I like a little structure....

I headed out without an umbrella at the weekend, despite the previous showers, because both my iphone weather apps stated there would be sunshine and clouds for the rest of the day, but no rain. When caught in a rather heavy shower on our return from coffee, my boyfriend remarked it was unusual that I wasn’t more prepared. I replied that the rain was unscheduled. Like the weather can be arranged... Like the app can be held to account....

I also have a tube app, a train app, and a bus app. They provide me with information, en route, that hitherto I just didn’t have. But they are sometimes wrong, and I find myself highly irritated when they f*** up. Life carried on just fine before I had them, yet now, I place a faith in them that is realistically, unwarranted. If my battery is low or my 3G not working, I feel that lack of information. Or, to be more self-analytical about it, I feel less in control.

I like timetables. Structures. Rules. Filing. Order.  It’s a sort of bizarre mix that on the one hand I have a skill for organisation, my own and others, and on the other, a deep need to express myself creatively, away from bureaucracy, to avoid everything that is 9-5. But in both spheres, the desire for some sort of framework, for boundaries, is palpable.

For me, I think that freedom and creativity is enhanced, grown, encouraged even by rules. Without a structure to work off, how do you go forward? I have been doing more Improv in the last year or so. Primarily because it used to terrify me, but also because I thought it would help with the Stand- up. The joy of Improv, which is also the bit that used to terrified me, is that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. I know. Scary. You’re on a stage in front of people, who are there to be entertained, and you have absolutely no idea what is going to occur. There is zero preparation. If you plan, it will be shit, because the whole point is to come on stage and be in the moment – to respond rather than lead, to work together and discover together as you go, rather than forcing your own agenda.

It all sounds rather Utopian, right? And it sort of is. But, believe it or not, there are actually loads of rules you need to follow to be a good Improviser. You have to say “Yes, and...” rather than “Yes, but...”. Ideally you need to get out who you are, where you are, and what you are doing, within 3 lines – no mean feat. Those are just the first two. There are loads. If you want to know more, check out Hoopla, The Maydays, Spontaneity Shop, or the awe inspiring Mr David Shore – currently up in Edinburgh with Monkey ToastUK.

So then, if Improv isn’t getting away from rules and structure, what is? In what walks of life are there none? My boyfriend and I discussed this over lunch. When you’re sleeping, said he. Rioting. Though as he pointed out, rioting is really only seen against a backdrop of rules and structure, a breakdown of those things. Maybe when you’re inebriated or out of it? But even then, there are probably social structures in play. So, sleeping. That’s essentially it. Though the very act of sleeping means that physically we are structured, if not mentally and emotionally.

Which makes me think that I’m not all that strange, to need the frameworks that I do?

Mother and Daughter

I talk about my Mother in my stand-up routine. The opener is that she's like Hyacinth Bouquet on crack. Which is a pretty good description - if you stayed with her, you'd know what I mean.

I think it's fair to say we didn't have the best of relationships when I lived at home. My mother is a heady mix of mental and old school. Mental: she made my dad get a blind put up in the frosted window in the bathroom incase the neighbor might be spending his days looking out for a glimpse of the shadow of her head. She commissioned a painting by a local artist in Cornwall and had me put in it – in my graduation outfit, holding our dead miniature poodle Candy, whilst flying through the air –

Old School: she doesn't believe in sex before marriage, she thinks the man should walk on the outside of the pavement (I know, I was flummoxed by this one - apparently to protect the woman from splashes or any oncoming traffic that takes a wrong turn...), and that the man should sit on the outside of the table in a restaurant - so that he can order for you, and so that he is in the prime position to pick up the bill. Come to think of it, maybe she's just got issues with men being on the outside!

She also comes from the school of parenting that thinks it's best to talk to you like you are a child, even when you are 32. To be fair, she talks to all her siblings like that as well, so I'm not alone. But it's somewhat frustrating to be faced with a woman who thinks she knows best all the time, when frequently, she doesn't. It's also hard to relax when she keeps telling you to "watch that wine" when you sit on the sofa with a glass of red, concerned that her cream suite might be sullied by a slip of the hand, even though she waves her biro around readily whilst trying and failing the medium hard Sudoku.

