On Beauty. Take Two.

Yesterday morning whilst I sat on the sofa drinking coffee in his hoody, my main squeeze wandered around the house in jeans and bare feet and I realised, from nowhere, that he had never looked more perfect to me. I don't even like feet. 

It was weird, how just that sight of him, bare footed and laughing in the living room, warming his feet over the roaring flames of the fire, gave me the absolute warm fuzzies. It was nothing special, and certainly nothing intimate and yet there was a strange sort of intimacy, a sort of vulnerability almost that I don’t know quite how to explain. 

Things That I Have Seen and Liked

Because like I said the last time, sometimes I just like to talk about pretty things. Things I have and things I wish I had and things I’ve seen or read or listened to that have made me smile, sometimes I just want to share those things because sharing is caring and I’m just nice like that. 

So, LET'S TALK LOVELINESS. 

I am totally drooling over The Thorn and the Blossom which is an accordion fold book (omg gimme all the pretty books) and it comes in a slipcase and it’s a love story told from two sides, on two sides, the story of Brendan a bookseller and Evelyn, the customer he sells a medieval poem too. You have Brendan’s story on one side and Evelyn’s on the other, it’s up to you which one you read first and the whole premise just makes me giddy. The story (stories) sound fabulous and the format is amazing and I WANT IT.  

I am very excited about the paperback publication of The Bone Clocks which I know I’ve talked about before but whatever, I like it. It’s such a pretty book. I was lucky enough to be sent a review copy so I’ve already held this book tightly to my chest and marvelled at how it is both beautiful and read-in-bed sized.

I’ve just discovered Pretty Little Liars. Actually, that’s a lie. I’ve heard of it, obvs, and seen/heard people talk about it and it kept popping up on Netflix and Helen and I have mentioned it once or twice. And then she text being all I’m watching Pretty Little Liars and I had nothing else to do so….anyway, part way through season one because I’m always late to the party and totally planning to get involved in wifi on the train on Monday to watch some more. Hurrah.

I’ve been listening to The Shires who are a UK country music band. I do so love me a bit of country music and it’s so excellent to find a homegrown one. You should check them out. They’re marv.

The sun has shone this week. ISN’T THIS AMAZING NEWS. Apart from hay fever which I hate, I love summer. I love the sunshine and the long days and the way everything seems brighter. & pretty summer shoes. Like these, from Fat Face. I drooled over them in the store in Beaumaris last week. So pretty.

LOOK AT THIS. Trollbeads are totally my thing. My Trollbeads bracelet is my fave, even though it was mostly created by The Ex Boyfriend and that sucks actually because all of the charms will forever remind me of him. Curses. Anyway. LOVE. This leather bracelet is part of their City Bead range and the bead reads ‘this too shall pass’ and it feels wise and relevant and I ordered it on Wednesday when I’d been paid because I wanted to treat myself and I am the boss of me. So I did. I shall wear it and be happy because this too shall pass.

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty is coming back to Manchester in July. This is definitely a thing I like. Have a trailer:

And, lastly but my no means least.

 

I know. Amazing. I need one They’re from Etsy.

Things That I Have Seen and Liked

So, this is a post I am going to title ‘things that I have seen and liked’ (and who knows, I might make it a semi-regular feature, because I could do with some of those) and in it I’m going to talk to you about, well, about things that I have seen and liked. It’s pretty self-explanatory really: over-complicating things is not something I am fond of. 

Basically ,this is totally just an excuse for me to get stupid excited about books and albums and TV shows and pretty shoes and other such things that have caught my eye. It’s a small glimpse I guess into what makes me tick.IT'S ALL ABOUT THINGS I LIKE.

So, where else would I start than with books?

I treated myself last week to Sarah Pinborough’s Poison.

