Tag Archive for 'family'

“the best way to spread christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear”;

Published on December 27, 2009 in a little more personal and catholic school hangover. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

george square

Christmas sorta sneaked up on me this year. Busy with retail work and deadlines, worrying about money and suffering with a particularly nasty bout of what we think was probably food poisoning, I let my cynicism get the better of me. Which is a bit of a shame, because I love Christmas: togetherness and food and family and gifts and music and tinsel and pretty lights sum up, pretty succinctly, the important things in life.

Next year, I swear I am going to be all over that shit from at least December 1st.

So the thing that excites me the most about Christmas is that, in an increasingly fractured society, it is one of the last few things that nearly everybody celebrates together. Oh we call it different things of course, but with nearly everywhere closed on the day itself you can’t escape the feeling that the modern world is experiencing some festive and much-needed midwinter pause. My sister picked me up from work on Christmas Eve, and as we fought our way up Buchanan Street through the throngs of shoppers carrying bags and talking about wrapping paper I felt deliciously Christmassy. The well-timed snow certainly helped matters.

And then there was the media. Oh, there was nothing on the telly this year and I couldn’t make hide nor hair of what was going on in Doctor Who, but we were watching it together all the same. There was even a Christmas chart battle of the sort I remember from my teenage years, in which two songs which had bugger all to do with the season fought for the privilege of being called Christmas Number One. It reminded me of the CD singles I used to stake my claim on that had bugger all to do with Christmas (“Stan” by Eminem, that dreary rendition of “Mad World”) and the charts that were topped by songs that had bugger all to do with Christmas (East 17, Bob the Builder) but which ultimately took on those connotations through repeated exposure. And we all tuned into the charts on Radio One last Sunday, the way we used to do, and the snow was coming down then too and I wished we’d gotten around to putting a tree up (that came later). Truth be told, I’d had just as much fun dancing to “Killing In The Name” as I’d had “Merry Christmas Everybody” in the chain pubs of Sauchiehall Street in the early hours of the morning before.

The family was running late for Midnight (or 7pm) Mass but still, somehow, ended up with seats all together in front of a tone-deaf old woman who put the choir to shame for sheer gusto. The priest’s sermon dealt with the difference between Christmas in a child’s eyes, and in an adult’s (“but even now, I don’t understand that xylophone”). There was a little girl two rows behind us, whose mother was pregnant. I nudged my sister. “She’ll have a Cha of her own next Christmas,” I whispered and I could have cried.

Jay and I have made a habit of cuddling on the sofa together on these winter evenings, watching traditional festive movies like Die Hard and Gremlins while I scoff the the ten days’ worth of advent chocolate that accumulated during last week’s illness.

I told my friends not to bother with gifts because I couldn’t afford to return the gesture, even though I know that’s not what it’s about but you can’t help but feel bad anyway, can you? They ignored me and I have so many lovely little, thoughtful gifts. I feel very loved.

I hope you are all having a wonderful festive season, whatever you celebrate.

[lyg10] between euphoria and the afterglow;

Published on November 27, 2009 in [lyg10] and a little more personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

September this year marks ten years since I made my first, tentative and over-sharey, foray into blogging. I hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence on my part, but I’d like to do something to celebrate a pretty significant milestone. I’ve hit upon the idea of publishing some selected takes from my archives – there’s a little bit of poetic license required here, as some of the proper cringeworthy teenage stuff is (thankfully) lost in the mists and pixels of cyberspace, but what I’ll publish every Friday from here until the end of the year is culled from the LiveJournal years, 2003-2006.

Don’t laugh. When Tommy Sheridan was a proper, honest-to-God politician he was a good sort, the only one who’d make time for student journalists after parliamentary debates and give them quotes for their assignments. Which they would then fail for giving too much of a socialist slant rather than a balanced viewpoint!

26th March 2004
Expediency demands that my creativity be sucked out of me and ploughed into ever-more-worthy pursuits than this record of my thoughts. While the thrill of speaking to Tommy Sheridan – a real-live-honest-to-God-politician! – in my capacity as a student journalist the other day reminded me of what I am in this for, the reality is hours spent hunched over a laptop. I fruitlessly search the Internet for a gem of worthwhile information, try to pull an argument from thin air and make up cups of coffee so strong I describe them to my flatmate Pam, with a wry smile, as “poisonous”.

