wendy house

breakfast bouncer: What room are you in?

wendy: 118

breakfast bouncer: I don’t know that room

wendy: maybe it’s floor 1 room 18? My check-in card says 118 (holds-up check-in card)

After checking my name a hefty line was drawn through the paper sheet that listed the breakfast sentences of hotel guests.

breakfast bouncer: just to let you know, the toaster’s not working, do you want white or brown toast?

wendy: (confused, pauses)

breakfast bouncer: DO you WANT white or BROWN toast?

Wendy: Brown, please?

The bouncer sent me to my seat with an instructive arm wave. Minutes later returning to tell me I could get myself tea and fruit juice. Timidly, I left my allotted cell and made myself a tea. Sometimes it can be a bit of a trial not pissing-off the British breakfast bouncers.

Today I failed.

waitstaff: would you like anything to drink?

wendy: a glass of merlot, please

waitstaff: what size?

wendy: oh, um, 125ml please

waitstaff: no, we don’t have that size

wendy: oh, um, what size can I choose?

waitstaff: 175 or 250ml

wendy: 175 please

waitstaff: is that red wine?

wendy: merlot

waitstaff: is that red wine?

wendy: yes it’s red wine

Do you think I passed that test?

Recently I spent a long weekend on holiday with a friend – seeing the local sights pottering around in Thomas and on foot, eating local delicacies, and sharing a room in a thatched cottage.

I learned that I am more comfortable with silence than my friend. It felt like my friend talked almost non-stop. They didn’t, but it felt like it. As if they needed to fill every silence with words.

At first, I listened to all the words, then gradually my mind wandered away. Their words like a radio programme chattering in the background as my thoughts wandered around the fabulous autumn Devon views. My friend didn’t appear to need my listening, no input from me needed.

Normally living alone, with much silence, I found this stream of talking most strange. On the occasions when my friend was silent they were tapping away into their phone, or computer, presumably social networking. They would read, with verbal annotation and explanation, the text’s they’d received.  This total sharing is not something I’m used to. Unsolicited, it felt somehow inappropriate. I suspect it was actually some kind of generous gift of openness, non-exclusion. A sweet generous friend.

If I said something, made a statement, it would be followed by my friend’s analysis of the topic of my statement. I learned a lot about my friend. They learned about my silences and way of being,  little more.  They didn’t ask. I wonder if they felt short-changed.

wendy: in the 70′s I used to take 2 teaspoons of sugar in my tea

4 people under 40: *WINCE and scowl*

wendy: actually my whole family used to drink tea with at least one teaspoon of sugar in it

4 people under 40: *chorus of: YUCK with liberal nosewrinkles*

wendy: come to think of it, everyone I knew drank tea with at least one suger in it

4 people under 40: *leave the room shaking their heads and tutting*

Times have changed…

what did you do to your arm?

broke it

How did you do that?

fell off a bike and landed on the curb

Does it hurt?

Yes

I think she was trying to make conversation. I totally failed to help out. Her assumption that blamed me - ‘how did you do that?‘, rather than unplaced blame ‘how did that happen?’ , for the break coupled with no obvious empathy made it was easy to forget to be generous to this stranger

Repeat 3 times:

me: Hello, my name is Wendy House. On Wednesday 29th August during my appointment at the fracture clinic the Dr told me that I would have my first physiotherapy session next week, which is this week. The receptionist told me that I would recive a letter with the appointment time – I haven’t recived a letter and I’d like to check what time my appointment is.

I’ll forward you to the [name] department.

Reach the Physiotherapy department and eventually get a good result:

They shouldn’t tell you to phone us.

me: They didn’t. They said I’d get a letter, and I haven’t so I decided to phone you.

They shouldn’t have said that – we don’t send out letters.

You’re not on my system. Hang on while I look at these files.

Oh! you’re right on the top with a note to phone you and make a direct appointment – broken arm. It will take some time to enter all this data but I can make the appointment now. Will 11.40 on Thursday suit you?

me: Yes. Do I go to the same place as before? The fracture clinic on Floor 2.

No!  Go to physiotherapy.

me: So I’ll walk in the main entrance and ask reception to point me to physiotherapy?

No! They could send you anywhere. Are you driving?

me: (giggles) No, I’m on foot

Go to accident and emergency, stand at the entrance facing the main car park and we’re on you’re left

me: Thankyou

Jim: you don’t need introductions because you’ve met before

wendy: yes, at solstice

Sue: at solstice?

wendy: I was wearing the fox’s ears

Sue: I remember the fox’s ears, I just can’t picture you in them, you look so…. ….so….smart

wendy: errrrm, thankyou, I think….

