The Syphilitic Nature of Blogging (Part One)

Writing things in the hope that other people will read them on the internet is such a schizophrenic experience.

Is it acceptable to use mental illness metaphors? I think it might be, even if I’m not being postmodern, but that’s not exactly fair is it? It would hardly be acceptable for me to say blogging is like having Duchenne muscular dystrophy or Down’s syndrome or syphilis. Saying any of those things would be insensitive and incorrect and yet a bipolar person doesn’t make a choice to be out of kilter anymore than a victim of muscular dystrophy does.

Curiously, saying blogging is like having syphilis might be just about acceptable (although inaccurate). I wonder if that’s because syphilis is a STD and therefore inherently comical or because it’s treatable with antibiotics?

I digress; promoting a blog is fraught with conflicts and contradictions. At first I though I was writing for myself but that’s not really true. I write a new blog-post and I’d like people to read it. To advertise the new post I tweet a sheepish link on Twitter to people I’ve mostly never met. From what I can make out a fair number of my Twitter Followers are actually pretend people; some of them sell solutions; storage-solutions (boxes, I think) and communications-solutions (computer-shit). Judging by their friendly and outgoing photographs, some ladies who follow me are promoting relief-solutions, I tend to block them - unless I know them - obviously.

Because of the slightly impersonal nature of twittering I queer-like sort of don’t mind if Twitter Followers pity me, that’d just be Twitter Pity.

As I’ve become bolder I’ve tried to make the promotional tweet a hook, writing lines like, ‘I’ve been looking at ladies legs.’ or name-checking characters that people obsess about, Myra Hindley or Carol Ann Duffy or Hairdresser Ladies; (it might only be me who obsesses about hairdresser ladies - but somehow I Don’t Think So).

To begin with I cravenly tweeted a link to my blog-post in the middle of the night; a quiet time when people are asleep and when my tweet could get buried under the getting up tweets-rush and never be seen again.

However, my Twitter tweet now updates my Facebook status (sorry if that makes no sense at all).

I have met (just about) all of my Facebook friends – I see a fair number of my Facebook friends most days. I don’t mind too much if the storage-solution thinks I’m vain and deluded but it’s a bit different to rub your Facebook friends’ faces in the facts.

In earlier days of Twitter/Facebook synchronisation I’d nervously post a blog link via Twitter, wait a few nail-biting minutes, and then I’d hysterically logon to Facebook and delete the synchronised status update before it could be seen by too many of my (23 plus) Facebook friends.

I was cured of this lunacy (there I go again with my mental illness metaphor) when I deleted a Facebook status update blog link just as someone added the comment, ‘I loved this post! :)’ Of course, the complimentary comment disappeared with the deleted original Facebook status update:

Noooooooo! Your first blog-approval and you deleted it! You were frantic. Yet again it was time to calm down, and weigh up the options, and decide what to do.

Nothing?
Too vain and deluded for that.

Print off the email alert and carry it everywhere with you so it’s handy if it ever crops up in conversation?
Goes without saying.

ReTweet the link and ask your Facebook friend to write his comment again?
Pathetic, are you a complete moron?

ReTweet the link and copy and paste your Facebook friend’s comment from the alert email you received when he posted it?
The reply would still have your name on it, Stupid; how would that look? Think about what you’re considering (and You, stop using learning difficulty-allegory whilst you’re at it).

What I did do was to ReTweet the link in the hope that my Facebook friend was a sympathetic mind-reader who understood about deranged wannabe writers and would write the same comment again. Sadly, not. (I've have got a copy of the comment in my pocket if you want to see it though).

On the topic of deranged wannabe writers I received two disappointing MA Creative Writing marks on the same day several weeks ago. On the strength of my disappointment (in myself) I decided I was going to complete the last two taught modules of my MA and then drop out of the programme without starting the dissertation.

‘That,’ I thought grimly as I bloodily sawed at my nose,’ will show me.’

The marks weren’t awful but they were comparatively low and, worse, I deserved them. I knew I was floundering when I put my Stylistics portfolio together. In the end I felt as if I resorted to writing bottomfishbanana a thousand million times because I just didn’t really get it or know what else to do.

