Visiting the Young Ones

The man with the cool black dog and his teenage son live in a medium-size house in Brighton. The man is half Labrador half teenager and the three of them live together in a house ripe with the smell of dog, adolescent boy, fried things, unwashed bedlinen and the poo that lies in wait in the lavatory. Cables trail along hallways  and down the stairs converging in the centre of the living room. Walls are hung with guitars and bikes and the supermarket shop stays in it's bags on the table until the ice cream leak becomes conspicuous.

They are very happy in their boy fug letting me stay in the spare room with it’s duvet made of soggy cardboard and yellowed pillow with permanent head dent.

We scrunched together on the sofa watching scifi and adventure films interfering with the plot and who had been in which films before and eating pizza and then meringue and cream mixed with a little bit of fruit so we could say – YES THERE WERE VEGETABLES

Correspondence II

Today's Future as read by Miranda July  

I see lots of Bs in your life. Could be people whose name begin with B, or Boston, or a bee. Or maybe you need to let it BE.

good luck,
Miranda

So here I am in Bristol planning a trip to Brighton and reviewing the last correspondence I had with a long lost friend called Bob who used to teach maths and was really good at fixing stuff.

in 2008 Bob found me through email and asked me to fill him in with my news 

I said
Blahblahblah

I'm living in France...

Blahblahblah

… you still got that goatee? wearing the leathers? still the coolest maths teacher?

He said

Blahblahblah

… clean shaven no leather trousers although ive still got them as i was thinking of chucking them yesterday- and couldnt ...glad to be out of the teaching actually although it had its great moments - wasnt really the kids more the wanker staff who were more childish than the kids...that life is gone...coming to France

I said 

Blahblahblah come and visit…

My place in France (doesn't that sound great?) is an hour's drive south  of Toulouse.… looks very grand as you drive up to it … and even when you first go inside you might think it's  impressive it takes a while for the shortcomings to become apparent mainly the running damp, and some people don't like mice also we don't have doorknobs and it's always 5 degrees colder inside than out

Here's a link to one of my posts about mice 

Lacy Flaps

Space Lady was wearing her biggest woolly diving suit today, we waded around her house to see if we could find the ironing board - the furniture and floor are obscured by mounds of things so it's standing room only.

I tried to call to say that there is no water so there's no point in you coming

I won't stay long then

Will you iron this impossible thing

OK

The impossible thing was laundered but the cats had been sitting on it so I ironed over a lot of cat hair and footprints and other fluff from the floor, there were a lot of lacy flaps and the thing took an hour to make more or less flat - it would have taken half that but Space Lady stood very close and told me about the squatters who have moved into the church next door and I was trying not to burn her.

The estate agent rang to say that it's my fault the squatters are there she says that she has been and looked through the keyhole and can see them taking the organ apart and setting fire to it but there is no keyhole and you couldn't see into the church from the door even if there was

Living Conditions II

The Half A Pop Group living situation suits me very well. It is the front half of the band that I am living with, she is the Sexy Vixen who sings and is in charge of everything - he is the cerebral-looking one with the guitar. They have a 3-year-old child and a recording studio in the house and a top floor flat which is almost self-contained, Felicity is the other lodger with me in the flat, she is a voluptuous woman in big skirts who laughs often and loudly and we share the flat with The Child who sleeps here and comes into the kitchen to stare at me or into my room to show me how to operate the television.

I chose the Pop Flat partly for it’s lack of stuffed toys, overflowing ashtrays and mad people but mainly because of the art, the Vixen’s family are artists and the place is full of brilliant pictures. As a household we all seem to find similar things tragic/funny and our Squalor Tolerance Levels are compatible.

Actually Felicity is hugely messy and when I return from making supper for OCD Lady the Pop Flat kitchen  looks like a war zone but I find this strangely comforting after an evening at the Crazy White House*.