On a Friday evening commuter train riding home from Paddington toward Reading town I watch the scenery roll past while listening to the American in the seat behnd me talk on the phone about the data retention policies of an international organisation

I’m drowned in the chatter of half-conversations around me. Everyone is travelling alone, most people are talking to someone on the phone.

A lady two rows back is having an arguement about her ex-husband and her medication. I suspect that nearly everyone in the carriage heard, no-one comments, it’s not our business.

Private in public, privates on parade…

wendy: I’ve recently realised that I’m a cross-dresser

Spottydog: (laughs) are you serious? I’ve known that for ages!

wendy: well obviously I suspected, what with all the trousers and buying mens jumpers.  But I bought the jumpers because they’re virtually the same as the womens jumpers except they’re cheaper.  I thought I was just buying cheaper versions of girls clothes. But I’m not sure anymore. I think I might be a transvestite. Is a transvestite the same thing as a cross dresser?

Spottydog: does it matter?

wendy: well, I’d like to know what to say to people when I come out of the closet

Spottydog: you’re not in the closet

wendy: oh yeah…  ….do you like my new cricket jumper?  It’s to go with my kilt…

During a conversation about Reading town pubs, one fellow suddenly blurts out

 I love your house!  

wendy: that’s the right answer, me too (huge cheshire cat grin)

fellow: it’s like a secret courtyard hidden away from the city, in the heart of the city!

wendy: (HUGE Grin – pours the fellow more alcohol)

My mother’s elder brother-in-law, a 94 year old ballroom dancing Mason, brings a collection of origami animals to a House family meal:

Niece 92′s boyfriend: I can work out how it’s made,  if I take it apart

Bros 57: Will you use a MaSonic screwdriver to take it apart?

Bros 62 and I laughed outselves off our chairs. The waiters hovered like vultures. We lost our Masonic uncle a couple of times that night, physically, mentally and metaphorically

Later that night I dreamt that Alan Bennet dropped by to sort us all out

That helped

Phrases used to publically declare that people will follow-up on something in a more private conversation:

• “I’ll inbox you later“  (On Facebook)
• “let’s take this offline“  (In an email thread)
• “let’s take this offline“  (During a group meeting)
• “Can you give me a hand carrying the drinks” (In a pub)
• “Let’s freshen-up” (In a restaurant)

Two mature ladies perusing the various wool brands:

“I’m cold”

“It was colder last week, it’s not like we live in the Arctic, you’ll just have to man-up“

Please could you arrange for good ideas to arrive with clear steps on how to realise their potential.

Yesterday a good idea arrived like a large flock of  rooks attempting to roost in a rather small woodshed – a lot of wing flapping, sqwarking -  unnecessary fuss. It’s a tad discombobulating.

I don’t mind a wee bit of searching, calming, ducking, cleaning, sorting and praising. But it woud be rather nice to have the occassional good idea arrive as a yellow brick road with time for me to walk tall, breath deeply and wear a stylish pair of sunglasses as the idea unfolds.

Thank you, yours sincerely, wendy-flocking-a-fab-inspiration

“are you the princess?” the 67 year old lady asks the 7 year old girl, adding  “I’m a dinosaur”

“no you’re not” even though the girl is already displaying advanced gender conformity, she hasn’t yet refined her agism prejudices…  …she can still spot the difference between dinosaurs and old ladies

“No, not really, but it’s what old people call themselves”  The child makes an accurate observation about aging  “when I grow up my hair wont be blonde anymore” The old bint espouses the popular psuedo-feminist position of  ‘choice freedom’ within the boundaries of legitimate girly behaviours “you can dye your hair any colour that you want”. The mother sighs and adds “she’s a very girlie girl, she’ll only wear dresses and loves pink and purple”

I press my face against the train window watching the beautiful English, Dorset, countryside fly-by – but I can’t escape the conversations of popularist female conformity…

A Psuedo Liberal Dude (PLD) notices that the patriarchy has eroded his wife’s self-worth:

PLD: I wish my wife was more like you

wendy: MwaHaHaHaHa….(pause)    No you don’t

PLD: Yes I do, I wish she was more confident

wendy: I’m more confident because I see myself doing a relatively good job of something compared to others. So,  I can see when others need to put some effort into improving what they do.  I could give them helpful advice, if they wanted it.  Do you wish your wife was more confident like me?

PLD: Um….   …. no

wendy: didn’t think so

He’s tired of fighting the patriarchy by repeatedly re-inforcing her self-worth. But he doesn’t really want her to have strong self worth. If she did, she might see his shortcomings and suggest improvements.  From his perspective it’s better that she has an irritating lack of confidence while paying adequate homage to him…

Smoking and drinking alone outside a pub
Grey overcast skies and a chilling September breeze
Between taking long drags on her cigarette, she talks
As-if to another person
Her brow furrows, she leans towards her imaginary friend
It doesn’t look like a happy conversation

Luckily, I can be very selective with my imaginary friends, they’re a fabulous crew who are more likely to draw laughter than a frown

With bubbly enthusiasm Tracey describes the people she met in Geneva when representing the UK at a Proctor and Gamble hosted international conference:

His parents were from Naples in Italy, they moved to New York before he was born, so even though he looks Italian he’s a real New Yorkan

He was a bit of a scientist boffin from Germany, his name was “Yo!-harn” or something like that, I had trouble with it so I called him Yogi Bear, how we laughed!