I read Sarah’s The Death House earlier in the year and I loved it and you know when that happens, when you find a new author and just want to devour every word they’ve ever written, shopping lists and all? Yep, that happened here, so I checked out Sarah’s book list and then did some kind of crazy flappy dance because GUESS WHAT: REIMAGINED FAIRYTALES. I LOVE a fairytale, I especially love a twist on a fairytale and that’s exactly what this book – Poison – is. It’s Snow White’s story, but it’s told from a different angle and it sounds like all kinds of excellent and it’s also really freaking pretty. Hurrah.

I’m dreaming of Book 2 in Cathrynne Valente’s Fairyland series. I’ll come back at some point and talk about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making soon but til then you need to know only that Jen made me read it, and not since Harry Potter, or His Dark Materials have I fallen like this for a series of books. So, I need the second one. Stat. (I amuse myself when I get to use phrases like that. Ha) I tried to buy it in Watersones at the Trafford Centre last night but alas, they only had books 3 and 4. Instead I bought these pretties for my 2015 book challenge. 

I’m not going to buy another book now til April, which is a shame for Fairyland but very good for my bank balance.

However, and this may come as a total shock, but, I don’t only read books. sometimes I watch things on Netflix, oftentimes on my iPad in bed because I love my bed, I love it a lot. Right now I’m watching The Vampire Diaries because we lost track of it a while back due to a Sky+ fail and it’s all there being shiny and pretty on Netflix and I have like, a series and a half of Damon Salvatore to catch up on so WOOP WOOP for that. Oh, Ian Somerhalder you are an attractive being.

I’m also crazy excited because Netflix has just added Once Upon a Time to it’s catalogue (see above re my love for fairytales) which Channel 5 cancelled and I feared I would never see again until this weekend when I opened the app for said Salvatore fix and THERE IT WAS!! All the episodes I missed plus the latest season updated weekend. I did a happy dance, from the comfort of my bed. More of a head bob than a dance really, but the feeling was there. Once is so good and it has the added bonus of Robert Carlyle. I have had a crush on Robert Carlyle for 20 years omg.

 

On the commute to work I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989, which holy excellent album batman. I kind of love Taylor unashamedly. I do. Gimme all the catchy pop songs on my drive please.

So yep, I’m listening to that and also to The Overtones and also to an old Bon Jovi album I found whilst tidying up. If you’re new here then here’s a thing about me: I have pretty much loved Jon Bon Jovi my whole entire life. All of it. Forever. I have always loved him and I will always love him because THAT ASS. And also because of other reasons that do not involve my objectification of his being such as I’ll…I’ll come back to you.

And, just to tie this post up nicely, other random things that I have seen and liked:

I am in desperate need of these two t-shirts, this one, which tell me about it, stud. Why would I not need that in my life?

and also this one because The BFG is right up there with Matilda and Danny as my fave Roald Dahl book of all time. 

I feel I would be much happier, generally, if these were nicely folded in my t-shirt drawer. I really want a t-shirt with ONJ’s face on it ok? I just really do.

Also, cowboy boots. I spend so much of my life lusting after pretty cowboy boots. There’s a pair of tan ankle ones that I am totally going to get a pair of for the spring, but what I really want is some of of the amazing Corral or Durango ones (that I should have bought when I saw them in NYC 7 years ago dammit. Regrets, I have them.) I’m clearly not getting any because wow the price tag on those babies but still, SO MUCH PRETTY.

I want (need, want, who knows the difference) a new bag. I also know exactly what it looks like. The closes I have seen to the bag that lives in my head was in Debenham’s last night. It was £115.

River Island has this though, which is cute:

And lastly, I'm on a storage box hunt because people (me) need storage and I’ve seen all these ‘shabby chic’ trunks that are just so old and beautiful and perfect so I’m all about those right now too. How many books I wonder, could one get in a trunk..and I wonder if my Dad still has one in the cubby hole at their house? Oooh, there’s a thought…..

So, talk to me: what are you reading/watching/listening to right now? What pretty things are you spending your pennies on? What things have you seen and liked?

Of Sheep and Cold Coffee

‘I seem,’ said our MD, in lieu of the more common greeting as he walked into the office at 8.30 this morning, (I used to call him my boss, but ‘don’t call me that,’ he’d say ‘we’re partners.’) ‘to have acquired five sheep.’