We've had our ups and downs, and in latter years, we've found a middle ground of sorts - we even sometimes manage 3/4 days of living together (Xmas etc) when we don't argue. We've come a long way, as Take That would say. But it's still fairly fractious. Primarily because I fight tooth and nail to retain my sense of self, and by that, I mean my adult self, when I go and visit them. And my mother talks to me, endows me, with my childhood, or worse, my teenage self. And after about 4 days (hence my usual stay is no more), I give up the fight and do indeed become the frustrated teenager I once knew. Because it's pretty hard to drop and keep anchor against a tide that strong.

She doesn't really realise. I think she's been like that her entire life, and she's getting on a bit, so I think change is over hopeful. And, those that know her would probably say that her plus points outweigh the negatives. She is one of the most thoughtful and kind people I know. Last year, when I was fed up of flyering in the rain at Edinburgh, day after day, she came out unannounced at 11pm (leaving my father in the hotel room), to help me flyer for my midnight chat show. She's photocopied press clippings of Birmingham previews and was handing them out. I was both touched and mortified that my mum was out amongst the drunken rabble that late at night, trying to flyer for a show that we were selling as "sex on a bed"... I sent her back to the hotel with a tear in my eye. I don't know many mums approaching 70 that would have done that.

My boyfriend and I watched Beginners last night - a rather beautiful and true story of a man who came out to his son aged 75, once his wife had died, and lived until 79, embracing all that life, and the gay world he had never dared to enter, had to offer. And watching the son nurse his dad as cancer took hold, and trying to negotiate the change in their relationship, was profound. I've always joked I'd put my Mother in a home if she got ill. And I think she believes it. But I know deep down, I'd want to look after her, the same way she has looked after me, my dad, her mother, and so many of her friends.

And so, I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. It saddens me that she doesn't really get to see the real me, and I wonder if I ever get to see the real her. She's been a wife and mother so long, I'm curious to know who that young woman was, what desires, disappointments lie beneath all the fuss, the incessant cleaning, and the almost obsessive desire for a cashmere jumper in every colour. And I want her to know me, the adult - the person my friends see, my boyfriend sees, rather than this surly teenager who emerges after any length of time spent together. And I don't know really know how we make that happen.

What's with the crying??

I’m not talking about the Olympic blubbing, of which there has been much, mine included. I’m talking about women crying. When we do it, how often we do it, when it’s appropriate to do it? I cried when one of my friends got engaged, when my nephews were born, when someone at work behaved like a total dick, when my brother was ill, when Ross and Rachel got together, when Andy Murray lost Wimbledon, when I missed out on the 70% off Mulberry bag in the Net A Porter Sale in 2006. I’m kidding. I got that one.

In my latter years, I’ve liked to think that I’m reasonably self-aware, that during my twenties I’d worked out a little better who I was, what I wanted, and where I could improve – professionally and personally. For example, I’ve worked out that I need deadlines – I can put things off wonderfully, so I enter competitions, I work with other people, I join courses – all these things help me to stay on track. But I’ve felt that I've got to know my insecurities, my weaknesses and strengths.

And then the man came along. It’s one thing knowing your fears when you’re single. Quite another when you’re attached. Because they’re not at all the same thing. When you’re on your own, you are self-sufficient. Sometimes it’s lonely, and sometimes you just want someone to scoop you up and look after you, but often, you quite enjoy being able to spend a hungover Sunday in deeply unflattering jogging pants, with pickled onion Monster Munch and some Minstrels all to yourself, feeling happy you didn’t take the inappropriate 20 something home, or happy that you did, and that he’s now gone.... You work out how to exist on your tod. It takes strength, and that strength manifests itself in walls. Barriers. A protective layer. Built up slowly, carefully, with love and comfort. And it feels really safe. Not satisfying long term. But safe and secure. Homely.

So you think you know yourself pretty well. But being in a relationship is teaching me that there’s loads I don’t know. Because I’m not used to the vulnerability that it brings. Once you let someone in, you are no longer self-sufficient. The benefits of a relationship far exceed any downsides, certainly if they’re the right one for you, and that’s why you forge ahead into unchartered territory. But then what happens, at least in my case, is that you find yourself having conversations you’re not used to having, being in situations you’re not used to working with. And then the tears come.