That bloody Microsoft paperclip mocks my discomfort at every turn. It occurs to me now that I don’t actually remember ever being discharged from physiotherapy – I can’t just have stopped going, can I? A combination of childhood bad posture, years of heavy backpacks, a life spent latterly almost entirely in front of a computer screen and a hell of a lot of stress has fucked my back up, given me the most incredibly tense neck muscles you could possibly imagine and the delightful aftereffect of hellish migraines every couple of days if I don’t get enough sleep. The thing is, whether it’s what Ian jokingly calls ‘the Edinburgh time difference’ or something else entirely, my body’s notion of what constitutes enough sleep has changed dramaticaly since last year. I remember when I was writing my first dissertation, chatting to friends on other continents until two in the morning and then getting up at eight to catch them before they went to bed and get started on my work before the day was too old. I feel so out of my own personal loop here, and perhaps my exhaustion is a direct result of that displacement.

I don’t know. I’m trying to combat the discomfort by taking regular breaks, talking to my mum on the phone or watching the news lying on the floor and trying to keep my back straight. Fairy lights, believe it or not, are an excellent relaxation tool. Sometimes I just stare at the ceiling until my mind brings itself back into focus. I have scented candles which help too. I was using lavender incense, but I had to leave my bedroom window open for a full day afterwards before it stopped smelling like a brothel in here.

The Legacy Edition of Jeff Buckley’s Live at Sin-e is absolute genius, and has been keeping me company during some of those breaks. I turn it up loud enough to drown out Edinburgh: the roadworks, the drunken teenagers spilling out of dirty nightclubs at three o’clock in the morning and the zoo that is Block 123. With the reality of this plane of something resembling but not-quite existence all but melted away, I could almost be there and then in New York with him.

I was back home on Mothers’ Day and we sat and played some old cassette tapes; the songs of people long gone – or long grown from four-year-old me and my two-year-old brother in a tuneless rendition of “There’s No-One Quite Like Grandma”. My mother and I both welled up as we heard Grandma and Grandad duetting on an old lovesong through the static of my first-ever tape recorder, the one that ended up in the kitchen when I got the threeCDautochangerfivespeaker monstrosity my sister was relieved to discover I’d be leaving at home.

There’s something sacred about those voices kept for posterity on tape. The people behind them are gone, or changed – one a sweet-scented, curly-haired memory of mini Mars Bars, Lego and little dolls in the bathroom named after the grandchildren. The other is so much older now, but he can still hold a tune – not so long ago on a Sunday visit I asked him to sing for me, and he did.

I think that’s how you know the people you love are never really gone – their afterimages remain, a smile permanently burned on your retina or a song on the tip of your tongue. It’s Ross in the picture on my wardrobe, the one I showed Seymour when he saw me in Edinburgh and he couldn’t get over how young we looked. It’s my grandparents, still in love and harmonising on tape. And it’s Jeff Buckley, and the art that was his legacy to a world he spent so little time in.

And with that – tangential even for me – I’d better get this essay printed out and head up the hill. I have birthday presents to buy today for Very Special People, I do.

alan, alan, gies a job!;

Published on June 11, 2008 in aff the telly, art & culture and travellin'. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

320 of 365: Alan, Alan, Gies a Joab!

You know you’re a sad case when: you get up especially early so you can 365 in front of a local (to your hotel) landmark. And said landmark is in fact the offices of a certain national newspaper…

I had a great 26th birthday and a lovely weekend in London with my mother and sister. Cha got us both tickets to see Wicked as it’s my mum’s birthday next week – something which, you may remember, we really enjoyed last year. It was a particularly special night, as Kerry Ellis is leaving the London cast to play Elphaba on Broadway, so there were tears and flowers afterwards. It made for an atmosphere that was even more electric than usual, although the added cheering perhaps made the storyline a little more difficult for my mother to follow. “I thought Glenda and the green one were sisters,” she explained.

It’s the end of The Apprentice tonight, leaving me with nothing to watch on the telly until Top Gear returns next month. In a twist from the usual format, four candidates are vying for a job with Surallan in this final episode. What this means is that Asinine Alex and Horrible Helene could both be gone by the end of the first episode or, of course, the opposite. But we won’t think bad thoughts.

Which Apprentice candidate are you? asks the Guardian. Oh God. I got Alex. Which means I must either punch myself repeatedly in the face, or go find some Heat magazine readers to sleep with.

[PHOTO: Day 320]

though she never got famous she was the star of my life;

Published on April 3, 2007 in a little more personal. 6 Comments Tags: , .

eesmee & chacha redux (2)

Despite only running the risk of alienating about five regular commenters, I’ve never really been one for shoutouts or birthday mentions on this blog. The 21st birthday of my favourite little girl is a special case though. Watching her grow from this small baby creature who really didn’t do much, to the squirrel-spotter who plagued my teenage years (long story), and finally to the gorgeous, talented and daft as a brush young woman I call my partner in crime has been at times a test of patience, but more often than not a wonderful friendship. I’m a day late, but she won’t care as long as she’s getting the attention.