Nobody knows where the five sheep came from - although my bet’s on the not-usually-open gate. Either that or they jumped over the wall late last night whilst he was trying to sleep - or who they belong to.

‘The gate was open,’ he said with a shrug as he wandered through to his office, ‘I’ve closed it.’

Looks like the sheep are staying, then.

And so began another day at the office.

The thing about life in a small office is that it could easily lean towards the mundane. Day in, day out,  forever the same: the same handful of people; the same piles of paperwork; the same conversations. You’ve got to look for variety where you can find it. We find it, more often than not in little things like this - five sheep appearing from nowhere; the factory alarm being set off by a cat causing the aforementioned MD to wander around with a ten foot bamboo pole and a menacing expression calling ‘here, puss, puss, puss’; a Jack Russell chasing someone up a ladder; the time (horrifyingly) a mouse ran up the inside of my trouser leg. That was A Bad Day, but it goes with the territory I guess, of offices on a river bank, surrounded on two sides by fields and it was certainly something to talk about - we still joke about it now. Or rather, everybody else jokes about it. It still kind of makes me want to cry a little bit.

These breaks from the norm, these are the things that get us through the day. It’s probably also the reason I get my packages delivered to the office most times. When you have a pile of mail to open, most of which is invoices and remittance advices and bank statements and notifications from the telephone provider that your direct debit is increasing again, despite countless hours on debating just that, it kind of slows the slide to dullsville, when one of those packages contains (like it did today) a bangle quoting if nobody speaks of remarkable things. I slid it onto my wrist, smiled to myself and suddenly the afternoon’s task of chasing monies owed doesn’t seem quite so dismal.

It’s the little things (and it’s an exceptionally pretty bangle...)

Especially when the day is like today: dark and dismal and freezing cold. It’s dark outside, more like dusk than lunchtime and even in thick socks and a jumper I’m still shivering. The sustenance of a crisp butty (or sandwich, if you’re posh) is still not enough to send the goosebumps packing and the light from the fluorescent tubes that line the ceiling when coupled with the grey sky and rain, makes it feel decidedly wintry.  Artificial light, a sure sign that summer is decidedly over.

It’s the kind of day that calls for woolly socks and blankets, apple crumble and a good book but sadly (oh, how very sadly) none of those things pay the bills. Spending the day with Patrick Ness (his work, not his actual self), as much as I am loving him right now, will not ensure my mortgage is paid. What will is processing that order, and dealing with that client and completing the figures for that report all whilst trying not to throw a hissy fit because my nail polish has chipped (I got a french manicure for the wedding and it was so pretty, dammit) and wondering if September is too early to put on the heating. It’s the random appearance of 5 sheep that make it worth it sometimes, because unless you are one of the lucky few that are doing a job that makes you sing with joy, there is always always somewhere to be and something to do that is preferable to work. I’m just lucky I guess, that my boss - sorry, partner - is so adept at providing that much needed light relief.

‘One day,’ I tell him often, usually whilst trying my hardest not to double over with laughter, ‘I’m going to write a book about you.’ One day, perhaps I will. Til’ then, I’ll sit here with my crisp butty and cold coffee and wonder if anybody has noticed yet that they’re missing five sheep.

'That was a joke,' he said. 'You can laugh.'

"'Yeah, it's no big deal,' he said casually. 'The main thing I have is this thing called man-bi-du-lo-facial dys-os-tosis – which took me forever to learn how to pronounce, by the way. But I also have this other syndrome thing that I can't even pronounce. And these things kind of just morphed together into one big superthing, which is so rare they don't even have a name for it. I mean, I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm actually considered something of a medical wonder, you know.'

He smiled.

'That was a joke,' he said. 'You can laugh.'"

Sometimes you pick up a book and you read it and it's really late at night and probably you should be going asleep but you cannot stop reading and then it's 3am and you've finished the whole book in a 4 hour time period and you feel suddenly bereft.

That's what happened to me when I read Wonder last Friday night.