I’m not talking floodgates. But when we have a conversation about something important, I find myself welling up. Often not because of the subject matter, but just because I find actually having the conversation hard. I’m not used to them. I’m not used to expressing my needs, my fears, my insecurities, to someone I love. I’m used to chatting about them with my friends. But that’s an entirely different ball game isn’t it? To be fair, I can count the important conversations on one hand – we’re nearly 18months in, we’ve lived together for nearly 5months. We’re still in the honeymoon phase. Ish. But bless him, the ones we have had have resulted in me being teary at best, snotty and red eyed at worst.

Amusingly, he is calm and collected. And we often end up laughing at my inability to stop the tear ducts. But he raises the point, that there is surely something else going on. And having initially laughed it off as hormonal, or because it’s a full moon (actually, I think both of those things can impact hugely, but I’ll save my lunar thoughts for another day), or putting it down to past baggage, I had to accept that yes, clearly there was something else going on. I’d say some of it is down to not expressing things immediately as they come up, which hysterically, is something I thought I’d got really good at doing in my single days. But no. So that’s a part of it. I think being in a relationship leaves you completely open to joy and to hurt, and I think the awareness of that vulnerability, makes you more emotional generally. This is just a theory – I’d be interested to hear what people think on that. I guess for those that have always been in relationships, they might think I’m mental, but for the stalwart singles who have recently converted J I’d be fascinated to know if they experience something similar, or if it’s just me.

And those that know me, might be surprised to read this. Primarily because I’m usually laughing, and I’m fairly jolly 95% of the time. Even more so since the arrival of the man and giving up the day job. All in all, life is pretty good. So, perhaps I should be embracing the tears, and hoping that in time, talking about the tricky stuff gets easier. Perhaps in time, my view of what is tricky will change?  I think it will. And I figured, maybe it’s important to share the vulnerability – to talk about it. Maybe we all find this stuff hard and we don’t talk about it enough.... ?

In the interim, it turns out that mascara down the face, isn’t entirely off putting (I think there are porn connotations but I’ve not delved.......), so it’s not all bad ;-)

Theatre Etiquette and PDA's

Last Saturday night, my boyfriend and I went to the theatre. As is sometimes our way, I had my arm around his shoulder. Not an out and out sexual move.... More an accommodation of his arm frequently occupying the arm rest, and my chest being of a size that doesn't really afford a comfortable version of the atypical audience stance: arms folded.

About 15mins in, a gentleman sitting not directly behind us, but to my boyfriend's left, tapped my hand that was resting on the aforementioned shoulder. Much like he would swat a fly. I, in a meeker moment it must be said, moved my arm immediately, muttering to my boyfriend why I'd had to move, and then sat feeling slightly embarrassed and annoyed.

Embarrassed that my occasional shoulder stroking had provoked such a response. Annoyed that something so minor had prompted the man to act. How many times have I sat in silence as a fellow theatregoer chomps through a sandwich, unwraps sweets, turns off their beeping phone, moves their head incessantly thus blocking my view, or, heaven forbid, talks throughout. Seriously. We have no idea how to behave in the theatre anymore, a generation of movie goers, used to tweeting and watching. Well, we're not tweeting in the theatre yet, but give it time. Though to be fair, I also think we're still a tad reverential when it comes to watching theatre - staying to watch something that we'd have turned off if it was on the telly.

But, was my shoulder stroking just as bad as the other theatregoer crimes? I'm not sure. Put it this way, if someone had been doing that in front of me, I wouldn't have said a word. Amusingly, and rather hotly, it must be said, my boyfriend challenged him at the Interval. The gentleman in question looked rather shocked, which was nice to see. The boyfriend refrained from making an out and out threat, but did suggest he shouldn't be touching women in public, which was rather amusing.

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We are rather against PDA's in this country, British as we are. And if I'm honest with myself, the image of me snogging my boyfriend for about 2hrs on date 2 in a busy bar, make me slightly cringe, enjoyable as it was at the time. Though in my twenties, there was nothing I liked more than some public tongue action. Quite why I liked the exhibitionism of that is for another blog :-) but it raises the more pertinent question: Why do we generally frown upon PDA's - is it that we're not 12 vodka shots down? Do we just grow up? Or is there something more inherently reserved and British about it all?