I went to see the programme leader to discuss my decision. She, predictably, told me my marks were creditable. That’s another one of Those Terms isn’t it? Like ‘salt of the earth’ (common) and ‘friendly and outgoing’ (fast) ‘lively writing’ (self conscious, verbose, first draft-type writing). Creditable is kindly meant but it hurts.

But she said something else that did make me reconsider my decision. She said that she could see me submitting work for publication in two or three years time. My reflex reaction was that if I’m not good enough now I don’t want to know. Before I came away I’d realised that I couldn’t expect any greater compliment than what she said; of course it won’t happen overnight. And I’m grateful for her honestly, and her sagacity.

So, if you see me with nasty awkwardly sewn-back nose - horrible black thread and oversized needle-holes (I can never find the right needle) don’t worry; its just my schizophrenia, I mean syphilis, playing up again.

The photograph is of The Minotaur and the Hare by Sophie Ryder in the centre of Cheltenham. Frankie said the Minotaur looks like a nice boyfriend, and despite the fact he’s as friendly and outgoing in his dress sense as some of my relief-solutions Twitter Followers, she right, he does look like nice boyfriend doesn’t he?

Scary hairdressing-ladies and workshopping creative non-fiction. Wednesday 20 May 2009.

A few months ago I compiled a self-important list of 25 things about myself; a sort of Facebook meme. Number 8 on my list is:
8). I always feel intimidated in libraries. And hospitals. And most shops. I never know where the proper standing-place is.

I was fresh from an awkward experience in the library in town when I wrote the list. I was waiting in the improper standing-place to return an Audio CD. Library-people could see me waiting in the improper standing-place clutching my Audio CD looking as if I'd finished with it, but no one told me I was muddled. They smell your fear you know.

I am, incidentally, a librarian, but it doesn’t help. Or maybe it does help; I just wouldn’t even be able to set foot inside a library if I wasn’t actually one of the cognoscenti. And understanding informatics (which I don’t) wouldn’t help me to know where the proper standing-place is in an alien library.

Anyway, there’s somewhere more intimidating than libraries, hospitals and shops. Hairdressing places.

I have Winnie Madikizela-Mandela-type hair, not that I’m black you understand. I just have big hair. I was born in Liverpool. When I was nineteen I nursed a West Indian lady who said one of my great-granddads definitely came off the banana boats. I’m pretty sure I can say that – it’s my hair and my great-grandad so I’m not being unacceptable I’m being self-aware and ironic; post-modern (more of which next week).

For about five months in the early 1970s, when posters for Hair: the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, were everywhere, I was temporarily stylish. Since then I haven’t been hip at all and I’ve never really known what to do, so I keep the hair short lest I put people in mind of Paul Breitner.

Recently, I’ve decided I’d like to experience that giddy sense of being a hair-do leader once again.

For months I’ve tramped the rounds of hairdressing shops. I’m working on the assumption that if the shop charges a lot of money their hairdresser-ladies must be well trained and kind and full of ideas. I want someone to advise me and then style my hair so that it suites me and makes me modern (or Mod, as Auntie Pam would say).

True enough, expensive hairdressers do provide a consultation. But what good is that when the hairdresser-lady’s a flaxen moppet with a silky-do like Minxie Geldoff’s. She seats you in a black vinyl chair; already you’re pasted to it with sweat; apologising.
‘What do you want?’ Minxie chafes your raspy head with the pointy-end of a pointy-ended comb.
‘Dunno, I want to look nice.’
‘Mmmmmm… we’re a bit limited with short hair,’ she pokes tentatively again (did you see her lip curl?).
‘I’m sorry.’
(Don’t state the bleeding obvious Minxie. Do you know how hard it was for me to come in here in the first place?)
‘Shall I just tidy it up?
‘Okay, just tidy it up.’
So, she tidies it up, rasp, rasp, raspy-rasp. In a belated attempt at styling she glues wispy bits forward onto your face, a bit like Liza Minnelli.

Why do young pretty hairdressers with hair like Minxie Geldof imagine that middle-aged women are enchanted by wispy bits or crappy kiss-curls? Would you choose to look like Liza Minnelli, Minxie? Wispy bits scare me. That’s something else for the list.

