I've just finished watching Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner. The first film the erstwhile Sweater Girl made after the death of abusive boyfriend Joe Stampanato (stabbed to death by Turner's daughter in self-defence during a family argument) is touchingly domestic in many ways. Turner stars as Lora, a young actress widowed with a daughter, Susie, who takes on Annie Johnston as a maid after the two meet on a beach. Annie, similarly widowed with one daughter, Sarah Jane, whose skin colour is coincidentally much lighter than her mother's. As Susie and Sarah Jane grow up together in the same household, their paths painfully diverge. Susie's mother, achieving greater stardom in every way, gives her daughter everything that money can buy - except her time. Annie gives Sarah Jane the love and time that Susie never gets - but can't give her the lifestyle of a rich girl. The tormented Sarah Jane becomes obsessed with passing as a white girl, an ambition which takes a shocking nosedive when her boyfriend Frankie finds out that she has black blood and assaults her horrifyingly in the street. But even this doesn't stop Sarah Jane running away from home, rejecting her mother and her mother's moral standards to earn her living as a dancer in seedy New York clubs, fighting her background every inch of the way. As the years pass, Annie becomes ill and eventually dies, leaving the newly regretful Sarah Jane to break down publicly over her coffin, acknowledging her mother in public as she never did in life.
Imitation of Life is not perfect. It's a film with its own share of problems - it's got Troy Donahue in it for a start. But it resonates, even today, in more than one way. Sarah Jane's desperate attempts to escape the inescapable, to deny her own heritage, echoes too painfully the experiences of many gay and bi people who find it easier to pass for straight in a heteronormative world. It's easy to understand why a bright young girl, given the option, might try to escape into a life that offers her more than the chance to be someone's maid. Why stay in the cage if the door might be open?
The trouble is that Sarah Jane suffers for her decision to turn her back on what she is. Going under assumed names, moving from job to job to stop her indefatigably disapproving mother tracking her down, and eventually suffering her public breakdown, echoes the decision of so many people who in pursuing a life in keeping with their sexual orientation, end up lying to or evading the family who love them.
I was one of those people, once. After years of struggling with my bisexuality, I came out to myself and my friends at 23. I told myself I didn't need to tell my family, that it was none of their business, any more than any other part of my sex life was their business. There was no need for them to know. It was my business. No one else's.
Four years down the line, I was out at work, to my friends, to my boyfriend, but my family still had no idea. And I was getting involved with LGBT events, drinking in gay pubs, going to Pride. I told my family all this, hoping they might spot the thread. But they didn't. And the more I moved on the scene, the more I started to see the inequalities, hear the biphobia still so casually bandied about, and I didn't want to be part of it any more. My silence had stopped looking like the sensible choice for an adult woman to keep her sex life to herself. It had started to look like plain, crappy cowardice. Like not having the guts to tell the people who loved me most who I actually was. And how could I help to change anything if I stayed silent? How could I tell people it was OK to stand up to the world and be who you are, if I still wore a different face to my family?
I did tell them in the end. And it's been OK. But that's why Imitation of Life is so hard to watch. Because, in this world, there are still hideous inequalities even now. Sarah Jane wouldn't have to be a maid any more, but spare a thought for the people who mask themselves every day behind the resolute "normality" of everyday existence, fearing their family, unlike Annie, might reject them if only they knew the truth. Pray the world changes, and fast.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
spinstercraft
I have a notice above my sofa, torn out of a free paper Mon Geek got from the comic shop, that says "GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS." It's testament to my two favourite hobbies; writing (naturellement) and crafting. Crafting, particularly, has filled a massive gap in my life since I took it up in 2005 in celebration of my goddaughter's imminent arrival. Before I learnt to knit and crochet, I used to read constantly - while eating, travelling, walking round the house, watching TV, all the time. This could be problematic, in terms of concentrating on something else, although despite years of maternal warnings, I never did fall down the stairs because of it.
Crafting simplified a lot. No longer did I need to carry a triple-decker novels around with me all the time (not only did I read constantly, I also read very fast). Instead, some yarn with a couple of needles or a hook would entertain me no matter how many hours a train would be unaccountably delayed, leaving me marooned among dozens of Closer readers shouting into their mobile phones. And at the end of it, you've made something; something that can be used, whether it's a wearable garment or a patterned dishcloth. There's an actual outcome. While no matter how many evenings you spend watching the TV or messing about on Bejeweled Blitz, an actual outcome may still elude you. Think about that the next time you realise you've lost three hours looking at that iPod app to see how you'd look with different hair.