And it's not just PDA's in a romantic sense. I'm not a mother, but I have many friends who are, and I've seen it all. From the friend who waps out her boobs whenever the child is hungry, with no care in the world, to most recently, a friend who put on a black apron type garment to breast feed in public. Admittedly we were having lunch with her parents, so maybe revealing a nipple to her Father wasn't an option. And maybe she feels more comfortable wearing it. To be honest, if you've pushed a baby out, I think you deserved to do whatever you want. But I did find myself joking that the child might be traumatised into only eating in the dark in later life, preferring camping etc etc.

Maybe it's nice to be more restrained. It's all about what's hidden underneath, what is constrained. All about the reveal. But I wonder if there's something idealistic about that. Life is surely about the nitty gritty; the pungent, messy, happy, sad, stretch marked, wrinkled, insecure, strong, fleshiness of it all. Maybe it's good to get the full reveal, curtain back, to know what you're dealing with, and still choose to embrace it. And I wonder if for my generation, that desire to be a little more forthright, a little more public, is a counter to our parents' generation of repression. Or certainly mine!

Quitting the "day job" for Comedy....

Last July I quit my day job. I’ve always called it my day job, even though those jobs were permanent, and I didn’t really have a “night” job as such. At drama school we were told to find a way to hold on to what we were, in an Industry that meant you would spend 95% out of work, and thus finding other ways to pay the bills – the day job....

It’s been a long time since I’ve considered myself an actor and only an actor – for the last 4 years I’ve been doing stand-up, and more recently, some Improv. A much more noble and well paid career. Not. It transpires the world of comedy requires even more years of practice and perseverance than that of acting. There’s an element of earning your stripes in comedy that seems way longer than that of the modern day actor. Actors can on occasion, spring up as overnight sensations, and successful actors are not always great ones. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Comedy, the standard route is circa 10yrs on the circuit, blowing 7-10k a year on a solo show at Edinburgh, hopefully getting an agent on the way, and then finally breaking through a la Michael McIntyre and John Bishop, only then to collect some dosh that finally means you can pay off debts which would in some parts of the country, buy you a house.

It’s not all like that. There are comics clambering up the ladder in a speedy fashion, and despite the odd tinge of “why am I not there yet?”, it’s actually nice to see. Because the gigging world of a comic, especially a female one, isn't often particularly joyful. It’s a male dominated environment, we all know that. My female friends who have spent a year or so taking whatever poorly paid gigs come up, have, for the most part, found it fairly depressing. You drive in a car for 3 hours to do a 10minute set as the only woman on the bill, to an audience who aren’t really all that fussed, and then drive back again. It’s a solitary existence. So I’m told. And I would suggest that is the primary reason Comedy is more of a male arena, because women, in general, don’t really want that life. I know I certainly don’t. So how do you get there without going down that particular road? I’m yet to work that bit out.

What I do know, is that following your creative path isn’t any easier than following a Corporate one. I listen to the 9-5 (or as it actually seems to be in the UK, the 8 – 8) people on the phone on the bus, or talking to colleagues on the tube, and the conversations are all the same. There’s rivalry, pettiness, sexism, bureaucracy, pride, arrogance and fear. I hear a lot of fear. Especially in the current economic climate. Those are the biggies. At the other end of the scale, there are  arguments over who stole someone’s lunch from the fridge or their stapler from their desk. My favourite was a line manager explaining that the actual staff could have the left over sandwiches from an event, but not the temps.

But I recognise those conversations, because I used to have them, even though it was only my “day job”. It’s astonishing how quickly you start to care about things that are so unimportant, how stressed you can become when someone manages one of your team, when you miss a deadline,  when someone eats your lunch....

And yet, this life, this wonderful life where I get to pick and choose my hours, where I have to find the self-motivation to pursue my dream, comes with its own issues. You still find yourself benchmarking how you’re doing versus the rest of the crowd. You still stress about money. You still wonder if your way is the right way, or you should be more conventional, even in a creative sense – my material is often rude, because that’s what I find funny. But at some point, and it’s begun already, I have to write material that is suitable for the mass market, for TV censors, because if I don’t start writing for that goal, that success, then it won’t happen. Right?  There’s a degree of commerciality in any Industry, no matter how much we creative types would like to think otherwise. You still have to market yourself, sell yourself, know your brand, your USP, as you would in any Corporate environment.