Then, you’ve tipped Minxie a tenner because you want her to like you (why?) and you’re scared of her and the receptionist thinks you’re ecstatic with your liza-look and you’ll need another appointment in four weeks time. You can’t go back to the same hairdressers and ask for someone else. You can’t say,
‘No, not scary Minxie, give me a hairdresser-lady who understands about afro hair.’ You can’t because that would be unacceptable rather than post-modern; and because the receptionist is terrifying too. So you make a ruddy appointment and have to get your friend at work to phone up and cancel for you. Then you have to avoid that street for a year or two. There’s barely a street I can venture along now without the aid of camouflage. In the end I might to have to grow my own fright-wig disguise.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I march into a hairdresser shop and demand to know who can style my curly hair and not leave me looking like a 1970s footballer or a legendary singing star?

When they start with their raspy-rasp poking and excuses why can’t I say,
‘Don’t look at me pityingly. Don’t ask me what I want or tell me there’s not much you can do. You’re the trained expert; expertly help me. And, while we’re on the subject of experts, stop making me feel stupid – you’re a hairdresser-lady, I’ve got a science degree (first class hons)’.

Why can’t I do that? Because I’m scared and intimidated, that’s why. And a little bit because it’d be rude too.

I submitted a blog post for workshopping as a creative nonfiction piece. It hasn’t been workshopped yet but the Writer with the Writerly Name was very encouraging and suggested I enter the Flax competition.
I was very touched and I will enter, but this time I won’t be thinking.
’What’ll I do if I don’t win?’
I won’t be thinking that because I can sit here and touch a dozen blistering-blogs without even stretching, for example: Every Day I Lie a Little , My Shitty Twenties , Mollie Baxter, Dave Hartley and I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car.

Thank you to James Fraser for my little bit scary and intimidating kisscurl drawing.

Premodified noun phrases and Martin Amis. Wednesday 11 February 2009.

Right. I’m starting to get the hang of premodified noun phrases. It was a bit like Ali once said in reference to never losing any weight: “When I though about it - it’s because I’ve never dieted.” (She went on to add that she didn’t wish she was anorexic exactly (obviously) but occasionally some anorexic leanings would be welcome; or at least the tendency to be a Little Bit Picky).

So, instead of continuing to say: “that’s rubbish - with all those messy sentences; it’s too hard”, I looked at the coursebook (Wright and Hope), did the exercises and read the answers (called solutions in the book but I’m allergic to the term solutions) and I got it, it’s not bad.

Now for postmodified noun phrases. I suspect it’ll be like learning to drive. You think you deserve a Mexican wave and a dedication on Steve Wright Sunday Love Songs for getting up to third gear, and then the Man tells you to check your mirror, signal right, brake, move down to second gear and change position on the carriageway. “What?! Can't you see I'm driving (reading)? I can’t do all that at the same time. Can’t we just go to where this road is leading?”

I wrote 25 things about myself for an egotistical Facebook exercise (a meme I believe; maybe I could say the greenstone leilira blades are meme conduits too). The only thing that excited any comment was my hint that, despite Martin Amis not having his own teeth, I still would. What an over reaction, Ali telephoned El to discuss what they might be best to do, both my friends were appalled. It’s not as if I’d said I’d do it with Gary Barlow.

Just discovered that a conference review I wrote in the Summer is published online. It was written before I started the creative writing MA and I'm a bit ashamed of it now, Allis Conference: Engaging your Community .

I nabbed the library's Guardian/ Observer dinosaur posters. Only one undignified scuffle with a mother of two small dinosaur-mad sons; soon cleared up, she was gracious when I explained I needed them.

I am practicing my non-belligerentthankyoufortheconstructivefeedback-face for this Wednesday's session because we might get our assessed portfolios back. I've got form and tend towards sullen in feedback situations. I'm mostly very anxious about the poetry. Al cried when she read the dead baby poem, but a day ago she was completely bewildered by my hominin pantoum (sounds a perfectly reasonable response when I say it like that). My hominin pantoum was my absolute favourite, I used to think it was great. Maybe I've been deluded in my pantoum and my hominin devotion. Oh God oh God.