Sunday 26 April 2009

OLD AGE


The dreaded toothache has reared its massively ugly head; it seems to be coming from a tooth that was filled a few months ago that should probably have had root treatment – aaaarrgghhhhhh!!!

Well, I’m just going to tell then to pull it – it’ll be one less to drag out of my old head in the years to come; when I get my plastic gnashers.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’m planning to return to the young dentist who made me suffer so much pain at her hands; she did a good job – I would have had the same pain during any root canal. Actually, it was the older dentist, the one I trusted who has put me in this position. Ooooh, I hate the dentist. I wish I already had the gnashers, all perfect and free from my body.

Saturday 25 April 2009

Monday 20 April 2009

POETRY READING

I've found a new thing - yes me, the technophobe...and I've spent three hours tonight trying to work out how to export from one format to MP3 but I did it! So, for your delectation, here I am reading a couple of poems! ta ra...





there's a tiny little triangle, play button in the right hand corner above the Download track option - you don't need to download.

Saturday 18 April 2009

A FOOT AHEAD

Well, I finally found myself clicking into the novel this evening and working on it! I’m at the stage of reorganising the first three chapters and have been cutting, pasting and moving sections and paragraphs around. By golly I think I’ve got it – so I’ll be able to move on, cut/pad and write to the end.

Those three chapters were all over the place; now I’m a happy writer, I think. No, I know I’m happy, that I’m glad to see the words settle into their right place. I can’t wait to see the stuff I wrote for Nano in November; I’ve never even read through it because Nano means you push towards the end and don’t go back to edit.

I’ve been saying to myself that this novel is going to be finished this year. Is it? Maybe it’s time I wrote out the plan and pinned it on the walls; because there actually is a plan but it’s still inside my head. In the end I had to put on my spring-cleaning head and ask each chapter, what are you doing? So now I’m beginning with an event that happened near the end of the third; it places everyone so must be the start, mustn’t it?

There are about 40,000 words written, just waiting for me to tug them into shape then take them for a long walk, a walk that stretches right through the summer in my characters’ lives and leads to the sound of my printer zizzing and chuffing the lovely paper out. I’ve never printed any of the novels – that’s part of the end.

Wednesday 15 April 2009

MENTAL DENTAL

Anticipation milks pale courage, drills clean holes. My legs are shaking still because this life demands the actuality of teeth with bite. Yes I ran away, or rather didn’t return for that last problem, the one where during the examination he’d shaken his head and said, ‘Ooh I’m very suspicious of that one.’

I made a sensible decision; there was no pain so if it had to come out I’d have no relief, only pain for nothing! I thought I’d wait for the pain. Now the bloody thing is breaking. I’ve got jagged shards slicing at my tongue – still no pain though.

My mind is buzzing with images of dental pliers seeking a hold on what’s left of my old molar. Of course there will be LOADS of drugs involved. I haven’t had a tooth out for years! It might be years before I have another one out, but no – I must take hold of myself and go get it done while there’s still something left to grip.

I will screw my courage to the sticking place and dive right in…yeah right.

Monday 13 April 2009

SUPER HERO, ANYONE?

What would you wear? I’m definitely not a blue tights and red wellies sort of person; I’d have to wear black or a mixture of browns – normality means invisibility. Actually, just being a short and dumpy woman gives me that already; it’s a great super power to have.

Leaping tall buildings in a single bound is out, so is hand-to-hand combat – Batman I am not. I’d have to be Gadget Girl with gismos; point and shoot. Oh wouldn’t it be amazing? Busily sneaking around zapping baddies – zzzttt, zzzttt. Just like that.

Of course I’d have to develop my psychic abilities further; become like the oracles in that Tom Cruise film, Minority Report but I’d be working on my own, zapping the bad guys and setting victims free. You think I’m like Superman, don’t you? That I won’t kill, that I’ll set my zapper to stun. Well, you’re wrong; I’ll terminate every one of them who intends to kill – I’d go to war.

I’d freeze robbers and immobilise them till the police arrived then I’d make them confess to all their crimes…which brings me to politicians; I’d zap them with my Truth ray and bring down the government, which would increase crime – I’d be a terrible super hero and I’d never save the world because it can’t be saved.

I think the real heroes are the people doing the jobs that are despised by the wider community like police and tax officers, refuse collectors and yes, even social workers. I don’t think newspaper and magazine people could ever be super heroes or footballers but mothers are from the moment they conceive that new possibility for the world.

Are we waiting for a Messiah, a super hero to save us from ourselves? Will he or she come out of the darkness wearing the white coat of science or the uniform of a homicidal dictator? I pick the scientist. That’s where I’d get my gadgets – maybe I am the super hero after all.

Saturday 11 April 2009

TALKING ABOUT DREAMS

- How was your week?
- Full of wild dreams.
- Like what?
- The other night there was a man in a pram.
- A man in a pram?
- Not a big one; I think it was a doll’s pram.
- So maybe that’s about you wanting control.
- He wasn’t my man in a pram; he was just there, talking. He was looking for a cake recipe that had fish in it.
- Definitely weird.
- Maybe I need to buy fish cakes!
- Were you pushing him?
- No.
- So how did he get there?
- He must’ve wheeled himself.
- Was he in a nappy?
- No, just a short man, filling a pram; wearing clothes and a beard.
- How do you work that one out?
- That a man would rather dominate a doll’s pram than use a wheelchair.