Crafting simplified a lot. No longer did I need to carry a triple-decker novels around with me all the time (not only did I read constantly, I also read very fast). Instead, some yarn with a couple of needles or a hook would entertain me no matter how many hours a train would be unaccountably delayed, leaving me marooned among dozens of Closer readers shouting into their mobile phones. And at the end of it, you've made something; something that can be used, whether it's a wearable garment or a patterned dishcloth. There's an actual outcome. While no matter how many evenings you spend watching the TV or messing about on Bejeweled Blitz, an actual outcome may still elude you. Think about that the next time you realise you've lost three hours looking at that iPod app to see how you'd look with different hair.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Taking the waters
As part of my New Year's resolution to lose the extra two stone that unaccountably attached itself to my arse since I started spreading lard on pizza, I have started going swimming three times a week. This is a mixed blessing.
Firstly, it's undeniably working. It's shifting the weight. I lost 3lbs last week. It doesn't knacker me out like the gym used to do, either. I can't count the number of times I've fallen backwards off the rowing machine, tomato-faced and panting, wondering if my heart is belting out its last at that moment. Swimming is a complete contrast. When I swim, I coast through the blue, chlorinated waters for an hour or so and emerge energised, revitalised and only slightly peckish. It's a much nicer way to be.
On the other hand, I swim at a standard leisure centre. That means that every time I go I have to contend with any number of the hazards and perils of the public baths: discarded verruca socks floating down the big pool, toddlers with their attendant incontinence, little nests of pubes in the drains...the whole place really ought to be closed down. In fact, it's going to be, come the end of March. But meanwhile, there I am, negotiating assorted mingery in the name of good health.
And it doesn't even end there. I wish it did. Merry little children shouting at earsplitting volume while trying to drown one another, competitive middle-aged men in Speedos cleaving the water as splashily as they know how, and mad old bags in pink bathing caps doing backstroke diagonally across the swimming lanes, cutting through people's direction and their enjoyment at a stroke.
Yes, that last is usually me.
Firstly, it's undeniably working. It's shifting the weight. I lost 3lbs last week. It doesn't knacker me out like the gym used to do, either. I can't count the number of times I've fallen backwards off the rowing machine, tomato-faced and panting, wondering if my heart is belting out its last at that moment. Swimming is a complete contrast. When I swim, I coast through the blue, chlorinated waters for an hour or so and emerge energised, revitalised and only slightly peckish. It's a much nicer way to be.
On the other hand, I swim at a standard leisure centre. That means that every time I go I have to contend with any number of the hazards and perils of the public baths: discarded verruca socks floating down the big pool, toddlers with their attendant incontinence, little nests of pubes in the drains...the whole place really ought to be closed down. In fact, it's going to be, come the end of March. But meanwhile, there I am, negotiating assorted mingery in the name of good health.
And it doesn't even end there. I wish it did. Merry little children shouting at earsplitting volume while trying to drown one another, competitive middle-aged men in Speedos cleaving the water as splashily as they know how, and mad old bags in pink bathing caps doing backstroke diagonally across the swimming lanes, cutting through people's direction and their enjoyment at a stroke.
Yes, that last is usually me.
Monday, 15 February 2010
From the Same Mould
Everybody has their little fears. A certain friend of mine fears buttons. My son has inherited his dad's fear of geese. And I fear mould. (As well as balloons and dolls, but that's another story.)
I don't know quite what it is about mould that frightens me, but rest assured it absolutely terrifies me. Just one glimpse of white fluff on an abandoned tangerine, and a scream bites at my larynx. Just one bluish tinge on an apple, one pale green furry crust on an abandoned pasta salad...ugh, it's horrible. My fear of mould is so bad that I won't keep anything in the office fridge. (Office fridges are notorious cultivars of the dread fungus, being populated by abandoned sandwiches and weary salads whose diet-tired owners got a better offer and flounced off to the chippy without a second thought.)
In short, I'm pretty scared of the stuff.
So aren't you impressed that I am quietly addicted to How Clean Is Your House? Yes, the finger-wagging sibling of programmes like Supernanny, which purport to impart actual content to the viewer - the ratio of actual content being 2:1 in favour of smug voyeurism. Yes, your kids are bad, and your house is mucky, but bloody hell, look at those ill-disciplined little buggers on the table cavorting in filth an inch thick. Mucky pups. And see how Kim and Aggie, formerly of Good Housekeeping, a magazine which probably tests your fingertips for dust as you peruse it, restore order with only white vinegar and lemon juice to help them. Truly, these women are amazing, vanquishing mould with a withering glance and an insult for the lummox who was slovenly enough to let it grow in the first place. I can only dream that one day I'll be fierce enough to do the same.