What I will say, is that my life has changed immeasurably since I made the decision to pursue my goals. It’s scary, but all the good things are. It constantly challenges my sense of self, what is important to me, what I can live without, and how hard I’m willing to work for what I want. So, if there’s something you want to do, go and do it. There’s always the risk that you’ll fail, but I reckon if you want it enough, you’ll get back up and give it another go, and another, and another. Life is short. Don’t spend years doing something that doesn’t grab your heart.

Coupledom: How come I ended up doing all the chores?

A female friend yesterday remarked that she doesn’t really think marriage, or indeed monogamous coupledom, is a realistic proposition. She wasn’t referring to fidelity, but more to the idea that men and women, such different beasts, could actually co-habit in a way that didn’t diminish either party.  Especially in our modern world of supposed equality.

I’ve spent most of my life single, so I’m new to the whole relationship thing. But it’s a fairly steep learning curve. Learning how to disagree without ending up in a fight, understanding that it’s unlikely he’ll ever remember social events that you’ve arranged or indeed learn how to use the shared Google calendar, remembering to steer him to the right so the wet patch ends up on his side of the bed and not on mine... those sorts of things.

I consider myself a modern woman, and yet, in 2012, in my first and what will hopefully be my last adult relationship, I find myself pondering if I’m more traditional than I realised. I like him opening doors for me. I like him doing the things I consider “manly” around the house – changing light bulbs, taking out the rubbish, killing spiders and the like. Those are the traditional bits that appeal. But I also find myself doing the majority of the cooking, the washing, the online food shopping, sorting all the bills, cleaning the flat ready for the cleaner, organising all the social events, making him a packed lunch to take to work every day, and suddenly I start to panic. Am I my mother, but without the housekeeping cheque my Dad used to give her each week? Is this really the modern woman having it all? I’ve never wanted or expected to be a kept woman – I’ve always worked and hope to do so until I’m old and wrinkly, and my general attitude is that whoever has more disposable income picks up the bill more often – a rule my friends and I have often adhered to, which works quite nicely when one of them lands some TV work, or the ever lucrative advert.

I’ll be honest, I quite like cooking for him. Primarily because our rule is that if one cooks, the other washes up. And given that the kitchen looks like a scene from the Gremlins post midnight if he’s done the cooking, I prefer to cook. I also quite like feeding him, fulfilling that female role of giving the man his supper, which I didn’t really think I would. Susie Orbach talks about the role of wife and mother being centred around putting food on the table, not in the financial sense, but in the nurturing sense, and there is definitely some of that going on. But where is my nurturing? And if women are doing the majority of the household chores, plus their jobs, what are the men doing?

My female friend doesn’t think it’s possible to be in a relationship without one or both parties giving way to such a degree that it changes them. She is a bright, strong, financially independent, single mother of twins. She is uninterested in the more submissive men that find her strength and independence sexy. And she would find it seriously hard to play dumb, or temper the assertiveness that makes her who she is, so the more dominant men want someone a little more pliable.

I have another friend who never tells men they are wrong. She believes you have to lead them to working it out themselves, but never point it out, because their pride can’t take it, and they have to be the man, the leader. Which in effect left us in a traffic jam for an hour because he took a detour which we both knew was the wrong decision, but she didn’t warn him or advise against it. And so we sat there, patiently, and never commented on the fact that it was the worst idea ever. Given men’s general dislike for taking female instruction, quite why they decided that Sat Navs should have female voices is beyond me.

So, where’s the happy medium? How do you happily share responsibilities, finances, bodily fluids, in a way that is even (or at least see-saws) and transparent? How do you communicate your needs and desires in a positive and non critical way? Micky Flanagan has a great joke, when the wife tells the husband she’s having a fat day, and his response is “Well, don’t go out then”. Which I think sums up the difference of the sexes brilliantly. Men often just don’t get it. And I’m sure they would say the same about us. Which makes saying what you want, and understanding what the other person wants, rather hard. And I think women find it much harder to express what they want than men, because for all the feminist movements, I feel that we are still brought up to accommodate men a bit, whereas they are brought up to just be. And I think we generally have more emotional needs. We like to be looked after, to be complimented, to be kissed, to be made to feel special and sexy, and all things nice. And maybe men need all that too, they just don’t know it yet. Because the male “embrace your emotions” movement isn’t quite fully fledged yet. Christ knows what will become of us all when it is.