Friday 10 April 2009

A RING OF CONFIDENCE

I’ve taken the cat’s attention and she’s stunned; one of my long hairs had curled itself on her hip. I am a loose woman and my hairbrush is like a road-sweeper. Old is catching up; I’m slowing down, almost a snail, an underwater creature. But, I am entirely happy – my dreams are returning and staying.

Someone said something on a debate show the other morning about people being miserable; all the phone-in chat was about how bad the world is and how they couldn’t get over the depressing negativity that it could never have a good ending. I immediately noticed that the difference between them and me was that I am not up on current affairs; I don’t read newspapers or watch TV news or the soaps which might mirror national and world events. So that’s the answer to my happiness!

I only watch certain dramas on the box, hate all reality programmes and avoid celebrity anything – especially in magazines. I read novels, poetry, biography, blogs; everything is removed – life in third draft, or more. Maybe I’m living an internal life that is so removed from the outside world that I can only be in the default position, which naturally is happiness. Are hermits happy? Probably.

Of course, I am surrounded by family who live in this big bad world, and am affected when anything happens to them; there’s nothing I can do about that and I don’t dwell on the what if? Things fall out of the sky – they will be borne if they land on me, I won’t worry about things that might not happen.

Meanwhile, a family gathering tomorrow beckons so I’ll expect good weather; we’ve had a couple of dodgy days so I can be quietly confident.

Wednesday 8 April 2009

BAD BEHAVIOUR

The mugs were lined up on the kitchen counter, two-by-two, heading into Easter with a bag of giant chocolate buttons inside eight of them. 175grms; each gift would have cost me £1.50, including the mugs, and the kids would have more chocolate than in an Easter egg that cost an arm and a leg…though with the credit crunch the prices are going down.

Whatever made me think I could buy Easter presents in February? Yes, I ate them all! March was a very bad month for me, and all that chocolate sat on my counters, smiling at me, waiting to see how long I would hold out. Now I’m faced with the sight of all those empty shining white insides gaping at me, accusing and laughing; I can’t get them at that price again. So, I bought bags of jelly babies and fruit pastels; I don’t like them…well not much. But they don’t look so good inside a Yorkie mug.

I bought six Lindt chocolate bunnies on Friday, fell off the wagon and began eating them on Saturday night – three down, three to go. Bingo talked me into going to Asda today so she could buy her Easter eggs. I bought six and gave her five – they’re out of my hands, thank God. I only have to keep my hands off PowerRanger’s two – let’s hope Amazon is in tomorrow; they’re not safe with me.

Monday 6 April 2009

REVIEW

Larry’s Party by Carol Shields is the tenth book I’ve read this year already. I loved the beginning, was bored in the middle and felt irritated by the end. At first the format inspired me to make notes for a future project. She tells the story of this guy’s life in sections two years apart and the writing is just wonderful but I don’t think the whole thing is as good as some of its parts.

The only character who is never more than a sketch is the son; I gave her the benefit of the doubt in that the musing is from a man; I thought she might be Showing quite literally how a man thinks about his life – rather than Telling, to make her point. If that is indeed what she was doing then she’s been successful – that was the most noticeable thing for me. Larry’s son barely had a mention and Larry didn’t know how to talk to him…which brings me to my point – I recognise that because my ex can’t talk to his kids.

What the hell is wrong with these men? Their kids are human; more human than a guy in the pub – so why are they terrified?

‘Aye, so ah jist thought I’d phone ye. So, yer awright then? Aye, so, howz things?’

See what I mean. My daughter can get a slightly better conversation out of her father than my son. I’ve heard that man talk to strangers about nothing and sound more intelligent than he does in the company of my children; they seem to strike him dumb and stupid.

I can’t believe that Carol Shields would write a book and not realise that one of the principle characters in the protagonist’s life was as two-dimensional as a passport photo behind glass – she won the Pulitzer Prize! So I’ll have to bow to her brilliance and congratulate her on a very clever piece of work.

A VIEW OF GLASGOW




INTRODUCTION

I’ve been Runaway Granny for three years; since May 2006 online, but I actually did the running in August 2003. I came across a huge clip-file, full of print-outs from the first year of the blog, all the travel journals plus little excursions into AOL and MSN. As I went through it I realised that that episode in my life is over. Epiphany - I am no longer a runaway granny! Therefore, there must be a new blog.

Here I am – the opposite of a runaway; I am present, landed and settled – a different being altogether. So now I have to introduce everyone again; family and friends have blog names – only the dead are real.

No. 1 Son is …TocToc
No. 2 Son is … Musician
Only daughter is…. Amazon
Daughter-in-law is…. Bingo
No. 1 Grandson is … Cadet
No. 2 Grandson is ….. BlackBob
No. 3 Grandson is … Comedian
No. 4 Grandson is… ToughGuy
No. 5 Grandson is….PowerRanger
Only Grandaughter is….Grubby Angel

Friends: Carrie & IrnBru – Morag & Hamish – ZaZa & Slim – Tilly & Shirley – Herman – Lulu – Bree

Workmates: Angel – Oracle – Westie