I don't know quite what it is about mould that frightens me, but rest assured it absolutely terrifies me. Just one glimpse of white fluff on an abandoned tangerine, and a scream bites at my larynx. Just one bluish tinge on an apple, one pale green furry crust on an abandoned pasta salad...ugh, it's horrible. My fear of mould is so bad that I won't keep anything in the office fridge. (Office fridges are notorious cultivars of the dread fungus, being populated by abandoned sandwiches and weary salads whose diet-tired owners got a better offer and flounced off to the chippy without a second thought.)
In short, I'm pretty scared of the stuff.
So aren't you impressed that I am quietly addicted to How Clean Is Your House? Yes, the finger-wagging sibling of programmes like Supernanny, which purport to impart actual content to the viewer - the ratio of actual content being 2:1 in favour of smug voyeurism. Yes, your kids are bad, and your house is mucky, but bloody hell, look at those ill-disciplined little buggers on the table cavorting in filth an inch thick. Mucky pups. And see how Kim and Aggie, formerly of Good Housekeeping, a magazine which probably tests your fingertips for dust as you peruse it, restore order with only white vinegar and lemon juice to help them. Truly, these women are amazing, vanquishing mould with a withering glance and an insult for the lummox who was slovenly enough to let it grow in the first place. I can only dream that one day I'll be fierce enough to do the same.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Bad mum
That's it. I have broken. There has been one too many snarky swipes at people who dare to blog about - or talk about - their children. After all, it's no great achievement popping out a sprog, is it? (Or "spawn" as the snarks almost inevitably refer to them.) No, it's not. But bringing one up to be a balanced human being certainly is a great achievement, and one that I fear every day that I may not achieve.
My son has had a turbulent early life, For a start he is actually my stepson, but not seeing his birth mother regularly he has grown up to regard me as his mum. As I have no legal rights to him, this means I see him two weekends a month; the rest of the time he resides with his father. He is now four, and enjoys having a bedroom in each house and regular trips on the train between the two houses. He has adjusted without complaint to the arrangement, but it's me who really suffers from it.
Today, watching me peel carrots for tonight's tea, he said, "I worry about you, sometimes, when I'm at my daddy's house." After some digging, it transpired that he meant that he missed me; declarations like that from him are rare, but they tug on my heart like nothing else. He is a cheerful, physical child, infrequently emotional, which makes his occasional affectionate moments even more heartwrenching.
But every day, I miss him. Working in an office, I work with a great many women, many of whom work part-time or only within school term time. I hear them complaining and I think how lucky they are to have extra time to be able to spend with their child, and how little so many of them realise it. Every day, I feel it, and say nothing at all.
My son has had a turbulent early life, For a start he is actually my stepson, but not seeing his birth mother regularly he has grown up to regard me as his mum. As I have no legal rights to him, this means I see him two weekends a month; the rest of the time he resides with his father. He is now four, and enjoys having a bedroom in each house and regular trips on the train between the two houses. He has adjusted without complaint to the arrangement, but it's me who really suffers from it.
Today, watching me peel carrots for tonight's tea, he said, "I worry about you, sometimes, when I'm at my daddy's house." After some digging, it transpired that he meant that he missed me; declarations like that from him are rare, but they tug on my heart like nothing else. He is a cheerful, physical child, infrequently emotional, which makes his occasional affectionate moments even more heartwrenching.
But every day, I miss him. Working in an office, I work with a great many women, many of whom work part-time or only within school term time. I hear them complaining and I think how lucky they are to have extra time to be able to spend with their child, and how little so many of them realise it. Every day, I feel it, and say nothing at all.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Pink kerplink
I have a confession to make, and it's a touch embarrassing. Now I am not easily embarrassed as a rule. In fact I've devoted much of my adult life to learning how to be completely unembarrassed by anything that might occur. It was rather a shock to find out that nobody else had thought to acquire the useful skill of brazening out potentially shaming events. I went to see Coraline with Mon Geek and a group of friends at the cinema when it came out. Enrapt in our 3-D glasses, stealing each other's pic n' mix as often as we thought we could get away with doing so, we watched the big-headed spindly animated child crawl up the purple tunnel to her mysterious other world. In the dark, I elbowed Mon Geek and hissed sibilantly: "THAT LOOKS LIKE THE VIDEO OF MY COLONOSCOPY."
The eight rows around us turned to ice.
So I forgot that to non-sufferers a colonoscopy is still a taboo subject. (To me, of course, it was a chance to have a good huff at several cubic litres of free gas and air. What did I care what was going on round the back?) Ah well. Brazen, you see.
But my confession actually has nothing to do with that. Not really. But it always shocks people. I mean, here I am, black hair, black clothes, intellectual tastes, love of heavy music...and a total, unsurpassed adoration of all things pink.
