Word play

What I love about reading is what I love about writing too. The ability to give shape and substance to something as slippery as a feeling – to record those passing thoughts that might normally get lost in the swamp of everyday living. The disparate bunch of writers I love have one thing in common – amidst tales of other lives in other places there hide moments of stinging recognition. Those things you half-think, or don’t fully realise are passing through your head, right there on the page. Someone else’s honesty enabling you to own your own feelings. That’s the power of good writing – name it and it’s yours. Instead of being ruled by an intangible tangle of emotions, you’re the one calling the shots. A feeling flying round your head can only be grasped at. A word on a page can be picked up, it’s weight tested in your hand before you decide to embrace or reject it. 

And the music don’t feel like it did…

I’m a sucker for a good song. Music seduces, infusing the momentary with immortality. It makes sense to – and of – every part of me. Currently making my head spin are The XX. Only 18 and already heartbreakers. Somebody give them a record deal please.

Update: Someone did give them a record deal – they signed to Young Turks in Feb 2009. Which means we’ll be able to get hold of hard copies of tracks including their beguiling cover of Womack & Womack’s ‘Teardrops’ in the not too distant future. Hurrah! Get more music recommendations and reviews here.

Lip service

Kissing, kissing, kissing. Even the word is appealing. It trips off the tongue, so to speak. A kiss can change everything – wake you up, get you lost, send you loopy. I love everything about it – the taste, the warmth, the bruised lips, the head-rush, the stubble rash. More intimate than sex, more telling than words – the importance of kissing should never be underestimated. And dammit, it just feels good. 

Thought for the day

I’m ready to be in control again. On the ball instead of under the table; in the driving seat, not out on a limb. The freedom to choose is all well and good but faced with a thousand possibilities the act of choosing offers up a sea of trapdoors through which to fall. Limiting choices can actually free you up. Less decision-making, more living. Going wild is fun for a while but not forever. There’s a satisfaction in declining, in choosing tomorrow over today, that can’t be found in more-more-more. I don’t need to consume to feel good, to spend to be successful, to buy stuff to be a better person. There’s no such thing as a quick-fix. Changing, growing, evolving and, yes, mending takes time. But you can start saying no when you used to say yes, and yes when you used to say no. It can be as simple as that. Hell yes, I’m ready for that.

Something in the air

It’s that time of year

Catching eyes, smiling smiles

It’s not hard to imagine

And impossible to stop thinking about

 

Headphones in, glances flying

What could be nearly always more exciting than reality

The music elevating every moment

A seductive soundtrack to the movie in my head

The highs and lows of a sugar hit

Sugar blunts, anesthetises the spirit, coats the tongue, renders the mind fuzzy. It’s a quick fix, a diversion, an I-need-some-of-that-right-now. It tricks, it coerces, it winks and licks its lips. Creeping up to cheer up, settling in to drop out. I want my senses sharp, I want what’s beyond the right-now, I want to fill my mind not my stomach. 

On the way to work

The blossom makes shapes at my feet as I’m baptised by sound

My neck loosens and my lungs open wide

Skin prickles, I can feel every pore

Feet have purpose, limbs click into place

Body instinctive, mind, soul, heart one

Everything is possibility, everything is flow…

Then the battery fails and the world floods my ears

I’m left blinking, these words in my hand

Me, me, me

A modern day Narcissus would fall in love with his Facebook profile. The self-created, fabricated images we conjure up on screen are consuming us: eating up our time, distorting our perception and turning our existence into a never-ending status update. It’s a curious thing to experience, to realise you’re experiencing it, to wake up to the obsession. I’m sure some people can maintain a casual usage but I’m an all or nothing kind of gal. I OD-ed and now I’m done. Too posed, too styled, too forced. It was living-to-report instead of living-to-experience. The adrenaline, emotion and sensuality of living in the moment replaced by a swaggering, self-congratulatory, hyper-real RSS feed. So I’ve dumped the look-at-me profile to spout nonsense in an anonymous blog. Hmmmm, I’ll be the one looking sheepish in the corner….

You searched what?

One of the interesting insights you get in writing a blog, aside from peering inside your own cluttered brain, is seeing how people find it through search terms. Now, when I wrote an ode to the bearded man t’other day, I had no idea that the subject was such a popular search. Apparently, the world is beard-crazy. Of course, there’s some porno link there so I’m imagining there have been a few disappointed folk who clicked my ‘Hairy men’ link (urgh, even that now sounds sleazy) to discover nothing in the least bit arousing. Erm, sorry about that. Very funny though. 

A word to the marketing folk: content doesn’t always add value…

KT Tunstall Talks Art