I loved it.

It's a simple premise that follows a well-proven formula: disadvantaged main character overcomes great odds to triumph in the end. It could have been a little saccharine, cloyingly filled with over the top cliches, making the main character into a saint in order to illustrate the horror of the world around him, and, given that it's aimed at children I kind of worried that's what would happen. It doesn't. What this book does is tell a compelling story very effectively, it's honest and it's real and it's both moving and humorous. It's kind of a little like Curious Incident...; it's wonderful.

August Pullman is ten. He was born with a severe facial disfigurement ('I won't describe to you what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.') and after being home-schooled his whole life he's about to start school. He's used to the negative reactions to his appearance: the shock, the stares, the fear but being used to it doesn't make it hurt any less, especially not when you're ten years old and all you want to do is watch Star Wars and hang out with your friends. Auggie wore a pretend astronaut's helmet for two whole years when he was smaller just so people couldn't see him; he doesn't want to be invisible though, he just wants to be ordinary.

The story is deftly and cleverly told through short chapters and the switching points of view of August, his older sister Via and a couple of his peers, a good narrative choice by Palacio I think; it really works. The short chapters keep the story focussed, stop it from getting carried away in the minutiae and keep the reader feeling like they're right there, living the life of a ten year old. It's fast paced because Auggie's life is fast paced. The switching of the narrative stops the story from holding Auggie front and centre and makes him what he wants to be: one of the crowd. It also effectively shows not only how he feels about how he is perceived but how he actually is perceived, and, perhaps more importantly the impact that being connected to Auggie Pullman can have on his peers.

His relationship with his sister, and, her story generally is particularly well handled. The thing I liked I think, is that nothing is sugar coated and, everybody - Auggie included - is flawed. There's a wonderful scene where he has a temper tantrum and storms off to bed, wondering and wondering why nobody has chased after him to comfort him like his Mum always always would. Via yells after him, 'not everything is about you Auggie' and it just demonstrates so well the dynamic between these two characters and their parents, perfectly illustrates the effect that being older sister to a boy who has had 27 surgeries in his short life, who is special can have because some days, to Via, it seems like everything is about August, and that's hard. The advantages that August has, particularly in the form of the treatment he receives from his parents, are readily apparent; it's hard not to feel for Via as much as you feel for Auggie, and it's equally hard not to be moved by the ferocity of her love for him.

It's a harrowing read at times, I'm not going to lie: August Pullman does not have it easy and there's one scene where he cries, 'why am I so ugly, Mommy?' and it just made my chest tighten.

What? I'm not crying, there's a tree in my eye.

Jen found the ending to be patronising. I can see why, although I can think of more patronising books [yes, the boy in the striped pyjamas, I am looking at you. Jen do you remember how angry we were at that book?!]  and yes, I guess, the ending is the weakest part of the book, and it did feel a little much maybe, like Palacio was tying up the loose ends and trying to make sure the reader really really got the message [which I had, from the start actually] but it didn't take away from the rest of the book for me and let's be real here: a below par ending can ruin a book for me quite easily.  I guess though, this book is aimed at children and I think perhaps it's pitched just right for them; it could have ended differently and it could maybe have ended better but above all what we have here is a book that matters. 

A book that I would give a healthy 9/10 because yes, it's harrowing and it's emotional but it's also kind and it's inspiring and it's really quite extraordinary; it makes you want to wrap every single character in your arms and hug the life out of them; it makes you want to be kinder, and better; it makes you feel and it makes me want to say to people, young and old, 'you should read this book.'

Consider the Hairpin Turn

-You are Jeff, Richard Siken

 I don't read a lot of poetry.  I read some, but not a lot. I should probably read more. The stuff I do read is ususally thrown at me by Jen with a 'JO YOU HAVE TO READ THIS' and I do read it and usually I love it and think 'hmmm, I should read more of this,' but then I don't because I'm never quite sure I understand much about poetry other than that it's pretty. And maybe that's the problem; maybe I need to accept that I can love poetry just because it's pretty and I don't need to try and understand it on a more intellectual level because isn't that the point, really, to draw pleasure from the words you read?????