Tracey’s exhuberance was captivating, she quickly built a picture of people from all over the world enjoying each other’s company, sharing a passion…

Words are a powerful force, even descriptive statements have the power to cause action, illocutionary force. What people choose to say, or not say, causes the world to change

If a guest in the Wendy House makes a statement like “it’s cold in here” then I will interpret that as a description of discomfort. The force of the statement pushes me to suggest either

• lighting the woodstove
• providing a jumper
• making another pot of tea
• going somewhere warmer
• doing something that raises our body temperature

The reply will either confirm, or disconfirm, my assumption and take us a step nearer to making the immediate world a more pleasant place to be

Some people use their illocutionary force with skill, wisely or cruely. Some people spew words in a stream of consciousness seemingly without awareness of their forceful impact on listeners

Someone said ennui in a real conversation

• as-if it might be a real word
• as-if I might know what it means!

what a tease!

It sounded like “ahn-wee, setting-off my sensitively calibrated toilet-word-radar alarm. Wee?!

Giggling ensued, then I checked the spelling and looked up the meaning

This was not a tease. This was a real word and the utterer had used it in a sentence that made total sense

A celebratory tea party is in order

Bring on the cakes!

PS 82 word post before the PS

Making sure you got your phone calls was a complicated affair in the days before cell phones and answer machines. Especially for a teenager. This is just one of the problems I encountered – after coming home from a long, fun night practicing with the marching band:

Mumzie: Graham called while you were out

Wendy: Graham! Which Graham? What did he say?

Darn, now mum knows there are several Grahams in my life and he might have told her something personal.

Mumzie: there’s more than one Graham? He didn’t say what it was about dear, just said to let you know he’d called

Double darn

Clearly this is a discreat Graham. Can’t pick one out from the rest based on that description. So now I have to work out in which order to phone them back. Then how to start the conversation without giving away that I don’t know if I’m returning a call, or calling them for the first time? Then I have to work out how to advise mumzie on taking future calls from Grahams, to help her work out which one called without saying “which Graham are you?” which would make each of them feel insignificant, and they’re not. They’re all special in different ways

Life’s so complicated!

As we walk through the underground to the main Paddington station an announcers loudly fills the tube with a mumbled message. Jan covers her ears. The announcers voice was too painful to listen to

wendy: all trains to Reading are delayed

Concourse displays specify Delay, Delay, Delay….  Hundreds of people stand with their eyes held by the display. Murmurring rises. Jan pulls out her HTC Desire

Jan: Delays until 6.30pm, why don’t they tell me that at the station, why do I have to go to the web to find out

Wendy: can you send me that link for my phone

Jan: Um, err, probably, I’ll try

Our shoulders drop. What shall we do with this time at Paddington? Vicky looks near to tears

Vicky: I’ve got a softball game at 6.45pm

Jan notices  a slow, stops everytwhere, train to Banbury, a 90 mins rather than 25mins journey to Reading. We run, weaving through bewildered would-be passsengers, to platform 11.  Crushed against the train waiting for the doors to open, carried by the crowd onto the train. Midsummer heat, commuter sweat crammed into a carriage designed for half this load. People wearing black and grey.  I manage to climb onto the luggage rack, a seat! Jan and Vicky are swept apart into the standing-only isles. Two ladies near me don’t look like commuters, one wearing a cheerful pink dress, another wearing a jade outfit. Pinky bends down and peers into the lower level luggage rack

Pinky: there’s a child under there…

Jade: It’s a BOY

Synchronised smiling, the childs boyness explains his desire to climb into the luggage rack.  I ask the colourful duo

wendy: does anyone know what caused the delays?

pinky: A suicide on the line

wendy: how do you know?

Pinky waves her Blackberry phone, She uses the Blackberry for the whole 2hr journey, raising her eyes only to answer my occassional question then say goodbye as she leaves the train. There are few conversations on the train. Most people appear deeply engrossed in bright phone screens. From my perch I can see 4 i-phone  screens – text conversations, games, reading the news

I make several attempts to start conversations with the people near me. They moan about how inconsiderate the suicide was, interrupting rush hour travel. Then they sink back into their hypnotic phones. Suicide on the line, one person traded the life they had left to give todays commuters some unanticipated travel time

I feel the need to use this precious time, someone-elses life time, wisely

Charles: We’d like to invite you to our son’s wedding on April 29th.