But you know, maybe that’s the joy of it. Maybe that’s the journey. We have no idea what we are doing, we have no idea what fears and foibles lie buried deep in the other person, which are gradually going to emerge. I guess it’s just a case of taking a day at a time, making sure your partner is the person in your life that has the most knowledge about you, and occasionally hitting them over the head with a brick when they are idiots. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is learning to read my mind.....

Trashy Magazines

The defining moment came at the Airport, when I returned from Duty Free with Heat and Grazia, and my boyfriend came back with a copy of The Guardian. Cue a glimmer of amusement crossed with a look of genuine concern that he had managed to hook up with a woman who likes reading a bit of trash. And one who had managed to keep that particular penchant rather well hidden thus far. Not that I really class Grazia as trash – it’s a high class, weekly fashion mag, as I tried to explain as he flicked past an article on Suri’s designer wardrobe, and one man’s description of how he finally stopped cheating on women.

If I’m honest, it’s not just the gossipy magazines like Heat, Now and Closer. It’s also trashy TV – TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, and some of the delightfully schmaltzy American imports such as Vampire Diaries, One Tree Hill, and Gossip Girl. Don’t get me wrong – I like the moderate to highbrow as well, it’s just that I devote a certain portion of my life to the dirtier side of the coin.

But why? Why do we like them? Why do we buy them and watch them? It’s escapism I guess. I have no interest in the real life magazines that litter the shelves  - no desire to read about flesh-eating bugs, the sister who slept with her step-dad, or the breast implants that shockingly (given that you went abroad to save cash) went wrong. The Jeremy Kyle of everyday life holds no allure – that’s not escapism – it’s a sort of schadenfreude that I find unnerving.

And yet, I don’t mind it when it involves the “famous”, which I suppose is hypocritical. However, I am of the opinion that if you court the media in any way, shape or form, then you open yourself up to the downsides. Not the hacking sort of downsides, but the “build them up, knock them down” mentality the British media and public are particularly fond of.

But forget the celebs who feature in the magazines, what about the readership? From a very young age, my Mother read the Woman and Woman’s Own – both fairly similar: a mix of real life stories, some celebrity interviews, a little fashion and beauty, horoscopes, and circa 50% devoted to weight loss or dieting stories. It is much the same today:  in almost all the weekly women’s mags there is a huge focus on body shape and dieting – how to shift those extra pounds. Why do we buy them? Is it social conditioning? Is it parenting?  Do I buy my two weekly magazines because my Mother did? What would happen if there we no such magazines readily available?

The irony is that we think we’ve come so far – women speak out against the photoshopped images, the ridiculous editorials that scorn extreme weight loss on one page, only to feature the latest dieting fad on the next. Women have a voice. Well, yes, we do. But it’s a faint one. And it serves little purpose, and carries little weight (no pun intended), if the majority of the female population continue to feed an industry which belittles said voice. And why are there so few male magazines? Or are there? There are the obvious ones: Nuts, FHM, Men’s Fitness, and so we think their section is small. But then I remembered: there’s the porn section (for those who haven’t stopped paying for it), the car magazine section, the computer section.... Now I’m not saying women don’t buy car or computer magazines, but take a look at the front cover – they are targeting the male consumer market, not the female. And that takes me back to content. The women’s magazines focus inwards – looking at “the woman”, at “every woman”. Yes, they cover fashion, lifestyle, current events, but the thrust is on you. How you are. What you want. The men’s magazines are looking outwards – women, cars, gadgets. I’m generalising. But does that hit on a more pertinent point? Are women better at discussing their feelings because it is innate, or because we have learnt it? Are men conditioned to live outside of themselves just a tad? To compartmentalise? Is that what prompts the mid life crises?

I’ll be honest, I flick through my two magazines in about 20 minutes total for both. It’s switch off time. Allows my brain to slow. But I’m sure there are better ways to go about that – a walk, meditation, a proper book. And perhaps I shall start trying that. Both for my self-improvement and  the feminist within. Now, time for 4OD to catch up on Revenge....

Gem x