Pet Interview 1: Just Jake

Dateline: Wood Green, North London

It's a Monday evening. I've been up since 5 am and am now in a taxi because I forgot that I had to transport a couture evening coat to yet another dodgy industrial estate be cleaned so it can go on display in Hong Kong. The jacket was worn once as a wedding jacket, the Max Factor pan stick still clinging to the collar, not unlike the red lipstick I will be leaving on a whiskey glass quite soon.

I'm exhausted and I wonder that I'll be able to sleep tonight, in an empty flat where I've lived so much life the last 7 years.  My waters broke with my youngest on the doorstep, my marriage cracked, not insignificant portions of my heart broke off and shattered. I thought at times I wouldn't make it out the other side, but I did, reminding myself that the oeicrs of ourselves that break off, that's life's way of pruning for new growth. 

I'm in the taxi heading back to what will be an empty place and I'm thinking about weddings, anniversaries, and all that sentimental stuff I study with slight bewilderment.  These things, I've often felt were not mine to have.  To stubborn, to peripetitic, too loud, too quiet, too smart to know when to keep my mouth shut, all that horse hooey sweet girls are fed like honey and apples, with little time off for good behaviour.

One of my 'ride or die' just celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary. Strange, how time moves along, how perceptions change.  I used to find her guy so stiflingly 'good,' I wanted to suffocate him with a pillow. Now I count him as one of my favouritist people and their loving partnership as a vision of of partnership that I am calling in.  They are a highly evolved couple, not perfect (who is) and I learn from their love and relationship every day.  My annivery gift to the happy couple? I'm wearing a bra. You're welcome! 

Why is that funny?  Because I was not wearing a bra in my very blue bridesmaid dress and it almost pushed my angelic friend over into Bridezilla territory.  Because I'm stuck in yet another taxi, having not left work until  I still maintain that at the height of my of my Gauloises and Espresso diet, weighing a cool 8 stone, I didn't have anything worth holding up in a brassiere, but it was her wedding day and if she wanted her neurotic, flat-chested friend in a bra, then so be it. 

The wedding was - by and large - one of the best I've ever been to, much less participated in.  It also marked my 1st positive casual sex experience.  There was no angst, no reciminations, no self-loathing.  Just wholesome, unabashed sex and a wink at each other the next day. The way casual sex should be. 

That young man (the bride's cousin) died unexpectedly a couple of months ago. My age, great health, etc. It just...you take a beat, you know? I left behind any sense of immortality in 1995, the suicides spread like a cir

When my sib from another crib got engaged, I was on living in the Czech Republic, trying to forgive myself a multitude of things I had assumed were crimes. I didn't realise these things were just life.  I had shorn off my hair with a pair of rusty garden shears I'd found in the closest and had mostly sworn off men.  It was not a disimilar existence to much of the 5 years, when I think about it, except that the journey has been more about forgiveness and letting go of the things that were never mine to carry.  

I was no where near ready to get hitched, though like any true Belle worth her salt, had a couple of broken engagements and the lingering  heartbreak from 'deep sensualist who doesn't kiss much' that Laurie Colwin warns us about, right next to Anita Brookner's warnings about the Mr. Rochester complex. That kind of man, my lovely, will only break your heart. You have to weigh the risk, if you're lucky enough to see it coming. But there was a moment of envy and confusion...what was wrong with me that I didn't desire these things? Not. A. Goddamn. Thing. 

I myself have not traditionally been stellae at distancing myself from the  weight of risk.  The attention I pay to detail is expensive; more and more I try not to take it personally that it isn't reciprocal. These are my thoughts and I lie awake listening to my audiobook, wondering what I am not seeing. At first it feels I'm in for another navel-gazing philosophical tangent and then I realise, no, there is in fact something missing. What could it be....

The refrigerator is missing.  How did I not notice? I run naked (of course, I forgot jammies), into the kitchen and I'd cry if it weren't so ridiculous, that this will be what sends the whole damn thing over the edge. 

How do you miss a fridge?  Hey, inonce backed into my Daddy's semi (admittedly an empty flat bed used to haul steel coil.  So, all that attention to detail means I don't always see the rattlesnake until I've trod on its tail.  

The movers are slammed.  Larger appliance stores are overrun and understaffed.  The buyers weren't actually supposed to keep the fridge but now that they are expecting it and I am striving to behave like a grown up, well...ingenuity, patience, and cash can bring forth many things, as does the largesse of Wood Green's vaguely underworld market stalls. 

I even manage to negotiate to have it delivered whilst I mind the shop.  Some days, I almost know what I'm doing.  Almost.