Barak: I’d love to join the party but I’ve already got plans for that day.

Charles: We could move the wedding if you’d really like to come along.

Barak: I appreciate your flexibility, but I’ll be busy on the Wedding day, whatever day it is.

Barak: Oh, and Charles, don’t send me an official invitation because I want to keep media attention and speculation about my activity on that day to a minimum. Don’t invite me and dont talk about it.

In a corner shop, the assistant is out back in the stock room. I stand in line behind an elderly man. He looks at the racks of newspapers. The cover pages of every newspaper show pictures of Sian, a girl who’s body was recently found nearby. He turns around smiles at me

stupid women getting themselves killed

How do you reply to a statement that blames the victim, that blames the victims by virtue of their gender? I paused, thinking that even if this comment  was made in jest, I cannot find a way to make light of it’s mean perspective. The man watches me and starts pulling facial expressions that I cannot interpret. Facial expressions that feel agressive. There is nothing I can say to him, honestly, without giving away how mean I feel his statement was. He follows up with a loud, clipped comment

Pardon?

I didn’t say anything

I wish I’d never spoken to you

My silence appears to have redirected his meanness to me specifically, probably fulfilling what I think is a mysogenistic outlook. I wish he hadn’t spoken to me, I resisted the urge to agree with his unnecessarily nasty statement.  The shop assistant returned, the man settled up his bill and left. After I’d made my purchase I noticed the man had left his walking stick by the till. I picked it up, ran out of the shop found the man and silently gave him the stick.

thankyou, just goes to show…

Again, I didn’t understand his statement, there was nothing I could find to say. I suspect people with such mean spirits lead very lonely lives where people they talk to feel the need and right to reply to them with equally mean comments.

wendy: I live in a converted coach house

moben sales staff (MSS): you live in a bus station?

wendy: not that sort of coach, the victorian horse-drawn type of coach, it used to be a stable too

MSS: what size is the kitchen?

wendy: small, 87 x 111 inches with 2 doors and a low sloping roof with a skylight

MSS: shall we call it a square kitchen?

wendy: No, lets call it an oblong or a rectagular kitchen

MSS: approximately a square kitchen

wendy: No, its an oblong

MSS: approximately an oblong?

wendy:  87 x 111 inches

MSS: approximately an oblong then

wendy: have you been watching the Ashes?

German: I’m waiting for them to start, at the moment they’re still playing tests

waiter: alone?

wendy: yes

waiter: ok

dance teacher: Wasabi makes you jedder
wendy: Jedder?
dance teacher: yes jedder (demonstrates by shaking her shoulders)
wendy: Oh (signifying realisation), Judder! Where do you come from?
dance teacher: Reading, why?
wendy: (decides not to mention her unusual accent)  I’ve never met anyone who actually came from Reading
dance teacher: where are you from?
wendy: Bristol
dance teacher: whereabouts in Bristol do you live?
wendy: I don’t live in Bristol, I live in Reading
dance teacher: Oh, whereabouts in Reading do you live
wendy: Cemetery Junction

mutually understanding silence

dance teacher: a lot of people wear hats like yours in Bristol
wendy: (pause of disbelief)… I got this little beauty from Jacksons
dance teacher: Jacksons?
wendy: Jacksons, at Jacksons corner in downtown Reading, the shop
dance teacher: Oh

During the evening I put more effort into keeping the conversation going by trying to find out more about the dance teacher. An interesting life; writing a novel, travelled to the US for research where she met some influential dancers. She was given the dance business after she met the previous owners at lessons, the work involved arranging themed hen-night evenings and many more interesting stories.

The teacher looked happy enough, the conversation flowed, while I focussed on her. For a brief moment she appeared to show a interest in me when I mentioned my admirations for the fabulous Josephine Baker. But the conversation almost always felt like hard work, mostly disappointing because of

• incongruence with my experience of the world “people in their 50′s are too scared to leave the house or go anywhere on their own“. I mainly mix with fiesty fifties.
• what seemed like an extreme lack of self confidence “I can’t dance“. Yet she teaches it.
• naivity “I didn’t realise that running a dance business would involve a lot of hard work”
• lack of an active interest in wendy!
  

She smiled as she talked, conversation liberally punctuated with self-deprecation and giggles. She was  interesting and some might find her self-deprecation charming.

software developer: do you interact with the customer?

wendy: I talk to people while I watch them use our stuff and give them tips on how to get the most out of using it

My ability to liberally apply single syllable words at work, when multisyllable jargon will do,  is outrageouss. In the photo you see me demostrating how to use the ‘hunt and peck’ keyboard technique. I also have a compulsion to think of people as people rather than income sources (customers)

Naughty me