Seriously. Everything. Pink saucepans, pink toasters, pink bracelets. Pink skull hair clips. Pink kettle, pink ladle, pink egg timer. Passion for strawberry yoghurt. Love of prawns. Pink knickers. (OK, I didn't tell you that one.) Pink is indulgent, girly and ineffably cheerful. Pink makes me happy, especially in the kitchen when I'm normally overheated, pissed off and can't find anything. Is that so odd?
OK, so maybe I don't look like the typical pink-lover. And you know what? I wasn't, once. As a child, I hated pink, mainly because the pink frilled dresses I was festooned in as a tubby, solid five-year-old made me look like a shed in a pelmet. I never liked Barbie. But as I've grown older and more sensible, my tastes have grown ever more absurd and preposterous. And pink. But I like them. And it makes me happy. So if you don't like it, sod you.
The eight rows around us turned to ice.
So I forgot that to non-sufferers a colonoscopy is still a taboo subject. (To me, of course, it was a chance to have a good huff at several cubic litres of free gas and air. What did I care what was going on round the back?) Ah well. Brazen, you see.
But my confession actually has nothing to do with that. Not really. But it always shocks people. I mean, here I am, black hair, black clothes, intellectual tastes, love of heavy music...and a total, unsurpassed adoration of all things pink.
Seriously. Everything. Pink saucepans, pink toasters, pink bracelets. Pink skull hair clips. Pink kettle, pink ladle, pink egg timer. Passion for strawberry yoghurt. Love of prawns. Pink knickers. (OK, I didn't tell you that one.) Pink is indulgent, girly and ineffably cheerful. Pink makes me happy, especially in the kitchen when I'm normally overheated, pissed off and can't find anything. Is that so odd?
OK, so maybe I don't look like the typical pink-lover. And you know what? I wasn't, once. As a child, I hated pink, mainly because the pink frilled dresses I was festooned in as a tubby, solid five-year-old made me look like a shed in a pelmet. I never liked Barbie. But as I've grown older and more sensible, my tastes have grown ever more absurd and preposterous. And pink. But I like them. And it makes me happy. So if you don't like it, sod you.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Wherefore the geek?
One thing that has always intrigued me is how, and why, certain aspects of popular culture attract geekery - that obsessive fandom which triumphs in spotting the continuity error and e-mailing the makers to point it out; in intensely detailed, lengthy fights with other similarly obsessed fans on dedicated internet fora; and in conventions where attendees dress up as characters. Now don't get me wrong here. I perfectly understand how people can get obsessed about stuff. I myself have any number of quiet manias for things like Mapp and Lucia, the Home Front, Enid Blyton books, etc. The difference is that I am a singular, very eccentric old bag in the body of a twenty-seven-year-old. I don't know anybody else who has any particular interest in any of those things.
By contrast, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series...these attract obsessives in droves. And that's what gets me. Why? What is it about these things that draws geekery so inexorably, like an army of geeks marching towards their destiny, reciting lists of continuity errors, clad in Captain Kirk uniforms? I've never worked it out. It's not the fact of their obsession that intrigues me so; it's the sheer numbers of the obsessed. What is it that draws them? And why don't the rest of us see it?
Maybe I should just relax and let them get on with it. After all, lots of people are interested in stuff, the appeal of which completely eludes me. Football, for example. Or for that matter, any sport. But I can at least understand choosing a side and being partisan to it, and maybe even the excitement of competition, of the game. Even if I don't understand coming to Actual Physical blows with other human beings over it. That part all seems a bit weird. Or X-Factor. A bunch of caterwauling, jostling egos in sequins, doing sub-karaoke covers of songs which were never much good in the first place. Yes, I can let it go. It's OK for people to have different interests from me. Really. It's fine.
But one thing pursues me, giving me no peace: Why?!
It's a question that will never be resolved.
By contrast, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series...these attract obsessives in droves. And that's what gets me. Why? What is it about these things that draws geekery so inexorably, like an army of geeks marching towards their destiny, reciting lists of continuity errors, clad in Captain Kirk uniforms? I've never worked it out. It's not the fact of their obsession that intrigues me so; it's the sheer numbers of the obsessed. What is it that draws them? And why don't the rest of us see it?
Maybe I should just relax and let them get on with it. After all, lots of people are interested in stuff, the appeal of which completely eludes me. Football, for example. Or for that matter, any sport. But I can at least understand choosing a side and being partisan to it, and maybe even the excitement of competition, of the game. Even if I don't understand coming to Actual Physical blows with other human beings over it. That part all seems a bit weird. Or X-Factor. A bunch of caterwauling, jostling egos in sequins, doing sub-karaoke covers of songs which were never much good in the first place. Yes, I can let it go. It's OK for people to have different interests from me. Really. It's fine.
But one thing pursues me, giving me no peace: Why?!
It's a question that will never be resolved.
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