Clean

I was going to write about Skins (last night on E4) but i think i'll give it another chance and watch it again next week.
I've just come back from the Turkish Baths. It's two years since i last went- which is far too long. This time i went in the plunge pool twice. Normally i'm a complete wuss when it comes to being cold, but this time i loved the shock and the exhilaration of going from really hot to really cold. As i laid on a recliner in the first dry heat room, i felt the buzz my body reacting to the extremes. I found myself thinking that this was better than any buzz from alcohol, nicotine or other drugs (how thirty-something am I?)
When the buzz subsided i need the heat of the second dry heat room.
However liberated i like to think i am, i cannot help being disturbed by the nakedness of strangers. I kept my bikini on (until my final shower) but of course many women (mainly older women) are naturally naked. I wonder what the age is when you cease to give a fuck about other people seeing your snatch?
The next dry chamber is the hottest of all. I need to lay down on the stone which is covered by a towel. I put my head on the amazingly comfortable block of wood and give in to the heat below me. I remember the thing about living in the moment and i think about the intense heat located at the base of my spine and the relaxing effect it is having on my lower body. There's a similar but less intense feeling in the shoulders.
I repeated the whole process and drank lots of water.
For my final shower i used a lime and lavender body wash which smells fantastic. Then in the rest room, i used a complementary moisturiser which is pretty intoxicating. I reveled in the thought that i was almost certainly the best smelling woman in the room. Feeling heady with my own gorgeousness and the level of relaxation i don't move for about fifteen minutes (except to drink a smoothie).
I finally get dressed really, really slowly, toweling my hair and putting back each item of clothing carefully. I'm so clean, cleaner than i have been for the past two and a half years. I think about the last time i visited: November 2004.
I just bumped into him in the bar, it was my birthday celebration and i was enthusing drunkenly about how wonderful the Turkish Bath had been. Of course i said,
'You have to go, it's amazing'. To which he replied,
'Well someone would have to invite me, wouldn't they?'

I have steamed the last two and a half years out of my body and i'm ready to start again. Im clean, the cleanest i've been (Depeche Mode).
I drive home, and although i am all soft on the inside, i am bouncy and i do not feel the January cold, in fact i welcome it, and i listen to "The Second Coming" all the way home.

Latest news from Hysteria Lane

There is a bird stuck in my window frame.
I could hear some scrabbling and naturally thought it must be a mouse. I went over to the area where the sound was coming from to see if there was any 'evidence'. A hole in the floor boards.
As i put my head down towards the hole i realise that the scrabbling sound is not coming from down under the boards but is directly in my left ear.
Could a mouse be stuck in the window frame?
The scrabbling noise is quite frantic. I thought i heard something the other day, but it wasn't as insistent as this.
I try and work out how this could happen, but can't. Then i see some brick dust or something on the window sill. Aha! I go outside to look for a possible entry point and put my head towards the corner where the sound is coming from. I peer towards a small gap in between the frame and the sill and out pops a tiny frantic claw. I jump back thinking, 'What kind of creature is that??'
On second look i see a glimpse of blue and yellow stuff. It's a bird, and there's no way i can get it out of there. So i'm sitting here typing and listening to periodic attempts by the poor thing to get free. It keeps tapping (presumably with it's beak) as though there might be some way out through the PVC frame. I try and think of someone to call who might be able to do something but i can't think of anyone who might know what to do.
So i write this, and wonder if that will make me feel better.

Tumbleweed

Before the vote is cast......
Anyone who knows me would know that i am a massive fan of Big Brother.
At the moment it's got everything, including the tumbleweed moments with Davina on stage. It's such excellent theatre!!!!
And this stuff is really important. The innate racism of Britain exposed to the world. It's got tragedy- Danielle and Jo and the hapless Jack and Jade (like the couple who tumble down the hill with the pail of water)- when they get out they won't even understand the concept of 'innate racism', and in a way it's not even fair that they should be paraded as examples of this tendency.
At the moment Jade is crying and saying she wants to walk out to no-one (as opposed to a crowd baying for her 'racist blood'). She is writing her own story here. She's crying because she has been exposed. But it's also not fair to compare her words with the composure and grace that has been shown by Shilpa Shetti. Who's fault is this? The housemates have commented that Jade can't be a racist because she is 'mixed race'. She told Shilpa that she would never judge anyone on the colour of their skin- after all, we are all 'mixed race', are we not? Totally missing the fact that racism is about the misunderstanding between one culture and another.

Frankensteins Monster

I went to an all girls high school. When i was about thirteen, i created a fantasy boyfriend. I drew him in my exercise book and showed him off proudly to all my friends. He was made up of the different body parts of several different boys that i knew - so and so's hands; such and such's head etc.
It didn't occur to me that i had created a monster.
I have come to realise that i am still doing that now (twenty years or so on), cobbling together this weird creature that fits with all the different aspects of my life. I've got one who provides reliable sex; one who provides the kind of love and romance that i crave and one who kind of fits in with my domestic/social life.
I haven't done this consciously, and have hated it in the past when people have not been exclusive with me. They seem satisfied with the part that they've got, but i'm not. I do want exclusivity, so what am i doing?
I think i'm reflecting my own schizophrenia. My domestic, social, work and creative lives are four different countries.
What i really want is all that in one person. One person who can cope with all those things and bring something else to the party.
I even know now (just as i'm writing) what i need to do. It's high time all those parts joined back together-then my monster will become my soul mate.

20 Q

Anyway, 20 Q.
You think of something and 20 Q guesses what you are thinking of within 20 questions (plus another five if it gets it wrong first time). It uses a set of deductive questions- which in themselves are genius.
So i'm thinking "this is genius, but what's it going to say if i think of something rude". I really wanted to see if it would get all confused and come up with some random unrelated object like TORTILLA CHIP.
So of course i'm thinking - 'cock' , and laughing away at my own childishness whilst getting comfy on the sofa. The first questions are always
IS IT ANIMAL/VEGETABLE/MINERAL/OTHER?
You can only press buttons that answer Yes, No, Sometimes, Rarely or Unknown. We had already worked out that if you say animal vegetable or mineral, it's definitions within these categories are pretty narrow. So, i go for 'other' and make my way through the now more familiar list of eliminators, IS IT BROWN? DOES IT FIT IN AN ENVELOPE? ETC.
I answer with the affirmative when it asks DOES IT BRING PEOPLE JOY? And DO MOST PEOPLE USE IT EVERY DAY? (Well they do don't they?)
We're getting close to question 20 and i'm convinced it's not going to get it, "I'm going to beat 20 Q by thinking of something that not in it's vocabulary, i'm so smart !"
Question 20 is answered.
I'M THINKING....
YOU WERE THINKING OF A MUSCLE
I feel a mixture of disappointment and vague embarrassment. I sit there thinking, "Is a penis a muscle?" My Biology is as bad as my geography.
I decide to answer No.
I'LL TRY AGAIN
I'M GOING TO WIN
Five more questions. DOES IT CONTAIN LIQUID?
Well kind of.
YOU WERE THINKING OF A GLAND
Again, faint embarrassment. Is it a fucking gland?
I'm pissed off. This isn't funny.
It knows what i was thinking, it was just too polite to say it.