Anyway.

The point is that most of the poetry I read is recommended to me, but, I've stumbled across a collection all by my own self [proud Mama moment for you there, Campbell. ha.]
It's by Richard Siken, it's called Crush, it won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition and I am in serious serious book love, and not just because it's pretty.
It is pretty, so much so that it hurts, just there just right, but it's also just really incredible. I'm not going to try and give some kind of wonderfully eloquent review because like I said, I don't know much about poetry other than I like how it makes me feel. I just, I liked this book and it made me want to write that down, for posterity: in May 2012 Jo liked this book.

The foreword says that this is a book about panic. I'm not going to argue with that, after all, what do I know and to be honest I kind of understand the sentiment but, for me at least, it's more than that; it's a book about love, I think. Deep love, real love, painful love, unrequited love and requited love, love that hurts in the way that love does and it's beautiful and raw and it just gets under your skin and stays there. And it makes you think.It's the kind of book that just gets you, right in the chest, something that has happened to me before with prose but never I don't think, with poetry. The emotion in some of these poems is palpable and I kept going back, reading and re-reading, making notes of parts that I wanted to quote and then I got to the end and realised I might aswell just type out the whole book and so maybe just maybe I am a poetry girl after all.

This book gave me goosebumps, from the opening poem 'Scherazade' 
 ['...how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple to slice into pieces.']
through pieces like 'Saying Your Names' and 'Wishbone' and 'Boot Theory', and the 'Snow and Dirty Rain' and through the whole first stanza of 'A Primer for the Small Weird Loves'
['...you know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut...']
it gave me goosebumps and it made me think and it made me feel and if you do nothing else this week, this month, this year then read this book, just, find a copy if only so you can read the wonderfully wonderful 'You are Jeff'  [see above] and then tell me it doesn't move you in a way you can't explain.


Do it, because you might never hear me talk about poetry this way again.

And that is all from me, for now. I leave you with this, from 'Wishbone' which is one of my favourites, I think.


You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just
               get gone, but he’s relentless,
keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own
damn blood, you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours.
               But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,
I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself,  I say.

Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops

Lalalalaaaa!! I shall post this now and get it out of my system. Are you ready? 

I am lucky enough to have in my possession an advance copy of the fabulous ‘Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops’ by the equally fabulous Jen Campbell. Looky looky, I have my own copy and it’s so beautiful. It also has Jen’s writing in it. I have lots of letters and cards and stuff all over my house with Jen’s writing all over them because Jen is the queen of snail mail but this is special because this is a book and Jen wrote it and I have all the proud friend feelings right now.

Jen, if you don’t know, is a very talented writer, she has had both short stories and poems published, had a poem animated for the recent Smile London campaign, has a full poetry collection awaiting publication later this year and also has a short story collection and a novel in the works. She’s awesome. I’m telling you now, this girl is going to make it big and you read it here first [unless of course you are here because Jen tweeted about Herman theGerman, in which case of course you didn’t read it here first at all, you already know.] If you’re interested in reading her fictional writings then go here because this story, Second Skin, is one of my favourite pieces of hers ever.

Weird Things is Jen’s first book – due for release on April 5th this year– and whilst a far cry from the stuff I’m used to reading from Jen, is no less fabulous. 

I feel I really should point out that I am not only blogging about this because Jen’s my friend. I promise. If I didn’t think the book wasall that great then I’d have mostly just sent her a ‘oooo you wrote a book, yeah for you and thanks for the copy’ text and left it at that, but, I do think it’s great and I can pretty much say that even if I had zero idea who Jen Campbell was I’d pick this book off the shelf and I’d love it. It’s eye-catching for starters, it’s a pretty book and I love pretty books. It’s illustrated by the super cool Brothers Mcleod and they’ve done a wonderful job:the cover is bright and attention grabbing, it has an actual bona-fide quote from Neil Gaiman [how cool is that] and it’s funny. 