I haven’t done any cooking in the Pop Flat since I arrived, the kitchen cupboards are a repository for the stuff Half A Pop Group couldn’t quite bear to throw out; assorted bowls, novelty egg cups and mismatched items of Tupperware, but no plates or ovenware and only one saucepan. The cutlery drawer contains forks, a large spoon, some gaily coloured plastic feeding spoons and used toothbrushes. When I get in from work all I usually need is a stiff drink, but on Sunday I’m getting a visit from my cousin so I have just gone out and bought a pot to cook in.

*BREAKING NEWS So much to say about Life in the Crazy White House but it was all too repetitively grim to relive on the blog, however I have just tendered my resignation so now I might be able to find the whole thing entertaining – and tell you all about it.

Living Conditions I

Currently I spend my weekdays in London and go back home for the weekend. Last autumn I house-sat a friends art collection in her swishy pad in West London for a couple of months. This was sort of great but also a bit tense, the immaculateness of the pale carpets and the fragile and valuable Works of Art made me nervous, I wore latex gloves and a hairnet in the flat and put paper on the sofa before I sat on it.

At Christmas my friend returned to guard her own art so I needed to find alternative weekday accommodation. I placed a couple of very brief ads asking if anyone had a room to let. I’m a bit out of touch with this sort of thing, but is it normal to reply to 'Accommodation Wanted’ ads with full details of one’s divorce arrangements?

This person (who gave no name or other indication of identity) lives about as far away as one could get from the area I specified

Hi,
I am living in canary wharf in a 1 bed apartment means 1 bed room and living room , if you need you can take my bedroom whereas I am happy to adjust in living room till march 1st week.

Amount will not be a problem , can talk about that if you like and see the apartment.

your comfort is my main concern

take care

thanks

I spent a weekend visiting the best of the proposals, all of them were astonishing in one way or another, one chain-smoking care worker showed me a tiny bedroom full of teddy bears, the rest of the house contained a lot of purple sculpted-pile carpet and was strewn with empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. The next flat had a large splashy bloodstain in the hallway which put me off a bit. And then there was Polly;

Polly sent me a very long response detailing the fabulousness of her Chelsea apartment, the 'spacious living room' with 'gorgeous soft furnishings', the 'outside patio for barbeques in the summer', the 'well-equipped kitchen' and the 'vast bath for sumptuous soaking after a hard day’s work'. I was suspicious but I had to see it.

I found the address and tinkled the wind chime by the door of a basement flat, the door opened onto a small grotto-like space partitioned into 'rooms’ with thin bits of board, the smells of cat wee and mould were overwhelming. To hide the mouldy areas Polly had recently glued bits of brightly-coloured fabric over the window sills and skirting boards.

To emphasise the lack of space, the flat was decorated with strings of Tibetan prayer flags and crammed with garage-sale scavenged items, including 2 washing machines and a tumble drier. Polly had rigged up some wobbly storage systems to accommodate bread makers, coffee makers, kettles and assorted broken pots.

My first step through the front door put me in the centre of the 'kitchen’ which consisted of doll-sized sink, the two-ring, Baby Belling hob was set on the drainer which I didn’t notice at first because both hob and sink were covered over with saucepans and plates,
Look! she pointed up at one of the perilously crammed shelves
there’s an ice cream-maker - we can make ice cream!

Polly has many cats, they peered at us as she insisted I went into the bathroom, squeeze my way between the bath and sink and inspect the 'designer’ loo seat, the front of the lavatory was right against the back of the bath - to use it one would have to sit sidesaddle.

I’d been there 5 minutes, I was feeling very queasy and said that I had to leave.

I went out of the door and Polly followed me, in the rain, wearing fat pink felt bootees, this pale pixie-like person bobbed alongside me keeping up a stream of information about her health problems as I tried not to break into a run towards the station as she grabbed my arm, telling me to look in the windows of the local restaurants and shops so I could see what a great neighbourhood we were in.

In the early hours of the next morning Polly sent me a text suggesting that I could stay for the first month for free.

I resisted this bargain and have chosen instead to move in with half a pop group for a little while...