bertoli was there to play tennis and not to warm the dark and dormant, front-regions of Inverdale's pants.

The BBC received a number of complaints about Inverdale being sexist. But I'm not sure I agree. Stupid, undoubtably. Ignorant, you've got it. But sexist? Hmmn.

I jreckon his comments come from the same school of "blatant rudeness" as those that seem to crop up about Andy Murray's, supposed, "personality issues." 
(You can bet if Murray hadn't won Wimbledon, his "personality issues" would have had something to do with it.)
I can't tell you how often I find myself yelling at computer screens and radios  - "Andy Murray is not your personal friend. He's a brilliant tennis player and it seems like he might be an all round pretty good bloke. I don't know if he has an odd personality because I don't know him personally and neither do you. Can he play tennis brilliantly? Yes he can. That's all I know."

Commentating on sport  - particularly on radio - can be an art form. Conveying the excitement of a live event, without the need for visual, is a proper talent. Summing up an atmosphere with nothing more that vocal tone and words, is an amazing skill.  
And then there are other forms of commentating ....

There have been calls for Inverdale to be fired, or for his resignation, but to be honest I think he resigned himself a long time ago. 
As much as he knows about sport, Inverdale will never know what it is to be a Bertoli or a Murray. He's as separate a species as Raccoon Guy is to Raccoon.

Raccoon Guy told me he knew about accents, because he'd originally come to LA to be an actor. 
I forced my eyebrows to raise, surprised.
Then Raccoon guy told me that he'd studied accents, and,  He said, I definitely sounded much more Irish than Scottish.
And I nodded and smiled and said it was probably my sinuses.







Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Shocking Pink.

I have toothache. Actually I'm not sure if I have toothache. Yes I am. No I'm not. See?
There's something going on with a crown-bridge combo in my mouth and it could either be a passing issue or something more sinister.
Point is, toothache is toothache and I'm cranky.

Therefore, for my safety and the safety of those around me, I am wearing a lot of pink.
But, Lynn,  isn't pink a ridiculously girly color?
Yes it is and that is why I'm wearing it.
It's impossible to take anyone too seriously when they're wearing pink.
It makes your skin look all fresh and it has a look of all summer innocence, and pretty flowers and...it's a color that if you're not careful, can make you look faintly ridiculous (that's why golfers wear it). Someone in pink swearing at you is like being cursed at by a giant hydrangea. Ridiculous  but not menacing.
So, if you were to meet some pink attired lady with a grumpy expression caused by something like...say...for example, toothache and she's a little short tempered with you, it's not that bad really.

You could say I'm being pink-ist or say that i'm not fooling anyone. You could.  But I've warned you, I have toothache.

And I'm blaming the toothache for me even reading about Ian Brady - working on the "Distract yourself from something horrible by looking at something more odious" theory.

Now if you don't know who Ian Brady, it's pretty simple. He's a child killer. Oh for sure he's been painted as a crazed troubled soul. An evil manipulator. As all manner of things that make him more exciting/interesting than he really is.
But he's a common killer, who brought immeasurable grief and suffering into a whole load of innocent people's lives when he, and his accomplice, kidnapped children, because they were smaller and weaker than him, then tortured and murdered them and buried them in Saddlemouth Moor, near Manchester, UK during the 1960s.

Brady and Hindley. Their crimes were so horrific, my parents didn't like their names mentioned in our house, like the very sounds polluted the air and left a stench you'd want to bleach out of the room.

So Brady is currently having this tribunal, because he'd like to be released from a psychiatric hospital because he doesn't like it there. He wants to go back to prison instead, and so he's trying to prove he's not insane.
And I know what you're thinking, because I am too.
Who gives a rat's ass what he wants?  He's not a freakin' rock star.

But in his tribunal -the first time he's spoken publicly since 1966 - Brady explained how he's spent his time: He's read Plato, and memorized pieces from Shakespeare, mentioning how he knows the works of Stanislavsky.
Wow. You think someone that smart, would know that being pretentious, doesn't negate murdering kids.

There's no photographs or live video coverage of the hearing but the court drawings are addictive. This guy has supposedly been on hunger strike for 14 years, yet he's surprisingly tubby (and when I say "tubby" I don't just mean tubby for a hunger striker, I mean tubby for a three meals a day, meat-potatoes-two-veg diet)
Then it transpires he enjoys toast in the morning.
Bloody hell, if that's hunger strike, I've been a hunger striker for years.

Honestly, if it weren't for the horrific deaths of those kids, and the unbearable torture he inflicted on Winnie Johnson, he would be nothing more than a ridiculous buffoon.  Without the 'evil' persona,  nothing but a pathetic,  inconsequential idiot.
Maybe he's not insane after all.

His defense argue that he has a narcissistic personality disorder, the hospital label him a dangerous, paranoid schizophrenic - one argues sane, the other insane.
I actually don't care.
Toothache is toothache.

I reckon he should stay where he is (because why should he get to choose?)
And learn how to stick to his diet (cheaters never win)
And before he shuffles off the last breath of his, pretty appalling, mortal coil, he should justify the mistake of his existence, by telling Keith Bennett's family where his body is.
In between times,  he would be allowed to further enjoy the works of Shakespeare, Plato and Stanislavsky  in the certain knowledge that all three of these great masters, would regard him as a complete prick.

Obviously though,  I'm not the judge. I'm just an angry woman wearing pink.