The actual book itself is laugh out loud funny, at the sametime as having you roll your eyes in despair and it’s great because whilst sometimes you can’t quite believe people have said these things at the same time you totally can because everyone has met someone like the characters inside these pages; everyone has had some kind of encounter that has left them despairing for the human race, that they’ve related to their friends and family over dinner, those stories that you can’t believe are real but at the same time you couldn’t ever make up and what makes this book so special is that Jen has managed to turn what would have most of us tearing out our hair and saving snippets for later conversation, into a book – she was savvy enough to write everything down and even before the book-deal her Weird Things  blog posts were exceptionally popular. 

Weird Things is chock full of perfectly comedic exchanges between bookseller and customer, and I mean chock full and what makes it better is that these stories all took place in bookshops: in TheEdinburgh Bookshop where Jen was a bookseller whilst at university, in RippingYarns which she runs now [both of these shops are amazing. I can tell you that from experience] and in bookshops all over the world – from England to New Zealand to the USA, people say Weird Things in bookshops the whole world over and the best of them are collected here, in a pretty pretty package for you to read from cover to cover or to dip into at will, to chuckle about to yourself or to share with friends. 

If you like books and like bookshops and have a senseof humour then you ought to read it. 

You may consider this a recommendation.

the list

Following on from my post yesterday, here is a list (in no particular order) of the things I think are beautiful:

• first words
• old books
• Dirty Dancing
• kittens
• bruises
• pencil drawings
• tattoos
• alice in wonderland
• laughter
• hammocks
• coffee
• puddles
• courage
• red hair
• rollercoasters
• letters
• cat paws
• crows feet
• over-sized jumpers
• smiles
• tears
• scars
• rainy mornings
• storm clouds
• gingerbread
• patchwork quilts
• streetlights
• quiet
• the sound and the smell and the feel of the sea
• old photographs
• hips
• autumn
• anger
• old coca-cola bottles
• sorrow
• puffins
• songs
• my Mum
• eyes
• sunsets
• the insides of wrists
• freckles
• you. you, always you.
• sunflowers
• pebble beaches
• lakes
• my grandpa’s smile

on beauty

You ever have one of those days where things just seem, well, shitty?

I have had earache for 4 days and something that keeps threatening to be flu but that isn’t man enough to make good on it’s threats, for a week. It’s dark when I wake up in a morning and it’s dark when I leave my office at night. I am busier than a busy person, like really. I have no money. Currently, life is not my favourite. I am more than a little grumpy.

I decided, not wanting to wallow in a vat of my own self pity because it tastes like cold coffee (and not coffee that’s supposed to be cold, like iced coffee. I like that. I mean coffee that’s been on your desk for an hour longer than you thought, that you take a big f*ckoff mouthful of expecting it to be hot when it’s actually beyond cold and tastes vile) that I had two options:

Option 1. I could write something suitably angsty.

Option 2. I could cheer the hell up.

I’ma go with option 2 because you know what, when I actually get a grip and look around me and I am surrounded by just, by beauty and that’s something to be celebrated right?

& I’m sat here and I’m thinking about just that.

About beauty.

What is beautiful? What makes us beautiful? And I don’t just mean in an ‘oh that’s pretty’ kind of way, I mean on a deeper level than that. Think about the things in life that really really move you. The ordinary and the extraordinary, the usual and the not so usual. The things that whilst not perhaps conventionally beautiful just creep under your skin and stay there, the things that matter, that directly or indirectly shape the bigger (beautiful) picture and make it all worthwhile, that scream emotion and tell a story and make things what they are. Not just cupcakes and flowers and new shoes but heartbreak and thunderstorms and the old man at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day with a poppy in his lapel; the things in life that are really really beautiful.

This is going nowhere.

You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to make a list of things that I think are beautiful so that whenever I’m tired or I have earache or it’s cold and I have no gloves or the pile of work on my desk seens insurmountable I can look at it and I can smile because people should take more notice of the beautiful things.

(and then I’m going to go and write something suitably angsty.)