So in the past week that’s my brother and sister both become firmly entrenched in the “early twenties”, while the 10-week bus pass I purchased today is due to run out on the day I stomp all over the “mid”s. Could be worse though. I’ve still got five years until I’m thirty, eh?

have i left my home just to whine in this microphone;

Published on March 26, 2007 in a little more personal and music. 12 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve decided I’m going to make music, and not just because on Saturday night I was starting to get the impression I was the only person in the room not in a band. I’ve got a half-decent singing voice and a beat-up acoustic guitar that cost me twenty quid on eBay; I’m good for a couple of chords and my lyrics (when I wrote them) were always a bit crap, so it should be an interesting experiment.

I’m in a creative slump and I want to make something new. I always get a little antsy for new projects when my big quarterly deadline is approaching. I want a little bit of the prettiness of Court Lajoie, the fire of Hello, Autumn and the lyricism of Emmy The Great. And I’m my own worst critic, so none of you are going to get to hear it until I don’t embarass myself. Ha ha!

I told Kaite some time ago I was gonna write a girl-rock Letters to Cleo-esque song about her and call it “I Wanna Be Your Sidekick”, so I best get on with that.

My brother and I used to make music. We wrote a song about how much we loved the radio (and hated “Take That, rave and Portishead”) on my sister’s toy Casio keyboard and recorded it on the single deck tape recorder one of us got from Christmas. There was another time we sang a bunch of Oasis songs to tape, changing the lyrics so they were about Celtic and Rangers.

They were great wee things, those tape recorders. We had one each, identical. I remember I used to borrow cassette tapes from my local library and make mixes by pressing the loudspeaker of one against the other’s microphone. You could barely hear the music over the background hiss, and if anybody shouted up the stairs to me I had to start again.

It was a brilliant weekend, the sort I haven’t had in a long time full of fun and food and friends, samurais Spartans and the odd live band (it’s been a while). Rabies Nation‘s debut show was a resounding success: it was like getting hit in the face, repeatedly, with a dustbin lid and liking it. By the end of their set my teeth hurt so badly we had to go home.

The Shins last night were stunning. You know when you see a band and with every song it’s like “oh my God, I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG!!!” Yeah, it was like that. And having a young gentleman serenade me with Cliff Richard songs all the way down Argyll Street – after trying to steal my sparkly scarf – made my night.

Plenty to say, no time to say it. A couple of links then: the always wonderful Charlie Brooker’s weekly column, which today is about how none of us really know anything. And, also from the Guardian: contemporary authors write six-word stories.

two great minds together cannot come up with a song lyric;

Published on March 6, 2006 in a little more personal. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Leah misses my daddy and Margaret. She’s been whining since they went on holiday. She’s still eating her prawns though.

My cha cha made me stir fry for dinner. It was ace. I have to do the dishes now though. Booo.

CHA: Did you take your allergy pill?
ME: Um, no…
CHA: Eesmee, you just kissed a cat!

We stole Margaret’s Weight Watchers ice creams. They’re a bit ming.

what frenzy has of late posessed the brain…;

Published on February 2, 2006 in a little more personal, mmm... food and music. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

In which reference is made to Lis’ musical nazi tendencies.

LOLA: I’m liking the Mountain Goats but can’t remember if that’s good or worthy of having rocks thrown at my head?
ME: It’s better than good. Twin Human Highway Flares is the greatest lovesong ever written. After Sk8er Boi, obv.
LOLA: See I’ve always preferred I’m With You. I guess I’m just not a hardcore Avril fan like you.

Simon from Cocteau Twins messaged me on MySpace telling me that my taste was wonderful. He obviously never read as far down as McFly in my list of favourite bands.

There’s nothing like reading the Metro in the morning to give you a severe case of blog envy. Parsons the lobster makes much more worthwhile reading than pasted text conversations of no interest to anybody other than myself, or how I would have cried myself to sleep again last night without the chorus of Reconstruction Site; or that boy who’s getting rather good at making me smile.

I miss my Grandad. It’s been one heck of a year, and I can’t get over how many of the little fundamantal things have changed. I suppose time passing is always going to be marked a little more dramatically when there’s a baby getting bigger every day in the picture.

I moan about my worthlessness as a blogger every so often, but even Poynter is getting in on the act today.

There’s a new girl at drama, Natasha. She looks like me without a fringe, a Monsoon account card and a layer of Urban Decay’s finest (speaking of which, I’m quite pleased with myself for finding my absolute favourite discontinued lipgloss for £2.99 on eBay) and she thinks I am hillarious. This is only to be encouraged by passing notes on Hello Kitty paper during alto practice.

Smash Hits folds. End of an era. Although I always preferred Live & Kicking magazine.

Pizza, Irn Bru and Haribo for lunch. The stuff of kings.

The MySpace pervs have switched to female. That’s the second one in as many days. Quite an interesting development. I hold you entirely responsible, Ms Amber ;)